Podcast appearances and mentions of daniel well

This week on the blog, a podcast interview with the writer of a great new book, “London After Midnight: The Lost Film,” a book about the classic lost Lon Chaney film.LINKS A Free Film Book for You: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/cq23xyyt12Another Free Film Book: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/x3jn3emga6Fast, Cheap Film Website: https://www.fastcheapfilm.com/Daniel's Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/p/London-After-Midnight-The-Lost-Film-100075993768254/Buy the Book “London After Midnight: The Lost Film”: https://www.amazon.com/London-After-Midnight-Lost-Film/dp/1399939890Eli Marks Website: https://www.elimarksmysteries.com/Albert's Bridge Books Website: https://www.albertsbridgebooks.com/YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BehindthePageTheEliMarksPodcastTRANSCRIPTJohn: So, Daniel, when did you first become aware of London After Midnight? Daniel: I was about seven years old when I first stumbled into Lon Chaney through my love of all things Universal horror, and just that whole plethora of characters and actors that you just knew by name, but hadn't necessarily seen away from the many still photographs of Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And the Phantom was the one to really spark my interest. But this was prior to eBay. I couldn't see the film of Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera for a year. So, I kind of had the ultimate build to books and documentaries, just teasing me, teasing me all the time. And when I eventually did watch a few documentaries, the one thing that they all had in common was the name Lon Chaney. I just thought I need to learn more about this character Lon Chaney, because he just found someone of superhuman proportions just who have done all of these crazy diverse characters. And, that's where London After Midnight eventually peeked out at me and, occupied a separate interest as all the Chaney characterizations do.John: So how did you get into the Universal films? Were you watching them on VHS? Were they on tv? Did the DVDs happen by then?Daniel: I was still in the VHS days. My dad is a real big fan of all this as well. So he first saw Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on TV when he was a kid. And prior to me being born he had amassed a huge VHS collection and a lot of those had Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Hull, Claude Rains, Vincent Price, what have you.And a lot of them were dedicated to Universal horrors. And as a young curious kid, my eyes eventually crossed these beautiful cases and I really wanted to watch them. I think my first one I ever watched was The Mummy's Tomb or Curse of the Mummy. And it's just grown ever since, really.John: You're starting at the lesser end of the Universal monsters. It's like someone's starting the Marx Brothers at The Big Store and going, "oh, these are great. I wonder if there's anything better?" Jim: Well, I kinda like the fact that you have come by this fascination, honestly, as my father would say. You sort of inherited the family business, if you will. The book is great. The book is just great. And I'll be honest, I had no, except for recording the novel that John wrote, I really had no frame of reference for London after Midnight.John: Well, Jim, were you a monster guy? Were you a Universal Monster kid?Jim: Oh yeah. I mean, I had all the models. I love all of that, and certainly knew about Lon Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera, as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I knew he was the man with a thousand faces. I knew he, when he died, he wrote JR. on his makeup kit and gave it to his kid. So, I knew stuff. But London after Midnight I didn't know at all, except for the sort of iconic makeup and that image, which I was familiar with. What was the inspiration for you in terms of writing this book?Daniel: Like you say, I really had no immediate go-to reference for London after Midnight, away from one or two images in a book. Really clearly they were very impactful images of Chaney, skulking around the old haunted mansion with Edna Tichenor by his side with the lantern, the eyes, the teeth, the cloak, the top hat, the webs, everything. Pretty much everything that embodies a good atmospheric horror movie, but obviously we couldn't see it.So that is all its fangs had deepened itself into my bloodstream at that point, just like, why is it lost? Why can't I see it? And again, the term lost film was an alien concept to me at a young age. I've always been a very curious child. Anything that I don't know or understand that much, even things I do understand that well, I always have to try to find out more, 'cause I just can't accept that it's like a bookend process. It begins and then it ends. And that was the thing with London after Midnight. Everything I found in books or in little interviews, they were just all a bit too brief. And I just thought there has to be a deeper history here, as there are with many of the greatest movies of all time. But same with the movies that are more obscure. There is a full history there somewhere because, 'cause a film takes months to a year to complete.It was definitely a good challenge for me. When we first had our first home computer, it was one of those very few early subjects I was typing in like crazy to try to find out everything that I could. And, that all incubated in my little filing cabinet, which I was able to call upon years later.Some things which were redundant, some things which I had the only links to that I had printed off in advance quite, sensibly so, but then there were certain things that just had lots of question marks to me. Like, what year did the film perish? How did it perish? The people who saw the film originally?And unlike a lot of Chaney films, which have been covered in immense detail, London after Midnight, considering it's the most famous of all lost films, still for me, had major holes in it that I just, really wanted to know the answers to. A lot of those answers, eventually, I found, even people who knew and institutions that knew information to key events like famous MGM Fire, they were hard pressed to connect anything up, in regards to the film. It was like a jigsaw puzzle. I had all these amazing facts. However, none of them kind of made sense with each other.My favorite thing is researching and finding the outcomes to these things. So that's originally what spiraled me into the storm of crafting this, initial dissertation that I set myself, which eventually became so large. I had to do it as a book despite, I'd always wanted to do a book as a kid.When you see people that you idolize for some reason, you just want to write a book on them. Despite, there had been several books on Lon Chaney. But I just always knew from my childhood that I always wanted to contribute a printed volume either on Chaney or a particular film, and London after Midnight seemed to present the opportunity to me.I really just didn't want it to be a rehash of everything that we had seen before or read before in other accounts or in the Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine, but just with a new cover. So, I thought I would only do a book if I could really contribute a fresh new perspective on the subject, which I hope hopefully did.John: Oh, you absolutely did. And this is an exhaustive book and a little exhausting. There's a ton of stuff in here. You mentioned Famous Monster of the Filmland, which is where I first saw that image. There's at least one cover of the magazine that used that image. And Forrest Ackerman had some good photos and would use them whenever he could and also would compare them to Mark the Vampire, the remake, partially because I think Carol Borland was still alive and he could interview her. And he talked about that remake quite a bit. But that iconic image that he put on the cover and whenever he could in the magazine-- Jim and I were talking before you came on, Daniel, about in my mind when you think of Lon Chaney, there's three images that come to mind: Phantom of the Opera, Quasimoto, and this one. And I think this one, the Man in the Beaver hat probably is the most iconic of his makeups, because, 'cause it is, it's somehow it got adopted into the culture as this is what you go to when it's a creepy guy walking around. And that's the one that everyone remembers. Do you have any idea, specifically what his process was for making that look, because it, it is I think ultimately a fairly simple design. It's just really clever.Daniel: Yes, it probably does fall into the category of his more simplistic makeups. But, again, Chaney did a lot of things simplistic-- today --were never seen back then in say, 1927. Particularly in the Phantom of the Opera's case in 1925, in which a lot of that makeup today would be done through CG, in terms of trying to eliminate the nose or to make your lips move to express dialogue. Chaney was very fortunate to have lived in the pantomime era, where he didn't have to rely on how his voice would sound, trying to talk through those dentures, in which case the makeup would probably have to have been more tamed to allow audio recorded dialogue to properly come through.But with regards to the beaver hat makeup, he had thin wires that fitted around his eyes to give it a more hypnotic stare. The teeth, which he had constructed by a personal dentist, eventually had a wire attached to the very top that held the corners of his mouth, opening to a nice curved, fixated, almost joker like grin.You can imagine with the monocles around his eyes, he was thankful there probably wasn't that much wind on a closed set, because he probably couldn't have closed his eyes that many times. But a lot of these things become spoken about and detailed over time with mythic status. That he had to have his eyes operated on to achieve the constant widening of his eyelids. Or the teeth -- he could only wear the teeth for certain periods of time before accidentally biting his tongue or his lips, et cetera. But Chaney certainly wasn't a sadist, with himself, with his makeups. He was very professional. Although he did go through undoubtedly a lot of discomfort, especially probably the most, explicit case would be for the Hunchback of Notre Dame, in which his whole body is crooked down into a stooped position.But, with London After Midnight, I do highly suspect that the inspiration for that makeup in general came from the Dracula novel. And because MGM had not acquired the rights to the Dracula novel, unlike how Universal acquired the rights of the Hunchback or, more importantly, Phantom of the Opera, by which point Gaston Leroux was still alive.It was just a loose adaptation of Dracula. But nevertheless, when you read the description of Dracula in Bram Stoker's novel, he does bear a similarity to Chaney's vampire, in which it's the long hair, a mouth full of sharp teeth, a ghastly pale palor and just dressed all in black and carries around a lantern.Whereas Bela Lugosi takes extraordinary leaps and turns away from the Stoker novel. But it must have definitely had an impact at the time, enough for MGM to over-market the image of Chaney's vampire, which only appears in the film for probably just under four minutes, compared to his detective disguise, which is the real main character of the film.Although the thing we all wanna see is Cheney moving about as the vampire and what facial expressions he pulled. It's just something that we just want to see because it's Lon Chaney.John: Right. And it makes you wonder if he had lived and had gotten to play Dracula, he kind of boxed himself into a corner, then if he'd already used the look from the book, you wonder what he would've come up with, if Lugosi hadn't done it, and if Chaney had had been our first Dracula.Jim: You know, the other thing that I think of strictly like through my actor filter is here's a guy who -- take Hunchback or Phantom or even this thing -- whatever process he went through to put that makeup on, you know, was hours of work, I'm sure. Hunchback several hours of work to get to that, that he did himself, and then they'd film all day.So, on top of, I mean, I just think that that's like, wow, when you think about today where somebody might go into a makeup chair and have two or three people working on them to get the look they want. Even if it took a few hours, that person is just sitting there getting the makeup done. He's doing all of this, and then turns in a full day, uh, in front of the cameras, which to me is like, wow, that's incredible.Daniel: Definitely, it's like two jobs in one. I imagine for an actor it must be really grueling in adapting to a makeup, especially if it's a heavy makeup where it covers the whole of your head or crushes down your nose, changes your lips, the fumes of chemicals going into your eyes.But then by the end of it, I imagine you are quite exhausted from just your head adapting to that. But then you have to go out and act as well. With Chaney, I suppose he could be more of a perfectionist than take as much time as he wanted within reason. And then once he came to the grueling end of it all, he's actually gotta go out and act countless takes. Probably repair a lot of the makeup as well after, after a couple of takes, certainly with things like the Hunchback or the Phantom of the Opera.John: And, you know, it's not only is he doing the makeup and acting, but in, you know, not so much in London After Midnight, but in Phantom of the Opera, he is quite athletic. When the phantom moves, he really moves. He's not stooped. He's got a lot of energy to him and he's got a makeup on that, unlike the Quasimoto makeup, what he's attempting to do with the phantom is, reductive. He's trying to take things away from his face.Daniel: Mm-hmm.John: And he's using all the tricks he knows and lighting to make that happen, but that means he's gotta hit particular marks for the light to hit it just right. And for you to see that his face is as, you know, skull-like as he made it. When you see him, you know, in London After Midnight as the professor inspector character, he has got a normal full man's face. It's a real face. Much like his son, he had a kind of a full face and what he was able to do with a phantom and take all that away, and be as physical as he was, is just phenomenal. I mean, he was a really, besides the makeup, he was a really good actor.Daniel: Oh, definitely. Jim: I agree with that completely. I kind of in what I watched, I wonder if he was the makeup artist, but not the actor and he did exactly the same makeup on somebody else. And so we had the same image. If those things would've resonated with us the way they do today. I think it had everything to do with who he was and his abilities in addition to the incredible makeup. He was just a tremendous performer.Daniel: Absolutely. He was a true multitasker. In his early days of theater, he was not only an actor, but he was a choreographer. He had a lot of jobs behind the scenes as well. Even when he had become a star in his own time, he would still help actors find the character within them. like Norma Sheera, et cetera. People who were kind of new to the movie making scene and the directors didn't really have that much patience with young actors or actresses. Whereas Chaney, because of his clout in the industry, no one really interfered with Chaney's authority on set. But he would really help actors find the character, find the emotion, 'cause it was just all about how well you translate it over for the audience, as opposed to the actor feeling a certain way that convinces themselves that they're the character. Chaney always tried to get the emotions across to the audience. Patsy Ruth Miller, who played Esemerelda in in the Hunchback, said that Chaney directed the film more than the director actually did.The director was actually even suggested by Chaney. So, Chaney really had his hands everywhere in the making of a film. And Patsy Ruth Miller said the thing that she learned from him was that it's the actress's job to make the audience feel how the character's meant to be feeling, and not necessarily the actor to feel what they should be feeling based on the script and the settings and everything.So I think, that's why Chaney in particular stands out, among all of the actors of his time.John: I think he would've transitioned really well into sound. I think, he had everything necessary to make that transition.Jim: There's one sound picture with him in it, isn't there, doesn't he? Doesn't he play a ventriloquist? John: I believe so.Daniel: Yes, it was a remake of The Unholy Three that he had made in 1925 as Echo the ventriloquist, and the gangster. And yes, by the time MGM had decided to pursue talkies -- also, funny enough, they were one of the last studios to transition to, just because they were the most, one, probably the most dominant studio in all of Hollywood, that they didn't feel the pressure to compete with the burgeoning talkie revolution.So they could afford to take their time, they could release a talkie, but then they could release several silent films and the revenue would still be amazing for the studio. Whereas other studios probably had to conform really quick just because they didn't have the star system, that MGM shamelessly flaunted. And several Chaney films had been transitioned to sound at this point with or without Chaney. But for Chaney himself, because he himself was the special effect, it was guaranteed to be a winner even if it had been an original story that isn't as remembered today strictly because people get to hear the thing that's been denied them for all this time, which is Chaney's voice. And he would've transitioned very easily to talkies is because he had a very rich, deep voice, which, coming from theater, he had to have had, in terms of doing dialogue. He wasn't someone like a lot of younger actors who had started out predominantly in feature films who could only pantomime lines. Chaney actually knew how to deliver dialogue, so it did feel natural and it didn't feel read off the page.And he does about five voices in The Unholy Three. So MGM was truly trying to market, his voice for everything that they could. As Mrs. O'Grady, his natural voice, he imitates a parrot and a girl. And yeah, he really would've flourished in the sound era. Jim: Yeah. John: Any surprises, as it sounds like you were researching this for virtually your whole life, but were there any surprises that you came across, as you really dug in about the film?Daniel: With regards to London after Midnight, the main surprise was undoubtedly the -- probably the star chapter of the whole thing -- which is the nitrate frames from an actual destroyed print of the film itself, which sounds crazy to even being able to say it. But, yeah the nitrate frames themselves presented a quandary of questions that just sent me into a whole nother research mode trying to find out where these impossible images came from, who they belonged to, why they even existed, why they specifically existed.Because, looking for something that, you know, you are told doesn't exist. And then to find it, you kind of think someone is watching over you, planting this stuff as though it's the ultimate tease. To find a foreign movie poster for London After Midnight would be one thing, but to find actual pieces of the lost film itself. It was certainly the most out of body experience I've ever had. Just to find something that I set out to find, but then you find it and you still can't believe that you've actually found it.John: How did you find it?Daniel: I had connections with a few foreign archives who would befriend me and took to my enthusiasm with the silent era, and specifically Chaney and all the stars connected to Chaney films.And, quite early on I was told that there were a few photo albums that had various snippets of silent films from Chaney. They didn't really go into what titles these were, 'cause they were just all a jumble. All I knew is that they came from (garbled) widow. And he had acquired prints of the whole films from various, I suppose, junk stores in Spain.But not being a projectionist, he just purely took them at the face value that he just taken the images and snipping them up and putting them in photo albums, like how you would just do with photographs. And then the rest of the material was sadly discarded by fire. So, all we were left with were these snipped relics, survivors almost to several Chaney lost films. Some of them not lost, but there were films like The Phantom of the Opera in there, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mockery, The Unknown. But then there were several lost films such as London After Midnight, the Big City, Thunder. And All the Brothers were Valiant, which are mainly other than Thunder are all totally complete lost films.So, to find this little treasure trove, it was just finding out what the images meant and connecting them up, trying to put them in some sort of chronological scholarly order. Grueling, but it was very fun at the same time. And because I had identified myself with all of these surviving production stills from the film -- a lot of them, which formed the basis of the 2002 reconstruction by Turner Classic Movies -- it didn't take me too long to identify what scenes these surviving nitrate frames were from. But there were several frames which had sets that I recognized and costumes that I recognized, but in the photographic stills, they don't occupy the same space at the same time. So, it's like the two separate elements had crossed over. So that left me with a scholarly, question of what I was looking at. I was able to go back and, sort of rectify certain wrongs that have been accepted throughout the sixties as being the original, say, opening to London after Midnight. So I've, been able to disprove a few things that have made the film, I suppose, a bit more puzzling to audiences. Some audiences didn't really get what the plot was to begin with. So, it was nice to actually put a bit more order to the madness finally.John: At what point did you come across the original treatment and the script?Daniel: The treatment and the script, they came from a private collector who had bought them at auction a number of years ago who I was able to thankfully contact, and they still had the two documents in question. I had learned through Philip J Riley's previous books on London after Midnight that he had the two latter drafts of the script, the second edition and the third draft edition.And, again, the question of why and where. I just always wondered where that first draft of the script was, hoping it would contain new scenes, and open new questions for me and to study. And once I've managed to find those two documents, they did present a lot of new, perspectives and material that added to the fuller plot of the original hypnotist scenario, as opposed to the shortened, time efficient London After Midnight film that was ultimately delivered to audiences. So again, it helped to put a little bit more order to the madness.Jim: You found an actual piece of the film that you were able to, somebody got images from it? And then you found the scripts? But the images are terrific and they're all in your book. They came from what exactly?Daniel: The just below 20 images of the film came from originally a distribution print, a Spanish distribution print, from about 1928. Originally, they were on 35 millimeter indicating that they were from the studio and as is with a lot of silent films that have been found in foreign archives.Normally when a film is done with its distribution, it would have to be returned to the original studio to be destroyed, except for the original negative and a studio print, because there is no reason why a studio would need to keep the thousands of prints when they have the pristine copy in their vault. But, in a lot of smaller theater cases, in order to save money on the postage of the shipping, they would just basically declare that they had destroyed the film on the studio's behalf. There was no record system with this stuff and that's how a lot of these films ended up in the basements of old theaters, which are eventually when they closed, the assets were sold off to collectors or traveling showmen. And eventually these films found their ways into archives or again, private collections. Some of which people know what they have.A lot of times they don't know what they have because they're more obsessed with, naturally, more dedicated to preserving the films of their own culture that was shown at the time, as opposed to a foreign American title, which they probably assume they already have a copy of. But it's how a lot of these films get found.And, with the London After Midnight, example, there were the images that I found spanned the entire seven reels, because they came from different points in the film. It wasn't a single strip of film, of a particular scene. Having thankfully the main source that we have for London After Midnight is the cutting continuity, which is the actual film edited down shot for shot, length for length.And it describes, briefly, although descriptive enough, what is actually in each and every single shot of the film. And comparing the single frame images from the film with this document, I was able to identify at what point these frames came from during the film, which again spanned the entire seven reels, indicating that a complete seven reel version of the film had gotten out under the studio system at one point.As is the case, I'm assuming, 'cause these came from the same collection, I'm assuming it was the same with the other lost Chaney films that again, sadly only survive in snippet form.John: It's like somebody was a collector and his wife said, "well, we don't have room for all this. Just take the frames you like and we'll get rid of the rest of it." So, you mentioned in passing the 2002 reconstruction that Turner Classic Movies did using the existing stills. I don't know if they were working from any of the scripts or not. That was the version I originally saw when I was working on writing, those portions of The Misers Dream that mentioned London After Midnight. Based on what you know now, how close is that reconstruction and where do you think they got it right and where'd they get it wrong?Daniel: The 2002, reconstruction, while a very commendable production, it does stray from the original edited film script. Again, the problem that they clearly faced on that production is that there were not enough photographed scenes to convey all the photographed scenes from the film. So what they eventually fell into the trap of doing was having to reuse the same photograph to sometimes convey two separate scenes, sometimes flipping the image to appear on the opposite side of the camera. And, because of the certain lack of stills in certain scenes cases, they had to rewrite them.And sometimes a visual scene had to have been replaced with an inter-title card, merely describing what had happened or describing a certain period in time, as opposed to showing a photograph of what we're meant to be seeing as opposed to just reading. So, they did the best with what they had.But since then, there have been several more images crop up in private collections or in the archives. So, unless a version of the film gets found, it's certainly an endeavor that could be revisited, I think, and either do a new visual reconstruction of sort, or attempt some sort remake of the film even.Jim: That's an idea. John: They certainly have the materials to do that. I've got an odd question. There's one famous image, a still image from the film, showing Chaney as Professor Burke, and he is reaching out to the man in the beaver hat whose back is to us. Is that a promo photo? Spoiler alert, Burke is playing the vampire in the movie. He admits that that's him. So, he never would've met the character. What is the story behind that photo?Daniel: There are actually three photographs depicting that, those characters that you described. There are the two photographs which show Chaney in the Balfor mansion seemingly directing a cloaked, top hatted figure with long hair, with its back towards us. And then there is another photograph of Chaney in the man in the beaver hat disguise with a seemingly twin right beside him outside of a door.Basically the scenes in the film in which Chaney appear to the Hamlin residents, the people who are being preyed upon by the alleged vampires, the scenes where Chaney and the vampire need to coexist in the same space or either appear to be in the same vicinity to affect other characters while at the same time interrogating others, Chaney's character of Burke employs a series of assistants to either dress up as vampires or at certain times dress up as his version of the vampire to parade around and pretend that they are the man in the beaver hat. Those particular shots, though, the vampire was always, photographed from behind rather than the front.The very famous scene, which was the scene that got first got me interested in London After Midnight, in which the maidm played by Polly Moran is in the chair shrieking at Chaney's winged self, hovering over her. It was unfortunate to me to realize that that was actually a flashback scene told from the maid's perspective.And by the end of the film, the maid is revealed to be an informant of Burke, a secret detective also. So, it's really a strong suspension of disbelief has to be employed because the whole scene of Chaney chasing the maid through the house and appearing under the door, that was clearly just the MGMs marketing at work just to show Chaney off in a bizarre makeup with a fantastic costume.Whereas he is predominantly the detective and the scenes where he's not needed to hypnotize a character in the full vampire makeup, he just employs an assistant who parades around in the house as him, all the times with his back turned so that the audience can't latch on as to who the character actually is, 'cause it must have posed quite a fun confusion that how can Chaney be a detective in this room where the maid has just ran from the Vampire, which is also Chaney?John: Yeah, and it doesn't help that the plot is fairly convoluted anyway, and then you add that layer. So, do you think we'll ever see a copy of it? Do you think it's in a basement somewhere?Daniel: I've always personally believed that the film does exist. Not personally out of just an unfounded fanboy wish, but just based on the evidence and examples of other films that have been found throughout time. Metropolis being probably the most prominent case. But, at one point there was nothing on London After Midnight and now there is just short of 20 frames for the film. So, if that can exist currently now in the year 2023, what makes us think that more footage can't be found by, say, 2030? I think with fans, there's such a high expectation that if it's not found in their own lifetime or in their own convenience space of time, it must not exist. There's still a lot of silent lost treasures that just have not been found at all that do exist though. So, with London After Midnight, from a purely realistic standpoint, I've always theorized myself that the film probably does exist in an archive somewhere, but it would probably be a very abridged, foreign condensed version, as opposed to a pristine 35-millimeter print that someone had ripped to safety stock because they knew in the future the film would become the most coveted of all lost films. So, I do believe it does exist. The whole theory of it existing in a private collection and someone's waiting to claim the newfound copyright on it, I think after December of last year, I think it's finally put that theory to rest. I don't think a collector consciously knows they have a copy of it. So, I think it's lost until found personally, but probably within an archive.Jim: Lost until found. That's a great title for a book. I like that a lot. What do you think of the remake, Mark of the Vampire and in your opinion, what does it tell us about, London After Midnight?Daniel: Well, Mark of the Vampire came about again, part of the Sound Revolution. It was one of those because it was Chaney and Todd Browning's most successful film for the studio. And Browning was currently, being held on a tight leash by MGM because of his shocking disaster film Freaks, I suppose they were a little bit nervous about giving him the reign to do what he wanted again. So, looking through their backlog of smash silent hits, London After Midnight seemed the most logical choice to remake, just simply because it was their most, successful collaboration. Had it have been The Unholy Three, I'm sure? Oh no, we already had The Unholy Three, but had it have been another Browning Chaney collaboration, it might have been The Unknown, otherwise. So, I suppose that's why London After Midnight was selected and eventually turned into Mark of the Vampire. The story does not stray too much from London After Midnight, although they seem to complicate it a little bit more by taking the Burke vampire character and turning it this time into three characters played by three different actors, all of which happened to be in cahoots with one another in trying to solve an old murder mystery.It's very atmospherical. You can definitely tell it's got Todd Browning signature on it. It's more pondering with this one why they just did not opt to make a legit, supernatural film, rather than go in the pseudo vampire arena that they pursued in 1927. Where audiences had by now become accustomed to the supernatural with Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931, which no longer relied on a detective trying to find out a certain mystery and has to disguise themselves as a monster.The monster was actually now a real thing in the movies. So I think if Bela Lugosi had been given the chance to have played a real Count Mora as a real vampire, I think it would've been slightly better received as opposed to a dated approach that was clearly now not the fashionable thing to do.I suppose again, because Browning was treading a very thin line with MGM, I suppose he couldn't really stray too far from the original source material. But I find it a very atmospherical film, although I think the story works better as a silent film than it does as a sound film, because there's a lot of silent scenes in that film, away from owls, hooting and armadillos scurrying about and winds. But I do think, based on things like The Cat and The Canary from 1927 and The Last Warning, I just think that detective sleuth with horror overtones serves better to the silent world than it does the sound world away from the legit, supernatural.John: So, if Chaney hadn't died, do you think he would have played Dracula? Do you think he would've been in Freaks? Would Freaks have been more normalized because it had a big name in it like that?Daniel: It would've been interesting if Chaney had played in Freaks. I think because Todd Browning used the kinds of individuals that he used for Freaks, maybe Chaney would've, for a change, had been the most outta place.John: Mm-hmm.Daniel: I do think he might have played Dracula. I think Universal would've had a hell of a time trying to get him over because he had just signed a new contract with MGM, whereas Todd Browning had transferred over to Universal by 1930 and really wanted to make Dracula for many years and probably discussed it with Chaney as far back as 1920.But certainly MGM would not have permitted Chaney to have gone over to Universal, even for a temporary period, without probably demanding a large piece of the action, in a financial sense, because Universal had acquired the rights to Dracula at this point. And, based on the stage play that had, come out on Broadway, it was probably assured that it was going to be a giant moneymaker, based on the success of the Dracula play.But because of Cheney's, status as a, I suppose retrospectively now, as a horror actor, he was probably the first person to be considered for that role by Carl Laemmle, senior and Junior for that matter. And Chaney gone by 1930, it did pose a puzzle as to who could take over these kinds of roles.Chaney was probably the only one to really successfully do it and make the monster an actual box office ingredient more than any other actor at that time, as he did with. Phantom, Blind Bargain and London After Midnight. So, I think to have pursued Chaney for a legit, supernatural film would've had enormous possibilities for Browning and Chaney himself.You can kind of see a trend, a trilogy forming, with Browning, from London After Midnight, in which he incorporates things he used in Dracula in London After Midnight. So, he kind of had this imagery quite early on. So, to go from – despite it's not in that order -- but to have London After Midnight, Mark of the Vampire, and he also did Dracula, he clearly was obsessed with the story. And I think Chaney was probably the, best actor for someone like Browning who complimented his way of thinking and approach to things like silence. As opposed to needing dialogue all the time, loud commotions. So, I think they dovetailed each other quite well, and that's why their ten year director actor relationship was as groundbreaking as it was.Jim: If the film does surface, if we find the film, what do you think people, how are they gonna react to the movie when they see it? What do you think? What's gonna be the reaction if it does surface?Daniel: Well, the lure of London After Midnight, the power in the film is its lost status rather than its widespread availability. I think it could never live up to the expectation that we've built up in our heads over the past 40 to 60 years. It was truly people, fans like Forrest J Ackerman that introduced and reignited the interest in Chaney's career by the late fifties and 1960s. That's when London After Midnight started to make the rounds in rumor, the rumors of a potential print existing, despite the film had not long been destroyed at that point. So, it was always a big mystery. There were always people who wanted to see the film, but with no access to home video, or et cetera, the only way you could probably see the film would've been at the studio who held everything. And, by the time the TV was coming out, a lot of silent films didn't make it to TV. So again, it has just germinated in people's heads probably in a better form than what they actually remembered. But, the true reality of London After Midnight is one more closer to the ground than it is in it's people are probably expecting to see something very supernatural on par with Dracula, whereas it's more so a Sherlock Holmes story with mild horrorish overtones to it that you can kind of see better examples of later on in Dracula in 1930 and in Mark of the Vampire.It's a film purely, I think for Lon Chaney fans. For myself, having read everything I can on the film, everything I've seen on the film, I personally love silent, detective stories, all with a touch of horror. So, I personally would know what I am going in to see. I'm not going in to see Chaney battling a Van Helsing like figure and turn to dust at the very end or turning to a bat. I'm going to see a detective melodrama that happens to have what looks like a vampire. So, it certainly couldn't live up to the expectations in people's minds and it's probably the only film to have had the greatest cheapest, marketing in history, I would think. It's one of those films, if it was discovered, you really would not have to do much marketing to promote it.It's one of those that in every fanzine, magazine, documentary referenced in pop. It has really marketed itself into becoming what I always call the mascot of the genre. There are other more important lost films that have been lost to us. The main one again, which has been found in its more complete form, was Metropolis, which is a better movie.But unlike Metropolis, London After Midnight has a lot more famous ingredients to it. It has a very famous director. It has a very famous actor whose process was legendary even during then. And it's actually the only film in which he actually has his make-up case make a cameo appearance by the very end. And it goes on the thing that everyone in every culture loves, which is the vampirism, the dark tales and folklore. So, when you say it, it just gets your imagination going. Whereas I think if you are watching it, it's probably you'll be looking over the projector to see if something even better is going to happen.The film had its mixed reactions when it originally came out. People liked it because it gave them that cheap thrill of being a very atmospherical, haunted house with the creepy figures of Chaney walking across those dusty hallways. But then the more important story is a murder mystery.It's not Dracula, but it has its own things going for it. I always kind of harken it back to the search for the Lochness Monster or Bigfoot. It has more power in your mind than it does in an aquarium or in a zoo. Hearing someone say that they think they saw something moving around in Lochness, but there's no photographic evidence, you just have the oral story, that is much more tangible in a way than actually seeing it in an aquarium where you can take it for granted. And it's the same with London After Midnight, and I think that's why a lot of hoaxster and pranksters tend to say that they have seen London After Midnight more than any other lost film.Jim: For a film that I would say the majority of the world does not have any frame of reference, and I'm using myself as the sort of blueprint for that, no frame of reference for this film. That image is iconic in a way that has been, I mean, it at first glance could be Jack the Ripper. I was talking to John before we started the podcast, once I locked in on that image, then I started to think, oh, the ghosts in Disney's Haunted Mansion, there's a couple of ghosts that have elements of that. I mean, it was so perfectly done, even though we don't, I bet you nine out ten people don't know the title London After Midnight, but I bet you seven outta ten people know this image.Daniel: Definitely, it has certainly made its mark on pop culture, again, I think because I think it's such a beautiful, simplistic design. Everything from the simplistically [garbled] to the bulging eyes and the very nice top hat as well, which is in itself today considered a very odd accessory for a grotesque, vampire character.But it's one of those things that has really carried over. It's influenced what the movies and artists. It was one of the influences for the Babadook creation for that particular monster. It was an influence on the Black Phone. It's just a perfect frame of reference for movie makers and sculptors and artists to keep taking from.John: Yep. It's, it'll live long beyond us. Daniel, one last question. I read somewhere or heard somewhere. You're next gonna tackle James Whale, is that correct? Daniel: James Whale is a subject, again, coming from, I happen to come from the exact same town that he was born and raised in, in Dudley, England. So, it's always been a subject close to home for me, which is quite convenient because I love his movies. So, I'm hoping to eventually, hopefully plan a documentary feature on him, based on a lot of family material in the surrounding areas that I was able to hunt down, and forgotten histories about him and just put it together in some form, hopefully in the future.John: That would be fantastic, and we'll have you back at that point.Jim: So, let's pretend for a minute that the audience is me, and they'd have absolutely no idea who James Whale is or what he's done. Just for a minute, let's pretend.John: Pretend that you don't know that?Jim: Yeah.Daniel: James Whale is the most known for his work for directing Frankenstein with Boris Karloff in 1931. But he also directed probably some of the most important horror films that have ever existed in the history of motion pictures. The Old Dark House, which can be cited with its very atmospherical, and black comedy tones, The Invisible Man with Claude Rains and Gloria Stewart in 1933. And, the most important one, which is probably the grand jewel in the whole of the Universal Monsters Empire, which is Bride of Frankenstein in 1935, which is the ultimate, example of everything that he had studied, everything that he'd learned with regards to cinema and comedy, life and death, and just making a very delicious cocktail of a movie in all of its black comedy, horrific, forms that we're still asking questions about today. One of his first films that he did was for Howard Hughes Hell's Angels, in which -- because he'd coming over from theater -- when again, films in America were taken off with the sound revolution. They all of a sudden needed British directors to translate English dialogue better than the actors could convey.So, James Whale was one of many to be taken over to America when he had a hit play called Journeys End, which became the most successful war play at that point. And he did his own film adaptation of Journeys End. He also did a really remarkable film called Showboat, which is another very iconic film.And again, someone with James Whale's horror credentials, you just think, how could someone who directed Frankenstein directed Showboat? But, clearly a very, very talented director who clearly could not be pigeonholed at the time as a strictly horror director, despite it is the horror films in which he is remembered for, understandably so, just because they contain his very individualistic wit and humor and his outlooks on life and politics. And being an openly gay director at the time, he really was a force unto himself. He was a very modern man even then.

Joël is joined by thoughtbot Software Developer and Dirt Jumper Daniel Nolan. Dirt jumping is BMX-style riding

Chad Chancellor, Co-Founder of Next Move Group, is back with another college football preview episode! Joining him on the podcast are Merv Waldrop, Alex Metzger, Daniel Well, Kenneth Baggett, Chris Bontrager, Chris Chancellor, Kay Brockwell, Shane Hooper, Greg Martinette, Dennis Jarvis, and Tim Weston.

 Find out how to bring in together your passion, mindset, and vibe while leveraging your money Learn why playing by the rules and that cookie-cutter approach is never going to work for you Understand how money is just a tool and how to leverage it using your money DNA Resources/Links: Wanting to Find Out What's Your Money DNA to multiply your profits? Learn how you can enjoy your creation, leverage your business and make multiples with your money DNA: https://dreamwithdan.com/moneyDNA/ Summary Do you want to grow more and get the recognition you deserve without the cost? Have you been feeling like you're not finding joy anymore with what you're creating? Do you want to know more on how you can enjoy what you're doing and having time while getting the profit you deserve? Are you ready to drop that cookie-cutter approach and find out what your money DNA is to maximize potential and get 10x results? Daniel Mangena is an International Speaker, Best-Selling Author, Broadcaster, and Coach. He is best known for his highly successful Micro2Millions program, being the author of Stepping Beyond Intention and his Do it With Dan and Beyond Success podcasts. He is completely self-made and has spent decades perfecting his world-class coaching methodology. In this episode, Daniel talks about how to see money as a powerful and important tool that you can leverage and maximize through finding your money's DNA. He also shares his insights on why you should focus more on having fun and feeling fulfilled with what you're creating. Check out these episode highlights: 01:13 - Daniel's ideal client: “My ideal client is people who are into personal development, are entrepreneurially minded, and, generally speaking, don't want money for money's sake.” 01:36 - Problem Daniel helps solve: “Entrepreneurially minded people, often, if they've got anything to do with personal development can get caught up in some of the other pieces. So, you get people that are obsessed with whatever the latest courses, the latest program, the latest new hack or gizmo, or the latest new fan Google from the world of spirituality, and they just don't get as much done.” 02:43 - Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Daniel: “Well, there are a couple of different angles that we find being symptomatic for people that really are supported by what we do. Number one is if you find that you're not making as much money as you could be making.” 05:04 - Common mistakes that people make before they find Daniel's solution: “I've got one that will just, you know, put a nail in the coffin-- the cookie-cutter approach. We're all different. Trying to follow exactly what somebody else is doing, exactly that the way that they're doing it.” 05:48 - Daniel's Valuable Free Action (VFA): “Definitely get to know yourself. And the answer to the next question will be a resource for them to do that.” 06:05 - Daniel's Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Check out Dan's Website: https://dreamwithdan.com/moneyDNA/ 06:57 - Q: What's the most important thing in all of this? A: I'd say have fun. Make it meaningful. Don't get caught up in money-- not being the most important thing or it being the most important thing. It's just a tool. Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode: “If you find that you're not making as much money as you could be making, you had to leverage your money today.” -Daniel MangenaClick To Tweet Transcript (Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast) Tom Poland 00:10 Welcome, everyone, to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I'm Tom Poland beaming out to you from a little sunshine coast in Queensland, Australia, joined today by Daniel Mangena. Daniel, a very warm good day from Down Under. Sir,

 Find out how to bring in together your passion, mindset, and vibe while leveraging your money Learn why playing by the rules and that cookie-cutter approach is never going to work for you Understand how money is just a tool and how to leverage it using your money DNA Resources/Links: Wanting to Find Out What's Your Money DNA to multiply your profits? Learn how you can enjoy your creation, leverage your business and make multiples with your money DNA: https://dreamwithdan.com/moneyDNA/ Summary Do you want to grow more and get the recognition you deserve without the cost? Have you been feeling like you're not finding joy anymore with what you're creating? Do you want to know more on how you can enjoy what you're doing and having time while getting the profit you deserve? Are you ready to drop that cookie-cutter approach and find out what your money DNA is to maximize potential and get 10x results? Daniel Mangena is an International Speaker, Best-Selling Author, Broadcaster, and Coach. He is best known for his highly successful Micro2Millions program, being the author of Stepping Beyond Intention and his Do it With Dan and Beyond Success podcasts. He is completely self-made and has spent decades perfecting his world-class coaching methodology. In this episode, Daniel talks about how to see money as a powerful and important tool that you can leverage and maximize through finding your money's DNA. He also shares his insights on why you should focus more on having fun and feeling fulfilled with what you're creating. Check out these episode highlights: 01:13 – Daniel's ideal client: “My ideal client is people who are into personal development, are entrepreneurially minded, and, generally speaking, don't want money for money's sake.” 01:36 – Problem Daniel helps solve: “Entrepreneurially minded people, often, if they've got anything to do with personal development can get caught up in some of the other pieces. So, you get people that are obsessed with whatever the latest courses, the latest program, the latest new hack or gizmo, or the latest new fan Google from the world of spirituality, and they just don't get as much done.” 02:43 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Daniel: “Well, there are a couple of different angles that we find being symptomatic for people that really are supported by what we do. Number one is if you find that you're not making as much money as you could be making.” 05:04 – Common mistakes that people make before they find Daniel's solution: “I've got one that will just, you know, put a nail in the coffin– the cookie-cutter approach. We're all different. Trying to follow exactly what somebody else is doing, exactly that the way that they're doing it.” 05:48 – Daniel's Valuable Free Action (VFA): “Definitely get to know yourself. And the answer to the next question will be a resource for them to do that.” 06:05 – Daniel's Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Check out Dan's Website: https://dreamwithdan.com/moneyDNA/ 06:57 – Q: What's the most important thing in all of this? A: I'd say have fun. Make it meaningful. Don't get caught up in money– not being the most important thing or it being the most important thing. It's just a tool. Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode: “If you find that you're not making as much money as you could be making, you had to leverage your money today.” -Daniel MangenaClick To TweetTranscript (Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast) Tom Poland 00:10 Welcome, everyone, to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I'm Tom Poland beaming out to you from a little sunshine coast in Queensland, Australia, joined today by Daniel Mangena. Daniel, a very warm good day from Down Under. Sir, where are you hanging out? Daniel Mangena 00:23 I'm hanging out in Cabo Mexico. Lovely to be from one sunny place to another. Tom Poland 00:28 Yes, lots of sand and surf– love it! For those of you who don't know Daniel, he's literally an international speaker, Best-Selling Author, and broadcaster. He's a coach. He's best known for his very successful Micro2Millions program, being the author of Stepping Beyond Intention. I love that title! Stepping beyond intention. And his Do It with Dan and Beyond Success podcast. He is completely self-made and has spent decades perfecting his world-class coaching methodology. And he's about to share it now with this podcast. And the title is, “How to Discover Your Very Own Money DNA”. Yes, there is such a thing, and it's critical that you discover it. Daniel, sir, our seven questions are going to start now. Question number one is who is your ideal client? Daniel Mangena 01:13 My ideal client is people who are into personal development, are entrepreneurially minded, and, generally speaking, don't want money for money's sake. There is something bigger to it, but they're not caught up in the idea of the bigger thing and still not enough of their money too. Tom Poland 01:28 Love it! Thank you, sir. So, let's go to question number two, what's the problem you solve for these entrepreneurs? Daniel Mangena 01:36 Entrepreneurially minded people, often, if they've got anything to do with personal development can get caught up in some of the other pieces. So, you get people that they obsessed with whatever the latest courses, the latest program, the latest new hack or gizmo, or the latest new fan Google from the world of spirituality, and they just don't get as much done. All the stuff that does get done ends up happening not as much efficacy as could be done. You get people on the other side of that hustle, hustle, hustle, and lose sight of the other pieces. The problem we solved is we bring people to the middle, bringing in together all the mindset and personal development– all that good stuff, bringing together the emotional relationship to money and all the frequency and the vibe and the woo-woo. But also, powerful strategies, specifically, leveraging their money DNA. Tom Poland 02:23 Perfect! Nice sweet spot. Thank you for that. And the world needs that. So, question number three is can you describe the symptoms that your ideal client would be experiencing before they start working with you? So, what's going on in their business or their life where- kind of give an audience member right now a heads up and go, “Yeah, I need to find out more about dreaming with Dan”? Daniel Mangena 02:43 Well, there are a couple of different angles that we find being symptomatic for people that really are supported by what we do. Number one is if you find that you're not making as much money as you could be making. Great symptom for us to cover, so you had to leverage your money today. Because money DNA, the power behind that, is you can- we see people 10x, 20x, 50x their results, but using a fraction of their energy, a fraction of the resources because you're not pushing against the tide. You're going with the flow. Another thing, as well, is that people are not enjoying the experience of what they're creating. Far too many people maybe have financial success, but it's at the cost of burnout. It's at the cost of time with family, time with loved ones, hobbies, things that you really care about doing. Well, you're just not having fun anymore. Those are the key symptoms– you either got the money, and it's costing you. Or maybe you're okay with the other stuff, but the money is not where it needs to be. We bring you again to the middle, getting the best of both worlds, leveraging money DNA for the most part. Tom Poland 03:39 So, it sounds like money DNA is about finding the way that fulfills you that also generate fulfills clients and therefore generates a fair bit of money. The sweet spot, as you call it, or the middle ground, I think? That's not trying to be an- Daniel Mangena 03:55 But the simple analogy that was given that makes it really easy to understand and will give us the really sharp thing that people have come to listen to this podcast today is, imagine a child. When a child's in the belly, you don't know what configuration is going to come out– hair color, eye color, unless you're both blonde or you're both redhead or whatever. For the most part, you don't know. My wife's blond-haired, blue-eyed. I'm brown-skinned, brown-eyed. We didn't know what my son was going to turn out and there was nothing that we could do. That was going to unfold naturally. Your financial situation is unfolding naturally right now from a series of different things that you've identified down to pretty much a tee. If you're not having fun, then forget it anyway. If you're not fulfilled, forget it anyway. But understanding where that flow is for you, to have a natural unfolding, that feels fun, is full of meaning, and is profitable– that's what we support them to do with money DNA. Tom Poland 04:46 That's the sweet spot! Nice. So, question four, we've got three minutes left, what are some of the common mistakes that people make when they're trying to find that sweet spot? You know, we're talking about entrepreneurial people that are asserted. They're growth orientated. They're going to try stuff to find that sweet spot. So, what would you say are some of the common mistakes that folks make? Daniel Mangena 05:04 I've got one that will just, you know, put a nail in the coffin– the cookie-cutter approach. We're all different. Trying to follow exactly what somebody else is doing, exactly that the way that they're doing it. How many people are trying to do Elon Musk's morning routine because they think they're going to make him a billionaire is ludicrous. We've all got our strengths. We've all got our natural dispositions. We've all got our natural flow. Drop the cookie-cutter approach. Find your money DNA. Dive into that and get the results. Tom Poland 05:04 It sounds like a lot of this is about listening to ourselves, about doing the things which we intuitively know we were born to do. Let's help people move forward now. Question number five is one valuable free action. We've got two minutes left. What's a top tip you can give someone to move forward with this? Daniel Mangena 05:48 Definitely get to know yourself. And the answer to the next question will be a resource for them to do that. We actually give the listeners just four tests, four simple tests you can go and do that will give you such an insight into who you are and what you're about, that it will definitely move you along in terms of understanding that it's famous for you. Tom Poland 06:05 Well, let's go to that. Question six is a valuable free resource. And it's, folks if you go to https://dreamwithdan.com/moneyDNA/, you might want to tell folks. Dan, we've got 90 seconds left. What are they going to find there? In that, there might be another top tip, as well? Daniel Mangena 06:21 Yeah, what we're going to do is we're going to give you the link to four tests, and a quick basic rundown on those four tests on how they lead to identifying your money DNA. They want to book a consultation after that for us to help them, you know, go a bit deeper point. You get those four tests and you'll understand a very, very high level, some great insights into you and where your flow exists. Tom Poland 06:41 Where listening to yourself could be as simple as making a diary note of your thoughts that are coming in. That's probably a good start. So, folks, the resource is dreamwithdan.com/moneyDNA. One minute left, Dan, question number seven is what's the one question I should have asked you, but didn't? Daniel Mangena 06:57 I thought I knew what I was going to say for this, but I didn't. I'm going to say, you know, what's the most important thing in all of this? I'd say have fun. Make it meaningful. Don't get caught up in money– not being the most important thing or it being the most important thing. It's just a tool. And having your money DNA will help you to take that tool, leverage it and be a contribution to the world. And that's the kind of person that I like hanging out within certain. Tom Poland 07:20 Perfect! Daniel, thank you so much for your time and your insights. Daniel Mangena 07:23 Thanks for having me, buddy. Tom Poland 07:50 Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we're doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It's very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.

Mike Isaacson: I assure you World War II had little to do with it. [Theme song] Nazi SS UFOsLizards wearing human clothesHinduism's secret codesThese are nazi lies Race and IQ are in genesWarfare keeps the nation cleanWhiteness is an AIDS vaccineThese are nazi lies Hollow earth, white genocideMuslim's rampant femicideShooting suspects named Sam HydeHiter lived and no Jews died Army, navy, and the copsSecret service, special opsThey protect us, not sweatshopsThese are nazi lies Mike: Welcome to another episode of The Nazi Lies Podcast. You can join our Discord and get fun show merch by subscribing to our Patreon. Get access to our book club, calendar, advance episodes, and show notes, all at tiers starting as low as $2. Today we are lucky enough to have Daniel Kevles, Stanley Woodward Professor Emeritus of History, History of Medicine & American Studies at Yale University. For those who don't know, Dr. Kevles literally wrote the book on eugenics. His highly influential 1985 book, In the Name of Eugenics, remains a central point of reference for anyone studying the history or present of the eugenics movement. Thank you so much for joining us Dr. Kevles. Daniel Kevles: It's a pleasure to be with you, Michael. Mike: So before we talk about the eugenics movement proper, there were a lot of early scientific and medical research areas that influenced eugenics. Can you talk a bit about what biological and social science looked like in the Victorian era that led to the emergence of the eugenics movement? Daniel: Sure. The dominant trend or scientific movement, or knock off of science, was social Darwinism. It was a derivative of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, which he advanced in his famous and influential Origin of Species, which was published in 1859. As your listeners will know, Darwin argued that evolutionary success selected the most fit organisms for survival. And the social Darwinist, in a perverse fashion which I'll explain in a moment, borrowed or extracted from his theory the idea that social evolution put the most fit people at the top of society, both economically and socially, and relegated the least fit to the bottom. I say that it was a perversion of Darwinism in many ways, but not least because what Darwin meant by fitness was fitness for reproduction. That meant that the more offspring you reproduced, the more fit you were. And the fewer you reproduce, the less fit you are. The social Darwinists turned this idea on its head because they noticed that people at the top of society like themselves tended to have smaller families and people at the bottom of society had larger families. But that was a major impetus. Social Darwinism was a major impetus to the eugenics movement. In addition, there were also widespread theories of racial differences, where race meant not just what we understand it to be today, say principally black-white, or yellow-white or brown-white, but ace meant differences between groups that we understand to be nowadays just ethnic groups or national groups like Poles or Italians, or Hungarians, and Jews. There are theories around that characterized these different groups and attributed to them various characteristics, many of them socially deleterious. And then finally, there were studies of different people that were quantitative as in the case of craniometry, the measurement of the size of the head or of facial types in the 19th century, that attributed differences in character and intelligence to people of different, say, head sizes. So that's a Victorian background, but we shouldn't forget that right at the very end of the Victorian era, the rediscovery of Mendel's papers on heredity in peas which gave rise to the new discipline of genetics. And genetics had its roots in 19th century. Mendel did his work and then published in the mid-1860s, and was buried for a long time but then rediscovered in 1900 in three different places, and then burst upon the scene of science and was appropriated by eugenicists along with social Darwinism, racism, and the study of intelligence. Mike: One other thing that was kind of floating around there too was the the kind of enthusiasm for the sterilization of what they call the feeble minded, right? Daniel: Well, we're getting ahead of the story. It's not floating around very much at all. In the later 19th century, people did– physicians did sterilize, but they had some weird theories about sexual drive and so on, arising from over-development of the gonads especially in males. And of course there was also always the issue of prostitution, or prostitutes and easy women. But there was no movement for sterilization at all in the Victorian era, that came with the eugenics movement in the early 20th century. Mike: Okay. Now we can actually get into the actual eugenics movement then. First of all, let's talk about its founder, Francis Galton. Who is Galton and what kind of things did he believe? Daniel: Well, Galton was a remarkable man. He was a cousin of Charles Darwin. He was influenced by the Origin of Species. And he was curious about lots of things. He had gone to Cambridge, he was a failed medical student. He couldn't stand blood. Then he went to Cambridge where he studied mathematics and didn't do very well. And he was at sixes and sevens but very well to do, and so he took himself in the 1840s and 50s to the Middle East and then to Africa where he established a reputation of considerable authority as a geographer. And he came back to London and became a figure in geographical circles. But then in the mid-1860s, he got interested in following the publication of his cousin Charlie's book in differences in the quality of human beings. And he started with analysis of heredity and talent and did some biographical analyses connecting the genealogies of people who succeeded in Victorian society. His notions of success did not extend to the business very much at all, or indeed even much to, the arts. His notion of success was fundamentally scholastic and scientific, and to a certain degree, in the practices of state; that is politics and government. And so he mapped the relationship between people in different generations who succeeded in these areas and were prominent in British life and found that there was a very strong hereditary connection. They were all in some small cluster of families. And so he came to believe that there were powerful hereditary forces that shaped human beings and their ability to succeed at least in the areas that he studied. He decided that he wanted to figure out the laws of heredity because he convinced himself that heredity in human beings is very important for qualities of not only physical characteristics like blue eyes but also of talent and character. And so he couldn't experiment with human beings, but he did figure out that he could experiment with peas. And he was devoted to quantifying everything. He said, "Whenever you can, count!" While he was in Africa, for example, he was interested in the size of the female bodies and their shapes among the African natives, especially their tendency to have large back sides. And so he couldn't go and ask them to allow him to measure them, so he measured them at a distance through a telescope, and quantified and analyzed the results. He applied the same quantitative techniques to peas and discovered what we call now the law of regression, and then he wanted to see if law of regression worked in human beings. And I say he couldn't experiment with human beings, but he could take their measurements. He invited human beings, people in London, to an exhibition in 1884 where he measured the, say, height and the distance between the nose and the fingertips of parents and children, you know, such things. And he found that there were correlations, mathematically, in how they grouped themselves. They were not one-to-one correlations, but there were correlations in the sense that there was a strong statistical propensity for children to be like their parents, and so he devised from this the law of statistical correlation. And regression and correlation have proved to be ever since two of the most profoundly important statistical tools for analyzing a whole bunch of different things. The point I want to make here is that he was not only eccentric in his interest and devoted to the study of heredity of a certain kind, but also that he established a research programme as part of eugenics. And right all the way through the heyday of the eugenics movement, we have eugenics as a social movement and also as a research programme. For example, one more thing about Galton is that in his later years, he wanted to institutionalize the study of heredity for eugenic purposes, and he gave University College London a lot of money to establish the Galton Eugenics Laboratory, which became a major center for research in eugenics and then ultimately, in human heredity. And then today, it's one of the leading centers of research in human heredity and human genetics that we have. Mike: So let's talk a little about what eugenics says. When most people think of eugenics they think of selective breeding or maybe the Holocaust, but that really discounts kind of the breadth of the theory and its popularity and influence. What kind of people became eugenicists and what kinds of things did they say? Daniel: Well first, it's important to recognise that eugenics was a worldwide movement. It wasn't confined to England or to the United States or to Germany. It expressed itself in all of the major countries of Europe and had corollary movements in Latin America and in Asia, and to some degree in the Middle East. It's a kind of universal phenomenon among people who were of a certain class. We would recognise them as middle to upper middle class and also people who were educated and scholastically interested. They also tended to be, in this country and in England, to be White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant. They were, how shall I put it? They were distressed in this country by the negative sides of urbanizing and industrializing society, with its sharp distinctions and deep distinctions of class and economic standing. They were apprehensive that the lower income groups were out-reproducing upper income groups and thus leading to the degeneration of the population, they thought. And they responded to this with a eugenics movement, drawing on the new biology of genetics and the cultural context of social Darwinism. So what they did was to invent two different kinds of eugenics, one which they called positive eugenics, and the other was negative eugenics. And the positive eugenics was aimed at people over the middle and upper classes, mainly white Anglo Saxon Protestants, with the idea that they should reproduce more. And they devised various means to incentivize that reproduction. Then they invented negative eugenics, which was to discourage lower income groups from reproducing as much as they were. That's basically how it all started and what the outlines of their commitments and programmes were. Mike: And there were kind of some camps of eugenicists, right? I mean, there was like socialists, there was conservative people who were eugenicists... Daniel: Right. There were– Eugenics was not by any means a uniform movement. For example, here in the United States there were African-American eugenicists; there were Jewish eugenicists; there were no Catholic eugenicists of any standing to speak up because the church, the Roman Catholic Church, strongly opposed any kind of interference with human reproduction, ranging on one side to contraception and abortion, and on the other side to sterilisation. So, you have disparate groups. And eugenics was embraced by a number of people on the left, socialists in England and the United States, and what they shared with people on the right was the tantalizing faith that the new science of genetics could be deployed to improve the human race. Now, they were encouraged in this regard because in the early 20th century, late 19 to early 20th century, science commanded enormous authority. It was changing the world manifestly every day in ways that people experienced, in telephones, in movies, in automobiles, in aircraft, and in radio. These were forms of physical technologies, and so people thought, "Well, now that we have genetics, why can't we do this in biology as well?" And people were doing it on the farm by improving a corn or pigs or what have you, farm animals and farm plants. And so the idea that you could extend it to a human being was seemed perfectly natural. The socialists and the conservatives, however, had much different attitudes towards one particular element in the eugenics movement, and that was the role and rights of women. Conservatives wanted to devote women to the reproduction of– You know, the “good women” to the reproduction of more children, and only in the context of marriage. Whereas the Socialists were much more inclined to embrace free love and new ways of women taking their place in society. So they were at loggerheads on those two things, and for that reason they also disagreed about birth control at least for some years. So, it was a coalition of ideologically different groups and religiously different groups. Mike: Now eugenics is kind of unique among scientific theories in that it was popularized largely outside of the academy. In a way, it also kind of pioneered modern grant funding. Talk about how eugenics became popular. Daniel: Well, it became popular in the way that lots of things were becoming popular in the early 20th century. There are mass circulation magazines, for example, by the 1920s–magazines like Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post. There were many books published on eugenics, many articles and magazines by popular lectures. There were some films on eugenics. There were also lectures and exhibitions. We have, for example, many state fairs, agricultural fairs in the South and Midwest, and in these places the American Eugenics Society mounted exhibits. And also things that were called the Fitter family contest where people could enter as individuals or families, and they would be judged. And these contests occurred in what were called the human stock section that is distinct from the agricultural stock. And many families entered these contests. If you entered as an individual you could win a Capper medal in the state of Kansas. It's hard to tell exactly what made these families fitter, but one indicator is that they all had to take the Wassermann test for syphilis. So there's a certain middle class morality that suffused the eugenics movement as well. What also made it popular was that the eugenics literature allowed you, or the eugenics ideal allowed people, in middle classes to discuss issues that were not comfortably discussed publicly for the most part. And I have in mind issues of sex, of pregnancy, and of child rearing, but especially sex and pregnancy. Since if you're interested in the improvement of the race biologically, inevitably, you have to talk about sex; who's having sex with whom? And talk about contraception and so on. Eugenics enabled people to talk about those things publicly or attend lectures on them publicly. Mike: Okay. Let's talk about what the eugenicists were advocating for. What was their agenda politically? Daniel: Well as I said, in this country and in England, eugenicists were mainly White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. They were distressed by the increasing number of lower-income poor people in the cities. They were also even more distressed by the behavioural characteristics that they attributed to these people, notably alcoholism, criminality, poverty, and prostitution. They attributed these characteristics to bad biology. They were also, in an overlapping way with what I just said, disturbed by the enormous wave of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe that flooded into the United States from the 1880s to the late teens or the early 20s. They thought that these people were biologically inferior and disproportionately responsible for the social sins that I've mentioned, such as alcoholism, etc. So what they wanted to do then– And in addition, they also began to have access to quantitative demonstrations or evidence, allegedly, that these people were mentally inferior, that they had lower intelligence. And where that came from was World War I and the administration of an IQ tests to the 1.7 million American men who were drafted into the US Army. The tests were developed and so widely administered in the army because the army had the unprecedented task of trying to place all these people in suitable tasks, whether they were going to be in infantry or drive jeeps--not jeeps, that's an anachronism--but drive cars or be in the medical service or whatever; Quartermaster Corps, Signal Corps, etc. They had to find out if they were mentally capable– what task they were mentally suited for. So way after the war the results of the IQ tests were published by the National Research Council, and differentiated in terms of country of national origin, region of the United States, and so on, and also by race-- black or white, etc. And it didn't take too much of a high intelligence to figure out--that is, you didn't have to be a rocket scientist--to take this data and conclude that the recent immigrants had lower IQs as compared with native Whites, and to conclude even further that Blacks were simply inferior to everybody. So all of these trends together--the social behaviors, the disproportionate representation of lower income groups especially recent immigrants among the impoverished and the imprisoned, and the IQ tests that reinforced the idea that they were really not very smart–led to a series of legislative proposals. Nationally, eugenicists provided a scientific rationale for the immigration restriction movement that culminated in the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, which grossly discriminated against immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Secondly, at the State level, the eugenicists deploying their data were strong advocates of eugenic sterilization laws, and they were passed in several dozen-- well, not several dozen-- but a dozen or more states before World War I. They were declared unconstitutional by state courts and appeals courts in the States on grounds that they were cruel and unusual punishment because some of these laws required castration, or that they provided unequal protection of the laws. I mean, they didn't conform to equal protection because the only people eligible for eugenic sterilization were those who were incarcerated in homes with the so called feeble-minded, and an unequal protection of the laws, and that they violated the 14th Amendment due process. So in the early 1920s these laws were revised, and a model sterilization law was developed by a guy named Harry Laughlin at the Cold Spring Harbor Eugenics Record Office and taken up in the state of Virginia as a model law. It provided for due process with a hearing, it did not provide for castration, and so on. And they proposed to sterilize a woman named Carrie Buck under this new law in the early 1920s, and they intended this as a model case–a test of the law and its constitutionality. And eventually it made its way through the state courts, appeals courts and into the Supreme Court. Mike: Can you talk a bit about who Carrie Buck was and kind of what her situation was? Daniel: Sure. Carrie Buck was not an immigrant, she was a native Virginian. She was lower income, not well educated, and she was living in a foster home when she was a high teenager, I forget her exact age. The later research showed that she was raped by the son in the house. The authorities at the time didn't know that, but it was sufficient for them that she became pregnant with an illegitimate child. So she had this child and–I'm blocking on the name, I'll come to it. It'll pop up in my head in a minute–and she was consigned, because she had an illegitimate child, to the Virginia Colony for the Feebleminded. Illegitimacy was enough to tag a woman as feeble minded. She was put in the institution, her mother was there as well, and they were given IQ tests, and they scored in the feebleminded range. Oh, Vivian. Vivian was the name of the little girl, Carrie's child. And a nurse was assigned to test her at the age of eight months and came back, of course she couldn't give her an IQ test, but she came back and said she had a "odd look" about her and therefore cataloged her as feebleminded as well. So there you had it, you see, with Carrie's mother Emma, and Carrie, and then Vivian, all of them found to be feebleminded in the Virginia colony. And so their feeblemindedness was putatively taken to be strongly hereditary in character. And this was introduced as evidence in the Supreme court hearing in the case of the Buck v. Bell in 1927. So the court-- have I told you enough about Carrie Buck? Mike: Yeah, yeah. Sure. Daniel: I mean, and she was characterized as quote "poor White trash" by this same fellow Laughlin, who didn't go to Virginia to examine her, but was given a case record about her, and he characterized her that way. So his evidence was introduced, and the evidence of three generations of imbeciles, in Carrie Buck and her mother and Vivian, were all introduced as evidence. And the Court ruled by a majority of eight to one to uphold the constitutionality of the Eugenic Sterilization Law in Virginia. The majority decision was delivered by a very progressive jurist, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. And the decision was in a perverse way, a progressive decision. What do I mean by that? Well, the courts before the 1920s, were involved in litigation concerning the legitimacy or the constitutionality of laws passed to regulate business. Businesses, corporations, claim that they were individuals and that these laws were unconstitutional because they were being deprived of life, liberty and property without due process of law. Well, they had due process in this procedural sense, but they were claiming due process in what came to be called a substantive sense. That is, the substance and the right that was being taken away. Their substantive claim was that they had a right to do with their corporations as they saw fit, to charge whatever prices, for example, they wanted. And Holmes was in the school of progressive jurists who said that substantive due process can also be limited, and the substantive right is not absolute and you can take away a substantive right for the public good–the public good being a more economically equitable society. So he applied that same kind of reasoning and Buck v. Bell. The claim was that the Carrie Bucks of the world threatened the public good by reproducing because they were biologically degenerate in character. And so it was legitimate, according to Holmes, to sterilize Carrie even though it took away her substantive right to reproduce. And what trumped her substantive right to reproduce was precisely the service of the public good trumping that right produced. Which is to say that by sterilizing the the Carrie Bucks of the world, the United States would be safeguarded from the degeneration of its population. So it's a progressive decision in that that Holmes, in character of his beliefs, said that the public good dominates Carrie's right to reproduce. It puts Carrie in the same substantive relationship to the public good as a corporation, and they were claiming that they had the right to charge whatever prices they want, for example. And Holmes took for granted the evidence introduced by people like Harry Laughlin that feeblemindedness was hereditary in the Buck line, and a dictum that as part of Holmes' decision, is rung infamously down the annals of courts jurisprudence, Holmes wrote that, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough," meaning Emma, Carrie and her daughter Vivian.  Mike: And so– Daniel: By the way, that decision has never been flatly repudiated, Buck v. Bell. It has been undermined enormously by later jurisprudence on the 14th Amendment and so on, so that you cannot forcibly sterilize a woman nowadays legally by invoking some kind of eugenic law. But it might interest your listeners to know that Buck v. Bell was invoked by the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade in service of the following point: does the state have a right to interfere with the human reproductive process? And as we know now, as a matter of high public interest, the Court in Roe v Wade says the State has no right to interfere with reproduction to the point of quickening. But then once quickening occurs, and the fetus acquires the ability to live outside the womb, then it does have the right to interfere, and the Court invoked Buck v. Bell in saying that. Mike: So between the Immigration Control Act and the sterilization laws, how long are these policies in effect? Daniel: Well, the Immigration Restriction Act was in place until the mid 1960s. It was then revised, and the national origins criteria that discriminated against people from Eastern and Southern Europe was abolished. That produced the wave of immigration that we've known heavily from the Middle East and Asia and Latin America since the mid '60s. The sterilization laws, as I say, were never frontally struck down, but they have been undermined since the expansion of the reach of the 14th Amendment beginning in the 1940s and since. But this is not to say that eugenic sterilization did not persist after World War II. It did until probably the very early 1970s. The reasons for it were different, you know, state sterilization were different after World War II. For example, North Carolina which had hardly done any eugenic sterilization before the War, got into it in a big way after the War because the people who were winding up in the hospital, which is where the sterilizations were conducted, tended to be lower income African American women. And it's not a state policy, but it was sort of on the initiative of the doctors in the hospitals. But there is a kind of sympathetic support of it on the part of the State because the New Deal measure of Aid to Families with Dependent Children gave rise to so-called welfare mothers who were in North Carolina disproportionately Black. And so, North Carolina sterilized a lot of Black women in the hospitals, not by state law but by apprehension on the cost of welfare. I should add, though, that there's an excellent study of North Carolina sterilization, which reminds us once again that it is all kind of complicated insofar as women in the relationship to eugenics are concerned.A number of the women who wound up as a candidate for sterilization in North Carolina, as I say, were Black. They were also already the mothers of multiple children. And they did not have access to birth control, and they asked to be sterilized. They volunteered for it because it was the only way open to them of limiting their births after having a number of children. So it was liberating for some fraction of the African-American women who were sterilized in North Carolina. But anyway, the process of sterilization continued until the early 70s when it was widely exposed and condemned. And it's pretty much ceased since then. Mike: You also discuss in the book a distinction between mainline and reform eugenics. Was this terminology used among eugenicists themselves? Daniel: Not at all. I invented the terms in the book– Mike: Okay. Can you explain the distinction then? Daniel: –to distinguish between the early eugenicists, whom I called mainline, and the eugenicists, or the people who embraced the idea of eugenics, that is improving the human race and improving the human family as well beginning in the 1930s. They were reformers in the sense that they wanted to use biological knowledge to improve the race on the whole, but also they were much more focused on the family than were the earlier eugenicists. What mainly differentiated them also from the so called mainline eugenicists was that they recognised the degree of racism that pervaded the American Eugenics Movement, and they were staunchly opposed to any kind of racist eugenics. They just wanted a eugenics that was based purely on human talents and character, including medical features of human beings with regard to, say, deleterious diseases like Huntington's and Tay–Sachs and so on, and wanted to deploy human genetics to good familial and social ends. And so part of their programme was not only to try to get rid of racism in American eugenics, but also to establish eugenics on a sound scientific basis. Their efforts played a significant role in emancipating the study of human heredity from eugenics, and setting and establishing it as a field that we call human genetics rather than eugenics. Mike: Okay. Now, neo-eugenicists, nazis, and people who don't know better like to say that eugenics declined because the end of the Second World War made it unpopular because of the Nazis, but that isn't quite true. How did eugenics really die? Daniel: Well, the idea of eugenics, I should add, hasn't fully died. Mike: Right. Daniel: People are still eager, even more so than ever, to have healthy children. Now that is taken by some to be a kind of neo-eugenics. I disagree with that point of view. If you just want to have a healthy child, or don't want to have a child that is doomed to die at the age of three as Tay-Sachs children are, then that seems to me a legitimate reason for a) developing knowledge of human genetics, and b) deploying it in reproduction, conception, and pregnancy. And millions of people make use of that kind of knowledge nowadays through prenatal diagnosis and abortion. So it's not eugenics in the sense that it's trying to make a better society or a better human race, but it's simply a means of having a healthy, happy family. In that sense, the ideal of controlling human reproduction in a genetic way for improvement is about the family rather than the human race. But eugenics as a social movement did die off. First, a key feature, a central feature of what I call mainline eugenics was precisely that the State was invoked in its advancement. You can't have it, you know, immigration restriction without the US government. And you can't have state eugenic sterilization laws without state governments. What died away was the willingness of people to invoke the state, deploy the state, enlist it if you will, in the control of human reproduction in a eugenic fashion. The reason for that was partly because of the response to the Holocaust and the Nazis, because there was the invocation of the state for these nefarious purposes in human reproduction to an extreme degree. Secondly, there were all these extensions of the 14th Amendment that made it dicey, or in many respects, impossible for the state to interfere in human reproduction in the way of the mainline eugenicists. But then also, there was a whole congerie of scientific developments in social sciences and in genetics itself that undercut the scientific doctrine of mainline eugenics. So the recognition, for example, that human characteristics are shaped to a significant degree by environment as well as by genes, that is by nurture as well as by nature. Secondly, the idea that the characteristics that people admire so much, like ability to do well in a scholastic test or get good grades or be a doctor or lawyer or what have you, that those are not genetically simple to a degree that they are genetic at all. They are undoubtedly, to some degree genetic, but they involve clusters of many genes. And no one to this day knows how to figure out what goes into the human characteristics and behaviors that we admire as well as deplore. I say deplore by criminality, the quest for genetic accounts of criminality go on, but they rise up and then they are slapped down by further research repeatedly. Then there are the characteristics that we admire and willing to pay a lot for such as the ability to put a basketball through a hoop at 30 feet. Nobody knows what role genes play in that either, and it's gonna be a long time if ever before they figure it out. So, the complexity of the human organism, if you will, has also helped to undercut either both positive eugenics and negative eugenics, each in its own somewhat different way but in very similar ways. So those certainly helped undercut eugenics and basically destroy it as a social movement. Then there's also the rise to power and advancement in society of precisely the groups who were the targets of eugenicists in the early 20th century, that is the then new immigrants coming from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe–Italians, Poles, Hungary, Hungarian and so on. They have done very well in American society, in all branches of it. And so that in and of itself, they are kind of a living repudiation of the early doctrines of eugenics, and they provide a kind of strong caution for us in embracing the temptation of any kind of new eugenics of social nature. So all of those things together had a lot to do with corroding the foundations of eugenics and removing it basically as a social movement. I go back to in the contemporary scene in these kinds of analyses and say that, when we talk about the new reproductive technologies or CRISPR or what have you, and say that they're giving rise, or can give rise, to a new eugenics, I just think that's counterproductive and it doesn't get us anywhere. And for my money, I think we should–[laughs] What I'm saying is putting myself out of business, if you will-- just get rid of the idea of eugenics in discussing what goes on in contemporary molecular biology and reproductive technologies, and talk about them in and of themselves, rather than try to tie them to any kind of eugenics. Mike: Yeah, I'd actually kind of agree with that. Because looking at what eugenicists who are still around do now, none of them are doing genetic or molecular biological research, right? They're all psychologists doing twin studies– Daniel: Well, I can't say. I can't say. I mean, there are some biologists who are neo-eugenicists, but I just don't see any widespread support for them in the scientific community or elsewhere. Mike: Okay so I asked this same question to my last guest when we were talking about the science of sex differences in the brain, but I think it works equally well here. So what can we learn from the story of eugenics both as scientists and as people who listen to scientists? Daniel: Well, that's a very good question Michael. It's hard to provide any kind of blanket answer. And any answer might lead to counter examples that are not very attractive. So let me illustrate what I just said. I think what we need to do in responding to these things, or these kind of dreams, is to be cautious when claims are made in the name of science, especially those of long term consequence that border on the utopian, for example that we can engineer human beings, etc. I just don't think that's in the offing. But even when more modest claims are made, I think we just have to be cautious. It's good idea to raise an eyebrow whenever you hear them and whenever people are asked to turn them into social, economic political movements. An advantageous way of threading this needle is to encourage people to be as scientifically literate as possible. That itself is a utopian quest. But I think that it behooves us all to do that. Now we also need to pay attention as to whether any scientific claims, as in the case of sex differences between men and women, need to be treated with particular caution when they imply anything about human rights. And that is, you know, that we ought to curtail human rights of any kind or in any group because of alleged biological claims, or privilege others because of biological claims. I think we need to be very cautious about that. I say this can be hazardous and cut more than one way, one of these points I'm making, because I automatically right away think about the the claims of the anti-vaxxers nowadays. They say we shouldn't pay attention to scientific authority, that they're interfering with human rights and liberty etc. So you have to be judicious in the way you think about this degree of skepticism. Skepticism of the kind I'm talking about does not extend to the anti-vaxxers because virtually the entire scientific community is of one voice and one mind in saying that vaccines work, and that they're socially important, and medically important, etc. Whereas, I think in other claims about sex differences between men and women, you will find sharp divisions in the scientific community. So we need to pay attention to how the scientific community is thinking about these things as well. Mike: Okay well, Dr. Kevles, it has been an honor to have you on The Nazi Lies Podcast to talk about eugenics. Again, the book is In the Name of Eugenics out from Harvard University Press, an absolute classic in the history of science. Thanks again for coming on the podcast. Daniel: Thank you, Michael. Pleasure to chat with you. Mike: If you liked this episode of The Nazi Lies Podcast and want more, consider subscribing to our Patreon. Patrons get exclusive access to early episodes, even earlier access to show notes, access to the calendar, and a membership slot in our book club on Discord. Come join us weekly as we read and discuss the books of our upcoming guests. Go to patreon.com/nazilies to sign up. [Theme song]

My name is Sarah Chapman. I’ve been married for almost 20 years to my husband, Trent, together we have 5 children and live in Lehi, Utah. I am an author of two books, “MindStrength for Women” and “Underneath it all.....You’re Naked” Both of these books were written after a very hard period of time in life. One was about my physical journey to coming back to myself and the other is my sexuality journey of overcoming my judgment about sex to becoming more curious. I went about teaching women about sexual health for 2 years and mainly surrounding the female sexual response cycle. I taught women that you can’t find freedom in your understanding of your sexuality until you have overcome the deep rooted beliefs about sex. I found my own freedom from it that is why I wrote a book about it. Now my focus is on creating a community of women where we come together weekly to share the physical, mental and sexual aspects of our lives and have meaningful discussions with a workbook followed by an exercise class. Because movement creates emotion. You can find me: Instagram : @mindstrength.for.women MindStrength for Women Facebook Group Email: sarah@mindstrengthmentor.com   Full Transcript:  00:00 Narrator: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married, Latter-Day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy, Daniel is a Marriage and Family Therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel on this episode of Improving Intimacy.   [music]   00:28 Daniel: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. On today’s episode we have Sarah Chapman, who is an author; and we’re excited to review her book with her today and kinda learn her journey to getting to this book. Sarah, welcome to the show.   00:44 Sarah: Thank you for having me, Daniel. I appreciate this, it’s really exciting.   00:48 Daniel: I’m very excited. As someone who’s writing a book, I also 1) kinda selfishly learn your journey, (mine’s been a very difficult one). And, so I may get a little selfish in my inquiries here--but more importantly, I’m curious to hear more about you. Who are you as a wife, as a person, as a mother? Tell us a little about yourself and what got you to this point.   01:12 Sarah: Sure, love to. So, I (we), Trent and I, my husband and I, will be going on 19 years of marriage this September. I have 5 children, I currently live in Utah. We lived in California for a time, actually, in San Diego area actually. Miss that place, for sure. But, yeah, I first basically grew up in an LDS home and I grew up in a family with 8 children, and I’m 6th of the 8. [...] In our home we didn’t talk about anything remotely close to our bodies. We were very surface type of family. We didn’t really talk about hard things. I wouldn’t say that we were an authentic family. But, at the same time, I did feel loved by my parents and I felt that they were providing me with a really great education, secularly as well as spiritually. And so, I didn’t feel like I was necessarily neglected in the way I was thinking.    02:29 Sarah: However, growing up as a teenager in the 90s, I’d run around with some friends who were sexually active and seeing the naive young teenager that I was, I kinda looked at them and viewed them as people who were naughty girls, right? And so, I remember church lessons here and there. It wasn’t very often, but I do remember those specific metaphors that were shared. I actually did get the “chewed up piece of gum” kind of analogy, which maybe a lot of your audience here might have gotten.   03:10 Daniel: Oh…(sarcastically) excellent. Yeah.   03:13 Sarah: You know? And then I also just really created a lot of...I would just look at the word sex and just immediately think that it was just this dirty thing. However, there was also this other part of me that was being told that it was this sacred thing, and you don’t talk about it, right? And so I was just kinda like this....back and forth in my head about like, “what is this?” Sure, I had boyfriends in high school and I do remember getting close a couple times where I feel like my body was in a state of arousal. Obviously I didn’t know what it was, because I didn’t know my body then. But looking back, I’m like, “Oh, that’s what that tingling sensation was when I was getting close to that boy, oh! Okay, right.”    04:06 Sarah: I can say that now, but at the time, as a teenager, I didn’t at all. And I never (like when I would shower and stuff), like I would just hurry and shower really quick and then get out. I never wanted to self-pleasure or anything, at all. I didn’t even know my body. And so, come the time of marriage, the night before I’m to be married, my mom thinks it’s a great time to talk about sex. She pulls me aside and she basically asked me, “You’re gonna have sex tomorrow night, right?” and I was like, “well, I guess…”. I mean, I kinda remember my teenage years back in high school telling me that a penis goes inside a vagina, but then I was like...I plugged my ears like “I don’t wanna hear this, I don’t wanna hear this!” I just kinda ignored what they were gonna tell me. I knew just that fact: that a penis goes into a vagina and that was it. My mom was like, “Well, here’s a book. Go ahead and read this book.” And it was the book from...is it called, Between Husband and Wife by Lamb? Dr. Lamb?   05:14 Daniel: Oh yeah, oh yeah. 05:15 Sarah: Yeah, it was that book. And I was like, “Mom, I don’t have time to read this book.” And she’s like, “Well, you’ll eventually refer back to it.” And that was it. That was my sex talk from my mom. I was just basically thrown into the fire the night of my wedding. It was very traumatic. Very long, exhausting night as any honeymooners would imagine, who had never had sex before, trying to figure things out, trying to figure out our bodies. Anyways, it was just a mess. And I called my mom the next day, just in tears, like, “I just got married and this just happened to me.” I didn’t go into detail with her because we don’t...we don’t talk about details or anything like that. But I really wanted to, like, it was like this cry for help. Like, “why didn’t you tell me these things? Why didn’t you help me to understand how my body works in this way? That it’s supposed to be designed for this?” Anyway. That’s just kinda the cycle that happened for I’d say the first 16 years of my marriage. That was the only thing we really fought about in our marriage, was sex. It wasn’t money or anything, it was always about sex.   06:42 Daniel: You mean, the issues were always about sex? 06:45 Sarah: The issues, yeah. 06:46 Daniel: Okay. 06:47 Sarah: Yeah, thank you. Yeah. The issues around sex. He would always try to approach me and help to try to fix me, right? Because of course he wanted a decent experience, too. But, at the same time, I was looking at him like, “Oh...this is all you want. You just want my body.” And that was it. I viewed myself as this tool for him.   07:09 Daniel: So let me pause you right there. What you just stated was big! It was huge. So, you viewed yourself as a tool for him to get satisfied, is that what you’re saying? 07:22 Sarah: Exactly, yeah.   07:24 Daniel: And that was because of…   07:25 Sarah: You know, because I never...I never wanted to receive that pleasure for myself. Because I once again thought it was like...I thought I was a bad girl if I did that, right? So, even when I did have an orgasm, I’d immediately feel guilty every single time afterwards because of this shame that I’d created in my head about me having pleasure. So then, I viewed him as, “oh, he’s just using my body, and sex is for him, and orgasm is something that he just needs all the time.” 08:03 Daniel: I wanna explore that a little bit, if you’re okay with it. I know you bring it up in indirect ways, in fact, in your book Underneath it All... and I apologize to the audience, I didn’t mention the name of your book, Underneath it All...You’re Naked. I love that title by the way, I think it’s excellent.   08:18 Sarah: Thank you   08:19 Daniel: And your subtitle is “shedding light on misconceptions about sex from a Christian wife to Christian women.” But what you said right there was, you couldn’t allow yourself to experience pleasure. If you’re okay with that, let’s explore that a little bit more. You’re not the first to say this on my podcast and I hear it a lot from clients. What did it mean to you to experience pleasure? You’re married now, you knew clearly beforehand that (or, atleast, your value system says that) before marriage, I’m not gonna experience this. You’re saying: you jump in the shower, you get out as fast as you can because you didn’t want to self-stimulate or do anything wrong.   08:56 Sarah: Yep   08:57 Daniel: So now you’re married. What was the barrier for you in allowing yourself to experience that joy?   09:08 Sarah: Well, I think you’re basically asking what kinda shifted that focus for me? 09:16 Daniel: Well, what continued? A lot of men will get into relationships, they know they’re not supposed to pleasure before marriage but now they’re in marriage and they’re willing to let it all go--kinda the dynamic you just explained with you and your husband.   09:28 Sarah: Yeah.   09:29 Daniel: But, what prevented you, I guess...maybe, is it a shift? I guess that’s the question I’m asking you is, is it a shift? Or, it seemed more like though, you carried this perspective: “I’m not allowed to have sexual pleasure even in marriage.” Which seems incongruent with the thoughts and beliefs you had before marriage. What was the barrier to...I mean, you saw your husband having pleasure, did that peak your interest and say, “How can I have that pleasure?” or was it this continued, “I can’t have this. It’s too shameful, it’s too hurtful.” 10:04 Sarah: No, it was definitely too hurtful to me. I would just, lay there. I always like to say I’d lay there like a dead fish, maybe you’ve heard that term before. I would just allow him to just do whatever he wanted to my body. You know? And I was really good at faking orgasm. It was definitely something just to get him off me as soon as I could, right? Because I just felt dirty the whole time, when he was on me. It’s amazing how much conditioning that I had created in my head, and this belief that really ate away at my soul. To know that this shame enveloped my whole body and created a wedge in my marriage to where I looked at him as somebody that just used me. You know?    11:10 Daniel: So, I’m really curious. What took you from that experience to what you say on page 56? It’s this idea of being able to embrace very differently. Practice patience, self-compassion, and have a sense of humor about it. That seems like a complete 180 shift.    11:29 Sarah: Yeah. 11:30 Daniel: What was the journey you had from what you’re experiencing, that “pleasure is painful and icky” to this wonderful perspective of even having a sense of humor about it? What led you there?   11:41 Sarah: Well, not an overnight thing. I’ll just say that right now. [laughs] It definitely was, you know, I had this moment--this wake-up call. Sixteen years in, I was fed up. Basically telling myself over and over and over, “Sarah why can’t you figure this out? Why is this so hard for you? Why can’t you just get over this? Why do you look at sex in this perspective?” Just this why, why why. I finally had this moment of surrender. I didn’t talk to anybody, Daniel. I suffered in silence for years. I didn’t talk to my sisters, definitely not my mom, right? Not even my girlfriends, nobody. 12:30 Daniel: That’s what we’re taught. We’re taught to not even talk to our loved one’s about it, even our spouse.   12:34 Sarah: Exactly, exactly. And of course, then Trent would ask, my husband would ask me, “what is it you want?” And I’m like, “well, I don’t know what i want.” I’ve never allowed myself to have conversations and talk about it. He would just ask me question after question to open my mind and see the possibility and then I’d shut him down all the time, right? It was just this constant battle. So finally, it was just this one day, I called Suzanne, right? I refer to her in my book a lot. She was this woman who I met randomly in Guatemala of all places. I just look back and I’m like, it was by divine design that I would meet her that summer of 2017 so that she could open my eyes.   13:20 Daniel: I actually love what you said about Suzanne, is that she started her journey because of romance novels. I like that.   13:29 Sarah: Yeah. I’m not a big romance novel kind of girl but you know, some people are. Anyway we got to talking. We literally...our airbnbs were literally across from each other. I didn’t know Spanish, she didn’t know Spanish, it was a Sunday afternoon, we had nothing else to do--so we got to know each other. And we literally...like, she just opened up to me. We talked about our sex lives, and this ws the very first time I was like, this is a really fun conversation! It was the first time I actually looked at it with clear eyes to see the potential in me and the hope. Because she had already kinda gone through her own little journey, because she was basically me. She gave me hope to look at it with a different set of eyes. I went from a place of--this is where I talk a lot about, in my book--this view of going from a judgement place to being more curious. She allowed me, she gave me permission. It’s interesting how as women, we need permission, you know? 14:44 Daniel: What I’m curious though, is, what was it about Suzanne that allowed you to open up? you have been fighting this for so many years.   14:52 Sarah: Yeah.   14:53 Daniel: What prevented you from putting up another barrier? “Nope, I’m not talking about that, that’s betraying my husband, that’s betraying myself…”   14:57 Sarah: That’s true.   14:58 Daniel: What was it about her that allowed you to open up?    15:03 Sarah: Good question.   15:04 Daniel: I think that’s the biggest thing with women is finding that opportunity and how, because they get into this same place where “I can’t talk about this and I won’t talk about it and I don’t care how familiar I am with you”--so what was it about her>   15:15 Sarah: Yeah. Well, one of the things that I had been studying and learning about...I love Brené Brown, and at that point in my life I’d really been learning vulnerability and authenticity. When she just started talking to me and exposing herself to me, I was .... she gave me permission to therefore share my things, right? There’s power when you can start a conversation and be like, “I’m messed up.” You know? “Here’s all these parts of me that I don’t understand, can you help me kinda walk through this?”    15:53 Sarah: And that’s what she was for me, you know? And I think that’s what really created that safe place for me. She was like my safe place, because we could relate on so many levels, right? And I think when there’s vulnerability and authenticity in any friendship or relationship, there’s definitely power behind that--to be able to know, “hey, I’m not alone. We can do this together.” And I feel like that’s kinda what I’ve been doing now...you know, here’s my mess and I’m creating it into a message and helping other women to understand “you’re not alone. You’re not broken. There’s hope for you.” And I think that’s what's beautiful about this. And that’s what made that shift for me, is to allow myself to just open up, receive the information from this trusted (well, quick-trusted friend, right? I’d just met her) and just share all of me with her. It was quite an experience, that was for sure.   17:00 Daniel: So it sounds like Brené Brown gave you that courage,    17:04 Sarah: Yeah, exactly.   17:04 Daniel: that platform, or, not platform, kinda that foundation that it’s okay to be vulnerable here. But what I think is important for the audience to be aware of is, you’re still really new in your journey. This was very recently. So, you went to, on that trip back in, if I remember right, 2017? 17:20 Sarah: 2017, yeah. 17:21 Daniel: So you’re only like, three years into this. 17:25 Sarah: Yeah. 17:25 Daniel: That is phenomenal! You cranked out a book in sharing your journey. That’s...   17:31 Sarah: Yeah. 17:32 Daniel: So, emotionally, what is that like for you right now? So, kinda step away from the book and this narrative. You really are, in the context of people who are learning themselves, you’re really at the beginning of this journey. So, emotionally, what are you going through right now?   17:52 Sarah: Emotionally, I mean, you know what? I started it...I just consumed as much information as I could. I finally got to this place where I could..   18:06 Daniel: Do you feel like you’re a lot more confident? Or do you feel like you still have a lot of insecurities or vulnerabilities around it? Where do you feel like you’re at? 18:15 Sarah: I totally feel confident in my sexuality now, and that I can say that--I wouldn’t say 100%, for sure--I’m still learning and growing and I think that’s what’s great about understanding your sexuality because it’s going to always evolve and change because there’s just more things we’re gonna find out about ourselves. But, oh man, just to think about where I’ve...even just two years ago...to where I am now, and being able to have emotional connection with my husband, and him understanding how me, as a woman, how I work. And, you know, he takes the time to emotionally connect with me before even getting into the bedroom, you know? And understanding how my body needs to go through this sexual response cycle, which, I talk about that in my book. There’s a lot of therapists out there that talk about the different sexual response cycles that we go through, right? 19:20 Daniel: Exactly. 19:21 Sarah: And just, understanding that.   19:22 Daniel: So you gave yourself permission to get here so that you can help your husband understand your body because in the past, you know, he’s asking what you want, and as you said, you’re there as a dead fish. Just, finish it out. 19:33Sarah: Yeah. 19:34 Daniel: That, I think, is critical. Like I posted in our Improving Intimacy group today this idea of, especially with women, “okay, I’ve given myself permission, now it’s scary.” Was it scary to give yourself permission? Were you afraid of what you discovered? 19:50 Sarah: Oh, yeah! Yeah. So, of course, we’re going to have those fears. It’s part of our human nature, especially when we’ve created so much judgement and shame around it. There’s going to be fear that comes up. And there’s definitely going to be things that we might come across we don’t quite understand, or we definitely judge really quickly, right?    20:18 Sarah: Masturbation being one of them for me. That was a huge, like...I didn’t want to enter that specific subject until I felt comfortable in my body first, and learning the anatomy of my body first, before I could venture into that. So I feel like it’s a series of stepping stones. You kinda have to evolve into and work into. As I started reading all these books, that’s kind of what happened after I met with Suzanne, she gave me a couple books to read--and from there, I just took off. I was like, thirsting for knowledge for the first time in sex. Once I’d read one book, I went to the next book, and then I went to the next book. Just reading so much content that I could get my hands on. It was this, like, basically cry for help and just learning on my couch from all different kinds of therapists and sex experts and human sexuality professors and so many things, and I just was like, “oh my gosh! I’m finally in a place where I can receive this!” And yes, there’s gonna be content out there, once again, that we just kinda have to like, pick and choose, I don’t know, what resonates with you? 21:39 Daniel: I think that’s...I wanna ask you about that.    21:43 Sarah: Sure.   21:44 Daniel: But before I do, I really appreciate you addressing, briefly, in your book, about masturbation. You give a context for it, the history behind it, the fears around it. 21:51 Sarah: Yeah. 21:52 Daniel: What was that journey for you? You’re addressing that fear, you’re realizing, “okay, I need to understand myself.” Some wives feel like, “okay, I do need to figure out my body, but I will not do it without my husband present.    22:05 Sarah: Yeah.    22:06 Daniel: What was it like for you? Did you find that it was more valuable to do it alone so that you could do it without pressure? Or was it important for you to explore that with your spouse? 22:15 Sarah: So, in the beginning, I chose to explore with my husband. And it’s still a work in progress, Daniel [laughs], it’s still kinda like...I’m not fully 100% like going off by myself all the time, you know what I mean? But at the same time, like, it’s kinda going back to this stepping stone thing. I start with my husband to understand, and know, and feel comfortable, and then [...] it’s still just something that I know, I KNOW--that’s the crazy part, I KNOW--that it’s beneficial for me to know what feels good and what doesn’t, you know?    22:56 Daniel: Absolutely.   22:57 Sarah: But then, the shame just creeps in. And I remember this one specific time, I was like, “okay, Sarah.” I was seriously coaching myself! “Okay, Sarah, we can do this. We can do this!” You know? 23:11 Daniel: And you’re talking about when you’re masturbating, you’re trying to... 23:14 Sarah: Yeah!   23:14 Daniel: ...to get into the headspace.   23:15 Sarah: Like, I’ll go and I’ll coach myself and like, I’ll breathe and everything. A really great book, Slow Sex, was really powerful for me, by the way. 23:24 Daniel: Okay, excellent. Excellent book.   23:25 Sarah: Just the breathing, and… yeah.   23:26 Daniel: I think a lot of...so, we’re speaking to an LDS audience or a Christian-based audience. Sometimes, that book isn’t received very well. She talks about a lot of--   23:37 Sarah: Yeah   23:38 Daniel: So, the audience--it’s an excellent book. Excellent book. It does venture into some concepts and ideas that I think are extremely helpful, but be aware, it is not a warning, but just be aware--you're not going out and getting, you know, an LDS book about how to understand your own sexuality. It’s a very raw and in-depth book. Excellent.   24:00 Sarah: Yeah. 24:01 Daniel: So, I think that’s, so that kinda leads me into my second question, or where we left off before I asked this question. There’s so many resources out there. Often, when people try to explore this route, they stay, you know they kind of follow that insecurity be staying on a very safe path of resources. I don’t wanna name any books, I don’t want anybody to feel like they’re being judged around it, but--   24:27 Sarah: Sure.   24:28 Daniel: How did you, for example, Emily Nagoski, that’s not an LDS author. How did you determine which books were good for you? Whether it’s Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, or Natasha [breaks off]   24:39 Sarah: Uh huh.   24:40 Daniel: What was your internal compass to decide, “this is helpful, this is good in my pursuit of my own sexuality, but being within the framework of my faith?” 24:51 Sarah: Sure. The thing is, when you go on Amazon, there’s going to be all kinds of reviews from all over, right? Of course I would read the reviews, that’s what most people do when they go searching for a book. but also, of course, having my friend Suzanne of course had already read a few. So I kinda had an understanding... 25:14 Daniel: [laughs]   25:15 Sarah: ...from some of the things, right? so then there’s also...I did go and actually look them up, not just about their book but just them as a person. I did some research on who they are and like, what are they teaching, what are they, like, out there, like, what’s their message, kind of thing. And so then I felt more comfortable to kinda open up and seek. And of course, I’d go to my city library, right? And go to the sexuality section and I’d just camp out and just kinda peruse books that way. That’s also helpful ‘cause it’s free. It’s not like I’m going to buy a book. But, there’s so many [pauses] there’s amazing people out there doing amazing things, and I just…   26:09 Daniel: So I guess, let me push a little on this, is--for example, with Slow Sex, what kept you from reading that and saying, “whoa. This is way outside of my value system.” 26:17 Sarah: [laughs]   26:18 Daniel: “I shouldn’t be reading this.” And we’re talking about, just three years ago, you’re Sarah who’s just now recognizing all the rigidity around your sexual understanding and lack of understanding with your sexuality.   26:31 Sarah: Yeah.   26:32 Daniel: What kept you from throwing that book aside and saying, “this is horrible”?   26:39 Sarah: Well, I know this sounds really simple, but what I kept coming back to all the time, Daniel, was “Sarah, quit judging it. Be more curious.” 26:50 Daniel: Not simple at all. That is beautiful.   26:54 Sarah: You know, that’s it. That’s all...and that’s what I had to tell myself all the time. “Sarah, you’re looking at oral sex and you’re judging it. How can I be more curious about how it can apply to me and my relationship in my intimate relationship with my husband?” Like, what does that look like, you know? And so [laughs] it really is simple. But it is so profound to me, and it’s carried me the last three years. And that’s why I really hone-in on it in my book. Waking up women to understand, “quit judging it so much,”   27:34 Daniel: Absolutely love it.   27:34 Sarah: “and look at it from a place of curiosity.”   27:35 Daniel: And I think you see that journey as you go through this, like, starting in...what chapter is this? Page 100 or so. You start talking about loving yourself from the inside out. And you do a full inventory: “what do I lack? What am I insecure about?” (I’m putting some of my own words to this, but…) you take the individual through this process and I think that’s key. absolutely key. So, yes, the answer is simple, but boy, the process can be painful. That’s something that I actually warn my clients when I do this similar type of self-inventory. I have them often review themselves: where did they start--I like the word you used, stop judging it, and just learn from it. And I have people start to do this, is “stop judging your body, in fact, look at yourself. You think you have a fat tummy, who told you that? Who defined that for you?”   28:28 Sarah: Exactly.   28:29 Daniel: “Who took away your agency to keep you from actually looking at yourself in the way you should? Who defined it?” And they’ll go through this emotional process, “oh my goodness, that first boy I dated, he made fun of me or he poked me in the tummy and ever since then, I’ve been insecure. I’m not gonna let that dude take away from my agency. I’m gonna choose how to view my body.” And you kinda do a similar thing here.   28:53 Sarah: Yeah. 28:54 Daniel: Tell us a little more about that.   28:55 Sarah: Yeah, so, this is actually my second book. [laughs] I wrote a book 5 years ago called, MindStrength for Women. And it was all about just loving ourselves and overcoming this idea that we’re not enough and we're not good enough, not smart enough, and all these things, right? Of course I, at that time, I did like, I’d learned a lot about myself. And so the crazy part to all that whole story was, I felt amazing and went through a physical change, emotional change, and all these other things, but I kept sex hidden up in the corner, you know? Like in this closet, you know? So when I actually brought sex in, into the light, right? Now I felt like I’d become this whole person, and then like, a wholly unique being.    29:54 Sarah: And I talk about this term called “sexy confidence” in my book, and how as women, it’s not so much about our body or anything of that nature. It’s about, how do we walk into a room, and how do we make people feel? What kind of energy are we bringing into the room? Is this a loving environment? And this is where I kinda had to do this with my husband, too. Because, when you’re in the bedroom, as women, we start to...like, if we even put on a piece of lingerie or something, we start to immediately judge our body that it’s not looking so amazing.    30:35 Sarah: And I talk about, when I’m with women and stuff, I talk about this idea of like, you know, there’s this...we as women get into serious judgement, but when we can come from learning to love ourselves from the way God sees us (because obviously that’s important), that we can be able to be at one with our husbands, even. And not focus so much on the belly fat that’s hanging out when we’re trying to get on top of him, you know? And just like, how we can emotionally connect instead of looking at our bodies and judging every nook and cranny that we don’t like, kind of thing.   31:25 Daniel: Love that.  Now, you jumped into something later on, about how women need novelty. I thought this was interesting. I believe it. I’m one who likes to shatter myths out there. But the prevailing thought is, men need novelty. Women want consistency. Tell me more about this.    31:45 Sarah: Yeah. 31:46 Daniel: I think this is fascinating. I don't think anybody else is addressing it, and I’ve read a lot of books, so tell me a little about your discovery there.   31:56 Sarah: Yeah. Well, I think [...] I do believe women, we do need novelty. We just don’t think we need it [laughs]. I don’t know if that makes sense. We do love,   32:11 Daniel: Yes   32:12 Sarah: we like change. I don’t like the same position every time, I mean, anybody else? I mean, once I actually, was the--I mean, yes, I did missionary position for years, trust me, I know. But now that I’ve educated myself and I’ve found other ways to, you know, “quote, unquote” “sized up the bedroom” I actually do thrive on change in the bedroom. It keeps the spark alive and it creates more novelty, you know? 32:43 Daniel: Well, I think that’s important,   32:45 Sarah: Yeah   32:46 Daniel: because I think a lot of men get criticized because they want something new and that’s scary for their partners, but I--   32:51 Sarah: Yeah   32:52 Daniel: You’re realizing, part of the problem is you wanted it to be changed up, you wanted it exciting, you wanted it novel. And I think that’s part of the discovery for a lot of women in discovering their desire is, “wow, I’m realizing I’m not as vanilla as I thought I was.” 33:07 Sarah: Yeah. 33:08 Daniel: “Where will this end?” Were you concerned with that? Did you feel you were gonna go into desires and passions and things that were forbidden for you? What was that experience like for you? 33:19 Sarah: Yeah. Well, of course in the beginning--because, you know, my shame was still enveloped around me in certain points where it would rise up, you know? But then I’d have to open my eyes, like, “Sarah, quit judging it again!” You know? But at the same time, I realized how we can add just more experiences that we haven’t had necessarily before, in like, the safety of our own couple relationship.   33:55 Daniel: Just going back to the concept of not judging it and allow it to flow naturally.    34:01 Sarah: Yeah.   34:02 Daniel: As Emily Nagoski says, don’t put on the brakes. Just... 34:05 Sarah: Yeah, the brakes. I love that analogy, too. Oh my gosh, shes...yeah. Don’t put on the brakes, keep the accelerator going, because, you know. Sometimes, you don’t know if you’re even going to like it. So, quit judging that you’re not going to like it before you even start it, right? And allow yourself to receive. Okay, that’s another thing. Oh my gosh. As women, we give, give, give all day long, to everybody and everything. All the time. Right? So when I was like, “Sarah, you deserve to receive. You get to receive pleasure, you get to receive these different avenues of novelty, and this is okay for you.” Like, once again, I [laughs] I’ve had to coach myself. I do thisl ike, mental inventory in my head before I have sex with my husband. Like, “Sarah, we can do this. It’s fine. This is something that we’ve talked about, we’ve had discussions about this, we feel comfortable that this is something we want to choose to do and explore, and let’s be open to that.” So, yeah. I'm really good at coaching myself now. 35:19 Daniel: Yeah, it sounds like it. Sounds like you’ve come a long way in just three years. I like the other concept you’ve shared about sex drives, desire level. The differences aren’t the problem. Share with the audience what you meant by that.   35:35 Sarah: Differences aren’t the problem. We label ourselves when we first get married [laughs]. Now, like, you know as I’ve learned, not all men are higher desire partners, okay? Right? 35:49 Daniel: Not at all, right. 35:50 Sarah: Right. And so, we are really quick to label who’s higher, who’s lower, you know? And we, there’s a …. do you want me to quote books in here? 36:05 Daniel: Absolutely! Tell your story. Yep. 36:08 Sarah: Okay. One of the books, Passion Paradox, have you heard of that book? 36:13 Daniel: Actually, no, I haven’t read nor have I heard of it.   36:16 Sarah: Okay, I’m trying to think of the author right now, but it was...it’s like, an old book. It was like....it’s old. But anyway, there’s this...he talks about this whole idea of passion. Because, sometimes like, as women, we label ourselves as lower desire, say that we are, right? And we view the partner as the higher desire. But there’s different ways of expressing and showing passion to each other. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be just like a sexual thing. Sometimes, in different seasons of our lives, we kinda ebb and flow, and you know, go from one extreme to another or something. And I think this whole idea that we put labels is unfortunate, because I chose to give myself that label for all those years, and I clung on to it. And I would just view my husband, like, “you just want sex all the time. And I’m just gonna sit here, and just kinda vent to you that I don’t wanna have it, because I’ve already labelled myself that I don’t want it.”   37:30 Daniel: As opposed to learning how to meet the needs of each other.   37:33 Sarah: Yeah, yeah. 37:34 Daniel: I think that theme is so important throughout your book. I refer to it as breaking the culture of sexual silence, and I love that you hit on it throughout the entirety of your book. Especially, I believe, in chapter 14 talking about it. Even if I don’t know a lot about it, talk about it. Talk about it. Talk about everything you know about sex, and become comfortable with it. That is so important. As you learned early on with your mom, and with other friends, you couldn’t talk about it. And that is one of the biggest desire killers and barriers to education. So, learning how to break that culture of silence around sexuality, even when you don’t know fully what you’re talking about, start to share. That’s what we do. As kids, we talk about things we don’t know, and then parents correct us. People inform us. You go into it non-judgmentally, again, another thing that you carry throughout the book. Absolutely wonderful. You want to tell us a little bit about how you...what that was like for you as you realized you’re in this process, you’re learning. What were some of the fears, hesitations, or positive experiences you had with sharing freely your knowledge?   38:45 Sarah: Ok, so, you know I’m reading all these books, right? And consuming everything that I could. And I just, I remember always just like walking out, like, in public, you know, in Target or wherever, and seeing all these women. And I”m like, “oh. If they only knew. oh if they only knew.” Right? [laughs] and there’s a point where…’cause I truly believe I’ve obviously come to a place where I--and you’ve seen this in my book--I’m a realist. Like, I really share the dark sides of me, and my hang-ups and everything, and I’m okay with it. I've come to a place where I don’t have this fear of judgement of what other people might think of me, because I’ve realized that the more I share, the more respect I get from people. And so, as I was reading all these things, and I’m going out into public and I see all these women, and I’m just wondering, “I wonder if she’s like...if she was like me.” Because I’m now, not. I don’t really...it’s hard for me, sometimes, to even take myself back, even three years ago, to where I was. Because I’m so much more happier now. But sometimes i have to take myself there so that I can be, you know, relatable, to other women, right? So, of course in our LDS culture, [laughs] I have definitely … I’ve lost friendships. I’ll be honest.   40:18 Daniel: What do you mean? I think I know what you’re talking about there, because I’ve experience the same, but share with the audience what that means. Just because you’re being passionate and open about sexuality, you lost friends? 40:28 Sarah: Yeah. 40:29 Daniel: What happened there? 40:30 Sarah: Yeah, so...just in small conversations, or I might have written like a post or something on facebook about a book that I was reading. And then it just rubs somebody the wrong way, you know? And I've actually had a few friends who’ve vocally come and told me that they don’t agree with what I’m talking about and learning about. And that’s fine. It was of course hard to hear, ‘cause it’s like a blow. It’s like this form of rejection that you don’t want to ever experience in your life. But at the same time, there was like, 30+ women behind me saying “thank you. I learned so much from you,” you know? And so, it’s just our human nature to cling-on to those one or two people that give you that negative comment, right? But it definitely propelled me to keep sharing, because I know how my life has changed because of it. And my marriage has changed because of it. And I can’t deny it.    41:43 Sarah: So as I’ve opened up about it, and talked to people within my neighborhood or community, like I just know that I am making strides with people. I actually, just yesterday, I had a friend who had finally come around. I’ve been talking to her for like, since I started reading books, and just recently she was like, “Sarah, I think I’m ready.” You know? And you just have to kinda wait for those people to come around, and they will, eventually. And they’ll realize just how powerful this can be, when they can open and be more curious to see what their life can be like if they chose to look at it with a different perspective.    42:34 Daniel: Absolutely.   42:35 Sarah: So yeah. 42:35 Daniel: In other words, you’re not pushing your narrative. 42:36 Sarah: No.   42:38 Daniel: People know what you know.   42:38 Sarah: No, yeah. 42:40 Daniel: Because, you’re open about it. And you’re waiting for them to come and seek you out. 42:43 Sarah: Yeah. 42:44 Daniel: That’s excellent. 42:45 Sarah: Exactly. yeah, just kinda wait for them and whenever they’re ready, I’ll be there with open arms to teach them and to guide them through their own experience. The crazy part is [laughs] I have no desire to be a sex therapist like yourself, or you know, go and be a professor or anything of that nature. I just love learning about it. I feel like, I don’t know, I guess people can kind of resonate more with a girl off the street I guess first, and then I can guide them to therapists or whoever else they need help with, right? Because I obviously don’t have all the tools, but I’m their starting point, you know? And that’s what I love about me being open about it, is that I can be their starting point and then they can move from there to seek more professional help if they need it, you know? 43:41 Daniel: Absolutely. What a wonderful theme that you’ve carried out through the book. I think it’s been wonderfully done, I think you’ve communicated well. Are there...as we wrap up here, is there anything else about the book or your experiences that you feel is important for the audience to know about you, and your journey, or maybe possibly the journey that they’re going through? 44:02 Sarah: Oh yeah, I mean, as you [...] just, the book, in and of itself, it just breaks down so many things. You know, out there in our audience, you  might have someone who feels like they are broken, right? Or, they feel like, that there’s no hope in their marriage. We didn’t even touch on porn, that’s a whole-nother enchilada in and of itself…   44:28 Daniel: So, I… hold off on that, because I--   44:31 Sarah: [laughs]   44:31 Daniel: I love that you refer to porn the way you did in your book, as a compulsion, as a temptation, as a potential device in a marriage or [pauses] divisiveness in a marriage.    44:45 Sarah: Yeah.   44:46 Daniel: And I love the language that you used in there, and I would be interested in exploring that a little more, if you’d like. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about it, and why you included it? 44:56 Sarah: Yeah. Well, obviously from personal experience, it was not me, it was my husband’s, right? I think it’s just, he actually, it was the [....]  I remember the day, and I’m sure a lot of men and women here can remember the day that their spouse came to them with this news, right? Or they found out in some other way, right? That’ll be a day that you won’t ever forget.    45:24 Sarah: But, that day, he came and approached me, and it was during this time that I had finished writing my first book. And I was, like I said before, I was in a really good place, and just felt pretty good about life because I was working on myself. And I think that’s what’s key here, in this chapter particularly, is, whether man or woman, right? Really focus on, what are you doing in the relationship? What can you do to better yourself, to become a better version of yourself? And that’s kinda where i was at that point, luckily.    46:01 Sarah: And that’s when Trent felt comfortable to actually approach me and tell me about his porn addiction. Because, you know, he had these fears that I would leave him and all these things, right? Like everybody might have. And he came, and he told me, and it was just this, you know, gut-wrenching kind of feeling. And the first question that came into my mind, “what’s wrong with me? Why does he feel like he has to do this? I can’t believe he’s done this. He’s this amazing man, how did porn get a hold of him?” Kind of thing. And so, back then, I was doing a lot of video journaling, and so after he told me, I just was like, “kay, just hold on a second, I need to go into my closet and kinda think about this.”    46:48 Sarah: So, I went to my closet and for ten minutes I just kind of, just like, talked to myself. Like, just basically went through, in my head, what I’d just heard. And, it’s interesting, I still have this video and I treasure it, but...so you’ll notice (well, you won’t notice, because you’re not watching it), but in the first five minutes, I’m just like, processing, like, “why him? Why me?” Everything right? This pity party. And then, the last five minutes, I just kinda make this shift. It was God telling me, “Sarah, he’s a son of God.” And that’s all I heard. That’s all I heard, and I knew that I needed to walk with him in this journey.    47:34 Sarah: I was not to fix him, because I can’t fix him, right? But I can walk with him to, you know, figure out how to help him navigate, you know, and how to get the help that he needed kind of stuff. And so, that was [...] once again, it’s a simple thing, but that was the one thing that really carried me through that experience. Just recognizing that he’s a son of God and together we can work through the porn addiction, and we can come out on top. And we definitely have. And it’s been an incredible experience. But there’s definitely been pain. It hasn’t been easy. But, there’s definitely a light at the end of the tunnel.   48:22 Daniel: A lot of people are listening, saying, “okay, yeah, you just shared he just dumped this big thing on you.” And if I remember right, you even equate pornography to adultery, or cheating, on the relationship, am I remembering correctly? 48:39 Sarah: Yeah. 48:39 Daniel: That’s a very big view to have. One that, generally, is very divisive in a relationship. And you also refer to it as an addiction. And if anybody’s been in my group, they know how sensitive I am about that terminology.    48:54 Sarah: Yeah.   48:54 Daniel: You actually went and learned a lot from Cameron Staley, 48:58: Oh, man. 48:59 Daniel: about mindfulness, which is not an addiction approach, it’s a very mindful approach. 49:03Sarah: Yeah. 49:03 Daniel: Which is very much in harmony with the theme of your book: non-judgemental, non-rigid around these things but being more mindful and self-aware. 49:15 Sarah: Self-awareness is huge, yeah. 49:17 Daniel: And I think that led you to this [...] because usually, the concepts of addiction don’t lead you into the direction that you’re talking about, in fact, it leads you in a very opposite direction. But I love that mindfulness, and fortunately, meeting up with Cameron, or whatever you learned from him, it led you to this idea.   49:34 Sarah: Yeah. 49:35 Daniel: One of the concepts that you shared there was, and I’m gonna put it in my terminology: “I don’t view sex as a punishment or reward, I view it as communcation.” And you talk about there, “yes, it’s not your fault, and you as the wife, you’re not responsible for his behavior. However, why are you punishing him by not giving him sex? Is that your because of your insecurity?” I realize I’m butchering your words, I’m putting in mine.   49:59 Sarah: Yeah. 50:00 Daniel: And correct me if I’m misrepresenting your train of thought there. But, you're saying, “embrace them. Don’t withhold sex because of mabye, your insecurities.”   50:09 Sarah: Yep, that’s the worst thing you could do, is to withhold it.   50:10 Daniel: Absolutely, absolutely. Although, giving them sex, you shouldn’t have this expecation: now, he’s gonna be safe, you know? In fact, I think you pointed that out, if I remember right. 50:20 Sarah: Yes, I did. 50:21 Daniel: You said somethinglike, “okay, I’m gonna give him all”--because some women do that--”I’m gonna give him all the sex he needs so he avoids it.”   50:26 Sarah: Then he won’t even go look, yeah.   50:27 Daniel: And that’s a reward or punishment approach, as opposed to communication and connecting.   50:33 Sarah: Yes. 50:33 Daniel: And so, ironically, taking that other approach of withholding or giving too much, is very much objectification, and divisive in the relationship. It’s not connected. And so I love that you embrace that idea, of “it’s not my responsibility, but I’m not going to miss this opportunity to connect with my partner. Because I view porn in this context”--whatever it is-- “I’m not going to let that get in my way of connecting with my partner.” I thought that was beautiful.   51:02 Sarah: Yeah, just finding that middle ground. I mean, I remember coming home and asking anything I could about porn. Because, I had no idea what that world was like. None. And so, it blew my mind to see, like, wow. I really don’t know anything! But at the same time, like, let’s come together and have conversations to see, like, how we can navigate this new normal. Come to a middle ground to connect. I mean, we uh, this could be a whole-nother podcast. That definitely, that experience...I mean, it didn’t take me on my sex journey, because I found out about this, probably like 5 years ago.    51:51 Daniel: You mean, his use of porn? 51:54 Sarah: Yes, his use of porn. And so, there were still a couple years in between there where I was just trying to like, you know, I’d have [...] our communication was better, it wasn’t the best as it is now, but we were definitely communicating. And I wasn't that one that was like, you know, denying him and like, that kind of thing. Because, I was kind of understanding how, you know, I needed to create this middle ground to see how we can evolve into something better. And so then, when I finally accepted like, “okay, I need to work on my sexuality,” then that took us to a whole-nother level. And he’s been amazing and [pauses], yeah. He doesn’t have those compulsions anymore and even if he does, he comes and talks to me about it, you know? And so, we’ve created a very healthy relationship in regards to porn.    52:52 Daniel: Sarah, that is wonderful. I would actually really love having you on again, at a future time, to talk about that.    52:58 Sarah: Yeah. 53:00 Daniel: Again, the book is Underneath it All...You’re Naked. Wonderful theme throughout the book. I think you did an amazing job with it, and I think the audience would really benefit from it. Thank you so much for coming on.   53:11 Sarah: Thank you. Aw, yeah, it’s been a pleasure. I appreciate you letting me have an opportunity to share my story. 53:18 Daniel: Thank you.   53:18 Sarah: It’s always something I like to talk about [laughs].   53:20 Daniel: Oh, clearly, 53:21 Sarah: It changed my life. Like, literally changed my life.   53:24 Daniel: Yeah. Your journey has been--   53:25 Sarah: Saved me. 53:26 Daniel: amazing. Thank you so much, Sarah. 53:28 Sarah: You’re welcome. [music]  

Daniel: So Hana, tell me, do you cook much?Hana: Yes, I always cook. I often cook with my roommate, and we always make Chinese or Japanese food. How about you?Daniel: Well, I don't really cook that often. I'm really busy during the week. So, I always just get something at the shop and get that. But, during the weekends, I always cook during the weekends because I really like making food. That's what I do.Hana: So, do you ever eat out?Daniel: Only occasionally, because I'm really busy during the week, and I prefer cooking, so not really often. I don't go out really often to eat. Whenever I'm tired, and I don't have time to cook during the week, I go and eat out with a friend, so! How about you?Hana: Well, I always , so I normally go and eat out during the weekend with my friends or family.Daniel: So do you ever buy take-away?Hana: No, I never. Normally when I go out to eat, I like to sit and enjoy my food. How about you?Daniel: Well, that's really nice. Of course, I do like to sit and enjoy my food, but I have to admit that occasionally I have to buy take-away, especially when I'm coming late from work, and I'm driving. I'm so hungry that, most of the time, I don't really make it home, so I have to buy something on my way, and that's a shame, so that's the way it is.And do you usually have people over for dinner?Hana: Yes, I sometimes do. I really like cooking so occasionally I invite my friends over and cook for them or we all cook together. How about you?Daniel: Not really. I do love cooking, but the problem is my place is really small, so even though I want to invite my friends. I never do it, because my place would only fit one or two people. So, unfortunately, I never have my friends over for dinner.

Daniel: So Hana, tell me, do you cook much?Hana: Yes, I always cook. I often cook with my roommate, and we always make Chinese or Japanese food. How about you?Daniel: Well, I don't really cook that often. I'm really busy during the week. So, I always just get something at the shop and get that. But, during the weekends, I always cook during the weekends because I really like making food. That's what I do.Hana: So, do you ever eat out?Daniel: Only occasionally, because I'm really busy during the week, and I prefer cooking, so not really often. I don't go out really often to eat. Whenever I'm tired, and I don't have time to cook during the week, I go and eat out with a friend, so! How about you?Hana: Well, I always , so I normally go and eat out during the weekend with my friends or family.Daniel: So do you ever buy take-away?Hana: No, I never. Normally when I go out to eat, I like to sit and enjoy my food. How about you?Daniel: Well, that's really nice. Of course, I do like to sit and enjoy my food, but I have to admit that occasionally I have to buy take-away, especially when I'm coming late from work, and I'm driving. I'm so hungry that, most of the time, I don't really make it home, so I have to buy something on my way, and that's a shame, so that's the way it is.And do you usually have people over for dinner?Hana: Yes, I sometimes do. I really like cooking so occasionally I invite my friends over and cook for them or we all cook together. How about you?Daniel: Not really. I do love cooking, but the problem is my place is really small, so even though I want to invite my friends. I never do it, because my place would only fit one or two people. So, unfortunately, I never have my friends over for dinner.

At 32, does Anthony Smith need to call it a day? We'll see. Neil Magney, the Haitian Sensation, makes Wes proud even though we all love Robbie Lawler, but can Robbie still compete at a championship level? And of course, Brock Lesnar is unfortunately still aggravating Trevor, or wait; maybe it was Jon Jones still getting Trevor all miffed up. Our thoughts are with him. Daniel Cormier is a beloved fighter, and we'll miss him as he rides off into the retirement sunset. Well done, Daniel Well done. Lastly, Trevor and Marc have rigged Overrated and Underrated against Wes again. And all we can say is MERCY IS FOR THE WEAK, COBRA KAI FOREVER!

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Hana: So, you're from Chile?Daniel: Yeah, that's right.Hana: If I ever travel to Chile, do you have any tips?Daniel: Well yeah, there are a lot of things that you should do in Chile and also a lot of things that you shouldn't do in Chile.Hana: Oh! For example?Daniel: Well I would definitely recommend to try Chilean food, especially in the small shops that we have, like in every street. If you go to like big restaurants, it's not going to be really authentic. So I think you should try small shops, in every street. Also if you're interested in nature, well you know, Chile has really long mountains, right. And they're beautiful, especially if you go in winter, you can go skiing and it's not far, it's about like two hours from like anywhere. So that's really cool. You should definitely do that. Also one thing, remember that it's Latin America, so you have to take care of your belongings. A lot of my friends have lost stuff there. But if you pay attention, it's going to be fine, just don't be too obvious that you're a tourist, and that's going to be alright. And probably lastly, I think you can see a lot of history there, our history, like the Indians we had before the Spanish came, and also the mix between the Spanish and those Indians.Hana: Is there anything I shouldn't do?Daniel: Well, I wouldn't really recommend you to take public buses, they're not very safe, so don't do it. Metro is much better, it's cleaner, it's faster and you can get pretty much anywhere in the city, so you shouldn't take buses. And also you should avoid downtown during night, night time, it's quite dangerous I think as any other big city. It is like any other city in the world, it's kind of dangerous when you go downtown at night time. So I think those would be my tips for you.Hana: I see, I'll keep that in mind, thank you.Daniel: You're welcome.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Hana: So, you're from Chile?Daniel: Yeah, that's right.Hana: If I ever travel to Chile, do you have any tips?Daniel: Well yeah, there are a lot of things that you should do in Chile and also a lot of things that you shouldn't do in Chile.Hana: Oh! For example?Daniel: Well I would definitely recommend to try Chilean food, especially in the small shops that we have, like in every street. If you go to like big restaurants, it's not going to be really authentic. So I think you should try small shops, in every street. Also if you're interested in nature, well you know, Chile has really long mountains, right. And they're beautiful, especially if you go in winter, you can go skiing and it's not far, it's about like two hours from like anywhere. So that's really cool. You should definitely do that. Also one thing, remember that it's Latin America, so you have to take care of your belongings. A lot of my friends have lost stuff there. But if you pay attention, it's going to be fine, just don't be too obvious that you're a tourist, and that's going to be alright. And probably lastly, I think you can see a lot of history there, our history, like the Indians we had before the Spanish came, and also the mix between the Spanish and those Indians.Hana: Is there anything I shouldn't do?Daniel: Well, I wouldn't really recommend you to take public buses, they're not very safe, so don't do it. Metro is much better, it's cleaner, it's faster and you can get pretty much anywhere in the city, so you shouldn't take buses. And also you should avoid downtown during night, night time, it's quite dangerous I think as any other big city. It is like any other city in the world, it's kind of dangerous when you go downtown at night time. So I think those would be my tips for you.Hana: I see, I'll keep that in mind, thank you.Daniel: You're welcome.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Hana: Hello!Daniel: Hello! How are you?Hana: I'm fine, thank you. I heard you're from Chile.Daniel: Yes, that's right.Hana: Where are you from in Chile?Daniel: I'm from a city called Santiago, that's the capital.Hana: Ah, I see, I've never been. What do you recommend?Daniel: Well in Santiago there are a lot of things to do. First, we have a lot of historical places. There are a lot of Spanish buildings. But also Santiago has turned into a really modern city, so we have a lot of shopping malls. There are a lot of really modern tall buildings. But on the other hand, we still keep a lot of parks. There is a lot of nature in Santiago. And since Chile is so narrow there is also the Andes Mountains right next to the city. So that is really, really nice.Hana: I see. How's the food?Daniel: Well Chilean food is really good. And the good thing about being in Santiago is that there are a lot of restaurants where you can try really local and traditional food. And also a lot of cafes that you can go have a drink, to have a coffee, relax with your friends. So there are many, many things that you can do if you visit Santiago.Hana: Wow, it sounds very interesting.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Hana: Hello!Daniel: Hello! How are you?Hana: I'm fine, thank you. I heard you're from Chile.Daniel: Yes, that's right.Hana: Where are you from in Chile?Daniel: I'm from a city called Santiago, that's the capital.Hana: Ah, I see, I've never been. What do you recommend?Daniel: Well in Santiago there are a lot of things to do. First, we have a lot of historical places. There are a lot of Spanish buildings. But also Santiago has turned into a really modern city, so we have a lot of shopping malls. There are a lot of really modern tall buildings. But on the other hand, we still keep a lot of parks. There is a lot of nature in Santiago. And since Chile is so narrow there is also the Andes Mountains right next to the city. So that is really, really nice.Hana: I see. How's the food?Daniel: Well Chilean food is really good. And the good thing about being in Santiago is that there are a lot of restaurants where you can try really local and traditional food. And also a lot of cafes that you can go have a drink, to have a coffee, relax with your friends. So there are many, many things that you can do if you visit Santiago.Hana: Wow, it sounds very interesting.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Daniel: Hey Hana, how are you?Hana: I'm fine, thank you.Daniel: So tell me, you lived in London, right?Hana: Yes.Daniel: Well, I'm planning to go to London and I'm really looking forward to it. But I'm not really sure and I don't really know what to expect and what I can see there, can you tell me a little bit, please?Hana: Yeah, sure. London is a very interesting place. It's a place where a lot of cultures are mixed. There are lots of historic buildings, for example, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. There is a very famous museum called the British Museum. And a lot of people come and visit every year.Daniel: That's really good because I'm really interested in history and I really want to see the history there. But is there any other thing that I should see in London or I should try in London, for example, is there any good local British food?Hana: Well, England isn't very famous for food, but it is famous because a lot of food from different countries is all gathered. For example, there's a very good place called The Camden Market and you can go and buy food from all over the world.Daniel: Good, that sounds really interesting, really looking forward to it. Thank you.Hana: You're welcome.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Daniel: Hey Hana, how are you?Hana: I'm fine, thank you.Daniel: So tell me, you lived in London, right?Hana: Yes.Daniel: Well, I'm planning to go to London and I'm really looking forward to it. But I'm not really sure and I don't really know what to expect and what I can see there, can you tell me a little bit, please?Hana: Yeah, sure. London is a very interesting place. It's a place where a lot of cultures are mixed. There are lots of historic buildings, for example, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. There is a very famous museum called the British Museum. And a lot of people come and visit every year.Daniel: That's really good because I'm really interested in history and I really want to see the history there. But is there any other thing that I should see in London or I should try in London, for example, is there any good local British food?Hana: Well, England isn't very famous for food, but it is famous because a lot of food from different countries is all gathered. For example, there's a very good place called The Camden Market and you can go and buy food from all over the world.Daniel: Good, that sounds really interesting, really looking forward to it. Thank you.Hana: You're welcome.

Daniel: So Hana, I'm planning my first trip to Japan, but since I've never been there I'm not really sure what I should do. Is there anything you can help me with?Hana: Well first you should definitely go to a temple or a shrine. It describes Japan. And there are many famous temples all over Japan. So you should definitely visit one.Daniel: Okay, that sounds really interesting. Anything else that I should try? How about for example, Japanese food?Hana: Well Japanese food is very famous, for example, fish like sushi or sashimi, Japanese people love it, and so does foreign people.Daniel: Yeah, especially because sushi is getting really, really popular everywhere now. So I'm really looking forward to trying proper Japanese sushi. How about anything else, any like cultural experience or something that Japanese people do every day?Hana: Well you should try and go to an onsen, it's a hot spring, it's a big bath where you can all go. It'll be different and it would be kind of weird at first. But I'm sure you'll enjoy it.Daniel: Why do you say it's going to be weird?Hana: Well a lot of people at first, they're embarrassed to be naked in front of people. But once you get used to it, you'll enjoy it and you would want to go every day.Daniel: Yeah. I'm not sure if I'm okay with being naked in front of people. But if you say that I have to try it I probably will. Do you have any big celebrations or any like big events that I can see in Japan?Hana: Well, in Japan there are many festivals all around the year. For example, in the summertime, there is a huge festival where there is parades and you get to see the fireworks and you can see people in their traditional yukata. And you can try lots of food too.Daniel: Oh, that sounds really interesting, especially because I'm going in summer. Is there anything I shouldn't do in Japan or that I should be really careful with?Hana: Well, Japan is a very quiet country and a very polite country. So you shouldn't be too loud or you should be polite to older people.Daniel: Well yeah, I'm trying to keep that in mind, because especially my friends are quite loud. Thank you very much for the tips.Hana: You're welcome.

Daniel: So Hana, I'm planning my first trip to Japan, but since I've never been there I'm not really sure what I should do. Is there anything you can help me with?Hana: Well first you should definitely go to a temple or a shrine. It describes Japan. And there are many famous temples all over Japan. So you should definitely visit one.Daniel: Okay, that sounds really interesting. Anything else that I should try? How about for example, Japanese food?Hana: Well Japanese food is very famous, for example, fish like sushi or sashimi, Japanese people love it, and so does foreign people.Daniel: Yeah, especially because sushi is getting really, really popular everywhere now. So I'm really looking forward to trying proper Japanese sushi. How about anything else, any like cultural experience or something that Japanese people do every day?Hana: Well you should try and go to an onsen, it's a hot spring, it's a big bath where you can all go. It'll be different and it would be kind of weird at first. But I'm sure you'll enjoy it.Daniel: Why do you say it's going to be weird?Hana: Well a lot of people at first, they're embarrassed to be naked in front of people. But once you get used to it, you'll enjoy it and you would want to go every day.Daniel: Yeah. I'm not sure if I'm okay with being naked in front of people. But if you say that I have to try it I probably will. Do you have any big celebrations or any like big events that I can see in Japan?Hana: Well, in Japan there are many festivals all around the year. For example, in the summertime, there is a huge festival where there is parades and you get to see the fireworks and you can see people in their traditional yukata. And you can try lots of food too.Daniel: Oh, that sounds really interesting, especially because I'm going in summer. Is there anything I shouldn't do in Japan or that I should be really careful with?Hana: Well, Japan is a very quiet country and a very polite country. So you shouldn't be too loud or you should be polite to older people.Daniel: Well yeah, I'm trying to keep that in mind, because especially my friends are quite loud. Thank you very much for the tips.Hana: You're welcome.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Hana: So, how much do you sleep?Daniel: Well I think I sleep a lot, usually at least 8 hours I think that's, that's usual for me. How about you?Hana: Oh really, about 6 hours I guess if I have 6 hours that's enough.Daniel: 6 hours, is that enough?Hana: Yes and normally because I sleep late and I have to get up early so 6 hours is enough for me.Daniel: Wow if I sleep 6 hours I would definitely take a nap after lunch. Do you take naps?Hana: Well it depends. If I don't have any class I would sleep but normally I don't.Daniel: Wow, how about the weekends do you also sleep like 6 hours?Hana: No I sleep a lot on Saturdays because I normally didn't have anything to do so I will recharge my batteries and just sleep all morning.Daniel: How about Sundays?Hana: On Sundays, I normally get up early and do something and spend my Sundays with my friend or go out. How about you?Daniel: Well, the bad thing is on Saturdays and Sundays I still get up quite early so I don't get to sleep more than the week but since I still, you know, sleep 8 hours every day so I think that's enough and if I'm tired from the week I think I can still take a nap and I will, you know, fix it, so yeah, I think I sleep a lot like more than a lot of people.Hana: That's good.Daniel: Yeah, it is.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Hana: So, how much do you sleep?Daniel: Well I think I sleep a lot, usually at least 8 hours I think that's, that's usual for me. How about you?Hana: Oh really, about 6 hours I guess if I have 6 hours that's enough.Daniel: 6 hours, is that enough?Hana: Yes and normally because I sleep late and I have to get up early so 6 hours is enough for me.Daniel: Wow if I sleep 6 hours I would definitely take a nap after lunch. Do you take naps?Hana: Well it depends. If I don't have any class I would sleep but normally I don't.Daniel: Wow, how about the weekends do you also sleep like 6 hours?Hana: No I sleep a lot on Saturdays because I normally didn't have anything to do so I will recharge my batteries and just sleep all morning.Daniel: How about Sundays?Hana: On Sundays, I normally get up early and do something and spend my Sundays with my friend or go out. How about you?Daniel: Well, the bad thing is on Saturdays and Sundays I still get up quite early so I don't get to sleep more than the week but since I still, you know, sleep 8 hours every day so I think that's enough and if I'm tired from the week I think I can still take a nap and I will, you know, fix it, so yeah, I think I sleep a lot like more than a lot of people.Hana: That's good.Daniel: Yeah, it is.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Hana: So Daniel, I heard you went on a vacation, where did you go?Daniel: Yeah, I went to Taiwan.Hana: Oh, sounds interesting. What did you do?Daniel: Well, I did a lot of things. It's a really interesting place. I saw a lot of culture. I saw a lot of history. I went to beautiful places. They have like really, really beautiful nature. Everything was really, really good.Hana: How was the food?Daniel: Well, the food in Taiwan is amazing. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Everything tastes amazing. And the good thing about it, it's really, really cheap.Hana: I see. Who did you go with?Daniel: I went with a Taiwanese friend, so that was really good because I cannot speak Mandarin. And my friend helped me a lot with all the food, and that was really good because I really appreciated that.Hana: How long did you go for?Daniel: It was about eight days. And I think it was more than enough to get like a quick view of the whole island. It was really nice to go from Taipei in the north to some cities in the south. I think I got a really good impression of what Taiwan is.Hana: Why did you go to Taiwan?Daniel: Well I'm really interested in Asia and Asian cultures, and since it's really far from my background, I really want to get to know better all those cultures. And since for many western people are quite the same, I really want to find out those differences. And that's why I chose Taiwan.Hana: I see.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Hana: So Daniel, I heard you went on a vacation, where did you go?Daniel: Yeah, I went to Taiwan.Hana: Oh, sounds interesting. What did you do?Daniel: Well, I did a lot of things. It's a really interesting place. I saw a lot of culture. I saw a lot of history. I went to beautiful places. They have like really, really beautiful nature. Everything was really, really good.Hana: How was the food?Daniel: Well, the food in Taiwan is amazing. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Everything tastes amazing. And the good thing about it, it's really, really cheap.Hana: I see. Who did you go with?Daniel: I went with a Taiwanese friend, so that was really good because I cannot speak Mandarin. And my friend helped me a lot with all the food, and that was really good because I really appreciated that.Hana: How long did you go for?Daniel: It was about eight days. And I think it was more than enough to get like a quick view of the whole island. It was really nice to go from Taipei in the north to some cities in the south. I think I got a really good impression of what Taiwan is.Hana: Why did you go to Taiwan?Daniel: Well I'm really interested in Asia and Asian cultures, and since it's really far from my background, I really want to get to know better all those cultures. And since for many western people are quite the same, I really want to find out those differences. And that's why I chose Taiwan.Hana: I see.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Vella: So Daniel, let's talk about childhood memories. Do you have any fond memory?Daniel: Well, yeah, I do. I had a great time when I was a kid but definitely my best memory is, well, holidays. When I was a kid in Chile, we used to have a three month summer holiday and it was brilliant because I used to go to the countryside to my great-grandma's house and she had kind of a hostel at that time and it was brilliant because you had people coming in and out all the time, new people. The town was like really, really small and everything was so natural so I got to spend three months every summer in a really nice place doing nothing but playing with my friends all the time, going to the beach every day and like having amazing food. It was too good to be true, seriously. Unfortunately like then I grew older and I couldn't have the three months so I was going like, I don't know, two weeks and stuff like that. And then lately I couldn't go anymore so it's shame but at the same time it's great, it's really good that I got the chance to do it and I got the chance to experience it and I think that's one of my great memories of my childhood.Vella: So you go there every summer?Daniel: Well, not anymore but I used to go there when I was a kid every, pretty much every summer, yeah.Vella: So how did you spend the time? Like what did you do? Did you just play with friends or...?Daniel: Well, yeah, I used to get up really late every day then I don't know go for a football game with friends then, I don't know, having an amazing lunch. In the afternoon going to the beach, coming back, have dinner and then go out and play again. It was really like the same thing every day but at the same time since I was playing every day it didn't feel like a routine so, I don't know, three months doing that every year was amazing.Vella: I mean food and friends, my definition of having fun.Daniel: Yeah, yeah, it is definitely, yeah.Vella: So you had three months' holiday?Daniel: Yeah.Vella: Summer holiday? That's pretty long.Daniel: Yeah, it's because, well we finish everything in December before Christmas and New Year so you have pretty much the whole of December plus January and February. That's the summer in Chile.Vella: Interesting, summer in December.Daniel: Well, yeah, it is actually.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Vella: So Daniel, let's talk about childhood memories. Do you have any fond memory?Daniel: Well, yeah, I do. I had a great time when I was a kid but definitely my best memory is, well, holidays. When I was a kid in Chile, we used to have a three month summer holiday and it was brilliant because I used to go to the countryside to my great-grandma's house and she had kind of a hostel at that time and it was brilliant because you had people coming in and out all the time, new people. The town was like really, really small and everything was so natural so I got to spend three months every summer in a really nice place doing nothing but playing with my friends all the time, going to the beach every day and like having amazing food. It was too good to be true, seriously. Unfortunately like then I grew older and I couldn't have the three months so I was going like, I don't know, two weeks and stuff like that. And then lately I couldn't go anymore so it's shame but at the same time it's great, it's really good that I got the chance to do it and I got the chance to experience it and I think that's one of my great memories of my childhood.Vella: So you go there every summer?Daniel: Well, not anymore but I used to go there when I was a kid every, pretty much every summer, yeah.Vella: So how did you spend the time? Like what did you do? Did you just play with friends or...?Daniel: Well, yeah, I used to get up really late every day then I don't know go for a football game with friends then, I don't know, having an amazing lunch. In the afternoon going to the beach, coming back, have dinner and then go out and play again. It was really like the same thing every day but at the same time since I was playing every day it didn't feel like a routine so, I don't know, three months doing that every year was amazing.Vella: I mean food and friends, my definition of having fun.Daniel: Yeah, yeah, it is definitely, yeah.Vella: So you had three months' holiday?Daniel: Yeah.Vella: Summer holiday? That's pretty long.Daniel: Yeah, it's because, well we finish everything in December before Christmas and New Year so you have pretty much the whole of December plus January and February. That's the summer in Chile.Vella: Interesting, summer in December.Daniel: Well, yeah, it is actually.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Vella: OK, Daniel, I know you're still really young but I know you must be thinking about what you're going to do in the future so my question would be what do you want to achieve in your life?Daniel: Well, there are definitely three things I want to do. For example, I want to do before I die, at least three things. The first one is I want to visit every continent in the earth. I'm still young but I want to do it in the next couple of years. I've never been to Africa, for example, that's a continent, that's a part of the world I'm very interested in.The second one is that I want to see things from a different perspective. For example, I want to climb a really, really high mountain. I don't know, Everest would be amazing but I know like you need the special training and stuff like that. Or do paragliding, I would love to have the feeling that I'm flying. That's something that really, really calls my attention to see, you know, to see something from a different perspective. It can give you not only the experience but also it can help you think in a very different way for, I don't know, many things in the future.And the third one is definitely to raise my children. I don't have any yet but, I don't know, I would love to have that feeling that I've done my job and I've finished it so, I don't know, to have my children, to raise them properly and to see that they succeed in what they do. Those are the three things I would love to do, I don't know, before I die.Vella: That is sweet. But earlier you told me like you were afraid of heights. Do you still want to do this thing?Daniel: I am a little bit but that's a thing that I mean at least once even though you are afraid you have to do it at least once. I'm not going to do it every week, the paragliding thing, but at least once I wouldn't mind.Vella: And do you have anything specific that you want to do in Africa?Daniel: No, it's just, there are so many, I think, myths about Africa. People tell you different stories. How they live, what they do, what the conditions are that I want to see it by myself. I know Africa it's really different because it's really big. It's really different among the countries but it has so many cultures that I really want to go and see it by myself.Vella: Good. I hope you get the chance to do those three things before you die.Daniel: Thanks.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Vella: OK, Daniel, I know you're still really young but I know you must be thinking about what you're going to do in the future so my question would be what do you want to achieve in your life?Daniel: Well, there are definitely three things I want to do. For example, I want to do before I die, at least three things. The first one is I want to visit every continent in the earth. I'm still young but I want to do it in the next couple of years. I've never been to Africa, for example, that's a continent, that's a part of the world I'm very interested in.The second one is that I want to see things from a different perspective. For example, I want to climb a really, really high mountain. I don't know, Everest would be amazing but I know like you need the special training and stuff like that. Or do paragliding, I would love to have the feeling that I'm flying. That's something that really, really calls my attention to see, you know, to see something from a different perspective. It can give you not only the experience but also it can help you think in a very different way for, I don't know, many things in the future.And the third one is definitely to raise my children. I don't have any yet but, I don't know, I would love to have that feeling that I've done my job and I've finished it so, I don't know, to have my children, to raise them properly and to see that they succeed in what they do. Those are the three things I would love to do, I don't know, before I die.Vella: That is sweet. But earlier you told me like you were afraid of heights. Do you still want to do this thing?Daniel: I am a little bit but that's a thing that I mean at least once even though you are afraid you have to do it at least once. I'm not going to do it every week, the paragliding thing, but at least once I wouldn't mind.Vella: And do you have anything specific that you want to do in Africa?Daniel: No, it's just, there are so many, I think, myths about Africa. People tell you different stories. How they live, what they do, what the conditions are that I want to see it by myself. I know Africa it's really different because it's really big. It's really different among the countries but it has so many cultures that I really want to go and see it by myself.Vella: Good. I hope you get the chance to do those three things before you die.Daniel: Thanks.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Vella: So, Daniel, we're talking about movies.Daniel: Uh, uh.Vella: Do you have any favorite Chilean movie?Daniel: Well, yeah. Actually Chilean movies are quite, we're making a lot of movies recently but this one movie I really liked. It's quite old, probably ten years ago, it's called El Chacotero Sentimental. It's really difficult to explain that in English but it was based on a radio show. There was every week from Monday to Friday from two to four pm, there was a radio show so people would call to the host of this radio show and they would explain their problems related to love, family, friends, whatever, and it became really popular. Everyone was listening to this, this show and some of those stories were absolutely brilliant and you could hear like any kind of stories, like really sad stories or really funny stories. And for the movie they took three of them, well three, they made three stories and they took elements from real stories that they were told during the show.So the first one, for example, it's about a guy who moves from the countryside to, into Santiago, and he was having an affair with a neighbor and he was caught by her husband and her husband was the police. He was a policeman so all the, it was really funny to watch it, but at the same time like everyone knew that kind of stuff happened so it was funny but at the same time kind of, you know, like come on that's a really, really big problem.The second story was a bit sad. It was about a family who had problems. They had a lot of problems during their childhood so and all the traumas and all the problems it creates and you take when you have problems in childhood.And the third one, it's a really, really funny story. It's about a young couple. They were really poor but how they lived, the love, and how they live their cut lives.So all the stories, like the stories altogether, talk about how Chilean people, they live, their love, how they act as couples, so it became really, really famous in Chile.Vella: That sounds really interesting. I would love to watch it.Daniel: Actually there's a version with English subtitles so any time.Vella: I have one question though.Daniel: Hm, hm.Vella: Have you ever called the house and maybe tell them that you're sorry?Daniel: No, but, no I never did but I think one of my friends, because everyone listened to the shows, so you can see and you can hear that. Like I know that story or I know something similar so it might be one of my friends I don't know.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Vella: So, Daniel, we're talking about movies.Daniel: Uh, uh.Vella: Do you have any favorite Chilean movie?Daniel: Well, yeah. Actually Chilean movies are quite, we're making a lot of movies recently but this one movie I really liked. It's quite old, probably ten years ago, it's called El Chacotero Sentimental. It's really difficult to explain that in English but it was based on a radio show. There was every week from Monday to Friday from two to four pm, there was a radio show so people would call to the host of this radio show and they would explain their problems related to love, family, friends, whatever, and it became really popular. Everyone was listening to this, this show and some of those stories were absolutely brilliant and you could hear like any kind of stories, like really sad stories or really funny stories. And for the movie they took three of them, well three, they made three stories and they took elements from real stories that they were told during the show.So the first one, for example, it's about a guy who moves from the countryside to, into Santiago, and he was having an affair with a neighbor and he was caught by her husband and her husband was the police. He was a policeman so all the, it was really funny to watch it, but at the same time like everyone knew that kind of stuff happened so it was funny but at the same time kind of, you know, like come on that's a really, really big problem.The second story was a bit sad. It was about a family who had problems. They had a lot of problems during their childhood so and all the traumas and all the problems it creates and you take when you have problems in childhood.And the third one, it's a really, really funny story. It's about a young couple. They were really poor but how they lived, the love, and how they live their cut lives.So all the stories, like the stories altogether, talk about how Chilean people, they live, their love, how they act as couples, so it became really, really famous in Chile.Vella: That sounds really interesting. I would love to watch it.Daniel: Actually there's a version with English subtitles so any time.Vella: I have one question though.Daniel: Hm, hm.Vella: Have you ever called the house and maybe tell them that you're sorry?Daniel: No, but, no I never did but I think one of my friends, because everyone listened to the shows, so you can see and you can hear that. Like I know that story or I know something similar so it might be one of my friends I don't know.

Helping those who have immigrated to the US to never forget their homeland and the grace of God that has brought them this far.

Born in Nasir (Upper Nile region), South Sudan. Daniel, has been through a lot and seen too much...like people being forced to join the army against their will - including underage children - in 1984. Now, after being in America,  I see some people who have forgotten to worship Go and then Him for his help. They forget what their Creator has done for them.

Helping those who have immigrated to the US to never forget their homeland and the grace of God that has brought them this far.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Vella: So Daniel, we're talking about emotions, and let's talk about emotions in men. Do you think it's OK for men to cry?Daniel: Well, I do think it's all right. There's nothing wrong about it. If you want to cry, if you're sad, if you are angry, if you are disappointed, I think it's normal. The normal reaction would be to cry but unfortunately, there is a huge stigma attached to men crying. For some people, it is a big issue. For me, personally, it isn't.Vella: I agree a hundred percent with you. For me personally, I think it's totally OK for guys to cry.Daniel: Hm, hm.Vella: But I think it's in my culture, Indonesian, it's really uncommon to, you know, for guys to show this emotional expression when they cry. For example when, even when you're little if you cry in the classroom and when you are a guy and if you cry, people are just going to make fun of you and they're going to start laughing and calling you names.Daniel: I know totally. It's the same in Chile actually. Well, I was raised in a really, really strong kind of macho culture. I mean crying was a sign of weakness so boys were not, I mean I can say, were not allowed to cry, right, because of, because of the whole macho thing and you have to be a man, you have to be brave so you're not supposed to cry. But now I think it's, kids shouldn't be, well they shouldn't be encouraged to cry but they should be told that it's all right. I mean it's a natural reaction and you have to show your feelings so I think if you want to cry if you're sad and if you want to cry, you should just do it but there's nothing to be embarrassed about.Vella: I think that's just how it is inside or they expect men to be macho and masculine and I think showing tears kind of takes away a lot of masculines, like masculinity out of men.Daniel: I think it's more masculine just to assume that you are sad and you are showing it. You're not afraid to show your emotions. I think that's more valuable, that's more, I mean I'm a boy and because I cry that doesn't make me less of a man. I mean, I'm a man and therefore, I don't know because I'm a man, I can show my expressions and I'm not afraid of it. I don't know, that's what I think.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Vella: So Daniel, we're talking about emotions, and let's talk about emotions in men. Do you think it's OK for men to cry?Daniel: Well, I do think it's all right. There's nothing wrong about it. If you want to cry, if you're sad, if you are angry, if you are disappointed, I think it's normal. The normal reaction would be to cry but unfortunately, there is a huge stigma attached to men crying. For some people, it is a big issue. For me, personally, it isn't.Vella: I agree a hundred percent with you. For me personally, I think it's totally OK for guys to cry.Daniel: Hm, hm.Vella: But I think it's in my culture, Indonesian, it's really uncommon to, you know, for guys to show this emotional expression when they cry. For example when, even when you're little if you cry in the classroom and when you are a guy and if you cry, people are just going to make fun of you and they're going to start laughing and calling you names.Daniel: I know totally. It's the same in Chile actually. Well, I was raised in a really, really strong kind of macho culture. I mean crying was a sign of weakness so boys were not, I mean I can say, were not allowed to cry, right, because of, because of the whole macho thing and you have to be a man, you have to be brave so you're not supposed to cry. But now I think it's, kids shouldn't be, well they shouldn't be encouraged to cry but they should be told that it's all right. I mean it's a natural reaction and you have to show your feelings so I think if you want to cry if you're sad and if you want to cry, you should just do it but there's nothing to be embarrassed about.Vella: I think that's just how it is inside or they expect men to be macho and masculine and I think showing tears kind of takes away a lot of masculines, like masculinity out of men.Daniel: I think it's more masculine just to assume that you are sad and you are showing it. You're not afraid to show your emotions. I think that's more valuable, that's more, I mean I'm a boy and because I cry that doesn't make me less of a man. I mean, I'm a man and therefore, I don't know because I'm a man, I can show my expressions and I'm not afraid of it. I don't know, that's what I think.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Vella: Hey Daniel. So I was wondering can you remember any time when you were really mad, sad or embarrassed?Daniel: Well, I think I have a couple of those, a couple of each of those actually. But I don't know recently, I've, well I had an episode that I was really sad and it was that I was applying to, I was applying for a scholarship and I was putting all the effort and I spent a lot of time and a lot of energy in it and finally it was rejected so that, that was really, really bad for me and for that year and I was really sad and I was really angry because that was my big project for that year so the fact that I couldn't get it, it made me really sad.And also you asked me about being embarrassed. I think most of the times when I was embarrassed when I was a little kid, I always was trying to do cool stuff, I don't know, hang out with friends but something, like all the time, something went wrong. For example, I don't know, I remember I was trying to play football or something and suddenly I just fell and I don't know once actually I broke my hand and that was pretty embarrassing in front of all my mates in school.Vella: OK, so you say you were really mad and angry because you didn't get the scholarship, I was wondering how do you usually express your anger?Daniel: Well, it's, I don't think it's better to find that out. I was very bad at it. I was, I used to express it like, I don't know, shouting or hitting stuff but now that I'm a bit older I learned how to control that and I learned that not always things depends on you. Sometimes you get the results from like, I don't know, from other factors so you have to take it and you have to learn to live with that and, but that takes time. So, yeah, at the beginning I was really mad and I was really sad but then I understood that probably it wasn't the time so when you understand and when you go through that kind of stuff you learn and then you learn not to get that emotional at the beginning and to think over it.Vella: I agree after you learn from those experiences and you just become better.Daniel: Well, I don't know if better but I definitely learned something.Vella: You'll know, you know, how to handle things when you face them again.Daniel: I hope I don't have to handle that kind of stuff again but in case I do I think I'm prepared to do it now.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Vella: Hey Daniel. So I was wondering can you remember any time when you were really mad, sad or embarrassed?Daniel: Well, I think I have a couple of those, a couple of each of those actually. But I don't know recently, I've, well I had an episode that I was really sad and it was that I was applying to, I was applying for a scholarship and I was putting all the effort and I spent a lot of time and a lot of energy in it and finally it was rejected so that, that was really, really bad for me and for that year and I was really sad and I was really angry because that was my big project for that year so the fact that I couldn't get it, it made me really sad.And also you asked me about being embarrassed. I think most of the times when I was embarrassed when I was a little kid, I always was trying to do cool stuff, I don't know, hang out with friends but something, like all the time, something went wrong. For example, I don't know, I remember I was trying to play football or something and suddenly I just fell and I don't know once actually I broke my hand and that was pretty embarrassing in front of all my mates in school.Vella: OK, so you say you were really mad and angry because you didn't get the scholarship, I was wondering how do you usually express your anger?Daniel: Well, it's, I don't think it's better to find that out. I was very bad at it. I was, I used to express it like, I don't know, shouting or hitting stuff but now that I'm a bit older I learned how to control that and I learned that not always things depends on you. Sometimes you get the results from like, I don't know, from other factors so you have to take it and you have to learn to live with that and, but that takes time. So, yeah, at the beginning I was really mad and I was really sad but then I understood that probably it wasn't the time so when you understand and when you go through that kind of stuff you learn and then you learn not to get that emotional at the beginning and to think over it.Vella: I agree after you learn from those experiences and you just become better.Daniel: Well, I don't know if better but I definitely learned something.Vella: You'll know, you know, how to handle things when you face them again.Daniel: I hope I don't have to handle that kind of stuff again but in case I do I think I'm prepared to do it now.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Olga: So I really want to try chicha.Daniel: You should.Olga: Is it like wine? I heard like wine in Chile is really good, so is it any similarity to it?Daniel: Well, it's a bit lighter than wine. You don't get the color of red wine. It's not as strong as red wine but it also is much nicer because it's sweet and it tastes more like juice but it has alcohol in it.Olga: Then it should be a really young like wine right?Daniel: Yes it is.Olga: Oh, I see. And, you know, how many degrees of alcohol does it have? Is it really like strong?Daniel: I don't think, we haven't measured it because it's really, we don't produce it in any companies.Olga: Oh, I see. It's like a nice traditional drink?Daniel: It's a traditional drink but it's pretty much, it's really similar to wine. It's not that stronger.Olga: And do, you know, housewives in Chile make it like in their own house?Daniel: Yes, yes.Olga: Oh cool.Daniel: You can actually go to some places. There are some famous places you can go and you can see how they make it.Olga: Is it really a hard process?Daniel: I've heard it is so if you don't know how to do it, it will just stay as juice.Olga: And I guess they don't sell it in Santiago, right?Daniel: No we don't.Olga: Only, you know, in the countryside?Daniel: You have to go to the countryside, yes.Olga: Oh, I see. Well I would like to taste it so get it for me next time, right?Daniel: You have to come to Chile and get it for yourself.Olga: OK, I will.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Olga: So I really want to try chicha.Daniel: You should.Olga: Is it like wine? I heard like wine in Chile is really good, so is it any similarity to it?Daniel: Well, it's a bit lighter than wine. You don't get the color of red wine. It's not as strong as red wine but it also is much nicer because it's sweet and it tastes more like juice but it has alcohol in it.Olga: Then it should be a really young like wine right?Daniel: Yes it is.Olga: Oh, I see. And, you know, how many degrees of alcohol does it have? Is it really like strong?Daniel: I don't think, we haven't measured it because it's really, we don't produce it in any companies.Olga: Oh, I see. It's like a nice traditional drink?Daniel: It's a traditional drink but it's pretty much, it's really similar to wine. It's not that stronger.Olga: And do, you know, housewives in Chile make it like in their own house?Daniel: Yes, yes.Olga: Oh cool.Daniel: You can actually go to some places. There are some famous places you can go and you can see how they make it.Olga: Is it really a hard process?Daniel: I've heard it is so if you don't know how to do it, it will just stay as juice.Olga: And I guess they don't sell it in Santiago, right?Daniel: No we don't.Olga: Only, you know, in the countryside?Daniel: You have to go to the countryside, yes.Olga: Oh, I see. Well I would like to taste it so get it for me next time, right?Daniel: You have to come to Chile and get it for yourself.Olga: OK, I will.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Olga: How is Chilean Independence Day?Daniel: Well, Chilean Independence Day, it's in September.Olga: Yeah.Daniel: September the eighteenth but we have another holiday on the nineteenth so we take those two days plus probably Saturday and Sunday of the same week.Olga: What do you do?Daniel: We have parties for pretty much the whole week and we do some special, kind of special shops and then you can eat empanadas. You know what empanada is?Olga: I think so. Isn't it made, you know, with flour, you know, wheat flour and it's filled with something like corn or something?Daniel: Yeah, exactly. Well, you have the pastry and then you can fill it with meat, onion, eggs or you can actually put olives in it and then you put it in the oven. It's really, really nice.Olga: And do they sell sweet ones too?Daniel: Yes, yes. Actually now we have even you can put vegetables in it.Olga: Vegetables?Daniel: Yeah.Olga: Sweet?Daniel: I mean sweets or vegetables.Olga: Or vegetables.Daniel: Or meat, chicken.Olga: OK.Daniel: Yes. And it always has to go with a drink that is called chicha.Olga: What is chicha?Daniel: Chicha is kind of wine.Olga: Yeah.Daniel: It's made out of grapes or apple and it takes a while to get, to become, you know, alcohol so if you drink it at the beginning it's just juice.Olga: Juice.Daniel: Yes.Olga: I see.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Olga: How is Chilean Independence Day?Daniel: Well, Chilean Independence Day, it's in September.Olga: Yeah.Daniel: September the eighteenth but we have another holiday on the nineteenth so we take those two days plus probably Saturday and Sunday of the same week.Olga: What do you do?Daniel: We have parties for pretty much the whole week and we do some special, kind of special shops and then you can eat empanadas. You know what empanada is?Olga: I think so. Isn't it made, you know, with flour, you know, wheat flour and it's filled with something like corn or something?Daniel: Yeah, exactly. Well, you have the pastry and then you can fill it with meat, onion, eggs or you can actually put olives in it and then you put it in the oven. It's really, really nice.Olga: And do they sell sweet ones too?Daniel: Yes, yes. Actually now we have even you can put vegetables in it.Olga: Vegetables?Daniel: Yeah.Olga: Sweet?Daniel: I mean sweets or vegetables.Olga: Or vegetables.Daniel: Or meat, chicken.Olga: OK.Daniel: Yes. And it always has to go with a drink that is called chicha.Olga: What is chicha?Daniel: Chicha is kind of wine.Olga: Yeah.Daniel: It's made out of grapes or apple and it takes a while to get, to become, you know, alcohol so if you drink it at the beginning it's just juice.Olga: Juice.Daniel: Yes.Olga: I see.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Olga: The next place?Daniel: The next place would be well Santiago.Olga: I don't really look forward to going to Santiago. I would rather go to some other place.Daniel: OK then. Then if it's around like the center of the country, I would recommend you to go to Easter Island.Olga: Oh, I've heard about it. The place where they have those big statues, right?Daniel: Right. Do you know the names of them?Olga: Actually no.Daniel: OK. They're called Moai statues. Yes, and you can see them. If you take a plane from Santiago, it will take you around five hours and you can see the indigenous people. You can see the statues and if you're lucky you can stay in a house with an indigenous family.Olga: Actually those families, do they speak Spanish?Daniel: They do speak Spanish.Olga: That's great.Daniel: But they also speak their local language.Olga: Maybe I can learn.Daniel: Yeah. I think you can learn if you live like, if you stay with a family for a week.Olga: It is thoroughly different from Spanish, right?Daniel: It is. It's more close, it's more closer to the Polynesia.Olga: I see. That's great.Daniel: But it's really interesting and the island it's really beautiful and if you go in summer you can swim and it's going to be a really, really good time.Olga: It's not expensive to go there, right?Daniel: It's about five hundred dollars.Olga: It's OK. Yeah, I can manage.Daniel: You have to be careful though because the prices in the island are a bit more expensive than...Olga: Yeah, they do that sometimes in Mexico too. Yeah, touristic places.Daniel: Yeah. And if you want to go south, I can recommend you Patagonia.Olga: Yeah, I heard it's really hard to go there. Is it?Daniel: Well it's really hard to get there if you go on the Chilean part but if you go on the Argentinian part it's not that difficult.Olga: Then I think we want to go there too.Daniel: And it's beautiful because you have a lot of mountains, rivers, glaciers.Olga: It sounds so romantic too.Daniel: Yeah. It's good that you go with a boyfriend.Olga: Thank you. I'm looking forward to go there.Daniel: Good. If you need any other advice just let me know.Olga: Thank you.Daniel: You're welcome.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Olga: The next place?Daniel: The next place would be well Santiago.Olga: I don't really look forward to going to Santiago. I would rather go to some other place.Daniel: OK then. Then if it's around like the center of the country, I would recommend you to go to Easter Island.Olga: Oh, I've heard about it. The place where they have those big statues, right?Daniel: Right. Do you know the names of them?Olga: Actually no.Daniel: OK. They're called Moai statues. Yes, and you can see them. If you take a plane from Santiago, it will take you around five hours and you can see the indigenous people. You can see the statues and if you're lucky you can stay in a house with an indigenous family.Olga: Actually those families, do they speak Spanish?Daniel: They do speak Spanish.Olga: That's great.Daniel: But they also speak their local language.Olga: Maybe I can learn.Daniel: Yeah. I think you can learn if you live like, if you stay with a family for a week.Olga: It is thoroughly different from Spanish, right?Daniel: It is. It's more close, it's more closer to the Polynesia.Olga: I see. That's great.Daniel: But it's really interesting and the island it's really beautiful and if you go in summer you can swim and it's going to be a really, really good time.Olga: It's not expensive to go there, right?Daniel: It's about five hundred dollars.Olga: It's OK. Yeah, I can manage.Daniel: You have to be careful though because the prices in the island are a bit more expensive than...Olga: Yeah, they do that sometimes in Mexico too. Yeah, touristic places.Daniel: Yeah. And if you want to go south, I can recommend you Patagonia.Olga: Yeah, I heard it's really hard to go there. Is it?Daniel: Well it's really hard to get there if you go on the Chilean part but if you go on the Argentinian part it's not that difficult.Olga: Then I think we want to go there too.Daniel: And it's beautiful because you have a lot of mountains, rivers, glaciers.Olga: It sounds so romantic too.Daniel: Yeah. It's good that you go with a boyfriend.Olga: Thank you. I'm looking forward to go there.Daniel: Good. If you need any other advice just let me know.Olga: Thank you.Daniel: You're welcome.

Have you ever wondered what it means to be a professional conversation designer? Listen as your host Douglas Ferguson and his guest Daniel Stillman, the founder of the Conversation Factory and a master facilitator, discuss what it means to be a conversation designer and much more in this episode of the Control Room Podcast. Daniel shares how he got started as a conversation designer and why he believes that everything is an active conversation. He speaks about what he would change about meetings and why having a narrative with an opening, exploration, and closing is essential in a productive conversation. Listen as Douglas and Daniel discuss impromptu networking, the best questions to ask, and the definition of appreciative inquiry. They also talk about meeting mantras and why they are so important. Daniel shares his take on why using sticky notes is so effective in the ideation process and how to translate the practice to the virtual landscape. Daniel also explains how to host a virtual rock, paper, scissors tournament; it's both crazy and fun. Order a copy of Daniel’s book Good Talk, How to Design Conversations that Matter', available now. Show Highlights [00:50] Welcome. [01:02] Daniel's journey as a conversation designer. [04:01] Teaching design thinking to non-designers. [04:48] Everything is a conversation. [07:43] Providing an interface for an important idea for a product. [08:34] One thing Daniel would change when it comes to having meetings. [11:06] A narrative is crucial in conversations–opening, exploring, and closing. [13:19] Closing out daily meetings with precision. [16:14] The power of impromptu networking to make meetings better. [19:23] Impromptu networking is a great way to model the participation that you expect. [20:34] Daniel's favorite questions to ask. [22:15] Appreciative inquiry, defined. [24:23] The evolution and significance of Daniel's mantra. [26:27] Sticky note ideation heightens focus on specific concepts. [29:03] Reading the room virtually. [31:16] Virtual rock, paper, scissors tournament. [34:47] Ways to signal during virtual group gatherings. [35:48] Distributive facilitation and the future of work. [39:23] Thank you. [41:02] Waiting forever is not a good business plan for your company or your wedding. [43:24] Do large virtual meetings need comedians to keep people interested? [44:57] Daniel's book. [47:23] It has been a pleasure. [47:36] Subscribe. Links | Resources Daniel Stillman Good Talk: How to Design Conversations That Matter LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube About the Guest Daniel Stillman designs conversations for a living and insists that you actually do that too. As an independent design facilitator, he works with clients and organizations of all shapes and sizes (From Google to Visa, to name a few) to help them frame and sustain productive and collaborative conversations, deepen their facilitation skills, and coach them through the innovation process. His first book, The 30 Second Elephant and the Paper Airplane Experiment is about origami and teams and yes, it’s as strange as it sounds. He hosts The Conversation Factory podcast where he interviews leaders, changemakers, and innovators on how they design the conversations in their work and lives.   Full Transcript Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today on Control the Room Podcast, I have Daniel Stillman. Daniel Stillman is a conversation designer, and insists that you're one, too. He is the founder of the Conversation Factory and a master facilitator. Welcome to the podcast, Daniel. Daniel: Douglas, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on. Douglas: Of course. So, Daniel, I’d love to just have the listeners just hear a little bit about how you got started. Daniel: So, this is funny because I was thinking about this during our pre-conversation. You and I have known each other for a while, but there's still stuff we don't know about each other. This came up when we were having a conversation last week, where you're like, “I don't know the story behind that thing. You just assume I know that because I've known you for a couple of years,” stuff I've just never talked about. And so you've heard little snippets. So it's just kind of funny because we're friends, and now I'm telling you my story. I don’t know. Just pulling out for a second on the meta-ness of it all. Douglas: Yeah. And as you know, conversations can get weird. Daniel: Yeah, they sure can. So, wait. What was the question again? How did I—what's my origin story? Douglas: That’s right. Daniel: Was there any radioactive spiders involved in how I got my superpowers? I feel like I found my way into conversation design through design. I remember actually seeing an ad in the New York Times back when people found jobs in the New York Times’ job-wanted section. Like, that was a thing. And I remember seeing this job for an exhibit designer, and I was like, this is so cool, because I had a background in science. I had studied physics in undergrad. And this idea of designing science exhibits—I loved going to museums when I was a kid. I grew up in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I went to the Museum of Natural History as a kid often. That's where they would just send us on a rainy day. Like, just go there. And this idea of being able to walk into a space and automatically learn just by being immersed in a space, just like, I don’t know. It kind of tickled me. And I wound up going to design school because they had a studio in science-exhibit design. And so I was super-duper excited to learn how to become a designer and how to design spaces for education. But while I was in design school, what I really learned was human-centered design. This idea that, wow, you can just go out into the world and talk to some people and learn about their problems, and then, make some stuff for them that they like, and then find out if they like it, and then, try it out again, make some test iterations. This was, like, 2005, 2006. The idea of human-centered design and design thinking we're really, I mean, nascent in design at the time. Pratt, where I went to school, was still very much form. We studied negative space and curves for entire semester-long classes. And so this idea of designing for people and designing for needs is what really inspired me. But when I got out of school and I started working in a design studio, what I realized was that I actually had to start designing—I didn't know at the time—but I was designing conversations: stakeholder-engagement workshops to try to pull intelligence out of various stakeholders to understand user needs. And so workshop design became a real passion for me. And so that's kind of how I got to where I am today was I realized that design thinking and teaching design thinking to non-designers was something that was really important. I had this fantasy. I was like, if we all knew the rules to the same game, we could play the game. Let's make something that matters together, right? And that to me are like—those are the rules of design thinking. Hey, let's empathize and understand and define and deliver. That's what I do now is I try to inspire people to be intentional about how they create. Douglas: That’s amazing. So, thinking back to when you were just post school and you were starting to have some of those early realizations that everything was a conversation, can you take us to that moment? And what was it that really clicked for you? How did that make you feel, or what was surfacing? Was there something that wasn't quite serving you at the time and you realized there needed to be more, or was it just an observation? Daniel: Actually, I can—I really remember the moment. I went to an event that my friend Jooyoung Oh was running. She was a design researcher at the time, and for many years she worked at Ziba. And at the time—I can’t remember what she was doing—but she did this workshop where she had us do collages of words and pictures that she had printed out on stickers. And we did this visual collage of “my ideal experience for blank is…,” and “my ideal experience for blank is not…” So she gave us these sheets of stickers with words and pictures on them. The pictures were evocative, emotional, suggestive. And we made these collages, and they became a focal point for a dialog. And I remember doing this and I was like, “Oh, my god, this is amazing.” And it seemed so simple. But we had this big meeting coming up with some stakeholders in the consultancy I was working on, and we were doing this big kickoff for this bug-repellent product, which I probably shouldn't talk about. And I said to my boss, he’s like, “We really need to understand all these different stakeholders and what they really think this thing should be.” And I was like, “Oh, my god, I've got a thing for that.” The language I would use now is “I have a design for that conversation.” I explained it to him a little bit, and he squinted his eyes, and he's like, “Okay.” And I'm like, “Dude, you got to trust me on this. I can land this plane. It’s going to get us good information.” And I remember going into that meeting, and we did this exercise. I remember—I literally remember printing out these sheets of these words and these stickers and these images. And one member of the stakeholder team was an engineer, and the other was a marketer. And there was a word that was placed on the is versus the isn't, in either case. The engineer did not want the experience of this chemical bug-repellent product to be magical, and the marketer thought that the experience should be magical. And so what we had was this conversation about magical and what it meant for something to be magical, and why the engineer didn't want it to be magical and why the marketer did want it to be magical. Magical to the marketer meant effortless, easy, efficacious. Boom, done—bugs are gone. And to the engineer, he's like, “If it's magical, then that means that people don't trust it. If it's magical, people don't understand why it works. If it's magical, people can't understand that it's safe and scientific.” And so just from that collaging effort, which some people would deride as goofy, mood boarding, or whatever, it provided us with an opportunity to dive into this really important conversation, which is, What do we want this thing to be, and what do we want our customers to think about it? And what we were doing was providing an interface for the conversation. If we just said, ”Hey, what do you guys want this to be?” it would have seemed like, I don’t know, one, we didn't know our stuff. But by giving them an activity to do, it pulled ideas out of their heads and put them on the wall and allowed us to unpack a really, really important idea for the project. What is magical? Douglas: That's amazing. I think that is a challenge that I see in so many meetings, where two people are using two different words to mean two different things, or they're using the same word to mean different things. And that's a real problem. And often it is not surfaced, and I think that's where a lot of these visual-thinking tools can really surface some of those things and then gives us an opportunity to discuss it. Can shape the narrative. And when I asked you about one thing that you could change about meetings, you talked about this need to have a narrative for our meetings. And just “we're having a meeting” is a flat story, and you're looking for something more dynamic. So tell us a little more about that. Daniel: Well, you were in the room when our friend Allan Chochinov, at the first masterclass, Facilitation Masterclass, you came to in New York, when Allan talked about, what was it, like, a text expander that one of his students made? Allan was an old professor of mine at Pratt. Now he runs the Products of Design program at SVA. And one of his students wrote a text expander so that whenever you write meeting, it erases it. You literally can't write the word meeting, because a meeting is a meaningless word. A meeting can mean so many different things that it means nothing. What are we doing at that meeting? Are we meeting to sing a song together? Are we going caroling. Let's meet to go caroling. Oh, let's meet to align on a decision. Let's meet to figure out what our options are. Let's meet to plan the holiday party. It doesn't mean anything. And so Allan's idea was if you don't have a prototype, you shouldn't have a meeting. If you don't have an object or an interface or a list, a thing to start the conversation off with, you shouldn't have that meeting. And so I think the story of “let's have a meeting” is just, it's a flat story, but it's also just a super-incomplete story. “Let's meet in order to blank, and let's talk about these three things, and I think that we should have process x, y,  and z  to discuss about them. Here's who can make the final decision. I'm just going to be gathering your inputs.” “Oh, okay, cool. I don't want to come to that meeting if I can't make the final decision.” Oh, interesting. Now we have tension and a cliffhanger for how this story is going to end. If you told people the real story of your meeting, most people might not even come to those meetings, which people don't like. “Well, what if I made my meetings optional? People might not come.” And I'm like, “Yeah, well, make your meetings better, make them matter, talk about something that people really care about.” Douglas: That’s amazing. Also, I think the super power of that is when you realize that there's actually multiple narratives, multiple tracks, and that you might need to divide your audience. If someone's focused more strategically and someone else more tactical, being able to split those things rather than jamming everyone together into the same conversation and creating so much discord. Daniel: Yeah. Everybody’s sitting around a table and talking over each other. And yeah, so this is why narrative is important in conversations, at least this idea of opening, exploring, and closing. Years after people come to my Facilitation workshops, the one thing people remember, they forget most things, but the one thing they remember is this idea of opening, exploring, and closing, and having time to both open or diverge and close and converge and making some time in the middle for something interesting to emerge. And I absorbed that idea from Dave Gray's coauthored book, Gamestorming, just the importance of having those three modes of thinking. And I think having that baked into the process and communicating that to people, it just means that we expect that something interesting and surprising will happen. Otherwise, just make a video. Just make a video of what you've decided and just tell everybody. Douglas: It’s fascinating because Dave Gray talks about the explorer section also being referred to as the groan zone because no one typically enjoys it. But the funny thing is most people, their meetings just consist of explorer. Let's just start exploring when we walk in the door, and then we explore until we have to walk out of the door. And that's really unfortunate if you don't give people that time, that boot-up time. I just recently read a book on facilitation that was talking about—they were talking about it as clearing, which I thought was a really fascinating way to think about an opener, is allowing people to clear themselves and get ready for the meeting to start. Daniel: Well, you’re basically closing before you can open. As we all know, if you don't close, you can't open the next—like, if you don't—and I'm sure you've seen this in sprints, right? If people don't close on day one, mapping the problem, it's really hard to open on day two, finding a target. And if you don't close on a target, it makes drawing a set of solutions really, really super hard. And if you refuse to close on a smaller number of prototypes, it means that your last day of the sprint’s going to be a bear because you test everything. Douglas: Yeah. And we've often talked about how critical closing is in the kind of more macro sense as well, because if you aren’t closing out your everyday meetings with precision, then it's really difficult to align on anything. The real, I think pathological cases, when you walk out thinking you're aligned, but you're not, and so everyone else is telling a different narrative. And you were all in the same meeting, so it should sound like it. Daniel: The cost is even higher than that, Douglas, because internally—I think one of the reasons why people pay an external facilitator, one reason why people hire me and hire you, is to create urgency. “Douglas is here. We’ve paid him. It’s expensive. Everyone stop what you’re doing. We have to focus now.” When people have an internal meeting, their urgency isn’t there. There’s no burning platform, like Kotter talks about. There’s no urgency. And so if you don’t close, you push off decisions. And work is a gas. A gas at standard pressure and temperature expands to fill the space available to it. So time creates pressure, and a sprint or a workshop reduces the volume of space we have to it. And if we don't cap things off or tie them off and say that this is the decision we're going to have, and now we're going to move on to the next phase, it's very idealistic to say these things. It is really hard to do, right? It's really hard to say, okay, well, let's just try this thing, or let's move on to the next thing, even though we don't feel we're ready. I hate doing it. I still tell my clients to do it because it's hard. I know it's important to do, and I struggle with it myself. But if we don't do that, what happens is we wind up working nights and weekends. That's the cost—not seeing our families. If we can close in the time that we have proposed, then we can have the rest of our lives back. Douglas: Yeah, well, it's interesting. You talked about it being hard, but the answer really is to disagree and commit. If we can come together and not rely on unanimity, this desire to have everyone agree, then we can get to a point where there is a decision, we're all going to support it, and we're going to see what comes out. And I think the thing that I try to coach people on is there’re one-way doors and two-way doors. So if it's a reversible decision, then why are we working weekends to get this? Daniel: Right. Having kids is not the same thing as, where should we go for vacation? Where you go to vacation is still a reversible because you've gone and you've spent that money; you've gone on that vacation. But you can always just leave early. You know, you can cancel a vacation halfway through. You're like, “I hate it here. Let's go someplace else.” But it is very hard to cancel, not to get into any politics, but once you've got the kid, it's really hard to cancel it. Douglas: That's right. Daniel: Still not impossible. All my friends who are adopted, it's a thing. But it creates repercussions. Douglas: Let’s shift gear a little bit here and talk about impromptu networking. It is a really powerful way to make meetings better. And why is that? Daniel: Oh, right, right, right. This was my—actually, it’s funny. I was only a light dabbler in liberating structures before I worked with you. I remember looking at the website, and I know many people have had this experience of, this is a crazy place on the Internet. You get to the website, and you’re like, wow, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here, but this looks like the ravings of a madman. And having met Keith, I still actually have that same opinion. It is definitely the ravings of a madman. And I had done things like that before. I had started most of my workshops in my early days with “Grab someone and tell them a story, and then, listen to their story,” because creating energy in a workshop or a meeting is a hard job, and it shouldn't be the job, the sole job, the sole responsibility of the facilitator. As I like to say, it's everybody's problem we're here to solve. It's just not my problem, presumably. If people are here, they're buying into the problem. So starting with a conversation or a story or a reflection about an important component of it is really, really great. Plus, conversations are complex, and so the fewer number of people in the conversation, the less complex it can feel. And so if you've got a group of five or ten or fifteen, pairing up with somebody just immediately simplifies the conversation and makes it more intimate. I was talking with somebody today about this. He used to be a teacher. And this “think, pair, share,” which I thought I invented because it rhymes, and I thought I was clever, this is baked into Harvard University’s education best practices initiative. And every teacher already knows this. Think to grab a partner and talk to them about blank. It's just such an easy reflex. But I see so many facilitators who try to wrangle a group as a large mass of people, and I just don't think it works. You have to be—it takes a lot of strength. This is a total side note, but I love telling this story. Have you seen The Princess Bride movie? Douglas: Mm-hmm. Daniel: Yeah. There's the scene where Fezzik and the Man in Black are fighting as Vizzini is escaping with Buttercup. And they've just climbed up the wall, the Cliffs of Insanity, and they're about to face off. And spoiler alert—Fezzik loses. And he realizes halfway through the fight why he's having such a hard time. He's like, “I haven't done one-to-one combat in so long. I'm used to fighting groups of people. You have to use different techniques.” And I think of impromptu networking as a really, really great group-fighting technique, because it doesn't matter if you've got two people or ten people or a hundred people, you say, “Okay, everybody grab a partner and have a quick conversation about blank.” And then the room is filled with energy that you did not have to create. People are connecting to other people, they're learning from each other, and then it's up to you to do the next thing, which is take that energy and funnel it, direct it, focus it towards the next activity, get people to do something with that inspiration and that information and that connection that they've gotten from other people at the moment. Douglas: Yeah. And we often talk about modeling behavior. And I think impromptu networking is a great way to model the participation that we expect. So we get them at ease with participating and gaining that human connection that they so need. And especially in the virtual world, it's really critical to start setting some of those expectations, because people aren't used to doing it when they're tuning in the virtual webinars and stuff. Daniel: Oh, my god, I know. I did that with a workshop, super-duper early in the meeting. And one of the reasons why I like to do it early is this idea of antifragile openings. If somebody shows up five or ten or fifteen minutes late, they can still float in, weave in to the second or third pairing. And this woman was like, “I knew you would do breakout rooms. I didn't think it would happen so soon.” I'm like, “Yeah, if you show up 20 minutes late to this workshop, you're going to miss something, but you're not going to miss everything. You're still going to be able to get some…” She was able to come into the third pairing in impromptu networking. Douglas: For sure. And impromptu networking only works if you have a good invitation, and your prompt has to be tight. This means that you have to have a good question. So Daniel, what are your favorite questions? Daniel: Oh, man. That's my favorite question. That’s definitely my favorite question. I actually asked that of somebody on a recent podcast episode that I was hosting, on my Conversation Factory podcast. I interviewed Cameron Yarbrough, who has a scaled coaching platform called Torch.io. And his favorite question to ask people is, what are your blind spots? And boy, oh boy, that's a really—I mean, technically an impossible question to answer yourself, but it's a really, really interesting one. He described it as a cone, like a Zen question that is unanswerable but interesting. And so good questions can be like that. I think the other easy, easy question is, tell me a story about blank. Just tell me a story when you last blank, or tell me a story about how you have blanked. Or just go straight to story because stories evoke emotions and empathy. So don't just say, “Tell me a story of when you were at your best.” It's a hard question to answer still, but it's a really interesting one, and it evokes interesting reactions for people. And that's why I think focusing on positivity over negativity is always hard. Douglas: Absolutely. That was the thing I was going to bring up next, actually, was the fact that I'm a huge fan of, if your questions can be appreciative or express gratitude, that can be really amazing. And if you can make people become introspective. So think about a time when you maybe received—what's the best compliment you've ever received? So lovely. Daniel: Yeah. And just to double stitch on that, by the way, not everybody knows what appreciative inquiry is. And it's, when you look at it, if you come from design thinking or the sprint world, you look at appreciative inquiry, and you're like, it can be weird, but you're like, wait, how is this different than design thinking? And the difference is is that you only focus on the positive. And there's this idea that you can, in fact, heal a system and a person by looking at only the positives. And in my book, I actually, I found a story. I couldn't find the truth of it. I couldn't find a direct quote, but people have talked about it, this idea that—I forget the name of the Dallas Cowboys coach—but at one point during a slump, he was like, we are only going to show you your best plays. You know, they tape the plays, and they go back, and they review things. They’re like, look, we are going to review and analyze your best plays only. And it kind of flips things on its head because a lot of designers and a lot of innovators think like, oh, we're problem solving. And so if I'm problem-solving, I have to look at what's broken, and then I have to fix it. But with appreciative inquiry, there's this radical idea that I can find what's working and ask how I can magnify it and expand it. Douglas: Yeah. there's an amazing book called Super Human, and it goes into a lot of super athletes that are doing just amazing things, like free scaling mountains, and the winged airmen—the Red Bull team that just jumps off of buildings and does insane things. Daniel: Base jumpers. Douglas: Exactly. And one of the things that they discovered—and this is a phenomenon in this world—which is there is something that humans have not been able to do for decades. And the first time one human does it, like 10, 15 other humans would do it a day later, because they've shown that it's possible. It just opens up the world of, well, now I can just go to do that thing that I know—I've seen them do it. Now I can do it. Daniel: Yeah. Wow. I love that. That's really, really awesome. Douglas: And so this is similar to your mantra, Daniel: if you don't write it down, it didn't happen. So we need to be able to see it to prove it, and then we can we can double stitch on it. And we have a mantra that's similar: always capture room intelligence. So why is this so important? Daniel: Well, I, first, have to honor my friend Miles Begin, who gave me that mantra years ago, and that was when I first started teaching design thinking to non-designers. That's the whole point is if it's not on a sticky note and it's not on the wall, we can't talk about it. And having that mantra’s really helpful, especially if you have over-talkers in the room, and it's also really helpful if you have “under-talkers” in the room. If somebody’s really, really overexplaining an idea, you can say, “Hey, can you fit that on one sticky note and get it up on the wall? That is truly, truly awesome. That'll be great.” But we used to tell a story about—have you ever watched Mad Men? Douglas: Of course. Daniel: Yeah. So there's an amazing Mad Men episode where—I forget the team. It's, like, Peggy and a couple of the other people stay up all night to bang out some ideas for something. They're drinking, and they're smoking. And they finally have this amazing insight, and they're like, “Wow, that is such a great idea!” And then they go to sleep because they're satisfied. Spoiler alert—they didn't write their idea down. And so the next day, when Don Draper comes in, and Don’s like, “Okay, what’d you jerks come up with?” And they're like, “Oh, my god, we've got this great idea,” and they're looking around their desks, and they're like,  Wait a minute. What was it?” And their brains are just this empty vacuum of space. And they're like, “Oh, my god, we didn't write it down.” And they're just crestfallen. And Don's like, “I understand. That happens sometimes.” It’s one of the few moments when Don decides to be really, really human. Like, he gets it. You didn't write down the idea, and it disappeared. And so I found an old PowerPoint of mine from, like, one of the first design-thinking workshops I ever taught. And there is a scene—we found a screenshot of Don Draper and some other people, just to teach people this idea of, if you don't write down your ideas, they will disappear into the air. And this is long before I knew that conversations had interfaces and that if you use a durable interface for your conversations, not surprisingly, you can have a more-sustained conversation about it. That’s why when you get it on the wall, we can talk about it. If it's not on the wall, I'm just interpreting what I heard, and it can disappear in the air. So one of the great things about design-thinking workshops is that we create this paper trail of insights and agreements when we go from phase to phase. And if you don't do that, we're having a much floofier conversation. So it's really, really important to get things down. And if we're talking about virtual, it's actually really problematic. I mean, I love MURAL, but MURAL sticky notes are not the same thing as real sticky notes, because on a real sticky note, there's a limit to how much information I can put on the sticky note. With MURAL, you can literally write the great American essay on one sticky note and just shrink it down to infinitely small size. So, you're not as limited. We always used to tell people, oh, use Sharpie on a sticky note. That's because a Sharpie and a sticky note create one idea. But it's way too easy in virtual visual capture to put too much information into one sticky note. Douglas: You know, Daniel, that's a big debate: how much limitations did the software put on us to mimic the real world? I think that's a fascinating conversation. Daniel: I would love to be able to switch on real-sticky-note mode. Douglas: Yeah, that’d be fantastic. And I find as a facilitator, where you talked about virtual being more difficult, and this is just one example. There's a long, long list of why we have to lean in more, and it's difficult to be a lazy facilitator, virtually, whether it's we're looking to see how long the sticky notes are or we're making sure that people are connected and having to do troubleshooting and provide technical support. One of the things we spoke about, this notion of helping teams get unstuck and making sure that they continue the momentum as they leave the workshop and they go start to build their vision. And you talked about that being the magic question, just having to look around and just check and see if everything's fixed. This is something that I've talked to Erick Skogsberg quite a bit about, this notion of, from learning the science, we have to consider assessment points. What is our learning objective and making sure we've built in points of assessment so we can understand if we've gotten there. And even if you're not training people, it's important that you build this into workshops because you're taking people on a journey and you want to make sure that they're hitting the milestones, right? What do we do virtually? You and I have talked about this quite a bit, but what do the listeners need to know about virtual kind of reading the room? Daniel: Well, you have to find other feedback loops. And I think that's where—like, when we've set up MURALS for multiple tables, when you put them on separate MURALS, which I know is something you've recommended in the past, especially if you're doing a larger meeting, putting them on separate MURALS reduces the load, but it makes it harder as a facilitator to monitor multiple tables. So it's nice to have three or—if you only have 15 or 20 or 30 people to just make areas for each of the breakout rooms to work, because then you can just see everything that's happening, because while MURAL does have those preview images, as we've argued over before, the preview images don't update often enough for you to get that feedback loop, but it can be really, really simple. I've seen you do this, where you ask everybody to rename themselves in Zoom. And that's pretty meta because you're asking them to give you some information about themselves, but you're also testing whether or not they're engaged and whether or not they are interested. And if you don't see people—if you see people not doing that, then, we don't have anyplace to go because it's like, oh, they don't know how to use the tool, Zoom, and they aren't interested enough to tell you something about themselves in this area. And so it's just finding simpler, smaller feedback loops to make sure that you're moving forward with people with you, if that makes sense. Douglas: Oh, absolutely. And we've been using two facilitators in most of our workshops, with someone dedicated to looking for those signals. So they're kind of keeping a lookout for those things. So, absolutely. And also, just to keep this a bit evergreen, I'm now on the beta for the new rendering engine, so do not have to make multiple MURALS for even larger gatherings now on MURAL, so that's pretty exciting. And after that launches, you won’t have to be in the beta program, have access to that. So I'm sure listeners in the future will be happy to have that. Daniel: I’m wondering why I’m not on that beta program. Douglas: I think you should talk to some friends, Daniel. So with that, I’m super-curious about Rock, Paper, Scissors online. How does this work? Daniel: Well, so here's the thing. Like I say, I, because I think you're referring to a LinkedIn post that I made, where I didn't even think it was possible. I just sort of assumed. And this goes to your sporting-events thing, right? where when somebody does it, then you're like, oh, that's how to do it. And it partially goes against my lazy facilitation principle. But during some of the facilitation masterclass cohorts that I run, we make spaces for people to try out new warmups and icebreakers that they've never done before. And this one woman, Janine Underhill, said, I'd like to try to do a Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament.” And I'm like, “Good luck, sister. I'm going to enjoy this.” And she did it. She did it. It can be done. I think what's interesting about it is that simultaneity in remote facilitation is impossible because of the speed-of-light limit. It’s basically an Einstein-Bose condensate kind of a problem. If you and I tried to snap at the same time, we can’t. Even if we said, “One, two, three, snap,” we wouldn’t snap at the same time, because you wouldn’t hear me snapping at the same time. There’s a delay because we’re in between this piece of software. The software institutes a delay, and sound travels more slowly than light. And so we’re never going to have simultaneity. In person, it is very hard to notice that lack of simultaneity, right? When I say, “Rock, paper, scissors, shoot,” it seems simultanous because we're within, like, two feet of each other. But when we are 100,000 miles from each other, and we are on Zoom, we notice it. And what happens is people start slowing down, because we go one, two, three, shoot, as we wait for the other person to catch up with us. And then somebody always throws before the other person, and so it's like—but we don't have a response action time to metabolize that information. And so it's actually a really interesting learning opportunity to talk about how challenging communication can be remotely. But it is totally possible to do it, and it is fun to do it, and it is ridiculous to do it. Everyone should try it. Douglas: That’s amazing. So structurally, when you do a Rock, Paper, Scissors battle, you're just having people start off in groups. Daniel: Yes. Douglas: And then the winners are laddering up to—it’s like a basketball tournament kind of… How do you do all these groups? Are you doing breakout groups, and then combine them together? Daniel: Yes, I will, in the interest of community, I will tell you all of my secrets. So Janine worked too hard at it, I think. She did all the initial pairings. We only had a group of 15, and she did all the initial pairings, and she did the secondary pairings as well, and she did the tertiary pairings. She called out all the pairings, kept track of it all. And that was to her credit. Douglas: She was recording the brackets. Daniel: She was the bracket-eur. My variation is to have people turn off their video if they lose. That's the easiest thing to do is just have people turn off their video if they lose, because then, at least, the bracketing is easier. Douglas: Yeah. Or someone could raise their hand if they're looking for… Daniel: Yes. Totally. They're signaling. And so here's the thing. We could try to do it a perfect way, or we could let the group solve it and see if we can get them to understand everything there is to understand about group communication, because signaling, oh, how do we signal stuff? Okay. How do we start—how do we keep signaling for the rest of our meetings? Okay, cool. And I've seen groups really develop some great habits around, okay, put your hand over your head if you haven't blanked. And so I don't think the bracketing thing—video makes it easier. Bracketing, the problem is, is that I think bracketing can't be done automatically. It's much harder to say, okay, I'm going to claim blank person as my hand-off person. So I haven't solved it. But I also haven't tried to do it with 100 hundred people. I've only done it with 20. And then it works fine. And it's fun. Douglas: Absolutely. Daniel: It's as fun and as ridiculous, if not more so, than doing it virtually. Douglas: Speaking of distributed facilitation in general, you've mentioned to me that it's weirder and squishier. So I guess some final comments for the listeners around challenges, just why is it weirder and squishier? And then, what are you hopeful for? What are you optimistic about? Daniel: I’ve written about this before. I can send you a link to the article on LinkedIn that I wrote. It's called “This Digital Place,” and we have a sense of place that comes for free by being four-dimensional beings. We exist in space and time, and we've had a long time, our entire lives, to get used to it. And we've had 40,000 years as modern humans to evolve for it. We've evolved in it. This is our—you know, [knocks on wood] this physical space is my native place. And so when we go into this digital place, it feels weird because it is literally not natural for us. But those Post-it notes behind you on the wall are not natural for us either. We designed those for ourselves as a tool, and I cannot imagine having an in-person meeting without those tools anymore, in the short decade that I've had those tools. I remember we didn't always have big Post-it sticky pads. We didn't always have whiteboards. We've grown really used to this environment. In the last 10, 20, 30 years, we've created this built environment around our meetings and our engagements, and we require them now. But I assure you, they are not natural. They feel natural to us because we’ve become acculturated to it and to them. And we do not have a culture for this distributed place. We don't have rituals for this distributed place. We are learning them slowly but surely. The example I love to give is, whatever it was, like, maybe five years ago, that guy from the BBC whose kids tromped in in the middle of his presentation—a little girl in yellow, running in like she owned the place. It was hilarious. And the guy was super embarrassed. The mother of the kids was extra-special embarrassed. And I was listening to NPR yesterday, where this woman was welcoming this man on to share a report about something. And he's like, I'm really glad to be here. Blah, blah, blah. And then his dog barks in the background. And the interviewer was like, “And it sounds like your dog’s excited to be with us today as well, too. What’s his name?” And he’s like, “It’s Buster.” And she’s like, well, hello to Buster. So, blah, blah, blah, let’s talk about blah, blah, blah. And it was seamless. It was smooth. She was like, whatever. We're just here, and there's a dog. Nobody cares anymore. That's something to be optimistic about, that we can adapt to this place, that we can learn new tools, that we can learn new rituals and new patterns. The fact of the matter is this is not natural, but there's very, very little that's natural about our lives. And we make our lives. We design the spaces and places where we have the conversations that we want to have. And so I'm pretty optimistic about the fact that our old patterns don't work as well here and that we have to develop new patterns, and that it is possible that maybe we will learn to retain some of those patterns when we get back to meeting in person in 19 months, my current estimate. Douglas: Well, Daniel, I look forward to continuing this journey with you. I agree, there's lots to learn and there's lots to explore. And we won't know for quite some time where these new norms and these new customs emerge, but I'm already seeing some things happen, and I think you and I are doing our best to be on the forefront of that. And so I just want to say thanks for being there with me, and it's been fun learning with you. Daniel: Likewise, man. I mean, a lot of facilitators say, “I can't feel the room, and it's not as good.” And honestly, I was one of those facilitators. Jim Kalbach from MURAL will literally quote back to you, like, the umpteen times over the last three years that I said to him, like, “I'm good, dude. I'm a great in-person facilitator. I'd much rather not compete on a global scale with anybody who has access to MURAL for facilitation gigs.” And we're in a situation where that's no longer possible in person is a fundamental assumption of what I used to do. That is impossible anymore. And I think if we can't adapt, if I can't adapt, if the rest of us can't adapt, we are royally screwed. We have to learn how to do this. And that's one of the reasons why we did the large virtual meetings things together. I thought it was important to push my own limits and say, is it possible to do the kind of big, crazy workshops that we did in person? If they had value—and we thought they did, and I think they still do—then, can we do them here, rather than, I don’t know, wait 18 months before having a bunch of people come together to make an important decision? I mean, honestly, Janet and I are having a long, ongoing discussion about this. We had to cancel our wedding in June. And what to do about getting married, and do we do a Zoom wedding? Will that be fun? Will that be interesting? Will it feel like a real wedding? Or should we wait an indefinite amount of time to bring everyone together to celebrate the fact that we have something good going here? I don't think that waiting forever is a really good business plan for anything, not for a marriage and certainly not for third-quarter top-to-top strategic meeting. I see you're nodding. You’re like, yeah, they should not be putting off those meetings. And I think people are putting them off, or they're doing them really, really poorly. Douglas: Yeah. I think there are two outcomes we've seen the more we explore this with companies. And some companies have the mindset, they have it figured out because they know how to run a Zoom meeting, or they know how to do webinars. Daniel: Right. One to Many—done. Douglas: Yeah. Like, I'm good. So they're just in the camp of, don't realize all the potential they're missing. And then you've got another camp that says we’ll just wait until we can do it in person because they've got caught flat-footed and they know that there's so much missing, but they don't know what to do. And so that's definitely the inspiration for putting together more virtual offerings. And the large virtual-meetings workshop is, I think, really hits the nail on the head as far as a real challenge around, what do we do with large groups? That sounds troubling. But the fascinating thing to me, Daniel, is that there's so much more that people learn. These aha moments can apply to much smaller meetings, but it's the large groups that people are the most confused by, and so that's where we approach the teaching opportunity. Daniel: Yeah. And large can just mean 15 or 20. It’s not hard to break the two-pizza rule, right? It is really easy to break the two-virtual-pizza rule quickly, and most of us don't have Fezzik-level skills when it comes to wrestling with large groups. And we need them. Everybody needs them, I think, especially if you work in a large corporation. But also, I went to a birthday party on Friday for someone I went to junior high school with. And this guy’s sister, who I was best friends with in junior high, she does stand-up comedy. And we did a call on Wednesday for the party, and she’s like, “What should I'd be looking out for, Daniel?” And I was like, “Well, look, it's a lot of people. You need to have an M.C.” And she's like, “Oh, I can do that,” because she's M.C.’d open comedy nights. And it’s like, “You need to have somebody to keep the energy moving and to orchestrate things and to keep the conversation moving.” It's not trivial. I think maybe this is where comics will find work in this new economy. How the Emmys and the Oscars need Billy Crystal and Kevin Hart, maybe these large virtual meetings just need comics, which is an insight you had for the first Control the Room,right? Just bring in some comedy to keep it going. Douglas: It might work a little better in the virtual setting, maybe. We’ll see. Daniel: Yeah. Are they available for me and my team? Douglas: Yeah. Bring them in, for sure. Yeah. There’s also some companies that have sprung up that allow you to rent— Daniel: Llamas? Yes, I know. Douglas: Llamas and perezosos and all sorts of stuff. Daniel: I don’t even know what those are, but… Douglas: Oh, it’s a sloth. Daniel: Oh, okay. Douglas: Everyone's got to have a sloth at their workshop. Daniel: Yeah, but see, that’s just like shiny distraction. Douglas: I agree. And Daniel, you know, I think this is the exact reason why so many people dislike icebreakers and eye openers and energizers, because they just throw them in, with no reason whatsoever, and without a debrief—in fact, I've started to say, if you can't ask, “Why did we just do that,” and have that erupt into a pithy conversation, ask yourself, “Why did we just do that?” Daniel: Whoa, yeah. I agree with you. Obviously, I agree with you. Douglas: So, Daniel, what do we need to leave listeners with? What should they know? And how could they find you, contact info, all that good stuff? Daniel: Well, I'm on the Internet, easy to find, fairly SEO’d. If you Google “Daniel Stillman,” you might find me. If you Google “The Conversation Factory,” you'll definitely find me. I have a podcast. I have a book coming out, by the way, Douglas. It will be coming out shortly, God willing. It's called Good Talk: How to Design Conversations that Matter. They're advertising it as a step-by-step handbook. It's not a step-by-step guide, because I don't think there's a single recipe that could possibly account for all situations. But it is a map to the territory and can help people learn how to form and shape and guide all the conversations in their lives better, from big-group conversations to the conversations that they have with themselves every day. We have a shocking number of conversations with ourselves, and those need to be designed just as much as quarterly action-plan gatherings and off-sites. And so if you go https://theconversationfactory.com/goodtalk, you can find it. You can download some chapters. It’s a thing. You don’t have to pay me anything. You don’t have to buy the book. The first two chapters, there’s a lot there—although somebody has told me that I ended the first two chapters at the right spot, that made them want to read the third chapter. And to that, I have to thank Kellie McGann, who helped me with the editing of the book. Douglas: It is a fantastic book. I've read it several times— Daniel: What?! Crazy. Douglas: —and I think it's really critical for people that are wanting to elevate their meetings and just their interactions at work and at home. It is a fantastic way to step back and look at your dialog in an abstract way so that you can put terms to it. So just like physics is the science of being able to take the phenomenon in the world, how the air moves past you and how your car functions, and you can put equations to it so you can understand it. You can talk about it in an abstract way so that you can reason about it. Daniel has done that for conversations. And if you think about how many conversations we have and all the moments throughout life where conversations are important, you can imagine how relevant this book becomes. And I can't highly recommend it enough. Daniel: It's really, really—it's wonderful to hear you say that. I appreciate you saying it. Writing a book, as you know, is a terrible, terrible thing. I’d never recommend it to anybody. The fact that it's out there and everyone can read it is terrifying to me. You can see what goes on in my head now, and the fact that I had a love of physics, and still do, and a love of design, it's not surprising, hearing you talk about it, I'm like, “All right. Of course. That's why I wrote the book the way that I did.” Douglas: Excellent. Well, Daniel, it's been a pleasure having you here today, and I can't wait to chat with you again. Daniel: Thanks, Douglas. It's always a pleasure. Thanks, man. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

In this Best of Episode we help Daniel decide if he's expert enough to start his online business. This episode was originally published on July 10, 2018.  You can check out the original episode here:  http://flippedlifestyle.com/podcast212 FULL TRANSCRIPT Jocelyn: Hey, y'all!  On today's podcast, we help Daniel decide if he's expert enough to start his online business. Shane: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast where life always comes before work.  We're your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. We're a real family who figured out how to make our entire living online.  And now, we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life?  Alright, let's get started. What's going on everybody?  Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, it is great to be back with you again this week!  Super excited to have another member of the Flip Your Life community on the show today. I've been looking forward to this specific interview all week, and you're going to learn why here in just a minute. Jocelyn: I'm pretty sure he's talked about it like every single day.   Shane: Every single day.  I'm so pumped up right now to welcome Daniel Hulsman to the show.   Daniel, what's up man?   Daniel: Hey, how you guys doing?  It's really good to be out here and talking to you both!   Jocelyn: We are pumped to have you here, as Shane has mentioned.   Shane: I am super pumped to have you here! Jocelyn: Shane loves telling stories, so I'm just going to let him take it away.   Shane: Alright, here's how Daniel and I got together, okay? Jocelyn: Something I should know?   Shane: No, no.  This is a G-rated show, Jocelyn.  Alright, so Daniel sent me an email during a recent launch.  A few weeks ago, we opened the doors to the Flip Your Life community and started giving everybody out there a month for free.  Daniel apparently heard this and signed up and you know, and he went through a couple of the emails and things like that. He had not joined yet, he had not joined the membership yet.  So, I wake up one morning, and I get this email because yes, we check our emails, okay. And I get a message and the first line -- what was the subject line on this? Daniel: I'm just shaking my head over here.   Shane: I know, right.  There was some hater-ade in this email, people.  This is a critique, is what I'm about to show you, I'm not going to read the whole thing.  But Daniel's sends me this email and says two things -- a little smug Daniel, I'm not going to lie -- but it said two things: "One, your customer service link in this email leads to a 404 page.”  So that is not a good sign when somebody pointing out a broken link. Jocelyn: When your email starts like that it's probably not going to go too good. Shane: And he made the emoticon, it wasn't even the Emoji.  He actually used the type of symbols of a smiley face with a tear.  That's sad, guys, we're supposed to have all this together, right?  And then he goes on with this giant block text of paragraph about just all sorts of stuff he didn't like in our marketing and things like that, but here's what drew me in.  Are you ready for this Daniel? This is the turn to the positive, this is the turn to the light side of the force. Daniel: (sighs) Shane: So he's critiquing all of our sales techniques and blah, blah, blah, and I just heard all of this skepticism in all of this stuff.  And then he said, "And you gave me a heart attack on Episode 200 when you said goodbye because I did not want your podcast to go away.”   So that's where the turn was and it says, "You are changing lives of people like me who want a better life for their families.”  I read every word of this email and it was really long, and that's the point where I was like, man, I saw something there. I was like, “This guy wants a better life.”  Then he went on to say, "I've been struggling to get my website off the ground for a few years, and your story inspires me to keep trying." So, all of that criticism, all of that critique, when I got to the end, I realized it was just frustration.  It was just a little frustration, a little skepticism, a little "Is this real?" and you've been doing this for a while, and I sent him a message back, my email.  I purposefully had to write more words than you did. Daniel: Oh, that was a good little novella.   Shane: Yes, yes.  There was some massive… this was a no-sugar soliloquy.   Jocelyn: Oh, now we're going to get tons of hate mail, so people will get to have--   Shane: Yeah, everybody will just send me hate mail now, like, "Shane will write me back if I do that!”  Here's what's funny though. This is the difference between me and Jocelyn. I was writing this email, and when I was doing it, Jocelyn was like, "Are you still writing that guy back?"  And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm still writing. I'm doing it!” Jocelyn: I'm trying to talk to him about stuff, and get things done.  And he's like, "No, no, no, I'm writing this email!” Shane: "No, Daniel is getting a message back from me.”   Jocelyn: I'm like, "Okay.”   Shane: I could have gone a thousand ways with this email.  I could have gone, "How dare you find my broken link.”   Daniel: Or just deleted it.   Shane: Or just deleted it and I could have just ignored it.  But I really just felt drawn, and there was potential there and you wanted something more, and that's what we're here for -- that's our mission.  So basically I won't read the whole soliloquy. Jocelyn: Please don't.   Shane: I won't, I won't.  I won't read this parable that I wrote you back.  But in the future book, it will come out. But my main point was, “Are you going to let a link that goes to a 404 page or a sales page hold you back, and are you going to look back again in a few years from now and say, ‘Man, I've struggled for a few years and I'm done,' or are you going to look back and say, ‘That was the moment I actually took action and took my next step.'” And I challenged you.  I just said, "Go join! It's free for 30 days.  You go look at every course we've got and you see if it doesn't move you forward.”  And I said, "Instead of critiquing our sales process, watch the magician's hands. You've been struggling for a few years, and we have it.  Maybe there's something there. Maybe there's something we're doing differently.” I've got to read what you sent me back. Daniel: Oh, yeah.  Please go ahead, I was angsty. There was a long time of just reflection before I sent anything back.   Shane: I jumped up, man, and you can ask Jocelyn.  I started going crazy and pumping my fist because I was so excited.  You sent me this message back, and it said, "I started to spend a few minutes, trying to think of a clever yet grateful response to your candid feedback--" and I like how you said 'candid feedback' because if anyone saw this message, it was pretty candid.   Daniel: Yeah.   Shane: And it says, "But I think I'll just shut up and get started instead.  Sounds like I've got some work to do. I just finished the form, I'm logging in, and when I get home, I'm printing your email and hanging it on my wall next to my computer.  Thank you for the much-needed kick in the (blank)!” So I just want to say, you're welcome for the boot print on the back of your pants. Daniel: Thank you, sir.   Shane: And I am so glad that you are a member of the Flip Your Life community now, and that we turned a critic into a customer.  After you followed up, and I saw what you have going in your business, I know that you've got a great, great potential to do something with it, okay, so Kudos to you, man.   Jocelyn: We love these kinds of stories so much because it's just awesome.  So many people want to point fingers at other people and say, "You're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong.”  But most of the time it's more like a mirror. They're looking back at themselves, and thinking, "My life is not perfect either.”  None of our lives are perfect. So that's the cool thing about this, is that we're able to help each other and we don't just give up on people. I mean, if you were like a blatant hater or... Shane: There is a difference in a critic and a troll.  I was actually very thankful you found that link.  Before I wrote you back, I emailed our team and I said, "We've got to fix this link.”  That's how I started my email back to you, so I was actually really grateful that you sent email in the first place.  It helped us, and I wanted some reciprocity there to help you back. Jocelyn: And so we knew that we had to talk to you because of this crazy story, and we just love it when things like this happen, so thank you for being here today! Daniel: No problem.  And I'm sure my wife's going to get a real kick out of listening to this as well because when I finally told her that you had offered to speak with me this morning, she was like, "Why?!" And then I had to tell her the whole backstory.  And she's like, "I am a little surprised that you sent that email, but sounds like you deserved your response." Shane:  That is absolutely hilarious!  Jocelyn: Okay.  If we're being honest with ourselves, like everyone listening to this show, myself included, we've all done something like this.  This is not something-- we're not trying to pick on you and say like, "Oh, you shouldn't have done this or whatever." Shane: This is like when you get mad and you honk at somebody or give them a rude gesture on the highway for doing something you did a week ago.  It's all it is. I've seen so many emails like that. There's a difference between a troll, and a guy who's like, "Guys, I really like what you're doing and I'd love to have it, too.  And I think I could get it, but I'm frustrated, and nothing's just working and I'm just trying to vocalize that, and I don't know how to do it." Daniel: Yeah, I mean, I feel like I've been beating my head against a wall for years.  The whole way that I started my current website, I actually bought another course, a $500 course years ago.  I've been a longtime listener of that podcast, and I signed up. They're very adamant, don't skip any steps. As a good little soldier, I did all the steps and at the end I had ended up with this website and like a tiny little affiliate sale every now and then.  And a website that I felt was nice, but it was a website, it wasn't a business. I just didn't know where to go after spending all this time pouring myself into this and years later here I am still not sure how to course correct. Shane: Well, listen.  You're not the only person that's ever done that.  The next step is always the most frustrating step that never goes away.  We're sitting here figuring out our next step just like you are. It's just at a different level.  That frustration is part of the journey and hey, man, we'll get you past it, and let's get you to the next step and that's what we're here for so we can help you do that.   Jocelyn: The reason that we started this trial because we feel like there are so many people out there who are frustrated, and they don't know what to do next.   Shane: Or they've been burned by that $500 course in the past and nothing happened.  Like I got burned by a course like that! What happened in 2012, when I first started this, the first thing I discovered was Google ad marketing, like where you make a niche website that has like five pages and you put Google ads on it and the gurus all said you'd be a millionaire in six months.   Jocelyn: All that was before the big Google smackdown, they call it.   Shane: So I built a couple of these sites and, granted, it did make our first ad click, which was eleven cents that inspired us that it's possible to make money online.  But I'm paid a dime and a penny! If you can't pay my groceries with this thing, you can't even get the cart at Aldi! That's a quarter. For anybody that has an Aldi, you know what I'm talking about here, you can't even get the cart out at the grocery store for a dime and a penny.  But what happened was -- it's so funny-- I got frustrated, but once we figured that out, I bought another course about email marketing. I noticed, not that that guy was email marketing for affiliates.  I noticed that his email marketing was to sell his course on email marketing and he was selling his own product.  That was really the epiphany that we had was, it's not about partnering and JV Partnerships. That's cool, that's later.  It's not about affiliate links, it's not about ad clicks, it's not about Amazon and all that. You're not going to make any money that way.  It's about figuring out how you can serve other people, creating a product that solves their problem and that's what you promote. That may be the next step for you too.  Alright, so rewind! Jocelyn: That was a lot of information. Shane: It's still one of my favorite stories ever and it always will be, and I'm going to be so proud of you, not only because you joined, but I can't wait to see you succeed.   Jocelyn: I can't even express the joy that Shane had when you decided to join the membership. Shane: Oh my gosh, when you joined the membership, I was like, "That dude joined.  Holy cow, that's unbelievable!” Jocelyn: That's his mission in life.   Daniel: You know what it was.  It was the last line in your email.  It just went off on me and then at the end, the last time was just 'Finish', with a link back to the form that I didn't complete.  That was just the word that echoed in my subconscious until I did it. Shane: Oh yeah.  I see it now.  It just says 'Finish:' and then the form.   Jocelyn: I hope that, if nothing else from this story, I hope that people understand that we really do care about you and we want what's best for every single person listening to this podcast.  That's the reason why we do what we do. Yes, we are a for-profit business. We have to pay our bills, but we want everyone out there to succeed, and that's why we're offering this free trial.  So I hope that if nothing else, people understand that we really do want what's best for every single one of you. Shane: And I also realized too, there's a lot of movement out there.  People want to shut everyone out of their lives and all these gurus are like, "Well, if anyone hates you, delete them, and if anyone critiques you, screw them, and if anybody, whatever, whatever, whatever," but like man, 90% of the people that even send you feedback, they're just really asking you for some advice.   Jocelyn: And if somebody has taken their time to email you, even if it's something you'd really don't want to hear-- Shane: They care.  They at least care.   Jocelyn: They care enough to send the email.   Shane: Love it, hate it, but never ignore it, man.  Help somebody next time they send you a bad email, send them back and say, "You alright?  What's going on? Can I help you?" Jocelyn: That being said, please don't send us a lot of hate mail! Shane: I can read through the fake hate mail guys.  I know fake hate from real hate. Okay, so let's do it!   Jocelyn: Alright.  So before we get more into the story, let's go back just a little bit.  We want to know about you, your background, and what you have started so far online.   Daniel: Sure, so, by day, I'm a father.  I live in Boston and I am a full-time music teacher at an inter-high school in Boston.  I grew up in Delaware. Go Blue Hens! Our mascot's a giant blue chicken, really exciting!   Shane: We have a mascot in the Kentucky school called, “The Hilltopper.”  It's literally a red pile of dirt. That's what he is. The Hilltoppers and the Blue Hens can go to war.   Daniel: I don't even know what to say about that.  That's so strange. But you know, why not? Sure.  I graduated with my music education degree looking to be a music teacher, and then that was 2008 and then the economy crashed.  All the arts jobs disappeared so I had to kind of scramble and figure out something else to do. I ended up working for Apple for a few years doing B2B sales, and then I just started nerding out on online marketing stuff after reading the Four-Hour Work Week.  I ended up getting a job at a marketing software company called Hubspot. Worked there for a year before getting back into teaching.   So it's been kind of a bit of an eclectic journey professionally.  But then on the side of that, two years ago, as I said, I started, you know, I did an online course and at the end of that I had a website for video game composers because I love video game music and I've always loved to do games and stuff.   Jocelyn: Okay.  I need to just stop you right there because in your intake form, it says I manage-- Shane: 'Intake Form.' That sounds like he's getting up for parole, and your intake form-- "Your podcast application" would be better, probably. Jocelyn: On the podcast questionnaire, how's that?   Daniel: Perfect.   Jocelyn: Okay.  I just have to ask you about this because I don't know what this means.  Okay, it says, "I manage a choir that records professional video game soundtracks twice a year.” So let's back the truck up. Shane: That seems like the coolest job ever!   Daniel: Alright, sure.  So I ended up by networking in the Boston scene here, which actually there's an orchestra called the Video Game Orchestra in Boston and they started as a club out of Berkeley College of Music, and then they ended up becoming a full-blown professional orchestra that records the live music for video games.  I happened to meet and befriend the guy who runs that. Over a couple of years, just because he knew I was a singer, I ended up getting pulled into a choir to record a trailer for a game called, “Final Fantasy 15.” Shane: Are you kidding me?  You sang on Final Fantasy 15?! Daniel: I did.  I sang on the trailer, and then I sang on 10 tracks on the soundtrack.   Shane: Dude, I am so glad you wrote me hate mail! Jocelyn: Who gets this job?   Shane: Yeah, this is amazing.   Jocelyn: "Yeah, I sing on video games.”   Daniel:  It's a very fun thing to drop in a conversation.  I've got to admit. I mean, you know, it's very few and far in between, but the gigs are extremely fun.  I've just wrapped up a second one or our first one for the year. It's just a lot of fun. But the third grader in me is just elated.  Every time I go into the recording studio and get the recorded video game music, I got the music pumping into my headphones, and with the school to sing-- the instrument that I was trained on was voice.  And so it, you know, I'm really thankful for that because now I get to go and sing on video games. Jocelyn: My nine-year-old son would think this is the coolest thing ever.   Shane: Oh yeah, because he loves music, he loves video games.   Daniel: Then you know, he and I, we understand each other, then.   Shane: What's cool about this, too, man, is I can see where this is going.  One thing that people love about the Flip Your Life community, and once again there are needs for life coaches and business coaches, but everybody doesn't have to be one.  The variety of niches and our community is second to none. Like we have people, we talk about it all the time. We've got people doing everything you can imagine. Ninety percent of our people are doing something besides life coaching.   And you hear about this, I would never think, oh, there's a niche for video game music composing.  But even as you say this, we've got a member named Chris Greenwood, he goes by the name, Manafest. Really big Christian artist, awesome guy.  His songs, though, one of the ways that he markets his music is he licenses it for games and licenses it for movies. And now you're actually recording original tracks for things, so there are so many niche markets out there that you wouldn't think people would want to get into.  But then you're like, "Well, wait a minute, if you're doing it and he's doing it and somebody else is doing it, well, there are probably thousands of people that want to do it.  Right?" And uh, that's where this kind of came from. Jocelyn: Okay, so your site is about this video game music, correct.   Daniel: Yup, to help new and aspiring video game composers.   Shane: What is it called?  What's the domain name?   Daniel: VGMacademy.com Shane: videogameacademy.com, okay.   Daniel: You can go to either videogamemusicacademy.com, or you can go to vgmacademy.com, and it'll redirect you.   Shane: You actually own a three letter domain?   Daniel: vgmacademy.com Shane: Wow, that's really awesome that you have that, you know what I'm saying?  Because those are hard to get. Daniel: Well, it was kind of those dot academy ones, I wasn't that fast.   Shane: I got you, I got you, I got you.  Now tell everyone a little bit about where your community is, because you've actually built a community, an audience around this.  We've not monetized it yet, which is very common, right? So tell everybody else about the other assets that are around the website.   Daniel: Yeah, sure.  So I've got an email list that has got currently over 2,600 people on it, which I feel pretty good about that number.  I just obviously don't know what to do with it at this point. I've got a pretty sizable Twitter following of like 4,500 people or somewhere around there right now.  But my thing that I really liked the most at this point is that I've got a private Facebook group that has just reached 1,000 members.  It's like a no-spam, no-self-promotion zone for people to get in there and get questions and ask help, but also engage in anything that's going on with the website.   I've got a community challenge that I run over the summer.  So this is the second time I'm doing it, starting in a couple of days in July.  It's a 21-day challenge for composers to get in there, and just write something, even just like a little tiny something.  One little musical idea, just write something new every day for 21 days straight to make it a habit, and everyone goes in there.  Last year it was awesome! Everyone posted, you know, put up a graphic for each day. Shane: Is this free?   Daniel: Yeah, this is free! Yup! Shane: Do you make them opt in to get in the challenge?   Daniel: Yes.  Yeah. Shane: Okay, that's good.  Do you create content regularly on your website?  Like blogs or videos or anything like that? Daniel: I used to, but this past year, to be completely upfront and honest, I've just been kind of burned out and frustrated.  I feel like anytime I come back and pour energy into it, I feel like it's misdirected, or it doesn't really move the needle on anything.  So this past year, it's been pretty inconsistent. Shane: Listen, you have no idea what you've got in your hands.   Jocelyn: You're doing so many things right!   Shane: So many things right, so many things that other people can't even figure out how to do or won't figure out how to do.  Like how to do a challenge, how to opt in for it, how to get them in a private Facebook group. And your audience? I mean you have 2,500 emails.  Do you know how many people would drive to Boston and punch you in the face to steal 2,500 emails from you? You have this Facebook group with a thousand people, Twitter followers.  You have an audience that you've built! When Jocelyn and I launched our first product that did like thousands of dollars, we had less than 400 emails total, and it did like almost three grand in like the first week.  So you've got the people, you've got the thing, you've proven that people want this, and these challenges, you've proven that people will opt in. It's not a large stretch to just say, "Well, what if I charged for a challenge that got more involvement with me?" Jocelyn: Or at the end of my challenge, I'll give them their next step and I charge them for it?  Daniel, this is not hard! Shane: Yeah, you got this, man, dude.  I want to talk about two things, first, really quick is fears and obstacles.  Something's holding you back because you've got the tools in place. Jocelyn: What's going on inside your head that's saying, "I can't do this?   Shane: What are you afraid of?  What's the fear that's holding you back?   Daniel: The biggest thing is that I feel like-- and this is again a part of the result of that original course.  I ended up with a website and a community that's really looking for someone. In some ways at least I feel like I'm not qualified enough to take people to the next step that they want because I'm not a full-time working video game music composer.  I'm a music teacher. I know a lot of basics in terms of songwriting and composition. But in terms of like a lot of the technologies that people want help with the digital audio workstations, people can spend and waste countless hours of time diving into the audio technology and the audio engineering part of it.  And that's just something that's a huge time investment. I'm not able to become the expert on that as fast as I think I would need to be at this point. I feel like I'm in a lot of ways behind the ball of my audience in terms of the audio engineering component.  But that's the biggest thing: I kind of feel like in some ways I'm just not qualified. In other words, I think I am.  I think that I know a decent amount about marketing, I know a little bit about negotiating, which is something that comes up with freelancing.  So I got some transferable skills, you know, music theory and that kind of stuff. But I just don't know if I'm at a point where I have put myself in a position where I can be as helpful as I originally intended to be.  I think I have really big and ambitious dreams. But then becoming a parent, apparently you have a lot less free time and energy. So yeah! Shane: You have less time than the millennial on the beach in Thailand? Daniel: You know, believe it or not, I have a little less time than them, you know.  And that was the thing that shocked me. That was, I was definitely one of those, "I'm going to make it, I'm going to figure out how to manage this and make it work for me,” sort of people.  But then I had a kid that didn't sleep for two years. Jocelyn: Okay, let's push pause on that because that's a different issue.   Shane: Let's pause! Okay.  We've pulled out a fear and an obstacle.  The obstacle is kids that don't sleep on time.  We'll get to that in a minute. Now the fear is this: let me do a mock conversation for you here, okay.   I walk up to you and I'm like, "Oh man, I would love to compose music for video games.  Man, that'd be a cool job. I would love to do that, but Daniel, I think you could maybe teach me how to do that, but you know what?  Like I just want to make sure that you're even expert enough.” So then it comes back to you, "You look at them and say, 'Have you sang on Final Fantasy 15?' And that guy goes, 'No,' and you look at him and you say, 'I have.  Sit down and listen.'" Okay, so let me just dispel that: you're expert enough!  What you're trying to do is what a lot of people do: you think you have to know every single thing ever about your topic.  There are things that we don't know about online business. I meet with people that are very high level all the time in different spaces.  I'm in a mastermind group with some ballers and they're good dudes and we all do our businesses very differently and sometimes they say things and I can't even wrap my brain around it, what they're talking about.  But that's okay because I don't teach that thing even though it's still online business. What we teach is how to start, how to find an idea, how to get your website going, how to get your product created, how to get it out to market, how to start a membership site and create stable recurring income.   I don't know anything about JV partnerships and affiliate marketing, but I've got a friend who's made millions of dollars doing it, but I don't teach that.  I don't have to teach that and I don't have to go learn that. You don't have to learn all the digital audio mixing and stuff like that.  You could partner with someone who sells that and be an affiliate for them though, and then you could teach composition, negotiation, how to get the job, how to keep the job, how to make sure they call you back because you're getting called back.   You got to teach what you know and then point them to other people.  We don't teach people to do public speaking even though that's a big part of some brands.  Jocelyn and I, the only public speaking we do is at our own live events, we don't have time to go do all that other stuff.  But if I wanted to send someone to teach public speaking right now, I would send them to my friend, Grant Baldwin, The Speaker Lab, because he knows how to teach public speaking.  But I'm not going to go learn how to teach public speaking just so I can create a course about it, that doesn't make sense for us. Jocelyn: Let me tell you, and everyone who's listening, a secret.  And it's not really a secret. But you are not for everyone.  We are not for everyone. There are people out there who say, "You know what, I've grown my business and you know, I'm making a million dollars a year, and your stuff is beneath me.  Like I don't know how to get to the next level, and you're not going to be able to help me.” No, we're not, because that's not who we serve. Shane: I don't want to help you get to 10 million dollars a year.  Fine, you're a millionaire. You figured it out! You know what I mean?  Like that's not our point. Our mission is to help 100,000 people start their online business, and get to a point where they could have the decision to quit their job.  That's our mission is to help people start that journey. Our mission is not to take the person from a million dollars to 10 million dollars.  I'm not going to go try to figure that out. I'll leave that to somebody else. Same thing here, don't think you've got to teach all these other things.  I don't know the Video Game Music Act that requires you to have so many hours of certain degrees to teach people how to get into the industry. That doesn't exist.   Jocelyn: Let me tell you what this is, though.  This is you looking at yourself saying, "I'm not perfect in these ways, and I don't want someone to point out those flaws," and let me tell you how I know that because this is my everyday life.   Shane: Yeah, Jocelyn always does that.  We might have a deficiency. Like, one of the things that we struggle with is leading our team.  Jocelyn and I are very much like visionary, mud-on-the-wall, let's go, let's figure this out, and sometimes it's hard for us to pull back and lead our team.  But we have a really big team and we've got to actually go and sort this out. We have to be better. Jocelyn: It's just not something we enjoy doing.  Therefore, we don't want to do it. Shane: But we do share our struggles with our community.  We share our struggles on our podcast, and those struggles are just as valuable as someone who's got it figured out.  You could even talk about that. Listen, what if someone is a composer, and understands music because they went through music, and the band, and choir, and all these things, and they went to college, and they were vocal, and they learned how to sing.   What if the millions of people who do that never learned how to use these digital audio things?  And now you can say to them, “I don't have this skill, but I made it. I figured it out and I can help you do it, too!” Jocelyn: Do you know what the beauty of having a community for this is?  You don't have to know all the answers. You are surrounded by lots of other people who are interested in the same thing and guess what?  They might be strong where you're weak. It's just like our community. Like there are things that I'm not fantastic at, but there are hundreds of people inside our community, and a lot of them might have experience with it where maybe I don't.   That's the awesome thing, is that I can go in and say, "Hey, I've never done this, but our member, Kevin, has done this," or, "Our member, Karen, has done this.”  You know, I can pull out names of people who are an expert in this field and I don't have to be. So that is the awesome thing about doing that. Shane: That's one reason that we always say people come for the content, but they stay for the leadership in the community, because the leadership guides them to what things that leaders don't even know.  Like I can at least point to you the direction where you need to go, and the community fills in gaps of knowledge because if we have thousands of entrepreneurs in one place that are dealing with the three-year-old who doesn't sleep, that are dealing with the fear of being expert enough, that are dealing with how do I overcome this software plugin or whatever, then now we get to fill in the gaps and we get to work together and you can create that same dynamic.   You've probably seen this, I bet, in your community, haven't you?  Like people are talking about things and giving feedback that you didn't even think of and conversations and challenges. Have you seen that in your community? Daniel: Yeah, yeah! It's funny that you mentioned that because you know in a way I haven't needed to talk about the technical stuff in terms of the software in the Facebook group because a lot of times when people ask that question, which is not as often as I would've expected, but when those questions do come up, a bunch of people jump on them.   Shane: Exactly.  And that's why a community is really important in this kind of thing because what you have to do is say, “What CAN I teach people?  That's the most important question. “What problem CAN I solve?” And we so often get bogged down in the things that we can't solve.  "Well, I can't solve this for them. Well, I can't teach them this so I must not be sufficient," but you are sufficient. You are good enough and you are awesome at these things.   You have to make a bulleted list of “What Can I Teach Them?”  Well, I can teach them to the composure. I can teach them to negotiate.  I can teach them where to look for these gigs because you've probably got an idea of that, you know, you can teach them all those things.  That's what forms the basis of your content and then your leadership with coaching or community and things like that, that's going to guide them to the next step.  And that's what you are. You're a lantern bearer on a dark path, you're going down a path, you're showing them where to go. Jocelyn: You've already found the lantern.   Shane: That's right, you got it.  So you know where to go. You came back and got somebody else.  Now, you're taking them to where you were. And another thing I really sensed from you is you really want these people to do this.  Like, you know this is awesome, and these people want to do it. And you're like, "Man, I really would love for everybody to get to sing on Final Fantasy 15, right?" Daniel: Yeah, I mean, one of the biggest kicks I got doing this challenge last year was that, I was blown away by -- I was very clear with the community that I was really only looking for you to show up and write two to four bars of music a day.  A few seconds of music, a little idea. People really just created some really beautiful, some really awesome tracks, and a lot of them were doing full-blown, completed tracks almost every single day. That to me was a huge win. There was so much really great music that came out of it.  And I was just really happy! Jocelyn: But here's the problem.  You pumped the brakes, you gave them something awesome.  And he said, “Okay guys, see you next summer. We'll do this again.”  Daniel, stop it! Shane: You're like, "Look, I'd love to create a course, but I got to write some hate mail to Shane.  That's what I've got to do here." Daniel: I've got emails to write.   Shane: “I've got emails to write, y'all.  I know we're making great music, but I'm writing great copy here.”  I love your mission that poured out right there. Your mission is to help people write great music.  Your mission is to give them a doorway, an opportunity to go the next step. Your mission is not to teach them the mixer, teach them the thing, get them the job, all of that.  The first step that you can teach everybody is that you can do this. because you do it every day in your classroom, you do it every day in your group, you do it on all these challenges. You can teach people to make music that's changing their world, the people around them.  They're releasing new things into the world that never existed before, and then they have the opportunity to go the next step, And then they have the opportunity to learn the technology. And then they have the opportunity to apply for the job, but until they write that music, until it's released into the world, they don't have that opportunity.  Your endgame for them might be to do what you've done, but you have to help them get started and give them the opportunity. Jocelyn: And I'm going to tell you something.  I talked about this a few weeks ago on the podcast.  I feel like I can speak freely with you because, well, this whole podcast this week is kind of crazy.   Daniel: Yeah, it's free, pretty free.   Shane: There's been some free speaking.   Jocelyn: But here's the thing.  I talked about this, I think the 200th episode.  You are being selfish by holding this gift back, so stop it.  You have to do this. You owe it to these people who have a dream, who have something that they want to do, you're being selfish by not giving them the next step.   Shane: Your mission is not to get people a video game job.  That's a result! Your job is to help people unleash music that's inside of them into world through the conduit of video games.  I play Fortnight with my son. Daniel: Nice! Shane: Isaac and I play all the time.   Jocelyn: Not so nice for me.   Shane: Yeah, Jocelyn loses about an hour and a half a day of her life, so we play Fortnite together.  We play almost every day. I love the music at the beginning of Fortnite. I just love it, it makes me happy.  But going back before that, before I had kids, and right up when we had kids, I played Halo, that very famous game.  And I looked it up one day. Jocelyn: That music haunts me.   Shane: Yeah, the music haunts her.  It's not just the music. I looked it up one day and it keeps all your stats, and me, my brother, and my two best friends from high school, we lived far apart from each other when we were adults, right?  So Halo was a way that we got to connect every night. We got to get together for an hour before we had kids and we could actually play games and we got to connect virtually. When I hear Halo's music, I don't just think of the video game, I don't just think of the actual looked-up-in stats, ninety days of my life in actual hours, that I put into that game over a few years in Halo 3.  I don't think about that. I think of laughter, and I think of joy, and I think of all the good times and good conversations that I got to have with my brother who lived five hours from me, with my best friend who lived five hours from me.  Like that's what I think about. If that guy doesn't write that music that was the soundtrack of that game, then those memories don't happen and that nostalgia doesn't come back when I hear that music again.  That's your mission, bro! It's the help these people unleash music that can be used in these games, not only for them, but for all the people that are going to hear it. You've got no choice, man. You got to do this and you are expert enough. There is no degree, there's no certification that can make you more qualified for what these people need. Jocelyn: And I want to say, too, before we move on from this, think about people that you respect as leaders, just in everyday life, maybe in online business, every different area of your life.  Do you respect somebody more who is perfect and never makes mistakes, or somebody who says, "Hey, I don't know everything, but I'm going to help you. I'm going to do the best I can to help you get to the next step," and I feel like that's why people follow us because we're not perfect, we're not polished, we're just regular people who are trying to help other people have a better life.  So, who do you prefer to follow? Shane: Yeah, let me tell you a story about a guy.  This podcast may never end. We're going to talk for a while, we're just sitting back.   Daniel: This is my first day of summer break.   Shane: You're good.  Alright, cool, man.  Our kids are probably doing something right now.  I haven't seen them in about an hour, whatever. They'll be all right.  I can see the lake behind our house. So as long as they're not going into that, we're cool.   Okay, so I had a very influential man in my life who was a teacher of mine in high school.  He actually was what made me even consider being a teacher when I got a history degree because he was my history and political science teacher.   He really taught me a lot about how to argue politics, and think about deep issues and you know, look at both sides, and not be so hateful like everybody is on Facebook these days and all this other stuff.  He was very good at playing devil's advocate and arguing socratically. But that's not where he made the most influence in my life. I actually took a media class and I got to be the director and producer of our school news show when I was a senior in high school.  And I was a hoodlum! But when people see what I do now and my teachers, they're like, "Wow, you're not in jail! That's pretty amazing.”  And then when people see Jocelyn, like from her high school, they're like, "Why did you marry that guy? Because he had very great potential to go to jail.”  For him to give me a leadership position like that and give me that opportunity, it was amazing. I so appreciated it because he knew that I had a passion for the video editing, the audio editing, and the production of it.  I still have a passion for that stuff today with our podcast, with our videos and things like that. Here's why this story is so related to what we're talking about.  He took the media class because he liked the journalism aspect of it. He liked the telling stories aspect of it. He couldn't use a video editor. He could barely use a VCR.  We're going way back now. He didn't know which way to put the tape in the VCR.  It would've been upside down, inside out and he didn't understand how to use anything technology-wise.  And we had got a grant, and they had bought us all this video editing stuff. So this was like professional tape editing stuff back in the day, right?   Daniel: Yeah.  We had the same stuff.   Shane: Yeah.  So we go in and he's like, "Shane, you're the producer, you're the director.  So you've got to figure all this stuff out. I don't know how to do it, but I'm going to tell you how to organize the show.  I'm going to tell you how to lead your team. I'm going to tell you how to do this.” And we would sit in there.  I would remember me sitting at the station just slaving, I would stay hours after school.  I'd leave the school at like 8:00 in the night right after school. Loved it, editing the broadcast for the next day, and he never left me.  He was always right there beside me, and it's really emotional, thinking about it like right now, how much that changed my life because it kind of was a foundational thing for now, like what we do.   I always remember him just sitting there with his leg crossed, reading his newspaper and every once in a while, he'd look over and go, "Shane, how's it going?" Or I'd look back at him and say, "Hey, do you think this story should go before this story?  How should I edit this?" But I had to figure out the technology. He had no clue how to do it. But he taught me how to lead and he taught me how to put things in the right order and how to compose the show. And it didn't matter if he didn't know how to do the editing, and it doesn't matter if you don't know how to use the technology.   You're leading them and you're teaching them how to compose and you're pointing people in the right direction to figure it out.  He gave me the instruction manual. I just had to read it. And that's really what you're doing for your people is you're just leading them, and you're helping them compose and you're giving them the chance, the opportunity, and who knows what happens to those people 10 to 20 years from now?  That's up to them. You're going to give them the chance and they're going to pay you for it, and then some of them probably the minority are going to do something with it. It's going to be inspiring and it's going to be world changing, and that's going to be because you made the decision, "I am qualified to do this, and by God, I'm going to teach it.”  Okay. Whew!   Jocelyn: Whew! That was a lot of information.   Shane: Oh my gosh.  I'm sitting in here, teared up thinking about that guy, and how much it changed my life and it tears me up because I know we've changed lives, but not all of them, the minority because the majority can't cut it.  And if you're in the majority, you need to get over in the minority, if you're listening to this podcast. I know you can change lives and I know that everybody listening has something but they can do! All that guy did was sit beside me and read the newspaper, answer a question here and there.  He didn't answer every question. He answered maybe one question a day. We'd sit there for four hours together.   Daniel: And he just gave you the opportunity.   Shane: And he just gave me the opportunity, man.  That's what everyone listening to this podcast right now has to do, is release what you know into the world and give people an opportunity.   Jocelyn: Okay, Daniel, we have said a lot of words.   Shane: Which, for an introvert like Jocelyn, this was like triple the word count of the normal podcast.   Jocelyn: I know, my word count for the day is over, so I'm not going to be talking anymore.   Shane: Oh, yeah.  Now, my wife will not speak to me until tonight!  I know that she's going to go into her cave, watching Netflix and it's over.   Jocelyn: Okay, but in all seriousness, alright, how do you feel about all of the stuff we just said?  I know it was a lot to process, but how do you feel about that and how do you think that it can hopefully help you to move forward to the next step?   Shane: It's not what me and Jocelyn think your next step is.  It's, what do you think your next step is? Daniel: I think I need to stop trying to be everything and really focus on what I know.  As I was listening and I had been thinking about this and going through the content in the Flip Your Life community this week, I think what's kind of been slowly shifting to the surface is this idea that I know music theory, I know how to teach that.  I know how to teach the basics of composing a good tune. And that's something that is missing a lot in this niche. A lot of people go towards the technology and they go towards the audio engineering and spent hours and hours and hours and making a really basic thing sound really complicated and expensive but the music is forgettable, so it doesn't take it anywhere. So, I think I need to focus more on the piece that I know, and divorce myself from the piece that I don't need to focus on.   And then I guess in terms of specific steps, I need to come up with a core product offer I can lead people to.  Get them the end result of getting their music, getting music that is not only memorable but the music that they'll like themselves the next day, which I think is like a huge pain point.   I think that I'm thinking of like a lot of the people who get into this niche, they have these composers that they've been listening to since they've been growing up.  And there's this one Japanese composer who is like the John Williams of video game music. Shane: John Williams is the greatest composer of all time who did Star Wars -- I just want to show my nerd cred. Daniel: Well done, sir.  Well done! Tip of the hat to you.  People constantly are comparing themselves to this guy.  They always hold him up as the example that they want to aspire to.  He was fantastic at writing great melodies and he was fantastic at using, you know, really beautiful harmonies and then people go out and they write these like beats and there's no melody, and they have no idea how to get over that hump. I think it's just a piece that's missing because they went to the technology but they don't have music education, the formal education.  The technology's there, they have access to that. They've got a lot of resources to learn that, but not everyone went through a formal music education degree or knows where to look or what the problem is. Jocelyn: Right.  And I think that we can really help you craft your offer in the community.  Like, that's something that our community members can really latch onto and help you with because I really think that you need to launch something off this next challenge.  That is really, really important. So we can definitely hash through all that. Shane: And it could be ready in 21 days.   Jocelyn: Absolutely, yeah.   Shane: It's already named, it's the Video Game Music Academy, right?  So you have to open a membership area, and your whole thing is give them the training they need to write these things, and then give them a place where they can share music for you to listen to so you can tell them what to do next.  That's it! That's the whole concept of your membership, is that they need someone to show them how, a place to let people hear it, and some feedback, and then they can go and take the other courses that you make, like How to Contact the Video Game, how to submit your music, how to do that stuff.   Jocelyn: We will get into that inside the community a little bit more, and I wanted to touch on one other thing that we kind of glossed over.  It was the time aspect because we've talked about this a million times. Everyone has the same amount of time, but here's the thing: Once you can get clear on your mission, and you can get clear that you are enough of an expert or whatever mindset hurdle is holding you back, I promise that time will not be as much of an issue going forward.   Shane: You've been obsessed so far with how to monetize a product.  That's not exciting. But now, you have a passionate mission to reach into people's hearts and unleash music into the world that can change other people's lives AND maybe make those people a living.  That's deep, dude! That's going to make you find the time, that's going to push everything that's taking up your time to the side, except the things that matter, your mission, your family, your focus.  You're going to see your calendar changed dramatically over the next couple of weeks. I promise you. Daniel: Sounds good.  Sign me up! Jocelyn: Alright, Daniel.   Shane: I'm signing off.  Jocelyn usually signs off, but listen, man, I am so glad that you wrote me that email!  I'm so glad that you wrote it in the way you did, where it was a critic, but it wasn't hateful.  You let yourself be vulnerable there and you were like, "Man, I'm just frustrated, and it frustrates me that you're doing this stuff.”  I'm just really glad that you were also responsive to my feedback back to you and most importantly, that you took action because if you don't take action, right, wrong or indifferent-- I'm not going to say that that hateful email was right, wrong or indifferent.   But like if you don't take some action, right, wrong or indifferent, nothing happens.  You took action and it turned into another action, and then it turned into a better action and now you're going to take even better actions going forward.  And that's how we all get to where we want to be, is just taking action. So, hey man, I'm glad you're in the Flip Your Life community, and I cannot wait to see how you change the world through this music business and it's going to be awesome watching your journey going forward, Daniel.   Daniel: Yeah.  Thank you, thank you both!  And for anyone else who's listening, who is not sure about whether or not to finish that form, shut up and do it.  You'll feel a lot better. Like I said, I've been through a course before. I was super impressed once I got into this.  I mean, you know, everyone's in there, everyone's doing the work and I've been checking in every day and, the videos, and it's like... it's bulletproof.  At the end of every video, there's a giant yellow button telling you what to do next. I'm not confused. I know what I need to do, so I'm feeling better.  I think I know what I need to do next now, and I'm looking forward to having you help me out craft my offer. Shane: All right man.  Awesome stuff, dude!  Welcome to the community!  Let's get it going. Daniel: All right.   Shane: Hey guys.  Thanks again for listening.  We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.  If you still need more help with any of the topics that we discussed today, or maybe you have a question about something that we went over, we have all the training and support you need inside of the Flip Your Life community.   With over 50 training courses on dozens of online business topics, active community forums, and live member calls with me and Jocelyn every single month, the Flip Your Life community is your opportunity to get the help and support you need to make your online dreams a reality.   And the best part is you can get started today for free.  That's right! All you have to do is go to flippedlifestyle.com/free, and you can get full unlimited access to everything we offer inside of the Flip Your Life community at no cost for 30 days.  Your first month is absolutely free! If you sign up today, you can get unlimited access to all of the courses inside of our training area, unlimited access to all of our community discussion forums, and you'll get to attend our next two live member calls with me and Jocelyn, where you can ask questions about your online business.   And it's all free for the first month.  All you have to do is go to flippedlifestyle.com/free and start your free month today.  That's flippedlifestyle.com/free. We can't wait to see you inside! Shane: Before we go we like to close every single one of our shows with from a verse from the Bible.   Today's Bible verse comes from Proverbs 11:3 and the Bible says, "Honesty guides good people.  Dishonesty destroys treacherous people.” Make sure you are always building on an honest online business that's full of integrity and you treat people the way you would want to be treated.   That's all the time we have for this week! As always, guys, thanks for listening to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast.  Until next time, get out there, take action, do whatever it takes to Flip Your Life. We will see you then. Jocelyn: Bye! Links and resources mentioned on today's show: Daniel's Website Flip Your Life community PROLIFIC Monthly Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what's possible for your family! Join the Flip Your Life Community NOW for as little as $19 per month! https://flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife

Innovation. We love to talk about it, everyone wants it. Innovation is critical for people and organizations to grow. But we all mean different things when we say it. Today I have a conversation about how innovation is a conversation with Brian Ardinger. He's the director of Innovation at Nenet (which owns my student debt! Hi Nelnet!) and the host of InsideOutside.io, a community for innovators and entrepreneurs that produces a great podcast and a conference that brings together startup and enterprise organizations to talk innovation. There are three key conversations worth designing that we discuss and I want you to have your ears perked up for each as you listen to this episode. Each conversation can help you navigate the innovation process inside or outside your organization.  These three are the pre-conversation, the conversation about where to look for innovation and the conversation about patience. Brian specializes in a unique perspective on where to look for innovation. More on that in a moment. The Pre-Innovation Conversation Before you even start to talk about ideas or technology, it's essential to start with the end in mind. What kind of innovation is the company really looking for? Skip the pre-conversation and you have no idea of where you're heading. As Brian points out “without having that definition, then it's sometimes hard to know if you're playing the right game to begin with...the process itself of level setting... I don't think it takes a long time.” Brian and I didn't dive into tools to help with that conversation, so I put a few into the show notes. Mapping the innovation conversation can be done in lots of ways. One is thinking about evolutionary vs revolutionary change, another is about tangible vs intangible change, like rethinking policies or business models vs remaking product or space design.  I *just* did a webinar on this topic with my partner in the Innovation Leadership Accelerator, Jay Melone, hosted by the amazing people at Mural. Templates of the two innovation leadership frameworks we outlined are there in Mural for you to download and use, along with the webinar video to help you along. Also check out Mapping Innovation, by Greg Satell. You can download his playbook free in the show notes.  Where to look for innovation Brian's Inside/outside perspective is that innovation can be a conversation between the inside of a company and the outside world. Some innovation will happen internally, and some innovation can be brought from the outside in: the exchange and acquisition of ideas and technology from outside your organization is an important conversation for enterprise organizations to be having. When you're trying to innovate, it can be tempting to look in familiar places. If you're a financial technology firm, it can be tempting to look to fintech startups for what's next and to try to innovate through acquisition. But you'll also be looking were your competitors will be looking. Try an innovation approach based on Horizontal Evolution - look to the sides and edges of the landscape. Brian describes this approach as “playing a different ball game”.  The conversation about patience Innovation does not happen overnight. Real change takes time and that takes real patience. Brian also points out that organizations need to be having a bigger conversation, about what else needs to change to make real innovation flourish inside the organization. Hint: it's generally more than you bargained for.  As he says “Corporations are doing exactly what they should be doing...They figured out a business model that works and they're executing and optimizing that particular business model...And to radically change that, the people, the resources, the compensation, all of that stuff has to kind of morph or change to play in a different environment. And so I think that's where the challenge really begins.” Often people think innovation is about the idea, but it's a much, much longer conversation. That is, in fact, the first “Myth of Innovation” from Scott Berkun's excellent book: The Myth that innovation is about an epiphany, not hard work. It was a real treat to have a conversation with Brian about some of these key issues...I hope you enjoy the episode and happy innovating! Brian on the Web: https://insideoutside.io/ https://twitter.com/ardinger https://www.nxxt.co/ Innovation Leadership Models from the Mural Webinar https://blog.mural.co/innovation-leadership Mapping Innovation by Greg Satell https://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Innovation-Playbook-Navigating-Disruptive/dp/1259862259 Download the Playbook for Free: https://www.gregsatell.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Mapping-Innovation-Playbook.pdf Horizontal Evolution https://evolutionnews.org/2015/08/horizontal_gene/ An amazing summary from Scott Berkun about his solid book, Myths of Innovation: https://scottberkun.com/2013/ten-myths-of-innnovation/ A few more gems from Greg Satell on the Rules and questions central to innovation: https://medium.com/@digitaltonto/on-december-9th-1968-a-research-project-funded-by-the-us-department-of-defense-launched-a-ee063b7585f0 https://hbr.org/2013/02/before-you-innovate-ask-the-ri Transcription: Daniel: Welcome to the conversation factory. Brian, I'm glad we made the time to make this happen. Um, the reason I'm excited to talk to you is, is that not everybody is, is open or interested in the, the analogy that a company has to have a conversation with the outside world that they can't just, you know, put up some walls and just figure everything out inside those four walls that they have to go outside and have a dialogue with the world in lots of different ways. And the way you do that is, is through helping companies think about inside innovation versus outside innovation, which is my way of like teeing up the how you, how do you talk about what you do with people when you, when you meet people, like how do you contextualize what it is that you do? Brian: Well, I think a lot of things, uh, Daniel around this particular topic, it's this whole inside/ outside innovation. It's kind of come to us over the years of working first on the outside with startups and trying to understand how do they develop new ideas and, and build things. And then, uh, you know, as I was having conversations with startups and helping them navigate that, I kept having conversations with corporations and bigger companies saying, you know, how are you doing this? How are you taking these early stage companies and through an accelerator program and that, and, and kind of getting them traction in that faster than we can do in our own walls. And so that started to have conversations with the corporations and the people inside organizations and saying, hey, how can we interact with the outside world and, and think and move and act more like a startup or, uh, become a little bit more adaptive in how we do that. So I think it was an evolution of just having conversations and figuring out what's working, what's not working in this world of change and disruption that we're living in. Daniel: Yeah. So like there's two layers here, which I think are interesting to unpack. I've learned this new term, the idea of an accelerated work environment and this idea of like, let's speed up the conversation about innovation and let's not just put our feet up and look into space and hope a great idea comes to us. Like, let's structure it and let's do it faster. And so can you talk a little bit about like how you structure an accelerator? Like what does it mean to accelerate people through the innovation process from your approach? Brian: Yeah, so I think a lot of it, like when I go in and talk to bigger companies, first thing I like to do is kind of do a level set of what does innovation even mean to the people in the room. Uh, because innovation has become such a word that's, you know, so limp, so to speak. It can mean anything to anybody. Uh, and so kind of understanding that level set of what does innovation mean to the company? How do they define it? Um, is it transformational innovation where it's, you know, we've got to become the next Uber and disrupt our industry? Or is it a innovation from the standpoint of value creation where we're looking at ways to optimize and incrementally improve what we're building? And so from that perspective, you know, it's, once you have that level set, then you can start thinking about, well, how, what are the particular tactics that you can work through depending on what kind of objectives you want to have and, and what you're trying to accomplish. Brian: So I think that's the first place we start. And then how we do that. Um, again, I think a lot of is trying to help them understand that you've got to place a lot of bets on innovation and innovation is not, um, you know, it's by default working in the new, it's working in this area of gray and this area of uncertainty, Daniel: which means there's got to be failure, right? Like there's going to have to be failure. Brian: Yeah. So, yeah, this uncertainty by default, requires you to figure out and make assumptions and, work through this... Areas of the unknown. And that's very difficult for, a lot of folks to work through. You know, especially at companies and people who are used to having a plan or having an execution model that, that they just execute on. Corporations are doing exactly what they should be doing...They figured out a business model that works and they're executing and optimizing that particular business model… Brian: And to radically change that, the people, the resources, the compensation, all of that stuff has to kind of morph or change to play in a different environment. And so I think that's where the challenge really begins. Daniel: So...I'm comfortable with taking this seemingly simple question of like, we want to innovate more and turning it into this, really stretching it out into a much more complicated conversation. Like I'm wondering if people you deal with ever get frustrated with, (you): "well, Brian, you're just making this complicated. Like, we just want to innovate. Just teach us how to innovate. Let's get started." Versus like, let's talk about your strategic goals. Like I can see how some people might get a little impatient with the, with the bigger picture, with the strategic thinking approach. Brian: Sure. Yeah. And I think, and I think it doesn't have to take a long time on to go through that particular process, but I think if you don't start off on that common definition, then you run the risk later on. And you know, why are we doing this? Why is it not working? You know, we said that, uh, you know, we need to have x, Y, z outcome and these brand new bets that you're putting on the table are not getting us an outcome that we want. Um, but you know, without having that definition, then it's sometimes hard to know if you're playing the right game to begin with. So I think, so the, the process itself of level setting I don't think takes a long time to, to make that happen. And I think, but I do think in general, to change a culture or to move the company towards having that innovation mindset set or innovation as a competency to so to speak, does take a long time. Um, but you can do that through a variety of tactics and in ways that doesn't, um, change, change it all overnight. You know, it doesn't have to be something where, um, you know, you're basically creating something brand new and, and throwing out everything that you've done in the past and, and hoping that the new thing works. Uh, it's really a series of iterative bets that you kind of de-risked these new ideas as you're, as you're approaching them into the world and seeing what happens. Daniel: Yeah. Now, now here's the, the piece that I think that, that we were talking about that's interesting is that companies can innovate through outside acquisitions or through outside collaborations, like through working with startups. And maybe that makes it seem "like, wow, that's neat, there is an easier way to do this". we don't have to do it all ourselves. We can, we can turn outwards and see, uh, not just learn from other people, but actually like bring that outside innovation inside. Like, and that seems to me like, uh, a complicated process to navigate. Like how do you facilitate, how do you facilitate that conversation and make it smooth for people? Brian: Yeah. So I think, at least for a lot of folks, you know, the idea of looking outside is not become, it's not a novel concept anymore. You know, maybe five or six years ago it was like, oh, what's one of these things called startups out there? And you know, we're, we're seeing more and more hearing more and more about it. So it's, it's not a novel concept that, hey, the ability for two women in the garage or in a dorm room to spin up something and get some traction and create something of huge value in the world...that's, that's there and that's not going away. And that's speeding up. And so I think, uh, that, uh, first part of the conversation happening, having people understand that, people have the power and tools and capabilities and access to markets and cheap technology, et Cetera, to really disrupt things is there. Brian: So if we understand that, then what can we do to kind of help navigate that? And, and I think the first thing is just, you know, raise your hand and say, Hey, there are things going on outside. Let's, uh, let's take an inventory or a map on discover what's going on...and one of the, pitfalls I see a lot of companies jump into is let's look in our industry. You know, what's happening in our industry. And that's great, and that you should do that of course. But, um, that's also probably where 99% of your competitors are also playing in that same field. And so I find a lot of times it helps to look at adjacent industries or industries far and away, uh, different from your own to see what's going on, and look for clues or models or technologies or, or talent that may give you a different advantage, if you put those pieces together differently than playing, in the same ball game as your competitors are playing. So, you know, I, I see a lot of people going to these conferences and looking for startups in the fintech space and all you have are corporations in the Fintech area looking at Fintech startups where a lot of times I think, it's better to maybe go to a more of a horizontal conference and looking at AI or uh, you know, different types of data conferences and that would give you a different perspective on how those technologies could be used in your industry or in somebody else's, industry, for example. Daniel: Do you have a story like, cause it's funny as you're telling me the story, like I'm realizing this is, this is the classic innovators trick, right? Which is, yeah, it's, and it's a classic trick from nature, right? Which is, people don't realize that evolution isn't just, um, vertical where you adapt and survive. But there's horizontal transfer of, of genes in nature. Like literally the reason we have mitochondria is because we ate them, you know, a billion years ago. And all of the energy in our bodies is made by an alien organism that has its own DNA, which I find a very, it's always just like an extraordinary fact. Um, but you know, and I've been telling my clients this for a long time too. Like what do you, do you have, uh, a story to share of a surprising transfer of, of innovation from industry to industry in case there's any doubters in the world. Brian: Yeah, it's, let, I'm trying to think of one off the top of my head, but I know I've seen it on the reverse side. For example, we've seen, because I run a conference called inside, outside/innovation. And, one of the things we do is we, uh, go out and find startups in a variety of different markets, bring them to a showcase and then bring corporations around to kind of see what they're building and why and hopefully make some connections for that. And where I've seen it happen is a lot of times where, a startup will be working in a particular vertical market, early stage, uh, and they think they've got a solution in, you know, retail or whatever, and a corporation conversation will come around and they'll say, hey, I love your technology, but you're looking in the retail space. Did you know that you could apply this to insurance? Brian: And the light bulb will kind of go off in the entrepreneur's mind. It's like, oh, this is an opportunity for me to potentially go into a different market or get traction with an early customer that I didn't have before. And so I need to happen that way. Um, and I'm sure the reverse could happen as well where a corporation, uh, is, you know, looking at a variety of startups out there and say, hey, that startup's, not in our industry, but we could definitely apply that technology to what we're doing and leverage it in some way. Daniel: So that actually sparks, I mean, I definitely, I want to make sure we talk about the conference before we, before we leave, but in a way, like you said, this thing that was really interesting about startups, you know, they're, they're trying to, uh, you know, iterate and build their own, um, you know, their own growth engine. Right? Um, I would imagine that some of them are not necessarily open to this idea of like, well look, we're, we've got our roadmap and we're trying to build our own flywheel and move it, get that moving. This, they may not be open to this, this pivot or this expansion. Uh, there's like, oh, you know, well, we're just focusing on market X and like, do you want me to also like expand our, our code base so that we can also take advantage of, of why and collaborate with these guys. Like I how do you sort of, I know you've done a lot of work on building community through, through the conference. Like how do you find startups are expanding their perspectives to being open to this collaborative conversation versus like, nope, we're just doing our thing. Brian: Yeah. And I think a lot of it depends on where the startup is in their lifecycle. A lot of the folks that we bring in are probably seed stage and so they, they haven't figured out their business model. They haven't figured out the exact markets sometimes. Uh, and they're looking for that early traction. And you know, one of the reasons we hold this in the Midwest is because, you know, venture capital and the traditional ways of kind of scaling a business in Silicon Valley don't exist out here. And so you've got to find customers. You've got to find ways to, um, to, to get that early traction. And a lot of that means, you know, getting out and finding those early customers. And so having conversations with customers, uh, real people out there and trying to define what problems are out there in the marketplace and then create a solution, uh, to meet those problems and then meet the market where it's at, I think is more effective way a lot of times in the Midwest here or in places outside of your core tech hubs that don't have the, the against the, um, the advantage of getting a venture capital and being able to have a year or two young, two year runway to figure out, uh, how, where that market is. Brian: So I think, I think so part of that is that, um, I think when I'm talking to start ups, you know, I put my "accelerate" hat on and working as a person who is helping startups through that process, a lot of times I'll quite frankly tell them to stay away from corporates until they, until they figured out some of that stuff. Cause it's very easy to go down the rabbit hole of um, hey, if we just get this one big customer on our plate, we'll be good to go. But a lot of times you know that the timing of the two types of organizations don't match up and it can very, very easily kill start up really pretty quickly. Daniel: Yeah. And it can kill them in that what they're, they're focusing, they'd lose their focus or their, they spread themselves too thin. You know, so like what, what sort of, I think beautiful about what you do is that there's this symmetry in a way you have a community driven approach to innovation through the conference you do building community, but building community so that you have a group of startups who are interested in this type of thinking so that companies can have an innovation community. So they're not just going it alone, that they have a view to what's, what's open in the world for them. I mean, I guess my question is like, have you always been so community driven? Like how did you come to value community as an approach, as in a solution to, to these challenges that you're seeing? Brian: So, I mean, I guess I've always felt community is, is a way to accelerate your learning. Uh, and I think early stage ideas, no matter what they are, whether they're inside a startup or inside a corporation, the key to a lot of those taking place in actually taking hold is that the speed of learning. How fast can you, um, take your assumptions and navigate those and understand where you're on the right track or not, and, um, get to that next stage that you need to get to. So, um, community's always been away from me, uh, personally and otherwise to help accelerate those learnings, whether it's, you know, again, connecting somebody to somebody else who can, uh, an expert in a different field or, um, someone who can help me navigate to something else that I didn't know I needed. Um, and so I think it started from that perspective and it started because, uh, you know, quite frankly, when I started a lot of this stuff seven, eight years ago, uh, the, you know, entrepreneurship and startups were, were smaller, uh, both, you know, nationally as well as in our own backyard. Brian: And so part of it was like, well, if we're going to do this, we're going to, we can't do it all are ourselves. So how do we create a community that allows startups to raise their hand and first say, Hey, I want to be entrepreneurial. I want to try some things. I want to build something. In my backyard. Yeah. And then what do I need and what am I missing and how do I then can be that catalyst to help, um, folks figure that out. Uh, and so it was an evolution of just having conversations, going to different cities, uh, meeting different people, starting a podcast, you know, telling stories, um, you know, starting a new newsletter and then, uh, eventually a conference and everything else around it. Um, and then all the while, you know, consulting and helping companies kind of figure it out on both sides. Brian: And, um, it's been fun. It's been fun to see that journey and continue to figure out what the, what the next phase is as we build it out. Daniel: Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess I'd begs the question, what is, what's the next phase? Can you talk about it? Is it Secret? Brian: Yeah, no! Um, so yeah, so inside, outside innovation, you know, we started four years ago actually with the podcast and the original idea was it was called inside, outside, and it was an inside look at startups outside the valley with the idea that their stories, outside the tech hubs that need to be told and how can we help our entrepreneurs, uh, figure that stuff out. And so that's where it started. And again, it'll happen with further conversations as, as we built that particular audience and had conversations around those particular topics, we kept getting asked by innovators in bigger companies, you know, it's like, how are we doing this? Brian: How, how's this working? We want to be connected to startups. We want to understand this new way of innovating things like design thinking and lean startup in that work, uh, becoming methodologies and tactics that could apply to, you know, start ups outside of a big corporation or, or startups within a corporation that were trying to spin up new ideas. So through that we started the inside outside innovation podcast as the, as the way to have those conversations and talk about corporate innovation and how we're corporate matching with startups and how corporate venture play out differently and how we're internal innovation accelerators popping up all around. And what were the different tactics that folks were using through that. We've kind of created this weird community. It's almost like two communities, but the, the advantages by bringing them together, they both learned from each other. So that's kind of how, that's how it's kind of evolved. What's next? We're trying to figure out the third year of the insight off the innovation summit. Uh, we haven't got the dates and, and that solidify, but it's looking like we're probably going to do it sometime in the end of October. I'm in the process, I'm looking at writing a book around this concept of collaborative and innovation and this innovation as a competency. And then, um, we'll just continue with the podcast and the newsletter and keep growing our conversations with great people out there. Daniel: You know, Brian, it's really, it's, I mean it's, it's lovely to talk to you about this stuff because, you know, the, the ecological approach you have to this, to this processes, you know, it's, it's clearly organic. Like, like anything else, it's starting a conversation and then you've gotten feedback from the world and over time you've, you've built more than you've added to it. Like it's, it's a, it's just guy. It's a wave that is sort of, it has its ups and downs clearly. But you're just continuing to, to ride that wave, which was really awesome. Brian: What the, it comes back to, you know, my feeling is that obviously with the world changing in the, in the speed of change that's happening out there, everybody is going to have to take on some of the skillsets of, of the early innovator. You know, again, a startup entrepreneur or, um, or innovator are going to have to have kind of core capabilities or characteristics that allow you to adapt and be nimble and, and, uh, execute. Daniel: Unless you want a robot to do your job! Brian: Yeah. That's executing different ways that, that you didn't have or that were different in the way that you could execute in the past. So things like, you know, curiosity having a bias towards learning characteristics like having a, an a customer focus and this bias towards problem solving for that customer. You know, the, the skill of collaboration and you know, knowing that you can't build everything yourself. Brian: There's bias towards team, um, you know, some of the characteristics of just speed, you know, how can you have this bias towards action and experimentation. And then finally having kind of the reverse of that you are having patience and that bias towards that long term value creation. You know, I think those are some of the core concepts that make up, um, this new world that we're living in. And the more individuals, whether you're, you know, a traditional manager or a entrepreneurial founder, those are the skillsets that are going to take you to the next level in the world that we're living in. Daniel: It sounds like a good book already, Brian. I don't know. I like it. Brian: I'm still outlining. Daniel: It sounds like a pretty good proposal to me. Um, so listen, I, I, we're, we're up against our, our, our time together. Uh, is there anything I haven't asked you about that I should, that we should talk about? Any, any, any final thoughts? Brian: Yeah, I'm curious for, you've obviously been in the space of helping people have conversations and that I'm always curious to understand what have you learned from helping companies and people kind of navigate a, this world of change, uh, and in this world of innovation, what are some of the things that are obstacles or things that stand out that, uh, I could take back to my audience as well? Well, Daniel: I mean, do you have a hard stop in the next three minutes because, no, go ahead. We can go over a little bit. Well, I mean, for me, what really resonated in what you were talking about is the necessity for patients. And I think this is one thing that's really, really hard, um, for people because we want to go fast and we want to have results. Um, but we also need to slow things down. So one of the things that like I'm becoming more aware of in my own work is psychological safety, which people, you know, Google identified as like the main characteristic of effective teams. The ability, the willingness, the openness to saying what's happening, to be able to speak your mind, to say what's right or to say what's wrong. And that, I don't know, that stuff doesn't really come for free. Uh, it's a really, you have to cultivate that environment. Daniel: And so for me, you know, my angle and entry point is always that somebody, somebody has to design that conversation. Um, if a group of, you know, if a group of people is gonna talk about what we're going to do next and how to innovate, we can either contribute content or we can contribute process. Um, if the, to me, the most important and precious conversation is when a group of people is coming together, the fact that you're willing to, that you have a framework, I'm guessing, to stretch out the conversation about what's our innovation roadmap and where are we placing our bets allows people to say like, okay, what's my holistic view of this? It creates, it creates safety, right? It creates a moment where, where we can have the conversation about innovation, we can have the conversation about how we're gonna brainstorm. Daniel: We can have the conversation about how we're going to, uh, evaluate ideas and how we know if they're good or not. Um, and so for me, I think, um, I feel like I'm ranting now, but I was at a problem framing workshop, uh, with my, my friend Jay Malone, who has a company called new haircut. They do a lot of design sprint training and he was teaching a problem framing workshop. And at the end of the workshop, he presented, uh, you know, on one hand, a very straightforward, like, here, this is what problem framing is in the essence. Like, uh, who has the problem, uh, why does it matter? Um, when does it happen? Uh, like, you know, think about like, where to play and how to win. And this one woman said like, well, yeah, what about, uh, uh, how do we know when it's been solved? You know, how do we know if it's working? And this is, I think one of the biggest challenges with, with companies is we don't know like what good looks like. We don't know when to start. We don't know how to stop working and grinding it out. Um, well, and the metrics Brian: are so different from existing business model versus a new business model that you don't even know who the customers are and the value proposition you're creating at the beginning. Daniel: Yeah. So I mean, for me, like I find the, one of the biggest challenges of innovation is that people bring me in to say like, okay, let's help this team coach through this process. Meanwhile, they've already got a job that takes 100% of their time. Um, and they look at me and they're like, this guy has just given us extra work to do. You know, the workshop that I come in is taking them away from their quote unquote real job. The, the work that I asked them to do to go out and do the interviews and to, to get customer contact looks like it's taking away time for them. And so this idea that that innovation's like something you can buy or pay someone else to do. To me, I want people to be earning their own innovation. But the problem is that most people are at 110% capacity. Daniel: And You bring in somebody like me who says, okay, let's do some design thinking stuff. Let's do a, you know, even if it's a week long sprint, which doesn't give you everything you need, you know, if it's a six week process, it's people are like, Oh man, that was great, but oh, that was hard and I never want to do that again. It's like, it's really, really challenging to get people to find time to innovate. And that's frustrating to me. Brian: Absolutely. Daniel: As a person who just really wants people to get their hands dirty with it so that they value it and, and participated in it. So, I don't know. I don't know what the balance is there. That's... I don't know. I don't know if that's a question with an answer, but Brian: I don't know if there's a clear answer for that one. No, no. Daniel: that, oh, so, yeah, I mean that, that's, that's, that's my perspective. I don't know if that, if that's helpful to you at all, but that's, that's… Brian: Very much so, very much so. Daniel: Is there, is there anything else we should I this, this is definitely the shortest episode. You know, I'm, I'm sort of enjoying or slash you know, floundering in the, in the 30 minute time zone. So I just want to make sure that we've covered everything that you want to cover … Brian: No, it's been great, thanks for having me on the show and the opportunity to talk about insideoutside.io and everything we're doing. Daniel: Yeah. So like that's the, that's the final question. Like where, uh, where can people find all things insideoutside and Brian Ardinger on the Internet. Brian: Yeah. Thanks Daniel. Yeah. So, uh, obviously you can go to the website insideoutside.io that has our podcast, our newsletters sign up for that. Um, and obviously I'm very, um, out there on Twitter and Linkedin in that happy to have conversations. So reach out and say hi. Daniel: Well we will do that. Um, Brian, I really appreciate you taking the time. It's really, it's always interesting to have some patience and just slow down and have some of these conversations about this stuff, that's I think really, really important. Like you said, the future is unwritten and uncertain and all of us need to have skills of adaptability, the inside and I think both sides of the ecosystem that you're a co-creating - the innovator, the startups need to learn from big companies how to scale and big companies need to learn from startups, how to be more nimble. So I think it's really a really important dialogue that you're facilitating. It's really cool. Brian: Thanks for having me on the show!

 This Post is broken out into two separate sections; Evelyn’s written first-hand account of her sexual health journey as a Latter-day Saint and the full transcript of Evelyn’s podcast interview. Evelyn’s written first-hand account of her sexual health journey:As a single Latter-day Saint woman struggling with anxiety and depression, my sexuality was not a priority in my life. After all, I was single, wasn’t I? As an active and devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my responsibility as I saw it at the time was to avoid and ignore anything related to sex. Whatever my well-meaning youth leaders had intended, the message that I had received from them was that anything related to sex - discussion, acknowledgment, unintended feelings of arousal, etc. - was off-limits. The idea that this avoidance might be contributing to my mental health struggles never crossed my mind. In fact, at one point, when asked whether I had a healthy view of sexuality, my answer was “How should I know?” In my mind, even knowing the answer to a question like this was potentially inappropriate, because it would require thinking about sex.Then came the challenge to make some goals in my life in all areas, including my sexuality. This made me uncomfortable. I have tried to do what is right throughout my life, and this felt like straying a little too close to the fence for me, so I started small. I would just think about my sexuality. That was all. For a few minutes, I would consider that this part of myself that I had isolated, ignored, and disconnected was, in fact, a legitimate part of me. Over time, this few minutes of thought led to study. I read books written by members of the Church and other Christian authors and considered what they had to say. I prayed about what I was reading and my own questions. I became increasingly certain that sexuality and desire are God-given and an important part of being whole and complete. As I came to this understanding, some truly unexpected things began to happen.The first noticeable change was that I began to feel differently about certain TV shows. Many comedies use sex as a primary source of humor. Where these shows had not bothered me previously, I began to feel uncomfortable with the way that they were portraying sexuality. Using this gift from God for a cheap laugh began to affect me more. Studying and thinking and acknowledging my own sexuality made it feel more sacred to me, not less. I changed some of my media habits to reflect my new understanding. This led to a closer relationship with God. I also began to feel better about myself. I felt more comfortable in my own skin. I worried less about what others thought about me, and felt less need to hide behind a mask of whatever I thought others wanted to see. My symptoms of anxiety and depression began to decrease. This was a shock to me, but I realized that accepting my own sexuality and desires allowed me to stop fragmenting myself. I became more whole and more authentic. My relationships did not suffer for letting go of my carefully constructed mask. I became closer to my roommate as we had vulnerable discussions and talked - and sometimes laughed - together about our shared insecurities. Other relationships also improved. I began to serve others more and noticed their needs more easily. I felt more comfortable reaching out to comfort and help others in need.Eventually, I decided to take another step forward in understanding my own sexuality and desires. I decided to explore masturbation. This was not a step that I came to lightly. When it was first suggested during a therapy session, I had a strong negative reaction. I couldn’t possibly do this! It was wrong. I felt anxiety and pressure. I felt torn between a desire to please someone I respected by agreeing to try but also fear that trying this would ruin my relationship with God. As a child, I had stumbled upon the ability to stimulate myself and had done this occasionally for some time before I even understood what it was. The shame I felt when I eventually realized that this was what people meant when they used the term “masturbation” was extreme. I spoke with a bishop about this behavior, and put it behind me as best I knew how, by locking away that part of myself as completely as I possibly could to avoid even entirely unintentional feelings of arousal. Now, the thought that I might choose masturbation on purpose frightened me. I thought about this deeply for some time. Eventually, I made a choice: I would not try masturbation. I shared this in my next session. Once again, the results were unexpected. I didn’t consider this at the time, but this was the first real choice that I had ever made about my own sexuality. I had always attempted to do the right thing, but it was an effort to do what others told me to do. Never before had I exercised my agency around my sexuality. I had never owned a choice before in regards to this part of myself. I felt empowered. I felt strong. My fear and anxiety decreased, but not because of what I had chosen. They decreased simply because I had chosen. I realized then that I had previously allowed myself to be acted upon, rather than claiming my agency and making my choices. I began to pray and consider the possibility of making the choice to try to better understand and appreciate my own body, my sexuality, and my desire through masturbation. After a period of time, and with significant thought and prayer, I decided that this was something that I would do. Not long after this, I met the man that I would marry. My experiences had increased my ability to interact and communicate authentically, and I was able to bring my whole self to this relationship in a way that I had not been able to in past relationships. I was able to communicate more honestly about my needs, with less fear. This is not to say that this was easy, or that I was fully prepared to enjoy the sexual relationship with my husband after marriage. I discovered that what my mind and heart believed, my body did not necessarily understand. Like many women, I had to deal with painful sex and difficulty staying in the present moment during intercourse without shame or fear. Gratefully, my husband is a kind and honest communicator who cares about my enjoyment and is patient with me. As we have talked and shared and supported each other, I have felt increased closeness and enjoyment in sex. I know that if I had not begun the process of understanding and appreciating my sexuality and my own body before we married, this process would have been far more difficult. I fear I would not even have been able to talk about it with my loving husband with honesty and awareness, which would have made our intimate experiences together more challenging and our conversations less effective.I know that my journey is far from complete. I still often feel like I have a long way to go. I also would never presume that someone else should make the same choices I have. Every person needs to make their own decisions thoughtfully and prayerfully. However, I truly believe that my Heavenly Father cares about my relationships and is concerned with my experiences with sex. He doesn't want me to live in fear of my own sexuality, given to me by Him for righteous purposes. He wants me to recognize that this gift is a part of who I am. He wants me to enjoy sex with my husband and use it as an opportunity for us to grow closer together. He wants me to claim the gift of agency and make choices for myself, rather than acting out of fear. I am grateful for the experiences that I have had as I have sought to understand my sexuality. I know that they have helped me to develop my relationships - with myself, with my friends and family, and with God. I know also that they will impact the way that I teach my children about this topic. While I still appreciate the efforts of youth leaders who impacted my life in many ways for good, I want to better prepare my children to understand this powerful gift from their loving Father in Heaven. I hope that by teaching them differently than I was taught, they may be more prepared to fully enjoy and appreciate the blessing of their sexuality. Full Franscript of Evelyn’s Podcast Interview:0:00:05 Voice Over: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter-day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel on this episode of Improving Intimacy.0:00:29 Daniel: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. Today, we have Evelyn in the studio, who's gonna be talking about her experiences around improving her sexual health through masturbation. A sensitive topic, and I appreciate her coming in and being vulnerable with us today. Evelyn, will you tell us a little bit about yourself?0:00:50 Evelyn: Sure. I am an active member of the church. I enjoy attending every week and with my family. Anything else you wanna know?0:01:06 Daniel: Kids?0:01:07 Evelyn: Kids, I do. I do have a child. I have a daughter.0:01:13 Daniel: How long have you been married?0:01:14 Evelyn: Been married about... A little more than two years.0:01:17 Daniel: Two years. And how old are you?0:01:20 Evelyn: I am 37.0:01:21 Daniel: Thirty-seven. Wow.0:01:23 Evelyn: Well, I did not get married real early.0:01:24 Daniel: No. Well, out here in Silicon Valley, that's a pretty standard age right there.0:01:30 Evelyn: That's true.0:01:31 Daniel: But you married right, which is a great thing.0:01:33 Evelyn: I did.0:01:35 Daniel: So you're coming in here today, and we're gonna be talking about some pretty private and personal things. What's your motivation for doing this? What's your purpose for doing this?0:01:49 Evelyn: I would say my purpose for doing this is that I feel like I've made a lot of progress through the different experiences that I've had. And some of them have been challenging, but I'm in definitely a better place than when I started, and I want to give other people the opportunity to hear about it so that maybe their journey could be a little bit easier.0:02:14 Daniel: That's wonderful. Tell us some of those challenges that you're having.0:02:19 Daniel: Well, I have struggled with anxiety for a lot of my life. I would say that when I was young, it was really challenging for me to kind of manage day-to-day. I had fairly crippling perfectionism and really was very, very worried about how other people perceived me, and that got in my way a lot. When I was in college, I hit a point where I realized that I needed help. I had great parents who helped me see that I needed some support, so I reached out and I got some help. And...0:03:08 Daniel: What kind of help did you get?0:03:10 Evelyn: I started attending therapy, and I also went on medication. So I was able to get better, but I kind of got to a point where I wasn't really making too much progress beyond...0:03:26 Daniel: Did the medication help?0:03:27 Evelyn: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.0:03:29 Daniel: And this was in your college years?0:03:32 Evelyn: Mm-hmm. Yes. The medication definitely helped, and so did the therapy. I was able to talk to a few different therapists, and it was really beneficial. But I guess that by the time I reached adulthood, I had learned how to manage a lot. I had learned a lot of coping skills which were very beneficial. They certainly made a difference in the quality of my life. I was able to calm myself down. I was able to kind of recognize when I might be having an anxiety reaction that was above and beyond the legitimate need based on what was going on. So I developed a lot of those skills, and I've made a lot of progress, but I would still slide back periodically. And I still realized that I hadn't dealt with some of the root issues.0:04:35 Daniel: Now, we're not talking about, "I'm nervous." We're talking about anxiety that was paralyzing.0:04:43 Evelyn: Yes. Yeah. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and it definitely was making it so that there were a lot of things that I couldn't do. Interacting with people was particularly difficult.0:05:00 Daniel: Let's talk a little bit more about that. Not only interacting with people, you're going into a profession. You're working. You're living on your own. You're high-functioning. But this was getting in the way, not just of interacting with people, but your job too?0:05:17 Evelyn: Well, I wouldn't say that it was getting in the way of my job performance. It was definitely getting in the way of my job enjoyment.0:05:24 Daniel: Ah, yes. And that's an important clarification right there. So how... If you can put it on a scale, it sounds like it was growing and becoming increasingly worse, and you'd been on medication and during your... Maybe your 20s is what we're talking about now. You're out of college, and it's increasingly getting worse. How bad was it? Tell us a little bit more about that.0:05:52 Evelyn: It depended, I would say, on the time. I would have times that I was... Felt pretty in control of how things were going, but then I would have other times when things would slide backward and I would just not want to do anything. And I would... I would say, externally, everything looked fine.0:06:11 Daniel: Yes.0:06:12 Evelyn: From an outsider's perspective...0:06:13 Daniel: You're good with that.0:06:15 Evelyn: Yes, I am. [chuckle]0:06:17 Daniel: As most... As a lot of people who struggle with anxiety are and who are high-functioning, people don't realize how bad they're suffering inside. And that was the case with you.0:06:28 Evelyn: Yeah.0:06:29 Daniel: Yeah.0:06:30 Evelyn: Yeah. But it became... Yeah, it was really very, very difficult on a day-to-day basis to just carry out the things that I needed to do, to make myself do that. It cost me a lot to go through a day and to make sure that no one knew how I was feeling about everything that I had to do, and just the overwhelming... Sometimes, it was... Sometimes it just felt incredibly devastating. I remember explaining it to my mother one time how I would feel about the future and about how things were going. And she said, "Wow, that sounds like the dementors in Harry Potter."0:07:11 Daniel: Wow.0:07:11 Evelyn: They just suck the joy out of everything.0:07:12 Daniel: Yes. What a perfect visual. Absolutely. And I think that's when I first met you was you were at that point. Dementors had sucked everything out of you.0:07:24 Evelyn: Yup.0:07:25 Daniel: You made a particularly interesting request, though, when you came and saw me. So this is much later, so in your mid-30s. So I think that's important. So for about 15 years since college.0:07:40 Evelyn: Yeah.0:07:41 Daniel: Were you on medication that whole time?0:07:44 Evelyn: Not the whole time, but I would say off and on.0:07:47 Daniel: Okay.0:07:47 Evelyn: A reasonable amount of the time.0:07:49 Daniel: And when you were on medication, it seemed like it was manageable?0:07:53 Evelyn: Mm-hmm.0:07:55 Daniel: And by the time you came and sought help from me, you were... If I remember right, you were not on medication.0:08:04 Evelyn: Yeah, I did try to not go on medication for a while.0:08:07 Daniel: That was a particular request you actually had.0:08:09 Evelyn: Mm-hmm.0:08:10 Daniel: You said, "I wanna try to do this without medication."0:08:12 Evelyn: Yes. I ultimately did go back on for some help with sleeping, but...0:08:19 Daniel: But for anxiety?0:08:21 Evelyn: Yeah, for anxiety I think I've made a lot of progress.0:08:23 Daniel: Yes.0:08:24 Evelyn: It still helps, but the biggest reason that I take some now is because it helps with sleep.0:08:30 Daniel: Yes. Well, and you're a new mother too, isn't it so?0:08:33 Evelyn: Well, that's true. Yes.0:08:35 Daniel: A lot of stress is going on. In fact, to that point, with all the stresses that you have, you've been married in the last two years.0:08:42 Evelyn: Mm-hmm.0:08:42 Daniel: You have a baby in your late 30s.0:08:47 Evelyn: Yep.0:08:47 Daniel: Later 30s. All these life changes. You became accustomed to living alone, or at least independently.0:08:58 Evelyn: Yes. Yes.0:09:00 Daniel: And so you have a lot of stresses in your life in your... I mean, yes, medication for sleeping, which, gosh, I'm on right now. Not to minimize at all what you're experiencing there. But even with all these major life changes, how would you say you're coping?0:09:16 Evelyn: Oh, much better.0:09:18 Daniel: Much better.0:09:18 Evelyn: Much better than I was.0:09:20 Daniel: So you eventually, in your mid-30s, you sought out help again. Had you see seen a therapist since college?0:09:28 Evelyn: Yes.0:09:29 Daniel: Yes, you have?0:09:30 Evelyn: Mm-hmm.0:09:30 Daniel: And I'm assuming it was somewhat helpful because you're coming again.0:09:33 Evelyn: Yeah. Absolutely.0:09:35 Daniel: And so you're in a new area, you're seeking some support here. Tell us about that. What was that experience like? You're having to reach out. Give me some emotions.0:09:45 Evelyn: Sure. I would say that when I've gone to see a therapist, it has helped. And so I would... I decided that when I reached a point in a new area, I needed to find someone to help me out because with the moving to a new place, it kind of pushed me backward to the point where I really wasn't coping well at all. So I decided that I needed to find somebody, and luckily, I'd met you.0:10:12 Daniel: Okay.0:10:12 Evelyn: So I asked you, and we started talking, and that was really helpful.0:10:21 Daniel: Well, it was interesting at the beginning. We were doing... So one of the first things we did was we tried to explore what's working. And we repeat those and we try to find ways to enhance that or build on the skills that you already knew how to do and do very well. In fact, I do recall a lot that you were, "Yep, familiar with this. I know how to do this." But what we were experiencing, yes, some of the anxiety was being manageable, but it wasn't getting to a point where you're okay. And correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly, it wasn't... We weren't making the progress that I think you were hoping for.0:11:02 Evelyn: Well, I think I kind of got to the point where I thought this is as good as it's gonna get.0:11:08 Daniel: Yes, yes.0:11:10 Evelyn: And I guess this is life. And that's okay. I mean, it's not too bad. I'll just have to do my best and take a day at a time.0:11:16 Daniel: Well, hold on a second. When you say, "It's not too bad," I think we need to put that in context. You've lived a life of anxiety, so you're not too bad. And yeah, don't let me misspeak. I don't wanna put words in your mouth. But I think... To some degree, I think you're minimizing it. You were struggling.0:11:35 Evelyn: Well, yes. I was struggling, but I guess I figured that we reached the point where I had gotten before, which was manageable.0:11:45 Daniel: Manageable. Okay.0:11:47 Evelyn: And figured that this was... What I was going to do was I was going to kind of do a cycle where I could manage it, and then maybe changes in life or something would happen that would increase the stress, and then I would go downhill, and then I would get some help, and then I would bring it back to manageable. And that would kind of be life. But that's as good as I could hope for, so I should make the best of it.0:12:13 Daniel: So what happened from there? Why didn't we just quit, say we succeeded and moved on?0:12:20 Evelyn: Well, that's a good question. I don't know. I think that you brought up some interesting points that I hadn't considered before, and at first I thought that they didn't have anything to do with me.0:12:34 Daniel: Tell us about those points. What points were we bringing up?0:12:37 Evelyn: Well, I remember you bringing up, at one point, just... Well, how do you feel about your sexual health? And I thought, "How should I know?" I think that's what I said. "How should I know?" I was single and being an active temple-attending member of the church. That meant that I didn't really have a sexual life. So it seemed like something that was disconnected.0:13:11 Daniel: It's interesting even now, when you recall this, and you're a lot more informed now, you went immediately to the sexual experiences. I'm not married.0:13:22 Evelyn: Right.0:13:23 Daniel: And so was it even on the forefront of your mind, sexual health, 'cause that was the question that was what was being explored, was much more than just physical intimacy with somebody else. And so even now when you're talking about it goes, you're recalling, right?0:13:40 Evelyn: Oh, yeah. I'm remembering that I didn't really see any other sides to the issue.0:13:46 Daniel: So what was that experience like, coming from your therapist, even a male therapist, what was your experience hearing it come out as even something to be suggested or thought about. And as again, as a male therapist, any thoughts or feelings around all that?0:14:03 Evelyn: I would say that initially I rejected it, and put it aside as something that didn't really apply to me, but it did plant some seeds of thought that I returned to on my own.0:14:21 Daniel: What prompted you to return to it? So that seed was planted.0:14:27 Evelyn: Well, I think one thing that prompted me to return to it was that I think in a session, I actually brought up the idea that I think that this is as good as it's gonna get. This is kind of what I live with, this is... This is how it's going to go, this is how my life's gonna go. And you said I don't buy that. And I thought, well, maybe you're wrong. [laughter]0:14:56 Daniel: You always told me you like forwardness, directness. So, yes, I thought there was much more potential there I didn't think we had to suffer with just manageable. So where did that take your thoughts?0:15:16 Evelyn: Well, I went home and I thought about it and I decided I wanted to give it a try. I guess if you always do what you've always done then you're gonna always get what you've always gotten. So...0:15:30 Daniel: Give what a try?0:15:33 Evelyn: Exploring other ideas, sexual health was one of them. But you did kind of bring up this idea of wholeness.0:15:41 Daniel: Yes.0:15:43 Evelyn: And that there's just so many sides of me as a person and to make some goals in all these different areas.0:15:51 Daniel: Yep, I think so, good memory on that. That's definitely what we do is try to approach it from a wholeness. All too often we get focused on, "Okay, I have anxiety. So just give me the skills and techniques to manage it."0:16:07 Evelyn: Exactly.0:16:08 Daniel: But if there's a possibility to... I'm not gonna say eliminate, I don't think we eliminate anxiety. Everybody experiences anxiety every day at some sort of level, but get to a point where you can actually be proactive about it, or thrive or get it to a point where the management is much, much less, and so we have to step outside of just the managing anxiety aspect, we have to focus on the mental, the spiritual, the physical side of this. And so I think I, well, I'm remembering this because it's a standard procedure I do, I think I even recommended, let's get your blood work done, let's get you... Make sure everything's fine physically, biologically, but this has been around for a long time, and so, this isn't a new... It wasn't like you're coming into a new biological stage of life, although that could have been possible, but we wanted to rule those things out. And so, one thing that you've never explored was that sexual aspect, is my sexual health good and can this be part of the problem?0:17:15 Evelyn: That one was brand new, and some of the other ones were not brand new. Thinking about them altogether was a little bit new, but I'd certainly worked on myself spiritually, I'd worked on myself mentally, I had focused on exercise, and eating right and I mean, all of those things were things that I had done before. Looking at it as a holistic perspective was a little bit different, but they weren't different ideas. It was the sexual health piece that was the different piece, and it felt like it didn't fit. But now when I look back, it feels like... It feels odd to assume that something that's so much an important part of myself would not be a puzzle piece whereas everything else would be, but it was the only piece of it that I had never explored before.0:18:06 Daniel: Looking back now, what do you think was making it feel like it didn't fit?0:18:12 Evelyn: I would say that I had worked pretty hard to make it not a part of myself.0:18:21 Daniel: Yes.0:18:22 Evelyn: And that was in an effort to be as good as possible.0:18:33 Daniel: Tell us more about that, what does that mean? So first of all, the fact that you're saying you worked as hard as you could for it not be a part of... I feel like there's some insinuation going on there. Was this something that you may have or tempted to be struggling with or tempted...0:18:49 Evelyn: I would say that I... Well, to go back when I was young, I discovered that I could stimulate myself.0:19:00 Daniel: How young are we talking about?0:19:00 Evelyn: Oh, maybe between 10 and 12.0:19:02 Daniel: Okay. Entering your teen years, yep, yep.0:19:05 Evelyn: So pretty young, accidentally... And explored it a little bit and...0:19:13 Daniel: Talking about masturbation?0:19:14 Evelyn: Yes. Didn't really have any idea of what I was doing, honestly. I went to youth meetings and things where they would tell you that you should not masturbate. And I didn't have any idea that these things were connected at all.0:19:37 Daniel: Oh, so in those youth meetings, you weren't realizing that's what was happening?0:19:40 Evelyn: Correct. I had no idea what masturbation really was.0:19:43 Daniel: You were just hearing this terminology and you were like, "Oh, okay, I'm not gonna do this."0:19:46 Evelyn: Yeah, absolutely not. It was clearly a bad thing, I was not gonna do it.0:19:50 Daniel: So at what point did you realize what you were doing between 10 and 12 was actually what they were saying don't do?0:19:57 Evelyn: Well, I did it occasionally.0:20:01 Daniel: In your teen years?0:20:02 Evelyn: In my teen years. It wasn't actually until I picked up a teen magazine that was sitting on a table at the library sometime around the age of maybe 14-15, something like that, that the magazine actually gave me a clear enough definition of masturbation that I was able to make the connection.0:20:22 Daniel: Interesting. So, what were you experiencing when you had that connection?0:20:26 Evelyn: I was devastated, I was completely devastated. And...0:20:31 Daniel: About how old were you at this time?0:20:34 Evelyn: I would say maybe 15.0:20:37 Speaker 1: 15. Pretty young.0:20:39 Evelyn: So I just... I felt incredibly ashamed and that I had managed to do something so terrible without even realizing that I was doing it.0:20:50 Daniel: So how did you respond to that?0:20:55 Evelyn: I think that's when I started to try to avoid any...0:21:02 Daniel: It became an active suppressing.0:21:06 Evelyn: Yes, yeah, that was when I kind of began the process of trying to avoid any accidental, 'cause I did my best to avoid any masturbation, but I also tried to avoid any reading something that might accidentally make my mind go that direction. I mean, I was really working hard.0:21:30 Daniel: Totally shut it off?0:21:32 Evelyn: Mm-hmm. Yes.0:21:34 Daniel: And in all intents and purposes, that's really what the ideal was communicated in these youth meetings, don't stim... I mean, for the strength of youth, right?0:21:40 Evelyn: Yes.0:21:40 Daniel: And so you've spent from 15 on when you discovered, made the connection with this magazine, and your behavior and these youth meetings. Well, was there any kind of formal repentance or did you discuss this with leadership?0:21:57 Evelyn: Not at that point, but I did about when I was a freshman in college. So about the age of 17.0:22:04 Daniel: Is that because you were struggling with it or...0:22:06 Evelyn: Yeah, I would say I hadn't been able to 100% cut it off, so I didn't...0:22:12 Daniel: But this wasn't like a daily thing for you, it was like...0:22:15 Evelyn: No.0:22:16 Daniel: Once in a blue moon kind of.0:22:16 Evelyn: It was occasional. Yeah. It was occasional.0:22:18 Daniel: Wanting to clear the air with the bishop.0:22:21 Evelyn: Or, and sometimes it wasn't even physical stimulation, maybe it was just mental. My thoughts might go a different direction, but I would find myself feeling stimulated so it wasn't...0:22:30 Daniel: So when you say you worked hard.0:22:32 Evelyn: I did.0:22:32 Daniel: Not only your sexual arousal but your thoughts, your feelings, all around it.0:22:37 Evelyn: Well I... Yeah, I felt that sometimes I would have thoughts that would lead me toward arousal, and I would feel some physical response, thoughts that I was having or something that I might read or anything like that. And so I...0:22:54 Daniel: So you're a completely different person today because I remember when you first would even start to... I don't even think you would say the word masturbation.0:23:03 Evelyn: No, I didn't say the word masturbation for a long time.0:23:06 Daniel: Even I think maybe eventually you did with me. I don't remember exactly the timeline, but even your mind going there, there was a clear anxiety being provoked.0:23:17 Evelyn: Oh, very much so, yes.0:23:19 Daniel: And did you notice that at the time or was that even something that you were physically aware that was happening? You literally really physically changed.0:23:28 Evelyn: Yeah, I think I'm aware of it. Yeah.0:23:31 Daniel: Prior to 15, I realize we're going back 15, 20 years. Do you feel like before you made this discovery, that you were masturbating, that your anxiety was as severe?0:23:48 Evelyn: It was not. However, I couldn't necessarily say whether that was because of this discovery.0:23:55 Daniel: Absolutely, and I wanna be careful with that...0:23:57 Evelyn: 'Cause I think it...0:24:00 Daniel: Again, 15-20 years ago, we don't know.0:24:00 Evelyn: Right. I think it grew for who knows how many different factors.0:24:05 Daniel: As you're entering puberty too, that's... Or you're well into puberty. Yeah. So all these feelings are coming up which could add to... So yeah, clear, I'm not making any... I can't go there and say that was the cause of it. But now you're in your 20s, you're in your 30s, you've spent 15-20 years going on and off medication, managing. Now we start to explore this. And one thing I really appreciated about you is usually I have a... My clients fall into one of maybe three different categories: One, when we explore... I have seven principles that I explore and that includes mental health, spiritual health, physical health, sexual health, so forth. And usually when we get to the sexual health part, especially with single adults, I get one of maybe three different reactions, one is, oh, no, they never even... Even just mentioning, how is your sexual health? It's very rare, but sometimes I get them... They'll never even come back.0:25:07 Daniel: So I'll get some people who are like, okay, whatever it takes, and then we get people that I think are more like you. I need to think about this. And I really, really value that, because that's part of therapy is getting you to be that individual and you have no problem with differentiating from other people, and so that didn't surprise me, but the thought process, both spiritual and mental, that you put into it was impressive, and I admired, I fully admired how you approach this. You didn't just say, "Whatever you say, Dan. Let's figure this out," and for you as somebody who wanted to get rid of your anxiety, you didn't just jump on and say... So tell us... I'll stop talking there, but you tell us what that process was like from your end. That's what I observed.0:26:00 Evelyn: Okay, sure. Well, after I kind of went through college, when I didn't see a bishop and talked through everything and then no more, I'd really cut off that part of myself as much as possible. No, sexuality is not really a part of who I am. I need to focus on the spiritual, I need to focus on the mental, I can focus on the physical. Those are all okay, but this other part is something that I'm just saving for until after I'm married. Then we came to the point where you brought it up and asked me to make a goal and I started very small.0:26:45 Daniel: Yes.0:26:46 Evelyn: I said I will think about it. I will think about sex for a few minutes. I feel comfortable going that far, but thinking about it started me wondering if there might be something that was missing in my life, and I still didn't connect it to anxiety, not really, but I thought as long as I was working on everything else, maybe I would continue to work in this area as well, and...0:27:22 Daniel: What started to happen? So we're talking about, and I put a timeline in just to give an appreciation, it's not that it was fast or slow or anything like that, but we're talking about months. You were taking...0:27:38 Evelyn: It started to happen, yeah.0:27:40 Daniel: Yeah, so what was the process? You started...0:27:42 Evelyn: Okay.0:27:42 Daniel: So let's explain the thinking about sex a little bit more there. The goal there, do you recall what it was? I'm not, I don't mean to put you on the spot.0:27:52 Evelyn: Do I recall what it was? I remember that there was a goal in every area, and that the one that I felt like I could do was I would think about this issue.0:28:00 Daniel: Being aware of your own sexuality, what are your own desires and thoughts, getting... So the goal was to get in tune, in connection with yourself, your sexual identity, what does that look like? And what does that feel like? And so you started to explore that a little bit more.0:28:19 Evelyn: Yeah, and it was not fast at, it was not a fast process for me, but what I started to notice was that beginning to recognize this piece of myself changed. The first thing I think I noticed it changing was my interactions with other people. I started to feel more open and able to communicate with people. I had a roommate, we'd lived together for some time and we got along reasonably well, but we were just roommates. I mean, kind of ships passing in the night, and one day I started talking with her and our relationship began to grow and to change. And...0:29:13 Daniel: You talking, you mean just casual conversations.0:29:16 Evelyn: At first, yeah, but then eventually, we started talking about deeper things, and discovering that we had more in common than we thought.0:29:26 Daniel: I think it's important, I think you, we alluded to it with the anxiety but part of this, I think the audience should understand is how much of an introvert you are.0:29:35 Evelyn: Oh, very.0:29:36 Daniel: And so just talking with your roommate, you liked your roommate, this had nothing to do with personalities or anything, just you're on probably the higher end of being an introvert than most introverts. And so just having this conversation, how do you feel that was connected to your exploring your sexuality?0:29:55 Evelyn: Well, at the time, I didn't understand it at all, it didn't make sense to me, it was just an observation. So if we're kind of going on the journey, at the time I was noticing that this was happening more and more, but I wasn't clear how it connected.0:30:18 Daniel: So at this time, you're not masturbating, you're...0:30:20 Evelyn: No, just thinking.0:30:20 Daniel: Just explain... What is my sexual identity. Let's just call it that, and doing that, opening that up was starting to allow you to open up to other people.0:30:37 Evelyn: If I'm going to reflect from a position of having travelled a long way from where I was.0:30:44 Daniel: Yes.0:30:45 Evelyn: I think it has something to do with that wholeness piece. There was a part of myself that I was hiding and I was hiding it even from myself. That was my goal, was to hide it even from myself, and because I was hiding it, I felt vulnerable so much of the time, I felt so nervous and yes, I am an introvert and that hasn't changed.0:31:13 Daniel: No.0:31:14 Evelyn: I will continue to be one. But I was so afraid of being found out almost that I had this piece of myself, that was hidden and I...0:31:26 Daniel: Your sexual self.0:31:27 Evelyn: Right. But it's not like I could have pinpointed that that was why I was nervous in any way, but I think that the fact that I was fragmenting myself a little bit, and keeping...0:31:40 Daniel: That's a great way to say it, yeah.0:31:42 Evelyn: Keeping a part of myself away even from me, increased my anxiety and increased the difficulty that I had interacting with people, I was always so nervous, I was very hypersensitive about the reactions that other people were giving me. And anything that seemed negative I took on myself very, very deeply, and...0:32:08 Daniel: We're talking like at work, your social life, at church events, every interaction, even talking with your roommate, you're...0:32:17 Evelyn: Yeah, I was always looking for any negative signs, anything that was wrong, and trying to fit myself into something that would never, ever receive a negative, negative feedback of any kind from anybody, which is so hard to do that pretty much it involved trying to avoid interactions.0:32:37 Daniel: Absolutely. So tell us more. You're starting to explore your sexual identity. Now that you're looking back, you didn't know at the time how or why that would have a positive impact on even your interaction and in minimizing this.0:32:53 Evelyn: I found it confusing, honestly.0:32:54 Daniel: So what did you do with that confusion?0:32:56 Evelyn: Well, I felt like I don't know why this is working, but it seems to be.0:33:05 Daniel: So you were seeing results.0:33:06 Evelyn: Yes, I was seeing results.0:33:07 Daniel: Right.0:33:07 Evelyn: I was seeing positive interactions. I was finding myself... I mean, I bring up the roommate, but there were other indications too. I mean, at work, I found myself willing to step forward a little bit more and disagree with people at times and tell them things that I thought as opposed to what I thought they were looking for.0:33:28 Daniel: This was an impressive time, because your anxiety for the first time that we're seeing wasn't just managed and reduced, your confidence was increasing.0:33:36 Evelyn: Right. Yeah. I felt very different. I have a sister-in-law that I've come to have quite a good relationship with at this point, but I will say that the first, quite a lot of years of my brother's marriage to her, I was terrified of her, because she has a tendency to give negative feedback unintentionally.0:33:58 Daniel: She was feeding the cycle.0:34:00 Evelyn: Yeah. So, I mean, I just thought she hated me. Every time I was in the room, I would just feel... My heart would be pounding and my stomach would be tight and I would be so nervous, because I felt like there was no way that I could get the right feedback from her, and I found myself... She came in one day and said something, and I could have easily taken it the wrong way, and I thought, "I don't think she means anything by that."0:34:25 Daniel: Interesting.0:34:27 Evelyn: And just kind of let it go, and opened the door to actually having a positive relationship with her, because I was no longer living in this place where I was always, always worried about what other people thought of me.0:34:46 Daniel: So why didn't you end it there? You got success you haven't had before. What made you go to the next step?0:34:55 Evelyn: Well, I would say that the first thing that made me go the next step was that you suggested that I might wanna consider masturbation. And I thought that was a terrible idea.[laughter]0:35:08 Daniel: What was going through... In this experience, what was happening?0:35:13 Evelyn: Well, you mentioned it and I...0:35:17 Daniel: Now, let's be clear, I wanna... For the audience to understand it. This wasn't, "Go home and do this."0:35:23 Evelyn: No.0:35:24 Daniel: So, what was the invitation, do you recall?0:35:27 Evelyn: I think you said something like, "Have you ever considered or tried masturbation? Has that ever been a part of your exploration?" I don't remember your words exactly, but it was somewhere along those lines.0:35:44 Daniel: Yup. And I think that was pretty close, 'cause at that point where I started to see more anxiety come up from what we know now, was from your teenage years and it's like, "Woah," so that seed was planted, what happened from there?0:36:00 Evelyn: Well, I didn't wanna dismiss it out of hand, because I was interacting with someone that I had respect for, and that I had seen positive success from what we'd been working on so far. At the same time, I was pretty terrified that it might destroy my relationship with my Heavenly Father, because that always has been and remains one of the most important relationships in my life.0:36:34 Daniel: And still is.0:36:35 Evelyn: Yeah, and still is. And I wanted to make sure that I didn't ever engage in anything that would impact that negatively. So, I was kind of torn between this fear of harming that relationship, and considering the progress that I've made.0:37:03 Daniel: Yes.0:37:03 Evelyn: And that trusting you in the past had led to some positive things.0:37:09 Daniel: You were trusting yourself.0:37:12 Evelyn: And that's true, I was. But it was your idea that I should explore sexual health in some way.0:37:20 Daniel: That's correct.[chuckle]0:37:23 Evelyn: So, I did have that on my mind too. So trying to balance those things, I went back and forth a lot. And...0:37:35 Daniel: What does back and forth mean? What were you doing...0:37:38 Evelyn: Back and forth as in, "Maybe I should try this, wonder what would happen, I wonder how that would impact me? Nope, never gonna do it. Nope, that would be a terrible thing."0:37:48 Daniel: Talk about your relationship with the Lord in this process, how did you include or not include Him?0:37:58 Evelyn: I definitely prayed, and my prayer was something along the lines of help me not do something that I will regret, and help me let... Help let me know if I'm going to do something that would be detrimental to our relationship. So there were a lot of prayers like that. I would say, I didn't feel a lot one way or the other at that point, as far as an answer to that prayer.0:38:26 Daniel: Was that confusing to you?0:38:29 Evelyn: Not terribly. I think that I've gotten some clear answers in my life and a lot of times that I've been encouraged to figure things out myself.0:38:40 Daniel: So is that what you did?0:38:45 Evelyn: Yeah, at least at that moment, and what I did...0:38:47 Daniel: So, what... Yup.0:38:49 Evelyn: Was I decided I was not going to masturbate, and I came back and I told you that. And I felt wonderful.0:39:02 Daniel: Yes, you did, you were glowing.0:39:06 Evelyn: And... Yeah.0:39:07 Daniel: I remember that, and I praised you for that. What was the focus of my praise? Do you recall?0:39:15 Evelyn: I don't recall.0:39:16 Daniel: You made the decision.0:39:18 Evelyn: Well, that's... I mean, I think that that for me was the thing that I came to. Yeah, I mean, it was the first decision I had ever really made, sexually, in my life.0:39:30 Daniel: Yes. That's exactly right. And that was one of the indicators to me, 'cause as you're just talking about a lot of your life, your lot of... What was feeding your anxiety was what... The impressions of what other people were having on you or at least your interpretation of their responses to you.0:39:48 Evelyn: Yes.0:39:50 Daniel: And...0:39:51 Evelyn: A lot of it was interpretation.0:39:53 Daniel: And what you were just saying also about me, you respected me, both as a... And that's something I take... I don't take lightly, as a therapist, and... Especially within our faith, how do we guide individuals to healthy living while also maintaining their level of faith, their love of God, and supporting them in those areas of their life? And you didn't just do this because I recommended it. You came back with a decision, you prayed about it, you pondered about it, you researched about it, and you came in and you were glowing. Now, this was your choice, and that was amazing.0:40:41 Evelyn: Yeah. Yeah, the making of the choice was a claiming of my agency in regards to sexuality that I had never made before. Everything I'd done prior to that point was an effort to please somebody else, really.0:41:02 Daniel: Even suppressing your sexual health?0:41:04 Evelyn: Yes, yes.0:41:07 Daniel: That is huge. And I can't... I mean, we're exploring this in the environment of the therapeutic office, but I had seen this, this wasn't a new occurrence, I had seen this over and over, where people had abandoned their agency around their sexual health and the same or similar things occurred. So this was not new to me, but to see it come out of you was just this light bulb moment. So, what did we do from there? What's... We were done with therapy, right? You were perfect, you're healthy.0:41:43 Evelyn: Yeah, isn't that great?[chuckle]0:41:45 Daniel: And end of story, right?[chuckle]0:41:47 Evelyn: Of course. [chuckle] Well, I mean, what you did at that point was say, "Okay, that's your decision. Go with that."0:41:57 Daniel: Yes.0:42:00 Evelyn: But I kind of continued to think about it, and I think that I felt so freed by the fact that I owned this part of myself, that I...0:42:16 Daniel: Was it scary owning it?0:42:20 Evelyn: No, actually.0:42:23 Daniel: That's interesting. The audience can't see her, she's glowing right now [chuckle] when she responds to that. [chuckle] Tell us more about that. Why was that not scary? This thing was scary all your life.0:42:37 Evelyn: It was scary on my life and I thought it would be scary, you know? I mean, I thought it would be terrifying, because it had worried me so much, and had been... I mean, I would have such a physical response even to the word masturbation, if anyone else ever said it, I would just feel... I would kind of start to sweat and I'd feel my stomach tighten up and I'd feel just... All my muscles kind of get tight, which was why I couldn't say it. I would dance around the term as much as possible. It was so frightening to me and yet when I made that decision, I was very nervous to tell you. I'll tell you that. I mean, when I came in...0:43:27 Daniel: I noticed and I...0:43:28 Evelyn: Yeah.[chuckle]0:43:28 Daniel: Absolutely. Hopefully I came across very respectful?0:43:32 Evelyn: You did, you did. But I mean, that part was nervous...0:43:34 Daniel: Of course.0:43:36 Evelyn: But nerve-racking, but when I made the decision and then when I moved on to owning it, it lost its fear. I mean, I lost so much fear around that, and I gained so much confidence to make decisions in other areas of my life too, I think.0:43:58 Daniel: How much of that was or was any of it, the fact that you're working with a male therapist or was it just the nature of the topic? Did me being a male therapist enhance that nervousness?0:44:12 Evelyn: Well, probably. Yeah, it probably did.0:44:15 Daniel: How did you navigate that or how did you resolve that? Or was it a factor that you felt like you had to address?0:44:24 Evelyn: I didn't really resolve or address. I think it probably did increase my anxiety a bit around it, made it more nerve-racking than it would have been with a woman, but I didn't really... I mean, it wasn't so overwhelming that I really had resolve it, I think.0:44:46 Daniel: The ability to speak it, to vocalize it was freeing.0:44:50 Evelyn: Yes, it really was.0:44:54 Daniel: So you made your decision, you are... You have no need to masturbate, you owned it, your health was improved and we were done with therapy.0:45:05 Evelyn: No, no, we weren't.[laughter]0:45:07 Daniel: So take it to the next step, what's happening?0:45:13 Evelyn: So the next step was continuing. I continued to work on some of those goals, I was thinking, I was reading, I was studying, I was considering and pondering and praying, and all of those kinds of things, and then I really felt like, actually, I do wanna understand my body, I wanna understand my desire, I want to better understand this whole piece of myself and I made the decision that I did want to try masturbation.0:45:48 Daniel: I want the audience to understand how thorough you are, 'cause if somebody doesn't know you and hearing what you just said, you continued to think about it. They don't understand how much of a... Exaggeration, that is.0:46:07 Evelyn: Think about it for me.0:46:09 Daniel: You read every book there was.0:46:11 Evelyn: I did, yeah.0:46:12 Daniel: You scoured the internet, you... Both religious materials, sexual health, you picked up books like And They Were Not Ashamed and you dove right in.0:46:24 Evelyn: Read about half a dozen different books cover to cover.0:46:27 Daniel: You're taking the doctrine covenants to heart, read and study and ponder. So I think it's important for the audience, because they don't know you. And so when I hear that you're pondering this, I know that you are diving and this is beyond just thinking.0:46:42 Evelyn: I am a researcher.0:46:44 Daniel: Yes, you are.0:46:45 Evelyn: When I got a cat about 15 years ago or so, I spent a good three days researching all the different names that I might actually name the cat before coming to a decision. If anyone wants to know what product that they should buy that I've already bought, they just ask me, because I have done all the research, I have read 15 different articles, about the 10 best and then looked at what they all had in common and then compared the pros and cons. I am an extremely careful person.0:47:19 Daniel: So you went into this well aware of what the church leadership, what the culture is, what you've read, but you're feeling that this... I'm gonna put the word positive desire, or desire to explore this, and when I say desire, it's not just arousal desire. Go ahead, tell us more about that.0:47:45 Evelyn: I would say it wasn't arousal desire at that point, it was a desire for increased understanding. That's what I was looking for was a fuller understanding of myself, and I prayed more and again, there was a lot of I'm feeling good about this decision, and if it's not right, please help me to know that. I really, I really didn't take it lightly.0:48:20 Daniel: Yeah, so what was your answer, what did you end up doing?0:48:29 Evelyn: I felt good about it, and so I decided that I would try masturbation and see what happened, and so I did and I felt that understanding, what I was looking for, I felt more in tune with myself, and it wasn't even primarily arousal, it was more that this was a better knowledge of who I am as a person. This is what my body can do, this is the gifts that I've been given, this is... This whole body is a gift and I would like to understand it better. And now I do. So that was, that was more what it was about for me, I think, than it was arousal and orgasm, it was who am I? And I did feel like I developed my relationship with myself.0:49:39 Daniel: What... I realize you're not even thinking about this, but I know the audience is listening and wondering maybe pornography was not involved.0:49:50 Evelyn: No.0:49:51 Daniel: This is a self-understanding. This was so huge. You connected with yourself, with the Spirit. I don't wanna misuse any terminology here, but you seem to increase in your wellness.0:50:13 Evelyn: Yeah, I would say that... I wouldn't go so far as to say that masturbation was in and of itself a spiritual experience for me. However, what I would say is that as I became more aware of myself that led to things in my life that led to increased spirituality. For example, the appreciation of my body and of the gift that I have received through my body, what I found myself doing was becoming offended by TV shows that made light of sexuality, that had previously not had that impact on me. Previously, I could watch these shows, they really kind of just... Some of these jokes just washed over me. It was just the way that jokes are, and yet suddenly they were bothering me more because they were making light of this thing that was a gift, and so I began to change my media habits and that kind of thing I do think led to overall increased spirituality for me.0:51:28 Daniel: You're being able to own your own sexuality, you start to have more confidence around people interacting and socializing more, now understanding your physical self, your sexual self physically, you're starting to have a more profound appreciation for how sex is represented in media, that is profound, that is a response that you... I don't think everybody has that response. And I don't wanna set this up as though you go out and masturbate, and you're gonna reject all forms of unhealthy sex. But this is key. This is, I think, part of your personality and was part of your healing and growing into your whole self, and that was a part of your personality you don't want to be exposed to that, you want to appreciate what God has given you. And the media was a distraction to that. Am I understanding that right?0:52:28 Evelyn: Yeah, I would say that, yeah, that's pretty solid. I think it was, for me personally, in my experience, it was before the different little jokes and things like that. They didn't mean anything to me because it wasn't even...0:52:51 Daniel: On your radar.0:52:53 Evelyn: A part of me. But now suddenly it was a part of me, it was impacting me and I felt like I needed to make those changes, so certainly not something I would expect of everybody, but in my personal journey, that's how it went.0:53:08 Daniel: So, you're emotionally understanding your sexual health, you're physically understanding it, now we're good. Your life is great, is that true?0:53:18 Evelyn: Well, my life is different.0:53:20 Daniel: It is different. I think there was some more progress going on there and some new skills that you were learning.0:53:29 Evelyn: Well, I'll insert another person at this point, which is that this is about the point that I met my husband, and I think that this process kind of prepared me for meeting him, because I was able to talk to him. We were able to discuss things. When we started, I was more comfortable, I was less concerned about what he was thinking about me than I had been in previous relationships where, who knows if they might have worked out or not otherwise, but one reason they definitely weren't going to work out was because I wasn't myself in them, I was too concerned about the way I was being perceived, so I'd reached the point where I was not feeling that in that same way, it was more like, "This is who I am. And let's see if we happen to be compatible and if we're not, it's not a judgement on me, you can go find somebody else."0:54:35 Daniel: You were much more relaxed about this relationship.0:54:37 Evelyn: So more relaxed, yes, than I had been in previous relationships.0:54:42 Daniel: It's interesting 'cause I can't recall if we've ever had this conversation, because I was on the outside looking at as you're sharing your meeting your now husband, and I was wondering the same things, if this, if your ability to understand yourself was helping. It seems like it would be logical, but not necessarily, it doesn't always happen this way, but that was transferring well into your relationship with him.0:55:07 Evelyn: It was... Yeah, I think the biggest one really was that I liked myself. Not every single tiny little bit of myself.0:55:18 Daniel: But you valued...0:55:20 Evelyn: But in general. I thought I was...0:55:22 Daniel: You were no more rejecting parts of yourself.0:55:24 Evelyn: Yeah, exactly.0:55:25 Daniel: And the things that you were not liking, because this isn't about liking every single thing about you. I think that's a beautiful thing if you can do that. Reality is, we're human and we're imperfect and there's gonna be things about ourselves that we don't always love. And you were able to acknowledge those parts without shaming it, without suppressing it, including... I'm talking other things besides just the sexual health part. And so that was making you a more whole person able to interact with your now husband better.0:55:58 Daniel: Definitely. So we got to know each other and we went from levels of just getting to know each other to having more deep conversations. I felt like I was able to be more vulnerable, and he was too. And then we were eventually able to talk about some of these issues, and that also brought us closer and helped me.0:56:26 Daniel: You mean before you married? Are you talking about your issues around anxiety and using masturbation as a coping mechanism, or understanding...0:56:37 Evelyn: Not really a coping mechanism, but that I had had anxiety, that I'd tried different things, we talked about that. We did talk about sexuality before marriage.0:56:47 Daniel: Which is something you would never done before.0:56:49 Evelyn: No, I really wouldn't have, I don't think I would have been able to, but I had the vocabulary, and this wasn't like early in our relationship.0:56:58 Daniel: No, no, no, you guys were... This was clearly at a point that you guys were committed.0:57:03 Evelyn: Yes. Before we discussed, anything that deep, but...0:57:08 Daniel: So at this point, let's backtrack just a little bit here. With the use of masturbation, was this a one or two time occurrence, or was this something that you now incorporated into a healthy routine or part of your life? What was it for you?0:57:25 Evelyn: I'm gonna say somewhere in between those two. It wasn't something that was a routine. Every so often I would masturbate but I wasn't afraid of that either. And so at times I would choose to do that.0:57:45 Daniel: You recognized the benefits and you were able to use it as... Is that fair to say?0:57:50 Evelyn: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's here to say.0:57:53 Daniel: So, the reason when I bring that up, is you now have this additional tool, if you will, in your skill set and understanding yourself and also addressing anxiety. I'm going to assume, I know, but you're dating your husband. How is the stress level? How's your anxiety? Does it ever spike again or what do you deal... How do you deal with your anxiety?0:58:21 Evelyn: I would say that when we got really close to getting married, I got really anxious. Luckily, I was able to talk about it because I have a husband who's really good at communicating and so he is able to ask me about things, and then I was able to tell him, so I was able to talk about how I was feeling, and the communication reduced my anxiety.0:58:51 Daniel: Which is something you wouldn't have done before, talk, you would have...0:58:55 Evelyn: Talking was not one of my management strategies for anxiety.0:59:02 Daniel: Even though you knew it would help. So that was one of the things that you struggled with. But being able to have the confidence now, and reduced anxiety, or at least anxiety to a level that you can now engage in that conversation, but your pattern in the past was to shut down, become more independent. And would you... In the past, how would you have handled that fear of getting married, how would that have played out?0:59:32 Evelyn: Okay, well, I would have run away. And I guess I wanna correct the no talking, because it's not that I wouldn't talk to anybody, but I wouldn't talk to the person.0:59:45 Daniel: Yes, a good clarification, yes.0:59:48 Evelyn: And I would just run and hide. When I was in college I knew where all of the women's bathrooms were that were really comfortable and had couches in them, because should I be avoiding someone who I was dating who was causing me anxiety, I would spend a lot of time there, because I knew that that was not a place they would go. So running away was a strategy that I used and would probably have been what I would have done. Just run away.1:00:21 Daniel: So you got married?1:00:22 Evelyn: I did.1:00:23 Daniel: Yes, and now, you're having sex?1:00:30 Evelyn: Uh-huh.1:00:32 Daniel: How did the things you learned before marriage help you or not help you in your sex life?1:00:39 Evelyn: Oh, boy, they helped me, but there was a long way to go.1:00:45 Daniel: So it wasn't automatic, you now...1:00:47 Evelyn: No way.1:00:49 Daniel: And part of this also is you're learning yourself in a later phase of your life, and so this is... Even if you're learning earlier on there's no comparison to having another intimate person in your sexual life. And so as much as you're comfortable tell us about the... What are some obstacles you had to face and how did you use these skills to help you through it?1:01:14 Evelyn: Okay, well, the major obstacle that we ran into was that sex was very painful for me. And I think that if I had not had the experiences prior to marriage that I had, I would have had no idea what to do from there. I would either have completely cut off sex and decided that that was not something we could do, or honestly, more likely I would have continued to say yes but absolutely hated it and felt every experience being something that pushed me farther away rather than bringing me closer to my husband.1:02:03 Daniel: So you mentioned painful sex?1:02:05 Evelyn: Yes.1:02:06 Daniel: You later found out through a medical check-up what that was and something that a lot of people still don't understand. Do you mind talking about that?1:02:13 Evelyn: No, I don't mind at all. I guess this goes back to how my prior experiences helped me, because I was willing to talk about it and so we had a lot of conversations, my husband and I, and I really felt committed to figuring out what was going on, and part of that was going to see the doctor. So I made an appointment with my OBGYN.1:02:37 Daniel: You knew something was wrong, whereas before, you may not have, you just might have thought, "Okay, this is just what sex is."1:02:44 Evelyn: Yeah, I might have. I mean, that would have been devastating, but yeah, I might have, but I did know that wasn't what it was supposed to be like, and I went and I spoke with the doctor, and she did some checking, and she said that I had vaginismus and she prescribed some physical therapy, so I was able to go and work with a physical therapist weekly for several months.1:03:20 Daniel: These involved dilators?1:03:20 Evelyn: Mm-hmm. Yeah, we did dilators, we did massage, which not as fun as the other kind of massage, sorry, but was helpful. [chuckle]1:03:30 Daniel: Not With a physical therapist. But it was helpful.1:03:34 Evelyn: It was helpful.1:03:35 Daniel: Joking aside, it was helpful.1:03:37 Evelyn: All joking aside, it was helpful, because I started to gradually get to work on the physical part. I didn't enjoy using the dilators at all.1:03:48 Daniel: No. I can't even imagine.1:03:49 Evelyn: Not very fun, but I could put on a TV show or something like that, and distract myself a little bit.1:03:56 Daniel: So the physical therapist... Way to be, way to order support there. The dilators, the physical therapist, did that help resolve the pain?1:04:10 Evelyn: It definitely made significant progress toward it, but it was incomplete without the communication.1:04:17 Daniel: Was masturbation involved in this at all?1:04:21 Evelyn: Little bit, yeah.1:04:22 Daniel: So in your marriage, you're using masturbation.1:04:25 Evelyn: Well, what I used it for, I would say at that point, was to assist me with the physical therapy.1:04:32 Daniel: Yes. That would make sense.1:04:35 Evelyn: Because it did help there.1:04:35 Daniel: Warm things up. Yeah.1:04:37 Evelyn: Yeah, exactly.1:04:39 Daniel: What about other times in your marriage, do you... Was masturbation used as a...1:04:45 Evelyn: Hasn't been, really. Not that it never would be, but we've done other things.1:04:51 Daniel: Good.[chuckle]1:04:57 Evelyn: I feel like the physical aspects were part of it, and so I was able to work on those, but the other piece of it that was really important was being able to work on the psychological and talk and go slow and be patient and enjoy whatever it is that we can enjoy, what pieces of it, as we continue to develop.1:05:23 Daniel: Evelyn, you've been so open here, and I assure you there are many listening to this who maybe even in tears, just feeling comforted from the words that you're using. Is there any, as we're wrapping up here, any advice that you would specifically give young women maybe who were in your shoes as a teenager or currently are, or anyone, what advice would you give?1:05:54 Evelyn: Well, I think something that I would like to have been able to tell my younger self is that, that feeling arousal is something that happens to people, and I felt so alone because of the way that it was being talked about, and I don't want to villainize any of the wonderful people that I got to work with as a youth, because they were incredible leaders. They touched my life and they blessed my life in so many ways, and they were absolutely doing the best that they could. Having said that, though, no one ever told me that feeling arousal is something that people experience and that it is not a sin, and it's just something that happens because that's the way we're built.1:06:58

0:00:05 Daniel: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter Day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess, is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband and author. Here's Daniel on this episode of Improving Intimacy.0:00:29 Daniel: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. Today we have on the line, Anarie. And she will be sharing with us, her personal experiences around porn addiction in her relationship, and her experiences with addiction recovery treatment. Welcome to the show, Anarie.0:00:49 Anarie: Thanks Daniel.0:00:51 Daniel: Tell us a little bit about yourself. Give us some details, who are you, and tell us a little bit about your experience?0:01:00 Anarie: Hey. I am in my early 30s. I'm an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have two kids, ages eight and five. I was married for 11 years. We were married in a temple. And we had our divorce finalized about four months ago, and separated about a year ago. So, that's kinda where I'm at.0:01:24 Daniel: This is pretty recent and fresh. And I appreciate you, even with that, coming on and sharing your experiences here. Give us a little background on the... You shared with me that, was it your husband or you, who is experiencing the issues around pornography? Let's start there.0:01:47 Anarie: It was my husband.0:01:48 Daniel: Your husband. And how long into the marriage or before the marriage did you know that there was a problem?0:01:55 Anarie: So, we dated for about nine months before we got married. A pretty short time. Looking back at the time, it seemed like a long time. But about two months into our dating, kind of the time when we went fairly exclusive, he told me that he had had struggles with pornography before his mission. He was a return missionary at the time we were dating. He told me he'd had some trouble with it before his mission, that he'd resolved it with his Bishop, at that time.0:02:25 Anarie: And that since then, that it had been no issue at all, that he had no struggle with it during his mission. And but since meeting me, felt extra strong and resisting but he wanted me to know that that had been a part of his past. So I took his word for it, that it was in the past and that it was several years since he'd had a struggle with it. At that time, we didn't really talk about it very much other than I basically said, "Hey I don't expect you to be perfect, I'm proud of you for resolving it." And it sort of went to rest at that time.0:03:11 Anarie: Then about nine months after we were married, is when I found out that he was still actively using pornography and masturbating without my knowledge. And I found that out, there were some things off in our marriage, in our sexual relationship right from the beginning. And sort of when I was pressing into some of that, that he admitted that he had viewed some. At that time he told me it was just recent and that he'd never do it again. He felt it wasn't something that he needed to talk to the Bishop about, and I was okay with that. I do feel like I had a trauma response, and I was very anxious to believe that it really was just once or twice and kinda put it away at that time.0:04:11 Daniel: What happened before? So you were at about two months into the relationship, you guys became serious. And from what I'm hearing, it's impressive. Some individuals don't even, if they feel like their porn use or whatever sin it may be, is in the past, sometimes they don't even mention it. But he was mentioning it to you at about two months in. To, I don't know, clear the air, or just keep you informed. Which seemed like a good thing. What was your experience at the time?0:04:45 Daniel: I really value what you said, you said, "You know it's in the past." But emotionally, what were you experiencing? Were you thinking, "Oh boy, this is gonna be a potential issue in the future."? Or did you feel like, "Oh, it's taken care of, this shouldn't be a problem, going forward."? What were you experiencing?0:05:03 Anarie: That's a great question. I was nervous about it. It was a little bit of a concern. And actually, about a month before we got married, my older sister said to me, "Make sure you've talked to him about pornography. Make sure you've asked him about pornography use." And I said. "Oh... "0:05:22 Daniel: She did that just randomly, or did she already know?0:05:25 Anarie: Yes.0:05:25 Daniel: Okay.0:05:26 Anarie: No, she didn't know. And I didn't tell her. I told her, "Yes, we've had the conversation." And she seemed to imply that if there was pornography use that I shouldn't be marrying him. I very much wanted to marry him, so I chose not to tell her that that was something that had been a problem in the past. So I was a little bit nervous about it.0:05:49 Daniel: Did that scare you?0:05:50 Anarie: I knew it could potentially be a problem in the future. Yeah.0:05:53 Daniel: When she said, "If there's any pornography, don't pursue the marriage." I think it sounds pretty clear why you didn't share more, is because he had issues...0:06:05 Anarie: And I think rather than not pursuing the marriage, he was encouraging to take it seriously.0:06:10 Daniel: Oh absolutely, right.0:06:12 Anarie: And to not just dismiss it. Which I probably dismissed it more than I should have.0:06:21 Daniel: You said, before we went back to the dating phase, you were starting to talk about how you're seeing some signs after he'd mentioned he had ongoing issues. Did I hear you correctly?0:06:33 Anarie: Yes, yeah.0:06:34 Daniel: What were those indicators, those red flags, so to speak?0:06:38 Anarie: We did not have a good sexual relationship right from the beginning of our marriage. We didn't have sex very often. There were just a lot of things that were really weird, that seemed like they weren't typical at all for what I'd heard initial marriage was supposed to be like. And...0:07:04 Daniel: For the sake of the listeners and their, for a variety of experiences, are you comfortable with maybe giving some of those specifics? What did you see as...0:07:14 Anarie: Oh, what I was expecting?0:07:15 Daniel: Yeah. What you were expecting, or what seemed off?0:07:18 Anarie: I think I was expecting honeymoon phase, where we have sex multiple times a week, multiple times a day. I felt, before we were married, there was lots of sexual tension and lots of sexual interest, and so in my mind, I thought that once we got married, we were gonna have sex a whole bunch, and it was gonna be really fantastic, and we were gonna want each other whole bunch. And that's not what happened, when we got married there actually was a significant decrease in any sort of sexual tension or sexual interest.0:07:56 Daniel: Even though it sounds like you were wanting more frequent sex at that time, and were you communicating that, or did it just dry up real quick?0:08:08 Anarie: Yes, I was communicating it. Through our whole marriage, we had what would be termed as a sexless marriage, sex fewer than 12 times a year. And I was the one who consistently was saying, "Hey, I want more. This isn't right. What's wrong?" Reading lots of books. I took on a lot of the blame for that, and I think because by taking on the blame myself, it was something that I could fix.0:08:42 Anarie: So I read lots of things about Good Girl Syndrome, about maybe why... 'Cause he would sort of say that I wasn't responding the way that I should, and so he didn't want to, or usually when I tried to talk to him about it, it just sort of... It was almost like we couldn't talk about it, it never went much of anywhere. I expressed a lot of like my things, but then there was never much response from him.0:09:11 Daniel: Traditionally, we think of the husband as the higher sex desire partner. Was that confusing to you to see he had a lower desire than you, and that the sex was infrequent? Was that part of the reason why you're taking on the blame?0:09:27 Anarie: It was very confusing to me, especially because prior to our marriage, I was the boundary keeper, he was always pushing the boundaries sexually, and I was the boundary keeper. So then it was really confusing when we got married, and suddenly it was different. I wasn't feeling that desire from him any more.0:09:51 Daniel: And what was he saying, what was the feedback? And I wanna respect the fact that he's not here, and the listeners are taking this at the value... From your perspective. With that being said, what information was he giving to you? Was he saying that he wasn't attracted to you, or what was the reasoning he was giving?0:10:15 Anarie: Not really any reason at all. After a while, as I read more books and stuff, we did have the high desire-low desire. And so he would say, "I guess I'm just a lower-desire person," or... But no, there was never much explanation. I would say things like, I did believe that he wanted me before marriage and after marriage, he didn't, so that must mean that I was a disappointment, so I was the problem, I think that was part of it too. And so a lot of that, I was the one saying, and he didn't really counter it. I mean, he would say, "No, that's not the case," but then he'd never tell me why or do anything to make me believe anything different, in terms of attractiveness and interest, if that makes sense?0:11:11 Daniel: So the absence of information left you with very little to go off of, and it was like you didn't feel that attraction towards you, and he wasn't refuting it, so what else were you left to believe? Interesting.0:11:24 Anarie: Yeah. And so I filled a lot of that void with my own ideas and my own beliefs, and read books to try to figure it out.0:11:34 Daniel: So from there, that was about, you said, nine months into the marriage. Then when did... You're doing all this research, when did it finally become clear that this was actually being as a result of his porn use or masturbation? How far into that discovery was it?0:11:54 Anarie: Okay, so I'm actually kind of embarrassed that it was so long, but it was years before I really got clear that it was pornography, that it was still an active issue. We went to a couple of therapists, we went to one at LDS Family Services, and this was probably four years into our marriage. And so that was fairly traumatic for me, 'cause it ended up feeling very much like... The therapist that we went to... We only went to one session, so... And it was my first therapy experience, but I felt very much like the male therapist and my male husband were looking at me, confirming that I was the problem and waiting for me to get on board or figure something out. I don't remember any discussion of pornography in that session.0:12:57 Daniel: What were they then saying, or what... How do I ask this? You felt it like you were the problem. What were they identifying as the problem, specifically?0:13:11 Anarie: My lack of trust in him. So that actually... And that's something that my husband would say to me a lot. I would ask him about porn, so during this time, I would ask him about it, and he would tell me, "No, I'm not using it. I haven't for years." And he would say, "You need to trust me." So even though he knew that he was not trustworthy, but that was what he was using. It's something that needed to be resolved, is I needed to forgive and I needed to move on and I needed to trust.0:13:47 Daniel: It was manipulative. He knew he wasn't being trustworthy, yet asking for your trust.0:13:53 Anarie: Right. Yeah, yeah. And I was overriding a lot of my gut instinct. I can see now, looking back, that I didn't feel safe with him, and I didn't trust him, and I wasn't able to connect with him because he wasn't being truthful and he wasn't being safe. But I was so unwilling at that time to look at that reality, to believe that he could be lying to my face, that I was taking it all on myself and trying to fix it that way.0:14:23 Daniel: Unfortunately. An unfortunate event, not only the betrayal from your husband, but coming across the therapist who, is what we call triangulating, siding essentially with one person in the experience. But it sound like you got rid of that person pretty quickly, you only had one session.0:14:44 Anarie: Part of it was because he was male and I specifically wanted a female therapist. I felt like it would, I would feel safer. So the second therapist we went to was female, and we went to her for several months. And that was interesting. The only conversation about pornography that we had there was, I remember she asked him directly once if he had current use of pornography. He said, "No."0:15:10 Anarie: So then, all of the conversations about how I couldn't get over his past pornography use and how that was interfering and during that time, we were assigned to have sex a certain number of times a week or a month and report back. And when it was an assignment, it happened, so he was willing to engage with me when it was an assignment, when we were reporting back to the therapist. And I think I felt hopeful, so maybe we just needed to get jump started. So that when we were no longer going to that therapist, it again, that essentially disappeared.0:15:48 Daniel: Again, I wanna respect the fact that he's not here, but that sounds a little... For the sake of the listener, he wasn't, am I following you right, he wasn't willing to have more sex with you when you were asking for it but when it was an assignment from the therapist, he would meet that assignment? Is that what you're saying?0:16:07 Anarie: Yes, yes, yeah.0:16:08 Daniel: What do you think was the difference? Do you think he was wanting to meet a commitment with the therapist, or impress the therapist, or why the difference there? Why was he willing to comply as an assignment?0:16:22 Anarie: I think it may have been partly that; I also think there's a rejection factor, that because it was assigned by the therapist, it was clearly mutually greed, that he was on board and I was on board, so there was no risk of him initiating something sexually and having me feel unsafe or not want it, or be hesitant. Does that makes sense?0:16:44 Daniel: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it seems to make sense, especially in the context of what we're talking about here. And what about your hurt; what about your trauma in this experience? Was the therapist mindful of your experiences?0:17:00 Anarie: No, I don't think she had much knowledge of betrayal trauma at all and I didn't have much vocabulary for that either. I don't know that I even knew what betrayal trauma was as a category or how it might be impacting me. Once I learned about betrayal trauma, then my response to everything made so much sense, my response over the years.0:17:24 Daniel: And you said how long were you seeing this particular therapist?0:17:29 Anarie: I think it was about four months. And it was right after the birth of... I think it was when my oldest was about a year old, so four years after our marriage, and we had a one-year-old baby at home.0:17:42 Daniel: And this, I think you're saying seemed to provide some sort of hope, because you're having more frequent sex, things seemed to be improving, but emotionally they weren't.0:17:54 Anarie: Yes. And I would often say to my husband; I felt like I was begging, "Please give me another chance. Can we try again? Can we do this more often?" And he would say, "Yes."0:18:07 Daniel: Wait, wait, begging for what? Sex, or just stay married?0:18:10 Anarie: For us to have sex, for us to have sex more often.0:18:13 Daniel: Oh, okay.0:18:15 Anarie: I talked to... One other thing that was going on here is I did talk to my OB-GYN about vaginismus, and got some information about a program for that.0:18:27 Daniel: So you were, you're experiencing painful sex also?0:18:29 Anarie: Yes. And I think largely due to no foreplay and no arousal. So I don't know that... The vaginismus program wasn't super helpful for me, because I think...0:18:47 Daniel: The foreplay was absent.0:18:49 Anarie: Yeah, there was no arousal happening at all, so of course it was painful and not awesome for me.0:18:57 Daniel: But even with the painful sex, you were still craving... Maybe craving isn't the right word, desiring more frequent sex from him.0:19:06 Anarie: Yes. I think a lot because I had been taught to believe that it was my responsibility as a wife to meet my husband's sexual needs and to fulfill my husband sexually. And I had been, I'd heard from parents and from church leaders that men who are happy with their wives don't look at porn. Which is a incredibly harmful message, that I had internalized and was accepting as part of truth. So I think part of it too was I knew that pornography had been an issue for him, and so one of my ways of helping him with that was gonna be to have sex with him, and then it wasn't working.0:19:49 Daniel: That's powerful.0:19:50 Anarie: I don't know if that makes sense, but that's...0:19:52 Daniel: It actually... You read... Yeah, well, I was about to ask that question, about how much of this was a preventative measure? You felt it was your responsibility as the wife in this eternal marriage to protect and provide a source for his outlet, to prevent him from pornography?0:20:12 Anarie: Yes.0:20:13 Daniel: You're desiring more sex, but there was also a strong element there of, "Okay, if I'm desirable enough to him he won't venture into this icky place," right?0:20:24 Anarie: Yeah, I felt like it was part of my responsibility as a good wife to have a good sexual relationship. I also think, my parents had also told me that sex is a beautiful thing. And once you're married, it's a beautiful part of life. So I do feel like I had a lot of positive affirmation for sex as well.0:20:42 Daniel: But you're like, "Where's the beauty?" [chuckle]0:20:45 Anarie: Yes, yeah. But I felt like I wanted that. And I wanted to make it happen, and I wasn't just gonna settle for like, "Oh, I guess sex is stupid and painful, and so good riddance." I wasn't content to just write it off as, "Okay, well, I guess we won't do this."0:21:03 Daniel: There are quite a few spouses out there that are in similar positions as you and, I don't have any statistics at all, but at least with my anecdotal experience and things that I've read, it seems like a lot of wives will go to a place of... They will actually stop having sex. But you were trying to make this beautiful. You were trying to achieve this thing that your parents were saying is good.0:21:34 Anarie: Yes.0:21:34 Daniel: And so that was amazing. That's, you weren't giving up on this hope that it could be something wonderful. So when did things, so to speak, hit the fan? When did you... Did he finally come out and say, "You know what, it's not you, it's been the pornography." What happened there, how did that occur?0:21:55 Anarie: Okay, so it was when my... Let's see, my five-year-old was a year old. Yeah, so our second child was a year old, and by that point, I felt like I had read all the books and talked to my doctor. Essentially, I felt like I had done everything to fix myself and to educate myself. I kinda felt like I'd hit a limit on what I could do on my end. And so I...0:22:32 Daniel: This was what, about five, six years in your marriage?0:22:35 Anarie: So this was about four years ago. So yeah, so it's seven years...0:22:40 Daniel: Seven years into the marriage.0:22:41 Anarie: Seven years into our marriage.0:22:42 Daniel: Wow, so this is...0:22:42 Anarie: So, yeah...0:22:43 Daniel: Wow, okay, good.0:22:46 Anarie: So I got to the point where I basically told him, "I am done with our marriage. I'm not willing to live in a marriage like this. It's not okay with me." By then, also, I had seen a lot more, I'd gotten a lot smarter about pornography usage. So I think a lot of my denial, believing that he was not actually engaging, had been broken down, because I actually started believing a lot of the studies, a lot of the information that was saying that pornography is an ongoing problem, that you don't just turn it off, like he was claiming he'd done. So basically I said, "I've done everything I can. Either you start talking and you start doing something, or I'm out of this marriage. I'm done."0:23:42 Anarie: And I really was to the point where I was willing to get divorced over this. That I didn't want to live in a emotionally disconnected sexless marriage. We were great. We've always been great business partners, good at coordinating logistical things. So the other aspects of what I believe should be part of marriage were completely non-existent. So I believe it was at that point when he realized that I was dead serious that... So by continuing to lie and hide his addiction, he was going to lose the marriage that he decided to start disclosing.0:24:18 Daniel: And can I ask you a personal question here? Is...0:24:22 Anarie: Yeah.0:24:23 Daniel: Were you at any time in that seven years trying to find clues, or go through his internet history or browser, and see if... Were you checking it?0:24:37 Anarie: No.0:24:37 Daniel: Wow, I'm impressed.0:24:39 Anarie: No, I didn't, I didn't play detective like that.0:24:42 Daniel: No, and forgive me, I'm not suggesting you should have, or anybody else should have. I'm just curious to what extent you were... You had a gut feeling, things weren't adding up, and you wanted to believe him, but there was something just off and...0:24:58 Anarie: Well, I am sort of amazed that I... Looking back, there was evidence. I did actually see some things that I should have realized were linked to current pornography usage. But I didn't. One other thing here that I wanna mention is that, about when we were going to that female therapist, you know, a few years into our marriage.0:25:21 Daniel: Right.0:25:23 Anarie: One of the things that came up was that he had never gone and talked to the Bishop after that initial disclosure nine months into our marriage. So I expressed that maybe if he went and talked to the Bishop to resolve that old issue with pornography nine months into our marriage, then I would be able to relax about it and trust him. So he went to our Bishop. And, I was not there so I don't know exactly what was said, but basically he disclosed that he'd viewed pornography within the first year of our marriage, and that it had been really devastating to me. So he told the Bishop some story, and about three weeks later, he was called as elders quorum president in our ward. Which I took to be a sign from God that he was clear.0:26:15 Daniel: Oh.0:26:16 Anarie: That the pornography issue was resolved. So I think that that was also part of why I refused to acknowledge that it was still actively happening all the time.0:26:28 Daniel: So you gave him this... Gosh, it almost sounds like an ultimatum. You were saying, "I'm done here. You gotta bring it forward," seven years into the marriage, what was his response?0:26:42 Anarie: He started disclosing some things. It was a staggering disclosure. He started admitting that he had... At first he just said that he had masturbated. So he'd been actively masturbating. And, which was upsetting to me but also relieving, "Oh, so that's where your sexual... You are a sexual person. That's where your sexual energy is going." And he said it at first that it was like old... He was using old mental images from his prior pornography use and stuff. So over the course of two or three weeks, he started disclosing more that, "Okay, there had been pornography use, but not in the last year."0:27:29 Anarie: Now that I know more about addiction or sexual addiction and how these disclosures generally happen, it really did fit the framework a lot, that he would disclose a little bit and see how I reacted, and then disclose a little bit more, or based on how I responded or what his shame was. And it was about three weeks after he initially started disclosing that he went to our current bishop. It was his initiation. He went to our current bishop and talked to his parents. And then, I talked to my parents and got in touch with a Lifestar therapist. And we were able to pretty quickly get into a sexual addiction recovery program.0:28:13 Daniel: So, now that you hear what's going on, you're able to get the right resources in there, at least different resources. So what was your experience? Was that... I asked these questions... I know you mentioned at the beginning you're divorced now, what was that experience like for you? Was it helpful?0:28:30 Anarie: It was very helpful, yes. I think we both felt a lot of relief that we had a problem that was identified, and that we could seek treatment for. So, there was a clear path for us to get on now. Whereas before it was like, "Something's wrong in our marriage, what's wrong? What's wrong? How do we fix this?" At least what was going on on my end. And with the pornography sexual addiction model, that gave, "Oh, there's a clear problem, there's a name for it, there's a name for what I'm experiencing, there's a treatment plan, there are other people that are experiencing this." So I feel like it immediately brought a sense of release and hope and safety that we would be able to figure this out.0:29:23 Daniel: For those who aren't familiar with Lifestar out in Utah, I think they're actually in a couple of different other states now but, for those who aren't familiar with addiction treatment, behavior treatment, what was that like? So you're saying now they're actually focusing on the pornography, and they're providing a treatment plan. Help the audience understand what does that mean? What does that look like?0:29:49 Anarie: Okay. So, the first part of Lifestar is called, Phase One, and it's a six-week education phase that couples attend together. If they want to. Sometimes individuals come 'cause their spouse won't come. But generally it's attended by couples, it's six weeks and basically it's kind of... I said educational 'cause the therapist presents information, and we had workbooks to do learning about addiction, learning about shame, some basic family of origin things. A little bit about drama triangle, attachment principles, and, during those we would sometimes break into smaller groups and share some answers from our workbooks. But for the most part, it was not a group therapy kind of experience.0:30:41 Anarie: Then after that six week, Phase One, then Phase Two starts, and that's when each person goes to their group therapy. So it's divided based on gender. So I had my group, and he had his group, and that was a group therapy, a weekly group therapy session. And we had additional workbooks and assignments that we would each work through in our individual groups; and their groups were led by a therapist. The Lifestar program is administered by different therapists, so it's like a franchise type of thing. And, the program that we did it in, the therapist really believes in not setting strict time parameters.0:31:29 Anarie: So, we were actually... Compared to some others where it's like phase two is six months and then you moved to the next phase. It was much more based on readiness and reaching a certain emotional place. So, compared to some other Lifestar group, I was in Lifestar for a total of three years before I completed it.0:31:50 Daniel: Is that...0:31:51 Anarie: And a lot of people do the Lifestar program in 18 months.0:31:54 Daniel: Yeah, you answered my question.0:31:54 Anarie: So I just wanna throw that out there, that's my experience, it's a little different from other Lifestar experiences. After about a year of... Or maybe 10 months of Phase Two, I graduated to Phase Three. And the reason for the different phases is just because it keeps people in the group that are in a similar stage of recovery, 'cause early recovery and fresh raw trauma looks and feels and sounds different than a little further down the recovery road. So, moving from Phase Two to Phase Three, it was more about...0:32:34 Anarie: There was a little change in focus, much less like raw trauma. And so, that's why there it was divided by phase. And in Phase Three, there were different assignments. One significant thing that's done... And they've changed it a little bit now, but there's a formal disclosure that happens during Phase Two, if both parties are willing, and it's a therapeutic disclosure. So the couple meet with the therapist, and it's a organized disclosure where the addict discloses to their spouse all of their behavior, behaviors in the addiction, and the spouse prepares questions in advance to ask.0:33:20 Anarie: So it's a chance to clear the air, start fresh, to ask questions in a safe environment, with a therapist you can hopefully watch for signs of lying or... And for me it was kind of healing because there had been a lot of unhealthy disclosure, it was helpful to have that formal disclosure where I had support, I knew it was coming, I had a therapist, I had friends. So in a way, that was able to heal some of the more traumatic earlier disclosures. So anyway, that was also...[overlapping conversation]0:33:52 Daniel: What a wonderful resource. So during that three years, you're taking it your own pace, working through your own trauma. So this is wonderful, you finally it sounds like now that you have your own cohort, so to speak, or a group of people that you can trust. You're able to now work through your trauma, your hurt, while he's dealing with his struggles. Did you see during that three-year period the relationship improve, or what was the result of attending these different phases?0:34:29 Anarie: Okay, so I do wanna throw in real quick that we also did individual therapy, we each had individual therapy sessions in the same group.0:34:35 Daniel: There at Lifestar, or somewhere separate?0:34:38 Anarie: We did it with the same therapist. So the therapist that led our lifestyle group was also the therapist we went to for our individual sessions, through most of it.0:34:49 Daniel: Excellent. So they understood what you were doing. And that's great. The reason why I point that out is, I think that's actually wonderful. In fact, studies show that if you only do group treatment, you don't have as high success rate. If you combine individual and group treatment, the success rate goes up. And the fact that your therapist was familiar with the program allowed that, I guess synergy, or you don't have to re-explain everything why you're doing what you're doing, or anything like that.0:35:22 Anarie: It integrated really well in taking place.0:35:24 Daniel: Exactly.0:35:25 Anarie: It was really helpful. We did have some couple sessions often on during that time mostly after disclosure and we did the couple sessions as well with the same therapist. When I was in phase three so in the third year of recovery I did go to an outside therapist for a period of time and that was really, really helpful for me. And looking back, I would say that I wish that we would have done some couples therapy with another therapist as well. I think because all of our treatment was coming from the same therapist there was some more... There were just some issues that came up with that but I think there might have been more safety if we had had some other therapist as well.0:36:08 Daniel: Would you point that out if you feel comfortable in doing that. I think that's actually a really important fact that people don't realize. There's a couple of elements here, and I'll share with you my thoughts, and then tell me what it was for you. I personally I'm very comfortable in doing individual and couples with the same people, there are limitations and there are exceptions there and that's usually discovered in the intake processes, is what we call it, and if I feel like it will be a benefit to both the individual and as a couple.0:36:43 Daniel: But there are cases where it's even if I'm comfortable with it, it's not a wise move or it's not a good way to support the couple because of the dynamics or whatever it is there and so a lot of clients will sometimes seek that from a therapist and there comes the other issues if a therapist is confident to navigate and to be able to separate the individual versus the couple experience there and sometimes bringing them together and so the individual seeking that kind of treatment both the individual and couples therapy, need to be aware of that in the risks and the benefits from that. What was your personal experience with that?0:37:27 Anarie: So, I feel that there were some very real benefit, because that therapist was aware, very aware of where each of us was individually. I think that that aided him in a lot of our sessions to... I don't know, I think he was aware of things that we didn't have to talk about 'cause he already knew but I think the biggest reason that I would say I wish we would have gone to someone else with kind of a safety thing.0:38:00 Anarie: So there were times that I felt like our therapist was on my husband's side, and there were times when my husband felt like the therapist was on my side. Whether or not that was accurate, I do think that... And maybe that would have happened with any therapist, but that came up. My perspective from me right now, and my therapist has acknowledged this, is that there was some manipulation, my husband manipulated the therapist. And that was part of why, when I went to an outside therapist, that was really helpful and empowering for me, because that other therapist had not been manipulated by my husband. So, I don't know.0:38:51 Daniel: That's... Yeah.0:38:54 Anarie: Because the therapists that we shared was so in it for multiple years and so he started giving blind spots and there are some things that he didn't see at the time that happens with any therapist.0:39:09 Daniel: Yeah, I think this is a very valid point, one that's kinda hard to communicate in a brief interview like this. And there's a lot of caveats here, I understand very well what you're talking about. I've even had to be very careful with working with couples that I'd known for a long time, or have been... Or I'm following up with, and knowing when and how to ask the right questions. It's very difficult when you have built that relationship, and you're not necessarily looking for all the signs of manipulation. And I'm gonna be cautious here. I'm tempted to say a good therapist can see those signs, but that means we would have to be perfect too.0:39:51 Anarie: Right. Yeah.0:39:52 Daniel: It's a very difficult experience.0:39:54 Anarie: Yeah. Well, and I think my main message to any of the listeners would be, I know it's really scary to get in with an initial therapist. At least it was for me. For me it was really scary to get into therapy, to build a relationship with a therapist, to be vulnerable about these things. So it was really scary to go find another therapist, another person, especially because I'd had some bad experiences...0:40:18 Daniel: Exactly.0:40:18 Anarie: With therapists before. I had some therapist trauma. But if you're feeling like you want another therapist, you want another perspective, a good therapist is not gonna be threatened by you wanting to go talk to somebody else for a period of time.0:40:31 Daniel: Thank you for saying that. Absolutely.0:40:34 Anarie: And you can get the support that you need to go talk to another therapist, or to go as a couple and try talking to another therapist.0:40:43 Daniel: I think you've brought up...0:40:44 Anarie: That you don't have to be still fiercely loyal to one therapist.0:40:50 Daniel: Absolutely, and I think that's a good way to approach it. First of all, trust your gut. You've had, whether there was actual manipulation going on or not, whether the therapist was siding with you or not, your experience is real and valid in that moment. There's a lot going on there's trauma, there's hurt, there's confusion. Trust your gut. First of all, trust your gut. And it is scary trying to get, especially if you've had bad experiences like you did with therapists, pose that question, "Do you mind if I look for another therapist for this?"0:41:25 Daniel: And their response I think will be a great indicator of maybe their motivation, or whether or not you should go get another therapist. If they get kind of awkward or embarrassed, or question, "Why would you do that?" Or if they even kind of stonewall in a way, "Well, we have all this history. How are you gonna communicate that history, and how will they follow our treatment plan?" That's a good indicator that you probably should go look a good therapist, like you said, will be totally supportive. Absolutely, go for it. This is your experience, do what you feel is important.0:42:07 Anarie: And I think sometimes, going to another therapist, I know this is sort of a tangent, but it could be motivated by wanting to run away from your current therapist. Maybe they're wanting you to look at some things you don't want to. So that could also be a factor but.0:42:22 Daniel: That is true. That's why it's hard. I think it's important to, kind of a tangent, but kind of not. This is all part of that experience in realizing what's happening here, especially when you have a partner who's manipulating you. Especially if there's been manipulation in the relationship, that therapist should be joining with you and building that trust, right?0:42:43 Anarie: Yeah. Yeah.0:42:46 Daniel: Yes there is a potential that you're running away, but you know what, you get to. You're having this experience and you need to have somebody who can trust you in this experience. And I've had people come back and say, "You know what? I was running away, and I realized that." And I'm putting it into my own words, but eventually he came out and says, "Thank you for letting me do that. I wouldn't have learned this if you prevented me or discouraged me from doing that."0:43:19 Anarie: Yeah.0:43:19 Daniel: And so, you're absolutely right. People are gonna run away when they don't like hearing what they're hearing but part of the experience is supporting that person in that experience, 'cause that's really what you're asking your husband to do, is, "This is scary. You should have been upfront with me from the beginning, regardless of my response. It's scary, I get it, this is scary for me, too. I need you to be open with me just like I should be open with you." And so, great, great. I think that was an important tangent. If we wanna call it a tangent. So...0:43:51 Anarie: One other thing I wanna...0:43:52 Daniel: Go for it.0:43:52 Anarie: Real quick, another part of my recovery over the last four years has been a 12 step program. The one that I have found most supportive was at a Lifeline group. So I did go to some of the LDS church's ARP program, and did not find them to be as supportive as I did the 12 step groups that are done through S.A Lifeline. [0:44:23] ____.0:44:24 Daniel: Oh, no, I think that's important. And if you could boil it down to one or two things. Why was it not as supportive...0:44:32 Anarie: Okay, so I wanna say at first ARP was wonderful, right at first, I'm super grateful that there was a place to go immediately, and that there was a place within a gospel context and within a gospel framework. So I did attend ARP continuously for about six months, and I was grateful for it. It met a need at the time. The biggest thing that I felt was not supportive about ARP, was actually the way that it was structured, that it was, it is missionaries that lead the ARP group, and a lot of them are not sufficiently educated on the topic on what they're dealing with.0:45:10 Daniel: Yeah.0:45:10 Anarie: And a lot of them spent a lot of time sharing. The missionaries would spend time sharing and teaching and lecturing things that were not actually helpful, were inadvertently shaming, and created a lack of safety. Another thing that I saw happen in the ARP group, in recovery there's a real need to give permission for emotion, and for letting your experience be what it is, and for having that experience be validated. And within the context of ARP, often it felt like there were certain emotions that were okay to have, and there certain emotions that were not okay.0:45:53 Anarie: Or that... And boundaries are important in any group, but I felt like there was not adequate space in ARP for anger. I felt like there was a real jump to forgiveness and share positive things and share faith things, faith-promoting things. And there's a place for that, but when you're down on the ground in, especially the immediate aftermath of trauma, there's so much anger and there's so much hurt. And there's, it rocks you spiritually.0:46:25 Anarie: I've gone through times where I don't even believe in God. I feel like, I know my betrayal that I experienced, it ran deep, a lot of it impacted my relationship with God. So there were times when I felt like I couldn't believe in God the way that that group was wanting me to believe in God. So for me it kind of increased the shame.0:46:47 Daniel: That is so...0:46:48 Anarie: Some of my shame experience there. Compared to the S.A Lifeline, where it's more general language, you talk about a higher power. And there I felt so much permission in that group to be wherever I was at, without feeling like I needed to show only the nicer part, or to be immediately jumping to the right way of saying things. If that makes sense?0:47:10 Daniel: I really appreciate you sharing that, about ARP. I think it's a great resource that is offered. I also agree that it's not for everyone, and I will say it's not for most people. I'm gonna say that very carefully for the very reason you've just mentioned. Untrained volunteers who are doing their best but not aware of how a lack of safety is created by reverting to forgiveness versus allowing that anger to be present and understanding how that can be healing in a group of people with a common experience.0:47:55 Anarie: Yeah.0:47:56 Daniel: Thank you so much. I don't wanna come across as criticizing ARP, I think it's a resource, but I think it's just that, a resource.0:48:06 Anarie: Yes, and I was incredibly grateful that it was there for me at the time, and by going there and talking to some of the people in the group, that's how I learned about some of these other resources as well. And I think that the experience in an ARP group it can be heavily dependent on who the missionaries are, and who else is there in the group.0:48:27 Daniel: Absolutely. So let's come... Thank you, I think that was very important. Let's come back around to... You have so much good information, I love it, I absolutely love it, but I'm trying to remember if we actually answered the question. In that three years of going to Lifestar, and these other various treatments, did we see progress in the relationship? What was a result of that?0:48:51 Anarie: Okay, so in terms of our relationship, we did not really, we were not very successful at connecting emotionally, through the three years. At different times we did. And I'm not entirely sure why. I felt like I made lots of individual progress, lots of individual healing and growth. And relationships with family, I saw relationships with my family members and with my friends, radically transforming and changing.0:49:38 Anarie: Within my marriage though, and my relationship with my husband, I was not seeing and experiencing much fundamental change. We were not connecting sexually, we were not connecting emotionally, really, through that process. We were supportive of each other in our individual journeys, but sort of in the same old like logistical business partner-y kind of way that it had been before.0:50:15 Daniel: So you don't want... You don't want a eternal business relationship, you want an eternal marriage.0:50:22 Anarie: Right.0:50:22 Daniel: So...0:50:23 Anarie: And I was... He might say The reason we didn't have a sexual relationship was because of my boundaries, and I would say, "Well my boundaries were where they were because there was still no emotional safety." I wasn't feeling... I didn't have trust restored, in like, I believe his disclosure was honest. I think I do.0:50:54 Daniel: You mean the disclosure in Phase One, or Phase Two?0:50:57 Anarie: The formal disclosure.0:51:00 Daniel: Okay.0:51:00 Anarie: Yeah, and I appreciated him sharing that. And immediately after there was some connection. He supposedly was able to achieve sobriety really early in the program. So a lot of times during the process of Lifestar, there's opportunity to work on conversation about experiences of pornography and slips, and disclosing that and working through that. And because he was so immediately sober, we didn't have much of that. So, I don't know.0:51:34 Daniel: So Tell me a little bit more about that. I think that's important for the audience to hear, now quite a few episodes are available with my podcast. What is sobriety when we talk about sobriety? And it may sound like a stupid question, and you may be familiar with the way I've tried to define it, and explain what is pornography. So how did they measure that for the sake of the listener Sometimes the definition around pornography could be anything that could potentially lead to something more severe, for example, maybe looking at in a lingerie or Instagram or something like that. So how was... Did Lifestar create some sort of definition, or was this an agreed-upon sobriety? How did that get decided and navigated?0:52:25 Anarie: So, for us in Lifestar there, I think there was a certain expectation in the group of what sobriety is, which is not actively seeking out pornographic images or sexual stimulation, things that with... Because with the addiction model the addicts are turning to that as a way to medicate their feelings, and so it was a... They weren't sober if they actively went after something that would give them their sexual hits. So if they were searching for pornographic images, or...0:53:07 Daniel: Of any kind?0:53:08 Anarie: Of any kind. Or... I believe a lot of people in my husband's group, and I think in 12 steps as well, sort of had a 10-second fantasy rule, that if they engaged in fantasy for more than 10 seconds then that was considered a slip.0:53:31 Daniel: Okay.0:53:33 Anarie: Or they needed to share that with their stuff.0:53:36 Daniel: That's a pretty short, short window in reality.0:53:40 Anarie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.0:53:40 Daniel: But I actually like that concept because it's actually encouraging self-awareness. You're not penalized or you're not viewed, whether by your group yourself or whomever, as back to zero again because, oh, my goodness, my mind went into an automatic thought process, and now I have to... It seems impossible, but that self-awareness or that time allows you to become more, "Oh, my goodness, that's what's happening. Okay, I still have time to recover." And not have to count that as, "Oh, excellent, great." So he was basing sobriety, supposedly off of that.0:54:22 Anarie: Masturbation as well. No masturbation, no self-stimulation.0:54:26 Daniel: Got it.0:54:28 Anarie: But really, so much of it was about the lying. So no... And with my experience with my friends on the betrayal side of it, so much of it was about the lying and the hiding. So yes, it would hurt if there was a slip, but it in a way, it was almost healing to have those slips shared, 'cause then we were being let into that world, and we were a part of it.0:54:58 Daniel: So this is what's... What's really interesting to me, and not a criticism, 'cause I... Well, at least I like to think I understand the human behavior side of it, but now you've gotten at least, you're past phase one, into phase two, the disclosure has been made, you've had a ton of psychoeducation about what these patterns are like, and now creating this environment of trust where he can disclose to you. And you're actually finding healing from it. It feels, "Oh my goodness. You're open with me." Why would he hold that back? If you've made this success... Again, I know I'm asking you to kinda interpret from his experience.0:55:39 Anarie: Yeah, I'm not sure.0:55:41 Daniel: Okay.0:55:41 Anarie: I have wondered if shame... Just using the sexual addiction model, as like these behaviors are bad, coming from that background of these are bad and shameful, by disclosing, it's, I'm showing you again that I'm shameful.0:56:03 Daniel: For those who keep hearing the phrase, "sex addiction model", just to provide a little bit more clarity here, there are different theoretical approaches to treating sexual behavior. And one of them is what is being referred to here as this sex addiction model, which is places like Lifestar and other organizations, believe in treating this behavior. And you're bringing up an interesting point here, is even though the sex addiction model was very enlightening to you, it helped you as an individual. You made a comment about how it might have been reinforcing the shame. Is that what I heard?0:56:44 Anarie: Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure if it was ideal scenario for him.0:56:51 Daniel: Can you say more about that?0:56:55 Anarie: Just because I feel like all through the recovery there was too much fear around it. Even if it was trying to be normalized, and other people struggle with this, I still feel like there was not an acknowledgement of how normal pornography use is. And I feel like there was still a lot of fear around it, and a lot of labeling of it as being bad and wrong, and...0:57:37 Daniel: So it...0:57:37 Anarie: It itself was still demonized a lot. Even if there was work done to navigate shame, like education about what role it's serving, and choosing more appropriate ways to meet some of those needs, it was still coming from this premise of, the pornography and the masturbation in and of itself is bad and wrong and... Yeah.0:58:11 Daniel: Yeah, well that makes sense. So, what I think I'm hearing here is, even though you've had this psycho-education, you're having this great support network, you're getting the resources you need for both of you and your relationship, there's a possibility that same treatment method was also reinforcing more fear. And so, even though he knew he could reveal to you, and that could be an opportunity for success and recovery, acknowledging that you slipped up again, you are now taking on all these...0:58:46 Anarie: Yeah, it still made him look like the bad guy.0:58:48 Daniel: Very much so. Again, not minimizing the seriousness of it, or giving him an excuse here, but the reality is, is when we demonize the use we then become and identify with that demon, so to speak. Right?0:59:05 Anarie: Yeah.0:59:05 Daniel: And so being able to acknowledge that even though you know you've done it, wow, that could really feed into, not only his fear, but your fear. What does it mean? You did this again. Who are you? Is that what I'm hearing?0:59:18 Anarie: Yeah, yeah. There in... I quite often heard it like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There's the addict self and the true self. And I think there's some truth to that, and I also think it's problematic and was harmful, for both of us, to turn it into a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of scenario. Because I believe it's more integrated.0:59:45 Daniel: This is an experience that I hear so many have, where they finally get the... I thought it was beautiful the way you described it, is they provided resources and information that resonated with you perfectly, things made sense. And your personal journey, you felt like you were getting the right support, the right help, he was being held responsible in the right way to divulge his information and his struggles. While you have this great resource, you're also seeing how it was problematic. What is...1:00:22 Anarie: Yeah, look... Oh sorry, go ahead.1:00:24 Daniel: No, absolutely, go ahead.1:00:26 Anarie: I was just gonna say, looking back there, we're dealing with a sexual issue, pornography, his masturbation, sexual addiction, but there was not much information given in our program about healthy sexuality...1:00:42 Daniel: Bingo.1:00:42 Anarie: About normal sexual development. And I know normal's a relative term, but human sexual development, there was not much information about that. Even with disclosure, hearing about a lot of the forms of acting out that he used, I still, during my time in recovery, there was so much fear that there was never really any normalization of some of those kinds of behaviors. So I would hear that he'd done this type of pornography that, to me, was extra scary and extra bad. And there was never any space to put that in a less terrifying way.1:01:30 Daniel: I think that's huge, and I think that's a thing that's missed in all treatment. Well, not all treatment, but a majority of treatment. Even in those clinics that are, like Lifestar, who are phenomenal at what they do, we focus on what not to do, right? But we don't actually explore and understand from a expert point of view, of what healthy sexual behavior looks like. We have these assumptions, but those assumptions aren't necessarily true, or need further expanding on.1:02:06 Daniel: But I also, what you said there was, the type of pornography, and there's huge misunderstandings around this. Pop-psychology, a lot of the predominant resources out there teach this idea that it's escalative behavior, and that is... There's very, very little support for that, in that somebody who's looking up maybe bondage type of pornography, or something very serious, or is perceived as something more serious than another, then that creates this whole new treatment model or severity around the person. Or there's something more sickening about the person, which is, again, problematic and not supported in treatment or in science. But you started to notice that.1:02:54 Anarie: Yeah. I feel like I needed to have my experience validated, so I was coming at it from a place of a lot of fear.1:03:03 Daniel: Of course.1:03:03 Anarie: In fact, it was really scary for me to listen to his disclosure. I had never watched a rated R movie myself at that time, and so to learn about these sexual behaviors and these kinds of pornography, that was a really scary thing for me, to have to learn about those things. And it was helpful for me to have others validate how scary and how much fear there was in that. At the same time, I feel like there could have been... I could have been validated in my fearful approach to it, and a more balanced view could have also been presented a little bit sooner, so my narrative could have been validated and some reframes could have been offered more.1:03:51 Daniel: So what would you recommend to somebody who's in your position, situation rather, and they're struggling with a similar behavior, their spouse is hiding, and you're seeking treatment? How would you... I guess what I'm asking is, What would you do different?1:04:11 Anarie: Or what would I do the same? What would I...1:04:13 Daniel: Oh yeah, fair, fair.1:04:14 Anarie: Recommend for someone in that place?1:04:16 Daniel: Yes.1:04:17 Anarie: For me, getting support from others and moving out of isolation, is so so scary. So wherever you can start to get that support from. For me, looking back, I have felt some like, "Oh, maybe we should have gone to a different program. Maybe if we would have found a better therapist." Or, "I should have not gone to ARP first, I should have... " It's really easy to get into some of that. But any support, any... Reach out to the people around you, look for the best resources that applaud any steps out of isolation, any effort to express your experience and get support. And permission to experience what you're experiencing, to feel what you're feeling.1:05:09 Anarie: However you're coming at it from, whatever you feel about it, those things are valid, and there's a place for it, and you don't need to feel ashamed for the way that you're experiencing it. So you... I heard a lot of messages about how betrayed spouses need to respond right to disclosure. So, if you freak out, they're not gonna share with you in the future. But... And there's truth to that. At the same time, when you're in fresh trauma it makes sense that you freak out and that you can't hold space for yourself the way that you might be able to further down the road. So, I guess just permission to be where you're at when you're there.1:05:57 Daniel: I really appreciate that insight right there. I will often... If we discover that disclosure has to be made, I can't tell you how valuable it is to, depending on which partner it is, in this case let's say the husband, pulling them aside, meeting with them individually and coaching them through this. "Look, it's gonna be rough. You don't try to manage your wife's feelings and emotions at all. Let her experience it. This is about revealing, building trust, and she gets to have her emotions just like you do. In this experience, allow her to be. In fact, encourage it." But that's, I think... Oh, that's a big one. Thank you for bringing that up.1:06:47 Anarie: And that is something I felt Lifestar did a really good job, of giving space for the betrayed partner to have their experience, for their trauma to be validated. And to expect that the addicted spouse needed to find support elsewhere, and that the betrayed person can't... You want to come together as a couple to address the issue together, but for a time maybe you can't do that. You need outside support, outside people. So...1:07:23 Daniel: Absolutely, so you now are divorced. It's been how long since the separation?1:07:27 Anarie: Four months since it was finalized, a year since we separated.1:07:29 Daniel: Four months. Alright. And do you feel like you're in a better place now?1:07:34 Anarie: I do, yeah.1:07:37 Daniel: Well, Anarie...1:07:39 Anarie: And I'm hopeful that he is as well, and that he will be.1:07:46 Daniel: Well, it sounds like you're making some important decisions to move forward, and that healing is occurring. And I can't tell you how much I personally appreciate you coming on here and sharing your information with everyone else. I can't tell you...1:08:00 Anarie: Well, I hope that it can be helpful. There was so much... Shame thrives in believing that you're the only one. And for so long I believed that I was the only one, or one of only a few. And particularly the sexless nature of my marriage didn't match a lot of what I heard about other...1:08:21 Daniel: No.1:08:22 Anarie: Addicted people. And I think that was part of what was so distressing too, it seemed to not fit. And since recovery I've found, no there are others who are experiencing this dynamic of being married to someone who's acting out sexually while having a sexless marriage and sexless relationship. And so, for a long time I was even nervous to tell other people in my recovery circle about what kind of sexless marriage I'd had because often I was in a minority. So, for that reason I wanna share my story because I know now that I'm not the only person experiencing that kind of dynamic.1:09:03 Daniel: It's so much more common then people realize.1:09:04 Anarie: And when you... When you feel like it's just you, when you feel shame for your shameful experience, it's just so much more painful. So I know now that I'm not the only one experiencing that, so I wanna share that so that others can know as well, that this is part of the experience too.1:09:24 Daniel: I could assure you, the people listening right now are comforted by that comment. You did mention one other thing, before we go. I can't remember if we were personally talking about it offline or if it was at the beginning. You said one of the concerns, or... And maybe you have addressed it in a round about way. But one of the concerns you had about this treatment process, just the whole process I guess, was, yes, you got solutions, you got treatment plans for the porn and sexual behaviors, but some of the underlining issues weren't addressed.1:10:02 Anarie: Yes.1:10:02 Daniel: Do you mind talking about that for a second?1:10:04 Anarie: Yeah. So, in terms of our relationship and what was actually going on in our relationship, I feel like the pornography was a symptom of other things that were going on. So in spending a couple of years honing in specifically on pornography, and the pornography use, and regulating and learning about that, it took a couple of years before we started actually looking at more of our relationship dynamics, that were actually more of our problem. And it's linked, so it's not like... Okay.1:10:50 Anarie: But in a way I feel like the focus on the pornography use was able to feed... We almost... It started to become a part of some of our underlying issues. We almost used it in old unhealthy ways. So, in terms of what the underlying issue was, there was some control and power manipulation, lying, unhealthy shame management, enmeshment, differentiation issues, sexual shame, repressed sexuality. Some of those things... We spent so much time on the regulating sobriety and porn behaviors that by the time we started actually getting to the real meat of stuff, it took a couple of years.1:11:48 Daniel: Which is absolutely a case I see quite frequently here. We may resolve the pornography, the addictive behaviors, but when that's gone what happens is exactly what you described. You're going to this, you're healing, but where's the connection? The absence of porn and undesired sexual behaviors does not create connection.1:12:16 Anarie: Yes, yes, yes. [chuckle]1:12:18 Daniel: Right?1:12:19 Anarie: Yeah. Yep.1:12:19 Daniel: And so, this is an element that is always... Again, I'm using always. Not always the case. Is too often overlooked, because we do, we make the symptom, which is the pornography, the problem. And we think if we get rid of the problem, which is actually just the symptom... There's clearly something else going on here with the constant manipulation. And unfortunately, the way... The addiction model, or pop psychology, whatever we wanna refer to it or blame it on, tells us that manipulation is a result from the escalating behavior. Well, we're finding that it's actually an underlying issue that's unresolved and not treated. And then the pornography, in a sense, becomes yet another form of manipulation to cover that real problem. It's this benign tumor that just is hidden somewhere we can't find it. Right?1:13:17 Anarie: Yes. And pornography addiction recovery can, in a sense, end up being used as a tool of manipulation.1:13:25 Daniel: Yes.1:13:25 Anarie: And, there was something I was gonna say. I can't remember.1:13:33 Daniel: Now, if it comes back to you feel free to jump in.1:13:36 Anarie: Sorry. [chuckle]1:13:36 Daniel: But I think that you hit... I think one of the biggest takeaways from this is not to neglect the... We focus too often on getting rid of something. I phrase it... You went to treatment at the beginning, no one talked about pornography, and then you went to Lifestar where pornography was finally talked about, but yet connection wasn't addressed. If there was some way that we can address both the undesired behavior and the desired behavior... And in my practice, I always say, "Let's focus on the desired outcome. What is the desired outcome? Okay, you're using pornography right now, the desired outcome isn't just to stop that.1:14:20 Daniel: The desired outcome is, "I wanna feel closer to you, I wanna feel connection. Okay, even if you saw some pornography today, I still wanna come home and have a meaningful discussion with you, I wanna have meaningful sex, I wanna feel close to you. If that means getting rid of the pornography, great. If it means we need to understand how to communicate better, let's do that too." And it sounds like that was an element that was missed, at least in your experience.1:14:52 Anarie: Yeah, and it was talked about, and I... Connection, the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's connection. That's a phrase that I heard a lot in recovery. So there was a lot of talk about connection.1:15:06 Daniel: Yeah, but we're discovering, it sounds like you did too... And forgive me, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth at all. Is the absence of the addiction doesn't re-result in connection.1:15:18 Anarie: Yes, yeah, yeah.1:15:19 Daniel: So we talk about it a lot, but we don't actually, I think, create a treatment plan around that and try to improve it.1:15:27 Anarie: Yeah. And I do wanna say that I am grateful that pornography... Because pornography was labelled as an issue, as a problematic thing, it gave a doorway into some therapy and some information that was incredibly helpful. So I am grateful that there was this issue and there are these programs that help, that were able to catch me and help me get directed into some real therapeutic help.1:16:00 Daniel: Absolutely. Well, you've given us so, so much to think about here. And I know it may sound redundant, but I'm gonna ask again, any final thoughts or things you wanna leave us with?1:16:13 Anarie: I do wanna share just some of the things beyond betrayal trauma that I needed to learn, and that were an important part of my recovery, and my process of learning how to be a healthy individual in a healthier relationship. Because there were definitely

Daniel and Andrew talk about different ways of relating to the ancestors. Especially getting into how to help the ancestors evolve and make our lives better in the process. They also get into their relatinoships to the orisha and ways of thinking about practicing a tradition that you were not born into.  Daniel can be found through his site here. His events are there too.  Daniel's talk on practicing other peopels traditions is here.  Andrew's upcoming Ancestral Magick Course can be found here.  Think about how much you've enjoyed the podcast and how many episodes you listened to, and consider if it is time to support the Patreon You can do so here. If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. Thanks for joining the conversation. Please share the podcast to help us grow and change the world.  Andrew You can book time with Andrew through his site here.  Transcription ANDREW: Welcome to the Hermit's Lamp podcast. I'm hanging out today with Daniel Foor, and Daniel is a Ifá priest and has done all sorts of wonderful work along the lines of ancestral healing. And Ancestral Medicine is the name of the book that he has out. And he and I have a lot of similarities in practices and the kinds of things we're interested in, so, you know, lots of people have been suggesting I have him on for a while, and, and well, today's the day! So, welcome, Daniel! Thanks for being here!  DANIEL: Thanks so much. It's good to be here.  ANDREW: There are people who might not know who you are. Who are you? What are you about?  DANIEL: Yeah, well, I ... to locate myself a bit, I'm a 40-year-old, white, cis-gendered American living in western North Carolina. From Ohio, originally, but traveled a good amount, but live in the States, and have a PhD in psychology. I'm a licensed therapist, so I have a background in mental health.  But mostly I'm a ritualist, and I've been training with different kinds of teachers and traditions for over 20 years now, and started out with more shamanic pagan background with magical things, and migrated into involvement with Islam, and Sufism, Buddhist practice, and then circled back to involvement with indigenous systems and earth-honoring traditions. And in the last decade have been immersed in west African Ifá practice, lineages in the Americas and also in west Africa, and so I'm an initiate of Ifa, Obatala, and Oshun, and Egungun priesthood, [inaudible], and in the lineage of Oluwo Falolu Adesanya Awoyade, Ode Remo, in Ogun State. So I've been four times to Nigeria, and that's one influence on my practice.  But mostly I teach and guide non-dogmatic, inclusive, animist ancestor-focused ritual practice. The last two years or so I have shifted to training others, which has been really satisfying after years of doing more public-facing ritual, I'm now ... I do some of that but mostly I'm training other people in how to guide the work. And I have developed a specialization in repair work with blood lineage ancestors. But I also operate from a broader animist or earth-honoring framework that isn't limited to just that. So. And I'm a dad, I'm a, you know, married, and love the earth here, and live in the American South, which is kind of strange, but also okay. Yeah.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. That's awesome.  DANIEL: Yeah. ANDREW: So, I mean, I guess, my first question for you is, when did you start feeling the ancestral stuff calling you?  DANIEL: Well, my own lineages are German, English, Irish, early settler colonialist to North America, and so I didn't inherit any religious or spiritual framework or culture that was of value to me in any conscious way as a young person. And so, my first teachers in shamanic practice, Bekki and Crow with the Church of Earth Healing, in the late 90s, nudged me to get to know my ancestors ritually. And it was really impactful, actually. I was surprised by it. I'd never thought about them really before that. And I ended up assisting with an older ancestral guide or teacher, my father's father who had taken his own life, and just showing up for that work, which was powerful.  And it was a catalyst for me to research, do a lot of depth genealogy research about my own family history, and that dovetailed in with my training as a therapist, so I was in a period of connecting a lot of dots and valuing my own heritage, and, in a grounding way ... Not in like some awkward, go white people way, but in a way that helped me to reclaim what is beautiful about European, you know, northern western European cultures, and ... including earlier pre-Roman, pre-Christian magics and lineages. And so, I ran with that ritually. And have guided 120 maybe, multi-day, ancestor healing intensives since 2005 in that work, so I spent about six or seven years getting grounded with all of it myself. Then started to help other people with it. And it just organically developed as a specialization. And I tend to be a little obsessive about a thing, when I'm into it. I'll do that like crazy, until it's ... yeah.  ANDREW: Yeah, I think ... I mean, I think it's interesting how ... Cause I do a lot of ancestral work as well, you know ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: I do ancestral divination work and, you know, ancestral sort of healing and lineage healing and so on.  DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: You know, I've been teaching it with my friend Carrie, we have this, we developed this system of people working with charm casting as a tool ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: To get into that work. And, you know, we've been traveling around and teaching it everywhere. We were in China last year teaching it, and stuff like that, with people ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: You know, I think that the thing that sort of stands out in your story, that I think stands out everywhere, is so often, like the last little bit, you know, the last few generations, it's kind of wonky, or like there's not a lot, there's not a lot of connection or living connection. Even, you know, it wasn't until last year that I found out that my grandmother read tea leaves when she was alive ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And she's been gone for like 12 years, and it just never came up before. She never talked about it, and my mom just never brought it up. Not for any particular reason but it just, it just was never a thing. Even though that's the same grandmother who bought me a tarot deck when I was like 13, long ago.  DANIEL: Right. Of course she did.  ANDREW: But I would have talked about it, right? But how ... Often when you kind of go back, you know, a few generations or somewhere a bit deeper, you know, there are these sort of more ... evolved isn't the word that I super like, but you know, like, more grounded, more helpful, you know, ancestors with a, with a sort of more capacity to be really guides and assist you in this process, right?  DANIEL: Yeah, often. It ... Where those cut-offs happen varies so widely from one demographic or even one individual to another, and I know in a lot of my own lineages, it's been over 1,000 years since anyone during life had a culturally reinforced and supported framework for honoring the ancestors. And so the older ones, the ones even before that, are quite available. So it's not ... I mean I could ... reinforce some kind of orphan victim culturally-damaged white person narrative, but it's not that sexy or useful, and so at a certain point, you're just like, well, you pick up the pieces where they're at, and get the fire going again.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: And the older ancestors are happy to do that. And so even if someone comes from a really recently and before that culturally fragmented set of lineages, the ancestors are still available, the older ones, and the main repair orientation or practice that I encourage people to try on at first is to partner with those older ancestors and with them, assist any of the dead who are not yet well, any of the ones between those older ones and the present, who are not yet really well-seated, really vibrant. Help them to become well-seated ancestors. So the dead change. It's very important for us living folks to not fix them in some static condition.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: Just cause people were a pain in the ass or really, you know, culturally in the weeds during life doesn't mean they're doomed to that condition forever. They can really change and become, not only, like, not ghosty, but they can become dynamic, engaged, useful allies for cultural healing work in the present.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: So. ANDREW: Yeah, I think it's, you know, it's a misconception that a lot of people have that they automatically change on crossing over. DANIEL: Oh, sure, yeah, that's different. (laughing) ANDREW: And then the other side of that is, you know, they can change, but it might take a bunch of work, even if they did change, right?  DANIEL: Yeah, totally. Yeah, both, both are true. Yeah. The idea that just dying makes you wise and loving and kind is really hazardous actually, as a world view. So. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: Cause it'll lead to a view of ... I've seen it at times in pagan circles as well, where it's “Oh, the ancestors, ancestors are good, let's invoke them all. Okay, here are all the names of my ancestors, and the pictures, and let me light a candle and strongly invoke all of them.” ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: Well, I hope your invocation doesn't work. ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: Because if it does, you're going to get a mixed bag! Cause your people are, you know, if they're well, awesome, but if they're not yet well, and your invocation works, then what you have is some not yet well ghosty energy in your space.  ANDREW: For sure, right? And some of those spirits can be pretty tumultuous, you know, if they're ... DANIEL: Oh, no doubt. Yeah. ANDREW: [crosstalking 09:53] here. I have one grandfather that I continue to work with who, sort of, work on, let's put it [laughing].  DANIEL: Right.  ANDREW: It's been a long time and they're still not ready to be, you know, front and center in anything, cause they just, so caught up in so much deep, deep trauma in their own life and in their generations before them, and, you know. DANIEL: One of, one of the things that I don't, I won't say it's unique to how I approach it, but it's emphasized in how I approach ancestor work, which isn't across the board, is I take a very lineage-based approach. Like I don't even really encourage, necessarily, relating with individual ancestors that much. ANDREW: Hmm. DANIEL: So in the case of someone, not to speak to your specific case necessarily, but let's say someone's grandmother is really quite entrenched in the unwell ghosty range of wellness. My strategy is to make sure that her mother and her mother and her mother and her mother and the lineage of women before them on back through time to the ancient weird witchy deity-like grandmothers, that that whole lineage is deeply well, and the repair happens from the older ones toward the present. And so, once you have the parent of the one who is quite troubled in a deeply well condition, and the whole lineage before them deeply well, as a group energy, asking them to intervene to address the rowdy ghosty grandparent tends to be ... It can ... Well, it can be more effective, simply because there's a re-anchoring of the rogue individuality in a bigger system, in a collective energy.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: And there's a respect for seniority or hierarchy, by having that person's elders be the ones to round them up. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: So, so that's. I shared that because in the West, generally, I find that people tend to conceive of ancestor reverence primarily as a relating of one individual to another individual, and, and some of the lineage or group level aspects of it can get lost, or they're not as emphasized. And so I find that's an important nuance to include, and then another is, and we've spoken to it, is just the way in which one's ancestors are not at all just the remembered dead, the ones, the recent ones, but they include ... The vast majority of them are living before remembered names. And that's helpful for people who are like, my family are abusive trolls. I'm like, okay, I believe you, but I think what you mean to say is all the generations you know about, which is probably not more than two or three. ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: And so, it's like, you're at the ocean, at a windy, cloudy day, and you're saying, “Oh, the ocean is tumultuous,” well, I believe it is, right there at the beach. But the ocean's a big place, yeah. So expanding our frame for who we mean when we say ancestor is gonna be helpful too. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. For sure. Yeah, and there's lots of times when, you know, we'll make offerings or do work with all of those ancestors, right? With the Egun, right, with everybody? Right? DANIEL: Yeah.  ANDREW: You know? And in those ways and so on, right? Yeah, yeah, I mean it's interesting how ... It'd really be interesting to make sure that you're looking at those things. And some of my, some of my best ancestral allies have been gone, you know, three, four hundred years, right?  DANIEL: For sure. ANDREW: Or longer.  DANIEL: Yeah, totally, yeah. ANDREW: They arrive, and they're just like, “Yes! You're the beacon of light amongst all of these things, and let's radiate that out to everybody afterwards and anchor further and deeper,” right?  DANIEL: Yeah. For sure. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. So, when you're doing work with people, are you mostly focused on ... you know, because a lot of people come to ancestor work because they want to get messages and receive stuff and do ... DANIEL: Right. ANDREW: ...[inaudible at 13:59] kind of stuff, right? I mean, I think that that can be fruitful, too, I enjoy that kind of work as well, but that's not really what we're talking about here either, right? I mean not explicitly, right?  DANIEL: Yeah. If we say like, what's the point? It can ... There are a lot of different motivations that can drive someone to want to engage their ancestors. The most common one is, “I'm suffering, will this help?”  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: That's legit. Sometimes it will help indirectly. Sometimes it will help directly because the source of the suffering is unmetabolized intergenerational trouble that's directly connected to ancestral interference, and so sometimes it, you know, it can help in different ways.  Another motivator for the work is seeking life guidance, cause the ancestors have insight into our unique destiny, and can help us to move into closer alignment with that, you know, our unique instructions or soul level work in the world.  As you know, in Yoruba culture, we sometimes talk about the world as the marketplace and Orun or the spirit world as home, and, and so if you forget your shopping list, working with the ancestors can be like, “Let us show you, you said this, this, this, and this,” and be like, “Oh, yeah, okay, thanks,” and so that's helpful to not waste our lives.  And ancestors can be great for being a resource to parents or supporters in family, like they're especially good with all the family sphere, the domestic sphere, like being a responsible family human. And they're also good allies for cultural healing. A lot of the racism and colonialism and sexism and other kinds of cultural toxicity and garbage and bad capitalism that we're stewed in and trying to get out from underneath and help transform ... Those are ancestor, those are troubles created by the ancestors. Like, they're implicated in the trouble. And so they have, appropriately, a hand in resolving the trouble as well.  And so they're great allies, by whatever form, activism, cultural change, all that. And so I really think that working closely with one's ancestors helps cultural change-makers to up their game, so to speak. So that's another motivation.  And this is, I guess it's related to the one about destiny, but, inspired a bit from the Yoruba frameworks. The collective energy or wisdom of the ancestors is associated strongly with the Earth. Like the onile, the earth is like the calabash that holds the souls of the dead. And because the Earth is associated with accountability and, you know, moral authority, and is the witness through of all interactions, in that way also the ancestors carry that same quality of accountability. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: And I think whether or not people can consciously own it, some part of us craves accountability. Like we want to be seen and checked when needed. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: There's something really like ... our daughter almost made it to the top of the steps. Like, the door was open the other day. She's nine months old. But we caught her. It was good. It was way better than had we not held her in that moment.  ANDREW: Right. DANIEL: And there's a way in which that kind of love and connectivity is like, “Oh, I'm not alone in the universe.”  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: If I crawl to the top of the steps, someone will pick me up. So we want that, and the ancestors bring that, as well, when we live with them.  ANDREW: I think it's a, I think it's a thing that, especially, you know, in my experience, people, in Western culture, struggle with too, right? This sort of willingness to acknowledge an authority or an awareness or a position that's sort of above them in a way that they can allow in to say, “You know what, actually, we do know what's better for you in this moment.”  DANIEL: [laughing] Oh, yeah, it's- ANDREW: You what, my friends, you know, going down that road has nothing to do with your destiny, or what have you, right?  DANIEL: Oh, yeah! [laughing] ANDREW: Here's your fault in this mess that you're trying to put on this other person, right?  DANIEL: Oh, yeah, no, people, look, I'm a teacher, also, and so often it's great and fine, and sometimes people are idealizing in awkward ways, and like, oh, don't do that, don't do that. But, but just whatever, fine, it's fine, it tends to burn out and even out. And also sometimes people are really just not okay with anything resembling a power differential or a student teacher relationship.  ANDREW: Right. DANIEL: And it's ... It's tiring a little, as a teacher. Because there is a difference between telling someone just what to do in an authoritative way, and also saying, like, “Well, do you want to learn a thing? Because I know this skill. Like, what do you ... do you want to tell me how it goes, cause ... ?” So, so yeah, it is ... I think it's a function of power so often being abused, that people understandably have mistrust.  ANDREW: Yup!  DANIEL: Yeah. So I have compassion for it, and also the piece around hierarchy and authority is really, is challenging. In the coming months, some dear friends are going to Nigeria to do initiations and I was talking to them last night, and I was like, in the nicest possible way, “Really, your main job as the initiate is to obey.” ANDREW: Yes. DANIEL: Just to, like, the ritual is done to you, nobody really cares what you think about it. And it's totally fine.  ANDREW: Stand here, stand there, [crosstalking 19:59]. DANIEL: Right! Yeah, totally, sit down, drink it, sit, eat it, say thank you. Like ... ANDREW: Yeah.  DANIEL: Yeah. Like you're the thing being consecrated. Your input is not needed.  ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: Nothing personal. Next time you go back, then you can have an opinion.  ANDREW: Yeah. And even then-- DANIEL: And even then, so you get one small vote. [laughing] Yeah.  ANDREW: No, for sure. Yeah, let's see what people who ... I mean come for readings of all kinds, but you know, people who approach, you know, getting dillogun readings and stuff like that, and you know, the Orishas come through, and they're like, “Oh, you know what? Don't drink this year, don't, you know, whatever. Don't get tattooed. Don't, you know, no, no red beans for you.” They're like, “Well, what do you mean? I don't understand.” It's like, “Well...” [crosstalking 20:52] DANIEL: Obey! [laughing] ANDREW: What is the understanding? I mean, in a lot of that situation ... in some of those situations, the understanding is more obvious, right?  DANIEL: Right. ANDREW: I had a conversation with a person who'd say, “Well, it seems like you kind of have this kind of challenge, and this is kind of the thing that might counter that,” and they're like, “Okay, yeah, maybe.” But other times it's just energetic or on other levels that it's just like, you know, it's kind of the ... It's an equivalent of saying “Hey, carry this citrine with you for the next year, it's going to help your energy,” but it's in a different structure that people don't relate to in the same way, right?  DANIEL: For sure, yeah.  ANDREW: And then they're like, “But, but, I don't want to be told what to do!” I'm like, “What else are you gonna do?” DANIEL: You just paid me to do that.  ANDREW: Yeah, you asked, right?  DANIEL: [laughing] ANDREW: You didn't have to, I wouldn't worry about it ... DANIEL: But some part of us does, some part of us really, I think wants to be told what to do. And that could go awry, and I'm not saying it's an entirely healthy impulse, but there's something about accountability and structure and community and limits, that's actually really intimate. ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: And if you can't hear and accept “no,” your “yes” is meaningless.  ANDREW: Mm. DANIEL: And so there's something that's precious and sweet about protocol and tradition and about structure.  ANDREW: I also think that a lot of people don't really ... Faith is a really complicated and difficult thing for a lot of people too, you know?  DANIEL: Mm.  ANDREW: And especially when entering a new tradition, you know? And, and I think that part of what we're talking about here is also a matter of faith, right? What is your faith in the ancestors or the Orisha or whatever, and how, how do you sustain that faith through being deeply challenged by all that stuff?  DANIEL: Yeah, and for me, look, I was involved with different Orisha teachers in the States, American, for the most part, and ... it didn't work out that well, for the most part. I mean, complicated. But I ... I felt like there was a lot of restrictive and unhealthy and kind of confused energy around it. And I had an opportunity to go to Nigeria to reset some of the initiation-like things that had happened here, so I took a risk on it, and I'm like, “Well, this is either gonna be like the final straw, or some breakthrough,” like, “let's pray for the latter.” And I saw kind of a non-dogmatic group community like, in my Ifá initiation, there were men aged like 80 to five, holding space. Like, and 20, 30 people there. And people were teasing each other, playing, and having a good time. Like the people were well human beings, they seemed happy. And so that relaxed, teasing heart aware energy. I'm like, “Oh, good, this is what I was looking for.” And it helped ... For me, it helped me to trust, and just not fight the system. I'm like, “Just tell me what to do.” Just okay, “eat the pig dung,” okay, “Leave me a bite,” or whatever. Whatever it is. Just tell me what to do. So.  ANDREW: Yeah.  DANIEL: Yeah, it's great.  ANDREW: I used to, you know, get some people who would bring their, you know, like, elderly, Cuban elders to the store. You know? And pick up stuff. DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: You know, they're here in Toronto to do a thing, and they'd bring this person to the store, right? And you know my Spanish is not great [laughing] and their English was not great, and we'd like, know some like, Yoruban words in common or whatever. And you would see how sweet and genuine and nice they were. And then they'd notice that like, you know, I've got plants growing at the front of the store for working with religion, and they'd be like, “oh, alamo,” I'd be like, “yeah, yeah,” and we'd have this like sort of pidgin conversation and a bunch of other things, and mostly what it would be is our hearts being opened, all this sharing of our love of this religion and these spirits ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And the continuity of that. And it was such a beautiful and uplifting experience, even though there wasn't a lot of words that were associated with it. There was just so much communication happening at other levels, and you could, you know, I could feel my Shango just being happy about it, you know, be like whoever there, too, just being happy about it, and so on. You know? It's so uplifting in that way, right? But ... DANIEL: That's good. It's one of the things in, you know, we had mentioned in our previous chat about my talk on practicing the traditions of other people's ancestors. And-- ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: I respect it a lot about the necessary and important dialogues around cultural appropriation, and especially, not only, but especially around respecting different Native North American or First Nations, as you say, traditions, and being mindful of what the conditions of involvement, if that's open, to non-Native people are, etc., and what's important to understand is those same parameters are not universal, and how cultures are shared and understood from one part of the world to another really vary.  And Yoruba culture, for example, is generally an open system. Yoruba people in my experience, in Yorubaland, have never had anyone feel off about me being there and training in Orisha, except for the Christians, who were like, “Why don't you want Jesu?” I'm like, “We have Jesu where I'm at,” it's like, “It's fine, like, go Jesu!” but it's not why I'm here. And one of the things that is important though, is, it's family, like you're stepping into a family, a spiritual family. It's not like a “Hey bro, thanks for the culture, now I'm gonna go back and set up shop, I got what I need.” There's a ... And so when your teachers hit you up for money, it's family. That's what like, you can't be part of a family and have a bunch of stuff, and then other people don't have something, and you don't share it.  ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: And so it's ... It's not like you're getting exploited. I mean, that also happens. But just the ethic of sharing and supporting one another. If people don't want that, then they might not want to get involved. because most indigenous systems that I know of that are open to people not of that blood ancestry hold things in a family-oriented way. There's intimacy with that, but there's also connectivity, reciprocity, accountability. Yeah.  ANDREW: And, you know, so, you know, my immediate family where I was initiated lives in the Detroit area, and my, you know, my elders are in Miami, you know, and like, but like, especially when the Detroit folks are doing work, you know, especially bigger things like making priests, you know, I always show up, like, you know, it's like you, when they're doing the work, and you're like, “Oh, it's so inconvenient for me to take four or five days off and go down there and help out, right?” And it's like, yeah, it's inconvenient, and you know, it's time off work, and it's whatever, but it's what those people did for me, right? And it's what allows all of that to continue, and it's a chance to, you know, to also sustain those connections, and you know, sing together, and sit and joke together, and, you know, complain about handling the ... cleaning up after the animals together, and whatever, it's just part of it, right? Like ... DANIEL: Right. ANDREW: And in the absence of being willing to engage that community element of it, right? It's pretty ... If you don't have the community element in one way or another, especially in the Orisha tradition, you don't really have much of anything, you know?  DANIEL: It's true, with the tradition, it in my experience is very communal, and there are a lot of ritual domains of activity you just can't pull off solo.  ANDREW: Yeah.  DANIEL: And it's just that, you know, it's a lot of hard work, it's heavy lifting. And for people who have worked with psychoactives, there's a certain kind of feeling among the group after a long, successful, like all night acid trip, when the sun's coming up, you're sort of like, “Oh, we've just gone through something together.”  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: And, and, minus the LSD, there can be a sense after a multi-day ritual of a strong sense of magic and beauty and intimacy that's shared through all the effort and all the devotion ...  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: That it takes to keep old lineages of practice alive.  ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: Yeah.  ANDREW: For sure. And I think it's, I mean, one of the other points that I think was super important ... It's been a while since I listened to that talk and we'll link to it in the show notes, cause it was a good talk. Folks should go back and listen to it. You know, is also the fact that these are living traditions, right? They have continuity. DANIEL: Yeah. ANDREW: And, you know, but there's a big difference between, hey, we're gonna call up some Greek deities and see what happens, you know, and, like, or you know, see what happens sounds dismissive, I don't mean it in that way. And you know, there's nobody, there's no continuity to ancient Greece, in that particular way, versus there are people who've been practicing these traditions from person to person to person, all the way through until now, and you can actually go and ask those people and they can answer you as to what's done and how it's done and why it's done. DANIEL: Yeah. No, it's true. People don't ... If they don't know something, would be in the habit of divining on it, but I wouldn't want someone to, like, not go to flight school and then divine on how to fly the plane. [crosstalking] Yeah.  ANDREW: Yeah. There's that great proverb, which I'm sure you know, which is “Don't ask what you already know,” right?  DANIEL: Right. ANDREW: And I think that there's a sort of choleric glory to that which is, you know, there are things you just shouldn't ask, cause you should already know them, right?  DANIEL: Right. ANDREW: You don't need to ask if we do this thing because we know we don't. You know? DANIEL: Yeah.  ANDREW: We know that Oshun won't take this as an offering. We know that we don't do this kind of thing. We know that, like, you know, you don't ask if you could rob a bank cause the answer's already no. You know? DANIEL: Right. And there's a beautiful essay [inaudible 31:07] by Ologo Magiev [31:09], a child being asked to divine, and their parents died young and so they didn't get the information. And so they invoke their ancestors, and bring a lot of humility, and wing it, and it turns out fine. And, and I think there's also this kind of an implicit message, “And don't do that again. Don't pull that card too many times.”  ANDREW: Right?  DANIEL: [laughing] Then go train! ANDREW: For sure, right?  DANIEL: So, it's both. The deities have kindness, and benevolence, and also, careful! ANDREW: Yeah. And, you know, I was traveling, and I got a call that a friend of mine was like at death's door in the hospital, basically, right? And, you know, and I was just literally at a rest stop getting, gassing up the car when I checked my phone in the middle of New York State, right?  DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And I was just like, all right. And so I went and, you know, kind of looked around for some stuff, and it's like, there's nothing, like I can't, there's nothing I could really sort of put together here, so I just collected a bunch of white flowers and, you know, it's really hilly, right, so I just took them to a spot that I thought was appropriate for Obatala ... DANIEL: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: And I was like, Obatala, this is all I have today. I'm here, it's this situation, and I need you to accept these and intercede in the situation. And you can get away with that. But that's not practicing the tradition. And that's not gonna, as you say, it's not gonna fly all the time, right?  DANIEL: Yeah. ANDREW: When you're at home, you can do all sorts of other things, you have your shrines or your ancestors or wherever you're working with, right? They will accept these things, cause they do understand circumstance and they're not tyrannical about it, right? They just say, you don't want that to be your way of practicing forever.  DANIEL: I spent years like, I don't know, not quite 20 years, not involved in a really dedicated way in one set tradition. I was training with different traditions for a period of time, and would definitely learn stuff, and would develop my own ashe [33:20] or whatever, but I wasn't like embracing one fully, as an operating system. ANDREW: Yeah. DANIEL: But I learned that it's possible to do it that way. That was actually really helpful to me. That it's possible to go deep with one's own ancestors, to go deep with the spirits of the land, where you're at. ANDREW: Sure. DANIEL: And to get to know them, and to get clarity about your own destiny and to just constellate in the different powers and forces and spirits that are gonna help you to do that. And I also ... that there's loneliness in going it solo, as well. There's like a freedom and a loneliness, both. And it drove me eventually to ... You know, I spent almost ten years involved in Orisha practice and Yoruba ways before I decided to initiate. And it's like a long slow dating process. It wasn't a lot of charisma. It was like, oh, you're the last one left standing, and ... ANDREW: [laughing] DANIEL: We have a ton of compatibility, why are we not doing this? And I go, okay, I guess we're gonna do this. So we just had the high match on the dating, you know, religious dating profile website. So I'm like, oh, maybe we should try this. And, and I haven't regretted it at all. It's very ... It's been a relief. The sense for me is of being held in a bigger frame. And it's not really ... It's not what I teach publicly, I'm not publicly offering services in that way, even though there are certain ones I could, in integrity.  I'm still in training, I'm still trying to learn Yoruba language, and especially with a west African orientation of practice it's such an aural language-based tradition, especially Ifá practice in particular, so I'm trying to hold a ... I think if you're not ancestrally of a tradition, the standards are even a bit higher for you to get it right, which I think is fair and understandable. Especially with the cultural climate of racism in the west and all that, for European ancestor people to be doing west African Ifa, you need to not look like a fool doing it, and so part of that looks like studying the language and really, you know, taking to heart the training.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. DANIEL: But, it's possible to go really deep without stepping into a tradition. And there are a lot of ritual advantages to having a system to work from, as well. So I appreciate both sides of that. Yeah.  ANDREW: Yeah, for sure. I think you can get there ... I think you can accomplish the same ends either way, right?  DANIEL: Yeah, yeah. ANDREW: I think that where it gets, where it gets touchy is where you're solely working independently, but within the set of spirits that has a living tradition. If you're only working independently and devoid of traditional teaching, you know, that's where it starts to become a question for me of what ... DANIEL: Well, yeah, no, if the main powers you're working with are the Orisha, it's like, well, you've got to, here's the front door. You can try crawling in the window, but it's going to go badly, so.  ANDREW: Yeah.  DANIEL: Yeah. But if you're just working with the weird old land gods and your own ancestors, you can get away with it. yeah.  ANDREW: For sure.  DANIEL: Yeah, for sure.  ANDREW: Yeah. I also like the weird old land gods. You know? There's this beautiful ravine, you know, about a two-minute walk from the shop, [crosstalking 36:45] in Toronto. It runs through and you know, under there, there's sort of part of a buried river, that was once upon a time up on the surface, and all sorts of stuff, and there's wonderful and magical energies that are there, and really fascinating things have happened in that space over time. You know? Like I was ... I was there making a ... dealing with something and helping somebody, and making an offering essentially to the spirit of that place in the snow, right? And then when I came out of sort of the wood part back onto the path, all of these moths emerged, these white moths. And I'm like, there's snow on the ground, and it's snowing right now, what is going on with these things? And I'm like, all right, I'll take it. Big old yes from the spirits of this place on that thing, you know?  DANIEL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: So I mean yeah, there's some amazing stuff that can happen in those ways, for sure.  DANIEL: Nice. Yeah.  ANDREW: So, I mean, first thing is, I'm going to ask you now if people should, if they're listening to this, and they want to think about starting a, you know, where they should start? And I know that one of the answers is definitely, they should go read your book, cause your book is great. DANIEL: Sure. ANDREW: But like, for the context of our conversation today, where would you kind of point people? Where, where do you point people [inaudible 38:02]? DANIEL: I'm not a very trusting person, really. So, if I were to listen to this conversation, and I didn't know that I'm a good person, I would go to my website, which is ancestralmedicine.org. Root around there, see what the vibe is, and there are other talks, or whatever, and see if you, you know, get an instinctual, this guy's not crazy vibe from where I'm coming from, and if you're drawn to the ancestral work, there are three main ways to engage.  One is to connect with one of the practitioners in the directory there. And there are 30 some people at this point who are trained in the work. Men, women, all different genders of people [38:43--not sure I've got his exact words here], ancestrally diverse people, lots of different opportunities for low income sessions, sessions in seven languages, so, opportunities to connect with people directly for session work. That's the most efficient way. Another is that I offer an online course that starts in December, that's thorough, and it maps along the heart of the book, chapters 5 through 9, which is lineage repair work, and there's a lot of support throughout that course, so that's an option, and I'll also be offering a course through the Shift network in the fall.  And then, a third way is the in-person trainings. And the last one I'm going to guide probably in North America will be in just over a week in Ottawa, the 24th to the 26th, and there's a talk on August 22, next Wednesday, in Ottawa as well, and all the info on that is on my site, and additionally, to that, there are trainings in maybe ten cities and also coming up in Australia and Mexico and maybe Russia and Canada and Victoria, so. And those are done by students who I trust to guide the work. So in person work, online course, or sessions, are, in addition to the book, the three main ways to plug in. Yeah.  ANDREW: Perfect.  DANIEL: And, and, you know, like just to say it, if you're wary of people, which is warranted, this approach to the work doesn't involve the practitioners or me or anybody saying, “Hey, this is what your grandmother says to you.” It's about stepping the individual through a process of reclaiming and re-energizing their ability to connect directly with their own people. So, it's an empowering approach in that way. It's not somebody getting all up in the mix and channeling messages to your people. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not this approach, so. And especially if your family's a mess, it's useful to do ancestor work. Cause you get some space from all that, and connect with what's beautiful and trustworthy in your own blood and bone lineages. So that's grounding, it's helpful, also for the cultural healing that's needed.  ANDREW: Yes. Well and I think it can be quite liberating, you know, because we're carrying those patterns, right?  DANIEL: Oh, yeah. So you can relate consciously or unconsciously with your people, but you don't get to opt out of relatedness. Yeah. ANDREW: Exactly, right? And if we can tidy those up and take some of that burden off of us or free ourselves from that, right? Then we get to show up much differently in that way, right?  DANIEL: Yeah. I think the masquerades in Yoruba culture, Egungun, and it's a blessing when they come around, but it's also a lot of people try not to be touched by them. And so there's ... It conveys something about the ancestors, like, they're dangerous to avoid and they're dangerous to have around. ANDREW: Yeah.  DANIEL: But, whatever, it's just like living humans. [laughing] ANDREW: For sure. People are challenged on both sides of the veil, right?  DANIEL: [laughing] Yeah, exactly.  ANDREW: For sure.  DANIEL: So, good.  ANDREW: Well, thank you so much for making time today, Daniel. It's been great to hang out and chat with you.  DANIEL: For sure, thanks, Andrew, thanks for your service, here. Blessings on everything you're up to. ANDREW: Thank you. DANIEL: Yeah. Good.   

Daniel Beer Interview Joining us today is Daniel Beer. Daniel is the CEO of Daniel Beer Home Selling Team in San Diego California and has been in real estate since 2005. In 2017 his highly leveraged team was the top producing team in Southern California. Daniel shares his story about his business with us, talks about his decision to move his already successful business to EXP Realty and explains why he believes EXP is the most important opportunity that has ever existed in the Real Estate industry.  Learn More about eXp Realty - Click here to watch a quick 7 Minute Intro Video. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content discussed within this podcast are the opinions of Kevin Cottrell and/or the guests interviewed.  This information is intended as general information only for listeners of the podcast. Listeners should conduct their own due diligence and research before making any business decisions. This podcast is produced completely independently of eXp Realty and is not endorsed, funded or otherwise supported by eXp Realty directly or indirectly.     In this episode Why EXP is the most important opportunity in Real Estate  How easy it is to move to EXP Many mega agents are making the move to EXP Creating revenue and passive income through EXP EXP is currently the fastest growing company in Real Estate The benefits of moving to EXP in these early stages EXP is like buying in to a business without paying for it Want to Learn More about eXp Realty? If you are interested in learning more about eXp, reach out to the person who introduced you to eXp or contact Sean to inquire or ask questions. Contact Daniel via his website www.fastforwardwebinar.com   Noterworthy "It's killing the traditional model and this is the highest value proposition available today to people selling houses." "Me being at EXP has nothing to do with wanting to move away from Keller Williams vs it actually just has to do with me wanting to move towards something that I see as being a phenomenal opportunity"  Daniel Beer   PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION KEVIN: Welcome to the show Daniel. DANIEL: Thanks Man. It's good to be here. KEVIN: Looking forward to the conversation.. The market and the industry are a buzz when you made the move recently but before we jump into all that why don't you give a little bit for those that maybe are listening to this that don't know you personally and know what you do as far as your real estate practice a little bit of your background. DANIEL: Sure. So having been real estate full time since 2005 and this past year 2017, my team was the number one producing team for all of Keller Williams and the Southern California region IGCI. And number two buy units. So we closed 222 houses for 164 million dollars in sales volume. We have what I call a highly leveraged fully built out team everything from operations, listing management, transaction management through company listing, showing agents inside sales and of course our sales agents or sales executives. It's been an incredible journey. And I went through the same Genesis that I think a lot of agents go through. I like most other stumbled into the industry. In 2005 I was 23 years old and my dad was about to sell a house and of course I got licensed because it's unfortunately are too easy to get licensed. And I started selling homes basically just doing friends and family business and that was cool. Up until the market crash.. The market crash happens we all know how devastating that was. All the friends and family business goes away. And I'm left to either make a decision to leave the industry or learn how to build a true business that can predictably systematically create leads in income for my family. So fast forward there were a lot of learning that you know that I went through is some winds some fails and here we are today having a ton of fun and now at EXP man I can't even begin to tell you how energising this has all been. I haven't had as much fun in a long time. KEVIN: And that's great. I like Gene Frederick we're team leaders and in leadership at Keller Williams I was with Aaron Lancaster and Andy Allen in the early 2000s and they had a team and we ran and we were doing about 600 transactions a year and that was the genesis for the whole MREA and so we thought we were having a lot of fun back then but it's nothing like this. So tell me about the process. Obviously well before you decided to move you started to hear about the EXP and you start seeing agents moving. What was the genesis for you making the decision to take a major big business like yours and make a change. DANIEL: Yeah it was an interesting journey. And so for me my personal story goes back to being in Gary Keller's mastermind of killer Williams so I have to say by the way it was a wonderful company. I was very very happy there and me being he has nothing to do with wanting to move away from kW vs it actually just has to do with me wanting to move towards something that I see as being a phenomenal opportunity. So anyway I was at Keller Williams. I was part of Gary Keller's mastermind. And you go back over a year ago. All of a sudden in our group we had a Facebook group. We suddenly started having people asking you know and making comments asking questions about EXP. And you know questions like "EXP just did this in my market" or "what are you guys doing about EXP saying this" or taking this person or "oh my god you hear we lost that one". And I found that to be really interesting because first of all I don't know who the EXP was. I had never heard of it. And of course at the time it was like a 2000 person company. And so I started to asking myself this is where do you think it's curious that the most elite group in the biggest company in the world or at least in North America is talking about some 2000 person company. But I have never heard of. So that's over a year ago and you know going back to say mid 2016. And the interesting thing about that too is that.. that group never talked about Berkshire Hathaway and they never talked about Remax they never talked about Coldwell Banker. They never talked about anybody. Yet they were talking about some little 2000 person company. So that's kind of interesting right. That was my first introduction to it all. I have another group that's a very very high powered mastermind. Everyone's number one or two in their market. There's about 35 or so people in it and that group all of a sudden three of them went to EXP. I'm talking about big heavy hitters. And so I learned the model and Kevin I think this might resonate with you. You know there's an evolution in this whole thing just when you hear about it, there is when you learn the model. So you go back over about a year ago. I understood the model okay call their stock. There's revenue share. There's the fact that you keep selling houses right? We're not being asked to become essential oil sales or anything we're just simply selling houses as stock revenue share. Cool. I got it. That was a year ago. But then there's when you finally kind of see the entire picture come together Kevin and you see the real power of the opportunity to step into the fastest growing brokerage in the country in the very beginning of the first inning. And when you see real productive agents start moving into the business. For me that was Curtis Johnson. Johnson was another guy that I was friends with he's a guy I followed actually been stocking years back before we knew each other. I was trying to learn from him. Now all of a sudden he goes yes. There's just that moment when you say wait a second what is going on. Too many incredible smart strategic business people that I respect are making the same move to the same group that Gary Keller's private mastermind's talking about. That's interesting. And so... you know I'll take a pause here Kevin in case anything to throw in there but when you start seeing that and then start seeing how truly financially incentivize the people at EXP are to help each other and essentially make it true the thing that we all tend to say in all brokerages that we are all for each other we want to share. We want to do this. Not in my market right or not too much. Not my true secret stuff. Well I started finally seeing a model that really incentivize people to open up completely and help one another because everybody financially benefits and the power of that and being able to go from one bucket of income to three right? just simply selling houses getting checks. It's also owning your brokerage and having passive revenue became so compelling that I made the move and I have been having a ton of fun since. KEVIN: Couple of interesting tidbits that you'll know who I'm talking about I'm not going to mention by name because I've got a good friend and he's in St. Louis and he's got a mega mega team like yours Daniel. I mean he was my mastermind in St. Louis when he was just getting started and I had my team and we were the number three team in the market. So I was talking to him about EXP and he said I get it. I know the model. Don't worry about it. Let me tell you this I've been accumulating stock and EXPI for over thirty four months. I've got thirty or forty thousand shares. I can't tell you the number of people. And he's with an NRT company. So guys like that are buying stock and the EXPI. There's a mortgage lender in central Texas. I think he's got close to 50000 shares. The industry is betting that this is the new model. And so some of the stuff that you know I just wanna throw in here because this predates your entry into KW and I agree with you it's a great company for people like Gene Frederick and I and others. We were there in 1999 when Keller Williams was a small little company and I'm going to tie down why you said it's kind of interesting to you to give you some perspective. Gary Keller and the team and the regional directors are all getting ready to launch a ton of market centers. They've got somewhere around 50 700 agents in 1999 and they have to go through the process of fining agents finding investors they have to go the 14 to 18 month process that other people have talked with me about on other episodes mentioned this. It's a slow process right. I could have met you in San Diego. Got you all excited about a market center and then 18 months later we'll be all through the process and opened. So now Brent Gove and I always give the story because it's most enlightening when you listen to his interview you'll hear him say this. He was in San Antonio for the EXP meeting met with Glenn met with Gene met with the team brought some people that were his best Devil's Advocates said poke holes in this model. Tell me why I shouldn't do this. Ten days later he is up and operating as the EXP and basically being powered by the brokerage. So the reason that people like you are seeing these antidotal people dropping in and out and it gets mentioned 12 times at fam reunion is this is Netflix versus Blockbuster. If you're sitting in the private room with Gary Keller's insiders not the people in the company but the guy that he's paid millions of dollars in consulting fees to they're going to tell him this is Netflix vs. blockbuster. You have all this bricks and mortar. You have all these franchise locations. It's a great company but so is Blockbuster and they couldn't pivot they didn't pivot. DANIEL: It becomes very difficult when you wrap up in hundreds and hundreds of franchise agreements. KEVIN: Absolutely. The interesting part about that I wanted to tie that down is there were fifty seven fifty eight hundred agents now eight years later they were at 78000 agents right. They executed extremely well. There were a bunch of us in leadership and I ran some market centers in South Florida. Gene was regional director as well as a team leader and phenomenal model lots of execution. The thing is and this is where Gary and the others realize this if it takes some 14 18 months to open a markets and with 100 agents EXP adding agents at 250 plus per week and you don't need a slide ruler to do the calculus to figure out if we're disproportionately high on producers like you or in the parlance of the franchise system cappers or better they can figure out what the picture looks like in 3 years when the company has 100000 agents. And I want to do two more data points you may not even know this in a one week period somewhere around Baltimore one of the market centers number one through five at one market center in one week they all basically said we're going EXP. So that is how you end up with a small little company being mentioned 12 times at fam reunion. The momentum is crazy. DANIEL: It is an incredible thing and here's how you know I truly believe this will be the first 200000 person company in North America. And the reason why and that it will also get there much faster than what is currently the biggest company is simply because let's imagine that you're an agent somewhere in remote Montana. Okay. And you want to be at Keller Williams and let's rewind right years back is I don't know where the market centers are but let's imagine it's the year 2000. And you want to be a Keller Williams And you're in remote Montana. Well they had to award the franchise fine the space build up the space they need to get X amount of what they called capping agents to be able to finally launch. And then eventually you can join that. That's a long process. If an investor chooses to build a market center in your area. You know that's that could be a one or two year process there. And again if they choose to build a market center in your area well you could be on a remote mountain top somewhere in Vermont right now without an agent within 500 miles of you and you could be speed this afternoon. And that is why this company without the restrictions of brick and mortar and traditional franchising territories and regions. When you remove all that you allow scale to happen at an exponential rate versus what companies not just in real estate but in any industry can traditionally experience. And so when you take all that in when you hear a guy like me that know I've had the privilege of being connected to some of the most incredible producers in the country I have a unique point in that I know what those conversations are. I know there's market centers being quickly unwinded so that people can move to EXP I know that headline making names across the country across every major city are all in motion right now. Right now is an opportunity that I saw to essentially step into Keller Williams in 1990 and in the very beginning the first inning. It it's been around for nine years by the way. But I would still say this is the first inning of a productive agents that will quickly and exponentially grow the awareness and the conversation which is already the loudest conversation in our industry is only being magnified each time one of these large producers in a different region nor a different city moves to EXP and the real aha is that if you can do that and you can have world class uplined support from big influential names and people and you're the first productive agent or among the first if you're in this first wave the first inning of agents that are really selling house it's moving into it. Yes. Well everyone wants to know about it. The conversations will naturally flow to you. What I saw Kevin is an opportunity to essentially own my region. It's like buying a Williams region without ever having to pay for it. And that opportunity was when I could not even I had not pass up. And this happened just like that right?. This is the loudest conversation in our industry. KEVIN: Absolutely. I mean I want to come back to what you just said because for people we've been talking a lot about wins it doesn't matter if you're at Remax or even if you're independent. The analogy of the fact that you can build a business where it's the equivalent of owning a region something that was out of reach for anybody in the franchise systems is the reality. And so if you're Daniel Beer and you're a major producer in your market and you have a couple of choices for additional income this is where I see the next phase of this momentum and rapid growth. You could go expansion right go into multiple markets and there's a lot of the franchise focus on that and certainly we're starting to see a lot of talk about this loud conversation from people looking at the EXP from an expansion standpoint and there's a lot of momentum there but it's that revenue share regional ownership if you will in the building a business around that that we have enough demonstrable examples whether you listen to the episode by Pat Hayes look into the Gene Frederick ston or even Sherry Elliott and Dallas. It's incredible now and I think the market with this loud conversation can no longer go. Well yeah. You know what they don't have anybody that has any real success because now regardless of how you've been introduced to this episode or any of the other episodes and as my guest ask whomever introduced you to EXP to go get you success stories. It doesn't matter if you want to talk to Daniel you want to talk to me Gene Frederick Pat Hays. We're all agent shareholders we're all here to help you. And again I want to get your perspective on this. Isn't that the craziest part of this culture that's not apparent from the outside. Anybody will help anybody because we're all age owners we're all either going to benefit through share or through our ACLI because the stronger the company can become the more our stock is worth in the most simple terms. Like I said the math finally makes sense. It's the first time it's been able to put the numbers and the altruistic or altruistic aspirations finally in alignment with the numbers and the math. It's a beautiful thing. And here's something I was listening to as I might say to myself OK that's helpful and great. So the 160 million dollars of real estate in the last 12 months. Sure. What about me. What I have seen over and over and already has set for us here locally in San Diego just within our first literally the beginning stages of us being at the company is if you're 5 million or 10 million or producer if you're an agent that's been operating with integrity showing up as a professional in your marketplace you are vastly underestimating your influence whether it be at a branch level or a zip code level a neighborhood. A town or county or city or state your region your underestimating your influence and keep something in mind. Again you're stepping into the loudest conversation only is being magnified by every big iconic agent keeps coming into the company which seems to now be happening on a weekly basis. So I'm stepping into the middle of that and your boots on the ground doing deals. Talking to agents talking to a hundred plus agents on a yearly basis. No one's asking you to go become a recruiter. In fact make sure you keep selling houses. Do what you do sell houses. All you needed really did was alter 10 percent of your awareness 10 percent of your script when speaking to an age. Something as simple as closing a deal out with somebody and just simply calling them hey is great doing that. You know what let's do another one soon. Let me know. Let me know if you listening coming up. You know I had the same conversation you're already having. And then just adding. And by the way you mentioned earlier during our transaction you know you'd asked me about EXP. We're actually having an event or there's this wedding or going on or blah blah blah. What I'm trying to say is that someone like me someone like Kevin and a lot of other folks across the country there's a lot of opportunities to it regardless of sponsorship there's a lot of people like us that have already created the system. Or you could just alter 10 percent of your awareness and introduce people into the system so that you can continue to do what you do and sell houses. You're going to go from what I call one bucket to three real estate sales but can we just sell a house and get a check. Transition to now having ownership. Because you actually get ownership simply for doing their jobs and having passive revenue here locally. Kevin like it points out an agent great agent just you know your bread and butter productive long time respected agent. She's not a YouTube star she's not on stage. She's just doing what she does in her local market place for some time. And she has five hundred ish dollars of profit sharing the last 12 months that her previous company her revenue share based on which she's already introduced. It's unnatural attraction and conversations coming to her is already on track for seven thousand dollars this year. And I think that's incredible. I think that's the most incredible thing because it makes seven thousand dollars in passive revenue in San Diego. You need to invest about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars cash to do it in real estate on a rental. So that's power. KEVIN: There are tons of examples and you're going to see them on these podcasts episodes. I mean I always love to tell the story of Sherri Elliott. It's one of the other episodes she was age at number 14 in Dallas and they have over a hundred there now. So when you look at the growth of the company the other thing I want to point with that comment is even if Daniel's point you're in a market where there aren't 800 agents. Here's the deal if you're in a market like San Diego it's coming. Right. Less than two years ago Dallas had 14 agents they have 800. Austin's over 315. I'm just picking a couple of markets. Daniel have every confidence that you'll be at a huge number in the southern California San Diego market and it will be but here's the point nobody in real estate does a good job of saving like you can with an opportunity like EXP. I want to talk about her two numbers that she talks about publicly. One is the equity she's been hurt less than two years she participates and in the GCI program where she dedicates 5% right? And if you're at a franchise and you pay that royalty. Think of it as the same thing off the top she has. And when she told Gene this recently, even hundred thousand dollars in her stock account in EXP stock and less than two years. So I challenge anybody listen to this. If you're an independent you're in the franchise model and where you are you're never going to see something like that. We were telling the story and one of the lunch and learn actually explain meetings and one of the three agents from Austin was in there and she said well I don't know nearly as much business as Sherry does and this is your point. I probably do a tenth of what she does in production she said. Isn't it interesting that my stock portfolio in less than two years of the EXP stock is 155000. I've never seen that much money in a investment account my life. Those are why Daniel's point of you don't have to be 150 million dollar producer with a big team. You could be a capper in that parlance. DANIEL: Well the story I told news about someone that's been in the company for three weeks its simply for this reason. And really this is the thing that people have to take with them. If you go and see who's making six figures profit share. Keller Williams which again a wonderful company that I love respected. Gary Keller will forever be one of my biggest influences if he goes to you. Who's collecting six fingers of profit share at Keller Williams what you're going to find is that it's not the superstar agents it's not the guys on YouTube on stage and being created around panels and it's not the celebrity agents that you whose names you know today it's actually the people whose names you don't know who were simply there early period. Now that doesn't mean they just showed up and didn't do it thing. And he EXP isn't that either. You can't just show up and not participate. It's not a get rich quick and just you just sign here you a million. No that's not what it is. But the people collecting six figures of profit share at KW And that's profit share revenue sharing exponentially more powerful only to talk about why in a moment. And a key reason why as we go deeper into it the number one reason why is top line revenue can't be manipulated. People collecting six figures of a profit share in this. You have to allow them to land. It's not a celebrity agent. It's not the people you saw on stage at the last conference convention etc. It's people that were there early. In my view is 1995 all over again being given the chance to enter. What's about to be the fastest growing company in the history of North American brokerage and I might be wrong right. I mean I've done an incredible job of being right more often than not in terms of my vision of where to take my business which is how we've got here. But I've also been wrong but was a guy like Curtis Johnson also rock the guy like Jay Kinder was a guy like Frank go wrong and Gene Frederick are all of these producers Kyle Wessell 200 million dollar producer was he also wrong are we all seeing the same thing and are we all wrong. Well I'm excited to find out. Here's the thing. The odds of all those people being very low and if we are we'll just go back to selling houses because that's what we're doing is we're selling houses. And so you obviously can hear the enthusiasm and buy my voice around what's going on here. It's just been on fun I keep coming back to that. You know what I'm talking about Kevin like me the amount of energy that you feel around all this. It's something I hadn't felt until... KEVIN: Absolutely I would agree with that completely. Before we drop off today if somebody is listen to this and they want to reach out to you and talk more about it what's the best way to reach you. DANIEL: Well two things you could do. One is my name is Daniel Beer. So just like the drink I'm easy to find. Go get me. Call me e-mail me it was jump on a call. The others go to fastforwardwebinar.com spell out the whole model. We spell out exactly why we've done what we've done not just my self on the way but some other mega producers that have made to jump as well. Independent brokerage's you know I'm giving you the KW because that's my history but independent brokerages are seeing that this becomes a platform where they still get to operate their brand. They're what they wanted to build their brokerage associates operated they just can get rid of this stuff it's not so unlike the broker stuff repurpose that time to building your passive revenue it and not have to take your eye off the ball at all as it relates to real estate sales. So you want more detail around it it is fastforwardwebinar.com and yeah it takes a whole webinars. The reason why is it's a completely different model. It's a model that I hadn't seen in my entire career. And it's just different. And when we've been looking for what's going to disrupt our marketplace. You know Kevin we always thought it was going to be someone that would create a button that would allow a buyer to purchase a home. That's actually not where the disruptions coming in disruptions coming in the brokerage space and how the agent is demanding value from their brokerage on a level that had never been previously demanded before it and that's happening more and more. It's killing the traditional model and this is the highest value proposition available today to people selling houses. KEVIN: Absolutely I agree with you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. DANIEL: You've got it!

Stripe’s Japan market entry did not go according to plan. Things worked out worked out well in the end, but they did not go according to plan. Stripe is one of the world’s largest payment processing companies, but they remained flexible and agile enough to take advantage of some of the surprises they faced in Japan. Today we sit down with Daniel Heffernan, the Japan head of Stripe, and he walks us through what happens when a technically sophisticated and streamlined FinTech company comes face-to-face with the very low-tech and slow-moving processes that make up FinTech in Japan, and how they made it all work. They faced complex, lengthy technical specifications delivered in three-ring binders and un-copyable, printed documents, and they dealt with the Japanese aversion to integrating directly with banks and financial institutions. They even planned to support some of Japan’s more unique payment methods until surprises during development made them change course. Stripe’s entry into the Japanese market is both an essential case study for any FinTech company considering coming into Japan and an entertaining story for those of us with an interest in business in Japan. It’s a great discussion, and I think you’ll enjoy it. [shareaholic app="share_buttons" id="7994466"] Leave a comment Links & Resources Check out Daniel's blog Follow him on twitter @danielshi Find out more about Stripe Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from the CEOs breaking into Japan’s. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for listening. Stripe is one of the largest credit card payment processing companies in the world and their Japan market entry did not go according to plan. It went well, mind you, but it just did not go according to plan. Stripe was agile enough to take the changes and surprises in stride. Today, we sit down with Daniel Heffernan, the Japan head of Stripe, and he walks us through the process where one of the most technically sophisticated and streamlined fintech companies in the world came face-to-face with a very low tech and manual nature of fintech in Japan, and he explains how they made it all work. From detailed, extensive technical specifications that were delivered as uncopiable, printed documents in three-ring binders, to the Japanese aversion to interacting directly with banks and financial institutions, to trying to support some of Japan’s more unique payments, and some of the surprised they discovered once they began work. Stripe’s entry into the Japanese market is both an essential case study, for any fintech company looking at Japan, and an entertaining story for those of us with an interest in business in Japan. But you know, Daniel tells that story much better than I can. So let’s hear from out sponsor and get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1411" info_text="Sponsored by" font_color="grey" ] [Interview] Tim: I’m sitting here with Daniel Heffernan of Stripe and we’re going to talk about Stripe’s market entry into Japan. And you guys have just officially launched officially but let’s back it up and talk about when you first came in. What was Stripe’s main motivation of coming into Japan in the first place? Daniel: Well, when we started looking at Japan, we looked at it kind of like we do every other market that we considered. There are a few things we look at when we’re trying to decide whether to go into a market. One of them is the size of the e-commerce economy. Japan is pretty big. Last year it was about $130 billion, which is significant. That’s actually number 4 in the world. So you have China and U.S., are giants at the top, then it’s kind of a big jump down, and you have the U.K., and Japan is actually just behind the U.K. If you think about it from a population point of view, it’s really weird because the population of U.K. is like half of Japan. Tim: Yeah, I find that surprising from both a population and an economy point of vi...

Have you ever noticed that you know everything about everyone else on the show except Daniel? Well author and special guest host Bob Defendi decided it was time to step up to the plate and interview Daniel the guy that started it all and brought you the amazing geek show that is Dungeon Crawlers! Remember if you haven’t already to like us on Facebook or tweet us on Twitter. Join the conversation as we want to hear from you as we value our listener’s opinions and if your download our show on iTunes, please give us a review.

Raven and Daniel hitch a ride on a flyer. Raven makes a difficult escape, but what happens to Daniel? We'll hear how Orvannon wants to attack Blehhm.