Lizzie Vietz, University of Nebraska-Lincoln: The Interview

Apr 8
Sarah Collins and Bill Dippel discuss personal experiences, including Bill's recent birthday celebrations and the challenges of cold weather in Nebraska. The dialogue transitions into a thought-provoking discussion about cults, exploring the psychological aspects of belonging and community. Lizzie Vietz joins the conversation, sharing her journey with strengths and how they influence her career in marketing and communications. The episode highlights the importance of understanding one's strengths in personal and professional development, culminating in a discussion about career transitions and the role of strengths in navigating these changes. In this conversation, Lizzie Vietz discusses her strengths and how they contribute to her success in her professional life. She reflects on the importance of higher education professionals, the value of empathy and developer strengths, and the role of focus in achieving goals. The discussion also touches on the significance of values in career development and the evolution of strengths over time. Lizzie shares personal anecdotes about her experiences and insights, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and authenticity in personal and professional growth. In this engaging conversation, Lizzie Vietz, Sarah Collins, and Bill Dippel explore the dynamics of relationships, particularly focusing on how to balance dreams and actionable goals. They discuss the importance of understanding each other's strengths and communication styles, especially in the context of marriage. The conversation also delves into conflict resolution, processing ideas, and the fun side of personality strengths through a creative candy analogy. Personal anecdotes and humor enrich the dialogue, making it relatable and insightful for listeners.

To contact Lizzie:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizzie-vietz/
Lizzie's Top 10 CliftonStrengths
1) Futuristic
2) Woo
3) Strategic
4) Communication
5) Positivity
6) Competition
7) Focus
8) Achiever
9) Empathy
10) Developer

Bill's Top 10 CliftonStrengths
1) Individualization
2) Developer
3) Activator
4) Woo
5) Restorative
6) Empathy
7) Harmony
8) Connectedness
9) Relator
10) Learner
Sarah's Top 10 CliftonStrengths
1) Positivity
2) Woo
3) Communication
4) Harmony
5) Activator
6) Developer
7) Input
8) Individualization
9) Responsibility
10) Arranger
Official Strengths On Fire Website: https://strengthsonfire.transistor.fm
Transcript
Sarah Collins (00:01.418)
Mr. Bill Dipple, how you doing today?

Bill Dippel (00:03.156)
No, I have a I have a sunburn. I have a I think I'm tired. I it was it was a rough week last week. I I was struggling. I don't think that's important. It's just that I'm I'm tired today and but I'm still full.

Sarah Collins (00:14.158)
tell our listeners why it was a rough week.

Sarah Collins (00:23.52)
No, you have to tell them so I can juxtaposition your rough week with my rough week, okay?

Bill Dippel (00:26.266)
it's just I think I sent you photos too of my rough week. So I last week was my birthday week and every year I did somebody said 48 on the plane. God bless you all. Thank you. Thank you.

Sarah Collins (00:31.522)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (00:36.812)
You turned 45.

Sarah Collins (00:43.398)
For the record, I'm always encouraging people to lie older, not younger, because if you tell someone like, oh, I just turned, you know, I would say like, oh, just turned 50. People would be like, damn girl, you look so good. It's like a great way to get compliments. Okay.

Bill Dippel (00:47.705)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Dippel (00:53.69)
Well, I did. I just I just lied older, so that's good. Every year for my birthday, group of guys and I go to outside of Palm Springs and we play PGA West. They have nine courses attached to PGA West. So over five days, we play like four of them move around. Weather was 85 degrees, no wind. I mean.

Spectacular. We rent a VRBO on a private course so we can get up in the morning, sit in the private pool that is right on a fairway and watch golfers going by, get us in the mood, stretch out there, get ready to go play our round. And then every night we go to some fantastic meal in the Palm Springs area and we split the costs. I'm just saying.

If you have to spend a birthday somewhere, that's not a bad way to do it. And we don't do it because it's my birthday. It ended up being, that was the timing that everybody could do it, but it's kind of morphed into that. So they gave me a great birthday card on the day of my birthday. And so I'm just saying, you know.

Sarah Collins (01:56.162)
Yeah.

Oh, well, I'm so happy that you got to do that for your birthday. It really sounds like the perfect way that you would want to spend your birthday. However, if it seems like I'm oozing envy, it's because I am because in Nebraska, it was literally like negative 21 while you were in Palm Springs. It was the Arctic Tundra. School was canceled. Stuff stopped doing things because it was as cold as cold can be. And you're like sending me pictures like.

Bill Dippel (02:06.926)
Not bad, not bad.

Bill Dippel (02:15.587)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Dippel (02:25.882)
I

Sarah Collins (02:28.91)
Look at our cute Airbnb and I'm like.

Bill Dippel (02:29.274)
kid.

I would love to tell you, I wasn't thinking you're Arctic cold when I was sending you those photos, but I knew I was gonna get some blush back. I was like, this is gonna be tough. She's gonna hate me. Because I did, I sent you photos of the pool overlooking the fairway and the mountain and it was terrible. it was a horrible, horrible. And then I got back and this week was my anniversary. So last night, actually last night. So last night, my wife and I went out to dinner and...

Sarah Collins (02:41.806)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (02:46.412)
Yeah, yeah, looked gorgeous. It looked gorgeous. I was so happy for you. So happy for you.

Bill Dippel (03:00.724)
and had an anniversary. So yeah, I mean, I'm just saying, not doing bad. It's, you know, it's been a great week. So, and I am a little tired, but I gotta say fully energized. You know, it fills the bucket. know, woo's gotta go eat. I've been wooing for a week and a half now, so my bucket is full. I'm feeling really good.

Sarah Collins (03:03.148)
Wow, just living the dream over here. Life goals.

Sarah Collins (03:14.904)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (03:21.43)
Okay, well I have a question for you and I changed my question because we had a lot of really fun banter. So if we're coming into the audience today with like a lot of high energy, it's because we have a fun guest and we were just literally rolling in the chats before this. So I've changed my question based on our previous chat. Bill, this is my question for you. Are you someone who could accidentally end up in a cult?

Bill Dippel (03:22.905)
Hit me.

Bill Dippel (03:28.004)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Bill Dippel (03:40.574)
I'm ready.

Lizzie Vietz (03:51.512)
you

Bill Dippel (03:51.975)
someone that can end up in a yes absolutely now I see

Sarah Collins (03:54.24)
Yes, tell us more. What about you makes you think that you would, you could fall into the trap.

Bill Dippel (03:59.812)
that all that, all those person, all the relationship themes that I have, I think if it, if it really fed into a helping people sort of, you know, a genre where I felt I was really making a difference in people's lives and then, you know, a year into it, it flipped around and I wasn't making a difference. You know, I don't, I, I'd have to see that. Now I'd like to think I'd be smart enough to see the flip and be out.

Sarah Collins (04:04.098)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (04:20.494)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (04:28.343)
Right?

Bill Dippel (04:29.38)
But I've watched some cult documentaries and other stuff where they didn't spot that, right? That didn't happen. So I don't know that I'm better than anyone else in any way. I don't want to. We talked about another podcast that I found fascinating once, Dirty John. And part of the reason I listened to it so long was I was listening to the woman.

Sarah Collins (04:37.603)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (04:50.444)
Yes?

Bill Dippel (04:57.592)
that he was he was manipulating and thinking she can't believe this. She can't believe this. Right. And she had a great business. Yeah. Yeah. How could you? But I wasn't there. So I don't know how, you know, and I have I think that so I don't know. I don't know if I could survive the turn or not. I don't know when it would come. I don't. I would just say I've managed to avoid all cults up till now. So how about you?

Sarah Collins (05:00.736)
Mm-hmm. Right. She seemed really smart. Like, she had a very successful business. She seemed like a smart woman. Why are you believing this liar? Like, clearly.

Sarah Collins (05:26.651)
That's what you think.

Bill Dippel (05:27.77)
Yes, how about you? Are you are you a cult worthy?

Sarah Collins (05:30.016)
Yeah, I definitely think I could totally see myself. I love community groups of people. Like I think they all start as like, everyone's feeling good. My positivity, I think would come in thinking like, everything is fine. I like you though, think like I would be like a whistleblower. Like I feel like I would start to sniff out stuff.

And I've said this before, growing up in a small town, I really felt like gossip was currency. And I have really tried to rein that in as an adult because I know that's not healthy, which is why I have an obsession with pop culture. Because if I'm talking about Beyonce, she doesn't care. But I think if I were in a cult, the gossip would happen and I would start being like, did you see the thing Craig did yesterday? That was kind of weird, right? Like, I feel like I would get kicked out or I would like, you know, they would they would get mad at me eventually because I think I'd be

Bill Dippel (05:54.542)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

now.

Bill Dippel (06:04.762)
Hmm.

Bill Dippel (06:12.74)
Mm-hmm. Eventually, he'd be out, know.

Sarah Collins (06:19.03)
real chatty about what was happening.

Bill Dippel (06:20.92)
Right. If the cult actually relied on the gossip to say, yes, I did see what he did. And by the way, we're organizing to stop people from being, don't know, I'm just saying. But you brought up a great point and that is I would be the whistleblower. Like the minute I did see the turn, I'm the one that like, you burned me? Relators high for me. You burned me? Okay, that's it. I'm at the courthouse. I'm talking to the police. I'm talking to the...

Sarah Collins (06:30.926)
Oh yeah, see, mean, just...

Sarah Collins (06:36.835)
Mm.

Sarah Collins (06:41.932)
Ha ha ha.

Bill Dippel (06:48.864)
lawyer, I'm ready, right? I will tear down the wall.

Sarah Collins (06:50.252)
Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (06:50.926)
What's interesting about cults is that they, like, it's such an us versus them mentality. Like, there's a lot of really, like, quote unquote successful cults that create, like, such a demonization of anyone outside of the organization that it's harder than you think to be the whistleblower. But I'm the exact opposite of you guys. I do not think that I could get suckered into a cult. I think that I would, I have that, like, just innate skepticism. As soon as you're trying to sell me on something, I dig my heels in, like...

Bill Dippel (07:03.361)
Exactly. Yeah.

Bill Dippel (07:09.754)
Ohhhh

Sarah Collins (07:11.071)
Gosh.

Lizzie Vietz (07:18.318)
I don't know that they would get me. It'd have to be something like very, very specific. And this is where they succeed too, is that they come and they tell you all the things that they know you want to hear. But it would have to be like, there'd be a whole thousand piece puzzle that'd have to line up for me to get suckered into that. But I don't think so. Yes, I think so.

Sarah Collins (07:26.136)
Right.

Bill Dippel (07:34.586)
See, I believe that about myself too, but then I also just want to watch other documentaries or see how cults come to be. And I think I wouldn't have fallen for that. I think that, but even though I think that, I wasn't there. maybe I would have bought in. I just don't know, but I agree with you. I think I wouldn't fall. It just wouldn't happen. I could see that coming a mile away, but I don't know that. So yeah.

Sarah Collins (07:34.808)
Yeah, that's that strategic.

Sarah Collins (07:44.322)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (07:47.395)
Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (07:52.344)
true.

Sarah Collins (07:52.974)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (08:00.376)
Mm-hmm. So should we just throw it our own fold or?

Sarah Collins (08:01.73)
Well, today on the podcast, Cult Expert, Lizzie. Just kidding, just kidding. That would be so cool though. She did read a book.

Bill Dippel (08:06.074)
Cult myth breaker. So good.

Lizzie Vietz (08:12.846)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (08:15.118)
Lizzie. Okay. How do you say your last name? Veets. Okay. I almost said vets. Veets. We have today on the podcast, Lizzie Veets, and we are thrilled to have Lizzie. Not only has she read a book about cults, obviously, so she has tons of expertise in that, but she is a strengths enthusiast and she is the creator of our podcast listener, Nickname Arsonist.

Lizzie Vietz (08:17.677)
Beats.

Bill Dippel (08:27.844)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill Dippel (08:40.206)
Yes. Yes. You know, you know, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm doing the, I got to applause Lizzie. I, I love the arsonist name when I heard it from Sarah and she said, it's Lizzie. And I was like, Lizzie, who's this? We got to, I got to know. I love the arsonist nickname. I know we've gotten some people that are like, and some they're like, it's great. But Lizzie total kudos to you for the name.

Sarah Collins (08:40.374)
Yes, she is. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Lizzie to the podcast today. Yay.

Lizzie Vietz (08:44.96)
Thank you. I'm gonna put...

Lizzie Vietz (08:57.774)
I'm sorry.

Lizzie Vietz (09:08.962)
I'm gonna put mother of the arsonist in my LinkedIn bio, I think.

Sarah Collins (09:11.786)
my gosh, can you put a dragon by it just for fun? A microphone and a dragon and a flame, yes, yes.

Bill Dippel (09:11.96)
good, so good. And we talked in the pre-show a little bit, Lizzie, so I love, absolutely love the name, but I also want to mention we talked in the pre-show, number one fan, we've had a moment, right? We had another fan that has listened to every episode. We've had him on the show previously.

Lizzie Vietz (09:15.494)
for sure, and little planes. Definitely. Yes, for sure. I'll get so many weird connection requests.

Bill Dippel (09:42.008)
I think rightfully so. You took a little umbrage to number one fan. want to point that out. I... You get it. No, no, I get it. You go. I'm curious. You're fed. You're... Hit it.

Lizzie Vietz (09:48.844)
Just the tiniest bit. think, go ahead, Bella. I think as long as I can claim original, again, like mother of the arsonist, as long as I can claim the first and have that namesake, I'm pretty happy with that. And I really can't compete with, I listen to them on Spotify all the way through, take lots of insights away from them. It makes my cleaning and my chores at home go much, much faster. I enjoy my commute so much more, but I don't listen and watch.

Bill Dippel (10:00.13)
Mm-hmm. that's yours. Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (10:16.812)
So I think Mark has a little bit on me there. So I understand I'm willing to seed the number one fan as long as I get original and or first. So that's

Bill Dippel (10:19.098)
you

Bill Dippel (10:25.742)
Well, I'm not, I don't think we see it right away. mean, you know, if you're coming up, if you're coming up with names.

Sarah Collins (10:26.178)
Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (10:29.134)
Alright, alright.

Sarah Collins (10:30.872)
She's got competition at six, so I don't know. She might roll in here hard.

Lizzie Vietz (10:32.974)
I was gonna say, my competition likes that.

Bill Dippel (10:35.138)
Yeah, Mark, I know you're out there. Mark, you're listening right now. You're, you're probably driving. You may have pulled over and you're a little upset. You might be pounding the wheel, but I think, you know, I think that it's a good contest, right? It's a great contest to have. as podcasts hosts, we're honored to have it where we have multiple great guests on that are actual really big fans. The fact you instantly knew who we were talking about tells me you've listened to every episode. You're all the way in.

Sarah Collins (10:48.695)
Yes.

Bill Dippel (11:03.954)
And I see a blended podcast out of season two of Mark and Lizzie together. I mean, I think that might be a lot of fun. I could see that having some traction.

Sarah Collins (11:13.006)
oooo

Lizzie Vietz (11:14.794)
into that.

Sarah Collins (11:21.1)
Yeah. So Lizzie, why don't you tell our audience your top 10 strengths so we have an idea of what we're working with here.

Lizzie Vietz (11:26.754)
Yeah, absolutely. So my number one is futuristic. And then I've got woo, strategic, communication, and positivity. Those are my top five. And then I've got competition, focus, achiever, developer, empathy. Did I mix up those other? Empathy developer. There we go.

Sarah Collins (11:40.352)
Empathy developer, but, but you know, who cares about that? Did you just do that from memory? Wow.

Bill Dippel (11:42.392)
You know what, you're good. Yeah, you're good. Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (11:44.898)
Right, right. I did. I do have my full 34 report with me, but I did not want to cheat and look at it. So thank you. Thank you.

Bill Dippel (11:51.844)
Ha

Sarah Collins (11:52.216)
Seriously, you're just like impressing the socks off of us. Okay. For the audience, tell us a little bit about you. Tell us how you came to Strengths. Tell us a little bit about you personally, professionally. Like what made you interested? What made you become a Strengths enthusiast? What was your journey?

Bill Dippel (11:56.081)
already.

Lizzie Vietz (12:10.318)
Yeah, so for me, it started in my undergraduate career. I came to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I'm actually in the journalism college right now. I'm of their podcasting booths. Yes, J school, best school. Exactly.

Sarah Collins (12:16.833)
Go big red. J school, that's my alma mater. Just hey guys, everyone in the school better be listening to this podcast. I got to get those numbers up. Okay. Somebody be sharing it.

Bill Dippel (12:23.853)
god.

Lizzie Vietz (12:28.29)
Right, that's right. And so I took the assessment for the first time in one of the many internships that I did in my undergraduate career. I was an intern on Liz Rincarlson's team at Emeritus. I was on her marketing communications team. Yes, we love Liz. And I did, I kind of committed the deadly sin of the Gallup's test and took it like three times in like five or six years, which I know you're really not supposed to.

Bill Dippel (12:28.41)
That's right.

Sarah Collins (12:41.664)
Yes, shout out

Bill Dippel (12:53.24)
Lizzie Vietz (12:55.8)
But the first time I took it, I was maybe, I don't know, sophomore, junior or so in college. And then I took it again towards the end of my time on Liz's team, which ran all the way until I graduated from college. And then I took it one last time. I'm really calling it the last time here this past March. So it's almost a full year that I've been settled into these strengths in this order. They've shifted a lot. I've never gotten more than my top five those past two times.

Bill Dippel (13:12.343)
Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (13:23.98)
And when I took it the first time, that was the first time that I met Sarah at a Nebraska Women's Leadership Network event. And I was just transfixed as everybody is when they first encounter Sarah. She was speaking, it was incredible. You can't get past it from the hair, the energy, the positivity. It's just transfixing. And I remember going up to you and just being like, we have like some of the top strengths. I just think you're the coolest ever. I've been a loyal follower of you on Instagram now for a long time.

Sarah Collins (13:33.959)
my gosh.

Bill Dippel (13:34.266)
know, I know, you can't get past it. You can't get past it. It's just, I know.

Lizzie Vietz (13:51.995)
We've connected at like Rise events since I moved back to Lincoln and everything. So that was really fun to like see my strengths as like part of like my work at my internship and kind of like learn how to use those. Took it again. I realized the first two iterations of my test were very people pleasing. I think I had like woo and relator and harmony in my top five at one point. It was a lot. It was very much so how can I be of service to others? I need everyone to know that myself as a student, like I'm

Sarah Collins (14:09.198)
Mmm.

Lizzie Vietz (14:20.726)
you know, gonna go far and I need everybody to like me and I to make all the connections and all the networking and everything like that. And so I'm really...

I'm really happy and proud of where my strengths have settled to. Like in this past March, I love that I can really see where my futuristic, where I lead with that. I was kind of surprised by positivity coming in to number five because I was like, no, no, no, I'm a very realistic person. a very like, you know, but I think almost every guest that has positivity high that's come on this podcast has said the exact same thing, which I love. And so I had a very similar experience with that.

Sarah Collins (14:43.618)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (14:48.576)
Yes, they have.

Lizzie Vietz (14:54.222)
So really, long story short, I've just taken it since college and really gotten the chance to workshop on that in a professional setting. When I came back to UNL, that's when I took it about a year ago as a staff member and used my professional development dollars in that role to get the full 34 report, which...

I highly recommend, I mean, at least top 10 people. Like you have to at least go for the top 10. I think it gives you so much more insight than the top five. As somebody who just uses this like in a personal professional sense, I've never been like individually coached one-on-one except for shout out Natalie Becerra. She's a strength coach and yes, we love Natalie. She's gotta come on for sure. She did, she's a great friend of mine and so she also did.

Sarah Collins (15:13.634)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (15:25.602)
Yes, hi Natalie, we need to have her on as a guest in season two, yes.

Lizzie Vietz (15:33.922)
help me with a one-on-one coaching session there. other outside of that, I haven't really done it or pursued it individually. It's more been like as a part of like professional development workshops at my job and things like that. So this podcast has also been a great tool of helping me explore it more just on my own.

Bill Dippel (15:48.642)
So I just want to make sure I think I heard four shout outs in a two minute startup. So positivity, you don't think, huh? I just want to put my finger on the pulse of that, figure out shout outs, giving people tons of credit, kudos all over that. Okay. Just checking. No, totally good. Well, that's our job. That's our job as a coach to go ahead and spot that.

Lizzie Vietz (16:08.78)
You know, Bill, I didn't even clock it. What's so funny about that is that that was just so normal.

Sarah Collins (16:10.69)
Yes.

Bill Dippel (16:17.646)
Congratulations, very well done. Yeah. We'll work on your positivity. seems like you struggle with it. So we'll figure out. Can you hit us with, I know you've taken it multiple times and you said it changed. Like what was the big surprise change or what stayed, what left? mean, can you hit us with kind of that?

Lizzie Vietz (16:18.776)
Thank you. Thank you.

Lizzie Vietz (16:27.95)
huh.

Lizzie Vietz (16:35.106)
Yeah, I think communication has always been really strong up there. Communication and woo, as I recall, have always been in my top five somewhere, which I love. Positivity was new this last time I took it.

Like I said, I had Relator and Harmony really high up there the first and second times that I took it. Discipline snuck in one of those two times. I think the second time, yeah, exactly, that's the face I made too. And I kind of understood that and that I do like routines and structure, but for me now I see that a lot more in my like focus achiever strategic combo. That's something that I rely on, you know, to be grounded and make sure that I am like getting all my work done and delivering things on time and all of that good stuff.

Sarah Collins (17:07.448)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (17:14.559)
So yeah, discipline I was surprised by, now I have to cheat and actually look at it.

Other than that, yeah, it's really been Wu and communication that have stayed. Futuristic, I think, was a five at one point and then shot up to number one. And I think it's honestly my favorite strength. I really love my futuristic and I don't know if that's just a self-fulfilling prophecy of because it's my number one. I know how strong of a muscle that is. So know that I'm always going to use it. One of the things that Natalie and I talked about when we did our strengths coaching session was that she has futuristic high too, but she's also got some more like activating like strengths up there as well. So she was like, tell me how

Bill Dippel (17:37.743)
Alright.

Lizzie Vietz (17:49.352)
your futuristic motivates you and if that's something that like kind of keeps you off in dreamland or from like being really present and I said no it's because my positivity my strategic just know for sure that we will get to that dream future the best that we possibly can my futuristic motivates me a lot in the present all the time to get to that dream that I have like being on this podcast so

Sarah Collins (18:16.546)
I love that. And honestly, I love you are really just a strengths enthusiast. And I think so many people who come to strengths come to it this way, right? Like, yes, we have some clients we're so privileged to work with where they are their manager or their leaders have invested in this to go deep and they get to learn about it. And we know a ton of strengths coaches who make this their whole life.

But there are so many people out there like you who maybe it was through professional thing, but it wasn't necessarily like a real program. So it's kind of just like, hey, let's take this and have a chat about it. And for you to like lean into it, to listen to the podcast, which we're literally so honored and thrilled about. And I'm just going to go back and listen to this episode anytime I feel sad because you've just given me the biggest ego boost. Okay. Let's exchange numbers. You should come to my book club. mean, what?

Bill Dippel (18:59.394)
Hahaha

Lizzie Vietz (18:59.864)
Do it. Or call me. Do it. Perfect.

Bill Dippel (19:06.35)
I'll be I'll be I'll be over here guys. I'll be over here. You guys. Yeah, do what you're doing. It's

Sarah Collins (19:09.602)
You

Lizzie Vietz (19:10.542)
Also, think every episode we were talking about the through lines in the pre-show of like the Romanticie books and Taylor Swift and coffee I think also a big through line is that a host gets kicked out about every single episode that you guys just joke about exchanging host position with somebody so I'm honored to be a part of that that story tradition on

Bill Dippel (19:22.138)
I'm out. It's totally true. It's totally true.

Sarah Collins (19:25.098)
Yes. Yes.

Bill Dippel (19:28.984)
Yes, the Lizzie Sarah podcast. I'm listening. I'll be honest. The positivity and the fun is going to be fantastic. So I'll just get in my wheelchair, take my cane according to Sarah, and I'll just check out the podcast. It sounds great. And I'm lying high. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Collins (19:33.89)
That's right. That's right. High energy.

Lizzie Vietz (19:37.902)
That's right.

Sarah Collins (19:43.15)
But you're only 45, right?

That's right. That's right. So I don't know. We're basically the same age. Look at us people. Like we clearly come from the same year we were born.

Bill Dippel (19:53.292)
So

Lizzie Vietz (19:55.566)
I was thinking about this, that, so if Bill, if you're the infant boomer and Sarah is the elder millennial, am I the middle-aged Gen Z? Is that, I think that's,

Bill Dippel (19:59.384)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Done. Done.

Sarah Collins (20:02.99)
I think so. I think so. So tell us everything about Gen Z, please.

Bill Dippel (20:10.062)
Yeah, do that. Actually, you know what I'm curious about? So we kind of glossed this over a little bit, but I'm so I'm really curious about what do you do now? Like what, what is the work? Like how does your strength step into that and kind of how you got to where you are. But what, are you doing? Like you're clearly very strengths aware and very understanding of how it affects you. So talk about what you do.

Lizzie Vietz (20:10.126)
Thanks

Lizzie Vietz (20:19.672)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (20:34.414)
Yeah, definitely. So the part of my story, I guess I didn't share in the beginning part, was that I got my degree in advertising and public relations and communication studies with a minor in political science. So a lot of degrees and my husband loves to lovingly tease me that is just talking to people. That's what I got my degree in. But I love people. That's of course what I want to do for my living.

Sarah Collins (20:44.686)
Wow, that is a lot of degrees just for the record.

Lizzie Vietz (20:55.47)
After I graduated college, started as the assistant director of marketing and communications at the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence, Kansas. We were in Kansas for a few years when my husband got his masters of chemistry, talk about more degrees. And then we loved Lawrence. It's such a fun community. And shout out to my old director at the Boys and Girls Club, Alyssa. I love her to pieces. I'm still great, great friends with so many people in Lawrence. So it was a super fun place to like start off our married life and start off our careers and everything.

Sarah Collins (21:06.722)
Wow. Also, I love Kansas. Did you have a good time there?

Lizzie Vietz (21:23.734)
But then when we were thinking about where we wanted to, you know, make our home and put down our roots, it was always coming back to Lincoln. So we started, I started back at the university as the employer and campus relations coordinator for career services. I interned in career services as a student. That was one of my many, many internships that I mentioned in the beginning. So that was a really fun return to kind of come back to an office that I'd worked in as a student. I was working across campus and with all of our external employers, putting on career fairs, all of that good stuff.

and then a position opened up in student life marketing and communications that I thought I'd try my hand at. And so now I'm a marketing strategist for that office. And it very much so fills my bucket. I get to basically help my clients build their marketing strategy. And my focus area is advocacy and well-being. So all of the student life areas that focus on just making a student's life better at UNL, like counseling and psychological services, the health center.

care, services for students with disabilities, all of those units that are so, vital to a student's life that provide so many great resources and programs. So that's been, I've been in that role, it's pretty new actually, I'm just past a month, but it's been absolutely phenomenal. Love my coworkers, love my work, it's been great. So you can probably see how that work fills a lot of my buckets as well.

Bill Dippel (22:39.733)
Thank

Sarah Collins (22:40.012)
Yes. Well, let's dive deeper into it. Tell us when you, okay, so you just went through a career transition and I love diving deep into career transitions. Tell us how your strengths played into that, right? Cause it's a big decision to decide to change roles. And so what was it about the role that made you think like, Hey, I think this will serve my strengths. What strengths were you like thinking about? What strengths do you get to use that maybe you didn't before? Or, you know, tell us a little bit about it.

Lizzie Vietz (22:44.942)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (22:54.318)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (23:07.458)
Yeah, absolutely. think strengths is something that every interview and ever for the rest of my life, I will use it in every interview conversation forever because it's such a crucial framework for how to tell somebody this is exactly what I'm good at. And even if they don't speak the strengths language, then you can still communicate it to them. Again, communication my number three. I have faith in my ability to then still explain to them exactly what it is that I'm good at and what gives me energy and.

Sarah Collins (23:29.55)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (23:35.54)
keeps me away from burnout, right? So I would always say that my futuristic helps me see that beautiful future and that dream that we're gonna work towards. My communication and my woo help others get on board with that plan or with that dream. And then my strategic makes it happen, comes up with the plan to get to that future. I've already gotten my people on board.

and my positivity just makes it fun to go along the way. So I think that works really well with the work that I do now and kind of meeting my clients, seeing what their needs are, what success is to them, what that looks like, and then helping them come up with that plan using my marketing expertise to then make it happen and get them to where they need to go and make sure that students are using their services.

Sarah Collins (23:58.766)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (23:59.854)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (24:19.674)
So good

Sarah Collins (24:20.238)
Absolutely. And I have to imagine you're a focus achiever. You just also get shit done. Which is, which is really vital, right? I mean, I, I will sort of stand on the soap box here of I do not think that the corporate world always sees university employees for the greatness that they can in bold, right? Like

Lizzie Vietz (24:23.79)
Mm-hmm. Yes. I love it.

Bill Dippel (24:26.148)
Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (24:42.752)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (24:43.002)
That's fair.

Sarah Collins (24:43.564)
I just coming from higher ed, going into entrepreneurship, working in corporate, I think sometimes the world at large looks at universities and maybe I'm extrapolating and then putting my own feelings into this, but I think they get a bad rap like, you work at a university like, whoa. And of course there's some of that because there's some of that everywhere. But I think some of the most dedicated, hardworking, high achieving professionals I have ever met.

Lizzie Vietz (25:03.51)
term.

Lizzie Vietz (25:07.662)
Thank

Sarah Collins (25:09.358)
come from university because you've got limited budget, limited staff and a lot to do. So the people who do a lot, they do a lot and they do well. And I can see that in you. Like, and in a way I'm jealous of you because you got focused and achiever. So you're getting shit done and you've got futuristic and strategic. So you're thoughtful about it and you've got wooing communication and positivity. So you're fun and talking.

Lizzie Vietz (25:14.776)
completely.

Sarah Collins (25:35.702)
like you know what and then you even got empathy and developer. So I mean you really sort of come at this as like a whole strengths package when we think about you know the domains that are represented which is really cool.

Lizzie Vietz (25:47.182)
I'm about that because I've noticed, I think the weakest or like most, the largest knowledge gap I think that I have about strengths in general is the domains and kind of playing with that information. And I, you can see it on my report. have like, in my top 10, I've labeled out like, okay, I have 20 % executing themes, 30 % influencing, 30 % relationship building and 20 % strategic thinking. That's a pretty even split, which is interesting. I've like been, this is probably my strategic coming out, but I think in this report somewhere,

Sarah Collins (25:56.44)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Dippel (26:04.631)
you

Sarah Collins (26:11.544)
Yeah, it really is.

Lizzie Vietz (26:17.136)
like you lead with and I even forget which domain it told me I lead with. Influencing? Is that because it's just two and four for me? Okay.

Sarah Collins (26:20.854)
It says influencing. I think it's because you've got two in your top five and a lot of times the full 34 report that domain, it keys in on the top five.

Lizzie Vietz (26:34.168)
Okay.

Bill Dippel (26:34.266)
Yeah, it does it mathematically. It doesn't do it by the very top one. Gallup used to present the percentages of where they fell, but they took those away because it turned into a drinking game. Oh, you're only 30%, Wu, because I'm 43. Right, they took that away. So we don't know what the math is in the back. But again, Lizzie, I just want to point out, I'm really struggling to hear your positivity. It's tough.

Lizzie Vietz (26:38.209)
Interesting.

Lizzie Vietz (26:47.234)
Thank

Bill Dippel (27:01.466)
I'll see if I can drag you through this process today, but just hard. And Sarah, you brought it up and this is the note I want to jump into. I tend to go here a lot because I am a high relationship person. I'm very blue. I see that empathy developer, right? It's at the bottom. It's your 910. But when I hear about what you do for a living and...

You know, Sarah, you came from higher ed. I spent 30 years in higher education as well as part of the University of Nevada system. So we know that environment really well. How does that empathy developer play out not only as an employee, but for the job that you do? Because I have to assume that's a really powerful combination to step in and do what you do.

Lizzie Vietz (27:51.052)
So it's interesting you ask because I do a weekly reflection every Friday morning and I look at my strengths and I look at where they helped me that week, look at where they hindered me, I look at...

Sarah Collins (28:02.688)
Okay, I'm obsessed with you. That's amazing. If you're listening to this, you should be doing that, okay?

Bill Dippel (28:05.314)
You

Lizzie Vietz (28:08.222)
It's my favorite, aside from this hour of this week, it's my favorite hour of the week because I just sit down with my coffee and I get to think about what I did that I loved and what, I was like, where did I spend my time this week that could have gone better? I look at what was one success I'm really proud of and that my achiever really likes that because I think when you, I'm very flattered you think of me as a high achieving person. I like to think of myself as a high achieving person as well and I think when those strengths aren't innate to you, it's harder to pause.

Bill Dippel (28:11.384)
you

Sarah Collins (28:26.126)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (28:37.676)
and actually be proud of the things that you have done. So my positivity and my achiever really like that of being able to actually sit down, carve out the time, think about what I've done. And it's rare that in that weekly reflection, I bring up empathy and developer. And I wonder if that's because they're those strong enough muscles, that metaphor that you use a lot, Sarah, that I just don't even notice when I'm using them so much.

Sarah Collins (28:39.714)
Yes.

Sarah Collins (29:02.435)
Right.

Lizzie Vietz (29:02.658)
But I have heard that they're the coaching strengths, so maybe that just means that I really am gonna be one of you when I grow up, basically. I think it's been difficult to employ them in the first month in my time at this job because I'm learning so much right now. I was at the university for about a year before transitioning into this role, but it's whole different side of campus. It's not Career Services, it's student life.

Sarah Collins (29:19.982)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (29:29.814)
learning what options are even available to me to give to my clients. Where can digital science go? Where can posters go? What is success to you? Is it people through the door at Campus Rec, or is it how long they're staying there and how many classes they come to? Are we selling group fitness passes? Just things like that. So I think it's been harder for me to slow down. I don't necessarily feel that I can develop quite yet, because I'm doing so much learning and focus and strategic and all of that good stuff.

I do not have learner very high. I used to have very bad learner strengths envy, but that's been fixed through this podcast because I've realized that there's that recipe analogy too of like those show up in different amounts and different things. There might be different ways to make the same dish basically. So there are ways that I get that learner and input still. So I think my empathy and developer are a little hungry right now. And I think that I'm not as practiced in identifying.

Sarah Collins (30:07.576)
Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (30:23.842)
where they come out, but maybe you can tell me from, you know, I know you're having a hard time identifying my positivity, but maybe you can tell me where you've seen those, I don't know.

Bill Dippel (30:29.28)
hard, tough.

Well, look at the job you stepped into. You want to develop people? And by the way, just listening to your breakdown of when we lived there and starting our married life, think of the people that we worked in and how that helped us step into where we are. You want to talk developer. You're just, again, my joke about the shout outs in the early on. I'm developing. I'm working towards that. And now student life? I've never worked with a good student.

person that was involved in student life that didn't have some level of a lot of blue and almost inevitably developer because, and it's very high for me, so I get to spot it, right? As I'm watching you say this and talk about it, I'm really enthralled by just hearing all of the references to, know, I met this and I want this and I'm making it the best I can.

Lizzie Vietz (31:14.104)
Sure.

Bill Dippel (31:26.05)
for me, sometimes developers inward. So every week, I'm taking a moment to reflect and talk about how I did and what I did that was really good and maybe how next week I could step in and do that a little better. Just the fact that you're mentioning us as your favorite hour. That alone means you're developing us and moving into that and empathizing with the listeners around how much you love this experience. And we know that. We talked in the pre-show. I fell in love with you about 30 seconds in after I

Lizzie Vietz (31:32.398)
Mmm.

Bill Dippel (31:55.086)
told you I hated you for calling arsonists and we had to defend it. And then you won me over immediately. And so just hearing that developer, but also it's so wrapped in you for positivity and it's so wrapped in you in the empathy. And that we have just, you have that genuineness about that component that's so good. And you brought this up with positivity and you've heard it in the other shows for my coaching.

Sarah Collins (31:58.156)
You

Lizzie Vietz (32:08.672)
And woo. Sure.

Bill Dippel (32:21.114)
practice, Gretchen Kelly Beach is the one that I respond to the most when I say this, which is, you know, I don't think I'm that positive. I, you know, I just feel I'm living the life and this is how everybody and then when you see it through the lens of other people's eyes, how quickly, man, I am positive, right? Or if we can get you to see it and understand it better and just have other people that you really bond with and trust with tell you,

What? You don't think you're positive and have that moment. That's where it opens up for you. How does that resonate for you? Does that feel developer positivity? Do you see that in that?

Lizzie Vietz (32:52.13)
Definitely.

Lizzie Vietz (32:58.68)
think so because I think you're right. think I normally attribute those things about myself to the positivity and to the woo. I think of those as being my like, it's got to be fun and it's got to be with people. But I was thinking about actually, I'm a part of the mentor program here at UNL. So I was paired with a mentor at the beginning of the fall semester. Right. So again, another shout out, my mentor, Dan Duncan, he's the retired director of Nebraska Innovation Campus. He's absolutely phenomenal. He helped me through the process of

Bill Dippel (33:14.904)
Weird, weird. developer is in the mentor. Huh, strange. don't know.

Sarah Collins (33:16.802)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (33:28.418)
the job transition and everything. And now I'm talking about like, okay, I'm kind of struggling with how to write goals. My performance review will be in the spring and summer and everything. I wanna be on top of that, making sure I have goals written out that give me kind of a framework for knowing that I'm doing a good job at what I am in fact doing. And I was thinking, the thing that I was coming up with was building strong relationships with my clients. And I was like, well, that seems stupid to write down. Of course I'm gonna do that. It's again that innate thing of...

Well, that's obvious. That's not a real goal. And he helped me with this great framework of, and it's actually something that my boss also named Dan,

came up with was, you know, there's probably like an 80 % likelihood that we're going to achieve this goal. And that's great. And that's still worth writing down. There's probably a 50 % likelihood that we're going to achieve this goal. And that's great. We're going to write that down. And there's probably only a 20 % chance that we're going to achieve this next one. That's going to be more of a stretch one, but all of these are worth working towards and writing down and, you know, having a framework for how we're going to achieve that. And I think that really helps me. I have like my own personal goals and things like that.

know, steps a day and water and all of that good stuff. And there are times that like, I don't meet them and I'm like, I have to change the goal so that I can check off the box to make sure that I actually like achieved it and done it. And it's like, you know, actually if you try for here and you only get, you know, 80 % of the way there, that's still better than 40%. Nobody died, you know? So I think that's been an interesting piece of how I've been like setting goals recently.

Sarah Collins (34:45.1)
Gosh.

Bill Dippel (34:45.37)
Ha

Sarah Collins (34:55.715)
Right.

Bill Dippel (35:01.7)
So good. Sarah, did you hear that? Did hear that achiever? I was just going to say that checking the box, right? Sarah, go,

Sarah Collins (35:02.444)
the way you hear your achiever.

Sarah Collins (35:08.238)
But you can also hear, I think, the futuristic with like the intents, the intents-ness and the intent of the goal setting is like so futuristic and strategic of you as you're thinking about it, which is just so funny. You can like hear them oozing out of you as you're like saying that story. I'm also thinking about your developer in the beginning.

Lizzie Vietz (35:08.429)
Yep.

Sarah Collins (35:33.134)
Didn't you say your husband and you have like a mini book club where you like listen to podcasts and books and then talk about it? I mean, if that is not developer, like the two of you seriously, so cute.

Lizzie Vietz (35:36.664)
We do.

We do.

Lizzie Vietz (35:43.906)
And I have, that makes me, I have to pull up his top five because I had him take the assessment also. And we share focuses in his top five and that's my number seven, I think. And okay, so my husband's top five are achiever, responsibility, analytical, focus, and restorative. And so that's how we, that's how we love to connect about those things. And a lot of the podcasts and books are kind of like the.

Malcolm Gladwell, Psychological Things, the podcasts are current events and news and things like that. And that's just, we love to hear each other's perspectives because our strengths are so different. They compliment each other really well. And that's just a fun way that we love to connect and yeah, talk to each other.

Bill Dippel (36:26.074)
Is this going to be one you guys listen to? I'm just curious.

Lizzie Vietz (36:28.98)
for sure. I was also saying in the pre-show, he's been listening to these podcasts and getting more into strengths and like actually listening so that he can understand the episode that I'm in, which is we're each other's biggest fans and we love that.

Sarah Collins (36:29.863)
yes.

Sarah Collins (36:37.026)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (36:40.75)
Gosh, it's so cute. Seriously, a couple goals. Okay, let's unpack empathy a little bit. So I tend to describe empathy as people with high empathy as a strength have their chest cavity kind of cracked open and they are instinctively without even trying kind of absorbing the thoughts and feelings of those around them. I always say it's like a sixth sense. I think it's the most mystical of all the strengths. Like how does it work? It's magic.

Lizzie Vietz (36:46.285)
Okay.

Sarah Collins (37:07.086)
because it's such a great relationship builder tool. just allows people to be so in tune with others around them, which is great for developing relationships. Also can be a little dangerous. And yes, I know dangerous is a big word, but I use it with a big D because if you are too open to that and you don't have up boundaries and barriers, you're letting any Joe Schmo with their emotions just boom bombard you. And that can be heavy and it can be a lot.

And I have worked with and done coaching with people where their empathy is just getting in their way because they're just like this, like open nerve to everybody else around them. And it's really hard to manage. And then of course we work with people who have a better kind of hold on it and can kind of like flex it when they need to and kind of lean on some other things. So they're not so susceptible to those inner feelings. When I describe empathy to you that way, Lizzie, what resonates?

Lizzie Vietz (38:04.374)
Yeah, I think it's the, I love what you said about the like any old Joe Schmo can come and like, know, kind of take over your emotions for you almost. And you'll notice like when I talked about my professional background, I started in nonprofits and I'm not in a nonprofit anymore. Working at the Boys and Girls Club was, you know.

fantastic. I loved telling the story of our youth. It was amazing and I'm kind of glad that the decision to leave that came from moving back to Lincoln because it was it was gonna be it had to be something that big to take me away from that work but also I realized how much I was

empathizing and pouring into all of those things. got to coach like we have like an annual dance recital and I did dance for 15 years and so I got to like lead a dance team and everything and that was so great. But like saying goodbye to those kids when I told them that I was moving was just, yes, my chest cap was fully open and cracked and everywhere. My heart is always on my sleeve. I do not have like, you know, a poker face or anything like that. So I totally like resonate with that a lot. And I think I tend to have to lean on

my strategic and my focus to kind of help if I need to put blinders or boundaries up, those strengths really help me and like using those muscles really works well for me because it's like, okay.

This is not my job. this is my, what I need to do is focus in on what I am responsible for and everything and not, you know, think that I can save everything. I still don't let myself volunteer at animal shelters because I would not be able to handle it. That is a rule that started in high school. My mother was not going to let me volunteer at the local rescue league. She's like, we do not have the space for the 30,000 dogs you're gonna want to adopt to get them out of there. So I, yeah, I still don't let myself do that, but.

Bill Dippel (39:31.396)
Hahaha.

Bill Dippel (39:46.692)
Smart. Smart. Smart. Well, can we step away from the relationship domain for just a second? Because you touched on this. And I was thinking this when you were hitting on all the other things that you're doing and where you go. Your focus, right, is there. And I want to touch on focus for a second, because it would seem to listeners, if you're listening to this episode,

Lizzie Vietz (39:46.779)
So pretty much all of it, guess, is what resonates.

Sarah Collins (39:48.674)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (40:13.324)
You tend to be very energetic and go go and keep moving and I'm going to check the box and do those things. So that might not instantly lead you to the thought of focus, right? Where they tend to think, well, that's a lack of focus. And that's not true. But can you touch on focus for you for a second? Because again, with all this struggling to get you through your positivity so hard, right? Can I just want to touch on how focus?

How the focus plays out for you because it is it's a it's a good strength for you and you brought it up as Keeping me in the rails. How does when that plays out for you? What's it look like?

Lizzie Vietz (40:50.7)
Yeah, I think focus, achiever, and strategic for me are all very grounding strengths. And focus, like I said, I hadn't gotten the full 34 or even the 10 report before this one that I had last March. So it was new for me to see, six through 10 through 34. And it's not a muscle that I knew to work before I saw it in my report. But for me, I know people on the podcast before have said, it's putting literal focus time on my calendar, or it's...

My achiever really plays nicely with it when I put a block on my calendar that says, okay, for this hour, I'm gonna focus on the work that I need to do for this client, or this is my answering emails time. I actually came up with a system of, I check my email twice a day. I cannot do any more than that because you're so right, Bill, of the go, go, go, go, go.

Bill Dippel (41:37.037)
yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (41:37.41)
I've broken that a little bit in starting the new job because I want to be as responsive as possible to people and help with that relationship building. But it's the calendar blocking. saying, okay, I am going to turn off my notifications and I'm going to just go back to that and answer emails for those two 30-minute chunks of the day. And then from there, my time feels so much more freed up because I'm not Pavlov responding to the outlook ding or the slack ding or whatever it might be. I'm actually being much more intentional about...

what I do and that way I'm half-assing a million things, I'm whole-assing one thing at a time.

Bill Dippel (42:11.859)
Ha

Sarah Collins (42:11.98)
Mm-hmm.

Bill Dippel (42:15.012)
Yeah. Great, great thought of focus, right? I'm going to take the distraction away. I am going to focus on what I know I need to do. And I hear you wavering a little bit, right? And when I hear that you had asked empathy and developer, like, can you coach for me for a second? How that plays out for me? Well, the reality is you just did it, right? And it's so great, so rewarding from a coaching point of view that you get to do it for yourself. We just kind of lead you there. And that is your empathy and developer listening to that ding and thinking,

Sarah Collins (42:17.771)
Absolutely.

Bill Dippel (42:45.198)
I don't want to let someone down, right? yeah, I gotta, I have to be there right now, but the focus is telling, you know, it's all right. I'll be there in 45 minutes. I have my set time, you know, and that little battle plays out. So grateful you brought it up in the way you did, right? I have the rail, but man, it's hard. Sometimes it's really hard, but it is a muscle that you can tune. It is a muscle that you can rely on when you hear the ding and say, my focus tells me don't touch that. Don't even go, don't read the...

Lizzie Vietz (42:46.424)
Somebody needs something, yeah. Yeah, true.

Sarah Collins (42:47.694)
Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (42:54.222)
Thank you.

Sarah Collins (42:54.254)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (43:06.787)
Right.

Bill Dippel (43:14.298)
top of it just to see if it's an emergency because I know what's going to happen. I'm going to take home five puppies today. So I'm out, right? I do that. So really, really good use on the focus side. And I'm sorry, Sarah, did I catch you off on something?

Lizzie Vietz (43:21.614)
Right.

Sarah Collins (43:27.724)
No, you didn't. I actually just had a total different thought and I was like, am I going to say this out loud and just take us in potentially a different direction?

Bill Dippel (43:34.813)
no. no. We know Sarah can go. this could be, I don't know. I'm worried. Go Sarah.

Sarah Collins (43:37.644)
I know, I know, I just go totally rogue. I feel like when you talk, especially because you've been through this career transition recently and the way you talk about this and I was just thinking about how you were saying like, yeah, the empathy developer wanna respond to the dings, but the focus says, hey, we've got some guardrails up, right? And so doing this, it sounds like you have a really good grasp on your values.

Lizzie Vietz (43:38.574)
Ready? Bring it on.

Sarah Collins (44:03.797)
And just the way you talk about goals and the Friday thing, do you feel like you're a person who is knowingly working toward those values or not?

Lizzie Vietz (44:16.078)
It's interesting you say that because my belief is 31. You know, and so I would say that I, for a long time since I was in my early undergrad and probably even before that, I love a professional development assessment. I've always loved that, or a personality assessment. Love Myers-Briggs, I've done Courtney Lockridge's Enneagram coaching group, love Courtney, another shout out. That was so much fun and I love a three wing two.

Sarah Collins (44:19.47)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (44:32.653)
Yes.

Sarah Collins (44:37.11)
Yes, shout out Courtney, love her.

What are you on the Enneagram? Of course you are. Oh my God, I was going to say she's such a three. Hello. Hello. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, of course. Bill?

Lizzie Vietz (44:46.165)
Of course.

Of course the wing too, for sure. Yeah, you are too, right? Yeah, yeah, duh. How are people gonna tell us apart?

Bill Dippel (44:54.362)
I'll be, I'll still be over here. I'm over here. That's okay.

Lizzie Vietz (44:59.022)
So I think I just always loved a professional development assessment. know, I like, I'm a Libra, like just like Natalie and everything. So I think all of those have always been very fun for me. That wasn't your actual question though, was it? It was about values. Okay. I think that because I've put a lot of time into understanding like who I am personally and professionally and I've spent a lot of time with.

Sarah Collins (45:13.388)
No, it was about values, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (45:23.582)
all of those assessments. And I think of all of them as a side note, like of course CliftonStrengths is the best one because it's, yes, definitely there's nobody else like you in the world. It accounts for all of our individual idiosyncrasies and all the things. Like that's just the quick little commercial for CliftonStrengths being the best one of all of the ones that I've made. Yeah, right? Yeah. Yeah, come on. So I think that's...

Sarah Collins (45:29.966)
Ding ding ding.

Sarah Collins (45:40.632)
Gallop, you could pay us. I never thought of them. They should sponsor this podcast. Hello.

Bill Dippel (45:44.18)
Wouldn't that be great, right? Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (45:48.646)
Adaptability is also not super high for me at 26, but I think my strengths lend myself well to being kind of a chameleon in what situations I need to be in. And that's a little bit of when Wu is working a little bit too hard. You know, don't want to be just like the slimy person. You don't want to be the cult leader telling everybody exactly what they want to hear to call back to the beginning of the episode. But I think I've done a good job of understanding.

Sarah Collins (46:00.43)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (46:08.462)
Right.

Lizzie Vietz (46:16.258)
when things need to be in the front seat and when things need to take a back seat. So I know that being authentic and true to myself is very important to me. Building trust with people is deeply important to me and that's why I rely so much on those grounding strengths of focus, achiever, and strategic to, I'm not just wooing someone in a client meeting, I'm going to get the things done that I tell you we're going to do for you. That will happen and it will happen on time. That's not just me grandstanding to you.

So I would say so, but I think I also have good room for if they need to change, if they need to shift, they need to change and shift. And that doesn't mean that I'm being inauthentic. It means that I'm being authentic to whoever I need to be at that time, at that chapter in my life. Because you are your longest relationship, and I think that means...

loving every version and iteration of yourself. I think it's possible that, you know, my strengths could change or shift. I don't know that I'm eager to take the test again necessarily, but I think that there are still life phases ahead of me where I'll need to work those different muscles and use those different strengths in different ways. And that does not mean that you are inauthentic to yourself. I think it means that you are actually the most authentic version of yourself you can be if you're doing that.

Sarah Collins (47:28.492)
Absolutely. And it makes me go back to the career development process, which I've mentioned a few times on the pod, right? Like the very first step is explore self. So often skipped by people and they just go straight to explore careers. And the thing is it's sickular because, is that the way you say that word? Cyclical? I just sometimes make up words and then no one corrects me.

Lizzie Vietz (47:44.494)
Cyclical? No.

Bill Dippel (47:47.086)
cyclical. It's either it's either cyclical or circular. You choose whichever whichever works. Yeah. No. I I was there with you.

Lizzie Vietz (47:51.97)
There we go. That's what it is. Yes. You did. I loved it. Yes.

Sarah Collins (47:52.064)
Okay, yeah, I just combined those two words. Whatever. You guys get what I mean. It goes in a circle. And so because we change, right? Exactly what you're saying. Like we do evolve. And so it's like the philosophy is that your strengths, the talents, that you have certain talents that you are born with.

But your interests, your skills and your values will evolve over time. Of course they will. Your life is changing. Like you're a person, you're fluid, like a little stream and you're picking up things along the way. And so that's why we, goes back to, okay, you've been performing a job. Now you go back to explore self. And so I love what you said about you are your longest relationship you'll ever have. And like being in tune and knowing yourself, how powerful that is. And it will set you and all the people you love up for success.

when you can really kind of key in on who are you and how do you get the best out of you? And ultimately, that's why we say this is the best assessment because that's what it lets us do. And it will always be my bid for Miss America of like, this is how we fix the world. This is how we get, because if every person is living the best version of themselves, there will be so much less hate and violence and crime and nastiness because you wouldn't need to do that.

Lizzie Vietz (48:47.406)
Thank

Lizzie Vietz (48:59.618)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (49:05.708)
Mm-hmm.

Yep, I'm right on that soapbox with you, for sure. And I think that's why I try to speak with a lot of love and gratitude for the iteration of myself that took the test when it gave me very like, hey, I think you might be a big time people pleaser, because that was, you know, to some extent necessary for that chapter of my life. I was networking, I was getting internships, I was learning things, I was meeting people. And in a lot of ways that helped me a lot. Liz is the one who sent me job listings for Lincoln, you know, when she was like, hey, have you ever thought about moving back? This job is open, I think you'd be great for it.

And that one didn't necessarily end up being the right fit, but like having maintained those connections made our transition back to Lincoln that much easier and that much more fun, honestly. So yeah, I totally agree.

Bill Dippel (49:49.498)
Well, Lizzie, you mentioned ThruLines earlier on and you've failed. You just witnessed another one. We call it SSM or Sarah's Soapbox Moment. So congratulations jumping in on that one. Well, yeah, it's a good one. This moment brought to you by who's sponsoring us today? I mean, we've had all sorts. So we're Gallup, sponsored by Gallup. Like, I don't think we can say that. That's fair. If they just write our bill off, that would be fine. I mean,

Lizzie Vietz (49:57.991)
yes. I like that though, yeah.

Sarah Collins (50:00.11)
I think that's the first time you've acronym-ed it though, nice!

Lizzie Vietz (50:07.854)
Yell it.

Sarah Collins (50:08.099)
Gallop!

Sarah Collins (50:12.034)
To be fair, we're the ones paying Gallup, okay? They are not paying us, we are paying them. Every time I give an assessment, money in their pocket.

Lizzie Vietz (50:14.67)
No, no,

Bill Dippel (50:18.554)
That'd be great. Okay, so Lizzie, we've heard all this great stuff about what you do really well. We've hit on empathy and developer and how that relationship hits, how you use focus as a rail component sometimes, how you really know the muscle of futuristic, how you know the woo and how it comes in. All of those are really powerful for you. You're flexing those muscles. You feel good about them because you're our number one, number 1.5 mother of the arsonist fan.

Sarah Collins (50:44.353)
Mother of the Arsonists.

Lizzie Vietz (50:46.286)
Thank you.

Bill Dippel (50:47.77)
You know what this question is. So tell me about a dumpster fire. When do you think a strength gets in your way?

Lizzie Vietz (50:54.734)
Something that kind of changed the way that I think about this was one of the more recent episodes where I forget who, I think it was Micah maybe, said that it hurts more when you fail at something you're supposed to be good at. And I was like, oh, that was just like, okay, let's take the knife out of the chest. That was a lot. And I think a good example of this for me was right after, actually I'm not sure that I had taken the assessment quite yet, but I was an intern at Career Services.

And it was my job, this was maybe sophomore year of my undergrad, it was my job to give presentations on different career development topics to different groups of students. So I think this group was maybe like an honors group or something like that. And I was just like preparing for my stand-up special when I was putting this like PowerPoint together. I was putting in gifts from like my favorite shows that like they didn't care about. And I think they were freshmen. So we weren't that like different in age necessarily, but there was just...

I was trying so hard, was like, I have to craft this presentation from a point of being the funniest and most likable person around. And my content fell flat. Like it was not nearly as helpful as I wanted it to be. I was getting like pity laughs. Like it was not, I'm sure that it was still helpful in some way or another. I don't mean to like rag on myself too much, but I just knew that I had come at it from the point of view of I have to be like the funniest, most likable.

best person in the room with this and really what I should have worried about was what do they need to hear and let's be more strategic about that content instead of like wooing it up so so hard. So that's a time where that's fallen flat I think and I think it's also a lot easier to see the dumpster fires in the strengths that are really strong. So we see that I see this with futuristic a lot. I know I said that it doesn't always take me out of the present like some people think that it might but there are times when it does do that.

Sarah Collins (52:21.112)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (52:24.922)
Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (52:41.686)
So my husband and I bought our first house about actually exactly a year ago. It was February 13th is our house anniversary. And so we've been doing all kinds of renovation projects to like bring it into this century basically. It's very stuck in the nineties. And my husband is phenomenal at that. He's just Bob the builder. He gets so much energy from that. You heard the restorative his number five. He loves fixing a problem. And there are times when I look around and I just start dreaming about what could be there.

Sarah Collins (53:10.158)
Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Vietz (53:11.246)
You know, I'm like, oh, wouldn't it be amazing if we could do X, and Z with this room or blah, blah. And he takes me so seriously. He's like, well, we need this really expensive tool and I don't know about that. Or, well, you know, I'm still working on this part of this room or whatever. And he's like, no, no, no, I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming, it's fine. So we've gotten into like, you know, just had discussions about like, do you actually mean that? Like, do you really want that to happen? And I was like, yes, I really want the library with the rolling bookshelf or the rolling ladder in the book. was like, yes. And we are doing that by the way. I'm very excited about it.

Bill Dippel (53:20.666)
you

Sarah Collins (53:32.44)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (53:37.622)
YAAAAS

Lizzie Vietz (53:41.346)
But we've come up with a system of like, hey, if I have an idea, I'm going to follow up with a percentage of how real I'm actually being about that. It's like, hey, could we do that? I'm 40 % serious right now, you know, or something like that. Because he leads with Achiever, he'll, you know, get something done. And then he's like, okay, we're doing the bathroom next. What's the plan for that? And I'm like, yes. Exactly.

Sarah Collins (53:48.61)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (53:52.666)
you

Sarah Collins (53:53.718)
Yes.

Sarah Collins (54:00.034)
Yes. And restorative is like, okay, let's do it. How do we fix it? This is...

Lizzie Vietz (54:05.55)
Yeah, and so I'm like, but I haven't thought about what I want to do for bathroom design yet or whatever. So then we come up with a system of like, okay, this is when I think I'm to be done with this project. I would love your input for design about this because I can help with like the actual projects and things like that. Also speaking of developer, but I'm in grad school right now too on top of working full time.

Sarah Collins (54:24.175)
just a little FYI.

Lizzie Vietz (54:25.976)
Just a little, you know, side note there. So I'm not doing nearly as much of the actual house projects. Most of my input is on the design front and my futuristic dreaming really likes that. So we've just come up with systems of how to like talk about project timelines and schedules and things like that when my futuristic gets an overdrive and like wants me to dream all the time about it instead of actually coming up with the real actionable items and projects and things. So.

Bill Dippel (54:26.266)
Hmm.

Sarah Collins (54:48.846)
You hit on one of my favorite questions for futuristic couples is, is this a dream or a goal? Right? That's what it is. It's like, are we just dreaming, ideating, or are we goaling? Like, are we setting out a timeline? I have to use this with my partner as well.

Lizzie Vietz (54:57.09)
Thank you.

Lizzie Vietz (55:00.526)
Right. And that like, yes, and the like, I think the percentage of how serious I am, his analytical really likes that. So that works well for us for sure.

Sarah Collins (55:07.886)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (55:12.62)
Wow. I just love the way that you and your husband have worked together so well and you know your strengths. mean, to just like go out on a limb here, you got married pretty young, right? You're young. Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (55:23.118)
I did. Yeah, we got married in May of 2021. So I would, we were 23. But that's just when you find your person in college, you know, and then yeah.

Sarah Collins (55:28.418)
Yes, it is. But I just love to hear you're young, but the way that you talk about your husband with such love and adoration and just the way that you have strategically thought about working together and the little book club with the podcasts and stuff that you all have and the way you talk about your house projects and your strengths. just say like, kudos to you. Keep that up.

Lizzie Vietz (55:54.52)
Thanks. We say often, like, we just love being on, like, I love being on your team, you know? Like, it's always us against the world. It's never us against each other. So, yeah, I love him.

Sarah Collins (55:59.286)
Yes!

Wow, wow, that's really incredible. the way you articulate your dumpster fire strengths is just seriously point like on point with the home projects and then even the presentation. Wow, the amount of times the woo as a presenter, you do have to keep it in check. I think that is so relatable. Will, Bill, Will, whoever you are.

Bill Dippel (56:04.122)
Thank you.

Lizzie Vietz (56:24.002)
really do. Yes.

Bill Dippel (56:28.058)
You know, I'm still over here. Don't worry. You guys do what you do. It's a great podcast, by the way. I've loved listening. So thank you guys. So, Karen, so Karen, yeah, what was the question?

Lizzie Vietz (56:29.07)
Mr. William Dipple.

You're just previewing it for us. Something that I love in... yeah. I love in the report, in the communication section, like one of the sentences that my report gave me is literally, you're probably a very good talker. And that was like, I think in the last episode, you guys were talking about how...

Sarah Collins (56:42.155)
Yeah!

Bill Dippel (56:44.794)
You

Lizzie Vietz (56:59.054)
Like Sarah, sometimes you can say things that sound kind of mean, but you actually mean them with a lot of like love and grace and people take them well because you're so nice about it. That to me is the report sometimes of like, you're probably a very good talker. Like I don't know that you've ever shut up once in your life. And I was like, okay, note taken.

Bill Dippel (57:04.356)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Collins (57:09.774)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (57:13.08)
Yeah, Lizzie, you bring it up. You're absolutely right. You have to listen to Sarah because it might sound like it's coming from a place where you're like, that's going to sting. And it might actually sting right in the beginning. But when you listen to it and you realize it, we're like, Hmm, actually she is just making us better or whatever it is. So as a cohost, I get it all the time. I brought up a possibility of something we were doing in the pre pre show. And she was like, no, nobody's going to want to listen to that. And it wasn't even a

Lizzie Vietz (57:31.382)
Exactly. Yeah.

Bill Dippel (57:42.658)
It wasn't even a, let me think about it for a second. was, nobody's gonna listen to that. And I went, okay, so let me just, you and you gotta get used to Sarah. There's some moments, yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (57:42.702)
Yes ma'am.

Sarah Collins (57:51.596)
Sorry about that everyone, I apologize in advance.

Lizzie Vietz (57:51.886)
How do you do that with woo so high? Because I feel like I have like, I would be worried about like the delivery of that.

Bill Dippel (57:59.95)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Collins (58:01.112)
I think it's my activator, which I always say my activator is my dumpster fire because activator communication, I say things as I think them. And that's what gets me into trouble. Yes. Yes. so like too, I am always saying I'm verbally processing. So I always say, I don't know what I think about this until I've talked to like five people about it.

Lizzie Vietz (58:09.752)
sure.

Are you an audio processor too? Like, okay. Yeah.

Bill Dippel (58:15.608)
Yeah. And it, you you

Sarah Collins (58:24.876)
which does drive my husband crazy. Cause he'll be like, I told you this. Why didn't you just like believe me? I'm like, no, no, no. It wasn't that I didn't believe you. It was just like the way I process is I need like to say it out loud, like five other times. Cause there's been things with Bill in the podcast where he'll say something. I'll be like, no. And then I'll come back and be like, you know what? I actually think that was a good idea. I've talked to seven other people about it now. Yeah. Yeah. My word quota.

Lizzie Vietz (58:41.944)
Yeah. I've hit my word count on this and I...

Bill Dippel (58:44.442)
Yeah, the word counts a good one. Yeah. And because we all have Wu Hai, you asked about it, right? I think not to not to give shout outs like like water on this show every time, but part of it is too, because we all have Wu and we know what that looks like. Kudos to Sarah sometimes, because early on when we were together and doing some of this and we were going over show ideas, she would see it would wound me like she would say something and we would be talking and I'd be like, well, but

and she'd like, look, I'm not saying no, I'm just saying let's she would, you know, and I think indicative for strengths aware people is knowing the value and especially high relationship people as Sarah and I are knowing the empathy and the feelings around other people because and now I let her off the hook and she lets me off the hook on certain things. we she talked about doing something for an event we have coming up and I was like, well, why would we?

Why would we do that? don't have, we're not at this level to do that and this. And she was like, well, I think, you know, it would do this. And then after about a minute and half, two minutes of us barely talking about it, she said, I thought about it. You're absolutely right. We shouldn't do that. Right. That, that should not be what we do that thing. Right. And, and, so it does fly in the face of woos, especially with empathy, right. And developer, I do feel that sometimes, but then

because of our relationship and I have to foster that relationship and then Sarah also identifies it. And there are moments I throw something at Sarah and I know she goes, hmm, right? And I know her woo gets a little fluffled and then I have to step into it. But this is true for my wife, right? Sometimes I overwoo the wife or the things we're doing. So thanks for bringing it up, but it does happen, right? It's going to happen where Mike, I'm sorry, Jim Collison loves saying where two people exist.

Lizzie Vietz (01:00:20.718)
I'm so full.

video.

Lizzie Vietz (01:00:31.256)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (01:00:36.698)
conflict will happen and that's, know, inevitably that will happen. We just had to learn how to, that we're not actually shooting at each other, we're making each other better. And I think that's the step in for that.

Lizzie Vietz (01:00:37.998)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (01:00:38.584)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Collins (01:00:46.466)
Right. Just like you said with your husband.

Lizzie Vietz (01:00:47.054)
My organizational communication class for grad school this semester would agree with you a lot. We're talking about conflict resolution right now. so, yeah. Sure. I'll lend you my textbook. Why not?

Sarah Collins (01:00:56.846)
Can you teach me some things? I might need it. I may need it. Yeah.

Bill Dippel (01:01:00.77)
Lizzie, Lizzie, can you please teach her some things, please?

Lizzie Vietz (01:01:03.47)
I'm a very good talker, so my presentations have gotten better since my undergraduate degree, so yes.

Bill Dippel (01:01:09.24)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha

Sarah Collins (01:01:11.434)
I do think that this is neither here nor there for the podcast, but if you believe in God or a higher power, the world wants me to know about conflict resolution. I'm having some personal conflict in my life and it's coming up with clients. There's conflict that I'm having to mediate and just present conflict presentations I'm being asked to do. I'm like, hello, okay, the universe really wants me to learn how to manage conflict.

Bill Dippel (01:01:21.178)
Ha

Lizzie Vietz (01:01:22.19)
You

Bill Dippel (01:01:23.982)
Mmm.

Lizzie Vietz (01:01:28.952)
Mm.

Lizzie Vietz (01:01:33.314)
Yep, And it'll keep doing the same lesson in front of you until you learn it, for sure.

Bill Dippel (01:01:35.267)
It's time.

Sarah Collins (01:01:38.632)
Exactly. So if you could send that textbook, I'll give you that.

Lizzie Vietz (01:01:42.008)
You got it. It's yours after I'm done, I promise. It's just a chapter in there, but yeah.

Sarah Collins (01:01:46.478)
This probably not enough.

Bill Dippel (01:01:46.668)
I Sarah, Sarah's going to ask me, can you just put another hosting tag on our, on our transistor site? And it's going to be called Lizzie and Sarah's conflict resolution podcast. got, we're all good, right? It's all don't worry about it. Nothing, nothing you have to do. Yeah. So, well, I that's, that's really good. Are you so Lizzie, are you ready for the fun question? I mean, we've thrown the hard stuff at you. You want the fun one?

Lizzie Vietz (01:02:01.048)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (01:02:02.763)
about it.

Lizzie Vietz (01:02:11.34)
I was born ready.

Bill Dippel (01:02:12.428)
Alright, let's get to the fun one. If one of your top strengths were a flavor of candy, what would it taste like?

Lizzie Vietz (01:02:18.382)
Okay, I'm an overachiever, so I'm gonna do it for all five. So, and I'll go in order. number one, futuristic, that's a coffee flavored candy. Because, for me, like I said earlier, it's very motivating, it's energizing for me, it gets me to where I need to go, it shows me the vision, but sometimes you get coffee breath and that's not everybody's jam. know, like that's not for everybody, but for me, it's that motivation, the energizing.

Bill Dippel (01:02:21.748)
good. well thank God.

Sarah Collins (01:02:23.714)
Get it, girl.

Bill Dippel (01:02:29.112)
Mmm.

Sarah Collins (01:02:40.975)
my gosh, this is so good, yes?

Bill Dippel (01:02:43.001)
Yes.

Lizzie Vietz (01:02:47.33)
That's what it does for me. My woo, strawberry flavored. That is a crowd pleaser. She gets along. can have it. Everyone loves strawberry. You can do lots of different combinations. Crowd pleasing, woo, strawberry. Strategic is dark chocolate because chocolate is good. Milk chocolate is fine, but dark chocolate's better. It's more elevated. It's a better pairing.

Bill Dippel (01:02:51.802)
You

Sarah Collins (01:02:53.654)
Everybody loves it.

Sarah Collins (01:03:08.43)
Ooooo!

Lizzie Vietz (01:03:13.272)
I'm thinking like sea salt, dark chocolate. just, it's that extra little, exactly, exactly. That little extra finesse for sure. Okay, communication is vanilla because it's present in everything. It's always there, but when it is done very, very well, you can tell and it sings. It's so beautiful when something so simple is done so well and it's so underappreciated.

Sarah Collins (01:03:15.934)
health benefits. I mean, this is good for you at this point.

Sarah Collins (01:03:38.871)
Wow.

Bill Dippel (01:03:41.912)
now. My favorite flavor, so thank you for that.

Lizzie Vietz (01:03:44.908)
And it's very good and everybody needs it. Again, it's kind of a crowd pleaser like woo, but yes, sings when it's done well, for sure.

Bill Dippel (01:03:49.326)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love it. And you wanted positivity, you're gonna do all five. Yeah, she's riveting. Sarah keeps dancing, especially on the coffee when Sarah was dancing. So go, yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (01:03:54.958)
I do, Sarah, do you have something to say? Okay, okay, okay, you're holding your breath. Okay. Positivity for me, this is kind of like, because you've always described positivity, Sarah, as a vibe, as just fun, this is my preferred movie candy, peach drinks. They're like.

Sarah Collins (01:03:56.182)
No, I was just waiting for positivity. I'm on the edge here.

Lizzie Vietz (01:04:17.358)
and fun and vibrant. They're not, they're not really sour. Like a lot of people think that peach rings are sour by nature, but they're not. They just taste like peaches and they've got the yummy little sugar on the outside and they're just fun and bright and they taste like summer and they make everything just a little bit better. So that's my preferred movie snack. I like popcorn and peach rings.

Sarah Collins (01:04:18.168)
P-G-O's.

Sarah Collins (01:04:32.777)
Wow.

Sarah Collins (01:04:37.172)
I am so impressed with this. really am. have to say kudos to you for doing a hell of a good job with your bonus question and thanking it.

Lizzie Vietz (01:04:42.36)
Thank you. Sometimes I will actually most episodes I pause the podcast and then give my own answer for the fun question or something. So I I've already been acting like I host which is so communication with me. It's not even funny, but I'm like.

Sarah Collins (01:04:52.296)
yes!

Bill Dippel (01:04:57.754)
So good. my god.

Sarah Collins (01:05:01.356)
This is the first step of you having your own podcast. I would also like you to know that when I was a child and we first had a computer, like a big desktop computer, and we had a burn CD. So for the young people, used to, you know, have a disk drive in our computer and I would download songs illegally, which I did get caught for and in trouble for. So nobody come after me. I've already paid my dues.

Lizzie Vietz (01:05:12.206)
Great. Yes.

Bill Dippel (01:05:20.91)
Yes. Yes.

Sarah Collins (01:05:24.454)
and I would burn them onto CDs. But what I realized I could do is I could also record my voice. And so I started making Sarah's Hot Radio Mix. And so in junior high, I have some CDs out there that will say, hey everybody, welcome to Sarah's KLBM, caller call in. And then I would say.

Lizzie Vietz (01:05:37.56)
Cool leaves, hungry thumbs.

Sarah Collins (01:05:45.09)
Judy! Hey Judy, how you doing?

Bill Dippel (01:05:50.33)
All right.

Sarah Collins (01:05:51.192)
to hear Pharrell. I got Pharrell coming up for you.

Bill Dippel (01:05:53.305)
Now I'm.

That's it. I am on a worldwide scour search to find some old CDs. no.

Lizzie Vietz (01:05:57.102)
That's amazing.

Sarah Collins (01:06:03.095)
You cannot find them.

Lizzie Vietz (01:06:03.19)
Okay, my birthday is not until the fall. I'm an October baby, like I said, I'm a Libra, but that's all that I want for my birthday. What is it called? Sarah's Hot Mix? Sarah's Hot Radio Mix. I want that with a bow on it, please.

Sarah Collins (01:06:06.146)
Yes

Bill Dippel (01:06:10.426)
That's all I want.

Sarah Collins (01:06:13.208)
Sarah's Hot Radio Mix.

Bill Dippel (01:06:18.714)
What's coming? my god.

Sarah Collins (01:06:19.628)
I do think my friend John has one of the CDs and it's frightening because he loves to make like music. He's not, you famous, but he just makes a lot of music on his own. And at one point he stole one of my hot radio mixes and I'm always afraid for when that's going to haunt me. He's going to come back with some sort of remix.

Lizzie Vietz (01:06:28.664)
Sure.

Lizzie Vietz (01:06:37.742)
It's gonna be like when you run for like mayor of Lincoln, you know, it's gonna be like the scandal.

Sarah Collins (01:06:40.46)
Yes, which I can't do because of my past, okay? There's too many skeletons in the closet. This girl can't be a politician. Yes, one time I did putty wrestling, so I knew at that moment my political career was over.

Lizzie Vietz (01:06:47.022)
Too many illegal song downloads and now Arson, accused of Arson.

Bill Dippel (01:06:48.762)
It's so good.

So good.

Bill Dippel (01:06:56.762)
Totally over, yeah. You bring it up, I was so prior to Renee, we call that BR before Renee, I was married to an amazing woman and when we met she had some VHS tapes and we plugged one in and she goes, gosh, I'm so embarrassed by this and she plugged it in. She was a VJ at a, not on MTV, but at like a Lake Tahoe late night.

Lizzie Vietz (01:06:56.866)
Okay, good to know.

Bill Dippel (01:07:24.984)
you know, broadcast TV thing. And it was just her, no production. was just, and then she, you know, she'd move the slider and the video would come up and then, so it was just her doing it. And in the opening segment, she was explaining that Chardet's name, everybody says Sadie, but this is the video by Chardet. It's not Sadie, is there, you know, and, it's in it. And I still have those tapes. I've been waiting, waiting for somebody to say, you know, today we honor Julie Ardito, who's the

Sarah Collins (01:07:47.662)
Wow.

Bill Dippel (01:07:54.658)
my ex-wife and we're gonna have this huge presentation with 500 people so I can approach the media people and be like, okay, well, yeah. And by the way, it's in a fun tone, right? I'm not like, you it's more like, because she would, celebration stuff, because she is amazing and laughs so hard when she has it. Actually, I don't think I have the tapes anymore. think they all went away a long time ago.

Lizzie Vietz (01:07:59.074)
There you go.

Sarah Collins (01:08:01.646)
I've got something for you. Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (01:08:01.71)
Well there you go, Sarah. This is what we're playing at your funeral then, is what?

Sarah Collins (01:08:07.778)
Right.

Lizzie Vietz (01:08:07.828)
yeah, celebration of life. Right?

Lizzie Vietz (01:08:20.494)
Huh, whoa.

Bill Dippel (01:08:21.422)
But my God, what a great story. Yeah, very funny. I get where I want to Sarah CD myself. I do. Yeah.

Sarah Collins (01:08:22.232)
That's incredible.

Lizzie Vietz (01:08:24.002)
Yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (01:08:28.664)
Yeah, this is instead of Christmas cards this winter, you just send out, you burn more copies of your Sarah's Hot Radio mix.

Sarah Collins (01:08:32.192)
Yeah, Sarah's hot radio mix.

Bill Dippel (01:08:37.21)
Absolutely. Well, I have to say I am in the cult of Lizzie. It's done.

Sarah Collins (01:08:37.422)
I'll just make a Spotify playlist of it. Yeah, yeah.

Lizzie Vietz (01:08:39.704)
Perfect.

Sarah Collins (01:08:44.703)
I know!

Lizzie Vietz (01:08:45.55)
Okay, it's funny that you mentioned that because I had one of my best friends as an icebreaker ask, like we have a group chat with like her husband and me and friends and everybody and the question was, if you were evil, what would your job be? And so it's like what you're already good at, but use the powers for evil. And we agreed that I would run an MLM or a cult. Like that's my evil job. I have not pursued it, but.

Bill Dippel (01:09:10.774)
I love, I love she put MLM and Colt in the exact same spot. That's great. Yeah. Very nice. So.

Lizzie Vietz (01:09:15.306)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's not what I do. I'm not at risk of doing it. I'm not going to commit arson. I feel the need to those disclaimers somewhere in this episode, but...

Sarah Collins (01:09:17.036)
That is incredible and that.

Sarah Collins (01:09:24.184)
Disclaimers. That should be our next question, Bill, on the next pod. If you were evil, what would you be evil at?

Bill Dippel (01:09:26.596)
So good.

Bill Dippel (01:09:30.692)
We're putting it up. Yeah. Yeah. If you're evil, yeah. What would your evil.

Lizzie Vietz (01:09:31.072)
If you were evil, what would your job be? I feel like you guys would be similar because you're so with people and if you used your developer and empathy for bad, that would be kind of similar. So, yeah. Okay, great.

Bill Dippel (01:09:40.216)
Yeah, that one's coming around. We're putting that on the list. So I like it. And Lizzie, don't, you know, I don't want to get in the hot water of number one fan, but I would say you're rocketing up to a number to a very high number guest for us right now. So

Sarah Collins (01:09:42.658)
You're right.

Lizzie Vietz (01:09:52.493)
Okay.

Lizzie Vietz (01:09:58.072)
Tune into season two where Mark and I duke it out on live.

Sarah Collins (01:10:01.006)
There you go.

Bill Dippel (01:10:01.024)
Yeah, there'll be a we'll prompt it as a cage match. It'll be fine. You know, we'll make it work. So Marco love it. but

Lizzie Vietz (01:10:05.614)
Perfect.

Sarah Collins (01:10:07.0)
That's right. We could do pudding wrestling. I have experience.

Bill's face! Are you frozen?

Bill Dippel (01:10:15.802)
I am not editing that silence out of that. I have learned so much from her radio DJ faking days to the, know, that.

Sarah Collins (01:10:18.766)
you

Lizzie Vietz (01:10:20.012)
No!

Lizzie Vietz (01:10:23.95)
The other through line that we need here is that there's also been a lot of references to what the t-shirts are gonna look like as merch. And I would like to claim one, put my name in for one whenever you make anything, t-shirts, which or whatever, I'd love one. Send me the link to buy one.

Sarah Collins (01:10:27.096)
I'm just solidified.

Bill Dippel (01:10:33.38)
There is, yeah.

Sarah Collins (01:10:33.43)
Yes.

Bill Dippel (01:10:39.17)
Yes, absolutely. Both you and Mark, they're going out same time. that's number one. We're still working on how it all looks. We have a dragon on it, we think. The term grabber ass has to be on there for Sarah. The arsonist is the main, you're right. so good. Yes.

Sarah Collins (01:10:41.283)
Yes.

Sarah Collins (01:10:44.898)
That's right, we'll sell two. We'll sell two.

Lizzie Vietz (01:10:45.72)
Right, right, we'll sell two.

I was gonna say dragon, cage match now. That's right. That's right. I think down the sleeve for grab her ass, you know? Yeah. Incredible.

Sarah Collins (01:10:55.48)
Yeah.

Sarah Collins (01:10:59.598)
Crap.

Bill Dippel (01:11:04.396)
my God. All right. Well, I am officially in the cult of Lizzie. I love what you do and that you bring it up and how you do it, Lizzie. So thank you for coming and sharing that with us. I am so sorry that ringing this positivity out of you was so difficult today. So I know. I know I...

Lizzie Vietz (01:11:22.614)
It's tough. Yeah, I'm not energized or ready to skip into the rest of my day at all. It's just super draining for me. Yeah.

Sarah Collins (01:11:24.408)
Yeah.

Bill Dippel (01:11:28.462)
Nothing, yeah. All right. Well, as the as the wait, I know I can't put it on her. I was going to say as the listener that does it the most and who came up with the name, have you memorized our our farewell tagline? Do you want to throw it out there?

Sarah Collins (01:11:30.326)
Yeah, we can tell. We can tell the energy is really dipped, obviously.

Lizzie Vietz (01:11:48.046)
Ooh, I feel like I could do the intro better than I could the...

Bill Dippel (01:11:50.65)
all right. All right. So as the person who created it, as the person who coined our arsonists for all of you out there, we will be talking to our arsonists on the next episode. Thank you so much for listening, and we will talk soon.

Sarah Collins (01:11:52.078)
Hmm.

Sarah Collins (01:12:08.75)
Bye!

Lizzie Vietz (01:12:09.432)
Bye.
Sarah Collins
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