To All The Cars I’ve Loved Before | First Cars
Christian and Doug explore automotive nostalgia & personal car memories on our podcast— featuring true automotive stories and childhood car memories from everyday enthusiasts.
To All the Cars I’ve Loved Before shines a light on everyday enthusiasts, from father‑daughter/father-son duos and automotive brand launch managers to the restoration students and expert-level instructors at McPherson and Weber State Colleges. Real stories, real people, real passion—thats why our car podcast stands out from others.
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To All The Cars I’ve Loved Before | First Cars
When Your First Car Has Your Dad's Business Logo On It | Krystal's Fleet
Click here to share your favorite car, car story or any automotive trivia!
Podcast Superstar and Content Coach, Krystal Proffitt joins us to share her nostalgic journey through a fleet of hand-me-down vehicles that shaped her driving experience. Her first car story perfectly captures the teenage driving experience that many can relate to: receiving her father's work truck nicknamed "Doo-Doo Brown,” complete with bench seats, manual windows, no air conditioning, a cracked windshield, and most memorably, her father's faded plumbing business logo still emblazoned on the door. The thousand-dollar truck became Krystal's first taste of freedom, despite needing to pop the hood just to get the windshield wipers working during rainstorms.
Beyond her captivating car stories, Krystal shares invaluable insights from her expertise as a podcast coach and content strategist. Having produced over 1,400 podcast episodes herself and guided countless content creators, she emphasizes that consistency trumps perfection. The seemingly simple advice to "just keep showing up" becomes a powerful mantra for both podcasting and life itself—much like those reliable hand-me-down vehicles that may not be perfect but faithfully get you where you need to go.
Don't miss Krystal's favorite episode, Rotary Revelations – Jon Leverett’s Mazda RX-7 Tales and Industry Insider Insights https://buzzsprout.com/2316026/episodes/16805989-rotary-revelations-jon-leverett-s-mazda-rx-7-tales-and-industry-insider-insights
Whether you're passionate about cars or simply appreciate a good story about the vehicles that carry us through life's journey, this episode delivers both nostalgic warmth and practical wisdom. Subscribe now and join our growing community of listeners who understand that every car tells a story worth sharing.
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Welcome back. You have found again. You've found, you've re-found to all the cars I've loved before your authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia, where every car tells a story and every car has a culture. It's time to plug in, dust off and get a little grease under the nails. Oh, and slip on that favorite car-themed shirt by the by. My co-host is looking dapper today in his latest. Now did you just pick up that shirt from the dry cleaners?
Doug:Is that what happened? It's fresh To give away a little secret. We're going to have somebody from Mazda USA on the podcast in a few weeks, so I wanted to make sure I had my Mazda shirt. I have owned four Mazdas. I did own an RX-7. This shirt is actually for the last generation which I did not own, the FD, which everybody loves. That's like one of the hero cars Best RX-7 ever Of, of course, the last rx7 ever and uh yeah, I just wanted to get another shirt now our mazda is like a punch card where if you buy 11, you get the 12th free, or the baker's dozen or something like that.
Christian:Is that what you do? When you said you own three or four, uh?
Doug:four no, they're just great cars.
Christian:Mazda. This is going to be really exciting. That's going to be a lot of. That's our biggest, that's our. We're very excited about that and welcome to our new listeners. Hey, heard around the world I don't know if I mentioned that at the top of the top of the top of the intro Around the world. Yes, uh, past five days. We can go into our, our, our, the analytics and software that we use. And for the past five days, welcome to listeners in york, pennsylvania, plano, texas um, I think we have a few and uh, oh, we have multiple sites in texas, but internationally, london, welcome back to those listening in London, but our big one is, okay, pop Quiz, big island in the southern hemisphere, on the other side of the world.
Doug:What do you think Australia?
Christian:Yes, australia, welcome to our listeners in Sydney, new South Wales and Melbourne, victoria. We are just really excited about that. And so, hey, drop us a line. I'm Christian at CarsLovecom. He's Doug at CarsLovecom. Give us a call, or give us a sorry call me now. Give us a. Shoot us an email. Let us know what you think. Feedback reviews Speaking of reviews, we're getting a bunch of them on Apple podcast.
Christian:Very excited about this, and I'm going to read one right now, please do. What do you think? Is that okay? Yeah, here we go. Share the love.
Christian:Here's one that's not too critical of me. We're not going to read any of those me. We're not going to read any of those. This one says what is happening to my phone right now. Okay, If you're a car guy, you have to listen.
Christian:This is from December 4th from F Monty, maybe that's F1. I don't know who that is. I've always struggled to find. Okay, this is the review. I've always struggled to find the best podcast about cars and this one hit the nail on the head. It's engaging, funny, interesting and I love the stories. I for sure recommend this podcast, not just for car people, period, anybody. Three exclamation points. So that is when we started this. Doug always likes to say that the show is about family, bringing together people, talking about, kind of the daisy chain of people in cars that move through our lives today. The theme of today's show is going to be hand-me-downs, and we will get into that. But what do you think, doug, when the review says this is for anybody? It's not just for gearheads. We have those. We have people that restore antiques car antique cars, people who write books about cars, people who educate the next generation how to work on cars. But it's for anybody. You don't have to know anything about cars to have a good time. What do you?
Doug:say I agree, and uh, pretty much all guests and uh, we can, we can put our guests on the spot when we get to her and do the introduction. Pretty much all of our guests have said they have enjoyed the preparation part. We have that short form that takes five minutes to fill out intake form, and when they're filling it out, just their mind goes back to that first car. It might have been 30 years ago, you know, in the case of your son, when we had him on, it wasn't that long ago but, there's still some smiles out there and, uh, I I like seeing that.
Doug:I also like being able to tie it back to you know, maybe it's just a coincidence in the story that triggers something in my head that takes me back.
Christian:Yeah, yeah, and it's. It's interesting how we talk about hey, where did the first car come from? Oh, you know, uh, some people just had to work their fingers to the bones. Sometimes there were hand-me-downs, sometimes it was grandma's car, sometimes it was you know. It had been sitting up on blocks in the backyard and you had to shoo away the mice and squirrels before you even started your restoration. And so when we talk about hand-me-downs, we're so excited about today's guest, who has a lot of experience and just hilarious speaking with her before the show. But I'm going to hand over the baton here to Doug for the introductions. And how did Crystal come into your world? Why is she such an appropriate guest for our show?
Doug:Yeah, so many, many things, and I don't know exactly how it happened, but when we were working on podcasting or initially talking about it, crystal's podcast, the Prophet Podcast, popped up and I started listening to her pretty religiously. Up, and I started listening to her pretty religiously and you know it was funny. What prompted me to put us on YouTube was actually one of Crystal's episodes about just do it, make it simple, just bite the bullet. You don't even have to have video. And so that kind of got us going.
Doug:And as soon as Crystal announced I think it was towards the end of last year her Podcasters Connect Community, which is a and I'll let her do the justice on it, but I am, I hope to think I'm a very active member in it and Crystal gives me lots of advice. Truly amazing how much time she devotes to everybody in there who wants help, and we have monthly calls. So with that, I can't say enough good things about Crystal. Oh, and when I said, would you like to be on our podcast, she's like sure, I'm not really a car person, but I have a story or two.
Christian:It's going to be great. She's going to be great, she's here, she's waiting, crystal, how are you?
Krystal:Well, I mean, y'all do such an incredible job. Thank you so much, Doug and Christian, for having me on the show. This is going to be incredible because I did. I was like, guys, I'm not a car person, I'm really not. And I started thinking when I was filling out the form you know, because, as you said, you know, I'm a podcast nerd to my core and I love a good intake form and the way that y'all have it all laid out. I was like, oh, there's some stories here, because it is what I love. I love to tell stories in my content. It's how you take something that could be a boring subject and really amp it up or get it to the relatable piece of it for your listeners to enjoy. And I started thinking. I was like I have some really good stories about cars and they're not fancy, they're not flashy, but man, I'm excited. So I just I can't wait to have this conversation with you today.
Christian:Well, thank you for being here. We appreciate that. And before we get going here, just a little preamble, and we'll mention it as prologue too. If you're listening to this podcast and you have your own podcast, this happens a lot, and Doug is always bringing back these wonderful nuggets from the ether. A lot of them come from Crystal. A lot of them come from this great, huge community of podcasters. Can we just pause for a second, crystal, and tell your presences to everyone? If they go on your YouTube channel, what are they going to learn about? If they go on your podcast or your social media, where would they go to learn? What about you?
Krystal:Yeah, so you can find me everywhere. You go to crystalprofitcom and that's where you're going to be plugged into the podcast and YouTube. It's Crystal with a K and Profit has two F's and two T's and, yes, that is my actual last name, it is not a stage name. I get that question a lot. That's another story about how when I met my husband and we it was a whole thing. But cause I was like your name can't really be profit, we met at business school, right Like that was a total line. I was like that's a line that your last name is profit.
Doug:Well, you would have spelled it, spelled it right if it was actually profit, if it was intentional.
Krystal:Exactly. Come on Like I, but it was. It was I made him show like can I see your ID? Cause I didn't believe him. So again, another story for another day. But yeah, I have met so many creators over the years and I actually just met with someone today and they said the same thing to me. And that's, I want to be the person that helps you. Just keep showing up, because it gets hard, right? I don't know if you know, and I know that the podcast is newer to you.
Krystal:But you come up against these hurdles, whether it's your life gets in your way or you have to take time off because a family member sick, or you have to do unexpected travel, and then it could just easily fall through the cracks that your podcast or your content is a priority, and so I try to come up with strategies that makes it fun, Like let's, let's not be so restrictive and like, um, really just rigid about the rules of what you're creating and let's just infuse fun and create around you know what you're passionate about, which is what I love that y'all are doing, because that's exactly the model that we try to do is, hey, find something you're passionate about that you could talk about literally for hours, because what you're going to do and enjoy it, lean into it really, um, the kind of the inception for the show.
Christian:For sure, he's also this push and this creative force that keeps us going forward. But there's, there's this, there's this special thing off to the side, this pleasure part of it, where we we enjoy getting together, we enjoy talking to the guests. And he said something magic where you just have to keep at the grindstone. And when we first started we did our first two or three and Doug said you know, I was some some early advice that we got before we knew you. This fellow said you know, you got to make it to 30 by hook or crook. You got to make it to 30 and two or three or four. Yeah right, right, past 30 at two or three or four.
Christian:I thought we're never going to get there. I mean, this is my best pal, you know, with his new hobby. I said I'll help him go as far as he wants to go. I said we'll never get to 30. Good grief, we have 30 or 40 now that I think we've published with another I don't know dozen in queue that Doug has to sprinkle the magic engineering dust on to get him out there.
Doug:Yeah, well, we also had Matt Farah from, I think it's Car and Driver editor said when you guys get to 99, when you guys get to 99, give me a call, I'll be on your podcast. So that's our target.
Krystal:That's incredible and it's so fun. So I love hearing y'all's story too, because I think it's motivational for anybody that's listening, just to find that passion and just like start hanging out with your friends that love to talk about it too, because then it doesn't feel like work like me doing this with y'all, like this, doesn't feel like work to me. It just feels like another fun conversation that I get to have and and it's about, again, things that I wouldn't even normally talk about but it's in a situation where I know your listeners will appreciate what we're talking about here today and that's what I try to do in any forum that I show up on is how can I add value to the people that are listening, because they're doing this for entertainment value, or they're trying to get educated or motivated and whatever they're doing, and I like to just sprinkle in whatever kind of magic I can and, you know, go go on to all the different pieces of content that we can keep creating for people that are out there.
Christian:Well, we are all about the magic. Love to hear it, thank you, and before we let's see. So we've talked a little bit about what you do and I'd like to maybe revisit your world a little bit. Instead of your stepping into our world, as we've done for the past few minutes, when we're done talking about your cars, I would like to maybe step in yours and talk a bit about your business, your coaching, content strategy and creating content. I think that would be wonderful. But before we get there, fan service, let's step into the Wayback Machine and slide into the nearest car that'll transport us back to your dad's. Let's go to where it all started dad's business.
Krystal:Okay, okay. So do you want me to just start with what he did for a living first?
Christian:I think it's wonderful. Please, please, I think it's. We can't get enough of these family stories. Yes, please.
Krystal:Yes, so my dad. Actually, he started his own plumbing business. I was around 12 years old and he was doing it all by you know, scrapping things together and saying, all right, like we're going to make this business work. He, he was an entrepreneur and you know I'm following in his footsteps and a lot of the things that I do, but he was like I just want to make this work and so he was on a tight budget. He was working with, you know, as many other contractors or builders in the area that he could get advice from or get free supplies from, or he could just have, like you know, any kind of partnerships around our community.
Krystal:I grew up in Athens, texas, which is in Northeast Texas small town, but it was just like, okay, I saw him working so hard and I am the youngest of three siblings. I have two older brothers and I watched my brothers have, you know, um, not necessarily pick of the litter. We wouldn't call it that. We would call it like hey, uh, this vehicle runs so therefore you can drive it when you want, but just know it's going to be a work truck, like it's a work truck during the week and maybe on the weekends you can drive it and slowly over time, my dad would say, okay, you know, you can officially like, you've proven yourself, you haven't wrecked this fully, you can drive this full time. So that's kind of what happened for my brothers. But then whenever it got to be my turn, he was like, oh, we don't really have anything kind of in the rotation that him or his workers were using. And so I had the luxury, the privilege of getting what was a doo-doo Brown.
Krystal:This is what I tell my kids when they ask me like tell us about your first car? It was doo-doo Brown plumbing truck. That was a single cab. I still don't even really know what exact year it was, but I just remember it was a bench seat. I had a bench seat. Again, we're in Texas. No AC, there was absolutely no air conditioning whatsoever. It was manual windows for any, like, of course, my kids. These days they were like what you like cranked them down. Yes, it was a hand cranked window.
Krystal:There was of this nothing automatic about this none, none, uh, it was. It was, uh, automatic, right, so it wasn't a stick shift. I still don't know how to drive a stick shift, so you know I'm gonna disappoint a lot of the car fanatics out there.
Krystal:No, no, no but it also it didn't have, uh, a rear view mirror, which again I don't know how it passed any inspections. It only had one side mirror and it had a big crack in the windshield. And to get the windshield wipers to work, there was like electrical tape on the box under the hood, so I would have to pop the hood, like move that around and jiggle it a little bit to get the windshield wipers to work, which is the last thing you want to do in a rainstorm anyway. So, yeah, that's I mean that's overview my first vehicle, and it cost a thousand dollars. I do remember my dad saying that he's like this was a thousand dollars. You're welcome, here you go.
Doug:And he gave it to you.
Krystal:Yes, he gave it to me, but I did forget, and Doug reminded me of this before we started recording. The best part about the whole thing was, before he handed it down to me, he did not take off the large Blair plumbing insignia on the driver's side door, and I think it was on the passenger side too. So as soon as he said, here's the keys, this is your vehicle, I went to the store and you know, some auto parts store got some goo gone and immediately started scraping it off. And you could I mean you could still see it, let's just be honest. So I drove around town with a plumbing truck and I was very grateful to have wheels.
Doug:And it was cool at high school right.
Krystal:Yeah, High school yeah sure.
Doug:Sure, sure, probably a lot of trucks in Texas at high schools. I know there are a lot of trucks in Texas for sure.
Christian:Yes, and down here in Florida too.
Krystal:Oh yeah.
Christian:So what happened to that truck? How long did you have that truck?
Krystal:Hmm, that's a good question. And I couldn't remember if I had it for two years or about a year and a half probably about a year and a half and then I got upgraded. So while I had the the doo doo brown truck, my middle brother had inherited the next truck. It was the F three 50, which he was. We called her the the big beast because f-350 which she was, we called her the the big beast because that's exactly what she was the big truck she was the big, the big mama truck.
Krystal:She was very big, um, so I, while he had that, I was drooling over it. I was like, look at this, like she's so pretty and look at how many, let's see, I was not a great driver, so I was looking at all the curbs I could hit and less damage I would do in this monster truck, because that's what it was basically an, um, uh, 18 wheeler. That's what I was thinking when I was driving this and I, like, lifted the steering wheel all the way up. I felt like I was in and driving some sort of train, yeah yes, because I'm pretty tall.
Krystal:I mean I'm I'm five, seven ish, and I loved that I still had to get on the step bar to get into this vehicle.
Doug:I was like I'm literally driving a monster truck and then be careful not to fall out right.
Krystal:Yes, yes, exactly, exactly so that was while my brother was driving that I was just salivating over like, oh my gosh, I cannot wait to get this truck. And then eventually, one day I don't even remember how the exchange went, other than my brother inherited the next truck when he went off to college, newer F-350.
Christian:Again, we were obsessed with these monster trucks which for gas mileage purposes made no sense whatsoever.
Krystal:but you know it was, it was affordable, I guess, for my dad just to write it off and hand it down to his kids. But yeah, but my brother inherited the other truck so I inherited his and I. I love that vehicle, but for a 16, 17-year-old to park in a high school parking lot, I mean I just had to just take my chances in the farthest I could go, because I was so terrified I was going to take out like four other vehicles trying to park anywhere close to the school. So I just, if I went to anywhere any stores, I was like no, I'm just going to park way out here where I won't damage any other vehicles.
Christian:I like how your father's fleet, your father's business fleet I can just see all these you know small business person with these trucks lined up and then you know, one gets bumped to the bottom of the depth chart and it just starts this cascade through the brother and sisterhood and it just kind of makes its way through you, uh, to you. I, I love that. That's great. Sorry, dog, you were gonna say something.
Doug:No, it's, it's funny. We're, you know, think about things that uh, spark memories. Um, this is a recent one, but I was at a monster truck show a couple weeks ago with my son and it was so much fun and, uh, just it's funny. My 83 year old mother who's still driving she drives pretty well, but not at night. We don't want her to. She's like I can't stand these monster trucks.
Doug:You know just any truck going down the road because they're so big and so high and everybody likes to deck them out and like mom, you should have come to the Monster Truck Jam with me. She would have.
Christian:Yeah, oh she would have loved it. Well, your mom is very petite and in her petite little Honda too, it's a Honda right yeah, Honda Accord yeah. I mean, all these things are just so much physically higher when I get into a sedan sedan, you're down here, and then an suv you're here, and then you're, you're in one of these.
Krystal:uh, f-150 253 50s, it's another, but if you're crystal, you're up here I'm well, there you go above everybody else. But the fun thing was and it's funny because, like you said, it's gonna spark to spark a bunch of memories. I remember I liked being the friend that, like everyone, wanted to ride with too, because I had the most room.
Doug:I mean.
Krystal:I had somebody. I had a friend that had an eclipse. I mean I don't remember what year that was Like. She had this little bitty. It was like a two door. I don't even know what model. That was Mitsubishi yes, that's what it was. It was an Eclipse.
Krystal:And she was like, oh, I can fit one other person whenever we're driving back to practice or going to school. And I was like I'm too tall, I can't get in the backpack of this without my knees being in my chest. And so when people would say, oh, you know, we're all just going to go and Crystal's car, I was like, okay, great Cause it was, it was a lot of fun to have that. And I remember this was like, you know, way back in the day, let's get real fancy for all all the young ones listening. It was that truck, because my previous one, the doo-doo Brown one, the very first one, didn't even have a tape deck. So I couldn't at that point in the nineties and early two thousands. You know the thing. The cool thing was you put the tape in that connected to your CD player external player and you put it in there.
Krystal:And so my first vehicle didn't have that, but my second one, the big mama truck, the big I don don't remember if we called her the big beast or big bertha, it was something big, but she did so we could listen to our tunes in there. It didn't have a cd player. It wasn't that fancy, but we had the tape. It's a work truck.
Christian:It's where these guys are fixing things with their hands. They're not like rocking out from job to job, they're sweating and thinking, and plus the music is distracting.
Doug:Right, music is definitely distracting.
Christian:It's a good distraction. So what happened to? Do? You remember what happened to that to the F-350, or were you on to more reasonable, less gigantic automobiles?
Krystal:So after that I did have an F-150 after that and that was because we were getting into the practicality of me going to college and I was going to be about four, four and a half hours away from home. So I guess the fuel prices were too high that my parents were finally like hey, let's consider something a little more economical.
Doug:Yeah, still a truck, yeah, exactly.
Krystal:So my freshman year, or it was my senior year of high school and into my freshman year Actually, no, I take that back, it was just my senior year of college I had three trucks all through high school. My last one was an F-150. And I'm so embarrassed to say this because now I'm like, oh my gosh, like the things that we did when we were 18. But the cool thing to do then, speaking of music, is I installed with my own money Because, again, the entrepreneur, my dad, was like I will absolutely not buy that for you, but you can pay for that yourself. I saved up my money for my birthday, christmas, everything, and I got a CD player and a subwoofer Nice. Now, just looking back, it's one of those things it's like, really, really, we did that, we did that. Oh, that was an accomplishment, but see, that was an accomplishment.
Christian:Now, to a generation that has a trillion songs in your pocket. That's no big deal, but to get inside of your two-ton jukebox it meant a lot I remember in my Buick Skyhawk in high school. I have not thought about this in so long, but I guess I was a junior or senior and I don't know if I worked for them. Where did the money come from? Maybe I robbed a bank? I don't know if I worked for them when did the money come from?
Doug:Maybe I robbed a bank? I don't know what that is.
Christian:But I had the nicest deck, tape deck. Yeah, it must have been a tape deck and it completely transformed the experience of just hauling people around and now it was just a party everywhere we went Right and you become more popular, kind of like how Crystal said and Crystal did you install the stereo yourself?
Krystal:Oh no no no, no, no, no. That's one of those things that was like we had limited means in my small town. So I was like, oh, I'm going to go to the big city. So I was like, oh, I'm going to go to the big city. I'm air quoting big city like 30 minutes away, because they have a specialty store that can you know, you can purchase, install, do everything in just a few hours. So that's that's. That was the route that I chose.
Doug:OK, nothing wrong with that.
Christian:So now, as we move forward, are we about ready to talk about the Swiss Army knife of automobiles, the Honda Odyssey Doug, or did we need to inject?
Doug:something else in here. No, no, no, I think talk about Crystal's current car right. Yes, the family car.
Christian:Let's talk about it. I want to hear all the great things about your Odyssey and then I'll say all the great things about my odyssey.
Krystal:Go ahead, we'll geek out on the odyssey so my black she, I love her she is my black beauty, and this is what we call her. We've had her. She's a 2014 and we she was new to us in 2016, so she had like 30 000, maybe 35 000 miles today in 2025.
Krystal:She's got 140. We just hit 140 000 and I mean I've never had, never had a honda before this. We had, as you heard, multiple Fords. I had two Ford Explorers before that too, and I just we were a Ford family. That's what we're going to drive. And then we I kind of mentioned this earlier, but we haven't talked much. I have three kids, so ages now today they're 15, 12, and nine, and so I needed a practical car, I need a practical mom car, and it has just been the best vehicle for road trips because, we drive.
Krystal:We live in Houston but we have family in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and in Austin and in West Texas. So I mean, sometimes a road trip is seven hours for us and we are able to do it comfortably with all of our stuff in this vehicle.
Krystal:So anytime we keep talking about. My husband and I were like, should we sell it? Should we get another one? It's like, yeah, maybe one day. Like she's got a crack in the windshield at the top, but it's above, like everything, I don't even care. Like she's got some stripped paint on the side, Like I mean, I don't care, I love her. She's ragged and she's you know she's seen better days.
Christian:We call it battle scars. Yes, exactly, exactly. Does yours have the lazy Susan down below? Or did they retire that in the old? In the newer models?
Krystal:Yeah, that sounds fancy.
Christian:Oh, I had a 2004 or 5. And right behind the driver and passenger, but before kind of the captain seat, there was this kind of secret compartment where you'd rip up the floor and there was a I'm not kidding. There was kind of this circular thing. Maybe it was two and a half feet in diameter or something like this. It was underneath the car but you could sort of spin it to get at different departments, compartments inside of there. It was a lazy-sues inside Odyssey. I don't remember that. Yeah, like you're saying, it's just a total swiss army knife. I remember when, when I got it with my, my former wife, I said, well, why do we need a car like this? You know the family was growing, ended up with three boys, but, um, it was just, uh, to be able to have enough space to, like you're saying, it's. It's not only the people, it's the stuff. So I could fit 25 bags of mulch in my whole family and once you got.
Christian:You know, I could fit. When I was redoing a kitchen I could just shove cabinet and take out all the seats and just shove a bunch of cabinets in there, you know, and I was like, oh wow, I get it I get it it.
Doug:And for a while you had dueling minivans, didn't you? You both had Honda Odysseys, I think. For a time we did. I don't know how or why that happened, but yeah, you loved it I did. You were a big fan.
Christian:Just a great car. Yeah, I've had a few Hondas in my day. I still have a beat up old Acura in the park. I was texting with my son. He got a new car last night and I was texting with him and he said do you still have that Acura? You kept the Acura. I said yeah.
Christian:He said my money's on the Acura my money's on that thing, just outlasting everything you got. It's the backup plan. It's always yeah, it just won't stop. It't won't stop, won't die. And hey, you know, just just just sticking around is so much of success in life, isn't?
Doug:it, yes, yes it really is.
Christian:It really is so. Uh, let's see, as we sort of, as we sort of guide the, the podcast here, to the off-ramp. Did we have anything else we wanted to discuss? D before we talked a little bit and had kind of a lightning critique of our podcast here from the Jedi, the guru herself.
Doug:Well, I just put Crystal on the spot and we did beforehand. What is your dream car or cars?
Krystal:Yes.
Doug:What's going to replace Black Beauty?
Krystal:Okay, so we have been looking at pilots, we've been looking at honda pilots for a while and it was a cousin of mine that got the newer, like whenever the body because you know, the bodies had several iterations over the last 10 years. I would say it's gone through several, you, you know, it's like square and round and square and I'm like it, just it. It's always looked appealing to me. And then recently I think it was like the 24 body style we really liked. And then just the other day we're walking our youngest son to the bus stop and we saw a Kia and I was like what is that? Because I saw it has sliding doors. I was like, is this a Kia minivan? This is gorgeous.
Krystal:And I am not like someone to stop, like I just don't really look at cars that much where I'm like, oh, that's great, unless it's something that we've talked about, like, oh, we should, you know, explore, looking at that. But I cannot for the life of me, remember what it was. But it's the Kia minivan and I think it's a newer model that they just came out with. I'm like I would go to, I would go look at that. I would absolutely go and look and see if it rivals because it was a little bit shorter than the Odyssey, but it looked like it had a lot of really cool features that were on it.
Krystal:So yeah, it's the Kia Carnival.
Doug:Yeah, go ahead. It's the. It's the Kia Carnival. One of my neighbors has one, and the nice thing maybe this is what you liked about it it doesn't look like a minivan. The doors blend in very well, Like you wouldn't think it's an SUV if you didn't have to look twice.
Krystal:Yeah, and I think that's why it caught my eyes, because I was like wait, those doors slide, Like what am I looking at what's happening here? And it was a few neighbors down, they have several kids and I was like, okay, so this is practical, it's practical. So if if we're talking about practical, practical dreams, then something like that. If we're talking about irrational and like just like what would you do?
Krystal:You want a million dollars tomorrow, like, what kind of car are you going to buy? I have always loved the Porsche Cayennes and watching them. It's, which is funny, cause I'm not someone that really likes to go fast, but also I kind of want to just go fast in that car, just to see what happens. Um, so that would be like if, if money wasn't an option and I could buy something tomorrow, that would be the one that I think I at least want to test drive, like let's, let's see what this is all about.
Doug:Yeah, my, our previous guests, dora, who lives in Austin, she bought a Cayenne. I think she bought the V8 Turbo. She drives like a maniac. Actually, we had Chris Oliver on, who's a friend of hers, on another episode and he's like, yeah, she drives faster than anybody I've ever met.
Krystal:Oh, my gosh yeah. So yeah, be careful with met oh my gosh yeah.
Christian:So, yeah, be careful with that, be careful with that. So yeah, so again, crystal. It's just been after hearing so many wonderful things about you over the past several months. Thank you for taking the time and before we let you go here, just remind everybody to check out Crystal's presences here. Just remind everybody to check out Crystal's presences. Crystalprofitcom crystal with a K profit with two Fs and I and two Ts com, and basically her podcast consulting business, has really allowed us to elevate or raise our game. So if this is something that you're into, please check her out and reach out. Very accessible, she's a podcast coach who helps strategize around content, which helped us out a lot, because creating content is really key in what it's all about. So, crystal, if you could I'm going to put you on the spot here If you could give us one thing that podcasts do well, and then one thing podcasts don't do well, and then if we could make it more local here. What's one thing our podcast is doing well and could improve upon? What do you think?
Krystal:Yeah.
Christian:Do it Crystal.
Krystal:I love all these questions and now we're like we're in my creative zone of genius.
Christian:So this is exciting.
Krystal:I think that For anybody that's listening, that's interested in podcasting, or if it's been something on your mind and you want to know kind of behind the scenes, listen. I've talked to thousands of podcasters. I've been doing this since 2018. We were talking earlier like I've done over 1400 episodes myself. I've interviewed hundreds of podcasters, so like this is literally what I eat, sleep and breathe, and I think that the thing that most podcasters struggle with is just keep going, just finding the ability to keep showing up, no matter, you know, if you get sick with the flu or you know like something else chaotic and crazy and your business is going weird or your day job is super hard. Like. Finding systems and processes that allow you to keep showing up has been the frustration, but also the key to just keep going is finding that balance and what that can look like for you. I think a big area for improvement for a lot of people is they focus so much on either the aesthetic or the quality of their audio, which is important. You should focus on that, but they don't spend as much time on the content or the strategy or how their podcast can play a bigger role in their business or in monetization, and that's the piece that I would encourage people to explore a lot sooner, because I think that a lot of people have it in their mind that until I get a million downloads, I can't do anything, and I'm like that's not true. It's not true at all. You can do so much with your podcast. And this is actually where I'm going to give a shout out to Doug, you know, for all the, all the implementation that he's done in showing up in our community and just learning and being very receptive to advice and suggestions and recommendations, because I think that that's something y'all are doing really well, even at the beginning of your show is having, you know, just advice on what we could do better, what can we incorporate and what are the next steps. And I think that the thing that y'all are already working on I mean we just kind of breezed over this, but from an outsider's perspective like you're having someone from Mazda come on your show really soon, like that's exciting, like that's really so I encourage you to celebrate those wins along the way, because they will keep coming if you just keep showing up.
Krystal:And so find a way as a team, or even as a community, to celebrate with your audience too, because I think that a lot of people create in a vacuum, where they're like I'm just talking to my audience, like we're just talking at you, talking at you, talking at you.
Krystal:But the moment you really ramp up that audience engagement which again I think y'all are doing an incredible job You're reading reviews, you're giving people shout outs in the show, you're saying you know, friend of the pod, you know, and you're calling people out by name, that really makes a big difference. So, as much as you can, engaging with your folks in your audience, because they're going to be the ones that tell you hey, this is the content we want to hear more of. Or y'all haven't covered this before and can you, can you talk about this? Or I have a great guest suggestion, or even I would love to come on the show, like, can we chat about my story? The more you just really lean into your audience and listen to your people, they're going to tell you what they want to hear and that's going to be the key to really unlocking those next levels of success in your show.
Christian:Great answer, great answer. And one thing that rings so true to me is that you have to keep putting stuff out. I'm one of these people. I get a paralysis by analysis, the perfect be the enemy of the good, and you can't do that. You just got to keep shipping. You just got to keep pushing it out the door, just keep pushing out the door. And the funny thing is is that we're light years better than we were at the beginning, and that's only by showing up. And you know, I'm, I'm uh, I'm good at process improvement, but Doug is very good at it. So it's always it's that that tinker, little bit of tinkering, get a little bit better. Man, get 1% better. Every show 1% better. All we got to be is 1% better. We got to be 50% better. Let's get 1% better this time. So that's beautiful. What do you think about all that, doug?
Doug:I think it's wonderful. No, I feel like we've gotten so much better and um as more polished, I hope. Um, yeah, getting better at editing. We've got a few short videos out.
Doug:Uh, I'm getting more comfortable being on video and uh doing things myself a little more and uh, you've, you've just been that great stable, like I remember we were a couple weeks in and'm like why aren't we getting downloads like so-and-so Well, they've been doing it longer. Right, they've been at it longer. They have a real name that people know. But we're getting there and we'll get there.
Doug:Yeah, we'll get there and, uh, we've, we've had some great you know, I think I think about James, andrew, a lot of other people. We've just had such great support and engagement. Yep, recently, james and Caroline from HH Wheels Like what a great family and very positive, very supportive.
Christian:Yeah, I love that and I'm so glad that Crystal mentioned polish, because you know, I took a shower about a month ago and it's made all the difference in the world. All right, she was Crystal Prophet, crystal again, just a total blast hanging out with you. Thank you for your time, your wisdom and we look forward to having you back at some point in the future.
Krystal:Thank you all so much for having me. This was a blast and, like I said, I love sharing these stories, so thank you for having me on.
Christian:Thank you had a great time. Yeah, go ahead, Doug.
Doug:No, no, thank you, crystal, can't thank you enough. I know I put you on the spot when I asked you to be on it, but you said, yes, too good, too good.
Christian:Well, thanks again. You have just revving low mileage late model heard around the world, yes, even in Australia. Welcome, welcome. Podcast on Automotive Nostalgia. He's Doug. Reach him at Doug at CarsLovecom. I'm Christian. Reach me at Christian at CarsLovecom. And she was Crystal the one and only. Please follow and tell a friend, Write a review if you feel so inclined. Check us out on Linktree L-I-N-K-T-R dot E-E slash Cars Love. I'm sure we'll see you at the next local car show, showroom, race trip and concourse. We appreciate you listening. We'll see you next time.
