The Lazy Genius Podcast - #207 - The 15 Moments That Shaped the Lazy Genius

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

I get asked about the origin story of this business a lot, especially when I do our Ask Me Anything sessions on Sunday nights on Instagram. I get a lot of questions like “how did you get started, where did the name come from, what made you decide to make a podcast, did you have jobs before this,” so let’s talk about what shaped the Lazy Genius into what it is today! Helpful Companion Links Check out The Lazy Genius Way (affiliate link) if you’d like to read more about my life and how I use Lazy Genius principles every day. Instagram is where I hang out the most online, so I’d love for you to join me over there @thelazygenius. This week only (April 25-May1), I’m opening the doors to Camp21 for the summer. Find out more details here. Our Lazy Genius of the Week is Mary Chris Richard with her reminder to live in the season you’re in. Download a transcript of this episode.   This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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you're listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 207, the 15 moments that shaped the lazy genius. I get asked about the origin story of this business a lot, especially when I do our Ask Me Anything sessions on Sunday nights on Instagram. I get questions like, how did you get started? Where did the name come from? What made you decide to make a podcast? Did you have jobs before this. So today, that's what I'm going to share. I went through my life and I tried to trace the lazy genius through line. It was actually a very therapeutic inner jazzing practice. I mapped out my life on a whiteboard and I saw how all of these pieces fit together into a really beautiful story.

One that I honestly hadn't really noticed before in this way. So originally I was actually going to call this episode the Lacey Genius origin story. But the moments felt so pivotal and I needed some way to structure the episode that just wasn't me giving you a slideshow of my life because that's weird. So here we are, the 15 moments that shaped the lazy genius. Number one, in eighth grade, I placed second in a local sports writing competition. I was a very studious kid, very into lists and organization and things being like a certain way. I also wanted to be a sportscaster for years.

When I was an eighth grade, I was a homeschooler, and there was a competition in the local paper. It was kind of a marketing arm of the ACC tournament, the Atlantic Coast Conference. It's a college basketball conference. And my city, Greensboro, North Carolina, it often hosts the basketball tournament. So this was also when the internet and computers were like kind of becoming a thing. So the contest was to write a piece about a pivotal moment in ACC tournament history. And then the winners would get to go to a couple of tournament games and they would write like recaps on the local newspapers website. That was of course very polished and very ahead of its time. Right. So when I was in eighth grade, I figured this contest wasn't really meant for me, you know, because it was meant for like grownups,

but I entered anyway. And I got second place. It was me, an eighth grade homeschool girl with braces and a very unfortunate like Cocker Spaniel haircut and three. three middle-aged dudes. So I got to go to, because I got second place, I got to go to the two semifinal games, one of which included my beloved Carolina Tar Hills. And I balanced like the bulkiest laptop on my, my wool skirt and black tights that I bought at the limited. And I tried to report on the game. I did, I did think my seat would be like at the press table. It was not. I was on the second level in the middle of the Clemson section. So it was not quite as romantic as I expected. Plus the battery life of this computer, it was like five minutes. So I did not do great in like the

execution of my prize, but I came in second place in a sports writing competition as an eighth grader. And they didn't know I was a kid. It was so funny when the newspaper, the people called me to tell me that I had one second place. They didn't believe that I was the one who wrote the piece, probably because the moment I wrote about happened before I was born, but it doesn't matter. I was a good enough writer to come in second in this competition. It lit something in me. That placement lit something in me. And it made me believe, like, even a little bit, that I was good at this writing thing. Number two, when I was in high school, my English teacher, Mrs. Johnson, told me I was a good writer and that I would make a great teacher. I gave up on the sports broadcasting dream.

I got in high school, mostly because I realized I was like not tall and thin and blonde, like pretty much every woman who was on the sidelines. Seriously, if you, if you Google, because I did, female sports announcers, you will be drowning in blonde white women. Plus, I knew that I had to pay my dues and work those sidelines for a really long time before I would be taken seriously enough to have the chance to call a game. And that's really what I wanted to do. I wanted to call a game. But I also figured I'd get married and have a family one day and I didn't really want to have to travel and change jobs often to get into bigger markets and climb the ladder to get the job I wanted that barely any women had. Like even side note,

even today in 2021, the only woman who really sits on the sidelines and gets respect in calling games is Doris Burke. And that's just for basketball. Mary Carrillo is a fixture in tennis, but you don't have women announcing baseball or football games. And again, Doris Burke is pretty much the only woman who does it for basketball, where she actually, like, wears the headphones and talks the entire game. It was a very tough road to climb, and I did not want to be the pioneer. So I didn't know what I wanted to do, though. Like, I had often thought about teaching. But if you were like a Christian female teenager, especially in the South, a main job that was pushed on you was becoming a teacher. You do that until you have kids. And then you quit and you stay home. Now, that is not a bad career path in

the slightest. It was simply present. to me as pretty much my main option. And I didn't want to do it just because that's what I was expected to do. I wanted to do something I was good at. So when Mrs. Johnson, my senior year English teacher, told me I was a good writer and would make a great teacher, that's what I decided to do. I would be a high school English teacher, not because I liked students, but because I did like teaching people new concepts. I liked writing and then someone told me that I was good at both. It's really important to speak good, true words into people's lives and affirm what they're good at. Okay, so number three, also I promise not all of these are going to be this long.

Number three, I learned to pivot when I had to drop out of college. And I realized this one actually might be a little bit long, but that's okay. So I was a very smart person growing up. My brain was my best asset. I was good at school, so I put all my energy into being the best at school. I was valedictorian. My high school. at my high school class. I did not get a single B my entire K through 12 education. I put so much of my identity into being the smart one. So when I was midway through my sophomore year of college, and this could be kind of a weird part of the story, but we'll share it anyway, I literally heard God tell me to quit school. And I was like, you are crazy. But I did it. The details are long and

would require like an additional seven podcast episodes. But basically, I quit school without telling my parents, which was a whole thing. And it was for the absolute best because we had a major family emergency a month later that I would not have been home for. Not only because I would have been in school, but I was going to be spending the next semester, the spring semester of my sophomore year in London, like the whole semester. God knows better than I do, apparently. But the point is, I quit school. I withdrew from teaching, the teaching scholarship I had because I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a teacher anymore. I dropped the education from my English education major and just went back to college about six months later as just an English major at a different school.

And I was okay. It was okay. I am not usually known for pivoting well because plans are so important to me or so I think they are. But this experience has always been a really pivotal one in life because my plans literally burned up in front of me, not just my plans, but also my identity that I attached to those plans. And not only did I survive it, it also made me more of who I already was. And that lesson of learning to pivot and be flexible is certainly an important one when you have your own online business and are basically creating plans from scratch. You have to learn how to pivot. Number four, I learned how to organize tasks and moving parts at my first job as a youth group programming director. I did that for about three years in the early 2000s where I

planned out, you know, weekly meetings, I organized trips, I managed all the logistics. I tried to notice skills in high school students and put them in places where they could succeed in those skills and use them. I think that job actually helped me learn to pay attention to what matters. and taught me how to manage a lot of moving parts at once. Again, something that is very important in having your own business. Number five, I learned that I can write boring words, but I would also rather not. So after I left the youth group programming job, I got a job as a technical copywriter at my alma mater and I hated it. The people I worked with were a delight, but the job itself was like, it was so boring. Some writing.

is boring. Writing articles to teach college students how to program their Blackberry. It was important work in 2006, but it wasn't writing that made me come alive. I realized that I did love words. I loved putting them together. And I even love the teaching aspect of like figuring out the best way to say something so a person could understand it. That I wanted, I wanted it to be my message and not someone else's. And that was a very important listen to learn. I think that's part of of why it was boring. It wasn't just the Blackberry stuff. It wasn't my message. And also, this was a pivotal moment because that was my last job where I had a boss. Number six, I learned that I love helping people feel comfortable in the kitchen when I became

a cooking teacher. So in 2007, I started my first business called My First Kitchen. The idea was to invite people into my home and teach them how to cook basic things. So they would have more fun feeding their people every day. I actually, it was really great. Like, it went really well. I loved it. I had like six to ten classes a month. They all got booked up.

I learned how to go through, like, all the legal stuff to get your house approved by the health department. And like all kinds of grown up things that very much freaked me out as a 25 year old. But I loved teaching. I knew I loved teaching, but I didn't know that I loved teaching cooking. That was huge. I loved teaching people how to feed themselves. the seventh moment that shaped the lacy genius was I created an utterly ridiculous business that showed me I could do things my own way. And that was my second business. After my first kitchen, the second one was

called the sugar box. I started it in 2012, I think. So I quit the cooking classes because I was I was starting to resent my firstborn son for not napping better so that I could get my work done. And God was like, yeah, I think it's time to take a break here, my love. Let's like shut this down. The next thing will come. It's going to be fine. I thought my next thing was going to be baking. So anytime I make a dessert, usually I make very classic things.

And people say it's some of the best that they've ever had, which I'm not trying to like pat myself on the back here. I'm a good baker. But I didn't want to be like an on-dose. demand baker, right? I didn't want to do that. But I started telling local friends that I was baking a certain type of cookie or cake or something and they would order a certain amount. Okay, so I would, I would like batch bake. I would do that once or twice a month. I just kind of announced the foods that I was making. I would take pre-orders, box up whatever they ordered on the same day, and then deliver those boxes all over the city. And it was good. But it wasn't as fun as I wanted it to be.

I really wanted something to be fun. So I thought that baking that way was going to be the thing. And when it wasn't, I got really confused. Then I learned that passions, like even weird ones, they can go far if you just give them space to breathe. I remember this scene so clearly. I was sitting in Emily P. Freeman's living room, along with our friend Melissa, and I was verbally processing, like I do, trying to figure out how to make this baking business work better because it wasn't working. I was sitting cross-legged in a chair with high arms, because that is my favorite kind of seat in any room ever. And Emily and Melissa were both lying like feet to feet on the two sections of a big, you know, L-shaped sofa. And Emily said, if you could make this business whatever you wanted,

no matter how ridiculous, what would you do? And that word ridiculous was the one that sort of got me because I was like, well, I wish I could make the desserts like pop culture themed. and they both sat up and were like from their reclined positions and they were like do that right now. So in that living room, we flesh out a few ideas and the sugar box was born. And every month, what I would do, every month, I would pick a theme, a pop culture theme, like friends, downabby, Harry Potter. I would brainstorm desserts that fit the theme, maybe like six or seven things. And then I would open orders.

It was no choosing specific items, no personalization. you just ordered a Wizard of Oz sugar box and then you'd pick it up at my house on Sugarbox Day. My kids loved Sugarbox Day. I loved Sugarbox Day. It was the best ever. I would block off like two whole days, sometimes three. And I would just bake and package, bake and package, bake and package. Like it was a lot, but it was so great. One baking day I remember I made, because I counted, I made 1,200 cookies. That's a lot of cookies. And that wasn't all. That was just the cookie part. Like there were lots of other desserts that had to be made. It was just such a blakey. last. I loved that business so much. My marrow of gathering around fun food and creating an experience

for people, it grew bones and muscles and skin during the sugar box days. But after I'd done it for over a year, I started paying attention to the money because like when you have a business, you should probably do that. I realized I was making, you're not ready. I was making two cents an hour per box I sold. And my max number of boxes that I could do was 75 boxes. Any more I didn't have room or hours for, like not by myself. So when I realized I was making almost literally nothing for this very fun job, I knew I had to make a choice. Either I had to become a baking business, like get a facility, hire a staff, and then ship sugar boxes everywhere. And I would scrap like all the writing that I was doing alongside the business because I was doing that too. Or,

I would scrap the baking and focus on writing. But I'd have to change what I wrote about because cupcakes and Jude Law can only take you so far. And that leads us to number eight. I created the lazy genius collective in 2015. It took almost a year to figure out what it would be. And even now, it's different than when I started, which I'll get to that. But when I was thinking about what I wanted to write about, I knew it was helping people not feel so tired anymore. It just seemed like there was so much effort expended all around me. And I found myself giving people in my real life and some of the people on the internet permission to let something go, like all the time.

So I thought, okay, I'll become the person who helps you figure out what to say no to. But it was also more than that. I wanted to talk about meal prep and parenting and parties and planners and also still talk about Jude Law and cupcakes. But I needed a lintz. I needed some sort of filter for all of this. Enter Emily P. Freeman again. She has this secret superpower of naming things, like literally naming books and websites and maybe even children. I don't know. But she and I spent a couple of days like batting ideas back and forth over

text or Voxer. Did we have Voxer then? I don't even remember. I just know we were talking about it, like what felt like constantly, which was so generous of her because she like, she had a job too. Like she was a writer and doing things. But she's the one who came up with the phrase. lazy genius. Bless it. Then I came up with the tagline, but not on purpose. It was so accidental. I was just verbally processing the name that she magically created. And I said to her, I was like, yeah, it's like I can help people figure out how to be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. And we both started screaming because it was perfect. That name and that lens jump started the whole thing. My first blog post was published.

in August of 2015. It's a recipe. It's a very solid recipe, by the way, for a two-minute, stupid easy raspberry sorbet, which literally only has like a couple of ingredients in it. It takes no time. Very delightful. But then the second post was called, it's time to name what matters. An excellent start, I would say. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces

can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Okay, number nine, I learned to use my voice, and I started a podcast. I only wrote blog post for a year. Like, that's all I did,

was just blog post. And then I started thinking about this podcast thing. right? Maybe I should start one. But I never thought that I would have anything to say and instead wanted to do an interview show because that's what I thought you were supposed to do. It just seemed at the time for me way too narcissistic to be like, hey guys, listen to me and only me for 20 minutes. And while I see how that is such a ridiculous perspective to have, at the time with where I was, it made sense. I did not think anyone would want to listen to me. And so I had guests.

It was good and it was fun. But I'm also like not a super great interviewer. I'm not fishing for compliments with this. But it's just not my strongest skill. I know that. That's why we only do like maybe four to six interviews a year on the show because it's just not where I shine. Plus interview podcasts are hard.

You have to like plan the conversation and prep and edit the episode and be on someone else's timetable. So it's just it's a lot of work. So after I did 10 episodes, I took a break from that to reevaluate. I knew I loved the medium. I loved using my voice way more than I expected to. But if I hadn't taken that smaller step to have a show with people, I don't think I ever would have made a show without them.

So it was important that I learned to use my voice, even in that way, which leads us to number 10. I enrolled in Marie Forleo's B-School program in the spring of 2017. about a year and a half after I started the blog, and that was about six months after starting the podcast. And it was through that program that I found my voice. So B-School is not cheap. It is a $2,000 online course. It is a wonderful crash course for creating a business that serves people well, but also uses like your best abilities and your passions to make that happen. So going through that course, it helped me name that I did have things to say and that people would listen to it.

One of the exercises in the course is to ask like, I don't know, six to 12 people or something that you know to describe what you're good at, like in a handful of words. The words that came out of that were pretty much under one of three categories from everybody. And I asked a lot more people. Funny, smart, and relatable. Every single person said some version of, I just like listen to you talk. It's easy. I always learned something, but it's not boring or preachy.

It's really fun. And I just had this like settling in my soul of finding my own voice. Or maybe it was more specifically believing that my voice could make an impact in people's lives. So it was through that, that course that I changed the podcast to just me. I relaunched it in March of 2017. And then here we are over four years. and I think we're like almost at 9 million downloads later, which is bonkers. And I'm just so happy that I found my voice. Number 11, I found my face. Is that a thing? We will make it a thing.

I found my love of being on camera when I, wait for it, when I auditioned for a televised baking show, and I made it to the final cut. It was summer of 2017. This was a big year. 2017 was a big year. So just a couple of months after relaunching the podcast with just me, right? And I applied to be on this TV show. There were Zoom interviews and an in-person taste test and interview. And then for the final round, there were like several rounds. And then for the final round, I flew to New York and I actually competed against other potential contestants, obviously, other finalists in this industrial kitchen. And the entire time, there was a camera crew walking around the kitchen with like a producer and whatever that was asking. me questions. And I was like, yes, let's do this every day. I loved it. I could not believe how much I loved it. It was one of my favorite experiences of my entire life. And I was good at it. I say that not in like a prideful way, but I remember looking around the room and observing how people were on camera. They were either like really tight and nervous or they were swinging the other way, understandably, and kind of trying a little too hard. Like I could tell that's not who they were when I was

talking to them in the room before. And it just felt right to me. It felt easy. It felt natural. I didn't feel like I had to change who I was when a camera showed up. Who I was made sense on camera. And when I got the call a couple of weeks later from the production assistant, not the actual producer, which was my, that was my clue that I did not get it because an assistant would have called me to tell me that I made the show. But he was so kind, like he was so kind. I had met him in New York at the final audition. And he said to me on the phone when he called to give me the bad news. He said, you were on our list in the pitch. We wanted you on the show. But the network wanted to go another way. And while I was, I was disappointed, like understandably, but I also got it.

Like it made sense. I am, I'm a really big believer in things working out the way they're supposed to. So it was okay. It was okay. It turns out that was that was a year where the show that I was going to be on, it got pulled in the middle of the season. Actually, not even the middle. It was like after two episodes because one of the judges turned out to be problematic. So that was crazy. And the entire reason that I wanted to go on the show in the first place was to grow this audience, was to grow my platform. I could have gone on location for three months away from my family. And then months later, when the show aired, and I would have seen all of that investment fizzle when the show was pulled after only two episodes. I felt like it was just a divinely appointed experience because I got the

confirmation that I'm good on camera and that I can pursue that in different ways. But I also didn't have to go on TV and turn my life upside down to do it. Number 12, I hired help. So in the course of six months, I found my voice. I found my face. And I was like, okay, this is a legitimate business. and I want to make this work. And I realized that I could in no way do everything myself. So in 2017, like a few months after that, I hired a friend who worked for another friend to like be in my email inbox and do a few administrative things, like a few hours a week. Then I realized I needed someone that could do a variety of tasks who I would love to see stay with me for like a long time, you know? And I found Leah in March of 2018. And everything changed. And everything changed.

changed after that. Leah does everything, like for real. The only things I do are only what I can do, which has come up with content. I want to make a great podcast. I want to share helpful and fun content on Instagram. I want to create products that work for you. I want to write books that work for you. You know, we've got another one of those coming soon. And Leah does literally everything else. Everything. Hiring her has been one of the most important things that has shaped the lazy genius without question. Number 13, I joined a mastermind. So the internet author space has some really amazing people in it. And I have made some excellent, intelligent friends over the years. Sometimes I'd ask them questions, and it was never weird to be like, I don't know what to do

here because I am making this up as I go. Like, do you have any ideas? Do you have any ways to help me? But in early 2018, around the same time I hired Leah, I was talking to Jamie B. Golden of the podcast. with Knox and Jamie, my favorite podcast of all the podcasts. And we were joking because we had heard about this paid mastermind that someone we both follow had joined. And it was $17,000 a year to be part of it. Now, that is a very high price. But it's also not ridiculous. There is remarkable value in being with focused, ambitious, smart people in a very small group, meeting regularly and learning from each other. So I'm not knocking the price. I'm not knocking the price. But I had not done that on any level. I had not done any sort of like professional group on any

level consistently. And I knew that my first foray into masterminds, it could not have the price tag of a Kia, you know? So as Jamie and I talked about it, I was like, well, like, I mean, you and I could do that, right? Like, couldn't we meet on purpose regularly to talk about business stuff? And she was like, yes, we can. That'll be $17,000 because she's Jamie and she's always funny. But we started meeting in, I think it was like March or April of 2018. Then we both went on a trip called Literary London, hosted by Tish Oxen Rider and Emily P. Freeman. And Brie McCoy was on that trip. I mentioned her before on this podcast and on Instagram.

I even talk about Bree in my book a couple of times. She shared in our small group in London that she wished she had someone to talk to about her business, like how to make the best decisions. And Jamie and I were like, come with us, be with us. and then literally weeks later, Jamie invited Laura to remain to our first call. And we just tried to see if we worked well together. And it turns out we do. The energy that the four of us have together is really special. And it has been a huge driver in shaping this space and shaping the lazy genius.

Those women, they are not the only places that I get advice or counsel or ideas at all. But the consistency of our meetings and the purpose of our friendship, which is primarily to be each other's business cheerleaders and coaches was tremendously clarifying and hopeful, and I love them so much. The 14th moment that shaped the lazy genius was the book I wrote, The Lazy Genius Way. Looking at the chronology of all this again, I started the Lazy Genius Collective in the fall of 2015. I started the interview version of the podcast almost a year later.

I relaunched it with just me, maybe nine months after that. from the first launch. And then around that same time, I hired help and I joined a mastermind. There was some major rocket fuel happening in 2018. And it was around this time that I decided it was time to write a book. I would get so many questions about various lazy genius aspects. And I wanted to create a single resource for people. Now, I thought that resource would be a book full of specific ideas, you know, like how to clean everything, how to plan everything, how to do everything. And I wrote a book proposal in that same summer that I went to London. So before the official beginning of my mastermind. And my agent pitched that proposal in the fall of 2018.

I agreed to a deal with my publisher, which is Waterbrook Multnomah on September 27th, 2018. I signed the official contract in October. I started writing the book in January of 2019. It came out in August of 2020 because book publishing takes a really long time. and and here we are. You're still reading it. It's still selling. It was a New York Times best seller. I mean, it's just crazy. And I'm so glad that I figured out what the book was as I wrote it. And that is actually the 15th moment. Writing that book taught me that you learn what works by doing something that might not. I did that with a book because I had to, to write over 50,000 horrible garbage words to find what the book really was. It wasn't supposed to be a book

with a list of ways to do something. It was supposed to be a book of principles that you could apply to any situation and figure out your own way of doing something based on what matters to you. You know, every reader is different, but principles serve every single person in every single situation. but I would not have found that book if I didn't try it the other way first. I have done that multiple times in this business. I have no way of knowing what will work until I try something, knowing that it might not work. And that is like really, really tough for me as a recovering perfectionist who did not try things unless she knew she would be amazing at them out of the gate. That's not how you create a business that serves people. You have to try. You have to make. You have to

mess up and tweak and pivot and hold plans loosely, but you still have to make plans. It's like so amoebic and strange running your own business, especially one where you are creating content for people to consume. But it continues to find its shape, this space, because we try, right? And when something doesn't work quite right, we figure out what to do next to see if something else will stick and serve our people a little bit better. And those are the. 15 moments that shaped the lazy genius. I hope that this answers some origin story questions for you, but I also hope that you see that nothing happens all at once, like ever. Every person's experience is a collection of loosely connected parts that build on each other. But you don't really know

what they're building when you're in the middle of it, right? That's why I'm really glad I did this episode, I got to see how everything has been building on itself for years, like even decades. I didn't really, I didn't really know that. Like, this kind of work has always been in me. And even though it could have taken any number of shapes, the experiences I had over the years, they have led me here. I'm so glad they did. I'm so glad they did. Thank you so much for being like the only reasons these moments have a place to land. Like truly, this space, it wouldn't exist without you. I could have lived all those moments, but if you were not here listening and reading and making chicken and turning lazy genius into a verb, I would have a different path, which would be okay,

but it's such an honor that the path is what it is and that you are here with me on it. I'm just super duper grateful. I also wanted to let you know before we go that if you really love this lazy genius space and you want to like kind of level up how you apply lazy genius principles to your own life. This week, I just wanted to mention in case you don't see it somewhere else, the doors are open for Camp 21, which is a membership community where we learn how to level up your lazy genius life. Details are at the lazy genius collective.com slash camp 21. So in case the podcast is like the only way that you interact with me or you might just miss me talking about it this week on Instagram or you don't get my newsletter, which is where it's going to go. I just wanted

to mention it here briefly. So the link will be in the show notes if you want to check that out. All right, let's take a final moment to celebrate our lazy genius of the week. It's Mary Chris Richard, who wrote this in a recent Instagram post. Yesterday, I listened to the Lazy Genius podcast called How to Rally on a Bad Day. I just loved her practicality in naming what matters, how to show grace along the way and leave the rest behind. I often catch myself wondering, when does it get easier? And if I'm being honest, we go from one hard stage to the next with this crew.

By the way, this crew is a photo of four adorable tiny humans. So instead, Mary continues, we're learning. We're learning to recognize the season we're in. We're identifying what matters to us and showing lots of grace along the way. This week, it was filling up a sticker chart for using calm bodies and kind words. And can't we all just agree with Christine, it's one of the little kids that were here for the ice cream. Christine is the tiniest human in the picture. She is very happy that she is holding a giant cup of ice cream.

I just really love this, Mary. Mary, thank you for sharing these words and this lovely moment of your family, just like living one small step at a time. I love seeing stuff like this. So thank you for being our lazy genius of the week. Okay, fam, thank you for being here. Until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't.

I'm Kendra. I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that, more dangerous, and a B minus or a C plus life? Because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it?

I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.