Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is going to be a longer one part of
Speaker 1: the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
Speaker 1: take their days from great to awesome and any advice
Speaker 1: they have for the rest of us. So today I
Speaker 1: am delighted to welcome Meredith Monday Schwartz to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 1: Meredith is the CEO of Here Comes the Guide, a
Speaker 1: wedding website, and is one of the brains behind the
Speaker 1: Currently Reading podcast. So Meredith, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. I've been reading your books forever and
Speaker 2: I love talking to you.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm so excited that we can have this conversation.
Speaker 1: So tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2: Well, as you said, I wear a couple of different hats.
Speaker 2: So I am the CEO of Here Comes the Guide.
Speaker 2: We are forty four all women, and so we are
Speaker 2: creating a company that we want to see more of
Speaker 2: in the world, and we happened to be in the
Speaker 2: wedding space, so I'm very very busy there. And then
Speaker 2: also I do Currently Reading, which is a podcast about
Speaker 2: books and reading. My partner Katie Cobb, and I have
Speaker 2: been doing that for eight eight seasons now. I had
Speaker 2: to stop and double check myself. We've been doing it
Speaker 2: for eight seasons now, and we just it's the most
Speaker 2: fun to be able to talk about the books that
Speaker 2: were currently reading, whether we like them, didn't like them,
Speaker 2: spicy opinions welcome, We just have a good time. So
Speaker 2: it's a lot to balance, but it's all things that
Speaker 2: are really meaningful to me.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that. It's good to be
Speaker 1: busy in life with things that we enjoy. So I
Speaker 1: wanted to start with Here Comes the Guide because you
Speaker 1: guys kind of came on my radar many years ago,
Speaker 1: as I know that you had transitioned to being a
Speaker 1: mostly remote company prior to the pandemic. Now, a lot
Speaker 1: of people discovered that as a situation and they had
Speaker 1: to in twenty twenty, but you guys had done that
Speaker 1: before that. So what led to that and how did
Speaker 1: that come up?
Speaker 2: So I have been at Here Comes the Guide actually
Speaker 2: since I was twenty four years old, so back in
Speaker 2: like literally pre internet day, so I've been at Here
Speaker 2: Comes the Guide forever. But it started out which there
Speaker 2: were just three of us. Now they're forty four of us.
Speaker 2: I look at Here Comes the Guide as being a
Speaker 2: massive experiment about creating a company that allows women to
Speaker 2: have as much of it all as they can have,
Speaker 2: so a career that's meaningful to them, where they can
Speaker 2: see that they are doing really important work, and also
Speaker 2: the ability to have a life. So this balance is
Speaker 2: a really important thing to me. So we actually bought
Speaker 2: out our founder in twenty seventeen, and at that point
Speaker 2: I immediately said, we are becoming a fully distributed company
Speaker 2: because it was clear to me we'd done a lot
Speaker 2: of remote before then, mostly because we had some people
Speaker 2: who worked for Here Comes the Guide. We were in Berkeley, California,
Speaker 2: move away one of them, her husband was deployed. I
Speaker 2: didn't want to lose this fantastic teammate, so I was like,
Speaker 2: you know what, move to Maryland and you're going to
Speaker 2: keep working for Here Comes the Guide. We had that
Speaker 2: happen a couple of different times where I was able
Speaker 2: to retain fantastic talent if I was just okay with
Speaker 2: them being where they needed to live. And then I
Speaker 2: really really enjoyed working from home myself, really works with
Speaker 2: kind of my very introverted self. I love being a
Speaker 2: part of a team, but I also like having space
Speaker 2: to decompress when I need to. So when we took
Speaker 2: over from our founder, we went fully distributed. We let
Speaker 2: go of our Berkeley office and all of the overhead
Speaker 2: associated with that, and we have never looked back, and
Speaker 2: so we have grown so much since then. We've gotten
Speaker 2: really really good at hiring for remote positions, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, that's a really intentional project in and of itself,
Speaker 2: because you have to hire a very specific kind of person.
Speaker 2: But we have found our sweet spot and we are
Speaker 2: so glad that we that we are fully distributed. We're
Speaker 2: also a very connected team. So even though we are,
Speaker 2: one of our core values is we can be together
Speaker 2: even if we're not all together.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, Well, the pandemic was rough for weddings, but
Speaker 1: at least you guys had figured out how to work
Speaker 1: as a remote team before that. But as you observed
Speaker 1: this then, like from you know, twenty twenty to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, twenty twenty two, and you saw other organizations
Speaker 1: experimenting with this, what do you think most people got wrong?
Speaker 1: I mean, I know you were hiring very specifically for
Speaker 1: people who could do this, and you had figured out
Speaker 1: managing distributed teams. What were people What mistakes were people
Speaker 1: making with this?
Speaker 2: There's a lot of layers to that. I think the
Speaker 2: biggest mistake that people can make is to not be
Speaker 2: hiring with that mindset. But when companies found themselves in
Speaker 2: that position, I think a lot of companies approached it
Speaker 2: from the mindset that their employees were going to try
Speaker 2: to rip them off, that they were going to not
Speaker 2: work on purpose. They didn't trust in the intention of
Speaker 2: their employee, and the employee feels that when you're putting
Speaker 2: things on people's computers to see how often are they
Speaker 2: moving their mouths, when you're demanding that they log in
Speaker 2: and lock out at really specific time, it just all
Speaker 2: really messes with the ability for the employee to feel
Speaker 2: that they are being trusted. I always tell everyone that
Speaker 2: I hire, I am so not interested in micromanaging anybody.
Speaker 2: If I can't trust you to do the work because
Speaker 2: you care about doing it for your own self, then
Speaker 2: I have no desire to do business with you. So
Speaker 2: I hire from the mindset of people, if they care
Speaker 2: about the company that they're working for, are going to
Speaker 2: do the best work that they can do. So to me,
Speaker 2: that like going all the way to the other end
Speaker 2: where you mistrust your staff automatically makes people people When
Speaker 2: they feel mistrusted, they automatically don't have the same level
Speaker 2: of loyalty to the person who's mistrusting them. They're being
Speaker 2: treated like children. So that's the biggest mistake that I
Speaker 2: saw employees me employers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And with that though, I mean, you have to
Speaker 1: manage a little bit differently. I'm sure you are managing
Speaker 1: largely about certain results outcomes, and then you also have
Speaker 1: to have systems like if people have a quick question,
Speaker 1: like you can't stop by people's desk when you're fully remote,
Speaker 1: and if you're in different time zones, that introduces its
Speaker 1: own complications. So what are some of your best practices there?
Speaker 2: Right, So there's again there's a lot of different elements
Speaker 2: of this. From a work product perspective. I operate on
Speaker 2: a trust, put verify way of doing things right, so
Speaker 2: I know the role that each person is fulfilling. I
Speaker 2: know what that role needs to produce over the course
Speaker 2: of a week or a month, or a quarter or
Speaker 2: a year. And so we have a a lot of
Speaker 2: systems in place that we've built into our own bespoke
Speaker 2: CRM that allows us to get a sense of what
Speaker 2: people are producing over the course of the week. Now,
Speaker 2: first of all, I'm not judging it day by day
Speaker 2: because I don't think that that's a fair judgment. But
Speaker 2: we do have a sense overall of the work. So
Speaker 2: I'm not The result I'm looking for is to have
Speaker 2: this specific role, this work product done. The result I
Speaker 2: don't care if you're moving your mouth every thirty seconds,
Speaker 2: That to me is tracking the wrong thing. I do
Speaker 2: care that you're getting the work done that I hired
Speaker 2: you to do in the best way possible, the way
Speaker 2: that fits you and your personality in the best way.
Speaker 2: So we absolutely have built in multiple layers of trust,
Speaker 2: but verify where we can look at work product.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, Well, let's talk a little bit about virtual
Speaker 1: meetings because I know that this is something that a
Speaker 1: lot of people have struggled with and you know, zoom
Speaker 1: fatigue over the years. What do you do to make
Speaker 1: these more engaging and build that sort of level of
Speaker 1: trust and interaction in a virtual way.
Speaker 2: So from a meeting, we're just talking about meetings. Let
Speaker 2: me start by saying I hate most meetings right, So
Speaker 2: we meet as little as possible so that people can
Speaker 2: do the work that they need to do. Like I
Speaker 2: feel like me and my leadership team, our job is
Speaker 2: to give air cover to our people and then stay
Speaker 2: out of their way. And so we manage everything. I mean,
Speaker 2: teams meet. We you know, we absolutely meet and connect regularly,
Speaker 2: but we're really careful to say, does this meeting actually
Speaker 2: have to happen? Are the exact right people there? I
Speaker 2: saw something on TikTok the other day where someone was saying, literally,
Speaker 2: the only time I turned my mic on through that
Speaker 2: whole meeting was when I said goodbye at the end
Speaker 2: of it, and I thought, then, why are you even
Speaker 2: in that meeting? And I just so I don't love meetings.
Speaker 2: Most meetings done wrong make me absolutely crazy. And from
Speaker 2: a connection standpoint, we are really real. We are obsessed
Speaker 2: with our culture and our ways that we connect, and
Speaker 2: we do a lot of different things that increase that connection.
Speaker 2: One of the things that we do is we do
Speaker 2: a quarterly connection event where we all get together. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's on Google Meet. Yes, we have a company wide
Speaker 2: cameras on policy. Again, if your camera is off, I
Speaker 2: have to ask, why are you even in that meeting.
Speaker 2: If I don't need to see you and interact with you,
Speaker 2: then why are you in the meeting? And so we
Speaker 2: have a cameras on policy. And also we do these
Speaker 2: connection events where we actually have a team that plans them,
Speaker 2: where we spend time together every quarter doing something that
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with work. So we've done like
Speaker 2: a murder mystery we did, like you know, we've done
Speaker 2: some like crafting, different you know, craft related things we did,
Speaker 2: like watercolor painting. As I'm saying all of this, I
Speaker 2: hear everyone's eyes rolling back in their head. I understand
Speaker 2: how cheesy it sounds. Our group of women loves to
Speaker 2: hang out with each other, like honestly, we could. We
Speaker 2: could do almost nothing in our annually. We do annual
Speaker 2: retreats where we all get together, and yes we do
Speaker 2: quite a bit of work, but we also just hang
Speaker 2: out and cook together and get up early and have
Speaker 2: coffee together. And we hire for culture. We hire girls girls.
Speaker 2: We don't hire mean girls. Ever. I will fire a
Speaker 2: mean girl immediately, like so fast it would make her
Speaker 2: head spin, and it has. And so we hire for
Speaker 2: culture in addition to hiring for the ability to do
Speaker 2: the work. So we enjoy spending time together. Whether it's virtually,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of connection that can happen virtually. Some
Speaker 2: of my best friends I've never met in real life.
Speaker 2: I challenge the notion that you can't connect virtually.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Well, We're going to take a quick ad break
Speaker 1: and then I'll be back with more from Meredith Monday Schwartz. Well,
Speaker 1: I am back talking with Meredith Monday Schwartz, who is
Speaker 1: the CEO of Here Comes the Guide, a wedding website,
Speaker 1: and is also one of the brains behind the Currently
Speaker 1: Reading podcast. So, Meredith, listening to you and knowings we
Speaker 1: your work over the years, I know you like to
Speaker 1: get things done, So I want to pivot to talking
Speaker 1: about your own personal productivity. Do you have any you
Speaker 1: know we talk a lot about morning routines on this show.
Speaker 1: Do you have any sort of morning routine in your
Speaker 1: life right now?
Speaker 2: I absolutely do, And my morning routine has changed over
Speaker 2: the course of my career. Right it's different when we
Speaker 2: have little ones. My kid, my youngest is fourteen, he's
Speaker 2: in high school. My older three are off and launched
Speaker 2: and doing their thing, and so my mornings look more
Speaker 2: the way that I want them to look now I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm a super early riser. I really like to sleep
Speaker 2: until seven. The older I get. I'm fifty two, I
Speaker 2: now like like about nine hours of sleep. Ten years
Speaker 2: ago I probably only wanted seven. So that's been an
Speaker 2: interesting thing. So I sleep until seven, seven thirty sometimes,
Speaker 2: and then I get up and I always make a
Speaker 2: cup of coffee. I love to do morning read I'm
Speaker 2: always reading something nonfiction in the morning, and then I
Speaker 2: I do morning pages. Do you do morning.
Speaker 1: Pages, Laura, I don't, but tell us about them.
Speaker 2: Okay, morning pages is from It's from a very famous book.
Speaker 2: I'm sure everyone listening to this has heard about this
Speaker 2: by Julia Cameron, called The Artist's Way. The idea of
Speaker 2: morning pages is basically, it's just a brain dump. You
Speaker 2: get a notebook. I try not to use a precious notebook.
Speaker 2: I try to use a very like, a very workman
Speaker 2: like notebook, and then you just brain dump anything that
Speaker 2: is in your head. It doesn't have to make sense,
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be pros. Lots of times I'll
Speaker 2: do listing, you know, I'll make lists and it's just
Speaker 2: you know, she says, three full pages. I do one
Speaker 2: full page because that's a big notebook, and it fits
Speaker 2: in my time, and I'm the boss of my own
Speaker 2: morning routine. And it has helped so much from an
Speaker 2: emotional perspective because it's daily journaling, right whatever, but also
Speaker 2: from a business perspective. I will often have some business
Speaker 2: idea that is on the periphery of my brain, and somehow,
Speaker 2: when I do that brain dump in the morning, in
Speaker 2: the beginning of my day, what was on the periphery
Speaker 2: comes to the forefront. So I do that and then
Speaker 2: I go I work out with a trainer multiple days
Speaker 2: a week to do some heavy lifting, and then get
Speaker 2: into my workday when I come home.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And do you have any sort of structure for
Speaker 1: your workday that makes the most sense for you. I do.
Speaker 2: I do time blocking, and so I do different things
Speaker 2: during different time blocks on different days. So for example,
Speaker 2: company wide, we have no meetings on Wednesdays. You literally
Speaker 2: aren't allowed to make, you know, a non emergency meeting
Speaker 2: on a Wednesday, So everyone knows we don't have any
Speaker 2: meetings on Wednesdays. Mondays, I do leadership stuff, you know, Friday,
Speaker 2: we actually have a four day work week, so we
Speaker 2: don't work on Fridays and so Fridays is my currently
Speaker 2: reading day, So my week definitely has a rhythm to it.
Speaker 1: And do you have a particular time of day that
Speaker 1: you do best with sort of heads down kind of
Speaker 1: focused work versus more of the like I mean sending
Speaker 1: messages to team members or emails or things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my morning is when I am the clearest to
Speaker 2: do focused work, writing, creative work, any of that. So
Speaker 2: I try not to put any meetings on my schedule
Speaker 2: until noon and really give myself from like nine to
Speaker 2: noon each day to have in whatever time block that is,
Speaker 2: to have that that really focused work, because that's when
Speaker 2: my brain is firing. By the time I get to
Speaker 2: the afternoon, I need to be less creative And can
Speaker 2: I do a lot better with emails and meetings and
Speaker 2: those kinds of things. But again, we're really trying to
Speaker 2: limit meetings, so if I'm in a meeting, I have
Speaker 2: to be on for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, let's pivot to talking about reading here. You
Speaker 1: mentioned you read it nonfiction in the morning, and then
Speaker 1: the fiction, which I know a lot of currently reading,
Speaker 1: is about when does that happen in your schedule?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, so right, So we Katie and I each
Speaker 2: every week bring three books a week to talk about.
Speaker 2: So that means that I have to read at least
Speaker 2: twelve books a month to keep up with the podcast schedule,
Speaker 2: which actually is not a problem because that's kind of
Speaker 2: my normal lifelong reading habit. But I like to read
Speaker 2: before I get up in the morning, fiction, especially on
Speaker 2: the weekends. This is I'm going to tell you, and
Speaker 2: I know a lot of people are going to have
Speaker 2: They're going to think I'm nuts. I wake up seven
Speaker 2: to seven thirty on the weekends. Again, I don't have
Speaker 2: littles anymore. When my grandkids aren't there and I wake
Speaker 2: up at seven, I don't. I try not to get
Speaker 2: out of bed until eleven o'clock on the weekday mornings.
Speaker 2: I will read for a lot of that time so
Speaker 2: that you know, I will have a couple of cups
Speaker 2: of coffee. Reading in bed is my favorite place to read.
Speaker 2: I have a full set up with my kindle and
Speaker 2: my Kindle stand and my Kindle remote literally where I
Speaker 2: can just be laying like I'm laying in a coffin
Speaker 2: and just be turning the pages on my kindle and
Speaker 2: I will just crush. I will just crush for several hours.
Speaker 2: So I love I've done that my whole life. I
Speaker 2: love to read in the morning.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say, you have to get up out
Speaker 1: of bed to get your coffee. I assume that there's a.
Speaker 2: My husband does that, that's his does it for you?
Speaker 1: Oh? How lovely?
Speaker 2: That is his? That is his main job. Like you know,
Speaker 2: like you had one job, Johnny.
Speaker 1: Job, go make your coffee and bring it over to you. Right, Oh,
Speaker 1: I love it. Well, then you don't have to get
Speaker 1: up at all. I mean, you know, maybe a bathroom
Speaker 1: trip exactly.
Speaker 2: It's my favorite thing. It is so indulgent. And there
Speaker 2: were so many years if having four kids, where obviously
Speaker 2: that schedule just was not on the table. So I
Speaker 2: lean into it like crazy now.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, Well maybe that's my goals for as soon
Speaker 1: as mine are as old as yours. Well we'll get
Speaker 1: there eventually. All right, Well, we're gonna take one more
Speaker 1: quick ad break and then I will be back with
Speaker 1: more from Meredith Monday Shorts. Well, I am back talking
Speaker 1: with Meredith Monday. Schwartz is the CEO of Here Comes
Speaker 1: the Guide also one are the hosts of the Currently
Speaker 1: Reading podcast. So how do you figure out what to
Speaker 1: read next? Since I mean, you're reading at least one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty four books a year, it sounds like
Speaker 1: you've got to keep the uh, keep the train moving.
Speaker 1: How are you figuring that out right?
Speaker 2: Well, this is not a small thing, even for someone
Speaker 2: who reads for a living like I do. I'm a
Speaker 2: mood reader. There are planned readers and mood readers. And
Speaker 2: I don't understand people who say, here are the books
Speaker 2: that I'm going to read in December. I love that
Speaker 2: for them. It's fantastic. I could never read like that.
Speaker 2: So I'm a mood reader. I always have a book
Speaker 2: going in every format. So I'm always reading four books.
Speaker 2: So my morning read one of my kindle, an audiobook,
Speaker 2: and then a print book. So I always have four
Speaker 2: going at a time and every time I get so
Speaker 2: that gives me the ability to switch around a lot
Speaker 2: based on my moods. And so I mean, I'm super
Speaker 2: plugged into the book world. I'm very very lucky that way,
Speaker 2: and so I have lots of different sources. Instagram is
Speaker 2: a really really big one. I'm very big on Bookstagram,
Speaker 2: and so I take pictures of books that are interesting
Speaker 2: to me, and I caption them in a very specific
Speaker 2: way in the actual photo app on my iPhone, and
Speaker 2: then when I'm in the mood for something, I will
Speaker 2: kind of flip through that. I also put a lot
Speaker 2: of holds in the library, so at any point I'll
Speaker 2: have fifteen twenty thirty books home from the library and
Speaker 2: I'll do a book flight. So I'll pick five books.
Speaker 2: I'll read the first paragraph chapter of those five books
Speaker 2: in which everyone grabs me that's what I'm reading next.
Speaker 1: And with that, then will you not read a book?
Speaker 1: I mean, after you've started it, you gotten a ways
Speaker 1: into it, if you decide, yeah, this isn't this isn't happening, right.
Speaker 2: So if I do a book flight and I'm just testing,
Speaker 2: then I then all of those other four that I
Speaker 2: didn't choose, they could come up again in the future.
Speaker 2: The question of dnf ing or did not finish is
Speaker 2: one that comes up so much for us in the
Speaker 2: book world. I am a pretty profligate DNF for if
Speaker 2: I can't afford to get stuck behind a book, and
Speaker 2: there are too many books in the world for me
Speaker 2: to do that. And also it's not fair to the
Speaker 2: author for me to push through when a book's not
Speaker 2: working for me, because inevitably I won't have any great
Speaker 2: to say about it when I'm having to push that hard.
Speaker 2: So I read about ten percent or fifty pages. If
Speaker 2: it's not flowing very easily, I'll set it down. Sometimes
Speaker 2: I'll say i'm in our inning it not right now
Speaker 2: instead of DNFING, because DNF is kind of like I
Speaker 2: might never return to that in our end means there
Speaker 2: was something I liked about it, but it just wasn't
Speaker 2: fitting what I needed right now. So I have two
Speaker 2: separate kind of categories of not finishing a book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, because you said you're a mood reader, and
Speaker 1: so something that's not for you right now, I mean
Speaker 1: maybe you'll feel more like you like a cozy kind
Speaker 1: of book in winter versus the summer, or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've had books that I have started two or
Speaker 2: three different times because I'll think this book is made
Speaker 2: in a lab for me, but for some reason it's
Speaker 2: not working, and then the fourth time it's absolutely perfect.
Speaker 2: I believe in bookish serendipity. I think if a book,
Speaker 2: if you need a book, it is going to find you,
Speaker 2: and it is going to find you at the right time.
Speaker 2: But we have to help that happen. By trusting when
Speaker 2: it's not the right time and letting it go.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I do like the advice to abandon a
Speaker 1: book that isn't working for you, because to maintain any
Speaker 1: sort of swift reading schedule, you can't get stuck because
Speaker 1: then your pace falls off. Then you're only reading, you know,
Speaker 1: six books a month or two because you stopped in
Speaker 1: the middle of one, and you don't turn reading time
Speaker 1: potential leisure time into reading time, right.
Speaker 2: And there's no question that that's something that Katie and
Speaker 2: I have to be very mindful of. But this issue
Speaker 2: for normal day to day readers comes up a lot,
Speaker 2: and I will talk so often with people who are
Speaker 2: like I bet, I just feel guilty. I feel guilty
Speaker 2: setting down a book. The author worked so hard on it,
Speaker 2: and they did, and that's true, and they did. But again,
Speaker 2: if you want to respect that work, save it for
Speaker 2: a time that it's working for you better. Just because
Speaker 2: it's not you're not the reader for it now doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that ten years from now it might not be
Speaker 2: your favorite book of all time. And I've heard that story,
Speaker 2: which is why I say that that's happened many times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely well, Meredith, I always ask my guests a question,
Speaker 1: which is, what is something you have done recently to
Speaker 1: take a day from great to awesome? All right?
Speaker 2: I have a very specific practice that I put into
Speaker 2: practice once my therapist told me to do it. It
Speaker 2: sounds really simple, but it has changed a very difficult
Speaker 2: part of each day for me. So when I finish
Speaker 2: my work day, like a lot of moms, I have
Speaker 2: to then go into dinner, practice taking, you know, get
Speaker 2: boy to practice, you know, all of those things. I
Speaker 2: found that that transition had been difficult for me. So
Speaker 2: the idea is that at the end of each work day,
Speaker 2: take five minutes. I take five minutes to ask myself
Speaker 2: what do I need right now? So it's checking in
Speaker 2: with my mind, how busy a day was it, how
Speaker 2: much energy did it take from me? It's checking in
Speaker 2: with my body. Do I need to just take some
Speaker 2: deep breaths, Do I need to stretch? Do I need
Speaker 2: to sit quietly for a little bit, and then acting
Speaker 2: on what it is that that check in has brought
Speaker 2: to me. It sounds really simple, but I realized I
Speaker 2: was never asking myself that question at the end of
Speaker 2: the day. When I started doing that and started taking
Speaker 2: five ten minutes, to give myself what I actually needed.
Speaker 2: Right then the whole rest of the evening went more smoothly.
Speaker 2: So that's really changed that really rough transition period into
Speaker 2: something that's working a lot better.
Speaker 1: I love that. And what's something you're looking forward to
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 2: I am looking forward to my annual reading retreat in March.
Speaker 2: Every year, me and three fantastic readers. We go for
Speaker 2: four days and we literally have a highly scheduled reading retreats,
Speaker 2: like it's sort of tongue in cheek scheduling, but darned
Speaker 2: if we don't stick to the schedule, which we put
Speaker 2: on bookmarks and we read and then we get together
Speaker 2: and talk about what we're reading, and then we read,
Speaker 2: and then we have lunch, and then we read and
Speaker 2: go for a walk and then we read. We have
Speaker 2: dinner in It is my favorite trip of the year.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Reading with friends is a great way to boost the
Speaker 1: enjoyment of reading. So, Meredith, where can people find you?
Speaker 2: So you can find our show at currently Reading podcast
Speaker 2: and you can find me at Meredith Monday Schwartz on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Well, Meredith, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone for listening. If you have feedback
Speaker 1: about this or any other episode, you can always reach
Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com and in
Speaker 1: the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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