Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone

Your Actions Must Align With Your Dreams to Manifest Success

• Maria Quattrone • Season 1 • Episode 300

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Mindset is truly everything. In this enlightening conversation with CJ Stasik, we explore how the way we think determines our success far more than any external circumstances. Starting with Henry Ford's timeless wisdom that "whether you think you can or think you can't, either way you're right," we unpack how our beliefs either propel us forward or hold us back.

CJ shares powerful insights about moving from a scarcity mindset to one of contribution. The wealthiest, most successful people aren't those hoarding resources—they're the ones giving freely, making connections, and lifting others. When we focus on impact rather than limitation, we unlock possibilities we never imagined possible.

One of my favorite moments comes when CJ describes true manifestation. It's not just visualizing what you want; it's pairing those dreams with aligned actions. As she puts it, "Manifestation is wanting something so much that every action is leading you there." This practical approach transforms wishful thinking into achievable goals and commitments.

We dive deep into the art of delegation and boundary-setting. CJ vulnerably shares her breaking point—standing with groceries spilling everywhere, feeling like a failure—and how it led to her creating "She Handles It." Her insights on letting go of perfectionism and allowing others to grow through delegation will resonate with any overwhelmed professional trying to do it all.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn to technology as we explore how AI is revolutionizing digital marketing. Rather than replacing humans, AI is handling routine tasks so marketers can focus on strategy and performance. SEO has become more crucial than ever as search behaviors evolve with technologies like ChatGPT and voice assistants.

Whether you're looking to shift your mindset, improve your work-life integration, or understand how to leverage new technologies, this conversation offers practical wisdom for navigating today's complex world with purpose and focus. Ready to transform how you think about success? This is your roadmap.

Connect with Maria Quattrone:
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Website: MQrealesate.com
Office number: 215- 607-3535

Maria Quattrone:

This is the Be the Solution podcast and I'm your host, Maria Quattrone, and today I have guests super excited to welcome on CJ Stasek. Cj and I have been trying to get together for a while, so I'm glad we're finally this is happening, so welcome, CJ.

CJ Stasik:

Thank you so much, maria, and yes, we have been trying to get this on there.

Maria Quattrone:

So, CJ, I have a quote for you this morning, and the quote for you is whether you think you can or think you can. Either way, you are absolutely right.

CJ Stasik:

Henry Ford, one of my favorites.

Maria Quattrone:

Henry Ford. So I wanted to start today by diving into that quote and how that affects somebody's success or not.

CJ Stasik:

It's actually so funny that you bring that quote up, because it is one of my absolute favorites and it is because I truly believe that mindset is everything. I think that if we do believe in ourselves, if we have that confidence, then there's a will, there's a way, right, and that's really what that saying is all about. Are you willing to take what it takes or to do what it takes to get where you want to be, to do the things that you need to do, to accomplish the things that you want? When we are holding ourselves back, when we have fear, when we're in that scarcity mindset, you're not accomplishing pretty well much anything. But, most importantly, you're not accomplishing the things that you need to do.

CJ Stasik:

There's too much of us looking out and seeing other people do the things that we want to do and we're like, oh gosh, they already did it or they're great, I can't be a speaker because look at Brene Brown and look at Mel Robbins and we just tell ourselves that we can't accomplish these things. I think that quote is critical to keep in the back of your mind, to realize that when you put your mind to something, chances of you accomplishing it are far greater than when you don't? I tell my son all the time if you never ask, the answer is always no right. If you never go for it, you're failing to begin with ask. The answer is always no right If you never go for it.

Maria Quattrone:

You're failing to begin with Absolutely. If you never make that offer, whatever that is, the offer is come join my come asking. In our case it could be would you like to work with me as a listing broker, as a buyer's agent? If you don't make the offer, the answer is always no.

CJ Stasik:

Yeah, and it's actually really sad when you start to think about the number of missed opportunities. Networking is something that is critical in business, but a lot of people don't go about it the right way. And you kind of touched on something when you're saying, if you don't ask, if you don't start to inquire and I think today the people who are most successful, especially when it comes to networking, are the people who really raise their hands and say, hey, I need help with this. Hey, what have you done in this area? Hey, does anybody know someone that could help me with this? Instead, we just kind of sit on the sidelines and we're always waiting for that opportunity, waiting for that segue moment to step in. And the most successful people are the people that just pop into the room and say, hey guys, I'm looking for a new listing agent or I need to find insurance in Arizona, and you just start asking for the things and the universe finds a way to start bringing those things to you. People want to give to other people.

Maria Quattrone:

They really do I love that People want to give to other people. If more people really understood that the most successful people in the world the multi-hundred millionaires, billionaires, they're the most humble people who will give everything and anything back to somebody and it's interesting back to somebody. And it's interesting the people that are the least successful are the live in the scarcity mindset versus the one with contribution, and contribution is where it is the impact that you can make on people. Because I was thinking about this, my word this year is impact, and the last many years I've picked a word.

Maria Quattrone:

Some years I forgot what the word was, so I wasn't really doing a good job with the word, but this year it's still in impact, and impact is how many lives can I impact? How many other real estate professionals can I impact? How many buyers, sellers, investors can I impact? And so it's like giving all the information that you have away for free. And that doesn't mean you can't charge for things you want to do, but I'm saying like from a standpoint of just constantly contributing and being out here. Look, you've taken time on Saturday morning and early Saturday morning where I'm sure you could be doing something else, like hanging with the family at the gym, I don't know going to yoga, whatever.

CJ Stasik:

Absolutely, and I it's funny that you you that you talk about the scarcity mindset, because I see a shift. I really do see a shift. I think that the world wants to be better and that's kind of a funny way of putting it, but I truly am seeing so many more people that are looking to become connectors, master connectors, and wanting to really help people out. And a great example that is kind of in your space is I met a gentleman recently who was a realtor, a real estate agent, for a really long time and has an incredible network, and he understands how important it is as a realtor to be able to have connections with contractors. Because you're trying to help someone sell their home.

CJ Stasik:

Contractors, because you're trying to help someone sell their home or you're trying to help someone buy their home, curb appeal and different things like that are important.

CJ Stasik:

So being able to help a seller connect to a roofer because their roof needs to be done, these are all really important things and not to digress. But this individual realized how important that network was for him when he was in the prime of his real estate business and so he started a company just a website called Agents Advise to connect contractors and realtors in Bucks County together and the reason why he wanted to do it is he said it's so hard when you're becoming a real estate agent to get those connections in the beginning, but it's so helpful to close deals when you're able to provide those referrals, those recommendations to the homeowner. So he created it to be able to help other agents Doesn't really benefit him at all, but he's adding value to both contractors and realtors in the area and it's nice to see things like that happening because, like you said that we can't do it alone. You really do need the support of people around you and you cannot have the scarcity mindset and expect to get to that next level.

Maria Quattrone:

There's no way possible to get to the next level without being in contribution. It's often I say this all the time with people in my proximity and my company. You know, if you're not where you want to be today, go into the bathroom and look in the mirror and it really comes down with us. The choice management more than time management. What things am I willing to do and what things am I willing to stop doing in order to get to really where I want to?

CJ Stasik:

go.

Maria Quattrone:

And most of us humans live life through just one day at a time, with no real plan. You want to go to Georgia? You just don't get in the car and start driving. Right, you need a roadmap. So what's the roadmap? What things can be put in place to make sure you're elevating and getting to the next level?

Maria Quattrone:

And somebody asked me yesterday and the day before why do you do these things that you do? How are you so motivated and disciplined? And I first. I really sat there and I didn't have a good answer. And I thought about it and I just want to be better. I want to be a better human. Good answer, and I thought about it and I just want to be better. I want to be a better human. I want to be a better business owner. I want to be a better wife. I want to be a better family member. So I believe that God intended for us all to be better and for us all to rise up each day. He gave us another day to rise up and bring everything we got to that day day to rise up and bring everything we got to that day.

CJ Stasik:

Yeah, I love the analogy of the. You know the roadmap, I use one with. You know the navigation, right, you don't get into your car to take a road trip without plugging something into navigation. And even if you take that analogy further, there are times where you may take a wrong turn or you may realize that you know you need to alter your direction. And what do you do? You recalibrate, right, you don't just turn around and go back home, right? If you miss your road, the navigation recalibrates and you start heading in the direction that you want to go. So I do love that analogy. But something else that I want to point out and hopefully this isn't too woo woo for your audience want to point out, and hopefully this isn't too woo-woo for your audience, but you had talked about you know why you're motivated and you know why you do the things that you do and why you're taking the actions.

CJ Stasik:

The alternative is to be stagnant. And if you really think about it and you think science or you know medical anything, anytime something is stagnant, not moving, it begins to decay, it begins to fail. So if you're talking about a piece of machinery and it's just sitting there and there's no momentum. It will not start up, like we people see that with boats and ATVs and things like that. Your body, like a doctor, will tell you if you are not mobile, if you are not moving, your body starts to rot. You think about bed sores for people who lay in bed. We are meant to have forward momentum and when we just sit there we're stagnant. And who wants to just sit and rot? And that's where it's so frustrating.

CJ Stasik:

And it also is the same thing with manifestation. People look at manifestation as this magic aspect and it isn't. It truly is just aligning your dreams with your actions. You can dream all day long, but that's not what manifesting is. Just sitting there visualizing your home or your fancy car or whatever it is. Manifestation is pairing that dream with the actions. If I want that car, what steps am I going to take? It's about wanting something so much that every action is leading you to there. And I think to your point. That's why you're motivated, that's why you're driven, that's why you do the things that you want to do, because you ultimately have a goal. It's not a dream, it's a goal. You've dreamt it. Now you've laid out a path to get there and you're taking the steps and the actions to get there.

Maria Quattrone:

Yeah, absolutely. And I even take it a step further, cj, and I call it a commitment the commitment because you know, think about like I'll use, I'm going to use real estate, because that's the business we're in real estate and mortgages. I said, well, to the agent, will you want to do X number of transactions a month? Let's say she said four yesterday. I said, okay, so how many did you do last month? I did three. I said how many dials did you do? Did you do the commitment that you said you would? 65% of the commitment she did.

Maria Quattrone:

I said, with all things, if you look at everything, could you actually have done the commitment that you made? Could you have honored it? Was there time to do those other calls? And the problem is is that for her, her it was a goal and not a commitment. It was like maybe I'll do it, yeah right, but when you're committed, I did this hundred calls a day for a week challenge list, october 100 dials. And for anyone who hasn't done a hundred dollars a day and have like a whole other, actually other work to to do besides calling for $100, it's a lot, it is On average.

Maria Quattrone:

It was taking me five hours to do it and I had to cancel an event at the Union League I was going to. I had to cancel some Remax thing. I was going to Like I just didn't go Because I looked at it and said if I go to these things and this was like in the midst of it, I'm going to like I just didn't go because I looked at it and said if I go to these things and this was like in the midst of it, I'm supposed to be leaving and going, I'm not going to make it, I'm not going to hit this 100. And I told I went on social media and then I told everybody in the office that I was going to do this. So now, what am I going to do? Not do it.

Maria Quattrone:

No, it was 8.30 at night. I was still 8.23. I finished the one night. But it comes down to like what are you willing to stop doing to get to that commitment that you made and I think this is a nice segue into she Handles it Like your business that you started back in what, five years ago or so?

CJ Stasik:

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:

And due to, you know, the burnout from COVID and all the things that were going on with that, we have to spend the time understanding where our time should be spent. And not all things are created equal.

CJ Stasik:

No, they're not. And much like you know, you were saying like you, you had to make a choice, you had committed to something because it was important to you, there was a reason and you had to think about it. A lot of times when I'm talking with women, you know we go back and I use a lot of business analogies. So it's like this stop, start and repeat. Right, you have to look back at your period of time and say what do I need to stop doing, what do I need to start doing and what do I need to do more of? And you lay out that plan. But for me, when I started, she handles it.

CJ Stasik:

I had reached that point of breakdown and I remember the moment and I've told this story so many times, but gotten a text message at the office asking me what was for dinner, I realized that the day before I didn't go to the grocery store because something else had taken over as priority. So I ordered my. I went to the grocery store, got all the groceries that I needed, pulled into the driveway, loaded all the bags on both of my arms at the everything. Just one trip, right? Cause that's how we are. We're super women. We can do it in one trip. And then I got to my front door and I had to open it with my high heeled shoe, like and like. As I opened the door, my son is standing there, snaps a picture of me laughing and I'm like, oh my God, and for him it was just funny. I'm five foot one, I'm a small woman, everything about it was funny to him. But when I got in, all I could do was drop the groceries and I went upstairs and I cried. And the reason why is because in that moment what I felt was a failure like that. I felt like an absolute failure, because I was ready to scream, to cry, like I just felt so overwhelmed in that moment because it had been a very busy day. I had so much more work to still get done. He only, you know the people in the home only cared about when mom is making dinner, you know, and I just felt like something was just, something was amiss and really what it was.

CJ Stasik:

It was my mindset, and once I realized that I was the one in control and that I was the one putting that pressure on me, then I had, I had the ability to start learning how to change that, and it wasn't just about me changing my own thought process. It was me laying the boundaries and the new foundation for how I wanted things to go, so setting the precedent. Hey, listen, I'm going to text you and have you meet me to get the groceries out of the car, or I'm just going to walk in the door and be like groceries are in the trunk, go get them, you know, kind of thing. But it started making me think about what are all of the other things that I'm doing, that I don't necessarily need to be doing, that I could delegate to someone else, and how much resentment am I holding over these things? You know, before we started the conversation, I had talked about the dishes, the towels.

CJ Stasik:

I'm a type, a personality. I have ADD, ocd whatever label you can put on me, self-diagnosed. But like I didn't want anyone else to load the dishwasher because I knew they weren't going to load it the way I wanted it, I didn't let anyone else fold the towels because I wanted them folded a certain way. And then, finally, in that moment, I realized that was me. That was the pressure I put on me. They don't fold it wrong, they just don't fold it the same way that I do.

CJ Stasik:

And I had to decide what's more important to me having the towels folded the way I like them folded or having them clean and put away. And at the end of the day, I just want them clean and put away. So I started to learn how to integrate my professional and my home life a little bit better, and that really is what she Handles. It is all about is how can we change what we do with our time to make us more effective, so that we can feel like fantastic moms and great CEOs or great entrepreneurs or whatever it is, instead of feeling like we're halfway there on all sides of the fence.

Maria Quattrone:

That's never a good feeling when you're feel like you're impacting anything yeah, absolutely you feel like you're not striving.

Maria Quattrone:

You're striving but you're pulled in so many directions or you're and like it goes back to we allow it, it's what we allow. So you said something that reminded me the whole dinner conversation. The dinner conversation is something that infuriates me beyond anything. So what I started doing a while back was on Sundays. So we go to mass, we go to church on Sundays and then we go to the store Because, it's right, it's the Italian market. We live downtown, so the Italian market's right there, so we'll go to like the butcher and then the produce place and I get everything. And Sunday mornings I have a little ritual I'll get up, I break the menu for the week. This is what we're having for breakfast, lunch, dinner Some days I eat breakfast, some days I fast Depends this way, that conversation with my husband of of what would you like I don't know what do you want. Do you want this? Nope, I don't want that. Do you want this? Nope, I don't want that.

CJ Stasik:

So, yeah, it's funny you say about the menu, because I do something very similar, right? So when I go to sit down and decide what I need from the grocery store, I plan what meals that I'm going to plan. And you know, I asked one time, hey, does anybody have any requests, does anybody want something different? And if I get them, that's fine, if I don't, I plan it out. And then one of the things I did for one of my workshops with she handles it is I actually developed a prompt for chat GPT that you can put in there and it asks you a bunch of questions about the food preferences in your house, what you have in the refrigerator, all of that kind of stuff, and it actually helps create a seven day meal plan along with a grocery list and the recipe. Oh, that's awesome. So now what I can do is I can upload that grocery list into Instacart, my groceries can arrive at my house, I can print out the recipes and then there are multiple people in my household that can read and follow a recipe. So it's like if I need to go to a networking event at night, it's like, okay, this is what's for dinner and the recipe is on the counter little things like that, and what a lot of times.

CJ Stasik:

What you'll be surprised is my 13 year old son loves to be in the kitchen, right, and so for him it's also fun to be able to participate, and even if he's just, you know, doing ground beef for tacos, it's not rocket science, but for him it's a big deal. And so it's also like sometimes, when we're type A and we try to hold on to everything, we're holding people back. Eos calls it delegate and elevate. So you delegate things to people, not only to get it off of your plate, but it's because it's the 80% of things you shouldn't be doing, and when you give it to them, you're actually elevating them, and that works both home and in work, right. You're allowing them to learn a new skill, practice something different, be independent, you know, whatever the case may be. So delegation is important, and it's not just tossing work over at someone else. There's a reason for it.

Maria Quattrone:

I love that. I love the chat. Gpt, that's really cool. You know we talked for a second about AI, but how is AI changing the digital world? Yeah, absolutely. What's happening?

CJ Stasik:

So AI like I hate to say it, but it's making things easier, but not in the way that people think right. So it's not replacing people and, oddly enough, it's actually creates the need for better, higher quality people, and I call it the human overlay component. So what AI is doing is AI has access to information that marketers no longer have access to. Ai can see people's habits, people's search histories all of the what is considered third party data that marketers no longer have access to, but AI does so. When AI goes to work, ai goes to work based on your instruction or the instruction that it's given inside the tool that you're using. So what it's allowing people to do is be a lot more effective and efficient, but the effectiveness is what's making the biggest impact.

CJ Stasik:

When you're going to optimize a website for search engine optimization and you want to make sure you have the right content on there, marketers used to do a lot of competitive research. They would have to go in and do a lot of different, use a lot of different tools and do a lot of different things to make sure that they're coming up with the right keywords and the right content for your site. Ai can do that in moments, and because it can do that in moments, the marketer can actually focus on performance. They can focus on monitoring that account at such a deeper level than what they had before. It allows marketers to be way more proactive, and if you talk to people who've been through three or four agencies, they'll tell you their biggest issue.

CJ Stasik:

They have two biggest issues with agencies. One is underperformance so I'm not getting as much that I thought and the second is reactiveness. The agency wasn't proactive enough. They were more reactive. Companies feel like they have to bring things bubble them up to the surface with their agency before the agency starts to tackle it With AI, because it is so much more effective and efficient. Your human people, the human capital that's actually working on these accounts, are able to really focus on performance and be far more proactive because they're not sitting there typing, punching in a bunch of tools and doing all of this. You know just work that the bots can now do, if that makes sense.

CJ Stasik:

So it's really about the effectiveness.

Maria Quattrone:

That makes a lot of sense. And yeah, it's true, you never want to have to go to your part your vendor partner and be like, hey, and yeah, it's true, you never want to have to go to your part your vendor partner and be like, hey, can you do this, hey, can you do that. Then the whole thing is like why aren't you doing it to begin with? It's like coming to a real estate agency, the seller saying, hey, can you lower the price, can you do an open house? Can you run some ads, or something.

CJ Stasik:

Exactly, yeah, and they're going to be like oh, that's what I thought I hired you for.

CJ Stasik:

And, in addition to that, where AI is becoming the most effective for a lot of agencies is really on the creative ideation front, because a lot of times, it is very difficult to pull out of your head what you're trying to share.

CJ Stasik:

When it comes to visual, when it comes to creative, you may have this wonderful idea for what you want your website to look like or for the type of image that you want for a social media post, but being able to explain that a lot of people get really frustrated because they have to go through two, three, four different iterations of a design before they get what they want.

CJ Stasik:

With AI, someone someone even like yourself, who's not a marketer you can very simply go in and you can describe the type of image or the type of video or whatever it is, and it's going to give you something that is far closer that you can then turn around and give to your agency and say, hey, I want something that looks like this. Hey, this is what I like, and it's the same thing for a graphic designer, instead of the graphic designer having to by hand give you five different variations of a design. He can go in, get three to five really quickly, send them over, get your approval on what you like and then create something that has a far better starting point than starting from scratch. So the ideation is huge and it's helping not just marketers but it's really helping. You know people all across just about every industry when it comes to creative.

Maria Quattrone:

It's wild. It certainly is, you know. Here's the thing there's only so much time in a day. I don't want to learn like now, a whole, nother thing. And we have to be and I talk about this a lot we have to, you know, hire people that you need to hire to do the work. That is not your zone of genius.

CJ Stasik:

Yes, absolutely yeah, and that's huge because you're only holding yourself back and you know we most of us like to hold on to things like no one does it better than us, right, and if you want it done, right, you do it yourself. All of those things that we heard growing up, and we tend to tackle it. But to your point, that's right. For you to live in your joy, for you to have your happiness, you've got to work in your zone of genius, and your zone of genius may not be marketing your zone of genius. For me it's. It's not spreadsheets, right.

CJ Stasik:

I get infuriated having to work inside of Excel, and especially when the numbers aren't numbering, it's just not my zone of genius. So having someone that can actually present those numbers to me is far better use of my time, because then I can think about those numbers and I can make decisions and I can make actions with those numbers. But if I were to be the one to sit there and try to put those presentations together and put those numbers together, it's not going to go well, I'm going to be frustrated, I'm going to be behind because, again, it's not my zone of genius, whereas you know on your front, like there are certain things that you are really great at, and imagine what life would be like if that's what 95% of your day was about. Right Is doing those things that light you up, that you get excited about, and that's what we're trying to do, especially in midlife. You're trying to shave off all of the parts of you that no longer serve you. You are trying to focus on the things that bring you joy.

Maria Quattrone:

And to do that you got to bring back that village that you pushed away so very hard for so many, and it takes really knowing yourself. It takes, I think, some deep work in letting the past go but not forgetting. You know there's a look about. A lot of things hold people back. I think one of the one is they say fear of success, or feel of failure, fear of success, fear of failure.

CJ Stasik:

Sometimes it's fear of success that's the one holding back more than feeling fear of failure yeah, and I think too, too, I resonate with that, and I've talked a lot about fear of success and for me I was raised by, you know, my dad was a great dad. He was a great businessman. When I was growing up, up until I was about 13, we were dirt poor and I mean, you know, like we were poor, I went to school with bologna and butter sandwiches right, because those were, you know, butter was cheaper than mayonnaise and bologna and butter sandwiches right, because those were, you know, butter was cheaper than mayonnaise and bologna was cheaper than any other sandwich meat. We were poor and there were people poor, so I don't want people to think I'm making light of that, but when my father's business really took off, it took off quickly and my dad had a major fear of success and he passed that on to me and he would say things like you can't ever let anybody know how much money you have, because they're going to want to take it from you. My dad, he wore the same exact work shirt with the embroidered name tag on it forever, no matter how successful he was. That was how he showed up, because he never wanted people to look at him differently. He made me humble, which I appreciate greatly, but sometimes you can be too humble, and so my fear of success came into.

CJ Stasik:

Money was going to turn me into someone I didn't want to be. I looked around at the people that I knew that were considered millionaires or that had, that were very wealthy, and I didn't want to be like them. This level of selfishness that I saw and just this money, hungry, never enough. And they never seemed happy, and I didn't want that for myself. So that's what I told myself money was about.

CJ Stasik:

So what my internal dialogue was I want enough money to pay my bills. I want enough money so that I don't have to worry. But that's limiting, because the reality is is I want enough money to buy back my freedom. I want enough money to be able to do the things that I want to do, to make the impact, using your word, to make the impact that I want to make. And the reality is is it takes money to be able to do that.

CJ Stasik:

So I had to change my dialogue and I had to say no, I do want to be wealthy and I want to be wealthy in these ways. I want financial freedom Absolutely, but I also want to be able to have a home in the mountains, because I love hiking and kayaking, I want to be able to, you know, have a place closer to my family so that when I go and visit it's there Like, and it's not selfish to have those things. And so once you realize that fear, no matter what kind, is just false evidence appearing as real you can change that inner dialogue and you can start to let that fear go.

CJ Stasik:

It doesn't mean that something isn't going to scare you. But now, when I feel that sense of angst, I know that I'm heading in the right direction, because there's something I need to overcome, there's something that I need to do, and I chase that feeling. If it makes me afraid, I know I'm doing the right thing.

Maria Quattrone:

It makes you afraid you're doing the right thing, that I just did a video last night about this program contest thing I'm doing for the month of March, and in the month of March I'm setting out to do schedule 100 listing appointments, and it's something I've never done. The most I've ever done was 42, which was last April 41, last March, 41, in January, and so it's double plus, and so it's definitely I want to see if it can be done. Yeah, like it's an experiment.

Maria Quattrone:

So can it be done, what is required to do it and how long will it really take to do it? I have 31 days and that's mostly Monday to Friday, so 21 work days.

CJ Stasik:

I love how goal oriented you are, because a lot of people don't realize that and what you said, you know. You set yourself a lofty goal because it had never been done before. Right, so it's not you being like, oh, I'm just going to give myself a lay down goal that I know I can hit. You're saying I want to see if it's there. You've already removed the pressure. You've taken the pressure off of. If I don't, if I get to the end and I haven't hit that number, you didn't fail.

CJ Stasik:

The experiment needs to be adjusted, something needs to be changed.

CJ Stasik:

Right, you will learn from what you're doing, which is really exciting, and the fun thing about setting a goal like that is that you know that that's your goal every day. So, just like I talked about manifesting, right, you've got this thing and you're, every day you're aligning with that. Manifesting right, you've got this thing and you're every day you're aligning with that, which gives you way more opportunity to actually achieve it than you have. If you're just like, oh well, here's what I've been able to achieve. Well, that's what you've been able to achieve without actually setting that lofty goal. Right Now, the five minutes that you may take to run and grab an extra cup of coffee. You may delay that and you may say no, I can get my extra cup of coffee at lunchtime or whatever it is, because that goal is in the back of your mind. So your behavior starts to align with that goal. So I think it's far more achievable than what you think, only because your habits are going to change as a result of setting that goal.

Maria Quattrone:

A hundred percent, and how many times I'm in the office and I'm walking back and forth, back and forth, add, whatever it is, whatever. Oh, I left the pen there, I left the book over there. I have definitely two seats. I sit in different ones because we have a in the back of the office. We have like standing booths so you can stand and call. Then I have my desk. Then sometimes I'm like, oh, I feel like sitting in the conference room.

Maria Quattrone:

I haven't done that in a while, but too many places. Right, I'm sitting in my dining room. Behind me is like the stairs, so when I sit here there's nowhere to go. We don't have a huge house. This is like I don't have to go 20 places. But CJ, it does these little things that you think. Oh, let me answer somebody's question. Oh, let me go get some more water. Let me go get more coffee. Let me heat up my coffee. Now Let me go get some walnuts to munch on. Exactly.

CJ Stasik:

I don't know if you'll be able to see it, but so I don't do a word of the month, I do a word of the year and I just did my vision board for the year. I follow a woman that her and I are becoming pretty good friends and she does a vision board exercise workshop every year. But my word of the year is focus, and it doesn't mean that the ADD is gonna go away. What the reason why that is is because I wanna make sure that when I sit down to work on something, even as much as this conversation with you, that I am 100% focused on this and only this in this given timeframe. You know I'm not looking at my watch, thinking about my next thing and stuff like that. So I had to start making some small changes to really help with my focus, and one of those things that I did just to give an example was in the morning, when I get into the office or I sit down at my computer, the first thing I do is I open up my calendar and then I grab my phone and I set a timer five minutes before every single meeting I have that day. I want that timer to go off audibly. I want to hear it, not just a buzz. I want to hear it. And so what that means is when you and I are talking let's say I have a meeting at 10 o'clock Normally my ADD is going to make. I'm literally going to be watching, looking at the clock, looking at the clock like paying attention to make sure that I don't miss that 10 o'clock call, and that means that I'm not giving my 100% to you and that's not fair and that lose I lose focus. So now that the alarm is set, I know it's going to go off five minutes beforehand. I don't have it set with you because I don't have a call at 10. But when that alarm goes off, it makes it very easy for me to say oh Maria, that's my alarm, I have a call coming up at 10. I just want to make sure that we finish up anything that we need to finish up. It's a great segue. It allows me to close up, finish with you, if you were the one I was on the call with and then I'm able to get on to that next call ready and prepared and not feel that sense of urgency, physically feel it in my shoulders, right, you're tense because that next thing is coming and when the alarms are set, I can relax and I can just talk to you and have this conversation and not be worried. And so that's to me.

CJ Stasik:

That's what you know focus is all about, and, just like you, setting a commitment for yourself, you're setting new goals and you're striving towards them, and if I want to get better at focus, it has to be something that I'm focused on every single day, like I've got to practice it. Any skill requires practicing. It doesn't matter if it comes naturally or not. It needs to be honed, it needs to be harnessed, and for me, focus is one of those things. Just like you, I leave cabinets open as I walk through the house. I've got piles here and there and I'll run into the kitchen to get something and I'll do four or five things on the way back before I ever make it back. I'm constantly, you know, starting things and not finishing them, and I've got to do a better job, and that's why focus is my goal for this year. But it ties into what we're talking about setting goals and achieving them and working towards them.

Maria Quattrone:

I think that we don't have goals and commitments. What's the point I said? Somebody said to me yesterday well, I said, what else would I be doing right now? I can't sit in the house and I'm not going to Italy at the moment, so if I'm not working, what else am I going to be doing? I didn't have, like I didn't have, an answer. There's no answer. I don't want to sit in the house. I can read a book, but not going to read a book all day. Yeah, I mean, what would I be doing? I ask people like what are you doing? You're not working. Like what are you doing? Yeah, because unless you're at the point where you're, you don't need no money. As I say, you don't need no money.

CJ Stasik:

Yeah, if you're for me, if you're not working, you should be doing something that's recharging you, like it's really, and that's in all honesty. Like you said, it's Saturday, I'm, you know, I'm up, we're having this conversation. I have, you know, a list of things that I have to tackle that are all work related, and the reason why I'm doing it on a Saturday is because they're important to me. They're all part of my goals and if I don't take the actions and if I don't do them, I can't achieve them. You know, one of them is I'm right, I'm working on writing a book and that book isn't going to write itself. Right, and you know, working my nine to five and being in the office and taking care of all those things, I'm not always coming home seven o'clock ready to sit down in front of my computer and work on that.

CJ Stasik:

Well, it's Saturday, the sun is out, it's beautiful, it's too chilly to, like you know, go hang out outside Perfect opportunity to sit down and do it. But I have to set that goal. It's in my calendar. The number of pages that I want to write today are in my calendar. Because I have to be strategic, because I need to hold myself accountable. People give themselves very broad goals and then are upset that they haven't achieved them, and I think that that's because we look at the people around us and we see the duck on the pond. We don't see their feet going like this crazy underneath. We just see this majestic looking creature soaring across the top of the pond and we want to be that duck. Well, you got to paddle the hell out of it. If you want to be that duck, there's a lot of work happening under the surface.

Maria Quattrone:

There's a lot of work. I have a little duck. It's a little rubber duck and he has on. The reminder is that don't you're paddling underneath, but you just see the little duck. It sits right on my computer, on one of my. I have a couple different um screens, so it sits under one of my screens, but it's always a reminder that I keep paddling absolutely don't let them see how fast. Absolutely so the you know, I know a lot has changed in the SEO world. How has AI affected that?

CJ Stasik:

Yeah, like I said before, AI is enhancing marketers' ability to understand more about the market, and it's a wonderful feeling. Like I said, the bots are able to see metrics, data, insights that marketers and business owners don't have the ability to do, and business owners don't have the ability to do so. Just you know, I'm not you know to. In layman's terms, we used to be able to go as deep as being able to see who ordered ramen noodle soup right, and you could set up a campaign and you could target people that ordered ramen. If you wanted to, you could get that granular. Well, all of the privacy acts that have been put into place have removed all of that data from marketers.

Maria Quattrone:

So you can't do that Right? You mentioned you can't do that anymore. So what's the kind of so far removed from the SEO world? I used to know a lot more about it and do you think that there's still a lot of opportunity to enhance what people are doing businesses with that?

CJ Stasik:

Oh yeah, seo is not going anywhere and, as a matter of fact, seo has become more relevant and more prominent than even paid advertising, and this is why, because of the content. So, whether we're talking about Google, bing, chatgpt or any of the other large language models that's what ChatGPT is they all rely on the information that is on the internet. So, for your business, the information about you that is on the internet is your website, things like your Google business profile, your social media activity, any blogs, press releases, any content that's out there.

Maria Quattrone:

What about YouTube? Same thing, absolutely Anything that's out there.

CJ Stasik:

What about youtube? Same thing, absolutely anything that's out there. That is how search engines learn about your business. So seo is more prominent now than ever because people are relying on. People are going to chat gpt and they're saying I need a plumber. What's the best plumber in my area? Right, and they're getting one answer. Unless they specifically say give me three, they're getting one answer. Unless they specifically say give me three, they're getting one answer. And if your website doesn't accurately reflect who you are, what you do, if that SEO optimization is not perfect, is not in there you have no chance of coming back.

CJ Stasik:

As those search behaviors continue to change, people's reliance on Google is starting to go down For the first time ever. Google is truly losing market share and they've never really lost market share before. So it's a big ordeal and it is because AI is changing the way we search. We're starting to trust our Alexas and our series. We're asking them more, deeper questions, and this conversation started almost 10 years ago. It just wasn't ready yet, but it's ready now.

CJ Stasik:

So that's where AI is coming into place and also, like I mentioned earlier, it's allowing people to get things done quicker so that they can monitor performance better If your agency is spending time writing all of your content by hand and they're creating images by hand with graphic designers and then someone's writing ad copy by hand. All of that takes a lot of time and it takes time away from them monitoring performance. So what we're seeing in marketing space is that now we don't need people to just push buttons. We can have those buttons pushed by the AI. Instead, what we need are people who can be strategic thinkers, people who are great communicators that can follow the performance, make recommended changes, talk to the clients about their return on investment. There's much more opportunity to be proactive, to stay on top of things, to monitor google algorithm updates before, before they make any impact.

CJ Stasik:

Um, so, because you're freeing up people not to do the button pushing tasks, these people are able to be far more effective in their performance for you. So that's some of the biggest changes. Ai is also making it possible for the solopreneurs, the entrepreneurs, to get started on their own faster without having to have a background in branding or a background in marketing. They can actually get quick websites that are optimized better, that they can pop up. Now are those going to be what they want to use long-term to reach their long-term goals? Absolutely not. But is it going to help them through their first couple of years of business while they're building up revenue 100%?

CJ Stasik:

Wow, so the world will continue to keep evolving and if you don't evolve with it, you die. And I hate to say that a lot of people fight change and they fight change so hard and we're in a political environment where we're seeing that right. There's a big fight for change and the reality of the situation is the world evolves, evolution is given and we've got to learn how to evolve with it. I get that question a lot of times for people that are slightly older than me and I'm in my mid forties. I'm about to turn 45 and I'm a late adopter to a lot of technology. And it isn't because I don't like it, it's because I am a creature of habit. Right, it took me a long time to switch to an iphone. I fought it, and why. I have no clue. It had nothing to do with not wanting that cool technology. I just am a creature of habit.

CJ Stasik:

And what we're seeing is the need to embrace these changes you don't have to become an ai expert, but you need to be able to learn about it, and it does make life easier in certain ways. I check the weather just by ask. Excuse me. I change the or check the weather just by asking Alexa every single morning. That's one tiny change I can. You know, I showed my mom and my grandmother how to do the same thing years ago, and it's not about being able to code, it's just about using these things that are here to enhance our lives and make our life better, and seeing it for yourself.

Maria Quattrone:

That is true. Lots to learn. So I have a couple of questions for you, CJ.

CJ Stasik:

Number one.

Maria Quattrone:

What is your guilty pleasure?

CJ Stasik:

My guilty pleasure is I am an outdoor. I am an outdoor person. I will take every opportunity I can to be in the woods and be on the water. It just like there's just something about that space that clears, clears my mind and just puts me back at ease. So anytime I'm feeling overwhelmed or struggling, I am going to go out there and I'm going to do that On the other side of the fence. I love animals, so my biggest guilty pleasure is I say, like I have to say hi to every animal I come across. It doesn't matter if it's a snake or a dog. I'm just like I am an animal lover and so I talk to animals a lot. I would say that's a big guilty pleasure.

Maria Quattrone:

Animals the fur babies I love my little fur babies. Animals the fur babies I love my little fur babies. All right now for your. You, not kids, nobody else, just you. What are you most excited about for your future?

CJ Stasik:

for me it's, uh, owning a farmstead, that is a huge goal. Um, that's something that I have wanted for a very, very long time. It has nothing to do with anybody else, it's just for me, and that's like that would be. It is just being able to walk out of my back door, play with my goats while I'm, you know, going, heading to the garden to, you know, bring in the veggies for dinner, like that kind of aspect.

Maria Quattrone:

Wow, that's super cool. Do you have this yet?

CJ Stasik:

Nope, but hopefully within the next couple of months it'll be a done deal. Oh well, in what area. I'm up in Satterton, I'm in Montgomery County.

Maria Quattrone:

So it's going to be near there. Yeah, excellent.

CJ Stasik:

Wow, that's exciting. It is Looking forward to it. I want a goat, I want four goats, I want I want a couple different goats, but I do want at least one fainting goat so that every morning I can walk outside and be like boo and then I'll, you know, drive to work laughing, smiling, happy. It's just because I made my goat faint oh my god, they're so cute they are.

Maria Quattrone:

We went to a B&B up in New Hampshire area and there was four goats. They all had names that began with a G.

CJ Stasik:

Oh.

Maria Quattrone:

Gertrude, oh, I can't remember now, juicy or something, gretel, something else. They were oh my God I can't. They were. Oh my God I can't. They were so cute, they were so sweet, they were so lovable. I couldn't believe it.

CJ Stasik:

I have no idea.

Maria Quattrone:

Anyway, it was a pleasure to have you on today. I mean lots of really cool stuff we talked about and I love your energy and I'm glad that you were able to finally do this. So thank you for taking the time out to be on the Be the Solution podcast.

CJ Stasik:

Absolutely, Maria. My pleasure and looking forward to seeing how far the podcast goes in the future for you.

Maria Quattrone:

Yeah, let's do it.