Podcasts about hannah you

Dying well We’re all going to die, but how we acknowledge death and dying is a very personal experience. Award-winning journalist and author Tracey Spicer and anthropologist Dr Hannah Gould explore etiquette, rites and traditions to find out what makes a ‘good death’. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors. Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death. Featuring interviews with famous faces as well as experts in the space, we uncover what they know about what we can expect. There are hard truths, surprising discoveries, tears and even laughs. Nothing about death is off the table. Tracey Spicer AM is a Walkley award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster. And she's an ambassador for Dying With Dignity. A vocal campaigner and advocate for voluntary assisted dying (VAD), Tracey penned a letter to her mother following her painful death in 1999. Dr Hannah Gould is an anthropologist who works in the areas of death, religion and material culture. She recently appeared on SBS documentary: Ray Martin: The Last Goodbye. Hannah’s research spans new traditions and technologies of Buddhist death rites, the lifecycle of religious materials, and modern lifestyle movements. If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. TRANSCRIPT: James: We're all going to die. Happens to all of us. But how we acknowledge death and dying is of course a very personal experience. With our guest and our expert, we're going to explore the etiquette, the rites and traditions seen in Australia and around the world. Someone who knows a lot about the rites and traditions of death is Dr Hannah Gould, an anthropologist who works in the areas of death, religion and material culture. We're also going to be joined by Tracey Spicer, she’s a Walkley award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster. And she's an ambassador for Dying With Dignity. Tracey and Hannah, welcome. Thank you so much. Tracey: Hello. James: Thank you for coming. Hannah Gould. Hello. Thank you for coming. Hannah: Thank you. James: Fantastic. Let's talk death! Tracey: Why not? There'll be lots of fun. James: Do you laugh in the face of death? Hannah: What else can you do? I mean, look, you know. Lots of sadness, lots of joy, every single emotion is reasonable, surely. I mean, it's like the question, the ultimate question of philosophy, of history, of every discipline. Every response is valid. Not always useful, or helpful. James: Yeah. Yeah. Hannah: But valid. Tracey: Well, it's a universal topic of conversation and that's why I've always loved dark humour. Because you do have to laugh, otherwise what do you do? James: I also think it's, it is the ultimate joke that we are all going to die, but we live like we're not going to. We live every day as though it's just not going to happen at all. Tracey: Especially in Western society, I think other cultures have got it right and we're in such deep denial about it. It's detrimental to all of us. James: Yeah. Now this is your area of expertise really, is that do other cultures have it right? Hannah: Everyone does it differently. Right or wrong is kind of a difficult thing to judge. I think certainly there's a big thing called, like, the denial of death thesis, right. And, and people like Ernest Becker, a lot of different philosophers and anthropologists and cultural, you know, analysis have looked at Western culture and gone, Oh my gosh, we are so invested in denying death, right. And whether that's through denying death by religions that say you're going to live forever, like, you know, don't worry, it's not the end. You'll pop off to heaven or whatever it is. Or through, you know, great heroic myths. Yes, you'll die, but the nation will remember you forever. So, you know, you won't really die. You'll be a martyr. Or contemporary, you know. Yes, you'll die, but have you seen how great the shopping is? You know, we can just ignore, we can deny death by being on Instagram and, you know, consuming, right, so, I think Western culture in particular, the way we've organised our society, allows us to not think about death. James: And we've organised death to be somewhere else, usually now. To be in a hospital, to be in palliative care somewhere. And they may be good, but they're not, they're not in the cottage, are they? They're not next to, not in the bedroom. Hannah: Not in the bedroom. So, we know that, say, 70% of Australians wish to die at home. Only about 15% do. And that is a rate that is lower than all these other countries we like to compare ourselves. So Australians are more institutionalised in their death than places like Ireland, like New Zealand, the United States of America, even Canada. We tend, more than other countries, to die in institutions – aged care, hospitals, and hospices. James: Yeah, right, right. The other way in which we deny death is, or the other way in which other cultures have a different attitude to death, will be that it'll either be more accepting – we are all going to die, will be part of their every day – or they may have a notion of reincarnation and coming back, which means that that's a very different attitude to death, really, than a, than a heaven and a hell. Hannah: Yeah, it's not necessarily an end so much. I think that's kind of quite common in, say, you know, Buddhist or Hindu or other kind of dharmic religions, particularly Asian religions. And then, obviously, there's a lot of Asian religion that's part of Australian society, so that's also quite present in Australia. But we can also have a kind of more secular idea about that. You know, a lot of these, a lot of my mum's generation in particular, have kind of a green environmental kind of reincarnation model where she will say, well, I don't particularly believe in heaven, but I do believe I'm going to become compost. Food for worms, you know, I'll come back as a tree or a flower or a tomato plant, you know, and that's, that's a kind of reincarnation of like reintegration into the natural environment, as it were. So there are some kind of myths or stories we can tell ourselves that perhaps help us think about death more positively. James: I've got a, a friend of mine who'd be into her 80s has said, oh, funeral? Just put me up the top paddock, let the crows have a go. Tracey: Yeah. My dad wants to be buried in a cardboard box, and I think that's a wonderful idea. James: We all say that, don't we? That's a really common one as well. I hear that a lot on the radio. People will go, mate, just, I don't care, put me out with the, on the hard rubbish day. Hannah: In the paddock, whatever it is… James: …the paddock, that’s the same sort of thing I said. You know, like, do we really want that, do you think? Hannah: Oh, do we really want that? I do think Aussies are pretty pragmatic about death. I do think we have a certain streak in us that's kind of like, you know what, it's all a bit much fuss, it's all too much. You kind of even get these people who therefore say, don't have a funeral. You know, I really don't want to have a funeral. Please don't even, you know, no fuss. That can be kind of sad sometimes because I think it's some people kind of not acknowledging how many people love them and miss them. James: Yeah. Hannah: Um, but maybe it's also a bit of an Aussie humour, dry humour, that, that black humour again of kind of, you know, trying to laugh in the face of death. Why not? Tracey: I would agree, but then we all get sucked in when we're in the funeral home, and they show you the cardboard box, and then they show you the glossy one that's 10 or 20 thousand dollars, and you think, did I really love that person that much, or should I do it? So it all feeds into what you were talking about before, that consumerism and overcommercialisation. James: Well, I also think sometimes, I would think it's about weddings. Weddings and funerals, well, who's it actually for? Tracey: Yeah, yeah. Well it's a punctuation mark, isn't it? I'm a lifelong atheist, but Tracey: I do enjoy, it sounds terrible, going to those kind of ceremonies, whether it's a funeral or a wedding, because it's important to celebrate or commemorate these changes, these huge changes. James: I love the sharing of stories at a funeral. People start talking. Tracey: Well, you learn so much about someone's life that you may not have known. And also often they're rich for that dark humour. I'll never forget my grandmother's funeral, who I was incredibly close to. And my father's new girlfriend loved my grandmother. She was so distraught she tried to throw herself into the hole in the ground on top when she was throwing the dirt in and I thought, well, that's intense. James: That's good. Tracey: That's, I've never seen that before. That's a first. Hannah: Oh, I've seen that before. Tracey: Have you?! Hannah: I will say that, you know, when you attend enough funerals or attend enough cremations for professional reasons, um, as it were, you kind of see everything, every range of human emotions. Like, we, we kind of think, you know, all funerals are all happy families. A lot of unhappy families, a lot of punch ups at funerals, lots of, uh, mistresses coming out of the woodwork at funerals, conversions, religious, you know, more and more people have recorded messages from beyond the grave that they play at their funeral, or, uh, they've decided that we're having a dance party, or we're having some sort of festivity or an event. I mean, you can do anything these days with a funeral. James: Do you go to a lot, just to observe? Hannah: Yeah, I do my research. So I, I research in death and dying and I, I work at a crematorium and I attend funerals and I hang around with other people in the death care sector. James: Yeah. Hannah: And you do see everything. James: Why do you want to… Tracey: …What got you interested in this? It's your job and I'm just fascinated by it… James: …We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll both do it. I think you've done this sort of thing! So, yeah. Well then, then, why do you want to be around death? Hannah: Oh. I mean, personal and professional. Professional, I'm an anthropologist, and anthropologists want to know what brings us together, what makes us all human, but then also why we do it so differently. And there is nothing else. It is the question, right, it is the one thing we all experience, and yet we've all decided to do it in completely different ways, and completely different ways throughout history. And then, personally, my dad died, and I thought, gosh, what on earth is going on? I suddenly was given the catalogue, of funeral, of coffins, right. James: And you were young. Hannah: I was 22, 23 when my dad died. An age that was perfectly old and mature at the time, I thought. But looking back, obviously, it was incredibly young. But yeah, I suddenly got handed this catalogue of, of kind of coffins, and they all had these really naff names, like, you know, these rich mahoganies, and like, it was like paint colours. Someone had, someone somewhere had decided, these were the options, right, that you were, that this is what was going to represent my dad. And I just felt this massive disconnect and I thought, ‘Hang on, I've got to work out what's going on there.’ So now I spend my life in death, as it were. James: Yeah. I suppose, most of us would think being around death would be a very gloomy kind of thing to be, or way to spend your day. Hannah: It can be very gloomy. But oh my gosh, the gallows humour that those boys in the crem – the crematorium – tell, uh, you know. James: Is there a joke you can share? Hannah: Ooh. Um. Not a lot of them are safe for work or anywhere. James: Tracey, you were going to jump in and ask something there before. What were you going to ask? You know, fellow professional interviewer. Tracey: I really see a connection with you being 22 when your father died and I was 32 when my mother died. Hannah: Mm. Tracey: Even at 32 I felt like I wasn't ready for it. James: Right, no. Tracey: And especially because it happened so quickly. Mum was the linchpin for the family, you know, smart and funny and she could do anything. She was one of those early super women kind of role models. And then all of a sudden at the age of 51 she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer with seven months to live and she lived seven months almost to the day. And it was blood and guts and gore. She was in agonising pain. My sister and I were injecting her with medication every day. We wanted her to die in the home. Tracey: But it got to the stage where we had to bring her to palliative care, and that's when we started having the conversations about voluntary assisted dying, because, um, Mum and Dad had always said, put me down like a dog. And again, it's one of those things that you think it's going to be easy at the time, but it's not. We talked to the doctor. The doctor said, I don't want to end up in jail. And my sister sat there with the morphine button. She pressed it so often she had a bruise on her thumb. James: Hmm, right Tracey: …we said, surely you can just increase the morphine, because Mum was having breakthrough pain. So everything was fine until she'd scream once an hour, and there was no way they could cap that. So it's cruel, right? It's cruel. I, I don't think there's any way they would have done it. We tried to have those conversations. James: …Yeah… Tracey: Which is why one night, because we were sleeping in a chair next to her overnight just to hold her hand when she was in pain, I picked up the pillow and I did try to put it over her face because I thought, what kind of daughter am I, to let her suffer? And then I stopped at the last minute and then I felt really ashamed of, you know, what a coward I am. Hannah: No, I was going to say the opposite. What an incredibly brave act to, to have so much love and compassion for this person and so much respect, what you knew her wishes would be, that you were willing to do that, you know, for, not – for her, not to her, for her, right? That's extraordinary. Tracey: It's lovely of you to say. James: Did she know what you were doing? Tracey: Oh no, she was out of it for about the previous two weeks, actually. In and out of it. And then she died in the next 24 hours anyway. So she was very, very close. And she'd had that kind of burst, you know, had that almost honeymoon period a couple of days beforehand where you think, Well, she seems like she's getting better and we've read about that, so we expected she was close. Hannah: …Yep, the final, the final burst… Tracey: Yeah. Is there a name for that? Hannah: You know, I don't know what it's called, but you know, that is when usually the palliative care doctors, the hospice workers will call up the family and say, guess what? They're up and about, they're talking, they're eating all of a sudden, and that's genuinely usually a sign that it's not going to be long. James: Wow, isn't that interesting. Hannah: It's the final burst of energy. One of the interesting things about the rise of voluntary assisted dying, of euthanasia, to speak more broadly in Australia, is it reflects this kind of cultural shift that we have about the importance of choice and control towards the end of our lives and how increasingly like that is becoming an important part of what we think about as a good death, right. Like I want to be able to control where I die and who I die with and when and the pain and suffering, right? And that hasn't always been the case, right, you know throughout history there's been periods of that. There's been periods of, ‘Leave it to God.’ Or there's also been periods of, ‘Yes, I must prepare. I have to write my final last note or poetry’, or whatever it is. But that's increasingly becoming important particularly for, we see within the baby boomer generation that they really want to, you know, have some sort of choice, and emphasis on choice. James: Well, I mean, I wonder whether a lot of it is a reaction to, um, the, the medical control over the end of our lives is so extreme that we can be kept alive for so long. And so, it's, it's, it's a reaction to that medical control, isn't it? To want to say, well, surely I can, we can, we can have both, can't we? You can either keep me alive or I don't want to be kept alive. Could you let me go? Hannah: It's one of the great paradoxes, they talk about this paradox of contemporary death and contemporary medicine, is that all of our interventions have increased, right. The medicalisation of death has meant that not only do we have pain control, but we can keep people alive for longer. You know, we have better medicines, drugs, palliative medicine is massively advanced. And yet, if we ask people, the quality of death and dying has not increased. James: Right… Hannah: …And if we look globally, more access to medicine doesn't necessarily correlate with a higher quality of death and dying. There's some correlation, like, do you actually have the drugs? Can you access, access them? But when it gets to kind of over a certain hurdle, just because you're dying in Australia versus dying in a country with no resources doesn't mean you're going to die better. James: What do you, what's a quality of death? How are we measuring that? What do you mean by that? Hannah: There's lots of things you can do to measure it and people try. So one of them is, you know, to ask, ask the family, to ask the dying person, to also ask the physician, did you think this was a good death? You know, how do we assess it? Because it's not just up to the dying person as well. Of course, it's also up to the family, right – How did you experience that death, that dying? It's a difficult thing to measure, right, because for some people death is never gonna be… You know, the words good death, bad death are kind of controversial now because it's like, oh my God, I have to try at everything else, do I also have to live up to a good death? Like, we can't make it good. Can we make it better? James: Yeah. What is a good death, Tracey? Tracey: I think this really intersects with, uh, competition. Everything's become a competition. And also quality of ageing. Hannah: Yes, yes… Tracey: …Because my darling dad, who's 84 and still hanging on after smoking and drinking himself almost to death when he was in his 50s – it's a miracle he's still alive. He has very close to zero quality of life. He's a lovely man, we love spending time with him, but he can barely walk. You know, where's the quality of life? So I've just written a book about artificial intelligence recently, so it worries me, that medtech space, that we're getting people to live longer, but there's no quality of life and also no quality of death. Hannah: There's this phenomenon we actually call, in scholarship, we call it prolonged dwindling. Tracey: Oh, which is so true, I love that. Hannah: What a term! But it's, it's… James: …Sounds like the worst Enya album ever… Tracey: …And it never ends… Hannah: …But yeah, it's, it's, there's exactly this thing, right. So it used to be, if you look at like the kind of time, it used to be that you'd either have a sudden illness, fall off a horse, through a sword, war, back in the day, and you, and then you would die, or you would have a, you know, a serious major illness, like a cancer or a heart attack, and then pretty soon after, you'd die, right? What we have now, what we tend to have now, is these kind of timelines towards the end of life of, you know, multiple hospitalisations, in and out of hospital, or you have something like Alzheimer's, right, where you have a very, very, very slow and long cognitive decline, potentially with very high care needs, so you're in hospital, you're in care for 20, 30 years, right? Which is unheard of previously, that you would need this level. So how we die is changing, and it's a completely different timeline. James: Yeah. Does… Tracey, let's just return to this moment when you started to perhaps really think about death. You know, you're confronting your mother's suffering, and you think about, you know, taking control of that, about doing something. Was that an impulse? Was it something that grew over time? Tracey: It was knowing my mother's character as being very forthright, and she was always in control, to speak to control. She would have liked me to try to control the situation. It was also, obviously, that you never want to see a loved one in suffering. But it taught all of us in the family a couple of important lessons. Dad’s now got an advance care directive that’s 28 pages long, so we know exactly what's going to happen. My husband and I still haven't done that, but we do talk to our kids who are aged 18 and 20 about this kind of stuff. I think part of that is my husband's a camera operator, I've been a long-time journalist, so in newsrooms, a very dark sense of humour, similar to the crematoriums, so we talk about death and dying an awful lot at home, but I think it's important to have those conversations and to prepare for a good enough death as much as you can. Tracey: I mean, what does a good enough death mean to you? Have you thought about that yourself? James: Yeah, well I have. I've had some, you know, health issues, had a cancer last year, and so that sort of thing, you know, you do start to confront it and think about it. I'm the fall asleep in the bed, you know, go to bed one night, don't wake up. Tracey: The classic. James: That's the classic. Give me the classic. I'm happy with the classic. Hannah: …Hopefully after you've just finished penning your magnum opus, surrounded by friends and family. James: The end, you know. For me to be onstage, I've just finished a searing saxophone solo, and everyone's just ‘Amazing! Unbelievable!’ Down you go. Something like I mean, sudden, seems to be, just immediate. Immediate and sudden, no suffering. Hannah: Well, that's the thing. Hannah: People always ask me, you know, do you fear death, are you afraid of death? And frankly, after studying it for this long, no, not at all. And I think in an odd way, there is some kind of horrific privilege of having at least one of your parents die young because all of a sudden, you do start thinking about all these things and you learn to live with death, even if you don't like it a lot of the time. I don't fear death, I do fear the prolonged dwindling. Right, like that, the kind of ageing poorly without support in a way that I can't make the controls, and and you know, can't make decisions. That's much more scary to me than death. Death is kind of a great mystery. James: Your interaction with your mother, Tracey, led you to looking at voluntary assisted dying. What did people say about it? What was the general, when you first started to talk about it, when you first started to campaign for it, what would people say? Tracey: What I noticed was a disconnect, that people in the community overwhelmingly supported this because they’d seen loved ones die. But in our parliaments, I saw there a lot of people, a higher percentage than the normal population, are quite religious in our parliaments. Hannah: …Completely unrepresentative... Tracey: …Unrepresentative. And so a lot of organised religions are pushing back against it and therefore there wasn't an appetite for change because of that. I think it took these wonderful lobby groups to get the politicians to listen and for them to realise that there was a groundswell of support. And also, of course, with the examples in the Netherlands and Oregon and Canada who have quite different laws to us. But very successful laws. You rarely see people, I think it's 99.9% successful – only a tiny amount of people who are abusing the legislation, tiny, tiny – but the rest of it, everyone overwhelmingly aligns with it. So it's done in a very ethical and proper kind of way. James: So do you feel as though when you first started talking about it, really, most people were on board? It wasn't something, it wasn't one of those things where we're really trying to, we had to convince people. Tracey: No, that's right, except for people who were particularly religious. Because, let's face it, everyone, pretty much, unless you're quite young, has had a loved one die, so this is something that affected everyone. James: Yeah. I suppose I was wondering. Like someone, some friend, the other day, you know, how have you been, blah, blah, blah. And he went, ‘oh, I had a weird thing yesterday, like, my uncle died’. And I went, ‘oh, that's sad’. And he said, ‘no, no, it was voluntary, he did the voluntary assisted death. He died yesterday afternoon at two o'clock’, you know. I went, ‘oh, wow, you know, you're there?’ ‘Yeah, we're all there, and, you know, it was great, we had a lovely morning with him. We had dinner the night before, and then it just all took place.’ I said, wow, how amazing. And what I was really struck by was what a normal conversation this was. It was a bit like saying, ‘we went to holiday in Queensland’. You know, like it was sort of, he wasn't describing some outlandish thing, you know, it was suddenly this thing, suddenly voluntary assisted dying was just part of the fabric of our, of our lives. You know, do you feel that that's happened in Australia? Tracey: I do feel it's become more normalised, to your point, over the last 20 years. But there's still a lot of academic debate about at what, at what point should you be able to do it. At the moment in Australia, it's overwhelmingly someone with a terminal illness. And it's done by themselves or their doctor, their practitioner. But there are people who want to bring it in for people who are elderly and, and suffering and don't want to live any longer, to support them there. So we're seeing, I guess, a fragmentation of the discussion and the arguments. And I'll be interested to see which way that goes down the track. There's a lot of debate about people, to your point earlier with Alzheimer's, people who have dementia. Hannah: Sensory pleasures. Like, people being able to taste and smell and touch and hug become really important at the end of life. Tracey: Oh, that reminds me of someone I know who did have a good death, who was my grandfather, Mum's father. He lived until 94, and I cared for him towards the end of his life. Our kids were little then, they were probably 7 and 8. And he had that burst, and they said, come on in, he'll die in the next couple of days. We brought in oysters, we brought in red wine. I brought in the kids because I think it was important for them to see that, and he had a good death within the next 24 hours. So it is possible. I think it's rare, but it's possible. James: Yeah, if you know what's happening. A lot of your speciality, Hannah, is in Buddhism. What do Buddhists make of voluntary assisted dying? Hannah: Well, I will say that Buddhism is a religion with over 500 million people in it. So it's kind of like asking, what are the Christians? James: …Right. Right. Hannah: …or what are the Western people think about voluntary assisted dying? So, a range of views. James: Range of views. Hannah: Really huge range of views. James: I suppose I was just wondering whether there was anything in the Buddhist canon as such or the Buddhist, you know, view that just went, no, let life take its course. That, you know, you must experience suffering, so therefore you must experience all life. Hannah: Well, suffering is pretty important to Buddhism, right? And suffering well, and learning to suffer well, is really important. So there are some Buddhists who would oppose voluntary assisted dying because there's a prohibition against killing, right? But most people in Buddhism will, say, weigh that prohibition against killing against, kind of, the experience of suffering, right, and lessening people's suffering. So certainly there are some Buddhists who would say, no, you know, we need to experience suffering and learn how to experience the suffering at the end of life. And that can be quite instructive. It's also why some Buddhists may, uh, deny pain medication and even, you know, deny anything that kind of clogs their mind, because they want to be conscious at the end of life. They want to experience it all, you know, see where their consciousness goes to the next reincarnation. But there's also a, you know, a massive Buddhist movement that has always kind of seen humanity on quite a similar level to animals, right, that we are all beings of this world, and therefore in the same way that we would, you know, have compassion for the suffering of a pet and, you know, euthanase a pet that's going through unavoidable suffering, with many Buddhists who would therefore support the euthanasia of a human being that's going through suffering, right, in the same way. Because humans are not particularly special, right, we're just another being in this world and we'd want to show the same compassion for both of those. James: Yeah, yeah. Hannah: Huge range of views. James: Yeah. Tracey, you said, you said you're an atheist. Does that mean, you know, once the final curtain falls, that's it? Tracey: Well, I'm one of those very open-minded atheists, James, who, if I am diagnosed with something, I fully am open to the opportunity of religion if I end up needing it at that time. And I imagine a lot of people do that. And if, if I do decide to do that, I would choose Buddhism. Hannah: There's actually a fascinating piece of research that just came out, Professor Manning, a religious studies scholar, and she looked at older atheists and what they think about the end of life. Because we tend to think, well, religious people have beliefs, but we don't really study atheists’ beliefs, right, we just think they all think nothing. But she actually found that there was kind of three different kind of world views or narratives that came out, that can be summarised as: lights out, recycling, or mystery. James: I'm all three. I'm all three. Hannah: So the first one is this idea, it's kind of like – death is like anesthesia, you just, that's it. You're at the end, you know, there's nothing, and it's often very biomedical, right. It's like sleep, but you don't dream, so it's more like anesthesia. You know, we've all, maybe all experienced that, and that's what these people believe, that that will be the end. The second one is recycling. So this is the food for worms idea, right, that yes, I will die, but my, you know… Carl Sagan: ‘We are all made of stardust’, right, we'll go back into the universe and one day I will be an oak tree or a, you know, something, quite, you know, a beautiful idea, which I, you know, I think I subscribe to that, I quite like that. And then the third one that they described around atheists was just mystery. That, for a certain group of people, who knows? And we can't ask anyone. And so that it was, it was almost kind of curiosity and excitement towards the end of life. So there are, yeah, you know, this is quite a great mystery, it's a great adventure, right, that we should all go on. James: Yeah, fantastic. We didn't talk much about, I suppose, the emotion we might feel around death at various points. You know, like, I've observed lots of conversations on the radio where my parents' generation, ‘stiff upper lip’... Hannah: …Stoicism… James: …‘How's she doing? Oh, very well.’ Which means she wasn't feeling anything at all. There's been no, you know, like, that's sort of how you're meant to feel. We now tend to be very emotional about death, you know, like it's, like it's part of our funeral rites, I suppose, to release that, to make sure we all howl. Hannah: Yeah, we have this kind of catharsis model of the funeral, right, which is this idea that, you know, you kind of, even if you might not want to, you go to the funeral and you cry it all out with other people and you have this communal experience of grief. And somehow that is helpful, if not entirely necessary for our long-term grief. But, you know, there's many cultures around the world where wailing is a big tradition, right, so that, you know, women physically throwing themselves at the coffin, howling, collectively crying. You know, it might be an extended period of wearing a certain colour, wearing black, you know, gathering together. Those kind of rituals can also be a way for people to process grief and emotion. You think of, particularly like, you know, in the Jewish tradition of sitting shiva, right, that after someone dies, you immediately gather, right, and there's an extended period of everyone sitting together and dedicated to experiencing grief together. That's quite different to our kind of one-day funeral a week or two after the person's died, and we all go back to our home. Hannah: And it kind of depends on, like, what kind of level of social ties that your cultural society engages in the funeral, right. Do you have a very small private funeral where it's only the immediate family who are the ones that are supposed to be grieving? Or is it everyone you knew in that society, and you have a responsibility to go and be there because you're part of a much larger social fabric, right. And that can be quite different – it can be a 300 or 400-person funeral. You know, one of the largest social groups in Australia is South Asian, Indian, Hindu migration, right? Often extremely large funerals, 300, 400 people in some cases, right, because there's a different expectation about who are the mourners, who is the congregation, who are the people that gather together and stand against death, as it were. Tracey: Another big difference seems to me, and I'd love to hear more about you on this, is the cultures that sit with the body for three days, or have the open coffin for viewing… James: …the body stays at home… Tracey: …of the body, or the body stays at home. Because my sister and I sat with Mum's body for as long as we were legally and practically allowed to in the hospital, which was hours and hours and hours. And when we told a lot of our Western friends, they said what an awful thing to do. But it was really lovely because it cemented the idea that she was actually gone. We told her stories. My sister and I laughed. We cried. It was actually incredibly therapeutic. Hannah: Yeah, and this is one of the difficulties, is people feel, because they have a lot of… People don't have a lot of information, right, so if you're lucky, very lucky, then you'll organise maybe one or two funerals during your whole life, right, and probably there'll be those for your parents, right. And you just don't have a lot of information because we don't talk about it. So you don't know what you're allowed to do. But you know, in all states and territories across Australia, you are allowed to be with that body for an extended period of time. You're allowed to bring that body home. You know, you can actively resist pressures from the hospital and the hospice and everyone else to get you out the door. You can say, no, I would like to be with this body for a bit longer. And as you say, there is also technologies that can allow you to bring the body into the home. I mean, the reason we call them funeral parlours is the front parlour of the house. That is the room where we used to display the body and be with the body and that still occurs in many cultures around the world. You know, it's difficult; it can be difficult. It's not always the right decision, you know, you have to think about your particular circumstances, but it is possible. James: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Any final words? Tracey: Only that I think we should all choose our own funeral soundtrack. I've been doing that with a girlfriend lately. James: …What's she gone with? Tracey: …Because, you know… well, I've gone with Edith Piaf. Hannah:…Ah, classic… Tracey: …‘No Regrets’, of course. Absolute classic. And my friend is still choosing from five. But I think, otherwise someone else gets a choice, and they might choose something terrible. James: Yes, no, I think that's very important, get your, get your, get your funeral songs sorted out… Hannah: Catering, funeral songs… James: …the whole soundtrack, the catering you'd be concerned about, you want everyone to have something… Hannah: … delicious. James: …any special cheeses or wines you want? Hannah: French. Yeah, this is what we did for my dad as well. It was like red wine, good French cheese, baguettes, you know. If you're going to grieve, if you're going to cry, you need some sustenance to support you. Tracey: Comfort food. Hannah: Comfort food, exactly. James: Yeah, very nice. Tracey: Before we let you go, what's your funeral song? James: Do you mean, what do I want people to hear as the coffin's going out or something like that? I don't know if I've made that choice yet. I don't know. Hannah: Hard rock? Tracey: Jazz? Hannah: Pop? James: No, it'll be something jazz, I guess, or something in that tradition. It's probably none of the Frank songs. Tracey: Something majestic, though. James: So yeah, ‘Zadok the Priest’, Handel… Hannah: …Oh, I like that. Old school. James: …Something huge! I haven't decided. Yeah, it's, it's but you're right. Like everything, do it, put some effort into it, you know, and have all that stuff ready for your children, for those that are going to have to do it, a little folder somewhere. Tracey: You could play some of your television clips from over the years. James: Oh, I don't think so, Tracey. I think yours might have something like… Hannah: …a highlights reel… Tracey: …a showreel! James: Yeah, my showreel. No, let's not do that. It's largely children's television, Tracey. No one wants to see that. Tracey: That would be great at a funeral. James: I could conduct a – I'd like to conduct a beyond-the-grave talkback session, probably, talkback radio or something. That could be very fun. Hannah: People could all call in to your funeral. James: Oh, I love that! Tracey: Interactive funerals! James: It's a ‘simil’ funeral. It's being broadcast on the station and then people can call in with their tributes. Oh, that's good. Hannah: Anything is possible. James: That is good. Okay, we've got it. Thank you for helping me sort that out. Hannah: We've done it. James: Well, thanks so much to our guests, Dr Hannah Gould and Tracey Spicer. You've been listening to Season 6 of Life's Booming, Dying Well, brought to you by Australian Seniors. Please leave a review or tell someone about it. If you want more, head to seniors.com.au/podcast. May your life be booming. I'm James Valentine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 Leading the Houston Texans: A Conversation with Cal and Hannah McNair In this week's Team Never Quit episode, Marcus and Melanie sit down with Cal and Hannah McNair, the dynamic duo behind the Houston Texans. Cal McNair, the Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the Houston Texans, has been at the helm of the team since 2018, guiding them through remarkable achievements, including a 10-7 record in the 2023 season under a rookie head coach and quarterback. Under his leadership, the Texans secured their seventh division title and unveiled new fan-inspired uniforms in 2024. McNair attended The University of Texas at Austin, where he was a four-year member of the Longhorns' football team. He earned a master's degree in business administration from the Rice University Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management. Cal shares his journey from his early career at Cogen Technologies to becoming the principal owner of the Texans in 2024. He discusses his vision for the team, the importance of community involvement, and the Texans Foundation's impact on Houston, which has raised over $48 million since its inception. Hannah McNair, a proud native Houstonian and University of Houston alum, joins the conversation to talk about their shared passion for philanthropy and, of course, the Houston Texans. With a background in business from the University of Houston and Rice University, Hannah has been deeply involved in numerous charities across the city, from the YMCA to the Houston Food Bank. She reflects on the couple's commitment to giving back, balancing life as parents of seven, and supporting the community that has given them so much. In This Episode You Will Hear: • [Cal] What I really enjoy is going into someone else's house, and beating them, and then seeing our fans, surrounded by the other team's colors, and they're wearing our colors in the stands , and when we win those games is my favorite [moment]. (3:27) • [Cal] We have fans that have had seats next to each other that didn't know each other, but because they came to the game and sat next to each other, they became friends. (4:29) • [Cal played football at] The University of Texas. (8:07) • [Cal] The team was [originally] awarded to Los Angeles, but it had a deadline and they didn't meet it. (9:07) • [Hannah] The interesting thing about twins is that you have had somebody who's had your back your entire life. (26:50) • [Hannah] I think team sports is one of the most important educational things you can teach kids. (34:53) • [Hannah] [In baseball] You fail most of the time. If you have an error, are you gonna just stop the game? Are you gonna run to your parents? Or are you gonna learn from it, and go to the next play. You can't just quick. (34:59) • [Hannah] If you can learn how to be part of a team and put your personal feelings aside for the greater good of the team, I think that's a valuable lesson, especially with youth today. (35:45) • [Hannah] With anything in the public eye, you try to use those [harassment in the stands] to create a better person in them, so that they're ready for whatever comes their way, (40:13) • [Hannah] You have to have God as your foundation. If you don't have that to turn to, you're lost already. (40:38) • [Hannah] You cannot go wrong by doing what's right. (45:48) • [Marcus] Q: What's the best piece of advice or wisdom you've got from somebody? [Cal] A: Never Quit. (47:52) • [Hannah] [CJ Stroud] is the CEO on the field. (48:32)

Leading the Houston Texans: A Conversation with Cal and Hannah McNair In this week's Team Never Quit episode, Marcus and Melanie sit down with Cal and Hannah McNair, the dynamic duo behind the Houston Texans. Cal McNair, the Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the Houston Texans, has been at the helm of the team since 2018, guiding them through remarkable achievements, including a 10-7 record in the 2023 season under a rookie head coach and quarterback. Under his leadership, the Texans secured their seventh division title and unveiled new fan-inspired uniforms in 2024. McNair attended The University of Texas at Austin, where he was a four-year member of the Longhorns' football team. He earned a master's degree in business administration from the Rice University Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management. Cal shares his journey from his early career at Cogen Technologies to becoming the principal owner of the Texans in 2024. He discusses his vision for the team, the importance of community involvement, and the Texans Foundation's impact on Houston, which has raised over $48 million since its inception. Hannah McNair, a proud native Houstonian and University of Houston alum, joins the conversation to talk about their shared passion for philanthropy and, of course, the Houston Texans. With a background in business from the University of Houston and Rice University, Hannah has been deeply involved in numerous charities across the city, from the YMCA to the Houston Food Bank. She reflects on the couple's commitment to giving back, balancing life as parents of seven, and supporting the community that has given them so much. In This Episode You Will Hear: • [Cal] What I really enjoy is going into someone else's house, and beating them, and then seeing our fans, surrounded by the other team's colors, and they're wearing our colors in the stands , and when we win those games is my favorite [moment]. (2:45) • [Cal] We have fans that have had seats next to each other that didn't know each other, but because they came to the game and sat next to each other, they became friends. (3:47) • [Cal played football at] The University of Texas. (7:27) • [Cal] The team was [originally] awarded to Los Angeles, but it had a deadline and they didn't meet it. (8:22) • [Hannah] The interesting thing about twins is that you have had somebody who's had your back your entire life. (29:24) • [Hannah] I think team sports is one of the most important educational things you can teach kids. (37:35) • [Hannah] [In baseball] You fail most of the time. If you have an error, are you gonna just stop the game? Are you gonna run to your parents? Or are you gonna learn from it, and go to the next play. You can't just quick.  (37:46) • [Hannah] If you can learn how to be part of a team and put your personal feelings aside for the greater good of the team, I think that's a valuable lesson, especially with youth today. (38:28) • [Hannah] With anything in the public eye, you try to use those [harassments in the stands] to create a better person in them, so that they're ready for whatever comes their way, (42:56) • [Hannah] You have to have God as your foundation. If you don't have that to turn to, you're lost already. (43:21) • [Hannah] You cannot go wrong by doing what's right. (50:11) • [Marcus] Q: What's the best piece of advice or wisdom you've got from somebody? [Cal] A: Never Quit. (52:16) • [Hannah] [CJ Stroud] is the CEO on the field. (52:56)  Socials: - IG:  houstontexans -  IG: team_neverquit , marcusluttrell , melanieluttrell , huntero13 - https://www.patreon.com/teamneverquit Sponsors:    - Navyfederal.org          - Tonal.com [TNQ]   - PDSDebt.com/TNQ   - drinkAG1.com/TNQ    - GoodRX.com/TNQ    - ghostbed.com/TNQ [TNQ]    - Shadyrays.com [TNQ]   - Hims.com/TNQ    - Shopify.com/TNQ   - mackweldon.com/utm_source=streaming&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcastlaunch&utm_content=TNQutm_term=TNQ   - PXG.com/TNQ   - Aura.com/TNQ   - Moink.com/TNQ    - Policygenius.com   - TAKELEAN.com [TNQ]   - usejoymode.com [TNQ]   - Shhtape.com [TNQ]

In this episode of The Optimal Path, Hannah Anokye joins host Ash Oliver to discuss her work on the Intuit Futures Team and the role of qualitative research in exploring emerging technologies, understanding users' needs, and identifying opportunities for new product developments.Hannah shares best practices for conducting moderated user interviews and how to generate insights that spark ideas and drive growth. Discover how integrating user-centric approaches in qualitative research nurtures innovation and redefines mental models, leading to more resonant and effective product solutionsAbout Hannah:Hannah is a product innovation practitioner with a unique background. Through a career with titles in product marketing, user research, and now product management, her through line has been user-centered experiences that drive meaningful impact.Most recently as a Senior User Experience Researcher on Intuit's Futures team, Hannah explored how Generative AI technology could be responsibly and meaningfully integrated across the Intuit product ecosystem.She recently transitioned into a product management role, focused on building the next generation of AI-driven products for Intuit's future customers.Connect with Hannah:You can connect with Hannah on LinkedInResources:Interviewing users by Steve PortigalDesigning Your Life - How to Build a Well-Lived Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave EvanUnpacking User Interviews: Turning Conversations into Insights by MazeFollow Maze on Social Media:X: @mazedesignHQInstagram: @mazedesignHQLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mazedesignTo get notified when new episodes come out, subscribe at maze.co/podcast.See you next time!

In this episode of Hannah You're Yelling the girls share their take on Cancel Culture. Hannah shares where it comes from, why we do it, and what getting canceled does to your emotional wellbeing. They talk about their own fears of getting cancelled and the worst kink you could ever have. Hannah touches on how politics play a role in cancel culture and how Twitter is the bitch that takes everyone down. They wrestle with the moral implications of holding someone accountable through the use of a hashtag and then relive a very fucked up event from private Christian school. They share a few case studies of public cancelations and then end with a conversation on authenticity. Get to listening! Sources: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/05/19/americans-and-cancel-culture-where-some-see-calls-for-accountability-others-see-censorship-punishment/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture https://www.verywellmind.com/the-mental-health-effects-of-cancel-culture-5119201 You're Wrong About Podcast: Cancel Culture

In this episode of Hannah You're Yelling the girls talk about what it really takes to empower your pelvis, whether its extensive pelvic floor therapy, working on your confidence, or just plane old butt stuff- they're doing it. Hannah goes on to share some bummer pregnancy ER stories from her girl boss era and then seamlessly transition into how we look like beans in the womb. They share the story of their recent drunkin' afternoon spent with their moms in Colorado and how it ended with the very passionate retelling of Hannah's conception. The girls then engage in a very serious conversation about the analog clock and how they have hit their breaking point with geographical awareness. They urge others to stop bullying people who can't read clocks and can't get home without google maps (neither of which they struggle with, obviously), and then share some recent stress dreams which tie in perfectly to their geographical shortcomings. This episode is chatty, intimate, and all over the place. Get to listening.  

Consider this the Hannah You're Yelling Christmas Special. The girls discuss the basic truths of the season, like how we have yet to see a historically accurate nativity set, how impractical it is to have Christmas traditions span multiple divorces, and the absolute chokehold that O Holy Night has on these atheist podcast hosts. Not only does Hannah comes to terms with her participation in a cult activity but she reckons with the trauma of her family's strictly philanthropic Christmas. Religion or not, we all know the most important thing this Christmas will be those little nick nacks we put under the tree. And oh come all ye faithful, do they have the gift guide for you. Merry Freakin Christmas, girls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncFy1zRA9HM 28 DAYS LATER Written by Alex Garland CLOSE ON A MONITOR SCREEN: Images of stunning violence. Looped. Soldiers in a foreign war shoot an unarmed civilian at point- blank range; a man is set on by a frenzied crowd wielding clubs and machetes; a woman is necklaced while her killers cheer and howl. Pull back to reveal that we are seeing one of many screens in a bank of monitors, all showing similar images... Then revealing that the monitors are in a... INT. SURGICAL CHAMBER - NIGHT ...surgical chamber. And watching the screens is a... ...chimp, strapped to an operating table, with its skull dissected open, webbed in wires and monitoring devices, muzzled with a transparent guard. Alive. Behind the surgical chamber, through the wide doorframe, we can see a larger laboratory beyond. INT. BRIGHT CORRIDOR - NIGHT A group of black-clad ALF Activists, all wearing balaclavas, move down a corridor. They carry various gear - bag, bolt cutters. As they move, one Activist reaches up to a security camera and sprays it black with an aerosol paint can. INT. LABORATORY - NIGHT The Activists enter the laboratory. CHIEF ACTIVIST Fucking hell... The Chief Activist takes his camera off his shoulder and starts taking photos. The room is huge and long, and darkened except for specific pools of light. Partially illuminated are rows of cages with clear perspex doors. They run down either side of the room. In the cages are chimpanzees. 2. Most are in a state of rabid agitation, banging and clawing against the perspex, baring teeth through foam-flecked mouths. They reach the far end of the lab, where on a huge steel operating table they see the dissected chimp. FEMALE ACTIVIST Oh God... The dissected chimp's eyes flick to the Activists. Blood wells from around the exposed brain tissue. Tears starts to roll down the Female Activist's cheeks. CHIEF ACTIVIST (to Female Activist) Keep your shit together. If we're going to get them out of here... The Finnish Activist is checking the perspex cages. FINNISH ACTIVIST I can pop these, no problem. CHIEF ACTIVIST So get to it. The Finnish Activist raises his crowbar and sticks it around the edge of one of the doors - about to prise it open. At the moment, the doors to the laboratory bang open. The Activists all turn. Standing at the entrance is the Scientist. A pause. The Scientist jumps to a telephone handset on the wall and shouts into the receiver. SCIENTIST Security! We have a break-in! Get to sector... A hand slams down the disconnect button. SCIENTIST ...nine. The Chief Activist plucks the receiver from the Scientist's hands, and then rips the telephone from the wall. A beat. 3. SCIENTIST I know who you are, I know what you think you're doing, but you have to listen to me. You can't release these animals. CHIEF ACTIVIST If you don't want to get hurt, shut your mouth, and don't move a fucking muscle. SCIENTIST (BLURTS) The chimps are infected! The Activists hesitate, exchanging a glance. SCIENTIST (continuing; stumbling, FLUSTERED) These animals are highly contagious. They've been given an inhibitor. CHIEF ACTIVIST Infected with what? SCIENTIST Chemically restricted, locked down to a... a single impulse that... CHIEF ACTIVIST Infected with what? The Scientist hesitates before answering. SCIENTIST Rage. Behind the Activists, the bank of monitors show the faces of the machete-wielding crowd. SCIENTIST (desperately trying to EXPLAIN) In order to cure, you must first understand. Just imagine: to have power over all the things we feel we can't control. Anger, violence... FINNISH ACTIVIST What the fuck is he talking about? 4. CHIEF ACTIVIST We don't have time for this shit! Get the cages open! SCIENTIST No! CHIEF ACTIVIST We're going, you sick bastard, and we're taking your torture victims with us. SCIENTIST NO! You must listen! The animals are contagious! The infection is in their blood and saliva! One bite and... FEMALE ACTIVIST They won't bite me. The Female Activist crouches down to face the wild eyes of the infected chimp behind the perspex. SCIENTIST STOP! You have no idea! The Scientist makes a desperate lunge towards her, but the Chief Activist grabs him. FEMALE ACTIVIST Good boy. You don't want to bite me, do you? The Female Activist gives a final benign smile, then the Finnish Activist pops open the door. SCIENTIST NO! Like a bullet from a gun, the infected chimp leaps out at the Female Activist - and sinks its teeth into her neck. She reels back as the chimp claws and bites with extraordinary viciousness. At the same moment, a deafening alarm begins to sound. FEMALE ACTIVIST (SHRIEKING) Get it off! Get if off! The Finnish Activist rips the ape off and throws it on to the floor. The infected chimp immediately bites into the man's leg. He yells with pain, and tries to kick it off. 5. Behind him, the Female Activist has started to scream. She doubles up, clutching the side of her head. FEMALE ACTIVIST I'm burning! Jesus! Help me! SCIENTIST We have to kill her! FEMALE ACTIVIST I'm burning! I'm burning! CHIEF ACTIVIST What's... SCIENTIST We have to kill her NOW! Meanwhile, the Female Activist's cries have become an unwavering howl of pain - and she is joined by the Finnish Activist, whose hands have also flown to the side of his head, gripping his temples as if trying to keep his skull from exploding. CHIEF ACTIVIST What's wrong with them? The Scientist grabs a desk-lamp base and starts running towards the screaming Female Activist... ...who has ripped off her balaclava - revealing her face - the face of an Infected. She turns to the Scientist. SCIENTIST Oh God. She leaps at him. He screams as they go tumbling to the ground. The Chief Activist watches in immobile horror as she attacks the Scientist with amazing ferocity. INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT Another ACTIVIST makes his way down the corridor towards the lab. ACTIVIST (HISSES) Terry? Jemma? 6. No answer. ACTIVIST Mika? Where are you? He reaches the door to the lab, which is closed - and... ...as he opens it, we realize the door is also soundproofed. A wall of screaming hits him. He stands in the doorway - stunned by the noise, and then the sight. Blood, death, and his colleagues, all Infected. ACTIVIST Bloody hell. The Infected rush him. FADE TO BLACK. TITLE: 28 DAYS LATER INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - LATE AFTERNOON Close up of Jim, a young man in his twenties, wearing pale green hospital pyjamas. He has a month's beard, is dishevelled, and asleep. We pull back to see that Jim is lying on a hospital bed, in a private room. Connected to his arms are multiple drips, a full row of four or five on each side of his bed. Most of the bags are empty. Jim's eyes open. He looks around with an expression of confusion. Then he sits up. He is weak, but he swings his legs off the bed and stands. The attached drips are pulled with him and clatter to the floor. Jim winces, and pulls the taped needles from his arm. JIM Ow... His voice is hoarse, his mouth dry. Massaging his throat, he walks to the door. 7. INT. COMA WARD - LATE AFTERNOON The door to Jim's hospital room is locked. The key is on the floor. He picks it up and opens the door. Jim exits into a corridor. At the far end, a sign read: COMA WARD. There is no sign of life or movement. Jim walks down the corridor. One of the doors is half-open. From inside, there is the sound of buzzing flies. INT. HOSPITAL WARDS - LATE AFTERNOON Jim moves as quickly as he can through the hospital, still weak, but now driven by adrenaline. All the wards and corridors are deserted. Medical notes and equipment lie strewn over the floors, trolleys are upended, glass partition doors are smashed. In a couple of places, splashes of dried blood arc up the walls. He reaches A&E. On one wall is a row of public pay phones. He lifts a receiver, and the line is dead. He goes down the line, trying them all. In the corner of the A&E reception is a smashed soft-drinks machine, with a few cans collected at the base. Jim grabs one, rips off the ring-pull and downs it in one go. Then he grabs another, and heads for the main doors. EXT. HOSPITAL - LATE AFTERNOON Jim exits and walks out into the bright daylight of the forecourt. The camera begins to pull away from him. JIM Hello? Aside from a quiet rush of wind, there is silence. No traffic, no engines, no movement. Not even birdsong. EXT. LONDON - SUNDOWN Jim walks through the empty city, from St. Thomas's Hospital, over Westminster Bridge, past the Houses of Parliament, down Whitehall, to Trafalgar Square. 8. A bright overhead sun bleaches the streets. A light drifts litter and refuse. Cars lie abandoned, shops looted. Jim is still wearing his hospital pyjamas, and carries a plastic bag full of soft-drink cans. EXT. CENTRAL LONDON ROAD/CHURCH - NIGHT Jim walks. Night has fallen. He needs to find a place to rest... He pauses. Down a narrow side street is a church. He walks towards it. The front doors are open. INT. CHURCH - NIGHT Jim walks inside, moving with the respectful quietness that people adopt when entering a church. The doors ahead to the main chamber are closed. Pushing them, gently trying the handle, it is obvious they are locked. But another open door is to his left. He goes through it. INT. CHURCH - STAIRWELL - NIGHT Jim moves up a stairwell. Written large on the wall is a single line of graffiti: REPENT. THE END IS EXTREMELY FUCKING NIGH INT. CHURCH - GALLERY LEVEL - NIGHT Jim moves into the gallery level, and sees, through the dust and rot, ornate but faded splendor. At the far end, a stained- glass window is illuminated by the moonlight. Jim pads in, stands at the gallery, facing the stained-glass window for a moment before looking down... Beneath are hundreds of dead bodies. Layered over the floor, jammed into the pews, spilling over the altar. The scene of an unimaginable massacre. Jim stands, stunned. Then sees, standing motionless at different positions facing away from him, four people. Their postures and stillness make their status unclear. Jim hesitates before speaking. 9. JIM ...Hello? Immediately, the four heads flick around. Infected. And the next moment, there is the powerful thump of a door at the far end of the gallery. Jim whirls to the source as the Infected below start to move. The door thumps again - another stunningly powerful blow, the noise echoing around the chamber. Confused, fist closing around his bag of soft drinks, Jim steps onto the gallery, facing the door... ...and it smashes open. Revealing an Infected Priest - who locks sight on Jim, and starts to sprint. JIM Father? The Priest is half way across the gallery JIM Father, what are you... And now the moonlight catches the Priest's face. Showing clearly: the eyes. The blood smeared and collected around his nose, ears, and mouth. Darkened and crusted, accumulated over days and weeks. Fresh blood glistening. JIM Jesus! In a movement of pure instinct, Jim swings the bag just as the Priest is about to reach him - and connects squarely with the man's head. JIM Oh, that, was bad, that was bad... I shouldn't have done that... He breaks into a run... INT. CHURCH - STAIRWELL - NIGHT Down the stairwell... 10. INT. CHURCH - NIGHT ...into the front entrance, where the locked door now strains under the blows of the Infected inside. JIM Shit. EXT. CHURCH - NIGHT Jim sprints down the stone steps. As he reaches the bottom the doors are broken open, and the Infected give chase. EXT. CENTRAL LONDON ROAD - NIGHT Jim runs - the Infected have almost reached him. A hand fires up a Zippo lighter, and lights the rag of a Molotov cocktail. As Jim runs, something flies past his head, and the Infected closest to him explodes in a ball of flame. Jim turns, and sees as another Molotov cocktail explodes, engulfing two in the fireball. He whirls, now completely bewildered. WOMAN'S VOICE HERE! Another Molotov cocktail explodes. The Infected stagger from the blaze, on fire. WOMAN'S VOICE OVER HERE! Jim whirls again, and sees, further down the road... ...Selena, a black woman, also in her twenties. She wears a small backpack, a machete is stuck into her belt - and she holds a lit Molotov cocktail in her hand. ...Mark, a tall, good-looking man - throwing another bottle. It smashes on the head of the last Infected, bathing it in flame... The burning Infected bumps blindly into a car. Falls. Gets up again. 11. Blindly, it staggers off the road, into a petrol station - where an abandoned car has run over on the pumps. The ground beneath it suddenly ignites, and the petrol station explodes. EXT. SIDE STREET - NIGHT Selena and Mark lead Jim into a side street. JIM (DAZED) Those people! Who were... who... MARK This way! Move it! Jim allows himself to be hurried along. EXT. SHOP - NIGHT Selena stops outside a newsagent's shop. The shop's door and windows are covered with a metal security grill, but the grill over the door lock has been prised away enough for Selena to slip her hand through to the latch. INT. SHOP - NIGHT Inside, most of the shelves have been emptied of confectionery. Newspapers and magazines litter the floor. The magazine covers of beautiful girls and sports cars have become instant anachronisms. At the back of the shop, a makeshift bed of sheets and sleeping bag is nestled. This has obviously been Selena and Mark's home for the last few days. INT. NEWSAGENT - NIGHT Jim, Mark and Selena enter the newsagent's and pull down the grill. MARK A man walks into a bar with a giraffe. They each get pissed. The giraffe falls over. The man goes to leave and the barman says, you can't leave that lying there. The man says, it's not a lion. It's a giraffe. 12. Silence. Mark pulls off his mask and turns to Selena. MARK He's completely humorless. You two will get along like a house on fire. Selena, who has already taken off her mask, ignores Mark. SELENA Who are you? You've come from a hospital. MARK Are you a doctor? SELENA He's not a doctor. He's a patient. JIM I'm a bicycle courier. I was riding a package from Farringdon to Shaftesbury Avenue. A car cut across me... and then I wake up in hospital, today... I wake up and I'm hallucinating, or... MARK What's your name? JIM Jim. MARK I'm Mark. This is Selena. (BEAT) Okay, Jim. We've got some bad news. Selena starts to tell her story, and as the story unfolds we see the images she describes. SELENA It began as rioting. And right from the beginning, you knew something bad was going on because the rioters were killing people. And then it wasn't on the TV anymore. It was in the street outside. It was coming through your windows. We all guessed it was a virus. An infection. You didn't need a doctor to tell you that. It was the blood. 13. Something in the blood. By the time they tried to evacuate the cities, it was already too late. The infection was everywhere. The army blockades were overrun. And that was when the exodus started. The day before the radio and TV stopped broadcasting there were reports of infection in Paris and New York. We didn't hear anything more after that. JIM Where are your families? MARK They're dead. SELENA Yours will be dead too. JIM No... No! I'm going to find them. They live in Greenwich. I can walk. (heading for the exit) I'm going to... to go and... SELENA You'll go and come back. JIM (pulling at the grill) Yes! I'll go and come back. MARK Rules of survival. Lesson one - you never go anywhere alone, unless you've got no choice. Lesson two - you only move during daylight, unless you've got no choice. We'll take you tomorrow. Then we'll all go and find your dead parents. Okay? EXT. TRAIN TRACKS - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark walk along the Docklands Light Railway in single file. Ahead is a train. Behind the train, as if spilled in its wake, are abandoned bags, suitcases, backpacks. Mark drops pace to let Jim catch up. 14. MARK How's your head? Fucked? No reply. MARK (gesturing at the city) I know where your head is. You're looking at these windows, these millions of windows, and you're thinking - there's no way this many people are dead. It's just too many windows. Mark picks up a handbag from the tracks. MARK The person who owned this bag. Can't be dead. Mark reaches in and starts to pull things out as they walk, discarding the personal possessions. MARK A woman - (car keys) - who drove a Nissan Micra - (teddy) - and had a little teddy bear - (condoms) - and carried protection, just in case. Marks tosses the condoms behind him. MARK (DRY) Believe me, we won't need them anymore than she will. He hands the bag to Jim and walks ahead. Jim pulls out a mobile phone. He switches it on. It reads: SEARCHING FOR NETWORK. The message blinks a couple of times. Then the screen goes blank. Jim looks left. He is now alongside the train. The inside of the windows are smeared with dried blood. Pressed against the glass is the face of a dead man. 15. Jim drops the phone and breaks into a run - running past Mark and Selena. MARK (HISSING) Hey! EXT. GREENWICH COMMON - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark jog across Greenwich Common. Jim gestures towards one of the streets on the far side of the green. JIM (LOW VOICE) Down there. Westlink Street. Second on the left. EXT. WESTLINK STREET - DAY The street is modest red-brick semi-detached houses. They stand outside Number 43. Jim waits while Selena scans the dark facade. SELENA If there's anyone in there who isn't human... JIM I understand. SELENA Anyone. JIM I understand. Selena shoots a glance at Jim. Jim is gazing at the house. MARK Okay. EXT. BACK GARDEN - DAY Jim uses the key under the flowerpot to open the back door. INT. HOUSE - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark move quietly through the kitchen and the downstairs of the house. 16. Surprisingly, everything is neat and tidy. Washed plates are stacked by the sink, newspapers on the table are neatly piled. The headline on the top paper reads simply: CONTAINMENT FAILS. They reach the bottom of the stairs. Selena gestures upwards, and Jim nods. They start to ascend. At the top of the stairs, Selena sniffs the air, and recoils. Jim has noticed it too. His eyes widen in alarm. MARK (WHISPERS) Wait. But Jim pushes past and advances along the top landing, until he reaches a door. By now the smell is so bad that he is having to cover his nose and mouth with the sleeve of one arm. Jim pushes open the door. Inside, two decomposed bodies lie side by side on the bed, intertwined. On the bedside table are an empty bottle of sleeping pills and a bottle of red wine. Mark appears behind him. Jim stares at his parents for a couple of moments, then Mark closes the door. INT. BATHROOM - DAY Jim sits on the toilet, alone. He is crying. In his hand is a piece of paper: "Jim - with endless love, we left you sleeping. Now we're sleeping with you. Don't wake up." The paper crumples in his fist. INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark sit in the living room, on the two sofas. Jim looks dazed, uncomprehending. Selena watches Jim, her expression neutral. SELENA They died peacefully. You should be grateful. JIM I'm not grateful. Jim's words hang a moment. Then Mark talks, simply, unemotionally, matter-of-fact throughout. 17. MARK The roads out were all jammed. So we went to Paddington Station. Hoping: maybe we could get to Heathrow, maybe buy our way on a plane. My dad had all this cash, even though cash was already useless, and Mum had her jewellery. But twenty thousand other people had the same idea. (A MOMENT) The crowd was surging, and I lost my grip on my sister's hand. I remember realizing the ground was soft. I looked down, and I was standing on people. Like a carpet, people who had fallen, and... somewhere in the crowd there were infected. It spread fast, no one could run, all you could do was climb. Over more people. So I did that. I got up, somehow, on top of a kiosk. (A MOMENT) Looking down, you couldn't tell which faces were infected and which weren't. With the blood, the screaming, they all looked the same. And I saw my dad. Not my mum or my sister. But I saw my dad. His face. A short silence. MARK Selena's right. You should be grateful. SELENA We don't have time to get back to the shop before dark. We should stay here tonight. Jim nods. He isn't sure what he wants to say. JIM My old room was at the end of the landing. You two take it. I'll sleep down here. SELENA We'll sleep in the same room. It's safer. 18. EXT. LONDON - DAY TO NIGHT The red orb of the sun goes down; the light fades. As night falls, London vanishes into blackness, with no electric light to be seen. Then the moon appears from behind the cloud layer, and the dark city is revealed. INT. HOUSE - NIGHT Jim is on the sofa. In the moonlight, we can see that his eyes are open, wide awake. Selena is curled on the other sofa, and Mark is on the floor - both asleep. The house is silent. Jim watches Selena sleeping for a couple of moments. Then, quietly, he gets off the sofa and pads out of the living room, down the hall to the kitchen. INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT Jim enters, standing just inside the doorway. He looks around the room. On one wall, a faded kid's drawing of a car is framed. Above the counter, on a shelf of cookery books, an album has a handwritten label on the spine: "Mum's Favorite Recipes". Jim walks to the fridge. Stuck to the door is a photo of Jim with his parents, arm in arm, smiling at the camera. Jim is on his mountain bike, wearing his courier bag. FLASH CUT TO: Jim, sitting at the kitchen table as his Mum enters, carrying bags of shopping. Jim walks over to the bags and pulls out a carton of orange juice, which he pulls straight to his mouth and begins to gulp down. His Dad walks in from the garden. JIM'S DAD Give me a glass of that, would you? JIM (draining the carton, and giving it a shake) It's empty. CUT BACK TO: 19. Jim touches the photo, their faces, lightly. Jim is facing away from the back door, which has a large frosted-glass panel. Through the glass panel, unseen by Jim a dark silhouette looms against the diffused glow from the moonlight. Through the kitchen window, a second silhouette appears. Then there is a scratching noise from the back door. Jim freezes. Slowly, he turns his head, and sees the dark shapes behind the door and window. A beat - then the door is abruptly and powerfully smashed in. It flies open, and hangs loosely held by the bottom hinge. Standing in the doorframe is an Infected Man. Jim shouts with alarm as the Man lunges at him - and they both go tumbling to the floor. At the same moment, the figure behind the kitchen window smashes the glass, and an Infected Teenage Girl starts to clamber through the jagged frame. The Man gets on top of Jim, while Jim uses his arms to hold back the ferocious assault. A single strand of saliva flies from the Man's lips, and contacts Jim's cheek. JIM (SCREAMS) Help! Suddenly, Selena is there, holding her machete. The blade flashes down to the back of the Man's neck. Blood gushes. Jim rolls the Infected Man off, just in time to see... ...Mark dispatch the Girl half way through the kitchen window. The Girl is holding Mark, but her legs are caught on the broken glass. Mark jabs upwards into the Girl's torso - she stiffens, then slumps, and as Mark steps back we see he is holding a knife. Jim hyperventilates, staring at the corpse on the kitchen floor. JIM It's Mr. Bridges... Selena turns to Jim. She is hyperventilating too, but there is control and steel in her voice. 20. SELENA Were you bitten? JIM He lives four doors down... Jim turns to the Girl sprawled half way through the window. JIM That's his daughter... SELENA Were you bitten? Jim looks at her. Selena is still holding her machete at the ready. JIM No... No! I wasn't! SELENA Did any of the blood get in your mouth? JIM No! SELENA Mark? Jim turns to Mark. He is standing in the middle of the room. Stepped away from the window. The Girl's blood is on his arm - and he is wiping it away... ...off the skin... where a long scratch cut wells up fresh blood. A moment. Then Mark looks at Selena, as if slightly startled. MARK Wait. But Selena is swiping with her machete. Mark lifts his arm instinctively, defensively, and the blade sinks in. Selena immediately yanks it back. MARK DON'T! Selena swipes again - and the blade catches Mark hard in the side of the head. Mark falls. 21. Jim watches, scrabbling backwards on the floor away from them, as Selena brutally finishes Mark off. Selena looks at Mark's body for a couple of beats, then lowers the blade. She picks up a dishcloth from the sink counter and tosses it to Jim. SELENA Get that cleaned off. Jim picks up the rag and hurriedly starts to wipe the Infected's blood from around his neck. SELENA Do you have any clothes here? JIM (fazed, frightened of her) I... I don't know. I think so. SELENA Then get them. And get dressed. We have to leave, now. With practiced speed, Selena starts to open the kitchen cupboards, selecting packets of biscuits and cans from the shelves, and stuffing them into her backpack. SELENA More infected will be coming. They always do. EXT. HOUSE - NIGHT Jim and Selena exit the front door. Jim has changed out of his hospital gear into jeans and a sweatshirt. He also has a small backpack, and is carrying a baseball bat. EXT. LONDON ROAD - NIGHT Jim and Selena walk: fast, alert. But something is not being said between them... until Jim breaks the silence. JIM (QUIET) How did you know? Selena says nothing. Continues walking. JIM (INSISTENT) How did you know he was infected? 22. SELENA The blood. JIM The blood was everywhere. On me, on you, and... SELENA (CUTTING IN) I didn't know he was infected. Okay? I didn't know. He knew. I could see it in his face. (A MOMENT) You need to understand, if someone gets infected, you've got somewhere between ten and twenty seconds to kill them. They might be your brother or your sister or your oldest friend. It makes no difference Just so as you know, if it happens to you, I'll do it in a heartbeat. A moment. JIM How long had you known him? SELENA Five days. Or six. Does it matter? Jim says nothing. SELENA He was full of plans. Long-distance weapons, so they don't get close. A newsagent's with a metal grill, so you can sleep. Petrol bombs, so the blood doesn't splash. Selena looks at Jim dispassionately. SELENA Got a plan yet, Jim? You want us to find a cure and save the world? Or fall in love and fuck? Selena looks away again. SELENA Plans are pointless. Staying alive is as good as it gets. Silence. 23. They walk. Jim following a few steps behind Selena. A few moments later, Jim lifts a hand, opens his mouth, about to say something - but Selena cuts him off without even looking round. SELENA Shhh. She has seen something... A line of tower blocks some distance away, standing against the night sky. In one of them, hanging in the window of one of the highest stories, colored fairy lights are lit up, blinking gently. INT. TOWER BLOCK - NIGHT Jim and Selena walk through the smashed glass doors of the tower block. It is extremely dark inside. Selena switches on a flashlight and illuminates the entrance hall. It is a mess. The floor is covered in broken glass and dried blood. The lift doors are jammed open, and inside is a dense bundle of rags - perhaps an old corpse, but impossible to tell, because the interior of the lift has been torched. It is black with carbon, and smoke-scarring runs up the outside wall. Selena moves the flashlight to the stairwell. There is a huge tangle of shopping trolleys running up the stairs. Selena gives one of the trolleys an exploratory tug. It shifts, but holds fast, meshed in with its neighbor. Then she puts a foot into one of the grates, and lifts herself up. Shining her light over the top of the tangle, she can see a gap along the top. JIM Let's hope we don't have to get out of here in a hurry. She begins to climb through. INT. TOWER BLOCK - NIGHT Jim and Selena move steadily and quietly up the stairwell, into the building. Reaching a next landing, they check around the corner before proceeding. Through a broken window, we can see that they are already high above most London buildings, and on the wall a sign reads: LEVEL 5. 24. SELENA Need a break? JIM (completely out of breath) No. You? SELENA No. They continue a few steps. JIM I do need a break, by the way. Selena nods. They stop on the stairs. Jim slips off his backpack and sits, pulling a face as he does so... SELENA What's up? JIM Nothing. She gives him a cut-the-crap expression. JIM I've got a headache. SELENA Bad? JIM Pretty bad. SELENA Why didn't you say something before? JIM Because I didn't think you'd give a shit. A moment, where it's unclear how Selena will react to this. Then she slips off her own backpack. SELENA (going through the bag) You've got no fat on you, and all you've had to eat is sugar. So you're crashing. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot we can do about that... 25. Selena starts to produce a wide selection of pills, looted from a chemist. SELENA ...except pump you full painkillers, and give you more sugar to eat. She holds up a bottle of codeine tablets, and passes it to Jim. SELENA As for the sugar: Lilt or Tango? JIM (CHEWING CODEINE) ...Do you have Sprite? SELENA Actually, I did have a can of Sprite, but... Suddenly there is a loud scream, coming from somewhere lower down the building. Jim and Selena both make a grab for their weapons. JIM Jesus! SELENA Quiet. The scream comes again. The noise is chilling, echoing up the empty stairwell. But there is something strange about it. The noise is human, but oddly autistic. It is held for slightly too long, and stops abruptly. SELENA That's an infected. Then, the sound of metal scraping, clattering the blockade. SELENA They're in. INT. SHOPPING TROLLEY BLOCKADE - NIGHT Two Infected, a Young Asian Guy and a Young White Guy, moving with amazing speed over the blockade. 26. INT. STAIRS - NIGHT Jim and Selena sprint up the stairs. Behind them, we can hear the Infected, giving chase, howling. They pass level eight, nine, ten... Jim is exhausted. SELENA Come on! JIM (out of breath, barely able to speak) I can't. Selena continues, and Jim looks over the edge of the stairwell, to the landing below... ...where the two Infected appear, tearing around the corner. INT. STAIRWELL - NIGHT Selena sprints up the stairs... and Jim sprints past her, in an amazing burst of energy and speed. They round another bend in the stairwell... ...then both Jim and Selena scream. Standing directly in front of them is a Man In Riot Cop Gear - helmet with full visor, gloves, a riot shield in one hand, and a length of lead pipe in the other. The Man lunges past both of them, barging past, where the Infected White Man has appeared at the stairwell. The Riot Gear Man swings his lead pipe and connects viciously with the White Man's head. The White Man falls backwards against the Asian Man. Both fall back down the stairs. The Riot Gear Man turns back to Jim and Selena. MAN Down the corridor! Flat 157! Jim and Selena are stunned, but start to run down the corridor. The Asian Man is coming back up the stairs. Jim looks back over his shoulder in time to see the Riot Gear Man deliver a massive blow to the Asian Man's head. 27. INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT Jim and Selena run towards Flat 157. The door is open, but as they approach, it suddenly slams shut. JIM AND SELENA (hammering on the door) Let us in! GIRL (O.S.) Who is it? SELENA Let us in! The door opens a fraction, on the chain. The face of a girl appears. She is fourteen, pale, solemn-faced. GIRL Where's Dad? Jim looks back down the corridor. At the far end, the Man appears. He is holding the limp body of one of the Infected - and he tips it over the balcony, where it drops down the middle of the stairwell. MAN (CALLS BACK) It's okay, Hannah. Let them inside. The door closes, we hear the chain being slipped off, then it opens again. INT. FLAT - NIGHT Jim and Selena enter past the pale-faced girl. The flat is council, three-bed, sixteenth floor of the block. It has patterned wallpaper, and nice but boring furnishings. It is lit by candles. The entrance hall leads straight to the living room, which has French windows and a small balcony outside. On one wall, a framed photograph hangs, which shows the Man standing beside a black taxi cab. Next to him is a middle aged woman - presumably the Man's wife. Hannah sits at the cab's steering wheel, beaming. Another photo, beside, show Hannah sat in the seat of a go- kart. The Man follows Jim and Selena inside. 28. MAN Come in, come in. They follow the Man through to the living room, and Hannah recloses the front door, which has an impressive arrangement of locks and dead-bolts. INT. FLAT - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT In the living room, the fairy lights hang in the window, powered by a car battery. Lit by their glow, the Man goes through a careful ritual of shedding his gear, helped by Hannah. First, he lays down the riot shield. Then he puts the bloodsmeared lead pipe on a small white towel. Next, he removes his gloves - and places them beside the bar on the towel. Then he folds the towel over the weapon and gloves, and puts it beside the riot shield. Finally he removes the visored helmet. Jim and Selena watch him. They look pretty rattled, not really knowing what to expect. After the Man has finished shedding his gear, he turns. MAN So... I'm Frank, anyway. He extends his hand to Jim and Selena. Jim hesitates very briefly, then shakes it. JIM I'm Jim. SELENA Selena. Frank beams, and suddenly he seems much less frightening and imposing. If anything, he is just as nervous as Jim and Selena. FRANK Jim and Selena. Good to meet you. And this is my daughter, Hannah. (turning to Hannah) ...Come on, sweetheart. Say hello. Hannah takes a step into the room, but says nothing. FRANK So... so this is great. Just great. It calls for a celebration. 29. I'd say. Why don't you all sit down, and... Hannah, what have we got to offer? HANNAH (QUIETLY) We've got Mum's creme de menthe. An awkward beat. FRANK Yes, her creme de menthe. Great. Look, sit, please. Get comfortable. Sit tight while I get it. Frank exits. Selena, Jim and Hannah all stand, until Selena gestures at the sofa. SELENA Shall we? Jim and Selena take the sofa. Hannah stays standing. FRANK (O.S.) Where are the bloody glasses? HANNAH Middle cupboard. FRANK (O.S.) No! The good ones! This is a celebration! HANNAH Top cupboard. Another short, uncomfortable pause. Hannah looks at Jim and Selena from her position near the doorway. Her expression is blank and unreadable. JIM This is your place, then. Hannah nods. JIM It's nice. Hannah nods again. Frank re-enters. Frank is beaming, holding the creme de menthe, and four wine glasses. 30. FRANK There! I know it isn't much but... well, cheers! EXT. TOWER BLOCK - NIGHT The moon shines above the tower block. INT. FLAT - NIGHT Jim, Selena and Hannah all sit in the living room, sipping creme de menthe. Frank is disconnecting the fairy lights as he talks, and pulling the curtains closed, rather systematically checking for cracks along the edges. FRANK Normally we keep the windows covered at night, because the light attracts them. But when we saw your petrol station fire, we knew it had to be survivors... So we hooked up the Christmas tree lights. Like a beacon. Finished with the sofa, he sits on the armchair. SELENA We're grateful. FRANK Well, we're grateful you came. I was starting to really worry. Like I say, we haven't seen any sign of anyone normal for a while now. JIM There aren't any others in the building? Frank shakes his head. SELENA And you haven't seen any people outside? Frank's eyes flick to Hannah. FRANK We haven't left the block for more than two weeks. Stayed right here. Only sensible thing to do. Everyone who went out... 31. SELENA Didn't come back. FRANK And there's two hundred flats here. Most of them have a few cans of food, or cereal, or something. SELENA It's a good set-up. FRANK It isn't bad. He puts a hand on Hannah's shoulder, and gives it a squeeze. FRANK We've got by, haven't we? INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT

In this episode of Hannah You're Yelling, as promised, Hannah shares her experience with getting the IUD inserted. She explains everything she did to prepare both her cervix and her mind, and the overwhelming relief that follows knowing she will not have an accidental pregnancy in the next ten years. Then we hear from the other Hannah who gives the tell all on her engagement story. She shares the good, the bad, and the ugly, on what it really feels like to be completely and utterly shocked by the “best news of your life." This episode is funny, vulnerable, and just downright wholesome. So if you're looking for a rom-com-esque podcast episode, this is it

In today's episode, Hannah Kesler shares some advice on turning passive income into an asset. As a financial advisor, she advises us to think about ways to monetize their income and make it more sustainable. She also shares how passive income can create an asset and double dip.    [00:00 - 03:53] Opening Segment I introduce Hannah to the show   [03:53 - 08:57] Life Insurance and Asset Building Tips Pros of whole life insurance Way to protect your family's financial future Turning your passive income into an asset The importance of thinking about what you want in life   [08:58 - 09:55] Closing Segment Final words See links below to connect with Hannah   You can connect with Hannah through Instagram and LinkedIn, or you can visit https://themoneymultiplier.com. WANT TO LEARN MORE?   Connect with me through LinkedIn   Or send me an email sujata@luxe-cap.com   Visit my website www.luxe-cap.com or my Youtube channel Thanks for tuning in!   If you liked my show, LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW, like, and subscribe!

Crystal healing is a pseudoscientific alternative-medicine technique that uses semiprecious stones and crystals such as quartz, amethyst or opals; to boost low energy, prevent bad energy, release blocked energy, and transform a body's aura .Meet Jeannie;  a mum-of-two from Portsmouth, UK, who runs a reflexology and Crystal healing business - SoleCare Healing Jeannie is a qualified ACHO registered crystal healer and AOR registered reflexologist. Her passion is helping others embark on their own crystal journey towards self-discovery and fulfilment. She has been offering crystal healing for five years and reflexology for 10. Her aim is to create a community, where people can look after their mental health and practice mindfulness; something a lot of people have needed to focus on during lockdown, with the increase in anxiety and stress. Jeannie hopes to make people feel stronger, sleep better, reduce anxiety and chronic pain, feel more content and gives them a stronger sense of wellbeing. If you are interested in embarking on your own Crystal journey, contract Jeannie;IG: @SolecarehealingWebsite: https://solecare.org/about-solecare-reflexology-meditation-and-crystal-therapy/SponsorHannah HolisticsHannah Evans is one of the most inspiring spiritual women I have ever met.She is a intuitive Healer, Reiki Master & Psychic Medium, offering all individuals the opportunity to heal through a spiritual awakening.  *

In this episode, I speak with Karabo @hannah_youarenotalone about her journey with and recurrent miscarriages. Karabo is a founder of Hannah - You are not alone which she started together with her husband. Hannah - You are not alone seeks to provide support to those struggling with infertility and to bring awareness about a disease that burdens many due to the stigma and shame. We had such a wonderful conversation and there was a message in her mother's words that really resonated with me... she said to Karabo, “ngwanaka phila” - meaning “live my child”. A loving reminder that your life still has meaning even if you are not a mother yet.

Welcome to Episode 13   Today I am joined by Karabo Zwane from South Africa. She speaks about her Infertility journey, pregnancy losses and how her faith kept her through the whole journey. She is a fertility Infertility warrior & founded the organisation; ' Hannah You are Not Alone' to bring awareness to Infertility and also remove the stigma attached to Infertility.     To connect with Karabo, you can reach her on Instagram @hannah_youarenotalone.    Join us as we listen to her incredible journey.   Remember to Subscribe, leave a review and give this podcast a 5*rating to help spread more awareness about In(Fertility).    Follow me on Instagram @fertilityconversations Read my blog : www.fertilityconversations.com

Episode Notes [“Don’t Tell Me Your Major Theme” By Malena Ramnath] Malena: Hey, guys, my name is Malena Ramnath. Hannah: And I'm Hannah Fredly. Malena: And we are your hosts and freshmen here at Northwestern. This is Don't Tell Me Your Major an interview podcast where we avoid getting to know people on the surface level with questions like what their major is, where they're from, and how old they are, but try to get to know them on a more profound level. That's how you really know the kind of person someone is rather than judging them based on pre–established stereotypes. So we're here today in the thick of the Coronavirus quarantine, currently hosting this podcast over zoom, which is definitely weird but we're all very excited to be able to continue this despite the distance. And unfortunately, Alison couldn't join us today because she's in Seoul, Korea, and those time zones are insane. So today we're here with Hannah. Also on today's podcast is the one and only Nick, please say your last name for me, Nick. Nick: Schoenbrodt. Malena: Okay. And he is another Northwestern student with an impossible last name. And he just said hi. So we're super– Nick: Yeah, you're doing great. Malena: We're super excited to have you as today's guest. So where is everyone currently? I'm in DC. Hannah, where are you? Hannah: I'm currently in France. Nick: Oh, I am in New Jersey, the opposite of France. Malena: Um great. And so I figured since we're all stuck inside our questions today will be themed around being stuck. So without further ado, I figured we’d get started. Um, so Nick, what is your favorite stuck inside hobby now that we're in quarantine? Nick: Um, God, that's a good question. I have been doing almost nothing. But I got a new laptop. So I'm trying to get into music production a little bit which is fun, but also difficult when it's like the only thing there is to do and I don't have anything to like take a break from it with I guess, but that's what I've been doing. Mostly it's happening slowly. Malena: Damn, music production. Hannah, what are you doing now that you're stuck in bed? What are your hobbies that you've picked up to stay productive? Hannah: Um, well technically we're out of quarantine. So, ha. Malena: I hate you. Hannah: But, um, otherwise, something really fun to do is those like, workout videos that are like dance and workout at the same time. That's really fun. Nick: And that's on jazzercise. Malena: Well yeah, I mean, those two are like, generally more productive than me. I mean, I've been, I guess one of my hobbies– Oh, I'm learning Italian on Duolingo! You guys ready? Io no sono un ragazzo. Which means “I'm not a boy”. You know, and that's pretty much all I know how to say. Nick: That’s good. That’s gonna really come in handy I feel like. Malena: You know if anyone mistakes, you know, me for a little boy. You never know. Italians these days. Nick: That’s true. Hannah: Have you been keeping up with Duolingo? Malena: Yeah, the owl is really aggressive dude. It's always like: “You have one hour to save your streak! You're so lazy, it takes five minutes!” Nick: He, he yelled at me for not knowing my Greek alphabet and I think I, all I had done is like put Greek in a language I was like kind of interested in, in the app and he was like, like learn your alphabet, learn your alphabet! Hannah: He, as in the owl. Nick: Yeah, yes, he as in the owl, my, my good friend, the Duolingo owl. Malena: Evil demon that haunts my dreams, alright. Um, but okay, so moving on to our next question. What is the one movie you would watch if you were stuck with one for the rest of your life? Nick, your thoughts? Nick: Oh, no. These, I can't answer these questions without pulling up my like, letterbox like and looking at the movies I've seen. The Princess Bride is great. Just because it's fun, but like, I don't know, maybe like Whiplash if I want to like be stressed for the rest of my life. I don’t know. Malena: I mean, that would also push you to be ridiculously productive. Just like watching Whiplash and like, you know, striving– Nick: Cause watching, cause watching a two hour movie is the most productive thing you can do. Malena: This is, this is fact. Hannah, what about you? What are you thinking for your stuck-on-an-island with the rest of your like that for the rest of your life movie? Hannah: Um, how about Shutter Island? On the island? Nick: That's not good. That's not gonna stress you out. Malena: Shutter Island– brooooo. I watched that, we watched that on a really big like movie screen that we found and that it really freaked me out just like on the big screen. Leo DiCaprio killing you know, oh, spoilers. Sorry. You know, terrifying. Nick: Bleep it out in post you know. Malena: Yeah. For me, I think my desert island– I mean Princess Bride is a big classic. I love Call Me By Your Name. It's so calming. Just watching like handsome people run around northern Italy. We love to see it. We love to see it. Um, okay. And then my third question is, if you could be stuck anywhere in the world for quarantine, where would it be, like besides where you are right now? I'm sure you're very happy in New Jersey, Nick. So not to hate on New Jersey. Nick: Yeah, of course – it's it's great here. Malena: If you could be stuck anywhere else for quarantine where would you be stuck? Nick: So I am if my if we are remote fall quarter which, don’t talk to me about it cause it's not gonna happen and I won't let it happen. I think I'm planning to go – which is where I would go – to my cousin's beach house in California. And just like, it's like on a mountainside overlooking the ocean and just like sit in the backyard and take zoom classes outside for the entire quarter. That's the plan. Malena: That sounds like heaven. I'm jealous. Do you go there often? Nick: No, like, once every two years – Malena: And how old is your cousin that he has his own beach house? Nick: It's like my family like my, I guess it's my aunt’s and uncle’s. But I mean, he's like 22, 21, I don’t know. He's graduating this year, which is awful. But yeah. Malena: Hannah, what about you? I mean, France is a pretty great place to be stuck. So if you could be stuck elsewhere… Hannah: I'd be in Asia, dude in Asia. They are out of quarantine, people are just out, out and about. They’re partying, they've confined it more or less pretty well. They're just having the time of their lives. Anywhere in Asia. Malena: That's fair. That's fair. I do miss Singapore. Is still under circuit breaker. But our friends definitely out in Korea – shout out to Allison – are having the time of their lives as compared to the good old US of A. I'm quite jealous. Hannah: Florida’s having a good time. They don't give a fuck! Malena: No, it's okay. Hannah: You’re gonna have to bleep that. You’re gonna have to bleep it. Malena: No, you can swear– Hannah: I’m sorry, I'm giving you much more work than it had to be. Woops Malena: No, we can swear on this podcast– Nick: Malena is a dutiful editor. Malena: All right, and then I think that for me, I don't know, I'm definitely going through a very Greek phase. I'm reading Zorba the Greek, I was making Greek food, I have way too many Greek friends. And they're all sending me like videos from Athens of like the sunsets around their house. And I'm very jealous. So I think, probably Greece– just literally anywhere in Europe – because I feel like it's just stunning views. You know, like for me, I mean, I do get to see the Washington Monument from my apartment, but otherwise, Nick: Okay, flex. Malena: Not many, like you know, seaside views, in comparison, so I think anywhere in Europe with a seaside view would be my answer. All right, guys. And so for our final question for the day, this is you know, a little bit more personal, a little bit more difficult to answer. But if you could be stuck with anyone who you are not currently with right now in quarantine, who would you be stuck with and why? Nick: Like a someone that that listens to the podcast would not know who they are? Malena: I mean, it doesn't matter, you could give a shoutout to anyone. Nick: I mean, I mean, this is, you guys know who this is but other people wouldn't. It would be probably be Asteris or Artie. Malena: And for what reason would these two mystery men, who our listeners have no idea who they are? Nick: Well, because they they brighten up my day with their with their beautiful faces but also because, I don’t know, it'll just be fun to chill with them. I guess. Like it's a boring answer, but it's true. Like they're, they're people I just hang out with and I'm not getting that right now, not getting my fix right now. So, you know, getting, getting that fix. Malena: Yeah, I think the two of them have a very good sarcastic sense of humor that I think is generally lacking in most other people. Nick: Yeah. Malena: So. Nick: Yeah, and especially lacking in no social interaction at all, so. Hannah: Very true. Malena: Hannah, what about you? Hannah: I'd be stuck with you. Malena. I just blew you a kiss. I love you. Nick: That's a mistake. Malena: I know you miss me. Hannah: That was my declaration of love. Malena: I know you, Nick, we could be reading together. Fun fact. Nick is a major book nerd. Nick: Yeah but I haven’t read all quarantine. I’m – it’s a shame. Malena: I know. But– Nick: I have some things in the mail. It's coming. I'm going to force you to read it. Malena: I like that's, I mean, I'm always down to read more. That's definitely one hobby that I've picked up more is I've been reading a lot since I've been back. But, um, for me, who would I be stuck with? I mean, besides you, Hannah. Obviously, love of my whole life. Um, my heart is warmed by that answer. I don’t know, that's a tough one. I think– Hannah: It's fine. Go ahead, choose someone else but me. That's fine. Malena: No no it’s because I'm trying to think– Hannah: It’s fine. Malena: –of someone else but Hannah: I see how it is. Malena: –you but unfortunately, you're the only person I spend my time with. Nick: Ah, thanks, thanks, Malena I thought we were friends. I thought we were friends. Hannah: You’re digging yourself a hole right now. Malena: Oh, you know what, I really can't think of anyone else cuz then I would say like Asteris, but Nick already said it. Nick: We could all spend our time with Asteris. Malena: I know, but we're like just trying to – fun fact: Asteris lives in Athens, not to expose him, but you know, if I could be stuck with him right now – big life goals. Nick: Also I think he's still in quarantine though. Malena: Soon, soon they'll be out though. Europe's on its way as Hannah mentioned. You know if I could go out on a limb here, I’d probably say Timothee Chalamet. I've been having a major– Hannah: Okay here's another thing, I feel like Timothee Chalamet became so much more famous over quarantine. Malena: Yeah, it’s because everybody’s stuck inside and they have nothing to do but stare at celebrities. So yeah. Well, alright guys, thank you so much. Actually, that's perfect. We've just hit 13 minutes. And so we're going to end our podcast here. Thank you so much, Nick for being our guest, keeping us entertained during quarantine. Nick: Yeah, of course. Malena: Giving your opinions on things. It was so nice to get to know you. And this has been another successful podcast from NBN audio. Hannah say bye! Hannah: Bye-bye! Malena: Bye, gang. Nick: Peace. Malena: See you later, on our next podcast, which will hopefully be out soon. Bye! [“Don’t Tell Me Your Major Theme” By Malena Ramnath]

In this episode, I talked with two women, Hannah and Andrea, about their pregnancies and their relationships- finding a balance, letting go of control, and everything else they’re learning along the way.   What was it like for you and your relationship when you began to discuss trying to get pregnant? Hannah discusses the challenge of balancing the head and heart. Lining up when it felt right to start trying to conceive, along with when it made sense. Andrea discusses her plan and how she had a timeline in mind, which helped them decide when they were ready. No matter what, you’ll have the “Oh crap, we’re pregnant” moment. Accept that there are things you can’t control.   What is pregnancy like? How does it affect your relationship with your partner? It can bring you and your partner closer together. You can bond in a special way when you’re going through this together. It can also be isolating. The partner who is not carrying may not know what you’re going through. And if your friends haven’t experienced it, it can be hard for them to be understanding. You have to put a lot of effort into staying connected and communicating. Your partner isn’t a mind-reader. Express your needs, thoughts, and feelings. Being constantly anxious and stressed isn’t good for you or your child. If you’re experiencing this, seek help. Talk with your doctor. You can learn to be open and talk about how you really feel, to talk with friends and get support and advice. “Talk to your partner. Talk to other mothers. But make sure you’re talking to your partner.”   How do you find a balance between work and life and your relationship while experiencing the symptoms of pregnancy? The romantic relationship might take a backseat in some ways, and the physical changes can be challenging. You lose control in a lot of aspects of your life. We’re often conditioned to make responsible decisions and make sure you think things through before you do them. But in deciding when to have a baby, if you’re able to have a baby, and everything else in the process, comes with so much that you can’t plan and can’t control. You may need more time off from work than you expected. You may have to give up some other activities. You need to rest and slow down. If you have the ability to take more time off, allow yourself more time to rest and relax. Say no when you can. Ask for what you need. If you can’t do something, say no and prioritize your health. The physical part of your relationship may change. Your libido may change, and you may feel bad about yourself. Give yourself grace and find other ways to connect. You have the opportunity to let your relationship grow and mature in a different way.   How have things changed more as you get later into your pregnancy? Your emotions change over time. Sometimes you feel even-keeled and sometimes your emotions feel out of control. You may be challenged to talk with your partner more and be honest about feelings. Be honest now to make the transition to parenthood easier. You get to share a special experience with your partner by having a child together. Remember how important this connection is. More resources are needed for fathers and partners who aren’t carrying. It may not feel as real to your partner until you give birth. So as the pregnancy goes on, encourage your partner to also have support. Be willing to hear their experience, even if it’s different because they aren’t carrying the child.   What advice and action steps would you give to couples who are getting ready to give birth? You can’t control how you feel, but you control what you do about it. Be vulnerable and authentic in communicating what is really going on for you. Be aware of your own needs. Are you following what you think you should do or what is authentic for yourself and your relationship? Be true to yourself. It’s not about what others think you should do. With every decision, think about what really matters to you. Seek out counseling, individual and/or couples. Put your ego aside and be vulnerable with each other. Give yourself grace. Love yourself and be accepting of changes. Date nights. It’s easy to focus on yourself and the baby. Don’t forget about your partner and your relationship.   Connect with Andrea and Hannah: You can find Andrea on LinkedIn as Andrea Atkinson Cotter https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaatkinson2/ You can find Hannah on Psychology Today at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/hannah-tate-smith-greenville-sc/450679   Special thanks to: Will Gladden of LEVEL Digital Music Entertainment for making the music for the podcast. http://www.leveldme.com/   Connect:  My mission with the Marriaging podcast is to help you create a more authentic and connected relationship. I’m always working to provide you with the best help for improving communication and intimacy in your marriage. Please subscribe and leave a rating and a review to support the podcast. Connect with me at marriagingpodcast.com Facebook: @marriagingpodcast Instagram: @marriagingpodcast Twitter: @marriagingpod

Summary: There are only 2 ways to gain wisdom: 1) learn from your own experiences and failures or 2) learn from the experiences of others. In this episode we discuss the reality of building and selling an agency with Hannah Paramore Breen, founder of Paramore Digital and author of Business Ownership- The Joy, The Pain, The Truth: A Survival Guide. This is a topic on the mind of any business leader. It’s something that’s often idealized, but rarely understood.    Resources Mentioned:    Business Ownership- The Joy, The Pain, The Truth: A Survival Guide by Hannah Paramore Breen     Top 3 Curtain Pulls in this episode: Understand from the beginning that you’re building an asset that will help create a life that you want to live in the future. Run your business with the intention of building a healthy business that will provide the life you want! As a business owner, the process of selling can be exhausting and emotional. The importance of relationships and mentors is more important in this season than ever. If you’re a business owner, get a hobby! Something that will take up brain space and ensure that you have a life outside of the office- this work-life balance is absolutely necessary to mental health.   About Our Guest: Hannah Paramore Breen: Former CEO of Paramore Digital, a digital agency she ran from 2002- 2016. Through the years she navigated the world of business ownership- including the highs and lows that inspire you to achieve and make you want to quit. Fast Company, Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg business week, and the New York Times have all profiled Hannah’s candid, no-nonsense style and approach to leadership and the daily struggles that come with owning a high growth digital agency. She also has a 12.3 handicap on the golf course!   About The Guys:  Bob Hutchins: Founder of BuzzPlant, a digital agency that he ran from from 2000 -2017. He is also the author of 3 books. More on Bob:  Bob on LinkedIn twitter.com/BobHutchins instagram.com/bwhutchins Bob on Facebook Brad Ayres: Founder of Anthem Republic, an award-winning ad agency. Brad’s knowledge has led some of the biggest brands in the world. Originally from Detroit, Brad is an OG in the ad agency world and has the wisdom and scars to prove it. Currently that knowledge is being applied to his boutique agency. More on Brad: Brad on LinkedIn Anthem Republic twitter.com/bradayres instagram.com/therealbradayres facebook.com/Bradayres Ken Ott: Co-Founder and Chief Growth Rebel of Metacake, an Ecommerce Growth Team for some of the world’s most influential brands with a mission to Grow Brands That Matter. Ken is also an author, speaker, and was nominated for an Emmy for his acting on the Metacake Youtube Channel (not really). More on Ken:  Ken on LinkedIn Metacake - An Ecommerce Growth Team Growth Rebel TV twitter.com/iamKenOtt instagram.com/iamKenOtt facebook.com/iamKenOtt   Show Notes: [3:38] Bob asks Hannah: What was the motivation behind writing your new book? “Adam Bryant wrote the foreword of the book, his first line… says there’s too much happy in business. And I agree with that…. It’s hard to get your peers to tell you the truth.” [5:00] Hannah: “I feel like I have something to say, particularly to business owners who want to know what to do with what they’ve built, because that was my big question the last three years or so… have I become the limiting factor to the company?” [7:33] Bob asks Hannah to speak on business being “a process of continual shedding” The positive side of this shedding process is that eventually all owners begin to shed their responsibility and delegate to others, allowing growth to be broad instead of deep. This allows the company to be structured The negative side of this shedding is that eventually you do transition away from direct 1-on-1 relationships with the staff and instead hand those roles over to managers and directors, etc.  “It took me a long time to learn the difference between a CEO and a President of the company… If I had found that President for my company in time, maybe I would have had an additional choice.” [10:05] Bob asks: “In your book you discuss trying to find your #2 within the first 5 years- is that what you’re talking about here?” Hannah: When you’re a business owner in any type of business round table, they always want to know what your exit plan is and who your number two is.  “When I got to the point that I knew I needed it (a President), it was hard to hire it because we had a legacy of promoting from within… to hire outside felt like that would be really disruptive to the culture of the company.” Had she had a partner in this, the process would have been a lot less lonely.  [13:00] Ken asks: “Where did you go outside of your company, or could you go anywhere to find those peers?” Hannah: “I had been in business for four years or so by the time I got an EO… that was good for me in a lot of ways.The good thing about EO is that it’s non competitive… the bad thing is that it’s non competitive,” meaning that while you can learn from people there, the lack of competition means learning is slower paced and not exact. [14:35] Bob asks: “Being early in the digital agency space and seeing this whole world transform and being a part of it- What was it like engaging and interacting with generational differences?” As the age gap between herself and the people she was hiring got wider and wider, “...there was just a huge disconnect… I cared about them as people, but I couldn’t take the time to get to know them at that many years in business… it’s hard on relationships and especially on the owner when you feel alone… you begin not to trust.” [15:42] Hannah: “You begin to not trust your staff because you know that at that age, you’re a pit stop on their way to somewhere else and turnover is very hard on project work.” [15:50] Ken asks: “It seems more often than not in the agency world or even maybe other service businesses as well… you might end up in business without wanting to be in business, is that right? And so you don’t have that ‘thing’ that pulls you through.” [16:41] Hannah: “Exactly… people get into marketing or creative jobs because it seems like fun… a good place to start… and I do think in the agency world you have a lot more turnover. And the thing is… clients expect it.” “I think that there’s also a lot of misconceptions on their side or just… wrong expectations on the employee’s sides that it will always be fun...they expect to continue their college years inside the business...there will come a point where it’s just work, man, it’s time to run a business.” [18:35] Ken asks Hannah why she chose to start an agency [18:52] Hannah: “I was a classical piano major in college. My dad was a preacher, and my mother was a housewife… I didn’t have any kind of career aspirations… I was just on the borderline when women took off in the 70’s… some things happened that sent me off on a different path. I worked a lot of soul-sucking jobs in my career… so I’ve never had a business class or a marketing course in my life.” Eventually she was laid off in a large corporate restructuring and a headhunter offered her a job at Citysearch, an online city guide. She understood the company’s mission quickly and flourished there.  [20:36] “I loved that job and that job changed my life. And it was so early in the industry that you were just learning on warp speed every single day.” She was with Citysearch for 3 years, and because her role there was high profile she had no problem getting other jobs- the difficulty was keeping them through the recession of the late 2000’s.  [22:35] Ken: “So would you say, the reason you got into your agency was because of the excitement and the freedom?” The industry was inherently exciting because it was so new.  The process of finding a job that was sustainable that also offered her the freedom she wanted and allowed her to truly trust the people running the agencies- this lasted through 4 jobs. Meanwhile, she built contacts and knowledge in a niche market and was acutely aware of the holes in the market. [23:30] “The core values of my company that I eventually wrote like three years in, they reflected so much of frustration from the industry.” One of those things was 100% delivery on the promises made to clients. At the time, it was hard to get that result because “Traditional agencies had the clients, but they did not have the digital talent and they didn’t understand it… they couldn’t get good digital people to work for them because even if they grew digital to be 20% of their revenue, it was only 20% of their revenue. So it was always disrespected. It was given the short sheet… and you can’t get good talent to work for you like that… So that was the hole in the market that I saw. And so I really thought that I would consult for a while… but that frustrated me because I want to see the ideas finished.” [25:00] “So I hired a project manager, and then I hired a developer, and I needed two, and then it’s over. Then you have a company.” [28:30] Bob asks: “What was it like being a woman-owned digital agency starting back then?” Hannah speaks on how natural it was. In the beginning she won “woman in the industry” awards but eventually stopped applying for them because “I don’t want anything in front of business owner… it offends me to be called a woman business owner. Anything else just lowers the bar… I wanted to just compete.”  She speaks on understanding the reality of being a “woman in the industry” but just never paid attention to it.  [31:00] Ken asks about the process of actually selling her business. “So from the outside, you start a business, you grow it to $5, $6 million, which is awesome. And you sell it. That looks awesome and exciting- and I guess a lot of people would idealize that. But talk about some of the ups and down in that?” “In our industry that is so project-focused, it can be hard to find a place to celebrate… it felt the same selling the business. I sold it fast, I was not marketing it out. But in the back of my mind...I’d love to sell but I didn’t think it was possible.” [32:30] Ken and Bob ask where that lack of belief came from. “... because of the fact that it’s a project oriented industry and there aren’t any longterm contracts… so what’s the value? I couldn’t understand how to quantify that value… but there are strategic buyers out there.” “I had a strategic buyer who… saw the value that I couldn’t see in the business… they wanted to be in Nashville, and wanted the diversity in their client base, and they needed digital talent.” “Most of these deals fall apart… like in the last few weeks. It is extremely scary.” [34:15] Bob: “Was that something that kept you up at night? Like… this is either a home run or it’s going to fall flat.” Hannah: “Yes. Because you cannot do it in secret.” Hannah speaks on the risks of letting other in on the process of selling. Bringing VP’s into the discussion leaves room for them to doubt your commitment to the business if the deal doesn’t go through.  [36:00] “You spend months going down that road to sell, which means that you are choosing to not engage in business development like you normally would… so your business development pipeline starts to dry up… everything makes you angry, you’re emotionally wrung out… it’s not fun anymore… If you have a vision for something else, if you have the opportunity to sell your business and make good money and good multiple on your business… it takes serious consideration at least.... Because there are very few times in your life that you have the opportunity to do a deal of that size… and in the kind of industry which changes so rapidly, your skillset can be antiquated.” She met her buyer in December and the papers were signed the following November 31st. She had a 2-year workout process. Tip: Negotiate a shorter workout! [38:14] Brad asks about the relationship with her staff and what their response was to her.  The process of deciding to sell, telling her staff, and then working out her tenure with the company was a challenging process. It took her 6 months to truly accept that the business was no longer hers after the papers were signed.  “Whether someone wants to work for new owners is the question.” [43:00] Ken asks Hannah: “Are there any things you would do differently? What are the top 3?” #1: “I would work longer on understanding that I was building an asset that was supposed to enable my life… I didn’t have high enough expectations for that, so I gave everything to the business… If you are 35 years old and own business, when you are 45 years old, you’re going to feel differently about that business than you do now.” You are GOING to want to spend your days differently, so make sure you’re building a business with that reality in mind and enable that life rather than keeping you sucked in. [45:51] Ken reiterates 2 awesome points: “Number one, make sure you’re enjoying what you’re doing… we spend more than half our lives in business, so it has to be something you enjoy… And number two… you’ve got to build it so that it’s a smart business. It creates a profit. It’s built assets… so that ultimately, like you said, it can not only fulfill your destiny where you need to be but also everyone who works for you… this business has to be on the rails.” [46:41] Hannah: “A lot of time the right reason for making decisions is a financial reason. The company needs to make profit.”  The most fun part of owning a business is watching people grow, along with watching your bank account grow. It’s necessary! [48:00] Bob asks: What one thing could 60 year old Hannah tell 42 year old Hannah?  Hannah: “I was told that every agency owner should have a hobby that takes a lot of time, that’s expensive, and that’s preferably dangerous…. The danger meaning that it needs to be something that if you don’t concentrate on it absolutely to the exclusion of everything else, you can’t do it well.” “I got a passion that made me impatient with overwork. You need to love this hobby so much that it makes you impatient to get out of the office because that creates the balance in your life because your business is going to take from you anyway. You’re going to spend a lot of time there, it’s going to get the best of your thought process. It’s going to get the best part of your time, and you have to have something that competes against that.” [51:23] Bob asks: “What are the things you see… starting new digital agencies these days. What are some things that you’re seeing and want to advise them about?” [52:02] Hannah: “The lack of business acumen… there’s no way in life that a 20 something year old is right around a business… young owners are too altruistic by nature and aren’t ready to navigate the waters you get into when you start doing real business… Lean into humility.” [54:00] Ken mentions mentoring as a way to open yourself up to be the shortcut for new people in the industry. “There’s two ways to gain wisdom, by other experiences or your own experiences. The normal way is to make your own mistakes, which is great… but the smarter way is to find other people who have done it and learn from them.” [55:43] Hannah: “I’d love for my legacy to be to change the relationships between business owners so that we have a much more collaborative culture.” [56:07] Bob adds: “That’s our dream. And I think… you’ve got to get beyond the business principles and you’ve got to be willing to and be vulnerable into the personal, the psychological, the emotional, because that is the emotional intelligence around business ownership.” [1:06:55] Hannah: “... a strong spiritual foundation for me is a reason outside of what we see every day… we’re supposed to leave the world a better place. Accepting that you’re not going to have perfect balance in your life every day is a process… so you have to let go of your own expectations of what your life is supposed to be like and reframe that for yourself.” It can be sad and even scary to think that your company will run just fine and even expand without you, but it’s also a really great thing. Because if you sell your company and it immediately fails, you haven’t built a very stable company.

On today's episode, Erin and Rachel chat with special guest, Hannah Rosenfelder. She is a six-figure earner, 2 time liver transplant recipient and momma to her miracle baby! Hannah kicks off the episode by sharing that she was born with Biliary Atresia, which affects the liver. It typically requires a transplant at some point and can be fatal. She talks about being in and out of the hospital growing up, but not allowing that to hold her back from what she wanted to do in life. She wanted to be as normal as possible and so she pushed to play sports, go to events and live a typical kid life. Hannah learned to be resilient at a young age. Even when sick, she would still attend sports competitions or games. She also got really into personal development, as she realized it was crucial in deciding what she wanted in life. The girls discuss with Hannah how her situation has tested her faith. Her struggle with being envious of her brother and his seemingly perfect life growing up. But she has come to realize that her life has been filled with blessings beyond compare. Erin and Rachel agree with her that hardships are typically blessings in disguise. They are what make us who we are. This is all just a little of what Hannah shares on this episode. Here are some more highlights! How her health problem was figured out as a baby The victim mentality and changing her perspective Using skills to build the life you want The story of her two transplants and how they affected her life afterwards Her relationship with her husband and her miracle baby! Why she created her podcast Let's take a listen! Hannah's Resources: Instagram: @Hannah_Rosenfelder Podcast: Creating Her Best Life Resources: Erin's Instagram: @erin_travelsforlife Rachel's Instagram: @iamrachelbrooks The Confident Woman Podcast Instagram: @theconfidentwomanpodcast Quotes: “So I learned young how to just make it through.” -Hannah “There's no point in being angry.” -Hannah “You just become that victim of that story, and that's the story and crutch for the rest of your life.” -Rachel “No matter what you fail at or what you suck at or lose a lot of money, you're alive. ” -Erin “If you don't change your perspective, the victim mentality will eat you.” -Hannah --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/theconfidentwoman/message

Hannah Place is a speaker, podcaster and Founder of Graceful Gladiator, a movement to empower women to embrace the feminine and warrior natures we all inside so we can make our highest contribution to ourselves, our families and the world.   Testimony (2:24)  Hannah is a pastor's kid and talks about how she had an incredible childhood with parents who created a safe home. Her testimony begins during high school when she wanted to be a wife and a mom. Hannah talks about although she saw red flags in a relationship, she entered into that marriage with her eyes half open. Everything that she prayed for and hoped for came to a screeching halt. After two years into it she ended up divorced and went through a season of thinking she let the Lord down but realized that the Lord allowed her to go through that season so that she could be yielded to him.  Gladiator Friendships (8:15)  Hannah talks about how good friendships are similar to how Gladiator's train. They train with other gladiators who are willing to hurt them but not kill them. She feels friendship is the same thing. That women should be surrounded by other women who are willing to hurt  them so that when they're up against the real enemy they're trained and ready.   A Heart For Battle (14:00)  Every woman has a battle to fight and often we pray for him to keep us safe. Hannah feels that we have territory to claim just like the Israelites but we were made to step up to the plate and fight it with the Lord.  Warrior Spirit (17:30) Hannah's heart is for women to claim their warrior spirit. That God calls us to fierce warriors but we also have a feminine, soft side that is a picture of his grace.   Beauty In Submission (19:32) Hannah and I chat about Biblical submission and marriage.  Working With Your Spouse In Marriage (27:00) Hannah and her husband work together and they absolutely love it. She shares tips on how to make it work when a husband and wife work in business together. The biggest thing is looking as your spouse as an ally and more!  Get In Touch  Want to get in touch with Hannah? You can listen to her podcast Graceful Gladiator here. She can also be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mrshannahplace, on IG @HannahPlace and at www.hannahplace.com.     

For someone in their late 20’s to feel lucky that they were diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, they would have to be a very special individual.  Hannah Smith is just that: very special, indeed.  Her story isn’t just one of survival; it’s an inspirational journey of using what many of us might consider a nightmarish situation to then fully live life and recognize the beauty and wonder that exists all around us. In this episode, Hannah shares her incredible journey and outlook with us.  From her life before her diagnosis, through the treatment and recovery, having to adjust to a new ‘normal’, and ultimately achieving goal after goal, not just in regards to competing in races and triathlons, but in all areas of her life. Her experience, attitude and advice are not helpful only to those with significant health challenges, but also to any of us who may get so caught up in our busy lives that we lose sight of what is truly important.  She shows us all that living isn’t just about surviving, but it is really about Sur-Thriving. Here are some of the topics we’ll discuss today: What is it like to not know when you’re hungry so that you remember to eat? How absolutely important attitude is in order to live a full life. Who was Hannah’s inspiration? How she managed the emotional cycles of difficult chemo rounds. Her experience with managing self-expectations. How she fends off external negativity. Questions Hannah is asked: 4:52 How did fitness initially fit into your life? 6:57 What happened?  10:36 How did that make you feel to be diagnosed at such a young age? 14:15 At what point after the diagnosis did you refocus on health and fitness? 15:23 What are some examples of cancer fighting foods you now focus on eating? 16:07 How and when did you approach building fitness back into your life? 19:07 Post-surgery, what are some of the funny things that happened and what do you miss? 24:20 How has your sense of humor helped your state of mind? 27:20 Did people try to coddle you as you worked towards your fitness goals, and if so, how did you handle that? 30:17 How would you advise families of patients regarding getting medical clearance to train? 34:35 To what do you credit your improved running times when you started competing again? 39:53 Have you embraced challenges your whole life or only since your diagnosis? 43:05 Do you live a more fulfilling life because you focus more on things you want to do vs. things you feel purely obligated to do? 46:00 Is there a reason for you that running and triathlons mean so much to you? 49:02 What would you like to say to someone who may be going through a similar situation? 54:01 The Final Kick Round Quotes by Hannah: “You can either be bitter and twisted and angry at the situation or you can make the best of whatever time you’ve got left, because at the end of the day, you’re gonna die anyway.” “I did come, eventually, to the understanding with my family that (my training) wasn’t anything that I wasn’t allowed to do and that my surgeon (had cleared it).” “I carry a donor card, but I do feel like when I am gone and they cut me open, there’s just going to be an IOU.” “Ultimately the biggest goal for me is to be as fit and healthy and the best person I can be.” “Dream big. And if you hit somewhere in the middle, that’ll be alright.” “Strangely enough, my experience with cancer was probably one of the best experiences of my life. My life is infinitely better after my diagnosis than before, simply because I now look at things and think, ‘Do I really want to do this?’ ” “Your brain is the only intelligent part of your body. If you give up mentally, what chance does any other part of your body have?” “You’re stronger than you know.” “Find what you LOVE to do and build your life around that.” Mentioned in this podcast:  Do Today Well - Blog Chrissie Wellington: A Life Without Limits The Brownlee Brothers - Swim, Bike, Run: Our Triathlon Story 80/20 Running by Matt Fitzgerald 3 Simple Ways to Determine if You are Running Easy Enough: Matt Fitzgerald Garmin Fenix STOP Looking at Your GPS Watch to Run Faster (& enjoy it more too!) Follow Hannah: Follow Hannah on Instagram GutlessIrongirl Website We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Run to the Top. The best way you can show your support of the show is to share this podcast with your family and friends and share it on your Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media channel you use. If more people who know about the podcast and download the episodes, it means I can reach out to and get through to the top running influencers, to bring them on and share their advice, which hopefully makes the show even more enjoyable for you!  

  Hannah Dixon - Digital Nomad (Links coming soon!)  She's currently in Hanoi, although based out of Bangkok. Sardinia, Sicily, Budapest... I want to live your life" - Lisa I think the pros outweigh the cons for sure." - Hannah The digital nomad community is incredible everywhere. They do meet ups for dinner and drinks and such. Hannah is a virtual assistant but is now training other virtual assistants. She's been a VA for three years, and on the road for the last 8 years. She worked at a husky dog center, a farm in Italy, mostly bars and farms. "I think we forget how privileged we are when we just want to "get out of here""- Hannah Why are you moving again? "I don't have a home"- Hannah Do you get sick? Yes I'm a bit more sensitive to that. What's the first thing you tell people who want to transition to this lifestyle? Take your laptop and work on the other side of town all day. If you can do that, then you kind of have an indication already if you can do this thing. Take smaller trips. Go to a different city in your country for a month. You have a lot of things you have to change all the time. You can't be sentimental about stuff anymore. Hannah is from London, UK, and she'll stop home about once a year in October for her parents and her birthday. What made you decide to do this? I guess I was travelling already, I knew this nomadic lifestyle was for me. I never even considered working online, I was a farm girl. Past partner taught her how. "I know it doesn't just happen-but it does!" - Lisa Working online, it's so important to have these communities online. (insert communities) "It's like another family, and I'm not even on the road" - Lisa What's the best place you've been to? Budapest! (she confirms the food is great!) Low cost of living, and being an introvert, the people aren't going to chat you up a lot. Outdoor baths and autonomy. Who do you follow? Who do you think is really cool that's doing what you're doing? Natty and Jodie - the house sitting academy The had a business in Dubai that went really wrong but they're kind of house sitting extraordinaire so they decided to teach people how! They teach you how to make sure that you're selected for sought after sits. An online community with referrals. They don't pay you and you don't pay them. "I usually save a bunch of money and plan a two week trip, but I think I want something else now" - Lisa It's actually very much up to you "You just need your first months rent and a plane ticket" - Hannah Flight stein - a subscription that finds you the best price flights Nomad Fly - flight hacking course saving $100s and $100s Having a boyfriend / dating. What if you have a partner that's in a stable job? Should you just date nomads? No real solution, but this lifestyle is becoming more normal, so we're still looking for solutions. Did it get more addicting as you did it? Yes, after becoming a digital nomad. You meet people who tell you about amazing places and you "Get a bit of jealousy, I want to go there!" - Hannah "There's a whole different life out there" - Lisa You're really chasing WiFi, right?" - Lisa Nomad list - a resource for checking places out, i.e. is it safe/female friendly/wifi/cost of living Are there people in their 40's and 50's? Oh yeah! Way older than that too! What if I'm seasick the whole time?" Lisa on sailing around the world on a boat. Co-boat - co working co living sailboat that goes around the world for digital nomads! One of the big issues with traveling a lot is Visas. Always having to do visa runs. Counting down the days having to rush places. "I have a year lease on my apartment but I can't be in the country for more than two months at a time. Have to get on a plane and leave." - Hannah I could have just flown out for a day and back, but it's cheap so I figured I'd visit. Worst place? I've been to many places where the other people haven't liked it, but i'm very easy going and I realize " that's the way they do that here" Sicily- More run down than anywhere and very corrupt system. Getting ripped off all the time. Little Mafia towns. Alcomo? "Really run down with dead cats on the street, okay I'm good" - Lisa "I walked up to my hostel, and there's a man shaving a cat on the doorstep. Luckily I gave it a chance" - Hannah Everything in Vietnam is a mild inconvenience, things just don't work the same. Airbnb gives refunds if it isn't at all what you expected! BTBY event in New York, not LA. "It's the new year, I wanted to put out into the world...this is my plan!" - Lisa If you're thinking that you can't do it, here's a little sheet that helps pinpoint how you can do this digitally. This is from my course. "Identify what you're doing in your traditional job and how you can take that online" - Hannah "There's nothing wrong with keeping a home base." - Hannah You can rent it out with airbnb while you're not there, and make money, you can also plan around when you need to be home. How cheap is it? How much are you paying to sleep? Air bnb is expensive because it's not long term. $180 for the week, which is pricey for the area. $70 is local style, "I opt for the western style toilets and showers"- Hannah Long term, $350/month in Bangkok, water bill is .40/month. Share it with someone, it has a gym and a pool - and this is the more expensive side. Airbnb is great because it helps you test it out. Facebook group where people talk about all this stuff. VA-a personal assistant online, and the scope is even more. (website, answering emails...) "I don't call anywhere home, which people find really strange." - Hannah "I don't need a place to call home when I know that the world is mine" - Hannah What about medical insurance? "The only issue is in the US. Medical care is cheap or free anywhere else" - Hannah The only time when she buys insurance is coming to the US. As a dual UK-US citizen she travels with her UK passport and buys travel insurance. "You're renting a nice place for what I pay in insurance monthly" - Lisa "Bali is a little bit less gritty, feels more comfortable, and it's still cheap" - Hannah "I kind of gave you a bad question" - Lisa   Verbal Rorschach rug: chamber tacos: food painting: gallery love: heart dogs: thailand (lot's of wild dogs) mascara: beautiful iphone: technology (she's an android lover!) earring: jewelry comfortable: bed Last question! What is your favorite bush? Rose bush?   How to leave a love note on iTunes for my Podcast. From your computer: 1. Open the iTunes software on your desktop. (Not the web version.) 2. In the search bar (upper right-hand corner), type in “Honestly Lisa”. 3. Click on our album cover that pops up towards the bottom of the screen. 4. This will take you to the homepage for our show, but make sure you don’t accidentally select one of our individual episodes instead. 5. Right under the show description, you’ll see three tabs. “Ratings & Reviews” is the second one listed, and this is the one you want to click on. 6. On that page, there should be a button called “Write A Review” and if you click there, it will hopefully let you create a post with your thoughts! From your iPhone: 1. Open the “podcast” app that comes pre-installed on all current apple smartphone devices. 2. In the lower right-hand corner, you’ll click on the magnifying glass “search” button and type in “marriage is funny”. 3. Click on our album cover that pops up towards the bottom of the screen. This will take you to the homepage for our show, but make sure you don’t accidentally select one of our individual episodes instead. 4. Select the “reviews” tab toward the top of the screen, and you’ll see a purple “Write a Review” button on the next page. 5. It might ask you to log in to your iTunes account, but otherwise, this will open a form where you can enter your thoughts!

Hannah has been affectionately dubbed the “Kombucha Mama” and since 2004 she has been brewing Kombucha and educating others about how easy it is to make this delicious and healthy “longevity elixir”. Hannah has taught workshops all over the US for over a decade spreading the message of Kombucha and the bacterial benefits, and her how-to videos have pilled up hundreds of thousands of views! Also Hannah’s new book: The Big Book of Kombucha has just come out on March 8th where she shares hundreds of recipes and flavoring ideas. In today’s show, Hannah and I talk all about Kombucha! The health benefits of this amazing fermented, probiotic beverage, and the different ways it can be beneficial for women after coming off of hormonal birth control, trying to get pregnant, or during pregnancy! Topics discussed in today's episode What is Kombucha? What role can Kombucha play in improving fertility? The role that Kombucha can play in the detoxification process Why is Kombucha such a powerful natural probiotic? What the heck is a SCOBY? Where did modern soda pop actually come from? How naturally fermented sodas like Kombucha can help you kick your soda pop addiction! How do you make Kombucha? And how can you flavor it? Is Kombucha safe during pregnancy? When might Kombucha not be right for someone? The importance of following your gut and listening to your body The role Kombucha can play in improving skin health and reducing acne Why fermenting your own foods can transform the way you think about food The importance of gut health during pregnancy Connect with Hannah You can connect with Hannah on her website, on Facebook, Twitter, and on her YouTube channel. Resources mentioned Kombucha Kamp | Hannah Crum The Big Book of Kombucha |Hannah Crum Kombucha Kamp on YouTube | Hannah Crum FFP 066 | Gut Health and Fertility | Preconception Nutrition | GAPS Diet | Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride Join the community! Find us on the Fertility Friday Facebook Fan Page Subscribe to the Fertility Friday Podcast on iTunes! Music Credit: Intro/Outro music Produced by Sirc of (The Nock)

It's Episode 22, ya'll! Listen to Hannah and Anne discuss some "gap" movies--movies that have caused them to say to each other on more than one occasion, "how have you never seen that??" And as always, they start with a movie currently in theaters. IN THEATERS Elysium - Tired concept, tired Matt Damon. THEME MOVIES Some Like it Hot - Lookin' good, boys. (Anne's pick for Hannah) This is Spinal Tap - "It's one louder, innit?" (Hannah's pick for Anne) A League of Their Own - "Did you promise the cows you'd write?" (Hannah's pick for Anne) Braveheart - "That's not entirely accurate." (Anne's pick for Hannah) You know where to find us! flickyeah.libsyn.com, @flickyeahcast, flickyeadpodcast@gmail.com, subscribe/write a review on iTunes! Peace, love, and movies.