Simple questions for one hundred people. Welcome to the experiment. I'm Bill Correll, and this is my investigation. My research project is to gather data from one hundred beautiful human beings for the sole purpose to see what actually happens across the interviews. Now, the questions are fixed and all the interviews will remain consistent with the variable being the actual participants themselves and their answers. So it says, if I'm having you, Rebecca, come sit on my porch and
share your thoughts so I can learn about people. Now, we're looking forward to what we're going to find out when we're done, and we're very interested in the people, the process, and obviously your particular stories. So it's my distinct pleasure to introduce. Well, now I'll let you do that. What is your complete name? My name is Rebecca Bentley. No middle name. Oh I do, It's Elizabeth. It's a family name. Nice, So say some more about that. You're trying to forget it, aren't you.
Yeah, So every female on my mother's side of the family, our middle name is Elizabeth. Oh my goodness, yep. So a lot of it's a historical name. Now it's like George Foreman, and all eight of his children being girls and boys being named George right, yep, yep. And then on my dad's side of the family, the middle name of all the boys or the men is the first name of their father. Very interesting. So this sounds like a couple of traditions that started a minute ago.
They probably are not something that started with the people who were doing the naming right right. How far back does it go on your side? Oh gosh, I think it goes back as far as my great great grandmother for the females, and it's actually two separate families that have this tradition. And then on my dad's side of the family, I think it goes back to my three greats, so great great great. Wow, these were smart people.
Yep. They wanted their name to persist through time, and so I mean that's even better than being named the third or the fourth, don't you think. Don't we shake it out of yet? Yep? Yep. I like it, I really do. So, Elizabeth, has that ever been Well, let's just move into the next question. What's your favorite nickname that most people don't know? So only close people know this nickname that I have, But my dad always calls me Becca Booa. That's been my nickname since I
was before I even remember. My dad always called me that, and no shame in saying it in front of my close friends and new boyfriends and through the years. So yeah, I hold that nickname near and dear. Now, good for you, good for you. So h just to share something with you. My number two daughter is Rebecca also, which you may or may not realize, but yeah, beckey boo is what we used to call her. I've metamorphosed pet names for her her entire life. I still do.
And at one point my nickname for her was George. And you know, so what other nicknames do you have? That? That is probably the only nickname that I have through the family. With work, they call me REB. So my initials right now are Rebecca Elizabeth Bentley, so RIB right, and it happens to be the first three letters of Rebecca. And I happened to sign an email and I was working very fast and I just put Reb instead of my full name and it stuck. So now at work they
call me REB. That's funny. It's funny. And the three initials of our names used to be for everyone in top management back in the seventies and eighties, instead of, you know, the secretary having to type out their full name, it was just WKC or rw or HWK or something like So, reb is cool. I've known you for a bunch of years, but I've never known anything or anybody to call you Becky or oh no, yeah no, or anything like that. Yeah, I'm Auntie beck to my nieces
and nephews. But if anybody ever called my house and asked for Becky, my father would say there is not somebody here by the name of Becky and would hang up on them when you know what her name is, right, yep, yep, very cool. So your dad was your partner in keeping that one a lot, yes for you. So this one's kind of this was kind of interesting, and I get lots of different answers to it, as you can imagine. But when did you first notice what color hair you
had? Oh? Boy, that's a that's a really good question, Bill. I don't think anybody's ever asked that question before of me, so good question. I would probably say, I'm I mean, I was, I was probably in high school when I cut my hair off. When it really hit me when I I butchered my hair in high school, and I think
that's probably when the biggest notice happened of my hair. You know, everybody was shocked that I cut my hair, and so so I think that was probably the the time that I noticed the actual paying attention to the color of your hair. And then, of course now that I'm older and my silver streaks are now taking over, I definitely noticed my hair. Now you're wearing your wisdom on the outside, now, aren't you exactly exactly? So that's really cool. And so when when you when you did cut your hair off.
This is the first time I've ever heard this story. I don't worry about it. It's just you and me talking, nobody else. No, what has asked you to do that? What's your hair? I think you said? Yep. So I was a competitive swimmer and a competitive tennis player and a competitive basketball player in my youth. So as I got older, I became more involved in the sports and it was easier to put a put a swim cap on to get in the pool with short hair. So that's
that's what started it. Now, I couldn't have made that story up. So next question is what is your favorite thing to do to intentionally waste time. I like to play brain games on my iPad, so word games, scrabble, word searches, some cards. I like to play cards on my on my iPad, and my sister and I actually have gotten into a game called Kuts and so whenever we want to waste time together, we play Katon and we will play for hours. So I'm a katan nerd. I think,
how do you spell katan for those at home? C A T, A N exactly the way it sounds, but it could be a few of these days, it could be a number of different letters. But is that meaningful in any way? That is it derived from anything or is it an actual game that's been around or so? I think it's a game that has been around. They have different versions of it, so you can play many
different layouts of the game. My sister and I like to play the traditional one, but it's basically the concept behind it is building villages and cities, and you do it by gaining resources, and so if the resource is lacking, you got to find another way to get that resource. And it can be pretty grueling when we block each other and short out the other one of resources and wow, the good sibling game, yes, and even for old scores, right, definitely not okay, So are there any anything else that
you would like now, you know, taking a look and seeing. Are there any other time wasters that you know? Most people will just not know about you, Oh, not know about me. I. I like to sit on my back deck with a cup of coffee very first thing in the morning and just take a nice, big deep breath and kind of relax the brain before the start of the day. So no, not very many people know that I that I do that, but I do as soon as the weather is, you know, warm enough to get out there and it's not
raining. I'm sitting out there before we're getting up early and just relaxing. We're kind of on the cusp of that right now, aren't we? Always thinking the forties this morning, which is better than the high thirties. But yep, I was back there this morning for you. Good for you. That's fantastic. So what's your favorite movie to watch alone, Rebecca? My favorite movie to watch alone? Oh so that would be The Music Man.
I My mother and father raised me on all the old movies singing and dancing and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and so watching the music Man with the marching band and just the humor of that movie of nobody knowing how to play. I myself have always wanted to be in a marching band. I played the flute for fourteen years, so that was something that I had always wanted to do, but I never had the opportunity to do it. I took a different path. But my father that was a that was a movie near and
dear to his heart. Yeah, so, yep, I get it. And and in my family, my and I don't know how far back it is, but I know that on my dad's side of the family we had a musician or a music writer that wrote music for John Phillips SUSA. So
so I guess family ties to to marching bands and music. And that's so that's my my my guilt free when I'm by myself for you and Robert Preston, if I remember quickly, is the is he the he's the he's the the guy that's trying to tell everybody we've got we've got trouble right here in River City? Yep, yep. And when I was when I had my first son, Tyler, when he was young, it'll probably kill me that I even mentioned this, But he used to sit and watch that movie over
and over and over and over again. He loved that movie. Yeah, there's a lot to love, isn't there. Yep yep. So, oh, this one I'm really looking forward to with you. If you were to have an action figure made to you, what superpower would it have and what colors would its uniform be? Okay, so if I was a superpower, If I had a superpower, I think it would be that I could walk up to anything, touch it, and see the history of that object.
So you know, walking through the woods on a hike and you see that old stone wall and you want to touch it, and you want to see the I don't know, maybe it was the Civil War, the American Revolutionary
War and the fight that was happening right over that stone wall. So I guess it's not really it's not like your traditional superpower where you're helping and saving people and but it's just to understand our history and help keep it alive, is what I'm I guess what I wish my superpower was, and my colors
of my cape would probably be red, white and blue. For the history of our country, there you go, that's great, And so I'm going out on the limb here because we haven't shared this superpower of years before. Would it also work if you touched people, Yes, of course it would, yep. And if there was a way I could touch people and take away all their stresses, I guess I would extend my superpower to be able
to do that. I wish everybody in the world didn't have stresses, but I guess that's what makes us stronger people when we can overcome those stresses. And some would say that's what makes us all commonly human, right, yep. We do share some things that maybe all of us are not too satisfied or happy with, and there are some people that are pretty good at making that go away, you know. Yeah, and there's other people that are
really good at amplifying it. That is true. That's great. So what did you want to grow up to be when you were five years old? Oh? When I was five, I would say I had no idea what I wanted to be. When I grew up five, I wanted to be a kid for the rest of my life. But I think as I got a little bit older, eight years old, seven years old, I should say it the other way. Seven eight years old, I wanted to be a professional tennis player. That is what I wanted to be excellent. And
I worked very, very hard at tennis. My mother was a tennis player and so she was at the racket club all the time, and so of course while I was there at the racquet club, I just started playing more and more and more and more tennis, and as I got older, it was a drug to me. It was it was. I could not get enough of it. It probably kept me out of a lot of trouble.
But once I got to high school, I was playing tennis. I was getting up at five o'clock in the morning, playing from five, driving to Glastonbury, meeting with my coach, and then playing until seven thirty and then making it to my I always tried to get a study hall the first last so I could come in late, so I could play tennis, and then I would come in and go to class and ended up, you know, it just it was a drug. I can't explain. I just couldn't stop
playing. It was all I could think about. That's interesting. So did you have heroes or heroines that were playing at the time that you looked up to and watched when they played professional tennis or was this more of a kind of a localized thing that if your mom hadn't been playing, you probably never would have gotten interested in it. So it's probably I never would have started playing tennis if my mother and my whole family was into tennis. I was
the baby of three. I have two other siblings, so whatever they did, I did pretty much. So my brother was eight years older than me. My sister is twelve years older than me. So my brother put a tennis racket in my hand, and he showed me the swimming pool. So those were the two things that I became very competitive at chasing my brother, right, older brother, always stronger, bigger, So I always wanted to
be just as good. H So, you know, as far as people that I looked up to on the professional world, it was you know, the John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Andre Agassi, it was it was everyone that I and you could pick you could pick all of the people that were famous at that time in tennis, and you could pick apart their game and pull something from every player. So I always watched everyone, like what could I learn from everyone? But yeah, tennis was tennis was my my life.
Yep. Did you ever go and see any of the professionals play? I did. I My mother and I used to take a bus trip every year to Flushing Meadows too to the US Open. That was so much fun to do. And I also the Davis Cup. So the US the Davis Cup is the different countries playing against each other and the US Davis Cup. There was a US Germany match happening at the Hartford Civic Center. So we
were. My mother the racket club that one of the racket clubs we belonged to was chosen to chow fur the drivers, and so my mother was one of the chauffeurs. So I got to I was in high school. I was a freshman in high school and my mother brought me that day. So whenever they had practices, they whenever they had a practice match at the Civic Center, it was me and these players. So it was I was by
myself sitting there on the sideline watching these players practice. So Boris Becker was one of them that I, you know, got to talk to and meet Yokovic, who's big time now. He's he's very big now. He was actually much younger and was a practice partner back then, so I got to
meet him before he even became you know who he is now. And then probably the highlight of that whole day was when the last trip of the day was to bring John McEnroe back to his hotel, and so I got to sit in the backseat of my mother's car next to John McEnroe and downtown Hartford driving him back to his hotel, and it was the coolest thing for me in my freshman year of high school. Turns out he's not a bad sort. No, he was. You removed the you know, the line judges.
Yes, he was really nice. Yep, as long as those line judges aren't there, he's all right. You know, his leadership, you know in those days, if he had ever known. I actually heard him say something last year when they were at Wimbledon and they were talking about how they've replaced, you know, all the line judges. They still have the their empire, uh with with the with the cyclops machines, that they're at
the level right now. We could do that in almost every sport, including However, However, with that said, I guess I'm not sure it might have been his brother Patrick who was asking him, John, did you think that you'd be able to piss people off so bad that some day that they just they would all quit the game? Yeah? Yep, yeah, And I you know what his answer was, as I recall, he said, if I'd only known that, all I had to do was press some more
at the time. Yep. He's an icon in the tennis world, that's for sure, no doubt about it. And he's also somebody who's a pretty good interviewer as well. Ye experience, So yeah, that's neat. That's a that's an aspect that I had never heard about before. And now we can actually jump into the next question. We've got some foundation here. What is your greatest accomplishment? So I think if you look at I'm going to say the stereotypical answer, but it is absolutely true for me. It's my
kids. Yeah, yep. I don't know why I'm so emotional today, Bill, So you want to know what that is. I'm going to give you something. This will be great when you're coaching other people that work for you. It's just you've touched an area of your life where you do not yet have sufficient language. Does that make sense? Yes, So your emotional response to that is to be in awe in a moment and you could either
laugh in which you just did after you but it's a good thing. It basically you're in a part of your life where there's an opportunity here to gain some new language. Yep. So my oldest son, Tyler are is I uh is doing what he absolutely loves in life. And there's nothing more satisfying as a parent to see them doing what they enjoy to do and they are where they belong and they're a they're contributing to society in a positive manner.
My goodness, every every parent's dream come true, right right. And then my youngest is going to college, he goes to Yukon and he's pursuing his dreams and they're both amazing children and I they're they're they're my biggest accomplishment. That's fantastic. That's really fantastic. And you know when when you think in terms of accomplishment, I love what you're saying because my interpretation of that is is that there's something about who they are to day and who they're being that
part's not accidental. Yes, you know, it takes a lot of work as a parent to get them there, and I have a village, right, there's good we have We have a we've had a good village around both of our children that have been there to support them and help them. And and when we're not able to be there, we know that there are other people that can be there for them that they respect and want help from or or would reach out for help if they needed it. So so yeah,
it takes a village. The village is always going to be there. Yep. There will be idiots in that village from time to time. However, if you teach your children well, they will listen, then they will wake your head, and then they'll shake their head. So, speaking of that, who is your favorite person to listen to? My favorite person and to listen to? So you have me stung? I could I could lift list off three people right now, just right off the top of my head.
Sean Connery, I love his voice. But it would also be my dad and listening to all his words of wisdom and his stories and the situations he always got himself into and got himself out of. And it would be my uncle Peter, who has an amazing he's my mother's brother. He's no longer with us. But he was a man of great character. He survived a naval accident. The Hopson, the USS Hobson boat was split in half by one of their other boats in the fleet and it sunk, and he was
on the boat that got split in half. So the stories that he has around that you should google Peter Mahoney Sr. With the Hopson. It's an amazing story of what he went through. So just his stories and his life experiences, I couldn't. I always wanted to ask questions of Uncle Peter. So even as a as a little girl, I was slightly afraid of him, but he he was always someone that I wanted to sit down and talk to. That's fantastic. So since you invited folks to UH to look it
up. How do you spell that last name? Hopson? My my uncle's last name is Mahoney, just like you like. It sounds M A H and E y and then Hobson. Is that with a P or a B a p as in Paul Hobson? Gotcha? Probably someone's name? I would imagine, yes's one of the It was one of the fleet, and one of the boats in the fleet that had Yeah. Ye, I for one will be UH doing that right after we let this interview. So that's great.
Those are three wonderful people to listen to. And funny enough, you're not the first person to be a fan of Sean and his if you can imagine him and Samuel L. Jackson probably is another voice, right, nice deep deep voice. Yep, that's really fantastic. So I've got a sentence
for you to complete. Okay, when I grow up, I'd like to hm hmmm, uh, well, I would like to travel all fifty two states in the US, fifty two, fifty two of them fifty however many I can get to bill however many, there might be more than that by the time you get to it. You know what. That's that's exactly right. There could be more. Never know. So are you talking about Puerto Rico and Guam, because those are the two next candidates as I understand,
Yeah, listen, I add them to the list. I absolutely, I would like to go about that. Have you traveled much? So? I have? I mean I wouldn't say that I've traveled a lot. I've been on a couple of cruises. I've never been over to Europe. I've been to all the states on the East coast, and as far west as Oklahoma. So I'd like to venture out and see more and probably revisit some of the states as I traveled when I was younger. So I just I feel like our country has a lot to offer, and I want to go see.
I want to go sit in that you know, hole in the wall coffee shop and meet the locals and just enjoy, enjoy what is out there. Yeah, the uh, the pensiant for sitting on your back porch and just watching the world go by, and the first thing in the morning with your cup of coffee. That actually does work a lot of different places. Yep, it sure does. Yeah, And that's where you meet. That's
where you meet the interesting people. You know, when you're just you just say hello or good morning to someone, you know, they just some people just need to need to hear that good morning, and some people haven't. The elder the elderly, you know, they walk in and get their cup of coffee, and they have a story to tell and sometimes they haven't been able to talk to somebody in a couple of days. So you could be that person and learn a lot about a person, and they appreciate that someone
paid attention to them. So yeah, it's really a lot. Really. Yeah, no, that's really insightful, especially that you mentioned, you know, how how the elderly can be. But you know, what I've noticed is that it used to be kind of a pain to me and the nuisance when a relative or somebody that I knew would have to tell me the same
story over and over and over again. And finally I spend a little bit of time just watching who they were being while they retold this story, which I'm certain they knew in some cases that they'd already told me about it. Yeah, But what I found was, and I'd love to hear your take on this is what I found was is that they were actually reliving the moment mm hmm, yeah, like you were, you know, just giving me information. They were taking themselves back there, and if I gave them the
time of day, I could go along with them, you know. Yeah. Yeah, you can see the spark, you know, the the youth come out and there the spark in their eye, and yeah, just makes them and it makes them feel young again, It makes them feel listened to it, just it. Yeah, yep. We both had a mutual friend who was the Baron of Boloney. Oh, yes, we loved to listen to him go at it and we never knew what the next thing coming out of his mouth was going. Yep, yep, yep, yep. I
miss his stories, that's for sure. Me too, Me too, no doubt about it. Yep. So okay, So, now, what's the most important thing in life to you? Like right, yeah, So the most important thing in life right now to me is I think there's a couple things that I will mention. I still have a sophomore in college, so that's very important to me to help guide him through the next few years of
finishing college. And you know, there's a lot of pressures, and I see it with college students as I work at the university, so I see a lot of students having a lot of you know, there's there is a lot of mental health concerns and stresses, and so, you know, most important to me is to help my son get through the next couple of years
and find his job and and and be able to move forward. But and another aspect of my life is, you know, I'm I'm I don't want to say newly divorced, but it's been four years and I'm I'm what's important to me right now is just being independent and you know, getting the strength back and being able to do things on my own and and get through it.
So yeah, those are probably the two most important things. And and and reconnecting with my with my friends and my family and you know, as you know, Bill, I lost three family members and nine months so my family went from a pretty decent size to all of a sudden, it's just me and my sister now, so my my family, my sister and her kids. And so yeah, no, I that'll be another conversation. Yeah, and yes, I think that's going to connect with a whole lot of
people that are listening to this. Yeah. So there's there's no one out there who hasn't got holes where they used to have a lot of a lot of voices that oh yeah, so yeah, thank you for that, And that is important. It's so important, you know, to to to start to put it all back together again and start to uh not heal as much as grow. Right, you know what I'm saying, They're like different they're different talents and in one case you're trying to fix something and in the other
case you're basically saying no, that's part of who I am. It's like that not hole over there in that tree that now is heart shaped or whatever it is. Yep, yep. There's a lot of healing and a lot of growing that happened all at the same time, and it's made me a stronger and better person. I think I will vouch for that. Thank you, at least from a distance. So with all of that said, what
would you like to leave in the world after your life is done? I just hope that, you know, I just hope I was a good example for somebody. Could be a group of people, could be one person. I just want to be a good example. I don't think there's much debate on that subject at all. Thank you, Bill. You have been asking
some very emotional questions of me today. Well you know, it's also thing that I want to say, is indicative of the kind of loving, generous person I know you to be, Okay, and your willingness to go there and your willingness to be authentic and genuine is It's huge, and I think
it's going to actually inspire some people out there, I hope. So in a world, in a world where we can be anything, the first thing you want to do is be kind and then the next thing you want to do is to be yourself yep, and don't spend too much time overthinking what yourself means. That's true, that is a true statement there. But and so you know, I just want you to to also kind of like take on board that when somebody asks you what your life's work is not a usual
question. You now hear that. You're not going to hear that at the bar. You're not going to probably at work, you know, yep, yeah, what are you up to? Really? You know what's the most important? So yes, I had no idea when I wrote these questions down a little over a year ago what kind of answers I would get to them.
And what I've found is is that in this space that you and I are creating together, there's all this room to actually take a chance and go someplace that you probably haven't taken a look at it for a little while. Yep, this was great, These were great questions. I appreciate you, Bill well, I appreciate you too. And guess what there's more? Oh boy, Okay, when you go to a baker Rebecca and I haven't for a long time, but my baker used to always no matter whatever whatever.
I bought a dozen of and we've asked twelve questions so far. I'd always get a thirteen thirteenth free donut or thirteenth free cupcake or roll or whatever it was. So here's the baker's question for you. What is the thing that most people misunderstand about you? Oh, if you were to ask the people at work, it would probably be a totally different answer than people in my life. In my personal life, I think at work people I can come
across as being very strict and having probably very high expectations. But then once you work for me, like I, I'm as fair as fair can be and I love to have fun, and so once you can get crack me get through that initial probably stereotype that I have from the outside. So that's probably a place where I miss on stood a little bit about, you know,
just the stereotype that I may have. And I'm very confident that you can go talk to my staff and they will say wonderful things, So I'm not I just have clear expectations, I guess is the way to state that.
But personally, I think being misunderstood Mike. Sometimes I can be quiet and kind of push away a little bit and I'm and it's just sometimes my friends, you know, think they maybe I'm upset or angry or and it's just I if I refer to what we talked about a little bit ago, it's me growing, and it's me just needing a break, and you know, just self self awareness and sitting on my back porch having my coffee. So uh actually impact, Yeah, yep. So I guess that's a full
circle comment there. I guess, you know, how making me realize all of my answers now have just kind of come full circle. Yeah. I mean, you know, an anchor is an anchor, right, yep, yep. And it's a place where you can go and just kind of explore being present and mindful and in the moment, you know, yep. Yeah, yeah. Cool. So that kind of wraps up all the questions that I have for you. Do you have any questions for me? Rebecca?
How did you come up with these questions? Bill so quickly? The reason I decided doing this in the first place was I went through a period of
time of really watching a lot of YouTube videos. At that point in time two and a half three years ago, when folks like Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson or other so called conservatives and actually they're really not any label whatsoever, would go on college campuses and people would come out and not allow them to speak, or would ask them questions that were intended to get a result that had nothing to do with being authentic and genuine. And I started thinking to
myself, I got these two beautiful grandchildren. They're half Native American, half Navajo, and the other half is kind of Irish and German and a whole other fish too, you know. And I've listened to how things when you talk about communities and then you also talk about the identity conversations and all the like who is what and all the rest of that, and you know,
intersexual scubbygo whatever nonsense. It was like, no, let's get back to talking with human beings as human beings, yeah, and find out what are we all experiencing in this world. So I thought I would steal shamelessly from James Lipton, and I'm hoping you know who that is. I do. A wonderful man that has probably interviewed in excess of two or three hundred really
famous actors yep. And he ran a you know, actors workshop for up and coming folks, and many of those people actually came through those doors, and we're educated. So he asked the same questions, and I didn't want to use his questions per se, so I just kind of ripped these off and I thought, what would be some things that people would feel comfortable with that would at least be icebreakers for them, you know, And then I will follow you where you want to go in the rest of the questions that
come afterwards. But that's a great question, and thank you. Yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed this. This was this was great, Bill, I appreciate it. Well, you're entirely welcome, and I appreciate you. And I just wanted to get your energy out into the world because you do good stuff and I'm your one of your biggest fans, and as a result of that, I want more people to know who you are and you know, maybe get some thought provocation going for them. Yeah, well, thank you,
Bill, my pleasure. Anything you'd like to say to wrap up? I I am thinking this this is a it's been this has been great. I wish I could share the world my world you as you are very very thoughtful and ask great questions to get me to really think about think about me internally. So thank you, good for you. That's that's even that's an even better bonus, isn't it When you're sharing actually gives you a chance to put a mirror up and take a quick look at yourself and go, that's kind
of interesting. Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. Well, thank you Rebecca, and Simple Questions for one hundred People. This is what we do. We give everyone an opportunity to express themselves in their own terms and hopefully, well if you learn something from it, or it opens a new avenue for you or another question, Hey, how bad can that be? Anyway, that's that's a wrap for us here today, and thank you again,
Rebecca, Thank you Bill. Have a great day you too. You've been listening to Simple Questions for one hundred People, part of the x Audio podcast Network. You can find every episode at xvdio dot com, slash podcasts, the Apple podcast app, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and wherever you find podcasts.