Chamber Chat: Preserving Memories; Hoosier Photo Organizer

Thousands of priceless memories are sitting in boxes, drawers, old albums, and on forgotten devices. In this episode of Chamber Chat, we sit down with Jodi Bondi of Hoosier Photo Organizer to talk about preserving the moments that matter most.

Jodi shares practical tips for organizing printed and digital photos, preserving family history, and creating a system that makes your memories easy to find and enjoy. She also introduces helpful tools and resources that can simplify the process, no matter where you’re starting.

Beyond photo organization, this conversation is filled with thoughtful life advice about the importance of preserving your story for future generations.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Welcome to the Chamber Chat. We are very excited to hear. We are very excited today to have Jody Bombi with us. I'm excited to be here. Jody, tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Well, I'm originally from Michigan. Lived in Indiana now 38 years. So I guess we're hoosiers. But anyway, I love being outside, so I went into biology and then didn't get a job in that. So I ended up teaching. And I have a master's in natural health. And so I do a lot of that as well. And right now I I decided teaching wasn't for me anymore. And so I left and started two businesses. And so I've been doing that for about 13 years. I didn't know you were a teacher. Where were you a teacher? Uh well I started at Southmont and then I went to um DePaw. And then I went to Park Tudor. Then I went to Tri-West for a year, and then I was at Danville when I left.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Why didn't you know that?

SPEAKER_02 1:32

When were you at Anvil?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

In the early 2000s?

unknown 1:37

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

You probably were in a crib still.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

So you taught biology? I taught biology, earth science, ICP.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yes. Nice. I had no idea. I knew she was a teacher, just not at NAVO. Yeah. How interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

For for two or three years. Still counts. Yeah. It just, it just, that's it just got to the point that I'm like, yeah, this is not. I was done putting myself in other people's shoes to fit. I said, no, this is what I want to do. And I decided that it was not what I wanted to do anymore. So I still get to teach in my job that I do.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

And it's people who want to learn because they're paying me for it. So there you go. You also do EMT, correct? I am a trainer. So I became an EMT when I was in high school. Uh-huh. Because our closest hospital was an hour away. The good hospital was three hours away. Um, so I became an EMT in 1978, and I retired from North Salem Fire after 30 years, two years ago. Okay. But I'm still certified because I'm trying to get those next two years. I'm doing my last recertification right now so that I can say for myself that I've been an EMT for 50 years. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Wow. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Just, you know, those silly little random things that you want to check off the list. You grew up in one of my happy places.

unknown 3:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

You are a youper. Yes, I am. I am. She's a youper. And yes, there are hospitals are few and far between up there.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah, our closest one was in Sault Ste. Marie, so that was an hour. But if you had somebody with cardiac and things, we had to go to Potoski, which means you also had to cross the bridge. I mean, we didn't have to wait in the traffic line. We've got a pass to go around. Right. Um, it was it was a long ride. Yeah. That's a very long ride. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, so they really, you know, so I mean, what I loved about that, and and every time I've and every department or places I've worked with the EMS has been volunteer. So I've never gotten paid for it. Or did I did not want to get paid. I was doing it as a service for my friends, my family, and my community. And so when departments now have started to transition into paid staff, I'm like, no, I don't want to get paid. That's not why I'm doing this. And that was another reason that I decided it was time to it didn't it didn't match my values. And um, but up there, because we were so far away, we learned how to do a lot of stuff. I mean, back in those days, EMTs could put in IVs and stuff somewhere. And I was doing that stuff, and then they took it away, and you know, kind of like the drinking age was 18, and then they took it away, and then you had to start over again.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Actually, it's only for me at least 21.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Yeah, when did they change it from 18?

SPEAKER_01 4:33

In 1979. So I was in college. And you had to actually wait, wait, so you had you were. I was able to drink for a year and a half. And then they took it away. And I was an RA that year, so I had to then go tell people who were my age. You can't drink. And my roommate would try to bring it in the room, and I'm like, you got we cannot have alcohol in the room. As much as we both want it, I can't. I have to be a rule follower. And that and that's the case. I mean, I I do, if there's rules, I will follow them. Now, will I look for ways to be flexible with them? Some yes, I will. But I still, if there's a rule, I'm gonna follow it. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Okay, that is good of you.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Rule followers, okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

We like those people. Okay, so two businesses. Yeah. So which one do you want to talk about first?

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Um, so the one that most people don't know about, at least in this area, is my retreat house. So um when my oldest daughter was graduating high school, I decided I was gonna become a creative memories consultant because you know I didn't have anything else going on that day. I mean, it was that the day after open house, I signed my contract. And so I've been selling creative memories now since 2003. Um, and I do that because I need to get my pictures done, but I'm not real good at doing it, but I'm good at teaching other people. So there again, there's there's my teaching part that comes in. So um I sell creative memories, and I would go have retreats, and I would take people to hotels or different places, and it was so hard. And I'm like, I just want a place to call my own that I can do this. And so in 2014, I'd been looking for three years, and I found a house out in Ladoga in Montgomery County, and it was perfect. I mean, I go in with a tape measure to make sure I can get the right number of beds and tables and everything, and so I bought a house, um, and we've been running it, so I bought it in 2014 in August, and my first retreat was in September of 2014. So wow. Um, but it's it's a crafting retreat, uh girls' getaway retreat. People have had birthday parties there, and I have one family local in Ladoga that actually rents it for Christmas, so they don't have to clean their house, they come over there and have their Christmas and then they can leave. Um, so it's called the Montgomery of the Magnolia of Montgomery County. And the funny thing about that is the gal before me had all this the sticky stuff on the windows to cover up, you know, the windows so nobody could see in, and it's got magnolias on it. Okay, so as I was trying to come up with a name, came up with all kinds of weird things because my brain works like that. Anyway, um, it's in Montgomery County, okay. And my mom is from Mississippi, Montgomery County, and the state flower of Mississippi is the Magnolia. So the house is named after my mom and her sisters. Very nice. So, um, but I love it. I mean, people rent it for themselves. I do four retreats a year, and some of my my VIP clients come and scrapbook with me for the weekend. Some gals rent it now for a week, they're there from Sunday till Saturday, and they just come and love being there. So that's awesome. That's that's the one business that a lot of people don't know about um because I don't promote it as much in Hendricks County. I mean, I've got people that come from other states, even, but um, but then the business that I joined the chamber with is my Hoosier photo organizer. So, again, being a scrapbooking person in photos and stuff, just helping people, and we all have a mess. I mean, I am the cobbler, my stuff is not getting done because I'm helping everybody else. But um, so what I do is I help people with their printed photos, their videos, their movies, their audios, whatever they've got stored that their kids are going, I don't want that stuff. They will someday, and it's just like an insurance policy. You do it in plans of the future, not for right now. And so I help people get all of their stuff scanned to archival quality and stored, and then if they want it into books and things like that, and then get it in a safe place that they get rather than all those boxes, they get a flash drive or a hard drive that kids are like, I I can take that. So um I just I had a client that I worked with a year and a half ago that just reached out this weekend, and her brother just passed away. And she said, Can you look and figure out where those pictures are? And I got to looking, and unfortunately, the pictures of her brother, those ones had not been scanned yet because she was gonna do it herself. Okay, and it didn't happen yet. So those are the kinds of things that I I want to help people. I'm I'm it's still rescuing, just like EMS. I'm still rescuing people trying to help make things better for them. Um, it's just in a different way, but I love it.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

I know we talked about um my parents had all the eight millimeter movies that we did get put on DVDs, but you had said we need to get those off DVDs even because those are going away.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yes, I mean you can't find a device very often to read a DVD, and DVDs, even I mean, everything has a season. Oh, this is gonna be great, and then it's not. And so DVDs are starting to deteriorate. You know, VHS tapes are horrible. Um, the eight millimeter, actually, those last very long because back in the day there was high quality put into doing the vid the film and everything. So I if people have the eight millimeters, I'm like, let's just start from the beginning again because you're gonna get a better outcome than if we take the six things that you did in between. Right and you can do that. You can take the crazy. Yeah, so I love it. Um, I mean, I'm in my office almost all the time, which that part I don't love. I love to be up and doing stuff, but um, it's helping people, and that's that's where my heart has always been is to help somebody, and so I just do it, and one of these days I'll get my stuff done.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

I understand that. I understand that very, very well. Um, so if somebody I think one of the things that we talked about was an office that was moving at one time, and you said you could even like scan documents, not just photos for for businesses as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yes, a lot of a lot of my colleagues do just document scanning that they go in and work with businesses and scan all their history. I mean, I think about a doctor's office, and you go in and they had those, you know, six aisles of files and everything. Well, everything's going digital now, but so many businesses, small businesses, huge corporations, they don't do that because it takes time. And so we can go in and we can scan everything and you know, still put it in folders just like that, but they're digital folders, not real folders, and then that way they have you know room for a break area or you know, a movie lounge or whatever they want to put in their in their business. There you go. There you go. Movie lounge lounge theater seating and a great big TV. I'm off for that. Hey, a bar.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Well, that works too. Um, so if somebody, like, because I think about like my childhood photos are literally in baskets. So, what do they need to do to get organized to bring this stuff to you?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Well, a lot of it depends. So um, people can hire me to coach them. So I will sit and train them and tell them what to do and how to do things and give them tasks, kind of like the old training spaces show where people go in and you know, redo shows or houses. Um, I can work alongside them so I can give them some tasks and then I can come in and do the parts that they don't want to do, or they can just say, here, just take it. And so I literally had people bring in boxes that I'm like, okay. And sometimes you don't know what you're gonna find in those boxes. I always tell my clients because I've been in EMS so long, I always say, I still follow HIPAA, so anything I see, I am not gonna tell people what I saw and who it was attached to, but sometimes you see, I mean you're like, okay. Okay, you had that process.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

There was someone. You know, the old time, they used to have to watch the photos come through. I think, you know, CBS, it just pops out right, but it's all right.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Right. So, um, so I mean, they can go through and try to organize them into some kind of chronological or theme or whatever they want, but but that's so overwhelming. So when I'm working with a client, I tell them we have a three-second rule. As you're looking at the pictures, you have three seconds to decide which pile it's gonna go in. And it's like, and it's kind of like a Vegas dealer because I'll set up what I call parking lot spots and I'll say, all right, the pictures in the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, each one goes in the spot. And so you go, this goes here, and you just deal them out. Um, for some people, they can't do that because they go, Oh, but look at this picture, and it's well, and they go into an hour. I'm like, You just paid me for an hour of telling a story. So I tell them you got three seconds. A lot of them can't do that. So I say, then let me do it. And they're like, but you don't know people, and I'm like, Yeah, but I don't do it that way. I turn the pictures over, I don't look at the fronts, I look at the edges, I look at what's on the back, and I separate that way. Because that way I'm not tied emotionally to not that I knew anybody anyway, but I don't see that stuff. And then when I pick them up and turn them up, I'm like, oh yeah, look, these are all from the same date. And so there's little tricks like that that I can teach people, but a lot of people, again, don't want to do it themselves. They're like, I'd rather have somebody do it for me.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

And I'm like, okay, I can do that. It would take me quite literally a hundred years to go through. I love pictures. Yeah, so you still keep the actual hard copy, I still keep it the hardware. Like you give it back to them.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Right, because we tell we tell in the business we say there's a three, two, one backup, so you should have three copies of everything. And people are like, but I'm trying to downsize. Yes, I understand. So you have one hard copy and then two digital copies. And the two digital copies you want on different formats. So if it's on a DVD, then you also want it on a hard drive. If it's on, you know, you don't want it all in the same thing, and then one of those copies that you're saving should be off-site. And today that usually means a cloud. But it could be a hard drive in a safe deposit box or at somebody else's house where there are no natural disasters that ever occur. Good luck finding that place. So they still have the photo, and then they have two digital copies somehow. They have a copy, I give them a within their package, they get an external hard drive that's their photo hub, and that's where everything is at. But then I also keep a backup of everything, so what they brought in, all the mess that I have, and if they brought eight millimeter films, I have the original and then I have the converted, and I keep that on a backup. So once it leaves my house, they actually have three copies. They can make more if they want.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So I got one of my favorite gifts for my parents from you. So do you want to talk about that? I would love to.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

So it's it was a NYX play digital frame. Um, and I was introduced to these when I first became a photo manager, and I've been using them and selling them and working with the company as much as I can to make it work for us as photo managers. Um, so it is a Wi-Fi-enabled digital frame, and it has an app that you can have on your phone, and you can load pictures to it and email them, text them, and you can set up playlists and you can make an album, um, you can put captions on them, all these wonderful things. And I had actually gotten one from my parents who still lived in Michigan, and mom was always saying, Can you send us pictures of I'm like, Mom, I don't have time to send pictures of grandkids right now. So I got them this frame, and that way my girls could upload pictures, so I didn't have to get the pictures from the girls and then send them to my mom. And so everything would go into the frame. And if there was a problem, I owned the account, and so I could get on my computer and my phone and I could adjust her frame if it was doing something it wasn't supposed to. Um, then I bought my husband one for his birthday, and it's on the same account. So now the pictures go to both frames. So I and I do have a playlist that is just my mom's playlist from my sister, because my my brother-in-law hunts. I don't need kill coming up and the granddaughters seeing it going, what is that? Um, and then I have one of on our frame that's just my brother's or my husband's brothers and things. So, but you can put up to I think you can put up to five or ten frames on the same account. Oh, I didn't know that. And then you can assign the different playlists to those. And that's one of the things unique with the NYX play, is there's other frames out there that a lot of people will use now. The Nixplay is the only one that has playlists, and so you can go in and set up and say, I want these to go to these people and this one to go to that frame and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Oh, yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

That's good. Yeah, it's been really good.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah, and it does take some short videos too. Now, they did change in the last couple of years to a subscription basis, but it's still, I mean, I've I've got a gazillion pictures on there, and I still have not filled up my my storage, so I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Yeah, no, it's been great with mom and dad because mom will point out people and talk about who they are and that kind of a thing, just um, just just as reminders, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

So, with that, that's a great time if you're there when she's doing that to dig out your phone and record her talking about those people because one of these days we lose our parents and relatives' voices and to record those of her talking about something that she remembers. And if you're trying to work on that stuff later on in a family history and you're like, I don't remember, so that's a great time to pull out a phone and look at it. You're gonna make me cry. That makes me emotional. I don't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Okay, let's talk about the topic. New topic. New topic. I w I wish I would have recorded my dad the other night telling some stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he was it was a good day. Yeah, and he was, yeah. So, all right, so I know you have some emotional stories with things that you've done. Tell us like one that sticks out, or even like a crazy one, too.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah, you're like, I cannot believe. Well, okay, so I was I was trying to think about this, and you know, of course, not knowing what the questions were, even though I've watched you guys do this with other people. So, one of the things that people probably don't equate with me, um, I give myself the title of Trailblazer, and you're like, but you follow rules and stuff. Yeah. So I was the oldest daughter, so that makes sense. Um so, but and my dad could fix and build anything, and so I had to learn how to change the brakes on the car and stuff before I could get a car. My grandma did upholstery, so I helped her reupholster the seats in my car. So I did all these things, and so that's why when somebody says, Can you do it? I'm like, Yes, I can. And I'm like, you need to stop saying that. But um, when I was in high school, again, way back in the days, they didn't have um softball yet. Title IX had just passed. So in the school I went to with 41 kids in my class, um, there was no softball team for the girls, so I played varsity baseball. Wow, I didn't know and I I also ran track, so I was in track season and then we go to baseball, but I was a sprinter, so I would get up to bat, and after in the catch, we'd go, It's a girl. And so a lot of times they would walk me. Okay, I'm a sprinter, so then I would steal bases, yeah. Or they didn't know how to pitch to me, and so I mean I did get to hit the ball a few times, but the bad thing was I was the only girl in the conference, and when we'd go to Way Games, I had to already have my uniform on and sit in the front of the bus. Yeah, and the boys all got to change on the bus. There was a mirror over the bus driver on the way. So funny. So I played baseball. Um, I also, when I went to college then and did intramurals, I played hockey. So I was a center of the hockey team and um loved playing it. And then when I moved to Indianapolis, I took my girls to a Girl Scout thing downtown at Pan Am Plaza and saw there was a women's hockey team. So I joined a women's hockey team here in Indianapolis and I played hockey for several years here.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

And um miss it. But you know, it's you I don't skate like I used to. Um and then and then just starting my businesses. I mean, my my parents both had worked in jobs where they were supervisors and then they branched off. My mom had started a clothing store for a while, my dad started a tire repair business, and so I'm like, I'm I'm very much following in their sh shoes. Um, but you know, I just I like to do things that people say, you can't do that. I'm like, watch me. I love that. So um, you know, that's what as I as I get ready, so I'm getting to the point that I'm thinking I'm gonna retire because I need to work on my own pictures. And um and I wanna and I wanna go and you know, be able to just go sit at the lake and go to Lake Lake Superior is my place to be. Um and so as I'm thinking about that, I'm like, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna give up doing stuff. I just get to do new things.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

So yeah, yeah, that's not a bad thing. Yeah. All right, so if if people are watching and they're like, okay, I need to start somewhere, what is one place they need to start?

SPEAKER_01 22:26

The thing I would say first is get all of the pictures or whatever you've got out of attics, garages, and basements. Okay. So your your photos and memories want to live where you live. So I know that's hard for people, but get them out. And if you have anything in the sticky magnetic albums, get the pictures out of those. Um, you can take them out, put them in a shoebox or something chronologically, the way you took them out. But those sticky albums had chemicals that back in the day we did not know would eat your pictures away. And I don't mean the actual physical picture, but I we had pictures of my mom had some like that, and it was some pictures of us camping, and I go back and look now, and I'm like, that looks like mud because all the color and all the detail got drained out. So if you can get your pictures out of those albums, and then that also saves me having to take them out of albums if you decide to get them scanned by me or somewhere else. But um, and you know, I I take time, we I advertise white glove service because you're handing them to me, I'm working on them, you're not sending them off to some big box company that's advertised, you know, just has lots of money to advertise them. Like I can't compete against them, but I have your photos with me. So even this this year with all the storms that we've had in the tornado warnings, all of my clients' stuff went in the closet with me. My stuff's still sitting there, but my client's stuff all went in the closet to protect it in case we had a storm. There you go. Thank God I didn't, but yeah, it it did. I sat there with all their pictures going, oh hi peeps.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah, well. That's awesome. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Do you do photo restoration? I can do some, um, but I have a couple colleagues that do some, and and it I mean it's it's amazing the things they can do. Um, so yeah, I can I can work with other people to get that done. I can still be your point person as a project manager. My cousin has picked it up as a hobby. Okay. And I have to do that. A lot of it is is computer. I mean, it's a computer program, and AI is starting to do some of it. I try to stay away from AI stuff in my because I don't, it's it's not my stuff, it's client stuff, and I don't know what they want. Right. So I don't use AI for anything in my business because I don't want to expose my clients to something like that.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

I like that.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

You can keep going about your cousins or your cousins aren't doing it as a hot dog.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

No, it's it's been a we have a family page, and it's been absolutely um uh intriguing to me to see some of the pictures. And um, there's like one of my mom when she's like in this little little dress coat and little hat or whatever, and it's her dad, and then um with a snowman. And it is like one of my favorite photos ever. And so anyway, so I just think it's very cool.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

So and and for those pictures you take out of the sticky albums that are starting to fade or turn color, um, there's a real easy software program that I use that I do a lot of work with that. Okay, and and it helps bring people like, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize that was what color that dress was.

unknown 25:44

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

All right, so the one thing is just getting it, getting it out of the attic, yep, the basement, garage. Garage.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah, it humid and moisture are not good. So that's why we want to get it where your house inside your house.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

And a lot of people put it, you know, in a storage building. Again, those aren't the unless it's climate controlled and you know, you know there's no rodents and stuff like that. But put it where you live. Help let me let's get it to a smaller footprint so that you aren't taking up three bedrooms.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

I think that's great.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

My future daughter-in-law is gonna take care of it all for me.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

I love photos. Okay. I love them. That's my problem though, is like I just want to keep them all. Well, maybe you should also just flip in through.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Maybe you should come in and learn what I do, and then you know, when I retire, you could buy my business and you can be a photo. You know, and again, I've got rules and I know I should do that. I mean, I was a science person, I know how to pop up a lab report. Right. I don't always do that because I'm the boss and I do what I want. Very easy to do. Maybe that's something I'm gonna do what I want.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Very nice. Very nice. Okay. Um, anything else people should know about you before we just wraps it up? Um, wait, how do people find you?

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Oh, well, so I have a website, Who's Your Photo Organizer, and um you can email me info at who's your photo organizer.com. Um, I have a Facebook page. I have a Facebook page that I don't post to very often, but it's there. Every once in a while, I'll put a tidbit there. And again, that's I will not hound people. If somebody says, Hey, I want to I want to hire you, I'm like, okay. I wait for them to call me. I'm not calling them every two days going, hey, are you ready? Are you ready? This is a process, like you said, it's hard. How do you decide? So I am not gonna hound you. I've had people that have had my card for two years and then said, Hey, I found your card again. I'm like, Oh, okay, yeah, great. So um, that's how they find me. I'm I'm in North Salem, I work out of my house, um, but I can travel. I do have a traveling scanner that I can take and use. Um, oh, I just did a fun project. Um, this is my second one for one of the sororities at Purdue. They have all those huge composites on their walls that most of them don't have on the walls anymore, and they wanted them scanned. And so I just scanned 47 composites and got them now so on to a digital, and she gets to take those back to the house and they can do with whatever they want. But that way they can just do a slideshow like it on you know mom's weekend or yeah or the reunions and stuff, they just can put them on the TV and roll through them. Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yeah, so I mean, it's it's I mean, there's you know, don't tell me it can't be done, because that's I will find a way. Find a way. Sometimes it takes me a little longer, but I love finding a way. Trailblazer. There you go. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Okay, last question for you, unless you have something else you want to share. Nothing that I know of. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

I'm very complex, so it's hard to okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

So, what's one piece of advice, business advice or life advice that you want to share that you try to live by?

SPEAKER_01 29:03

So, this was something that in the last six or seven years that I really learned when I went through. I mean, I'd started my businesses, being the oldest daughter, all those things. I was always trying to please everybody else. Jody's name was never on the list. And I finally realized that I have to follow my beliefs, my heart, my values. And if it doesn't align with somebody else, okay, and not feel bad about it. And since that time, I have walked away from some things that I really thought I wanted to be in, and I'm like, nope, this is not it. I'm done catering to everybody else when it comes to my life and my values. And in this business, sometimes that's hard to do because I'm trying to help them meet them where they are. So I'll pivot a little bit and then they come back and go, Oh, now I see why you said we should have. I'm like, yeah, but you know, I wasn't gonna be, I wasn't gonna be bossy and say, nope, this is how you have to do it. Yeah. Because I've had other people do that to me my whole life.

SPEAKER_03 30:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

And so now I am very much true to myself. Sometimes that gets me in trouble too, but that's okay. So follow your heart, follow your head, and don't feel like you have to answer yes to everybody that asks something.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Love that. That's really good.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

I think there's a big value in the word no. And I'm not good at it. I'm not either. I have a my husband bought me that says no because I'm not good at it. But I think there's a lot of value in the Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

I mean, I've always been I've always been a helper. What can I do to help? What can I do to fix it? I can't fix everything, but I can fix me. Yep. So that's what I've been working on. That's good. Great.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

I love it. Yeah thank you for coming on. Well, thank you very much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

I'm excited. Yeah. So Jocelyn can come out sometime.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

I'm I'm actually going to because I well, but you can come out and I can show you.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

I can show you how we do things. Yeah, that'd be great. And you can start with a little project.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Let's get that going. All right. You said say no. Yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Okay. Thank you. All right, thank you.