Stories That Move

Kristi Piehl | Media Minefield

• DreamOn Studios • Season 1 • Episode 3

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From small-town roots to the heights of media innovation, Kristi Piehl's journey epitomizes the very essence of adaptability and storytelling prowess. As the CEO of Media Minefield, this Emmy Award-winning reporter turned entrepreneur joins Matt to unravel the threads of a narrative that weaves through the importance of fact-checking in our schools to the transformative power of storytelling in business. Her transition from delivering the news to crafting the narratives that drive public relations offers a masterclass in media strategy that any listener striving to shape their own story cannot afford to miss.

In Matt's candid conversation, we reflect on the milestones of both career and personal life. Kristi opens up about the challenges and triumphs of her illustrious journalism career, including the impact of bearing witness to history's most raw and real moments. We share laughter and learnings on how to navigate the blurred lines of media bias and disinformation, pulling back the curtain to reveal how authentic storytelling can bridge divides and create powerful connections. This episode is a testament to the potential that lies in respectful and insightful dialogue, especially in today's polarized society.

This episode is not just about the past but also casts an eye to the future. We discuss the empowerment of women in entrepreneurship, the intricacies of managing side hustles, and the delicate art of maintaining a balanced yet impactful digital presence. For Kristi, the upcoming milestones, including a sabbatical rich with global travel, are as much a part of her story as her company's 15-year anniversary. So, whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned journalist, or someone intrigued by the human stories behind business success, this episode promises a mosaic of insights that could shape the way you tell your own story.

Kristi Piehl
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristipiehl/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristipiehl/

Media Minefield
Website: https://www.media-minefield.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/media-minefield/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mediaminefield/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MediaMinefield/


Speaker 1:

If I could change one thing in the country in regards to media, it would be that every high school student has to take a fact-checking course, and I realize that there is bias in the media and I realize that human beings are biased. I think there's just going to be a lot of disinformation spread around as if it's fact, and there are things that we can prove and there are things that are opinion, and it's important to know the distinction of the difference between them.

Speaker 2:

Hey everyone, welcome back to our podcast Stories that Move. I'm Matt Duel and as always, I'm here with Mason Geiger, and today's episode I'm telling you as one that we have been buzzing about all week.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. Today we have someone truly inspirational and I think our listeners are going to love hearing her story.

Speaker 2:

We're talking about Christy Peele, an Emmy Award-winning news reporter who took a leap into the world of entrepreneurship and absolutely stored. She's the CEO and founder of Media Mindfield, a unique PR agency that's all about navigating the complex media landscape with a focus on earned media, social media, digital advertising and crisis communication.

Speaker 3:

Her journey from a small town in Minnesota to the forefront of the media industry is nothing short of inspiring. Christy's path shows the power of story determination and the courage to pivot when life throws you curveballs.

Speaker 2:

So I had the chance to see Christy at a business leader meeting that she led and within five minutes I turned to my friend that had invited me and I said I've got to invite Christy to be on the Stories that Move podcast. I mean, it was such a connection. Her energy, her insight into storytelling, her innovative approach to PR and media are game changers and I was so thrilled when she said yes to our invite to join the show.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I was so bummed that unfortunately, I had to miss out with the interview live with Christy with being sick, but I was thrilled to hear the conversation and I know that our listeners are going to love it too. So let's dive in right now to Matt's conversation with Christy Peele.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to Stories that Move podcast produced by Dream On Studios. I'm Matt Duel, so excited to be here with you today. I've got an exciting episode and a special guest here with us today Christy Peele. Now, christy is an experienced television news reporter Emmy award-winning news reporter. As the founder and CEO of Media Mindfield, an award-winning PR agency specializing in earned media, social media, digital advertising and crisis communication, and bold on their website. When I saw this I knew we would be friends forever. It says unlock the power of your story, which I love that and we love that here at Dream On Studios, so so excited to connect on that. Christy is also the host of the podcast Flipped your Script and a contributing writer of Ink Magazine. She's a founding member of Women and Entrepreneurship Institute at DePaul University and a founding member of the 25 at Bethel University, which is a four-year cohort program to empower women to use their strengths, skills to uncover their potential, among many, many other things. So, christy, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate you being here.

Speaker 1:

It's a pleasure to be with you and to talk stories with a like-minded leader like yourself.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. Thank you Well. Hey, let's dive right in. We'd love to take our listeners right to the beginning. Describe your early days. Where are you from? What did the early days of your life look like?

Speaker 1:

Sure, I grew up in Hutchinson, minnesota, so it's about an hour outside of Minneapolis, and my mom and dad met in high school there so we had a lot of family kind of in the area. I'm the oldest of there's three of us and I have two younger brothers and I had a pretty basic childhood and it's funny, I think people think you know rural Minnesota and so they think you know farms and that sort of thing and certainly that was part of the landscape of where I grew up. But I actually one of my news jobs was in Sioux Falls, south Dakota, and I would sometimes get assigned to cover kind of you know agriculture stories and I really didn't know the difference, different kinds of cows. I thought like, oh, cows give milk. I had no idea. So I my background.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I was in sort of an agricultural area, but that I grew up in the town, so I still am. I think that all food comes from grocery stores. So I'm sorry, people, agriculture, folks listening, but that just wasn't my background. So I had a, you know, not an urban, but a childhood in a town in, you know, an hour from the metropolitan area.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, awesome. And so you know, in those early days in that area, what were some of the pieces that you feel like influenced you towards your career path in journalism Any, you know, sort of heroes or just icons, people that stood out to you, that were inspiring to you, and some of that.

Speaker 1:

I have always just been fascinated by story. I in fact it's funny, just a few days ago my mother actually found an old newspaper clipping from like the early 80s and it was me getting an award for a book, like a bookathon, reading a lot of you know books in the air as part of some fundraiser. So I have always been just nose in a book and I love. I've always loved talking to adults and I think that in most gatherings, even when there were kids around, I would much rather be at the adult table talking to them and understanding their story. That has always been a place I've been really interested in. And then I remember being middle school and you know, back then people sat down and watched the news and you sort of had your famous favorite news crew and Cindy Brucato was at the ABC station in Minneapolis, at the KSTP is the station, and she was someone that I looked up to and we watched her. And I remember being middle school, maybe early high school, and then telling my mom that's what I was going to do and I just always had sort of this clear path that I wanted to be a journalist and not even a front of camera journalist. That ended up happening. But I wanted to be a storytelling journalist and and to get stories out there that mattered and to make a difference. So that was sort of the path towards my career and I have always loved writing. I still love to write, so all those things sort of lined up and journalism just seemed like the most logical kind of career. And yet in the midst of all of that is, like you know, go back through the sort of breadcrumbs of my own story.

Speaker 1:

I am an entrepreneur, have always been an entrepreneur. I have always looked at things and thought, boy, here's how I could make that better, here's what they're missing. So, for example, one example when I was in seventh grade and all of my friends started wearing makeup this was pre Amazon. So you can't see, without a driver's license and without being walking distance to a store, you're not able to wear makeup if your parents don't buy it for you, and not all parents are into girls wearing makeup when they're in middle school. So I became an Avon lady and I have found out since, from actual people who have worked for Avon, that it wasn't legal for my representative in my region to allow me to be an Avon lady, but I was, so in middle school I was selling lipstick and stuff to the girls in the locker room and my grandmother's bought for me and other people so I kept having and starting like little businesses sort of throughout my childhood. That ended up being important.

Speaker 2:

You know 20, 30 years later, amazing, yeah, yeah. So skipped the lemonade stand and just went right for the Avon sales.

Speaker 1:

I mean know the audience right.

Speaker 2:

Right and getting the supplies right to your doorstep for you. So that's amazing, that's so cool, very, very cool. So in those early days middle school, high school the path becomes pretty clear for you, which is awesome. It takes, you know, a lot of people many years to figure out what they want to do when they grow up. So for you, what were those next steps I mean, what were the you know from that point to you then becoming that journalist. What did that look like for you?

Speaker 1:

It was a path that I thought I had figured out. So my path was I was going to go to a girl's school. That was where Paula's on went. So people of a certain age would know Paula's on and people of other ages would have, you know, google, google, paula's on is. But she went to this. You know all girl school and I college. I was going to go there and I had kind of the whole visit set and I I looked at a few different schools in Minnesota and decided that I had locked in on journalism and right before I was going to take the trip to kind of make the sort of final arrangements, I was, I am a golfer, and I was a golfer in high school and my golf coach, her daughter, went to Bethel University, which is outside of St Paul, minnesota.

Speaker 1:

So I was going to go there and the two things sort of lined up at the same time. I was a junior in high school at this point. One was that I liked browning points for my golf coach. I can be honest about that now. God bless her soul. The second thing is that I love the spark of academics and even the spark in me as a woman, realizing that I am smart didn't happen until my senior year of high school. So my junior of high school, my grades were okay, but I you know girls were at that time in society the way that you looked mattered more than what you said, and I that was sort of where my brain was at the time, and so I ended up wanting to get a free day off school. So I went to look at the call at Bethel, where my golf coaches daughter went to school. So I got two things out of school and browning points, and I was sitting right outside of the admissions office and it was, you know, call it a burning bush moment, call it the voice of God wherever people are on the face spectrum. I am a woman of faith and so for me it was very much a clear God moment that this was the school I was supposed to go to. So in I didn't even go visit any other schools. I was at that day.

Speaker 1:

This is the school I'm going to go to, and the part of that that I think, looking back, is so profound, is that that school at the time did not have a journalism program, and I figured that if I was supposed to go there and I thought I was, and if I was supposed to be a journalist and I thought I was, then somehow it would just work out. And so I enrolled and figured out that boy by my senior year. This was what I was going to do, and I was going to go to a school that did not have a journalism program. I better get my grades really high so that I could perhaps make a case for myself when I graduate from college that I could succeed in a field without the right degree. So that was that was my path.

Speaker 1:

So I went to this school and initially started with a communications degree.

Speaker 1:

I did my first internship on paid internship at his television station in Minneapolis and there's a woman there who told me that the way that I could actually differentiate myself without she was a meteorologist at the time the way that I could actually differentiate myself is that I could, instead of having you know a real, which is what you needed you know a tape of all of your examples of being a working journalist and being in front of the camera.

Speaker 1:

I could be the best writer I could be. So she encouraged me to go to a small TV station and do in Mankato, minnesota, do news reporting the next summer for free and be on the air so I could get my tape and then to change my major to English. So I did. I changed my major to English so I have an English degree with a professional writing emphasis and I worked at Mankato at the TV station KUIC the next summer and then they hired me and because I have always been a driver and a well of other people don't four years I could do it. Less kind of person. I finished school early and was able to enter my career kind of mid year when I would have been a senior.

Speaker 2:

So cool and even in that, still seeing just those pieces of entrepreneurship in you, of cutting your own path and finding your own way, and saying that you know, hey, this might not be the degree that I need, but here are the things that I can develop to make this work is is really, really cool.

Speaker 1:

So, as you step into your career of journalism yeah, any highlights, any challenges, anything that just pop out to you that you'd love to share for people you know, as you're kind of getting started in that field- so the other part of my life during this is that I knew, also from sort of a young-ish age, that I wanted to live in a city and that I did not want to live in my hometown and I was pretty anxious to get out of it and my brother still lives there. I have no ill feelings for that town, it just wasn't for me and I knew that. So right after I graduated high school, I actually moved in with a family before I started college for a summer and I was a living nanny. So once I was, I went. Literally I was 17 years old, because I didn't turn 18 until right before college started. But I was 17 years old. I went to the State Golf Tournament and then I moved in with this family and I sort of, you know, never looked back.

Speaker 1:

And the reason that I bring that up, matt, is because I ended up falling in love with my high school sweetheart and because I knew I wanted to do television news and he was a bit older than me. I sort of said, okay, well, we don't. You know, fast forward three years, we're still together. Boy, I wanted to do television news, which I know is going to take me around the country likely and I think we want to be together. So you know, basically are we going to get married. So we got married when I was 20. And we which is crazy now that I have a 21 year old, to think like, oh gosh, I thought I hadn't figured out and yeah so we got married before I graduated college and then that way, and he was already done with school, so we could kind of launch the television thing together.

Speaker 1:

And I bring all of that up to say that when I look back on my journalism days, I think it served, you know, two purposes. Of course I'm entirely grateful for the whole experience. But that career forced us as a couple to pave our own way and we had to live in new places and make new friends and find new opportunities and plug in knowing that we were going to be moving again probably in three years. Our goal, my goal, was always to get us kind of back to Minneapolis where our family and friends were. But we knew that we'd have to make several moves to do that. And I'm we both say you know now we've been married a long time. The reason our relationship probably worked is because we had to do that and we had to only rely on each other and figure it out. And that was really beneficial and also would allow me to go really head first into my career. And I sort of made this deal with God that I would like give me 10 years. I want to do this for 10 years, like I know that this career isn't going to be awesome with children but, boy, if I could just have 10 years, which you know, making deals with God is a terrible idea in general. You know I was.

Speaker 1:

I was a nine, you know, 20, 20 year old. So when I look back on my career as a whole, I think about, you know, the amazing opportunities I had to meet people and to meet people at their best and at their worst, you know, to stand there when someone was winning the publisher's clearinghouse and are winning the lottery, you know, and their whole world is going to change when I'm talking to someone who just found out that a loved one was murdered, to be part of things that changed law, to uncover things. I was an investigative reporter at my final job in the industry and to, you know, meet presidents and to have front row seats for history. Boy, I just am so grateful that I had those opportunities and I wouldn't change the 12 years that I was able to be a working journalist for anything.

Speaker 2:

Any, any story that you covered that just left that indelible mark on you. I mean, whether it's it's a story you're you're proud of, or something that just really moved and just changed you and just some of your thinking, even you know I remember the names of every child murder victim that I covered, and there were a few.

Speaker 1:

And to sit in a courtroom and to see and hear the details of what people are capable of doing, you know, certainly changed me. I also collectively became a person who thinks that bad things happen all the time. So when, when I was in Ohio particularly, I then had been about you know seven years in doing kind of, I did anchoring, but I also was doing the day to day reporting and I oftentimes was the lead reporter of the 11 o'clock news. It was East Coast 11 o'clock news and it was, you know, fires and shootings and and this was I was working in the Dayton Ohio market, which is about an hour north of Cincinnati, and the race, racial uprest and riots and those types of things had happened a few years before. So I was covering some pretty hard things every day and that when the hard things become normal, crazy things happen to your brain.

Speaker 1:

So I remember then our son was born, our oldest son was born in Ohio, and I remember one night coming home after my husband had already put him to bed and I went to check on the baby and he had on like like a jammy outfit but like the top didn't match the bottom. And I said to my husband like I can't believe you didn't put him to bed and matching pajamas. He was like what does it matter? And I said well, if our house burns down and we're standing in the front yard on the news like I don't want him in unmatched jammies, and my husband looked at me like you are crazy. You know what has happened and that, that, that mind set. I'm so glad that he wasn't in the industry because he was always like nobody thinks like that, don't think like that. And newsrooms, you know, again, I love, I'm fortunate for my career, but when you're I think it's I've heard it's a little bit like working in an ER or working in a police department, like an overnight shift where you're constantly saying kind of bad things and you're working on these crazy deadlines and you feel like everything is life or death and you're working in this vacuum and you kind of think you're a big deal, that things mess with your mind and those things absolutely were messing with my mind and I'm again so grateful I had the opportunity and really grateful I was able to end my career. It was ended for me, but that my career ended and I was able to gain some perspective, so that my kids never kind of saw that part of my thinking. But I was. You know, I was in Minneapolis when the 35 bridge collapsed.

Speaker 1:

We did an incredible. I hosted a special that won an Emmy. It was part of a murder investigation that kind of made national news. I did some work for Good Morning America. I mean, I did some really cool things and at the time I think that I thought it was a lot more about me. And now, at this stage of my life, looking back, I know that I just had a great opportunity and I feel fortunate that I got to hold a microphone and allow people to share their stories with me. It was just such a privilege.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, that's amazing Now and I have just such tremendous respect for that and what you went through in your career. For me, coming out of high school, I did an unpaid internship with a news organization. I grew up in the Atlanta Georgia area and just by pure you know chance, we were at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing and so as people were running out, we were running in and so I'm just I'm there to carry a tripod and carry lights and that sort of thing and it was the first paid media thing ever in my life. They ended up cutting me a check for $300 because we spent the night at the park and then they moved us to the hospital outside you know the surgeon coming out and giving the report, and I'll never forget getting that check and holding it and looking at it and thinking people died for this story, for this piece, and it was the piece for me. That was like I can't do this, like news, news isn't for me.

Speaker 2:

And so I have such a tremendous respect for you and other journalists and people that are in the news media who live that day in and day out, because it is unbelievable the things that you face and that you have to process and that you, I'm sure, have to deal with. So thank you for sharing that. That's incredible. I wanted to ask you. You know, just thinking through news media, it's 2024. We are, you know, at a very divided place. Obviously, as a country, news media is polarizing, just based on people's opinions and feelings about things. As we kind of trek through this year, which I'm sure is going to be filled with all kinds of amazing headlines and stories, what would your encouragement be to people with engaging with news media? Yeah, I'm just curious your perspective on that.

Speaker 1:

I'm glad you asked the question because I have. If I could change one thing in the country in regards to media, it would be that every high school student has to take a fact checking course, because consumers, especially in electioneers, are just really bad at doing the hard work of understanding facts. And I realized that there is bias in the media. And I realized that human beings are biased and in our digital world, it has never been easier to make something look like news, make something look like it's real deep fakes and AI and all these things. So I get really, really sad when I see people on social media sites who should, in my opinion, no better share disinformation.

Speaker 1:

And my advice for people is two, my two pieces of information, two pieces of advice. One, if you're getting, if you're consuming your media on whether it's television or radio or podcast or social media feed know what the bias is. And I challenge you to watch and subscribe to and pay attention to the other side of that bias. If you're a Fox News person, spend some time on MSNBC. If you're an MSNBC person, spend some time on Fox News at least in your social media feed. It is so important to understand an issue and how two different people can come at the same issue with different lenses and think if you watch, you know Fox News or MSNBC, these shows that look like news are opinion shows and that's totally fine. Just know that you're watching an opinion entertainment show and the purpose of that is bias Again, it's fine.

Speaker 1:

But that is not news. And I think we did the world a disservice when opinion shows were allowed to look like news programs and the word news got to be connected to an opinion show, because people are really bad at understanding the difference and, frankly, a lot of people are really lazy when it comes to vetting information. So fact check Snopes SNLPS is a great website, like if you read something and you're like I've never heard that before, get put it in there and just find out if it's true or not. But I think there's just going to be a lot of disinformation spread around as if it's fact and there are things that we can prove and there are things that are opinion and it's important to know the distinction and the difference between them.

Speaker 2:

And I love that perspective of give yourself an opportunity to hear the other side, right, and I think that's especially true in social media, because the social media algorithms are driving us towards our preferences, right. Yes, creating that echo chamber of hearing all the things that we want to hear, versus bringing in some diversity and bringing in some of those other opinions.

Speaker 1:

So I think that's a really beautiful perspective and you know, when you're with, I think it's the story stuff that we both are passionate about. When you're, we're someone that you viscerally disagree with, ask them questions about their story, ask them questions about where they're from and what their experience is, because it's really, you know, you look at something like the border. Okay, well, that is a really divisive issue for folks, and it's easy to look at a group of people and love them or hate them, but when you get to a single person and understand them and what matters to them, boy, the whole issue looks different. But that takes more work. It's much easier to read a headline and to say, boy, I agree with that or I don't agree with that and they're wrong, or it just.

Speaker 1:

I think this year it's so important, like, do the work of understanding the information and have engaging, insightful, story-centric conversations with people, because at the end of the day, the majority of people want their families to be safe, they want to be, they want to be secure. We all want the same things. We're just coming at it different ways and we can disagree with people. That's I love that about our country. But the hate speech is just disappointing, because then we're missing the opportunity to get to know someone.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely yeah, and I just believe we have so much more in common than we have a part right. And when we take those opportunities to see I have dreams, you have dreams. You know fears, doubts, struggles, all those things and you start to connect on on those things and see each other's humans, that's that's really where the magic happens. For sure, that's awesome. Okay. So, jumping back to your story, you're in the midst of this, you know, award-winning career. You know I heard you say you were even kind of working with your agent on developing your next contract and then it just abruptly comes to an end. Talk to us about that. What happened in that moment?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, december of 2008,. I was working on my next contract at the Minneapolis TV station and people paying attention. I was working at the ABC station where my idol Cindy Burkata was at my first ever live shot in Minneapolis she, you know, and here live reporting Christy Peele, and that was a moment for me. So I got to do the thing I wanted to do, right, I got to be a peer with her and she threw me a baby shower for my second son and so I. It was a such a kind of full circle. So my career at the KSTP, the ABC station in Minneapolis, I walked into a. I walked in on a Thursday and I got a call, actually in the car on the way, from a colleague and he said I don't know what's going down at the station, but, sums up, just want you to know, sums up. And so I came in a little bit like I don't know what's going on and I immediately sat my stuff down at my desk and was ushered to a boardroom and there was an HR person, some vanilla envelopes, box of tissues and my boss and I was one of 20 people who lost my job. I was an investigative reporter. Our special team got dismantled for cost cutting. I finished. I had a couple of stories I was working on that were kind of half done, so I finished those and then my last report was in February of 2009.

Speaker 1:

And I never expected my career to end. I just thought this is what I would be doing forever and at the exact same time, I always knew that in that career no longer served me and it no longer served my life. But I was really afraid that gosh, if I do any, I don't know what else to do. Like this is sort of what I've done. And also to admit I did the thing I wanted to do and then to say now I'm going to do something else, that there's a courage and a bravery that I did have at that time, so that my layoff was such a gift. And when I talked to, you know, young people in college, I always tell them well, your career, you have it all plotted out, of course.

Speaker 1:

Like you have it all figured out and that's awesome and have your dreams and have your goals, but every year, reevaluate. Is this still what I should be doing? Does this still serve me? Is this still the thing? Because I think we just for me anyway. I got so focused on. This is what I'm going to do and I've been saying I'm going to do this to everyone who listened for however many years and we moved all over the country and I've done all this stuff and we've made all sorts of sacrifices I can't say, well, maybe I don't want to do it anymore. I wasn't even asking myself the question and I should have.

Speaker 2:

How did that then begin to open doors for you to pursue media minefield and to launch that company?

Speaker 1:

You know it was a process, so I was. I mean, at the time it was a significant economic downturn happening in the country and because of that I was on unemployment. So humbling to be on unemployment and I'm super grateful because I had the opportunity to have some space to figure out and to what my next thing should be and to understand the landscape. I got stuck because I knew that I no longer was going to put my career ahead of my family and I wanted to help people with my news background. I love the stories and helping people. I totally understand how news worked and I hated PR Like traditional PR.

Speaker 1:

I had been around public relations agencies and public relations pros every place I worked. News folks do not like it. They do not respect it because when I just to give you context, when I was working as a working journalist, pr firms and PR students would be kind of do a field trip in the newsroom and that was the only time they were ever exposed to news. And then they start pitching their clients to journalists with no idea my timeline, what I needed, what made a good story and then if I did do an interview because their pitch was good enough, their client was usually terrible and didn't do themselves any favor. So just that whole industry was so off-putting to me. So, after taking some time just to reevaluate and, frankly, to spend a lot of really quality time with my kids was a gift so I got to do that.

Speaker 1:

I did some volunteering, I did a lot of informational interviews, different kind of careers, got some job offers and just decided to wait. So I took a class at my church 18 months after my layoff and the class was how to connect your passions and talents with helping people. And the question that they asked as part of that class was what do you know so well you could teach someone. And I still have the workbook in my office and I wrote news and it was at that moment and it was the second time in my life I go back to being outside of Bethel at the admissions office. This is the second burning bush moment where it was boom, start, a company name, a medium minefield, here's what it's going to do. And I had that clarity on a very small scale in that church basement. And when anyone pictures a church basement, the cement blocks and the carpet, that's what it was.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

I wrote that down and I picked up the kids from the youth program, the little kid programming there, and my husband was working in New York at the time. He was on a project there and I called him and said I'm going to start a company. It's going to be a medium minefield, here's what we're going to do. And he said great. And the gift in that is that he said great Because had he said, you have an English degree, what do you know about business? What are you thinking? That sounds expensive. I probably would have at least stopped and thought about it for more than 30 seconds. I didn't. He said great.

Speaker 1:

So my father at the time was a working CPA. So I called him and said I'm going to do this, what do I need to know? And he was like go to this website, register your business. It costs whatever $50, something to register as doing business as business and file the paperwork. And 30 days later medium minefield was launched. And I joke and you heard me tell this joke once and I will tell it again it is easier to start a business in the state of Minnesota than get a rescue dog. We've had several rescue dogs and there's like a house visit and I think the question you about what you know about raising a dog and starting a business, it's like here you go. Thank goodness I'm so grateful because had there been a test about P&Ls or anything, I would have been like fail. So yeah, the business started September 1, 2010.

Speaker 2:

So why media minefield? You said you knew that name right away. What is it about that? That stood out to you.

Speaker 1:

For many years I have talked about the media as a minefield, because if not used well, businesses can explode, personal brands can explode, products can tank and if used well, boy, businesses can explode in good ways. So the power that the media has, for good and for bad. I think the average person doesn't understand how to use that power and how fearful they should be if it knocks on their door.

Speaker 2:

Any other just sort of aha moments for you, where, as you started off the business and you started to find that momentum that it just became really apparent to you of like this is it? This is the sweet spot, this is the thing that we want to be doing.

Speaker 1:

I loved it. I mean I loved helping going into a business or talking to a leader or a nonprofit and understanding what their goals were and then figuring out how media could amplify and work towards that and getting really creative. So for people who might be listening are like I don't understand. So I'll give you an example. So let's say that a hospital is frustrated that nobody knows that their cancer center I'm making this up, but their cancer center is incredible and has wonderful outcomes. So the traditional approach oftentimes would be put out a press release, talk about how great the cancer center is and maybe run some campaigns, paid ads kind of stuff Not that those aren't great, but the piece that most folks didn't know how to do and still don't know how to do is OK.

Speaker 1:

How do you get into that cancer center and tell the story of what they're doing there in a way that the media would care about? That actually makes good story. That then gets other people interested. So, for example, you don't talk about the machines the cancer center has. You talk about the woman who had breast cancer, who had this incredible outcome, whose life was changed, and you interview the surgeon and you're pitching the media based on the woman's story and not based on the machine. So it's really this kind of story-centric approach and once you I mean there's cancer months, there's breast cancer awareness, there's prostate cancer.

Speaker 1:

There's all these different stories and nuggets within a cancer center, for example, that the media cares about Every time there's a breast cancer awareness month. Ok, they're looking for experts to talk to, but sending them a press release about the machines at a cancer center that are helping women with breast cancer is not what's getting their attention. So I loved the innovation part and that's that entrepreneurial part of getting in and telling me what you want to do. What does success look like to you? Ok, now let me come back and give you a strategy. That's a 12-month strategy here's a month and then now we're done. But it has to be this ongoing repetitive cycle and creates incredible assets for social media and for digital ads.

Speaker 2:

For the listeners. Could you just maybe walk through how important it is to harness your story in that way? We live in a really noisy world right. There's a lot of things coming at us trying to get our attention advertisers, algorithms, all the things. How important is it for us to harness our stories and then kind of put that to work for us, whether it's our business or even just our personal lives?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I think we're really all of us. We're really bad at telling our own story. Very few people are wired to be storytellers. So even if you had OK, we just were in 2024, if you had to tell someone, someone came up to you and said, tell me about 2023.

Speaker 1:

Most people would sort of go on a rambling well, and then in August, and OK, you lived it. It's your normal. You can't pull out the nuggets that are interesting to someone else. And if you were going to pull out to someone who graduated high school in 2023, they had some big things happen in their life. So if you know your audience, just graduated high school in 2023 and started college, for example, then the parts of the story of mine that I would amplify to them is that I started a master's program and my kid we're looking at colleges for it because that resonates with them.

Speaker 1:

So to be a good storyteller, you have to know your audience and you have to tell your authentic story and be comfortable with your authentic story, and it's really difficult for people to do that themselves. So oftentimes, when we get into a company or a leadership group, they talk in marketing jargon and they talk in language that the average person doesn't understand and, combined on top of that, any digital users attention span has decreased and will continue to decrease, I think, every year, ongoing for many years. So people don't want to hear long stories. They want to opt into something. If they love your story, let them get your newsletter, let them read more on your website or come to your social media site.

Speaker 1:

But initially, the front door to people is their story and most brands and most leaders are putting a lot of energy in telling a brand story. But the problem with the brand is that the main character are people and most brands, most marketing efforts, forget the people. And if I'm going to work with a company and put someone in a news interview, there's a human being doing an interview and there's a human being who might want to work at that company. There's a human being who's making a buying decision. Even in a giant company. We've sort of forgotten the human element and the connections that are required. And in our digital age, it's sort of that back to the future concept, the storytelling, the ways that we resonate with each other, the things we have in common that matters so much, because folks are just sick and tired of the noise of information that is coming at them all the time. They want to feel something again.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I heard somebody say once the information is good, but it's that vision piece, that story piece that can actually drive results more than the information. It's like our tendency is to like we've got to get to the bullet points, we've got to get to the talking points, but when we can step back and we can tell a story, we can actually do more service to those talking points through the story. I mean, would you find that to be true?

Speaker 1:

100%. It's the reason that I started my podcast.

Speaker 1:

You know I at one point several years ago just wasn't having fun in my job. I mean, I love this business, I have a vision for our future, but I wasn't telling stories, I was working on strategies. I was working with just a few clients or coming in really kind of big problem areas, and I wasn't doing public speaking in small groups, I was doing it in big groups, which you can't make a connection with an audience, an auditorium full of people. So I just got like man, this isn't fun, like does this point when I'm supposed to sell my business, I don't know. So I went to work with someone strategic coach in Toronto. The concept is unique ability. Some people listening might be familiar with Dan Sullivan. So I went to work there in a workshop, a one-on-one, and got pretty clear that the part of me that was missing was the storytelling piece, and I was no longer able to help people in a one-on-one way because my story didn't resonate anymore. I suddenly wasn't the laid-off reporter who started something small. I was someone running a company that had won a bunch of awards and I can help people who hire me, but I also have a vision to help more beyond that, and so the podcast Flip your Script came out of just a desire to go back to asking people questions and understand their story for the purpose of helping others. That was it, and I found a lot of tremendous value personally and it's had a profound impact on the business in a lot of different ways. But it's that story piece and it isn't a 30-second flip. It's 30 to 40 minutes 50 minutes an hour of content that people can opt into or opt out of and it allows me to be me, and that was something that really took a long time for me.

Speaker 1:

As a journalist you're supposed to be. You park your bias and again, I'm old school, right, I went to school in the 90s. So you park your bias, you park your personal beliefs. I refused when I was Facebook and stuff was starting. I refused to get on social media as a journalist because I didn't want anyone to have access to my own perspectives. That was absolutely hands-off. Now it's part of the deal, but back then. So it took years for me to be comfortable with even the concept of telling people what I think about things and thinking that that would help anyone. That just seems like kind of an arrogant thing. But this podcast has really helped me regain my voice and regain a confidence in sharing perspectives to help other people, and I'm really grateful yeah it's so good, that's so great and I can tell all our listeners check it out, flip your script.

Speaker 2:

It is so good. I've been listening to it now for a couple weeks and really truly enjoying it. You do such a tremendous job and I love exactly what you said. I mean it's the long form opportunity, the conversation, just to dive in what we're doing now. Yeah, obviously people can tune out whenever they want, but you guys have a closing minute, mason, and I talk all the time here of the attention span thing.

Speaker 2:

It's a thing, it's something we have to pay attention to, but in some ways, to me it's a myth, because how good is your story? Is the story good enough to hold your attention? And when I started my career, promo videos were eight minutes. That was the target and then it became five minutes and then it was three minutes, two minutes, one minute, 30 seconds, seven seconds. And there's this part of me that's like no, there's ways to tell good stories that hold people's attention and I love what you do with Flip your Script and it does such a beautiful job of just drawing you in and just yeah, taking that moment to really take in someone's story is such a beautiful way.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I want to agree with you and put an asterisk by what I said earlier.

Speaker 1:

So, just to make sure people understand. So when I'm talking about people, have a small attention span. I totally agree with you that I think, more now than ever, people are willing to take long form content. I mean the fact that we have movies coming out that are four hours long, that people are lining up for. Is that one to have worked I don't think a few years ago? And there are podcasts that are a couple hours and there are these streaming shows that are long. I think the difference is that the entry point in people have short, if they don't like the first few bits, they're not going to, they won't give you the time that they're willing to spend. So I think that the entry point has to be so clear and I think it's the reason that TikTok is can make or break new shows, movies, podcasts, whatever because people are willing to give you a bit. But, boy, if you screw that bit up, they're not, they're going to walk away, even if they like it. Boy, they are loyal and they have time for you.

Speaker 2:

They're good. Yeah, that's good, that's good. Any, any stories. I know you've told a lot of stories over the last couple of years of doing your podcast. Any story that stands out to you, that was again just one of those ones that marked you, really moved you in a special way.

Speaker 1:

I would say sort of collectively during the pandemic. I credit my current mindset a lot to that podcast because week after week of talking to people who have been through some really difficult things and who the reason if I could sort of sum up generally what people say, the reason that they find success, however, you wanted to find that on the other side of some kind of struggle is because they chose to think about it, they chose to change their mindset, they chose to find someone who was lost their legs and their friends on the battlefield, someone who had a stroke in the middle of a yoga class, someone who was homeless and I mean just these, really a meth addict, I mean just really difficult sort of things happen. The only reason that they sort of survived to tell about it and found, however, they wanted to find success on the other side of it is because they chose to look at the positive, they chose to focus on gratitude and they chose to accept what was theirs to accept and that got, I think, me and my family probably mentally through the pandemic. We launched that podcast. We were going to launch it at a studio and then the studio figured out, you know they said are you guys still going to do this thing. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to do this thing. I've guest lined up and certainly the pandemic will only last a week, right? So we set up my guest bedroom and we did it remotely and I think that it was such a glimmer of hope for me and some of the people who said yes to me and who continue to say yes to the podcast and are so generous with their stories is just continues to amaze me.

Speaker 1:

So every year, I mean my team would laugh because I'll say we'll finish one and I'll say that was the best one ever. And then the next week, that was the best one ever. So I think like the best one is the next one, because I don't know what they're going to say and I just at the end of 2023, I actually sort of like woke up one day and we already had our whole schedule of the podcast ready to go. I kind of woke up and said I last year was really transformative for me personally. And I sort of woke up feeling like I was journaling and why I'm kind of a hypocrite if I'm going to ask people to share their stories for the purpose of helping an audience and then not do that myself.

Speaker 1:

So I came into the team and I said I have this crazy idea of totally doing a podcast episode of Offscript and reading from my journal and interviewing for just a few minutes someone I met throughout in 2023 who is like the right highlight, sort of the right model of the concept that I wanted to share and embody, kind of that journal, my journal, thoughts, what do you guys think? And they were like, let's try it. And the woman who I wanted to talk to, a friend of mine who I met in 2023, she said yes, and we did this episode and I think it's the most fun maybe I've had. And also I continue to realize that my own story deserves space in the same way that I give it to guests, and that people actually I actually can help people too.

Speaker 1:

I think in my mind I'm still 25 and I've got a lot to learn and I know I still have a lot to learn. But I also have a lot to teach and that mindset, as the closer I get to 50 years to boy, I do have a lot. I can teach people. I do. I do have some valuable things and I'm a lifelong learner. Those two things can be true at the same time.

Speaker 2:

Well, christy, you've been deeply involved in a founding member and initiatives like Women in Entrepreneurship Institute at DePaul University, the 25 at Bethel University. What drives your passion for empowering women, and maybe specifically around entrepreneurship?

Speaker 1:

Sure, when I was a young woman and I talked about it kind of briefly, I didn't know many women who worked and I grew up in a pretty conservative framework and conservative family and the right role for a woman and the most important first role, through the lens that you looked at your life through, as even in high school you planned around being a wife and a mother and that was the framework and from the time I was little, that didn't sit well with me and I never really could put words around it. But I don't like things like cooking. I don't like hockey, I don't like cooking. I don't play hockey. Why do I have to cook Just because I'm a woman? That's stupid. I don't like to iron. Why do I have to iron? I can pay somewhat to iron. Nowadays we don't even need to iron at all.

Speaker 3:

Most things.

Speaker 1:

So these things like didn't really sit with me right. They didn't feel right and the women who I knew who worked in a corporate environment were single moms and the sort of mindset was that they had to work and we sort of feel bad for them because they had to work.

Speaker 1:

And there wasn't even a framework that women are also on this planet to use their brains to have choice, or that men had choice to stay home. I mean, that was a crazy sort of concept and I just like defining people that way just hasn't ever resonated with me. So as I went through my career and when I we had been married seven years when I got pregnant with our older son because of 9-11, actually we were going to wait much longer and then my husband was on one part of the country 9-11. And it was my first day on the job at the Ohio TV station and I remember after the craziness of doing live news outside of the Air Force Base and all of that and he was still couldn't get home and we had this conversation and I was like why are we waiting for?

Speaker 1:

But nothing is promised here. So what are we waiting for? And within a year we had a child. A little over a year we had a child and when I was pregnant and telling people that I was pregnant, most people in a lot of different circles in my life said well, are you going to go back to work? Two things stuck with me, like why aren't you asking my husband if he's going to go back to work?

Speaker 1:

And why can't I have both? And nowadays people say women, people my age and maybe a bit younger, we're tall, Like we can have it all. And I think we can have it all. We just can't have it all at the same time, and I think that's true for men. You can have it all, you just can't have it all at the same time. You can't be great at work At the same time you're physically with your children being great, and the pandemic, I think, proved that to everyone. Like no doing meetings with children on your lap.

Speaker 1:

Both are suffering, Both aren't getting the full benefit and you can have a great career and love your family. Like those two things happened at the same time. So I guess, going through my career and when this business started and as the business got more successful, I was getting questions from men asking me like what does your husband think about the business? And all again it was this like man, something about this doesn't feel right.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And there's still, especially Christian circles, there's a lot of women who are taught and frameworks where women are limited. And when we limit women, we limit men also. So I just wanted to make sure that my story happened to me with this business and I wasn't going to do it the disservice of not sharing it with other people who perhaps could benefit. So when I got the opportunity to be part of starting the Women in Entrepreneurship Institute at DePaul, there were 40 of us and I said yes, and I served on that board for several years. Now the School has the Coleman Center of Entrepreneurship, has taken that, which is great. We launched it and they're running it. And then a few years ago, at Bethel University, a woman came to me and said hey, I think that we. She knew my passion and knew that I was pretty frustrated that these lies were still being told to women, especially in Christian circles, and that we weren't encouraging men and women both to explore their passions. And if men are well suited to stay home, god bless you, and if women, you're well suited to stay home, god bless you. You both have the choice, and so, and if neither one of you want to stay home, that's fine too, if you don't want to have children, that's fine. There you got to figure out kind of who you are. And the concept of figuring out who you are is brushed over. I think in universities and college settings and many families there's not a lot of time spent on uncovering what you're uniquely suited, interested and wired for on this planet to do to make a difference. It's academics and grades and career and that space required to get a little bit of understanding of boy, what do I really like, what do I really want to do. And you still hear people say boy, my kid loves art. Well, they're going to live in my basement forever. No, beyonce loves art. She's not living in anyone's basement. Like, let's focus on what we are passionate about and put on the planet to do and then let's worry about all the rest of that.

Speaker 1:

And when I would go to Bethel and speak and I did before the 25 started women there would ask me questions about things like so, boy, could you help me? I think that I might want to work in Chicago, but what if I have a husband and he wants to do this? What if I have kids? And I would always say, boy, are you married? No, are you dating anyone? No, why are we making decisions? And then when I would talk to men and I speak at public universities and other frameworks of thinking universities, and nobody's asking that, like, why are Christian women asking these questions? That they don't serve anybody.

Speaker 1:

So all of that kind of came together and when this woman reached out to me and said, hey, I think that we could start something, would you be part of it? And I said yeah, I will if this woman will. And so we both said yes. And so someone put together a genie. Put together a genie as good. I want to make sure I say her name a lot.

Speaker 1:

She put together five women and we locked herself in a house and said, ok, let's dream, let's just. What could this look like? We all have these same goals and we came out with the concept for the 25, took it to the president I was serving on the board at the time, the university I still am a board of trustee there and we took it to him and he said I'm in, let's go. So we started this and now we have 75 women in the program. So every year we add 25. We hired an executive director. We had a new executive director start this year, joe Saxton, who's well known by many people, just got a very, very large following, and we self-funded.

Speaker 1:

So one of our issues with higher education was that higher education is known for being slow and known for having a lot of bureaucracy. So we figured the only way that we could do it and have the impact that we knew we could have was to self-fund. So we went out and raised the money and funded it and it's phenomenal. And so I have the opportunity to talk to those women, and many women in the community and men have stepped up and said boy, we want to show women what's possible. And so, for example, it's just we want to expose them to different things. They take strength fighters. They are aware of different assessments. We bring them.

Speaker 1:

There's a woman in town.

Speaker 1:

It's actually the largest woman-owned company in the state of Minnesota. It's a large trucking company and all the program. They go there and they hear about it and they see it and I think trucking is generally perceived as a male-dominated. And it is a male-dominated and it is not an adult-dominated industry. But even if you don't want to drive truck, within the trucking organization there's accounting jobs and HR jobs and all these different kinds of jobs.

Speaker 1:

So we're just trying to show women what's possible and to use our own networks so we've been able to make introductions for the students, so that we've had a woman serving for a governor of a state, we had a woman serving for a state rep. We're just trying to use our networks passionately about passing it on. So what can we do to the next generation? We share our stories with them, we mentor just. I love that program and we want to get it in other universities around the country because and for men as well, it isn't just a woman only. We have events for and invite men into conversations as well, because, again, if women do well, men do well, men do well, women do well.

Speaker 2:

So for the women who are listening, who you know maybe don't have the benefit of a program like that. You know, as you're looking to grow those things, what would your advice be? If someone's listening who's saying I just I have this idea, I have this kind of entrepreneurial itch. I'm just not sure what to do with it. Or if it's my place to do anything with it, what would you say to them? What would your advice be to that person?

Speaker 1:

If you're someone who is working somewhere and someone else is paying you and providing you with benefits and you have an entrepreneurial idea, don't quit your job. Work on your side hustle there has now, don't? I'm not in any way encouraging people to skip on their employer and, like, pretend that they're working virtually, but they're really working on their side hustle. Do your full time job or part time job. Well, do it excellently. And work on your side hustle. And make sure before you make any, before you build a website or spend a lot of money on marketing, like, make sure that you are clear about your problem and that people want to buy it, because there's just a lot of folks out there who spend a lot of money on and launch a lot of things before they really even know if anyone will buy it. A great, great product or a great service without a buyer, it's not really that great. And do a lot of research and I don't mean research, of course, research in the industry and all those sorts of things, but also consume content. Read stories of other entrepreneurs, focus on some of the basic stuff good to great, you know, jim Collins, some of these kind of old Steven Covey, these old thinkers and then bring in some you know, current thinkers and Bernay Brown and some female authors and some authors of color and some podcasts, so just to have a more diverse view of business. And diverse view because even folks that are coming out of schools with MBAs and entrepreneurial degrees which that's all I can grant about an entrepreneurial degree for a long time but people who are focusing on those types of things until you're in the real world doing it and they.

Speaker 1:

My other bit of advice is like get a few group of people. Get, get a few people and tell them what your thought is and don't let them say no to you. Help that. Ask them to help you make it better. Refine what you want to do, what your entrepreneurial dream is. What are you missing? But also don't put it on social media because a bunch of people are going to tell you it's a bad idea, don't do it, that'll never work. Like, don't go to those people. Get your core group of people. Thank goodness I had it. If I look back and think, well, why did mine work? It's because I had the right people around me saying let me, let me build your logo, let me help you with this, let me do this your, yes, you should do this, have you? Let me introduce you to this person. Like, get that core group, don't let other people turn you down and don't limit yourself.

Speaker 2:

That's so good. So, as you mentioned not putting it on on social media, I wanted to ask you, lean into your expertise just a little bit, and this is what I heard you speak on at the workshop again 2024. You know, just just such a fascinating time in history and noisy time in history, a polarizing time in history. How should we, as leaders, business leaders, engage and embrace in social media? What would your advice be on that?

Speaker 1:

Engage in it. Most leaders still don't. Most leaders still think that a platform like LinkedIn is mostly for job seekers or for brands, or that Facebook is for sharing family photos and Instagram is for food pictures. Right, I mean, all of that has to be parked over to the side, and the reality is that if you are someone who people work for or invest with, or if you're hiring, if you're trying to retain your talent, if you're selling something, you are, by definition, an influencer. You have influence, and if you think about yourself as an influencer, then that requires that you understand what other people are finding out about you and you're controlling it. So my message and I you heard my Vistage talk and I do it for leaders all over the country If you can control your search, if you can control what people find out about you, then you can control the story. If you can control your story. That's critical, because people want to work with people, people want to invest in people, people want to have relationships with people, and you can absolutely do that on social media, but your brand can't do it for you and I'm folks are like I don't even know what she's talking about. You know, pick a few people that are brands that you like, the leaders and follow them on LinkedIn and you can see. So I think about Ed Vastion, the CEO of Delta.

Speaker 1:

Ceo of Delta, occasionally on his LinkedIn, will put his grandchild. He will talk about his family. Most of the time it's completely work content, but he also makes it personal and I know he has a team of people doing that for him. Yet it's authentic. If you met him and you said, hey, how's your grandchild? Who was, you know this dressed up for this on Halloween, I saw it on your LinkedIn. That's his actual grandchild and an actual picture of grandchild, you know, dressed up. I think it was a lion. I could be making it up, but it was a super cute picture.

Speaker 1:

But again, why would a CEO be putting that content out there? Because it makes him a human being. Nobody wants to work for someone who never leaves the office, who doesn't have any family, who never takes a vacation, who doesn't have a sports team that they like or hate or a hobby, and a great way to make connections with people is on LinkedIn and on social media. So, again, it's just this awareness that there's this digital world that we live in and that we have a responsibility as leaders to engage with it and to give people the story that we want them to find out. Otherwise, they're going to write their own story about us, about our businesses, about our products. That is dangerous.

Speaker 2:

And so what you're advocating for is when you engage and when you are building these profiles, these different platforms, and you're posting a mix of business, a mix of personal, personal. When people do go search, that's going to start to fill in the search Is that it's going to push down some of the things that are negative or not necessarily directly associated to you.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely right. So when you start getting active, the search engines love social media, because social media is always updated. It's getting a lot of activity, so the algorithm likes that. Algorithms also love news media podcasts. You're probably going to be posting this and you post other content, so you're going to rank higher than some newsletter written about me from 10 years ago, because this is newer and you're putting out fresh content and it's content that people are clicking on. So the more that people are engaging with well-known, credible, authoritative, well-known platforms and media outlets, the more those things are going to rank higher. And if you can make sure that everything in a search are things that you put there and you control it, then it's your authentic self. The story that's being told is the story that is true and that's what we all want.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, Awesome. So, Christy, as we are leaning into the beginning of 2024, what are you excited about this year? What are you looking forward to, whether it's media minefield personally, what are you excited about?

Speaker 1:

Sure, I talk regularly about, especially when I talk to folks in college. The most important title you ever have is not the one that ever is going to hit a business card, and so for me that's mom and wife, and so I'll start there because that is the job, that if I screw up, I mean I could still screw up. I could screw up and they could turn out well and I could do well and they could screw up. But right now my goal is to not have either one of those things happen. And in the next year my older son he's a junior in college. My younger son is a junior in high school. So we're on that path. I was talking to the boys over the holiday break and we're excited that probably this will be the year when we get kind of clear on where the one is going to go to college and where the one is going to graduate and work. So I'm really excited about that for them.

Speaker 1:

Personally, I'm really excited about graduating. I am in the master's, I'm getting my master's of science and management and leadership at Pepperdine University and I you know all things on paper and we've already talked about how sometimes things don't work the way you plan them, but, based on the calendar in front of me, I would be finishing that program up and have my master's in December, which has been a goal of mine for a long time, and on the you know the personal side, with my husband a year from now, we're going to be looking right in the face of empty nest. There's going to be a I will have 2025 is the year that the business is 15 years old, and I will have them on sabbatical again. So every we do that here, so I will have some global plane tickets in my Delta app. That I will be, though that trip will be booked is again the plan.

Speaker 1:

And you know, media mindful, we continue to grow. Really exciting things happening as we meet clients needs, and I'm just so honored every time a client trusts us with their story and allows us to share it. And you know our mission. You set it to start this unlock the power of stories to positively impact lives, and every time we hire a client, or every time we hire an employee, we can pop. The goal is to positively impact their life, and every time we sign up a new client, we want to positively impact their life. So I get really excited about doing more of that.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, awesome.

Speaker 1:

So good.

Speaker 2:

All right, a couple rapid fire questions as we wrap up here. Just a couple of quick things. What's the most unusual item in your office or your workspace?

Speaker 1:

Oh boy, let me look around the most unusual item. Well, okay, I will. It's right there. I wanted my little secret. It's not even secret because I put it on social, so it's not secret A weird obsession and obsession is probably too strong a word. But I love Billy Joel. I really love Billy Joel. Billy Joel is sort of the soundtrack of my life. So I remember hearing Panaman for the first time when I was getting a tooth pulled when I was a kid. It played at our wedding dance. I have my first concert out of state. I've seen him 15 times in four states and he was playing when my oldest son was born. So anyway, all that to say, I love Billy Joel and I have a little nesting doll of Billy Joel and I have a Billy Joel coffee mug, and so that's probably weird.

Speaker 2:

Yes, love it. Love it. A book that you've recently read that you'd recommend to everybody.

Speaker 1:

I read about 15 to 16 books a year and every month I'm putting out kind of a book of the month. I would say that the book that I read on the nonfiction side, the Good Life is one I would recommend. It basically was the researchers of a study have it been interviewing people for many decades about what makes a good life and they are releasing the stories of people and it isn't the richest people aren't the happiest and the poorest people aren't the saddest, but it's really putting I'm at again. I said I'll be 15, a couple of years, but I'm thinking about the next chapter. So I'm reading a lot about making sure that, as I hit the empty nest here's and the second part of my career here third part, a fourth part, whatever it is that I'm making sure I'm thinking, my mind and my body are healthy.

Speaker 2:

Very good Favorite stress release activity or hobby.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I'm a very disciplined, sort of rigid scheduled person, so I the pause was like do I talk about like running and sweating and that is a stress relief to start the day? But there is no, that never gets me close to a nap. But a massage gets me close to a nap, so, and a good massage gets me in full nap on. So I'm going there.

Speaker 2:

All right, and then I'll ask you the token journalist question. If you could interview anybody in the world on your podcast, who would it be?

Speaker 1:

Renee Brown.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, awesome, she's so good.

Speaker 1:

And it has shifted the conversation in ways that I don't think the modern worker realizes because she's still new-ish. But the concepts of talking about vulnerability and authenticity and story and thinking about having honest conversations with coworkers or friends about therapists and all of that really stemmed from her and dealing with shame and boy. I think that she will look back on her decades from now and like this is the person and this is the moment in time when conversation shifted and people started to get healthier and more holistic. And I would love to talk with her about that, because she's flipped. I've seen her twice in person. I've read all of her stuff. I just encourage all of my employees to understand her content because it's so good.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, awesome. Christie, thank you so much for your time and your generosity and being here. How can listeners connect with you? What would you say in terms of just a good way to connect with you and media Mindfield?

Speaker 1:

Well, no surprise, we're on all the social media platforms, so find me on whatever your favorite social media platform of choice is. Our website is media-mindfieldcom and all sorts of information there, but social media is or search. I talked about a search map, so if you just want to Google, you'll get a bunch of different options, ways to connect.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, perfect. Well, thank you for what you do, for your work. It's hugely inspiring to me. Again, like I said, listeners, you need to check out the Flip your Script podcast. It is so, so good and very inspiring. So, thank you, appreciate your time here today and thank you for everyone for listening and we will be here next time. On Stories that Move. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Stories that Move, brought to you by Dream on Studios.

Speaker 3:

Make sure to subscribe so that you don't miss the next episode and remember if you or your organization have a story you're eager to share with the world, dream on Studios is here to bring that story to life.

Speaker 2:

Don't hesitate to reach out. You can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or visit our website at dreamonstudiosio. We understand how overwhelming it can be trying to bring your vision and story to life, but that's why we exist, and we've walked alongside hundreds of clients doing that very thing.

Speaker 3:

We believe every story has the potential to inspire, to move and to make a difference. Let's make yours hurt.

Speaker 2:

Until next time, keep moving forward and keep telling those stories that matter.

Speaker 3:

Take care everyone. We'll see you next time on Stories that Move.