Leisa Reed: 00:01

Hey, besties. My name's Lisa.

Tamara Kindred: 00:03

And my name's Tamara, and we're BFFs.

Leisa Reed: 00:06

Tamara and I met when we were about 12 years old growing up in good old Fairbanks, Alaska.

Tamara Kindred: 00:11

And we've been best friends forever since.

Leisa Reed: 00:13

That's right. And that's why we've decided to have some fun, friendly conversations with the bestest of best friends.

Tamara Kindred: 00:18

We'll talk about how we became best friends, our experiences together, and have other best friends on the show to share how they met.

Leisa Reed: 00:26

Who knows? You never know when you'll meet your next BFF.

Tamara Kindred: 00:30

Now let's get into it, how I met my BFF.

Leisa Reed: 00:34

Welcome to another episode of how I met my BFF. Hi, Tamara.

Tamara Kindred: 00:39

Hey, Lisa. How are you?

Leisa Reed: 00:41

I'm good. What's what's going on in Montana world over there?

Tamara Kindred: 00:46

You're gonna make me do it, aren't you? I am. Yeah. Oh, man. So Lisa thinks this is very exciting and worthy news.

Tamara Kindred: 00:56

I do not, but I'm happy to share with you. We were talking last night, and she thinks I should share this with the besties that I have chickens. If anyone has been listening throughout the years knows that I have chickens. And one of the issues that I've been having lately is that they are now laying their eggs in some different spot than their three beautiful nesting boxes that they've laid their eggs in for five years now. So that's the big news out of Missoula, Montana.

Leisa Reed: 01:25

Well, I think, you know, we might have some besties who have some chicken expertise that they could they could offer maybe some insight chicken insight gazette here. And, well, I mean, I don't even know if is it a problem, like, that they're laying eggs somewhere else. I don't I've never owned a chicken. Is that a normal behavior? Like, where are they laying them if it's not in the nesting boxes?

Tamara Kindred: 01:47

They're kinda laying them in the actual chicken coop. I mean, the nesting boxes are off from the chicken coop. I can't believe I'm talking about those. And so they're kinda laying them inside the chicken coop kind of right below where they roost, which is not usually like to lay their eggs kind of separate from where they roost or where they sit at night. So who knows?

Tamara Kindred: 02:14

I'll, you know, be doing some more inquiry this weekend, and I'm sure I'll get the problem solved. I'm still eating eggs, so no one worry. I have plenty of eggs that I'm not paying tariffs on yet. So Well, we'll see. Yeah.

Leisa Reed: 02:28

We'll see. Hopefully, you can avoid chicken tariffs on your on your Personal, like, internal tariffs. Well, I have a little different update. I and this is just sort of a a health update for everybody. If you haven't had your mammogram lately, get one.

Leisa Reed: 02:49

Your PSA is coming. I, unfortunately had three mammograms in the month of March, and every I'll just squash any fears. Everything's fine. But I will say with the first time they asked me to come back, was, like, a little a little concerned, but not really concerned. Because I said it was a technical error.

Leisa Reed: 03:09

And then the second time they had me come back they the second time they told me, oh, you need to come back, definitely was getting a little, nervous. And I went to a pretty dark place really quickly. Like, I know my instinctual, like, I was like, oh my gosh. This is not great. But luckily, I'm surrounded by amazing friends and people and kinda had my divine connection moment.

Leisa Reed: 03:31

Like, okay. Let's get grounded. Stop freaking out. You don't have any information yet. And when I went back the third time, I was clear.

Leisa Reed: 03:39

I was like, what I just kept imagining. They're just gonna say, okay. Everything's fine. We'll see you next year. And that is what happened.

Leisa Reed: 03:46

I'm very grateful that what I what I was visualizing did did occur, but it's a good reminder for everyone to get checked even though it can be scary to do so. So that is my announcement for what's going on in my life, And I'm glad it's over. They don't have to go back for another year.

Tamara Kindred: 04:05

Me too. And, yeah, they just can scare you when they call you back, and it's like, could you give me a little more information? But I understand they have to be careful. But, yeah, I'm glad it Yeah. All worked out.

Tamara Kindred: 04:17

I know.

Leisa Reed: 04:18

I know. I think that they should give you a little information personally, but because you have to wait. Anyway, that's my opinion. But I get it. Now today, we have some really great guests.

Leisa Reed: 04:29

We have Yvonne and Andrea coming from different parts of we're all foreign different parts of the world. Welcome, Andrea and Yvonne. How are you today?

Yvonne B. McCoy: 04:37

Great. Happy to be here.

Andrea Stenberg: 04:39

Yeah. Happy to be here.

Leisa Reed: 04:41

I love it. Okay. So, Andrea, why don't you kick us off and tell us how you met Yvonne?

Andrea Stenberg: 04:51

Well, I mean, first of all, we should probably let you know that we've never actually met in person. We met we were in, it was an online coaching program slash course, and we met there. I did something very un Canadian of me, and I reached out to people in the course and said, hey. Can we get on on I guess it was Zoom back then.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 05:18

I don't know you remember. No. It wasn't. It was phone.

Andrea Stenberg: 05:22

It was phone. Okay. So there we go. So I just can reach out and talk. And, like, that's very un Canadian of me to be

Leisa Reed: 05:29

that brazen. Un Canadian? Tell me more.

Andrea Stenberg: 05:32

Well, because it's kind of brazen and pushy and a little, like you know, because we it's not like we knew each other, but I was I was just taking advantage of the fact that I was in this group thing. And it's like and I live in a small town, so it's kind of nice to meet new people. And I was just reaching out. And Yvonne and there's another friend of ours, they were the, like, the only ones that I think that said, yes. We'll talk to this crazy lady who's calling us.

Leisa Reed: 05:57

I love that. You you you extended you extended the offer. Yvonne, what's your version of the story?

Yvonne B. McCoy: 06:04

My version is that a crazy lady called me, and I could not figure out why she was calling. It took me a long time. I thought she was somebody who worked in the program. I did not know because I don't remember her actually in the pro because the program had little small groups, and she was not in my small group. So I don't know that I had actually met her in the program, so I have no idea how she got my phone number.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 06:32

And I remember it was like, okay. Okay. You know? Just like, I'm not really sure who you are and what you're talking about. And I called my other friend, and I said, did you get a call from this woman?

Yvonne B. McCoy: 06:48

And she said, yes. And I said, well, you know, what do you make of it? I mean, are they trying to sell us something else or, you know, what's going on? I mean, was total total confusion. And I thought, oh, what have I got to lose?

Yvonne B. McCoy: 06:59

I already paid for this program. I'll call back. And so that's kind it's like, you know, I finally probably three phone calls later, you know, we were like, I thought you were crazy. I mean, I felt crazy. Oh,

Andrea Stenberg: 07:11

that's funny.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 07:12

That's how Wow.

Leisa Reed: 07:13

Good for you for being open minded enough to well, a, you did your due diligence there. That tells us something. Right? You're like, wait a second. Let me check.

Leisa Reed: 07:21

And then and then you, you know, took a chance and and and called her back. So then, Andrea, what happened next? Like, how did it develop into a friendship? Because, I mean, that could have easily just fizzled out.

Andrea Stenberg: 07:35

Yes. So we started off kind of just being more, like, sort of business colleague support. But you know how somebody you meet somebody and you just in spite of the fact that you are have lots of like, you're from different places or whatever, you just suddenly click for no apparent reason. And that was kind of like how I I felt with Yvonne. Like, we just we just sort of clicked and, you know, like, was another friend who was sort of part of it.

Andrea Stenberg: 08:02

We were doing sort of business accountability stuff, but we I don't know. We just kept talking, and, we we have so much in common even though I'm in Canada. She's in Philadelphia. And we kind of we just clicked and we talk and we like, we've now it's been more than ten years. We were trying to figure out when exactly we met, and we're it's somewhere ten years ago plus.

Andrea Stenberg: 08:27

And we talk almost every day.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 08:31

Not only Okay. Every day. I mean, we're supposed to be I'm sorry. We're supposed to be working. Right?

Yvonne B. McCoy: 08:39

But we spend almost a half an hour, twenty minutes of every day relating totally crazy stuff. So right now, when we get on the phone together, the first thing Andrea says to me, did you hear what's going on in your country? And and I hear because I try to avoid some of the bad news. So I hear more of the crazy stuff from her than than I actually do in the news.

Andrea Stenberg: 09:06

And then last last night, Yvonne was sending me all these Instagram reels of, like, cats and stuff. Like, we like, just, you know, crazy stuff, funny stuff, things like that. Well

Leisa Reed: 09:19

When did it when did it start to evolve into more of that best friendship realm? Andrea, what do you want?

Andrea Stenberg: 09:29

Like, it was it was just kind of gradual. You know, like I said, with the accountability buddies, And so we were, you know, meeting every day to support each other, but we started talking more. And one of the things that's kind of interesting because I've had accountability buddies before where you kinda devolve into friendship, and then it just kind of peters out because you're not doing the business. You're not but you're not really friends kinda thing. But we just kind of like, the friendship got stronger and stronger as we went along, but we also managed to even, like, pull back to being more accountability buddies too.

Andrea Stenberg: 10:06

So we're we've got the friendship part, but we're also pushing each other in our businesses. And that is a really amazing part of it too because, you know, when you're a solopreneur, it can be pretty lonely. And having somebody sort of kick my butt when I need it or, you know, pick me up when I'm crying on the floor kind of thing is very nice to have as well as having all the personal stuff too.

Leisa Reed: 10:34

I can completely relate to that. How about you, Yvonne? What how did it evolve to that best friendship status for you?

Yvonne B. McCoy: 10:42

I think part of it started with the accountability. And so, Andrea is into videos, and so she was giving me advice about videos. And I think at some point, was like, I'm not doing this. I'm not gonna do this. Right?

Yvonne B. McCoy: 10:57

Or I'm gonna do it my way or, you know, it's kind of like the whole, you know, the and and we have this conversation on a regular basis about recording on your phone. I cannot record on my phone. I just I can't. I apparently, I'm I'm missing the gene that it lets you do that. You know, where I'm doing a a self recording, it it it just seems to be outside my realm of ability.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 11:19

And so Andrea's like, you gotta record it in your phone, you know, because then you can put it on Instagram, then you can do this, the the other. I'm like, I can't do this. And so it kind of it was like kinda broke through that professional veneer. You know, those kinds of things when we started pushing each other. And she's like you know?

Yvonne B. McCoy: 11:36

And and and she would say I'd say you, well, you need to do this. And she's like, I'm not doing that. And, like, wait. You know, you've tried this, this, and this, and it hasn't worked. Why don't you try it my way?

Yvonne B. McCoy: 11:48

And then, you know, you start to get that back and forth, and the professional veneer is totally gone. So just in my defense, about the cat videos, Andrea used to have rats as her pet. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 12:04

Exactly. So, you know, there's no connection there because I have a brown I'm a dog lady. I mean, I have two cats, but I'm basically a dog person. So when, you know, she when her last rat died, she got a cat. And so she's, like, in the honeymoon stage of having a cat.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 12:23

And, you know, every morning, it's like, this is what Felix did.

Leisa Reed: 12:27

What's the craziest thing your your cat Felix did, Andrea?

Andrea Stenberg: 12:35

Well, he's fallen in love with my tape measure, and he wants to play with it all the time. And what he keeps doing and, actually, he did it just before I came on on the to do this podcast, is he'll I'll be chasing you know, playing with it, and he chases it, and then he catches it. And then he takes me for a walk. And so he drags me downstairs, parades me around the living room, and then drags me back upstairs. Doesn't do anything else.

Andrea Stenberg: 13:00

And then he looks over his shoulder periodically to make sure that I'm still following him. And it just he has me in hysterics.

Leisa Reed: 13:08

That's Sophie, like, taking you on a walk, basically.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 13:11

Yes. Felix has trained her so well. Felix has got her and her husband so well trained. So that's why I was sending her cat videos, these weird cat videos of things that Felix might be doing when she's not watching. It had me laughing hysterically.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 13:30

And like I said, I have a dog. And one of the things that happened is my dog my husband had a stroke last year, and he's fine. But my kids decided to put our dog into doggy daycare, like, one day a week so the dog would, you know so she's talking about the stuff that Felix does. And, you know, my big pet news was that I have a brown lab that's, like, 90 pounds that's four years old and still thinks it's a puppy, you know, that went to doggy daycare yesterday and put in 2,400 steps.

Leisa Reed: 14:03

Wow.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 14:04

Normally, it's normally, it's like 12. So it's like twice as much. So my daughter asked the the daycare what happened, and they said, oh, there was another brown lab here. And so the two of them apparently went wild. I'm like, please let that other brown lab come back, you know, next Thursday, and I hope their owner's happy how tired their dog is too.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 14:26

You know? But those are those are some of the crazy things that that we talk about.

Andrea Stenberg: 14:32

Well and I have a funny story about the rats about Yvonne. So when I we got rats during lockdown for like, they were for my son. But Husband does. Really, they were for me. But, anyway, when I got the rats and Yvonne was like, oh, Andrea, you cannot tell people that you got rats.

Andrea Stenberg: 14:49

They're gonna think you're crazy. And I swear the words were still floating above Yvonne's head in a thought bubble, And her husband walked into her office and was like, what are you talking about? I had a rat when I was in university,

Leisa Reed: 15:02

and she didn't know this. Oh my gosh. Secrets revealed.

Tamara Kindred: 15:08

I well, I'm just wondering. You guys have been friends now for ten years. Why haven't you met in person?

Andrea Stenberg: 15:18

We actually had planned in 2020. We were going to a conference together in Montreal, and we had it all planned out. Like, Yvonne's husband was gonna come. We were gonna go early and spend some extra time, and then, of course, we know what happened and things. So we've just it's just never worked out.

Andrea Stenberg: 15:37

But our net one of our secret plans is we both love the movie Shirley Valentine, and we both wanna go to Greece. Like, that's one of our things is have a vacation in Greece and drink wine next to the sea. And

Tamara Kindred: 15:51

That would be amazing.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 15:52

We Yeah. We were trying to Andre was possibly coming to Philadelphia for a conference in 2020, but who knows where we'll be in '20

Andrea Stenberg: 16:04

On 2026. Yeah. Next next year, it's supposed to an organization I belong to is having their conference in Philadelphia. So the hoping, fingers crossed, that I'll be able to go, but it's just sort of one of those things that's not happened. But, like, because we talk like, we're on Zoom or we're on the phone or we talk so often.

Andrea Stenberg: 16:25

And when lockdown happened, it kind of my life didn't change all that much because I was still seeing Yvonne every day. And so it kinda still felt normal except for if I had to leave the house. But, like, the stuff that I do all day, it felt normal because I could see Yvonne every day, and we talked every day. And so it kind of helped help keep things a little bit normal feeling.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 16:50

The other thing I think that's really interesting is, for me at least, is that Andrea is a wealth I mean, in many ways, our lives are kind of parallel. I mean, you know, you you reminded me of this the other day. We both I mean, my son is much older than her son, but we both had a son had sons that were writing books at the same time. You know? So there's unusual things that happen in our lives that are that are that are similar.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 17:17

And Andrea is a wealth of information about medical stuff.

Andrea Stenberg: 17:23

Weird medical stuff.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 17:25

Medical stuff. So during COVID, of course, I was like, did you hear about this? Did you hear about that? Do you know about the you know? And so she has all these you know, I read this article or I'm following this person about this, that, and the other.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 17:38

And she's got the patience of Job, but I have to tell you this. This is you may never talk to me again, Andrea. One of the things about Andrea is that I frustrate her so much that if I'm trying to do something, she'll just say, just give me control of the computer. I'll just do it for you. And I'm like, yay.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 17:54

This is

Leisa Reed: 17:56

Like, my plan is working.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 17:58

Yeah. I'm trying to learn, but, you know, sometimes it doesn't work out that way.

Leisa Reed: 18:04

Well, so I have a follow-up question for something you said earlier, Yvonne. You were talking about how you couldn't do the video on your phone. Did you finally figure how to how to do that? No. Oh, okay.

Leisa Reed: 18:18

And I'm I'm so I

Yvonne B. McCoy: 18:19

think that's phone that broke do it.

Leisa Reed: 18:21

Okay. We've determined the phone is broken then. Right? It doesn't it's just the phone doesn't allow you to do that. Is that what's going on?

Yvonne B. McCoy: 18:27

There are a couple of things. You have to first of all, I have fat fingers. My phone does not like me in general. I mean, things that you know, like, for instance, when the alarm goes off, my husband says, put your hand over your Apple Watch, and it'll stop the alarm. It does not.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 18:43

I mean, I think my fingers are slightly cold, and so it doesn't it doesn't do stuff on the phone. So for me to do a record it's like I'm pushing recording. I'm pushing recording. It doesn't record. Then when it records, I'm in a frustrated state.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 18:59

So what I get is something really awful. I mean, I did do a recording once and immediately got a phone call from my daughter who said, do you know you posted that on Instagram? Take that down now. You know? So, you know, I'm just not doing it.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 19:12

I'm not good at it. That's not my zone of genius. I'll just do something else.

Andrea Stenberg: 19:19

But you started doing all the the Zoom videos. So, like, that's great. That that's a big progress because she wouldn't, like, she wouldn't do that before.

Yvonne B. McCoy: 19:27

That's true. She asked me the most as a business person, she asked me the most important one of the most important questions I think anybody ever said to me because we were talking about marketing. And she's really good at marketing, and I'm you know, I wasn't.