Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is going to be a longer one part
Speaker 2: of the series where I interview fascinating people about how
Speaker 2: they take their days from great to awesome and any
Speaker 2: advice they have for the rest of us. So today,
Speaker 2: I am delighted to welcome Monica Nassif to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 2: Monica is the founder of missus Myers's Clean Day household products,
Speaker 2: a brand I know a lot of our listeners use.
Speaker 2: She is also the author of the new book I
Speaker 2: Bottled My Mother. So Monica, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: I'm delighted to be here. Laura.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for coming on. So why don't you tell
Speaker 1: our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 3: Sure, I founded missus Myers Clean Day about twenty years ago,
Speaker 3: and it was really due to a Eureka moment in
Speaker 3: a store where I saw these cleaning products on a
Speaker 3: wooden pallet. They were tipped over, they had garish liquids,
Speaker 3: they smelled terrible, and I kept thinking, why can't this
Speaker 3: be fabulous? Why can't this be awesome? Like a Veda
Speaker 3: or your favorite personal care products. So that was a
Speaker 3: Eureka moment. Then I immediately stopped sleeping. I wrote a
Speaker 3: business plan and off I went in terms of raising
Speaker 3: money and launching the product and really trying to create
Speaker 3: a consistent fragrance across all types of cleaning products for
Speaker 3: the entire home that were safe for your kids and
Speaker 3: your pets. That was really the genesis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome. Well I use a lot of Missus
Speaker 2: Myers's products in my house. I almost took a photo
Speaker 2: of the stash of hand soap we have in the pantry.
Speaker 1: To send you.
Speaker 2: But a lot of people assume that Missus Myers is,
Speaker 2: you know, mister clean, right, But in fact this is
Speaker 2: a real person.
Speaker 1: There is a real Missus Meyer.
Speaker 3: There is a real Missus Myers, and she's my mother.
Speaker 3: She's ninety three years old. She's still alive and kicking
Speaker 3: and doing amazing and she was really the inspiration for
Speaker 3: the brand because my mother was a child of the depression.
Speaker 3: She really believed in home cooked meals, physical exercise, fresh
Speaker 3: fresh air cures everything. And she was really the model
Speaker 3: for Hey, this is how you care for your home,
Speaker 3: and a loving, practical and not a perfect way. If
Speaker 3: you will so. Yeah, she loved her role. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: When I brought her to media events, reporters laughed up,
Speaker 3: and she just thought she was a Hollywood starlet. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's she's a real person and she'll tell you all
Speaker 3: about it if you happen to meet her.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure you guys had all sorts of I mean,
Speaker 2: if she is the inspiration for this, what was housekeeping
Speaker 2: like in your home growing up? I feel like maybe
Speaker 2: none of us could ever live up to that.
Speaker 3: Well, it wasn't. My mother was saying it was never perfect,
Speaker 3: and it was not. But one thing my mother did
Speaker 3: is every Saturday morning, you ran down to the refrigerator
Speaker 3: and she would write on either a back of an
Speaker 3: envelope or a brown paper bag because my mother did
Speaker 3: not believe in buying paper. These were your chores. And
Speaker 3: her big attitude about caring for the house was it's
Speaker 3: not perfect, but well we'll keep it up. Because she
Speaker 3: really wanted to play. She wanted us outside playing in
Speaker 3: the backyard, so once we finished our chores, we could
Speaker 3: go play. And she we did that every Saturday morning.
Speaker 3: And my mother also loved laundry. Oh my gosh. She
Speaker 3: was a very beautiful laundress. She everything was hung outside
Speaker 3: in the backyard. So those were the things she really enjoyed.
Speaker 3: And and ironing. I think ironing was her morning meditation,
Speaker 3: if you will.
Speaker 1: Well that's something if I that's enjoying. But I love
Speaker 1: that detail though.
Speaker 2: You know, I used to think that one had to
Speaker 2: make grocery lists on envelopes, because my mother always did
Speaker 2: her grocery list on the back of an envelope, and
Speaker 2: then she would put a used envelope like we're not
Speaker 2: using none ever used a new one, and then she'd
Speaker 2: put her coupons in the envelope system.
Speaker 3: Right, so that's even better.
Speaker 1: We come from the same sort of thing.
Speaker 2: But there were a lot of you that she was
Speaker 2: hanging all this laundry out in the backyard.
Speaker 1: You are one of nine children, right, that is correct.
Speaker 3: I'm the oldest girl, so I had in ten years,
Speaker 3: nine of us showed up. So I had two older
Speaker 3: twin brothers, then myself three sisters, and then we called
Speaker 3: them the three little boys, my three younger brothers. And
Speaker 3: believe me, it was a scrum, let me tell you.
Speaker 1: And as a lot of children, a lot of kids.
Speaker 3: In fact, I had a woman when I was in
Speaker 3: my forties in business. She said, hey, I'm taking a
Speaker 3: self defense class and I said, why. She goes, I've
Speaker 3: never hit anyone. She goes, have you ever hit anyone?
Speaker 3: And I went, uh, yeah.
Speaker 1: That's how you survived lots of times. I can only imagine.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: One of my personal fascinations is large family logistics. So
Speaker 2: I'm very curious if you guys had any sort of,
Speaker 2: you know, cheaper by the dozen things you all did
Speaker 2: to keep the household organized, like everybody had to have
Speaker 2: a certain color sock or something like that.
Speaker 3: I don't remember that. I do remember everybody kind of
Speaker 3: had their own laundry basket by the bedroom. So there
Speaker 3: were three little bedrooms upstairs, and there were six, the
Speaker 3: six oldest were up there, and every and every room
Speaker 3: had a laundry basket. So your clothes came down in
Speaker 3: that and then they were folded. Of course, you helped
Speaker 3: her mom. We helped our mom fold them, and then
Speaker 3: they went back upstairs. That was one, and then for dining,
Speaker 3: everyone had the same position at the dining room table.
Speaker 3: The other rule was if you cooked, you didn't have
Speaker 3: the do dishes. And believe me, I learned really quick
Speaker 3: to cook because I did not want to do dishes
Speaker 3: for eleven people. So that was the other thing.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 3: The other thing my mother did was she was also
Speaker 3: a big believer in physical exercise. So back in the day,
Speaker 3: she adored Jack Lalaane. Now I'm showing my age, Laura,
Speaker 3: I'd okay, you've heard of it, Okay. So he was
Speaker 3: kind of the first personal fitness guru, and she watched
Speaker 3: him daily and we all had to exercise along with her.
Speaker 3: So that was one thing she did. Or she kicked
Speaker 3: us outside as soon as we were able. And then
Speaker 3: the other thing that she kind of controlled her day
Speaker 3: was she every afternoon, after lunch, she would set the
Speaker 3: timer on the stove for thirty minutes and we all
Speaker 3: had to lay down in the living room and rest,
Speaker 3: even if you know, up to age twelve, we had
Speaker 3: to just kind of calm ourselves after lunch. I actually
Speaker 3: think that kept her saying a lot of the days,
Speaker 3: so she.
Speaker 2: Knew she was going to get at least thirty minutes
Speaker 2: of quiet, right whatever the rest of the day looked.
Speaker 3: Like, right, exactly exactly, And you know.
Speaker 2: She was obviously spending much of her time caring for
Speaker 2: all you guys. But she she had had a career,
Speaker 2: I believe as a nurse at one point, and.
Speaker 1: She had a lot of career advice for you as well.
Speaker 2: You mentioned in your book that some of the best
Speaker 2: advice on like experimentation and not being afraid of failure
Speaker 2: came out right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, my mother was she said, failure was
Speaker 3: not in my vocabulary. I just thought that was learning.
Speaker 3: You know. It was never a mistake that you used
Speaker 3: granulated sugar for versus powdered sugar, or you sowed the
Speaker 3: wrong sleeve into the bodice. It would it was always oh, now,
Speaker 3: you know, just try it again. Everything was just kind
Speaker 3: of that's okay, try it again now, you know, it
Speaker 3: was just learning. You know. I don't and I don't
Speaker 3: ever remember my mom being afraid. Really, she kind of
Speaker 3: had this devil may care, God will protect me. Let's
Speaker 3: go I've never been here before, let's go over there.
Speaker 3: She was very adventuresome, and you know that gave us
Speaker 3: a lot of confidence too. When you see your mother,
Speaker 3: you know, go anywhere with the nine kids in a
Speaker 3: station wagon, you know, because my dad traveled all the time,
Speaker 3: so she was always taking us everywhere. You know, all
Speaker 3: of us at once.
Speaker 2: And how do you how on earth do you corral
Speaker 2: nine children in public? And I mean I guess you
Speaker 2: guys were just maybe she wasn't afraid, but you all
Speaker 2: are afraid of what would happen.
Speaker 3: No, you know what, she was an extremely fast walker.
Speaker 3: She's a very fit woman. And man, I'm telling you,
Speaker 3: if you didn't keep up with her, she'll leave you behind.
Speaker 3: So you just learned to stay line, keep up and
Speaker 3: make sure you can see your head, you know, make
Speaker 3: sure you can see your tail lights because she was
Speaker 3: on the move.
Speaker 2: I'm sure all great training for then managing perhaps unruly
Speaker 2: teams in the future and your business careers. We'll be
Speaker 2: back in just a minute to talk with more with
Speaker 2: Monica Nassaf. Well, I am back talking with Monica nassav
Speaker 2: who is the founder of missus Meyer The Clean Day.
Speaker 2: And we've been talking about your childhood in a family
Speaker 2: of nine. But when you started your business then, I
Speaker 2: think it's so fascinating. You started with the high end products,
Speaker 2: right with the Caldria brand, and then pivoted from that.
Speaker 2: I mean, you still had culture Caldria, but to bring
Speaker 2: in a mass market brand. I'm curious what was the
Speaker 2: thinking there that you know you you were gonna switch
Speaker 2: gears in a way?
Speaker 3: Well, the thinking was we started at the high end
Speaker 3: because I knew that industry a lot better. I knew
Speaker 3: the gift and specialty industry, especially coming in out of
Speaker 3: retail excuse me, a far better than how to get
Speaker 3: on the grocery store shelf or the whole foods of
Speaker 3: the world. And plus we wanted to experiment a little about, Hey,
Speaker 3: what fragrances work? Does this concept work? And once we
Speaker 3: saw traction with the concept. We were also doing all
Speaker 3: the private label program for Williamsonoma at the time, so
Speaker 3: we knew from them that their sales were going good
Speaker 3: great too, And we thought, you know what, someone's going
Speaker 3: to knock us off. I just know it. I'm fiercely competitive,
Speaker 3: and I thought we got to get to the mass
Speaker 3: before someone else does. So I thought, if another team
Speaker 3: came and said let's take out Caldrea, how would they
Speaker 3: do it? So we hired a whole nother design team
Speaker 3: and a whole really a couple marketing people just to
Speaker 3: focus on creating Missus Myers. And we thought, this has
Speaker 3: to be so different from Caldrea, wholesome Midwestern really just
Speaker 3: kind of looking to our own personal heritage. And we thought, God,
Speaker 3: just sounds like my mom and bo the you know,
Speaker 3: the idea was born.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it makes so much sense.
Speaker 2: I mean, I love the idea of high end cleaning products.
Speaker 2: But there's also this tension here because I mean, anyone
Speaker 2: who can buy truly high end cleaning products can also
Speaker 2: pay somebody else to clean their house. And so you're
Speaker 2: going for the market maybe of people who want to
Speaker 2: do their own cleaning or need to do their own cleaning,
Speaker 2: but still want it to be a good experience.
Speaker 3: Oh for sure. No. And you know, even my mom said,
Speaker 3: I can't afford that stuff. I would never buy that
Speaker 3: Caldaria stuff. Why did you make something for me? That
Speaker 3: happened actually about a month before you know, the light
Speaker 3: bulb went on and we thought, she's right, we got
Speaker 3: to do a mass market brand.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So, you know, obviously a lot goes into the thought
Speaker 2: of whether one is going to start a business. And
Speaker 2: you know, I think, you know, you mentioned in the
Speaker 2: book somebody is not so much about how to start
Speaker 2: a business.
Speaker 1: Should I start a business?
Speaker 2: And what are some of the characteristics that people should
Speaker 2: know in themselves to know if this is the right
Speaker 2: path for them.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a great question because I get asked
Speaker 3: that mechanical quotes all the time. How how it's a
Speaker 3: good question, No, you know. But at the first question
Speaker 3: is should you be doing this? Do you see an
Speaker 3: entrepreneur in the mirror? And you have to think about
Speaker 3: are you a solo flyer? You're very much alone in
Speaker 3: the beginning, you know, So can you handle being alone?
Speaker 3: Can you live in the gray zone? That's another question
Speaker 3: you have to ask yourself. Are you intuitive? Can you
Speaker 3: make a lot of decisions without a lot of information?
Speaker 3: And can you save yourself? You know, you know a
Speaker 3: lot of people can't save themselves when they find themselves
Speaker 3: in a deep dark hole with their favorite shovel set
Speaker 3: next to them. So can you save yourself? And I
Speaker 3: think you have to be comfortable? And can you go
Speaker 3: broke and live with all that you know? Can you
Speaker 3: check the downside? Can you write down all the horrible
Speaker 3: things that might happen and go okay if that happens.
Speaker 3: I can live with this. I'm okay with this. I'm okay,
Speaker 3: My family's okay. So I think there's a lot of
Speaker 3: questions you got to ask yourself before you begin, well.
Speaker 2: What do you mean exactly by can you live in
Speaker 2: the gray zone? How would somebody know that they're okay
Speaker 2: with that?
Speaker 3: Well, like, for example, can you make decisions without information?
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes you'll go, I wonder if we should
Speaker 3: go in that store, and you have to walk into
Speaker 3: the store and go, Okay, I see other like brands,
Speaker 3: all right, we fit with that. You know, you have
Speaker 3: to have enough experience under your belt to be able
Speaker 3: to live in the gray zone. And yet what I
Speaker 3: mean by that is you don't have the data, right,
Speaker 3: you don't have the sales data to know you should
Speaker 3: be in this store, but you just kind of see
Speaker 3: the other brands and you say, yeah, we could fit here,
Speaker 3: we should be here, Let's go after them. That's what
Speaker 3: I mean about the gray zone, and especially too when
Speaker 3: you're creating a brand, and a lot of it is
Speaker 3: creative brainstorming. Again, can you live with the process of that?
Speaker 3: I see a lot of I used to be in
Speaker 3: the consulting world, and I saw a lot of clients
Speaker 3: super frustrated with Well, we don't know if that's going
Speaker 3: to work or this is going to work. Let's test it.
Speaker 3: With you know, focus groups, and I knew focus groups
Speaker 3: that they're there kiss of death, you know you do
Speaker 3: a phone because I don't ask me about focus grips.
Speaker 3: I'm very much against them. I never think anything good
Speaker 3: comes out of them other than c ya. But you
Speaker 3: have to make decisions based on your experience and your
Speaker 3: passion for the brand. That's what I mean by living
Speaker 3: in the gray zone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you have to be so creative with an
Speaker 2: entrepreneurship sort of thing. But you mentioned there are ways
Speaker 2: to be more creative. There are also things that kill creativity. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think focus groups are one of them.
Speaker 1: What are some of the other.
Speaker 2: Things that that can really nip the outside the box
Speaker 2: thinking right there? Uh?
Speaker 3: The ability to take on a creative risk. And what
Speaker 3: I mean by that is if a creative uh, let's
Speaker 3: say idea comes to you, you're the client, and it's
Speaker 3: just so out there, But does it make you lean
Speaker 3: in the hair on your arms kind of raise and
Speaker 3: you go, oh my gosh, I don't fully understand it yet.
Speaker 3: That is so attractive, that's so appealing. But that only
Speaker 3: comes because you really understand your mission, you really understand
Speaker 3: your vision. You know, I'm a creative thinker. But I
Speaker 3: can't draw stick figure. But if you hire great graphic
Speaker 3: designers and advertising folks, they can make that vision come alive.
Speaker 3: And that whole process is gray. It's entirely muddy, and
Speaker 3: you kind of don't know where you're gonna land. And
Speaker 3: a lot of people go, how do you know it's
Speaker 3: gonna work. Well, honestly, you don't know it's gonna work.
Speaker 3: But if you see great creative work that reflects your
Speaker 3: vision and your mission and your passion for the brand,
Speaker 3: you'll know it when you see it.
Speaker 2: Well, and I imagine that some of the lessons you
Speaker 2: learned from your mom about tolerating failure and there's just
Speaker 2: new ways of learning that plays out in this.
Speaker 3: Right without question. Yeah, we didn't like my mom didn't
Speaker 3: have a roadmap, she had no idea what was going
Speaker 3: to happen through the day. It was just like, hey,
Speaker 3: we'll go over there, we'll try that. If that doesn't work,
Speaker 3: we'll do this. And so that sense of just sort
Speaker 3: of be agility if you will agility, agile in your thinking,
Speaker 3: agility in your actions. Yeah, I was raised like that.
Speaker 1: Wonderful.
Speaker 2: Well, we're gonna take one more quick ad break and
Speaker 2: then I'll be back with more from Monica Nasseif.
Speaker 1: Well, I am back.
Speaker 2: Talking with Monica Nassif, who is the founder of missus
Speaker 2: Myers Clean day household products. She is also the author
Speaker 2: of the brand new book I Bottled My Mother about
Speaker 2: the real Missus Myers.
Speaker 1: But let's pivot to talk about your own schedule.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 2: A lot of listeners of this show that is called
Speaker 2: Before Breakfast have morning routines, and you have one as well,
Speaker 2: don't you.
Speaker 3: I do. I am a very early riser, I am
Speaker 3: usually and I've I've been liked out my whole life,
Speaker 3: probably because some of my first jobs I used to
Speaker 3: walk beans on. I wasn't raised on a farm, but
Speaker 3: I did a lot of farm work in my when
Speaker 3: I was about twelve and fourteen. So I usually get
Speaker 3: up about four thirty cup of coffee, big glass of water.
Speaker 3: And I'm a big yoga person, so if I can
Speaker 3: find a hot yoga studio, I love that. I try
Speaker 3: to read all my newspapers online. You know. I've got
Speaker 3: probably four that I read, and then I always every day,
Speaker 3: even when I stopped working full time, I write down
Speaker 3: everything I'm going to do that day. So I'm a
Speaker 3: big list maker. I write down what I'm going to do,
Speaker 3: I look ahead of my calendar, and I love breakfast.
Speaker 3: So man, this is my kind of show. I'm telling you,
Speaker 3: we got a lot of lood done there before breakfast.
Speaker 1: I imagine.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, how.
Speaker 1: When are you eating breakfast?
Speaker 2: I mean if it starts at four thirty, when it
Speaker 2: when is the breakfast fight actually happening there?
Speaker 3: I usually have coffee and a banana every morning, okay something, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm always eating. Yeah, don't worry about that. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: make sure I find something to eat.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, that was good that if you were doing farm
Speaker 2: work as as a kid you had this sort of
Speaker 2: early bird tend. Then say that that would have been
Speaker 2: hard if you were were not into that exactly.
Speaker 3: I love early morning and I'm I am most mostly productive.
Speaker 3: I have my best hours, and I love it's quiet,
Speaker 3: no one else is on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and were you able to were you able to
Speaker 2: reflect that schedule, like when you were like deep in
Speaker 2: the weed of building your your brand?
Speaker 3: Oh, I had to. I had no other I had
Speaker 3: no other choice. I had two small girls at the time,
Speaker 3: and I had to get up and get organized before
Speaker 3: they were awake, and so I've been getting up early
Speaker 3: and getting organized my whole life. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And what time do you need to go to bed though,
Speaker 2: in order to be up at four thirty in the morning.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's that's of course the key question here.
Speaker 1: Do I have to say this out loud?
Speaker 3: It's all right, okay, I probably go to bed around
Speaker 3: nine o'clock, eight thirty, nine o'clock.
Speaker 2: That that is totally legit if you are up at
Speaker 2: four thirty in the morning. What's really funny to me
Speaker 2: is people are starting like getting up at like three
Speaker 2: thirty or something. I'm like, jesz, you have to be
Speaker 2: in bed at like seven pm to make it work.
Speaker 3: I'll only get to catch an early flight. No, I
Speaker 3: don't get it better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, are there any other sort of routines
Speaker 2: you have that help make you more productive?
Speaker 3: You know? I think getting organized, but I've been doing
Speaker 3: that my whole life. Also physical exercise. Again, this hails
Speaker 3: for my mother. We were always taught you had to
Speaker 3: do something every day. Take a walk, you know, go
Speaker 3: ride your bike, go hiking. My mother loves to hike.
Speaker 3: She's still to this day she wants to wants me
Speaker 3: to take her on a hike. She can't go as far,
Speaker 3: but she still wants to go. So I think just
Speaker 3: taking care of your body with healthy food, you know. Also,
Speaker 3: my mom she hated junk food. She always said, junk
Speaker 3: food is junk food. And so we were raised with
Speaker 3: real healthy eating. Drink lots of water, no process foods.
Speaker 3: That makes a healthy day. You feel better, you think
Speaker 3: you know you're sharper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you mentioned as part of your morning routine
Speaker 2: that you are planning out your day, like what would
Speaker 2: happen at different times? Is there any point where you
Speaker 2: look at time more broadly, like do you have a
Speaker 2: weekly planning or monthly planning.
Speaker 1: Routine or something where you look a little broader than that.
Speaker 3: I kind of what I do right now is I
Speaker 3: look out probably monthly, you know, in terms of what
Speaker 3: I've got going, what my kids are doing, what my
Speaker 3: grandkids are doing, because I want to be available for
Speaker 3: them when I can. So that's kind of how I
Speaker 3: look out ahead, and also too when I might go
Speaker 3: see my mom, you know. So that's I kind of
Speaker 3: look out monthly, if you will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So Monica, I ask all my guests this question,
Speaker 2: what is something you have done recently to take a
Speaker 2: day from great to awesome.
Speaker 3: Oh, from great to awesome, you know, it'll take it
Speaker 3: from great to awesome. Is a great hike. I love hiking,
Speaker 3: I really do. I spend a lot of time in
Speaker 3: Colorado and the mountains, and one thing I've started to do,
Speaker 3: and it's really challenging, is uphilling you put what is.
Speaker 1: Uphilling me other than just going uphill? All right?
Speaker 3: It's the fastest growing sport in Colorado. You put your
Speaker 3: skins on your downhill skis and you trudge up the
Speaker 3: mountain and then you ski down. Oh okay, and it
Speaker 3: is it is like that high you get after running,
Speaker 3: but I can't run any more because my knees are shot.
Speaker 3: But it is the best high ever.
Speaker 2: So you're basically just skipping the lift right there to
Speaker 2: the lift, Okay.
Speaker 3: You're hiking up. It's you know, at ten thousand feet.
Speaker 3: It's a great workout. And if you go with a friend,
Speaker 3: it's a great time to just chat with someone and
Speaker 3: then you ski down and then you're done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you've really earned that ski down.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, that does make skiing a little bit different as
Speaker 2: an activity.
Speaker 1: I hadn't really even heard about that.
Speaker 3: But if you hit the mountains, you'll see the uphillars
Speaker 3: all over the place. It's very popular right now.
Speaker 1: Do you get a lot of ideas when you're out hiking?
Speaker 3: I hate, Yeah, I do. I totally do. I get
Speaker 3: a lot of ideas, like you know, in the shower
Speaker 3: or sometimes a long car ride I get. That's how
Speaker 3: I came up with the title for the book. After
Speaker 3: being in the car for sixteen hours, I was brainstorming,
Speaker 3: and then the next morning I woke up and I
Speaker 3: had the title.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these things just come to us.
Speaker 2: I wish you could plant more, but it usually is
Speaker 2: when we're not it not doing we don't you know,
Speaker 2: we can't just sit down and be creative.
Speaker 1: It has to sort of percolate in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why you got to have a notebook and
Speaker 3: a pencil at the ready.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you keep your notes sort of an analog
Speaker 2: form like that I keep.
Speaker 3: I'm a big paper person, but I also have my
Speaker 3: note section on my iPhone is just completely full of stuff.
Speaker 1: And when do you review that?
Speaker 3: Then? Are you just well, I started this thing years
Speaker 3: ago and I still keep it up. I have an
Speaker 3: excelsive document that I have across the top, music, movies, podcasts, books,
Speaker 3: design all these ideas that I'll see with that when
Speaker 3: I read, and if I'm looking for something or thinking
Speaker 3: about something I don't have a solution, I'll go back
Speaker 3: to that sheet and go, oh, yeah, that's right, I
Speaker 3: remember seeing that before. Then that will lead me to
Speaker 3: something else. So I kind of keep track of everything
Speaker 3: that kind of piques my interest.
Speaker 1: Sounds amazing.
Speaker 2: So I also like to ask people, what are you
Speaker 2: looking forward to right now?
Speaker 3: What am I looking forward to? Well, I'm looking forward
Speaker 3: to launching this book. It's been in the making for
Speaker 3: the last two years, and the first year I spent writing,
Speaker 3: the second year editing almost takes twice as long. You've
Speaker 3: written a book, right, Laura, I have a couple of
Speaker 3: you know, right, edit it takes some time. It's yeah,
Speaker 3: it's of time. So I'm looking forward to that. And
Speaker 3: then I'm trying to think of, Okay, what's my next
Speaker 3: creative project. I don't have to figured out yet. I
Speaker 3: have some ideas, but I'm not there yet.
Speaker 1: But you will get it eventually. Maybe on a hike.
Speaker 2: Maybe well you're all trudging up and holding your skis
Speaker 2: on you exactly.
Speaker 1: That's what it'll come to you. Yes, all right. Well Monica,
Speaker 1: where can people find you?
Speaker 3: Oh? Where can people find me? Monica nassum dot com
Speaker 3: or you can find me on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, Monica, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you to everyone for listening. If you have feedback
Speaker 2: about this or any other episode, you can always reach
Speaker 2: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. And in
Speaker 2: the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's
Speaker 2: to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening
Speaker 2: to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 2: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
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