Meet Nick Ayres. Nick was the reason The Home Depot became a big social media powerhouse in the late 2000s. But can you imagine that his background began in music?

TAMAR:  Hi everybody today I think is Episode 38. I don’t even know, I lost track. And I have a really old friend who, funny enough, I had to ask him how to pronounce his last name because I’ve seen it but I have not ever pronounced it. It’s Nick Ayres. A, Y, R, E, S. What would you think to pronounce it as? I’m not going to just let your imagination go wild. Thank you so much, Nick, for joining.

00:43

NICK AYRES: Yeah, thanks for having me. And yeah, it’s maybe more common to see it spelled a little bit differently. But I’m glad you now know how to pronounce my last name. So, if nothing else out of this podcast, you came that little tiny tidbit.

00:56

TAMAR: So, yeah. You always have to know about those Ayres out there.

01:00

NICK AYRES: Yeah, absolutely.

01:02

TAMAR:  Yeah. So, tell me where are you based? And what are you up to these days?

01:05

NICK AYRES: Yeah, so I am currently based in Atlanta, actually just north of Atlanta in the suburb, but have been here for almost 15 years now, or I guess a little over 15 years. So, my family and I live here. And I’ve been just doing the corporate marketing thing for the said 15 or so years here in Atlanta. I grew up in the Midwest and lived in Nashville for a while. But I’ve been here in Atlanta. And I’ve been really pretty much hunker down with COVID. Like a lot of folks are short, but enjoy Atlanta. My wife is from Nashville. And so, we definitely have a lot of roots in the south. But Atlanta is a great place.

01:47

TAMAR:  Awesome. So, one of the things we were talking about in the context of the Common Scents podcast is  your career trajectory and how it’s sort of unlikely and you said you’re in corporate marketing, but it has kind of evolved. So, give me a little bit of that story.

02:05

NICK AYRES: Yeah, it’s definitely been a windy but an interesting journey for myself. So, as I mentioned real briefly, I grew up in the Midwest. I grew up in Kansas, in Topeka, which is the capital, it’s still a relatively small town of about 150,000 or so. And I got my undergraduate degree at a small state school in Kansas, primarily, honestly, because I did college debate, which is kind of  a whole other sort of realm of my personality, but spent four years in high school and four years in college doing debate and had the opportunity to debate at a really high level, at a program in a small state school that just happened to be one of the top debate schools in the nation. So that was a really interesting experience for me. But at the same time, while I was doing debate, I was also doing music stuff, and was studying marketing. So, I’ve been a budding musician my whole life. I’m a classically trained pianist to play jazz in college. And sort of had these dual pass of I’m going to study marketing, but I also have this music passion on the side. And so ultimately, when I graduated with my degree, I had always thought that if I was going to take time to try to do something professionally with music, it would be wise to go ahead and get my degree and then do that after college. And I just decided now’s a good time, I didn’t have anything sort of holding me in Kansas. And I knew more people in Nashville than I did in LA or New York. And so, I made the decision to pack up my car and move to Nashville and to pursue music professionally. And so, I spent a handful of years in Nashville doing just that, was in a band that got to play a fair amount, did some studio work, sort of all of those fun things. But at the same time was also getting sort of on the side at that point pursuing business, working for a really small magazine publishing firm. And so was kind of exercising that other side of my brain for several years. I mean, really enjoyed that experience. But ultimately, didn’t get rich and famous, didn’t make a million dollars. And so, I decided it was time to transition and to try something different again. And so, in 2003, my wife, or my wife that we’ve just been married about a year and a half, we decided to move to Atlanta to pursue my MBA at Georgia Tech. And so that’s how we landed in Atlanta. So, spent the next two years doing full time MBA and then landed in corporate marketing. And so, I didn’t know much about social media at that point, for sure. Social was really just kind of in a very early stages like things, like Second Life and a few message boards and those sorts of things. But the roles that I were in was in early on at the Home Depot, really afforded an opportunity to sort of play in some of those spaces and then the last sort of nonsocial role I was at home too was a content marketing role. And if you know anything about Home Depot, one of their big sort of premises is they want to help people do projects themselves to do DIY projects. And we had this great video content that was buried on our site, and that very few people were able to find unless you knew exactly what you’re looking for. And again, it was a content library that I was in charge of. And about that time, this new platform called YouTube, it just started to make some noise. And so, we were like, what if we put up some of our video content or DIY content on YouTube, and let’s see what happens. And it really just kind of took off from there and kind of went from, hey, let’s just talk about YouTube to hey, let’s think about Twitter and Facebook and sort of all the other platforms and really, again, went from being a sort of a small part of my job to the core and building the social strategy for Home Depot. It’s been pretty heavy and social from there, both IHG, which is a big hospitality firm and then lastly, at Georgia Pacific. So, I’ve always had an interest in passionate marketing and creativity. I think those have served me well. But it’s definitely been a winding road of like, hey, first, we’re going to do some more analytical stuff with debate and marketing, and then we’re going to do some music stuff. And then we’re going to switch back to marketing and innovation. And so, it’s been a lot of fun, and definitely not a straight line trajectory that you might see some folks take.

06:24

TAMAR: That’s awesome. So let me ask you, I’m trying to remember like, I guess for you as well in your Home Depot days, it feels like a couple of lifetimes ago. I think we and I spoke to Justin about this also. Justin Levy, he was a previous podcasts guest. I did cover you in my book, is that correct?

06:47

NICK AYRES: He did. Yeah. You’re right. It feels like eons ago. Yeah, it’s crazy.

06:53

TAMAR: I don’t even remember that life anymore. It’s such a crazy story. It’s such an insane, insane story. But I didn’t realize that you came from such a different type of background here. Like, it’s so eclectic, if you will, like coming from music to marketing, from m to m.

07:08

NICK AYRES: Yeah, I think it is right. It’s funny when I tell people about it, they have sort of similar reactions. I think that common thread so far has been that sort of kernel of innovation and creativity. And I don’t want to say novelty, certainly social isn’t that but sort of exploring new areas and new ideas, and figuring out how to bring those to life, whether that’s in music or business, there’s definitely been part of my personality that’s always been interested in and passionate about sort of new creative things. And so, it’s funny I, I’ll never forget, I was talking to one of our career counselors at Georgia Tech, after I had sort of taken the job at the Home Depot. And they were like, I never in a million years would have anticipated that you would take a role in a big corporation, like the Home Depot, sort of knowing your background and knowing your passions. But when I sort of explained a little bit about the role and the opportunity, and sort of that nuance of finding ways to do creative things, whether it’s at a super small business in a band or at a giant corporation, that made a little bit more sense. But yeah, it’s definitely not a real traditional path. I will say, though, I’ve also noticed, and I’ve actually seen a couple of articles on this, that there are a fair number of like musicians or former musicians who have heavy tap in social or in digital. I mean, just for whatever reason, it’s an interesting cross section that you see a lot of musicians who ultimately get plugged into that space as well. So, it’s been interesting to again blurred background and sort of see how people have gotten that.

08:53

TAMAR: Yeah, it is interesting. I mean, it’s also like, why did I go from Tech to wellness or mental health, I guess, because everybody these days is going to wellness. But my justification is a very, very personal story. And I don’t typically see many people like the marrying idea. Some people are just kind of forced into it. But yeah, yours is obviously a passion. Mine, life circumstances put me in this path where I feel like I need to do this. Is it going to be the biggest moneymaker? Who knows? I would like to think that it could be, it’s so interesting to just kind of see where things are. And yeah,

09:31

NICK AYRES: I think one broad generalization, for sure. But I think our generations and certainly my kids and generations after them, I think, my parents, rightly or wrongly, were more likely to get locked into a career path or sort of headed in a certain direction. Again, there are lots of environmental reasons for that and certainly personal ones as well. But I think I was certainly fortunate to grow up at a time when there was a little bit more flexibility to be able to say, hey, I’m going to try a few different things and know that even if one of them fails, or one of them goes poorly, or even if one of them goes really great, that doesn’t mean I have to do this for the rest of my life.  And I  would say both of the negative and the positive or maybe not to reach full potential, and maybe on the other side of something certainly music, it’s not I ended it with a huge bank accounts or anything like that, but it was a life experience that I would never trade for the world. And I feel really fortunate that I got the opportunity to do that and learned a lot of stuff that I think still serves me to this day. And on the other side, I would say, we’re just talking about the beginnings of social, if you will see me in eons ago. I don’t feel I’m in a position as much as I love social today knows what the next 20 or 30 years will look like for me, and whether I end up doing something completely different for my next career turn or whatever. So, I feel fortunate to be in a place where it’s not a situation where I’m locked in to have to do something for the firm, you just do one thing for 30, 40 50 years. And I feel pretty fortunate that we live in a time when we have a little bit more of that flexibility.

11:29

TAMAR: Yeah, yeah. And you were an early adopter in a socially appropriate that wasn’t really a big thing, hence the cover in the book.

11:40

NICK AYRES: Yeah, it was and it’s funny I still get random notifications every once in a while because of what I’m about to say. But I literally press the Go button on the corporate Home Depot Facebook page, and so I feel forever will be tied, for better or worse, to Home Depot Facebook page. And to your point that was just because it was not a thing in 2006, 2007, 2008 and so had a lot of interesting opportunities that came along with that. But it’s funny every once in a while I’ll get these random notifications from some part of Facebook, that’s probably long been turned off, but is still associated with my profile or my email.

12:20

TAMAR: Oh, that’s so weird. I’m an editor to several brands and I just noticed, I mean, obviously, in your case, it’s like a fragment of something, like, lingering in the background, you probably had no access.

NICK AYRES:  So yeah, no access or anything like that. But that’s what makes it even more weird. It’s like, okay, well, I’m sure there’s some fragment there, someplace that’s kicking off the notification. But yeah, it’s a little bit of nostalgia, for sure to say, to get to your point, it’s the wild west of early days and corporate social. And it was a lot of fun, but it was crazy times for sure.

12:59

TAMAR: Right. That’s so funny. Yeah.. And I got it. Usually, for me, it’s never like that. It’s just somebody who notices that they had me as an accountant, like an editor or some sort of account role. And they removed me and I get a notification six years after terminated, like, relationships are terminated, oh, you’ve been removed. As you know, the editor to this page doesn’t distribute to this page. It’s kind of bittersweet.

NICK AYRES: Yeah.

TAMAR: It’s almost like, get a good read.

13:27

NICK AYRES:  Yeah, I won’t lie. I have a few of those from other companies that I’ve worked with, where I still get notifications as well. And so, it’s the strategist and me and I guess the social media architect is like, it’s part of the reason we talk about things making sure you have a good sense of who manages what any accounts, and you’ve got multiple people that have admin access, all that sort of stuff. But it also was, excuse me, just a sign of how far things have come, but there are often 10s of people that have access on accounts, and it’s just a lot more complicated than maybe when we started 15 years ago.

14:10

TAMAR: Yeah, definitely. So, you kind of alluded to this a little bit, but I’m going to maybe just hone in on it very, very briefly. A big part of the Common Scents podcast we talked about is your rise above adversity. And you had told me before you can’t really speak to that point. But I think you kind of can because right now we’re in Coronavirus, chaos, the craziness that is never ending. And I think all of us are kind of facing our own little adversity. So, give me a little bit of background about how you’re coping and how you’re doing and how potentially listeners, myself, how we can help.

14:45

NICK AYRES: Yeah, it’s definitely an interesting season and I would say, we, my family, have struggled in the same ways that I think a lot of folks have a lot of need for human interaction. Face-to -face human interaction has been certainly challenging. And I think that is an area where for me personally, a fairly traditional introvert, so I may be less and less need of significant amounts of face-to- face interaction everyday all the time. But I will tell you that within my family, I’ve got at least a couple who are exactly the opposite. And so, there certainly has been a lot of challenges, just figuring out what the new normal looks like, of how do you maintain a healthy mental state not just for yourself, but also for your family. And again, for me personally, that is sort of weighed on my wife, and then on my kids. It starts to weigh on you as well. And so, I would say and for me personally, part of what we have been trying to do is just to find what that new normal looks like for intentionally, and that just sort of lived too long. Or for too long in a state of like, okay, we don’t really know what we’re going to do, or, hey, let’s just watch Netflix for 20 hours a day, or whatever it might be, but let’s find a way to get into a new routine, knowing full well that retuning is going to be a little bit different. But let’s try to keep some baseline of normalcy in our lives and find the glimmers of happiness. Whether that’s finding ways to take it outside and go take a walk with a family or play with our dog or have a little bit more quality time, but we do get to watch a little bit more television, movies, or whatever it might be, just trying to find ways to keep some normalcy for us again, knowing that will be a little bit different. And I think, in terms of real specifically, like I’ve got kids that are a little bit older, basically a couple almost teenage girls that are slightly younger than a boy. And so, I think for them, the challenge for us is again helping them see sort of  the other side, say this is a season, right? This is a stretch that we’re all everybody is working through, but know that it’s not going to be like this forever. And so, I think trying to keep that perspective has been helpful as well. Yeah, that’s a little bit about how we’ve been, how we’ve been thinking through it.

17:39

TAMAR: Yeah, it comes down to an attitude.

NICK AYRES:  Yeah.

TAMAR: I had a conversation like, I’ve been like that, I share my story pretty openly about how I’ve been in depression. I’ve been out of depression and somebody recently came up to me and he said, my brother has been going through a lot, he has marital strife. We lost our mother last year in 2019. And he just had a heart attack, and he’s super depressed. What can I possibly do? I mean, I’m not a psychiatrist, I’m not anything. But maybe my perspective is helpful. And at the end of the day, I think that he kind of has the trifecta of all the things that could potentially completely ruin a person’s psyche. I mean, you have Coronavirus on top of that. And, it’s never ending, there’s always going to be something that happens, like I had a pretty bad day. But either I can sit there and I can and I said to him it ultimately comes down to the word mindset, comes down to when you have a trifecta of all these bad things, and you’re ruminating on those things. Why is it happening to me? Why is it happening to me literally consumes you physically, the mental thought process and the investment in that thought process eventually takes over. That’s where depression comes from. That’s how my depression happened. That’s how I think sounds his depression has come from. Again, I’m not medically trained. I was a psych minor in college. So, I can’t really say and I didn’t get that perspective from school. I didn’t pursue depression, per se. I pursued a lot of little more niche topics like developmental psychology with little kids because they’re cute. But I like to think that depression maybe is the most controversial thing I would ever say on the show, that depression can be very self-made, very man made. In my case, in this individual’s case, it was because he’s looking at it, like my life is over it because all these things are happening, and maybe he’s right. But if Coronavirus had the potential to completely decimate me because I am pretty emotionally fragile at certain times, yet it did completely the opposite. It lifted me, made me like of course it’s not prolonged. I’m in the same boat, I’m introverted. I did really well in the beginning because work from home is my natural habitat, and other individuals are really suffering I think, to some degree, like I said yesterday was a bad day. There aren’t necessarily good, every single day is great. But it is about attitude. It is about mindset. And I appreciate and I like the fact that you’re doing exactly what you need to do. Like, it’s important, especially as parents, when you have children who are so impressionable, especially now, don’t internalize this, this is the end of the world for us. Like, this is temporary. And I like that. You’re saying that and you’re giving off that perspective.

20:23

NICK AYRES: Yeah, I think one of the things that we have always tried to do as parents is to paint out a real picture of our relationships and our life and sort of what’s going on. Maybe it’s set another way, particularly for older tourists. It’s easy for them to get sort of lost in the bubble of well, all my friends’ lives are perfect, all I see is their Instagram photos, and whatever, and nothing ever goes wrong. And we, they know that that’s not true. But sometimes it just needs to be like model for them as well, in our own lives. Like when they’re to your point, candidly, yesterday was not a great day for me either. And the reality is, for us, we want our kids to see, transparency is probably too strong of a word, just the reality of look, not everything is always going to be going to be perfect, right? You’re going to have struggles; you’re going to have challenges. But know that, that also will come to an end, right? Like, not every day is not great. And every day is not terrible, but you’re going to have days that cover both of those, right? And so, we want you to see, and sort of the way live that we find things to do, to cope with the good days, or do with the bad days and to celebrate the good days, right. And so, our hope is that we’re not always going to do perfectly by any stretch. And we know our kids are going to struggle as well, right. But at least we didn’t want to be a household that sort of lived in this facade of everything looks great on the outside or whatever. But there’s lots of conflict, internally or whatever, we want it to be as authentic and transparent as we code so that our kids can see we have challenges and struggles, but we’re working on those, and we’re taking it day to day. And as cliche as it may sound, that’s really the way we’ve got to approach life. And I think Corona has just heightened that reality of a bigger challenge than any of us are probably faced, or many of us are probably faced. But it’s not going to be the be all that it’s not going to be what ends us, it’s not going to be what sends us way off.

22:37

TAMAR: Well, it’s really interesting. Kids are also very resilient.

NICK AYRES: Yeah.

TAMAR: Like, the first day of school we had for my children was last week. And I was watching the first day video, and just looking at their new normal, how they’re sitting, not really even six feet apart. It’s like 12 feet apart. So socially distanced, and the mass, the Plexiglas, all those things. I mean, it was beautiful, but it really made me cry because it’s so sad. It’s their reality. And I told my daughter, I cried with your video. And she’s like, what do you mean, you cried mommy. And  I explained to her what I just said. She said, I’ve been wearing a mask for a year, her implication is that it’s my normal now and I’m okay with it. And I was like, oh, that’s so beautiful. Yeah, it’s so sad. Still very sad.

23:32

NICK AYRES: No, I hear you on both counts, right. And it is a great reminder kids have the uncanny ability to bring fresh and interesting perspectives to our lives in lots of ways. And I think that that story is a great example of a way maybe that help you see or would have helped me see something in a way that I wanted that otherwise.

23:56

TAMAR: Yeah. And they’re also so empathetic, like my five year old daughter. I get a call from the teacher earlier this week, just to say, thank you so much. Your daughter is such a pleasure. By the way, she didn’t want to wear her mask. And the teacher’s like, well, Kim will get sick if you don’t. And she’s like, okay, I’ll put on the mask. Like she understood that it’s protective measure, of course. One kid, well, then again, the one who’s three years older, is a little different. But the fact is that they are starting to get it and I really just hope it’s not a prolonged normal. But yeah, this is their new normal and they’re handling it better than we are.

NICK AYRES: Yeah, I agree.

24:47

TAMAR: Yeah. All right. So, let’s talk about the next thing, hopefully, you’re at least able to do some self-care in this chaos that we’re dealing with. Tell me a little bit about yourself.

25:00

NICK AYRES: Yeah, so I have probably a handful of different things that I do. And maybe I should start by saying I do spend a lot of time on self-care. I haven’t always been good about that, to be completely honest. But I think as I’ve gotten a little bit older, and maybe hopefully a little bit wiser, and something that I’ve learned just for myself is it’s something that I have to do. And I think that has been, it’s a journey, for sure, like a lot of things. But it’s definitely something that I put a lot more emphasis on, in the last few years, maybe I did previously, I think there are a few things that I do. Some of them are, super specific, but maybe have a little bit of applicability  sort of in terms of the principle. So, I have a couple of things that I do that are like, really, really easy self-care, things that can really almost be done, at least right now, since we’re at home at any time, for whatever reason. And that meant, we talked about sort of the musician aspect. Previously, there are two things that I’ve always been able to do for as long as I can remember, that really just sort of helped me get a level of calm and really kind of recenter me. One was just sitting down playing the piano. And the second, as strange as that may seem, is playing basketball, even just like shooting baskets by myself.

26:29

TAMAR: Let me interrupt you before saying that.

NICK AYRES: Yeah.

TAMAR: So, exercise out of depression is a very common thing, that there’s a subreddit, EOD. So don’t feel like, that sounds a little strange because it definitely doesn’t. Keep going.

26:41

NICK AYRES: Yeah., I’m not. That is great to know. And I think, definitely exercise broadly, is something that I tried to be better and better the older and older I’ve gotten. But so those two things, I’m fortunate to have, I cannot have a grand piano or anything like that, but have a piano that I can sit down and play, with headphones on really, like literally, it’s in our office. So, I can sit down and do that at any point, which is, again, just a nice thing to be able to do that for me, even if it’s for 10 or 15 minutes, just kind of like resets me and can calm me. And the same goes with playing basketball, we were fortunate the neighborhood we live in has basketball court, there’s like a two-minute walk from our house. And so, I was actually down there last night, just went down for like 30 minutes just to shoot baskets. And it’s just one of those things that really just returns me to a place of sort of peace and normalcy. So, I think that there are a handful of those sorts of things that I’ve been able to find that, again, can be just like little, investments of time, that can really pay big dividends beyond that. One other thing that my wife and I have learned, so we’ve been married almost 20 years now and as we have continued to learn about one another, I think we’ve started to realize where we are different, but also sort of what the other needs out of that. And I say that my wife will sometimes take our kids to go see her parents for a weekend, or daily and they live in Tennessee. So, it’s about four hours from here. And actually, we got some time off here and about a week when she’s going to do the same thing.  Because I’m an introvert, it’s really hard, particularly right now, to be that true sort of  as much as I think introverts are appreciated. Maybe the early sort of isolation that Corona brought with us or brought with it, is still when there are five people in a house all making a lot of noise and all doing a lot of stuff. It’s not like introverts are really getting a lot of time to recharge. And so, one of the things that my wife will do, again, very, occasionally, a couple times a year or whatever , is she and the kids will go someplace for a handful of days. And  give me just that space to literally decompress to recharge without having to worry about kids responsibilities or work responsibilities or whatever it might be. So that’s one of those things that for me, again, honestly, when we tell our friends about it sometimes they’re like, really you trust that your husband’s going to be at home or whatever. And literally she just laughs because I literally will sit at home, do a couple puzzles or read some books. Like we’ll do some exercise like that. That to me is what vacation and resetting looks like. And so, on the flip side, right, my wife will do girls weekends a couple of times a year and so that’s one of those things where yeah, maybe I’m taking on a little bit more responsibility or whatever. But for her as an extrovert and someone who just really gets recharged having lots of physical interaction, those are the things that work for her in terms of self-care. And so, it’s something kind of, although they’re completely opposite, it’s the same principle of like finding ways with your partner or your spouse, to be able to have that time that you need to recharge. And then the last one quickly, a little bit more sort of communal and community based, we are apparently plugged into, to our church, which something for us, that’s is super important. And we just have a group around us who we can have real conversations with, who we can speak honestly to. And it’s something that for us, has really helped us in times, frankly, both good and bad, to be able to just have, again, a community of like-minded people who we can be honest with, who we can pour into, and who can be there for us when we need them. And so, I think the summit summation is there’s not one thing, and if you’ve got one thing, you probably need a couple of more, because there’s going to be times when, I can’t just,  curl up in the office for three days, if we’ve got lots of stuff going on. And if that’s the only solution that you have, it’s not going to cause some problems. So, I would just encourage people to find few different ways to think about self-care. Absolutely, you got different options available to you when it wasn’t something that you need.

31:20

TAMAR: Yeah, yeah. I love that. And I also love the relationship. I mean, there’s clearly a semblance of loyalty there. Yeah, that’s great. I think that’s amazing.

31:31

NICK AYRES: Yeah, again, it’s certainly not for my wife and I, and that’s something that we got out of the gate. But, as you grow you deepen relationships, and all those sorts of things. Like, it’s definitely been, a blessing to have.

31:53

TAMAR: Yeah, yeah. Cool, cool. Awesome. So let me ask you, I guess, a final wrap up question. The question is, if you can tell an earlier version of Nick, give him a piece of advice, what would you tell him?

32:07

NICK AYRES: That was a good question.

TAMAR: Yes, I would say, what’s your common sense moment?

32:16

NICK AYRES: I think for me, honestly, it probably comes down to not sacrificing your self-care time for your professional ambitions. And so, in the early days, it’s funny. I was literally just thinking about this for a presentation that I’m giving here coming up, and I think there’s always a delicate balance, for me at least, between grinding stuff out, working super hard, giving it your all, and things like not sleeping as much, or working a whole lot. And I think I definitely erred on the side of just pushing myself too hard when I was younger. And I think although I was fortunate to come out of that, on the other side, not too messed up. I think it’s really easy to fall into a mode where you lose sight of that need for self-care, and that need for finding ways to sort of keep yourself balance. And so, I would encourage my younger self to continue to be passionate and continue to follow the ideas and the things that interest you. But to do it, sort of juxtaposed against a balance of making sure that you’re still taking care of yourself, you’re making good choices, you’re getting sleep, you’re getting exercise, all those sorts of things, because I think for long term sustainability, personally like and you need that balance. It’s not something that is going to happen naturally. You’re going to have to be intentional about it. And I think if you decide to be intentional about it, it absolutely can be done. But you’ve got to make that decision.

34:05

TAMAR: Yeah. Yeah. So funny, because looked back on it when I asked you to self-clear question, I was reflecting on my own past. And I don’t think I would have known how to answer that question. Two -and-a-half years ago, I have no idea what my self-care would have been. But now I figured it out. And 100% is totally diversified.

34:23

NICK AYRES: Yeah, and I think I would say probably the same similar things. I mean, I’ve always enjoyed exercise, but I think I undervalued how important that is to my mental wellbeing for many, many years. So, it was just one of those things that is in some ways unfortunate because I enjoyed it and so it meant that I did it. But the sort of benefits that have kicked off and then I can recognize now that kicks off for me personally and frankly for my family because of my mental state because I exercise, all those sorts of things. It’s incredible to see what that can bring. So yeah, it’s one of those things that I like, as you call out right? Like just when you really start thinking about it and start to be intentional about it and think about hey, what does self-care look like? And that often is really just the first step down a path and maybe again, you didn’t even realize you were doing or weren’t, or didn’t realize you weren’t doing but once you realize, and something that you need to do, it’s hard to not be super intentional about it.

35:32

TAMAR: Yeah, it’s funny. I completely hate exercise, but at the same time, I know it’s important.

NICK AYRES: Yeah.

TAMAR: It’s funny. I hate them when we’re doing it. But obviously, I appreciate the results. So, anybody wants to do it and I wouldn’t like doing it to get thinking. Think about it in that perspective.

35:51

NICK AYRES: Absolutely, absolutely.

35:53

TAMAR: Cool. So where can our listeners find you?

35:57

NICK AYRES: The easiest place is on Twitter. It’s probably social networks, that I spend most time on. So, my handle is Nick J. Ayres. So, my first name, N, I, C, K, a letter J, and then my last name, A, Y, R, E,S. So, I am still pretty active there. I’m also on Instagram and Tiktok and a couple of other places. With that same handle. I don’t have a blog or anything, but feel free to connect on LinkedIn or on Twitter if we’re not already connected for any of your listeners. So yeah, that’s probably the easiest ways and then we can go from there.

36:36

TAMAR: Cool. Cool. Thank you so much, Nick. I really, really appreciate you taking the time.

36:40

NICK AYRES: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. It’s been a great conversation. And I really appreciate all that you do on this podcast, and it was fun.

36:46

TAMAR: Yeah. Cool. Cool.

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