Tech, Travel, and Twang!
Come for the thoughts, stay for the tea. The co-founders of Destination Innovate, Jennifer Barbee and Kristen Cruz brew up the latest industry tea every Tuesday - diving into simmering issues, hot trends, and special guests. Grab a cup and let’s spill the tea!
Tech, Travel, and Twang!
Monday Momentum Ep. #1 | The Flow
As we usher in a fresh professional season, the spotlight turns to the exciting transformations within Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) and agencies. Spring break isn't just for kids—it's a metaphor for the rejuvenation and innovation brewing in our industry. We spill the beans on how fostering cross-generational mentorship and harnessing the fresh perspective of younger colleagues can energize and retain talent. So tune in, and let's embark on a journey that marries the evolution of business with the authenticity of our personal interactions, proving that motivation can indeed spring from the most unexpected of places.
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The Tech, Travel, and Twang Podcast is hosted by Co-Founders, Kristen Cruz and Jenn Barbee with Destination Innovate. Learn More! https://destinationinnovate.com/about/
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Well hell, welcome back to Tech Traveling Twain. Well hi, welcome back to Tech Traveling Twain with our new special Monday motivations. I have my co-founder and partner, christian Cruz, here with me. Hey, kristen, happy Monday, hi.
Speaker 2:Jen, happy Monday. So excited to kick this series off. Definitely feel like Monday motivation is a movement. I love that. We all need some Monday kicking the pants and there's so many reasons for our spirits.
Speaker 1:There's so many reasons for that too, and I've heard this stat a long time, but it's now trending again on TikTok, which is, you know, the majority of heart attacks happen on a Monday. And why is that? That's because the dread, the fear, the stress comes in. And you know, I think it'd be great if we just talk about, like, how we handle that, how we handle that with our team, with our clients. Like to me the mood, and also it reflects in your work. So I feel like you know keeping everybody at peak performance, if you know what I mean. But not that it's all business. I don't care how you feel get it done, but more like, lean in. What's the motivation, what are the roadblocks, what's the mood issue there?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think that's a great topic to kick off with. I think motivating our teams is, I mean, sometimes can be a struggle, right, I mean we have our own, you know as running a bit, running an agency and leading teams have has its own unique challenges.
Speaker 2:You know we struggle with different things than our team does, and our team, you know, struggles with different things we do on the regular, and so it's hard sometimes to figure out how we keep those guys motivated and, at the same time, stay motivated enough ourselves, which is where you and I, as a little as like each other's backbones in this right, come into play, because without that I don't know that we would be the best motivation for our team. So how, how do we do that consistently? You?
Speaker 1:know that's a really good point about, about the team as well, but also, coming off International Women's Day, we can't ignore the fact that, especially for women, how many roles. So we also keep our children motivated. We keep our husbands motivated, Right, you know, our neighbors motivated. It's so funny because so I mean this morning, which I thought was hilarious it was talking about you know, when your babies are little, you know how easy they are to be joyful and then all of a sudden, 15 years later, you're cringed. And how are you being bullied by somebody who had to teach to potty?
Speaker 2:Right, right, please answer me that. Right. Yeah, it is, you know, but I will say this I think what's also funny is I get a lot of motivation from my 16 year old.
Speaker 1:Isn't that funny.
Speaker 2:Like she sometimes I'll be down on myself, right, I'm like in the mood. I just, you know, I'm beating myself up for whatever reason, and she's like mom, what's going on with you? Don't you know what a badass B you are? You know, like, lift your head up, sister, take, you know, take a breath, and I'm like I'm you have your own personal high girl.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:But that well, we get our motivation from so many different places and so you know, definitely continuing to find what does give us that ounce, because we get it from so many places, what fills that motivation cup enough for us where we can truly motivate our teams and, at the same time, our people are motivating each other. It doesn't stream, it's not a one stream sort of flow, it is a multiple streams of motivation, energy right Flowing throughout our company.
Speaker 1:I really like that multiple, that multiple flows make so much sense. And kind of back to the industry part of that where what I'm really noticing out there in conferences and when we're talking is, you know, it used to be just you get on stage, it's business, business, business, business, business business. But I really see an appreciation for a little bit of motivation, a little bit of transformation in the industry as well. So I love that multiple streams, kind of coming back to keeping our team motivated, you know, having our hype girls, keeping our family motivated, but also, like I love that we're making we're part of this movement of motivating, lifting and supporting people in the industry.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's such a different day and age and it's good Like this is a good place that we're in. But yeah, I do think, like I think about every Monday. Honestly, it's almost like that, Like you think the kickoff to a conference might look like. You know, typically every conference these days has some sort of like motivational something.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Keynote, a kickoff, something to just get people riled up and really wanting to dig in. And that, for us, is what we need to do on a Monday, every Monday, like get our teams like rally together, get us all motivated. Just treat every week like a little mini kickoff, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we will think for our listeners here. So we initially were trying to go to the four day week. Like a lot of people do, right, and especially in advertising and marketing, it's a highly stressful position for ourselves and for our team members. We tried Fridays. That was a big bomb. So actually we're not off, but Mondays we don't take meetings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that stemmed a lot from us having Sunday anxiety conversations, right, like we would literally text each other like oh my gosh Monday, like it is going to be a Monday, and you think about that most of the day on Sunday, so you really lose an entire day of your weekend.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think about panicking about things that might or might not happen, and I think for us it's not like the world's on fire, right, but the way that you and I think, the way that we overthink and our anxiety runs deep on a lot of levels, like that, sunday anxiety really affects your Monday production, it affects what you produce, it affects the energy flow. You don't get as much done, you're not at your best self. So our Mondays are getting ourselves to our best self right, like we don't stop. Emails still come in, things like that, but we're not on deadline, we're not on the delivery, we're not taking calls, we're not being asked for advice and strategy. We just give ourselves that day to get our stuff together and get our week together.
Speaker 1:Where again, like that's that really is our motivation.
Speaker 2:Like today is our motivation day of the week and I love that. Like I don't know that enough companies are doing that or have really picked up on that. It's really, I think, been difficult because everybody's week kicks off on Monday. You know what I mean. It's like every day is kicking on.
Speaker 1:It's definitely, for me, really changed because I'm a prep before I get to work kind of person, so I wouldn't spend Sunday just worrying. I would be working on a Sunday and you know, especially as business owners and all the things that we have to do, it's just that time needs to be protected so that we can, you know, pour and not from an empty cup. So that Monday for me and really really good just for you know, overall productivity, for my mental health, for the sake of my team members like that Monday, getting it together, has been a big difference and more productive. Honestly, I think that's something we should absolutely on for motivational Mondays is you're more productive when you take care of yourself. Rest isn't a break from work, it's part of the work. You can't be creative you don't take those breaks. You can't be creative if you're not filling your cup up in some way. It shows in your work and it shows in your relationships.
Speaker 2:So true, and I've had a couple conversations recently with some friends who are managing teams and we talked about our Monday thing and they were like oh my gosh, you know. But one of the things that one of my friends had to say was the month like taking dips in the week. So starting Monday off later in the morning like maybe it's not an 8am start, maybe it's a 10am start, maybe it's a half day start or something. That just kind of winds, that clock a little bit, where you give a little them time to your team, a little you time to yourself and then get the day started. And then somebody else was talking about how Wednesdays have become kind of the new short day Fridays, which I thought was interesting. Like they would do a half day Wednesday and then we kind of kind of kick back off on a Thursday. So like Thursday and Friday were like too big.
Speaker 1:Oh, basically working in the short verse, I think you could be more productive like that, because you'll get short it gets you to the short verse. Yeah, You're recharged, you're remotivated because I can tell you, you know, I like to spend a lot of my time, and you know, solving problems, the big ideas, the strategy piece of it. But I can tell if I haven't gotten what I need to fill my cup, my ideas, and I'm like that's crap, you know, and I don't want to run down the road with that.
Speaker 1:So I love that staccato piece of it and you know, even if you know I yeah even if you're stuck in an eight to five maybe maybe a Wednesday afternoon is shifting what you're doing, you know. So if you can't necessarily follow the rules of you know no calls on Monday or taking off early on a Wednesday, then there's ways that that can be shifted. Maybe that Wednesday afternoon is the easy, no brainer work, just stuff that has to get done, and then it feels good about getting it off. But yeah, I think that. But you know the way the roles and work environment is just changing and I know there's a lot, of, a lot of people still holding on. I mean, we don't have offices. We can live wherever the heck we want to, which is a nice perk. But then also it comes to that burden of feeling like, because I'm not in an office, maybe I need to be there all the time and be on 24 step.
Speaker 2:Exactly yes, and it and it and it creates this constant touch point anxiety, like do I need to touch that person? Do I need to call that person? Do I need to text them? Do I need to slack Everything? Okay, you know like it because you don't have that physical sense you're, you've lost that sense of you know kind of seeing where that energy lives. But yeah, I think that makes the motivation aspect from a team environment a lot trickier when you have a completely virtual scenario.
Speaker 2:I remember when you know, before agency life, when I had like team things going on, I would always treat Friday like a team building day because ultimately, if you're really working your team hard throughout the week, of course their energy is going to be the most depleted on Friday. So in terms of productivity, we always knew like we're not really, they're here, but they're mentally checked out, they're ready for the weekend, they need to break. So I would always treat Friday like what can I do with my team, like team building wise, what fun can we have, what can we do together when I can at least get that energy and get that cut up, and it does set the tone for the next week. I always found that when I did that on a Friday, everybody was super pumped about coming back to work with their teammates on Monday.
Speaker 2:Like it was not a driving butt into the office day. It was like hey, have fun on Friday, you know like so, and that's always a good thing.
Speaker 1:That's part of the work and I feel like you know we still, some of us still have this traditional view of every minute of every hour or ever it has to be production, producing, putting out, but you've got to put some in. So I really think that's part of the work and that's part of kind of where our environment's going and also why we created Think Weeks, you know, for ourselves and for our clients, like we take, we're taking our own Think Week, which is a week where other things you know the client work is caught up before that week. So we double up a little bit, a little bit of harder grind right before. But that thing is for us, for our team, for our business, for the next iteration, for the next invention.
Speaker 2:Right, super important time frames for your business, absolutely yeah. Where we can think right Cause that's the other piece to all of this is that we are all over simulated and there's so much going through our brains at one time it's like, okay, what do I stop and really get excited about?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's all these things to get excited about, but Think Week really gives you a chance to hone in and be thinking about the same things together, cause, jen, just kind of like just our conversations some mornings. It's like we talk about this all the time, like you may be up here right, level 10. And I'm down here, level three, and you're just trying to get me to meet you light, can we meet maybe five or six, and some days it's the opposite, right, like of course.
Speaker 2:You're like I don't know if I can get there and I'm like, meet me here and those. I think what I would love to really I admire those conversations so much and I really want I think our listeners should hear some of them Like. I'd love to like just get into on this podcast each week just some of the things that we go through together as business owners and team leaders. I mean, just in those behind the scenes, like how do we really get each other there? How do we really get each other motivated for the work that we have ahead of us when we're not always at the same level it's and.
Speaker 1:I love that too, because what's one of our seven principles of disruptors is authenticity. So I feel like and I love our podcast production with the interviews and our guests and that's really good. Thought leadership, tourism work, of course, but there's not I don't see a lot of behind the scenes of like two small business owners in what we go through and how we do that, and there could be something to glean from it. So I'm super pumped about Motivation Monday.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that. I'm excited for this new series.
Speaker 1:No, it'll be good.
Speaker 2:It'll be good, it'll be great.
Speaker 1:So spring break coming up for both of us, do you get anything good planned?
Speaker 2:I have a wish list from the kids, of course, of things they would like to do. I don't know. I think we'll probably end up just tooting around our own backyard. No major plans. We're not driving anywhere far or flying anywhere or doing anything major. It's really just going to be short little activities and bursts of general joint excitement, because I have a 16-year-old and a 10-year-old. What ends up happening is neither one of them want to do the same things.
Speaker 2:My 16-year-old will want to invite 100 of her friends to all the things we're going to. We might show up as three, but when we get there it will be like a group of girls. I try to play it by ear. I feel like the more I plan around things for both the kids now with their ages and just Royce wanting to be at home playing games. If he's not completely in utter excitement mode then it's just hard. I try to keep it easy. I don't want to overwhelm myself.
Speaker 1:I know. Well, this is where I look out. By having two preteens at home right now. They're just basically like oh, it's spring break, I get two weeks to do nothing and be lazy.
Speaker 2:I'm like, yes, See, I wish I had those kind of kids where they're like let me just relax with you, mom, let's just relax, mom.
Speaker 2:No I don't get that. I get. Take me everywhere. I need so-and-so over here. Can I have a sleepover? Can so-and-so come over? That is just. It is exhausting. So I would happily trade. If you wanted to trade offspring for the week, I would love that. But yeah, it'll be good. I'm super pumped to about just. We got spring break next week and then you and I are back in conference mode for a couple of weeks, so we have some big stuff coming up.
Speaker 1:We do. We've got some stuff coming up. We've got a retreat we're planning, so lots more coming up on all that. But that's why I'm motivated and pumped is I feel like this is a good year for DMOs to think about themselves and recalibrate some ways. It's a great year for agencies to recalibrate and think about how they serve and what those services really are. I think there's really we're going to see a big change over 24 and 25 with just what type of services and how someone might need an agency or if they're bringing their agency in house. I mean, I think a lot of transformation is happening on the team and employee retention front, which is why I'm motivated today.
Speaker 2:Yes, I want to dig into. On our next one, I want to dig into the employee retention kind of aspect of things, because it's about motivating your industry peers. It's about making where you are, your environment, what you do as a business be really appealing to those potential employees and your partners.
Speaker 2:They want to know that the people that they're working with enjoy working there or motivated by their leaders in some way consistently. So there's a lot to unpack there. Yeah, I'm really excited about our series and about some of the stuff we'll dig into. It'll be really good and, of course, I'll never treat friend too Obviously. We're in an era where people are coming back together more than ever. There's more conferences, there's more collaboration time in person. Now it's really time to get back into some of that at a more intimate level and really learn from each other. So many different things are in play now, so many different trends and the ways that we're adopting. Technology, how consumers are traveling, is ever-evolving and so continuing to find ways of just learning from each other and motivating each other. There's some of that Because we're all kind of walking in different lanes but still going the same direction.
Speaker 1:So I think that's what I find most interesting for me, because I'm a little bit older than I say, a little bit, a little bit older than all the rest of the teams. I carry some of those traditional little back of your mind thoughts going it has to be this way, it's got to be this way, it's got to be perfection. You have to do this with a client, you have to do that, and that's why I love how things are evolving and more authentic and it's a mind shift. It takes a little bit of work to get your mind there, to realize that it's not 1985 anymore, right, because I don't know any of our former bosses that would be putting out motivation Mondays and their dirty laundry to the world.
Speaker 2:No, not necessarily, but yeah, I think that that is a stream. Like we talked about multiple flows of motivation, right, one of those streams of motivation is sometimes where you don't expect it and it's in, sometimes, those conversations where you get nitty and green, you get deep and you understand some of the challenges and you hear some of the ways people have risen from those challenges. And that is motivation that we all need, but we don't necessarily know where it's coming from, and it's we're in an era, too, where it's time to get back to those one to one conversations and really like getting to having a strong network of people that you consistently learn from. Like we all need a mentor in our life in some way too.
Speaker 2:And it can be another big one.
Speaker 1:It can be. Also a mentor can be in a totally different way than the way we thought about it before. So before also it'd be like someone had been in the industry decades and then they mentor a protege who's much younger. I see it so much differently now. Like my mentors you know are my adult daughters who are creative. My mentors are, you know, some new, new relationships I've met who are, you know, millennials and Gen Z Right, and I don't really look to look for a certain kind of pedigree for mentors now at all.
Speaker 2:Completely agree. Yeah, again, like it's that multiple flow, like we just and sometimes there are things that happen for people we don't really even know. I mean, we're, you know, we're engaged in so many different ways with our environment now, so it's like just about how to take it in and how to, how to exchange it for currency, right, and then reciprocate, put it back out to your people, to your teams. Well, now you know coming off it at 9 o'clock instead.
Speaker 1:Now, you just gave me an idea for a different title for our Monday motivations. Maybe it should be the flow Cause. That's kind of like this. So all right, I love that. So, as we did, yeah, I'm gonna lock it in, we'll let her. We'll let her before she edits, but yeah, and we'll leave this in the pot, like this is kind of what we do. This is where our magic is is playing off of each other, absolutely.
Speaker 2:We get so many good ideas that maybe a third of them ever make it to action, you know. But I love and I love these conversations where we can bounce ideas and thoughts and like things off of each other, and I just feel like that in and of itself sometimes can be someone's motivation, Like why not just put it out there, hit record and just throw it up? Why not Absolutely?
Speaker 1:And I just enjoyed just listening and chatting with us today, when I know when I listen to podcasts, I'm like talking back to it. So I hope you're part of the conversation on the flow on Mondays and we will see you next time with some really good stuff. Thanks so much, kristin.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Jen Bye.
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