Episode 16: Audit Your Year To Create What You Want In The New Year With Paula Rizzo
Juggling work and home life and facing major career changes can be a total challenge package. Today, Amy Vetter interviews another power woman, Paula Rizzo. Paula is an Emmy Award-winning television producer and bestselling author. In this discussion, they talk about how organization at work can be applied to home to create what you want in the new year. Paula also shares her journey from being a television producer to an entrepreneur, and imparts some tips on taking stock of what means most in your life.
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Audit Your Year To Create What You Want In The New Year With Paula Rizzo
In this episode, I will interview Paula Rizzo. She is an Emmy Award-winning television producer, bestselling author and a media trainer and strategist. As a former senior health producer for Fox News channel for more than a decade, she produces segments with a range of top experts including JJ Virgin, Jillian Michaels and Deepak Chopra. A media veteran for nearly many years, she has also worked in local news in New York City as a producer and coaches experts and executives to perform better on camera and produce their own videos.
She is the Founder of ListProducer.com and the author of Listful Thinking: Using Lists to Be More Productive, Highly Successful and Less Stressed and the book, Listful Living: A List-Making Journey to a Less Stressed You. She is the Co-creator of Lights Camera Expert, an online course geared towards helping entrepreneurs, authors and experts get media attention. During my interview with Paula, we discussed how organization at work can be applied at home, her journey from being a television producer to an entrepreneur and tips for taking stop of what means most in your life.
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I am here with Paula Rizzo. Paula, would you give us a little background on yourself?
I am an Emmy Award-winning TV producer. I have two books that I have out in the world that is about list-making and productivity. The first one is called Listful Thinking. The second one, which is called Listful Living: A List-Making Journey to a Less Stressed You. I love to speak across the country whenever I can. I also work with experts and entrepreneurs and authors to help them with media training and coaching and help them to be more comfortable on camera, whether it's in traditional media or on video.
You're an Emmy Award-winning TV producer and a book author. How did that all come about?
I always wanted to write a book. I never knew that it would be a book about list making and then I'd have to have them. That wasn't exactly the plan but it's been very fun. My career in TV newsrooms and the deadlines that you have to follow are really intense. You have to be right on top of your game because if you're not ready to go when your segment is happening, you could lose your job. This is very important stuff plus, we're there to inform the public. You want to be able to have the best information as fast as you possibly can. To be able to do that at that pace, at that level in New York City, I had to be really good and efficient and productive and lots of lists came into play. I realized I wasn't exactly using them in the same way at home and things were falling through the cracks. A lot of times that's what happens to people. We are really efficient and clear at work doing what we're doing but then at home you let it go to the wayside because you're like, "I don't want it to be hard. I don't want to be work." That's when I tapped into this list making and using it at home and being able to help people who weren't naturally list makers.
Let's hear how you got where you were in the first place. Being a TV producer isn't always something I talk to on a daily basis. I would love to hear your journey of how you got into that field and accomplished some of the things that you did in your career.
I've always been very curious. That is why a life of journalism has suited me very well because I get to ask a lot of questions. I get to become an expert in things, maybe even for a little while and then I move on to the next story or move on to the next thing. For me, that was really very interesting and very appealing. I always thought that I would go into print journalism and then I would be like a magazine writer or something like that. When I was in college, they make you take a broadcast class. As soon as I took that class I was, "This is way better. This is exactly what I needed to be. It's fast-paced and it's conversational. It's to the point. This is way more of me." From there, it was internship turned into the first job and I've been working in newsrooms since I was nineteen. It's been a long journey.
Were your parents in this field? How did you even know this was something you wanted to do?
No. What’s so funny is my parents love watching the news. They always have. They love reading the newspaper. They love to be informed and be on top of it. This was not their journey at all. I was around that and knowing, you should be informed, you should know things. Actually, when I was in middle school, a friend of mine, her dad worked at ABC and he was a camera guy. He worked on a show called All My Children.
It's not on anymore. I’ve been watching it so it was scheduled in between my naps.
He was a camera guy for that show and I used to watch it all the time with my mother and I was excited. He brought my friend and me into the studio to see it. Part of the studio tour was to go see the other shows. One of those shows was the Peter Jennings show, the evening news. I remember going into that studio as a kid and thinking, "What is this world? This is so amazing." Seeing Peter Jennings office and he had a row of Emmy's and he kept them in his bathroom, which I always thought was odd. That's where they were. The curiosity was piqued and it's amazing because that man who took me in to see that was a cameraman in the studio. He had left ABC and he was working at Fox News channel. I remember walking into the studio because he was working with the studio crew and I was like, "This cannot be real." I cannot believe the guy who brought me into my very first studio I now was working with. It was a really crazy full circle moment.
What did your parents do?
My dad is a retired police officer and my mom is a housewife. They very much were around when I was a kid. My dad worked crazy, weird shifts. It was sometimes he was home during the day, sometimes he was gone for three days. Public service is how I've always looked at the news business. To be able to give people information to tell them about their lives and tell them that on their day, that it is a public service. In that realm, that's how my dad had his career too in public service.
You start out journalism. You think that's where you're going to go? You move into being more on the producer production side. What was your initial dream with doing it and how did it turn out?
I originally thought that what I wanted to do when I went into journalism was to become an anchor or become a reporter or be somebody on camera. When I started to do an internship and I started to learn all the roles of the newsroom and I saw that the producer was actually the one who called all the shots, I was like, "That's better. I'd rather do that." That's how that switched for me and it was great. I was able to work in local news here in New York and then for the bulk of my career, I worked at Fox News channel as a Senior Health Producer.
That's a shift because one is putting forth your own ideas as a journalist and being the face and the other is more being behind the scenes. You might be running the show, but you're not necessarily putting your name to ideas in the same way. That to me is a big shift in a passion for what you might want to do. Besides being in charge, how did you transform yourself to get in a different position?
The role of a producer is very much of a ghost writer. It is very much bringing in all the information and then being able to choose and pick, what's going to be the thing that we'd go forth with? Being able to really say, "This is not the most important thing. This is. Let's go with this instead." For me to be able to call those shots and be a part of that conversation was interesting to me. Not that anchors are not because they are, depending on what market it is. They have more or less say, depending. I also really enjoyed the collaborative nature of the newsroom. Being able to have other people that you feed off of. I found that to be interesting too when I was writing my first book because it's very solitary. You're writing the book on your own. I was used to working in an environment that was collaborative. There are people talking all around you at all times. You have to zone it out and get your work done. I was writing this book by myself in my apartment in dead silence. I was like, “I can't call out for a synonym. There's nobody right there.”
When you started going through the process of learning that job, were there any times where you thought it should go a certain way and you clearly learned that was not the right direction or you had to learn to pivot the next time that you have that same experience?
It was also as I rose up in the ranks or I wanted the next job. I remember there was a job that I wanted that was on a morning show. For the most part I worked on the evening shows when I worked in local news. There was a morning show job that I really wanted because it was a level up. I went and I did a trial for two weeks because it was at the station I was working at. I thought, "I'm definitely going to get it." I didn't get it. I didn't get the job. I was bummed and I was disappointed. I thought maybe this is not what I want to be doing. Maybe I should be going in a different direction and then it was the best thing that happened to me because I hate mornings. It’s the worst experience for these two weeks. You're supposed to want that next thing. I did get promotions and I went to other stations and I ended up doing really well. I remember that being really crushing for me, thinking like, "Maybe I shouldn't be doing this." Looking back and saying, "I'm so glad that didn't happen."
Why did you not get the job? Did you ever find out?
Creating What You Want: A producer brings in all the information and picks what the team will go forth with.
They hired somebody from outside.
As we go through our careers, a lot of times we're always looking for that next best step and so forth. Sometimes we get promoted to the point that's actually not a good fit for us or it happens in a roundabout way. That shift, which I like to talk about, because I know that you collaborate with a lot of different people in the role that you've been in and lead. There is a shift between being an expert at what you do versus becoming a leader and you're more people leader versus being able to put your expertise forward. As you did end up shifting into those roles, what changes did you have to make as far as your way of going about work to make it work as a leader?
It was interesting too because when I was at Fox was when I started writing my first book and I had to get their permission. It had nothing to do with what I did at Fox, like what I was doing there. It was a book about list-making and productivity but it was interesting because then that was when the switch happened. I'm the one who's going to be like the face. I'm the one who's going to be the anchor basically. At first, it started as a blog and to put me out there. It's interesting because everything that I've done in my career I feel has really set me up for all of these next things that I'm doing.
Back in the day I wanted to be on the air. I wanted to be an anchor. I wanted to be a reporter. For me, it's not so different to now be doing it. It's not that I hid from the camera. I was only behind the scenes. I did a segment the other day at our local Fox station here in New York. Being in the studio was, “This is the office. This is what you do.” It wasn't different because I'd been in that world for so long, but it definitely took a minute to be able to say, “I'm the one who has to deliver this information. I'm the one who people are looking towards writing back to my emails and stuff like that and know things about your life that is, ‘How would you know that?’”
What I'm trying to get to though, as a leader, when you were at Fox and you got elevated to that and to make an Emmy Award-winning show that I would love to hear how you did that, but how you had to shift as a person in order to lead versus being at other levels that you were at prior to that position?
It was interesting because a lot of times when I was working, I was in an environment where everyone was equal and then I got bumped up because I was the one who raised my hand and I was the one who was saying, "I can do this. I've already been doing all of these extra things that a senior producer would be doing.” That was a little bit difficult because all of my peers saw me as a peer at first. That was a little bit for me. It was I had to get how to get my grounding on that to be able to be seen as that leader, to be seen as, “I was that leader already,” but now that you have the title, people treat it a little bit differently. That was a little bit difficult at first to navigate when I got that promotion.
How did you do that? How did you get comfortable?
It took time. It wasn't any one thing that was like, “That's what did it.” It was very much being persistent about it because management wasn't very helpful. They weren't like, “You got to listen to her or whatever.” I very much had to do it myself and it was a little tricky.
What are some things you learn from the process that you think that you were able to impart on the people that worked with you or some values or ways that you wanted to make sure things ran, maybe that you learned from someone else or you've learned along the way that you wanted to make sure that you gave as a positive way of leadership?
Even when I'm doing some coaching and media training and things like that, the tendency is always because I can, you want to jump in and to do it for the person or show them, “Here, this is what it is.” Some of the most effective leaders that I've known or in my career have been the ones who sit back and let you do it and let you see what it's like. Even if you fail, it's okay because you've seen how it gets done. I find myself really doing that a lot of times. Taking a step back, let them do it first. Let's see how it goes. Now, let's go in and of course correct or do this or do that. Not that they're going to fall on their faces so flat that it's going to be a disaster or anything like that. You're going to stop that before it happens but to hang back and not really be much on top of people. I found that to be effective.
Have you had that problem with video ever? That you've learned to when you've been on an interview or some of your training that you've had that moment yourself and then you've had to tell someone else, “That's happened to me?”
For sure. I've watched videos that I do all the time and it's the things that I tell people not to do. I'm like, "I did that." You have to show yourself how to do it. It takes time.
What are some examples?
I said, “I think,” and I often tell people not to say, “I think,” before they say something because it undermines your authority, especially women. Just come out and say it. Say what it is. I remember the question was about children or something. It was about my book and the anchor said, "This can work for children and too," and it can, so I said something, "Yeah, I think list-making in general is great for kids and helps them build goals," and that thing. I shouldn't have said, “I think,” because it’s wasted time and it undermines my authority. I shouldn't have said it, but it's not the worst thing you say. A lot of times people also have filler words like, um or you know or so. I do that too. It's only when you watch it back or read back on podcasts or whatever it is this and you're like, "Why do I keep saying that?" You become aware.
You made the shift from being in the corporate world to being your own business owner. What have you learned along the way, not only as a business owner, but from a personal standpoint that you had to shift or pivot in order to be successful in your new role?
The hard thing is that when you have a successful career and you're used to being good at something, when you leave that and you go somewhere that you're not that good at it yet, it shakes you up. Things being a business owner, you have to then do everything. You're doing the sales conversations, you're doing all the marketing and you’re doing everything. As somebody who's worked in one area, I knew how to do my job well, but then it uncovers all this stuff you don't know. To get to a point in your career where you're making a lot of money and you're successful and you're happy. I left my job not because I was unhappy, I left my job because I was ready for the next thing. I wanted something else. It was a good time for me to shift and do it and it made sense but then it was like, “I can't believe I'm trying to get bring on clients and it's difficult. Why is this so hard?” It's because you never learned any of this. You have to take a step back and learn new skills, which I find fun. I enjoy that. It does give you a little bit of an ego hit. All of a sudden you're, "I was good at this and now I'm not."
What was the decision point of why you wanted to start your own? You were happy with your career. What gave you the confidence or the, “This is the moment that I want to do this.”
I've been thinking about it and I always had a side hustle. I was always doing stuff on the side. I had written my first book. I was doing some media coaching on a side. I had a course already, it wasn't like I was going to quit and then decide what I was going to do. I had already started doing it. It got to the point where then my full-time job was getting in the way of doing it. I can't say yes to that, speaking engagement because I have to be at work. The thing that had fueled my career for so long and helped me was now hindering me. At that point, I have to make the move and see what it is. I did it very slowly. It wasn’t like I had a planner. I like to know the finances and make sure I’ve got money. I've had my list. Even when I left, I'm pretty sure I gave those three months’ notice or something like that. They were like, "Are you still here?" For me, I needed that to slowly back out. It was bittersweet. It's not that I disliked it, it was time for something else and something new and I needed to jump out and see what would happen. It's been several years since I left.
For many business owners, you're everything in the beginning especially. How do you learn those skills when you've never had? A lot of times, we go into a business because we're excited about the idea of the business, but all the backend stuff we're not prepared for.
Creating What You Want: Effective leaders are the ones who sit back and let you do it on your own and allow you to see what it's like.
You don't even know that it exists. How do you run a credit card? I have a very good entrepreneurial network of friends who I could ask or I could say, "How did you do this?" or "How did you do that?" That was helpful, which I had set up that network beforehand. I also started taking some classes. I joined a Mastermind group that was all about sales and how to get clients? How to speak to get clients and things that I didn't even know people were doing that. I needed that exposure. For me, it was almost like, “I'm going back to college in a way.” I'm learning these other skills that I need to learn. Also getting some of this stuff, understanding and knowing I don't want to learn how to do that. I've got a bookkeeper because I don't need to learn how to do all these things. I can watch him, he can tell me what I need to record. I'll be organized about it. I don't need to be doing all these numbers every month. That for me was a really big lesson too of what you will pay for or what are you investing in?
It's important to know what you're an expert in, what other people are an expert in and make sure you're not putting yourself in a place where you're not necessarily the expert. Making this change in your life, whether you came from the corporate world or as a producer and now coming into a business owner role. What impact has that had on the people around you or yourself? Learnings about yourself as well that might impact your day, the people that you care about, your coworkers and so forth?
It's interesting because I work from home and that's a whole other different dynamic. Because you're used to going to work and doing your thing and you're in tuned to literally everything everyone does at all times because it's like, "I have to be on this call at this time." It's interesting, but it's given us a lot more freedom to be able to jump up and go on a trip. We want to go do this. He still has a regular traditional job where you have to take time off and things like that. It's not exciting like I would go to Paris whenever I want. We try to as much as we can. I'm not being held back by that. I find that there's more freedom. I do get to see or build in some more time to see my family and to do things that are on a Tuesday at 2:00. It's not a big deal. It doesn't have to be only on weekends and things like that. It's made our lives easier but more fun too to be able to not have that pressure where you only have much time to do stuff with people.
We also have to shift how we think about that too. I know when you're used to a normal workday and then you go into the business life and then you're like, "I'm going to do this instead of work." You're like, "I shouldn't be doing something right now."
Shouldn't I be sitting at my desk? That happened to me the first week or two that I was working for myself, I filled my calendar with call after call. It was way too much. I didn't even know what I said to anybody. It was too much because I thought I needed to be busy. At the end of the first year, I did an audit, I looked through, what are all the things that I did? What did they really love? What did I not love? Who are the best clients? Who were the best speaking places that I went to? What do I want to pursue next year? Even, how do I want to set up my schedule? I didn't want to do stuff on Mondays. I can actually do that, I can change that. That's amazing. These are the only dates and times I'm doing things. That was a big shift too. It's gotten easier, but there are times sometimes too where I still have that little bit of corporate hangover where it's like, “Shouldn’t I be doing something right now?”
I like to ask about some rapid-fire questions. You pick a category: family and friends, money, spiritual or health?
Let's pick health.
In health, things or actions I don't have that I want?
I want regular massages. I do not have those right now, but I would like those.
Things or actions I do have that I do want?
Meditation. I do meditate for ten minutes every day.
What time of day do you do it?
I do it first thing in the morning. As soon as I wake up, I do it for ten minutes and then it's done and then I move on.
Things or actions I don't have that I don't want as far as my health?
Too much stress. I feel like I'm pretty good. I've controlled the stress pretty much but I'm very conscious of not letting it back in. Even the way I schedule things, I'm like, "Nope, that's too close together. I don't want to do that."
When you feel it coming on and you're like, "I know that feeling."
It happened to me a couple of weeks ago where it's so happened that I had to book things in a certain way in the day and it's very close together. I was like, "Remind me never to do that again." I get anxious when I do that many calls in a day or when I talk to that many people or I have that much running around. I don't like it.
Last question, things or actions that I do have that I don't want as far as my health.
I sometimes have guilt around drinking wine and I don't want to have that. Sometimes I read articles about how good the antioxidants are for you and that makes me feel good. Sometimes I read articles about how bad too many glasses of wine a week are? I feel bad about it.
Creating What You Want: Working from home presents more freedom for you to jump and go wherever you like and do whatever you want.
It's one of those things that balance media got to figure out. Truth is somewhere in the middle.
Every other day, there is a different study about that stuff totally.
Is there anything you would like people to walk away with knowing about you or lessons that you want to make sure that they walk away from this conversation?
There are many times in my career where I've taken things seriously or I thought it's been like, "This is the end-all be-all or if I do this, then everything else is going to go away." The scarcity mindset and that thing. I look at it and I'm like, "Why I even care so much about that? That wasn't even such a big deal." Just to take a step back and not take myself seriously, I'm still trying to do that.
Know that things happen for a reason and something else is going to come along. Thank you so much for joining me in this conversation. I appreciate your time.
Thanks for having me.
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There were a few things in this episode that I wanted to make sure that we step back and pause and think about. Some of the observations that Paula had on her own journey and one of them was her zests for being curious. A lot of times, we don’t identify personality traits, a feeling that we have that seems to permeate throughout our life and can actually guide us as a North Star of helping us develop what kind of educational and professional track we should be on. When she looks back, she realizes that she always asks a lot of questions and that she is always been curious. That led her into being of the journalism and media industry because even when she looks back at her parents. She saw that they always were reading and were informed and had conversations that helped her to keep building that curious muscle.
One of the things as adults is we oftentimes don’t think about the impact that we have on our children or even the children that are not our own that we can expose them to ideas or ways of life that maybe were not in their home. As Paula talked about in her journey, media was not an industry her parents were in. It was a friend’s father that actually took her into a studio and that’s where her curiosity piqued. When she saw Peter Jennings and how that actually worked behind the scenes on a show, it got her excited into what her future career could be. It’s important for us to think about how we can guide others but also that we stay curious even as adults. To learn about industries and professions that maybe we don’t do now but can incorporate into the expertise that we already have.
One of the other traits that she realized was that she was a good organizer at work and created checklists and things to keep work organized, people on task and so forth. A lot of times, we can be different at work than at home and there really doesn’t need to be a difference. If we are bringing our authentic self to work, that we are the same person whether we are at home or at work but a lot of times, we don’t even look at the things that we are the best at work and see how we can incorporate that into our personal lives. That is what’s so great about what she’s done with her book and figuring out for herself how she can take the strength that she had of organization and checklist and to build it into our own life so that she is less stressed and can find that work-life balance. Making sure you are prioritizing the right things.
We also talked about her shifting from an expert into a leader and how hard that can be as you go down that path in your career. One of the things that she said was important where she talked about shifting from being equal and not appear to a leader. Leadership can often be very lonely because you have to make decisions that if you were a part of the team, they are not necessarily considering all the different aspects that you have to consider as a leader. It’s important to allow yourself on that journey to learn how to be the leader because a lot of times we get promoted because of our expertise but not necessarily because of our people skills and how to lead. When she talked about for herself that it was okay to fail along the way and learn, but also when we talked about being authentic as a leader, how do we take that to the people that work for us as well and make sure that they realize it’s okay to fail as well. You give them space so that they can learn along the way. If they are never learning, they keep asking you or you are micromanaging them around the process and they don’t grow as a person.
Another area that we talked about was shifting to entrepreneurship from being in corporate. A lot of people go down this path and it was important when we talked about how hard it is to move to an entrepreneur. That when you’ve been really good at something in the corporate world and now your finances are on the line and you’ve got to show yourself that you can do this. It’s having the confidence to be able to put yourself out there is a big thing because things are not going to go perfect and I tell entrepreneurs this all time that whatever plans that you had, it’s going to be something completely different than what you thought as go down the path of having a business. It’s stepping back and observing where that business goes, working with it and staying true to what the outcomes that you want in your life.
Lastly, one of the most important things that she talked about was at least taking one moment a year where you audit the last year and you look at the things you did. Were they productive? Did they generate what you wanted to generate from these activities and did they create the light within you to do it? Sometimes we can be doing things without realizing that we are really not enjoying it and is that a direction that we want to go? Whether we are in corporate or in our own business. It’s a good practice to have to audit the last year, see what things you might want to shift and if you didn’t have enough time for yourself, making sure that you set the goals and be good with how you’re going to make sure you do that whether you calendar it or you make a list to ensure that you achieve how you want to feel in order to be better for the people around you.
Important Links:
Listful Thinking: Using Lists to Be More Productive, Highly Successful and Less Stressed
Listful Living: A List-Making Journey to a Less Stressed You
About Paula Rizzo
Paula Rizzo is an Emmy-award winning television producer, best-selling author, and a media trainer and strategist. As a former senior health producer for Fox News Channel for more than a decade, she produced segments with a range of top experts, including JJ Virgin, Jillian Michaels, and Deepak Chopra. A media veteran for nearly 20 years, she also worked in local news in New York City as a producer for WCBS, WPIX, and WLNY. She coaches experts and executives to perform better on camera and produce their own videos.
She's the founder of ListProducer.comand author ofListful Thinking: Using Lists to be More Productive, Highly Successful and Less Stressedand Listful Living: A List-Making Journey to a Less Stressed You. She’s also co-creator of Lights Camera Expert– an online course geared towards helping entrepreneurs, authors, and experts get media attention. She also teaches Become A Video Star - a virtual workshop that empowers experts to create their own compelling videos.
Paula has been featured in major media outlets like FoxNews.com, Business Insider and The Daily News. She’s a contributor to MindBodyGreen.com,Entrepreneur.comandThrive Global. A veteran speaker she’s presented at MA Conference for Women, HOW Design Live, New York Women in Communications, National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), and many others. Go to PaulaRizzo.comfor more.
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