Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's episode is going to be a longer one part of the series where I interview fascinating people about how they take their days from great to awesome and any advice they might have for the rest of us. So today I am delighted to welcome Lisa Camuso Miller to the show. Lisa is a longtime communications expert who also hosts the
Friday Reporter podcast. Lisa, Welcome to the.
Show, Laura, Thank you for having me.
I'm excited to have you here. So, Lisa, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about what you do.
So I've been in Washington, d C now for twenty four years, which would surprise my younger self because I swore I would be here for two. But I have been now in the communications space for a long time. I spent time working in the federal government, I spent time working in politics, and I'm lucky enough now to
be working as a consultant in the private sector. So a lot of times what happens is companies and corporations and special interests will come to Washington, d C. And want to advance their issue amongst legislators and policymakers and so anywhere else in the world we call it public relations. But in Washington, d C. Because we're not actually trying to influence consumers, we're trying to influence legislators and lawmakers
and regulators, we call it public affairs. And so I've been in that space now for twenty four years.
Yeah, and you've had, you know, your career, Like you know, when I first came across you years ago, you were doing things like spokes You were being a spokesperson for various people and officials. What does that actually mean for people who are wondering, You know, we hear like somebody's spokesperson said this, what is involved in that job?
Oh? Boy, Well, it's involved a lot since I got started. But a lot of times the spokesperson ends up being you know, when you elect someone to an office, or you have someone that is the CEO of an organization, they'll have a spokesperson to be an extension of their own voice. So if in fact, you can't get the voice of the actual person that it is, whether it's an elected official, a governor, a senator, a member of Congress,
they would get the voice of the spokesperson. So the spokesperson typically is the person that will speak on a variety of different issues, but it's always reflective of the voice and the opinions of the person that you're working for. So there are plenty of spokespeople for big corporations that talk about the way that the issues and the products or whatever it is they're trying to move are affecting
people's lives. That's the job of a spokesperson, and that can be it can be a really super rewarding job because if you believe in the person that you're working for, you get to advance their issues and their causes in a way that maybe you might not otherwise have an opportunity to.
Yeah, and then you know the communications field in general. I mean, I've heard it said it's often about telling stories, right, that we're trying to communicate our opinions and our ideas through stories in general. Is that how you would think of it?
I mean, yes, it starts from a very very very early age, right. We love to know stories and we love to know why it is that a big issue matters for us. What is interesting to me about storytelling is that it actually makes it more palatable for people to understand why the issue and why it is they
should care about it. And so storytelling to me also really makes us better communicators, because not only we're trying to we could tell you lots of facts, and we could tell you lots of reasons why you should care about a particular thing, But until you can figure out how to internalize it and me understand why it means something to you, it really is difficult to conceptual and maybe is something that maybe isn't even perhaps interesting enough for you to want to learn more.
Yeah, well, you know, we have a lot of people listening to this. It's like, well, I would like to, you know, raise my profile or be known more for something. And I've heard that part of this is about storytelling or something like that. But how can people think about this and come up with ways to tell stories that are authentic that don't feel like, you know, we just made something up in order to put it out there.
Oh, that is the greatest question, Laura, Thank you for asking it. I think to me, authenticity is key to really landing any message you want to communicate, finding something that you truly believe in finding something that you truly care about and then sharing it in a way that is uniquely yours. The one thing that I find when I consult, because I do a lot of consulting now for people that are trying to build their brand, the one thing I try to emphasize more than anything else
is that you yourself have your own unique story. Lot of times we'll look around and say, oh, I probably shouldn't do a podcast because Laura has a podcast, or I probably shouldn't do a blog post about this because someone else wrote about it. The truth of it is is that there are so many people in your unique universe that care about your specific thought about an issue that you should always feel good sharing it because there's space for all of us to have points of view and thoughts.
But the thing that makes it authentic is sharing it in a way that's uniquely special to you and your own point of view, because people naturally want to listen to those stories even more because it's something that is specific and unique to your own experience and perhaps is one that you didn't realize really would be special and important for someone else to hear.
So how can you go back and sort of mine your past and mine your thoughts for the stories that might you know, resonate with other people.
Oh boy, I mean, you know, for me, a lot is journaling. I spend a lot of time just sort of writing in my own journal. I mean I never go back and read it a lot of times. It's just sort of formulating thoughts and getting ideas together for myself. And in that alone, I think helps me understand sort of how I feel about a specific issue. So if I care about education, if I've decided that I'm worried about my kids education, I'll spend some time writing what
it is and why it is. It's passionate to me. It's making me alive, it's waking me up, it's making me want to know more about it. I'll also spend time socializing, whether it's getting a cup of coffee with a neighbor or a friend and asking them how they feel about it. Sometimes having those conversations, not only writing your own unique thoughts, but then hearing how others feel about it can help you really distill that thought a little bit more and understand better about how you feel
about it. The more conversations I have with others about how they feel. The more I tune into how I care about and why I care about an issue, and then I can tell the story in a way that's unique to me, in the words that I feel like are the ones that make the most sense.
And since you've had such a varied career and in communications and talking about different issues and seeing different people trying to advance their stories, I wonder if there's an example you can give of somewhere where you know smart communication really made a difference in how something was perceived or in what happened afterwards.
Boy, I've seen a lot of bad examples.
I guess there's that too.
No, no, no, And I only say that because I feel like reflecting on the poor and not well executed examples make you better when the time comes to really do it right. The one thing I say, Laura, to just about anybody is that, especially at a time when you are asked to speak up about an issue that's passionate or an issue that is personal, you have to lead with emotion and you have to leave with your
with your own sort of feeling about the issue. So if you're advocating on behalf of an organization, you have to lead with why it matters to you. You can start in with all the facts. We have a million dollars and this is why it matters. Well, that sort of falls on deaf years. People tend to lean in and listen more in a communication, regardless of what it is you're trying to convey if you make that personal connection.
So if you're advocating on behalf of the animal the animal welfare community in your local town, you talk about how you're a dog owner and how you love your dogs, and you know, in a house full of teenagers, nobody's more happy to see me come home than my two dogs. And that's why I'm here today to advocate on behalf of this wonderful organization that does great things for our pets and pets in our community. It's an example of
you've seen it before and you'll see it now. I tend to tell people after they've had a conversation with me that you'll consume news and people's way of sharing information a little differently. But it's because the people that share and make that connection, that person connection with you, even if they're not sitting in the same room, they're the ones you're going to lean in and listen to just a little bit more, because now you feel as
if you've been let in on a secret. Why it does you care about it?
Excellent? Well, We're going to take a quick ad break and then I will be back with more from Lisa Camusa Miller. Well, I am back talking with Lisa Camusa Miller, who is a communications expert. She's been working in public
affairs for many, many years. She hosts the Friday Reporter podcast. So, Lisa, I got to know you years ago when you kept track of your time for a week for a book I wrote called I Know How She Does It, and some of my listeners may have read it, but I talked about how professional women who are also raising children spent their time and Lisa kept a time log for it.
And one thing I noted and I wrote about in the book is that you seem to have quite a coffee habit, Like there were all these coffees all over your schedule, But it isn't that you are addicted to caffeine. What was going on there in your schedule?
Well, you know, I think we find that in most of our life we like to carve out time to connect with others. Not everybody does My husband is the opposite. He would prefer to never have coffee with anyone. He's very, very much prefers to keep his time personal. I like to socialize in a way that feels warm, that feels comfortable, that feels a way that we can connect, and there's
no better way. Maybe it's not just in Washington, but I do think in Washington, DC, we have a pretty good habit of getting out and visiting with people over coffee. Because it's about a forty five minute interaction, you can learn more about the person. For me, specifically, I was trying to get to know journalists and communications in my space.
I was trying to get better at my job, really understand how better to pitch a story, how better to interact with a newspaper that cares about a specific issue or a journalist that's in a specific way. And so catching someone for coffee is a quick and easy way to not only get your caffeine when you have little kids and even adult kids, but also too it's a nice, warm, cozy way to just visit with someone and understand them
a little bit better. And for me, it always seemed to make me better at the way that I did my job and did the work that I was doing here in town.
Yeah, just a way to connect to get to know
more people in person where that's possible. And you even had a suggestion, you know, as one of the things that people often think is this trade off is like, oh, well, moms can't do happy hours, right, Like, you're not going to go out and do you know, the boozing around and the socializing, no time for networking, with no time for that with you know, especially as you're working with people in the upper echelons of business and government and many of whom are maybe male in a little bit
more old school or whatever it is. But you would you would meet people for a drink at like four thirty pm. Can you talk a little bit about that. Yeah.
I used to call it wine o'clock. My kids were really little, and I would really everybody in this town and probably lots of other places would really love to get together, would love to get together for a for a drink before heading home for the day. And I didn't have time to do that. I mean, I had to be home when the kids got home, so I was always trying to be you know, back to my house and ready by five thirty six o'clock with dinner
ready and everything to go. So we would meet or an early we would call them source meetings or wine o'clock if you will, because you know, after a certain point in the day, there's no time for coffee, right, everybody's got a wine. You got to you gotta wind up, and then you have to wind down, and so we'd meet for an early glass of wine and do really
the same thing. I mean, it was really just an opportunity to connect with with colleagues and friends, but also give me an opportunity to be home in time for the kids to get home from practice, have dinner as a family, and then you know, wind down and get ready to get everybody off to bed and start our next day.
Yeah. I love that, just so you know, instead of saying like, well, I just can't do that because I have to be home, as you know, somebody who wants to see my kids in the evening, you found a way to make it work. And probably there are a lot of people who are excited to meet you to get out of work a little bit early, like no, no, I have to leave by four thirty today and I'm meeting up with Lisa.
And there are plenty of people that aren't drinking. I mean, lots of us have given up drinking too. So like now it's like a fro Yo meetup, or it's a fro Yo or it's meet up for French fries and so like it's it really doesn't matter what the vehicle is, they all really are the same sort of social connection forty five minutes because it's not a long time. You have to be on your way, but you give your
time and enjoy it. Right, it's an enjoyable it's a social interaction, but it's one where you can sit and have a little something to visit over and then get on with the rest of what you have to be doing.
Yeah, and I wonder if you've seen a difference and sort of in person socialization and building networking, you know, ones network that way over the past few years, because you know, when I saw this on your time Loge, obviously this is like twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, it was it was a long time before the pandemic. And I mean, to me, this is not either or it's great to socialize in person. There's also ways we can connect virtually.
I mean, we are doing right now, But I wonder if you've seen any sort of change in this kind of post pandemic.
Oh, no question about it. First off, true confession. I no longer get up at five o'clock in the morning to work out. That pandemic killed that for me, So I'm more of a do it over lunch kind of girl, you know, Laura. The one thing I'll say is that I think people are finding it more difficult to maybe get to a specific place. So I do actually schedule calls, I schedule zooms. I'll schedule really regardless of whether it's
in person. In fact, it's why I started my podcast because I wasn't getting the opportunity to visit with journalists anymore over coffee because they had to be at their desk or they had to be on location. But they could pull aside for thirty minutes to have a quick conversation with me over a podcast, conversation about why it is and how it is they do their work. So actually it ended up being the catalyst for my own podcasts.
Fascinating. Well, let's talk a little bit about morning routines, because again, when I interviewed you the first time, you were waking up at five am in order to go do CrossFit before reporting to the office. Now, I will tell you I've never done that, so I'm impressed you were doing it at one point in your life. But I'm curious what your mornings look like now.
They're a little slower, which is cool for me. I actually have taken a little more time in the morning to do a little bit of journaling. I do a little time sort of. I read less news lately because it feels a little heavy, So I consume at least one or two small moments of what's going on in the day, and then I'll spend some time journaling. And I actually have started to at least two or three
times a week. I have tried to schedule a workout for nine thirty or eleven o'clock, and I'll schedule it as if I'm a consultant, and I'm lucky enough that way that i can be wherever I need to be for client and client work. So I actually try to schedule time in the early morning for that workout. So nine to thirty is like my favorite time to work out because I've had a little coffee, I've reflected on all the things i have to do, I've gotten all
the early deadlines out of the way. I'll go get a one hour workout, I'll come back and get a quick shower, and I'll be back on my day and I'll be back at my desk until six o'clock. And I also, here's a big secret. I like to call it MMH on my calendar. It stands for my mental health because it gives me just one hour a day for me that I can step away and go get a little fitness in and then come back and get started with all the rest of the things that have to happen.
Now, that's fascinating that you choose nine thirty or eleven o'clock. Those are like the two times of day that I would actually never choose. And that's because I tend to do a lot of my writing in the morning, and I try to go for as long as I can before pulling myself away. And so I've learned, like not to schedule eleven am dentist appointments or anything like that. I try to do my workout. It's more like two thirty three o'clock in the afternoon, which is when my
brain has kind of drifted southward. It's not doing anything else at that point. So I'm curious, are you more of like an aft are you able to focus more on the afternoon, or is it more that people are willing to go back and forth and chat in the afternoon, and so that's time you want to protect?
Why why is that the afternoon around three, between three and four o'clock is when I come alive. My writing happens in the afternoon, no question, It's always been that way. In fact, I could sit at my desk until eight o'clock at night, not because I prefer to be locked in my desk, but my productivity level goes way up after about three o'clock for whatever reason. And so that's when my writing really happens, is late in the afternoon. So in the morning, I feel like I'm just getting started.
There's a lot of calls, and there's a lot of confusion. I can never write in the morning. Always ends up being in the afternoon for me.
So that's so interesting because then you're not naturally like a morning person. No, it sounds like not at all. And so when you were you had this schedule, when I studied your schedule, that you would go to bed precisely at ten PM to wake up at five am for your exercise. Is that just more a function of having an in the office job and having young kids, then that was a schedule.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, Yeah, there's no The kids would get up and they'd be I'd have to take them to school, and so I had to be up and ready and out the door and I would drop them at eight and then i'd be on my way downtown. So there was no time in the morning. And now it's really shifted, so I do sometimes i get to the office at eleven because I've had a quick workout, I've had a quick shower, and I'm on my way to the office
that i have to be at. But then I'm willing to stay a little later because everybody drives around here, so everybody gets themselves to wherever they need to go.
Yeah. Well, it's interesting to hear how schedules change over the course of a life and how people make things fit. We'll just take one more quick ad break and I'll be back with Lisa for more. Well, so we've talked a little bit with Lisa Camussa Miller about her life and evolving schedules. She's worked in public affairs for a great many years, all right, So we were not waking up so early anymore. We're maybe having an ex you know,
a workout in the morning. We're getting at the desk and then working till six or so, you know, cranking away on stuff. What do your evenings look like?
My evenings are pretty chill. I mean, I really I do like to cook, so at the end of the day nowadays, it's a little bit less of a full blown meal. We tend to cook on Sundays. We'll make a little bit of everything, a little bit of rice, little bit of potatoes, all of the things, and then
the elements of a meal are in the fridge. For us, it's because my kids will come home from practice and my husband will come home from work, and everyone will assemble there whatever it is they want, and then we'll end up accumulating all of our things at the kitchen counter or the you know, the island in the kitchen, and we'll visit for a short bit and then it's probably about half an hour to an hour of something to watch. I mean, I'm always I'm always working on something.
I love pop culture. I've always loved pop culture, so I've always got a show that I've got cooking in the background, and then I'm still, though, Laura, I'm still hard and fast into bed and closing my eyes around ten o'clock.
And that's because you like having a bedtime. Is that something that really works well with your life.
It's because at my age, I've prioritized sleep over anything else. I think that getting a great night's sleep is absolutely probably the biggest priority for me because it just sets me up for another great day the following.
And I like the idea of mindfully consuming pop culture.
And one of the things I remember from talking with you, for I know how she does it is that you would make a point of watching whatever was hot because you thought you might be having a conversation about it as you're meeting all these different random people and trying to build a network and all your coffees and wine o' clocks early happy hours with people that they might ask you about House of Cards or whatever it was in twenty thirteen and you would need to talk about it.
Is that how you think about pop culture to a degree?
I think, so, you know, it's a little bit different now because there are so When we spoke way back when it was a little more curated. There were fewer channels and fewer opportunities to find those streaming opportunities. Now there's so much, so I've taken to watching what I'm interested in, but I am always I am always listening and reading and consuming something that is popular, not only out of my own curiosity, but also too because it
is it's a conversation starter. There's nothing harder than walking into a room. I've come to find this too, there's nothing harder than walking into a room and saying what do you do? Because it's like here's and then here's the report out what I do. So I've tried to be a little more thoughtful about asking a question what's the most exciting thing you've done this week? Or how is your you know, not how was your weekend, but what was the one thing that you most enjoyed doing
this weekend? And that also so can turn into what are you watching these days? Because I'm also keeping a list in my phone of what other people have said was worth watching because it's sometimes really fun and also in a heavy, heavy news environment with so much news happening all the time, it's also a really nice way to step away because not only do I spend about forty five minutes to an hour watching something before bed.
I'm also pretty careful about making sure that I have about twenty to thirty minutes to read before I close my eyes.
Yeah, and you know, actually asking for book recommendations or TV recommendations or movie recommendations can be a great way to turn something that if it's a networking event you're realizing it's not quite getting you what you were hoping out of it. At least you can leave with a recommendation for something because you sure ask people about that. Yeah, that's right, it's not a total waste of time. So Lisa, I always ask people what have you done recently to take a day from great to awesome?
I there are so many things that you can do to take a day and go from great to awesome. But I would say the one thing that I am more mindfully doing is I am promising myself to get out into nature, whether it's just a short walk in the neighborhood, whether it's taking my two not so well behaved dogs for a walk around the block, but getting outside, leaving my phone behind, no watch, no nothing like making sure everything is left behind and just stepping away from
the chaos of the day. Something about that makes my central nervous system chill out. It makes me feel like I've seen the cherry blossoms. I have seen something else outside of the four walls of my office and my computer screen, and it just makes it improves my own point of view just so much that that, to me is something that I am promising myself that I'll do every day, is get outside into nature, and it makes my day pretty great.
Yeah, And what are you looking forward to right now?
I'm getting ready to take a trip to the West Coast with my seventeen year old daughter. We're going to see my cousin, who I have not seen in several years, and we are just we have no itinerary. We don't really have a lot of things we're planning to do. We're just going to get up and get out of Washington, d C. And see another part of the country.
Sounds exciting, sounds like a lot of fun. Well, Lisa, where can people find you?
I have a website. It's Friday Reporter dot com and it shows just about a little bit of everything. It's got an opportunity for you to see a little more about my podcast about the work that I do here in Washington, d C. I do a lot of reputation work now, Laura, So I'm giving people a lot of counsel about how to build their brand, how to understand, how to be part of the community that they're in
in a thoughtful way. And so Friday Reporter dot com is where they can probably find out the most about what I'm doing now.
Awesome, Well, Lisa, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you have feedback on this or any other episode, you can always reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. And in the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
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