Bonus Episode 1
Tune in for a special bonus episode of "How to Handyma'am"! Before launching our first official episode, we recorded several sessions. These initial recordings were full of fun and productive chaos, helping us nail down our format and find our rhythm. While we aren't releasing those full episodes, they contain some fantastic moments! This bonus content is pulled from our very first recording session and offers insight into a part of our "why" and our overall vision.
Links & Resources Mentioned
Community: Join the How to Handyma’am Facebook Group to ask questions and post your project pics!
Products We Love:
Connect with Us!
Web: myhandymaam.com
Socials: @howtohandymaam
Credits
Host -Samantha Pearl
Host- Arly Streed
Host - Emily Pearl Reist
Commentator- Cher Miller
Theme music - Thomas Streed
Transcript
Hi friends, this is Emily from How to Handyman and this is our first ever bonus episode.
We were not planning on releasing bonus episodes or bonus content anytime soon, but the response to our first episode has honestly been overwhelming.
0:19
The amount of people who have watched and responded and commented and shared and liked and we just truly appreciate you all.
So we wanted to share a little snippet from our first ever episode.
0:34
So our secret is that the episode we released first was actually like the fifth one we recorded.
But we have spent the last few months trying to figure out what this podcast even looks like.
0:52
And our first episodes we recorded are absolutely chaotic.
But there is good Nuggets in each of them.
And here is a good nugget from the 1st.
Every time we got our microphone set up and popped.
And this is a little snippet of our why.
1:08
Why we do what we do, and why we want to bring this educational thing to you.
So without further ado, here is a little snippet of our first ever episode.
I think it's important to say though, you just have to try things.
1:29
There's no, for most of the things we want to do, there is no like organized pathway to becoming good at it.
It's not like I am a woman who wants to become good at trim carpentry.
I'm going to go to the women's trim carpentry class in the community.
Or I want to learn water.
I mean, sometimes there are classes, but if you really want to do something, most times you just got to pick it up and start trying.
1:50
Yeah, I think one important thread in all our stories is that we had people around us who were willing to weather the storms with us and willing to support our crazy ideas.
And I think that's what we can be for you guys.
2:06
We can be the ones to say, you know what, it might seem scary and you might mess it up the first time, but what could go?
What's the worst thing that could happen?
Like if you do a bad backsplash, what's the worst thing that could happen?
You have to redo it, which really does suck, not going to lie about that.
2:24
But I mean, honestly, most of the things you do in your home that don't involve water, electrical or HVAC, which is what our licenses do not cover, there's pretty, it's pretty reversible.
2:39
And honestly, you learn a lot from making mistakes because you're like, oh, that does not look right.
So I'm curious, I know why I love this field.
But Arlie, why do you love this field?
Well, I didn't.
I think one of the main reasons that I like it is I like working with my hands and figuring things out, like puzzle solving, you know, and the more that I do this, the more I like, like solving other people's problems.
3:07
You know, like we work with a lot of women who are going through like terrible divorces or like who have lost their husband or we, well, we work with a lot of single women for the most part, people that don't want men in their houses necessarily.
And I like being able to help those people.
3:26
Like, it's not like I can make it so their husband didn't treat them like crap, but I can help them fix their sink, you know, or something like that.
But I also think that the people that we meet and like we've been working at a domestic violence shelter and that is incredibly rewarding, you know, going in there and not only like helping a 'cause that I support in the way that I can, but also like we went in there and the women who are living there are like, I want to learn how to do this.
4:01
Like I've never been able to do stuff like this.
Like, you know, I don't know how to do this stuff.
And it's empowering to know that as a woman, you don't have to ask a strange man with a bunch of tools that kind of look like weapons.
And who's going to mansplain to?
4:17
You, Yeah, like, into your house and in your personal space, like, and if you can't be there, you know what I mean?
Like, it's uncomfortable to have, like, strangers in your house and like in your personal area, like, maybe touching your stuff or like, what are they going to do?
4:34
Like we've heard crazy stories about like, men coming in and like, harassing women in their own homes or like.
Peeing in a pot bottle and leaving it behind?
Yeah.
Or peeing outside where a young woman can see.
Yeah.
And so I'm really passionate about that, but I'm also passionate about our community that we've built, like in my handyman, we have like our crews and like our administration, like everything that we've made is just the environment that you want to be around all the time.
5:09
And also like when days are really hard and you don't really like your job or you don't like what you're doing, you still like have the support of people around you.
You're never going to have a job where there's like 100% success every day and you're always like doing good things and you're always on time or you're always on schedule or whatever.
5:30
But to have it like a community of people that is like always there for you when you're having a bad day or like are OK, when you know everything just turns terrible.
Like all the bad things happen and you still have like a crew of people who are behind you who are supporting you when you mess up and like you definitely did something wrong and it's your fault.
5:54
And you still have the support of people around you and like to have that.
And like that's important.
And I know a lot of people like that, like I couldn't have said before, like what I was looking for in a job.
Like I knew I wanted to do something meaningful, like something important, but I never would have said like this because I didn't know this existed.
6:19
And I think that sharing this with like the people when we go into their homes and stuff, but like also the podcast, because people want to be a part of something that like makes them feel good, that makes them happy, that makes them feel like they're part of something.
And like this is that we have that energy where we want people to be a part of us.
6:38
We don't want like just to show everybody that we're a clique and that we, we are, we're great.
But you have to be invited, like everybody's invited.
Like you just have to be like, nice and like willing to give other people grace and, and kindness and whatever.
6:55
And but if you're those things, you're invited to be a part of us, a part of our community.
And we want you.
And like even our competitors, like even women who are also in the field doing this work, like we want to be friends with them.
We want to build each other up and we want to spread this.
7:13
We don't want to be the only people that are doing this and having this great community.
We want this everywhere.
We want everybody to have a piece of this and and everybody to be a part of it.
Well, and obviously our business is a business like making money is important, but it's also it's more than that.
7:31
So like.
We don't want to necessarily have you pay us to fix a doorknob in your house.
We would love to be there to do the projects that bring you joy or that you really just don't have the time to learn.
And we love making homes beautiful.
7:47
I think my handy ma'am, we do a lot of repairs and stuff, but we also just we really love making things beautiful and, and making them work as well.
But I think like the beautiful thing is we don't necessarily want our clients to have to need us for everything.
8:05
And we want to give them the information to if they want to work with us, they want us in their homes and they want us to do the project.
But if they want to do it themselves, we're not going to make it inaccessible for them.
So enter the podcast.
8:21
So we have learned so many things over the last five years.
That hard way.
To me, they just felt like, oh, my God, I didn't know that.
Like, I can do this.
Like, yeah, I needed to know this one thing in order to be able to do this well.
But now I know this one thing and I can do this well.
8:37
And for me, I love sharing those kinds of things with other people.
So when they're like, oh, I had a woman who was like, I, my house got broken into and so I had new locks put in, but this one is getting a little loose.
I'm worried.
And I'm like, you do not need a new lock.
Do you have a Phillips screwdriver handy?
And then just really, truly, if I put another door handle in, I'm gonna put the same one in that you have right now.
8:58
And I'm just gonna make sure the screws are tight.
So let's just do that and save you some money.
It's just amazing to me.
Like how easy it is to unlock the world of really capabilities and then every time you unlock 1 little piece, it just makes it easier to unlock the next piece and the next piece.
9:14
And we it's so exciting.
And for me, like I said, I'm 49.
I had a 25 year career in doing something totally different before this.
And I thought that's what I would do for the rest of my life.
And so here I am like mid like my midlife crisis is starting a business.
And it's so exciting to realize that any part of your life, you can pick something, you can learn something new, you can do something new.
9:38
And aren't they really hit the nail on the head for me.
It's not just about what I do, it's about who I do it with.
So I this is the second time I've worked in a job where I've had an opportunity to create the environment in which I want to work.
And shout out to Martha, Lynnae, Barb, and Aurelia because those are my 4 girls who I adore.
9:58
Five of us work together with about 20 other people in a free clinic.
And for 10 years we provided free healthcare to people in our community.
And in a nonprofit, one of the really lovely things is your whole job is to help people.
Any nonprofit, you can boil it down to your job is to help people.
10:15
So even on your worst possible day, you still know what you're doing matters.
And for me, because, you know, after we got to a certain size, I wasn't really working on the front line.
My job was to take care of my people.
And then my people took care of the people who came to us for help.
And the five of us together created an environment where it was same as it is now, where it's like, what do you need?
10:35
I got you.
I'm your pit crew, I'm your backup.
I'm your cheerleader.
You're you don't have it today.
I'll have it today.
Tomorrow.
You can have it when I don't have it together.
And there's just I don't even know.
It can't be summed up in one word.
It's like the hope that comes with knowing that good things will be a part of tomorrow.
10:54
And it's the comfort of knowing that even if tomorrow sucks, someone's going to be walking beside you while it sucks.
And then it's just the safety of knowing if All in all, I cannot get it together tomorrow, somebody will tuck me in for a nap and take care of it.
11:11
You know, it's just that support.
You know, I think female relationships in certain circles get a bad rap, like women are caddy and women are gossipy.
And it can be true, really of any population of humans you bring together.
But our commitment, it's not like it's magic.
Our, our commitment as a group has been, we are here for each other and yeah, we are here for each other.
11:32
That's probably the best way to sum it up.
And so we want to continue to strengthen that within our own crew.
We want to demonstrate to the wider world that that is not only possible but but it exists and it can be done, can be done.
11:50
It can be done in a free clinic.
It can be done in a construction business.
It can.
Be done at a movie theater or gas station?
Yeah.
It can be done in any space that you occupy with other humans.
I think the beautiful thing, I think not to get too deep, but I feel like in the world nowadays, like it's very individualized, like especially with our phones, which I'm no stranger to phone addiction, but like it can feel so individualized like.
12:15
All.
All your stuff you're getting, all your news is tailored to you.
And we really lost the beauty of community.
And like we even have community with our clients like, and to be honest, we're not the cheapest company.
We're not going to be the same prices as a truck and a truck.
12:32
Part of the reason for that is because Samantha and I made a commitment that we were going to prioritize paying people well and paying people a living wage, which we, it's a tenant of our company and that's important, but that does not mean we can work for like $10.00 an hour.
12:48
So, and we'll probably cut some of this out, but it's just like what we offer to clients isn't just our handy services, which is one reason why it's important to us for education.
What we offer to our clients is someone who comes in your home, makes things work, makes things beautiful, problem solves when you have nothing left in your tank, like when you're going through a nasty divorce or like your kids are in a hard phase.
13:15
Like we'll come in and we're rarely asking anything of the client really just, yeah, however much they want to be involved is important.
But some people just say I want this task done, can you do it?
And I don't want any involvement, Just let me know when it's done and we're happy.
13:31
Some people are like, I want to pick everything, including the outlet cover size that goes on the outlet, and that's fine.
That's what we want to be, what the client needs in that moment.
And sometimes they just need a handyman.
And sometimes they need, they need our brand, a handyman they need.
13:48
A handy friend.
Yeah, a handy friend, someone who loves on their pets, someone who loves on their kids, their anyone who's in their house and brings good energy into a home because I'm one who home is such important energy.
14:04
I'm in extroverted introvert, definitely an introvert last.
But home is where I recharge my energy.
And so things being wrong in my home really messes with my brain.
And so learning how to be handy and getting to use my artistic skills and making my home beautiful is truly like one of the best gifts I guess I've ever given myself is like believing in myself enough to know that I can make my home beautiful and it's a place I'll live, but I can also make my home functional.
14:39
I can pass on knowledge to other women to empower them that they don't need men to come fix stuff for them.
And we have great men in our lives.
Like there are great men and we work with a lot of great contractors who are men.
And also we don't need them if we don't need them.
14:57
Yeah, it's about choice.
It's about what Grandma, what my mom always said, which is be with a guy if you want to be, but don't be with a guy because you have to be, because you can't pay your bills if you're not.
And that really translates into kind of anything else.
You should have the choice to do things on your own if that's what you want.
15:16
And then also be free to choose to be dependent or interdependent with other humans if you want to.
And knowing how to do things, even if it's you're not going to do it yourself, but you know what it should be, gives you that independence to make those choices willingly.
15:33
Yeah, especially if you don't want to do it yourself, but you want enough knowledge to be able to either talk to a contractor or know when they've messed up and are trying to hide.
It's so hard.
This is why we lease our cars and we don't own cars that we then own past the warranty.
Because early on in our marriage we had this experience with a couple of car places where it's like, like they're telling you something and you're like, well, it, it could be true, but I don't know if it is true and I don't have any way to know if it's true.
16:02
And this is a lot of money.
Like you just feel very vulnerable.
And I think it's very much the same way with contractors is they might be like, that can't be done And you're like, I guess it can't be done.
But like, we'll, you know, we have that experience where a customer will say that they said that couldn't be done.
And we're like, it can be done.
16:18
It might be expensive, it might be disruptive to your home.
It might be a pain in the butt, might be they didn't want to do it, which are all valid things, but it can be done.
So I think part of it is just communicating with customers in a way that they that what matters to them matters to us.
16:34
Yeah, I think that's an important when you're going into somebody else's house, even though they're paying you to do something like you are a guest in their home and taking advantage of like their lack of knowledge is something that we don't do and we don't encourage and we don't like to work with people who do that either.
16:56
And you know, that's hard.
Or people that like hide stuff, whether they're not going to notice that they off court around or not or whatever.
You know, like, like we we know what the right thing is to do and whether they're going to notice or not, it's the right thing to do.
17:14
You want to be a part of this, like if you want to hear about what we are going to do, if you want to know about things that we've done, if you want to learn, if you want to just be a part of this energy, If you just want to look and see our pictures that we post.
17:33
You know, if you want just a T-shirt that says my handyman on it.
Like if, if you want to be a part of this in any way, then follow us.
Do whatever.
That's what.
Yeah, and here's where me, as the person who runs the social media, comes in to let you know that you can be a part of our community.
17:52
If you search on Facebook how to handy ma'am, there is a group and there is also a Facebook page.
So the group is where you can go and ask free home advice questions.
We throw in some links on how to do stuff, how to find the best lumber, how to fit swap a toilet, things like that.
18:09
And eventually we'll start making our own how to content.
And you'll get to hear from us and how we do things.
And then if you want to just follow us, you'll get updates on when we're releasing podcast episodes and just content our crazy lives, Arlie's Bunny, Satchmo and Samantha and I's dogs, Lemon and Winnie will probably make some appearances, definitely.
18:31
And if you want to see how our business is and what our business side is at My Handy Ma'am is where you can find us.
That's our business page.
So how to Handy Ma'am is focused on the education and making you a handyman.
And my handyman is when we're other people's handymans.
18:49
So we hope through the podcast that we can provide educational opportunities within the podcast itself, but also that it will open up the door for us to be able to create additional educational opportunities for women.
That's really the push of the podcast.
19:04
So if you dig that and you want to support that and you want to help us grow our little baby podcast, then please like, follow and subscribe and leave a review.
And the links will be in the description of the podcast episode.
19:20
We're learning everything, probably the hard way, like we do everything, but we're.
Possible way?
It out.
All right.
And we love you.
What's that like?
Yeah, I was going to say Arlie.
