20 Years of Lessons Learned from the MayeCreate Team

Monica Pitts 0:00 Uh, so here's the thing, when mayecreate started in 2005 most of the people on our team, excluding myself, weren't anywhere near part of the story yet. They were doing something completely different. And some of them like weren't, weren't even on this plane of existence yet, which is kind of fun to think of, right? But some have definitely stuck with mayecreate for the long haul. So I wanted to go around and have everyone introduce themselves and tell you how long they've been with mayecreate and where they were when I first started on this crazy Jersey journey. So I started mayecreate when I was 25 I was dating this crazy guy named Mike, who's now my husband, who was continually trying to convince me that I was his girlfriend and I was refusing. I spent a lot of time drunk on the river, and I really, really hated my job, which is what spurred me to start mayecreate and then Stacy came in next. So Stacy Brockmeier 0:55 I was 18 years old, 20 years ago, and I was, you know, in that summer between high school and college, living my best summer life, I was showing cattle, doing a lot of back roading. So while Monica was on the river, I was in a on a random back road in northeast Missouri. And then I started the I started mayecreate in February of 2011 actually Valentine's Day of 2011 Kerra Hatcher 1:30 and I'm Kerra. I have been with the company for five years now, and in oh five. I was graduating high school. I was also 18, although I did not know Stacy yet, and I was also transitioning to college, but I was in Tennessee, in the Nashville area, and just living my best life, hanging out with friends and doing all the things that an 18 year old does the summer between graduation and college, and was looking forward to college in East Tennessee. Tyler Ernst 2:15 I'm Tyler. I was a little bit younger. I 20 years ago, I was 15, a sophomore in high school. I was either I had basically all my time was either in the wrestling room, the art room or the band room. That's basically all I was doing. And if I wasn't doing that, I was at Scout camp or I was playing guitar. So like, that was the entirety of my time as music or art or throwing people around that was about it so. But I've been with mayecreate since July 9 of 2012 so I'm going on 13 years now, which is a wild statement, but you know, it's been fun. It's a good time. Rebecca Thomas 2:59 Hey, I'm Rebecca. 20 years ago, I was 11. I was a literal child, and unfortunately or fortunately, I have not changed very much. I'm the same height. I have the same stuffed animals on my bed, and I have the same bedtime Monica and Stacy took a big risk or not a big risk. I'm still here in hiring me in November of 2015 I found the evidence of my actual start date. So I've been with mayecreate for nine years and nine months. Monica Pitts 3:36 She holds the award of most awkward interview. I walked out of the interview, and I said that was so fabulous and awkward that we are hiring this girl. And Stacey was like, sounds good, and she's been with us ever since. Tyler Ernst 3:50 Welcome to MayeCreate culture. Stacy Brockmeier 3:51 What what's super funny is she started as an intern, and then she became our secret full time employee, and then she became a real full time employee, and she's been here forever. Andrea Plain 4:07 Alright, Hi, I'm Andrea. Um, back in 2005 I was landing somewhere between Stacy and Kerra and Tyler in my junior year of high school, doing all the high school things I was all about my friends and the latest and greatest movies going on, and you know what I was wearing, and all those things, all the high school things I've been with mayecreate now almost a year, Coming up in September, so loving every bit of it, Kaitlyn Genereux 4:46 alright? And I am Kaitlyn, um, I have been with mayecreate for a year and a half, almost exactly. And when I back in 2005 when mayecreate was started, I was 12 years old, so I was a really cool middle schooler. I loved online shopping. Shout out to Hollister and American Eagle. They sponsored all of my clothes for school. And then I was all about watching music videos around the clock on VH1, recording them onto a VHS. So I had a playlist for later, and then creating mixed CDs. I would do it for all my friends. If anybody remembers limewire and bearshare , alright, and I'll pass it off to someone who definitely does not remember Limewire and bear. Share, Claire Bennett 5:28 hi everybody. I'm Claire. I've been at MayeCreate for just a little bit over a year now, and 20 years ago, I was freshly one years old, still running around in a diaper, terrorizing my sister and other kids at daycare and probably telling my mom and dad No So, Brittney Harper 5:49 alright, I'm Brittany. Um, I am the newest mayecreator. I've been here officially two months, and in 2005 when mayecreate was started. I was a nine year old who loves school? Love learning everything that I could living in a small town that I live in today, Centralia, and I was super into 4h so working with our animals, and trying all the new projects, trying my hand at all things like sewing and cooking and all the things. So, yeah, Monica Pitts 6:18 okay, so now that you know who you're hearing from. I want to get to the good stuff, because we promised you that we would share our lessons learned. So our first lesson learned is probably the hardest one to hear, but it's absolutely essential. You need to get uncomfortable, because that's where growth happens. Rebecca Thomas 6:37 Talking about being uncomfortable, I am one of the most anxious you probably have on the team, and the biggest lesson I've learned since being here is that there is nothing that is impossible, just things you haven't learned how to do yet. We had a meme Post recently, and mine was, don't worry. I just need to panic. I can probably do Tyler Ernst 7:06 this. So how we handle things we haven't done before? We'll figure it out. It's fine, yeah, well, and Monica Pitts 7:13 Rebecca actually handles most of our emergencies too. Surprisingly, Rebecca Thomas 7:17 I enjoy it a lot. Stacy Brockmeier 7:19 If we are going to change something for Rebecca. We often let her know, like when we very first made the decision, but we're not anywhere near implementing yet. Give her a heads up warning. Tyler Ernst 7:35 So then my lesson is, whatever you're doing, lean into it fully. Don't half ass anything, just full out when you can full ass. Something like, if you're going to do something, put everything into it. And that has carried through a lot of things. But like, when I started wrestling, I was not good. Like, like everyone I start wrestling, but if you become a little bit obsessed about things, and you do it all the time, eventually you're gonna get good at something. So like I mentioned, 20 years ago, I was 15, I just started playing guitar. I when I say that when I wasn't doing the other things I was playing guitar, I mean, I mean that I wasn't sleeping. I just was constantly, constantly doing the thing and it it. If you carry that through the rest of things in your life, you can you get good at things. That's just how it works. If you put more time into things, you get good at them. So if you're going to do something, you might as well do Monica Pitts 8:34 it. So for me, it took me a long time to learn this one, but don't listen to them, whoever they are those theirs. Um, listen to your gut. So listen to yourself, and especially when I started, mayecreate in 2005 like you weren't allowed to wear a nose ring to an interview, let alone have a tattoo that showed right? And then all the men stood up on stage, and they were like, You need to grow your business fast. You need to work more hours. You don't need to sleep, you need to do all these things. And I was like, oh, that sounds like horrible. And you know what? I tried that for quite a few years, until I had kids, and then I was like, Yeah, this really doesn't work for me. And there were many years where Stacey and I were like, grow or not grow. And we'd be like, not grow, not grow this year. We just want to maintain. We just want to get through this year so that way we can live next year happier, and so we don't need to listen to them. You can do it your own way, and your own way is perfectly fine if your gut says it's fine. Now, if your gut is exploding that after a few days, it's probably not the right way, but if your tummy hurts a little bit, you're probably Stacy Brockmeier 9:41 doing it right, bucking the system makes you feel uncomfortable that usually that's where the growth comes. Yeah. So a lot of times we've ignored society what they say we should do. Tyler Ernst 9:54 We do that a lot, actually. Thank God. Yeah. And, oh, sorry I it like on that note of ignoring what people say you should do, people think it's wild when I tell them, we work four day work weeks. I'm like, Yeah, well, we need to get all of our work done, and it's nice. So like, what do you want? You Stacy Brockmeier 10:16 know, we actually get more done with less people in less time, Tyler Ernst 10:22 we're also like we had remote workers- me -way before people were doing it in 2014 so worked out. Andrea Plain 10:32 So true. And my lesson that kind of goes along the lines of get uncomfortable is brought to you by Dr Seuss, those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind. So that's just a lesson that I've had to learn over time, where you know once you kind of find who you are and who your people are, and you really can flourish and you can grow. And it's hard getting to that point, because you spend a lot of time worrying about what others think and that sort of thing. But it's really amazing when you get to a place where you're like, Yeah, I love me for who I am, and others do too. Monica Pitts 11:14 So these lessons are all about learning to trust yourself and dive in even when it's hard or awkward, because sometimes it's awkward and sometimes your tummy hurts a little bit, but that's where all the magic happens. We all agree that doing something uncomfortable is not it's not bad, and it's not even all out of our culture. But what brings us to lesson number two is one of the real magics of mayecreate is trust your team. You don't have to do it alone. And like, just a reminder, like, I did not write these lessons. The team contributed these lessons. And this particular lesson really, like, hit home for me, because it took me back to 2008 Monica, transitioning from being a designer slash salesperson to having to figure out how to manage employees. So I enrolled myself in a management class that I stayed in for years, and before I was allowed to join the group activities, I had to write down I trust my team 10 times. Yeah, someone was a control freak. I don't know who she is, but it was someone that was in the room and having to write it down. He it down, um, because My trainer was trying to teach me that I that to run a successful business, you don't have to do it alone, and, in fact, you probably shouldn't. And I definitely feel like that shines through still in our culture today. Kaitlyn Genereux 12:38 I am definitely a chronic DOER of everything myself and so mayecreate, has really helped to teach me this big lesson, which is, you don't have to do everything yourself. You don't have to know how to do everything, and even if you know how, you still don't have to be the one to do it. Lean on your team and trust them in their areas of expertise. And this has been a hard fought lesson for me over years and years before I ever came to mayecreate and actually being on this team of competent, smart, trustworthy people is what has taught me this lesson in reality, and now kind of taking that into my personal life, where surround yourself with people that you can trust and rely on, has made such a huge difference, And I love the team we have here at MayeCreate for that. Monica Pitts 13:25 Kara, you have a really good way that you described the team like a few years ago. Kira comes from an education background. What? How did you say it? Kara, Kerra Hatcher 13:38 we so it was such a weird introduction to like the business world, because we're so unique in the sense that everybody has their own job. I mean, there's a designer, there's an account service person, there's someone who's running security, and I wouldn't know how to do any of these people's jobs. I'm, you know, front office manager, you know, give me an invoice, and I'll tell you what to do with it. But it was really cool, because even though we all have these separate jobs, it created, well, I said everyone's like, the arms and legs, but we can't function without all being together, and it just creates this moving, flowing body that just works together. And so everyone's got, like, their their own appendages, but we're all connected somehow, and then you're able to just function as one team, one, you know, body moving together. It was just really cool to see that, because coming from education, we're all doing pretty much the same job. You know, essentially you've got a building full of teachers. So, so yeah, that was really neat to see how people come together. Monica Pitts 14:59 Yeah, so we're like an octopus, and Stacy can be our head, and the rest of us can just be a tentacle. Exactly. Tyler Ernst 15:08 You say that about you couldn't do anyone else. You couldn't do the other jobs. Money gives me heartburn. So like, the fact that I A, don't know how to do billing, and you take care of it, and B, you take care of it. I don't have to look at it amazing. That's the best thing ever, yeah, Kerra Hatcher 15:23 but you know, no one ever, I will say, even though everyone kind of has their own functioning appendage, no one is ever like, well, that's not what I do. That's one thing that's really cool, because you would be willing to do it if you had to do it. Tyler Ernst 15:38 Oh, yeah, I would be. It would give me heartburn. I wouldn't be super pleasant to be around, but I do it. Brittney Harper 15:49 So going along those lines, I feel like I don't know. The lesson I've learned is that the greatest team can accomplish all things. And so essentially, like we're working in sync together, not against us, and that just makes everything go a million miles further than what it could if we were working against each other. And MayeCreate has the best team, nice, Rebecca Thomas 16:12 kind of wrapping all that up in like one sentence, the lesson that I've really learned as a chronically independent person, which many of the people on this team are. We get things done by ourselves in our home life like we rely on ourselves, but as we all learned by coming together, a good team will take you farther than you will ever dream, both in life and in like the workspace. And I mean we I listen to other people from other companies talk about their co workers, and they leave their co workers at the door of the office, and they never speak to them. But, I mean, I don't like saying it, because it can be, it can be very toxic to say, my job is my family. But that is true for mayecreate that like, that's not fluffy language, mayecreates family, period. Monica Pitts 17:09 So we're, yeah, we have our hearts. Kaitlyn Genereux 17:13 We all have to hold up our different kind of hearts. How you know where we were 20 years ago? Yes, the finger, heart, the hand, heart, the thumb, heart, the thumb. I don't ever Rebecca Tyler Ernst 17:27 and I are in a constant state of seeing each other memes. So, Monica Pitts 17:33 so we're not about doing it all, we're about doing it together, which is awesome, but we also have this thing, like a sickness, about how we need to work efficiently and effectively, like for real, it's it's like we all came down with the same flu, and it's working smarter, not harder. So we need to have number three. Our number three takeaway is that preparation and process matter and that ours is not it's not immovable. It doesn't stay stagnant, like we're not afraid to change it if it's not working, even if it's been ours for a really long time. So yeah, Claire Bennett 18:20 yeah, I think one of the biggest life lessons that I've had to learn are the five Ps. Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. And growing up, I was like, really irresponsible, unorganized all the time for getting, like, my cleats to practice or my Viola to Viola lessons, and my dad would always get really angry at me. And Claire, do you remember your five Ps? And so I think when you're properly prepared, you're more likely to succeed. You avoid mistakes, stress, and overall, like subpar results. So always remember your five piece. Kaitlyn Genereux 19:01 I had never heard that before, but I really needed that to be written on my wall in many places. It's a hard fought lesson I've had as well. For me, I think we focus a lot on efficiency, but a lot of people fail to look at the very beginning of the process when we're talking about efficiency, thinking about, how can we make ourselves more efficient and better at something when we don't think about planning? And my big lesson that I've learned really here at mayecreate and in general, is that process does matter, but a bigger thing is starting early and planning ahead. So anything can be accomplished with a well documented plan, and it can and consistent team communication. So taking those few minutes to look ahead and document the plan think through potential obstacles, it saves so much time and confusion, and our team is so much more often able to succeed more quickly, because we started with a really good, effective plan. Monica Pitts 19:59 And. Then we can edit as it goes along, because sometimes it's unexpected and it's okay. So for me, my preparation and process is a little bit about bailing early, like fail fast and fail forward. You don't have to polish a turd. You can just save as and move on from it. So, like, I can have a great plan, and I draw out all my sketches for a design, and I know just what I'm doing. I got a color palette. I know my fonts, and like, woo, woo. I'm going to make something great. And then I get in there, and I'm like, This is so ugly, and I can't make it good. And when I started my design career, I had an art director that I was like, What do you think I can do with this? And she was like, you can't save it. You're polishing a turd, just start over. That was great, great words of advice. Stacy Brockmeier 20:50 So for me, preparation and process is super interesting, because when I started at mayecreate, my predecessor was incredibly intelligent, and she could remember all the things and keep track of it all in her head. And I had exactly, exactly zero experience with web design or business, because I was a teacher like so many of us were. And so I learned very, very quickly that spreadsheets are awesome, and I learned how to write all kinds of formulas so that I could keep track of all of the things and know who had been billed and who hadn't been billed, and how our business business goals needed to align, and how this number factored into that number. So spreadsheets are awesome. They can help you really manage a company. Monica Pitts 21:44 So usually around here, when things go sideways, it's because either a plan didn't exist, it didn't get followed, or there was just something that we couldn't expect that just smashed us in the face that day. Because that happens, right and that those are all things that we take forward with us, but even with the best plans, you still need to be smart about how you execute them. So Stacy's spreadsheets helped us so much in the beginning, but even as we outgrew those spreadsheets, we had to find new ways to still get our work done efficiency or efficiently, which leads us to something that we've all had to learn, sometimes the hard way, which is work smarter, not harder. And we swung into this idea first when we bought out our former business partners and started with $0 in the bank in 2016 we were like, how can we do this? Like, how can we meet payroll? And hey? Like, spoiler alert, we did. We made, we made payroll that first month, um, but then we ratcheted it up in full force in 2023 when we transitioned to a four day work week. And, Cara, I know that in your role, you do so many, like, little processes all the time. So, Kerra Hatcher 23:01 yeah, yeah. I feel like it was such a novel idea that it shouldn't take me two hours to do something. And I hesitated at first when it would take me a long time, because I thought I was just learning and some of that was a learning curve, but when I'd mentioned it to Stacy, she's like, No, no, no, no, no, it should not take you two hours. There's gotta be a better way. Let me look into it, or, you know, there's an extension for that, or there, you know, and there was just always this amazing solution. And now that's one of the first things I do when something is just taking forever and is a really slow process, or doesn't seem efficient or doesn't give us the information we were seeking. It's always how can I make it better? And so the constant evolving of the processes and working smarter and more efficiently, that is something that I am so grateful that our company is so good at and quick to do. Andrea Plain 24:05 I was just going to say, I love how everybody has that mindset of like, there is a better way. And it's always easy to reach out to somebody else and just say, hey, how would you do this? Or do you have any ideas like, everybody's this wonderful idea factory for coming up with amazing, creative solutions. And I love that Monica Pitts 24:28 someone knows a short code. Someone knows it. Stacy Brockmeier 24:33 Tyler doesn't even use a mouse. He just keyboards everything. Tyler Ernst 24:38 There were times when I first started, because I've always been a short code fiend. Or Monica would walk in while I was working in Illustrator, and she goes, what'd you just do? Like, what do you mean? She's like, you just use like, five tools. I'm like, yeah. She's like, you didn't touch a tool bar. What are you talking about? Monica Pitts 24:56 Like, I don't know. I like them. Someday you will feel. Train me on Illustrator someday. Kaitlyn Genereux 25:04 I am definitely always like, did you know you could do that with a keyboard shortcut? Poor Brittany has to hear me say that all day. I'm so annoying about it, but I love our focus on working smarter and being efficient and finding a better way. But I do think it's important. And this is something I've heard Monica and Stacy talk a lot about over the 20 years, where mayecreate has grown, where we've had to decide not to pursue certain types of business, not to do certain types of tasks, realizing what we are really good at, web design, building websites. And so my big lesson, and this is a life lesson as well as here it mayecreate, is that not everything is deserving of your time, energy or attention, so it is okay to say no, and is it, it is okay to evaluate the merit of that idea and say, Huh, this idea is going to take me 100 hours of work, and actually, I'm going to get basically no payoff out of it. I don't know if it's boons for that. And so that's been a big lesson, and I think it's something that we do really well. We evaluate something and determine is this actually going to have the impact we want it to before we proceed and just do a bunch of work. So that's that planning step, too, thinking in advance and realizing if it makes sense for us, Monica Pitts 26:20 and that kind of rolls really nicely into our like, fifth takeaway or lesson learned like, because through the course of me create like, at the very beginning I'm like, I will wear my nose ring, and if you don't like it, you can just not hire me. And then at one point I was like, I will have purple hair, and if you don't like it once again, you can just not hire me. And then one day, we looked at each other, and we're like, why are we all dressing up to work? This is stupid. We're going to wear T shirts. This is like, we're moving on from like suits. So Tyler Ernst 26:52 I want to point out, when I first started, it was like, You need to have a button down shirt, and probably Jeans. Jeans are okay, and that's cool. All right. Cool. I bought like, two button on shirts, and I was like, I don't really wear button on shirts. I just progressively started wearing T shirts, and no one said anything. And eventually it just became a thing, like we didn't worry about it. So maybe Monica Pitts 27:14 your response, thank you, Tyler transition. Stacy Brockmeier 27:17 And then Monica and I got rid of all of our dress pants to the point that I don't think either one of us owns a single pair of dress pants in our entire closet at this time. Monica Pitts 27:27 Nope. My husband said, Honey, if you need a suit and that something that important is happening in your life, then you deserve a new one. Just take all these from like 2000 to the goodwill and walk away from Rebecca Thomas 27:42 them. I do remember, I think, late in my internship, you were hiring someone, and you were giving them the rundown of the dress code. And this is about the time where you guys started transitioning, I think, probably 1112, years into the business, and I look down at myself and I'm breaking eight different ones that you listed off, and I'm like, It's fine. Tyler Ernst 28:09 It's fine. Everything's fine. I Monica Pitts 28:11 mean, but your your boobs and your belly button and your butt were covered. Rebecca, Rebecca Thomas 28:15 we were appropriate. But also I had holes in my jeans up to my tops of my thighs, so as Monica Pitts 28:23 a matter of fashion. So be honest and be you. And if you even read our website, you're going to see that it like I remember when we changed our marketing message. I read it one day, and I was like, ew, who are these people? And then I told Stacy that we were going to incorporate all these funny things that we say around the office into our marketing and she's like, I don't know if I can handle this. And she's like, I don't know the color it drained from her face. She's like, I'm so nervous. And I'm like, Well, if it doesn't hurt your tummy a little bit, we're probably not doing Tyler Ernst 28:53 it right. Monica and I are like, here's a layout with a giant pile of poop on it. What do you think it was an emoji. And we're Monica Pitts 29:01 like, it'll be great. Don't worry about it. It was a poop emoji. It was an actual poop Tyler Ernst 29:07 Well, yeah, it was, it was an icon, but Kerra Hatcher 29:10 Well, mayecreates really good at being, being ourselves and being honest. And like you said, you can see that in the website. And when I went to the website to see what I was applying for for a job, I was like, Oh my gosh, these people are awesome. And I think that's really great. Stacy Brockmeier 29:29 I think for me, it took me a very long time to figure out who I was, and then I then to be okay with it, because I grew up in a time where, I mean, like it was before this, like little bit like edgy women doing what they want, kind of thing that goes on now. And so I thought that I was supposed to be this, like sweet loving, like motherly person, like, just really, like soft spoken, and all these things. Things and well, you've heard me on this podcast. I'm not that, and I was never meant to be that, but that's what like society don't listen to them taught me was that I needed to try to be somebody that I wasn't. So my one of my life lessons is, don't try to be someone that you aren't, the sooner you accept yourself, the happier you'll be. Claire Bennett 30:25 Yeah, and I think accepting yourself is really important when it comes to like design decisions as well. Because I think imposter syndrome is is loud, but good design is way louder. When I first started, Monica and Stacy will remember this, I was here until eight o'clock one night building my first pages, and I just kept deleting my work over and over again. And so they they pulled me into a meeting, and they're like, are you okay? Like, why were you here so late? And I'm like, I just hate everything that I'm doing, but I've, like, slowly had to learn to trust your gut. You make a design and your work is good. So that's my biggest mayecreate Monica Pitts 31:12 lesson. It's because you do make great design, and we're really proud of everything that you make, that we get to put our name at the bottom Stacy Brockmeier 31:19 of you do beautiful, yeah. Thank you. Rebecca Thomas 31:22 Something that I recently read Claire that could be helpful with imposter syndrome. Just remember that everyone else also has it, and you deserve a stake in the scam. Claire Bennett 31:37 I will remember that Rebecca, Stacy Brockmeier 31:41 I think one of the really cool team things about our team is that we embrace this thing, that we're all humans, and we make mistakes, and it's okay to make mistakes, as long as you own up to your mistake and you fix it. And so making mistakes, even when it's like a client facing mistake can earn you trust in a way that nothing else can. And so if you mess it up, how you handle that is really, really important. So always owning up to your mistakes and creating trust that you can't earn in any other way. Tyler Ernst 32:18 And that's a really hard thing to teach people, especially when they come from a different background and start working for us. Like, it's it's hard to teach like, hey, it's fine. I know you didn't intentionally mess this up. It happens. And like, like, Stacy said, the trust with trust, even with clients I've gotten on meetings where, like, genuinely, I just, I messed up, I forgot a check box, you know, sort of thing, and threw a couple things off. And, you know, I'm eating, and I'm like, Hey, man, I fixed it. Here's what happened, my bad, you know, and that nine times out of 10, as long as they're not awful, which, like, we don't really work with awful people, if we can help it. So nine times out of 10, they're like, all right, you know, it happens. We'll fix it sucks, but you know, we're here. We fixed it. We're good, and that's the end of it. You know, Monica Pitts 33:10 agreed, agreed. I have confidence isn't pretending that you know everything. It's like showing up and learning as you go. And I actually love that now in my role as part of the team, because they'll be like, Well, do you know when my first payment is due? And I'm like, I'm going to have to talk to Kara about that. And then they'll be like, well, when is this other thing due? And I'm like, Oh, I'm going to have to talk to Caitlin about that. They're like, Well, can I do this with my program? I'm like, Tyler, I make things pretty and purposeful. Tyler Ernst 33:43 That's like half of the like ending of the rough meetings is all right. Well, what does this thing do? And I go, you'll get a follow up email from your project manager. I will have your date on it. Monica Pitts 33:55 So that brings us to our last and maybe the most important lesson that we've learned along the way is that we need to celebrate our people and have fun along the way in this journey. Brittney Harper 34:10 So I once heard that when you think about some of your favorite people that you miss the most, whether it's somebody who's passed or maybe somebody who just their path and your path have just gone a different way, or whatever that might be, while staying true to yourself. Work hard to exhibit the reasons that you love them and your favorite qualities about them while staying true to who you are, but just I don't know, think about the reasons that you love people and focus on those qualities. Monica Pitts 34:38 I so when one of my rotary members passed away. His name was Jim, and when I started in the group, I was young, like, in Yeah, hadn't even had kids yet, so, like, mid to late 20s. And he, like, took me under his wing, and he would sit me next to him, and he would listen to my marketing stories. And he was a marketer, like, of another generation. And so when he passed away. I had this post it note that I put on my monitor for the longest time that was like, I will I will see people like Jim. I will listen to people like Jim, and I will smile like Jim. And it was like on my monitor because I was like, I want to embody this human being that like was so kind to such a young human. Then not in a weird way, but like in a really cool mentoring kind of way. So that's a great one. Tyler Ernst 35:26 There's a there's a guy that Chrissy and I started lifting with before we got into power lifting, who got us into powerlifting. He taught a strongman class at the community center, and I always say he's such a great dude that he makes you want to be a better person. Like those kind of people are really important. But that's not even segue into my own lesson. But my my own lesson for this one is something that I always try to remember, is we make art for a living, and not many people get to say that. So like, it's hard to be upset or not have fun when you make pretty pictures for a living. Like, legitimately, that's just something that I always try to remember. And I used to say this whenever I started MayeCreate. But like, I try not to get too stressed out about anything, only because, like, when I started, my wife was a nurse. She still is a nurse, but she's more in nurse. It now. But anyway, she was a nurse, and I was like, you know, if she messes up, like someone dies, and if I mess up, the absolute worst case scenario is I have to rebuild an entire website, which, yeah, that sucks, but at the same time, like, make pretty pictures for a living, like, it'll be okay, you Monica Pitts 36:42 know, we'll be fine. Yeah, we're lucky. Kaitlyn Genereux 36:46 That sentiment has definitely helped me when I'm feeling stressed by a project, like remembering that this is not life or death, and we're all here for each other, and we it's not life or death, it's it's a website, and we're here to have fun, and our clients are also just people, too, and that like you teaching me that lesson has helped a lot here Tyler Monica Pitts 37:07 and we actually made a decision a long time ago that we weren't going to take on clients where they had a life or death website, because that's not one of our values. And it didn't. It just wouldn't fit in. Because they're they would ask questions like, Well, who am I going to call at two o'clock in the morning if I need somebody? And I'm like, Yeah, we're not going, sorry, we can't we can't really be friends. If that's when you think you're going to be calling me, because my phone's on silent mode. It's on, do not disturb brother. Andrea Plain 37:42 Um, and then a lesson that kind of goes along with us, kind of having celebrating people and having fun along the way. That I've learned is that I learned something new each day with this group of people. I mean, we say that a lot as former educators, obviously, we have a love of learning, and that's just that's normal for teachers, but like, we literally have a group of people who are always ready to learn new ways of doing things, and that's, I think that's so amazing. And everyone has an open mind about learning a new way to do something, and that's so important for growth and understanding, Monica Pitts 38:27 but it makes our jobs fun too, because things are continually changing. There's a lot of places where you work and it basically stays, stays the same, like you might have a weekly special, but that's the only different piece of your day. And I think that since all of us love a challenge, it makes a lot of sense that we I mean, while it's in convenient, when Google keeps changing things, let's not be I'm not saying that it's not inconvenient, but we we embrace the challenge, and that's what makes our jobs interesting, and there are a lot of things over the years that we've we've stopped doing because we stopped finding joy in them. And it was always a very methodical decision that was it made our tummies hurt when we did it. But we discontinued services. We stopped taking on certain clients. We fired employees and clients too, because we believe that work shouldn't suck. And we even rewrote our motto to or our mission, I don't know. Call it our mission or our motto? What do we call it? Stacy? Our why? Our why? That's what it is. It's not either one of those M words, our motto is going to be dumb. Yeah, our mottos Don't Be Dumb. And our Why is to make awesome stuff for awesome people and find joy in it. Um, so there you have it. 20 years of lessons learned from the mayecreate team. So get uncomfortable, trust your team. Plan ahead. Work. Smart, Be yourself and have fun doing it. And these aren't just business lessons, as you heard from so many people, a lot of them are life lessons and things that they like wrap their core values around and like the core of their being so and obviously there's still lessons that we're working on every day. None of us are perfect humans, and we're always working to be better. And speaking of learning, our next episode is us tackling something that frustrates website owners everywhere, which is, why is my WordPress site so slow? And tricks to fix it? So we are going to have to have Rebecca and Tyler and Claire and myself come together and make you the laundry list of things that we do to troubleshoot a site when it's turtling. We call it turtling. It makes perfect sense in my head. Hopefully it does in yours too. So if your website go ahead, Kaitlyn Genereux 40:51 I've never heard that term. We need to use that more. Monica Pitts 40:55 It's turtling, yeah. So if your website takes forever to load, or you're tired of watching potential customers bounce while they wait, then you won't want to miss this, because we're going to explain it to you. Okay, so thank you for hanging out with us. Everybody say bye, Stacy Brockmeier 41:14 bye, friends. Monica Pitts 41:18 Thank you for celebrating our 20th birthday with us with this fun, semi scripted, but not really scripted episode now, now go forth and market with purpose.