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For 25 years, Brightview Senior Living has been dedicated to creating an award-winning company culture so residents and families receive best-in-class services. Across our 50 communities, Brightview associates help deliver peace of mind, safety, security, transportation, daily programs, delicious food, and high-quality care if needed.
Welcome to Cheaters and Backstabbers. I'm Shadi Diaz. And I'm Kate Robards. And we are New York City stand-up comedians and best friends. And we love a good cheating and backstabbing story. Welcome to Cheaters and Backstabbers.
So this is a series where our guests reveal their most shocking cheating stories. Join us as we learn how to avoid getting our hearts broken or our backs slashed. Listen to Cheaters and Backstabbers on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life in marriage. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years.
Listen to Miss Spelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I have a minor love affair with the TSA Instagram account. That's right. The Transportation Safety Administration. The people charged, among other things, with keeping our air travel safe.
They have an amazing Instagram account that I've been following and liking their posts for years. And what I learned is that love affair is actually mutual. They've sent clues back to me and mentioned me in some of their posts.
So I finally decided to bring the love affair out into the open. And I reached out to Janice Burrell, who was responsible for leading the team who made the TSA Instagram account what it is today. She just recently retired from government work. But we got to talk about how she made that account so fantastic, but also how she found herself a middle-aged woman leading social media accounts.
Turns out she took a very non-linear route and had joy throughout her entire career and makes a fantastic case that maybe we should all take a messy, non-linear path in our work life. This is a bit of optimism.
Janice, you have no idea how excited I am to meet you. You've got to be kidding me. I'm such a fan. I'm such a big fan of the TSA Instagram account. Awesome. When I tell people, they always look at me inquisitively. I'm like, yes, yes.
Yes, the government agency, the Transportation Security Administration, they have over a million followers. It's amazing. Because government agencies are, let's be honest, not renowned for their social media followings. It's the punniest thing in the world. Are you a lover of language? Is that your sense of humor?
I am not punny by myself. I had a great team. And we, as a team, come up with puns. We spent about four hours a day writing each post, which is crazy. Everything else that TSA is putting out on social media, we can do that really easy. But when it comes to IG, you've got to be
punning. You've got to get the message out. You've got to be careful to make sure you don't offend anybody. So yeah, hours a day. And if you were to sit in one of those meetings with us, you would think we were crazy.
Because we're doing everything from doing puns to singing songs. My own manager used to say, this is the best meeting. One of the things that I thought was magical about your work, TSA is the thing that stands in the way of me getting to my flight on time. That's a perspective. Yeah.
You know, I'm being cynical here. Okay, go ahead. Be cynical. Most of us aren't thinking about Al-Qaeda anymore, though that threat still exists. Correct. And we don't view TSA with love or gratitude. That is true. It's part of the machine. But what you did was you interrupted our view of what a government agency should be or could be.
Then Simon, I have achieved my purpose at TSA. I now smile when I stand in line at TSA, literally watching the ridiculous things that people are putting on the conveyor belt.
you know, sort of rolling my eyes thinking about some of the things that you posted. Right. The thing that I think is important for people to recognize is this is a real job. Oh, yes. It's a lot of work having a good social media presence. It's not just something that you just give to a young millennial or Gen Z and say, do the social media. It's kind of like a writer's room for like a late night comedy show. Right. It is. You're producing comedy and
And comedy takes work. This is an audio recording, so people can't see you. But you are, how do I say this politely? An old black lady. Not Gen Z. No, sir, I'm not. And that's the funny thing, because the followers start saying, who runs this account? Right. And we thought, wouldn't they be surprised to know? Because you know, and I know, they didn't think they looked like me. Right.
That's my favorite part, which is it turns out as much as the young people would like to say that we don't understand social media, you understand it extremely well. Well, thank you first for saying we don't understand because I'm a little older than you are. I think that a lot of older executives...
who know that they have to do this either for their companies or for themselves, for their own brands, for example, are intimidated by social media, afraid of saying the wrong thing, afraid of setting off a firestorm. I'm curious, did you have a love for social media prior? Is that why they put you in this job? Or did you draw the short straw and have to figure it out once you were given the job?
My then branch manager handed me a binder and asked me if I wanted to take over a little program that this guy who graduated from Harvard and is brilliant had started the groundwork on.
Now, that scared me because I didn't graduate from Harvard, right? I did graduate, but not from Harvard. But I said, sure, because that's what you say. At least that's what baby boomers say, right? So I say, yes, sure. And I take the binder and I started to read it.
And I put little sticky notes on everything I didn't understand. I had a meeting with her. I asked all my questions and I just went for it. And I started a little program that we called We Connect. It was internal and it was the beginning of my social media career.
No formal training. I just kept reading. I kept researching, reading, researching, reading, researching, asking questions, listening to people, listening to people like you, you know, listening to other people who were in the industry. And I've done everything from that. There are two things that strike me that I absolutely love about what you said. You took this binder of all the things you had to do and you put a sticky for everything you don't understand. Right. And then you basically went through the process of removing those stickies. Correct. And
And I absolutely love that as a discipline for something we read or something that we've been instructed to do. We literally highlight and mark everything we don't understand and then one by one figure out all the answers. If I walk away with nothing else from this conversation, I'm going to start doing that with stickies. I absolutely love that. Who were the people that you followed on social media that you were like,
All right. They're really good at what they do and we need to copy stuff that they do. I'm so curious who the worthy rivals were. There were two agencies that really drove me crazy. Yeah. The first is NASA. Oh, yeah. If you think about it, they have stars and planets and moons and all these beautiful, romantic, sweet things that everybody loves, no matter who you are, no matter what age. Right. The only thing I'm going to give you is a pat down and take your water bottle. Right.
That's a hard rival, right? And then the other one was the National Park Service, which they have animals, right? So animals and stars. How do you compete with that? You can't. However, we came close. And that's why we would collaborate with the National Park Service. We come very close to catching up to some of their engagement. So what other people don't know, but you and I know this because you and I have a secret before we met because this is the first time we've ever met.
You and I communicated secretly through social media. We did. I would like a post by TSA or I would repost a post by TSA. I was part of some of the virality by sharing some of your posts. And on Valentine's Day, you guys did, what are those candies called that have the messages on them? I've forgotten what they're called. Little Hearts. The Little Hearts. You know, we all know them. They say, be kind, love. The little candied hearts that have messages. And TSA posted a post of all of these Little Hearts. And one of them was,
And one of them was my name. And you and I had never had any contact prior to that. And I didn't even know you knew who I was. And here I see my name show up on the TSA Valentine's Day post. And of course, I reposted it with a big love and heart back. And that's really when our love affair began.
I can't remember. I think it came from the administrator that said, Simon gave a shout out to you and a DHS leadership summit. And I'm like, get out, really? So that was kind of like, oh, he's paying attention. Cool. Let's talk to him. I've actually talked about you and your work and your team's work to multiple government agencies. Oh, wow. When they sort of, oh, woe is me, say, we wish people knew what we did and nobody understands us. I'm like, well...
How's your Instagram? They're like, well, we have like eight followers. It's my mom and the deputy's mom. And I always say, go check out TSA. They're engaging, they're funny, they're communicating their message, but they're doing it in a way that's, dare I say, non-governmental. They're not speaking in bureaucrat-ese.
Even though, of course, you're careful and probably more cautious than most because you are a government agency, at the end of the day, you have your own personality and the posts are not being written by lawyers. They're not. The world doesn't want to talk to the government of my parents and their parents. The world wants to talk to people.
And they want to know that you're human. And that is the aspect that I was trying to bring out. Let me talk to you the way you're talking to me. Yeah. So speaking of human, what was your path that you found yourself working for the Transportation Safety Administration? My path was a kid who went to college and didn't want to listen to her father. So she dropped out of college.
Joined the Air Force, the best service in the United States. And I know that'll just drive people crazy, but that's why I say it. Left there and worked for UPS for about 14, 15 years. Got bored. Went back to school. Got my bachelor's and my master's.
And a friend of mine, I said, I was going to work for the airport. And a friend of mine said, why don't you go work for TSA? And I'm like, T who? Long story short, I started out on the front line, patting down little old ladies and taking water bottles at the BWI airport. And here I am. What was your job in the Air Force? Totally unrelated. I was an optometry technician. Okay.
I can adjust your glasses for you. You know, I'm kind of like that fix-it guy that shows up to your house, the handyman who can do a little bit of everything. So I've done employee engagement. I've done training. You name it, I've done it. You know, I've done a little bit of everything. So I'm kind of well-rounded in more aspects than others, but we'll leave that between you and I. So you are a Jane of all trades.
Yes, I am. You do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. You are a jade of all trades. I think I'm very similar. I'm a jack of all trades. And as you and I both know, people like us, we like to call ourselves generalists. That's the nice way of saying it, right? People will say to us, oh, well, you're a jack of all trades and master of none. Do you know the full expression?
I do not. The full expression is, a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. Oh, I love that. In other words, power to the generalists. Absolutely. So I have to know, so you're an optometry technician in the Air Force. Yes. What did you do at UPS? I drove that big brown truck.
and delivered packages. And then I led those that drove the big brown truck. And then I did quality at UPS. And then I did training at UPS. When I left UPS, I was the district training and development manager for the state of Virginia. This is what I find wonderful about you. If this was anybody else's career,
They were like, okay, I am the training manager for an entire district. I might even grow into a larger role in training within UPS. Or I'm going to, you know what, I'm going to go to another company and I'm going to apply for a training job.
But not you. I get bored. Is that what it is? You get bored. I get bored. I realized 14 years of being in the government, I realized I have a bad habit. I work for 14 years and I go do something else. Yeah. I did that with the Air Force. I did that with UPS. And I was getting ready to do it with TSA. And I caught myself and went, uh-uh, you need to retire from someplace. So I did. Yeah.
And you and I are very similar, which is if I look at my career path, I love a steep learning curve. And so I love being the dumbest person in the room. Yep. And then I get good at my job. And then it starts to be more about maintenance rather than learning. Right. And then I get bored and I quit. And if I go back and look from the first job I ever had, it's these peaks. And then I drop down to do something I don't know what I'm doing. And just where most people be like, ah, I've made it.
I quit because I want the steep learning curve. But Simon, isn't it fun? Yeah. It's fun. Of course it's fun. Being that master is not all that. You understand what I'm saying? If you only stick to that one path, what else could you have done? What else could you have accomplished? I was doing great at UPS. I was doing great in the Air Force, but I always wanted to be
something more. What I did at TSA, that was it. I enjoyed that. What I think is so interesting, the generalists bring different points of view and are able to solve problems here because of what they learned there. Correct. And when you lack a generalist's perspective, then all one learns is how this has always been done. Diversity of thinking is worked out of the system.
And when I'm talking about diversity, I'm literally talking about every definition of diversity there is. This idea of being a generalist, I think, does two things. One, it keeps you curious. Maybe I don't know everything. There's other things out there. So I think curiosity is absolutely essential for great leadership. I think it's actually essential for joy in life because you keep seeing and learning new things. And the other thing is by being curious, inherently, it makes you open-minded to the ideas of others.
I think it does give you more diversity of thought. I do know that for my personal journey, everything that I've learned at every job, every bad supervisor, every good supervisor, I've taken something. From the bad ones, it's like, don't do that.
From the good ones, it may be whatever. I had a manager once that one of the things she would do with us was we would celebrate the most ridiculous holidays. Now, we did something on a stick day. I had the best time of my life and it stuck with me, right?
But what she was really doing was she was building the team. She was building that camaraderie. We were finding those common denominators that bring us all together as people so that we could build upon that. And I want you to know that I celebrated just as crazy things. Mm-hmm.
I told my team once, shut down all your computers. We're going outside for a walk. And they thought I was crazy. And we just walked around the building twice. We came back in and they talked about that walk for the longest. So it's a matter of getting people to think outside the box and get them to open their minds up so then they can grow, which in turn helps everything else to grow. So the insight of that I'm getting from this is this idea of interruption.
And knowing when to interrupt. That when thinking gets stale, when morale is low, when people are bored, when somebody's frustrated that things aren't working, an interruption. And this works everywhere. Think about it like when you're having a difficult conversation with somebody or there's anger and you can interrupt with a joke. It changes the tenor.
It does. That's what innovation is. It's an interruption to the way things have always been done. And so when we interrupt our own thinking, new ideas happen. And what you've done over the course of your career and what I've done over the course of my career is I kept interrupting myself. Like things were fine. I should have stayed on that path. And we interrupted it.
And what ended up happening is where a straight path is one, plus one, plus one, occasionally plus two, plus one, and you're making progress. That's a career. And an interruption is one, plus one, plus one, minus three, plus six, plus four, plus seven, plus 12, minus 10, plus 15, plus 30. And where you actually end up
is way ahead than had you just stayed on the plus one, plus one, plus one career path. Sounds like my stock accounts. So yeah, so if you stay on the sure thing, you're not getting much. You're right. You've got to be able to jump off, do something that's totally wild and crazy.
See where that takes you and then take what you get from that and add it to wherever you go next. So COVID was a great, let's redefine it as the great interruption. I like that. The tragedy and death notwithstanding. The great interruption forced us to look at the career paths we were on. And a lot of people said, do I want to keep doing this? Yes. And a lot of people said, is ambition the only thing? What about joie de vivre? What about the joy of my life, not just the living of my life?
am I okay making less money if I get more out of it, if I get more fun out of it? People are still in the middle of making those decisions. We all fantasized about doing those things. It's not like we'd never thought about them before, but
few of us acted upon it because of the risk and the great interruption happens. And all of a sudden, we've become better able to make these shifts. And it's leaps of faith, right? It's like a little kid standing at the end of a diving board going, I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. And who knows what goes through their mind that they just jump and the joy of falling through the air and having an experience that they've never had before. And whether they choose to do it again or not is irrelevant. Right.
You know, as I sit here and talk with you, I think about every time I've changed my path.
there was a great interruption of some sort. And that fear that you talk about now is that fear I feel every time I change my path. And let's be clear for both of us, right? I was never confident. Like, I got a good thing going here. My career is going well. I'm getting promoted. I'm making a good salary. Why would you walk away from that?
You walked away too. Multiple times. Right? Multiple times. And we had fear. We were standing at the edge of the diving board looking, going, do I really want to do this? And whatever happened, we jumped. How do we inspire young people to interrupt? How do we inspire young people to...
to take risks, to do things that, from all rational things, would put them backwards, not forwards in their career. Because the path that you and I took is not the straight line, it's the crooked line. And it defies conventional wisdom, but ultimately has led to, some would argue, greater success and definitely more joy than had we stayed on the straight and narrow. Simon, I think we just did. I think that people like you and I, who zig and zag,
and still come out on top, we are the inspiration that the young people need. I also think it's important to spend time, those of us who've done this, spend time coaching and mentoring others. Take the time and listen. Find out what's important to them. What is it that you really want? Life is short.
What do you really want to accomplish in the time you have here? We're talking about when things go backwards and when you start lower down and things like that. That's like going to school, right? I'm less afraid of interruption and new because I like being the student. But if I prided myself on being the expert, I would be more afraid.
It's like academia. You know the old trope, why is academia so competitive? It's because the stakes are so low. That's a whole conversation in itself. That's a whole podcast in itself. But the point is, people who put themselves on these academic paths and their entire self-worth is based on their expertise and the amount they know about one thing.
makes them hyper-competitive because they can't fall off the mantle because their self-worth is based on this one thing that they know. Those are people that I don't understand. But those people are everywhere. Those people are in our companies. Those people are in our government agencies where their self-worth is defined by the thing they've achieved.
where you and I define our self-worth by something I've learned that I didn't know before. My point is all about finding joy. What I'm speaking out against is people who are on that path because they keep being told that that is the path, that's the right path, but it feels uncomfortable. What we're saying is if that's not your path, here's an alternative. My mother-in-law used to say, if you don't like what you're doing, change it. And that's it. If you don't like what you're doing, people who hate their jobs-
They should find another job. And the word can't cannot be in your vocabulary. It might not be easy, but you can do it. So find another path. Oh my God, I'm about to quote Emerson. To interrupt a foolish consistency, he said, is the hub goblin of little minds. That makes sense. I'm making interruption a practice from now on. I'm so inspired by that. So thank you for that.
And it all boils down, both the desire to put posts on things you don't know and the desire to interrupt a foolish consistency. It all boils down to curiosity, which is you can do neither of these things if you don't inherently have curiosity. Janice, your magic. Truly such a joy meeting you. Thank you, Simon.
If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsynic.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other. Bye.
For 25 years, Brightview Senior Living has been dedicated to creating an award-winning company culture so residents and families receive best-in-class services. Across our 50 communities, Brightview associates help deliver peace of mind, safety, security, transportation, daily programs, delicious food, and high-quality care if needed.
Discover how our vibrant senior living communities can help you live your best life. Visit brightviewseniorliving.com to learn more. Equal housing opportunity. Welcome to Cheaters and Backstabbers. I'm Shadi Diaz. And I'm Kate Robards. And we are New York City stand-up comedians and best friends. And we love a good cheating and backstabbing story.
So this is a series where our guests reveal their most shocking cheating stories. Join us as we learn how to avoid getting our hearts broken or our backs slashed. Listen to Cheaters and Backstabbers on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life in marriage. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years.
wild. Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
