Podcasts about jessica yeah

“In that moment, I knew that was the last time I would see her. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I could not go back to her.”How do you feel when you meet with your provider? Are you excited for your appointments? How does your body react? Are you tense or calm and relaxed? Jessica's first birth began with an induction that she consented to but didn't really want. Her waters were artificially broken, and her baby just was not in a great position. After over 4 hours of pushing and multiple vacuum attempts, Jessica consented to a Cesarean. Listen to Jessica's VBAC story to find out what she did when she realized at 37 weeks that her provider was NOT actually VBAC-supportive.Sometimes difficult situations actually work out even better than we hoped!How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Welcome, Jessica, to the show. I am so excited that you are here and excited to hear your stories and actually talk a little bit more about what you do. Do you do it for a living, or is this just your passion project or whatever they call it? Is it your side job?Jessica: It's on the side. It's volunteer. My main job is a stay-at-home mom right now. Meagan: Yes. You're homeschooling, right? Jessica: I am. Meagan: Oh my gosh. One of my best friends homeschools. I just praise you guys. Homeschooling is legit. It is very hard. That seems so hard. Jessica: It's definitely a lifestyle. It's different. It's not for everybody, but it's definitely for us. My daughter is only 5 so we are just getting used to it. Meagan: So Kindergarten?Jessica: She just turned 5 a couple of weeks ago, so we are technically doing 4-K right now. We are just getting into it. I'm still wondering every day, “Am I doing everything I should be?” I know as it goes on, I will get more comfortable and confident with it. Meagan: Yes, you will. That's what I've seen with my friend. She was like, “This is what feels right. This is what we are going to do.” It took a little bit of a learning curve, then each kid added in, but she kills it. Yes, you are just a stay-at-home mom, but a full-time teacher. Holy cow. That's amazing. Then yeah, you are doing La Leche League. Jessica: Yes. I have been a leader now for 2.5 years, just over that. I became certified. I think it was on my due date. I was trying to get everything done before my toddler was born. It's been going really great. I really like it. Meagan: Yes. Tell us more about it because when I was– this was in 2014– pregnant with my second daughter. That's when I heard about La Leche League. Tell us more about it and why someone would want to find their local leader, and then what all the benefits are and how to find them. Jessica: Sure. I first heard about La Leche League when my oldest was maybe about 9 months, so right away in my breastfeeding journey, I had no idea about it. I wish I had because it would have been great to have a community of support. I started feeling really passionate about breastfeeding and knew I wanted to help other moms with it because it can feel really isolating, especially because it was in the middle of the pandemic. I started researching ways that moms can help other moms with breastfeeding because I had no other background in it. I'm not a nurse. I didn't work in the labor world. I just stumbled upon it, and I lived in Madison at the time. I saw that Madison had a chapter. They weren't doing meetings at the time because everything was virtual. But I just reached out, and I said, “I want to be a leader. Tell me what I need to do.” They emailed me back, and I got in touch with another local leader there who had been there for a while. She was surprised. She was like, “You want to be a leader, but you don't even know what we do. You've never been to a meeting.” I just said, “Yes. That is what I want to do.” It was kind of a long process to become a leader because everything was virtual. They didn't know how to go about that. Meagan: Yeah. Jessica: So it took a little bit of a long time to become accredited as a leader. Meagan: Does it now or is it in person? Did it stay virtual? For someone who may want to?Jessica: I think everything is back to in-person. At least where I live now, Madison I know is back to in-person now too. Everything is probably running a little bit more smoothly now in terms of if you are interested in becoming a leader. Basically what leaders do is that we get some training within La Leche League, but we are your cheerleaders. We are here to support you. We are the middle ground between if we need to refer you somewhere for some additional help if it's beyond our scope of practice of basic breastfeeding positioning, latching, or if you have questions of, “My baby is doing this. Is it normal?” That's what we do. We have support groups every month for anybody to really join. Meagan: Awesome. Jessica: It's fun. Meagan: Where can someone find it if they're wanting to learn more? When it comes to breastfeeding, it sounds weird because you don't have your baby yet, so why are we talking about breastfeeding? Why are we thinking about it? But I really believe that connecting before we have our babies with an IBCLC or a La Leche group is so important before you have your baby. If someone is looking, where can they find information or try to search for a chapter in their area? Jessica: You can just look up your state La Leche League. There should be a website that has all of the local chapters. They are all over the world, so you should be able to find somebody near you. Even if there's not one near you, you can contact anybody. Let's say they are 2 hours away. You can still call or text or email. They'll usually, if you want to do something more in person, you can do some type of Zoom meeting. You can definitely find anybody to talk to. You're right. It's really important to get support before you even start breastfeeding if you know that's something you want to do. I always say that breastfeeding is natural, but it doesn't always come naturally. You don't know what to do in the beginning unless you talk to somebody. Meagan: Yes. We will make sure to have the website linked in the show notes too, so if anyone is wanting to go search, definitely go check it out. Okay, now we are going to give a little teaser of what your episode is going to be about today. So, with your C-section, give us a little teaser of what your C-section was for. Jessica: So, my first birth went really smoothly and my pregnancy. I really liked my doctor. I really liked the hospital. It was a group of OBs of all women. I met with each of them. I really liked all of them, to be honest with you. They were all very supportive of whatever you wanted to do.Meagan: Which is awesome. Jessica: Yes, it is. I knew I wanted to have a vaginal birth. That was all I really knew, but I was also really young, I think. I was 23 for most of my pregnancy. I didn't really educate myself beyond my doctor's appointments. I trusted them to pretty much tell me what I needed to know, and that was it. That was my bad. Meagan: Yeah. Hey, listen. That is something I can relate to so much. I was also in my young 20s and just went in. Whatever they said, or whatever my app said, is what happened. I think that's a little tip right there that says, “Let's not do that.” Let's not do that. Then for your VBAC, you had a bait and switch. I'm really excited, when we get to that point, to talk about bait and switch because it is something that happens. It can feel so good and then feel so wrong within minutes. It's really frustrating, but I want to talk more about that in just a minute. We do have a Review of the Week, so I want to hurry and read that, then get into Jessica's story. This reviewer is by diabeticmamawarrior. It says, “A podcast to educate the mind, heal the heart, and strengthen the soul.” It says, “Hi. I am writing this podcast from Seattle. We are currently pregnant with my second baby due in March of 2022.” This was a little bit ago. It says, “My first son was born at 28 weeks via classical Cesarean due to severe IUGR.” For anyone who doesn't know IUGR, that is intrauterine growth restriction.“--and after hearing I would never be able to VBAC, I decided to do as much educated research as I could and to find my options was truly needed. I am also a Type 1 Diabetic and have successfully found an amazing midwife who not only feels comfortable and confident assisting in care through my pregnancy with my diabetes, but also with my special scar, and we are aiming for a successful VBAC. I am also receiving concurrent care with an OB/GYN as well to make sure appropriate monitoring of baby looks good throughout pregnancy. Listening to this podcast was one of the first resources I found, and it was a total GAME CHANGER.” It says, “Thank you, beautiful women, who bravely and shamelessly share your stories so that other women can also feel confident in making empowered decisions for their baby and their body. I am soon to join the legacy of women who have fearlessly VBAC'd happy and healthy babies. Much love, Ellen”. Meagan: Wow. What a beautiful review. Jessica: That was powerful. Meagan: Yes. What a beautiful review. That was a couple of years ago, so Ellen, if you are still listening, please reach out to us and let us know how things went. Okay, girl. It is your turn. It is your turn to share, just like what Ellen was saying, your beautiful stories, and empower other Women of Strength all over the world. Jessica: That review just reminded me that a long time ago, I reviewed the podcast, and you read it on one of the episodes. Meagan: Did we?Jessica: We did. I remember thinking, “This is so cool. I wonder if I could be on someday.” I'm sure you hear this all the time, but it's very surreal being here knowing I listened to this podcast to help me heal. I'm just super excited to share my story. Meagan: I am so glad that you are here, and I'm so glad that we were able to read your review. We love reading reviews. It is so fun when we can hear the review, hear the journey, and then now here it is hearing the stories. Jessica: Yes. Meagan: Yes. Okay, well I'd love to turn the time over to you. Jessica: Like I said, I was introducing my story with my first. I just clicked through a birth course breastfeeding course that the hospital provided for me. I clicked through it to get it done and to check it off my list. Meagan: Birth education– yes, I did. Jessica: That's exactly what I did. I'm prepared, whatever. I'm just going to go into this, and everything will happen like it's supposed to. Mentally, everything was going well in my pregnancy. I wasn't super eager to give birth. I wanted to wait to go into labor on my own. I think what started to bother me or what made me a little bit more antsy was when I was 37 weeks. I agreed to have my cervix checked for dilation, and I was 3 centimeters already. I was so excited, and the doctor said, “I don't even think you're going to make it to your due date,” which made me think, “Wow. I'm going to have this baby in the next 2 weeks. I'm not even going to make it to my due date. This is so exciting.” If any of your doctors ever tell you that, don't let it get into your head because that doesn't mean anything if you are dilated. I was 3 centimeters continuously. Meagan: Yeah. You can walk around at 6 centimeters, not even kidding you. My sister-in-law was at 6 centimeters for weeks, and nothing was happening. She was just at 6 centimeters. It can happen when you are just walking around. Try not to let them get into your head, or to get nervous when you're like, “I could have a baby at any second.” It gets in our heads, and then when we don't have a baby, it's infuriating and defeating. Jessica: That is pretty much what happened. When I got to my 39-week appointment, I was still 3 centimeters. I just expressed how I was frustrated. I was tired of being pregnant. My doctor said, “Well, let's set up your induction.” I had never even thought of being induced at that point. It was never mentioned. It never crossed my mind. It sounded so intriguing at that moment to just get this over with. I don't want to be pregnant anymore. My sisters had been induced, and they had a good experience. It will go the same for me. Everything in my head was telling me, “Don't do this. You know you don't want this,” but I did it anyway because I had it in my mind that I should have had my baby already anyway based on what they told me a couple of weeks ago, so it would go so smoothly. She said, “You are a great candidate. You are already 3 centimeters.” We scheduled it. I think it was that Friday I went. It was Monday, on Labor Day, that we had my induction scheduled for. I didn't have a lot of time to even process that. Meagan: Yeah. Did they say how they wanted to do it, or did they just say, “Come in. Have a baby”?Jessica: They briefly told me that they would start with Pitocin and see how my body responded to that. They would probably break my water which is exactly how it happened anyway. Meagan: Yeah.Jessica: Yeah.They started me with Pitocin at 3:00 PM. They kept increasing it, then by 6:00 PM, my body was just not responding to it. I didn't feel anything. The doctor who was on call wasn't my normal doctor, but I saw her a couple of times. I was comfortable with her. She came in and said, “Well, we could break your water. Is that what you want to do?” I said, “Sure. If that's what you think we need to do, let's do it.” Meagan: Yeah, I'm here to have a baby. What's going to get me there?Jessica: Yeah. She was head down, so I thought, “What could go wrong? She's already head down.” I didn't know at the time that just because she was head down doesn't mean she's in a great position. She wasn't. She was– what do they call it?Meagan: Posterior? Jessica: ROT. Meagan: Right occiput transverse. Okay, so looking to the side. Sometimes, when we say transverse, a lot of people think the body is transverse which is a transverse lie, but ROT, LOT, left or right occiput transverse, means the baby's head is looking to the side, and sometimes, that can delay labor or cause irregular patterns because our baby is just not quite rotated around or tucked. They are looking to the side. Jessica: Right. That was pretty much what the obstacle was because when they broke my water, she engaged that way, so her head never was able to turn properly which we didn't know yet. I feel like the doctors could have known that because aren't they supposed to be able to feel and know maybe a little bit of where they are? Meagan: Yeah. So providers can. They can internally, and it depends on how far dilated you are. If you were still 3 centimeters, probably not as well, but at 3 centimeters AROM, where we are artificially breaking it, that's not ideal. Usually, the baby is at a higher station at that point too. I call it opening the floodgates. We get what we get however that baby decides to come down, especially if baby is higher up and not well-applied to the cervix.If baby is looking transverse and hasn't been able to rotate right during labor, then they come down like that, and then we have a further obstacle to navigate because we've got to move baby's head. I will say that sometimes a baby might be looking transverse and mainly through pushing, a provider can sometimes rotate a baby's head internally vaginally, but you have to be fully dilated and things like that. Can they feel through the bag of waters? If they can feel a good head, yes. Sometimes they can. Sometimes they can't, but again, there are all of these things that as a doula anyway, I help my clients run through a checklist if they are going to choose to break their water. Sometimes within your situation, I'd be like, “Maybe let's wait.” But their view was, “Let's get labor going. We are starting Pitocin. The body's not responding,” which we know is a number-one sign that the body isn't ready. Sometimes we still can break water with better head application and with the water gone, it can speed labor up. That's where their mind was. Their mind probably wasn't, what position is this baby in? Where is this baby at? What station is this baby at? It's like, let's get this baby's head applied to the cervix. Jessica: Yes. I mean, it did work. As soon as my water broke, I immediately when into active labor. The Pitocin contractions were very awful. I felt them immediately because not only did my body start going into labor, but then the Pitocin also was making it worse. Meagan: Yes. Yes. Jessica: So I begged for an epidural right away even though I knew that's not what I wanted. I didn't do a lot of preparing for labor, but I know I didn't want an epidural right away. I remember the very sweet nurse I had saying, “Do you want me to run the bath for you?” I said, “Are you crazy? That is not what I need right now.” Meagan: She's like, “I'm trying to help you with your birth preferences.” J: I know. She was so nice. I apologized to her after later on when I saw her. That was the head space I was in. I just needed that pain to be gone. They ended up turning the Pitocin off eventually because my body just did what it needed to do on its own. Meagan: Good. Jessica: I didn't get much rest after that. I couldn't really sleep. I was too excited. But it wasn't very long until I was ready to push after that. I think at about 7:00 PM, I got the epidural, and at midnight, I was ready to push. I kept trying and trying. 4.5 hours went by until she was just not coming over. I don't know if it was my pelvic bone or something. That's when we knew she was not going to turn. They suggested that we try the vacuum. I didn't know what that was. That was very traumatic because the lights were bright. Everyone was in there. I remember my doctor saying, “Okay, we have one more attempt with this vacuum, and that's our last attempt.” Of course, it didn't work because in my mind, I knew it was my last chance. It was not going to work, and it didn't. I was really upset after that. I remember crying saying, “I don't want a C-section.” I was really afraid of it. But, that is just what we had to do to get her out at that point after attempting the vacuum. I remember being wheeled down to the OR and just being so tired and not knowing how I was going to take care of a newborn after having surgery and being so tired. I had been up for 24 hours. The C-section went fine. I was out of it though. I was passing out here and there just being so tired. They had to tell me to actually look up. “Your baby's here. Look up.” I remember opening up my eyes going, “What?” I was forgetting what I was doing. Meagan: Out of it. Jessica: Yeah. I was very much out of it. But after that in the hospital, I wasn't too upset about having a C-section. I was just so excited about having my baby. It really didn't hit me until we were on the way home from the hospital. I started crying and was so upset. I felt like my experience was stolen from me because I felt like  I was so mad at my doctor for bringing up an induction at that point knowing if she didn't, I would have never asked for one anyway. I had a lot of regrets about everything. In those couple of weeks after having her, your hormones are very up and down anyway. One moment, I would be fine. One moment, I would be really, really upset crying about it. I wanted to redo her birth so badly that it almost made me want another baby. “If we just have another kid, we can try again,” even though I had this 3-week-old next to me. Meagan: Yeah. Jessica: I was not thinking very clearly. Meagan: You were craving a different experience. That's just part of your processing. Jessica: Yes. And looking back, I wonder if I was struggling with some PTSD because I would lie there at night not being able to sleep, and I would suddenly smell when they were cauterizing the wound. I would suddenly smell that again and think I was back in the OR. It wasn't very fun. Meagan: Yeah. It's weird how sometimes the experience can hit you in all different stages and in different ways, but right after, you're like, “No. No, no, no. I need something different. Let's have another baby right now. Let's do this.” So once you did become ready to have another baby, what did that look like? What did that prep look like? Did you switch doctors? You liked your whole practice. How did that look for you?Jessica: Well, we moved. I knew I had to find another doctor. I would have anyway in Madison. I would have gone with a group of midwives that somebody I knew had a good experience with, and after listening to the podcast, I wanted a midwife. But unfortunately, where we moved, we live in Green Bay now. I was so limited on which provider I could go with. In one hospital, one group, that was all I could do locally. I couldn't go with the hospital that everybody was recommending or the midwives that everybody was recommending for a VBAC. Meagan: Why couldn't you go there?Jessica: My insurance was very limited. It still is. We can only go to this one hospital and one facility for doctors. Meagan: Okay, so it was insurance restrictions. Yeah, not necessarily a lack of support in your area. It just was insurance which is another conversation for a later date. Stop restricting everybody. Jessica: I was very surprised because when we were in Madison, I could go wherever I wanted and see whoever I wanted. I ended up just choosing somebody. I liked her. She was initially very supportive of having a VBAC. I had mentioned it in my very first appointment that this was what I want. She said, “Oh, I'm so excited for you. This is going to be great.” I even mentioned that I was still breastfeeding my daughter when I was pregnant. They just seemed very supportive of all things natural and all things birth. Meagan: Everything. Jessica: Yeah. There were no issues whatsoever. I had already hired my doula when I was 6 weeks pregnant. I had already talked to them before I had even saw my doctor. I told them about how I was really limited and this was where I had to go, but I felt very supported knowing I had a doula and knowing I had somebody on my side It didn't really bother me at the time that I just had to pick whatever doctor I could. This was also a practice where the doctor I had wasn't going to be probably who I would give birth with. That also didn't bother me because I thought, “I have a doula. I have support. I know after listening to this podcast what I need to do to defend myself if that time were to come.” Meagan: Advocate for yourself, yeah. You felt more armed. Jessica: I did. I really did. I ended up seeing a chiropractor as well which was very helpful throughout my pregnancy. I loved going to the chiropractor. Not only did it help get her in a good position, but I also just didn't really feel body aches as much as I did, so there were a couple of benefits to going there. I definitely recommend a chiropractor. Meagan: I agree. I didn't go until my VBAC baby. I started going at 18 weeks, and I'm like, “Why didn't I do this with the other babies?” It was just amazing. Jessica: Yeah. It really is. But my doctor's appointments this time were very different. They were very rushed. They felt robotic. “How are you feeling? Great. Let's get the heartbeat. Any questions? No.” I really kept my questions for my doulas anyway because I really trusted them. I don't know. I didn't feel like I had many questions anyway because I knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted to show up to the hospital basically ready to push. One of the red flags, I will say, that looking back now with this provider that I had initially is that she never asked for any type of birth plan. She knew I wanted a VBAC, and I thought it was a good thing that she wasn't really asking details. I felt like, “Oh, she's letting me do my thing.” But looking back, I think it was just because she knew that's not what was going to happen. She knew. Meagan: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. We've had providers who have told people here in Utah. The client will say, “Hey, I really want to talk about my birth preferences.” The provider will say, “You're really early. We don't need to talk about that right now. We could talk about that later.” Or, “Hey, I was thinking I want to talk about this. Can we talk about that?” “No, not today. It's fine. Whatever you want.” Then it comes, and we'll hear more about your experience. I'm sure it will relate to a lot of people's bait-and-switch stories. Jessica: Yeah. They sound so supportive in the moment, and then it's not looking back. It continued on through my whole pregnancy. Even when I was 35 weeks, she suggested a cervical dilation check. I denied it at that point. I thought it was too early. 35 weeks is very early. Meagan: 35 weeks? Yeah. Jessica: I'm really glad that I stood up for myself and said no, because I was having one of those moments of, do I just do it anyway? I said no, and she was very fine with it. She said, “That's fine. You don't have to if you don't want to. We don't have to.” I also thought that was a good sign. Meagan: You're like, “Yes. If we don't have to, why are we suggesting it in the first place?” But I can also see where you're like, “Well, sweet. She's respecting my wishes. I didn't want to. She's saying, ‘Okay'.” Jessica: Exactly. But I made the mistake of agreeing to it at my next appointment because my curiosity got the best of me. I knew that it wasn't important for me to be dilated, but I was trying to compare it to my last pregnancy. At 37 weeks, I was 3 centimeters with my first. I wonder if I'm going to have a different experience this time. Let's see where we're at. I was at 0. I just thought, “That's totally normal. I have a lot of time left.” Her demeanor changed very much. It was like at my appointments before, she was a different person now. Meagan: Oh. Jessica: She said, “Well, if we're not showing any signs of labor by 40 weeks, we need to schedule your C-section.” Meagan: Oh no. Jessica: She must have noticed I was surprised. I said, “But I don't want a C-section. Did you not remember that I'm going to have a VBAC?” She said, “Well, you don't want to risk your baby's life.” Meagan: Bleh. Barf. No. Jessica: Yes. Yes. I knew that was just a scare tactic. I luckily was not phased by it. I was educated. I mentioned something along the lines of, “Well, wouldn't we try to induce me before we jump ahead to the C-section? There's no medical need.” My pregnancies were so boring. There was nothing that would indicate anything, not even an induction, but I thought, “Why not even just mention that before a C-section?” She said something like, “There are too many risks involved.” That was the end of the conversation on her end. She pretty much wrapped it up and said, “It's pretty slippery out there. Be careful,” and walked out. Yeah. The conversation was over. In that moment, I knew that was the last time I would see her. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I could not go back to her. I went back to the parking lot. I was crying. I texted my doulas right away what happened. I said, “I need to figure something out very quickly. I'm 37 weeks. I know I can't go back to her. Can you please help me figure something out?” They were so, so extremely helpful with helping me figure out my options. I thought that at this point– in the beginning of my pregnancy, I knew, “I'll just stand up for myself. I know what I want,” but when you are very big and pregnant, and you are very vulnerable, you don't want to do all of that arguing. You just want somebody who is going to support you. I just knew I couldn't go back to her. I didn't have the energy to try to defend myself or advocate for myself. I just needed somebody who was already going to support my decisions. They encouraged me to look a little bit further out of Green Bay which I didn't initially want to do. I wanted the hospital to be close. I had a 2-year-old. I didn't want to be far away from her. But knowing I had limited options, I looked a little bit farther out. I texted them, “Hey, there is this doctor who I can go to in Neenah. It's pretty far. I said her name. I don't know if I'm supposed to say doctors' names. Meagan: You can. Yeah. You can. People will actually love it so they can go find support themselves. Jessica: Yeah. I said, “There is this doctor, Dr. Swift, who is down in Neenah. That's the only one who is really popping up on my insurance who I can go to.” They immediately texted back, “You need to go see her. She's amazing.” My doula had actually had her VBAC with Dr. Swift. They were like, “You need to go see her. This your other option.” Meagan: Oh, Sara Swift is on our list of providers. Jessica: She is. She's amazing. Meagan: She is. Okay, so you're like, “I've got this doctor's name.” Jessica: I called them to make myself an appointment, and I wasn't able to get in until the following Friday. It would have been after I was 38 weeks. I told doula– Meagan: That's when you had your last baby, right?Jessica: No, actually my last baby was at 39 weeks, but I didn't know what was going to happen. I told them, and my doula was actually personal friends with her. She said, “No, that's not going to work. I'm going to text her, and I'm going to get you in sooner.” I think it was a Wednesday at that time. I was able to go see her Friday. Yeah. Meagan: A week earlier than you would have been able to. Jessica: Yeah. I helped me to feel more relieved knowing that if I had gone into labor before that next appointment, I would have known where to go. I would have had a doctor established. I was very, very relieved to see her. It was such a different experience than my other doctors. I had to bring my two-year-old with me, and at that point, she was getting antsy, so Dr. Swift actually sat on the ground with my daughter and was coloring with her while we were talking to keep her busy. I just remember thinking, “There's no other doctor out there who would do this for a very pregnant patient.” It felt very much like a conversation between friends. It didn't feel like a robotic type of conversation I had with my previous doctor. She very much upfront said to me, “Our hospital has VBAC policies. Here they are. You can deny anything you want. They're not going to allow you to eat food, but if you say you want to eat food, you can eat. They're going to want continuous fetal monitoring, but if that's not what you want, tell them what you want.” It felt like she just was supportive of what I wanted to do. She said something along the lines of, “I'm going to trust you and your body to make the decisions that you need to, but also know that if I need to step in, trust that I'm going to do what I need to.” It felt so mutual there. I was so excited to go back and see her every week. I'm actually kind of mad that I waited that long to see her. Meagan: Yeah. Mhmm. I'm sure you felt like you were breathing in a whole different way. Jessica: I was. I felt very excited. The drive was longer, but it didn't even matter at that point. I went from a 15-minute drive to 45 and it didn't feel like there was any difference. It was all worth it. Meagan: I agree. It's sometimes daunting with that drive or the time, but you guys, it's so worth it. If you can make it work, make it work. I'm so glad. Okay, yeah. So you found this provider. Everything was feeling good. Jessica: It was feeling great. I actually ended up going past my due date. Meagan: Okay. Jessica: I was feeling a little bit– not defeated– I wanted to make it to my due date because I wanted to make it there with my first. I was excited when I got to my due date, and then I thought, “Okay, when is this actually going to happen? I've got a two-year-old.” My in-laws were coming up to watch her when we were going to the hospital. They live 2.5 hours away. I was starting to worry about, how is this all going to work out? But it really did. I felt my very first contraction two days after my due date. It was a Friday night at 6:30. We were getting my daughter ready for bed, and I felt that first contraction. I knew it was different than Braxton Hicks. I just knew, but I don't even know to say if that's when my labor started because that continued all throughout the weekend every 15 minutes. It was not a fun weekend. I kept thinking things were going to pick up, and then they would die down. Meagan: Prodromal labor maybe. Jessica: Yeah, I think so. At one point, I had my doula come over in the middle of the night. I didn't know when to go to the hospital. I didn't know if it was time or whatever. She came to my house in the middle of the night just to help me with the Miles Circuit and just the different position changes I could do. I believe that was on that Friday night that I started labor. I was also able to get into the chiropractor that weekend. They were closed, but again, my doula was very close friends with the chiropractor and texted, “Hey, Jessica could really use an adjustment. She's not in labor, but it's not progressing. Can you help her?” I went to go see them on Saturday and on Sunday just to get things moving. She was in a really great position. Everybody could feel that she was just in the perfect position. It was just that these contractions could not get closer together no matter what I tried. Something told me, “Hey, you need your water broken for this to progress,” because I couldn't do it anymore mentally or physically. I was exhausted. I didn't want to initially because I knew that's what prevented me from having the birth that I wanted in the first place with my first experience, but something also told me, “Hey, you need to go do this.” My intuition was super strong in those moments where I knew. My intuition was strong enough to switch doctors that late in my pregnancy. There wasn't another option. This time also, my intuition told me, “You have to go in, and they have to break your water.” I knew Dr. Swift would be supportive of that because she was supporting any type of birth plan I really wanted. She told me at any point, I could be induced, but that she wouldn't bring it up again. It was my decision. On Sunday night after we got my daughter to bed, we drove to the hospital. We let them know we were coming. Our doula met us there, and we just told them our plans. Dr. Swift, I remember, said, “Well, if I break your water now, you're so exhausted from the whole weekend. Do you want to try sleeping for a little bit and we will do it in the morning?” I said, “I can't sleep. I'm having these contractions every 15 minutes.” It was really funny. She said, “Well if you want to sleep, I'll give you something to help you sleep.” If anybody has ever met her or knows her, she's got a great personality. It was just funny in that moment. It's what I needed in that moment to have a good laugh. I was like, “Yes. Give me anything I need right now to rest just a little bit before the morning.” In the morning, she came back in around 8:00 or 8:30. I don't remember what time it was. She said, “Yep. Let's do this.” They double-checked me again to make sure she was in a great position. At that point, I was actually 4 centimeters. I forgot to bring that up. Meagan: Yay, okay. Great. Jessica: Yes, so those contractions I was experiencing over the weekend were productive. I felt better about that. I didn't want to break my water with being one of two centimeters. I felt good. Again, my intuition was telling me, “You need to do this.” Yeah. They did, and once again, it immediately put me into active labor. My doula was helping me with counterpressure, then they ended up running a bath for me which was very helpful. I was skeptical. I did not think that was going to work. When they were filling it, I remember thinking, “This is a waste of my time. This is not going to work,” but it was very helpful. At one point in the bath, I just remember feeling, “Okay, now I have to get out and I have to start moving around.” As soon as I got up, I just remember feeling things intensify. I got that feeling in my head like, “I can't do this anymore.” I knew that at that point, it was getting close because of that feeling of, “I can't do this anymore.” Meagan: Yeah, mhmm. Jessica: I had just a moment of weakness and I said, “I want an epidural right now.” Even though I knew in my mind that it was too late, I couldn't help but ask them for that epidural. Thankfully, my doula knew that's not what I wanted, so she helped prolong that process. She said, “Well, why don't we start with a bag of fluids and we'll see how it goes from there? We can ask them, but they might be busy.” That's exactly what I needed. I knew that's not what I wanted. Meagan: She knew that, and she knew how to advocate for you, and she knew you well enough what you needed to prolong it. Jessica: Yes. I'm very thankful for that because she could have said, “All right, let's get it right now.” But she knew and I had made it very clear that was not what I wanted to do. We started with a bag of fluids, and at that point, I could feel my body start to push itself. This was about 3 hours after my water was broken. It was a very quick process from then until that moment. While I was pushing, the anesthesiologist did come in the room. I remember the anesthesiologist did come in the room, and I remember he said something like, “Who's ready for the epidural?” My doctor said, “No, we're having a baby. Get out.” He came in in the middle of me pushing, and I feel like I scared every other mom there with how loud I was, but I couldn't help it. Meagan: Sometimes you just have to roar your baby out. Listen, it's okay.Jessica: I really did. I really did roar her out in 20 minutes. Meagan: Wow. Jessica: After that, I don't remember feeling any other pain. The pressure was gone, and I remember just feeling like, oh my gosh. I did it. She's here, and I get my skin-to-skin with her which I didn't get the first time. I get to have this experience. I can't believe I actually did it. Meagan: And you did. Jessica: I did. Meagan: You did it. Jessica: There is so much more than you just having that VBAC. Throughout the journey, you grew. You grew as an individual. You grew as a mom listening to your intuition. You really, really grew, and then to have that baby again placed on your chest, oh, how amazing and how redemptive. Meagan: It was so redemptive and healing. In that moment, I didn't feel any type of way about my C-section anymore. I wasn't upset about it. I really had a feeling that it happened for a reason because if it didn't, I don't think I would have tried to educate myself about birth. I would have probably done it a second time, an induction, if it went well the first time. I also don't think I would have fought so hard the first time to breastfeed because I felt like I had to make it work. I didn't get the birth I wanted, so I had to make this work at least. I personally think that my C-section happened for a reason the first time. In that moment, I remember feeling a wave of, “I'm not upset anymore. I got this experience.”Meagan: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I kind of had that same view to a point. I do feel a little grumpy with how my births went because knowing what I know now, I am realizing that they didn't need to happen that way. I likely never needed a Cesarean ever. I just probably didn't. But, it's the same thing like you. I wouldn't have focused so hard on this. I wouldn't have done this. I would not be the person I am today. I would not be the birth doula that I am today. I would not be the podcaster today. I don't think I would have ever started a podcast on any other topic because I'm so deeply passionate about this topic and birth and helping have better experiences, so I really hold onto those experiences and cherish them. It sounds weird because it wasn't the birth we wanted, but it's what brought us here today. Jessica: Yeah, exactly. I also wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't have my C-section. I don't think I would have been interested in birth. I love it now. I think in the future, I would love to be a doula. I just recently took an exam to become a certified lactation consultant. I haven't gotten my results back yet, but I don't think I would have gone down that path yet either if I wouldn't have had my C-section and fought so hard for breastfeeding to work. I felt like I found my passion within that circumstance that was very unfortunate, and it shouldn't have happened, but it did. Meagan: But it did, and you've grown from it. We want to avoid unnecessary Cesareans. If this podcast is for VBAC moms, it's just as much for first-time moms in my opinion because we obviously have an issue with the Cesarean rate. We do. It's a serious issue. Jessica: Yeah, it is. Meagan: But with that said, I encourage you if you are listening, and maybe you haven't been able to process your past experience yet, or you are fresh out of it, and it's very thick, and it's very heavy and dark because we know that can sometimes be that way, I hope and I encourage you to keep listening, to keep learning, and to keep growing, because that darkness will become light again. Those feelings– I don't know about go away, but they will lift. I don't know how to explain it. Jessica: You might feel different about it. You might feel different about it than you did originally. Meagan: Your perspective will change. It's going to take time. It's going to take processing. It's going to take healing. It's going to be finding the education, finding the right team, finding the right support system, but it is possible. It is really, really, really possible, and take Jessica and my word right now, because we really have been there. We really understand so many of the feelings. I know that we all process feelings differently, and we're all in different places, especially depending on the types of births that we had. I know that there are way more traumatic experiences that happen out there, but this community is here for you.We love you. We are here to support you. Keep listening to the stories. Find the groups. Find the healing, and know that it is possible to step out of this space and to grow. It's weird to think, but one day, you're going to look back and say, “I might be grateful. I might be grateful that happened.” Yeah. Like I said, I'm not happy. I'm not happy it happened, but I'm going to cherish that. I'm going to try and flip it. I've made it a positive experience that it's brought me to where I am today. It's brought me to be in a place where I can share my story just like Jessica and all of the other Women of Strength before her to help women feel inspired and to avoid those future devastations and unfortunate situations. Jessica: Yeah. Don't let anybody try to tell you not to feel a certain way about it because I've had plenty of people tell me, “But you're healthy. But you have a healthy baby, you can try again next time.” I just said, “You don't understand. You're not in my position. I know there are people who do understand me.” Most of you who are listening will understand that yes, you have a healthy baby and you're fine, but it was still not what you wanted. That experience is so personal. You want what you want. Meagan: You want what you want, and you're not selfish for wanting it. You're really not. I think that's really important because sometimes I think we are made to feel that we are selfish for wanting a different experience especially out there in the world, a lot of people say, “Why would you want that? Why would you risk that? You are selfish. Just be grateful for what you have. Just be grateful that you do have your baby and that you and your baby are okay.” No. No. The answer is no. Last but not least, I really wanted to share a little bit more about the bait and switch and how to recognize that because you guys, it can be hard to recognize. I don't ever believe that these providers are sneakily trying to fool us, but maybe they are. I don't know. I'll tell you, they do. They do fool us. I don't know if that's because our judgment is clouded or what, but I think it's important to feel that inside. What does your heart do when your provider walks in? What do your hands do? Do they clam up? Do they clench? Do they freeze? What does your body do? Are your shoulders rising up? Are they relaxed? Does your face have a smile on it? Really tune into who your provider is making you be. Are they making you a tense ball, or are they making you relaxed and excited?I mean, really Jessica, the way you are talking about Dr. Swift, it sounds like she is amazing. She's like, “Here. Here are the policies. I want you to know these. These are things that you are going to be up against. You might have to fight for intermittent monitoring instead of continuous. You might have to fight for this and this, but hey. I'm here. I'm on your side. We have these policies, but I'm here. Use your voice.” That was just so amazing. Jessica: It was amazing. I'm sad that I'm not going to have another child because I don't get to go see her for appointments then. I really wish I would have met her sooner. That's the type of doctor your need is when you actually want to go see them. That's a big difference. You're not thinking ahead of your appointment, “Well, I wonder if there is anybody else.” Meagan: Okay, I love that you said that. Check in with yourself and see if you are excited to see your provider. That's how I was. I would look forward. I would look at the calendar and be like, “Oh my gosh. I get to see my midwife this week. This is so exciting,” because I would remember the way that she made me feel when I would get there. She would embrace me with a hug. “How are you doing, genuinely? How are you doing? How are you feeling?” We would chat, and it was a conversation like you said, like two friends. It really should be that connection. I know sometimes, providers don't have the actual time, but tune into how you are feeling about seeing your provider. Are you dreading it? Are you worried about what you're going to say? Are you worried that you're going to have to be educated and come at them and say, “Well, I don't want this, and I don't want that”? What are they making you feel? If they are making you feel those genuine warm fuzzies, lean into that. Jessica: You have a good doctor then. Meagan: If you are feeling tense and anxious, I don't know. It's never too late to switch. You were switching later on. You had a further drive. There were obstacles that you had to hurdle through, but it is worth it. It is so worth it. We have a provider list, everybody. If you are looking for a provider, go to our Instagram. Look at our bio. Click on it. The very first block is supportive providers. If you have a supportive provider that you want to share, I was literally going to put Dr. Swift on this because of your testimonial of her, but she's already on it. Jessica: She was already on it too when I checked. Meagan: Yeah. If you have a supportive provider and you checked this list and they are not on it, guess what? We have made it so you can add it. Definitely add your provider because Women of Strength all over the world, literally all over the world, are looking for this type of support. Jessica: Absolutely. In case you're wondering if my other doctor ever reached out to me, I never heard a single word from her ever again. I canceled all my remaining appointments. Nobody reached out to say, “Hey, we noticed that you're not coming back. What's going on?” Anything could have been wrong when you're that pregnant and you just disappear. It was upsetting that nobody said, “What's going on, Jessica?” I was ready to let them have it because I was wanting them to reach out to say, “Why are you not coming back?” But they never called ever. Meagan: A lot of us stay because we are so worried about how our provider will feel or we have been with our provider this long. They deserve for me to stay. No. Do what's best for you. I love that you pointed that out so much. I just want to thank you again so much for sharing your journey with us and all of these amazing nuggets. I know that they are going to be loved.Jessica: Thank you so much for having me. This just feels amazing to be able to share my story when I've heard so many on here before that were so helpful.Meagan: Yeah, and here you are. I love how full circle this always is, so thank you, again. Jessica: Yeah. Thank you for having me.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In this episode, host Victoria Guido talks with Jessica Wallace, the CEO of Flok22, an innovative app designed to enhance real-time social networking. Victoria delves into Jessica's unique journey from her roots as a hairdresser to becoming a tech entrepreneur. They explore how Jessica's personal experiences and challenges, including being a military wife and navigating life post-divorce with three children, fueled her drive to create Flok22. Jessica's desire to connect people in real-time, especially in the post-COVID era, led to the birth of this groundbreaking app. Victoria and Jessica discuss their mutual passion for music, revealing how their hobbies provide a creative outlet from the demanding world of startups. Jessica shares her aspirations to return to playing the drums, a skill inspired by her family's musical background, and her journey in learning the instrument during the pandemic. On technology and entrepreneurship, Jessica dives into the challenges and triumphs of developing and marketing Flok22. She reflects on the importance of networking, particularly in the startup community, and how her app addresses the inefficiencies and awkwardness often encountered at networking events. Victoria and Jessica discuss the evolution of Flok22, emphasizing its focus on enhancing in-person connections and its pivot towards a more event-centric approach, as well as the future of networking, the potential of Flok22, and their shared enthusiasm for making meaningful connections, both professionally and musically. Flok22 (https://flok22.com/) Follow Flok22 on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/flok22?mibextid=ZbWKwL), Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/company/flok22/), or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/flok22app/). Follow Jessica Wallace on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-wallace-b9526361/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Jessica Wallace, CEO of Flok22, the app that helps you make friends and grow your network in real-time situations. Jessica, thank you for joining us. JESSICA: Thank you for having me. VICTORIA: Yeah. Well, just to get us started and warm up here, Jessica, is there any new skill or any skill you've come back to to practice more recently to kind of take your mind off of all the founder stuff that's happening? JESSICA: Yeah. It's been a busy past two months of events and things like that. So, I've kind of been taking a little bit of downtime. I am hoping to start practicing the drums. I play those, and I haven't been doing that in a while. They've been kind of staring me down, so... VICTORIA: So, were you a drummer before? Were you in a band, or? JESSICA: No, never was in a band. Actually, my dad and my uncle were drummers in a band. And as a kid, I would kind of pick up the drumsticks. And I remember my uncle kind of saying like, "Hey, is that Jessica down there?" Because I would sound like I was playing [laughs] something. Yeah, it took me a while to get into it. But during COVID, I picked it up and started practicing. VICTORIA: I love that. So, do you have a whole drum set at home, or do you have one of those, like, electric? JESSICA: I have both. I have the electric one, which I think I'm going to kind of get out and mess with. But I have an actual full drum set. It's like a TAMA light blue little set. VICTORIA: That's so fun. I like playing the drums, but I never made the leap to actually own my own drum set. So, whenever my friends have it, though, I can play, like, maybe one or two beats on [laughs] it. Nothing that impressive, but yeah, it's a lot of fun. JESSICA: Do you play any other instruments? VICTORIA: Yeah, I've always...I played piano when I was younger, and then clarinet and bass guitar through, like, middle school and high school. I did have a band in college. We played two shows, and they were both at my house, which was a lot of fun. JESSICA: [laughs] VICTORIA: I had kind of stopped playing music, and then when COVID happened, it was like, well [laughs], I guess I need to find another hobby again. So, I picked up piano again. And now I've been playing keyboard and trying to sing at the same time, which has been entertaining for everyone in my household, so...[laughs] JESSICA: Very cool. Too bad we didn't, like, catch up during COVID time. We could have started a band. VICTORIA: Yes. Yeah. I'm trying to think of a way to get more disciplined about practicing, actually, because that's...I know people who practice for, like, three hours a day every day. And I'm just like, how do you make yourself sit there for that long [laughs]? JESSICA: That's definitely been the challenge with me. And then, of course, being in a startup, and then, you know, that kind of got put on the backburner, but I hope to pick it up. VICTORIA: Yeah, right? So, we met at San Diego Startup Week, which was a fantastic event here in San Diego; a different location every night and, different speakers, and all of these really interesting people to meet. So, why don't you tell me a little bit about what brought you to San Diego Startup Week? JESSICA: Well, first things first is being a startup here in San Diego, so that made me go. And I knew it's very important, the more I'm realizing, to build your network and connect with people, and especially just within the community, getting yourself out there to be known, talking to other companies, even just showing your support to other startups. It's such an important thing to do. VICTORIA: And your app, Flok22, specifically, solves some problems people might have with going to an event like that and trying to make friends and network with people. So, can you tell me a little bit more about the initial problem you had when you just came up with the idea for the app? JESSICA: So, the initial problem was kind of around COVID time when everything opened back up. And there was this plethora of meetup apps that everybody was on trying to make these connections. And I would start to go out with friends, and as I'm looking around, it was that weird, awkward time where you couldn't talk to anybody you didn't come with. And I would literally see people, including my friends, swiping on matching apps while they were sitting at the table, but nobody was talking to one another. And that's when I realized we needed something that was more venue-based, where it was like, hey, I'm here. I'm out. Let me see who's available to connect. And that's where the concept came about. And then, during a lot of these networking events, I started to realize the same thing. It was people trying to network, and we're still doing the old-school name tags and signing our name on a paper. And it would just be so much more easier to have everybody on that one platform to connect with a little bit more effective and efficiently. VICTORIA: And so, how long has it been since you had this idea and you've been in this journey with Flok22? JESSICA: Well, it's been a little over two years. Right around COVID is when I got the idea. I was a hairdresser for, like, 20-plus years and wasn't working and at home with my three kids. And the idea just was kind of pricking at me. And it took me a while to try and figure out, you know, how can I do this? How can I, with no funds, you know, newly divorced, three kids, how am I going to start an app? And I just kept pushing on trying to connect with the right people and build a product. VICTORIA: I love that. What inspired you? Like, you had this idea for an app. And you're like, you know what? I'm going to make it work. Like, what kept you going? What made you think this is a thing I can put my time and energy into and be successful? JESSICA: You know, there's a lot of factors. I feel like it's just one of those things where you kind of just...you know how you just get that instinct and idea, and you're like, I just can't let it go? And I remember hitting a low point because I had tried to call different development teams. I had tried to do it on my own. And I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. And I was literally walking on a treadmill, and a friend gave me this YouTube thing to listen to, and it was Les Brown. And he was talking about if you were on your deathbed, you know, these ideas and these dreams, they're just staring you with angry eyes because they came to you for life. And it, like, hit me, like, very intensely to where I was like, I have to do this. I can't just look back in my life and be like, I had this idea. I know somebody's going to do it because everybody would be like, "This is a great idea." So, it's just a matter of you just got to keep going. VICTORIA: Well, I'm glad that you're working on this because I can totally relate to that experience of, you know, for me, I came from Washington, D.C., and moved to San Diego. When I was in D.C., I had spent years in the meetup community and organizing meetups. And so, it got to the point where anytime I went to a meetup, I would know at least one person there. And now coming to San Diego, like, starting it all over again, was very daunting. And, like, walking into...what was it? San Diego tech event where there's, like, 100 people in this beautiful Balboa Park location and just being so nervous [laughs]. I'm like, who do I talk to? Like, how do I get started? And you immediately think I should just leave and go home [laughs]. But let me get a glass of Chardonnay and go over to the craft makers table and make some art and then I'll, like, feel a little bit better. So yeah, I'm curious, like, so you had this great idea. Like, you knew you wanted to put your effort into it. As you started going through the process of figuring out how to get started or how to find that market fit, was there anything that surprised you in your early stages that made you pivot into a new direction? JESSICA: Well, I would say just, like, hearing your story, so many of us have been in that boat. I used to be a military wife, so I was always picking up and moving. And the older we get, it's hard to build and start up your network again. And I see a lot of people posting on Facebook or, you know, Instagram, and they're, like, putting their profile out there trying to make friends. So, there's definitely a need for it. Originally, I wanted it more for the social aspect, which was coffee shops, bars, restaurants, being able to just check in and see who's there that is open to connect. One thing we did kind of start to realize is a lot of people, even though they want to make those connections, people are still nervous to claim that they're trying to, like, make a friend. So, the biggest thing that we learned in the product-market fit was people were more inclined to use it for networking. They felt a little bit more secure and safer that way. So, I would say that would be a thing that we kind of picked up on. VICTORIA: Yeah, that makes sense. Because when I'm going to networking, like, of course, I would love to find leads for people who need consulting work from thoughtbot or software development or platform engineering. But if you go in with that intention, it's disingenuous, and it's not very effective. Whereas if you go into a networking event with the intention to make friends and just to learn about people and to find common interest, it's, like, indirectly aiming at your target is the best way to actually get there [laughs]. So, it makes sense. And so, you pivoted into more events and networking. Has there been anything that you've found about that experience or that group of people that's surprised you, or? JESSICA: I do feel like the social side will pick up on it. I just think it's going to take a little bit more time. But with the networking, I wasn't really doing any of that until I got into this startup. So, I didn't even see the need for it until I got in there. And then here I am, you know, going to a table, trying to find my name tag, and everything's still very much old school when it comes to that. And so, that was what surprised me is just was, like, this would be perfect. Everybody's trying to exchange their LinkedIns. Everybody is trying to find the right person. And sometimes you get stuck in a conversation with somebody for 20 minutes, and it's some sales guy from who knows where, and you're just like, uh, I'm not really looking for that. You know what I mean? Great to connect, but got to go. So, it's so much better to just find the right people that you're looking for and network more efficiently. VICTORIA: Yeah, I don't know if this is that exact experience, but what I've kind of heard from other founders is sometimes you go to a networking event, and maybe you're looking for, like, mentors or people to help you or your own [inaudible 10:09]. And then there's more people trying to sell things to you [laughs] than there are, like, those actual people you're looking for who would help you. So, that's really interesting. So, now you've started to kind of really get involved in the networking. And I'm curious: how many events have you gone to so far this year? Do you have a rough estimate? JESSICA: I'm, like, trying to think. It's, like, such a blur because I really have been going to so many. And also, I've been a part of the SDAC E-track, which is the Angel Conference, San Diego Angel Conference that's coming up. So, we're hoping to get accepted in that. I'm going to say, at least this month, probably 12, I would suspect. VICTORIA: Wait, 12 this month? JESSICA: I think so, yeah. And some of them have been little ones. Like, I've done some happy hour events. There's these really cool, like, social happy hour events I've been trying to kind of partner up with. So, definitely some smaller ones, and then some bigger ones, and then including my E-track. So, that's kind of the calculation I have. VICTORIA: Wow, I mean, there's only been 15 days so far this month, so 13 events that's quite a lot [laughs]. I hope you do get some time to rest and play the drums later this month. But that's really exciting. So, I'm curious: as a founder, obviously, you have an event space networking app. But have you found other benefits from growing your network as an early-stage founder? JESSICA: Definitely. The biggest impact is connecting with these people. And whether you read that book, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," they say, you know, "Poor people look for work, and rich people build networks." And it's true because I'm noticing that for myself. You get around these people, and most of the time, they really do want to help, or you just need to have the ask, you know, ask what you're looking for. And they're more than willing to set you up with other people to get partnerships. I ended up meeting somebody at the MIC Conference, which was in Vegas last month. And they connected me with somebody who now we are going to be partnering with them to have our app be used at their conference. So, it's as simple as that, just once you're in front of them and you get that more personal touch, and then they kind of refer you to other people. VICTORIA: Oh, that's great. And how does your app compare to the existing apps that are out there for networking at events or for managing attendees at events? JESSICA: Well, currently, there's not anything that's doing it in real-time. There is some conference events they have, like Cvent, Whova app. Personally, to me, it was just there's so much going on. You have the event, you know, vendors. You have the schedule. You have so much going on. And for us, our main thing is just connecting you to the right person. So, it's a more simplistic version of just being able to simply check in, see the profiles of the people that are there, see what it is that you're looking for, and know that you want to connect with them. Also, the other feature that we have is allowing you to see anybody that you may have missed when you leave. So, you can kind of easily filter through those profiles and decide who to reach out to. I mean, similar to maybe, like, a meetup, but it's more just on demand. There quite hasn't been anything that's doing it right instantaneously. VICTORIA: Yeah, and I can agree. I've used some of those apps before. And what I've noticed there's just not a ton of activity or user activity on the day of. And I'm curious to see...I really want to try out Flok, too. I know I'm like [laughs], I haven't had a chance to actually get in there yet, but it is on my to-do list. So, I'm curious, you know, as someone who didn't have a background in technology or building applications, like, how did you go about getting up to speed and finding the people you needed to help you actually build the app? JESSICA: Yeah, I mean, being a hairstylist, I was not tech at all. So, it's pretty interesting that here I am, you know, in this app development world. The main thing was just getting out there. I knew I had already been on so many apps just, whether it was some of the dating apps, meetup apps, so I knew how they operated and what I was looking for as a customer that I wanted to fix. Most of the time, it was heavily with all these pictures, and prompts, and things like that, and I would get bored of setting it up. It would take me, like, you know, 30-plus minutes. Not to mention, I call it, like, adding people to your cart. It's just very impersonal. You got so many people just piling people to their cart. You might talk to them for a little bit, then stop. And I think people are just kind of getting over it. It's time-consuming. It's a lot of time and planning, and sometimes you plan something and then...even with the girls meeting a friend, it's like they plan something for Thursday, and somebody cancels, and then you're SOL, you know? VICTORIA: Oh yeah. So, you had experience with using different apps for, like, networking or meeting people and making friends, and you saw that there was this gap. And then, how did you go to actually building the app? And were there any lessons that you learned in that process? JESSICA: That was my experience and why I was doing that. The main thing I did after that was I started hitting up events to find and recruit. That was how I started finding...I met my co-founder through a mutual friend. She's been wonderful. She's, like, complete opposite of me. She's, like, the business-organized one. Like, hey, we need an LLC. We need this. We need that. I'm more just the idea and brains and kind of behind the scenes. Then I started going to some tech events, met our UI UX designer, Laura, who's been fantastic. So, that would be my advice to people. If you're looking to build and you're trying to find the right people, of course, LinkedIn could be a good spot. Y Combinator could be a good spot. For me, I think going out there and actually making the personal connections and meeting the people and ask them and find what you're looking for. VICTORIA: And you could now even use Flok22 to find your early founder team [laughs]. JESSICA: Exactly. See? VICTORIA: That's awesome. MID-ROLL AD: Are your engineers spending too much time on DevOps and maintenance issues when you need them on new features? We know maintaining your own servers can be costly and that it's easy for spending creep to sneak in when your team isn't looking. By delegating server management, maintenance, and security to thoughtbot and our network of service partners, you can get 24x7 support from our team of experts, all for less than the cost of one in-house engineer. Save time and money with our DevOps and Maintenance service. Find out more at: tbot.io/devops. VICTORIA: So, you went out, and you just met people, and you had this compelling vision of what you wanted to build and were able to recruit them onto your team. Was there anything...you know, you've been at this for two years now. Through the development process, was there anything you learned about what to do or what not to do in how you engage with your designers and developers? JESSICA: You know, it's like, we dove out there, like, headfirst. And then there was a period of time where we needed to pause and re-calibrate, and that was due to the fact that you have to be very diligent in looking for development if you're outsourcing. If you know a CTO or you have somebody in-house that, you know, you're working with, you may not have the problems that we ran into. But with outsourcing, there's still very much a gray area. And we ended up getting a product that was not really functional and had a lot of issues, which caused a huge setback for us. It was a great, you know, lesson learned if that. But you have to be really particular on who you're finding. I would suggest heavily on finding somebody that is a referral from somebody that you know, as a matter of fact, that they use. Because nowadays, there's times that they can almost, like, fake what they have. I mean, they might have references. They'll put stuff up on their website showcasing products that they did, and those aren't even products that they did. So, we ran into a huge deal with that. But it made us take a step back. We re-honed in on our user persona, had our UI UX designer redesign everything, and came back out here again. VICTORIA: Yes, because people will let you pay them to build anything [laughs]. JESSICA: Oh yeah. VICTORIA: But it may not be exactly what you wanted. And what you said, going with someone who is a referral, going with someone who, I think, clearly demonstrates that they need to understand the underlying issue, as opposed to just being willing to take whatever requirements you have and build it. That's a big differentiator for companies. And it can be frustrating because I think, you know, for thoughtbot, sometimes people come to us, and they're like, "We already have the designs. We already know what we want. You just build it for us." And we [inaudible 19:21], like, coach them around that. Like, are you sure? Like, let's look at your market validation, and let's look at your product fit. And, you know, let's go back and make sure that we're all aligned and that you're actually getting value out of something, and showing you the results on a regular basis, as opposed to it'll be done in three months, and you just wait until then. Sometimes, that can be $150,000 later, and, at the end, you're not actually getting a product that you really wanted. JESSICA: Exactly. And like I said, there's still a big, gray area in that where, you know, you can be given a product, and it's not even barely working, or it looks like garbage. And you're kind of stuck because trying to go after these people to get your money back it's most likely not going to happen. And then you just lost out on all that money you put into that product. So, it can be very frustrating for people. I hope to eventually kind of shed light on that and maybe help people along the way, so they don't fall trap to those type of kind of scammers that are out there for development. And I'm sure you, being CTO, you've seen a lot of that [chuckles]. VICTORIA: Yeah, that's something we work really hard to kind of coach clients around and figure out to make sure because we don't want to end in that situation where our founder feels like we built something for them that doesn't work or doesn't look great, or what they're happy with [chuckles]. So yeah, I think it's very common. It happens to a lot of people. But I'm happy that you didn't get discouraged and you said, you know what? We can go for round two. Let's take what we learned and put it into the next version of the app. And one of my favorite phrases from doing this podcast that I've heard is, "If the first product you build if you're proud of it, you didn't do it fast enough" [laughs]. So, like, usually, the first thing you build is not pretty, but you had to push through and build something. And that's the first application you've ever built. So, how did you feel about the second time going around? What did you do differently to be happier with and prouder of the product version that you put out there? JESSICA: Yeah, I like that phrase, too, and sometimes I'm the same. It's kind of like, you know, fail fast and get out there. But the second build was definitely so much more smoother and better. But, actually, we are in transition to a newer, bigger development team because there's still some things that we're just not completely set on. And I do think that moving along to this next development team, there's a more better fit. And then, we also received a grant from AWS to build a better back-end infrastructure, so when we do scale up, and there is more people on there, that it can withhold that capacity. So, I'm definitely happy with it right now. And I know that getting it out there—and you know this, too—is just getting it out there with all the users, you know, there may be some different feedback coming in and out. We plan on, you know, making any changes necessary if need be, and just kind of always making it a little better each time. VICTORIA: Is that the AWS Activate program? JESSICA: It's not the Activate, but it's just we're actually working with a company, and it was AWS. They had filled everything out for us, you know, they want to help startups getting out into the app world because, again, if we're making money, they're making money, too, with it being on their servers. So, it's kind of a win-win. And we can store all of that data and be able to scale up properly. VICTORIA: Absolutely, yeah. And so, for those who don't know, the AWS Activate program, you can apply for up to $100,000 in free credits, and other cloud providers have similar programs where you can get free money [chuckles]. But, no, that's really cool that you're a part of that. So, what challenges do you see on the horizon for Flok22? JESSICA: Of course, I hope there's going to be none, but we know in this entrepreneurial world, it's always there. I think, you know, the hard part are always going to be kind of those situations where maybe people aren't using the app properly or things of that sort happening. Other app companies have dealt with that. It's like, you could be out somewhere, and a situation happens. So, that's kind of the only thing that I would be worried about is just ensuring the safety of all of our users, making sure that everybody is understanding. And I guess when that time comes and if there are things that, you know, come at you, it's just a matter of handling it. So, I hope it's not anything too heavy, but I guess we'll see. VICTORIA: Yeah. Well, I appreciate you having that concern early on. Because I do feel like sometimes people create apps for networking and collaboration without thinking about the safety of their users. And it's more common from founders who have never been in a situation where they're unsafe [laughs]. So, like, maybe from your unique perspective, you, like, know that that is an issue that you might need to solve or that will come up, and having a plan for it makes sense. JESSICA: We definitely have a plan for it. I mean, a lot of people don't realize with these apps that are out there, there's actually been a pretty high increase in, like, sex trafficking and different things. And most people don't know that because they're not the ones going in there and doing the market research. So, our main thing is getting people out there to meet in public places, which is much safer. You're not, you know, getting lured and unsure if that's even the person who that they say they are, or you're going to someone's house or on a hike. It just makes it for a much safer environment. And then we're working on some other added features where, you know, you can kind of validate the people just to ensure that. VICTORIA: Yeah, that makes sense. And what is the wind in your sails? What keeps you going and keeps you excited about working on this? JESSICA: It's my passion. It's kind of like now; this has been my baby for a couple of years. So, of course, my family is always number one. I have three kids, a rat, two dogs, and a lizard. I adore my family, but I just have a passion for this. And I know that it's just a matter of time before this becomes a thing. And so, I just push myself on the daily trying to figure out the solutions and just keep moving forward with it. VICTORIA: And what does success look like in six months, or even beyond that, in five years? JESSICA: I think, for us, it will just be getting that heavy adoption of users, getting known out here in San Diego or in other parts. We plan on trying to hit more of the major cities where you got a lot of newcomers coming in and traveling, whether that's Chicago, New York, Miami, Vegas. As we get that adoption, just growing as a company and see where it goes from there. VICTORIA: That's great. Yeah, I look forward to when I can go to a conference and just identify who are all the rock climbers in the room, and I can go bug and talk about [laughs], like, climbing with. I love that. JESSICA: And, two, going to these conferences, also, not only your...you get to connect with the people that are there, but it's the people in the surrounding city, too. It's like a lot of people leave the conference, and they want to go to a bar or a coffee shop. And the fact that you have the option or opportunity to connect with the people who are there as well is a win-win. VICTORIA: I love that, yeah. And do you have any questions for me about thoughtbot, or the podcast, or anything like that? JESSICA: For me, you being, like, a CTO, I know you've maybe...have you seen apps like this become successful? I would love your take on kind of getting out there in the market for something like this because we are at that stage where we're trying to hit the market pretty heavily. We're hitting college campuses, you know, bigger conferences, trying to get that adoption in small clusters for it to be, you know, fun and usable for users. But I would love your take on that. VICTORIA: Yeah, and, actually, I'm a managing director. Our CTO is Joe Ferris, who's currently my acting dev director for my team. But from my experience, you know, there might be a lot of competing apps who try to aim for similar things. But if you're very closely understanding your users and their needs and focusing on solving their problems, then you will find your niche, and you'll be able to be successful and grow that from there. So, if you have a strong vision for what the problem is and you're willing to actually listen to your users and pivot based off of that, that will set you up to be successful. Yeah, and I've talked about this with other friends who are really into networking and meeting up with people. And there continues to be this gap of, like, how people communicate and how we actually connect. So, I think you're on the right track [chuckles], and you're doing a lot of great things. And I think the only other advice I would say is what you've already kind of pointed out is to make sure you're not burning out early on and that you're taking that time and space to be with your family and to do your hobbies, and having a strong rest ethic as you do a work ethic and making sure you're still a whole person. And you'll make better decisions if you're giving your brain a little bit of downtime. JESSICA: Definitely. I so agree with you. That's very important to have that balance. And we just hope that we can fill that gap when it comes to the networking. So, I hope that everyone can give it a try and see what they think. VICTORIA: I love that, yeah. Is there anything else that you would like to promote? JESSICA: I mean, honestly, this is not so much about me. I'm really passionate about this app and networking and connecting people together and getting it, so it's just more easy for everybody to connect out in person without wasting that time and energy. Just be out doing you and meet the right people. That's what Flok22 is all about. VICTORIA: I love that. And we'll have to get together and play some music. I'll tell you the two songs I have memorized on piano right now are Kiss from a Rose by Seal and Someone Like You by Adele, so...[laughs] JESSICA: Oooh. VICTORIA: But we do have a bit of a girls' band going in San Diego, so we'll connect on that, too [laughs]. JESSICA: Yeah, we'll have to link up. Add some drums to your... VICTORIA: We don't have a drummer, so that's perfect, yeah [laughs]. JESSICA: See? It's networking at its best [laughs]. VICTORIA: Yes, yeah. I love it. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate hearing your story. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

The chances of having vasa previa in a spontaneous pregnancy is about 1 in 2500. Our friend, Jessica, shares her experience with vasa previa during her first pregnancy which led to a scheduled Cesarean. While Jessica's Cesarean experience was difficult and traumatic, she knows it is what her intuition was telling her to do. Meagan gives important advice about listening to that intuition with every pregnancy.When the anatomy scan results showed that Jessica's second pregnancy was completely normal, she went all in to achieve the HBAC she deeply desired. Jessica didn't expect her birth to be so painfully intense and wildly fast as it was, but now she says that she “would love to do it again!” Additional LinksThe Lactation NetworkHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, hello you guys. This is Meagan and today I am recording in a very different spot. Normally, I am in my office at my home, but today, I am recording from my car. We have our friend, Jessica, and she is from California. She is going to be sharing her HBAC story with you guys today. If you don't know what HBAC is, if you're new to all of the terms, it's a home birth after a Cesarean. She has a unique situation with her first C-section so I am excited to talk a little bit about that and have her share more information and then with her home birth, it was precipitous. Jessica, was it a planned home birth? Remind me, or was it so precipitous that it ended up being a home birth? Jessica: It was definitely planned. Meagan: Definitely planned. Review of the Week Meagan: She will be sharing that story but of course, we have a Review of the Week. This review is by Ashley and it's actually on our doula course. So birth workers, if you're listening, if you didn't know, we have a birth worker course to become certified in VBAC. It says, “TOLAC/VBAC should be treated just like any other birthing person, but there is a certain preparation and information that needs to be offered to them. Your course covered that. The value is held in your careful recognition of how best to support our client who is doing a TOLAC. I cannot praise you two enough for the fear-release activity. Honestly, it is something I can apply to even myself before and after birth and even in life in general. Thank you for that. It has already helped me with three of my VBAC clients.” That is so awesome. That is one of the biggest things we do in our course. We do a fear release. If you didn't know, listeners, a fear release is so impactful really processing your past births and working through any trauma. Even if you don't recognize it as trauma, it may resonate as trauma so working through those fear-release activities is super amazing. Jessica's Stories Meagan: Cute Jessica, thanks for joining me from my car today. I kind of had a crazy day where my husband got thrown into coaching another team and we had soccer tryouts. As we are recording right now, it's actually May so we are in the thick of soccer tryouts and all of the chaos of the last week of school. I ended up being at the soccer field so that's why I am coming from my car. So yeah, Jessica, I'd love to turn the time over to you to share your beautiful story. Jessica: Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited. I'll just get to it. Basically, I got pregnant with my first son and he was due in July of 2020, well actually, the beginning of August. He was a COVID baby. My husband didn't get to go to any appointments with me. But that was supposed to be at a birth center. I watched The Business of Being Born. I got down that rabbit hole. We decided we wanted to be at a birth center. Everything was fine, then I had my anatomy scan and they found vasa previa. I had never heard of it. I never really even considered something being– you know, you worry about something being wrong with your baby. You never think about you having something wrong. So we were very shocked and all I remember was the sonographer saying, “It's detrimental to your baby.” That was very devastating because I had no idea what that meant. I had to wait to get a referral to see a specialist. It was, I think, 4-6 weeks away. In that timeframe, I had to basically just sit and wait and not know what was going to happen. I joined a Facebook group, did research in the meantime, and I realized, “Holy crap. This is a big deal.” I went to the specialist and they said, “Yeah. You have vasa previa but it could still move.” I left with no answers. It didn't feel any better hearing that. So basically vasa previa is you know, you have your placenta and your umbilical cord. It was explained to me that typically with a placenta and an umbilical cord, the umbilical cord is like a tree trunk. But when you have vasa previa, it's like tree roots. So basically it's an unprotected umbilical cord and vessels that could potentially be ruptured with a vaginal birth. Meagan: Yeah. They're very exposed. Jessica: Yes. Very exposed. I did also learn that I had a velamentous cord insertion which goes hand-in-hand I think. So yeah. Basically, the moral of the story was that it was a big deal on how I was going to birth this baby even more so because his life was at risk. I eventually saw three doctors at the same practice just for follow-ups. They eventually cleared me for vaginal birth. You think that you would be super excited about that, but everything that I was reading was saying that it has to move a big amount for it to be safe. The vessels could still rupture and all of that stuff. So then I got two second opinions at different practices. They also cleared me. I don't know. Everything that I was reading, I was reading different stories on this Facebook group. I just felt in my gut that I needed to still have a C-section. That is not what I wanted. I still stayed with the specialist because I was still considered a high-risk pregnancy. She said that I could deliver vaginally, but I told her, “I feel like I would feel safer doing a C-section.” She said, “Okay, but we are going to wait until 39 weeks.” With vasa previa, you deliver much earlier than that just because they don't want your body to go into labor at all. Basically, that whole pregnancy was full of anxiety and fear. I was worried every single time I went to the bathroom. I was worried there was going to be all of this blood. I felt invalidated and like I was silly for still wanting a C-section by this doctor. Yeah. It was really hard and then my husband couldn't even be at the appointments to hear what was being said. So yeah, it was really hard. Meagan: Yeah. That is a really hard thing to hear. Especially when you are not even planning on giving birth in a hospital. It's like, “So wait, wait, wait. I have to completely shift all gears.” But what I love was that your intuition was like, “I need a C-section. This is what I feel is best for me and my baby.” You followed that. That is so important. One of the messages here at The VBAC Link is that we strive to say that we don't shame anyone for having a C-section. We know that they are happening a lot, but especially when your gut is saying, “This is what I should do,” we have to follow that. Women of Strength, we have to follow that. Jessica: Yep. Yep. So ultimately, yeah. I followed my gut and I'm really glad that I did. The nurse who was by my side in the C-section said that she had never seen a placenta like mine. The doctor, of course, said that it looked normal, but every person that I've shown, and some of them are birth workers, are just like, “Wow, yeah. I've never seen a placenta like that.” I had a ton of exposed, very fragile-looking vessels. I don't know where they were in my belly, but still, they were very fragile-looking. I feel like I made the right decision. My doctor said that it was normal, but I don't think that it was. Meagan: Was your baby IUGR at all with the velamentous cord on top of it? Jessica: No. Meagan: Okay, sounds good. Let me just– there are lots of abbreviations in this episode. IUGR is intrauterine growth restriction and that can be a baby that is being restricted of growth. Sometimes with a velamentous cord, a baby can be on the smaller side or have growth restrictions so it's awesome that your baby didn't. Jessica: Yeah, he was 7 pounds, 3 ounces at 39 weeks. Yeah. I mean, it was a fine C-section. Nothing eventful happened, but it was still traumatic being strapped. I wasn't even strapped down. My arms weren't, but still, the experience was. I didn't get to hold my baby for an hour and when I did, I was super shaky. I was nervous to hold him.I looked up at the monitors and I feel like my blood pressure was super low at one point. I thought I was dying. It did not feel great. It was traumatic for us. I know that trauma looks different for everybody, so for us, the whole experience was traumatic. My doctor did say, “You know, I'm giving you this incision so that if you do have another baby, you can have a VBAC.” It was always in my head that when we did have another baby, it would be a VBAC. Jessica: So yeah. Fast forward to April 2022, my husband and I were trying and I got pregnant. It was kind of a surprise but kind of not. I toyed with the idea of possibly giving birth in a hospital, but it was for a very short while like maybe five minutes, then I was like, “No. I think I need to do a home birth this time.” Just because of our experience at the hospital, I don't know. I didn't want to have to fight to have a vaginal birth. I didn't want to be held to the hospital policies and whatnot. I follow a lot of birthworkers and see physiological birth and whatnot so we just decided to have a home birth. We found our midwife and she was a midwife. She's been a midwife for 46 years so had lots of experience. She's had lots of VBAC babies and it was just really exciting. It felt right to book her as our midwife. I had her, I think, from 9 weeks on and nothing exciting happened in my pregnancy. I was nervous about the anatomy scan, but they did a very thorough check and I could have cried hearing the news. I was just very confident knowing that the placenta was good, the umbilical cord looked good, and all of that. We went on to have an uneventful pregnancy. I would say from 37 weeks on, I would have cramping and whatnot. I always had Braxton Hicks from 15 weeks on, but around 37 weeks, it changed to that more period-like cramping. I tried not to read into it. I was just like, “This is my body preparing.” There were a couple of times where I was like, “Oh my gosh. Is this happening?” I was listening to lots of podcasts and birth stories and stuff to just kind of prepare myself for every scenario. I think I went to my midwife at an appointment the day before I turned 40 weeks. I was toying with the idea of getting checked or not because I didn't want to be disappointed or get my hopes up. Ultimately, we– I keep saying we. My husband was a big part of this. I decided to get checked and I think I was a 2 and 70% effaced or something. I was in the right direction but I also knew, “Okay, that doesn't really mean anything. It could be a week.” But they did want to schedule me for a membrane sweep the following week just in case because you can't give birth at home past 42 weeks. I really did not want to do that, but I also really wanted to have the baby at home. I was just really anxious. Now I felt like I was on a timeline. My due date came and went. I was disappointed. I knew that it's totally normal for your baby to not come at or before 40 weeks, but you have that hope that maybe they will. Your body is starting to have all of these symptoms so you're hoping that this is it. My midwife had said, “Make plans because babies like to come when you have plans. They don't like it when you're waiting around for them.” Meagan: I love that. Jessica: Yeah. I tried to get out of the house and then one day, I was like, “Okay, do you know what? We have to go do something.” I planned for me and my toddler to go to the aquarium. We had to buy tickets. The day after my due date, I lost some of my mucus plug so I was very excited about that. Two days after my due date, I listened to Bridget Teyler. She has an induction meditation on YouTube. I just did it because when my husband was putting my toddler to bed, that was my time to get in the zone, drink my red raspberry tea, and prepare for birth. I just did it because it was something to do. I didn't expect it to work. I thought, “You know, if nothing else, I'm bonding with my baby.” It was really great. The next day, I woke up and I was pregnant still. My mucus plug still kept coming out. It was pink and I was like, “Oh, is this my bloody show?” but my midwives were like, “No, that's still your mucus plug.” I was kind of disappointed about that. I talked to my husband about all of the anxiety and how people were wondering where the baby was and all of that stuff. We had a steak dinner that night. That was the meal that I envisioned that I would have before I went into labor. That was 40 weeks and 3 days. The next day, at 40 weeks and 4 days, I woke up still pregnant with no signs. I was emotional about it but that was the day I was supposed to take my son to the aquarium. We get ready and we're driving. On the way there, I'm starting to get cramps every four to every 30 minutes. They were 30 seconds long. I was like, “Oh my gosh. What the heck?” We get to the aquarium and my son wants me to hold him. Meanwhile, I'm having these contractions. I'm just like, “Oh my gosh. I wasn't timing them because obviously, I had my hands full.” We ate at the aquarium and I remember feeling dizzy and nauseous at one point. But then we went home and my toddler fell asleep in the car which is pretty rare. That means it's going to be a short nap, so I was like, “Oh if he takes a short nap, he's going to go to bed earlier. Maybe this is meant to be. Maybe if I go into labor tonight, this is meant to be.” I had always envisioned that I would give birth at home while my toddler was sleeping just because he's a very sensitive little guy. I figured that my being in labor would scare him. So I was just like, “Oh my gosh. He's going to go to bed earlier than normal.” I got home and my husband got home from work. I was like, “I'm going to go rest and lay down to try and take a nap in case.” I couldn't sleep, but I did lay in bed for an hour and a half. I went downstairs. I tried to make dinner and I kept having to stop and lean on the counter. My husband was like, “Do I need to turn the lights down? You're going inward.” I'm like, “No, I'm not.” I was in total denial. He eventually took over because I was just like, “Yeah, I'm trying to cut raw chicken here and I'm not feeling too hot.” They still were pretty inconsistent. I still hadn't really been timing them. They were probably every 4-20 minutes for 30 seconds. So then we ate. I think I ate on my birth ball and then I texted my doula who was also a student-midwife with my midwife. I saw her at every appointment which was pretty convenient. She was just like, “You know, don't really worry about timing them. Just try and rest. Eat some snacks and let me know when they pick up in intensity.” It was 6:00 PM and I was just waiting for bedtime because I knew that once my toddler went to bed, I could really focus and not have to hide that I was in labor. But I still don't think I realized how far along I was. So we did the bedtime routine. I do want to note that I was leaning over on a pillow and my toddler was rubbing my back and saying, “Baby brother, I help you.” It was the sweetest thing. Meagan: Aw, that's adorable. Jessica: Yeah. So finally put him in bed and I told my husband, “Maybe you should just go to sleep with him just in case. Well, I don't know. I'll text you.” I didn't know if he should go to bed or if he should come downstairs and act as my doula. So he was putting my toddler to sleep. I tried to get in the bath. I could not get comfortable. Our bathtub is so tiny and they were definitely picking up in intensity. I just could not get comfortable. That didn't last long. I texted my doula and told her, “I feel like they're on top of each other, my contractions, but they're not quite a minute long.” I think I texted her, “I've had four in a matter of five minutes, but they're short.” She was just like, “Try different positions. Maybe try a shower.” At that point, I had already gone downstairs to try something else. I could not find a comfortable position. So my husband texted me, “What's the situation?” I don't know. All I said was, “Come.” Yeah. I was just like, “Come,” because it was just so uncomfortable. I could not find a comfortable position. I could see him on the monitor because we already had the monitor set up but he was just lying in bed taking his time. I'm like, “What is this man doing?” He did not realize how intense things had gotten. He came downstairs and we tried different positions– laying down on my side and on all fours on the couch, on the ball, and I just couldn't get comfortable. So after 15 or 20 minutes of him trying to help me, I had him text the doula. She got over there around 8:30 and she was helpful with having me take sips of water and giving us ideas for different positions. She tried doing the Spinning Babies side-lying release and that was unbearable, but we did it. Then she had me move to the ball. Actually, I think while we were on the couch and I was lying down doing the side-lying release, I felt something come out. I had a diaper on at this point because I just kept having bloody show. I was like, “Something just came out. What was that? What was that?” It kind of felt like I pooped but it was out of my vagina, so I was just like, “Was that the baby? What just happened?” She looked and it was my bag of water, but it was still intact. It looked like a boob implant to me. Meagan: Yeah, like it was bulging out of you. Jessica: Yeah, but it came out in a bulge, so that was wild. So that was cool. I knew that because she was the student midwife, she would be the one to tell the midwives to come. We weren't even worried about that. She was timing contractions, but I had no idea how fast they were coming. I said at one point, “Why are they coming so frequently?” She was like, “Well, you're in active labor.”Then we moved to the ball and that was unbearable. I felt him move down which was so wild and then I had a birth pool. It was already blown up, but we hadn't even added water or anything. I was like, “Should we start setting that up?” My husband went and got the pool and tried to start putting water in it and whatnot. I was like, “I feel like I need to move to the couch,” so I did. I got on all fours and I had pillows up by my face. It was just so intense. I just remember thinking, “I'm never doing this again.” I asked my husband, “Whose idea was this?” meaning to have another baby and to do it vaginally because I was like, “This is awful.” It was so painful. Then you know, I just stayed in that position. I knew that once I was in that position, there was no way that I was going to be able to move. My husband was setting the pool up for no reason because I was like, “I don't know how I'm going to make it in that pool.”I think one of the midwives showed up around 9:30ish. At that point, I was having the fetal ejection reflex. I was making these guttural noises. You hear about what that feels like and how you just can't control it and it's so true. I felt like when you feel like you have to puke and you puke uncontrollably. It felt like that in my vagina. The noise I was making was totally uncontrollable. There were some intense sounds. The midwife showed up and before I knew it, she was saying, “You're going to feel the ring of fire.” My husband, in hindsight, was like, “I thought she was just saying that. Of course, she's going to feel the ring of fire.” He didn't realize she was saying it because the baby was crowning. He was up by my head holding my hand and stuff. Finally, he realized that the baby's head was coming out. My baby's head popped out and then you heard a tiny little cry, but then it went back in. She had me get in the runner's lunge to try and help him out. I think I pushed maybe three times. She had to remind me to breathe because the fetal ejection reflex was taking over. I just couldn't stop having that feeling to push, so she reminded me to breathe. He came out. He was born at 9:58 so I had, I guess, 12 hours of labor, but I think active labor probably started around 4:00 or 6:00. Again, I'm not really sure because we weren't really timing contractions. He was 8 pounds, 7 ounces. Yeah. It was insane but in the best way. It was so empowering. I couldn't believe that I had done that. One of my affirmation cards was like, “You're a badass for having an HBAC.” My husband was just like, “Yeah. You're a badass. I can't believe you just did that.” Yeah. It was just wild. So amazing. Meagan: Absolutely. I'm sure it was very different for him, too just with the whole situation. “Okay, I'm going to set up the birth pool. She's telling me to come but I'm going to take my time.” It's just a very different experience. Then he's like, “Okay, wow. We're in labor. Let's go.” Then it's like, “Yeah, of course she's going to feel that. Oh, you mean that now she's going to feel that.” Jessica: Yeah, I think neither of us knew how far along I was and how quickly things were progressing. It just happened so fast. Meagan: Yeah. I want to talk about this too because sometimes we get diagnosed with failure to progress. We get to 3 or 4 centimeters and we're told that we'll likely never progress and whatever, then we go to have a C-section. Then we fear having a VBAC sometimes because we are like, “Well, maybe we won't progress past what we've progressed.” But a cool factor about your story is that you never even went into labor, right? You had never even dilated or gone through that whole process. This whole birth, this whole HBAC was essentially like you're a first-time mom. Your cervix was doing this the first time.When we've already progressed in maybe previous labor, that's an even greater chance of a VBAC. You went in and your body did exactly what it needed to do to get this baby out even though you hadn't had any labor previously. Jessica: Yep. Meagan: Pretty cool. Jessica: Yeah. I was very excited to see how it was all going to unfold. Meagan: Mhmm. Well, it sounds like it unfolded beautifully. Now you've got two cute babes and a beautiful home birth under your belt. So now– you were explaining that you were like, “Wow. Why did we do this? Why did we choose to get pregnant? Why did we choose to give birth vaginally?” After it is all said and done, are you like, “Yeah. I would do it again. I'm super happy we did it”?Jessica: Yeah. I actually want to do it again just because it was amazing. At the moment, yeah, it felt like the most painful thing of my life, but after that baby's out and you do it, it's like, “Wow. I did that. I am capable. My body isn't broken. Just because this happened one time doesn't mean it's going to happen again.” It was very empowering. Yeah. It was just amazing. I would love to do it again. Meagan: I love that. Well, huge congrats. Huge, huge congrats. I want to talk a little bit more about vasa previa because I don't think we've had anyone on the podcast who have actually had that before. Usually reasons for a Cesarean– we talked about this before we started recording– are “big baby”, small pelvis, failure to progress, or breech. We don't see these because it is really, really rare. It actually only occurs in 1 in every 2500 deliveries. I don't know if you said anything about IVF but it's more common in IVF which is about 1 in 200 but even then, it's a pretty rare chance. It can happen randomly or if IVF was going on, there is definitely a chance that it could increase your chances. Did you do any IVF at all or was it a spontaneous pregnancy? Jessica: It was spontaneous. I didn't have any of the risk factors for vasa previa so it was totally random. Meagan: Totally random. You were just one of the really rare cases, but it worked out really well. Jessica: Mhmm, it did. Meagan: Well, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us today. Jessica: Thank you for having me. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

You can also listen to this episode on Spotify!Did you know that all children, regardless of genetics, are at risk for substance abuse?Jessica Lahey is a New York Times bestselling author, mother, and parent educator on teen substance use. Her most recent book, The Addiction Inoculation, is a practical guide to help children grow up to be healthy and addiction-free. On this episode, Jessica sits down with Dr. McBride to discuss her own path to sobriety, the myths about substance abuse in adolescents, and how to help kids feel comfortable setting healthy boundaries. This is a must listen if you're looking for ways to talk with your kids, grandkids—or yourself—about alcohol. Feel free to share this episode with others who may be, too.Join Dr. McBride every Monday for a new episode of Beyond the Prescription.You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on her Substack at https://lucymcbride.substack.com/podcast. You can sign up for her free weekly newsletter at lucymcbride.substack.com/welcome.Please be sure to like, rate, and review the show!Transcript of the podcast is here![00:00:00] Dr. McBride: Hello, and welcome to my office. I'm Dr. Lucy McBride, and this is Beyond the Prescription, the show where I talk with my guests like I do my patients, pulling the curtain back on what it means to be healthy, redefining health as more than the absence of disease. As a primary care doctor for over 20 years, I've realized that patients are much more than their cholesterol and their weight, that we are the integrated sum of complex parts.[00:00:33] Our stories live in our bodies. I'm here to help people tell their story to find out are they okay, and for you to imagine and potentially get healthier from the inside out. You can subscribe to my weekly newsletter at https://lucymcbride.substack.com/subscribeand to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's get into it and go beyond the prescription.[00:01:01] My guest on the podcast today is Jessica Lahey. Jessica is a New York Times bestselling author, mother, longtime teacher and educator for parents and teens on the subject of substance use and overuse. Her most recent book, the Addiction Inoculation, is a crucial resource for anyone who plays a vital role in children's lives, from parents and teachers to coaches and pediatricians. Helping raise kids who will grow up healthy, happy, and addiction free. Jessica, welcome to the podcast.[00:01:35] Jessica: You are so welcome. I'm so happy to be here.[00:01:38] Dr. McBride: I'm really happy to be here too because you and I were talking before the show started recording about how medicine in the current landscape is failing people. It treats people like a set of boxes to check, like humans are a bag of organs. We cattle herd, we box check, we move people along the conveyor belt, when health to me, and I'm sure to your husband, who's also a doctor, is rooted in the relationship with a patient, is founded on trust. And particularly when we're talking about complex issues like substance use and overuse, it requires time to get to know the patient and then unlock those complicated stories.[00:02:25] So, this is why I'm thrilled to have you here because it's clear to me that this is not just your job, but this is who you are. So I'd love to talk first about your story and how you became interested in substance use.[00:02:39] Jessica: I couldn't avoid it because I was raised in a home with someone with substance use disorder. One of my parents and one of my parents was raised with a person with substance use disorder and so on and so on, and so on and so on. And when I first got sober, On June 7th, 2013. Not coincidentally, my mother's birthday, I got blackout drunk at her birthday party.[00:03:03] My very first thought was, okay, well hold on. If I'm part of this long legacy, and by the way, my husband is part of a very long legacy of substance use disorder, how on earth do I make this stop for my kids? I mean am I just, are they just destined to carry? And I had so many questions about genetics and risk factors and all that stuff.[00:03:27] And more than that, I had also been a teacher for 20 years. And after I got sober, I started teaching in an inpatient recovery center for adolescents. And I wanted to understand very specifically, how those kids ended up there, what could we could have done differently, both from a parenting, from a social, from an educational perspective, how those kids ended up there.[00:03:50] And then looking at my own kids, I got sober when they were nine and 14. And I really just needed some answers. And I was hearing, most of the information I had in my head was myth. It was magical thinking. It was myth, it was rumor. I needed to understand, if we give kids sips when they're younger, does that do anything about helping them learn moderation or should we be aspiring to be like those European families that we talk about so much?[00:04:19] And anyway, so all of that stuff, I needed answers. I have the coolest job in the world, which is to get curious about topics and then get paid to research the heck out of them, and then translate that research for people who don't wanna dive in and research for two years to get the answer to a topic.[00:04:36] So my job is not just… I'm a writer, but I'm at heart, a teacher. I mean, not just to kids, but now I get to go out into the world and translate all of this stuff. And if there's nothing I love more, it's helping people think about topics that freak them out. Whether that's letting your kids fail with Gift of Failure, whether that's substance use prevention stuff.[00:04:59] It's the reason that I've stuck with this substance use prevention stuff, because it's just so hard to get people over the shame, the guilt, the fear, the denial in order to talk about this stuff. So that's one reason that I make daily videos about this stuff. I'm out there speaking to lots and lots of people, and sometimes it's an uphill battle, but it's really, really fun.[00:05:23] Dr. McBride: I can tell you're enjoying it and you're so effective at communication. I'm the same way. I love complicated patients. I love the layered kind of kernels of people's interiority and how their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are interrelated and then explaining it to people. I also love tackling topics that tend to freak people out, like death and dying, delivering bad news, like somehow that's like my Super Bowl. And I think one of the reasons is because, at least for me, I see the fear in people's eyes and I see the shame that they carry and then being able to kind of convey a message to people that is, that they can wrap their arms around is really gratifying. When it comes to substance use disorder, I think a lot of parents are freaked out.[00:06:12] I think they read the headlines. They see how pre pandemic, we had an epidemic of diseases of despair, including substance use disorder that is only accelerated during the pandemic and they don't know what to do. And they know their kids in their adolescent years are trying alcohol, drinking in kids' basements.[00:06:30] They're kind of looking at what other parents are doing and not knowing who to trust. And so I'd love to hear from you what are the common myths that parents tend to hold in their minds about substance use disorder in adolescence?[00:06:47] Jessica: Yeah, I think this is really important because it's also the myths that get translated to their children. And the big ones are things like, first of all it's a fait accompli—kids are going to drink anyway, so I might as well teach them how to do it responsibly, either because I have beer at my house and I take away everyone's keys, and at least they'll be safe.[00:07:06] That sort of just fatalistic, it's going to happen anyway because that's simply not true. The numbers are so much lower than people understand, and I get into that. In the book, there's this thing called pluralistic ignorance, which is we tend to overestimate in the case of alcohol, for example, how much people tend to drink, the people around us and how invested they are in having alcohol around.[00:07:28] And we all tend to overestimate that. So that sort of fatalistic thing, the whole, you know, I really want my kids to be like those European kids. So therefore if I let my kids have sips at home, let them have their own beer, a little bit of wine, that kind of thing, it'll somehow teach them to be moderate drinkers and not freak out when suddenly alcohol is available to them at college or whatever.[00:07:51] And that's wrong for so many reasons. I mean, the European Union as a whole, based on data from the World Health Organization and specifically World Health Organization Europe has the highest level of alcohol consumption in the entire world, and the highest level of deaths and illness attributable to alcohol.[00:08:10] Yes, there are exceptions, and that's a fantastic conversation to have as well, because that's about outliers based on the fact that those countries tend to have very particular community standards around public drunkenness. So the outliers tend to have to do with community pressures, and that leads to a great conversation of family culture, school culture, city culture, all those kinds of things.[00:08:33] And then, the idea that our kids don't listen to us because that's just not true. Even as kids get into college, they report that their parents tend to be their preferred and most trusted source of information for especially health, personal health, that kind of stuff, that kind of information. And finally, I want to also, I think it's really important to remember that substance use disorder and substance use are two different things. Lots of kids can try substances and not go on to have a problem with substances over the long run. And it's important to understand from an objective perspective what those risk factors are so that you can say, oh, my kids are at higher risk, or this puts my kid at higher risk, so what do I do specifically to deal with that. And then finally, I think it's also important to remember that yes, substance use disorder, we're having a crisis right now with mental health and stuff like that. And substance use disorder or substance use can be one way to cope with that. But prevention works. Effective prevention works.[00:09:31] And we're at, we've seen a 10 year decline really now 15 year decline in most aspects of substance use in adolescence. And that's because prevention works. And in order to do that really great prevention work, we have to be objective about risk factors, and we need to realize that adolescent brains are different from adult brains. I don't talk about adult substance use that often, except for when I talk about whether or not you should do it in front of your kids and what your messaging should be, because the adolescent brain is just different from the adult brain.[00:10:06] Dr. McBride: Okay. I wanna talk a lot about the adolescent brain, having three of them in my own house. I welcome your insights. Actually, two are in college, but they do inhabit my house every now and then. But let's go back to the first myth for a second. The myth that parents, I think, believe quite often, and I have believed in some ways, which is that it's inevitable they're going to use alcohol, trying to stop them from drinking alcohol or experimenting with it in high school is kind of like stopping a 747. I think a lot of parents think, as long as we've had the conversation, then this is, this is the best we can do. What data is out there, Jess, to show that delaying your exposure helps prevent the likelihood of substance use disorder?[00:10:56] Jessica: So first it's just important to remember that there are two periods of brain development that are the most important. They're just these massive periods of brain plasticity, and that's zero to two and puberty to around 25-ish, depending on the kid. So what we need to remember is that that development, that cognitive development that's going on, and that brain development that's going on from puberty to 25-ish, we don't fully understand all of it, it is massive. It's happening all over the brain. It's happening with lots of different centers. The executive function part of the brain, the upper brain is connecting to the lower brain, and anyway, that needs to happen as unimpeded as possible. What we do know is that the younger a kid is when they first initiate their substance use, the more likely they are to have substance use disorder during their lifetime.[00:11:46] So for example, if a kid starts in eighth grade, it approaches a 50% chance of developing substance use disorder over their lifetime. If they start in 10th grade, it goes down to around 20%, a little bit less than 20%. And if you can get them to 18, we get so darn close to 10%. It's important to delay, delay, delay. So that's one reason. Not only are we lowering their statistical risk of substance use disorder over their lifetime, and yes, there are some confounders in that data. There are confounders. I mean 90% of people who develop substance use as an adult report that they started before the age of 18.[00:12:26] And of course there are issues in there that we can't control for—the social determinants and all that kind of stuff. Families that have more alcohol around are gonna have kids that are more likely. So there's all of that as well. But this is what I'm dealing with in terms of the statistics.[00:12:42] Also remembering that the development, the longer a kid goes without ingesting anything that messes, whether it's with your dopamine cycle or fills up receptors in your brain that are, should otherwise have naturally occurring neurotransmitters in those receptors, because we're introducing them through drugs and alcohol. The brain just needs to develop as unimpeded as possible for as long as possible. So we're protecting their brains and we're lowering their risk of substance use disorder over their lifetime.[00:13:11] Dr. McBride: It makes sense in a lot of ways. The way I think about it is that the longer you give adolescent brains to ripen on the vine, and the longer you give kids who are dealing with a lot of complex thoughts, feelings and emotions and genetic predispositions, the more chance you give them to find and practice coping with hard thoughts and feelings. You just give them more opportunities to realize that they like drawing, they like being outside to play sports, they like laughing with their friends, they've realized who their intimate friendships are and where they can go to put a lot of thoughts and feelings instead of the default mode to alcohol, which for some kids, as we both know, is a occupational hazard for our kids who are in distress.[00:14:02] Jessica: And that's really apparent when you see what happens to a kid who has substance use disorder. They come to rehab. We remove the substance they're using as their coping mechanism. Suddenly you have kids with unresolved trauma. I mean so much. When we talk risk factors, you know, trauma is a big part of it.[00:14:21] So suddenly we have these kids that have been using this one and only coping mechanism for so long that they. Not only don't have coping mechanisms for that trauma, but they don't have coping mechanisms for interpersonal disputes, for just feeling anxious. All of their coping has been through using the substance instead of actually learning a real coping mechanism, which is why we often talk about kids in recovery as having been—in some ways not always—having had their development arrested at the age at which they started using the substance and. I don't agree with that fully, but what I do [00:15:00] know is that it does arrest their ability to learn prosocial behaviors, to learn coping mechanisms, to learn how to as we often hear from, for example, Dr. Dan Siegel, integrate their upper and lower brain, and figure out how to be slightly outside of their emotions as opposed to living completely inside of their emotion and reacting from their limbic system, from their lower brain and not engaging that upper sort of more rational part of their brain. Yeah, it's tough.[00:15:31] Dr. McBride: I just had Lisa Damour on my podcast.[00:15:33] Jessica: She's fantastic.[00:15:34] Dr. McBride: I love her too. And we talked, as you would imagine, about the rainbow of emotions that adolescents have and how complex they are and how they don't have necessarily in their teenage years, the vocabulary with which to discuss feelings. They don't have the interest always in talking about their feelings, and they don't even know they're having them sometimes.[00:15:55] I have this poster in my office. That's the periodic table of emotions. I have a version at home too. It's like the periodic table of the elements, but it's emotion. So instead of believing that we have happy, sad, mad, we have rage, we have jealousy, we have envy, we have fear, we have this whole rainbow.[00:16:19] So my kids tease me about it because they're like, oh my God, there's mom with the rainbow of emotions again. But then I see them when I'm not looking like my son and his girlfriend kind of being like, “hmm, I'm feeling kind of vulnerable today.” So what is my point? That it is a natural human instinct, whether you're a teenager or an adult who's experiencing complex emotions that are uncomfortable and maybe not even named to seek out places and ways to soothe, and I think adults do this. This is why I have a job. But teenagers, without the vocabulary, without the tools, without the insight that you are helping them grow and that I see older teenagers myself, it can be a very complex landscape and they're… Alcohol in our culture is socially acceptable and legal, and so it seems natural that they would experiment with it, and then you're off to the races.[00:17:11] If you have a kid who all of a sudden feels, wait a minute, my social anxiety has been quieted, my uncomfortable thought has been muted, my fear is less loud. And they don't even necessarily articulate it that way, but it makes so much sense that this is an occupational hazard of being an adolescent.[00:17:29] Jessica: Yeah, there's definitely a camp—in any field there are camps—these little camps of people who believe various things. And there's the trauma camp, that substance use disorder response to trauma. There's also the developmental camp, and I think that's really important. I think the reason that I and you and Lisa love adolescents so much is because, we tend to have a deeper understanding of how their brains work, which is why I tell parents that the more you understand about your adolescent's brain, the better you can be at stepping back and not just reacting to some of the buttons that are being pushed.[00:18:06] And I think that whenever I—in fact, I tell parents, whenever you're most frustrated with your teenagers, just look between their eyes at that spot, right between their eyes. And remember, that's the part of the brain that's not fully connected yet, and that what they're doing in terms of their adolescence is designed to make kids want to push out and to individuate, but also to try new things.[00:18:30] What's so cool about that? In trying new things in seeking out novelty and yes, sometimes novelty comes with risk. When they succeed at those things that they're trying out, when they build new skills, they're actually boosting their dopamine and boosting dopamine through… Kids are constantly craving dopamine. They want, we all want to feel good, we all want to have that feeling of mastery, inhalation, and all that sort of stuff. But if we want our kids to seek that out in healthy ways and healthy places, we can push them towards positive risk on to skill building and building competence, and then they can sort of get that dopamine cycle going in productive ways.[00:19:13] But I think the minute that you just sort of shut down and say teenagers are difficult, they're moody. I heard one time on a podcast on—it might have even been This American Life—it was definitely on NPR a long time ago when I was a middle school teacher, I heard a middle school teacher say, sometimes I let myself just think that we should send these kids away to some holding place until they're ready to listen and able to learn again.[00:19:43] And it makes me bananas because the exact opposite is true, that for people that really love and appreciate and understand adolescence and especially early adolescence, the more we understand what an incredible opportunity there is for learning, and how much learning is actually going on during that period, and enjoy it more, the more we understand it, the more we have the potential to enjoy it.[00:20:08] Dr. McBride: So talk to me about what do you see as a major differences between the adolescent brain and the fully formed adult brain as it pertains to substance use disorder and dopamine, et cetera.[00:20:21] Jessica: Yeah, so I rely heavily on the Dan Siegels and the Frances Jensens and the Laurence Steinberg's to help me see—as Laurence Steinberg refers to—adolescence as an age of opportunity. And I love that because so many other people are talking about this a terrible time, but what you have to understand about the adolescent brain, and varying people describe it in varying ways, but there's sort of a mismatch between the part of the brain, the early developing part of the brain, the lower brain, the reacting part of the brain that is just like, you know, go, go, go, emotions, emotions, emotions and the part of the brain that's still getting connected that handles executive function and prioritizing of resources and time and all that stuff. And that mismatch seems to persist until just about the time that we want to freak out and give up on them. And then suddenly, and it's so cool being a teacher because you get to bear witness to these moments, and eighth grade is a great time for this. [00:21:20] For example, I taught English, and so I taught a lot of literature that had metaphor and symbolism in it, and many middle school kids, not because they're dumb, not because they're smart, not because they're lacking anything, can't understand metaphor in a way that some, maybe some of their classmates can. But you don't stop talking about it just because they don't understand it yet. You just keep offering it. You just keep offering it in ways that are obvious so that the day that those neurons connect, you can see their eyes just go wide and they go, “oh. That's what she's been talking about.” And that same thing can happen with strategies for organization.[00:22:03] I talk in the Gift of Failure about when my daughter finally connected this strategy for helping her remember things and actually remembering things and being able to go to school with her stuff. And had we been arguing about it for months? Oh yeah, of course. But it wasn't until for whatever reason, those neurons finally, finally decided to connect.[00:22:26] And there have been times as a middle school advisor where, you know, I had a family once beg me to be their kid's middle school advisor, because I had been his brother's middle school advisor and his brother had made leaps and bounds during middle school. And I'm like, that's really sweet that you wanna attribute any of that to me and being his advisor. But it's just that his lower brain and his upper brain finally connected, and I was lucky enough to be there when it happened and capitalize on some of those moments. And that's what's amazing to know about the adolescent brain is that all of these things that we're being asked, we're asking them to do that they may not be ready for.[00:23:03] All of that creates stress, anxiety, a need for some kind of control over their world, and if we give them the autonomy and we give them the competence that they need, what ends up happening in their brain is they feel this, as I mentioned, the dopamine cycle lets them have this great burst of dopamine. If you wanna read more about that, please read Anna Lembke's Dopamine Nation.[00:23:26] It's such a fantastic book. And on the other side, the less kids get to feel that feeling of self-efficacy, of competence, of skill building, the more helpless they feel, the lower their feelings of self-efficacy become, and the more they turn to things other than their own abilities in order to help themselves cope. And it's the reason I quote Chris Herren. Chris Herren, former Boston Celtic, ended up addicted to opiates. It's a fantastic story. Basketball junkie, if you ever wanna read it. And he goes out and speaks to kids a lot and he, I quote him in the addiction inoculation as talking about the fact that we tend to spend so much time talking about the last day of substance use.[00:24:07] How far we fell, how disgusting it was on my mom's birthday on June 7th, 2013, and how ugly it got. But what we need to be talking about, especially when it comes to kids, is the first day, and he talks about that moment when a kid is at a party in a friend's basement, and why they don't feel like they are enough. They deserve to be loved. They don't deserve to take up space. They don't deserve to be here. What is it that makes them turn to substances? And I'm really lucky in that I get to talk to a lot of kids and hear what those moments sound like for them. And we need to help them feel like they're enough in those moments so they don't have to turn to something else.[00:24:49] Dr. McBride: I wanna break that down and I first wanna just comment that. You know, I think a lot of substance abuse programs in schools focus on this on the last day, right? Like, they focus, they, they bring people in and try to scare the pants off of kids. They show images of drunk driving accidents and kids are supposed to go away thinking, “oh, I don't wanna be in a car accident. I don't wanna die.” But in my experience with teenagers, myself, as a physician and as a mother, that doesn't really work. And then we know the data are clear that scaring people doesn't work. We have to meet people where they are. And it's clear that, as you talk about so beautifully, the roots of a healthy program to educate kids and on substance use is social emotional learning. So can you talk a bit about that and how that relates to the prevention as individual parents who may be listening?[00:25:45] Jessica: Yeah, so backing up, for example, in this country, only 57% of high schools in this country, and by the way, high school is too late to be starting this. Anyway, we need to be starting these programs very, very young, and I talk about that in Addiction Inoculation. Only 57% of high schools in this country have any substance use prevention program.[00:26:02] And of that 57%, only 10% are based on evidence. On any kind of evidence of efficacy, that kind of stuff. So what we know about the best available substance use prevention programs is that they start very young, pre-k, k, and continue all the way through the end of high school. They are rooted in social emotional learning, refusal skills, building self-efficacy and self-advocacy, and essentially giving kids from a very early age, pro-social skills and coping skills, coping mechanisms.[00:26:37] It's the reason that some have mindfulness programs attached to them and unfortunately, we're in this horrible position right now where we know these programs work. Oh, and also life skills, by the way. Life skills are a very important part of these programs as well. We know that social-emotional programs that contain health modules—making sure your bodily autonomy and safety and self-advocacy and stuff like that. We know those work. And yet, right now, For the first time ever, social-emotional learning is under attack because there's a faction of society that sees social-emotional learning as something that it's absolutely not, which is either indoctrination or identity and whatever. And it's really, really upsetting to me because without social emotional learning programs, which are just about building pro-social skills and skills that help us be a part of society and get along with other people and advocate for ourselves and all of this stuff that we know is so important.[00:27:36] Ask kindergarten teachers, they repeatedly say those are the skills that if you were to look at kids and say, okay, that kid is probably gonna do really well, and that kid probably is not. It all comes down to pro-social skills and behaviors. If we do away with social emotional learning, there have been places I have spoken where I've been asked not to use that acronym because it's quote “problematic.” This is a disaster because this is what we know works for substance use prevention programs, and we abolish that at our peril. Any gains we've made in the reduction in substance use among adolescents, we're going to lose.[00:28:15] Dr. McBride: I could not agree with you more. I mean, social emotional learning to me is about giving yourself permission to be human, to be flawed, and to have bodily autonomy, and as you said, the refusal skills and the ability to learn how to cope and function in the real world. [00:28:34] Jessica: Self-regulation, collaboration. Well, and then if you look at risk factors for substance use disorder, we know that 50 to 60% of the risk lies in genetics. That's Dr. Mark Shook at the University of California, San Diego. We know that the other 40 to 50% is adverse childhood experiences, trauma, stuff like that, and then set.[00:28:53] And of course, the social emotional learning stuff can help kids with that. But then on the other hand, we also know that child on child aggression, academic failure, social ostracism, undiagnosed learning issues, all of these other things are risk factors as well. And if social emotional learning programs help with so many of the things that can counteract social ostracism and help identify academic failure early on and can help reduce aggression between children. This is such an important part of the substance use prevention picture, and because we also know that self-efficacy is one of the most important things we can give kids and self-efficacy comes from the ability to self-advocate and self-regulate. It's all this self-perpetuating cycle that if we throw a wrench in there, sorry to mix metaphors, that we, this whole thing grinds to a halt and we have a whole bunch of kids who not only can't get along with other people, but don't have any coping mechanisms within themselves to manage their own stress. All that stuff Lisa Damur talks about with girls and Yeah.[00:29:58] Dr. McBride: When I was growing up, it was just say no. That was the mantra.[00:30:01] Jessica: And we know that doesn't work[00:30:02] Dr. McBride: and it would be really easy to say no if you had the social wherewithal, the confidence, the emotional skillset to manage that moment when a kid asks you if you want a beer and you're an eighth grader…[00:30:14] Jessica: Well, and that's not even enough. That's not even enough. So what we need are, they're ultimately called refusal skills. I sometimes call them refusal skills. I call them in Addiction Inoculation—the inoculation. There's a school of sociology called Inoculation Theory. It's essentially if we give kids the information they need in order to counteract messaging that's coming from other places, whether that's from liquor companies advertising beer to kids during sports, or another kid in their class. So let's say for example, you have an eighth grader who gets offered a beer. And the rejoinder to “no thanks” is, “come on. It's no big deal. Everybody's doing it.” If your eighth grader knows, well, it is kind of a big deal because here's what's happening in my brain and, and blah, blah, blah, and they know that it's not true that everybody's doing it. That in eighth grade, by the end of eighth grade, only 24.7% of eighth graders admit to having had more than a sip of alcohol.[00:31:16] So if they have that information, it makes them feel more confident in their stance and makes them more likely to continue to stick with their rejoinder of, “no thanks. I'm good.” And that those refusal skills, that inoculation messaging is so important and we have to start that early and continue it through.[00:31:37] So it's not just about the wherewithal, the emotional wherewithal to say, no, we need to give them the actual information to back that up so that they can feel more confident in their stance and they can have a reasoning behind their stance. And it's the reason, by the way, that of the entire book. There's a lot of things I loved about writing this book, but my favorite part, I didn't necessarily write. I asked adolescents to give me excuses they could use in public at a party or whatever that would help them save face and yet allow them to get out of using if they didn't want to. And there's two and a half pages of those in the book, and I'm so grateful to all of the kids that sent those to me because so many of them are brilliant and I wouldn't have come up with them on my own.[00:32:21] Dr. McBride: Give me some examples. I'd love to hear, and for any parent who's listening, I would love to like have you flip to that page because if we can arm our kids with like just the words to use and ideas, then that would be great.[00:32:36] Jessica: they are things like, “I can't, I get migraines” because we know that, for example, wine, alcohol is a trigger for migraines. “I can't, I have a sleep disorder.” We also know that alcohol is a major component of sleep disorders—it exacerbates sleep disorders. “I can't. I'm taking an antibiotic.” “I can't. My parents drug test me. Aren't they horrible?!” or “I can't, my mom breathalyzes me when I get home.” or even just in their own head. My son, who's now 24, when he was in high school, he admitted to me that while he doesn't say this out loud in his own brain, he's like, “I know that I'm at increased risk for substance use disorder, and my mom had to work so hard to get away from the pit of despair that she reached in her alcoholism. I think I'm just gonna not risk that for now,” or “I have an early practice. I can't.” “I'm the designated driver,” which by the way, makes you more popular with other people because you can help them get home safely and not get in trouble and not get pulled over. There's all kinds of things that we don't even think about.[00:33:42] A lot of Asians have something that's like a flushing disorder that is actually, it's sort of a… it's not really an allergy to alcohol, but it is something that makes drinking alcohol quite unpleasant. So you can go with that. There are a few studies, there's all kinds of ways that you can get at this.[00:33:59] It's just not the best thing for me right now. And I think the big overlooked answer is, “nah, that's okay. I'm good.” No is always an acceptable answer. And even in in sobriety, I have to value my sobriety and my safety more than maybe the worrying about upsetting my host, if I need to go home early from a dinner party where I'm just not feeling safe anymore and my husband and I have a signal and we've got all kinds of exit strategies and stuff like that, but helping kids know that they're worth it, that they are allowed to say no and that, obviously we have to make sure they know that in terms of unwanted touching and having sex before they're ready, all of that kind of stuff, we have to sort of empower them, give them the self-efficacy they need in order to feel like they're entitled to say no to whatever the heck they want to if it feels like it's going to endanger their safety.[00:34:56] Dr. McBride: And I do think kids these days are feeling more empowered to say how they feel to put limits down, to set boundaries. But of course, without the vocabulary and tools and the social support and the emotional vocabulary, it can be more difficult.[00:35:11] Jessica: Yeah. And that why that's part of the dovetail also with Gift of Failure, is that we know that parents who are highly controlling of their children tend to have kids that lie to them more often, and also that don't feel heard because if you are from that school of thought of do it because I said so or because I'm the parent without attaching any of the why to it, then it's like the difference between saying, I would prefer that you not drink until 21 because it's the law versus I would prefer that you not drink until you're 21 because of the potential damage it can do to your brain and because it can raise your risk of, of substance use disorder over your lifetime.[00:35:48] I'm a why kind of person. I need to know the why. Otherwise, I am not invested as a learner and many kids are the same way. Just telling them, because I said so doesn't tend to be a winning strategy.[00:36:02] Dr. McBride: To what extent are parents, quote unquote, “responsible” for their kids' relationship with alcohol? I'd love to talk to you about genetics versus experiences. The whole trauma argument that…I'm sure you know Gabor Mate and his system, I mean, he's wonderful. I also take a little bit of an issue with the idea that it's all rooted in trauma. I also believe on the other side that trauma is a, is a big word and can mean lots of different things. Feeling unloved and unsafe in your home for whatever reason can be traumatic. It's not just the. Experience of say, you know, breaking your leg and being ambulanced to the hospital. It can be an uncomfortable experience.[00:36:54] It's the way that experience is handled from the individual standpoint, and that can then lead to a predisposition towards unhealthy coping strategies. So talk to me about what parents are responsible for. How much is genetic and how much is environmental, because I don't think we know the answer, but I'd love your thoughts.[00:37:17] Jessica: Yeah, so like I said, the, the figure we have on the genetics is about 50 to 60%, but then you add on top of that this added layer called epigenetics, which is a crossover between environment and genetics. Also it's not just one gene. We're not gonna ever have this CRISPR technology where we're like, oh, we can flick that one gene out. Look. And addiction is gone. It's not like that. It's tied into personality, it's tied into chemistry. It's tied into so many different aspects of our environment. And again, epigenetics determines how genes either do turn on or don't turn on, that kind of thing. So then on top of that,  the other 40 to 50% is yes trauma.[00:37:56] Jessica: But there's all different kinds of trauma. If you read Lisa Damour's Under Pressure, you understand the difference between stress, like there's little T trauma and there's Big T trauma. I think everyone on the planet should have to read Nadine Burke Harris's The Deepest Well, because average childhood experiences as originally defined by the CDC and Kaiser Permanente are really valuable, right?[00:38:21] Because we know that people who have. People are more likely to have negative life outcomes in terms of health, mental health, all kinds of other stuff. If they've had various adverse childhood experiences and there's a really handy list, go google Adverse Childhood Experience and Quiz, and you can take the quiz yourself.[00:38:38] However, it is not a complete list. The things that are on that quiz are a great starting place. For example, we know that physical and especially sexual abuse is a huge, huge glaring blinking neon sign risk for eventual substance use disorder. That's a huge, massive risk. So the adverse childhood experiences list of 10 things within categories comes close, but then there's also… it doesn't take into account Nadine Burke Harris's list, which can include things like systemic racism. Why on earth are we not counting that as a big T trauma because it absolutely is. There's a lot of debate right now around adoption, around all kinds of things that qualify as—can qualify as traumatic experiences for kids.[00:39:24] So, and you should know about me that anytime someone says it is, All this or all that, I'm immediately suspicious as a journalist[00:39:35] Dr. McBride: Well, I'm the same way. I mean, that's, that's it. I mean, everything is in the middle. It's not all nature. It's not all nurture. It's in the middle.[00:39:40] Jessica: Well, and that's why, you know, there's an entire chapter essentially. What if I were to write about the peers chapter, you know, why did I include a chapter on the influence of peers in the book?[00:39:49] Why bother? Because I could have just said, research shows that the more your kid's friends use drugs and alcohol, the more likely your kid is to use drugs and alcohol. Okay? Chapter over. But the problem is, it is a much more nuanced picture than that. And I tell the story in that chapter of. My son Ben had a friend who, Brian, that's his real name.[00:40:08] He was insistent—the two young adults I profile in the book, Brian, and Georgia insisted that I use their real names because they felt this was just too important. Brian and Ben became friends. Brian had been already kicked out of one high school, then got kicked outta my son's high school for substance use and behavioral stuff and my, my kids stuck by him and all their friends stuck by him and I'm like, look, my instinct as a parent is you cannot be friends with this kid because if he does substances, you are more likely to do substances. In the end, that relationship was much more complicated and the fact that my son, Ben, and his friends stuck by Brian actually led to the moment where Brian realized on the second time he got kicked out of that high school and my son and his friends took him running on the last day, he was allowed to be on campus. Brian realized in that moment that was his turning point. That was his 100th piece of his puzzle where he said, it all has clicked into place and I see what I stand to lose, and my son benefited from the object lesson. The real scared, straight sort of object lesson, real life learned experience of, oh, this is what happens when you rely on substances in order to manage these other things. [00:41:26] And here let's talk about those things. And PS the best part of that whole relationship was I said to my son, “Ben, look. I'm so pleased you want to support him and go visit him in rehab and all that stuff. Loyalty is great and a friendship, but if you're going to be friends with Ben, knowing what I know about the statistics, we're gonna have to talk about this a lot.”[00:41:47] And that was something that became a standard conversation topic for us. How's Brian doing? How are you doing about Brian's… how do you think Brian's doing? How do you think…what are you seeing that works for Brian and what doesn't work for Brian? It gave us a proxy so that my son didn't have to talk about himself as much, which can be very difficult for teenagers. But it allowed us this proxy to talk about substance use and substance use disorder in the guise of Brian and gave Brian a launching off place for his, what became his recovery.[00:42:19] Dr. McBride: It's so lovely and I really like the way you talk about Georgia and Brian in your videos and in your book, because it just helps parents, I think, hook into the realities of these kids' lives with empathy and compassion for their stories and great respect for their privacy. Obviously, that the fact that they wanted to share their stories means that they feel that this needs to be talked about more than it is.[00:42:45] Jessica: Yeah, I can't count the number of times. I was like, no, really, let's do a pseudonym. You can choose the pseudonym. And even recently with Brian, I had to get in touch with Brian about something and I wanted to make sure that they were making that decision from a place—and they were [00:43:00] adults when they made this decision—but that they were truly making this decision from the perspective of, you know, I appreciate that. A lot of people have shame and guilt in that. There may be some persecution that I could face maybe in the workplace later if this got out, that this was me, but this is too important. It has brought some value out of everything I went through as a kid, as a child of an alcoholic, everything I went through as an alcoholic.[00:43:25] And this education might help someone else. And I think that's really where Brian and Georgia are coming from, from this. And I talked to Georgia last week, talked to Brian two weeks ago, and yeah, they're doing great. They're doing so well.[00:43:39] Dr. McBride: It's incredible. I'd love to now segue into talking more about you if I could because you are talking the talk and walking the walk. So had you tried to get sober in your life before that moment at your mother's birthday party?[00:43:56] Jessica: I've had periods of sobriety because I was scared. Like, you know, I did that, I did that thing a lot of sober curious people do, and to make it clear, I'm so hopeful about where we are right now because I think a lot of people are realizing you don't have to rise to the level of completely out of control, homeless, DUI, all that stuff, getting fired from work. You can say to yourself, “man, I'm gonna try dry January and just see how it goes.” And then you realize, oh wow, this kind of feels better. And so I'm gonna keep going. You can stop drinking just because it's not working for you anyway. I was scared to death.[00:44:30] I tried through the guise of long distance running like I used, running as a reason to stay sober, to not drink, and I would make all kinds of bargains with myself. When I was pregnant, I was sober. When I was training for big races, I was sober, but it just was starting to take over to a degree that I couldn't control it anymore on my own. And so the reason I talk about getting to a place where I know I needed help as a 100 piece puzzle is, you know, my dad on that morning, after my mom's birthday party was my 100th piece. But pieces one through 99 had to be there for all of that to click into place and form a big picture.[00:45:13] And those early attempts at sobriety were pieces of that. And the beauty of all of this puzzle piece stuff is that I can't guarantee that my kids are not gonna develop substance use disorder, but all of this prevention stuff are pieces of that puzzle. So maybe they get to start at piece 65, where I started at piece 32.[00:45:34] It builds those blocks. So I was able to get sober. I happened to get sober in 12 step and. There are lots of ways to get and stay sober. I happen to get sober in 12 Step, and my higher power is the people in those rooms and the people I work with at the rehab where I work now. I work as a prevention coach and sort of a recovery resource at Santa at Stowe.[00:45:58] It's a recovery in Stowe, Vermont. It's medical detox and recovery, and they are my higher power. I can't show up for them. Unless I'm sober, I can't go do my speaking engagements. I can't do my daily videos unless I show up sober because then I'm being completely inauthentic and I would be hungover and miserable.[00:46:18] But all of my stuff has been partially in service to getting control of my life back and being the parent that I know I need to be in order to raise two kids who might break the cycle of this. [00:46:36] Dr. McBride: What I'm hearing from you is that. Your sobriety is rooted in the 12 steps. It's also rooted in the ongoing process of helping other people, which is one of the tenets of AA is passing on your knowledge and wisdom to other people and, and making meaning out of an experience, and I think you really are making a difference.[00:46:55] I see people reading your book. I hear p people reading your book. I've had my kids listen to your videos, and not that they necessarily wanted to, but I have heard some good feedback because I think what happens when we talk about alcohol to adolescents is it often comes across as a parent as just a, a moralistic, judgmental, do as I say, conversation[00:47:22] Jessica: And not necessarily do as I do, because if…[00:47:25] Dr. McBride: not necessarily right. And then we go, poor gin and tonic. And they're like, Hmm. It's funny, one of my most popular posts on substack, like by a mile was the post I wrote called “Is Dry January a good idea? And I put it out on January one.[00:47:40] And I mean, the answer to the question in my mind was probably what you wouldn't be surprised to hear, which is that sure. It's only though scratching the surface of the curiosity and compassion and empathy we need to have about ourselves and about the why, because you can put a fence around a behavior for 30 days, 31, I guess, in January, and then on February 1 you can go to the pub and get plastered or just start drinking again.[00:48:07] The question isn't, can you give it up because you can…[00:48:10] Jessica: I gave it up for a year.[00:48:12] Dr. McBride: And for some people that's very hard, but the harder question is mining that interior landscape that is driving you to drink when you don't want to, if you're remorseful the next day, [and] you wish you hadn't done it. That is hard work, and it's much easier to put a fence around it for 31 days. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying do it and get curious.[00:48:34] Jessica: One of my favorite speaking gigs is, and don't hate me for this, but every six months or so I'm at Canyon Ranch, either in Tucson or Lennox, Massachusetts, and they put me up and give me a discount on spa stuff for me and my plus one, and I do my talks. But the cool thing about Canyon Ranch is that there's no alcohol served there.[00:48:55] And some people bring their own because they just can't be without it for a couple days. But there are plenty of people who go there and realize that they hadn't anticipated how difficult it was going to be for them to not have it there as an option. And, and then every—because Canyon Ranch was founded by someone for whom recovery is part of their story—there is a meeting there every single day at five and the people that often, and I often run those meetings and the people that show up at those meetings are often people who are like, “I don't really know why I'm here. All I know is it really bums me out that there's no alcohol here and I don't know what that's about.”[00:49:29] So, you know, it's a[00:49:31] Dr. McBride: great starting point.[00:49:32] Jessica: Well, and also a lot of people are there either by themselves or with a spouse and don't know anyone else there. So they feel like it's a super safe place to go to a first meeting anyway. Either way, it's a really cool place to get to do the kind of stuff that I do. Because it's opening the door for them in a way that maybe they hadn't anticipated.[00:49:51] Dr. McBride: Yeah, I mean it's self-discovery. I think about health as not an outcome, but a process of laddering up from self-awareness to acceptance to agency. I mean, the serenity prayer… I'm not in recovery, but people ask me if I am all the time. I mean from alcohol, I'm, I'm in recovery from other s**t that I do, but because I really understand and believe in the concept of the Serenity Prayer, which is accepting the things we cannot control, which is a lot, knowing ideally what we can control, and then understanding the difference and not spending so much time over here and shifting our energy and attention and curiosity to this spot.[00:50:31] Jessica: You want to hear something ridiculous? This is so interesting. So two things. When the book first came out, it was first getting its reviews and stuff like that. I got one review where it said very specifically that I parroted AA stuff. So first of all, I did not use anything AA in the entire book except in one spot.[00:50:52] I said, this is where something, for example, like the Serenity Prayer has been useful for me, and this is the restraints that we're dealing with when we talk about this stuff. Like that's why don't talk about AA because it is, the minute I refer to that, that is the only thing someone will hear. And then I'm just stuck.[00:51:11] Dr. McBride: And they associate it with, oh, AA that's like my crazy Uncle Sal. I just drink a gin and tonic every night. What's it to you? So I think that your approach that is honest, empathetic, rooted in data, and that stems from your own experience of being perfectly imperfect is really valuable. And so I just want to say thank you for being here and thank you for doing what you're doing and God speed.[00:51:38] Jessica: I am so grateful to you for just having this conversation. Every single time I have this conversation with someone, I get an email or a DM from someone saying, you know what? I'm scared too, and I don't know what to do. Or, I'm scared for my friend and I need to know how to help them. And so, you know, the more we talk about this, the more other people are gonna feel like they're allowed to talk about it too.[00:52:02] Dr. McBride: Thank you all for listening to Beyond the Prescription. Please don't forget to subscribe, like, download and share the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you catch your podcasts. I'd be thrilled if you like this episode to rate and review it. And if you have a comment or question, please drop us a line at info@lucymcbride.com. [00:52:24] The views expressed on this show are entirely my own and do not constitute medical advice for an individual. That should be obtained from your personal physician. Get full access to Are You Okay? at lucymcbride.substack.com/subscribe

Tune in for a multifaceted conversation about a creatives journey through chasing her passion in entrepreneurship, art, and a full time job that is making societal change. If anything it my be a reminder that no ones path is linear but continual self discovery and holding to your foundations makes all the difference. If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co . And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:Do not give up the foundation of who you are The signs of mental health decline The healthy reason for leading Leading with heart instead of societal factors How you recalibrate and find your centerImportance of investigating your relationship to your passion vs your jobDefine what you're aligned with How to disassociate for personal growthBIO Jess Vann (she/her) is a multi-careered woman who is a Podcast host of "Tomfoolery and Shenanigans" actor, speaker, entrepreneur, singer, all while maintaining a full-time job that focuses on service learning and civic engagement that mobilizes folks to change! She is originally from Lansing, Michigan but calls Chicago home. She received a B.S. in Theatre and Interpretation: Acting from Central Michigan University and a M.A in Training and Development from Roosevelt University. Jess has been the guest on Black Educators Matter Podcast, Feature Article with National After School Association, After School Today and a featured blog with The Chicago Inclusion Project, May 2019.She balances her time running her business Creative Spaces, which provides arts based, anti- racism/social Justice work, leadership and professional development workshops/keynotes/coaching and consulting for emerging and veteran leaders in various work sectors and coaching. It would be safe to say she wears many hats and continues to find self-discovery Episode References/Links:Follow Jess on IGFollow Jess on TikTokCheck out the Jess Vann Creates WebsiteListen to the Tomfoolery and Shenaningans Podcast  If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.Be It Till You See It Podcast SurveyUse this link to get your Toe Sox!ResourcesWatch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable PilatesSocial MediaInstagramFacebookLinkedInLesley Logan  Hey, Be It. How are you? Oh my goodness. Okay, so our guest today is someone I've met in person before. I got to hang out with a couple of times. And I just totally adore her. She makes me laugh. She makes me smile and she makes, you think about who you are, what you're doing. And and she shares that so vulnerably with her story and how she got to where she is today. And I really find find found this whole interview and everything so important for us all to think about, think it's so easy for us to look at people online and think that, "Oh, they've got it all together. They've got all figured out and I'm over here like just not knowing what's what." And the reality is is like everybody is just trying to figure it out. And she is so amazing, brilliant, creative and what she shares with you in this interview is hopefully inspiring for you to take time to get to know yourself and and that takes time. Takes a lot of time. And you're going to hear all about that as you listen to Jessica Vann. She is incredible. She is amazing. You're gonna laugh and smile and if you are watching this on YouTube, you're gonna see she'll keep it interesting. If you're listening to it, just so you know we do have a YouTube channel so if you are intrigued if you want to see what's going on behind the scenes, absolutely check us out on YouTube. In the meantime, please make sure you listen to the BE IT action item at the end. I promise you it's epic. I promise you it is doable and happens to be one of those things that's free. You just had can do. So do not miss that. Check it out. Stay till the end and let us know how you are going to use these tips in your life by tagging us. Let us know in a review. However you want to do it, share it with a friend. You know the more of us that are being it till we see it in our lives easier it is for everyone to show up and be it till they see it. So here is Jessica Vann.Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. All right, Be It babes. I am so excited. I I get to see this guest everyone smile when I hit the Chicago area or we hadn't, we met in Denver. So I really am thrilled to bring on a friend. I like to call her who is a woman who has the best eyeglasses and I'm gonna be honest, you're gonna love her reels I do. I don't scroll but when I see her stuff, I watched the whole thing. So Jessica Vann, thank you so much for being our guest today. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you're rocking out these days?Jessica Vann  Hey, what is good? What's poppin? What's Gucci? As the kiddos I'll say it is me, Jess V. Jessica Vann you know all the thing. I currently at currently Chi... I've been living, I've lived in Chicago. I'm originally from Lansing, Michigan born and raised. You know if you can if you can see me you see me putting up the Michigan hand. And the little thing if you can hear me go forth my fellow Michiganders. Originially from Lansing and I moved out to Chicago to pursue a dream life be it as an artist or however the case may be ever since I was a kid I knew I wanted to live here. So this is just where I've been. But those dreams they came, they continue coming, they manifest in different ways and you just go, "Oh okay, I guess this is what we're gonna do." So I have been in Chicago now for oh my God it'd be almost 20 years. I moved out here out of college so it was around 24. (Lesley: Wow.) ... That's relationship too, so that's what like all relationships here moved out here in 24 and I've just been here ever since just following hearts, minds and wherever the seasons take me here. I have no intentions of going anywhere anytime soon. Well, I hope not. I just hope I bought a whole ass condo. So ...Lesley Logan  I hope not you just buy a house. Your your you could rent it out, I guess but like that was a lot of effort to go through if you're not going to live in it.Jessica Vann  That's a whole thing but I guess I've been here ever since and those who know me if you listen to podcasts, you know, I wear many hats. I have a whole full time job here where I focus on volunteer engagement and civic engagement and bringing people towards building a more equitable and anti racist Chicago. I'm also an actor, I'm a singer. I'm an entrepreneur, those who know Lesley who know me, will know me as a facilitator and entrepreneur and rockin ... DEI, anti racism. There'll be better people streets.Lesley Logan  So, I love that you said all these things, because what I hope people are hearing is like, you are multifaceted in every way. But you have, you went off on a dream. And I think a lot of people can, you know, see and hear what you're doing today and go, "Oh, she went to go Chicago for this. And now she's doing this." And it's like, well, it's like you gave up on any of those things. But you can, you can have multiple things that you're doing, that you're passionate about, you can make them happen. And it might not always happen the way you expected them to. But I do think sometimes people put themselves in a box and like, well, this is what I'm just this. So this is what I do. And I, I those things must be nice for them or I can do a hobby. But you've managed to go off and do the things that really you really care about, and yet also include other aspects of yourself that you're really great at.Jessica Vann  Yeah, and I will tell this, it took me a good chunk of my 20s to understand what that meant. Just because, you know, we all we often be like, I am a multitasker, I can do all these things and wear many hats and like, yes, and but also sort of thing. It's how are you managing that time? How what energies are you getting towards? Like, what makes sense? Like, what does your personal and professional schedule look like when when you're trying to handle all these buckets, and I will say this 2020 bout damn near killed me. So I had to reassess what that means. And not give up on who the foundation of who I am. And at the end of the day, I'm an artist. At the end of the day, I am a creative, I am an artist, I am an actor, I am a performer. That is who I am at the foundation of my core. So I try to use those elements of theater and creative mindsets to like steward my other work. (Lesley: Yeah.) Be it halted, be it my full time job, be it this because that would that keeps me excited just about life in general. Right. Elements of like art, artistry, how I dress, how I present myself in the social media streets like I tried to. It's who I am at the end of the day.Lesley Logan  Well, I think ... I believe you brought that up, though. And I want to go back to something so hopefully don't forget it. But I love that you brought up like you're creative. And so even if like maybe you're not currently acting in this exact moment, you you are not you're allowing your creativity to decide who, you wear and how you do your hair. And like what put you out you put on social media. And I think sometimes people go well, if I'm not acting, if I'm not, if I'm not painting, that I'm not an artist, like you're not anything actually you can be you can actually include that into the life that you're able to live right now. So I just wanted to highlight that. So I want to go back because you said like 2020 almost killed you. So what, a lot of people might be like, "Yep. Yeah. Yes." I had to, I was like, I remember calling my therapist. And I'm like, so I think I'm still in survival mode. And we're like nine months into what's never looking like it's going to end so like how do I like get out of that gear? Like what does it look like? So was it because I'm gonna let you tell the story, but like, was prioritizing yourself something that was easy for you to do? Or did you like realize like, "Oh, if I don't do it right now." Like what was the linchpin to that?Jessica Vann  So okay, so I have to go back to who I was at the top of 2020. I was like, I mean, I'm still the same person but in a different iteration. So at the top of 2020 I was like, Oh, we got I was like booking, I had speaking gigs, I had a auditions coming up and upcoming shows like speaking at this national, like things are on and poppin and then everything stopped and change across the world come March. And I instead of like, at the top of it taking moments to be like, Oh, I guess I should take this as a time to chill. Instead, I took opportunities to like reav and keep going. And so I opened myself up as I was already like, shifting some of my content to DEI work before 2020 had happened. So it was this thing I was already like, Oh let me shift to change my content. Add some pieces here this that missin' so that when the world was like, oh wait, racism or oh wait, things are crazy. Wow. Like, oh, are you good? (Lesley: So deal with that.) Do you know that? So so when that happened, I was like, let me go on and throw my head in the bucket folks, for folks to reach out to. And then it was just like it was, you know, people were hiring me for more speaking things and more consultation work. And I was getting a lot of cool, like, creative, like everyone from the health and fitness world to like global theatre companies. It was this like broad things, and I hit the ground running. And I didn't realize I didn't realize because I'm so used to school back to my point at doing everything. And like, I can handle it. By the end of 2020, I was like, Oh, just, I'm feeling uncomfortable. Things are weird. So by the end of 2021, is when I was like, I can't do this anymore. And it was a lot of things. It was a lot of things from like this intersectionality standpoint of like, I am a black woman, you're trying to teach these predominately white institutions, why they a hot mess that can get exhausting, right? Like, that's exhausting on a personal level on all this stuff, on top of just like the triggers of the world that was going on.Lesley Logan  Right. Because you're still you're still who you are. And ...Jessica Vann  I'm still who I am. (Lesley: Right.) In this world that everyone just trying to adjust to, on top of that, which then triggers mental health things and then not so it became and then I wasn't operating from the spaces if I know how I know how to operate. Like, I'm like, I know I'm a strong leader. I know I can execute and follow through. And what I didn't recognize is when I can't follow through at my 100% authentic dope self and can get people stuff was starting to be a sign of when my depression was kicking in, or when my anxiety was kicking in. But I was looking at it as like, oh, I have to do this thing because I have to be seen and validated and bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. So I'm gonna say yes, yes, yes. I'm gonna Shonda Rhimes this. Yes, yes. Yes. Oprah, yes, yes ...Lesley Logan  I remember. I remember Shonda Rhimes said a Year of Yes. I'm like, "That scares the fuck out of me."Jessica Vann  ... I was yesing all the things when I should have been telling my ass, no. But I was being driven by this concept of like, because I already struggled with that validity and being seen, and am I good enough and all that stuff. But then it was starting to exasperate because now everyone needs a service because everyone is in their own shit. And I became the thing that everyone wanted to latch onto, not only just professionally, but personally as well. So it was a lots of pouring, lots ... and lots of doing this. And it started to affect how I was operating at work. It was starting to affect how I was running my own business, it was starting to effect because I was in so many things, because I needed to see change. And I needed to get that that. And it was the end of 2021 I was I was sitting, I was on a panel for someone and and I said I'm done with leading. I don't want to lead anymore. And the other panelists was like, oh, I need to exaggerate. I mean, please tell him what you mean. I was 100%, I don't want to lead anymore.Lesley Logan  The period I don't want to explain ...Jessica Vann  I don't I don't want to be the leader anymore. I don't want to be the strong one anymore. I want to lead because my heart is pulling me in that direction. Not because I'm being pulled by these outside societal whatever what the fuck because I now I'm trying to be or feel the need that this is my space when I'm not taking care of myself. And that's what I met, I still want to be a great leader, I still want to do that. But I want to be able to have choice and I was so deep into stuff that I forgot what choice meant. I forgot what it means to say no. And so all of last year was a hot mess of just like recalibrating my life, (Lesley: Yeah.) like hey, you want to speak in Denver, and I was like do i want to come speak in Denver? like you know what yes ... let me go do this.Lesley Logan  I love that you like you are like you'd like took a pause and you ask yourself, "Do I?" Like they're saying do you like your (Jessica: Right.) do I and I think this is really first of all, I thank you for sharing. We can dive more into that but like thank you for sharing all of that stuff because I think no matter what, what people's jobs are or things that they're doing is that it's it's so easy if words of affirmation are your love language if the desire to be seen and validated is is there, and it can get caught up in we see it all the time with like people become celebrities, all of a sudden they become really the wanted person. And then if you don't have the things in place to keep pouring back into yourself, you just start to feel like everyone's pulling at you, everyone's picking at you, everyone's taking from you. And you don't realize that like at some point along the way you stopped making sure you were pouring into yourself. And so like it sounds like you had to do like you had to you had to hit this wall. And then kind of go back, which is hard to get to know yourself in a new place. Because it's been two years of this. And so you're like, "Well, who am I? What do I want?"Jessica Vann  Would I tell you, I for myself, I'd be like, Oh, yes, I can. I can do all these things at once. And yes, you know I can, I love it. I am I can, I can rock it. I didn't know, I didn't know what my threshold was. Because I've been so used to you know, seeing my mom kicking ass or seeing other women that I look up to. So my mom's dope shit, but like other people that I see, like, I personally did not know what my threshold was until I got there. (Lesley: Yeah.) And let me tell you, I have folks calling me out on stuff, I got into so many challenging conversations. It was it came to the point where I couldn't you can't use 2020 as an excuse anymore. Like, it was like, I have to own this shit because I created the shit down even though I created and I'm sitting the shit you know, and have to recalibrate everything, everything. (Lesley: Yeah.) Which which what feels like I had to recalibrate everything.Lesley Logan  Yeah, well, and so what worked for you? Was it like, was it like just literally turning off all the things and going and like say no to everything? Or what how did you recalibrate because I think it's easy to off. Like when you say like when I picture recalibrated, like the pendulum swung over here and now you're like it's gonna swing over here and how did you find center? What was that, what was that like for you?Jessica Vann  I had to, I personally had to pause a lot of things and I pause everything from I told you this when we had lunch like I said the other day ...Lesley Logan  It feels, you know what? It what is time anymore.Jessica Vann   I um, for those watching Yes, I just changed my background on like three different times.Lesley Logan  ... you know, what if you're not watching there's a YouTube channel you can watch. And there's a there's a third show because because Jess is a creator. She is an artist.Jessica Vann  ... by the time I literally have to stop. (Lesley: Yeah.) But what was hard about this for me is I stopped engaging with rela... friendship relationships that I was always pouring into which was probably the hardest thing because you're talking to someone who values community but often feels like she doesn't have community. So to pause friendships or people that I thought were friendships or community because I felt like I was always the one engaging in our fellow always when my hey girl is gonna do let's go Kiki here. Let's go grab a drink ... Like always given and I had to stop. I was like, this is that's exhausting. I stopped seeking clients. I needed to recalibrate what what service do I actually want to put on it into this world? Because I don't I didn't realize I was going to get stuck in this like antiracist DEI (Lesley: Right.) bucket. When when I finally started my business was to offer professional development for all folks, to offer organizational development policy, procedural changes, HR support on across the field. And then all of a sudden, I was like stuck in this like space when that space was constantly shifting and changing. And from pedagogy to ideology, and who can say these things again. So that I had to pause that and I took my last client last year in August now I'm not saying just keep coming back because she is this is what I had I had to move first. You know, I had to get into headspace to ... figure all that stuff out. I only focused on two things .For the first time I focused on my job, my full time job and myself. I needed the income so let me focus on my my job and do that. So I did that and in the midst of that and I have got promoted or not promoted, but got offered a new job in a different organization. And that's where I'm currently at now. I had to focus on that myself, and how I was getting income. Because I knew I wanted to buy a home at the end of the year. So I was like, that's, that is all the emotions I can offer. Because I can't give this year. I'm not I can't, I just couldn't ... so much, and I was alone a lot.Lesley Logan  Yeah. Because also you're like, you know, you're a single woman doing this all. (Jessica; Yeah, exactly ...) I don't know if that's easier or harder if you'd had a partner.Jessica Vann  I told my therapist, I was like, last year was so triggering, because it exemplified the fact that I am single, like, everything that I and I also listeners and folks out here on the streets. I don't need a man. I don't need one. I am a Pisces, I am a water sign. So I welcome all the love and each adn every day. And when those things when I feel those things aren't being fulfilled, it is easy for me to be like I'm lonely. No one, no one cares about me ... all this stuff, because I'm not feeling fed in a way that I need to look at what does that actually look like and doesn't have to come from somebody or things about that. So I'm a single woman, this out here trying to do big kid adulting. When at my age and we're close in age like I'm, I'm 30 well, I'll be 39 in a month.Lesley Logan  Okay. But I'm 40 in two weeks.Jessica Vann  Like, we out here. And so, societally I'm supposed to be married, got some kids, right? Settle down somewhere, because these are the images that was told to me as a youth or young then like, I have certain age, this is going to happen. I don't I never envisioned my life past 35. Because by the time I was 35, and my 15 year old brain, actually bedtime was 25 (Lesley: Yeah.) and my teenage brain. I was like, I got that day. We was out here. Mary was gonna have some kids. I was 30. And I'm like, I know, we are 38 and neither none of those. So I don't know what my life is because I never envisioned it. (Lesley: Yeah.) Our past as a young person.Lesley Logan  Yeah. I think that's so interesting. Because, one yes, I just interviewed someone yesterday, who's 37 going on 38. And her two daughters are already in college. And I was like, yeah, so see, you did it right. Because like you did it while your body was young. You did it while you had the energy to keep up with them. And now you're gonna you're not even 40 and they're already in the house. Like, it's too late for me.Jessica Vann  ... I remember having a whole conversation with my friend. I was I was still really close with some people back home in Lansing, Michigan. And I was at her place. We were like, 27. By this time she had a kid not her second kid. She married, she got a home somewhere and somebody in some suburb back home in Lansing. And she was like, Well, do you think you will ever freeze your eggs at 30 30? My 30s are damn near long ago. Going like yeah, not something I can think about it. I never thought about it again. And but now here we are. I'm like, Is this something I need to think about? Like, like in seriousness, but 27 me was just thought it was. (Lesley: Yeah.) I didn't think I would even have to be here.Lesley Logan  Right. Like it's an interesting I think, my gosh, I think first of all, wherever you are, it's really easy to go, "How did I get here?" And like a negative way. (Jessica: Yeah.) But like you can also see it as like the positive side like, "How did I get here?" And like looking at you now like you're in your condo that you bought like what a journey that was? And was it easy? No, nothing's fucking easy. Everything is fucking hard. Just if you can just prepare yourself you might like actually, the hard might be a little lower than your expectation go, "Oh, that was easy." But it's all like there's always a challenge. And I think what what I what I what I think is so important is that from your stories, like just really reflecting back on what you want and like having to I mean like so few people would be able to just go, "Okay, I'm just gonna stop that all." Like that is so brave and courageous and hard. There's like people might think, "Oh, she stopped everything. Well, it's easy thing." No, that is like the hardest thing because you had to like tell people no all of a sudden you'd go to a year of no basically and then really get clear on like, what do I want and and for you is like I want to have a house at the end of this year. So I'm going to do that and that's a challenge and all its own just to be a single person buying anything and also as a married couple if you work for yourself, everyone no one wants to sell you a fucking house. No one does.Jessica Vann  Oh my gosh ... like it's a whole topic. It was you are, you are guest. Last year was me really being like, I actually don't feel like going out, or I'm actually really sad and in a negative space right now, or I have a dark cloud over me and I don't think I need to be in anybody's space or community. I mean, I auditioned for two shows last year, two. And one of them put me in a dark space, because that's a dance call. And I get called in to do the show at one of the theatre companies here. And I'm like ... okay, can you come in for this row, we got the band, here's your side, sing this thing that that that. So I go in seeing the diddy, we do the dance call. And I middle of the dance call. I'm like watching myself dance. And I was like, "Who is that?" Like, just, I physically could not I was like, is that ... here we go. And so down the self deprecated journey that I went when I got home. And I was like, "I don't think I am mentally, physically ready to be back out here on these auditions streets, because I don't feel good about myself." And that was at that moment. I was like, realize I don't feel good about myself at all. Physically, mentally, everything. (Lesley: Yeah.) And even in it was also out of breath. It was like all this like, and I was like, "I can't I'm not going to be auditioning if I don't feel good in front of a camera, in front of the creative team. I can't do this." That's the hard thing for me.Lesley Logan  That's a hard. Well, I mean, for anybody who's a creative for sure. (Jessica: Yeah.) I mean, also, like, I think, I think it's good that you actually did the audition, because you got (Jessica: Yeah.) to see like, "Oh, I'm not ready for this." And also, here's more like, here's the work that I need to be doing for myself. What, what did it take? Because I some people might just take that as a sign like, "I'm done. I'm hanging my acting hat up. I'm hanging that thing up." Like, what was it that you were able to do for yourself to get past that? Because because now I mean, I feel like you're auditioning again, like you're doing stuff again. So so what was what was the what was the work that you did to help you like, get good with yourself, because that's the thing that most people listening, if you aren't good with you, like it doesn't even it doesn't matter. You can manifest whatever you want. But if you're not, if you're not aligned, it's not gonna work out.Jessica Vann  I had to then end up going on a, I got called it for another show at the end of last year, actually. And I was like, "I don't know." I think what I what I know I needed to do was a few things I need, I needed to figure out what was my relationship to art making in this city again, because I am no longer bushy 27 year old, like, you know, like, "Oh, my God out of college." And I'm gonna auditioned for everything, I'm gonna book this thing, booked and blessed and busy and booked and all those sayings. I was like, I don't know if that's in my ministry ... But so I had to really figure out what my relationship is to art making. And what what brings what's what makes me excited. And so instead of letting that happen, I went on and produced a little one woman show and got my friend and my band together and did a show in February of one of the theater places, though, cabaret connection, please, I did that. And that was very scary for me. Because at that point, I hadn't done. I haven't watched and played with these guys. And almost two years, I hadn't done a show like, like, I've been in a band and did my covers and do the things I usually do. Then about three years at that point my dumb ass was like, "Well, let me do 14 songs" ... being vocally physically all the way, and I was like, "I'm glad I did it." But it also was like here, here's just another space, I needed to make sure that I'm working on. Because the craft of of theater and music and monologues and all that stuff, it's a muscle. And if you don't nourishing it, you can lose it. But for me, I don't want to lose it. I just have to make sure that I'm mentally and physically ready. (Lesley: Yeah.) Academically and learning and that that that that's fine. But am I, the person who has to go put themselves out there in front of people reading and start reading because of how one is feeling about, how I'm feeling about myself? So I you know, I started to think about what does this mean as a as an artist, right. And so, and I'm still in that journey right now. I do have, like, I have an audition this weekend. And like, I'm doing this because it's part of who I am. But I'm also like, what does this digital world look like? What is you know, embracing these other aspects that I've always wanted to dabble and like, what does it mean for me to do that? Writing, I'm trying to write more. (Lesley: Yeah.) ... to your short stories or mostly short stories, and personal pieces and essays. Like, that's where I'm trying to tap in and just kind of go back to basics. And like, heal ...Lesley Logan  I feel like I feel like people underestimate or they don't give the credit towards back to the basics because like getting to like, the the basics are there for as a foundation for a reason. And also, they really help you understand like where you are, like, it's kind of like a pin and a map. It's like, oh, this is where I'm at. Oh, I got a little too far away. Oh, that I forgot that one. And what I hear you saying is you're asking yourself a lot of questions. And what, when you ask yourself questions, and I think it was our first guest ever, Joanna, she Joanna Vargas was like, questions, you got to put a question mark on it, because it changes how you actually engage with the information that's going on. You're not putting like if you put a period on it, like I'm an actress, period, but that's like, that's it, right? Like, it's kind of like it's very drawn in cement. But if you put what has been an actress mean to me, what has been an artist, what what is the writer mean to me. It allows you to really get to know yourself in a way that allows you to filter and what you're gonna say yes or no to. Jessica Vann  Yes, yes. And, and that's like a glimpse of like, what my therapist and I would like work on it's like, what are you aligned with? What is this thing feed you? Does this thing aligned with your morals? Is it aligned with your values? Are you just saying yes, is to say yes. Are you saying this because you think there's some level of validity to it? Like, who are you trying to ...? Like, who are you trying to impress? And sometimes I had to constantly ask myself that question like, Okay, Jess, why are you doing this? Who were you trying to impress? Who were you trying, who were are you trying to gain validation from? Like, because if it's for that, or them or this person, then it ain't for you. Like it's my, you're not doing it for yourself, you're doing it to chase this space to be validated.Lesley Logan  ... there like, like that is like events like that the best question anyone can remember from this entire episode, like who are you trying to impress? Because it has to be you at some point ...Jessica Vann  ... if you're like, Oh, I made that then then you're not you're not doing it from a space of authenticity and you're not doing it from the foundation of you as a human person. And that's what I'm trying to get back to. I'm still the same person, I'm still going to be multifaceted, I'm still going to, I can still multitask, like I'm a boss bitch like that's just what I I can still do these things but I have to get back to back back to basics to rebuild some of the structural things that I have put into place for my lives and which is funny because then I'm like, once I can like figure that out maybe we'll add this like dating claim back into the same because like, right now we are doing not and I literally just did a TikTok because these girl these she'd be on TikTok who be getting bedazzled. To be out here and be usingTikTok as a dating app. I was like I don't know if I'm in history. I'm gonna be on the internet. I'm growing locs right now, my hair is a hot, crazy whenever I want. I don't put on makeup all the time. Now, we gon go out. Your girl gonna go out. I can I am cute. Okay. But ...Lesley Logan  You are, when you go out, you look amazing.Jessica Vann  ... I don't want to be just painting in anyone else's perception. I want you to get, I just want to be Jessica at the end of the day. And if I have to constantly ask myself well who is this for? And if I say, me. Greenlight but if I have to go through a whole list of the who's and the why's and who does this benefit then it ain't it ain't for me anymore. And so that's that is my hope one wish for myself for 2023. It just kind of get back to basics just to like I got come in and 2023 hot off the press like I will slow and ease into this.Lesley Logan  Oh me too that's what that's how I'm doing. I'm this so this is how y'all I'm this how I eased in because this is probably coming out well after January so when we're recording it but I decided I'm taking the first week of every year off. Like I'm just so I take the last three weeks of the year. I mean I still work because I go on tour but like I'm hanging out in the van most of the time playing a video game so not that hard, but the first week because you want to know what no one else is actually ready to get started anyways, so why am I like making myself available for that and I loved it. I went to the spa. And I was with my girlfriends. I was like this is how every year should start, scrub the skin off. It was so great. And so I um another thing I do because my birthday is the end of January. I always tell people like if I make any goals for a year at the beginning of the year, which we Brad and I will typically do around the first day. I'm like trying them on the whole month. I'm not like hitting it hard. I'm just trying to because when my birthday comes, I'm like, "How did those goals feel? Do we've made some adjustments?" And then I'd like to tell people this. Do you know how many New Year's there aren't a year, there is the actual first day of the year, which should not be in the middle of winter, in my opinion ... It wasn't like it was the Roman Empire that changed that. But there's a Chinese New Year. There's also a ... New Year, there's an India New Year, there are new years and all these different cultures that you can go, "You know what I'm starting the year over right now, you can just do that. It's okay."Jessica Vann  100%. I'm don't have time. I just I'm gonna, I'm gonna move however, I need to move. I'm big grown. I'm a grown ass woman, I had big grow, and I could make my own decisions, just decide what I'm gonna go do X, Y, and Z. Why? Because I want to, I want to show up as the best I don't so cliche. Cliche statement coming in three to one, I want to show the be the best version of me. (Lesley: Yeah.) I, and that means so much for me. And so I need to do that because at the end of the day, I'm getting older, my parents are getting older, my dreams aren't dying, but windows of time are starting to get smaller for me to do the things that I want to do. And I'm still fucking young. And so I have time to shift and change and all that. And I still have time but don't have time. And I want to just be who my little 12 year old self thought she would be. And that's from physical to work to this, whatever. I want to know what it means to show up as who I've always envisioned myself to be. However, that has manifested because I might not be on Broadway right now winning a Tony, or out here getting any other accolades. And I'm saying that because I'm also not saying those things cannot happen. Again, key from everything all at once, who was a Donny and and Indiana Jones just fucking got his first Golden Globe after 20 plus years.Lesley Logan  Did you see, did you see Jennifer Coolidge accept her golden globe? (Jessica: Yes ..) Oh, my God, we've known her since we were little kids. And she was ... right? But like, but like, she's like, she's like, and I just kept doing those replays. I just kept doing them and, and now my neighbors talk to me.Jessica Vann  Yes ... It's all one of my good friends. I was like, I'm gonna have my teeth and turner come back and she came back in her 40s. So like, let me let me do me, you do you? And mind the business that serves you like you, I gotta be in my business. I gotta be in your purse. And we don't keep a Gucci and you're gonna live your life, how you need to live it and I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna do while you're doing your business. I'm gonna support you. I'm gonna cheer you on. I'm gonna say go forth. Live your best life. What do you need from me? How can we support one another? That's what I'm wanting? Because I will have she said, I ain't rockin a hill in my 80s like Taylor Chair.Lesley Logan  Oh my gosh. Okay, Jess we could keep going. But, but I just have to say like, thank you for sharing your journey because I I feel like so many people listening right now feel so seen because they have been trying to like, make it look like they're doing all the things right? They're doing all the things. It's like, actually, everybody is just fucking trying hard to do the best they can. And that is if you are doing it for you. That is so important. We're gonna take a quick break. Find out how people can find you, follow you, you know get to get to support you and what you're doing. All right, Jess, where do you like to hang out? Which ah the social media, you've a website? Where can people work with you?Jessica Vann  Oh my gosh, where do I hang out? If you're in Chicago, Hit me up. Let's grab some whiskey key haven't drank drank. But you can follow me on my, I'm your here on the social media streets on this side on one part of the internet's, you can follow me on Instagram @jdotjourney that is j d o t, j o. Can I spell j d o t j o u r n e y, jdotjourney, out here on these on the other end of the internet's on the TikTok, you can find me @jesssssssvann. It's a bunch of s. (Lesley: Wonderful.) You can hit me up on my website if you'd like ... she be kind of tough to work with. Just go to jessvanncreates.com. And just like shoot me a little hey, hey, hey, here's how you found me. And we can figure out how whatever support you need on the organizational level or one on one support. I do coaching in some capacity just mainly on like, just navigating workspaces. So that can go as well as just like, what does it mean to find your joy? And how to pretty much what I do? I'd like to embed on all the folks that that is your essential ministry to come forth. And those are really my my, my website, my socials, oh, and LinkedIn too. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm over here too.Lesley Logan  That's people like,"Are you on LinkedIn?" I'm like," I think my team has me on there. Yes."Jessica Vann  I'm on LinkedIn over there. I think I'm just Jessica Vann over there too.Lesley Logan  But are you still hosting your podcast? Are you dropping episodes with that?Jessica Vann  So fun fact, thanks for bringing that up. I do you have a podcast Tomfoolery and Shenanigans. Are you surprised? I am not. So you can hit that up listen to season one. I am actually this year as part of my restart and rebuild and foundational is the goal is to bring that back by the end of the year. (Lesley: Wonderful.) So that season two is actually be up top of next year. So that whole production process will start to come through but don't see what we did over a season a lot of good time. It was in the height of a lot of things. So there's some very pertinent conversations that happen but yeah, Tomfoolery and Shenanigans on most of all your platforms, Apple and ... (Lesley: Wonderful.)Lesley Logan  We'll have all the links in the show notes make it real easy for y'all as you are listening to this. Okay, before I let you go. (Jessica: Yeah.) Bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps that people can take to be it till they see it, what action steps do you have for our listeners?Jessica Vann  I'm gonna say this. This is gonna be very cliche, because that's the real thing. So some actionable things that you can do is rest. Rest.Lesley Logan  Oh, we haven't had that one. That's so good.Jessica Vann  Listen to your body. Rest. Veg when you need to veg, watch TV to disassociate if you need to. That's what you need to like. Because at the end of the day, we are we are vessels and it needs to be filled. And some of the strongest things that we need to do is fill it is rest and to feed our brains what we need to come back strong. So just rest. Chill out. Breathe. Listen to your body. It's okay. You can like I get up at four o'clock in the morning if your body's like you know what I need a little extra hours. Just rest.Lesley Logan  Oh, that is the best. I'm, that's so great. I love to hear what these action items are because I'm always like, "What are people gonna say?" I'm like that one haven't had rest on there. So thank you for always be unique and wonderful in my life. I am so grateful to know you and have this conversation with you. Y'all, how are you going to use these tips in your life? What resonated? Make sure you tag @jdotjourney on Instagram or on theTikTok thing you can tag her as Jess and we'll have those links and the @be_it_pod. Let us know because we want to know how you're being it till you see it. Thank you so much for being here Jess and for everyone listening and until next time, Be It Till You See It.Jessica Vann  Bye!Lesley Logan  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!    Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network.    Brad Crowell  It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli. Lesley Logan   Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.     Brad Crowell  Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.     Lesley Logan  Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.Brad Crowell  And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.Transcribed by https://otter.aiSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode, we are talking about the emotional toll of OCD.  Kim: Welcome back, everybody. This week is going to include three of some of my most favorite people on this entire planet. We have the amazing Chris Trondsen, Alegra Kastens, and Jessica Serber—all dear friends of mine—on the podcast. This is the first time I've done an episode with more than one guest.  Now, this was actually a presentation that the four of us did at multiple IOCDF conferences. It was a highly requested topic. We were talking a lot about trauma and OCD, shame and OCD, the stigma of OCD, guilt and OCD, and the depression and grief that goes with OCD. After we presented it, it actually got accepted to multiple different conferences, so we all agreed, after doing it multiple times and having such an amazing turnout, that we should re-record the entire conversation and have it on the podcast. I'm so grateful for the three of them. They all actually join me on Super Bowl Sunday—I might add—to record this episode. I am going to really encourage you to drop down into your vulnerable self and listen to what they have to say, and note the validation and acknowledgment that they give throughout the episode. It is a deep breath. That's what this episode is.  Before we get into this show, let me just remind you again that we are recording live the Overcoming Depression course this weekend. On March 11th, March 18th, and March 25th, at 9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time, I will be recording the Overcoming Depression course. I am doing it live this time. If you're interested in coming on live as I record it, you can ask your questions, you can work along with me. There'll be workbooks. I'll be giving you a lot of strategies and a lot of tools to help you overcome depression.  If you're interested, go to CBTSchool.com/depression. We will be meeting again, three dates in March, starting tomorrow, the 11th of March, at 9:00 AM Pacific Time. You will need to sign up ahead of time. But if for any reason you miss one of them, you can watch the replay. The replays will be uploaded. You'll have unlimited on-demand access to any of them. You'll get to hear me answering people's questions. This is the first time I've ever recorded a course live. I really felt it was so important to do it live because I knew people would have questions and I wanted to address them step by step in a manageable, bite-sized way. Again, CBTSchool.com/depression, and I will see you there. Let's get over to this incredible episode.  Again, thank you, Chris Trondsen. Thank you, Alegra Kastens. Thank you, Jessica Serber. It is an honor to call you my friend and my colleague. Enjoy everybody.  Kim: Welcome. This has been long, long. I've been waiting so long to do this and I'm so thrilled. This is my first time having multiple guests at once. I have three amazing guests. I'm going to let them introduce themselves. Jessica, would you like to go first? Jessica: I'm Jessica Serber. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and I have a practice specializing in the treatment of OCD and related anxiety and obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders in Los Angeles. I'm super passionate about working with OCD because my sister has OCD and I saw her get her life back through treatment. So, I have so much hope for everyone in this treatment process. Kim: Fantastic. So happy to have you. Chris? Chris: Hi everyone. My name is Chris Trondsen. I am also a licensed marriage family therapist here in Orange County, California at a private group practice. Besides being a therapist, I also have OCD myself and body dysmorphic disorder, both of which I specialize in treatment. Because of that, I'm passionate about advocacy. I am one of the lead advocates for the International OCD Foundation, as well as on their board and the board of OCD Southern California, as well as some leadership on some of their special interest groups. Kind of full circle for me, have OCD and now treat it. Kim: Amazing. Alegra? Alegra: My name is Alegra Kastens and I am a licensed therapist in the states of California and New York. I'm the founder of the Center for OCD, Anxiety and Eating Disorders. Like Chris, I have lived experience with OCD, anxiety, eating disorders, and basically everything, so I'm very passionate. We got a lot going on up here. I'm really passionate about treating OCD, educating, advocating for the disorder, and that is what propelled me to pursue a career as a therapist and then also to build my online platform, @obsessivelyeverafter on Instagram. GRIEF AND OCD Kim: Amazing. We have done this presentation before, actually, multiple times over the years. I feel like an area that I want to drop into as deeply as we can today to really look at the emotional toll of having and experiencing and recovering from OCD. We're going to have a real conversation style here. But first, we'll follow the format that we've used in the past. Let's first talk about grief and OCD because I think that that seems to be a lot of the reason we all came together to present on this. Alegra, would you talk specifically about some of the losses that result from having OCD? I know this actually was inspired by an Instagram post that you had put out on Instagram, so do you want to share a little bit about what those emotional losses are?  Alegra: For sure. I think that number one, what a lot of people with OCD experience is what feels like a loss of identity. When OCD really attacks your values, attacks your core as a human being, whether it's pedophile obsession, sexual orientation obsessions, harm obsessions, you really start to grieve the person that you once thought you were. Of course, nothing has actually changed about you, but because of OCD, it really feels like it has. In addition to identity, there's lost relationships, there's lost time, lost experiences. For me, I dropped out of my bachelor's degree and I didn't get the four years of undergrad that a lot of people experienced. I mean, living with OCD is one of the most debilitating, difficult things to do. And that means, if you're fighting this battle and trying to survive, you probably are missing out on life and developmental milestones. Kim: Right. Was that the case for you too, Chris? Chris: Yeah. I actually host a free support group for families and one of the persons with OCD was speaking yesterday talking about how having OCD was single-handedly the most negatively impactful experience in his life. He is dealt with a lot of loss. I feel the same way. It's just not something you could shake off and recover from in the sense of just pretending nothing happened. I know for me, the grief was hard. I mean, I had mapped out what I thought my life was going to look like. I think my first stage of grief, because I think it became two stages, my first, like Alegra said, was about the loss. I always wanted to go to college and be around people in my senior year, like make friends and things like that. It's just my life became smaller and smaller. I became housebound. I missed out on normal activities, and six years of my life were pretty much spent alone.  I think what Alegra also alluded to, which was the second layer of grief, was less about the things that I lost, but who I became. I didn't recognize myself in those years with OCD. I think it's hard to explain to somebody else what it's like to literally not live as yourself. I let things happen to me or I did things that I would never do in the mind state that I am in now. I was always such a brave and go-for-it kind of person and confident and I just became a shell of myself. I grieve a lot of the years lost, a lot of the things I always wanted to do, and places I wanted to go. And then I grieve the person I became because it was nothing I ever thought I could become. Kim: Jessica, will you speak also to just the events that people miss out on? I don't know if you want to speak about what you see with your clients or even with your sibling, like just the milestones that they missed and the events they missed. Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. My sister was really struggling the most with her OCD during middle school and high school. Those are such formative years, to begin with. I would say, she was on the fortunate end of the spectrum of being diagnosed relatively early on in her life. I mean, she definitely had symptoms from a very, very young age, but still, getting that diagnosis in middle school is so much before a lot of people get that. I mean, I work with people who aren't diagnosed until their twenties, thirties, and sometimes even later. Different things that most adolescents would go through she didn't.  Speaking to the identity piece that Alegra brought up, a big part of her identity was being a sports fan. She was a diehard Clippers fan, and that's how everyone knew her. It was like her claim to fame. She didn't even want to go to Clippers games. My dad was trying to get tickets to try to get her excited about something to get out of the house. She missed certain events in high school because it was too anxiety-provoking to go and it was more comforting to know she could stay in the safety of the home. Their experiences all throughout the lifespan, I think that can be impacted. Even if you're not missing out on them entirely, a lot of people talk about remembering those experiences as tainted by the memories of OCD, even if they got to go experience them. Kim: Right. For me, as a clinician, I often hear two things. One is the client will say something to the likes of, “I've lost my way. I was going in this direction and I've completely lost the path I was supposed to go on.” I think that is a full grief process. I think we've associated grief with the death of people, but it's not. It's deeper than that and it's about like you're talking about, identity and events and occasions.  The other thing that I hear is—actually, we can go totally off script here in terms of we've talked about this in the past separately—people think that once they're recovered, they will live a really happy life and that they'll feel happy now. Like, “Oh, the relief is here, I've recovered.”  But I think there is a whole stage of grief that follows during recovery and then after recovery. Do you have any thoughts on that, anybody?  Alegra: Well, yeah. I think it reminds me a lot of even my own experience, but my client's experiences of when you recover, there tends to be grief about life before OCD. If I'm being perfectly honest, my life will just never be what it was before OCD, and it's different and wonderful in so many ways that maybe it wouldn't be if I didn't have OCD. But I'm laughing because when you were like, “I'm going to mark my calendar in July because you're probably going to have a relapse,” then I have to deal with it every six months. My brain just goes off for like two weeks. I don't know why it happens. It's just my OCD brain, and there's grief associated with that. I can go for six months and I have some intrusive thoughts, but it doesn't really do anything to me to write back in it for two weeks. That's something I have to deal with and I have to get to that acceptance place in the grieving process. I'm not going to have the brain that I did before OCD when I didn't have a single unwanted sexual thought. That just isn't happening. I think we think that we're going to get to this place after recovery, and it's like game over, I forget everything that happened in the past, but we have to remember that OCD can be traumatizing for people. Trauma is stored in the body. The brain is impacted and I think that we can carry that with us afterwards. Kim: Right. Chris: Yeah. I mean, everything that Alegra was saying—I'll never forget. I always joke, but I thought when treatment was done, rainbows were going to shoot out and butterflies. I was going to jump on my very own unicorn and ride off to the sunset. But it was like a bomb had gone off and I had survived the blast, but everything around me was completely pulverized. I just remember thinking, what do I do now? I remember going on social media to look up some of my friends from high school because my OCD got really, really bad after high school. I just remember everybody was starting to date or marry or travel and move on and I'm like, “Great, I live in my grandma's basement. I don't have anything on my calendar. I'm not dating, I don't have any friends. What do I do?” I was just completely like, “Okay, I don't even know where to begin.” I felt so lost. Anything I did just didn't feel right. Like Alegra said, there was so much aftermath that I had to deal with. I had to deal with the fact that I was lost and confused and I was angry and I had all these emotions. I had these memories of just driving around.  As part of my OCD, I had multiple subtypes—sexual intrusive thoughts, harm thoughts. I remember contamination, stores around me would get dirty, so I'd be driving hours to buy products from non-dirty stores at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, crying outside of a store because they were closed or didn't have the product I need, getting home and then my checking would kick in. You left something at the store, driving back. You just put yourself through all these different things that are just not what you would ever experience.  I see it with my clients. One client sticks in mind who was in his eighties and after treatment, getting better. He wasn't happy and he is like, “I'm so happy, Chris. You helped me put OCD in remission. But I now realize that I never got married because I was scared of change. I never left the house that I hated in the city I didn't really like because I was afraid of what would happen if I moved.” He's like, “I basically lived my OCD according to OCD'S rules and I'm just really depressed about that.” I know we're going to talk about the positive sides and how to heal in the second half, but this is just really what OCD can ravish on our lives. Kim: Right.  Jessica: If I can add one thing too really quickly, something I really think is a common experience too is that once healing happens, even if people do get certain parts of their lives back and feel like they can function again in the ways that they want to, there's always this sense of foreboding joy, that it feels good and I'm happy, but I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop all the time. Or what if I go back to how I was and I lose all my progress? Even when there are those periods of joy and happiness and fulfillment, they might also be accompanied with some anxiety and some what-ifs. Of course, we can work on that and should work on that in treatment too because we want to maximize those periods of joy as much as we can. But that's something that I commonly see, that the anxiety sticks around just in different ways. OCD, SHAME, & GUILT Kim: Yeah, for sure. I see that very commonly too. Let's talk now about OCD, shame, and guilt. I'll actually go straight to you, Jessica, because I remember you speaking about this beautifully. Can you explain the difference between shame and guilt specifically related to how it may show up with OCD?  Jessica: Yeah. I mean, they're definitely related feelings but they are different. I think the simplest way to define the difference is guilt says, “I did something bad,” whereas shame says, “I am bad.” Shame is really an identity-based emotion and we see a lot of shame with any theme of OCD. It can show up in lots of different ways, but definitely with some of the themes that are typically classified as Pure O—the sexual intrusive thoughts or unwanted harm thoughts, scrupulosity, blasphemous thoughts. There can be a lot of shame around a person really identifying with their thoughts and what it means about them. Attaching that, meaning about what it means about them. And then of course, there can also be guilt, which I think feels terrible as well, but it's like a shame light where it's like, “I did something wrong by having this thought,” or just guilt for maybe something that they've thought or a compulsion that they've done because of their OCD.  Kim: Yeah. I've actually also experienced a lot of clients saying they feel guilty because of the impact their OCD has had on their loved ones too. They're suffering to the biggest degree, but they're also carrying the guilt of like, “I've caused suffering to my family,” or “I'm a financial burden to my parents with the therapy and the psychiatrist.” I think that there's that secondary guilt that shows up for a lot of people as well, which we can clump in as an outcome or a consequence or an experience of having OCD. Chris: Yeah. I mean, right before you said this, Kim, I was thinking for me personally, that was literally what I was going to say. I have a younger sister. She's a couple of years younger than me and I just put her through hell. She was one of the first people that just felt the OCD's wrath because I was so stressed out. She and I shared a lot of the same spaces in the home, so we'd have a lot of fights. Also, when I was younger, because she looks nothing like me—she actually looks more like you, Kim, blonde hair, blue eyes—people didn't know we were related. People would always say things like, “Oh, is that your girlfriend?” So then I'd have a lot of ancestral intrusive thoughts that caused a lot of harm to me, so I'd get mad at her. Because I was young, I didn't know better. And then just the hell I put my mom through.  I always think about just like, wow, once again, that's not who Chris is. I would jump in front of eight bullets for both my mom and my sister. I remember one time I needed something because I felt dirty, and my mom hit our spending money so that if there was an emergency. My sister knew where it was and she wouldn't give it to me. I remember taking a lighter and lighting it and being like, “I'll burn your hair if you don't give me the money,” because I was so desperate to buy it because that's how intense the OCD was. I remember she and I talking about that and it just feels like a different human. Once again, it's more than just guilt. It's shame of who I had become because of it and not even recognizing the boy I was now compared to the man I am now, way than man now. OCD AND ANGER Kim: One thing we haven't talked a lot about, but Chris, you just spoke to it, and I've actually been thinking about this a lot. Let's talk about OCD and anger because I think that is another emotional toll of OCD. A lot of clients I've had—even just recently, I've been thinking about this a lot—sometimes instead of doing compulsions, they have an anger outburst or maybe as well as compulsions. Does anyone want to speak to those waves of frustration and anger that go around these thoughts that we have or intrusive whatever obsessions in any way, but in addition, the compulsions you feel you have to do when you have OCD? Alegra: I feel like sometimes there can be maybe a deeper, more painful emotion that's underneath that anger, which can be shame or it can be guilt, but it feels like anger is maybe easier to express. But also, there just is inherent anger that comes up with having to live with this. I remember one time in my own personal therapy, my therapist was trying to relate and she pulled out this picture that she had like an, I don't know, eight-year-old client with OCD and was like, “She taps herself a lot.” I screamed at her at that moment. I was like, “Put that fucking picture away, and don't ever show that to me again. I do not want to be compared to an eight-year-old who taps himself, like I will tap myself all day fucking long, so long as I don't have these sexually unwanted thoughts about children.” I was so angry at that moment because it just felt like what I was dealing with was so much more taboo and shameful. I was angry a lot of the time. I don't think we can answer the question of, why? Why did I have to experience this? Why did someone else not have to experience this? And that anger is valid.  The other thing that I want to add is that anger does not necessarily mean that we are now going to act on our obsessions because I think clients get very afraid of that. I remember one time I was so fucking pissed at my coworker. He was obnoxious when I worked in PR, and I was so mad at him, I had to walk outside and regulate. And then instantly, of course, my brain went, “You want his kid to die?” or whatever it was. I felt like, oh my God, I must really want this to happen because I'm mad at him. In terms of anger, we can both feel angry and not align with unwanted thoughts that arise. CAN OCD CAUSE ANGER ISSUES?  Kim: Right. OCD can attack the emotions that you experience, like turn it back on you. It's funny, I was doing a little bit of research for this and I typed in ‘OCD in anger.' I was looking to see what was out there. What was so fascinating to me is, you know when you type something in on Google, it shows all of the other things that are commonly typed in. At the very top was ‘Can OCD cause anger issues?' I was like, that is so interesting, that obviously, loved ones or people with OCD are searching for this because it's so normal, I think, to have a large degree of just absolute rage over what you've been through, how much you've suffered, just the torment and what's been lost, as we've already talked about. I just thought that was really fascinating to see, that that's obviously something that people are struggling with.  Chris: When you think about it, when we're struggling with OCD, the parts of our brain that are trying to protect us are on fire or on high alert. If you always think about that, I always think of a feral dog. If you're trying to get him help, then he starts to bite. That's how I honestly felt. My anger was mostly before I was diagnosed, and once again, like I said, breaking things at home, screaming, yelling at my family, intimidating them, and stuff. I know that once again, that wasn't who I am at the course. When I finally got a diagnosis, I know for me, the anger dissipated. I was still angry, but the outbursts and the rage, and I think the saddest thing I hear from a lot of my clients is they tell me, I think people think I'm this selfish and spoiled and bratty and angry person. I'm not. I just cannot get a break.  I always remind parents that as your loved one or spouses, et cetera—as your loved one gets better, that anger will subside. It won't vanish, it won't disappear, it may change into different emotions, like Alegra was saying, to guilt and to shame and loss of identity. But that rage a lot of times is because we just don't know what to do and we feel attacked constantly with OCD.  Kim: Yeah. Jessica: I also want to validate the piece that anger is a really natural and normal stage of grief. I like that you're differentiating, Chris, between the rage that a lot of people experience in it versus maybe just a different type of anger that can show up after when you recognize how—I think, Alegra, you brought up—we can't answer the question of, why did this happen to me? Or “I missed out on all these times or years of my life that I can't get back.” Anger is not a problem. It's not an issue when it shows up like that. It's actually a very healthy natural part of grief. We want to obviously process it in ways that really honor that feeling and tend to that feeling in a helpful way. I just wanted to point out that part as well. DO YOU CONSIDER HAVING OCD A TRAUMATIC EVENT?    Kim: Yeah, very, very helpful. This is for everybody and you can chime in, but I wanted to just get a poll even. Alegra spoke on this a little bit already. Do you consider having OCD a traumatic event? Alegra: A hundred thousand percent. I'm obviously not going to trauma dump on all of you all, but boy, would I love to. I have had quite a few of what's classified as big T traumas, which I even hate the differentiation of big T, sexual assault, abuse, whatever. I have had quite a bit of big T traumas and I have to say that OCD has been the most traumatizing thing I have been through and I think we'll ever go through. It bothers me how much I think gatekeeping can happen in our community. Like, no, it's only trauma if you've been assaulted, it's only trauma if X, Y, and Z. I have a lot of big T trauma and I'm here to say that OCD hands down, like I would go through all of that big T trauma 15 times over to not have OCD, 100%. I think Chris can just add cherries to the cake, whatever that phrase is. Chris: Yeah. This is actually how the title, the Emotional Toll of OCD, came about. We had really talked about this. I was really inspired mainly by Alegra talking about the trauma of OCD and I was like, finally, someone put the right word because I always felt that other words didn't really speak to my personal experience and the experience I see with clients. We had submitted it for a talk and it got denied. I remember they liked it so much that they literally had a meeting with you and I, Kim, and we're like, “We actually really love this. We just got to figure out a way to change it.” Like Alegra was saying, a lot of the people that were part of a trauma special interest group just said, “Look, we can't be using the word ‘trauma' like this.” But we had a good talk about it. It's like, I do believe it's trauma. I always feel weird talking about him because sometimes he listens to my stuff, but still, I'll say it anyways. But my dad will hopefully be the first to admit it. But there were a lot of physical altercations between he and I that were inappropriate—physical abuse, emotional abuse, yelling, screaming. Like Alegra said, I would relive that tenfold than go through the depths of my OCD again where I attempted suicide, where I isolated, where I didn't even recognize myself.  If ‘trauma' isn't the correct word, we only watered it down to emotional toll just to make DSM-5 folks happy. But if ‘trauma' isn't the word, I don't know what is, because like I said, trauma was okay to describe the pain I went through childhood, but in my personal experience, it failed in comparison to the trauma that I went through with OCD.  Alegra: I also want to add something. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I'm thinking about the DSM definition, I think it's defining post-traumatic stress disorder. I don't think it's describing trauma specifically. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's criteria for PTSD. I will be the first to say and none of you have to agree. I think that you can have PTSD from living with OCD. DSM-wise diagnostically, you can't. But I think when people are like, “Well, that's not the definition of trauma in the DSM,” no, they're defining PTSD. It's like, yeah, some people have anxiety and don't have an anxiety disorder. You can experience trauma and not have full-blown PTSD. That's my understanding of it. Kim: Yeah. It's funny because I don't have OCD, so I am an observer to it. What I think is really interesting is I can be an observer to someone who's been through, like you've talked about, a physical assault or a sexual assault and so forth, and they may report I'm having memories of the event and wake up with the physiology of my heart beating and thoughts racing. But then I'll have clients with OCD who will have these vivid memories of having to wash their hands and the absolute chaos of, “I can't touch this. Oh my God, please don't splash the water on me,” Memories of that and nightmares of that and those physiological experiences. They're remembering the events that they felt so controlled and so stuck in. That's where for me, I was, with Chris, really advocating for. These moments imprint our brain right in such a deep way. Alegra: Yeah. I'm reading this book, not to tell everyone to buy this book, but it's by Dr. Bruce Perry and he does a bunch of research on trauma and the brain. Basically, the way that he describes it is like when we experience something and it gets associated. Let's say, for instance, there are stores that I could go to and I could still feel that very visceral feeling that I did when I was suffering. Part of that is how trauma is stored in the brain. Even if you logically know I'm not in that experience now, I'm not in the war zone or I'm not in the depths of my OCD suffering, just the store, let's say, being processed through the lower part of your brain can bring up all of those associations. So, it does do something to the brain. Kim: Right.  Chris: Absolutely. I was part of a documentary and it was the first time I went back to the home that I had attempted suicide, and the police got called the hospital and all that. It was a bad choice. They didn't push me into it. It was my idea because I haven't gone back there, had no clue how I'd react and I broke down. I mean, broke down in a dry heaving way that I never knew I could and we had to stop filming and we left. Where I was at my worst of OCD was there and also at my grandma's house because that's where I moved right after the suicide attempt. I'd have people around me, and still going down to the basement area that I lived in. It is very hard. I rarely do it. So, I have a reaction. To me, it was like, if that isn't once again trauma, I don't know what is. Alegra: It is.  Chris: Exactly. I'll never forget there was a woman that was part of a support group I ran. She was in her seventies and she had gone through cancer twice. I remember her telling the group that she's like, “I'll go through cancer a third time before I'll ever go back to my worst of OCD.” Obviously, we're not downplaying these other experiences—PTSD, trauma, cancer, horrible things, abuse, et cetera. What we're saying is that OCD takes a lasting imprint and it's something that I have not been able to shake. I've done so much advocacy, so much therapy, so much as a therapist and I don't still struggle, but the havoc it has on my life, that's something I think is going to be imprinted for life. Alegra: Forever. Jessica: Also, part of the definition of trauma is having a life-threatening experience. What you're speaking to, Chris, you had a suicide attempt during that time. Suicidality is common with OCD. Suicidal ideation, it's changing your life. I think Alegra, you said, “I'll never have the life or the brain that I had before OCD.” These things that maybe it's not, well, some of them are actually about real confrontation with death, but these real life-changing, life-altering experiences that potentially also drive some people to have thoughts or feelings about wanting to not be alive anymore. I just think that element is there. Alegra: That's so brilliant, Jessica, because that is so true. If we're thinking about it being life-threatening and life-altering, it was life-threatening for me. I got to the point where I was like, “If something doesn't change, I will kill myself. I will.” That is life-threatening to a person. I would be driving on the freeway like, “Do I just turn the car? Do I just turn it now? Because I was so just fucking done with what was happening in my brain.” Kim: It feels crisis. Alegra: Yeah. Kim: It's like you're experiencing a crisis in that moment, and I think that that's absolutely valid. Alegra: It's an extended crisis. For me, it was a crisis of three to four years. I never had a break. Not when I was sleeping. I mean, never. Chris: I was just going to add that I hear in session almost daily, people are like, “If I just don't wake up tomorrow, I'm fine. I'd never do anything, but if I just don't wake up tomorrow, I'm fine.” We know this is the norm. The DSM talks about 50% of individuals with OCD have suicidal ideation, 25% will attempt. This is what people are going through as they enter treatment or before treatment. They just feel like, “If I just don't wake up or if something were to happen to me, I'd actually be at peace with it.” It's a really alarming number. THE EMOTIONAL TOLL OF OCD TREATMENT Kim: Right. Let's move. I love everything that you guys are saying and I feel like we've really acknowledged the emotional toll really, the many ways that it universally impacts a person emotionally and in all areas of their lives. I'm wondering if you guys could each, one at a time or bounce it off each other, share what you believe are some core ways in which we can manage these emotional tolls, bruises left, or scars left from having OCD? Jessica, do you want to go first?  Jessica: Sure. I guess the first thing that comes to mind is—I'll speak from the therapist perspective—if you're a therapist specializing in treating OCD, make sure you leave room to talk about these feelings that we're bringing up. Of course, doing ERP and doing all of the things to treat OCD is paramount and we want to do that first and foremost if possible. But if you're not also leaving room for your client to process this grief, process through and challenge their shame, just hold space for the anger and maybe talk about it. Let your client have that anger experience in a safe space. We're missing a huge, huge part of that person's healing if we're leaving that out. Maybe I'll piggyback on what you two say, but that's just the baseline that I wanted to put out there. Chris: I could go next. I would say the first thing is what Jess said. We have to treat the whole person. I think it's great when a client's Y-BOCS score has gone down and symptomology is not a daily impact. However, all the things that we talked about, we aren't unicorns. This is what many of our clients are going through and there has to be space for the therapist to validate, to address, and to help heal. I would say the biggest thing that I believe moves you past where we've been talking about is re-identity formation. We just don't recognize until you get better how nearly every single decision we make is based off of our OCD fears, that some way or another, what we listen to, how we speak, what direction we drive, what we buy. I mean, everything we do is, will the OCD be okay with this? Will this harm me, et cetera?  One of the things I do with all my clients before I complete treatment is I start to help them figure out who they are. I say, “Let's knock everything we know. What are the parts of yourself that you organically feel are you and you love? Let's flourish those. Let's water those. Let's help those grow. What are some other things that you would be doing if OCD hadn't completely ransacked your life? Do you spend time with family? Are you somebody that wants to give back to communities? What things do you like to do when you're alone?” I help clients and it was something I did after my own treatment, like re-fall in love and be impressed with yourself and start to rebuild. I tell clients, one of the things that helped me flip it and I try to do it with them is instead of looking at it like, “This is hard, this is tough,” look at it as an opportunity. We get to take that pause, reconnect with ourselves and start to go in a direction that is absolutely going to move as far away from the OCD selves as possible, but also to go to the direction of who we are. Obviously, for me, becoming a therapist and advocate is what's helped me heal, and not everybody will go that route. But when they're five months, six months, a year after the hard part of their treatment and they're doing the things they always picture they could do and reconnecting with the people that they love, I start to see their light grow again and the OCD starts to fade. That's really the goal.  Alegra: I think something that I'll add—again, I don't want to be the controversial one, but maybe I will be—is there might be, yes. Can I get canceled after this in the community? There might be some kind of trauma work that somebody might need to do after OCD treatment, after symptoms are managed, and this is where we need to find nuance. Obviously, treatments like EMDR are not evidence-based for OCD, but if somebody has been really traumatized by OCD, maybe there is some kind of somatic experience, some kind of EMDR, or some kind of whatever it might be to really help work on that emotional impact that might still be affecting the person. It's important of course to find a therapist who understands OCD, who isn't reassuring you and you're falling back into your symptoms. But I have had clients successfully go through trauma therapy for the emotional impact OCD had and said it was tremendously helpful. That might be something to consider as well. If you do all the behavioral work and you still feel like, “I am really in the trenches emotionally,” we might need to add something else in. Chris: I actually don't think that's controversial, Alegra. I think that what you're speaking-- Alegra: I don't either, but a lot of clinicians do. Jessica: No, I agree. I think a lot of people will, and it's been a part of my recovery. I don't talk about a lot for that very reason. But after I was done with treatment, I didn't feel like I needed an OCD therapist anymore. I was doing extremely well, but all the emotions we'd been talking about, I was still experiencing. I found a clinician nearby because I was going on a four-hour round trip for treatment. I just couldn't go back to my therapist because of that. She actually worked with a lot of people that lost their lifestyle because of gambling. I went to her and I said, “What really spoke to me is how you help people rebuild their lives. I don't need to talk about OCD. If I need to, I'll go back to my old therapist. I need to figure out how to rebuild my life.” That's really what she did. She helped me work through a lot of the trauma with my dad and even got my dad to come to a session and work through that. We worked through living in the closet for my sexual orientation for so long and how hard coming out was because I came out while I was in the midst of OCD. It was a pretty horrible coming out experience. She helped me really work through that, work through the time lost and feeling behind my peers and I felt like a whole person leaving. I decided, as a clinician, I have to do that for my clients. I can't let my clients leave like I felt I left. It was no foul to my therapist. We just didn't talk about these other things.  Now what I'll say as a clinician is, if I'm working with a client and I feel like I could be the one to help them, I'll keep them with me. I also know my limitations. Like Alegra was saying, if they had the OCD went down so other traumas came to surface and they've dealt with molestation or something like that, I know my limitations, but what I will make sure to do is refer to a clinician that I think can help them because once again, I think treating the whole client is so important.  Kim: Yeah. There's two things I'll bring up in addition because I agree with everything you're saying. I don't think it's controversial. In fact, I often will say to my staff who see a lot of my clients, we want to either be doing, like Jessica said, some of the processing as we go or really offer after ERPs. “Do you need more support in this process of going back to the person you want?” That's a second level of treatment that I think can be super beautiful. As you're going too with exposures and so forth, you're asking yourself those questions like, what do I value? Take away OCD, what would I do? A lot of times, people are like, “I have no idea. I have really no idea,” like Chris then. I think that you can do it during treatment. You can also do it after, whichever feels best for you and your clinician.  The other thing that I find shows up for my patients the most is they'll bring up the shame and the guilt, or they'll bring up the anger, they'll bring up the grief. And then there's this heavy layer of some judgment for having it. There's this heavy layer as if they don't deserve to have these emotions. Probably, the thing I say the most is, “It makes complete sense that you feel that way.” I think that we have to remember that. That every emotion that is so strong and almost dysregulating, it makes complete sense that you feel that way given what you're going through.  I would just additionally say, be super compassionate and non-judgmental for these emotional waves that you're going to have to ride. I mean, think about the grief. This is the other thing. We don't go in and then process the grief and then often you're running. It's a wave. It's a process. It's a journey. It's going to keep coming and going. I think it's this readjustment on our thinking, like this is the life goal, the long-term practice now. It's not a one-and-done. Do you guys have thoughts? Jessica: I think as clinicians, validating that these are absolutely normal experiences and you deserve to be feeling this way is important because I think that sometimes, I don't think there's ill intent, but clinicians might gaslight their clients in a certain way by saying, “This isn't traumatic. This is not trauma. You can feel sad, but it is absolutely not a trauma,” and not validating that for a person can be really painful. I think as clinicians, we need to be open to the emotional impact that OCD has on a person and validate that so we're not sitting there saying, “Sorry, you can't use that word. This is not your experience. You can be sad, you can be whatever, but it's not trauma,” because I have seen that happen. Kim: Or a clinician saying, “It's not grief because no one died.” Jessica: Yeah. It was just hard. That was it. Get over it.  Kim: Or look at how far you've come. Even that, it's a positive thing to say. It's a positive thing to say, but I think what we're all saying is, very much, it makes complete sense. What were you going to say, Jessica? Sorry. Jessica: No. I just wanted to point out this one nuance that I see come up and that I think is important to catch, which is that sometimes there can be grief or shame or all these emotions that we're talking about, but sometimes those emotions can also become the compulsion themselves at times. Shala Nicely has a really, really good article about this, about how depression itself can become a compulsion, or I've seen clients engage in what I refer to as stewing in guilt or excessive guilt or self-punishment. What we want to differentiate is, punishing yourself by stewing in guilt is actually providing some form of covert reassurance about the obsessions. Sometimes we need to process the true emotional experiences that are happening as a result of OCD, but we also want to make sure that we're on the lookout for self-punishment compulsions and things like that that can mask, or I don't know. That can come out in response to those feelings, but ultimately are feeding the OCD still. I just wanted to point out that nuance, that if someone feels like, “I'm doing all this processing of my feelings with my therapist, but I'm not getting any better or I'm actually feeling worse,” we want to look at, is there a sneaky compulsion happening there?  Chris: I was just going to quickly add two things. One, I think what you were saying, Kim, with your clients, I see all the time. “I shouldn't feel this way. It's not okay for me to feel this way. There's people out there that are going through bigger traumas.” For some reason, I feel society gives a hierarchy of like, “Oh, if you're going through this you can grieve for this much, but we're going to grief police you if you're going through this. That's much down here.” So, my clients will feel guilty. My brother lost an arm when he was younger. How dare I feel bad about the time lost with OCD? I always tell my clients, there's no such thing as grief police and your experience is yours. We don't need to compare or contrast it to others because society already does that. And then second, I'm going to throw in a little plug for Kim. I feel as a clinician, it's my responsibility to keep absorbing things that I think will help my client. Your book that really talks about the self-compassion component, I read that from cover to cover. One thing that I've used when we're dealing with this with my clients is saying like, “We got to change our internal voice. Your internal voice has been one that's been frightened, small, scared, angry for so long. We got to change that internal voice to one that roots for you that has you get up each day and tackle the day.” If a client is sitting there saying that they shouldn't feel okay, I always ask them, “What kind of voice would you use to your younger brother or sister that you feel protective about? Would you knock down their experience? No, you would hold that space for them. What if we did that for you? It may feel odd, but this is something that I feel you need at this time.” Typically, when they start using a more self-compassionate tone, they start to feel like they're healing. So, that's something that we got to make sure they're doing as well. OCD AND DEPRESSION Kim: Yeah. Thank you for saying that. One thing we haven't touched on, and I will just quickly bring it up too, is I think secondary depression is a normal part of having OCD as well and is a part of the emotional toll. Sometimes either that depression can impact your ability to recover, or once you've gone through treatment, you're still not hopeful about the future. You're still feeling hopeless and helpless about the way the world is and the way that your brain functions in certain stresses. I would say if that is the case, also don't be afraid to bring up to your clinician. Like, I actually am concerned. I might have some depression if they haven't picked up on it. Because as clinicians, we know there's an emotional toll, we forget to assess for depression. That's something else just to consider. Chris: Yeah. I'm a stats nerd and I think it's 68% of the DSM, people with OCD have a depressive disorder, and 76% have an anxiety disorder. I always wonder, how can you have OCD and not be depressed? I was extremely depressed when my OCD was going on, and I think it's because of how it ravishes your life and takes you away from the things you care about the most. And then the things that would make you happy to get you out of the depression, obviously, you can't do. I will say the nice thing is, typically, what I see, whether it's through medication or not medication, but the treatment itself—what I see is that as people get better from OCD, if their depression did come from having OCD, a lot of it lifts, especially as they start to re-engage in life. Kim: All right. I'm looking at the time and I am loving everything you say. I'd love if you could each go around, tell us where we can hear more about you. If there's any final word that you want to say, I'm more than happy for you to take the mic. Jessica? Jessica: I'll start. I think I said in the introduction, but I have a private practice in Los Angeles. It's called Mindful CBT California. My website is MindfulCBTCalifornia.com. You can find some blogs and a contact page for me there. I hope to see a lot of you at the IOCDF conference this year. I love attending those, so I'll be there. That's it for me. Kim: Chris? Alegra: Like I said, if you're in the Southern California area, make sure to check out OCD SoCal. I am on the board of that or the International OCD Foundation, I'm on the board. I'm always connected at events through that. You can find me on my social media, which is just my name, @ChrisTrondsen. I currently work at the Gateway Institute in Orange County, California, so you can definitely find me there. My email is just my name, ChrisTrondsen@GatewayOCD.com. I would say the final thought that I want to leave, first and foremost, is just what I hope you got from this podcast is that all those other mixed bags of emotions that you're experiencing are normal. We just want to normalize that for you, and make sure as you're going through your recovery journey that you and your clinician address them, because I feel much more like a whole person because I was able to address those. You're not alone. Hopefully, you got from that you're not alone. Kim: Alegra? Alegra: You can find me @obsessivelyeverafter on Instagram. I also have a website, AlegraKastens.com, where you can find my contact info. You can find my Ask Alegra workshop series that I do once a month. I also just started a podcast called Sad Girls Who Read, so you can find me there with my co-host Erin Kommor, who also has OCD. My final words would probably be, I know we talked about a lot of really dark stuff today and how painful OCD can be, but it absolutely can get so much better. I would say that I am 95% better than I was when I first started suffering. It's brilliant and it's beautiful, and I never thought that would be the case. Yes, you'll hear from me in July, Kim, but other than that, I feel like I do have a very-- Kim's like, “Oh, will I?” Kim: I've scheduled you in. Alegra: She's like, “I have seven months to prep for this.” But other than that, I would say that my life is like, I never would've dreamed that I could be here, so it is really possible. Kim: Yeah. Chris: Amen. Of that. Kim: Yeah. Thank you all so much. This has been so meaningful for me to have you guys on. I'm really grateful for your time and your advocacy. Thank you. Chris: Thanks, Kim. Thanks for having us.  Alegra: Thanks, Kim.

Rounding Up Season 1 | Episode 10: Asset-Based Learning Environments Guest: Dr. Jessica Hunt Mike Wallus: Take a moment to think about the students in your most recent class. What assets do each of them bring to your classroom and how might those assets provide a foundation for their learning? Today we're talking with Dr. Jessica Hunt about asset-based learning environments. We'll talk about how educators can build an asset-based learning environment in their classrooms, schools, and school districts. Welcome to the podcast, Jessica. Thanks for joining us. Jessica Hunt: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here today. Mike: Well, I would love to start our conversation asking you to help define some language that we're going to use throughout the course of the podcast.  Jessica: Sure.  Mike: I'm wondering if you can just describe the difference between an asset-based and a deficitfocused learning environment. Jessica: I think historically what we see a lot of is deficit-based thinking. And deficit-based thinking focuses on perceived weaknesses of students—or even a group of students. And it focuses on students as the problem. And as a result, we tend to use instruction in an attempt to fix students or to fix their thinking. So, an asset-based learning environment means focusing on and beginning with strengths as opposed to what we think kids need or how to fix them. So, this means viewing kids as able and recognizing that the diversity of their thoughts, their culture, their experiences—all of these things are valuable and can actually strengthen and add meaning to classrooms and to instruction. I think assetbased learning environments involve a shift in our own mindset as teachers. And, of course, what we hope results from that is a shift in our practice. We talk a lot about growth mindsets for kids. I think I am referring to growth mindsets that teachers have about kids. We can ask, ‘What do students know and how can I use that? Or how can I build upon that through my teaching?' I've never met a kid that didn't bring something to instruction. Every student that I've met [has] had strengths that they bring to mathematics classrooms and to communities to expand their thinking and also that of their peers. Mike: It's fascinating listening to your description. I find myself thinking about how deficit-based many of the systems and structures … Jessica: Yeah. Mike: … and practices are, even though we do these things with positive intent.  Jessica: Yeah.  Mike: Can you just say more about that? How do you see deficit thinking filtering into some of the systems and then impacting the learning environments in our kids? Jessica: Sure. I think two ways that I see deficit thinking filtering into driving—and driving systems in classrooms—involve things like time and priorities. Time and how it's used in classrooms and schools is one area that deficit thinking can impact in a big way. How are systems recommending that teachers actually spend their time with students in the context of a particular day or a week or even a unit of instruction? And I ask that question because I think that it's one thing to state that we have asset-based approach. Yet it's quite another to consider the need to develop meaningful habits within classroom spaces that can really promote student strengths. Mike: So, one of the things that you just said really struck me, which is this idea of habits in the classroom. I'm excited to hear what you're going to say about that. Jessica: I think one of the key habits that we have in asset-based learning environments is this idea of listening to kids. I've never met a student that didn't have viable and valuable ideas about mathematics. The key for me is having the time and space to uncover and understand what those are. So, we've got to have a way to listen to students' thinking. When we do that, when we understand the reasoning and the strengths that they're bringing, that supports us in selecting instructional tools and strategies that leverage both their individual strengths and those that they bring to the group in order to promote learning. Mike: Let's pick up on that a little bit. This idea of listening to kids and understanding their thinking and understanding of what it means about the assets that they bring. For a person who might be listening, help them form an image of what that might look like in an elementary classroom. Talk to me a little bit about on a day-to-day basis, how might this idea of listening to kids or attending to kids' thinking—and really considering the assets—how might that show up? Jessica: One way it shows up is this focus on learning. And before I go on with that, I want to talk a little bit about how learning and a focus on it is a little different than focusing on performance. So, focusing on performance as opposed to learning, risks looking at change as something that's fast and quick as opposed to something that grows and endures. So, part of focusing on learning means that we're looking more at the process as opposed to only examining quick outcomes or products of what students are experiencing in classrooms. It's actually interesting to think about that in terms of educational equity because there's some research that actually suggests that performance gains don't necessarily equate to learning gains. Mike: I think that's fascinating. You're making me think of two things. One, and I'm going to reference this for people who are listening, is ‘Taking Action,' which is NCTM's work. Really trying to say what do some of the really critical principles of high-quality education look like in grades pre-K through 5? And they have a really specific focus on attending to what do we want kids to learn versus simply what's the performance. Jessica: Yes, absolutely. Mike: I also just wanted to key in on something you said, which is that performance can be short-lived, but learning endures. Jessica: It sure does. If we want to focus on learning, it means that we have to be intentional in our classroom practices. And I also think that links to a lot of things. Like you brought up NCTM, and a lot of the things that they advocate for. I think there are some natural linkages there as well. So, for me, being intentional, one key part of that is ensuring that students are doing the thinking so that teachers can listen to and promote that thinking. So, we want the placement of the learning and the thinking on the students for a good percentage of the instructional time. We want to ensure that we're immersing students in content rather than simply presenting it all the time. And I think another part of that listening involves positioning students and the ideas that they're bringing forward as competent. So, I think, together, what all of this means is that we're supporting students to make meaning for themselves, yet definitely not by themselves. Jessica: Teachers have an intentional, key role. And part of that intentionality involves things like slowing down and thinking carefully about how to structure learning experiences. And taking more time and planning and ensuring that students have access to multiple ways to engage in and represent and express their thinking with respect to those tasks and activities that they're using and drawing upon to learn. And I think that asset-based learning environments allow for that intentionality. It allows for that time and space and planning. And in teaching, it allows for that immersion and thinking and listening and positioning of students as the sense-makers, as the doers and thinkers of mathematics. Mike: I think the connection that I'm making is this idea that there are some shifts that have to happen in order to enable asset-based listening and intentionality. One of the things that comes to mind is it really starts with even how you structure or imagine the task itself. If you're posing a problem, that problem isn't accompanied by a ‘Let me show you how to find the answer.' That actually allows kids to think about it. And there might be some divergent thinking, and that's actually a good thing. We want to understand how kids are thinking so we can respond to their thinking. Jessica Absolutely. Mike: That's a big contrast to saying, ‘Let me show you a task, let me show you how to do the task.' It's pretty difficult to imagine listening in that kind of context because really what you're asking them to do isn't thinking about how to solve it. Does that make sense? Jessica: It sure does. And I think for me, or a hunch that I would have, is that that also goes back to this whole idea of teaching and listening and maybe even assessing, if you will, for what we think kids need versus what they're bringing us versus their strengths. I see some connections there in what you're seeing. Mike: Let's talk about that a little bit.  Jessica: Sure.  Mike: Particularly assessment, I think when I was getting ready for this episode, that was the first thing that came to mind. I found myself thinking about previous PLC meetings or data meetings that I've had where even if we were looking at student work, I have to confess that I found myself thinking about the fact that we were looking at what kids didn't understand versus what they did understand. And I tried to kind of imagine how those conversations would've looked from an asset perspective. What would it look like to look at student work and to compare student work and think about assets versus thinking about what do I need to remediate in the type of thinking that I'm seeing?  Jessica: Uh-hm. I hear you there. I think it speaks to something that if we really want to build assetbased learning environments, we need to make some shifts. And I think one of those shifts is how we look at and use data and assessment. Primarily, I think we need to assess strengths and not needs. I heard that a lot as you were talking. How can we focus on assessing strengths and not needs? I say that to a lot of people and they're like, ‘What's the difference?' ( laughs ) Or, ‘That seems so small.' (laughs) But I think it winds up being a really big deal. If you think about it, trying to uncover needs perpetuates this idea that we should focus on what we see as the problem, which as I mentioned earlier, usually becomes the students or particular group of students. And I think it's very problematic because it sets us up as teachers to keep viewing students and their ideas as something that needs to be fixed as opposed to assets that we can build from or learn from in the classroom. Mike: Yeah. One of the other ideas that we've talked about on this podcast in different episodes is the idea of relevancy and engagement. And it strikes me that these ideas about listening to kids for assets are pretty connected to those ideas about relevancy and engagement. Jessica: Yeah, most definitely. I think, again, figuring out, we sometimes call this prior knowledge, but I look at it as when kids come to school, they bring with them their entire experience. So, what are those experiences and what from their eyes are things that are relevant and engaging and things in which they are passionate about themselves? And what do they know about those things? And how might they connect to what others in the classroom know about those things? And how can we, to borrow a term, how can we ‘mathematize' those things ( laughs ) in ways that are beneficial for individual kids and for the community of learners in our classroom? Like, how can we make those connections? I don't think we can answer those types of questions when we use assessment from this place of, ‘What don't students know?' Or ‘How can I get them to this particular place?' If that makes sense.  Mike: It does.  Jessica: I think we can ask those questions from a strengths-based lens that is curious about and passionate about really getting at, again, this whole experience that kids are bringing with them to school. And how we can use that to not only better students learning, but better the classroom community and maybe even better the mathematics that kids are learning in that community. Mike: Absolutely. Jessica: That's, that's interesting to think about. Mike: So, you started to address one of the questions that I was going to ask, which is, I'm imagining that there are folks who are listening to the podcast and they're just starting to think about what are some of the small steps or the small moves that I might make? What small steps would you advise folks to think about if they're trying to cultivate an asset-focused learning environment? Jessica: It's an interesting question, and I would suggest putting into practice some of the bigger ideas that we're getting at in asset-based learning environments themselves. And the first is, look at your own strengths. And when I say who I'm referencing there, it can be a teacher, it can be a school, it can be a district. If you look at your own strengths first, look at how your practices, your structures, your priorities are uncovering and using strengths. And if they're not, why not? Kind of looking at what's there, what capacities do we currently have that we can build on toward asset-based learning environments? And I think I would pair that with just a commitment to, to action, if you will. You know, start small, but start now. If you're a classroom teacher for instance—I tend to go to that ( laughs ), that grade size a lot ‘cause I still very much, uh, identify as a teacher—start with one task or one day, or part of a day, where you can slow down and use your instructional time to listen for kids' strength. Jessica: What brilliance and valuable ways of reasoning are they sharing with you? And what kinds of activity or task or environment did you need to put in place to uncover that? What did you learn about it? What did you learn about yourself in this process? So, we learn about kids and then we learn about ourselves. It becomes sort of this beautiful back and forth between students and teachers where we're all learning about ourselves and about each other. And I think that learning piece is the third thing that I would suggest. Again, going back to let's focus on learning. Let's celebrate our own learning as teachers and schools and districts and et cetera. Reframing your practices and structures will take time. That's OK. But learn to celebrate the steps that you and your communities are taking toward this asset-based model of instruction. And know that, again, you know, when we work to do that, we enable kids as mathematical thinkers and doers. So, we take that problem off kids, and we place it as a challenge in our instructional design, in our experiences and our interactions between teachers and students. So, I think for me, I would really invite folks to take those small steps, uncover your own strengths, learn to listen, and celebrate your own learning. Mike: Before we conclude the episode, I'm wondering if you can recommend any resources for someone who wants to continue learning about an asset-based approach to elementary mathematics? Jessica: Yeah. There [are] so many good examples of this. I think about my own learning as a teacher and a teacher of teachers, ( laughs ) and a researcher. And I think about things like cognitively guided instruction or the work of the The Dream Project in early childhood or even TODOS, where I know they provide a lot of wonderful examples of asset-oriented resources. I'll also do a shameless plug ( laughs ) for my, for my own book, you know, myself … Mike: Plug away!  Jessica: … ( laughs ) and Jenny Ainslie put together, called, ‘Designing Effective Math Interventions: An Educator's Guide to Learner-Driven Instruction.' And that book came off of a project that I did with, uh, National Science Foundation support, where we looked at kids' thinking over time and designed some tasks and activities to support conceptual understanding of fractions. But there are those. Alnd, and so, so many more. But those are the ones that come to mind immediately. Mike: That's fantastic. And we'll share links to those things with the podcast.  Jessica: Great. Mike: I want to thank you so much for joining us, Jessica, it's really been a pleasure talking to you. Jessica: Oh, thank you. It's been an immense pleasure talking with you as well. And thank you for inviting me. I really appreciate it. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation. dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2023 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org

Today I'm joined by dietitian and activist Jessica Wilson to discuss her new book It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies - a book that uplifts and celebrates Black women.In the episode we talk all about what drove Jessica to write the book and why we need to re-centre the experiences of Black women in our conversations about bodies and eating disorders. Jessica shares some of her critiques of intuitive eating and body positivity, and why white supremacy isn't the root of diet culture, but the whole damn tree. Plus, lots of Lizzo chat and great Snacks. Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Find out more about Jessica here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Sign up to the Raising Embodied Eaters workshop here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Here's the transcript in full:Jessica: And so, so quickly it became diet culture has racist roots. And that was the concession. Like, we need to talk about both of these things in anti-diet spaces. And the way that we're gonna do it is say that diet culture, you know, make it really like this tree analogy. Uh, and then just happens to have racist roots.Whereas I see white supremacy as the tree, it's what's sticking up out of the ground. It's what we can see. It's what is, you know, ruling and governing and decides, you know, who is able to fit under its branches. And I, you know, shrinking ourselves via, maybe that's the connection to diet culture there, is one way people are trying to seek shelter under this, you know, umbrella, this tree of white supremacy.INTROLaura: Hey team, and welcome to another episode of Season Two of Can I Have Another Snack? Podcast, where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas, an anti-diet registered nutritionist and author of the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter.I can't wait to share today's conversation with dietician and activist Jessica Wilson, who is also author of the forthcoming book, It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies. I've linked to this book in the show notes because you need to go and pre-order it immediately. So in this conversation you'll hear Jessica and I discuss her new book. We'll talk about some of the ideas that she presents in the book, like how the body stories and narratives of Black women are raised and silenced in conversations about health, wellness, and body positivity. Jessica tells us about why if we distill difficulties with food down to just the thin ideal, we end up missing a lot of the complexity of how Black women are told to be figuratively and literally smaller as a matter of survival. We talk about how intuitive eating and rejecting diet culture don't address systemic issues like anti-fatness and anti-blackness. And they perpetuate the idea that we need to find individualistic solutions to systemic and structural violence. We talk about how white supremacy and anti-blackness isn't at the root of diet culture, but how, in Jessica's words, it's the whole damn tree. We talk about Lizzo and respectability, resilience and toxic body positivity, and loads and loads more. I think I'm gonna be unpacking this book for a long time to come, and I'm just so grateful to Jessica for writing it and I think as a white person, I mean, my opinion doesn't really matter here, but I feel like it's important to sit with the discomfort and the critiques and reflect on the ways that I've perpetuated some of these harmful systems and narratives. And if you're a white person in this space, whether for personal or professional reasons, you need to get this book and also sit with that discomfort.So again, It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Stories of Black Women's Bodies, and it's available to pre-order now and it will be out on the 7th of February. The pre-order links are in the show notes. It goes without saying that we talk about themes around anti-blackness and enslavement and anti-fatness. So if you're a black person or a fat person, please take care of yourself if you choose to listen to this conversation.All right, before we get to today's conversation with Jessica, I just want to share that I'm gonna be running my Raising Embodied Eaters workshop again in February. It will be a 90 minute workshop. Completely online and you will be sent a copy of the recording afterwards to watch back. We'll talk about how kids' embodiment gets disrupted by diet culture, and what this has to do with feeding. We'll discuss why we need to throw the rule book out of the window and let them have ice cream before broccoli, and how we can help build trust in our kids to get what they need. I'll offer a framework that can help you feel more relaxed about mealtimes, whilst encouraging kids to have autonomy. We'll talk about how providing supportive structure can encourage children to remain in touch with their internal cues for hunger, satisfaction, pleasure, and fullness. And I'll cover how fussy eating develops, and other developmental milestones as well as tools to help support our kids through them. We'll talk about why cutting out sugar and saying things like just another bite can undermine kids' instincts around food, and we'll cover how to talk about food and bodies without harming. You'll be asked to fill out a short questionnaire about your specific situation ahead of time, and I'll try to tailor the content to the audience as much as possible. You'll also get a copy of my Raising Embodied Eaters download. The workshop is suitable for grownups of kids of all ages, but best probably for kids under 12. Parents, whatever that means to your family, grandparents, teachers, nutrition professionals, and anyone else working with kids are more than welcome to join. It'll be on Tuesday, the 21st of February, also pancake day, that's seven o'clock and it's 15 pounds to join. Full details and booking information is in the show notes and the transcript for this episode.And just before we get to Jessica, just a quick reminder that Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader supported publication and podcast. I'd love to bring you more deeply researched pieces like my piece on clean eating and kids from a couple weeks ago, but it requires a significant investment in my time, plus the support of an editor. So if you are in a position to become a paid supplier, then please consider it, it's five pounds a month or 50 pounds for the year. And if that's not accessible to you right now, you can email hello@laurathomasphd.co uk, putting the word “snax” in the subject line, and we'll hook you up with a comp subscription, no questions asked. You don't need to justify yourself. Just send that email with “snax” in the subject line and we'll hook you up with a comp subscription.Okay, team, here is my conversation with Jessica Wilson.MAIN EPISODELaura: All right, Jessica. I'd love it if you could tell us who or what you are nourishing right now.Jessica: That will be a big what. Laura, you're the first person that I get to talk to on a podcast and share that my book, It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies will be out finally in 2023. So I am putting all of my energy and capacity into taking that book across the finish line.Laura: They don't tell you when you sign that book deal, that the publishing part, like the promoting, the marketing, all of that stuff is like more work than just like the writing part and the editing part, which is also a lot.Jessica: It is and at least you know like where you're going with that. You know where the book ends, begins and is in the middle, but then this nebulous like what is happening afterwards, that is also more work. Yeah. I was not prepared. I recommend somebody write a book about what it's like to write a book.Laura: I know we need that book.Jessica: Yeah. It never ends, it never slows down is the summary.Laura: But that's also a good sign. Like if they're keeping you busy with lots of marketing stuff, that's a good sign. And for good reason because I have been one of the very privileged people to read an advanced copy and I'm just, I'm so excited about this book. I think you've done such an amazing job of like dissecting these, like really difficult to, to digest and process ideas, but you've woven it, interwoven it with like humor, and like historical context and pop culture references and, and like, it just, it's like a pleasure to read it even though it's like really difficult to to read. So tell, can you tell the audience what the book is about and what it is that you're trying to say through this book?Jessica: I think that there were two parts of it, um, in my career as a dietician for, ooh, 15, I don't know, 17 years we'll say. Um, and even before that, the ways that we've talked about eating disorders, the ways that we've talked about eating always centers, like white folks experiences and the ways that eating disorders are supposed to present are how they present in very thin white girls and women.And like I was trained with all of that knowledge and it just was falling flat on its face when I was working with anybody else who wasn't thin, white and a cis woman in my work. And I also didn't have any other Black dietician colleagues, we only make up like 3% of the dietician field. And so I had no one to talk to about it.Um, like very lost reading Carolyn Costin's book, which again, you know, it's not anything new, it's just the same old centering of the same people. Um, so it wasn't like years or decades later that I realized that all of this needed to be in one place. I was having so many conversations, but how can we put all of this and give it context in a place and in a time where, you know, diet, culture and intuitive eating are becoming so much to the lexicon. And it still wasn't as complex as I really needed it to be.Laura: Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's a lot of nuance missing from those conversations and a lot of people missing from those conversations. Like in the book, you detail, you know how there are a few, like, I mean, it is like a few old white dudes in the eating disorder field that have written all the manuals, all the textbooks, all the protocols, all the psychometric testing everything,Jessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: to center their ideas about who gets an eating disorder, how it presents, and what the root causes are, which you completely obliterate in like the first couple of chapters.Jessica: The idea that it's all about beauty, right, is one that I for sure, you know, was trained in. It was everybody wanting to be thin and thin for beauty's sake. And because we have very thin models, like that's why people want to shrink themselves. Um, and yeah, just to be prettier and as we, you and I have discussed, and you know, other communities as well. Uh, folks of color, particularly black women in this book, can find a lot of survival and safety by making themselves both, uh, literally and figuratively smaller. So by shrinking, you know, in spaces where we're told we're too much, or even, you know, before we can be told we're too much, shrinking ourselves is one way to find that, you know, survival in white supremacy and then also of course for fat folks mitigating anti-fatness, um, by, you know, starving oneself is one way to find a bit more peace, even if it is not, you know, both sustaining and nourishing, I guess, for them.Laura: Yeah, it's a survival mechanism. It's a way of living in a world that is openly hostile to you and trying to make that as, as easy as possible for yourself. And even then, it's not easy. It's still not easy.Jessica: Yeah. And some people hear, you know, this conversation and I've had comments on Instagram that, you know, say, well, it sounds like you're saying it's okay to have an eating disorderLaura: Jesus fucking Christ.Jessica: And I'm like, no, I understand why you're saying that. I totally see why when I say I understand why you're starving yourself, to somebody who could be triggered to hear, I approve of you having an eating disorder.But yeah, that's not what is going on.Laura: That's a real red herring.Jessica: Yeah. The compassion, the understanding, and then also like eating disorder recovery is not going to make the things that they are, you know, somewhat solving by becoming smaller. They're not gonna make those things go, like magically go away.So how do we have a really, really hard conversation that talks about not just eating intuitively and recovering, but like the harms of society.Laura: Yeah. You're not saying that restriction, deprivation and trying to micromanage everything that you eat and trying to shrink your isn't unpleasant. You're saying, you're, it's not un-Jessica: or differently harmfulLaura: Yeah,  it's one way of trying to survive in a world that's really unsafe. And what you were saying is like these are the options availableJessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: The, the options are try and reform, conform through restriction and deprivation and, uh, you know, through effectively self-harm or endure the, you know, more microaggressions or overt aggression um, because you, you're even farther from the white ideal, is that like. Jessica: And what society finds acceptable. There is no easy path. under white supremacy for those whose bodies don't align with what, you know, Puritan culture had in mind. And that we continue to value as a, as a society. So there really is no easy path forward. And all of us are really trying to do the best we can.Laura: And I think you kind of touched on this as well, but you talk about, in the book that, you know, rejecting diet culture and embracing anti-diet, intuitive eating approaches to eating is not the one, it's, it's not gonna save us. That these are oversimplifications of, you know, what, what needs to happen, what needs to change.Do you wanna kind of touch on that a little bit more and, and explain why, why you think that is?Jessica: I think you teed it up really nicely when we talked about the safety and survival that people can find in shrinking themselves. Intuitive eating in all of its, you know, forms, fashion and principles like is not going to make anti-fatness or anti-blackness go away. So even if I, you know, are open to start eating again, if I've been restricting and in deprivation and I want to embrace intuitive eating, the reasons that I had shrunk myself initially, like will arise, and intuitive eating is not going to be like that solution. I will still be experiencing the other things. Again, also, it's an individual solution to a societal problem. And I often find that, you know, me asking you, Laura, to participate in these like rituals, these um, principles, you know, really puts the onus on you as a person that needs to solve a problem that you did not create.Laura: Hmm.Jessica: And as a clinician, you know, that doesn't read well to me. And I also, um, I want people to think less about food because, you know, as you know, as we deprive ourselves, the amount of times and amount of time spent thinking about food goes up exponentially.And so I don't like to really organize people's existence around, you know, always thinking about their food, but also not having like specifics as a, as a field. In the book I talk about talking to three of my white eating disorder specialist, dietician friends, and I said, how are they talking about intuitive eating these days?And I say that all three of them, you know, took their hands like butterfly wings across their chest and like fluttered them a bit. That's how you'll know if you're eating intuitively, was the message. And I was like, what does that mean? What are we doing as a field if a solution to a societal problem involves both like rigidity and fluttering hands.It's just, it's not the solution we need to society.Laura: Look, you know, that I have been an advocate of intuitive eating, have been, you know, I've talked a lot about it. I've written two fucking books about intuitive eating. But as I read that part of your book, I like threw up in my mouth a little bit. I was like, not, not actually like that butJessica: Yes.Laura: But, I was just like, that's gross. That, it was just really upsetting to read that that's, what it's been reduced down to is just like this, like ethereal feeling , that that's what intuitiveJessica: When you know, you'll know . No,Laura: that's fucked up, it's really fucked up and I'm kind of, you know, becoming more and more aware of how, um, sort of evangelical people are about intuitive eating. And I hope that, something that I've kind of gotten across in my books is that if we are, you know, if, if you are trying to practice intuitive eating to the letter and you're so inflexible in those principles, that's a diet and that you are recreating, reproducing the same ways of thinking and patterns of of being as, as, as in a diet. So what, we're not actually achieving anything. And like you, like the goal is, is to not think that much about food apart from like, okay, I need to eat something. What do I have available to me? Or do I need something in like,Jessica: Do I have enough groceries? Have I packed a snack?Laura: This is really important. Like, it's very important to bring snacks.Jessica: But yeah. Um, in the religiosity. I fully agree. And, see the connection again with the idea that we should be only eating for biological reasons, is another way the religiosity flows in there. Because, you know, I made the connection, my boss made the connection between that and the like, only have sex for procreation. Um, and just like wear these, like deny yourself pleasure, deny yourself, you know, so many things unless it's in a religious context and then you're able to have sex or then you're able to enjoy food if it's only for biological reasons. So never, and have pleasure with food or sex. So yeah, I definitely see the evangelism and religiosity forLaura: It is, and there's also just like this, I mean, I was literally shoving toffee in my mouth as I was reading that section, like, which is just funny. But, yeah, there is this distortion and I think that the way that that intuitive eating is, is talked about and how it's been popularized and, and this, because it's, it's come from the intuitive eating book is, as you say, this denial of pleasure, this, um, denial of our appetite and the fact that we eat outside of these very like narrow, very specific, parameters and that it, like, it's fine if you like are passing a window like a bakery and you see something and you're like, that looks good. I wanna eat that. Like, yeah. To, to just reduce hunger down to, or reduce eating down to only, only eating when you're hungry is, is ludicrous. But it, it's also really harmful because, uh, you know, I've, I've been in the room with clients who are like, but I, you know, when do I eat? And like the mental acrobatics of it all is a lot.There's, yeah, there's this other thing that I've seen happening with intuitive eating that makes me so deeply uncomfortable is how it's just become this like, really, it's like girl boss feminism, but for food. Do you know what I mean? Jessica: Tell me more. No, I love this. Where's this going?Laura: I think I maybe got this idea from Toi Smith who, I don't know if you know Toi, a Black woman who, she talks a lot about capitalism and the effects of capitalism on our lives. She has a lot of great things to say, but she talks about the commodification of wisdom that is just innate to humans, right?Jessica: Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah,Laura: Like it's something that we kind of know in our bodies and how white women in particular sort of repackage this and try and sell it you at a premiumJessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: and like that's what I feel like intuitive eating has become. And I see this a lot happening with child feeding, right? Like, we're going way off topic. We will come back to your book, I promise, but like, um, like the weaning industrial complex,Jessica: Oh,Laura: right?Jessica: yeah.Laura: I don't need to take a £200 course to teach my child how to eat. Like humans have been doing that since the beginning time, right?Jessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: And like, what the fuck, what am I paying you to tell me how to like cut up a piece of food? Like that's like innate knowledge and that we have as humans and it should be freely available to everyone, right?Jessica: Yeah. Hmm. The weaning industrial complex. Laura: Don't get me started cuz I have a lot of feelings about it, Jessica. But it's that kind of, you know, like, like eating is something so fundamental and so in, you know, inherent to our existenceJessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: Why are we paying to learn how to do that?Jessica: Definitely.Laura: Okay. I've gone way off, off piste here, but let's, let's bring it back to the book and, and I think we've kind of like touched on this a little bit in different ways, but I, I wanna ask you a bit more directly, like, you've talked a lot about this on social media as well, and in fact you gave a really, I think, helpful analogy that I'll ask you to share in just a second. But since the sort of social reckoning that wasn't in 2020 it's become cool, it's become trendy in the anti diet HAES space to talk about how anti-blackness and white supremacy are at the root of diet culture.Jessica: Right?Laura: Let it rip. JessicaJessica: Um, let's see. I'm not sure like chicken or the egg. I don't know if you have that expression in the UK or not. Um,Laura: That one translates.Jessica: Okay. I'm not sure which one came first cuz uh, there was a, it was a very short period of, uh, time during which people all of a sudden, in, you know, eating disorder community and dietician community, um, who were like talking about diet culture. And then all of a sudden in 2020, um, all of a sudden, you know, people are talking about race in ways that have not been done before. And so it was like this, how do we squeeze in this very important conversation about racism into this conversation as a field that we've already been having.And so, what, you know, Black Lives Matter. What Black folks, what our Black colleagues like me and Alicia McCulloch, you know, we're talking about bodies and the harm that white supremacy has caused for,Laura: mm-hmm. Jessica: ever, and anti-diet spaces, we're talking about the harms of dieting forever. I see that the origins of white supremacy, you know, are really what are impacting, like directly impacting both anti-fatness and anti-blackness in the US at least.And so, so quickly it became diet culture has racist roots. And that was the concession. Like, we need to talk about both of these things in anti-diet spaces. And the way that we're gonna do it is say that diet culture, you know, make it really like this tree analogy. Uh, and then just happens to have racist roots.Um, whereas I see white supremacy as the tree, um, it's what's sticking up out of the ground. It's what we can see. It's what is, you know, ruling and governing and decides, you know, who is able to fit under its branches. And I, you know, shrinking ourselves via, maybe that's the connection to diet culture there, is one way people are trying to seek shelter under this, you know, umbrella, this tree of white supremacy.Laura: And you give some examples in your book and I think that they're really helpful for illustrating what you mean because, and I'm speaking for myself here, like when it, it takes a long time to get your head around diet culture as a concept anyway, right? WhenJessica: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.Laura: been coming from like the, the, the weight normative paradigm that you and I were both in. Right? So like that, it's kind of like a head fuck just to even get your head around that begin with, but then take it to the next level, which actually this isn't even diet culture, this is something else entirely.Jessica: Right.Laura: Like, and, and maybe this is just me, being, like this is my ignorance or my privilege showing, but it's taken me a while even after reading, like Fearing the Black Body and reading Deshaun's work to like get to this point.So I'm just wondering if some examples, they were helpful for me reading them in your book. So I'm just wondering if it'd be helpful in other people's books. What am I saying? It would be helpful to illustrate for other people.Jessica: Well, I think people might love to hear the ones that resonated with you, you know? Cause they probably share a lot of your experiences.Laura: I think, I think both the stories of Mia and LexiJessica: Okay.Laura: Were really illustrative. Um, so I don't know. Which one would you like to tell?Jessica: We can talk about Lexi since she's now, you know, a US transplant into the Uk. Laura: I feel like I need to call her up and be like, Hey, should grab a coffee ? Jessica: Maybe she could be on your podcast, you know?Laura: I'm sure she could. I know she's been on your podcast and I need to go back and listen to that. But yeah, get her on the podcast.Jessica: Yeah. So gymnasts from age three, and really enjoy doing all of the gymnastics events. So there's floor, there's the uneven bars, there's beam, and then there's floor. And within the gymnastics community, the idea is that the beam balance beam and the uneven bar bars are like the elegant events. And inherently in gymnastics, you know, uh, only the white gymnasts are able to be elegant.Any and all black gym gymnasts are assumed to be more muscular, more powerful, and they're gonna be great on the floor and great on the vault. And Lexi wanted to do all of the events and was good at them. Uh, but, you know, saw that the thinner, whiter girls were getting higher scores. So being an athlete and very driven, she's like, I know how to be thinner and get, you know, therefore get better scores.So just, you know, started participating, you know, In deprivation, in restriction, in laxative use, um, in the like cleansing, cayenne, lemon water situation and eventually purging. But there was no, like, she was never like, I want to feel better about my body. You know, she was never fat. She just wanted to be metaphorically and physically smaller, to be more palatable to the judges, predominantly white judges who were judging her.She was never like, you know, I'm worried about the thin ideal. It just wasn't about the same stuff, you know, that we are told about diet culture and what diet culture means. Um, it just wasn't that.Laura: Yeah. So, yeah. In the eating disorder literature, all we're ever offered is, you know, people are trying to shrink their bodies because it brings them in closer proximity to the thin ideal. And that's the apex of human being like, that's all we're aiming for.Jessica: It's because they feel bad about their bodies.Laura: Yeah. Which we do get that message to an extent. But what you are saying is it's more than that. It's a lot deeper than that. It's a lot more harmful than that. And it's rooted in the origins of the American, well America as a country and chattels and enslavement, um, of Black people.And, and it goes all the way back to that and the, the, like we were saying at the beginning, the safety that is afforded to people who have closer proximity to whiteness. Is that like a fair summary?Jessica: Yeah, I think that you helped me out, uh, realizing that I had just jumped in with Lexi and gymnasts and not taken it back to enslavement, um, hundreds of years ago. Right? So the depiction of Black women then, you know, as strong as powerful, basically because they were laborers either out in the field or in the house, but just the constant valuation of Black women for their labor, um, continues today.And so, yeah, Black gymnasts are used for their power and their strength in their events. And so like, it's been hundreds of years, but the narratives of Black women are still there and they're ones that we did not ask for. So that's how I say, you know, the body narratives have always been written by white supremacy in a way that Black women will never, you know, have access to, you know, a validating body story unless it's rewritten.Laura: And what you just said there about, um, you know, this, the story of, of Black women's bodies being about power, being about strength. That was, again, if we think, think of it in historical terms because they had no choice, right? That was the, literallyJessica: They were put to work.Laura: But in the book, you kind of bring this into a modern context as well, which, um, and, and you talk about it through the lens of, um, resilience.And, and so if it's okay, I wanna just read a short passage, um, from the book. And so you say Black women often take on the false idea that we have superhuman strength and resilience in the meantime, sacrificing our physical and mental health, trying to make ourselves fit into a society that will never accept us. This replicates centuries of lacking body autonomy for Black women of being denied agency in how we tend to our bodies.Jessica: Yeah.Laura: And I think like this really, like who hit a nerve for me? Um, not hit a nerve in like a negative way, but it likeJessica: Sure.Laura: it made an impression. I really had to think about it. Um, and so sort of, I mean, did you want to speak to this point any? Jessica: Yeah, what stood out to me and then I was able to bring up at other times with the autonomy here and how conforming indeed can bring back some of what has been lost in people's writing our own stories. But at what cost, right? Yeah. So, Indeed it is hard. it was hard to write. It's hard to listen to. But again, knowing it's important, which I think at the beginning you'd said that I, you know, had wrapped in some, uh, humor, often dry humor, pop culture, um, a lot of, you know, really personal stories so that folks could, you know, have some balance and really get to the end of it, the book, rather than, you know, just deciding it's hard and not finishing. Yeah. But did the passage or what stuck out to you in the, in the passage?Laura: Well, I think it was kind of more, I guess I wanna bring it back to another part of the, this same chapter where you're talking about resilience, and you sort of, without like making a song and dance about it, you, you kind of differentiate between resilience that is embodied and innate and inherent versus resilience that is performed as an act of survival through, um, through the, through autonomy being forcibly removed, violently and forcibly removed.And, I think that there, like, it just made me think about how there is a lot of stereotyping about Black wo women being strong and, um, you know, having to as you say in the book, like literally and figuratively, having to clean up everybody else's mess, um, and carrying like so much for the rest of us.I suppose it brought me back to just like, I just felt so, like, I just felt really sad, like really, really sad that that's, um, you know, I was thinking about some of my Black, my friends who are Black women and, um, just yeah, how this, it was just really upsetting to, to, to think about, just everything that's expected of Black women and everything that they're carrying. But then there was also this most, this more kind of optimistic, hopeful piece in like, resilience that's embodied, that's like innate. That's just that, that's something that, um, you know, is developed through community and through, um, Black joy and some of the things that you go on to, you know, some of them were , uplifting things that you talk about in the book. So, yeah. Did you mean to like draw that distinction between the two pieces or is that just, am IJessica: I love how, no, which is great because I have more, um, yeah, language. That's super helpful and a great reflection. I think in that chapter tI alk about like, my needing to have been performing resilience in particular situation, and I just couldn't, and, you know, therefore I was then, you know, disposable to the organization at the time. Um, because as you know, you know, folks with chronic illnesses and other things, like there is just a max. And at some point, like, my body just can't fulfill the demands of society for me to, you know, put everything else, uh, before myself, et cetera. Sometimes I actually have to put myself first. Though yeah, not being able to do that performance is, you know, both like considered and ingrained as a failure for me. You know? And I assume other Black women, like we are known for our strength, you know, you can always rely on us. Um, and when, you know, we cannot be relied upon for Black girl magic, like that's devastating.Laura: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.Jessica: Yeah. But then the other, yes, the innate resilience or the, Hmm. I wouldn't say tools gained through community, but maybe the, maybe it is. A friend of mine called joy as a weapon, the way I was writing about it as like a way to weaponize the, um, assumptions made about us and our bodies, and I loved that. So yes, resilience in two different ways.Laura: Okay. So I mentioned that you weave in some most excellent pop culture references and a piece that I enjoyed reading was your thoughts on Lizzo and respectability and all the shit that went down, around about that. So, summarize what you talk about in that chapter.Jessica: I start the chapter by talking about Lizzo's uh, decision to eat smoothies that she made at home. Uh, apples and peanut butter, protein bars, tea, something, pickles. Yes. That's. So it was smoothies and those snacks for 10 days and she had said, you know, two of us. 2020 had been a really shitty year. And, know, her stomach was real fucked up. And so, you know, she decided to go on what she called a smoothie detox. And the internet lost its mind. It was like when it's like you wake up to like an actual news story on social media, but this was like Lizzo is, is drinking smoothies was the actual news storyLaura: A like slow news day when you think about it, but like theJessica: That's probably why. yeah, that's actually probably true. Uh, it was in the period between Thanksgiving and, and New Year's maybe. Um, so yeah, the internet had big thoughts and it was one of those times where I was able to see those who were, you know, triggered, um, and probably weren't doing so well in their own, you know, mental health and recovery that got very, very triggered. One particularly, um, Jameela Jamil, who's over UK and in US. Yeah. Posted her own story of like engaging in some sort of like detox situationLaura: Oh, is that who it was? I was reading your book and I was like, come on, you coward name herJessica: Well,Laura: But you did on the,Jessica: She, yeah, she's mentioned ambiguously. Um, but yes, a whole cautionary tale of I almost died doing a cleanse. Don't do cleanses. Um, and you know, it was very clear for her, uh, Jameela Jamil that, you know, she had done so in the context of her eating disorder in order to lose weight.And I was like, but wait, did Lizzo say anything about wanting to lose weight? Like, I didn't catch that. Like I went back. Saw what she was eating. There were solid foods. Like, it was like portrayed as this weird, cleansy. I don't know what like the assumptions made about cleanses are, but there was like actual food there.I was watching it, it may have, may have not been, you know, a meal amount of food, but like, I still didn't have anything to say to somebody who's just eating food on a regular basis.Laura: Well, the thing is like, I think this is where you're going anyway, but none of our fucking business, right? It is ultimately, like if you were her, if you were her dietician, you'd probably have some things to say to her, but you're not. And neither am I. Jessica: I'm not, yeah. And my, and it probably even wouldn't, like 10 days of whatever it is that you're doing, it's gonna be like, there's, there's not much that would happen in 10 days that you wouldn't be just very hungry about and need to, you know. Laura: I'm just gonna say if you are in active eating disorder recovery, please do not do this. Like, just to cover our backs, but like for, people who are like, generally fine, it's not gonna do any harm for that length. It's not gonna feel great, but it's not gonna,Jessica: Yeah. I might end up hungry at the end of 10 days is like what I envisioned was gonna happen. But yeah, the people who had big thoughts and big feelings, I could definitely see like them, like they're emotional responses, um, coming from not ever, you know, wanting to see somebody go on a cleanse, but not only anybody go on a cleanse, but Lizzo. Lizzo a fat Black woman who takes up both literal, you know, metaphorical and actual space. Um, who everybody who would, you know, we looked up to Lizzo for her, you know, magical ability to actually love her fat body when you know everybody in America and Western society tells fat Black women that you know, that they should be ashamed of their bodies. Lizzo, was like one person everyone could point to, to feel good about their own bodies, like all of a sudden, yeah. Lizzo became this like body positivity mammy for a lot of people. Something she had never asked for. She is a performer, a musician, a flutist, and she, I assume, did not set out to, you know, have people put things onto her body that she did not ask for. She's not there for anybody but herself. And so by Smoothie Gate, like people are devastated. They, you know, are practicing self-care. They're talking to their therapist about this thing that Lizzo did to them, like it was,Laura: Were taking it as a personal betrayal, weren't,Jessica: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. posting, like, this is what you can do for self-care during this tough time. And all along, like Lizzo said, nothing about wanting to lose weight. And never did.Laura: And it kind of, it goes back to what we were talking about before around resilience and, and Black women, like people putting everything on Black women that they did not ask to carry. They don't to carry all your trauma responses and, and be your poster child for body positivity whenJessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: you've never claimed that for yourself.Jessica: Right. It really, again, just like you said, is indicative of just something else that goes on, like subconsciously for all of us and the ways that yes, Black women are meant to carry a lot more than just our own body stories and experiences.Laura: And I think it's kind of this like, and this is part of what you're saying in, in the book, and I'm kind of extrapolating a little bit here, but, the, you know, body positivity as it was originally conceived, came out of the fat liberation movement, which was as we are, we all know now, started by fat, Black, Jewish, and queer folks. But it's become this depoliticized movement that has been co-opted and taken over by, as you say in the book, like it could, you know, you've got like, I don't know, shapewear companies using hashtag body positive and like whatever diet companies and yeah, using that moniker. And then just the kind of the, the expectations and the pressures that come with, you know, that, that label that should love yourself, and that there's like, there's this great quote that I think you used for, is it Nicole Byers? That that talks like what, why do we need a name for just existing in our bodies.Jessica: Right. For not hating them.Laura: for not, yeah, yeah.Jessica: Yeah. We don't need to name, yeah, a name for not hating a part. She, I think she says a part of our bodies, because life's already hard. Why do we ? But yeah, that's, she also doesn't identify, yes, as body positive because of that reason.Laura: Yeah.Jessica: Having a name for just not hating yourself seems wild.Laura: Yeah. It, it really is when you stop to think about it in, in those terms. And, and like at the same time, you know, as, as some of the folks that you spoke to through the book, sort of say like, well, it was a gateway to fat liberation. Um, the, the problem is that like 90% of the people, more than that, that engage in body positivity don't go any further. And then becomes this like neoliberal self-improvement project, projectJessica: Yeah. And it that actually, made me think about that. Earlier you said like, wasn't, became less political, but I feel like people think that body politics, like in this, in just body positivity is like political. If you have no politics, like if you're not politically engaged, like this can seem so radical to you, even though it means nothing.It doesn't stand for anything, you know? So it's like, it's like, uh, composting as a politic, but like body from, you know, a politic from body positivity when it doesn't stand for anything. Yes. Neoliberalism and just this like making something out of nothingLaura: Yeah, this individualistic self-care, you know, problem that it's up to you to solve when, like, as we've discussed, the, the roots are social and systemic. The issues are, issues are social and systemic. Yeah.Jessica: But just feel better about your body. That's, that's the goal.Laura: It's all just a big distraction tactic. Though isn't it, likeJessica: Yes. point. Always is.Laura: Always, like it's all of these systems when we, when we strip them to the bare bones, are just to keep us, you know, distracted, to keep us separated, to keep us like out of community with each other. Because if we actually start to talk to each other about these things, we, we will fucking revolt and , um, the ruling class don't want that. So that doesn't serve capitalism we revolt.Jessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: soJessica: keep us anxious, to keep us buying and spending money on whatever the next beauty industrial complex situation has going for us. Yeah. And just spend spending money onLaura: keep us in scarcity. Yeah.Jessica: not doing enough. Don't have enough,Laura: And feeling like the only way out of that is through dominion of other people.Jessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: Okay. On that fun note, Jessica, I would love to know in amongst all of the media circus and just general chaos that is publishing a book, who or what is nourishing you right now?Jessica: I have been enjoying two different podcasts. Vibe Check from three gay Black guys that, you know, talk about what's keeping their vibes right, politics and pop culture. And I really love the banter between them. It's smart, it's sassy. Another by Britney Luce, It's Been a Minute, also an as an NPR podcast. And I don't know what folks thought the show was going to be, but it is 100% black, 100% black women focused, and I love it. And then I would say 2023, I am really hoping to become a better baker. And so I've just been telling people that I am, uh, somebody was planning an event and I said, I'm a baker, uh, what can I bring? You know, I'm just throwing that out there. Mm-hmm. , Laura: Love, I just love this, like fake it till you make it. AndJessica: Exactly. I'm a baker. What can, what can I bring you? And I mean, I'll still bring it, uh, whether or not it'll be edible, beautiful, it's something else entirely. But you know what, I'm a baker. So,Laura: What are you baking specifically? What have you been baking?Jessica: I think my next, uh, baking attempt will be to construct something. I didn't get to do any, like gingerbread construction situations. So I might find like a castle, um, and make one . I know.Laura: I was expecting you to say some like, but you wouldn't know what this is in in the States, but like Victoria sponge cake or like something really basic.Jessica: Do know those. Um, to make it, I like glitter a lot too. Uh, so, you know, there's a lot of opportunity to decorate a castle with glitter.Laura: That's, I want a picture of that one. I'm sure you'll put it on social media, right? Um, I still have Instagram, deleted at the moment. I reinstalled it on my phone yesterday to check a message. Um, and then immediately deleted. I'm not ready for this. I can't do it yet.Um, but yeah. Okay. So baking is keeping you afloat and so are these podcasts. I think the vibe check one, I just came across that the other day because I think Samantha, um, Erby like, name dropped that in the newsletterr the other day. I think. I think it's that one. But, um, okay. So I dunno if I've maybe confused you by asking you that question because at the end of every episode, I always ask what you are snacking on right now, which is your recommendation thing. Did you just tell me your snacks?Jessica: Yes. The things that I wouldLaura: Your recommendations? Yeah. Okay, so back, wait. First of all, I'll tell you my snacks and then I'll ask you what's nourishing you.Jessica: I love this. We just, Laura: We're just flipping, reversing it here. So my snack is a literal snacks that my brother just sent me a huge box of shit from Trader Joe's, which I know is not like exciting to you.Jessica: It's Trader Joe's!Laura: But we don't have that here.Jessica: It is a primary point of conversation when I'm over there.Laura: I just, okay. I need to compose myself. Cause I'm very excited about this box of snack of snacks. Like the, he sent me the, the Thai chili lime cashews.Jessica: Mm-hmm. Yes.Laura: There's like some chocolate, coconut, granola. There are like cookies in there. There are, okay, this isn't from Trader Joe's, but there are birthday cake Oreos, which are,Jessica: Yes.Laura: Oh my god.You don't understand. They have here, but they're not the same. And they cost like 10 pounds for a packet. I'm not paying 10 pounds for Oreos. That's ridiculous. Um, but I will get my brother to them all the way from America, um, on his dollars. And, um, what else is in there? Oh, like everything but the bagel seasoning the everything the bagel nuts.The, like, there's so much stuff in there. I'm really, oh, the, there's like, um, peanut butter stuffed pretzels.Jessica: Yep. That was gonna be the next one I asked you about. Mm-hmm.Laura: There's so much cool stuff in there. I'm very excited. So yeah, my thing is Trader Joe's snacksJessica: Absolutely.Laura: that you get your brother to shipJessica: Yeah, if he didn't send you cookie butter, um, highly recommend you put that on the next list.Laura: I think I did ask him for that and I haven't seen it there. So yeah, there's gonna a, a follow up, but yes. Oh my And there are nut bars. They're really good as well, and they're like cheap to everywhere else. Everything at Trader Joe's relatively cheap, so that's, I'm very excited to go and dig into that package. I literally got it right before we started recording, so,Jessica: Oh, that's excellent.Laura: Yeah. And if anyone else wants to send me a care package from the States, anyone inJessica: From Trader Joe's, specificallyLaura: Just like, just go in, do a supermarket sweep and send. Um, okay. So now we will go back and I will ask you who or what is nourishing you right now?Like what is keeping you afloat?Jessica: Hmm. I'm like, how long is this list? It's like, is it the acknowledgements in my book right now? That seems, Hmm. Laura: It can just be like, it can be your spouse or your dogs or like,Jessica: Yeah. Um, I know. I'm like, well, definitely.Laura: Just so many people.Jessica: I know 100% dogs. Um, I will say Amy, who made a meal of tater tots, that's something else that I find is not as popular over on,Laura: We don't have them, but I also had like a bad hangover experience with tater tots. So,Jessica: Okay, a meal of tater tots and other things, um, like layered on top, but also a signature cocktail for me and my book that had, oh, let's see. It was Gin and Prosecco and marionberry and rosemary. It was very sweet. So I would say that specifically in that moment of getting together and like recognizing that this book is, you know, being birthed and is coming out, that was a very special moment.So I will hold onto that one for a bit. Laura: Oh, I love that. Since we're talking about the book, do you wanna share the name and like I will link in the show notes, obviously to where people can get it, but do you wanna share the name of the book and then where people can find out more about you and your work?Jessica: Sure. The title is, It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies. And there is a UK Amazon link for it now. You can find more about the book on my personal website. Jessica Wilson, ms r d um, dot com. Instagram has tons about the book and about washing legs. I'm over at Jessica Wilson msr, um, Instagram and Jessica Wilson Rd on Twitter. But most of the fun, the joy and the silliness is, is over on Instagram.Laura: Thank so much Jessica. We'll put all the links to where to find you and how to get ahold of the book in the UK and the US in the show notes for this episode so people can check it out. And congratulations on birthing a book into the world. It's so exciting and I can't wait for people to get it into their hands.Jessica: Thanks so much, Laura. This was really fun.OUTROLaura Thomas: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. And lastly Fiona Bray keeps me on track and makes sure this episode gets out every week. This episode wouldn't be possible without your support. So thank you for being here and valuing my work and I'll catch you next week. This is a public episode. 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What you'll learn in this episode:   What it means to be a personal jeweler, and how Jessica helps repurpose people's unworn jewelry How Jessica came up with the idea for her podcast, Inside the Jewel Vault What pieces Jessica would include in her fantasy jewel vault Why wearing jewelry connects us to our humanity Why Jessica is creating a gender-fluid jewelry brand   About Jessica Collins   Jessica Cadzow-Collins fell in love with jewelry and gems aged 18, whilst working as an intern at Sotheby's, and trained as a professional gemmologist. For over 30 years since then, she's held senior roles in fine jewelry at luxury retailers such as Harrods, Garrard and Asprey where she helped all kinds of amazing clients with their precious pieces, from tiaras to engagement rings, all over the world.     Jessica is now a personal jeweler. She started a business, Jessica May Jewels, to help people find their dream designs and remodel their unworn pieces. Using her high-jewelry know-how, she creates bespoke pieces that don't compromise on luxury, quality, service, value or ethics.    Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com   Additional Resources: Instagram Facebook LinkedIn Website Jessica's article on the Koh-i-Noor 'Curse or Blessing'   Transcript:   When Jessica Cadzow-Collins isn't designing jewelry, repurposing her clients' old jewelry, or developing her own line of jewelry, she's talking to people about jewelry on her podcast, Inside the Jewel Vault. A lifelong jewelry lover, Jessica joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about what it means to be a personal jeweler; what she would include in her fantasy jewel vault; and why wearing jewelry is distinctly human. Read the episode transcript here. Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. If you haven't heard part one, please head to TheJewelryJourney.com. Today, my guest is Jessica Cadzow-Collins speaking to us from London. She is the founder and designer of Jessica May Jewels. She is also the creator and host of the podcast Inside the Jewel Vault. Welcome back.    If you're at a party, how do you describe what you do? If somebody says, “What do you do,” what do you say?   Jessica: At the moment, I say I'm a personal jeweler and I can make your jewelry wearable or make it new or make the jewels of your dreams. That's what I say if I'm asked what I do. [REPEAT OF ENDING OF PART ONE]   Sharon: What's kept your attention about jewelry for decades? What's kept your attention?    Jessica: It's the connections. It's the story. It's everything that ripples below a piece of jewelry. It could be a treasured gift that reminds you of the people that gave it to you. It could remind you that you're loved, that somebody loves you for it. For instance, I wear my signet ring my father gave me. Actually, it's not a proper signet ring. You can see it's just a pinky ring, but that was me being different when I was 18. Every time I put that on in the morning, I think of my father and my connection with him. It could be a piece you bought yourself to celebrate an achievement or a promotion, something that celebrates a brighter goal or future you're dreaming of.    There are all of these things connected with a piece of jewelry, and when I'm involved in creating that piece or selling that piece or finding that piece for somebody, I feel a little part of that story as well. That's what I love. The other thing that is so special about jewelry is it's not like a piece of fashion or an accessory. These are pieces that endure, that will travel with you all your life. Then one day it will travel along with somebody else, which I think is so special.   Sharon: It is special, especially when you look at an estate piece or an antique piece that's been owned by several people. You want to know the story behind it.   Jessica: Oh, absolutely. I love those stories. Sometimes I've recreated them into a piece. For instance, for one lady, I had three diamond rings that had been worn by her grandmother, her mother and herself in her previous marriage. She wanted to combine all of these symbols of strength, these symbols of strong women in her life, and turn them into a ring for her right hand. It was a power ring.    That was a wonderful thing to do. Each gem was a different style of cut. Her grandmother's ring was an old mine cut, a rather brilliant cut. Then she had an oval cut in her own engagement ring, so they're all totally different. I created a rough mount around the ring for her, which was really unusual and really suited her. She was from this strong line of Caribbean women. She was a wonderful client to work with. All my clients are wonderful because they have their own stories and their own futures as well. I love my job, as you can tell.   Sharon: I can tell. Do you ever feel stymied, like, “What am I going to do with this?”    Jessica: Yes, sometimes I do. What I tend to do is say, “Look, I need a week or so and I'll get back to you.” When you've got a little problem, and you let it sit there and play around in your mind, quite often—I don't know about you, Sharon, but I find just before I go to sleep is the time when my brain sends me all the pictures of things I should be designing or need to design. That's my good time. Quite often I will see the piece in my mind's eye. Then I just need to sketch it and work on it with the CAD artist I use and we're off.   Sharon: Have you ever presented something and people said, “That's not really what we had in mind”? Or do people not know what they have in mind?    Jessica: Yeah, people are different, aren't they? Some people are really good at taking a sketch off the page and seeing it and playing with it in their mind's eye and turning it into 3D. Other people, you have to do a full-on set of renders of different pieces, which is brilliant because 3D technology is so good now. I can send them a 3D CAD so they can touch the screen on their phone.    In fact, I've done that for an engaged couple. He wanted to propose to his girlfriend, and we didn't have time to go around and find the right diamond and sketch out the right mount and everything. So, we adapted a CAD sketch I already had and tweaked it to make it into something he thought she would want. He proposed with it on his phone. That was the best; I loved that. It was a digital proposal, and she said yes. He didn't need to change it that much. That was certainly a wonderful way of doing things. You see, anything is possible.   Sharon: It is possible. I like that term, digital proposal. I bet that's a term you can coin and do something with. I've never heard it before. Can you imagine life without jewelry?   Jessica: No, Sharon, I can't. I'm sure you know this, Sharon, but humans are the only beings on the planet that have draped themselves in things they find attractive. If you go back all the way to early man's beginnings, 90,000 years ago in the Blombos Caves in South Africa, you find pieces of jewelry that are made from shells from the coast a few miles away from where the cave system was. It's a deeply human need, I think, to carry something that gives you good luck, like an amulet, or makes you special. It could just be because these people find something lovely on a beach and think it's beautiful, and they want to carry it with them. It's such a human thing. I personally can't imagine a life without some sort of jewelry.   Sharon: Do you think people want jewelry, or do they come to you because they want something valuable or sentimental? What do you see on your podcast?   Jessica: The most valuable vault from the podcast was by Josie Goodbody. She had the Red Moussaieff Diamond in there, which is probably one of the most expensive gems on the planet. Arguably, there are some in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington that could be also. I've also been lucky enough to go around the treasury in the Kremlin. That's closed to westerners now, obviously. That was a staggering display of gems. There are some stupendous pieces in people's choices. That's the fun of it; it's a game. The podcast is a game. Select six pieces you would put into a fantasy jewel vault. I wonder, Sharon, what you would put in.   Sharon: I don't know. That's an interesting question. I would throw the question back at you. You ask everybody in the world what's inside their jewel vault.    Jessica: I haven't asked you, but there you go. I have now asked you, so maybe you can tell me what you want. I definitely like the Moussaieff Red as well. Alisa Moussaieff was my boss for a short while, and she's an amazing connoisseur of gems and the very best of the best you can find. Goodness knows what she's got in her own personal safe, her private safe. I love color. I love diamonds, so when you put the two together in a spectacular large stone like the five carats the Moussaieff Red is, that would be something else. I've never seen it in the flesh, but I'd love to.   I think the other piece I would want is the Koh-i-Noor, the diamond that's in the Queen Consort's crown. We're going to see a lot of that in May during the coronation here in Britain. The Koh-i-Noor has a fantastically tangled, bloody history. It really is the gem of kings. I would love to have it, but not the way it was cut by Prince Albert in 1852. I'd want it cut in the traditional Indian rose style so it would look like a mountain. So, there's those two.   There was a sea green diamond I bought early on in the 90s, before colored diamonds were a big thing. It was very inexpensive at the time. It was probably around 10,000£ or so, and I knew I could sell it for a better price in New York. I flew with it over the Atlantic to New York to sell it there. It was so valuable we had to insure it. Our insurers wouldn't let me travel without an armed bodyguard when I got to New York. Remember, New York was quite a scary place in the 90s, especially if you were young and female and carrying a large amount of goods. My insurance company insisted on having an armed bodyguard, so I asked my friends in the trade how to find an armed bodyguard when I went to New York with this diamond. They said, “Phone the NYPD. There's always an off-duty detective who can act as an armed bodyguard.” I did that, and when I flew over with this sea-green diamond and landed at the customs desk on entry, there were these bodyguards who looked just out of central casting. These off-duty NYPD officers were chewing their gum with their hats on and holding a paper cup for coffee. I got into their car and we set off. I said, “So, which one of you is packing the piece?” The smaller of the two said, “I'm not, but he is.” My bodyguard had an armed bodyguard.    So, I left the sea-green diamond there in New York. I flew back without any bodyguards, but that was so much fun. The sea-green diamond was the most beautiful color. It sold for a fortune. I would love that stone because it's my fantasy. I would love to have that stone. So, those are my three.   Sharon: That sounds gorgeous.    Jessica: It was the most beautiful color, quite indescribable, really. Sea green is the best I can come up with. It was quite a big stone. It was just under five carats and a radiant cut. It was just gorgeous.   Sharon: That's an interesting question. I was thinking about what I would choose. I wouldn't choose very many gems. I love color, but if I think about my own jewelry, I'm not a gem person. I think somebody once said, “What can you say about a gem? You could say it's big; it's large, it's this cut; it's that cut. Where is the artistry?”   Jessica: I know what you mean, yes. That's a good point. There is artistry in how you would set it. For me, it would be fun to look at this stone and think of all the things you could do with it.    Sharon: Have you ever had somebody come and say, “Just do whatever you want with this jewel. I don't like any of the jewels in this jewel box. Just do what you want. My mother-in-law gave me this stuff and I just don't like it. Do whatever you want, however you think it should be”?   Jessica: Yes, sometimes ladies say that. More often than not, there will be something obvious you could do with it—well, something obvious to me. Probably not obvious to them at all, because they look at me and say, “Can we make a pair of earrings out of this brooch?”    But I had a lovely customer just last month who had a number of antique pieces, including a big diamond brooch she never wore because most people don't wear brooches anymore. She also had a big cluster ring she never wore either. There's no money in these big brooches, so I literally cut up the brooch into a pair of detachable drop earrings. Out of the cluster ring, we made a negligée pendant with the rest of the brooch, and it really worked.    So, out of two pieces of jewelry she never wore and one that was really worth nothing—even the secondhand market isn't that good for these brooches—she had something she could wear, and it looked amazing on her. Should she ever want to put the pendant drop into a ring again, she can easily do that because all we did was carefully slice the shank off the band and leave the head intact. Although she couldn't put the brooch back together, I can't imagine the brooch ever being worn again as a brooch. It was a big Victorian lump of a thing. So, she was thrilled by that. I did a number of other little things for her as well. She completely transformed her jewel box into pieces she could wear and have fun with now.   Sharon: You must have been ecstatic.   Jessica: Yeah, she's very happy. It's nice. What I love is seeing people's snaps. She sends a couple of pictures when she's all dressed up in new jewels, and that's always fun. I love working with young girls. I've done a dozen rings for people who've inherited their granny's jewelry, and it's really fun for these girls in their teens and early 20s to be designing jewelry. It's such a fun thing to do, isn't it?   Sharon: Is it because they come with more of an idea when they're younger? Or can you turn it into something you relate to more? What is it?   Jessica: It's making something for them that will be with them forever, that they can hold every day and think about. It's a little bit of them and a little bit of the past all in one piece. I find that very invigorating.   Sharon: What do you like about being a podcaster? What holds your attention there? Is it finding guests? Is it the human connection?   Jessica: I think you're absolutely right, Sharon. It's definitely the human connection. Tell me, is the reason you do your podcast so that you can chat with people?   Sharon: I like the term you used, passion project. It's a passion project. It's the same thing you're saying. What reason do these people have to talk to me, really? It's a passion project. I think that confuses people because I don't have a jewelry store; I'm not a designer; I don't have a brand.    Tell us about the brand you're developing. Is it a Jessica-made brand?   Jessica: No, it has its own name. That's the amazing thing, Sharon. I'll start at the beginning. The reason it's coming together is because enough of my friends said to me, “I'm looking for a gift or something for me, but I don't want to spend half a year's salary. I want to spend a few hundred pounds, but I want something that's going to last. I don't want to buy plated jewelry, like all those other repetitive designs out there online. I want something that's quality, something you could make me, Jess. Something top-rated, top quality, built to last but beautifully designed and completely different from everything else.” So, I thought, “Well, enough of them have asked me to do this for them.” I felt we could have a business here.   So, I've been putting together this brand. It is taking a very long time because I want all the sourcing to be transparent and totally traceable. I want these things that are at the top of my agenda, the ethical, sustainable sourcing story, to be very clear. I think that is the foundation the brand needs to sit on because my customers for this brand are younger people. They're younger men and women who are looking for jewels that reflect their own spirit, something that's different, bold, contemporary and made with fine jewels, fine materials, fine metals. The bit I'm adding to it is the fact that everything is ethically sourced.   Sharon: Wow! That's a lot. You have to really think about the pricing and who's going to produce it. Between launching your own business and the podcast and everything, has it allowed your inner entrepreneur to blossom?   Jessica: I love it, Sharon, thank you. An inner entrepreneur. Yes, I suppose so. For so many years, I was working for other brands. Now I have to dig deep and create a brand from nothing. It isn't going to be named after me. It has a name we're still working on. It's a strong name. It's got a story behind it. As soon as I'm ready with it, I will tell you, Sharon.   Sharon: Yes, I'd love that. When do you expect to launch this?   Jessica: We'll do a soft launch in the late spring. I was hoping to get some pieces ready for a launch on International Women's Day, but it's also a brand for kids. I have two sons. My eldest son is quite conservative; he just wears a signet ring, but my youngest son loves jewelry. He wants new pieces. He wants an index finger ring; he wants a pearl necklace. So, it's a multipurpose jewelry line, and it can be worn by girls and boys.    I want a few pieces I can launch in the spring. It was going to be launched on International Women's Day, but because of the gender-fluid aspect of it, that's not that appropriate. It doesn't matter if it launches a bit later, so long as I've got a few pieces that will do the brand justice. I don't have to have all the pieces out at the same time. That can come as months roll by, but I'm very much hoping I'll have some pieces for the spring.   Sharon: Wow! We're at the end of 2022 right now. You must be very busy. I know it's a very busy time of year. It's hard to get ahold of guests and that sort of thing. Are you busy with a lot of people coming to you?   Jessica: Yes. I don't know how to say it, but it is Christmas, so it's crazy. The thing I love about Christmas is that it's a date we all know.   Sharon: Yeah, that's true.   Jessica: It's at the same time every year, yet these last few days before Christmas are bonkers. It's just hilarious. So, yeah, I'm working through the night and through the weekend. Finally, I'll pack up my digital shop and take a long break for Christmas and New Year's.    Sharon: I would guess that people say at the last minute, “Oh my gosh, I have to get something. I'd better talk to Jessica about designing something because I don't have anything.”   Jessica: There's nothing I can do now about designing something new, but I've definitely got some pieces that have longer delays than I would have liked, or people have thought of them a little bit too late ahead of time for me to be totally relaxed about it. I've got some last-minute orders that are still in the workshop that I need to get out within the next couple of days. Here in the U.K., we've been blighted by rail strikes and tube strikes and post strikes, every sort of strike. So, we've had to be quite inventive. I feel like a little human shuttle darting around with jewels.   Sharon: It must be very challenging. Good luck. I will let you get back to your drawing and everything else you have to do for the holidays. Thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate it.   Jessica: Sharon, it's been a joy. It's been so nice speaking to you. I'm so honored to be a guest on your show. Thank you very much for asking me.   Sharon: We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.   Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.

What's your body missing to function properly? There is a way to heal, your diagnosis didn't happen to you. Tune into our epigenetics specialist for simple ways to finally achieve optimal health for life-changing results.  If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co . And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:Is there a healthy amount of stress? How you change your pathway to health instead of disease How to diagnose autoimmune disorder & find healingWhy you are missing out on your life.The reason the quality of food mattersWhat the refining system of your bodyHow to eat healthy within budget The issue with the high protein trend The easiest way to reach optimal healthBIO: Mother to a funny and health-aware 7 year old Son with a beautiful soul.Over 20 years of dedicated research to Human Biology, as a Board Certified Integrative Nutritionist, and Expert Health Strategist. Multiple award winner in the health and wellness industry. Amazon best selling author, co-author of Cracking the Rich Code Project with Jim Britt and Kevin Harrington, supported by Tony RobbinsInternational Podcaster and Speaker sharing stages with Darren Hardy, Grant Cardone, Bill Walsh, some of the most powerful and influential women and many more. Featured on NBC for over 7 years as a fitness and nutrition expert. Multiple business owner scaling businesses from 3k to 7 figures. Founder and CEO of Kingdom Health, a powerful network of the world's leading expert practitioners with real root answers to help you get whole health healing through simple and natural processes.Creator of The Super-Natural Simple Health Solution, where your path to ultimate health starts with a 60 second cheek swab.On a mission to positively impact the health of the world and reverse the aggressive rise of chronic dis-eases by helping people become more powerful, healthier, and ageless because we all deserve to know how really really great we are meant to feel.Episode References/Links:  If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.Be It Till You See It Podcast SurveyUse this link to get your Toe Sox!ResourcesWatch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable PilatesSocial MediaInstagramFacebookLinkedInEpisode Transcript:Lesley Logan  Okay loves. So I'm super excited about this because we're gonna get a little bit granular about your health. And I keep bringing in different people around the health and wellness strategy section because well, I love an inspiring story and I love hearing people's journeys. But the other reality is, is like, there are other things that are keeping us or keeping you from being able to be it till you see it. And it's not just access to a dream or access to inspiration, it could be actually something going on in your body, that no matter what your morning routine is, no matter how much you meditate, no matter no matter how many self development books you read, or, or journals you do, or visualizations you do that actually, you could do all of that and still not so optimal. And there are different ways to figure that out. And today's guest Jessica Brothers, she is going to explain that to you. And it's really inspiring. I know for myself, I feel fired up about this information, I feel like oh, there's an... there's a possibility of an answer right around the corner. And I don't have to do any more guesswork. And I share that because, you know, you can try all the different diets in the world, but like, at some point, you're gonna want to just know what's going to work best for you. And you're gonna hear from Jessica, how they actually do know what worked best for you. And there are there is information out there and there is support out there and you don't have to live like this anymore. And you don't have to trade your health for time in your future, you don't have to you can there's another way, there's a better way and so thank you for being here. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. We could not do this without you. And if this podcast is helping you in any way please share this with a friend, leave us a review. Just so you know if you leave us a review you can email the beitpod@gmail.com and you can get a free training on habits if you'd like, "Okay, Lesley I want a morning routine." It's like yeah, I have a habits course so you can have I'll give it to you free which you leave a review from you either on Spotify or Apple or anywhere there's podcast reviews that are taken. All right now without further ado, let's just dive in with Jessica Brothers right now.Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan  Hey, Be It babe. All right. I'm so excited for our guests today, Jessica Brothers. I actually met her through another podcast guests, y'all loved Michael Unbroken. So we happen to be at a dinner where he was like, "I'm in town. I'm gonna see both of my friends at the same time." And this really great time and I heard her story and what she's doing I was like, oh my gosh, I have to have you on. So Jessica, can you tell everyone who you are and what you're up to?Jessica Brothers  Absolutely. First, Lesley, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. This is gonna be so much fun. (Lesley: Yeah, I agree.) Okay, so my name is Jessica Brothers. I am a 20 year Board Certified Integrative Nutritionist. I'm a human biologist geek for sure. I've been an Expert Health Strategist during that time as well. But my specialty is epigenetics. I like to dive deep at root causes of why people feel anything less than really, really great, which is mainly what I found in our epigenetics. So that's mainly my mission in life is to help the world heal. That's huge to me.Lesley Logan  Okay, so I loved all of this, I think there was a test that I, that thank God happened when they did, because I'd probably be dead, or at least as not functioning, as well as I as I am today. But for the person who's not aware, can you tell what epigenetics is?Jessica Brothers  Yes, it's your genes. And our genes are expressed and communicate, and they're responsible for every function of our body to work. So that's pretty much if if your genes aren't expressing themselves, or communicating properly, our functions break down, when our functions break down, we get symptoms, and its daily symptoms. It's not just the big diseases, it's smaller things too, like migraines, or anxiety, or how we feel stress, or bouts of depression. It's just even little things like that as well. Or it just pains in our hands.Lesley Logan  Okay, hold on, because like, you just said some things that I think a lot of people will think that that might not be related to but you're saying like anxiety, and the migraines and depression, these bouts? (Jessica: Yeah) This is this is crazy, because I think a lot of people think, "Oh, if I just get a job, that's less stressful." Like, yes, maybe do that, too. But like some of that can be, could be in your genes?Jessica Brothers  Oh, for sure. I mean, yes, your environment has a lot to do with how we feel stress, or can add stress, which will create different expressions in your genes as well. So yes, stress is everywhere in our life, but there is a healthy amount of it that we should always apply to our body. Because when we eat, it applies stress to our metabolism, but strengthens it. When we work out, we apply stress to our muscles, but it strengthens it. So take that into consideration. But how we feel stressed and are able to react to it. That variance can depend on how healthy your genes are. So yeah, if you feel stress or anxiety to a point where you have attacks, or it just overwhelms you, then there is some missing components in your body that aren't functioning 100% and can be functioning better. And that comes that basically comes down to your expression of your genes for sure.Lesley Logan  Okay, so, so then, like, if I have genes that are like, being sluggish not communicating. (Jessica: Yeah) How do we turn that, how do we like work them out and inspire them to get motivated? Like what is that?Jessica Brothers  Yeah, great question. (Lesley: Is it self taught?) You're gonna love this answer, too, because it's our food, the 100% our food, actually, let me not say 100% is mainly our food, but it's also our environment choices, and and our choices of the skincare products, the stuff we put on our body. So it is that it's it's environment choices, you know, externals and how we feed our body on the internal. So that's that that combination depends on how healthy your genes are going to be. Yes, we're born with our genes, but we are not destined to them. We can we can heal them, we have that ability. It all stems from food.Lesley Logan  This is crazy. And for the lis... like some people already know my story, and I won't go all into detail because it's like 10 years long, but Jessica: So as mine. You and I both) Yeah, well, like, um, so definitely food, set off something in my system. And then and then I went to a vicious cycle of not knowing is going on in my stomach, which is causing stress, which then that helped me not sleep. And then then I wasn't going through digestion, digestion. So then like, it was this vicious, I got down, to I was so bloated at the end of the day, that I looked like, I was nine months pregnant, I was sleeping 90 minutes to three hours a night and I was like, I can't sleep. And then when I had tests done, I didn't even think that this other stuff would come up with like just, "Tom what's going on my stomach?" And he's like, "So do you know that you have like, metal going on in your body? And it looks like you have a ton of like arsenic and cadmium were like through the roof." And he was like, "Where are you living?" Like, I'm like, "I'm in an apartment right here. Like, what are you talking about? Like, so everyone lives. Why is no one else suffering from it?" But it's like the way my genes dealt with that stuff and everything. So it's so crazy how environment plus what we eat, and then the skin stuff? Yes, he he made me throw out a bunch of the shampoos and I had a switch to all these other things. And I was like, well, I'm not changing the lipstick, but I asked permission on that first. He's as long as much shiny and glittery. We're doing okay.Jessica Brothers  Yeah. Okay, you know and choose choose your poisons, I guess. Because reality is we still want to live life and love the things that we do and have, you know, life bring us happiness. And, you know, I realized that I can't eliminate plastics everywhere. I use plastics all the time. So and I do my absolute best with them. But that's the one thing I don't want to say I'm lenient on, I'm very aware of it. But everything else is very tight. Because I know that plastics are in my life. And so everything else in my skincare, my environment where they feed my body, my brain, my eyes, my ears, everything around me, I'm very particular on because I, I accept plastics in the way, you know. (Lesley: Yeah) Yeah. So, so the metals in your body. Absolutely. So at the top of our genes is what I call the mothership. Okay, the mother of the genes is called methylation, and I'll go into that, but it is it is the processing of our system in our body that basically helps detoxify. So if your methylation was inconsistent, your body was building up all these toxins, which would result into you know, your result what what you were going through, for sure.Lesley Logan  That's crazy. That's so interesting. Okay, so when, so first of all, were you always like, you've been doing for 20 years, I'm looking at you, there's just no way like, you're 30 years old. So, but like, (Jessica: Thank you) what would what was what got you into this? And then like, what was that journey like for you?Jessica Brothers  Yeah, I mean, I was born for this. That is now looking back, I mean, I started my first bicep curls at nine years old. Like, let's be real, Jessica was just being bred for this, you know, I was starting to collect health magazines to learn healthy eating at nine. I was working out in my living room, making my grocery list, telling my mom, I only want this food mom, you know, create my own meal plans. I mean, who does that at nine years old, in the 80s, by the way, I mean, this is wild. But then I got to my 20s, I was working out seven days a week, eating what I thought was healthy, I was gaining weight, I had negative body image, I had depression, like, I did not love myself. And I realized that my mindset needed some working on. So I started doing that and started learning more about nutrition, because that was always a journey for me. And as I realized how much you know, my mindset was important with with, you know, the physical things started kind of clicking and changing more. But then one day, I got really sick, like really sick. My stomach blew up. It lookedlike I was nine months pregnant with 104 fever for 10 days straight. I couldn't even lift my head off the pillow, vomiting, couldn't keep any food in, and then about 10 days later, I would be okay, I'd be able to walk by I felt like I wasn't even here. I felt like I was in a cloud, a brain fog. I was getting out of body anxiety experiences. I was even afraid to drive my son around. He was just a baby. And so you know, three weeks later on the dot, it happened again, same exact symptoms, same exact sequence. So I went to the doctor, they told me it was the flu. I said no, this is not the flu ...Lesley Logan  ... three times I've had it two times in three weeks. Like that's like I mean ...Jessica Brothers  Yeah, exactly. Nobody else in my house was getting sick. And I knew I knew it wasn't the flu than every other doctors said it was stress. Oh, this is just stress, you've had a lot of stress in your life. And like this is not stress. Maybe stress is aggravating this, but this is not stress, what is going on. And every three weeks I started tracking it about every three weeks on the dot, the same cycle would happen would last anywhere from five to like 11 days. And in between those cycles, I just I was walking zombie that couldn't focus, do anything. And on top of it, I had my own business and the son that I was trying to raise. (Lesley: Yeah) Come to find out after over 20 specialists, I found naturopaths and you know, hippie doctors and I found out I had an autoimmune. So that's what was happening. And I said to myself, "How can someone like me, who works out, eats right, feeds their mind good, develop an autoimmune? What is the reasoning in that?" Right?Lesley Logan  Yeah. Well, and and like I think like, so many people would be like, if if it happen to Jessica like well the rest of us gonna like how, (Jessica: Yeah) you know what I mean? So like, (Jessica: Literally) yes, I understand that question. And some people would just go, "Okay, I have an autoimmune." And you're like, "Wait, hold on. I've been doing all the things. How did this happen?"Jessica Brothers  Yeah, exactly. And so it made me dive really deep back in the human biology, and be like, okay, we do all these things to make us healthy. And we know healthy people who die of diseases. Like how did that person who never smoked, never drink, ran every single morning, die of a heart attack early. Like I started thinking about all these things. I'm like, "There's got to be root reasons here. And I'm going to find it." And that's when I found epigenetics, how genes, how our genes express and how we I didn't understand at the time, and there wasn't a ton of research on how we could feed our body correctly. So that our genes would express in a manner that created a pathway of health instead of the pathway of disease that we were given from our parents and our ancestors. And that changed everything. I started healing.Lesley Logan  This is so cool. I mean, I think people, I think you can be listened to as in like nodding along. You're like, okay, I get it like, like, seriously, though, like, everyone in the same household is eating the same foods pretty much like when I was growing up, all of a sudden, like, I got into modeling. So I started eating a different way, my brother was trying to gain weight. So he is like, we're all trying to eat different things. My mom was like, "This is crazy. There's three different types of milk in the fridge." You know, but like, actually, for some bodies, like different meal plans are what are necessary for optimal health. And this makes so much sense that it's on a cellular level and a genes level, because like the person who I went through, he used to do this for NASA, for astronauts, like you don't just send all the astronauts up with like some basic plan, they each have to have a specific diet to be up there for however many months so that they don't get sick, and they can run optimally. And like, it shouldn't just be for the astronauts, we should we could all live like this. (Jessica: Yes, yes.) So if somebody has to do this, like, what does this entail? Because now this sounds crazy, like, is it just blood test? Is it like, like, this is something obviously, you're a specialist in this, you can't just go to your regular doctor and go excuse me, "I would like you to test my genes today."Jessica Brothers  Yeah, most doctors aren't even trained to read those labs, they have no clue what they mean. You have to go to an epigenetic specialist. Like myself, and it's not even blood. It's even more simple than that. We send out cheek swabs right to your door, it takes 60 seconds. You literally swab a cheek, swab a cheek but back in the envelope, send it off. It's prepaid. That's it. That is it. That is the start of your healthy journey.Lesley Logan  Oh my gosh, every person who's afraid of needles just like paid attention.Jessica Brothers  Yes. Seriously, so simple. So simple.Lesley Logan  This is crazy. So so so you, so you we're, so you went through the school for this and now you do this. And how, how, what have you seen, obviously, your own body, you this changed your life? How long did it take to change your life? That was as a, do you still have this autoimmune disease? Like what where are you at with that?Jessica Brothers  So my first instant result was within two weeks, my energy returned, my focus returned, the brain fog dissipated, that I remember clear as day what, night and day like, wow, just two weeks after my protocol, I, I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, this is so great." And three months later, my body started changing. Like my life, I was so grateful, my life was given back to me. Like, I felt like me again. It was it was just so beautiful. And most people experience that within a shorter range of time, depending on what's going on with them. Do I still have an autoimmune. I'm still working on the last bits of my gut, because damage happened so much in my gut, I have healed my processes, and gut is now being cleaned out. And I'm just about there. Because I had to, I had to literally learn everything, you know, and test everything on me too. It wasn't just like, oh, this is what you do. And you're gonna be healed in three months. But now I understand so much that when people come to me, within one year, I can get them feeling so good. And on that that road to optimal health, healing. Because I've been doing this for so long now. And I understand so much. And I have this beautiful team of experts that helped me bring all this information together of what they know and what I know. So expedites the clients experience. It's just, it's amazing. Lesley Logan  See... thank you for sharing, because I think like some people I mean, like a year well, it's not a magic pill. And it also didn't take most of us who have gone through something. It's you've been going through it longer if you're listening to this and you've got some health stuff. You've been going through it longer than a year for sure, (Jessica: Yeah) for sure. And you are going through it before you even paid attention to it. And so you have been in this process a long time. And I like having gone and I still have stomach stomach health stuff that I'm really frustrated by, so I'm listening ... there for my own personal benefit. But like, because I would give anything if I knew a year from today, I was going to feel better than I do right now, I would take that in a heartbeat. And I think we want things to be faster. But if we want them to be done in a way that lasts, they just, you're literally like, you have to do like rebuilding the systems from the base. (Jessica: Yeah) So in your, in your many years of experience with like helping people with their fuel and, and their diets in their protocols. When people don't do things like this, when people don't get something specialized? How does that actually keep them from feeling like the best version of themselves? Like, what are they losing out on?Jessica Brothers  Yeah, they're, they're literally losing out on health. Because every day that you go with feeling less than your optimal health, you are creating a stronger pathway to disease, I could look at someone's genes and say, in 10 years, you're gonna develop Parkinson's. And by the time you're this age, you're going to have dementia. By the time this happens, if you keep at this level, this is what disease pathway of disease you're creating. And it's sad, because it's all so preventable. But we're not educated. And this isn't the normal. And people think it's too good to be true to be able to just take supplements, and be able to heal their body because we're not taught this. So you're missing out on your life.Lesley Logan  This is crazy, because I feel like the way people talk about things like dementia or even Parkinson's. It's like, oh, it just happened to you. We don't really know how that's happening. (Jessica: That's true.) But it's true.Jessica Brothers  It's so untrue. Dementia is actually a type three diabetes, what happens is, our brain likes glucose. And if we eat too much of it, our brain has no place to store it. So what happens is, it builds up in these little crevices of your drinks, there's no place for it. So you actually don't lose your memories, you lose access to your memories, because it's a buildup that cuts off, you know, the waves to go to your memories, if your memories are over here. And this is how this is the pathway access it. But there's a big buildup of glucose, you lose access to it, it can't reach your memories anymore. And so if you if you, if you understand that in your bodies on that pathway, you can prevent that from happening. Or you can slow it or even in some cases, you can reverse it and clean out that dementia and re access those memories. That's how powerful this is.Lesley Logan  It's insane. So when you talk about a protocol, because people are like, "Okay, this now sounds like magic." We're talking like food, workouts, like, are we talking about supplements? What is what is like, is it a three part five part? What does it look like?Jessica Brothers  Yeah, great question. So protocol, is raw materials, which is nutrition. It's basically the usable form of our food. And I can explain that, but guest tools of working out meditation, because remember, it's, it's not only your food, but it's your environmental factors, too. So when you get a good grip on both of those, you're going to feel really, really good. And so what do I mean by raw materials and usable form? Well, the food we eat is, our body doesn't when you eat an apple, your body's not like, "Oh, an apple, I'm going to use this apple." No, that's not what works you know, you eat the apple, squeezes down the esophagus, it meets to your stomach and the acid start breaking it down to, you know, the enzymes and and basically, your cells start pulling it into them, and creates a catalyst for what's called your methylation process. It's the refining process, that your body takes all our food that we eat, and turns it into usable form raw materials, vitamins, minerals, micronutrients and delivers it to all 200 functions of your body. It's our refining system.Lesley Logan  Yeah, and then so many people's if, if those if those organs aren't functioning, then it's not going to the right ...Jessica Brothers  That's that's when disease pathways to disease start happening. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And that's why the qualifier food is so important. If you're eating fast food all the time, but no micronutrients in it, then your functions of your body are not receiving any tools. (Lesley: Yeah) I mean, you wouldn't build a house without without tools, right? I mean ...Lesley Logan  It's gonna duct tape it all together and hope it stays.Jessica Brothers  Yeah. And seriously, that's, that's what we're doing to our bodies when we don't feed it the proper nutrition.Lesley Logan  Yeah. So you know, when people hear like proper nutrition, they hear things like that it can sound like expensive, like, because I mean, I remember growing up as a kid, my parents was like, so cheap for them to get the Taco Bell family deal because it was like 39 cent bean and cheese burritos, you know. With all the different people you've coached like, have you is there like, is this, is this like we're now going to eat like everyone's eating at Whole Foods and most expensive, like groceries? Or is it like, is there an affordable family plan of feeding yourself with the with the right fuel?Jessica Brothers  Absolutely, I think I think there's a huge misconception about eating healthy is expensive. I think that's something that, you know, is spread around that we've adopted that I don't feel is 100% true. Because if you think healthy is expensive, try being sick. Think about the doctor bills, a time out the work, the time away from your family, time period, you can't buy time. What's that look like when you're laying in bed all the time? Or when you come to a place where you're in the hospital, and you almost lose your life? Or you have to have organs taken out. And now you can't function properly. You can't run around with your kids. You can't work anymore. And now you're on disability. I mean, Lesley, you know what it's like to be sick. (Lesley: Yeah) I mean, you think healthy is expensive. Money is not, expensive is not just money expensive is wasting your time, wasting relationships, wasting yeah, money too. And not only that, when you feed your body, the proper micronutrients, when your body is hungry, it's not about volume, your body is not like, "Oh, give me this amount of food." No, when your body is hungry, is sending out signals of, I need this vitamin, this mineral, this protein, this amino acid, it's it has a list of what it wants satisfied. And those hunger signals may be shut off for a little bit. But they'll turn back on, as soon as it's not satisfied. Once it starts digesting the food and it's processing. It's like, wait a minute, I'm missing this and this and this, we better turn those signals back on and ask you for it. Well, we're not taught that. We get through cravings because of biochemical processes become addictions and, and all this stuff we're not taught until we look at our labs from our genes. And we know exactly what our bodies missing to function properly. That's, that's huge. And so one thing I've been vegan for over four months now, for research, I've eaten less than I ever have in my entire life, because I'm eating such nutrient dense food when I say I'm going vegan, I'm not doing like dirty vegan and I call it clean vegan, there's no processed foods in there ... Okay. It's all a bunch of microgreens vegetables cooked and raw, lots of salads, a ton of different rainbow colored veggies. I've never eaten so less. And I'm not saying I'm malnutrition because I'm not because I've gotten stronger in the gym and I workout seven days a week. (Lesley: Yeah) I've gotten stronger in the gym, less inflammation, more energy, my blood pressure has gone down. The results I'm getting is amazing. And my cravings, and I was a food addict have diminished, like diminished.Lesley Logan  You know, I remember when I was on an elimination diet, and I was on it for too long. So it was like definitely not something I (Jessica: Yeah ...) I was like left on it because like every time I would enter food back in, I would get sick again. So like well just, I guess stay on that. And like this was a bad idea. But I will say, I after the first couple of weeks, like just getting off the sugar. Like literally sent me crying for four days. I definitely had, like a like I definitely love a good sugar. But I didn't have the cravings. I would like it's so interesting how I would eat my meals and I would feel satiated. And I would feel fueled and I could do I was doing two workouts a day then like I was doing a lot of stuff and I was very strong. So I am a little jealous because I'm like, maybe I need to look at that. But I'm not going to until I do a test with you, because I'm gonna find out what I'm supposed to do.Jessica Brothers  Yeah, and I'm not saying like the vegan diet is the way to go. (Lesley: Yeah) I think my point is that, my point is that when you have a nutrient dense nutritional intake, it, it definitely has a result and effect on you. I'm not saying I'm going to be vegan forever, either, because I love my steak. But most people don't know this. And Lesley, you come from the fitness world. We're told in the fitness world to eat a ton of protein. And so I was eating a ton of protein. But something I discovered a few years back was our body has the ability to turn protein into glucose sugar. So when you eat too much of it, you get those sugar cravings, it gets stored. And I thought that protein was the one macronutrient that couldn't be stored in your body and that couldn't be further from the truth. SoLesley Logan  Yeah. I was just listening to a guy on Huberman about like you know protein, fat loss, glucose everything and what they actually, it's actually very interesting. Yes, we do need a lot of protein, but there's actually no benefit of having more protein than you need. And it's, it's basically like it's like a gram for every pound you it's like so it's, it's, it sounds like a lot, we're like, wow, that's a lot of protein for every pound you are or you want to weigh. So if you're like trying to lose weight. But more than that, it's just, it's, it's not satisfying your cravings. And it's not being you're not storing it for tomorrow in case you have less.Jessica Brothers  Yeah, and it's so true. It's so true and too much protein your body actually creates aging in your body. It does because it creates this like conglomeration around our cellular membranes. And so nutrition can't get in and nothing can happen. And what happens is these proteins are aging our cells, and they die off faster than new ones are being made. And that's how aging happens.Lesley Logan  Okay, that's so fascinating. So here's what's like, so interesting is how durable our bodies are, and how not. Like how people can live on diets to have zero nutrition forever and ever and ever. And also, how, just a simple of not enough of this thing, and too much of this thing can like, start shutting things down. And so it makes me just go like, geez, this would be like a full time job ... (Jessica: Yeah, absolutely.) Like, with pe... like, how, how difficult is it to? I mean, I guess it's probably a personal thing, like depend on how far off you are, how different your lifestyle is, from how you want it to be. But like, do you find that people have to, like, only pay attention to this all the time? Or is it just in the beginning as they get used to it? Like, how easy is this to incorporate into your lifestyle? For you it's your job, but like for the average person, what have you seen?Jessica Brothers  Yeah, it's pretty easy, we make it as simple as possible. Because, again, I've been doing this for so long, I understand change is difficult, changing your lifestyle, changing your eating, it's difficult, most people don't want to do it. They don't, because it's a social thing. It's a habit thing. It's a family thing. And everything we do revolves around food. And it's it's hard to change. So I understand that. So we make it as simple as possible. That's why we use supplements, we use supplements to help bring in the raw materials your body needs. So you can I don't want to say you can do everything you're still doing and still feel really, really great. But it's gonna be enough of a catalyst for you to start feeling great to want to make better choices. And it doesn't need to be perfect. That's the thing. So it's, that's why we we've made it so simple. Because I used to be a meal plan and fitness coach and design all those things for people. And I understand how difficult it is. So I'm like, you know what, let's just do the genetic testing. Because once you have that, it's for life, that doesn't ever change. Once you have it, it's for life. Okay. (Lesley: Cool.) Once you know what your body needs, we got that. So we create that protocol, we understand what you need. So there's no guessing work. There's no elimination diets. Okay. (Lesley: Amazing) Which is difficult, it cuts all that out. So we see, we have your body respond to that protocol over a period of time. So all you got to do is take your supplements every day. And, and you're going to notice changes in your body. And things are going to come up and we'll be like, Okay, let's take this out. Let's bring this in. And it really is a very simple way for you to achieve your optimal health. And then you decide what you want to do from there.Lesley Logan  I mean, my goodness, we should be doing this when people are kids. Like it should be like you're born, by the way when they started to eat healthy food ... Here's the best food for bigger child. (Jessica: Yes, it's never ...) Just like, can you imagine like the le... I feel like it'd be like less tears and less cranky children out there.Jessica Brothers  Alot less, ADHD that's for sure. That is the methylation issue. Huge, huge. (Lesley: Interesting.) Yes.Lesley Logan  This is, I mean, Jessica this is so fascinating because like I love bringing people on who have stories of how they're being it till they see it and I love doing people on her like here's why you can't and it keeps coming like I keep bringing it back to health y'all because it is I know when I was sick like there was, it was I was barely able to keep the plates spinning let alone like add a new plate like so ... like people go I'm gonna do this and I'm like, do I have the energy to do that? Like, I could only say yes to modeling gigs and auditions in the morning. If you and then also the shoot had to be before lunch because the moment because I could only make it so long before I had to eat something and the moment I started eating, the moment I didn't fit in the clothes, the moment I could not model the thing that they would want, you know. (Jessica: Yeah) And then and so and then with like, for life like I would have one outfit that I could teach in the morning but as the day went on, despite your head to get bigger, you know because the legs look the same and so no one was knowing what's going on in that sweatshirt. But like all of that was distraction from everything I get to do now because I have much better control over my health and I have energy levels to able to keep up with the things I want to do. And so, you know, all the inspiration and strategies in the world are great. But if you don't have your health, you can't do it. You can't be it till you see it, you can't do anything.Jessica Brothers  Yeah, it's so true. Your health is everything. It's the base of everything. Really, it's so important.Lesley Logan  We're gonna take a quick moment, and then we're gonna find out how people can find you, work with you, get to know more information about you.Jessica Brothers  Yeah, love it.Lesley Logan  All right, Jessica. Where do you like to hang out? Where can people get more information if this was intriguing for them, or they want to get more support?Jessica Brothers  Absolutely. You can find me on pretty much any social media. It's @jessicabrotherslife, if they can see my screen. If not, I know this is a podcast too but @jessicabrotherslife. If you want to follow me, get to know me more about what I do. If you just want to reach out and ask a question, I'm happy to just give out my email. It's jessica@jessicabrothers.com. That is my personal email and I'm happy to give it out. I will respond to you for sure. Because I'm here to help you. You know, I know what it's like to feel anything but healthy. And I know Lesley, you can feel for that too. And I am 100% here to help and use my team to get you to where you want to be.Lesley Logan  Amazing. Amazing. Okay, before I let you go, you've given us some great strategies and tips already. Like I'm already like, got notes like, oh, yeah, I forgot I was used to take those supplements. Let's get back to it. But BE IT action items. Bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. What do you have for us?Jessica Brothers  Oh, be it till you see it. So for me, it's a morning routine. It is a morning routine, have a non negotiable, fill your own cup. And for me and it can look different for you. What I mean by fill your own cup, make sure you're doing things when you first wake up, first wake up, don't check your emails, don't do anything for work or for anyone else. Do it for you. Meaning like, have water with mineral salt in it. Okay, Himalayan pink sea salt, then do something that brings a smile to your face, whether it's writing goals, visualization of your future, right? That's huge. That's manifesting, right? Do something that makes your body feel good. So it can be anything you choose, whether it's stretching, Pilates, going to the gym, going for a walk. And again, it has to fill you and make you happy and mean something to you and do it no matter where you are. And it can be as little as a 15 minute routine, or it can extend on but you start there you will notice a huge catalyst in your life. And you will get to exactly where you want to be because it worked for me, it works for all my clients. I help with this this little mini routine starting every morning.Lesley Logan  I'm a big fan of the morning routine. You're not, I have some people I coach like, "Lesley, I just want to get up earlier." And I'm like, "You can keep arguing to not but I don't know you can't, you gotta have a morning routine for you. You just got to do it." So okay, because of the recovering perfectionist in the room. How much sea salt are we putting in like little sprinkle? We did a little ... in the water like what are we talking?Jessica Brothers  ... So this is this is 20 22 to 24 ounces, depending on where I fill it up of spring water, and I get a little grinder of Himalayan pink sea salt. I mean 20 turns, 20 turns of that, so how would think that's probably I don't know. A teaspoon, teaspoon and a half.Lesley Logan  Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna start this. I'm add this to my morning routine.Jessica Brothers  ... and I just shake it up. It's I mean, you gotta be okay. It's gonna taste salty at first, but now my body craves it. Those minerals are so beautiful for your body in the morning.Lesley Logan  Okay, y'all, this drives Brad crazy. But like, literally he'll make dinner and I'm like, "Did you put salt on this?" And he's like, "Yeah, I put salt on this." And then I take a bite and then I go get this ... more salt and I know that's like a chef's like no, but I crave salt. Like I love like I love like I like chips and fries are just like a messenger for salt. So now that I can put it in my water, I just gonna try that out ... But one of the times I had my bloodwork done, he's like, you can have all the salt you want. You don't have to do anything low sodium. It's like you can have all that you want. Like, okay, well then thank you. (Jessica: And then now I will or keep doing what I'm doing.) Yeah, Jessica, I could talk to you forever. I'm so glad we're live so close. We have to make time to see each other again soon. (Jessica: Absolutely) And y'all how are you going to use these tips in your life, tag @jessicabrotherslife, tag the @be_it_pod. Let us know. Because when it brings joy to our lives, you know that this helps you but also it helps other people see that there is opportunities out there other than their current. And sometimes we just need to know that like if you don't know that there's another option. There's another way to live optimally. Then you just live your life like that. But we could, you could be the person that inspires someone to get their health check. So thank you, Jessica. Thank you for listening and until next time, Be It Till You See It.Jessica Brothers  Thank youLesley Logan  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day! Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network. Brad Crowell  It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli.  Lesley Logan   Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.  Brad Crowell   Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.   Lesley Logan  Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.  Brad Crowell  And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on timeTranscribed by https://otter.aiSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jessica is back on the Be It pod to share her health journey and to address the hard topics that many women feel but never speak about. Listen in to gain practical tips for addressing your next doctor's appointment, how to advocate for yourself, and the importance of normalizing conversations about women's health.  If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co . And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:Tips for getting the most out of your doctor appointments Sharing is how we know we are not alone.Why common should never be “normal”.How Pelvic floor physical therapy can benefit you.Find the person to listen to your story and give concrete action items.Discover how to live your best life in the middle.BIO Jessica graduated from Regis University in Denver with her Master's Degree in Physical Therapy in 2000. She received her Pilates training in2001 through Polestar Pilates and is a Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher and PMA approved continuing education provider.She has worked with thousands of clients of different backgrounds, ages, injuries and abilities, to help them reach their ultimate health goals.Jessica is recognized as a leader in the Pilates industry. She has a successful YouTube channel, membership site and blog. She has been named a top 10 finalist in the 2015 Pilates Anytime Next Instructor Contest and a Creator on the Rise by YouTube and has been featured in Pilates Style Magazine (including as a cover model in 2020), Shape, Buzzfeed, Yoga Journal and Thrillest. She teaches popular workshops and courses to other health care professionals and Pilates instructors and is considered an expert in the women's health arena.Jessica and her husband, Brian, founded Momentum Fest, a three day Pilates and movement festival, in 2017 in order to create an inclusive, loving and fun place for all people to celebrate movement together.She is married to her best friend and their days are spent in Denver wrangling two young kids, being in the sun, living their passion through work and drinking coffee.Episode References/Links:Jessica Valant Pilates WebsiteFollow Jessica on IGCheck out Jessica Valant Pilates on YoutubeOtter NotesProfitable Pilates HealthCare Advocacy Course  If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.Be It Till You See It Podcast SurveyResourcesWatch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable PilatesSocial MediaInstagramFacebookLinkedInEpisode Transcript:Jessica Valant  Hey, Be It babe, this is for you. This is, this interview is for you. I am so excited to bring back a guest. She's one of my dearest, dearest friends, you'll hear me introduce her. But also she is truly someone who is here to help with this subject. And something I've seen in my own health history and then also, in my clients that I work with, and the people that I coach, and my own family, just women around me is how many are going through a health struggle that no one knows anything about. And either they have not been able to find an answer, or it's taken them years and years and years. And I know that every single one of you listening to this, is here on this planet to make a difference in the world. Like, truly. And even if you're listening to this and say, "Lesley, I am not on a podcast. I'm not on social media. I'm not creating anything." I don't care. None of those things, those things make an impact for those that make an impact. Or you can make an impact with your neighbor, you can make an impact with somebody walking down the street that you smile at. And you help. Right? You, you you make more of an impact than you think. And especially if you are in line waiting for your kid at school, and you share something going on with you, health wise with someone who can then go, you too. So this conversation about. Jessica Valant is back. And we are here to talk about women's health. And it's because she has her own journey with it, I have a different journey. But there are so many moments in there that I just wanted to like pause and just like almost have the team rerun what she said. So feel free to pause and rewind. So you get that. Because it's so important that you hear this episode. It's so important. I say this later. And I will say it now because you need to hear it so many times. If you are not confident and comfortable having tough conversations with people in your life, then share this episode with them. So that you can start the conversation in a way that feels a little bit more like, "Hey, did you hear that? Hey, did you hear that?" I understand. It's okay. I felt so weird in my life telling people was going on with me. I mean, literally, by the time people heard I was suffering, I was almost dying. That's literally what the person who looked at my results on my test said, he's like, "I don't know how you're here." And it's because part of the time I just stopped advocating for myself, and I was like, "Well, this is just gonna be the life I live." And then I got frustrated with that. And I would start again, and then they would make it worse. And I got to a place where I was really not well. And I don't know if I could have gone very many weeks longer like that. And so I'm so grateful for the different little angels that came in my life to make me feel like I wasn't alone. And there were options. And so I really cannot wait for you to dive into this interview. And I'm gonna stop talking. So you can and please, please, please, please, please, please send this to a friend. So that we all start hearing that like some of the stuff that no one is talking about. Everyone is often going through or know someone who is. You can change the world. We can have bigger impacts, and help people solve their issues or at least have answers sooner if we stopped just keeping it to ourselves and not let anyone know because it's embarrassing or or maybe we feel like we shouldn't be going through that. So I love you. Here's Jessica Valant.Lesley Logan  All right, be it listeners, I'm so excited because I actually have one of our one of our original guests actually back here on the pod. I am so excited not only she's a dear friend, and just a beautiful frickin human being. If you don't already know her, you will see that as you get to know her. But she is such an advocate for women and their health. And I'm just excited to have her share that with you and help us all because I think our health as women can hold us back from a lot of things. And it can be not only frustrating, but embarrassing, and even taking away some confidence that we could have in this role. So Jessica Valant. Hello. Hi, friend. How are you? Jessica Valant  You know what? Any excuse to talk to you? I'm great. I know. I know. I don't know, people listening probably don't know, it's the end of Friday. For me. This is the end of my workday. It's kind of early that I have to get the kids after this. And like there's no better way to end my Friday than this and transfer into the weekend. It's perfect. Lesley Logan  Oh my god, I know. Anyways, agreed. I get to teach a Pilates workout after this. So (Jessica: Well, that's fun too.) Still gonna be fun. It's live. So people are there. And then I will do a happy hour with them. So. So it's like you're like you're a part of the finale. It's great. So Jessica, can you tell everyone a little bit about who you are? And even like your journey getting here with your health and things like that?Jessica Valant  For sure. So, yes, my name is Jessica. I've been a physical therapist and a Pilates teacher for 20. I always have to look at the date and like what, like 22 years about, there abouts. I graduated from PT school in 2000. So I, I mean, to be honest, I never thought I would be in women's health ever. Like it was not something I wanted. It wasn't. I was like, I'm gonna work with athletes and orthopedic injuries, and I wanted to work with brain injuries. So I had this whole different view of what my career would be, as we all do, probably usually. And then I, my first foray into my own issues happened early 2000s. And basically, I started going to the hospital with a lot of abdominal pain, I had every test under the sun. I mean, I was 24. And I had a colonoscopy, and I know you understand some of the stuff and ultrasounds and everything, and no one could figure out what it was. And I just knew I was in pain. And I didn't know what was going on. I had a lot of back pain, I stopped PT. Anyway, finally, I had a doctor who said, "This might be endometriosis. Why don't we go in and have surgery because it's the only way to diagnose it." So in 2005, I had surgery. And lo and behold, I woke up and they said, "Yes, you have an endometriosis. There is no cure for it. You're going to have to manage it. And not sure if you want to have kids, but that's gonna be really hard for you. And good luck." And it kind of sent me on my way. So it was really my very first time of understanding that movement. And health had a whole different purpose other than how we looked, you know, other than, "Oh, I work out. So I can eat a doughnut tomorrow." Like, that kind of was all put to the side in that, okay, if I want to manage this and not be defined by it, because as many women know, if you go on Dr. Google and try to find information, it's pretty scary out there. They don't understand women's health. And there's a lot of scary things. So I knew I didn't want to be one of those stories, and that I wanted to do everything I could to not be defined by my diagnosis. So it started to change how I looked at a lot of different things and taking care of myself. And then along the way, I did I was able to have our daughter, and then I experienced severe prolapse after that. And then I went through IVF with our son, and then had prolapse surgery and two more endo surgeries and the hysterectomy. So along the way, I kind of realized, "Okay, universe, I'm pretty sure I'm in the women's health field now." Because (Lesley: Yeah.) this is what I know about. And you know, that's just a whole other lesson, really in business and finding a niche, but what you know about what you experience can really define how you walk through the world. And (Lesley: Yeah.) that's what it did for me, you know, having kids changed how I see the world and being a woman and experiencing healthcare and everything that comes with it good and bad. I remember sharing my first story and being really nervous. And I'm like, "I'll write about endo." And the response I got was just out of control. I couldn't believe it. And still to this day, 90% of the messages I get are from women. Thank you for sharing about your prolapse. Thank you for taking my hysterectomy. No one does no one does. No one's positive. And I just realized, okay, that's, that's really the road I'm gonna go down because it's not talked about, and there's not a positive outlet for people looking for answers. And so I realized it was a void, I could fill and I think it helped me heal as well along the way talking about it has always helped me heal. So I think it's a combination of those things. And that's where I am now.Lesley Logan  Yeah, well, well, first of all, (Jessica: Yeah.) thank you for sharing that so that (Jessica: Yeah.) everyone could kind of be on can understand why you care and why this is such (Jessica: Yeah.) a passion for you. I mean, similarly, I had very interesting health issues where no one could know and I had a doctor say to me, "I think you have endometriosis. But I cannot tell you because of that of the surgery part." And also, he said, "You're on your parents health insurance. And I don't want it to be a pre existing condition." (Jessica: Yeah.) He said, "So don't go looking for answers until you actually need them." Which is like when your doctor is like, "Don't do it, because there (Jessica: Yeah.) is no help for you. And then your insurance be more expensive." (Jessica: Right.) Was ... (Jessica: Right.) you know. And soJessica Valant  Right. It's almost like our first limitation right away is insurance. And I know you even put this on your story the other day without getting into the details, but just talking about having to be an advocate for yourself for years. (Lesley: Yeah.) And it's absolutely true that that is one thing I'll say off the bat, it takes work to get answers for yourself. It takes work to be an advocate for yourself. Like I think both you and I would say that hands up, hands down. It's going to take work, and it's worth it. But it does you have to be willing to put your head down and learn a lot of terms you don't want to know and get on the phone and a lot of things.Lesley Logan  Yeah, yeah, I'll share because I think it's I I had an IUD because I needed to, then first so they couldn't get my period to come back. So this is like how I did it. Because I couldn't be on hormones. So thankfully a doctor, a lovely doctor along the way was like, "You had a blood clot because you can't be on hormones. Like that's where you're at." And so anyways, it put me on a copper IUD and then I couldn't find anyone to get it out because they could and find it. And I even went to Planned Parenthood. And this is to knock that knock knock that I don't want to knock them or anything like that. But like, I went somewhere thinking, "Oh, I'll go there because my health insurance is not going to let me remove this on the same day appointment. So I'll just go to them and they'll be able to remove it." And they couldn't find it. And they said, "I had to get a referral to go to someone special." And it really was me having to be an advocate so much that I actually had to hire someone to find me an appointment. I was like, I (Jessica: Yeah.) just, and I think I share that because like, it's okay, if you have to find an advocate there are there (Jessica: Yeah.) actually are people out there who will help you but not, it's important that we don't let these obstacles get in our way. Because had you done had you let these obstacles get in your way. You not only would you not maybe have the kids that you have in the life you have, but like there'll be a different story. And you wouldn't be who you are. So like how, how hard was it to advocate for yourself? And like what, what one of the conversations you had to have yourself to get along the way?Jessica Valant  I and those are such good questions. So for endo alone, it's an average of seven years for a woman to get a correct diagnosis. And not that everyone has endo. But there. I say that to say that women's health, reproductive health is there still a big mystery around it. Like we're just now finding out research that endometriosis has a connection to hypermobility, which has a connection to anxiety, I mean that we know that they are connected. And so when your body is telling you something, listen, like that's the first thing you can do is listen and write it down. Write it down so that you don't start to feel like you're a little bit crazy. Because we can feel that way ourselves like did I feel that? Did I not? Is it my period? Is it not as if there's many things that could be. So start writing it down, like "Oh, my stomach hurt after that meal that was different." Oh, this you know, whatever it is, I would say start writing it down for yourself. And so that you have it maybe to present for someone, but if nothing else, have it for yourself, listen, and just start to know if that feels right to you or not. And the first thing you do is really go to your doctor, I would go to the lowest barrier of entry, whoever it is, like you said, with insurance wherever you can go first and say, "I'm feeling these things. Tell me what this might mean." Like just have a conversation. And that's the first place you can go to see what might be next, you know, do they have an answer for you? How do you feel with that answer? It can take a year or two. So you have to be ready for one step at a time. But just make sure you're talking to someone who's listening to you. And if they're not find someone else, because yes, that I mean, I remember seeing someone in college, had these weird growth legs and I saw a doctor and he said, "You're probably getting drunk and falling down the stairs." (Lesley: Oh ...) What? And I went I went back home with my parents and saw my original pediatrician. He's like, "No," and he pulled out a medical book. He talked me through it. He's like, "This is this weird thing you have," which later I realized is kind of related to endo, I had didn't have my endo diagnosis yet. So being a 20 year old, I just left that office crying and didn't know what else to do. I'm like, "Well, that's it. I don't have anyone else to see." So just knowing that you are important enough to be heard by somebody, and maybe it even takes a virtual appointment, you know, or something. But I think that's the first thing is trying to create a way to listen to yourself and what your body's telling you. Because a lot of us have never actually listened to our bodies. (Lesley: Yeah.) Or we have, we don't listen in a positive way.Lesley Logan  We excuse away. We are, "Oh, it's because I ate that thing. It wasn't really that thing. (Jessica: Yeah.) Oh, it's because I'm not sleeping. And so I'm stressed out." And I love I want to reiterate like I love that you said like write it down. This is really helpful for me with my stomach issues because I was able to say to a doctor who gave me some weird thing like that in the ... Y'all, he said that I had he's like, "Are you sure you don't have body dysmorphia?" And I said, "I'm probably do now after (Jessica: Yeah.) 10 years of stomach issues, (Jessica: Thank you.) and (Jessica: Yeah.) my weight fluctuating up and down and not actually know what my actual body looks like." Like I actually don't even know what I suppose to look like. I said, "But I have pictures of what I look like in the morning and what I look like at night. So how, like, you can't say that to me." And he he sent me to the infectious disease unit to go get tested for AIDS. Like, an Ebola unit, everyone like that was a whole thing. And I was like, and the doctor said to me, she looked at me as a woman. And she said, "Do you know why you're here?" And I said, "No, I think my doctor is giving up on me." And she's like, "Are you satisfied with your doctor?" And I'm like, "No, I'm not. I'm not satisfied." But it was because I went to because I had all the stress. And that's the thing like the stress of going to these doctors can be really can also exasperate (Jessica: That's true. Yeah.) other issues. So having to go back to writing things down, because I had a log of when, like, what, how I felt in the morning and how I felt at night. And if it was different, I had like what I ate that day and then also when my period was and how that affected it. It allowed me to see what was more period related versus what was like actually happening when that wasn't happening? So I couldn't agree more. And yes, it's effort. But there are things like otter.ai, my team will put the link in the in the show notes, y'all, you can literally walk and talk and it will just do it for you. (Jessica: Yeah.) Yeah.Jessica Valant  Yes. Yeah, take the notes. And my other thing, I always tell every patient, women's health or otherwise, take someone with you to the appointments, if you can. And I know we're not always in this position whatsoever to do that. But if you can take a trusted friend, family member with you, when a lot of information is thrown at you, and especially when you're the one it's about, and so there's some fear with it, you won't hear everything. There it's just impossible to and you'll forget what to ask. You'll forget your own symptoms that are a big deal. I mean, how do we all know best practitioners that we have seen clients are like, "Oh, by the way, like two days later, I forgot this major part of my health history that I should have told you ..." You know we forget. So take someone with you, it will help. Practically not only to have someone to support you, but just practically it helps someone to start that journey to have another ear to listen and voice to speak.Lesley Logan  Yeah, my first assistant, and if she's listening, "Hi, Lindsay." She actually created a course for us because now what she does is patient advocacy. And she actually talks to, she talks to doctors about how to be better with patients. And I hope I'm not vipping that Lindsay and then she also had, we actually have a course on Profitable Pilates on how to be an advocate for people because as teachers as even a Physical Therapist, our clients do. And I know everyone listening is not a teacher, but like you have fa... if you have people in your life, they say things to you. And they say I don't want to do that they're gonna let me do this. But I don't want to take any pain meds because I don't want to do that. It's important that they either write that down, that's what she said, write it down, then they can take it to the doctor and say, okay, and a script, they want to put me on pain meds. Is there an alternative way that doesn't include pain meds, or having someone there to say, "Hey, remember, you mentioned something. Is there, is there another alternative to pain meds?" They don't want to be on them, because they're worried about this? Like, it's that kind of so she actually taught us how to help our clients be their own advocate, or in the case that we might be able to advocate, like, what that would look like. And so it really is as simple as like, if someone around you is complaining that you know, you've been said that a lot. So let's write that down. So next time you see your doctor, you can talk about it. So you don't forget.Jessica Valant  Absolutely. Yes. I think that's and I would say those are the three biggest things. Yeah, write things down. Find someone to be some kind of support system for you, hopefully, in the appointments if you can. And then also, don't be afraid to be the squeaky wheel. Like that's the biggest thing, do not walk out of that doctor's appointment until you have your questions answered. They are there for you. And they will also try to rush out, not on them. But they're trying to see 30 people so that they get enough insurance payment to pay their bills. That's the way insurance and medicine works. So not anything bad on the doctors, but it's what they do. They're trying to rush out. But if you ask them questions, they cannot rush out. So have your list of questions in addition to your notes, write them all down, and go down the list. And don't let them walk out of that room until you've asked all your questions. If you think of one the next day, call the office, talk to the nurse. There's a lot of great medical stuff online now where you can talk to your doctor and leave them questions. So be (Lesley: Yeah.) the squeaky wheel because that's the only way you'll get answers, honestly.Lesley Logan  Yeah, you're you're so correct on that. And you know, there is a push for them to say to stop calling us patients and start calling us clients. (Jessica: Yeah.) Because that's what we are, you paid whether you pay your is, you pay your insurance, you pay your copay, you paid. And so as a client, you know, there's just, it allows us to not that I wanted any doctors listen, I'm not trying to knock anything that you do, you went to a lot of schooling, but also like to, because of that way, it's seen as a hierarchical, they're in the white coat. I'm down here, I don't know anything. They're super smart. We do, especially as women, we don't want to be disruptive, we don't want to actually take up too much of their time. We don't want to take up too much of the space in the room. We don't want to be seen as crazy or hormonal or any of the things that have any thing about that that could be negative about us. So we tend to put them way higher up and then not actually stand up for ourselves.Jessica Valant  Yep. 100% 100% you have to. It's your body. Yeah, it's your body. It's your life. You have to live with it. And that is exactly what women think. And and that's, that is the way it is, it's brushed off many many times and so you do you have to you have to be willing to put in the work and be listened to. (Lesley: Yeah.) And that you matter, you have to know you matter.Lesley Logan  Like that could be the like whole mic drop off the podcast. Was there anything, you know, Jessica, you, you have been a Physical Therapist for 22 years. And you were I know running your own business at the time. Like, was there anything when you're going through this health stuff that like was did it keep you from doing other things? Did it keeps you from showing up in your life in any way? Or was it like kind of something you just learned how to balance?Jessica Valant  I think some of both, especially some of the emotional part, like I can look back, and there are really specific times that I had to sneak into a client room and close the door. And I was having stomach cramps, so bad on the ground and didn't know why. And I had to hide until I could pull it together. So they're really concrete times like that. And then times I was recovering from surgery that I would be teaching and tell everyone, "Hey, I can't demonstrate that move for six months. Just so you know, but this is what you're gonna do." And then there was a lot of emotional baggage, I think with it, especially during the IVF stuff that I and I just constantly knew. And I think this is a lesson maybe I learned a long time ago. And we all do it. Like, as a women, we all try to right, hide it and be like, "I'm fine. I'm fine." So there was that probably not a good part. But also, I did always walk in every time I walked into my day, I thought, they don't need my problems like my clients. That's not why they're here at all. So I didn't really talk about it. And and I didn't share it at the time, and I tried to hold it back. And now, it's been really interesting with my career different and having a chance to talk about all of it, because it is on video and podcasts and blogs. How many people relate to it? I think, gosh, there's got to be a halfway point that we do you share. Because it's the only way other people know they're not alone. Because (Lesley: Yeah.) like you said at the beginning women's issues can be win, really embarrassing. I mean, I put out a video about sex after hysterectomy. And again, so many DM saying, "Thank you, thank you. I'm so embarrassed, it hurts. I don't know what to expect." Incontinence, you know, is a big one, there are a lot of embarrassing things. So the more we can find a way to share in whatever way is natural for us. Not everyone needs to put it out in a blog post, but sharing with anyone, even just your friend down the street or a mom at pickup, it makes all of us realize we're not so alone.Lesley Logan  Well, and I think like I hid my stomach issues for years. And most people just thought I was getting skinnier. And I would wear like I would start the day and the tank top. And then I end the day with a sweatshirt and so no one saw, they were just like, "Oh, it's cold in here." You know, but then when I finally solved the problem, I started sharing it. And also because like I was actually absorbing nutrition. So I started to look like a person who wasn't walking around dying. People were like, "Oh, I feel that I have that. I have those same pains." And then I was like, well, crap, like, was I me not sharing was I holding people back from getting help sooner. Or even me getting help sooner. You know, and so, so it's not like, we should all be taking medical advice from our friends. But like, at least at least with people around you just sharing like, "Hey, you know, I'm a little, today I'm a little I'm not going to be demonstrating because I've got some stomach stuff." Like just saying it, just so people can go, "Oh, yeah," like, even if they just like becomes a little more natural to share. Like it's okay to have something weird going on. (Jessica: Right, right.) That, so it's not weird. And so that is (Jessica: Yeah.) just part of life. And then maybe doctors can actually figure out why the heck, someone that are super stressed and causing themselves not to sleep, and not go through my dis... digestion or anything else. And especially with IVF like, I had so many clients going through that. And I knew their struggle because I had to, but their friends didn't know. And so when they would lose babies they wanted they I'm the only person who knows. And I was like this is this can this is thank you. But I You need to have other people in your life who can support you through this. (Jessica: Yeah.) And they just the whole tradition of not telling anyone is there and that made it really hard. So I think like, I think it is important, even if you even if you just tell one other woman in your life what's going on just so that they can either maybe they know another woman who's going through the same thing. Or I know I'm so grateful for my girlfriends. Who are a little bit older who are hitting like menopause and they're like telling you what's going on and like, "What? I wasn't told that. No one told me that. (Jessica: Yeah.) When this is gonna happen in my life?"Jessica Valant  Yep, Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. (Lesley: I'm like ...) Just this morning.Lesley Logan  When is it ... Was I supposed to get a magazine in the mail? You know, like ARP? Was that supposed to happen ... (Jessica: Yeah. I know.)How would I have this information.Jessica Valant  I know. I was just talking to Brian about perimenopause this morning. It was so hot. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, because I'm never hot. Like, what's happening? Is this happening? This was happening. What's happening?" And honestly, to be able to laugh about it, too, is so nice because I don't know, maybe it's our mom's generation, you know, something. It was hidden. It was embarrassing. It was like, oh, that hidden thing. I don't know what that is, I don't know what's even happening. But like, we're all getting older. I mean I'm 44. We're all getting older, we're not getting younger. And so it's really nice to walk with people who I love and admire and support and like, "Oh, we can talk about this and laugh and I'm still me." Like, I am still me. And every woman who comes to me if you've had a prolapse, if your bladder is literally hanging out, if you have to pee your pants, when you jump rope, you're still you. You're still a beautiful, empowered human being and you're still strong, like nothing changes that it's only society that's told us otherwise. (Lesley: Yeah.) So yeah, to have people to laugh with, I think, is important.Lesley Logan  Yeah. So I hope as you're listening as you're grabbing your girlfriends, and like, maybe he just like, "Hey, can we just share a little bit?" Because I even like, even just like even reading your stories in your posts, I'm like, "Oh, oh, I actually, you know, I can't jump rope right now. Why can't I jump rope?" Like I don't. Like I would go to a gym and they put jump roping. And I'm like, "Oh, I'll do. I could do ice skater." So I like an ice skate. But like the actual act of jumping rope. (Jessica: Oh, yeah.) And so I was like, that's so interesting. I didn't know that that was a bad, like, not a bad thing. But like a thing I should be concerned about at my age. So then I like went and did some research, and I went and did some exercises. And now, when my hair bun is not in, I can jump rope ,you know. So like, I think it's, um, I think it's just, it's so interesting that we're all disposed to go through life. And like, keep all these things and like this, in this picture, that everything is fine, everything is perfect, everything is wonderful. When all that does is actually make all of us feel a little bit more like an imposter and a little bit more held back. And, and because we're not telling people it is holding us back in our career. Those are, those are hours and days that you would like had to be at work longer, or you are like, even there, there were things that I did not sign up for, like when I was in the modeling and commercials, I would tell my agents, I have to do gigs that are in the morning. If they're in the evening, I can't promise I'll be the size they hired. (Jessica: Yeah.) You know, and those things are like, that was that was a another layer of stress and feeling like I wasn't good enough. And maybe I should just quit this. So you know, it's a lot.Jessica Valant  For sure. And I think too, we're told, especially by doctors and medical community, we're told that things are normal, like, you know, like, oh, I'm peeing some after I give birth. That's normal. Well, it hurts with sex like I endometriosis pain with sex can be a really big symptom. And I remember before my surgery is telling my doctor and she's like, "Yeah, it's too bad. You just need to take some Advil before you have sex every time." Like, really like I was 22. I'm like, "Really? That that's what I need to do. Okay." So we're kind of told all these things, or you're a woman that's normal. And I tell people it's not. It's common, yes, like, don't feel crazy. This is very common, actually. Incontinence all of that is very common. Don't for a second think it's normal, and you just have to live with it. Because it is not none of those conditions are normal. There are so many things we can do for it and pelvic floor physical therapy and exercise and so many things. So yes, it's common. Don't feel like there's anything wrong with you. You didn't do anything wrong to get to this point. But don't just let doctor said, "That's normal." And leave. There are answers.Lesley Logan  Jessica, that is like amazing. I really hope you all heard that because I think that that there is that word normal that is used in place of common. And if they were to say this is common, and if it is something that is bothering you and holding you back from being a human being, we should look for more options for you. And that is we had Dr. Celeste Holbrook on. She's a sexologist, and her she waited till she got married. She's in the purity culture and they had sex and it was miserably painful. And she's like, "Well, it was the first time." So they needed to get in for a year. It was painful. And her doctors response was, "We'll get pregnant and then it will stretch out. And then ..."Jessica Valant  Yeah, and they would never tell a man that.Lesley Logan  No. And that infuriated me so much because and then the irony is when she did get pregnant they had have his C section because she yeah, she had two, she had twins with C section so it wouldn't have worked anyways, and (Jessica: Yeah.) she's like, she's like these that was so wrong, because responsibility is like the thing that keeps you from wanting to have sex so then I wouldn't have been having sex anyway. So but she you know that that happened to to her and I hear these things that they say and they my girlfriend was was trying to get pregnant and I knew they were struggling. And I said, "Oh, has he gone to the doctor to get checked?" And they said, "Oh, my doctors don't want him to this is waste his sperm, they like don't." And I'm like, "What? They, is not? They don't have, we have, we have a limited amount." (Jessica: Yeah, it's us.) No. Homeboy can go put it in there and the thing and they can test it, it's not hard. (Jessica: It is enough.) And it's going to be, you're gonna still have an amazing baby. But there's good sperm and like, it gets older, like, I was, like, so frustrated by that. She's like, "I know, but that's what they said." I said, "I don't care. He can go make an appointment. He doesn't need a referral. He can just go." Like, so it's so frustrating to me, that there's always a responsibility on us. And then also, there's this, oh, well, it's normal. And, you know, it can take some time. And, and so I just I think it's, it is hard. I know you all are listening to this, and you have so many other things on your plate. And being an advocate for your own health is a whole thing. But it is essential, not just for you, but for every other woman around you that comes because you can help pave the way. You can help find the doctors and it can be from just simply asking someone, "Hey, I'm looking for another Dr. X. Do you have a recommendation?" When I moved to Vegas, we have to find all new everything. Right? And so I literally found someone who I was like, "Oh, I get along with her well." And so I said, "Who do you go to? And like, do you feel heard when you go there?" And she's like, "Oh, here's my list." Like gave me her whole list. And so I could go down that list and figure out like, "Do I like this person?" ... It at least helps like narrow (Jessica: Yeah.) down the search.Jessica Valant  Yep, for sure. And if you need to start somewhere, I actually recommend pelvic floor physical therapy. If you're having any of these things, if you're having pain with sex, incontinence, pelvic floor pain, dialysis repti, if you're postpartum, any of that kind of stuff prolapse. At a lot of times, you can go without even having to see your doctor. So call your PCP or call your OBGYN. Say I'd like to go see a pelvic floor physical therapist. And honestly, sometimes you don't even need referrals, it just depends on your state and your insurance. And if you're even using insurance, and sometimes you only need one or two visits with a good pelvic floor physical therapist, but they are going to be able to give you some good information, and they have the time to listen to you. And they'll check it all out. And that can be a really good team member to then send you to the next place. (Lesley: Yeah.) So I think that's a good start. If you already have a diagnosis, and you're just kind of at a loss for answers, and you just want to talk through things. There's some great virtual options where you don't even have to leave your house. Like this week, I probably had saw four people and I think they were all women's health and a lot of it is just I was told I have this I don't know what to do. I live in hour from a doctor, I was told I can't exercise is that true? And we just talk for an hour and give them a plan. And then sometimes I don't even have to see them again. So just having someone yet (Lesley: Yeah.) you can talk your story, someone's listening and can give you a few really concrete action items that can help to.Lesley Logan  Well, and first I've never met like a pelvic floor therapist who doesn't like freaking love what they do. Like (Jessica: Yeah.) they love me ... that's that's a very specialized thing and they go into that. And and that you're right. They they do listen. Also because when you go to that person for those one of those reasons, or just wondering if it's one of those reasons, they've seen so many people that they get to like, look back and go, "Oh yeah, I've actually had a patient with similar things." And here's like, you just like it's not when you go to a PCP your Primary Care Physician. They see a lot of people that a lot of things. (Jessica: Yeah.) So when you go to someone who's a little bit more specialized in the thing, it's a little bit easier to get to your answer or some some some sort of path to a solution (Jessica: Yeah.) that works for you. Yeah, I love that suggestion. Oh, my gosh, Jessica, you are a wealth of knowledge on this topic. And we could keep going because there's so many different parts of women's health that we could talk about, but I really am grateful that you let me open up this conversation for our listeners, because they're all women mostly. I mean, there might be a few good men in there and thank you, but they probably have women in their life. So hopefully you send this to them. And I think the more we can talk about it and normalize, talking about our health, I just see the world being in a much better place for our daughters and kids don't like all my friends daughters, like I like envy the world that they'll live in (Jessica: Yeah.) with all that information. We're gonna take a brief pause and then find out where people can find out, how they can follow you, get to know you more. So one quick second.Okay, Jessica, where do you like to hang out on the gram? Where can people go for more information to work with you?Jessica Valant  I'm Jessica Valant Pilates everywhere. Instagram, my websites, Jessica Valant Pilates, and then YouTube and I have a ton of resources actually about all of this prolapse, hysterectomy, endometriosis. You can find it on my website, a lot of free resources there. Or you can honestly just go to YouTube to my YouTube channel. If you search anything, I'll have a lot of videos there where I talk about all my experiences, and hysterectomy surgeries and prolapse surgeries, and all of that stuff.Lesley Logan  Thank you. (Jessica: Yeah.) And bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted action steps people can take to be till they see it. What do you think?Jessica Valant  I think and it's a great question, especially as related to women's health. I think I've been thinking a lot about the middle meaning like we try always to strive to be the best, whether it's releasing a video, because that's our job, or whether it's to feel our best, I'm gonna feel 100% whatever it is, and we sometimes don't do anything until we think we're gonna get right to that 100%. Like, we don't release something unless we think it's perfect. We don't, you know, do a workout until we feel 100% better. And that's just not life, most of the time, like most of the time, we're living somewhere in the middle, we're not the worst, but we're not usually 100% the best. So how can you live your best life in that middle space. And that's where we all are. And so if it is as related to women's health, just know that you are important, what you have to say is important, what you feel is important, and you should feel 100%. Like you should be able to get to that place, it just takes day to day action. And it takes a plan and it takes you to believe in yourself and be an advocate to get there. But you can but most of the time is spent in that middle. So take the time to know that this is your journey. And it's okay to have this journey. And there's a lot of good that can come out of it. And then one day at a time, the process will get you where you want to go.Lesley Logan  So I love that you bring up the middle because everything is like the middle, there's actually a piece of art that Brené Brown talked about on a podcast, I heard her on at least a decade ago at this point. And she said there's a piece of art, and it's like has like a start. And then it says the middle, the middle, the middle, the middle, the middle, the middle, the middle, the middle, and it just keeps going until the very bottom is the end. And so like really, we're all trying to get to 100% but like that's, that's actually like, yes, that's great. And there are gonna be days when you feel that way and I woke up this morning going, "Today's gonna amazing. Why don't I wake up every morning like this." (Jessica: Yeah.) But also like, how do you find a middle where you can like live in that and thrive in that and enjoy that so that you're not constantly looking for the finish line. Yeah.Jessica Valant  Exactly. Like endometriosis. It's not, I can't heal it. I can't fix it. But my golly I can have an amazing fulfilling strong life right in the middle of it. And that's what I'm going to do.Lesley Logan  Thank you for being you. Thank you for being here. (Jessica: Thank you.) I love you so much. Everyone, how are you going to use these tips? How are you going to use what she talked about? What are your takeaways? We want to hear about them. Please tag @jessicavalantpilates and the @be_it_pod and do us a massive favor, do all the women in your life a massive favor. Share this. You know what? You're uncomfortable having this conversation right from where you are in your life, that is fine. That is completely normal. But even just sharing it so that you know your friends listening to it and then maybe it's a little easier to talk about it that is going to change lives around you and for generations to come. So let us know how are you going to use this and until next time, Be It Till You See It.That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!   'Be It Till You See It' is a production of 'As The Crows Fly Media'.   It's written produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell. Our Associate Producer is Amanda Frattarelli.  Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.  Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianranco Cioffi.  Special thanks to our designer Jaira Mandal for creating all of our visuals (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all videos each week so you can.And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each of our episodes so you can find them on our website. And, finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.Transcribed by https://otter.aiSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What you'll learn in this episode:   How Jessica built her accessories business, and when she knew it was time to step away from it  What it was like growing up in a creative household with Vladimir Kagan, a leading mid-century furniture designer, and Erica Wilson, the “Crewel Queen of Needlework” How to build a #neckmess that tells a story How to make the most of Instagram, Etsy and other selling platforms Why a Victorian jewelry padlock inspired Jessica's most recent work   About Jessica Kagan Cushman   Jessica Kagan Cushman is an independent jewelry and accessories designer who launched her career in 2004 with a line of hand-engraved ivory bracelets. Her line later expanded to necklaces, rings, earrings, and other accessories that were sold at Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, and other high-end retailers.  Today, Jessica is known as the creator of #neckmess, a jewelry trend combining multiple necklaces, charms, and chains to tell a story. Jessica's latest endeavor is a line of antique-inspired padlocks and connectors that serve as the building blocks of #neckmess. Additional Resources: Jessica's Instagram Jessica's Etsy     Transcript: Jessica Kagan Cushman is a jewelry and accessories designer who struck gold not once, but twice: first with her hand-engraved ivory bracelets decorated with sassy slogans, and then with #neckmess, a style of jewelry wearing that layers multiple necklaces, charms and chains. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about what it was like growing up in her exceptionally creative household; how Instagram and Etsy have helped her business thrive; and how to build the perfect #neckmess. Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. Today, my guest is Jessica Kagan Cushman. She's a well-known jewelry and accessories designer who today may be most well-known for her development of “neckmess.” If you haven't heard part one, please go to TheJewelryJourney.com. Welcome back.    Is it all through Instagram? How did you sell before Instagram, or were you doing this stuff?   Jessica: Before Instagram, I had a salesforce and showrooms. I had people selling my stuff all over the place. I had my things placed in showrooms. I had a sales manager and people who worked with him. I never really had to do my own sales, except when I was at Bergdorf's, all the designers would go and do personal appearances and I was behind the counter. In terms of doing wholesale sales, I had a team who did that. We did a lot of tradeshows. We did 20, 25 tradeshows a year all over the world.   Sharon: Was it Covid? You were online before Covid, right?   Jessica: No, it wasn't Covid. It was before that. It was long before that when I decided I wasn't interested in having that type of business, where I was spending most of my time managing employees.   Sharon: Yes, that happens.    Jessica: Exactly. That stopped being fun.   Sharon: Managing people takes time and patience.   Jessica: It does. It's fine if that's what you're doing, but I wanted to be making things and be creative. That's why I switched. I had a website for my bracelets and bags and things like that, with stuff in a warehouse. I had a fulfillment center that would manage all of that, but again, I was still dealing with stuff I didn't want to be doing. So, I closed that down and streamlined it. Then I just started selling through Instagram, which became a fantastic tool.   Sharon: What are your secrets for being successful on Instagram?   Jessica: That's something that evolves all the time. The new algorithms have really put a damper on sales for small businesses. It's hard. It used to be much, much easier—I would say six to eight months ago—to have people see your posts. Now there's a different algorithm and they have different criteria for what they use to push your stuff out there. I think they're really pressing for people to do Instagram Shopping, where people shop through the site. I haven't investigated it, but I believe there are some fairly onerous rules and they make a percentage. To me, the Instagram/Etsy interface does work. There's a lot more stuff I should be doing, and I could do relatively easily, but I've been sort of lazy about it, like making posts shoppable. You can make the posts shoppable without having to do Instagram Shopping, but it's work I don't want to do.   Sharon: Based on the way things are now, you first have to scroll past all these shops to get to individual people. I liked it the way it was before.   Jessica: Yeah, me too. It was better, at least from a small business perspective. I know a lot of jewelry dealers have had similar complaints about it.   Sharon: Why do you think people are attracted to your bracelets and charms and all of that? Why do you think that is?   Jessica: They're all part of the same thing, and I think it's self-expression. The bracelets are language and words, so they are your wrists literally speaking for you when you're wearing one. The charms and neckmesses are basically the same thing. It's a way to tell your own story and express yourself in an individual way.   Sharon: Tell us about the custom orders people ask you for, if they don't see what they want.   Jessica: Well, I will say now they do. They'll see it. I just made an amazing, engraved bracelet for a customer because she saw mine, reached out to me and asked me to make one with a saying of her choice on it. It's all triggered by something I post. People don't come to me and say, “Oh, I need an engagement ring,” or “I'm looking for a sapphire bracelet. Can you make it for me?” That's not the sort of stuff I do.   Sharon: Do you see neckmess growing, or are you onto the next thing?   Jessica: I'll always be wearing a neckmess. I feel like it's here to stay, because it doesn't have to be an enormous wad of things. You can wear two little charms and call it a neckmess. So, it's not going anywhere.   Sharon: That's interesting. I was making some notes to myself before we started. I think of the neckmess as something that skews younger.   Jessica: No, I don't think so, actually.   Sharon: You know better than I do.   Jessica: Based on my clients, it runs the entire spectrum. Even starting with my bracelets, I had customers in every age group. It also depends on what you're putting on there. If you're doing a neckmess with seven antique diamond charms, that's limited to how much you can splurge.   Sharon: I know you mostly through Instagram, but it seems like you're showing more individual charms as opposed to the neckmesses or a grouping.   Jessica: It depends on what kind of ratty sweater I'm wearing on a particular day and whether I'm feeling too lazy to go change and put together a presentable-looking top to put them on. It also depends on the charm. If there's something really special, I think it's nice to show it on its own, but I try and do carousel postings. You can post up to 10 pictures in one post, but I'm never sure how much people actually scroll through, and I'm not sure that's a metric you can see in Instagram. I don't know if they tell you that.   Sharon: I'm so used to it now that when there isn't something to scroll through, I'm going, “Well, I want to see different views.”   Jessica: That's great, but I don't know to what extent that's true for everyone. Some of my customers have messaged me and said, “Can I see this from a different angle?” and it will be something that's in the post; you just have to scroll through. As I said, it would be an interesting metric to see if people do scroll through. For all I know, you can see it, but I just haven't looked.   Sharon: I'm curious about the mechanics. If you don't have your shop, are people direct messaging you and saying, “I want that charm”?   Jessica: They direct message me. It depends on where they are and what payment methods they have, but I invoice them. More and more, I'm trying to get stuff loaded into my Etsy shop because that way it's there. People don't have to message me; they can just go and look at it, see how much it is, see the description, and I don't have to be online for them to get details about it. It's a process loading stuff into it. It's very easy. Etsy is very user friendly. You can do everything from your phone. There really is no excuse; it's just time-consuming.   Sharon: It is time-consuming. Like you say, it's filling out all the descriptions and putting it online.   Jessica: Lining up the descriptions and measurements, filling out all the different fields, taking all the pictures and a video and getting it loaded. For some reason, you can't load a video from the Etsy app; you have to do that from a desktop. It's not perfect, but it's really easy. I just need to do it.   Sharon: It sounds like it's working for you, but you're making me tired listening to you.   Jessica: Yes, I know. It's exhausting.   Sharon: You talked about managing people. Managing customers and clients can be a pain, too. Did you make a decision to say, “O.K., I'll do that. I'll manage the ones and twos as opposed to 10 people”?   Jessica: Yes, it's much easier to work with my customers than it is to be working in an office with a whole bunch of people who require attention and managing.   Sharon: Do you wake up jumping out of bed full of ideas? How is your creative process?   Jessica: I do get ideas at night. I keep a pad next to my bed, and I've gotten very good at drawing on my iPhone. In the Notes app, you can actually draw with your finger, which is a very cool thing. I do that a fair amount, or I'll try and make lists so I don't forget it by the time I wake up. Then I go into my studio, and I usually get about a third of the way down the list.    Sharon: It seems like each thing would be generating 20 more things in terms of ideas.   Jessica: Absolutely, that's true.   Sharon: Do you see being a jewelry professional as what you'll be doing for the next 20 years?   Jessica: Yeah, I think I'll always be doing it, but I'll probably be doing it in different ways. We're about to go away for essentially all of February and part of March. I'm taking stuff with me so I can be creating while I'm away, but I'm hoping I can do a lot less so it's not my daily focus while I'm on vacation.   Sharon: Do you preload things online so a few things are coming up while you're gone?   Jessica: No. I'll take stuff with me, and I probably will put my Etsy shop into vacation mode, but I'll keep posting and letting people know I can't ship for a while if there's something they're interested in.   Sharon: I'm sure you have regular clients, but do you have collectors? Would you say you have collectors?   Jessica: Oh yeah, definitely. I have lots of clients who collect all the different padlocks and the new ones when they come out. They'll string them together as a bracelet or use them in different ways. I definitely have collectors who collect my work.   Sharon: In general, I'm always interested in what people think and what their interpretation of a collector is. What do you consider a jewelry collector? Not just of your jewelry, but what makes a jewelry collector?   Jessica: Passion, I think. They're passionate about jewelry and they love it. I think anybody can collect it, obviously. I don't know that you can necessarily define what makes a collector, but for me, it's the fascination with the design, the uniqueness of the design or the way something is put together, the engineering behind it.   Sharon: Does it have to item-specific?   Jessica: No, it can be anything.   Sharon: Do you think a collector has to say they collect bracelets or lockets? I have a lot of jewelry, and somebody said to me once, “You're not a collector. You're a shepherd of the stuff,” and I thought, “Well, I'm all right with that.” Somebody called me a collector once and I was like, “I didn't know that I'm a collector. I'm an enthusiast.”   Jessica: I think some people say they are guardians of jewelry. You can't take it with you, so you're gathering it up and eventually it will get disbursed, unless it all goes to one place as group. But I think anybody can be a collector.   Sharon: What do you think is next for your business? What would you say is your next step? Is it day by day?   Jessica: It's day by day. For me, my goal is to get things online more, get things into my store so I can be a little more hands-off in terms of Instagram and having to communicate. That's a time-consuming thing. It's one of the cool things about Instagram because you can reach out directly to people, and I think people feel very connected to the creators.    Sharon: That's true.   Jessica: It's very cool, but by the same token, from my perspective, it takes up a lot of time answering DMs. It is time well spent because I love connecting with my customers and talking to them and finding out what they like, but it's time taken away from doing creative stuff.   Sharon: The DMs on Etsy, are people asking for a different variation?   Jessica: No, they'll just ask questions about the piece, like how much it is, how big it is, what it can go with, what kind of stones they are. Any number of questions.   Sharon: I noticed recently you posted some of your things from your personal collection. You said you were trying to reduce it.    Jessica: Right.   Sharon: Is there a touch of angst, like, “Oh, I'm sad”?    Jessica: When I sell things?   Sharon: When you sell your own things, things you've collected personally.   Jessica: All of it is personal. I only buy things and collect things that I like and would wear myself. I don't collect things that fall outside my areas of interest. I will buy certain things specifically to sell, but for the most part I buy something I would want to wear myself. Usually I am fine when I'm selling stuff I have collected. There are maybe five or 10 pieces over the years that I regret having sold, but normally not. I'm fine. I'm happy to see them fly out into the world to make other people happy.    Sharon: Tell us about one of those pieces you regret having sold.   Jessica: The most recent thing I sold that I'm like, “Why did I sell that? That was so stupid,” was a very simple, rose-cut diamond Victorian bracelet, but it was a great stacking piece, and it looks good with other pieces in my collection. I'm seeing other ones, but they're ridiculously expensive now because it's a hot item, and I'm wishing I'd held onto it. That's the sort of thing.   Sharon: It sounds like a beautiful thing. Somebody got very lucky.   Jessica: It went to a very good home. I know it's well appreciated where it is.    Sharon: That makes it easier then.   Jessica: It does make it better.   Sharon: When you're traveling or on vacation, is your mind filled with, “I should do something with that”?   Jessica: Yes, usually it's whatever I happen to be looking at. When I'm on vacation, I'm collecting stuff I can use.   Sharon: Is your family saying, “O.K., mom, enough”?   Jessica: Yeah, always. Now my daughter is grown and married and has her own family, so it's just my husband and me. I've got him relatively well trained. He's much better about letting me go off and toddle around and look for something. He's like, “Fine, go ahead. I'll read a book in the car and wait for you while you go shopping.”    Sharon: He's probably joining my husband there in the car. How did you come up with idea for the lockets?   Jessica: It was really based on wanting to wear the charms in an organized way. They allow you to wear things so they don't bunch up. They kind of spread them out, and you can connect pieces of chain. I would buy old watchchains or small pieces of chain and put them together. You would have to do it using modern findings or antique ones, but there was never just the right thing that would put them together and also be a decorative piece and part of the story. I bought a couple of antique padlocks, a Victorian jewelry padlock, and I was able to study that to see how it was put together and made. I also bought, when I was passing the flea market, this very cool double-ended padlock. I was like, “Oh my God, that's brilliant! That would work. I'm going to miniaturize that.”   Sharon: Double-ended meaning you could open it on either side?   Jessica: On either side. That's what most of the padlocks I'm making now have, either two or three attachment points so you can attach two pieces of chain and charms and keep everything neat and tidy.   Sharon: It sounds fabulous. I'm thinking your head must be spinning when you wake up because you're so creative, and you follow those ideas and energy. I really appreciate your taking the time to share them with us. Jessica, thank you so much. It's been so great to talk with you.   Jessica: It was my pleasure, thank you so much.     Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.      

  What you'll learn in this episode:   How Jessica built her accessories business, and when she knew it was time to step away from it  What it was like growing up in a creative household with Vladimir Kagan, a leading mid-century furniture designer, and Erica Wilson, the “Crewel Queen of Needlework” How to build a #neckmess that tells a story How to make the most of Instagram, Etsy and other selling platforms Why a Victorian jewelry padlock inspired Jessica's most recent work   About Jessica Kagan Cushman   Jessica Kagan Cushman is an independent jewelry and accessories designer who launched her career in 2004 with a line of hand-engraved ivory bracelets. Her line later expanded to necklaces, rings, earrings, and other accessories that were sold at Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, and other high-end retailers.  Today, Jessica is known as the creator of #neckmess, a jewelry trend combining multiple necklaces, charms, and chains to tell a story. Jessica's latest endeavor is a line of antique-inspired padlocks and connectors that serve as the building blocks of #neckmess. Additional Resources: Jessica's Instagram Jessica's Etsy     Transcript: Jessica Kagan Cushman is a jewelry and accessories designer who struck gold not once, but twice: first with her hand-engraved ivory bracelets decorated with sassy slogans, and then with #neckmess, a style of jewelry wearing that layers multiple necklaces, charms and chains. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about what it was like growing up in her exceptionally creative household; how Instagram and Etsy have helped her business thrive; and how to build the perfect #neckmess. Read the episode transcript here.    Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.    Today, my guest is Jessica Kagan Cushman. She's a well-known jewelry and accessories designer who today may be most well-known for her development of “#neckmess.” We'll hear all about that and the rest of her jewelry journey today. Jessica, welcome to the program.   Jessica: Thank you so much. It's delightful to be here.   Sharon: It's so great to have you. Tell us about your jewelry journey. It sounds like it started early and you stayed on course for the most part.   Jessica: Sort of; it was a little bit circuitous. For most of my adult life, professionally I was a management consultant, but I always had jewelry running parallel. It wasn't until about 2007 that I was able to stop doing the horrible corporate stuff and start making jewelry and make that into my business.   Sharon: Were you always making jewelry? Were you artistic as a child?   Jessica: Yes, and I always loved it. I loved jewelry from an early age. Both of my grandmothers had fabulous jewelry collections and loved it. My mother never wore jewelry. She wore a wedding ring and occasionally she'd wear earrings if she was going out. It skipped a generation.   Sharon: Do you consider yourself artistic in other ways? Were people are always saying, “Oh, you're going to be an artist”?   Jessica: Yes, I think so. I think partially that was an assumption people made because of my parents and what they did, but there was always that sense. My whole family is artistic for the most part. Yes, I was always creating things. That was the thing I loved to do.   Sharon: I thought there was a break with jewelry in terms of your professional career, but it sounds like the professional aspect came in the last 10 or 15 years.    Jessica: Yeah, 2007. I can't do that kind of math in my head, but around 15 years. That's when I started doing it full time.   Sharon: That's about as high as I can go when it comes to math without a calculator. I was doing something yesterday and I didn't have a calculator. It was very simple, but I thought, “Oh my God, what's going on.” Tell us about your family. You had an interesting childhood.   Jessica: Both of my parents were designers. My father was Vladimir Kagan, who was a mid-century modern furniture designer. My mother was Erica Wilson, who we used to call the “Crewel Queen of Needlework.” They both had very successful businesses, and we grew up in that environment.   Sharon: Did they ever try and influence you or say, “Forget the management consulting”?   Jessica: Not really, no. I think they were hoping I would continue. I think they would have liked us all to have gone off and become corporate workers. There's a little bit of, “Oh, God, don't do this. Don't be a designer. Do something real.”   Sharon: Oh really? That's interesting. I'm surprised to hear that because they were so prominent and well-known.   Jessica: Yes, because they had no idea what the corporate world was like, they probably had this romanticized vision that it might not be quite as hard if you're working for somebody else. If you have your own business, you've got to keep producing new stuff all the time. But they were always super supportive, and when my business started taking off, they were completely delighted and very supportive.   Sharon: I know you designed bags. Did it take off with the bags or the bracelets?   Jessica: It was the bracelets. I started with bracelets. I had a son whom we sadly lost when he was 21 in 2003. He was home; he had had an accident. He and I came up with the bracelet concept together. He was studying filmmaking at New York Film Academy but living at home, and we would stay up late at night and watch old movies and collect quotes that we loved. There were lots of what I call “yoga jewelry,” stuff that says “breathe” and “dream,” but I always felt that sassier women were under-served by the jewelry market. My father had taught me scrimshaw in Nantucket years ago when I was a kid, and I had a collection of old ivory bracelets my aunt had given me years ago. I just started engraving on them and wore them, and people loved them and wanted them. I started making them and I made more and more, and then Barneys got them and the rest is history. It grew from there.   Sharon: You developed that into a production line, right?   Jessica: I did. I was hand-engraving all of them myself using fossilized wooly mammoth ivory, which is amazing. It's 10,000 years old, and obviously no elephants are harmed in the gathering of that ivory. You can't use it anymore. That was when I was at Barneys. I decided I should rip myself off before someone else did, so I started making them in resin. I first started making them domestically, but the manufacturers here couldn't keep up, so I had to go overseas. Then we started making them by the thousands.    Sharon: Wow! Wooly mammoth, you can't use it anymore because?   Jessica: There has been an appropriate reaction to ivory. I think the reason it's banned now is because when you have newly processed wooly mammoth, unless you know what you're looking at—I happen to know ivory in all the different forms because I work with it so much—it's probably pretty easy to pass off elephant ivory as woolly mammoth ivory, even though they are very distinct differences between them. It's gone on a state-by-state basis, I think. At least a few years ago, it was state-by-state. You can sell it and have it in some states, but not in others. I just stay away from all of it now.   Sharon: When you were doing stuff for Barneys, did you find that your creativity for expanding was being usurped by all the stuff you had to think of to develop a production line?   Jessica: No, not really, because I was just doing one thing. I was engraving these bracelets myself. Then when I went to Bergdorf's, I was able to expand into much more than engraved bracelets. It started with that at Bergdorf's, but then expanded into a much larger line.    Sharon: To your bags or other jewelry or both?   Jessica: That expanded to other jewelry. The tote bags and other accessories, that business all grew concurrently with the Bergdorf's business. I really had two separate lines. I had a fine jewelry line at Bergdorf Goodman and a few other locations, and then I had costume jewelry and resin bracelets and bags and all sorts of other accessories that ran side by side. Eventually I had a licensing deal with a company based in California, and we did barware and all kinds of things.   Sharon: Wow! I'm so curious about your upbringing. It sounds peripatetic. It's so unusual an upbringing. Tell us about that.   Jessica: Well, it was amazing. It was a very creative household. We were never allowed as children to say, “I'm bored.” That was the one thing we couldn't say. Our parents would say, “Well, go make something,” so that's what we did. My brother is a professional artist, now a painter, and has been doing that in Nantucket for years. My sister took over my mother's business. She always claims to not be very creative, but I think everybody is creative if we know how to dig into it.  Then my aunt and cousins were all artists and painters.   Sharon: Did you travel a lot during your childhood?   Jessica: Yes. Both sets of grandparents lived overseas. My mother's parents were English, and my father's parents were German and Russian. They ended up in the U.K. for a while and then in Switzerland.   Sharon: Where did your parents meet?   Jessica: They met in New York. My mother had been sent over to the Embroiderers' Guild in Millbrook, New York, to teach the ladies needlework. She went to the Royal School of Needlework in London, and the Embroiderers' Guild reached out to the Royal School and said, “We need an instructor,” and they sent my mother. She was living in Millbrook, and she ended up at a costume ball in New York that was run by the Architect's League or something like that. That was where they met. My mother was dressed as a French poodle and my father was dressed as the devil, appropriately.   Sharon: I'm sorry, he was dressed as what?   Jessica: As the devil. It was very appropriate.   Sharon: That's an interesting way to begin.   Jessica: Yeah, exactly.   Sharon: As you said, you think everybody is creative if they dig deep enough. Do you think that's true about jewelry designers or fabricators? Is everybody creative?   Jessica: I do think everybody's creative. They're not necessarily going to be creative at making jewelry. You have to love it. My daughter, for instance, hates jewelry. While she is creative at certain things, jewelry would not ever be it for her. I'm going to have to leave my collection to a museum. She's got no interest.    Sharon: That's interesting. I have to think about that; whether it's jewelry or not, is everybody creative if you dig deep enough?   Jessica: I think so. I think it's a primal instinct. If you think about it, creativity is problem solving in a way. You just have to know how to access it.   Sharon: Do you have any particular tricks for accessing it?   Jessica: I don't. It does come very naturally to me. My problem is I have way too many ideas and not nearly enough time and hands to get everything done that I'd like to do.    Sharon: Tell us about what you're doing today. Tell us about your business and how you segued into it. You were on Instagram.   Jessica: Really that's it, Instagram. When I was doing all these things, licensing and the accessories and the bags and so on and so forth, I had about 10 people working for me in a studio in my house in Connecticut. We have since moved, but I had a separate building. I had all these people there, and it stopped being fun. There was such a demand. Every season, I kept having to come up with new stuff, new stuff, new stuff. That was taxing, and it stopped being fun.    I was able to step away from that. It's always constantly evolving, but my goal going forward is to just make stuff that I like and put it out there, and if somebody wants it, great, if not, whatever. Over last few years, especially during the lockdown and Covid, I would put stuff out there and people would want it. It was a bit of a struggle to keep up with making things. I found I was being very reactive instead of being able to focus on doing what I wanted.    Sharon: Reactive because were they placing orders?   Jessica: Yes, exactly. Basically, I have the attention span of a flea. If I sit down to make a pair of earrings, I get one earring done and I'm like, “O.K., I did that. Now, I'm moving on.” While obviously I love everything I do, I tend to want to move on to the next thing after a day and a half.   Sharon: Tell us about the business. Do you make everything now or buy things?    Jessica: Yes, the answer is yes. I love antique jewelry. I really have a passion for it. Each piece is a little piece of art, a little sculpture you can wear and have with you. Probably about five or six years ago, I started making padlocks and connectors that enabled my antique jewelry passion to meld with the modern stuff I was making as well.   Sharon: How did it connect to antique jewelry?   Jessica: The connectors, they're essentially miniature padlocks. I'm constantly evolving the design, but the most popular ones have multiple points of attachment, so you can attach a few chains. You can attach a bunch of charms. They're basically the building blocks of #neckmess. Obviously, #neckmess has become much bigger than just my padlocks, and you can build a #neckmess with anything, but to really make it look great, I think, it's good to have connectors and little pieces of chain so you can actually build a story without everything getting clumped up and mushed together.   Sharon: When you're putting things together, are you thinking about #neckmess and how it's going to work together?    Jessica: Yes, definitely. To have a #neckmess come out right, you have to put some thought into it and build it, I think. That's just my opinion. People wear all sorts of things, but I like mine to be a certain way. Even though it looks like it's just a pile of stuff that's all been thrown together, I usually have some sort of thematic or color thing that runs through it to make it a cohesive story.   Sharon: What do people tell you about #neckmess? When they see somebody wearing your stuff or you're wearing it, what do they say? What are their comments?   Jessica: People always want to touch it, which is good or bad when they're grabbing for your chest. They want to see it and hear about it and look at it and see what story it tells. In my case, I like stuff to be interesting and different and unusual, not just charms. It's got to have some interesting tale to tell.   Sharon: So, your #neckmess pieces or groups are thematic. You want them to tell a story.   Jessica: Yeah, I like them to tell a story. When you put a bunch of charms together on a bracelet or a necklace, those things are telling a story already regardless of whether it's an official #neckmess or not. They're very personal. I like to group them for a reason. I like them to have a reason to be hanging out together.   Sharon: I'm interested in the way you collect. It seems like little bits and pieces you have in your jewelry box or in your studio. That's the sense I got, that you hold onto things until you need them.   Jessica: That is true. I'm always looking for good design and interesting, different stuff. It doesn't necessarily have to be something that was intended for jewelry. If something catches my eye, I buy it. For my creative process, I'll sit down and start fiddling around and I'll go, “Oh, I remember. I've got that porcelain mask I can add to this piece.” I love having stuff on hand so I can grab it whenever I want.   Sharon: Today, are you making everything yourself for your designs?   Jessica: I make some stuff myself, but I don't do my own casting, for instance. I do some stone setting, but very limited. My bench skills are not great. I wish they were better. That's another goal I have this year, to improve my bench skills. In the interim, I work with people all over the country who do different aspects of production for me.   Sharon: So, you might tell them, “I want a fish with three eyes,” or whatever?   Jessica: For the pieces I create from scratch, I will draw them up and either carve the waxes myself or I'll work with a CAD designer and have them created, CAD being computer assisted design. We'll work on a design, and then I have those pieces cast through the lost wax casting process, and then I embellish them from there.   Sharon: Looking at your Instagram, what percentage of your work is one-of-a-kind stuff you pulled from your own supply and what is cast?   Jessica: All the antique pieces are one of a kind, for the most part. You can find duplication in antiques, but for the most part, all antique things are one of a kind. For the padlock line, I have basic padlock shapes and designs—they have various configurations—and then I embellish those with stones, or on some of them I'll take antique charms and have them attached permanently to the pieces. So, even those are somewhat one of a kind as well. It's hard to identify percentage because it varies. Things are very cyclical. I'll create something and sell tons of them and then the demand drops. I'm not very good at all the stuff you're supposed to do within an antique store or an online shop. Then I'll move onto the next thing. As I said, it's cyclical. Sometimes what I'm selling is 100% stuff I'm making and sometimes it's 25% and the other 75% is antique, one-of-a-kind stuff.

00:58 - Paul's Superpower: Participating in Scary Things 02:19 - EventStorming (https://www.eventstorming.com/) * Optimized For Collaboration * Visualizing Processes * Working Together * Sticky (Post-it) Notes (https://www.post-it.com/3M/en_US/post-it/products/~/Post-it-Products/Notes/?N=4327+5927575+3294529207+3294857497&rt=r3) 08:35 - Regulation: Avoiding Overspecifics * “The Happy Path” * Timeboxing * Parking Lot (https://project-management.fandom.com/wiki/Parking_lot) * Inside Pixar (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13302848/#:~:text=This%20documentary%20series%20of%20personal,culture%20of%20Pixar%20Animation%20Studios.) * Democratization * Known Unknowns 15:32 - Facilitation and Knowledge Sharing * Iteration and Refinement * Knowledge Distillation / Knowledge Crunching * Clarifying Terminology: Semantics is Meaning * Embracing & Exposing Fuzziness (Complexities) 24:20 - Key Events * Narrative Shift * Domain-Driven Design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-driven_design) * Shift in Metaphor 34:22 - Collaboration & Teamwork * Perspective * Mitigating Ambiguity 39:29 - Remote EventStorming and Facilitation * Miro (https://miro.com/) * MURAL (https://www.mural.co/) 47:38 - EventStorming vs Event Sourcing (https://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/EventSourcing.html) * Sacrificing Rigor For Collaboration 51:14 - Resources * The EventStorming Handbook (https://leanpub.com/eventstorming_handbook) * Paul's Upcoming Workshops (https://www.virtualgenius.com/events) * @thepaulrayner (https://twitter.com/thepaulrayner) Reflections: Mandy: Eventstorming and its adjacence to Technical Writing. Damien: You can do this on a small and iterative scale. Jess: Shared understanding. Paul: Being aware of the limitations of ideas you can hold in your head. With visualization, you can hold it in more easily and meaningfully. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: MANDY: Welcome to Episode 271 of Greater Than Code. My name is Mandy Moore and I'm here today with a guest, but returning panelist. I'm happy to see Jessica Kerr. JESSICA: Thanks, Mandy. It's great to see you. I'm also excited to be here today with Damien Burke! DAMIEN: And I am excited to be here with both of you and our guest today, Paul Rayner. Paul Rayner is one of the leading practitioners of EventStorming and domain-driven design. He's the author of The EventStorming Handbook, co-author of Behavior-Driven Development with Cucumber, and the founder and chair of the Explore DDD conference. Welcome to the show, Paul. PAUL: Thanks, Damien. Great to be here. DAMIEN: Great to have you. And so you know, you are prepared, you are ready for our first and most famous question here on Greater Than Code? PAUL: I don't know if I'm ready, or prepared, but I can answer it, I think. [laughter] DAMIEN: I know you have prepared, so I don't know if you are prepared. PAUL: Right. DAMIEN: Either way, here it comes. [chuckles] What is your superpower and how did you acquire it? PAUL: Okay. So a couple of weeks ago, there's a lake near my house, and the neighbors organized a polar plunge. They cut a big hole in the ice and everyone lines up and you basically take turns jumping into the water and then swimming to the other side and climbing out the ladder. So my superpower is participating in a polar plunge and I acquired that by participating with my neighbors. There was barbecue, there was a hot tub, and stuff like that there, too. So it was very, very cool. It's maybe not a superpower, though because there were little kids doing this also. So it's not like it was only me doing it. JESSICA: I'll argue that your superpower is participating in scary things because you're also on this podcast today! PAUL: [chuckles] Yeah, there we go. DAMIEN: Yeah, that is very scary. Nobody had to be fished out of the water? No hospital, hypothermia, any of that? PAUL: No, there was none of that. It was actually a really good time. I mean, being in Denver, blue skies, it was actually quite a nice day to jump into frozen. MANDY: So Paul, you're here today to talk about EventStorming. I want to know what your definition of that is, what it is, and why it's a cool topic to be talking about on Greater Than Code. PAUL: Okay. Well, there's a few things there. So firstly, what is EventStorming? I've been consulting, working with teams for a long time, coaching them and a big part of what I try and do is to try and bridge the gap between what the engineers, the developers, the technical people are trying to build in terms of the software, and what the actual problem is they're trying to solve. EventStorming is a technique for just mapping out a process using sticky notes where you're trying to describe the story of what it is that you're building, how that fits into the business process, and use the sticky notes to layer in variety of information and do it in a collaborative kind of way. So it's really about trying to bridge that communication gap and uncover assumptions that people might have, expose complexity and risk through the process, and with the goal of the software that you write actually being something that solves the real problem that you're trying to solve. I think it's a good topic for Greater Than Code based on what I understand about the podcast, because it certainly impacts the code that you write, touches on that, and connects with the design. But it's really optimized for collaboration, it's optimized for people with different perspectives being able to work together and approach it as visualizing processes that people create, and then working together to be able to do that. So there's a lot of techniques out there that are very much optimized from a developer perspective—UML diagrams, flow charts, and things like that. But EventStorming really, it sacrifices some of that rigor to try and draw people in and provide a structured conversation. I think with the podcast where you're trying to move beyond just the code and dig into the people aspects of this a lot more, I think it really touches on that in a meaningful way. JESSICA: You mentioned that with a bunch of stickies, a bunch of different people, and their perspectives, EventStorming layers in different kinds of information. PAUL: Mm hm. JESSICA: Like what? PAUL: Yeah. So the way that usually approach it is, let's say, we're modeling, visualizing some kind of process like somebody registering for a certain thing, or even somebody, maybe a more common example, purchasing something online and let's say, that we have the development team that's responsible for implementing how somebody might return a product to a merchant, something like that. The way it would work is you describe that process as events where each sticky note represents something that happened in the story of returning a product and then you can layer on questions. So if people have questions, use a different colored sticky note for highlighting things that people might be unsure of, what assumptions they might be making, differences in terminology, exposing those types of unknowns and then once you've sort of laid out that timeline, you can then layer in things like key events, what you might call emergent structures. So as you look at that timeline, what might be some events that are more important than others? JESSICA: Can you make that concrete for me? Give me an example of some events in the return process and then…? PAUL: Yeah. So let's say, the customer receives a product that they want to return. You could have an event like customer receive product and then an event that is customer reported need for return. And then you would have a shift in actor, like a shift in the person doing the work where maybe the merchant has to then merchant sent return package to customer. So we're mapping out each one of these as an event in the process and then the customer receives, or maybe it's a shipping label. The customer receives the shipping label and then they put the items in the package with the shipping label and they return it. And then there would be a bunch of events that the merchant would have to take care of. So the merchant would have to receive that package and then probably have to update the system to record that it's been returned. And then, I imagine there would be processing another order, or something like that. A key event in there might be something like sending out the shipping label and the customer receiving the shipping label because that's a point where the responsibility transfers from the merchant, who is preparing the shipping label and dispatching that, to the customer that's actually receiving it and then having to do something. That's just one, I guess, small example of you can use that to divide that story up into what you might think of as chapters where there's different responsibilities and changes in the narrative. Part of that maybe layering in sticky notes that represent who's doing the work. Like who's the actor, whether it's the merchant, or the customer, and then layering in other information, like the systems that are involved in that such as maybe there's email as a system, maybe there's the actual e-commerce platform, a payment gateway, these kinds of things could be reflected and so on, like there's – [overtalk] JESSICA: Probably integration with the shipper. PAUL: Integration with the shipper, right. So potentially, if you're designing this, you would have some kind of event to go out to the shipper to then know to actually pick up the package and that type of thing. And then once the package is actually delivered back to the merchant, then there would be some kind of event letting the merchant know. It's very hard to describe because I'm trying to picture this in my mind, which is an inherently visual thing. It's probably not that interesting to hear me describing something that's usually done on some kind of either mirror board, like some kind of electronic space, or on a piece of butcher's paper, or – [overtalk] DAMIEN: Something with a lot of sticky notes. PAUL: Something with a lot of sticky notes, right. DAMIEN: Which, I believe for our American listeners, sticky notes are the little square pieces of brightly colored paper with self-adhesive strip on the back. PAUL: Yeah. The stickies. DAMIEN: Stickies. [chuckles] I have a question about this process. I've been involved in very similar processes and it sounds incredibly useful. But as you describe it, one of the concerns I have is how do you avoid getting over specific, or over described? Like you can describe systems until you're talking about the particles in the sun, how do you know when to stop? PAUL: So I think there's a couple of things. Number one is at the start of whatever kind of this activity, this EventStorming is laying out what's the goal? What are we trying to accomplish in terms of the process? With returns, for example, it would be maybe from this event to this event, we're trying to map out what that process looks like and you start with what you might call the happy path. What does it look like when everything goes well? And then you can use pink stickies to represent alternate paths, or things going wrong and capture those. If they're not tied back to this goal, then you can say, “Okay, I think we've got enough level of detail here.” The other thing is time boxing is saying, “Okay, well, we've only got half an hour, or we've only got an hour so let's see how much we can do in that time period,” and then at the end of that, if you still have a lot of questions, then you can – or you feel like, “Oh, we need to dig into some of these areas more.” Then you could schedule a follow up session to dig into that a little bit more. So it's a combination of the people that are participating in this deciding how much level of detail they want to go down to. What I find is it typically is something that as you're going through the activity, you start to see. “Oh, maybe this is too far down in the weeds versus this is the right level.” As a facilitator, I don't typically prescribe that ahead of time, because it's much easier to add sticky notes and then talk about them than it is to have a conversation when there's nothing visualized. I like to visualize it first and lay it out and then it's very easy to say, “Oh, well, this looks like too much detail. So we'll just put a placeholder for that and not worry about out it right now.” It's a little bit of the facilitation technique of having a parking lot where you can say, “Okay, this is a good topic, but maybe we don't need to get down in that right now. Maybe let's refocus back on what it is that we're trying to accomplish.” JESSICA: So there's some regulation that happens naturally during the meeting, during interactions and you can have that regulation in the context of the visual representation, which is the EventStorming, the long row of stickies from one event to the other. PAUL: Right, the timeline that you're building up. So it's a little bit in my mind, I watched last year, I think it was on Netflix. There was a documentary about Pixar and how they do their storyboarding process for their movies and it is exactly that. They storyboard out the movie and iterate over that again and again and again telling that story. What's powerful about that is it's a visual medium so you have someone that is sketching out the main beats of the story and then they're talking it through. Not to say that EventStorming is at that level of rigor, but it has that kind of feel to it of we're laying out these events to tell the story and then we're talking through the story and seeing what we've missed and where we need to add more detail, maybe where we've added too much detail. And then like you said, Jess, there's a certain amount of self-regulation in there in terms of, do we have enough time to go down into this? Is this important right now? JESSICA: And I imagine that when I have questions that go further into detail than we were able to go in the meeting, if I've been in that EventStorming session, I know who to ask. PAUL: That's the idea, yeah. So the pink stickies that we said represent questions, what I like about those is, well, several things. Number one, it democratizes the idea that it's okay to ask questions, which I think is a really powerful technique. I think there's a tendency in meetings for some people to hold back and other people to do all the talking. We've all experienced that. What this tries to do is to democratize that and actually make it not only okay and not only accepted, but encourage that you're expected to ask questions and you're expected to put these sticky notes on here when there's things that you don't understand. JESSICA: Putting the questions on a sticky note, along with the events, the actors, and the things that we do know go on sticky notes, the questions also go on sticky notes. All of these are contributions. PAUL: Exactly. They value contributions and what I love about that is that even people that are new to this process, it's a way for them to ask questions in a way that is kind of friendly to them. I've seen this work really well, for example, with onboarding new team members and also, it encourages the idea that we have different areas of expertise. So in any given process, or any business story, whatever you want to characterize it as, some people are going to know more about some parts of it than others. What typically happens is nobody knows the whole story, but when we work together, we can actually build up an approximation of that whole story and help each other fill in the gaps. So you may have the person that's more on the business, or the product side explaining some terminology. You can capture those explanations on sticky notes as a glossary that you're building up as you go. You can have engineers asking questions about the sequence of events in terms of well, does this one come before that one? And then the other thing that's nice about the questions is it actually as you're going, it's mapping out your ignorance and I see that as a positive thing. JESSICA: The known unknowns. PAUL: Known unknowns. It takes unknown unknowns, which the kind of elephant in the room, and at least gets them up as known unknowns that you can then have a conversation around. Because there's often this situation of a question that somebody's afraid to ask and maybe they're new to the team, or maybe they're just not comfortable asking that type of question. But it gives you actually a map of that ignorance so you can kind of see oh, there's this whole area here that just has a bunch of pink stickies. So that's probably not an area we're ready to work on and we should prioritize. Actually, if this is an area that we need to be working on soon, we should prioritize getting answers to these questions by maybe we need to do a proof of concept, or some UX work, or maybe some kind of prototyping around this area, or like you said, Jess, maybe the person that knows the answers to these questions is just not in this session right now and so, we need to follow up with them, get whatever answers we need, and then come back and revisit things. JESSICA: So you identify areas of risk. PAUL: Yes. Areas of risk, both from a product perspective and also from a technical perspective as well. DAMIEN: So what does it take to have one of these events, or to facilitate one of these events? How do you know when you're ready and you can do it? PAUL: So I've done EventStorming [chuckles] as a conference activity in a hallway with sticky notes and we say, “Okay, let's as a little bit of an icebreaker here –” I usually you do the story of Cinderella. “Let's pick the Disney story of Cinderella and we'll just EventStorm this out. Just everyone, here are some orange sticky notes and a Sharpie, just write down some things that you remember happening in that story,” and then everyone writes a few. We post it up on the hallway wall and then we sequence them as a timeline and then we can basically build up that story in about 5, or 10 minutes from scratch. With a business process, it's not that different. It's like, okay, we're going to do returns, or something like that and if people are already familiar with the technique, then just give them a minute, or so to think of some things that they know that would happen in that process. And then they do that individually and then we just post them up on the timeline and then sequence them as a group and it can happen really quickly. And then everything from there is refinement. Iteration and refinement over what you've put up as that initial skeleton. DAMIEN: Do you ever find that a team comes back a week, or a day, or a month later and goes, “Oh, there is this big gap in our narrative because nobody in this room understood the warehouse needed to be reordered in order to send this thing down”? PAUL: Oh, for sure. Sometimes it's big gaps. Sometimes it's a huge cluster of pink sticky notes that represents an area where there's just a lot of risk and unknowns that the team maybe hasn't thought about all that much. Like you said, it could be there's this third-party thing that it wasn't until everyone got in a room and kind of started to map it out, that they realized that there was this gap in their knowledge. JESSICA: Yeah. Although, you could completely miss it if there's nobody from the warehouse in the room and nobody has any idea that you need to tell the warehouse to expect this return. PAUL: Right and so, part of that is putting a little bit of thought into who would need to be part of this and in a certain way, playing devil's advocate in terms of what don't we know, what haven't we thought of. So it encourages that sense of curiosity with this and it's a little bit different from – Some of the listeners maybe have experienced user story mapping and other techniques like that. Those tend to be focused on understanding a process, but they're very much geared towards okay, how do we then figure out how we're going to code up this feature and how do we slice it up into stories and prioritize that. So it's similar in terms of sticky notes, but the emphasis in EventStorming is more on understanding together, the problem that we're trying to address from a business perspective. JESSICA: Knowledge pulling. PAUL: Yeah. Knowledge pulling, knowledge distillation, those types of idea years, and that kind of mindset. So not just jumping straight to code, but trying to get a little bit of a shared understanding of what all is the thing that we're trying to actually work on here. JESSICA: Eric Evans calls it knowledge crunching. PAUL: Yes, Eric called it knowledge crunching. DAMIEN: I love that phrase, that shared understanding. That's what we, as product teams, are generating is a shared understanding both, captured in our documentation, in our code, and before that, I guess on large sheets of butcher paper. [laughs] PAUL: Well, and it could be a quick exercise of okay, we're going to be working on some new feature and let's just spend 15 minutes just mapping it out to get a sense of, are we on the same page with this? JESSICA: Right, because sometimes it's not even about we think we need to know something, it's do we know enough? Let's find out. PAUL: Right. JESSICA: And is that knowledge shared among us? PAUL: Right, and maybe exposing, like it could be as simple as slightly different terminology, or slightly different understanding of terminology between people that can have a big impact in terms of that. I was teaching a workshop last night where we were talking about this, where somebody had written the event. So there was a repair process that a third-party repair company would handle and then the event that closed that process off, they called case closed. So then the question becomes well, what does case closed mean? Because the word case – [overtalk] JESSICA: [laughs] It's like what's the definition of done? PAUL: Right, exactly. [laughter] Because that word case didn't show up anywhere earlier in the process. So is this like a new concept? Because the thing that kicks off the process is repair purchase order created and at the end of the process, it's said case closed. So then the question becomes well, is case closed really, is that a new concept that we actually need to implement here? Or is this another way of saying that we are getting a copy of that repair purchase order back that and it's been updated with details about what the repair involved? Or maybe it's something like repair purchase order closed. So it's kind of forcing us to clarify terminology, which may seem a little bit pedantic, but that's what's going to end up in the code. If you can get some of those things exposed a little earlier before you actually jump to code and get people on the same page and surface any sort of differences in terminology and misunderstandings, I think that can be super helpful for everyone. JESSICA: Yeah. Some people say it's just semantics. Semantics' meaning, its only meaning, this is only about out what this step actually means because when you put it in the code, the code is crystal clear. It is going to do exactly what it does and whether that clarity matches the shared understanding that we think we have oh, that's the difference between a bug and a working system. DAMIEN: [laughs] That's beautiful. It's only meaning. [laughs] JESSICA: Right? Yeah. But this is what makes programming hard is that pedanticness. The computer is the ultimate pedant. DAMIEN: Pedant. You're going to be pedantic about it. [laughter] PAUL: I see what you did there. [laughter] DAMIEN: And that is the occupation, right? That is what we do is look at and create systems and then make them precise. JESSICA: Yeah. DAMIEN: In a way that actually well, is precise. [laughs] JESSICA: Right, and the power of our human language is that it's not precise, that it allows for ambiguity, and therefore, a much broader range of meaning. But as developers, it's our job to be precise. We have to be precise to the computers. It helps tremendously to be precise with each other. DAMIEN: Yeah, and I think that's actually the power of human cognition is that it's not precise. We are very, very fuzzy machines and anyone who tries to pretend otherwise will be greatly disappointed. Ask me how I know. [laughter] PAUL: Well, and I think what I'm trying to do with something like EventStorming is to embrace the fuzziness, is to say that that's actually an asset and we want to embrace that and expose that fuzziness, that messiness. Because the processes we have and work with are often inherently complex. We are trying to provide some visual representation of that so we can actually get our head around, or our minds around the language complexities, the meanings, and drive in a little bit to that meaning. JESSICA: So when the sticky notes pile on top of each other, that's a feature. PAUL: It is. Going back to that example I was just talking about, let's say, there's a bunch of, like we do the initial part of this for a minute, or so where people are creating sticky notes and let's say, we end up with four, or five sticky notes written by different people on top of each other that end up on the timeline that all say pretty much the same thing with slight variations. JESSICA: Let's say, case closed, request closed. PAUL: Case closed, repair purchase order closed, repair purchase order updated, repair purchase order sent. So from a meaning perspective, I look at that and I say, “That's gold in terms of information,” because that's showing us that there's a richness here. Firstly, that's a very memorable thing that's happening in the timeline – [overtalk] JESSICA: Oh and it has multiple things. PAUL: That maybe means it's a key event. Right, and then what is the meaning? Are these the same things? Are they different things? Maybe we don't have enough time in that session to dig into that, but if we're going to implement something around that, or work with something around that, then we're going to at some point need some clarity around the language, the terminology, and what these concepts mean. Also, the sequence as well, because it might be that there's actually multiple events being expressed there that need to be teased apart. DAMIEN: You used this phrase a couple times, “key event,” and since you've used it a couple times, I think it might be key. [laughter] Can you tell us a little bit about what a key event is? What makes something a key event? PAUL: Yeah, the example I like to use is from the Cinderella story. So if you think about the story of Cinderella, one of the things, when people are doing that as an icebreaker, they always end up being multiple copies of the event that usually is something like shoe lost, or slipper lost, or glass slipper lost. There's something about that event that makes it memorable, firstly and then there's something about that event that makes it pivotal in the story. For those that are not familiar with the story [chuckles]—I am because I've EventStormed this thing maybe a hundred times—but there's this part. Another key event is the fairy godmother showing up and doing the magic at the start and she actually describes a business policy. She says, “The magic is going to run out at midnight,” and like all business policies, it's vague [laughter] and it's unclear as to what it means because – [overtalk] JESSICA: The carriage disappears, the dress disappears, but not the slipper that fell off. PAUL: Exactly. There's this exception that for some bizarre reason, to move the plot forward, the slipper stays. But then the definition of midnight is very hazy because what she's actually describing, in software terms, is a long running process of the clock banging 12 times, which is what midnight means is the time between the first and the twelfth and during that time, the magic is slowly unraveling. JESSICA: So midnight is a duration, not an instant. PAUL: Exactly. Yes, it's a process, not an event. So coming back to the question that Damien asked about key events. That slipper being lost is a key event in that story, I think because it actually is a shift in narrative. Up until that point in the story, it's the story of Cinderella and then after that, once the slipper is lost, it becomes the story of the prince looking for Cinderella. And then at the end, you get the day tomorrow, the stuff that happens with that slipper at the end of the story. Another key event would be like the fairy godmother showing up and doing the magic. DAMIEN: [chuckles] It seems like these are necessary events, right? If the slipper is not lost, if the fairy godmother doesn't do magic, you don't have the story of Cinderella. PAUL: Right. These are narrative turns, right? DAMIEN: Yeah. PAUL: These are points of the story shifts and so, key events can sometimes be a narrative shift where it's driving the story forward in a business process. Something like, let's say, you're working on an e-commerce system, like order submitted is a key event because you are adding items to a shopping cart and then at some point, you make a decision to submit the order and then at that point, it transitions from order being a draft thing that is in a state of flux to it actually becomes essentially immutable and gets passed over to fulfilment. So there's a shift in responsibility and actor between these two as well just like between Cinderella and the prince. JESSICA: A shift in who is driving the story forward. PAUL: Right. Yeah. So it's who is driving the story forward. So these key events often function as a shift in actor, a shift in who's driving the story forward, or who has responsibility. They also often indicate a handoff because of that from one group to another in an organization. Something like a sales process that terminates in contract signed. That key event is also the goal of the sales process. The goal is to get to contract signed and then once that happens, there's usually a transition to say, an onboarding group that actually onboards the new customer in the case of a sales process for a new customer, or in e-commerce, it would be the fulfillment part, the warehousing part that Jess was talking about earlier. That's actually responsible for the fulfillment piece, which is they take that order, they create a package, they put all the items in the package, create the shipping label, and ship it out to the customer. JESSICA: And in domain-driven design, you talked about the shift from order being a fluid thing that's changing as people add stuff to their cart to order being immutable. The word order has different meanings for the web site where you're buying stuff and the fulfillment system, there's a shift in that term. PAUL: Right, and that often happens around a key event, or a pivotal event is that there's a shift from one, you might think of it as context, or language over to another. So preorder submission, it's functioning as a draft order, but what it's actually typically called is a shopping cart and a shopping cart is not the same as an order. It's a great metaphor because there is no physical cart, but we all know what that means as a metaphor. A shopping cart is a completely different metaphor from an order, but we're able to understand that thread of continuity between I have this interactive process of taking items, or products, putting them in the shopping cart, or out again. And then at some point that shopping cart, which is functioning as a draft order, actually it becomes an order that has been submitted and then it gets – [overtalk] DAMIEN: Yeah, the metaphor doesn't really work until that transition. You have a shopping cart and then you click purchase and now what? [laughs] You're not going to the register and ringing it up, that doesn't make any sense. [chuckles] The metaphor kind of has to end there. JESSICA: You're not leaving the cart in the corral in the parking lot. [laughter] PAUL: Well, I think what they're trying to do is when you think about going through the purchase process at a store, you take your items up in the shopping cart and then at that point, you transition into a financial transaction that has to occur that then if you were at a big box electronic store, or something, eventually, you would make the payment. You would submit payment. That would be the key events and that payment is accepted and then you receive a receipt, which is kind of the in-person version of a record of your order that you've made because you have to bring the receipt back. DAMIEN: It sort of works if the thing you're putting in the shopping cart are those little cards. When they don't want to put things on the shelf, they have a card, you pick it up, and you take it to register. They ring it up, they give you a receipt, and hopefully, the thing shows up in the mail someday, or someone goes to the warehouse and goes gets it. PAUL: We've all done that. [chuckles] Sometimes it shows up. Sometimes it doesn't. JESSICA: That's an interesting point that at key events, there can be a shift in metaphor. PAUL: Yes. Often, there is. So for example, I mentioned earlier, a sales process ending in a contract and then once the contract is signed, the team – let's say, you're signing on a new customer, for a SaaS service, or something like that. Once they've signed the contract, the conversation isn't really about the contract anymore. It's about what do we need to do to onboard this customer. Up until that point, the emphasis is maybe on payment, legal disclosures, and things like that. But then the focus shifts after the contract is signed to more of an operational focus of how do we get the data in, how do we set up their accounts correctly, that type of thing. JESSICA: The contract is an input to that process. PAUL: Yes. JESSICA: Whereas, it was the output, the big goal of the sales process. PAUL: Yes, exactly. So these key events also function from a systems perspective, when you think about moving this to code that event then becomes almost like a message potentially. Could be implemented as say, a message that's being passed from the sales system through to the onboarding system, or something like that. So it functions as the integration point between those two, where the language has to be translated from one context to another. JESSICA: And it's an integration point we can define carefully so that makes it a strong boundary and a good place to divide the system. DAMIEN: Nice. PAUL: Right. So that's where it starts to connect to some of the things that people really care about these days in terms of system decomposition and things like that. Because you can start thinking about based on a process view of this, based on a behavior view of this, if we treat these key events as potential emergent boundaries in a process, like we've been describing, that we discover through mapping out the process, then that can give us some clues as to hmm maybe these boundaries don't exist in the system right now, but they could. These could be places where we start to tease things apart. JESSICA: Right. Where you start breaking out separate services and then when you get down to the user story level, the user stories expect a consistent language within themselves. You're not going to go from cart to return purchase in a case. PAUL: [laughs] Right. JESSICA: In a single user story. User stories are smaller scope and work within a single language. PAUL: Right and so, I think the connection there in my mind is user stories have to be written in some kind of language, within some language context and mapping out the process can help you understand where you are in that context and then also understand, like if you think about a process that maybe has a sales part of the process and then an onboarding part, it'll often be the case that there's different development teams that are focusing on different parts of that process. So it provides a way of them seeing what their integration point is and what might need to happen across that integration point. If they were to either integrate to different systems, or if they're trying to tease apart an existing system. To use Michael Feathers' term, what might be a “scene” that we could put in here that would allow us to start teasing these things apart. And doing it with the knowledge of the product people that are part of the visualization, too is that this isn't something typically that engineers do exclusively from a technical perspective. The idea with EventStorming is you are also bringing in other perspectives like product, business, stakeholders, and anyone that might have more of that business perspective in terms of what the goals of the process are and what the steps are in the process. MID-ROLL: And now a quick word from our sponsor. I hear people say the VPNs have a reputation for slowing down your internet speed, but not with NordVPN, because it's the fastest VPN in the world. I don't have to sacrifice internet speed for better security. With NordVPN, my internet traffic is routed through a secure encrypted tunnel, which protects my data and privacy. I can also have it on up to six devices like my laptop, phone, TV, iPad—all my devices are protected. Grab your exclusive NordVPN deal by going to nordvpn.com/gtc, or use the code GTC to get a huge discount on your NordVPN plan plus one additional month for free. Plus, a bonus gift! It's completely risk-free with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee. JESSICA: As a developer, it's so important to understand what those goals are, because that lets us make good decisions when we're down in the weeds and getting super precise. PAUL: Right, I think so. I think often, I see teams that are implementing stories, but not really understanding the why behind that in terms of maybe they get here's the functionality on delivering and how that fits into the system. But like I talked about before, when you're driving a process towards a key event, that becomes the goal of that subprocess. So the question then becomes how does the functionality that I'm going to implement that's described in this user story actually move people towards that goal and maybe there's a better way of implementing it to actually get them there. DAMIEN: Yeah, it's always important to keep that in mind, because there's always going to be ambiguity until you have a running system, or ran system, honestly. JESSICA: Yeah! DAMIEN: There's always going to be ambiguity, which it is our job as people writing code to manage and we need to know. Nobody's going to tell us exactly what's going to happen because that's our job. PAUL: Right. JESSICA: It's like if the developer had a user story that Cinderella's slipper fell off, but they do didn't realize that the goal of that was that the prince picked it up, then they might be like, “Oh, slipper broke. That's fine.” PAUL: Yeah. JESSICA: It's off the foot. Check the box. PAUL: Let's create a glass slipper factory implementer object [laughter] so that we can just create more of those. JESSICA: Oh, yeah. What, you wanted a method slip off in one piece? You didn't say that. I've created crush! PAUL: Right. [laughter] Yeah. So I think sometimes there's this potential to get lost in the weeds of the everyday development work that is happening and I like to tie it back to what is the actual story that we're supporting. And then sometimes what people think of as exception cases, like an example might be going back to that merchant return example is what if they issue the shipper label, but the buyer never receives it. We may say, “Well, that's never going to happen,” or “That's unlikely.” But visualizing that case, you may say, “That's actually a strong possibility. How do we handle that case and bake that into the design so that it actually reflects what we're trying to do?” JESSICA: And then you make an event that just triggers two weeks later that says, “Check whether customer received label.” PAUL: Yes, exactly. One thing you can do as well is like – so that's one possibility of solving it. The idea what EventStorming can let you do is say, “Well, that's one way of doing it. Are there any other options in terms of how we could handle this, let's visualize.” With any exception case, or something, you could say, “Well, let's try solving this a few different ways. Just quickly come up with some different ideas and then we can pull the best of those ideas into that.” So the idea when you're modeling is to say, “Okay, well, there's probably more than one way to address this. So maybe let's get a few ideas on the table and then pick the best out of these.” JESSICA: Or address it at multiple levels. PAUL: Yes. JESSICA: A fallback for the entire process is customer contact support again. PAUL: Right, and that may be the simple answer in that kind of case. What we're trying to do, though is to visualize that case as an option and then talk about it, have a structured conversation around it, say, “Well, how would we handle that?” Which I think from a product management perspective is a key thing to do is to engage the engineers in saying, “Well, what are some different ways that we could handle this and solve this?” If you have people that are doing responsibility primarily for testing in that, then having them weigh in on, well, how would we test this? What kind of test cases might we need to handle for this? So it's getting – [overtalk] JESSICA: How will we know it worked? PAUL: Different perspectives and opinions on the table earlier rather than later. JESSICA: And it's cheap. It's cheap, people. It's a couple hours and a lot of post-its. You can even buy the generic post-its. We went to Office Depot yesterday, it's $10 for 5 little Post-it pads, [laughter] or 25 Office Depot brand post-it pads. They don't have to stay on the wall very long; the cheap ones will work. PAUL: [laughs] So those all work and then it depends if you have shares in 3M, I guess, with you. [laughter] Or Office Depot, depending which road you want to go down. [laughter] JESSICA: Or if you really care about that shade of pale purple, which I do. PAUL: Right. I mean, what's been fascinating to me is in the last 2 years with switching to remote work and that is so much of, 95% of the EventStorming I do these days is on a collaborative whiteboard tool like Miro, or MURAL, which I don't know why those two product names are almost exactly the same. But then it's even cheaper because you can sign up for a free account, invite a few people, and then just start adding sticky notes to some virtual whiteboard and do it from home. There's a bunch of things that you can do on tool like that with copy pasting, moving groups of sticky notes around, rearranging things, and ordering things much – [overtalk] JESSICA: And you never run out of wall. PAUL: Yeah. The idea with the butcher's paper in a physical workshop, in-person workshop is you're trying to create a sense of unending modeling space that you can use. That you get for free when you use online collaborative whiteboarding tool. It's just there out of – [overtalk] JESSICA: And you can zoom in. PAUL: And you zoom in and out. Yeah. There's a – [overtalk] JESSICA: Stickies on your stickies on your stickies. [laughter] I'm not necessarily recommending that, but you can do it. PAUL: Right. The group I was working with last night, they'd actually gone to town using Miro emojis. They had something bad happen in the project and they've got the horror emoji [laughter] and then they've got all kinds of and then copy pasting images off the internet for things. JESSICA: Nice. PAUL: So yeah, can make it even more fun. JESSICA: Okay. So it's less physical, but in a lot of ways it can be more expressive, PAUL: I think so. More expressive and just as engaging and it can break down the geographical barriers. I've done sessions where we've had people simultaneously spread in multiple occasions across the US and Europe in the same session, all participating in real-time. If you're doing it remote, I like to keep it short. So maybe we do like a 2-hour session with a 10- or 15-minute break in the middle, because you're trying to manage people's energy and keep them focused and it's hard to do that when you just keep going. MANDY: I kind of want to talk a little bit about facilitation and how you facilitate these kind of workshops and what you do, engage people and keep them interested. PAUL: Yeah. So I think that it depends a little bit on the level of detail we're working at. If it's at the level of a few team members trying to figure out a feature, then it can be very informal. Not a lot of facilitation required. Let's just write down what the goal is and then go through the process of brainstorming a few stickies, laying it out, and then sequencing it as a timeline, adding questions. It doesn't require a lot of facilitation hand. I think the key thing is just making sure that people are writing down their questions and that it's time boxed. So quitting while people are still interested and then [laughter] at the end, before you finish, having a little bit of a conversation around what might the next steps be. Like what did we learn? You could do a couple of minutes retrospective, add a sticky note for something you learned in this session, and then what do you see as our next steps and then move on from there with whatever action items come out of that. So that one doesn't require, I think a lot of facilitation and people can get up and running with that pretty quickly. I also facilitate workshops that are a lot more involved where it's at the other end of the spectrum, where it's a big picture workshop where we're mapping out maybe an entire value stream for an organization. We may have a dozen, 20 people involved in a session like that representing different departments, different organizational silos and in that case, it requires a lot more planning, a lot more thinking through what the goal of the workshop is, who would you need to invite? Because there's a lot more detail involved and a lot more people involved, that could be four, or five multi-hour sessions spread over multiple days to be able to map out an entire value stream from soup to nuts. And then usually the goal of something like that is some kind of system modernization effort, or maybe spinning up a new project, or decomposing a legacy system, or even understanding what a legacy system does, or process improvement that will result inevitably in some software development in certain places. I did a workshop like that, I think last August and out of that, we identified a major bottleneck in the process that everyone in the workshop, I think it was just a bunch of pink stickies in one area that it got called the hot mess. [laughter] It was one area and what was happening was there were several major business concerns that were all coupled together in this system. They actually ended up spinning up a development team to focus on teasing apart the hot mess to figure out how do we decompose that down? JESSICA: Yes. PAUL: As far as I know, that effort was still ongoing as of December. I'm assuming that's still running because it was prioritized as we need to be able to decompose this part of this system to be able to grow and scale to where we want to get to. JESSICA: Yeah. That's a major business risk that they've got. They at least got clarity about where it is. PAUL: Right. Yeah, and what we did from there is I coached the developers through that process over several months. So we actually EventStormed it out at a much lower level. Once we figured out what the hot mess was, let's map it out and then they combined that with some flow charting and a bunch of other more engineering, kind of oriented visualization techniques, state machines, things like that to try and get a handle on what was going on. DAMIEN: We'll get UML in there eventually, right? PAUL: Eventually. [laughter] You can't do software development without some kind of state machine, sequence diagram. JESSICA: And it's approximating UML. You can't do it. You can't do it. [laughter] You will either use it, or you will derive a pigeon form of it. PAUL: Right. Well, I still use it for state diagrams and sequence diagrams when I'm down at that technical level. What I find is that there's a certain level of rigor that UML requires for a sequence diagram, or something like that that seems to get in the way of collaboration. So EventStorming sacrifices some of that rigor to be able to draw in everyone and have a low bar of entry to having people participate. DAMIEN: That's a huge insight. Why do you think that is? Is it the inability to hold that much information at a high level of rigor, or just people not used to working at that sort of precision and rigor? PAUL: I think that when I'm working with people that are not hands-on coders, they are in the everyday, like say, product managers, or stakeholders, to use those terms. They're in the everyday details of how the business process works and they tend to think of that process more as a series of steps that they're going through in a very specific kind of way. Like, I'm shipping a certain product, or supporting the shipping. or returning of certain types of products, those kinds of things. Whereas, as developers, we tend to think of it more in terms of the abstractions of the system and what we're trying to implement in the code. So the idea of being able to tell the story of a process in terms of the events that happen is a very natural thing, I find for people from a business perspective to do because that's how they tend to think about it. Whereas, I think as programmers, we're often taught not so much to think about behavior as a sequence of things happening, but more as the structure we've been taught to design in terms of structures and relationships rather than flow. JESSICA: Yet that's changing with event sourcing. PAUL: I think so. EventStorming and event sourcing become a very natural complement for each other and even event-driven architecture, or any event-driven messaging, whatever it happens to be. The gap between modeling using EventStorming and then designing some kind of event-driven distributed system, or even not distributed, but still event-driven is much more natural than trying to do something like an entity relationship diagram and they'd get from that to some kind of meaningful understanding of what's the story of how these functions and features are going to work. JESSICA: On the topic of sacrificing rigor for collaboration, I think you have to sacrifice rigor to work across content texts because you will find contradictions between them. The language does have different meaning before and after the order is submitted and you have to allow for that in the collaboration. It's not that you're not going to have the rigor. It's more that you're postponing it, you're scoping it as separately. This meeting is about the higher level and you need completeness over consistency. DAMIEN: Yeah. I feel like almost you have to sacrifice rigor to be effective in most roles and in that way, sacrifice is even the wrong word. Most of the things that we do as human beings do not allow for the sort of rigor of the things that we do as software engineers and things that computers do. JESSICA: Yeah. DAMIEN: And it's just, the world doesn't work that way. PAUL: Right. Well, and it's the focus in EventStorming on exploration, discovery, and urgent ideas versus rigor is more about not so much exploring and discovery, but about converging on certain things. So when someone says pedant and the other person says pedant, or vice versa, that tends to shut down the conversation because now you are trying to converge on some agreed upon term versus saying, “Well, let's explore a bunch of different ways this could be expressed and temporarily defer trying converge on.” JESSICA: Later in Slack, we'll vote. PAUL: Yes. JESSICA: Okay. So standardize later. PAUL: Yes. Standardize, converge later, and for now, let's kind of hold that at arm's length so that we can uncover and discover different perspectives on this in terms of how the story works and then add regulator when we go to code and then you may discover things in code where there are implicit concepts that you then need to take back to the modeling to try and figure out well, how do we express this? Coming up with some kind of term in the code and being able to go from there. JESSICA: Right. Some sort of potential return because it hasn't happened yet. PAUL: Exactly. So maybe it's a potential, maybe it's some other kind of potential return, like pending return, maybe we don't call it a return at all. JESSICA: Or disliked item because we could – or unsatisfactory item because we could intercept that and try to like, “Hey, how about we send you the screws that we're missing?” PAUL: Right. Yeah, maybe the answer is not a return at all. JESSICA: Yeah. PAUL: But maybe the case is that the customer says they want to return it, but you actually find a way to get them to buy more stuff by sending them something else that they would be happy with. So the idea is we're trying to promote discovery thinking when we are talking about how to understand certain problems and how to solve them rather than closing off options too soon. MANDY: So, Paul, I know you do give these workshops. Is there anything? Where can people find you? How can people learn more? How can people hire you to facilitate a workshop and get in touch with you? PAUL: Okay. Well, in terms of resources, Damien had mentioned at the beginning, I have an eBook up on Leanpub, The EventStorming Handbook, so if people are interested in learning more, they can get that. And then I do workshop facilitation and training through my company, Virtual Genius. They can go to virtualgenius.com and look at what training is available. It's all online these days, so they can participate from anywhere. We have some public workshops coming up in the coming months. And then they can find me, I'm @ThePaulRayner on Twitter, just to differentiate me from all the indefinite articles that are out there. [laughter] MANDY: Sounds good. Well, let's head into reflections. I can start. I just was thinking while we were talking about this episode, about how closely this ties into my background in professional writing, technical writing to be exact, and just how you have this process to lay out exactly what steps need to be taken and to differentiate when people say the same things and thinking about, “Well, they're saying the same things, but the words matter,” and to get pedantic, that can be a good thing, especially when you are writing technical documents and how-tos. I remember still, my first job being a technical writer and looking at people in a machine shop who it was like, first, you do this, then you do this, then you do this and to me, I was like, “This is so boring.” But it makes sense and it matters. So this has been a really good way for me to think about it as a newbie just likening it to technical writing. JESSICA: Yeah. Technical writing has to tell that story. DAMIEN: I'm going to be reflecting on this has been such a great conversation and I feel like I have a lot of familiarity with at least a very similar process. I brought up all my fears that come from them, which is like, what if we don't have the right person in the room? What if there's something we didn't discover? And you said something about how you can do this in 5 minutes and how you can do this in 15 minutes and I realized, “Oh, this process doesn't have to be the 6-hour things that I've participated in and facilitated in. It can also be done more smaller and more iteratively and I can bring this sort of same process and thought process into more of the daily work.” So that's super helpful for me. JESSICA: I want to reflect on a phrase that Paul said and then Damien emphasized, which is shared understanding. It's what we're trying to get to in EventStorming across teams and across functions. I think it's also like what we're constantly trying to get to as humans. We value shared understanding so much because we're trapped in our heads and my experience in my head is never going to be the same as your experience in your head. But at some point, we share the same physical world. So if we can get that visual representation, if we can be talking together about something in that visual world, we can pass ideas back and forth more meaningfully. We can achieve this shared understanding. We can build something together. And that feels so good. I think that that constant building of shared understanding is a lot of what it means to be human and I get really excited when I get to do that at work. PAUL: I think I would just add to that as well is being human, I'm very much aware of limitations in terms of how many ideas I can hold in my head at any one time. I know the times where I've been in the experience that many describe where someone's giving me a list of steps to follow and things like that, inevitably I'm like, “Well, I remember like the first two, maybe three,” and then everything after that is kind of Charlie Brown. What, what, why? [laughter] I don't remember anything they said from that point on. But when I can visualize something, then I can take it in one go. I can see it and we're building it together. So for me, it's a little bit of a mind hack in terms of getting over the limitations of how many things I can keep in my mind at one time. Also, like you said, Jess, getting those things out of my mind and out of other people's minds into a shared space where we can actually collaborate on them together, I think that's really important to be able to do that in a meaningful way. MANDY: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today, Paul. We really enjoyed this discussion. And if you, as listeners, would like to continue this conversation, please head over to Patreon.com/greaterthancode. We have a Slack channel. You can pledge and donate to sponsor us as little as a dollar and you can come in, hang out, talk with us about these episodes. If not, give me a DM on Twitter and let me know, and I'll let you in anyway because [laughter] that's what we do here at Greater Than Code. PAUL: Because Mandy's awesome. MANDY: [laughs] Thank you, Paul. With that, thank you everyone for listening and we'll see you again next week. Special Guest: Paul Rayner.

Jessica Lorion is the host and producer of the Mamas in Training podcast. She supports pregnant women and aspiring moms on their journey into motherhood. What makes her show different from other pregnancy and motherhood podcasts is that she is NOT yet a mom. An autoimmune disease has delayed her journey into motherhood, so she has decided to learn right alongside her audience. With a background in performing on stage — acting and singing — her mission is to spread the importance of studying motherhood. She intends to use her voice and desire to connect with women everywhere, to share the lessons she has learned and give community to those in need. Learn more about Jessica. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Jessica Lorion, the host and producer of the Mamas and Training podcast. She supports pregnant women and aspiring moms on their journey into motherhood. And what makes her show so different from other pregnancy and motherhood podcasts is that she is not yet a mother. She has an auto-immune disease has delayed her journey into motherhood, and she's decided to learn right alongside her audience. With a background in performing on stage in front of camera, as well as being a professional singer, her mission is to spread the importance of studying motherhood. She intends to use her voice and desire to connect with women everywhere, to learn the lessons that she's learned and give community to those in need. So please welcome to the show, Jessica Lorion. Jessica: It's so nice to be here. I, I really, really appreciate it. It's wonderful to sit down with. Thank you both. Passionistas: It's really great to have you here. So what's the one thing that you're most passionate about? Jessica: You know, it's interesting because as you were reading the intro, I was thinking about it and. First of all, I love what you do. I think it's really important for women to be reminded of their passions and to be reminded that there's more to us than whether it's a job or motherhood or whatever the million roles are that we usually carry. Um, so I think that's so important, important what you're doing, but I also find it interesting how passions can shift and adjust and take more priority than others at different times of your life. And so growing up and throughout college, high school, beyond college, professionally here and living in New York city, my main passion has always been performing, um, acting, singing, dancing, performing in any capacity, really. And that's what I went to school for. That's what I did professionally. Um, and then, you know,  I still have that passion and that's never going to stop, and it's going to be something that I'll be giving more energy to. Coming up soon, but COVID sorta hit. And I had had dabbled in this podcast and then when COVID hit and I, all the performing opportunities went away and online and voice was so prevalent. I was like, well, this is a perfect opportunity to dive fully into this other hobby that I had, because it was truly just a hobby. And then as I was putting more energy and effort into it, and I was realizing that. Why behind what I was doing. I was like feeling this passion kind of bubble up and grow, literally develop. And so it's interesting because now I guess I would say my, my second to acting one of my biggest passions is definitely this podcast and more than the podcast. Cause it's not. Of course, I'd love to have more downloads and I'd love to, you know, do all this stuff monetization wise, but the real root of the podcast and the mission and what I'm doing is the fact that I'm able to connect to these women. I'm able to reach out and have real relationships. Through meetings that we meet every month and online, social media, everything, but these women that sometimes have no support and no, no community, no even family. Um, and so that's been the biggest passion through it all. Passionistas: We'll dive into that more in a little bit, but let's start with, when you first had that spark for performing where were you a kid?. And what was your childhood like and performing, growing up? Jessica: Oh yeah. I, um, I was surrounded. By performing my entire life. Um, growing up, my mom was a choir director and she ended up taking over the department there. So she was the head of the music department and the choir director. She also taught, um, sorry, that was at a, um, high school. And then she ended up being the department chair for basically the entire town. So all elementary, middle, junior, and high school. She also worked at a college. She also performed herself in musicals and she did the musical. She was also, um, creator of a show choir. If you've ever heard of show choir. And my father, he was also, um, growing up, he played the trumpet. He was a singer. They both sang at churches and my parents were divorced. And so it was kind of like, During the week I would live with my mom and on the weekends, I would go with my dad. And so on the week I would, you know, be totally at my mom's school. When I was growing up, I was sitting in those rehearsals and watching her do what she was doing and seeing the kids and growing up with the kids, doing it. And then on the weekends, I would go with my dad and we would go to church and I would be sitting in the, um, in the, uh, little pews there waiting for him and watching him, seeing. Two three masses sometimes. And he was always exposing me to music and all these other things. And so it was really from as early as I can remember. I think the passion developed. I remember when I was in middle school, I went to a summer arts program. It's called smarts. I actually think it still exists if anyone lives in Massachusetts. Um, And it's a wonderful program where for the summer, for a few months, you choose a major and a minor. And so I majored in dance because I grew up dancing probably was the first thing I did. I never really acted as a little kid and singing came later, but I chose a major, so that was dance. And then my minor was musical theater. And so I'll never forget, we did this little song thing from. Uh, little mermaid and I sang this little solo from Ariel and afterward. I don't know what it was, but my mom came up to me and, you know, granted she's my mom, but she was also a professional. Like she knew what she was doing. She came up to me and she was like, Jessica, that was fabulous. And she just started praising me for how wonderful it was and not just my singing, but my acting of it. And I I'll never forget that moment because that was always the moment that kind of really, I was like, really, I mean, I had a lot of fun, but if that's really as good as how it felt then. Cool. So I think that was really, I can say the initial spark of it all after that. Passionistas: Did you go on to study, uh, theater and perform? Jessica: Yeah. So that was kind of the initial bug. And then my mom put me in some of her, uh, two of her high school productions. So I was, I didn't go to her high school, but when I was in middle school, she's like, oh, let me just put you in the course. And so that was super fun. And then of course at that time, when I was in middle school, I was hanging out with the high school kids. So I just also thought that that was super cool. And then when I went to high school, I pretty much started doing. All the time I was in, you know, in the musicals and the drama club and everything. Um, and I would do summer shows. There was this wonderful summer program, um, in my town. And so I would do shows there and then it was really in high school. I was like this, I think this is, you know, I can't imagine doing anything else. And so I decided to go to school for it. So I went to school and got a BFA in musical theater. Um, went to school in Virginia. Um, and you know, it's funny, I'll another moment also kind of never forget is when we were looking for schools, we went to Ithaca and we came across the head of the music department, musical theater department. And she looked at me and she said, if you can picture yourself doing anything else, but theater don't do theater. And I was petrified at the time, but you know, rightfully so that was wonderful advice because you do need to have this level of. You know, blinders on and just be so focused because you get a lot of nos and you get a lot of rejection and you don't have control over a lot of things. And so it was great advice, but also terrible advice at the same time. Um, but it, it didn't scare me off. I said, well, no, I can't imagine myself truly doing anything else. And so I went to school for it and then graduated and moved to the city right away. And what was that experience like as a young actor? Getting to New York and starting your career. It was crazy. My mom always likes to tell the story. I don't know now being 35 and looking back, I don't know if I was an idiot or not, but she and my stepfather offered me as a graduation gift, a trip to Italy. She's like, we've been saving up some money and we'd love to take you to Italy. And I was like, Hmm. You know what? I think I just want to move to New York city. Stupid stupid, stupid. But, um, yeah, so I, uh, I ended up moving right away. I literally stayed at a family friend's place for two weeks. I had no job. I had no place to live. Really just figured I would I'd I'd fix, I'd figure it out. And if anyone is listening, who knows the musical 42nd Street, it was truly like Peggy Sawyer. My mom took me to the bus station. I had my one suitcase in my, you know, a couple bags and she just waved goodbye to me on the bus. And she left sobbing and I got off the bus at 42nd street and I made my way to grand central and I was staying right. Um, the family friend was like right over tutor city, like 41st in first. And I just, I walked into that apartment. I'll never forget that feeling. And I was like, wow. All right, I'm here. Let's do it. I don't know what to do next, but, and my dad ended up coming down a week later and walking me around the city to help me find a job. I found a job a week later and just, yeah, started hitting the ground running, but it was a truly, when I moved to the city, I really didn't know anybody. There were a couple people from college who had moved up, um, But I, I mean, it's not like a lot of kids graduate from musical theater and move up and have a big community, you know, and I really didn't have that. So it was, it was crazy. It was scary. It was exciting. It was overwhelming. And now I always think back in high school, we would take these weekend trips to, to New York. And I would, I remember standing in Times Square and always being like, I'm gonna live here at one day. And so I often have to remind myself of that because you know, the city can be. And it's, it's the love, hate relationship with it. Um, but it's where I've always wanted to be. And so that was a passion of mine tooth that I fulfilled, which is really cool. Passionistas: How do you get through the challenging times, especially with COVID and everything. How do you take that rejection and how do you deal with the challenges of being an actress? Jessica: You know, it's an interesting question. I think if you had asked me 10 years ago, um, I'd have a completely different answer, but. I think now, honestly, it's having another passion project and it's having something else that lights you up. I think it's necessary. And I think anybody who is looking into going into any career that has to especially has to do with performing, but as any aspect of artistry behind it, you have to have something else that lights you up. Something else that, um, You know, Phil's you something else that drives you and I, and I, at the time, when I say, you know, if you had asked me 10 years ago, I was so narrow focused and yes, that's what you need, but you also need to be a full person. And I think that took me a long time to really understand that. And, and that comes with many things. You know what I mean? Like, even if you're working a corporate job, you need to have something else that lights you up because. It bleeds into everything else that you do. And so I found, you know, when I started having these other passions and having these other hobbies, even before it was a passion, a. I think to talk about, you know, you walk into these audition rooms and people are like, you know, they might ask you questions or you might meet with an agent or a casting director, and they're asking you things. And when they say like, so tell me, tell us a little bit about yourself. They don't want to hear it. Well, I'm an actor. I love to dance. I love to sing. Like they know that. So they want to hear like, oh, I have a podcast and it's for moms. And it's really cool. And I did this the other day with that. And. Yeah, that's the stuff that makes you a person and that what makes you interesting to work with? So my advice to someone who's starting off in that career would definitely be to get yourself another hobby, whether it's fitness, whether it's crafting, whether it's podcast, whatever it is. Um, and that definitely helped helped me. Passionistas: So tell us a little bit about your own career. Like what have been some of your favorite parts that you've had? Jessica: My absolute favorite, favorite role was I got an opportunity twice actually to play Mary Poppins, um, and goodness gracious. That was like both times. It was just a dream. The very first time was just so magical because it was the first time doing it. Um, but there was something about that role. It, I love children, which is why I started a podcast about babies and children. Um, and so it fit for me. And I just, it, it felt like a glove, you know, there are certain things that you do in life that just like, yup. That's that's right. That works. That feels right. And, um, I had an unbelievable cast. I had an unbelievable Bert. He's just Kyles and he's just amazing. And he's working in Disney now. Um, But it was, it was like no other, I mean, there's truly no words to describe it from top to bottom, everything just fit. Um, I'll tell this one really quick story connected to that show. Um, I was in the audition room actually. I had sang a couple of times and was asked to do the dance audition was in a dance callback. So if you go to a professional audition, you're, you're in the room with a ton of girls and they usually call four or five. Whether it's girls and guys, or just girls up together. And they do the dance with everybody else in the room, kind of on the side. And they just cycle through and cycle through and cycle through. And we had done, it was a tap combination. And so this one group had gone up there and as they were about to go, this one girl started freaking out. She's like, oh my gosh. And her tap shoe broke. And she was like, oh my tap. Ran over to her. And I said, what size shoe are you? And she said eight and a half. And I said, me too. And so I just took my shoe off and gave it to her. And that little moment, literally. Was the biggest talk of the story from that director. And of course, like I did a good job in the role and I was talented, but honestly I think just that random act of kindness booked. Because not only did he comment on it three times that day, but he proceeded to talk about it when I came back in for callbacks. And then when I eventually got the job and we were at, um, so before we, when you worked with this one director, he's a fabulous mark Robin, before you work with him. Um, I mean, when you work with. The day before you go into your tech week. So when you start adding all of the lighting and the set design and all those implements you, he always has a talk and he it's like the tech talk. And it's basically to hype you up for what's to come because the tech week can be kind of challenging, but he delivers this unbelievable inspirational. Uh, motivational speech, but in the conversation, he decided to call out and retell the entire shoe tap shoe story. And basically it was wonderful what he said, because he was saying, you know, that we're being led by someone, myself who is inclusive and is this Mary Poppins type figure and is looking out for everybody and. I truly was just doing it because I wanted to, I mean, everyone should just have an equal chance and if she was my shoe size of why not, um, but it just blew his mind. And so that was a really cool experience to just, and also lesson. And, you know, we're technically not in competition with anybody. I mean, we are, but just having that open heart can really give you a lot of opportunities. So, I mean, bar none, I would say that Mary Poppins experience. The best. Um, and then secondly was just tour. I mean, being on tour with the national tour Beauty and the Beast was just like an experience I can never explain. You have to travel the country and Canada and get paid and perform and have kids waiting for you at the stage door. And I mean, it's just, it was amazing. Absolutely. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to the Passionistas Project podcast and our interview with Jessica Lorion to tune into the Mamas in Training podcast. Visit JessicaLorion.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Jessica. So let's talk about your podcast. So what inspired you to create Mamas in Training. Jessica: We've been talking a little bit about this acting career. It's like you have ebbs and flows as an actor. And I especially didn't really have anything else that I was doing besides my job. And I was kind of looking for something creative. I was looking for something that I could control, because also, as I mentioned, there's very little that you control as an actor, or at least it feels that way. And. I was also in this place that all of my friends were starting to have kids. And so I was in conversation about motherhood almost 90% of the time. And so I was also a little bit of a birth story junkie. I love hearing birth stories. I know it's weird, but I do. Uh, and so I was naturally really just asking my friends about these things and was curious about them and the. Spark happened when my, one of my best friends had just had her and I went to go visit her two weeks after the baby was born. And she was just talking to me about how, when she was pumping or she's breastfeeding feels kind of lonely and isolating because she said, you know, if I'm over my in-laws, I have to go to a second bedroom or I have to like sit in the car and do it before we can go into a store or whatever. And so I thought, well, that's kind of crappy. And two of my friends at work were working on a podcast as well. So the podcast word had kind of flitted around my mind and I was a fan of podcasts. And so that was the moment I said, wait a minute. What if I interview moms about their journey into motherhood and the initial idea of the podcast, which has now changed, but the initial idea was. I would interview moms about their journey. And so that moms who were currently pumping or breastfeeding could listen and know that they weren't alone. And I originally called it the Pumping Podcast, but then it was truly over COVID and everything that I was introducing myself as a Momma in Training. And so I kind of thought, where am I in this story and in this podcast. And that's when I kind of discovered. That there needed to be a shift and I needed to narrow it down and make it more something that I could do. And I was doing, which was learning. And so now more specifically, it's called Mamas in Training and I interview moms, who often happen to also be experts in whatever they are doing now as a result of whatever challenges they experienced. So, um, and I learned from them what they wished they had known before they were pregnant or when they were pregnant or when they were a new mom, so that I can learn selfishly. And then any of my audience who are listening can learn right alongside. Um, cause we kind of study everything else in life, but we rarely study motherhood. And I think it's a really nice opportunity if we have the luxury or even if we don't when we're pregnant or a new mom, but just hearing from other people how things are going. Passionistas: What are a couple of things that you've learned that really surprised you? Jessica: There are three main topics that I've learned. And then I'll give you like another example of a couple of practical things. So the three main things mostly have been advocacy. So the importance of advocating for yourself, whether it's. When you're trying to conceive when you're pregnant or then when you're actually giving birth or postpartum, even, I mean, it continues and we have so much more control than we think that we do. So advocacy is huge, huge. Um, the second thing is community, the importance of community and how you can set these things up for yourself before that moment comes. And it doesn't necessarily have to just be like a food drain. Um, it can be, you know, a doula, it can be a lactation consultant. If you have the finances to do that. Having the community that extends even beyond your initial family or whoever's going to be there hopefully to help support you. Um, that's really key because first of all, we need to do a better job at letting our moms heal and we need to do a better job at talking about the stigmas that we feel. We know that we're not alone and we have that support. So community is huge. And then sort of the practical things are like little things. I didn't know that you can even, you know, there's a certain way to push when you're giving birth that can actually damage or not totally damaged, but can cause damage to your pelvic floor, like something called purple pushing and that's holding your breath and puff your cheeks out. And you're pushing down really hard instead of taking a deep breath in and letting it out as you breathe up. And a lot of. Nurses who are there with you when you're giving birth, we'll often say, take a deep breath and bear down and push, like you're going to poop. And yeah, there's a level of that, but there are other ways that we can do it. And I think we often take for face value what the doctors and the nurses say, because they do this all the time, but you can also say like, thanks for that advice. But I've actually learned that there's a better way that's going to work for me and my body. And I would have never thought something like. I would have never even thought that you can put music on or that you can ask to not know what your measurement is. So they're going to measure your cervix as, as your. Labor, but you don't have to know what it is. And oftentimes women feel like that's a better thing, not knowing because then they don't get in their head. You know, if they don't think that they're progressing because they're only two centimeters, you know, then they don't have to think about the number. They can just think about what the experience is and what they're feeling. And oftentimes when women don't think about it, they progress even faster because it's kind of that mental block. So it's moments like that and things like that, or the last tip I'll give is like a formula. So a majority of women, not all women, but a majority of women plan and prepare and hope to breastfeed. But what they kind of do is like, okay, I know that formula is an option, but I want to breastfeed. Yep. I plan to breastfeed. I know it's going to be hard, but I'm going to breastfeed, but what happens if you're in. Moment in that baby comes out. And that first day, those first few hours, you're trying to get that baby to latch. You're trying to get your milk to come out. Like there's so many different things that can slow down that process. And it's going to come to a time that baby's gonna need food. And if you don't have colostrum that you've prepared or you don't have a formula picked out now postpartum just a few hours after giving birth filled with hormones, filled with this overwhelming, like feeling you have to now. Either, just be comfortable with whatever formula the doctor decides or the nurse decides to give your baby, or you have to just sort of pick one out of thin air, or you have to just go with whatever they have at the hospital. But instead I've learned from this formula experts that I interviewed pick out a formula, whether or not you think you're going to use. But a formula that worst case scenario, if you had to use it, you feel comfortable with it. You feel comfortable with the ingredients, you feel comfortable with the price. You feel comfortable with everything and physically buy it, put it in your birth bag, take it to the hospital, but in your hospital bag, take it to the hospital and have it ready. And if you don't use it. But at least that level of stress is there. So like it's kind of these little practical things that I'm learning that I'm like, Ooh, love that. Ooh, that too. Passionistas: So have you ever thought about taking this beyond the podcast, a book or something else like that? Jessica: We have in different ways yeah, we'll have to see kind of how it develops right now. The way that I've extended it is that I have a membership. And so women, if they want more community, like I mentioned, they can sign up and they can, well, I have a free community on Facebook that anyone can just join as long as you're a mom expecting or seasoned mom. But I also have. Uh, a more in-depth community where we meet monthly on zoom and I bring in experts. So usually past podcast, guests to talk about a specific topic. So like I had one expert come in and talk about your pelvic floor and. Women who are in the group can ask questions directly to that podcast guest. And it's kind of cool for them cause they just, you know, they listened to the episode and now here's that person. Um, so that's the biggest benefit of the group. And of course I hope that that just grows and grows and grows so that more women are in there. And then we can all continue to connect and support and you know, there'll be breakout rooms and like all these fun things. But I have dabbled with the thought of some sort of a future course or something like that. Maybe not a book because I interviewed Heidi Markoff at What to Expect, and she's already got that pretty covered. But, um, I think some, some sort of reasonably priced course would be a good idea maybe along with a support group, because oftentimes I find that expecting moms. When they just get pregnant or just find out, they're kind of like, okay, what now? And they're going from all these different places and trying to sort through information. And so I would like to put all of the information that I've learned in one place. So someone can just say like, this is how you walk through this process slowly but surely. So with. I think I have to go through birth on my own first, before I feel comfortable doing that. So it'll probably be a couple of years, but in the, in the, in the brainstorming mind. But if anyone's listening or has women in your life who are expecting or new moms or aspiring moms, you can join now the free Facebook group or join our premium membership as well. I can send you those links. Passionistas: So you have an auto immune issue that's impacted your journey to motherhood. What advice would you give to somebody who may be going through kind of a similar situation? Jessica: When I mentioned earlier, I was trying to figure out where I fit in. A lot of people would say, you know, why the heck do you have a podcast about motherhood when you're not a mom? And it really was because when I got, I got this diagnosis actually right before tour, and then it just progressed and it was so bad, it was awful. And, and so the reason why I can't have kids right now is because of the medication that I'm on for that auto immune disease. And the medication has to completely be out of my body for months before I'm able to even try to conceive. You know, I'm 35. I would love to have had kids a long time ago. I've been with my husband for 13 years. Like it would be nice, but I can't. And so I kind of thought that this would be a nice opportunity to turn something that's kind of feels a little crappy and do something a little bit more positive. And so honestly, I will say that many people deal with autoimmune diseases in many different ways. And you have to do whatever is right for you at whatever stage you're in. So the things that I'm doing right now, I would recommend to do for anybody to do, but I can understand because when I was in the heat of it and my disease was at its worst. I could not picture doing anything that I'm currently doing. Um, so like my first recommendation is to completely shift your diet. And I know nobody likes to hear that, but there is a reason I, I won't try to stay on this soapbox for too long, but there's a reason why our world is so infused with. Fast food with terrible food, with all these fake things, going into our food and that correlates so directly with the reason why so many more people at such a young age are developing all these auto-immune diseases. Why do you think we have all these commercials for all these steroidal, you know, injections like Humira and that's what I was on. And in my opinion, I think that caused my arthritis. That's my personal opinion, but why do you think that's so directly related? You know, it's just this cycle and people get paid when we take these medications. So I would say if you have an ear to hear this, I would highly recommend checking out your. I went on Dr. Amy Myers autoimmune solution diet. It was basically an elimination diet. And then you add back in things over time. And by doing that, by controlling my stress, by finding something that gave me a passion like this podcast and keeping myself busy and occupied in a positive way, um, I really think completely has changed my disease. And I can proudly say that as of now, I'm on the lowest possible dosage of my both medic of both of my medications. And I'm hoping that as of next week I can drop down one of them completely. And then within the next month, the other one completely, and I was on a full dosage of these medications and I was my, my. Situation was severe, like hard, really severe. I had to buy a cane very severe. And so the fact that I'm managing. With food and with no other medication. I mean, it kind of sounds like a no brainer to me, but it's, it's hard. It's hard to hear that when, when you're struggling so much, so it would be to really take a look at your diet and it would be to get yourself something that just lights you up and makes you feel good because we need to lower the stress in our bodies for autoimmune diseases. Passionistas: What's your secret to a rewarding life? Jessica: I think it has a lot to do with. Being present and something that's kind of come over me in the past few years is sort of this definition of success. And so to circle back to my acting career, you know, because you have to have such a narrow focus. When you start out in the acting world theater world, you paint this picture of what success is going to look like. And so for so many years Broadway was it. And then I kind of started to get older and I kind of started to have freak outs with my husband and I was like, Broadway hasn't come yet. I also want to be a mom and how do I get on Broadway and be a mom? And I mean, people do it, but you go through all these things. And I remember specifically, he sat me down and he was like, well, what is success to you? And I was like, well, it's being on Broadway and that's what it was. And this could be anything for you. Like this could, if, if you're in a corporate job, this could be like getting that position or whatever. But then he said, which kind of shook my world a little bit. He was like, so just checking the national tour that you did, that wasn't success that wasn't successful? The Mary Poppins that you did, that wasn't successful? The commercial that you shot, that wasn't successful? The relationships that you've built and you've created that wasn't? Our marriage that's not successful? When you have a baby, is that successful? Is that success? And I was like, my mind kind of exploded for a second. I was like, wow, you're right. Like, there are so many other things. That success can mean. And so I think the way that I've kind of readjusted my thinking over the past five years or so, because it is hard to think, like, of course I wanted, I had that goal of Broadway, but just because I haven't gotten there yet, still have time still could doesn't mean that anything else that I do in my life isn't successful. And so I think the way that I sort of celebrate that and stay present in what I have done is by being aware and hairiest about everything. And so actually for 2021, I like to choose words at the new year. I don't necessarily like, um, resolutions. So my word for 2021 was awareness after I had read the, the greatest secret. It's really been unbelievable because every now and then I just remind myself about awareness and whether it's that I'm trying to be aware of the message that my husband is telling me, which is like, come sit on the couch with me for a second stop doing work. Or whether that's awareness of like this one thing has quote, unquote crossed my desk three times like maybe I should look into that. Or whether it's your body is feeling a little tired, a little push to the edge. Maybe you need to chill out a little bit. Like whatever awareness it is has really allowed me to stay more present and acknowledge that what I have and what I've done is really actually extraordinary. And there's more to come, but I can't discount what I've already done. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Jessica Lorion. To tune into the Mamas in Training podcast visit JessicaLorion.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.Com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get $45 of free goodies with a one-year subscription using the code WINTERGOODIES. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Please welcome Jessica Valant, creator of Momentum Fest, former Pilates studio owner, and mom of two! Jessica and Lesley dive headfirst into knowing or not knowing when something is finished, leave other things unfinished, and the inner dialogue you have with yourself. After that they talk about priorities, dealing with the overwhelm, and deciding what you actually want.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co .And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:Being reminded of your braveryBeing unwilling to waitPlanning one step at a timeGoing back to your "why"It's okay not to know if you're done or notHaving an inner dialogueYou can only have so many prioritiesBrain dumpsEpisode References/Links:Jessica Valant's websiteFollow on Jessica IGFollow Grace Hurry on IGThe Enneagram of PersonalityGuest Bio:Jessica graduated from Regis University in Denver with her Master's Degree in Physical Therapy in 2000. She received her Pilates training in2001 through Polestar Pilates and is a Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher and PMA approved continuing education provider.She has worked with thousands of clients of different backgrounds, ages, injuries and abilities, to help them reach their ultimate health goals.Jessica is recognized as a leader in the Pilates industry. She has a successful YouTube channel, membership site and blog. She has been named a top 10 finalist in the 2015 Pilates Anytime Next Instructor Contest and a Creator on the Rise by YouTube and has been featured in Pilates Style Magazine (including as a cover model in 2020), Shape, Buzzfeed, Yoga Journal and Thrillist. She teaches popular workshops and courses to other health care professionals and Pilates instructors and is considered an expert in the women's health arena.Jessica and her husband, Brian, founded Momentum Fest, a three day Pilates and movement festival, in 2017 in order to create an inclusive, loving and fun place for all people to celebrate movement together.She is married to her best friend and their days are spent in Denver wrangling two young kids, being in the sun, living their passion through work and drinking coffee.If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.ResourcesWatch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable PilatesSocial MediaInstagramFacebookTik TokLinkedInEpisode Transcript:Lesley Logan  Hello, welcome back. I'm so excited you're here. I'm, I'm so excited for you. One of the things I love about this podcast is I get to meet lots of new people that I've never talked to, and really hear their story. And then another reason is that I get to talk to some of my friends and share their stories and also hear things about them that I probably didn't know, because I would just talk to them as a friend, I wouldn't actually go, "Hey, why do you do that? Why why do you ask yourself so many questions?" And that is something I got to do here today with our guests with who is Jessica Valant. Find her at Jessica Valant Pilates, everywhere and she is. First of all, she is such a beautiful human being inside and out. I am honored to be a friend of hers truly, you get to hear how we meet, or how we met, and where our friendship has grown too and also just where she is right now and where she used to be and for my moms this one is for you. She has so much advice for you. And if you're not a mom, still listen, because if you are a busy person like me with three dogs, and you feel like, "Hey, they they demand my attention too and I have so much going on." There's still a lot to take away from this. You're going to want to take notes while you're listening. She threw out some awesome questions asked herself and her strategies at the end just I can't even wait for Brad and I to dive into this podcast and I can't wait for you to dive into this podcast. So check out the show notes to her links to check her out. Follow her you're going to want too and also learn more about who she is, why she rocks and listen to this, listen to this interview and enjoy.Lesley Logan  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan  All right. Thank you so much for being here. Today, I have Jessica Valant. Who I can't... When I met her first of all, she was wearing a Fiona, Princess Fiona dress. I'm just gonna say that right now. She she actually texted me, which is something that I I really love that she did because at the time in my life, I was less good at texting random people to be friends with even though I wanted to be friends with them. And she was like, "Hey, let's meet for a drink." We were at a conference together and let's get to know each other. And so when I met her, she was dressed up as Princess Fiona. And she acted like we've known each other forever, which with social media, may we've followed each other for a long time. And, and then we've been we just ... like slowly became friends over time. And I know as adult, it's not easy to make friends. But you are someone Jessica, who I just am so grateful to call a friend and you inspire me every day. So welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast. Can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself?Jessica Valant  Yes, and thank you for that and for that reminder, actually, because sometimes I forget that I did that. And when you tell me I'm like, "I'm so proud of myself for doing that." Because I might have missed out on really one of the most important relationships professionally and personally, you and your family and Brad. But um, I think it's important to be reminded of times we were brave, because we forget. And right now in the world, actually, I forgotten that I can be brave. So that was a nice reminder. (Lesley: Oh) Thank you.Lesley Logan  You're so welcome. I, I, you're right, I think we do forget if we remember more times we made mistakes. Then we remember like we were brave, probably many more times than that.Lesley Logan  Right? And what's the worst thing that would have happened that you said, "No, I'm sorry. I'm busy. I can't but thanks so much." Like that's the worst thing that might have happened, right? (Lesley: Right) But yeah, I'm Jessica. I have been a Pilates teacher and physical therapist for a little over 20 years and I live in Denver now. I have two kids, eight year old, three year old. I'm married. I have a couple businesses and and then I have a whole journey that has brought me here and that's me. That's what I do.Lesley Logan  Yeah, well, y'all. I can't believe your kids are eight and three because I mean, like, (Jessica: I knew you when I was pregnant with both of them. I know.) (Jessica laughs) Yeah. Like I know. And when and you also put together, y'all when I say an event, like a massive event with a newborn. Like when you DM me and said, "Hey," we were in a group DM and you're like, "Hey, y'all, I think I'm gonna do this like, festival like thing." And you had just had your son I was like, as someone who put on retreats, I was like, "Wow, you go girl," like, I don't know how you did that. But I want like, let's talk about that. And we can talk about other things in your life too. Like, what prompted you to go now is the time to make this thing happen?Lesley Logan  I, sometimes I really don't know. But um, I so he was our second, so I think that's something to keep in mind for anyone planning something I kind of, I kind of knew a little bit what we were getting into, you know, having a second one. So that helped a little bit. So I remember very distinctly, I was pregnant with him and we're talking very pregnant, like eight months pregnant, and walking the lake, beautiful day here in Denver. And my husband and I have been throwing around this idea about this possible festival for years. And we had recently just that summer moved back to Denver. So I was probably feeling a little bit, um wanting something, you know, how do I create something? We're in the city that we know, but we haven't been here for a long time. And I want to create something that's maybe for me, I was probably feeling that a little bit. But I was literally walking around the lake and it hit me, well, in our industry was also in a tough time, there was a (Lesley: Yeah) lot of infighting. And it was hard for me to see that. And like, "I don't want that we need community and so how can we do that?" And it really hit me. I'm like, "I think now's the time." And I call I called him on that walk and I said, "I think now's the time that we do it." And I don't know, we just started meeting, we literally just moved into our house, we didn't have Wi-Fi for months. So we were meeting at a local college library, he and I while our older daughter was in preschool, we would meet in the afternoon and use their Wi-Fi in the conference rooms and just talk. And that's when we decided first that we needed to have teachers. And so I reached out to you and a few people like, well, I know a few people. And as soon as you guys said yes, like, "Okay, I think we need a venue. I think we knew the name." And literally I went in the first stages of labor at the library. Like that's how we were yes. I'm like, (Lesley: Oh my God) I think the baby's coming in the next two days and he did. And so we just, I don't know, like, I still can't put my finger on why that felt like the right time. Except that I knew if we didn't, it really just hit me. If we don't do it now, we probably won't. And I think somebody else might and how am I going to feel if somebody else does it, instead. Like how would I feel? I'm like, "I think I want to do it. I think we shouldn't be the ones to try this." And that's what made us do it.Lesley Logan  Okay, there's so much to unpack there that I think people can see themselves in. So y'all. I love that you were like, "We don't have Wi-Fi." So instead of going, "Well, I'll wait till we have our internet here." You're like, which, by the way waiting for the internet people to come. It's like, "Okay, we'll be there in three weeks between 9am and 12pm." And it's like, right. And so you're like, we're just you you took messy action, you we... you did what you could and then you, I love that you went with the teachers first because I think like that was I got to be one of them. And as we were so excited, I'm sure that that really helped. It's like instead of going, planning this whole thing and then going, "Okay, well anybody want to teach at it," you're like, "Well, let me just see if I can get people to do this." And so, I love that it's it's, you did it one step at a time. And I also love the question. If you, how would you feel if someone else did it? I do like that question because sometimes I asked myself like, "Well, what's the worst case? What's the worst thing that can happen?" (Jessica: Yup) But I love that second question. If like, "How would I feel, if someone did it before me?" Oh, that's so good. So this I want to talk about it, y'all. This is her events called Momentum Fest and it's actually not just for Pilates teachers. It's for like, anybody who loves movement, and it's also not even just Pilates. So, um, so you you truly went and did something so unique that's not really been done before. Like, I don't I don't think it's ever done before. Now that it's in its fourth year, fifth year, (Jessica: fourth) fourth year. How do you and maybe you haven't even talked about this yet or thought about but like, how do you figure out like, what's the next thing, right? Because sometimes I think the first one is the easier one ...Lesley Logan  Right, exactly and I agree. No expectations. First one was really just proof of concept. Like each teacher that texted me, "Yes," I was shocked. Like, Brian, that's my husband, like, "Brian, they said yes." Like, "They're gonna come." I mean, and Grace Hurry is someone who I hadn't even known professionally at all just through social media. And I'm like, "She's a great teacher. I'll just reach out." I'm like, "Brian, she's coming from the UK." I mean, so that's first off for people wanting to do something hard. Don't assume people will say, "No", they might, but people might shock you. (Lesley: Yeah) I mean, they're, it's it's truly amazing. So when you all said, "Yes." We knew there was a possibility so you're exactly right. First year was just proof of concepts. You know, we knew, we didn't want to take loans. Yes, some specific things in mind, boundaries for ourselves. I mean, this was just me and my husband. So we weren't going to put our family in financial stress. We had to figure it around our other businesses. So we really had boundaries and numbers in mind, how many people do we need to hit, you know, at least to break even? And exactly the next thing was just oh, this was proof of concept cool. The second year, could we possibly either make some money, grow the business and bring in more exhibitors like I really wanted to be able to promote other teachers, I think we doubled the amount of teachers the next year for exposure for more teachers. And then we did have some grand plans in mind to keep growing and then 2020 hit and our entire event was canceled. And so I think that's one lesson that yes, we had big plans in mind on what might be next and then everything changed. And so now we're changing goals, changing boundaries, changing all of it. And it really is sitting and thinking, "Okay, is this the goals we set? Are they still realistic?" The vision we had just even the goal as a business, does that still make sense or not in the current world, because we have different things we maybe want to promote now and Pilates has changed, the industry has changed. So it's definitely a day to day right now, which is a struggle for me. I'm a planner, like, "I want to plan things, I want to know, I work so well within that." (Lesley: Yeah.) And so to try to plan something in a new unplannable world is not easy for me whatsoever. But I think if you just go back to your why, and that was it was kind of that question again with this year? Do we keep it or do we not? And it was, "How would I feel if we didn't," and I just knew I wouldn't feel right. Like that is really what it comes came down to is, I will not feel right in my soul if we don't have an event this year, because I feel like people need it. I need it. We need a full circle moment. And sort of it was it just came down to them.Lesley Logan  Yeah, that makes me think of I could be wrong. But I swear I was on a run years ago, and I heard Brené Brown on a podcast talking about how she hates the bumper sticker. Like, "What would you do if you didn't think you could fail?" (Jessica: Oh yeah) she sle... and she said like, "What would you do even if you could like, even if you did?" (Jessica: Yeah) and I feel like with you, you're like, you've just it keeps going back to like, "I ju... I'm not done yet." (Jessica: Yeah) Like, "This isn't done yet."Jessica Valant  That's exactly what it is. I just am like, "We're not done yet." And we might be and at some point with anything in life, like when I sold my studios, that was a hard place to get to. Also I didn't know I was done yet until it got to a point. I'm like, "One past done. Oops, (Lesley: Yeah) I missed the turn off like ... past done." And I just kind of woke up and knew that, but I think sometimes we don't and it's okay not to know if you're done or not. I just listened to a podcast the other day and actually, it might have been Brené Brown ... (Lesley: She's so good) I know ...Lesley Logan  We can probably just give it to her and even if she's not, she'll just actually tell us who it wasn't her. Because I heard her on a podcast, people kept saying that this quote was from her. And she's like, "Actually, this is Sonya Renee Taylor." And I was like, "She's amazing." (Jessica: Yeah) So, we attributed to her, she'll let us know. (Lesley laughs)Lesley Logan  But it was, it's okay to leave things unfinished. And again, for my planning personality, like, "No, it's not, (Jessica laughs) I can't leave it anything unfinished." But I thought about that a lot. That I think that's some grace, we need to give ourselves that it is okay. And I don't feel that with the event at all like, I love where we are right now. But just other things in life that's a good lesson for me to realize, you know what it is okay? If you suddenly realize a project you're doing, a new business relationship you're in if you suddenly realize, "Gosh, this really isn't right for me." I don't think we have to feel like we have to finish it out for the next year. I mean, you can pivot you you're allowed to change your mind. You're allowed to do that.Lesley Logan  I I love this because I think like you say, as a planner, I think a lot of people don't want to leave things unfinished, because there's like, well, then it's not perfect. Like, "I didn't do it 'right'", in air quotes, you know, and you know, we... let's I want to talk about your your studios, because I think that a lot of people can resonate, like with ending something. For me, you know, I really struggled, going... before 2020 started, I was struggling with like, "I have the studio, I teach all these people, I love them so much." But I really, really and being called to OPC, I'm really called to expand this and 10x and bring in more people and with a focus of just connecting and community and not a not and that's also probably why we're really good friends, it's the same thing with Momentum Fest. It's like, how do we get people who aren't teachers to also connect and have community and not be perfect and not be like is this exercise, right? And I struggled because I'm like, well, I couldn't see how I ended the studio. (Jessica: Yeah) I couldn't see that and when and when and so I just kept going, "Gosh, I wish I had time, wish I had time." And so when COVID hit, I was like, "So next time we wish were more specific." We're like, ... "I wish I had time and a plan." (Lesley laughs)Jessica Valant  And maybe that coffee shops were still open, maybe ...Lesley Logan  Yeah, and maybe, and maybe that my husband and I are in a one, like a studio apartment working from home together. But, um, I, I, because of COVID I left, you know, that whole studio unfin... like the exit was very unfinished. And it was, it was not how I first saw it happening. And what was a blessing was I had the excuse, like, "Well, the pandemic kind of made me do it." And what I realized is, "Actually, like, I don't need that excuse," like that might work as like, on the surface, might sound really good to other people, and they can understand that. But I also if there wasn't one, I don't think I need that." Lesley Logan  And so, you know, when you had, so you had two studios in Hawaii, so before Denver before you lived in Hawaii. You know, when you started those, what was the vision? And then how did you know when you were like beyond the exit?Lesley Logan  Um, I think it was just talking to someone about this yesterday, I think one thing is, in our industry, at least, the pinnacle is, or at least was back 10 years ago, to own your own studios. I mean, that was in Pilates, especially in physical therapy the same, you own your own clinic and studios, and then you've reached it. And that's all I'm like, "That's it. I'm here, we have two, we have a staff of 19. This is amazing." And so we ended up leaving Hawaii, which I never thought we'd do either, like one of my biggest lessons in life now is, "Never say never." Because you you just I never thought I'd own my own business like I never wanted to, you just never know. So we left Hawaii and so I was managing them from afar. And I just was feeling that anxiety every day. I mean, I was looking at the schedule and counting every highlighting are we making our numbers, we're doing this, it had become very anxiety riddle to me instead of the part I love, which is the community and all of that. And I remember the moment, but I still never thought I would sell whatsoever. But the moment for me, like there was a very clear moment. My husband was out of town so I was with our one year old daughter on my own. And she was at my feet wanting to be held and she was crying to be held but I had to put her down because I got a call from Hawaii from one of my instructors who was locked out of the class and she had a full class in the hall trying to get into she was locked out because the key was inside, the previous instructor had locked the key in the door. So they needed me. I mean, both needed me they needed me desperately, and there was nothing I could do. And my daughter was crying, my feet needed me desperately. And it just hit me, I can't do both well, I just can't, some people can but I can't. And and that was what kind of did it was I think I need to let something though. And I knew myself and one of my top priorities was I didn't want to let her go. Like I (Lesley: Yeah) thought I'd be a mom who did full time childcare, I always thought that and then she came and I'm like, "No, I want to be home." I want to at least have the option to be home. And so that was whenever I feel like I'm not doing well enough or I need to make a decision, I kind of have that touchstone I come back to because that for me is what it is, is can I give the kids the time they need and I couldn't give her the time she needed. And I was going crazy. And so that meant it was time to let someone else do something really good with the studios because they were suffering. Everybody was suffering because I couldn't let something go. So, man, once I did and handed that key over, I never looked back.Lesley Logan  Wow! So what what keeps coming up is like you ask yourself really good questions. Do you do this in a journal? Do you do this, um like it just out loud on like, you wanna walk around like, where does this question? Are you just someone who asked good questions.Jessica Valant  So, have you done any studying of the enneagram at all?Lesley Logan  I get a little bit and I need to figure out what I am because I hear too much about it.Lesley Logan  So I decided when COVID when all of this started, and I was in the anxiety place and like, "I have to get myself out of it because I need to serve people better." So, and I've been in therapy a long time ago that served me really well. And I'm like, "This, I need to learn more about myself." And like ... enneagram stuff's interesting to me anyway, so I dove into it. And I'm almost positive. I'm a six. And one of the biggest things about the six is we have a constant internal dialogue. And I could never put my finger on what that was called. I just assumed everybody does. But literally they describe it as the board meeting going on in your head at all times. So I kind of do have that like, I'm the CEO and then I have another voice who's doing another voice. And it's constantly talking which can be very hmm sometimes but also it does. It helps me lay things out and ask myself, "Why I'm doing something? What my motivation is? What are my goals?" and I think the therapy I went through 20 years ago helped with that too. I just I don't want to go back to that place I was. So for me, it's important to talk it out. So I usually do just talk it out in my head, I'll go on a long walk and think it through, really figure out why I'm trying to make a decision or not make a decision. I don't always do that well, but ...Lesley Logan  That's a good question, "Why am I not trying to make a decision?" I feel like a lot of people can put that on their like, questions list. If you're not a six, and you need, (Jessica: Yeah) you need ... need a list and there's about four good ones in here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take it, so by the time Brad, and I do the recap, I can say, cuz maybe that's what's going on. Because I totally feel like I have got a whole conversation happening then I got to talk to Brad. He's like, "I don't even know where ... like, where are we starting in this conversation?" (Lesley laughs)Jessica Valant  Brian says that, too! He's like, "Are you really talking to yourself?" Like, constantly in my head.Lesley Logan  Yes. Yeah. And so when I actually asked you a question out loud, I just assumed you were with me on that whole dialogue that I just had (Lesley laughs)Jessica Valant  Exactly, like, "Didn't you hear all of that? I've already made the decision for us, because I've been thinking about it for a week." (Lesley: Yeah) Like, do you not know? (Jessica laughs)Lesley Logan  Yeah, yeah, I definitely thought it was more my aquarian, but maybe it's, maybe it's my enneagram (Jessica: Right) number. So I'll have to, have to dive into that. So okay. Um, now you've two kids. And you, being in Denver, you now work from home, you have an online Pilates platform, you have this festival. What, when you work when you work, when you work for yourself and you're like, at home and you've got kids. I feel like it could, I feel like as an outsider looking in, I wonder, how do you structure a day, because, you know, if there's a child who's like, under five, they're not in school, they're like asking you for things while you might be wanting to like, do the thing for yourself. So for the moms listen to this, like, how are you structuring a day?Jessica Valant  I, and right now, it's like all bets are off since March of 2020 because then the kids were suddenly home. So I will be honest, that it is. It's just I'm hoping in the fall to have more structure because I do not have enough at all. So I think if you don't have structure, whether it's kids or pets, or you know, you're taking care of elderly parents, whatever it is, it is okay if you don't have structure, because sometimes we just can't. So for me, like when the structure itself went out the window, again, I had to kind of go back to what are my main goals because like you, I have an online community, I really want to make sure I'm serving them. So I realized, okay, if I need to not be getting new clients, right now, in order to use my small amount of time to take care of my current community, that will be my goal. So I kind of made sure I knew my top top things, you know, that needed to be done, so that I wasn't spinning my wheels all over the place. That helped me a little bit. And then for the days, I try, so if you do have, our kids are both in school, like two days a week. So those are the days I do zoom calls, I do my filming the things that I absolutely cannot be interrupted, I will block and batch on those days if I can, as much as I can. And then when I have them, I try really hard not to do both. But it's not because they don't I think kids should see you're working. I mean, my kids absolutely know what I do. They're a part of it. Everyone who's a part of my life knows their at Momentum Fest in my videos half the time, like they know what mom does, and that I love it. But I don't do a good enough job at either if I'm trying to watch them and do social media on my phone, like it just doesn't work. I'm not serving anybody. So that's one boundary I try hard to have in place, if I'm with them. If it's mom time, like when school is over, or whatever, then that's what it is. And then they know if it's work time, okay, it's work time, either my husband's home, or a lot of times, it's just after they go to bed at night. And when I'm up till midnight a lot. I don't love it, but it is what it is right now. So that's the that's the few ways I try to structure. It's not always perfect.Lesley Logan  Well, thank you for the honesty. And I think that that's important and it's true, like right now and tell kids are back in school, the normal amount of hours that they used to be, it's just really hard. But also, you know, you went back to what your top priorities are. And I think that there's a blessing and then this disguise of unplanned and not enough boundaries, it's that you can only have so many priorities. And so you're only able to do those, you're not actually able to get distracted by other things, which is probab... it's actually a good thing because I think too many people are like, "Oh, I'm going to do this social media thing over here. And I'm also going to plan this thing over here" and you're like, "No, I'm actually going to be doing these things right now and that's it (Jessica: Yeah) and I'll be okay with that." (Jessica: Yeah)Jessica Valant  And I think it's okay to drop like I do grocery order only. And I refuse to feel bad about it because that's something I had to drop. Like, I don't feel like schlepping the kids. If I have that either. One if the kids aren't here I have, I'm working and that's it. I'm not cleaning the house. I'm not ordering groceries, like, I have to use the time for work. And if I do have them, I don't really like to go to the grocery store at all. So I think unloading the things that you can unload is really good. And then what I try to do is always, like my little shame voices will come out at night, like after the kids go to sleep. It's "Oh, I didn't do enough today. I snapped at them, then I wasn't a good enough, this, I wasn't good enough that" and so I try to remember that and just do, like, whatever during the day is going to help me at night feel like, "You know what I did my best to serve people today." That helps me and I have found it's when I can kind of separate them and just not do them at the same time. I'm either in mom mode, or I'm in work mode. And if I didn't get something done, it's okay - but I, at least, was present for those people in those moments.Lesley Logan  So you, we had another guest here on the podcast, her name is Amy Ledin, she's a friend of mine, I got to introduce you two actually, you... she has five kids. So and she runs an online business and she actually talked about how at night those voices are the ones that are like, telling you like, "You're didn't do this right, you didn't this right, you didn't do this right." And that's actually how she has this thing called DAC, how she actually plans her next day. Her goals for the day are to like if she's like, "Oh, I wasn't present enough as a mom today." (Jessica: Yeah) She's like, "Okay, so intentionally, like, I'm gonna spend 15 minutes with each kid just doing whatever they want to do," right? And so she uses those, like shaming voices to actually, like, dictate how she's going to show up the next day. Because they're just the things that we wish we'd already been doing we hadn't, we promised ourselves we would have done.Jessica Valant  Yeah, exactly. And I think the other thing, I think that's perfect. And the other thing that helps me, and maybe it's because of that constant voice in my head, I will also start to be over..., it just happened this morning, overwhelmed with what I think or how many things I have to do, like, "Oh my gosh, there's so many." So I will just sit down immediately, or the next chance I have and I write them all out like, so here it is, I write them all out and get a brain dump from Marie Forleo calls it a "brain dump," and I dump them all out of my brain and then I can move on. It's amazing to just get them down on paper, be like, "Okay, now I can prioritize them." Or if I do, you know, the kids are happily playing for 20 minutes, I'll look at my list, "I'm like, great, I can get that done, I can check that off, I can check that off." And that helps me a lot.Lesley Logan  So I'm my my therapist, who is also a somatic leadership coach. So it's kind of nice, because sometimes it's actual therapy. And sometimes it's like helping me as a leader, I'm like, "Thank ... I'm glad you're both because I don't have time for more appointments." (Jessica laughs) But she talks about when you're overwhelmed, she's like, she has me write down when I'm overwhelmed all the things just like you do. And then she's like circle, the ones that are actually like a mental overwhelm. Because then we can talk about that separate because a lot of a lot of us have a pattern that like when something is happening, good or bad. We have a pattern in our brain that we go and do that we go through this like overwhelm rehearsal like a loop. And she's like, "If it's serving you, then there's that's something different. But if it's not serving you, then it's like, we have to redefine that pattern." We have to like I said, the new pathway in your brain.Jessica Valant  Yeah, know for sure. And I think for me, the pathway is I'm not doing enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not doing enough versus you're right. I could probably redefine it as maybe a lesson like, "Oh, I've overextended myself, okay, I'll learn from it." Or sometimes I write it down like, "That's not really that long, Jesscia," like ... (Jessica laughs) "You could get that done in an afternoon if you just buckled down."Lesley Logan  Yeah, I do the same thing too. I put some things off and I let them like, like, linger in my head is like something I have to do. It's I don't know why I do it to myself. But it's like, it's a pattern. And then I sit down and do it. If it's an interrupted, like, I can write a newsletter in 15 minutes. Like, this is not hard. Why did I say like, "Oh, I have to do that. I don't have enough time for this." It's like no, if you just turn your phone over and (Jessica: Yeah ...) Yeah, (Jessica: ... exactly.) So, what are you excited about right now? Like, what are you looking forward towards? Or what do you what's on your brain of like, because you're such a creator. What are you working on?Lesley Logan  I'm excited for summer, to be honest, like be in Denver. I'm really excited for summer for a little bit of hope. Like, that's what I feel right now is a little weight off my shoulders, which feels really good and then really Momentum Fest. I mean, we're on like the five week countdown. (Lesley: Aahhh) So, ... like seeing everyone's excitement and realizing that I can that I can be a part of that, you know, instead of being the creator of it, I'm like, "I just want to be a part of it." I mean, I think that's where Momentum Fest comes from is, I it was what I always wanted as a teacher and as a student. So I just love being a part of it like I, I just love being able to lift people up and bring people together. And so yeah, being a part of it and having people excited now that it's coming, that's what I'm really excited about, to give some hugs actually ...Lesley Logan  100%. And I think, you know, during during the pandemic, there was a window, where my friend got to have a very small outdoor wedding. And we were, I mean, Brad and I work from home, were essentially quarantining all the time. But we like we're very intentional for two weeks, like even my brother came to walk the dogs, we're in our office, because he goes out into the world and so we could go to this wedding. You know, everyone was wearing masks outside anyways, but we wanted to make sure that everyone could feel safe. No one wanted to be the wedding that caused an outbreak. And I didn't know how much I needed something to look forward to until I got there. And I did not cry at weddings, I was in like, tears at this woman's wedding. And what I when I think about Momentum Fest this year, is that like, it is something that so many people needed to look forward to like, it's almost like, like a lighthouse. You know, like we're all on the ship, we've been at sea for a long time and there's this lighthouse of hope, and of what can be after all of this. And so, I mean, I have so much like love and adoration for you because it's not easy to... you don't have all the answers. And you are one of very few people are like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this" during a time where there's a lot of unknowns and that's a lot. And I'm glad to hear that you are taking the time to enjoy the excitement around it to.Jessica Valant  I think I'm just there ... (Lesley laughs) because you're right, it's been a lot of, "I don't know, I don't know," but really seeing everybody's support and excitement. Like, "Wow!" it's really, it's really good. And yeah, if I get some hugs out of it, I'll tell you what, (Lesley: Yeah) that'll make my year.Lesley Logan  Oh, Brad and I will be the first. We're gettin' there early. Okay, Jessica, now that everyone's in love with you. And I'm sure so many women with children or lots of dogs like me are like, "Oh, thank goodness, I'm not the only one." Where can they find you, follow you? Where can they connect with you?Lesley Logan  I am @jessicavalantpilates everywhere. So, YouTube is a great place to go. If you want to find free workouts. I do a lot with women's health. So, anyone prenatal, postpartum prolapse, hysterectomy, you'll find a lot of resources if you need it. And then I have a website with a lot of resources and Instagram is always a great place, DM me, email me. I'm all over the place.Lesley Logan  Yeah, we didn't even get into all of the women's health stuff. We'll have to have you back because I think, you know, one of the things I want to get into with this podcast is like, "How our health can really keep us from be it till we see it." So well, we'll have to dive into that um more with you for sure. Okay, so I always ask everyone this question, because it's so nice to be inspired. It's so ni... I mean, you also gave some awesome questions and strategies already, but just in case someone is like skip to the end. And they're like, "Tell me how to Be It Till I See It?" What, what are some strategies that they can do right now that that you would think of for be it till they see it?Jessica Valant  I think one is to just decide what you actually want and you don't have to put definitions on it or anything like that. And it can be so out there, I mean, don't limit yourself. But don't like don't see someone on Instagram that you think is awesome. And be like, "I want to do that" without asking yourself, "Oh, do I actually like fashion?" Like I actually that happens to me, I see fashion bloggers and I'm like, "That looks so awesome. I want to be with her." Well, I don't even know anything. I don't like fashion. What would I want to do that. So first is ask yourself truly and be honest and own it and be excited about it. Like what lights a fire under you? What is your dream about what you love, and stay in that lane for now and don't limit your dreams on that. But don't try to be somebody you're not just because you think you should definitely decide what you want ... For me, it's getting out there. Like one, this is so funny when I was thinking about this podcast this week. Zillow and owning a house is one example I have, so we bought the house we're in a year ago actually in the middle of all of this craziness. But for a year prior maybe two years prior, I had really wanted a house for our family like a house. We were in a walk up with a rooftop and stuff but no yard. I'm like, "I want a house. I want a house" and I just didn't see how it whatever happened in our neighborhood and everything going on. But I would lurk Zillow, and I'm like, "I'm just gonna get on here and I'm gonna look at houses and save them." And I knew that just by learning like about houses and what house was going on the market fast and what wasn't like that information is going to help me I don't know how, I have no idea how, I don't know how we're gonna buy a house here. I don't know how that's gonna work. I don't know how this is gonna help me but it is. And then truly when we came to look at this house, all of that helped because the house didn't show great, but we knew it was a great buy in this neighborhood that it was rare to find. And it's been a dream house for us and our family. And so that's one thing is like, even if you don't know how something's going to happen, if you know what you want, and you know what your passions are, just start either following things on social media or getting on Zillow, or doing Pinterest boards about your dream office space, or finding YouTube fitness folks that you love and just follow it and see how they do things that you like, or don't just be open to getting information because it will serve you when the opportunity comes like prepare yourself so that you're ready when the opportunity comes because it will you just don't know how or when.Lesley Logan  Oh, I have chills and I I can't wait to dive into this conversation with Brad because he's gonna have so much to say about that because we have a very similar story like the "How" is for us we moved a year ago as well. The "How" is and like couldn't figure out the "How" but so, y'all, I really hope you take those two tips and use them and what I'd love for you to do is screenshot this podcast, write your takeaway tag @jessicavalantpilates, tag the @be_it_pod. Let us know so we can cheer for you, root you on and until next time, Be It Till You See It.Lesley Logan  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!Lesley Logan  'Be It Till You See It' is a production of 'As The Crows Fly Media'.Brad Crowell  It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan  Kevin and Bel at Disenyo handle all of our audio editing and some social media content.Brad Crowell  Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan  Special thanks to our designer Jaira Mandal for creating all of our visuals (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week so you can.Brad Crowell  And the Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jessica DeFino is a freelance beauty journalist living in Los Angeles, California. For the past seven years Jessica has been writing, researching, editing, and publishing about the beauty and wellness industry. Her work has appeared in Vogue, The Cut, Fashionista.com, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Business Insider, SELF, HelloGiggles, Harper's Bazaar, and more.Before starting her career as a freelance journalist, Jessica worked as a beauty writer for The Zoe Report. She was Director of Communications at Fame and Partners, and worked as a ghostwriter for Khloé Kardashian and Kendall Jenner.Jessica earned her bachelor's degree in Music/Business Songwriting from the Berklee College of Music. Jessica's music degree brings a unique perspective to her writing. It infuses each piece with lyrical qualities of storytelling, flow, and connection to her audience.Jessica also publishes a bi-monthly beauty newsletter called The Unpublishable, where she shares “What the beauty industry won't tell you — from a reporter on a mission to reform it.”In this episode, you'll learn about: Making lasting connections with your audience Why understanding music and rhythm makes your writing better Capturing and keeping your readers' attention right from the outset The dangers of cross-posting your content across social media Links & Resources Vogue Magazine Allure Harper's Bazaar Ursula K. Le Guin RhymeZone Ali Abdaal Jessica DeFino's Links Follow Jessica on Twitter The Unpublishable Jessica's Instagram Episode Transcript[00:00:00] Jessica:I started writing as a songwriter. The musicality of something is very important to me. So I'll read my own stuff out loud sometimes. I feel when people can read something and there's a clear flow and rhythm to it, and the words melt into each other sound nice next to each other, it locks them into the content early on. You want to keep reading because if you stop reading it's like you're breaking this rhythm that you've started.[00:00:34] Nathan:In this episode I talk to Jessica DeFino. She's a journalist covering the beauty industry, but she tends to take an approach that's not as popular with sponsors and publishers, because she's anti a lot of their products and a lot of the nonsense that is put into the products and the marketing behind it.She's taking a critical angle and she's well loved by her readers because of it, but maybe not so loved by the big brands. We talk about how that came about. We talk about her writing style, her approach of using her background in song writing and going to school for songwriting to have a better, more interesting writing style.She gives some tips along that angle, talking about how she launched a newsletter last year and growing that to 9,000 subscribers. How that is a backbone for the rest of her work she does in journalism.It's a great conversation. So, let's dive in.Jessica, welcome to the show.[00:01:28] Jessica:Thank you so much for having me.[00:01:29] Nathan:We'll jump around a whole bunch, but I want to start on the launching of your newsletter. What was the moment when you started to think, okay, I want to actually run a newsletter and start to control my own audience?[00:01:44] Jessica:I had been toying with the idea for a while, and then I think it was, April, 2020, right after the pandemic, where I had gotten into a situation where—I'm a freelance reporter—I had four freelance stories out when March happened, and Coronavirus lockdowns happened and everything was up in the air.The company severed ties with all of their freelancers and basically gave these four unpublished stories back to me, and gave me a kill fee. So it was like I had reported out these whole stories. I had spent months on them, and now I had nowhere to put them, and I gave it about a month of pitching it out to other alums.There weren't any takers because media was in such a precarious position at the time. Finally I was like, maybe this is the opportunity I've been waiting for to launch a newsletter. and I decided to call it The Unpublishable because I couldn't get anyone to publish this. And yeah, it's been going, almost like every other week.[00:02:50] Nathan:Nice. Yeah. It's interesting how these unfortunate moments result in something that's like, okay, this is actually either a good thing now, or hopefully going to be a good thing soon, but it starts with difficult times.[00:03:05] Jessica:Yeah, exactly. I wanted these pieces to be big. They were stories that I thought were important to tell, and I really wanted them to be in a major outlet. Sometimes with media, you can't sit on things for very long. It was like, I maybe have two more weeks before they stopped becoming relevant.[00:03:23] Nathan:Yeah. So for context, for anyone listening, what were some of those stories as an example?[00:03:27] Jessica:The first story I published with a piece called “Where are All the Brown Hands?” It was a look into the overwhelming whiteness of the top nailcare companies in beauty. If you would look at their Instagrams or if you would look at their websites, everything was modeled on white hands.As a beauty reporter, when I have to source images for the stories, I don't want to just be showing white hands. If I'm writing about nail trends or whatever, and it would take me hours every week to comb through places and try to find the trend I was speaking to on a person of color. At one point, I was like, why is this happening and how come it's so hard?This should not be hard. So, I wanted to do an investigation into it, and just like that the whole process had already taken six months. I was like, you don't know what's going to happen in this story. It might be scooped. It might be written by somebody else. It might be irrelevant in another month or so.So, I really wanted to get that out there, and that started it.[00:04:31] Nathan:When you publish a story like that, and you're used to publishing for a major beauty publication, but you're publishing it for yourself. What did that look like? What was the process of saying, I have this story that I've worked on for a long time, and I have a brand new newsletter and all at once.How did you bring that to life and pull the audience together?[00:04:52] Jessica:Well, luckily at that point I had a mask, a little bit of a social media following just from my work on work, like major publications. Like I had been writing for Vogue and allure. Harper's bizarre. And I had been pretty diligent about building up a social media audience. So I had a pretty sizable, amount of readers just from Instagram.And a couple of years prior, I had like tried starting my own beauty content platform, but I never really had the time to dedicate to it. But I had a small email list from that, from when I was still doing it. So I kind of like funneled all of that together under this new umbrella of this is going to be like my personal reporting newsletter and I kind of got the word out on Instagram.So it ended up reaching like a surprisingly large audience for something that was like a first-time newsletter.[00:05:44] Nathan:Yeah. So if you don't mind sharing how many subscribers were like to that first article?[00:05:49] Jessica:I think that first article probably went out to like 1500 subscribers[00:05:53] Nathan:Okay. Yeah, but that's you're right. That, that is a surprisingly of like, here's the first thing that we're doing.And I guess it goes to show from right. Spending a whole career being known and, and building it in this space. And then, you know, you're not starting from scratch when you funnel entity.[00:06:10] Jessica:Yeah, it, it had always been important to me to, not as important, but it was something I thought about to collect email addresses and to get social media followers, because my goal had always been to write a book. And I know that when publishers are looking at whether to buy a book from you, it matters what kind of audience you have and how many people you have on an email list.So even though I wasn't sending things out prior to finally launching the newsletter, Collecting emails here and there. Just, just to have for the, for the book pitch one day.[00:06:42] Nathan:Yes. That's something that I've always heard is, you know, from agents and friends who are authors and all of that, as they talked about the, the email as being the thing that the publisher is looking for, they're like, Yeah, that sounds good. First question.[00:06:57] Jessica:Yeah.[00:06:57] Nathan:I mean, they use it as a proxy for how many copies can you sell?[00:07:01] Jessica:Exactly. Yeah. When I was pitching out my book, it was all about, Instagram. I, this was probably like two years ago now. and I couldn't get an agent to talk to me until I had 10,000 Instagram followers. So that's like, all I cared about for maybe a year, I was like, I don't care. I'm not going to put effort into anything else.I just need these Instagram followers.[00:07:23] Nathan:Yeah. So you have 35,000 followers on Instagram now. what were the things that worked for you as far as growing that, that audience on it?[00:07:32] Jessica:Honestly, in the beginning, when I was like, I need to get to 10,000 followers, I was a little scammy about it. I did a lot of the like follow unfollow. So I followed a ton of people who were following accounts that were similar to mine.And kind of, and what you do with that is like, they see that you followed them, they check out your page.Hopefully they follow you back. If they don't follow you back, you can like unfollow that person to keep your ratio looking good.[00:08:00] Nathan:So is that like going through and following like 50 people a day kind of thing or hundreds[00:08:05] Jessica:Yeah. I mean probably 50 to 200 people. Like I would spend probably an hour or two hours a day just doing. Stupid stuff like that, but I didn't really care about, but I was like, I'll do anything to get a book deal. If it's following 200 people a day, that doesn't bother me. And if at the end of the day, they're looking at my profile and saying, Hey, this is somebody whose content I care about.I'm going to follow them. It doesn't feel like bad or wrong to me. So I just did a lot of that[00:08:34] Nathan:Yeah, it's a very small way, like small and non-intrusive way to be like, Hey. Do you want to pay? Like, you're just sort of raising your hand and people either go like no, or they go, oh yeah, I'll look at that for a second.What's interesting is I think that a lot of creators started in that way, but probably now when they tell their story, they're like, yeah. You know, I just, I just put out good content and then the content itself. And before you know it, I was, you know, internet famous, you know,[00:09:01] Jessica:I think that worked, it worked like 10 years ago, maybe even five years ago, but right now there's just so much content out there on every platform. And I don't think it's fair to say that if you have great content, you will be successful on that alone. Like, I think you need more than that today.[00:09:18] Nathan:Yeah. So, so the following, people in the space, which we'd recommend, you know, regardless, what are some of the other things, on that quest to 10, that will.[00:09:27] Jessica:Yeah, I was falling up a storm.I was liking a ton of stuff cause that's kind of the same strategy. Like sometimes Instagram too will phrase your account. If you like too many things or you. follow too many people. So I was getting into that. I did a ton of hashtagging at the time. luckily the, the area that I write to to beauty has like a very big and dedicated community on Instagram.So there are a ton of like beauty community hashtags out there that I was following and getting involved in and commenting and just really making my presence known in this community while at the same time posting my own content. That I thought had a very different point of view that would be intriguing to people.So once they saw that I was engaged, they were like, who is this person? And there was, you know, a lot of content there for them to, to delve into.[00:10:18] Nathan:Yeah, that's good. In the last, episode of this show, I had a YouTuber on his name's Ali doll and he's got, you know, he's built up to 2 million subscribers on YouTube, but he talked about that like back catalog that you have of when someone comes across your work for the first time, like seeing the back catalog and seeing it have a unique point of view.And I feel like. That would be the experience, you know, when you pop up in some little way. Okay. Another, you know, beauty, Instagram account, and then you come in like, oh, this is actually different. Has a unique point of view. So, I'd love for you to share. I don't know what the, the short version of like the different perspective that you're bringing to the beauty industry and what someone would notice when they come to your Instagram or your, newsletter.And they're like, this is different. This is a, you know,[00:11:08] Jessica:Yeah.[00:11:09] Nathan:Challenging.[00:11:10] Jessica:I think the easiest way to put it that most beauty content out there is very fluffy. and very positive and very product heavy. and my stance is very beauty industry critical. and I, I say that I'm pro skin anti product. So I'm much more interested in how beauty applies to like your actual skin and your actual body and like the human itself, rather than this external product, you can apply some very focused on the science of how human beings work rather than the science of like a skincare and.[00:11:44] Nathan:Right. Okay. Is there an example that comes to mind of something where you're like, do this? Not that.[00:11:50] Jessica:Yeah. I mean, probably the biggest example is just, I mostly tell people to stop using skincare, you know, period. End of story. Just, you don't have to, our skin does all of that for us. You know, humans have survived millennia without pre bottled products, and there's no reason why. In the past 30 years, our skin has suddenly evolved to need a 10 step routine.It doesn't so, yeah, I just tell people, stop using it. And they're shocked at the results all the time.[00:12:20] Nathan:I like that. I could see a conflict in. Message and business model in the industry. and your interaction in this. there's a lot of money in the industry of obviously selling, I mean, any product, but especially a product that you need to buy every month or every three months or something like that.Like that's a very good business. So have you had any, any conflict of publications not wanting to pick up your stories or any of those things as the publication is. You tell your people to not buy our sponsor's products, you know, or something like that.[00:12:55] Jessica:Oh yeah. I mean, there's been a ton of pushback and depending on what platform I'm writing for, I. See my work being edited in a certain way or softened in a certain way or a brand name being taken out. I've had articles be published and then the platform takes them down almost immediately because an advertiser has complained.I've had legal action threatened against me while I'm reporting for a story just for asking questions. yeah. Yeah. It's that kind of stuff happens all the time because in beauty journalism, there is a huge. Conflict between what you're supposed to be writing about and who's footing the bill for that content, which is products and advertisers.And I think in the beauty industry in particular, there's this extreme lack of objectivity where, you know, editors and journalists and influencers are all gifted product or taken on press trips. And. And given money to review products in a way that in any other industry, you wouldn't be able to call that journalism.You know, there's always gotta be some sort of separation there. Like a typical journalist is not allowed to accept gifts in the beauty industry. It's the complete opposite. It's like, well, how can you write about our product if we don't gift it to you? So it's, it's a very weird space that is very reliant on gifts and money and advertising.[00:14:18] Nathan:So how has that changed as well as you've launched your own newsletter? I imagine you're still doing plenty of freelance writing. Is that.[00:14:27] Jessica:Yeah. Yeah. I'm still, my, my thing is, is I try if I have a story I want to tell, I obviously want to tell it to the biggest platform possible. And then if I can't get the story placed somewhere else, I will, I will tackle it for the news.[00:14:43] Nathan:Okay. So yeah. How has like, has the news that are helped? Like, for example, you're trying to get us started placed and they're like, sure, we'll place it. But could we do this version of it instead? And, and you know, maybe you're saying that like, no that's okay. Whereas before the paycheck might've mattered more or how's That. relationship?[00:15:01] Jessica:Yeah, that's pretty much spot on. I, I didn't really push back too much before, but now that I have. platform that like actually brings in, okay. Money for me. It's not like if I say no, I don't want that story published this way. It's really not like I'm losing out on a paycheck anymore because I will make that up from my own subscribers.So, I think since I've launched the newsletter, there have been two instances of that where I've written a story for a platform have been uncomfortable with the edits and actually. And was like, no, I don't, I don't want to publish it this way. And that feels really good to have a little bit more control over, over what I want to say and the information I want to put out there.[00:15:45] Nathan:Yeah. I mean, you have even more, I mean, you, you always had agency, right. But now it's like, you have an alternative instead of like, I'll keep pitching it to someone else who might have the same objections or, or that kind of thing. On the business side what's well, actually, maybe if we dive into the newsletter today, right?So that we talked about where I was at a year ago when we launched to, I just said, we, when you launched, I had nothing to do with my launch. There's no Royal we in that are taking credit later. when you launched, you know, a year and a half ago, there was at 1500 subscribers. where's it at today,[00:16:24] Jessica:I'm at 9,000 subscribers now.[00:16:26] Nathan:Right?[00:16:28] Jessica:But, I mean, I have a model where some of it is free and some of it is paid, so there are like different cohorts within the subscriber-based too. But like, I'm, I'm pretty happy with how it's grown on the free side so far.[00:16:41] Nathan:Yeah. And so on the paid side, you're charging $7 a month, or 77 a year. What was the thinking on the pricing there? Was that something that you like agonized over a lot or was that a, like, we'll just go with something and see how it works.[00:16:54] Jessica:Yeah, I didn't agonize over it too much. I started out at $5 a month and, after I got maybe my first hundred or 200 paid subscribers and I felt really good about like, wow, that feels like a lot. That's like a good chunk of change I didn't have before. And then when I was looking into the fees that were taken from like Stripe processing, from sub staff, I was taking home like closer to $3 per subscriber.And I was like for the time and attention that I want to give this project, I'm just not going to be making it. At $5 a month until I hit a certain number of paid subscribers. so I decided to bump it up to seven, just to sort of motivate myself to put the time and attention into it that I wanted to give it because if I wasn't going to be bringing in like, actually $5 to me, it didn't feel worth it.So by pricing it at seven, I get more like $5, which felt like a, okay, I'm happy with that number. now that I do have more paid subscribers, I am toying with the idea of, of lowering it because I feel like I feel like from, at least from my perspective, when I am subscribing to a newsletter,I subscribe to a ton of them.I'm much more interested to click. I'm much more likely to click pay and subscribe if it's $5.And if it's like six or seven or eight,[00:18:21] Nathan:You think about[00:18:22] Jessica:Eh, that's kind of a lot. Do I care enough about this content to pay that much? But personally for me, $5 is like a whatever I'll I'll subscribe kind of thing. So I, I think I'm getting closer to the point where I feel like I have enough of a base that I can do that and hopefully reach more people.[00:18:42] Nathan:Right. Okay. I have so many questions here, but diving into the psychology side of when you're deciding to subscribe to something, right? Cause everyone listening is Ryan newsletter and asking these same questions. Like, should it be $5? Should it be $20? Should it be free? Shouldn't be $2. You know, like any of these things.And then they're analyzing their own buying habits. And they're like, but what if it's a business versus a fitness versus, you know, any of these, like what category I'm in and what are those other things that you notice beyond price? When you as a newsletter consumer, I go to like instant subscribe versus like, well, think about this.How many articles have I enjoyed from the recent layer? Like that, tips it over to the other side.[00:19:25] Jessica:Right. Oh, I don't know that there are that, like my personal revelations will be. relevant to people. I personally, just because I run a newsletter, I love to support. So if it's anything that I'm like vaguely interested in and it's like $5 a month or less, I don't know why $5 is my cutoff, but also subscribe.And I'll just see what it's like for a couple of months. And if I don't like it, Whatever I can always unsubscribe, but I just really love the idea of putting that abundance out there into the universe and just being like, I'm a little bit interested in this and I want to support this creator because I know what a, like a hustle it is.I'm sure the average, like newsletter consumer doesn't really doesn't really think that way. but for me, I don't know. I love a good headline if it's like a good quippy, funny headline, like I want to be reading. fun, critical content. There's a lot of like heavy, critical content out there. and I love something that's like fun and critical, so that'll get my[00:20:27] Nathan:Yeah. There are things wrong with the world and we could get depressed about them, but that doesn't[00:20:32] Jessica:Yeah,[00:20:34] Nathan:About fixing the things that are wrong with the world,[00:20:36] Jessica:yeah, exactly. Like turn it into a little bit of a, like the state of the world I feel is so bizarre.[00:20:43] Nathan:Right.[00:20:44] Jessica:Just so wild that we have set up the world the way we've set it up. Like everything that, that exists is just something that like some guy made up one day and we were like, okay, we're going to go along with it.And I feel like there is a lot of humor in that. so yeah, I, I love looking at the depressing state of the world for like a bit of a jokey lens. So if I find anything like that, I'm like immediate.[00:21:09] Nathan:Yeah, that makes sense. And I think that's where for anyone writing their content, like having that voice really matters. So it's not just, you know, this is what you're teaching or this is, the educational side. Or present the entertaining side. It's like, okay. But how can you, how are you gonna make me feel as I read and consume this.[00:21:29] Jessica:That's a great way to think about it. I think the difference, when I'm consuming like a newsletter versus the news is I don't really know. I don't concern myself with like tone or voice when I'm reading an article from like the New York times or the Washington post. but a newsletter is so much more personal.It's like you're getting into people's personal inbox, it's more of a one-on-one relationship. and I think it's a great opportunity to play with your voice in a way that you really sometimes can not when you're writing for a media plan.[00:22:04] Nathan:Yeah. So what are the things that you've done to practice that obviously you've had a whole career as a writer. And so, you know, as you've found your voice and the things that you play with, are there yeah. Little exercises or things that you play with or try on, or anything like that? Any, any tips for someone who's also looking to like craft their own way?[00:22:26] Jessica:It's as much of a tip, but I started writing as a songwriter. I went to school for songwriting. So I feel like a lot of my writing takes that into account. Like that's the musicality of something is very important to me. So I'll like read my own stuff out loud. Sometimes like flow of a sentence is very important to me, the rhythm of a sentence, the like intonation, the, Continence and assonance and all of that alliteration, I, I feel like when people can read something and there's a clear flow and rhythm to it, and the words like melt into each other sound nice next to each other.I personally feel like it locks them into the content early on. Like you want to keep reading because if you stop reading, it's like you're breaking this rhythm that you've started. So, yeah, I would say rhythm is very important to me and reading things out loud helps me make sure that what I've written is what I'd like envisioned and felt[00:23:35] Nathan:Yeah.[00:23:36] Jessica:Mind and my heart when I was conceptualizing the thing.[00:23:39] Nathan:Yeah, reading out loud is a really good tip because there's so many things where I'll find myself starting to read what I wrote and then like finishing it in a much more like in my head in a much more conversational way, and then realizing the sentences or the following sentences that I had. We're not conversational.They were like stilted. The version that I wanted to auto finish in my head is like, oh, that's better. Let's let's say that instead.[00:24:05] Jessica:I love that. And I think, I think newsletter subscribers are like ready for more. Conversational writing. Like I don't, I think you can be like professional and say something that has weight and has merit and has value and still be kind of, you know, casual about it.[00:24:23] Nathan:Yeah.[00:24:23] Jessica:As a strategy to connect with people.[00:24:26] Nathan:Is there a poster or a piece that you've written that you felt like. Maybe you struggled to find that balance of like, it was a, maybe a weighty piece or something like that. And you're like, oh, maybe this one I shouldn't be playful with or, you know, finding[00:24:41] Jessica:Yeah, there are definitely times when I take a break from the jokey conversationality I think the last big piece that I wrote, was about, anti-Asian racism when like all the news came out that like anti-Asian hate crimes were at an all time high. there's a lot of the beauty industry tends to take a lot of its concepts from Eastern culture, from Asian cultures.So, there was a lot to say there about racism within the beauty industry that, you know, happens in ways that you may not even realize. So for a piece like that, I think there were some moments of, of humor within it, like a dark humor within it, but for the most part, for, for things like that, I take that very seriously.I think my readers take that very seriously and I. It's less conversational then, because it's like, no, I have something that's like very important and clear that I want to get through to you. And I don't want it to be muddled with any sort of, uh jokingness.[00:25:46] Nathan:Yeah, that makes sense. So let's say you were a writing coach, coaching someone,Ryan newsletter, that sort of thing. You don't have to become a writing coach after this. Just.[00:25:59] Jessica:Thank God.[00:26:00] Nathan:But like, you know, you have a friend, maybe they're writing the newsletter, they've got a couple of thousand subscribers they're getting going in.And they're saying like, you know, they, they hear what you're talking about of the, the musicality and the, the flow of, of writing. And they're like, okay. Short of going to songwriting school, like, what's the, what, you know, is there, a book or another thing that you would recommend of where to start to, to sort of dive into the flow of what you write?[00:26:29] Jessica:There is a great essay, by Ursula K Le, is that how you say her last name?[00:26:37] Nathan:I'm not sure.[00:26:37] Jessica:Read it and I've never said it out loud before.[00:26:41] Nathan:Yep. I have so many things like that in my life where I'm like, I don't know how to pronounce this word.[00:26:46] Jessica:It's so embarrassing writing about skincare, because there are these huge, like long skincare ingredients that I write all the time. I can spell them for you off the top of my head, but then I tried to like say them out loud on a podcast, for example. And I'm like, I don't know how to say this at all. I'm looking for this, this essay it's from her book.No, no time to spare[00:27:10] Nathan:Okay.[00:27:10] Jessica:And there's this. And she writes a lot about right. but she has this beautiful essay about rhythm, and how it's different in poetry and how it's different in pros and how to kind of like sort out the rhythm of your piece. and I would say that was hugely helpful to me when I, when I first read it.So I would recommend doing that and. Yeah, I don't know. I use things like, I mean, I, I use it the sores all the time, but I use rhyme zone a lot for like fun phrasing and plays on words. It's just rhyme zone.com and you type in the word that you're you're playing with. And it'll kind of like, you know,[00:27:50] Nathan:Oh, interesting. Yeah.That's exactly the kind of, kind of that's good. Yeah. A lot of people, you know, they come to newsletters from kind of two different sides, either from the journalist, professional writer side or the, you know, hobbyist, maybe even, I never thought I'd be a writer, but I have this skill or something to teach or behind the scenes in this industry.And like writing maybe as a slog or a chore. And so it was always interesting when these two worlds meet and either, you know, one group might be really good at marketing because they knew they came from that world and another group.[00:28:27] Jessica:Yeah.[00:28:27] Nathan:Really good at writing and they each hate the other's job, but[00:28:31] Jessica:Yeah,[00:28:31] Nathan:Like they pick the job.That's the intersection of both of those worlds.[00:28:35] Jessica:Yeah, no, you're so right. I think there is this like sort of misconception in the journalism and reporting space that any reporter who is on sub stack has decided to go in all in on the newsletter. Because there have been some very high profile journalists who are no longer writing for like the times or the posts and they're just doing their newsletter.But I think for the large majority of, of reporters and journalists who have, who have started newsletters as well, it's like a both and kind of thing.[00:29:06] Nathan:Yeah.[00:29:06] Jessica:Sill freelancing and we have this, this sort of personal platform.[00:29:11] Nathan:Yeah. So how do you think about your career developing over the next couple of years? Is it, is there a specific milestone in mind, where you're trying to grow the newsletter to, to do that full-time or is it always trying to place a piece to the biggest possible audience?What's that like?[00:29:29] Jessica:Yeah, I would say my goal, like I very much, this is kind of earnest and nerdy, but like, I very much want to change the beauty industry. I see so much that is wrong with it and I see how it like emotionally impacts people. in terms of anxiety, depression, mental disorders, eating disorders, like there's a lot of heavy stuff that comes out of the beauty industry.And I like, I'm very passionate about actually measurably changing it. So for me, the number one thing is always, I want to reach the largest audience possible with an unadulterated message. So if I can do that in a place like the New York times, of course, I'd rather place it there than my own news. if I can do that through a book, of course, I'd rather write it in a book then in my own newsletter.So the newsletter has been sort of like a nice foundation for me to have and a nice fallback for me to have. And I, I truly love fostering it as its own little separate entity, but I would, I would say I almost try harder to place things elsewhere because I wantAs many people as possible to be able to, to read the things that I'm writing. the newsletter I'm I am writing my first book right now, and it's definitely been hard to juggle book writing with like reporting for other platforms and deadlines. So I will say like juggling a book and my own personal newsletter has been much easier than trying to juggle a book and reporting. So I think, I think there will be times in my writing career while I'll lean a little bit more heavily on the newsletter.And times where I'll lighten up on the newsletter. I'm always seeing it as sort of like a supplemental tool to my like greater mission.[00:31:13] Nathan:I think, I don't know what publication they were writing for. but someone was telling me about, was that in each of these publications, they're watching the view counts, you know, for every story. And they had gotten the newsletter. I think they were maybe at 20, 25,000 subscribers. And they would, when they placed a piece with a fairly major publication, they would email it out.And they, it was enough direct traffic to that individual piece that they could get it to move on. Some of these internally watched leaderboards and stuff like that. And so editors were paying attention to that of like, they didn't necessarily know like making things up that, you know, Jessica was the one who drove a bunch of traffic to this, but they're just like, wow, Jessica's stories are consistently resonating.And so they were wanting to pick up more pieces in that. and so I was always wondering about that, of how you can, it's not gaming an algorithm or anything like that.[00:32:08] Jessica:Hmm.[00:32:08] Nathan:Just saying like, look, here's my story. And I bring an audiences.[00:32:12] Jessica:Oh, I love that. I might try to do that. I always do. Like I do these little roundups every other week for my paid subscribers.And if I have something that comes out, I'll always put, drop the link in there, but I've never done like a strategized push like[00:32:28] Nathan:Right.[00:32:29] Jessica:Be interesting to experiment for sure.[00:32:31] Nathan:Well, cause it's like, if someone is following you that they're following you for. Your content and your ideas and your perspective. And they probably don't really care if it's, you know, in your sub stack, you know, on your Instagram or, you know,[00:32:48] Jessica:Right.[00:32:48] Nathan:Major publication, there's like, look, I want to read your, your content.And you're like, oh, today's article is[00:32:54] Jessica:Yeah.[00:32:55] Nathan:Here on Vogue. Or, you know,[00:32:57] Jessica:Kind of nice to hear, because I think that's something that I do worry about pretty often with my newsletter is I feel like a ton of my newsletter readership has come from social media. And so I'm like very conscious of cross posting. Like I don't, I don't want someone to get my newsletter and say, I already saw this on your Instagram, so I don't need to subscribe.I don't need another email in my inbox because I'm seeing it on Insta, you know? And I don't know if that's like a legitimate concern or how much people see when they subscribe to you on different platforms. but that has been. You know, something that I'm very mindful of, where if it's like a meme that I'm posting on social media, or just like a one-off Instagram post, I'm probably not going to repeat that content, even if I think it's good or important on the newsletter. Just because I don't know, I'm aware of like how precious it is to allow someone into your email inbox, because at least for me, like email is very annoying. The worst part of my day is trying to like go through my inbox and file it away into folders. And I never want my newsletter to be like, oh, I've seen this already. I've seen something very similar from her already.[00:34:09] Nathan:Right. Yeah. I don't know that I have a perspective on that. I'm just thinking about it. I don't have the same concern. but I don't know that. You know whether I should or not. I think probably my approach would be that if you've already seen something, let's say there's five or six things in the newsletter and I've already seen one of them on Instagram, but I just skipped past that one.[00:34:30] Jessica:Yeah.[00:34:31] Nathan:And so my focus would be on making sure that everything is high quality, more than making sure that everything is, completely a unique[00:34:40] Jessica:Yeah. That's I mean, that's encouraging to hear, and I think that that might, change how I approach my like every other week[00:34:49] Nathan:Yeah,[00:34:49] Jessica:Maybe I'll experiment and I'll see, I'll see if people are like, Hey,I saw that.[00:34:54] Nathan:The other thing that I would do is I would ask, one of my favorite things to do is to ask for replies to my newsletter, which has a downside of that you get a whole bunch of emails, but they can often be really fun cause they're, No, the people who are reading every day and like they're following your stuff.And, and so they're usually not pitching you things. They're just saying, like, here's the thing that I, and so in that case, just say, Hey, you know, if I share something on Instagram, would you also like it here? Or do you feel like, keep those worlds more separate? Like don't I want everything to be unique.And then I would just like, say hit reply and let me know.[00:35:34] Jessica:Yeah.[00:35:34] Nathan:And it's. Yeah, but you know, out of 9,000 subscribers, I'd bet you'd get at least, I dunno, 20, 30, 40 replies or something.[00:35:42] Jessica:Yeah, that's a good point. Okay. Oh, you're inspiring me. I have so many ideas now.[00:35:48] Nathan:Perfect. I love it. okay. One thing that I want to know more about is growing that. That newsletter from the pieces that you're, I assume subscribers are coming from Instagram. And then also from the pieces that you're publishing,[00:36:04] Jessica:Yeah.[00:36:04] Nathan:Seen like spikes? when it came from an Instagram post that did really well or some other promotion to drive subscribers,[00:36:13] Jessica:I mean, I definitely get new subscribers every time I post about it on Instagram or Instagram stories. So I would say that's been like a main driver for me, but my two biggest, like surges of subscribers came from, All of the newsletter press that's been happening lately. Cause you know, like the newsletter revolution is here.So, I got a little write up in New York magazine and then one in the UK Sunday style magazine and both of those were amazing and totally unexpected. I had no idea they were coming. so now I'm like, damn, how do I, how do I facilitate some more press for myself? Because this is where that.[00:36:55] Nathan:Like what would a spike like that look like? Cause that a couple of hundred subscribers, 500 a thousand from one of those[00:37:01] Jessica:I would say from New York magazine, it was probably close to a thousand. And then from the UK, Sunday times was probably between like 500, 600.[00:37:11] Nathan:Yeah. That that's substantial.[00:37:14] Jessica:Yeah. It was, it was really exciting. and it definitely goes to show like the power that these publications have. It's interesting to see that power as applied to like inherently, anti large publication platform, like a personal newsletter, you know?[00:37:35] Nathan:Yeah. So how do you, how do you think about it when it's like. More press would be nice. You're like, Hey, this, this is a big boost, you know? I'd 10% lift in total subscribers or something from a single thing. And then knowing what you know about journalism and being in the space, like, is that something that you craft a strategy around and say, okay, I'm going to intentionally pursue, placements in these publication.[00:38:02] Jessica:No, in terms of just the newsletter, I, I don't think I'll ever like strategize and try to do that. I think, I mean, the, the reason that I got those two placements is just because I. In the beauty space, my newsletter does offer something that's really different that you're not getting anywhere else. and so it becomes inherently interesting to write about or call out because this is the only place you can get that kind of thing if that's what you're looking for.So I think it's just more of like striving to figure out, like, how can I create more, very original content that actually. Gives value to the reader in a way that's going to create that kind of buzz. I don't want to like manufacture the buzz so much as I want. Like my condoms would be good enough for people to actually talk about it.But that being said, when my book comes out eventually like, hell yes, I plan to like strategize and try to get the shit written about me everywhere, which will hopefully we get to the newsletter as well. But yeah, I feel like I'm going to save all of that, like smarmy, you know, networking for book launch.[00:39:14] Nathan:Yeah, that makes sense to me. I want to push back on it a little bit, because so much of the success of the book is going to be dependent on a lot on a lot of things, but a big factor is going to be the size of your platform. When that book comes out.[00:39:29] Jessica:Yeah.[00:39:29] Nathan:And so if you wait to be self promotional until the book comes out, then like, that'll get this far, but let's say you were self promotional in a tasteful way.We're going to be tasteful about all of this. you know, but along the way, and that 9,000 subscribers turned into 25,000.Right. And it's that much bigger of a platform to launch from. So I'll say that with the caveat that I think the same thing.[00:39:51] Jessica:Yeah.[00:39:52] Nathan:We have, I've lots of friends who have big platforms and I'm like, oh, I could guest post on them.You know, with them, or like ask, Hey, can I come on your podcast or something like that? And I'm like 90% sure that they would say yes, but then I think, oh, I should save that for when my book comes out. Right.Cause you know, you have that, maybe that, just that one ask.So I think it's something that a lot of creators struggle with of like when to promote.And so intellectually I'm like promote early enough.[00:40:21] Jessica:Yeah.[00:40:22] Nathan:And then emotionally, what I'm actually doing is I think exactly what you're doing, but I'll save that for when I really need it.[00:40:28] Jessica:Yeah, I think for me, there's also this, this sort of inherent struggle with what I write about and getting press, because I am pretty critical of beauty media coverage. and I'm aware that I have made some enemies in the beauty media space. Like I'm not the most well-liked person, in some of these circles.So I do feel like I only have like a certain amount of rope that I can, use up like a certain amount of leeway in these spaces. and then also I, yeah, I don't know. I think it's something I have not sat down to really work out my feelings about. But there is some sort of ethical dilemma there where if I'm critiquing the way a certain platform has covered this beauty trend or whatever it is, I'm critiquing.And then I'm sort of like asking for press at the same time, like ethically, what does that say about me and my participation in these systems?You[00:41:30] Nathan:Right.[00:41:31] Jessica:Which is a big question and not one that I'm going to be able to answer here.[00:41:36] Nathan:Yeah. Are there publications outside of the beauty space that would have less of the, maybe sponsored ties or other, you know, issues[00:41:47] Jessica:Yeah,[00:41:48] Nathan:The main publications might have, but that would find your story.[00:41:52] Jessica:I think so. I think the path that I am trying to follow in beauty coverage right now. the path of sustainable fashion coverage, like I feel like fashion and beauty have been so intertwined in their coverage and they're, they're both sort of seen as these like less serious pursuits. They're both seen as like inherently female interests.And they've struggled to be taken seriously, I think. but with like the push towards sustainability content and, you know, the inevitability of climate change, I think. Sustainability and fashion is getting a ton of like serious quality coverage all over the place, even from platforms that wouldn't normally touch fashion.And I see beauty as being very behind that. Like there are still these huge global issues in the beauty industry and beauty production and just the way that we consume and beauty, that hasn't been touched. But I see it starting to be touched by these larger, serious. News organizations. And I feel like there's such an opportunity there.And that those are topics that I'm super passionate about and super interested in. So I'm, I'm trying to carve out a space for myself there to say, look, we're taking fashion seriously for the impact that it has culturally societaly environmentally. Like we have to start taking beauty justice seriously because it's just as big of a person.[00:43:17] Nathan:I like, I like that angle on that. That makes a lot of sense. And just seeing trends in a neighboring industry. I think you're right. I hope that I hope that you're right in, that plays out in there.[00:43:28] Jessica:Me too.[00:43:29] Nathan:One of the things that I'm curious about is kind of the rise of newsletters in the journalism space.I don't come from that world. I very much come from the newsletter world. And so seeing, you know, so many people either make the switch full-time, or get to the point where they're like, Hey, I've been writing these pieces everywhere. And like, my byline has just directed people back to Twitter or Instagram or.And now it's directing people back to my own audience. What are you seeing in like in your friends and colleagues and all of that is, are a lot of people starting newsletters or is there this overwhelming trend of some are starting it, and maybe it's getting hyped more than is actually happening.[00:44:12] Jessica:Yeah, I think that's what I've noticed. I don't think as many people within my like, sort of direct. Community of journalists and reporters are starting newsletters. And I think it's gotten so hyped. Like we're in such a moment of coverage right now that it almost like, seems like a little lame to start a newsletter now.Cause like everyone's doing.But the reality of the situation is that everyone is not doing it. And I think there's still a lot of opportunity and a lot of room to grow and to move into and to create your own kind of thing. like I mentioned, I think there is a big misconception that if you're starting your newsletter, that means you're done with journalism and you're just doing this now.It's like, no, you can very much do both. And you can do your newsletter once a month. You can do it, you know, once a week you can do it. However, often you have time for it. Like you said you could use it as a tool just to send out your journalism, pursuits to a wider audience. but yeah, I think sort of the hype around newsletters has sort of, created this little, Ooh, I don't know if I want to do a newsletter too.Cause I might get to see them. Like, I'm just doing what everybody else is doing.[00:45:23] Nathan:Right. Yeah. The, the newsletter hipster trend is sort of passed and it's gone mainstream. I can't do it[00:45:31] Jessica:Exactly. I mean, for the record, I don't believe that that's true, I think that's how people are perceiving.[00:45:38] Nathan:Well, it's so funny to me because, I've been doing E you know, email and email newsletters and that kind of thing since I guess, 2013. and you know, very excited. They got into all of that. And I was telling people like, email is amazing and friends that have me, who've been doing it since like 2001 were like, yeah, like good job, discovering it.Do you want to go and start? Like what a pat on the back, what are you hoping for here? And watching is, you know, these trends as they come, if you had a friend who, you know, is in the space who comes to you and says like, oh, I'm going to start a new. You know, what are the things, I don't know, the three or four things that you would tell them right away of here's what they should watch out for is strategies that they should employ any of those things.[00:46:25] Jessica:I mean, my number one piece of advice that seems really obvious. Isn't always is just to find your niche. Like I would say hone in on something as specific as you possibly can, within your space so that people have a reason to subscribe. I would say to have, like, especially if you're doing sub stack or a place where you can view past newsletters, like have a healthy backlog before you actually start soliciting people to sign up so that they can see what your content is like.And then this is a big thing that I think is missing from a lot of the journalism to newsletter side, because like he said, there are people who are coming from marketing and people who have never done marketing in their life. something that I do is that when I'm sending something out to my paid subscribers, I send a shorter version out of it to my free subscribers.Click to continue. And then it brings them to the paid subscriber thing. And I convert between 30 and 50 people every time.And when I sign up for free newsletters, which I sign up for a ton of them, I have never once got in that. I've never once gotten an email. That's like the intro of the article. And then it, you know, sort of leads me into that paid funnel.And I used to work in marketing. I used to work in fashion marketing. That was just like a no, duh of course I would do that sort of thing. but I've never seen any other like journalists to newsletter convert, use that very easy tool. so I would say, take advantage of that for sure.[00:48:07] Nathan:Yeah, that's interesting of the things that in one industry, like you're right in the marketing industry, everyone's like, obviously, you know, of course you would do that. And then you get into another space and it is this exciting, new thing. I started in, in design and, like user experience and interface design.And so I brought a lot of design ideas to marketing and then a lot of like direct response marketing ideas into the design world. And it needs to circle. Everyone was like, whoa, this is amazing and new.[00:48:35] Jessica:Yeah,[00:48:36] Nathan:You did it in the original circle, people are just like, obviously there's nothing novel about it.[00:48:41] Jessica:Exactly. I think people really, underestimate. The skills they learn on the way to get to where they've, they've gotten to. Like, I never would have thought the job that I hated in fashion marketing would have served me in, in, any way. Cause I sort of wanted to get away from all of that. Like marketing bullshit, lack of a better word, because at least at the company that I was at, it mostly felt like lying and just like squeezing money out of people.I think you can use those tools for good as well, which is what I'm trying to do.[00:49:15] Nathan:Yeah. So a lot of creators struggle with that transition where they feel like either from a past experience or something that they've seen where they're like, oh, I can never ask for money for this or charge for it or, that kind of thing. Or they're very, very hesitant to sell in any, anything. what would you say to them?Or what's your journey been like in saying like, no, this is what it costs. This is why you should subscribe.[00:49:40] Jessica:Yeah. I mean, I think it's important to have, to have a reason, you know, make it very clear that it's reader funded or user funded. for me, all of my content is very clear that I blame the media advertisement model for so much of the misinformation and bullshit that's out there in beauty. So me saying that my newsletter and this content is completely user funded, so that I'm loyal to you.The reader rather than an advertiser, is very like, you know, quote unquote on brand for me. And I think people who are interested in my content are more than happy to pay for it. It's solving a problem that I am pointing out in my reporting, you know? and then I would just say also like allow yourself to be surprised at how much people want to support you.I have been so pleasantly surprised by people who are just, they just liked my content and they're happy to pay for it. And I think one of the, the biggest, the biggest ways that I've seen that happen is that, on substance. They let you do like the page, so you can do monthly or a yearly rate, or you can do something called a founding member, which is just somebody who pays a little bit more to support and they don't really get any extra benefits at all.And I am shocked at the amount of people who give me 50 more dollars than they need to, just to support, And that's like, every time I get that email, that's like someone signed up for the founding member level. It's heartwarming because it's like, there are a lot of people out there who want to support great creator, led content.[00:51:23] Nathan:Do you have a percentage or numbers on that? Like I'm curious, every time I see that I'm like how many people select that[00:51:29] Jessica:Yeah.[00:51:29] Nathan:Know from doing multiple prices or packages, that it's one of the best ways to increase revenue is to just have a higher price option available.[00:51:38] Jessica:Yeah.[00:51:38] Nathan:confirming that, but I want to know any[00:51:40] Jessica:Yeah. I have not like crunched the numbers on anything, but just from, so I sent out a paid newsletter, on Thursday. So between Thursday and today from like my conversions of free[00:51:55] Nathan:Yep.[00:51:56] Jessica:Sign up, I've gotten, I think 56, new signups. I would say maybe 10 of them were the yearly membership and maybe five of them were the founding member.[00:52:08] Nathan:Okay. Wow. So half of the year, the ones being the like yeah. I'll pay you $50 more just to support your work. Even[00:52:17] Jessica:Yeah,[00:52:18] Nathan:Because the yearly membership is supporting your work, but even just[00:52:21] Jessica:Yeah,[00:52:21] Nathan:Above and beyond.[00:52:23] Jessica:Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's just what, roughly, from what I remember from the email. I'm not like super concerned with, with stats and strategizing right now. I'm just like ecstatic. Every time I get the ding on my phone that says somebody new signed up.[00:52:39] Nathan:Yeah. That's super fun. So, what are the things that you're thinking about next for the newsletter? Is it slow, steady, growth, and maintaining that while working on the book? Is there a big milestone that you're working towards any of those things?[00:52:52] Jessica:There is not a huge milestone, but I think when I first started it, and this is, I think maybe just a personal hangup, but I was very conscious of not bothering people too much, like not being in their inbox constantly. So, it was like one big story a month, and then every other week for paid. Now I'm toying with the idea of doing more, short form content and where weekly content.I'm going to be launching a new feature for paid subscribers that's gonna be, like an advice column, but more like, how do I navigate the industry? How do I divest from these marketing tactics? How do I like stay smart and know what's alive and what's not?So, I'm going to be launching that within the next month.Then, for everybody, I'm going to be launching weekly or even twice a week, just like little, like a little tip newsletter. Because what I do in my newsletter a lot is critique the beauty, and point out what's wrong with it.People are always like, okay, sure, but how do I apply that to my own life? Like how do I get over the fact that I know it's marketing, that I don't need to have big lips to be beautiful, but how do I stop feeling that way?So, it's going to be more practical tips for, I guess, sort of healing from all of the beauty industry shit that they put us through, but it's going to be very short, quick hits, like, you know, five sentences, a paragraph tops. So, I'm going to experiment with a couple of different, forms of writing and a couple of different frequencies and see, see what people.[00:54:38] Nathan:Yeah, that sounds good. Well, if anyone wants to go subscribe to that and follow you on Instagram and other things around the web, where should they go?[00:54:46] Jessica:My sub stack is JessicaDefino.substack.com, and you can sign up for The Unpublishable there. And then on Instagram, I'm @JessicaDeFino_.[00:54:56] Nathan:Sounds good. Well, thanks so much for coming on. This has been fun to[00:54:59] Jessica:Yeah.[00:54:59] Nathan:learn about a whole side of the newsletter industry that I'm less familiar with, and just hear your story, and your writing tips, and everything else.[00:55:08] Jessica:Yeah, thank you so much. I feel inspired. I'm going to go send more newsletters.[00:55:13] Nathan:Sounds good.

Jessica Burgio joins Lesley Logan today to share her experience working in the service industry cutting hair while being a single mom and opening her own salon. They talk about the power of putting yourself in rooms with people you don't know, the struggles and joys of being an entrepreneur, and tips on getting your first client.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co .And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:The power of putting yourself in rooms with people you don't knowSocial proofIt's almost good that you don't know what you don't knowStarting a new careerTips for getting your first clientConnecting with your peersBeing a recovering perfectionistEpisode References/Links:Jessica Burgio's websiteBeauty Inspires Beauty websiteJessica Burgio's IGBeauty Inspires Beauty IGBeauty Inspires Beauty podcastCat Golden's Nurses Inspire NursesLori Harder's Bliss ProjectGuest Bio:Jessica Burgio, known as “THE BEAUTY MENTOR”, is a Confidence Coach for Beauty Industry Professionals.She is also a former Salon owner with over 20 years “behind the chair” experience and Founder of the Beauty Inspires Beauty Podcast. Jess has been a successful entrepreneur since 2001 and is so grateful for all the experiences the beauty industry has taught her! During her 20 years in the industry, She has Coached and Mentored Stylists to have their own successful businesses and is now made this her priority to help Beauty Professionals achieve their dreams! With a strong background in fitness and self-care, not only does Jess inspire Beauty Pro's to grow their Business Confidently, but to do so in a way that focuses on their health and well-being! Being successful in the Beauty Industry is 100% possible with education, confidence, proper strategies and having a set of non-negotiables. Beauty Industry Professionals can absolutely create the life they desire and as “The Beauty Mentor” it is Jess's true passion to help them do so!If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.ResourcesWatch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable PilatesSocial MediaInstagramFacebookTik TokLinkedIn Episode Transcript:Lesley Logan  Hey you, welcome back to the Be It Till You See It podcast. Oh my Lord. My friend Jessica Burgio is our guest today and I cannot wait for you to dive into this episode. The interview is so much fun. Jessica has lived an incredible life and she is a total badass. 100% we got we talked about how she got started as a stylist, we talked about how she opened up her own studio, her own salon, and then how she went to the coaching business. And then we also dive into being a single mom at 40 and how she does all the things and or not, right, so we go to so many different parts about her. If you are thinking about, you know, really trying to put yourself out there, this is the episode for you. And I want you to make sure you listen because there are some little Be It drops throughout the entire episode that I don't want you to miss. Check out the show notes, we've got her awesome bio, who she is and the confidence coach that she is today. And also how you can listen to her more on her own podcast Beauty Inspires Beauty. Her Instagram handle everything is there. So make sure that you take a look at all those things. Connect with Jessica, and let her know what you loved about this. But please enjoy. They're there, I can't even wait. I I couldn't even stop her to ask her what the her Be It strategies would be. She literally just went right into it, which is incredible. And one of the things I love about her so much is that she just goes out and does it. So enjoy this episode right after these messages.Lesley Logan  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan  Alright, everyone, welcome back. I am so excited. I'm so excited to talk to my friend Jessica Burgio. I hope I didn't say her name wrong. I pretty much say all of my friends names on this podcast at this point. But she and I met a couple years ago, we sat next to each other, actually, I'm gonna rewind, we randomly met over a jumpsuit I was wearing at a bliss project. And she just said so many nice things to me. I was like, "This girl is awesome." And then we were in a mastermind and we sat next to each other and I remembered you from that moment. And it's just been it was it's been so fun to see how you've grown from that was a time where you didn't know what your thing was gonna be. But you had this idea and you and now you are coaching people in your industry on how they can do what you're doing. And so I am going to let you introduce yourself even better than I could. But welcome to the show. I'm really excited that you're here.Jessica Burgio  I'm so excited to be here and it's so exciting to watch you like start this and know that you know, I've seen it from before and to now it's just it's really cool to watch. And I'm kind of in the same boat as you. So yeah, we did. We met I was volunteering at the bliss project and you walked out with your girlfriends and you guys all had amazing hair and you were wearing this rockin like almost snakeskin looking, I thought they were pants at first. And I said, "Oh girl where'd you get those pants from?" And you like whipped your jacket off me like, "It's a one piece. I got a coupon code for you." And I was like, "Oh my God." So we were instant best friends. And that's really like the power of putting yourself in rooms around people that you don't know. And so that's why I love that you created this podcast based on Be It Till You See It. So my name is Jessica Burgio. I am a 20 year veteran in the hair industry and I recently in the last two years, got into coaching professionally, hairdressers and other creatives to six figures and beyond. Kind of taking themselves from being stuck behind the chair just trading time for money, into what other possibilities they could create with their business and their life. So it's been quite the challenge to go from being an expert, expert in something, to then being a beginner. But, you know, I like to take a ...Lesley Logan  A beginner expert, (Jessica: Yeah) beginner expert you're like, "I know what I'm doing but I don't know what I'm doing."Jessica Burgio  Right right and so it's kind of cool to not know what you don't know because like you almost go back to that child-like, "Well, I can do it like everyone else is doing it. Why can't I do it?" Right? Versus some people get stuck in the, "Well, everyone else is already doing it. I shouldn't do it." I'm more like, "Oh, there's proof. Oh, okay. Like I can try it too kind of gives me permission." So yeah, I'm I just turned 40 and it's it's been an interesting journey to get where I am now. So yeah, I'm sure I could talk for hours on all the things but ...Lesley Logan  I feel like we will have to circle back to a few things because I definitely I'm not 40 yet but I am approaching it and many of my friends have turned 40. So I actually was never paying attention my 40th birthday, but when all of your friends are, then you're like, "Oh, oh, it's coming. I don't even know what it means." So we'll, we'll have to circle back to that. But I want to go back to this, um, you seeing like other people doing something as social proof and that like invigorating you. And also, we'll have to touch on like ... it's almost good that you don't know what you don't know. Because I have to say, even with the podcast, right? Like, I was like, "Oh, this is easy. I go live all the time." Like, this is just, you know, we'll just do that and then when you start doing it, they're like, well, we need like, eight episodes for the first two weeks, then we need these and you have to, like, you have these show notes. And I'm like, "Oh, someone has to do all that." (Lesley laughs)Jessica Burgio  Well, they're definitely they're like best practices of what you should do to have a successful podcast, right? But you could have done it any damn well, way you pleased? Like there are people who (Lesley: Right) start messy and organized not by-the-book, but you know, you know, now better. And because we've had those experiences with the mastermind, we've had people that have gone before us, create successful, you know, monetizable podcasts, you're like, "Okay, if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it, right, I'm gonna invest properly, (Lesley: Yeah) put it out the best way I can." Because I think at this stage in the game, if you're gonna play like, it's like, play as best as you can, and like, bring your A game.Lesley Logan  Yeah, and I think that's like, where the perfectionist can get into the, into the way because the best that you can doesn't mean perfect. It just means the best you can, but a lot of people want the best that they can be to be better than what it is. And they get a little unsatisfied and, and I think that's what holds people back. And it's like, "No, actually," like, even Maya Angelou said, like, "You do the best you can until you know better and then and then you just do better" and, and I have to say, like, the things that I did "perfectly" in air quotes, like big flops, anytime I threw something out messy action, it was like, like, you know, those like posts that you put up, and you're like, "I just gotta get something up there." And you're like, "I'm just gonna do a one line like, this is all I'm gonna say." And it's like, the most love like the most comments, and the times you spent, like, making sure all the comments on the right spot like whomp, whomp. (Lesley laughs)Jessica Burgio  Seriously, I know and I'm glad that we have those moments that remind us, and we see other people not being completely perfect. You know, it's like, yeah, it gives you permission to kind of do it your own way, which, I mean, if we all did it the same exact way, like nobody would stand out.Lesley Logan  No, no. So you, how long have you been a stylist?Jessica Burgio  I just hit 20 years last September.Lesley Logan  Wow, that is amazing. That's because you're only 40. Right? And so you're like, "I started this as as 20." So I, so you, you started 20 years ago? And, what is it like because as a Pilates instructor, like I go, I would go into a studio and I worked for a studio and then you're like, gotta get clients. And it's not, it's not exactly like a hair salon, or someone's like, "I'm gonna get my haircut today." And then they just go to the place that's close by, like, you know, is a little bit different. So what was it like to be a brand new stylist? And how did you kind of navigate being new to something?Jessica Burgio  Well, fortunately, and unfortunately, there was no social media, there was no other way to get clients, but to learn how to go out and talk to people. So my mom was always that person who like she just literally couldn't be in line without telling the lady in front of her, "Oh my god, I love your shoes," or "Oh my god your bag" or being in an elevator where it's just you and she was like just starting random conversation. So I think it was like a natural skill set that I just learned even though it like made my skin crawl when I was a kid because she embarrassed me so bad. But when it was my turn to go out there and like find clients and they were like, the only way you're going to get people is if you go out and talk to them and you know, pass out your card, tell them we're a new salon in town. I was like, "Okay, I can do it." So I think by being prepared with like, what I was going to say, and then just showing up as the best version of myself, I did my hair, I did my makeup, I put a cute outfit on. You know, even for things like this. I tried to show up as the version I want people to remember me as because it's not just like what you're saying, it's like how you're saying it and how you're looking. So it's funny because I would have super cute like short hair. And people I would talk to people in a bit, "Oh my God, your hair. So cute. Yeah, I'll come see you." And I think to myself, "Well, I didn't cut my own hair. Don't you want her number?" (Jessica and Lesley laughs) Right? Like I didn't actually cut my own hair but okay. But I think it was just like, they figured if you took so much pride in what you look like so it was easier for me to, you know, ask for the business by going out and talking to people and in relation to what a lot of your listeners are in the fitness world. You know, when I started personal training several years later, I did have a clientele base from behind the chair that I could pull from but then I also already knew how to talk to people. So if I saw them in the gym, or if I saw them needing assistance, I felt confident enough to just start asking questions, you know, not put myself on them like, "Hey, you need to work out with me." But, "Hey, are you new here? Do you have any questions?" So I think it's something that luckily, I mean, I still struggle with it sometimes like starting conversations, but I definitely have that in me from my mom where I will randomly just talk to people and so by doing that, it's created so much easy like people ask me for my card.Lesley Logan  So my mom is the same, like I remember, oh my gosh, I was a teenager in Santa Cruz, which is like two hours away from where I grew up where we lived. And we were all in matching like family muumuus. If you're you don't know what that is, like, look it up. It's a Hawaiian print thing. And so my uncle lived in Hawaii, and he brought like, my grandparents their own matching set, my family that's all matching set, like my aunt and uncle with their kids. So just like a picture, it's like 15 people walking in a mall, in muumuus ... for a family photo. This is definitely the 90s when you when you walk into a mall for a family photo. Anyways, I was just like, "Oh my God, I hope no one sees me." And my mom ran into someone that she knew from like 15 years ago that she met in a grocery store line, because she talks to everybody. And so as embarrassing as that moment was something I learned as I got older was that she has this like gift of gab, and that she doesn't there's a place to go in this world where she won't run into someone she knows, or she can't talk to. And that made it... because I also started teaching Pilates when Facebook was a thing, but like not a thing, like you really used it to find your friends and didn't promote your business on there. Like that was kind of weird. So so it was very useful to just be able to start a conversation. But I think that's where people get hung up. It's that that starting it, because they think they have to like talk about being a hairdresser or being a Pilates teacher or, you know, being a makeup artist. And it's actually like, "No, you actually just say, hi, I like your shoes."Jessica Burgio  Yes. And that's what's so I think, intimidating for people on social media and why I think a lot of people struggle to close sales or to even grow their community or their audience because they don't spend the time just creating conversation and connection. Like, if you're in someone's DM, if you're looking to build your business, or if you're a one on one coaching client, whether it whether you're looking for clients, doing Pilates, hair, makeup, any of the things like you have to actually be social on social media to get people to attract to you. And so if you have a product or service that you're trying to get out to them, just reaching out and saying, "Hey, I had this thing you want to buy it." I mean, 99.9% no one's gonna buy it. Right? Unless you're a brand name ...Lesley Logan  It's like the people on the street corner who are like trying to like, get you to buy something like on the street, like you're like, "No, I don't actually, I don't even know what that is."Jessica Burgio  No. Right. And so like, there's so many ways that we can talk about helping people with engagement and like starting conversations, there are people that you can pay to start conversations for you, if it's in social media world, but the real magic happens when you can start authentic conversations in your in your, where you're building your business. Because if you're not online, or if you're if you're in a brick and mortar, like there's nothing more important than like connecting with that community, like even the coffee shop people even if those people will never be your clients, you get in a relationship with the guy who serves you coffee down the street or where you grocery shop. Like they're gonna be like, "Oh, there's Lesley as a Pilates place." Like you're always (Lesley: Yeah) one person away from like referrals and I know social media ...Lesley Logan  100% I ... I agree so much. And I, I can I remember a couple like smoothie shops, like the people the smoothie shop, because I would get my smoothie every day. And like they knew when I worked and they knew I would just talk to them. And I made sure they knew who I was and what I did. And, and of course, sure enough, I got people like, "Hey, so and so at the smoothie place told me that you're a Pilates teacher, I was like saying I was tired of my workouts and they're like, 'Oh, you should work with her.'" They've never worked with me before they just like me as a human being. And so I think that it's, it sounds so simple. And that's where people really get hung up is that they start to doubt themselves where they think that they have to, like, you know, wow, people, and it's like, no, it just actually it's really about having a conversation and, and you can be an introvert and still have those conversations too, you know, (Jessica: Totally, totally.) So when you first started, like we all first start the first client is like the hardest one, like the for, getting anyone who's like a random stranger to like, give you money is always the hardest thing no matter what it is that you're trying to do. How like, what about that, like, how did you deal with like, you only have one client when you know that you want to have a full scale, or you need to have a full book of clients.Jessica Burgio  Sure. So if I go back to when I started, I did multiple things to get me to where I got my first couple paid clients. So the salon that I worked at, so it could be a studio that you work at, if they do any sort of apprenticeship program, or assisting or shadowing or whatever, we would have to go out and get models. So we were not allowed to bring in the same model more than once we were not allowed to bring in family members, we that's when I first learned how to go out and get models. So that was convincing people to even let your let you do their hair for free. So first I had to sell myself my services for free. And then that taught me how to sell my services for you know to get paid. And I think the more you, not give away, but the more that you invest in your business by doing services or giving away training in the beginning, that word of mouth business will will just spiral if you're good, if you can be consistent, and if you can give a good experience with your client, you don't have to be the best trainer or the best hairdresser. But people want to see you win people want to support you. So if they link up with you early on, and they're getting some sort of deal or discount, you know, it really only takes two or three amazing clients to build up your whole book of business like, and that's where I got really lucky. My mentor was overflowing with clients and because I put myself in a situation where there was overflow in a bigger salon that trickled down to me, so I didn't really ever have to sell myself, they knew his clients knew that he had trained me. So that spoke for one and then then seeing a little bit of me and what I was doing that built the confidence and they were willing to let me you know, try on them. And then therefore, they turned into my lifelong clients.Lesley Logan  Yeah, I um I do think like, I when I think of a hairdresser without hairstyles, I think like, "What was it like to cut someone's hair for the first time it wasn't a mannequin?"Jessica Burgio  Scary. Of course super scary.Lesley Logan  And I'm like, " What if I cut it wrong? What if I like chopped off my ...Jessica Burgio  Oh my God, I cut so many people's hair wrong, but that's what I'm saying. Because I was honest, like, if I did do something wrong, if I did not do what they asked, I wouldn't charge them, I would say, "I didn't quite give you what you wanted, I'm sorry, it's three inches shorter than I told you is going to be, you know, come back in a couple months and give me another try." And you know what they would they would it's like, if someone's going to a new stylist, that you're not expecting you to be like, the people charging $300 for a haircut. And that's why beauty schools exist, because you can practice on real people at a very discounted price. They know what they're getting. Yeah, so there's, there's ways that you can build your confidence in this industry anyway, so. (Lesley: Yeah) But some people just jump out of the gate, and they just start taking clients, I think if you're a natural at it, there you go.Lesley Logan  Well, and that's it. Like there's multiple ways to do something. And you can see how someone sticks out, you can see multiple successful people and ask them, whatever it is that you're wanting to do. The good news is that every idea has been done. And so there's always going to be some sort of expert or someone who's known for that thing. And you can look at them, and you can see and go, okay, you're not going to do their exact path, because it doesn't exist, everyone starts at a different point just because of life. But you can go, "Okay, so they went through a really successful studio, and they went through these schools, they trained by these people," and then they, you can kind of see a roadmap. And just because you follow the roadmap doesn't mean it will end up that way for you. But you don't have, it's not like a guessing game either. There's like options for you. So you have been styling for 20 years, and a few years back, you're like, "I've actually become very successful and I'm seeing a problem. And this is what I love because I think a lot of people," like, "What do I do? I don't know what to do." I'm like, there's a lot of things that you're already noticing a problem. And you notice that like a lot of stylists were not as successful as you are, and you wanted to help them do that.Jessica Burgio  Totally, I think you know how you say it, you know. Some people cannot see what's possible, they may have gotten into the industry under the impression that they just want a job where they can make their own schedule, where they can maybe charge what they want. But if they weren't put in a salon like I was when I first started at 19 years old, I saw what was possible immediately. So my standard, my levels were just at a different place than people that stayed where I grew up, which was only 30 minutes from where I went into downtown San Diego, and worked in one of the biggest most well known salons where there was over 40 stylists there, there was over 40 assistants at the time. So like you had to bring your A game to stand out. And so watching how these people treated this career, which kind of was an offhand back in the day, like, "Oh, you couldn't figure out what you want to do with your life. So you went to beauty school," it changed the whole conversation around what this industry was capable of. I mean, I saw people driving really nice cars, dressing like rock stars, charging 3 - 400 dollars ahead 20 years ago. And that's when I was like, "Oh, the possibilities are endless." And so by the time it was my turn to go from assisting to being on the floor, like I had a standard of six figures was not even in question like it was done deal. I'm going to get that and three for six months. And so when I see people struggling from the very beginning, it's confusing to me. But I also realize not everybody started the way I started. Not everybody had that experience. So and it's fine if money isn't what you're necessarily chasing, but most people who say money's not the thing they're searching for, they want nice things, they want to be able to travel, they want freedom, and I'm like, "Well, then you need to make money in order to have those opportunities." So let's keep it real, especially if you live in San Diego, where I live, it's like 100 grand a year is barely enough to get by. (Lesley: Right) Yeah. And in the industry. It costs money to work like there's so much overhead. So, you know, I think seeing that there was such a struggling issue. I moved from a big salon to a small space to another big salon. And it was in that time where we were all booth renters. So we were all basically independent entrepreneurs and we did work on one house, but there weren't really like rules for your particular business. And that's when I really started to see the big difference between me and say, the people next to me, you know, there were a few of us that that bounced in those six figures, but not much over 100 grand, it was always around 100 to 200. Like, and that is a really good career, like income in this industry for working strictly behind the chair. But there were so many other people out of those 40 stations that probably barely touched 40,000 a year, work consistently booked, weren't that busy struggled to, you know, keep their books filled, always had second jobs, and just couldn't seem to figure it out. And, and after I left that big salon and went open my own place, I personally was missing the community, missing the hype that I got every day from coming into that place that made me step my game up, dress a little bit better, you know, give my client a better experience, (Lesley: Right) because it's like your environment really does shape your creativeness and all of the things in your abilities. So when I removed myself from that big space, and I had to go provide all that for myself, like the support, the inspiration, I had a really hard time. So it was a combination of those two things, the community and the network was missing for me at that point, especially at my level, I'd already been in the game 15 years at that point when I left a big place. And then also the ability to see people come up in the industry and never quite make it if you will. (Lesley: Yeah) So (Lesley: I know what you mean.) those two things that I was like, "There's got to be a better way, how can I go through the 20 years that I put in and create some sort of manual or system or program that they can follow to understand," because most of us didn't go to college, most of us didn't get a business degree. So we started (Lesley: Right) off the creative who just wants to have fun. And they teach you how to make money in this industry kind of but they don't teach you how to keep it. They don't teach you what to do with it. They don't teach you how to be smart with it. And it's a cash business. So there was multiple things that I knew under that umbrella, why people weren't able to hit those numbers. So I mean, I could go down a rabbit hole of all the things that ... under that.Lesley Logan  So here's what you know, I think like, a lot of times when people are thinking like, "What am I gonna do next?" Or "I'm not really happy with what I'm doing?" Like, "What should I do next?" It's like, if you just look around, like the experience that you have, is like, you can't trade, you can't buy that, right? Like, that's your experience and those life lessons. And so you can actually see people who are behind you and go, "Hey, actually, I can help you to do that because I've done that. And I know all the ways not to do that. And there and so I've seen people not do it well, and I've seen people do it well, and here's how you do it well." And it's true. Like, I don't care what your job is, or where you went, like no one's career really teaches them all the things. You know, for Pilates instructors, no one taught them anything about business. I know. I ran studios, I went to one. And you know, my when I asked like, "Oh, how much do I charge?" people like, "Well, you know, so and so the studio renting from is charging this much have been teaching for 20 years, and this person is teaching for five years, and they're charging this much. So you just charge a little less than that." And it's like, but that's not how you know how to make money. Like I was just sitting there going, but then how much money do I make a year? Right? Because I was coming from a job where I had a salary, I was managing a jewelry store. And so I knew that at the end of the year, I will have made this much money plus my commission, right? And so I was just really confused. I was like, "But then how much? Like how much money am I making doing this job?" And everyone around me was like, "There's no money there's no money in Pilates." I'm like, "How is that possible? How can that be no... Why is everyone doing it then? Like, why would you teach it if there's nothing here," and I just learned is that no one had taught people how to like, actually figure out how to make a liv... more than a living, and or a living like even that. And so what you did was just like see, like, "Wow, not only do I want community," so you like, we're solving a problem of your own, but you were also were like, "there are so many people who are missing like this amazing stuff that can take them to the next level." And with such an abundance mindset, you weren't, you weren't thinking, "Well, if I help every stylist out then like there'll be no clients for me." You're like, "No, if I help every stylist down, it's gonna be a better place." I love that so much. So you started Beauty Inspires Beauty two years ago?Jessica Burgio  Yeah, I think it's, it's been about two years now. Yeah, the time goes by so fast. So I felt like it needed to have a separate identity from myself. And as much as I like it to be the Jessica show most of the time. I knew that I wanted to create a community that had like a place to live, with or without me, whether I was there or not. So yeah, Beauty Inspires Beauty kind of came from inspiration from Cat Golden and with Nurses Inspire Nurses. She was building that community and helping me figure out how to put one together myself, and she was someone else we met in the group. So, you know, she helped me kind of map out a program and then she helped me map out how to build a community and you know, I'd always love swag, so who doesn't love a cute shirt that says something clever on it. I'm all about comfy, you know, stuff like that. So that part was easy to bring together. And I started these networking branches. And they were basically just a way for us hairdressers to get together because normally, if we go to something, it's like a class where you're learning a skill set, and you get very little time to network and talk with each other. And, you know, I thought if I could put us all in a room together, maybe have a speaker or I would teach maybe some sort of a workshop or something tangible that they could take. But the real point was to get everybody together, and and create community so we could collaborate and create content and do all that kind of stuff. So we had about four of those, they were going really well. And actually, the last one we did was in January of last year, all around reverse engineering your income and figuring out what your hourly worth was in this industry, just like Pilates where people don't know how much they're making, they guess all year long, and don't save enough for taxes like so much bullshit. (Lesley laughs) So that was the last one I actually taught and it was sold out like 25 people at my studio and everybody was hungry for more. And it was like, such a amazing space and then COVID hit. (Lesley: Yeah) And ... I hadn't quite introduced the idea of pivoting in this industry, yet I was still just talking about community and like, you know, getting a better grip on your business. When I tried to take them virtual, it was like be because we were forced to shut down in the way we were, people weren't prepared. So (Lesley: Yeah) really, back in COVID did me a service by showing people now a year later that you need to have other options, you need to have a backup plan. And you need to be in a position where someone's not going to take your only stream of income away from you. So that's (Lesley: Yeah) where I put my money where my mouth wasn't invested in a network marketing company called Monat, which is strictly hair and skincare and a little bit of wellness. And it was just in alignment with my brand and what I've been selling and using and talking about for 20 years. So that's why I chose that route. But if you're passionate about other things like there are so many companies that are already built for you that you can jump into working the little bit of time that you have and get that going. So you can have residual income or create another stream of income that doesn't necessarily mean you're trading time for money. If I don't show up and have that client, I won't get paid. If that client no shows me, I won't get paid. With businesses like this, you can invest, very little to start and they can build as you go. So if and when something like this happens, you at least have options.Jessica Burgio  Yeah, and you and you said it right there, there has been an alignment. Um, yeah, I know. I think like COVID well, I think we'll look back in year from now two years from now. And realize like the gifts that were given for a lot of us just like highlighting things that maybe some people were ignoring, some just really getting us more prepared for the future. I want to, so you mentioned to me earlier, it was like, you know, now you're like a beginner at this coaching and this creating this thing. And so it's not it's not a baby, I mean it's still in its infancy as far as businesses go. But with those first few meetups, I think a lot of people get so nervous if they're gonna bring people together that first thing because you don't know how it's going to be, right? So you're just like, "Think that I want this to be good. I think it's going to be good." So I would love it if you could like, take us through like, what did you say to yourself before you went to that first meetup? What it what was it? Because I mean, like that to me is like the ultimate Be It Till You See It because like, you've not actually done this before. So now you've had to do it. And you don't know how it's gonna go. So can you take us through what that felt like?Jessica Burgio  Yes. And this is actually a story I haven't really talked about out loud. So I think this is going to help so many people too. And looking back, I'm glad I did it this way. But I also, of course, wish I had done it a little bit differently, but it is what it is. So events that I'd gone to prior had usually not been hosted by one person. Normally there's a couple speakers, there's excitement, there's hype, there's all the fluff in between, like, you know, so I thought in order for me to put on my first event, I had to have all of that right. Hello, go back to our perfectionist moment, right? It has to be perfect. Well, I've planned a wedding. I've planned parties. I planned that. So I was like, I need a DJ, I need mics. I need an outdoor venue. I need drinks included. I need them to have gifts. I need way too much food. I mean, I just did the most. And then I decided I decided instead of me leading the workshop, I needed to have expert guests. Well, the whole point was just the network. But I turned it into, well, it's not gonna be good enough unless I have a speaker who's like world renowned celebrity stylist. And then well, he's coming. So I should ask my mentor to come and speak. Well, I tried to do too many things at once. I had this grand idea that I was going to record two podcast episodes while I was there between the two of them. It was meant to be like a Q&A session so that people could listen in and I could ask questions, and then we could open it up to the floor cuz it was there's about 30 people there. So in hindsight afterwards, the first guy that came on, I didn't know him that well, and he was a celebrity stylist from Vegas. I will name not name names, but this motherfucker took over my show like and at the same time I was trying to be like, "It's not about me," but he made it all about him. He showed up with a screen he showed it up with prompts, he showed up but like a me... guided meditation, and then at the end, let everybody know that he was doing coaching. (Lesley laughs) The etiquette bro, like, like so and one of my girlfriends, you'll know Kiersten she came up to me in the middle of his thing, because he did that she goes, "This is your event, you better figure out how to take it back right now. He's about to steal your show. (Lesley laughs) And at the time I was like...Lesley Logan  ... that's a great friend to have.Lesley Logan  It wasn't. But at the time, I was like, "Oh, this is great. He's doing an amazing," but then I was like, "Well, they remember him." I think like it was one of those moments where you wanted to just let it be what it was. But at the same time, after I walked away, I was like, "I could have handled that, I should have stepped up and done my best nervous or not. And given them whatever I could." And it was funny because it went way longer than it was supposed to. And then by the time we got everybody connecting, which you know, we do at the Bliss Project. And we've learned so many great techniques on how to get people to talk and connect with each other. They don't want to stop talking to each other. And it was in that moment that I was like, "This is really what they wanted to come for." The speakers were great (Lesley: Yeah) but now they're talking to each other. Now they're collaborating now, you know, salon down the streets talking to this salon down the street when they've never met, even though they've worked next to each other for all these years. Like, you usually stay in your bubble in a salon and you don't like collaborate with other stylists or other salon owners. And there's so many like independent suite salons now that people are working alone, especially since COVID. So they don't have (Lesley: Yeah) that community and no one to talk to you about business, about ideas or any of that. And it was in that moment with that workshop that I was like, I got the next ones. So after that the next ones were like me leading me coming up with something, you know, to teach on and to share. And then just really collaborating getting them to talk to each other. And then when I did feedback, that was their favorite part was talking to each other.Lesley Logan  I, this is awesome. And I think like, I think back to like some of the things that I've done, where I based on other people's things who have budgets that are, you know, we just only dream up. And the reality is, is the part that people have always loved the most is just the time after whatever they came for, where they just hang out. (Lesley laughs)Jessica Burgio  Yeah. And I think ... close to $3,000 on that little, oh, clearly, I didn't make any money. I didn't get my podcast out of it, I got a shitty video, like, nobody could eat the food because they were sitting on this big table. So it was just such a great learning experience. And from that point forward, they were all profitable after that.Lesley Logan  But I think you know, even if someone's listening and going, oh, well that like now what do I do? It's like, I think you had to do that one so that you could end up getting the one like having what you have now like you had the first thing the first one do anything. If you may as well go as big as you actually can and afford and with what you have. And then you can get the surveys back and then realize like what people really want you can reflect back on what you really want cuz you just don't always know like (Lesley laughs)Jessica Burgio  And don't don't get it don't get me wrong, people were raving afterwards. I was the only one it's like the wedding. We're like a couple things going wrong and nobody knows but you, it was one of those moments like like I would say more than half of the girls that I knew from that that came up to they're like, "Oh my God can you do these every month? We like are excited. Are you gonna have a membership?" Like they were they didn't (Lesley: That so cool.) Yeah.Lesley Logan  You know what I love that you bring up the wedding because it's true like people I've done this before ever got married, my friend was getting married and she was stressing about something and this other girl in the bridal party goes just so you know, we stressed for hours over what kind of tablecloth we were going to use. And the tablecloth on the gift table. Like that one was like had to be this particular lace and we were really we like shipped it in from like somewhere else. And she's like, "I got the pictures back. And that tablecloth was never put on the table. (Jessica: Oh!) And I didn't even see it at the wedding." So she's like, just be careful what you stress over. And I just remembered that when I when I got married. I was like, "People don't see the table. They don't remember the tablecloth," you know? So ... I do think that you're right like you the way you perceive things is different than what they perceived. And I think that's also what a great takeaway for people to think is that like, what we perceive is like the worst mistake or like, "Oh my god, I can't believe I did that," is not what people see. Like they're like, you know, I recently I was teaching a live masterclass, and the tech service provider we used decided to end my broadcast and I wasn't using zoom, I was using something else because it's way easier to send out a replay to hundreds of people. And I've used it before it's never had this and just like I don't know, just decided you're done. And I was like, "Oh yeah," and so I could still chat to them. And I was like, "Here's a zoom link" and like I moved him over to zoom and I was freaking out while I was coming over. I'm like take a deep breath. And I thought no one's gonna want to sign up for my thing at the end because they're like, this girl can't even keep her like masterclass, like on a platform, you know, and you know what? Everyone moved over, which is a sign that they were loving it and they were so impressed with how quick I was able to handle it. It was more impressive than I was giving it credit for, so we just don't always know what's on the label more inside the bottle. (Lesley laughs)Lesley Logan  Oh my God, that's such a good story too. And honestly, like, I think until you do something for the first time, like, give yourself some grace, if you're thinking about creating something or doing something, just know that you, I could have done that same event for $300. When got their own drinks, like, just all the things you think things have to be a certain way, like, if you have an idea, or if you have something you want to start or build. Yeah, I get another book club. I just wanted to get people together in the industry and say it's only for beauty professionals or, you know, there's a way to start, that doesn't have to be like Lori Harder, or whatever, I think because we stayed around so many women who are powerful and doing big things. Like my little meetup in the back patio of this coffee shop felt like so small compared to but you know, she tells the story, she started small to she started with little wine meetups that she would do for free. It's like, we all have to start somewhere. So like be okay with being a beginner.Lesley Logan  Yeah. Oh, I love that. Okay, I want to talk really quickly about you're, you're a single mom, and you're 40. And you're writing your own business. And I just think like, that will resonate with so many women listening to this, because I do think that it's easy to get caught up if you are a mom. And you're like, "Well, I've got kids, I have to take care of them, their priority" or, you know, and for you, you you're doing it all. So can you touch on like, what that's like, what your secret sauce is to making it all work, what you're thinking, what you're looking forward to? I mean, there's, I think there's probably greatness and being single as well.Jessica Burgio  Okay, so I'm going to answer that in a way you probably didn't think I was gonna answer or maybe even wants you, but you're catching me on a full moon and the week before I'm starting my period. So I'm gonna tell you, I don't do all the things myself, I have a lot of help with my mother, his dad is amazing. So I don't do it all by myself, I literally have the best support system as far as like that backend is concerned. I have always been fiercely independent when it comes to like my business and stuff. So I think that's just been a progression from before I was single or even a mother. So because I kind of had those boundaries, habits, just things I showed up for anyways, it was it was easier, not easy, for them to continue on, even after having a baby. Now, for the not so pretty part. Like yesterday was one of those days, it was ugly here in San Diego. I was in my field, I had a hundred things to do and I didn't want to do any of them. I questioned everything, I called my best friend. And I was like, "I don't think coaching is for me, I don't like talking to people who can't get their shit..." Like, I went down the rabbit hole. So just know, like with hairdressing people think everyday should be fun. You're, you're being creative, it's work, it's super hard. And sometimes you have a day full of shitbag clients that just dump all this bullshit on you. And you're like, "Fuck this," like, you know, so and then the next day you have amazing clients. So everything is an ebb and flow. And because I am like a recovering perfectionist, also being able to be okay, not having a perfect day, not feeling amazing, not being super motivated. Even before I do things like this, I'm like, "I don't really want to do that." Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And when I'm doing them, it's through the power of doing and taking the action that I'm reinspired, I'm really motivated, I'm refocused. Because if you're an independent, if you're a creative entrepreneur, if you're an accidental entrepreneur, you d`on't have a boss up your ass, you don't have someone on a strict schedule telling you all the things you need to do. You see people in corporate if they don't get this, this this and done between nine and five, like they're fired. They don't get their bonuses or the fire. But we don't have anybody doing that for us. So I have to do that for myself, which is extremely difficult, and makes me question that I should go get a corporate job every other month or every six months. I felt like that for 20 years. I've thought every about every five years or so I'll be like, "I don't want to do this anymore. Let me see what else I could do." And just the freedoms that come with running your own business, the creative space that I can give myself like because I gave myself that shit day yesterday. I've been on fire today. I had an amazing workout this morning. I created a whole new business this morning with website and domain name and an Instagram like, "I am on it today." (Lesley laughs) So like that's the beautiful thing like Mondays suck, Tuesday's ... the new Friday? I don't know. So, yes and okayLesley Logan  I know. I can see why you thought maybe I wouldn't like this answer. I freaking love this answer. I love the honesty in it. And I think that that's you know, it's there's not not every day is like highlight worthy or even like worth telling people about and there are days in life that you just want to quit. But I I think that that honesty is exactly equal to here. And then I the beginning I want to highlight is that like, you have boundaries. And I think that that is where I don't care if you've got kids or don't have kids, like if you don't have boundaries, everything hard, and you lean on people who love you. And I think a lot of people think they have to do that I have to do it myself. And it's like no that we used to live in like commute, like commute, like, (Jessica: We used to be in tribes.) So there are people who would pick the food while you were babysitting, like there you don't have to do this on our own.Jessica Burgio  Yeah, and I'm going through an interesting transition in my life too, with my son's dad, because he is going to this next level of success in his business, which is requiring him to be gone a lot. And for me to kind of pick up the slack, or I feel like I have to pick up the slack. And as a mom, I don't know if anybody's on here, that's a mom that can relate like when you have, if you had a semi successful or successful career prior to having a kid, nine times out of 10, you backed off a little bit for a little while. And if you had a client based business like mine, those people went somewhere else. So it took me from the time he was born, till probably three or four years later to rebuild where I was, before I had him, not progress, knock your further, not make more money, like I literally had to kind of rebuild and start all over. Because I chose to have my son at 30 versus early 20, so that I could be home more, but then come to the point where you're a single mom, and you're kind of having to balance and do all these things on your own. There was a lot of resentment and frustration I had with his dad now that his career is taking off and things are. it's a lot to juggle. So yes, having boundaries and being very clear about what I need, and definitely being okay with asking for help. If I need a break, "Hey, Mom, can you please take Kai," I know it's my night, but like, I need a night off or I need to go out with my friends or I need to go on a trip for three days to get out of here not do anything. Also the rules to life with social media, I'm supposed to post every day well, I don't feel like it yesterday. I didn't post for like three days. You have to do it on your own terms, in your own way. (Lesley: Yeah) Otherwise, you won't be sustainable. You'll want to quit. You want to give up all those things.Lesley Logan  All right. So Jessica, where can people follow you? I mean, I'm in they're falling in love with you, I'm sure but like, you've got a podcast, you're on Instagram. Like what's the best place to find you?Jessica Burgio  Yes. So we have the Beauty Inspires Beauty podcast, where you can hear it more of my life lessons from behind the chair, but also just success stories of people coming up in the industry. Similar to what I just shared with you guys today. I really dig into where they started, how they got there and what their plans are. And then on Instagram, if you want more of this good stuff, it's that @jessicaburgio was my Instagram. And yeah, I just I feel like you know, I just want to leave everybody with done is better than perfect. Messy action trump's no action and just start where you are listening to people like Lesley staying around other good, positive propaganda is what is going to push you to whatever your next level is.Lesley Logan  Oh, amazing. I mean, you're right that's how you Be It. It's like done is better than perfect. Take messy action. I love. I love all those. It's my I think we have some shirts we're making with them. (Jessica: Yes) I love them. I have a I have a shirt I want to say that says "Nobody wants to be friends with perfect" because it's like, (Jessica: Yes, I want one.) (Jessica and Lesley laughs) We'll send you one, we'll send you one. Oh my gosh, Jessica, thank you so much for taking time out of your life and your business to share so honestly who you are and how you got here and how other people can be it till they see it. So thank you and I can't wait till next time. And everyone thank you so much for listening. Please make sure you screenshot this, tag Jessica and I in it. And let us know your favorite takeaways that is how people more people can hear about us. And, also hear about what Jessica is rocking because if she inspired you and I want you to listen to more that she has to say. Alright, we'll see you at the next one.Lesley Logan  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review. And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day.Lesley Logan  'Be It Till You See It' is a production of 'As The Crows Fly Media'.Brad Crowell  It's written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell.Brad Crowell  Kevin and Bel at Disenyo handle all of our audio editing and some social media content.Brad Crowell  Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Brad Crowell  Special thanks to our designer Jaira Mandal for creating all of our visuals (which you can't see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week so you can.Brad Crowell  And the Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

01:20 - The Superpower of Sociotechnical System (STS) Design: Considering the Social AND the Technical. The social side matters. * Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity by Michael C. Jackson (https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Systems-Thinking-Management-Complexity/dp/1119118379) * Open Systems * Mechanical * Animate * Social * Ecological * On Purposeful Systems: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Individual and Social Behavior as a System of Purposeful Events (https://www.amazon.com/Purposeful-Systems-Interdisciplinary-Analysis-Individual/dp/0202307980/ref=sr_1_3?crid=IJR9EM3K73NE&dchild=1&keywords=on+purposeful+systems&qid=1625847353&sprefix=on+purposeful+systems%2Cstripbooks%2C157&sr=8-3) 09:14 - The Origins of Sociotechnical Systems * Taylorism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management) * Trond Hjorteland: Sociotechnical Systems Design for the “Digital Coal Mines”* (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sociotechnical-systems-design-digital-coal-mines-trond-hjorteland/) * Norwegian Industrial Democracy Program (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-232X.1970.tb00505.x) 18:42 - Design From Above vs Self-Organization * Participative Design * Idealized Design * Solving Problems is not Systems Thinking 29:39 - Systemic Change and Open Systems * Organizationally Closed but Structurally Open * Getting Out of the Machine Age and Into Systems Thinking (The Information Age) * The Basis for the Viable System Model / Stafford Beer // Javier Livas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaLHocBdG3A) * What is Cybernetics? Conference by Stafford Beer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ6orMfmorg) * Jean Yang: Developer Experience: Stuck Between Abstraction and a Hard Place? (https://www.akitasoftware.com/blog-posts/developer-experience-stuck-between-abstraction-and-a-hard-place) * The Embodiment and Hermeneutic Relations 37:47 - The Fourth Industrial Revolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Industrial_Revolution) * 4 Historical Stages in the Development of Work * Mechanization * Automation * Centralization * Computerization * Ironies of Automation by Lisanne Bainbridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironies_of_Automation) * Ten challenges for making automation a "team player" in joint human-agent activity (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1363742) * Jessica Kerr - Principles of Collaborative Automation (https://vimeo.com/369277964) Reflections: Jessica: “You are capable of taking in stuff that you didn't know you see.” – Trond Trond: In physics we do our best to remove the people and close it as much as possible. In IT it's opposite; We work in a completely open system where the human part is essential. Rein: What we call human error is actually a human's inability to cope with complexity. We need to get better at managing complexity; not controlling it. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: REIN: Welcome to Episode 242 of Greater Than Code. I'm here with my friend, Jessica Kerr. JESSICA: Thanks, Rein and I'm excited because today we are here with Trond Hjorteland. Trond is an IT architect aspiring sociotechnical systems designer from the consulting firm Scienta.no—that's no as in the country code for Norway, not no as in no science. Trond has many years of experience with large, complex, business critical systems as a developer and an architect on middleware and backend applications so he's super interested in service orientation, domain driven design—went like that one—event driven architectures and of course, sociotechnical systems, which is our topic today! These happen in industries across the world like telecom, media, TV, government. Trond's mantra is, “Great products emerge from collaborative sensemaking and design.” I concur. Trond, welcome to Greater Than Code! TROND: Thank you for having me. It's fun being here. JESSICA: Trond, as a Northern European, I know our usual question about superpowers makes you nervous. So let me change it up a little bit: what is your superpower of sociotechnical system design? TROND: Oh, that's a good one. I'm glad you turned it over because we are from the land of the Jante, as you may have heard of, where people are not supposed to be anything better than anybody else. So being a superhero, that's not something that we are accustomed to now, so to speak. So the topic there, sociotechnical system, what makes you a superhero by having that perspective? I think it's in the name, really. Do you actually join the social and the technical aspects of things, whatever you do? But my focus is mainly in organizations and in relation to a person, or a team cooperating, designing IT solutions, and stuff like that, that you have to consider both the social and the technical and I find that we have too much – I have definitely done that. Focused too much on the technical aspects and not ignoring the social aspects, but at least when we are designing stuff we frequently get too attached to the technical aspects. So I think we need that balance. JESSICA: Yeah. TROND: So I guess, that is my superpower I get from that. JESSICA: When we do software design, we think we're designing software, which we think is made of technical code and infrastructure, and that software is made by people and for people and imagine that. Social side matters. TROND: Yeah, and I must say that since Agile in the early 2000s, the focus on the user has been increasing. I think that's better covered than it used to be, but I still think we miss out on we part that we create software and that is that humans actually create software. We often talk about the customer, for example. I guess, many of your listeners are creating such a system that actually the customers are using, like there's an end user somewhere. But frequently, there's also internal users of that system that you create like backend users, or there's a wide range of others stakeholders as well and – [overtalk] JESSICA: Internal users of customer facing systems? TROND: For example, yes. Like back office, for example. I'm working for our fairly large telecom operation and of course, their main goal is getting and keeping the end users, paying customers, but it's also a lot of stuff going on in the backend, in the back office like supporting customer service support, there is delivery of equipment to the users, there's shipment, there is maintenance, all that stuff, there's assurance of it. So there's a lot of stuff going on in that domain that we rarely think of when we create their IT systems, I find at least. JESSICA: But when we're making our software systems, we're building the company, we're building the next version of this company, and that includes how well can people in the back office do their jobs. TROND: Exactly. JESSICA: And us, like we're also creating the next version of software that we need to change and maintain and keep running and respond to problems in. I like to think about the developer interface. TROND: Exactly, and that is actually, there's an area where the wider sociotechnical term has popped up probably more frequently than before. It's actually that, because we think of the inter policies we need and organize the teams around for example, services are sometimes necessary and stuff like that. JESSICA: Inter policies, you said. TROND: Yeah, the inter policies offices go into this stuff. So we are looking into that stuff. We are getting knowledge on how to do that, but I find we still are not seeing the whole picture, though. Yes, that is important to get the teams right because you want them to not interact too much but enough so we want – [overtalk] JESSICA: Oh yeah, I love it that the book says, “Collaboration is not the goal! Collaboration is expensive and it's a negative to need to do it, but sometimes you need to.” TROND: Yeah, exactly. So that'd be a backstory there. So the main system, I think and the idea is that you have a system consisting of parts and what sociotechnical systems focus a lot about is the social system. There is a social system and that social system, those parts are us as developers and those parts are stakeholders of course, our users and then you get into this idea of an open system. I think it was Bertanlanffy who coined that, or looked into that. JESSICA: Bertanlanffy open systems. TROND: Open system, yeah. JESSICA: Fair warning to readers, all of us have been reading this book, Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity by Michael C. Jackson and we may name drop a few systems thinking historical figures. TROND: Yes, and Bertanlanffy is one of those early ones. I think he actually developed some of the idea before the war, but I think he wrote the book after—I'm not sure, 1950s, or something—on general system thinking. It's General Systems Theory and he was also looking into this open system thing and I think this is also something that for example, Russell Ackoff took to heart. So he had to find four type of systems. He said there was a mechanical system, like people would think of when they hear system, like it's a technical thing. Like a machine, for example, your car is a system. But then they also added, there was something more that's another type of system, which is animal system, which is basically us. We consist of parts, but we have a purpose that is different from us than a car that makes us different. And then you take a lot of those parts and combine them, then you've got a social system. The interesting thing with the social system is that that system in of its own have a purpose, but also, the parts have a purpose. That's the thing which is different from the other thing. For an animal system, your parts don't have a purpose. Your heart doesn't really have a purpose; it's not giving a purpose. It doesn't have an end goal, so to speak that. There's nothing in – [overtalk] JESSICA: No, it has a purpose within the larger system. TROND: Yeah. JESSICA: But it doesn't have self-actualization. TROND: It's not purposeful. That's probably the word that I – [overtalk] JESSICA: Your heart isn't sitting there thinking, going beat, beat, beat. It does that, but it's not thinking it. TROND: No, exactly. [laughter] TROND: So I think actually Ackoff and I think there was a book called On Purposeful Systems, which I recommend. It's really a dense book. The Jackson book, it's long, but it's quite verbose so it's readable. Like the On Purposeful Systems is designed to be short and concise so it's basically just a list of bullet points almost. It's just a really hard read. But they get into the difference between a purposeful system and a goal-seeking system. Your heart will be goal-seeking. It has something to achieve, but it doesn't have a purpose in a sense. So that's the thing, which is then you as a person and you as a part of a social system and that's where I think the interesting thing comes in and that's where we're sociotechnical system really takes this on board is that in a social system, you have a set of individuals and you also have technical aspects of those system as well so that's the sociotechnical thing. JESSICA: Now you mentioned Ackoff said four kinds of systems. TROND: Yeah. H: Mechanical, animal, social? TROND: And then there's ecological. JESSICA: And then ecological, thanks. TROND: Yeah. So the ecological one is that where every parts have a purpose like us, but the whole doesn't have a purpose on its own. Like the human kind is not purposeful and we should be probably. [laughs] For example, with climate change and all that, but we are not. Not necessarily. REIN: This actually relates a little bit to the origins of sociotechnical systems because it came about as a way to improve workplace democracy and if you look at the history of management theory, if you look at Taylorism, which was the dominant theory at the time, the whole point of Taylorism is to take purposefulness away from the workers. So the manager decides on the tasks, the manager decides how the tasks are done—there's one right way to do the tasks—and the worker just does those actions. Basically turning the worker into a machine. So Taylorism was effectively a way to take a social system, affirm a company, and try to turn it into an animate system where the managers had purpose and the workers just fulfilled a purpose. TROND: Exactly. REIN: And sociotechnical system said, “What if we give the power of purposefulness back to the workers?” Let them choose the task, let them choose the way they do their tasks. TROND: Exactly, and this is an interesting theme because at the same time, as Taylor was developing his ideas, there were other people having similar ideas, like sociotechnical, but we never heard of them a late like Mary Parker Follett, for example. She was living at the same time, writing stuff at the same time, but the industry wasn't interested in listening to her because it didn't fit their machine model. She was a contrary to that and this was the same thing that sociotechnical system designers, or researchers, to put it more correctly, also experienced, for example, in a post-war England, in the coal mines. JESSICA: Oh yeah, tell us about the coal mines. TROND: Yeah, because that's where the whole sociotechnical system theory was defined, or was first coined what was there. There was a set of researchers from the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations, which actually came about like an offshoot of the Tavistock Clinic, which was working actually with people struggling from the war after the Second World War. JESSICA: Was that in Norway? TROND: No, that was exactly in England, that was in London. Tavistock is in London. JESSICA: Oh! TROND: Yeah. So it was an offshoot of that because there were researchers there that had the knowledge that there was something specific about the groups. There was somebody called Bion and there was a Kurt Lewin, which I think Jessica, you probably have heard of. JESSICA: Is that Kurt Lewin? TROND: Yes, that's the one. Absolutely. JESSICA: Yeah. He was a psychologist. TROND: Yeah. So he was for example, our main character of the sociotechnical movement in England in the post-war was Eric Trist and he was working closely with Lewin, or Lewin as you Americans call him. They were inspired by the human relations movement, if you like so they saw they had to look into how the people interact. So they observed the miners in England. There was a couple of mines where they had introduced some new technology called the longwall where they actually tried to industrialize the mining. They have gone from autonomous groups into more industrialized, like – [overtalk] JESSICA: Taylorism? TROND: Yes, they had gone all Taylorism, correct. JESSICA: “Your purpose is to be a pair of hands that does this.” TROND: Exactly, and then they had shifts. So one shift was doing one thing, then other shift was doing the second thing and that's how they were doing the other thing. So they were separating people. They had to have been working in groups before, then they were separated to industrialize like efficiently out of each part. JESSICA: Or to grouplike tasks with each other so that you only have one set of people to do a single thing. TROND: Yeah. So one group was preparing and blowing and breaking out the coal, somebody was pushing it out to the conveyors, and somebody else was moving into the instrument, or the machinery to the next place. This is what's the three partnership shifts were like. What they noticed then is that they didn't get the efficiency that they expected from this and also, people were leaving. People really didn't like this way of working; there was a lot of absenteeism and there were a lot of crows and uproar and it didn't go well, this new technology which they had too high hopes for. So then Trist and a couple of others like Bamford observed something that happened in one of the mines that people actually, some of them self-organized and went back to the previous way of working in autonomous teams plus using this new technology. They self-organized in order to actually to be able to work in this alignment, but this was the first time that I saw this type of action that they actually created their own semi-autonomous teams as they called them. JESSICA: So there was some technology that was introduced and when they tried to make it about the technology and get people to use it the way they thought it would be most efficient, it was not effective. TROND: Not effective? JESSICA: But yet the people working in teams were able to use the technology. TROND: Yeah. Actually, so this is the interesting part is when you have complex systems then you can have self-organization happening there and these workers, they were so frustrated. They're like, “Okay. Let's take matters in our own hands, let's create groups where we can actually work together.” So they created these autonomous groups and this was something that Eric Trist and Ken Bamford observed. So they saw that when they did that, the absenteeism and the quality of work-life increased a lot and also, productivity increased a lot. There were a few mines observed that did this and they compared to other mines that didn't and the numbers were quite convincing. So you should think “Oh, this would use them,” everybody would start using this approach. No, they didn't. Of course, management, the leadership didn't want this. They were afraid of losing the power so they worked against it. So just after a few research attempts, there wasn't any leverage there and actually, they increased the industrialization with a next level of invention was created that made it even worse so it grinded to a halt. Sociotechnical was a definer, but it didn't have the good fertile ground to grow. So that's when they came to my native land, to Norway. JESSICA: Ah. TROND: Yeah. So Fred Emery was one of those who worked with Trist and Bramforth a lot back then and also traced himself, actually came to Norway as almost like a governmental project. There was a Norwegian Industrial Democracy Program, I think it was called, it was actually established by – [overtalk] JESSICA: There was a Norwegian Industrial Democracy Program. That is so not American. TROND: [laughs] Exactly. So that probably only happen in Norway, I suppose and there were a lot of reasons for that. One of them is, especially as that we struggled with the industry after the war, because we were just invaded by Germany and was under rule so we had nothing to build. So they got support from America, for example, to rebuild after the war, but also, Norwegians are the specific type of persons, if you like. They don't like to be ruled over. So the high industrial stuff didn't go down well with the workers even worse than in England, but not in mines because we don't have any mines so just like creating nails, or like paper mills. Also, the same thing happened as I said, in England, that people were not happy with the way these things were going. But the problem is in Norway that this was covering all the mines, not just a few mines here and there. This was going all the way up to the – the workers unions were collaborating with the employers unions. So they were actually coming together. This project was established by these two in collaboration and actually, the government was also coming and so, there were three parts to this initiative. And then the Tavistock was called in to help them with this project, or the program to call it. So then it started off your experiments in Norway and then I went more – in England, they observed mostly, like the Tavistock, and in Norway, they actually started designing these type of systems, political systems, they're autonomous work groups and all that. They did live experiments and the like so there was action research as a way of – [overtalk] JESSICA: Oh, action research. TROND: Yeah, where you actually do research on the ground. This was also from Kurt Lewin, I believe. So I know they did a lot of research there and got similar results as in England. But also, this went a bit further than Norway. This actually went into the law, how to do this. So like work participation, for example and there was also this work design thing that came out of it. It's like workers have some demands that goes above just a livable wage. They want the type of job that meant something, where they were supposed to grow, they were supposed to learn on the job, they were supposed to – there were a lot of stuff that they wanted and that was added to actually the law. So this is part of Norwegian law today, what came out of that research. JESSICA: You mentioned that in Norway, they started doing design and yet there's the implication that it's design of self-organizing teams. Is that conflict? Like, design from above versus self-organization. TROND: Yes, it did and that is also something that I discovered in Norway so well-observed, Jessica. This is actually what happened in Norway. So the researchers saw that they were struggling to getting this accepted properly by the workers, then I saw okay, they have to get the workers involved. Then they started with this, what they call participative design. The workers were pulled in to design the work they worked on, or to do together with the researchers, but the researchers were still regarded as experts still. So there was a divide between the researches and the workers, but the workers weren't given a lot of freewill to design how they wanted this to work themselves. One of the latest experiments, I think the workers weren't getting the full freedom to design and I think it was the aluminum industry. I think they were creating a new factory and the workers weren't part of designing how they should work in that factory, this new factory. They saw that they couldn't just come in and “This is how it works in the mines in England, this is how we're going to do it.” That didn't work in Norway. REIN: And one of the things that they've found was that these systems were more adaptable than Taylorism. So there was one of these programs in textile mills in India that had been organized according to scientific management AKA Taylorism. And what they found, one of the problems was that if any perturbation happened, any unexpected event, they stopped working. They couldn't adapt and when they switched to these self-organizing teams, they became better at adaptation, but they also just got more production and higher quality. So it was just a win all around. You're not trading off here, it turns out. JESSICA: You can say we need resilience because of incidents. But in fact, that resilience also gives you a lot of flexibility that you didn't know you needed. TROND: Exactly. You are capable of taking in stuff that you couldn't foresee like anything that happens because the people on the ground who know this best and actually have all the information they need are actually able to adapt. Lots better then to have a structure like a wild process, I think. REIN: One of the principles of resilience engineering is that accidents are normal work. Accidents happen as a result of normal work, which means that normal work has all of the same characteristics. Normal work requires adaptation. Normal work requires balancing trade-offs competing goals. That's all normal work. It just, we see it in incidents because incidents shine a light on what happened. TROND: I think there was an American called Pasmore who coined this really well. He said, “STS design was intended tended to produce a win-win-win-win. Human beings were more committed, technology operated closer to the potential and the organization performed better overall while adapting more readily to changes in its environment.” This has pretty much coining what STS is all about. REIN: Yeah. I'm always on the lookout because they're rare for these solutions that are just strictly better in a particular space. Where you're not making trade-offs, where you get to have it all, that's almost unheard of. JESSICA: It's almost unheard of and yet I feel like we could do a lot of more of it. Who was it who talks about dissolving the problem? REIN: Ackoff. TROND: That's Ackoff, yeah. JESSICA: Yeah, that's Ackoff in Idealized Design. TROND: Where he said – [overtalk] REIN: He said, “The best way to solve a problem is to redesign the system that contains it so that the problem no longer exists.” TROND: Yeah, exactly. JESSICA: And in software, what are some examples of that that we have a lot? Like, the examples where we dissolve coordination problems by saying the same team is responsible for deployment? REIN: I've seen problem architectures be dissolved by a change in the product. It turns out that a better way to do it for users also makes possible a better architecture and so you can stop solving that hard problem that was really expensive. JESSICA: Oh, right. So the example of item potency of complete order buttons: if you move the idea generation to the client, that problem just goes away. TROND: Yeah, and I have to say another example is if you have two teams that work well together. [chuckles] You have to communicate more. Okay, but that doesn't help because that's not where our problem is. If you redesign the teams, for example, then if they – instead of having fun on the backend teams, if you redesign, you have no verticals, then you haven't solved the problem. You have resolved it. It is gone because they are together now in one thing. So I think there is a lot of examples of this, but it is a mindset because people tend to say, if there is something problem, they want to analyze it as it is and then figure out how to fix the parts and then – [overtalk] JESSICA: Yeah, this is our obsession with solving problems! TROND: Yes. JESSICA: Solving problems is not systems thinking. TROND: No, it's not. Exactly. JESSICA: Solving problems is reactive. It feels productive. It can be heroic. Whereas, the much more subtle and often wider scope of removing the problem, which often falls into the social system. When you change the social system, you can resolve technical problems so that they don't exist. That's a lot more congressive and challenging and slower. TROND: It is and that is probably where STS has struggled. It didn't struggle as much, but that is also here compared to the rest of the world. They said because you have to fight – there is a system already in place and that system is honed in on solving problems as you were saying. JESSICA: That whole line management wants to solve the problem by telling them what workers want to do and it's more important that their solution work, then that a solution work. TROND: Yes, exactly and also, because they are put in a system where that's normal. That is common sense to them. So I often come back to that [inaudible] quote is that I get [inaudible], or something like that is that because a person in a company, he's just a small – In this large company, I'm just a small little tiny piece of it; there's no chance in anyhow that I can change it. JESSICA: Yeah. So as developers, one reason that we focus on technical dilutions and technical design is because we have some control over that. TROND: Yes. JESSICA: We don't feel control over the social system, which is because you can never control a social system; you can only influence it. TROND: So what I try to do in an organization is that I try to find a, change agents around in the organization so I get a broader picture not only understanding it, but also record broader set of attacks, if you like it—I'm not just calling it attacks, but you get my gist—so you can create a more profound change not just a little bit here, a little bit though. Because when you change as society, if we solve problems, we focus on the parts and we focus on the parts, we are not going to fix the hole. That is something that Ackoff was very adamant about and he's probably correct. You can optimize – [overtalk] JESSICA: Wait. Who, what? I didn't understand. TROND: Ackoff. JESSICA: Ackoff, that was that. TROND: So if you optimize every part, you don't necessarily make the system better, but he said, “Thank God, you usually do. You don't make it worse.” [laughs] REIN: Yeah. He uses the example of if you want to make a car, so you take the best engine and the best transmission, and you take all of the best parts and what do you have? You don't have a car. You don't have the best car. You don't even have a car because the parts don't fit together. It's entirely possible to make every part better and to make the system worse and you also sometimes need to make a part worse to make the system better. TROND: And that is fascinating. I think that is absolutely fascinating that you have to do that. I have seen that just recently, for example, in our organization, we have one team that is really good at Agile. They have nailed it almost, this team. But the rest of the organization are not as high level and good at Agile and the organization is not thrilled to be Agile in a sense because it's an old project-oriented organization so it is industrialized in a sense. Then you have one team that want to do STS; they want to be an Agile super team. But when they don't fit with the rest, they actually make the rest worse. So actually, in order to make it the whole better, you can't have this local optimizations, you have to see the whole and then you figure out how to make the whole better based on the part, not the other one. JESSICA: Yeah. Because well, one that self-organizing Agile team can't do that properly without having an impact on the rest of the organization. TROND: Exactly. JESSICA: And when the rest of the organization moves much more slowly, you need a team in there that's slower. And I see this happen. I see Agile teams moving too fast that the business isn't ready to accept that many changes so quickly. So we need a slower – they don't think of it this way, but what they do is they add people. They add people and that slows everything down so you have a system that's twice as expensive in order to go slower. That's my theory. TROND: The fascinating thing, though—and this is where the systems idea comes in—is that if you have this team that really honed this, that they have nailed the whole thing exactly, they're moving as fast as they can and all that. But the rest of it, they'll say it's not, then you have to interact the rest of organization, for example. So they have been bottlenecked everywhere they look. So what they end up doing is that they pull in work, more work than they necessarily can pull through because they have to. Unless they just have to sit waiting. Nobody feels – [overtalk] JESSICA: And then you have nowhere to fucking progress. TROND: Exactly. So then you make it worse – [overtalk] JESSICA: Then you couldn't get anything done. TROND: Exactly! So even a well-working team would actually break in the end because of this. REIN: And we've organized organizations around part maximization. Every way of organizing your business we know of is anti-systemic because they're all about part optimization. Ours is a list of parts and can you imagine going to a director and saying, “Listen, to make this company better, we need to reduce your scope. We need to reduce your budget. We need to reduce your staff. TROND: Yeah. [laughs] That is a hard sell. It is almost impossible. So where I've seen it work—no, I haven't seen that many. But where I've seen that work, you have to have some systemic change coming all the way from the top, basically. Somebody has to come in and say, “Okay, this is going to be painful, but we have to change. The whole thing has to change,” and very few companies want to do that because that's high risk. Why would you do that? So they shook along doing that minor problem-solving here and there and try to fix the things, but they are not getting the systemic change that they probably need. JESSICA: Yeah, and this is one of the reasons why startups wind up eating the lunch of bigger companies; because startups aren't starting from a place that's wrong for what they're now doing. TROND: Exactly. They are free to do it. They have all the freedom that we want the STS team to have. The autonomous sociotechnical systems teams, those are startups. So ideally, you're consisting a lot of startups. REIN: And this gets back to this idea of open systems and the idea of organizationally closed, but structurally open. TROND: Yeah. REIN: It comes from [inaudible] and this idea is that an organization, which is the idea of the organization—IBM as an organization is the idea of IBM, it's not any particular people. IBM stays IBM, but it has to reproduce its structure and they can reproduce its structure in ways that change, build new structure, different structure, but IBM is still IBM. But organizations aren't static and actually, they have to reproduce themselves to adapt and one of the things that I think makes startups better here is that their ability to change their structure as they produce it, they have much more agility. Whereas, a larger organization with much more structure, it's hard to just take the structure and just move it all over here. TROND: Exactly. JESSICA: It's all the other pieces of the system fit with the current system. TROND: Yeah. You have to share every part in order to move. JESSICA: Right. REIN: And also, the identity of a startup is somewhat fluid. Startups can pivot. Can you imagine IBM switching to a car company, or something? TROND: I was thinking exactly the same; you only see pivots in small organizations. Pivots are not normal in large organizations. That will be a no-go. Even if you come and suggested it, “I hear there's a lot of money in being an entrepreneur.” I wouldn't because that would risk everything I have for something that is hypothetical. I wouldn't do that. REIN: Startups, with every part of them, their employees can turn over a 100%, they can get a new CEO, they can get new investors. JESSICA: All at a much faster time scale. TROND: Also, going back to Ackoff, he's saying that we need to go get out of the machine age. Like he said, we have been in the machine age since the Renaissance, we have to get out of that and this is what system thinking is. It's a new age as they call it. Somebody calls it the information age, for example and it's a similar things. But we need to start thinking differently; how to solve problems. The machine has to go, at least for social systems. The machine is still going to be there. We are going to work with machines. We're going to create machines. So machines – [overtalk] JESSICA: We use machines, but our systems are bigger than that. TROND: Yes. JESSICA: Systems are interesting than any machine and when we try build systems as machines, we really limit ourselves. TROND: So I think that is also one of the – I don't know if it's a specific principle for following STS that says that man shouldn't be an extension of the machine, he should be a part of machine. He should be using the machine. He should be like an extension of the machine. JESSICA: Wait. That the man being an extension of machine, the machine should be an extension of man? TROND: Yeah. JESSICA: Right. [inaudible] have a really good tool, you feel that? TROND: Mm hm. REIN: This actually shows up in joint cognitive systems, which shares a lot with sociotechnical systems, as this idea that there are some tools through which you perceive the world that augment you and there are other tools that represent the world. Some tools inside you and you use them to interact with the world, you interact with the world using them to augment your abilities, and there are other tools that you have just a box here that represents the world and you interact with the box and your understanding of the world is constrained by what the box gives you. These are two completely different forms of toolmaking and what Stafford Beer, I think it might say is that there are tools that augment your variety, that augment your ability to manage complexity, and there are tools that reduce complexity, there are tools that attenuate complexity. JESSICA: Jean Yang was talking about this the other day with respect to developer tools. There are tools like Heroku that reduce complexity for you. You just deploy the thing, just deploy it and internally, Heroku is dealing with a lot of complexity in order to give you that abstraction. And then there are other tools, like Honeycomb, that expose complexity and help you deal with the complexity inherent in your system. TROND: Yeah. Just to go back so I get this quote right is that the individual is treated as a complimentary to machine rather than an extension of it. JESSICA: Wait, what is treating this complimentary to machine? TROND: The individual. JESSICA: The individual. TROND: The person, yeah. Because that is what you see in machine shops and those are also what happened in England when they called mining work again, even more industrialized, people are just an extension of the machine. JESSICA: We don't work like that. TROND: Yeah. I feel like that sometimes, I must admit, that I'm part of the machine. That I'm just a cog in the machine and we are not well-equipped to be cogs in machines, I think. Though, we should be. REIN: Joint cognitive systems call this the embodiment relation where the artifact is transparent and it's a part of the operator rather than the application so you can view the world through it but it doesn't restrict you. And then the other side is the hermeneutic relation. So hermeneutics is like biblical hermeneutics is about the interpretation of the Bible. So the hermeneutic relation is where the artifact interprets the world for you and then you view the artifact. So like for example, most of the tools we use to respond to incidents, logs are hermeneutic artifacts. They present their interpretation of the world and we interact with that interpretation. What I think of as making a distinction between old school metrics and observability, is observability is more of an embodiment relationship. Observability lets you ask whatever question you want; you're not restricted to what you specifically remember to log, or to count. TROND: Exactly. And this is now you're getting into the area where I think actually STS – now we have talked about a lot about STS in the industrial context here, but I think it's not less, maybe even more relevant now because especially when we're moving into the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution where the machines have taken over more and more. Like, for example, AI, or machine learning, or whatever. Because then the machine has taken more and more control over our lives. So I think we need this more than even before because the machines before were simple in comparison and they were not designed by somebody in the same sense that for example, AI, or machine learning was actually developed. I wouldn't say AI because it's still an algorithm underneath, but it does have some learning in it and we don't know what the consequences of that is, as I said. So I think it's even more relevant now than it was before. JESSICA: Yeah. TROND: [chuckles] I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or see, that is. JESSICA: Or hear something about it. You want to define it to our listeners? TROND: Somebody called it this hyperphysical systems. JESSICA: Hyperphysical? TROND: Yes, somebody called it hyperphysical systems. I'm not sure if you want to go too much into that, to be honest, but. So the Fourth Industrial Revolution is basically about the continuous automation of manufacturing and industrial practices using smart technology, machine-to-machine communication, internet of things, machine learning improves communication and self-monitoring and all that stuff. We see the hint of it, that something is coming and that is that different type of industry than what we currently are in. I think the Industrial 4.0 was probably coined in Germany somewhere. So there's a definition that something is coming out of that that is going to put the humans even more on the sideline and I think for us working in I, we see some of this already. The general public, maybe don't at the same level. REIN: So this reminds me of this other idea from cognitive systems that there are four stages, historical stages, in the development of work. There's mechanization, which replaces human muscle power with mechanical power and we think of that as starting with the original industrial revolution, but it's actually much older than that with agriculture, for example. Then there's automation, there's a centralization, and then there's computerization. Centralization has happened on a shorter time span and computerization has happened at a very short time span relative to mechanization. So one of the challenges is that we got really good at mechanization because we've been doing it since 500 BC. We're relatively less good at centering cognition in the work. The whole point of mechanization and automation was to take cognition out of the work and realizing you have to put it back in, it's becoming much more conspicuous that people have to think to do their work. TROND: Yeah. JESSICA: Because we're putting more and more of the work into the machine and yet in much software system, many software systems especially like customer facing systems, we need that software to not just be part of the machine, to not do the same thing constantly on a timescale of weeks and months. We need it to evolve, to participate in our cognition as we participate in the larger economy. TROND: Yeah. REIN: And one of the ironies of this automation—this comes from Bainbridge's 1983 paper—is that when you automate a task, you don't get rid of a task. You make a new task, which is managing the automation, and this task is quite different from the task you were doing before and you have no experience with it. You may not even have training with it. So automation doesn't get rid of work; automation mutates work into a new unexpected form. JESSICA: Right. One of the ironies of automation is that now you have created that management at the automation and you think, “Oh, we have more automation. We can pay the workers less.” Wrong. You could pay the workers more. Now collectively, the automation plus the engineers who are managing it are able to do a lot more, but you didn't save money. You added a capability, but you did not save money. REIN: Yeah, and part of that is what you can automate are the things we know how to automate, which are the mechanical tasks and what's left when you automate all of the mechanical tasks are the ones that require thinking. TROND: And that's where we're moving into now, probably that's what the Fourth Industrial Revolution is. We try and automate this stuff that probably shouldn't be automated. Maybe, I don't know. JESSICA: Or it shouldn't be automated in a way that we can't change. TROND: No, exactly. REIN: This is why I'm not buying stock in AI ops companies because I don't think we figured out how to automate decision-making yet. JESSICA: I don't think we want to automate decision-making. We want to augment. TROND: Yeah, probably. So we're back to that same idea that the STS said we should be complimentary to machine, not an extension of it. JESSICA: Yes. That's probably a good place to wrap up? TROND: Yeah. REIN: Yeah. There's actually a paper by the way, Ten Challenges in Making Automation A Team Player. JESSICA: [laughs] Or you can watch my talk on collaborative automation. TROND: Yeah. JESSICA: Do you want to do reflections? REIN: Sure. JESSICA: I have a short reflection. One quote that I wrote down that you said, Trond in the middle of something was “You are capable of taking in stuff that you didn't know you see,” and that speaks to, if you don't know you see it, you can't automate the seeing of it. Humans are really good at the everything else of what is going on. This is our human superpower compared to any software that we can design and that's why I am big on this embodiment relation. Don't love the word, but I do love tools that make it easier for me to make and implement decisions that give me superpowers and then allow me to combine that with my ability to take input from the social system and incorporate that. TROND: I can give it a little bit of an anecdote. My background is not IT. I come from physics—astrophysics, to be specific—and what we were drilled in physics is that you should take the person out of the system. You should close the system as much as possible. Somebody said you have to take a human out of it if you want observe. Physics is you have no environment, you have no people, there's nothing in it so it's completely closed, but we work and here, it's complete opposite. I work in a completely open system where the human part is essential. JESSICA: We are not subject to the second law of thermodynamics. TROND: No, we are not. That is highly restricted for a closed system. We are not. So the idea of open system is something that I think we all need to take on board and we are the best one to deal with those open systems. We do it all the time, every day, just walking with a complex open system. I mean, everything. JESSICA: Eating. TROND: Eating, yeah. REIN: And actually, one of the forms, or the ways that openness was thought of is informational openness. Literally about it. JESSICA: That's [inaudible] take in information. TROND: Yeah. Entropy. JESSICA: Yeah. TROND: Yeah, exactly. And we are capable of controlling that variance, we are the masters of that. Humans, so let's take advantage of that. That's our superpower as humans. REIN: Okay, I can go. So we've been talking a little bit about how the cognitive demands of work are changing and one of the things that's happening is that work is becoming higher tempo. Decisions have to be made more quickly and higher criticality. Computers are really good at making a million mistakes a second. So if you look at something like the Knight Capital incident; a small bug can lose your company half a billion dollars in an instant. So I think what we're seeing is that this complexity, if you combine that with the idea of requisite variety, the complexity of work is exploding and what we call human error is actually a human's inability to cope with complexity. I think if we want to get human error under control, what we have to get better at is managing complexity, not controlling it – [overtalk] JESSICA: And not by we and by we don't mean you, the human get better at this! This system needs to support the humans in managing additional complexity. REIN: Yeah. We need to realize that the nature of work has changed, that it presents these new challenges, and that we need to build systems that support people because work has never been this difficult. JESSICA: Both, social and technical systems. TROND: No, exactly. Just to bring it back to where we started with the coal miners in England. Working there was hard, it was life-threatening; people died in the mines. So you can imagine this must be terrible, but it was a quite closed system, to be honest, compared to what we have. That environment is fairly closed. It isn't predictable at the same size, but we are working in an environment that is completely open. It's turbulent, even. So we need to focus on the human aspect of things. We can't just treat things that machines does work. JESSICA: Thank you for coming to this episode of Greater Than Code. TROND: Yeah, happy to be here. Really fun. It was a fun discussion. REIN: So that about does it for this episode of Greater Than Code. Thank you so much for listening wherever you are. If you want to spend more time with this awesome community, if you donate even $1 to our Patreon, you can come to us on Slack and you can hang out with all of us and it is a lot of fun. Special Guest: Trond Hjorteland.

01:13 - Andrea's Superpower: Distilling Complexity * Approaching Copywriting in a Programmatic Way * Word-land vs Abstract-land 09:00 - “Technical” vs “Non-Technical” * This or That Thinking 16:20 - Empathy is Critical * Communication Artifacts * Audience/User Impact * Programmer Aptitude Test (PAT) 33:00 - Reforming Hiring Practices and Systems * Core Values * Exercism.io (https://exercism.io/) * Retrospectives 39:28 - Performance Reviews * Continuous Feedback * Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan (https://www.bravenewwork.com/) * Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World (https://www.amazon.com/Team-Teams-Rules-Engagement-Complex/dp/1591847486) * Continuous Improvement & Marginal Gains “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” ~ Arthur Ashe Empathy In Tech (https://www.empathyintech.com/) Corgibytes (https://corgibytes.com/) Reflections: Mando: Empathy is being able to view and identify other perspectives. Jess: Help happens when you have empathy for individuals who aren't the great majority of people using the software. Casey: The best way to develop empathy for someone else is to get their feedback. Do it during an interview! Andrea: Diving deeper than code is valuable! This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: JESSICA: Good morning and welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode 237. I'm Jessica Kerr and I'm happy to be here today with my friend, Mando Escamilla! MANDO: Hey, Jess. Thanks. I am happy to be here with my friend, Casey Watts. CASEY: Hi, I'm Casey and we're all here with Andrea Goulet. Andrea is a sought-after keynote speaker for conferences around the world, empowering audiences to deepen their technical skills for understanding and communicating with others. She is best known for her work defining Empathy-Driven Development, a framework that helps software engineers anchor their decisions and deliverables on the perspectives of the people who will be impacted by what they create. Andrea is a co-founder of Corgibytes, a software consultancy that helps organizations pay down technical debt and modernize legacy systems. You can recognize her by the JavaScript tattoo on her wrist. Welcome, Andrea. ANDREA: Hi, welcome! Nice to be here. CASEY: We always like to start with a question, which I think you're prepared for, that is what is your superpower, Andrea, and how did you acquire it? ANDREA: Yeah! First of all, I just love that y'all ask this. I think it's just such a nice way to get to know different people. I was thinking about this because you sent it a little bit ago and I was thinking maybe empathy, given the work I do. But I don't actually think that's it. I feel like I'm constantly trying to learn more about empathy, but I do think that what my superpower is, is distilling complexity. So I went back and looked at what the thread is of all the recommendations I've got on LinkedIn and things like that. It's not something that I would necessarily say that I noticed, but it's something that other people have noticed about me. The idea of taking a really abstract and big, gnarly, complex topic, and being able to distill it down to its essence and then communicate either what the importance is, or what the impact is to other people. I think that's why I've gravitated towards big, gnarly things like legacy code. [chuckles] Because what motivates me is impact and how do we have the work that we do make as big of an impact as possible? So the way I got into software was really a twisty and windy road. I started out as a copywriter and I think that's where the distilling complexity comes down because I would sit with clients and learn all about their businesses. And then I would write typically, a website, or some kind of marketing material and they would say, “You said what was in my head and I couldn't say it.” JESSICA: Wow. ANDREA: And when I got into software, I had a friend of mine from high school, Scott, who's my co-founder at Corgibytes, he came up to me because I had been writing about my writing and he said, “You're not a writer, you're actually a programmer because the way that your brain works, you're thinking in terms of inputs and manipulating data and outputs, and that's exactly what a programmer does.” So then, he wanted to fix legacy code for a living. I didn't even know what that was at that point, thought it was a good thing and I found that my ability to both walk in and understand not just the syntax of what's going on, but the business challenges and how everything links together. With that, you can create a sense of cohesion on a team and getting different people to work together and different people to see each other's points of view, because when you're able to distill a perspective over here and say, “Okay, well, this is what this person's trying to say,” and still, this over here. “Okay, I think this is what this person's trying to say.” I feel like a lot of times I am kind of like a translator, but it's taken me a long time. I've been in software 12 years now and I still have massive imposter syndrome like, I don't belong because I'm not the fastest person on the keyboard. I really struggle with working memory. My visualization is really a struggle, but I do really great in an ensemble. When I started ensemble programming—sometimes it's referred to as mob programming—I was like, “I can do this. Oh my gosh, this makes sense and I belong.” I think just over the years, little things like hearing the joke – I was at a conference, Jess, I think this may have been ETE when you and I connected, but I heard a joke and it was, I think Phil Carlton had first said it and it was like, “There's only two hard problems in computer science, cache invalidation and naming things,” and then somebody else said, “Off-by-1 errors.” I remember I was like, “Y'all think naming things is hard?” Like, help me understand how that's hard because that's – JESSICA: [inaudible]? Oh my gosh, that's hard. ANDREA: Yeah, and to me, it just comes so naturally. I think that's kind of the thing is figuring out where is your trait, where's your skillset. I remember when I first started doing open source contributions, I haven't done those in a long time, but just going in and modifying the language on help messages and turning them from passive to active voice. They got accepted, it was on some high-profile projects, and it was like, I didn't really feel like I was even doing much and I still feel like, “Is that even a big deal?” But I think that's kind of the definition of a superpower a little bit is that – JESSICA: Yeah, it's easy for you. [laughs] ANDREA: You don't recognize that it's hard for other people. Yeah, and so it's neat now that it's like I'm starting to come into my own and leaning into that, and then helping other people see that the way that I approach naming things, the way I approach copywriting is actually in a very programmatic way. It's leaning on frameworks. It's leaning on patterns that I use over time. I know, Casey, you and I have talked last week about like when I first go to a conference like using open-ended questions versus closed-ended questions and these little kind of communication hacks that I've developed over the years. So now putting those together in a framework to help other people remember that when we're coding, we're not coding for a computer, we're coding through a computer for other people. The computer is just like a code is just a tool. It's a powerful tool. But a lot of times – CASEY: I have a question for you, Andrea. ANDREA: Yeah. CASEY: About that, I find myself switching gears between word land and abstract land. So if I'm coding and I'm not thinking of words, the naming is hard, but sometimes I can switch gears in a different head space. It's like a different me and then I'm naming things really well. Especially if I'm looking at someone else's code, I don't have to be an abstract land; they did that part already. Do you find yourself switching between the two? ANDREA: Oh, all the time. Yeah, and especially, too, when you're writing prose. There's two different kind of aspects of your brain. There's the creative conceptual side and then there's the analytical rational side and everybody has both. So it does require you to come out of the abstract side in that and then move into more of the analytical space, which is why I love pairing. I love coding as a group because then that way, it's like the mental model is shared and so, I can stay in my world of naming things really well, or I don't know that we need to be that precise if we try to – like, when I was in one group and they were trying to have a timing thing and it was like down to the millisecond and I was like, “Y'all, we don't need to be that precise. We just need to have this check once every 10 minutes,” and that saved like 6 hours of work. Just being able to say that thing and be the checkpoint. JESSICA: Yeah. Someone has to be super down in the details of what to type next and it helps to have someone else thinking about it at the broader perspective of why are we doing this? ANDREA: Yeah, and that's me, typically and I love that role, but it's very different than I think what goes through people's minds when they envision a software developer. JESSICA: Yeah, maybe they envisioned the things that software developers do that other people don't. Typing curly braces. ANDREA: Yeah. MANDO: I still think of that when I'm doing it. When I think of myself as a software developer, I think of myself as the person who hasn't gotten up from their desk in 5 hours and just hunched over, just blazing fast hacking on something that probably is kind of dumb. [laughter] But when I don't spend my day like that, I don't really feel exactly like I've been doing my job and it's something that I struggle with because I know that's not the job in its totality by any means and it doesn't mean that I'm not getting good work done. JESSICA: Not even close to most of the job. MANDO: Not even close to most of the job, you're exactly right. JESSICA: Like you said, if you're sitting there for 5 hours by yourself, hunched over your computer, you're probably hacking on something dumb. MANDO: Right. [laughter] JESSICA: We had gotten off on a tangent somewhere without someone to be like, “Why are we doing this again?” MANDO: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. ANDREA: Well, and I think that that has been a personal challenge of mine as well. I know there was a really flashbulb moment for me. Scott and I have been running our business together for a couple of years. We had gotten on our first podcast and he was telling our origin story and he used the phrase, “Andrea, she's the non-technical founder.” When I heard it, I was like, “How dare you? I have for 2 years been sitting right next to you,” and then he said, “Well, that's the term you use to describe yourself all the time. We had been in a sales meeting right before I recorded that podcast and that's literally the words you use to introduce yourself. So once you start calling yourself technical, I'll follow suit.” JESSICA: Wow. ANDREA: It really made me think and I think some of it is because whenever I go to conferences, I don't look like other people who code especially 12 years ago. I don't talk like the people who are typically stereotypical developers and the first question I would get asked, probably 25 to 40% of the time from people I met were, “Hi! Are you technical, or non-technical?” JESSICA: Really? ANDREA: Yeah. MANDO: Ugh. JESSICA: Huh. ANDREA: And that would be the first thing out of the gate. At the time, I didn't have the kind of mental awareness to go, “I'm at a technical conference. I think you can assume I'm technical.” The fact is I was scared to call myself technical and over the years, I'm just like, “What does that mean to be technical and why do we define people by you are either technical, or you have nothing?” Non-technical, you have zero technical skills, you don't belong. JESSICA: So after you had that conversation with Scott, did you switch to calling yourself technical? Did you change your language? ANDREA: It has been a journey. I became very conscious of not using non-technical. I'll sometimes then say like, “I struggle with syntax and I'm really, really good at these things.” When I phrase things that way, or “I have engineers who are so much better and have much deeper expertise in Docker and Kubernetes than I do. I'm really good at explaining the big picture and why this happens.” So it becomes, I think what we do in software is that because we're so used to thinking in binaries, because that's the way we need to make our code work—true/false, if/else, yes/no—and that pattern naturally extends itself into human relationships, too. Because I know that every single person who asked me that question in no way was trying to be rude, or shut me out. I know that the intention behind it was kind and trying to be inclusive. But from my perspective, when half the people walk up to you and go, “Do you belong here?” Then it's like, “I don't know. Do I belong here?” JESSICA: Yeah. ANDREA: So that's an example of how, if you're at a conference saying, “What brings you here?” That's very open-ended and then it gives everybody the chance to say what brings them here and there's no predefined, “Do you fit in this bucket, or that bucket? Are you part of us, or are you part of them?” JESSICA: It's open to surprise. ANDREA: Mm hm and I think that's something that I am really good at. That's my superpower is let's see the complexity and then let's see the patterns and let's figure out how we can all get good work done together. But you can't see the complexity unless you take a step back. JESSICA: Yeah, and yet Scott noticed that when you are thinking that way, you are thinking like a programmer. Because while software starts by getting us used to thinking in binaries—I should say programming. ANDREA: Yeah. JESSICA: It's just thinking of binaries, as soon as you get up to software and software systems, you have to think in complexity. ANDREA: Yeah. MANDO: And like you were saying, Andrea, I find myself nowadays better recognizing when I'm falling into that trap when I'm not talking about work stuff. When I find myself saying, “Well, it's this, or it's this.” It's like, “Is it really this, or this?” JESSICA: Are these the only options? ANDREA: Yeah. MANDO: Yeah. Do I have to eat Thai food, or pizza tonight, or could I just eat ice cream, or a salad, or…? [laughs] ANDREA: Yeah. MANDO: You know what I mean? It's a silly example, but I don't know, there's something about doing this for a while that I find that kind of this, or that thinking wiring itself into my brain. JESSICA: Yeah. ANDREA: Yeah. Well, and I think that that's normal and that's human. We operate on heuristics. There's the whole neurons that fire together wire together and if you're spending the majority of your time in this thought pattern, adopting something else can be a challenge. So to me, it's like trying to describe how the way I navigate the world in being able to name things well and being able to talk to new people, connect dots, see patterns that I rely on frameworks just as much as I do when I code and trying to figure out what are those things. What are those things? JESSICA: Yeah, because you don't have to import that top level file from the framework in order to use it. So it's not explicit that you're using it. ANDREA: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So that's been my challenge is that as Scott is like, “Well, help me understand.” I'm like, “I, uh. I don't know. I do this.” That was where I nailed on empathy as really critical and it's been fascinating because when I first started about 5 years writing and talking about empathy in software, the first thing I noticed were all the patterns. I was like, “A really well-written commit message, that's empathy.” That is taking the time to document your rationale so that it's easier for somebody behind you. Refactoring a method so that it's easy to read, deleting the dead code so that it's less burdensome, even logging. Looking at logging in C versus Ruby, it's night and day. JESSICA: Help messages. ANDREA: Yeah. There's a little moment. MANDO: Non-happy path decisions in code. Guardrails. All that stuff. ANDREA: Yeah. So I started thinking in terms of communication artifacts. All of these little things that we're producing are just artifacts of our thinking and you can't produce a communication artifact unless you are considering a perspective. What I noticed, of the perspective, is that a lot of software developers had been trained to take was that of the compiler. I want to make the compiler happy. I want to make the code work. That's a very specific practice of perspective taking that is useful if you're imagining okay, we don't have to get rid of that and we need to add the recognition that the perspectives taking needs to go the compiler into who will be interacting with what you're creating and that is on both the other side of the UI, if there is one, or working on the code that you've written maybe six months from now and that can be your future self. And then also, who will be impacted by the work that you create, because not everybody who is impacted by the decisions that you make will be directly interacting with and when I'm writing content, or that is the framework is getting to know the audiences really well, doing good qualitative research. So that's kind of the difference between the open-ended versus closed-ended questions. Then being able to perspective change and then along the way, there are little communication hacks, but just thinking about every single thing that you produce—and no, I have not come across a communication artifact, or a thing that is produced while coding that is not somehow rooted in empathy. JESSICA: Because it's communication and you can't communicate – [overtalk] ANDREA: It's all communication. JESSICA: At all without knowing what is going to be received and how that will be interpreted. ANDREA: Yeah. Similar to test-driven development, where we're framing things in terms of unit tests and just thinking about the test before we write the code. In the same way, we're thinking about the perspective of other people—we can still think of the compiler—and anchoring our decisions on how it will impact other people. JESSICA: It's making the compiler happy. That's just table stakes. That's absolute minimum. ANDREA: Yeah. Well, it's been fascinating because this part of this project. So I'm writing a book now, which is super exciting and by far, the hardest thing I've ever done. But one of the things that, because I'm curious, I'm like, “Why? How did we get here? How did we get here where, by all objective measures, I should have been able to go into computer science without a problem and feel like –?” JESSICA: Think of yourself as technical without a problem. ANDREA: Yeah. Why do I still struggle and why did we extract empathy out of this? So looking at the history of it has been fascinating because as the computer science industry grew, there was a moment in the mid-60s. There was a test, like a survey, that went out to just under 1,400 people called the Canon Perry vocational test for computer programmers. It was vocational satisfaction, I think. But it was measuring the satisfaction of programmers and they were trying assess what does a satisfied programmer look like. There were many, many problems with the methodology of this, including the people who they didn't define who a programmer was, the people self-defined. So it's like, if you felt like you were programmer, then you were a programmer, but there was no objective. Like, this is what a programmer is prior to selecting the audience, the survey respondents and then when they evaluated the results, they only used professional men. They didn't include any professional women in their comparison study. So the women in the study, there are illustrations and the women are not presented as professionals, they are presented as sex objects in a research paper. The scientific programmers, they're the ones who get the girl and she's all swooning. The business programmers are very clearly stated as less than and they're shy. The girl is like, “I don't want you.” JESSICA: That have like comics, or something? ANDREA: It was comics, yeah. They had like comic illustrations in there. Okay, it's a survey, what's the big deal? Well, from 1955 through the mid-90s, there was an aptitude test from IBM called the Programmer Aptitude Test, the PAT. In there, Walter McNamara from IBM, who created it, went out, had empathy, and was like, “Okay, let's talk to our customers, what does a good programmer look like,” and determined that logical reasoning was the number one attribute. Okay, sounds good. But then he said, “Well, if logical reasoning is the most important attitude, then we need to create a timed 1-hour math test.” What's interesting to me is that in that, there is a logical fallacy in and of itself, called a non-sequitur, [chuckles] where it's like all humans are mammals, bingo a mammal. Therefore, bingo is a human. That's an example of a non-sequitur. That's what happened where it was determined logical reasoning is important to computer science and programming. All mathematics is logical reasoning. Therefore, mathematics is the only way to measure the capability that somebody has for logical reasoning. That, saying, “Okay, we don't care about communication skills. We don't care about empathy. We don't care about any of that. Just are you good at math?” And then the PAT's study—I've been diving into the bowels of the ACM and looking at primary resource documents for the past several months—and there was an internal memo where Charles McNamara referred to the Canon Perry study in 1967 and said, “The PAT was given to 700,000 people last year and next year, we should incorporate these findings into the PAT,” and the PAT became the de facto way to get into computer science. So these are decisions that were made long before me and so, what you end up getting then – and then also in 1968, there was what's called, there was a NATO conference on software engineering and they said, “We really need to bring rigor into computer science. We need to make this very rigorous.” Again, there were no men at this conference. It was about standards and Grace Hopper wasn't even invited, even though she was like – [overtalk] JESSICA: There were no women in the conference. ANDREA: There were no women. JESSICA: No non-men. ANDREA: No non-men, yes. So you start to see stereotypes getting built and one of the stereotypes became, if you look like this and you are good at math, then you are good at programming. I'm very good at logical reasoning, but I struggle to do a time capsule. I have ADHD and that is something that's very, very, very challenging for me. So that coupled with and then you get advertising where it's marketed, too. MANDO: Yeah. ANDREA: So we need to undo all of this. We can recognize, okay, we can refactor all of this, but it takes recognizing the complexity and how did it all come to be and then changing it one thing at a time. CASEY: A lot of what you've just been talking about makes me think about Dungeons and Dragons and Skyrim for a little nerdy segue. ANDREA: Yeah. CASEY: You have skill trees. You could be a really, really good warrior, very good at math, very good at wielding your sword, and then if you measure how good you are at combat by how big your fireball spell can be, how many you can shoot, how accurate you are, you're missing that whole skill tree of ability, of power that you have. ANDREA: Yeah. MANDO: What I find so fascinating is when I was going through the computer science program that I never finished and this was like a million years ago. When I was in college, there was a very specific logical reasoning class that you had to take as part of the CS program at UT. But it wasn't a math class, it was a philosophy class and I think that's pretty common that logistics studies fall under schools of philosophy, not the schools of mathematics. So it was really interesting to me that these dudes just completely missed the mark, right? [laughs] ANDREA: It is the definition of irony and not Alanis Morrissette kind of way, right? [chuckles] I think that's the thing it's like – and this isn't to say the Walter McNamara was a bad person like, we all make mistakes. But to me, again, this is about impact and if one, or two people can have the ability to create a test that impacts millions of people across generations to help them feel whether, or not they belong in even contributing to building software. Because I always felt like I was a user of software—I was always a superuser—but for some reason, I felt like the other side of the interface, the command line, it was like Oz. It was like that's where the wizards live and I'm not allowed there. It's like, how do we just tear down that curtain and say, “Y'all, there is no – no, this was all built on like false assumptions”? How do we have a retrospective and say, “When we can look at a variety of different perspectives, then we get such stronger products.” We get such stronger code. We minimize technical debt in addition to hopefully, staving off biases that get built into the software. I think it's very similar of human systems, very similar to software systems. It's like, how can we roll back? If we make a mistake and it impacts human systems, how can we fix that as fast as possible, rather than just letting things persist? JESSICA: When you're talking about who can be a good software developer, when you're talking about who is technical, who is valuable, you don't want rigor in that! ANDREA: Right!
 JESSICA: That's not appropriate. ANDREA: Yeah. JESSICA: You want open questions. ANDREA: Yeah, and that is exactly what happened, was people conflate rigor and data with accuracy. There's a bias towards if it's got numbers behind it, it must be real, but you can manipulate data just as much as you can manipulate other things. So the PAT then said, “Okay, well, if you can't pass the PAT, then we'll create all of these other types of tests, so you could be a console operator, or you could be a data analyst.” What's fascinating is when you go back, the thing that was at the very bottom of the Cannon Perry survey, in terms of valuable development activities, was software maintenance. JESSICA: And that's everything now. ANDREA: Yeah!
 JESSICA: Back then, they didn't have a lot of software. MANDO: Yeah. JESSICA: They didn't have open source libraries. If they needed something, they wrote it. ANDREA: But the stereotypes persist. JESSICA: Yeah. MANDO: 100%. ANDREA: The first evidence I found, again, was in 1967. There was a study of 12 people, all of whom were trainees at a company, which that would be a wild – they hadn't even – [overtalk] JESSICA: So this is like even less than interviewing your grad students. ANDREA: Well, yeah. JESSICA: Or your undergrads for your graduate research paper, yes. ANDREA: They measured how quickly someone could solve a problem and they ranked them, and then they made the claim that you can save 25 times—this is the first myth of the 25x developer. Well, it got published in the ACM and then IBM picked it up and then McKinsey picked it up, and then it's just, you get the myth of the full-stack unicorn who's going to come in and save everything! What's interesting is all of these things go back and I think they were formed out of good intention in terms of understanding our world and we understand now, exactly like you said, Jess. That's not the right way to go about it because then people who are really needed on software teams don't feel like they belong and it's like, “Well, do you belong?” JESSICA: That's an outsized impact for such a tiny study. ANDREA: Yeah. So that gets me thinking, what kinds of things am I doing that might have an outside impact? JESSICA: And can we make that impact positive? ANDREA: Yeah, and when we find out that it wasn't, can we learn from our mistakes? I think one of the things, too, is taking the idea of as people are coding. It's like, “Well, who's actually going to read this?” That's something I hear a lot. I used to feel that way about all tags. I'm like, “Who actually reads all tags?” But then my friend, Taylor, was in a car accident and lost his vision. and he was like, “I absolutely need all tags,” and I'll tell you, that changed everything for me. Because it went from this abstract, “I have to check this box. I have to type something in, and describe this photo” to “I care about my friend Taylor and how can I make this experience as best for him as possible?” That is empathy because in order to have empathy, you have to connect with a single individual. Empathy is – and actually, when you do form empathy for a group, you get polarization. So empathy cuts both ways. It can be both very positive, but also very – [overtalk] CASEY: [inaudible] on the individual goes a long way. So for our discussion here, I can share an individual I've been talking to about this kind of problem. I have a friend who's a woman trying to get her first software developer role and she has to study how to hack the coding interview for a lot of the places where she wants to work, which is literally studying algorithms that you probably won't use in the job. I had an interview a few years ago that was the Google style algorithms interview for a frontend role. Frontend developers don't write algorithms, generally. Not unless you're working on the core of the framework maybe. It was completely irrelevant. I rejected them. I think they rejected me back, too probably. [laughter] But I wouldn't work there because of the hiring process. But my friend, who is a woman in tech trying to get in, doesn't have that kind of leeway to project. She wants to get her first job whoever it is – [overtalk] MANDO: She wants a job, yeah. CASEY: That is willing to use the bias system like that and to hack that system to study it specifically how to get around it, which isn't really helping anyone. ANDREA: Yeah. CASEY: So how can we help reform the system so she doesn't have to do that kind of thing and so, people like her don't have to, to get into tech? I don't know, my boycotting that one company is a very small impact; how do we get a company's hiring practices to change is a hard problem. ANDREA: It is a very hard problem. I can share what we are doing in Corgibytes to try to make a difference. I think the first thing is that in our hiring process, we have core values mapped to them and these are offshoots of our main core values, one of which is communication is just as important as code. So we have that every single applicant will get a response and that seems so like, duh, but the number of people who are here who are just ghosted, submit an application and it goes out into the ether. That is, in my opinion, disrespectful. We have an asynchronous screening interview, so it's an application and it's take your time, fill it out, and it's questions like, “What's an article you found interesting and why?” and “What do you love about modernizing legacy code?” Some people need that time to think and just to formulate an answer and so, taking some of that pressure off, and then at the end of our – we have all of our questions mapped to our core values. I'm still trying to figure out how we can get away from more the dreaded technical interviews, but we don't use the whiteboard, but we also have a core value of anything that someone does for us, in terms of whether they show up for an interview, they will walk away with just as much benefit. They will have an artifact of learning something, or spec work is I think, immoral to some of these core things. So we use Exercism for us, so Katrina Owens, as a way of like, “Okay, show us a language that you're like really familiar with.” And then because with what we do, you just get tossed into if it's like, “Okay, let's pick Scala.” It's like you've never tried functional programming before, but then just, it's more of seeing the mindset. Because I think it's challenging because we tried getting rid of them all together and we did have some challenges when it came to then client upper-level goals and doing the job. So it's a balance, I think and then at the end of our interviews doing retrospectives telling the candidate, “Here's what you did really well in this interview, here's where it didn't quite land for me,” because I think interviewing is hard and like you said, Casey, especially now post-COVID, I think more and more people have the power to leave jobs. So I think the power, especially in software development, for people who have had at least their first position, they have a lot more power to walk out the door than they did before. So as an employer and as somebody who's creating these, that's what I'm doing and then if we get feedback and the whole idea with empathy is you're never going to be able to be perfect. Because you don't have the data for the perspective of every single person, but being open and listening and when you do make mistakes, owning up to them, and fixing them as fast as possible. If we all did that, we can make a lot of progress on a lot of fronts really fast. CASEY: I'm so glad your company has those good hiring practices. You're really thinking about it, how to do it in a supportive, ethical, and equitable way. I wonder, we probably don't have the answer here today, but how can we get more companies to do that? I think you sharing here might help several companies, if their leadership are listening. and that's awesome. Spreading the message, talking about it more—that's one thing. Glad we're doing that. MANDO: Yeah. The place that I work at, we're about to start interviewing some folks and I really like the idea of having a retrospective with the candidate after maybe a couple of days, or whenever after the interview and taking the time, taking the 30 minutes or whatever, to sit down and say, “If I'm going to take time to reach out to them anyway and say, ‘You're moving on to the next round,' or ‘We have an offer for you, or not,' then I should be willing to sit down with them and explain why.'” ANDREA: Well, I think the benefit goes both ways, actually. We do it right in our interviews. So we actually say the last 15 minutes, we're going to set aside on perspectives. MANDO: Oh wow, okay. ANDREA: So we do and that's something that we prep for ahead of time. We get feedback of what went well [chuckles] and what we can do better and what we can change. MANDO: Yeah. ANDREA: Because otherwise, as an employer, it's like, I have no idea. I'm just kind of going off into the ether, but then I can hear from other people's perspectives and it's like, okay and then we can change things. But that's an example of, we think of employer versus employee and it's like that's another dichotomy. It's like no, we're all trying to get good work done. JESSICA: Andrea, how do you do performance reviews? ANDREA: We're still trying to crack that, but there's definitely a lot of positive psychology involved and what we are trying to foster is the idea of continuous performance, or continuous feedback is what we call it. So we definitely don't do any kind of forced ranking and that's a branch of things that have contributed to challenges. We have one-on-ones, we check in with people, but a lot of it, I think is asking people what they want to be doing, genuinely. As a small company, we're like 25 people. I think it's easier in a small company, but part of it is – and we were constantly doing this with ourselves, too. My business partner was like, “I really want to try to be the CEO. I've always wanted to be the CEO.” So I stepped back actually during COVID. We focus on being a really responsive team and so, then that way, it's less about the roles. It's less about rigidity. There's a really great book in terms of operations called Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan. It has a lot of operational principles around this. Team of Teams is another really good one. But just thinking through like, what's the work that needs to be done, how can we organize around it, and then thinking of it in terms of more of responsibilities instead of roles. JESSICA: I want to think of it as a relationship. It's like, I'm not judging you as a developer, instead we're evaluating the relationship of you in this position, in this role at this company. ANDREA: Yeah. JESSICA: How is that serving the company? How is that serving you? ANDREA: Yes, and I think that's a big piece of it is – and also, recognizing the context is really important and trying to be as flexible as possible, but then also recognizing constraints. So there have been times where it's like, “This isn't working,” but trying to use radical candor as much as you can, that's something we've been working on. But trying to give feedback as early and as often as possible and making that a cultural norm as to the, “Oh, I get the 360 feedback at the end, twice a year,” like that. JESSICA: Yeah, I'm sorry, if you can't tell me anything within two weeks, don't bother. ANDREA: Yeah. But one example is like we've fostered this and as a leader, I want people who are going to tell me where I'm stepping in it and where I'm messing up. So I kind of use – [overtalk] JESSICA: Yeah, at least that retrospective at the end of the interview says that. ANDREA: Mm hm, but even with my staff, it's like – [overtalk] JESSICA: [inaudible] be able to say, “Hey, you didn't send me a Google Calendar invite,” and they'd be like, “Oh my gosh, we should totally be doing that.” Did anybody tell them that? No! ANDREA: Yeah, totally. So I don't claim to have the answers, but these are just little experiments that we're trying and I think we really lean on the idea of continuous improvement and marginal gains. Arthur Ash had a really great quote, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” I think that's the thing, the whole point of the empathy during development framework is that if you're a developer working on the backend writing a nice commit message, or giving quality feedback on a pull request, instead of just a “Thumbs up, looks good to me.” That's a small act of empathy that you can start doing right away. You don't need to run it by anybody, really, hopefully. If you do, that's a problem [chuckles] your manager and we've seen that. But there are small ways that you can be empowered and leaning into those small moments, doing it again and again, and then creating opportunities to listen. Because empathy, I think the other thing is that people tend to think that it's a psychic ability. You're either data, or your Deanna Troi. CASEY: Jamil Zaki, right? ANDREA: Yeah, the Roddenberry effect. Jamil Zaki, out in Stanford, coined that. I think that's the thing; I've always been told I'm an empath, but I don't think it's telepathy. I think it's just I've gotten really good at spotting patterns and facial recognitions as opposed to Sky. He can just glance and go, “Oh, you're missing a semicolon here.” That is the same skill, it's just in a different context. CASEY: I love that parallel. JESSICA: Yeah. CASEY: Recognizing small things in facial expressions is like noticing missing semicolons. M: Mm hm. [laughs] CASEY: That's so powerful. That's so vivid for me. MANDO: Yeah. Going back, that made what something that you said earlier, Andrea really click for me, which is that so many people who are professional software developers have this very well-developed sense of empathy for the compiler. [laughs] ANDREA: Yeah. MANDO: Right, so it's not that they're not empathetic. ANDREA: Yes! MANDO: They have learned over their career to be extremely empathetic, it's just for their computer. In the same way, you can learn to be empathetic towards your other teams, towards your DevOps group, towards the salespeople, towards anybody. ANDREA: The flip side of your non-technical is you're not good with people because Scott got this all the time. He's like, “You're good with machines, but you're not good with people.” When he told me that, I was like, “I've known you since we were 11, you're incredibly kind. I don't understand.” So in some ways, my early journey here, I didn't come with all the baggage and so, there is this, like, this industry is weird. [laughs] How can we unpack some of this stuff? Because I don't know, this feels a little odd. That's an example and I think it's exactly that it's cultural conditioning and it's from this, “You're good with math, but we don't want you to be good with people.” If you're good with people, that's actually a liability. That was one of the things that came out of the testing of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and early 90s. MANDO: I can't wait till this book of yours comes out because I'm so curious to read the basis of all these myths that we have unconsciously been perpetuating for years and I don't know why, but there is this myth, there are these myths. Like, if you're technical, you're not good with people and you're not – you know what I mean? It's like, I can't wait to read it. ANDREA: You can go to empathyintech.com. You can sign up for the newsletter and we don't email very often. But Casey actually helps me run a Discord channel, too, or Discord server. So there's folks where we're having these conversations and it doesn't matter what your role is at all. MANDO: Yeah. ANDREA: Just let's start talking to each other. JESSICA: Andrea, that's beautiful. Thank you. That makes this a great time to move to reflections. At the end of each episode, we each get to do a reflection of something that stood out to us and you get to go last. ANDREA: Awesome. MANDO: I can go first. I've got one. The idea that empathy is being able to view and identify other perspectives is one that is something that I'm going to take away from this episode. I spent a lot of my career as a software developer and spent another good chunk of my career as someone who worked in operations and DevOps and admin kind of stuff. There's this historic and perpetual tug of war between the two and a lot of my career as a systems administrator was spent sitting down and trying to explain to software engineers why they couldn't do this, or why this GraphQL query was causing the database to explode for 4 hours every night and we couldn't live like that anymore. Stuff like that. To my shame, often, I would default to [laughs] this idea that these software engineers are just idiots and that wasn't the case at all. Well, probably [laughs] not the case at all. Almost always it wasn't the case at all. Anyway, but the truth of the situation is probably much closer to the idea that their perspective was tied specifically to the compiler and to the feature that they're trying to implement for their product manager, for customer X, or whatever. And they didn't have either the resources, or the experience, or the expertise, or whatever that was required to add on the perspective of the backend systems that they were interacting with. So maybe in the future, a better way to address these kinds of situations would be to talk about things in terms of perspective and not idiocy, I guess, is the… ANDREA: Yeah, a really powerful question there is what's your biggest pain point and how can I help you alleviate it? It's a really great way to learn what somebody's perspective is to get on the same page. MANDO: Yeah, like a lot. JESSICA: Nice. I noticed the part about how a lot of the help happens when you have empathy for the individuals who aren't on a happy path, who aren't the great majority of the people using the software, or the requests that come through your software. It's like that parable, there's a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray and the shepherd is going to leave the ninety-nine—who are fine, they're on the happy path, they're good—and go help the one. Because some other day, it's going to be another sheep that's off the happy path and that one's going to need help and that's about it. MANDO: Yeah. Today you, tomorrow me, right? That's how all this works. CASEY: The thing I'd been picking up is about feedback. Like, the best way to develop empathy for someone else is to get feedback, to get their perspective somehow. I've done retros at the ends of meetings, all the meetings at work I ever do. I even do them at the end of a Pomodoro session. A 25-minute timer in the middle of a pairing day, I'll do them every Pomodoro. “Anything to check in on? No? Good. Okay.” As long as we do. But I've never thought to do it during the interview process. That is surprising to me. MANDO: Yeah. CASEY: I don't know if I can get away with it everywhere. The government might not like it if I did that to their formal process. [laughter] Maybe I can get away with, but it's something I'll think about trying. I would like feedback and they would like feedback—win-win. MANDO: Yeah, I've never done it either and it makes perfect sense. I have a portion, unfortunately, in my interviews where I say right at the beginning, “This is what's going to happen in the interview,” and I spend 5 minutes going through and explaining, we're going to talk about this, we're going to talk about that, or just normal signposting for the interview. It never once has occurred to me to at the end, say, “Okay, this is what we did. Why don't you give me some feedback on that and I give you some feedback about you?” That makes sense. ANDREA: Awesome. For me, I have been wanting to come on your show for a really long time. I was telling Casey. [chuckles] JESSICA: Ah! ANDREA: I was like, “I love the mission of expanding the idea of what coding is.” So I just feel very honored because for the longest time, I was like, “I wonder if I'm going to be cool enough one day to –” [laughs] JESSICA: Ah! We should have invited you a long time ago. ANDREA: Yeah. So there's a little bit of fangirling going on and I really appreciate the opportunity to just dive a little bit deep, reflect, and think. As somebody who doesn't mold, it's nice to get validation sometimes that the way I'm thinking is valuable to some people. So it gives me motivation to keep going. JESSICA: Yeah. It's nice when you spend a lot of energy, trying to care about what other people care about, to know that other people also care about this thing that you care about. ANDREA: Yeah. JESSICA: Thank you so much for joining us. ANDREA: Thank you for having me! MANDO: Thank you. ANDREA: The fastest way to reach out to me and make sure that I see it is actually to go to corgibytes.com. Corgi like the dog, bytes, B-Y-T-E-S, .com and send an email on the webform because then that way, it'll get pushed up to me. But I struggle with email a lot right now and I'm on Twitter sporadically and I'm also on – MANDO: That's good. The best way to do that. ANDREA: I am a longform writer. I'm actually really excited that I have a 100,000 words to explain myself. I do not operate well in the 140-character kind of world, but I'm on there and also, on LinkedIn. And then the book website is empathyintech.com and there's a link to the Discord channel and some deeper articles that I've written about exactly what empathy in tech is and what empathy driven development is. I'm writing it with my friend, Carmen Shirkey Collins, who is another copywriter who is now in tech over at Cisco, and it's been a joy to be on a journey with her because she's super smart and has great background in perspective, too. JESSICA: And if you want to work on meaningful, impactful legacy code in ensembles, check out Corgibytes. ANDREA: Yeah. JESSICA: And if you want to talk to all of us, you can join our Greater Than Code Slack by donating anything at all to our Greater Than Code Patreon at patreon.com/greaterthancode. Thank you, everyone and see you next time! Special Guest: Andrea Goulet.

Todd: OK. Jessica, we're back. We're gonna talk about your future. What do you want to be when you grow up?Jessica: Well, I want to be a physician's assistant.Todd: OK. What is a physician's assistant?Jessica: Well, normally when you go into the doctor's office, you wouldn't usually get-- well you would get your doctor all they do is check, give you check-ups or you know maybe take out stitches or something, not surgery.You just go in and do the little things. So the doctor does not have to do them.Todd: Oh, OK. So that is what you want to do?Jessica: Yeah.Todd: OK.Jessica: And make lots of money.Todd: You want to make lots of money?Jessica: OK. Nothing wrong with that.Todd: How do you become a physician's assistant. I can't even say it.Jessica: It's a lot of schooling. You have like six years, four or six years of college and you obviously take like nursing and other kinds of classes like that, and then you do like two or four years at like a hospital as a..Todd: Like an assistant, or..Jessica: Like you're actually doing the work.Todd: Oh, an intern.Jessica: An intern, yeah! An internship for two or four years at a hospital.Todd: Then, that's it. You finish.Jessica: And then you hopefully go on and maybe have your own little doctor's place and open that up or something.Todd: Well, best wishes on becoming a physician's assistant. I'm sure you'll make a good one.Jessica: Thank you.

Todd: OK. Jessica, we're back. We're gonna talk about your future. What do you want to be when you grow up?Jessica: Well, I want to be a physician's assistant.Todd: OK. What is a physician's assistant?Jessica: Well, normally when you go into the doctor's office, you wouldn't usually get-- well you would get your doctor all they do is check, give you check-ups or you know maybe take out stitches or something, not surgery.You just go in and do the little things. So the doctor does not have to do them.Todd: Oh, OK. So that is what you want to do?Jessica: Yeah.Todd: OK.Jessica: And make lots of money.Todd: You want to make lots of money?Jessica: OK. Nothing wrong with that.Todd: How do you become a physician's assistant. I can't even say it.Jessica: It's a lot of schooling. You have like six years, four or six years of college and you obviously take like nursing and other kinds of classes like that, and then you do like two or four years at like a hospital as a..Todd: Like an assistant, or..Jessica: Like you're actually doing the work.Todd: Oh, an intern.Jessica: An intern, yeah! An internship for two or four years at a hospital.Todd: Then, that's it. You finish.Jessica: And then you hopefully go on and maybe have your own little doctor's place and open that up or something.Todd: Well, best wishes on becoming a physician's assistant. I'm sure you'll make a good one.Jessica: Thank you.

02:13 - Michael’s Superpower: Being Able to Creatively Digest and Reconstruct Categories * Integral Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_theory_(Ken_Wilber)) * Creative Deconstruction – Michael Schwartz (https://ideas.repec.org/f/psc306.html) * Creating Truly Novel Categories – Recognizing Novelty as Novelty 09:39 - Recognizing Economic Value of Talents & Abilities * Invisible Labor * Ecosystem Services * Biodiversity; The Diversity Bonus by Scott Page (https://www.amazon.com/Diversity-Bonus-Knowledge-Compelling-Interests/dp/0691176884) 18:49 - The Edge of Chaos; Chaos Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory) * “Life exists at the edge of chaos.” 23:23 - Reproducibility Crisis and Context-Dependent Insight 28:49 - What constitutes a scientific experiment? * Missed Externalities * Scholarly articles for Michelle Girvan "reservoir computing" (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Michelle+Girvan+reservoir+computing&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart) * Non-conformity 38:03 - The Return of Civil Society and Community Relationships; Scale Theory * Legitimation Crisis by Juergen Habermas (https://www.amazon.com/Legitimation-Crisis-Juergen-Habermas/dp/0807015210) * Scale: The Universal Laws of Life and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies by Geoffrey West (https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Organisms-Cities-Companies-ebook/dp/B010P7Z8J0) 49:28 - Fractal Geometry More amazing resources from Michael to check out: Michael Garfield: Improvising Out of Algorithmic Isolation (https://blog.usejournal.com/improvising-out-of-algorithmic-isolation-7ef1a5b94697?gi=e731ad1488b2) Michael Garfield: We Will Fight Diseases of Our Networks By Realizing We Are Networks (https://michaelgarfield.medium.com/we-will-fight-diseases-of-our-networks-by-realizing-we-are-networks-7fa1e1c24444) Reflections: Jacob: Some of the best ideas, tv shows, music, etc. are the kinds of things that there’s not going to be an established container. Rein: “Act always so as to increase the number of choices.” ~ Heinz von Foerster Jessica: Externality. Recognize that there’s going to be surprises and find them. Michael: Adaptability is efficiency aggregated over a longer timescale. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: JACOB: Hello and welcome to Episode 234 of Greater Than Code. My name is Jacob Stoebel and I’m joined with my co-panelist, Rein Henrichs. REIN: Thanks, Jacob and I’m here with my friend and co-panelist, Jessica Kerr. JESSICA: Thanks, Rein and today, I’m excited to introduce our guest, Michael Garfield. He’s an artist and philosopher and he helps people navigate our age of accelerating weirdness and cultivate the curiosity and play we need to thrive. He hosts and produces two podcasts, The Future Fossils Podcast & The Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Podcast. Yay, complexity! Michael acts as interlocutor for a worldwide community of artists, scientists, and philosophers—a practice that feeds his synthetic and transdisciplinary “mind-jazz” performances in the form of essay, avant-guitar music, and painting! You can find him on Bandcamp, it’s pretty cool. Refusing to be enslaved by a single perspective, creative medium, or intellectual community, Michael walks through the walls between academia and festival culture, theory and practice. Michael, welcome to Greater Than Code! MICHAEL: Thanks! I’m glad to be here and I hope that I provide a refreshingly different guest experience for listeners being not a coder in any kind of traditional sense. JESSICA: Yet you’re definitely involved in technology. MICHAEL: Yeah, and I think the epistemic framing of programming and algorithms is something that can be applied with no understanding of programming languages as they are currently widely understood. It’s just like design is coding, design of the built environment, so. JESSICA: And coding is a design. MICHAEL: Indeed. JESSICA: Okay, before we go anywhere else, I did not prepare you for this, but we have one question that we ask all of our guests. What is your superpower and how did you acquire it? MICHAEL: I would like believe that I have a superpower in being able to creatively digest and reconstruct categories so as to drive new associations between them for people and I feel like I developed that studying integral theory in grad school. I did some work under Sean Esbjörn-Hargens at John F. Kennedy University looking at the work of and work adjacent to Ken Wilber, who was trying to come up with a metatheoretical framework to integrate all different domains of human knowledge. All different types of inquiry into a single framework that doesn't attempt to reduce any one of them to any other and then in that process, I learned what one of my professors, Michael Schwartz, called creative deconstruction. So showing how art can be science and science can be art and that these aren't ontologically fixed categories that exist external to us. Looking at the relationship between science as a practice and spiritual inquiry as a practice and that kind of thing. So it's an irreverent attitude toward the categories that we've constructed that takes in a way a cynical and pragmatic approach to the way that we define things in our world. You know. REIN: Kant was wrong. [laughs] MICHAEL: It's good to get out of the rut. Obviously, you’ve got to be careful because all of these ideas have histories and so you have to decide whether it's worth trying to redefine something for people in order to open up new possibilities in the way that these ideas can be understood and manipulated. It's not, for example, an easy task to try and get people to change their idea about what religion is. [laughs] JESSICA: Yeah. More than redefined. It's almost like undefined. MICHAEL: Hm. Like Paul Tillich, for example. Theologian Paul Tillich said that religion is ultimate concern. So someone can have a religion of money, or a religion of sex, but if you get into these, if you try to interpose that in a debate on intelligent design versus evolutionary theory, you'll get attacked by both sides. JESSICA: [chuckles] That’s cosmology. MICHAEL: Yeah. So it's like – [overtalk] JESSICA: Which is hard to [inaudible] of money, or sex. MICHAEL: Yeah, but people do it anyhow. JESSICA: [laughs] Yeah. So deconstructing categories and seeing in-between things that fits through your walking through walls, what categories are you deconstructing and seeing between lately? MICHAEL: Well, I don't know, lately I've been paying more attention to the not so much tilting after the windmills of this metamorphic attitude towards categories, but looking at the way that when the opportunity comes to create a truly novel category, what are the forces in play that prevent that, that prevent recognizing novelty as novelty that I just – JESSICA: Do you have any examples? MICHAEL: Yeah, well, I just saw a really excellent talk by UC Berkeley Professor Doug Guilbeault, I think is how you say his name. I am happy to link his work to you all in the chat here so that you can share it. JESSICA: Yeah, we’ll link that in the show notes. MICHAEL: He studies category formation and he was explaining how most of the research that's been done on convergent categorization is done on established categories. But what happens when you discover something truly new? What his research shows is that basically the larger the population, the more likely it is that these categories will converge on something that's an existing category and he compared it to island versus mainland population biogeography. So there's a known dynamic in evolutionary science where genetic drift, which is just this random component of the change in allele frequencies in a population, the larger the population, the less likely it is that a genetic mutation that is otherwise neutral is going to actually percolate out into the population. On an island, you might get these otherwise neutral mutations that actually take root and saturate an entire community, but on the mainland, they get lost in the noise. You can look at this in terms of how easy it is for an innovative, artistic, or musical act to actually find any purchase. Like Spotify bought the data analysis company, The Echo Nest, back in 2015 and they ran this study on where emergent musical talent comes from. It comes from places like Australia, the UK, and Iceland, because the networks are small enough. This is a finding that's repeated endlessly through studies of how to create a viral meme that basically, or another way – JESSICA: You mean a small enough pool to take hold? MICHAEL: Yeah. That basically big science and large social networks online and these other attempts, anywhere we look at this economies of scale, growing a given system, what happens is—and we were talking about this a little before we got on the call—as a system scales, it becomes less innovative. There's less energy is allocated to – JESSICA: In America? MICHAEL: Yeah. Bureaucratic overhead, latencies in the network that prevent the large networks from adapting, with the same agility to novel challenges. There's a lot of different ways to think about this and talk about this, but it basically amounts to, if you want to, you can't do it from the conservative core of an organization. You can't do it from the board of directors. JESSICA: Oh. MICHAEL: You have to go out onto – like why did they call it fringe physics? It's like, it is because it's on the fringe and so there's a kind of – JESSICA: So this would be like if you have like one remarkably lowercase agile team inside your enterprise, one team is innovating and development practices. They're going to get mushed out. Whereas, if you have one team innovating like that in a small company, it might spread and it might become dominant. MICHAEL: Yeah. I think it's certainly the case that this speaks to something I've been wondering about it in a broader sense, which is how do we recognize the economic value of talents and abilities that are like, how do we recognize a singular individual for their incompressible knowledge and expertise when they don't go through established systems of accreditation like getting a PhD? Because the academic system is such that basically, if you have an innovative contribution, but you don't have the credentials that are required to participate in the community of peer review, then people can't even – your contribution is just invisible. The same is true for how long it took, if you look at economic models, it took so long for economic models to even begin to start addressing the invisible labor of women in at home like domestic labor, or what we're now calling ecosystem services. So there's this question of – I should add that I'm ambivalent about this question because I'm afraid that answering it in an effective way, how do we make all of these things economically visible would just accelerate the rate at which the capitalist machine is capable of co-opting and exploiting all of these. [chuckles] REIN: Yeah. You also have this Scott Seeing Like a State thing where in order to be able to even perceive that that stuff is going on, it has to become standardized and you can't dissect the bird to observe its song, right? MICHAEL: Totally. So obviously, it took almost no time at all for consumer culture to commodify the psychedelic experience and start using to co-opt this psychedelic aesthetic and start using it in advertising campaigns for Levi's Jeans and Campbell Soup and that kind of thing. So it’s this question of a moving frontier that as soon as you have the language to talk about it, it's not the ineffable anymore. REIN: Yeah. MICHAEL: There's a value to the ineffable and there's a value to – it's related to this question of the exploitation of indigenous peoples by large pharmaceutical companies like, their ethnobotanical knowledge. How do you make the potential value of biodiversity, something that can be manufactured into medicine at scale, without destroying the rainforest and the people who live in it? Everywhere I look, I see this question. So for me, lately, it's been less about how do we creatively deconstruct the categories we have so much as it is, what is the utility of not knowing how to categorize something at all and then how do we fix the skewed incentive structures in society so as to value that which we currently do not know how to value. JESSICA: Because you don’t have a category for it. MICHAEL: Right. Like right now, maybe one of the best examples, even though this is the worst example in another way, is that a large fraction of the human genome has been patented by Monsanto, even though it has no known current biomedical utility. This is what Lewis Hyde in his book, Common as Air, called “the third enclosure” of the common. So you have the enclosure of the land that everyone used to be able to hunt on and then you have the enclosure of intellectual property in terms of patents for known utilities, known applications, and then over the last few decades, you're starting to see large companies buy their way into and defend patents for the things that actually don't – it's speculative. They're just gambling on the idea that eventually we'll have some use for this and that it's worth lawyering up to defend that potential future use. But it's akin to recognizing that we need to fund translational work. We need to fund synthesis. We need to fund blue sky interdisciplinary research for which we don't have an expected return on investment here because there's – JESSICA: It's one of those things that it’s going to help; you're going to get tremendous benefits out of it, but you can't say which ones. MICHAEL: Right. It's a shift perhaps akin to the move that I'm seeing conservation biology make right now from “let's preserve this charismatic species” to “let's do everything we can to restore biodiversity” rather than that biodiversity itself is generative and should be valued in its own regard so diverse research teams, diverse workplace teams. We know that there is what University of Michigan Professor Scott Page calls the diversity bonus and you don't need to know and in fact, you cannot know what the bonus is upfront. JESSICA: Yeah. You can't draw the line of causality forward to the benefit because the point of diversity is that you get benefits you never thought of. MICHAEL: Exactly. Again, this gets into this question of as a science communications staffer in a position where I'm constantly in this weird dissonant enters zone between the elite researchers at the Santa Fe Institute where I work and the community of complex systems enthusiasts that have grown up around this organization. It's a complete mismatch in scale between this org that has basically insulated itself so as to preserve the island of innovation that is required for really groundbreaking research, but then also, they have this reputation that far outstrips their ability to actually respond to people that are one step further out on the fringe from them. So I find myself asking, historically SFI was founded by Los Alamos National Laboratory physicists mostly that were disenchanted with the idea that they were going to have to research science, that their science was limited to that which could be basically argued as a national defense initiative and they just wanted to think about the deepest mysteries of the cosmos. So what is to SFI as SFI as to Los Alamos? Even in really radical organizations, there's a point at which they've matured and there are questions that are beyond the horizon of that which a particular community is willing to indulge. I find, in general, I'm really fascinated by questions about the nonlinearity of time, or about weird ontology. I'm currently talking to about a dozen other academics and para-academics about how to try and – I'm working, or helping to organize a working group of people that can apply rigorous academic approaches to asking questions that are completely taboo inside of academia. Questions that challenge some of the most fundamental assumptions of maternity, such as there being a distinction between self and other, or the idea that there are things that are fundamentally inaccessible to quantitative research. These kinds of things like, how do we make space for that kind of inquiry when there's absolutely no way to argue it in terms of you should fund this? And that's not just for money, that's also for attention because the demands on the time and attention of academics are so intense that even if they have interest in this stuff, they don't have the freedom to pursue it in their careers. That's just one of many areas where I find that this kind of line of inquiry manifesting right now. REIN: Reminds me a lot of this model of the edge of chaos that came from Packard and Langton back in the late 70s. Came out of chaos theory, this idea that there's this liminal transitionary zone between stability and chaos and that this is the boiling zone where self-organization happens and innovation happens. But also, that this zone is itself not static; it gets pushed around by other forces. MICHAEL: Yeah, and that's where life is and that was Langton's point, that life exists at the edge of chaos that it's right there at the phase transition boundary between what is it that separates a stone from a raging bonfire, or there’s the Goldilocks Zone kind of question. Yeah, totally. REIN: And these places that were at the edge of chaos that were innovative can ossify, they can move into the zone of stability. It's not so much that they move it's that, I don't know, maybe it's both. Where the frontier is, is constantly in motion. MICHAEL: Yeah, and to that point again, I tend to think about these things in a topographical, or geographical sense, where the island is growing, we're sitting on a volcano, and there's lots you can do with that metaphor. Obviously, it doesn't make sense. You can't build your house inside the volcano, right? [laughs] But you want to be close enough to be able to watch and describe as new land erupts, but at a safe distance. Where is that sweet spot where you have rigor and you have support, but you're not trapped within a bureaucracy, or an ossified set of institutional conventions? JESSICA: Or if the island is going up, if the earth is moving the island up until the coastline keeps expanding outward, and you built your house right on the beach. As in you’ve got into React when it was the new hotness and you learned all about it and you became the expert and then you had this great house on the beach, and now you have a great house in the middle of town because the frontier, the hotness has moved on as our massive technology has increased and the island raises up. I mean, you can't both identify as being on the edge and identify with any single category of knowledge. MICHAEL: Yeah. It's tricky. I saw Nora Bateson talking about this on Twitter recently. She's someone who I love for her subversiveness. Her father, Gregory Bateson, was a major player in the articulation of cybernetics and she's awesome in that sense of, I don't know, the minister's daughter kind of a way of being extremely well-versed in complex systems thinking and yet also aware that there's a subtle reductionism that comes in that misses – JESSICA: Misses from? MICHAEL: Well, that comes at like we think about systems thinking as it's not reductionist because it's not trying to explain biology in terms of the interactions of atoms. It acknowledges that there's genuine emergence that happens at each of these levels and yet, to articulate that, one of the things that happens is everything has to be squashed into numbers and so it’s like this issue of how do you quantify something. JESSICA: It's not real, if you can't measure it in numbers. MICHAEL: Right and that belies this bias towards thinking that because you can't quantify something now means it can't be quantified. JESSICA: You can’t predict which way the flame is going to go in the fire. That doesn't mean the fire doesn't burn. [chuckles] MICHAEL: Right. So she's interesting because she talks about warm data as this terrain, or this experience where we don't know how to talk about it yet, but that's actually what makes it so juicy and meaningful and instructive and – JESSICA: As opposed to taking it out of context. Leave it in context, even though we don't know how to do some magical analysis on it there. MICHAEL: Right, and I think this starts to generate some meaningful insights into the problem of the reproducibility crisis. Just as an example, I think science is generally moving towards context dependent insight and away from – even at the Santa Fe Institute, nobody's looking for a single unifying theory of everything anymore. It's far more illuminating, useful, and rigorous to look at how different models are practical given different applications. I remember in college there's half a dozen major different ways to define a biological species and I was supposed to get up in front of a class and argue for one over the other five. I was like, “This is preposterous.” Concretely, pun kind of intended, Biosphere 2, which was this project that I know the folks here at Synergia Ranch in Santa Fe at the Institute of Ecotechnics, who were responsible for creating this unbelievable historic effort to miniaturize the entire biosphere inside of a building. They had a coral reef and a rainforest and a Savannah and a cloud desert, like the Atacama, and there was one other, I forget. But it was intended as a kind of open-ended ecological experiment that was supposed to iterate a 100 times, or 50 times over a 100 years. They didn't know what they were looking for; they just wanted to gather data and then continue these 2-year enclosures where a team of people were living inside this building and trying to reproduce the entire earth biosphere in miniature. So that first enclosure is remembered historically as a failure because they miscalculated the rate at which they would be producing carbon dioxide and they ended up having to open the building and let in fresh air and import resource. JESSICA: So they learned something? MICHAEL: Right, they learned something. But that project was funded by Ed Bass, who in 1994, I think called in hostile corporate takeover expert, Steve Bannon to force to go in there with a federal team and basically issue a restraining order on these people and forcibly evict them from the experiment that they had created. Because it was seen as an embarrassment, because they had been spun in this way in international media as being uncredentialed artists, rather than scientists who really should not have the keys to this thing. It was one of these instances where people regard this as a scientific failure and yet when you look at the way so much of science is being practiced now, be it in the domains of complex systems, or in machine learning, what they were doing was easily like 20 or 30 years ahead of its time. JESSICA: Well, no wonder they didn’t appreciate it. MICHAEL: [chuckles] Exactly. So it's like, they went in not knowing what they were going to get out of it, but there was this tragic mismatch between the logic of Ed Bass’ billionaire family about what it means to have a return on an investment and the logic of ecological engineering where you're just poking at a system to see what will happen and you don't even know where to set the controls yet. So anyway. JESSICA: And it got too big. You talked about the media, it got too widely disseminated and became embarrassed because it wasn't on an island. It wasn't in a place where the genetic drift can become normal. MICHAEL: Right. It was suddenly subject to the constraints imposed upon it in terms of the way that people were being taught science in public school in the 1980s that this is what the scientific method is. You start with a hypothesis and it's like what if your – JESSICA: Which are not standards that are relevant to that situation. MICHAEL: Exactly. And honestly, the same thing applies to other computational forms of science. It took a long time for the techniques pioneered at the Santa Fe Institute to be regarded as legitimate. I'm thinking of cellular automata, agent-based modeling, and computer simulation generally. Steven Wolfram did a huge service, in some sense, to the normalization of those things in publishing A New Kind of Science, that massive book in whatever it was, 2004, or something where he said, “Look, we can run algorithmic experiments,” and that's different from the science that you're familiar with, but it's also setting aside for a moment, the attribution failure that that book is and acknowledging who actually pioneered A New Kind of Science. [chuckles] JESSICA: At least it got some information out. MICHAEL: Right. At least it managed to shift the goalpost in terms of what the expectations are; what constitutes a scientific experiment in the first place. JESSICA: So it shifted categories. MICHAEL: Yeah. So I think about, for example, a research that was done on plant growth in a basement. I forget who it was that did this. I think I heard this from, it was either Doug Rushkoff, or Charles Eisenstein that was talking about this, where you got two completely different results and they couldn't figure out what was going on. And then they realized that it was at different moments in the lunar cycle and that it didn't matter if you put your plant experiment in a basement and lit everything with artificial bulbs and all this stuff. Rather than sunlight, rather than clean air, if you could control for everything, but that there's always a context outside of your context. So this notion that no matter how cleverly you try to frame your model, that when it comes time to actually experiment on these things in the real world, that there's always going to be some extra analogy you've missed and that this has real serious and grave implications in terms of our economic models, because there will always be someone that's falling through the cracks. How do we actually account for all of the stakeholders in conversations about the ecological cost of dropping a new factory over here, for example? It's only recently that people, anywhere in the modern world, are starting to think about granting ecosystems legal protections as entities befitting of personhood and this kind of thing. JESSICA: Haven’t we copyrighted those yet? MICHAEL: [laughs] So all of that, there's plenty of places to go from there, I'm sure. REIN: Well, this does remind me of one of the things that Stafford Beer tried was he said, “Ponds are viable systems, they’re ecologies, they're adaptive, they're self-sustaining. Instead of trying to model how a pond works, what if we just hook the inputs of the business process into the pond and then hook the adaptions made by the pond as the output back into the business process and use the pond as the controlling system without trying to understand what makes a pond good at adapting?” That is so outside of the box and it blows my mind that he was doing this, well, I guess it was the 60s, or whatever, but this goes well beyond black boxing, right? MICHAEL: Yeah. So there's kind of a related insight that I saw Michelle Girvan gave at Santa Fe Institute community lecture a few years ago on reservoir computing, which maybe most of your audience is familiar with, but just for the sake of it, this is joining a machine learning system to a source of analog chaos, basically. So putting a computer on a bucket of water and then just kicking the bucket, every once in a while, to generate waves so that you're feeding chaos into the output of the machine learning algorithm to prevent overfitting. Again, and again, and again, you see this value where this is apparently the evolutionary value of play and possibly also, of dreaming. There's a lot of good research on both of these areas right now that learning systems are all basically hill climbing algorithms that need to be periodically disrupted from climbing the wrong local optimum. So in reservoir computing, by adding a source of natural chaos to their weather prediction algorithms, they were able to double the horizon at which they were able to forecast meteorological events past the mathematic limit that had been proven and established for this. That is like, we live in a noisy world. JESSICA: Oh, yeah. Just because it’s provably impossible doesn't mean we can't do something that's effectively the same thing, that's close enough. MICHAEL: Right. Actually, in that example, I think that there's a strong argument for the value of that which we can't understand. [laughs] It's like it's actually important. So much has been written about the value of Slack, of dreaming, of taking a long walk, of daydreaming, letting your mind wander to scientific discovery. So this is where great innovations come from is like, “I'm going to sleep on it,” or “I'm going to go on vacation.” Just getting stuck on an idea, getting fixated on a problem, we actually tend to foreclose on the possibility of answering that problem entirely. Actually, there's a good reason to – I think this is why Silicon Valley has recognized the instrumental value of microdosing, incidentally. [laughs] That this is that you actually want to inject a little noise into your algorithm and knock yourself off the false peak that you've stranded yourself on. JESSICA: Because if you aim for predictability and consistency, if you insist on reasonableness, you'll miss everything interesting. MICHAEL: Or another good way to put it is what is it, reasonable women don't make history. [laughs] There is actually a place for the – JESSICA: You don’t change the system by maximally conforming. MICHAEL: Right. JESSICA: If there is a place for… MICHAEL: It’s just, there is a place for non-conformity and it's a thing where it's like, I really hope and I have some optimism that what we'll see, by the time my daughter is old enough to join the workforce, is that we'll see a move in this direction where non-conformity has been integrated somehow into our understanding of how to run a business that we actively seek out people that are capable of doing this. For the same reason that we saw over the 20th century, we saw a movement from one size fits all manufacturing to design your own Nike shoes. There's this much more bespoke approach. JESSICA: Oh, I love those. MICHAEL: Yeah. So it's like we know that if we can tailor our systems so that they can adapt across multiple different scales, that they're not exploiting economies of scale that ultimately slash the redundancy that allows an organization to adapt to risk. That if we can find a way to actually generate a kind of a fractal structure in the governance of organizations in the way that we have reflexes. The body already does this, you don't have to sit there and think about everything you do and if you did, you’d die right away. JESSICA: [laughs] Yeah. REIN: Yeah. MICHAEL: If you had to pass every single twitch all the way up the chain to your frontal cortex JESSICA: If we had to put breathe on the list. [laughs] MICHAEL: Right. If you had to sit there and approve every single heartbeat, you'd be so dead. [overtalk] JESSICA: Oh my gosh, yeah. That's an energy allocation and it all needs to go through you so that you can have control. REIN: I just wanted to mention, that reminded me of a thing that Klaus Krippendorff, who's a cybernetics guy, said that there is virtue in the act of delegating one's agency to trustworthy systems. We're talking, but I don't need to care about how the packets get from my machine to yours and I don't want to care about that, but there's a trade-off here where people find that when they surrender their agency, that this can be oppressive. So how do we find this trade-off? MICHAEL: So just to anchor it again in something that I find really helpful. Thinking about the way that convenience draws people into these compacts, with the market and with the state. You look over the last several hundred years, or thousand years in the West and you see more and more of what used to be taken for granted as the extent in terms of the functions that are performed by the extended family, or by the neighborhood, life in a city, by your church congregations, or whatever. All of that stuff has been out boarded to commercial interests and to federal level oversight, because it's just more efficient to do it that way at the timescales that matter, that are visible to those systems. Yet, what COVID has shown us is that we actually need neighborhoods that suddenly, it doesn't – my wife and I, it was easy to make the decision to move across country to a place where we didn't know anybody to take a good job. But then suddenly when you're just alone in your house all the time and you've got nobody to help you raise your kids, that seems extremely dumb. So there's that question of just as I feel like modern science is coming back around to acknowledging that a lot of what was captured in old wives’ tales and in traditional indigenous knowledge, ecological knowledge systems that were regarded by the enlightenment as just rumor, or… JESSICA: Superstition. MICHAEL: Superstition, that it turns out that these things actually had, that they had merit, they were evolved. JESSICA: There was [inaudible] enough. MICHAEL: Right. Again, it wasn't rendered in the language that allowed it to be the subject of quantitative research until very recently and then, suddenly it was and suddenly, we had to circle back around. Science is basically in this position where they have to sort of canonize Galileo, they're like, “Ah, crap. We burned all these witches, but it turns out they were right.” There's that piece of it. So I think relatedly, one of the things that we're seeing in economist samples and Wendy Carlin have written about this is the return of the civil society, the return of mutual aid networks, and of gift economies, and of the extended family, and of buildings that are built around in courtyards rather than this Jeffersonian everyone on their own plot of land approach. That we're starting to realize that we had completely emptied out the topsoil basically of all of these community relationships in order to standardize things for a mass big agricultural approach, that on the short scale actually does generate greater yield. It's easier to have conversations with people who agree with you than it is – in a way, it's inexpedient to try and cross the aisle and have a conversation with someone with whom you deeply and profoundly disagree. But the more polarized we become as a civilization, the more unstable we become as a civilization. So over this larger timescale, we actually have to find ways to incentivize talking to people with whom you disagree, or we're screwed. We're kicking legs out from under the table. REIN: At this point, I have to name drop Habermas because he had this idea that there were two fundamental cognitive interests that humans have to direct their attempts to acquire knowledge. One is a technical interest in achieving goals through prediction and control and the other is a practical interest in ensuring mutual understanding. His analysis was that advanced capitalist societies, the technical interest dominates at the expense of the practical interest and that knowledge produced by empirical, scientific, analytic sciences becomes the prototype of all knowledge. I think that's what you're talking about here that we've lost touch with this other form of knowledge. It's not seen as valuable and the scientific method, the analytical approaches have come to dominate. MICHAEL: Yeah, precisely. [laughs] Again, I think in general, we've become impoverished in our imagination because again, the expectations, there's a shifting baseline. So what people expect to pull out of the ocean now is a fish that you might catch off just a commercial, or a recreational fishing expedition. It's a quarter of the size of the same species of fish you might've caught 50, 70 years ago and when people pull up this thing and they're like, “Oh, look at –” and they feel proud of themselves. I feel like that's what's going on with us in terms of our we no longer even recognize, or didn't until very recently recognize that we had been unwittingly colluding in the erosion of some very essential levels of organization and human society and that we had basically sold our souls to market efficiency and efficient state level governance. Now it's a huge mess to try and understand. You look at Occupy Wall Street and stuff like that and it just seems like such an enormous pain in the ass to try and process things in that way. But it's because we're having to relearn how to govern neighborhoods and govern small communities and make business decisions at the scale of a bioregion rather than a nation. JESSICA: Yeah. It's a scale thing. I love the phrase topsoil of community relationships, because when you talk about the purposive knowledge that whatever you call it, Rein, that is goal seeking. It's like the one tall tree that is like, “I am the tallest tree,” and it keeps growing taller and taller and taller, and it doesn't see that it's falling over because there's no trees next to it to protect it from the wind. It's that weaving together between all the trees and the different knowledge and the different people, our soul is there. Our resilience is there. REIN: Michael, you keep talking about scale. Are you talking about scale theory? MICHAEL: Yeah. Scaling laws, like Geoffrey West's stuff, Luis Bettencourt is another researcher at the University of Chicago who does really excellent work in urban scaling. I just saw a talk from him this morning that was really quite interesting about there being a sweet spot where a city can exist between how thinly it's distributed infrastructurally over a given area versus how congested it is. Because population and infrastructure scale differently, they scale at different rates than you get – REIN: If I remember my West correctly, just because I suspect that not all of our listeners are familiar with scale theory, there's this idea that there are certain things that grow super linearly as things scale and certain things that grow sub linearly. So for example, the larger a city gets, you get a 15% more restaurants, but you also get 15% more flu, but you also get 15% less traffic. MICHAEL: Yeah. So anything that depends on infrastructures scales sub linearly. A city of 2 million people has 185% the number of gas stations, but anything that scales anything having to do with the number of interactions between people scales super linearly. You get 115% of the – rather you get, what is it, 230%? Something like that. Anyway, it's 150%, it's 85% up versus 115% up. So patents, but also crime and also, just the general pace of life scale at 115% per capita. So like, disease transmission. So you get into these weird cases—and this links back to what we were talking about earlier—where people move into the city, because it's per unit. In a given day, you have so much more choice, you have so much more opportunity than you would in your agrarian Chinese community and that's why Shenzhen is basically two generations old. 20 million people and none of them have grandparents living in Shenzhen because they're all attracted to this thing. But at scale, what that means is that everyone is converging on the same answer. Everyone's moving into Shenzhen and away from their farming community. So you end up – in a way, it's not that that world is any more innovative. It's just, again, easier to capture that innovation and therefore, measure it. But then back to what we were saying about convergent categories and biogeography, it's like if somebody comes up with a brilliant idea in the farm, you're not necessarily going to see it. But if somebody comes up with the same brilliant idea in the city, you might also not see it for different reasons. So anyway, I'm in kind of a ramble, but. JESSICA: The optimal scale for innovation is not the individual and it's not 22 million, it's in between. MICHAEL: Well, I feel like at the level of a city, you're no longer talking about individuals almost in a way. At that point, you're talking about firms. A city is like a rainforest in which the fauna are companies. Whereas, a neighborhood as an ecosystem in which the fauna, or individual people and so, to equate one with the other is a potential point of confusion. Maybe an easier way to think about this would be multicellular life. My brain is capable of making all kinds of innovations that any cell, or organ in my body could not make on its own. There's a difference there. [overtalk] JESSICA: [inaudible]. MICHAEL: Right. It's easier, however, for a cell to mutate if it doesn't live inside of me. Because if it does, it's the cancer – [overtalk] JESSICA: The immune system will come attack it. MICHAEL: Right. My body will come and regulate that. JESSICA: Like, “You’re different, you are right out.” MICHAEL: Yeah. So it's not about innovation as some sort of whole category, again, it's about different kinds of innovation that are made that are emergent at different levels of organization. It's just the question of what kinds of innovation are made possible when you have something like the large Hadron Collider versus when you've got five people in a room around a pizza. You want to find the appropriate scale for the entity, for the system that's the actual level of granularity at which you're trying to look at the stuff, so. REIN: Can I try to put a few things together here in potentially a new way and see if it's anything? So we talked about the edge of chaos earlier and we're talking about scale theory now, and in both, there's this idea of fractal geometry. This idea that a coastline gets larger, the smaller your ruler is. In scale theory, there's this idea of space filling that you have to fill the space with things like capillaries, or roads and so on. But in the human lung, for example, if you unfurled all of the surface area, you'd fill up like a football field, I think. So maybe there's this idea that there's complexity that's possible, that’s made possible by the fractal shape of this liminal region that the edge of chaos. MICHAEL: Yeah. It's certainly, I think as basically what it is in maximizing surface area, like you do within a lung, then you're maximizing exposure. So if the scientific community were operating on the insights that it has generated in a deliberate way, then you would try to find a way to actually incorporate the fringe physics community. There's got to be a way to use that as the reservoir of chaos, rather than trying to shut that chaos out of your hill climbing algorithm and then at that point, it's just like, where's the threshold? How much can you invite before it becomes a distraction from getting anything done? When it's too noisy to be coherent. Arguably, what the internet has done for humankind has thrown it in completely the opposite direction where we've optimized entirely for surface area instead of for coherence. So now we have like, no two people seem to be able to agree on reality anymore. That's not useful either. REIN: Maybe there's also a connectivity thing here where if I want to get from one side of the city to the other, there are 50 different routes. But if I want to get from one city to another, there's a highway that does it. MICHAEL: Yeah, totally. So it's just a matter of rather than thinking about what allows for the most efficient decisions, in some sense, at one given timescale, it's how can we design hierarchical information, aggregation structures so as to create a wise balance between the demands on efficiency that are held at and maintained at different scales. SFI researcher, Jessica Flack talks about this in her work on collective computation and primate hierarchies where it’s a weird, awkward thing, but basically, there is an evolutionary argument for police, that it turns out that having a police system is preventing violence. This is mathematically demonstrable, but you also have to make sure that there's enough agency at the individual level, in the system that the police aren't in charge of everything going on. It's not just complex, it's complicated. [laughs] We've thrown out a ton of stuff on this call. I don't know, maybe this is just whetting people's appetite for something a little bit more focused and concise. JESSICA: This episode is going to have some extensive show notes. MICHAEL: Yeah. [chuckles] JESSICA: It's definitely time to move into reflections. JACOB: You were talking, at the very beginning, about Spotify. Like how, when unknown ideas are able to find their tribe and germinate. I was reading about how Netflix does business and it's very common for them to make some new content and then see how it goes for 30 days and then just kill it. Because they say, “Well, this isn't taking off. We're not going to make more of it,” and a lot of people can get really upset with that. There's definitely been some really great things out on Netflix that I'm like, for one on the one hand, “Why are you canceling this? I really wanted more,” and it seems like there's a lot of the people that do, too. What that's making me think about as well for one thing, I think it seems like Netflix from my experience, is not actually marketing some of their best stuff. You would never know it’s there, just in the way of people to find more unknown things. But also, I'm thinking about how just generally speaking some of the best ideas, TV shows, music, whatever are the kinds of things that there's not going to be an established container, group of people, that you can say, “We want to find white men ages 25 to 35 and we're going to dump it on their home screen because if anyone's going to like it, it's them and if they do, then we keep it and if they don't move, we don't.” I feel like the best things are we don't actually know who those groups are going to be and it's going to have a weird constellation of people that I couldn't actually classify. So I was just thinking about how that's an interesting challenge. JESSICA: Sweet. Rein, you have a thing? REIN: Yeah. I have another thing. I was just reminded of von Foerster, who was one of the founders of Second-order cybernetics. He has an ethical imperative, which is act always so as to increase the number of choices. I think about this actually a lot in my day-to-day work about maximizing the option value that I carry with me as I'm doing my work, like deferring certain decisions and so on. But I think it also makes sense in our discussion as well. JESSICA: True. Mine is about externalities. We talked about how, whatever you do, whatever your business does, whatever your technology does, there's always going to be effects on the world on the context and the context of the context that you couldn't predict. That doesn't mean don't do anything. It doesn't mean look for those. Recognize that there's going to be surprises and try to find them. It reminds me of sometimes, I think in interviewing, we’re like, “There are cognitive biases so in order to be fair, we must not use human judgment!” [laughter] Which is not helpful. I mean, yes, there are cognitive biases so look for them and try to compensate. Don't try to use only something predictable, like an algorithm. That's not helpful. That's it. MICHAEL: Yeah. Just to speak to a little bit of what each of you have said, I think for me, one of the key takeaways here is that if you're optimizing for future opportunity, if you're trying to—and I think I saw MIT defined intelligence in this way, that AI could be measured in terms of its ability to – AGI rather could be measured in terms of its ability to increase the number of games steps available to it, or options available to it in the next step of an unfolding puzzle, or whatever. Superhuman AGI is going to break out of any kind of jail we try to put it in just because it's doing better at this. But the thing is that that's useless if we take it in terms of one spaciotemporal scale. Evolutionary dynamics have found a way to do this in a rainforest that optimizes biodiversity and the richness of feeding relationships in a food web without this short-sighted quarterly return maximizing type of approach. So the question is are you trying to create more opportunities for yourself right now? Are you trying to create more opportunities for your kids, or are you trying to transcend the rivalrous dynamics? You've set yourself up for intergenerational warfare if you pick only one of those. The tension between feed yourself versus feed your kids is resolved in a number of different ways in different species that have different – yeah. It is exactly, Rein in the chat you said, it reminds you of the trade-off between efficiency and adaptability and it's like, arguably, adaptability is efficiency aggregated when you're looking at it over a longer timescale, because you don't want to have to rebuild civilization from scratch. So [chuckles] I think it's just important to add the dimension of time and to consider that this is something that's going on at multiple different levels of organization at the same time and that's a hugely important to how we actually think about these topics. JESSICA: Thinking of scales of time, you’ve thought about these interesting topics for an hour, or so now and I hope you'll continue thinking about them over weeks and consult the show notes. Michael, how can people find out more about you? MICHAEL: I'm on Twitter and Instagram if people prefer diving in social media first, I don't recommend it. I would prefer you go to patreon.com/michaelgarfield and find future fossils podcasts there. I have a lot of other stuff I do, the music and the art and everything feeds into everything else. So because I'm a parent and because I don't want all of my income coming from my day job, I guess Patreon is where I suggest people go first. [laughs] Thank you. JESSICA: Thank you. And of course, to support the podcast, you can also go to patrion.com/greaterthancode. If you donate even a dollar, you can join our Slack channel and join the conversation. It'll be fun. Special Guest: Michael Garfield.

Todd: OK. Jessica, we're back. We're gonna talk about your future. What do you want to be when you grow up?Jessica: Well, I want to be a physician's assistant.Todd: OK. What is a physician's assistant?Jessica: Well, normally when you go into the doctor's office, you wouldn't usually get-- well you would get your doctor all they do is check, give you check-ups or you know maybe take out stitches or something, not surgery.You just go in and do the little things. So the doctor does not have to do them.Todd: Oh, OK. So that is what you want to do?Jessica: Yeah.Todd: OK.Jessica: And make lots of money.Todd: You want to make lots of money?Jessica: OK. Nothing wrong with that.Todd: How do you become a physician's assistant. I can't even say it.Jessica: It's a lot of schooling. You have like six years, four or six years of college and you obviously take like nursing and other kinds of classes like that, and then you do like two or four years at like a hospital as a..Todd: Like an assistant, or..Jessica: Like you're actually doing the work.Todd: Oh, an intern.Jessica: An intern, yeah! An internship for two or four years at a hospital.Todd: Then, that's it. You finish.Jessica: And then you hopefully go on and maybe have your own little doctor's place and open that up or something.Todd: Well, best wishes on becoming a physician's assistant. I'm sure you'll make a good one.Jessica: Thank you.

02:28 - Jonan’s Superpower: Jonan’s Friends * The Quality and Reliability of One’s Personal Network * Finding Community * The Ruby Community in Particular – Focus on People and Programmer Joy * Happy Birthday, Ruby (https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/)! 09:07 - How Developer Relations is Changing (DevRel) * Kicking Off New Relic (https://newrelic.com/)’s New Developer Relations Program * Outreach and Community Growth Value * Developing Developer Empathy & Adjusting Content in the Spirit of Play * The Correct Role of DevRel 22:41 - Doing DevRel Right * Feedback Loops * The Definition of Success 31:45 - Engaging with Communities & Networks via DevRel * Using Twitch, YouTube, Discord, TikTok, Twitter, etc. * Consider the Platform * The Relicans (https://www.therelicans.com/) * Emily Kager's TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@shmemmmy?lang=en) * @theannalytical (https://twitter.com/theannalytical) * @cassidoo (https://twitter.com/cassidoo) * @laurieontech (https://twitter.com/laurieontech) 40:22 - Internal DevRel * Content Review Meetings * Make Friends w/ Marketing/Internal Communications (Comms) * Be Loud & Overcommunicate 53:32 - Addressing Trauma & The Evil in the World “I respect facts but I live in impressions.” In The Mouth of Madness (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113409/) Reflections: Mando: We are who we spend time with. Rein: If you want to understand how someone behaves, you have to understand their environment and experiences. Jess: If it works, it’s going to be obvious it works. Jonan: Talking about the things that suck and talking about who you are in a real way. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Whether you're working on a personal project or managing enterprise infrastructure, you deserve simple, affordable, and accessible cloud computing solutions that allow you to take your project to the next level. Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode's Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier. Get started on Linode today with $100 in free credit for listeners of Greater Than Code. You can find all the details at linode.com/greaterthancode. Linode has 11 global data centers and provides 24/7/365 human support with no tiers or hand-offs regardless of your plan size. In addition to shared and dedicated compute instances, you can use your $100 in credit on S3-compatible object storage, Managed Kubernetes, and more. Visit linode.com/greaterthancode and click on the "Create Free Account" button to get started. JONAN: Welcome back to Greater Than Code. This is Episode 227. I am Jonan Scheffler and I'm joined today by my guest, Jessica Kerr. How are you, Jessica? JESSICA: Thank you, Jonan. Well, I’m great today because I get to be here with my friend, Rein Henrichs. REIN: Aw thanks, Jessica. And I'm here with my friend, Mando Escamilla. MANDO: Thanks, Rein and just to bring it back around, I'm here with my friend, Jonan Scheffler. Jonan Scheffler is the Director of Developer Relations at New Relic. He has a long history of breaking things in public and occasionally putting them back together again. His interest in physical computing often leads him to experiment with robotics and microelectronics, although his professional experience is more closely tied to cloud services and modern application development. In order to break things more effectively, he is particularly excited about observability as of late, and he’s committed to helping developers around the world live happier lives by showing them how to keep their apps and their dreams alive through the night. Welcome to Greater Than Code, Jonan. How are you doing today, bud? JONAN: I am great. I liked the part where I got to intro your podcast. That was a lot of fun, actually. MANDO: It was fantastic, man. JONAN: This bio, this guest sounds really interesting, if I would be permitted to say so myself as the guest. MANDO: So we like to start off every podcast with our normal question that we ask every guest, which is, what is your superpower, Jonan and how did you acquire it? JONAN: My superpower is my friends. They are my superpower and I acquired them after a long career in software and talking to a lot of humans. I don't know actually why, but it's been easy for me to make friends in software. I felt like early on, I found my people and then I just got lucky and it's going okay so far. I'm very fortunate to have them. MANDO: Well, we're fortunate to have you, bud. It's interesting that you say this, I mean, just like Slack for operators, DevOps folks, and Savvy folks, there’s been a lot of discussion as of late on the quality and reliability of one's personal network in things like finding new jobs, finding new opportunities, learning and growing in your career, and stuff like that. It’s been interesting for me personally, because my experience, Jonan sounds a lot more like yours. I was very lucky to find some strong communities of folks that were very welcoming to me. I found my people pretty early on, but a lot of the folks in this other community that I'm tangentially related to seem to have had wildly different experience. I don't know if it's like a software development versus operator kind of thing and in-person versus not in-person kind of thing. It's something that struck me as weird. JONAN: I think it varies by community, too. I've gone to a lot of conferences for a lot of different languages and depending on the conference and depending on the community, I think that you're going to have a different time. I think if I were starting over again, I would probably follow about the same path—attend small conferences with tight focuses and get to know a couple people early on who seem to be having a lot of those conversations, watch for a social butterfly and tag along for a bit and you'll get introduced. MANDO: I'm pretty sure that I met Rein at a local Ruby conference here in Austin. Is that right, Rein? REIN: Sounds right. Sure, yeah. MANDO: But I think it was one of the first Lone Star Ruby Conferences where we met. REIN: Yeah, that sounds right. JONAN: Yeah. I think speaking of butterflies, I also met Rein, I think at one of the very first conferences I attended back in the day. Being welcomed and seeing the application of the Pac-Man rule, where when standing in a circle, you always leave a space for a guest to join and someone joins and you open up again in-person back in the Ruby community in that day was, I think inspiring for me; directed how I decided I was going to be when I showed up here. So thank you, Rein. REIN: It's funny. I remember when I was new to the Ruby community and not sure what to do. I was new to programming, too. I started going to the local Austin meetup actually and the welcome I got as someone who didn't go to college for computer science, someone who wasn't a professional programmer, someone who was just thought it was cool and thought maybe that I could get paid to do it at some point in the future really made a big difference in my life. JONAN: Jessica, how did you get started? JESSICA: Good question. Before I answer it, I noticed that we're talking about Ruby conferences and Ruby programmers and indeed, I learned Ruby in order to go to Ruby conferences so that I could talk to Ruby people because part of the superpowers that that language gives you is friends or buds back in the day, but still is because the Ruby conferences are still super friendly back when we had them. REIN: Yeah. MANDO: Yeah, that's a really good point. I was a professional programmer for probably 5, or 6 years before I started doing Ruby programming. I would say that for those first 5, or 6 years, before I joined the Ruby community, I didn't feel at all like I had any kind of community or group of people. JONAN: What do you think inspires that in a community? I think strong leadership is part of it. Matt has certainly received his share of criticism over the year, but I think that fundamentally, he was trying to build a place where people focused on people instead of the glyphs that we type into our little boxes. I think that matters. What else do you think there is to that? REIN: We here at Greater Than Code also agree with that sentiment. [laughter] JONAN: Seems to align, doesn't it? JESSICA: Yeah, that focus on people and Ruby was always about programmer joy. It was always about the experience; it was always about being happy and there wasn’t that expectation that the optimal thing to do is to go in a corner and type. JONAN: Yeah, I think it's very fortuitous timing that we're actually discussing Ruby so much on the 24th, which was the day that Ruby was named 28 years ago on February 24th, Ruby became the name of this language. So happy birthday, Ruby. JESSICA: Aw. Yeah, happy [inaudible]. JONAN: It really has changed my life. I have regularly, whenever I've seen Matt at a conference, got up to thank him for my house and my kids' college education. Before I got into software, I did a lot of things, but none of them would have brought me either of those. I spent probably 10 years in factories and hotels and casinos. I was a poker dealer for my last gig before I got into software and the number of opportunities that Ruby opened up for me, I can't as long as I live be too grateful; I'll be paying it forward till I die. JESSICA: Yeah, but not the language it's the community—the people, the friends. JONAN: Yeah, exactly. It's the community. It's the people who welcomed me with open arms and made sure that they were contributing to my growth in a far more altruistic sense than, I think is reasonable to expect. I mean, I had nothing to offer in return except a good conversation and high fives and hugs and they spent their time in their energy taking me around conferences and making sure I met people and it was great. REIN: I remember when you first went to New Relic and you were first thinking about, “Hey, maybe I could do this developer relations thing.” What I remember about that, in addition to your obvious aptitude at talking to people about things, is the help that you got, the advice, the mentorship that you got from your friends in the community. I remember at the time being blown away by that; by how many people were willing to just take an hour of their time to talk to you about what it was like for them as a DevRel and things like that. JONAN: Yeah, and I'm still very fortunate to have those people who have helped me build this team here. When I did the onboarding, I put together an elaborate onboarding process. I was able to hire all ten of the DevRel engineers here at the same time. We spent a week doing improv training and having speakers come in as guests and I was able to invite all of these DevRel leaders from over the years to give a perspective on what DevRel was in their eyes, but it is today and always has been clear to me that I am only here where I am by the grace of the communities that I was lucky enough to join. I wonder if developer relations is changing; if it's at a different place than it was when I started out. I feel like certainly, pandemic times have affected things, but all that aside, the segment of the industry is still pretty small. There are only maybe 10,000 people doing this work around the world. It's hard to believe because we're quite loud, right? [chuckles] We’ve got a lot of stages. You see a lot of us, but there are many of us and I think that the maturity of the discipline, I guess, is progressing. We are developing ways to measure the effectiveness. Being able to prove the value to a company is going to change the game for us in a lot of ways. REIN: Yeah. I would love to talk to you about that at length, [chuckles] but for the purposes of this podcast, let's say that you're someone who wants to start a program at a company that doesn't have directly tangible make numbers go up in a business sense value, but you believe that if you're given the chance to do it, that you can show them the value. How do you get that opportunity? JONAN: That's a really good question. Kicking off a developer relations program is, I think it's the same as building most major initiatives within a company. If you had an idea for a software project that should be undertaken, or a major feature that mattered to you, it's about building allies early and often. Making sure that when you show up in that meeting to have the conversation with the decisionmaker, that nine out of ten people in that meeting already know about the plan. They have already contributed their feedback; they feel ownership of that plan and they're ready to support you so that you have the answer going in. I think the mistake that I made often in my career was walking into that room and just pitching my idea all at once and then all of the questions that come out of that and all of the investigation that is necessary and the vetting appears as though this wasn't a very well-thought-out plan, but getting the people on board in the first place is vitally important. I think also you have a lot of examples to look through. You have a chance to talk about other programs and the success that they've brought, the companies where they started off. It's not a thing that you need to start in a big way. You can put a couple of people on the conference speaking circuit, or a couple of people focusing part of their week on outreach and community growth and see where it takes you. If you start to see the numbers, it becomes a lot easier case to make. REIN: You were talking about how you're excited about being able to make this value more tangible in the future. What do you think is the shift that's happening in DevRel that’s making that possible? JONAN: So I think there are actually kind of a lot of factors here. One is that DevRel had a division almost of method where some people, probably by the leadership of their companies, were convinced that what they should be doing is talking about the product all of the time. You're there to talk about the product and evangelize the product and get people to use the product. That is part of your role, but it shouldn't be, in my opinion, the primary role that you play. You should be there in the community participating. In the same way that Rein stood in that hallway and welcomed me to Ruby, I need to stand in that hallway and welcome newcomers to all the communities of which I'm part and in so doing, build that group of friends and build that understanding of the community and their needs. I develop empathy for the developers using our product and, in the industry, generally and that's invaluable intelligence. I sometimes think of ourselves as these like operatives—we’re undercover marketing operatives out there in the developer world talking to developers and just understanding them and it at one point, took a turn towards, “Well, I'm just going to talk about New Relic all the time,” for example. It feels good to see all that content and see all those talks. However, you're only talking to your existing audience. No one is Googling “what exciting things can I do with New Relic,” “seven awesome New Relic tips.” No one's searching for that. They're out there looking at things that are interesting. They want to click on a link on Twitter that is about some random topic. Running Kubernetes on Raspberry Pis and soldering things to Yoda dolls. That's the kind of stuff that I'm going to click on in my free time and in that spirit of play, that's where I want to be engaged and that's where I want to be engaging people. So I think there was this turn. That's part of it and then in reaction to that, I think that the teams who were doing DevRel well and actually seeking out ways to lift up and support the communities and gather that information for their companies—and yes, certainly talk about their products when the situation warrants it. But I mean, how do you feel about that person who shows up to a conference wearing a New Relic hoodie and a New Relic shirt and a New Relic backpack and says “New Relic,” the first 10 minutes you meet them, a hundred times? But you're like, “Wow, this is a friend who is here for my best interests.” MANDO: Right, or every presentation that they give is 30-minute infomercial for whatever company. JONAN: Yeah. So I think people are headed away from that and in response to that, you saw a lot of success from the people who are doing DevRel well. In addition to that, it's becoming to measure these things in hopefully less creepy ways. We can track the people who show up to anything that we do now. If I have a Twitch stream, I can see how many people were there; Twitch provides good stats for me. I can pull those stats out via an API, I can connect them to my podcasting for the week, I can connect them my blogging for the week, and I can show that my audience is growing over time. So whether or not it is valuable yet, we're building the machine right now. We're finding ways to measure those things and that will allow us to adjust the content in a direction that is popular and that’s really just what we're trying to do. We're trying to give the people what they want. We want to talk about the things that people want to hear about. I want to talk about the fun stuff, too, but I'm very surprised sometimes when I learn that hey, nobody wants to hear about my 3D printer API project with Ruby. They want to watch me solder a Raspberry Pi to a Yoda doll and that's great. I'm down for both of those things, I really don't care. But being able to adjust your content towards the sort of thing that is going to interest your community is really valuable obviously to developer relations and we're getting better at it. We have more data than we've had before and not in a way that, to me, feels like that is violating people's personal privacy. REIN: Where do you think that DevRel ought to fit in a company's structure? Is it part of revenue? Is it a sales adjunct? Like, what is the correct role of DevRel? J: I don't think it's part of revenue. I think that it leads to that. But in developer relations, we talk about orbits a lot instead of funnels. We talk about bringing people into the orbit. You generate content so that you generate gravity and you move people in the orbits closer to the company so, you can talk to them more and help them with their problems. When you tie that to revenue, it changes the goal. Is the goal to be out there and help, or is the goal to get the cogs into the machine and continue turning them until they produce coins? When you tie developer relations to revenue, you become trapped in this cycle because look, we’re hackers. If you give me a number you want me to hit, then I can hit the number. But am I hitting the number in the most useful way? Am I generating long-term value for the company? Almost certainly not. 
 It's like the leader that you bring in. So like, “Hey, revenues are up because I fired customer support. Yes, all of them.” In the short-term, there's going to be some great numbers. You just believe yourself and entire team. Long-term, you’re the new Xfinity with the lowest customer support ratings that have ever existed for a company. So I think that actually the majority live under marketing right now and I think it makes sense. I think that developer relations people do themselves a disservice by not understanding marketing and understanding the role they play there. I actually think it belongs under its own organization. But if you try and think about that means from a corporate hierarchy perspective, that means that there's probably a C-level who is responsible only for community growth and C-levels by design, they have numbers, they have dollars that they are bringing in. So until we get to a point where we can prove that the dollars are coming in because of our work, there's not going to be a chief developer relations officer at any company. But give me 5, 10 years, maybe I'll be the first CDRO. MANDO: It's interesting to hear you. I didn't know that they were usually grouped under marketing, but that sounds right. In my most recent life, I worked at two different companies who did a combination of social media management, analytics platforms, and stuff like that. A majority of our customers at both of these places were in the marketing org and they were hitting the same kinds of things that you're talking about that developer relations groups are hitting. They're trying to provide numbers for the kinds of stuff that they're doing, but there's that inherent, not contradiction, but discord between trying to give customers what they want, but have it also not be infomercials. JONAN: Yeah, and I think that that is a tough spot for DevRel teams. I think no matter where you stand in the organization, you need to be very close friends with marketing. They have a tremendous amplifying effect for the work that I do; what I want to do is produce content and I am uniquely suited to do that. I’m a person who can show up on the podcast and wax philosophical about things like developer relations. I enjoy that. I would like it if that was my whole day. What you need to try and design is a world where it is your whole day. There are people who are better at that than you are; that's why you're there as a team. Your job is to get up and talk about the thing, explain technical concepts in easily digestible ways—a process called vulgarization, I guess, a more commonly used word in French. But I think it's very interesting that we vulgarize things. I mostly just turn things into swear words, but the marketing organization puts a huge amount of wind at your back where I can come onto a podcast and spend an hour talking words and then the podcast is edited, tweets go out, images are made and it's syndicated to all the various platforms. If you can get that machine helping you produce your work in the background, you don't have to know all of the content creation pieces that most of us know. Most of us are part-time video/audio/any content platform, we mostly do it ourselves and taking the support of your organization where you can get it is going to be tremendously helpful in growing the team. REIN: So if you can't tell, this is a personally relevant topic for and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the short-term pressures of there might be for DevRel orgs to produce numbers that the business likes and how you balance that with your long-term vision? What's the story you tell leadership that's effective there? JONAN: That's a really good question. So I talk about this developer orbit as being almost pre-funnel work, that there are people that we have within the company who are real good at turning an email address into a dollar and turning a dollar into 10. There are people who have spent 20 years learning how to do that thing. What I'm really good at is getting people to care in the first place and that's my job here. I describe it sometimes like an awareness campaign in marketing; this is the thing that you put the money on the billboards all over San Francisco and people spend millions and they'll go and get VC events, spend every dollar, making every billboard look like their logo because it works. Because just making people aware whether or not they like the billboard, making people aware that you exist is a first step and I would rather that people complain about our product and complain about our company on Twitter than just not think of us because then you're irrelevant. You're not even part of the conversation. Being able to shift sentiment in the community and being able to hear people, genuinely hear people. It doesn't matter to them, when they're angry on Twitter, that they're factually incorrect. Wrong answer. It's your fault. Show up and just address it, “Hey, that sucks. I hate that. Wow, I'm sorry that happened. Let me see if I can fix it,” and go talk to the product team. So I talk about it in that way as this kind of pre-funnel work. And then I talk about how we are measuring it and where we measure it as a team is this care orbit where we have a curiosity and awareness step that work in tandem, where people either have seen the words New Relic, or they've seen the logo, and this is awareness. Or they are curious and they've actually clicked on a thing; they've actually followed that down the rabbit hole. And sometimes, they may be aware because we sponsored a conference one time; they've seen us, they know that we exist, but they have no idea what we do. So if they are curious, they're getting to a step where they could buy a free word association exercise, connect New Relic and observability, for example. And when they're doing research, I don't think there's a whole lot of interactivity we have there as a team there. When I go and research product – think about how you'd buy a developer product. I hear someone say something three times, tail scale. I've been seeing a lot of conversation about tail scale lately. So I hear someone say tail scale three times and then I think to myself, wow, I should probably care about that thing because it's relevant to my career and I don't want to fall behind. In a couple of years, this may be the thing that everyone is using for whatever it does. I don't even know what it does. I better go figure it out and then I go and I do my research and, in that step, I'm reading documentation and I might have run across a blog post, but I'm certainly not watching webinars. I'm just not going to be in that step. And then there's entry. I say entry instead of sign-up because I just want people close to us. I want them to enter the orbit. I want them to be bought in on the dream of the community and hopefully, we've expressed our values in a way that makes it clear that this is the place for them and we're talking about values and not features of a product. Think about how Apple has been successful. Apple is selling a dream. Apple's throwing a woman throws a sledgehammer through the screen in front of people and that's the dream. That's what you're actually buying is this identity, this tribe. I think companies more often end up creating these bulleted lists of checkmarks. I saw one the other day that was probably 50 items long. Here are the 50 things that we do and look at those 2 checkmarks. Our competitor doesn't have those. Gotcha! I don't care. Prove to me that you value the things that I value. Sell me on the purpose and that's the kind of thing that we're really good about talking about. And if you can demonstrate that in a boardroom, then your program will be fun, but you've got to measure it, you've got to show that people are making progress, and you've got to show growth over time. “See, look, we may not be pointing the megaphone in the right direction right now, but it's growing. We're getting a better megaphone. Is that enough for now?” And then we can direct over time, our contact direction towards the place that is being most successful for us as a company and hey, maybe it's I just talk about New Relic all the time, but I'm willing to bet it won't be and when the time comes, I'll have data to prove it. REIN: In the meantime, how do you know whether what you're doing is working? What are your feedback loops look like? JONAN: My feedback loops, our feedback loops as a team right now, we know what we're doing is working when our total audience size is growing. This is kind of a sketchy metric because there are different values to different audiences. For example, Twitch versus Twitter. If I'm going to follow on Twitter, then I follow on my personal account or I follow on the New Relic account because those both provide a place for me to use my voice to engage people. It's a much lower value engagement platform, though from a one follow perspective. 30,000 people I tweeted in front of, 5 will click or 5 will care about the content and that's great and maybe I'm really good at Twitter. I'm not, if I fail, I don't spend as much time on it as I should, but maybe I can refocus my content. I get more via the platform. If you look at something like Twitch, however, someone follows me on Twitch, that means that every time I go live on my stream, they get a notification on every single one of their devices by default. I mean, you can turn it off, but what's the point in following someone, if you're going to turn off the notification; you want the notification. You're saying, “This is the content that I am here for, watching Jonan solder on this silly thing or teach people how to write Ruby from scratch. That's the stuff I signed up for. That's why I'm here on Twitch and I want to be a part of that.” Those have a kind of a higher value. So there is something to weighted consideration across the platforms. But first of all, is your audience grow, just generally? Are you getting a bigger megaphone and more importantly, how are you doing it and moving people from “I'm aware that you exist” to curiosity, “I'm investigating you”? And that's a step when they're aware they've done something like click on a Twitter profile. It's a hard case to make that if they click on my Twitter profile and they see that it says New Relic, that they will have no idea what New Relic does. I have now at least made it into their brain somehow and they will say, “Oh, I've heard that name before.” But the next step of getting people over to curiosity, let's say that we successfully get 10% of our audience over there and 1% of our total audience size, this quarter actually ended up creating accounts and that's where things get real hard because companies tend to have really entrenched MarTech, measuring marketing technology, measuring, and Google analytics setups. And it's hard to bind that piece together to be like, “That signup? That came from us.” We did that and you need to stand up and say it loudly within a company because everyone else is. Everyone else is real excited to take credit for your work, believe me. You’ve got to stand up and prove it, stand up and say, “DevRel did this. DevRel was growing the company.” We're doing good things for the community. We're helping people understand how to use our product. They're caring more about us because we care about them first and here are the numbers to show it. Did that answer your question? I tend to ramble. REIN: Yeah, no it did. Can we do a thing? Can we do a little improv thing, Jonan? JONAN: Yes. REIN: Okay. So I am a chief revenue officer and I hear your pitch and what I say is, “Okay, so I get the DevRel increases engagement. So how much are you committing to improve conversion? How many percentage points are you guaranteeing that you'll deliver in the next quarter?” JONAN: In the first quarter of our existence, I'm going to go with none. I would say in the second quarter of our existence, we will have developed a baseline to compare against and I can guarantee that we will be growing the audience by 10% month over month, over our previous audience size. As the audience grows, it is very directly correlated to numbers that you care about like, signups. If I talked to a 1,000 people, I get 10 signups. If I talk to 10,000 people, I get a 100 and that's the baseline. I mean, that's just the math of it. And if I'm doing a great job, maybe I get 15. So if we want to actually do the math, give me a quarter to do the math. Give me a quarter to establish a baseline because I don't know where our company stands in the market right now. If I'm starting off here at this company and you're Google, I'm not going to have a hard time raising awareness, am I? I think most people have heard of you. If you're Bob's awesome startup and you don't have any awareness out there, then we have some different things to focus on and our numbers are going to look different. We're have a slower ramp. But if you're asking me to commit to where you are right now, then I need numbers first. I need to be able to build the machine, I need to be able to measure it, and once I have those metrics in place, I can tell you what those goals should be and we can set them together and when we exceed them, we will adjust upwards because we are aggressive by nature. We like to win at these things. We like to be good at it because for us, it means that we're doing a better job of loving our people. That's what success means by the numbers. The numbers that to you mean money. If we're doing DevRel right, to me, they mean that I am living with purpose. So yes, I can measure those things, but you’ve got to give me time to get a baseline, or the numbers that I make up will be meaningless and we'll be optimizing for the wrong things. How'd I do? REIN: I’d buy it for a dollar. JONAN: Yes! Sold! MANDO: Yeah, I believe you. So tangentially related; you talked about Twitter and Twitch as two platforms that you're using to engage with prospective folks and grow and welcome the community. I was wondering if there were other places, other things that you use either personally, or as part of your DevRel work to do that same kind of stuff, or if you have specific types of interactions for specific different types of networks? JONAN: Yeah, absolutely. I had left one of our primary platforms off of there, which was YouTube because we're still headed in a direction where we can make that a lightweight process of contributing our work to YouTube. So our strategy, as a team, is to head for platforms that offer two-way engagement. I think that in our generation, we've got a lot of criticism for being the Nintendo generation. “Oh, you were raised by television; you have no attention span.” I have no attention span for TV news. I have no attention span for this one-way oration that has been media consumption my entire life because I live in a world where I have “choose your own adventure” media. Where I can join a Twitch channel and I can adjust the direction of the conversation. Where I can get on Twitter and have a real conversation with famous people, because I am interesting and engaging and responding to them in intelligent ways, hopefully. When you tweet poop emojis at people in your software community as your only game, it's not as likely to drive engagement, but they're very engaging platforms and so, we're aiming for things like that. YouTube being the possible exception. YouTube is still levelling up there. I'm not sure if you find out on the YouTube comments section lately, but it's a little bit wild in there. It's getting better; they're working on it. And those are the kinds of platforms that I want to be a part of. So as far as new things go, I'm going to go with not Clubhouse. Clubhouse has one, got some accessibility stuff to work out, but two, in my opinion, stuck in a trap where they're headed towards that one-way conversation. Anyway, it may be a conversation like this podcast, which I love doing, but our audience isn't given an opportunity to respond in real-time and to drive the direction. Clubhouse is eventually going to turn into a similar platform where you have a hundred people in a room. Can a hundred people speak at once in the same conversation? I don't think so. So there's the accessibility piece – [overtalk] JESSICA: In text! JONAN: In text, they could. JESSICA: Yeah, that’s the beauty of the combination. REIN: Clubhouse needs to innovate by providing a text version of their application. JONAN: Or when we get NLP, when we get natural language processing to the point where those kinds of things can become accessible conversations automatically, then it's different and people can contribute in their own ways. You can have a realistic sounding robot voice who’d read your thoughts aloud for the group. But beyond those, beyond Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, we're checking out TikTok a little bit, that's kind of fun content. It's a good way for us to reuse clips and highlights from our Twitch stuff without having to go through the old process of creating the new content and similarly, for YouTube. If I get on my high horse and I'm waxing philosophical about why you should use instance variables instead of class variables, I can put that piece out and I can make a YouTube video about why you should use instance variables instead of fostered. That kind of content does well on that platform, but you need to consider the platform and I would say, choose a few and focus there, look for the ones that actually have high engagement. Discord is another good place to hang out, love hanging on Discord. And then you've got to be blogging too, but blog in a place where you can own the conversation and make it about what matters to you as a community. We're real focused on learning and teaching, helping people become content creators, and focusing on the quality of software, generally. We're data people. We want to be talking about that. So we have our own community on therelicans.com where we talk about that. That's just a instance of forum. It's just like dev.to, but we own it and we get to period the content a little bit in a direction that is valuable. You want to keep them loose when you're going in community so that you can let the community take shape as it grows into those values. But that's my recommendation for platforms. MANDO: Right on. Thanks, man. It's funny that you bring up TikTok—not at all related how I've recently fallen down and continuing to fall down the TikTok rabbit hole and out of all the different types of content I see on TikTok, it is tech content that I have seen almost zero of. It’s just like, I don't know if there's just like a dearth of the content or if the algorithm hasn't set stuff up to me. JONAN: Yeah. MANDO: The algorithm is super good about all other kinds of things that I'm super into like, I'm inundated with cute dogs and goats and [laughs] you name it, but I don't know. Maybe the algorithm is telling me something about myself that... JONAN: No, I mean, you just have to click on it. JESSICA: Or something about tech content. JONAN: I always just cause answer. Yeah. Jessica, you have thoughts on TikTok? JESSICA: Well, TikTok is really cool but it t's just takes a ton of work to make a piece of content that tight, especially around something technical. JONAN: Yeah. I think that's a good point, actually, that it's not as easy as it looks ever producing a piece of content. You may watch a video for 2 to 3 minutes. I once had a 5-minute lightning talk, but I did 65 takes on it. it took me maybe 20 hours to just record the thing, not counting the 100 hours of research I put into the actual content. So depending on the piece of content and how polished you’re going to make it – TikTok’s initiating platform, though. Look up Emily Kager. If you go watch Emily Kager’s TikToks, you'll head down the right path, I suspect into the good tech ones. MANDO: Awesome. Thanks, man. JONAN: I really like the ones that are explaining algorithms with M&Ms. That kind of video, I like those ones a lot. Here's how databases work under the hood. This is actually what in the endgame using toys or whatever is handy. Cats, I saw someone that worked with their cats and the cats are running all about it. [chuckles] It was fun. MANDO: Oh, that's awesome and that's the kind of stuff that, I mean, I don't know what the time limit is on TikTok stuff, but our TikToks, if they seem to be about a minute to a minute and a half, it's not like you could do any kind of in-depth deep dive on something, but something like describe what Kubernetes with Legos, or something. It seems like you could fit some sort of bite-size explanations, or a series of definitions, right? JONAN: Yeah. MANDO: I mean, there's someone, whose videos I see all the time, who does these videos on obscure Lord of the Rings facts. She'll describe this intricate familial family tree of beings whose definitions have spanned not only the Silmarillion, but other – and she fits it all in a minute and a half. It's fascinating and it's amazing to watch. I'm sure, like you were saying, the stuff she's been researching and she knows this stuff. She spent probably years and years and user for life gathering this knowledge and gathering the ability to distil it down into a minute and a half. JONAN: Yeah, and I mean, it's not even – look, I think a lot of people have the perception, especially starting out creating content, that you have to be the expert. You don't have to be the expert. You just have to do the work, go read about the thing, then talk about the thing. You're actually better suited to talk about it when you've just learned it, by far. Because you know the pain, you have a fresh memory of the pain and the parts of that API you're describing that were difficult to understand and once you become a Kubernetes expert, those things are lost to you. They become opaque; you can't find the parts that were terrible because the memory of the pain goes away. So TikTok is a good place to explore with that kind of stuff in a short-form piece of content. I have a couple more recommendations for you that I'll drop for you in the show notes, too about the people on Twitter—@theannalytical is great at that thing, @cassidoo, and @laurieontech. I'll put them all for you in the show notes. But there are, there are some people you can emulate early on and if you're just starting out, don't be afraid to get up there on the stage. The bottom line is in life in general, we're all just making it up as we go along and you can make it up, too. What have you really got to lose? You're not doing it today. Tomorrow, you would still not be doing it if you don't try. REIN: Continuing with my program of using this podcast to ask Jonan to help me with my personal problems, do you have any thoughts about internal developer relations? Or let me ask this a different way. There are companies that are big enough that there are teams that have never met other teams and there are teams that produce platforms that are used by application development teams and so on. What are your thoughts about building more cohesive and engaged developer communities within a company? JONAN: Yes, do it. I've considered this a huge part of what developer relations needs to be doing generally. Binding those departments together and finding the connections for people and advocating the use of internal software, those internal tooling teams. This is why a lot of DevRel people have a background in internal tooling, myself included. It's just fun to be helping out your friends. That's why you get into DevRel. You like helping your friends and developers are your friends and they're my favorite people. The point that I was making about internal developer relations is yeah, you should be doing it already as part of a DevRel team, but there are actually dedicated teams starting to form. Lyft, I think was one of the first people I heard of doing this where there's an entire team of people. Because the bottom line is DevRel is a very, very busy job. Because you don't have this marketing machine behind you working very effectively, you're probably doing a lot of the production work of your role anyway and it takes a full day to do a podcast well, in many cases. So you're losing a day every time you spend an hour on a microphone. But if you're doing that and then you're going to conferences and then you're writing blog posts and then you're having the usual buffet of meetings and everyone wants to talk to you all the time to just check in and sync and see how we can collaborate; we need forms for that. When people come to me and they want us to speak at their event, or they want us to collaborate on a piece of conduct, I have a form for that and once a week, the entire team sits down and we review all of those in a content review meeting and that guarantees that person, the highest quality of feedback for their project, all 10 of us, 11 of us counting myself, are going to look at that and give them the answers they need and we have guaranteed timeline for them. We have a deal that we will respond to you by Friday 2:00 PM Pacific if you give us the thing by Thursday morning, every single week like clockwork and that encourages the rest of the organization to engage you the way that makes sense for you as a team, instead of just little random ad hoc pieces. So yes, it should be done internally. You need to make space for it. If you are doing external DevRel, too, but it's already part of your job and having a dedicated team actually makes a ton of sense. I would love to see more of that. REIN: Let's say that I am a technical lead, or a senior developer and there's this thing that my team has been doing and I really wish the rest of the company knew about it because I think it could help them. What should I do? JONAN: You should find marketing people. You're looking for the internal comms team in your marketing organization. There are people whose whole job is to communicate those things to the rest of the company; they're very good at it and they can tell you about all those avenues. We all have that internal blog thing, whatever. They're all pretty terrible, honestly, especially in larger companies—nobody reads them, that’s the problem—but they can help you get engagement on those things, help them be shared in the right channels, in your chat platform. That's the people I would work out to. There are humans who are real good at helping you talk about your work and they're in marketing and it's a difficult place to engage, but look for your internal comms person. Failing that, make sure that your project is on point before you take it to people. If you don't have a read me that is at a 110%, that's your first step. Make sure that people understand how they can get involved and how to use the project and try it over and over and over again from scratch. Break it intentionally and see how painful it is to fix. Make it just the most user-friendly product you possibly can before you take it out there and you'll get better. MANDO: This is something also that not just techniques and senior engineers should be thinking about management should be thinking about this for their entire teams and the people that they manage and lead. Because if you can provide visibility for the stuff that your people are working on and have worked on throughout the year, when you, as a manager, go to your management when salary reviews and unit reviews come up, it's much easier to make the case that your team mates or your people on your team should get the salary increases that you're trying to get them. If they have had the visibility for their work. If you can say, “Oh, remember this big thing,” and you can point to the blog post and you can point to the Slack conversation where 10 people congratulated Sam on her upgrade for Costco or whatever it is. You know what I mean? JONAN: Yeah, and you have to talk loud here. MANDO: Yeah. JONAN: You’ve got to scream about it. Look, people are only going to hear 25% of what you say anyway, and it feels like bragging, but overcommunicate and often, especially people in management. I mean, really think about how many bulleted lists go across a manager's desk and how you want yours to matter. Better make it longer and more relevant and as detailed as possible so that some portion of it actually makes it through to their consciousness and they can communicate it on there's superiors. Superiors is a terrible way to say that; they're managers. MANDO: They're managers, right? Yeah. This is something that I learned as I was going through management and something that was never taught to me and it's something that I advocate really strongly about. But if you're managing people, if you're leading people and you're not advocating for them and for their work, like you're saying, as loudly as possible to the point of possibly being annoying, you're straight up not doing your job. JONAN: Yeah, you are. I learned early on in my career that the loudest people were the ones getting the promotions and having the career success, whether or not they were good, or they were actually contributing things that were value. I watched someone merge 600 lines of untested code against the objections of his coworkers and get a promotion about it. That's about conversations; it's not about quality. REIN: Yeah, I also think there are things that companies can be doing to make this easier. So you can have a weekly show and tell email. JONAN: Yes. REIN: You can let people pitch stuff to it, you can track engagement with it, and see whether people are getting value out of it and try to make it better. JONAN: And that's exactly it: you have to have a feedback mechanism so that you can adjust the direction of your content. We actually have plans, when we get our feet under us a bit, to do a morning news show like of us had in high school. Just 5 minutes in the morning where we take a question a day and explain it. There are a lot of people who work at our companies who have no idea what a virtual machine is, or at what layer it operates, and how it differs from a container. Telling them the difference between LXC and VMs, that's a thing that DevRel people do well. So we can actually explain, I can take Kubernetes and I can explain it with M&M's in 5 minutes, and then I can invite people to come and talk to the devil to come hang out in the Slack channel. There's a Q&A form. We answer one of these every morning, maybe your question will be next. By the way, here's some fun and interesting stuff that we're up to this week, come check it out. You can find this all on therelicans.com and we've got the internal page over here, and we've got this over here. And then you just have an opportunity daily to communicate this, what feels like a waterfall of work coming out of your team, but getting those daily touchpoints, or maybe weekly to start is a good place to go. MANDO: I love the idea of morning announcements, especially as for specific teams. You assume that a certain size of an org to be able to do this kind of stuff. The place that I'm at right now, there's 4 of us total, so we're not going to be doing this kind of thing. But my last gig, there were thousands of people who worked there and I was in charge of the operations team. JONAN: I actually think the morning news show is a really good way to do that, but you're right that in a smaller team, it's not as relevant. I would argue however, that you're doing it anyway, because with 4 people, you're able to communicate everything that you're all working on all the time. MANDO: That is exactly what happens. JONAN: And you don't have to scale. MANDO: Yeah. JONAN: But it's nice to be bought in on the dream and to feel like you're living your life with purpose and work is a huge part of our lives whether we like it or not. We live in this system and we get to choose every day. I choose to live a life that feels purposeful. I choose to seek meaning because I want to wake up in the morning and be excited to come to work. I want to help lift up the rest of my team so that we're out there making more developers who get to turn this into their dream, which we can't know or predict. I just want to help those people get over the line because I now have desperate it feels on the other side of the fence. I mean, I worked 16-hour days for several years at 5 different jobs and I came home and the world was telling me to live myself up by my bootstraps. You’ve got to be kidding me. That's your American dream? Come on. MANDO: Yeah, I got no more bootstraps. JONAN: Yeah. I want you politician to go and spend 3 hours getting a jug of milk that you pay twice as much as it's necessary for it and have to take two buses to find. I want you to have that experience, how desperate and time consuming and expensive it is to be poor in this country and then lift yourself up by your bootstraps. Because it's not a thing. We have a finite amount of motivation, of will in our day to spend and you've got to make the room. You've got to pay yourself first in that. Get up in the morning and write some code and then go exhaust yourself so your employer gets shortchanged. Your fourth job of the day, they're going to get a little bit less of your time and energy because you gave it to yourself first. That's how you're going to build a wedge to get into tech and I want to be there to help people do that thing. That's what I want to spend the rest of my life doing is making more developers and supporting them as that grow. I mean, I can see dystopia from here. The tech is headed towards a place. MANDO: Oh, yeah. JONAN: We have 1% of people on earth able to program today and we're about to double the global access to high-speed internet. When Starling comes on board – they're launching 70 satellites a month now. When Starlight comes on board, everyone on earth will have access to hopefully low-cost, high-speed internet access. We will double the global audience for many of our services. That's going to be real bad for the world if that 1% who can program and control most of the money in power on the internet becomes half a percent. Historically, that has not worked out great for humanity. So we need to start loosening that up. We need to make more developers yesterday by the thousands, by the millions. We need more people writing this code and helping us to turn this industry into a place that we want to be because the model culture is not going to make it. We will extinct us. We will eliminate humanity whether only the soul or in reality, if we continue down this path where we have a whole bunch of people collected in Valley somewhere, who are defining the rest of the planet. Facebook had no small part in recent revolutions around the world. That's tech. That's us. Whether you want to own it or not, you contributed to the culture and the software that built that monster. REIN: And the other side to making more developers is not having work that chews up and spits out their desiccated husks at a profoundly troubling rate. JONAN: It's true. It’s absolutely true and I think that that's equally, if not more important, that we're not feeding more to the machine. We have toxic spaces in our companies and in our communities and we define them. We need to change them. We need to create better ones. That's, I think a better option, even because you're not going to change that many people's minds. I think that especially this late in the game, for many people—people who have had success with their bad opinions—they continue to spout those bad opinions and believe them. Make a new space. Make a new space and prove it. Show your community, the numbers. If you have another meetup, because the one you're going to has had 18 months of 18 white men speaking and mostly the same people, then make a new meetup and see if the community likes it better and I bet you, they will. I bet you, they'll come. If you build it, they will come. But we got to do the work to make these places better before we just bring people in and watch them suffer. I can't do that anymore. I can't be that person in the world. For a while, I stopped speaking at code schools and bootcamps because I felt like a monster because I knew what I was setting these people up for. I was looking around tech and seeing the poison and I was bringing people, who I genuinely cared about, to the slaughter and I couldn't do it anymore. But I think that now I can do along the way is advise them how to avoid it, what red flags to look out for, how to find the good parts in between, and that's a better approach. It enables me to feel good about my work. MANDO: Yeah. Building up that, I don't want to jump us to reflections yet, but the thing that I keep coming back to is the desire to help your friends. JONAN: Yeah. MANDO: And for me, personally, something that I've been struggling with for a long time now and it's really crystallized over the past, I don't know, year or so, is seemingly how few people have that desire. Maybe not have the desire, I think it's natural to have a desire to want to help your friends. But maybe there's so few people who see everybody as someone who is potentially your friend and someone that you want to help. It's like, they'd be willing to help the person that they hang out with every weekend. But they're going to step over the homeless guy who is standing in front of Target while they walk in. You know what I mean? JONAN: Yeah, and I don't think that they're bad people. Like, I’m not actually a big believer in bad people; I think that there are good misguided people. I don't think there are a whole lot of humans on this earth, with the exception of maybe a handful, who wake up in the morning to do evil. Who wakes up and is like, “Man, today, I'm going to make some real bad days for those around me.” They mostly, I think, believe that they're contributing too good to the world and many of them are very misguided in those attempts, to be clear. There are people actively contributing harm every day, but they don't see it as such. So we have that piece of the conversation and the other part, where I just fail to have empathy for other people, is probably in part about not having good experiences. When I reached out to other people, having a form of attachment in my life, maybe when I was younger, that was traumatic for me. That taught me that I could not trust the world to catch me when I fall; that I couldn't trust other people will be there for me and to show up. Because of that, I had to rely on myself and here I go again on my own. This song I'm off on this walk and it's just me and I need to look out for myself because nobody else will. It's the hurt people hurt people. We saw a church sign when I was driving with my son when he was quite young and he said, “Hurt people hurt people. Why do they want to hurt people so bad?” So internally, in our family, this became a chant: hurt people hurt people instead of hurt people hurt people conversation. But I think the part where we are perpetually enacting our traumas on those around us, because as a society, we've decided that addressing your own traumas, getting your own crap out of the way first is somehow a taboo subject. Like, just go to therapy, people. We just have to put mandatory therapy for people. I want to see a government program that institutes mandatory therapy for people. I'm sure the people will love that. “Oh sure, everyone gets to see a doctor now. I bet you don't want people to die of preventable diseases either?” No, I don't. I want people to get over their collective trauma and stop harming other people because you were harmed and it takes work. Because you got to do the work if you're going to make the world a better place. MANDO: Yeah, I don't know. I personally feel like it's difficult for me when it seems as though the trauma is ongoing. Without this turning into my own therapy session, it makes me sad to see how different I've become over the past year. Is it a year ago? I would've said the same thing that you did, Jonan where I didn't believe that most people were awful monsters hellbent on destroying me and everyone that I love. I don't know so much that I believe that anymore. JONAN: I think JESSICA: They don't think of themselves as monsters. MANDO: Right, right. JESSICA: They may be hellbent on destroying you because they really think that's somehow good are wrong. MANDO: Right. At the end of the day, you're absolutely right, Jessica. How much of that matters? How much of that distinction matters? JESSICA: It does matter. JONAN: I think it does. JESSICA: It matters in what we do about it. JONAN: Yeah. JESSICA: And I don't want to destroy them either. I do want to segregate them off in their own little world. JONAN: Yeah. I love that. MANDO: For me, the ratios make it work in the other direction. JESSICA: Like you want to segregate off in your own little world? MANDO: Well, just that there's way more of them. JESSICA: Oh, okay. MANDO: And so, putting them off someplace would never happen. JONAN: Yeah. I think it's worth noting here that I am a large loud white man speaking from a place of tremendous privilege in that I maybe have experienced less of that “You don't get to exist.” Like, “You're not welcomed here in life in general.” Not even a maybe but that like over my lifetime, very few people have come out to me and just said like, “I wish that you weren't a thing. I wish that you as a human didn't exist on this earth, that you were never born, that your parents were never born.” I've not had that experience. I mean, I have when I've received somehow particular malice from someone usually as a result of my ridiculous jokes. JESSICA: But then it’s personal which yeah. JONAN: But then it’s personal and that’s [inaudible]. People who don't even know me. So yeah, I do. I speak from that position, but I think that this is another – gosh, I'm really not trying to be like let's all come together and have a conversation person because some are too far gone from that. But I think that I'm not ready to give up on humanity as a whole just yet, as much as I'm inclined to. I might be ready to give up on the United States, looking into options overseas. [laughter] REIN: I think for me, the reason this distinction is so important is because when someone claims that there's just evil in the world and these chaotic forces, it decontextualizes people's behavior from ideology, from culture, from socialization, from the worldviews that they have that mediate these behaviors. So I think it's important to understand that people aren't just evil. People have certain worldviews and ideologies and that those manifest in these behaviors. JONAN: And that we built the – JESSICA: Which meant the ideology is evil. JONAN: It makes the ideologies evil. JESSICA: Yeah, which causes the behavior of the people to be evil. That if – [overtalk] JONAN: And these are the systems that we build and perpetuate. JESSICA: Right, exactly and if we keep blaming the people and saying, “There are evil people,” then we will never fix the system. JONAN: Exactly. REIN: The most profound example of this I am aware of and if this is too heavy, we can cut it out of the show is [laughter] when Jordan Peterson claimed that the Nazi's final solution was because they were just evil, chaotic forces. In fact, their worldview demanded it. Their ideology demanded it. JESSICA: Yeah, there was nothing chaotic about that. JONAN: No, it was pretty organized. JESSICA: Yeah. MANDO: Thanks, IBM. JONAN: Yeah. JESSICA: Did you say IBM? MANDO: I said thanks IBM for their efforts. JONAN: And Bosch and every other company, right? MANDO: Yeah. JONAN: I mean, the world would not be able to sustain its current population without the work of Bosch creating nitrogen out of the air and also, then the Nazis used it to get gunpowder when they had no access. So we have a lot of those kinds of systems that we've built over the years and that's absolutely a part of it. You talked about the industries that are involved across these bridges. You don't get to show up to work, team and just be like, “I don't actually care about the impact that I have on humans. I care about the impact that I have on this graph.” You can't be that person anymore if we're going to make it and you can't walk around and point at those people and be like, “Yeah, they were fundamentally flawed from birth.” Whatever that thing means to you, you can't just say like, “Yeah, that person's evil. They probably had bad parenting.” Yeah, maybe they did. But I know a lot of people who had bad parenting or no parenting and turned out okay because they fought their way up that mountain. They overcame it. JESSICA: And they found friends, it helps them. JONAN: Yes. JESSICA: It's not, “Fight your way up the mountain, pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” No, it's, “Keep looking for a better place,” and by place, I mean friend group. JONAN: Yes. Surround yourself with people who genuinely care about you and care about the things that you care about. I wish I'd learned that earlier in my life. Man, I hung out with some people who had different values than I did over the years and I changed my life just by finding a good friend. JESSICA: Yeah. Because we are social animals and we really are the people we're closest to. MANDO: Yeah, absolutely. JESSICA: That's what makes sense with us. That is the world we live in. What was that John Gall quote from earlier? “I respect facts, but I live in impressions.” Especially the default appropriate behavior is whatever the people around us do ad that is what we will fall back to witho

02:15 - David’s Superpower: Being Confused * Norms of Excellence (https://notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-31-09:20.html) * The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance (https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Game-Tennis-Classic-Performance/dp/0679778314) 11:56 - Daily Writing * David’s Newsletter: Overthinking Everything (https://drmaciver.substack.com/) * Unfuck Your Habitat (https://www.unfuckyourhabitat.com/) 15:47 - Learning to Be Better at Emotions 23:22 - Achievement and Joy as Aspirational Goals * [Homeostasis vs Homeorhesis](https://wikidiff.com/homeostasis/homeorhesis#:~:text=is%20that%20homeostasis%20is%20(physiology,to%20a%20trajectory%2C%20as%20opposed) * Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming by Agnes Callard (https://www.amazon.com/Aspiration-Agency-Becoming-Agnes-Callard/dp/0190639482) * Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott (https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/dp/0300078153/ref=sr_1_2?crid=HEYGC212F6SG&dchild=1&keywords=seeing+like+a+state+by+james+c+scott&qid=1613057768&s=books&sprefix=seeing+like+a+state%2Cstripbooks%2C164&sr=1-2) * Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein (https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Investigations-Ludwig-Wittgenstein/dp/1405159286/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1JRUU030WBCWQ&dchild=1&keywords=philosophical+investigations&qid=1613058025&s=books&sprefix=philos%2Cstripbooks%2C209&sr=1-1) Reflections: Jessica: Trying not knowing yourself. Rein: You shouldn’t be the owner of all your desires. Instead, you should measure your life by how well you follow the intentions that arise out of your values. Jacob: Thinking of yourself as the sum of all of the habits you maintain or don’t. David: The [Homeostasis vs Homeorhesis](https://wikidiff.com/homeostasis/homeorhesis#:~:text=is%20that%20homeostasis%20is%20(physiology,to%20a%20trajectory%2C%20as%20opposed) distinction, and cleaning a home as an ongoing process. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: SPONSORED AD: Whether you're working on a personal project or managing enterprise infrastructure, you deserve simple, affordable, and accessible cloud computing solutions that allow you to take your project to the next level. Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode's Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier. Get started on Linode today with $100 in free credit for listeners of Greater Than Code. You can find all the details at linode.com/greaterthancode. Linode has 11 global data centers and provides 24/7/365 human support with no tiers or hand-offs regardless of your plan size. In addition to shared and dedicated compute instances, you can use your $100 in credit on S3-compatible object storage, Managed Kubernetes, and more. Visit linode.com/greaterthancode and click on the "Create Free Account" button to get started. JACOB: Hello and welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode 223. My name is Jacob Stoebel and I'm joined with my co-host, Rein Henrichs. REIN: Thanks, Jacob and I'm here with my friend and also stranger because we haven't done this together in months, Jessica Kerr. JESSICA: Thank you, Rein! And Iím really excited today because our guest is David MacIver. Twitter handle, @DRMacIver. David MacIver is best known as the developer of Hypothesis, the property-based testing library for Python, and is currently doing a Ph.D. based on some of that work. But he also writes extensively about emotions, life, and society and sometimes coaches people on an eclectic mix of software development, intellectual, and emotional skills. As you can probably tell, David hasn't entirely decided what he wants to do when he grows u and that's the best because if you had decided well, then so few possibilities would be open. David, hello! DAVID: Hi, Jessica! Great to be here. JESSICA: All right. I'm going to ask the obligatory question. What is your superpower and how did you acquire it? DAVID: So as you saw me complaining about on Twitter, this question doesn't translate very well outside of the United States. JESSICA: Yeah, which is fascinating for me. DAVID: I'm a bit too British to say nice things about myself without sounding like I'm being self-deprecating. JESSICA: Self-depreciating it is! DAVID: [laughs] So I thought about this one for a while and I decided that the answer is that I'm really good at being confused and in particular, I have a much more productive response to being confused than it seems like most people do because basically, the world is super confusing and I think I never know what's going on, but then I notice that I know what's going on and I look at it and I'm just like, ìHmm, this is weird, right?î And then I read a book about it, or I sort of poke at it a bit and then I'm not less confused, but I'm less confused about that like, one little facet of the world and have found ten new things to be confused about. [laughter] JESSICA: Nice. DAVID: Usually, I can then turn this into being slightly better at the thing I was previously confused about, or writing about it and making everyone else differently confused than they started with. JESSICA: Definitely confused. That is a win. That's called learning. DAVID: Yeah, exactly. [laughter] This is where a lot of the writing you were talking about comes from and essentially, about 2 years ago, I just started turning these skills less on software development and more just going like, ìLife, it doesn't make sense, right?î [laughter] And noticing a whole bunch of things, I needed to work on and then that a lot of these were shared common problems. So I am, if anything, far more confused about all of it than I was 2 years ago, but I'm less confused about the things I was confused about that and seem to be gradually becoming a more functional human being as a result of the process. So yay, confusion. JESSICA: That superpower, the productive response to confusion, ties in with your reaction to the superpower question in general, which is as Americans, we're supposed to be ñ we want to have power. We want to be special. We want to be unique. We want to make our unique contribution to the world! And as part of that, we're not comfortable being confused because we need to know things! We need to be smart! We need to convey strength and competence and be the best! I hate the superlatives. [laughter] I hate the implied competition there, but instead, we could open our hearts to our own confusion and embrace that. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. DAVID: One of the things that often comes up for me is it's a thing that I think is slightly intentioned with this American tendency youíre pointing at, which is that I kind of want to be the best, but I don't really want to be better than other people. I just want to be better than I am now. I wrote a post a while ago about neuromas of excellence like, what would a community look like, which helped everyone be the best version of themselves and one of the top lists was basically that everyone has to be comfortable with not being good at things, but another is just that you have to not want to be better to the other people. You just need want to be better. Again, this is where a lot of the writing comes from. I've just gone, ìWell, this was helpful to me. It's probably helpful to other people.î That's not as sense of wanting to change the world and wanting to put my own stamp on things and it does require a certain amount to self-importance to go, ìYes, my writing is important and other people will like to read it,î but then other people like to read it so, that's fine and if they don't, that's fine, too. JESSICA: Well, you didn't make anyone read it, but you did start a newsletter and let people read it. JACOB: Is this weird thinking reflect a journey that you took in your life? Because I think about my company and my team and how incredibly generous everybody is and even still, I just find it's natural to compare myself to everyone else and needing to not be on the bottom. Part of me wonders if that's just like a natural human tendency, but just because it's natural doesn't make it so. JESSICA: Way natural American. JACOB: Yeah, basically I'm asking how do I stop doing that? [laughter] DAVID: It's definitely not something I've always been perfectly good at. But I think the thing that helped me figure out how to do this was essentially being simultaneously at the bottom of the social rung, but also super arrogant. So it's your classic nerd kit thing, right? It's completely failing at people, but also going, ìBut I'm better than all of you because I'm smart,î and then essentially, gradually having the rough edges filed off the second part and realizing how much I had to learn off the first part. I think sometimes my attitude is due to a lot of this is basically, to imagine I was a time traveler and basically going back in time and telling little David all the things that it was really frustrating that nobody could explain to me and I sadly haven't yet managed to perfect my time machine, but I can still pay it forward. If nobody was able to explain this to me and I'm able to explain it to other people, then surely, the world is a better place with me freely handing out this information. I don't think it's possible, or even entirely desirable to completely eliminate the comparing yourself to others and in fact, I'd go as far as to say, comparing yourself to others is good, but I think theÖ JESSICA: Itís how do we have a productive response to compare ourselves to others? DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. There's a great section in The Inner Game of Tennis, which is a book that I have very mixed feelings about, but it has some great bits where he talks about competition. If you think of a mountain climber, a mountain climber is basically pitting themselves against the mountain, right? They're trying to climb the mountain because it is hard and you could absolutely take a helicopter to the top of the mountain, but that wouldn't be the point. It's you're improving yourself by trying a hard thing. I mean, you're improving yourself in the sense that you're getting better at climbing mountains. You might not be improving yourself in any sort of fully generalizable way. JESSICA: Okay. [laughter] DAVID: When you are playing tennisóbecause this is a book about tennisóyou are engaged in competition with each other and you're each trying to be better than the other. In this context, essentially, what you are doing is you are being the mountain for each other. So you are creating the obstacles that the other people overcome and improve themselves that way and in doing this, you're not just being a dick about it. You're not doing this in order to crush them. You're doing this in order to provide them with the challenge that lets them grow. When you think about it this way, other people being better than you is great because there's this mountain there and you can climb it and by climbing the mountain, you can improve yourself. The thing that stops everyone becoming great is feeling threatened by the being better rather than treating it as an opportunity for learning. JESSICA: Yeah, trying to dynamite the mountain instead of climbing it. Whereas, when you are the mountain for someone else, you can also provide them footholds. Rein, do you have an example of this? REIN: I sure do, Jess. Thanks for asking. So I was just [laughs] thinking while you were talking about this, about the speed running and speed running communities. Because speed running is about testing yourself against a video game, which in this case, serves the purpose of the mountain, but it's also about competing against other speed runners. If it was purely competitive, you wouldn't see the behaviors, the reciprocity in the communities like sharing speed running strats, being really happy when other people break your record. I think it's really interesting that that community is both competitive, but there's also a lot of reciprocity, a lot of sharing. JACOB: And it's like the way the science community should work. It's like, ìOh, you made this new discovery because of this discovery I shared with you and now I'm proud that my discovery is this foundation for all these other little things that now people can be by themselves in 10 seconds instead of 30.î JESSICA: Yeah. Give other people a head start on the confusion you've already had so that they can start resolving new confusions. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely one of my hopes with all of this writing is to encourage other people to do it themselves. Earlier this year, I was getting people very into daily writing practices and just trying to get people to write as much as possible. I now think that was slightly a mistake because I think daily writing is a great thing to do for about a month and then it just gets too much. So I will probably see if I can figure out other ways of encouraging people to notice their confusion, as you say, and share what they've learned from edge. But sadly, can't quite get into do it daily. JESSICA: This morningís newsletter you talked about. Okay, okay, I can do daily writing, but now I want to get better at writing. I've got to go do something I'm worse at. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. I think daily writing is still a really good transitional stage for most people. To give them more context for this newsletter for people listening. Basically, most of my writing to date, I just write in a 1- or 2-hour sitting from start to finish. I don't really edit it. I just click publish and I've gotten very good at writing like that. I think that most people are ñ I mean, sometimes it's a bit obvious that I haven't edited it because they're obvious typos and the like. But by and large, I think it is a reasonably high standard of writing and I'm not embarrassed to be putting it out in that quality, but the fact that I'm not editing is just starting to be sort of the limiter on growth for me. It's never going to really get better than it currently is. It's certainly not going to allow me to tackle larger projects that I can currently tackle without that editing skill. JESSICA: [laughs] I just pictured you trying to sit down and write a book in one session. [laughter] And then you'd be tired. DAVID: Yeah. I've tried to doing that with papers even and it doesn't really work. I mean, I do edit papers, but Iím very visibly really bad at editing papers and it's one of my weaknesses as a academic is that I still haven't really got the hang of paper writing. JESSICA: Do you edit other people's papers? DAVID: I don't edit other people's papers, but I provide feedback on other people's writing and say, ìThis is what worked for me. This is what didn't work for me. Here are some typos you made.î It's not reading as providing good feedback on things, that is the difficult part of editing for me. It is much more ñ honestly, it's an emotional problem more than anything else. It's not really that I'm bad at editing at a technical level. I'm okay at editing at a technical level. I just hate doing it. [laughs] JESSICA: That is most problems we have, right? DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: In the end, itís an emotional problem. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. I think that is definitely one of the interesting things I've been figuring out in my last 2 years of working on learning more about emotions and the various skills around them is just going, ìOh, right. It's not this abstract thing where you are learning to be better at emotions and then nothing will change in your life because you're just going to be happier about everything.î I mean, some people do approach it that way, but for me, it's very much been, ìOh, I'm learning to be good at emotions because this really concrete problem that I don't understand, it turns out that that's just feelings.î [laughter] It's like, for example, the literature on how to have a clean home, turns out that's mostly anxiety management and guilt management. It's like fundamentally cleaning your home is not a hard problem. Not procrastinating on cleaning your home is a hard problem. Not feeling intensely guilty and aversive about the dirty dishes in the sink and is putting them off for a week. I don't do that. But just as a hypothetical example. [laughter] I mean, not a hypothetical example, I think a specific example that comes from the book, Unfuck Your Habitat, which is a great example of essentially, it's a book that's about it contains tips, like fill the spray bottle with water and white vinegar and also, tips about how to manage your time and how to deal with the fact that you're mostly not cleaning because of shame, that sort of thing. Writing books are another great example where 80% about managing the feelings associated with writing; it turns out practical problems pretty much all come down to emotionsóat least practical life problems. REIN: Sorry, I was just buying Unfuck Your Habitat real quick. [laughter] DAVID: It's a good book. I recommend it. JESSICA: Our internal like emotional habitat and our external habitat are very linked. You said something earlier about learning to be at emotions is not just you're magically happier at other things in your life change. DAVID: Yes. I mean, I think there are a couple of ways in which it manifests. One of them is just that emotions often are the internal force that maintains our life habits. It's you live in a particular way because moving outside of those trained habits is scary or aversive in some way. Like the cleaning example of how, if your home is a mess, it's not necessarily because you don't know how to make your home not a mess. Although, cleaning is a much harder skill than most people treat it as speaking as someone who is bad at the practical skills of cleaning, as well as the emotional side of cleaning. But primarily, if it were just a matter of scale, you could just do it and get better at it, right? The thing that is holding you in place is the emotional reaction to the idea of changing your habits. So the specific reason why I started on all of this process was essentially relationship stuff. I'd started a new major relationship. My previous one hadn't gone so well for reasons that were somewhere between emotional and communication issues, for the same reason basically every relationship doesn't go so well, if it doesn't go so ñ Oh, that's not quite true. Like there are actual ñ JESSICA: Some people have actual problems. [chuckles] But these things are. I mean, our emotions really, as sometimes we treat them as if they're flaws. As if our emotions are getting in our way is some sort of judgment about us as not being good people, but no, it just makes us people. DAVID: For sure. JESSICA: So you started on this journey because of the external motivation of helping someone you're in a relationship with, because it's really hard to do these things just for ourselves. DAVID: It is incredibly hard to do things just for ourselves. I guess, that is exactly an example of this problem, right? It's that there is a particular habit of life that I was in and what I needed to break out of that habit of life was the skills for dealing with it and then figuring out these emotional reactions. But unfortunately, the thing that the habits were maintaining, it was me not having the skills and so having the external prompts of a problem that was in the world rather than in my life, as it was, was what was needed to essentially kick me out of that. Fortunately, it turns out that my standard approach of reading a thousand books now was one that worked for me, in this case. I probably haven't read a thousand books on this, but that certainly worked. JESSICA: It wouldnít surprise me. [laughs] DAVID: I read fewer books than people think I do. I may well have read more than a hundred books about emotions and therapy and the like. But I probably haven't, unless I cast that brush really broadly, because I mean, everything's a book about emotions and therapy, if you look at your right. REIN: Have you read any books by average Virginia Satir? [laughter] DAVID: I don't know who that is, I'm afraid. JACOB: Drink! REIN: Excellent! Excellent news. [laughter] JESSICA: Itís about Virginia Satir, right? REIN: Virginia was a family therapist who wrote a lot about processing emotions and I have been a huge fan of her work and it's made a huge difference in my life and my career. So I highly recommend it. DAVID: Okay. I will definitely hear recommendations on books. What's the book title, or what's your favorite book title by? REIN: I think I would start with The Satir Model, which is S-A-T-I-R M-O-D-E-L. The Satir Model, which is about her family therapy model. JESSICA: Chances are good, you've read books based on her work. I was reading Gerry Weinberg's Quality Software Management: Volume Two the other day, which is entirely based on The Satir Model. REIN: Yeah. He was a student of hers. One of the things that she likes to say is that the problem is never the problem, how we cope is the problem. JESSICA: Can we have a productive response to the problem? DAVID: Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. I think often, the problem is also the problem. [laughter] JESSICA: It's often self-sustaining like the habits you're talking about. Our life habits form a self-sustaining system and then it took that external stimulus. It's not like an external stimulus somehow kicked you in the butt and changed you, it let you change yourself. DAVID: Yes, absolutely. I guess what I mean is ñ so let's continue with the cleaning example. The problem is that your flat is messy and your flat is messy because of these life habits, because your emotional reactions to all these things. If you do the appropriate emotional work, you unblock yourself on shame and anxiety around a messy flat, and you look around and you've saw you've processed all these emotions. You fixed how you respond to the problem and it turns out your flat is still messy and you still have to clean it. I think emotional reactions are what either ñ Iím making it sound like emotional reactions are all negative and I really don't mean that. I mean, that way is just ñ JESSICA: Oh, right because once you've dealt with all that shame and the anxiety and stuff, and maybe you've picked up your flat some, and then you come in and you have groceries and you stop and you immediately put them away and you get a positive, emotional feeling from that as you're in the process of keeping your flat tidy. The emotions can reinforce a clean flat as well. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is something that has always been one of my goals more than it is what am I active? JESSICA: No, I love this distinction that you're making here. Is it a goal or is it something I'm activelyÖ? The word goal is [inaudible]. DAVID: Yeah. So I think for me, one of the other problems, other than the relationships it starts, was me essentially realizing that my emotional experience, it wasn't bad. I mean, it wasn't great, but I wasn't actively miserable most of the time, but it also just didn't have very many positive features, which it turns out is also a form of depression. It's very easy to treat depression as just like you're incredibly sad all the time, but that doesn't have to what it can be like flatness is. So I think very much from early on in my mind was that the getting better at emotions wasn't just about not being anxious. It was also about experiencing things like joy, it was about being happier and I think having this as sort of an aspirational goal is very, very motivating in terms of a lot of this work and in terms of a lot of trying to understand all of this, because I think I don't want to be miserableóit only gets you so far. If you have a problem that you're trying to solve, and that turns out to be an emotional block, you have to actually wants to solve the problem. It's like, I think if you don't want to clean the flat, then it doesn't matter how much you sort of fix your anxiety around that. You're still just going to go, ìOkay. I'm no longer anxious about this messy flat. That's great,î and your flat is going to stay messy because you don't actually want it not to be and that's fine. JESSICA: Itís just fine, yeah. Who cares? Especially now. DAVID: Unless it becomes a health hazard, but yeah. [laughter] DAVID: Certainly like thereís ñ JESSICA: If you're affecting the neighboring flats with your roaches, thatís fine. DAVID: [laughs] Yeah. JESSICA: So you were talking about joy as an aspirational goal, but it's not the kind of goal where you check the box at the end of the year and declare yourself worthy of a 2% raise. DAVID: [laughs] No, absolutely not and I think for all big goals, really, I find that I want to be very clichÈ and say, it's the journey, not the destination. JESSICA: But it is! No, it totally is! DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: See, the word goal really irks me because people often use it to mean something that you should actually reach. Like write every day per month, that's a goal that you find benefits from hitting, but feelings of joy are, as you said, aspirational. I call it a quest, personally. Some people call it a North Star. It is a direction that can help you make decisions that will move you in that direction, but if you ever get thereÖ No, that doesn't make sense. You wouldn't want to exist in a perpetual state of joy. That would also be flat. [laughs] DAVID: No, absolutely. And I think even with big but achievable goals, it still is still quite helpful to treat them in this way. So for one, quite close to my heart right now, a goal of doing a Ph.D. I think you've got a 3-, 4-year long project in the States, I think it's more like 5 or 6 and if you treat the Ph.D. as it's pass/fail, like either you get the Ph.D. or those 3 or 4 years have been wasted, then that's not very motivating and also will result in, I think, worst quality results in work. Like the thing to do is ñ JESSICA: Like anxiety, stress, and shame. DAVID: Yeah. Yeah, very much so. [chuckles] So just thinking in terms of there's this big goal that you're trying to achieve of the Ph.D., but the goal doesn't just define a pass/fail; it defines a direction. Like if you get better at paper writing in order to get your Ph.D., then even if you don't get your Ph.D., you got better at paper writing and that's good, too. JESSICA: Because the other outcome is the next version of you. DAVID: Yes, exactly. JESSICA: Itís about who does this aspirational goal prompt you to become? REIN: This reminds me of the difference between homeostasis and homeorhesis. Homeostasis is about maintaining a state; homeorhesis is about maintaining a trajectory DAVID: That makes sense. Yes, very much that distinction and also, one of the nice things about this focus on a trajectory is that even if a third of the way through the trajectory, you decide you don't want to maintain it anymore and actually you're fine where you are. This goal was a bad idea or you've got different priorities now, possibly because a global pandemic has arrived and has changed all of your priorities. Then you still come all that way. It's like the trajectory doesn't just disappear backwards in time because you're no longer going in that direction. You've still made all that progress. Youíve still got to drive some of the benefits from it. JESSICA: Yeah. There's another thing that maybe it's an American thing, or maybe it's wider than that of if it doesn't last forever, then it was never real, or if you don't achieve the stated goal, then all your effort was wasted. DAVID: Yeah. I don't think itís purely an American thing. It's hard to tell with how much American pop culture permeates everything and also, I shouldn't say that although I'm quite British, I am also half American. So Iím a weird third culture kid where my background doesn't quite make sense to anyone. But yeah, no, I very much feel that. This idea that permanence is required for importance and it's something that every time I sort of catch myself there, I'm just like, ìYeah, David, you're doing the thing again. Have you tried not doing the thing?î [chuckles] But it's hard. It's very internalized. JESSICA: If you clean your flat and a week later, it's dirty again. Well, it was clean for a week. That's not nothing. DAVID: Yeah. I do genuinely think that one of the emotions that people struggle with cleaning. Certainly, it is for me. JESSICA: Oh, because it's a process. It is not a destination. Nothing is ever clean! DAVID: Yeah. JACOB: I think of myself sometimes as I want to be the kind of person that always has a clean home, as opposed to, I like it when my house is clean. JESSICA: Yeah. Is it about you or is it about some real effect you want? JACOB: Yeah. Is it about like the story that that I imagine I could project if I could project on Instagram because I'm taking pictures of my pristine house all the time, or is it just like, I like to look around and see things where they belong? DAVID: Yeah. I'm curious, does this result in your home being clean? JACOB: No, it doesnít and thatís sort of the issue that I'm just realizing is it's not actually a powerful motivator because it's just not possible trying to imagine that I could maintain homeostasis about it. It's not a possible goal and so yeah, it's not going to happen. REIN: Yeah. The metaphor here is it changes motion, but it's always happening so it's more like the flow of time than motion through space. JESSICA: Itís not motion, too. REIN: Actually staying the same is very hard to do and very expensive. DAVID: Absolutely. JESSICA: No wonder it takes all of our feelings to help us achieve it. [chuckles] DAVID: So the reason I was asking by the way about whether this idea of being the sort of person who has a clean home is effective is that this ties in a little bit to what today's newsletter was about. There's this problem where when you have self-images that are constructed around being good at particular things, being bad at those things is very much, it's a shame trigger. It's essentially, you experienced the world as clashing with your conception of yourself and we get really good at not noticing those things. You see this a lot with procrastination, for example, where you are putting off doing a thing because it does force you to confront this sort of conflict between identity and reality. I think sometimes, the way out of it is just to identify less with the things that we want to achieve in the world and just try and go, ìI'm doing this because I want to and if I didn't want to, that would be fine, too.î Essentially, becoming fine with both an outcome and failing to achieve that outcome is often the best way to achieve the outcome. JESSICA: So practicing editing in order to practice editing, whether you achieve writing a book or not, whether you're good at it or not, and it does come back to the journey. If what you're doing is a means to an end and yet not in line with that end, it often backfires because the means are the end. In the end, they become it. So having a clean house is stupid. That's not a thing. Picking up is a thing. That's something you can do and what I am picking up. True fact! [laughs] You don't have to worry about whether you can, are you doing it? All right then, you can! Whereas, having a clean house is not a thing. DAVID: Very much. This kind of ties into the comments about books earlier, where you were talking about how many books I read, and one of the things that I think very much stops people from reading books is the idea that oh God, there are so many books to read, I'll never get through all of them. JESSICA: If I started, I have to finish it. DAVID: Oh, yeah. I mean, people definitely shouldn't do that; books are there to be abandoned if they're bad. JESSICA: I read a lot of chapter ones. DAVID: Yeah. I have a slightly bad habit of buying books speculatively because they seem good and as a result, I think my shelf of books that I'm probably never going to get around to read, but might do someday and might not and either is fine is probably like a hundred plus books now. JESSICA: I love that shelf. I have big piles everywhere. [laughs] There's always something to read wherever I sit and most of it, I will never read, but it's beautiful. DAVID: I'm currently in a very weird experience where I write, for possibly the first time in my life, I have more bookshelf space than books. JESSICA: Huh, that's not a stable state. DAVID: No, no. This will be fixed by the time I leave this flat. The piles will return. JESSICA: You will maintain the trajectory. DAVID: Yeah. [laughs] Because I'm just reading. I can read these as many books because I just sit down and read and at some point, I will finish a book or I will abandon the book and both are fine. But I think if you treat this as a goal where your goal is to read all the books, then that's not the thing and also, I think people go, ìMy goal is to read a hundred books a year,î or I don't know how normal people guesstimates are. JESSICA: Itís like, is it really or itís their goal to learn something. DAVID: Yeah, exactly. JESSICA: And the means is reading books. DAVID: Yeah. I think if one instead just goes, ìI like reading and it's useful so I'm going to read books,î you'll probably end up reading a lot more than setting some specific numerical goal. Also, you run into sort of Goodhart's law things where if your goal is to read a hundred books in a year, great buy the Mr. Men set. But wait, it's not a thing in ñ the Mr. Men are a series of kidsí books which tells ñ JESSICA: With the big smiley face? DAVID: Yeah. Exactly, that's the one. [laughter] You can read a hundred of those in a weekóI assume there are hundred Mr. Men books, I don't actually knowóand youíll probably learn something. JESSICA: Then again, you might choose Dynamics in Action, never get through it, and then feel bad about it, and that would be pointless because you learned more from the introduction than you did from the Mr. Men series. DAVID: I don't think I've even opened my copy of Dynamics in Action. I think you recommended on Twitter or something and I was just like, ìThat does sound interesting. I will speculatively buy this book.î JESSICA: It's a hard book. DAVID: Yeah. It's far from the hardest book on my shelves, but it's definitely in the top. I'm going to confidently say top 20, but it might be harder than that. I just haven't done a comparative analysis and I don't want to overpromise. [laughter] JESSICA: The point being read books because you want to know. DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: Or sometimes because you want to have read them. That's the thing. There's a lot of things I may not want to pick up, but I do want to have picked up and I can use that to motivate me. DAVID: Yeah, and even then, there are two versions of that and both are good, actually. I think one of them sounds bad. One version is you want to have read it because you want to understand the material in it and the other one is just, you want to be able to say that you have read it and thus, you ñ and probably for the status game and also, just sort of as a box ticking, like I think ñ JESSICA: Oh, itís not completely wrong. DAVID: No, it's not completely wrong. JESSICA: You still get something out of it. DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: On the other hand, if you want to read it because you want to be the kind of person who would read it. I don't know about that one. DAVID: Yeah, I agree. I thinkÖ JESSICA: Then again, life habits. Sometimes, if you want to be the kind of person who picks up and so you fake it long enough to form the habit, then you are. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely and I read a book recentlyóof course, I didóby Agnes Callard called Aspiration, which I'm glad I read it. I cannot really recommend it to people who aren't philosophers, because there's a thing that often happens with reading analytic philosophy, where the author clearly has a keen insight into an important problem that you, as the reader, lack and the way they express that insight is through an entire bookís worth of slightly pedantic arguments with other analytic philosophers who have wrong opinions about the subjects. JESSICA: Half of Dynamics in Action is like that. DAVID: Yeah, I think it very complicated. REIN: Was it written as a thesis? DAVID: I don't think so. I'm not certain about that, but it might've been. It ended up being quite an influential book and I think she was mentioning that there's going to be a special issue of a journal coming out to recently about essentially, its impact and responses to it. But I think it's just genuinely that analytic philosophers had a lot of really wrong opinions about this subject. So the relevance of this is the idea she introduces the book is that of a proleptic value where ñ JESSICA: Proleptic, more words. DAVID: Proleptic basically, I think originally comes from grammar and it means something that stands in place for another thing. A proleptic value is what you do when you're engaged in a process of aspiration, which is trying to acquire values that you don't currently have. So she uses the example of a music student who wants to learn to appreciate the genre of music that they do not currently appreciate and they find a teacher who does appreciate that genre and they basically use their respect for that teacher as a proleptic value. They basically say, ìI don't currently value this genre of music, but I trust your judgment and I value your opinion and I will use your feedback and that respect for you as a value that stands in place of the future value of appreciating this genre of music that I hope to acquire.î So I think this thing of reading a book because you want to be the sort of person who reads that kind of book can have a similar function where even though, you don't really wants to read the book, that process of aspiration gives you a hook into becoming the sort of person who does want to read the book. JESSICA: That's like being the mountain for each other. DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: In some ways. You're not going to get a view yet. You're only 10 feet off the ground, but meanwhile, just climb to climb because it's here. DAVID: Yeah. I'm not necessarily very good at being the sort of person reading books for this reason. Partly because there are so many books, I have so many other reasons to read, but yeah. JESSICA: Yeah, you're fine. You don't need more reasons to read a book. DAVID: [laughs] But I think two books that I have read mostly to have read them rather than necessarily because I was having an amazing time and learning lots of things reading them are Seeing Like a State by James Scott, which it's a good book. I don't think it's a bad book, but it is very much a history book that also has a big idea and there are like 70,000 blog posts about the big idea. So if you're going and wanting just the big idea, read one of the blog posts, but I'd seen a reference so many times and I was just like, ìYou know, this seems like a book that I should rate,î and my opinion is now basically that like, if you like history books and if you want lots of detail, then yeah, it's a great book to read. If you just want the big idea, donít. JESSICA: Right, because other people have presented it more succinctly, which probably happens with your Aspiration book that you talked about. DAVID: I would like it to happen with the Aspiration book. The Aspiration book is only a few years old. JESSICA: You've written a ñ oh, okay, so it's too soon for that. So you'll write about it, if you haven't yet. DAVID: Yeah, I havenít yet. Looking at it, it was published in 2018 and you have the paperback from 2019. So this is really cutting-edge philosophy to the degree that there is such a thing. [chuckles] JESSICA: Yeah. Oh no, what do you mean? [inaudible]. REIN: Seeing Like a State is. DAVID: Well, I've had this argument with philosopher friends where I was arguing that it was a thing and the philosopher friend was just like, ìIs it a thing, though?î Because the interesting thing about philosophy is just that it never goes out to date. People are sort of engaging with the entire historical cannon so the question is not does new philosophy get done? The question is more, I think is this less ñ? JESSICA: This isnít really a cutting edge. DAVID: Yeah, exactly. JESSICA: Itís more kind of a gentle nuzzling. DAVID: [laughs] Yeah. But also, is this more cutting edge than, I don't know, reading Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics? I don't know. JESSICA: Philosophy [inaudible]. DAVID: Yeah, I personally think that there is cutting-edge and this is on it, but plenty of room for philosophical dialogue on that subject if you can sort of dig Socrates up and ask him about it. [laughter] Yeah, and speaking of philosophy, the other book that I have read essentially to have read it rather than because I was getting a lot out of it was Wittgensteinís Philosophical Investigations where I essentially read it in order to confirm to myself that I had already picked up enough Wittgenstein by osmosis that I didn't really need to read it, which largely true. JACOB: This is the part of the show where we like to reflect on what we took from everything and just wrap things up a little bit. JESSICA: I have one thing written down. We talked a bit about who you are and who you want to be as a person, and how sometimes what you want to do is in conflict with how you think of yourself. Like, when you think of yourself as good at something, it's hard to be bad at it, long enough to learn better. It occurs to me that in our society, we're all about getting to know yourself and then expressing your true self, which is very much a homeostasis more than a homerhesis. But what have we tried not knowing yourself? What if we tried just like, I don't know who I am and then I can surprise myself and have more possibilities. That's my reflection. REIN: All of this discussion about happiness and pleasure, and diversion and striving reminds me a lot of Buddhist philosophy, or what I should say is, it reminds me a lot of my very limited understanding of Buddhist philosophy. Specifically, this idea that you shouldn't judge your life by the outcome of your preferences; that you shouldn't identify yourself with your wants and cling to the outcome of things. You can acknowledge that these things have happened and you can avoid unpleasant things, but you shouldn't be the owner of all of your desires. Instead, what you should do is measure your life by how well you follow the intentions that arise out of your values. JACOB: Yeah. Maybe to put another way, I'm starting to think maybe I could think of myself as the sum of all of the habits I maintain or don't, and try to think of outcome of those habits as what a lagging indicator, I guess, or as a secondary and think more of myself like, ìWell, what are the things that I find I am naturally doing and if I'm not, what can I do to just try to enforce it for myself that I'm going to do that more?î Or maybe I don't care. DAVID: So I'm not finding myself with sort of a single cohesive summation of the conversation, but I've really enjoyed it and there's been a couple of things I'm going to take away from it and mull over a bit more. I really liked the homeostasis versus homeorhesis distinction. I'd obviously heard the first word, but not the second word and so, I'm going to think about that a bit more. Sort of tying onto that, I very much liked Jessica's point of how a clean home isn't really a thing, you can only do cleaning and thinking much more in terms of the ongoing process than trying to think of it as a static goal that you are perfectly maintaining at all times. Slightly orthogonal in relation to that, but I'm also just going to look up Satir as an author and maybe read some of her books. [chuckles] REIN: Yay! DAVID: Because as we have established, always up for more reading. [laughs] JACOB: That should wrap up our Episode 223. I'd like to thank David for joining us and weíll see you next time. Special Guest: David MacIver.

Joining us today from Canada is our friend, Jessica. Determined to avoid another brutal Cesarean recovery, Jessica researched extensively and fought for her VBAC rights. When she experienced PROM for the second time, Jessica didn’t allow different opinions from different providers dictate what she knew she deserved. She refused a scheduled Cesarean, reminded providers that their hospital did in fact support VBAC induction, knew when her body needed an epidural, and got the VBAC of her dreams. Jessica’s preparation made all the difference in her outcome. We want that to be the case for you too! Topics discussed today include: * How to know if all providers at a practice have the same views * Why you should ask open-ended questions * PROM: what it is and what to do if it happens to you Additional links How to VBAC: The Ultimate Preparation Course for Parents ( https://www.thevbaclink.com/product/how-to-vbac/ ) The VBAC Link T-Shirt Shop ( http://thevbaclink.com/bombfire ) 3 Game-Changing Things to do When Your Water Breaks: The VBAC Link Blog ( https://www.thevbaclink.com/water-breaking/ ) Episode sponsor This episode is sponsored by our signature course, How to VBAC: The Ultimate Preparation Course for Parents ( https://www.thevbaclink.com/product/how-to-vbac/ ). It is the most comprehensive VBAC preparation course in the world, perfectly packaged in an online, self-paced, video course. Together, Meagan and Julie have helped over 800 parents get the birth that they wanted, and we are ready to help you too. Head over to thevbaclink.com ( http://www.thevbaclink.com/ ) to find out more and sign up today. Sponsorship inquiries Interested in sponsoring a The VBAC Link podcast? Find out more information here at advertisecast.com/TheVBACLink ( https://www.advertisecast.com/TheVBACLink ) or email us at info@thevbaclink.com. Full transcript Note: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar and to eliminate false starts and filler words. Meagan: Hello, hello, and welcome everyone. This is The VBAC Link with Julie and Meagan. We have a guest with you today from Canada. Her name is Jessica. She has an awesome story for you today. We were chitchatting a little bit before the episode began. We found out that she found us in the very beginning. It was right after her Cesarean, which is exciting to us because we want people to be able to find us during their journey of healing before they start preparing as well. So, that was really fun and exciting to hear. She has a fun story today. A cool highlight of her story is PROM. If you don’t know what PROM means, it means Premature Rupture of Membranes. That’s something that I actually had personally as well. But she was ruptured for quite a while. In fact, I think it was 40-- was it 48 hours? 40 hours? Jessica: I think 72. Yeah. (Inaudible) Meagan: 72! 72. But when-- (inaudible) before you started getting things going. Yeah. So, really cool because a lot of times people think that if their waters are broken for longer than 12 or 18 hours, even 24 hours, that it is need for an immediate Cesarean and it is not. I am excited to hear you share that part of your story. Review of the Week Meagan: As always, we have a Review of the Week, so we are going to dive into that review from Julie really quick before we get into this juicy story. Julie: Yeah, I love reviews. I think we say it every episode. I can’t speak enough about the reviews because I want to get a little vulnerable here for a minute. Running a podcast is not always sunshine and butterflies. We absolutely love doing it. We love talking to the people that share their stories with us and we love being able to share their stories with you. But these reviews really, really are the things that keep us going when it gets to be a little bit difficult for us. So, if you haven’t already, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts ( https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-vbac-link/id1394742573 ) or Google ( https://www.google.com/search?ei=Mq0oYOaqGuq-0PEPxq-T0AM&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBAgjECcyCgguEMcBEK8BECcyBAgjECcyBQgAEJECMgIIADIICAAQFhAKEB46CwguELEDEMcBEKMCOgQIABBDOggIABCxAxCDAToOCC4QsQMQgwEQxwEQowI6CAguELEDEIMBOgUILhCRAjoECC4QQzoHCAAQhwIQFDoICC4QxwEQrwE6BAguEAo6BAgAEAo6CgguELEDEIMBEAo6BwguELEDEAo6BwgAELEDEAo6BggAEBYQHlCiCVikE2CBFWgAcAB4AIABrgOIAboQkgEHMi01LjEuMZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYCi7QktASJ1eDaW-lyA8fmrzk3Amjn1L&oq=the+vbac+link&q=the+vbac+link&sclient=gws-wiz&source=hp&sxsrf=ALeKk01Q6y51WCKDOK0QwrfXGXVYxN_fHg%3A1613278514471&uact=5&ved=0ahUKEwjmi5vmyujuAhVqHzQIHcbXBDoQ4dUDCAk ) or Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/thevbaclink/ ). You just never know when you’re going to make our day with a glowing review. This review is from Apple Podcasts and it’s from futureballad. It’s called “VBAC Support at its Finest.” Just the title makes me smile. She says, “I absolutely love listening to these birth stories and I love how positive Julie and Meagan are! They give facts to go along with each story. They also include birth stories where the VBAC didn’t end up happening. It’s so important to acknowledge it doesn’t always work out. But, a woman of strength is someone who has become empowered by knowledge and uses that knowledge to advocate for herself no matter what the outcome is. I am going to VBAC like a boss in November when I birth our second son. I will be doing it knowing I have the support of The VBAC Link community.” That makes me so happy. Okay, “VBAC like a boss”-- that is a shirt. It’s in our shop at thevbaclink.com/bombfire ( https://www.bonfire.com/store/tvl/ ). That shirt came from our friend, Emily, who shared her story with us a while back. She said-- there is a “TOLAC like a boss” or a “VBAC like a boss”. I love our little bonfire shirts. We have some new designs coming out from some of our most recent previous episodes. Also, I want to tell you about an episode that is coming out in the next two or three weeks. We are actually interviewing a few CBAC moms, so parents who tried for a VBAC but ended up in a repeat Cesarean. We are going to talk to five or six of them. They’re going to share with us their stories about what it is like coming out of a birth that didn’t end up like they wanted to, what it’s like to not to get your VBAC, and what they wish people would know about parents who tried so hard for a VBAC but didn’t get the birth that they wanted. It’s such a powerful episode and we are really excited to put it out to you. That review just reminded me of that. It’s important to us to share that things don’t always go the way you want. While a lot of birth is preparation and education and confidence, some of it is just dang luck. Meagan: Yeah. Julie: I mean, some of it is just the cards you are dealt and knowing how to deal with those things is important to us to share with you, so that’s why we do it. Meagan: Yeah, and I love how she said we even-- like you were just highlighting, we even share those stories. We have gotten a lot of messages and actually, I am trying to think of the word. Julie: How to say it nicely-- Meagan: Really angry. I’m going to say really angry that we do share CBAC stories and it makes me sad when we receive these messages. Although we respect everyone’s opinions and feelings, we want to remind everybody that, just like Julie said, it doesn’t always turn out exactly how we wanted to. But guess what? Even sometimes those experiences-- like my second C-section was not what I wanted. I didn’t want to be on that table again, but it was a healing experience for me and a much more positive experience. I felt so much better walking out of that situation. These are learning experiences. They are growing experiences. They are healing experiences and even though-- yes, we do. We promote VBAC and we want you guys to know your options for VBAC. It is not fair for us to forget CBAC. It’s just not and it’s important. So, if you are angry, I want to say we are sorry, but we are not sorry at the same time. We respect your decision not to listen to those episodes, but it’s just so important to learn and hear. A lot of times when we are struggling, I know for me personally when I was struggling, I realized there was still a lot of processing that I needed to do and that’s why I was struggling. So, know that we are here for you and we are sorry if you are one of those angries, but we love you. Julie: One of those angries. Meagan: But we love you. Julie: We love you, no matter if you are angry, or happy, or sad, or excited. We love all of you. If you are looking for stories that are VBAC stories only, you simply have to look at the title. If it says, “So-and-so‘s VBAC”, it’s a VBAC story. If it says “So-and-so‘s CBAC” or “So-and-so’s Uterine Rupture”, then it is a CBAC or a uterine rupture story. And so, that’s an easy way to sift through them if you’re looking for certain advice. Meagan: We respect your decision not to listen to whatever ones. Julie: But we wish you would because it will really help you better prepare. Episode sponsor Julie: Do you want a VBAC but don’t know where to start? It’s easy to feel like we need to figure it all out on our own. That’s what we used to do, and it was the loneliest and most ineffective thing we have ever done. That’s why Meagan and I created our signature course, How to VBAC: The Ultimate Preparation Course for Parents ( https://www.thevbaclink.com/product/how-to-vbac/ ) , that you can find at thevbaclink.com ( http://thevbaclink.com/ ). It is the most comprehensive VBAC preparation course in the world, perfectly packaged in an online, self-paced, video course. Together, Meagan and I have helped over 800 parents get the birth that they wanted, and we are ready to help you too. Head on over to thevbaclink.com ( http://thevbaclink.com/ ) to find out more and sign up today. That’s thevbaclink.com ( http://thevbaclink.com/ ). See you there. Jessica’s story Julie: We should probably stop talking about this. You can tell it’s been a while since we have recorded because we are really super chatty right now. Meagan: We are going to turn the time over to Jessica. Alright, let’s dive in. Ms. Jessica, would you like to start sharing your story and stop listening to us gab? Jessica: I mean, I am enjoying the conversation, but I only have so much time, so I will get started. I got pregnant with my C-section baby when I was 19. I really thought that I was invincible. I know a lot of teenagers have that mindset. You don’t really think that bad things can happen to you. I thought that I was going to have an all-natural, medication-free birth, and was preparing for that, and would tell my friends how excited I was to be planning this med-free birth. My aunt recommended that I went with midwives, so I found local midwives that I went with. Here in Canada, they are covered by a provincial health insurance, so that’s definitely a perk when you are a young mom being able to plan a home birth. So, that’s what we talked about. I wasn’t opposed to a hospital birth, but they were pushing home birth on me, so that was the plan if everything was going well. We would have a home birth with a baby and then if not, we would go to the hospital. But I didn’t think we would end up at the hospital because I thought everything would go as planned, being young and not understanding how births can be complicated. I was 39 weeks and four days pregnant when my water broke. My first thought was, “Oh, the baby is going to be here in 12 hours now. Everybody goes into labor when their water breaks.” But it didn’t happen. The midwives confirmed the water broke and they said, “Oh, just rest. Sleep it off.” Labor usually starts anywhere between 48 to 72 hours. Most people within 24 hours, but they said we could wait until Friday. And then, the next day we woke up. I had a new midwife on-call and she said, “Oh well, we should just go in and induce.” I was eager to meet my baby. I was tired of being pregnant and I didn’t know what an induction was or that there were risks with an induction. I just thought, “Okay, I will get some medication, and get it going, and the baby will be here in a couple of hours.” But, that wasn’t the case. I was 4 centimeters dilated when I showed up to the hospital, which they said was great, and that labor would probably be quick, and the baby would be here soon. But 12 hours after starting Pitocin, I was still only 4 centimeters. They suggested that we throw the natural birth plan out the window and get an epidural, but that vaginal birth was still possible. After getting the epidural, my baby started having non-reassuring heart rates and because of the lack of progression, they suggested a cesarean. I agreed, not knowing that there was anything else we could try to get me to dilate. I had been laying on my back for hours at this point. We didn’t try turning the epidural down. We didn’t even try a peanut ball. We just went straight for the OR. The surgery was three hours after they were concerned about the non-reassuring heart rate. So, looking back I am like, “Was it really that urgent?” They made it seem urgent, but I always question if maybe we could have tried more things. I didn’t know that there were things to try. I thought birth just happened and that you couldn’t really have any power to change that. My recovery was horrible. My incision didn’t close properly and it took three months before I was healed enough to function normally. I found that recovery really traumatizing and never wanted another surgery like that again. When I got pregnant 15 months later, my goal was VBAC all the way. I really didn’t want to end up on the table again, mostly because of the recovery and my fear of missing out on a summer with my toddler. I planned a home birth again. I was more adamant this time that it was going to be a home birth. I rented a pool this time. I made a whole binder filled with resources from The VBAC Link. I printed out stuff from ACOG and SOCG, which is a Canadian version of ACOG, and had all the documents I could about VBAC. I would bring it to the midwives because they were more cautious and on the medical side. They said a hospital birth might be a better choice for VBAC, but I was adamant that I wanted to be at home. They supported me with that decision, but then I was 40 weeks and I had been doing everything. Walking every day, The Miles Circuit, bouncing on my ball, drinking all the red raspberry leaf tea, everything I could to get my labor going and then my water broke again. I was in denial the first day. I didn’t even tell my husband. I kept it to myself. I was like, “This can’t be real.” My water can’t break before labor again because I knew that that wasn’t a good sign for me. Eventually, I did call my midwife and I let her know, but I told her my water had been broken significantly less time than it had because I didn’t want her to push induction. I didn’t want her to push a repeat Cesarean. So, she came. Confirmed that my waters had been broken and we agreed that the next day we would go to the hospital for a non-stress test. When we went there, we had a consultation with the OB who looked at me and said, “We have to do a C-section. There is no other option. If we do another induction, you are going to fail. Your body couldn’t birth your first baby.” I guess I had an ultrasound at some point in my other trimester and they were estimating that the baby was going to be in the 97th percentile. Meagan: Oh man. Jessica: Yeah. They were like, “This baby is too big. She is not going to--” or, we didn’t know it was a girl. But they said, “The baby is not going to fit. You need a C-section.” I said, “Well, do I have any other options?” They were like, “Well, we can’t force you to have a C-section, so you can go home. And so, we went home.” Meagan: Good for you. Good for you though. Jessica: The OB and the midwife weren’t that happy, but I said, “I will come back for NSTs every day until I go into labor. I’m not opposed to that,” but I didn’t want to agree to a C-section. The next morning, I woke up with a green tinge on the pad that was collecting amniotic fluid and I knew that wasn’t a good sign. So, I called the midwife and let her know. I guess they had been scheduling C-sections for me every day in case I agreed to one, so she was like, “We have an OR ready.” Meagan: Are you serious? They were just doing that behind your back? Jessica: Yeah. They were just preparing. Meagan: Interesting. Jessica: So they said, “You can show up at the hospital at 11:00 a.m. and the baby will be here by 2.” It was the day-- like, when I got pregnant, I was hoping that the baby would come that day. So, I was like, “Okay, I guess at least I got the birthday I wanted.” But in the car, I was crying to my husband saying, “I really don’t want to do surgery and I know that I can’t be pregnant longer with meconium or an infection. It’s not fair to the baby to put my birthing desires ahead of their safety.” But I said, “I will take tomorrow as the baby’s birthday if that means I can birth this baby vaginally. What happened was, we showed up at the hospital and it was a different OB on-call. He was the one that had done the big baby ultrasound and predicted the size, so I was like, “Oh shoot. He is definitely going to want to do the C-section. There is no getting out of this now.” We show up and everybody is telling him how my birth was “failure to progress” last time, that the induction didn’t go well, and all of the stuff and the reasons why I should have the C-section. He asked them, “Oh, well how long have the membranes been ruptured?” They said, “About 48 hours at least at this point.” He said, “Why haven’t we done a Cesarean yet?” They said, “She doesn’t want a C-section.” He was like, “Well, why haven’t they done an induction?” They said, “All of the other OB‘s refuse induction because she can’t give birth essentially.” And so, he asked for my operative report and looked it over. They didn’t list “failure to progress” as the reason for the C-section. Julie: Awesome. Jessica: They only listed the non-reassuring fetal heart tones, so he said, “Okay. Based on that, we will do an ultrasound and see how big this baby is.” But he was like, “I think an induction is a reasonable option here.” Julie: That’s awesome. Jessica: “And even though there is a low success rate, we will go ahead with it if that’s what she wants.” And so, they did an ultrasound. They were guessing that the baby would be around 8 pounds. We went ahead with Pitocin. They did a low dose. It was going really well until I hit transition. I made it to 8 centimeters unmedicated and then I was begging for the epidural. But this was during COVID. I was wearing a mask and it was just me and my husband. My husband wasn’t the greatest support. He was freaking out the whole time. So, I got the epidural and then within two hours of the epidural, I had a really pain-free, easy pushing and birth. They did take her to the NICU for half an hour just because the membranes had been ruptured so long. They wanted the pediatrician to look her over, but she was totally healthy and only weighed 8 pounds, 9 ounces. So, not 97th percentile at all. Meagan: Go figure. You know what? Sometimes they are spot on. Sometimes they really are. They are really close, right? But it seems like nine times out of 10-- this is my own number, they are not. Jessica: Yeah, they are way off. No failing in birth Meagan: Yeah. That is so awesome. I love how you’re like, “You know, I worked through this. I was working really hard and I found the spot. I needed something different and I got that.” Because I think a lot of people that want to go unmedicated but choose an epidural, in the end, they really can beat themselves up. I loved hearing that you were like, “Yeah. I had a mask on. I was hot. I was 8 centimeters. I have been doing this for a long time, and I need an epidural, and I want an epidural, and I feel good about that.” I love that you pointed that out because it’s not-- you used this word earlier when you were like, “Or if we induced you, you would ‘fail’,” which clearly you didn’t, but that “fail” word. We let that “fail” word creep into the birth world way too often in my opinion. Because if we don’t go unmedicated, we “fail”. If we don’t have a vaginal birth, we “failed”. If we don’t go into spontaneous labor or get induced we “failed”, you know? If we don’t breastfeed our baby, we “failed”. There are so many “fails” out there. I just want to wipe them all the way. Get the biggest bottle of Windex and wipe it all down because there’s no failing in birth. There is no failing in birth. If you step back and you look at what we as humans are doing, wow. It’s incredible, right? So, I love it. I love that you took charge and you’re like, “I’m going home and I will be back. I know when I need to be back and hey, these are the options,” and I’m glad that he was willing to induce and supported you in that. You deserve that completely. Jessica: Yeah, but it definitely goes to show the luck of the draw because if it had been a different OB, it would have been a different story. Finding supportive providers Meagan: A totally different story. Yeah, no I agree. That is something when we talk about finding providers. I am just going to be talking about a whole bunch of random stuff, Julie. Julie: I love it. Well, I have some stuff too. So when you are done, I will do my stuff. Meagan: Yes, perfect. So, finding providers right? With VBAC specifically, and I encourage first-time parents to go out there and find a provider in the way that a lot of VBAC parents find a provider if that makes sense. Go out there and ask some of the questions and really from the very beginning, see what this provider’s thoughts are on Cesarean. So, when it comes down to it when you find out like Julie and I did that your provider has a 46% C-section rate-- Julie: After the fact-- Meagan: Yeah, after the fact that you could know these things before the fact and save yourself a lot of potential heartache in different ways, right? So anyway, I encourage everyone to go out there and find their provider. One of the questions that I feel is super important when you are looking for a provider is, “Will you be at my birth no matter what?” If the answer is, “No,” “Who will be at my birth? Do they have the same views as you?” Honestly, don’t hesitate to say, “I need their names. I want to meet them.” Don’t hesitate to interview them and say, “What are your thoughts on C-section?” Not, “Do you support C-section, yes or no?” “What are your thoughts?” Or, I mean VBAC. Julie: You mean VBAC. Meagan: I mean VBAC. Even as I am saying, I’m like, “Wait. On VBAC. Do you support VBAC, yes or no?” Those are just easy questions to be like, “Of course I do, yeah. We do them all the time.” Julie: “We can do whatever type of birth you want.” Meagan: Yeah. But like, really. “What are your thoughts on VBAC? What is your experience with VBAC?” Asking them these open-ended questions, but do not hesitate if your provider says, “You know what? It could be me, John, Jack, or Jill.” Julie: Joe. Meagan: Really, it could be any of these people. Don’t hesitate to interview them because like she said, it was the luck of the draw, and luckily she got the good one that was willing to work with her and support her. So, that is my little snippet on-- Julie: Meagan was painting condos all day yesterday, so she is a little tired. Meagan: I know. I am so tired. I couldn’t even get my butt up this morning on time to get to the gym. I went to the gym, but not on time. Julie: Oh, right. Wait, can I add something to that really fast? Meagan: Yeah, of course. Julie: And then I will let you go back on your snippets. Meagan: My snip bit? Julie: Snip bit. I had a client yesterday text me. She is going to her 36-week appointment today and at my first prenatal appointment with my clients, I always give them a list of questions to take to their provider. I actually stole Meagan‘s idea. I stole it from Meagan. Meagan: You did? What idea? Julie: Meagan does this too. The one where you’re just like, “Oh, ask your provider about IV access, eating and drinking during labor, induction, due dates, what to do after your water breaks, all of those questions.” I use them too now. So, she texted me and she was like, “Okay. I have my 36-week appointment tomorrow.” We are having our second prenatal tonight actually which is really fun. But she said, “I am having my 36-week prenatal. Are there any specific questions I should ask my provider?” I’m like, “Okay. Well, if you already asked the questions that I gave you at our last visit and you have a different provider today, then ask them the same questions,” because she’s in a practice with three different providers that rotate, three different OBGYNs, which is actually really a small number, which is great because you have less chance of getting some random person you’ve never met. But every provider differs a little bit in how they approach birth or sometimes a lot. Sometimes they differ drastically. Like clearly with Jessica‘s providers, the one was just so anti-VBAC. We’ve got a scheduled Cesarean. The other provider came in and was like, “Well, why haven’t we started inducing her yet?” Those views and opinions are so important. As many providers’ views you can know ahead of time going into your birth, will help you be able to navigate through those views and opinions as you navigate through your labor. You’ll be able to anticipate, “Oh, so-and-so isn’t really a fan of induction,” or “So-and-so would rather me have a VBAC,” or “So-and-so wishes I would go into labor before 41 weeks,” or whatever it ends up being. But the more providers to talk to and ask questions to, ask the same questions to all of the different providers. Just because one provider answered your question in a way that is satisfactory to you doesn’t mean another provider in the practice will. Then I also told her, and this is something I started telling all of my clients. Question everything. Everything they suggest or recommend, ask, “Why? Why are we doing this?” Or you can use the BRAIN acronym. “What are the benefits? What are the risks? Are there any alternative options?” And then really I only say, “What happens if we do nothing?” Just question everything even if you don’t think it’s a bad idea. Question, “Why are we doing it?” because that creates a really positive dialogue between you and your provider and lets your provider know that you are an educated and informed decision maker and participant in your birth. It creates trust between you and your provider. Your provider is going to learn to trust you and your ability to think critically and make decisions surrounding your circumstances. You are going to create more trust in your provider or maybe you’ll find out that you don’t trust your provider and then you’ll have to make a change there. And so, that was on my mind from my conversation last night with my client. She was like, “What questions do I ask?” Well, ask the same exact questions to a different provider who may be at your birth. What’s your next snippet, Meagan? PROM Meagan: No, I love everything that you said. I wanted to also talk about PROM like I talked about at the beginning of the episode. Because, yeah. 48 hours before labor had started and before anyone was willing to do anything, right? So, PROM. This is something that when it happened to me, I was told it happens to 10% of people. It happened to me three times. I was like, “What? How is that even possible?” Julie: It happened to two out of three of my spontaneous labors as well. Meagan: Yeah, it’s so crazy. We have a study here. It says that it actually only happens in 8% of term pregnancies. It does typically start within 24 to 46 hours of water breaking. But if it doesn’t, what can we do? What are some things that we can do to maybe try and get things going while we are waiting? Rest. One is rest. As Jessica did, she went home. Where is the best place to rest? At home where are you are comfortable. You are in your space and you can have your bed and everything right there. So rest, rest, rest. It is so important to just rest because when labor does begin, as I am sure Jessica will contest, it is hard work. Julie: You are going to need that energy. Meagan: We need that energy and so, really, really rest. Now, it doesn’t mean you need to be out cold snoring, okay? Although that is great. If you can actually sleep, that is great because as you are sleeping, the oxytocin hormone is kicking in and producing. It is just so great. But, rest. Just rest your body. Don’t go out and feel like you have to run up the hills trying to get labor going. The number two suggestion would be, get that baby in a good position. Now, as we have been learning over the 2020 year and even 2019 year, we don’t have to have these babies in any specific spot. It is called balance. We need to find balance for this baby to find the right spot for them. We really always suggest to our own clients and people out there, Miles Circuit ( http://www.milescircuit.com/ ) , Spinning Babies®, The Three Sisters ( https://www.spinningbabies.com/pregnancy-birth/techniques/the-three-sisters-of-balance/ ) , going in, resting on each side, doing side-lying, and things like that to really encourage baby is getting in that good position. Number three is, avoiding routine cervical checks and watch your temperature. As Jessica mentioned in her story when she was going to the hospital, she didn’t want to-- I’m trying to remember, Jessica, the exact words, but you didn’t want to risk the health of your baby based on infection, and meconium, and things like that for the birth that you desired. Something that we can do to watch and make sure that things are going okay and we are not getting into a risky situation is avoiding cervical exams. Now, with Jessica being at home, she was avoiding those cervical exams. A lot of the time, now this is here in Utah, I am not sure what is very standard in other states and countries. But every two hours or so, providers or nurses will suggest a cervical exam because they want to see what progress is being made in those two hours. Sometimes it is a, “I will just listen to your body and see what is going on, and then we will check and see if anything dramatic changes,” but a lot of the times, especially when we are waiting to see what is going on, if labor is going to really be going, and what we are wanting to do, they will encourage it every couple of hours. Avoiding that is the best we can do because we don’t need unnecessary bacteria going into our vaginas, right? Jessica: That is the one thing they did well. They didn’t do a cervical check until we went for the scheduled C-section. So, even at the NST the day before, it was completely hands-off. Yeah, they really waited until we knew that the baby was going to be coming within a reasonable timeframe before anybody did anything to increase the risk of infection. Meagan: So great. Julie: That’s really awesome. Meagan: Yeah. That’s really, really great. It’s okay to say, “I don’t want my cervix checked right now. I’m not feeling anything different or nothing has really changed to the point where I feel that it warrants a cervical exam.” Also, watching your temperature. So, especially if you’re going to labor at home, it’s a good idea if your water breaks to just check your temperature and be mindful of how you’re feeling. We say this because if bacteria starts growing and an infection begins, it is common to get a fever. That is our body‘s natural reaction to fight against infection. Sometimes we can get fevers even in labor because we are laboring really, really hard so our body temperature can go up, but a lot of the times we can get a fever with an infection or the baby’s heart rate can get really high. Julie: A fever can also be a side effect of an epidural. It can be a side effect of an epidural and not be a sign of an infection at all if you do have an epidural. So, that is something to remember. Meagan: Yes, it is. Exactly. Yeah, something to remember. Another sign that infection could be present is the baby’s heart rate is actually high. So, anyway. Taking your temperature and being mindful of how you’re feeling. If you’re feeling great and then all of a sudden you’re feeling really awful like you’re getting the flu, and you have a fever, and you are at home, it may be a good idea to go into wherever you are going. Unless you’re at home, then you would discuss this with your provider. But, go to the hospital or your birthing location and further assess and see what next steps need to be taken. Those are three ideas that you can do when your water breaks to try and help things get going. And obviously, activity and things like that, will all help as well. Pumping, but those are some of our three tops. Julie: I mean, I think I wrote that blog ( https://www.thevbaclink.com/water-breaking/ ). Meagan: You did write that blog. Julie: I think it might be due for a rewrite because I think it needs to be updated. I was reading through it earlier and I was like, “Well, I write a little differently now.” Did you notice that, Meagan? Meagan: Yes. You guys, we have so many blogs. If you haven’t checked out our blogs, check it out. It’s at vbaclink.com/blog. ( http://thevbaclink.com/blog ) We have tons of blogs. Yes, we are rewriting blogs. We are writing new blogs. So, give it a look. I mean, seriously. We have them on almost all of the main topics and even then some. Same start, different outcomes Julie: I want to make note that Jessica’s Cesarean birth and her VBAC birth were both induced births. They both started out in a similar way and she still had very different outcomes. A lot of times we, when we are preparing for VBAC, are hung up on mental hurdles, and whenever we get past the point of where a Cesarean happened, we can finally mentally release that, right? I dilated to a 4 before my Cesarean and so, once I was in active labor, I was riding high. I’m like, “This is great. I am totally going to do this.” I see that with a lot of my clients. Sometimes they get to 10 and pushing before they have their Cesarean, but sometimes they weren’t even given a fair chance at all. When labor starts all the same-- like Meagan, I remember with your third birth, your VBAC after two C-sections baby, your water broke before labor started again, for the third time. I remember you saying how frustrated you were that you felt like it was all happening again. Meagan: Yeah. I was throwing a fit in the driveway, like throwing my arms up in the air, stomping. My neighbor was out and just looking at me. My husband was just like, “Just let her. Just let her.” But, yeah. Well, it was just hard and that’s fine. I had a couple of contractions before, but really nothing. My water broke. I was just like, “Why does it have to happen like this again? Why can’t I just go into labor before this happens?” And just throwing a fit. But, you know, it was great. Julie: It ended up great and you got your vaginal birth. And Jessica, you got your VBAC after your Cesarean. I just want to say that just because your birth starts out similarly to your Cesarean birth does not mean it is going to end the same way. Sometimes we get hung up on that and mental blocks can hang up labor. So, do your best as you prepare, going into your birth and your VBAC journey, that you are ready to accept all different ways for labor to start whether it’s induced, whether it’s natural, whether you plan on going unmedicated but end up deciding to get the epidural because that’s the best choice for you and your baby. Be prepared for your birth to take a number of different journeys because the more journeys you can imagine and prepare for, the less likely you are to be caught off guard if those things happen during your birth. Jessica: I had the same meltdown when my water broke. I was crying holding my toddler, complaining about how this could happen twice. Meagan: Yes. It was so frustrating. I think that is something that maybe we needed to get out. Maybe we needed to just get all of that emotion out for us to take the next step and the next direction. Even though that wasn’t contractions really going right away, it was a release that needed to happen so when they did start, they could start. Julie: I think you make a really good point too. I am remembering something that I read a while ago. I used to have all my clients do a fear release or something like that if I felt like they were hung up on emotions. But now, I am finding myself more telling them to just do something that makes them cry. Just anything. Watch The Notebook at the end. My husband laughs at the end of The Notebook, but I am crying every time. Watch your wedding video or birth video. Read a letter that your partner wrote you years ago or something. Anything else to cry, because once those tears start flowing, your body releases whatever emotions it is holding onto through your tears. And so, who knows? Maybe you guys throwing fits and screaming and getting angry and upset and frustrated about that let your body release what it needed to in order for your labors and your birth to turn out the way they did. Who knows? Meagan: Yeah, exactly. Q&A Julie: Okay, but Jessica. I’m going to ask you these questions now. I want to read the answer that you read for the first one, but you can say whatever you want for the second one. The first one is, what is a secret lesson or something no one really talks about that you wish you would have known ahead of time when preparing for birth? I absolutely loved how you worded this, so I’m just going to read it word for word. You said, “This is a hard one. I wish I would have known the statistics about complications that arise in birth as a first-time mom and what a doula was. Now that I am in the birth world, everything feels like common sense. But as a young mom, I didn’t even know what Pitocin induction was or that an emergency C-section could happen to anyone.” I love that because I feel like all of us first-time moms can echo that sentiment of your message. Now that you are in the birth world and you are starting to become a doula and all those things, it feels like common sense, because it really does. Even sometimes when I’m working with clients or especially first-time moms, I have to remind myself that they don’t know what they don’t know. Going into birth as a first-time mom is just a whole different ball game. But, I really loved how you worded that. So, thank you for that. Now the second question is, what is your best tip for someone preparing for a VBAC? Jessica: I think finding the information to be able to make informed decisions or finding a doula or knowledgeable person who can help you make those informed decisions because you would hope that providers act in your best interest, but I know in my birth cases they were telling me-- I had to pull up the documents and show them themselves when they said, “Oh, we don’t induce VBACs,” and I was like, “This is supported right in your policy here.” So, it would be helpful if I didn’t do all that work myself to have somebody who was knowledgeable, like a doula, to be there to provide the information and the knowledge needed to make empowered and informed decisions. Meagan: Oh, so many good messages in this. Thank you so much Jessica again for sharing your story and for being with us today. Jessica: Thank you for having me. Closing Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share ( http://www.thevbaclink.com/share ) and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com ( http://www.thevbaclink.com ). Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode, Alexandra Panos interviews Jessica Nina Lester and Trena Paulus about doing qualitative research in digital words. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for digital methods and strategies has never been stronger. This conversation addresses important practice and theoretic questions for approaching digital inquiry. Digital Tools for Qualitative Research - Trena M. Paulus, Jessica N. Lester, Paul Dempster Doing Qualitative Research in a Digital World - Trena M. Paulus, Jessica N. Lester The following includes the transcript of the talk. (please excuse minor transcription errors) Alexandra Hello there and welcome to qualitative conversations a podcast hosted by the qualitative research special interest group of the American Educational Research Association. I'm Alexandra Panos an assistant professor of literacy studies and an affiliate faculty member in research and measurement at the University of South Florida. I also have the pleasure to serve as program coach with Cassie Quigley for the call SIG. And I'm delighted to be here with doctors Trina Paulus and Jessica Nina Lester to talk about the role digital tools play in qualitative research. Dr. Paulus is a professor in the Research Division of Family Medicine and director of undergraduate research and creative activities, as well as an affiliate faculty member with the Applied Social Research Laboratory at East Tennessee State University. Dr. Paulus's scholarship is primarily in the area of methodological innovation, especially as it intersects with new technologies. Dr. Lester is an associate professor of inquiry methodology in the School of Education at Indiana University Bloomington. Her scholarship focuses primarily on discourse and conversation analysis, disability studies, and more general concerns related to crop qualitative research. Dr. Paulus and Dr. Lester have co authored with sage, the 2014 book digital tools for qualitative research, and an exciting new and in press volume, titled doing qualitative research in a digital world. Thank you both so much for joining it today and sharing your time and energies. Thanks for inviting us. Yes, thank you so much. I'm truly excited to learn from you both and really just want to dive right into our conversation if that's okay. And I wanted to start with Alexandra a question that situates us in the here and now, given the shifts that have happened worldwide over the last 10 months with the covid 19 pandemic? Can you share a bit about what from your perspective, this really means for qualitative researchers? And how digital tools might play into this? Trina Yeah, so it's kind of this been this weird experience of being in the right place at the right time, or being in the right place at the wrong time? I don't know. But you know, COVID-19 is impacted all researchers in significant ways, for sure. And, you know, we had started writing this new edition of the book, Trina fully revamped book that's coming out shortly, a couple of years ago, actually. And then when COVID-19 hits sage really asked us to try to wrap it up, because researchers really needed some guidance for how to basically do their research in a new way. Trina And so how do we make sense of those spaces? How do we look at online interaction as a source of data as qualitative researchers, you know, we are interested in the human experience and understanding it as qualitative researchers, and that is now completely emeshed with, you know, doing business, doing education doing everything online. So, you know, there's new opportunities here, even though you know, most people have been, you know, there there are researchers have been doing this for a while, we all kind of have to consider how online spaces might be treated as a source of data, how our experiences are different. Trina And so while I think kind of one of the first things people want to know is how do we do interviews in zoom? It's, it's more than that. It's that we're all now spending lots and lots of time in zoom. So how can we understand what's happening there? So we've got digital tools, digital spaces, and also the digital space as a phenomenon in and of itself. Those are just a few of my initial thoughts. Jessica, what do you think? Jessica Yeah, I mean, I think that one of the things that's really helpful to keep in mind and in this moment, even though there's this you know, it feels like such a significant and even forced shift for qualitative research, I do think it's helpful to remind ourselves that this move to doing qualitative work and online spaces is not particularly new. And there's really a vast body of literature that we can draw upon to support us and offer some guidance to the questions that we're facing. And even really provoke us to think more about what it means to do qualitative research and be a qualitative researcher in a, you know, a historical moment where we're not just using technologies, but we're living through them even as researchers, and we're making meaning with them. So I think that's something for us to kind of use as a way to frame this particular moment. And that there's resources that we can turn back to, but that also, these are important questions that we should be asking ourselves about our work, and about what it means to make sense of meaning making in a space where technologies are really intersecting with everyday life. Alexandra Thanks, yeah, it's, it's, um, it's a lot to process. And I appreciate your point about that. Sometimes it does feel for Steven F, for we're all going through it. And it makes me think a little bit about design, designing scholarship right now designing qualitative scholarship right now. So I wonder if you can speak a little bit about how you work through as a qualitative researcher having to adjust your expectations about a research project, when what you'd hope to do isn't currently feasible. Given realities? Yeah, I Jessica can speak to that a little bit. You know, one thing that I often talk with about this question in relationship to students coming to me and saying, I can't do what I hope to do, particularly in this, this given moment, what are my options, and I think it is helpful to think about that, you certainly can return back to your original design and think about if there are ways that you can transform some of those methodologies and methods in engaging with digital tools, that you could digitize some of them, for instance. And then also, it is possible that you actually have to go back to the drawing board. And one of the things that you could potentially engage with is really thinking about designing a study, from the get go, that really engages in with digital spaces. And what that might mean is that you expand definitions of data. And this can be really exciting. And you can engage with new kinds of data that you hadn't even envisioned engaging with before. And so I think, you know, there are those two pathways to think about turning back to that original design and potentially, in some way, digitizing that original design or really rethinking it. And I think that this is an okay thing. I think that, you know, part of part of methodology writ large, is that it's always in the making. And so right now, our methodologies are in a really real way intersecting with technologies. And so what that means is that methodology is being remade. And that's, there's something also really both challenging, and also, potentially really exciting about kind of that moment. So at the same time, I think what that also means is, as we think about re envisioning a study, that we also have to keep in mind that the technologies that we engage with are, of course, not neutral. And they are, of course, you know, always fraught with consequences, including, you know, political consequences and equitable access. And so this is certainly something that we also want to set with as we think about our design, and particularly as we think about redesigning a study. Alexandra It's so helpful. I wonder if there are theoretical perspectives that have you found particularly helpful for conducting this kind of Digital Research and turning to to the stat sitting with process that you spoke of? Jessica Yeah, I can speak Jessica to this, this idea of theories that have informed our work, and I think I'll just share a little bit of a story of how we're coming to think with theory now. So. So first off, so just in general, if you were to engage with the literature around technology and qualitative research over the last, you know, about decade, you would probably conclude that qualitative researchers have historically kind of held on to this view of what's often referred to as technological determinism. So that's this orientation that humans are essentially passing And therefore, they must adapt to changes that technology forces upon them. So this particular view is one that often assumes that it's intrinsically best and most efficient technology will be adopted regardless of the context. And so this particular view is one that when Trina and I wrote the our first book, around digital tools and qualitative research, we really explicitly wanted to counter this perspective that was in the methodological literature. And in some ways, we did this implicitly, but what we really argued for was thinking about the ways in which we as qualitative researchers could really use technology to do things that we wanted it to do. So we didn't position ourselves that's passive. And so within this viewpoint, then qualitative researchers could be thought of as kind of retaining control of qualitative data analysis software, for instance, and not assuming that the software would control the study. So technology, and from this perspective, would be theorized and viewed as not just instrumental, but really positioned as what a human qualitative researcher can use it to do. But after we were wrote our first book on this topic I ran across a book that Katherine Adams and Terri Lynn Thompson had written, which was titled, researching a post human world interviews with digital objects. And in their book, they engaged with new materialistic post qualitative perspectives, and really offers some interesting ideas about how we as qualitative researchers are really intermingled intertwined with digital technologies. And as a read, I saw some references to our book. And so I immediately texted Trina and Katrina, someone has something to say about our book. And, and ultimately, it was a critique, it was a critique of our view of technology that we crafted in the first book was really not engaging and a full way with the ways in which technology really can be conceptualized and theorize as being co researchers with us that there's a dialectic. And so in our newest book, we really take up this critique and have begun to think more with you've been realistic ideas of technology, as well as some of the critical theories related to technological use. And we have found that to be really helpful, and generative, and pushing our thinking about how technologies are co researchers with us and are entangled with us in the process that is then something that we have to really think carefully about, and think about the implications of the tools that we use, and the ways that we're engaging in meaning making. Alexandra That I love hearing the story of how these texts evolve over time one, it also makes me wonder, the about the ethical and privacy considerations is something that's important when you do that kind of Digital Research when you are intermingled. So I wonder if you could share a little about that. Trina Yeah, I can talk a little bit about that. Because it does these issues come up a lot. In the work that I do. And the researchers that I work with these, I'm primarily looking at Digital spaces, online communities and online groups as a source of data. So I think the first thing to think about is that, you know, we always are dealing with ethical issues and privacy considerations when we're doing qualitative research as qualitative researchers, you know, we're often looking very deeply and intensely at people's lives. And so it's always different than if you're giving a survey or doing you know, lab based research is different kinds of ethics. The good thing is that there's actually been a lot of scholarship around ethics and Digital Research for many years. In fact, when we were writing this book, I couldn't believe the proliferation of entire texts on digital ethics that appeared since we wrote the first book in 2014. So there's a lot of guidance out there for sure. A couple of the things that issues that come up frequently for me in in when I'm giving talks and talking with people about it, is the issue of digital traces. And the fact that so much of us are so much of our lives now even before the pandemic world lived on the internet and in the cloud and with mobile devices. And as we go through the world, we're live leaving digital traces everywhere. And whether or not those should be treated as a source of data is the is one of the big issues, right? Who owns those traces? And whose permission Do you need to get to look at those as a data source? institutional review boards often are getting better about having policies around this, but they don't always know how to guide researchers. And sometimes, even though technically, the IRB approves the study, because they don't consider looking at online discussion posts as human subjects research because they're publicly visible, just because they say it's not human subjects research may not automatically mean that it's ethical to look at online discussion posts as a source of data without telling anyone. So I think that thinking about who owns these spaces, who's interacting on these spaces, who has access to them? I think, you know, there, there are no hard and fast rules, because the landscape is changing all the time, right? Like we have Tick Tock now, and we didn't even have that before. So how do we think about Tick Tock as a source of research data. But a few things to think about is, you know, I'm working in a medical school context now. So I hear a lot more about you know, the do no harm, first, do no harm mandate. And so you want to first be sure you're not harming or putting anybody at risk, whether that's an entire online community that no one would have known about until you wrote a paper about it, or if it's about an individual who was posting under their real identity, about a very sensitive illness online, and you bring attention to them inadvertently, or, or on purpose. really thinking about that is, of course, the basis and the fundamental issue around ethics. I've been also thinking about privacy. Do they expect that that this community is private? You know, is it really just for insiders? How can you respect people's privacy? At what point do you need to get informed consent, which may be very difficult when people are in online communities not as themselves, but under an assumed identity assumed identity? How do you navigate that? And so keeping identities private, protecting the data? If you do store? If you do treat it as data, then how can you make it as hard to track down the original sources possible? And then if you do do that, is it changing the essence of the data, or the essence of those online interactions, so that it actually might impact how you interpret it? So those are things that we have to struggle with? how sensitive are the topics that people are talking about? And again, you know, just trying not to put people at risk. So I think the good news, like I said, is that there are lots of case studies. The one of the best sources for guidance around this is the Association of internet researchers, they're actually on their third version of their ethics guidelines that came out, I think the most recent one came out this year. Trina And they really, you know, cover, it's all on a continuum. And they give a lot of holistic advice in terms of things to think through. And what I will always say on this topic, really is that if you can do research with people instead of on them, these issues are going to be much easier to navigate. If you want to look at an online community, get in touch with whoever's in that community and see what kinds of topics they would like you to study, and what would they like to know more information about, so that you're actually working in collaboration with the people that you want to understand better? Alexandra Thank you for that for the wonderful resource. And then just the plugs, work with folks to Trina think about their community. Yeah. Alexandra So important, simple, and, and really effective, I Alexandra think. Alexandra So I want to turn a little bit towards method here. And I'm wondering what tips you have for that data collection process online? Or how to think about additional sources of data to look for once you move research into those online spaces. Trina Yeah, and I can talk a little bit about that, too. I think, you know, one of the first things to ask is, okay, where are people talking about the issues that I'm interested in? So your research question like and just to give you an example of one of the earliest cities I did that was outside of an educational context. I'd collaborated with Dr. Mary Alice, Varga who's at the University of West Georgia now, and she's one of her areas is grief counseling. And she was really interested in why people choose to go to grief support groups or not, when you've suffered a loss, you know, you know, you're you're advised to kind of get support, but sometimes it's hard for people to go to grief counseling either individual or in a group. But we discovered or she discovered that there Actually a lot of online grief support groups out there. And she was really curious about why are people going online to get support when we have all of this in person counseling. And so we were able to analyze an online grief support group to kind of understand how people constructed their grief in those spaces. And those findings then could speak back to how people were doing grief counseling offline, you know, so in a pandemic, you may only have access to these online spaces, because so much of our in person services are no longer operating. If you think about any kind of social human experience, phenomenon, social science topic that you're interested in, think about where people talking about it, and just do some investigating. And we make the distinction in the book between naturally occurring or pre existing sources of data, which are things that are already out in the world, Reddit forums, tick tock, lots of online support groups for people who have specific illnesses. And they're just grassroots efforts or they're supported by a certain professional organization, travel blogs, and forums, Google Groups I hear is a huge source for parents trying to school their kids in the pandemic, there's all these neighborhoods and friend groups, setting up Google Groups, test text message threads. There's lots of places where people are talking electronically, and they have been for years, but now especially there's electronic conversations going on, that might give you insight into how people are talking about things without people talking to a researcher directly. research agenda generated data is when I decide to go interview someone, they're talking to me as a researcher, so they'll give me you know, their thoughts on things up to a point up to what they're willing to disclose to a researcher that they may not know that well. So that's important data. But what's really interesting is to see how people are going about their lives in these spaces without researcher intervention. And that can give us some really interesting insights that we wouldn't get otherwise. Alexandra That's, that's really interesting to think about all of those spaces that we're all contributing to right now. Trina Exactly. QR SIG AD Right. So that's really interesting. The qualitative research special interest group was established in 1987. To create a space within the American Educational Research Association. For the discussion of ethical, philosophical and methodological issues in qualitative research. We invite you to consider joining the qualitative research thing today. for members of a era the annual fee for joining qualitative research special interest group for regular non graduate student members is $10. And the annual fee for graduate students is $5. As members of the QR SIG, you will gain access to a network of fellow qualitative scholars, as well as our many activities ranging from mentoring opportunities to our podcast series to updates and news related to recent qualitative publications and jobs. Please visit the American educational research associations website at www dot att era dotnet to join the qualitative research SIG today. Alexandra I guess something else I'm thinking about is that this idea that much might be lost when doing online interviews, interviewing is such a staple. For us as qualitative researchers, I think, do you have any thoughts or tips for enriching interview data beyond the recorded audio when we're working with digital tools? Jessica Yeah, I can, I can speak to this. And I think a useful place to start in response to this is actually to flip the script a bit on this. So rather than assuming that, you know, much is lost, I really prefer to think about it as just being different. I think it's really important to keep in mind that, you know, historically, face to face interviews, in qualitative research have really rested on some pretty notable assumptions about what it means to do qualitative research and about what participants should be doing and how they should be doing it. I have a favorite paper that was written by two critical disability studies scholars, Stephanie Kershaw and Margaret price in I think, was 2017. And their paper was was focused on thinking about how we can center disability and qualitative interviewing. And one of the things that they noted was that interviews writ large, and they were speaking both to those conducted in face to face contacts and as well as online, but that they really rely upon normative conceptions of body mind. So people, you know, ask a verbal question. And participants are expected to respond in a particular way. And we assume that language given in a particular way, and shared in a particular way is how it will occur. So it's a very normative assumption about even meaning making. So I say that because I think it's really important that we're reflective and careful about orienting to interviewing, as it has always been done as the only or even best way to capture making sense of people's lives and experiences. You know, we do know from some groups of people that this really has not been their experience of this method and crush on price speak to that a little bit from their own experience. Um, so then, if you are conducting interviews in a virtual space, I do suggest that you, you know, really orient to it as different. And certainly, there are important considerations, some of which are similar to face to face interviews, and others that are really unique to the particular technologies that you're using. You know, so like, an example of this might be, you know, if you want to consider whether videos will be turned on or off, and what does this mean for things like rapport building, or even how participants might experience a researcher viewing their private spaces. So, you know, corresponding price. They also argued that, even though you know, there has been this writing, and kind of argument from some researchers that we need to consider the significance of digital interviewing methods, because they do create access. And some people, some participants prefer that kind of interviewing space. They even pointed out in their work that even in these digital spaces, there can be this over reliance on kind of a normative body mind way of thinking about interaction. So I think in general, the real key is just to be critical, regardless of kind of the the modality that the interview is taking place in. And so as a starting point, I always encourage folks to, to your number one turn to your participants, to invite them to share with you ways that they can share their experience and their lives. In these digital spaces. They might have ideas, first, you know, ways that they want to do screen sharing, or even apps that are really useful in their own lives for sharing how they're going about living their lives. And also, you know, there is, again, a really nice body of literature that you can turn to, to get some guidance. You know, beyond Kershaw on prices article, Janet salmons has written a lot about online interviewing. And I also think it's useful to turn to some of the critical methods writing in the disability studies community that has really problematized interviewing, and both face to face and online spaces, and also highlighted how, you know, we never want to rest easy with being armed with a bunch of methods, literature, but the real importance of turning back to our participants to really help us understand better how we can collect data that allows us then to make sense of meaning making Alexandra you for, for talking through that and flipping that script, I think it's so important, and I just learned so much. And I want to turn now to your point about what the data is how we how we cope, how we collected or generated. So to think about technology, I guess I'm wondering if there are any, you know, specific particular platforms, technologies, devices that you have found particularly beneficial, and that you use when you're doing digital research? Yeah, I Jessica mean, you know, one of the challenges is that there are so many. And so of course, it depends on the the study and the nature of the project that you're working on itself. In our in our new book, one of the things that we have throughout is, is more than 40 vignettes, so on the ground researchers that describe their work and the specific tools that supported their work and that they engaged in. And so I think one of the ways to learn about what's out there is is really to engage with the writing of on the ground researchers who are are working across a range of disciplines and therefore asking really different kinds of questions that lead them to engage with different technologies. But again, you know, it really does depend on on the study and the nature of the project project. So if, for instance, I'm working with Instagram data, there are particular applications that I would use As I would download and format my image base data, versus when I'm working with interview data collected via zoom or another video conferencing platform. So it really does depend on the design of the study. And this is something that we've described in our writing as being part of you're generating your own Digital Research workflow. So in my own work, regardless of the project, I typically use qualitative data analysis software, specifically, I'm an atlas ti user, and recently have begun to delve into learning and using max q da. I mean, I use qualitative data analysis software really to manage and organize the entirety of my research study, including things like my literature review, and also using various features within a package to write up some of my my early findings within the package itself. So in this way, I, I personally orient to qualitative data analysis software, as kind of being like the the One Stop Shop that supports many of the aspects of my digital workflow. And I think what's important is that we we all individually spend time really not just designing our study, but thinking about where it intersects with our own Digital Research workflow, and identify ways that that can support the the work that we're interested in pursuing. Alexandra It's really helpful. I love the idea of a digital workflow and just having that be part of a study design and thinking through it that way. And I guess another sort of staple for us as qualitative researchers is transcribing data. I wonder about your preferred methods for that process? I know there's there's a lot of literature around transcription. But what what are you guys seeing right now? Trina Yeah, so that is, a whole chapter of the book is about innovations in transcription, because this is one of the areas that has really changed a lot since we wrote the 2014 book, in part because of just the leaps and bounds that auto transcription, artificial intelligence supported transcription tools, what they're able to do now such as Trent temi, otter AI, there's a lot of them out there, and they are getting better and better all of the time. And and just as an example of that, for the for people using zoom, you may have noticed that if your institution subscribes to it, you will actually get an automatically generated zoom transcript, which is phenomenal, if you're doing your interviews in zoom. And I would say this is actually where online interviews are hugely advantageous over face to face because there's an automatically generated transcript at the end. Now, granted, we all know that you have to make edits. But compared to what this used to look like the edits, if it's good sound quality, standard English or standard version of whatever language you're speaking in. If the conditions are right, the transcript can really be amazing. So for, you know, video conference type interviews, you know, if there's an automatically generated transcript, that's definitely a great place to start. This summer, I actually used Trent for the first time as a first pass to transcribe some patient, patient interviews, the health care providers, students in the health professions, were interviewing standardized patients. And I had a bunch of video data. So I ran it through Trent as a first pass it automatically it timestamps that automatically you can edit the transcript within Trent. It's a great data storage, it's all cloud based. So you do have to get IRB approval, and we didn't have any HIPAA data, HIPAA protected data, so it worked for us. But I do think that looking into some of these AI based services is definitely worth it as a first pass, if you're not actually conducting the interviews in zoom, another really good tool is ink scribe i en que se RIBE. It also lets you timestamp because what that means is if you can synchronize your recording with the transcript that is just so beneficial as a qualitative researcher so that you're not just relying on the words, you can actually click anywhere in the transcript and listen to that interaction again. And so Jessica and I both do conversation analysis and discourse analysis and other language based analytic methods were how people speak is as important as what they say. And so the technology, the ability to not just rely on the written transcript, but to be able to go back and listen again to how something said that's just been invaluable. And so I think we do need to really think about transcription as part of that overall Digital Research workflow. And there are cases in which some of the qualitative data analysis platforms We'll support that as well. So if you're using the Mac version of Atlas ti, I think that you can actually transcribe within that software. And the same with in vivo and Max q da, they provide the ability to do synchronize transcripts. So it's definitely worth thinking about how that's going to be integrated into the whole process. And, Jessica, I'm not sure if you wanted to add something on this one, too. Jessica Yeah, I was just gonna also say that is the one of the things that I think is really interesting about new technologies as they relate to transcription is, I think it's a really vivid example of how you can see innovations and technologies shaping how we think about method and methodology. And so what I mean by that is, you know, many of the qualitative analysis software packages now allow us to do import in a fairly fluid way. sizable video based data sets, though I work with a lot of video based data in my own scholarship, and they're relatively large data sets. So working with, you know, upwards of 100 plus hours of interactional data. And one of the things that these new innovations have really pushed to the fore is questions around do we even need to be transcribing our entire data set? And why are we transcribing our entire data set? What might it mean to leverage things like directly, Trina directly Jessica analyzing with the tools that are embedded within qualitative analysis, software packages, or video, and then we're selectively transcribing our data. And these questions, of course, become really pertinent when you're working with large datasets and just thinking about transcribing, which has been the norm and conversation, analytic work and much of discourse analysis as well. You transcribe everything and you transcribe everything, using transcription systems that are really, really intense, and take an extensive amount of time. So there's this time issue, but then there's also what's I think, arising is questions around why are we doing what we're doing. And I think if we trace across time, we'll see that there is a lot of methodological shift that happens in relationship to technological innovation. I mean, even if we just think about interviewing, how we collected interview data has radically shift as the development of recording technologies came to be, and then a refinement of those. And so I think right now, a really compelling and provocative and important question that I do hope that we, as a community, spend time really wrestling with is what is the place of transcription? And what might it mean to think about transcription differently at the intersection of technology and our methodological practice. Alexandra But I'm really thinking a lot about what you just said, I'm gonna send you a message after. Um, so I guess another question that I'm wondering about is the tools what tools are you using for storing all this massive amounts of data and these big files, etc, in both an accessible yet also secure way? Trina Yeah, you know, my biggest recommendation there is to use whatever your university is supporting, because you don't want to get in so like, at my institution, it's OneDrive, right Microsoft product, and, yeah, it may not be like the easiest, most accessible in terms of, you know, efficient way because the I don't necessarily like the way that the navigation is set up. But my institution has it, it's secure, it's supported IRB, are okay with it. Everybody that I'm working with in my institution can access it. Theoretically, people at other institutions should be able to access it as well. And so, you know, I think that really sticking with what your institution supports is a good first way to think about that. I do want to say that if you are thinking about long term storage of data, you need to consider a qualitative data repository, especially if you are willing for other researchers to have access to your data for reuse. to Oregon, that's another good reason to use qualitative data analysis software, because actually, all of your data is stored in that platform. That's how it's organized. And so you've got the software package, organizing your data, then you've got the original files, you know, also maybe in OneDrive, or what other whatever other system that you're using, that can keep it all very manageable. That's, you know, and then you know, that there's, there's the There's the password protected things with, you know, sharing files in certain ways that I do think you have to think about. But one nice thing about being in a secure cloud based service, like one drive supported by the institution is you don't have to think about it as much as you used to have to when everything was stored on individual computers, or hard drives, or zip drives and jump drives, and then you had to think about how you were going to password protect each file, and then how you were going to send it in secure emails to your collaborators. So you know, just look into what your your university supports. And I do realize that's a privileged position. If you're not working at an institution that provides something like that, then you do have to kind of think through all of those steps that that we did before we had these services... [End of the transcript]

The Passionsitas Project welcomes Jessica Craven from Chop Wood, Carry Water. Jess gives phonebank training and chats about ways to get involved in the final weeks leading up to the November 3 election. Jessica Craven is a community organizer, activist and member of the California Democratic party's County Central Committee. Jessica is the author of "Chop Wood, Carry Water," a daily actions e-mail that's been published five days a week since November of 2016. Her emails provide detailed text and scripts for the everyday person to reach out to their Congress people and Senators to take action on the important issues of the day. She's made it her mission to get regular people more involved with politics on both a federal and local level. Hear Jessica's full episode here. FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Um, anybody who's been reading our posts, especially lately knows how anxiously I have been about the election and where things are headed. And, uh, our guardian angel spirit guide in this entire process has been our guests today. Uh, Jessica Craven, who does an amazing newsletter, um, which is how we first were introduced to her. It's called chalkboard carry water. We'll let her tell you about that, but it gives you daily actions so that you can be involved politically and make a difference. And, um, and then when we did our summit in August, uh, we asked just to do a workshop that she has called activism one Oh one, and it was an incredible hour where she gave us all these different things that we could do to be involved and help, um, make a difference during the election period. And we had been doing them tirelessly. We've been writing letters, we've been sending postcards. Uh, we have been texting, they've done everything but calling cause we're still a little shy, introverted when it comes to that, but just assures us that even introverts could make calls. So she's going to tell us about that today and a bunch of other things. We're just going to talk with her about what we can all do in the six weeks, 39 days. I think that we have left, um, to make a difference. And she's going to maybe talk a few of us off the Lake, um, anxiety and nervousness, no pressure. Um, but so welcome to our group today, Jessica grade. Jessica Craven:  Thank you. Thank you for having me. Um, thanks both of you. Passionistas: You've been such wonderful advocates and, uh, this is a great group and I'm very glad to be here. And, uh, yeah. Do you want me to start by just talking about the thing that Nancy and I were talking about before we started? Jessica: Okay, well, you know, we, Nancy was saying that she was having some anxiety and I think that a lot of people were having a lot of anxiety because of the news is extremely anxiety provoking right now. And, uh, I was just saying simply that I, my tactic right now is just to stay very, very, very busy. Um, I feel that there is an enormous amount of fear-mongering happening in the news right now. And there is a, um, you know, there is a payoff for Trump and for his side, when we are all freaking out and running around, um, you know, wringing our hands about the fact that he is going to steal the election, because every minute that I'm doing that, I am working to get out the vote. And honestly, I see what's happening right now is a very successful form of voter suppression. They are very successfully getting people to feel like it's hopeless and we're gonna lose cause he's already going to steal the election. And so what's the point. And in that sense, he's a giant bully who is successfully bullying the entire school yard right now with a threat that he can't even possibly carry out. And I know that people read the Atlantic article and I know that people feel that he's going to get all these people to sort of line up and do these horrible things to, um, and I just am not, I'm not there. I actually still have enough faith in the American system as a whole, although parts of it are very broken right now. Um, and I, I subscribed to this wonderful writer or Hubbell who writes a political, uh, newsletter every night. And, um, you know, he, he said exactly this this morning, he was like, it's quite frustrating to see people so quickly buy into this kind of, you know, Trump says all kinds of things. He says insane things all the time. And like, I never believed anything that he says. So I don't know why we're all believing this part so much that he is going to successfully organize a coup right in front of us, that the entire country will participate in, um, or enough to carry it out successfully. It's I have a very sort of, you know, my, my spiritual practice is such that what I, what I have learned to do no matter what is happening in my life that is troubling or scary is to stay in the day and do the thing in front of me that I can do. And that's where the Chop Wood Carry Water comes from is just instead of freaking out about something that might happen in six weeks. Um, what can I do right now? And, and frankly, I'm distressed at the level to which his tactics right now are successful. I'm distressed at how many people I see who normally would be busy making calls right now who have spent their entire days sending frantic emails back and forth about is he going to still be election? Well, yeah, he's going to win the election if we don't work. So work. You know, I mean, as I try to remind people, if Trump were this able to steal an election, he would not have, let us win. In 2018, we would not have won Doug Jones's seat in the Senate. We would not have won the governor seats. We won last year, we flipped to Virginia state house. We flipped essentially the New York state house, although they were Democrats, but they caucused with Republicans. We got them all out. Like we have voted so many bad actors out and nobody, one time has said, Oh, that election wasn't valid. Sorry, people accept the results of an election. Trump won't. But Trump is a malignant narcissist. He's insane. So who cares? I mean, he he's, I won't even begin to list the delusions that guy lives under, but there are a lot of people who would have to cooperate with him. And I fundamentally don't believe they will. Um, and, and whether or not okay, even if they will, there's nothing we can do about it now. But what we can do is wind so overwhelmingly that that's not even a possibility. And if our numbers are enormous, which they absolutely can be, we absolutely have the numbers for it. All indications are that early voting is overwhelmingly on our side. So just keep it up. Don't let this total loser, baby man distract you from saving the country. He's seen, does not work the gum on the bottom of my shoe. This man and people are giving entire days and weeks to worrying about what he's going to do, who cares? He's a loser, the guy is a loser. So let's just make sure that we have so many votes that even he, with his total delusions and delusions of grand jury or whatever else he has cannot lie. I keep thinking of the inauguration crowds. You know, he said over and over again, that it was the biggest inauguration crowd ever, but history and all of us know that it wasn't. So he can say we're all cheating or we're all, but everybody else will know that that's not the case. And frankly, I don't think that the military is so behind them at this point that they're going to enable him in a coup it's just not going to happen. So sorry. I'm very passionate about this because my job is to recruit people into action. My job is to get people busy making phone calls, which is a proven tactic for winning elections, right? Sending letters, sending postcards, texts, making these things work. And when people are wringing their hands in this kind of like fear mania, they're not doing that. So I just got off the phone with, I mean, often about call with flip the West with their team of people who were working to flip the Senate. It's an enormous team of people who are so committed and working so hard. Don't let all of these people work so hard and then give all of our attention to the, the ninny and the white house instead, you know, come and join us in the work. We will win in the work. So that is my sermon. Sorry. I'm just drinking my tea. So I'm very thankful. Passionistas: It's, no, it's excellent. We need to hear it. Yeah. We need to hear it, everybody already saying great advice and thank you. Jessica: It is true. I mean, I wake up every day, I feel like totally panicked. And then I go through the list in my head like, Oh, am I freaked out about this? Now this now I'm going to go, Oh, to see a lecture. And then I roll out of bed and I pick up my posts in my list and I just start writing and I wait until I can get onto the texting. And I start flexing and I feel better, you know? Yeah. Action is the antidote. And it is every time. And you know, I'm doing these activism one-on-one classes. And so many people were coming, which is great. So part of my job is just to let other people know how many people are doing this work right now. So w in my workshop, you know, you heard me talk about the drop of water, right. And it's very easy for us all to feel like that individual drop of water, like, Oh, who cares? I'm just, I'm so small. And if I just make like one hour of calls, who cares, like it's so insignificant, but you have to remember all the other drops of water who are also doing their little jobs. And when you get that many drops of water together, that's, as I say, when you start to carve stone, like then you are participating in something so much bigger than yourself. And there are a lot of people doing this work. I am telling you because I do it with them. And I see them. And I hear about the groups that are phone banking and post carding and sending letters to voters in Milwaukee and just little groups that have got brilliant ideas for ways to help and are doing them. And, uh, the news doesn't talk about it. And I remember before 2018, the news didn't talk about it either. I was like, am I crazy? Because I feel like with this much stuff happening, we are going to win, but everyone keeps saying we're going to lose, but I see what people are doing. How could we possibly lose? And we weren't. Right. But the news is not going to say, Oh, we're going to win because that doesn't get clicks. And we, these little, you know, we middle-aged women, activists, we definitely don't get clicks. Right? Like nobody cares about us. We're middle-aged women. But the work that we're doing is massive. And we are going to save the country. Don't get me wrong. That is what is going to happen. And the news will not carer until after it's happened. And then they'll give the credit somewhere else because no one wants to credit people like us, but it doesn't matter. We're not doing it for the credit. We're doing it for. Right. Right. So who cares? But believe me, I remember this from 2018, no one covered the resistance back then either, even after the fact, no one covered us, but it's fine. We're still going to do the work and we're still going to win. You can attribute it to the tooth fairy for all I care. I don't really care, but we are doing the work and we know how to do this work. And let me tell you, people are doing this work in vast numbers. So, but that's not what I came here to talk about. I came here to talk about phone banking, but I just, you know, I get passionate because it's important. I want to wear a big t-shirt that just says less news, less news, more action. Because honestly, even I can get sucked into Twitter. And after five minutes on Twitter, I want to kill myself. It's over. Right. But that's not reality. That's Twitter. And there's, uh, you know, there are aspects of reality on it, but there's also a lot that is not real on it. The work is real, you know, talking to voters on the phone is real. I've phoned banks several times already this week. And when I get someone on the phone who was like on the fence and I convinced them, that's real. And, uh, you know, you guys and the people doing this work, we are real. And we, we will make a difference. So I guess I'm here to do the opposite of what Trump is doing today, right? Like I want to power people and give them their faith back and remind them that they have power. And that, you know, you have agency, you can make a difference. Every single person listening to this, it's hugely powerful. Don't let Trump take that away from you. He doesn't deserve to have anything of yours. Nothing. Passionistas: Thank you. I needed to, I needed to hear that. Thank you. Thank you. I had one other question for you about something I read this morning. Did you read that Esquire magazine article about, um, maybe people who can, should vote in person? Jessica: I didn't. Okay. Passionistas:  Because it was just saying that it was just that, you know, this whole, his whole scam right now is based on, you know, mail in votes and de-legitimizing the mail in votes. So what do you think about that? Do you think it it's better? If people can take the chance and go boat in person, is it better to mail it in person? Passionistas: I don't know. I think that I know in California, we were told that if we mailed our ballots by October 10th, that they would be counted by election day. Um, but again, we've had so many elections where the results were not determined for weeks after and nobody cried foul. No one said that election is not valid. Katie Porter, her election was determined like two weeks after the fact, no, she's there in Congress kicking . I mean, Trump can say what he wants. It requires more than him saying that something is fraudulent. And frankly, I really don't see Mitch McConnell as awful as he is. He's he made a statement today saying like, we're going to respect the results of the election. He's not going to go down that road. I just don't. I mean, so I think vote, however you feel I'm voting by mail. I'm going to mail my ballot right after I get it. And I'm going to track my ballot. Just vote. I don't think when we vote is as much at issue. If it makes you feel better. Sure. Go vote in person. Most States have early voting. We go to the grocery store. I don't actually think that voting is like a super dangerous activity. But if you're someone who's highly at risk vote by mail. Yeah. I don't think it matters. Just vote, vote and track your ballot, make a voting plan and get three friends and family to vote. Especially those who probably wouldn't have voted unless you prompted them. Because honestly your friends and family are more likely to vote. If you ask them to then if I, some stranger calls them, you know, this is relational organizing. It's really critical right now that we each take responsibility for getting three people who maybe wouldn't have voted otherwise to vote. I'm working on my niece. That's my, that's my goal. No, she's one person who is right now is thinking of writing into candidate and I'm working on her with everything I know to get her not to do that. And it doesn't matter the reasons, this is just really important to me. And if I fail, I'll work on someone else. But if we all do that, think about the power of that. Passionistas: You bring up a good point too, which is you can track your ballot once you send it. And everybody should do that just to… Jessica: Not in every state, not in every state. Sorry to interrupt you. But in many States you can. Yes. Yes. Passionistas: Okay. And where do you find, where do you go to do that? Jessica: Secretary of State website? The secretary of state website is really your friend. You just Google your state secretary of state, and then all of your questions are, are, can be answered there. So, and yes, in California, they make it very easy to sign up where you can actually, you'll all get a text message when they received my ballot and the text message when it's been, um, you know, entered into the system. So I don't know that every state does it as well, but look into your state and find out. And another really important thing about voting by mail is to follow the instructions very carefully. Yes. Yeah. If you sign, if you sign in the wrong place or you sign your signature sloppily and it doesn't match what they have on record, or you don't steal the inside envelope or whatever it is, you do wrong. That vote will be disqualified. So I need to make sure that you follow the directions very carefully. Well, and in Pennsylvania, in particular with this whole naked ballot thing, if you mail in your vote by mail ballot, put it in the inner envelope, because if you don't put it in that inner envelope, the secrecy sleeve, they will not count it, which is absurd. But you know, we have to work with a lot of servers right now. So yes. Being educated about what the rules are in your state is incredibly important. Passionistas: Particularly if you live in a swing state or voter suppression state, right? Jessica: Yeah. And like, I'm going to, I'm getting together with some elderly relatives. I told them once they get their vote, that we're going to go to lunch, we're going to take a risk and you go to an outdoor restaurant and I'm going to walk them through it. I'm going to make friends to do it exactly. Right. And then we're going to go wherever they can go to drop it off. We're going to drive there with them. We're going to make sure. Passionistas: So if you know anybody that might not, you don't think a hundred percent is going to understand the process because it's so different than what they used to offer to help them. Jessica: Yep. Yes, absolutely. That is exactly right. Yeah. And elderly people. Don't always, a lot of times when we phone bank, we'll find someone who has, you know, 81 years old. Yes. I want to provide them, but I don't have internet. I mean, not everybody has internet. Right. Um, and so those people need, sometimes some of them to show up at their door with a form or, you know, help ordering the form for them and having it sent to them or whatever. But yes, I think we all need to think of the older people, the less tech savvy people and reach out to them. Passionistas: Yeah. Yeah. And as Lisa said in the comments, also, if you add a stamp, even though a lot of votes on ballots, don't require a stamp. If you add a stamp, it will make sure that it's treated as first-class mail. Yeah. So that's how that plus what supports the post office, which is exactly win-win. Yeah. Jessica: Yeah, totally. And you know, and try to remember, I just want people to remember that the majority of America desperately wants Trump out of office. The majority, like, yes, he has got a very devoted small following, but the rest of the country will, is desperate to have him out. So people are going to work very hard to vote and make their friends vote. It's just, I know there's so much fear. And I, I mean, look, I share it, but I also, I want us to have faith in each other. And I want us to have faith in this country. It's not broken fully yet. It's very broken, but I still believe there's enough of an infrastructure in place that we can have a fair election, as long as enough of us show up. This is not an election that anyone can sit out. We need numbers. Passionistas:  So can we talk about phone banking now? Jessica: Excellent. Passionistas: I want to say one thing though, I today started to, um, to write postcards for Jon Ossoff. You know, him for everybody who doesn't know is running for Senate in Georgia. And I really wanted to point out that the thing I love about him, which is his hashtag is his name is Jon Ossoff, O S S O F F. And his hashtag is hashtag #VoteYourOssoff. Passionistas: Oh, he deserves to win. Jessica: So I just wanted to give him a little plug. That's great. Georgia is doing really well. Stacey Abrams released some statistics today about, uh, early vote and vote by mail and Georgia. And it's already off the charts with, you know, typically voters who vote our way. So she's been working her butt off in that state. People are working very hard. I have a lot of faith. I have a lot of faith. Passionistas: That made us all feel better. So, um, so now what do we do? How do we make it happen? Passionistas: Well, let's talk about fun banking for a second, because this is the, you know, this is the big challenge right now. So first of all, people are voting already, right? In a lot of States, the election has started. We are officially in the election and starting next week, that's it like it's election month. We are fully in, GOTV get out the boat. Right. So, um, all of the big organizations are having their big weekends of like training and phone banking starting next weekend. So Y Mo you probably all know this, but why do we phone bank? Why can't we all just send postcards until the election? Because postcards increased voter turnout somewhere between one and a half to 2%. Right. Which is a nice little bump in turnout. Um, as I always say, in my workshop, Donald Trump won in Wisconsin by seven tenths of 1%, right? So we're not going to sneeze at one and a half percent because that would have won us Wisconsin. He won the entire election by 77,000 votes. You guys, it's just not a lot of votes, um, or you peoples are very much trying to stop saying you guys. Um, but, um, so those postcards about one and a half to 2% bump don't forward letters, which are amazing. And I know you are doing those as well, and I've done a bunch of my husband does them. Those letters are great. They increased turnout by about 3.4%, right? That's their studies have shown. So phone banking is a significantly more than either of those things, right? Phone banking, talking to a person, voice to voice can increase turnout by maybe twice what the vote forward letters can when we're lucky. So again, these don't sound like huge percentages, but that's more than enough if we can get enough people on the phone. And, um, there's a great phone banking video that I'm playing in my workshop now that, um, this woman is just talking about why we fund bank. And it's not as many people think to persuade Trump voters. And I think that people think that they're going to be forced to get on the phone and argue with somebody like their uncle in Alabama. Who's, you know, got the mag ahead. You're not going to, first of all, campaigns are generally having you call lists of people that they think, or at least potential supporters. They're not sending you to call heavily Republican list. That's just counterproductive. It's a waste of their time. But even when I do get somebody on the phone who is just like, you know, girl Trump or whatever, or I only vote Republicans, the response is thank you so much. Have a great day. And we hang up the phone. Our job is to find our people reluctant Democrats, who almost never vote independents, who are persuadable, um, declined to States. People who are just low propensity voters or people who want to vote, but are fuzzy on the process. Like, yeah, I do want to vote, but I still haven't gotten my absentee ballot. And they're like busy doing something else. So they haven't taken care of that yet, but we can help them. So most of what we do when we phone bank is help people who want to be helped if they don't want to be helped, they'd get off the phone. But it's not about trying to persuade someone who has totally drunk the Kool-Aid and is like screaming about things that are just, you know, upsetting. And we don't want to talk about those. People are not who we're trying to persuade. We don't need them. It is a waste of time. The campaign doesn't want you wasting your time with them. So when I get someone like that on the phone, again, I'm going to say, thank you so much, have a great day quick. I'm going to Mark them as strong opposed. And the campaign's going to take them off of their list, right? They don't want people like that on their lists either. They want to maximize their time and our time by looking for people who are potential votes. So part of what we're doing when we're phone banking is just finding those people and sort of sorting them into piles of like, that's not someone who's going, gonna vote for us. That's someone who maybe they definitely need more attention. That person is so into us that like, we're going to put them in this pile over here. We're not going to bother with them again until the day before the election, just to make sure they voted because there are definite supporter and a high propensity voter. Then we're also right now doing stuff, we call it cleaning the lists. So if for those of you who like to clean, we're basically just making sure everybody's phone number is still the same. You know, we're calling lists that are from elections two years ago, mostly. So some of that information is outdated. Sometimes people no longer live in that place or their phone number has changed, or they've moved. Sometimes they're deceased. Sometimes they've changed parties, whatever their thing is. So that's what we're doing. We're sending that data back to the campaign. So we're both gathering data from the voter about who they support, where they are and their thoughts. And we are bringing data back to the campaign. Hey, that person now lives in California. So take them off the list. And that's the wrong number. It's disconnected. Take that off. This person wants to volunteer, call them. This person wants to drive people to the polls, reach out to them. This person wants a yard sign. So it's a lot of data exchange. And, but there is something about calling and talking to someone voice to voice, which every time I run a phone bank, I have a volunteer say, I just talked to somebody who was on the fence. And we talked about like our kids and healthcare. And by the end, they they're going to vote for Biden or, you know, so it's not like every person we talk to is a massive victory. But again, we think about our own tiny contribution. And if I phone bank for an hour and I get three people or two people who were on the fence and are maybe going to support my person, now I have done my job. Other than that, it's a lot of not home. It's a lot of leaving voicemails. When, when the campaigns want you to leave voicemails, they do sometimes. And they don't sometimes. Um, if you're nervous about using your own phone number, which a lot of people are, a lot of the campaigns now are using something called an automatic dialer or predictive dialer. You can just make sure that you use one of those and it all goes through a computer program. So your phone number never comes into it. And you literally just sit there on hold until somebody picks up and it's great. And you actually talk to more people. And, um, it's all very scripted. And I guess the last thing I'll say is that in my experience between texting and phone banking, I mean, I love canvassing. That's awesome, but we're not doing that right now. Um, I actually find people are much nicer over the phone. My craziest meanest responses from voters have always been, um, texting. I actually don't text all that often because people are so much nicer on the phone. I would just rather deal with the, the politeness. I had someone today just tell me to F off on a text bank. And I'm like, Oh, I had asked him was how he, you heard of the candidate. No one would do that over the phone, but on texts, do they feel like they can do that? So I like calling people tend to be nicer, especially when I speak with a smile, which is one of my big tips for phone banking is smile talking, which is as a woman, I don't like to be told to smile, but in my experience that when I smile talk, it's the same thing that anybody who does any work on the phone knows like, I sound different when I'm talking like this. And when I'm talking like this, it's just different. So when I kind of talk with a smile and, and I, myself, I'm I'm, I am me on the phone. I don't pretend to be somebody else. I act like myself. Um, if I make a mistake, I say, Oh God, I'm so sorry. I'm a volunteer. And I'm, you know, I'm a mom and I've been doing homeschool all day and I'm tired. You know, that's how people actually connect with us. They relate with us through our humanity. So, um, I emphasize the fact that I'm a volunteer. I recognize the fact that I'm barging in on people. And I say even sometimes I hate when people call me, but this election is so important and people appreciate it. So, um, I just encourage people to try it. We really do need more people on the phone. And, and, and the last thing really I will say is, you know, my daughter is very obsessed with “Hamilton” right now, right? So we're talking about the revolutionary war, revolutionary war a lot. And you know, we talk about the fact that during the revolutionary war, the people who fought to found this country like died in massive numbers, right? To sort of defend the idea of our freedom and eventually our democracy, right? They died to form this country or they lost legs, or they were blinded, or, you know, people suffered horribly. If I am being asked to get on the phone and be a little bit uncomfortable to literally save our country, we are literally talking about saving this country. Then I am going to do that. And I am pretty sure that all of you can, I know YouTube can cause your, you know, the worst that can happen. What does it mean to me? I get to keep my legs. You know, I don't have to walk through a snowy valley with leather straps wrapped around my feet. I mean, yeah. The stories from the revolutionary war pretty normally we're just being asked to make some phone calls. We can do it. You can do it. All of you can do it. I will turn it on to my phone banks. Yeah. How do people go to your phone beds? Well, um, you can there's uh, let's see. Do you guys do like show notes or anything like that after this? Will you post some information? Passionistas: Yeah. And we can put you post things in the chat and everything. Yeah. Jessica: So you can post my email address. Uh, the, the chop wood carry water, email address, see WCW daily actions@gmail.com. People can email me and I can add you to my big list. I invite people to a bunch of phone banks and you can come or not come as you see fit. But every phone bank I do either I or somebody else will train you. Um, you always do them on Zoom. They're all remote. So you're with a group of people. And if somebody is mean you can come back to the group and just say like, Oh, somebody just called me the devil. And then everybody laughs and people send you hard emojis, and then you go on, right. Um, and if you have a victory, then you come back to the zoom and you share that. And people are really excited for you. Uh, so you can do that. I highly recommend flick the West if you're concerned, particularly if you want for RBG, if you, if you're concerned about flipping the Senate flip, the West is an extraordinary organization. They do great bone bank trainings, like four times a week. Um, they just launched a training called demystifying phone banking for geo TV. That is apparently amazing. Um, there were these women who do a phone bank training called bone banking for introverts, which I can provide a link for. Um, and that's supposed to be great, actually, it's on my Google doc. You, you have access to my group. So it's in their phone banking for introverts. That's supposed to be great. Um, you know, it's one of those things like you'll try it once or twice, and then you'll be like, Oh, this is actually just mostly kind of boring. Like mostly I'm just getting people who aren't home and it's model that exciting, but it does feel so good when you get somebody who needed your help. So those are a few of the ways. And I mean, my God, you can just Google like phone bank for Biden or, you know, there's million ways to get involved, swing left. Um, flippable any number of organizations can guide you to phone banking, but, um, you can post the link to my Google doc, which has a gazillion phone banks in it. If po choice is your thing planned Parenthood does phone banking. If environment is your thing, three fifty.org does phone banking. So there's a million ways in, and they'll all basically take you to the same kind of event. You know, we're not reinventing the wheel. This is something that we've all done for a long time and it works. And you know, scientists say that getting out of your comfort zone is actually very good for you. People who get out of their comfort zone regularly actually live longer. So, you know, this is an opportunity for us all to do something that we don't want to do, but that is good for us and good for our country. How exciting is that? Passionistas: That's good. Yeah. And I don't think anybody wants to look back on November 4th and wish they had done more. That is for sure. Jessica: That is for sure. And that's what this great. I should I'll, I'll get you the link to the video too. And maybe you can post it in the chat after this great three minute video about phone banking, but she says that she's like, yes, it's uncomfortable, but you know, what will really be uncomfortable is waking up the morning after the election and finding out that we still have Trump in office. Like that will be devastating. And I definitely don't want to wake up the morning after and think I could have done, I could have done more. And I I'm happy to say, I am not going to wake up and say that, but I, I, you know, I don't think that anyone wants to feel that way. Passionistas: Yeah. So, yeah. Jessica: And it feels good to be part of a win. You'll love it. You'll love the feeling of having helped us win. Yeah. It's a wonderful feeling. Passionistas: And I should say this wasn't something you've done all your life. I mean, this is something that you chose to do in recent years and you've educated yourself and now you're really comfortable doing these things, but it's not like, I just want people to know, like, it's easy to sometimes look at somebody who's talking like this and say like, Oh, well, but you know, you've dedicated your career to this. Like, this is something that you came to in after 2016 is not really opt in. Passionistas: Right. And so you can, you can make the choice to make the change in your life to make this a priority. Jessica: Absolutely. I am not a, I'm a volunteer. I'm not, uh, I, you know, I mean, I have Patrion sponsors, but like I'm not paid by anybody. Um, and I only ever phoned bank during presidential elections before Trump was elected. So yeah. And I think people come to my workshop. I always tell the story of Sally. She came to my workshop a couple of months ago and she, you know, my age, very, you know, just by, I don't know what she does, but definitely does not work in politics. And she was like, I mean, I will try it once, but I'm telling you, I'm going to hate it. And I'm dyslexic. I can't read those scripts and I'm going to suck at it, but I'll do it one time because you're telling me I should. And she came to my phone bank and God love her. Ended up staying on. After we all got off the zoom, she was like, I'm still calling. She got us three volunteers her first time out and then just started putting banking all the time. And now I don't even hear from her anymore because she's just off phone banking. She found out she loved it and she was good at it. And she was positive. She would not be. So for some people, it really is underbelly uncomfortable, but you won't know until you try. And for most people it will not be unbearable. Um, and, and if you find out that it is, at least you tried, at least you gave it one try, but for 90% of us will be like, huh? I mean, it's, you know, I'd rather be taking a bubble bath, but you know, I'll do it, bring the phone into the bathroom phone, into the bathroom. Passionistas: I obviously haven't phone banked yet, but I have been texting and you're right. People can be really harsh on texting. Um, but the other day I got a text, you know, the first question I was supposed to ask was, can we count on your support? And, uh, and I got this really like inappropriate response back. And I was gonna just, you know, send back the thanks, have a good day. And then I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. And so I forget how I replied, but I kind of replied like, what are your issues kind of thing. And, and, you know, it felt not to be judgmental, but it felt like, like a 16 year old boy texted me back. Um, and he was like, if I get a hell, yeah, I'll go to provide me. I'm like, how much, how long am I going to let this person jerk me around? And I was like, doesn't really hurt me just to text back and see what he says. And so I texted back hell. Yeah. And then he texted back and he was like, wow, you must really want me to vote for bud light. Cause I'd stuck with it for these few comments now it's like, yeah, I do is really important. And I gave like, check the rate registration email, and it ended up in this like really long chat with this person. And by the end they're like, all right, well, awesome. It didn't hurt. It was like, you know what? I can let this person intimidate me because they think they're cute and funny interview noxious. Or I can just see where it goes and give it five minutes of my time. And it felt really good at the end. It was like, all right, well, that's not the back in line. What's next. It's amazing. Jessica: I did a lot of texting with Open Progress for a long time. And you would see these conversations that people would post in the Slack that were so incredible where someone starts out very mean and hostile. And then when you send them a reply that lets them know that you're a real person, half of the time, they're like, Oh, I did not know that you were real person. Like they genuinely think you're a bot. And then once they find out you're real, sometimes they will actually have a conversation. And yeah, sometimes there were some people who are so unplugged from politics that they're basically like, I don't, I don't really care. Like what's the difference. And if you're like, okay, this is actually really important to me. They'll, they're like, all right, fine. I'll do it for you. Like I, I had that experience before and, you know, whatever, whatever gets them. Yeah. Well, anyway, I don't want to share that story publicly, but I mean, whatever gets somebody within reason to vote, you know? Yeah. That is just a persuasion. It's wonderful. That's great. And yeah, texting can be really effective. Sometimes it does require a bit of a longer conversation and sometimes you got to get creative. I saw one texting conversation where the person they were texting with was started talking about Fortnite and the volunteer fortunately knew a lot about Fortnite. So she started responding with these very like insider comments about Fortnite and she won his vote because of that. Whereas I would have had no clue. So, I mean, it was just kind of good luck that he got her and then he was like, you're amazing. I'm going to vote. It was a whole thing. So, you know. Yeah. But that's what it's all about. Right. It's all about reminding everybody that we're all the same common interests. We all worry about similar things. Right. I mean, we all want our kids to grow up in a safe world and we, you know, most of us worry about the same things, not all of us, but generally I can find an area of connection with a person on the phone. Passionistas: Yeah. And I have to say both ways, like I've also, I started yesterday morning texting with a friend and feeling really angry and down about Republicans and Trump supporters. And in the course of texting yesterday, I had a few people who are like, I'm voting Trump and you know, you just say, all right, great, thanks for letting me know, have a good day. And they lived, there were a few people that are back on like half a nice day. And thanks for checking, you know, and it was just not like, I don't understand the fundamentals of the decision to vote for the man, but it doesn't mean everybody who is, is the person. And it kind of just re renewed my faith and the other side, like, I still can't, can't forgive anybody that's going for them. But at least I felt like it was a reminder. Like there are people too, and they, some of them are really nice people, you know, they just are misguided for whatever reason. Um, so in that regard, it made me feel slightly more optimistic about some of the people in that. Jessica: Exactly. Oh, that's good. Yeah. But I couldn't turn them that texting is hard too, because I think they cast a very, very wide net with texting. So I think that you will tend to get more Republicans. Um, I feel like phone banking. They're a little bit more judicious about where they're sending you to call and I'm not sure why that is, but it's, it's just, I think because they can cast a wide net texting. They do. So you do, you end up getting a lot of people who were like Trump 2020, and you're just like, Oh my God, really? But calling, I don't get that. I don't know that I've ever had somebody just yelled Trump 2020 at me. Okay. Passionistas: Oh yeah. You can definitely get that yelled in the, it may just be my imagination, but I honestly feel like between last week and this week I've been texting in Arizona mostly. And um, since RPG passed away, I swear to God more people there have been fewer Trump, 2020s, interesting work and more either neutral or onboarded by which, because the first couple of days I did it within her, it was like really depressing. And it was like 90% of the people were Trump 2020. I mean, and take me off the list. And then she passed away everything every time since then, it's been like a very small fraction of the people. So maybe I'm just trying to keep myself positive or maybe there is some shifts that happened. Jessica: Um, well, yeah, I think you're going to actually like phone banking. I do feel like, I feel like Is very comparatively is very draining and phone banking. I find very uplifting. So, um, I, I'm not sure everybody feels that way, but for me, I tend to get depressed when I'm texting. I think because there are so many Trump people because they're casting such a wide net and calling it's not, I don't know. I always feel pretty uplifted afterwards. Passionistas: Wow. I'm definitely going to try it. I'm terrified of it. I am too, but I'll do it. Jessica: Um, come to my Biden phone bank on Monday. It's it's great. Passionistas: Okay. Yeah. It's not Monday. I can't Monday thought through with all that. Jessica: I'll send you my whole schedule. Yeah, definitely. We'll definitely get, we are going to commit right now that yes, we're committed. Passionistas: I definitely check out the Flip the West trainings. They're really good there. Those are definitely in my Google doc. Also, you can post them for your people wherever that's fabulous. And Passionistas: Does anybody listening have any questions? Just pop them in the comments and we'll pass them on. So just, do you have any thoughts on flipping the Senate and whether that's going to happen or what, what do you, what's your gut it's going to happen? Jessica: It has to happen. Yes. It's going to happen. I mean, you know, none of us can see into the future, but I believe it's going to happen. Um, the polling in Iowa is extremely good. The polling in Kansas is really good. Um, pulling in Arizona is outstanding. Obviously. Uh, Georgia is somewhat competitive. Alaska is competitive. Um, Montana is somewhat competitive. I mean, I think we still have a little bit of work to do there. Uh, Colorado is extremely competitive. North Carolina is competitive. There's a lot of seats. We just need four, if we can win the presidency. Um, and we need to hold Doug Jones seat. But, um, yeah, I mean, it's, we have a lot of money. There's been a lot of money raised. So financially we are destroying the other side. I actually think, uh, Jamie Harrison is to win Lindsey. Graham was on Twitter, crying about how desperate for money he is, you know, he's awful. And I think he's going to get punished at the ballot box and Jamie. Passionistas: Yeah. I think if we get him in McConnell out then… Jessica: McConnell, I mean, we get McConnell out by winning the majority. McConnell will then become a minority leader and that will actually almost be worse for him. Yeah, no. And I mean, look, I'd love to see Amy McGrath win, but that's a, that's a tough, you know, that's a tough seat, but it doesn't matter if we win the Senate for me, that's enough. That's enough. I don't care. Mitch McConnell can crawl off into obscurity and you know, I don't even want to start all back under his wing. I shouldn't say on Facebook, but yeah. Yeah. Just, you know, flip the West is a great organization. If you want to flip Senate seats, I really recommend them very highly. And um, yeah, we should all be working on that very, very hard because if we flip the Senate, I feel that that will bring us also Biden. Um, and, and you know, if Trump steals the election, but doesn't have the Senate, he can kick and scream all he wants. He's still not going to have really much he can do. So I don't think that's going to happen, but I'm just pointing out that it is another way that we can protect ourselves. So, um, but yeah, I think we're going to do it. I know we're going to do it. We're going to flip the Senate. We're going to hold the house. We're going to beat Trump and we're going to flip a whole bunch of state legislatures. It is going to happen, mark my words. Passionistas: You heard it here. Jessica: People also, if, if we flip the Senate, it's harder for Trump to claim you won. Right? Passionistas:  Right. Jessica: Well, that's, that's the thing is that in order for him to claim that he actually won, he has to say that every election in the country was invalid at which point, okay. Then that's just chaos. Then what do we do then? Like, we don't have elections anymore because we're holding elections the same way we always have. So you can't have one and not the other, this is why it's not going to happen. He can't it's, it's not just ignore him. Okay. I rarely  talk about this. I'm going to say something right now that I rarely, rarely, almost never talk about, but my dad was a filmmaker. Right? He made horror films. This is something I do not talk about, but it's applicable here. He made a movie called “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Right. And I don't know if you've ever seen it. Probably some people have and some people haven't, but there's, you know, the bogeyman is Freddy Krueger. And in the end, the way the woman in the film beats him, her whole thing is you turn your back on them and you take away their energy. And then they literally just evaporate. And I'm not comparing Trump to Freddy Krueger. I actually, so much of his energy from us, you know? And so my whole thing with him is just a screen. I don't give him, I don't talk about him. I don't read his tweets. I don't re I don't listen to him talk. He does not exist for me to the best of my ability, because what he wants is to exist for all of us all the time. So, um, turn your back on him. He's just Freddy Krueger. He is, uh, he is, defeatable just like further Krueger was and just like everybody is defeatable, he's not a supernatural being, he's just a human politician. So, um, that is the, probably the last time for 10 years that I will talk about that publicly again. But I just wanted to Passionistas: I'll say it. Yeah. I always think of, um, since we're using movie references, I always think of “Labyrinth.” When she finally realized that realizes it and says that line, you have no power over me. Jessica: Right. Right, right. Right. So like, why am I giving you of my energy? It's a classic abuser and abused relationship at this point. And we as women, especially, you know, the, the middle-aged women who are running this army right now, it is our job to say, like you can't the second I turned my back on you, you have no power over me. And we are working very, very, very hard and we will demand. And this is a female business. We are fighting the patriarchy I could go on. But like, our job is to not be bullied by this man. And the way we are not bullied is we get on those darn phones and we text and we write and we call and we talk to our friends and family and we get people to vote. And that is how we defeat this man. We women. Yeah. And especially these almost all women. Yeah. Passionistas: And especially in honor of RPG, since it says he's going to replace her, he thinks that he can say, I'm replacing her with a woman and we're all stupid. I'm going to be like, Oh, that's great. I'm fine. He's destroying her legacy by planting, whichever one of these, your, so we need to fight harder in her memory, in her honor to be the women that, you know, don't, don't stand for it.   Jessica: Right. And he can't destroy her legacy. He can't destroy it if we don't let him. Yeah. Yeah. Her legacy is in us to win. That is how we carry her legacy on is we win. We destroy him at the ballot box. And uh, and then who's destroying who at that point, when he can't destroy her legacy, again, her legacy is so much bigger than him. She's worth a million of him literally. Right? Passionistas: Yeah. Did you see his visit too? Jessica: I just, I did. And this is the thing I want people to remember is that when you take him out of his little supporter bubble, America hates him. And it's really easy for us to forget that because all the press shows us is his supporter bubble. I don't know why, but that is what they choose to cover. But the majority of the country hates him. So it is when you take him out of that bubble, it's the same thing with the town hall he did last week. People don't, he's awful and people know what Americans are not stupid. So that is why I just want people to stop watching news. Yeah. And do the work. That's how it was fed. Passionistas: The town hall was fascinating because fascinating. You couldn't see most people's mouse because they had their masks on their eyes were. So every answer was like, every person's eyes were like, that's not what I asked you. Or like you're a or whatever it was, but just like in their eyes. Yeah. Really interesting. Yeah. Jessica: And he's just, you know, he never lets himself be in those situations, but as we get closer to the election, he will. And he has to, and yeah. I mean, yeah. Passionistas: I was going to say, what's your thought on how the debate's going to go next week? Jessica: I don't know. And I don't care quite frankly. I mean, honestly, I don't really care again, like to me, that's all part of the, the press, the end of the show, like the circus, like, I mean, I know who I'm voting for and there's obviously no question. Like, we all know we don't even need these debates. I don't know if there was an undecided of Oregon left and if there is good, the debates, right, right. That's great. And they should watch them. I'm not, I am not. I mean, if anyone really has a question right now about who is more fit to be president than they're insane, quite frankly, so sorry if I'm offending anybody, but not in this area, then we lost them a long time ago. I probably lost them in the first part of this podcast. But I think, I think that, you know, Trump will be insane and crazy and Biden will hopefully, uh, I think Biden is going to do great Biden. Hasn't been doing great. And Trump is destroys himself every time he opens his mouth. So yeah, but I will not be watching. I can't watch Trump. I don't, I don't watch him. Freddy Krueger. Passionistas: No, it's really, it's good advice. It's I do it to myself because I feel like I need to stay informed, but I guess I have all the information I need right now. Yeah. Jessica: I don't think, and you're not getting informed by him anyway. You're getting lied to so it's not information. Yeah. Yeah. Passionistas: No, for me, it's not about informed about what he, he is saying or doing. It's more like we watch at least an hour of Fox news every day. Oh God. Oh yeah. Because it's really interesting to hear how the other side is getting brainwashed. I don't know what the talking points are and what's avoided. So it's, it actually is really interesting in the context of this, like talking to people and texting people or having conversations with people that I know that might be on the fence. It's like, I, I understand like if you, if you buy into that at all, like Fox is brilliant at making it seem real and logical, you know? Um, so you know, it, sometimes it makes you think like, wow, am I is brainwashed by the other side as these people are that this side has it, it makes sense if you're crazy, if this medic Nazi, this makes sense. You know? Um, so it's just interesting. I can only do it in short skirts, but we do watch a bit every day. Um, and, uh, and you see you, it just gives you, I mean, all you see is Portland burning the block of Portland that's burdened, which makes it seem like if you buy into that agenda, it makes it seem like the country's role, unless you stop and say, it keeps showing me the same law of Portlands over and over. Or we'll say like April 21st, 2020. It's like, though that didn't happen yesterday. It it's just interesting from, from that perspective to, um, to kind of just keep an eye on what's what the dialogue is. Um, but then it gets like insanely frustrating and I either have to leave or I get angry. So I do it in little, little spurts. Yeah. Jessica: You're way more emotionally resilient than me. I couldn't do it. Yeah. I can't do it. I can't do it. I don't know. Maybe I'm just more of a masochist, but I think we should end this the way we started, which is, I agree. I am hopeful that there are enough, strong-willed good people out there that are going to vote the right way and convince as many people as possible to do it. And all we can do is, do, do as much as get up every day before the time we have, you know? Um, so you know, we thank you because you really have, um, we've learned so much from you and you really do inspire us. And, and now what, you can get a God willing more than you've been to try and get some other people to join us. Yes. I think flip the West even has the training tonight. They have, I think every Tuesday and Thursday, twice a day. So yeah. Check them out, go check them out, come, come join me at one of mine. They're short and easy. And uh, yeah, it's like, one of those come on in the water is fine situation, but of activism one-on-ones coming up this week. So if anyone wants to come and do a one hour free workshop, that'll give you other ways you can help, uh, you know, email me and I'll send you the schedule. I've got one in about an hour. Actually. I've got one at five o'clock tonight. Passionistas: Yeah. Cool. So the same, the same email address as before. And they can reach out to you and then be, yeah. Jessica: And I'll send them the Zoom registration. Like I've got one at 5:00 PM tonight, Pacific time. And then, you know, one on Saturday, one on Sunday, a couple of next week. So yeah. Passionistas: And we have, like we said, we have done Jessica's workshop as part of our summit. And it's amazing. There's so many different things you can do that are in your comfort zone. If you are afraid to do one thing or another, we get it. Jessica: You know, we're not trying to pressure anybody into doing anything they don't want. There are enough things you can do. I just said, even if it's, it makes a difference of 1%, that's huge. So do what you feel comfortable doing and get used to it. You know, I think I feel ready to do phone banking because I feel so comfortable with all the other stuff right now that it's like, Oh, why not give it a shot? So start by doing what you can. Passionistas: And there's also, I want to say there are, um, Nancy what's at organization. You sent me today that to do, I know it can be expensive to do letters and postcards. If you got to buy the postcards goodbye to stamps, you know, it's not always easy for people, but we'll post a link in the chat of an organization that you can, even, if you can't afford the postcards, they'll send you postcards and stamps Jessica: Is that Sunrise, it's gotta be at Sunrise. Passionistas: You posted about it today. Jess, I did. I posted about it. I got the information from you. Jessica: Yeah. It's pay what you can. So if you can afford to pay for it. Great. And if you can't, they will literally send you all, everything you need for free, which is great. Yeah. That's really good. And they're beautiful postcards. Passionistas: They're beautiful postcards. And the other thing about them is that they're, um, they're, they are trying to mobilize younger people too, which is great. Jessica: The young voters. Yeah. Which is great. Sunrise is a fantastic organization. I can't say enough good things about them. I am a member of, but I'm really too old. So I'm like, I'm like a sunrise grandmother, but a great organization for young people. Passionistas: Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so we will post that link as well. So if, if you can't afford it, you can afford it. That's all. Um, yep. So, well, this has been amazing. Thank you ladies. Six weeks away, everybody. So 39. Yes. Follow chop wood, carry water on social media as well. And stay on top of what justice is doing because there might come a day where you think you don't have time and you find you do and see what Jess is doing. Because the other thing I'd have to say is what's great about dress is she sends out a daily email blast election aside. There's a daily email blast that goes out and it gives you action items that you can do on a daily basis. Like these are the things you should do today. Call this person, emailed this person, you know, the representatives. And this is what you have to say. This is what you should write in your email. It makes it so easy. And in five minutes you can make a difference and you can do it every day. And it's an amazing, amazing resource. Thank you. Just trying to stay safe. Jessica: Hope is an action. Woo. Passionistas: All right, well thanks. Have a great day. See you next five. Next time. Bye.

My guest today is Jessica Ivins. Jessica is a user experience designer. She's also faculty member at Center Centre, the UX design school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she prepares students to be industry-ready UX designers. She wears many hats in this role, and in this episode we talk about how she keeps track of it all. Listen to the full conversation https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/episode-9-jessica-ivins.mp3   Show notes Center Centre David Allen's Getting Things Done Marc Andreessen's guide to personal productivity Google Docs Timeboxing Parkinson's Law Slack Re-work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson OmniFocus The Pomodoro technique JessicaIvins.net Jessica on Medium Jessica on Twitter Read the full transcript Jorge: Jessica, welcome to the show. Jessica: Hi Jorge, welcome. Thank you for having me. Jorge: So tell me about yourself. What do you do? Jessica: So I am a faculty member at Center Centre. And Center Centre is the UX design school here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And we provide a full-time program that's two years long that prepares our students to be industry-ready UX designers, where when they graduate they can join a team and get ready to work from day one. And my role here is a faculty member is, I do everything from manage the students and manage projects to coach the students and basically support them throughout their two-year learning journey. Jorge: Center Centre is still a relatively new program, right? Jessica: Yes. Jorge: Probably means that you have a lot on your plate. Jessica: Yes. We're a very small team, so we wear a lot of hats and we've graduated one class of students so far, which is really exciting and we are gearing up for the next class to start sometime this year. Jorge: What role does information playing all this? Jessica: Oh jeez, so I juggle a lot of information and a lot of to-dos on a daily basis. As I mentioned before, we're a small team. So we wear a lot of hats. So I do everything from emptying the dishwasher, to writing curriculum, to reporting anything any issue with the facilities that needs to be repaired… Lots and lots of work with the students, obviously: working with them one-on-one working with them in the group setting. So it's really a lot of juggling and a lot of time management and priority management. Jorge: Well, you must have a lot of things going on simultaneously and I'm wondering how you keep track of it all. Jessica: Yeah, that's a great question. So it's been a long journey for me because my goal was to be able to juggle all the things I need to juggle and do all the things I need to do without burning out and without working long hours. So one of my goals in 2018 was to get better at managing my to-do's. And I set that as a professional goal. At Center Centre every year we set professional goals with students and with staff too. So my boss and I set professional goals for me and I met my goal in 2018, which is really awesome. I got really good at managing my to-do's. And the two big things that I was able to figure out in order to manage everything on my list was number one, identifying my priorities — whether it's my priorities for the day or my priorities for the week — and number two, using really short manageable to-do lists instead of really long lists. And those two things have really helped me be more productive, really helped me maintain low stress levels and get the work done that I need to get done. Jorge: I know different folks have different ways of doing that — managing priorities and keeping their to-do lists — and I'm wondering if you could share with us how you're doing it. Jessica: Sure. So like I said, it's been a long journey. One of the things I appreciate about myself is that I'm very detail-oriented by nature. So I have the type of brain that kind of holds onto details and that can be a really good thing. But what I've learned over the years is that you can't really rely on your brain to remember all the things you need to do. Even if you're a detail-oriented person by nature like me. When I was first learning to get better at managing my to-dos, one of the first resources I consulted was Getting Things Done by David Allen, which you might be familiar with. It's a pretty well-known book and it's a great system for managing all the things on your plate. It's a fantastic system. It's a very rigid system, but the beauty of the system is that you don't have to follow it to the T. David Allen, the gentleman who invented it even says a lot of people read his book and they pull out elements of the system that really work for them and it does bring them big benefits. Some of the big things that I took away from that book that I started applying were getting things out of my head and onto paper or in some sort of trusted system rather than trying to remember everything that I had to do, which was huge because he talks in the book about how even if your detail oriented your brain is not good at storing all the things that you need to do. It's a lot of cognitive load, and you're just putting a task on your mind that your mind isn't good at. So you're constantly preoccupied with what you need to do next and make sure you don't forget this, whereas if you write it down and put it in some sort of trusted system — whether that's a paper system or a system like Basecamp — it's a much better use of your time because you're basically putting everything into a system that you can refer to, and freeing up your mind space in order to focus on things like reading, writing, work — whatever you need to do. So that was a huge thing that I got from him. And a few other techniques that I picked up from Getting Things Done were doing a weekly review. So every week you take stock of what you need to do, the to-dos that you wrote down and put in your system, and make sure they're organized and ready for the next week. So those tasks and those techniques were really helpful for me. They really helped me get a long way, but they didn't get me to where I needed to be. And hence in 2018, even though I was using the Getting Things Done method. I still was really struggling to get everything done and work a sane amount of hours each week. And that's when I did some more research after I set my goal in 2018, and that's when I learned to use shorter to-do lists and to really get good at identifying my priorities so that I was working on things that were a priority and not working on things that were low priority and things that can wait. Jorge: I read David Allen's book a while back. Pretty much in the same spirit that you're evoking here, this idea of, “Oh my gosh, I need to get better at this stuff!” And I was drawn to this one. And I remember a phrase in that book, he said that you want to have “mind like water,” where he meant still water. And there is the philosophy of getting things out of your head and writing them down, and then there is the practice of doing that with tools. And I'm wondering what tools you're using to capture your to-do lists. Jessica: Sure. So I use a mix of tools. I use paper a lot, believe it or not. I still take all my notes in a notebook as I find that at the end of the day I'm better able to focus on what I'm hearing. And it's just easier to retain information if I take handwritten notes. So a lot of times if I have an action item, or a to-do, I will write it down in my notebook and I'll put a little star next to it. Or sometimes just depending on the nature of where I'm at and whether or not I have my notebook right next to me, I will put it into a Google Doc on my laptop. And between those two things, I can basically refer to either one of those to see what it is I need to do and what it is I need to capture in my actual formal lists. And my formal lists, if you will, are more in Basecamp. So I have a weekly to-do list in Basecamp, and then I have other lists where I capture things that probably need to get done at some point, but they don't need to get done this week. So I have various other lists and projects and stuff that I post things in. So that's how I keep track of things. And the weekly review that I mentioned earlier is really critical because that weekly review allows me to stop each week and make sure that I'm looking through my paper notebook and the Google Doc on my computer and capturing any to-dos I need to capture and put into my weekly list or my other lists. Jorge: One of the things that David Allen talks about in the Getting Things Done book Is this idea of inboxes, right? And we have email inboxes, we have physical inboxes. Basically, the world is sending us things that that it needs us to pay attention to, right? Jessica: Yeah. Jorge: How do those figure in your workstream? Jessica: Yeah, so email is still something I'm figuring out how to wrangle. I've gotten pretty good at it. One of the techniques that I use is I only check email a few times a day. So I dedicate time for checking email, whether it's 10 minutes or 30 minutes, throughout the day I dedicate various chunks of time to it. And sometimes I even set a timer and I say okay email is just something I do. It's something I do several times a day. And for this amount of time, I'm going to focus on email. So I respond to all the emails I need to respond to sometimes I see an email and I say okay, there's something I need to take care of so I might make a little note in my notebook, and then when the timer goes off or when I have to get up and go to a meeting that I close email and I go back to it later in the day and I find that that's really crucial for focus, because I turned off on my email notifications because if I had them on they be going off all day and distracting me from the work I'm trying to-do whether I'm working on curriculum or in a meeting and I just found that all the notifications were just… It's just not worth having them on because they're more of a distraction than they are a help. So that's been really critical for me. Now, I also work in a culture that… Some cultures put a lot of pressure on you where you need to have your email open all the time and you need to be responding to emails within five or ten minutes. And thankfully that's not our culture. We don't use email that way. So that's been a huge asset for me, and turning off all those notifications has just really allowed me to have deep focus on my work. Jorge: I recently found a blog post that Marc Andreessen wrote about 10 years ago, where he talks about his personal productivity philosophy and one of the pieces of advice he gives is precisely what you've described, which is do your email or inbox processing a couple of times a day, and just set set it aside as a thing you do. And email as an asynchronous communication medium, email doesn't carry the same sort of immediate expectations that something like text messaging does, for example. Given that you work at an educational institution, I'm assuming that you have different volumes of inputs to your inboxes throughout the year. Like I can imagine that there's a period for example, when students are applying or it's the start of the semester or whatever. Do your processes vary at all throughout the year as you deal with changing patterns in your work? Jessica: Yes, that's a great question. So when students are enrolled, I have way more on my plate than when they're not enrolled. Obviously. I have plenty of things to work on when they're not here because we're a small business, but when they're enrolled one of the things I find myself doing a lot as reviewing evidence for student work. So students are constantly submitting evidence for me to review whether it's evidence of a usability test that they conducted or evidence of a meeting that they ran, and I need to review that evidence and basically grade them and get back to them in a timely manner with their with their assessments. So, again my goal for 2018 and my goal in general is to be able to get my work done during business hours and not have to work long hours and not have to stress out about when I'm going to get things done. So one of the techniques that I found for getting through reviewing all the student. It was time boxing myself and it's a technique that my boss Lesley Jensen Inman helped me apply. It's basically a technique where you say, okay, I need to review student evidence, and I only have 20 minutes. I wish I had 45 minutes or an hour to do this. But all I have right now is 20 minutes. So I'm going to set a timer for 20 minutes and I'm going to intensely focus on getting as much done that I can in 20 minutes and it's amazing how timeboxing yourself and setting a timer… Once that you know that timer is running, you really focus on that task and it helps you get work done faster. And not only does it help you get work done faster, but it helps you gauge after a while if you do this over and over again how much time it actually takes you to do the work because your timing yourself. And then you can more accurately plan your day later on once you get a sense of, okay, I have all this student evidence to review, I've been timing myself for two weeks, I think I'm pretty sure I can get this all this done in an hour. So I just need to find three 20 minute chunks today to get this done. And I found that that's been really really helpful for me. It just really puts into perspective how I'm using my time and how quickly I can get things done. And by timeboxing, I just want to say you're not rushing yourself, like you're not cutting corners and you're not sacrificing everything to beat the clock, right? It's just a way of helping you be very present and very focused on what you're doing and helping you be aware of how much time you're spending so that you can use your time more effectively in the future. Jorge: That's a really important insight. And it's one of those things where It sounds commonsensical but it's but it's rare enough that it actually has a name. Kind of like Murphy's Law is a thing, right? Jessica: Yeah. Jorge: This one is called Parkinson's Law. Jessica: Mmm, right. Jorge: The idea that work expands to fill the time available. Jessica: Exactly, exactly. Jorge: The thing for me when I timebox — and I guess this is a skill —- but when I timebox things, its a forcing factor that kind of forces me to focus on the things that really matter about the thing, discard the details. So it's a very important insight. Jessica: Yeah, I agree. When you know that timer's running, you're really going to focus on the things you need to do and you're going to make sure that you're minimizing distraction. It's just a fantastic tool and it helps you really build the habit of focus and using your time effectively. I mean it saved me from work having to work a lot of late nights and weekends. It's a fantastic technique. Jorge: One of the things that I always have that I always find challenging in managing my own personal commitments Is whenever I have to deal with other people. And you've described a few tools that you use. You talked about your paper notebook, you talked about a Google Doc and Basecamp and my sense from hearing you describe that ecosystem is that you are kind of managing your own tasks there. I'm wondering about other people. For example, Basecamp is a tool meant for project management where you are somehow sharing with others. Are you keeping track of your own tasks there? Are there team-level tasks? How do you keep track of commitments that others have made to you as opposed to you have made to others? Jessica: Yeah, so another good question. So we use Basecamp for both. I use Basecamp to track my own to-dos and I also use Basecamp to assign to-dos to my colleagues and even my students. And what one of the things I try to do is, I try to use the tools around me in a way that work for my colleagues. So not everybody has the detail-oriented mind that I do, or not everybody works the same way I do. And because we're small and I've been working here for almost 5 years, I have a sense of what works well for my co-workers. So for example, my coworker Thomas, I will assign him a to-do in Basecamp and he'll get an email notification, but I'll also send him a notice on Slack. And I'll say, “Hey Thomas, I signed you this to-do on Basecamp, please review it by this date and see the to-do for details.” And that Slack message really helps him because he… I guess some people are really good at wrangling their inbox, other people really struggle with it. And I think that's really typical. You know, I'm a detail-oriented person, no everybody is. So I've talked with him and he said, “Yeah, you know, if you put it in Basecamp, great. But please also send me a Slack message because that'll help me keep on top of it.” So we do use our tools for team communication and team task assignment. But we also try to meet people where they're at as much as we can. So I try not to force my method on other people. Again, just because I'm detail-oriented and I'm really good at wrangling my email inbox doesn't mean that everybody else is. So I try to adjust my methods to meet people where they're at, and therefore it just makes everybody on the team more effective. Jorge: You said that one of the big changes that you made in 2018 was that you started dealing with shorter, more manageable to-do lists. To me that implies that there's stuff that you're kind of cutting out, right? So you're not you're not taking everything on. Are you keeping track of those in any way? I know that David Allen talks about this someday/ maybe list as a place where you place these things that are not urgent or immediate. Are you implementing anything like that? Jessica: Yeah. I do have a someday/ maybe list. I have a couple of them., actually. They're kind of sorted into themes. I love the someday/maybe less because it's a list where you can track the things that you're probably going to do some day, but you may not get to and that's okay. I just I think it's so psychologically freeing that it's called a someday/maybe list. And I even I use a similar system for my personal life and I have a lot of someday/ maybe lists and my personal life. Like, you know things that I'd like to do but I may not get to and that's okay. So the someday/maybe list is a tool I use. I also decided at some point that… Through my research I started reading about how long to-do lists are really demoralizing and I remember reading it in Jason Fried's book Re-work — if your audience doesn't read that it's a popular business book that's been around for about 10 years — and he had a small section in the book where he talks about long do long to-do list being really demoralizing and he said, “When's the last time you crossed everything off of a really long to-do list?” He said, “Stop using really long lists because they're not helpful.” That was a lightbulb moment for me because I realized that while the long list has everything captured that you need to do, it is kind of demoralizing because when are you ever going to.check off everything on a list of 25 items? You know, maybe eventually, but you're not going to feel very productive or very accomplished in the meantime. So what I do is either the night before or the morning of my work day, I sit down and identify one to five priorities that I need to get done for that day. And I mentioned earlier that I use a Google Doc. So I list those one to five things in my Google Doc and as I go throughout the day and I complete those things I move those Items from the to-do list of the Google Doc to the completed list of the Google Doc. So it's almost like crossing things off. Instead of crossing things off, I'm moving it from the to-do section to the done section. And by the end of the day most of the time I get through all of my to-dos is sometimes I only get to like four out of five, but at least four out of five is better than four out of 30, you know, so if you have a really long list and you've gotten done five things, but there are still 25 things on the list. It's just it's not very… You just don't feel really good. You could say that it's like a psychological trick, but if it's a psychological trick that makes me feel accomplished and makes me feel good about my work day, I'm happy to use it. Jorge: Yeah, I can totally relate to that psychological trick. The system that I use to track my own to-dos is a tool called OmniFocus, which is designed from the ground up to-do GTD, to-do the Getting Things Done methodology. And one of the things that I like about that… First of all, I'll have to say for the benefit of folks who don't know, it's a pretty complex tool that requires a bit of onboarding and it helps if you've read David Allen's book before getting into it. But one of the reasons I like it is that it allows me to filter down my to-dos in the way that you're describing so that I can focus my list. And by focus, I mean narrow it down to four or five items based on different criteria. So, for example, I can tag my to-dos by context. So some to-dos I can't do when I'm not in front of a computer. Jessica: Okay. Jorge: So why look at things that I can't do at the moment? So this allows me to filter those down. And it's exactly the sort of hack that you're talking about, which is it's kind of overwhelming to look at a list of 25 things. But if I can whittle it down to five or six, then it becomes much more doable. Jessica: Yeah. Yeah, what I love about that is that you are finding a combination of tools and techniques that work for you, and a lot of the principles that we're talking about — that you and I use — overlap, right? Which I think is really awesome. And that's something that we encouraged our students to do. So when we had students we put a lot of time and energy into soft skills and interpersonal skills and not just the hard technical skills of design. So we focused a lot with them on, for example, how to run a meeting, how to send an email that gets a response, when to have a meeting, when not to have a meeting, how to work through a professional conflict — all sorts of things including how to manage your time and how to identify your priorities. So our philosophy is that we didn't push our system on our students. We didn't say, “Okay, in order to manage your time, students, you have to do what I, Jessica, do. And here's what I do, and start doing this.” Because it's just not very effective for lots of reasons, but we wanted them to get very good at managing their time. Because managing your time and your priorities is… I see it as a life skill. It's something that you can use outside of work for your personal items. It's something that will certainly benefit you at work. So we would take a lot of time. We had a lot of reflections here at Center Centre, which is like a time where we pause and reflect on the work that we do. And we would take a good chunk of reflection time to sit back and talk about what are some tools and techniques that you've been using lately to manage your time? And there was an exercise I used to love running with the students where I'd set a timer and I'd give them three minutes to draw, illustrate in some way the technique they're using, and they could draw whatever they wanted. They could sketch whatever they wanted. They could even just write it down on a whiteboard if they wanted to. So they'd all get in front of a whiteboard and sketch a time-management or priority-management technique that they've been using. And then they'd go around and talk about the techniques that they've been using, how well they're working or maybe how well they're not working yet. And then we'd open it up for discussion and we'd say, “Okay, so based on what other people have shared, what are some ideas that you have for maybe new techniques that you could try. Or maybe people are sharing ideas that you're already using that you find to be really effective.” And that opened up a lot of great discussions. We talked about all sorts of things like timeboxing, like I talked about earlier. Calendar management: how to use your calendar effectively, how to block off time on your calendar. Even techniques like the Pomodoro Technique which one of my students really enjoyed using. Now, that's a technique that I found just doesn't work well for me. Some people love it. If you're not familiar with it, the Pomodoro Technique means that you work intensely for 20 minutes and you focus on whatever you're doing for 20 minutes and then you take a five-minute break and then you work intensely for 20 minutes again, and then you take a five-minute break and that's how you get through your day. One of my students love that technique and it helped him get a lot done. Again, it doesn't work very well for me. But that's what I love about our program is that we encourage our students to find their own methods, just like you were telling me about your method, how it's not the same method that I use and it may not work for me, but it's very similar and you've basically found what works for you. So we encourage that among our students as well. Jorge: Yeah, that's great. It's teaching the first principles and then allowing the students to discover their own way to applying them, right? Jessica: Exactly, exactly. And you know, we encourage them to experiment with all different types of methods and tools. And you know, some people really loved timeboxing some people got really really stressed out by it and were like, “I can't handle this! I gotta try something else.” And that's okay. You know, it's just all about finding what works for you. It's basically like there are lots of ways to get to your destination. It's just, do you want to take the scenic route or do you want to take the highway? It's just it's really up to you. Jorge: On that subject of your students, I wanted to ask what are you working on now? I'd like our audience to know so that they can follow up with you. Jessica: Sure. So right now we are in between cohorts and we are accepting applications for our next cohort. So if your listeners are interested, you are all welcome to get in touch with me or check us out. You can visit us at centercentre.com. You can also find me… You can just Google me, Jessica Ivins. I publish a lot of user experience related articles on Medium. Lately, I've been writing a lot about how to design your UX career. That's been on my mind and obviously, it's a lot of what I do with students is preparing them for their career. So if you'd like to keep up with me, please feel free to check out my Medium articles. You can also follow me on Twitter. I'm very active on Twitter and every week I review UX resources, whether it's a book I'm reading or some articles and reading, and I take the best of what I find and I craft quotes and takeaways from those resources and I share them on Twitter. So I do have a decent following on Twitter of folks who… I've gotten a lot of feedback, great feedback, from folks that they find what I share to be very valuable and educational for them. So I'm a big nerd about UX, I'm always sharing the things that I find useful and sharing content and creating my own content that I find useful. So, please feel free to follow me whatever way you'd like. Jorge: Fantastic Jessica. I'm going to make sure to include all of those things in our show notes. Thank you so much for your time. This has been really great. Jessica: Thank you Jorge for having me, I'm really glad I was able to be a guest.

Order Your Copy Of Marriage After God Today! https://Shop.marriageaftergod.com Quote From Marriage After God Book “You and your marriage are no accident! He created both you and your spouse intentionally, with a specific purpose in mind!” Prayer *Dear Lord, Thank you for the gift of marriage. Thank you for pouring your thoughtfulness into the way you designed marriage. Thank you for giving us a toolbelt that is unique, so that we can pursue and do all of the things you have for us to do. Please help us to understand everything that is in our toolbelt and show us how we can use it for your glory. We pray we would keep nothing back from you. We pray we would walk humbly with you and with each other. Use us to encourage one another in marriage and affirm the gifts we see in each other. We pray that we would see all of the little and big ways you are inviting us to join you to spread your gospel of love, salvation, and amazing grace. May the testimony of Jesus be the motivation in our hearts to do what we do, all for your glory! In Jesus’ name, amen!* READ TRANSCRIPT [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're on part 10 of the Marriage After God series, and we're gonna be talking with Channing and Jessica Gillespie about the tool belt God has given us. [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. We just wanted to take a moment to ask everyone listening to leave a review. This is just a great way to get the message of this podcast out into the world. So, if you could support us in that way, that would be so awesome. It's so easy. All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom and leave a star rating review or comment review. Both really encourage Aaron and I, so thank you to everyone who's already done that. [Aaron] Also, we'd like to invite everyone to pick up a copy of the Marriage After God book. It's our new book Jennifer and I wrote together, and it's the reason we're doing this series. It's the reason this podcast exists, so we'd love for you to get a copy of our new book, Marriage After God. Go to shop.marriageaftergod.com and grab a copy. Thank you everyone for listening. Today we have some Instagram friends of ours, Channing and Jessica Gillespie. Hey, welcome to the show, guys. [Channing] Hey, Aaron, Jen. How you guys doing? [Aaron] We're doing well. [Jennifer] So good. Thank you for being here with us today. We're so excited to have you guys, and we just want you to take a moment and let the listeners know who you are. So maybe how long you guys have been married, how many children you have, and what you do for work. [Channing] Awesome, yeah. Well, my name is Channing Gillespie. This is my wife Jessica. [Jessica] Hi. [Channing] We've been married two years, got married in 2016, October, and we're loving marriage. [Aaron] That's good, right? [Channing] We are high school sweethearts. [Jennifer] Aw. [Channing] So we've been together a long time. We just had four first baby. [Jennifer] Woohoo! [Jessica] She's so cute, she's the best. [Aaron] What's her name? [Channing] Her name is Hadley Kate. We had her in August of this year, so she is five months, and she is the only grandbaby right now and the only niece, and so she is spoiled rotten. But we've enjoyed these past five months as mom and dad. It's a new. [Jessica] It's interesting. [Channing] It's interesting, that's a good word. [Aaron] Yeah, learning to be married and learning to be parents at the same time. [Jessica] Yeah, for real. [Channing] Yes. But yeah, we love it. I am actually on staff at the Church at Grace Park in White House, Tennessee. It's a little bit north of Nashville. I serve as the college pastor there. That's relatively new. We started that ministry back in June of last year, and been going strong with that, and I serve on the worship team at the church also, and I'm a songwriter and am seeking to write songs that point to hope amidst sorrow. That's really where I feel like the Lord's leading me to write songs right now. And so, just kind of seeking after the Lord and looking for new opportunities to do those things, both in ministry and in songwriting ministry and in worship. So that's a little bit about me. Jessica, you wanna go? [Jessica] Yeah, I am a wife and a mom. I got to come home full-time and be with Haddie Kate when she was born in August. [Aaron] Awesome. [Jessica] So I'm really blessed to be able to do that and excited that the Lord provided that, a way for that to happen for me. But I also, I like to create and I love to write. So I started a blog that's called The Good Cottage Wife in 2016, the year we got married. Started that, and so I have that going, and also, I am a consultant with Rodan + Fields. So I help people change their skin and change their lives, and I love it. I wear a few different hats throughout the week, but I love each one, and I love getting to use those in creative ways. [Aaron] Awesome. [Jennifer] That's beautiful. [Aaron] Yeah, I love the diversity in you guys' career paths and also how God's using you. And that's what we wanna talk about today, getting into this idea, but before we get to our main questions, we always start off question an icebreaker question. Are you guys ready for that? [Channing and Jessica] Yes. [Aaron] Okay, all right, here it goes, all right? This is gonna let people know a lot about you guys. What is the most awkward thing you've experienced as parents so far? [Channing] I don't know. We were talking about that this morning a little bit too, of what's some crazy things. I don't know if there's been anything awkward per se yet, but I think you get initiated into parenthood when you get peed on a couple times, so. [Aaron] There you go, yeah. [Channing] I've had that happen too many times. [Aaron] Yeah, I think it's a requirement. [Jessica] I did have, we were at church one Sunday and I was holding her. She wasn't very old, not that she's very old now, but I was holding her, and my hand started getting wet, and I'm like, aw, man, she's peeing on me, and I go to lift her up, and she had pooped on me. [Aaron] Oh, no, right in the middle of church. [Jessica] And it was on my shirt a little bit. I'm trying to wash it off and stuff, and I had brought a change of clothes, but it was in the car instead of her diaper bag. [Aaron] Oh, no. [Jessica] And so, everybody was like, yeah, that'll be the last time you do that. [Aaron] Yeah, poop's infinitely worse than pee. [Jennifer] I was thinking of this question for you guys, and I was thinking about our own experiences, 'cause we have a couple kids. [Aaron] We have four. [Jennifer] Yeah, we have four. [Aaron] We have two couple kids. [Jennifer] But the first thing that comes to my mind was my kind of initiation to motherhood, and that was Elliott was born in November, and I remember it was Christmas Day, and we had stopped at a gas station, and I took him out to nurse him, and somehow, he managed to move beyond all of his clothes and only poop all over me. And I'm like, oh, no, Aaron, we have to stop at Target or something, 'cause we're on our way to my grandparents house. [Aaron] Oh, we had no clothes. [Jennifer] Nobody said you're supposed to have an extra change of clothes. And so everything was closed. I mean, everything was closed, 'cause it's Christmas Day. I ended up having to stop at a relative's house, a cousin that I had that was my same size and I asked her if I could borrow a pair of pants. [Aaron] Oh, I remember this. [Jennifer] Luckily it worked just fine. [Aaron] So pro parent tip, bring a change of clothes for yourselves. [Jennifer] For everyone. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] If someone is in the car with you, if you're traveling, just bring an extra change for everyone. [Channing] Love it. [Aaron] Yeah, a baby go bag, extra pants, shirts, underwear, socks. [Jennifer] Okay, all right, we're gonna move on. [Aaron] All right. [Jennifer] Okay, so we're gonna jump in with a quote. Okay, we're gonna jump in with a quote from Marriage After God, from chapter 10, and it says, "You and your marriage are no accident. "He created both you and your spouse intentionally "with a specific purpose in mind," which, I love this quote, "and it's for every marriage and for everyone." [Aaron] Yeah, the reason we wrote this book is because God's got a mission for all of his people, that we're all a part of his body, that his body's doing something in this world. So our encouragement is just to marriages to recognize that their marriage wasn't an accident, that God's got a plan for it, and he desires us to say yes to him and to offer up our tools and gifts and talents. And so today, we're gonna talk about tools and what that looks like in your life, but also, that everyone listening can ask themselves the same questions, that they can use this conversation we're having today with you guys as a launching pad or as a conversation starter for themselves to be like, oh, what has God given us, and how can we use what God's given us to serve him, to say yes to him? So I hope you're excited about that. [Jessica] Yes. [Aaron] Cool, so the first question we got for you guys is do you believe God brought you two together with a specific purpose in mind? [Channing] Yeah, absolutely. For me specifically, I know even in my pursuit of Jessica, if that doesn't sound creepy. That's not supposed to sound that way. But in seeking the Lord with her, I had always prayed for one girl. Jessica's the only girl that I ever dated, and knowing that just in the back of my mind, I can hear my great-grandmother always saying to me, don't you ever bring a girl into my house that you don't intend on marrying. [Aaron] That's awesome. [Channing] And I really was drawn to that. I really asked the Lord, would you just send me one? And he sent me the best one. [Aaron] Found a good man, Jessica. [Channing] And with that, you know, even when we started dating in high school, I didn't really see the extent of the things that the Lord was gonna do with us. I'm reminded of Psalm 139, that he knew us individually before we were ever thought of, and that while he was knitting us together in the womb, that he had a plan and a purpose, individually, but also together. And we're just seeing even the beginning steps of that in the first two years of marriage. But we know that his plans and his purposes, though, we don't always see them in full, yet we know that they're good and that they're for our good. And so, just being able to walk in the truth that the Lord did bring me a good thing in my wife and knowing that together, whatever that is, whether that's just being a mom and dad to Hadley or if that's college pastors, in this season, we know that he has a purpose for us. [Aaron] Love that. [Channing] You have anything that you can think of? [Jessica] Yeah, I think it's cool that a lot of times, you don't see things for yourself or you don't see things in yourself, and then all of the sudden, God has you in the middle of something, and you're like, never ever did I ever think that this is what it would look like, but it's much better than what you could have conjured up on your own. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jessica] Just an example of that is when we were dating, which, he'll probably go into this deeper a little later, but when we were dating, and we had been dating a while, but he came to me and he was like, I really feel like I'm called to the ministry vocationally, at least right now. I don't know what that looks like. But he said I don't know, I just wanna let you know. I don't know if that changes anything for you. [Aaron] Warning. [Jessica] And not that it was a bad thing or anything, but I was not expecting that. Never did I think, oh, yes, I'm gonna be a minister's wife, and my husband's gonna be on church staff and all that. I just had never thought that. And so when he said that, I was like, oh, my. I'm gonna have to think about this, not that I wouldn't want him to pursue what God wanted for him. But quickly God shut my mouth and cut off my mind of thoughts and fears that came up, just worries of what financially and all the things like that. But he said, don't stifle what I'm trying to do and what I can do through him and through you with him even though it's not something that you ever thought would be a part of your testimony and part of your life. So I think it's cool that, and I know that he did bring us together for such a time as this, for college ministry, for his music, for me to get to be a stay-at-home mom. All of that is part of his plan, and even though it wasn't something and we didn't get to this point that we're at right now the way that I in my feeble mind thought we would, it's been much more filled with joy and fulfilling than I ever thought it could be, and it's because it was God's plan and not ours. [Jennifer] Man, I love the hopefulness that you guys are both sharing. Both of your perspectives are so full of hope, and I just hope that the people listening are encouraged by this, because what I'm hearing is it doesn't matter how long you've been married. It doesn't matter whether you've envisioned your life the way that it is or the way that it will be. We can all have hope in that and trust in what God is doing in our marriages, and I love that. [Aaron] And I also love that you essentially said, you're like, I had a different idea or I didn't know what my idea would be, but I yielded to God's idea instead, and I think that's the key in this pursuit of okay, Lord, what do you want for our marriage, what do you have for it, what have you given these things to us for, is a yielding, is saying yes. Okay, Lord, yes. It doesn't look like how I think, it's not going how I would have manufactured this to go, but we want what you want, and that's what I hear from you guys, and that's awesome. [Jennifer] So in Marriage After God, we talk about this idea of the marriage tool belt, and without giving away too much, because we want everyone to go read it, what do you guys think a marriage tool belt is, and what do you think of when you hear that term and what do you think is in your tool belt? And you guys haven't read the book yet, so this'll be interesting. [Channing] Not yet, not yet. [Jessica] As far as what I think is in our tool belt, definitely some things that are in there are advice that we can draw on from people that have been married much longer than us. I know that I received a ton of advice just from my mom, my grandmother, from women at church who have been married when we were engaged, and it's kind of funny, because sometimes, when you receive advice, it's like, yeah, okay. Well, that might not really apply to us, or I don't see that happening with us. And then you're quickly silenced when you enter that situation. It's kind of like, you don't know what you're getting into until you're in it, not that it's a bad thing or anything. It's just one of those things that, when you get there, you do have to draw on that advice. You're like, oh, they were right. Yeah, that would really help in this situation. So I would say advice, and then also, one thing that I've had to really try to hone in on and remember to do is to learn from our own experiences. Don't make the same mistake twice if you can go back and say, okay, this happened before. What did I do? Okay, that was probably not the right thing to say. That was the wrong moment. How can I make this not happen again, or how can we work through this better, if that makes sense. [Aaron] Yeah, no, I love that. [Jessica] And I would say advice, drawing from your own experiences and learning from them, and then humility and communication, and I know people say communication, yeah, I know that. But willingness to communicate, willingness to converse when there is an issue and just personally, I've had to work on that I know, because I'm the one that, when there's an issue or someone gets upset about something, I don't wanna talk about it right then. Like, leave me alone. Let me process this in my own mind. I don't wanna talk. And that's not the best approach. And so, I have had to learn, like, put down your pride, say you're sorry, and be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. So that, as far as what's in my tool belt, those are some very specific things. [Channing] Yeah, and I would add too of just growing up, thinking about the times that I saw my dad put his tool belt on, which, I don't own a tool belt. I need to probably get one. [Aaron] You're a dad now and a husband. You're supposed to have a tool belt. [Channing] I am. I have tools; I don't have a belt for them. [Aaron] Yeah, I don't have one either, yeah. [Channing] But I thought back to the times that I saw my dad put his tool belt on. It was when he was building something or he was repairing something. And I see that so much in marriage also of what I think the tool belt can be is whether it's building something together in your marriage, whether that's a ministry or just building a family, or there are gonna be times that you have to put the tool belt on because you're gonna have to repair some things in your marriage, and you're gonna have to address things. I think about it much like a house. If you don't attend to certain things in the house, after a while, those things are gonna need attention. And so, there might be times in marriage that Jess and I would have to address an area that would be an issue, or that has caused there to be some problem, but with that tool belt, I agree with Jess on a lot of that being from advice, and we've both been blessed to have parents that have stuck together through thick and thin and have really given us a good model of what marriage should look like and to persevere and endure. There's a lot of endurance in marriage. But with that in our tool belt too, to look at past experience, maybe even things that we've gleaned from our parents' marriages, things that we've learned from them over the years that help shape us in how we relate to one another, how we raise Hadley. I think there's a lot of things that can go into that belt. But those main things, I'm just really reminded of the building and the repairing idea. [Aaron] Yeah, it's almost like you guys have read that book already, and you haven't. The rebuilding and the repairing, those analogies are some of the reasons we bring up this idea of a tool belt, is because the tools are meant for something. They're meant for building and repairing. And the tools that God has given us, and you guys actually mentioned some of them. You mentioned relationships; you said advice. Relationships are part of that tool belt. You talked about your past and your experiences and all of these things that God has given us, and sometimes, we don't recognize them as tools to be used or things that God's given us as gifts in our life, the things that have happened to us in the past, education that we've received and our relationships. These are all things that God's given us that he wants us to use and steward and call on and employ in our life for not only our family's sake, but also for the family of God. So I love that you use those analogies. We were just looking at each other shaking our heads like yeah, this is good. [Jessica] That's awesome. [Aaron] Yeah, and that's our encouragement to those listening, is then recognizing that they may not be able to relate to everything in your story, but what is relatable is that everyone has a tool belt. All the things that you guys just mentioned, the people listening may not have a family like yours that raised you with certain things, but they do have a family, and they were raised a certain way. And whether positive or negative, those are still tools that can be drawn upon, and that leads us into this next question. One of the tools in the tool belt that we discuss in our book is our testimony. And so, that's why I go to this idea of, whether it's negative or positive, all of that plays into the testimony that God's given us of what Jesus has done in our life. And so I wanna ask you guys, you know, what is your testimony? What has Jesus done in your life? How has God drawn you to himself? Let's just talk about that tool for a moment. [Channing] Yeah well, I'll start. I grew up, my dad has been a pastor for pretty much my entire life, so I grew up in a ministry-style home. And so, I have the typical church Sunday school answer in the sense that we were always in church, and mom and dad always had us. When the doors were open, we were there. But for me, I got saved at an early age. My dad actually led me to Christ, just began asking questions when I was young. From that point, I had a good understanding of Jesus died for me and he wants me to come live with him in heaven. That was the extent of my faith as a child. But as I grew up, you begin to understand the depth of the gospel in that as you get older, you start to recognize you've really screwed some things up, and your sin just gets wider and wider, and the gap gets wider and wider. But then you begin to really appreciate and come to know the depth of the love that God has for his people and that he sent Jesus. And so, for me, it really became real to me when I got into high school and where I really began to get serious about my faith that it was more of a relationship when I got into high school with him, and for me, part of my testimony involves a call to the ministry and a running away from that call for a long time. Didn't wanna do ministry, didn't want that life. I grew up in it. Didn't want to be a pastor, but thought I had my own idea of what my life was gonna look, and pursued things that I thought were gonna bring me joy and happiness, and I can remember that Jessica shared a little bit about that conversation with me and her, but before that, I can remember my mom just point blank looking at me and saying, when are you gonna stop running? And a couple days after that, I was at a mens conference at a church in our community, and I can remember just sitting among thousands of other men, and it was like the Lord, it was just me and him in that room. And he said, I want you to stop running. I wanna use you in the ministry. And I accepted that call that night, not begrudgingly, but it was finally a moment in my heart and my life that I saw the picture of what the Lord wanted for my life. Now, he didn't say here's how this is gonna look. It was just a call to his ministry. [Aaron] Yeah, he was looking for a yes. [Channing] So yeah, it was just, okay. And so for me, that's been a big, big part of even my relationship with the Lord in the sense of learning to trust him and learning to depend on him and to submit to him and surrender to him. And so that call came when I was in my early years of college, and as soon as I made that call, all the anxieties of what I was gonna do with my life just started to fade away because I knew that he had already orchestrated and ordained me for that moment and that call. So for me, it's still growing. I count it as a relationship. I'm seeking to know him through his word and through his church and through just study of him. So I've seen my relationship with Jesus grow, even in the past two years of marriage, too, with the rigors and the good times and the bad times through marriage too, of learning how to trust him through it all. So that's what I would say, what about you? [Jessica] Yeah, so I was saved at six years old at a VBS, and just something that everyone knew about me. I was very shy. I'm not an extrovert at all. I really have to make myself come out of my comfort zone, which I know we all have to, but there's probably not an ounce of extrovert in me, naturally. But so I was saved there, and actually, part of it was I had to, I didn't wanna go down by myself. There were plenty of kids going down, 'cause they asked if anybody wanted to come down and receive Jesus into their heart, and I wanted to, but I was too scared to go down by myself. And so I asked somebody to walk down with me. And that, I didn't realize it until later how symbolic that was gonna be in my testimony of who I was and who God created me to be and who he made me to be after I received him. But as far as an intimate relationship with him, I really didn't know what that looked like or what that meant. In sixth or seventh grade, I was at a retreat with our school, and I don't remember who spoke. I don't remember what they said. But I vividly remember being at the altar and thinking, okay, I don't want a hello God, goodbye God relationship with him. I want a deep relationship with him. I want my life to matter. And so that was the moment where I really became intentional about growing that relationship with him and nurturing it, but a big part of my testimony, like I said, was I was shy. I was not willing really to get out of my comfort zone, and then the Lord said to me, it's not about what you have to say or what you can do, but it's about what I'm gonna say through you and what I'm gonna do through you. And he kind of just said, and there's nothing else that I need to say to you. Like what you guys said, you just need to say yes. Just say yes to me, and just do what I ask you to do. It's scary, and sometimes, it's inconvenient. Actually, probably most of the time it's gonna be inconvenient, but you're not who you once were, so you don't need to look like that anymore, and you don't need to be scared. And like a lot of girls do, as I got older, I started struggling with self-esteem issues. I really started to try to hide the fact that I struggled with that, and in a sense, I didn't have an eating disorder, but I started to really abuse exercise in my life and then just didn't eat enough to compensate for that. So I guess you could say I had an eating disorder, but that really became a god in my life. I was riding my bike around the house one day trying to get all that exercise in and make myself feel worthy and feel beautiful, and I remember, it was almost like the Lord stopped me, like I couldn't pedal anymore. And he said, oh, girl, just give it up. Like, you don't need this. All you need is me. I'm more than enough for you. My grace is sufficient for you, and stop going after all these things that you think are gonna make you comfortable, all these things that you think are gonna make you feel satisfied, because they're not going to. So that's really what he's done in my life and a big part of my testimony is when we're saved, we're not who we once were, but I, at least looking back at myself, I know that I am nothing as far as what my life looked like, the things I said, the things I did and wouldn't do because I was too scared. I don't look the same, and I thank God for that. [Aaron] Amen, wow. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's so cool, guys. We really appreciate hearing your testimony of what he's done in your lives, and I mean, I can pull out things just from hearing you talk of how God's already using those testimonies in what you're doing today. But I wanna hear from you. So how would you say that God's using these testimonies for what he has you doing today? [Channing] Well, for me, I know for this season, we've referenced it a couple times, of just working in college ministry. The Lord laid a deep desire in our hearts for 18to 25-year olds, because it's a very, very pivotal point in the lives of students, and I've been able to have some really good conversations with students who have come to crossroads in their lives of, do I pursue this, or do I pursue this? Do I listen to what friends say, or do I listen to what the Lord says? Do I listen to the desires that my mom and dad have for my life, or do I listen to the desire that I know God has for my life? For me, I can remember in that same age gap standing at that crossroad and multiple times coming to crossroads and running from what the Lord had desired and desired for my life. I wish I could go back and change some of those things. It would have saved a lot of heartbreak and a lot of striving in my life, but I know that it was all working for my good. So for me, to be able to share out of that on the ministry side with students to say, hey, you don't have to feel alone when you come to these decisions in your life that you just don't know what you're doing. I've seen the Lord be able to really cultivate some deeper relationships, some deeper trust in some of those relationships with some of the students that we work with. But then there's always still, I mean, Jesus has absolutely changed my life. So regardless of any of that, I desire for my life to be poured out for the gospel. And so, whatever that looks like, whether that's a conversation about where do I go to college next year or I'm really struggling through the pit of despair, Jesus is the answer. He's enough. And so, for me, that's always the bedrock of my testimony, is that Jesus is the answer. And so, where we may not always see him working right off the bat, we know that he is and that the story's not finished. And so, for me, I've seen the Lord open some really wide open doors for me to talk with college students, and even some in our church. [Aaron] Yeah. [Channing] That are not students, but the Lord just has opened doors for us to share. What about you? [Jennifer] Well, real quick, I just wanna say, I think what's so powerful of what I heard in your testimony is that when you said yes to God, all those anxieties that you had about what you were supposed to be doing went away. And so now you get to share that testimony, that part of your story, with all of these college-aged kids who are asking these really big questions, and that stands out to me as such a powerful way to communicate that when you say yes to God, he's the one that takes care of the details, and we don't have to worry about 'em. [Aaron] Yeah, and it doesn't mean things are gonna be easy. Like you said, you didn't get all of the answers right away, but he totally gave you peace, and you knew that you could trust him. So that's awesome, seeing that. Right there, you have a direct connection that you get to draw from that tool that God's given you, that testimony, that experience that you had with the Father to you pass onto these college students. And so, and I know you were about to ask Jessica, but Jessica, I have each question for you. This part of your testimony with self-image and just chasing after something to fulfill you and God getting ahold of your heart and saying, you don't need that. Has he given you opportunities to share with women who are struggling with the same things? [Jessica] Yes, and that's what I was gonna talk about, is you know, it's not about us, and that's what I usually tell people who start confiding in me about issues in their life or struggles with their image, who they are, and being scared to come out and be who God's made them to be, is none of this is about us. And if it is about you, and that's all you can focus on is what you have to offer, well, we don't have anything to offer. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jessica] There's no good thing apart from Christ. And I do love, and I am so thankful, that he walked me through that and he helped me through it so that I can share with others, because it's really cool when you see God take someone who has no self-image in a positive way, they don't look at their self at all through the lens of Christ, which is really easy to fall into, but it's so cool to see someone like that get up on a stage and sing or get up and even just share their testimony, or do the thing that they're so scared to do, but they can do it with Christ and with God's help. So that has been so cool, and I do think a lot about the fact that if I wouldn't have said yes, and I don't say that to boast about myself, because on my own, I would not have said yes. I would still be sitting in the corner of my bedroom. I probably wouldn't be married to Channing. If I wouldn't have said yes to anything that I'm scared to say yes to, I wouldn't have been able to see other people do the same thing. [Aaron] Yeah, that's just a beautiful example of God using the broken pieces of this world, us. We're in this flesh that is not yet redeemed, and he redeems our spirit fully and then walks us through the sanctification process and loves us as we're here in this world and then uses us when we say yes to him. I have a question though, one more for you, Jessica. Did you have opportunities to talk to women and share with women who were going through self-image things before God redeemed you from that, or did it start happening afterward? [Jessica] It started happening afterward. I don't doubt that he probably gave me opportunities, even as a middle schooler, just to pour into people that are younger than me, because I really have always had a passion for that, especially after saying yes, I will say anything you want me to say. I will get up and sing on that stage, or I will sing my baby to sleep at night in the room when no one else sees me, and I'll do it with a joyful heart. But before I said yes, I was focused on myself. I was focused on my fears and what I thought I could do and what I thought I knew I couldn't do. And so, I didn't really know. I might have had the opportunity before, but I didn't take it, and I didn't reap the joy that could have come from them. [Aaron] This is so great. Don't know Jennifer if you're being. [Jennifer] I'm to encouraged. [Aaron] Encouraged by this, but yeah, this is exactly what our hope for this conversation was, to show the reality of, it doesn't matter who you are. When you say yes to God, when you accept and follow Jesus as Lord, and you say, okay, Lord, here I am, like you said, we have nothing apart from Christ, and then he gives us the things he wants us to use. The master gives the servants the talents, you know? And you guys have said yes in your life, and I love that. [Jennifer] Yeah, what I think is so beautiful about you guys sharing your testimony and this story today is that, well, two things. The first thing is that how beautiful it is that all of our marriages are unique. So you guys are on our episode today and you're sharing your unique marriage story, your unique testimonies and how God is using those testimonies today to further his kingdom and build his kingdom, and I just want everyone listening to know that it is beautiful that every marriage is unique. And I know we shared about that in the last episode, but I just wanna reiterate that all of us have been given a tool belt, and it's an exciting process to be able to sift through it and see what God has given us and then encourage our spouse in using exactly what he's given us. And it sounds like that's what you guys are doing. You have these very specific testimonies, and they're powerful, and God's using them in specifically college ministry and other ways. But oh, I just love that. And then the other thing is that we know we can trust God. And so, when we're standing there wondering what it is we're supposed to be doing or asking those big questions, we know we can trust him. When we hear stories like this, it reaffirms that in our hearts. And so I just really appreciate you guys' vulnerability in just sharing this with us today. [Aaron] So, you know, we're gonna be coming to a close soon, and we were gonna ask you a question about have you had opportunities to use your testimony, and what's awesome is you just now shared your testimony with everything listening. So yes, yes, God randomly gives you opportunities to do that, and you guys probably pursue those, and we just love that. And you already answered that question in talking about who you're sharing it with. But we wanna end off with one question we've been asking everyone on this series, and it's in your own words, what is a marriage after God? [Channing] I immediately thought of David, of David was a man after God's own heart, and so of applying that same idea, a marriage after God is one that in all things puts God first, that desires to grow close to him, to look like him. I mean, I see marriage as a picture of Christ and his church, 'cause that's what it is. We are his bride, and the way that he has laid down his life for the church and the way that he is also coming back for, oh, yes, that's so good, I love it, he's coming back for his bride one day, that he hasn't left us in our sin and in the brokenness, but that he's coming victoriously back for us. I see a marriage after God as one that's a vertical and a horizontal component of that, where vertically, we're trying to become more like Jesus day after day and the sanctification of becoming him, but then horizontally, loving each other like the way that Christ loves his church. And so, for me, there's a little bit of that too for me. I was an athlete in high school and thinking about marriage after God makes me think of, we're running after him. [Aaron] Yeah, I love that. [Channing] There's this, I won't stop until I get you kind of idea. [Jennifer] That's great imagery. [Aaron] Yes, yeah. [Channing] Not creepy. [Aaron] No creepy references here, yeah. [Channing] Right, but seriously, for Jessica and for myself, what I desire is for a world to look at our marriage and say, man, they belong to somebody, you know? [Aaron] Yes. [Channing] That there's something different about them, and the only answer to that is Jesus. What about you? [Jessica] I would say a marriage after God, I saw this online the other day, so it's not original to me, but if you think about a triangle, I wish it was, but if you think about a triangle and you have the husband and wife on the bottom two corners and God's at the top corner, and it said if the husband and wife are constantly trying to get closer to God and moving up, you think about it as in moving up in the triangle, they are getting closer to each other. So the key to growing your marriage is growing are relationship with God. The closer you get to him, the closer you get to each other, and I don't remember who said it. It was Channing that said it, but I don't remember how it was a quote by: "Marriage is not to make us happy. "Marriage is to grow us closer to Christ "and to make us holy." I think a marriage after God is making every area in your life, especially your marriage, not about yourself, and make it point to Jesus. [Aaron] Amen, agreed. [Jennifer] So awesome, thank you guys so much. Yeah, agreed, agreed, agreed, and that quote you referenced was from Gary Thomas's Sacred Marriage book, and he's just such an excellent resource for marriages. So I appreciate you sharing that. Thank you guys so much for being on the show with us today. We really appreciate, again, your vulnerability and in sharing your testimony and encouraging people who are listening to consider the uniqueness of their marriage, the uniqueness of their testimonies, and how they can be using them today, 'cause of course the Lord's inviting us to use what he's given us for his glory. So, I just wanna thank you guys for being with us today. [Aaron] Yeah, and you guys are a marriage after God, and we appreciate that. [Channing] Thank y'all so much. [Jessica] Thank you, thank you so much. [Aaron] Yeah, you're welcome. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna close in prayer. So would you join us, and Jennifer, would you? [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of marriage. Thank you for pouring your thoughtfulness into the way you designed marriage. Thank you for giving us a tool belt that is unique so that we can pursue and do all of the things you have for us to do. Please help us to understand everything that is in our tool belt and show us how we can use it for your glory. We pray we would keep nothing back from you. We pray we would walk humbly with you and with each other. Use us to encourage one another in marriage and affirm the gifts we see in each other. May we also have the courage to confront and repent of any sin in our lives. We pray that we would see all of the little and big ways you are inviting us to join you to spread your gospel of love, salvation, and amazing grace. May the testimony of Jesus be the motivation in our hearts to do what we do, all for your glory. In Jesus's name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. [Chandler and Jessica] Amen. [Aaron] All right, so we just wanna thank everyone for listening to the 10th episode in the series For A Marriage After God. We wanna encourage you to go get a copy of our book please. We wrote it for you. All these interviews we've compiled to encourage you and your marriage just to know that God has a plan for you and has call for your life, and we just wanna invite you to keep tuned in, because we have six more episodes in this series. So we'll see you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at https://marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

We know about discrimination against non-native teachers, but what about other kinds of discrimination? We welcome back Jessica Keller and David Tait to talk about their experiences with discrimination in ESLTracy: Hello, everyone. Welcome to our podcast. Today, we've got two special guests. One is Jessica Keller, who has been working in recruiting for more than 15 years.Ross Thorburn: We talked to Jessica ‑‑ I guess a lot of it's you, as well, Tracy ‑‑ about sexism in TEFL.Tracy: Yep, and another one is?Ross: David Tait. David's a published poet, an author, and works as an ESL writing teacher in China. David is talking about homophobia, and neither Jessica nor Tracy nor David, their examples of people they mention are about their current colleagues.Sexism in ESLRoss: I'm a man. As far as I know, I'm often surprised when both of you tell me about sexist things that happen at work. Before, I always used to think of sexism as someone low‑balled your pay, or they didn't give you a promotion because you're a woman.From what both of you have told me over the years, a lot of it's just people treating you differently or condescending to you or being more aggressive towards you. That's something that's completely new to me. It would be super interesting to get just one or two examples of things that happen and one or two examples of what you do as women, obviously, to get around that.Jessica Keller: I think about how people speak to you like you're a child. Someone I've worked with before, definitely. Every time he speaks with me, when he asks, for example, very specific things. It's not open‑ended like, "What do you think about this?" It's more of yes or no questions.Tracy: Like this person is control the conversation?Jessica: Mm‑hmm.Tracy: Yeah.Jessica: Definitely speaks in a pitch also. That's very talking down like you're either...I don't want to say younger, but it does appear more of like talking to someone who's lesser than intelligent as this guy is. It makes you want to really get out of the conversation as quickly as possible.Tracy: It's quite interesting. This is like male colleagues or whoever talking to the female colleagues. I heard from my alpha male colleague, actually, it's the way around. It used to be a female colleague and she speaks the way that you described earlier to the male colleague.Ross: Oh, really?Tracy: Apparently, this still bothers the male colleague so much.Ross: Wow.Tracy: Yeah.Ross: How can you tell with these that the person is doing it because they're sexist?Jessica: I can't say for all certainty that somebody does something just because of gender roles, but I do feel there's a number of people. The one that I was talking about is very different with male colleagues, right?Ross: Oh, OK. You can observe those other interactions that...Jessica: Yeah. How you communicate with people is so ingrained. Who knows what people's early family life is, what learned communication they have.Tracy: But for me, I probably have the same proposal and just approach to either the manager or the colleagues. They're male. It's just within the short period of time so these ideas have been delivered again, again, again to the same person, same way.I'm just by myself. I've just never been accepted. One day, I somehow changed my mind. "OK, I'm going to ask one of my male colleague to go to this conversation we're meeting, and then to have the same proposal and see how it going to change." The result is interesting.Ross: Would the person accept the proposal?Tracy: Accept it. Yes, and happily accept it.Jessica: Well, that's a lot more hard evidence.[laughter]Jessica: That's the thing I was talking about because that's pretty cut and dry. That's a really good example, for that reason.Tracy: Also, another thing is the language. If I'm using my first language, it's difficult for me to let people accept my idea. If I'm speaking English, the possibility is a lot higher. That depends on what first language the person you are talking to. For me, I use English, because I feel it's better because the person I'm talking to first language is not English.Ross: You're saying you almost carve out some advantage for yourself because you can show your superiority in English?Tracy: Yeah.Ross: That's one strategy that you've developed with, I presume, male Chinese managers.Tracy: For sure.Jessica: I think just being confident, not backing down and not being afraid of the label of being bitchy.[laughter]Jessica: Which is what comes along with being confident in a business environment for women.Tracy: Another thing is because still a lot of people, they have that concept of you're a lady. You probably are too emotional. That's why if you have this opportunity to present yourself, please make sure we're not being emotional. We give a lot of facts. We do contribute. That's the great opportunity to change people's impression of you, especially in the professional context.Ross: I don't know, but I would guess, with a lot of other cognitive biases probably where you think that is, there's a lot of men that are not aware that they are sexist. What tips do you have for men to be less sexist or to be aware, maybe, of when they could be perceived as being sexist?Jessica: That's very easy for me.[laughter]Jessica: I would say just don't dominate every conversation.Tracy: My advice is please use appropriate name or title, how you call the person or how you call the lady. At least in China, in a lot of companies, older male managers likes to call female colleagues or younger female colleagues like, "Oh, you're a little girl."Jessica: I was just thinking something like when people say, "Oh, that's cute," or something like that.Tracy: Yeah.Jessica: Like that type of...I don't think they mean it as demeaning, but it still comes across as...because they wouldn't say that to another guy.[laughter]Tracy: Yeah.Jessica: At least on most circumstances...Homophobia in ESLRoss: Hello again, David Tait.David Tait: Hello, Ross.Ross: David, you've just written your book, which is called...?David: It's called the "AQI."Ross: Which is about?David: It's all about...a lot of stuff about living within contemporary China, a little bit of stuff about air pollution, and also quite a lot about homophobia as well.Ross: Great. I thought we could ask you about homophobia and some of your experiences with that since we're looking at different types of discrimination. This is one of the least talked about and yes, some of your personal experiences, if you'd like to share them, and advice for people that might be in the position of being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.David: Yeah, sure. I'm not particularly excited by my sexuality. It is what it is. I've been out since I was 16. I'm 32 now. I've been out more than half my life. It's not a big deal. When I came to China, at first I thought it would be a big deal and then I met people that are like, "Hello!"[laughter]David: OK. It is a thing. It's one of those strange things whereby if I sound gay, and I'm very open about it, then I think it's acceptable by virtue of me being a relatively confident white male.I think it's much harder for people that are lesbian. It's really hard for local people to say it, particularly. They can become quite discriminating against you in the workplace because of it and not taken seriously.I know people who've been gay, been openly gay and working with young learners. This is a really thorny issue at the moment.I know somebody who's a teacher of young learners, who was very open at first about being gay, and parents would complain that it's not appropriate for their child to be studying with LGBT teachers because he was very open about it.Ross: Can I ask you to go back? What did he do? Do you have any advice for people in that situation?David: He didn't do anything. He just was in the teachers' office and said, "Yeah, I'm gay," did a normal teaching job. For some reason, I don't know why, somebody in the teaching office spread some rumors or talked about that. It became common knowledge among people wider than the teachers' office. Then it became a problem because parents complained.Ross: Did he still keep his job?David: I think he decided to leave.Ross: That's pretty unfortunate when it gets to that.David: Yeah.Ross: Did he regret that decision to be so open?David: It made him think twice about it in the future. You'll find that there are a lot of people that don't...I'm gay and I'm very open about it. Anyone who cares to listen to this will know it. If you didn't know it, I'm terribly sorry.[laughter]David: It's one of those things where you can be quite open about it, but you don't need to talk about it or feel the need to talk about it. Quite often, I find myself...if students ask me, "Do you have a girlfriend?" rather than saying, "No, I'm gay," I would just say, "Oh, I don't." I don't do that for any sense of shame.It's just to keep things simple, but there is a bit of a needle that lies in there. Why can't somebody just say, "Actually, I don't like girls very much"? Fortunately, for the most expats and indeed most locals, who go into teaching, I would say, are relatively liberal, relatively open‑minded people.You'll get some conservative people. You'll get some very conservative people, but on the whole, most people are quite chilled out. The fact that they've moved to the other side of the world to experience another culture suggests that they're quite open‑minded so somebody saying, "I'm gay," isn't a big deal.You will get situations whereby, actually, that can be seen as being a big deal and some fuss can be made over that.Ross: As someone who's moved from a bit more open society to a less liberal society, what advice would you have for someone who is LGBT moving to either China or to somewhere else that might not be as open as what they're used to?David: My advice will always be, "Be yourself." Who else are you going to be? Ultimately, you're going to potentially have people who will discriminate against you but you're also going to have a lot of people that don't. Most people are good at heart.It's really tough, as well, for me to answer that question, because I can't answer that question for all the LGBT people and the experiences they've had. For me, for instance, I'm, ultimately, somebody who a lot of people will know me for a while and they would say, "Oh, I didn't know you were gay."I wonder if that has an impact on the way that I am discriminated against compared to some friends who are, quite obviously, in that person's eyes, gay, who say, "Oh yeah, that is a gay person. That is what a gay person is."There's always going to be discrimination. Unfortunately, if you're moving to a place with less liberal, more conservative values, you're going to run the risk of more discrimination. There's always going to be good people. Particularly, if you're moving to China, rest assured there are lots of gay people here.[laughter]David: So, good.[laughter]David: I should also say, as well, one thing to definitely include would be, because of my personality and assuredness, I suppose, I don't particularly have much time for people being homophobic towards me. In that respect, I've been quite lucky in that people haven't given me much of a hard time but homophobia definitely exists within the industry.It's often quite shameful. I don't really think it has much of a place. It's something we should all be considerate of and make sure that we, ourselves, are not affected by it.Discrimination in ESLTracy: This is one sensitive topic and maybe people get really offended, or they feel really unhappy, or they feel uncomfortable when they're talking about it. I really appreciate Jessica and Dave. They're very open‑minded and willing to share how they experience in their life.Ross: Yeah, I think we're all aware of, for example, some of the discrimination that happens in TEFL, for example, for "non‑native" English teachers. Maybe we don't talk enough about some other forms of discrimination. If any of you have been through anything like that and you want to share your experience or your advice, then please leave us a comment.Tracy: Mm‑hmm. Bye!Ross: Bye, everyone! Thanks for listening.

We sit down with community leaders and social impact entrepreneurs Secunda Joseph and Jessica Davenport to learn about their work to achieve social justice, racial partnership and improve social and emotional intelligence.Learn about Project Curate TRANSCRIPTZach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and yes, you're listening to a B-Side. Now, we've introduced the purpose of a B-Side before, but every episode is someone's first episode. So for our new folks, B-Sides are essentially random shows we have in-between our larger shows. These are much less structured and somehow even more lit than our regularly scheduled shows. Now listen, for Living Corporate these are the types of folks that we really enjoy talking to - social impact entrepreneurs, educators, folks actively involved in the corporate space in a diversity and inclusion perspective and ethnically diverse leaders within the corporate space, and today we have two special guests, Secunda Joseph and Jessica Davenport. Secunda and Jessica are activists, writers, public speakers, and social impact entrepreneurs dedicated to racial justice. Working with Project Curate, they seek to build social and intellectual communities that can address civic challenges and work towards intersectional justice. Welcome to the show, y'all. How are you doing?Secunda: We're good. Thank you for having us so much, Zach.Jessica: Glad to be here.Zach: Hey, no problem. Now look, for those of us who don't know y'all, can y'all tell us a little bit about yourself?Secunda: Well, yeah. My name is Secunda Joseph. I am from H-Town by the way of South Louisiana, [inaudible], and yeah, I am--I have been working in spaces that relate to, like, media, digital media, organizing and activism on the half of black life, and that's what I do. I'm a servant and a lover of my people, to sum it up.Jessica: And I'm Jessica. I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, but I've been in Houston for about eight years now and have really fell in love with the city. I am a full-time student, but in addition to that I also do work with an organization called Project Curate but also [inaudible], which does lots of work in the community around critical dialogue and creativity in the arts to push folks towards thinking about ideas of racial justice and building more transformative communities. Zach: That's amazing. So today we're gonna be talking about a particular program that will be coming really soon. So can you talk to us a little bit about the program, the title of it, what inspired it, all of that?Jessica: Sure. Secunda and I both work with an organization called Project Curate that has been hosting conversations here in the city around race, religion, and social justice. This semester we're gonna be starting a curriculum that we're offering to the community. We're asking folks to come out and join us over the course of several months--we'll meet once a month on Saturdays--to work through a book called Emergent Strategy. This book has really--a lot of us have read it, those folks who are really interested in building community and doing justice work, but this book is a little different than the usual kind of social justice how-to or the activist how-to. It's not a manual for how to do that. It actually asks folks to sort of stop and pause and ask themselves how they can shift their own practices, their own personal interactions, their own behaviors, do small-scale things in order to have big impacts, in order to shift the world. So that's what we're gonna be working through. The course is called Frequencies because what we're trying to do is to get people to think about how to create a kind of synergy, a relationship between other people, to think about their engagements with other people, to think about their relationships with themselves, and to think how those small-scale things, those small-scale relationships, can get us to think about how to build more transformative communities with one another. So we're asking folks to come out and join us once a month, and we can say a little bit more as we go throughout the show and share a little bit about how people can find more information, but that's kind of the gist of it, of what we're up to.Zach: That's really cool. Now who do you believe that this class is catered for? Who do you believe this class will help?Secunda: This class would help, you know, show [inaudible] towards folks who are in the corporate world, and, you know, when I think about the black and brown folks that walk into this space and how they--you know, sometimes you have to--you know, you come (on?) with a new face, put the things that you may be--the solutions, the systems, the understandings that you have, that you were taught sort of at home aside as you walk into this space, but I think this opportunity helps you to, like, think about ways that you can bring in creative solutions and build a new way to do things much better. I think that's [inaudible] for yourself and any organization. It's also for folks who are activists or organizers who are frankly wore out, you know? And they're tired of like, "Let me get 200 people in here, and maybe 50 of them will stand up, and we need 1,000 people at this rally," who are thinking very linear to get things accomplished, and a lot of times that really snatches the [inaudible] out of us. One of the things that I say, I tell people often, is that one of the things that this book does is it gives you a lot of examples of what--kind of what happens in nature. It talks about fractals and these small patterns that we consistently that really moves our world. So just, you know, it speaks to many people who really want to move (with?) the world and just need more intention on how to do that in a practical and a [inaudible] way.Zach: That's beautiful. And, you know, when you were talking about--as you both were talking about Frequencies and really the course itself and how it really focuses on being intentional with the little things, quote unquote, that you do and the people that you engage with, it kind of reminds me of a topic that we've discussed on the show around just being socially and emotionally intelligent, right? So being cognizant of who you are, being cognizant of your own emotions as well as how you're coming off and reading the social cues of others and just being intentional and purposeful with your time. So I believe there's a lot of relevance and intersection from that perspective as well. I'm curious now, who else would you say--when you kind of talked about Frequencies, you talked about Project Curate--who would you say that inspires this work for you all? Who would you say really, really is someone that you would point to and say, "Wow, this is why we do what we're doing."Jessica: You know, someone for me that came to mind is someone who was talked about a lot in this book that we're working through, and that's Octavia Butler, who was actually a writer, a novelist, and was a specialist in what people now know of as science fiction writing, believe it or not. So what I think what's really dope about Octavia Butler is what she asks us to do is imagine a world beyond the one that we see right now, and that that world that we want is actually possible. We can create that, that the structures that are in place now, that are unjust structures, those can be rethought, but it's--one way to go about that is to, you know, work for kind of large-scale change and to do the activist work and to hold up the signs, but another way to do it is to think about how to build community with one another, how to be in relationship with one another. And so when I think about her work and I think about her writing and I think about her thinking, she laid out a blueprint for us to think about how to do this in a way that is more holistic, more just to ourselves, because I think what we were recognizing is that a lot of folks who are in this fight for justice or a lot of folks who are trying to make a change on their jobs, whether that's in the corporate world or elsewhere, feel like they have to take on a lot and do a lot, and that's true. I mean, they do have to do that, but what would it mean for us to scale it back and think about these just--starting with your relationships, starting with the relationship with yourself, right, and making sure that you are doing justice to yourself. Those kind of questions will come into play, and when you say who inspires us, I think definitely Octavia Butler's writing is definitely a part of that.Secunda: And I also think of--and one of our team members brought this up about those folks who are excited about, you know, shifting our world or shifting our systems, and to--I think about folks who would have an opportunity to start off with a clean slate, right? So there are those of us who have been practicing in a way, you know, corporate tells you. You know, the way you learn in school, the way you learn to organize or do something just in a corporate structure, and then there are those who are just getting their feet wet, and they come in with a clean slate, and they have an opportunity to create something from a more holistic perspective, right? Instead of watching all this--you know, somebody like myself, there's a lot of things I had to unlearn, right, and put into practice, but a person who's new to this, our young people, our younger students who this is their first opportunity to do something, to ignite other people, right? To move themselves and the people around them and to really have the tools to do that in a way that is beneficial for themselves and the people around them. Like, it is--you know, it's like you look at a--in our organizing work, like, we move in a non-linear structure. Like, we are a (leadership-full?) group, and, you know, as we've done this coursework and as we've had these different conversations, we encourage that and we've, you know, taught that in a sense. I hate using the word teach, but we've created space for that. But this takes what we've done--it's like looking at a cell and then breaking it down to an atom. This takes what we've done and just breaks it down in a very easy to sort of easy to ingest--not easy to ingest. [laughs] Way. Yeah, you want to?Jessica: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's true. A lot of the conversation around, you know, how to--how to bring change, again, is we think--we think big, and we think large-scale, and we think how do we organize? This is kind of what (Sec?) said earlier. You know, "We need 100 people to come up in this space," or, you know, "If we want to make a change in the corporate world, we need, you know, 50 employees to help us to sign whatever petition," or whatever, but what this asks us to do is to kind of break that down on a smaller scale and say, "How do we engage--" Let's just start with how we engage with one another. How do we shift--how do we shift the culture of a place, right? How do we shift--yeah, how do we shift our engagements? How do we shift our thinking? It may not mean us meeting, you know, every Saturday to do some kind of direct action, but it can mean me agreeing with myself to say, "When I walk into this space, there's a particular type of energy that I want to bring into this space," or "When I engage with Secunda, I'm gonna make sure that--" You know, if I know that I have a very strong personality, I'm gonna step back and make sure that the way--if I want, you know, to have equality and equity in the world, well, maybe I need to figure out how to have equality and equity in my relationship with Secunda first, right? So that means I need to step back a little bit or think about the ways that I may take up all the air in the space in a room, and then think about how that can--those small-scale things can lead to a sort of cultural shift in how we engage with one another.Zach: This has been an incredible discussion, and I want to make sure, before we get too much further, that folks can know where they can learn more about the program. So would you mind sharing the information for that?Jessica: Yeah. They can go to Project Curate.org. That's our website, and they can go--there's a little Events link there that they can go and visit, and that has a list of our--of the curriculums that we're offering this semester. They will find Frequencies there, and they can register there on the site. Our kickoff is going to be Friday night, September 7th, and that's just gonna be a gathering for folks who have registered and who want to participate with us. We'll have a, you know, small kind of eat food, you know, kind of greet thing happening [inaudible], then kind of introduce everybody, and then our very first session, when we begin to get into the work, will be Saturday, September 22nd, and we'll have more information on the website about locations and that kind of thing.Zach: This is really cool, and so what I want to make sure is we'll have the information, Project Curate.org, that website, in our show notes so folks can direct from there, and then we'll make sure to encourage our folks to check it out, especially if they're in Houston, right? If they're in Houston to check it out and to engage with it. So it's really exciting. So before we go, any shout outs or parting words?Secunda: Parting words? Just thank you for having us on, and I just want to encourage people to just begin doing the move of just doing a little research on [inaudible] and some of the conversations that are available on [inaudible], and I think of where, like, you'll be really intrigued, if you're not able to attend the class, just to start the conversations at home with yourself.Jessica: Yeah, and I'll add--you know, what's a beautiful thing about this is all of the material that we're using is really written and produced by black women, and so it's a really beautiful thing to think about how this presents an opportunity for us to really, I don't know, mind the beauty that's there of our culture and what people are producing and the new [inaudible] that people are putting out, and so shout outs to all the black women who are doing innovative work out there, and we hope that this space will really encourage folks to sink deeper into the work that's there.Zach: Absolutely. I'm so excited and thankful that you guys were here, so thank you, thank you both. Excuse me, I said you guys. I should be more inclusive with my language. I'm so thankful that you both were able to join us, and I think when you talk about--when you talk about the community and the relationship aspect, that's so relevant for Corporate America because so often when we talk about inclusion and diversity or we talk about creating some type of change we talk about it at this high level, almost like top-down approach, where as really if it's a people-driven thing, then the focus should be the people, and it's not really ever going to--you're not really gonna see any major transformation organizationally, socially, politically, whatever domain you're operating in, until you're able to actually operate and start at a people--person-to-person perspective, and I think this course, and really Project Curate as a non-profit social impact organization, really reinforces that, and so I just want to thank you both again. And that does it for us on the show, so thank you for joining us on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure to follow us on Instagram at LivingCorporate, Twitter at LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate.com. If you have a question you'd like for us to answer and read on the show, make sure you email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. This has been Zach, and you've been listening to Secunda Joseph and Jessica Davenport, members of Project Curate. Peace.Kiara: Living Corporate is a podcast by Living Corporate, LLC. Our logo was designed by David Dawkins. Our theme music was produced by Ken Brown. Additional music production by Antoine Franklin from Musical Elevation. Post-production is handled by Jeremy Jackson. Got a topic suggestion? Email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. You can find us online on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and living-corporate.com. Thanks for listening. Stay tuned.

How honest are we with our students? How honest are schools with their teachers? And how can we be more honest with ourselves? We discuss with ESL recruitment guru, Jessica Keller.Tracy: Hello, everyone. Today we've got our special podcast and then who has been on our podcast before is...Jessica Keller: Jessica Keller.[laughter]Tracy: Welcome.Jessica: That's me.[laughter]Tracy: Welcome, Jessica.Ross Thorburn: Jessica, thanks for coming on again. Do you want to introduce yourself very briefly for people that missed you last time?Jessica: Yeah, I've been recruiting for English language teachers and actually now other different subject teachers for both Asia and in the US for the last 13 years.Ross: Before that, you were an English teacher, a manager and the regional manager, those kind of things in Japan, right?Jessica: Yes, I did start as a teacher in Japan.Ross: Something happened at work to me fairly recently that I wanted to mention to you guys. We were talking about kids taking English lessons for about two hours a week and this person said to me that our school's competitors all tell parents, "If your kid studies with us, they'll sound like a native speaker after about two years."Jessica: Wow.Ross: I thought that's just a lie, right?Jessica: [laughs]Ross: Like a blatant lie. He said, "Well, we have to do that because that's what our competitors do. We don't really have a choice." I thought, "Well, surely that's going to lead to so many other problems."Anyway, it reminded me of this quote that I heard from Sam Harris who if you've not listened to him before, you should check out his "Waking Up" podcast.Sam Harris: It's amazing to me that we have to get back to a place where being out of harmony with what is demonstrably true pays a penalty.The value we have to all embrace is we have to care to be in register to the truth. Especially, people who are in power, whose decisions affect the lives of millions, we have to care when they are in register or out of register with what's true.Ross: Yes, therefore, we can talk a bit about lying and how lying comes into language teaching, recruitment, Jessica, which you're an expert in, teaching, training, management and all those things.Tracy: What the main areas today we're going to talk about? Lying?Ross: I think we can talk about when we lie and then how we can maybe lie less or at least be more honest.Jessica: Especially in sales. The nature of sales and recruitment for that matter is also just, of course, trying to get people to buy into something. Having a situation where you're trying to sell the benefits of something as opposed to being you listing all the negatives and all the positives.We don't necessarily think of that as lying all the time, but if you're openly leaving information out, then it can be really deceptive.Ross: Let's first of all talk about lying to students and then maybe how we can lie less. Then secondly...Tracy: ...we're going to talk about lying to our teachers and how honest we are in teacher training and management. Then last...Jessica: ...also about lying to ourselves.Lying To StudentsRoss: Let's talk about lying to students. When you, Tracy, taught adults before, what did you feel maybe that people weren't honest about or teachers were not honest about the students?Tracy: I think when the teacher is trying to give students some feedback, especially with adult learners. They have to make sure how much corrective feedback you are giving them because they don't want to lose face in front of other classmates.Even though they made mistakes they have to make sure, "Oh, yeah, really good. Well done," but actually, they didn't do a very good job.Ross: I guess it depends. If you praise someone maybe for trying something, that's honest but I have seen teachers say, "Oh, how else could you say X?" The student says something that's completely wrong and goon. Then the teacher says, "Yeah, well done. That's great." You can still say, "Oh, thanks for trying," or "That's interesting but not quite. But I think..."[laughter]Jessica: "Oh, good try. But here's what it actually is," or something like that.Ross: You're not giving them a lot of help by telling them they're right when they are actually wrong. [laughs]Jessica: Yeah. Also, I think to the original point you had about sales if you're setting an expectation to the parents of the kids who are going to sound like native speakers, and the kids have that pressure, obviously, they're going to be manufacturing and trying to live up to some expectation.That's not really realistic. It almost encourages a lie in some ways and the teachers also for maybe passing them along.Ross: I think that maybe we do have a bit of a lie in general that's like language learning is...We make language learning out to be a little easier than it actually is. I think in schools often will paint a picture for students that's a lot more optimistic than actually should.Tracy: That's a really good point, actually. If we just look at the people who can speak fluent foreign language, they definitely put a lot of efforts and it's not just one year. For example, I studied English for 29 years maybe.Ross: [laughs]Tracy: 29 years. I still made mistakes.Jessica: I have a friend who's sending her daughter overseas for four weeks. The daughter is taking one year of high school language study. My friend is convinced her daughter is going to be fluent and I'm like, "Aargh."Ross: After a year?Jessica: After one year of high school study and four weeks overseas.Ross: Wow.Jessica: She's like, "Well, it'll be really intensive." I'm like, "Yeah, I don't know about that."[laughter]Jessica: "Maybe you're right." I'd love to be wrong on that but it's that people have again these expectations that it's going to be easy to do.Ross: That's so interesting. I wonder where that comes from.Jessica: I think sales is partly the blame, for sure.Tracy: Yeah.Ross: [laughs] Yeah, absolutely. I also wanted to mention here something about how honest are we to students about what people actually say.Jake Whiddon, who's been on the podcast a couple times, he was telling me about he hang out with his daughter for the whole summer. He said, "I watch my daughter play with dozens of different kids and never once did I hear her say, 'Hello,' or 'How are you?' in either English or Chinese."I thought, "That's so interesting." The first thing that we teach...you know how that works. The important thing you can learn in English is, "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, thank you and you?" The majority of people that we teach those phrases to are kids, but actually kids don't say that.Tracy: I partially agree with that. I always hear foreigners talking to Chinese kids if the kids can speak English. They always say, "Hi! What's your name? How are you?"Ross: That argument is self‑justifying. The only reason they ask them those questions is because they know that's what they've been taught in school. I see your point, but I think with that those are interactions between adults and kids. For kids, the majority of interactions they will have will be with other kids.I think what someone really needs to do somewhere, is make up a corpus for children, and find out what the kids say to each other, what language the kids actually use. Then we could start teaching children some language that's going to be genuinely useful to them right now as opposed to learning a bunch of stuff that, when they grow up, they'll be able to use in 15 years' time.Tracy: Fair enough.Lying To TeachersRoss: Let's talk about lying to teachers. One of the reasons that I was very motivated to leave a previous job was, I found out that the Marketing Department, that marketed to teachers online, have much higher salary on their online advertisements than their first‑grade teachers actually get.That struck me as being so dishonest. I was much more serious about finding a job somewhere else. What do you think is the argument as a business, or as a school, why you wouldn't do that?Jessica: Why you wouldn't lie about the salary?Ross: Yeah.Jessica: I feel like that's something you can pretty easily punch a hole through. You don't want to be a dishonest company. As much as you want to get people on board and you want people to be interested in your job more than any other job, if you're known in the industry for being dishonest, then that's going to come through pretty quickly.If you advertise a salary of a certain amount, and then you get a job offer that's significantly lower than that, you're going to feel pretty disappointed, right?Ross: Yeah. Absolutely. How honest do you think schools should be when they're hiring teachers? Like you're saying, you do want to sell the benefits obviously more that the disadvantages. Equally you have to talk about some disadvantages in order to be transparent and give people an accurate picture of what life's going to be like.Jessica: For example, I've had jobs in the past that I've recruited for that have split days off or split shifts in the salary. I haven't put that in the job advertisement, but I'll talk to them about it.Ross: I think the advertisement is an advertisement with the route, but the interview is when you can get into those parts of it.Jessica: Well, admittedly, I know people will be less drawn to an ad if they see it. It's easier just to have a conversation. It's less concrete.Ross: One other thing that I wanted to mention here, related to lying to teachers and being honest to teachers, is I used to work with someone who thought that best way to give feedback to a teacher, who had a complaint, was to tell them, "Oh, hey, Jessica. I observed your class. I thought it was absolutely perfect.""There was nothing wrong with it all. Well done. You're such a great employee. By the way, you might want to read about error correction. That might be something you'd be interested in learning about."This person thought that would be the best way of getting those people that, for example, have a problem with error correction or got a complaint about not correcting enough errors. That would be the best way to get them to improve. Do you not think you're denying that person some avenue for development? That's important information that that person has a right to know.Jessica: Yeah. I am certainly glad that when I was a teacher, it was a while ago, I received feedback on complaints. Lying about something they've received is also deceptive and condescending, like, "We can't tell you this information, because we're afraid you might crack." Right?Ross: Right. How weak do we assume that people are? That they can't handle even direct criticism, just passing on of something negative.Jessica: It also could be that managers fear of conflict. I guess it could be their own thing.Lying To OurselvesRoss: Last one. Lying to ourselves. Something I've wondered with teacher training that we could do to be more honest about it is follow up with people a long time after the training. I think that we often in teacher training courses measure the success by how well the teachers meet our own standards on the course.Whereas I think, what we need to do more on that is call people up six months later, or a year later, and go like, "How did this help you find a job, or improve in your job, or get promoted?"Jessica: Or, "Did it help you?" [laughs]Tracy: Yeah.Ross: Or, "Did it help you at all?" Because, maybe it didn't.Jessica: It's the same with interviews and recruiting. We think we have a really good idea of this person. I do think generally we do, but we have to remember it's not exact science. I remember hiring someone that I was...No, I didn't even hire him.Ross: [laughs]Jessica: I took him over from another recruiter. I helped him with the last stages of his arrival. I was like, "This guy's going to be a complete failure." He completed his contract, and he was eligible for rehire, which blew me away, because he was not someone who I would've wanted to work with. There's people, who I've thought would be great, and they didn't even last probation.Ross: That's something I think that you do that's really great in recruiting. You find out the results afterwards. It's not just like, "We hired this guy. I thought he would be OK," and that's the end of it. You have this great system where you hire people, and then you can find out if they lasted six months, or a year, or if they got promoted, or what happened.It's not just that it's an amazing tool, but I think yours is a really amazing job of getting that feedback and plugging that information back into the system to help you make even better decisions in the future. For a while, when someone got fired, that you hired, did you not go back to your interview notes? Or get your staff to go back to your interview notes and go like, "What did you miss?"Jessica: Yeah. We still do that. We look at anybody who fails probation. We look at what happened. We definitely analyze. It's a post‑mortem, I guess, of everyone.Ross: Imagine if we did that with training as well. We did a post‑mortem like a year later.Jessica: It's not like, "If this teacher fails, it's a fault of the training."Ross: I was more getting at the idea that what the course teaches as good teaching is different from the reality of what schools expect. I think that there is a value in training course like teaching excellence or something as we see it.Also, there's got to be part of this. We're preparing you to go and get a job, and be successful. If we're missing out some skills that actually are going to help you succeed in a sort of a semi‑corporate school environment, or whatever environment you're going into, then maybe we're missing out on something there.Jessica: True.Ross: Cool, all right. Jessica, thanks again very much, for coming on.Jessica: Thanks for having me. It's great to be back. Can't wait for my next trip up here.Ross: Yay. [laughs]Tracy: Oh, great. Bye.Ross: Bye.Jessica: Bye.

Oakland entrepreneur Jessica Gray Schipp shares her life's journey of coping with multiple food allergies and her book #AllergicToEverything, a cookbook and guide for people living with multiple food allergies.Transcript:Lisa:Method to the Madness is next. You're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer, and today I'm speaking with Jessica Gray Schipp. She's the author of a new cookbook and guide for people suffering from multiple food allergies.Welcome to the program, Jessica.Jessica:Thank you.Lisa:You just wrote this book called Allergic to Everything, which is an incredible guide and a cookbook for people with allergies. Are you allergic to everything?Jessica:I'm allergic to several things. It's called #Allergic to Everything and I am allergic to wheat, gluten, corn, soy, oats, eggs, shellfish, and possibly sesame.Lisa:You've been through a lot.Jessica:Yes.Lisa:This has taken decades to put this together. How did you figure out what to do first? Tell us your life's journey.Jessica:Well, I knew I was lowered to shellfish when I was a little kid. I was about six and I had an anaphylactic reaction and that was really scary, so I kind of grew up conscious of what it was like to have that happen. And then when I was in my, I would say like mid-twenties, I started getting a lot of hives and odd reactions that I didn't know what it was.Lisa:And this is out east?Jessica:And this is on the East Coast, yeah. And I was just going to literally every type of doctor that I could think of. My mom's a nurse practitioner, so she was sending me to like specialists and using her network and my body just slowly got worse and worse and worse. And then I ended up in Bloomington, Indiana with a friend from grad school and I arrived on her doorstep and I essentially looked like I was just dead. I had sties, I had hives everywhere and I didn't even know kind of how sick I was because I was so used to living that way.But she forced me to a doctor and they were basically like-Lisa:That was the first time you'd seen a doctor about it?Jessica:No, I had been seeing specialists but nobody identified it as food allergies and they didn't really know. So they just kept throwing me on steroids and different medications. And finally at that point in Bloomington, I was just in a place of I'm either dying of cancer or I have food allergies and I have to see what I can do. So I moved back home at that point and I did an elimination diet using all of these different tests I had gotten done with the food stuff because I was basically everything I reacted to. And I think that's also because my system was so hyperactive because it was so irritated all the time that it was triggering responses to more than what I really-Lisa:What does that mean? Elimination Diet? Because you talk about that and you also talk about the symptom tracker that you put together, which is also in the book.Jessica:Well I would say the elimination diet, I didn't start doing it with a symptom tracker. The one that's in the book is kind of a design that I came up with from trial and error and my experiences and what worked for me. I initially used something called a health minder, which I had found on Amazon and it was awesome, but it didn't quite track everything I wanted it to, so I've kind of made my own model.But in terms of the elimination diet, I did that without tracking initially. You basically, a lot of people start with removing the top eight food allergens.Lisa:And what are those?Jessica:Those are wheat, eggs, milk, fish, shellfish, nuts and peanuts.Lisa:Not corn?Jessica:No, corn's not one of the top eight, but I guarantee you this is my philosophy actually because we're shoving it in so much of the food.Lisa:Exactly.Jessica:I'm almost positive that when they revamped that topic eight, that that's going to end up on there [crosstalk]Lisa:I grew up in the Midwest and one of the things I noticed was the simultaneous rise of obesity and GMO corn farming.Jessica:No kidding. No kidding.Lisa:Even though no one is pinpointing that.Jessica:Yeah, and it's cheap.Lisa:Why do you think that's been left off the top?Jessica:I think that just not... I don't know. I think there's not a lot of money in research right now for food allergies. There aren't even really very reliable tests that have been developed. Everything does a lot of false positives. So it's really weird, which going back to the elimination diet, that's really the best way to determine what's triggering things.Lisa:It's very time consuming though, isn't it?Jessica:It's very time consuming. Yeah. Yeah. The process of writing the book took about six years, but the process of getting through the elimination phase and starting to learn about foods probably took like three months but a good year of getting used to it because at first I was just eating a piece of cheese or string cheese, just really basic foods like seed crackers, just nuts, like very plain stuff. And then after I got comfortable with that, I was able to expand and start trying to figure out how to cook the foods that I really missed because there's a lot to be missed when you have to take so much out.Lisa:So when you say "cook the foods you missed," coming up with recipes that would taste somewhat like them because you're not using the ingredients and that they've done in this book.Jessica:Yes. Yeah, so it's really a book of kind of comfort food and super holiday friendly and things just like muffins and breads and pizza and pasta sauce and tacos and it's super kid friendly too, I would say. I think I just had this desire to go back to the foods that I had grown up with-Lisa:Comfort food.Jessica:And figure out... Yeah, exactly, and figure out how to go from there.Lisa:Backing up a little bit, you were in Indiana, you went to this doctor, you started the elimination diet and then?Jessica:And then it was a long process of kind of realizing that I had to start tracking certain things when I would have reactions because you're supposed to add one food back in at a time and then kind of wash yourself for up to basically three days, give or take. Because reactions can happen in many different ways. They can be on your skin, they can be in your digestive system, they can be instant or they can show up in three days. It's kind of a bizarre, bizarre world.Lisa:And the other thing is if you're social at all and you go out to eat at people's homes or in restaurants.Jessica:Yeah, don't trust anybody because nobody knows what they're talking about. And I love my friends and they are, some of them are really amazing and truly have an understanding and have memorized stuff and there are certain people that I really trust. But then there are other people who I know they intend well but they don't know that the shredded cheese that they're using happens to have corn starch on it to prohibit mold. And cornstarch really, really gets to me instantly. I get hives, which I hate. I hate when my symptoms show up on my body.Lisa:Well, in a way that's good because then you know pretty quickly something's wrong.Jessica:Right, that's true.Lisa:In the midst of this discovery. Where were you shopping?Jessica:I was in the Midwest at first and basically I went home pretty quickly after that. I went back to right outside of Washington, DC, in Arlington and I moved back in with my mom, which was hard because I had just gotten my master's and I thought I was going to go into the world rather than a retreat. But yeah, so I went home and my mom has always been very health conscious, so she... There's a little place called Mom's Organic Market and I think it's an Alexandria technically, but it's a great little like health food type of store. And I kind of stuck to stuff like that. And Trader Joe's for just basics, which I still love Trader Joe's today because they just offer so much of high quality stuff at amazing prices.My mom trained me in the organic produce selection and I kind of did like a little work trade. So I did their grocery shopping and did some cooking. And in exchange I got to kind of take some time. I had asthma as a kid. My mom kind of suspected that I had some corn allergies as a kid too because she kind of thought that I would get like fussy when I ate things with corn syrup in it. So there were periods where she suspected it, but nothing was identified until I was 27 when all of this kind of came together.Lisa:How did you get out here?Jessica:I eventually started looking for jobs and I'd kind of always dreamed of California and I found an AmeriCorps position working in East Oakland at a school and the whole idea was kind of like teaching creativity and putting creativity back into the classroom, which my undergrad was an art education so it was a really good fit and they give you a stipend to help you move across. So I ended up driving my little Honda Civic out here and it was pretty beautiful and incredible. And then I ended up, I thought I was coming to California and I was going to be this picturesque mountains and everything. And then I wound up like right in the middle of another city and it was kind of like what?Lisa:You mean like East Oakland?Jessica:Yeah. Being here has been the most incredible part of this journey. The food culture here is phenomenal. Really, you just have access to everythingLisa:People don't realize that unless they've lived elsewhere.Jessica:Yes.Lisa:Because if you're in the Midwest, you have to carve out time to find organic food.Jessica:Yes. Or those little co-ops. The co-ops are like the way to go.Lisa:The co-ops, they're usually near universities.Jessica:Totally. Yeah.Lisa:It's not easy.Jessica:No, no.Lisa:To find good food.Jessica:That's, yeah, 100% I agree with that. Yeah, and I guess that's been the blessing of being here is just that a whole... Like Berkeley Bowl and just a whole new world happened for me and I moved in with a bunch of foodies and learned a lot from them. And so all of these different things kind of came together.Lisa:And how did your allergies, did it improve here or...Jessica:Yeah. Yeah, it's been actually a drastic difference. I think the climate is better for me in some ways. So I think my skin in general has been a lot less irritated, but, but I think my quality of life has been better since moving out here. And I'm not sure exactly why.Lisa:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today I'm speaking with Oakland based entrepreneur, Jessica Gray Schipp, the author of a book called Allergic to Everything for people suffering from multiple food allergies.So tell me when you decided to write this book.Jessica:I didn't really specifically decide to write it at first, I just started writing down the recipes that were working for me and I had a little notebook. I've always, you can see my journal here, I always have a journal. And so I just kind of started writing down what was working and I had some friends over for dinner and my friend Phil had asked me like, "What is that recipe? How did you do that? I can't even tell it's allergen free," which was kind of this real goal of mine was to trick the people into thinking the food had all their allergens.But yeah, and he looked at the notebook and he was just like, "Jess, you should publish this." And I hadn't considered that and I didn't think of it that way. And then I kind of ran with it.Lisa:And then when you say "ran with it," what are the steps that you took?Jessica:Well, it was more of a jog because I was teaching full time. So I started in the summers when I had my summers off. The first summer I basically typed up this notebook and wound up with about, or I guess it took me two summers to do that, but I wound up with about 115 recipes that I developed. And then more recently, so in August, I actually left my teaching job to do this full time and try to give it a real stab. And I sat down and wrote the guide, which I didn't realize was going to be so lengthy but-Lisa:It's comprehensive. I really enjoyed that.Jessica:Thank you for saying that.Lisa:Well yeah, you...Jessica:Thank you for saying that.Lisa:Not only recipes but you list resources for people, you get into household cleaning substances, that you can make on your own. I was surprised how comprehensive. It's over 200 pages.Jessica:Thank you. Yeah-Lisa:And also what to put in a pantry.Jessica:Right? Like your staples and where to get them and how to do it and you can do it affordably and you can also spend a lot of money on this stuff. There's a million ways to do it. Yeah, and it was fascinating to kind of go in because I think before moving out to California, I hadn't started to consider what was in the products I was using on my skin, for example. I was using really sensitive simple lotions and stuff like that. But for hair-Lisa:But even laundry detergent.Jessica:Or laundry detergent, exactly.Lisa:And people use these softeners and they always smell.Jessica:And they're full of chemicals and it's gross stuff and it irritates sensitive skin even if you don't have allergens. So just kind of all of that stuff has gone into it. And then just simple things like reading ingredient labels.Lisa:Just today I read an article that the USDA, they just announced now that instead of saying whether something has GMO ingredients, genetically modified, now they are opting for bio-engineered or BE on products. Some people think it's to avoid the labeled GMO because that's kind of a bad thing.Jessica:It has a stigma.Lisa:But it also allows companies to choose between the option of either writing out the warning saying, "This contains bio engineered food," include a just a BE label or this code that you have to swipe, which they assume most consumers will not do. It seems like it's a constant battle to get the true ingredients listed because...Jessica:Well, I want to comment on what you were just saying about the labeling of food. I think that that's one of the most frustrating things because you can slap all natural on it and it means absolutely nothing. They allow a lot of loopholes in this kind of stuff, which is why it's so important no matter what to flip the package over and actually read the ingredients.Lisa:Some of these ingredients, you look at them and you don't even know how to say them.Jessica:Well, and that's my rule. I have a 10 ingredient or less rule and you need to be able to pronounce all of them. The chemicals, it just, it's really unreal.Lisa:And this is mostly processed food.Jessica:It's mostly processed food, yeah, that has that.Lisa:So people who are shopping the middle aisles are going to see more of that.Jessica:Correct. Yeah. I'm a big a perimeter shopper now. I go into the middles for my brown rice pasta or some crackers.Lisa:Or olive oils.Jessica:Or olive oil, yeah, definitely loved my olive oil. I've been leaning into avocado oil too. That's-Lisa:And you talk about coconut being a good alternative to corn oils and things like that.Jessica:Yes. I think one of the interesting things was too with my skin, how irritated it was at the beginning of this journey. I started just trying to figure out natural things I could use to moisturize because normal lotion wasn't working. So coconut oil was something that was really, I was just like slathering it on. And it was really, really healing for me, which was interesting because a lot of doctors had told me to try these lotions with oats, which I hadn't realized at first that I was allergic too.There are also gluten free versions, but oats just in general give me a scarf rash. And so it was really weird and it was like making me more and more irritated. So then I started going backwards and doing just really simple like olive oil on my skin and it was amazing.Lisa:The difference.Jessica:And anti-inflammatory and yeah.Lisa:So tell me the difference between allergy and a simple intolerance.Jessica:It shows up differently in symptoms. Some things are more severe and tolerance is like your body and your system just can't handle it.Lisa:Is that worse than an allergy?Jessica:Yeah, because you're hurting yourself and you might not necessarily be aware. Like, if you continue, let's say you're a celiac and you're eating gluten, that can lead to huge complications where your digestive system just stops functioning on its own. There's all these thresholds. But I find all of those areas, like I go into it in the book but at the same time I find, I don't like all of the little narrow paths that they put with this. Like if a food doesn't work for you, I think it's good to stay away from it and find an alternative.Because people talk about food sensitivities and food intolerance and food allergy and what is the difference? And it's confusing but I think with intolerance is really your body won't tolerate it and you just have all these weird symptoms and you're used to living with them. So you go with it and you don't realize what's on the other side when you...Lisa:So it affects your mental health as well.Jessica:Yeah. Oh definitely. I think so hugely.Lisa:In your book, you lay out in a really nice way the daily symptom tracker also sort of a guide for the elimination diets. So this book is something somebody can actually start writing in right away.Jessica:Right.Lisa:Is that your copyrighted food tracker?Jessica:Yes.Lisa:It's not available yet?Jessica:No.Lisa:To the public. How did you finance publishing book? How are you doing it?Jessica:I took everything I had saved up from my teaching salary, which was challenging, and my Grandma Donna passed away a couple years ago and left me a little bit of money and I was going to use it for a business or an investment on a house and I decided to put it into this book because I just really believe in it. So I've put about $25,000 into getting to-Lisa:Of your own personal money.Jessica:Yeah, of my own money, into it now. And to finish the project, I decided to go onto Kickstarter and so the project is live now and it's live through June 17th at 11:11 PM.Lisa:And what are you trying to raise on Kickstarter?Jessica:$33,000.Lisa:And that'll take you to where you need to...Jessica:And that'll take me to where I need to be and to do it properly, to get the editing done and the printing, to mail out the rewards. Shipping is phenomenal when it comes to Kickstarter, which was a really interesting to learn.Lisa:What do you mean?Jessica:I would say about a third of that amount of money is what it costs to actually send the rewards to the backers. It adds up. And if you can do media mail for books, which is great, but if you add in-Lisa:What are your rewards for backers?Jessica:Currently we have the book. I have a dinner party option, so that's kind of low end, high end, and then in the middle there are gift sets so you can do like an apron gift set. I'm really, really big into aprons. I'm in love with them. I started sewing my own and then I just actually added a new reward, which I'm really excited about, which is a grocery tote but also a cooler. So it's kind of like bring it to the grocery store or to the picnic because I know you're carrying all your own food if you're allergic. And I'm trying to keep it really, really simple because it's really about the book at the root of it.Lisa:And how do people find out about a Kickstarter campaign?Jessica:I have a URL that is forwarding right now straight to the Kickstarter so people can go to hashtag, the word hashtag, and the word allergic together, hashtagallergic.com.Lisa:Not the symbol, the word?Jessica:No the word. Yeah, so hashtag written out, allergic written.com and it'll take you right there. But also if you're on Kickstarter you can just type in the word allergic or allergies and it should come right up.Lisa:And you also have a website?Jessica:Yes.Lisa:What is the link to that?Jessica:The website is allergictoeverything.life and on the website, this has been kind of a new experiment and I'm still playing around with it. At first it was a platform to share what was going on with the Kickstarter, but I've been working on starting a blog and sharing some recipes through there. So I don't have a huge collection, but it's something I'm going to keep growing so people can go on there for food, food tips, and I have all my favorite resources. I have recipes for my food allergy purse.Lisa:Do you ever list restaurants that might accommodate allergies in the Bay Area?Jessica:No, but that's something that I am really interested in doing actually. And I think that we live in such a friendly place for that. A couple of days ago, a woman from Toronto who has, that's kind of her mission in the food allergy world. She reviews places you can eat and she does profiles of people. So she did a profile of me and she really wanted to get into the places that you know you can eat and that are friendly. And I think that that's so important and I think we're really lucky on the West Coast to have such-Lisa:We are, but you made a point earlier that it was a good one. Even your friends, let's say someone decides they're going to have you over and you're allergic to allium, which is onions, garlic and all this stuff.Jessica:Right?Lisa:And they say, "There's nothing, I swear to you, there's nothing in this." And yet they use a canned broth.Jessica:Correct.Lisa:In a soup or a sauce, which is full of allium.Jessica:And probably maltodextrin.Lisa:And it doesn't say it on the label. It says "natural ingredients."Jessica:Right. That's the most unfair.Lisa:And so you can't get mad at people, but there needs to be a raising of awareness and that's something that you've done in this book.Jessica:Yeah. And I think that's my biggest motivation for all of this is... Well, it's really to make people's lives easier, learning how to navigate all these little intricacies, but awareness is so important because people just don't know and it's not their fault. It's just a matter of education and...Lisa:I just noticed there's more and more food allergies and I can't help but think that it's our air, it's our water, it's our soil. I don't know if anyone is looking at the root causes of this.Jessica:Yeah, I don't think many people are. I think there's a lot of people burying the root causes.Lisa:You don't mention it in your book either. But depending on where you come from, what you're exposed to.Jessica:One of the things that I think about a lot with that, which gets me a little crazy if I think about it too much, but is the fact that, so I'm able to eat meat, right? And let's say I want to eat a steak, but they're feeding that cow corn, which I'm allergic to.Lisa:GMO corn probably.Jessica:Yeah. So how does it affect me with the end product? And that's just something that is mind boggling and...Lisa:It is, but out here you can actually seek out a butcher that that gets meat from local people who they know what they're feeding the animals. But that's not true in most places.Jessica:Right, and most of the population doesn't have that luxury. And if they do, maybe they can't afford it. There's a lot of barriers to it, but I think it's a really systemic problem that needs to be looked at from the ground up. But when we keep coming up with these new, what did you say it was going to be, BE, on the package?Lisa:Yes, bio engineering.Jessica:And the natural ingredients.Lisa:It's deflecting.Jessica:It's deflecting. It's like the whole sugar thing in the 70s or whenever that whole epidemic started, but it's really incredible the lengths that companies go through to bury the truth from people and to just keep people uneducated.Lisa:Even sugar, it's not so easy in some places to find something made from natural sugar. It's either going to be genetically modified sugar beets or corn.Jessica:Yeah, and sugar is super inflammatory too, so it kind of all comes out the same in your system. But corn syrup, I really, I just really hate that stuff. I just feel like it's toxic and it's in everything.Lisa:What were your biggest challenges along the way or maybe surprises along the way as well in this whole process of getting this book out?Jessica:Well, I'm in the midst of the challenges right now. It's been really hard to connect with the community that I'm trying to connect with because there's a lot of barriers. So-Lisa:What are they?Jessica:I'm part of a lot of groups online for example with like food allergy communities. But I'm not allowed to post my project because it's seen as fundraising or an endorsement of a fundraising project. And same thing with every single organization that I've reached out to and I'm sending thirties of emails a day trying to get people to help me put this out there.So that's been the greatest challenge and the greatest barrier really. This isn't even about profit, it's just about getting it into the hands of people who need it, the hands of people who are struggling or just foodies who want to cook. Because really the book is... Anybody can use it. It's not, you by no means have to be allergic to appreciated.So connecting with people has been challenging and I feel like I've really had to prove myself in ways that have just been shocking to me. I didn't think I would have to beg food allergy people to see me as an authentic person just trying to put a resource out there.Lisa:Any positive surprises or challenges?Jessica:A lot of positive surprises. I've been just in awe of the support of family and friends and I had an amazing launch day, which was just incredible. But just-Lisa:When was your launch date?Jessica:I launched on May 15th during Food Allergy Awareness Week. So the campaign will be a total of 33 days. It ends on June 17th.Lisa:Let's talk about what you're going to do if you do make it. And if you don't make it.Jessica:To make the goal, I need a 1000 people to put $20 into the project. I think it's really feasible. And if the project succeeds, the plan is then I want the rewards to get out to people and the book itself to get out to people by December. So I will just jump right into the editing phase and illustration and then getting the book printed and shipped out.So I've been working with editors and plotting around that. I think it should take about between four and six months. I've given myself a lot of given myself enough padding, I think to make that happen. I really believe in this book and I'm not really focused on what's going to happen if it doesn't work because it's going to work. So on June 17th, I will know and I'm just kind of trusting that the next thing, yeah, will come and it will happen.Lisa:And so then you're going to be busy touring with this book.Jessica:Then I'm going to be really busy. Yeah, if it hasn't been busy enough, Kickstarter has been an adventure. It's a lot of work.Lisa:Let's say you get the book out and you're onto the next thing. Do you know what that's going to be?Jessica:Well I already have a another book in mind that is going to be like #Allergic to Everything Light because I think this book has a lot of comfort, delicious recipes. And I think that my cooking has shifted over time. So I kind of want to put just my newer, lighter. Yeah, just a little bit healthier. Initially, the things that I missed were breads and things with sugar in it and things like that. But no matter what, I've always been a teacher and I'll always be a teacher. So however I can teach, that's what I'll be doing.I was teaching for about five years, everything from yearbook to coaching robotics actually here at Berkeley. I was with high school most recently. And I think something that I think about in the future is teaching on the college level. I've kind of snaked my way up through all the grades and I found a really sweet spot in high school. But I think there's a really sweet spot in young adulthood when you're studying what you want and learning how you can manipulate the world and leave it a better place.Lisa:Do you feel like you've reached your comfort zone of allergies? You have your allergies under control?Jessica:I think I have my allergies under control. I don't always have temptation under control because it's a tempting world when everybody you live with is eating pizza. It's not always that easy not to eat it. Certain things I noticed trigger me and I'm still looking at them, like sesame for example. I kind of think that sesame oil causes me issues, but then I don't always think so. So I don't know. I think it's kind of an ongoing process.Yeah, and something to revisit too because a lot of people end up removing things and their system kind of gets this little break and then they're able to reincorporate them, which I've tried that. I haven't found that to be successful for myself, but I think it's possible for a lot of people, so yeah, I think it's a lifelong.Lisa:In your research, do you think that the human body will evolve to accept these bio engineered or GMO products ultimately?Jessica:I feel like we're evolving to reject them. If you look at just the ratio of wheat in things and the ratio of corn in things and that with the number of people affected by these things and the rate of the increase of allergens being diagnosed, especially in kids, it's outrageous. I don't think that we're helping ourselves. I think we're hiding a lot of things behind big bureaucratic systems.The way that the book is written is to be able to be used by anybody who's dealing with any of the top eight allergens. And this question has come up a lot by people looking at the project, wondering if their child's allergic to dairy and nuts, will they still be able to eat? And the answer is yes because every recipe is going to be flexible and your allergen will be able to be substituted within that. And I would say only 30% of the book probably contains those two items.So even without the flexibility of the recipes, there's still a ton of resources for everybody, but it is friendly to to all top eight allergens. And part of the reason that I wanted to do that is because I know that nobody's journey is the same and nobody's allergens look exactly the same and mine aren't all the top eight, but the top eight are responsible for 90% of the food allergic reactions. So I wanted to try to include as many people as I could.I think the things that made me fall in love with food, I think the food is all about our memories and about our experiences and little things go a long way and food attaches us to memories. And that's how we make memories with each other. And there's just a real sense of comfort in it, whether it was my grandmother taking the time to slice the grapes for the fruit salad and just shows love.Friendsgiving is how I started celebrating Thanksgiving when I came out here and just bringing people together. And I think that food really connects us with each other and with ourselves. And it's a big reflection on how we're taking care of ourselves and I think it's important and I think this book is important. I hope that people will consider supporting the project regardless of whether or not you have food allergies. Because I can practically guarantee, you know somebody who has food allergies and they deserve this resource.Lisa:Well, thank you, Jessica.Jessica:Thank you.Lisa:You've been listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes University. We'll be back in two weeks at this same time. 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Copywriter Jessica Manuszak joins Kira and Rob to talk all things copy for the 38th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Jessica specializes in capturing the unique voice of her clients. In this interview, Jessica opens up and shares the details of how she’s grown her business over the past couple of years, including... (we added the ellipsis for her benefit—you’ll see why). •  How she became the top-performing salesperson with absurd scripts •  The “mixtape” secret for writing in her client’s voice •  Her process for naming products and services •  How she “justifies her copy” cuts down on edits by using Google Docs •  A step-by-step rundown of her process working with clients •  How she really landed several “big name” clients—she says it was luck : ( •  The thing she hates most that other copywriters keep doing Lots of good ideas and information from a successful copywriter who hasn’t been in the game for decades, but is doing well nonetheless. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Ash Ambirge The Middle Finger Project The Little Mermaid Spotify Scrabble Dictionary Saved by the Bell Acuity Typeform World’s Best Boss Mug Neil Gaiman AAA Dove The Copywriter Club Email Lianna Patch Marian Schembari VerveandVigour.com Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 38, as we chat with copywriter Jessica Manuszak about her career journey, from working in government to growing her own agency, landing and working with big name clients, finding confidence, and what she sees as the biggest opportunities for copywriters today. Kira: Hi, Jess. Hi, Rob. How’s it going? Rob: Hey guys. Jessica: Oh, hi. I’m good, thanks. Kira: Welcome to the show, Jess. We’ve been waiting. We’ve been waiting for you. Jessica: Oh man. I’m so ready. Kira: So, I think a good place to start, Jess, is just how you ended up in copywriting, especially from government finance. Jessica: It’s funny because it was a completely natural and completely unnatural transition. Right out of college, I went into telemarketing, selling like skeezy online degrees to people who didn’t need them. I was talking to like 74-year-old women, being like, “No, but engineering would really help you with your goals.” It was not good news. But that was the first time … Rob: I can think of a couple of degrees I might want to get, actually. Kira: I know. Jessica: Right, I think we can do that. Kira: Are you still selling? Jessica: Yeah, I’ll hook you up … underwater basket weaving. But that was actually the first time I ever realized how powerful personality can be when you’re selling something. Because everyone else was like, “Oh hello, Jane. Would you like to purchase this degree program?” I was leaving them voicemails, it was like, “Jane, this is Jane from the future and I’m so glad you got that degree,” just like … Kira: Did you really? Jessica: Well, yeah. Kira: Did you really leave those messages? Jessica: Mm-hmm (affirmative), 100 percent. Kira: Wow. Jessica: I actually was the top performing salesperson on my floor while I worked there because of those like just off-the-wall, absurd scripts. So I left that, went to work for a school district, where I was managing a multi-million dollar bond project.

Jessica Fewless, Vice President, ABM Strategy and Field Marketing at Demandbase, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss partner matchmaking, the role of partner marketing, enabling partners by focusing on their customers, and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast. Jen: Hi and welcome to The Allbound Podcast. I'm Jen Spencer and today I am joined by Jessica Fewless, Senior Director of Field and Partner Marketing at Demandbase. Welcome, Jessica. Jessica: Thanks for having me, Jen. Jen: Well, it's so good to have you and, you know, before we really dig into your job I'd love to hear a little bit about Demandbase and our listeners I'm sure would love to know a little more about what you guys do over there. Jessica: Sure. Demandbase is a sales marketing and advertising technology platform designed specifically for B2B marketers. It helps to identify accounts that are most likely to buy from you and the most likely members of the buying committee. And then it helps you attract them to your website and engage them with relevant messaging, once they get there, you know. Last but not least, it allows you to deliver really helpful insights to your sales team in order to help them turn those prospects and customers into revenue for your company. Jen: I love it. And I also love that, you know, you are in the sales and martech space, and we're seeing so many sales and marketing technology organizations who have traditionally, you know, been selling direct. We're seeing them start to adopt indirect strategies and, you know, when I was preparing to speak with you and I'm looking at Demandbase's website, it seems like you have a really solid strategy in place for your partners in terms of segmentation, you know, you've got your agency partners, technology partners, then you have consulting partners. Can you talk a little bit about how your marketing differs with each one of those groups? Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. You know in the evolution of Demandbase... So I've been here for four years now, almost half the life of the company, and when I started, I was originally brought on to do partner marketing. But immediately at that point, you know, I would say that our company wasn't quite ready yet for a mature partner marketing function. You know, we did simple things like worked with partners and sponsored their events. You know, and co-sponsored events in the fields and stuff like that, but that was really kind of pretty surface level type of partner marketing. But more recently, you know, as the ABM category has grown, as Demandbase has grown, our maturity as a company and the maturity of our channel sales team has really blossomed. We went from having one and a half people in that role to about four people now, building out on as you alluded to Jen kind of those separate segments: the agency, technology and consulting partners. And, you know, the reason we split them out like that is, you know, it definitely helps scale our efforts as a company. You know, eventually, you get to a point where your own sales team can only do so much and you really need the help of partners to help scale your efforts from a sales perspective. And so, you know, the reason we split out into three different categories was because our value proposition to them and their value proposition to our customers is very different with each one. You know, with technology partners, those are the partners that we have developed technology integrations with, and so really aiding those B2B marketers to kind of tie multiples of their martech stack together to either deliver additional insights, or deliver additional capabilities that they can have when they use either one of the technologies in a silo. And then when it comes to agency partners, you know, typically this is on the digital agency side or the media agency side. So once again, it's a give and take relationship, we help educate them about account based marketing because that's what their B2B customers they're talking about. And then on the flip side, they help us because a lot of our customers and prospects are asking, "Okay, you know, typically we've been using, say, B2C advertising techniques, we know there's got to be a better way or a custom built way for B2B." And so we're able to bring those agency partners into our customers and prospects to help them solve that problem. And then third, is our consulting partners which is kind of a combo of the two, consulting partners and system integration partners, where they can provide some strategy for the client, but they can also help with the selection of and the implementation of technology. So, you know, I think you can see that it really makes sense that we segment them out that way because each one of them is a very different audience for us. Jen: Right. And, you know, they're gonna need different things from you. But you've really built an ecosystem, a true partner ecosystem there, and which is excellent because I'm sure you've got some of those agency partners that are interacting not just with you, but they are also interacting with certain technology partners that you might have to offer a solution, a custom solution for, you know, that end customer. Jessica: Yeah. Definitely, I mean, it was really interesting we had our marketing innovation summit, which is our annual conference back in April actually. And, you know, it was really interesting because we had a partner mixer and it was typically those things that are a lot of glasses of wine and bottles of beer to drink and, you know? Jen: Yeah. Yeah. Jessica: And as it goes on it gets a little bit chummier, and more fun, and whatnot. But what's really interesting is that this year, myself and the four channel sales folks on our team spent most of the night playing almost, you know, partner matchmaker. You know... Jen: It's interesting, yeah. [crosstalk] Jessica: We had a lot of consulting and agency partners there and they were like, "Well, hey, introduce me to some of your other technology partners so I can start to connect the dots," right? Or it was a technology partner who was like, "Hey, introduce me to some of these consulting partners because I think we are in the same account together and it would be good to like, compare notes." So, yeah, so that was a really interesting kinda evolution in the maturity of our partner ecosystem. Jen: I love it. I love it. And, you know, you mentioned you've been at Demandbase for four years, but I mean, you've been in marketing for 18 plus years, right? So you've worked in non-profit, which I have too, so, we have those battle wounds together. And companies like you were at Autodesk, you were at Adobe, I'm curious about...what are some of the bigger shifts that you've seen in partner marketing over the years? And this answer might extend beyond partner marketing because I'd love to know what, you know, you're doing today that's different from what you did like even as early as four, five years ago. Jessica: Yeah. So, I think to kind of draw back a little bit on some of my time at Autodesk and Adobe and more recently now at Demandbase, I think, you know, the role of the partner marketer has really changed. You know, it's one of those things, or it should change, maybe is a little bit more accurate. So, you know, one point, partner marketing was kind of a program or a project management role. It was one where, you know, they kind of stood in between the marketing team and the channels sales team or the partner team, and their sole focus was really on joint marketing with key partners, right? And so then they would talk to the partner, understand what the partner was trying to achieve and brainstorm, potentially some ideas, and then we'd go back to the marketing team and say, "Hey, marketing team, what can we do here? This partner XYZ is interested in doing “A”, can we fit it in?" And, you know, I don't know about you or any of your listeners, but I found that process to be completely frustrating and unfulfilling, right? Because you'd have all these great ideas and then you take them back to marketing, marketing is like, "No, sorry we don't have the bandwidth or we don't wanna interrupt any of our other programs to fit this in or, you know, or, or, or..." Right? And, you know, now, today I feel like partner marketing managers need to be full blown demand gen marketers. Ones that cannot only brainstorm possible programs, but also be able to execute on them, and be much more proactive and who they're gonna reach out to and partner with. You know, it's definitely one of those things that has been changing although there's still that classic like project manager partner marketing person out there, and when you encounter them, I find them to be ultimately frustrating. Because you're like, "That's great, I wanna work with you but aaah." Jen: Right. Right. Well, and I think, you know, if you look at, okay, well how did we get there? And, you know, one of the things that we see is that a lot of organizations that say, "Yeah, I wanna build this channel of partners." But they ultimately under resource that channel, and so they look for this one person who can be the 'be all end all' and like do everything, right? Who can be the operations person, that project management person and oh yeah, they can just do marketing, they can still be responsible for the revenue too. And we just know you would not do that in any other setting. You know, you wouldn't have that one person be responsible for all things related to the direct part of your business. And so, a lot of it just stems I think just from organizations kind of skimping on the resources that need to be put into the human capital to grow a partner program. Jessica: Yeah. Well, I agree and I think the other thing too is, and I've started to describe it as such, is that I kind of looked at the role of partner marketing as a bit of a Venn diagram, which hopefully everybody is not gonna glaze over when I say that but.... And I think that the two circles are the work that you do in service as the channel sales team, the work you do in service as the marketing team, and then that center section is the joint marketing you do with the partners, right? Because it isn't just about joint marketing, or in, at least in most organizations, it isn't or it shouldn't be, right? So on the pure channel side of things there's new partner recruitment, there's on-boarding, there's nurturing of those partners and those sorts of things to help the channel sales team to be successful, and actually helping those partners influence sales for your company, right? So that's solely dedicated as a channel team and then on the marketing side, you know, there's gonna be some of the somewhat mundane but necessary part of partner marketing role, which is connecting partners with the events team for sponsorships and, you know, working together with partners, or co-sponsoring a field marketing event or those sorts of things. But also, connecting with the right partners for potential thought leadership opportunities and those sorts of things that elevate both your organizations in the eyes of your potential customers. And then in that center section is the true joint partner marketing, right? I think what most people think of when they think of partner marketing and why it's really important if you don't have the other two parts of the role, I feel like that's part in the middle is what, like you said, gets under resourced and kind of missed. Jen: Mm-hmm. I love that Venn diagram kind of, like look, as you were talking through it, I was picturing it and we might need to collaborate on some content for the future because I think there's something really there. You kind of touched on this a little bit, but I wanna dig in when you think about like some of the strategies that you've implemented to really help ensure your team is creating the content that's gonna keep those partners engaged, and foster long-term relationships with them. I mean, do you have any guidance or any tips for our listeners on what they can do because a lot of organizations onboard... or I guess the recruitment of partners and their onboarding of partners isn't where they have a challenge, it's then actually engaging them, and truly activating them once they've joined that inner circle. Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. I think that the biggest thing now is, you know, I think everybody thinks of, "Okay I'm gonna build a partner portal and then I'm gonna put all these things out there about our product so that our partner knows about our products, so that they can go sell our products. And in today's world, I would just call that table stakes like, yes you have to do that stuff but that's the bare minimum. You know, what you really wanna be enabling your partners with is content that's gonna help them be more successful with their clients. And hopefully, that's the benefit of your organization as well, but things that are gonna help them raise the bar. So, in our world, you know, yes we have webinars, and we have data sheets and all that fun stuff about what's going on with our product, but on the flip side of that, we definitely want to help educate them at account based marketing because that's gonna help them rise above their competitors in many cases, because a lot of the agencies and consulting partners aren't talking about account based marketing yet and so if an agency can come in and say, "Oh, account based marketing? Yeah, we're all over that." That's gonna make them look good and that's gonna help them in business which is gonna then, in turn, ingratiate them to us. Jen: So, in addition to the supporting partners and positioning them so they can be positioned as you know, experts in account based marketing, and giving them content that's gonna help them earn business and is going to set them up for success, have there been any promotional programs or anything unique that you've created to help them be successful and keep those partners happy? Jessica: Oh, that's a great question. Promotional programs? I wouldn't say so at this point, I think that's partially because, you know, we're just getting to that maturity of our channel sales and partner program, but we had a point this year, like I said at the marketing innovation summit, where we had a mixer and we, I mean, we have no problem getting a hundred people in the room. I think the next evolution for us is in 2018 to have a partner summit, right? An advance of that partner mixer, one where it's definitely an out bound where we can update them on the latest and greatest from us or the ABM industry or those sorts of things, but also for them to be able to provide some success stories, like, "Here's how we found success in working with Demandbase to help with kinda educate the rest of the people in the room." And, you know, then once again to network and make those connections amongst each other. But I think that's kind of the next evolution for us is getting to that summit phase and I think to your point there around promotions, hey, maybe what we'll start to do is with some of our onboarding and our nurturing, you know, we point people to our partner portal, maybe if they check all the boxes on their onboarding report card, they get free tickets to our conference or that kind of thing. So, I'm sure we can build that kind of stuff and/or, you know, do some gamification around it, but we've really haven't gotten to that phase yet. Jen: Well, it sounds exciting and there's so much time and so many great ideas, so I'm sure there'll be amazing things for your partner program here in the next couple of years. Looking back the last few years, you personally really dedicated yourself to building and executing an ABM strategy and I thought, you know, without... I mean I know we can have a whole separate conversation just about that, but I'm wondering if you can tell a little bit of what you've done and specifically why it's been important for like channel partner success. Jessica: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, you know, kind of talking about ABM at a really high level it's, you know, understanding the accounts that you want to sell to and then going out and finding them and selling to them, right? That's kind of the pipe dream or the promise, so to speak, of account based marketing, and it's not a dream, it's, in fact, a whole methodology around that, but, you know, when we talk about it, we actually talk about it having three key audiences. One, prospects, so selling to new potential customers. Two, your existing customers, right? They're your existing customers, you know even more about them than you do about your prospects, so you should be able to sell it to them even better, right at that whole 80-20 rule like, 80% of the work goes into getting a customer, 20% is in keeping and up selling them. And then the third audience is your partners, because if you're talking to your partners in the exact same way that you're talking to your customers and your prospects they're gonna tune you out, right? They don't really care what the shiny new widget is, right? What they care about is what you're doing from a strategy perspective, or how that shiny, new widget is gonna help them be more successful, right? So, if you just sent them to a web page that said, "Hey, look, we have this new thing." They'll go, "Interesting." If you send them an email, and you personalize your website to say, "We have a shiny new thing and it's gonna help you and here's why." Now that helps, one, attract new partners, but to also engage the ones that you already have. Jen: That's perfect. Great. Great. Really great advice. And, you know, I'm thinking about things from their perspective, like I always do, of kind of being the little guy, and you guys have some real members on your list of technology partners. I mean, everything from like IBM, and Salesforce and Oracle to Drupal and WordPress, and Optimizely, and HubSpot, I mean, some big heavy hitters in the martech space, and for a lot of organizations, they might see those types of companies and partnerships and think, "Gosh like there's no way. Like why would these companies partner with me? I'm just kind of starting to build my program." Do you have any wisdom for gaining traction and partnerships with these kinds of tech greats? Jessica: Yeah. That's an interesting one I think, you know, part of us just building our company is what drew these partnerships together for us. As our company grew, as the ABM category grew, right? We became more and more important to these companies. Now, to your point, when you're just starting out, not everybody has that kind of at their advantage. I think for us what we really went after was, when talking to all these partners was, how can we make your solution relevant for account based marketing, right? So I think for anybody, it's figuring out how is your solution partnered with their solution? How is that gonna make their solution more successful, right? And so, we provided that relevance and a burgeoning category that everybody wanted a part of. So, it was kind of our value proposition to working with those folks, and, you know, paid off in the end. Jen: Absolutely. Absolutely. Are you guys still, at this point, are you still sort of like, whale hunting for organizations like that or has your focus when it comes to partner recruitment or I guess actually let me say this, are you still actively recruiting new partners? Or is your energy really focused on maintaining and engaging the ones you have? Jessica: Yup. I would say it's probably 50-50, at this point, kind of where we spend our energy. So yes, absolutely to kind of list that you listed out earlier, those are a lot of the technology partners that we have, you know, there's kind of discrete list of technology partners that we wanna engage, bring on board and work with, and I think at this point we've probably got 75% to 80% of them kind of in our wheelhouse. However, on the agency and consulting side, ABM is a new growing business for them, so just like we practice account based marketing and build a target account list for the new business side of our company, where we decide who are the targets we wanna go after? And we build the marketing and sales programs to go after them. We've actually done the same thing on the partner side. So I've sat down with our channel sales team and said, "Okay, who are the next 50 partners you wanna have in both the agency and consulting categories, right? And let's develop, you know, a whole integrated marketing campaign around going out and getting them." So, exactly the same type of strategy and which might seem kind of silly to some. I mean, I don't know if it works for everybody's business model, but for us it's really, really important because just like I said, you know, even if an agency partner influences a million or two million dollars of business in a given year, that's really helping to kind of amplify our efforts, so it's worth it to us to have a broader set of those partners on board. Jen: It makes perfect sense to me and we have a saying here at Allbound, it's "Partners are people too." And as cheesy as it sounds, sometimes we unnecessarily over-complicate channel partner, you know, that channel partner realm. And just like, you know, you're communicating with people, you're collaborating with them, you're prospecting them, you're engaging with them, same thing goes for those partners that you would like to bring into your world, so makes sense. My last question for you as it relates to channel marketing is, you know, I'm wondering if you have some kind of sound bite, some kind of concise piece of advice that you'd like to offer to other leaders in partner marketing. Jessica: Wow. I kind of liked your last statement there I feel like that's almost... I don't think of it as a sound bite, but I think that the biggest thing is to think of your partner marketing function as a demand gen function focused on partners. You know, so that you're getting the right set of skills, people who have a marketing background, people who are used to being focused on things like pipeline and revenue because that is gonna incent the right types of behaviors and they're gonna go out and find the right types of partnerships that are really gonna make the company successful. Jen: Awesome. Awesome. Well, before I really let you go, Jessica, I have a speed round of a couple of more personal questions that I ask all of our guests. And so I'd love for you to play along as well. Jessica: Okay. Jen: As long as you're okay with that. So, first question for you is what is your favorite city? Jessica: Barcelona. Jen: Woo! you answered that really quickly. Have you been... Jessica: Off the top of my head. Jen: Have you been there multiple times or just once or...? Jessica: I have. I have and everybody talks about, you know, Paris, and these other places and I don't know, like Barcelona to me is just such a vibrant city, and it's kind of the best land of both the east coast and the west coast of the US and then plopped into Europe with all of that richness of culture, I just absolutely love it. Jen: Wonderful. Okay. Second question, are you an animal lover? Jessica: Oh, absolutely. Cats and dogs. Jen: Do you have pets? Jessica: Two cats and, you know, someday when I stop traveling so much, definitely I will have some dogs. Jen: Yeah, it's tough to have a dog when you are not home for sure. I love all creatures. It's absolutely ridiculous, but that's great. Question number three, Mac or PC? Jessica: Definitely a Mac. I am a convert. I was always PC until I came to Demandbase and I showed up on my first day with a Mac, I figured it out and now I look at a PC and I'm like, "Ah, how do I use this thing?" Jen: Isn't it funny, Apple like they've rewired our brains, you know. Jessica: They did. Jen: It's unbelievable, between my MacBook and my iPhone, it's like I don't know how to do anything else. Jessica: Yes, exactly. Jen: All right and last question for you is, let's say I was able to offer you an all-expenses-paid trip, where would it be to? Jessica: Wow, that's an amazing question. I think I would love the opportunity to travel and probably South America. Just really dive in and, you know, get to see different wine regions and coastal villages and the mountains, being able to deep into Patagonia and those sorts of places. I think you know, being able to spend a couple of months there would be pretty amazing. Jen: Sounds great. Sounds like a good vacation. Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing your insights with us. It was such a pleasure just getting to know you and hear about what you got cooking over at Demandbase. If any of our listeners would like to reach out to you personally, maybe ask about using ABM and their channel, or to kind of swap stories with you, what's the best way for them to reach out to you? Jessica: Yeah, you can definitely look me up on LinkedIn, I'm always happy to make new and more connections there. And then also, I'm on twitter @jfewlessB2B, so I'm constantly posting new stuff there, so feel free to connect with me there, and, you know, direct message me if you have questions on anything that I've posted out there. Jen: Perfect. Sounds good. Well, I appreciate it and I'm sure our listeners do as well so thank you for your time and thanks, everyone, for tuning in and we'll catch you next week with an all-new episode of The Allbound Podcast. Jim: Thanks for tuning into The Allbound Podcast. For past episodes and additional resources, visit the resource center at allbound.com and remember, #NeverSellAlone.

Scott Francisco & Jessica Robinson discuss Pilot Project’s Green Garage Hub – Bonfires on the Move  In this episode, Jessica and Scott Francisco, Director of Pilot Projects, discover a mutual fascination with the unloved city parking garage and explore what a current design for today's urban neighborhood might look like. Pilot Projects' Green Hub concept is an adaptive reuse that reimagines parking structures as vibrant community spaces with parking for bicycles, coworking space, a cafe, and even a rooftop garden with solar panels. Scott and the team partnered closely with a number of community organizations in New York to put this design together, and we hope that a network of parking garages like the Green Hub will eventually be built.   http://bonfiresofsocialenterprise.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/SFrancisco_Headshot_BBF-2.jpg ()  http://bonfiresofsocialenterprise.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/greenhubbanner-1.jpg ()        http://bonfiresofsocialenterprise.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Pilot-Projects_GreenHub_2015.jpg () http://bonfiresofsocialenterprise.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Early_Green_Hub_Sketch.png ()   Full Transcription: Jessica: Scott, it is so good to talk to you this morning. I have to confess that we are about to dig into one of my favorite topics but it's an obscure one for sure, and that's parking garages. Welcome, and thank you for joining. Scott: Thanks for having me. Jessica: Yeah. Scott, you’re the Director of Pilot Projects out there in New York. I was looking at the website, and I see you guys describe the work that you do focus on people, spaces, culture and infrastructure and certainly parking garages are one of those pieces of cities that we don't often think a lot about and don't appreciate. Thank you again for joining me on this journey today. I'll give a little context here; the reason I love parking garages so much is I spent a ton of time in them when I was managing parking for Zipcar out in San Francisco and had a chance to see lots of different designs and think about the neighborhoods that they were located in. When I heard about the Green Hub project that you guys are working on I just had to hear more. Tell me first a little bit more about Pilot Projects and how Green Hub came to be and what exactly are you thinking about for parking garages today and in the future. Scott: Jessica, we have something in common that’s our love of parking grudges because I also have a bit of history with them. When I was a very young architecture student, I spent a summer doing assessments of parking garages for an engineering firm where we dragged chains around on the surfaces to test whether the concrete was still intact. I spent a whole summer in parking garages in Canada. Pilot Projects is a design company that focused on how infrastructure in all its different variations can support culture and look at the dialect and connections between what we build and how we use the buildings and spaces in a way that has a deep cultural impact. In our neighborhood on the lower side of New York City, there's an old parking garage that was built in 1970. It's one of the most unloved, unlike the looking structure it doesn't seem to contribute anything to this streetscape and yet there it is, and it has space for about 300 cars. It's the kind of thing that we walk by very regularity and would look at it and say, “What could be done with the structure to bring life and vitality to the neighborhood.” We’re also avid bikers and are involved in some bike related projects. One of the first things we thought about is how we could bring bicycling and bike culture into this parking structure. Why has it just for cars? It seems completely out of sync with the way the city is going and the way neighborhoods are embracing bike transportation. Jessica: That's so interesting to me how you're bringing it back from just being a place for...

Bonfires on the Move!  Technology solving mobility issues! Meet the new host of Bonfires on the Move,  Jessica Robinson.  Jessica and Romy discuss her new segment and the types of guests she will be interviewing. As technology is used to solve mobility issues, Jessica will be bringing front-line trends and fresh ideas to our listeners. Social Enterprise has technology all over it! http://bonfiresofsocialenterprise.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Jessica-Robinson.jpg ()   Full transcript Romy: So I’m talking today with Jessica Robinson for the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. It looks like we’ve had such popularity with some of the guests that she’s identified, that we’re going to start a regular segment with you, Jessica. That’s what we’re talking about today. Jessica: Yeah, I’m so excited, Romy. I can’t wait to do this. Romy: (Laughs) I know. Me, too. Hey, I just thought, we’d let the listeners know how we connected. You and I were guest judges at an event around social enterprise, and we connected there. And then you introduced me to one of our very popular guests from Season 1, from SPLT Fares. Do you want to tell me a little bit about what you were doing at the time? Jessica: Yes. So, as you mentioned, we met as co-judges, and I was excited to be part of that event focused on social enterprise. But I met Anya, the founder of SPLT, uh, because she had brought her company to Detroit as part of the very first Techstars Mobility program here in the city. And when I met you and heard what you were working on and had been talking to Anya about their vision for her company, it just seemed like a perfect fit, and I had to put you two in touch. Romy: (Laughs). Yeah, and that was such a gift because she is so great. Her whole team, they’re just tremendous. And then as you and I kept in touch, it seemed obvious that there was a lot of folks that you were identifying around this, using technology to solve mobility issues. And I think you and me just kind of organically said, “Hey, we might have enough content here. Let’s see if we can do a regular monthly episode, huh?” Jessica: Yeah. I think it’s great. And as I started to think about the types of folks that we could bring on to the show or expose to the listeners here, I just keep getting more excited. There’s just so much happening in the space right now and attention to the way we move and get around here, not just in the US but really across the globe, that this is the perfect timing for this conversation. Romy: Jessica, I know, just for the listeners, your bio will be online, but could you give them just a little bit of a feel of your background? Jessica: Yeah, I’d be glad to. It’s, funny when you always try and think of telling your story of how you got to this point because there’s so many bits and pieces of my background that I really see, have brought me into this place right now and just my love for transportation and mobility. I had a chance to work at Zipcar, which is the world’s leading, car sharing organization for a number of years. I started with them all the way back in 2007 when the idea of new mobility solutions and mobility technology was still very early. And I remember many conversations at the time, people laughing or doubting that this would ever change anything here in the US. So with Zipcar, I did a number of different things, everything from marketing to building the community membership base to, something a little more boring [sounding] but actually really interesting, which was managing parking for the company in San Francisco. And in doing so, I had a chance to get a glimpse at a different side of business, which I think comes full circle in many ways now, and that was working with city officials who were really trying to grapple with what do we do as civic leaders when we have all of these new companies and startups coming in.

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Jessica Jackley Co-Founder, kiva.org Date: September 29, 2008 Jessica Jackley: Kiva Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT. This is one in a continuing series of interviews that we are doing with women who have started either IT companies or organizations that are based on information technology. We are very excited that we have Jessica Flannery here today from Kiva to talk to us. Also with me is Larry Nelson, from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: It's really a pleasure to be here and I must say we are getting tremendous feedback from not only adults who are having their children listen to some of these interviews, but some of the employers that are looking for more women and more technical people to get into the business which is sometimes a very good step to becoming an entrepreneur. Lucy: Also with me today is Lee Kennedy who is a Director of NCWIT and a serial entrepreneur herself. Right now, her current company is called Tricalix. Hi Lee. How are you? Lee Kennedy: Hi Lucy. Hi Larry. It is so good to be here. Larry: It is. We are the three L's, right? Lucy, Lee and Larry or something. Lucy: Or something. Welcome Jessica. We are very happy to have you with us today and the topic that we are going to talk about, I mean, you're fabulous social entrepreneur, and I think that this whole area of micro-finance and what Kiva is doing is just fascinating. And as part of this interview, we all went and spent time on the Kiva site and just really got lost in all the wonderful stories that are our there. So welcome. Jessica Flannery: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. Lucy: Well, for our listeners, I'm sure everybody knows but it bears repeating that Kiva is the first peer to peer micro loan website. It really demonstrates how the Internet can be used to facilitate these meaningful types of connections between people who want to lend money and entrepreneurs all over the world especially in developing countries, how we can all help each other really move the economies ahead. It's a really fascinating website. So Jessica, why don't you just spend a minute and tell us a bit about Kiva. Jessica: Sure. You said it very, very well and very concisely. We are the world's first person to person micro lending website so anybody in the world can go onto the site, browse business profiles and entrepreneur profiles really I should say. Whether that person is a farmer or selling small goods in their village or a seamstress or a restaurant owner, there are all different kinds of small business. And you can lend as little as $25 to that entrepreneur and over time you get updates on that business and then you get paid back. Larry: Wow! Lucy: Well, and Kiva is a fairly young organization. I read someplace that you started a bit of a hobby website and it just exploded. Jessica: Yeah. It's been a very, very busy last four years. Four years ago, I learned about micro-finance and decided that's what I want to do. I quit another job and I went to East Africa for a few months to see it up close and personal. While I was there it was impossible not to be deeply moved by the stories of success of people that I was meeting. People who had used often just a $100 to change their lives and lifted their families out of poverty. So, I became really excited about these stories and wanted to share them with my own friends and family. And as I did that, my husband Matt and I kept asking not just "Oh, this is great. Micro-finance works, but wow, how do we, and our friends and family, how do we enable people to lend money directly to these individuals we're meeting?" So, it started out with a very specific way, very specific context with individuals who we had met face to face in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda who we wanted to help. We wanted to participate in their amazing stories, and we wanted to see them get to the next level. So what we did was basically Matt came to visit me during his time in East Africa, and then he went back home, built our website. We emailed our friends and family and said "Hey, we have seven businesses in Uganda that we'd like to lend a total of $3,000 to. Do you want to pitch in?" Then overnight that money came in and we sent that along to Uganda. We had a six month kind of beta round with these seven entrepreneurs in Uganda. After the six months they had repaid, we took the word beta off of our website and that launched us. And that was just in October of '05, so not even quite three years ago. Our first year was $500,000 a month, the second year was $13.5 million more, and today we're just around $45 million, and we haven't even finished our third year. So it's grown very rapidly. Lucy: And you have an incredible payback on the loans, incredible payback percent. Jessica: Yeah, it's in a high 90 percentage. That's representative of a micro finance alone, not just our site. Lucy: But wow, that's just and incredible history and such a good cause as well. One of the things that I noticed there was a Soft-tech video on YouTube that I watched that I thought was very interesting. Where you mentioned that you all created the tool that Kiva uses really to match lenders and entrepreneurs without really knowing how the world would use it to your previous story. This gets us to our first question which is around technology, and I thought you would have a really interesting spin on this. You know, how in general do you see technology helping missions like those of Kiva? Slightly different than potentially a four-profit business but you have incredibly interesting uses of technology. So what do you see in the future? Jessica: Kiva does a lot of different things, but our mission is to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. The real key there is to connect people. The money transfer is very interesting, and technology obviously helps that happened, but what really we care about is this connectivity. Loans happen to be a great tool for poverty alleviation as well as connectivity. I mean, if you lend me something and I have it and I'm fully giving it back to you, you're going to pay a little bit more attention usually, than if you just donate something and I tell you how that's going forever and ever. That back and forth communication is obviously free or a lot less expensive. It's quick. It's real time. You can see on the other side of the planet how this person is waiting right now today for that $200 that's going to allow them to start their business. So there are all these elements, but then technology makes it faster, more efficient, less expensive and just overall easier to have that human connection happen. Very specifically while I said the money is not the point, it's a great tool for a lot of things. For example, we've had a lot of help from great technology leaders out there that we've been able to leverage. So PayPal, we're the first non-profit to have PayPal generously agree to provide free payment transactions. So we have literally zero variable costs for sending these little bits of money back and forth all around the planet every day. Lucy: Well, one thing too, I'm a technologist so I'll get off this question in just a minute. I know Larry and Lee are looking at me like "Let's move off the technology." But I do have one more thing to observe here, because this is a different kind of interview than we've done. There is a whole growing area called ICT for D which is Information and Communication Technology for Developing World and one of the things that I have read that you either have done or will do is you make an offline browser so that people can conserve power on their computer, sort of a low energy kind of browser so they don't have to be always plugged in. That's an example of the type of technology around ICT for D that you have to start thinking about the climates and the situation and the resources that people have all around the world. Jessica: It's been very, very interesting for us to see, even how sometimes we'll have really wonderful generous lenders say, "Hey, I also want to donate financially or otherwise." And let's say they send a great batch of brand new video cameras for us to send out to the field. Well, sometimes actually a lower tech solution is better, because of the technology that's available in the field. So maybe we don't need the highest quality photos, the highest res photos, maybe a lower tech solution is better. That's been interesting to watch, just figuring out really what's the best and what's the most appropriate tools to get the job done. Lee: That's exactly right. Lucy: So, we normally ask what it is that you love about being an entrepreneur, but since you're working with entrepreneurs it would be great to hear about the stories from the entrepreneurs out of Kiva, as well as what it is that love about this whole environment and the entrepreneurship. Jessica: OK. This is a really good question. What I found is the idea of being an entrepreneur, I think that's really attractive to a lot of people. I think there are some, I don't want to put value judgments on it, good or bad, better or worse, but I think sometimes it has to do with freedom or this idea of being your own boss, or something like that. For me, my introduction to business and my entrepreneurship at all was in Africa seeing people who were gold hunters, or subsistence farmers, or fishermen, or people who were basically entrepreneurship to them was doing what they needed to do every day to survive. It was definitely not an option. They had to do the next thing, figure out the next step to get closer and closer to their goal to find food, and they could survive that day. It was very hand-to-mouth sort of entrepreneurship. It wasn't what we usually think of in Silicon Valley as entrepreneurship being super innovated perhaps or anything like that, but in context it was as innovative as anything else in Silicon Valley would have been, and as much entrepreneurship as anything else that you would see in other places of the world. For me, it's funny. I guess yet that it's true, when you look back at what we've done in Kiva the last four years, great! We have been social entrepreneurs, but we didn't go out thinking, I definitely thought over the years, over the last few years, "Oh, social entrepreneurship. How great! I want to do something like that." Then what happened is you have to get specific. You have to start with something specific. So, we started to do Kiva, a very, very specific mission of Kiva, and then retroactively we're like, "Oh, yeah. I guess that's what we're doing. It's pretty entrepreneurial, isn't it?" It came down to, "We have this mission, and we're going to do whatever we need to do everyday to make it happen. We're going to be scrappy if we need to. We're going to iterate. We're going to put things out there that maybe aren't even perfect. We're going to keep moving, and everyday say, 'What can we do next to meet our goals?'" That's what it felt like to me to be entrepreneurial. I think it's really been informed by the people that originally inspired us in the first place, and these micro-entrepreneurs all over the world. Lucy: You know what? That's just what entrepreneurs do. Everyday they're looking around, trying to figure out what they can do better. Do you have a story or two that you can share with some of the entrepreneurs that have taken loans and been successful, and then paid the loans off? Jessica: Sure. I mean there are so, so many. It's actually one of the hardest questions I get, because really I mean every one of them is amazing. If you want an amazing success story, I can tell you for example there was a woman that really was one of the very first people I ever met in East Africa. She did such amazing stuff. She had started one business, like a charcoal selling business. She had gotten them $800. For that initial business, she did like the equivalent of what a multi-national corporation would do, like all the principals were there. She started the one business, and then she diversified. Then she expanded, not from her local market, she went to markets in other trading centers and other villages. She extended beyond her geographic region. She started five other small businesses of all different types. I mean really things that you really wouldn't think would be related. What she did was she got practice, and then she got very good at seeing market needs and seeing opportunities. So, she had the capitol after time, and she was able to say, "Huh." I think of a very small caring business that you could start with $200 or $300. I think that's what made it. So she did that, and she did the next thing, and the next thing. She just blew me away, because you knew that had she just been dealing in another environment with bigger numbers, she would be the head of a huge multi-national corporation that was doing all sorts of different things really well. So, people like that just always blow me away. I would say truly, it sounds like a bit of a cheesy answer, but the real truth is any story that you read on the Kiva site, there's something to learn, there's something to appreciate, and there's something good. I think say, "Hey! Good job there, " to the entrepreneurs for doing it, because each person is taking a risk even just in accepting a loan, and putting themselves out there and saying, "I'm going to try. I'm going to try to do things differently. I'm going to try and make my life better, and life for my family better." Just taking advantage of that opportunity is something I think should really be applauded, and in and of itself is really a triumph and a great thing, a great thing to see happen. So, that's the hardest question to answer, because all of the entrepreneurs that you can see, I truly find inspirational in something. Lucy: Well, thank you for sharing that. That really is inspirational. Lee: Well, the other thing, and I'm sure somebody has already tumbled to this, there's a business book in this. When you said that she was making all the right entrepreneurial business moves, there's got to be a lot of nuggets of wisdom in there. Larry: You had mentioned offline Jessica, that you are involved with Ashoka? Jessica: Well, yes. I mean, I have found a lot of inspiration in Ashoka over the years, and sort of been introducing the idea of social entrepreneurship through Ashoka. Additionally, he has been honored with the Ashoka Fellowship very recently. We're really excited to be part of that community. Larry: Congratulations! Let me get on with another question here. Who has been either a role model or a mentor in your career, in your life? Jessica: Oh, my goodness! Now, that's the hardest question. I feel like I have been so blessed and so surrounded by encouragers. I mean, can I say like my top five? Larry: OK. Jessica: My parents first and foremost have always given me... Actually, it was really funny. I watched the Emmys last night. I actually don't have a television, but I was with and brother and sister-in-law in L.A., and we were watching the Emmys a little bit. She was saying something funny. She was like, "Thanks to my mom and dad for giving me confidence, that was to the portion that was my looks and ability." It was like "that's what my parents said." My parents first and foremost made it without question an obvious thing, that I could do anything I wanted to in the world. So, that was kind of the foundational piece in a very supportive family. There's been a few others. When I heard Dr. Hamadias speak, his story spoke to me like no others had at that point. That's what propelled me to quit my job and go off and try to figure out micro-finance for myself, and try to do something like what he did, like walk around meet people, listen to their needs, and help. So, he gave me a huge inspiration. Then I guess, the other person I'll mention is Brian Reynolds actually gave me that opportunity to go. He is the Founder and Executive Director of a really great organization called "Village Enterprise Fund." They give $100 grants to entrepreneurs for business creation. They really start people on the very first string of the economic ladder. These are actually folks who are doing such risky things like their systems filing that "If it doesn't rain, everything is lost." Really, really small businesses, who their commissioners wouldn't take a loan probably because they would be not in the right position to do so. Their organization is amazing. I basically met with Brian right around the time I decided I was going to figure out a way to work in micro-finance. He really gave me that opportunity. He listened to me, kind of met me where I was and said, "Hey." Even though I had no skills that I could really name. I had studied philosophy and poetry undergrad. I had done event planning, and administrative things in my job. I really didn't have a lot to go on to say "look, this is why you should hire me, and let me go do micro-finance," but he gave me that chance. On that trip. out to East Africa with Village Enterprise Fund, that's what changed my life, and that's where we had the ideas for Kiva. So, I am absolutely grateful for him, among many, many other in my life over the last decade. There's a lot of people. Lee: Well, that's the good thing about entrepreneurship as well that there are lots of other good people around to encourage you, and to offer wisdom. One piece of wisdom that we've been getting lots of interesting answers too on this particular interview series is the toughest thing you've ever had to do. So, we're curious. What is the toughest thing so far, that you've had to do in your career? Jessica: That is a really good question. I would say without a doubt that it has been...really tough to... you know when you do something that you care about so much, and also something that is like with the social mission I think, it becomes your baby. It becomes like your...I don't know there all these analogies, your right arm, you just feel so attached. It has been a challenge I think to do the work life balance thing in any way because you just feel so driven, so consumed by it, and you want to spend all your waking hours on it, but that can be unhealthy and actually lead to burn out and that sort of thing. So finding the right balance has been probably the biggest challenge and also being removed enough to make objective decisions. You know, it's always a challenge when you are so in love with the work that you get to do. Lee: So speaking of personal and professional balance what do you do to bring balance with all the entrepreneurs you're trying to help, and the changes on the website, how do you manage that? Jessica: Well, I think it's just about kind of knowing what your priorities are and knowing what your boundaries are of what you can control and what you can't and then just working away. I think it is just a daily reminding and daily recalibration saying, "OK, here is what we are about. Here's what we can do. Here's what we can't do and let's just keep moving forward." I think another trick too is just checking yourself often to make sure you are not making decisions others fear or panic in any way. We haven't really... we're an interesting state where we haven't had a competitors per se really, and we don't even think that way. But if we were forced to look at other kind of collaborative organizations out there as competitors, even if we saw them as such, I think it would be the wrong move to be driven to make any sort of decisions, or move to out of the place of fear. Just like it is in life, just kind of knowing who you are, and what you're about, knowing who you're not and just doing that, like the trying to respond to what else is out there or what someone else is doing. I think staying true and pure to your own mission is what it is about. It will make you stay sane. Larry: You have actually kind of covered part of the question I was going to ask you and that is, you've done so many things Jessica and you work with all kinds of people around the world but if you were right now sitting down in front of a young potential entrepreneur, what advice would you give them? Jessica: OK, I have the privilege of getting to do this quite a bit. This is the number one thing I would say, two things. Follow whatever you are really passionate about. It can be something that doesn't make a lot of sense like what do you do when we were passionate about the stories, how do you follow that? We loved them, we celebrated them, we read them ourselves, we laughed, we cried, we just got into those stories and then by sharing those stories, the thing that we are passionate about with the people that we were passionate about, our friends and family, that led to some really great stuff. So just follow as best you can, the stuff that you are passionate about would be number one. Two, if you're going to do something and start something and you really believe that's kind of what you were meant to do next, I would say don't be afraid to start small. In fact, that is really the only way to begin. I just finished my MBA at Stanford. I can't say enough good things about that place and that community. It was amazing. Additionally, it's a place where it is easy to think big very quickly and say "let's go change the world in these huge huge ways and let's have..." you know you don't want to start something unless it's scalable and unless it is going to touch three million people in its first two years or whatever. Easy to say think big or go home and what's your plan for scalability? You need to know that right now. I would say to a budding entrepreneur, don't be afraid, to be very, very specific about what you want to do, and how you want to begin. You should definitely think long term, too. But goodness, it's not a bad thing to start small, and in fact I really really believe that is kind of the way you have to do it and just do a little plug. There's a wonderful man who I would consider a mentor and certainly someone I have looked up to and learned a lot from. His name is Paul Polak, and he wrote a book called "Out of Poverty." He really talks a lot about being in contact like designing whatever you are designing, particularly if it's a program, or a service, or a product to serve the poor, go be with the people that you want to serve. Go get to know them as individuals and design things for individuals not this group of statistic of statistics or the masses. Go meet real people, design for them, start with the, serve them, and then see how you can grow things. That would be my recommendation, don't be afraid to start small and be really passionate about what you are doing because that's the way good things happen. Lucy: Dare I say that that I am old and wizened woman but you know your advice about starting small and don't be afraid to do that, it feels a lot like something I've come to view as being true. You just often don't know what the next turn is going to be. You have to live it a while, and see how things change and mature, and then be opportunistic about which way things are going to go because you often don't see the end. Jessica: Oh, yes and you can't. Lucy: You can't. Jessica: You actually probably sometimes cannot see the next step. It is totally impossible until you make the first one. Lucy: That's fine and that's actually part of the fun, isn't it? Larry: It is part of the fun. It's also by the way a big part of the book that I'm just finishing. Lucy: Oh, you had to plug your book. Larry: "Master and change," yes. Lucy: You had to plug your book. Larry: Oh well. Lucy: Well so I think we have a book here. So I have to ask you though, is there such a big about entrepreneurism and Kiva about teaching the basic elements of entrepreneurship? Jessica: No, not yet, but I think there are about 20 books we can write with them, different angles, different experiences, Web 2.0, the power of connecting people, what have we learned about business from the entrepreneurs out there? There's a lot of potential. Lucy: Oh, absolutely. I look forward to it. Jessica: Yeah, me too. Lucy: You've already really achieved a lot. It's quite inspirational to talk to you and kiva is just such a great organization. What's next for you? We just talked about how sometimes you can't see around the corner, do you have any long term vision that you want to share with our listeners about what's next? Jessica: No, I don't, but I will say that something that's been crazy is just this feeling that... I mean this is like my life dream. You read my favorite business school. I would say it was from three years ago. I would say it was basically someday maybe maybe I will get to be a part of something like this. I feel like the luckiest person in the world and to think that there could be other things in the future just blows my mind. I feel overwhelmed even thinking about it but overall in the most positive way because I already feel like this is my life. If my life ended tomorrow, I would be very a really thankful, happy person because I feel like I've gotten to see my dream kind of come true. Everything else is icing on the cake. What I am trying to do is to stay open to possibility, and learn, and read, and talk to people, and stay open to observing what is going on out there. I am thankful for kiva, and I am thankful for whatever the future hold, but yeah I'll let you know when I know. Larry: All right. Lucy: That has to be the most inspirational thing I have ever heard. I mean just to hear the passion in your voice and the excitement, it gives me goose bumps. I'm happy for you. I hope other people benefit from all the work that you are doing. Jessica: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I just feel very very lucky. Larry: Wow, Jessica I want to thank you for joining us today. This was marvelous plus. Jessica: Thank you. Man 1: By the way you listeners out there, would you pass this interview along to others who you think would be interested. We will make sure that we have a website link to kiva. Say your website. Jessica: It's www.kiva.org. Larry: Sounds wonderful. This has just been great here we are with the National Center for Women and Information Technology. You are doing some great stuff by bringing these messages out for people who are doing wonderful things. Thanks. Lucy: Well thanks and listeners can find these interviews at www.ncwit.org and at w3w3.com. Larry: You bet. Lucy: So thank you very much. Larry: Thank you. Transcription by CastingWords Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Jessica JackleyInterview Summary: Jessica is a remarkable social entrepreneur who is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of www.kiva.org -- the first peer-to-peer micro-lending website. Kiva connects lenders with entrepreneurs from the developing world, empowering them to rise out of poverty. Release Date: September 29, 2008Interview Subject: Jessica JackleyInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 25:02