This week’s guest is Sharon Glassman, designer, songwriter and founder of Smile Songs. 

The Colorado-based Smile Songs incorporates all of Sharon’s talents into a line of musical cards and gifts. In addition to containing original music by Sharon, Smile Songs products are unique because they use QR codes to deliver the sound which is better for the environment than traditional musical cards that utilize plastic parts for example. Though QR codes are common place after 2020, she started using them in 2013 and we chat about that.

In college, Sharon majored in journalism school. She then got accepted into law school and made a deal with her dad that she would defer for a year and attend. She ended up taking an entirely different path! 

Prior to founding Smile Songs, Sharon had a hybrid career. She was a voice over artist. She was also a writer for the ads department at MTV Networks where she applied her love of music to the ads she and the team worked on and created. After working at MTV, she performing and telling stories on stage, touring the country. Meanwhile, she was acquiring skills, teaching herself digital illustration, print production and music production.

Musically, Sharon has had another path having previously joined community orchestra. Then, through a misunderstood Craigslist ad she became the fiddler of a country rock band. Now she is in an all-woman bluegrass project called Five Foot Betty.

Topics we cover:

• History of QR Codes
• The story of Smile Songs and the ideation process that went into creating the products and business
• Incorporating creativity into a career
• Writing and telling stories on stage
• Songwriting
• Trusting your gut and making hard decisions

Note from Rabiah (Host): 

After getting off of the recording call with Sharon, I was so excited I would get to listen back to our conversation. It was such a joy to hear about the path she took to get to where she is today and it already sounds like we’ll need to speak again because she has so much in the works. We share a passion for sharing stories and it was a true pleasure to get to hear hers and to share it with you, the listener. 

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Find Sharon

Website: https://smilesongs.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smile_songs/ 

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Mentioned in this episode:

Spalding Gray: https://www.spaldinggray.com/ 

Eric Bagosian: http://100monologues.com/ 

Tales of Whatever: https://www.facebook.com/talesofwhatever/ 

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More than Work Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: @morethanworkpod Please review and follow anywhere you get podcasts. Thank you for listening. Have feedback? Email morethanworkpod(at)gmail.com!

This is More Than Work, the podcast reminding you that your self-worth

is made up of more than your job title.

Each week I'll talk to a guest about how they discovered that for themselves.

You'll hear about what they did, what they're doing, and who they are.

I'm your host, Rabiah.

I work in IT, perform standup comedy, write, volunteer, and of course, podcast.

Thank you for listening.

Here we go.

Hey everyone.

So my guest today is Sharon Glassman.

She's a designer, a songwriter, and the founder of Smile Songs a musical

greeting cards and gifts company.

So I'm really excited to have her on More Than Work.

Thanks for being here, Sharon, and where am I talking to you from today?

You're talking to me from beautiful Longmont, Colorado,

Oh, nice.

How close is that to Denver where most people kind of know?

About an hour north, a little less than an hour north.

Well, so I guess we can just talk about what Smile

Songs is really, and go from there.

Sure Smile Songs is a line of musical greeting cards and

gifts, and I use QR codes to make my product sing instead of plastic

chips, which makes them eco-friendly.

So they're really nice to people and they're really nice to the planet.

Nice.

So people will get the card and have a QR code in

On the front, it's all, I weave them into the design.

So it lets me do things like create singing stickers and

singing wall art, singing magnets.

Because again, with the qr, it's this mighty little device where, You can make

it look somewhat seamless in, in the art enough that people can find it, but

not, you know, sticking out too much.

And then, yeah, it really makes things sing from your smartphone.

Sing from anything that has, you know, that kind of technology.

And it's really fun.

Awesome.

So when did you start using QR codes in your work?

2014, 2013, somewhere around there.

I know when I started doing it, people said to me...

some people got it right away...

and some people said at that time, no one will ever use a QR code.

No one, ever.

And I, you know, it's always that funny thing about never,

you know, watch what happened.

And so I was going on my way, really feeling in my gut that this was the right

thing to be doing on any number of levels.

And then, sadly because of Covid, but the world pivoted and all of a sudden

QR codes were ubiquitous and people had taught themselves how to use them.

And now here was this super fun way that makes you feel really good

when you interact with the QR code.

Yeah, I mean that's, I don't know.

I'm just thinking it's so impressive that you saw that

because I remember when QR codes...

I remember I was working well, whatever, for a company that we were

developing a mobile app, and so we used that like download app here.

But then it was like, there was a lot of education for people around, like,

how do you get them to use the QR code?

And then I think we were even saying, well, this isn't working, you know?

It was frustrating.

But then, yeah, with Covid it just kind of, it really took off and I was

like, oh man, the people, like the people who thought of this first were

probably just going, see, we told you it's gonna be useful one day.

Yeah, I mean the whole story of QR codes, if you'd like to nerd

out a little bit, starts in the seventies in Japan, in the automotive industry, and

people were looking for a way to convey more ins information to a bar scanner.

Hm.

And so, you know, if you think about a UPC.

barcode and then they dimensionalized it.

I mean, they say it's kind of three dimensional.

I'm not sure in the sense, in what sense, I'm not that technological,

but basically by turning it into a square, there are a couple things.

You know, people complain that QR codes can be ugly and they can stick

out, but the fact is they're supposed to because that's what makes them

so readable to the bar scanner.

So it, it kind of came in that way.

And then I think people started saying, well, now that we've got it doing

this, you know, what else can we do?

What else can we read?

And then of course, when iPhones, I think around 2017 really started

becoming QR code friendly, then all of a sudden everyone had this

relationship, technological relationship really readily available to them.

And then it was, are they gonna adapt it?

Are they gonna use it?

And the is yes, they did.

Yeah, absolutely.

And yeah, with the, the phones both of the major, I mean, I would say,

you know, Google and Apple and then you have everyone else but you know,

who makes the Android phones, but like with them all kind of making

it easy to do to which by force kind of, but it's made it a lot better.

So that's, I don't know.

That's really cool.

And did Smile Songs start out as just you doing greeting cards or

how did you decide to go into that?

And we might wanna go back further and just say, you know,

you are a songwriter and you are a musician and everything else.

So, I guess we can start with what you started with Smile Songs, but

we'll be getting into all that too.

Sure.

So what happened was, like many performers, I'm an introvert.

So, I was playing at one of my favorite little spots, which is a cute little

winery up here in the mountains.

And someone came up to me after the show and said, wow, I really love your

songs and I really love your vibe, like how you sort of energize the space.

And they said, if only there was a way we could take you

home and put you on the wall.

Hm.

so we could hear your music every day and

see the happiness you create.

And I come from a creative services background before being a musician.

And so customer service, client service, answering a need really resonated with me.

And I thought, this is, you know, it was a kind of casual statement, I

think on one level, but I was like, this is a really interesting request.

Let me see what I can do.

And so I started playing around with different things

to see what they would do.

And I quickly pivoted because initially the idea was, oh,

okay, this person likes X song.

I can illustrate it and I'll figure out a way to make it sing.

But really what I started with, the first idea to go back a little bit,

I thought, oh, well I guess what they're asking for is a music box.

You know, I'll take this song that they liked and I'll make this music box and,

and I started running down that road and quickly realized, it was the wrong road

on for many reasons, but it occurred to me after a bit of research that when

you think about a music box, it has that mechanical gear system on the inside.

And really the box as beautiful as it is, it's just there to cover up the

mechanical gear systems and some cool catalogs will just send you the little,

you know, mechanical gear and you can put it on your desk or whatever.

But a friend of mine said, you know, I love you and I love your

music and I love everything.

But she goes, I don't like music boxes.

I don't want a music box sitting on the shelf.

And she was holding her phone and I went, it was like one of those

like aha moments I went, oh right.

Mm.

So our phones are today's music boxes, clearly.

It's where we go to press a button on demand.

We wanna have that happy feeling.

And so that was sort of where the QR code came in.

And then at that point was going back to the products and

saying, should it be posters?

That's kind of cool.

Should it be art prints?

I made some singing T-shirts.

I did a lot of things.

And then really, again, going back to what makes people happy, what do people love?

And greeting cards are something that people rightfully, I think, adore.

And so then that pivoted into the greeting card world.

And then back to stickers and art prints and magnets.

Oh, that's great.

Yeah.

That's so cool.

I do wanna ask about your creative services background then, because I

would say not everyone I know who's the songwriter would go be able

to go down this route and would be able to illustrate and then figure

out the tech and everything else.

So what were you doing before you had Smile Songs?

Well, before I had Smile Songs, I had a hybrid career.

I'm a voice actor for commercials have been.

The creative services part, I was, this is going back a while, but I was.

In one of the corporate departments at MTV Networks back in the day.

And, I started adding music back then, but didn't feel that I could be the musician.

So I was, I was working in a department that essentially people would come in

and say, "I, I need an ad for this."

"I need a commercial for that."

"I need like the video music awards magazine."

"I need that done."

And so our department would collaborate, and I was more on the writing side at

that point, but I seemed to be one of the first people in our department who.

well, hello designer.

Let's like sit on the floor and see if we can create something that's bigger than

the sum of just art and illustration.

And that was so much fun.

And then at a certain point I said, you know, wouldn't it be

fun to take these TV promos?

And add some music into them.

And I happened to find a guy who played guitar on the sales team and he, you know,

I wrote a song about Dobie Gillis for some, for some reason they were, they were

airing Dobie Gillis and I, I forget what it was, but that was kind of my first,

you know, attempt to add music to things.

And it was so much fun and made people Smile so much that I think that the seed.

And from there I went to performing stories on stage around the country.

And music began to creep into the stories I was telling.

And all these things kind of came together with Smile songs down the road here in

Colorado where I had these skills that were sort of waiting to be combined.

And I taught myself digital illustration.

And taught myself music production.

And, taught myself print production, . Taught myself a lot of things to make

it happen, but it was really worth it.

It was really like, I was like, this is what I'm meant to be doing and all these

things that I've done up till now really, were almost like getting an education.

Well you, you're doing the kind of DIY I would prefer,

you know, which is like making your own art and sound production,

everything versus, you know, if I had to put up a shelf or something.

So that's, it's cool.

I mean, it's cool you taught yourself all that.

So, so would you say you started out as a writer, but then you also had

these like musical skills and other skills that were just adjacent to that?

Or did you, at some point, early in your career, think you were

gonna be more of a songwriter?

Like how did that that work when you're writing for commercials

or ads or whatever, versus songs.

It's such a great question.

I mean, I started out as a kid playing different kinds of instruments, but also

growing up in a family where there was like, although it wasn't physically a big

red flashing, neon sign, hung up in the kitchen, in the living room and every the

room saying, you will not do this for a living, that was sort of the vibe.

The vibe was like, you can do whatever you want for fun, but do not, do not assume in

any way that you will not be some sort of button down professional when you grow up.

So there was a big tug between what I knew I wanted to do and

then what I felt I should be doing.

And I think that's true for so many people across, across so many

different other kinds of work.

And so I loved writing.

I mean, that's what I do as a songwriter, but, I was like, okay, how do I make

this more of a professional thing?

I went to journalism school.

I got accepted to law school and made a deal with my dad who was a lawyer.

I was like, alright, I'm just gonna go to New York for like a year

and I'm sure I'll come back i'll go to this deferred law school.

And that was many, many, many years ago.

And I'm sure they know I'm not coming . So it was, it was.

It was so I was playing.

to backtrack, I was playing classical violin first.

Then I picked up guitar, you know, playing songs under the trees and loving

all this stuff and then put it away.

And then writing took me down some very interesting paths and I sort of put

the music away until a certain point.

I looked at my life and I said, wow, I'm a single person living in a one bedroom

apartment who runs a one woman company.

Maybe it's time that I do something more collective.

And so I hauled out my violin and joined a community orchestra.

And at that point, things really started to shift because I looked at

the orchestra, which I loved, and I wrote a stage play involving classical

music and what it's like to sit in the back row of a community orchestra.

It's pretty awesome.

There's a lot of power dynamics and drama and things that, you

know, it's an amazing world.

But I also strive to think, I'm not sure, I'm psyched to hear about people

who've been doing this for 30 years and playing this symphony for 30 years and

being in this orchestra for 30 years.

I think that's awesome, but I don't think that's what's gonna

make my happiness come true.

And I started playing a little bit of country bluegrass on the violin,

which now calling it a fiddle.

And many things happened to move me to Colorado.

And I accidentally answered a Craigslist ad.

I thought it said, "come jam around the living room, we will not be playing out."

And I must have clicked on the one below it that said, come

audition for our country cover band.

We will be playing out starting like next week.

And so I went not knowing it was an audition, past the audition and started

being a fiddler in the country rock band

Wow.

That's so cool.

God.

And there's so much I was, this is where I, anyone who says I don't listen well or

I interrupt, they have now been challenged because I did not interrupt and I did

listen this entire time and I, so many things I wanted to ask you along the way.

So, firstly have you seen Mozart in the Jungle, the Amazon Prime show.

I love it.

I definitely thought of like, I mean, it's a

different experience than you wrote about, but I just, I don't know.

I thought of that right away.

Like you had an idea that has been on Amazon or

Yeah, and it was interesting, my my play got

optioned by a Broadway producer

Hmm.

and.

I can never decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but at a certain

point I just said we're not a good fit.

Like he kinda said, I said, I need musicians to play this this

classical music so we can hear it as we do the readings, and he

said, oh, you can just hum it.

And I thought, this is a pretty big divide, a pretty bit aesthetic divide.

And so I said no.

And then several years later, Mozart, the jungle happened.

And I was like, it's such a great, great setting and all that drama.

Bernadette all hair.

Yeah.

I mean, so great.

So yeah, I just think it's one of those great, people are

super passionate, super earnest.

If you take it to the community orchestra level, we have varying

abilities, but the same passion.

And I found that even more endearing was like the idea of not being

perhaps the most skilled, but perhaps being the most passionate.

Yeah.

Well, that's interesting.

You, I mean, I'm sure the one of the goals was to get it optioned and so then it was,

but then just realizing it wasn't a fit.

And have you faced that like in other areas and just as a creative person

but not wanting to compromise things?

Cause I can see where that would happen to people a lot and sometimes

they do and sometimes they don't.

I know.

This was one of my big me saying nos.

I'm not really a no person.

I really do try to make things work.

I think about it now and it's interesting.

The play may be coming around to having another opportunity,

possibly where I live now.

Which is really funny because I live in a town people call the

Brooklyn of Boulder, Colorado.

Hmm.

And so if it does happen, I don't have no idea.

We'll have to talk next year and find out.

But if it does happen, it would be very interesting to me that years

later it cycled back to almost getting a second chance in another Brooklyn

with another community orchestra with another it really hurt, I have to say.

I mean, I just, you know, I always wonder if I'd been a better negotiator.

Could I have, like, you know, something, something, but I ju

it just hit me in a place that I was like, this is, I can't see...

Yeah.

this working out.

And so it was one of the biggest opportunities of my career.

But I don't know what happens if you go down a road that your entire body

is screaming, no, this is wrong.

I think at that point I had to trust my gut.

Cuz I think at a certain point you keep going down that road and you're hearing

the no probably just gets louder.

And then what do you do?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I agree.

Yeah, I just um, I think you trusting yourself is really is, you know,

remarkable and that's the thing, right?

Is trusting yourself to, to know what's right for you or your work or whatever.

And it didn't, there's a difference between it being ego or it being, this

is what's right and to me it sounds like you were doing what was right and

not the ego part, which is hard to do.

And I'm hoping that that's the case.

I mean, I was like, was I a big old brat?

I don't think so.

I just kept saying, this is wrong.

This is, this feels wrong, this feels wrong.

Yeah, I'm hoping, I'm really hoping.

I think trusting my gut and, you know, circling back to Smile Songs, that's

really been a case where creating something that's new, which is something

I tend to do, bring things together, merge things together that people don't normally

think of as going together, but they do.

And in the past I feel like I might have said, oh, maybe the world's right.

Let's not do this, but with Smile Songs I was like, I absolutely

1000% know this is right.

And it's proving true.

But it does take a lot of making friends with crickets

at some points in any endeavor.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And it can be isolating and yeah, for sure.

I do a few things.

I do comedy and which people are probably tired of hearing about, but

I do comedy, so follow me on there.

I'm just kidding.

But like, you know, just in doing comedy it gets also very isolating.

And then, but then there are people you can work with and you just have

to figure out the balance, right,

of, of that.

So when you, one thing you mentioned was you were telling stories around the

country, so what did that look like?

Was that just like a Moth kind of thing or?

I did the Moth very, very early on in Brooklyn.

Gosh, I remember that was like, wow.

That was whew.

That was . Yeah.

So what had happened was when I went to journalism school as an introvert,

I was hoping for a way to help me get over my fear of interviewing people.

I was terrified of interviewing people.

And the journalism school I went to was very, old school and their thought

was, and they said on the first day, if you all didn't know how to report

and write, we wouldn't have let you in.

So we're not teaching that.

We're just throwing you off the deep end and you, you know,

you swim or are you drown.

Not really my kind of style of doing things.

So after journalism school, I started to look for a way that I could report stories

and tell meaningful stories to people in a way that felt more compassionate

and so that's where I started.

telling stories on stage.

I loved Spalding Gray and his style of storytelling.

I, I divided the world at that point into two styles of storytelling.

One was the Spalding Gray more narrative and the other one was the

Eric Bagosian, more character based.

They were both tremendously talented storytellers.

But I really like that idea of storytelling.

And so the first thing I did was collect people's love stories.

And I created what I called a decameron, which again was so

interesting to find out during the pandemic that that idea of going back

to The Decameron was really popular.

And are you familiar with Boccaccio's Decameron?

No, I was just gonna ask actually.

So it's considered, I think, the first

novel in romance languages.

So we're going back to like the 1300's during the Black Death.

And the idea is that 10 people in Florence, 10 young people who see

that everyone in the city is dying of this horrible illness that no one

can cure or control, go out to the country together and they vow that

for the next 10 days, they will all tell the story based on a theme as a

way of surviving and also thriving.

And I loved that idea.

And the stories are mostly, you know, they can be pretty sexy and out there.

And my Decameron was, my work tends to be always pretty G/PG but was

really about romantic love stories.

And so I toured that around for a while and created a, a radio piece

from that that aired on public radio.

And then my next idea was to pursue the history of a woman

I learned about in college.

I had spent a year in Italy named Laura Bassi, who was the first female

professor of science or physics in Europe.

And she was a rockstar, just incredible.

Had a ton of kids.

Had a happy marriage.

Was a terrible poet, and knew it, but was like this genius scientist.

And so I did a piece about her and then I went and interviewed women

in physics in the US, contemporary women in physics in the US, and then

ended up touring that piece around to universities for a couple years.

So I, I was just fascinated and it's the same throughline I really feel like

with everything I do is finding a story or a message or some way to communicate

that makes people feel part connected and celebrated for their best self.

And that was, that was super fun.

Yeah.

Oh, that's so cool.

That's really cool.

I just, I like that there's a, there's a show that is in England called

Tales of Whatever, and they'll kind of do a theme and then you do five or

10 minutes or something of a story.

And it's such a different way of, of yeah communicating your story

like it's so different cuz you write something very differently I think.

Well, I think so.

I think you write some for me very differently to deliver it through spoken

word just, you know, just orally anyway, versus if people are gonna be reading

it and then taking it on their own

Yes.

did you find that too, I guess?

Yes.

I think it took a while to get to that place.

I think you're just spot on on that, cuz I used to love to write drafts of like

drafts of these, you know, stage stories.

And over time I began to realize it's not...like you're saying, it's not the

words, it's the communication, and that is different when you're speaking to

people than when you're writing a book.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

Well, that's, it's just awesome.

So then when you ended up getting to Colorado and you auditioned for this

bluegrass cover band and you're doing that, so is that the music project

you mentioned a little bit ago that you're in now, or is, are you in them?

I'm in a different one.

That project lasted a couple years, and then I started my

own band with a boyfriend who's now my husband band boyfriend.

And he's also a fiddle player.

So I pivoted from playing fiddle to playing guitar.

And we've had different people with us over the years.

And then I just recently started a project with one of the women

who was in that early band.

We're talking like over a decade ago.

We re-met and started an all woman project I guess we'll call it

Americana Grass called Five Foot Betty.

And the tallest woman is five-five.

So that's why we're five foot I'm four-ten.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's just been tremendous.

I, I've had a couple experiences of reconnecting with women that I've

played with earlier, after a big break, and we're all so grateful

and so excited to be reunited.

It's just one of the most joyful things that I do.

And we actually, I play some of my Smile Songs in those groups with

like, you know, more instrumentation and more voices, which is really fun.

But it's just, it's great.

And I just can't say enough great things about it.

It's, we're in that brand new honeymoon phase, so it's really exciting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So are you guys on Spotify or anything like that yet, or have you recorded, or

what's, what are you doing right now?

No, we're still in the, in the living room.

Like you've caught us right at the very beginning.

Right now we're doing these brunch collaborations in this really cool popup

restaurant space downtown with a chef who is just this delightful creative chef.

And our first project was a, a country brunch and we did fried chicken and

mashed potatoes and fried green tomatoes.

And this one is an autumn brunch.

And.

Yeah, so we're just working on tunes for that.

And then we'll probably start co-writing.

And again, we'll probably have to talk again in a year and see what's happening.

But it's just great and we're working on our three part harmonies and all

that kind of stuff are down the road.

So we're, we're in the wood shedding, wood shedding, but getting to eat phase,

which is a really nice combination,

That is, that is a nice place to be.

Well, especially if you're gonna be at a brunch place.

Would be awful.

They're like, yeah, you can't eat though, and we can't afford to.

Right.

Exactly.

Now, last time I got to eat mac and cheese with my fingers in

the car on the way home, I, the little joys of life are ginormous.

That was amazing.

It was like the best.

That's so cool.

So getting back to Smile Songs since we started there and then I just like

brought you on all kinds of other places.

And one thing you've mentioned too is that like you really think that

music has the power to deliver happiness, and I think Smile Songs

is definitely a reflection of that.

But also just in talking to you, I mean, I see that theme kind of you're mentioning

the through line with you is like, you're always trying to find a way to do that.

That's what I, I'm getting from you, but when you look at Smile Songs and how's

that working for you to deliver happiness to others, I think it's a little obvious,

but I want to hear it from you anyway.

Sure.

So I have the wonderful experience of being able to go out into the community.

I mean, I sell Smile Songs in different ways.

I sell a wholesale to other stores.

I sell online.

I sell in different ways.

But there's also maker markets where I get to go out into the community

and stand there and literally watch people of all ages, the grins on

their faces and jump up and down.

The way they jump up and down when they interact with these

musical cards and stickers is just the whole meaning of life.

For me, it's really exciting because it's one thing to have an idea and

it's another thing to actually just be there in a neutral space and see

are people really gonna get this?

And they really do.

And kids will run up and they'll, they'll see it and, and I'll see.

, you know, tweens and teens just go, yeah, that's really cool.

And I'm like, all right, I'm done.

My life, my life is complete.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

And you cover a lot of themes, like any greeting card has to really in, in

your store online that when I review things and listened to some, which I

definitely think people should check it out, but how do you go about writing

those songs and is it any different than maybe other songwriting you do?

Kind of like we just talked about the spoken word, or the writing for delivery

on stage versus writing for reading.

Are these songs different than songs you would perform with your band?

I mean, you just said your band performs some of them, so

how's that all been working?

It is very different, and I think that's a really keen observation.

And I think the analogy you make is really right, that there's a

difference between writing for the spoken word and then writing for print.

There's also a difference for me songwriting and then Smile Songs writing.

And if I had to describe Smile songs, I would say they're kind of

like jaunty jingles for real life.

They tend to be shorter and they're focusing on a message that I either know

that people wanna hear that they need to hear, that they're hungry to hear.

Or that my gut tells me will resonate.

So I have one song that's literally just about doing the thing you're scared

to do and it lets you shout out in the middle of the song what that thing is.

You can laugh about it cuz it's just kind of a scientific fact that

you can't be scared about something and laugh at at the same time.

Those things do not exist.

I don't, are you a Stranger Things fan at.

I I saw like two episodes.

So,

There's a plot.

I don't think I'm spoiling anything.

But in the last season, there's a big subplot about the power of music,

Okay.

That has a similar thing, but I won't go into it

because

that why the Kate Bush song

Yes,

this resurgence?

Yes.

I will watch it eventually, but I haven't, but

But so there, there's just that idea.

So I feel like with Smile Songs and again, in a more time sensitive

way, because people wanna interact with a gift and they, they want, I

know within the first, I would say really within the first 10 seconds,

I might stretch it to 30 sometimes.

They wanna know that this song is saying exactly what the card or

sticker says or promises to do.

Whereas with a song-song, In some ways it might be quite the opposite.

You have the build and like the instruments might come in and

you've got almost the tease and the lyric, and then it resolves in the

chorus and you go, oh, now I got it.

Now I know what this is.

Cool.

But they, I think people wanna go on more of a journey.

But I do know that with Smile Songs, and I will play some of them

in the band when they cross over, but not all of them would do that.

And I don't think they should.

So I don't think I'm gonna play, you know, I did the thing I'm scared to do.

I met my fears and waved them through and now I'm saying high five you.

You did the thing you're scared to do at a brunch

Right.

Yeah.

They're like,

Yeah.

Like what?

Why, what?

But it's a different use for me of the powers of music.

This one is more direct and more obvious, I think in a good way that

goes with that kind of experience, the greeting card, the sticker.

And I've tried it other ways.

And again, I was just recently at a maker market.

I have a new card and sticker that has a wild child on it.

It says, wild child, there's a rainbow.

And the first draft of the song kind of said like, here's to

the power of the wild child.

And I immediately thought, mm-hmm the wild child wants a you.

And so the the revise of it says, here's to your bold soul, wild child.

So that when

someone's listening to it, immediately they're like, right, this is about me.

I'm super cool.

You're celebrating me.

Let's talk about me.

yeah.

those are the lessons I'm learning and it's

really exciting to realize

Yeah.

Yeah.

And just to kind of, I mean, because it is a product too, right?

Even though it's, it's songs and it's art, but it's a product.

And I think that that's an interesting kind of merging of

things too, in a way, right?

It goes back to that creative services or

a being of service, right?

So that I'm thinking about the end user and the, and the customer.

Like, you know, one thing about, and I'm sure you may have experienced

this as well, when you're shopping for something and it's for somebody

else, you kind of want it to be right, to make that person happy.

Yeah.

So I feel that people are really looking for

reassurance as am I as a consumer.

Like if I'm buying something, if it's for myself, I want it to fit or

make me look good or whatever it is.

If I'm buying as a gift, I want it to make that other person happy.

So how do I know that it's gonna do that?

And especially when it's something different.

So these are all the factors that go in.

So it's creative, but it's also really kind of, like you said, a product and

so it needs to be a solid business

thing.

Yeah.

That's, that's really cool.

And I just like how you, you know, the way you do look at things.

And, Why do you think it's this combination of things that makes

people happy too, just in, in general?

Cause it's something you've put together, but you've thought through it over time.

Yeah.

I think the important thing for me is that Smile Songs, they, they sort

of engage multiple senses and what I say to people and they nod their head

is that when we're happy in the real world, It's with more than one sense.

So you might be filling the breeze on your skin while you're tasting

something delicious, while you're hearing something that makes you laugh.

And so paper we've always thought about as being something that,

you know, has a texture, certainly and has a, a graphic design on it.

Most greeting cards.

And that would stop.

But I was like, why not?

Why not imitate or try to replicate as best I can, the way happiness works in

the real world by tapping multiple senses?

And it really does seem to make people so happy, which makes me happy.

Yeah, for sure.

That's great.

That's really cool.

So one thing that like to ask everybody is just, do you have any advice or mantra

that you want to share with listeners?

Wow.

I'm looking at my "go with the flow" print right now.

So I guess I'm gonna, I'm gonna run with that, which is, I think that the path

from A to B for any of us or all of us, doesn't always go in a straight line.

Like, and I think the obstacles can also be invitations to just kind of

redirect or, or see where that's going.

It's like, wow, that was a really big obstacle, huh?

What?

What?

What's going on here?

As opposed to trying to necessarily think that, you know, What the end

point's gonna be or how to get there.

So yeah, I think it's just, you know, kind of taking direction

from the way things are going.

And I don't wanna sound too Boulder County like to trust in, in the path, but I

do think that things tend to work out.

Maybe not the way you think, but they do tend to work out

and it can be pretty awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just accepting that.

Totally.

And my last set of questions is called the Fun Five, and they're

just questions I ask every guest that, just things that I wanna know.

So, what's the oldest T-shirt you have in still wear?

So the oldest, alright, it's a two part answer.

The oldest T-shirt I have is a T-shirt I got when I moved to Boulder, Colorado.

That was just the world's most perfect T-shirt.

I don't know why it.

Was the softest, it was the cutest, it had like a wide bottom.

It was amazing and unfortunately has so many holes that I use it

now at to wipe my computer screen.

So not really wearing it, but but I love it.

And if I could find another one...

And then I, one of my t-shirts, that's the oldest one that I still wear is one

of my Introvert AF musical t-shirts.

It has a QR code in the neck that actually sings an introvert power song.

And it was when I was considering making t-shirts, which I opted not

to do for environmental reasons and a lot of other reasons.

But I love it to pieces.

And so I, I work out in it most mornings.

Nice.

Yeah, and I actually, we didn't mention it, so just the

environmental aspect of things.

I mean, you definitely consider that in your work and it's fine.

I'll disrupt my Fun five.

This is one of the first times I've ever done this, but were you always

did you always have that sense of conservation and caring for the

environment or is it something that kind of happened as you moved to

Colorado and were in a different place?

I think it's been with me as long as I've

known that I've been alive.

I just think it's something that I look at trees, I look at

the grass, I look at the sky.

There's so much beauty there.

And yeah, I wanna be as kind to the world as I can.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cause I like that the QR code thing too.

I mean, you, you have, you've like removed all this plastic and everything from the

cards and a lot of those cards, like over time, you just throw them away anyway, but

yours, you could just have the QR code.

So it's, it's cool.

So, all right.

So the next question though, if every day was really Groundhog's Day, like it

seemed during the pandemic especially, but sometimes our lives are like that anyway.

What song would you have your alarm set to play every morning?

So not to be the, the difficult child, but no alarm.

Cuz that sound

gets me, it's really overwhelming to me.

mm-hmm.

And again, I don't wanna, I'm really not this Boulder County

everybody, but I would say bird song.

Like, I would like to hear the birds outside the window.

If I have to have a wake up, that's gonna be every single day, birds outside

the window would be number one vote.

And our neighbor's dog, who seems to get up before between 5:20am and 6:15am

and a really sweet dog, big barker.

I would take the dog bark or, or the bird song.

Wow.

Okay, cool.

And coffee or tea or neither?

Decaf coffee.

It used to be highly caffeinated coffee.

And then I'm doing this migraine elimination diet

thing, so no caffeine anymore.

But I tried tea for six months and I gotta tell you, even though it's decaf,

I make the world's strongest no, no caffeine, coffee, and it's amazing.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Okay, cool.

And I hope the, I hope its helping too.

Yeah.

too.

Can you think of a time that you just laughed so hard you cried?

Or just something that cracks you up when you think of it?

I am a total sucker for Baby Shark . I love Baby Shark so much.

Even talking about it makes me laugh and I'm really lucky.

Now we have a three year old who lives next door, two and a half year

old, and she's all about Baby Shark.

So I've got like, you know, we shark out.

Nice.

Okay, and the last one, who inspires you right now?

Such a good question.

I would say, my neighbor not well, the two and a half year old definitely

inspires me, but her dad, is one of my big inspirations right now.

One of the nicest people I've ever met.

I was so lucky.

When you have neighbors who move next door and you're like, wow, this is awesome.

He's a healer but also a very practical person.

Genuinely kind and amazing dad.

Yeah.

Lucky to have like, I think the world's best next door neighbor.

Maybe yours is also awesome.

So we can have a tie on that, that we can

Okay.

. Okay.

that's actually really nice to hear.

Yeah.

Mine's mine are something but that's what you get living in the city in a flat, you

know, it's just kind of, yeah.

Cool.

That's great.

So how do you want people to find you online and where do you want them to go?

Well, Smile Songs dot com (smilesongs.com)

is a great place to start.

You can always reach out to me through the website.

And I have a secret little code if you want 20% off on your first order,

you can go to Smile Songs dot com slash V I P (smilesongs.com/vip)

and sign up for the email list.

I email very infrequently because I'm a terrified introvert who

doesn't wanna offend anybody, so it won't be too annoying.

I am on Instagram at Smile underscore Songs (@smile_songs).

I think those are the two best places to find me.

You'll probably find links to Five Foot Betty, somewhere floating in there.

We're on the Insta, but again, we're brand new.

But I would say yeah, the Smile Songs website and Insta Smile

Songs are great places to find me.

Okay.

Awesome.

Well, Sharon, it has been an absolute pleasure to talk to you.

I'm really glad we got a chance to meet, so thank you.

Thank you, Rabiah.

This has been great.

Thanks for listening.

You can learn more about the guest and what was talked about in the show notes.

Joe Maffia created the music you're listening to.

You can find him on Spotify at Joe M A F F I A.

Rob Metke does all the design for which I'm so grateful you can find him

online by searching Rob M E T K E..

Please leave a review if you like the show and get in touch if you

have feedback or guest ideas.

The pod is on all the social channels at at more than work pod

(@morethanworkpod) or at Rabiah Comedy (@RabiahComedy) on TikTok.

And the website is more than work pod dot com (morethanworkpod.com).

While being kind to others, don't forget to be kind to yourself.