Redefining Your Authentic Personal Brand After 50

Jen Hardy [00:00:04]:
Hey, Heather. Thank you so much for coming to join me today. Oh my goodness.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:00:08]:
Thank you so much. I’m very excited to be here. You know? I mean, we had some tech issues, but, you know, that always happens in the world of podcasting. It wouldn’t be a podcast if you didn’t have tech issues. Right?

Jen Hardy [00:00:20]:
Exactly. Exactly. And you’re so flexible, and I love that. Thank you very much for being we we’ve just been all over the digital universe today. So thank you for that. Oh my goodness. It’s just because of my love of weird software. That’s what it is.

Jen Hardy [00:00:35]:
I just can’t zoom. I can’t. It’s just too normal, I guess. I don’t know. Whatever.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:00:40]:
You know, and I love buying software, AppSumo. Oh my god. I’ve gone down that rabbit hole so many times. And, so I’m always trying out new things too. And, yeah, then then I end up just going back to Zoom. So, anyways.

Jen Hardy [00:00:54]:
Yeah. See, this is from AppSumo, and I love this. And the guy who founded it, he will talk to you. If you have a issue, he’s it’s wonderful. So

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:01:01]:
Wow. Okay.

Jen Hardy [00:01:02]:
There we go. Well, I wanted to talk because your sense of style, it is off the chart, and I love it so much. And I wanted to talk because I thought, you know, I have this personal brand that’s, you know, I’m teetering on the edge of, you know, tacky and glittery. And and I know I pass it and that’s okay. But, you know, my daughter is mortified, completely mortified. Not by your style. She loves your style, but mine is over the top. Okay.

Jen Hardy [00:01:26]:
But I guess

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:01:28]:
And how old is your daughter? How old is your daughter?

Jen Hardy [00:01:30]:
14. That’s why.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:01:31]:
14. Okay. So I I have that appeal for 14 year olds. This is good to know. Okay. Yeah. Yes.

Jen Hardy [00:01:37]:
Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:01:38]:
I wonder yeah. But I like, you know, I like glittery and tacky and, you know, my mom, you know, she would always wear those, like, glittery baseball hats and things like that. I’m like, oh, when I get older, I can wear that kind of stuff. And then I’m like, you know what? I can wear that now. I’m not, you know, I’m in my fifties. You’re under your fifties, but why can’t we wear glitter and all that stuff? You don’t have to be retired to wear that. And but I think maybe it’s my punk rock sensibility that’s also meshing in there that maybe that’s what appeals to your daughter. I’m not sure, but I’d like to know.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:02:09]:
A little

Jen Hardy [00:02:10]:
more cooler. You know, mom’s just not cool right now, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t know. And I was full on punk in high school and stuff. Oh my gosh. And so I yeah. I love it.

Jen Hardy [00:02:19]:
I still have my docs somewhere from back before, you know, before they were, like, mainstream. You know?

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:02:25]:
Yeah. Now did you live in Florida as a teenager?

Jen Hardy [00:02:29]:
I lived in LA as a teenager.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:02:31]:
Okay. That’s why you were cool. Okay. Because I lived as a teenager in Florida and I was the weird kid in my high school. So I graduated in 86 and kids would like, yeah. I thought I thought so. Yeah. Yeah.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:02:44]:
Kids would tease me. They’d oh, I I was always called Cyndi Lauper. Like, that was like, you know and that’s not an insult, you know. I mean, I love Cyndi Lauper. Actually, somebody yeah. Yeah. And somebody actually thought I was Cyndi Lauper When at FinCon, I went into a shop in New Orleans and the guy came that was running the store. He came up to me.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:03:03]:
He’s like, oh my god. I thought you were Cyndi Lauper. I was like, oh, thanks. Okay. So

Jen Hardy [00:03:07]:
That’s pretty cool. Well, you know, because you you can pull it off. And I think that’s the thing is that there’s not a lot of people that can pull off what you can pull off. And I think, you know, that’s another thing about women over a certain age. Like, oh my gosh. When I was 30, my ex sister-in-law told me, you know, when you’re 40, you have to cut your hair short and you can never have it long again. What? And I’m like, okay. No.

Jen Hardy [00:03:27]:
These rules will not apply to me. I love it when women have that long gray hair. I think it’s gorgeous. Yeah. This whole thing about, you know, you have to have this, like, short perm deal. I think that’s gonna stop with Gen X. I really do. Yeah.

Jen Hardy [00:03:39]:
And not that that’s not okay if that’s your style. Right? It’s just that we shouldn’t have to have polyester and short hair. Like, that shouldn’t be what we have to do.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:03:48]:
No. But I do like some polyester once in a while. But, you know, a poly blend, let’s say. Doesn’t have to be a 100% poly.

Jen Hardy [00:03:55]:
Okay. But I’m thinking you know what I’m thinking? Those pants?

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:03:57]:
Oh, yeah. The pants. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Jen Hardy [00:04:00]:
Be comfortable. They’re like plastic.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:04:03]:
No. No.

Jen Hardy [00:04:03]:
That’s what I’m that’s what I’m talking. Yeah.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:04:05]:
Yeah. Yeah. Growing up, I had this neighbor in Florida. Her name was Maxine, and she’d always wear the polyester pants and then the little top that always it almost looked like a leisure suit kind of top. I don’t know how to describe with the big buttons and the big collar. And this was in in the eighties. She’s still wearing this stuff and so I’d call it the Anyways, yes. I don’t want to have the Maxine look.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:04:33]:
No. No. Anyways, yes. I don’t wanna have the Maxine look. No.

Jen Hardy [00:04:37]:
No. No. And now have you Harry, your sense of style hasn’t been the same as you as you I mean, obviously, it changes a little bit, but have you been always have you always been I guess the word is like comfortable just being yourself no matter what that means? Because I’m not.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:04:53]:
Yeah. You you know, it’s gone oh, it changed over the years. So when I was a kid, I was always the weird kid. I’ve always been into strange things. My mom, growing up, we had a lot of costumes in the house. We were really into Halloween. So that was always encouraged. So, you know, you look at family photos, we’re always in costumes.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:05:12]:
Like, it’s just like people come over like, hey, let’s put on some costumes and stand in the yard and take pictures. I don’t know. But that’s how I grew up. And then in high school in the eighties, I was like super into fashion. Into fashion. I went to and then I ended up going to fashion design school. But then over the years, you know, you have people that say like you’re too weird looking, your skirts are too short, you’re too flashy, why are you wearing hot pants, like this and that and like you hear all these things and then when I went into the professional world I started I go, oh my God, this is so depressing. Jen, I got rid of a whole bunch of goth clothes that I had and I gave it to a local charity and it was so sad.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:05:55]:
I started wearing things from the Gap and J Crew and now I cringe at the idea that I actually did that. But it was I felt like to be taken seriously I had to do that kind of thing. And but I never went down the khaki route. Now if khakis are your thing, that’s fine. But I was like, if I ever have to wear a pair of khakis like, I almost quit a job because they almost threatened that we had to wear khakis for a uniform. And so yeah. But then as I got back into, like, my forties, you know, it it it changed. And then I but then I went back to school to study accounting and then I had dreads at the time and I got rid of them because they were they told me like, well, you can’t interview with accounting firms if you got hair like that.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:06:41]:
So so I’ve gone through stages but now that I’m in my fifties, I’m like, I’m gonna just do me.

Jen Hardy [00:06:47]:
Yeah. See, I love that. I love it. See, and I went through a long period of time where I just looked like crap, honestly.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:06:53]:
Oh.

Jen Hardy [00:06:54]:
And it it was really weird. And I we we actually got back from Podfest this last time, and I had felt really good because I finally, like, have my style back, and I I’ve got it. Like, I’ve I’ve you know, I’m just myself again.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:07:06]:
And I

Jen Hardy [00:07:07]:
was thinking, what happened? Like, what why did I I don’t know. And, you know, it hit me. There was 2 different things people said to me right around the time I started having kids and and they stuck in my head and became a truth, which is, oh, a bit, a big thing for me talking to my kids about, you know, your words matter. They matter so much because somebody told me that I was frumpy, and someone else told me I didn’t deserve to have nice clothes. And somehow I wove those together in my mind, and I have dressed like crap for, like, two and a half decades. And I realized those are just lies, and who were those people? They weren’t very nice anyway. And so I absolutely deserve to have nice clothes, and I am not frumpy. What the heck? And but, yeah, it just I don’t know.

Jen Hardy [00:07:51]:
It just I must have been really in a well, I was in a really poop place. And they just, I don’t know, became truth.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:07:58]:
So Yeah. Isn’t that yeah. It’s so sad how, like, you know, being injured by somebody, like, physically, yes, that can leave long term effects, you know, and, you know, thinking about it. But, you know, bruises heal and, I mean, any kind of violence is terrible. I’m not but but when people say something to you, that can just, like, play over and over and over in your brain. And it’s amazing that we let something that’s just words affect us like someone, like, punching us or something. Like, it’s like can have the same kind of, like, long term effect of, like, okay. Yeah.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:08:32]:
But I’ve tried to get rid of those voices as much as I can as the older I’ve gotten but yeah but you know then we replace things with other things so like yes people say like you’re loud you’re this or that you know it’s like okay and then I kind of tried to tone that down But now in my fifties, I decided, okay. I’m gonna start my own business, you know, the I all that chatter of, like, who are you to start a business? You know, all that crap. But now I think that it’s my own inner dialogue that gets me the most rather than the outside dialogue. So it’s like that imposter syndrome thing kind of kicks in. So we’re always dealing with voices whether they’re external or internal and you know so yeah, it’s it’s weird. There’s physical harm and then there’s just like that that mental harm of just like, oh, the words. I don’t know.

Jen Hardy [00:09:21]:
And it’s interesting because when we were kids, people would say sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me. And I think it’s the like, your bones will heal. I don’t know. There’s things that people tell to kids that mess them up. You know? So Well, you But I Yeah. And then that’s why I wanted to talk to you because I thought, okay. You know what? Because you clearly are just, you know, like, you’ve got this. You’ve got it to and and from the outside, I know we all feel that imposter thing a little bit on the inside.

Jen Hardy [00:09:46]:
Right? But on the outside, and I think, you know, you’re successful at business and you choose to dress how you want and look how you want and do what you want. And so I wanted to talk about that a little because I think there’s other women that need to hear how you make that work and that it does work. Because I think a lot of people are like, oh, yeah. If I don’t wear the khakis and the sweater, no one’s gonna buy my product. No one’s gonna, you know, whatever. And that doesn’t no. Because that is your brand. Right? That is your personal brand is being

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:10:15]:
you. Exactly. And when I wasn’t stepping into myself, who I am, I was just, you know, I was I was trying to blend in. And really in business, you don’t wanna do that. You don’t you don’t wanna blend in because then it just becomes like you’re just like everybody else. And when I started my accounting business at first, I was like, okay. Well, I better look normal, you know, and I would meet clients in person and put on a little suit and and it just never felt authentic to me. I mean, granted they are suits from my closet and I picked them out and they are cute, but it’s not like how I feel on a daily basis.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:10:49]:
Like, to me, it was like putting on a costume but not a good costume. You know?

Jen Hardy [00:10:55]:
So a

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:10:56]:
more expensive costume maybe that uncomfortable buttoned up, all that kind of stuff. But I had a client that was a marketer who find we, like, we would chat on the phone. She never saw me in person and she was a referral. And then we finally met in Zoom because it was the pandemic and she’s like, oh my god. You have pink hair. I didn’t even know. And and I was like, yeah. And she’s like, had I known I would have been more comfortable talking to you this whole time.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:11:22]:
I just, like, had that vision of, like, what an accountant looked like and she, you know, she thought that’s what I look like because I didn’t have pictures of myself on my website. I was, like, you know, I was using stock photography, you know, and all that kind of stuff. And she’s like, you are what makes your brand. She’s like, you need to step into that. And so I took that to heart and I was like, okay, I’m redoing everything. And I started, you know, putting my picture out there. I said told people I was a vegan, you know, like, I just, you know, went all out and it really has attracted the right kind of people to me. So I was, you know, I mean, I was getting people before but now it’s like, you know, I work mainly with creatives and I think, you know, they see that, okay, she’s not the button up type.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:12:08]:
She’s not gonna be all, like, boring and rude or I’m not trying to stereotype accounts, but they do get kinda thrown under the bus that they’re, you know, boring types.

Jen Hardy [00:12:19]:
Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, there’s definitely somebody that you picture when you hear the word accountant. You know? And it’s it’s not what I’m looking at right now. And it but I but I think that’s a good thing. Right? I think that’s a good thing. And so now do do men come to you to work, or is it mostly women?

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:12:36]:
I do have male clients. So I put it out there that I mainly work with female entrepreneurs. You know, the thing, Jen, is that, you know, we’re in our fifties. We are Gen Xers. I love, you know, younger people and everything, but I really kind of bond with the women that are in our age group because I understand where they’re coming from wanting to start a business in their fifties. So I mainly work with, you know, women that are like later in life that maybe have worked in corporate and now they’re like, hey, this is my time now to try my own thing or I don’t wanna retire. Like, oh, that sounds horrible. You know? So I I even have clients that are in their seventies and pushing 80.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:13:18]:
You know? I think it’s awesome because to me the idea of, like, retiring just seems so boring and, you know, I I love I’m so curious all the time. So there’s always seems like there’s gonna be new things. Like, I can’t imagine, like, just, like, retiring and, like, watching TV and not doing anything. So, yes. So I mainly, you know, jibe with the ladies in my age group, but I do have clients that are male. A lot of creatives in that field, you know, in that in that realm, but and I have some younger clients, but yeah. I mean, you know, I think we attract who we are mainly as, entrepreneurs. Well, what about you, Jen? What do you think?

Jen Hardy [00:13:58]:
No. I totally I totally agree. Yeah. And I really I love people who are younger. I mean, obviously. But but it’s different when people because I have older kids. I have, you know, from 12 to 34. So when I’m, yeah, I I have a comfort level with people my age.

Jen Hardy [00:14:14]:
And it’s interesting because I’m not around them very often at all because, you know, you usually hang around with your kid’s friend’s parent, you know, like that kind of a thing. And so they’re all the age of my older kids, and it’s strange.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:14:27]:
Oh, I don’t have kids. I don’t have kids, so I don’t have that, I don’t have that issue. Like, I I hang around with all gen xers that don’t have kids that, like, they just play games. Yeah.

Jen Hardy [00:14:39]:
Well, they play a lot of games, but with children yeah. And so it’s been a really interesting thing because the millennials don’t tend to want to be around people who are their parents age. And so it’s been really interesting. So I’m loving, I’m loving my work and my business and being able to work with people that are my age and older. I love it so much because I think, you know, and especially like you were saying, there’s a lot of women around this age where, you know, they’ve done the thing, they’ve done the corporate thing, they’ve done what it was expected of them. They’ve done what everyone told them was rational and reasonable and acceptable. And now they’re like, forget that. But I’m good at art.

Jen Hardy [00:15:21]:
I wanna do that now. Or, you know, all those things that we were told were worthless that are not worthless.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:15:28]:
You know,

Jen Hardy [00:15:28]:
there’s the things that people have talents in. And I think it’s really a gift to be able to encourage people to go into those things, especially, you know, when you’re at this point of life and you can afford it, you’ve got money put aside, you could retire, but you don’t wanna retire. You wanna do what you wanna do, you know? And I think that is so incredible.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:15:45]:
Yeah. And, you know, the workplace used to be a different beast. You know, women were treated much differently. I mean, I’m not in an office now, thank goodness, but I would imagine that there’d be more respect for women in the office place. But, you know, there was, like, sexual harassment. There was, you know, this belittling of women. We just we weren’t paid as much. There was just so much that happened over the years and they’re, like, all that, like, indoctrination of that behavior of, like, oh, okay.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:16:16]:
I guess that’s just how it is. You know, that’s how the world works. And now with, like, the me too movement and all these things, it’s like, yeah. Alright. Now we can be the force that we we deserve to be. And, you know, the funny thing is now it’s like the it’s like the reversal. Like, there’s more women in college. There’s more women in the workplace, and we’re like, yes.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:16:34]:
We’re doing it. Oh, and one other thing I wanted to mention about, like, the younger people versus the older people, I have to say though that, you know, people that are my age, they get my jokes better. So, I’ll reference something and they have no idea what I’m talking about. So, yeah, I was talking to somebody at one point when I went back to school to study accounting and I mentioned Wayne’s World and they had no idea what I was talking about and that that was like 15 years ago when I was back in school and it’s like seriously? Wayne’s World? You don’t even know what Wayne’s World is? Like, am I that old? I don’t think so.

Jen Hardy [00:17:09]:
But Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s not that, yeah, it’s not that old. It it is. It’s funny because I actually just put an ad together for a new mastermind I’m doing, and I have Wayne’s World in there. I’m like, if you remember, you know, whatever, When you was the only time you could have a show is if you were in cable. That was the thing.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:17:25]:
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Cable access. Yeah.

Jen Hardy [00:17:27]:
And was their whole thing? Yeah. Because yeah. But I also have a dial up telephone in there. And then RadioShack, I don’t know if you remember. They had a little handheld radio. That was a big deal, and then they came out in colors.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:17:38]:
And it was like,

Jen Hardy [00:17:39]:
oh, the world was like a better place because you could get your own color radio. My gosh.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:17:44]:
Oh my god. One of my favorite things growing up was my tape recorder. I it probably came from RadioShack. I loved him when they tried to rebrand themselves as the Shaq. Like, that did not work. And then they went out of business. But I had one of those tape recorders, you know, that you, like it was the it was, like, a block. It was like a rectangle block and then you press the the buttons.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:18:04]:
And I used to record oh my god. I so I love, like, Seanana. I was, like, really into, like, Shirley Temple movies. Like and so we there was before VCRs. So I would tape the the shows, you know, hold my little RadioShack recorder up to the television with my cheap cassettes that I would get in, like, a 3 pack that didn’t even have the case, you know, and then record stuff. And, of course, my mom would always be like, Heather, get in here and do the dishes, you know, and be like, why are you reading my recording? You know, it’s like, yeah. Those are the days of yeah. So

Jen Hardy [00:18:35]:
Right. I know. See, you were meant to be a podcaster. You were gonna do anything like that back then. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Those things and and, yeah, tape recording things. And and then her song would come on the radio, and you’d have to hit record right away because, you know, it wasn’t like now.

Jen Hardy [00:18:48]:
And it’s so funny because we, we have family night every Friday and we try to watch movies with our kids and we’re trying to have them watch the oldies that are the movies from the nineties. They’re not even from when we were kids. Our kids are like, they’re so old. They’re so boring. I’m like your siblings watch these, cut it out. But they, if they don’t absolutely love it in the first minute, they leave. They walk out of the room because they have so many options. They can watch whatever they want whenever they want.

Jen Hardy [00:19:14]:
And I’m thinking, gosh, I you know, when we were kids, if there was something that you, a quarter of the way, wanted to watch you were thrilled to death because you could stand it. Like, that was the only thing. Right? Can I stand it or not stand it? And if I can stand it, it’s gonna be on.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:19:28]:
I think that’s why those sitcoms in the eighties stayed on. Right. Because we didn’t have a lot of alternatives. And We didn’t. And I was just talking to somebody the other day how how, like, certain like, I had a VCR. That was a big deal when I had a VCR. And but other people had to rent VCRs. Like, you’d go to the video store.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:19:47]:
Like, you’d get like, Friday night, you’d rent the VCR and you’d get a few movies. That was and it had to always rewind them too even if you rented the machines. Oh

Jen Hardy [00:19:59]:
my gosh. Yeah. Isn’t that wild? I mean, the things that our whole, our whole lives were built on, you know, and we were talking, I was talking to my kids and, and they, said, one of them came home from a class and said, you know, some one of the old you know, older people was saying that they wish there were no cell phones. Do you wish there was no cell phones? And I said, heck yeah. Because we knew our friends better. And she said, how would you possibly know your friends better? You couldn’t text all day. And I said, but, you know, you had to know exactly what your friend’s schedule was, like every single day. Because if I wanna call you, I need to know, like, you’re gonna go to your aunt and uncle’s from 3 to 4 30, and then you’re gonna go to the store until 5.

Jen Hardy [00:20:34]:
And then you’re, you know, and then you’re gonna be home from 5 to 6, and that’s when I can call. Because at 6, you’re leaving. You know, like, we knew we knew what everyone did. And Yeah. You don’t have to know what anyone’s doing. You can just you know? And they’re so short, the tech. I don’t know. I mean, I do text, obviously, because I live in this millennium.

Jen Hardy [00:20:51]:
But I feel like we just we knew everybody so much better, you know?

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:20:56]:
Yeah. And also we could we we we weren’t under our the helicopter of our parents. I can’t even imagine what that would be like for kids. I mean, yes, if I was a parent, I admit I would wanna know where my kid is at. But from a kid’s perspective, like, I would just like walk down to Walgreens and look at magazines and, you know, go over to a friend’s house. You know, we used to just like do things on our own. And now, I mean, I guess you wouldn’t let a kid do those things. But yeah, it was it’s it’s strange.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:21:25]:
I don’t, I think that we grew up in a time that was a really good time to be a kid where nowadays with social media I feel so bad for kids because like, I mean, I was teased because I was a weird kid and I was scrawny, pale, you know, I was always an easy target. And yes, I had resilience and I like did not let a lot of this stuff bother me because I mean kids would trip me in the halls. I mean, it was just like, you know, it happens when you’re a nerd that just happens. But but it’s over with. It’s not recorded. Like, now, oh my god. Could you imagine? Like, they record that stuff and then they taught you online and oh, it’s just terrible.

Jen Hardy [00:22:05]:
Oh, any mistake you make is is there for, like, forever, for all of eternity. You know? And I think of all the dumb things I did in high school. Thank God nobody recorded those things. I don’t want them coming back to haunt me. You know? And, yeah, when I was a kid and and granted, this is probably a lot, but when I was 14, age of my daughter now, I would go walk to where the bus was, take a bus for an hour to the beach, spend the day at the beach, take the bus home by myself, and come home. And nobody thought anything about that. Like, that was normal. I would not send my daughter on a bus for an hour into Orlando to go.

Jen Hardy [00:22:38]:
No. You know? I don’t know. Yeah. It’s a whole it’s a whole different place. And it it that’s the thing though about talking to people who are older. You know, my grandma, oh my gosh, she was a hoot. She was she was a firecracker, and she would not, when she was in her sixties, talk to anyone or have any friends under 40 or over 40. They all had to be under 40 because she never wanted to get old, and she just wanted to stay.

Jen Hardy [00:23:01]:
But I think things were so different than you know, there it was so much more relatable, I think, now. And and it’s and it’s kinda sad in a way that things are so different. You know? Age wise and politics wise and, like, everything is there seem to be these, like, boundaries everywhere. I don’t know. It makes it harder. You know?

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:23:20]:
Yeah. Yeah. And people, they tend have a tendency to put people in boxes of, like, oh, well, you’re that. You’re, you know, you’re conservative or you’re this or that. And it’s like people are more complex than checking off one box. You know, that’s there’s more to it. That’s one of the reasons why I love podcasting is because podcasting, you can say whatever you want. It’s like, it’s that I don’t wanna say wild west, but it’s like, you know, we don’t have to worry about censorship and all that kind of stuff.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:23:48]:
I mean, granted, if you have got kids listening or something, you might want to. But, you know, I mean, we can we can say what we want because this is freedom of speech. And yeah. Anyways, I don’t know.

Jen Hardy [00:23:58]:
Yeah. No. I love it. I love I yeah. That’s what I love about it too. And and, yeah, I may not let my kids listen to something, but I’m glad that the person can say it Because I think we should be able to say, you know, and not like, you know, on certain video channels where they cut you off when you you know? And it is it is a little wild westy, but not in a bad way. You know? Not in a shoot them up way. Just in a, you know? Yeah.

Jen Hardy [00:24:23]:
And I really, I re I really appreciate it. And then we can, you know, we can be us, which I think, you know, and what’s funny is, you know, you were saying about being a nerd and getting teased, and I was tall. I was the tallest person all the time. And but I did not like to fight people and people thought that that was, you know, a sign of weakness apparently. And so I had the the same, you know, hard time. But now being a nerd, that’s the cool thing, which is you know? And so I keep telling my kids, you’re weird. You’re nerds, but that’s okay because, you know, look at all the people that were nerds, and now look where they are now. So it’s it’s gonna work out just fine.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:24:56]:
Yeah. Revenge of the nerds. They you know? It it’s amazing how, like, it’s it’s funny, you know, like, now nowadays, like, young people would be like, oh, yeah. I’m such a nerd or I’m such a geek, and it’s like, seriously? Like, I mean, okay. Like, not the stereotype that it used to be before, you know, like, with the, the pocket protectors and all that kind of stuff. Although, I I think that’s kind of fun. But yes. So now I think people that just, like, follow Star Wars is considered a geek or a nerd or something.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:25:23]:
Some someone the other day was trying to tell me that there’s a difference between geek and nerd and I don’t know. I use them interchangeably. But

Jen Hardy [00:25:30]:
That would be cute. Yeah. There’s some sort of hierarchy. I don’t know what it is either, but I feel like you rarely have to be a nerd if you’re into the witch’s witch. I mean, I think that puts you back to that old old school level of no. Just don’t worry about that sort of thing. But

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:25:45]:
So, Jen, I gotta ask you. So you wore docs in high school, so you were into the punk. What bands did you like? Like, The Clash? Like, what what what kind of bands were you into?

Jen Hardy [00:25:56]:
Suicidal tendencies, Social Distortion.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:25:58]:
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. That’s like the LA scene. Right? Wasn’t Yeah. The suicidal tendencies? Okay.

Jen Hardy [00:26:03]:
And we actually got to go see social. What what which one of them which one? I don’t know. Now I’m spacing out. I took my husband when we lived in Nashville, and it was the saddest thing you’ve ever seen. Because the guy gets up there, and he’s like, all of our friends are dead. I don’t know what we did to live this long. We shouldn’t even be here. And I’m like, oh, God.

Jen Hardy [00:26:25]:
I didn’t expect this. Like, come on, man. Like, you know, we’re here. We’ve all made it. Let’s just, you know, like, rock like, you know. And I mean, the music was it was good, but it was just not what I

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:26:37]:
Oh, wow.

Jen Hardy [00:26:38]:
Up there. But, you know, I mean, they have lost a lot. You know? There’s a lot of people that got lost in that scene because, you know, there was a lot going on out there in LA back in the day. But, yeah, it was a cool time to be I mean, you know, and I used to tell my kids, I grew up in LA in the eighties. There is nothing you and your friends could do that we did not do. No longer true. The world has changed. But it was a really fun time to be a teenager.

Jen Hardy [00:27:02]:
A really cool place, I think. You know?

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:27:04]:
Wow. Yeah. I think trying to remember the zine, I think it was called Maximum Rock and Roll. It was like a punk magazine that, like, I always read about, like, suicidal tendencies and minor threat and all these bands, but yes. And then I saw recently well, this is probably a few years ago, Johnny Rotten who goes by Johnny Leighton, Pill. He’s in that band, Pill. And 1 year we saw him and he was just tremendous. It was like one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:27:30]:
And then we saw him again and poor guy is like sitting on a stool the entire time. He never got up and it was like he was kind of, you know, larger, you know, I mean, that happens in life, you know, and I know that he had a wife that passed away and stuff. So anyways, it just was not the same, like, sitting Johnny Rotten on a stool, like, no. Yeah. That

Jen Hardy [00:27:52]:
Yeah.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:27:52]:
Time time to just not go on tour.

Jen Hardy [00:27:54]:
Right. Yeah. And it was social distortion. Now that I

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:27:57]:
keep, like Oh, okay.

Jen Hardy [00:27:59]:
Yeah. It’s it’s not the same. You know, there are certain things that we can bring into aging, and there’s certain things like seeing an 80 year old rock star. Sometimes it’s time to put the guitar down. I don’t know. I I mean, not forever, but just I don’t know. Like, some of it just is depressing.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:28:20]:
You know who’s who’s still really good is Deborah Harry. I saw her let’s see. When was I saw Blondie. I guess you know, it’s so funny. Okay. So when you get older, like, something that’s, like, 10 years ago seems like it was like, oh, yeah. I just saw them. Like, that that’s how I am.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:28:35]:
Like like, I’m thinking about it. It’s like, oh, maybe that was about 10 years ago, but it just seems like it was like a few years ago. And I’m so bad with this that, like, I’ll have to, like, Tylenol and it’ll be from, like, 2012. I’ll be like, oh, it’s still good. You know? It’s like, it wasn’t that long ago. And people are, like, horrified. No. Food, I would not give that to somebody else.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:28:55]:
But but 2012, Tylenol. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem that long ago, was it? It’s not that long ago.

Jen Hardy [00:29:00]:
So much crap in that. That’s gonna last. Right? That’s so funny. Oh my gosh. And the things they used to do, this is crazy. This is, you know, the things that we used to I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s just it’s just so weird.

Jen Hardy [00:29:15]:
Like medicine and and all that. It’s it’s all so

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:29:18]:
Well, speaking of Tylenol, remember the whole Tylenol thing that happened when we were kids that, like, because they never put any sealer on it, and that whole thing, you know, changed everything where and kids, if you don’t know what we’re talking about, Google it or I think there actually was a documentary or something about that recently.

Jen Hardy [00:29:37]:
Changed it or they they produce medicine and, like, market met you know with this Yeah. Deals and all that kind of stuff on it.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:29:44]:
Yeah. Crazy. But, you know, and yeah, and kids today, oh my god. So, like, the gun violence in school, like, that is just I mean, as a kid in Florida, like, we used to get bomb threats, and I’m, like, air quoting bomb threats. And it would always be, like, some kid that, you know, would call in and they make us all go outside and they check all the lockers and stuff. But they would do it, like, when we were taking midterms or something like that. And so They

Jen Hardy [00:30:08]:
wouldn’t get out of the test.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:30:09]:
But getting back to the eighties, so 1984, they did make a movie that came out in 1984 with Eurythmics doing the soundtrack, which was really good.

Jen Hardy [00:30:18]:
Yeah. Oh, so Eurythmics. You know what? I when we hang up, I’m gonna go play a whole list of 80 songs. I’m so excited. Looking at you. Oh my gosh. And I love this jacket. Okay.

Jen Hardy [00:30:28]:
If you’re just listening to the show, it is what color is this jacket? It’s

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:30:33]:
It’s a sparkly fuchsia, I guess. Okay. So, Jen, I gotta tell you what my hookup is. So I am an Amazon reviewer. I’m a Vine reviewer. And so they I can go online, order certain things, and then I just have to review them. And so when I first started off and people are like when they hear about this, they’re like, I wanna do this. And it’s like, you have to be chosen.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:30:54]:
So I was one of the chosen ones. I’m not really sure how I was chosen, but maybe because I did do a lot of reviews and order from Amazon. But I did I got this for free, so I do have to pay tax on the fair market value of the item. So I got this headband from them, the hair extensions that are in my hair right now, all from Amazon. I ordered all of that from Amazon. And yes. So very cool. I get a lot of stuff for free, but gotta pay the tax on it.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:31:24]:
So it’s almost like it’s self employment tax that I pay pay

Jen Hardy [00:31:26]:
on it. But That’s amazing.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:31:28]:
Yeah. It’s amazing. And so this shiny jacket so it’s not everything on Amazon. People are always like, oh my god. You can order anything. And it’s like, no. Every day, it’s like a database of things. You click on it and you kind of, like, cross your fingers hoping that it will go through.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:31:42]:
And, like, they had the other day I went on there and they had these those walking treadmill things that go under your desk, and I was like, oh my god. I need one of those. I clicked on it and it wouldn’t let me order it. And then I saw another one and I couldn’t order it. So I didn’t get that. But recently, I did get a massage table that’s a pink massage table, like a portable pink massage table. So I still need to review that one. But yeah.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:32:07]:
So I get all kinds of interesting things from Amazon. So it has helped me up up my wardrobe game. Oh, yeah.

Jen Hardy [00:32:16]:
That is so cool. Yeah. That’s really that’s really I like it. I like it a lot. Yeah. And you had a jacket at Podfest too, and I don’t even I just remember that I wanted it so bad.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:32:26]:
Oh, it was probably the sparkly one. That one with the sequence. That one I got from Amazon as well. So you can order it. You can probably search me on Amazon and find my all the reviews I’ve done of things. I’ve done hundreds of reviews on Amazon. So I think they’re searchable. I would think so.

Jen Hardy [00:32:42]:
But I would think so. Yeah. Alright. Well, that sounds really cool. Well, let’s I probably time to wrap it up. And if somebody wants to find you, they’re looking for somebody for their business. Where can they find you?

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:32:54]:
So the easiest place to find me would be Instagram. I’m not that active on Instagram, but my handle, one, what what was it? Remember, like, back, okay. I’m dating myself again, but in the seventies, we had Smokey the Bandit. Remember? It’s like, what’s your handle? I always think of that, Smokey the Bandit. Smoking the Bandit. And we’d be like, toot toot with the the trucks. Remember that was like such a big deal. Oh my god.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:33:17]:
Yeah. That was back when action movies were not Marvel movies. They were Smokey and the Bandit. You know? So, anyways okay. So the easiest place to find me, my handle on Instagram is get radbiz, b I z. So, like, get radical, get radbiz. And then you can find you can send me an email at heather@gitradbiz.com. So Very cool.

Jen Hardy [00:33:40]:
And I’ll have links in the show notes.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:33:41]:
Oh, awesome.

Jen Hardy [00:33:43]:
That’s great. Well, thank you so much. This has been an amazing trip down memory lane. I love it so much. Thank you again. Well, thanks for having me.

Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA [00:33:50]:
We did do yeah. I guess we have to wrap up, but, you know, we didn’t talk that much stuff back to you, but we can talk stuff back to you. I love it. I love stuff. I love what’s going on.

Jen Hardy [00:34:08]:
Yeah. This is it’s been really, really nice. Alright. Well, thank you so much. I really I yeah. We’ll talk soon. I love Heather so much and I love how Heather she is. And what I mean by that is unapologetically herself and just fun and silly, but still the ultimate professional.

Jen Hardy [00:34:28]:
And I had her on because I just want you to know that no matter what your personality and your personal brand and what you like is, you can be that and you should be that. Isn’t it time that we just started completely being ourselves? Stop worrying about everybody else judging and just be unapologetically us. So I hope you enjoyed the show. Definitely go check the show notes. Go check out Heather if you need any kind of business help or accounting. She is phenomenal. And if you or somebody that you know is feeling lonely or sad, I have a new program called Jen’s Friends. Go to jenhardy.net/friends and sign up.

Jen Hardy [00:35:12]:
It’s a daily video email. And every morning, my friends and I come into your inbox. We tell you how loved and supported and special and amazing you are because every every woman needs to hear that every single day. And I am so excited to bring you that message because you are loved and you are incredibly special. And I am so glad that I have you in my life. Thank you for taking the time to be with me. I know your time is the most valuable thing you have, and it makes me feel so special that you are spending it here. So have an incredible week. And thank you for listening to Redefining your Personal Brand after 50.

Redefining your personal brand after 50

Jen Hardy [00:35:47]:
Stay tuned and stay fabulous.