Ep. 487: Killin’ It Killer Bee Style
Happier in Hollywood
Liz and Sarah reflect on their 2026 team theme 'Be the Bee,' updating it to 'Be the Killer Bee' as a symbol of relentless, positive aggressi
Key takeaways
- Embracing 'killer bee' energy means combining relentless pursuit with openness to new opportunities and collaboration.
Main topics
- Rebranding their team theme to 'Be the Killer Bee'
- Balancing creativity with resilience in Hollywood
Notable quotes
'We are, in fact, pollinating widely.'
Conclusion
Liz and Sarah conclude that their 'killer bee' mindset—marked by persistence,
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:02) Lemonada. Liz, Speaker 2 (0:06) did it rain in Encino? It rained like all day here. Speaker 1 (0:09) Yes, it did. It rained from like Speaker 2 (0:12) 6 Speaker 1 (0:13) a.m. to 9 p.m., I think. Speaker 2 (0:17) Violet had a friend over and her friend goes, Speaker 1 (0:20) it's Speaker 2 (0:20) raining. And I just couldn't Speaker 1 (0:22) believe it. Oh, my God. I tried to remember the last time and I couldn't. Amazing. Speaker 1 (0:33) Hi and welcome to Happier in Hollywood, the podcast about how to be happier, healthier, saner, more creative, more successful, and more productive in a backbiting, superficial, chaotic, unpredictable, fundamentally insane world. I'm Liz Craft, a TV writer and producer living in LA, and with me is my high school friend and writing partner, Sarah. That's Speaker 2 (0:55) me, Sarah Fane. On this podcast, we talk about being writers in Hollywood, how we balance a career and friendship, and how to survive the war of attrition that is life in Los Speaker 1 (1:04) Angeles. Today, we're going to discuss whether we're living up to our team theme for 2026, Be the Bee. Then we've got to take a hike courtesy of my husband, Adam. Speaker 2 (1:17) We'll also answer a listener question about self-doubt when it comes to our ideas. And this week's Hollywood hack is for all the bread bakers out there. Speaker 1 (1:27) Finally, I have a TV show recommendation. But first, we have a couple of updates. One, we want to mention that we are writing a spec pilot called Angry Unlikable Women. We've mentioned it before. And we often talk about it on our behind-the-scenes working lunch sessions that we do on Substack. Every Wednesday at 1230, we go live on Substack and we collaborate often on that. Sometimes it's other things. And we are wanting people's angry, unlikable women's stories. Yes, we told Speaker 2 (2:02) our angry, unlikable woman's story about going to the Santa Barbara Bowl, and we got some great emails from listeners about their angry, unlikable women moments. If you have those, we would just love to hear them. We find them incredibly entertaining and inspiring. And there's an element of the show that we're considering doing that would use stories like this. And they're just... Speaker 1 (2:27) Interesting. There's so many and so varied. Speaker 2 (2:30) Yes. And absolutely fascinating. Speaker 1 (2:32) Yes, Sarah, I'm thinking of the time you were screamed at by the truck driver at your diner. Oh, yes. I Speaker 2 (2:38) asked him to move the truck forward a few feet so I could get out to go to a doctor's appointment. And wow, I was, oh, man, that was that put him over the edge. Yes. It was like banging on my car window, yelling about women drivers. You've got to be careful out there. Yes. Speaker 1 (2:55) And then another update, Sarah, a company called A Twist, which we have mentioned, I believe, just launched. It's a new microdrama app slash company. And that is where we are EPing our first microdrama, which we mentioned, I think, several weeks ago. Yes, it's very exciting. Speaker 2 (3:17) They have originals. They seem to have content from other places as well. I'm watching one called Pretty Hurts and So Do I. It's very entertaining. So if you are interested in microdramas, check out A Twist. Speaker 1 (3:32) Yes, I'm watching Sarah Hollywood Starlet, which, of course, that title just drew me right in. Yes, that's next on my list. And by the way, we should mention this company was co-founded with Susan Rovner, who used to run Warner Brothers and is one of our favorite executives ever. Speaker 2 (3:49) Yes. All right, Liz, it's time for From the Treadmill Desks Of, where we talk about what's most pressing in our work psyches. And since September is the new January, or I guess another January, we thought we would assess our team theme for 2026 and just, are we living it? How are we doing? Speaker 1 (4:09) Yeah, so first of all, let's remind everybody what our team theme is, which is Be the Bee. And this emerged from our last team theme was Flower and Fly 2025. And our team symbol was a bee. And we both got bee rings. And we really have leaned into the bee of it all. And so we wanted to sort of keep an element of that because we really like that team theme. So that's when we got to be the bee. And then we've changed our symbol very subtly from a bee to a... killer bee. Speaker 2 (4:46) Yes. And we have decided that we're going to lean even further into the killer bee in our motto and have it be the killer bee for the rest of the year. Speaker 1 (4:58) Yes. We are updating, we are amending our theme of 2026 to be the killer bee. So we were looking back at the year so far and assessing Have we been the bee? Have we been the killer bee? So here are our yeses. Yeah, what's nice about this Speaker 2 (5:19) is we first started discussing it and thought, oh, we're not being so good at being the bee. But then once we actually started discussing the ways in which we have been the bee, we've been pretty damn good. We actually have been. pretty killer bee about the year so far. Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:42) So for instance, killer bees are known for being angry and we feel like we're leaning into that, but making it a positive thing by writing this pilot, Angry Unlikable Women. So we're kind of turning the whole notion of being angry on its head. Speaker 2 (5:58) Yes. And then killer bees are known for pollinating. They explore different areas and pollinate in a wide range of plants, etc. And we are definitely doing that. We have so many different projects. We've pitched a lot of things. We've sold a couple things. We're exploring new areas. We are, in fact, Speaker 1 (6:22) pollinating widely. Yes. And then... Let's talk about extreme aggression. So killer bees have extreme aggression. I guess that's one way they get the name. And we really use the extreme aggression in learning about verticals slash micro dramas slash micro series, whatever you want to call them. We really. put effort into saying, okay, we want meetings with people who are doing this, even though we've never done it. We took a seminar about it. We have been watching them. We have been learning about them. And it went so far as we actually managed to sell one. Speaker 2 (7:02) Yes, Speaker 1 (7:03) and we debuted a Speaker 2 (7:05) segment called Making It Happen, which is about people who are embracing that kind of aggressive, in a positive way, form of... getting things done. So that's another way that we have been. Speaker 1 (7:17) killer being it. Absolutely. Now, this one cracked me up, Sarah, because if you look up killer bees, it talks about how they are relentless in their pursuit. Like if they find you and they want you, they will follow you, unlike,