S6E1 - Antonella Pisani
This week’s guest is Antonella Pisani, CEO and Founder of Eyeful Media.
Antonella started out as a web developer and moved into marketing roles working in e-commerce at ProFlowers, Guitar Center, JC Penney and Fossil gaining experience in all aspects of digital marketing.
After 20 years working at large companies, Antonella took a year off to travel to places she could have never gone to while working full-time. When she returned, she went into part-time consulting for Dallas-based Peacock Alley. From there, Eyeful Media was born!
Antonella spoke about founding her own marketing agency and very importantly about building the value of service into the culture. She is personally passionate about volunteerism and service, and has fully incorporated this into her company. This value is core to how people treat each other internally, interact with the client and interact with their community.
Antonella also talks about her daily practice that helps her balance running a company, building her team and her path to leaving corporate life.
Listen and find out all about it!
Note from Rabiah (Host):
Fully disclosure, I have known Antonella for almost twenty years but I learned so much about her in this conversation. She was my boss for a while and prior to that a coworker and a friend. I was excited to talk to her about her company after following her on LinkedIn for years. It was a pleasure to learn more about her even after so long and I’m proud to share this with you. This one will definitely make you think about your own values and how to make them part of your daily life. At least I hope it will!
Rabiah (London) chats with Antonella (Texas) about building a strong service-based culture when building a business.
Transcript
Rabiah Coon (Host): [00:04:13] This is More Than Work, the podcast reminding you that your self worth is made up of more than your job title. Each week, I'll talk to a guest about how they discovered that for themselves. You'll hear about what they did, what they're doing and who they are. I'm your host, Rabiah. I work in IT, perform standup comedy, write, volunteer and of course podcast. Thank you for listening.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to season six of More Than Work. I have to confess something. I didn't really plan to do seasons when I started the podcast. And that's where they're all different lengths. Although this time I decided 20 was a good place to stop, and I'm going to try to stick with that in the future.
I honestly just needed a break last week. I'm almost done with my, uh, Public Leadership Credential from Harvard Kennedy School. So maybe you'll hear me stop talking about that or maybe I'll I'll keep going. Cause [00:05:13] that's, that's my thing. And have been really busy with work. Work, travel started up again. So people have been in London and it's been really cool.
I'm wondering if other people have been traveling for work and getting more access to their colleagues now in person than they had before, but that's been the, that's been the case for me. And I saw a friend last night who I hadn't seen in probably three years. So, uh, it was, it was pretty cool. Fittingly, this episode has a former coworker and a former boss of mine. And I'm just really, I don't know. It's like, I'm proud of her and it's weird for me sometimes to say, I'm proud of people who are my age or a little older than me, or who are my boss or were my boss, things like that. But I think it's important to acknowledge when people do great things and she's built her own company.
And so it's Antonella Pisani. I'll be talking to that you'll hear in a moment. She recommended a book called the Go-Giver and I forgot that she had recommended it because we recorded this a while ago, but I did actually read it [00:06:13] right after recording the episode. I went on a trip to Athens and my goal was to get that book read.
Cause another guest Renata Sahagian also had recommended the book to me a few weeks before when I was in California. So two recommendations of the same book that I hadn't heard of before from two people, I very much respect told me I needed to read it. And it was really good. So I recommend it to anyone else who's interested. It's pretty much a parable. It's just a story that's illustrating a point about giving to others really is, is how you will get. And Renata was cool because she said some things I was talking about doing in my own life or work reminded her of the book. And after reading the book, it was really an honor that she said that to me.
So I just want to recommend the book that you'll hear recommended during the episode as well. Cause it's pretty awesome. But otherwise, I think this episode, what might resonate with you and what resonated with me is just hearing someone talk about living within their values. And it's certainly something I struggled to do.
I try [00:07:13] really hard. And again, this podcast is a reflection of some of my values of curiosity and service, but what I would challenge people to do is if you aren't sure what your values are yet, maybe do an exercise to try to figure that out. Brené Brown has a tool on her website that could be helpful. I used it.
I will post a link to it in the show notes because I didn't have enough to do today. So I just added a task. But I just encourage you to think about your values and how you are implementing them in your life. And if you're not, then maybe why not and how you can do that. I'll let you get to the episode now. Just a few things I wanted to say at the top. Make it a great day. Oh, and thanks for listening.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Alright this week, my guest is Antonella Pisani. She's CEO and Founder of Eyeful Media. Thanks for being a guest on the show Antonella.
Antonella Pisani: Thanks for having me. It's fun to catch up.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah, it is. And where am I talking to you [00:08:13] from today?
Antonella Pisani: I'm working from home in Dallas, Texas.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Nice. So are you always work from home at this point? No office?
Antonella Pisani: Correct. Yeah, we're a hundred percent remote. We have been since day one.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Awesome. I work for a company like that too, and I, I like it. So first of all, just for background for everyone, we've worked together a couple of times. We worked together when I was starting my career. And you were very early in your career at Proflowers dot com. And then we were again together at Fossil, so both really big companies.
And then you were other major retailers as well. So can you describe the first 20 years or so of your career, kind of like your background, just where you were at, what part of the industry you were in and stuff, and then we'll get to like how you founded Eyeful.
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, for sure. So I started my career as a web developer web designer back in college. It was my work study job. So started that back in 1996. Built websites for the university for a couple of years, and then went into web analytics, digital marketing for Gateway, and then ended up at ProFlowers after a brief stint [00:09:13] at Yahoo!.
And I would say ProFlowers is where I learned the most, probably so growing there over seven years in a variety of digital marketing roles and then in acquisition marketing overall. So, all the online channels, as well as radio TV print. And then from there went into general management for e-commerce over at Guitar Center, found my way over to Dallas at JC Penney, and then kind of the last big thing I felt like I was lacking was international experience.
I took a VP of Global E-commerce role over at Fossil and did that for, for about two years. So that's really the speedy version of the first 20 years of my career.
Rabiah Coon (Host): So basically, just thinking about though, you were in these like major, basically major companies, all really big, big companies and working in those. And so I guess, yeah, then how did you go to found your own company? And then I, I will definitely want to contrast those two and just how that, how that works, but let's go with how'd you found Eyeful and what do you guys do?
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, for sure. So, since ProFlowers, most, everything I had done was turnaround work. So helping [00:10:13] companies kind of get back on track. Growing their sales, growing their businesses in many cases. Rebuilding teams. It's fun. You learn a lot, but you can also burn out pretty quickly.
And for me, I find myself a little bit fried. I'm a little bit tired of some of the, the corporate shenanigans that happen. And so I, I took a year off. I decided to take a year off and travel. I went to Antarctica, the Arctic, Bhutan, Morocco, like all sorts of crazy places that, you know, it would have been impossible to do that while working a full-time job.
And then just some, some different things happened in life. And I decided not to go back full-time right away. A friend of mine, who's now CEO of an agency here in Dallas sits on the advisory board of it kind of a mid-sized retailer here called Peacock Alley and had reached out and said, hey, you know, I'm on this advisory board. They just lost their e-commerce person. Can you, can you take a look at this? Can you help them? So, yeah, sure. Let me, let me do that. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be doing. And so started consulting for [00:11:13] them about 20 hours a week. Never thought it was going to kind of a lead a company, but one thing led to another and through word of mouth, it went from, you know, just me and then me and some contractors to, to basically a real company now.
So now it's a team of about 25 of us. About a third of what we do is digital strategy work, so helping different companies that either thinking about kind of entering e-commerce for the first time or they've been in it and kind of plateaued a bit or, you know, just trying to hit the gas. And then about 70% of what we do is actually run paid search, SEO, paid social, copywriting.
We tend to work primarily with midsize companies, so smaller than the companies that, that I used to be a part of. So really kind of that tend to $250 million range. And then both across B2B and B2C. So about 50/50 split.
Rabiah Coon (Host): That's great, and, at this point, when you look at what you're doing now, versus when you were working for a big company, what did you [00:12:13] maybe like that you're able to apply now? And then what are things you didn't like that you're able to also just not do?
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, so, you know, for me, I always liked the work, right? So I always liked digital and I find it interesting. I enjoy marketing. I enjoy the creative sides of it. What I did didn't care for as much as, like I mentioned, like a lot of the, the politics, the red tape. Feeling like it was either difficult to kind of, move quickly enough or you know, in some cases like with JC Penney, you could add a hundred million in revenue and it was still a rounding error.
And so. You know, so I always enjoyed the work itself and I enjoyed kind of building a team and kind of creating a little bit of a pocket, like subculture on our team. So even when it was maybe not the best environment, like I always felt like I was passionate about creating the right environment for my team and the people that I was interfacing with every day.
And so I feel like in, in the creation of this business, I've kind of taken the best of it, right. [00:13:13] The, the actual work and you know, being able to kind of hand select the people that I want to spend my time with, whether it's our team or, you know, we're really fortunate in the sense that our clients have come through referral.
And I always joke around and say like, nice people tend to refer you to other nice people, but you know, we've been very selective which is just a total luxury to be able to do that. And so some of that, but then really focusing deeply on the culture that we've created. Let's say it's culture of like kindness and generosity.
I think people are very comfortable asking for help when they need help, raising their hands and, and colleagues being just amazing about jumping in to help each other out. Like we we very frequently and see, you know, someone from the paid search team will jump in to help the SEO person with a deck, just to clean it up, to get it out.
It's a pretty cool thing to have built and very different than, than the cultures that I've seen. I would say ProFlowers was kind of the exception. I [00:14:13] think it was kind of a meritocracy largely, were willing to kind of jump in and help each other out, but it's it's not super common in a lot of the bigger companies, unfortunately, and especially when it's kind of a turnaround situation where you know, people are sometimes like fearful for, for their job and, and, and protection mode.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah, that can bring out the worst than people who are just trying to do their best really at that point.
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, for sure. It's not that they're bad people, it's just that kind of environment can, can create some tough situation.
Rabiah Coon (Host): I agree. And I think even, I mean, having worked for you directly on your team, I experienced that even though maybe I didn't fit in a general culture at some point I fit in with your team. And then when you weren't there, I didn't fit in with your team.
Antonella Pisani: That happens to all of us. But yeah, I mean, I think it's like, it's. You know, we're all spending a lot of time together and like [00:15:13] everyone, you know, assume positive intent and like just help each other out. Right. It's always been fun to try to try to build situation.
Rabiah Coon (Host): mean, one thing I've learned just, and I don't know how this will resonate with you is just that also kind of how you're talking about helping out and sharing information is really beneficial. Because I used to covet information and keep it to myself thinking if I knew the most, I'd be most valuable when it's really like, if I'm sharing the most, I'm actually the most valuable, you know,
Antonella Pisani: For sure. And that's actually a lot of our philosophy of how we work is, you know, It's a very learning motivated group, but it's a very teaching oriented group as well. And, you know, I think there's a lot of agencies out there that, you know, kind of feel like what you described, right? Like try to make it sound way more complicated than it is, or try to make it a black box or something like that.
And I don't, I don't think that creates trust. I think talking to people in plain English and words that they understand and like not trying to make yourself [00:16:13] sound like you're much smarter than them or anything like that. I think that's actually a lot of why we've grown is because we take that approach to like, take the time to like explain it and talk to people in ways that they get it.
That's, I think how you build trust, not kind of keeping stuff close to the vest.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah, And not making it trickery cause if they're enabled, like if we teach them to fish, then they'll want you to teach them something else in a way.
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, for sure. They understand the value that you're, you're creating. And they can have better internal conversations because you get it, right? Like you've been inside of a company and like we may be interfacing with someone, but they're talking to somebody else about it. And I think the more we get out to kind of educate others, the better partners, they ultimately become for us.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah, that's awesome. And I looking, I mean, I've followed you definitely on LinkedIn, mostly. And, and your company, you know, I am a stalker. That's why you're here. Every once in a while guests are here because I've stalked them. And I [00:17:13] decided I want more people to know who to stock and. Yeah. And, but one thing I've noticed and it's not surprising, cause it's something that, I mean, I think we have a very similar one of our core values, very similar around service. And, and so you seem to incorporate that in your, in your business, but also in your personal life. So can you talk a little bit about just first of all, where that comes from, because that is not ingrained in everybody, even though, like, I feel like it should be something we evolve to become the service oriented people, but can you talk about what that means for you?
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's interesting. And maybe it's a really funny way that it started, but the high school I went to despite like not, not loving school. They had a requirement where you had to volunteer X number of hours for per year that you were in the high school. And I remember, I think it was like junior year that I ended up volunteering at like a Halloween carnival for, for homeless youth.
And it was like, oh, this is really cool. This is fun. [00:18:13] And then senior year of high school again, I was not the best student in high school by a long shot.
I was always like a little entrepreneur, but never, never like the type to sit and study and you know, had the opportunity to kind of volunteer through Transworld Snowboarding Magazine, and they were doing this, you know, this is back in like early nineties and they were doing this like, Benefit for kids living with HIV and like getting to participate in that.
And that was really my first taste of marketing. And then I had a professor when I went to St. Edward's University in Austin, which was my junior and senior year. It was the first time I really got into school was a professor named Russell Lowery-Hart who is now president of Amarillo college, but he taught all of his classes with like a service component.
So. Well say was advertising class, like we would design an ad campaign for children's museum of Austin or group communication, it was, Hey, go find an organization in Austin [00:19:13] that needs some help and then form the group and figure out how to help them. And so, it was something that was just really interesting.
What I've learned is my grandfather was head of the Rotary Club in Nicaragua and stuff like that. And I think my mom's just kind of a generous caring person. So, you know, I probably picked up on it, but I probably got into volunteering, but in the later parts of high school. It was just, you know, I'm really fortunate, right? And I think a lot of us are very fortunate and just the opportunity to kind of help others has been neat and it's something we've really incorporated into our business. And I think it's, you know, I just got off of interviewing a candidate and was telling him was like generosity manifests itself in so many ways in our company.
Some of it is through actual service, like going out and volunteering together. We've built these little, I call them our "volunteams", which, you know, if it's some of our team and then some of like a client's team and we'll go and volunteer together. And it's a super fun way to connect with clients.
It's a great way to connect with [00:20:13] clients, right. Just to be in a different different environment or it's making donations. But I think that, like when that's a essential theme to your company, I think it's, you kind of create that generosity of just spirit among colleagues too. And I think that's where a lot of that, like helping each other out.
And, you know, when you, when you have that kind of as a value throughout your company it can do some really cool things.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah. And can you talk about any of the projects you've done as a company together for like volunteering?
Antonella Pisani: Yeah. So, we've done a couple of things with it's called community partners of Dallas. And what they do is It's kind of a, a place where kids, when they get pulled out of maybe not too good situations, right? It can be abusive situations, neglect, things like that. They're brought to that center and they've created this center that's like freaking amazing. Like they have, what's called the rainbow room where a lot of times these kids get pulled into their house with nothing, right? Like just the clothes are wearing. And so it's basically like a [00:21:13] store full on store of like toys and clothes and everything they could need. And so them or them and their caseworker can go and pick stuff out.
And they have this whole section where it's got, it's almost like these little cottages under one roof where the kids can go and sleep and rest, but we sponsored their toy drive. We sponsor the back to school drive. The toy drive is awesome. And it's actually held like they hold it and store all the toys at that first client that I mentioned that's at their warehouse actually.
And so we went and like help would help the caseworkers, shop for their kids basically to make sure that the kids all had a selection of like toys under the tree. So we've done that together. We did the back back to school drive. Hopeful to do quite a bit more than this year.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah, that's great. That's really good. And it does, I mean, it does need team building because you're, some people never experienced doing that kind of stuff too, until they're at a job or something and then they learn about something about themselves. I always learned something about myself when I'm [00:22:13] volunteering, just surprised at what touches me or moves me or, you know, something like that too.
So
that's
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, I think also just, you know, a lot of us work behind a computer and like, I don't know, just getting out and doing something tactile. Like I always like doing stuff like Habitat for Humanity, Obviously at ProFlowers, we did, whether it was walks or fundraisers. I was had fun with like the Komen fundraisers and doing things that we weren't supposed to do in that, in the spirit of raising more money.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah. So that was good. Now that you're running your own company and you know, you're responsible for the direction and you're responsible for strategy and those end the decisions and really red tape, do you find things fulfilling in a different way that you didn't before when you were working for other people and how's that affecting even your life and just how you're satisfied with work?
Antonella Pisani: It's been so different. Like it's, it's been this evolution, right? When it was just me, it was just the ultimate, like [00:23:13] flexibility. And then being contractors still pretty flexible. And then you kind of go through this period where you really need a leadership team, but you can't necessarily afford to hire that leadership team.
And so you're still like in the weeds, but I would say the last year or so as I've really built up a leadership team. It's, it's allowed me to focus in different areas. It's fulfilling in the sense that, you know, you're getting to hand-select, like I said, all these people that you spend your time with.
And I've had to learn a lot about a lot of things that I didn't have to touch before, whether it's, you know, state taxes or, you know, dealing with like working with our CPA and stuff like that. But I've enjoyed some of the stuff outside of marketing that I've had to learn, right? And, or I've had the opportunity to learn, to be a little bit more positive, but like we put in a cool employee management system, which sounds very uncool.
But one of the things in there is the ability to give your colleagues high fives, which is basically recognition. And we'd get that [00:24:13] flowing into Slack. What I'd say is the thing I'm probably most proud of is that culture and the culture of kindness and stuff like that, just seeing that come to light and feeling like we've created a place that is good for our team, right. And it's, it's creating these opportunities for people to be able to learn. That stuff is super fulfilling. Growing a business, especially one that's grown as quickly as we have, there's certainly challenges, but I'm really enjoying I think a lot of flexibility in my day too.
Like I think by hiring the right leadership team and putting them in play at some, like empowering them to do their thing, like I've gotten to pull back from a lot of the weedy type stuff lately. And so I feel like I'm starting to like open up a little bit, to be able to think more about, Hey, strategically, where do we want to go?
And some of that stuff, but it's different. And it's, it's always like a little bit of a challenge. I struggle a little bit because like I do miss some of the marketing, but I'm hiring senior people that don't want me in their kitchen. [00:25:13] So how do I stay involved with some of the marketing, but not, you know, not be too involved and, and make sure that I'm doing the right thing for the company versus like just getting in and like maybe helping one client out. So that's probably been the biggest adjustment I would say.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah, Just not being, not, not doing those things. That makes sense. And speaking of you've talked earlier about growth and you guys were awarded an Inc 5,000, so, can you talk a little bit about that?
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, for sure. So, the Inc 5,000 list is the list of fastest private, fastest growing privately held companies in the us. So there are 5,000 companies every year. We were number 542 last year. So we had submitted I think, 883% per year growth. So it's all, it's all built off of a three-year spread.
So that was 2017 versus 2020. So we're just now submitting for this coming year and actually grew faster than that over this three-year [00:26:13] period. And yeah, it's just, it's been cool. I mean, I think it's more of a just kind of a fun, fun thing to do for the team for myself. I think it's been cool for like attracting talent.
That's my, my biggest priority is making sure we have the right people on the bus, right? And, I think it's that last piece of validation early for people to be like, oh, it is a real company. I'm like, okay, cool. Yeah. I can take the leap and go work there. So it's been cool from that side and got to meet some of the other entrepreneurs and get to meet like the editor from, from Inc at an event here in town.
So all of that's been kind of fun.
And then Riley and my dog basically got us onto the homepage. It's it's basically because he was in the picture, but that was kind of a fun moment as well this last year.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah, that's really cool. Well, congrats. That's awesome.
Antonella Pisani: Thank you.
Rabiah Coon (Host): So I had on the podcast a little while ago, Zach Moreno. He's one of the co-founders of Squadcast, and we talked about him being a Latinx founder and how unique that is in the tech space. And so [00:27:13] talking to you, you're first-generation right,
american, and female and founder. There are trends of more female founders and even in Latinx being more prevalent too, but like you didn't see people like you growing up necessarily running businesses.
And what does that mean to you now representing that maybe for other people?
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, it's interesting. It's it's not something I think about a whole lot, but yeah, my mom's from Nicaragua. My dad's from Brazil. My brother and I were both born here and raised here. I've been really fortunate and just had a really good career. And so maybe I, I haven't kind of dwelled on it, but it's pretty interesting as you see some of the stats out there like,
I think it's something crazy, like only 4% of female founded businesses get over a million in revenue. That's a really small number. And then I think you'd take that and then you add in kind of the, the Latin or minority side into that. And it's probably like 8% or something.
It's, it's cool. I mean, I think it it's it's something to be very [00:28:13] proud of, but it's not something that I've kind of dwelled on or like, thought about a whole lot. I was born here. I've always, you know, worked hard. I think it's more you know, my mom, I think, especially having grown up in, you know, that kind of culture, like, wasn't allowed to be super independent. Right. And especially the three older brothers. So with me, it was like, I'm pushing you to be independent. So I think it's, that's kind of how I ended up here. It's just always having that that encouragement that I could do whatever the heck I wanted to do and you know, support it as I wanted to, you know, hustle as a little, little kid entrepreneur.
Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know, like. I think it's a neat thing, but like, I don't, I guess think of it that way
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah. It's like when you're living it, it's kind of your experience. And then maybe if someone approaches you about it, then you can maybe reflect like, oh yeah, this is a unique aspect of what I'm doing too. But because even as a woman in IT, [00:29:13] sometimes like for me, I was a project manager.
That's what I am. I'm not like the woman project manager.
Antonella Pisani: like I really dislike the whole "SHE-E-O" and like all that stuff. It's like, no, you're like, if you're running a business, you're just a CEO, right? Like it's not, I don't know on that stuff. Or like the girl boss thing to me it's like oh, well, like it's just, you're kind of taking away from it a little bit.
Rabiah Coon (Host): I think so. And I think for, like, for me, it's always a matter when I'm being treated badly because of it, you know? I don't want to go to, I think for me, the worst thing was when we'd have to go to like a work trip and I had to go to Hooters a couple of times and I hated that.
Cause I was like, You know, and that's like, yes, as the female, whatever, I don't want to go there.
Antonella Pisani: That's pretty bad. I don't think I ever had that situation.
Rabiah Coon (Host): That's good.
Antonella Pisani: no, but I just, I, I think I'm a, just a big believer in You create your own life. Like you, you drive and they think you [00:30:13] can have that positive attitude. And just putting like, if this is what you want to do, go do it. Right. And so I think that's, that's more of who I am than like, Hey, it's a female CEO.
It's like, just, that's what you want to do. Go, go do it, go figure it out. Get knocked down a couple of times, be resilient and just keep chasing.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah, sure.
Antonella Pisani: That's the biggest thing is I think just being resilient, I think is what it takes. Ultimately, I mean you've seen that in corporate life.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Oh, for sure. Yeah. And you get, you do build it. I mean, it doesn't seem like it sometimes, but you do build it over time, you know? And then all of a sudden that situation that really jarred you like two years ago, didn't even phase you today. Which is good because some other situation might come up that you need to build resilience.
But so one thing you mentioned was that you took a year off to travel. And so I remember you being a really good photographer and you enjoying photography. Is that still one of your hobbies?
Antonella Pisani: I enjoy it. I would [00:31:13] say with the company and with my dog, like I haven't traveled as well and the whole COVID thing.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Well, yeah, COVID did that.
Antonella Pisani: That as well. I haven't been traveling a whole lot and photography is something I've done more while traveling. But I was thinking about that this morning. But I was walking the neighborhood and I was like, man, I need to find time to like focus on photography again. I miss tapping into that creative side.
And so I want to make sure I can eventually create time in my schedule to work on that. I probably have a hundred thousand photos sitting on a hard drive somewhere. But I love it. Like, I think it's, it's a cool hobby for sure.
Rabiah Coon (Host): So one thing that with this podcast, I mean, it's called more than work cause it's talking about two things. One is defining yourself with outside of your job title, but also pursuing something that represents your values, which you're clearly doing with your company now. How are you doing with the work-life balance? And as, as a founder and as someone with a growing company, is that something you struggle with? Is that something you're still figuring out how to maintain?
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, I mean, it's, it is tricky. [00:32:13] I think I'm in a better spot now. Funny enough, I just started like two weeks ago this leadership course. This like year long leadership course, and it's like, 21 other people. A bunch are CEOs and like, you know, we're talking about a lot of this stuff. So it's been, it's been pretty interesting to go through that, but you know, a lot of what I've done is just craft my schedule in a way that allows me to find a little bit of balance.
Definitely not as balanced as I think I, I want to be, but like I walk probably two hours a day.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Nice.
Antonella Pisani: Just by tweaking my schedule, right? Like I go for an hour or an hour and 20 minute walk in the morning and clear my head and listen to music or listen to podcasts, whatever. And you know, I can sit down at my desk at nine 30 and then like, I'll take a break in the afternoon for a couple hours and then I'll sit and hunker back down.
You know, I think what's allowed me to do that is just, yeah. It's, it's my company and I can kind of craft craft my life a little bit, [00:33:13] but, you know, I'm not managing two children or anything like that. It's me and the dog. So I can have a little bit more flexibility. I want to strive for more balance Like there's some stuff that's been on, on my list. It's like I've to learn how to play guitar for 10 years, probably
Rabiah Coon (Host): I have my guitar here that I cannot play. And yeah, it's here just so people can hear it and I can't play it. And I've had a guitar for that long and still can't play. So
Antonella Pisani: well, so you'll appreciate this. So my when I lived in Denver, my office there, I had a guitar right behind me and every single biz dev call, someone's like, oh, do you play? And it's like, no. And so my colleague, Ryan, who does a lot of the biz dev calls with me, he would crack up. He has, he does not have a poker face and he would just crack up every time.
Cause every single time it was like, oh, do you play like, so now this office, it is [00:34:13] nowhere in sight because I just didn't want to have that conversation anymore.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Get it. Yeah.
Antonella Pisani: yeah. It's one day, one day. Yeah. I mean, I think, look, it's like, I talked about kind of evolution with the business where you go through these different phases as you're scaling.
And I think now having a really good team in place, like, I feel like I could take off a week and go on vacation, but it's, it's taken a long time to get here. You know, the more the details you are, the harder is to step away. I've got a new for kind of my own sanity and, you know, the health of the company.
Like I was thinking about it's a lot of responsibility, right? Like I'm responsible for people and their livelihoods and their families. It's like in a way, the best thing I can do is to set them up for success is getting the right leadership team in place. And so I think finally getting there is going to allow me to now start taking those vacations again and, and finding a little bit more balanced
Rabiah Coon (Host): yeah. It's I [00:35:13] mean, I can't, I like, I don't work for myself, but even just doing like activities like this for myself, I get it cause you're, if you don't do It it's not done. And so it's good, you're making those
Antonella Pisani: That was very philosophical of you.
If you don't do it, it's not done.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah. I mean, I went out with someone and I don't, I mean, whatever people on the podcast can know that I go out with people and he said "it can't be helped" about something that could have been helped, but I was just choosing not to help it.
I was going out of town and he's like, oh, you're going out of town for awhile. It can't be helped. And I was like, yeah, it can. And I thought it can't be held as my favorite philosophical statement now, because most things can be you just choosing not
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, exactly.
Rabiah Coon (Host): I have a set of question it's called the fun five. But before that I like to ask, like, do you have any advice or mantra you would like to share with people? You've said some things I think people will pull from, but is there anything that you want to share?
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, I mean, I would encourage people to, I guess, two things. So one is, there's a book called the Go-Giver. It's a really quick read. It's probably [00:36:13] like an hour to read the. Maybe I read quickly, but that's influenced a lot of like our philosophy of like how we think of our business. And it's just a cool little read.
So I'd encourage people to read that if you're curious, it's, it's all about kind of that spirit of generosity and, and, you know, growth by just being good humans. And so I think that's a really cool one. And then I think for, for a little bit of inspiration I've always looked at. There's a quote that's attributed to Emerson and his definition of success.
And that's another kind of fun one to look up. And it's, you know, I actually have on my pen, I've been creating the words, leave it better, which is, you know, part of that that success quote, and it talks about leaving the world a bit better and like, you know, not going to kind of articulate the whole thing, but that's another kind of cool one just for, for people who want to look that
Rabiah Coon (Host): Great. Yeah. And actually you're now the second person. I know you weren't recommended it to me necessarily, but to the audience, but like [00:37:13] the Go-Giver that's the second time I've heard that in the last two months so that's definitely a sign to to read it. Yeah. Because I don't feel like it's a hugest book or anything. Cool. All right well that's great.
Rabiah Coon (Host): So now we have the fun five, the five questions I just ask everybody make you all my control group, basically.
Antonella Pisani: Thank you.
Rabiah Coon (Host): yeah. So the first one, what's the oldest t-shirt you have and still wear?
Antonella Pisani: So I've got this orange t-shirt from Tom's. So Tom's the shoe company.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah.
Antonella Pisani: It is super soft. And that's probably the oldest t-shirt that I still wear. Don't wear it in public, but is super comfy.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Do you know when it's from about like?
Antonella Pisani: I would have been at guitar center, so I'd have to back it up. So I was do this in chunks. It's like ok six years of Eyeful,
Rabiah Coon (Host): yeah.
Antonella Pisani: three years in Dallas before that.
It's probably 10 or 11 years old.
Rabiah Coon (Host): That's a decent age. Yeah. Awesome.
Antonella Pisani: It's respectable.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah.[00:38:13] So, if every day was really Groundhog's Day, like it felt during the pandemic that the part of the pandemic that we were locked down.
There's another part now, what song would you have your long clock set to play?
Antonella Pisani: Yeah, that was a tricky one. Cause I, I get hooked on different songs, but I think I would land on like Blackbird or something. Like it's, it's a cool song, but it's also like, could ease you into the morning. It's not like the aggressive, so I think that's where I landed
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah. Maybe you can even have your guitar out one day and playing it along. If you,
Antonella Pisani: one day.
Rabiah Coon (Host): I mean, you'll have every day basically to do that.
Antonella Pisani: Yes. If Day, I'll have every day. So, you know,
Rabiah Coon (Host): All right. A coffee or tea or neither?.
Antonella Pisani: Espresso.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah.
Nice. And you just have it straight?
Antonella Pisani: No, usually I have a little bit of milk, like not, not quite to a latte or cappuccino, but yeah. Two a day. I was trying to go down to one a day and some green tea, but I'm kind of back to two a day right now.[00:39:13]
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah, no, that's, that's fair. Can you think of a time you laughed so hard you cried or just something that just cracks you up that you can, share? Because some of these things people can't share. So.
Antonella Pisani: I can, it is just totally inappropriate. So I can't share that example, but I can very vividly in my head think of the last time that I laughed to the point that I cried. And I was actually with a client and had gotten a text that pushed me over the edge. But I'm not going to share what that was. I'll share.
I'll share a, a cleaner version. And I don't know, not, not to the point where it cries when it cracks me up. I've got this 80 pound lab, great Pyrenees mix. And you know, sometimes when he's running, he's got the light floppy years and just bouncing up and down. It's just really cute. And
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah,
Antonella Pisani: there's times where he's got like his little zoomies cranking in the house with this toy.
And it definitely brings a smile to my face. It doesn't push me over to the, the crying level. Those are usually [00:40:13] inappropriate stories I would say.
Rabiah Coon (Host): that's good though. Well, and that's why that's one reason we've gotten along.
Antonella Pisani: Exactly. I'll tell you about it after we're not recording anymore.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Perfect. Perfect. And last one who inspires you right now?
Antonella Pisani: You know, it's really timely but man, Zelensky's just an amazing leader out there and just, you know, being bold super timely, but pretty inspirational like it's showing the world what a leader is and those supporting his country.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah, Okay. Well, no, and I hope, I hope by the time this posts that the stories a bit better
Antonella Pisani: Same here.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah.
Antonella Pisani: Obviously with, with what is going on in the world, in the news certainly been following that.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah, absolutely. Great. Well, if anyone wants to look up your company or you, what do you want them to, where do you want them to go?
Antonella Pisani: yeah. I mean, company-wise the website's eyeful media it's E Y E F U [00:41:13] L M E D I A. Funny enough, the name was supposed to be for a photography site and then this whole happened. That's, that's where the name came from. Yeah, that's the best place to find details on the company or, you know, for me, it's just LinkedIn.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Okay. Awesome. Well, Antonella, this was a pleasure. I really enjoyed catching up with you and learning about you and this way versus other things. So thank you.
Antonella Pisani: yeah. Super fun to catch up so long overdue.
Rabiah Coon (Host): Yeah.
Thanks for listening. You can learn more about the guest and what was talked about in the show notes. Joe Maffia created the music you're listening to. You can find him on Spotify at Joe M A F F I A. Rob Metke does all the design for which I am so grateful. You can find him online by searching Rob M E T K E.
Please leave review if you'd like to show and get in touch if you have feedback or guest ideas. The pod is on all the social channels at at more than word pod (@morethanworkpod) or at Rabiah Comedy (@rabiahcomedy) on TikTok. And the website is more than work pod dot com [00:42:13] (morethanworkpod.com). While being kind to others, don't forget to be kind to yourself.
