March 21, 2025 • 51 mins
Nancy Kramer aka Kramer, founder of Resource Ammirati and current Chief Evangelist Officer at IBM, shares her remarkable journey from landing Apple as her first client at 26, to building one of the most successful women-owned marketing agencies in the country.
But what makes Kramer truly inspiring is how she carries herself as a flawed and approachable human. Her transparency about navigating professional triumphs alongside personal struggles offers powerful lessons in resilience, self-discovery and embracing one's unique "inner genius." And it doesn't hurt that her laugh is as infectious as her personality.
You will leave this conversation believing you can do anything—because you can! Subscribe now for more stories that will transform how you think about success, healing and what's possible when you finally embrace your authentic self.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey there you beautiful badass.
Welcome to the Keri Croft Show.
I'm your host, keri Croft,delivering you stories that get
you pumped up and feeling likethe unstoppable savage that you
are.
So grab your coffee, put onyour game face and let's do this
thing.
Baby Ready to elevate yourself-care game?
(00:30):
Bosco Beauty Bar is a modern medspa offering everything from
cosmetic injectables, lasers andmicroneedling to medical grade
facials and skincare.
Conveniently located inClintonville, grandview, powell
and Easton.
Making self-care a priority hasnever been easier.
Grandview, powell and Easton.
Making self-care a priority hasnever been easier.
Use code KROFT for $25 off yourfirst visit.
Let's get real here.
Aging isn't always cute.
(00:51):
Wrinkles, things sagging wherethey didn't before.
Do I hate my partner or is thisperimenopause?
I've been there and that's whyI'm all about Donaldson.
From plastic surgery toaesthetics, to functional
medicine, they help you loveyour body and get to know it
better.
Want to feel like yourselfagain?
Head to DonaldsonHealthcom and,if you're a first-time client,
(01:11):
mention the Keri Croft Show for$100 off your first treatment.
You're welcome.
Today I have the pleasure ofsitting down with a woman who
built a company that quietlyshaped some of the biggest
brands in the world.
With a woman who built acompany that quietly shaped some
of the biggest brands in theworld.
Nancy Kramer, aka Kramer, is apowerhouse entrepreneur who, in
1981, founded one of the mostsuccessful women-owned marketing
(01:33):
agencies in the country,resource Amarati, right here in
Columbus, ohio, and at just 26years old, she landed Apple as
her very first client Notimpressive at all, by the way.
Over the next few decades, sheworked with giants like
Victoria's Secret and in 2016,she sold her company to IBM,
where she continues to lead andinspire as chief evangelist
officer for IBM.
(01:54):
But beyond the boardrooms andbig deals, what makes Nancy
truly extraordinary is how shecarries herself as a flawed and
approachable human being and hertransparency about that.
In the early 2000s, when thedot-com bubble burst and her
company's revenues plummeted by70% in 90 days, she was also
going through a divorce andraising two daughters and a son
(02:15):
as a single mom.
Those were indeed the darkestof times, and even now, after
everything she's achieved, nancyis still very much on a quest
to deepen her relationship withherself, to keep searching,
growing and staying malleable inlife and love.
So here's my hope for thisconversation that someone out
there may be sitting at homefeeling stuck, overwhelmed or
(02:38):
like they're carrying way toomuch.
Here's a piece of Nancy's storyand adds it to their own
arsenal.
I want you to leave thisconversation thinking that you
can do anything, because you can, and Nancy is the perfect
person to inspire you to shootfor the moon.
Nancy Kramer, welcome to theKeri Croft Show.
Well, thank you, I'm veryexcited to have you here.
(02:58):
I'm super pumped to be here.
I wasn't expecting you I knewyou were a beautiful woman but I
wasn't expecting you to givehot vibes.
I'm serious, understated.
I got to get credit where it'sdue.
Understated like sophisticatedyoung.
You're giving a lot of thingsand you're also giving hair.
(03:20):
Model, so we got to start withthat.
You have really good hair,thank you, which I'm super
pissed about.
Model so we got to start withthat.
You have really good hair,thank you, which I'm super
pissed about.
Do you know, for me, one thingI've always wanted big time is
just your hair.
Basically, do you getcompliments on your hair all the
time?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Yeah, I guess so, especially for my age, because
I'll be 70 this year.
Which is so awesome and so youknow to have this much hair
because it tends to thin.
I think as you age, yourscertainly has not.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So, speaking of being 70 this year, let's park for
that.
You and I talked about this alittle bit I think, whenever you
turn that next number andobviously the higher it gets
right there's a thing with it.
There's a mix of heaviness andgratitude.
So what are you feeling?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
mix of heaviness and gratitude.
So what are you feeling?
Well, it started last year,about a month before my 69th
birthday which I just think is adumb number to be 69 for all
the obvious reasons and Istarted getting kind of
depressed about the fact that in13 months I'm going to be
effing 70.
I mean 70.
And so I wallowed for a whileand then I was like snap out of
(04:29):
it, Kramer.
I mean seriously, just snap outof it.
You're healthy, You're, youknow, engaged, You're curious,
you know I have this fabulousfamily, you know a fabulous life
.
Just snap out of it.
And I started talking to somefriends that are also turning 70
.
And we started talking aboutwhat's our 30 year plan, what's
(04:51):
our?
Well, my one friend, Tani Crane, wants to make it our 50 year
plan.
But what's our 30 year plan?
How do we want to live our lifefor the next 30 years?
And, of course, just likeeveryone, we want to be as
healthy and as vibrant as anengaged as possible.
And so what are the?
Like everyone, we want to be ashealthy and as vibrant and
engaged as possible.
And so what are the things thatwe're doing?
So we're sharing a lot ofthings, that we're learning and
(05:11):
reading and really focusing onwhat we can do to, you know,
live as fully as we possibly canas we age.
But I have to say, getting oldreally rocks, because you learn
so much shit that you don't knowwhen you're younger and you're
just like super comfortable witha whole bunch of things that
(05:32):
were really uncomfortable whenyou were younger and I I really
love it on a lot of levels.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I couldn't agree with that more.
I think too, talking aboutaging in a way that isn't this
doom and gloom.
It's similar to me like whenyou talk about death in our
country, especially how it's.
Of course it's hard and it'sall these things, but you look
at other countries, the way theycelebrate things differently.
We have to start talking aboutthe aging process in a way that
(06:04):
is like I do feel so much betterin so many different ways and
you do learn so much.
So like shifting that narrativea little bit.
I can see it out there.
I can see people who arestarting to have more
conversations about it.
It's okay to talk about youknow it's like menopause.
Yeah, same thing.
Yeah, no one.
I mean, you would never hearanyone talk about menopause.
(06:24):
You know it's.
It's like we're talking aboutthis shit now, especially the
complexities of being a woman.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, totally no, we ain't basic out there, no, Like
the other, like the other gender, as much as they'd like to
pretend that we are Right, weare complex, so let's honor it
and celebrate it and talk aboutit, say it loud, say it proud.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Okay, so I'm fascinated, fascinated by you in
so many different ways and Iwant to start off with just
putting myself in your shoes at26.
You know, you met these twoguys.
You were in radio sales.
I won't make you go through thewhole thing.
You can Google, you know.
Do the Google machine.
Next thing, you know you'reworking with Apple.
You didn't know like okay,they're going to be like one of
(07:06):
the biggest, if not the mostimpactful company.
When you were there, what wasit like?
Steve Jobs was 20 something.
He and I were the same age.
Yeah, were people smoking cigsin the conference room.
Like how many females werethere?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Like.
Can you give some imageryaround what that looked and felt
like in the beginning?
Yeah, I would say that it wasmostly a male culture, a lot, a
lot, a lot of men.
I would say maybe 10, at themost 20% women, and they were
mostly in marketing, not reallyin engineering, software,
product engineering or any ofthat.
But I would go to Apple'scorporate headquarters in
Cupertino every other week,sometimes every week, from
(07:50):
Columbus in those early yearsand I loved it.
It was a campus They've movednow, but it was a campus of
buildings, like three-storybuildings that was rather
nondescript.
But inside they were anythingbut nondescript, you know, open
before anybody was having openfloor plans.
The creative offices were inthis beautiful cool warehouse
(08:14):
space with really high ceilingsand there was a buzz, a constant
buzz.
It's as if you were pluggedinto an electrical socket day in
and day out.
And we were on a mission andthat mission was to have
everyone in the world have apersonal computer, which in 1981
(08:35):
and 1982, like computers, werenot something that everyone had.
They were kept in clean roomsand no one was to access them.
So people thought I was nuts.
They thought I was nuts toleave my job in radio sales to
work with this company that wasnamed after a piece of fruit and
(08:55):
actually was going to likewho's going to use?
People would ask me who's goingto use a computer.
They literally thought it wasreally stupid.
But in my heart I felt such aconnection.
I felt like there've been somethings along my on my life
journey that I have felt like Ihad to do.
I just couldn't not do them,and that was one of them.
(09:18):
And working with Apple was justthe gift of a lifetime.
I worked with Steve Jobs.
I was on the launch team of theMacintosh, launch team of the
Lisa, which was preceded theMacintosh.
It was really quiteextraordinary.
But they weren't smokingcigarettes.
There was a grand piano in thelobby of the Macintosh building.
(09:41):
The Macintosh building had allthe cool stuff in it pressed
juices before there was pressedjuices, sushi before there was
sushi.
All the cool foods.
People working 24 sevensleeping at the office, very
casual On a good day.
People were wearing shoesAnything that you could think of
.
That would be iconic Californiaenvironment.
(10:02):
That's what Apple was like.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And you knew you were on a rocket ship.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I didn't know it would become what it was going
to become.
I didn't know Steve Jobs wasgoing to become what he became.
I mean there was a time thatthe company came close to going
out of business.
I mean, one of the situations Iwas in a planning meeting, a
creative team meeting, and I hadthe opportunity, because of the
way Apple worked, that I wouldbe in meetings with some of the
(10:29):
most iconic advertising peoplein history, like Lee Clow, Steve
Hayden I mean these amazingpeople, and we were in an
ideation session with Shia Dayand we were talking about what
was Apple going to do.
And this was when Steve wasgone.
So what was Apple going to do tocombat Windows 95?
(10:51):
And because Windows 95, whichwas introduced by Mac, by
Microsoft, mimicked thegraphical user interface which
you know.
Before that you had to liketype in DOS.
You know back whatever.
I never learned how to use anyof that, but you had to.
You know it was a revolutionfor Microsoft to have this new
Windows 95 interface whichbasically mimicked what the
(11:14):
Macintosh did, and Apple hadlost its way.
Steve had been gone for about10 years and everybody was
talking about you.
They're what Microsoft wasdoing to launch it and what are
we going to do to counterbalanceit?
And I stood up and I poundedthe table and I said there's
only one thing that we can do tocombat what Microsoft's doing,
(11:38):
and that is to bring Steve Jobsback into this company.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
You did Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
What was the like?
Jaw drop, mic drop, kind of Didanybody was there a slow clap?
Yeah, and then and then ithappened, and then it happened.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
I mean, I'm sure I'm not the only person who ever
said that, but I was so emphaticabout thinking our way out of
this.
There's no way to get out ofthis.
You need him back here.
There's no way.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
He's the guy yeah he was the guy and again, you know,
speaking of Steve Jobs, I'mtrying to think.
You know he's your age, so he's26 when it started.
He gets kicked out, then leavesfor what?
Maybe 10 years or less?
What did you see different whenhe came back?
Like, was he better when hecame back or was he?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
kind of the same.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
He was more refined, more self-aware.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
More grounded, very focused.
I think that the company'strajectory might have been
different had that not happened.
I really am a believer thateverything happens for a reason.
I happened to be at Apple theday that he was fired.
At Apple, the day that he wasfired, I was standing in the
(12:49):
Macintosh building with all thepeople around us and the person
came out and said Steve Jobs hasbeen fired by the board of
directors, he's left.
And it was just.
I felt like somebody had diedand I just started crying.
I just felt like, oh my God,the vision, the soul of this
company is leaving.
How can this happen?
I mean, this was really, reallychallenging.
(13:10):
And so, in that time period,different leaders, different
CEOs came in and none of themhad.
I mean, they were just notright.
They just weren't right.
The company really lost itselfand literally in 1995, we
thought the company might go outof business.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
What was the first conversation you had with Steve
after you found out that he wasgone?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
I just sent him a note.
I did not have a conversationwith him, I just sent him a note
about what he was doing at nextand um you know my support yeah
, because it probably felt veryfor him like a death in a way
yeah, really challenging toprocess, so what?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
did you?
Because here's how I see it.
I see it like everybody wasworking so hard there wasn't
really like a bro culture, sowas was there a lot?
Anything that you can rememberlike somebody doing that they'd
be canceled for today, likebehaviors or things that were
the norm, or like sexualharassment of any kind.
I mean, here you are, this likereally good looking female
(14:19):
There'd have to be.
I mean, I worked in corporateAmerica, like you know, in the
nineties, and I, I mean I workedin corporate America, like you
know, in the 90s, and I meanthere's some stuff going on
there.
Can you remember any of that?
Or was it just more businessall the time?
Like everyone was just headsdown?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
No, I mean there was a lot of, you know there was a
lot of drugs there was, you know, drugs and alcohol, and I mean
I wasn't an Apple employee, sosome of that I wouldn't have
necessarily had exposure to.
But you know, there weredifferent people that had
(15:04):
reputations for being very loose, I guess, or aggressive with
women, but no more than probablyany corporate typical kind of
thing.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, was Steve jobs like a hot guy, like was he like
a sexy guy?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
or was he just such a prick that that didn't even
work, cause I, I, um, I thoughthe was fabulous.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I thought he was fabulous.
I think he was super handsome.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I thought he, I thought he was really, I thought
he was fabulous, I think he wassuper handsome.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I thought he was really you know really handsome.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
And then I, just I was fascinated when I read his
Is now a good time for me totell you that I made out with
him.
Oh, stop it, stop it.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Hold on, hold on, kate, kate, read my pulse, my
pulse, my pulse.
Cpr.
That's what I'm talking aboutover delivery did you seriously
make out with?
Steve jobs.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Was he a good kisser?
Yes, yeah, I didn't sleep withhim, though which is kind of
like.
I kind of like in my life.
I'm like, oh, I kind of regretthat, but why did I do that?
Oh, I thought I was married.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I know I thought you're going to say you regret.
You kid that you made out?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Oh my God, no, I know I say so.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Speaking of being married, your first husband,
when did you meet him along thispath?
I was in college at Ohio State,okay, so you guys were college
sweethearts.
Do you think your success wasthat like the main driver?
Or when you look back now, youguys were so young You're like,
okay, there were like obviousthings that just weren't going
(16:39):
to work, that we don't see atthe time, or maybe was it a
hybrid.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I didn't really want to get married.
I got married because I thoughtI had to.
I got married for religiousreasons.
I got married.
He was the first person I everhad intimate relationships with.
I was raised in a very, veryCatholic household uber Catholic
household.
I went to Catholic school.
(17:03):
My mother was a convert, so Icalled her an uber Catholic.
So I went to Catholic school.
My mother was a convert, so Icalled her an uber Catholic.
So she was like even overlyCatholic.
And when I was the summerbetween my sophomore and junior
year of college at Ohio Statebecause I'm a first generation
college graduate I didn't knowthat there was any other school
you could go to.
I literally had no idea.
(17:23):
But I was working at Kroger asa cashier, which I did to put
myself through school at OhioState.
I was living back at home thatsummer and my boyfriend then
soon-to-be husband was living inCleveland and I was writing him
a letter.
And when I was working at myshift at Kroger my mother went
into my bedroom and read thatletter and in that letter she
(17:49):
figured out that we had slepttogether and my mother proceeded
to try to overdose on Valium.
And so when I got home thatnight from my Kroger shift at
like 11 o'clock I walk into ourfamily kitchen and my father at
(18:11):
1461 Kennard Road on the eastside of Columbus.
I walk in the door and it wasall.
The lights were out, my fatherwas sitting at the kitchen table
smoking a unfiltered camel witha bourbon on the rocks, and
usually when that was the case,my mom would be sitting there
with them.
They called it their nightclub,which was they couldn't afford
(18:33):
to go out and I was like where'smom?
And my father said what hadhappened and he said your mother
should not have gone throughyour things and you shouldn't
have done that.
It was never, ever discussedand my father died 17 years
later, my mother died 30 someyears later and it was never
(18:55):
discussed.
But it was that feeling of this,like super Catholic, you know,
that guilt, and I thought I wasa sinner and this was the only
way I could rectify it.
And so I have very vividmemories of the wedding, not
(19:17):
really wanting to do it, cryingthat night, sobbing that night
unconsolably, and so it, youknow, and he's a wonderful
person, and we had a lot ofthings in common, you know, we
did triathlons together, werenovated a house in German
village.
Together we got a dog, we hadthree fabulous children.
(19:38):
I mean so many wonderful thingsin my life.
He's a wonderful person.
I talked to him last week and Italked to his.
It just wasn't what I wanted andeventually my body caught up
with me.
My body caught up with me, andthat was at that moment when the
(20:00):
business was plummeting and Iwas having all kinds of health
issues driving myself to theemergency room on a Saturday
night hooked up to, you know,ekg and CAT scan, you know I
thought I was having a heartattack or a stroke or whatever
panic, panic, anxiety attacks,and that happened multiple times
.
And so I finally, working intherapy, got myself to a place
(20:25):
where I could face and acceptmyself for this situation and
forgive myself for the situation, but I knew I had to change.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Thank you for sharing that.
By the way, there's so manythings that I'm feeling from
that.
The one thing I was going toask you and I think you kind of
answered it for me but in one ofyour interviews you made a
point to say I didn't want to belike my mom, and I feel that
how did she show you love?
How did you feel loved?
Speaker 3 (20:56):
by her.
I didn't.
I didn't feel love, I feltcompetition.
I think that my mom I just havean older brother, it was just
the two of us and my mom stayedat home and my father worked at
Keebler and I would come homefrom school and I would walk in
(21:17):
the door and I'd say, what didyou do all day?
And she would recite thislitany of household chores and I
would say, well, that soundsboring and I just thought
there's this world out there,like the planet Earth, like, why
are you spending your timedoing this?
Like I felt this very earlyvisceral feeling that there had
to be more to life than doinglaundry.
(21:40):
That was one part of theequation.
But my mother, she would say tome on multiple occasions let's
hope we find someone to marryyou someday who's gonna take
care of you.
So that's another dimension toall of this.
And the other dimension is thefact that my mother used to
(22:02):
jokingly, but not call me herdumb blonde and my brother and
my mother both would tease mecalling me stupid dumb blonde,
but they said it so much that Iabsorb it.
I absorbed it.
Like there are times today insome of the things that I'm
doing at IBM that are like mindblowing.
(22:24):
You know stuff on quantumcryptography, and I'm like, I'm
not a dumb blonde, I'm not adumb blonde, but I feel like it
in this moment, dumb blonde, butI feel like it in this moment.
So you know, it's still here.
It is, however, many yearslater.
So it was, and so I think my momfelt as though I was going to
have an opportunity to have alife she didn't have, and she
(22:44):
was an only child.
She told me repeatedly that herparents did not want her.
Her name was Marion and it wasspelled as if it was a boy, not
a girl, and so she said myparents wanted a boy, they
didn't want a girl.
So my mother never felt lovefrom her parents.
But three days before my motherdied, I was sitting with her
and she looked me in the eyesand she said you know, I'm
(23:09):
really proud of you and I loveyou.
There wasn't any, but therewasn't any sense of judgment,
and it was, and I love you.
It wasn't, there wasn't any,but there wasn't any sense of
judgment, and it was really thefirst time I felt that from her,
when you come up as a child, inwhatever environment you're in,
and you think your parents hungthe moon.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And I think it's the moment when you realize your
parents are only capable of whatthey were or weren't given Like
when you saw that your mom wasnever shown love then you look
at it reflectively and you gowell, of course, right.
But I think what's so powerfulabout that is that you realize
it's not me, and I think untilyou can get there with your
(23:49):
parents like your, yourupbringing and your parents, I
think you're always sufferingand and I think that's for me
personally seeing my parents ashuman beings and understanding
how they were raised.
They're just one person on thisearth just trying to make it
and they're everything to you.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
I went through intense therapy.
I hadn't been to a therapistever in my life until I was in
my mid 40s and I did intensetherapy every week for a very
long period of time.
I just recently went back totherapy.
It was in my 40s, you know,looking back at that episode
when I was, you know, still incollege, and what she did, I
(24:29):
didn't realize, of course I had.
No, I thought it was all me.
This is what I did, my behaviorscaused my mother to do this,
and my therapist said thattrying to reconcile that is one
of the hardest things you haveto do.
You know, when someone tries tohurt themselves because of
something you did, it's a reallyhard thing to get through.
(24:51):
But I I mean what?
What an extraordinaryexperience to be able to talk
about it, because it amplifies,you know, the importance of
having the ability to reallylove yourself, and I didn't
learn to love myself until Iwent through therapy and it's
still a challenge every day.
(25:14):
And all the external things thatare happening, that you know
day, all the inputs that you'regetting externally, impact that
internal life and that love ofself and our natural, you know,
universal thing that we share isthis like self-judgment.
We're not good enough.
We're suck, you know, and weall share that, and listening to
(25:37):
some of your episodes, I heardthat from so many of your guests
and all of us, no matter whoyou are, we all have that and
it's something I have to.
You know, work on every day.
So did you feel love from yourdad?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I did, she had a good I did, I had a great
relationship with my dad.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
My, uh, my.
As I said, my father worked forKeebler.
He was one of seven kids.
He was very funny and I lovedwhen he would invite me to go to
the grocery stores to like whenI I was five years old, to go
put like at the time whensomebody who worked for Keebler
would go and literally put theproduct on the shelves at the
(26:20):
grocery store.
They have those big redZest-A-Cracker boxes and it's
like Nance, come on, we're goingto IGA.
And it's like I put on mysaddle shoes and go across the
linoleum floor in our kitchenand hop in the car with them and
drive a few blocks to the IGA.
And my father, who was in bothWorld War II and Korea, I think
he felt like there had to alwaysbe an enemy because this was
(26:43):
the kind of the world that helived in.
And so he taught me when I wasfive years old that Nabisco his
arch competitor of KeeblerCookie, who's made Oreo cookies
ago, his arch competitor ofKeebler Cookie who's made Oreo
cookies they were bad and theywere evil, and no kid should eat
Oreo cookies because they werepoison and it was really bad for
(27:03):
them.
That's what my father told me.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I mean like a great sense of humor.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
So we would be at the grocery store and I'd be
helping him undo the box and putthe boxes on the shelf and then
the store manager come over andtalk to Bob Kramer Everybody
loved Bob Kramer and he'd bedistracted and I would walk over
to where the Oreo cookies wereand I would look around and I
would find the packages and Iwould stick my fingers and break
(27:30):
the packages up and crush thecookies Because I thought if I
crushed them nobody would eatthem and it would be better for
my dad, oh my God, love you.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
I mean, that is really cute, did he like find
out?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I mean, he kind of looked at me.
I think he knew exactly what Iwas doing, but again, we never
talked about it.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
I mean like acknowledging that it's I'm.
I'm not condoning that peopleshould.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Let's not go bust open stuff at the grocery store.
Being a realtor here meansbeing part of a community.
I'm more than just a businesscard.
I'm someone you'll see aroundtown.
I build trust with my clientsbecause I care about this
community and the people in it.
Ready to take that next step?
Let's do it together.
Text me at 614-314-1355.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Who says you need a special occasion to feel like a
celeb.
I mean, stress is real, life isbusy and your scalp, yeah.
It deserves some love too.
That's where Headspace by MiaSantiago comes in.
Treat yourself or someone whodeserves it to a luxurious scalp
treatment and a killer blowoutor cut, because nothing says
main character, energy, honeylike a fresh style from
(28:49):
celebrity stylist Mia and herteam.
And because we love a good deal, mention the Keri Croft Show
and get 20% off your service orany gift card for somebody in
your life that you love.
Headspace by Mia Santiagobecause great hair days
shouldn't be rare, so thistraumatic thing happens to you
(29:11):
and no one ever talked about itagain no no, and was that
something that you were justconditioned to understand?
that there was not even a placefor you to bring it up?
Yeah, yes, and so everyone justwent business as usual.
Mom started doing laundry, dadwas doing kibler and you were
just doing your thing.
Yeah, and I know so many peoplecan relate to that, especially
people in Catholic households,where you just do not talk about
(29:33):
the stuff.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
No, no, and as a little kid I my therapist has
identified that she thinks thatI was probably one of these kids
, that there were done somestudies about babies that are,
like, really impacted by loudsounds or lights or whatever,
and then others that don't haveany of that and we've decided
that I'm one that gets like.
I cried when the vacuum cleanerwas, you know, like running in
(29:56):
the house, the visual, theartifacts that are associated
with the Catholic church.
You know there's a lot of openwounds, there's thorns in people
and people hanging fromcrucifixes and dying and people
with flames at their feet and Iliterally would wake up as a kid
thinking that I was going toburn in hell.
I would have an image of what Ithought the devil looked like
(30:18):
and I would see flames around myfeet as a kid and that's what I
thought my fate would be if Idid anything wrong.
I was going to burn in hell.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I mean heavy.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It's heavy, it's heavy.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I mean, so many people are going to be listening
like yep heard that.
Yeah, you know it's I mean.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
my therapist said, nancy, most people don't take
that stuff literally, and I'd belike, well, I did.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
I would disagree.
I think you know, having a sonright now who's almost six and a
half, he takes a lot of thingsquite literally.
Like just yesterday I said hehad some like something green
and we were on the way to school.
I'm like you've got somethingon you and then I turn around
and I go, I think you're turninginto a leprechaun, and if you
would have seen his face, he'slike what?
(31:07):
And I go, you might have goldcoins come out of your ears by
the end of today.
You better make sure to like becareful.
He was like so distraught.
I mean, they take everythingliterally you're saying so I
want to go back into when you,your body was catching up with
you.
You got into this marriage.
There's all kinds of thingsinternally happening with you,
(31:27):
but what was the straw thatbroke the camel's back?
Did you like finally sit downwith him and say I can't do this
anymore?
Did he say the gig is up,you're miserable?
Like how did that happen?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
It went over a long period of time.
I'd have these episodic I wouldlike muster all my courage up
and have an episodicconversation and then kind of
like with what happened in myhouse.
Then it wouldn't be talkedabout Like, then it would be
back to three kids, back to thelogistics of everyday life.
I told him that we just had to.
(31:57):
You know, we said we were goingto separate to see what that
was like.
But it was, it was over, it wasover and so we bought a house a
block away from our house thatI still live in here in
Grandview, told the kids reallyworst day of my life, took them
over there so they could see it.
But it took another couple ofyears for us to finalize
(32:19):
everything.
But it was just that my bodywas so this anxiety.
I was taking antidepressants, Iwas really strung out.
I was walking around the officewith a heart monitor strapped
to me.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Everybody was freaked out, you know, and it's
interesting how we all think wecan outsmart our bodies, you
can't outsmart whatever's goingon.
You can stuff it and stuff it.
If you had an actual containerand you were stuffing something
in it over and over and overagain, you inevitably are like
okay, that shit's getting full,we got a problem here Houston.
Like, okay, the same thinghappens with your heart, your
(32:56):
soul, your spirit.
You can't outsmart it, youreally can't.
And it's fascinating how we alltry to do that and so many
people today in this world welive in are still apprehensive
about the T word, therapy, thestigma.
Oh, if you're going, I can'tbelieve you're going.
I can't believe you're notgoing to therapy, honey, I think
.
Another misconception peoplehave, especially married couples
(33:19):
.
You feel like you have to be atsome really in the red zone.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah .
Speaker 1 (33:25):
So how did you then?
So okay, divorce is over,you're raising three kids, you
have this really successfulcompany.
How did you hold it all down,you?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
know, I don't know, you know, I just you just kind
of power through it.
When I went through thebusiness plummeting by 70% in 90
days and then we merged intoanother company, which was a
disaster, and then we boughtourselves out of that company,
merged into another companywhich was a disaster, and then
we bought ourselves out of thatcompany.
When I bought myself out ofthat company, I enlisted the
help of my right-hand person,kelly Mooney, who had been in
(33:59):
the business for about 10 years,and I made her a partner.
She took on more responsibilityand so that kind of helped me
get to where I needed to go inmy personal life, and so I would
say that was really pivotal interms of like just navigating
through that.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Okay, so I'm moving on to a completely different
topic, but one that I love,which is Columbus Ohio and my
love for Columbus Ohio, and Ifeel like Columbus is starting
to get the shine that maybe itdeserves, and doing this show
has really uncovered just somany people, the goodness, the
(34:40):
brilliant entrepreneurs thecreatives the vibes are.
I mean, everybody's givingreally great vibes and I just
want to be one of the peoplecarrying a torch for the city.
And what I like about you.
I like a lot of things aboutyou, but you know, a lot of
times when you get older it'slike you look and you're like,
oh, I can't believe it.
What is this chat GPT thing?
(35:02):
And you're like you're theopposite.
You're like I can't believepeople think it's weird that a
car drives itself Like, becauselook at you, you've been a
visionary since day one.
Right Like before Apple wasApple, you were getting the
concept of having the computer.
Now here we are.
You have that mindset right.
So what do you think like interms of Columbus, Ohio, and
(35:22):
what are you the most excitedabout?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Well, there's a number of different things.
There's a number of differentthings.
I've been a member of theColumbus Partnership for a long
time, which is an organizationof the different CEOs in the
community, and so it's acombination of people that are
(35:51):
more the corporate people andthen there's, like what I would
call an entrepreneur class,people that are founders, that
are running family businesses,that are deeply rooted here,
versus people that come in torun one of our corporations and
then aren't from here and thenthey leave, and so I think it's
kind of a healthy mix and thatgroup works very closely with
the public, you know, with themayor and the county and all
that kind of stuff.
And so, primarily, economicdevelopment, workforce
development.
What can we do to really raisethe quality of life?
(36:12):
What can we do to help Columbusflourish?
And Les Wexner and John Wolfare the founders of the Columbus
Partnership.
They had this vision probablyalmost 30 years ago.
We're so fortunate for thegroundwork that they, that they
laid on on on that, and I thinka combination of you know
(36:32):
someone with like less, who isquite the visionary and the
belief that virtually anythingis possible and the belief that,
um, my husband is fromCleveland, and when we were
sitting at something shortlyafter he, he moved here and he
said oh my God, everyone inColumbus believes their best
days are ahead of them.
(36:54):
In Cleveland, everyone believesthey're trying to recapture what
was they used to.
You know, they were thoughtthey were going to be the
Chicago of the Midwest and theoil and standard oil and all
that kind of stuff, and they'restill trying to claw back to
what was in Cleveland.
And that's not the belief ofColumbus.
(37:14):
No one is thinking, oh, we needto go, we need to reclaim our
past.
Everyone is kind of likethere's a universal focus on the
future and I think that thatattitude permeates the city and
the spirit and I think that thatis what we're seeing.
And the more people who come,the more they, you know, they
(37:35):
feel that.
I just had breakfast yesterdaywith somebody who moved from
Baltimore.
She was talking and we werewith Doug Ullman also, who's
from Pelotonia, who moved herefrom Austin 10 years ago, and we
were just talking about like,this is such a great place for
people to be and the spirit is.
You can feel it.
(37:56):
You can feel the energy.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Shout out to Doug Allman Love Doug Bigger.
Shout out to Doug Allman's mom.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Diana she's my bestie ?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Oh, she is.
Yeah.
So he, back before I was inthis studio, he came to my house
.
I had this in my office and Iwaited until he got there.
I was like, can we call yourmom?
Like I think she's really cool.
He's like, really, I'm like,yeah, let's call her.
So he called her and she's onthe show, and so I bought a
couple of pieces of her art.
I just think she's like she'sthe bees knees.
(38:24):
Speaking of your husband, let'stalk about him for a minute.
Who captured this heart ofyours?
What is he like?
Give me, like a you know, alittle commercial on this guy.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Well, we worked together.
He came into the business and Ithink that my relationship I
mean my relationship wasplatonic for many years and I
just I felt like I could tellhim anything like literally.
I never met anyone that I feltI could tell anything like
(38:57):
literally, I just pooped orwhatever you know I mean I'm
sorry, I'm sorry, my cup runnethover here, my cup runneth over
with love for this one.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
I'm gonna be.
I'm just, you know, I'm gonnabe in a depression because I
feel like now we are friends andthen you leave, and then I'm
just twiddling my thumbs waitingfor you to return somehow.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
I mean, that was later in our relationship.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Oh my, God you are something I love it.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
You haven't dropped an F-bomb yet.
I will say Well, give us time.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
So he has three children and was a single father
as well, and we literally havetwo children that are 31, two
that are 34, and two that are 36.
And we have just an incrediblelife.
And he lived in Cleveland.
He moved up there to take careof his kids and we were married.
(39:50):
He moved up there to take careof his kids and we were married
and he and I lived apart forfour years while we were married
because we didn't want ouryoungest children to be uprooted
and have to give up anything,and so we've always been be in a
(40:16):
divorced family, and so I knowto this day his kids are number
one and he knows that my kidsare number one.
I mean we started aconversation in the late 90s and
it's never stopped.
I mean literally never stopped.
We drove on Sunday back to Ohiofrom Martha's Vineyard and we
were in the car for 11 hours andtalked the whole time.
(40:39):
Oh wow, oh yeah, like literallywe I mean it is a constant
conversation.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
I love that, yeah, and, and so I think too, the
transparency, the communicationand how you and I were talking,
and you said I think we're goingto need to go to therapy.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.
Well, we were talking aboutevery January we do a vision day
, which was something that welearned from our business coach
and friend, debbie Phillips, andshe taught us we would do these
with her and her partner, andthen it got to the point where
we could facilitate the samething ourselves, and so for the
(41:14):
last decade or so, we've beendoing this every January, and
there was one point this Januarywhere I was the scribe in front
of a big white you know post-itnote easel and taking notes and
drawing things of personal.
You know all the different, youknow different parts of our
lives.
What do we want to do?
What are we going to focus on,et cetera, et cetera.
(41:35):
We started talking aboutColumbus and Martha's Vineyard
and where we're going to spendtime or not spend time and which
has been an ongoing topic, andI felt like, in the moment, I
heard Christopher say somethingin a way that I hadn't.
He had said it before, but Ihadn't heard it in the way that
(41:56):
he was expressing it and so Isaid you know, I think we're
going to need to go to therapyon this, like we're going to
need, like we're do a reallygood job at facilitating these
things between us, but this isone where I think we're going to
need help.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Therapy doesn't have to be this scary negative thing.
It's actually a helpful.
It's almost like a mediation,because that's really what
relationships are are justnegotiations, like you're
constantly balancing wants,needs, and so having that help
sometimes is so great to justmove through the juggernaut.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
So helpful.
It's been really powerful.
We've gone separately, we'vegone together.
It's been really powerfulbecause we had never done that,
we had never done therapytogether, so it's been a real
gift.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Can we switch gears to like the superficial?
So I need to know what yourskincare routine is first.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I don't know what you guys are drinking over there in
grandview like do you havesomething.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
You know what?
All the all the rage right nowis beef tallow.
Have you heard of that?
What is that?
It's like a.
It's some kind of fat orsomething from an animal and
it's like gives that sort oflike glowy it's.
Everybody's talking about it.
It's I haven't yet to order ityet, but but what do you do?
Can't do it.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
We have both Christopher and I have Alpha Gal
.
Which is this allergic reactionto anything from a mammal?
Oh so which is a tick-borneillness that's making its way
through the country?
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Really yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
It's bad.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Yeah, well, what do you put on your face?
I put whatever my stepdaughtertells me to.
Eleanor, the oldest of thefamily, is like our master
skincare routine person.
She will tell you exactly whatto use and how many steps, and
she's doing it with her baby.
And it's amazing Like we justdo whatever Eleanor tells us to
(43:42):
do and then I'll do whateverthey tell me at Bosco to do.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
I buy stuff at Bosco.
Kate, she's my girl.
I love Bosco.
I know I saw.
I heard the.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
I heard the advertising and.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I heard her session too.
Yeah, they're the greatest.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Yeah, they're so wonderful so what about?
Speaker 1 (43:58):
you know what are you eating, cause you're fit as a
fiddle, you look good and youare you pretty regimented with
your food.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
I am.
I am.
I have issues with my stomach.
I've had a ruptured colon andso diverticulitis.
I have to be careful about whatI eat and now I can't have any
meat.
I wasn't really eating meatanyway, but I have a pretty
clean diet and I have for a longtime diet and I have for a long
(44:30):
time.
I've been working with afunctional medicine doctor for
about 10 years she's not basedhere, her name's Dr Laura Lyle.
She's from Ohio, her parentslive in Bucyrus and she has a
pharmacy degree from Ohio Stateand an MD from Ohio State, and I
met her on Martha's Vineyard,go Figure and work with her
remotely, and so she has her eyeon hormone replacement therapy
(44:52):
supplement.
Um, I just had my my dna, allmy genes like laid out that I
had a two-hour meeting abouteverything that's going on in my
genes and then like adjustingmy supplements as a result and
what my diet should be, and allthis I was what was the biggest
thing that blew your mind?
Well, there was one thing thatreally bothered me is that I
(45:14):
have one of the and it doesn'tmean you're going to get it, you
know, as she likes to say, butI have one.
You can either have twovariants or one, and I have one
variant for Alzheimer's, um.
So that was kind of adisappointment and it was funny
because Christopher did the samething and he was convinced I
keep forgetting things.
I know I have Alzheimer, I know, and he had his read a week
(45:35):
before me.
He's like no, I have nothing.
And then I'm thinking I'm fit,I'm this, I'm that, I'm going to
be fine.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
And then I was like, well, that's where the balance
comes in, because I love part ofme loves like having a
dashboard and like knowing whereyou can prevent things and get
ahead of things is so great, itmakes you feel some sense of
control.
And then there's a line whereyou're like, okay, do I know too
much Because that may neverimpact you at all?
(46:02):
But now it's sitting rent freesomewhere in a corner.
You know it's like the balanceof things.
We have so much informationtoday.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
You know it's like the balance of things.
We have so much information.
Today I've really upped myprotein and I've added a morning
meal, which I was never hungryin the morning, but I'm just
trying to get more protein.
I've run since I was a kid.
I've been a runner since I wasa kid.
It's very meditative for me.
I mean, I go like three milesand I work out with Jordan
(46:34):
Sugarman three times a week, doPilates.
I was there this morning.
I love that.
And I'm adding weights as youage.
That upper body weight weightfor women, being able to really,
you know, retain your muscle issuper important.
(46:54):
It's the largest organ that wehave.
It protects all of our,everything in us, and so I'm
really trying to focus on that.
What's your vice?
What's my vice?
Yeah Well, you like drink lotsof wine, take a gummy, no
popcorn Popcorn yeah, like thatlesser evil popcorn, that's
sweet well, you like drink lotsof wine, take a gummy.
Oh, popcorn, popcorn, yeah,like that lesser evil popcorn,
that's sweet, god, you're good.
I had some last night.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
That feels like a real treat to you.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Yeah, okay, maybe tequila.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
I was going to say, give me something.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Okay, tequila.
Oh, so you'll drink sometequila with me sometime?
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Yeah, straight, because I'm already see this is
the part of the program where Ifigure out a way to see you
again, so it's like you're goingto drink some tequila with me
sometime.
Okay, okay and yay-ho, yeah,okay, perfect, yeah, perfect,
yeah.
I still am dead from the makingout with Steve Jobs.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
I don't think I've heard one other thing you've
said this whole time, but Idon't want to leave you wishing
you would have said somethingelse.
One of the things that I havefocused on for the last several
years is this notion of that wehave an inner genius, and I've
always thought that it makes somuch sense.
All of our DNA is different.
Why wouldn't each one of us bedifferent inside in our soul?
And it was actually somethingthat ancient Romans, native
American Indians it was verymuch a thought of those cultures
(48:17):
that we each have a uniqueinner genius and how that
calibrates how you show up inthe world.
I mean giving yourselfpermission to let that shine.
My biggest love is when I havethe opportunity to help that
inner genius in someone shine.
I feel as though the role ofleadership is to really make
(48:43):
space for that to come out.
And over the entire 35 years ofthe business, the thing that
gives me the greatest joy isthose times when the people had
the opportunity to let that comeout and let that shine.
Whether they felt the courageto come out, whether they felt
(49:03):
the courage to change gender,whether they felt the courage to
participate in some like crazything that we were doing in the
business and just let loose.
That is what I just love thatso much, and today that's the
thing that I love the most, andso I hope people can let their
(49:25):
inner genius come through andrealize that every day it takes
work to allow people to see that, to have the courage to show up
and the psychological safetythat's necessary for that.
You know, there's a really greatbook called Four Stages of
Psychological Safety.
It's super easy read, but Ifelt as though I think Timothy
(49:47):
Clark is the author that talksabout psychological safety, and
I think that that's what we needin the world, and right now
we're just being bombarded witha lot of things that make us
feel really unsafe.
They make us scared, verynervous, very panicky and really
trying to navigate.
That is a very big challengefor so many people right now,
(50:10):
including me.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
Can you help me bring out my inner genius?
Here's what we're going to do.
Tequila, you me inner geniusDone.
Thank you so much.
Oh, my pleasure.
Keri, you have really made myentire probably month.
This was more than I could haveasked for, so thank you so much
.
I'm so glad.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
You're the best.
Well, I think you're the best.
I think what you're doing, Ilove listening to the show.
I was up and down to Clevelandon Monday.
I was listening to all thedifferent things.
It was just so fun and Ilearned about so many people
that I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
And now I want to meet, and now I'm like we're
going to do an event That'd beso cool.
It's actually part of the plan.
It's part of the plan.
Oh, that would be so fun.
And you're invited.
You have to.
I'm going to.
I want to be invited, I'm goingto, and if you're still out
there following your girl,follow me on YouTube, Spotify,
Apple or wherever you get yourpodcasts and until next time,
keep moving.
Baby 3, 2, 1.
Hey there you beautiful badass.
Welcome to the Keri Croft Show.
I'm your host, keri Croft,delivering you stories that get
you pumped up and feeling likethe unstoppable savage that you
are.
So grab your coffee, put onyour game face and let's do this
thing.
Baby Ready to elevate yourself-care game?
(00:30):
Bosco Beauty Bar is a modern medspa offering everything from
cosmetic injectables, lasers andmicroneedling to medical grade
facials and skincare.
Conveniently located inClintonville, grandview, powell
and Easton.
Making self-care a priority hasnever been easier.
Grandview, powell and Easton.
Making self-care a priority hasnever been easier.
Use code KROFT for $25 off yourfirst visit.
Let's get real here.
Aging isn't always cute.
(00:51):
Wrinkles, things sagging wherethey didn't before.
Do I hate my partner or is thisperimenopause?
I've been there and that's whyI'm all about Donaldson.
From plastic surgery toaesthetics, to functional
medicine, they help you loveyour body and get to know it
better.
Want to feel like yourselfagain?
Head to DonaldsonHealthcom and,if you're a first-time client,
(01:11):
mention the Keri Croft Show for$100 off your first treatment.
You're welcome.
Today I have the pleasure ofsitting down with a woman who
built a company that quietlyshaped some of the biggest
brands in the world.
With a woman who built acompany that quietly shaped some
of the biggest brands in theworld.
Nancy Kramer, aka Kramer, is apowerhouse entrepreneur who, in
1981, founded one of the mostsuccessful women-owned marketing
(01:33):
agencies in the country,resource Amarati, right here in
Columbus, ohio, and at just 26years old, she landed Apple as
her very first client Notimpressive at all, by the way.
Over the next few decades, sheworked with giants like
Victoria's Secret and in 2016,she sold her company to IBM,
where she continues to lead andinspire as chief evangelist
officer for IBM.
(01:54):
But beyond the boardrooms andbig deals, what makes Nancy
truly extraordinary is how shecarries herself as a flawed and
approachable human being and hertransparency about that.
In the early 2000s, when thedot-com bubble burst and her
company's revenues plummeted by70% in 90 days, she was also
going through a divorce andraising two daughters and a son
(02:15):
as a single mom.
Those were indeed the darkestof times, and even now, after
everything she's achieved, nancyis still very much on a quest
to deepen her relationship withherself, to keep searching,
growing and staying malleable inlife and love.
So here's my hope for thisconversation that someone out
there may be sitting at homefeeling stuck, overwhelmed or
(02:38):
like they're carrying way toomuch.
Here's a piece of Nancy's storyand adds it to their own
arsenal.
I want you to leave thisconversation thinking that you
can do anything, because you can, and Nancy is the perfect
person to inspire you to shootfor the moon.
Nancy Kramer, welcome to theKeri Croft Show.
Well, thank you, I'm veryexcited to have you here.
(02:58):
I'm super pumped to be here.
I wasn't expecting you I knewyou were a beautiful woman but I
wasn't expecting you to givehot vibes.
I'm serious, understated.
I got to get credit where it'sdue.
Understated like sophisticatedyoung.
You're giving a lot of thingsand you're also giving hair.
(03:20):
Model, so we got to start withthat.
You have really good hair,thank you, which I'm super
pissed about.
Model so we got to start withthat.
You have really good hair,thank you, which I'm super
pissed about.
Do you know, for me, one thingI've always wanted big time is
just your hair.
Basically, do you getcompliments on your hair all the
time?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Yeah, I guess so, especially for my age, because
I'll be 70 this year.
Which is so awesome and so youknow to have this much hair
because it tends to thin.
I think as you age, yourscertainly has not.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
So, speaking of being 70 this year, let's park for
that.
You and I talked about this alittle bit I think, whenever you
turn that next number andobviously the higher it gets
right there's a thing with it.
There's a mix of heaviness andgratitude.
So what are you feeling?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
mix of heaviness and gratitude.
So what are you feeling?
Well, it started last year,about a month before my 69th
birthday which I just think is adumb number to be 69 for all
the obvious reasons and Istarted getting kind of
depressed about the fact that in13 months I'm going to be
effing 70.
I mean 70.
And so I wallowed for a whileand then I was like snap out of
(04:29):
it, Kramer.
I mean seriously, just snap outof it.
You're healthy, You're, youknow, engaged, You're curious,
you know I have this fabulousfamily, you know a fabulous life
.
Just snap out of it.
And I started talking to somefriends that are also turning 70
.
And we started talking aboutwhat's our 30 year plan, what's
(04:51):
our?
Well, my one friend, Tani Crane, wants to make it our 50 year
plan.
But what's our 30 year plan?
How do we want to live our lifefor the next 30 years?
And, of course, just likeeveryone, we want to be as
healthy and as vibrant as anengaged as possible.
And so what are the?
Like everyone, we want to be ashealthy and as vibrant and
engaged as possible.
And so what are the things thatwe're doing?
So we're sharing a lot ofthings, that we're learning and
(05:11):
reading and really focusing onwhat we can do to, you know,
live as fully as we possibly canas we age.
But I have to say, getting oldreally rocks, because you learn
so much shit that you don't knowwhen you're younger and you're
just like super comfortable witha whole bunch of things that
(05:32):
were really uncomfortable whenyou were younger and I I really
love it on a lot of levels.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I couldn't agree with that more.
I think too, talking aboutaging in a way that isn't this
doom and gloom.
It's similar to me like whenyou talk about death in our
country, especially how it's.
Of course it's hard and it'sall these things, but you look
at other countries, the way theycelebrate things differently.
We have to start talking aboutthe aging process in a way that
(06:04):
is like I do feel so much betterin so many different ways and
you do learn so much.
So like shifting that narrativea little bit.
I can see it out there.
I can see people who arestarting to have more
conversations about it.
It's okay to talk about youknow it's like menopause.
Yeah, same thing.
Yeah, no one.
I mean, you would never hearanyone talk about menopause.
(06:24):
You know it's.
It's like we're talking aboutthis shit now, especially the
complexities of being a woman.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, totally no, we ain't basic out there, no, Like
the other, like the other gender, as much as they'd like to
pretend that we are Right, weare complex, so let's honor it
and celebrate it and talk aboutit, say it loud, say it proud.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Okay, so I'm fascinated, fascinated by you in
so many different ways and Iwant to start off with just
putting myself in your shoes at26.
You know, you met these twoguys.
You were in radio sales.
I won't make you go through thewhole thing.
You can Google, you know.
Do the Google machine.
Next thing, you know you'reworking with Apple.
You didn't know like okay,they're going to be like one of
(07:06):
the biggest, if not the mostimpactful company.
When you were there, what wasit like?
Steve Jobs was 20 something.
He and I were the same age.
Yeah, were people smoking cigsin the conference room.
Like how many females werethere?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Like.
Can you give some imageryaround what that looked and felt
like in the beginning?
Yeah, I would say that it wasmostly a male culture, a lot, a
lot, a lot of men.
I would say maybe 10, at themost 20% women, and they were
mostly in marketing, not reallyin engineering, software,
product engineering or any ofthat.
But I would go to Apple'scorporate headquarters in
Cupertino every other week,sometimes every week, from
(07:50):
Columbus in those early yearsand I loved it.
It was a campus They've movednow, but it was a campus of
buildings, like three-storybuildings that was rather
nondescript.
But inside they were anythingbut nondescript, you know, open
before anybody was having openfloor plans.
The creative offices were inthis beautiful cool warehouse
(08:14):
space with really high ceilingsand there was a buzz, a constant
buzz.
It's as if you were pluggedinto an electrical socket day in
and day out.
And we were on a mission andthat mission was to have
everyone in the world have apersonal computer, which in 1981
(08:35):
and 1982, like computers, werenot something that everyone had.
They were kept in clean roomsand no one was to access them.
So people thought I was nuts.
They thought I was nuts toleave my job in radio sales to
work with this company that wasnamed after a piece of fruit and
(08:55):
actually was going to likewho's going to use?
People would ask me who's goingto use a computer.
They literally thought it wasreally stupid.
But in my heart I felt such aconnection.
I felt like there've been somethings along my on my life
journey that I have felt like Ihad to do.
I just couldn't not do them,and that was one of them.
(09:18):
And working with Apple was justthe gift of a lifetime.
I worked with Steve Jobs.
I was on the launch team of theMacintosh, launch team of the
Lisa, which was preceded theMacintosh.
It was really quiteextraordinary.
But they weren't smokingcigarettes.
There was a grand piano in thelobby of the Macintosh building.
(09:41):
The Macintosh building had allthe cool stuff in it pressed
juices before there was pressedjuices, sushi before there was
sushi.
All the cool foods.
People working 24 sevensleeping at the office, very
casual On a good day.
People were wearing shoesAnything that you could think of
.
That would be iconic Californiaenvironment.
(10:02):
That's what Apple was like.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And you knew you were on a rocket ship.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I didn't know it would become what it was going
to become.
I didn't know Steve Jobs wasgoing to become what he became.
I mean there was a time thatthe company came close to going
out of business.
I mean, one of the situations Iwas in a planning meeting, a
creative team meeting, and I hadthe opportunity, because of the
way Apple worked, that I wouldbe in meetings with some of the
(10:29):
most iconic advertising peoplein history, like Lee Clow, Steve
Hayden I mean these amazingpeople, and we were in an
ideation session with Shia Dayand we were talking about what
was Apple going to do.
And this was when Steve wasgone.
So what was Apple going to do tocombat Windows 95?
(10:51):
And because Windows 95, whichwas introduced by Mac, by
Microsoft, mimicked thegraphical user interface which
you know.
Before that you had to liketype in DOS.
You know back whatever.
I never learned how to use anyof that, but you had to.
You know it was a revolutionfor Microsoft to have this new
Windows 95 interface whichbasically mimicked what the
(11:14):
Macintosh did, and Apple hadlost its way.
Steve had been gone for about10 years and everybody was
talking about you.
They're what Microsoft wasdoing to launch it and what are
we going to do to counterbalanceit?
And I stood up and I poundedthe table and I said there's
only one thing that we can do tocombat what Microsoft's doing,
(11:38):
and that is to bring Steve Jobsback into this company.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
You did Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
What was the like?
Jaw drop, mic drop, kind of Didanybody was there a slow clap?
Yeah, and then and then ithappened, and then it happened.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
I mean, I'm sure I'm not the only person who ever
said that, but I was so emphaticabout thinking our way out of
this.
There's no way to get out ofthis.
You need him back here.
There's no way.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
He's the guy yeah he was the guy and again, you know,
speaking of Steve Jobs, I'mtrying to think.
You know he's your age, so he's26 when it started.
He gets kicked out, then leavesfor what?
Maybe 10 years or less?
What did you see different whenhe came back?
Like, was he better when hecame back or was he?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
kind of the same.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
He was more refined, more self-aware.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
More grounded, very focused.
I think that the company'strajectory might have been
different had that not happened.
I really am a believer thateverything happens for a reason.
I happened to be at Apple theday that he was fired.
At Apple, the day that he wasfired, I was standing in the
(12:49):
Macintosh building with all thepeople around us and the person
came out and said Steve Jobs hasbeen fired by the board of
directors, he's left.
And it was just.
I felt like somebody had diedand I just started crying.
I just felt like, oh my God,the vision, the soul of this
company is leaving.
How can this happen?
I mean, this was really, reallychallenging.
(13:10):
And so, in that time period,different leaders, different
CEOs came in and none of themhad.
I mean, they were just notright.
They just weren't right.
The company really lost itselfand literally in 1995, we
thought the company might go outof business.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
What was the first conversation you had with Steve
after you found out that he wasgone?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
I just sent him a note.
I did not have a conversationwith him, I just sent him a note
about what he was doing at nextand um you know my support yeah
, because it probably felt veryfor him like a death in a way
yeah, really challenging toprocess, so what?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
did you?
Because here's how I see it.
I see it like everybody wasworking so hard there wasn't
really like a bro culture, sowas was there a lot?
Anything that you can rememberlike somebody doing that they'd
be canceled for today, likebehaviors or things that were
the norm, or like sexualharassment of any kind.
I mean, here you are, this likereally good looking female
(14:19):
There'd have to be.
I mean, I worked in corporateAmerica, like you know, in the
nineties, and I, I mean I workedin corporate America, like you
know, in the 90s, and I meanthere's some stuff going on
there.
Can you remember any of that?
Or was it just more businessall the time?
Like everyone was just headsdown?
Speaker 3 (14:33):
No, I mean there was a lot of, you know there was a
lot of drugs there was, you know, drugs and alcohol, and I mean
I wasn't an Apple employee, sosome of that I wouldn't have
necessarily had exposure to.
But you know, there weredifferent people that had
(15:04):
reputations for being very loose, I guess, or aggressive with
women, but no more than probablyany corporate typical kind of
thing.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, was Steve jobs like a hot guy, like was he like
a sexy guy?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
or was he just such a prick that that didn't even
work, cause I, I, um, I thoughthe was fabulous.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I thought he was fabulous.
I think he was super handsome.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I thought he, I thought he was really, I thought
he was fabulous, I think he wassuper handsome.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I thought he was really you know really handsome.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
And then I, just I was fascinated when I read his
Is now a good time for me totell you that I made out with
him.
Oh, stop it, stop it.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Hold on, hold on, kate, kate, read my pulse, my
pulse, my pulse.
Cpr.
That's what I'm talking aboutover delivery did you seriously
make out with?
Steve jobs.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Was he a good kisser?
Yes, yeah, I didn't sleep withhim, though which is kind of
like.
I kind of like in my life.
I'm like, oh, I kind of regretthat, but why did I do that?
Oh, I thought I was married.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I know I thought you're going to say you regret.
You kid that you made out?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Oh my God, no, I know I say so.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Speaking of being married, your first husband,
when did you meet him along thispath?
I was in college at Ohio State,okay, so you guys were college
sweethearts.
Do you think your success wasthat like the main driver?
Or when you look back now, youguys were so young You're like,
okay, there were like obviousthings that just weren't going
(16:39):
to work, that we don't see atthe time, or maybe was it a
hybrid.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I didn't really want to get married.
I got married because I thoughtI had to.
I got married for religiousreasons.
I got married.
He was the first person I everhad intimate relationships with.
I was raised in a very, veryCatholic household uber Catholic
household.
I went to Catholic school.
(17:03):
My mother was a convert, so Icalled her an uber Catholic.
So I went to Catholic school.
My mother was a convert, so Icalled her an uber Catholic.
So she was like even overlyCatholic.
And when I was the summerbetween my sophomore and junior
year of college at Ohio Statebecause I'm a first generation
college graduate I didn't knowthat there was any other school
you could go to.
I literally had no idea.
(17:23):
But I was working at Kroger asa cashier, which I did to put
myself through school at OhioState.
I was living back at home thatsummer and my boyfriend then
soon-to-be husband was living inCleveland and I was writing him
a letter.
And when I was working at myshift at Kroger my mother went
into my bedroom and read thatletter and in that letter she
(17:49):
figured out that we had slepttogether and my mother proceeded
to try to overdose on Valium.
And so when I got home thatnight from my Kroger shift at
like 11 o'clock I walk into ourfamily kitchen and my father at
(18:11):
1461 Kennard Road on the eastside of Columbus.
I walk in the door and it wasall.
The lights were out, my fatherwas sitting at the kitchen table
smoking a unfiltered camel witha bourbon on the rocks, and
usually when that was the case,my mom would be sitting there
with them.
They called it their nightclub,which was they couldn't afford
(18:33):
to go out and I was like where'smom?
And my father said what hadhappened and he said your mother
should not have gone throughyour things and you shouldn't
have done that.
It was never, ever discussedand my father died 17 years
later, my mother died 30 someyears later and it was never
(18:55):
discussed.
But it was that feeling of this,like super Catholic, you know,
that guilt, and I thought I wasa sinner and this was the only
way I could rectify it.
And so I have very vividmemories of the wedding, not
(19:17):
really wanting to do it, cryingthat night, sobbing that night
unconsolably, and so it, youknow, and he's a wonderful
person, and we had a lot ofthings in common, you know, we
did triathlons together, werenovated a house in German
village.
Together we got a dog, we hadthree fabulous children.
(19:38):
I mean so many wonderful thingsin my life.
He's a wonderful person.
I talked to him last week and Italked to his.
It just wasn't what I wanted andeventually my body caught up
with me.
My body caught up with me, andthat was at that moment when the
(20:00):
business was plummeting and Iwas having all kinds of health
issues driving myself to theemergency room on a Saturday
night hooked up to, you know,ekg and CAT scan, you know I
thought I was having a heartattack or a stroke or whatever
panic, panic, anxiety attacks,and that happened multiple times
.
And so I finally, working intherapy, got myself to a place
(20:25):
where I could face and acceptmyself for this situation and
forgive myself for the situation, but I knew I had to change.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Thank you for sharing that.
By the way, there's so manythings that I'm feeling from
that.
The one thing I was going toask you and I think you kind of
answered it for me but in one ofyour interviews you made a
point to say I didn't want to belike my mom, and I feel that
how did she show you love?
How did you feel loved?
Speaker 3 (20:56):
by her.
I didn't.
I didn't feel love, I feltcompetition.
I think that my mom I just havean older brother, it was just
the two of us and my mom stayedat home and my father worked at
Keebler and I would come homefrom school and I would walk in
(21:17):
the door and I'd say, what didyou do all day?
And she would recite thislitany of household chores and I
would say, well, that soundsboring and I just thought
there's this world out there,like the planet Earth, like, why
are you spending your timedoing this?
Like I felt this very earlyvisceral feeling that there had
to be more to life than doinglaundry.
(21:40):
That was one part of theequation.
But my mother, she would say tome on multiple occasions let's
hope we find someone to marryyou someday who's gonna take
care of you.
So that's another dimension toall of this.
And the other dimension is thefact that my mother used to
(22:02):
jokingly, but not call me herdumb blonde and my brother and
my mother both would tease mecalling me stupid dumb blonde,
but they said it so much that Iabsorb it.
I absorbed it.
Like there are times today insome of the things that I'm
doing at IBM that are like mindblowing.
(22:24):
You know stuff on quantumcryptography, and I'm like, I'm
not a dumb blonde, I'm not adumb blonde, but I feel like it
in this moment, dumb blonde, butI feel like it in this moment.
So you know, it's still here.
It is, however, many yearslater.
So it was, and so I think my momfelt as though I was going to
have an opportunity to have alife she didn't have, and she
(22:44):
was an only child.
She told me repeatedly that herparents did not want her.
Her name was Marion and it wasspelled as if it was a boy, not
a girl, and so she said myparents wanted a boy, they
didn't want a girl.
So my mother never felt lovefrom her parents.
But three days before my motherdied, I was sitting with her
and she looked me in the eyesand she said you know, I'm
(23:09):
really proud of you and I loveyou.
There wasn't any, but therewasn't any sense of judgment,
and it was, and I love you.
It wasn't, there wasn't any,but there wasn't any sense of
judgment, and it was really thefirst time I felt that from her,
when you come up as a child, inwhatever environment you're in,
and you think your parents hungthe moon.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And I think it's the moment when you realize your
parents are only capable of whatthey were or weren't given Like
when you saw that your mom wasnever shown love then you look
at it reflectively and you gowell, of course, right.
But I think what's so powerfulabout that is that you realize
it's not me, and I think untilyou can get there with your
(23:49):
parents like your, yourupbringing and your parents, I
think you're always sufferingand and I think that's for me
personally seeing my parents ashuman beings and understanding
how they were raised.
They're just one person on thisearth just trying to make it
and they're everything to you.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
I went through intense therapy.
I hadn't been to a therapistever in my life until I was in
my mid 40s and I did intensetherapy every week for a very
long period of time.
I just recently went back totherapy.
It was in my 40s, you know,looking back at that episode
when I was, you know, still incollege, and what she did, I
(24:29):
didn't realize, of course I had.
No, I thought it was all me.
This is what I did, my behaviorscaused my mother to do this,
and my therapist said thattrying to reconcile that is one
of the hardest things you haveto do.
You know, when someone tries tohurt themselves because of
something you did, it's a reallyhard thing to get through.
(24:51):
But I I mean what?
What an extraordinaryexperience to be able to talk
about it, because it amplifies,you know, the importance of
having the ability to reallylove yourself, and I didn't
learn to love myself until Iwent through therapy and it's
still a challenge every day.
(25:14):
And all the external things thatare happening, that you know
day, all the inputs that you'regetting externally, impact that
internal life and that love ofself and our natural, you know,
universal thing that we share isthis like self-judgment.
We're not good enough.
We're suck, you know, and weall share that, and listening to
(25:37):
some of your episodes, I heardthat from so many of your guests
and all of us, no matter whoyou are, we all have that and
it's something I have to.
You know, work on every day.
So did you feel love from yourdad?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I did, she had a good I did, I had a great
relationship with my dad.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
My, uh, my.
As I said, my father worked forKeebler.
He was one of seven kids.
He was very funny and I lovedwhen he would invite me to go to
the grocery stores to like whenI I was five years old, to go
put like at the time whensomebody who worked for Keebler
would go and literally put theproduct on the shelves at the
(26:20):
grocery store.
They have those big redZest-A-Cracker boxes and it's
like Nance, come on, we're goingto IGA.
And it's like I put on mysaddle shoes and go across the
linoleum floor in our kitchenand hop in the car with them and
drive a few blocks to the IGA.
And my father, who was in bothWorld War II and Korea, I think
he felt like there had to alwaysbe an enemy because this was
(26:43):
the kind of the world that helived in.
And so he taught me when I wasfive years old that Nabisco his
arch competitor of KeeblerCookie, who's made Oreo cookies
ago, his arch competitor ofKeebler Cookie who's made Oreo
cookies they were bad and theywere evil, and no kid should eat
Oreo cookies because they werepoison and it was really bad for
(27:03):
them.
That's what my father told me.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I mean like a great sense of humor.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
So we would be at the grocery store and I'd be
helping him undo the box and putthe boxes on the shelf and then
the store manager come over andtalk to Bob Kramer Everybody
loved Bob Kramer and he'd bedistracted and I would walk over
to where the Oreo cookies wereand I would look around and I
would find the packages and Iwould stick my fingers and break
(27:30):
the packages up and crush thecookies Because I thought if I
crushed them nobody would eatthem and it would be better for
my dad, oh my God, love you.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
I mean, that is really cute, did he like find
out?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I mean, he kind of looked at me.
I think he knew exactly what Iwas doing, but again, we never
talked about it.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
I mean like acknowledging that it's I'm.
I'm not condoning that peopleshould.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Let's not go bust open stuff at the grocery store.
Being a realtor here meansbeing part of a community.
I'm more than just a businesscard.
I'm someone you'll see aroundtown.
I build trust with my clientsbecause I care about this
community and the people in it.
Ready to take that next step?
Let's do it together.
Text me at 614-314-1355.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Who says you need a special occasion to feel like a
celeb.
I mean, stress is real, life isbusy and your scalp, yeah.
It deserves some love too.
That's where Headspace by MiaSantiago comes in.
Treat yourself or someone whodeserves it to a luxurious scalp
treatment and a killer blowoutor cut, because nothing says
main character, energy, honeylike a fresh style from
(28:49):
celebrity stylist Mia and herteam.
And because we love a good deal, mention the Keri Croft Show
and get 20% off your service orany gift card for somebody in
your life that you love.
Headspace by Mia Santiagobecause great hair days
shouldn't be rare, so thistraumatic thing happens to you
(29:11):
and no one ever talked about itagain no no, and was that
something that you were justconditioned to understand?
that there was not even a placefor you to bring it up?
Yeah, yes, and so everyone justwent business as usual.
Mom started doing laundry, dadwas doing kibler and you were
just doing your thing.
Yeah, and I know so many peoplecan relate to that, especially
people in Catholic households,where you just do not talk about
(29:33):
the stuff.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
No, no, and as a little kid I my therapist has
identified that she thinks thatI was probably one of these kids
, that there were done somestudies about babies that are,
like, really impacted by loudsounds or lights or whatever,
and then others that don't haveany of that and we've decided
that I'm one that gets like.
I cried when the vacuum cleanerwas, you know, like running in
(29:56):
the house, the visual, theartifacts that are associated
with the Catholic church.
You know there's a lot of openwounds, there's thorns in people
and people hanging fromcrucifixes and dying and people
with flames at their feet and Iliterally would wake up as a kid
thinking that I was going toburn in hell.
I would have an image of what Ithought the devil looked like
(30:18):
and I would see flames around myfeet as a kid and that's what I
thought my fate would be if Idid anything wrong.
I was going to burn in hell.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I mean heavy.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It's heavy, it's heavy.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I mean, so many people are going to be listening
like yep heard that.
Yeah, you know it's I mean.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
my therapist said, nancy, most people don't take
that stuff literally, and I'd belike, well, I did.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
I would disagree.
I think you know, having a sonright now who's almost six and a
half, he takes a lot of thingsquite literally.
Like just yesterday I said hehad some like something green
and we were on the way to school.
I'm like you've got somethingon you and then I turn around
and I go, I think you're turninginto a leprechaun, and if you
would have seen his face, he'slike what?
(31:07):
And I go, you might have goldcoins come out of your ears by
the end of today.
You better make sure to like becareful.
He was like so distraught.
I mean, they take everythingliterally you're saying so I
want to go back into when you,your body was catching up with
you.
You got into this marriage.
There's all kinds of thingsinternally happening with you,
(31:27):
but what was the straw thatbroke the camel's back?
Did you like finally sit downwith him and say I can't do this
anymore?
Did he say the gig is up,you're miserable?
Like how did that happen?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
It went over a long period of time.
I'd have these episodic I wouldlike muster all my courage up
and have an episodicconversation and then kind of
like with what happened in myhouse.
Then it wouldn't be talkedabout Like, then it would be
back to three kids, back to thelogistics of everyday life.
I told him that we just had to.
(31:57):
You know, we said we were goingto separate to see what that
was like.
But it was, it was over, it wasover and so we bought a house a
block away from our house thatI still live in here in
Grandview, told the kids reallyworst day of my life, took them
over there so they could see it.
But it took another couple ofyears for us to finalize
(32:19):
everything.
But it was just that my bodywas so this anxiety.
I was taking antidepressants, Iwas really strung out.
I was walking around the officewith a heart monitor strapped
to me.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Everybody was freaked out, you know, and it's
interesting how we all think wecan outsmart our bodies, you
can't outsmart whatever's goingon.
You can stuff it and stuff it.
If you had an actual containerand you were stuffing something
in it over and over and overagain, you inevitably are like
okay, that shit's getting full,we got a problem here Houston.
Like, okay, the same thinghappens with your heart, your
(32:56):
soul, your spirit.
You can't outsmart it, youreally can't.
And it's fascinating how we alltry to do that and so many
people today in this world welive in are still apprehensive
about the T word, therapy, thestigma.
Oh, if you're going, I can'tbelieve you're going.
I can't believe you're notgoing to therapy, honey, I think
.
Another misconception peoplehave, especially married couples
(33:19):
.
You feel like you have to be atsome really in the red zone.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah .
Speaker 1 (33:25):
So how did you then?
So okay, divorce is over,you're raising three kids, you
have this really successfulcompany.
How did you hold it all down,you?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
know, I don't know, you know, I just you just kind
of power through it.
When I went through thebusiness plummeting by 70% in 90
days and then we merged intoanother company, which was a
disaster, and then we boughtourselves out of that company,
merged into another companywhich was a disaster, and then
we bought ourselves out of thatcompany.
When I bought myself out ofthat company, I enlisted the
help of my right-hand person,kelly Mooney, who had been in
(33:59):
the business for about 10 years,and I made her a partner.
She took on more responsibilityand so that kind of helped me
get to where I needed to go inmy personal life, and so I would
say that was really pivotal interms of like just navigating
through that.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Okay, so I'm moving on to a completely different
topic, but one that I love,which is Columbus Ohio and my
love for Columbus Ohio, and Ifeel like Columbus is starting
to get the shine that maybe itdeserves, and doing this show
has really uncovered just somany people, the goodness, the
(34:40):
brilliant entrepreneurs thecreatives the vibes are.
I mean, everybody's givingreally great vibes and I just
want to be one of the peoplecarrying a torch for the city.
And what I like about you.
I like a lot of things aboutyou, but you know, a lot of
times when you get older it'slike you look and you're like,
oh, I can't believe it.
What is this chat GPT thing?
(35:02):
And you're like you're theopposite.
You're like I can't believepeople think it's weird that a
car drives itself Like, becauselook at you, you've been a
visionary since day one.
Right Like before Apple wasApple, you were getting the
concept of having the computer.
Now here we are.
You have that mindset right.
So what do you think like interms of Columbus, Ohio, and
(35:22):
what are you the most excitedabout?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Well, there's a number of different things.
There's a number of differentthings.
I've been a member of theColumbus Partnership for a long
time, which is an organizationof the different CEOs in the
community, and so it's acombination of people that are
(35:51):
more the corporate people andthen there's, like what I would
call an entrepreneur class,people that are founders, that
are running family businesses,that are deeply rooted here,
versus people that come in torun one of our corporations and
then aren't from here and thenthey leave, and so I think it's
kind of a healthy mix and thatgroup works very closely with
the public, you know, with themayor and the county and all
that kind of stuff.
And so, primarily, economicdevelopment, workforce
development.
What can we do to really raisethe quality of life?
(36:12):
What can we do to help Columbusflourish?
And Les Wexner and John Wolfare the founders of the Columbus
Partnership.
They had this vision probablyalmost 30 years ago.
We're so fortunate for thegroundwork that they, that they
laid on on on that, and I thinka combination of you know
(36:32):
someone with like less, who isquite the visionary and the
belief that virtually anythingis possible and the belief that,
um, my husband is fromCleveland, and when we were
sitting at something shortlyafter he, he moved here and he
said oh my God, everyone inColumbus believes their best
days are ahead of them.
(36:54):
In Cleveland, everyone believesthey're trying to recapture what
was they used to.
You know, they were thoughtthey were going to be the
Chicago of the Midwest and theoil and standard oil and all
that kind of stuff, and they'restill trying to claw back to
what was in Cleveland.
And that's not the belief ofColumbus.
(37:14):
No one is thinking, oh, we needto go, we need to reclaim our
past.
Everyone is kind of likethere's a universal focus on the
future and I think that thatattitude permeates the city and
the spirit and I think that thatis what we're seeing.
And the more people who come,the more they, you know, they
(37:35):
feel that.
I just had breakfast yesterdaywith somebody who moved from
Baltimore.
She was talking and we werewith Doug Ullman also, who's
from Pelotonia, who moved herefrom Austin 10 years ago, and we
were just talking about like,this is such a great place for
people to be and the spirit is.
You can feel it.
(37:56):
You can feel the energy.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Shout out to Doug Allman Love Doug Bigger.
Shout out to Doug Allman's mom.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Diana she's my bestie ?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Oh, she is.
Yeah.
So he, back before I was inthis studio, he came to my house
.
I had this in my office and Iwaited until he got there.
I was like, can we call yourmom?
Like I think she's really cool.
He's like, really, I'm like,yeah, let's call her.
So he called her and she's onthe show, and so I bought a
couple of pieces of her art.
I just think she's like she'sthe bees knees.
(38:24):
Speaking of your husband, let'stalk about him for a minute.
Who captured this heart ofyours?
What is he like?
Give me, like a you know, alittle commercial on this guy.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Well, we worked together.
He came into the business and Ithink that my relationship I
mean my relationship wasplatonic for many years and I
just I felt like I could tellhim anything like literally.
I never met anyone that I feltI could tell anything like
(38:57):
literally, I just pooped orwhatever you know I mean I'm
sorry, I'm sorry, my cup runnethover here, my cup runneth over
with love for this one.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
I'm gonna be.
I'm just, you know, I'm gonnabe in a depression because I
feel like now we are friends andthen you leave, and then I'm
just twiddling my thumbs waitingfor you to return somehow.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
I mean, that was later in our relationship.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Oh my, God you are something I love it.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
You haven't dropped an F-bomb yet.
I will say Well, give us time.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
So he has three children and was a single father
as well, and we literally havetwo children that are 31, two
that are 34, and two that are 36.
And we have just an incrediblelife.
And he lived in Cleveland.
He moved up there to take careof his kids and we were married.
(39:50):
He moved up there to take careof his kids and we were married
and he and I lived apart forfour years while we were married
because we didn't want ouryoungest children to be uprooted
and have to give up anything,and so we've always been be in a
(40:16):
divorced family, and so I knowto this day his kids are number
one and he knows that my kidsare number one.
I mean we started aconversation in the late 90s and
it's never stopped.
I mean literally never stopped.
We drove on Sunday back to Ohiofrom Martha's Vineyard and we
were in the car for 11 hours andtalked the whole time.
(40:39):
Oh wow, oh yeah, like literallywe I mean it is a constant
conversation.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
I love that, yeah, and, and so I think too, the
transparency, the communicationand how you and I were talking,
and you said I think we're goingto need to go to therapy.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.
Well, we were talking aboutevery January we do a vision day
, which was something that welearned from our business coach
and friend, debbie Phillips, andshe taught us we would do these
with her and her partner, andthen it got to the point where
we could facilitate the samething ourselves, and so for the
(41:14):
last decade or so, we've beendoing this every January, and
there was one point this Januarywhere I was the scribe in front
of a big white you know post-itnote easel and taking notes and
drawing things of personal.
You know all the different, youknow different parts of our
lives.
What do we want to do?
What are we going to focus on,et cetera, et cetera.
(41:35):
We started talking aboutColumbus and Martha's Vineyard
and where we're going to spendtime or not spend time and which
has been an ongoing topic, andI felt like, in the moment, I
heard Christopher say somethingin a way that I hadn't.
He had said it before, but Ihadn't heard it in the way that
(41:56):
he was expressing it and so Isaid you know, I think we're
going to need to go to therapyon this, like we're going to
need, like we're do a reallygood job at facilitating these
things between us, but this isone where I think we're going to
need help.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Therapy doesn't have to be this scary negative thing.
It's actually a helpful.
It's almost like a mediation,because that's really what
relationships are are justnegotiations, like you're
constantly balancing wants,needs, and so having that help
sometimes is so great to justmove through the juggernaut.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
So helpful.
It's been really powerful.
We've gone separately, we'vegone together.
It's been really powerfulbecause we had never done that,
we had never done therapytogether, so it's been a real
gift.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Can we switch gears to like the superficial?
So I need to know what yourskincare routine is first.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I don't know what you guys are drinking over there in
grandview like do you havesomething.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
You know what?
All the all the rage right nowis beef tallow.
Have you heard of that?
What is that?
It's like a.
It's some kind of fat orsomething from an animal and
it's like gives that sort oflike glowy it's.
Everybody's talking about it.
It's I haven't yet to order ityet, but but what do you do?
Can't do it.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
We have both Christopher and I have Alpha Gal
.
Which is this allergic reactionto anything from a mammal?
Oh so which is a tick-borneillness that's making its way
through the country?
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Really yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
It's bad.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Yeah, well, what do you put on your face?
I put whatever my stepdaughtertells me to.
Eleanor, the oldest of thefamily, is like our master
skincare routine person.
She will tell you exactly whatto use and how many steps, and
she's doing it with her baby.
And it's amazing Like we justdo whatever Eleanor tells us to
(43:42):
do and then I'll do whateverthey tell me at Bosco to do.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
I buy stuff at Bosco.
Kate, she's my girl.
I love Bosco.
I know I saw.
I heard the.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
I heard the advertising and.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I heard her session too.
Yeah, they're the greatest.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Yeah, they're so wonderful so what about?
Speaker 1 (43:58):
you know what are you eating, cause you're fit as a
fiddle, you look good and youare you pretty regimented with
your food.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
I am.
I am.
I have issues with my stomach.
I've had a ruptured colon andso diverticulitis.
I have to be careful about whatI eat and now I can't have any
meat.
I wasn't really eating meatanyway, but I have a pretty
clean diet and I have for a longtime diet and I have for a long
(44:30):
time.
I've been working with afunctional medicine doctor for
about 10 years she's not basedhere, her name's Dr Laura Lyle.
She's from Ohio, her parentslive in Bucyrus and she has a
pharmacy degree from Ohio Stateand an MD from Ohio State, and I
met her on Martha's Vineyard,go Figure and work with her
remotely, and so she has her eyeon hormone replacement therapy
(44:52):
supplement.
Um, I just had my my dna, allmy genes like laid out that I
had a two-hour meeting abouteverything that's going on in my
genes and then like adjustingmy supplements as a result and
what my diet should be, and allthis I was what was the biggest
thing that blew your mind?
Well, there was one thing thatreally bothered me is that I
(45:14):
have one of the and it doesn'tmean you're going to get it, you
know, as she likes to say, butI have one.
You can either have twovariants or one, and I have one
variant for Alzheimer's, um.
So that was kind of adisappointment and it was funny
because Christopher did the samething and he was convinced I
keep forgetting things.
I know I have Alzheimer, I know, and he had his read a week
(45:35):
before me.
He's like no, I have nothing.
And then I'm thinking I'm fit,I'm this, I'm that, I'm going to
be fine.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
And then I was like, well, that's where the balance
comes in, because I love part ofme loves like having a
dashboard and like knowing whereyou can prevent things and get
ahead of things is so great, itmakes you feel some sense of
control.
And then there's a line whereyou're like, okay, do I know too
much Because that may neverimpact you at all?
(46:02):
But now it's sitting rent freesomewhere in a corner.
You know it's like the balanceof things.
We have so much informationtoday.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
You know it's like the balance of things.
We have so much information.
Today I've really upped myprotein and I've added a morning
meal, which I was never hungryin the morning, but I'm just
trying to get more protein.
I've run since I was a kid.
I've been a runner since I wasa kid.
It's very meditative for me.
I mean, I go like three milesand I work out with Jordan
(46:34):
Sugarman three times a week, doPilates.
I was there this morning.
I love that.
And I'm adding weights as youage.
That upper body weight weightfor women, being able to really,
you know, retain your muscle issuper important.
(46:54):
It's the largest organ that wehave.
It protects all of our,everything in us, and so I'm
really trying to focus on that.
What's your vice?
What's my vice?
Yeah Well, you like drink lotsof wine, take a gummy, no
popcorn Popcorn yeah, like thatlesser evil popcorn, that's
sweet well, you like drink lotsof wine, take a gummy.
Oh, popcorn, popcorn, yeah,like that lesser evil popcorn,
that's sweet, god, you're good.
I had some last night.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
That feels like a real treat to you.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Yeah, okay, maybe tequila.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
I was going to say, give me something.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Okay, tequila.
Oh, so you'll drink sometequila with me sometime?
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Yeah, straight, because I'm already see this is
the part of the program where Ifigure out a way to see you
again, so it's like you're goingto drink some tequila with me
sometime.
Okay, okay and yay-ho, yeah,okay, perfect, yeah, perfect,
yeah.
I still am dead from the makingout with Steve Jobs.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
I don't think I've heard one other thing you've
said this whole time, but Idon't want to leave you wishing
you would have said somethingelse.
One of the things that I havefocused on for the last several
years is this notion of that wehave an inner genius, and I've
always thought that it makes somuch sense.
All of our DNA is different.
Why wouldn't each one of us bedifferent inside in our soul?
And it was actually somethingthat ancient Romans, native
American Indians it was verymuch a thought of those cultures
(48:17):
that we each have a uniqueinner genius and how that
calibrates how you show up inthe world.
I mean giving yourselfpermission to let that shine.
My biggest love is when I havethe opportunity to help that
inner genius in someone shine.
I feel as though the role ofleadership is to really make
(48:43):
space for that to come out.
And over the entire 35 years ofthe business, the thing that
gives me the greatest joy isthose times when the people had
the opportunity to let that comeout and let that shine.
Whether they felt the courageto come out, whether they felt
(49:03):
the courage to change gender,whether they felt the courage to
participate in some like crazything that we were doing in the
business and just let loose.
That is what I just love thatso much, and today that's the
thing that I love the most, andso I hope people can let their
(49:25):
inner genius come through andrealize that every day it takes
work to allow people to see that, to have the courage to show up
and the psychological safetythat's necessary for that.
You know, there's a really greatbook called Four Stages of
Psychological Safety.
It's super easy read, but Ifelt as though I think Timothy
(49:47):
Clark is the author that talksabout psychological safety, and
I think that that's what we needin the world, and right now
we're just being bombarded witha lot of things that make us
feel really unsafe.
They make us scared, verynervous, very panicky and really
trying to navigate.
That is a very big challengefor so many people right now,
(50:10):
including me.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
Can you help me bring out my inner genius?
Here's what we're going to do.
Tequila, you me inner geniusDone.
Thank you so much.
Oh, my pleasure.
Keri, you have really made myentire probably month.
This was more than I could haveasked for, so thank you so much
.
I'm so glad.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
You're the best.
Well, I think you're the best.
I think what you're doing, Ilove listening to the show.
I was up and down to Clevelandon Monday.
I was listening to all thedifferent things.
It was just so fun and Ilearned about so many people
that I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
And now I want to meet, and now I'm like we're
going to do an event That'd beso cool.
It's actually part of the plan.
It's part of the plan.
Oh, that would be so fun.
And you're invited.
You have to.
I'm going to.
I want to be invited, I'm goingto, and if you're still out
there following your girl,follow me on YouTube, Spotify,
Apple or wherever you get yourpodcasts and until next time,
keep moving.
Baby 3, 2, 1.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.