The Punching Out Podcast

Your favorite people spend most of their interview time talking about work: offering up professional insights, sharing the latest thinking on topics of choice, and discussing their latest projects.

But there’s SO much more to unpack!

When you punch out of work, you refocus on your personal passions and side interests. That’s exactly what my “Punching Out” co-host, Katie Robbert, and I want to explore. On The Punching Out Podcast, you’ll get to hear about people’s fun hobbies, weird collections, and side hustles.

For Episode 1 of Season 1, Katie and I cover what we do for fun. Other Season 1 episodes will feature well known personalities including Chris Brogan, Mark Schaefer, Christopher Penn, and Katie Martell!

Download This Episode

In this inaugural episode of The Punching Out Podcast, we cover:

• Why people should tune in to the Punching Out Podcast
• Why dad jokes are the best – and not told exclusively by dads
• What activities fall into hobbies, interests and side hustles
• Bad student films and good movies
• KenTacoHut

This episode of the Punching Out Podcast is sponsored by Trust Insights.

Are you feeling less than confident in your marketing metrics, looking for some help automating your tasks, or wondering what topics are most important to your audience? Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, Trust Insights will help you light up your dark data. Visit trustinsights.ai/punchingout for more information.

The Punching Out Podcast (#PunchingOut) is the show that dives deeper into topics you care about. We don’t ask the questions everyone else does. We get to the real insights (and the weird hobbies, the guilty pleasures, the secret side hustles…the good stuff)! We find out what really makes your favorite people tick. Punch out with Katie and Kerry!

Have a cool hobby or side interest you want to talk about on the Punching Out Podcast? Let us know:
Web: www.punchingoutpodcast.com
Email: punchingoutpodcast@gmail.com.
Hosts: Kerry O’Shea Gorgone (@KerryGorgone) & Katie Robbert (@katierobbert)

Transcript:

Kerry Gorgone 0:00
Katie, Do you know any dad jokes?

Katie Robbert 0:00
As a matter of fact, I do. Did you hear the one about the restaurant on the moon? No great food, no atmosphere.

INTRO:
Sometimes you just want to talk about something other than work. Katie Roberto and Kerry O’Shea are going get to the weird hobbies guilty pleasures and secret side hustlers. The good stuff about all your favorite people. Punch Out with Katie and Kerry.

Kerry Gorgone 0:29
Hi everyone. Welcome to the inaugural episode of The Punching Out Podcast with me, Kerry O’Shea Gorgone and Katie Robbert from Trust Insights. Hey, Katie big first episode you excited.

Katie Robbert 0:32
I am beyond excited. This is something I’ve always wanted to be able to do. Like on my own terms, not for a company, not for anyone else’s agenda. And I’m so excited that we finally get to do something like this.

Kerry Gorgone 0:52
I have been talking about marketing on the marketing smarts podcast for Marketingprofs for about five years. And I love it. I still love it. But I was ready to talk about something else. I kind of felt like with every guest, they would bring something up. And I would think I’d be so interesting to find out more about that. But it was like a hobby, or a side hustle or a cause they supported or something and didn’t really have a place in a business discussion about marketing. So now we can talk about all those things. Katie

Katie Robbert 1:16
well, and it’s you know, it’s something that I think is also so important because especially at trust insights, we really challenge our employees to be well rounded, and not just work 15, 16, 20 hours a day. You know, we want people to have outside hobbies and have other passions outside of marketing. It’s just a really healthy way to live. And so I think that this is the perfect complement to what you and I both do.

Kerry Gorgone 1:41
It’s like the movie “The Firm” with Tom Cruise when he goes to join that law firm. And they’re like, the firm encourages children firm doesn’t forbid wives from working. You guys are like “The Firm”.

Katie Robbert 1:51

So, so similar, but not we do not enforce children. Thank goodness, we strongly suggest we don’t enforce

Kerry Gorgone 2:03
children are not a hobby. Anyway, they’re more of a side hustle. But I would say it’s like your full time gig. No matter what is going on

Katie Robbert 2:11
It’s kind of like the show “diners, drive ins and dives.” They try to fit everything into one of those three categories. So we fit kids into a side hustle because we have hobbies, interests, and side hustles.

So it’s like the same thing. Hobbies,

Kerry Gorgone 2:25
You’re into dad jokes.

Katie Robbert 2:27
I loved that job. You

Unknown 2:28
don’t have good Did your dad joke? No.

Katie Robbert 2:31
I want you know, I blame my own dad for it. He taught me some of the worst jokes that I’ve ever learned. including some really bad sea shanties and limericks

Kerry Gorgone
Oh. Like pG 13.

Kerry Gorgone
Yeah, yes. And no.

Kerry Gorgone 2:48
Telling me a dad joke, Katie.

Katie Robbert
Okay.

Kerry Gorgone
Something you learned by the shanty?

Katie Robbert 2:56
Well, here’s here’s a good dad joke. This is very typical of something that might dad would tell me how many apples grow on a tree?

Kerry Gorgone
How many

Katie Robbert
all of them.

Kerry Gorgone 3:07
And that is the reaction you’re going for.

Katie Robbert 3:09
I don’t have what, like an Alexa or Google Home. But I’ve been told that if you do have one, you can actually install a program that you can say, Alexa, tell me a dad joke. And chills. Just start telling you bad jokes. And if I were to invest in like a Google Home, and Alexa. That would be the only reason why. it’s just have someone tell me bad jokes all day long.

Kerry Gorgone 3:30
But why dad jokes in particular, I mean, moms can tell terrible joke. I tell a ton of mom jokes. By the way.

Katie Robbert 3:35
I think it’s just the what is always been called. I don’t think it’s actually necessarily has to be told by a dad. Like, I’m not a dad that I know of. So I think it’s just called a dad joke. Because that’s what people understand them to be. But I mean, anyone can tell a bad joke. A lot of people tell bad jokes. I think the difference is, anyone can tell them bad joke, but it’s considered a dad joke If you kind of get that eye roll and groan, of like, ”Oh my god, that’s so dumb. It’s funny.” And I guess that’s the difference.

Kerry Gorgone 4:10
This is the best. Like, what do you call an elephant that doesn’t matter? An irrelevant.

Katie Robbert 4:20
I’m gonna have to save that one.

Kerry Gorgone 4:22
So dad jokes as a hobby. Just break that out. When you guys have company or what?

Katie Robbert 4:25
I don’t even need company. I’ll just, I mean if my husband is sitting even somewhere within like, 10 feet of me. I’ll just start you know, telling jokes.

Kerry Gorgone
Adam. Sure. You really like that.

Katie Robbert
There’s a reason he married me. He actually really does and the worst the better and then he’ll take them to work with him and then start telling them

Kerry Gorgone 4:47
how did the dogs like him because you have dogs, right.

Katie Robbert 4:50
I do, I have two Newfoundland’s one is just under 200 pounds. And the other one is a little hundred-pound bruiser. They tell their own jokes they think it’s funny to pull pranks the other day they pretended, like, so I had gotten up a little bit later than I normally do. And they pretended they hadn’t eaten so they got two breakfasts so you know so they pulled a prank and my husband rolled into the room he’s like oh so they didn’t tell you that they’ve already and I was like “Oh guys you got me”

Kerry Gorgone 5:19
you’re going to have like morbidly obese already giant

Katie Robbert 5:25
no, they eat a normal diet that was that was only one out of you know, the five years that we’ve been doing this that they’ve pulled that prank

Kerry Gorgone 5:32
Well, normally will be talking to other people about their weird collections and fun hobbies and side hustlers and causes that they support but, you know, we thought for this first episode of The Punching Out Podcast that we would find out about the weird things that you do

Katie Robbert 5:44
well, and you Kerry

Kerry Gorgone 5:46
and me but you know, I don’t have anything as exotic as dad jokes and enormous dogs that I overfeed. I don’t even have a goldfish. I just have children and they make an effort not to overfeed them. Although I can say that that always goes on according to plan.

Katie Robbert 6:00
Well, we have established that children are a side hustle. Do you have any interesting hobbies? Or do you collect anything?

Kerry Gorgone 6:08
I think kids are like tiny thugs to take over your whole life. That’s pretty much so I mean, side hustle, I would hesitate to categorize them as but before I had kids, I was at the movies every weekend. You know how they used to tell jokes or they’d have trivia at the beginning of every movie. And you know while they were well before the movie started I got to the point where I knew what the next revolution was going to be before the before it came up. I just been to so many movies anymore as like yes not that they actually give you prizes for that or anything but I felt like every crap movie that came out between 1990 and now

Katie Robbert 6:44
what were some of your favorites

Kerry Gorgone 6:46
Um, I don’t even know why I went to see Titanic because I was like everybody knows how it ends I will say that the lower my expectations the better my reaction when it is not terrible and so I was like oh man that was a amazing like the effects there is a way that the another one along the same lines with Varsity Blues expected to be god awful and when it wasn’t that bad I was so thrilled that it wasn’t that bad Don’t ask me why I think I had run through all the good movies that’s what happens right because movies stay out for a while and I was down to like the seeds and stuff as they say in certain the circles and so he went to see “Varsity Blues”, fully expecting it to be awful. And it was all right. I tend to like horror movies a lot. And so fairly recently I took my mom to see the first purge

Katie Robbert
wow

Kerry Gorgone
I know! that was another season says it’s kinda weekend. But you know what, she actually liked it too, because there’s a lot of action and stuff so and you don’t really need to have seen the rest of them because it is supposed to be the origin story. And if you’re familiar with the purge movies, like they locked down the city and everyone’s allowed to do whatever they want. Including kill people for like, 12 hours or 24, I forget, maybe 12

Katie Robbert 7:59
I haven’t seen but I do love an origin story. So are they are without giving anything away. So if you’re in your house, our people love to break into your house. Like Are there any rules with the purge? Or is it just, everything goes?

Kerry Gorgone 8:15
everything’s legal, everything. Yeah. And so that’s the thing. So they’ll obviously to be targeting certain people. But their idea, I think, is that the kind of like, the lower classes would just kill each other, this terrible evil, horrible thing, right? And you get to see the beginnings of it, like, how it unfolded and how it actually whatever. But so I was surprised by that movie, too. I mean, that’s not none of these are like the best movies that I’ve seen. Terrible that I was, I was one of those nerds. It was like at the midnight showings for the Lord of the Rings movies, when they came out like it did all of that all the superhero movies, all the horror movies, the really good ones, there were some that were disappointing. I’ve seen some critically acclaimed movies that turned out to be in my opinion, awful like the “Witch”

Katie Robbert 8:56
is that the one where the W looks like two V’s?

Kerry Gorgone 8:59
I don’t remember. I don’t remember it. Seeing on Rotten Tomatoes. It had like this ridiculously high score, you know, that movie ratings website and I thought, you know, give it a whirl and they turned up for it. And it was it was just terrible, really slow moving and depressing as hell. And I was like, I want two and a half hours of my life back so angry.

Katie Robbert 9:17
I think I see that one pop up on Netflix because I also watch a lot of horror movies and I’ve watched a lot of bad ones. I think one of the worst ones I watched was on a flight back from San Francisco to Boston and it was “the pretty thing that lives in the walls”

Kerry Gorgone
I haven’t seen that

Katie Robbert
and just in general like the title sounds like oh that’ll be really interesting and the preview was really interesting but there was almost no dialogue and it was like a single shot on the actress the whole time and it just was so slow and so terrible and I was really disappointed because I was really hoping to watch you know a really exciting horror movie so instead I switched over to Stephen King’s thinner which was way better yeah and on a plane when other people are trying to figure out what you’re doing like the guy next to me was horrified

Kerry Gorgone 10:04
I bet well even the made for TV Stephen King movies are going to be better than some of the stuff that’s out there I like the ones that they release it seems like in Paris like to similar movies with a similar story like Armageddon and Deep Impact right and then you’re like Armageddon was so much better way better Yes Are there was deep blue sea and then there was a deep rising or something and one was about smart sharks

for the other was about but anyway so I like those kinds of barriers you know comparing which was better and stuff you know i’m a movie buff and it’s partly about the experience I kind of like getting out and going to the theater

Katie Robbert 10:37
so I don’t know if you know this Kerry but I actually have a film degree no way I studied film at Fitchburg state it was college back them now it’s University

Kerry Gorgone 10:49
it matriculated

Katie Robbert 10:51
so I to have made a bad student film in my day. And because I also love horror movies. That was the genre that I kept trying to make. But what would happen was we would the team and I would set out to make this horror movie and it would turn into a comedy. So we just rolled with it. And we ended up making this one called quiet hours. Because you know, when you’re in college, you have no budget, you have to kind of have to work with like the surroundings that you have. So we came up with this plot where there is this one, like sort of psychopathic kid who was trying to study during finals. And during finals, you have the quiet hour. So like every floor, every dorm has to be like no music, no parties, that kind of a thing.

Kerry Gorgone 11:32
I was a Resident Assistant, I enforce this.

Katie Robbert 11:35
And so you know, and so basically what would happen was he was he started murdering all of the people who were violating quiet hours. Who hasn’t wanted to do that. So you had someone who was singing in the shower, so there was a shower murder scene. And of course, he was singing that Maxwell’s “I always feel like somebody’s watching me”

Kerry Gorgone 11:54
of course you’ve got clearance for that.

Katie Robbert 11:56
I mean, yes, of course.

There was a kid who was that was this was back in the day when they were actual phones tethered to walls. So there was a phone booth so we had somebody loudly arguing with their girlfriend in a phone booth so there was a phone booth killing seen lots of like, small on

Kerry Gorgone
Oh my god, phone booths. When was the last time you saw a phone booth, Katie?

Katie Robbert
that’s a really good question. I don’t know.

Kerry Gorgone 12:21
I mean outside of the movies?

Katie Robbert 12:23
Yeah, probably outside the pop Geno’s down the street

Kerry Gorgone 12:26
We have a KenTacoHut.

Katie Robbert
A whaaaat?

Kerry Gorgone
A Kentucky Fried Chicken Taco Bell, Pizza Hut all in one

Katie Robbert 12:33
oh my god – fancy

Kerry Gorgone 12:35
I know right.

Katie Robbert 12:37
I live I think I live too far into the sticks to have anything like that

SPONSOR
This episode of The Punching Out Podcast is sponsored by Trust Insights. Are you feeling less than confident in your marketing metrics, looking for some help automating your tasks, or wondering what topics are most important to your audience? Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, Trust Insights will help you light up your dark data. Visit trustinsights.ai/PunchingOut for more information.

Kerry Gorgone 13:05
Well, I’m guessing your movie making career didn’t take off the way you hoped

Katie Robbert 13:09
it didn’t. So after college, I interned for a production company and they produced a lot of local commercials. They worked with the Boston Red Sox and a lot of the charitable foundations and at the time Nomar Garciaparra no mas Noma was on the Red Sox. And so we would follow him around because he had the Nomar sorry, the Noma five funds. So we all summer I just got to follow around, Nomar and sort of like, he dedicated a playground and did like a children’s bowling league, and those types of things to sort of like, really give back. And then after that, I, after the internship was over, I fell in and started working with a casting agency. And that’s when I decided that I didn’t really want to go down that road. And at the time, the movie production hadn’t really come to Boston, that was probably like another 10 years out. And so I couldn’t afford to move to New York or Los Angeles, I didn’t really want to do casting. And I didn’t want the instability of doing freelance. And so I moved on to a regular office job. But the good news as it led me to where I am today.

Kerry Gorgone 14:20
Yeah, I think it’s hard to make sense that your career journey until you kind of look backwards on it. But I love when your hobbies can inform what it is you want to do with the kind of the rest of your life. And they even help you make connections with people like I’ve connected with people over the fact that my favorite movie is part of the Evil Dead Series. I love all those Bruce Campbell movies, the really cheesy, Evil Dead series, my favorites,

Katie Robbert 14:41
So good,

Kerry Gorgone 14:42
an Army of Darkness, I think it’s probably my favorite of the series. And so I’ve had conversations with people, I’m a lawyer, I don’t practice now. But when I did, I did have a lot of conversations about things like copyright clearance for using different things in academic textbooks or other kind of contexts. And so you know, while I was chatting with people, because you kind of butter and Katie, you go butter people up so you can get what you want, get the Versa that you need. And haven’t mentioned that that was one of my favorite movies. And the guy on the other end was like, really, oh, man, I have a soundboard of all the stuff he says that it’s like, all these effects, and all its everything. And then I got my permission, whatever else got asked out on a date, which I had to like, politely decline. But I got the clearance. And it was in part due to the fact that I shared about my hobby, or my interest in movies. And we like connected over it.

Katie Robbert 15:27
And I think that that’s a really good tie in because that’s really one of the things that we’re trying to accomplish with this show, is to show everyone the other sides of, you know, these marketers, and these people who are really big in the industry, people know what they do professionally. But they have very little opportunity to talk about what they like, and enjoy outside of their work. And it’s just another opportunity for people to connect, you know, when you and I started getting to know each other, we found out how many millions of things we have in common, we’re essentially the same person

Unknown 16:02
you’re about, you know, better.

Katie Robbert 16:05
But it’s really interesting when you break it down. Because we were even talking this morning about our love of horror movies. And we were just sharing referrals of like, you should watch this movie, you should watch this movie. And I know we have other guests coming up this season that we’ve been able to do that with Personally, I know like john wall, for example, he and I bonded over I love our shared love of 90s new jack swing music. And we could talk for hours about it, and he’ll send me audio tracks and things that he’s hijacked. And it’s awesome. We just talked about music for hours.

Kerry Gorgone 16:36
So that’s the thing when your job like mine is, is to interview people about their professional pursuits, and accomplishments, about topics of interest that can benefit marketers, which I love. Like I said, it’s a little bit limiting. And I think for the people themselves, sometimes like, they’ll give you a little glimpse into what they do when they punch out when they’re done with work for the day. And you just think, Oh, I really want to know more about that. So this in our first season of punching out is going to be really exciting with people with all kinds of quirky little hobbies, some really meaningful side interests and causes they support. And it’s been really fascinating. I like finding out why people do the things that they do, like you like to travel. But on a beer budget.

Katie Robbert 17:16
Yeah, I have champagne tastes, and a beer budget dream. You know, one of the things that so I live in Massachusetts, and there’s this nonprofit organization that my husband and I love to support called the Trustees of Reservations. And their whole mission is to preserve open space all around Massachusetts, so that you can preserve it for, you know, future generations so that you don’t have too many houses go up and those types of things. And so they have, I want to say about 125 properties all around Massachusetts, that vary from farms and hiking trails, and camping grounds. And they even have one right in the Boston Market where they teach cooking classes.

And so they have this challenge to try to hit all of their different properties. And people participate. And they tweet about it, they post pictures of all of the different properties that they visit. Now, we’ve only gotten to about 20 or so properties, but most of the properties are actually free for people to visit. And we actually got married on one of their properties. And we were able to support them by making a donation to the property and we as people who don’t have a lot of money, we’re able to get a relatively inexpensive wedding venue, but it was a beautiful venue because it had, you know, like a covered picnic area. It was on the water. It was lovely. It rained all day, but it was still lovely.

Kerry Gorgone 18:39
I thought he did it on the fly. Like quick, let’s do this thing before they

Unknown 18:43
like Haha, too late. We did it.

Unknown 18:49
Next marriage

Katie Robbert 18:52
maybe next time. You know how many ideas for next time?

Kerry Gorgone 18:56
Well, you can renew your vows if this one works out. I mean, you never know. You know,

Katie Robbert 18:59
you never know, you never know

Kerry Gorgone 19:02
at least you’ve stuck with it. I think my biggest thing with finding any hobby like I just started guitar lessons in October. the very end. When I say October, I mean like October 31. So I wore my Harley Quinn costume to the guitar shop for my first guitar. Lesson. Marketingprofs, where I work, is doing a learning challenge. And they’re like, devote five hours a week to doing something new. And everybody was like, You should learn to code do something, you know, professionally valuable. And I’m like, no. So I didn’t want I didn’t want to. Because for me punching out as an actual psychological phenomenon that has to happen. So I can decompress. So I decided to try something I’ve never done before play string instrument. When I was in elementary school, I played the flute.

Katie Robbert 19:42
I also played the flute

Kerry Gorgone 19:44
and not well, I didn’t play it well. But they were like, that’s what we need. You’re going to play the flute. And I hated it. I hated like every second of it. So I was never going to touch that again. And string instrument was totally different to me. So that’s what I do now. And I take a 30 minute less than a week from a super cool guy who could do with his little finger more than I can manage with both hands at a lot. We’re tell it that I have doubt. But I’m enjoying it. But the other thing I do is learn languages, little pieces of languages, not the whole language where you could talk to someone,

Katie Robbert 20:12
but like enough that if you want us to travel to that country, you could get by

Kerry Gorgone 20:16
maybe with the combination of some gestures Google Translate or something like I could ask in check for directions to Prague Castle. I could get a menu I could get some beer. These are all important things. Very important things a great I can’t even find a star last survey. So yes, I could find the business district

Katie Robbert 20:38
would me hold don’t.

Kerry Gorgone 20:41
Why do I know that I could give somebody my business card to dm Lee enough. She think that’s really good. I think I enjoy learning languages like the sounds. And when I learned them, I can do it. You know, in the pronunciation of whoever it is. It taught me like, I can mimic it really well. But I can’t ever find a conversational partner to take me to the next level. So I don’t get fluent. And at that point, I just like hop to the next one. So I’ve got the little Spanish, a little German, a little check a little Japanese, nothing that will get me very far anywhere. I know. It’s so funny. I’m just at this point. I’m probably on to cling on. I don’t know what I’ll do after that.

Katie Robbert 21:19
I think I know some people who can help you out with that. Well, that I know, right?

Kerry Gorgone 21:23
It’s so funny. And never mind that coding is a language. I mean, I’ve had that bill of goods sold to me also, oh, you should learn PHP or you should learn, you know, Ruby on Rails or whatever. And I’m like, no, it’s To me, it’s different. There’s something about learning like a romance language, you know, code. So I don’t know all these things, I think just get different cylinders firing in your brain. And that has to be a good thing.

Katie Robbert 21:45
It absolutely is a good thing. So I’m excited for this season of the Punching Out Podcast. I’m excited to learn what other people are doing. We know so much about them as professionals, but I just want to know them as people. And I think honestly, that makes their marketing better when it’s authentic, and it’s genuine and it’s from their own perspective. So I’m, I’m really jealous. I can’t wait to hear what other people are up to.

Kerry Gorgone 22:06
Well, let’s give people a sneak peek. Who do we have coming up, Katie?

Katie Robbert 22:09
So, we have john wall who is co-host of marketing over coffee. He’s been doing that for well over 10 years. We have Gini Dietrich. She is the owner and CEO of spin sucks. We have Chris Brogan. We have Chris Penn. We have a lot of really good names.

Kerry Gorgone 22:32
You have Katie Martell and a lot of really fun kind of obscure hobbies.

Katie Robbert 22:35
Yeah, I know I’m leaving some people out. But you’ll have to listen and just sort of find out what these people are up to. There are some really cool things coming up.

Kerry Gorgone 22:42
And if you have a weird hobby, by all means, let us know. We want to hear about it, so Katie, and I are both on Twitter. I’m at @kerrygorgone.. Katie, what’s your handle?

Katie Robbert 22:50
I’m at @katierobbert, and that’s Robert with two B’s

Kerry Gorgone
Wow that’s complicated

Katie Robbert
Man, Tell me about it you know the family is divided down to like two sides you’re either a “row bear” or “row-bert”, nobody is a “Robert” and I think I get it wrong most of the time. It’s my married name. My maiden name is just as complicated so let’s just go with @katierobbert, that’s Robert with two B’s.

Kerry Gorgone 23:16
I think “row-bear” is much classier than “row-bert”

Katie Robbert 23:19
Well you can you can tell my husband’s mom that

Kerry Gorgone
Hard pass. How about a dad joke?

Katie Robbert
Okay how about this: The graveyard looks overcrowded people must be dying to get in there

Kerry Gorgone 23:38
terrible

Katie Robbert 23:41
but it’s so good.

Kerry Gorgone 23:44
I look forward to hearing more about other people’s hobbies

Katie Robbert 23:49
next time on The Punching Out Podcast more dad jokes

Kerry Gorgone 23:53
that’s it will see our subscriber count dropped its here

OUTRO 23:59
Thanks for listening to Punching Out Podcast. If you like what you heard today, please do leave us a review or rating on iTunes. If you have a weird how do you want to talk about reach out to us on Twitter at @kerrygorgone and at @katierobbert – Talk with you next time, I’m punching out!