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Interview: Boz talks to Heather Gilbert about training and working as a lighting designer, the privilege of training in the same place you want to work, Carnegie Mellon, John Bridges, John Culbert, Theatre Communications Group, the NEA, Topdog/Underdog, Stacy Caballero, Keith Parham, analytical geometry, the alchemy of passions that compose lighting design, Trinity University,  Kendra Thulin, David Swayze, Manifest Arts Festival, The Big Funk, Steppenwolf, Suzan Lori Parks, Don Cheadle, Jeffrey Wright, Mos Def, storefront theatre, Buried Child, Everyman, The Libertine, Bar San Miguel, David Cromer, Miracle on 34th Street starring Tracy Letts, The Hypocrites, Sean Graney, The Adding Machine, Our Town, the magic of good artistic partnerships, Sam Rockwell, Sheldon Patinkin, Next to Normal at Writers Theatre, The Band's Visit on Broadway, Come Back Little Sheba at The Huntington,  Michael Halberstam, Adam Rapp's The Sound Inside at Williamstown , Studio 54, Franco Colavecchia, Nan Cibula, Bug by Tracy Letts, not apologizing, being process-oriented vs. product-oriented, Macbeth at the NY Shakespeare Festival, Angela Bassett, Alec Baldwin, Zach Braff, Liev Schreiber, Michael C. Hall, and Carrie Coon.FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited): Speaker 1 (0s): I'm Jen Bosworth and I'm Gina Polizzi. We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous? Okay. Hello. Thank you so much for joining me. My Speaker 2 (32s): God. I'm so Speaker 1 (33s): Excited about it. So the first thing we always say is, congratulations, Heather Gilbert, you survived theater school. I did. I did. Okay. And you really survived it with, with a flourish. I would say you're kind of fancy and a big deal Speaker 2 (52s): Is a lighting designer ever really a big deal Speaker 1 (55s): In my view. So we have a lot, the thing that I love about reading about you, and also I know you teach and you're at, but is that there is a, I would say you're a master of your craft based on what I would say that based on what I've read about you and what I know about you and your successes, and also your trajectory during school. And post-school like, if there's a master of a lighting designer, crap, you've you're, you're it. So thank you. Yeah. It's amazing to lo to, to read about you. So one of the things and people also post what you can, for me, I can tell when someone is a bad-ass at what they do, because they don't actually have to promote themselves that other people around them will post till they'll say, oh my gosh, congratulations. So that is a sign that you're a bad ass is that other people are like, I'm shouting out your name without you having, you know what I mean? Like you don't do a lot of self-promotion, Speaker 2 (1m 60s): I'm terrible at it actually, Speaker 1 (2m 1s): Which is, which is amazing that you, that you're able to anyway, other people sing your praises, which I think is like really what we all want as artists, you know? So, yeah. So, okay. So why don't you tell me like how you ended up at the theater school, where you're from, like how that went down? Speaker 2 (2m 19s): So I I'm from I'm from Michigan. I'm also from Texas. I mostly grew up in Texas. Like the important years were there and I was working after, so I went to the theater school for grad school during this super brief period of time when there was a grad degree in design, I was the first lighting designer. I came in with someone else who only lasted the first quarter. He was like super unhappy. He kind of made me, I kind of glommed on to that. And I was like, oh, are we unhappy? I'll be unhappy. I, this Speaker 1 (2m 46s): Complained about everything. Speaker 2 (2m 48s): And then he, he left after first quarter and then it was awesome because they gave me all the things that he was supposed to do. But when I came in, I wasn't, I wasn't interested in the program. If I was going to be the very first person without a cohort, a word we did not use in 1994, there was no cohort. No, we just had classmates. Right. And yeah, he, so he, so, but I knew about him and then he ended up not finishing the program. So I was actually the first lighting master's lighting student since they had left the Goodman. Speaker 1 (3m 19s): Great. Speaker 2 (3m 20s): Yeah. And I had, so I'd been working in Houston doing an internship and Kevin Rigdon, who was the, at the time the resident designer at Steppenwolf had come down and did a show production of our town, which ultimately became a very important part of my life, my adult life in my own career. And so he came down and did our town with Jose Cantero directing. There was this huge thing. And I thought Kevin was great. I thought he was funny. And I loved his work and I was really interested in it. And he was adjunct at the theater school. And he actually told me not to, he was like, don't come I'm adjuncts. And they're just starting this master's program. You kind of want to find a place that's that's has more stuff going on. And then when I decided to apply to grad school the next year, for sure, I was looking at different places and somebody gave me the advice that you should really look at the people who design the team, the design work of the people that you're going to study with, because that's what they're going to teach you. Right. Great, Speaker 1 (4m 17s): Great advice. Speaker 2 (4m 18s): It was, it was really great advice. And the other was to look at the market, right? Like look for a market that you would want to be in. Like, you can get an amazing degree in Idaho. There's actually really good programs there, but the market's not there. And I'll tell ya. I did not realize until I was a college professor. This is so like blind of like the blindness to your privilege. Right. I did not understand the benefits I had in Chicago from going to school in Chicago until I watched my students graduating into it. That's when I realized what I could do for them. And I realized what my professors did for me. Speaker 1 (4m 54s): So interesting. I mean, I think, I think we don't, we don't ever, I don't know anyone that's really hipped. Maybe kids nowadays are young adults are really hip to it, but like, yeah. I mean, I didn't think of thinking of like, okay, well what, what is the sort of the place where I'm landing and who are my connections there? But I am learning now at 46 in Los Angeles that the people that I'm really connected to here in the industry are all from Chicago. Mostly a lot of them are from the theater school. It's crazy. Speaker 2 (5m 25s): It's so interesting. I, it's funny. I've been listening to your podcasts and what I love is like, I feel like it's the best Facebook ever. It's like, so, cause I'm like, oh, listen to all these hour long interviews with people, all due respect to someone who might forgotten existed. Right. You know, like I tumbled down the whole like conversation about the religion. And I was like, oh my God, I forgot all about that. I knew I knew those people. Right. It's just not my life anymore. Right. Speaker 1 (5m 49s): I mean, I I'm. Yeah. I'm also shocked. Like we have people on that, like remember us that I have no recollection of having with. And I think I always talked it up to excessive drinking and dirt back in my day. But like, I think it's just like, that's not our life anymore. Right. We're in a different time, different lifetimes. Speaker 2 (6m 10s): I took it. There's like three levels of people there's like from school. It's like the people that I still know and have to remind myself, I went to school with like, that's the connection. I there's the people that I, that I have no idea what happened to, so I love when they're on your podcast and then there's the people who are famous. So I think that I know what they're doing. Like I have a feeling, I feel like I know what Judy is up to, but I don't know what she's up to. I just know, Speaker 1 (6m 33s): Right. That she works all the time. Then we went to school with her. Right, right. It's so funny. It's, it's a such a wild thing. Okay. So you were like, I'm going to go, Speaker 2 (6m 42s): I'm going to go to grad school. And I looked at Chicago, I looked at DePaul because I really liked Kevin. And then I also looked, I was looking really heavily at Carnegie Mellon and, and he went to, I went to one of those. It's funny. I listen to you guys talk about it with the actors. But I went to one of those, like Roundup audition, interview things in Houston. And I interviewed with both schools at the same time. And Carnegie Mellon was like, well, we've been teaching this class for 20 years. It's a great class. And we've been doing this other thing for 20 years and it's awesome. And I was like, oh my God, you're so boring. And the program is actually massive and huge and revitalized now. But I think at that moment in time, it was just not, they were had a lot of faculty had been there. And then I went to the DePaul one and I talked to John Bridges. I was like, I offer you Chicago. Like I offer you the energy of John Bridges and Chicago. And I was like, oh, this is so much more interesting to me. Yeah. You know? And then I got lucky because what I didn't know is that John Colbert is like, I call him the Clark Kent of lighting design, because he seems super mild-mannered. And he's like Superman, that guy is a genius And a master teacher. And so the fact that I got to study with him for three years and the part of it was him creating curriculum that he felt I needed, even when, and I have these moments with my students now where I'm like, this is what you need to do. And they're like, I don't think that's what I think I would do better. I think this is what I need to study. And John would be like, yeah, you need that other thing. You know, I actually, years after school, a couple of years later, I applied for a, there was a, it's funny, it's funded by the NDA. So you can't call it a, it can't be a grant or fellowship. It just has to be like a program that you're on. But it was one where the theater communications group got money from the NDA and young, like early career designers and directors to observe, assist other artists because you can't make anything. If it's the NDA. Right. It's like the rules that came out of all this stuff in the nineties. Right. And John called me up and was like, you need to apply for that. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally applied for that. I was thinking next year. Right. Like you need to apply this year. And I was like, well, yeah, but see, here's the reason and this and that thing. And he was like this year and I was like, but really I was like, you know, this next year. And I was like, this year, this year I'll do it this year. And then I got it. Speaker 1 (9m 4s): Was it amazing? It Speaker 2 (9m 5s): Was, it's an interesting thing. It was amazing in some ways. And in some ways it like slows your career down because you have to do six months worth of work within two years and you for the money and you get paid as you go, but you don't get to make anything. So it can like become a thing where you're like getting to know these amazing people and working with these amazing people. But you also, can't Speaker 1 (9m 28s): Interesting Speaker 2 (9m 29s): And make it, you know, like it slows down like what you can do as your own artist. I will say though, that, as I'm saying these words, even I'm thinking about the people that I worked with and how they function in my life and how important they'd been, like how important some of them still are Speaker 1 (9m 43s): Still in your life. Wow. Yeah. Speaker 2 (9m 45s): They gave me an extension on it as well, because that was also the time that I, I was the associate designer on the first production of top dog underdog. And that was a show that they were actually TCG was trying to get somebody in that room. And they were being like, well, we don't really want somebody to observe us. And I got offered to work on it, but I had worked with the whole team before, so they wouldn't let me do it, but they let me extend it. So they were pretty generous about like, yeah, I'll be making things happen. Wow. Yeah. Okay. And I got into DePaul and so I came to DePaul, I came up and visited and it was, Speaker 1 (10m 16s): And you, you, did you work with, was there, were you working with someone, a lighting designer at DePaul named Keith? Speaker 2 (10m 26s): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny when somebody talks about him, I don't know if it was you or Gina talking about him. We'll talk about seeing the scout, the Macbeth that we did that I did with Stacy Cabalero who I, who was my best friend from grad school. Oh yeah. When I think about grad school, like Shawna Flannigan and I were roommates for years after, but, but Stacy and I were super close. We did. So we did like so many of our shows together there and he was talking, it was it, you that he was telling that he commented on the costume. Gina was sitting next to him, but she was talking about it. She was like, and Keith param. And he was like, he was looking at it. He was like, oh my God. And I was like, I literally was listening to the podcast like, oh God, did he say something about my lights? What did he say? What did he say? Then? Then it was about Stacy. And I was like, oh, that's so funny. One of my close friends still. Speaker 1 (11m 14s): So yeah, he was the first person that made me really interested in lighting. And he, when we closed the show, the yellow boat together, he gave me a print of his drawing of the lighting, like, oh wow. With lighting. And I still got it framed. And it was, I was like, oh, well this kind, because I think personally that as actors, we're, we, we have this thing of like, our ego is like crossed all the time. So then we, we have, we have an inflated sense of ego really that we have to build. And we think that acting is the most important thing. And it was the first time it, my land that's garbage. And the first thing to person to really say, to show me like, oh my gosh, look, this is all part of a huge deal. Like I am not the huge deal that lighting is, everything has its place. And then we come together, but I was like, oh, this is, this is an art that really ties the whole show together. Like really? And it's like unsung magic. And I think a lot of actors anyway, just think that the lights up here and that nobody is behind them being the artist, creating that at least young actors, Speaker 2 (12m 30s): Young ones. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I think you're right about that in school, it's often Speaker 1 (12m 35s): Lighting for you. Like, what is it, what was it about that? Speaker 2 (12m 39s): You know, it's funny, my mother at one point was like having this big guilt thing that she had never encouraged me into it when I was younger. But like all of the signs did, like, unless you knew this was a thing, it didn't make sense. I was, I loved theater. My grandmother studied theater in New York in the thirties and she taught college. Yeah. She'd studied with a bunch of amazing people. She didn't work professionally, but, but she would take us to theater. Right. So it was a huge influence for my mother then for me. And I loved being an audience member. I never wanted to be on stage. And I haven't been a couple of times. And also now that I'm like, in my fifties, it's so much easier. Like I'm much more willing to jump off the right off the cliff and try whatever. Cause why not? What is it gonna embarrass me right now, please, please. If I didn't embarrass myself to death in my twenties, I think we're good now. You're good. So, yeah, but I, I, I just always like things that related. So I, like, I was interested in photography at one point, but I loved reading. I loved going to the theater. I have this, I was terrible in high school. It trig. I like, oh, I got like, I barely got through trigonometry class. And the second semester of the math track I was on was like analytical or spacial geometry. And it was like, I was a savant. I was like, that's what that 3d grid looks like. I can see that thing in space and I could answer, am I my teacher? And I were both like, what is up? How do I know this really have a good sense of space? And so if you look at the combo of all those things, they all really go together into lighting design. If you, if you know that thing. So when I went to undergrad, I'm in San Antonio at this small college Trinity university, super liberal artsy, sort of the opposite of your, your, what do we call them? We call academic classes and academics. I feel like we did, but they definitely, yeah. Academics. I really was. I had a lot of intense like philosophy classes and religion classes, all super helpful for the career that I have. But I also, my first semester took a intro to theater class and I loved the lighting. And then the second semester we were, I had to register dead last, like first year, dead last, you can't get anything. And a friend of mine that was in my end theater class was like, well, I'm going to, she was going to be a high school drama teacher, her name's Emily Goodpasture. And she decided that she was going to end. So Gilbert and good pasture registering last. She was like, I'm taking this sledding class. Cause I know I have to take all of the design classes and the acting classes for my future career as a drama teacher. And I think she take this learning class with me and I did. And then throughout college I would do other things, but I kept coming back to lighting. I just, I love the magic of the way light reveals form. I love looking at tons of different kinds of light bulbs. You know, my friend wants me to come to become Tik TOK famous and support us by telling people how to light their homes. Speaker 1 (15m 32s): Well, here's the thing that I, I actually, when you just said that, I have to say like, I was like, oh, I wonder what she thinks about filters and add tic-tac and the way people use light and could do you look at photos and videos and things and say, oh, that would be so much better if you just lit it like this. Are you able to do do that? Speaker 2 (15m 53s): Oh, for sure. I mean, I definitely, yeah. Most things in my life revolve around, you know, I always laugh cause I still go in theaters and look up at the lights and people are like, oh, I saw you looking at the lights. And I'm like, do you look at the actors? Of course, I look at the lights, I'm trying to figure out like the craft of what they did or you know, or what the equipment that they got to work with was, and yeah, but I can't, even though I could probably find another career with lighting that is so much more lucrative and I'm sure that that is true, right? The best part of my job for me still is that everyday when I go to work in theater, actors tell stories in front of me on stage live. And that is my favorite thing. I love going to plays. I love seeing performance and I love it live. So the fact that I get to be connected to that in some way and another character in that for me is really awesome. Speaker 1 (16m 39s): That's fantastic. And I I've never thought about it that way, that like, I mean, obviously I've thought about that a little, that the lighting is another character, but again, it's like, there are, there is a human and maybe a team of humans behind that character and that it, that you enjoy hearing the live stories being told. And that's why the theater versus, you know, film and TV, right? Like it's not, I mean, I guess you could still, it could be live on set, but like, you wouldn't be like the designer of a show. I don't even know how it works in television and film. Like the lighting people. Is there a lighting designer behind film and TV? Speaker 2 (17m 21s): There are no. And because there's so many more people on a film, I, and or television, there's more people encompass the single jobs that we do in theater, the DP it'd be the DP and the gray and then the interest and then editing is also a part of what we do. So, so all of those things sort of come together in that way. It's funny, David Swayze, do you remember Dan Swayze? He, so he's in film now and he's doing super well. Yeah. He's an art director and film and, and we have not kept up. We keep up actually better than I do with a lot of people, but it's been a couple of years. Yeah. He, even with the pandemic, it's been a couple of years. Yeah. He, he was talking one time about what he loved about doing television or film, he specifically film. And the thing that he loves about it is that it's, it's so immediate and you can make changes. So like, you can say like, oh, we need to, we, instead of doing it this way, we think this would look better and you can actively do that thing, which in theater set designers can't do that. But the rest of us can, I was like, you're talking about lightening design. I can make the change in the instant. You know, sometimes I have to say, I have to hang a light for tomorrow, but sometimes I can do like, hang on. My moving light will do that for us. Right. This second, you know? So I get to, I get to, it's funny though, we were like super technical or technological. And then all of a sudden it was like projections and sound, which were, you know, a slide projector and a yes. And you know, MiniDisc jumped us and they can craft in the room and we still can't craft in the room in the same way that they can, which I'm actually kind of grateful for. I like that. We get to say like, we're going to think on that. We're gonna let us Speaker 1 (18m 60s): Oh, wait. And think on that. Yeah. You know, that's interesting. Cause I, I, yeah, I liked the idea too of you're you're like a problem solver. Oh Speaker 2 (19m 13s): Yes. Right. Speaker 1 (19m 14s): Yeah. I love problem solvers. I think that they're really great to have in a room because I think it teaches everybody that like there are mysteries to be solved in the theater. And there are people that are trained to solve them that aren't me and they, and that we can work together. But problem solvers, we need the problem-solvers in, in rooms, in the theater. Like it's fantastic. Speaker 2 (19m 46s): But you know, it's interesting. We solve different problems, problems. Like I was years ago, we have this event on the last day of the semester, second semester at Columbia called manifest, which is this massive arts festival. It spills onto the streets. We have puppet show puppet, parades down the street. And we have, it's really fantastic. Photography has like gallery exhibits, super fun. This school is crazy. And I love it. And years ago it poured down rain and they had had this thing that they were going to do. This is pretty so long ago that I think it was 2009, actually it poured down rain. And they'd had this event that they were going to do called manna text. And they were going to, people could submit their phone numbers and they would text and be like, go to this stage. And you'll, if you're the 10th person there you'll get a thing. And texting was still like, we, it, wasn't certainly not the, the way we lived our lives. Right, Speaker 1 (20m 39s): Right. Speaker 2 (20m 41s): Yes. It poured down. And as soon as it pours, like we had an outdoor stage and I always, I, I produced it for the department. I thank God. I don't have to anymore. But I, I had, I always kept the stage free inside so that if anything happened, we could move it in. So we moved everything in and we didn't have lights up in the theater. And I, so I walked downstairs and I started hanging some lights and doing some things and I was working with, oh, this is funny. I was working with Kendra Thulin oh yeah. He was working with me on that because Kendra and I worked together again, somebody, I almost forget I went to school with. And so I started hanging the lights and everything and she's just staring, like she can't do it. And my kids walked in, my students walked in and I was like, okay, here's what I need you to do to finish this up, do this, do this, do this, hang that, get these gels. These from the sides, this from the front, I'll see you guys. They were like, great. And Kendra and I walked out to do something. And she was like, that was amazing. And I was like, it's what we know how to do. And then five hours later Manitex has fallen apart. They can't figure out what to do. And I'm standing there. I've got these two seasoned subscriptions to the department, which I'm pretty sure were free anyway, back then. And I'm like, what am I supposed to do with these? And I turned there, we're doing a musical theater thing. And I turned to a couple of minutes, you'll theater students. And I was like, get these to an audience member. Somehow they went on stage and made this hilarious, adorable competition. That was like a trivia thing, like trivia about musical theater. Right. And they gave them to the winner. And I was like, we all, I, my students would have turned to the human next to them and been like, do you have these, you know, that's why we're all together. That's why Columbia administration is constantly like, you're you have too many majors in your department. It's so unwieldy. And it's like, because it takes a lot of people to create an entire world. Speaker 1 (22m 26s): It really does. That is really true. And everybody solves different problems. Like nobody that does it does. It does take a bunch of people. That's really interesting. And then when you graduated, what did you do? Like, were you like, I mean, really your career kind of took off. I mean, you're co you're pretty fancy lighting cider. So how did you, did you just like, love it and people loved you and you started getting jobs or like how did it work? Speaker 2 (22m 55s): Yeah. There was a couple of stages in it. I, you know, it's funny. I did the big funk and what's hilarious about that to me is that when we did it, I was like, where are we? We are in the front end of someone's apartment. It is bizarre. These people live here in the back of this place and they're letting us do a play in the front and like flash forward, I don't know, 15 years. And I, I am friends with those people. Amazing. I did some moment in conversation. I was like, that was your place that I did that weird shit show with the weird lights in the cans. Like, so I started doing storefront and I S I had started assisting at Steppenwolf while I was at school. So I had, I, at the time that I was in school, I had a foot in both bootcamps. And so it is, I definitely, yeah, I definitely was splitting my time. And so I started doing more assisting it's definite wall. And in the fall, he'll never hear this the fall, right after graduation, I assisted somebody who sort of well known to be difficult business of lighting side. And for whatever reason, we absolutely hit it off. And he is like my brother today. And so I started traveling with him. I started working on projects all over with him and because he was difficult, theater companies would bring me to projects that they wouldn't necessarily bring an assistant on normally, because he's really, he's like the best in the business, but they knew I could handle him. And they knew that I could handle him by saying, I need you to leave the theater right now. And I'll take care of things while you sit her down. And so we, I would go to, I went to New York with him starting in 1998. I assisted actually my second Broadway assisting job was with him. My first one was from Steppenwolf. So I simultaneously was with Steppenwolf and him. And so my assistant career was like really amping up. And I was in these important rooms like Suzan-Lori parks and George Wolfrey top dog underdog with at the time the first production was Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright. And then those staff replaced Jeffrey or repost on. And so I was getting to do a lot of those really awesome things. And simultaneously I was doing storefront, right. And, and honing my skills and building my skills and knowing how, like I could watch the people that assisted make these massive shows with so much stuff. And I would think about those ideas. It's exactly what they tell you to do in school. But yeah. And then I would go back to the storefront with 17 lights and some candles, and I could make something that was really interesting because I had a much stronger sense of how equipment worked. You know, Keith always says that his graduate school was assisting per the years that he did. And he particularly assisted this amazing designer named Jim Ingles. And he's like, that was my grad school because I learned how to use our tools and then how to pull back from them. Speaker 1 (25m 35s): And how did you get, I think for people listening, they're going to be, well, how, how did she get to assist at step it, well, how did she get in the room at Steppenwolf? Speaker 2 (25m 44s): It was that guy, Kevin, the one that was my, you know, he taught us, but he, I, he knew I came up here and I reached out and I was like, I really, I want to have, you know, I, I want to work with you. I want to learn from you. And he, it's funny because now he's in Houston. I met him, but he is, he was great. And my second year, because the guy I came in with dropped the program, my second and third year, I was all alone. Like my classes were by myself. And so what John would often do was put me in a class with someone else. So that, like, there was a, for some reason, the third year BFA lighting class in my second year only had one wedding student. So we paired for the class in the class time, we had somebody to sort of like riff on and talk to, and our levels were different. But a lot of the projects that we did, like we spent one full quarter just in the light lab, which we usually, most semester, most years we did just making projects. And like, here's a song like the song by next week, here's a musical theater song. You you're lighting it as if it's musical theater, somebody on there, like something has to represent the chorus, visually something has to represent, how do you, how do you actually change the song as if it's a stage? And we have like little blocks of wood and like little people and things that we would put up and make these vignettes. And so she and I were just sort of at different levels on that, but Kevin was the teacher and it was, I actually had a one-on-one with him. And he said at the beginning of the year, he was like, I just want your, your resume is going to look good when you finish this class. And that was crazily enough. It was the 20th anniversary of Stephan wall. So I was the second assistant on very child. Gosh, that to Gary Sinise director, I worked on every man that Frank Lottie directed, I worked on the Libertine, how much was in. I did, I was an assistant second assistant on all of those shows. And then by the fourth show of that season, I ended up the first assistant who, who stayed with him for a while, but was sort of grooming me to be the next step. And that's how that sort of works sometimes is like we, our assistants move up and become our full peers. And then we train somebody else up in that way. And I, by the fourth show, I was actually getting paid while I was doing it for credit and stuff at school. So I think in those days I wouldn't have gotten in trouble for it today. They would be like, what, what? Speaker 1 (27m 56s): Right. But then you were like, yeah. Speaker 2 (27m 58s): So they didn't know. Right. Speaker 1 (28m 0s): They weren't keeping track of that is so cool. Speaker 2 (28m 3s): So I got to do that. Speaker 1 (28m 4s): Yeah. And then, and then did you, did you, what was the journey like to, did you live in New York? Like, did you live in New York, ever full time? Speaker 2 (28m 13s): Not full time. I spent a lot of time crashing on David Swayze's spare, like his studio floor. I did a lot of that for many years and, and other friends, new Yorkers are particularly skilled in the art of letting you stay with them. And so now, I mean, I joke that I'm the Heather Gilbert school for wayward or Heather Gilbert home for wayward Chicagoans, because I there's so many people who move out of Chicago and come back to do a show and I let them, I let them live in my spare room. My friend, Samantha, who's this brilliant costume designer. I mean, for like two and a half years, we were like, she was like my, my roommate. She came and went, I have somebody coming on the Saturday after Thanksgiving while she does a show, you know? Cause I feel like I'm giving back for all those times that I crashed in New York. So I did a fair amount of assisting and stuff there. I've only, I guess I've only designed about three times there actually. One of them was pretty significant. So yes. Speaker 1 (29m 9s): Talk about that. Let's talk about that. How did that come about? What, what, yeah. That journey of life. Speaker 2 (29m 17s): Yeah. My other job in grad school was I was bartender. I, yeah. I used to bartend at a place called bar San Miguel up on Clark street. Oh yeah. Yeah. It was a non-equity bar. And I started bartending there after, I guess, had our second year. It's funny during that huge heat wave of 95, I went there for the first time with Chris Freeburg and Kate McKernan. Yes. Half a year later I was working there and, and Cromer used to come in there cause it was a theater bar and I met him there. And so our relationship started 26 years ago. Holy shit. Speaker 1 (29m 48s): As tender in a patron. Speaker 2 (29m 50s): Yeah. That's how we met. That's amazing. Yeah. He loves that. I think he loves it. That's part of our origin story because it's funny when we, when he tells it and writes it like in a letter of recommendation or whatever, and, and we didn't work together until 2003, but we've known each other. At one point we quit smoking at the same time. And at one point that was like the most significant thing. And then all of these things that we've done have happened since, but now I'm also still thinking that maybe the most significant thing that we ever did together was quit smoking. That's fantastic. Speaker 1 (30m 18s): It's very significant. And it also, you did it together and it's a real bonding experience when you quit. Something like that. Speaker 2 (30m 26s): Yeah. It was tough. It's been, it's been, it's been 19 years this year. Congratulations. So we started then, and that was the moment also that like I did a show with him finally, and we did this miracle on 34th street that we all were super in need of money at Christmas time. And he wrote this adaptation and it started Tracy Letts, which we think is like the funniest thing in the world now. And so we did that show and then when I started, and then I started teaching shortly thereafter and I started, I did, and I went to LSU for two years in Baton Rouge. And when I came back because I loved teaching students, they're the best thing in the world. Higher education can make you want to pull your hair out. And state schools are often really like that if you're in the arts. So it was a struggle, but I came back here to Columbia, which I had only vaguely known of when we were in school. And that's, I didn't know that everybody who got cut came here until I was teaching here. And then it was funny because when I would, I don't remember when the cuts system stopped, but whatever point it did was after I started here, because you would be doing like the summer sort of advising with incoming students, you do your, your couple of sessions in the summer and kids would come in and their credits would be this really weird number. And I was like, I don't understand why that's not three credits, but it was like two points, 1.3 threes and 2.3 twos. And it was sort of like thirds, but not even HOAs. And I, and I found out that was, that was the sign of somebody who was cut from the theater school because it was the theater school classes that were those year long things, trying to get them into semesters. Right, right. Yeah. I was like, oh yeah, that's what happened to everybody who quit. And so, so, but David talkier and so we, we start teaching a collaboration class together, all really. I didn't know, that's cool for directors and designers. And so then we were going to do a show here at school together, but he, and we started the process and we were like, live, we got to live what we teach them. We got to, we got it. We got to collaborate like that. And we had to pull out of the show because he took adding machine to New York instead. And then he came home from adding machine. And that's when he had been talking about our town that he was going to do with the hypocrites, which was, I worked a lot with the artistic director of the hypocrites I had. I had a long relationship. I, I mean, he's still my friend, he's just second grader, John grainy, Sean and I, Sean was simultaneously, the two of them were sort of like my biggest income and my income through them. And so I, so, but I wasn't a part of the hypocrites. I was eventually, I was not at that point. Right. And he, he kept talking to the show, but he had to ask the resonance designer, but the resident designer who's my sweet friend now said no. And they brought me on to our town and you know, it's sort of like, the rest is history. Like we, David and I have a long history at that point and we have a, we had a friendship, you know, but we now, you know, we had like the let's let's, you know, talk on the phone and watch Dexter in the middle of the night friendship a little bit before that. But we now have done, I think I, I counted when we opened bug last week and I think we've talked 16 shows together and, and some of them have been really life-changing for both of us. So yeah, Speaker 1 (33m 37s): That is fantastic. And I feel like if you find a collaborator that just I'm recently have, have started working with someone that I just, I work with Gina, and then I work with other people, but like when you find someone like that, where you, you just, it just works out. Like it just works. There's something about it. The only thing you can think of is like, you know, it is some sort of, it almost feels like some kind of cosmic thing that comes together that you are able to do. Great. You can facilitate each other's great work without ending the relationship and having crazy, you know, fights and things that don't lead to total destruction. That's magic. Speaker 2 (34m 24s): Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting cause directors go, I think they probably do this to actors too. If they have a deep relationship more than anything, they go stuff's right there. Like they just stopped calling and you're like, come on. Right. And Cobra, at one point it was in New York and working with new people and our town had come to a close. Right. Which, cause that sort of kept us together for a long time. We did that show that was over over seven year period of time, all the venues. And so we, we had, you know, we'd, we'd, we'd had a connection and we had done other couple of other new shoot new shows within that time. Yeah, sure. It wasn't just our town. Right. And then we'd done our streetcar that was really successful. And the Sam Rockwell was in really isn't that crazy. I did a person who was Sam Rockwell, who was so lovely. I came up and was like, oh my God, the lighting is so beautiful. I was like, oh, so I will be heard in it. So how do you know? But, Speaker 1 (35m 17s): But he, but even to say it, you know, like what a sweetheart? Yeah. I was at a wedding with him cause he was in a movie with my boss and he was lovely, a lovely and like a pro like a real, Speaker 2 (35m 31s): So I get so excited for him now all the time. So, but we had healed David actually sort of like wasn't calling. And I was like, oh, are we not going to work together anymore? And it's funny because I think in the history of our lives, it will, it's actually a blip, but it felt like a long time. And I was like, okay, well I guess that's okay. Like relationships do shift and, and partnerships do add, nobody wants to somebody forever. Absolutely. But I was like, I actually, we are, I am, you know, I was not a Columbia kid. I'm like, I have a pocket in a thousand ways. But yeah, I did work. I do teach at Columbia and I am a Sheldon Patinkin person. I'm one of his people and Sheldon taught you, you see each other's shows. That is what we do for each other. Right. I was like, I'm going to still see your shows. Right. We have way too much of a history for our friendship to die because we're not, we're not doing right. Right. So I kept, I stayed around. Yeah. I was like, I'm not going to, I'm going to come to me. I'm going to see your things. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to go see the band's visit or I'm going to go also, I get to see the bands visit then come on. Right. Or I'm going to see your comeback, little Sheba with Derek  in Boston because I love that. You know? And so when the time rolled around, I found out he was doing a production of next to normal at writers theater. And I loved that show and I had done a production of it that I kept texting him, being like, oh my God, I wish I were doing your production of this. Not that I didn't think that one was great, but it was much more of the sort of flash and trash version. Right. And I wanted to see David's version where there's like a dining room table and people around it. Right. You know? And I just, I was, so I texted him as soon as I heard from our friend Lilianne was like, I will do the show. And he woke up the next morning and he was like, he texted me back. I was like, it was kind of a non David text. I was like, this is very specific and kind, and I he's listing these things, but he was like, these are the, I woke up this morning and I saw your text. And I called Michael Halberstam, who was still the artistic director at the time. And so we have to hire Heather for the show and he said, okay, but we already hired Keith. And I was like, yeah, I fucking knew it. I knew I was going to be too late. I'm reading this text. And David's like, and I screwed up. And these are the reasons why, and he was like, writer's theaters are theater. It's our place. Which just so you know, he'd just done as many shows with Keith as he has with me. But he went through and he was like gave me their reasons that were really lovely. And then he said, Williamstown is going to reach out about a show, Adam rap's new play. And I was like, Williamstown really paid nothing. Why is that my constellation prize? I was totally annoyed. And then Williamston production was a struggle. Like we did this by the way, the play is the sound inside because we have not said the name of it if anybody's listening. And we, so we were, it was a struggle, you know, you have to do it very quickly. It's a big play for, for the, the lead actress in it and the actress in it. And, and it was a struggle for her. She, she definitely was acting out a little bit. Yeah, sure. And, and so, and you don't have much time and you're doing it with people who are, you know, these interns that I it's sort of famously a conversation in the industry right now about specifically how William sound carries those interns. So you're feeling guilty and also they don't know what they're doing as well. So there's a lot of pressure on that. Right. And I loved it. I loved that place so much. I read that play and I was like, oh my God, this is beautiful. It's this beautiful play about what we do when we were in need in our loneliness. And it's just, it's ju it just hit me. I don't know how Adam Rapp, who's this like hyper alpha masculine male actually has that insight into, I think, because it's insight into humanity and thus, he can change it into he's like, well, women feel the same thing men do. We're right. We're not different creatures. Right. So, yeah. Wow. And then, and then the show moved to New York a year later to Broadway to studio 54, which my God, I got to crawl around in studio 54. It took me crawl over that building. I was like, she'll be everything. Where did they keep the drugs? I'm so cute. Right. Right. Yeah. And we, I went up into the there's a dome and I got to go up into the dome and look down into the space and see where they store all the lights. And I got the full tour one day. It's great. The crew is the best crew in the entire world. And we did this beautiful play and people were, you know, it's funny. I, I actually was just, I submitted an application last night at 11:58 PM for full professorship. Like that's the highest level of, of teaching here. Yeah. And when you get tenure, you have to apply for that. But then once you've got it, you actually don't have to apply for anything, a promotion past that. Yeah. So I finally had committed to doing it. And so it's funny, I've been thinking so much about my philosophy of lighting and the way I approach it. But one of the things is that there's that old saw the best line design is lighting. The can't be seen, which is just a load of crap anywhere like Eddie in any scenario, like just say like you and I can't see the light where we are right now. Right. We see it. We know it's there. What they really mean is if I change, if I break the rules of the reality that I set up for you and notice that that's bad lighting design. Right, right. It's like, it's, I was compared to like, weirdly as a lighting professor, I had Meisner in this paper that I was writing yesterday. This document is writing. Cause it's like, it's that idea of living truthfully in imaginary circumstances. It's the same thing for us. We're creating those circumstances and we're trying to make it so that the actors can live in truth and everything has it. And if the rules are light comes out of the floor. Right. And it changes when I take a step, as long as I, as long as we create those rules for the audience. Right. And, and train them, they know what it is and then they follow it. Yeah. Speaker 1 (41m 6s): We'll go with you. It's consistency. It's authenticity. It's telling the truth in the moment and yeah. Staying true to what the vision is, whatever that vision is. But yeah, it also reminds me of like the good lighting is shouldn't be noticed or whatever is like, women should be seen and not heard. It's totally like fuck off. Speaker 2 (41m 28s): So I was talking about something about myself too, and I almost was talking about leadership and I almost said, you know, because I was called bossy as a child, and now we acknowledge that. That just meant I was a leader. Speaker 1 (41m 37s): Yeah. Right. It just meant that. And you know, it's interesting because my recollection of you in college was that you knew what the hell you were doing now. Granted, I mean, everyone has different, you know, I'm sure you didn't always know what you're doing. Cause you're a human being. But like my recollection of you is that you were like, I think maybe because also you were a grad student, right. So, but you definitely had vision. You were someone that I was like, oh, they know what they're doing and, and why they're doing it. So there was this thing about you that I really felt from the little, I knew that like you had motivation or like a, a direction and also a curiosity, but, and a, I just, I just think you were like very early on like a master of your craft, which meant that also masters in my view, like really study and take the shit seriously and have a lot of pride in their work. That was it. Like not a lot of people had a pro. I mean, I can speak for myself. Like it wasn't like, I, I felt like you could stand behind your work. I've always felt that like, when I read stuff about, about you or like when I follow your career, it's like you stand by your work. That's fucking phenomenal, you know? Speaker 2 (42m 55s): Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. I feel like a lot of that was also the training that we were getting in the, in the design program because we had, we had such good professors, particularly John, we, we, we had Franco Lovecchio was there for two years. Right. Who was the most wonderful, crazy human in the entire world. He would like, literally, like you'd be drawing in the studio and you'd be like drawing on something. And we all learned that you had to keep tracing paper over a culture, which is something called trace really. But we would, we would have trace taped to our drawing boards so that the minute he sat down, you could throw a trace over it. Or he would just start drawing all over you drawing. And, but he would like nudge you off your chair while he was like, fixing your time for you. And you'd tell him, be standing there watching him doing your work. And you were like, maybe, maybe not, maybe, maybe I'm in school. Maybe I want to learn how to do that. He was so funny though. So great. But then John Colbert has, is like really like taught us like the, that you have to be able to justify the work that you have to understand the rules of the piece that you and the rigor that goes behind that. And Nancy Beulah, who's the same. Who was just this amazing. She's the, she used to let, she used to let you do your project again, to get your grade up a little bit. And I would get like a B plus on something for her and I would do it again. And it wasn't even that I really needed. Like, I wasn't great. I wanted her to think I was working. Like I needed her to have that belief in Speaker 1 (44m 15s): G she, there was something. So she costumed me and said she just, she was so affirming. And also like you, there was something about she, she made me believe that she knew that I was going to be okay and that I was going to be a professional and that I could do it. Like there was, it was amazing. It was so much, there was like a strong confidence that she instilled in me as a costume person, which I, I just felt, again, she stood behind her work too. Like she was a bad-ass like, there was no like, ah, apologizing, there was no apologizing. And I feel like we just spent so much of our lives or at least I have apologizing that when I see someone like a career like yours, I'm like, oh, maybe this comes from not apologized. Like maybe not apologizing for, for us as women as in our work, you know, like this is badass work I'm doing and I'm going to continue to do it. I dunno. It's just a fierceness. Speaker 2 (45m 19s): Well, for me too, I feel like the thing that I'm proudest of in my, in my age and in my success is that I no longer feel like the pressure of having to be complete on the first day of tech. Like, I'm like, I'm going to put an incomplete, that thing up there, and I'm going to start to see how light is moving on these people and what that does. And I know it might not look good, but I'm not going to worry about that. It's going to be okay. You know, I'm going to be able to, I know I will make it look great. I know I can. I know that what I put up there for the first draft is going to be the right first draft, because I know what I'm doing and I know that it doesn't have to be complete. Right. And I'm fine with that. And like, David is really great for that because he has no expectations of that either. Speaker 1 (46m 3s): Yeah. That's fantastic. I mean, that's like really the difference between being product oriented and process oriented, right? Yeah. As an artist. And like, for me as a writer, like writing for TV, my first draft, if it's not, it's, it's terrible. And it's exactly where it's supposed to be. But if I have expectations or get in my own way and feel self-conscious about it, the whole thing is it doesn't work. So it's like, this is a shitty first draft. And by shitty, I mean, wonderful. You know what I mean? Speaker 2 (46m 32s): So wonderful first draft, right? It's never supposed to be the final thing. Totally. We were also taught at school that because we don't stick around for the product, right. We're not part of the product. We, I mean, we are, we're making a product, right. Because we're not ever, once the product goes, our AR is there, we're gone from it that we need to be really process-oriented. And that our process is what's going to get us hired aspect of working with us. Speaker 1 (46m 59s): I love that. And I feel like if we could, if we, I wish I would have learned that more and I'm not, I don't blame anyone for it. I just think it's the way the life is. But like, I'm, that's what I think I've spent my adult career as an artist becoming more process oriented and less product oriented and less and less judgy, right. About my and other people's process of, of like, it doesn't look the same. And so I think when you find a collaborator, which it sounds like David, what is for you that is also, and in the same sort of thought process in terms of how art is created, that's what works, because you're both sound like you're like no expectations for the first thing to be the thing. Like it changes it pivots, it moves, it's moving, it's breathing and moving. And I think that that's probably why your work together is so powerful and profound is that you both have this view life view right. Of art that works together really well. Right. So, and that sounds fine when I find those people. Those are the people I want to stay with and work with. Yeah. Speaker 2 (48m 7s): Yeah. And I think too, like one of the things getting back to sound inside and David, is that like, I, the thing that people often comment on is my use of darkness on stage that I actually commit fully to it, that I don't have a problem having actress speak from the dark. And I did the first time I ever had something that was really dark. I was like, oh God, like, you know, you're taught that, that can't be funny. Right. People actually laugh at things that here in the dark, it turns out. And so, but so being able to like be tiny and focused and just have a little bit of light, you know, and sound inside became that piece, which was like, we created the premise of the play is that this professor is telling the, talking to the audience and we don't really know what that's about. Like, I don't know. And I don't know the answer to that because I almost felt like knowing, like we don't want the audience to fully know. And I felt like if I know too much, then I, it may manifest. And so I never, even though Adam rap became, I tell him that he's the brother. I didn't get no offense to the brother. I did get, but I love Adam and I can ask him anything and talk to him about anything. But I have never asked him the truth of the play, which is, is it happening? Is it my meal? There's a character that we question is the character even real? Is she writing a book as she talks to the audience, this character, a Bella college professor, or is she, or there's a reference to a book at the end of the play that you like? Did she steal that book? And a lot of that was taken, there were a lot more concrete parts of the story when we did it Williamstown and they were taken out for the Broadway production to let the audience sort of float in their own uncertainty more. And so the idea is that Bella, this character who, who is this professor is actually the only fully fleshed out part of the play at the beginning. And that we slowly revealed the world as she creates it as she sort of illustrating it. And so that actually gave me the ability to have this production that was like using little amounts of light, a lot of darkness. Like I like, but also was in a way flashy, because we'd have like a big window on the side, on the wall of the sets. And then all of a sudden it would shift like instantly into a different time of day. And the shape of the window would change in the color of the window would change, but it was all very graphic. And then eventually within these like sequence of scenes in this office with this window, eventually the final one was this massive projection of a very real window. So, and so I got to work and I worked really closely with the production designer, who was the handsomest person in design. His name is Aaron Ryan. If you ever meet him, you're going to be like, I didn't know that designers looked like that. I thought only actors did. Wow. And he's the best dude in the land. I love him so much. Speaker 1 (50m 33s): So, so I guess yeah. Being mindful of your time, I just want to ask you if you, because we do have a lot of younger folks that listen to the show and that are interested in careers as designers, not just after, you know, now there's like such a, we're trying also to shine a light on designers. Cause it's awesome. Right. We don't, I mean, acting is not the only name of the game here. So what would you say if someone came to you and said, Hey, I'm interested in the theater. What does, what w what kind of person do I, it's kind of a hard question, but what kind of person do I need to be, to be a designer? I know if I'm a designer, Heather, Speaker 2 (51m 26s): I actually am really conscious of like the personality quirks of designers, because I watch it so much in my students. Right. And it's interesting because I am, I can't make a, I can not build a model. I cannot build a model. I, it was hated in school and it, but it's this really sort of detailed private work. And I'm a much, I'm super extroverted, which that doesn't mean all lighting designer extroverted, but like, I have to be able to work out here. Like I don't work here. I have to be able to work openly. I also have to work in public. Everybody is there when actors and designers have that rare thing in which actors and lighting designers, I should say, we, all of our work is done in front of other people. You cannot, like, you might have a smaller room and only a couple people at first, but like, it's still the same and we don't get to make it privately. And then somebody builds it and we go, oh, paint it that way. Or even like, listen to in our headphones. No, you have to be okay with that. You have to be really good with like a super high level of pressure. And you have to let it roll off of you. I worked, I love Sean Graney. This will not surprise anybody who knew Shawn grainy or losing his Shaun could be very difficult in a tech. I'm not the easiest dude, always in the world, but I love him to death. And there was an actor that we used to work with who just would Marvel. We worked with this person so many times and was a big part of the company. And with Marvel, it, me, because Sean would get tense and it'd be like really stressful and like pushing, pushing to get it done faster. And I would just let it all roll off. And it's because I have to be able to do that and know that this is my time. Right. Reclaiming my time. I was like, oh yeah, I do that all the time because I know that this is when I can do the thing. I also have to know when I can say, Hey, you know what? I can do this later. I can do this without people, or it's taking too long and it's slowing us down and it's, it's killing our process. It's not letting us all move forward as a group. And I'll deal with this thing later. Right. But I also know that I have to do it now. And that's the way this process works until somebody changes it, I'm going to do it in the room. And so I will take my time. I have to be able to work as quickly as I can in that. And I have to know that I have to deal with the pressures from other people. Speaker 1 (53m 27s): So it's got a little bit of, it's interesting. It's a it's human relationships that makes with time management mixed with reclaiming your time mixed with knowing when to, yeah. When you can let go and say, okay, I'm going to do, but like, I, I don't think people, at least I'll speak for myself. Younger people think that you need, well, the ones I encounter my students too, like, you need people skills as a designer. Oh, you need people skills. Like, just because you're not an actor doesn't mean you don't, you know, you got to work with people. And I think your, from your interview, it's really clear that like, there's all different kinds of people you're going to work with, and you're not going to get along with all of them, but you can also figure out a way, right. To still have the process, be one of where you get your work done, get rehired. If that's what you want and still be a kind human and work, you know, in the industry. And I think that's really interesting that you, the rolling off the back. Yeah. Because people in tech and in tech and intense situations get bonkers bomb, bonkers, bonkers Speaker 2 (54m 30s): Years ago, I was assisting on a production of the Scottish play in New York that George Wolf was directing that Angela Bassett and Alec Baldwin were starring in and the pressure and the pressure on it was super high. And then everybody who was a secondary person was like, we have Schreiber and Michael Hall and Zach brown. Speaker 1 (54m 48s): I mean, it was our secondary Speaker 2 (54m 50s): People. Cause they were babies that like Zach rabbit just finished school. Like let's start on it. And we, and the pressure was super high. And, and we were on the third floor of the building and the electric shop was in the basement. And my designer was like yelling at me and I would pass it on. I would pass that energy on. And the assistant lighting supervisor took me out for pizza and was like, you can't do that. And he was like, you have to be the wall. And if you can't be the wall, this might not be your job. He's like, you can still be a designer, but assisting might not be the way you got there. And this guy must've been, I mean, he was maybe my age. He was probably younger than me. His name was Todd greatest thing that ever happened to me. Yep. It changed me forever. I was like, you're right. That is my job. And actually, I'm very good at that. I am a cheerleader and I'm a person who cares about people and I have no problem. I mean, there will be times that I'm not trying to say, I'm never put pressure on the people around me. I get impatient too. I'm not a patient person, but, but I can, I can try to protect the people around me. And I, and I love my team that people who make the lighting thing happen, you know, I kept, I, we won the, I did this production bug with David right before the pandemic. And then we just did it again unless we could set them off. And we won the Jeff award for it. As I like to say, we won the Jeff award. Like my team won that award. I didn't do it by myself, but I actually took it into the first day of tech and we put it on the tech table for the second round. And I was like, everybody had my crew put a light on it and they would run the light up. And it was like, everybody may give me notes through the Jeff. The Jeff looks up notes for me. That's hilarious. I will speak to none of you. I will speak to Carrie Coon, Carrie Coon also want to Jeff that she may speak directly to me because what else do you do with an award? There's so weird there, Speaker 1 (56m 30s): Right there, weirdness. And they're weird and they're nice and they're in your effort. And it's the only way we have really, as human acknowledged this stuff, but in a, in a sort of ceremony kind of a way, but like, all right, well, I just thank you for talking Speaker 2 (56m 46s): Absolutely Speaker 1 (56m 47s): Pleasing. And I, I, you know, I just, I'm always left when I talk to someone like you I'm like left with this wish for young women to know that there are so many jobs and careers in the theater that you don't just have to be an actor or an actress or whatever you want to call yourself. There are so many things. And, and by, and for me also, it's like, oh my gosh, please find someone that's doing the thing you might want to do and ask them questions and see if you can get information, you know, like an informational interview, which is essentially what we do on this podcast is do an informational interview with people we went to school with and other people, but like get the information. So thank you for putting the information about your career and your journey out there for us. And we'll, we'll keep in touch and you'll get a copy to review before we air it. And, but just, thank you. Thank you so much. Speaker 2 (57m 45s): Totally. I'll send you guys some pictures I have to please. And, you know, they're printed. I actually had to go into a box and found Speaker 1 (57m 51s): Them. It's a whole thing. Speaker 2 (57m 53s): Yeah. Much like everybody else. I went through all of those during the pandemic. So I was trying to figure if I had one with me and Keith, cause that would be awesome. Speaker 1 (57m 60s): That would be fine. Speaker 2 (58m 3s): It's funny. I love telling people in the, in the lighting community that like I drove her, we've been friends for so long. I drove him home from college for Christmas, his first year of college, you know, and then, and now he's like, like he did his first runway show at studio 54. And then I did my first Broadway show in studio 54. And like, yeah, I really love getting to share all of that with him. And he's a true and great artist. And I just, S

We all know the times are changing, but do we know what to do with them once we've realized everything has changed? In today's conversation I sit down with leadership coach Tom Ziglar (son to the legendary Zig Ziglar) and we talk about what it means to shift with the world that already looks different.  Read the FULL TRANSCRIPTS here.  Links:  Tom's Website Pick up Tom's book Spirit and Truth Tony on Instagram

听故事说中文LCTS is sponsored by our Patrons. Please hit that Subscribe/Follow button on your Podcast player, so you won't miss the latest episode.  Full Transcript of this episode  can be found on our Patreon page 在 茂密 的 森林 里 ， 有 一 只 老虎 正在 寻找 食物 。 一 只 狐狸 从 老虎 身边 蹿 过 。  老虎  扑 过去 ，  把  狐狸 逮 住 了 。 狐狸 眼珠子 骨碌 一 转 ， 扯 着 嗓子 问 老虎 ： “ 你 敢 吃 我 ？ ” “ 为什么 不 敢 ？ ” 老虎 一 愣 。 For the full transcript of this episode and many others, please support us by becoming our patrons. ************************************************************ If you think our podcast is valuable to you and others,  become our patron for as low as $5/month.You will have access to all of the transcripts, vocabulary list and patrons only episodes ************************************************************ Are you already a listener? Leaving the show a review on iTunes will help more people find the podcast. Thank you!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

The characteristics of an authentic leader show that self-differentiation and authenticity go hand-in-hand. It all comes down to taking responsibility for self. This episode shows you how. Show Notes: Discovering Your Authentic Leadership by Bill George , Peter Sims , Andrew N. McLean and Diana Mayer Read the Full Transcript on The Non-Anxious Leader website. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jack-shitama/message

Intro: buzzsaws and clean slates, rage, Where the Wild Things AreLet Me Run This By You: MoneyInterview: We talk to Carole Schweid about Juilliard, Phoebe Brand, John Lehne, Michael Brand, Midnight Cowboy, musical comedy performance, open dance calls, starring in the original cast of A Chorus Line, Bob Fosse, Pat Birch, Martha Graham, Minnie's Boys, Mervyn Nelson, playing Fastrada in the first national tour of Pippin, being a lone wolf in theatre, Lewis J. Stadlen, doing West Side Story at Bucks County Playhouse, Shelly Winters, Mary Hinkson, Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, playing Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof, Peppermint Lounge, Nick Dante, Michael Bennett, Marvin Hamlisch, Public Theater, Gerry Schoenfeld, The Shubert, the wish for a job vs. the real experience of working, Theda Bara & The Frontier Rabbi, Agnes de Mille, Play With Your Food, Staged Reading Magic, Albert Hague.FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):2 (10s):And I'm Gina Pulice.1 (11s):We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later,2 (16s):We're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense1 (20s):If at all we survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? As more space is actually a huge thing.2 (36s):Yeah. I have to apologize for the sound of buzz saws. What is going to be going the whole time I'm talking, doing well, you1 (50s):Took some trees down, right.2 (53s):You know, that's how it started. Yeah. It started with actually, you know, it all was a surprise to me, basically one we've been talking about taking down all the trees in the front of our house. And one day Aaron said, they're coming tomorrow to take down the trees. And I'm like, how much did that cost? Because you know, taking down trees is usually really expensive. And so he says, well, he's going to do everything in the front for whatever. It was $5,000.1 (1m 22s):Yeah. She was pretty good for more than one tree. Cause one tree we had removed was $5,000 at my mom's.2 (1m 28s):Well, and it's not like they have to extract the whole tree. It's just, you know, just chopping it down. Like it's not, I don't know if it's different when they have to take out the, yeah,1 (1m 38s):I think it is when they have to take the stump out the roots and all that.2 (1m 43s):So that was fine. Although I did think to myself, Hmm. We have $5,000 to spend and this is what we're spending it on.1 (1m 54s):I've been there. Oh, I've been there2 (1m 56s):So the morning, but I'm letting it go. And so the morning comes and he tells me to go outside so we can talk about the trees and, and, and I, anyway, we, we designate some trees and they're all in the lower part of the front of our house.1 (2m 10s):Yes. You, and by the way, for people that don't know, like you have a lot of land for, for, for, for not being in the super super country, you have a lot of courage. I mean, you got a lot of trees.2 (2m 21s):Well, yeah, we have an acre and it's a lot of trees and it's a lot of junk trees. What they call junk trees. Because the idea here is once upon a time, when everybody got their heat from wood, you had to have fast growing trees. So it's these skinny trees. Yeah. Anyway, so I thought we were sort of on the same page about what we were going down. This is where I'm getting with this. And I had a couple of meetings yesterday and I was hearing the sound pretty close, but it wasn't until I looked outside that I saw, they took everything out.2 (3m 1s):The, every living thing out in the, in the front, in front of our house, including the only tree I was really attached to was I have a beautiful lilac tree.1 (3m 14s):Okay. Oh shit. And everything out.2 (3m 21s):What's that? Why they1 (3m 22s):Take everything out? Is that the plant? I think,2 (3m 25s):I think what happened was for the first couple of days, the boss was here. And then I think yesterday, the boss was like, you guys just go and finish up. And I don't know that anyway, you know what, I'm just choosing it to be, I'm choosing to look at it like, okay, well we're getting to start over and it can be exactly how we want it to be. So yeah,1 (3m 45s):That is a great attitude because there's nothing you can do you really do about it? Absolutely. Zero. You can do about threes coming out.2 (3m 53s):The only bummer is that it sounds like buzz saws all day at my house and at my neighbor's house, I'm sure they're annoyed with us too. Well,1 (4m 2s):What are you going to put? It is. Okay. So, so, okay. The good, that's the sort of wonky news, but what the good news is, what are you going to put in? Like, is there going to be a whole new,2 (4m 12s):I think it's just going to GRA, I mean, I think it's just going to be grass, which is fine. I mean, my thing was actually, it does a little bit of a metaphor because when we first moved here, we loved how quiet and private and everything is. And part of why everything feels very private at our house is there's trees and bushes blocking our view of anything. I mean, all we can see is trees and bushes when we're laying on the front, which for a while seemed cozy. And then it started to seem like annoying that we could never see. And actually there's kind of a really beautiful view of the mountains behind us. So our mountains Hills.1 (4m 51s):Yeah. But I mean, small mountains, like small2 (4m 53s):Mountains. Yeah. So I realized that it does coincide with our psychological spelunking and trying to just be like more open about everything. Like totally. You know what I mean? Like this is just be open to people seeing our house. This is open to seeing out and let's have, and actually my kids were kind of like, oh, but it's just also open and we don't have any privacy. And I'm like, yeah, well you have your room and bathroom. I mean, there's, there's places to go if you don't want people to, to see you, but let's just be open.1 (5m 31s):There's like a whole, yeah. It's a great metaphor for being visible. Like I am all about lately. I have found a lot of comfort and refuge in the truth of the matter, even if it's not pretty, even if I don't actually like it. So like getting the facts of the matter and also sharing the, of the matter without a judgment. So I appreciate this, like wanting to be seen and then letting go of what people make of that, whether your house is this way or that way, or the neighbors think this or that, I'm also the, I I'm all about it.1 (6m 15s):I'm like, you know, this is, there's something about transparency. That's very comforting for me. It's also scary because people don't like it when they can see, or they can say whatever they want, but the hiding, I think I'm pretty convinced hiding from myself and from others leads to trouble.2 (6m 37s):It leads to trouble. And any time you're having to kind of keep track of what you're, you know, being open about and what you're not, and what you've said, you know, it just it's like it's T it's listen. If I only have a certain amount of real estate in my mind, I really don't want to allocate any of it too. Right. Hiding something and trying to remember. Right.1 (7m 1s):And it's interesting, the more that we do this podcast, the more I see that, like, you know what I thought gene, I thought when we're dead, this podcast is going to remain. And then our children's children's children. I mean, I don't have kids, but my nieces and nephew and your children's children's children will have a record of this. And, and I'd rather it be a record of the truth, the truth and transparency, then some show about pretending. So I think it's going to be good for them to be able to look back and be like, for me, it's like the, my crazy aunt, like, what was she doing? And what did she think? And, and, oh my God, it's a record of the times too.1 (7m 43s):Yeah.2 (7m 43s):I think about that kind of a lot. And I think about, of course I say all this and my kids are probably like going to be, have no interests unless the, until they get to a certain age, I mean, I'll put it to you this way. If I could listen to a podcast of my mother in her, you know, in the time that I don't really the time of life, certainly before I was born, but in my life where I still didn't see her as a person until, you know, I'd love to just things like what her voice sounded like then, and that kind of thing. I mean, it's interesting.1 (8m 16s):I have nothing of my mom, like we have a very few, it was interesting because we didn't, you know, we, there was not a lot of video of my mother and today's actually the 10th anniversary of her passing.2 (8m 28s):Oh, wow. Wow. That's hard.1 (8m 31s):It is hard. You know, it is hard. And I'm working through, I started therapy with a new therapist, like a regular LCSW lady. Who's not because my last guy was an Orthodox Jewish man who wanted me to have children. Like it was a whole new, I just got involved in all the Shannon Diego's of like weirdness. I attracted that weirdest and whatever. So this lady is like a legit, you know, therapist. And they only bummer is, and I totally understand she's on zoom, but like, I I'm so sick of like, I would love to be in a room with a therapist, but I get it. She's in, she's an older lady, which is also great. I was so sick of having like 28 year old therapists.1 (9m 13s):Yeah,2 (9m 13s):Yeah, yeah. For sure.1 (9m 16s):I don't even seem right. Unless clients are like, you know, fit seven to 17. So anyway, so, but all this to say about my mom, I was thinking about it and I think what's harder than right. My mom's death right now is that there's I just, you know, and this is something I wanted to bring up with you is just like, I have a lot of rage that's coming up lately about my childhood and we weren't allowed to feel rage. And my mom was the only one allowed to feel rage. And so this rage mixed with perimenopause slash menopause. I mean, like I still get a period, but like, it's, it's a matter of time before that's over.1 (9m 58s):So, but the rage, so I guess, right. I get, you know, people like to talk about rage as some or anger as something we need to process and we need to do this and that, but the truth of the matter is since we're being transparent, like rage can be really scary. Like sometimes the rage, I feel, it's not like I'm going to do anything. Why wonky? I hope, but it's more like a, I don't know what to do with it. That is my, and I was talking in therapy about that. Like, I'm not actually sure. Practically when the feelings come up, what to do with rage. And I feel like it speaks to in our culture of like, we're all about now, this sort of like, we talk about this fake positivity and shit like that.1 (10m 41s):And also like embracing all your feelings, but there's not really practical things that we learn what to do when you feel like you're going to take your laptop and literally take it and throw it across the room and then go to jail. Like you, you. So I have to like look up things on the internet with literally like what to do with my rage.2 (11m 1s):I think that's why that's part of my attraction to reality. Television shows is a, is a performance of rage. That's that I wouldn't do just because I don't think I could tolerate the consequences. I mean, an upwards interpretation is, oh, it's not my value, but it's really just like, I don't think I can manage the content of the consequences. I'm totally at having all these blown up1 (11m 30s):And people mad at me and legal consequences. I can't,2 (11m 35s):It's something very gratifying about watching people just give in to all of their rage impulses and it's yeah. I, it it's, it may be particularly true for women, but I think it's really just true for everybody that there's very few rage outlets, although I guess actually maybe sports. Well, when it turns, when it turns sideways, then that's also not acceptable.1 (12m 3s):Yeah. I mean, and maybe that's why I love all this true crime is like, these people act out their rage, but like lately to be honest, the true crime hasn't been doing it for me. It's interesting. That is interesting. Yeah. It's sort of like, well, I've watched so much of it that like now I'm watching stuff in different languages, true crime. And I'll start again. No, no, just stories. I haven't all been the only stories that I haven't heard really, really are the ones from other countries now. So I'm watching like, like true crime in new, in Delhi.2 (12m 42s):Do you need your fix? I actually was listening to some podcasts that I listened to. There's always an ad and it's exactly about this. It's like, we love true crime, but we've heard every story we know about every grisly murder, you know, detail. And it was touting itself as a podcast of, for next time I listened to it. I'll note the name of it so I can share it with you. You know, about this crimes. You haven't heard about1 (13m 9s):T the thing is a lot of them now, because I'm becoming more of a kind of sewer. Like a lot of it is just shittily made. So like the, the they're subtitled and dubbed in India, like India. So you've got like the, the they're speaking another language and then they're and if they don't match, so then I'm like, well, who's right. Like, is it the dubbing that's right. Or the subtitles that are right. And, and actually the words matter because I'm a writer. So it was like one anyway, it's poorly done is what I'm saying in my mind. And so it sort of scraped scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's like deli 9 1 1. I swear to God. That's what it, and, and it's, and also it's, it's horrifying because the, you know, the legal systems everywhere fucked, but India has quite a system.2 (13m 57s):I think that to the rage, like, tell me more about what comes up for you with rage and where you,1 (14m 6s):Yeah. Okay. So some of it is physiological, like where I feel literally like, and I think this is what my doctor's talking about. The menopause symptoms. I literally feel like a gnashing, my teeth. Like, I feel a tenseness in my jaw. Like, that's literally that. And she's like, that could also be your heart medication. So talk to your heart doctor. I mean, we're checking out all the things, but like, but it's tension. That's what it really feels like in my body is like tight tension where I feel earth like that. If I had to put a sound effect to it, it's like, ah, so I, I feel that is the first symptom of my rage. And then I feel like, and, and I say out loud, sometimes I hate my life.1 (14m 54s):That's what I say. And that is something I have never allowed myself to say before. Like I, I think unconsciously, I always told myself, like, you just, you have to be grateful and you know, those are the messages we receive, but sometimes life just fucking sucks. And sometimes my life, I just, I just can't stand. And, and in moments, you know, I never loved myself. So it's mostly a physical symptom followed by this is intolerable, what someone is doing. Sometimes my dog or my husband, but even, even if the coworking space, you know, like the lady was talking too loud and I was like, oh my God, this is intolerable.1 (15m 34s):She has to shut up. So agitation, that's what it is. And, and then it passes when I, if I, if I can say, oh my gosh, I am so fricking in Rouge right now. Then it passes.2 (15m 52s):Yeah. Well, it, it kind of sounds like from, from you and probably for most people, the only real option is to turn it in on yourself, you know, like you're not going to put it elsewhere. So you've, you know, you have, which is, so I guess maybe it's okay if you turn it on yourself, if you're doing, if you're working, if you're doing it with acceptance, which is the thing I'm gathering from you, as opposed to stewing and festering. And1 (16m 21s):I mean, it becomes, it's interesting. Yes, it is. So it's like, so red, hot, and so sudden, almost that the only thing I can do is say, okay, this is actually happening. Like, I can't pretend this isn't happening. I, it I'm like physically clenching my fists. And then I, yeah, there is a level of acceptance. I don't get panicked anymore. Now that I, that something is wrong. I just say, oh, this is rage. I name it. I'm like, I feel enraged and white, hot rage, and then it, and then it, and then I say, that's what this is.1 (17m 3s):I don't know why. I don't know where it's coming from. Right. In this moment. It's not proportionate to the lady, like literally talking on the phone at my coworking space that she's not shouting. So it's not that. And I don't want to miss that. I'm not like I can't fool myself to think that it's really, that lady's problem. That I feel like throwing my laptop at her head. And then, and then it passes. But, but, but it is, it is more and more. And, and I think a lot of it, not a lot of it, but you know, my doctor really does think that it's, it's hormonal. A lot of it just doesn't help the matter. I mean, it's not like, oh, great. It's hormonal. Everything's fine. But it, it does help to make me feel a little less bonkers.2 (17m 45s):Maybe you should have like a, a whole rage. Like what, like a rate. Well, first I was thinking you should have a range outfit. Like, oh, for me, if I, I noticed I pee in the winter anyway, I pick like my meanest boots and my leather jacket. When I'm feeling, you know, maybe say maybe kind of a rage outfit, when did Pierce?1 (18m 9s):No, I, I scratched myself in my sleep. Oh no, it's okay. It happens all the time. I do it in my sleep. It's a thing that it's like a little skin tag that I need to get removed. It's2 (18m 23s):So you could have a rage outfit and then you could have a rage playlist, And then you might even have like rage props. I'm just trying to think about a way that your ma you, you could write because if, if how you process something is artistically creatively, then maybe you needed a creative outlet that's specifically for, for race.1 (18m 48s):Yeah. And you know, the, I, I love that. And now I'm thinking about like, as a kid, we, because we, anger was so off limits to us. I used to violently chew gum. Like I would chew on the gum. That was a way, and my mom did the same thing, even though she also got her rage out, but it was like, you know, when people violently chew on their gum, like that was a way I could get my aggression out. That's so sad that that's like the only way.2 (19m 16s):Well, I mean, you find it wherever you can find me. It's like water looking for whatever that expression is, right? Yeah. Huh. Well, I have to get more in touch with my rage because I I'm told that I seem angry a lot.1 (19m 33s):You do.2 (19m 35s):I, I do get told that, but, but that sucks for me because I feel like I'm not expressing my anger and I'm, but I'm not. So I'm not, and I'm being seen as angry at certain times. So that means I didn't even get the benefit of like letting out the anger that somebody is.1 (19m 56s):Right. You didn't even get to act out the anger. It's like, yeah. So for me, miles tells me that all the time, like, he's like, you seem really in couples therapy. Also, I have to admit yesterday was a big day. We had couples therapy on zoom. Then I had individual therapy. And in between I had all kinds of like, just stuff happening. So, but yeah, I'm told I a miles is like, you seem so angry and he's not wrong. And, and we take it out on the people that we live in a two by four apartment with. So I also feel like this office space is helping with that, but yeah, I dunno, I'm going to have to keep exploring my, my rage and that's what it is.1 (20m 37s):And also it is like, I am the character in where the wild things are that kid, that is what I feel like. And it feels it's like the perfect cause he wants to gnash his teeth and, and he does, and a thrash, thrash, thrashing mash, or the words 2 (21m 6s):Let me run this by you that I wanted to do when we're going to talk to Molly that we didn't get to do. And it was based on made, you know, and just about money and, and wondering like what your relationship is right now with money. And also, but when were you at your lowest with money? What do you remember as being your lowest moment? Sure, sure. With money with money.1 (21m 40s):Okay. I have moments of what first comes to mind was when right. I was at DePaul. So it's an apropos in college and there was obviously a sense. I had a sense of lack, always, even though based on whatever, but it was phone. Somehow my accounts were always negative, right? Like, and I would call the number, the banking number, incessantly to check, and it would always be negative. So I have this panic thoughts about that. Like being a time of like, and that's not the only time that happened like that.1 (22m 23s):Where, what is the feeling? The feeling was that, and this was in college where it started to happen, where I felt like there's never enough. No, one's going to help me. I'm irresponsible with money. Was the message I told myself and I probably was, I was in college, but I can't handle money. And literally that, that panic was also, I mean, it was true. I had no money, but my parents would have backed me, probably helped me out, but I was too scared to ask for help. So that's like, that's when, when you asked that question, that's where I go.1 (23m 4s):But, but that's also a college kind of me. So like in terms of an adult, me, that's a really great, great question. My lowest, I don't know. What about you?2 (23m 22s):Well, I've got a lot of Loma Loehmann's moments with money when I was in high school. The thing was, I lost my wallet all the time.1 (23m 35s):Oh, I remember this. I remember you talking about,2 (23m 38s):Yeah, that'd be still lose stuff all the time. That actually started at a young age with, you know, my mom would, she, my mom was really into jewelry and she would buy me destroyed. And there's nothing wrong with the fact that she brought me jewelry, but I lost it. You know, she buy me nice gold jewelry1 (23m 59s):Because she likes nice things. That's right. Yeah.2 (24m 4s):In college it was pretty bad. And the first time it was pretty bad. I had to move back in with my mom because I couldn't afford rent. And then the second time I just, I re I really, if I had more bravery, I probably would have signed up to be one of those girls in the back of the Chicago reader. Like, I, I, I just figured what ha how literally, how else? Because I had a job, but I only worked however much I could work given the fact that we were in rehearsals and like busy all day, so I never could make enough money. And then I just, I think I always have had a dysfunctional relationship with money.1 (24m 51s):Wait a minute, but I have to interrupt. Why, why didn't our parents fucking help us? Okay. Look, I know I sound like a spoiled asshole brat, but like, when I think of the anxiety that we were going through and I know your mom did, so I'm not going to talk shit about your mom or anything, but I'm just saying like, why did we feel so alone in this when we were so young, this is not right.2 (25m 11s):Yeah. Well, my mom did help me out as much as she possibly could, but I think part of it too, my dad certainly didn't think it was that. I mean, when my mom was 18 and my dad was 19, they bought a house and had a baby. So I think part of it is, has been like, what's the matter with you? Cause I didn't go to college, you know, that's the other thing. So, so then when I, then I had a period for like 10 years where I always had three jobs, me two, what1 (25m 46s):Did you have enough then? I mean like, could you make rapid enough?2 (25m 49s):I had enough then yeah, I had enough then. But then when Aaron decided he wants to go to medical school, it was really on me to, to bring in the income. I mean, his parents always gave him money. They helped, it was a lot more. I mean, and actually it's why he became a therapist because I thought, well, we're going to be living with no income because he's going to be a student. Right. So I better giddy up and get a job. So the whole time I was in social work school, I was bartending. I remember that. And then I went quickly into private practice so that I could make money.2 (26m 29s):And it turned out to be, it turned out to backfire on me. Tell1 (26m 35s):Me, tell me, tell me more.2 (26m 37s):It backfired in two ways. Number one, I was, I shouldn't have been operating a private practice without my LCSW. I had my MSW and I was working at the time in a psych hospital. And all of the psychiatrist said, you should start your private practice. You should start your private practice. And I remember saying at the beginning, I don't know if I'm allowed to oh yes, yes. You definitely can. I know tons of MSWs into plenty of people and it's true. I don't know if it's still true now in New York, but at that time you could walk around and see plenty of nameplates for offices where somebody in private practice and that just have an MSW.2 (27m 18s):They just had to have a supervisor1 (27m 19s):Or something.2 (27m 22s):I don't know. Okay. I dunno. Right. So that ended up coming to haunt me when a disgruntled patient. And they're all disgruntled in some way, a family who actually had been swindled by a con artist, like they, they were a blue blood, rich ass family and they got swindled by a con artist. And so they were talking about rage. They had a lot of rage about that. When this guy who was paying for his daughter's treatment, didn't think it was going where, you know, he wanted it to right.2 (28m 4s):He started pushing back about the fee and then he was submitting to his insurance company and they were not reimbursing because I didn't have the LCSW. So then he reported me to the New York state office of professional discipline or1 (28m 21s):Whatever yeah.2 (28m 21s):Regulation or whatever. Yeah. And I ha I had to go through a whole thing. I had to have a lawyer and I had to go, yeah, yeah. It was a nightmare. It was a complete and total nightmare. And I, and I said nothing, but like, yeah, I did that. I did do that. And I did it because I needed to make the money. I mean, in some ways I don't regret it because I did it worked for the time that it worked. And then by the time it stopped working, I was ready to leave private practice anyway. Oh my God. Yeah. But then it also backfired because we were taking in this money, which we desperately needed living in New York city with two kids.2 (29m 3s):And, and we were, we were spending it all and not hold withholding any for taxes. So then that started, that started, that started almost 10 year saga of just, I mean, I, it's embarrassing to even say how much money we've paid in just in fees, compounded fees. Nope. I'm sure. In the last 10 years we've given the government a million dollars.1 (29m 29s):That sounds, that sounds about right. And you know, I think the thing with money too, is the amount of forgiveness I've need to muster up for the financial decisions that I have made. So one of them that I'm super embarrassed about is that, and I, and I hear you when it's like, yeah, I, it, it's embarrassing. I, I, when I did my solo show, I inherited the year that my mom died. My great aunt also died, who I very barely knew. And I inherited like, like a lot of money. Well, to me, a lot, like 50 grand from her, and I spent 15,000 on a publicist for my solo show that did nothing.1 (30m 14s):So I was swindled. Oh,2 (30m 17s):I'm so sorry to hear that. That really did nothing.1 (30m 22s):I could have done it all on my own. I could have done it all on my own, on drugs, in a coma. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, like, come on. So I have done made some questionable decisions. I did the best we did the best we could with, with the information that we all had at the time. I would never make that decision. I wouldn't, I will never make that mistake again. So yeah. Money is very, very, obviously this is so like kind of obvious to say, but it is, it is. So it is a way in which we really, really use it to either prize or shame ourselves. Right. And, and, and w I do it either way, like I do it.1 (31m 2s):Oh, I'm so fancy. I inherited this dough. And then I also do it. It's that thing that they talk about in program, which is like, you're the worm, but you're the best worm for the festival, special worms. And like, you're not a worker among workers. I'm just like the best idiot out there. It's like,2 (31m 18s):Dude. Yeah. And you're making me realize that money might be the only very quantifiable way of understanding your psychology list. The money is like, understanding your psychology through math. It's going okay. If you're a person like me who gets offered a credit card at age 20 totally signs up and, and immediately maxes it out at whatever, to get 27% interest rate. So whatever little thousand dollars of clothes I got, I probably paid $10 for it. And for the longest time. So, so that's me being afraid of the truth of my financial situation, being unwilling to sacrifice, having, you know, whatever, cute clothes being about the immediate gratification of it all and not thinking longterm.2 (32m 15s):Yeah.1 (32m 16s):Okay. Well, not asking for help either. Like, like, I don't know who I'd asked, but someone had to know more than me. I didn't ask my parents. They didn't really know what was happening at, or that just was their generation of like, not teaching us about money. It was sort of like, good luck. Get it together. We got it together. You get it together. Okay. Fine. But like unwillingness and fear to ask, to be taught something about money. Like, I didn't know, Jack shit about credit or interest Jack shit.2 (32m 46s):Yeah. And I recently realized that I'm basically redoing that with my kids, because we supposedly have this allowance. Only one of my kids ever remembers to ask for it because you know, only one of my kids is very, you know, very interested in money, but like, in a way I can understand why the others don't because it's like, well, anytime they want something, I pay for it. I never say sometimes I'll say recently, I've gotten better about saying, if we're going to go back to school shopping I'll especially if the oldest one, I'll say, this is your budget. If you, if you spend it all on one pair of sneakers, then I hope you're okay with your sweat pants that don't fit and wear them everyday for the rest of the school year.2 (33m 31s):Right. But it's, we've, we've just been extremely inconsistent in tying, like, for example, chores to your allowance,1 (33m 42s):It's fucking miserable and hard. And I have trouble doing that for myself. I wouldn't be able to do that for my children. If I had children, I can't not give the dog people food. What are you talking about? How am I going to bring it? Doesn't shock me. We didn't learn the skills and I'm not blaming. I mean, I'm blaming, of course my parents, but I'm also just saying, it's just the facts. If we're going to be that in the truth, like, I didn't learn, I didn't educate myself and nobody educated me. So I'm really learning through trial and error. Mostly error, how to be okay with money. And it is you're right. Like finances, romance, and finance teach us the most about our psychology.2 (34m 24s):Yeah. Yeah. Romance finance. I love that. 1 (34m 28s):I think that my boss at Lutheran social services to say all the time, finance and romance, romance, and finance, that's what all these addictions are about is that's how you see them. I'm like, she's right. I mean, she was, I liked her. She was bonkers, but I liked her. She said some good. She, she also is famous for saying, and she didn't say it, but she would always quote, the, no one gets out of here alive. You know, none of us getting out of here life, we might as well start2 (34m 54s):. Well, today on the podcast, we were talking to Carol Schweid and original cast member of the original production of a chorus line on Broadway. She's got great stories to tell she's a fascinating person. And I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation with Carol Schweid. Exactly. Carol shrine. Congratulations. You survived theater school. I did. You did.2 (35m 34s):And where did you go to theater school. Okay. First of all,3 (35m 38s):Let me just take my coffee, my extra coffee off of the stove and put it on my table. Cause it's gonna burn because we don't want that.4 (35m 51s):Okay. You're I am looking for a cop. If you have one, you know, this is ridiculous.3 (36m 2s):Hi there. Hi. This is a riot that you talk about surviving theater school. I think it's great. Okay. So this is working, right? You can hear me. Yeah, no, totally. A hundred percent. So this is my, I started college at Boston university. I was an acting major, which I loved. I really did, but I, what I loved more than anything was I loved the history of the theater. We had a great professor who told the tales of the gladiators and the, you know, the gladiators on the island and the fighting, and then the island, the survivors, and then the island would slowly sink into the water.3 (36m 45s):What is this? What did I miss? It was the early history of the theater. It was starting on the church steps. It was, you know, the second, whatever all of that history was, I found it really interesting. I also loved the station shop crew stuff. I liked learning about lighting. I was terrible at it. I, you know, I would fall off ladder, but I, I, I enjoyed the backstage stuff as much as I enjoy. I just, I liked it. I, we did the rose tattoo and my, and my first job was to take care of the goat. I was on the prop crew.3 (37m 28s):I took care of the goat. Was it a stuffed goat? No, it was a real goat. Wow. What can I tell you? The rose tattoo. There's a goat in the play. I didn't realize you could have livestock and colleges, college, whatever it was. I look like I have jaundice with is that something's wrong with the light jump I sent you stop your, where is the microphone part of your, do you want me to hold it up better? Because when you move, it hits your shirt and it makes like a scratching, right? That's right. I'll do it this way. I won't move around. When you look tan, you look, you don't like jaundice at all. Okay. Well then that's all right. Good. Thanks. Were the goat handlers.3 (38m 8s):Good to talk to you. I mean, that was, and I didn't mind, I didn't mind being an usher. All of those things, you know, I remember somebody sitting us down and saying, you're you are the first person. The audience we'll meet tonight as an usher. I took all of the stuff I did, but the acting business was very confusing to me. I didn't quite know. I had done a lot of theater and dancing and been in the shows and stuff, but I really, I was a little more of a dancer than an actor. I'd taken class in the city. I'd followed some cute guy from summer camp to his acting class. But half the time, I honestly didn't understand a word.3 (38m 48s):Anybody said, I just, nobody does. I really didn't get it so much at the time I loved it, but I didn't always get it. And for some reason, and I have no idea where this, why this happened. I had a boyfriend in summer stock whose mother worked at Barnard and her best friend was a woman named Martha Hill. Martha Hill ran the dance department at a school called Julliard. Nope. I had no idea. Cool. Just a little, nothing school. This is back in the day. It's a long time ago. It was just a plain old school. It wasn't like a school, you know, where you bow down. And I really was a very good dancer and always loved dancing.3 (39m 33s):You know, I've been dancing since I'm like a kid, a little five or six or whatever. So I was a little disenchanted with my successes at Boston U even though I had friends, I was having a great time. I mean, Boston in the late sixties was amazingly fun, but I felt like I wasn't getting it. I mean, it wasn't a school that was cutting people. Thank God, because that would have been torture. I don't know how anybody survives that, but I audition for this dance department in this school called Juilliard and got in and then told my parents that I was going to change colleges. I remember making up a dance in the basement of my dorm in Boston.3 (40m 17s):Cause you had a sort of take class and then you had to show something that you should have made up. And somebody else from college was leaving school to come to New York to be a singer. So we decided we were going to be roommates. And then we had a summer stock. Somebody at BU started some summer theaters. So I had a job or two, I think I had some friends from there. So I ended up moving, changing colleges and going to Juilliard. And I spent three years there. I was a modern dancer major. So we had the Limone company, including Jose Lamone wow teachers and the Graham company.3 (40m 59s):I mean, Martha, Martha Graham did not teach, but her company did as a winter and Helen, I was Helen McGee. One of the, they were maniacs. I mean, they're, they're like gods and goddesses and their whole life is about dance. And I was one of those demonstrators for her eight o'clock beginning class, my third year of school. I mean, I, it was all about technique. We had amazing ballet teachers. We had Fiorella Keane who, I mean, Anthony tutor taught class there and he was Anthony. I mean, so I got a out of being at that school that I have never lost. I mean, I can, I'm making up the answers for high school kids now really.3 (41m 42s):I'm just finishing up a production of grease, which is really kind of boring, but whatever I liked Greece, tell me more. Yeah. It's okay. If you hear it enough, you really get sick of it. Well, that's true. Yeah. I mean high school kids doing high school kids is like, Jesus, God, you just want to slit your throat. The moodiness when it comes to the girls. I mean, I love them. I really love them. I love the guys because puppies, they fall all over each other and they're fabulous, but that's a lie anyway. So I did something that I don't know why I did it and how it worked out. That way I left. I had a very best friend in college that was, you know, and I came to New York and made, made and shared an apartment with this slightly crazy woman.3 (42m 32s):And a year later I got myself a studio apartment on west end avenue and 71st street. And my mom co-signed the lease. And I spent three years dancing, honestly dancing almost every day. I wanted to take sights singing, but they wouldn't let me because I was in the dance department. And I didn't know, you could advocate for that. Sure. I didn't know. You could take classes at Columbia. I mean, who had time anyway, but was it a three-year program? It was a four year program, but I had taken a music class at BU that was like music appreciation one. Yeah. And for whatever reason, they gave me credit for that.3 (43m 14s):So I had a full year credit. Yep. Three years of Juilliard where I really worked my tail off. What's weird about it is that I am, you know, just a plain old Jewish girl from New Jersey, you know, a middle-class Jewish girlfriend. And to, to think that I could have a profession where people don't talk and don't eat, which is what the answers do is a riot to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's an absolute riot because you know, I mean, that should be basically the manual for dancers. Don't talk, don't eat, but I always knew that I was heading to Broadway. I really have always wanted to do that.3 (43m 55s):And I, and, and w was not really ever in question that I would, I somehow assumed if I worked hard and figured it out enough, I would find my way to working on Broadway. And I, and I made the right choice in the sense of switching colleges. Because in the seventies, if you look at your list of Broadway shows, all the directors were choreographers. They were all dancers, all of them Fauci, Michael Bennett champion, all of them. So I started working when I got out of school, you know, it was, and I had already done a couple of summers of summer stock and I did a summer Bushkill pencil, you know, these ridiculous, stupid theaters all over, but it was a blast.3 (44m 36s):It was fun. Where, what was your first job out of school? I was still, I was in school and it was the Mount Suttington Playhouse, which was like a tin shell in Connecticut. And I think it was still in college. Cause two guys from school had opened this theater at the skiing place, but it wasn't skiing. Then it was a sh it was like a tin shell. So couldn't really do a show when it was raining very well. And I believe it was stopped the world. I want to get off and I can still remember the Alto harmony to some of the songs. So you okay. Wait, so you don't consider, you didn't consider yourself a, an actor or did you?3 (45m 20s):Well, I did, but I think what happened was I had to audition for something. It'd be you like, they had grad programs and it wasn't that I was unsuccessful there, but somebody came and I didn't get cast. I didn't get hired. And I didn't understand, you know, like they give you all these acting exercises. We do sense memory. Well, I didn't know they were exercises. I didn't, they were they're like plea aids. Right. They're like learning things. I took this all very seriously. I would stand in a room and try to feel it was like that song from chorus line, you know, try to feel the emotion, feel the, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.3 (46m 5s):I did all of that. I didn't really understand the simple, what am I want here? And what's in my way of trying to get it. Yeah. It took me so long to find teachers that I really could understand and make me a better actor. So when did you find them? When did you start to find them? Oh, that's interesting. Well, I found a couple of good teachers in New York. I mean, honestly there was a woman named Mary Tarsa who had been in the group theater and an older lady. I mean, it's a long time ago anyway, you know, but I remember sitting in her class and she would talk about using imagery and th and I started to sort of understand a little bit, which is amazing to me because after I moved to Westport and I met, do you know the name Phoebe brand?3 (46m 58s):Yeah. Phoebe brand was in our theater workshop. Oh, taught a class. She was already up in her eighties and she taught a class, a Shakespeare class on Sunday mornings. And all of a sudden these things that I didn't understand from decades before. Hmm. It sort of pulled it all together. But for me, I went, I was in California after I got married and moved to LA for a couple of years, found a teacher named John LAN and Lee H N E and two years in his class. I started to really understand how to do it. And then when I came back to New York, he sent me to Michael Howard and Michael Howard, Michael Howard was a great teacher for me.3 (47m 44s):He's still a great, I don't know if he's still around if he's teaching or not, but he was a wonderful teacher. And I started to understand how to do it. Was Len the, did he teach the method or what was yes, he was, he was an actor studio teacher. And I started to understand about being present on the stage and being able to deal with people. All of it, it just changed dramatically. I mean, I started to understand what this was about and seeing other good actors and chipping away at it and finding people to rehearse with. And1 (48m 22s):You, you, from what I know, and what I'm gathering is that once you graduated Juilliard, you were cast in New York.3 (48m 30s):Well, you know, I did get my very, my V I I've. I mean, I, I remember going to see midnight cowboy, which was about the same time as I got out of college. And I remember going into a terrible panic of, oh my God. I mean, really scared about all of it. And I, I went, I joined a class that a friend of mine, somebody told me about this class, you know, I always follow somebody to a class. I'm always, I have good friends. And I, somebody says, oh, I love this guy come to class and I'd show up.3 (49m 12s):And this was a musical comedy singing class, kind of where there were writers in the class and actors in the class. And the writers in the class would work on a musical that they didn't have permission for. It wasn't like they were, we were doing this for money or for, for future. So my friend who I became friends with wrote her musical version of barefoot in the park and which has never been done, but I remember I was in it and this guy was in it. And we, it was the kind of a class where it was a very warm, funny group, funny group of wacko theater people. And I would go to open calls and I'd usually go to open dance calls because that was a door for me.3 (49m 59s):And also I used to have to sneak out of Jew, not sneak necessarily, but essentially sneak out to take my singing lessons. And I took singing lessons every, you know, every week for years, for three years, I would, you know, and I, and I was not really, I don't think a very good singer, but I became a good singer. I would sneak out of school and go to an acting class. I don't even know when I started that, but I know that I would find the time to do it and then talk about acting and find a teacher so that when I would audition for a musical and I would get through the dancing. Usually if I got through the first cut, I would make it to the end. I wouldn't always get the job, but if I made it through that first horrible, random cut, you know, where there's 200 people in your dancing across the stage and it's yes, no, yes, no.3 (50m 47s):Is it really?1 (50m 48s):Because I'm not a dancer. So I never had this. I, when my agents are like, oh, there's an open dance call. I'm like, ah, that's you sent the wrong person, the email. So it's really like that, like in, in chorus line where they say, you know,3 (51m 1s):Oh yeah. It's like all that jazz. It's really like that.2 (51m 6s):Wait, I have a question. I want to hear the re the rest of that. But I, I just, I've never asked anybody. What's the biggest difference between the people who got cut immediately. I mean, was it training or were there people that, in other words, were there people who were just walking in off the street with no training trying to audition? Yeah,1 (51m 29s):No, truly an open call.3 (51m 31s):No. And sometimes these were equity calls. Cause I, I, I did get my equity card on a summer. That one summer I worked for a non-union, you know, we were in either Bushkill Pennsylvania or Southern Eaton Connecticut, or I did a couple of those summers. And then the next summer, the choreographer from that show had an equity job. And he hired like three of us from our non-unions summer stock, because we were good enough. And1 (52m 4s):So when you went to these open calls, everyone, there was a bad-ass dancer. No one, there was like,3 (52m 10s):That's not true. That's not true. There were all different levels of dancers, but it was also a look await, you know, it was always, I was always like seven pounds overweight. It was like, the torture is thing of weight does enough to put anybody over the edge1 (52m 26s):That they literally3 (52m 27s):Weigh you, Carol. Oh God. No. Oh, but it's so look, and I will tell you there's one. There was one time when I remember auditioning for above Fossey show and there were a lot of people on the stage and we were whatever we were doing. And then at 1.3 Fossey dancers, it was their turn. And these three gals, okay. Their hair was perfect. Their makeup was fabulous. They had a little necklace, they had a black leotards, you know, cut up high, but not out of control. Good tights, no, no runs, nice shoes, nails done.3 (53m 7s):And they were fantastic. They were clean. They were technically, and we all sort of went, oh fuck.1 (53m 16s):Right.3 (53m 18s):Right. And I have friends who became Fossey dancers. I mean, I worked for Bob, but I have friends who did a lot of shows him. And they had that same experience where they saw other people, the way it should be. And then they would go back a month later and get the job because they knew what it took. It was all about knowing what it takes. But the thing about having studied acting and having slowly studied singing is that in the world of musical theater, I was ahead of the game because there's not that much time. So you have to be willing to spend all of your time.3 (54m 0s):Right.1 (54m 1s):There are some people I'm assuming Carol, that could dance wonderfully, but couldn't do the singing and the acting part. And that's where you were like, that's the triple threat newness of it all is like, you could do3 (54m 12s):Well, I could do them better than a lot of people. And I certainly could sing well, and I had, I could sing a short song and I knew that you sing a short song. I knew that you'd probably do an uptempo, you know? And also I tend to be a little angry when I go into an audition. It's like, why do I fuck? Do I have to audition? I better, duh. So I needed to find things that allowed me to be a little angry so I could be myself. And I could also be a little funny if I could figure out how to do that. So all of these things worked in my favor. And then of course, like everybody else in her, a lot of people, pat Birch, who was a choreographer, she had like a gazillion shows running, including Greece on Broadway. And now over here, I don't know if she did grease, but she did over here.3 (54m 55s):She did. She was very prolific choreographer. She had been a Martha Graham dancer and she had taught a couple of classes at Julliard. And when it came to my auditioning for her, she needed girls who could dance like boys. She didn't need tall leggy, chorus girls. We were doing the show she was working on, was a show called Minnie's boys. And it was a show about the Marx brothers and the last number of the show. We were all the whole chorus was dressed up like different Marx brothers. And she needed girls who could be low to the ground, who can, you could turn who and I was the right person.3 (55m 36s):And I remember being in that class, that wonderful musical theater class with a teacher named Mervin Nelson, who was just a great older guy who kind of worked in the business. I remember I had to go to my callback. I went to my class and the callback was at night. And I remember him walking me to the door, putting his arm around me and saying, go get the job. And if you don't get this one, we'll get you. The next one1 (56m 4s):That makes me want to3 (56m 4s):Cry. Well, it made me feel like part of the family, cause we all want to be part of that theater family. And so I tend to do that when I'm with an actor, who's going to go get a job or go get, you know, you want to feel like it's possible. Yeah. You feel like you can, you deserve it.1 (56m 29s):You said, you mentioned briefly that you worked for Bob3 (56m 32s):Fossey. I did.1 (56m 35s):Oh my gosh. Did you turn into one of those ladies that looked like a bossy dancer too? Like, did you then show up to those auditions? Like, oh3 (56m 43s):No, I don't think I, I couldn't, I didn't, I could not get into a chorus of Bob Fossey, but I did get to play for strata in Pippin in the, in the, in the first national tour. And he, Bob was the, he was the director and I, I knew I was the right person for that job. It was also a funny, kind of lovely circumstances that I was in some off-Broadway an off-Broadway show that had started as an awful off, off of a, that, that Bubba, that moved to an off-Broadway theater. I got some excellent reviews. And I think the day the review came out was the day I had my audition for Bob Fossey.3 (57m 24s):So I, and I played it. I had talked to people who knew him. I talked to, you know, I, I knew that I, I don't know, I just, I, I had done some work and I just, I don't know the right person at the right time, somebody, he needed it. That part required a good dancer. Who could, I don't know how I got the part. I just,1 (57m 57s):I'm kind of getting the impression that we're talking about being a strong dancer.3 (58m 0s):Well, let's strong dancer. And also being able to, being able to talk and sing was really the key. I'm not sure that I certainly, as a young person, I, I didn't do nearly as much comedy as I did when I got a little older, but, and also there were a lot of divisions. You sort of either did musicals or you did straight plays and it was hard to get into an audition even for a straight play. And the truth is I think that a lot of us who thought we were better than we were as you get better, you see when you really, wasn't a very strong actor.1 (58m 43s):Right. But there's something about that. What I'm noticing and what you're talking about is like, there's something about the confidence that you had by maybe thinking that you might've been a little better than you were that actually behooves young actors and performers that, you know, cause when Gina and I talked to these people were like, oh my God, they have a healthy ego, which actually helps them to not give up as where I was like, I'm terrible. I'm giving up at the first hour.3 (59m 9s):Exactly. Right. Right. And, and it, and it goes back and forth. It's like a CSO one day, you feel like, oh yeah, I'm good at this. I can walk it. I get, I'm like, I'm okay with this. And the next day you just to hide under the bed, I think that's sort of the way it goes. I didn't know that people who worked on Broadway even then all had coaches and teachers and support systems and you know, being kind of a little more of a lone Wolf, which I was, and still fight against in a way I come against that a lot, for whatever reasons, you know, whatever it doesn't work, what to be a lone Wolf.3 (59m 54s):Yeah. Yeah. You can't do this alone. You can't do it without a support system. It's just too hard because when I actually had the best opportunity I had, which was being part of a chorus line, it was harder than I thought to just be normal, come up with a good performance every night, you know, it was up and down and loaded and that you lost your voice and had nobody to talk to because you couldn't talk anyway. And we didn't have the internet yet. You know, there was so many, it was so much pressure and so much, and I hadn't really figured out how to create that support system up for myself.3 (1h 0m 42s):And it was harder, harder than it needed to be. Did you ultimately find it with the cast? No. Oh, not really where they mean, oh, none of the cast was fine. It wasn't that anybody was mean it's that I didn't take care of myself and I didn't know how I was supposed to take care of my shirt. How old were you when you were cast in a chorus line? 27? Maybe I was, I was young and, but I wasn't that young. I just, but it wasn't that C w it was a strange situation to, I was, I had already had one Broadway show, so I had done, and then I had gone out of town to bucks county Playhouse.3 (1h 1m 25s):And did west side story Romeo was your first Broadway show. I'm sorry. It was called Minnie's boys. Oh, that was it. That was my, I did. And it was a show about the Marx brothers. Right. And I don't know if you know who Louis. We would probably do Louis Stadol and Louis J Staglin who works with, he works with Nathan Lane a lot. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's like second bun and he's incredibly talented. He played Groucho. Okay. We were all 25 years old. We were kids. We were right out of college. And the weirdest part of all was that the mother was played by Shelley winters. And this was a musical. What a weird you've really. Okay. So then you went onto chorus line.3 (1h 2m 6s):Well then, well then in between that, this is like, you know, then, then I went out of town to bucks county. I love being in bucks county for a year. We did west side story. We did Romeo and Juliet during the week. We do them together, one in the morning, one in the afternoon for high school kids. And then on the weekends, we do one of the, and I was the only person in the cast who liked dancing at 10 o'clock in the morning. You know, I didn't mind doing west side at 10 in the morning. I'd been up at eight, being a demonstrator for Mary Hinkson, teaching people how to do a contraction. So I didn't care. I love working in the daytime. That's what I play with your food is such a nice success. My lunchtime theaters here, I get tired at night.3 (1h 2m 47s):I don't know.2 (1h 2m 49s):Most people do wait. So was the, was the audition process for chorus line?3 (1h 2m 56s):I have a great story. I can tell you what my story is. Okay. So I, I was in, I don't know what I was doing. I had done a lot of off-Broadway work. I had been doing, I had been working a lot. And then of course there were the year where I didn't work. And then I went off to south North Carolina and played Nellie Forbush in south Pacific, in the dinner theater for three months. And I loved that. Actually, I think it was one of those times I had a job and a boyfriend and it was like a relief. It was wonderful to have like a life and then do the show at night. You know, I, I enjoyed that a lot and I didn't, you know, it was a big part and I didn't panic about seeing it.3 (1h 3m 37s):And it was just, I learned a lot from doing a part like that. I was doing Fiddler on the roof at a dinner theater in New Jersey, down the street from where my folks lived. And occasionally my mom would stop by her rehearsal and watch the wedding scene. Honest to God. I'm not kidding. She's like, Carol, you ever gonna get married? Are you ever gonna? Okay. So I'm doing Fiddler on the roof, in New Jersey. And there's a guy in the cast, one of the bottle dancers who were dropping off at night on 55th street, because he's working on this little musical about dancers and he would bring in monologues and he'd asked me to read them at rehearsal because he wanted to hear them out loud.3 (1h 4m 25s):And there was some stuff about this place to ever hear the peppermint lounge back in the studio. Right. It was a disco thing, but it was also a place where there was something. I remember one the couch girls, girls who would just lie on the couches and the guys, I mean really crazy stuff that did not make it into the show, but some interesting stuff. And I was playing the eldest daughter sidle, and it's a terrific part for me. So I was good. Yeah. And Nick knew I was a dancer. Anyway, this little show called the chorus line was in its workshop. Second workshop. They had already done the I, cause I was not a Michael Bennett dancer. I didn't, you know, I, I, I had auditioned for my goal once for the tour of two for the Seesaw.3 (1h 5m 10s):And it was the leading part and I didn't get it. I auditioned, I sang and I read and I read and I sang and I didn't get the part. And I came home and I was like in hysterics for like five days. I just, you know, I, I didn't get the part year and a half later, I'm doing Fiddler on the roof with Nick, Dante in New Jersey. And somebody leaves the second workshop and Nick brings up my name because there's a job all of a sudden to cover, to be in the opening and to cover a couple of parts next, bring up my name. And Michael Bennett says, wait a minute. I know her. I know she's an actress and she's a singer. Can she dance?3 (1h 5m 52s):So I showed up the next morning and I danced for 10 minutes and I got the job. I mean, I think, wow. Yeah. That's a great story.2 (1h 6m 1s):No. So that means you didn't have to participate in3 (1h 6m 4s):Callbacks or nothing. Oh, I started that day. I mean, honestly, it was Fiddler on the roof, you know what, I don't remember whether, how it went. Cause we were already in performance tour or something, you know, I, I it's a long time ago, so I don't really remember, but I know that this particular story is the absolute truth. That's fantastic. That2 (1h 6m 27s):Was it a hit right away3 (1h 6m 29s):Chorus line. Well, it wasn't, we were in previews. I'm no, we weren't even previous the second workshop, which means it was still being figured out. And when I came to the first rehearsal and sat and watched what was going on, I could not believe what I was seeing because the truth of what was happening on stage and the way it was being built was astounding. It was absolutely astounding because something about it was so bizarre. Oh. And also, also Marvin Hamlisch was the rehearsal pianist on Minnie's boys.3 (1h 7m 10s):Wow. So I knew him a little bit, not well, you know, but he was the rehearsal pianist that nobody would listen to a show about the Marx brothers, Marvin would say, wait, this is the Marx brothers. You got to have a naked girl running out of the orchestra pit. You gotta, you gotta, and of course, nobody would listen to him. Wait a minute, just turn this off, stop, stop, turn off. Sorry. So I couldn't get over what I was seeing. And I, I knew from the beginning, of course, I think most of us did that. Something very, very unique was going on and it was always changing. Like Donna McKechnie came in late at the audition, all dressed up in like a fur thing.3 (1h 7m 56s):And it was like, I'm sorry, I'm late. I'm sorry. I'm late. And then Zach says, would you put on dance clothes? And she said, no, no, wait a minute. Anyway, you couldn't help. But know sort of, you just kind of put,2 (1h 8m 8s):I mean, I remember seeing it when I was a kid and not, not being able to relate as an actor, but now that I think back, it just must've felt so gratifying to be seen for all of the, you know, because like we w the Joe Montana episode, we3 (1h 8m 28s):Haven't listened to yet, but I'm looking forward to2 (1h 8m 30s):It here today. But he was saying, I love3 (1h 8m 33s):Him2 (1h 8m 34s):For you. You were saying that when he won the Tony and everybody would say, well, it's like to win the Tony, what's it? Like he said, it's like, you won the lottery, but you been buying tickets for 15 years. You know, that's the part of acting that people now, I think it's a pretty common knowledge that it's really difficult to be an actor, but I don't know how Hmm, how known that was then. And it just, must've been so gratifying for all of those people. I mean, who are living in their real life? The story of that musical. Yeah.3 (1h 9m 9s):I think that that's true. And also, I mean, it really did come out of people's experiences. Those stories are so, so to be part of something like that, and down at the public theater, which of course it was a vol place to be, you know, you, you knew that Meryl Streep was walking down the hallway and you knew that. I mean, talk about confidence. I mean, I don't know if you've read her new book, no book about her. No, it's worth the time I listened to it. Actually, I didn't read it. I listened to, it's quite wonderful because you see a very confident person who's working on creating who she is.1 (1h 9m 47s):Do you feel, I feel like you have a really strong sense of confidence about yourself too. Where did that come from? Would you agree? First of all, that you have, it sounds like you had some comps, some real chutzpah as a youngster and maybe now as well. Where'd that come from3 (1h 10m 5s):Beats me. I have it now because I, I, I, I've had a lot of, a lot of experience. And I, I think that, that, I, I think I know a lot about this, but I don't know that I had it. The trick was to have this kind of confidence when it really matters. Yes. And I think I had it, like if I was in an off-Broadway show, I could say, I don't think that's good enough. Could you restage this blah, blah, blah. Or if I'm in North Carolina, I'm not, I think we need to dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. But when it comes down to the real nitty gritty of standing up for yourself, when it really, really matters, boy, that's harder than it looks.3 (1h 10m 51s):You know, even things like, I mean, my character, when I eventually took over the role of Miralis, which I under, you know, I was we've covered all these parts. There were nine of us. We sang in the little booth in the wings. We had microphones and little headsets. And the coolest part of all was Jerry Schoenfeld, who was the chairman of the Schubert organization would bring any visiting dignitary who was visiting the city that he was showing around his theaters. He would bring them into our little booth. And then we would watch the show from stage left in our little booth while we're singing, give me the ball, give him the ball. Cause half the dancers on the stage, cause stop singing because they had a solo coming up.3 (1h 11m 31s):So, you know, singing in a musical is not easy. You know, there's a lot of pressure and you got to hit high notes and you, you know, you just wake up in the middle of the night going torture, torture, and you have to work through that and finally go, fuck it. You know, fuck it. I don't care what I weigh. Fuck it. I don't care if I, if I can't hit the high note, but it, it takes a long time to get there. You know, I see people who do this all the time. I don't know how they live. I don't know how they sleep at night. There's no wonder people like to hire singers who have graduated from programs where they really understand their voice, know how to protect that, which you don't, you know, you have to learn, you have to learn how to really take.3 (1h 12m 24s):That's why, you know, it's wondering about ballet companies now have misuses and we didn't have any of that. You were hanging out there alone. I felt maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I felt. And if I was vulnerable or if I didn't feel well, and I was like, oh, what am I going to do? I can't tell anybo

Self-differentiation is more than just being a non-anxious presence in anxious situations. It's about building deeper, healthier relationships. This episode shows you how. Show Notes: The conversational habits that build better connections by David Robson Read the Full Transcript on The Non-Anxious Leader website. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jack-shitama/message

This episode is sponsored by our patrons.  If you think our podcast is valuable to you and others,  become our patron for as low as $5/month. You will have access to all of the transcripts, vocabulary list and patrons only episodes ************************************************************ Please hit that Subscribe/Follow button on your Podcast player, so you won't miss the latest episode.  Full Transcript of this episode  can be found on our Patreon page 0:00-02:11 女：听故事说中文，听得越多说得越好，大家好，今天给大家带来一首歌，歌的名字是《依靠》。 男：《依靠》。 女：本期节目由我们的Patrons赞助完成，在这里感谢我们的Patrons，没有你们的支持就没有这一期的节目。 男：没错，非常感谢我们的Patrons，其实这首歌是以前我们的一个Patrons说过的。 女：哦？ 男：对，这首歌其实比较老。 女：哦，你是说我们的Patrons很老吗？ 男：不是，我是说这首歌比较老。 女：是我很老吗？ 男：没有。 女：我从小听着这首歌长大的。 男：那你应该也有一点小老。 女：哦，你是说有一点成熟的美丽。 男：对。 女：好，那我们下面来听这首歌《依靠》。 男：《依靠》。 女：词小虫。 男：演唱任贤齐。 词：我让你依靠，让你靠，没什么大不了，别再想，想他的好，都忘掉。 女：我让你依靠，让你靠，没什么大不了，别再想，想他的好，都忘掉。 男：有些事我们活到现在仍不明了。 Are you already a listener? Leaving the show a review on iTunes will help more people find the podcast. Thank you!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Join us for the full discussion with Aaron Meraz, Director and Kyle Scott, Operations Director of Mission: Dignity, Guidestone. Mission:Dignity® honors retirement-age Southern Baptist ministers, workers and widows struggling to meet basic needs through advocacy and financial assistance. Mission:Dignity is the heart of GuideStone® and has been at the center of our work since we started more than 100 years ago. Full Transcript

Nilam is back again! And this time she is giving us all the details on how she budgets with her kiddos. In this episode, we talk about how our childhood habits with money affect the way we spend and save, and of course, how we can teach our kids to do better. We also have a special announcement in the intro - stay tuned for our new launch! (1) Kids and Allowances (2) How Nilam handles budgeting and money talk with her kiddos (yep, birthdays and Christmas presents, too!) (3) Teaching Kids and Taking Care of things Full Transcript is available on our website. Intro and Outro music: Dreamer by Noah Smith  

No matter how much family systems theory you know, self-regulating in the moment is the key to putting it into practice. This episode will help you do this so you can self-differentiate in anxious interactions. Show Notes: How to Be Happier Without Really Trying by Eric Barker Pocket Therapy for Emotional Balance: Quick DBT Skills to Manage Intense Emotions by Matthew McKay PhD, Jeffrey C. Wood,PsyD and Jeffrey Brantley MD Read the Full Transcript on The Non-Anxious Leader website. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jack-shitama/message

Narcissists are great at self-definition but not emotional connection. Understanding the difference between this and self-differentiation will help you as a non-anxious leader. Show Notes: Narcissism from Wikipedia How to identify narcissists at work—and when to avoid them by Art Markman, PhD Read the Full Transcript on The Non-Anxious Leader website. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jack-shitama/message

LCTS is sponsored by our Patrons. This episode is created at the suggestion of our patron 柯雷顿。 Some background knowledge on Yu Hua. He is a renowned Chinese author. His novels To Live (1993) and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (1995) were widely acclaimed.  Please hit that Subscribe/Follow button on your Podcast player, so you won't miss the latest episode.  Full Transcript of this episode  can be found on our Patreon page 说起余华，很多爱好文学的人都知道。他的小说《活着》被张艺谋拍成了电影，大放异彩，从而广为人知。但对于他的青春岁月，却鲜有人知。 19岁那年，余华在一个小县城里当牙医，每天八小时埋头在别人的烂牙里。人的口腔是世界上最没有风景的地方，这是余华当时最大的感慨。 For the full transcript of this episode and many others, please support us by becoming our patrons. ************************************************************ If you think our podcast is valuable to you and others,  become our patron for as low as $5/month.You will have access to all of the transcripts, vocabulary list and patrons only episodes ************************************************************ Are you already a listener? Leaving the show a review on iTunes will help more people find the podcast. Thank you!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️  

Homeschool mamas are often tired and discouraged. We long to hear an encouraging word. What does true, Gospel-centered encouragement look like? Mystie Winckler joins us today for this bonus Homeschool Conversations episode to discuss what true rest looks like for the homeschool mom, and how to find joy and peace in the midst of our ordinary lives. Like this episode? Check out my previous conversation with Mystie about attitude and expectations in homemaking. And be sure to read or listen until the end of today's chat to hear about her upcoming new book, too! Show notes/Full Transcript: https://humilityanddoxology.com/convivial-homeschool-mystie-winckler Thanksgiving Book List FREE download: https://humilityanddoxology.com/thanksgivingbooklist/ Christmas Book List FREE download: https://humilityanddoxology.com/best-christmas-books/ Clickable book lists: https://www.amazon.com/shop/humilityanddoxology Simply Convivial Continuing Education: https://learn.simplyconvivial.com/~access/a2c1907f/ (referral link) Thank you to podcast sponsor MoneyTime! Use code HDPOD21 for 25% off an annual license: https://bit.ly/3lNfO9a --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/humilityanddoxology/message

In this episode, Creator of Practiceology, Paul Wright, talks about 7 critical mistakes that healthcare professionals can make that can hurt their bottom line and their business in general. Today, Paul talks about Perfectionist Syndrome, the implications of discretion, and doing your own PnL. What is the true role of your business? Hear about the danger of falling in love with your product, packaging an outcome-driven solution, and maintaining effective recruitment and internal systems, all on today's episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “If it's [your business] robbing you of your life, it's not what it's there for.” “Find the hungry market and satisfy that need.” “If you're not embarrassed by the first launch of your product, you've launched too late.” “To the blind man, the one-eyed man is king.” “If you haven't upset someone by midday every day, you haven't said anything really important.” “One of the single biggest and most effective things you can do in your practice is to tighten up the reporter findings conversation.” “Remove discretion at the operating level of your business.” “Once you are the only person that has that program, you can't be compared on price.” “You can't put a monetary value on family time.” “There's no such thing as quality time with your family. Family time is quantity time.”   More about Paul Wright Paul Wright is a Physiotherapist and former owner of multiple allied health clinics in Australia (which he rarely visited). He is the author of the Amazon Best Seller "How to Run a One Minute Practice", founder of the Practiceology™ health business freedom program, and has helped thousands of allied health business owners across 57 countries, earn more, work less, and enjoy their lives.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Physiotherapy, PT, Business, Practiceology, Supply, Demand, Mistakes, Solutions, Healthcare, Entrepreneurship,   Resources: Get a hard copy of "How to Run a One Minute Practice" ($4.95AUD. Use promo codes below) Promo Codes: Non-Australian Buyers: KARENOS (Get $15 OFF) Australian Buyers: KARENAUST (Get $5 OFF) Register for the next Practiceology demonstration   To learn more, follow Paul at: Website:          PhysioProfessor.com                         HealthBusinessProfits.com                         OneMinutePractice.com LinkedIn:         Paul Wright   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript:  00:02 Hey Paul, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you on.   00:06 Absolute pleasure to be here. What a boss.   00:09 I know it's so we're doing a little podcast swap here which I love. I love being able to swap podcasts with other hosts where you come on mine I come on yours and we get to know each other better. So it's been really great leading up to these podcasts. And today, you are going to talk about seven critical mistakes that healthcare practitioners can make. That can really hurt their bottom line and their business in general. But before we get to that, can you tell us your story of your career and how you ended up where you are so the listeners get a better idea of who you are?   00:52 Well, I'm I was born for a young Karen. Now I'm from from a small country town. I'm obviously Australian by my accent. I live in beautiful Newcastle but an hour north of Sydney. But I grew up in a small town about seven hours northwest of Sydney in the middle of the outback. They talk about Australia next so I'm in the outback. And what does what does a young kid do as in a small country town he Bhikkhu like sport, he becomes a physical education teacher. Because that was all I thought you could do as as a kid. I love sport. So I went to Newcastle University studied my physio, field education qualification, and then didn't even know what a physio was, but I met a physiotherapist at a party. And I liked anatomy I liked physiology. I thought, gee, that sounds cool. I don't think I could be a teacher for a long time I had an entrepreneurial streak I think so I didn't know I could work for someone else for my rest of my life. So I'll get into this physio course went to Sydney Uni did my physiotherapy degree and within two years after graduating I had started my first practice I then ended up with six of them in Sydney, one in Newcastle and five in Sydney. And I think my claim to fame Karen is I as I went through this journey I didn't go to them I was fortunate that I stumbled across the E myth by Michael Gerber very early in my business career and and I'm trading at my window counter in my practice and and looking out on the road that goes past in Sydney and there's a bus keeps going past one on the side of the bus why most small businesses fail and what to do with that is on the side of the bus and I'm getting there watching the sun come up in the morning watching the sun go down like most most help business owners and this bus kept going past and I'm getting better now I wasn't good there but I'm better now that the universe was telling me something followed up with this with this he ended up getting it to a Michael Gerber seminar read the book EMF and then I created then systematize the practice and as I said eventually had six didn't go to any of them and I then sold them which is a lesson for all of you guys the major role of a business is eventually to sell it and then started teaching other health business owners how I did it how I was able to run the remotely and how how you can still be a great health professional and have a successful business and still have a great quality of life which I think most of us miss out   03:19 yeah that's a great point talking about quality of life and I think that we'll probably get into that throughout this interview so without yeah without further ado, why don't you share with us these seven critical mistakes that can reduce your profits increase your stress and really not allow you to live your life outside of your business. So let's start with number one.   03:47 Well the first one having said I've done all of these by the way so you have earned the right to   03:52 I can't I kind of I kind of assumed that so I've done   03:57 I've done all of them but the smart people learn from other people's mistakes so hopefully you'll listen to what's happening now. That Mistake number one that I identified early is failing to understand carrying the true role of your business and if you think about what what does what does your business do for you and if it's robbing you of your life it's not what it's there for the role of your business is to serve you it's your certain needs to give you more life yet when you ask most health business owners why they started this I I wanted to be my own boss or I wanted to make my own decisions or the guy was working for before was an idiot. Whatever they like to say but is this really happening now and as Gerber talked about when I first read it you're now doing the hands on work of the practitioner plus you're also doing the business stuff the marketing the recruitment in any wonder we get overwhelmed so early. And and that's why Gerber talks about it's true. I was probably better off opening a plumbing business because I couldn't do it. plumbing work I was better off opening a business that I couldn't physically do then I could list run the business and that's the whole idea of this. My brother who's a plumber would be staggered because I'm hopeless with power tools and I he's banned me from using any sort of manual labor things but the idea of the businesses to serve you and one thing I suggest you look at guys, his his work out what I call your freedom score. And your freedom score is simply how many hours per week on average? Do you spend treating patients at your practice? How many hours per week do you spend physically treating patients and if you're telling me that we've done this in seminars, 50 6070 I've heard I've had one guy doing it five hours. And they're still trying to run the business, you just, you just can't do that. So and we talk about this thing between practice ology, right is law, which is, which is as your number of team members increases, your freedom score must decrease, you can't keep adding team members to your roster, because they time suck, they have to take energy out of you, and still see all the patients, there's going to be this balance. And that was how I was able to run it. But when that being said, you have the choice of how you run your business. Now my model was to replace myself, get therapists in do the work for me. So I had freedom of time and freedom of money. But some of our clients have a Mr. X. Mr. X is the guy that runs healthcare practice, but he runs it on his own terms or her own terms. Doesn't work, school holidays, start at nine finishes at two sets his own hours or her own hours charges, what they feel it. And guys I'm thinking about that don't even have sometimes receptionist though, sometimes if the surfs up, they don't turn up at the practice, they just gave surfing. But the patients know that's the deal. If you want to see this person, that's the model. But even in that case, Karen, the business is still serving that person. It's, it's it, you're the master, but not the other way around. And I don't know if you've ever made that. But that's understand what you want your business to do for you. And make sure it does it. Otherwise it'll suck the life out.   07:17 Yeah, and I think that's why when you look at your business, whether you're just starting, you've been in it for a couple of years, you've been in it for 20 years, if you've never written down what your goals are for your life, not what your business goals are, but you know, do you want to spend, do you want to be able to watch a movie a week workout five days a week, spend dinner with friends, pick up your kids from school, drop them off, you have to write those goals down while you're looking at your business. Because that's that's how you're going to have that freedom. And that's how you're going to have your own life outside of the business.   07:58 And the natural recourse for all health business owners is typically to see more patients, regardless of what happens in their business. Regardless, they need more money, they see more patients, team member leaves, I'll see more patients. So that that's that's the recourse their natural recourse is to go back to what they know. We teach our clients sometimes that's the worst thing you can do. You need to do something exactly the opposite. And one point also to this is that this is probably one of my worst moments. You've got understand to the concept of current bank and future neck when you think about your business. Now I had a current bank business meeting. I had one of my practices earlier was inside a fitness center. So I had a physiotherapy practice inside a fitness center in Sydney. And it was a good business. It was a cash cow. But what I didn't realize at the time was it was fragile. So it was it was making me lots of money at the time. How I knew was fragile. I got a phone call from one of my clients would have been a Thursday night. He said, Paul, I've got some news for you. The owner of the gym I've heard hasn't paid rent for three months. Okay, this is a $300,000 business like I'm running here. Oh, that's the good so I ring the owner who when you will do the gym tonight what's the deal? He said it'll be sold out Don't worry about Okay, I arrived at the practice the next day cancer that patient list hard to track proceeded to put everything inside the trap that day. So by Friday, five o'clock, I've been everything inside the event saying what are you doing wrong? What are you doing? Well, I said I'm taking everything out because I don't know what's happening here. This is all a bit unstable because I went to give the owner the gym my rent check for the month and he didn't accept it. He said hold on to that for a second. Roger, you might need it. So okay, the writing's on the wall, drove off in the truck and everyone's saying Ronnie, another another gym Chad's gonna buy this place, you'll be back open on Monday. So when I open on Monday, I'll bring the truck back and I'll check everything back in then I'll be fine. But I'll tell you, I never again set foot inside that building. It shut that day and I never will went back in there. So overnight, a business goes from 300 grand to zero. What's the lesson I had a current bank business, there was nothing. I was relying on someone else's rent someone else's tenancy. If you're leasing a space in a Medical Center in a fitness center in something else, you think you've got a business you can you can sell. There's no real future banking, that you are at the mercy of your landlords. So it's not a bad way to test the market to see if there's available market. But that's not your long term gig. Because there's a problem with it, and I've suffered badly. Anyway, yeah, yeah, start number one.   10:41 Big mistake, mistake number one. So let's talk about Mistake number two.   10:46 All right, we do this all the time. We fall in love with our product. We fall in love with the idea of being a therapist, like I fell in love with the idea of being a physio, but I didn't know was there a market for that? Was there a need for more physios, I just wanted to be one. But we do that all the time, we fall in love with our product of therapy, what we got to fall in love with is, is the market, you got to fall in love with the market once, so you might have a passion for trading on that elbow pain in one arm. Gullfoss, that might be your passion. But if there's not enough one arm golfers out there, you're not going to do any good. So the market doesn't care what you want, find what the market wants. So your job is to listen to all of your patients, listen to the doctors, listen to the community, what's missing, your job is to fill the need. And if you do that, you'll be successful in business. My favorite one, hope you guys watch Shark Tank, you guys have shark tech in the States. That's shark tank with a my favorite one is the guy that turned up with the pad for guys shirts. So now that so you put up your stick to pads on the ROM so your shirt didn't get all sweaty, there was his product. The Sharks wouldn't touch it. I said I'm not really interested. And they said how many have you sold? I've been doing it for seven years now. I've sold about 500 so in seven years, and out the back the entity in there. So what are you gonna do now he said, Our, I believe in this, I'm gonna keep going I fell in love with this product, the market had already said they didn't want to move on. So find the hungry market and satisfy that need. If you do that, you will be okay. And you see that lock county if people so they open a practice in, in a country town or regionally because they might have identified there's a market for that service. So they've done well. But the part that missing is the available labor supply. Because there's two drivers of every business available market available labor, you haven't got enough labor, you're going to be staffing that thing yourself for the rest of natural life. And that happens all the time. So be very aware, don't, don't fall in love with a product, fall in love with the market, what's the desperate need in your community? solve that and you'll be halfway there. And that's that's kind of what I did in my second my next career because I I knew help business owners struggle with business and finance and marketing and other things. And it happened to marry up with something I liked and was good at. So that was a fortunate thing. But you've got to find the hungry crowd first.   13:18 Yeah, do your research. If you don't do your research first. You're in big trouble.   13:22 I had a guy come to me once and he said, Paul, I want to open seven practices on the northern suburbs of Sydney That's what he said to me in the seminar. I said oh is there is there enough market for that automatically sell so i think so he said he just he cuz he wanted to do it. Karen he wanted to open I saw Kenya available. I was a bit tired. Can you staff those seven practices? Will you find your start? I'll just advertise. There's a guy with his head in the sand. It's not funny. But I think the key thing I want to do I want to do this. Now that's okay, if that's a passion project. But if you want to generate a revenue and a business successful and you can sell it down the track if that's what you want to do, solve solve the desperate problem. Yeah, yeah,   14:14 turn it around. It's not about you. It's about you, but it's not about you all the same time, right.   14:21 If you get married up, it's great if you can find that that thing but be careful of what you do. So make sure there's a hungry market for an audit this we found out in one of our practices, there was a real market for lymphedema treatment. So massive market lymphedema and we had a guy who knew all about it the therapist and knew all about it. So we got him doing the lymphedema program. It was great. But But don't be Dora here didn't get him to train everyone else on how to do you know what happened? The guy leaves. Three years after we're still getting phone calls from people wanting lymphedema treatment and every time they rang it killed me. So Solve the desperate problem. Yes. But then protect yourself with the viable labor supply if you're doing something like that.   15:06 Yeah, absolutely. That's a great example. Okay, what's number three. So we've got failing to understand the true role of your business falling in love with your product, your product number two, what's number three,   15:18 we'll do this falling in love or falling victim to our own perfectionist syndrome. I was probably fortunate, I had some good mentors early in my career, and they'd tell me, Roddy, it's better to be 80% and out the door than 100%. And in the drawer. And it's so true, we just worry so much about putting something out there, because it's not quite perfect yet. Reed Hoffman, I think, was the founder of LinkedIn. one of the founders, he said, if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late. If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late. Meaning put your put something out there and you see if it's got traction, is it going to get some market share? Is it going to work for me? If it does, then you can then do version two, then do version three. But so many health professionals I get so caught up in making it perfect. I just want to do this, I just want to finish this, I just want to do this. And they end up not doing it. They wait that long, and they just slowly implement. Maybe it's because we're analytical thinkers, we're sometimes slow to implement, and we just, we drag the China bit. And I like this expression to, to the blind man, the one eyed man is king. But one of my mentors said to me, Roddy, you don't have to be the best in the world. You just got to be the best in their world. Say there might be a nice specialist down the road, who's who's a superstar does all the courses and is on all the all the seminars and other things and you've got your own new program. That's great. But don't let that stop you from what you're doing. Just be the best in your clients world at it. You don't have to be as good as that guy. You just have to be the best in the client's world. And, and that also, I think, Karen, sometimes maybe it comes from our universities that that we want to be anointed or we want to be awarded, or we want to wait for someone else to recognize me. Don't Don't wait to be anointed by your profession. Don't that's too slow, anoint yourself. Someone. Someone says to me, Roddy, who's the best health business mentor in the world? Well, I want to do wait for the National Association of physical therapists to make the announcement I'm not going to wait for that I am. And I think we're going to have some balls do that. But people take you at your own appraisal aren't going away in? And if not, that's your choice. But that's it again, don't wait to be annoyed because it's just too slow to do it that way. So don't fall victim to perfectionism because it's just a curse   18:12 for us. Yeah, very, very common. Especially I think I see it more in women than men. Men will often center feel like I'm just gonna do it and see what happens and women are more like, okay, it needs to be like this, it needs to be perfect. And I think sometimes our women judged more harshly than their male counterparts for things. There aren't as many women in leadership positions so you don't have that person that looks like me in those leadership positions as a point of reference, and so I think oftentimes women tend to keep putting things off because it's got to be as almost perfect before it goes out because we don't want to get judged harshly on something. And I see that consistently. Again and again. And a lot of men will just throw shit out there and it's like, yeah, this is fine. Who cares and women are like a   19:12 you got to remember littering once I was I did electric in the fitness industry years ago and in the in the personal training space. And I remember doing anatomy lecture one day to a group of trainers and I in the audience was my anatomy tutor from uni, like a superstar like this person, you everything about everything and I'm at the front talking anatomy and and it was a pivotal moment for me because I'm so self conscious about what I'm saying in front of this, this mentor. But no one asked her any questions. They all asked me the questions. I was at the front of the room. I had the clicker. I was in charge. I was the best in their world. She was the best in mind, but I was the best. There's that's it. I'll leave all of you to make the comments about Gaza girls, I can't say that sort of stuff. So knock yourself out cam   20:05 Yeah, yeah, I'm just that's just what I've seen, you know, over and over again, is, is that women tend to be a little more hesitant at putting themselves out there. And I get it, you know, as someone who has and who does put themselves out there, the criticism is harsh people can be mean, mean spirited, especially when it comes to social media can be a little toxic and, and you are judged very harshly and people say really mean things. So you have to grow a thick skin, I think if you're going to want stepping into kind of those leadership positions   20:43 that was published one of the key things, I think my management style of the business that you had to have a thick skin to work for us. I mean, maybe I was more suited to being an owner back then that I would be now I don't think I'd be as quite as sensitive as I'd need to be now. Anyway, that's if one of my mentors said to. And I love that when I say this, if you haven't upset someone by midday every day. You haven't said anything really important. What everyone's gonna agree with you You don't you don't have different doesn't have to agree with you. You just you haven't you have the right to have your opinion in this, but I think you need to do you'd have to agree with me, that's just what it is. But if everyone's agreeing with you, are you really saying anything of any importance possum?   21:24 Right, right? Very true. Very true. You don't want to surround yourself with Yes, people all the time, that's for sure. Because then you'll never move forward because you're never kind of grow and challenge yourself. Okay, let's, let's move on to number four.   21:40 Number four, ineffective, non existent. And unsupervised internal systems. You we've seen it, we've seen it, countless times someone goes to a seminar or they or they get an idea and they launch it into their practice. And, and they seem so excited about it. But the team have seen this before they've seen you come in with an idea and they've seen you launch it and they know you'll just it'll blow over. Once you get you'll see more patients and get busy so so that sometimes they do it for a while and you can see this owner because you'll say to them, do you have for example, you have a follow up system in your practice? I think we did here we look we did do something like that. Ryan, are we still doing that follow up system so that they haven't followed up and measured it. So one of the best things give you the tip, one of the single biggest and most effective things you could do in your practice is to tighten up the report of findings conversation. That's that's after I've done your history of January, your examination, and I'm saying what we're going to do to fix you that's the chiropractic wellness report the findings in their words, it's the action plan or it's our treatment plan, get get that script, right? Get that conversation, right? Write it down, sit the person next to you and write it down Mary to get you back running in that marathon in two weeks time. You need to see me three times a week for the next two weeks. I'll reassess you then and we'll get you ready for that race. How does that sound like that? Does that conversation that that currently is not done? Well in most practices? And and because I'm an analytical guy can often How do I measure that? How can I control that conversation. So I created an action plan a written plan. And, and the penny dropped for me when there is a number at the bottom. So the numbers at the bottom was how many how many sessions, how many times a week for how many weeks. So that's three times a week for two weeks, I had a number six, so that person needs at least six sessions before the next assessment. So I then made it mandatory that every patient would walk out at the front counter with that sheet that would give it to the admin person who and would verbally hand over that patient current to get married back to her run in two weeks time she's doing a marathon she's gonna do it really well. She needs to make three appointments for the next three weeks for the next two weeks and we'll get there admin to person books in in. And then I then got a spreadsheet that we created that has consults on plan. So that would be a six, the column next to it, consults booked. So you recommended six and how many were booked. Now if I if I then log into that spreadsheet and I see that my therapist has recommended six and a booking one so 616151 to one with it's a one on that on that booking column. I've either got a therapist problem or I've got an admin problem. Has the therapist not been good enough to get the confidence in the patient or is the admin under pressure and hasn't got time to book those sessions in advance. And you will know the dangers of a session by session appointment diary. It's just it's a recipe for disaster it's but that's that's an example of a system Karen you've got to put in to your business that you can then measure and stay on top. And you'll love this. So in true Polaroid style there was only one time in All of my practices where the therapist did not have to do one of those sheets written physical shit. And I get them all in a room and say guys, what's the only time that you can get away without doing one of these things? And they'd say, the person need to go and see a specialist or I ran at a time or whatever else that said, Now none of those things. The only reason I'll accept the no completion of this form is if the patient dies during the consultation and they've got a chuckle it's a chocolate gets a check. I want to talk about it now. But there's an element of truth to it. Everyone else gets one. Now that's that's the problem with most health businesses, we don't enforce our systems, we don't put them in and we don't make them mandatory. One of the keys to business success, remove discretion at the operating level of your business. Remove discretion, remove the chance for seminar I was going to give them a plan but I didn't think they needed it or the Garda see the surgeon or like, I want to look at the that report and say, Okay, what happened with Mrs. Johnson yesterday said news about Mrs. Johnson. She didn't make it through the consultation. And the therapists were Hi, can I get it ready? And then I can say, Man, I've noticed Mrs. Jones didn't get an action plan either. What's happening here is, is something that I'm wanting to do not sinking in, is there, imbalance here? And if it happens a third time we're gonna have a serious discussion. Now that's that may be used multiple that's hardcore. But   26:37 would you tolerate a therapist turning up without a shirt on? Would you tolerate that? horrifically bad breath? Would you tolerate them being late all the time? What are you going to tolerate? removed discretion?   26:53 Yeah, yeah, she just, Yep. Yep. That's a great system. Yeah. So really making sure that you've got systems in place that work for your practice, because every practice is different. And so you have to know what works for you. What are the KPIs that work for your business?   27:12 And quints of non compliance? What if you don't do it? Unfortunately, can we notice it now with with available library a bit short? Too many owners don't enforce this systems because they worried the therapists will leave so they're trapped they're trapped because they can't enforce this system. So what if they leave Well, what are they costing if they stay you know there's a cost for them to stay you're happy to where the cost make the decision. We've got a client in practice soldier now he's got an admin person just off sorry, a therapist, but just might want follow that action plan system to the letter, but he's got a labor supply issue. We know our numbers, we know what she's worth to the practice. We just made a decision to tolerate it for the moment that we could jump on if one day but it's not worth the fight because we're gonna have trouble with that off. Better Off fighting our battles in the right order. But it's a decision. It's a strategic decision.   28:07 Yeah, yeah. makes sense to me. Okay, let's move on to number five.   28:13 Number five, using your accountant to do your p&l for you. is a mistake because most accountants on average your account but assuming even give you a p&l, like most accountants, their job is to keep you out of out of jail and to make sure you pay enough tax and that's pretty weird. But what we want to know is, is a down and dirty profit loss for your practice. We want to know take out all the dodgy expenses take out the trip you took to the conference in New York take out all that. Even the year there was a conference there, but it's a bit dodgy like what take everything out of the car, all the other things that are legally claimable, but aren't really required for the business, get a down and dirty profit loss on a calendar month basis. Revenue we build, this is what we spent a know your numbers every month, and you shouldn't be able to wait for the end of the month to come to track your numbers. And one thing you must allocate Karen, you must have an owner consulting wage in there. Which is not the amount of money your accountant told you to take. It's not the dividend. It's a reflection of your consulting effort. So how you do that freedom school, so how many hours per week you're at the practice, multiply that by what it would cost to replace you, as a therapist, assistant your replacement costs, that money is not changing hands, by the way, the accountants looking after that. But this is we've got that in our p&l as a reflection of your consulting time. Because I can tell you now from having done this a long time, the only way sometimes you can get over practice to drop their consulting is to show them a down and dirty profit loss and show them that it hasn't changed or has improved if they dropped their consulting hours. Then you got it and you don't do that with your accountants p&l because it's a different spreadsheet, you got to deal with a down and dirty p&l. But because our natural recourse, Karen is to just consult more, whereas as a result of that we're not mentoring our team. We're not recruiting, we're not marketing. We're not with the kids, all these other things we're not doing.   30:17 Right? Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, I yeah, yeah, it's different. I mean, my accountant does do my p&l. But I also do monthly p&l is for myself. So on a month to month basis,   30:32 it can work if you're if you're doing a percentage of grossmith. But I just the problem with most therapists, we don't know their personal contribution to consulting and the overall scheme of things and we've show owners if you if you cut your hours, 20 hours a week, we can maintain your profit. Would you be happy to do that and see it because they're their natural recourse is to see more patients that just happens all the time. Sure. Anyway, can do it? He's know the numbers, the numbers will set them free.   30:58 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. No, I like that. And so when you're saying putting your consulting numbers in, you're talking about not just the time that you're with patients, but time that you're working on the business as well. Or just time when you're   31:14 just you're just you're face to face consulting time, because everything else is part of your profit margin. Right? Right. But the other thing is product and it's the other stuff is discretionary. You You can do your marketing when you want you can cancel a staff track you can you can you've got freedom to that, but your patient list. That's that's the one that use you're stuck in. So that's when you would change your business. Got it? Yeah. And, and most of ours, we try and get that down to zero. We try and get your owner consulting wage to zero maintaining your profit, then they have discretion. They can go to work if they want to say they're doing they're seeing patients because they want to not because they have to. Yeah, that's a differentiation. Not enough of us, Mike.   31:55 Got it. Okay, that makes sense. All right. So let's go on to number two to go six.   32:02 ineffective recruitment systems is a is a classic problem. And I know what it is we just we take it personally if they don't, if they leave we we don't get the right people always stuff this recruitment stuffs a nightmare. And I think it comes back a lot of it. As an owner, you have to make make a big decision regarding your team. Do you want to be liked? Or do you want to be respected, to be liked, or to be respected. I believe too many health business owners worry so much about being liked by their team, they can't have those difficult conversations, they don't have the respect of the team. And you're not always going to be like just accepted as an item of business. You know, there was going to be popular, you control the way ours you control the wages, you control everything in the business. It's important to be liked all the time. And if you're trying to be liked, it's going to be very difficult for you. Everyone is replaceable, except that and if they're not you want to make them replaceable. You need to think about the systems in a bit like my lymphedema God big mistake. I, I had an epiphany one night, I often have these epiphanies there. So there I am. And my admin, I had an admin superstar one of the practices and she knew everything. And she was so good everything she just did everything. And I had an I'm in there in bed one night, when I bought up right? What happens if something happens to Gina and I remember I couldn't sleep the rest of night. So I rang Gina, June at nine o'clock in the morning, I want you to come in, I've got someone to replace you at front desk, I've got my camera, you're going to show me everything. And we sat in the back room with the camera, show me how to do this show me how to do that show me and we just that we did that for a whole day. And I had all this stuff so if something happened you can watch the Gina file that someone can do. If you aren't doing that you are you are in all sorts of trouble. So recruitment systems, people are replaceable, except they're going to move on Don't take it personally. One of my mentors, we did a recruitment training program recently and one guy said, Just accept the fact that people are gonna, your business is like a train journey. People are gonna get onto certain station, get a bit down the track and then they get off the train. That's just that's what this journey is like they're not going to stay with you till the end of the line. Don't expect them to that's just just accept they will move on. And the final one and are running in the time, final one, not packaging your services, not packaging it into into an outcome driven solution. The bite write program for TMJ, the run marathon pain free program, whatever you do, we had a corrective orthopedic rehab program with exercise so name it something because once you are the only person that has that program, you can't be compared on price. If I'm bringing around the practices and you're charging 80 bucks and someone's charging 75 you're commoditizing yourself but If you're the only person with the x y Zed migraine program, because no one else has got that you can't put a price on that. So So you got to make sure you don't you have to package your services as a solution driven outcome, not just as a session by session deal. If you do that you're reducing the church have been caught up as a commodity. Now we've got time for one bonus mistake, I think. Yeah, all right. This is one bonus mistake. And too many owners do this. They, they think, well, they put a monetary value on their family time. They put a monetary value on their family time. Meaning I could finish at four o'clock in the afternoon. Or I could I could if I stay I'll make an extra $1,000 whenever I stopped but but I'll miss my daughter's concert. There's there's a so we put a monetary value if I do that, it'll cost me this. You just there's some things in life, you can't put a monetary value on. You just you can't put a monetary value on your family time. And people who told me that it's that it family time, I don't have much but I have quality time. And again, I don't want to guilt you into this stuff. But there's no such thing as quality time with your family. Family time is quantity time. things just happen. When you're around them. things just happen. I'm on. I'm on the back porch of my house. My second youngest daughter was about 17 on home a lot as I was on the on the back porch in she comes in she stands at the door. Not a crier young Jade. She's a very, very stout young lady. And she I said okay, down, and she dissolves like just the tears coming up. Right? a Cadillac for five minutes. Yeah, Caden are just a few things happening at school done. Um, right now, as you took off, yeah. I couldn't plan that.   36:59 I can't, you can't. You can't plan that. That just happens because you're around. And again, I'm not I'm not guilting you guys. Yes, you have bills to pay, they have other things to do. But the business is there to serve you. You do what you need to do to make sure your family is happy and fed and everything else but don't put a monetary value on it. Because it's it's a it's just not a fair comparison. You can't price it. It's just ridiculous to even think about it. Anyway. All right. Sorry to guilt everyone into something but that's the deal. Now I've lost you can you muted yourself.   37:40 There's a loud siren going by sighs just   37:44 could not go to Yes.   37:53 That was allowed one. Well, obviously edit this out. But I was like, I couldn't even I couldn't even It was so loud. Because it must have been like right in front of my apartment. So we'll edit that out. So annoying. That's that has not happened in a while that was allowed one. And didn't I don't even know what it was. Anyway. So we'll just sort of I'll do a little clap, and then we'll start. So this helps me for editing. But uh, you're killing me. I know, he's, I don't like it's fine by me. You know, I don't even realize he's there. But okay. So all right, so we went through seven mistakes, plus a bonus, which is great. And, you know, if you weren't taking notes, don't worry, we'll have all of these written out in the show notes to make it really easy for you and to follow along. But now, where can people find out more about you get some more resources so that they don't make all these mistakes.   38:59 best place to start, we do a monthly demonstration of practice ology. It's a webinar we do every month. And we'd basically show how our clients across 54 countries earning more, working less and enjoying their lives, even during a pandemic. So we talked about some of the principles to talk about today. And it's really a very interactive demonstration of how we do it. So if you go to my practice, ology.com forge forward slash Litzy li Ts Ed, why obviously. So my practice ology.com forward slash, let's see, you'll get the you can log in and register for the next next session. And if you want to get a copy of the book, I wrote a book how to run a woman a practice, as Karen explained at the start. It's not a it's not a big book, I didn't want to write it. It doesn't make sense to have a massive journal for how to run a woman in practice. It's got to be a woman's book, you should read that in less than an hour. Just covers a lot of the action plans and the bookings and there's great resources sample action plans you can get from the book If you just get to one minute practice.com forward slash book sales. So one minute practice.com forward slash book sales. And if you just put in the code, Karen Oh s for overseas. So if you're not Australian, which I don't imagine you will be if you're not Australian, do Karen r West. And it'll take 15 bucks off and you get it for $4.95 Australian which I think's about $1 us. That's a bit more than that. But it's not it's a pretty good deal. If you happen to be Australian, listen to it put in Karen, au, s t. So I'm going to practice.com forward slash Bob sales. Karen Oh s get it for if you're if you're outside Australia, or Karen a USD if you're Australian, and you get that for $4.95. And we'll post it out for you. And my social media platform is LinkedIn believer not I'm an old school, LinkedIn. So follow me on LinkedIn. Paul, right, Newcastle, I'd love to have a chat. And I hope you can join it for join us for a webinar and get some of those great resources from the book. And posted sorry, posters is a bit slow, I think we've covered but once you, once you buy the book, you do get the PDF of the book straightaway. And there is a second page, a link to all the resources and the action plans and all the scripts and stuff. So that's perfect.   41:16 And we will have links to all of that at podcast at healthy, wealthy, smart, calm. So one link will take you to the webinar to the books and to your LinkedIn page. And before we wrap things up, I'll ask you one last question. And it's one that I asked everyone knowing where you are now in your life and in your business and in your practice. What would What advice would you give to your younger self?   41:40 Oh, you love this one? Okay. I would probably be a podiatrist or an optometrist. You're sitting thinking, Okay, what are those things got in common? Well think about it. They've got a product arm. They've got a range of products, because I, I did what we talked about earlier, I became a physiotherapist because I wanted to be a physiotherapist. I didn't know I could be limited in what I can sell our products. So if I could go my time again. podiatry, I would, but I don't like feet. So maybe it's a problem. optometry, I'd be okay. Maybe orthodontics? I'd want a product range. That would be that would be why don't go and say all my diamonds done. Put a product range in your current business, if you can. That helps. But the idea of relying on your hands and trading time for dollars, I'd probably do differently.   42:38 Right? Well, great advice to your younger self, for sure. Thank you so much for Paul, for coming on and sharing seven mistakes that you've made and probably a lot of us who have been in business for more than a couple of years or more than a year have made and hopefully all the listeners out there you will not make those mistakes because we have covered them here. You've got them in your head. You'll sign up for the webinar and you won't make up and it'll be clear sailing. Fingers crossed. So thanks, Paul, for coming on and sharing all of that with us. I appreciate it.   43:14 Absolute pleasure, your superstar. Thanks for having me.   43:17 Thank you and everyone. Thanks for listening, have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.

Chinese philosophy takes a different approach to parenting than most of us are used to. Here's a family systems take that can help the non-anxious leader. Show Notes: How Chinese philosophy can help you parent by Erin Cline Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue by Edwin Friedman Read the Full Transcript on The Non-Anxious Leader website. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jack-shitama/message

In this episode of #SocialConfoes Diego and Jean-luc are joined by Jennifer Navarrete. Connect with Jennifer on Twitter (@edodcaster) Episode Overview 0:00 – Watch the RAW videos on YouTube. The Hosts Diego Ameerali Jean-Luc van Charante Feel free to join our Discord Server. Full Transcript

Full Transcript:  https://eggshelltherapy.com/podcast-blog/2021/10/29/siblings/Today we talk to an expert in sibling relationships, Dr. Avidan Milevsky. In this conversation, we managed to squeeze in a lot of topics. Dr. Avidan is clearly very passionate and knowledgeable.We started by him sharing his personal story of being one of five. Then we explored: Why you and your sibling could grow up in the same house but turn out so radically different.How to tell normal sibling fighting from sibling abuseWhen to set boundaries with toxic  siblings and howIs it ever okay to cut off from a sibling? Why sibling relationships are a gift for life. His answers to these questions are far from generic, and actually gave us practical actionable advice we can use to heal from or improve sibling relationships. I hope you learn as much as I did from this conversation!Dr. Avidan Milevsky's website For more on the topic of Toxic Sibling Relationships and Sibling Abuse

Listen to the full panel discussion with Baptist Homes administrators at the August 2021 board meeting. Full Transcript

John and Tony discuss his latest resource Know. Be. Live. It offers a holistic 360-degree approach to discipleship in a post-Christian era. It combines expert thought on faith and culture to equip Christ-following parents of teenagers, college students, campus ministers, and pastors. Basically, if you know anyone in the next generation you need to listen to this conversation!  Read the FULL TRANSCRIPTS here.  Links:  360 Institute  John on Facebook John on LinkedIn Tony on Instagram  

Intro: Gina ordered her theatre school transcriptsLet Me Run This By You: knowing when to let go, moments of clarityInterview: We talk to Ammar Daraiseh about being an MFA, homesickness, Joe Slowik and Bella Itkin, Joe Mantegna, type casting, being a middle eastern actor, Sweet Smell of Success, film noir. www.ammardaraiseh.com - there is where you can watch Ammar's acting reel and my short films he produced www.karenkanas.com - Ammar's wife's website FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):2 (10s):And I'm Gina . We went to theater school1 (12s):Together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later,2 (16s):We're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all1 (21s):Theater school. And you will too. Are we famous yet?2 (34s):Frog into my, my morning frog out of my throat yet. How you doing? I am. Wow. I have a lot to talk to you about, oh, I1 (45s):Half expected you to have red hair this morning.2 (49s):Oh, do you think I should. I okay. But like, did you see the picture? I put a run Lola run. I mean, that might be a little hard to maintain.1 (59s):It's super hard to make, like you'll, you'll have to be the salon and read six weeks at least, or four weeks for root touch-up. But I mean, I personally think the routes coming in would look cool, but wow. Yeah,2 (1m 13s):The whole rally thing. Well, I'll keep you posted cause I, I definitely want to do something different, much different what's going on. Okay. So first thing I'll just get out of the way is for fun, because we're always trying to remember our classes and who taught and what gear we did, everything I ordered my transcript, which unfortunately does not have the names of your professors. Just, yeah, it just has the name of the class and my grades were fair, not great. Like I had a 3.5 or something like that, which I would have, I thought in my memory that I got really good grades in college, but they were really just pretty average.2 (2m 1s):But guess what my lowest grade was in1 (2m 8s):Was it, was it, well, the easy choice is add Colleen,2 (2m 13s):My C my, my one and only see mine was an intro to psychology. I was talking to my husband about it and he goes, yeah, I got a low grade too. He's like, we were just basically saying, this is all too real. We're not ready yet. I think1 (2m 40s):That's a great observation by him.2 (2m 44s):See my whole areas. It's just hilarious. And then in other classes where I was sure, you know, I was hated like an alcohol use class in that I got A's so my God isn't that it's also subjective, like our, our experiences, something as subjective and then our memory about something totally changing. Only subjective as the years go by. Right.1 (3m 7s):It's not just subjective. It's yeah. It's very like mutating subjects, right? Yeah. That's crazy. Oh my God. So you ordered your transcript. Okay. Now you have a transcript2 (3m 21s):And guess what? Anybody can, it's 25 cents. Like if you have, if you haven't ordered, like you have a certain number, you can get in a certain period of time. And so your first one is 25 cents. You,1 (3m 33s):Anybody else want to have a transcript? You2 (3m 36s):Could relive your, your grades. Oh my gosh. Might find some surprises. Do you think you would find some surprises in your1 (3m 42s):I'm? Sure. I mean, I know for a fact that I, that I, I was supposed to drop a class, a, a non, obviously non theater school class, and I never dropped it. So if you don't drop it, you get an F. So I got an F in, like, I want to say it was like sociology or something like that. And I almost didn't graduate because they thought, yeah. And so you can't, I knew it was like, I remember my last year, my senior year, I had to like, do all kinds of regular role. And the other thing is that I didn't do was one year, one quarter or something you had to like re up your financial aid and I didn't do that.1 (4m 24s):So I didn't pay for like a quarter. And they were like, yeah, you're, I'm so shocked. I graduated. I don't know what was happening. They were like, yeah, you have to pay.2 (4m 35s):I had to do some real tap dancing to my parents graduate.1 (4m 39s):Yeah, I remember that, but I don't. Yeah. I I'm sort of scared to look at the grades. I don't.2 (4m 46s):Yeah. I mean, whatever, it's like a grade and acting school is just kind of funny. It should probably be, and maybe at some schools it is pass, fail. It just should be pass, fail. Like you either got it. Or you didn't get it. You either write forth effort or you didn't. Right. So that's kind of, wow. Okay. And update on surprises. Because last week I was saying like, I'm open to surprise. And it worked, which is to say, I think pretty much not that like some big surprise came falling out of the sky, like is what, the thing that I was really after. But instead I did, I took my own advice and like pursued, doing something differently.2 (5m 27s):And on Saturday we ended up, I just on Friday night when Aaron came home, I said, I want to have fun tomorrow, but I've got to get out of this house. I've got to get out of this town. And so he searched up like fun things to do. And he found something which actually was terrible, but it didn't matter because it was different. And we, it was a car. It was, it, it was promoting itself as some like amazing fall festival with all this kind of stuff. And it was literally a carnival, like the Carney trucks. It's amazing.1 (6m 7s):Like, yeah. Right. Oh, well they had some good marketing.2 (6m 11s):Yeah, they sure did. Cause it was listed as the number one thing to do in my state this weekend, the state and the state and the state. But even, maybe it was a slow weekend and we had fun. Anyway, we had fun. We went to a town we've never been to, we spent time together. You know, it, it was fine. It was good. And more importantly, I feel like it, it just doing something like that and genders like, okay, what else can you do? What else? You know? So I think that, that was the important thing is that it opened me up to1 (6m 43s):Novelty. Did anyone else, did anyone get hurt on a ride?2 (6m 48s):No, but the whole time I was like, I bet this is going to be one of those times where one, we're one of these things just going to go flying off into the, so if you really want to call it,1 (6m 58s):If you really want to go down a crazy dark rabbit hole, like, okay, well I'm obsessed with fail videos fails. You know, if you watch carnival fails. Oh my God. And most of them are deadly. Thank God. But they're just like, where thing flies off. Or like, like a lot of times what you have is cell phones going crazy or birds like birds attacking people on rollercoasters is one of my favorite things to watch. It's not that the bird is attacking. It's at the bird is just trying to fucking fly. And it runs smack into a person on rollercoaster, the best thing you've ever seen.1 (7m 38s):But the sad thing is 90% of the time the bird dies, you know? But like, because the velocity, the force is so great, but it's pretty freaking funny. People are filming themselves usually like right then all of a sudden, a huge pigeon like common. So carnival fails is, is one thing where like someone's standing there like videotaping their friend on the tilt, a whirl or whatever the hell it is and a bolt or something goes with. And they're like, oh, that was a part of the ride. So2 (8m 13s):You're standing there as an adult. I mean, as a kid, you're just like, this is the most amazing thing ever. But as you're sitting there as an adult, you just can see like the hinges where things fold up into the, you know, and you're just like, this is just, we're just all hoping that nothing bad happens, right. Best you can do is cross your fingers and hope for the best. Right.1 (8m 33s):And the other thing is that I I'm obsessed with watching is those Slingshot videos. So some people pass out, pass out or like people's weaves fall, fly off and like, or, well, yeah, like people pass out, but I like when things fly off or when just people say really weird stuff or like, yeah. But those2 (8m 55s):Slingshots are horrible. They look horrible ever. I would never, of course, of course, where I'm sure many people have been slung right off into an alligator pit ever at the museum again. Oh, that's crazy. Okay. So the, the big O thing that changed for me since I last talked to you and I'm fighting the urge since yesterday to call you for the podcast, I haven't heard the podcast. Well, I wrote down the headline is I'm going to do this in a politic way organization on the brink of collapse, ALEKS new leadership to ensure its future spends next two years, undermining their, every effort says leadership.2 (9m 40s):We quit. I have quit the organization organization that I have dedicated a lot of hours to serving. And it happened. Yeah. It happened after a meeting last night that went left and it didn't even honestly, as these things, are, it didn't even go as left as it's gone. There's been times where it's gone so much further skew, but all of us just had it. And actually after our interview today, I have, we have an emergency meeting to talk about it, but my decision is made, I quit.2 (10m 25s):I fully quit. Like I'm, I'm happy to help transition or whatever. And yeah, that happened inside. Like how did you come to the, like what happened in, what have you? Yeah. So this is kind of like a combination, just like what I wanted to talk to you about. And then also what I want to run by you because, you know, I just wrote that blog post about like how I meant examining myself in relationships and how I sometimes in the past have just, you know, one day just up and left. And the first time I did that, that felt the way that actually this thing felt last night was when I broke up with my first boyfriend in high school, it was literally like I was asleep.2 (11m 10s):I shot up out of bed, like in a movie. And I said, I've got to break up with this guy. And I got my clothes on and I got in my car and I drove over to his house and I walked into his house. I didn't knock the door. I walked in the house, he was in the bathroom getting ready. I, I had a little box of his shit. I go here by, I walked, he's following help cheetah. What's the matter, what's the matter. And I left. I mean, we, we did speak after that. And actually I had a couple of really crazy incidents with him even like later in life when I ran into him as an adult. But, and you know, that was terrible of me to do that was terrible.2 (11m 51s):But now I understand that it was because I lacked the ability to say along the way I don't like this. And I don't like that. And just kind of kept putting up with it and putting up with it. And I think my big takeaway from how I conducted myself in this organization is that I put up with stuff and put up with stuff that I really should have found more backbone along the way to say, I don't like the way you're talking to me. I don't like the way you're treating me. And in fact, I had the group of people that I work with. It I'm basically the leader of, you know, they were constantly expressing to me that they felt really abused by this group. And I would validate that and listen to them and agree with them.2 (12m 36s):But then when it came time to going back to the group, I fell short of saying, this will not stand. You know what I mean? I never did that. I never put my foot down and said, this that's enough because I was trying to do it in this way that I feel you're kind of supposed to do as a leader of something you're supposed to keep a level head. And it's really, frankly, it's a lot like being a therapist, you take people's projections and you take their shit and you, and you're able to see, okay, this thing is about me. This thing is not about me. This is just you projecting your shit onto me and you try to like, keep it moving for.2 (13m 17s):Good. Great. And it's not that we never responded with, like, this is not a feedback. Yeah. But it, I mean, obviously it didn't work. It didn't get us to where we needed to go. So we ended the meeting yesterday. I stayed on and talked to my cohort. I said, you guys, I'm, I'm done. And there was seven of us and only four of us were, were talking after cause or five of us. So there was two people who had no idea, but, but four of us said, we're ready to, oh.2 (13m 58s):And I spent three hours last night writing a letter that just basically told the whole history and laid it out. Exactly why, you know? And I wrote it as like, we came to this decision. I don't know if we're coming to this decision because we have to have our meeting later and I just laid it all out. And I just said, you know, basically we're at cross purposes here. Like you asked us to do something that we are doing and you don't like the way we're doing it. So it's fundamentally not going to work out. Wow. I was all revved up. I stayed awake until two 30.2 (14m 38s):Sure. Yeah. I've been there got three hours of sleep. Holy shit. Feeling great. 1 (15m 0s):Good for you. I mean, I think the other thing is like, yeah. I mean, I think that when things, something isn't working, yeah. I've always struggled with knowing when to, when to leave something and like when to, I never knew, okay. Like even stupid shit, like staying home, sick from school. So like, my mom always taught us, like, you never do that unless your like hand is falling off and even then you try to go. But so then in my adult life, when I never knew when was the time to listen to yourself?1 (15m 43s):Yeah. Or to call it quits. Yes. Right, right. To listen to myself or like, was that, and I always second guessed myself for a long time. And even like, like I remember having like a date, you know, with, with a friend or she was really like a mentor, like an authority figure. That's always when it gets really kicked up. And I didn't know, like if I was sick or just wasn't feeling off, should I cancel? Would they be mad at me? Would I, could I take care of myself? What did taking care of myself look like? Because sometimes, and people would say like, people would, I would ask for advice and they say, sometimes taking care of yourself means staying home. Sometimes it means pushed through a little bit.1 (16m 25s):I never knew what, how to do that. So I never had a gauge. So it sounds like you're learning finally to like, or like you're coming to the thing of like this, this is not right. This is not working for me. And, and, and I'm going to make a bold move and then I'm going to stick by that bold move. And also knowing that like, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a move that right. That you can back up that you feel done and that you don't need to ask for reassurance or like try to, but that you're done.1 (17m 9s):I mean, I think that's really great. I mean, I think it's part of being a self-actualized adult to know when something's over and, and why it's over and how to do it. Right. How to end it right by you for you versus like the right thing that people want you to do. Oh,2 (17m 27s):100% that, and that thing that you're describing about the way that we need to be able to differentiate when I'm just feeling avoidant versus when I really need to, that is such a crucial part of a person's development. And I can say, as a parent, it's pretty hard to teach because you're like, I don't know. Do you really feel sick or really just not want to go to school? Like it's, it's tricky.1 (17m 56s):I, I mean, I can't imagine doing that with someone else because I literally am just now learning at 46, how to do it with myself. So like, like I can't imagine being, because the second guessing it's so interesting. It's like, it's like my, my growing up, it was, yeah, it was literally like, you, you didn't ever, you always muscled through, but I guess the, the, the, and it's like, how do you know that muscling through is too much? What is the answer? Like, you're dead. Like, that's going to be how you found out. Like, I remember this and it wasn't just my parents.1 (18m 38s):Like I remember my aunts, my aunts had a cleaning business. Okay. My mom's sister and her and her wife, or at the time her girlfriend, they had a cleaning business. So they cleaned people's houses. And at the end of, I think it was, I don't know which some play I was in at the rescue. And it must have been, I think it had to be it wasn't yellow boat. So it had to be this other search for delicious. Anyway, I was really sick. And, you know, obviously we, we still do performances when we're sick. That's another thing that needs to change. Right. And they're trying to change people's trenches anyway, I'm sick as a dog and I I'm sick as a dog. And I, I had to schlep my shit from the Myrtle Ruskin.1 (19m 19s):And the next day I was supposed to clean houses with my aunt. Like I was helping her. She gave me like a part-time job, but I'm so sick. And the night before I call, I'm literally like, like I'm hacking up blood. It turned out I had pneumonia and I had to go to the, it, it was, it was crazy. But my aunt was so mad at me that I had to bail. She shamed me. She was like, I can't believe you let me down. I literally can't talk. And she's she? And you know, she was the adult and I was a young adult, but she was anyway, the point is it, wasn't just my parents. It's a whole thing of like, how could you leave us?2 (19m 54s):We're going to have to talk about this with Molly Smith, Metzler, who we're going to be talking to in like maybe next week or the week after who's the creator and showrunner of a major television series. That's based on a book because this theme comes up in that series. And it's, it's something related also to, I don't know. I don't really remember if you told me that your mom's family grew up with money or without money, but1 (20m 21s):Without with, with, and then without, so they, they had it in Columbia and they didn't have it here.2 (20m 27s):Yeah. So people without money, I mean, it's, it's true. The, the decision about muscling through it is really, usually one about survival. Like you don't have the option, but for people who are, you know, in our situation now, I mean, I think the only way you really learn that for yourself, whether you should stay in through or not is with experience of, well this time when I didn't feel like doing something, and then I did it, I felt better this time when I didn't feel like something doing something. And I did it, I felt worse. Like, and just trying to build up the data as to say, this is an example of a time, like just, just the ability to be able to at, at our age, we've had enough experience that we can think through almost any set of, you know, like, okay, well, if I go to this thing, like, I think you were talking about you, miles was at the hospital getting checked out for a possible recurrence of his cancer and you were doing a reading.2 (21m 32s):Oh, oh,1 (21m 33s):It was the worst. It was insane. I was in the chapel at the hospital trying to memorize lines for a fucking 10 minute play reading that was supposed to be on book. And then they told me it was off book. And then2 (21m 46s):You weren't getting paid for that. Wasn't going to advance your career in any way. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. This is, and so the, the thing I really want to run by you is about like moments of clarity and really you can't force a moment of clarity it to me, or maybe you can, I can't, it just comes to you, you know, it just, it just comes to you for me, it comes to me in a moment and it just feels like on ambivalent, there's no question. This is what I have to do. This is what I can't do. This is what I can do. And I think the only way you get there is with time.1 (22m 25s):Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's time and I think you're right. I think it's like trying it out. Like I tried this, it went horribly wrong or I tried this and yeah. And also, yeah, I think right there was this thing too, of like, there's also this thing I feel, and maybe this also goes back to the, the working class. I don't know what it is, but it's like people wanting to end things the quote right. Way. So like my, my mom was always big on like, you know, and my dad about like, having a conversation, like having to sit down with people and say, Hey, this is how I feel.1 (23m 11s):And like, it was a cop-out to like send an email or a cop-out to, but that's also kind of, garbagy like, people am things the way they can end them in the moment. And they, I don't know, I don't hold it against people for ending things the way. Look, it, would it be great if we could have closure and like, stuff like that. But like, what if, I don't know, I'm just like all for now, people doing things the way that they feel like in the moment they need to do them. Like, I don't, like I used to get into, like, I remember like leaving a sponsor relationship and she was so she was not well in my view.1 (23m 53s):And she was, and I've sent her an email and she really wanted to have a sit down. And yes, there's two things are true. Like, I was really scared to sit down with her and tell her, like, I think you're fucked up and this isn't working for me or whatever, but I also didn't feel safe enough to do that.2 (24m 10s):Yeah. Yes. That's. The other thing is if we lived in a world where it was a given that everybody was being forthright and honest and was themselves in constant dialogue about their strengths and weaknesses, and was B you know, if we lived in a world where everybody was operating from a basic level of like honesty and good intentions, then this problem would be much easier to these types of problems would be much easier to resolve because you'd say, well, I mean, it just would be a given, like, of course nobody would want to see me suffering to do.2 (24m 51s):Of course, they'd rather, you know, but you can't, that's not the situation in most cases. So you literally can only rely on your own understanding of yourself. Right.1 (25m 1s):Different context. Right. And I know that there's, there's the there that looking back, I wish I had ended things differently in a lot of different ways, but I did what I, I did what I could, you know, I did really could, but I just remember it being like my, my dad being like, you know, you should really sit down with them and talk to them and being like, you know, why like, okay, I, I hear what you're saying. So when people, yeah. I think, I think being willing to have conversations and having hard will being willing and open and available to having hard conversations with people is so much more difficult than people make it out to be.1 (25m 41s):Because like you're saying, it takes, it has all it takes. It's all these things come into play. It's not just like, I'm going to be a mature adult and do this the right way. It's like, what am I willing to have? What can I handle? You know,2 (25m 55s):W what can I handle? And, you know, in some cases, if an issue is really contentious, it becomes, you know, if I sit down with this person and really try to, they might actually further harm me. Like, I I've already had that experience with some people in this group that where I've decided, okay, the approach is I have to call this person. Right. I have to say, Hey, we're, you know, not seeing eye to eye. And a couple of times when I did that, it turned out fine. Right. And a couple of times when I did that, I thought,1 (26m 26s):Why did I do that? Yeah.2 (26m 28s):Like, not just, that was bad for me, but that was bad for them. And I feel like, I, I feel like I took us several steps backwards just because this person's mentally unwell and I'm able to have like a reasonable back and forth in a conflict.1 (26m 42s):Right. So it's, it's, it's a lot more complicated, I think, than people people think. And also right when you're done, you're done. And when you're done, it's like, how can I extricate myself and not try to cause further harm to other people, but also not trying to cause further harm to myself.2 (27m 3s):Yeah. Yeah. Which is literally, you're the1 (27m 6s):Only person who can do that. Right. That's nobody else's job. Right. Somebody else's job. Holy shit. Well, congratulations.2 (27m 14s):Thank you. So how are you doing1 (27m 16s):Well, this is, I'm pretty good. I'm on, I'm so weird. I don't even know. I don't think I told you this last Wednesday. I had a zoom look. I haven't had any auditions in a long time. Last Wednesday. I had a zoom audition for a film being shot in Chicago. And of course, and now I'm on, I'm on hold for it. I'm on check avail for films in Chicago. And it's a big film. And it's, I'm like, what2 (27m 43s):If it's going to start filming, like on one, the one-year anniversary of the day you guys went there and then had to stay,1 (27m 50s):Well, the thing is, it starts filming Monday, but I oh yeah. For a month. But I, I, my part is super, super small. So I doubt I I'm thinking it's a one or two days shoot. If I book it and you know, the difference of, I mean, I feel like petrified of getting it because I'm, I'm just, I I'm, we're really, you know, that's my first go-to, but I also felt like it was the first time in an audition where I was like, you know, like, how can we talk about this on here? But like, how willing am I to treat myself? Like, shit, I'm not anymore as much. So like, no matter what happens if I, if I, you know, I'm not even sure I want to be an actor.1 (28m 36s):Right. So, so I, I have to get clear about that. I, so if I'm not really sure that this is my life's path, then, then, then the reason that I'm scared is definitely old stuff of being approved of and making a fool of myself and feeling like all is lost if I screw up, like, so that's what I'm working with. It's not so much that this is my dream. And I want so badly to be in this film that I'm so nervous. It is old stuff, which doesn't mean that it makes it easier, but it's just clear. So I'm getting clear. So I was like, all right, if that's the case, then how can I work with that? And I just, I just had, I was like, you know what?1 (29m 17s):I'm not going to pretend that I don't care because I do, but I'm also not going to, I just put my foot down in terms of beating, being, being cruel to myself, I put my foot down. I said, I am not, I am not willing to berate, belittle and hurt myself if I screw this up. Or if I don't get it, or if I do get it, I am not no longer willing. I'm just going to have to set some boundary with myself about my, my, how far am I willing to go with my, with my weirdness craziness and, and self abuse. And I just, so I didn't go there and now I'm on top of avail.1 (29m 59s):I mean, you know, it's like, it, I'm not saying they're totally related, but I'm just saying like, it makes sense to me.2 (30m 5s):Yeah. It makes sense. Because every time you go further and that's been the case like over the last year or the, we talked about this every time you you're like, I don't, I, you let it go. And all of a sudden,1 (30m 17s):Yeah. And like, no matter, I think the, for me, the freedom lies in no matter how badly I do or think I do, no matter how awful rotten, I may screw this up in my head, or even in real life screwed up because it happened, I am not willing to treat myself like a piece of shit. Like that's where I got to, because I thought that is the only thing I have control over really, really the evidence shows that I have control. And even that is questionable sometimes. But if I'm going to have control or ownership over anything, let it be about how I treat myself as I go through this experience or I'll still do it, or else not stop auditioning because this doesn't, this is not.1 (31m 7s):And so I thought, okay, okay, can I, can I, and I, and I, I really was like, I was like, breathe. You know, it's a zoom audition, it's weird breathe. And it was just me in casting. And then I just went right to check avail, but which is great, but two scenes and w and we'll see, but I think it just, it's all fodder for like, can I put, can I stop treating myself terribly well,2 (31m 32s):Well, you know, one thing for certain, you can never go wrong when that's your guiding principle, you can go wrong when your guiding principle is, will they like me? And is it okay at, am I good enough? You know, but you'll never go wrong with when you're trying to set when you're just trying to do something intentionally. I mean, that's kind of what we're talking about is like being extremely intentional, right. Instead of reactive about right. How do I want to wind my way through the situation? What do I want my, this is just a concept that I really am new to, what do I want out of the situation? How do I want to reflect back on how I conducted myself, forget about what I want them to do.2 (32m 13s):Right. Because that's what I've been focused on my whole life, the other person to do.1 (32m 17s):Right. I, I, how can I make, how can I, how can I yeah. Make this easier for them, better for them read their mind, do what they want me to do. And I'm like, oh my God, that, that, that not only forget, it's not, it can't happen because in my make-believe mind that that, that doesn't come into play, but it, it, it feels terrible. And it, and it increases my anxiety and depression because it's so, it's so unattainable. So at least if I, if, like you said, like, if I'm the, if I'm the problem, right. If I'm the problem, that means that I'm also inside of me is also the, when the solution, the success, you know, that, thank God.2 (33m 7s):Yeah. Yeah. Thank God. Yeah. That's the best news. So I have, I actually was just a couple of days ago thinking about you and your career paths and, and, and like the things that you have described to me, like you, you basically pursued acting because of your relationship with this other person who you wanted to emulate. And then you basically, you know, got the job as the, as the Hollywood assistant when somebody else came. I mean, it was all kind of, you know, not, maybe not that intentional.2 (33m 50s):And I remember having like, kind of a aha thought about it. I should have written it down because it's not occurring to me right now, but it was something about like, maybe it was just that the further she goes in figuring out the basic questions about what she really likes and what she really wants, this is going to be less and less of a thing. Like, you're the thing that you you've said a lot. Like maybe I should work at seven 11. Maybe I should work at this bakery. I don't know. There's something to it that I feel maybe it's that I feel you're really changing for yourself right now.2 (34m 35s):I see you approaching things with a lot more intentionality1 (34m 38s):And you know, what was so crazy is that I think this podcast for us is a way of actually looking at all that stuff. So like, even if the POC, I mean, I hope it goes, goes a global. And, but even if it's just for you and I to look at what the hell am I doing? Who am I, how, how can I make things better for myself? And thus be a better like kinder human probably for everybody else. Then that was all worth it. Because it's like, I could not keep going the way I was going and expect to be happy, or even at peace or even do something fun. Like I had to look at like, wait, wait, wait, what is underneath all this?1 (35m 20s):Like, I should just work at seven 11. And, and I, you know, and we say, this we've said this before, but like, I want to be clear, seven 11 is not the problem. I am the problem. Right? So like you work at seven 11. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that, like, for me, what using that is as an excuse and our tool to try to figure out like, okay, where do I belong? That's what it is like, where do I belong? Where do I want to belong? Where can I contribute? But also, like you say, like, what do I want, where do I want to belong?2 (35m 54s):It's actually the, are you my mother phenomenon? You know? But in this case regarding like, where's your place in the world instead of wandering around wondering like who's in charge of you or whatever, it's that it's, which actually they're both the same thing. They're both about belonging. Right. But instead of you making it about, I guess that's what it is just like, instead of you making about another person or another institution or another entity, you're figuring out where you're guiding your own self1 (36m 21s):And myself and like, yeah, that's just it. Where do I belong? And I don't know yet, but I I'm pretty sure it's not at the am PM. Do you know what I mean? I just don't know that that's going to do it for me.2 (36m 35s):No matter how good those hot dogs are, future, how,1 (36m 41s):How good the deal is, two for one veggie chips. You know what I mean? Like,2 (36m 48s):So then when I went to that amp, it was so like, it, no, it was like1 (36m 55s):Vibration whole. They it's like a club. It's like a club on the weekend.2 (37m 1s):That's what I felt like. I felt like I walked into a club with no music and the lights were really bright.1 (37m 8s):It's crazy. It's put the same vibe. Like, you're like, this is a whole scene here. There's a lot of back and forth.2 (37m 19s):Yeah. About that all the time at gas stations, by the way, because the people who work at gas stations, I think tend to be people who are in transition. And I just observed so much, like, I love the idea that at any place I am visiting in a transitory fashion, there's a whole entrenched, you know, rich, layered history and culture. And that I just don't have any idea about because how could I, it's fascinating to think about,1 (37m 54s):Well, that's why you're a good writer too. It's like you get in there and you can like observe and like create w like it's a whole world. That's there2 (38m 3s):To be curious. Fun to be1 (38m 4s):Curious about. Yeah.2 (38m 17s):Today on the podcast we talked to Amar derisory Amar is originally from Jordan, grew up in Michigan, got his BFA and his MFA, and is a fan of Shakespeare, has some great Shakespeare series that you can check out through his website. And we enjoy talking with him about what his lasting impressions are of attending theater school. So please enjoy. So Amar, congratulations. You survived theater3 (38m 54s):School. Thank you. Yes, I did. You2 (38m 57s):Survived it twice cause you got your BFA in Michigan, right? And then your MFA at DePaul. That's correct. So you must've been very committed to being an actor from high school or earlier.3 (39m 9s):Yes, that is correct. I think high school is where I got the bug. Some teacher encouraged me to be in the school play and I'm like, ah, no, no, no, you have a great personality. You can do a kid. You can do it. I'm like, all right. And as soon as I got on that stage, it was like, right there. It was2 (39m 30s):The feeling that you had.3 (39m 32s):It's it's, it's, it's it's excitement. And you get these, you know, these vibes like, oh my God, I'm doing something. This is fun. It's like an addiction. It really is. It's like anything else? I just, I just went crazy. I started eating the scenery because it was like, I'm enjoying, this could be another role. At one point I wanted to play like 5, 6, 7 roles, you know, because I just said, I want to do everything. It was that much excitement. So that's when I decided to really pursue this,2 (40m 4s):I think to do with, I don't know something about the way you just said that made me think you were set. You were keying into people are listening to me here. Was that something3 (40m 15s):People were looking at me, people were watching me. People were doing that. Yes. There to a certain degree. Yes. But you know, not to the point where I want attention, you know, like, look at me, look at me. But I wanted, I wanted to make people happy, laugh, cry, you know, do something. That was the thing. I think, I think what got me was when people reacted to your performance, people that then it's like, oh my God, I did that. I did that. And that is something that is just, you can't, you can't describe that feeling is, is, it's just, it's like a forest.1 (40m 52s):Something that you said that really sparked a memory of you for me was like that your you are, and look, this is not everyone. We're not a one-sided, but you are a people person. Like I remember that about you. Like, there are some people who just like people, I'm a people person too. But, and I, so I recognize that. And other people where I feel like from seeing you around in school and in plays, like you really had the ability to connect with a wide variety of different kinds of people. Do you know where that came from? If that's true, if you,3 (41m 31s):I identify with that. I, I make friends with people on the street, just I'll just say hi to anybody. You know, I that's just my nature, my personality. I believe if you say hi to someone, you, it just makes them feel better. I think, hi, how you doing? Oh, hi. Oh, kind of surprises them that, you know, I don't have any money to leave me alone. I think some people get, get pretty weird about it. When somebody like myself says hi, where it comes from. I can't tell you. I think it's just, I've always been an outgoing person since I was a kid. I remember my parents telling me that, you know, this kid is going to be something he likes to talk to people.3 (42m 16s):Just, I would just talk to people. Hi,2 (42m 20s):Do you have artists in your family?3 (42m 23s):No, I am the only artist. My brother, my brother's a doctor. My sister is a, is a teacher and an administrator at a school in Abu Dhabi and the Emirates. So I am the only performance.2 (42m 39s):It's always so interesting to think about. Like, of course, going back throughout your family's lineage, you're not the only artist you may have been. The only one who had the opportunity. Like this is the case for me, had the opportunity to pursue it. You know? Cause what I found after I decided that I really wanted to pursue this. It's like, oh, but then my aunt can kind of paint and this one can kind of write a little bit. It just feels like it's not something that they pursued for their, you know, for their regular career. But there it's a privilege, I guess that we, you know, got a chance in school and after to pursue it. And you had some great, you were in some great plays, Romeo and Juliet landscape of the body during the3 (43m 21s):That's right. Oh my God. I still have that picture of me and the golden matress that John Bridges, I'm going to send it to you. I got a whole bunch of pictures of sent to you today. So I was rummaging through the old photo albums and I found a whole bunch of DePaul pictures, but yeah. Yeah, that was, that was an interesting play. I landscape with the body. It was just a, a fun, a fun play, a fun.1 (43m 45s):Now did you, you said that you got the bug early on because the teacher sort of encouraged you then how did that grow into? Because I'm always interested in like, okay, so when you're in a play and I'm sure that, you know, you were magnificent and they, but how did it people loved you and you loved it, but how did that transform into like, I'm going to go to a conservatory because that place was, you know, DePaul, the conservatories are crazy. So how does,3 (44m 13s):Okay, this is a good story. I'm glad you asked this. No, I was, I was doing a play in Flint, Michigan and the lead actress, her and I were backstage and we were just chit chatting before our next it was, I think it was during intermission, but anyway, it doesn't matter. She actually, she goes, well, are you going to go to grad school? Are you going to continue your journey? And I said, I'm not sure. I thought I'd just stick around. Maybe do some theater around here. She goes, no, no, no, you should really go. There's this place called DePaul university. It's a great school. You should go and check it out. I said, really? I said, where's that Chicago? Okay. Well, you know, sure. I go to my, my professors that my undergrad school and they paid for the application fee.3 (44m 56s):I mailed it in. And I think within, I think within a few weeks I got my appointment to audition for the school. And it was in January, in the dead of winter, in Michigan, Nine feet of snow as we're driving to Chicago, I'm my friend and I, but yeah,2 (45m 20s):You applied. It was the only place you applied for grad school.3 (45m 24s):I applied at Purdue university as well. I got accepted at both, both places. The, and it was Purdue or Chicago, DePaul. But I think with Purdue, you're in the middle of nowhere. It's God's country out there. There's just the school. And that's it. Where you had the theater school in Chicago and a vibrant city. It was very infectious and scary at the same time. But that's when I met the infamous John Bridges. I thought I blew it to be totally honest with you. I thought I blew it. I did a, I did a classical and I did a contemporary, obviously Joe Slovak, John Bridges.3 (46m 4s):And I believe Betsy Hamilton where my, my auditioners, if you will. And I thought I did okay with the classical, the contemporary was kind of thing. I got an, I, you know, green to the business, didn't know how to actually present a monologue or, you know, my teachers back and undergraduate say, look, just put them together. Just stop and blah, blah, blah, or just, you know, they, you know, they told me what, what I had to do, but I just remember saying goodbye and thank you for the time. And Joe slow. It was, you know, okay, you got a good job, good job. You know, you have a great journey back home. And I said, okay. And my friend goes, how did it go?3 (46m 46s):And I'm like, ah, forget it. I'm going to Purdue. I'm going to Purdue. And then, and then shoot, I auditioned on a Saturday in January. I get the letter on a Tuesday. And I remember my friend goes, Hey, you got this letter from DePaul. Why don't you open it? I said, oh, it's BS. They're just telling me they're not going to accept me. Look, I'm going to open it. I was about to rip it. And I said, oh, but it just opened it. And I'm like, oh yeah, let me read it to you. You know, I'm going to decline. You have been formally accepted.2 (47m 20s):Oh my God, that's amazing. That's a side note. Do you guys know that in today's day and age, when kids get their acceptance, it's email obviously. And then a lot of schools or maybe even most schools when they open the email, if they got accepted, it's a confetti graphic. So like they know as soon as they open it, if there's confetti, that is so it's so wild, right? Like the things that they could never imagine having to wait in a letter to come in the mail,3 (47m 52s):But2 (47m 52s):You did BFA. So why, why are you saying you kind of were green? You knew about,3 (48m 0s):I mean, I knew about acting it's I, I didn't know the, the, what we call the business affairs of acting the mechanics of acting, I guess I think, you know, we all experienced this. I'm sure guilty is charged. You know, when you're young or you're an actor, you really don't pay attention to a lot of things. You just want to, you know, you want to act, you want to do a performance. You want to do the best you can, of course. But then you also want to party afterwards and do all the things that young people do. And I, and I think I was talking to one of my fellow actors the other day and he asked me if you were to go back to grad school, what would you change? Or what would you, what would have helped you? And I said, have a class that teaches the business of acting and okay, these actors are going into Hollywood.3 (48m 47s):They're going to New York. They're going, whatever, teach them the basics of what the business of acting is. They got to know what a contract looks like. They got to know what business affairs mean. They got to know all this terminology. They got to know all that stuff. If I had known that that would have been a great tool for me coming to LA, coming to LA, I was green as green as a Shamrock, you know, just green. And I had to learn the hard way1 (49m 10s):And we'll get back to the LA part, but I'm not so curious about, okay, so you get into DePaul and then when, and usually being zest this, but I'll ask this, like when you get there, how did it match up to what you were thinking? Were you like, what the hell is going on? Why am I rolling on the floor to music or what?3 (49m 29s):I had no idea what was going on. And that I think scared, you know, on a side note, Chicago scared me. I was homesick for quite a bit of time before school started, I got to, I moved to Chicago, I think three weeks before school started. So there was three weeks where I did not know anybody did not know. I didn't know. Oh, I was in bad shape. And thank God for friends and family. Of course, you know, they call and man, you sound depressed, which is that dude. I'm by myself in Chicago. I don't know anybody. I don't know the city. It's a big city. It's like Flint times 20.3 (50m 9s):It's huge. But, but I think I, to answer your question about the school when the first day of school, wow. What up Betsy Hamilton's class. I'm like buoyancy. And I'm like, what the hell is she doing this buoyancy famously I ever done? And then it clicked it. Then I'm like, okay, I know what she's doing. All right. Okay. Joel, slow acting class. Woo. You can't do that. Okay. You got to do it this way. Okay. This little guy is running around this class and he inspired me.3 (50m 55s):I'm like, this is beautiful. This man in his seventies is running around like his, a guy in his twenties. He loves acting grub. Kowski all that stuff. And he was amazing, but4 (51m 8s):We didn't have him. So he's he was real. Hands-on3 (51m 11s):Like hands-on he was, I mean, I, I won the lottery with Joe slower. N not, not to say anything negative about Jim ocelot or anything like that, but he was just, he was on hands. And he really gave you when he gave you a note, he gave you a note. Okay. You know, he's like Amar, okay. Your legs. I don't know why your feet are doing that on the chair. It's like, it's not, it's not, that's an ism of yours. We gotta, you gotta, yeah. That's kinda like your feet, your feet, your body, your, your, your body is your instrument. And, you know, got to learn all this stuff.3 (51m 52s):And it's just woo. Graduate school. This is graduate school. So, yeah, that was a, a couple of experiences. I'm trying to think.1 (52m 2s):Did you feel like you fit in? Did you, did you, what was your, what was your vibe like there?3 (52m 10s):Unfortunately, my violet started to change in year two. That's when I started to feel, not that things weren't clicking for me or anything like that, but it just seemed like favorites started to appear. Oh, okay. You know, it's like, it happens. It's not something that, you know, it's done intentionally. It just happens. But if I, if you guys remember Eric Hayes, Eric, Michael Hayes,4 (52m 43s):Isabel. I haven't3 (52m 44s):Thought he was in Trojan women. I think he1 (52m 50s):Was like, yes, yes, yes, yes. So3 (52m 52s):He became a seminar. Yeah. Him and I don't know him and I beat we're we're unofficially the outcasts of the graduate class more or less. We weren't, we were not that, not that we were mistreated or anything. I'm not saying that we were mistreated by it just, it just seemed like we were known as the two actors that really didn't take things seriously. And I think that's a fallacy because I think I was taking it very seriously. I was just bored at times. I wanted to act, I didn't want to sit in a classroom all day and just sit. I wanted perform. I think, I think I understand the classroom format where you sit down, you watch your colleagues do their scenes, but I was getting fidgety, fidgeting, bored, bored.3 (53m 39s):And to the point where you dread going to school, it was like, oh, I've got to go to acting class and sit there for two and a half hours. And watch people act, you know, which I get. And again, that didn't sound right coming out. But I mean, it's just, I loved, I loved all my classmates. I loved all my classmates. I think from Derek smart to Eric Hayes, the niece Odom, Heather Ireland to name a few, you know, they, they were fantastic. Pat. Tiedemann Kendra. I mean, and one of my, let me aside. No, one of my favorite, favorite times on DePaul was with you. Gina.3 (54m 19s):Do you remember you? And I started a film. I, I did.2 (54m 23s):Oh, say what3 (54m 27s):You guys remember bill Burnett. The voice in nucleus. Okay. So for our, for my final exam, I wanted to film a short film about quitting smoking. And2 (54m 38s):Coming back to me, wait a minute,3 (54m 40s):You were asking me, I had to, I rented a camera from the video department on the campus and I walked into the lobby of the theater school and you were there and it's like, I need to shoot a scene. It's like, oh, let me be in it. And I said, okay, we'll just improv. We'll just talk about quitting. So we set the camera and you and I sat in the lobby and we filmed it and we did it. I think I still have it. I'll find it for you in 1994.2 (55m 7s):I have to tell you something, because I know you haven't been able to listen to the podcast because our website had a broken link. Okay. But what, what I should tell you is that boss and I have huge memory gaps about our time. There are many things we do not remember.3 (55m 28s):What2 (55m 29s):What's kind of weird is I sort of remembered this film that you really are hearing about it. Yeah. I mean, I believe you, I believe both of you. Okay. How exciting, you know, why I would really love that is because just last week I was saying to boss, wouldn't you like the opera? Because nothing was recorded. Really? Not even our showcase or if it was, it's not something I ever saw. No. Wouldn't you like to go back and just watch yourself? Because now we've spent basically a year and a half fully immersed. We have talked to 55 people about what their theater school experiences.2 (56m 9s):So we, we are getting back on board with what it was and we're slipping, you know, different people fill in like little bit of blanks. But now I like, now I'm just so curious about, you know, what, what, what was the experience of what was I like at that time? And a lot of people don't remember us, so we haven't really gotten this feedback from3 (56m 29s):Yeah. I mean, I remember boss. I remember all you guys. I do remember a lot of, and there's a lot of people I don't remember. I mean, I think when I was on your website the other day, you know, trying to figure out what you're like and it, which is congratulations to the both of you. I think it's awesome. I saw Tate Smith. I saw a picture of Pete Smith and I completely Like that. It was stuff like that. You know, you running into people that wow, amazing. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I interrupted you.1 (56m 59s):No, no, no. I was just going to ask, like, what was your, okay, so, so year two, you started getting itchy and like, but how did you feel? We talk a lot about like casting. How did you feel about your casting in shows? Which most people do? Like, there's been like one person that we've talked to. That was like, I loved my casting, but everyone else is like, I fucking hate it.3 (57m 23s):Nope. I haven't hated it. I hated it. And again, like I said, it happens. I think, I think a lot of the directors, the professors who are directing and all that stuff were just picking their favorites. They're not, if we're going to be in a learning environment, then you, you should take a risk with me, with somebody else with, with Heather. I think nobody was taking any risks. And everyone's like, Hey, I gotta put on a show and it's gotta be the best show I possibly can. And I'm going to use the best actors or that, you know, my opinion, the best actors. And it's like, you know, you know, if you're, you're not preparing us for the real world, you know, if you're going to do this, you know, this blind casting, whatever I thought I thought, Hey, it's a learning. I'm sure. I'm sure one of them, I'm sure Jim Ossoff will cast me.3 (58m 3s):Never did Joe slow cast me, you know, and his journey of the fifth horse. It was a great experience for me. That's when you learn, I didn't want to be the lead role. I want to learn. I want to learn, teach me, teach me what it like to perform on a stage that would typically be a stage from new in New York or a main stage in Chicago. That's where we got to learn. Right? Yeah.2 (58m 29s):That's another thing that we've really uncovered here and it, by the way, it makes perfect sense. I'm really not maligning anybody, but that the professors, you know they, they were also trying to express their own artistic desires through the projects that they were casting. And I'm sure nine times out of 10, they got carried away with their own ego about what they wanted to like, actually, we just heard this story from the episode that's airing today with Stephen Davis.3 (58m 58s):Oh, wow. Yeah.2 (59m 1s):That's a great episode. You listened to it. He re he begged the theater school to do Shakespeare. He begged them to do Romeo and Juliet, which they did. Yep. He, he really wanted to be Romeo. He didn't get cast. And he was told if I had cast you, I would had to gone with my fourth choice for Juliet of the height, because Karen mold is very tall. That's a perfect example of something that should be okay in theater school. I understand you don't want to do it when you're charging $400 a ticket on Broadway.1 (59m 38s):We're in a film where the camera's going to be jacked up, but like, but just cast. And sometimes, and sometimes I would think that, and maybe they do it now. Like sometimes you would say, why not? No. Cause it's obvious when someone wants a rule, right? So whoever wants this rule so badly, for whatever reason, they've never been cast and whatever, give them the role, let them do the role. Like maybe it's, maybe it's not, it's a long shot, but that's what school's about is long shots and learning. Right? It's like, let, let the person do this. You know, they're dying to play Romeo. Just let them play Romeo.1 (1h 0m 19s):Yeah.3 (1h 0m 19s):Yeah. Okay. And excuse me, the, if, if, if you don't mind, you know, now that you guys have you, of course, but I'm just saying the play was set in the middle east.2 (1h 0m 31s):Right. Very3 (1h 0m 32s):Last time I checked I'm Jordanian.2 (1h 0m 35s):Right?3 (1h 0m 36s):The play Romeo Lord Capulet he was Jewish. I'm sorry. He was the Jewish character, but yeah, I get it. I totally get it. I totally get it. And I agree with Steven on this one, because it just seemed like, it seemed like we are in a learning environment and let's learn. And if you're going to, if you're going to just cast people because whatever, then, then what's the point of going to the, to the fricking school and spending, spending $16,000 a year. I don't know what it is today, but1 (1h 1m 10s):It's like 48 or some craziness3 (1h 1m 13s):For paying student loans for three years, three years of, you know, every now and then some BS. Okay. Other than that, you know, the two best teachers that I had over there, arguably as Dr. Bella and Joe slower. And I think because they come from, you know, such interesting backgrounds, you know, Joe slug being Polish, you know, Bella, it can be in a Russian Jewish woman. Oh, I got a lot of stories while her, oh my God.1 (1h 1m 43s):She did she help you? Do you feel like she helped you as a teacher?3 (1h 1m 47s):Oh, she was. She, she, she, I am in her debt, you know, when it comes to acting and stuff like that. I think, I think she finally, I think she was the one that I finally, I realized what it's like to feel the, you know, like with the apple and, you know, I didn't know. It's like the Pandora box thing that she was talking about. And then it just like a light bulb over my head. It's like, oh my God, the feel what it's like to be in winter, you know, even though you're on the stage and it's hot, you gotta like, as if it's 40 below zero, she really, that, that, that, that technique, that acting technique was just incredible.3 (1h 2m 28s):I am forever in her dad and she is awesome. She's an automation rest in peace. And I, a couple of great stories about her is one that when she would like to meet her students before class, so we will walk into her office and talk and I'm sitting there in the office, she's looking at the hair. She goes, okay. Oh yeah, that doesn't sound English. And I said, oh, well, it's, it's Jordanian. I'm from the police. It's Jordanian. She goes, oh, well, you know, I'm Jewish. And I remember talking to my dad, I said, dad, I, I have to talk to this Jewish professor.3 (1h 3m 9s):You just say we're cousins. Okay. Because we are just say that don't rock the boat. Okay. So when she said they're doing, you know, I'm Jewish. And I said, well, well, yeah, I do. I do. But you know, being Jordanian and you being Jewish, you know, we're, we're practically cousins. So, you know, it's great, right. Without a drop of a dime, she goes, well, we might be cousins over, not exactly kissing cousins.2 (1h 3m 38s):Oh, that's hilarious. By the way, in case you don't know, I might have mentioned this on the podcast. Once before there exists on the internet, a Hastick interview with Joseph Loic and Bella it kin, okay. Was it conducted by studs, Terkel? It might've been, or some radio project. And the two of them talking about their approaches to acting and to teaching acting is really, really good. Yeah. You got to check it out. Right. So she really helped me. W we didn't, neither one of us had either one of those teachers, unfortunately, but we love,3 (1h 4m 13s):She, she was great. And I would give her ride home, poor thing. You know, she, you know, her husband, Frank was very ill at the time and she was like, oh, muck. And you're giving me a ride home. And I'm like, yes. Yes. Ma'am. And I was like, oh, you'll cause kind of a mess there. What'd you just get in the car.2 (1h 4m 34s):We know you had a car. That's K that's it wasn't that useful for people in school? Did you, and you messed up, I guess all the MFA's probably lived in apartments or was there any dorm living for MFS?3 (1h 4m 45s):No, no, no. Don't limit for MFA. So we had to live in apartments and my first apartment was a studio. And then I think the second year I moved in with, with Eric, from school and then we had a former student. I don't know if you remember John Soldani by any chance familiar. He was first year grad. And then I think he was cut from the program after the first year, but he came back to Chicago. So we were roomies. And then I met my girlfriend who was also a student at DePaul, Alicia hall. Right. So we, we were together. So we moved in together, I think, mid third year, something like that.3 (1h 5m 29s):I'm not sure, but yeah. And then I stayed in Chicago after graduation. I just decided to stay in Chicago and did get quite a bit of theater in Chicago and then decided to do the LA thing. And,1 (1h 5m 41s):Okay. So, so I just have a question about what was your experience like of the warning system and the cutting system where you weren't?3 (1h 5m 49s):Oh, good question. Good question. Oh, I'm glad you brought that up. I think it's, I think it took the attention away from the program because I think all the students were more concerned about the warning, getting warned and getting caught than anything, and that affected their performance in class and it affected their performance on stage my opinion. I remember some friends of mine who were just scared and I admit I was very, very nervous, but when I didn't get warned, then all of a sudden I was able to concentrate on school. I was like classes where the people that were warned, all they can think about what I can do to not get kicked out of the class.3 (1h 6m 31s):And then next thing you know, it just, it just really, really was detrimental to their performance in my opinion.2 (1h 6m 38s):But it took the focus3 (1h 6m 40s):Away. Oh yeah. Never worn. I was the only, I was the only male that wasn't warrant. All the male actors were warned except for me. And we ended up having eight graduate students, three men and five women, which I mean Derek smart, Eric Hayes and myself, and then the five women, Denise home, Heather Ireland, pat Tiedemann Kendra. I forgot her last name. Thank you. And Alicia, Alicia, Alicia was in the other class. Lisa was in the other, but I remembered you guys remember a teacher named Susan Lee.2 (1h 7m 24s):Her name has come up at times on this podcast. Yes,3 (1h 7m 30s):She was my advisor. She was the one that told me whether I was warned or not, or kicked out or not. And she said the most procurator thing. And I'm not sure if it was from the professors, but she said, well, you're not cut. You're not warned. We just don't know what to do with you. I just looked at her. What do you mean by that? Well, I mean, you're, you're, you know, I don't remember the conversation.1 (1h 7m 55s):Did she say that she raised, she say something about being a, from the middle east or3 (1h 8m 3s):Yeah, something like that. And I said, well, why don't you, why don't you and your professors just ask me and find out what you can do. Right? I mean, just I'm middle Eastern doesn't mean, I don't know how to act girl. You there.1 (1h 8m 23s):Wait a minute. So wait a minute.3 (1h 8m 25s):There's more than one professor that kind of, oh, I'm sure. I'm sure I'm not going to mention any names, but2 (1h 8m 32s):There was quite a few.1 (1h 8m 35s):Yeah. Right? To say that, that, that being from the middle east, my guesses, people were assholes about it. Like right. Like racist, racist, assholes.3 (1h 8m 50s):I mean, and that's what was going to be NASA, regardless of what race you are. So, you know, you're going to be an asshole. You're going to be an asshole. If you are a mean person, you are a mean person. It has nothing to do with your gender, your culture, where you come from, you're you, if you're a mean person, you're a mean person having said that there was quite a few people that said some things to me while I was in school, which was very offensive. But what do you want me to do? Fight every person. That's some kind of, you know, I was called many things. I was called camel jockey. I was called by students. Oh, somebody students. Yeah. Mostly by students. You know, I was called no, no, no. It's okay.3 (1h 9m 31s):Hey, that's you know, you, you grow from it. There was, there was one person that called me a word. I don't think I can say it on this podcast, but it's a, it's like, whoa.2 (1h 9m 42s):Well, well, we've heard so much about from every alum of color that we've talked to, is this thing that you're describing of maybe they even got selected for the program with the idea, oh, you know, we don't have anybody who looks like this in our program, but then it became, we can,1 (1h 10m 2s):We don't have any money.2 (1h 10m 3s):We can only find a role for that person. If it's clearly identified in the text that that person is that ethnicity. Meanwhile, all the white actors could be up for any role. Right. That, that was sort of the default. Like if you're white, then you can play anything. But if you're not white, then you, then you have to play a role that's written for whatever your ethnicity is.3 (1h 10m 27s):I agree with that. And yeah. And I think, I think Christina dare kind of broke the window on that with Romeo and Juliet, by casting Leonard Roberts as Romeo, you know, an African-American man. And he was great in the role. He was great. Absolutely. You know, she passed me as, you know, as a Jewish man, you know, even though I'm there, I like that. I I'm playing against type. This is, these are the rules that I would like to be challenged with. And unfortunately I wasn't challenged with over there. And I think the school to your saying, Gina, I think the school was just kinda like, eh, let's just bring this middle Eastern guy. See what happens. Let's get this African-American person. Let's see what happens. Let's get this Indian person. Let's see what happens. And nothing happened, nothing happened.3 (1h 11m 8s):And, and by the third year, by the third year, I was just, I was done. I was done. After, after Shakespeare, Susan Lee, I was done. I was done. She, she was a hard teacher. She was a hard teacher to deal with both academically. And you know, personally it's just, just was hard. It was hard to deal with her. I'm not, I know Bobby, some students have some harsher words for her, but again, I was going back to what I said earlier, Eric and I were pretty much marked by her that we were not serious about Shakespeare.3 (1h 11m 48s):And I was very serious about it. I just wanted, I remember students coming up to me, they tried to avoid being partners with us. And then I had one partner telling me, Hey, you better not fool around or do this. You know, you gotta be serious. I said, what the hell is wrong with you? And then when they find out the real me, and then it's like, wow, that's totally different than what I'm hearing about you. And I'm like,2 (1h 12m 11s):Yeah, this is serious. Is my lasting impression of you. I would never have said that you were anything but very serious.3 (1h 12m 21s):I appreciate that. I really do. I appreciate that. I

Advanced phrasal verbs this time, and in a format that might be more fun. I play clips from movies, and you have to figure out what each phrasal verb means. I've been doing a lot of phrasal verb stuff recently, but I think it's important to get comfortable with them. Don't get discouraged if you don't decipher all of these, the point is to become aware of them, and eventually incorporate them into your day-to-day. Try the challenge and let me know what you think. FULL TRANSCRIPTS of ALL FUTURE EPISODES

Existential anxiety is a sign that you want to make things better but you're feeling surrounding togetherness pressure. Here's how you can manage it and actually use it in your favor. Show Notes: How to be anxious by David Egan Read the Full Transcript on The Non-Anxious Leader website. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jack-shitama/message

Please hit that Subscribe/Follow button on your Podcast player, so you won't miss the latest episode.  Full Transcript of this episode  can be found on our Patreon page 0:00-02:08 女：听故事说中文，听得越多说得越好，大家好，今天给大家带来故事解读，解读小故事《皮鞋》。 男：《皮鞋》。 女：本期节目由我们的Patrons赞助完成，在这里感谢我们的Patrons，没有你们的支持，就没有这一期的故事解读。 男：没错，非常谢谢我们的Patrons，没有你们就没有《听故事说中文》，下面我们来听故事解读《皮鞋》。 女：《皮鞋》，哎，你平时喜欢穿什么样的鞋啊？皮鞋、运动鞋、凉鞋、皮靴？ 男：皮靴，我一般喜欢穿运动鞋吧我觉得，运动鞋比较轻松。 女：嗯，什么场合会穿皮鞋呢？ 男：皮鞋的话工作的时候得穿，我觉得主要是工作吧，你呢？ 女：对，也是跟你差不多吧，要看场合吧，运动的时候穿运动鞋，然后就是如果想打扮得漂亮一点的话，就是八成会穿双皮鞋吧。 男：哦，皮鞋会更漂亮。 女：就是看起来更好看一点嘛，也要看你穿什么衣服，穿什么衣服搭配穿什么鞋，是吧？ 男：对了，嗯。 女：那你知道就是人为什么会穿皮鞋吗？就皮鞋这种鞋是哪里来的，是谁发明的，是谁第一个想出来穿皮鞋的。 男：我还真不知道呢。 女：其实关于皮鞋是怎么来的，为什么有第一双皮鞋，当然会有不同的说法，对不对？ 男：应该有很多故事。 女：众说纷纭。 男：很多不同的故事。 女：对，每个人有每个人的说法，我们今天给大家带来的是其中的一个说法，是关于皮鞋是怎么来的。 ..... For the full transcript of this episode and many others, please support us by becoming our patrons. ************************************************************ If you think our podcast is valuable to you and others,  become our patron for as low as $5/month.You will have access to all of the transcripts, vocabulary list and patrons only episodes ************************************************************ Are you already a listener? Leaving the show a review on iTunes will help more people find the podcast. Thank you!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

This episode is a presentation from the Family Systems Book Study that puts family systems theory in context for the non-anxious leader. Show Notes: Read the Full Transcript on The Non-Anxious Leader website. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jack-shitama/message

Please hit that Subscribe/Follow button on your Podcast player, so you won't miss the latest episode.  Full Transcript of this episode  can be found on our Patreon page 一个年轻人问村里的智者，幸福生活的秘诀是什么。 智者没说话，领着年轻人来到村头的一片树林。树林里有一条小路，沿途有非常美丽的风景，一直走，就会回到原点。“沿着这条小路散散步吧，但要小心树林里的灰熊”，智者嘱咐。年轻人点点头，胆战心惊地出发了。 ..... For the full transcript of this episode and many others, please support us by becoming our patrons. ************************************************************ If you think our podcast is valuable to you and others,  become our patron for as low as $5/month.You will have access to all of the transcripts, vocabulary list and patrons only episodes ************************************************************ Are you already a listener? Leaving the show a review on iTunes will help more people find the podcast. Thank you!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Reimagining Therapy Reimagined Curt and Katie chat about their decision to step back from the Therapy Reimagined Conference and what they will be focusing their energy on moving forward. We explore how we came to this decision and the importance of examining what is working in your business practice. We also talk about how other Modern Therapists can get involved in the Therapy Reimagined movement. It's time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age. In this episode we talk about: Taking a step back and looking at what the mission for Therapy Reimagined is. Why we decided to take a step back from the Therapy Reimagined Conference. What we will be focusing our energy on in place of the conference. How and what you can begin advocating for to help improve the field. Factors that get in the way of advocacy. Ways to get involved with Therapy Reimagined. Our Generous Sponsors: Turning Point Turning Point is a financial planning firm that's focused exclusively on serving mental health professionals. They'll help you navigate all the important elements of your personal finances, like budgeting, investing, selecting retirement plans, managing student loan debt and evaluating big purchases, like your first home. And because they specialize in serving therapists in private practice, they'll help you navigate the finances of your practice, as well. They'll help you navigate bookkeeping, analyze the financial implications of changes like hiring clinicians or diversifying your income sources. They'll even help you consider strategies like the S-Corp tax election. Visit turningpointHQ.com to learn more and enter the promo code Modern Therapist for 30% off their Quick Start Coaching package. Resources mentioned: We've pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below might be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance! Therapy Reimagined (4 Tenets) Relevant Episodes: Therapy Reimagined Defining the Therapy Movement Therapy of Tomorrow The Fight to Save Psychotherapy Why YOU Shouldn't Sell Out to Betterhelp   Connect with us! Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group Get Notified About Therapy Reimagined 2021  Our consultation services: The Fifty-Minute Hour Who we are: Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making "dad jokes" and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: www.curtwidhalm.com Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt's youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: www.katievernoy.com A Quick Note: Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We're working on it. Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren't trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don't want to, but hey.   Stay in Touch: www.mtsgpodcast.com www.therapyreimagined.com Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapist's Group https://www.facebook.com/therapyreimagined/ https://twitter.com/therapymovement https://www.instagram.com/therapyreimagined/   Credits: Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/ Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano http://www.crystalmangano.com/   Full Transcript (autogenerated):   Curt Widhalm  00:00 This episode of Modern Therapist Survival Guide is brought to you by Turning Point   Katie Vernoy  00:00 Turning Point financial life planning helps therapists confidently navigate every aspect of their financial life from practice financials and personal budgeting to investing Tax Management and student loans. Visit TurningPointhq.com. To learn more and enter the promo code Modern Therapist for 30% off their quickstart coaching package.   Curt Widhalm  00:24 Listen at the end of the episode for more information.   Announcer  00:27 You're listening to the Modern Therapist Survival Guide where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings to support you as a whole person and a therapist. Here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.   Curt Widhalm  00:43 Welcome back monitor therapists. This is the Modern Therapist Survival Guide. I'm Curt Widhalm, with Katie Vernoy. And this is the podcast that is all things therapists, things that we do things we look at our profession about the struggles that we face coming into this fields, and about this time of year is when we're always coming out of our therapy reimagined conference. And some years we've recorded a live podcast at the conference. But this is the time of year when we reflect on what our mission is, and how we're going about that evaluating if we're being effective or not. And one of the things that we announced at this year's therapy reimagined conference is that we're not doing a therapy reimagined conference in 2022, that we have decided that our conference is going to go and live on a farm upstate, where it can have plenty of room to roam around and play with other conferences. But we are looking at, and part of the decision to not who is is the tremendous amount of time that it takes for our very small team to put together an event that is a snapshot in time of a lot of work that we do, it's hundreds, if not 1000s, of man hours to put on an event that Katie and I feel that some of that time can be actually better done to further admission in some other ways. And taking a step back as far as 2022 goes, does allow for us to refocus on our mission.   Katie Vernoy  02:31 Yes, and I think some of it came into stark relief, because we were putting on a conference two years in a row during a pandemic, with planning the conference numerous times, interacting around, you know, the COVID and the other stuff, but also zoom fatigue, and it just kind of the general malaise that I think has set in on all of us. And so, to me, I found that when we were getting ready for this year's conference, there was a lot I was really excited about. But there was a lot where I felt like, if I had more time I could do x if I had more time right now that wasn't dedicated to this conference, I could really do more for the mission that we've set for ourselves. And so and I know Kurt, you were feeling the same way. So I use is cuz I don't want to speak for you. But um, the things that I really see, being really important for us is looking at reevaluating how we're using our resources, time, team money, all of those things, because there's a lot that's happening in the field of mental health right now. I'm sure we'll do another workforce podcast around people leaving the field. And there's also a lot of initiatives that are starting to come forward that may help therapists but certainly are designed to try to make therapy more accessible. And so there's just a lot where I think we need boots on the ground, to be able to make sure that our profession is actually going in the right direction that we're using this time to make a difference versus being so stuck in the grind of whether it's our practices or a big annual conference or whatever. When Kurt and I were talking, I thought it was important that we actually for folks who haven't been with us that long, we've got a lot of new listeners lately, to really let people know what our mission is. We have a website that is dedicated to the podcast and to the therapy reimagined mission and so I'm I'll read kind of the main four tenants that we put up on this website, but we'll also link to it in the show notes. The four things that we're really looking at is create sustainable careers supporting sound business practices, the incorporation of technology and adequate pay for all therapists. The second one is improved education to reflect modern practices support, support high quality clinical work, trained therapists to care for themselves and address the diversity in our communities. Increased representation across the field, in supporting inclusion on our stages in our classrooms and in our offices. And, you know, kind of the one of the moment improve access to mental health care without requiring sacrifice, financial instability and burnout from therapists. So there's a lot there. It's a very broad mission. It's more just like, how do we make our profession better? But I think there's a lot that we could be doing here and, and so to me, I think for this episode, we kind of turn to what are we looking at? How do we do this? How do we help our fellow Modern Therapists to make our profession better?   Curt Widhalm  05:50 And but we have a number of projects that we're working on that we'll be announcing it has they come up, because one of the things that we have learned is get things kind of figured out before we   Katie Vernoy  06:05 very true, very true, we get so excited, and then we get to many projects. So yes, we will, we will wait to announce the ones till we're really ready.   Curt Widhalm  06:14 The podcast isn't going to change. And in fact, it's probably might allow us to become a lot better and a lot more focused and being able to bring messages that especially leading up to conference time, some of our podcasts, we have to record out quite a bit of head of time. So that way you can put on a conference. But   Katie Vernoy  06:36 yeah, we that little logistical thing of Hey, for the next two months, most of our focus will be the conference, that we have freedom to not do that this year.   Curt Widhalm  06:44 We're we're not going anywhere. As far as the podcast goes, we're going to be adding out some other things, we started a little online place for some continuing education, if that is something that we'll probably continue on with our conference that will allow us to bring some content to you and some new and other ways. Yes. And that takes off a couple of some of these mission points as far as providing still a good place for improving education for therapists and being able to bring what I think a lot of other conferences have shied away from, which is content about running business practices better.   Katie Vernoy  07:27 But also topics that push the envelope. It's interesting, because for me, I feel like we've been so immersed in our conference segment, which is misfits, outliers pushing against the status quo, like that just feels so endemic that I'm like, Oh, well, everybody has topics like this. And I think that's not actually true. Right. So continuing to bring new perspective to the clinical work to how people show up in the room, so that that's still going to be happening. And I like to think about that as like a learning community where we find different new and different ways to learn together through the podcast through this learning platform that we built out for the conference. I think that's all going to be really fun, regardless of exactly what it looks like, which we still don't know. So we're not going to promise.   Curt Widhalm  08:11 One of the things that I'm really looking forward to re establishing in our work is piece of the advocacy of really getting boots on the ground. And Katie mentioned that we're working on another workforce issue. We'll we'll get into some of these details here in a little bit. But I'm seeing across the country, a lot more bills going through legislators about dealing with mental health workforce shortages. And knowing that we can't rely solely on the professional organizations to be able to voice what it is that we actually need as workers that beyond getting like an extra Subway sandwich, you know, in an appreciation lunch once a month, that there are really structural problems with the way that our field is funded, and working with legislators outside of legislative season, when they're busy focusing on hundreds of bills. Yes, this is where some of the free time that we have not in planning a next year's conference right now is we're going to come up with some bullet points for you to actually start talking with your legislative representatives about in order to deal with this. You know, I can't wait to record this next episode. But it is going to be something where there is a call to action that's necessary because just as a little preview, some states are looking at having the National Guard come in to staff, residential facilities. Yeah, that's not good. So these are the kinds of things that allow for our focus to take some time into actually start making some impact to leave this as a better profession for those going forward.   Katie Vernoy  10:05 I think advocacy and activism can feel daunting. And I think it can also feel exhausting to be an activist or an advocate for your own profession. It's like, Hey, I gave it the office, so to speak. And I think for Kurt, and for me, I think this is clearly a huge passion of ours, we've been involved at the state level with our professional association with our board. And I think it's something where we can do some of the legwork, and I'm sure there's others like us out there that maybe can do the legwork in other states. And we could potentially put together a repository of information so people could activate on a local level on a national level on an international level and recognize we've got listeners from all over the place. And so I think it's, it's something where sharing information and doing the part that you can, maybe it's not always sufficient, but it's certainly good enough.   Curt Widhalm  11:06 And this comes across not just in legislative bills, right? Sure. One of the episodes that not one of the episodes, the absolute most popular episode that we've done, is about not selling out to companies like betterhelp. Yes. And some of the advocacy and stuff that we need to do is going beyond just complaining about companies Yes. And being able to turn that energy into something productive, based on the download numbers on this episode. This is something that really resonates with our community, we crafted our therapy, reimagined conference, talk around surviving and thriving in your own practices in a world where these apps are coming out. There's more steps that we can do. And it's well beyond the reaches of licensing boards, it's well beyond the reaches, which professional organizations are even starting to focus on. Yeah, that really does take more than the two of us clicking on every betterhelp ad that we see trying to take them down $1 at a time and advertising money.   Katie Vernoy  12:24 Oh, dear. There we go. Again, I think the thing that I'm hearing you say current and I think this is what's what's really important is that yes, there are things that need to happen at a legislative level at a policy level. And then there's kind of how we spend our dollars, so to speak, or how we spend our energy. And so one of the things that I'm really looking at, and I've been talking to some fellow modern therapists, and I'm going to be doing some more research. And I know Kurt, you're you're involved in this as well is really looking at how do we make a decision on where we work, who we work with, where we spend our money, because those things are actually hugely impactful on on what flies, better help and other organizations, conglomerates, you know, whatever, would not survive if we didn't work there. And so I think it's something where being able to get more information to everyone so that we can make those decisions, I think is something that's important to us. But we also are just two people, with a few people helping us out. And so we can't look everywhere at once. And so as always, we're always saying like, hey, if there's something that we need to be looking at, if there's something you're looking at that you want to talk with us about on the podcast, please send us a message podcast at therapy, reimagined, calm, but I think it's something where sharing information so that we're making more informed decisions is something that we can do much better when we have more time. And I think if you're listening and taking action based on that information, it has a ripple effect that I think is really impactful for our profession.   Curt Widhalm  14:07 And one of the things we hear at the conference from our attendees year after year, especially people who are attending the first time as Where were you earlier in my career.   Katie Vernoy  14:19 And that will say we've been here.   Curt Widhalm  14:22 And you know, the more the longer that we do the stuff that we do, that is becoming part of my answers. And that not having other people entering in our profession feeling the same way. And this is the call to action of being able to help us being able to take some of the steps that we do. And being able to do that in your own community is your own professional organizations, your own licensing boards, your own even therapists, culture and community around you does make it to where It's not the same complaints over and over. Part of what Katie and I thought, when we were originally launching the podcast back in 2017, was, if we just start talking about some of the issues that we hear in the same conversations over and over again, and we record them, then maybe this can serve as a resource for people to not have to ask the same questions over and over again. And it's worked a little bit, it helps to be able to post an old podcast up and say, here's our take on this from when we talked about this before. And in some areas, it has really served to shift some of the conversations that some of this deals with, like our work on developing a statement about paying pre licensees that, really being able to see our profession, in some respects, be able to stand up and be like, we have master's degrees or doctorate degrees, we should get paid for the work that we do. And part of this is how much I recognize that, for a profession like ours, where the median age is a lot higher than it is in a lot of other professions, we hold on to a lot of old ways. And a lot of the things that is frustrating that we have had the same conversations over and over again, is that the more vocal modern therapists are, the more that we can start to sway what the attitudes about our profession really are. I'm sensing that we are getting this tipping point. And the reason that I know this is the more that I hear from more established seasoned therapists about how we're making it harder for people to get hired at low rates. Yeah, that people are asking for things like, oh, living wage, rather than working for free. But I know that this tide is changing. A lot of this is beyond what we do. But sure, it's giving the permission to be able to make this a sustainable career. And that is very much part of our mission. And we see this in a number of ways. But hopefully, it's those people who are listening to us those people who are coming to our conference for the first time, we're able to take away some of those other complaints from future therapists to be able to say, there was a time when you guys didn't get paid.   Katie Vernoy  17:38 Yeah, that would be cool. Yeah, I don't know what to expect as far as what's reasonable, or not even reasonable. Maybe that's not the right word. But what, what's realistic to expect as far as the amount of changes we can make, and I know we've talked about how to approach change at different times, whether it's working within the system, or burning it all down and starting fresh, or whatever it is. And I think, to me have been one of those therapists that has been around for quite some time, it's just blows my mind that I've been a therapist for 20 years. And it's something where I've burned it down, I've quit things and a half. And I've also worked within the system. And I don't know that either of those things can work without the other completely. I think there needs to be people working in both, both arenas making these differences. And I'm not sure how much can be done it within within the remainder of my career, I've got you know, I've been a therapist for 20 years, I'll probably be a therapist for another 20 years. So I'm right smack dab in the middle. I don't know what's reasonable to expect. And maybe this is just me feeling reflective and a little bit sentimental after the conference is finished. But I'm excited about the work we can do. And I also am trying to stay more cautiously optimistic about what's actually possible.   Curt Widhalm  19:11 And I'm looking at it as fast not doing conference. That way we can focus on is more sustained effort, you know, avoiding the Tony Robbins effect, you know, where people go to the, you know, great motivational speakers, and they walk out and they're like, I'm gonna change everything about my life.   Katie Vernoy  19:33 Everything is gonna be amazing now because I was at a three day conference.   Curt Widhalm  19:38 And people have done research on people who attend Tony Robbins events. It's why it's named after him. Yeah. That effect wears off after about 72 hours.   Katie Vernoy  19:49 Oh, geez. The length of that of the conference maybe is the length of time that you remain, you keep that sustain that that effort and so   Curt Widhalm  19:59 what We want is for us to be able to not just focus on creating kind of this groundswell of energy that everyone returns back to their normal lives, but is able to kind of throughout the year, hold some consistent pressure on the community around them, you know, they   Katie Vernoy  20:20 can't escape us, they will always have us all the time, and we will constantly be working.   Curt Widhalm  20:26 Well, I mean, it's, it's the things like, you know, you're talking about having left agencies in a house before. And yes, but it's also taking a hard look at ourselves and the culture that we bring, because I look at some of the Facebook groups where somebody, you know, announces that they're leaving a group, because they're not satisfied with the way that the community support is. And looking at the atrocious way that the Facebook communities respond in those situations, tells me that there's a lot of therapists that are just fine, being part of that toxicity.   Katie Vernoy  21:09 And the status quo. Yeah, and I think there are times when the people leaving and a half are actually part of the toxic culture, too. So we're not commenting on specific people who have left in a half. But I think it's it's something where the response, I guess, regardless of whether someone leaving is part of the toxicity, or whether the environment is toxic, or both, the response is to sustain the status   Curt Widhalm  21:36 quo, the same status quo that everyone complains about.   Katie Vernoy  21:40 Yes. So I think consistent effort, it building a consistent culture of learning and growing and challenging the status quo and working to combat complacency. I think I like that idea. I also am just acknowledging that people may need to opt out at times, because it is a lot of work to sustain this type of effort to keep pushing forward. Especially if there are other things that people are interested in advocating for and activating for. So we recognize that but we're gonna maintain consistency are gonna be there. Week after week, with the podcast month after month, with whatever else we're doing, we're going to be pushing forward these concepts to make all of our careers better.   Curt Widhalm  22:28 And a final note from me on this is, this is also permission for you that we believe in the things that we talked about on this podcast, we do them in our practices, and part of what you're witnessing is reevaluating what's working for your business and what's not. And Katie, and I came to the conclusion that conferences, not helping us in the way that we want to spread our mission. It's something where it's okay to take a step back. And really what we're giving ourselves permission on, is we come out of therapy, reimagined, 2021, Hayes is you don't have to have everything figured out at every step along the way. Part of redeveloping your business plan is looking at what's working and what's not, we're in that phase of, we know what's not working for us, and gonna be sitting down and clarifying and continuing to bring you great content.   Katie Vernoy  23:30 And a final note from me, because I think part of our assessment and evaluation is that it's the two of us and a few other people that have been doing a lot of this work. And we've had opportunities and I hope, have taken advantage of opportunities to collaborate with a number of people, with our speakers with our sponsors and partners. We've collaborated with a lot of people. But the word that kept resonating for me as I was thinking about how we move forward is co creation. And so my call to action is stay involved. But let us know if you actually want to take a step forward with us and help us with creating content or researching something or spotlighting an area of our profession that needs a closer look. You know, definitely reach out to us but Kurt and I have each have our own experiences and perspectives and and we need to broaden that in the work that we do. And so if you want to be part of this co creation of the next steps, please reach out and let us know.   Curt Widhalm  24:39 Until next time, I'm Kurt, Katie Vernoy.   Katie Vernoy  24:43 Thanks again to our sponsor turning point,   Curt Widhalm  24:46 we wanted to tell you a little bit more about our sponsor turning points. Turning Points is a financial planning firm that's focused exclusively on serving mental health professionals to help you navigate all the important elements of your personal finances like budgeting investing Selecting retirement plans, managing student loan debts and evaluating big purchases, like your first home, and because they specialize in serving therapists and private practice, so help you navigate the finances of your practice as well. They'll help you navigate bookkeeping, analyze the financial implications of changes, like hiring clinicians or diversifying your income sources will even help you consider strategies like S corp tax election,   Katie Vernoy  25:24 And for listeners of MTSG you'll receive 30% off the price of their quickstart coaching intensive just enter promo code modern therapist when signing up. And don't forget to visit TurningPointhq.com to download your free finance quickstart guide for therapists. Thank you   Announcer  25:41 for listening to the modern therapist Survival Guide. Learn more about who we are and what we do at MTSGpodcast.com. You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter. And please don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any of our episodes.

A conflict of wills gets you stuck. This approach will help you move forward towards a more productive conversation. Show notes: New Neuroscience Reveals 7 Secrets That Will Make You Emotionally Intelligent by Eric Barker Conflicted: How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes by Ian Leslie Read the Full Transcript on The Non-Anxious Leader website. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jack-shitama/message

Please hit that Subscribe/Follow button on your Podcast player, so you won't miss the latest episode.  Full Transcript of this episode  can be found on our Patreon page 0:00-02:14 女：听故事说中文，听得越多说得越好，大家好，今天给大家带来故事解读，解读故事《用伤疤提醒自己》。 男：《用伤疤提醒自己》。 女：谢谢我们的Patrons给我们的支持和帮助，让我们可以给大家带来这一期的故事解读。 男：没错，非常非常感谢我们的Patrons，那下面我们来听故事解读。 女：《用伤疤提醒自己》。 男：什么？ 女：《用伤疤提醒自己》。 男：用什么提醒自己？ 女：伤疤。 男：伤疤？ 女：我看你脸上好像就有一个伤疤，这怎么有个疤呀？这个疤是哪来的呀？ 男：是小时候不小心划破了。 女：哦，哎好像这个眼睛上面也有一个疤诶？ 男：眼睛上有个疤？ 女：你这个眼睛上是有个疤在这。 男：你是说... ..... For the full transcript of this episode and many others, please support us by becoming our patrons. ************************************************************ If you think our podcast is valuable to you and others,  become our patron for as low as $5/month.You will have access to all of the transcripts, vocabulary list and patrons only episodes ************************************************************ Are you already a listener? Leaving the show a review on iTunes will help more people find the podcast. Thank you!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Edwin Friedman described five characteristics of systems that promote burnout among their leaders. Understanding this can help you avoid the same fate. Part 1 goes through the characteristics. Part 2 helps leaders respond appropriately. Show Notes: Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue Read the Full Transcript on The Non-Anxious Leader website. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jack-shitama/message

Please hit that Subscribe/Follow button on your Podcast player, so you won't miss the latest episode.  Full Transcript of this episode  can be found on our Patreon page 一个年轻人问村里的智者，幸福生活的秘诀是什么。 智者没说话，领着年轻人来到村头的一片树林。树林里有一条小路，沿途有非常美丽的风景，一直走，就会回到原点。“沿着这条小路散散步吧，但要小心树林里的灰熊”，智者嘱咐。年轻人点点头，胆战心惊地出发了。 ..... For the full transcript of this episode and many others, please support us by becoming our patrons. ************************************************************ If you think our podcast is valuable to you and others,  become our patron for as low as $5/month.You will have access to all of the transcripts, vocabulary list and patrons only episodes ************************************************************ Are you already a listener? Leaving the show a review on iTunes will help more people find the podcast. Thank you!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Let's get this party started! Trig Talk™ is the a companion podcast for HGO (highlandgames.org). Host, Hayden Baillio, will sit down with a complete spectrum of Highland Games athletes, athletic directors and legends to discuss a wide breathe of topics. To gain access to more Trig Talk™ exclusive extras, become a patron of HGO at https://www.patreon.com/hgousa. Please press subscribe and rate the podcast if you already feel obliged. 5 stars preferably.... just saying. To see Full Transcript of this episode, please go here: Trig Talk: Season 1 Trailer --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/trigtalk/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/trigtalk/support

In this episode, CEO of CS Thrive, Kirsten Franklin, talks about mindset. Today, Kirsten talks about what mindset is, why we should care about it, and how it affects our outcomes, results, and everyday life. How can we leverage mindset to change the results of things we don't like in our lives? How can we change our core beliefs? Hear about Kirsten's four questions, her stopwatch strategy, and get her advice on how to manifest as a conduit, all on today's episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “What you deeply believe will always play itself out for you.” “Sometimes just the awareness of the thing makes the thing go away.” “When you're really in the moment, just throw a big red stop sign in your head. What you're doing is actually stopping the subconscious chatter. That alone can elevate you.” “If you're still trying to get to that next level, then you have to pay attention to what you're saying to yourself at this level. You have to hear what you're saying, because it's dictating your reality.” “It's the ‘taking action' that's the hard part.” “None of it is a big deal. Relax.” “There's two ways to manifest. There's the manifest by force versus when you open up and let the universe and all of its power flow through you.”   More about Kirsten Franklin Kirsten is a world-class rapid transformation coach who has helped change the lives of over 1000 individuals. She is the brains behind the unique MVP method that is responsible for helping her clients rapidly transform their Mindset, raise their Vibrations, and modify their Processes, so they can achieve their dream lives. She helps people overcome fears, adversities and traumas while improving their clarity, focus, performance, communication, relationships and thinking, so they can fulfill their ambitions. Many of her clients are seen as being highly successful and seek her out to help them define and achieve their next-level. She has spent over sixteen years studying mindset, positive psychology, behavioral science and neuroscience and she is a master of techniques such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Strategic Intervention (SI), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Coaching (CBT), Timeline Therapy, Mindset, Mindfulness, Meditation and more. Kirsten received her Juris Doctorate from St. John's University School of Law in 2001. Now retired, she owns multiple companies and is the CEO of CS Thrive, a coaching and consulting company that helps executives, founders, small business owners and athletes become unfu*kwithable in their business and lives. In free time, she is the host of the podcast Girl on Fire; writes for “Mind-Flux,” a publication she created on Medium.com; writes fiction and non-fiction books, and hosts live events. She has been featured in Thrive Global, NBC, CBS, and Fox.   Suggested Keywords Mindset, Mindfulness, Fears, Psychology, Behaviour, Therapy, Awareness, Manifest, Conduit, Abundance, Action, Reality, Subconscious, Liberty, Results, Outcomes, Positivity,   To learn more, follow Kirsten at: Website:          https://www.kirstenfranklin.com                         https://www.csthrive.com Podcast:          https://bleav.com/podcast-show/bleav-in-girl-on-fire Facebook:       Kirsten Franklin Instagram:       @kirsten_franklin Twitter:            @CSThrive LinkedIn:         Kirsten Franklin Clubhouse:     @kirstenfranklin   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript:  Speaker 1 (00:01): Hey, Kiersten. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you on. So thanks for joining me today. Thanks Karen. It's great to be here. It's nice to see you again. I know, just so everyone knows I was on Kirsten's podcast a couple of weeks ago, and we will talk all about that podcast and where people can find it a little bit later, so you have to wait to get the good stuff. But in the meantime today, we are going to talk about mindset. So I feel like mindset can mean a lot of things. So what is it really? Yeah, so that's a great question because it's one of those words like coach or like this, or like that, that we hear all over the place and for me in the way that I use it. So it was actually originally coined by Carol Dweck and she was talking about eight thought process, like being fixed or growth mindset, meaning you believe that you were given a certain sort of limitation and that's the highest you can go and that's fixed. Speaker 1 (01:04): Right? And that no matter what you do, you'll never going to go and surpass that level of ability. And growth is one where you feel as though, you know, you have the ability to change it, right? You can, you can go beyond the quote limitations. There are no limitations. And the way that it's sort of been more used frequently is in discussing the subconscious mind. And that's something she references back to because that's actually where all the magic happens. And you know, the way I use it is really talking about that subconscious language. It's about the core beliefs that you hold about yourself. It's almost like the rule of law that you have decided is true for you and you're going to live by it no matter what, Hey, even though you don't really know, you kind of created those laws. So it gets a little tricky in that people understand the difference between conscious and subconscious, but as you talk to them, they really believe many times that they know what they're thinking. Speaker 1 (02:02): And the funny thing is is you don't until you catch it and you really kind of latch on and you're like, oh, why did I say that that way? Right? And, and you kind of have to dig into it, but you can, you can understand your deepest core beliefs by the language. And actually just take a look around you. Is there something in your life that you don't like, or maybe you're kind of feeling attracted towards or repelling against, then there's something out of alignment in those core beliefs, because whatever you believe is what you're going to see in your reality. And so when we use the term mindset, is that dependent upon our core beliefs? You know, or is this, I mean, obviously mindset is something we can change, but if people say, oh, well I have these core beliefs and they're not going to change. Speaker 1 (02:51): So then how can the mindset change? Does that make sense? Yes. And actually there's a perfect example. So a lot of times I like to ask for questions when somebody is in a certain emotional pattern, right? Let's say, oh my God, I have anxiety. I can't drive over bridges. Right? Like, or, or whatever it is. So I'll ask four questions and I ask the first question, like, could you let that feeling in like, are you willing to just feel it? Because if you're not willing to let it in and you're constantly pushing it away, well, you can't get rid of it because you're, you're, you're not willing to work with it. Right. The second question I'll ask is, do you believe it's even humanly possible for you to eliminate the feeling of anxiety? Could it ever just go away? Right. And these are just yes or no questions. Speaker 1 (03:35): And if the answer, yeah, I think I could get rid of it. Like that's totally possible for me. Right. The next question I would ask is, would you let it go? Are you willing to let it go? Okay. And again, it's a yes or no. The reason I ask these questions is a yes or no fashion is at any point when you say no, no, I'm not willing to let it in. Then you can't let it go. No, I don't believe, I don't believe it's possible that I could just eliminate it then. Guess what? You will not eliminate it. Right? No, I don't. I, you know, I'm not really willing to let it go. Okay. Well then, you know, you're going to keep it for some reason, right. Or if you say yes, all the men in the last one says, okay, well, when, when are you going to let it go tomorrow? Speaker 1 (04:15): Okay. There's a reason why you're not today. Right? So, so the thing about what you had just said is that whatever you believe is going to be true. So if you believe it's not possible, it's not going to, it's not going to, it's not going to be possible for you. Right. And so, so it's a, it's a, it's a tricky little thing, you know? And so how can we, how can we change our beliefs? How does that work? That's a, that's a long process and a short one. So you can actually just change them. That's the fastest way to change them is to literally just change them. What is it that you wish you believe? What is it that you hoped you live? How is it that you would hope things would be, and then just believe them? And it's actually that simple. Now I know a lot of us thinking like, yeah. Speaker 1 (05:06): Okay. You're funny. I, I that's. I'm like, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right. But I want you to think of the moment. There has to be a moment in your life where you're so off. So fed up, so done with something that it was done. You're never going to take that, do that, see that, feel that again, and you walked out on it. Like it typically happens in relationships. I'm never going to have that. You don't, you're done, never happened again. Right. Because you're done because whoever you were that got yourself into that situation, you were done with it and you were not willing to accept it and you won't ever accept it again. Right. Whether it's like somebody who speaks to you in a certain way or does something or whatever, or even the way the grocery bag of groceries, you know, bags of groceries. Speaker 1 (05:47): You're like, yo, you like it. You know, it's just done. That's the same thing in our head. Sometimes we can just be so over something that we're done with it. And it changes right there in an instant. Right. and then more typically it's we think a lot about how we wish it could be how we wish it should be, should be as a, as a dangerous one for me, because it's a comparative thing. Oh, I should be here, but I'm not, oh, like, I shouldn't be married, but I'm not, oh, this should be this way. And that starts a spiral of depression because your life doesn't look the way you want it to, then it's no good and it's all wrong. And then it comes down. And as you know, when we have these stressors and emotional things, they come out physically. Now you have neck pain. Speaker 1 (06:33): Now you, now you get headaches. Now, all of a sudden, your knees hurt. Right. If it's not a physiological difference, then it's typically coming from an emotional space it's coming from inside. Right. So how do we change them? I mean, look, I'm going to be totally honest. You can like, go, am I allowed to swear? I'm going to try not to sweat. You could like Google this stuff. Okay. Like there are affirmations, there's hypnosis. There's, self-hypnosis, there's positive cycles. There are a million different ways. And I don't believe in one size fits. All right. So I could lay down some techniques right now. And you know, a third of y'all will get it, do it, try it. It'll work. A third of you will be like, yeah, I'm not even bothering. And a third of you will try it and it's not going to work. Speaker 1 (07:13): Right. But even that is in your head. So if you are someone who doesn't believe that talking things out helps anything. Then if my method is talking things out, then it's not going to work for you. So that's the power of our brain. Let me tell you how powerful our brain is. I was just having this conversation. So, you know, I was talking to somebody and there's a blind spot. So meaning your eye, witness identification, all stuff, all bad. Why? Because we interpret things so differently and we can create blind spots. So you ever had that moment where you're like, oh, can you get me that book on the shelf? Right. And the person's like, I don't feel like getting you up, but you're standing right next to the shelf. Just grab it to me and give it to me. Okay, fine. What's the book it's not here. Speaker 1 (07:55): Right. And all the fighting goes back and forth. You finally get up from your seat. You walk over to the shelf right in front of the space is the book he or she literally couldn't see it because somewhere the command was given no book. You don't have to get it. You don't want to get it. It's not there. This is stupid stuff. Right. And so it literally happened. And so it's kind of crazy. Like, I can't tell you all the science behind it because we're studying it every day. In fact, you and I, before this, this packets were just talking about how they figured out. They think the, the place in your brain that lights up when you're deciding whether something is going to get stored in your subconscious mind. Now that's a really interesting place to play because I mean the magic that we can make happen right there, who knows. Speaker 1 (08:40): Right. But you know, it's, it's many different techniques to change it. You know affirmation again, you can Google that, you know, but it's really important because what you deeply believe will always play itself out for you. So I always tell people, take a look around your life. If there are areas or places that you are just simply unhappy, you really need to dig into your beliefs about yourself, the way it's supposed to look how it's supposed to be, and you'll see how that's playing out. Yeah. So I, it sounds to me that you're saying not, there's no one size fits all for this. And I think that's the realest answer. You know, like you said, I can tell you this or this, and it might work for some and not others. And so it sounds like you need to figure out what is going to work best for you and then seek that out. Speaker 1 (09:42): Yeah. And it's a testing thing, right? I mean, you really do have to go through things. Like I have a mindfulness email that I send to everyone it's 52 weeks. And why, because it's literally 52 different ways to practice the same thing. Right. Mindfulness. Right. But the goal is, is that okay? You try it one week. Some people get bored with stuff really easy. Right now it's a new thing they could do every week. Right. But the goal is that at the end of it, it doesn't matter whether you picked up or found your thing, you just did it for an entire year, 52 different ways, but you did it. So at the end of the year, you still have the result, even though you didn't realize you were kind of doing that, you know, here I'll, I'll tell the audience one thing that they can do that works for everyone period. Speaker 1 (10:23): And it's only if you do it. So just remember you have to do it, actually do it. And it's something I do with all my clients. And it's called no negative and try it for a week. Try for a few days, it's really about awareness. And what I started them off doing is I literally have them take their phone, their stopwatch feature on their phone. When they wake up, they started the very first instance where they feel, say, or do something in the quote negative. They have to hit the stopwatch button, record the time, write down kind of what it is. They were doing, what it is, they're feeling what it is or how I was saying. So you wake up, you hit this, do you start the thing? Like, oh crap. I got to go to work. Gosh, 12 seconds, 12 seconds elapsed. All right. Speaker 1 (11:06): Oh crap. I have to go to work. All right. Start the button again. Okay. Brushing my teeth, got to pick out clothes. I got dressed. All right. Hit the button. Right. And, but that's it because you'll see, even by the end of the first day, people are shocked at how many, how many, but also how often and frequent things come because you live your life on autopilot all day. You don't realize that you're living sometimes in this hugely negative space. You think you're fine and you can't figure out why you're grumpy by the end of the day. Well, if you're telling yourself, oh, every five seconds, this isn't good. That's bad. Oh no. We've got to think about this. Yo of course, you're going to bring your vibration down. And your day is going to suck by the end of the day, every day. You know what I mean? It just is. So, so that's a technique I like to do. And that's only part of the technique, but that, that, that level of awareness, just as eye-opening most of the time. So that's a fun one to do. Oh, that's great. I'm going to try that. Oh gosh. Look, I'm already negative. No, no, no, no. Speaker 1 (12:08): Yes. All my new Yorkers let's do it. We all know how we are. We think we're funny. We're really like sarcastic and negative. Yeah, exactly. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I'll try that tomorrow. And we'll see what happens. I will report back to you. So, so obviously we know mindset is something that can be altered. Can't be changed. It can be positive. It can be negative. So how does that affect our outcomes and in how we live our life every day? Yeah. So, so let me give you an example. I call it the kindergarten story because I think it's kind of common for a lot of us. So I want you to imagine that you're in kindergarten. If you're listening to this outside of the country, it's a one year about four or five years old. It's the first level of school you go to here in the United States. Speaker 1 (12:58): And we have this thing called Valentine's day. And at the kid level, we just, you know, get a bunch of candidates together, throw a bunch of cards and give one out to each member of the class. But sometimes there's that special Valentine. Right? So, so let's say little care. It's kindergarten. And she's all excited. Turned her mom made all the little Ballantine things she's handing out. But Joey, her best friend, well he's has the special Valentine. And she's going to ask him to be his, be her beer Valentine. Right? So Karen goes up to Joey, we made a special bone. That'd be, will you be my Valentine? Joey loves comedy. He says, oh my God, Kimmy just asked me. And she's super cute. I'm going to totally be here Valentine. Now little Karen's like, wow. Now little Karen's had picked up this message, but it wasn't said, but this is what you heard. Speaker 1 (13:46): You're ugly. You can't get the guy. Oh, and Kimmy with brown hair and purple eyes. She's that's that's that's the ultimate cuteness. Like that's that's it. Now she's four. She goes home cries. Mom, mom fixes it. Everybody has dinner next day. You're for you, Joey and Camy. By the way, you're all besties. You're hanging out. Like nothing happened. You, you feel like you don't feel it. It was a split-second. It was a moment it's gone. It's not really gone because let me tell you what happens now. She matriculates she's in middle school and Karen has to ask a boy to a dance. It's one of those Sadie Hawkins thing. So the girls have to ask the guys. And so her and her bestie and most people at this age have faced some kind of rejection, whether it's in the girlfriend, boyfriend, lover section or, or any other part, like not getting the baseball, you know, position, whatever it is. Speaker 1 (14:34): So we understand rejection. So we're fearing a little bit and we're nervous. So it's natural. Right. And everybody will tell you that. Oh yeah. It's natural. Don't worry. Just go ask anyway. So you and your Bessie, of course, it's Kimmy go. And you're like, okay, all right, we're going to ask our guys. So Kimmy goes first. Can we ask the boy? And he's like, yeah, sure. What out? Right. So Carrie was like, yeah, I'm going to ask Tony. She goes up to Tony. She asks him. Tony was like, man, I wish I could go. But I can't. Now what Karen doesn't know is that Tony is a son of the local preacher and he's not even allowed to go to school dances. Tony is secretly actually in love with her. But he has to say no anyway, but all Karen hears, not consciously, but subconsciously because she doesn't remember five years ago, she all she hears subconsciously is yo dumb. Speaker 1 (15:19): Don't you know, you're ugly. Why you try to do this? That making a fool of yourself. You know, you can't get the guy just stop. You are not pretty. You are not enough. You can't get him just up. Okay. Underlying, underlying thought the overlying crunch thought, oh man, I can't believe it. I'm so to the point and maybe he doesn't like me, right? Like, why is it so easy for Kimmy? Why isn't it the same for me? Like, it becomes that now you can't leave Karen out. Karen's like, all right, she's going to high school. She's like, you know what? I don't even care anymore. I'm bringing to the new high school, new me, everything. She goes out, she becomes a head cheerleader. Everybody loves her. She's popular. She's gorgeous. She's smart. She's funny. She's nice to everyone. And so she's, she's the girl, there goes Joey from kindergarten. Speaker 1 (16:08): He's the captain of the football team. And you guys are of course still talking. So Hey, what up? You start dating on the outside. It it's like the ultimate thing. Like, you know, you've made it right. You've arrived. Like this is it. Like, this is everything that everybody dreams of. Right? Prom, king prom queen. We're going to do it. You know, Joey's all happy. But Karen Karen's like, dude, Tom feels weird. Why doesn't it feel right when you think he's cheating on me? Like you think like, what's going on? Like, like I know we, we look so good together. It looks, it looks like it should be perfect. This is actually everything I ever wanted since kindergarten. But I dunno. I think, I think, I think he talks about, look at, look at him, smile. Look at him, smile at that girl that just walked by. Speaker 1 (16:51): Look at him, say hi to everybody. Right? She starts going, yo crazy lady. I take taken his phone, looking at his text messages. Eventually poor Joey. Now she's creating damage and Joey, but you always like, all right, forget it. I can't, I'm done. Right. And then Karen thinks, oh yeah. That's because you're right. Your cheater, you're doing something right. And she has to solidify in her mind. What's going on? So now Karen gets smart in college. She's a psych major. She's not going to play this game. She thinks she's good. She finds herself a man, they get married. They have kids. But again, something's not right. Like it feels wrong. Like it doesn't feel good. It's supposed to feel amazing. Right. But, and then she starts picking on things like, why can't you take the garbage out? Why can't you take it on time? Why can't you put it in the bin? Speaker 1 (17:36): Right. Right. And all this weird things has nothing to do with the garbage in the bin. And it has to do with this internal, emotional strife that she can't release because she's not quite sure why she doesn't feel right. But the truth is it's because she's too ugly to get the man, this man she doesn't deserve. It's not right. He couldn't possibly be there for the right reasons because she's not good enough like that. And it plays out in this way. That's why it's important. Because every day when you wake up and you have those negative thoughts and you enter these scenarios and things come crashing into your universe, it's usually in your head, that's created it at some point or is receiving it in some way. Right. And you're being reactive, like a five-year-old to it. And you don't even know you're doing it. Speaker 1 (18:18): So if you want to have a nice, happy, easy, joyful life and wake up bounding out of bed, like if a kid on Christmas, this is the head game you got to play with yourself. It takes work. Right? No. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, just like anything else, it does take, it takes consistent effort in, in getting it done. And actually to be honest, sometimes it doesn't sometimes just the awareness of the thing makes the thing go away. But you have to remember, you have been imprinted every second of every day, since before you were even born in utero with an impression and emotion, something okay. To date. So if your brain decided to take all those impressions and make a big deal out of them, well, you're going to be undoing a lot of stuff. And that's why it's layers. That's why it's kind of like, you know, when I'm working with CEOs that are, you know, in multimillion dollar companies, and now they're about to go into something and like close to a billion and they have all this stuff going on. Speaker 1 (19:13): Or, you know, I was just talking to an athlete who started a business and he was like, I should have been so much further. And you know, and you know, we broke it down that the work that he did to become an athlete, to become an MMA fighter is not the same level of work he's doing in his business. Right. He, he, he practiced every day. He, you know, ran, kicks every day. He had people watching him, critiquing him, helping him, mold him. He spends like three hours a day in his business, but he wants it to be a superstar rocket, you know? And it's like, well, you didn't get into the octagon and fight and win your first fight by, you know, being around for three months. You've been in this business three months. But you think you should be like a millionaire, like where is that coming from? Speaker 1 (19:54): Right. So it's, it's, it's all it's, it's it's in your head. Yes. I, I understand. I get it. I get it. I do. Now let's talk about, if you have something let's say in your life that is not going maybe the way we want it to, which let's be honest. I think that happens too. Can we say everyone at some point? Oh, of course. How can we leverage our mindset to change this so we can change our results? Okay. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm going to go a little woo on you here. So it's a combination of your thoughts and your energy, right? And so you know, just to, to focus on the mindset aspect of this, you can really dig into, you know, how would I deal? You have behaved, have responded, have done something. And how did you, you do it. Speaker 1 (20:55): What's kind of the difference. And how do you step into ideal you? How do you make decisions from that higher place? Right. just taking business, you know, let's say you're going to go into, I don't know, marketing and you have to pay marketing people. Well, you, you might say yeah, that's really expensive. I'm not doing that, but higher, you might say, Hey, actually I understand the long-term game. I'm willing to wait it out to six months. It'll probably take for me to recoup money back and let's go for it. Right. I would ask the right questions and it would know the right information and it would make the right decision. Right. So, I mean, when it comes to mindset and looking around your life and finding the things that you don't like, that's the start, but now what are you kind of leaning towards and what are you pushing away from? Speaker 1 (21:41): What have you settled for? Okay. Like notice that, because a lot of times in our lives, we settle for certain things. We want this ideal image, but then we're like, oh yeah, it's okay. You know? And so look at all these things because they all add up. I mean, there's a, there's a bunch of questions you can ask yourself, but I would really just start with, where are you, where did you want to be? Why did you want to be there? That's a big question. Okay. So, you know, think about all the people that go to college at, went to college and pick a major that had nothing to do with them. Right. you know, I wanted a big house in New Jersey when I first became a lawyer because I grew up and that's what everybody had. I didn't realize I don't even want to live in New Jersey. Speaker 1 (22:25): And I don't think Jesus, you know, I mean, like it, but because it was so familiar to me, I thought that's what I should be doing. And I wanted nothing to do with it. And so it caused every time I wanted to go look at property or do something, it always fell through, it always didn't happen. Well, it was the universe saying peace woman. Like, what are you doing? Just stop. But in the, my reality in that moment, it was frustrating. Like I tried so hard trying so hard and it's not working out. Right. And it was just like but you do get the signs. I mean, I think the biggest thing is, you know, again, with no negative, you start to look at your stressors too. You start to see the common themes of what you're saying to yourself, what you're hearing and really stop. Speaker 1 (23:08): You know, one of the, one of the, another thing that I love doing is when you're really in it in the moment. And when you're super about to be reactive, you know, about the Chuck that, that coffee across the room, just throw a big red stop sign in your head. It's called a pattern. Interrupt to stop, throw the sign in your head, just see it and just stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. And just stop. Because what you're doing is actually stopping that subconscious chatter. When you do that, and that's like an immediate thing that you can do that you don't have to deal with everything that's going on around you, because sometimes you can't because it's so in your face. But as long as you stop, as long as you stop that thought pattern, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Speaker 1 (23:49): Right. That actually just practicing that alone starts to stop the mental pattern that you have going on. All you have is a mental pattern, a little talk pattern, a little, you know, little repeat on loop, right? That's what you're stopping that alone can elevate you like everybody listening to this, you know, if you think of your life right now on a scale of one to 10, 10 million, like, oh, yo upper rockstar, one being like, dude, am I still alive? Like, how am I even still here? Didn't I like do something last week. That caused me to not be here because it's so miserable, right? Like that level. Okay. So on a, on an overall one to 10 rate yourself, then do no negative and stop just the pattern. Interrupt. Stop yourself every time. You're when the, when the bar reset. Isn't fast enough. Stop. Stop, stop, stop. Speaker 1 (24:33): Stop. When the dog just, you know, somebody else's dog ran across your foot. Stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop. When a door closes on your dress, your skirt, and you're about to get stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop. Just stop. You don't even have to think any further, just stop that's at the top. Move on, do it for a week. Now again, one to 10, how do you feel rate yourself? Your number is going to go up and then your brain is going to start with this. Oh, but nothing changed. Why do I feel? But, and then you're gonna question it don't it just is. And it's actually just that easy. So excellent. That's a great exercise and very, very easy. Anyone can do that. It takes nothing. You just have to stay, say stop. Yep. And those, when that those thoughts start rushing in and we all have them every single day. Speaker 1 (25:24): Yes, we all have them. I think that's great. So now, as we start to wrap things up, what do you want the audience to take away from our conversation around mindset? Well, I mean really just the basics. I mean, the fact that it is important, you have to pay attention to it. The reason you're here, wherever that is in your life is because you didn't, maybe you didn't know, maybe you didn't care to, maybe it wasn't as bad yet, but if, if you're still trying to get to that next level, then you have to pay attention to what you're saying yourself at this level. And I don't care what level you're going to or where you're coming from. That's just it, you know, where they're coming from, coming off the streets to your next level, or you're coming from your, your $50 million company and you want to make it a hundred million. Speaker 1 (26:10): It's the same thing. You have to hear what you're saying, because it's dictating your reality period. And so it's really important. And that there's a lot of resources out there. I mean, I can give you some resources as well, but you know, there's tons of stuff out there and it really is simple. It's just, it's, it's simple and taking action and everything changes and it can change in minutes. Yeah. It's the taking action part. That's the hard part, right? Everybody can read. You can understand the action that has to happen. Let me tell you, let me just really quickly tell you that that's my too. So you have to live into the being. So let me just give you an example. So I was very athletic when I was younger. You know, I didn't work out at all. When I had my child, my child is now 12. Speaker 1 (26:52): At the time that I had to do this to myself, she was 11. And I was like, oh, I'll kind of get into that place where you still look good with clothes on, but not so much when you take them off. So I was like, maybe I should work out. And I thought, oh, this is second nature. I'll just go work out. I live on central park here. So I'll just now. And I did everything. The micro habit, the be dressed in your sleep thing, the sneaker girl, if I tell you that at some point I felt proud that I got out the front door and want a cup of coffee to come back. And that was my workout. And I had to do my own techniques myself, which is what is it? I believe like what happened? I obviously no longer believe I'm an athlete because if I did, I mean, this is easy. Speaker 1 (27:30): Right? And that's what I thought I believed consciously. Well, when I dug down to it over the past, you know, 10 or so years, my friends had been getting a little snappy with me saying things like, oh, you eat like an a-hole, you still look good and I didn't work out. So then they knew that like, how do you not work out? And, and we work out 10 hours a day and what's going on. And there was part of that, that seeped into me that was like, oh, that's right, girl, eat whatever you want. Look good. You don't, you don't need that. Right. And well, it worked for 10 years, but obviously I needed to change. And the second I realized that I was letting those things come in, that it was easier to hang out in bed that I always had tomorrow that, and I changed that core belief. Speaker 1 (28:11): And I, and I really had to dig down into why, like, I want to be the grandma who like flies through the trees on zip lines with her grandkids. I can't do that in 10 years. If I don't exercise now. Right. I had a drill into my head. Oh my God, I love running by the way. Don't really, but I love running. I love running. I love running the second I did all that stuff. Right. And it actually took overnight. That's all I did. I did it one day. I wrote down the thing. I said it to myself again and again. I said it to myself in the mirror and I was like, yo, you, you have this, like, what's wrong when you have this right now woke up the next morning. I actually ran a whole mile. Now it doesn't sound like much, but 10 years sitting on my. Speaker 1 (28:47): Pretty good. That's great. Yeah. That's nice. So it's really convincing yourself that you are the person who does the thing. If you are the person who loves to do all this weird, you know, personal development stuff, and you'd love to say stopped yourself and you've loved it. Guess what you're going to do. You're going to do it. That's it? It's that simple. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. That's such a good example. Thank you for that. Now, speaking of resources, where can people find you, your podcast? Talk about the podcast, your resources, everything else. Yeah. Awesome. I mean, you guys can go to just my name.com. So it's Kiersten franklin.com. And I don't know if you're able to put that in the description. And then the podcast is just girl on fire. So if you want to just Google girl on fire, it's unbelief B L E V network. Speaker 1 (29:36): You can find it anywhere, apple, iTunes, all that good stuff. Yeah, that's it. Yep. And D and we will have links to everything, to all of her information at podcast dot healthy, wealthy, smart.com and the show notes under this episode. And we'll have your on social media. Do you want to give a shout out to your social media handles really quick? So someone can find you really easily. That would require me to know what they are. Well, it's all on your website. Yeah, we got it. We got it. No problem. We will have, I will put them all in the show notes individually. We're good. Don't worry about it. Now, the last question I always ask everyone is knowing where you are in your life and in your career, what advice would you give to your younger self? Speaker 1 (30:29): I would tell myself that none of it is a big deal. It's not as big a deal as you think it is, you know, all that lost time on stressing out and trying to make things happen and living by force, as opposed to living as a conduit where everything's flowing through you. Massive difference. My whole life has been lived by force winning, winning, winning, getting by force. I probably could've gotten the same exact stuff, Ben, the same that, and just nice and easy, you know, massive difference in life. Let me tell you. Yeah, I was relaxed. I love it. And I've heard that several times from people guests on this podcast. So there's clearly something to that. So for all of you, new new grads out there, college kids listening, relax. And I love, can you say that again? You want to be sort of a conduit versus a forest. Speaker 1 (31:25): Can you repeat that one more time? I mean, I, you know, listen, there's two ways to manifest, right? There's the manifestor force, right? Like, like you're going to get it. You're going to get it. You're gonna do everything class. We're going to fight, fight, fight. It's by force and you're gonna get it versus actually when you open up and you let the universe and all of his power flow through you, you're going to get the same things only. It's nice and easy, right? When, when something doesn't happen or someone candles or it moves when you know that it's okay, that it's all just going to be fine. It's your life flows through you. You are a conduit. I it's true about finances, about love, about anything, right? If you, if you're having financial difficulties, right. And this is going to sound crazy, I know it's gonna be painful for some, but if you open up and you just let it flow through you, all of a sudden you're going to just have more and more and more money, right. Speaker 1 (32:15): Because it's not about you getting money. You're the conduit. So the university saying, all right, I'll throw money at you because you're giving it here. You're helping people there. You're doing this. Right. And it just, just like, love like energy. It's just things you're, you're, you're a vessel it's supposed to come through the gifts that God gave. You are not for you. They're supposed to float through you so you can help others. If that makes sense. Yes. It, and thank you for that. I love it. So Kiersten, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and spending the time with us today. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It's so fun. I always love seeing you. Yeah, my pleasure, my pleasure, and everyone tell the listeners out there. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.

The Return of Why Therapists Quit Curt and Katie chat about how therapists can maintain joy in their practice when they begin to feel burned out. We explore different ways to incorporate self-care into your life and practice, including making future plans and developing your whole identity. We also talk about how privilege impacts therapists' ability to engage in self-care and career opportunities. It's time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age. In this episode we talk about: Discussion of why Katie has not quit the field. Fighting burnout by focusing on what brings you joy in your practice (the Marie Kondo approach). The importance of self-care and incorporating new hobbies/interests into your life. Assessing the distinction between “not great days” and a “not great workplace”. Considering privilege in the ability for therapists to engage in self-care as well as career opportunities. The impact COVID has had on therapist's being able to participate in self-care. Learning how to incorporate time to make plans for future career goals. How to notice burnout and sacrificial helping. The importance of fostering all aspects of your identity (because you are not your job). Our Generous Sponsors: SimplePractice Running a private practice is rewarding, but it can also be demanding. SimplePractice changes that. This practice management solution helps you focus on what's most important—your clients—by simplifying the business side of private practice like billing, scheduling, and even marketing. More than 100,000 professionals use SimplePractice —the leading EHR platform for private practitioners everywhere – to power telehealth sessions, schedule appointments, file insurance claims, communicate with clients, and so much more—all on one HIPAA-compliant platform. Get your first 2 months of SimplePractice for the price of one when you sign up for an account today. This exclusive offer is valid for new customers only. Go to simplepractice.com/therapyreimagined to learn more. *Please note that Therapy Reimagined is a paid affiliate of SimplePractice and will receive a little bit of money in our pockets if you sign up using the above link.   RevKey RevKey specializes in working with mental health professionals like you to increase not only clicks to your website, but helps you find your ideal patients. From simple startup packages and one time consultations to full Digital Marketing Management Services, RevKey can help you run successful digital marketing ads. RevKey creates customized packages and digital marketing budget recommendations that fit your business needs. You'll never receive a data dump report that means nothing to you. Instead, RevKey provides clear concise communication about how your digital marketing ads are performing through meetings for video updates recorded just for you. RevKey is offering $150 off any setup fees for Modern Therapist Survival Guide listeners. You can find more at RevKey.com and make sure to mention that you're a Modern Therapist Survival Guide listener.   Resources mentioned: We've pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below might be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance! Marie Kondo Steven Covey's Big Rocks Relevant Episodes: Why Therapists Quit Why Therapists Quit Part 2 Burnout or Depression We Can't Help Ourselves Quarantine Self-Care for Therapists The Danger of Poor Self-Care for Therapists Negotiating Sliding Scale Overcoming Your Poverty Mindset Career Trekking with MTSG Connect with us! Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group Get Notified About Therapy Reimagined 2021   Our consultation services: The Fifty-Minute Hour Who we are: Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making "dad jokes" and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: www.curtwidhalm.com Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt's youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: www.katievernoy.com A Quick Note: Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We're working on it. Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren't trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don't want to, but hey.   Stay in Touch: www.mtsgpodcast.com www.therapyreimagined.com Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapist's Group https://www.facebook.com/therapyreimagined/ https://twitter.com/therapymovement https://www.instagram.com/therapyreimagined/   Credits: Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/ Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano http://www.crystalmangano.com/   Full Transcript (autogenerated):   Curt Widhalm  00:00 This episode is sponsored by SimplePractice.   Katie Vernoy  00:02 Running a private practice is rewarding, but it can also be demanding SimplePractice changes that this practice management solution helps you focus on what's most important your clients by simplifying the business side of private practice like billing, scheduling, and even marketing.   Curt Widhalm  00:18 Stick around for a special offer at the end of this episode.   Katie Vernoy  00:23 This podcast is also sponsored by RevKey.   Curt Widhalm  00:26 RevKey is a Google Ads digital ads management and consulting firm that works primarily with therapists digital advertising is all they do, and they know their stuff. When you work with RevKey they help the right patients find you ensuring a higher return on your investment in digital advertising. RevKey offers flexible month to month plans and never locks customers into long term contracts. Katie Vernoy  00:48 Listen at the end of the episode for more information on RevKey. Announcer  00:53 You're listening to the Modern Therapist Survival Guide where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings to support you as a whole person and a therapist. Here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.   Curt Widhalm  01:09 Welcome back Modern Therapists. This is the Modern Therapist Survival Guide. I'm Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy. And this is the podcast for therapists about all sorts of stuff things that we do things that we don't do, things that our profession does for us. Katie's giving me the work that I'm still not back into good episode intros. We're starting today with a little bit of feedback from one of our listeners, we got a message on our Facebook account from Jennifer. I'm gonna paraphrase a little bit of this. Jennifer writes, hi, Katie. And Curt, this love letter is well overdue. I earned my Master's in 2018. I was a relative newbie therapist when the pandemic hit. And I've been providing telehealth to a lot of my clients and been struggling with some stuff. I'm paraphrasing here. And one day I found your podcast, appreciate a lot of the things that we talked about. And just as things were starting to feel good, like the world was opening back up, again, the Delta variant hit. And especially in response to some of our episodes, looking for a little bit of a hope here of how do we keep going? How do we not just fall into those traps and things like our episode around why therapists quit? How do we survive in our careers and not just wanting to give up and go and be in any other profession? Katie, why haven't you quit yet?   Katie Vernoy  02:57 I think I have several times. I think that the the definition of quitting can be very different for folks, I've not left the profession. So maybe that's the accurate thing. But I left community mental health, I've switched my private practice a number of times I've worked in the profession and more of an advocacy framework. And so the first thing that I would say is I've not seen it as a single career that has one particular path, but instead a an evolution of how I work and how I interact with the work and where I find my place in it. So I think the short answer is I keep assessing myself and the work and trying to realign it pretty frequently. Actually,   Curt Widhalm  03:50 I would describe my approach is kind of the Marie Kondo approach, does this part of my job bring me joy. And what I've found and this does come with some experience in the fields, some longevity, some being in some positions where I can cut out or throw away some of the aspects that just no longer feel like they are bringing joy to me bringing me back into the profession. But a lot of that permission for me, comes with community. It comes with being around a lot of like minded therapists that give the permission and the support, to be able to take some of those leaps to be able to recognize that the safety of something being done just because I've always been doing it that way. And it can be let go. It can be something where if it doesn't emotionally pay off, it doesn't monetarily pay off for me that it's something that I don't have to be beholden to forever. And I say this as somebody who is very much Are you a completionist? Somebody who likes to finish video games to 100% to not give up on things in the middle that, for me, a lot of it does come from having the permission given to myself to not stay stuck in things just because it's, it's there. And it's what has been.   Katie Vernoy  05:25 I like that because it provides this ongoing assessment of what brings me joy, like Marie Kondo, but it also is not sticking to something, you know, this is the sunk cost fallacy, like, just because I've started it just because I've invested invested time or money in it doesn't mean that I need to go down this direct path. And I think that can be really hard. Because if you've invested in a lot of time and energy into a specific niche, for example, you've you've networked and created relationships. And I think for you this was around autism, right? You did a lot of networking, and there was a lot there, and you still work with with autistic clients. But I think there's that, that element of once that was not your area of focus, she moved back. I've done that with trauma work. I've done that with, you know, trauma survivors and different things in that way. But I think that being able to identify what doesn't bring me joy anymore, what doesn't seem this sounds a little bit mercenary, I guess. But what isn't bringing the return on investment that you would like whether it's an emotional return on investment or a financial one, I think being able to drop those things can be really good. I actually, when I talk to consulting clients about this, because this is one of the things that is a big conversation, especially for mid career therapists is if you started from scratch, you know, what would you put back in? And I guess this is Marie Kondo. So maybe this isn't that earth shattering. But even just taking away your whole schedule, like everything is off the table, and you start from scratch, and you only put the things back in that really energize you bring you revenue, which may not energize you do the things that you're required to do. And whether it's Stephen Covey's big rocks, or or some of these other concepts of really sticking to the highest priorities, and only allowing them back in can be very helpful. And oftentimes, we can't do it like, next week, oftentimes, it's like, okay, let's look at next year. So three months from now, your schedule is now fresh, you might put clients back in the same time slots, but you may not you may put them at different times of day, you may not have all the same clients, because some of those clients are emotionally draining you in a way that you recognize that you're probably not doing your best work with them. But I think being able to take away those things that aren't working, no matter how much time and effort you put into them, no matter how much you feel like that's what you should do, I think can be very helpful. I mean, there's practical things to think about, you know, income and all of those things. So this is more of a high level philosophical conversation than a practical one, in this moment, but I think, actually starting from scratch, in your mind, you don't have to burn everything down. But like, doing the thought experiment of starting from scratch, I think can be very helpful.   Curt Widhalm  08:24 On one hand, the need for mental health and mental health related services seems to be at an all time high, as far as coming out of the pandemic fingers crossed that we're coming out of it. But the the need for mental health and mental health related services is quite high. And with that, at least at this point in the foreseeable future, and comes a little bit more freedom to be able to take some risks, because the need for mental health service providers is going to remain strong for quite a while here. And so it's not like we're in a situation where if we were to leave, you know, an agency stop a practice or something like that, to go and explore something new. That it would necessarily be something where you can't go back, that there is some overall professional job security here. And we're seeing this expand just beyond the traditional, providing direct services to clients and a number of different ways, whether that's entrepreneurial yourself and maybe moving into more coaching program type things or courses, courses or any of those kinds of reaching stuff. Yeah, I've never seen more positions in corporate environments that are requiring people to have a mental health background to come in. And so there is a lot of options out there that you can take advantage of and think gets our fear of losing what we have that often keeps us subjected to staying into the same positions over and over again. And to Katie's point, this also does require some thoughtfulness and some planning, this can't just be like an impulsive, like, I had a bad day at work on Thursday and Friday, I'm going to accept a job wherever offers next. So one of the things that I occasionally get a question from clients is, you know, would you care for me if I wasn't paying for your time. And my answer to that is usually, the some version of my care exists, because I care for you, as a human being, a lot of what you're paying for is, for my experience, any wisdom that I'm able to bring, and most of all, that you're ensuring that I'm prepared, that I'm taking care of my life enough that I am ready for the sessions to be able to take on what you're bringing in, what you're paying for is the thoughtfulness in the preparation for our time together for that character come out. And it's with that same kind of intention that I'm looking at this kind of a question of, its being able to put that kind of thoughtfulness in place for yourself, to be able to be in a position where you're able to make a shift to continue to take care of yourself. And if you can see beyond, you know, a bad experience with a couple of clients, you can see beyond a bad experience with a supervisor or toxic co worker or a mountain of paperwork, whatever it is, and say, you know, overall, this was a bad day. But this is still an environment where I can continue to show up and have that care, as I define it for myself, does help to answer some of that question when it comes to how do we stick with some of these things? I'm not great days.   Katie Vernoy  12:09 I like the distinction between not great days, and not great work environments. I think, if the not great days stack up, it could be that it's not great work environment, or it could be that you've chosen something that aligns when you're fully resourced and doesn't align when you're not. And so some of this and we have a lot of different episodes on systems of self care or addressing burnout, or is it burnout or depression, like we have a lot of different episodes that can talk about addressing burnout specifically. And, and some of that is being in the wrong place. But some of it really is working without that thoughtfulness, and the deliberateness that Curt's talking about with taking care of yourself so that you can continue to show up. I want to extend that even further. Because I think, folks, and maybe this is a very Western idea or something that's, that's very present in the United States. But I think folks have this notion around, I have to be growing and expanding and getting better and creating the next big thing. And I have to keep increasing my revenue, or you know, those types of things. And I think when, when we see it rather as seasonal, or seasons of our career, I think that can be helpful. I was talking to a dear colleague recently, and she was talking about coming out of a toxic work environment and basically, not cruising, and I wouldn't say it was that but like, creating something that was very doable. There wasn't challenged, there wasn't growth, and I'm overstating it to make the point. But it was something where there was restfulness, in how she chose to do her work, you know, the client, she chose to work with the time she spent on the work, she was very, very deliberate in charging premium fee. So there was fewer clients and creating that space. And then after that timeframe, when she felt rejuvenated and ready to tackle the next big thing, she found another job and then was able to take on another piece of things in our profession. And so I really like that concept. Because there are a lot of folks who will be burnt out or they'll be ready to quit. And instead of taking care of themselves, they'll jump into programs that are designed to be a lot of work to get to some place in the in the future. You know, like, do all this work and make a lot of money. And when someone's burned out or when someone's ready to quit, they may not have those reserves. And so you have to assess that for yourself. But if you don't have reserves, you don't necessarily have to make drastic changes. You may just have to back off a little bit and refocus on your life for a while rather than your career. If you can do the work, you can set your set your career in a doable space. Does that make sense?   Curt Widhalm  15:07 Does. I wonder how much of this is really just coming from a place of privilege, though. But absolutely for those of us who have survived, as long as we have, we talked about this in our state of the profession episode this summer that a lot of the younger therapists as compared to other age, demographic, tripling, maybe I don't want to stay in this profession. And that's going to come at a time when you don't have a lifetime of savings built up. But you are more sensitive to having to work unpaid or underpaid jobs, that you might not be in a position to make some of these decisions where your responsibilities to family might be a lot bigger proportion of your life, especially if you have young children. So creating the space in here also for those, and remembering back to the time in our lives where we weren't quite so privileged to be making some of these decisions. I know in leaving the agencies that I did at the times that I did, and being unhappy in some of the work environments, I don't think I ever felt that I was in the wrong field completely. It was very much recognizing that there are good places and good opportunities that I was doing what I wanted to do in creating healing in the world. It was just not in that particular environment. And it was recognizing that one agency is not representative of all agencies. And part of that perspective, once again, comes back to community, it comes back to the ability to have trusted peers have, you know, your own therapy to not think about therapy all day long to have other hobbies and interests that go and make you you. And I recognize particularly for this, you know, last year and a half during the pandemic, that a lot of people's abilities to go and do things that aren't therapy have been shut down. And a lot of us filled in that extra time with more work. And so, you know, we've been talking about this, the faculty level at the university that I teach in that one of the issues that we're anticipating with students is how much that they're used to working now, and being able to accrue their hours towards graduation and licensure by being able to fit in more, because everything's over telehealth. And when we inevitably returned to more of a program wide face to face role in things that students are going to have a shift in and struggle with house, how much slower things are going to be accruing for them. I say all this to say that it's really being able to take that step outside of yourself, which requires downtime, which requires an ability to get a different viewpoint on what you're doing, not in the sense of making what is happening around you. Okay. But doing it in a sense of Are you okay with what's happening around you?   Katie Vernoy  18:36 when we're looking at self assessment, I agree, we need to have downtime, we need to have space. And as you were talking, I was really resonating with this concept around privilege, and how at different stages of your career at different places in your life are different socioeconomic status, different societal pressures and levels of oppression, like I think that this challenge is going to be different for different folks. And so in looking at that, and looking at having some downtime to make an assessment, or looking at finding ways to make your agency job better, or finding ways to make your career more sustainable, I think we have to really honor that when you're feeling stuck. When you see no other way to do what you're doing. It's very hard to do any of this. And so, if we can't get any space at all, I think it's going to be very hard for people to not quit. And when I've been in those situations, whether it was when I was in an agency job or just other periods of my life. I think the way that I didn't quit when I didn't quit was finding the smallest space that I could preserve from my own. Or maybe maybe It's better said a small space, but the biggest space that I could preserve for my own to plan for what I did next, whether it's doing that assessment and finding out whether you're able to do what you want to do and the place that you're at, but also to have your exit plan, because I worked in community mental health, and I did not feel like I could just quit and start a private practice and do all the things like I wasn't able to do that I wasn't able to take that on that financial risk on. So for me, it was carving out a little tiny piece of time, where I started figuring out what I needed to do to start a private practice. And I started figuring out what I needed to do to get on insurance panels, or whatever it was, at certain points, it was carving a little bit of time to look for jobs, when I was still wanting to move from place to place and having people around me hold me accountable to finding a new job, I think people get really caught in well, another agency might be just as bad, it doesn't make a difference. And I really argue that that's not necessarily the case. And that you need to talk to your colleagues and your cohorts and that kind of stuff to see what what the experience is because sometimes just taking that little bit of a little bit of time to put in an application or to make a plan for your exit, or whatever it is, can be the way that you stay. Because it gives you a breath of fresh air, like, I'm gonna have my escape hatch. And I think I even called it that when I started my private practice, or when I started applying for other jobs, like I have my escape hatch, and adjustment that I wasn't stuck, there was an endpoint, it was a nebulous endpoint, but it was an endpoint. And I think that does help.   Curt Widhalm  21:44 I have found that, you know, emotionally taking vacations is appropriate. Getting away from work, is as much as our profession as a calling, as much as we're deeply emotionally invested in the work that we do with our clients. And whether we get a return on that emotional investment or not. The end of the day, it's still a job. that it takes a certain kind of ability to show up for that job, as compared to many others takes a certain level of awareness, it takes a lot of ability to care and recharge for yourself. And in a number of our episodes before we've talked about that self care is not an option. Self Care is a discipline. And I can speak for myself on this third, when I go on vacation, I like to completely not deal with work as much as I can to really be separated from it. Even if it's just like one day on a on a weekend of like, here's my day to go spend in the kitchen doing things where there's a beginning, middle and an end. And it's practical and delicious. These are the kinds of things that at least recharged me for the next day of work. It's and this has been particularly hard during COVID of, Oh, well, I got nothing else to do. So I might as well throw another couple clients on my schedule, or I might as well dive into this thing. And then just like anything else we can become so enveloped in whatever our work or what our interests are that it just consumes us and leaves us not wanting to look at it at all. And that's not unique to our profession. It's not even unique to jobs, it can be done with hobbies, it can be done with side hustles. That the key is balance. And it's finding what your right balance is Katie was describing as I'm describing of like taking some intentional rest time away from it.   Katie Vernoy  24:02 I've I've talked to a number of clinicians who had not taken vacations for years. And I would call a day off a day off not necessarily a vacation day, Curt. So I think you also need to take a real vacation, your plate. But I think that there are there are many different reasons people don't take time off work. One is potentially they don't get paid and that that income is needed. And and that's that's relevant. And I think there are different conversations that we've had and we'll link to him in the show notes about money and trying to make sure that you're earning more money and that kind of stuff, and planning your money based around taking vacations. But the other thing that I've really seen is there are folks who either just don't even think about it, they don't plan ahead and they just don't schedule the time away. And I'm not talking like a Caribbean cruise I'm talking about even just staying home and watching Netflix and chilling for a week and not answering your phone, whatever it is, whatever you can afford, actually vacating your work, I think is important. But people won't do it because my clients need me, subconsciously, maybe it's I don't deserve it. And I think and this speaks to and we probably have an episode early on where I talk about sacrificial helping, but it's it's this relationship that we have to ourselves and our work that I think can get in the way. And really being able to address that I think is, you know, what I'm thinking is kind of our last points that we'll make on this is if you're constantly sacrificing yourself, if you're constantly putting yourself in this place where you're doing, doing for your clients, for others in your life, more so than you're doing for yourself. Self Care doesn't necessarily land on your list. And it also doesn't, it's not necessarily sufficient, because you're constantly in this place of less than and of service, and you're not necessarily feeding yourself. And I'm not talking about folks who find great joy and meaning and helping people that is exactly why I'm in the profession. It's that that is who I am, that is all that I am. And I will sacrifice everything else in my life to that purpose. I think that becomes really hard. So when we're in this place, and I think this can happen, when we have clients that are in high crisis, it can happen when especially early in our careers when we're feeling like our clients are very dependent on us and and we think we have to rescue them all. Or maybe that was just that, that that sacrificial piece can come in, and that that's not sustainable by any stretch. And so I think it's important to also I guess, to say, looking at the relationship you have with yourself and the work, and maybe go into back what Curt said like it's a job. It's an awesome job. It's a job that is very meaningful and can be very powerful and make a big difference in the world. But it's your job. It's not who you are. Yeah, it's   Curt Widhalm  27:10 not an identity and your only identity.   Katie Vernoy  27:13 Because we are saying that everybody's modern therapist, so we've given them we've given them an identity point. Okay,   Curt Widhalm  27:21 fair, fair. And since it's not your only identity, it's not the only identity that you should be shaping. It's not the only one that you should be subscribing to. And it's dealing with that imposter syndrome of people who've honed that part of their identities, especially in your early career when you're looking at people who've been in the field 1020 3040 5060 years, that part of how they got there is going through what you're going through now. So form all of your identities,   Katie Vernoy  27:54 spend time with all of them. So   Curt Widhalm  27:59 if you have questions for us or would like to suggest an episode, as you can tell from several of our last episodes, we are responding to our listeners. And you can reach out to us on our social media or through our websites. MTSGpodcast.com. And until next time, I'm Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy   Katie Vernoy  28:19 thanks again to our sponsor SimplePractice.   Curt Widhalm  28:21 SimplePractice is the leading private practice management platform for private practitioners everywhere. More than 100,000 professionals use SimplePractice to power telehealth sessions schedule appointments, file insurance claims market, their practice and so much more. All on one HIPAA compliant platform.   Katie Vernoy  28:39 Get your first two months of SimplePractice for the price of one when you sign up for an account today. This is collusive offer is valid for new customers only. Please note that we are a paid affiliate for a SimplePractice so we'll have a little bit of money in our pocket. If you sign up at this link. Simplepractice.com/therapy reimagined. And that's where you can learn more.   Curt Widhalm  29:00 This episode is also sponsored by RevKey.   Katie Vernoy  29:04 RevKey specializes in working with mental health professionals like you to increase not only clicks to your website, but helps you find your ideal patients. From simple startup packages and one time consultations to full Digital Marketing Management Services. RevKey can help you run successful digital marketing ads. RevKey creates customized packages and digital marketing budget recommendations that fit your business needs.   Curt Widhalm  29:28 You'll never receive a data dump report that means nothing to you. Instead, red key provides clear concise communication about how your digital marketing ads are performing through meetings for video updates recorded just for you. RevKey is offering $150 off any setup fees for Modern Therapist Survival Guide listeners.   Katie Vernoy  29:44 You can find more at RevKey.com and make sure to mention that you're a Modern Therapist Survival Guide listener   Announcer  29:51 Thank you for listening to the Modern Therapist Survival Guide. Learn more about who we are and what we do at MTSGpodcast.com. You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter. And please don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any of our episodes.

Edwin Friedman described five characteristics of systems that promote burnout among their leaders. Understanding this can help you avoid the same fate. Part 1 goes through the characteristics. Part 2 helps leaders respond appropriately. Show Notes: Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue Join the FREE Family Systems Book Study Read the Full Transcript on The Non-Anxious Leader website. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jack-shitama/message

You must take responsibility for your own decisions and actions. Your unhappiness and suffering are often brought on by your own bad decisions. Bad decisions limit future options. Under the law of volitional responsibility, we inflict on ourselves suffering by unconfessed personal sin, living in the cosmic system or failing to follow divine establishment principles. “Be not deceived, God will not be mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. When we sow to the wind, we reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7). In arrogance, you will fail to see yourself as you really are. You can get off the path to self-destruction through the use of rebound and then God can turn cursing into blessing. Decide to make a course correction and get back to learning and applying God's Word and making decisions based on divine viewpoint. Full Transcript: https://rhem.pub/volitional-responsibility-e6d0c7 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-hughes/message

The key to happiness is to have respect for the Lord and His mandates. “Thy Word I have hid in my heart so I might not sin against Thee” (Ps 119:11). Spirituality is being filled with the Holy Spirit, problem-solving device #2. Spiritual maturity is being filled with the Holy Spirit and the content of the Word of God learned and metabolized in your soul. “Don't you know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” (1 Cor 6:19). Spirituality is absolute. You are either filled with the Holy Spirit or you are carnal because of unconfessed sin in your life. Spirituality is your relationship with the Holy Spirit. “Be filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:18). Spiritual maturity is relative. It depends on your positive volition to learning God's Word and applying it in your life. Full Transcript: https://rhem.pub/spirituality-maturity-dd99d9 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-hughes/message

Please hit that Subscribe/Follow button on your Podcast player, so you won't miss the latest episode.  Full Transcript of this episode  can be found on our Patreon page 0:00-02:01 女：听故事说中文，听得越多说得越好，大家好，今天给大家带来故事解读，解读故事《此心安处是吾乡》。 男：《此心安处是吾乡》。 女：本期节目由我们的Patrons赞助完成，Patrons你们在哪里？在这里感谢你们，没有你们的支持和帮助就没有这一期的故事解读。 男：没错，我们的Patrons给了我们很多的帮助，给了我们很多的支持，真的，没有你们就没有《听故事说中文》，在这里跟你们说一声大大的谢谢。 女：谢谢，谢谢，下面一起来听故事解读，解读故事《此心安处是吾乡》。 男：《此心安处是吾乡》。 女：哦，这句话听起来很好听很美，是你写的吗？ 男：不是我写的。 女：那是谁写的？ 男：是一个作家写的。 女：作家？ 男：嗯。 女：你说的应该是... 男：诗人。 女：诗人和词人吧？ 男：对。 女：大文豪啊。 男：对，苏东坡。 女：苏东坡？哦，苏东坡他有微信吗？我可以加一下他的微信吗？你有苏东坡的微信吗？ 男：我有。 女：你可以让我加他一下吗？ 男：你开玩笑的，苏东坡是很久很久以前的人。 女：很久很久以前的人？多久以前啊？ 男：他是中国宋代的人。 女：哦，宋代，宋代还分北宋和南宋呢，你说的是哪一个宋代啊？ 男：应该是南宋吧。 女：哦，所以苏东坡不是现在的人，苏东坡是一个大文豪，他写过很多的宋词。 男：没错。 女：对，他还有一个名字叫苏轼。 男：对了。 ..... For the full transcript of this episode and many others, please support us by becoming our patrons. ************************************************************ If you think our podcast is valuable to you and others,  become our patron for as low as $5/month.You will have access to all of the transcripts, vocabulary list and patrons only episodes ************************************************************ Are you already a listener? Leaving the show a review on iTunes will help more people find the podcast. Thank you!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

When you were born God put a soul in you and now you had physical life. But you were born spiritually dead and that's why you need to be ‘born again' - saved by accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior. “Just as through one man [through Adam] sin entered into the world, and death through sin [that's spiritual death] and then death spread to the entire human race because all have sinned” (Rom 5:12). Your second birth is spiritual and it's completely volitional. Your spiritual life depends on the filling of the Holy Spirit and learning and applying the Word of God. LAG. Learn it, apply it and glorify God. The Word of God is the nutrient you need in your soul so you can grow spiritually. To grow physically or to grow spiritually the mind must be trained. “Stop thinking in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think, but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one us a standard of thinking from His Word” (Rom 12:3). Full Transcript: https://rhem.pub/physical-life-be52ae --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-hughes/message

Pray for our country. “If My people that are called by My name will see My face and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear their prayer” (2 Chron 7:14). Prayer is instant communication with God. Prayer is thought. “Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved” (Rom 10:13). You will short-circuit your prayer and it won't be heard if you have unconfessed sin in your life. “If I regard inquiry in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Ps 66:18). Part of the Holy Spirit's ministry to you is to be the facilitator between you and God the Father in prayer. But if you have unconfessed sin in your life the empowerment of the Holy Spirit can't work. “The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we don't know what to pray as we should but the Holy Spirit prays for us with groaning that cannot be expressed in words” (Rom 8:26). Prayer is the most wonderful way you can express your appreciation for what God does for you. Full Transcript: https://rhem.pub/prayer-transcript-c44caa --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-hughes/message

You can't grow to spiritual maturity without getting under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor. This is how you learn how to live the Christian life. You can't teach yourself. Expect testing and distractions as you start to grow spiritually. Stay on course. God's Word will instruct you on how to deal with people and circumstances and how to keep your sinful nature in check. “I don't understand myself at all because the things I want to do I don't do and the things I don't like are the things that I do. It's obvious that it's sin in me” (Rom 7:15-17). You'll have no idea what's real and what's not real until you get a framework of Biblical knowledge in your soul. When you grow spiritually and glorify God then you are the one that will deliver this nation because as goes your spiritual life, so goes the history of America. Full Transcript: https://rhem.pub/heart-transcript-8aa1c8 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-hughes/message

Episode 226: How to Fire Your Clients (Ethically) Part 1.5 Curt and Katie chat about different therapist-client mismatches and how to manage them. We explore how to balance dealing with discomfort in therapy and seeking consultation with knowing when and how to refer out clients. We also talk about how to incorporate ideas of redefining and decolonizing therapy. It's time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age. In this episode we talk about: How to manage situations when the client having a clinical need that the therapist does not feel capable to treat. Different kinds of therapist-client mismatches. Cultural considerations in therapist-client matching and incorporating ideas of redefining and decolonizing therapy. How to refer out clients when there is a mismatch and what to do if the client doesn't want to be referred out. What to do when you have different ideologies than your clients. The benefit of sitting with discomfort when you disagree with your client and knowing when to seek consultation. How to support clients when they aren't aware that a different therapeutic style (e.g., direct vs. indirect) may be beneficial to them. The importance of reviewing treatment plans with client (even when not required). Revisiting how to address therapy interfering behaviors and how to appropriately terminate with clients when necessary. Barriers in referring clients out. Our Generous Sponsors: SimplePractice Running a private practice is rewarding, but it can also be demanding. SimplePractice changes that. This practice management solution helps you focus on what's most important—your clients—by simplifying the business side of private practice like billing, scheduling, and even marketing. More than 100,000 professionals use SimplePractice —the leading EHR platform for private practitioners everywhere – to power telehealth sessions, schedule appointments, file insurance claims, communicate with clients, and so much more—all on one HIPAA-compliant platform. Get your first 2 months of SimplePractice for the price of one when you sign up for an account today. This exclusive offer is valid for new customers only. Go to simplepractice.com/therapyreimagined to learn more. *Please note that Therapy Reimagined is a paid affiliate of SimplePractice and will receive a little bit of money in our pockets if you sign up using the above link.   RevKey RevKey specializes in working with mental health professionals like you to increase not only clicks to your website, but helps you find your ideal patients. From simple startup packages and one time consultations to full Digital Marketing Management Services, RevKey can help you run successful digital marketing ads. RevKey creates customized packages and digital marketing budget recommendations that fit your business needs. You'll never receive a data dump report that means nothing to you. Instead, RevKey provides clear concise communication about how your digital marketing ads are performing through meetings for video updates recorded just for you. RevKey is offering $150 off any setup fees for Modern Therapist Survival Guide listeners. You can find more at RevKey.com and make sure to mention that you're a Modern Therapist Survival Guide listener.   Resources mentioned: We've pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below might be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance! Relevant Episodes: How to Fire Your Clients (Ethically) Make Your Paperwork Meaningful Therapy is a Political Act The Balance Between Boundaries and Humanity Is Therapy an Opiate of the Masses? Ending Therapy Connect with us! Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group Get Notified About Therapy Reimagined 2021  Our consultation services: The Fifty-Minute Hour   Who we are: Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making "dad jokes" and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: www.curtwidhalm.com Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt's youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: www.katievernoy.com A Quick Note: Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We're working on it. Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren't trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don't want to, but hey.   Stay in Touch: www.mtsgpodcast.com www.therapyreimagined.com Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapist's Group https://www.facebook.com/therapyreimagined/ https://twitter.com/therapymovement https://www.instagram.com/therapyreimagined/   Credits: Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/ Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano http://www.crystalmangano.com/         Full Transcript (autogenerated):   Curt Widhalm  00:00 This episode is sponsored by SimplePractice.   Katie Vernoy  00:02 Running a private practice is rewarding, but it can also be demanding SimplePractice changes that this practice management solution helps you focus on what's most important your clients by simplifying the business side of private practice like billing, scheduling, and even marketing.   Curt Widhalm  00:18 Stick around for a special offer at the end of this episode.   Katie Vernoy  00:23 This podcast is also sponsored by RevKey.   Curt Widhalm  00:26 RevKey is a Google Ads digital ads management and consulting firm that works primarily with therapists digital advertising is all they do, and they know their stuff. When you work with RevKey they help the right patients find you ensuring a higher return on your investment in digital advertising. RevKey offers flexible month to month plans and never locks customers into long term contracts.   Katie Vernoy  00:49 Listen at the end of the episode for more information on RevKey.   Announcer  00:53 You're listening to the Modern Therapist Survival Guide where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings to support you as a whole person and a therapist. Here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.   Curt Widhalm  01:08 Welcome back modern therapists This is the Modern Therapist Survival Guide. I'm Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy. And this is the podcast where we talk about all things therapists and picking up on last week's episode responding to user reviews, we felt the food getting a little more nuanced and a couple of things. But this review sparked a couple of ideas, check out last week's episode about therapy interfering behaviors. We also wanted to dive into a little bit more of the firing clients maybe terminating prematurely before clients end up getting to their goals, we might want to call this episode firing your clients ethically, Part 1.5. Like it's cuz this does help us dive into a little bit more of some situations where this comes up. We'll talk about this from a clinical approach. We'll talk about this as far as broadly, some of the ways that I've heard ethics committees talk about bad therapy when clients have felt abandoned by therapists, this kind of stuff. So Katie, and I wanted to talk about what are some times where we've heard therapists, quote, unquote, firing their clients looking to terminate prematurely referring out, etc. So Katie, what is first on our list today,   Katie Vernoy  02:37 the most frequent one that I've seen that I've experienced is this idea of a client having a clinical need that either pops up or was on assessed, you know, wasn't appropriately assessed at the beginning, that I don't feel capable to handle. And I see this a lot, where folks will say, well, this person has psychosis or they have an eating disorder, or they have substance abuse, or they have something and I'm not an expert in it. And so I am going to refer them out. And there have been times when I've chosen to refer out and there have been times when I have kept the clients and, and created a treatment team around myself so that there was expertise present. But I see that a lot. I think people get very worried, and sometimes with good reason that if they keep a client for whom they don't have the appropriate clinical expertise, that they will be hurting the client. And so they then terminate the client, which can mean that the client feels abandoned because they have, especially if they've already developed a relationship with you, or if they had difficulty finding a therapist in the first place. And there's not great referrals. So I think that's potentially where we start is when a therapist feels like this is not my expertise. But they've already shown up in your office, either for one session or for 10 sessions. And this is a new clinical issue that pops   Curt Widhalm  03:57 So Katie and I, before recording today, we were talking about a couple of different areas where this has come up in our careers. And part of managing some of these particular situations is having honest discussions with clients. This might be something where it's a lot easier when it's in those first couple of sessions of, Hey, we don't have a real strong therapeutic relationship. But I don't have the skills to be able to help with the goals that you're coming in here with and especially if there may be more high risk or specialized sort of treatments you brought up about eating disorders before the show was recording here. These get a little bit trickier when you're much deeper into relationships with clubs. And for instance, eating disorders that show up in clients after a couple of years of treatment where you have a very strong relationship with a client and it might be outside of your wheelhouse. I've had a couple of clients that I've worked with for a very long time that have eventually started exploring transgender identities and things that are not necessarily within the specifics of my specialties. But feeling the confidence in a therapeutic relationship and knowing what it's like working with me over the long term to begin to explore some of these new identities. And I think, in the way that Katie and I have talked about this is a lot of times, it's not necessarily firing those clients, but it's helping to be able to develop a treatment team of specialists around who's working with those clients to be able to help the clients reach their goals, while also still having the emotional space and the trust in the relationship that they know that they're going to be taken care of.   Katie Vernoy  05:57 For me, I see it as a very attachment based style of therapy that I do, because I think I do longer term therapy, it's very relationship based. And so if I can't be the expert in the room with my clients, I act as a trusted person in their life who's going to figure it out. And I'm going to get the right people around them. And I'm going to advocate for them. Some of this comes from my history of doing more on the kind of social work and of pulling together treatment teams and resources and advocating for my clients. But there are a number of times throughout my career where something has come into my client's life, we have a very strong relationship, and I start doing research, I start gathering people around them. And the work that I do may be impacted by that there may be things that I bring in that is relevant to that particular treatment issue. But it may also be just me talking with them about like, how's it going with a specialist? How are you taking care of yourself? What do I need to know to support you during this time? You know, it's it's something where it has to be within the relationship because a brand new client having to tell you what they need, doesn't feel appropriate, but a client that's been with you for years and has this new issue that they're facing, I think it would be pretty bad. If you were to say, Okay, I'm out, because I don't know about this. So you're on your own, because people are not just these new treatment issues are not just diagnoses.   Curt Widhalm  07:27 And what you're describing There is also getting your own consultation and learning and developing some new skill sets alongside of that, it's not always going to be possible to out of the blue be able to develop a new best practices sort of treatment for these kinds of clients. And that's where handling these difficulties. I think we've discussed this in enough episodes before and just kind of a general enough knowledge within the community that we can move on to our next thing on the list here.   Katie Vernoy  07:59 So one more, I think clients often opt out. But I think sometimes for especially those therapist pleasing clients therapist might have to do it is a therapist like relationship mismatch, that there's something in the relationship that just seems to be getting in the way of the treatment being successful.   Curt Widhalm  08:20 And so sometimes this can be personality wise, this can be things where the agreement on what the treatment plan is, isn't the same. It might be things that a client is particularly hoping can be addressed in therapy that the therapist doesn't or won't work on. And maybe to give an idea of something like this is if a black client is showing up to therapy with issues of depression and wants to talk about some of the systemic causes, especially in the news here in the last couple of years and issues related to that as being part of the causes towards the particular depressive symptoms of this client. With the therapist only wanting to focus on things like medication adherence and behavioral activation techniques that don't necessarily take into account what the client is asking for in those therapeutic sessions. This has the potential of being in one of those areas where clients asking for something a therapist isn't providing. As it's described, this isn't really bad therapy. It's technically sound by using evidence based practices here. But I'd be hesitant to call this good therapy by any means because the client is expressing a desire to be exploring something with the therapist is completely sidestepping.   Katie Vernoy  09:51 I think when we look at it that way, this is where folks come talking about redefining therapy or decolonizing therapy. I think there are arguments, that's pretty bad therapy, when a client clearly is bringing in things that they would like to address, and the therapist is refusing to talk about them, and not seeking any insight from the client on their methods of healing. And so we'll link to a couple episodes in the show notes that kind of talk more specifically about how you can talk more about those types of issues if those that's what your clients seeking out, but yes, I don't think it's unethical or illegal therapy. But   Curt Widhalm  10:28 I do. And that's, that's the wording that that I should use here is that not that particular example. But some of the ethics committee discussions that I see from time to time fall into categories like this, where a client is asking for something very, very specific that the therapist is not addressing, that doesn't go against an ethics code, it doesn't go against a legal statute that falls under this category of just a really bad client therapist match. And I agree that with redefining therapy, reimagining therapy, that decolonizing therapy, by those definitions, that is bad therapy. Yeah. For me, legal and ethical standpoint, there are no legal or ethical codes that define it as such. And so sometimes we'll see client complaints about this that, you know, from a decolonizing, or a reimagining standpoint, would find frustration with that therapist not being investigated not being seen as a, somebody contributing to bad therapy, it's because the rules of law, the rules of ethics don't have anything to investigate those against and therefore there's no punishment to be given, if there's no rule against it.   Katie Vernoy  12:01 My hope is that if someone had that type of a complaint, rather than putting up a huge defensive structure, that they would actually look at what that mismatch was, because to me, I feel like there are clients who need that seeing that being known to be able to make any progress in therapy. And I think sometimes those clients will opt out and recognize that this therapist is not seeing me not potentially even doing some micro aggressions or macro aggressions like it could be something where the mismatches big and I think, bordering on unethical, although I don't know that I have a code. So I won't I won't go that far. But I think that the problem is that some clients, especially clients who have been, who have identities that have been traditionally marginalized, I think they may not know that anyone would be any different. And so my hope is that if a therapist is getting any kind of feedback, or having that push back, that they would make that referral to someone who could have those conversations, I just don't feel convinced that that's going to be the case, I feel like that could be a missed, you know, kind of blank spot in their education and their self awareness.   Curt Widhalm  13:14 At best, it's in that missed blank spot. You know, there are therapists that we have to admit that are out there who will actively go against and argue against that. And those cases, would be very bad therapy. And this is looking at some of those situations too. And this falls across ideological spectrums, here. But when you get into imposing values onto clients, for not believing in whatever it is that you believe, that is bad therapy, especially to the clients perspective, now, I think we're way off of where this episode's focus is supposed to be, as far as when those situations come up from the therapist side of things, you know, give you the credit as a listener here, that you're not imposing your values on the clients here, but when those clients do bring up opposite ideas of how you practice, the show here, we're big advocates of putting your values out there of kinds of work that you do so that way clients can self select in, but sometimes you're gonna end up with clients who don't match up with those things, stances on vaccine mandates, mascot mandates, these kinds of things that a lot of people are gonna have a lot of different ideas about, that this might be a mismatch. It's not something that can necessarily be ignored, but it's not necessarily something that's the place of therapeutic focus. Or is it?   Katie Vernoy  14:49 I mean, I think it's client by client and therapist by therapist, I think the to get us back into how to ethically fire your clients part 1.5 or whatever. We're going to call I think the assessment of is this ideological difference, this mismatch sufficient that you believe you cannot do effective therapy with this client, and then referring them out appropriately, I think is important, but I chose so   Curt Widhalm  15:14 in your mind, how does that referral work? Like, Hey, I think you're an idiot for this thing that doesn't have anything to do with you coming in, like, how do you see those referral conversations going?   Katie Vernoy  15:30 I am not referring someone out because they have an ideological difference. But if they're wanting to talk about things that I have absolutely no experience about, you know, or I don't have a space to you know, I don't feel comfortable in that space. And it's not something that I want to subject them to, as I find my footing, I might say, Hey, I'm noticing that these are the types of things that you're wanting to talk about. And it's outside my my area of expertise. So I want to connect you with somebody for whom that is an area of expertise. And   Curt Widhalm  16:01 if that client says, Now I like you enough, we can we can teach you   Katie Vernoy  16:06 taking that question. I mean, that is that that is harder, because I don't want to abandon my client. I don't want to be in a place where I'm allowing my own, you know, ideological things to get in the way. But if it's truly an ideological difference, whether it's about political ideology, or something along the lines of vaccinations or different things, you know, the things that I may have a strong opinion about, but my clients either have a strong other opinion, or I think the one most recently, it's been kind of vaccine hesitation, I most of my clients are vaccinated, some are not. And for me, I think what I end up doing is I follow the lead of the client, and I work to identify where their mind is, and try to understand them. And that doesn't require an ideological knowledge. Just trying to understand their perspective and look at it doesn't require an ideological knowledge. And I try to determine, do I need to know more about this in order to work with them? Or is is it central? Or is it not central?   Curt Widhalm  17:10 So for those clients that continue to bring things up, because occasionally I'll get clients on the US ideological stance that are just kind of my rights to not get vaccinated? clients? They will, I don't know, get emotionally momentum going in a direction that even an exploring where you're going here, that they'll start to maybe rope you in with like, you know what I'm talking about, right? Don't you agree that people's rights are important? That, you know, are these half sort of things? Do you step in at those times, knowing that you're sitting there being like, I don't agree with literally anything that you're saying right   Katie Vernoy  17:54 now. I think what I've done at different points, sometimes I'll go to psychoeducation. And say, I'm hearing you and I hear that you're saying this, one thing that I'm reading is is this. And so sometimes I'll go to a Hey, let me just add a little bit little tidbit not say like, Oh, well, I think you're totally wrong, but go to like a tidbit of, you know, I actually did that or, or even say, Well, I don't know, I actually, you know, that's not something that I've been looking into, could you share with me some of the things that you're reading, because then I get a better experience of what rabbit holes are going down?   Curt Widhalm  18:33 I'm not, I'm not giving those YouTube links that get sent to me, you know, these 30 minutes, here's where all of the vaccines things are wrong. I'm not clicking on those.   Katie Vernoy  18:45 But I think they're they're there. There's knowledge that potentially you can gain about where someone's head's at, when you actually ask them, how they got there, and not looking at trying to switch it. But I think there are times when just understanding and listening and then providing a little bit of information kind of from outside their information bubble can have an impact. But sometimes it just becomes very clear that there's not common ground. How about for you? How do you manage it when clients are having these gigantic conversations with lots of emotion about things that you think are absolutely wrong?   Curt Widhalm  19:23 I do a lot of reflecting back even when there's direct questions back to me. What does this mean for you? How is this impacting your day to day life? What can you do with this it's very narrative approach in a lot of ways, and I have had some successes where clients are like, Thank you for listening to me, maybe you can help me get some perspective on some other ways of looking at this that is just kind of this being able to validate the process rather than the content of what's discussed. And I'm afraid that a lot of therapists would get sucked into the content part of these arguments and feel Like this is something that I can't help you with. And therefore, I need to go back to what we mentioned earlier in the episode and refer out to somebody who can validate the content of what you're talking about here. Like we mentioned in last week's episode, this is being able to have a really good idea of what your limits are, what kind of impact that the clients are having on you being able to sit with it. And that's, that's a part that, especially developing therapists I see struggle with a lot because this pulls up a lot of that imposter syndrome stuff is just because you're having anxious or bad feelings of what a client is saying, separate from our other fire of clients ethically episode doesn't mean that you're not necessarily providing good therapy in those situations. Just because we want therapy to be easy and us to heal everyone doesn't mean that we're not going to run into some uncomfortable situations with clients. I was sharing with one of my other Professor friends here recently about some of the role plays that I bring into the especially like practicum classes when people haven't started seeing clients yet, just like getting them prepared for stuff. And of course, I'm going to pick situations that make the therapist kind of uncomfortable, and it's surprising how few of these I've ever had to make up completely to kind of put, you know, developing therapists on the spot. And when I was sharing some of these with my professor friends, they were like, what kind of a practice do you have? These are pretty like everyday sort of things. These aren't even like the egregious ones. I say all that to say that sitting through a lot of stuff that makes us uncomfortable, can have a very deep impact for clients that we might feel mismatched with. But it comes back to attuning yourself to the relationship. Now, at that point, and again to the thing from this episode that we seem to have veered really far off from is when we get to those points, and it's still not working out? Is it time for a premature therapeutic sort of termination? Can I help a client in that situation? Yes. Can everybody okay, I would like to think everybody has the capability to know. But if you feel that it is interfering with yourself so much before you get to the point of referring out clients for you feel that the mismatch is so great, ethically, what you're going to want to do is have some really in depth consultations, that some clinical supervision from some people that are not going to just be part of a Facebook group that you're only able to explain, you know, in a few sentences, what's going on. And the chorus of commenters is going to, you know, give you seven or eight words as far as what you should do, but pay for a good consultation around how to manage it, and document that consultation. Not in the client chart, though, not in the client chart, but protect yourself in your process notes that you've explored the ways that this impact could be happening with the client. So that way, it's not just a rash decision, that this is part of the extra workout side of the session that makes you as a better therapist that can lead to trying to provide space for a client to grow. If the results of that consultation are Yeah, you should probably refer this person out, you've got some better community understanding and thought process that goes into it. But if there's space for you to work on and address through some of these issues with clients, depending on whatever specific content it is, with whatever it is that they're bringing up. premature termination at that point, falls more into bad therapy than it does to providing a good space for them.   Katie Vernoy  24:18 Making that assessment I think, can be tough, and I want to get to that. But I want to talk about one more mismatch that I think is actually not as interesting as what we've been talking about. But I think it is an important one to put in there. And then maybe we can talk about how to make the assessment because I think making the assessment and then having really good consultation, I think can be very important. But the other mismatch really is style or personality. You know, whether you're a directive therapist, a non directive, therapist, those types of things, I think that those, they actually make a big difference. And I've had clients where they've been able to give me the feedback and I can shift and be less more or less directive. But I think there's some of us that are just more or less directive. Again, oftentimes when clients are empowered, they opt out themselves. So you're not doing this premature termination. But I think it is important to talk about it just a little bit.   Curt Widhalm  25:12 Absolutely. And as somebody who does far more to the directive side of things, I tend to advertise to my community, the people who come to work with me, they know that I tend to be more directive more honest in the way that I put myself out there, then maybe some of their other therapeutic experiences, clients who want that, and the values that we put forward here, our work is put your values out there, let clients self select into this kind of stuff.   Katie Vernoy  25:45 But sometimes clients don't know they operate in because they think it's a good match. But then you can see them either pushing back against you being directive or shutting down. And I think I think the assessment becomes the clinicians responsibility if the client isn't understanding that that's what the problem is.   Curt Widhalm  26:06 And so those directive therapists out there in this situation would likely have very little problem directing that conversation to that particular problem.   Katie Vernoy  26:15 The opposite, though, I've seen where the non directive therapists kind of stay in therapy with some of these clients forever, and maybe this is you and I bias because we're both more directive. But I've had clients that didn't realize that they wanted more than they were getting, and I think non directive therapy can be hugely beneficial for some folks. Absolutely. But for for clients that want more, if they don't know that that's the case, how do we recommend that non directive therapists try to figure that out?   Curt Widhalm  26:45 I'm gonna be totally biased towards the directive end of things. It's creating the space for that discussion, and really saying, personality wise, that's just not who I am. I can't provide what you're looking for in this situation. That is a really good conversation to have with people, because it's either going to lead into Yeah, but I still like you, as the therapist. Yeah. But what you're asking for is not something that I can really do or be like, you're asking a tiger to change it stripes like, yeah, at that point, it's being able to then have a proper termination, even if it's incomplete towards therapy goals in order to help those clients get matched with somebody who is going to be able to provide what they want.   Katie Vernoy  27:38 I think the knowledge that's required for that conversation, maybe some that either the clients asking for more, the therapist is recognizing that the style isn't matching up. I think sometimes that's not evident. I think people typically can kind of flow together. And if the style is a mismatch, sometimes that's not identified. But I think what can be identifiable? is lack of progress on treatment goals, or stagnation on treatment goals, or the Hey, how are you doing very little going on in the therapy session, that I think therapists, as a matter, of course, should assess progress on treatment goals, and be able to identify that there are a few different things and they want to assess if therapy doesn't seem to be moving forward.   Curt Widhalm  28:23 And some of the ways that you can manage that is making sure that you go back and revisit your treatment plan with your clients every so often. And I know that that's a, I was gonna say, a lot more popular in DMH work, but I don't know that popular is the right word that   Katie Vernoy  28:39 consistent usually requires. Wire. Yeah, that's probably best.   Curt Widhalm  28:46 But for independent practice, doctors, practitioners who aren't, you know, as adherent to those kinds of contracts or rules that require you to go back to those treatment plans, do it anyway. So that way, these kinds of things can emerge sooner and have conversations with your clients about, hey, we're not making any progress towards this goal. What's going on with this? That does allow for the are we doing things right? Is this something that you would get this better out of treatment with somebody else that makes it more of a joint decision, rather than just the therapist being the all knowing or all scared of having to have that conversation with a client, that honest relationship, there's typically really helpful.   Katie Vernoy  29:41 And when you were talking about that, I was remembering a conversation we had really early on in the podcast with Dr. Melissa Hall. I think it's making your documentation meaningful or meaningful documentation, something like that. But she actually really talks about the clinical loop and how making that a regular part of your process helps you close And I play but it also opens this conversation for folks who aren't quite sure what's not working. Because I think when you're documenting and paying attention, I think that can be very helpful. So we've talked about a lot of different things, I think there's, you know, we could go more into a client not making clinical progress as a reason to potentially prematurely terminate.   Curt Widhalm  30:22 I do want to bring up though that man, sometimes building off of last week's conversation around some of these therapy interfering behaviors, there may be times when even examining it through that lens, when you've consistently had these conversations with clients that you've sought the outside consultation, you've documented that the clients continue to break more egregious boundaries, but maybe not to the threatening level of the ones that were discussed in our first episode on firing clients ethically. And these are things where it might be breaking boundaries outside of sessions showing up to your office and hanging out way too long disrupting behaviors in the waiting room that you know, maybe couples who start their arguments in the waiting room that are interfering, the session that you're having and stuff like that, yeah, where those types of behaviors are things that are impacting other people in your practice, that weren't really straightforward boundary conversations that if they continue to happen, are things that you continue to bring them up if those conversations that were used suggested last week in the podcast about how this impacts things, and there is a an active refusal to follow those are acknowledge that those are even problematic behaviors that are impacting you, and especially other clients, that can be a cause that you should very much document quite well, as far as you're welcome to services, not in this way. And if these are things that are coming up, here are appropriate referrals that, you know, we've talked about in termination episodes before being able to provide, these are behaviors that you're demonstrating pair impacting me, we have tried to work on them, they are continuing to impact me in a way where I can no longer serve you. I have sought out consultation, I am working on this. And it is agreed that I am going to cause you more harm. Because of the feelings that are developing, then I can benefit you from this point. That is inappropriate referral. And that is inappropriate termination. They're   Katie Vernoy  32:49 the things that come to mind for me, if I don't have the capacity, and that could be strong clinical expertise. But it also could be time I had a client that I had to refer out because they needed more than I had time to take care of Sure. If they if the relationship is not one, that there would be an element of abandonment, the feeling of abandonment, abandonment is different than the abandonment of just saying today was your last session, audios. The treatment Alliance and we talked about this a lot in both of these episodes. But if the treatment Alliance is strong, there may be things that could be overcome that in other situations, it would be recommended to refer out. But I come back to something that I think is going to be very rampant right now, especially for certain types of specialties and certain types of things is the availability of more suitable resources. And so maybe as our last point, because we are getting pretty long here. But as our last point talking about, I've made the assessment, I've done the consultation, I've had the conversation with the client, I am unable to keep the client ethically, legally, logistically, whatever it is, and I'm having a hard time finding suitable resources to refer them to. At that point, some people keep clients. And I think that there are pros and cons there. But what is our responsibility? If there are just no therapists that are capable of helping this client?   Curt Widhalm  34:26 I think with the accessibility of telehealth now that this is much less of a problem than it has historically been that with providers in every jurisdiction now able to provide telehealth easily that this is going to be where, especially in the private practice end of things, those referrals are more easily found. Hired, indeed higher severity clients, those being sought out through things like DMH you're going to have agency policies that you're going to have to follow in those situations but To give maybe an anticlimactic answer, I don't think that this is as big of a problem here in 2021, as it has historically been described, there, lots of referrals out there, there are clients and therapists who can match across distances now. And that's, you know, one of the things that being more digitally accessible helps to alleviate some of these issues when it does come to providing care for these kinds of clients.   Katie Vernoy  35:30 So basically, the answer was, I'm not going to answer you, okay, because it's not that big of a problem.   Curt Widhalm  35:37 Pretty much.   Katie Vernoy  35:39 So I'm going to actually just put us put my spin on it, because I do think it actually is still a problem. But I think the problem is not more, is there any available resource? It's, is there an acceptable resource to the client? Because oftentimes, it does mean having a therapist who is telehealth and they want to be in person or someone who is not maybe as close of a personality fit but has a specialty and doesn't take their insurance. I mean, there there are some issues here. And I think it's something where, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, in good faith, providing as many as close good enough referrals to this client as you can and trying to do what you can to do some linkage is sufficient. Yeah. Okay.   Curt Widhalm  36:28 You should let us know what you think of this episodes, especially in our Facebook group, the modern therapist, group or on any of our social media. You can also leave us a rating and review and we'll include our show notes over at MTSGpodcast.com. Also, there is still like, hours left for you to be able to get your virtual therapy, reimagined 2021 tickets. We are going entirely virtual again this year, we had hoped to have some people come out and join us in Los Angeles, but enter in the meme of my fall plans and delta variant. Yes, but there's still time you can get those tickets over at therapy reimagined conference calm. And until next time, I'm Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy. SimplePractice is the leading private practice management platform for private practitioners everywhere. More than 100,000 professionals use SimplePractice to power telehealth sessions schedule appointments, file insurance claims market, their practice and so much more. All on one HIPAA compliant platform.   Katie Vernoy  37:37 Get your first two months of SimplePractice for the price of one when you sign up for an account today. This is collusive offer is valid for new customers only. Please note that we are a paid affiliate for a SimplePractice so we'll have a little bit of money in our pocket. If you sign up at this link. Simplepractice.com/therapy reimagined. And that's where you can learn more.   Curt Widhalm  37:57 This episode is also sponsored by RevKey.   Katie Vernoy  38:01 RevKey specializes in working with mental health professionals like you to increase not only clicks to your website, but helps you find your ideal patients. From simple startup packages and one time consultations to full Digital Marketing Management Services. RevKey can help you run successful digital marketing ads. RevKey creates customized packages and digital marketing budget recommendations that fit your business needs.   Curt Widhalm  38:25 You'll never receive a data dump report that means nothing to you. Instead, red key provides clear concise communication about how your digital marketing ads are performing through meetings for video updates recorded just for you. RevKey is offering $150 off any setup fees for Modern Therapist Survival Guide listeners.   Katie Vernoy  38:42 You can find more at RevKey.com and make sure to mention that you're a Modern Therapist Survival Guide listener   Announcer  38:48 Thank you for listening to the Modern Therapist Survival Guide. Learn more about who we are and what we do at MTSGpodcast.com. You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter. And please don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any of our episodes.

Please hit that Subscribe/Follow button on your Podcast player, so you won't miss the latest episode.  Full Transcript of this episode  can be found on our Patreon page 一年的节日里，中秋仅次于春节，也是阖家团圆的日子。 关于中秋的来历有不同的传说，一般认为起源于上古时代的月神祭祀，也有说它来自秋收祭祀。在唐代，中秋从祭祀变成了赏月和游乐的日子。 ..... For the full transcript of this episode and many others, please support us by becoming our patrons. ************************************************************ If you think our podcast is valuable to you and others,  become our patron for as low as $5/month.You will have access to all of the transcripts, vocabulary list and patrons only episodes ************************************************************ Are you already a listener? Leaving the show a review on iTunes will help more people find the podcast. Thank you!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

You have the double blessing of being a member of God's royal family and His client nation, America. A client nation has responsibilities to uphold: evangelize our own, send missionaries throughout the world, preserve and teach the Word of God, provide a safe haven for the Jew, follow divine establishment principles. But we've turned our backs on the Lord and that's why dark days are ahead. We have become preoccupied with the gifts and forgotten the Giver. “If you don't obey Me and you do not observe My mandates… I will appoint terror over you” (Lev 26:14-17). Many believers in this client nation have let their light go dim. “You are the light of the world” (Matt 5:14). We are mandated to “Let your light shine” (Matt 5:16). When we reflect the light of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ we illuminate the darkness. To ensure your light is on stay filled with the Holy Spirit and take in the Word of God on a consistent basis under a well-qualified pastor. There are dark days coming and only your light of reflecting Christ can change it. Full Transcript: https://rhem.pub/dark-days-06d827 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-hughes/message

Letting your emotions control your life is dangerous. Either you control your sin nature or the sin nature will control you. There is a battle going on “The flesh wars against the Spirit and the Spirit wars against the flesh” (Gal 5:16). Your volition will respond to both your mentality and your emotion. The key is to be controlled by your thoughts and not emotions. Acquiring the mind of Christ will give you the divine viewpoint and discernment you need to protect your thoughts. “Put on the armor of God so you can stand against the strategy of the devil” (Eph 6:11). Satan seeks to lead your mind astray and plant desires in your thoughts. He will feed your thoughts with what you want. “There is no truth in him” (John 8:44). Scripture is your ally. “Submit yourself to God and resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Recognize his schemes because he will reuse them. Don't let Satan and his system outwit you. Full Transcript: https://rhem.pub/emotions-thinking-53b0ad --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-hughes/message

What to do When Clients Get in Their Own Way Curt and Katie chat about what therapy interfering behaviors (TIBs) are and how to address them in therapy. We explore the balance between reducing barriers for clients while also holding them accountable for their behavior. We also talk about how to identify if it is the therapist or the client engaging in a TIB. It's time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age. In this episode we talk about: What therapy interfering behaviors (TIBs) are and how TIBs show up in the therapy room. How to address TIBs in therapy (we may disagree a little here). The balance between reducing barriers for clients and holding them accountable. If you should still have session when a client shows up late. Using appropriate self-disclosure to address TIBs. Should you fire clients for TIBs? When therapists engage in TIBs. How to evaluate if it's a client TIB or therapist TIB. Managing imposter syndrome when a client becomes hostile because the therapist cannot provide what the client wants. Our Generous Sponsors: SimplePractice Running a private practice is rewarding, but it can also be demanding. SimplePractice changes that. This practice management solution helps you focus on what's most important—your clients—by simplifying the business side of private practice like billing, scheduling, and even marketing. More than 100,000 professionals use SimplePractice —the leading EHR platform for private practitioners everywhere – to power telehealth sessions, schedule appointments, file insurance claims, communicate with clients, and so much more—all on one HIPAA-compliant platform. Get your first 2 months of SimplePractice for the price of one when you sign up for an account today. This exclusive offer is valid for new customers only. Go to simplepractice.com/therapyreimagined to learn more. *Please note that Therapy Reimagined is a paid affiliate of SimplePractice and will receive a little bit of money in our pockets if you sign up using the above link.   RevKey RevKey specializes in working with mental health professionals like you to increase not only clicks to your website, but helps you find your ideal patients. From simple startup packages and one time consultations to full Digital Marketing Management Services, RevKey can help you run successful digital marketing ads. RevKey creates customized packages and digital marketing budget recommendations that fit your business needs. You'll never receive a data dump report that means nothing to you. Instead, RevKey provides clear concise communication about how your digital marketing ads are performing through meetings for video updates recorded just for you. RevKey is offering $150 off any setup fees for Modern Therapist Survival Guide listeners. You can find more at RevKey.com and make sure to mention that you're a Modern Therapist Survival Guide listener.   Resources mentioned: We've pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below might be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance! Relevant Episodes: How to Fire Your Clients (Ethically) Connect with us! Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group Get Notified About Therapy Reimagined 2021  Our consultation services: The Fifty-Minute Hour Who we are: Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making "dad jokes" and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: www.curtwidhalm.com Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt's youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: www.katievernoy.com A Quick Note: Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We're working on it. Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren't trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don't want to, but hey.   Stay in Touch: www.mtsgpodcast.com www.therapyreimagined.com Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapist's Group https://www.facebook.com/therapyreimagined/ https://twitter.com/therapymovement https://www.instagram.com/therapyreimagined/   Credits: Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/ Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano http://www.crystalmangano.com/   Full Transcript (autogenerated):   Curt Widhalm  00:00 This episode is sponsored by SimplePractice.   Katie Vernoy  00:02 Running a private practice is rewarding, but it can also be demanding SimplePractice changes that this practice management solution helps you focus on what's most important your clients by simplifying the business side of private practice like billing, scheduling, and even marketing.   Curt Widhalm  00:18 Stick around for a special offer at the end of this episode.   Katie Vernoy  00:23 This podcast is also sponsored by RevKey.   Curt Widhalm  00:26 RevKey is a Google Ads digital ads management and consulting firm that works primarily with therapists digital advertising is all they do, and they know their stuff. When you work with RevKey they help the right patients find you ensuring a higher return on your investment in digital advertising. RevKey offers flexible month to month plans and never locks customers into long term contracts.   Katie Vernoy  00:49 Listen at the end of the episode for more information on RevKey.   Announcer  00:53 You're listening to the Modern Therapist Survival Guide where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings to support you as a whole person and a therapist. Here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.   Curt Widhalm  01:10 Welcome back Modern Therapists. This is the Modern Therapist Survival Guide. I'm Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy. And this is the podcast for therapists about all things therapist related what we do with our clients the things that we do, outside of the therapy room, things that we do inside the therapy room. I don't know I'm back to not introducing podcast well.   Katie Vernoy  01:34 This is a podcast interfering behavior.   Curt Widhalm  01:38 On that note, Katie, do you know what you call an Interrupting cow? No. All right, Dad jokes aside. After our episode on firing your clients, ethically, we got a review on Apple from Apple user, vinyl dash. And I'm going to paraphrase quite a bit of this here. But this is a review that we're actually going to have two episodes of response. So we do appreciate all of the feedback that we get from our modern therapist community here. And we do look at a lot of them. So please give us ratings and reviews. Let us know what we're doing well, what you'd like to see us cover. You can do this on any of the review sites or on our social media join our Facebook group, the modern therapist group. But there is a lot here that came from this review. In response to that episode on firing our clients. Apparently, we miss some opportunities for some nuance, and especially in the case of firing our clients. The only issues that we discussed were when therapists feel unsafe or threatened. True, yes. And maybe we could have done a better job of titling that episode to something about therapists safety and firing clients they're going back to this review as a private practice therapist far more common scenario when considering premature termination comes from what they call in DBT, therapy, interfering behaviors or just repeated boundary violations. And after addressing them in session and attempting to help client gain awareness about these behaviors outside of the therapy relationship. These are far more nuanced situations that don't make this reviewer feel unsafe, but do ultimately make it sometimes impossible to continue seeing the client when the clients are often already struggling with abandonment issues. And this user would like us to maybe address that a little bit more. We're going to have this episode and next week's episodes cover some of the nuance here because we try to keep our episodes here about 30 minutes, it doesn't always allow for us within a single episode to get into a lot of the nuance here, Katie and I were talking about now there's kind of two different things here. One is talking about therapy, interfering behaviors and managing them. The other is maybe some other non threatening situations where it might be right to terminate with clients. And that's going to be for next week here. So therapy interfering behaviors, Katie, I think it might help our audience here to know a little bit about how this shows up in the therapeutic relationship. This is something that we know comes from the DBT worlds but whether you're a DBT practitioner or not, this happens across a variety of practices.   Katie Vernoy  04:42 When we look at therapy, interfering behaviors, I think there's acknowledgement that these can happen both from the client and the therapist. And so I want to make sure that we put that front and center because I think oftentimes, clients get blamed for interfering in therapy and I think therapists can contribute and we'll get into that more later. But looking at some of the therapy interfering behaviors that I think are most difficult, and maybe we can just start with the logistical ones up front, are coming late to session missing sessions, last minute cancellations, no shows not paying, maybe trying to reach out to therapists repeatedly in between sessions kind of crossing those boundaries. But I think the the logistical ones, rather than the clinical ones, I think are ones where people can really get in trouble. Where if you're looking at a business model, if you have clients that are consistently not paying or late canceling or, you know, or even canceling right on that, you know, whether it's 24 or 48 hour mark, and you're not able to fill those session times, I think, from a business standpoint, the no brainer is just fire him right, like just these clients need to go. But I think that there are clinical reasons not to and I think there's also actually business reasons not to as well. But how often do you experience these types of therapy interfering behaviors, because I think the argument that a lot of people make is that if you set up your practice properly, and you have appropriate boundaries, you don't see these as often. But I actually think that they're clinical. And I think that some practices will always see them, at least at the beginning. To a certain extent,   Curt Widhalm  06:17 I think that I run into them a lot less now than I did earlier in my career. And part of that is having structured my business with some of the things that we've talked about on the podcast before. Having a client credit card on file shirt makes it to wear them for getting their checkbook doesn't become a therapy, interfering behavior, it's pushing a couple of buttons that allows for me to charge those cards in the first place. Having automated appointment reminders, sure, makes no showing for sessions a lot easier. But probably the most important thing that I've learned is addressing stuff with clients as soon as possible. Yeah. And this is something where I don't consider myself a DBT therapist, but the more that I read about DBT, the more that I recognize that I do use a lot of DBT principles in my practice. And I think one of the main things that I do with my clients, and I have a practice that mostly works with adolescents, so this also includes therapy interfering behaviors from their parents, yep, is not letting a lot of these feelings swell up, and being able to address it right away in the next session. Or if I am getting a lot of frequent contact in between sessions, you know, those clients where you see their phone number pop up, yet again, you get that little feeling in your stomach, where it's like, yep, dealing directly in the therapeutic relationship with clients about how these boundaries end up being crossed, and how it's something that interplays within our relationship, and is likely interplaying within the relationship those clients are having in other places in their lives, is something where providing that direct feedback to them. With the goal of continuing therapy successfully, when you were talking about that there's a lot of therapists who are really quick to, you know, wanting to get rid of these kinds of clients is, this is really coming from the empathic place of I want this and us to work together. And here's the impact that this is having, not only on your progress, but on our relationship towards that progress, that really sets a foundation of GRE addressing these behaviors, we're addressing them again, and we're addressing them again, that helps to bring this insight up for clients that I do see them start to have more of a understanding of the impact of what they're doing, not just for themselves in kind of saving themselves out of their own anxiety plays, but also within the context of the relationships of the people around them.   Katie Vernoy  09:01 I love those interventions. And I also think they're challenging because oftentimes it means putting a little bit more of you in the room, and it's working in the transference, so to speak, how you're treating ni is probably how you're treating others. And let's let's work it out between us. And I think that works really well. But it does make an assumption that there's something that they're doing that is consistent across their life. And that may be true, and I think we need to assess that. But I think I actually start further back, which is trying to understand why it's happening. You know, I go from a place of someone's not doing some overt or covert behavior to try to interfere with therapy, but that there may be logistical issues. You know, the first thing I do is I ask them, is this the time for therapy? Do we need to make a different schedule? Do we need to move this around? Is there something that's keeping you from wanting to come to therapy You know, it's looking at what what is their experience? And is there something in their life that's getting in the way of therapy and not just like, Hey, this is how they treat everyone. They're always late. They always are inconsistent and over inconsiderate, but actually like, did we schedule it a bad time? And part of your clinical issue is that you want to please me, so you don't feel comfortable asking for a different time. So you're always running late? Is it the way that I start therapy annoys you? And so you're you're hesitant to come in? I mean, I feel like to me, and maybe this isn't that different than what you were saying. But I feel like, oftentimes, the assumption is that this is a resistance or a therapy interfering behavior, which I guess it is interfering with therapy, but it may actually be logistical and practical, and just like, Hey, I realize that I'm exhausted at nine in the morning, and I'm going to sleep through my alarm, and I can't do it. So we need to schedule it after to, you know, it's not that I don't want to see you, it's that I've made a commitment I can't keep,   Curt Widhalm  11:01 I think, and maybe where I'm shying away from this a little bit is for some clients, you might be asking for an insights that they don't necessarily have the capability of being able to look at themselves yet. Sure. I work very much in the present the relational aspects of things, and for me with those particular kinds of clients, and as this review is pointing out, being able to talk about the impact that somebody's behavior has, in real time on the person that that behavior is having is the very DBT intervention of modeling emotions and thoughts and being vulnerable about what's happening, you know, everybody's favorite DBT intervention, dear man, of being able to describe what that impact is, and being able to model how that's happening. And sometimes I'll even go so far as to say, here's, here's, dear man in practice, here's me describing what your impact is on me. And here's me expressing what that impact does for me, and once again, asking you to look at how these actions in the collective of them has that and you know, reaffirming, are you really committed to changing these kinds of behaviors, knowing that these behaviors have an impact. This way, it's not getting a lot into the why it's not getting into, you know, the potential of being able to externalize the responsibility onto anything else, traffic, trauma, anxiety, whatever else it is. But looking at the personal responsibility, that's still part of the behavior in real time as it impacts when somebody, ideally, you as the therapists, if you're following what I'm describing here, in a way that is managed, you know, maybe with a slight annoyance, yeah, I'm annoyed when you don't show up when you say that you're going to show up. That helps a real relationship to develop. So that way these clients have the ability to work through these therapy, interfering behaviors, and outside of the room, relationship interfering behaviors, that allows for that insight that you're talking about to start to develop and be able to be expressed more effectively.   Katie Vernoy  13:29 So I agree that's a great intervention. I don't think that that's a bad intervention. I think that it's a wonderful intervention. I think the addition and it sounds like you're saying that maybe this is not a good addition, is actually trying to see if there's anything that's happening on the therapist side of the street coming as a human and saying, Hey, is there a way that we can make this better? Because Is this the right time for you to show up? Is this is there something there because to me, going from the this is your behavior, and you're doing it wrong, doesn't acknowledge that there are real life situations that can get in the way of people doing stuff that when those things are resolved, and when they are actually talked about and it's acceptable to be a human and have some of these things happen? And it's not like, Hey, this is this is a problem behavior, you need to fix it. But it's like, Hey, this is what I'm seeing. I'm trying to understand it. What do you understand about it? What do I understand about it? What can we do about it? It's not saying, Hey, stop it, which is, I think can with the power differential, I think can happen. And I think people can feel very turned off by that.   Curt Widhalm  14:33 Oh, to clarify, I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong. What I'm saying is this behavior has this impact. Okay. And by virtue of being able to bring it up in this way, what we're doing is we're coming to the place that you're describing, which is coming to a joint solution on how to make things work together. And ideally, if a client is able to follow that same sort of process of being able to say when You do this, it impacts me this way. That is therapeutic growth in very much the same way that we've just modeled and is something that we would hope to be able to create the space for them to have that real relationship with you as the therapist there.   Katie Vernoy  15:14 So the big difference then from something that you might do in a, personally is that you just start from a place of this is therapeutic material, and we need to address it, yes, instead of Hey, what's going on?   Curt Widhalm  15:26 Right, because especially with these kinds of clients, we're exhibiting these kinds of therapy interfering behaviors all over the place. There's never a bad time to enforce limits, unless it's way too late. And those limits are the things that we hope that people read in our informed consent, the things that everybody is agreeing to, at the beginning of the first session, when you know, here's all of our practice policies that they're just kind of glossing over, because what they're there for is I want to be healed, I want to be out of this feeling that they're just kind of Yeah, yeah. Now, let me tell you about, it's important to come back to what those limits are, as those limits are being tested, and repeatedly being tested, that leads us as clinicians to feel like, are we actually providing this client with good therapy?   Katie Vernoy  16:17 Some of this It sounds like might be stylistic. And I think it probably depends on the clients that you're seeing, and that kind of stuff, how you approach it, I think, I think we're saying very similar things. I think the nuance here is, for me, I start from the relationship and trying to understand what's happened to you from for it sounds like for you, you start within the relationship and, and holding a boundary. And that doesn't suggest I'm not also holding the boundary. It's just I think we there's not one right way to get to the conversation of Hey, this behavior is interfering with therapy, it may also be interfering with the rest of your life. And how do we make you more successful here, as well as how do we extrapolate that out to your life.   Curt Widhalm  17:03 And I think the approach that I'm taking here is that I'm wanting to keep the client engaged in the process of what is happening, and not bypassing what's happening in the moment and immediately jumping out to other places that this could possibly be happening. And if there is a therapist pleasing aspect of clients in these situations, you can get to kind of this bypass or this ignoring of other places that this is happening for those clients, you know, oh, no, I don't see this happening in other places, even when it totally is that they're just trying to be like, you know, I'm a good client, you know, this is the only place that it's coming up where we might, you know, be chasing a rabbit down one path that needs to go several different paths. I don't know if that metaphor works, but   Katie Vernoy  17:56 I think it's understandable. But yeah, I mean, I think it's some of this is so unique to each client, though, it really depends on what they're working on, and what the therapy and interfering behavior is, I think,   Curt Widhalm  18:08 within this, and you brought up earlier about some of the logistical aspects of this comes with the way that we might choose to run our sessions. How for you, if a client's running late to a session, do you set limits on like, well, if you're not here by 20 minutes, and we're canceling the session, and I'm just going to charge you anyway.   Katie Vernoy  18:28 Sometimes it depends on the client, I have clients that have chronic illnesses, and different things that may interfere with their ability to come right on time, or those types of things. And so those are discussed and addressed. But I don't necessarily say if you're not available by this time, I'm going to close the session out like I'm not going to, I'm not going to do a 30 minute session, if you show up 20 minutes late, I don't say that, for me the flexibility of enforcing the time limit, and charging them for the session, kind of whether they show or not, I think that lives, but I think the tardiness is more enforced interpersonally and if someone's 20 minutes late, or 30 minutes late, and they're like, hey, should I still come? I say no. But if if they come into a session at the 1520 minute mark, or they tell me Hey, I'm going to be there in five minutes, I will honor the session. I think for me there's a humanity that I add that maybe others see is not having great boundaries. But for me that that I understand that people have unique experiences and my timeliness is pretty good. Overall, my attendance rates pretty good overall, I kind of go from the place of I understand and value that you're doing your bus and if you're not showing up on time or you're not showing up consistently, that's something we need to talk about. So that's how I manage it. How do you manage it?   Curt Widhalm  19:54 If the client is 48 minutes late session, we have a two minute session. And I say that because I mean, if they're paying for a 15 minute session, and I've got that 15 minutes blocked out for them, but if they show up, it gives us the opportunity, even in those two minutes to begin to address what is happening and what the impact is. Yeah. And you'll see this in a variety of situations, I'm going to change a bunch of details about a client here. So that way, I can keep this anonymous at a client several years ago, that would always have digestive issues. The minute before the sessions were to begin in our office, this client would show up to the office, they will call eight, and my office would go on appropriately, about eight or nine minutes before the session, but it would be as soon as I would come out, hey, I gotta go the bathroom. And it would oftentimes be 3040 minutes in the bathroom, that when this client would eventually come back, the discussion would be, what are you getting out of the therapy, because, you know, what we've agreed upon. And the treatment plan that we set out together was to be able to look at the way that your behaviors are kind of procrastinating. And it sure seems like this is happening here. And what I'm hearing from you that therapy is not being successful, I look at moments like these. And it feels like you're trying to blame me for therapy not working. But we're missing 40 minutes out of the session. This is where it took several months of having conversations like these a number of times when this client was upset because I was charging them for the agreed upon our and, you know, having these two 510 minute sessions that address these behaviors, this client terminated with me for a while and came back 18 months, two years later, and said that that was an opportunity that they saw that they were having this kind of avoidant behavior with a number of other places in their lives. But it took somebody consistently pointing that out to them, for them to now come back to therapy and want to actually start addressing it. So clients like these can seem highly motivated, even in the midst of their therapy interfering behaviors going on. Yeah, but setting up this foundation, and really being able to not go beyond your own limits as far as what you're emotionally, having happen with the clients managing your own countertransference. But appropriately, self disclosing can set these clients up for a lot longer process of being able to come to the realizations that they had hoped that they would get in the first place. And this is where a lot of my clients come to eventually say something to me as far as this is what makes your therapy very real. You're very honest about what you're doing. And about the impacts that things are happening. You're not just kind of setting up some rules and not explaining why.   Katie Vernoy  23:16 I think that's the important point is explaining why the rules are there and having that transparency, because I think if it feels punitive, if it feels dehumanized, you didn't show up until two minutes. So we'll do the two minutes and I'm charging you for the whole time. I think that doesn't necessarily resonate with some folks. And so I think if it's like you're describing, you're actually talking about it within the relationship. I think that is so critical, because so many of the clients that I've had come to me have talked about feeling like their therapist didn't care about them. They were very punitive toward them, or they didn't see them. And I think for me that that element of being able to hold both pieces, the strong boundaries and infrastructure, as well as the caring human connection. I think that's what's most important to me.   Curt Widhalm  24:07 And this comes back to the idea of we can't infantilized or treat our clients like they're inherently weak, that having a real relationship, even if it's a chaotic real relationship is something that does provide the space for growth for these kinds of clients and ultimately allows for the growth of the clients to be able to carry the same kind of principles through other places in their life, and being able to consistently show up and have that acceptance of our own limits. Being able to describe the acceptance were on limits, and really being able to model it even when it's initially in bringing it up with clients like this drives our own anxiety through the roof because it's not an easy transition of going from a therapist. Who's expecting clients show up and just immediately start doing the work to being able to address things immediately, because we're trying to keep that professionalism in place. But I think being able to have that honest relationship to appropriately self disclose wouldn't you know, when we hear about this appropriately, self disclosing for the client's benefit, where I don't talk about things is, I don't talk about them not showing up is having impact on my money, I don't want them to take the message that they're just you know, in my life, because they're paying me part of that is maintaining the boundary of you reserve some time, that time, cost this amount of money that time was reserved for you, and I'm holding that boundary with you. Yeah, I don't, you know, put this in sort of this punitive. Well, you did this. So I'm doing this, it's more in that nuanced. I had this experience of your behavior. And it left me with this impact. It is radically self accepting my own reactions to that. I don't go so far as to being like, and I want to punish you for this.   Katie Vernoy  26:15 But I think oftentimes, folks will see consequences of their behavior as punishment. That's why how it is presented, how the boundaries are presented are important. I'm looking at the time and I want to shift to some other stuff, because I think we're, we've we've covered I think, the logistical elements except when do we fire clients for these types of boundary crossings of coming late missing sessions last minute cancellations are not paying?   Curt Widhalm  26:41 I typically don't I find that all of these behaviors are in yellow words, grist for the mill of psychotherapy, that these are all processable, being able to continue to talk about it, you know, if it's logistical things like, okay, scheduling is something that it's hard for clients to get to our office during rush hour, we'll work towards appropriate accommodations. I don't make promises of let me move seven other clients so that way you can get your ideal time. It's let's look at my calendar and see if there is a more appropriate time that you can fit in. Yeah, that is, again, it's bringing together these principles of I have limits to   Katie Vernoy  27:28 Yeah, I think you finish there, I start there, I think we have a similar way to handle it. But I actually there are times when I think that it may be appropriate to terminate with clients. One is if they truly are not paying the credit card on file is expired, and they're not getting back to you at a certain point for keeping that client. I think if clients are consistently missing, you know, last minute cancellations, and you're seeing them very infrequently. I think there's a time at which that becomes clinically irresponsible to have them on your caseload. I think if you're able to keep the conversation going, that's one thing. But I think if it's something where you're absolutely not doing any treatment with them, because they come in once a month, you're discussing therapy interfering behaviors with them, they go all right. All right. All right, and then they don't come back for three or four weeks. I think it's I think at some point, you know, you do have a responsibility both to yourself and to your client to not pretend that therapy. So shifting gears, there are these logistical reasons that I think we've talked about pretty well. But there's also some clinical reasons that are called therapy, interfering behaviors, whether it's not trying out interventions, not participating, not speaking a lot asking or demanding more than a therapist can offer, or even being disrespectful or hostile or critical to the therapist. And I would refer people for that part, potentially back to the episode on how to fire clients ethically, although I think there's ways to keep those clients are not expressing your emotions effectively as another one just to add that in. But when I'm thinking about this, for me, I go to this conversation that we've had about resistance. And some of this I feel like is blaming clients for therapist failures. Say more, if a client is not trying out an intervention that a therapist think is the right intervention, or they're not engaging in the conversation in the therapy room, or they're asking for more than the therapist can offer. And I think the assessment of what that means, potentially the client is saying, I don't agree, I don't I'm not signed on for this treatment plan. You're not helping me to have an engaging conversation here. And I want more than what you're offering to me because I don't feel like I'm getting better. Now. Obviously, the assessment is the most important part of that. But I think if therapists go to my clients are interfering with their own behavior because they're not trying what I want them to do when they're not talking to me and they're not and they're asking me for more I think the therapist needs to do a self evaluation, are you actually aligned with what the client wants to work with? And what they want to work on?   Curt Widhalm  30:09 And you gave a couple of answers even within your question there. One is, if this is not the treatment plan I agreed to, then you've done the wrong treatment plan is the therapist. And that's where you need to go back to part of this is going to be dictated by the theory that you're working from, that. A lot of times what I'll see is especially like kids with anxiety, that don't want to use anxiety management techniques, and I'll hear parents, you know, come into the beginning or the end of the session and be like, my kids still anxious. Okay, let's shift treatment theories, let's go from working CBT with a kid to family systems to see how parents are reinforcing some of the anxiety relief seeking behaviors that running to mom or dad to appease some of the anxiety rather than having mom and dad reinforced, now's the time to use those anxiety techniques to be able to clinically address this in a way kind of is going to really depend on the context of whichever client but it takes the step back on the therapist part to really evaluate is the working Alliance there, do we agree on what the problem is and how we're going to get there, because that's going to set up your treatment plan. And your treatment plan is going to be something that the client, clinically ethically should be involved with, if they have any capacity to start working on it. And that is going to be the vast majority of clients. So this is part of where really being the therapist is being able to have that wide variety of different ways to approach this, as you described,   Katie Vernoy  31:55 the other element is potentially my framework, which is the client as the expert of their own experience. And so if I were to suggest a specific intervention, they come back the next week, they haven't tried it, or they didn't do the homework or whatever it is they didn't do it, my approach will potentially be the same regardless if I think it's therapy interfering, or I had a, you know, an misalignment on the treatment planning. But it's what happened? What made it so that you chose not to do that? And how do we either figure out how you do it, which is, hey, you interfered with therapy? Because you didn't do what I told you to do. And we all agreed that you were going to do it and it's great. Or it's how did I What did I miss? What's not feeling right for you? What are the steps, maybe were three steps forward, and we need to take five steps back to identify the behavior ahead of it that's getting in the way of you being ready for this, that or the feelings or emotions or whatever the perception ahead of it. That's that you're not ready for this. To me, I feel like when clients consistently are coming in Week after week, not having done the work, so to speak. My instinct is not that's a therapy interfering behavior. My instinct is that it's me, I'll address it similarly. But I think for me, it's sometimes I hear clinicians getting very upset because their clients aren't doing what they think they should be doing. And I'm always cautious to assume that therapy interfering behaviors on the clients part.   Curt Widhalm  33:31 It's worth evaluating. Why can't it be both? That   Katie Vernoy  33:37 absolutely is.   Curt Widhalm  33:40 And this is, again, working radically within what's happening in real time in that relationship with clients is being able to explore both with clients that, hey, you're here to work on these things. We've agreed to this plan. Is this a plan that we need to reevaluate so that way you can be successful? Sometimes, yeah, where I often see this coming up is kids who are drugged into therapy by their parents, and the kids don't really want to be in therapy. But then it's being able to shift what therapeutic goals are to something that does speak to the kids. It's being able to frame it in a way these are, you know, the therapists responsibility ends of things. But I've worked with plenty of kids who don't agree that the problem is what the same problem is that their parents bring them in with. And again, this comes with some of the experience, particular to my practice the intake session, I make sure that parents are involved in the first several minutes of the session to be able to say, all right, describe what you want for your kid here. And you know, after a few minutes of laying out kind of what the problem is, what the limits of confidentiality are all those you know, wonderful four session things. And I send mom and dad back out To the waiting room, I'll turn to the kid and be like, Alright, I heard mom and dad story, what's up with him, and kids almost universally are like, Alright, see, now I get to describe what my part of the problem is. It's it's a symbolic shift over to the client and that situation to give them more control over the therapy process. So that way, it's meeting the client where they're at, not where somebody else wants them to be. And this is where clients will talk about, you know, my therapist forced me into this thing I didn't want to do. But you can set your client and therefore yourself up for more success by really focusing on that therapeutic alliance upfront to make sure that you're working towards the thing that you both agree that you need to be working on.   Katie Vernoy  35:46 Well, and I think, to me, a critical distinction is desired outcome and intervention. Because I think, and this is just a nuance to kind of explain it to the audience, I know that you agree with us. But we agree to work toward an outcome, I don't know, except for more specific types of treatment, like EMDR, DBT, that kind of stuff that people are agreeing on specific interventions. I think that those things, by nature need to be fluid, unless there's an evidence based practice that suggests a specific structure for the therapy. And so to me, and maybe this comes back to motivational interviewing, and how do we get the person ready to go and make sure that it's their decision to make a change, or maybe it goes to really understanding the client as a human and being present for them while they figure out, you know, their particular method of healing. I also think that there's things that we can't know, deeply in our souls, and maybe not even intuitively because many of us didn't learn these things in grad school, but the different cultural methods of healing and being able to align those I think, if we are caught in our own, this is what I think my clients should do. I think we're going to experience more of these types of therapy, interfering behaviors versus coming from a place of collaboration and connection when we when we run up against these things.   Curt Widhalm  37:13 Absolutely. You're right. I was ready to fight you when you said that. You knew that I would agree with it. But   Katie Vernoy  37:20 I know you all too well. So the final one is this kind of disrespectful, hostile critical, the therapist are demanding more than the therapist can offer. And I think that's similar to what we were talking about with safety. But we talked to in that regard, we were talking about how to fire the client in that episode, which will obviously link to in the show notes. But I think that there's also, how do you actually deal with that if you're wanting to keep the client in the session, if a client is being hostile towards you, like absolutely hostile?   Curt Widhalm  37:49 I think that a lot of times, this is where those kinds of behaviors first bring up a lot of that imposter syndrome for a lot of therapists have like, oh, they're seeing through what I can't do. And, again, this comes with experience, it comes with supervision, consultation, your own therapy, of being okay with where your limits are, sometimes clients are going to ask for more than what you can provide. And it's okay to be honest of this is, you know, something that you as a client, you're asking for something that I can't do. And there might be feelings, there might be continued hostility about that. Now, this is honestly mostly where I would suggest that you talk about this as far as clinical techniques. I want EMDR, I want brain spinning. I sorry, I can't do that. That's not part of my training, that helps to, again, model an appropriate reaction, don't take it necessarily, personally, but it's being able to first recognize your own feelings that are coming up in these situations helps to more successfully navigate this. Clients are going to have bad days from time to time, they're going to project stuff onto you that you're going to be the target of whatever just happened to the car. Again, number of teenagers that show up in my office just upset of whatever the conversation was in between school and my office ends up being something that gets kind of pushed at me. So the first steps of it is, is there still a place to make therapy work? Sometimes these clients have these moments, and it makes them very unlikable in the moment but getting through these moments are things that helps to make the real relationship of therapy continue to grow and develop, which makes these clients more likeable. But it's being able to know your own reactions know your own limits within what's coming up as appropriately, setting the right kinds of boundaries. doesn't help me when you Talk with me like this. And if it doesn't help me, it's not helping us.   Katie Vernoy  40:03 Yeah, I think there's I mean, I always go back to, is the client hostile towards me? or angry at me because of a clinical misstep or an interpersonal misstep? I always want to have that assessment be the first thing that I do. And sometimes it's like, absolutely not, I was fine. This is, you know, whether we call it transference or therapy interfering, or whatever, you know, then then I'm okay, you know, my side of the street is clean over here, let me figure out what's going on for them and help them to process it, and not necessarily give them the same experience someone outside would give them because most people would walk out of the room or snap back or whatever. But give them an understanding of what that experience is and what they're putting out. So I see that there have been times when clients are pissed at me because I made a mistake. And so I think, recognizing that there are times that I'm going to have to come back and say, Hey, I missed something there. Let's talk that through. And most of the time, not always, but most of the time, the client and I are able to come to a better understanding and improves communication. And it's also modeling, apology and repair, as well as providing them with an opportunity to figure out what do I do when I've blown up at somebody, and then the relationship continues, which I think is really powerful. So to me, I feel like there's, there's a lot that as therapists were being asked to do, that potentially no one in their life would put up with, for our clients. And so to me, it's it's sorting out how do we walk through them in a way that allows for healing to happen, while then still taking care of ourselves. So when I've got a client that's hostile towards me, whether I've done something or not, I'm gonna be calling colleagues to consult or at least event or whatever, so that I can get myself back in the right place. If I've got clients who are consistently making my schedule of mass, I might consult again and say, Hey, you know, what boundaries? Am I missing? How can I get this back under control? Or what are the things that are coming up for me that I keep helping this client move their appointment all over the week? You know, whatever it is. But I think the doing of these things of having these hard conversations of giving this feedback that most people won't give our clients, I think is hard enough. But it is we did sign up for it. Maybe not every client maybe not every situation, but we did sign up for this.   Curt Widhalm  42:37 We would love to hear more from you. You can talk about the episode in our Facebook groups bot and therapists group, let us know on social media or leave us a rating and review but we'd love to hear about how you handle therapy interfering behaviors from your clients. And you can check out our show notes at MTSGpodcast.com. And also check out the now entirely virtual therapy reimagined 2021 conference, we've had to make some adjustments. We're looking at the COVID numbers and decided that we'd love to hang out with you. We don't want to hang out with the Delta pair yet. So join us online you can get your virtual tickets over at therapyreimaginedconference.com And until next time I'm Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy.   Katie Vernoy  43:27 Thanks again to our sponsor SimplePractice.   Curt Widhalm  43:30 SimplePractice is the leading private practice management platform for private practitioners everywhere. More than 100,000 professionals use SimplePractice to power telehealth sessions schedule appointments, file insurance claims market, their practice and so much more. All on one HIPAA compliant platform.   Katie Vernoy  43:48 Get your first two months of SimplePractice for the price of one when you sign up for an account today. This is collusive offer is valid for new customers only. Please note that we are a paid affiliate for a SimplePractice so we'll have a little bit of money in our pocket. If you sign up at this link. Simplepractice.com/therapy reimagined. And that's where you can learn more.   Curt Widhalm  44:09 This episode is also sponsored by RevKey.   Katie Vernoy  44:13 RevKey specializes in working with mental health professionals like you to increase not only clicks to your website, but helps you find your ideal patients. From simple startup packages and one time consultations to full Digital Marketing Management Services. RevKey can help you run successful digital marketing ads. RevKey creates customized packages and digital marketing budget recommendations that fit your business needs.   Curt Widhalm  44:36 You'll never receive a data dump report that means nothing to you. Instead, red key provides clear concise communication about how your digital marketing ads are performing through meetings for video updates recorded just for you. RevKey is offering $150 off any setup fees for Modern Therapist Survival Guide listeners.   Katie Vernoy  44:53 You can find more at RevKey.com and make sure to mention that you're a Modern Therapist Survival Guide listener   Announcer  45:00 Thank you for listening to the Modern Therapist Survival Guide. Learn more about who we are and what we do at MTSGpodcast.com. You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter. And please don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any of our episodes.

To interpret contemporary history is to be able to apply a maximum amount of the Word of God to the situation. To be on the right side of history you need to know and apply God's Word or you won't understand what's going on around you. You'll be discouraged and confused. God allows certain people to get into power, either for your blessing and prosperity or for discipline. If you look at the spiritual, political, social trends today, appears we are under discipline from God. Don't be afraid of what you see happening in America today. This is your destiny as a mature believer. This is God's promise to you: “He shall deliver you in six troubles, yes in seven there shall be no evil touch you. In famine He will redeem you from death and in war from the power of the sword” (Job 5:19-27). Full Transcript: https://rhem.pub/right-side-b4c199 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-hughes/message

This is the mindset you need to operate in the devil's world: “Be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves” (Matt 10:16). You must have divine wisdom gained from learning and applying God's Word. You need to know when to be still. “Stand still and watch what God is about to do” (Ex 14:13-14). This is having a relaxed mental attitude even in adverse circumstances. You must be prepared and find opportunities to speak and represent the Lord Jesus Christ. “Don't worry about what you're going to say. The Holy Spirit will give it to you at that hour for it is not you that speak but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you” (Matt 10:17-20). You must have humility, this is being harmless as doves, and walk circumspectly. Be prudent and be wise. Full Transcript: https://rhem.pub/serpents-doves-473ce6 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rick-hughes/message

Please hit that Follow/Subscribe button on your Podcast player, so you won't miss our latest episode.  Full Transcript of this episode  can be found on our Patreon page 0:00-02:02 女：听故事说中文，听得越多说得越好，大家好，今天给大家带来故事解读，解读成语故事《黔驴技穷》。 男：《黔驴技穷》。 女：本期节目由我们的Patrons赞助完成，在这里感谢我们的Patrons，没有你们的支持就没有这一期的故事解读。 男：没错，非常感谢我们的Patrons，你们给了我们很多想法和建议，同时谢谢你们的帮助，我们真的非常心存感激。 女：下面一起来听故事解读，解读成语故事《黔驴技穷》。 男：《黔驴技穷》。 女：听这个故事的名字，这个故事里面又有一种动物，是什么动物呢？ 男：驴。 女：驴？驴。 男：但这个... 女：驴看起来有一点像马，对不对？但不是马。 男：驴看起来有点像马。 女：所以驴这个汉字左边是马字旁的。 男：对，这是哪里的驴呢？ 女：是你们老家安徽的驴吗？ 男：皖驴吗？ 女：不是安徽的驴，也不是东北的驴。 男：东北的驴叫什么驴啊？   ..... For the full transcript of this episode and many others, please support us by becoming our patrons. ************************************************************ If you think our podcast is valuable to you and others,  become our patron for as low as $5/month.You will have access to all of the transcripts, vocabulary list and patrons only episodes ************************************************************ Are you already a listener? Leaving the show a review on iTunes will help more people find the podcast. Thank you!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

DOCUMENTATION AND ADDITIONAL READING PART 1 (0:0 - 10:36): ────────────────── The High Velocity Fall of Andrew Cuomo Brings His Political Career to an End As He Resigns in Disgrace as Governor of New York. Not Even His Own Party Can (Or Wants To) Save Him Now NEW YORK TIMES (LUIS FERRé-SADURNí AND J. DAVID GOODMAN) Cuomo Resigns Amid Scandals, Ending Decade-Long Run in Disgrace PART 2 (10:37 - 16:37): ────────────────── Political Self-Defense Masquerades Apology — A Close Look at Andrew Cuomo's Resignation Speech: What's Missing? NEW YORK TIMES Read the Full Transcript of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Resignation Speech. PART 3 (16:38 - 25:2): ────────────────── Mandatory Military Draft Registration for Women? A Country That Will Conscript Its Wives and Daughters to War is a Country at War with Nature Itself THE HILL (REBECCA KHEEL) Up Next in the Culture Wars: Adding Women to the Draft