Transcript Episode 85
Episode 85: Asking for What you Want with Sarah Negris-Mamani
Stephanie Skryzowski:
Welcome to the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast. The show for purpose driven entrepreneurs who wanna get inspired to step outside of your comfort zone, expand it to your purpose and grow your business in a big way. I’m your host, Stephanie, Kowski a globe TRO CFO, whose mission is to empower leaders to better understand their numbers, to grow their impact and their income.
Let’s dive in.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to 100 degrees of entrepreneurship. I’m your host, Stephanie Kowski. And we have another really fun episode with you with another one of our team members. So you may have listened to my episode a couple weeks ago. It is episode number. 80 with our CFO, one of our CFOs Susie, how, and today we have on the podcast, one of our bookkeepers, Sarah Negress Memani.
So Sarah has a [00:01:00] passion for helping nonprofits find success through improving processes. She believes finding efficient and effective ways to do work so that nonprofit leaders can focus on higher level strategic thinking. She’s a master’s degree in nonprofit manage. And over five years experience in program and project management in the nonprofit sector, she enjoys focusing on financial management because she likes puzzles and solving problems.
She is currently in Argentina. She spends her free time running, cooking, and painting. She loves to travel and has lived in Bulgaria, France, and Argentina. So I really love talking to Sarah because her bio does not even tell. A 10th of her story. She has an amazing journey from starting her, like in college at a military college to sports management and working for DC United and in like sports events and then her journey leading her to 100 degrees.
And she has a really unique way that she came about. Working for 100 degrees, which I will leave you to the [00:02:00] episode to hear about that story. But Sarah just has an amazing journey. It dropped so many gems in this episode, like little nuggets of wisdom that she has learned along the way that I feel like are so applicable to life and business.
She learned the concept of nicheing down in college, and that led her to her first job and she gave us some really good pointers, unlike. If you are not a numbers person or a finance person or a money person, she gave us a little tidbit in the beginning of the episode. So listen for that and sort of how to shift your mindset in managing your money.
She talked about being a self-starter and asking for what she has wanted and getting it. So she just, she has a really cool journey. She is like wise beyond her years. And I think you’re really going to enjoy learning a little bit more about somebody on our team and what she actually does behind the scenes for clients at 100 degrees, as well as her journey.
And I think that there’s just so much to [00:03:00] learn and so much to glean from everyone’s journeys. Like we all have different lessons that we’ve learned that can be applicable to other people in their, you know, in their journey as well. I feel like I said, the word journey. So anyway, without further ado, let’s get into our episode with Sarah.
Hey,
everybody. Welcome back to 100 degrees of entrepreneurship and I’m really excited. I have a very special guest of me today. This is our second team member that we have brought on. And so I have Sarah Niani with me.
[00:03:34] Sarah: Sarah. Welcome. Thanks Stephanie. Thanks for having.
[00:03:38] Stephanie: So Sarah is a bookkeeper on the nonprofit side of our business, and she’s been with 100 degrees for over a year now.
And Sarah, I would love if you could just like tell the people, tell our listeners a little bit about what you do. Like what does it mean to be a nonprofit bookkeeper and work with our clients?
[00:03:58] Sarah: Yeah. So I [00:04:00] help our clients with their day to day, um, financial transactions, just making sure everything goes to the right place, keeping everything organized, um, and the chart of accounts, which just basically just means that when income comes in, since I work with non-profits making sure that if it’s donations, it’s going to the right donation bucket, or if they’re earning income some other way that it gets, um, put in that category.
Um, sometimes. Nonprofits get grants. We need to make sure everything is being tracked in the right place. So when they do their grant reports later in the month or later in the year that they can show where everything is going, I’ll record where their expenses are going to. So. One of the big things with nonprofits is, um, their nine 90 and they have to show which expenses are admin or fundraising or program related.
So it makes it a lot easier if you just keep everything organized throughout the year and month to month and putting them in the right places. And then there’s just always questions that [00:05:00] come up related to payroll or paying vendors or just other government type documents they might get in the mail and helping them answer those questions.
Yeah, so
[00:05:12] Stephanie: Sarah and the other bookkeepers on, on our team are the ones that are like behind the scenes experts in QuickBooks, and really making sure all of the details of our client’s books are in the right place. So Sarah is super detail oriented and. You know, takes a lot of care in making sure the back end of our clients’ businesses are nice and clean and tiny.
Um, Sarah, what has been your like career journey up to this point though? You haven’t always been like non, you know, done nonprofit finance for your entire career. So what has your journey look like that landed you here?
[00:05:51] Sarah: Yeah to say it hasn’t been linear is definitely an understatement so I don’t even know if you know this, Stephanie, but I started my, [00:06:00] um, my college at a military school.
I went to the university of north Georgia, which is one, it’s like a tier two military, um, academy. So it’s like, you know, west point, but it’s like a tier below that. I didn’t know. So I was there for my . Yeah. I was all about, um, ROTC when I was in high school, but once I got in there and everyone said, get out I was like, oh gosh.
So I, um, decided that the army would always be there. If I did wanna go. I’m sure they would always be happy to take me. So I decided just to, um, transfer to a civilian college, my. My sophomore year. And basically that means that I just, I, I mean, I would, it was a regular college, but it was like on an RTC scholarship.
So I would be obligated to join the military at the end of it. So I just decided to go to a regular school. Like I said, if I wanted to do the military, I would, I knew that I wanted to work and live abroad. I knew that I wanted to learn a different language. That was kind of the, the goal there. And so the next step I did was [00:07:00] during that summer between transferring, I went to Bulgaria because I knew I wanted to study abroad and I saw fire and it was affordable.
It was much cheaper than going to like London or Paris or someplace else. So I said, okay, I can, I can do that. So. I went to the American university of Bulgaria for that summer. I didn’t learn that much Bulgar, but I, I knew enough to, you know, order food on restaurants and get by. So that was good enough.
And that was, you know, just amazing, just, you know, the first time out of the country when you’re, you know, 18 years old is just, um, it’s really great. So I decided then to. Study sport management as my major at the university of west Georgia. So in sport management, it was kind of like business focused. And this was like right after recession hit in 2008.
So everyone was freaking about jobs. Um, I didn’t wanna do something that was just like, just majoring in business or economics, because [00:08:00] everyone who was graduating with those degrees just couldn’t seem to find a job. So I wanted something that was just different. And at that school, that particular program had a pretty good track record of getting people jobs, because it was such a smaller group of people.
So I just signed up for every internship. I could get my hands on every volunteer opportunity. So during school, I, um, would work at the Atlanta Falcons, um, for home games. And so I had some like formal internships and some more like informal internships at the Atlanta Falcons and the Atlanta Speedway and then Georgia soccer association.
And that’s how I found myself with my first real job doing sales at, um, DC United. So that’s what brought me to Washington DC and I did sales and anyone who’s done sales, um, especially as an entry level position, it’s, you know, it’s super hard, but I do think that it really gave me a lot of good skills with getting over my fear of cold calling and just reaching out to people and just asking and just dealing with so many different [00:09:00] types of.
People in industries and trying to sell people soccer tickets. So when they really didn’t want them, cuz my whole job was getting groups of people together who normally don’t go to soccer games, like boy Scouts and girl Scouts or churches or uh, alumni groups or things like that. Um, so that was an interesting year.
Um, But yeah, but that event management, all that experience brought me into, um, another job that was much more like it was a nonprofit. So it was program management, event management, conference planning, just all the logistics, just all the things which I kind of have had a piece of and all my roles, but it was the first time I had just a concise, you know, job that just focused on that.
Yeah. And that brought me to working in nonprofits and events. And, um, I knew that this was the field I wanted to work in because I knew that I always wanted to have a role that I was working in a lot of [00:10:00] different areas. Um, something where people always say in nonprofits were a lot of different hats. So I definitely had, you know, those types of roles and.
I saw that, um, people who were working in finance and, and most non-profits were just a part of like every meeting. They had some, they had their hand in like every pot, like literally just everyone always had to work with the finance person. And it, I think, you know, finance always intimidated me. I was scared of numbers and scared of money, just like, Ugh.
And I realized that the stuff that I did with events was actually like, I mean, it was, it was a lot of numbers. It was a lot of, you know, keeping track of things. It just had to do. Tickets and chairs and dinner plates. And then I learned like, okay, it’s it’s money, but it’s not that different. It’s just keeping track of things.
It just happens to be a dollar and cents value versus like I said, a dinner plate at a hotel. So yeah. I decided to teach myself [00:11:00] QuickBook and just wanted to get over this, this barrier, this fear, this intimidation of money, because I feel like that would just unlock so many doors for me and my career.
And I think that’s exactly what it did. So many people, I think, just shy away from numbers and money. And it’s, it’s just what it just is a, it’s another piece to the puzzle, but it’s not like an entirely separate part. It’s just another, another side of the coin when it comes to the program. So that other stuff that we’re used to is nonprofits.
Yeah,
[00:11:31] Stephanie: that’s such an interesting point that you were like, well, I deal with numbers already. Like you said, it’s tables or attendees or, um, whatever it might be, and then dealing with money and finances, you just add a dollar sign. And so I just think about listeners. If you’re listening to this podcast, you probably are at least somewhat interested in money because you know, that’s our jam here.
But like, if you do feel intimidated, Buy numbers or buy finances. Think about the numbers that you [00:12:00] currently manage in your life. There’s got to be something somewhere, um, where you’re managing numbers. So if you’re, you know, if you’re like a course creator, you’re looking at conversions of your funnels and things like that.
Um, if you are, you know, if you’re serving clients, you’re probably looking at how many clients you’re serving. Like there are millions of ways that you’re already using numbers. So like, You’re already doing it. And just like Sarah said, you just add a dollar sign in for it. And now you’re managing finances as well.
I think that’s like a
[00:12:29] Sarah: huge, um,
[00:12:31] Stephanie: Yeah. That’s like a light bulb for me. I mean, I love managing numbers, but I just love the way that you, um, that you sort of explained that because it’s so true and can help people really get over that, that fear. So you taught or you like started to teach yourself QuickBooks or like did like QuickBooks training and stuff.
And so. What was your thought behind that? It was like, okay, I wanna get over my fear was your idea, like, all right, I’m gonna teach myself QuickBooks and kind of learn this kind of thing, because I want to [00:13:00] then get a job in finance or was it like, I just wanna kind of expand my overall like professional capabilities.
[00:13:09] Sarah: So this. In March, 2020. So the world was turning upside down and I had just gotten done with maternity leave. So my career was very open ended. So I wasn’t necessarily saying like, oh, this is what I wanna do. What I wanted to do was to not have anything that would limit me when I’m looking for roles or looking for whatever, you know, career path I wanted.
I just didn’t want anything to hold me back. I wanted to have every available option and I did know. In my, you know, now that I have, when you’re, when you’re 20 years old and someone says, do you wanna work in events and stay up till midnight and then open the doors at 4:00 AM and do everything. And you’re like, yeah, that’s fun.
And then after a few years with that and having a, um, a child and having a family, you do kind of want [00:14:00] a more nine to five role. At least that’s what it was for me. And I, and I started to realize. Maybe some of the business side of managing things is actually, you know, just a better fit for me right now.
And I’ll let someone else, you know, handle those, um, putting out those fires at 3:00 AM, cuz I I’ve done enough of that I think for, for a while. Um, and yeah, I, I, I wanted to be open to, um, to freelancing. Um, and just anything that might come up if there happened to be a touch of finance, I wasn’t necessarily.
Prepared to dive in, but you know, when the opportunity presented itself, it just, it, I didn’t even know a role like this necessarily existed, um, working with a hundred degrees and being able to work with, you know, multiple nonprofit clients. So I was just, just over the moon when I, um, found out that already joined the team in this capacity.
Yeah.
[00:14:53] Stephanie: And I feel like the way that you joined the team was like slightly, like [00:15:00] slightly unique, because I think you had, we had posted, I think we posted for the role and you had reached out and sent me a really just like, well, we’re in very professional email that was like, Hey, I’m looking to build my skill set in this area.
Could I like take on some projects for you or something along those lines? Right. Exactly. And I was. Can I just hire you for like the whole job instead, like,
[00:15:23] Stephanie: can you just go work here?
[00:15:25] Stephanie: Um, I dunno what it was about like your resume and your, the email that you wrote to me. But I was like there, I see something in this woman and she is definitely a self-starter and a go-getter and like, let’s just, let’s just do this.
Let’s just make it official. So I don’t think we did any projects in the beginning. I was like,
[00:15:43] Sarah: yeah, that was so surprising. Yeah. I never expected that, but that’s exactly what it was. I just was reaching out and saying like, can I, you know, work? I think it was around, you know, April 15th.
So I was like, maybe they need some help with taxes there, something I’ll just like, get my, you know, get my toe in the [00:16:00] water and with a with them or maybe another, um, business or too, but you’re like, no, we just wanna hire you. So yeah, that was such a pleasant surprise.
[00:16:09] Stephanie: I imagine that you were also kind of like exploring other opportunities at the time.
And, um, was it, was it like scary or nervewracking at all to go all in on the sure type of job that you hadn’t
[00:16:21] Sarah: done before? Yeah. I had another offer, just kind of right at that time, that was something that was a finance and operations role and it was much more traditional and they, they were remote because of the pandemic, but their goal was to come back to the office.
And I really had to think about like, do I want to just take this big leap and do nothing but finance and I could totally just fail. I could hate it. I could just be awful at. Or do I wanna stay with something that’s, you know, 50 50. So I could like lean, like stay in my comfort zone and then do a little bit of finance, but, um, you know, being [00:17:00] remote and just with my personal, like family situation, like that was just something that was so unique and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity and I did wanna, you know, I’ve.
I’ve always been the person that like, when there is like a big leap of faith, I tend to just jump and just, you know, hope for the best. And, you know, um, N never seems as bad as you are afraid. It could be, you know, so I, I had to just go on my past experiences and my past leaps of faith and, you know, hope for the best.
Really? Yeah. I’m glad I.
[00:17:32] Stephanie: And me too, for sure. Yeah. I think that’s interesting that, you know, it sounds like in your journey you have made, like, there have been lots of different leaps to faith because you have made some like hard right. Turns and like significant pivot pivots from what you’re doing in the past.
But I love that you sort of looked at that history of like, okay, I’ve not only survived, but like thrived in each of these situations. And so like, You know, joining us was like taking [00:18:00] just the next right. Step in your journey. And I’m like, yeah, I’m so glad about that. And yeah, I do definitely remember, like talking to you during that time and you mentioning the, you know, having another offer and really being, you know, sort of intrigued by.
Being able to work remote a hundred percent of the time. And I tell people all the time, like I will never, ever work in an office ever again. Like I love working remotely. So, and you are like, you’re really taking advantage of the working remotely in like the best way possible. So what has that experience been like for you?
Because especially in. Events management. There’s no working remotely. Like you’re on site. Yeah. You’re in person. So what has that shift been like, you know, professionally and for, you know, your personal life, your family and working sure. Entirely
[00:18:48] Sarah: remote. Yeah. I mean, I think I’ve just come such a long way in terms of.
The negative aspect. I’ve, I’ve just had a lot of negative things that have happened as far as [00:19:00] like the, I hate to say work life balance. But you know, when, when I started and I was working with the, um, soccer team and it was sales and it was like, okay, like we, you don’t have to, but we really need you to go out after work and go to restaurants and bars and meet with clients.
Oh. And on the weekends, if they, if they wanted tour the stadium, you should do that. And it was just like, You know, it’s sales. So, I mean, you didn’t have to, but there was a lot of pressure to literally be 24 7 working and have your, and give your cell phone out to everyone you meet and always be in contact with them.
And that’s, you know, that can create a lot of problems when you’re, you know, having to step out of family and friend, you know, get togethers to take work calls. Missing out on things. Um, and just never being home for that. And then, you know, in the other roles that I had, where it was a bit management and conference management, just being, um, in, in high intensity situation.
So for [00:20:00] long hours with your coworkers, like that can just lead to a lot of negativity and just things that, you know, it’s part of the job, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t always have to be like, when you’re in it, you just feel like that’s just the way it. And then being in this role, I mean, I close my laptop and I’m, I’m done.
Like, there’s, there might be an email or two that I get from a client, but that is like, you know, Ugh. Like I wish they didn’t say that or just what, you know, those things that might happen that, but it’s nothing in comparison to some of the. You know, prior roles I’ve had where it’s, you know, people in your face, like just everyone’s stress is just so palpable all the time.
And it’s hard to get away from that. And it’s, it can be kind of just that comparison, like where you feel like you need to do more, you need to stay later because you literally see your coworkers staying later and like everyone’s wearing their busyness, like a badge of honor. Um, mean, what I love about 100 degrees is how everyone is so vocal about like, Hey, like take a break.[00:21:00]
You know, work life balance, you know, no one is trying to compete with each other to do the most things or to be the busiest person on the team. And even if they were just because of the fact that we’re remote. I just think that there’s so much of a better boundary and separation between like your work time and your personal time.
Yeah,
[00:21:19] Stephanie: that’s something that’s super important to me. I mean, you know, that was one of the catalysts for even creating the business in the first place was when I was pregnant with my first daughter, I was like, at that point in time, I was driving, you know, an hour each way, um, in rush hour traffic to a job that I really didn’t like, that was, it wasn’t high pressure or high stress.
It was just like boring. And I was like, I can’t imagine being away from my home. For 10 hours a day, the hour, each way, plus eight hours of this like horrible office. Away from like my newborn that I have, you know, wished and dreamed and tried for, for like three years now. Like I just can’t imagine that life.
And so that was the whole [00:22:00] reason that I started the business in the first place, along with of course, like seeing a need and wanting to help people like that’s the other piece. But, um, what I always liked to remind myself because I could stressed out too, because our clients really do mean a lot to me and I really want to help them.
And I want to like, Deliver so much value and like be of service. And so I sometimes forget though that like, we are not saving lives. Like there’s no financial report or like thing in QuickBooks or whatever. It’s gonna save somebody’s life. So there’s like really nothing that we do is an emergency. And I just feel like everybody on our team is so efficient and productive with the time that they are working.
And just like, everybody works really smart. And like, we know how to get the job done in the hours that we have. So you don’t have to work over time and that’s not expected of you. Mm-hmm . And so, yeah, I just, I think that’s great.
Hey friends. Are you feeling stuck [00:23:00] with what to do next to manage the money in your business? Maybe you’ve logged into QuickBooks once or twice, but got instantly overwhelmed. Maybe you started to set revenue goals, but don’t know where to go from here. Maybe you simply know that managing your numbers is the right thing to do, but you don’t know what that actually means.
I’ve got you covered. I have a brand new 10 step checklist to manage your business. Like a CFO. Without making it your full-time job head over to 100 degrees consulting.com/checklist to get the free checklist.
Do you find any downsides of working remotely? Like, do you ever feel lonely? Like you wish you had that like water cooler chatting with coworkers or do you feel like slack is enough and you’re like, you’re good.
[00:23:46] Sarah: I mean, if there are ever any moments that I wish that it’s, it’s pretty small. It’s. I mean, in my particular situation, you know, my husband also works from home, so we’re around each other all the time.
And I, and my daughter comes home from [00:24:00] daycare. So I don’t feel like I ever have that much time to be bored, like genuinely. And I have slack open all day. So I do send those like little messages with, um, a coworker or two. And yeah, I mean, if I really need to get out of the house, I’ll if I absolutely have to, I’ll take my laptop to the library or to a cafe or something like that.
And then that. You know, that feeling of, of needing to like be out and socializing it’s over and I’m ready just to put my head down and get the work done and, you know, be done with my Workday. Cause like you mentioned with like commuting and stuff, like there’s, I mean, just to have to commit to that, you know, Monday through Friday is such, it takes so much time and that I feel like that’s the time that I need for working out or, or just anything else if I had to do commuting to that would just, that would immediately erase that time that I have for.
Yeah, totally. I feel like
[00:24:51] Stephanie: even just working at Starbucks for two hours, I feel like rejuvenated. I’m like, okay, I wanna be at my house again. Like I’m sick of hearing all these people walking by me and talking and [00:25:00] whatever. So I’m like ready to be home. And I know you, you have like lots of different interests in hobbies and stuff outside of work.
And I know one of them is running. Have you been running a lot lately or not
[00:25:09] Sarah: so much? Yeah, I, I mean, not lately, but I literally just started, I just got a personal trainer and I just started my, my exercise routine. Like I’m trying to get back into it. I know there’s like some races, um, in a couple of months I might, you know, try to.
I’m not gonna register yet. Cause I don’t wanna add that pressure cuz I’ve done that before then. It’s like, oh, but puts the stress back into it. So I’m gonna hold off. But um, but yeah, the past three months I’d say it’s been a hiatus and I, I used to be. Speaking of stress with running out. Yeah. I used to always just be so worried about my fitness and just being always afraid I’m gonna lose it.
And I think with time and maturity, I have learned to give myself breaks and understand that there’s a season for everything. I mean, literally, uh, literally and figuratively. I in this past three months, [00:26:00] I have involved selling my house and moving and traveling. And I just had to give myself the grace and not beat myself up over the fact that now’s not the time that I’m gonna have a really good exercise routine.
It’s just not. And I had to have the faith that I will get back there and I’m yeah, I could run, like I did like a half marathon, six months ago, and now I’m down to, like, I can run for half an hour. with before getting like too tired. But that’s where I’m at now. And I had to just not, you know, carry that with me all this time, being like, oh my gosh, I’m losing all my fitness because I had, I just had to prioritize the other stuff.
And I, now that that part is over. I’m gonna get back into my like three days a week, you know, exercise routine basically. I mean, that’s the goal anyway.
[00:26:45] Stephanie: I love that. And I, I just love that, that, that attitude that you’ve taken, cuz I have gone through the same exact thing. Like especially I feel like, especially since my first daughter was born, because I feel like
[00:26:57] Sarah: when you have a
[00:26:58] Stephanie: kid and then, you [00:27:00] know, forever more just kids like throw, there’s just another extra thing to deal.
And so I’ve definitely gone through seasons where it’s like, you know what? The only things I can really focus on right now are my kid and my job. And like everything else is kind of taking a backseat and then. You know, Kyla got older. And so it’s like, okay, let me like add in exercise. Let me add in friends the more time with friends, again, hobbies and things.
And then you have a second kit and then it’s like, okay, work and kid again. That’s pretty much all I can focus on. And I’m kind of in the same, in the same, um, like area I see right now where I I’m on an exercise, my Aus, I need to get back into it, but. And I have beat myself up about it a little bit. Like, oh, why don’t you just go downstairs and get on the treadmill.
But I think making peace with that makes the transition back into it a lot easier. It’s like one day you’re just gonna, yeah. Feel like it again and go do it and it’s gonna feel natural and then you’ll be in your rhythm. So. I love that. Totally. Cause I’ve been out of it too. And I think that that was just like a little encouragement and motivation for me too, because [00:28:00] I feel like, I don’t know, I went out of town a few months ago and got outta my routine and then just never got back into
[00:28:05] Sarah: it.
So, oh yeah. It could be it kids. It could be illnesses. I mean, like I got C. Twice. The I’d never had it the entire, the entire, like 20, 20 to 2021. And then this year in 2022, I’ve had it like twice and my husband’s had it twice and we it’s been staggered. So we’ve been. All of a sudden, like being a single parent, like with the other parent, like isolated and stuff.
And so then that, that throws off like an entire month, like right then and there. Yeah. Like just dealing with things like that. And then if you have, um, a parent getting ill or there’s just, you know, you’re living in an area where there’s all of a sudden there’s like wildfires or there’s a flood or just all kinds of stuff.
I mean, I think we all just have to. Give ourselves more grace when it comes to that and that, and avoid trying to overdo it, like trying to get back into it too quickly, because like that’s the fastest way to get hurt and then just throw everything off, you know, again, so you have to have an abundance of [00:29:00] patience with yourself, which is, you know, hard, cuz we want to get, you know, we’re motivated and we wanna get, you know, back to our fitness right away.
But I just have to be humble and like, okay. A mile is all I can do right now. Yeah. And that’s just the way it’s gonna be. Yeah,
[00:29:16] Stephanie: it’s play. I mean, I talk about playing the long game all the time, Mo like related to business a lot, because it’s like, there are no overnight successes. Like you’re not gonna be a sustainable multimillion dollar business, whatever, or nonprofit with like a quick win an overnight success.
There is no such thing. It is a long game. I feel like the. Only way that 100 degrees could have ever gotten to where it is today is because of the past six years of like work and mistakes and lessons learned and like all, everything that has led up to that. And I feel like, you know, fitness is another thing you’re not gonna go from.
Okay. We have an exercise to six months now, like talking to myself, To like, okay, I’m ready to run a half marathon next week. Like I’m not there. It’s, you’re playing a long game. And I just [00:30:00] always have to remind myself that in like so many areas of my life, because I’m very impatient and I definitely want instant gratification all the time.
So yeah. That’s a good reminder. Yeah. The other thing I wanted to note was I just wanted to go back really quickly. Cause I made a note of this was I think it was really interesting. I’m going literally back to your college journey and your transition into sports management. Did you have the like sort of strategic insight at like 19 or 20 years old that like, oh, I, I really want to be like.
Specialize in my major so that I can get a job or like, did you have mentors or advisors that were helping you or were you just like intuitively you just like, knew like, all right, I wanna be specialized because that’s gonna help me
[00:30:42] Sarah: get a job. I would say that was intuition. I mean, no one, no, I did not have a mentor.
No one told me that. I just could literally just see everyone on the news. All of my peers, everyone saying I’m, you know, I just got a degree and I’ve been without a job for six months a year, et cetera. And I [00:31:00] just felt like the only thing I could do was just be. A smaller, like power to the smaller group.
So I’m just not one of this like large group, because at that end of the day, I wouldn’t have anything extraordinary to like put on my resume to distinguish me from the other people. So hence me studying abroad and learning languages and just doing the, the niche things. And I didn’t know exactly like, I mean, a part of the.
Definitely dreamed about being like, you know, a sports executive and all this stuff, but I didn’t necessarily know if I would get there, but I knew that at least the only way to possibly get there, I always had a better chance of doing it. If I put myself in that position versus just being someone that’s very, you know, generalized.
And I know that anyone could study abroad. Like I didn’t have to have a special skill to do any of that stuff. I just tried to put myself in those positions just to be unique. And that always seemed to come back. People were like, oh, you study abroad. Oh, okay. That’s cool. Like, and it just seemed to always open up doors.
And that’s probably one of the best decisions I [00:32:00] made was to just live, travel abroad, basically.
[00:32:05] Stephanie: I love that. Um, that was, I feel like one of the best, one of the best things that I did as well was working abroad, um, in my last semester of college. But I just think that that lesson is so interesting about really nicheing down.
And you hear about it. Like anybody listening has probably heard about this in the business world, like really nicheing down and, um, working with a very small. You know, sort of subset of a group and really being that go to person for that, that specialty. And I just, I think that it’s interesting that you sort of, even if you didn’t like do this knowingly, you took that, um, that sort of advice and that strategy in your college career, and it obviously paid off or were you like a big sports fan?
Like,
[00:32:51] Sarah: are you a big, are you a big sports person? And, and everyone asked me like, when I worked at the Falcons and they’re like, did, did you play football? And I. I’m a, I’m a girl. So [00:33:00] no , I didn’t play football in high school, but even when I was working in soccer, everyone always asked him, no, I have no strong passion for it.
And I think it’s probably better that you don’t because when you pull back the curtain. You know, it’s not as pretty. And it, it loses its nothing is as special. Like after being like being able to watch NFL games from the field. And now I go on like, I just in like a great seat, but I’m sitting in the seat.
So I’m like, yeah, that’s all right. I watch, I used to watch games behind the cheerleaders and like, like having to duck from like footballs and like watching out from the camera, like trying to roll over me. And now I’m like, I’m just sitting in the seat. That’s that’s all right. Um, that’s so. Same thing with, um, like movies and TV shows, like after being an extra, like, I can’t watch any movie or TV show without feeling like, uh it’s I can see like, you know, I’m just always thinking about the production and I, I feel like I can see like how, you know, fake it can be sometimes.[00:34:00]
[00:34:00] Stephanie: Yeah. You’re like, I know what happens behind the scenes. So it kind of like ruins thingss, um, mm-hmm like yeah. I was say if, you know, like if you know, it goes into a hot dog, you’re probably not
[00:34:11] Sarah: eating hot dogs anymore. Um,
[00:34:13] Stephanie: okay. So before we wrap up, you need to tell us, please, if you would, about your experience being an extra tell.
All about it, because when you first told our team, we were all like, what are you kidding me? How did this happen? This is amazing. And then you sent us pictures to prove it. And it was awesome. So if you wouldn’t mind just telling us, um, yeah, telling
[00:34:36] Sarah: us the extra experience. No, it was funny. I was thinking about it and like, how did I get into all these things?
And I had, how did I get to a hundred degrees? So I just like sent you an email. And I asked, how did I get a job at the Falcons? I literally just sent an another, like, kind of like funny. I, I met an executive and then I kind of sent him like a funny email actually referencing and, um, A will Ferrell movie because he mentioned something [00:35:00] about will Ferrell.
So I was like, oh, like, and I sent him a funny joke about will Ferrell. And by the way, I’m available, if you have like any extra spots for an internship and same thing with being an extra, I just, you know, my mom, um, worked, uh, for the Atlanta government. And the walking dead was this brand new show and they were just filming.
And I was like, Hey, like I, you know, this was like in between, um, semesters and I didn’t have like a full-time job and I couldn’t get a full-time job. I just wanted something that was just for like a a month basically. So I said, Hey mom, can you reach out to that contact at that show? You’re talking about the walking dead or something.
and just see if they like, have like, you know, I’m sure there’s a lot of jobs and things going on. They, they must need like some help or something. Right. And they just said, oh yeah, like we’re doing a, a roll call for extras and just show up at 5:00 AM at this place and, uh, on this day. And yeah, that’s, that’s what got it started.[00:36:00]
For anyone who doesn’t know, um, Georgia is becoming like the new Hollywood. Um, there’s so many movies and TV shows being filmed there. Now in the past, like 10 years, they’ve just been building studios and just moving a lot of production down there because it’s a bit cheaper than California. And, um, people have always asking, like, what’s the deal with thing an extra, how do you do it?
And I mean, I did, I did get to be an extra in that one, just because of that first contact. But then when I started talking to them, they’re like, oh yeah, you can just follow like this casting company on Facebook or this casting company on Facebook. And they just post, you know, messages just, Hey, uh, tomorrow at, you know, 5:00 AM, you know, we need a hundred people.
Or we need five people or all these things. Um, it’s not, it’s not that hard. You just have to, you know, be available at the drop of a hat because the way that the production companies works is they have like all these rules and regulations behind, [00:37:00] um, The unions, like the actors, they can only work for 12 hours and they can, they have to have like you another 12 hour break between it.
So they have everything scheduled and the, until the last second, cuz they never know exactly when they’re going to shoot a certain scene. It’s not like they something that they can plan ahead. Like six months in advance. It’s like something they might plan ahead like the day before or the week before.
So as long as you. Able to drive somewhere, you know, be there the next morning. Uh, then that’s pretty much all you need to do to be an extra, to some degree. And so yeah, at the walking dead, they, um, they filmed it in some pretty remote locations as you, I dunno if they’re ever seeing this show. I mean, that’s supposed to look like the apocalypse, so we’re just kind of going to some random, you, a small towns and old Kmarts and stuff like that.
And, uh, you know, you would just show up and. I was never what they call a hero, which is like, when you’re like in front of the camera with like, you know, missing [00:38:00] appendages and like all this stuff, I was just like in the mid ground. So I just had like, you know, it put like conditioner all my hair to make it like, look super mad at.
And they like spray painted my face with like blood and guts. And I just had like, you know, some like rad dress or whatever. I would just walk around, like in the weeds with like thorns and all that kind of stuff. Just kind of shuffling my feet for a couple hours. And then we would just go back to the trailer and eat lunch and just be on our phone and wait for a couple more hours and see if they needed us again.
And I did that for, you know, off and on for various episodes. Um, but I also did vampire diaries, um, catching fire. A couple of other like hallmark movies. I can’t even remember. It was just, it would be that random. And there was another movie called project Almanac. I think that I actually did a lot in, but you can’t really see me moving at the scene.
So I was so proud of that one. I was like, oh my gosh, like, I’m totally gonna be [00:39:00] like in this movie. And I wasn’t like in any scene, but that one was so hard because it was like all about partying and dancing. So like I’m like jumping up and down, but I’m basically doing half phrases. Four hours hours. I mean, you know, and it’s, it’s fast.
Like it’s like, okay, do it for like a minute and then stop and then take another minute. And then. But yeah, it’s, um, you know, it always, it was interesting. Oh. And then like, we would get, there was like a pool party scene, so we would get wet and then we’d have to go and just do it again and again, and again, I’d jump in the pool and jump in the pool and jump in the pool.
Um, it’s fun again, when you’re 20 years old, like it’s all great. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:39:40] Stephanie: Yeah. I can’t imagine doing that now. I do it once and be like, okay,
[00:39:43] Sarah: I’m going home. I’m done. Yeah. Got you got me on outta here, exposed to the elements. Um, I mean, depending on what you’re doing, but it, it can be really great. I mean, they give you, they like, some people are, do they pay you like, yeah, they definitely pay you.
Um, you get food, you get, you know, tons of breaks. [00:40:00] You know, it is interesting. I, I did see like pretty up close and personal, a lot of, a lot of famous people. I saw like John ham and Woody Haron. Um, and I don’t a few other, I mean, those are the big ones that I remember. And so, but yeah, I guess like once you, once you see them, then it’s like, it definitely is not this like big, like sparkly, like, oh my God, celebrity.
It’s just like, we just see them. And they’re just like sitting there eating a sandwich. It’s like, they’re not right. The magic, the magic is gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, I
[00:40:32] Stephanie: love that the lesson here I’m like
[00:40:35] Sarah: is. You just asked I love
[00:40:39] Stephanie: that. I love that. And I have another, um, I have like this friend that I know who does the same thing.
Like if there’s something she wants, she just asks and in like, like a nice, polite, professional way. And like a lot of the time she gets what she wants because she asks and other people don’t ask. Um, and so I just think that’s just such [00:41:00] a good reminder to anybody in anything like whether it’s business or otherwise, if.
Something you want, if there’s somebody that you wanna work with, if there’s a stage you wanna speak on, if there’s, um, you know, if there’s someone that you wanna collaborate with, just ask, I mean, the worst that can happen is they say no, but like a lot of times they’re gonna say yes, because nobody else is taking that leap and actually asking.
So mm-hmm I love that. You’re like, oh, for sure. Yeah. Hey, is there something I can do? Okay, cool. Like that’s what I wanna do. Mm-hmm so I. I love that story of yours. I think that’s so fun. Um, awesome. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for joining me today. This was such like such a joy to kind of dig in a little bit deeper and let our audience get to hear from you.
Um, cuz I, I feel like we have. Such amazing people on the team with amazing backgrounds and stories. And I think it’s important that, um, yeah, that everybody gets to know you all as well. So thank you so much for spending your time with me this
[00:41:57] Sarah: afternoon. Thanks so much. It’s been a [00:42:00] blast.
[00:42:02] Stephanie: Thanks for listening to the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast to access our show notes and bonus content.
Visit 100 degrees consulting.com/podcast. Make sure to snap a screenshot on your phone of this episode and tag me on Instagram at Stephanie dot S K R Y. And I’ll be sure to share. Thanks for being here, friends, and I’ll see you next time.
Anyway, friends hope this one was helpful. I will catch you next time. If in the meantime, why don’t you head over to Instagram @stephani.skry. Give a follow, check out what’s going on over there and I’ll be sure to connect with you. Talk to you soon
Thanks for listening to the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast. To access our show notes and bonus content, visit 100degreesconsulting.com/podcast. Make sure to snap a screenshot on your phone of this episode and tag me on Instagram, @stephanie.skry and I’ll be sure to share. Thanks for being here, friends, and I’ll see you next time.
