You've Got RAS! (Reticular Activating System), Summer Mindset, and TX State Floral Expo with Marissa Guerrero
Summer has officially begun — cue the last-day-of-school photos, memories of drinking from the hot garden hose, and pop-up camper vacations — but this episode is really about what a flower shop should do with the slower season. Vonda and Lori dig into summer goal-setting, then take a deep dive (Lori was up until 11 p.m. down this rabbit hole) into the reticular activating system, the brain filter that quietly decides what you notice all day long. Special guest Marissa Guerrero joins at the end to preview the Texas Floral Expo and make the case for showing up to education in person.
Summer goals: the back-burner list gets its turn
Back when Vonda and Bud owned their shop, summer was for the list there's never time for the rest of the year: deep-cleaning and organizing, going through prom and homecoming inventory, dragging down the Christmas stock for fourth-quarter prep, and getting new hires — often high schoolers staying on through the school year — educated on how to take care of customers before their first holiday hits. And though nobody called it marketing then, being present at every community event (Bud was deep in the Chamber of Commerce, and the shop even closed for the local petunia festival) was exactly that. Lori's framework for right now: owner and manager sit down together and pick the top three summer goals — no more than five, because too many means nothing gets done — write them down as a group, tell the whole staff, and put them out into the universe visually, posted where everyone sees them.
Meet your RAS: the filter that finds what you focus on
Why does writing goals down and talking about them actually work? Lori's answer is the reticular activating system — RAS — the brain mechanism that takes what you focus on and builds a filter that seeks out information to match. Her favorite example: when her son decided at 16 that he wanted an orange Subaru Crosstrek, she suddenly saw them everywhere. (He got a black Toyota Camry — parents were paying.) The shop application is powerful. Say your goal is fixing a negative culture: you share the goal with the team, post authentic positive affirmations (not "Pollyanna fake crap" — the team will smell it), model real positivity, and pull the culprit aside gently the moment negativity surfaces. Once the goal is loaded into your filter, reinforcement shows up everywhere — you notice negativity at the coffee shop, a leadership clip while scrolling, a masterfully handled customer complaint at a restaurant. Vonda confirms it from her own life: since she started planning the 2026 AIFD Symposium, she can't attend any conference without cataloging how it's run. Send an employee through sales training and suddenly they're critiquing the service at every restaurant — that's their RAS kicking in.
The warning label: mindset cuts both ways
The deep end of the rabbit hole comes with two cautions. First, your RAS doesn't distinguish between real and imagined — work yourself into a panic over an imaginary stampede of buffalo and your body responds as if it's happening. The filter amplifies whatever you feed it, negative or positive, which is why mindset is where every goal has to start. Second, the psychology of changing minds is genuinely hard — Lori found the research honestly depressing. Her practical translation for owners: when you're hiring and your gut flags a red flag across the interview table, trust it. "Maybe I can change their mind" is not a plan, no matter how badly you need people — skill versus will, all over again. And Vonda adds the compassionate flip side: if you're trying to shift culture and one team member is the negative one, remember change is hard for them too. Give them tools, not just correction.
Secrets at the Texas Floral Expo
Marissa Guerrero of the Texas State Floral Association joins to preview the Texas Floral Expo, June 27–29 in League City, Texas, just outside Houston (fly into Hobby — it's closer). The every-other-year expo brings hands-on classes, business sessions, main-stage programming, and meal functions, and this year's theme is "Secrets": getting presenters to unpack the tips and tricks so second-nature they forget not everyone knows them. Vonda loves the prompt from the presenter's side — it forces seasoned designers to ask, what do I do daily that a younger designer has never heard? Highlights include Texas Designer of the Year Brandy Ferrer kicking off the expo with a class on AI in floristry — education you won't easily find geared to florists anywhere else. Lori's pitch for in-person events applies to every state show: your secrets spark the audience's secrets, the Q&A becomes an exchange no online video can replicate, and the presenters have been vetted so you're cutting through the online noise. Her tip for teams: a state expo is the perfect first live event — bring employees, divide and conquer parallel sessions, and compare notes after.
Key takeaways
- Use summer for the back-burner list: cleaning, holiday prep, prom and homecoming inventory, and training new staff before crunch time.
- Pick three summer goals (five max), write them down as a team, and post them visibly — what you focus on is what your brain finds.
- Your RAS amplifies whatever you feed it, real or imagined — so feed it authentic positivity, not fake cheer.
- Trust the red flags in hiring: changing someone's mindset is far harder than the research headlines suggest.
- State expos are an affordable, team-friendly entry into live floral education — go in person, and let the room's secrets spark your own.