PP 262: Podcasters on Fleek with Mark Struczewski

Kim Sutton Welcome back to another episode of positive productivity. This is your host, Kim satin, and I am so happy that you are here to join us today. And I’m thrilled to introduce our guest Marks. See, I get my blooper in right at the beginning. Struczewski. Oh my gosh, we’re leaving that blooper in Mark because positive productivity is not about perfection. But okay, Struczewski, yeah?

Mark Struczewski: There you go.

Kim Sutton:Okay. Awesome. Mark is a podcast extraordinaire. That’d be podcaster extraordinaire from, Oh, my gosh, I have to do it again, them. Yeah, you just say it, okay? And listeners, Again, positive productivity is not about perfection, but I’m just gonna have him do his last name for us. And yeah, I am just so excited to have Mark on though because we have hit it off since our first conversation which is behold the power of the internet and networking. Yeah. But why don’t you just jump in and give a better introduction than I did because we know mine was severely lacking and then we’ll just go from there.

Mark Struczewski: Well, if you didn’t say I was a podcaster, I was gonna say, you know, Kim, I’m really nervous. I’ve never done this before. But you’ve already told everyone I have a podcast. It’s called The Mark Struczewski Podcast. My name is Mark Struczewski. And if you google Mark Struczewski, which in the show notes, you can see how to spell my last name, you can find where I’m everywhere in the universe that’s known as the internet. So that’s me. Now, if you tell me more about what I do and what my passions are?

Kim Sutton: Yeah, but can you take it back a little bit further and share how you got to having your podcast?

Mark Struczewski: Sure. Well, I was like most entrepreneurs trying to find that platform which would give me the most, what’s the word I want to use, Oome for power, or to really launch it. I tried YouTube videos, that didn’t work. I tried Facebook, that didn’t work. And then I heard a guy by the name of Gary Vaynerchuk, you may probably not have heard. He’s not very successful at all. Haha. And he said, the future is voice and audio. Because on video, you have to watch the screen. But on podcast, like I run every day, you can walk the dog, you can listen in your car and transit, wherever. And so I said, Hmm, let me get into podcasting. Well, how do you podcast? I don’t know how to podcast. Well, I didn’t want to go invest in learning from somebody else how to do a podcast. So amazing there’s this new tool called Google and YouTube that you can actually learn for free how to do a podcast. I launched my podcast July 7 2017. And one of the things I learned along the way on doing my podcast is keep it simple. So the first 17 episodes is just me talking, I didn’t have guests on my show, because that’s another element where complexity could rear its ugly head. And I went through that got really comfortable the platform, starting with Episode 18, I started interviewing people. Now a little transparency here, the first three or four guests were friends of mine, they’re professionals, but they’re friends of mine. And I knew they would put up with my newness. And now I’m up to– I’m in the 50s and 60s, by time this episode came out in the 80s and I just love being a podcaster. I love helping people get unstuck.

Kim Sutton I’m over here laughing about keeping it simple, because I did anything but Mark. When I started recording episodes for the positive productivity podcast four months before it launched, if not more, actually, I think it was six months before I was gonna launch two podcasts at the same time. I don’t know what I was thinking. Well, I do know that what I was thinking I had chronic idea disorder so it was my own fault. But I was trying to record all those interviews every week and then I was doing the graphics and the transcriptions and the show notes. And as you know, as a podcaster there is a lot of work. Yeah. So let’s back up even a little bit further.

Mark Struczewski When I was born? How far back do you want to go?

Kim Sutton No. Your poor mother. I don’t even know how long childbirth was or anything like that. What did you want to be when you grew up?

Mark Struczewski Well, that’s an easy answer. I want to be a firefighter because my dad was a firefighter for a long time. I was actually a volunteer firefighter and EMT, not a paramedic, for about four or five years, but I had to leave for health reasons. And if you want me to I can share why I had a leave that. It wasn’t professional as a volunteer but if you are interested in knowing why I left?

Kim Sutton Yeah, actually I am because it’s part of your journey and it’s part of what brought you here.

Mark Struczewski I used to live in Rochester, New York. Now in Rochester, New York, it’s up north where its gets cold and ice and snow and that kind of good stuff. Well, one day I was working in a factory, this is I think I was in my 20s or something like that. And that morning, it snowed, it warmed up a little bit just above freezing, so the snow melted, and then it froze again. And then it snowed again, known as black ice for the old of you who are listening up north. Well, I’m just going into work, you know, whistling on six o’clock in the morning going to work and all of a sudden, a split second, I’m on my back. I’m like, what happened? Well, it took me to the hospital. They did all kinds of tests. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong. But I was an avid bike rider back then. And I knew something’s wrong. Because I used to be able to go do those polls I have on the path, so cars don’t go on there. I used at the stop and like walk my bike past the pole. I’m like, there’s something wrong. It took them seven years to diagnose my condition, which is known as the Vestibular Nerve Disorder. Now, I never heard that term before I was diagnosed, I had no clue what it was. And they said, basically, there’s a little thing in your brain between your ears called the vestibular nerve. It was damaged on my fall, because I went to my feet to my head and less like a microsecond. That’s forever damaged. So it’s so bad now that I can’t go swimming unless my wife Michelle is right near me, because I have no idea what ends up. Getting back to firefighting, when you go into a building that’s full of smoke, and you’re holding a hose and you’re with a team. If I tripped over something, I can’t maintain my balance because I have no balance. And so even today, now, I don’t drink at all. But if I get pulled over randomly, I can’t walk a straight line. And it’d be kind of humorous, because the officer would do me a breathalyzer and do the blood tests, and they’d say 0.0. So that’s my story of why I left firefighting. 

Kim Sutton And you’re sticking to it.

Mark Struczewski Yes, ma’am.

Kim Sutton Yeah. Wow. So this is totally off topic of podcasting and entrepreneurship. But along that line, I just had to ask, do you have to carry a medical cards so that if by chance you miss the stoplight, or the stop sign, because you know, I’ve never done that? That if they do make you get out that you can say, Hey, this is why I can’t walk a straight line. I mean, Mark, I tripped over my own feet. So you’ve got me thinking I don’t have this. But it wouldn’t be any better for me even when I’m at 0.00.

Mark Struczewski Well, first of all, having a balance disorder does not prevent me from stopping at stop signs or red lights. My wife does get kind of nervous when I drive because I’m New York and I drive aggressively. Get out of my way. I got places to go. I gotta be productive, get out of my way, but that has no bearing. I can still stop at a stop sign. If there’s a little lady walking across the street, I can see her and stop. It’s when I get out of the car to help her across the street. I may trip on my feet. It’s not tripping on my feet. It’s like there’s no balance of which end is up. That’s why I can’t go into waterslides, I used to love waterslides as a kid, because you got on a slide and what do you do? You go into a pool? Well, guess what? I have to get out. And I don’t know why but they won’t let my wife or a lifeguard stand at the end of the slide. And all I need to do lose, Hey, put your feet in the ground, you’re fine. And so I can’t go on water slides now kind of breaks my heart. But you know, they don’t want me to, I don’t know die. So that’s why they don’t let me go on the slides. I’m not supposed to ride roller coasters, but I do because I love roller coasters.

Kim Sutton Yeah. Yeah. And you and I when we chatted last week or the week before you love Disney so you can’t give up Thunder Mountain.

Mark Struczewski No. And here’s the thing because there’s two companies I’d love to work for. I would be loved the CEO of Apple or Disney. Both places I would be super unproductive because in Disney World, I would be using my power to ride all the rides. It has a line I would wait in lines.  With Apple, I would just be playing with all the new toys coming out. I wouldn’t be running the company so I would not be productive at all. So probably not a good idea if I was named CEO of Disney or Apple.

Kim Sutton Well, on a positive side at least now you can’t go swimming in Lake Ontario because it’s not exactly the cleanest place or the cleanest place to swim.

Mark Struczewski I remember Lake Ontario and you’re right there was no such thing as blue water in Lake Ontario.

Kim Sutton Oh, definitely not. Listeners, I am also from Rochester and when Mark and I connected, that was only last week.

Mark Struczewski Yes.

Kim Sutton So I’m gonna get to that in a second. But we actually both left Rochester the same year.

Mark Struczewski That is so weird.

Kim Sutton Yeah, very weird. 1997, yeah?

Mark Struczewski Mmm-hmmm. Yeah. What are you from Michigan? Yah? What is that?

Kim Sutton It’s the result of living in Ohio. I’m not surprised you’re not saying y’all.

Mark Struczewski No. I never picked up the Texas accent, my wife did. But I’d never picked up the Texas accent. But I do say fixin’ though. I love the word fixin’. Fixin’ is an incredible word everyone should say.

Kim Sutton 

Well, the one thing that another thing that I did pick up from Ohio is I accidentally one day, and my husband looked at me in amusement and I think a little bit of horror at the same time. Because I said, I seen at the grocery today. And my eyes got so big I could have been seeing zombies. I was I just said, actually just say that. My stepmother was an English teacher. If she would have been out here, she would have just, I don’t know what she would have done, because that is, I love you guys, I don’t have any allegiance to Michigan or Ohio State but some of the grammar around here is a little bit lacking. That’s all I have to say.

Mark Struczewski Well, Kim, I have a suggestion for you. I think you need to change the name of this podcast to True Confessions from Kim SUtton because you already confessed that sometimes you go through stop signs. And now you say you’re you used up the vernacular of Ohians, Ohians is that correct? So maybe you should rename a true confession, or maybe create another podcast called True Confessions of Kim Sutton, what do you think?

Kim Sutton Oh, I love it. Yeah. But I do have to clarify, actually, because maybe my issue with stoplights and stop signs is not so much the stop signs, and the stoplights. I have more of a problem with the curb. Yeah, listeners, don’t let me drive your car. I’ve never gotten into a car accident. I will just put it out there but curbs and my tires do not get along.

Mark Struczewski So in your house, does your husband give you the old car and he gets a new car?

Kim Sutton I proudly drive in 1996 GMC conversion van.

Mark Struczewski So it can handle the curbs then.

Kim Sutton Oh, it can definitely handle the curb. And if any tractor trailer on 575 tries to get into my lane, I am not at all concerned because I am driving a big piece of sheet metal. Yeah.

Mark Struczewski Oh, you’re riot. You’re a hoot.

Kim Sutton Yeah. My 15 year old gets, I’m not sure if he’s amused but I don’t think he’s so thrilled that when he gets his driver’s license later this year that he’s going to be driving a car that’s 10 years older than him. You know, what he wants is a new car but until he can get his chores done, so he can even earn allowance to take just a little bite out of the car insurance, big sigh there. Yeah.

Mark Struczewski Now do your kids wear helmets when you’re driving? Just just asking.

Kim Sutton They prefer not to look, so no they don’t wear helmets. But they do have to wear their seatbelts. Yeah. No, I totally get the joke though. Let’s just leave it at that or else I’m gonna have CPS knocking on my door for moms driving. They should actually though and we will get back to you Mark. They should actually though wear helmets in my house, at least my littles. One of my twins last night, we have an island in the middle of my kitchen and they were running, the three littles are playing tag around the island when I was trying to get them ready for bed.

Mark Struczewski I could see what you’re saying. I know where you’re going, I can see it in my head already.

Kim Sutton My son David took a head dive right into the corner. So he has a big red stripe, and I didn’t know that it was possible to get an egg on your cheek, but he has one today.

Mark Struczewski Oh my word.

Kim Sutton I’ve been waiting for the daycare to call all day. Yeah, Mark, did I tell you when we chatted last week, I think this is the most, listeners we chatted about the format of positive productivity before Mark came on. And I said I’d love for it to be conversational. I am absolutely loving this because I think it is more back and forth than I’ve ever had on the episode before or on the show before. I absolutely love this. You’re actually making me give a half second thought to having a co host because this is just a blast.

Mark Struczewski Well I’m super stoked. I can’t wait till you’re on my podcast because I think it’s going to be a double dose. You’ll have this podcast and you’ll have the one on mine and we’re just going to take over the world our podcast. Listeners, you just have to realize it. It’s going to be domination.

Kim Sutton Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, I guess I can say it on my podcast. I might not be able to say it on yours but brain fart. I just had a brain fart I don’t remember where I was going. Egg on the cheek. Oh, well. Anyway. So I’m gonna go back to you and now we just can’t remember and it’s not gonna–

Mark Struczewski Yeah. We’re almost out of tape here. You better hurry up.

Kim Sutton I know. I’m so glad I got the charger before I came on. So you couldn’t you couldn’t be a firefighter anymore and what happened next and now you’re down in Houston or outside of Houston? Yeah.

Mark Struczewski Yeah. I am.

Kim Sutton Okay. So what happened in your life to take you down there? Or you just got fed up with Rochester’s weather?

Mark Struczewski Well, interesting story, my first wife. We came to visit her parents who were living in Houston back in 1996. And I fell in love with the city. And a year later, we moved down here. And much to my surprise, nobody was fascinated that Mark Struczewski had moved to Houston. The job offers didn’t come like all these NFL players have people fawning all over with million dollar contracts. They said, “Yeah, well, who cares? Join everybody else who’s here.” And so it was a little bit of a rough go. I’m not gonna lie. I got divorced in 2002. And my ex wife will never listen to podcasts. I don’t care. Best thing ever happened to me. I’m married to the woman I should have married to all along. She’s awesome. She’s my rock. And so I moved down here to get away from the cold, the snow, the blizzard, the ice, the late effect snow, the black ice, especially black ice, black ice, I hate you. So I wanted to get away from all that stuff. So down here in Houston when it snows, they get all excited. I’m like, No, you don’t understand. We live in the south. I’m never supposed to see my breath in the south, okay? This is how it’s supposed to work. Heat down here. Snow up there. And I always talk to my friends up in Canada. I said, “Please shut the door. Who went outside and left the door open?” And that’s why we get those cold fronts down here. Probably didn’t answer your question but I just felt going that way.

Kim Sutton No. I actually like it. And I’m laughing over here because I actually moved to Ohio with my ex husband to be closer to his family.

Mark Struczewski Oh, my goodness, you and I are like, oh, we’re not sisters are we? This is bizarre.

Kim Sutton Not unless you wear a bra. No, just kidding.

Mark Struczewski Oh, you’re right. Oh my gosh. Now see, if my wife was in the room I was doing an interview she would and heard what I said, she would roll her eyes, as women would do.

Kim Sutton No. I’m gonna embarrass Michelle for a second because listeners, after I talked to Mark last week, with Mark, chatted with whatever. We had such a great chat that I ended up having an hour and a half chat with Michelle after while you were off running, working on your 60 miles for January. Yes, I saw that. And–

Mark Struczewski I’m impressed you saw that. I’m really impressed. Thank you.

Kim Sutton Yes. I was impressed too, because I was thinking my extent of running was running to my son last night to see how bad it was after he ran into the wall. Anyway, I was talking about when the brand gets big, and we have a lot of money. You know, I told my husband one thing. I’m sorry, listeners, very sorry. This is not typical for positive productivity podcast. But as a mom of five kids, things happen to our bodies that we don’t expect to happen. I was like there’s one change that I have to make. And we were talking about that Mark, so I don’t know that Michelle would be rolling her eyes. She might just be laughing because we were talking about this, that and every other thing you’ll have to go ask her later. But, yeah.

Mark Struczewski Some conversations are meant just between women that I don’t want to know. I cover my ears and go, lalalalala and walk out of the room. I don’t want to know.

Kim Sutton First conversation we were already talking about that. So

Mark Struczewski I kept walking into like, you’re still talking to her? She goes nodding her head and I’m like, you just met her. She goes, it’s a chick thing. You wouldn’t understand. You’re a guy. You guys, like one or two words is good enough for guys. Women like to talk and I couldn’t believe how long you guys talk. It was unbelievable.

Kim Sutton Well, what happened was, and then I promise listeners, I’ll tell you how we got introduced. What happened was, I actually had to go because I had a podcast at three o’clock that afternoon. And I looked at the clock and it was literally 2:59 and 30 seconds. I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to go. I have to go because I hadn’t even pulled up the profile of the person. I didn’t even honestly remember because I hadn’t done my planner the night before. I don’t even remember who I was chatting with. But I knew I had a podcast at three. So I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to go. We’ll talk later. She like, yeah, go. So here is a true example of why it’s great to have giving relationships rather than getting and I’m sure you agree, Mark, is that and I made a great connection, Jeremy Slate, hi, Jeremy, at New Media summit last September. 

Mark Struczewski Hi Jeremy.

Kim Sutton And we’ve it off. And Mark had put up on LinkedIn, a post and Jeremy tagged me in it and we got connected. I think it was supposed to be a 15 minute call with you last week. Again, like an hour. But the more you give, the more you get. And I’m not saying that you should give, give, give, just to get. But it’s what happens. It’s the reciprocal. I can never say that word. It’s as hard as your last name.

Mark Struczewski Reciprocal?

Kim Sutton Yes. Thank you. It’s just what happens. And if you stop thinking about what you’re going to get out of anything, I think, in my opinion, you’re going to get more, because you’re so open hearted. Do you agree?

Mark Struczewski I agree. But I do have one question before my brain forgets it. So if you didn’t have that podcast, would you still be talking to Michelle right now?

Kim Sutton I don’t know.

Mark Struczewski It’s just rhetorical. It’s rhetorical, though is several days ago. I hope not.

Kim Sutton I would have picked up my kids and still been going. No, she would have probably talked to my kids though.

Mark Struczewski She probably would have.

Kim Sutton Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so going back to you, Mark. Listeners. I hope you’re having a blast with us here. So you’re in Houston. Oh, I forgot to tell you. We moved out here to be closer to ex’s parents and within three months they left. They actually moved down to Austin, where their daughter moved down to be closer to them and they moved to Chicago. So yeah, but Austin’s a beautiful city, too. And so you move down to Houston, it was difficult to find a job. What happened next?

Mark Struczewski Well, I finally landed the job as an inventory control coordinator at a local hospital and the Medical Center here in Houston. And I was working there for a while I thought I was going to be, I hated inventory. I was just really good at it. I hated it because, you know, system says five, you got four, what happened to the other one? And it’s like, Who cares? Just order another one. And so in July 2005, I got fired from my job. And I’m not going to be one of these people to say that I was downsized or I lost my job. I know where my job is, they gave it to somebody else. I was fired. Why I got fired. I didn’t hit my boss or steal from the company. I didn’t get along with my boss. And he was one of these people that, let’s just say he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed but he knew policy. He’s one of these guys, and I hope that’s okay for your podcast, if not, you can edit that out, that if you give him an idea, I got a great idea for maximize efficiency, he would turn around and make it his idea. And then he would be on the computer all day doing personal stuff, but if you caught me they write me up. I’m like, okay. So when they fired me, I remember that they fired me because they said, Okay, we have to let you go. But we’d like to have a talk to you about why. I’m like, No, dude, you just fired me. We’re done. I’m not gonna sit here for an hour for you to tell me why you fired me. You fired me, our a relationship is over. So I decided I’m going to go into being a photographer, a wedding and portrait photographer. Now listeners, I chased the money, never chased the money, because I wanted to go buy these really cool gear, wanting to get paid, didn’t care about the customer. And I found out that people want you to edit their photographs. And so my wife was doing my editing, but I had no passion for it. I didn’t want to do it. And but when I was in a photography, I wanted to market my business unlike anyone else ever marketers. This is in 2005, Facebook was new, Twitter was new. I didn’t think LinkedIn was out yet. And so I said, “Hey, I’ll go speak to women’s groups, because women were my target audience.” So I went to a speaker friend of mine. And I said, “Hey, listen, I want to go talk to women’s group about photography. I teach them how to take better pictures of their kids.” What not try to promote my business. The first time I spoke, after I got done, my wife says, “Oh, honey, you’re hiding behind that camera. You are a gifted communicator. You need to be a speaker.” So I said, “Ahhh!!! What do you know? You’re just my smart wife, you don’t know anything.” So after a few months, I realized you know what, I wasn’t passionate about photography. I just wanted the money. And so I decided, Okay, I’m going to be a speaker. And the first topic I came up with was how to be successful. Listeners, don’t talk about a topic you’re not already doing. Don’t be inauthentic. I was not successful. And here people gonna hire me to tell them I be successful. Because the first thing you do is you’re looking at me and go, you’re not successful. So I dropped that, I went to something called from hopeless to hopeful. I have no idea what I was doing there.

Kim Sutton I might have to borrow it.

Mark Struczewski Go ahead. It’s yours for the taking. So then I got really bummed, I was talking to a Tony Robbins Result Codes. I’m like, you know, I love speaking but what am I going to speak on? And he goes, Mark, why don’t you speak on productivity? And I kid you not. I said, productivity? Why would I want to talk about productivity. He says, because you are one of the most productive people I know. And I’m like, well isn’t everybody? And after he got done laughing, he said, I don’t think you understand how unproductive most people are. He says, I give you something to do, and you get it done within the hour, I’m still on the phone with the next client, you already get your homework done, because you’re so productive. You got to take that gift and tell the world. You’re a good communicator, you’re good at productivity, marry the two. And so I started doing it. And people started coming to me and saying, Wow, can you help me with this? And I just had this ability that you could tell me your problem and I could come up with a solution. It may not be the perfect solution but if you’re stuck, maybe you just need a little tug to get out of the mud to get you flowing. And so I launched my website Mark Struczewski.com in January 25, 2011. But I didn’t start doing productivity till about, I think, maybe fall of 2016. So because I was trying so many different different things. Now I settled on productivity. I absolutely love. I’m obsessed with helping people become more productive.

Kim Sutton Would it be fair to say that you had chronic idea disorder?

Mark Struczewski I still do. If I listened to a podcast, if I like I’m reading right now. I’m reading, Crushing It among four other books. If I get an idea, I will put the book down and implement it right then. It’s like, my web hoster, not my web hoster, my podcast media hoster, when they said, Hey, you can now have your podcasts on Spotify. I stopped the podcast and got my podcast on Spotify. I am so proactive. It drives my wife Michelle crazy, because when we first got married, she would be sitting on the couch and go, “You know what? It’s probably nice if XYZ.” And I would pause the TV and go do it. She goes no, not right now. Like, well you said you want it done? So if I can do it, I’ll do it right then and there. So she’s learned to like make yourself a note because I will literally stop everything to go do something she wants done. I’m believing I’m the kid when they give you a three week lead time to do a project, I did the first night. I never did it the last night. Now would it not be great because I would just rush through it just to get it done so I can go play football or basketball with my friends. But I’d get it done right away. That’s the kind of person I am. I’m very proactive.

Kim Sutton Wow. And where can I get this magic juice?

Mark Struczewski Just keep listening to the Mark Struczewski podcast, now I’ll tell you everything you need to know.

Kim Sutton Well on a positive note last night, and I’m trying to remember exactly how I phrased it to my husband. I purge the pressure. Listeners, go back and listen to episode, let me just look at my list here, Episode 257. That will be the topic of my podcast that will be recorded, my solo podcast that will be recorded right after we get done with this one Mark. But I purged the pressure. And what I mean by that is that I had subscribed to 200 podcasts. And they were taking up all the space on my MacBook. So I could not do work on my MacBook unless I pressured myself to listen and get rid of the space that those podcast episodes were taking up, and I had. I mean I had almost 1000 just have EO fire. I’m sorry JLD but I unsubscribed and I deleted just because it was taking up so much space. I mean, I have half of my hard drive back just because I unsubscribed not just from him but from a few others so I can finally subscribe to yours Mark.

Mark Struczewski Well, I appreciate that. But when you told me that last week, I’m like, I don’t have any podcast download to my iMac. I have my iPhone. So when I go out running or in the car or something like that I can’t listen to a podcast at home. Because I need my brain to lit to pay attention when I’m doing other work. So when you told me your whole hard drive was full of podcasts, I’m like, you listen to at home. How does that work? So I mean, I’m not saying what you’re doing is wrong. I just saying for me, I can’t do that.

Kim Sutton Well, my iPhone is not as old as my van. But the memory is not as big as I would like. And when you subscribe to 200, I wasn’t able to take pictures anymore on my phone. So I had to take the podcast app off my iPhone. Okay, it’s only a five S but considering we’re up on 2x or 10 or I guess x and 10 are the same thing but you get the point. I mean I’m sure they come with a lot more memory than I’ve got now.

Mark Struczewski Well you if you ask Michelle, I’ve got to have the latest and greatest phone, I don’t have the 10, I didn’t like the design. I’ve got the eight plus and I got 256 gigabytes. I’ve got so many podcasts, so many songs on there and I still have like 200 gigs left. I’m obsessed with it. So every time Apple comes a new phone, I’ve got to buy the latest one. A chip at the ten, I didn’t like it.

Kim Sutton 256

Mark Struczewski Gigs, yes.

Mark Struczewski: I think I have 16 so you can see my problem here.

Kim Sutton: With that said I’m not at the gym, I’m not running. And some days, the extent of my driving is driving the one mile, which takes the whole five minutes here to get, I mean, because I’m going 25 miles an hour now because you know, and I do stop at the stop lights and stop signs to get to the daycare. I mean, I might be able to get through five minutes of a podcast into me, that just doesn’t work. And I can’t work in silence, unlike you. Like, I have to have something going here because it keeps me amazingly, it keeps me focused on what I’m working on.

Kim Sutton: Yes. Yes.

Mark Struczewski: I don’t work in silence. I’m sorry, if you got that impression. I have, you know, again, we’re an Apple family. We have Apple Music. I listen, I have a playlist called writing music, which is I love the themes from like movies like Hans Zimmer, my favorite composer. So I have a playlist that is just music scores from the soundtrack, not the words, just the song. So I have a playlist that I have, I’m a Christian. So I have Christian hip hop, I have favorite Christian song. So but those words don’t bother me. And matter of fact, when Michelle was out someplace and I’m working, the dogs are probably heard a hearing in their cats because I crank up the music, I love my music, but I can’t listen to people going. Well, this is the positivity productivity podcast, I can’t because it’s like, I’m trying to write an article on LinkedIn. I’m like, I’m hearing you talk or someone else talks. So I can’t listen to people talking. But I can’t operate in absolute silence unless I’m editing. Now if I’m editing, what I do is I read the article out loud to myself, then Michelle comes in said you still missed some stuff, so yeah. No. I can’t do in silence. No. No.

Kim Sutton: I have a have an addition to your playlist if you haven’t heard it before. And I was only introduced this morning. The Greatest Showman. Have you?

Mark Struczewski: Is that a podcast?

Kim Sutton: No. It’s a sound. It’s a movie. I haven’t seen the movie. But Jeff Shaw, who was the guest on episode 254. He told me to listen to A Million Dreams. It’s a song from the soundtrack. But I’m sure they have a score and it is absolutely amazing. So if you’re looking for

Mark Struczewski: Oh, I will check that out. I’m actually listening to the soundtrack of Dunkirk right now because my boy Hans Zimmer, my boy, like I know the guy. Hans Zimmer, he did a great job. He did like the Batman. He did the Crimson Tide and the Hunt for Red October. Hans Zimmer is an awesome composer.

Kim Sutton: Yeah, he’s amazing. I am not going to argue that at all. I think he actually did Green Card. I may be wrong there from what was that? The ’80s or the ’90s? And

Mark Struczewski: I’ll check that out.

Kim Sutton: Green Card is also another great score in soundtrack as well.

Mark Struczewski: Cool. I will definitely check those two out. Thank you.

Kim Sutton: Yeah, you’re welcome. So now that I have purged the pressure of my podcast listening, I can actually get back to listening to music, which is so amazing. So what recommendations would you have for entrepreneurs who are struggling to get it all done? Do you have a top three tips that you could offer?

Mark Struczewski: Well, I have a lot of tips. But my number one tip is so simple. And yet so few people do it and it’s so full of common sense. You ready?

Kim Sutton: Yes.

Mark Struczewski: Get it out of your head and either into an app or into a notebook. Stop trying to remember everything. Because what happens is, everybody knows Murphy’s Law, right? Whatever can go wrong. Well, the productivity version, which I created, as far as I know, is, whatever you need to remember the most is what you’re going to forget first. So don’t trust your brain, it’s not a question of if but when it will fail you. So when a thought comes in, you have to call Kim about something you have to listen to the Mark Struczewski podcast, you had to go get milk at the store. Don’t try to remember, you need to get it out of your head. If you’re driving, you can pull over, you’re allowed to pull over and write your note. Now if you have someone’s in the car with you say Hey, would you make a note of this for me? Okay, the thing is, time is going to keep on going. But the idea may that right away, so you got to get into something that won’t forget. If you’re using a phone, some would go, wooohh, if I lose my phone. Well, if you have it, you know, synced up with the cloud, it’s going to be up there. You know, but don’t think negatively, this the positivity podcast, not the negativity productivity podcast, but you don’t need to trust your brain. That’s my number one tip. Now, the other once–

Kim Sutton: Mark can I [inaudible] for a second?

Mark Struczewski: Yes. Go over ahead.

Kim Sutton: I have found that bath crayons are an awesome tool for remembering. I mean, they work wonders. I write my ideas that I get in the shower on the bathroom wall and then I write them down afterwards. And it prevents me from falling on the floor after I get out of the shower.

Mark Struczewski: Now I had this visual that your poor kid comes in and go, Mom, what’s up with my crayons? Where’d they all go?

Kim Sutton: Oh, their mom’s crayons.

Mark Struczewski: Oh, okay. I get. Okay.

Kim Sutton: Because what happens in my house with artists tools is that they draw on each other around themself. Especially my daughter Zelda, she found a green sharpie marker, December, January. So December 2017 or January 2018, listeners, you can go to my personal Facebook profile and find that video where she’s telling everybody on a Facebook Live that she drew on her face. She was so happy with herself. Yeah, so it’s like a library around here they have to check the drawing utensils out.

Mark Struczewski: Now you just need to understand that my wife and I are empty nesters but we have a zoo, we have a chihuahua, two cats, bird and fish but we don’t have kids. So those days are far behind us. So I’m trying to relate to what Kim is saying about stuff being checked out of her personal library. I can’t relate to that because I’m the king of my castle. I don’t have to do that stuff. Don’t tell MIchelle I said that by the way.

Kim Sutton: She’s the queen. And there’s

Mark Struczewski: Yes. She is. She is.

Kim Sutton: Yap. Cnsidering that, according to my podcast at 61% of the listeners are women. I’m not entirely concerned about making this comment. However, it’s not so nice. There’s a reason why the ladies room is on the right. Whoa. We’re always right.

Mark Struczewski: Okay, yeah.

Kim Sutton: So okay, so write it down. What about right before bed? Do you ever get those ideas and do you have a notebook next to your bed? Do you put it into your phone? What do you do then? Because what I’ve been trying to do is get away from electronics. The hour before bed, which doesn’t always go as planned. Listeners I was sharing with Mark in our pre chat last night. Well, this week, let’s just be honest, I’ve caught up with two and a half seasons of The Walking Dead. So last night, I was watching the zombies right up until bedtime.

Mark Struczewski: And that’s a good memory to go to bed with.

Kim Sutton: You know, it most certainly is not, but going to the behind the scenes helped me from getting zombie nightmares. So that was great because they are the worst, you don’t want to watch the Walking Dead right before bed if it’s not like a behind the scenes look. But yeah, what do you do if it’s right before bed? How do you record ideas, then?

Mark Struczewski: Well, I will answer this question. What I would do. What I do is before I go to bed, I prefaces that I don’t spend a lot of time on social media I’m giving value, but I don’t spend a lot of time consuming content on social media, I don’t have the time. So what I do is I make sure I clean out all my notifications and make sure my emails empty as much as possible. Everything’s cleaned out that I put my phone in airplane mode. Okay? So and I always read about 30 to 45 minutes for bed now. I do read on my iPad which is in airplane mode and which is the screen is inverse. So at night, I read it so it’s a black screen with white lettering ao the lighting doesn’t affect me. The reason why is something else a lot of people don’t know about me is I was born blind in my left eye, the nerve did not develop in the eyeball the brain. So I need to have larger font. So with the iPad or the Kindle, whatever electronic device you’re using, you can make the font larger. So as I’m reading before I go to bed, if an idea pops in to my head, I grabbed my phone, which is in airplane mode. I opened up my to do list app, which I use an app called things three, it’s not free, but it’s a great app and I added to my list so the next day it’s there. So I still record it and, you know, I don’t subscribe to the don’t use electronics before bed, I think if you’re careful about it, I mean if you’re watching Facebook videos or Walking Dead for two hours, that’s probably not a good thing but if you’re reading and you’ve got the screen inversed I think that’s okay. I wouldn’t watch the Walking Dead before what the bad even though that stuff doesn’t scare me it just I don’t like to go to bed with anything negative in my head. I like to go to bed with positive things in my head. So I’m reading a fantastic novel right now by Brad Thor, which is kind of you know, killing people and all sorts of stuff. But right before I go to bed I will read something more positive. Now it may be, I’m reading, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie and Awaken the Giant Within with Tony Robbins. I may read a page or two of that after I read my novel, just so the last thing before I go to bed, it’s something positive instead of negative.

Kim Sutton: I love that. Sorry for the pause listeners. The pause will probably be edited out positive productivity podcast, my charger from my MacBook just started making the strangest buzzing sound. That’s probably not good.

Mark Struczewski: So when you’re actually like I’m talking you have your mic muted?

Kim Sutton: I did just because I have the dog in my office.

Mark Struczewski: Okay, see I when I do my podcast, you’ll find this out. I don’t do that. I was showing sharing with Kim earlier. I don’t edit my podcast that was talking to one person the dog started barking and she got all I’m so sorry. I’m like, Oh, the dog just want to talk about productivity. It’s okay. I just roll with it, folks. Too many people take life seriously, you kind of laugh that’s why Kim and I are doing a lot of laughing here. Life is meant to be enjoyed not like blaaa, you know? Don’t be Linus, is Linus the one that was, no, Eor, Eor from Winnie the Pooh. You know, always a downer. Don’t be an Eor, be a Winnie the Pooh. Be happy about everything. That’s what life.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. Well, Mark, there’s actually an episode, listeners, I will link to it in the show notes. The episode with Christina Jones, one of my cats fame actually gave birth to kittens in the middle of the episode.

Mark Struczewski: Oh my word.

Kim Sutton: But my husband kept on going or coming into the office through the whole episode to tell me what was going on. And I’m just sitting here, and luckily, Christina or Christine, she actually, she has a marketing business where she deals a lot with equestrian businesses, horse related businesses. So she was very fascinated. I know cats and horses are different. I’m not trying to say they’re the same thing. But it was very fascinating to her. And that was not on the episode. But yeah, I knew, though, so as to not interrupt you. But I.

Mark Struczewski: That’s okay. Before we run out of time, because you know, we could talk a long time and I’ve got a call in like 27 minutes, I want to make sure I give your audience and other value. The other thing I want to talk about is scheduling. Everybody is heard, or you probably are familiar with it, what gets scheduled gets done, okay? That sounds great. But first of all, actually do it. And second of all, make sure you’re scheduling both professional and business stuff. In other words, I run every day. Now we’re recording this on February 1st, it won’t be out until March. But today was the 157 consecutive day I run at least one mile. That is actually on my schedule. Run is on my schedule, time to read is on my schedule, because people say if you’re so busy, how do you time to read? I actually schedule it. So you need to schedule stuff when it pops up on your calendar. Now, reading is listed not as busy, so clients can book appointments, there ‘coz I can move them. Coaching calls and podcast interviews are listed busy, as opposed to available. I think I said that backwards. If it’s reading, run, that goes in as available. The other stuff is busy, but you need to put it on your calendar. And the other tip I’ll give you is make sure you’re using one calendar. Don’t have one calendar for business and one calendar for personal, you need to be able to open up one app on your phone and look at everything you have scheduled right then in their. Business and personal because you don’t want to go, okay, nothing’s for works. Let me get my other schedule on. Let me look at my husband’s schedule. Let me look at my kids schedule, put everything on one schedule. Will it be messy? It may be messy, but at least all the information is in one place, as opposed to four.

Kim Sutton: I love it. And I use Google calendar for exactly that same reason. I have my one calendar. But I have different categories. So I can put the kids activities in, my husband’s work schedule and all the stuff so I can just turn them off if I don’t want to see him. But it’s all right there.

Mark Struczewski: Yes. Exactly. So many people they say well, I don’t want to mix business and pleasure. So the problem is, something is going to get missed because now you’re relying on multiple calendars. Don’t do that, use a single calendar.

Kim Sutton: What is one thing every day that you must do to feel complete about the day.

Mark Struczewski: Productivity related or overall?

Kim Sutton: Overall.

Mark Struczewski: Okay, Overall, I don’t know if I can say this in this podcast, but you can edit if it is not, I get up first thing in the morning. The first thing I do, number one is take care of nature. Obviously, nature’s calling for us in the morning. The second thing is I read my Bible. I read the Bible every day, every year all the way through cover to cover. If someone said, Hey, you got a couple of celebrities at the door, they’re going to take you out, fly on private plane, gonna go to Hawaii, they’re gonna coach you all day long. They’re gonna make your business a kajillion dollar business. You got to go right now. Nope. Got to read my Bible first. And I’m not gonna say I’m the world’s greatest Christian because I’m not. But I can tell you since I’ve been reading the Bible every day, my wife has told me that I’m a gentler, kinder and more loving person. So that is my number one priority every day without fail. I hope I didn’t like skew way off the edge of your question.

Kim Sutton: No. I really like that. I really like that. Do you drink coffee?

Mark Struczewski: No.

Kim Sutton: Do you drink soda?

Mark Struczewski: I love Diet Coke. But it can’t be a plastic cup, I tell people it’s got to be in a real glass. Although for Christmas, my church, I’m a leader in the youth group. They got me this arctic cups, ever seen his arctic cups to keep things cold for like forever. Now I put Diet Coke in there and it stays cold all day long because I don’t like ice. My wife and I have this big endless debate. She says ice keeps it cold or no ice waters it down. I just want Diet Coke naked. I don’t want ice. I don’t want lime. I just want Diet Coke in a glass. Now I’m sure some of your listeners would like Diet Coke, go yeah, I get it. You know, don’t taint the taste of diet coke at all. But yeah, I do like my diet coke.

Kim Sutton: I bought my husband a insulated coffee mug for Christmas. And my 12 year old made me an iced coffee. And he decided to put it into that mug. And I’ll tell you the ice was in my– I drink all the coffee. It was on my desk overnight. So by the time I came back to my desk was probably 18 hours later and there was still ice in there. Yeah, so I get it. Like I don’t want my coffee. I know it already has water in it. I don’t drink soda anymore. But I don’t want it. I don’t want my coffee any more diluted than it already is, which I know sounds really like, huh? Yeah, but I just I want coffee, not coffee water.

Mark Struczewski: Yes. You know what’s funny is I like, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but I like when people tell me. They’ll say you know, diet cokes not good for you. That’s not good for you. And they’re smoking a cigarette. I’m like, really dude? Really? Have you looked in the mirror lately? I mean, you smoke 12 packs of cigarettes a day. You’re gonna tell me Diet Coke is bad. Don’t think so, sorry.

Kim Sutton: I was drinking way too much Mountain Dew on top of my coffee. Oh my gosh, that New York coming out. I don’t know if you caught that coffee. But yeah.

Mark Struczewski: Coffee. Over there, over there.

Kim Sutton: Exactly. When I tried to cut out the coffee and the soda on the same day, don’t do that. That’s all I have to say listeners just don’t do that. So I cut the soda. And I may or may not cut the coffee. But just having all that sugar gone is amazing.

Mark Struczewski: Well, I will tell you that. I gave up Diet Coke for three years. And I’m trying to take care of myself better. I’m 52 years young. Why one device is Diet Coke, okay? I’m really trying to do a good job of getting rid of the sugar in my life. I’m really trying to get rid of processed food. And last weekend, my wife and I went the store at Kroger here in Ohio. And they said, one day only, you can get a box of Reese’s peanut butter cups for $5 60 pieces. I should have said no. I eat those things in three days. I’m like, you know what, Mark, this is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done. I should just pass by it. It will take me three seconds to keep walking. I’d like huh? And I blame Michelle because she goes yeah, that’s a good deal. She could say no. I said I told her never let me do that again. It was horrible. My body’s going. Wait a minute, you said you’re going to try to stay less than 40 grams of sugar a day. You’re eating like 20 days a day. So I was really bad and so I got rid of those, but I didn’t throw them all, I had to eat them that day, but I’m trying. Isn’t it horrible? It’s like, well I paid for, I mean those will not bad for you. I will eat it, you know. So yeah, I did that. And so I told her no more sugar. I did find, cuz I have a sweet tooth, and Klondike makes a no sugar added ice cream bar. It’s got five grams of sugar in it. And I allow myself one or two of those a day. The regular ones have 40 grams of sugar. So I’m really trying to watch my sugar. So I’m not a nutritionist. I know people say you shouldn’t eat meat, you should eat meat. You should be vegan. You shouldn’t be vegan. You should eat vegetables, no vegetable. You know what? You got to figure out what works for you, okay? This works for you.

Kim Sutton: Well, Kroger doesn’t always help either. We have a newly reconstructed Kroger, and they put like, Well, okay, so you’re from Rochester. I’m from Rochester. So we both grew up with Wegmans.

Mark Struczewski: Yes. Yeah, all Wegmans.

Kim Sutton: They have the bulk food section listeners. Bulk food is basically big barrels of anything. But when your child is specifically candy, so you go you get the bag, you fill up the bag with, like, from the barrel of– it was always my favorite to get Sour Patch Kids. So our newly reconstructed Kroger here has what I would call the bulk food section right next to the fresh produce, like there’s no aisle or divider in between them. So I’m getting bananas and I can see the sour watermelon screaming at me.

Mark Struczewski: Oh my word.

Kim Sutton: Yeah. I am being monitored for diabetes, so I’m ignoring them. Yes.

Mark Struczewski: Good for you. Good for you.

Kim Sutton: Mark, this has been an amazing conversation. I can’t wait to do it again with you on your podcast and then hopefully on here again, at a future date. Where can listeners find you online? Listeners, don’t try to write down his last name it will be on the shownotes. Where can we find you online Mark?

Mark Struczewski: Thank you for saying that. So if you’re driving, don’t try to memorize ‘coz you won’t. The best place to go is markstruczewski.com. That’s where everything is. You can sign up for my email newsletter. If you scroll to the bottom of the webpage, you can find where I’m on social media. You can go to Google and type in Mark Struczewski, everything pops up. If you really want to be more productive, I would love it. It would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the Mark Struczewski podcast. I’m on Apple podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Play. Basically every place other than SoundCloud because I’m not going to pay $7 a month to have a podcast on SoundCloud. But it’s there and I love what I do. As you can tell, I am an authentic person. As Kim can attest, when we talked about the the one hour 15 minute call we had, who I am off air, who I am on air, who I am on stage, who I am at Kroger, I am the same person, I don’t put on different personas. This is really me. So if you really enjoyed me on Kim’s podcast, go check out mine. If there’s boredom on there, I apologize because I tell my guests, there’s three things that don’t allow my podcast, boredom, any kind of vulgar language, I don’t think brain farts. Just so you know, language, and then the third thing is, I don’t want to, I don’t want your agenda. If you’re an environmentalist, you want to save the whales, you want to say Pluto. That’s not the point of my podcast, just like with Kim, don’t bring your agenda here. That’s not what the point that says. But other than that, I want people to have fun like, like we had a good conversation here. Actually, Kim inspired me, because I don’t call the interview anymore. I call it a conversation. I love the conversation, because it’s kind of like the audience is eavesdropping on our conversation, Kim. Like, what are you gonna talk about now? And it’s more interesting than saying, Mark. So how do you stay productive every day? I say, well, Kim. It’s just what you do. It’s boring. Who likes boring, boring stinks. And so that’s what the marks to chesky podcast is all about. And the reason why I call it the Mark Struczewski podcast, because I get asked this question a lot, is, why don’t you call it the productivity podcast? Because Mark Struczewski is my brand if you google Mark Struczewski everything comes up. And so that’s why I do it the way do maybe the audience, they say I wasn’t thinking that question. I’m a guy. I did it anyway. So there you go.

Kim Sutton: That’s a very valid point though. Because who knows, it’s like I don’t want to be talking about productivity in another 10 years, you might be inspired to talk about [inaudible]

Mark Struczewski: You know what? Maybe want to talk about, you know, basket weaving or how people have different accents. But then I have to keep changing the podcast will Mark Struczewski podcast will always be there?

Kim Sutton: And the proper pronunciation podcast, you know, how to properly say productivity.

Mark Struczewski: Yeah, over there. By the way, Kim and I are from Rochester New York. And I know Kim agrees with me. We do not like people in New York City, we kind of wish, I don’t put words in the mouth Kim but we kind of wish they had their own state because they would suck all the money from Buffalo Rochester Syracuse Albany, they’d suck all the money away and people will, how come you don’t talk about and talk in New York City? ‘Coz I’m not from New York City. I’m from Rochester. We don’t talk like that. We don’t say coffee, although, but I mean, did you think that way? Why don’t they become their own like separate state?

Kim Sutton: Well, even yes, sometimes that would be awesome. In here, let me give you a great example. I went to college in Chicago, a whole bunch of my classmates in the interior architecture program were from New York City. And they told me I wasn’t from New York because I was from Rochester. They’re New York City is a little dot. But Rochester is seven hours away. There’s a lot of cities and towns and great places in between New York City and Rochester and Buffalo. However, the driving is still just as bad.

Mark Struczewski: Yeah. Now I will say that there’s something that they don’t have a lot of in Rochester that they have a lot of in Houston, and apparently where you live. And you mentioned it already on the show today. Do you know what I’m talking about? Not the city, not the actual downtown city. I mean, like out in the suburbs.

Kim Sutton: Snow?

Mark Struczewski: Curbs.

Kim Sutton: Oh curbs.

Mark Struczewski: Curbs. Because when I used to ride my bike all over Rochester, the west side of Rochester. And I hate riding bikes here in Houston, you know, I’m a runner now but when I start my bike cuz they have all these curves for flood control. It drove me nuts because of the curbs. When you have no curve and you’re out in the suburbs, you can just like ride in someone’s grass. You can’t do that down here because you’ve got this big curb. And so in your town where you live, do they have a lot of curbs or are they curb free?

Kim Sutton: There’s curbs all over the place and me and my kids trip over them all the time. Yeah. But

Mark Struczewski: Oh sure, blame the kids. Go ahead, Kim.

Kim Sutton: No. And then there’s like, free animal, not so pretty. Not a cat or a dog who digs holes in my yard and puts them exactly where I walk. So I’ll be walking across the yard to get to the car that’s parked on the road and down goes Mom, it’s pretty funny, actually. But no. Because what they do though Mark, which is what they don’t do up here is they will, the plows will actually they’ll plow the snow right into the yard, nasically.

Mark Struczewski: Snow?

Kim Sutton: In Rochester. And here, they don’t get too close because they have limited snowplows and they’re not going to risk running up onto a curb with the plow because then we’re in real big trouble with one or two plows in the whole town. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Struczewski: Well, I would like you to give a phone to one of your younger kids and always had them videotape you walking in your car. And then one time you fall, they got to put it up on YouTube and Facebook and everything like that and Instagram.

Kim Sutton: Okay. That will be this afternoon.

Mark Struczewski: Oh, you get scheduled. That’s nice.

Kim Sutton: Yep. No, there really needs to be a YouTube station for my family, just so that people can see what really goes on around here. Because, oh, it’s a riot and I’ve been hiding it for the longest time because I didn’t want people to see the mess. And it’s not because they don’t care about cleaning. It’s just oh, it’s the kid tornado.

Mark Struczewski: I’ve been there. I know exactly that what that you’re talking about. And I only had two girls. I couldn’t imagine five.

Kim Sutton: No. It’s impossible. Plus we have the other part of your zoo, eight cats and dog. So

Mark Struczewski: Yes, yes. We won’t go down that road because that was very scary. I had nightmares.

Kim Sutton: It’s scary for me, and I’m loving it. Mark, Again, this has been absolutely incredible.  Listeners, all the links will be in the show notes which you can find at thekimsutton.com/pp262. And with that Mark, I would love if you would share a parting piece of advice or a golden nugget with listeners.

Mark Struczewski: Complexity is the gateway to procrastination. So keep it simple.