Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Start your week smiling with your friends. Kathy's aunt and Michelle Frechette. It's time to get ready for some weekly motivation with WP motivate.
Happy Friday, Cathy.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Happy Friday. Look, I got no sleeves. I'm hot.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: I got sleeves. I also got my rainbow. My bu. Rainbow shirt. I love it. Pride month. Oh, pride nails. Did you see my pride nails?
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was nice.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Love it. It's a lot of fun. How are you?
[00:00:33] Speaker B: I am good. How was word camp Europe?
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Word camp Europe. Other than I brought back the souvenir nobody wants, I got Covid. But other than that, it's like every time I go to Europe, which makes me sound like I go all the time, so, like, okay, I'll be honest.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: You kind of do.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Both times I've been to Europe, I've got Covid. So, yeah, I'm thinking it's from the planes more than it's actually from the event, but who knows?
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Because, you know, it takes a couple days, and by the time you got caught it on the plane, and by the time you get home, you're feeling it, but whatever. Anyway, but it was good. It was really good.
I will never, ever stop appreciating when people are so kind to me. This wordcamp, like. Like every Wordcamp since I wrote five days without a shower, which we can put in this in the show notes in case people don't know what I'm referring to, which is Wordcamp us 2022 was highly inaccessible to a person using wheels, and I am not the only person at every camp using wheels. Right? Sometimes I am, but not always. And at that one, I was not. But anyway, every camp since then. No, scratch that. Every flagship camp since then has reached out to me, whether I'm attending or not, to say, can we ask you some questions to make this event more accessible?
And contributor Day had the tables spaced so that I could not only go around the perimeter, but I could roll between the tables even when people were sitting in chairs. It was awesome. I only had to be up on stage briefly as a table lead, and they had a ramp for me to be able to get on and off the stage to be able to talk about what my table does. So, like, the kindness that was shown to me there that people are like, can I get you a tray? Like, all of those things, just, to me, make a difference. Because if I. If they're doing it for me, I'm assuming they're doing it for others, too. I do know that's a big assumption. Cause I know a lot of people know me, but I think in general, like, it was. I'm gonna absolutely, 100% misquote Anne Frank, who says, you know, in spite of everything, she believes people are kind. And so I like to think that, too, until you reach the people that, you know, are just absolute assholes and are not kind at all, but because they do exist.
Do they really? I'm kidding, unfortunately. But I will say, like, every single step of the way, on planes, on everything, the people that I encountered in restaurants, no matter where it was, showed me kindness the whole way out and the whole way back. That's not to say that everything was peachy, because, like, my accessible hotel room. Let me just say, an accessible room in Torino is not the same as an accessible room in, like, Rochester, New York. Right? So I could roll my scooter in and I could back my scooter out, but I couldn't turn it around anywhere in there. And the accessible shower, like, the fold down chair, was, like the size of a postage stamp, so I was, like, afraid to sit on it. I did shower. It was not another five days without a shower situation, and I was very grateful that it was an accessible room. So it was bigger. I did have mobility in there. There were grab bars, things like that. So I'm not saying it wasn't good. It's just it was perhaps a little more challenging than other times might have been.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: But other than they're so old. It's so old.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: I know.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Here, it's like, okay, this building has been around for 50 years. Wow, what an old building there. It's like 500 years. You know, it's been. It's seen wars. It's seen, you know, the falls of popes and. And dynasties. So.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah. But even, like, Nilo Velez, who does a lot of photography for word camps, he's the one that's always on the roof taking the group photo, for example. Yeah. He found out that I had an Olympus mirrorless camera, and he had a very old, like, I don't know, 40 year old or whatever Olympus lens that he's retrofitted for a mirrorless. And he brought that as a gift for me because he wanted me to be able to. He collects them, and when he has what, he passes it on. And so, like, that kind of thing, man, you can't. There's. There's nothing to be said other than how amazingly kind people have been.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: And so I try to be kind, too, you know that. I try to do things that I can. And you get little gifts to I do.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: When you're going on the plane, just, you know, people are accommodating you and you need a little extra help. You got to get on the or earlier, that kind of stuff. So you want to say thank you to them. And so what do you give them?
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah, only on international flights. Like, domestic flights aren't very long, but those, like 10 hours and more flights, I make little cellophane bags, and in it is, I have one here. It's like this little, what is it?
Half ounce? Yeah, half ounce hand lotion. And then I buy, like, lip balms. Right. So I get them in bulk through Amazon, and I put together these little gift bags, and I do make a little note card. Like, I print them off. It's got my face so they know who it came from. And it says something along the lines of thank you for keeping me and my fellow travelers safe in the air.
And I sign my name, right, so that they know who it is from. And when I get on the plane and I get seated, whoever is the first flight attendant to come over, make sure that I'm seated and that I have everything I need, I hand them a bag, and it's always one of the bags I pick up at one of the conferences. Right? Like, so I think these were, we got bags, you know, with the drawstrings. Yeah. And I put 20 of them in there because I never know how big these flights are going to be. So this was Air France. And so I handed it to the girl, to the woman. I said, I have some gifts for the crew. And she opened it up, she looked at it, and she knelt right down next to me, and she said, why, oh, my gosh, does nobody ever thank you? I said, because I want to appreciate how hard I know that you work. Like you're up and down the aisles the whole time we're trying to snooze. You bring us our food. You help me on the plane. You helped me get off. And she said, is this your business? I said, no, no, no. She said, are you selling these? I said, no, these are just a gift to say thank you. And she teared up a little. She said. She clutched it to her chest and she said, thank you. I said, no, thank you. And then throughout the rest of that flight, they were bringing me, like, you know, the little, like the little gift bags that they put in. Like, I was not in first class. I was in coach, right. But the economy coach, they're bringing me, like, little gift bags from, from first class and from business class and little chocolate bar and little cookies. And I was like, that's not why I did it. Right? And then, oh, my gosh, in the middle of this trip, it's. The whole plane is dark.
There's this tap on my arm. And I look over and it's the pilot. And he says, hi, I'm the pilot. And I'm like, oh, my God, there's, like, more than one pilot on this. Otherwise, we're going down right now. Yeah.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: He said, autopilot.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: You know, he want to thank you for the gift. He said, I just took one randomly, and I got strawberry lip balm, and that's my favorite.
And I said, well. I said, well, thank you for all you do for us, your passengers. And he said, thank you. And that was so nice. And even on the way back, it was a delta flight. And I had. I had sat down, and I asked one of the flight attendants, I said, could I have a seatbelt extender when I sat down? And she said, yes, I'll bring one to you in a few minutes. I said, that's fine. And when she walked by the next time, I said, excuse me. And she said, I said, I will bring one. I said, no, no, no. I said, I just wanted to give you this. I said, it's gifts for the crew. And her whole demeanor changed because she's used to people barking. And I knew she'd bring me when I was like, I just wanted to give it to her in passing so she wouldn't have to focus anything else. And her whole demeanor changed. And she came back later and she. And she gave me the thing and she said, thank you. That was so kind. And then literally bags full of snacks and, like, more of these kind of, like, you know, zipper bags. Yeah. A handwritten note from first class, like, all of these. So all I have all of that to say is, first of all, I never give those gifts because I expect anything in return. I literally just want to thank them for the work they do, and their reaction says that they don't get thanked enough. Right?
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: And secondly, like, it's just amazing to be able to see how happy people are when you do something this little. Like, I think I spent $40 between two flights, which is almost nothing, really, $20 a flight, to give them all those little gifts of. Yeah, of course I taped them up, but it took a little while to do it, but it was just exciting to be able to make somebody's day that way. And whenever you have an opportunity to make somebody's day, take it like, why not right it?
[00:09:12] Speaker B: And just, you can tell just by their reactions. Yeah, they're not getting thanks. They're, they almost have, they have to put up boundaries, you know? Like when you're taking this, when you live out in the middle of nowhere, like I do, like, when you see your neighbors, you wave just like, oh, another human.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Hi.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: You know? But when you're, like, crammed, when you're dealing with the public, it's, you just can only handle so much. But that just kind of drops away. The defenses, the boundaries, everything that they have to put up in order to protect their sanity, their energy from what's going on, you know? And flying, it's not fun. You're crammed into this small space with all of these people. People bring all kinds of annoying things. They do annoying things on a plane, and so it's hard for them. And so the fact that you just kind of, like, I see you, I recognize you, and you show some kindness. It just, it pays you back exponentially. And not just with, like, the crew, but I don't know. I believe in karma. I firmly believe that.
Yeah, that this, it. Just imagine what kind of world we would live in if everyone would do that.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. For sure. But. So, because I'm a glutton for punishment and I never expect to be sick, I had actually said, yeah, sure, I'll speak at a word, at a WordPress event, you know, virtually Tuesday night. So I get back Monday night with 101 degree temperature, and I'm not going to let these people down. So brush my hair, put on my headphones, and I gave a presentation that was about 2 hours long. But all told, by the question, answer everything to the WordPress. WordPress meetup in marlboro, Massachusetts.
And I had put on these slides. I was giving a talk about networking and growing your community, which I do a lot of, of course. And I had put on the slides and I'd forgotten because I gave this talk quite a while ago, my own golden rule. So I made, I made it into a little, like, what do you call those cards? Like just Twitter card or whatever, and put out it. My golden rule of networking is simple. Give more than you take, and you'll find you receive more than you could ever give. So, and like, the, and so when I got to that slide, I was like, let me tell you about giving these little gift bags on the plane because I received so much more than I thought I gave, you know? And the fact that it made them so happy was one of those things that's like, it's just such a win win. When you show kindness, it doesn't have to cost you money. It could just be a simple thank you. Right. It doesn't. If you can't afford to buy lotion for this. I mean, I'm not saying everybody has to run out and spend money, but just the simple act of saying, I see you. I think I want you to know I'm acknowledging that. I see the work you're doing, and I want to appreciate you. It really does go a long way, and you'll find that people are just so kind in return. Like that one person that was so in her own head, but they had to get all these things done, and I'm sorry. I said I'd get you the. Oh, wait, what? And just to watch her whole demeanor change from feeling like she was being harassed to suddenly being thanked. Right. Made such a big difference.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: That's amazing. Yeah. And I saw, because we were, we talked about this the other day, so then I saw on social media, just somebody had put together, like, snack. They were traveling for the first time with their infant baby. And, you know, I remember, boy, I remember traveling with Claire, and I got stuck in Philadelphia for three days.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: It was around Christmas time and snow, and it was just like, I flew from Syracuse, visiting Mark's family, to Philadelphia with Claire, and I'm supposed to go to Chicago. Three days in Philadelphia, and it was so hard. And then she got sick, and then, you know, all my luggage had made it, so I know what that's like, you know, and I'm just like, you're doing what you can do, and so it's just.
And the kindness of strangers got me through that. But what I saw on social media was somebody had put together those bags to give to fellow travelers around them because they felt bad that, you know, maybe it's going to be a bad flight with this baby screaming because it doesn't know what's going on.
And I just. Somebody took a picture of it and was moved that somebody would do that, you know, and have consideration around the people. I think at our core, you know, when, with all the stuff that's happened in our neck of the country with the tornadoes and crazy storms and everything, I would not be able to, like, handle what was going on without the kindness of my next door neighbor. Like, people, like, really want in. Next door was all like, got chainsaws, got a tractor. Anybody need anything? Everybody okay? Like, everybody was checking in on each other. I think that's, um, you know, I complain a lot about. About Texas. You know, the heat, the humidity, the chiggers, the snakes, the scorpions. Yeah, there's a list.
But the people here who watch out for each show kindness, and I think we would. We should. The world needs more of that. Like, what if we could all just do that? We don't need, like, a feeling, like, we have to have an apology because our kid is loud or a disaster happen that we have to all, like, come together. Like, remember how America was, like, before 911 and then after 911 and everybody kind of just like, okay, well, we got to stick together on this because it was just, let's be kind to each other. We don't need an event to say that there's going to be kindness, you know, I mean, like, let's just do it.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Absolutely. Let's just be kind. Let's just put that out into the universe. If we. If every time we felt irritated by something, we took a step back to think about how we can appreciate something through that, I think it would help us. It's hard to do. It's really hard to do. Right?
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Like, yeah, I just went there, and I was just like, really?
[00:15:26] Speaker A: I know. I saw your face. I'm like, oh, but seriously, like, I.
I'm saying I'm sick. I have Covid this week, right? And, like, I wake up in the middle of the night, and I'm trying. I'm coughing so hard. I'm crossing my legs, trying not to pee myself because I'm coughing so hard as a 55 year old woman. Sorry, guys. It's true. That does happen to us. But still trying to appreciate the fact that I am not in the hospital, I am not on a respirator. I have my own room, my own house. I have all of these things that are my own. And even if I feel, like, absolute, like, horrible that there are worse things and I should appreciate what I do have. Not easy. It is not easy, man. It's not easy. And when things. The harder things get, the harder it is to remember kindness, the harder it is to, like, I've been grouchy. I don't feel good. When you don't feel good, you're grouchy. Right. And I get on Zoom calls, and I'm trying not to be grouchy to people and trying to remember that my mantra is kindness. Like, that is my superpower. But, man, I got kryptonite, too. There are things that will absolutely can't laugh, right? Cough.
There is kryptonite. Yeah. Like, the cat jumps up, and I'm coughing.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I like the cat's like, oh, kindness, huh? Prove it, prove it. Pets now.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Karma's going, oh, how kind are you when your cat's jumping on your keyboard in the middle of recording, michelle? Okay. I didn't say it was always easy.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Now there's a cringe fruit fly trying to get into my tea.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: My dad used to say, don't pray for patience. The only way that God will give you patience is by giving more trials so that you learn patience through them. I'm like, I don't know how much of that I believe, but, yeah, it's like. It's like, when you were pregnant, did you not notice all the other pregnant women?
Right? Like, when you're pregnant, everybody's pregnant. When I first got my. I don't drive it anymore, but when I first got my vw beetle, I noticed so many other people driving bw beetles, right? It's like, whatever's in your life, you start to notice more and more of the others. So if you put kindness out there, maybe you'll start to notice more and more people being kind. I don't know.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Now I'm just making stuff up.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: It's true, though. It is. Well, I think it. I think it just comes back to you. It starts just coming back to you because it's just like, you know, we're all. We are all energy, right? We are all spiritual beings having human experiences, right? So we are above and above anything else. We are energy. And so if we are feeling in a certain way, like, we kind of resonate at a certain way, and the world starts to reflect back to us in certain ways. So, like, lately, I have been and really, like, trying to hone in on my intuition. And so, like, my world is showing me, like, weird things are happening. I'm like, all right, bring it. Let's see where this is gonna take me. So it's fun, but, yeah, you're a resident. Being like I used to. There was somebody. I had this conversation up in shasta. There was this guy, my husband's friend, this guy, james, homeless man, lived in his truck, but he would go to the park, the city park in Mount Shasta, and he would sit there, and he would wait for the people to come to talk to him. And he could see auras, and he could, like, he was very, very intuitive that we had this garage sale once, and my neighbor's dog, the golden retriever, Riley, who got me hooked on golden retrievers, was kind of hanging around, and our dog was hanging. They were always. So I was having the last garage sale I would ever have. And I see James driving by, and he, like, slams on the brakes and he walks up and he's like, I didn't know you guys lived here. And I'm like, well, here we are. We're having a garage sale. He's like, that dog looked at me and said I needed to stop, so I'm here for the people. Oh, weird stuff like that. But we were having this conversation with James once, and Mark was, like, all worried about something and, oh, it was like his driver's license. Like, he hadn't gotten his driver's license switched over. We had just moved there. And he was all worried that he was going to get arrested, like, thrown in jail for, like, he could take it, you know, to the nth level. And James just said to him, if you're vibrating at the frequency where the cops can't see you, you don't have anything to worry about. Just keep your vibe high. I was just like, it's true. Like, if you got high vibes, like, the low vibes, they don't come around, right? If you are high vibe, you're just like, living life and trusting in your experience and just kind of staying at a higher frequency. They don't even see you. And I was just like, I've always remembered that. It's just kind of like, if I worry about something, I'm just like, you're never going to see me.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Like a ghost.
My stepmother, my first stepmother, dad, second wife, she was from the south. She had a little southern sayings, like, where she'd say, did a fox run across your grave? Like that kind of stuff. But she was also a CB er. Like, that's what was her.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: She didn't do it much in New York because there's not a lot of that going on at the time up here anyway. But she would say, we would be in the car and somebody go speeding by, and I'd be like, wow, they're going so fast. Holy cow. She goes, that's okay. They're just going to go ahead and shake the bushes for bears.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Shake the bushes for bears.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Like I said, there aren't any bears in Rochester. She's like, oh, honey, that means cops.
That means they're gonna get that way. They're gonna get the ticket and we won't.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember being a little kid and, like, smokey and the bandit, and there was all the CBN and my dad, somebody gave him one for, I don't think he ever used it for anything, but there was all the CB lingo. But the bears.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Yep, yep.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: Shaking the bushes for bears.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I'll never forget, her handle was Amber lady, and I don't even know why that was her handle.
Oh, life, man, life.
But put some kindness out there. I promise it. You cannot hurt yourself by being kind to others.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: No. And you can do a heck of a lot of good in the world when you just keep your vibes very high and kindness will come back to you exponentially. Your world will start reflecting back to you that which you put out. And Michelle, your proof of it. I've got another friend who's, like, kind of woken up to all that stuff and is doing the same type of thing. He's just being, like, super kind to people he doesn't need to, and he's getting all kinds of, like, magical things happening for him. So keep your vows crazy.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: I'm probably going to paraphrase this to you, and I don't remember who said it or, you know, if it was one of those Buddha, Confucius, whatever kind of things, but where it says, whenever possible, be kind, and it's always possible.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: It is. Maybe we should end on that note.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Sounds good.
Right now I gotta go find somebody to be kind to.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: You were just kind to me, so there you go. Aw.
But. But keep that in mind later when Claire annoys you.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: Yeah, she's been good lately.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Oh, that's good. I'm glad to hear it.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: That's me knocking out.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Knocking out.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Now the dog is like, what? Who's at the door? Oh, geez.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: No.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: All right, it was me. It was me.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: It was me.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: We're safe.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: All right, everybody be kind, and we will see you next time. Bye.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Bye.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: This has been WP. Motivate with Kathy's aunt and Michelle freshet. To learn more or to sponsor us, go to wpmotivate.com.
