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Laura Orrico – One Powerful Package - Laura Orrico is the founder of Laura Orrico Public Relations. Laura also works as a model and an actress. As a PR company, Laura has worked with world-renowned brands, getting her clients the right exposure at the right time.
As an actress, Laura is HILARIOUS in roles on that 70s show, and notably, as Senator Barbara Boxer from the viral video Call Me Senator from Funny or Die short by David Zucker. Here's Call me Senator https://youtu.be/ixiYZ9DPk8o Laura and Pete A Turner talk about her journey through her husband Ryan Cosgrove’s diagnosis and ultimately his passing from brain cancer. Laura illustrates the challenges |
of loving, caring for and living when time is limited and goals re-adjusted. Then getting back to work and finding new purpose, new challenges and living with new goals
Haiku
Things aren’t What they Seem
Laura has been through it all
Live Love and repeat
Similar episodes: Attila Hajdu https://youtu.be/Jh8l2sXlylU
Lorenzo Lamas https://youtu.be/ZEtuy2HDrSU
Bren Foster https://youtu.be/I4kK3lAuWPQ
Join us in supporting Save the Brave as we battle PTSD. www.savethebrave.org
Executive Producer/Host/Intro: Pete A. Turner https://youtu.be/mYoUxRJzXcA Producer: Damjan Gjorgjiev
The Break It Down Show is your favorite best, new podcast, featuring 5 episodes a week with great interviews highlighting world-class guests from a wide array of topics. Get in contact with Pete at www.peteaturner.com www.breakitdownshow.com
Haiku
Things aren’t What they Seem
Laura has been through it all
Live Love and repeat
Similar episodes: Attila Hajdu https://youtu.be/Jh8l2sXlylU
Lorenzo Lamas https://youtu.be/ZEtuy2HDrSU
Bren Foster https://youtu.be/I4kK3lAuWPQ
Join us in supporting Save the Brave as we battle PTSD. www.savethebrave.org
Executive Producer/Host/Intro: Pete A. Turner https://youtu.be/mYoUxRJzXcA Producer: Damjan Gjorgjiev
The Break It Down Show is your favorite best, new podcast, featuring 5 episodes a week with great interviews highlighting world-class guests from a wide array of topics. Get in contact with Pete at www.peteaturner.com www.breakitdownshow.com
Transcription
Pete Turner 0:00
Everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of your break it down show doing today's introduction with our guest, Laura Errico, who runs lower Rico public relations. Laura is a friend of mine. We've had a number of her clients on the show and I thought it would be fun to have her on to kind of talk about her battle in her journey. She is an actress. You sure have seen her on CSI Miami, you've also seen her on that 70 show. And almost for sure if you watch Funny or Die videos, you've seen that call me senator video. She's Barbara Boxer in that video. It's fantastic. She's a hilarious actor. On the surface.
Everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of your break it down show doing today's introduction with our guest, Laura Errico, who runs lower Rico public relations. Laura is a friend of mine. We've had a number of her clients on the show and I thought it would be fun to have her on to kind of talk about her battle in her journey. She is an actress. You sure have seen her on CSI Miami, you've also seen her on that 70 show. And almost for sure if you watch Funny or Die videos, you've seen that call me senator video. She's Barbara Boxer in that video. It's fantastic. She's a hilarious actor. On the surface.
Pete Turner 0:00
Everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of your break it down show doing today's introduction with our guest, Laura Errico, who runs lower Rico public relations. Laura is a friend of mine. We've had a number of her clients on the show and I thought it would be fun to have her on to kind of talk about her battle in her journey. She is an actress. You sure have seen her on CSI Miami, you've also seen her on that 70 show. And almost for sure if you watch Funny or Die videos, you've seen that call me senator video. She's Barbara Boxer in that video. It's fantastic. She's a hilarious actor. On the surface. It seems like Laura has this perfect life. You might see her at the recent SAG Awards, hanging out with Brad Pitt and all kinds of other famous people. But the reality is, is that she lost her husband somewhat recently, a couple years back now to Gio blastoma the brain cancer that we talked about Tila Hydra with if you haven't seen that episode, you should definitely check that out. But when you get a terminal cancer type of death diagnosis you still have a life to live and decisions to make and and a family to run. And this is part of that story goes into what that's like to navigate through that life changing experience, and then have that end and then transition back into a more longer term life and I know you're gonna love who Laura is how she's approached life and the things that she's drawn from it. It's just such a great episode, by the way had tipped to Taylor lead and for being so awesome. She's always helping me with she works with. She works with Laura. So we're all talking all the time that's wanted to make sure I acknowledged her. But back to what Laura does. Laura loves her clients loves her work in front of the camera, whether she's modeling or acting, and I think that comes across in this episode. The other thing I wanted to say is, if you want to support the show, we always appreciate that you can share the show, you can make comments when we post the show. Any of these kinds of interactions help a lot. Obviously new shirt should be out I think I'm going to press the button tomorrow on new shirt. So go to break it down. show.com Subscribe. Let me know what else you want to see who you want to hear from. We're working on trying to get some big guests coming up here for the next we're almost at 750. We just got to 700 and today's episode is 709. Can you believe it, though? No, we keep going forward. We appreciate everybody's help. I cannot believe how incredible The show is. I just want to be thankful and grateful to everybody. Hey, one last thing, save the brave, save the brave.org go there, put a small amount of money in each month. We will appreciate it. I want to take one more moment since it's since it's Friday and we have a lot of things going on. If you want to donate to charity, especially for COVID type things go to charity on top.org you can send anyone a charity card you have a friend who's a nurse or a frontline worker or someone working at the at the grocery store, like my friend Mike Brown, and you just want to say thank you to them, get a charity and type gift card. You can send it to them and then they can pick the charity that they want to donate to. I think it's a clever way to Say thanks to someone who's out there sacrificing it. Or just to you know say hey I want you to give to the charity that matters the most. I appreciate you so charity on top org do that and you will have my thanks. Here comes lower Rico. Lions rock productions.
Unknown Speaker 3:18
This is Jay Morrison. This is Jordan. Dexter from the offspring nakedly Sebastian Yo, this is Rick Murat Stewart COPPA This is handy somebody there's a skunk Baxter. Gabby Reese is Rob bell. This is john Leon gray and this is Pete a Turner.
Laura Orrico 3:34
Hi, this is Laura Orrico and you're listening to the break it down show.
Pete Turner 3:40
Laura is one of our underachievers that we'd like to feature on the show. She, you know is like I'm gonna try acting and does it. I'm gonna try modeling and does it I'm gonna try PR Ed does it what do you do? Are you bad things at all? Laura?
Laura Orrico 3:57
Yes. I'm bad at a lot of things. I can't keep plants alive. flowers I try. And I water them, but just not the right amount either too little or too much. So yeah, I'm not a good gardener.
Pete Turner 4:14
Well, you got to be bad at something. Exactly. Okay, so would you introduce yourself, obviously, depending on the crowd, but just in general, like when people say what do you do? What What's your answer?
Unknown Speaker 4:25
Yeah, cuz I do a few things. Well, most of my life, I was a TV actress and a model. So now I just say I own a PR firm in Chicago and I represent clients across the country and as a hobby now, I am a television film actress.
Pete Turner 4:42
as a hobby. You're sort of like Bo Jackson, where you're hobbyist professional baseball,
Unknown Speaker 4:46
right? It's a hobby, but I still love it. It's addicting.
Pete Turner 4:50
Yeah, I mean, I in and it's one of those things where, as people see you, you know, you you get picked for things that You fit for you know, they're like Why look for somebody else Laura can do the job and so you get that work.
Laura Orrico 5:07
I'm gonna hire you as my agent if that's okay.
Pete Turner 5:10
I can't sell myself You don't want me selling you
Laura Orrico 5:13
honestly don't have any plans but because
Pete Turner 5:18
a lot of people have probably already seen your work and I'll just in this case, I'll just mention your front of your die video that you did when you were Dianne Feinstein and talking about you know what you've earned in terms of titles every
Laura Orrico 5:34
boxer the Barbara Boxer it's got your Ron Davis look Hurry up. Yeah.
Pete Turner 5:38
Yeah, the Barbara Boxer thing. Yeah, sorry. But yeah, so barbara boxer, you play her and it's hilarious because then all of a sudden, it devolves into this title fest and it's pretty hilarious. Millions of people have seen this thing.
Unknown Speaker 5:53
Yeah, yeah. It was a produce written directed by David Zucker, who did airplane and Naked Gun and The scary movie franchise. He had seen some of my work and asked me if I would play her. He said, Could you play her? And I said, Yeah, give me two or three days to learn to emulate her. And what she had done was really disrespected and talked down to a general and that clip of that went viral. So David's like let's make it go a little crazy. And he did and I played the part and it was a blast. Oh, we had so much fun in that and that had I'm sure it's exceeded now but over 10 million views collectively everywhere that it was posted from YouTube to Funny or Die you name it and television to CNN even ran at Fox ran it everybody ran it.
Pete Turner 6:45
Yeah. And I'm just looking right now at the right change YouTube page, just because that's the first one that came up. That's where it originated. Yes. And it's got on this version of it's got a million hits, but you're right like if you go to the Funny or Die or any it's just been seen millions of times and it is it is so perfect. And it's um it's clever political commentary that isn't doesn't have to be political like, you know, we can often get high and mighty and and want to claim something and then you look around and you're like, Oh, crap, I'm sorry everybody, I'm a jerk. It's just, uh, it was clear and it's super Yeah, you could see the airplane influence. You can see the Zakarian thing when it devolves into everybody's saying everybody's title and everybody's taking offense and nothing gets done and it gets chaotic. It's just it's five minutes, or two minutes of brilliance. And I just, I think the world of you for doing it and aliens like you did. Thank you. Thank you. It was a lot of fun and it got a good message out. And I think, you know, to this day, I'm still really good friends with David and we just have a blast working together and keeping in touch and we're good friends. How do you sort out what your days are going to look? I don't mean like on your calendar. But I mean, you know, okay, so as a, as a small business owner myself, right, I've got to do production, I've got to do post production, I've got to do pre production, I've got to do marketing, I've got to do some sales. And you know, I am always busy. And one of the things I struggle with is I have to do certain things and everything else comes after that. But then organizing those buckets in a way that makes any damn sense to like a long term strategic plan, which by the way, I have to do. So how do you organize all of these things? I mean, you get like a really sweet acting or modeling gig, you know, you got to hop on a plane and that wrecks 234 days out of your month that you maybe you weren't even planning on. Right?
Unknown Speaker 8:42
Yes. So being somebody that already works from home. So in the midst of this crisis, I know it's new for a lot of people, but for me, it's the norm. So having worked from home, my business is mobile, so I can and I have Taylor, who you've communicated with my lead, PR associate, she's amazing. So if I have to jump off and To do something to help my mother take her to the doctor, go visit my grandmother, any emergency or a work thing that comes up as far as the acting, I can take my laptop with me, obviously my phone and with the way technology is these days, I'm able to juggle both. So if I am shooting something, let's say a few years ago, I had to go to New York and do a sitcom for CBS. I was able to take everything with me and then during the downtime on set, I'm able to work so balancing everything and in a realistic way, while not totally dropping my PR business I can do both successfully and cautiously. You know, separating the two is important. And I don't do it as much as I used to although I love it and it's a passion like I said it's an addiction. Yeah, yeah, even film acting, but I'm I'm able to take everything with me which makes it easier.
Pete Turner 9:51
Yeah, I can see that. There is there is a lot of downtime when you're acting because sometimes there's literally nothing for the actor to do because Lights are being moved, you know scripture being rewritten. There's there are so many things that happen that are completely outside of what you need to do it. I guess if you kind of think about it, like the folks who aren't acting or pointing a camera or mining a light, they're all sort of waiting as well. You know, like, there's a lot of time where everybody is not necessarily fully engaged on a set. But you do have a job to do as an actor, you know, so how do you how do you manage that part of it, where you're like, I have this work to do for the PR business. But I also have the obligations to this role, or are your roles such that you're able to like handle them pretty efficiently? I don't know. Tell me,
Unknown Speaker 10:42
it's all about time management. So I'm a big list maker. So I have separate to do lists for everything in my life. So I have a to do list for my acting and modeling career. I have a to do list which is the largest portion of my life for my PR business. And then I even have a personal digital As for stuff around the house, I have one for my mother and things I help her with because she's handicapped. So that helps me to separate everything and clear my mind. And my motto is before I go to bed at night, get things off my mind and onto paper. So getting a lot of sleep is important. And being, like I said, being able to organize and separate all of my tasks and duties. So if there is a day where I've gotten all my PR work done, we work ahead for our clients, we're usually working one month ahead, depending on the type of news cycle we're working with and the project we're working on. I can take a day here and there, shift a few things over to Taylor that she'll handle. So if I am on set for a full day and I just want to purely focus on that, like I said, which is only a few times a year, I can do that comfortably and check in with my phone periodically throughout the day and not have any issues and move forward with my business and my acting career without skipping a beat.
Pete Turner 11:54
You are a machine you're doing all of these things. It almost seems like nothing bad is ever happened in your life? But you and I both know, you've had some significant challenges in your career, obviously, you're referring partly to your husband and losing him. Talk a little bit about that whole process because there's multiple things. There's like, you know, the discovery, and I don't know what kind of cancer it was, was it that glioblastoma or was it somebody?
Unknown Speaker 12:22
Yeah, it was towards the end. It was a glioblastoma. He was diagnosed in 2007 with a brain tumor with an astrocytoma grade two and talk between cedar Sinai and St. Joseph's in Burbank, where we were living at the time we were living in the valley. It was between a grade three and a two and three. But they settled on that it was a grade two, which means it's slow growing. So he went on for the first six years to continue to work. As soon as he was done with his surgery and recovered from that about a month later he went back to work. But boy, when you get a diagnosis like that, yeah, um, someone you love in your life. It really, really rattles you and your life is never the same from that day going forward. So you learn the new norm, you learn how to make a terrible day with 12. doctor appointments positive by ending it with watching something funny or going to a nice dinner. You just have to balance it out and stay positive, which isn't easy for everybody. Luckily for me, I have a I think I take after my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, my great aunt who always stay positive through adversity. But yeah, those first six years you wouldn't have known he was sick. He went on to working he was one of the top graphic designers in TV and film. And then eventually, you know, the market crashed. Significantly, things got really difficult. We sold our home in LA and moved back to Chicago to be by family because he ended up getting work on a TV show here in Chicago, which was perfect. Unfortunately, things took a bad turn when we move back slowly, his tumor started to grow back and from diagnosis in 2007, all the way up until 2015. He had nine recurrences of his tumor, or he was never able to have another resection surgery, which is a removal of a brain tumor, again since 2007, because it just wasn't fully operable. Right. And unfortunately, his battle got really bad in fall of 2014. And he would pass away of what we think like you said, A glioblastoma because they couldn't get in and biopsy. Right. It was just too difficult the way he was presenting symptoms and the rate in which it was growing because now we're talking a great for brain tumor, glioblastoma, which grows a lot faster. Things decline really significantly. It was very hard to see somebody you love go through that. So he passed away almost five years ago, April 29 2015.
Pete Turner 14:58
Yeah, and God I mean, it's it's, yeah, I happen to know a little bit about it because I had, I had a guy named Attila. Hi do on my show. He's also was on popping the bubble if he's working on using epigenetics to deal with, in particular glioblastoma because it is such a scourge. And it's such a fast movie and and for those that don't know, it's 18 months you get diagnosed with that and basically everybody has gone in that amount of time. So how do we how if we can take this evil version of cancer and and give some time some hope some, you know, maybe even some some health, you know, that's where he puts his work in. And it's just it's shocking it that's what ultimately killed a number of people that have died recently, including Senator McCain got it, you know, and there's just, there's just no time to deal with it. The drummer from rush Neal peered he same thing.
Laura Orrico 15:56
Is that what he had, I didn't realize
Pete Turner 15:58
Yeah, it was Yeah. So you have that finality, but before that you have the struggle in the fight. So it does change your life. The two of you do you know that that his prognosis long term is not good? Or is it like we're battling and we'll worry about that later on? How you so after the diagnosis and assays working, what was your new norm?
Unknown Speaker 16:23
Well, that's the difficult part is how do you move forward, knowing something so awful has happened and you have to live through it and power through so I kind of went into go mode and it was all about researching and finding the best doctors and finding the best neuro oncologist and yes, I you just learn to make it your norm. So every day you wake up in the morning, not knowing what the future will hold, but I never talked about that with him because I think once a patient knows because I did research and then I just oh my throw my computer away. I looked about you know, but I think once a patient knows that they know too much, I think sometimes they kind of give up. And he may have looked it up himself, but I'm glad he didn't, because this survival rate with what he had was three to six years with the grade two. And I'm glad none of the doctors ever came to us and said, well, we're going to give you this many years. And I'm so glad because I don't sometimes I understand it's necessary when someone's really getting near the end, which did happen eventually the last two weeks of his life, but I think that really puts a damper on someone's energy and someone's positivity and someone's willingness to keep fighting. I really don't like it. I know a lot of people would agree with me, but I'm glad no one ever told us that. And it wasn't that we were in denial. It was that we were staying positive. Doing everything we could to stay up with current treatments. Stay in touch with doctors. I was talking with doctors across the country from Duke University Becker. At Cedars Sinai to the doctor, we ended up switching to here when we move back. And I think my husband in this isn't common with everybody, but he was so positive to begin with, and he stayed that way throughout. So I think that helped a lot. But yeah, every morning, I would wake up with a pit in my stomach, you know, that I kind of was holding inside a little bit, not knowing how long I would have him so we live life to the fullest
Pete Turner 18:27
at a girl.
Unknown Speaker 18:28
Yeah, so I'm like, that's the, when you can't control something. You got to do what you can to control the things that you can. So for me that was doing all the research and the medical communication with the doctors and him and taking care of him and doing things that were fun to get her mind off of this. And we traveled we spent money we didn't have and I didn't care. We live life to the fullest. I wanted to cram in 90 years in his short 39
Pete Turner 18:54
Yeah, so basically from from the diagnosis you guys knew his time was was extremely Limited, and it allowed you guys to live, you know, because we all have that live for today, or be smart and save for tomorrow. But when you know that there's only so many tomorrows, you really can adjust how you live.
Unknown Speaker 19:11
Yeah, I think we were both doing that deep down without ever really talking about it. We didn't want to put that out there. But absolutely, that's what we were doing. And one time, thank God he said this to me a few months before he passed away he goes, you know, we've really done so much. We've met all these celebrities, we have all these amazing friends. We both worked on these amazing movies and TV shows the experiences that we have had in our life, some people will never experience in their entire life. And that really helped to put me at peace knowing that he loved his life and he enjoyed our time together. Yeah, and that he was happy and I'm like, Wow, what a blessing to hear something like that.
Pete Turner 19:53
Yeah, that's so you go to Chicago at chess to fall apart the you get the you know, really the fun final diagnosis. How about that time as you guys know that the end is is quickly approaching? How did you deal with that? And and how did Ryan handle it?
Unknown Speaker 20:12
Um, he didn't want to stop working. He did not want to stop working. I got a call from someone from set that he was working with saying we're trying to help him at lunch. He seems to be walking to the left a lot. He couldn't see well. I went down there and I realized how bad it was getting within just days. So I had to bring him home that day and talk with him and talk to the doctors and figure out our next steps. And he got so sick, he was never able to go back but he wanted to. Yeah, so the worst thing I ever had to do was go to his work my cousin and I went in and we had to pack up his stuff and bring it home. And with his and he was intending to work from home but he was losing vision. He was losing some cognitive skills slowly, right? He just wasn't himself, you know, not only the brain tumor, but all the medication which was necessary, you know, steroids are necessary to keep swelling down in the brain and that was difficult. So he declined slowly from September, September October ish 2014 until he passed away. So eventually we had to notify work, he wasn't able to continue working, but he just didn't want to stop he would barely be able to walk, he'd want to go down to his computer every day and create something so he didn't quit, he didn't quit and then when he I got sick to the point of caregiving, 24 seven for nine months that I ended up in the ER twice, and I was calling out for help from family and friends that were jumping in when they could and but I was still around the clock caregiving I did not want to put them anywhere in a home or anything like that. But finally I got a call from his parents The morning after I got discharged from an email Are visit saying that he had fallen off of the radiation table. So my heart sank and his parents told me that the doctor suggested he go on hospice I just about fell over. So I had to go to his house that he was staying with them for that one night. I was the one it wasn't with me. So I went over there to pick them up. And I said, I can't tell him. They didn't. Nobody had told Ryan yet. I said, we need to tell have the doctor tell him and I'll be with him. I just don't want him to hear that coming from me. Because we've been partners throughout this and I thought that was the best way to go about it. And he was so heartbroken when the doctor told them he just went Oh, f you know what he said? And I just remember the devastating look in his face and we expressed and the doctor did to this might be temporary. It's just considered a break and treatment. We don't want to totally, you know, let him down. He's already upset enough about what was going on, but Then they privately told me I can put them in a home for hospice somewhere or a hospital. And I didn't want to I don't want to put a 39 year old in a home. So I demanded that he come home with me and I took care of him. And friends and family stopped in and helped and we had up and it was 13 days. I thought it would be about a month but it was 13 days. And it was hard but I we made it a positive environment. I had my friend Chris move in with me. He was willing to move in and help me with him for the last two weeks of his life along with the hospice people that would check in with us, and family and friends coming in and out and those last three days of his life. We have anywhere from 20 to 40 people at my house coming in and what a blessing just filled with love and memories and everybody sharing and he wasn't quite with it at the end but we knew you know he could hear everything I had the bed brought down to the living room and we rearranged the whole house to to make it comfortable but difficult. But positive as best we could, because seeing him suffer like that and decline was devastating.
Pete Turner 24:08
Yeah, one and I appreciate you sharing that stuff because it's easy to get lost in the red carpet shoots with you standing by Brad Pitt and all that kind of thing and just dismiss like, oh, Laura has this perfect life, but you really have had a challenging thing. I want to go one more time to that era of your life. Because there is that final moment like, Okay, you've been fighting, like a Wildcat, you know, researching and outworking this problem until the problem is solved. And now you're released and a lot of ways talk about how you transitioned. I mean, obviously you got to go through the grief process. Which by the way, for everybody listening, there's two of them there. There's the grief of your your husband is still alive and dying and you have to deal with that and then the actually passes So talk about you know, Being relieved of that burden. That's enormous.
Unknown Speaker 25:02
Yeah, what well put Yeah, exactly. Good point. But absolutely. So with what I went through, and him being sick for eight years, as I had said, Remember, I'd wake up with that pit in my stomach every morning, especially that last year, so I was mourning in a way before he passed away. Sure. It sounds crazy, but from my experience, and a lot of people I've spoken to in the same position, agree, you're seeing somebody suffer. It's devastating. So you're starting this mourning process while they're still alive. Right. Soon after that hospice, which was what I say 13 days he would pass away. And I was almost celebratory, because this poor guy, Ryan suffered significantly, no quality of life and it was devastating. So I went through this phase of relief for him. For me, because I have been in such a tough situation, it was really hard. You know, I say hard to see somebody go through that. But I always correct myself and say, You know what, I'm seeing him go through it, but he's the one who actually had to go through it.
Pete Turner 26:15
Hey, this is Pete Turner from lions rock productions, we create podcasts around here. And if you your brand or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear, the best plan and show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you. That's sustainable. That's scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show. com Let me help I want to hear about it.
Unknown Speaker 26:37
You know, I say hard to see somebody go through that. But I always correct myself. And so you know what I'm seeing him go through it, but he's the one who actually had to go through it. Very difficult. So the first six months, I went back into my go mode that I mentioned earlier in our interview, and I just started focusing on rebuilding my life in a way where I was just playing time with friends and family. I hate being alone. So this was a whole new norm to learn again, I hate being alone. and spending time with friends and family and traveling, dabbled back into the acting because I taken nine months off. I think that's the best thing I ever did. Of course, it hit me harder six months later, and I had to go to bereavement group and a support group, which was so helpful. And I'm still friends with all of these people to this day. And we get together once a month for dinner and there's old most of the widows are older than me and the only young younger widow in the group, but there's also younger people who've lost parents and when wonderful people what a great support system I'm so glad I did that. But it like I said, it took me six months to get to that point of realizing that I needed that. And tough stuff but you know, scary stuff, too.
Pete Turner 27:51
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And and again, yeah, you're tough. You're you have go mode. I mean, a lot of us operate in that way and to Be able to accept help that that takes some growth in it. Talk a little bit about that part like knowing that, oh my gosh, there is help. And I actually am willing to go do this.
Unknown Speaker 28:11
Right, exactly. It took a lot for me to ask for help. But I had no choice when he was sick. And then afterwards, I started to get help in the ways of having people come over and help me go through his stuff. I moved I have people helped me with the move, and reorganizing, you know, the first six months after someone passes away, you kind of get this brain fog, which I also learned is normal. A lot of people get it, I could, I couldn't put you know, add two and two, I couldn't put my shoes in an organized fashion in my closet. I couldn't do anything. So I would I could do it for somebody else, oddly enough, but not for myself. So I had friends come in and help me and it was great. And I also have to point out it's a difficult time because you wouldn't think so. But this is a time that you really learn who your friends are and your family? shockingly enough, people dissipate. People come out of the woodwork and then there's people that dissipate. And that's really sad. That hurts because you're already getting used to something that's really uncomfortable and not your your normal lifestyle. So when you see family members on, yeah, yeah, awesome stuff. Cool. Is that hard? Yeah.
Pete Turner 29:25
Yeah. Look, I appreciate you going through that with us. But I think especially right now, with the COVID thing going on, there's gonna be a lot of new widows and widowers and parents and kids and everything. And just to understand a couple of things like, you know, one, everybody sucks at people dying, and everybody handles it in a different way. And yeah, just give everybody a moment to be shitty at it. Because which we just, you know, the next time it happens in your family, you may respond negatively, you just don't know when to you're in that moment. This time. It was this way, the next time and maybe Totally different and we all got to slow down a little. And just understand that this is about the hardest thing anybody can go through hell our cat died. And we still haven't gotten a new cat A year later because it was so hard for us you know
Laura Orrico 30:12
it is there like part of the family.
Pete Turner 30:14
Yeah. Yeah. So thanks for doing that and thanks for that. But But now that you're not now you've gotten through the bereavement thing, you've got your support system and you're back at go mode. You know, super Laura out there doing things. What, when this chapter does turn, what was on then what ended up being the next chapter, what what ended up being your focus, like, this is what I'm doing right now?
Unknown Speaker 30:40
Well, I had done a movie in New Orleans. I did a commercial in LA I did some modeling work here in Chicago, and I'm like, Can I do I really want to live like this and not have this consistency, no matter how well you're doing in this business unless you're in a list or it's a tough business. Right. Like do I want to continue to live like this or do something else? So I started looking at other options. Well, then I learned quickly nobody's going to hire a TV and film actress and model with 20 something years of experience because a lot of people and regular business world don't realize all you put into that 75% of the work is handling business and working to get work. So I'm huge blessing, an opportunity fell into my lap in March of 2016. A friend of mine called me up and said, Hey, do you want to do some PR management or something for me and my band? His name is Alfonso Rachel. And I said, Yeah, I'd love to. So I started doing work for him turned out I'm not a good manager. But PR stuff I had already been doing for myself I'd already been doing for my husband. I had been doing for celebrity clients as a hobby and a little side thing here and there. But never really took it full force took it on full So this time I did and I did work for him for a few months. And then I realized how good I wasn't at it and how much I loved it because I'm a people person. And within a few months, I had I officiated the business, April 4, which is my husband's birthday, ironically, April 4 2016, but I actually officiated it with attorneys in the state and filed for official business in the summer of 2016. But I count April 4 as my initiation date. And I started my own PR firm Laura Rico public relations, and I never thought that's where I would be in my life and that's what I would be doing but what a blessing. What a great opportunity. And now I have these amazing clients and we are going to be celebrating 40 years next week. It's, it's been amazing. My clients are like friends and family family to me that we are so close. We work so close together. I love them all. And it's been a true blessing.
Pete Turner 32:57
Why?
Unknown Speaker 32:59
Well I love people and I love to do things to help people. So with what I do for clients is things that I always enjoy doing and learn doing for myself. So I'm able to help people share a positive message. Um, I have clients that work in a lot of veterans, nonprofits. So by helping them I'm helping veterans. I love getting out positive stories. We have the search for lightness docu series, and I know you've interviewed all three of the folks from that veto and Chad and J. Todd Hill. And what a cool opportunity. They're doing this docu series that they've traveled the world to shoot and interview people from all walks of life around the world. And I have Michael Reagan who's doing the walkway to victory, and he's sharing his ronald reagan legacy foundation in which they're doing stuff for the veterans. It's just amazing. I love my clients.
Pete Turner 34:00
Well, I mean, what's better than that? Like, if you love your your clients, I mean, that's, that's a very good sign that you're in the right business. If you have such a positive response to doing these things, why still do that the acting and modeling
Laura Orrico 34:17
it's just a passion. I don't know. I love it. I absolutely love being on a TV or film set. It's so much fun to me. And if I can still continue to do it, I'll do it for the rest of my life. I just get a high off of it. It's so much fun. I don't know. There's just something about it. I think it it's not even that I've been doing it for so long. It's just that I've always you know, when I was a kid, I dreamed of being on TV and working in movies and television and it's fascinating to me,
Pete Turner 34:46
but so this would be in a lot of ways proximity wise, a lot easier to do if you were in LA, but you live in Chicago is that part of what you've learned through the the whole, you know, the illness with your husband, everything that is more important to home.
Laura Orrico 35:02
You know, I with this business, I just didn't have a need to have an office somewhere. I can work from home. So it's not necessarily important to be at home. I like to get out with people actually. So it just happens. I work my business from home because I can. It's great and everything but at the end of the day when everybody else gets in their car and goes home, I'm still here. I know now with everything going on the way the world does with COVID-19 people are getting used to this that have never had to do it. So for me, it's the norm but the part that's affecting me is not being able to get out of the house after and go out on the weekends. That's tough. Because my home is my office, I separate everything. My Space I work from is separate from my living space, but it's still here. So someday if I you know, I want a bigger house with a room. I do have a whole basement office area with an extra office room. I just don't like to be in the basement. So Not a good move on my I have a great space, but I like to have sunlight. So I work in the kitchen and I keep the windows open.
Pete Turner 36:09
Yeah, same. I mean, I have my little spots where I work in the house, you know, you should record back in the back corner and I like to sit in the big chair in the living room and you know that I go out and I walk around, I've got my pattern for how I do it. But the thing that I love to do the most is and I love to record this way, but the sweetest time is when I'm sitting across the countertop from somebody in their home, and recording, you know, in your space in your dojo, and in getting being able to go out and do that is really where like the sweetest of all experiences is and I am missing the ability to go out and share those moments because they really, for me on my end what I do, they're magical, you know, like this, this is great. This is a fantastic way to do this. And it's a world class compromise, but it just cannot replace That moment across the table, you must experience things like that with what you do because it's so important to the person's career what you're doing, you have to have that connection.
Unknown Speaker 37:08
Absolutely, absolutely. It is important and communication is important face to face communication is important. Like right now I should have put makeup on so we could video chat, but instead
Pete Turner 37:22
instead I have my camera covered. That's selfish.
Unknown Speaker 37:28
No, I what we try to do if we do have local clients or clients that are across the country that come to Chicago or we go out to them, I have some clients in LA and I visit periodically. It's nice to have that face to face communication. If not, we do a Skype call. So we can have that or we get on the phone and we talk with them and we'll do a strategy meeting every few weeks. So we're in constant contact with our clients but not all of my work is at home based out go out to radio and TV interviews with clients or clients concerts or events and restaurants and stuff like that, if they're local, like I said, if I'm visiting somewhere else or, you know, happy to be where they are, I do that too. But it's not very often I have the need to because we can handle everything on distance.
Pete Turner 38:13
The person that's out there that wants to get into PR, or they're already in PR, or thinking about starting their own agency, let's talk to them a little bit. Like how do you get clients? How do you how do you do it? Like just how do you do it?
Unknown Speaker 38:27
For me, it's all been word of mouth. If people know who you are, and they're hearing about you, and you know your worth, and people know your worth. The word spreads like wildfire. So for me, I have not had to do and knock on wood, have not had to do advertising. I'm not having to go down and hunt down clients. And I hope it stays that way. But it's all been word of mouth. So social media, people finding out about us LinkedIn, and clients Who are referring us to other potential clients? The entire time? Yeah, so I'm very blessed that I have that. So for other people, um, my advice is just be good at what you do know your craft know your business. And for me, I have to handle so much more than my PR efforts and pitching clients to the press and media, creating press releases, helping brush up their website content and their bios and all that stuff. You have to be good at that. But I also have to be good at communicating with people handling the accounting, handling the business end of everything. That takes up a lot of time too. So I have to be good at balancing all that. So I encourage anybody who has this idea in their mind to start a PR firm, have a good understanding of business. know all the aspects that go into it from the legal aspects. Have a good attorney to drop your contracts, have a good, a banker, someone that can speak to you about finances if you're not good with that I'm already okay with that. So I handle a lot of that myself along with my accountant. You just have to be able to balance everything and handle everything because you're wearing all the hats when you're running your own business. Yes.
Pete Turner 40:13
How many hours a week do you think you work?
Laura Orrico 40:16
It could be anywhere from 40 up to 50 and 60. If I'm out going to events, yeah, but I can, I'm pretty good at time management and handling work for our clients, I can pretty much handle a good work week with 35 to 40 hours. Because I think quality of life is important. And I don't want to be one of those people that is working ridiculous hours into the evening because it's I've already been through hell. So you kind of learn that a quality of life is more important. So how I do that I only take on a select amount of clients at any given time. Yeah, so we only handle what we can handle because there's two of us And depending on the amount of hours someone is hiring us for I either have three to seven clients at any given time. And I keep it controlled and realistic, and not overloading our workload. And then quiet clients get a more quality of work obviously out of us. And that's for me, that's more important. Quality over quantity.
Pete Turner 41:22
Yeah, no, I get that. That's, that makes a lot of sense. Who are your favorite clients to work with?
Laura Orrico 41:30
Um, all of them. Give you the favorite. My favorite type of client is someone who understands what we do. So we've, by the time we've taken somebody on we explain how we work and what we do and how we keep an open communication. So as long as they have a good understanding of what we do and how we work, and I don't have to handhold and coddle people. Those are the best clients. And I only work with people that we can realistically help get their message out there. We have to understand what they do to and believe in them, and effectively, and be able to effectively share their story and get their message out there. So I like to work with clients that see us as part of their team. So we work hand in hand. And because of that, and people give us what we need, provide us with information we need so we can best tell their story. Those are the best kind of clients to work with. But I do love my entertainment industry clients because I come from the entertainment industry, but I also have a lot of great business clients, and nonprofits and they're amazing and all great people to work with. When you go through something that's truly life changing and grinding you. You develop a new floor for what hard is for what impossible is.
Pete Turner 42:49
How does that inform your day to day life? I mean, look, this isn't under undermine anybody's challenges. Everybody has problems and there are real problems to them. But you've been through something incredibly Hard in so many different ways. I mean, my peers we often act, I can't think of one person who's got a lot of combat time who hasn't said out loud. I would rather be shot at then have to go through this and this thing is way easier. And being a little Yeah, what is that thing for you? What is that like to have that experience that rooting event experience other, you know, challenges in life
Unknown Speaker 43:29
it's made things easier because I've been through how, you know, I lost my dad at a young age. You know, seeing my mother battle Ms. Especially So in the last 10 years seen my husband battle his illness for eight years and pass away and losing my great aunt kind of suddenly just before him a month before him, and then a whole bunch of other things I haven't even mentioned. So you learn the things that normally would knock a lot of us down, you know, and that's normal. That happens but I, I guess I like I said, I take after my mother and she's very strong. And when I move forward in life now and something happens, I've learned to kind of press forward and handle things in a way where you know, if it's not that bad of an issue, just kind of take care of it and move forward. Yeah, um, you know, having dealt with family drama over the last couple years and all sorts of stuff that you wouldn't expect to happen after already been through already going through such difficult times. But my mother has been amazing. My grandmother has been amazing. I have cousins that have been a huge support system. I think it's important to surround yourself by people that support you and that are on your side friends and family. And I think it's important to to support your friends and family and do things for them as well. And I feel like sharing. When you're sharing your story and your struggles, your it's not only therapeutic, but you're helping somebody else.
Pete Turner 44:54
Okay, enough of all that stuff. Let's have a little bit of fun. It is Friday after all, and we're all trying to start the week. And even if it is 1030 here in the West Coast what's your truth as an actress, you know, when you show up, you know, you're like, oh, that I don't have to even work. I know that because, like, we had Michael Gaston on the show, and he's just this big, large guy that he can loom so he can be a tough guy. He can. He's sort of like, powers booth. Now. He's a very well established actor. everybody's seen him in things, but he has this thing where he can just stand there and he is a cop. He can just stand there and he is a bad guy. What's your truth?
Laura Orrico 45:37
As far as who I am, what's my truth
Pete Turner 45:39
as an actor? Yeah.
Laura Orrico 45:41
As an actor, making people laugh. I love comedy, and I love to make people laugh, because that's who I am in real life, too. Right? Although, you know, it's obviously been especially hard after losing my husband and going through so much stress in starting a business and doing everything like I've been doing. It's hard to keep humor. So, for me deep down, though I'm a, I love to make people laugh. I'm a comedian at heart. I'm not a stand up comedian. I've done the sketch and the improv and playing characters and stuff like that. And for me, I just love to be able to make people laugh, like, make my mother laugh, or my grandmother or my little cousins, Gwen and Ruby. Are people who aren't feeling well or my friends who, you know, suffered with some difficult times. I'd like to be able to make them laugh. I think that's important. That's great.
Pete Turner 46:27
That's fantastic. What's next for you? I mean, obviously, the PR business is going to continue you're going to do modeling and acting and everything, but I know that's not enough. I know you've got your mind on something else. I can just tell, huh?
Unknown Speaker 46:39
Yeah. I've always wanted to start a makeup company. So
Pete Turner 46:45
I don't even know you and I know you. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 46:48
That's been in the back of my mind for years and then two books that I've been putting off writing because all of everything else I'm doing takes priority. But um, yeah, then travel. I want to travel more Especially after this and like I said, life is too short and everything you go through is so tough as it is. I think you have to take the time to live it to the fullest. So
Pete Turner 47:07
what places call to you?
Unknown Speaker 47:11
Maui, San Diego. Those are two of my favorite places. I Love New Orleans. New Orleans is a lot of fun. And I love You're gonna laugh but we have a place in the Midwest here called Wisconsin Dells. Well the Dells,
Pete Turner 47:23
yeah.
Laura Orrico 47:26
Yeah, I'm a kid at heart and it's the waterpark capital of the world. And my cousin Kim and I take her two daughters there every summer we spend a weekend it's fun. Delta Delta nice. It's it's fun for kids and adults who are good kids.
Pete Turner 47:45
Yeah, and if you don't want to spend you know $5,000 to go to Florida to go to the real water park capital of the world.
Laura Orrico 47:53
Right,
Pete Turner 47:54
exactly. But the Dells, I don't want to disparage Dell. The Dells are really are fantastic and I And a bunch of times and it is it's super nice up there. But what about places you haven't been to that call to you? What's out there?
Unknown Speaker 48:07
Yeah, you know I have a Italian heritage my grandparents are from Italy. I never had the opportunity to meet them because I passed before I was born. But I would love to go to Italy Sunday and it breaks my heart. What's going on there now with this virus spreading so rampantly out there it's heartbreaking, but I really always want to go to Italy.
Pete Turner 48:27
Yeah, it's it's pretty wonderful Italy is it takes some getting used to. It looks a lot like California or California looks a lot like Italy. Yeah, you'll recognize like the Hollywood landscape and like, you know, there's a golf everywhere and that kind of thing. Yeah. orange trees, lemon trees, all that stuff. If you go down far enough, it's it's very, very similar to how we live out here which of course you know, that whole space suits the valley. What's one more place so Italy, Czech Got it? What part of Italy and then what's one more place?
Laura Orrico 49:01
So super tropical like Bora Bora or Hawaii. I've never been a cool I've been to Maui. I've never been acquired, right?
Pete Turner 49:08
Yeah, I like it.
Laura Orrico 49:09
I like that's my kind of vacation.
Pete Turner 49:11
That's your kind of vacation? Yeah. Are you able to slow down and stop pretty good on vacation? Or do you still always have worked with you
Unknown Speaker 49:18
always have, I'm always checking my phone or sometimes I'll set up the computer in the hotel room. But if I've worked ahead enough for clients, I can get away for like five days during the week and take a full seven day vacation. It's hard, but I have to get better at it. Because you always come back having reset and refreshed and that's better for for the company for me for my clients. Mm hmm. Yeah, that works for me.
Pete Turner 49:42
Well, listen, I appreciate you sharing time with us and telling your story. It is incredible. I guess if you want to ask me a couple of questions, you know, we can do that too. Or we can just call the show and start our weekends.
Unknown Speaker 49:53
No, this is great. You're amazing at what you do. By the way, you you really dig into everybody's background and you do your work. Research and I appreciate that.
Pete Turner 50:01
No, I love to hear more about you. I want to know about you. What can you tell me that's fascinating about you that I don't know yet. I'm, I'm working on a project called the prison Chronicles where we take a bunch of rehabilitated people that have done things cluding murder, and we talk about what their path was before, during and after prison. And then we also bring in outsiders that talk about their role within this system, you know, whether they're nonprofits or academics trying to solve this problem of recidivism. And like, the basic question that we ask is, if I was to tell you that someone who commits murder, most most people, including murder one people, most of them get out. So when they get out what condition Do you want them in? And if I told you they walk out the door with less than $1,000 in their pocket, would you be positive about their chance for rehabilitation?
Laura Orrico 50:56
Wow, yeah, that's that's tough.
Pete Turner 51:00
that right? Yeah, yeah. And it's it's been an incredibly powerful learning experience. And one of the main lessons that I've pulled out was if we recalibrate how we look at this instead of thinking about punishment or rehabilitation, if you start with all people are redeemable, all people are rehabilitated. You when you fail, you fail at that not constantly having people rotate back through prison. And it changes the mindset and the approach to how we do it in a way that I think is much more beneficial to society. Because ultimately, a lot of these folks, most of the people that I've talked to these people don't know each other. These are all independent people. they've they've said, I didn't meet a lot of killers in prison. I met people that were mentally ill I met people that made really horrible decisions in a moment. But I didn't meet people that wanted to be criminals that wanted to commit crimes that wanted to kill people. I just didn't mean
Laura Orrico 51:58
good. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's a fascinating Yeah, it's never been done.
Pete Turner 52:03
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I can tell these stories, but I don't think anyone's told it in this way.
Laura Orrico 52:08
So Right, exactly. I like the way you framed it. Wow, I please keep me posted. I will.
Pete Turner 52:13
I will keep you posted. Well, listen, I don't want to take any more your time. You've been wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing. Let's talk again, let's do some more of these because it's, it's just great to, to, you're just, especially in this time, where everybody sort of out of sorts. We can't get through really hard things. We can do really incredible things. And I appreciate you illustrating that with us.
Laura Orrico 52:34
Absolutely. I agree with you. And thank you so much for having me. You're awesome.
Everybody Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of your break it down show doing today's introduction with our guest, Laura Errico, who runs lower Rico public relations. Laura is a friend of mine. We've had a number of her clients on the show and I thought it would be fun to have her on to kind of talk about her battle in her journey. She is an actress. You sure have seen her on CSI Miami, you've also seen her on that 70 show. And almost for sure if you watch Funny or Die videos, you've seen that call me senator video. She's Barbara Boxer in that video. It's fantastic. She's a hilarious actor. On the surface. It seems like Laura has this perfect life. You might see her at the recent SAG Awards, hanging out with Brad Pitt and all kinds of other famous people. But the reality is, is that she lost her husband somewhat recently, a couple years back now to Gio blastoma the brain cancer that we talked about Tila Hydra with if you haven't seen that episode, you should definitely check that out. But when you get a terminal cancer type of death diagnosis you still have a life to live and decisions to make and and a family to run. And this is part of that story goes into what that's like to navigate through that life changing experience, and then have that end and then transition back into a more longer term life and I know you're gonna love who Laura is how she's approached life and the things that she's drawn from it. It's just such a great episode, by the way had tipped to Taylor lead and for being so awesome. She's always helping me with she works with. She works with Laura. So we're all talking all the time that's wanted to make sure I acknowledged her. But back to what Laura does. Laura loves her clients loves her work in front of the camera, whether she's modeling or acting, and I think that comes across in this episode. The other thing I wanted to say is, if you want to support the show, we always appreciate that you can share the show, you can make comments when we post the show. Any of these kinds of interactions help a lot. Obviously new shirt should be out I think I'm going to press the button tomorrow on new shirt. So go to break it down. show.com Subscribe. Let me know what else you want to see who you want to hear from. We're working on trying to get some big guests coming up here for the next we're almost at 750. We just got to 700 and today's episode is 709. Can you believe it, though? No, we keep going forward. We appreciate everybody's help. I cannot believe how incredible The show is. I just want to be thankful and grateful to everybody. Hey, one last thing, save the brave, save the brave.org go there, put a small amount of money in each month. We will appreciate it. I want to take one more moment since it's since it's Friday and we have a lot of things going on. If you want to donate to charity, especially for COVID type things go to charity on top.org you can send anyone a charity card you have a friend who's a nurse or a frontline worker or someone working at the at the grocery store, like my friend Mike Brown, and you just want to say thank you to them, get a charity and type gift card. You can send it to them and then they can pick the charity that they want to donate to. I think it's a clever way to Say thanks to someone who's out there sacrificing it. Or just to you know say hey I want you to give to the charity that matters the most. I appreciate you so charity on top org do that and you will have my thanks. Here comes lower Rico. Lions rock productions.
Unknown Speaker 3:18
This is Jay Morrison. This is Jordan. Dexter from the offspring nakedly Sebastian Yo, this is Rick Murat Stewart COPPA This is handy somebody there's a skunk Baxter. Gabby Reese is Rob bell. This is john Leon gray and this is Pete a Turner.
Laura Orrico 3:34
Hi, this is Laura Orrico and you're listening to the break it down show.
Pete Turner 3:40
Laura is one of our underachievers that we'd like to feature on the show. She, you know is like I'm gonna try acting and does it. I'm gonna try modeling and does it I'm gonna try PR Ed does it what do you do? Are you bad things at all? Laura?
Laura Orrico 3:57
Yes. I'm bad at a lot of things. I can't keep plants alive. flowers I try. And I water them, but just not the right amount either too little or too much. So yeah, I'm not a good gardener.
Pete Turner 4:14
Well, you got to be bad at something. Exactly. Okay, so would you introduce yourself, obviously, depending on the crowd, but just in general, like when people say what do you do? What What's your answer?
Unknown Speaker 4:25
Yeah, cuz I do a few things. Well, most of my life, I was a TV actress and a model. So now I just say I own a PR firm in Chicago and I represent clients across the country and as a hobby now, I am a television film actress.
Pete Turner 4:42
as a hobby. You're sort of like Bo Jackson, where you're hobbyist professional baseball,
Unknown Speaker 4:46
right? It's a hobby, but I still love it. It's addicting.
Pete Turner 4:50
Yeah, I mean, I in and it's one of those things where, as people see you, you know, you you get picked for things that You fit for you know, they're like Why look for somebody else Laura can do the job and so you get that work.
Laura Orrico 5:07
I'm gonna hire you as my agent if that's okay.
Pete Turner 5:10
I can't sell myself You don't want me selling you
Laura Orrico 5:13
honestly don't have any plans but because
Pete Turner 5:18
a lot of people have probably already seen your work and I'll just in this case, I'll just mention your front of your die video that you did when you were Dianne Feinstein and talking about you know what you've earned in terms of titles every
Laura Orrico 5:34
boxer the Barbara Boxer it's got your Ron Davis look Hurry up. Yeah.
Pete Turner 5:38
Yeah, the Barbara Boxer thing. Yeah, sorry. But yeah, so barbara boxer, you play her and it's hilarious because then all of a sudden, it devolves into this title fest and it's pretty hilarious. Millions of people have seen this thing.
Unknown Speaker 5:53
Yeah, yeah. It was a produce written directed by David Zucker, who did airplane and Naked Gun and The scary movie franchise. He had seen some of my work and asked me if I would play her. He said, Could you play her? And I said, Yeah, give me two or three days to learn to emulate her. And what she had done was really disrespected and talked down to a general and that clip of that went viral. So David's like let's make it go a little crazy. And he did and I played the part and it was a blast. Oh, we had so much fun in that and that had I'm sure it's exceeded now but over 10 million views collectively everywhere that it was posted from YouTube to Funny or Die you name it and television to CNN even ran at Fox ran it everybody ran it.
Pete Turner 6:45
Yeah. And I'm just looking right now at the right change YouTube page, just because that's the first one that came up. That's where it originated. Yes. And it's got on this version of it's got a million hits, but you're right like if you go to the Funny or Die or any it's just been seen millions of times and it is it is so perfect. And it's um it's clever political commentary that isn't doesn't have to be political like, you know, we can often get high and mighty and and want to claim something and then you look around and you're like, Oh, crap, I'm sorry everybody, I'm a jerk. It's just, uh, it was clear and it's super Yeah, you could see the airplane influence. You can see the Zakarian thing when it devolves into everybody's saying everybody's title and everybody's taking offense and nothing gets done and it gets chaotic. It's just it's five minutes, or two minutes of brilliance. And I just, I think the world of you for doing it and aliens like you did. Thank you. Thank you. It was a lot of fun and it got a good message out. And I think, you know, to this day, I'm still really good friends with David and we just have a blast working together and keeping in touch and we're good friends. How do you sort out what your days are going to look? I don't mean like on your calendar. But I mean, you know, okay, so as a, as a small business owner myself, right, I've got to do production, I've got to do post production, I've got to do pre production, I've got to do marketing, I've got to do some sales. And you know, I am always busy. And one of the things I struggle with is I have to do certain things and everything else comes after that. But then organizing those buckets in a way that makes any damn sense to like a long term strategic plan, which by the way, I have to do. So how do you organize all of these things? I mean, you get like a really sweet acting or modeling gig, you know, you got to hop on a plane and that wrecks 234 days out of your month that you maybe you weren't even planning on. Right?
Unknown Speaker 8:42
Yes. So being somebody that already works from home. So in the midst of this crisis, I know it's new for a lot of people, but for me, it's the norm. So having worked from home, my business is mobile, so I can and I have Taylor, who you've communicated with my lead, PR associate, she's amazing. So if I have to jump off and To do something to help my mother take her to the doctor, go visit my grandmother, any emergency or a work thing that comes up as far as the acting, I can take my laptop with me, obviously my phone and with the way technology is these days, I'm able to juggle both. So if I am shooting something, let's say a few years ago, I had to go to New York and do a sitcom for CBS. I was able to take everything with me and then during the downtime on set, I'm able to work so balancing everything and in a realistic way, while not totally dropping my PR business I can do both successfully and cautiously. You know, separating the two is important. And I don't do it as much as I used to although I love it and it's a passion like I said it's an addiction. Yeah, yeah, even film acting, but I'm I'm able to take everything with me which makes it easier.
Pete Turner 9:51
Yeah, I can see that. There is there is a lot of downtime when you're acting because sometimes there's literally nothing for the actor to do because Lights are being moved, you know scripture being rewritten. There's there are so many things that happen that are completely outside of what you need to do it. I guess if you kind of think about it, like the folks who aren't acting or pointing a camera or mining a light, they're all sort of waiting as well. You know, like, there's a lot of time where everybody is not necessarily fully engaged on a set. But you do have a job to do as an actor, you know, so how do you how do you manage that part of it, where you're like, I have this work to do for the PR business. But I also have the obligations to this role, or are your roles such that you're able to like handle them pretty efficiently? I don't know. Tell me,
Unknown Speaker 10:42
it's all about time management. So I'm a big list maker. So I have separate to do lists for everything in my life. So I have a to do list for my acting and modeling career. I have a to do list which is the largest portion of my life for my PR business. And then I even have a personal digital As for stuff around the house, I have one for my mother and things I help her with because she's handicapped. So that helps me to separate everything and clear my mind. And my motto is before I go to bed at night, get things off my mind and onto paper. So getting a lot of sleep is important. And being, like I said, being able to organize and separate all of my tasks and duties. So if there is a day where I've gotten all my PR work done, we work ahead for our clients, we're usually working one month ahead, depending on the type of news cycle we're working with and the project we're working on. I can take a day here and there, shift a few things over to Taylor that she'll handle. So if I am on set for a full day and I just want to purely focus on that, like I said, which is only a few times a year, I can do that comfortably and check in with my phone periodically throughout the day and not have any issues and move forward with my business and my acting career without skipping a beat.
Pete Turner 11:54
You are a machine you're doing all of these things. It almost seems like nothing bad is ever happened in your life? But you and I both know, you've had some significant challenges in your career, obviously, you're referring partly to your husband and losing him. Talk a little bit about that whole process because there's multiple things. There's like, you know, the discovery, and I don't know what kind of cancer it was, was it that glioblastoma or was it somebody?
Unknown Speaker 12:22
Yeah, it was towards the end. It was a glioblastoma. He was diagnosed in 2007 with a brain tumor with an astrocytoma grade two and talk between cedar Sinai and St. Joseph's in Burbank, where we were living at the time we were living in the valley. It was between a grade three and a two and three. But they settled on that it was a grade two, which means it's slow growing. So he went on for the first six years to continue to work. As soon as he was done with his surgery and recovered from that about a month later he went back to work. But boy, when you get a diagnosis like that, yeah, um, someone you love in your life. It really, really rattles you and your life is never the same from that day going forward. So you learn the new norm, you learn how to make a terrible day with 12. doctor appointments positive by ending it with watching something funny or going to a nice dinner. You just have to balance it out and stay positive, which isn't easy for everybody. Luckily for me, I have a I think I take after my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, my great aunt who always stay positive through adversity. But yeah, those first six years you wouldn't have known he was sick. He went on to working he was one of the top graphic designers in TV and film. And then eventually, you know, the market crashed. Significantly, things got really difficult. We sold our home in LA and moved back to Chicago to be by family because he ended up getting work on a TV show here in Chicago, which was perfect. Unfortunately, things took a bad turn when we move back slowly, his tumor started to grow back and from diagnosis in 2007, all the way up until 2015. He had nine recurrences of his tumor, or he was never able to have another resection surgery, which is a removal of a brain tumor, again since 2007, because it just wasn't fully operable. Right. And unfortunately, his battle got really bad in fall of 2014. And he would pass away of what we think like you said, A glioblastoma because they couldn't get in and biopsy. Right. It was just too difficult the way he was presenting symptoms and the rate in which it was growing because now we're talking a great for brain tumor, glioblastoma, which grows a lot faster. Things decline really significantly. It was very hard to see somebody you love go through that. So he passed away almost five years ago, April 29 2015.
Pete Turner 14:58
Yeah, and God I mean, it's it's, yeah, I happen to know a little bit about it because I had, I had a guy named Attila. Hi do on my show. He's also was on popping the bubble if he's working on using epigenetics to deal with, in particular glioblastoma because it is such a scourge. And it's such a fast movie and and for those that don't know, it's 18 months you get diagnosed with that and basically everybody has gone in that amount of time. So how do we how if we can take this evil version of cancer and and give some time some hope some, you know, maybe even some some health, you know, that's where he puts his work in. And it's just it's shocking it that's what ultimately killed a number of people that have died recently, including Senator McCain got it, you know, and there's just, there's just no time to deal with it. The drummer from rush Neal peered he same thing.
Laura Orrico 15:56
Is that what he had, I didn't realize
Pete Turner 15:58
Yeah, it was Yeah. So you have that finality, but before that you have the struggle in the fight. So it does change your life. The two of you do you know that that his prognosis long term is not good? Or is it like we're battling and we'll worry about that later on? How you so after the diagnosis and assays working, what was your new norm?
Unknown Speaker 16:23
Well, that's the difficult part is how do you move forward, knowing something so awful has happened and you have to live through it and power through so I kind of went into go mode and it was all about researching and finding the best doctors and finding the best neuro oncologist and yes, I you just learn to make it your norm. So every day you wake up in the morning, not knowing what the future will hold, but I never talked about that with him because I think once a patient knows because I did research and then I just oh my throw my computer away. I looked about you know, but I think once a patient knows that they know too much, I think sometimes they kind of give up. And he may have looked it up himself, but I'm glad he didn't, because this survival rate with what he had was three to six years with the grade two. And I'm glad none of the doctors ever came to us and said, well, we're going to give you this many years. And I'm so glad because I don't sometimes I understand it's necessary when someone's really getting near the end, which did happen eventually the last two weeks of his life, but I think that really puts a damper on someone's energy and someone's positivity and someone's willingness to keep fighting. I really don't like it. I know a lot of people would agree with me, but I'm glad no one ever told us that. And it wasn't that we were in denial. It was that we were staying positive. Doing everything we could to stay up with current treatments. Stay in touch with doctors. I was talking with doctors across the country from Duke University Becker. At Cedars Sinai to the doctor, we ended up switching to here when we move back. And I think my husband in this isn't common with everybody, but he was so positive to begin with, and he stayed that way throughout. So I think that helped a lot. But yeah, every morning, I would wake up with a pit in my stomach, you know, that I kind of was holding inside a little bit, not knowing how long I would have him so we live life to the fullest
Pete Turner 18:27
at a girl.
Unknown Speaker 18:28
Yeah, so I'm like, that's the, when you can't control something. You got to do what you can to control the things that you can. So for me that was doing all the research and the medical communication with the doctors and him and taking care of him and doing things that were fun to get her mind off of this. And we traveled we spent money we didn't have and I didn't care. We live life to the fullest. I wanted to cram in 90 years in his short 39
Pete Turner 18:54
Yeah, so basically from from the diagnosis you guys knew his time was was extremely Limited, and it allowed you guys to live, you know, because we all have that live for today, or be smart and save for tomorrow. But when you know that there's only so many tomorrows, you really can adjust how you live.
Unknown Speaker 19:11
Yeah, I think we were both doing that deep down without ever really talking about it. We didn't want to put that out there. But absolutely, that's what we were doing. And one time, thank God he said this to me a few months before he passed away he goes, you know, we've really done so much. We've met all these celebrities, we have all these amazing friends. We both worked on these amazing movies and TV shows the experiences that we have had in our life, some people will never experience in their entire life. And that really helped to put me at peace knowing that he loved his life and he enjoyed our time together. Yeah, and that he was happy and I'm like, Wow, what a blessing to hear something like that.
Pete Turner 19:53
Yeah, that's so you go to Chicago at chess to fall apart the you get the you know, really the fun final diagnosis. How about that time as you guys know that the end is is quickly approaching? How did you deal with that? And and how did Ryan handle it?
Unknown Speaker 20:12
Um, he didn't want to stop working. He did not want to stop working. I got a call from someone from set that he was working with saying we're trying to help him at lunch. He seems to be walking to the left a lot. He couldn't see well. I went down there and I realized how bad it was getting within just days. So I had to bring him home that day and talk with him and talk to the doctors and figure out our next steps. And he got so sick, he was never able to go back but he wanted to. Yeah, so the worst thing I ever had to do was go to his work my cousin and I went in and we had to pack up his stuff and bring it home. And with his and he was intending to work from home but he was losing vision. He was losing some cognitive skills slowly, right? He just wasn't himself, you know, not only the brain tumor, but all the medication which was necessary, you know, steroids are necessary to keep swelling down in the brain and that was difficult. So he declined slowly from September, September October ish 2014 until he passed away. So eventually we had to notify work, he wasn't able to continue working, but he just didn't want to stop he would barely be able to walk, he'd want to go down to his computer every day and create something so he didn't quit, he didn't quit and then when he I got sick to the point of caregiving, 24 seven for nine months that I ended up in the ER twice, and I was calling out for help from family and friends that were jumping in when they could and but I was still around the clock caregiving I did not want to put them anywhere in a home or anything like that. But finally I got a call from his parents The morning after I got discharged from an email Are visit saying that he had fallen off of the radiation table. So my heart sank and his parents told me that the doctor suggested he go on hospice I just about fell over. So I had to go to his house that he was staying with them for that one night. I was the one it wasn't with me. So I went over there to pick them up. And I said, I can't tell him. They didn't. Nobody had told Ryan yet. I said, we need to tell have the doctor tell him and I'll be with him. I just don't want him to hear that coming from me. Because we've been partners throughout this and I thought that was the best way to go about it. And he was so heartbroken when the doctor told them he just went Oh, f you know what he said? And I just remember the devastating look in his face and we expressed and the doctor did to this might be temporary. It's just considered a break and treatment. We don't want to totally, you know, let him down. He's already upset enough about what was going on, but Then they privately told me I can put them in a home for hospice somewhere or a hospital. And I didn't want to I don't want to put a 39 year old in a home. So I demanded that he come home with me and I took care of him. And friends and family stopped in and helped and we had up and it was 13 days. I thought it would be about a month but it was 13 days. And it was hard but I we made it a positive environment. I had my friend Chris move in with me. He was willing to move in and help me with him for the last two weeks of his life along with the hospice people that would check in with us, and family and friends coming in and out and those last three days of his life. We have anywhere from 20 to 40 people at my house coming in and what a blessing just filled with love and memories and everybody sharing and he wasn't quite with it at the end but we knew you know he could hear everything I had the bed brought down to the living room and we rearranged the whole house to to make it comfortable but difficult. But positive as best we could, because seeing him suffer like that and decline was devastating.
Pete Turner 24:08
Yeah, one and I appreciate you sharing that stuff because it's easy to get lost in the red carpet shoots with you standing by Brad Pitt and all that kind of thing and just dismiss like, oh, Laura has this perfect life, but you really have had a challenging thing. I want to go one more time to that era of your life. Because there is that final moment like, Okay, you've been fighting, like a Wildcat, you know, researching and outworking this problem until the problem is solved. And now you're released and a lot of ways talk about how you transitioned. I mean, obviously you got to go through the grief process. Which by the way, for everybody listening, there's two of them there. There's the grief of your your husband is still alive and dying and you have to deal with that and then the actually passes So talk about you know, Being relieved of that burden. That's enormous.
Unknown Speaker 25:02
Yeah, what well put Yeah, exactly. Good point. But absolutely. So with what I went through, and him being sick for eight years, as I had said, Remember, I'd wake up with that pit in my stomach every morning, especially that last year, so I was mourning in a way before he passed away. Sure. It sounds crazy, but from my experience, and a lot of people I've spoken to in the same position, agree, you're seeing somebody suffer. It's devastating. So you're starting this mourning process while they're still alive. Right. Soon after that hospice, which was what I say 13 days he would pass away. And I was almost celebratory, because this poor guy, Ryan suffered significantly, no quality of life and it was devastating. So I went through this phase of relief for him. For me, because I have been in such a tough situation, it was really hard. You know, I say hard to see somebody go through that. But I always correct myself and say, You know what, I'm seeing him go through it, but he's the one who actually had to go through it.
Pete Turner 26:15
Hey, this is Pete Turner from lions rock productions, we create podcasts around here. And if you your brand or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear, the best plan and show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you. That's sustainable. That's scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show. com Let me help I want to hear about it.
Unknown Speaker 26:37
You know, I say hard to see somebody go through that. But I always correct myself. And so you know what I'm seeing him go through it, but he's the one who actually had to go through it. Very difficult. So the first six months, I went back into my go mode that I mentioned earlier in our interview, and I just started focusing on rebuilding my life in a way where I was just playing time with friends and family. I hate being alone. So this was a whole new norm to learn again, I hate being alone. and spending time with friends and family and traveling, dabbled back into the acting because I taken nine months off. I think that's the best thing I ever did. Of course, it hit me harder six months later, and I had to go to bereavement group and a support group, which was so helpful. And I'm still friends with all of these people to this day. And we get together once a month for dinner and there's old most of the widows are older than me and the only young younger widow in the group, but there's also younger people who've lost parents and when wonderful people what a great support system I'm so glad I did that. But it like I said, it took me six months to get to that point of realizing that I needed that. And tough stuff but you know, scary stuff, too.
Pete Turner 27:51
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And and again, yeah, you're tough. You're you have go mode. I mean, a lot of us operate in that way and to Be able to accept help that that takes some growth in it. Talk a little bit about that part like knowing that, oh my gosh, there is help. And I actually am willing to go do this.
Unknown Speaker 28:11
Right, exactly. It took a lot for me to ask for help. But I had no choice when he was sick. And then afterwards, I started to get help in the ways of having people come over and help me go through his stuff. I moved I have people helped me with the move, and reorganizing, you know, the first six months after someone passes away, you kind of get this brain fog, which I also learned is normal. A lot of people get it, I could, I couldn't put you know, add two and two, I couldn't put my shoes in an organized fashion in my closet. I couldn't do anything. So I would I could do it for somebody else, oddly enough, but not for myself. So I had friends come in and help me and it was great. And I also have to point out it's a difficult time because you wouldn't think so. But this is a time that you really learn who your friends are and your family? shockingly enough, people dissipate. People come out of the woodwork and then there's people that dissipate. And that's really sad. That hurts because you're already getting used to something that's really uncomfortable and not your your normal lifestyle. So when you see family members on, yeah, yeah, awesome stuff. Cool. Is that hard? Yeah.
Pete Turner 29:25
Yeah. Look, I appreciate you going through that with us. But I think especially right now, with the COVID thing going on, there's gonna be a lot of new widows and widowers and parents and kids and everything. And just to understand a couple of things like, you know, one, everybody sucks at people dying, and everybody handles it in a different way. And yeah, just give everybody a moment to be shitty at it. Because which we just, you know, the next time it happens in your family, you may respond negatively, you just don't know when to you're in that moment. This time. It was this way, the next time and maybe Totally different and we all got to slow down a little. And just understand that this is about the hardest thing anybody can go through hell our cat died. And we still haven't gotten a new cat A year later because it was so hard for us you know
Laura Orrico 30:12
it is there like part of the family.
Pete Turner 30:14
Yeah. Yeah. So thanks for doing that and thanks for that. But But now that you're not now you've gotten through the bereavement thing, you've got your support system and you're back at go mode. You know, super Laura out there doing things. What, when this chapter does turn, what was on then what ended up being the next chapter, what what ended up being your focus, like, this is what I'm doing right now?
Unknown Speaker 30:40
Well, I had done a movie in New Orleans. I did a commercial in LA I did some modeling work here in Chicago, and I'm like, Can I do I really want to live like this and not have this consistency, no matter how well you're doing in this business unless you're in a list or it's a tough business. Right. Like do I want to continue to live like this or do something else? So I started looking at other options. Well, then I learned quickly nobody's going to hire a TV and film actress and model with 20 something years of experience because a lot of people and regular business world don't realize all you put into that 75% of the work is handling business and working to get work. So I'm huge blessing, an opportunity fell into my lap in March of 2016. A friend of mine called me up and said, Hey, do you want to do some PR management or something for me and my band? His name is Alfonso Rachel. And I said, Yeah, I'd love to. So I started doing work for him turned out I'm not a good manager. But PR stuff I had already been doing for myself I'd already been doing for my husband. I had been doing for celebrity clients as a hobby and a little side thing here and there. But never really took it full force took it on full So this time I did and I did work for him for a few months. And then I realized how good I wasn't at it and how much I loved it because I'm a people person. And within a few months, I had I officiated the business, April 4, which is my husband's birthday, ironically, April 4 2016, but I actually officiated it with attorneys in the state and filed for official business in the summer of 2016. But I count April 4 as my initiation date. And I started my own PR firm Laura Rico public relations, and I never thought that's where I would be in my life and that's what I would be doing but what a blessing. What a great opportunity. And now I have these amazing clients and we are going to be celebrating 40 years next week. It's, it's been amazing. My clients are like friends and family family to me that we are so close. We work so close together. I love them all. And it's been a true blessing.
Pete Turner 32:57
Why?
Unknown Speaker 32:59
Well I love people and I love to do things to help people. So with what I do for clients is things that I always enjoy doing and learn doing for myself. So I'm able to help people share a positive message. Um, I have clients that work in a lot of veterans, nonprofits. So by helping them I'm helping veterans. I love getting out positive stories. We have the search for lightness docu series, and I know you've interviewed all three of the folks from that veto and Chad and J. Todd Hill. And what a cool opportunity. They're doing this docu series that they've traveled the world to shoot and interview people from all walks of life around the world. And I have Michael Reagan who's doing the walkway to victory, and he's sharing his ronald reagan legacy foundation in which they're doing stuff for the veterans. It's just amazing. I love my clients.
Pete Turner 34:00
Well, I mean, what's better than that? Like, if you love your your clients, I mean, that's, that's a very good sign that you're in the right business. If you have such a positive response to doing these things, why still do that the acting and modeling
Laura Orrico 34:17
it's just a passion. I don't know. I love it. I absolutely love being on a TV or film set. It's so much fun to me. And if I can still continue to do it, I'll do it for the rest of my life. I just get a high off of it. It's so much fun. I don't know. There's just something about it. I think it it's not even that I've been doing it for so long. It's just that I've always you know, when I was a kid, I dreamed of being on TV and working in movies and television and it's fascinating to me,
Pete Turner 34:46
but so this would be in a lot of ways proximity wise, a lot easier to do if you were in LA, but you live in Chicago is that part of what you've learned through the the whole, you know, the illness with your husband, everything that is more important to home.
Laura Orrico 35:02
You know, I with this business, I just didn't have a need to have an office somewhere. I can work from home. So it's not necessarily important to be at home. I like to get out with people actually. So it just happens. I work my business from home because I can. It's great and everything but at the end of the day when everybody else gets in their car and goes home, I'm still here. I know now with everything going on the way the world does with COVID-19 people are getting used to this that have never had to do it. So for me, it's the norm but the part that's affecting me is not being able to get out of the house after and go out on the weekends. That's tough. Because my home is my office, I separate everything. My Space I work from is separate from my living space, but it's still here. So someday if I you know, I want a bigger house with a room. I do have a whole basement office area with an extra office room. I just don't like to be in the basement. So Not a good move on my I have a great space, but I like to have sunlight. So I work in the kitchen and I keep the windows open.
Pete Turner 36:09
Yeah, same. I mean, I have my little spots where I work in the house, you know, you should record back in the back corner and I like to sit in the big chair in the living room and you know that I go out and I walk around, I've got my pattern for how I do it. But the thing that I love to do the most is and I love to record this way, but the sweetest time is when I'm sitting across the countertop from somebody in their home, and recording, you know, in your space in your dojo, and in getting being able to go out and do that is really where like the sweetest of all experiences is and I am missing the ability to go out and share those moments because they really, for me on my end what I do, they're magical, you know, like this, this is great. This is a fantastic way to do this. And it's a world class compromise, but it just cannot replace That moment across the table, you must experience things like that with what you do because it's so important to the person's career what you're doing, you have to have that connection.
Unknown Speaker 37:08
Absolutely, absolutely. It is important and communication is important face to face communication is important. Like right now I should have put makeup on so we could video chat, but instead
Pete Turner 37:22
instead I have my camera covered. That's selfish.
Unknown Speaker 37:28
No, I what we try to do if we do have local clients or clients that are across the country that come to Chicago or we go out to them, I have some clients in LA and I visit periodically. It's nice to have that face to face communication. If not, we do a Skype call. So we can have that or we get on the phone and we talk with them and we'll do a strategy meeting every few weeks. So we're in constant contact with our clients but not all of my work is at home based out go out to radio and TV interviews with clients or clients concerts or events and restaurants and stuff like that, if they're local, like I said, if I'm visiting somewhere else or, you know, happy to be where they are, I do that too. But it's not very often I have the need to because we can handle everything on distance.
Pete Turner 38:13
The person that's out there that wants to get into PR, or they're already in PR, or thinking about starting their own agency, let's talk to them a little bit. Like how do you get clients? How do you how do you do it? Like just how do you do it?
Unknown Speaker 38:27
For me, it's all been word of mouth. If people know who you are, and they're hearing about you, and you know your worth, and people know your worth. The word spreads like wildfire. So for me, I have not had to do and knock on wood, have not had to do advertising. I'm not having to go down and hunt down clients. And I hope it stays that way. But it's all been word of mouth. So social media, people finding out about us LinkedIn, and clients Who are referring us to other potential clients? The entire time? Yeah, so I'm very blessed that I have that. So for other people, um, my advice is just be good at what you do know your craft know your business. And for me, I have to handle so much more than my PR efforts and pitching clients to the press and media, creating press releases, helping brush up their website content and their bios and all that stuff. You have to be good at that. But I also have to be good at communicating with people handling the accounting, handling the business end of everything. That takes up a lot of time too. So I have to be good at balancing all that. So I encourage anybody who has this idea in their mind to start a PR firm, have a good understanding of business. know all the aspects that go into it from the legal aspects. Have a good attorney to drop your contracts, have a good, a banker, someone that can speak to you about finances if you're not good with that I'm already okay with that. So I handle a lot of that myself along with my accountant. You just have to be able to balance everything and handle everything because you're wearing all the hats when you're running your own business. Yes.
Pete Turner 40:13
How many hours a week do you think you work?
Laura Orrico 40:16
It could be anywhere from 40 up to 50 and 60. If I'm out going to events, yeah, but I can, I'm pretty good at time management and handling work for our clients, I can pretty much handle a good work week with 35 to 40 hours. Because I think quality of life is important. And I don't want to be one of those people that is working ridiculous hours into the evening because it's I've already been through hell. So you kind of learn that a quality of life is more important. So how I do that I only take on a select amount of clients at any given time. Yeah, so we only handle what we can handle because there's two of us And depending on the amount of hours someone is hiring us for I either have three to seven clients at any given time. And I keep it controlled and realistic, and not overloading our workload. And then quiet clients get a more quality of work obviously out of us. And that's for me, that's more important. Quality over quantity.
Pete Turner 41:22
Yeah, no, I get that. That's, that makes a lot of sense. Who are your favorite clients to work with?
Laura Orrico 41:30
Um, all of them. Give you the favorite. My favorite type of client is someone who understands what we do. So we've, by the time we've taken somebody on we explain how we work and what we do and how we keep an open communication. So as long as they have a good understanding of what we do and how we work, and I don't have to handhold and coddle people. Those are the best clients. And I only work with people that we can realistically help get their message out there. We have to understand what they do to and believe in them, and effectively, and be able to effectively share their story and get their message out there. So I like to work with clients that see us as part of their team. So we work hand in hand. And because of that, and people give us what we need, provide us with information we need so we can best tell their story. Those are the best kind of clients to work with. But I do love my entertainment industry clients because I come from the entertainment industry, but I also have a lot of great business clients, and nonprofits and they're amazing and all great people to work with. When you go through something that's truly life changing and grinding you. You develop a new floor for what hard is for what impossible is.
Pete Turner 42:49
How does that inform your day to day life? I mean, look, this isn't under undermine anybody's challenges. Everybody has problems and there are real problems to them. But you've been through something incredibly Hard in so many different ways. I mean, my peers we often act, I can't think of one person who's got a lot of combat time who hasn't said out loud. I would rather be shot at then have to go through this and this thing is way easier. And being a little Yeah, what is that thing for you? What is that like to have that experience that rooting event experience other, you know, challenges in life
Unknown Speaker 43:29
it's made things easier because I've been through how, you know, I lost my dad at a young age. You know, seeing my mother battle Ms. Especially So in the last 10 years seen my husband battle his illness for eight years and pass away and losing my great aunt kind of suddenly just before him a month before him, and then a whole bunch of other things I haven't even mentioned. So you learn the things that normally would knock a lot of us down, you know, and that's normal. That happens but I, I guess I like I said, I take after my mother and she's very strong. And when I move forward in life now and something happens, I've learned to kind of press forward and handle things in a way where you know, if it's not that bad of an issue, just kind of take care of it and move forward. Yeah, um, you know, having dealt with family drama over the last couple years and all sorts of stuff that you wouldn't expect to happen after already been through already going through such difficult times. But my mother has been amazing. My grandmother has been amazing. I have cousins that have been a huge support system. I think it's important to surround yourself by people that support you and that are on your side friends and family. And I think it's important to to support your friends and family and do things for them as well. And I feel like sharing. When you're sharing your story and your struggles, your it's not only therapeutic, but you're helping somebody else.
Pete Turner 44:54
Okay, enough of all that stuff. Let's have a little bit of fun. It is Friday after all, and we're all trying to start the week. And even if it is 1030 here in the West Coast what's your truth as an actress, you know, when you show up, you know, you're like, oh, that I don't have to even work. I know that because, like, we had Michael Gaston on the show, and he's just this big, large guy that he can loom so he can be a tough guy. He can. He's sort of like, powers booth. Now. He's a very well established actor. everybody's seen him in things, but he has this thing where he can just stand there and he is a cop. He can just stand there and he is a bad guy. What's your truth?
Laura Orrico 45:37
As far as who I am, what's my truth
Pete Turner 45:39
as an actor? Yeah.
Laura Orrico 45:41
As an actor, making people laugh. I love comedy, and I love to make people laugh, because that's who I am in real life, too. Right? Although, you know, it's obviously been especially hard after losing my husband and going through so much stress in starting a business and doing everything like I've been doing. It's hard to keep humor. So, for me deep down, though I'm a, I love to make people laugh. I'm a comedian at heart. I'm not a stand up comedian. I've done the sketch and the improv and playing characters and stuff like that. And for me, I just love to be able to make people laugh, like, make my mother laugh, or my grandmother or my little cousins, Gwen and Ruby. Are people who aren't feeling well or my friends who, you know, suffered with some difficult times. I'd like to be able to make them laugh. I think that's important. That's great.
Pete Turner 46:27
That's fantastic. What's next for you? I mean, obviously, the PR business is going to continue you're going to do modeling and acting and everything, but I know that's not enough. I know you've got your mind on something else. I can just tell, huh?
Unknown Speaker 46:39
Yeah. I've always wanted to start a makeup company. So
Pete Turner 46:45
I don't even know you and I know you. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 46:48
That's been in the back of my mind for years and then two books that I've been putting off writing because all of everything else I'm doing takes priority. But um, yeah, then travel. I want to travel more Especially after this and like I said, life is too short and everything you go through is so tough as it is. I think you have to take the time to live it to the fullest. So
Pete Turner 47:07
what places call to you?
Unknown Speaker 47:11
Maui, San Diego. Those are two of my favorite places. I Love New Orleans. New Orleans is a lot of fun. And I love You're gonna laugh but we have a place in the Midwest here called Wisconsin Dells. Well the Dells,
Pete Turner 47:23
yeah.
Laura Orrico 47:26
Yeah, I'm a kid at heart and it's the waterpark capital of the world. And my cousin Kim and I take her two daughters there every summer we spend a weekend it's fun. Delta Delta nice. It's it's fun for kids and adults who are good kids.
Pete Turner 47:45
Yeah, and if you don't want to spend you know $5,000 to go to Florida to go to the real water park capital of the world.
Laura Orrico 47:53
Right,
Pete Turner 47:54
exactly. But the Dells, I don't want to disparage Dell. The Dells are really are fantastic and I And a bunch of times and it is it's super nice up there. But what about places you haven't been to that call to you? What's out there?
Unknown Speaker 48:07
Yeah, you know I have a Italian heritage my grandparents are from Italy. I never had the opportunity to meet them because I passed before I was born. But I would love to go to Italy Sunday and it breaks my heart. What's going on there now with this virus spreading so rampantly out there it's heartbreaking, but I really always want to go to Italy.
Pete Turner 48:27
Yeah, it's it's pretty wonderful Italy is it takes some getting used to. It looks a lot like California or California looks a lot like Italy. Yeah, you'll recognize like the Hollywood landscape and like, you know, there's a golf everywhere and that kind of thing. Yeah. orange trees, lemon trees, all that stuff. If you go down far enough, it's it's very, very similar to how we live out here which of course you know, that whole space suits the valley. What's one more place so Italy, Czech Got it? What part of Italy and then what's one more place?
Laura Orrico 49:01
So super tropical like Bora Bora or Hawaii. I've never been a cool I've been to Maui. I've never been acquired, right?
Pete Turner 49:08
Yeah, I like it.
Laura Orrico 49:09
I like that's my kind of vacation.
Pete Turner 49:11
That's your kind of vacation? Yeah. Are you able to slow down and stop pretty good on vacation? Or do you still always have worked with you
Unknown Speaker 49:18
always have, I'm always checking my phone or sometimes I'll set up the computer in the hotel room. But if I've worked ahead enough for clients, I can get away for like five days during the week and take a full seven day vacation. It's hard, but I have to get better at it. Because you always come back having reset and refreshed and that's better for for the company for me for my clients. Mm hmm. Yeah, that works for me.
Pete Turner 49:42
Well, listen, I appreciate you sharing time with us and telling your story. It is incredible. I guess if you want to ask me a couple of questions, you know, we can do that too. Or we can just call the show and start our weekends.
Unknown Speaker 49:53
No, this is great. You're amazing at what you do. By the way, you you really dig into everybody's background and you do your work. Research and I appreciate that.
Pete Turner 50:01
No, I love to hear more about you. I want to know about you. What can you tell me that's fascinating about you that I don't know yet. I'm, I'm working on a project called the prison Chronicles where we take a bunch of rehabilitated people that have done things cluding murder, and we talk about what their path was before, during and after prison. And then we also bring in outsiders that talk about their role within this system, you know, whether they're nonprofits or academics trying to solve this problem of recidivism. And like, the basic question that we ask is, if I was to tell you that someone who commits murder, most most people, including murder one people, most of them get out. So when they get out what condition Do you want them in? And if I told you they walk out the door with less than $1,000 in their pocket, would you be positive about their chance for rehabilitation?
Laura Orrico 50:56
Wow, yeah, that's that's tough.
Pete Turner 51:00
that right? Yeah, yeah. And it's it's been an incredibly powerful learning experience. And one of the main lessons that I've pulled out was if we recalibrate how we look at this instead of thinking about punishment or rehabilitation, if you start with all people are redeemable, all people are rehabilitated. You when you fail, you fail at that not constantly having people rotate back through prison. And it changes the mindset and the approach to how we do it in a way that I think is much more beneficial to society. Because ultimately, a lot of these folks, most of the people that I've talked to these people don't know each other. These are all independent people. they've they've said, I didn't meet a lot of killers in prison. I met people that were mentally ill I met people that made really horrible decisions in a moment. But I didn't meet people that wanted to be criminals that wanted to commit crimes that wanted to kill people. I just didn't mean
Laura Orrico 51:58
good. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's a fascinating Yeah, it's never been done.
Pete Turner 52:03
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I can tell these stories, but I don't think anyone's told it in this way.
Laura Orrico 52:08
So Right, exactly. I like the way you framed it. Wow, I please keep me posted. I will.
Pete Turner 52:13
I will keep you posted. Well, listen, I don't want to take any more your time. You've been wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing. Let's talk again, let's do some more of these because it's, it's just great to, to, you're just, especially in this time, where everybody sort of out of sorts. We can't get through really hard things. We can do really incredible things. And I appreciate you illustrating that with us.
Laura Orrico 52:34
Absolutely. I agree with you. And thank you so much for having me. You're awesome.