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Shannon Payton (https://shannypantsshow.com/), known as Shanny Pants by many, is a content creator and podcaster living in Rocklin, California. Although Shannon has a successful career as a Realtor, she has equally enjoyed her hobby of sharing her humor through Instagram with friends and family. In 2020 her video about making school lunches went viral, it opened a whole new world for her. She now has many viral videos and hundreds of thousands of social media followers.Her podcast, The ShannyPants Show is currently in its second season. In her interview style podcast, Shannon shares her struggles of growing up in a cult, battles through years of infertility that ended in a hysterectomy and finally her journey to parenthood through foster care and adoption.She enjoys sharing the struggles of life in a humorous way as part of her self-prescribed therapy and through this, has connected with her fans. Her podcast topics include a wide range of subjects which in one way or another relate to something she has been through.Shannon has been a guest on The Kelly Clarkson show and has appeared on local TV show GoodDay Sacramento multiple times. Shannon is currently writing a memoir and is looking forward to giving her followers a deeper look into her life. When Shannon is asked where she gets all of her ideas for her humorous videos she sarcastically states, “I'm married and have kids, that's all the inspiration I need for some crazy content”. IG: @therealshannypants @shannypantsshowpodcastTranscript is unedited for typos and misspellings [00:00:00] I'm Katherine Spearing, and this is Uncertain. Do you ever get to a point where everything is just too much and you just need to take a break? That is kind of how I've been feeling the past few weeks.Around trauma recovery. And abuse dynamics and sometimes it just gets to be a lot and I just need to take a break. So I had to do that over the weekend a little bit. And this episode, I wanted to put this episode out because, uh, the guest today, Shani Payton is just a super funny human being and is comedian her content on social media is.So funny and keeps me laughing all day long and I thought that this episode was going to be like this really funny episode because we recorded it. I think back in like December and I listened to it and I was like, Oh, it's not as funny as I thought it was going to be, but there is some laughter. Fear not. [00:01:00] Shani Payton is a comedian and has hundreds of thousands of followers. So, so, so, so funny, but she has a darker origin story. She grew up in a church cult, and she has been on her own journey of recovery and healing, and humor plays a role in our healing process, and we do get to that at the end, but we also just talked about the dynamics of control and the impact that it has on us, it's just a really great conversation, and I really like Shani a lot. I'm going to link to her website in the show notes so you can follow her on all the things. She also hosts the Shani Pants show, which is a podcast. I was recently on the Shani Pants show, I will link to that episode of my conversation with Shani Payton, also in the show notes.Thanks so much for being here, and if you're having one of those weeks where you just need to take a break, then you know what? [00:02:00] You should. Take a break. Go for a little walk. Have a sip of water. And if you can take a break. for a couple days, sure, just do it. If you can. I highly recommend it. It's good to do that.All of the abuse and trauma it'll still be here when you get back. Pretty sure about that. Alright, so here is my conversation with Shannie Payton of The Shannie Pants Show. Katherine: Hello. Shanny: Oh, it's so good to see you. Good to see you. I'm so Katherine: excited. Me too. Talk about culty things. Talk about abuse things, but then talk about fun things too and ways that giggling and laughter and jokes help us on this amazing healing process. Where do you hail from right now? Shanny: Northern California, right around the Sacramento [00:03:00] area.Katherine: Yeah. I lived in LA for four Shanny: years, so. Oh, did you? Okay. I'm familiar with the stomping grounds. Oh yeah. Just a quick, you know, nine hour little drive for me. Not Katherine: bad at all. No big deal. No big deal. I know. I know every, every time I moved someplace, people would say, Oh, do you know so and so? Because they like live in the state and it's like, This is like a massive state.Other than D. C. where people are like, Oh, my friend blah blah blah lives there. Like, D. C. is so big. No, I have not run into them in the grocery store. No. Well, whenever Shanny: someone says, you know, whenever It seems like when people say, Oh, California. Oh, do you surf? And I'm like, no, no, I do not surf. Like, Katherine: like, because Shanny: it's like how the state is, how long it's like, I live more up in the mountains.And, you know, versus the coast. And, and then even so there's. So many different [00:04:00] coasts as far as, you know, all the way down to the Bay Area. Yeah. So it's funny, but everyone that's like, Oh, do you surf? No, no, you would not want to see that all the time. Katherine: Right? Yeah. Shanny: Quick, quick little weekend trips Katherine: every, every weekend.Shanny: But yes, but I do love where we live. It's beautiful. And I, I. Yeah, I really love it. And I grew up here. I've never moved far from home, so I've always been in the area. Yep. Katherine: Right. All right. Well, I would love to introduce you to folks by hearing your story. The group that you grew up in is very similar to the group that I grew up in with this just very fundamentalist dedication to interpretation of the Bible and I would love to hear what that was like for you growing up and process getting out questioning because you're [00:05:00] not, you're not in it now.Right. Right. Right. Shanny: Otherwise I would not be talking to you because you are Katherine: of the world. I am. We could not communicate. No, no eye contact would be happening. So tell me, tell me a little bit about it. I know a lot of folks in our community are going to really Shanny: yes, I, so I was born into this cult religious cult and up in Northern California. My parents were also born into it. So we had some generational, you know, fun things. We're just dragging around. And, you know, it started out as from as much as I can understand, talking to my grandparents and other older folks it started out as kind of like a, we're going to go not, not even nondenominational.It was just like, we're going to do meetings in our home, basically. So I think it started out as a pretty innocent. Kind of fine thing like just Bible studies and in homes and then it's from what I understand. It sounds like in the [00:06:00] 70s late 70s to 80s The his son is now the current leader, but he took over And we'll call him RG.He, and from that point on is kind of when it became more rule based, fear based and that's when kind of there started to be a lot more things that got put into place and people just kind of, I guess, followed along and went with it. And so in the mid, 80s, there was what we call the split of the 80s, where a large group of people were questioning some of the beliefs and rules and restrictions.And there was a, we call it marking to be avoided, but like an excommunication. So there was a large group that were excommunicated from us in the 80s because they were questioning and you don't do that. And part of my family, Katherine: like in a [00:07:00] group, or was it like, we call you in, into the office Shanny: and it was basically, I mean, I was a kid at the time, but it basically is just public, you know, from the front, you're hearing, and we had a lot of different sex.So we had like ours up here in Northern Cal, there was four in North, in California. And then we had like Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, Canada. Mexico. I think that's all of them. So this message would go to everyone because we would get together. We call them camps where people from all different, what we call assemblies would like beat together and hang out.And so everyone's getting the same announcement basically that these people are marked you are or not to associate with them. And it truly was like, yeah. Oh yeah. Like announcing their name. Oh yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Mark, you Katherine: are Shanny: an announcements today. Katherine: It's very light. We [00:08:00] just Shanny: have, you're not allowed to talk to your family again.Oh my God. Yeah. So that happened back in the eighties and I was I was a young kid then and part of my family was marked my dad's sister and her family which she married my dad's best friend. So that was like really hard on my parents. Yes. And it sounds like they were kind of. You know, on the cusp of do we be a part of the marked group or not.And of course we stayed. But it was really sad because all of a sudden, and you know, as a young child, I'm not allowed to hang out with my cousins anymore. And I was really good friends with the one that was really close to my age, and it was just really confusing and I remember like even as a child, like, Oh, it was awful and you're in like life wasn't confusing enough how we lived.But I just remember like praying like, please help them get right with the Lord because obviously they've left the will of the Lord and, you know, [00:09:00] because that's what we are taught is they're wrong and they're sinning. And they're a part of the world now, so they're no longer a part of us. What did Katherine: they, did you ever find out what they got marked Shanny: for? You know, I don't know. It was really about like, it was like legalistic stuff. Like, even like, so we had to wear like skirts and the women. And the men had to wear pants. So we had to just like kind of rules like that. And I know some of it was around that kind of stuff. Just why do we do this? Like, let's dig in.Why, why are we doing this? So it wasn't. Katherine: If you can justify it and give me a logical reason, sure. But if you don't have one. Shanny: Right. Go ahead and mark us, I guess, because that's what we're going to do, because we obviously don't, they didn't have a reason, you know, it, but that was the thing. You don't question, you just don't, you just follow along like we did for so many years.But yeah, so it was just about, it was not about anything crazy, nothing [00:10:00] like nothing serious. And like, Nothing even biblical, I don't think, you know, it was more like the rule side of things. So, but that was really hard on my family. I know. And yeah. It was really sad, but that's, but kind of growing up, that's kind of like a little bit of the background of how this group started.But growing up in it, it was, like I said, it was just a lot of rules, very fear based where like, I'd never went to, we, and we were, so we had no name. Our church group cult had no name. And that was because you wouldn't, if you follow a follower of God, you wouldn't. You wouldn't need a church name. The church is the, the body of people, right?It's not a building. So we would meet in Grange Halls or people's houses and we would never take a name, which was really fun explaining to people at school as a kid when they're like, what church do you go to? And you're like I don't know. [00:11:00] Yeah. So we literally had a concerted Katherine: effort to be different.Shanny: Oh, for sure. Yeah. Oh, Katherine: that's super confusing because you don't have an identify. No. Wow. Shanny: It was, it was very interesting. So we did grow up. So we would go to meetings at Grange halls in our assembly here. There was, I'm guessing about like 100, 150 of us, maybe in this area. And our assembly, most people were homeschooled.We did go to public school, me and my sisters. And there was a really tiny little public school right by a Grange Hall where we met. And so a couple of the other families went there as well. And it was awful going to school with cult people because they would call you out. Like my parents, we were always in trouble because my parents were a little bit more on the like.Rebellious side, I would say, like my dad would wear shorts at home. They would let us wear pants at home. And [00:12:00] we were like constantly in trouble. It seems like but we did go to school with a couple of other families that went to our meetings as well. Were they reporting you? Yes, they would not only would they report us, but like when we were younger in like grammar school, they one of them was in my grade.So it was a little school. So we all are together. And he would, like, we would be doing like a craft project, like making Santa magnets, because it's Christmas, we didn't celebrate any holidays. I probably should point that out. No holidays. Oh, yes. , he would like raise his hand.And be like, teacher, teacher, teacher, Shannon and me cannot make the magnets. And I'm just like, Oh, Katherine: here we go again. So pretty much don't Shanny: celebrate Christmas. No, so we cannot make felt Santa magnets. Oh, yeah. So that was fun. And then like everything else in grammar school, I and I [00:13:00] was such an uncomfortable child.I was so confused looking back. I know now that I was. I was very anxious and depressed my whole entire years growing up and at the time I just, you know, Oh, I'm shy or whatever. So, but we, so another thing in school though, that's really fun is because we didn't celebrate holidays whenever they were like singing songs or because you know how it is like, and maybe it was more that way back when we were in school too, but like you would, the school would sing Christmas carols and put on a little thing for the parents and all that.So whenever they were practicing Christmas carols or any holiday, anything, we, all of the cool people, kids would go to the library and hang out and literally just sit there. Being bored. Just hanging out in the library while everyone else is having fun. And, and we had to do that during sex education as well.Because we, of course, right, Katherine: right, [00:14:00] right. Shanny: Because, because we don't need to learn about our bodies. Like we are different. Yes, Katherine: exactly. Oh my goodness. And that was awful. Just like, it's so isolating. Shanny: Oh, so much. So Katherine: much. Contributing to this, like. Set apartness nature that is characteristic of so many cults of like, we are better.Yeah. Oh yeah. We're gonna do this like separatist thing to like show that we are better. Yep. And it's not life giving. It is not making your life better. It is simply for the sake of Being separate and, and yeah, and, and separating yourselves from Shanny: the Katherine: world. Everyone. Yes. Yes. The people who are not enlightened.Shanny: Yeah, exactly. Yes. And it was, it was so separate. And like I was saying earlier too, there's no we didn't have a name and for us even. All churches were [00:15:00] bad. Like it wasn't like, Oh, cool. Every, you know, these people are believers, but they just don't meet with us. No, no, no. Like if they don't meet with us.They're doing it wrong and they're not the right kind of believers. So that was hard to just because again at separation, like I remember one time some of the guys like my age when we were, I don't even know. Yeah. I guess we were teens cause they would have had to be driving. They went to this teeny tiny church that was like on the way to the meeting hall.They just wanted to like see what the church was like a real church. And they like went in, sat on the back row. And well, someone found out and so they all got rebuked and they had to like, they have to stand up. Like anytime you get in trouble, you'd have to stand up front for going to a church just to Katherine: visit.You just be like, I wonder what a church Shanny: is like. So yeah. So you can imagine all of the [00:16:00] things that Got rebuked from up front. If that got rebuked, it's always, we would call it like rebuke all we would laugh and be like, Oh, you got rebuked the day. Katherine: Oh my goodness. And, and that's just, I mean I can imagine you were probably just so terrified, like, Shanny: of Katherine: like getting in trouble.What's it going to be. And yep. And it sounds like your family wasn't quite like that, but the community itself was just right. Surveillancy and watching everything you did. Shanny: Very much, very much. And that's where, and, you know, we had. I'm very thankful for our family like now we're like, good job dad way to be rebellious because we were raised, you know, people say like how did you turn out normal and I'm like, Thank you for calling me normal.And also our family I feel like how we were raised in our home.[00:17:00] Did. allow us to be somewhat normal. And that's why maybe we're normal today. But we, like I said, we would could wear what we wanted at home. We would sneak movies like we, I remember watching Anna Green Gables because no one, we weren't allowed to watch any TV movies, nothing.So we would do things like that, that. A majority of people would never, ever have done. We went to Disneyland. We'd get in trouble for it, but we would go. So there was some things, yeah, there were some things that we did that I think made us, allowed us to be a little bit more normal, but you still have that influence.And then even when we were doing these normal things, you still have that fear of, well, we're having fun at Disneyland, but if they find out what's going to happen, so there's always that, like, even though you can fully Katherine: enjoy because you're, you're having to hide, hide. And yeah, absolutely. [00:18:00] Yeah, I just, I'm really, really curious how Well, first of all, I like relate a lot with the story.There are different flavors of it in my upbringing. We home church most of the time, and there wasn't like a, you can't go to church, but there was definitely. This belief that those people were not as solid of Christians as we were and weren't as on fire for God as we were. And we would go visit churches and no church was ever good enough.And on the way home, we would have roast pastor and my father would just like shred the sermon apart. Like make sure we knew that what was taught there was. Not accurate and not biblical and watered down and whitewashed and that just like very like, oh, we watched films, but there were like so many films that were like off limits.And [00:19:00] so I remember doing the sneaking thing like when I go out of town, I would go to the library and I would like check out all the movies. The more nudity, the better. And I was just like, just like. Get it all in and also just living with terror that they were going to find out. Oh yeah. Having books that I like hid under my mattress and read after I knew my parents were already in bed.So they weren't going to be like making the rounds to like check in. And not just that fear of like, like what if and about stupid, stupid stuff. Right. Oh yeah, like it was so dumb that that was like a sign of character or your devotion to God like it just it was so dumb. And so I'm curious, you said that it was like the son of like a leader that eventually came to power and started implementing these rules.Do you remember? Like [00:20:00] how he got people because it wasn't quite so stringent, like how he got people to do that. Was it like a slow accommodation? Do you remember? I, Shanny: I don't remember because I was very young at the time. I was. Like born during that time. So I don't remember exactly. I'm sure it was a very slow progression for as many people as they did keep.But like I said, in the eighties, there was that split of where, you know, people were questioning and that was when he had taken over. And so obviously there were enough people that wanted to stand up to him. And then it took, gosh, 30.20 more years before another group finally decided this is BS and we're done. So so it was, I'm sure again, I don't really know, but it sounds like it was a slow progression where, and I think when it very first started, it was so long ago that society was different. You know, it was normal [00:21:00] for women to wear the dresses.It was normal. You know, that was. A normal thing. And then as time moves on and society is changing, we had to stay basically. So it's like you're frozen. And, and then I think that's kind of, I mean, I'm imagining that's what happened is it kind of, Oh, well, it's a rule now. So, and so much of around it. And especially when I think about the men that led overall and still are I think it's a power trip, you know, and they want that control.They want that power. And they're so prideful that they cannot say, let's, let's take a look at that. I don't know. Yeah, you're right. Let's question it. They're so prideful. And it's so sad because you think, well, gosh, that was 50 years ago. Can we not take a look at that and maybe dissect it a little and decide should we still believe that?But they're so afraid to be wrong, I think. And I know that that's been a big learning thing for me since being out is realizing [00:22:00] how ingrained that is in me. Like So, I'm mortified of being wrong and, and again, I look back to my childhood. I would never speak up in class or, and it was because I was so embarrassed to be wrong.And I think that was a huge, is a huge thing that I still deal with. And then also it taught the opposite, I think of what they wanted us to learn, but it taught us to be super good at hiding things. We were like, like you were saying, hiding stuff under your mattress. It was like, you knew. How to hide things.And it was like, they forced you to be really good at it. And, and then not only were you hiding things physically, maybe, but emotionally you, all you did was stuff. You're feeling stuff, stuff, stuff, never revealing the true you. And so as an adult, you know, now you're trying to figure out like, who am I? And, you know, raising my kids different [00:23:00] and It's, but it's been hard.It's crazy how ingrained that is. Like, it's just, you know, you sit under that. I was 31 when we got out. So 31 years of sitting in those metal chairs. Katherine: Yeah. And the difference for you, as opposed to folks who join cults later in life. And, and this is my experience as well, is you're trying to rebuild a self.When you never had a self to begin with, and you don't have this memory of baseline like this thing that I can return to, even though you experienced the trauma of being in that high control group, you're. Inevitably altered, possibly forever, you, you still have that thing to like, remember, like, I remember what it felt like to have desires and pursue them and to think well of myself and not think, you know, horrible thoughts about myself.But if you never [00:24:00] knew that, it's hard. It's really hard to, like, recreate a sense of self Shanny: if you just, yeah, right. Well, and, and even if you did have desires or things you wanted to pursue, it was wrong. So you would feel guilty about having that idea. Like I, women weren't allowed to go to college and I wanted to be a nurse so bad.And, you know, and that's something I've, I never did. I never followed through with because, you know, by the time I got out, I had kids and, you know, life moves on. But I, you know, it's, it's one of those things that it's like, I felt guilty for wanting to do that. And I knew it wouldn't happen. Like, but Katherine: so sad.Yeah. And then, and you feel like Things were stolen from you and yeah, just yeah, and I just, I also just like kind of want to go back to you and mention like these men who like can't be wrong. And I feel like there's a difference between like those men who can't be wrong. And, and [00:25:00] fear of being wrong and like that.Yes, you know that I experienced that too. This happened like a few months ago. I'm on an improv team and we had a show and I had a bad show. Like I was really tired. I had something really stressful and work happened like right before the show and it wasn't a great show and it just happened to be a show where some of my friends came to watch and it was the first time I had friends.Watching and it wasn't my best show. So it was like this experience of like, wasn't my best show. This is the first time they're seeing it. They don't know that that wasn't the best thing that I could do. I went on this massive shame spiral for probably 48 hours. And it was really intense. And I knew in my head, this isn't that big of a deal.Who cares? Have a bad show. Whatever. And it took me a while to unpack just kind of the threads of like, I just grew up in an environment where it was not safe to fail. [00:26:00] And like being wrong was dangerous. And I always felt that way, like, when I was in, like, church situations, and I would get in trouble for something, or get caught out for something, and I would get super defensive, and of course, it's perceived as arrogance that I got defensive, when in reality, it was a trauma response, and I would hate fighting, or, or flighting.Yep. Because I felt unsafe and I felt it couldn't, it couldn't, it wasn't just, oh, a mistake. Mistakes were dangerous in the world that I grew up in. And, and then there's the, the very arrogant people who actually can't be wrong. Right. They're actually, they're just, they're just human beings. Shanny: Right.They just think that they're above human beings and are better than everyone. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I liked that you pointed out that difference because. It's very true. And I think, you know, thinking of like our group and my family in it, there it's, you were, you were afraid to be wrong. And [00:27:00] someone has asked, I forget who it was, was asking something about like the family dynamic and, and the, and the group dynamic.And it's almost like it didn't even matter what your home life was like with what the group was pushing on you. Because It was such a strong, powerful, fear based thing that, because we had, I had a friend from high school that actually ended up joining our group, and And while she was in high school, so this poor girl by herself or with her family by herself.Oh, wow. Yeah. She was having like some, some stuff going on at home and found the group and poor thing. What a disaster. And, and, you know, I know you probably talk about this all the time too, but there always is something or can be something that draws someone in. And like for her, it was that sense of community and the family and the love and dah, dah, dah, everything you see from the outside.Right. That. Besides how we dressed that might be appealing. And and so [00:28:00] she started coming and then within, I mean, honestly, a couple of visits, it was, well, you need to start wearing skirts now and like almost immediately, but I just get so sad for people like that because it's like. You know, maybe home wasn't exactly great, but then you come to this other environment that you think is what you need.And then you're just destroyed, like, yeah, so, so sad how many lives and I mean what they put the, we called ourselves young people, like when we were young teens but what they put the young people through is. Awful. Like the amount of, Oh, they just so fear and shame based like, Oh, but they bring you up front.Like if you were caught for anything, basically bring you up front, rebuke you and you'd have to confess, which never were real, of course, because none of us really, we're sorry. And just, but yet also [00:29:00] if you had the right last name and you were in the right position. You would be spared from that. So like someone in one of a girl I grew up with, her dad was, you know, on the list of good people or whatever.And she had an affair with a married man outside of our group. And it was pushed under the rug and I'm like, Oh my God. Like, and, and, and there was enough of us that knew about it, that it was so damaging. Like that whole concept of like, Oh, she gets away with it. And yet you're dragging everyone else up front and making them confess that they.Made a mistake. Like, oh my gosh. So it was very hands at Katherine: home. And yeah, exactly. Oh my goodness. Yeah, because the about like they they'll say this is about like character and, you know, being a godly person, but really it was about elitism [00:30:00] and controlling people which is I mean, that is what those rules are for.They sell it to you as if it's for your good, but it's not. It's really just to keep you in line and to keep you subservient. Woof! Shanny: Goodness. Yeah, they did, they did, they did real good at that. Katherine: Real good. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, like, that happens with a lot of folks who have families. Of origin that just aren't safe and they go to the church, they migrate to the church as like that surrogate family and, and then if they experienced that abuse and that control within that second family, it causes so much damage because most of the time you're internalizing that and thinking it's your fault.Like, right. This didn't work out because of something wrong with me. It didn't work in my family and it didn't work in the second family. And it's just very very shame based and, and [00:31:00] just, and can cause so much damage. And I'm actually kind of sort of researching that a little bit of the difference between Like someone who experiences abuse when they're an adult in a religious context versus someone who experiences it in a religious context when they came from a family that wasn't stable and wasn't safe.And like the impact that that has on their faith experience. Yeah. When they didn't have any foundation versus having a foundation and, and what are the, what are the chances? Like, like what, and it's kind of just like abuse in general, if you, except like if you experience abuse as a child, you're more likely to experience it statistically as you get older.And like, what foundation does a family play? In, in creating someone who retains their faith after abuse versus not anyway, Shanny: [00:32:00] yeah, and it's so interesting and I think I just did an interview actually the other day with someone who's probably about 10 years older than me from, from my cult and he joined.And so. He just recently had written a book and so I'm like, I want to have you on the podcast, but I never really knew his story. You know, he was older than me that I'd never, you know, I was a kid or whatever. So it was really interesting, but that's how it was for him. You know, he was incarcerated at 17, had a really rough, you know, life, met someone from this group.And then what happened is he met a girl who, you know, he falls in love with or whatever. And that's what made him stay. And so then, you know, 30 years later, three kids, adult kids later, he's Getting his family out of the cult, you know, so it's like, and I think so many like that is one of the reasons. And for us, you, you married within your group.It wasn't like you [00:33:00] went outside of it to get married. And there were a few that came in and it was, I feel so bad for them. And it was so hard. Katherine: The same for the men to like, they were not allowed to marry outside either. Shanny: Yeah, they would marry within. Yeah. Yeah. And. But like, so I was mentioning earlier, we would have these like big camps and so we didn't celebrate holidays.So anytime there was a holiday, we had to be together as a group. So you know, they don't want you to be tempted to like, you know, go look at Christmas lights or anything. So we would have these big camps and the, one of the biggest ones was here in California central California. So we would all drive down there.Or fly or whatever, get there. And there'd be like, you know, over a thousand people just having meetings all day, basically. It was awful, awful. I hated it. And, but that's where you would kind of. Look for your mate, you know, because it was like, and you, and [00:34:00] you would only see these people maybe a couple times a year.So you're going to lock it down. Katherine: Huh. Huh. Before someone else does. Shanny: Exactly. So it was always like a competition. Like, you know, you're out there on your roller skates skating around and you're like, ah, he's mine. But, but that's where, at 12 years old, I knew who I was gonna marry. And you, and you did, just because it was like, oh, I like him, he likes me, we connect.And we didn't date, you didn't court, you just liked them. So, yeah, and so I got married at 19. I really wanted to be out of high school before I got married, so I was kind of old. At 19, but yeah, but I really want to get Katherine: married before they graduated high school. Oh yeah, yeah, Shanny: like I was engaging Katherine: high school or were they told, you don't need Shanny: to finish.Well, a lot were homeschooled, so I don't, they probably just finished early would be my guess, probably but I feel like, yeah, I don't really know. I know [00:35:00] all the. Yeah. The ones that went to public, I think all finished, but but yeah, so that was fun. So then, yeah, I married young and it was, it was real interesting, real interesting, but yeah.Katherine: What was the role that like Oh, I want to get into the humor stuff. Like we haven't Oh but was, was there at like, Some kind of camaraderie, simply because you both believed the same things when you got married, or was it like way more complex than they ever gave you credit for? Shanny: Like why we got married?Katherine: Well, I was just kind of thinking about the dynamics after you got married. Shanny: Like, oh, it was, or was it just, Oh no, it was awful. Total disaster. Total disaster. You know, cause you, you live with your parents until the night you're married. It's the first night you ever are away from home. So in the preparation, like even, you know, like churches will do like premarital counseling or you know, something to kind of prepare you if it's like, you [00:36:00] know, like the purity culture and all that.Like, I feel like they still try to prepare you for marriage. We had nothing, nothing. We would meet with the leader a couple of weeks before you got married. They take you to dinner, him and his wife. Give you this little pamphlet that basically, you know, is like, well, as long as the wife submits to the husband, everything goes great.And so like, that's your, that's, that's your sex education right there. Luckily, my parents were way better and did like talk to us, but not a ton. And it was always super awkward. So like me with my kids, I'm like, we talk about everything. Yeah. But, and then they, he would recommend, and this is no joke.That to get a thing of Vaseline.Which is not creepy at all, coming from this old, crusty, nasty person. And did you know why? Katherine: Were you like, why? Yeah, yeah, I, I did, yes. Okay. But, Shanny: but it's like, that's it. Like, [00:37:00] for, I guarantee you, a majority of people that got this talk did not know why. Katherine: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. . Mm-Hmm. It's Shanny: just like, so would I, why would no.Right. Like oh, that seems weird. Mm-Hmm. . Katherine: For my, I know, I know a lot of people from the community that I grew up in knew nothing about anything like that and had. dry sex dry course, you're supposed to have lube. I'm like, so sad. Like, I'm like, so, so, so, so sad that that was their first experience. You know, just like, Oh, yeah.Yes. But that is really creepy, too. Oh, Shanny: so creepy. So creepy. But yeah, and even as you know, aside from the sex part of it, No, no knowledge of living with another person, even, you know, like you've never lived with a roommate and learned how to share, you know, nothing, all the little things. Yes. So it was hell.It was honestly like, and I, we're still married [00:38:00] which is amazing, but it has not been easy. Yeah. And it has been like, we've had to work really hard to stay married. And. And so many have been divorced that have gotten out, you know, that I grew up with and I don't blame them. Like, I'm like you shouldn't have ever been married.Yeah. So, I mean, none of us should have. So yeah. So it's been. Extremely hard. So no, because we were brought up the same way, grown up, did not, did not, we did not, yeah, it did not help here. It was awful. No community, like we did not know how to communicate. And again, you know, when you're an individual person and we're talking kids, we were married as kids, you're, you're already internalizing everything.And so To all of a sudden start sharing things with someone you didn't that's not a Katherine: natural thing to do They wanted you to have like an intimate relationship with your partner or they did. Well, Shanny: I mean, I don't think they cared They didn't really care. I don't think [00:39:00] but like I think as a human you want to I mean, I definitely knew like This isn't right.Like I want more. I thought, well, you just don't even know. You don't know what marriage is going to be like. I had no expectations really, because I didn't, I didn't know. So it was rough and it's been 23 years now, but we made it this far. Katherine: Okay. What do you think? What do you think kept you like preserved?Shanny: Things. Well, for God, I don't know. Were you attracted Katherine: to Shanny: your spouse? Yes. Oh yeah. Oh, and he is adorable. When we were young, he was so cute. And I mean, he's very handsome. He's yeah. And you know what? Honestly, he's the best one. Like you actually know, we really liked each other and he we've always, and this is, I think, honestly, what has kept us together is we've always been really good friends.And so like, There was a time in our marriage where it was [00:40:00] just like, okay, maybe, maybe friends is what we're meant to be. Maybe that's it. But we've always been such good friends. And then, we went through so many other things after we were married. Like, we did like, went through like, three years of infertility treatment.And then we ended up adopting our kids. And those were very traumatic experiences, both of them. And, so, I think Because we had so much other trauma happening, we kind of clung to each other because of that, but I would say it never was like our marriage was awesome during that. It wasn't like, Oh, I feel so supported.It was like, when I look back, like on the years of infertility, I felt very alone, very alone, even from him, because we didn't know. Like that was years into being married. We still did not know how to really love each other, you know? So I think it's only been probably the last. And it's been four or five years that we really finally [00:41:00] put in the work and made some new commitments to each other and decided, okay, it's either we're done or we need to make some changes.So, and we have and we, we're happier now than we've ever, ever been. So that's great. And I'm so thankful for it. And he's such a good dad. And so. Yeah, now, now everything's great, but it took us, you know, almost 20 years to get there. Katherine: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that because I know it's a vulnerable thing to talk about.Yeah. I feel like I'm encountering more and more stories like that where it ends or there's this really difficult period where they're like assessing like. Yeah, yeah. It's going to work right in your conditioned marriage is what you're going to do. And then you do really young and you have kids really young.So then you're like really locked in and, and a lot of your choices get taken away. And so having to [00:42:00] like, Make those choices once you're already in it it's really excruciating. So thank you very much for, for sharing. And then as we have a little bit of time left, I really want to talk about by it was so fast and I was so enthralled and kept asking questions.Yeah, I want to know the role that humor played in your journey and continues to play and your healing journey, recovery journey, your escape journey. Did it play a role in your escape journey? Shanny: So not so much. But I've always been like my mom's a real funny person. So like when we would do I'm going to try to keep this fast, but when we would do like camps and stuff, we would put on skits.We always got in trouble because we pushed the envelope, you know, like we always did, but we were, we were like kind of the funny ones, but it was always still so fear based. Cause I remember you'd be so nervous up there knowing what you're going to do is hilarious. And then no, you're going to get talked to afterwards because you went too far.But so we were always kind of the funny ones. And [00:43:00] Like me and my mom and there was a little group of us, but then when it, when it was time to get out, basically what happened then it was not humor, it was a group of like pretty much our age people and then a lot of our parents started questioning thing like back in the 80s and we pushed harder.And so. Basically, the cult broke apart, a majority left, they're still, they're still continuing on a little bit everywhere, but a majority of the cult broke apart and we slowly just kind of, everyone went their own ways, kind of. Yeah. So, it was more of a. Just disintegration of it than anything else. Luckily my whole family is out.My husband, his parents are still in, so that's a little weird. But, but yeah, and it's still causing so much damage. Like it's absolutely disgusting. So hard to Katherine: watch. It's Shanny: awful. It's awful. But after that, after getting out very confusing, you know, for us, all churches were bad. [00:44:00] So we really didn't know what to do.You know, you're kind of just out on your own for the first time as an adult, but not really, because we were so like stunted socially and emotionally. So it was hard. It was a long journey. And it's been 11, 12 years now. And so it's been a long journey. And like I said, we really have just dug in the last like four years as far as doing some real healing.Yeah. On ourselves and on our marriage, but humor, you know, I've always been kind of this funny ish person and I really started, it was during COVID really when I started doing Tik TOK, Instagram, these like little videos and stuff, and I started feeling a little bit more confident and a little more free with doing it.And I had always felt even a little bit uncomfortable. What's the word? I don't know, even for my husband to see because again, we, you know, we went, but we had just been through this like big, huge, like, we're going to make some changes. And so it kind of gave me some confidence, like, [00:45:00] Oh, he doesn't really care.Like even if he doesn't think it's funny, he doesn't care. So it gave me that boost to start doing that. And as I was. And I realized doing these videos and connecting with people online, I realized how much, how healing it was for me and, and it, you know, and I really, at first, didn't think of it that way.It was just like, yeah, let's do this. It has been the, like, such a huge part of my healing at this point, just realizing, like, yeah, we've dealt with a lot of shit over the years, like, a lot, but it doesn't mean we have to live the rest of our lives, you know, depressed and sad, and I deal with a lot of A lot of a depression a lot, but, but I, this, the humor drags me out of it, you know, and it's like having other people kind of validate like, Oh, you're funny.It's not like I, in a, like, Oh, I need to be validated kind of way, but it [00:46:00] just, it prompted me to continue. And You know, and now I love it. It's what I, and then I just, you know, it brought me to connect with people like you. I mean, I never would have been connected with so many of people I call friends now if it weren't for that.And it really connected me to like so many others in cults and from high control groups. And I've created these like amazing relationships and. Support and people like you that I can listen to and that help with the healing and the growth part of this journey, because it sucks, but the humor we, we have to laugh, Katherine: we have to laugh.Shanny: Yeah. I just can't even imagine not. Because it would not be good. Katherine: Yeah. And I love that you highlighted the connection that the humor provides, because I think the humor is great no matter what, but when you're laughing with someone, that like connection and that intimacy that is created when you're laughing [00:47:00] together, like that is so special.And I think, I don't know if this was your experience, but I, I just remember times laughing. Afterwards, after like leaving an abusive church now like five years ago, I guess and like laughing and having this belly laugh and then just being surprised. That I was able to laugh and like, Oh, I haven't done that in a really, really, really long time.Like, I didn't really remember that I could do that, could access that. And it's so, it's so freeing in and of itself and so healing to be able to access that. And. And I, I, I also think like, I don't know if this was your experience growing up, but we, we were so conditioned to be working on ourselves. Was that part of your upbringing?Like be better, be a better [00:48:00] person. Like really? I don't, I think it was more, just listen, just listen to me, please just listen and do whatever Shanny: they wanted you to be a good Christian, you know, like you need to be A good example in the world. You should always be an example for anyone in the world that sees you.So, I mean, I guess a little bit. Yes. Katherine: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that that can like translate to trauma recovery of like, Oh, I need to always be healing. And I need to always be doing these things that will help me heal. And we need to take a Shanny: break. Yes. Thank you for saying Katherine: working on ourselves. Have a good time.Shanny: Thank you. Yes. And it's so true. And like, even part of that is the whole, like, goes back to the perfectionist part and being afraid to do anything wrong and, you know, being defensive and all of that. You're right. It's like, sometimes I, I want to be so good at healing, you know, I'll even have therapy sessions where I'm just like, Oh, [00:49:00] no, everything's great.How are you? You know, Katherine: she's like, nope, this is your turn. And I'm like, great, that was your day. You got nothing today. Like, Shanny: cause I just want to be a good therapy goer, you know? Katherine: I just want to be good at it. I want to be her favorite client. Shanny: I do. I want to be teacher's pet. Oh my gosh. Yeah. No, no, no damage done here at Katherine: all.I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Well, I'm really glad that we got to laugh together too. I know. Chatting. It has been, it's been really fun. And I'm, I'm really glad that we met. Me too. In person. Shanny: I know. We're gonna do it again. Katherine: Together. So it was real, like it Shanny: really happened. It really did. I'm Yeah, that was amazing to meet you and so many others.I like, I just treasure that whole weekend. I was just like, Oh my gosh. It was so good. Katherine: It was so [00:50:00] good. It was such a great weekend. It's like, I still like, even now, got a little ball of sunshine in my, in my heart at the moment. But, and for folks who don't know what we were talking about. Yeah, sorry. The fact that Tears of Eden had a retreat con.I got out, had a story jam. We kind of meshed them on the same weekend in St. Louis. That's where I met Shani in person. Yes. And we have been the best of friends ever since. Shanny: And forever more. Yeah. Forever more. As long as I'm the favorite. You know, I Katherine: have to be the best. I have to be the best. Yes.We'll sign a contract later. Okay. Perfect. Oh, I love it. Goodness. All right. Well, I'm gonna end this interview. All right. Thank you so much. Uncertain is produced, recorded, edited, and hosted by me, Katherine Spearing. Intro music is from the band Green Ashes. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. And if you have, [00:51:00] please take a moment to like subscribe and leave a review. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you next time.

“Soup It Up.” In this episode, Luke and Kevin pick the best song on Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense and Luke tries to guess if Kevin was a music tastemaker as they play Like So 2012 or So 2014. They share the music they've been loving and the #NewMusicFriday releases they're looking forward to. Plus, they play some amazing new songs from incredible artists. Songs Played In This Episode: Slaughter Beach, Dog - Float Away from Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling out now on Lame-O-Records Oh Land - I'd Rather Sign from Loop Soup out TODAY via her own imprint Tusk or Tooth Photo Credits: Slaughter Beach, Dog by Ashley Gellman Oh Land by Dennis Morton Listen to our Best Song Ever Playlist. Presented by Planet Ant Podcasts (planetant.com) & Offshelf (offshelf.net)

Master the art of public speaking with the assistance of an AI-powered speech coaching app – Orai. Even the most capable leaders can succumb to nervousness when faced with public speaking, leading to moments of self-doubt and uncertainty about their performance. But fear not, for Orai is here to help! Imagine having a convenient app, much like Duolingo, to hone your public speaking skills and boost your confidence before stepping up to the microphone. Well, meet Orai. Orai offers structured lessons and practical exercises that are easily accessible on iOS, Android, and the web. It's the ideal alternative to apps like LikeSo, VoiceVibes, Astound, and even traditional Toastmasters sessions. What sets Orai apart is its personalized lesson plans, designed to target specific speaking skills, identify speech habits, and provide instant AI-driven feedback. This app is a game-changer for consultants, educators, and managers looking to enhance their public speaking abilities. In a nutshell, Orai is your go-to app for improving your public speaking prowess. It provides bite-sized lessons and leverages AI-driven feedback to help you refine your speech. With just four weeks of dedicated practice, you'll notice a significant improvement in your workplace communication. With Orai, you can practice your speech in real-time by speaking into your device's microphone. This convenient tool is available as a mobile app for both iOS and Android, allowing you to practice on the go. Orai gives you the flexibility to practice with provided scripts, your custom content, or even on-the-fly improvisation. It's your ticket to preparing for presentations, self-introductions, and job interviews with confidence. As you progress through the lessons, you'll master essential public speaking techniques, including storytelling, boosting confidence, and enhancing conciseness. What's more, you can review your practice sessions by playing back the recordings and receiving instant AI-driven insights. Say goodbye to the feeling of speaking into a void—Orai provides you with valuable feedback on various aspects of your speech, such as pacing, energy, and the use of filler words. The app also conveniently stores your practice recordings for future reference. But that's not all! Orai empowers you to track your improvement over time and pinpoint areas where you can enhance your speaking habits. You can even customize the app to detect and flag your specific filler words, helping you eliminate distracting speech patterns like “um” or “like.” Create a profile within Orai to keep tabs on your progress, including your lesson streak, average speaking duration, and set lesson reminders to stay on track. Don't let the fear of public speaking hinder your career advancement. With Orai, you'll gain the confidence and skills needed to excel in any presentation scenario. Say goodbye to those presentation nightmares and hello to a more confident you!   Orai App

Like SO many business owners, and even some people who don't have a business, Amy is having a difficult time detaching from her phone.  She feels like her phone is always a part of her. She has no idea how to fully let it go, even for a bit each day, so that she can […]

Joining the podcast today is sex coach, author and presenter Tara O! Tara was living what seemed to be her best Carrie Bradshaw life. She was writing a column and having a lot of 'wild' sexual experiences. But she wasn't having good sex.Like SO many of us, it was a performance (has the peacock entered the chat?). We speak about: 'Performing' during sex Why we all need to stop faking orgasms with one night stands or long term lovers Learning what actually turns us on and gets us off How to communicate with a partner about what you like and don't like You can find all of Tara's stuff like her workshops, coaching, book etc here! And her Instagram here You can join the Instagram party here Join us on tiktok Or join the facebook group here Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

INTRODUCTION: EPISODE #100!!! AMOR ES ARTE | ARTE ES AMORLOVE IS ART | ART IS LOVEA memoir written by Andrew Velázquez Through the lens of lotería—the Latinx game of chance, I explore my experience of being gay, young, and a creative loco in East Los Angeles. I reimagine ten lotería cards to represent the people and events that shaped my first 40 years of life. Each chapter testifies to a lotería card image such as El Diablito (Little Devil), La Rosa (Rose), and La Muerte (Death). Using these cards of destiny, I find my true self to navigate the world. My memoir defies the conventional thinking that a sensitive, lonely barrio kid, traumatized by relationship abuse and family crises, eventually falls victim to gang violence, addiction, or suicide. I bring my stories and images together to show how I overcome self-destructive behavior and how I channel my energies toward a successful career in Hollywood's beauty industry. I tell an against-the-odds life story that connects self-acceptance to art and love. Andrew is also a makeup artist:This born and bred Angeleno always knew he was meant for a career in beauty. Andrew has created signature looks for some of Hollywood's brightest stars including Lady Gaga, Michelle Williams, RuPaul, Demi Levato, Neil Patrick Harris & Carmen Electra. As a makeup artist on ”Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” Andrew regularly created the sisters red carpet ready looks and at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, he was the key makeup artist for Florence and the Machine, including applying avatar-like body makeup for her radiant dancers.  INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      Lots of Fan Clacking!!!·      Mí Corazón – Andrew's Makeup Line·      Amor Es Arte, Arte Es Amor – Andrew's Memoir·      Being Raised In The LatinX Community·      MADONNA·      Los Angeles Nostalgia ·      Prevalent Insecurity In the LGBTQIA+ Community ·      Coming Out·      Angels In The Psych Ward·      Andrew On American Beauty Star (Top Three)CONNECT WITH ANDREW: Website - Book - Makeup: https://AndrewVelazquez.comYouTube: https://www.YouTube.com/AndrewVelazquezInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrewvelazquez_Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrewvelazquezcom CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·      Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse & Codependency Support Groups (Virtual) - https://www.meetup.com/pittsburgh-narcissism-survivor-meetup-group/·      COSA – 12 Step Recovery For Victims Of Compulsive Sexual Behavior - https://cosa-recovery.org·      A Recommended Reading To Help Heal From Narcissism - https://amzn.to/41sg6FO ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: ANDREW VELÁZQUEZ [00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Andrew Velázquez is here with me today to mark the 100th episode of The Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast, and that is a huge accomplishment. Y'all and I could not be more grateful. Thank you, God. Thank you everyone who listens to and supports this show now, Andrew has written the book, it's called.Love is art. Art is love or amor, esp.He also had the makeup line called me[00:01:00]and do the celebrity makeup artist and alsoan educator.Now in his memoir, Andrew defies the conventional thinking that a sensitive, lonely barrio kid who's been traumatized by relationship abuse and family crises must eventually fall victim of gang violence, addiction, or suicide. In his book, Andrew brings stories and images together to show how he was able to overcome self-destructive behavior.Establish a successful career and bring art and love together in a way that's never been done before.Now Andrew has created signature looks for some of Hollywood's brightest stars all including Lady Gaga, RuPaul Dimmi, Lovato, Neil, Patrick Harris, you name it. He's done. Please listen in as Andrew and I get real and vulnerable with you that are to help someone lonely, isolated, and hurting out there. We love you.Hello all of you beautiful people out there and welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I'm your host Devon, and I have with me [00:02:00] today for our 100th episodes, a beautiful, talented, incredible, lovely. Queer creative with a beautiful wavy hair that you see right there. Andrew Velazquez. Darling, how are you?Hello. Andrew: Good. How are you coming? So I had that, and if you need that sound audio again, that, De'Vannon: God, Andrew: that thing is huge. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. I'm gotta, I gotta get you one. I'm gonna send you one. De'Vannon: Gosh, that thing is to be beautiful. So y'all, so before I get into Andrew here, the 100th episode is a really big fucking deal.And why it is is because most podcasts is, I understand they don't make it to this point. People get into just about anything in this world for all kinds of reasons. And podcasting is one of those things that looks glitzy. It looks glamorous. So everybody wants to go run off and start a podcast. And [00:03:00]then you see most of them, I got like 10 episodes, 15 episodes, you know, or they might do like, you know, maybe like 10 episodes a year.You know, I hit the ground running a year before last, and I didn't stop. I released a show every week, nonstop, every Thursday, you know, you know, unless some shit done went down. But generally speaking, it's every Thursday. And so it's a really big fucking deal to make it to episode 100. This means I'm serious, that I'm committed.This is meant to be and it is gonna be here to stay. Andrew: Oh, happy for you. Congratulations, congrat. Congratulations. So happy for you. It is definitely a milestone. Yeah. Well earned, well deserved all De'Vannon: that. Thank you. And so, when I was toiling over who the hell I could get to, to share this moment with me Andrew's, Andrew's people reached out to me, and his story is so enigmatic, it's so cataclysmic, it's so polarizing, and I felt like I had so much in common with him.He's from Los Angeles. Everybody who [00:04:00] knows me knows the City of Angels is all I talk about. I love la I was out there in the military and everything. I'm obsessed with that city. And when I'm rich enough, I will go back and you know, I'm queer and I love me some Latin men, that's all the dick I used to get when I was out there.I, I've sat on plenty of Latin dick Andrew: and that's right. We're dangerous too though. We're spicy and dangerous. De'Vannon: So am I. So we always, along y'all, he's an author. He has his own memoir out. He and our both 40 years old, he's a celebrity makeup artist. He's worked with Lady Gaga, Demi Vato fucking like everybody.He's an educator. He's a spirit light worker. He is a healer. Y'all. He's, he, he's like me. You know, like, you don't have to worry about what you're gonna talk to with somebody like this cause he is done so much, you know, it's just how we're gonna get through this hour and give you credit. So he is literally [00:05:00] the definition of everything, and that is why he is here today for episode one.Double O tell us about yourself, Andrew: baby. Wow. I mean, that just, I, I have chills. Your listeners can't see this, but yeah. I am so honored to be here for your hundred episode. Congratulations on all of your successes and what you're doing. The service you provide, the light, I feel it, the energy that you're exuding, it's beautiful.And I know that your followers and your audience appreciate that too, because you're healing. That's why good things are coming to you. I'm gonna call you divine cuz I see only a divine human being in front of me and that's exactly what you are getting the divinity of, of life. And yeah, that's, that's my philosophy too is, you know, I first generation Mexican-American parents are immigrants from Mexico.They met in their teens and I was their first born in East La Boyle [00:06:00] Heights. And yeah, being raised in such like a macho area was a little difficult for me for being just a such creative, feminine, flamboyant kid. And everything that I was trying to be a kept being told that it was wrong.Cause you know, where my parents got married, it was like the church. I was raised Catholic, so I got baptized there. I did my first communion, I did catechism. All, you know, knowing that I'm sinning and because I like boys and trying to hide, that was just, It was heavy. It was really heavy. And my mom just was the first to be like my mentor, my icon.She introduced me to Madonna in the eighties, who I'm obsessed with. I am the proud owner of four Madonna tattoos. She's right here. There's, there's other ones. Yeah, this is from erotica. And she just celebrated her 30th year anniversary for the sex book, which was released here in Miami. [00:07:00]And so she was really like my first, I don't know, my first like muse, you know, watching my mom do her hair and makeup in the eighties and just taking me to cosmetology school while she was going.She just was fierce. Just drag hair, makeup, done, jewelry, accessories, and she was my queen. So for her to support my my arts and my interests in wanting to like be creative meant a lot for me. But, You know, helping raise my brothers. Cause I, I have three younger brothers and my dad worked as a mechanic during the day.A tow truck driver at night was a lot of responsibility for the oldest sibling to, you know, be a provider also and be their mentor. So I just remember like, I don't know, watching 9 0 2 oh saved by the bell and seeing the drama there. And I'm like, why don't I have that drama in my life? Why do these teenagers have all these dramas and I'm this perfect cookie cutter kid helping raise my brothers Like, this is not.[00:08:00] Hmm. So I made the drama and that's chapter three in my book called elto, which means little devil, I call it My bad. And that's really where I started to rebel. And, you know, we all go through like self-discovery and just that cross of like youth child into adolescence. You're not an adult. Yeah, it was just like an awakening moment.I went 180, I just flipped. Went from this perfect kid to just rebel partying with drag queens. Met my first club kids, went to the Rays and the nineties in LA was just all rage. It was so fun. They used to call me Space Boy and I would you know, dress in all these crazy like avan garde colorful outfits.And I finally felt like free and liberated with other creative people and, and queer people. Finally, like my first drag queens, you know talking [00:09:00] like Stacy Hollywood, DJ Irene, like these are the people that I used to party with like in the early nineties. Like it was the hard house. That was just the rage, right?Yeah. So Arena Circus the Alexandria Hotel, like, oh, I remember going to a rave at Knottsberry Farm. The K Rave. Yeah. And it was just so lit that these kids were jumping. Because NASP Prairie Farm had never done that. So they were literally jumping the gates trying to get into, into the rave and just like party out all night.But they canceled it right away and they shut it down. So they never had a rave at ATSP Farm again. But yeah, it was, that was, that was very liberating and finally feeling like I was part of this community. But with, with that nightlife there, there's also a dark side, right? There's also like alcohol, drugs and all of that.And finally, like, experimenting with boys and having my first experiences and [00:10:00] just being exposed to addict addiction and then realizing, oh, my mother, my mother's also an alcoholic and has been suffering from chronic depression. And I was basically her like right hand man. So that was the hardest part to, for her to she kind of like rejected me when I finally came out and.I just went through like, like a huge depression cuz here was this like queen that I used to look up to and then she said, no, this is the route you're going. Like, I don't want anything to do with it. And I ran away and left. But, you know, I remember I'm gonna be extremely vulnerable because that's like, what's, that's what's I think the most important thing to be authentic and, and expose like the truth to, to grow and learn from.But yeah, after a couple suicide attempts that were failed, I was [00:11:00] taken to hospital at psych Ward 51 50 where I discovered therapy. And I just remember having this epiphany and this like my aha moment, right? My my reality check where this young Latino man that was in that only spoke Spanish, looked at me and was like, Andrew, you don't belong here.Like you have a light. What? And, and this was, he was only telling me this in Spanish, and he would write me poetry. And I finally felt like, heard, seen and like I existed in that matter. So I remembered that very distinct moment saying, I don't wanna live this life. Like, I don't wanna go down this dark path.I realized the addiction can, can be real. And it's in my, it's genetically in our family. So I chose to follow my passion and my craft and my career. And at the age of 16, I graduated and took my GD and I just started my [00:12:00] my journey in, in the arts and the fashion industry. So fashion school, cosmetology school, and then working in retail, corporate cosmetics truly saved my life and.Here I am now been in the industry for 22 years, gonna be 23 next month. I've been independent freelance artist for eight years now. I'm a memoir, author of owner of a cosmetic company also. And it's all based around the same thing, like my culture, my passion, my craft. It's called Love is art.Art is love because for me, the other one cannot exist with the other. And in Spanish it's called. So that's the story. It's, it's a lot. I mean, to get the detail, you gotta read the book. I can't give too much away, but that's like the synopsis, De'Vannon: right? And so, yo the book covers beautiful, like he said, like the different cards and everything are on the front.[00:13:00]You know, in Spanish they call it Yeah. Good job. Good job. Yes. I was down till, like, a couple of weeks ago and they were complimenting on my Spanish, and now that I'm back here, it's like I can't fucking put three goddamn syllables. When Andrew: when you're in it. Yeah, when you're in it, it just, it just kind of rolls out. You gotta be in, in the community and then, or vela, that's when it really comes out.Exactly. Would all that, yes. De'Vannon: So I wanna go back and touch on a few things that you said. It, it registered me Absolutely heard you said that, you know, you were raised in that macho community and, you know, the, the Latino community can be very machismo, very toxic, toxically, masculine. Mm-hmm. And, you know, and so, mm-hmm.I remember when I was a kid, I was like super femme and everything like that. And I wanted to play with Ken and Barbie dolls and twirl [00:14:00] around and I'd wear my, me too, right? I'd wear my mother's heels and take a belt and make a dress out of an oversized shirt. And and my dad would take me out into the yard and, you know, insult me and berate me for being feminine and try to make me learn how to box and stuff like that.And I'm all like if I, Andrew: yeah, you're, you were in the De'Vannon: military. I went in the military when I was 17, but this is when I was like, in elementary school. He was out there trying to make me a man, whatever the fuck that's supposed to be, you know? I'm like, no, I wanna see what's under Ken's pants. Damn it.I know you're, Andrew: you're. Surprise though. It was just like flat or a little De'Vannon: bulge. Yes, I am a, I was a baby, right, Lester, when I was in the third grade deal with it. Judge me if you wanna. Andrew: And so we all had that. We all had that. De'Vannon: So I wanna know you mentioned you went from being [00:15:00] good to bad because everything was so good.You, you were trying to find the complications. I felt this way too. When I was in the church. I felt like I was a little bit too good when I get kicked out of the church. Then that's when I got caught up with the drag queens and the alcohol and the drugs. I became a drug dealer. Like you had felt, I felt liberated.I felt like I was being myself. I don't know if I was numbing some of that pain from being kicked out of church. I think I was with the drugs and alcohol. Tell me, did you ever get bad into alcohol or drugs or anything like that? Or, Andrew: or were you able to Oh yeah, absolutely. Yes, for sure. I definitely had some partners that, and some boyfriends that I probably were not the best choices.And in my book, this is chapter five , which is the spider. Just to give you a quick history on it, is Mexican bingo game of chance. And I was [00:16:00] mesmerized by all the artwork cause they resembled tarot, which I didn't even know at the time what tarot was as a child. Cause my mom introduced me to this game and my brothers.But later I realizing that with tarot and with Loya, each card has a symbol. So the reason I chose these tens specific cards is because they resonated with the timeline of my life. And so laa for me is the triggers and traumas of all the bad relationships. I'm not even gonna call 'em bad relationships.I'm gonna call them challenging relationships that have taught me because now I'm I'm at the point where I've done a lot of like self work and I mean, I'm still, I'm, I call myself. A student of University of Mother Nature and I'm always gonna be learning. And so all those moments have helped me realize, you know, that we're all just kind of like these lost little souls, like these lost little angels that are trying to like, figure out and navigate where the right path is.So these partners that I had that did have addiction problems [00:17:00] you know, at the time it was fun because like, yes, everyone's partying and you're just like, you wanting your wasted the quickest thing. I remember just waiting in line at Arena with like Mad Dog 2020 boondog, like the grossest stuff, but we would drink the fastest, cheapest shit to just like get the most shit wasted before we entered the club.Cause it was just like, we gotta get wasted before we get inside the club. Cuz we didn't, we were young, it was ages club, but we were not even old enough to drink and we were just, you know, getting wasted to. Loosen up dance and just like party all night. But through that, like fast forward into like my twenties, you know another Latino individual, this is a, I'm Mexican, so this is a different type of Latino.This, he was Columbian, Ecuadorian, and I just was a different world that I had an experience with, like the salsa me mbia, and then just [00:18:00] the, the lifestyle and the party of that culture. It just kinda like infatuated with me. But as as like fast and heavy and dangerous as it was, is as quick as I realized, like, whoa, this is, like, this can go dark.And he would drink all the time, you know, he would do drugs. He started going to like sex clubs and. I don't know what, where I was mentality wise. Like my self-esteem was just shot and I felt like this is the best that I can do, so I'm just gonna settle with it. I don't know, I really dunno where that came from.But I did, I got a D U I because this one time we partied and he wanted to continue to party and was threatening me if I didn't take him to get more liquor, that he was just gonna go to sex club and do like his own thing. So I felt like obligated [00:19:00] to, all right, I'm gonna take you. And he was driving and it was swerving and then I was like, no, let me take over.So a, after getting that D U I, I just, it was like my rock bottom. It was like my lowest of low because of the partner that I had chose the time. And I'm realizing later in reflection, like. I chose these partners for a reason. And I think I was trying to fix them. I think I was trying to groom them up cause I was introducing them to fashion and art and all that as well.And then all of a sudden they would change. And later I'm realizing like you were trying to fix yourself. Like you were actually, you are projecting what your insecurities were onto this individual and it just counteracted and affected you where you took the dark that was being, and, and you know, dark attracts each other, right?Like light attracts light. And so yeah, [00:20:00] I mean I, I obviously I'm not with that person anymore. Very happily married. We're 13 years together now and gonna be nine years married this May. And that's a lot for a gay man. And, you know, our, because it's, it's, but it's like I realized like I had to go through all those.Relationships and those triggers and traumas to, to like really fix me and love me for all of me. And that's when I, I was able to attract and the person that I kind of deserved and earned and, and actually saw me for me and didn't make me feel judged and didn't make, forced me to be something that I wasn't meant to be.You know? So I honestly, I'm even grateful for all those, those challenging moments for sure. De'Vannon: Right. And so I hear maturity, you know, in your words there because you understand how much good things come from the fire, from heat and intensity. You know, you've really [00:21:00]grown in life when you can grasp that and you don't look at problems and things that make you uncomfortable and things that hurt you as necessarily inherently negative, you know, cuz so much So when I, when I hear you talk about like the alcohol and the drugs and the sex, you know, vice.You know, it's one of the things that really take any anybody down in life. They are a gargantuan problem in the lgbtqia a plus community. Y'all, our people can't get picture is, can't get enough. Crystal meth, can't get enough, all that. Can't get enough Dick, can't get enough calm, can't get, can't get enough blow jobs, can't have enough origin for me.Andrew: For me it's work now though. But yes, there's always something De'Vannon: because you've grown to that point and you know, but before you had to go through being abused by all of these vices. And look, I'm not saying that there's nothing, anything inherently wrong with crystal meth and crack and cocaine and orgies and sex clubs.[00:22:00] But you know, bitch, when you at the sex club every night when you, and you leaving your boyfriend at home and not telling him you're going and when, or if you just at sex club every night, you single or you are high, Andrew: like it's gonna take a toll De'Vannon: eventually. It's gonna take a toll. But my point is, I need people, bitch, I need you to ask yourself what you really doing it for.Because after a point is not for the entertainment lonely or are you insecure? Are you seeking validation in these, right. Keep going back. So our community is hella insecure, no matter how pretty, we are always at the damn gym. Six packs, bubble butts everywhere. And don't nobody like the damn self. I don't see what the fucking point is.Andrew: What's the why? What is that all about? Like what? I'm still trying to figure that out. You know? What does RuPaul call it? Inner saboteur. Some people call it little bitch voice. Like, I think it's just learning how to navigate with that. Like it's [00:23:00] never gonna go away. It's always there. However you can. I, I think through writing this book and through the, the experience that I've, experiences that I have gone through have taught me that through trauma you can transform and triumph into power.You just have to believe it. You just have to know it. And, and really at the end of the day, it's being of service to others like, like you're doing with, with your audience and sh and, and sharing the knowledge and the, the growth. And that's, I think that's like the legacy we all need to leave behind as humans is through our, you know, journeys and our experiences that we can share that and, and share the growth and the tools that have helped shape us to where we are in a stable place, that, that truly brings happiness.Then that can also be infectious, just. And addicting as like alcohol and drugs and sex, you know what I mean? Like the positivity can also be just as addicting. And I [00:24:00] know that we share mutual podcast friends with a survivor to thrive and give 'em a little shout out. And they're on that same mission, you know what I mean?And I feel like it's not a coincidence that we've all been introduced to each other for, you know what I mean? During this time when it is the considered the, the most depressing time of the year, which is also my, happens to be my birthday December 27th. And now we're in January, which is melancholy and can be hard for our community or anybody going through mental health issues.So why not lift each other up and why not celebrate your struggles and, and transform them into something good, you know? Mm-hmm. Whatever that means for you. De'Vannon: The, yeah. Yeah. And I am gonna dig deeper into the mental health aspects of your book in just a moment. And y'all, like he said, you know, he's written his book to help the people's transparency that y'all heard me say a thousand times, [00:25:00] you know, is the greatest form of help because we learn and grow by listening to what other people have gone through.It is a trap when we think we're isolated and alone, when really the person sitting right next to us is either going through the same thing or has gone through the same thing. When I got H I v I thought I was the only one. I thought I was gonna die. I didn't know half the damn queens in Houston at the shit too.No one talked about that. We were too busy doing all the cocaine. Exactly. Doing all the cocaine at F Barn at South Beach, you know, and everywhere else. And at Jrs to do rather than to actually have real conversation. And so he, right, Andrea's wrote, written his book in order to help help some of you save your lives, to prevent you from committing suicide, to stop you from hurting other people, to stop you from hurting yourself.Cuz when you read that book, you're gonna know. Okay, this fucker went through the same shit. Maybe it's not just me. It is incredibly empowering to know that it's not just you or as they say over on Survivor, the thriver know that you are not alone. Andrew: [00:26:00] Absolutely. You said that beautifully. So I wanna know, and that, that's really No, go ahead.Sorry. De'Vannon: Yeah. I wanna know, you mentioned Catholicism from in the past. Mm-hmm. Where are you at in terms of spirituality today? Andrew: Like I said, yeah, I mean, I was born into that. It was it was all I knew, like it was, we lived on that block, you know, where my parents got married, where I was baptized, where I did my first commune and confirmation where I became a godfather.It was it was just when you're, when you're Mexican in east LA that's just what it is. Like, it just gets part, it's like peanut butter jelly comes with the territory. But And I I De'Vannon: about today specifically because people are born mm-hmm. Into all kinds of religions. I was born Pentecostal, you know, that's what you're okay for.Your family gives you, I don't feel like, like the learn behavior. Right. I feel like it's more valid once you become an [00:27:00] adult and you consider all the options. Mm-hmm. If you still wanna stay with that, then I think it becomes authentic. But until then you Yeah. What people told you to do. So what, what spiritually have you discovered for yourself?Andrew: I mean, obviously at that point, I, I, as a kid, I didn't agree with marriage only being between a man and a woman. And then, you know, just the, the history of the priests and the abuse and the, all that. I, I didn't agree with any of that. But even, even, even even Madonna too with Journey and her being Catholic and like a prayer and being the first advocate for l g BT Q, putting in her cd in her tape a condom and to protect se use protection for sex and literature on aids.Like, she was the first one to kind of give me a voice. And I, I felt seen, like [00:28:00] just the fact that I knew that I was gay. I felt like I was gonna get AIDS just because of that simple reason in the eighties and the nineties. But I mean, even that's kind of like part of my spirituality. So for me my husband and I go to non-denominational church.We are part of Unitarian. It's more of a communal thing. And it's more of just because they're accepting of everything. And the, the philosophy is to celebrate love, life human experiences. And it's, it's really lovely. I mean, it's. I ki I, I liked it because it brought me a little ba back to the nostalgia of the good things of going to church when I was Catholic.But I'm, I'm a spiritual person by Mother Nature and the universe. I believe in the law of attraction. I meditate every day. I practice gratitude. I journal, I visualize I consider my dogs my spirituality as well. I have dog, I have three dogs, you know, I have dog therapy [00:29:00] with them daily. I practice kind acts with others.I I'm an earth sign, so I love anything that has to do with the outdoors and just going on hikes and doing yoga. We're gonna do yoga tonight. You know, it's being healthy. We're both vegan, we're both animal lovers. My, my cosmetics is vegan and animal cru tea free as well. So I'm just, I'm a spiritual person as far as just energy, you know what I mean?Like this's just. What I love about being a human being is that I'm so connected with Mother Nature and we're all the same at the end of the day. Like there, it has nothing to do about your color of skin, your orientation, your gender, hus in your bedroom, what you eat, nothing like, we're all literally the same breathing things, elements, you know what I mean?It's looking at like, my veins is just like looking at the roots at a on a tree. [00:30:00] When you're like in a plane and you're looking down as the earth shrinks and you see all the little cracks in the rivers of, of earth, those are the veins of earth. It's all the same thing, you know? And so whatever spirituality is for the individual, if it makes them feel special and, and seen and that's, that's all that matters, whatever gives them that like happiness, that joy, that light.And for me it's, its mother nature. So that's my form of spirituality. De'Vannon: Okay. Look, I love to keep me a good garden in the back. I love eating off the, I love riding horses. You know, when I'm not riding Dick, you know, and everything like that. Exactly. Appreciate I can appreciate the fuck out of that. So, I wanna go back to this rejection of your mother because you know, she's a, you know, she sounds like the embodiment of a drag queen's in a straight woman's body.She supported you until you made it official. There's no goddamn way. She couldn't have already [00:31:00] known mothers. No, the bitch wasn't blind. I mean, I don't mean that insultingly. I mean that You're Andrew: good. You're good. De'Vannon: You know, I'm like, girl, you could see, you could read the tea. Andrew: I mean, I was going to the makeup.Yeah. So I was going through all De'Vannon: that. So, So you felt accepted and she already knew what it was. So it almost like for her, it might have been better if you never would've made it a official by saying the words. Hmm. So for those, for people out there, for queer people, especially Latinx people who have been rejected and there is a lot of rejection of L G B LGBTQ people because of how the Catholic church is, your culture is hella Catholic, you know?Mm-hmm. And so take me, take me back to when that rejection first happened and really give me some words to those feelings. Cause I want you to embody what somebody else is going through right there. I want you to vocalize that. Andrew: Yeah. [00:32:00] And 10th grade, and I, I think I had ditched school that day. I lived in a studio that was on the same property.My parents a lot of Mexicans do this where they build homes inside their homes and other. And it's just like a lot of houses. And so I, I, I was grateful for that cause I had a little bit of privacy, but my mom always had a key of course. And so I remember having my friends over the night before and we're listening to like Morris depe.And it was just kind like that vibe wearing all black, my doc Martins, you know, my black bomber jacket and drinking red wine and thinking we're cool and smoking marble red cigarettes. We were disgusting and clothes, but it was just, that was the thing that we did. And I just remember like waking up like hungover and it was time for school and I'm like, ah, I'm [00:33:00] not feeling it.I'm not gonna go. So I stayed home painted my fingernails and was just kind of like being lazy and just bumming around the house. And then my mom came in and like, just like, and Mexican moms. Can rage and just open the door and slammed and was like yelling, what are you doing in Spanish? Of course,you know, like all that kind of stuff. It was very . And and then she was like, picking up my jacket, picking up the bottles. She's like, what is this stuff? Why are your nails painted? Why are you dressing like this? What are you doing? Like, what are you gay? And that was the first time she had ever ever asked me that.And I finally like, I was so tired of yelling back and forth to like, I remember we were both yelling so much that we had to take a break to just take a, a breather. And then I finally yelled back and I said, yes, I'm [00:34:00] yay. You know, and a part of it felt good to just finally say it and vocalize it and to put it out into the universe, but also like seeing the sadness in her eyes did not feel good.And I just, I saw her like just kind of shrink and just, that made me shrink too. And then she just said, well, I don't support that. You're gonna have to leave you. If you're not gonna go to school, then you need to get outta here. And she left. And so I just remember feeling rejection alone, abandoned. Why am I here causing so much stress to all these people around me?And, you know, the per, the one person that I, that I thought was always gonna be my hero, that I, that supported me is now like, just telling me to get out and that I'm done with you. You're not good enough. Like when she said, De'Vannon: does she mean you no longer can [00:35:00] live here? Or when she's saying, I can't see your face today, what did she mean as a.Andrew: A teenager, I thought I took it as like, you, you don't, you're not gonna live here anymore. Like, if you're gonna live like that, you're not gonna live here. Like, those are the words that I heard. Yeah. That's how it sounds to me. So I, so I said, okay, and I, I did run away. Obviously I had to come back to get my stuff.And again, just going through the lows of the lows, seeing the alcohol, drinking that some more, discovering Tylenol pm, taking some of those. And the combination of it, I was just like, I was just, I was so sad. I was so alone that I didn't think I was able to get over this, like, low. So I just, I decided I wanted to take my own life.You know, I was gonna try and it [00:36:00] didn't work, you know, it didn't work. I woke up the next day. With my wrists, still bloody, but kind of like crusting and trying to heal just disorientated and dizzy from all the wine and the, the pills. And I'm like, all right, well, I guess I'm gonna go to work.I'm sorry to school. I didn't, it didn't work, you know, just put on my bomber jacket, go to school. I'm like, second period, get a call from the school counselor and says, you need to report to your school counselor's office. Get to the office. And they're like, your mom just called and apparently she went into your room and saw all this stuff and is really concerned about you.We need to see your wrist. And so I was hesitant, but obviously ended up showing, and they were like, all right, well you're a minor at this age in Roseville High School, we're not allowed to let you out of our site. We need to report to the center quad area, and we're gonna let you know what [00:37:00] is gonna happen to you then.So I get escorted with the security to the center of quad area. The bell rings and as the bell rings, the gates open up and an ambulance drives in as the ambulance is driving in the doors open and the security is escorting me into the ambulance. All the schoolmates come out running and seeing me getting into this ambulance and girl, I was mortified.I was, I was the most embarrassing moment and just kind of like, that's it. I'm over. I can never get back from this. There's no, there's not gonna be a way to fix this. You know what I mean? It was, it was very heavy, it was very embarrassing and exposing and was rushed off to White Memorial Hospital in Royal Heights, and they pumped my stomach and they stitched up my wrist and.[00:38:00]And yeah, I was admitted to a psych ward as a one 50 minor. It was who continued? Are you okay? Say what? I mean, it was, honestly, it hon, at that point I just surrendered. I, and I just kind of, I gave it to God at that point, you know, and was like, I'm just gonna be reborn. I'm gonna be a child. I'm gonna be infant.I'm gonna just let you guide me. This is where I'm supposed to be now to, to learn and to grow. I, I guess I'm gonna listen to these therapists. So I discovered therapy, which I fell in love with immediately cuz I'm finally being heard. I'm finally having tools and resources to, to help navigate my emotions, my feelings.And then I met that angel That young man that wrote me poems and [00:39:00] talked to me and said, you don't belong here. And told me I was special. And, and I finally like, believed it, you know? And that's, that's when I told you earlier that I made that conscious decision to not go down that route anymore.And I'm, I'm still in therapy to this day. I mean, it's not every week I mean like it used to be, but it definitely saved my life. And I feel that person was an angel. Cause fast forward to later, as I'm going through self-discovery and I'm writing my book and I'm journaling, I'm like, what happened to him?So I tried to research, but obviously through the privacy of hospitals, like they're not allowed to expose any information. But they were like, yeah, you were the only, they said you were the only one there in your room. So what the heck does that mean? You know, like they're saying that I was the only one in my room, but I distinctly remember this.Young man named Miguel telling me, you're, you're, you know, [00:40:00] you don't belong here. You, you need to follow the light. How long was Miguel? De'Vannon: That's crazy. How long was Miguel Andrew: in there with you? I mean, I, I was only in there for two weeks. He had already been there for a month. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I don't remember.We never exchanged numbers. Like So you think, I mean, we had pagers I think at the point, De'Vannon: right? So you think maybe it was, I remember the pager days. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Do you remember Uhhuh, I'm sorry you went through all of this and mental health is a big fucking deal in the queer community because a lot of our issues come from our parents because our parents have their own unresolved issues.The church has told them what to think about their own children. Not, not all mothers and parents are able. Be like, this is my child. I don't even a damn what the church has to say because, you know, our parents have their own issues. And so this is a huge reason why there's a lot of insecurity in our community.It comes from our own households. Now do you think this was son [00:41:00] who was in there with you, perhaps And y'all son, Miguel is just like son, son, Miguel, St. Michael, the Arche angel. Andrew: Yes, yes, yes. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I, it was definitely an angel and I, when my mom I, I was born two days after Christmas.I was supposed to be born like on Christmas, but it happened to be two days after. And she said cuz she was really into Like astrology. And she used to watch Walter Melo, I dunno if you know Walter Melo, who it was like the famous like tarot card reader in in the Latino community. It was like the thing that we watch religiously every Sunday, like after the, the, no, it was Walter.And he would tell you like, capric, Corno, tourist, blah, blah, blah. So she, cause of him, she used to tell me, you, when you were born, the sun, the Earth and the Moon and Mercury were line and you were born at 6:05 AM I, they gave [00:42:00] me you, you, they gave you, oh, sorry, let me rephrase this. They gave me you in a red stalking and as you're going in my arms, I just saw a big star on your head and a light on your right side.And I'm just staring at this little gift in this red, like stalking this and I'm holding it. And so she kept telling me that as I was. Growing up, like you have a star, you have a light on your, so I don't know, I, I can't help but go back to that, you know what I mean? Like go back to these little angels, these little whether it's whoever, you know, maybe it's, maybe it's a drag queen that past life, but she's saving me.That's what I like to I feel like we all have some kind of angel to protect, you know, some kind of either light energy, whatever you want to call it, you know, it could be our [00:43:00] past ancestors or ancestors. It could be maybe your past self and your reincarnate. I don't know. But something was there.It was very prevalent. It was, and it was the moment that I changed my mind. Otherwise, I could have gone down that addiction route. I could have gone down, you know, The gang route and like been in the closet and continued to live this straight life because of course I acted like I was straight forever.Because that's what you do when you're in that kinda environment. Otherwise you're gonna get clocked, you know, and jumped and bullied and I was all those things. But yeah, I, I can only say like now being with my husband, his name is Johnny Debut for 13 years. Accepting me for all of me. My femininity, my masculine side.He, yeah, he's just, he's my homie for life and he's the one that's just [00:44:00] I don't know my mean, like reminded me to love myself too. And I'm just very grateful for that. Cause it's been, we've had a journey on our, on our own as well and the good and the bad and but yeah, we're best friends. He is, he is just been The rock for, for everything.And I'm gonna be that right back to him too. For sure. Hey, hey Johnny, De'Vannon: Daniel, whatever you ask me, introduce Savannah and I'm saying Andrew: hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. De'Vannon: Hey Johnny, how will I get to have cocktails with you one day? Yes. So let's lighten this up as we get, we're down like our last couple of minutes here.So we've talked about some darkness, bring some light, and so yeah, we, we get light through darkness and angels are real. You know, I've spoken about how they've appeared to me before, all kinds of places on the side of the street and restaurants, you know, and there's [00:45:00] been times where it's like nobody else even sees this person in here.And I'm not the only one talking to them and everything like that. I turn around sometimes my husband sees them. Now look, y'all, they don't, I've never had them, except for in dreams appear to me in any sort of glorious way. When they appear to me on the street, they're just plain clothes people. And then we talk mm-hmm.Stuff like that. And I turn around and then they're gone. One of my favorite appearances is one time I was out in my yard, this is the last time I ever touched a rake in my life when I was in high school, raking these leaves. I hate yard work. I'm like, can we get a fucking, can we get a fucking maid? Do you see my nails?I'm queer. I shouldn't be doing this. Ugh. So, so I'm raking this fucking leaves and I hate wet ground and, ugh. This, this, this black guy walks down the street and he's just like, Hey, be careful for those poisonous snakes. Now we are in the hood, you know, just in the middle of the city. Oh, we're not out in the country.Why the fuck would there be a snake? He's like, were you careful of those snakes? The next [00:46:00] pool, there was a goddamn damn poisoned snake flopping all around in. They're trying, oh, hell no. I threw that right down. I'm like, I don't, not a snake. I don't give a damn with my dad. I want me to do, ain't no more chores being done in this yard.I looked up that that guy had told me this, like not a split second, and I looked up and he was gone. And I had something like that happen when I was a kid. You know, they'll show up, say whatever. I looked down and I'm like, he, they can't take nobody. Run that damn fast. You know? Or as or as the Hebrew scripture tells us, you know, we've entertained angels at unawares and be careful how you treat strangers.Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm. Absolutely talk about makeup. So y'all, like he said, he has own makeup line. Oh,Andrew: it was a good segue. It was a good segue. Had to do it right. And De'Vannon: every time he cls that fan has a title of his book, AOR Art Arta Moore. Or love is art. Art is Love. Yes. So [00:47:00] his first color palette is, is called Me Corone, which stands for my heart, you know, in Spanish. Mm-hmm. Go ahead and hold it up. So, Ooh yes.It ain't no bunny ram harm in making that. That's what I'm here for. That shit is vibrant. Thank you. You know, every now and then, you know I might beat this face up. You know, I'm gonna have to get your shit. Oh, I would love Andrew: to do your makeup. Yes. Let's make that happen. Oh, don't. I'm gonna De'Vannon: be in LA soon. God.I pray to God the next time I go to Los Angeles, cuz I'm in Louisiana where I live now. I pray to God the next time I go to Los Angeles it's, I'm there to stay. God. Need to go Andrew: home. Wait, I'm actually gonna, I'm actually wait, I, I'm going to Nashville in February. De'Vannon: That's a bit away from Louisiana still. I mean it might be kinda like Yeah, you're right down here by New Orleans and stuff.So whenever you come to Mar are you ready to do you a Mardi Gras carnival? Andrew: We do [00:48:00] love New Orleans. Yes, I do. I got De'Vannon: you hooked up bruh. So, okay y'all, so he bought this show called American Beauty Star and that, that color palette, he just showed up. You know, go ahead and tell everybody like, you know where they can find that.Your website is gonna be in the show notes. I'm gonna put your link tree so people can find you in case you wanna go ahead and vocalize it. You can tell them where they can find that in your book. Andrew: Thank you so much. Yeah, you. Search for the show on Amazon Prime, just type American beauty star, and you can binge watch me on season one.I'm right there working all the magic. That's where I started writing a book as form of therapy. While we were quarantined, I had no access to devices, so I would resort back to my hotel room and just start drawing and went back to my roots. What brings me passion is that's my, my craft. And then I wrote the book.This has been a four year project. The first year was to [00:49:00] write and edit the book. The second year was to design the cover of the book as well as the cover of each chapter. So I took 10 models and painted them from head to toe and turned them into these characters that you see on, on the cover of the book that represent Theia cards.And through the process of making the body makeup is when I realized there was like a lack of pigment. So I went into product development and that's where I chose to create my first palette, which is called . And you can see like one of the actual models wearing the colors and all the artwork inside is in, is in, is the artwork that's infused into the book.So it's all part of the same brand. And then through that, seeing my models get emotional and hot and you know, sweaty, I decided to also make a fan, which is also part of the same collection. And all the artwork from the book is infused onto the fan. And I lastly have a calendar. Which is good [00:50:00]for 2023.So this is the only way you can get the actual print of each card is by having your Amos Art calendar. So you can find everything on amos art.com or love is art artist love.com and that's where you can shop for the palette, the fan, the calendar, and the book as well. You can also go to Amazon and search for the book and just type Andrew Velazquez.And then my website is andrew velazquez.com for my salon portfolio and all the thanks, beauty tutorials, et cetera, De'Vannon: all the things. I love the options. You know, are you a Sagittarius as well? Andrew: US gays like options too. De'Vannon: You right. That's damn true. So, you know, I'm born on December 16th. I need everything.And so, Andrew: oh, nice. We're close. Capric the 27th Capricorn. Yeah. Capricorn. Oh, you can? Yeah, you can come. I have a [00:51:00] Saurus Rising double Capricorn with the Sagittarius Rising and all my besties are Sagittarius as well. You can come De'Vannon: to the Sagittarius Ki Keani. I'm gonna get you in. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So this is, so I looked up a couple of the videos and y'all, I love Andrew's his Instagram and his YouTube channel or Clutch.He has this beautiful avatar, avant garde look that he does on this girl, which is so like on tempo right now with the way of the water just coming out. You know, he has a Marvel inspiration stuff that he does. Th this, he does full body art, not just face, you know, this is head to toe fear shit, bitch.Here. Shout out to Mama Ru Paul right now. So on, on this American Beauty star. We're gonna talk about Lady Gaga, RuPaul, dim Lovato last. It's gonna out. So you're good before that. American Beauty star. So I look this up. So you got this panel of judges, these people on here doing this makeup, Andrew's in charge of the full scale production for this Oh.Show and everything. And then they will [00:52:00] be judged just like you've seen on Project Runway, you know, all the different things. So Andrew comes out, this stone cold bitch is sitting there with like white hair, you know, white outfit. And the, the person that left the review, I, I don't, I, I don't think that was Christie.I think that was the other girl. And and Andrew: so anyway, it was Huda from Huda Beauty, De'Vannon: right? And so I think somebody might have thought she was a little bit too hard, but, you know, I was just leaving everybody's opinions for that. But you know, Andrew's out there on stage and they're like, are like Andrew and then all the stuff, no, every judge's face just has no fucking emotions.You know how they fuck with the contestants and, and they leave them there in silence. For, for what? Felt like an eternity for me. And I wasn't even the one on stage. Yeah. Felt like Andrew. He's all like, oh shit. The look on the look on your face. We loved your look.[00:53:00]Andrew: That's exactly how it was. Oh my God, you did your research. Well, you gonna be so goddamn dramatic right De'Vannon: now. I'm, I'm sitting here in my house, gimme a cup of tea to deal with this stress. And you know, Andrew did well. He made it to the top three. That's a big deal to be there that long with all of that shit going on.And I love the way that you would talk with your co, I guess competition, friends, I don't know exact term on set. Mm-hmm. You know, in the back. But it's almost like you were there like guide, you know, you were giving them advice and everything like that and like keeping them together. It was very nurturing the words you would say to them on this show.Talk to me about your experience on this show before we talk about Gaga. Andrew: Oh, yes. No oh my God. That it feels, what was it like five years ago? Yeah, it was five years ago. I had just wrapped working with [00:54:00] Tyra Banks on America's Next Top model. So, and that was like the third cycle that I had worked with her doing hair and makeup.And, and what I did while I was on Top Model is I absorbed her like a sponge, cuz I knew that this show, American Beauty Star was coming right around the corner. And so the premise of American Beauty Star was to basically be Tyra Banks create a director. So not only did I have to do hair and makeup, but I had to conceptualize and create the runway for the fashion show design, the wardrobe accessorize, design the nail.I also had to choose the music for the, the platform. I had to tell Emily Rose, the International Vogue cover director to photograph and tell the model how to pose. So all these things that I knew were coming up, I knew like, this is, this is what I do like this. I'm, I feel very good about this. I feel very confident going into this.And I'm gonna come in, in, in a [00:55:00] humble approach. And so that was my intent, right? Going into this and always putting the energy exuding out for my mother's health is what I would kind of like meditate every day on my own. Because they said, you're gonna be quarantined for three weeks. Do you have no access to your devices?You have no access to your loved ones. You're, this is a frozen hard environment, which is basically you can't talk, you can't speak unless the cameras are on. And it's a production strategy to conserve your energy for camera type. But it's also. A psyching test to test your patients, your stress levels.And it's so funny because that's where I started developing this little twitch that happens on my arm. It's actually happening right now as we speak. I don't know if you can see it, like the little eye on the, it's switching a little bit, whatever, to that degree. Yeah. And so and I never had that before until [00:56:00] this show, but because we were only allowed to bring paper and my old school like iPod, you shuffle, I would listen to music like Madonna Ray of Light.Obviously, you know, other people that would like made me zen. I came up with Zen Drew, and this is where I started drawing for the book and creating the concept behind of what I wanted to do. I didn't know I had a concept during the time of the the show though. I just knew that I was like, Journaling.This is my form of therapy. And so I, I, I, I listened to the direction from the judges. A Adrian a Lima is the host who I loved, and she's stunningly gorgeous, even more in person, more so in person. Serjan is our mentor whose Beyonce's makeup artist. And, you know because I had been in production on a reality competition show [00:57:00] before, I knew a little bit more, I had a little more insight on kind of what goes behind the scenes.But now I'm the one in front of the camera place on hard ice. So I kind of knew that there were, there was three parts to the, the production In the morning you would come in, dress in the outfit that you were in the last night's outfit that day we had to recreate for continuity, whatever we did on the challenge last night again.Then we would find out, like you saw with the white snow queen, that we were gonna stay or leave. And yes, I was sweating. My back was drenched and my arm was twitching. But my goal was to always listen to the, the, the feedback and put that into the next challenge. Then the second part of the day was your, your kind of like, your interviews and what you see in between they, they call 'em the confessionals.And so that's where oftentimes they would set you up with the producer [00:58:00] and they would ask you questions and I could pick up when they were trying to alter my answer or get something else outta me. And I would say, no, that's, that's not something that I would say. I'm not gonna say that. Don't ask me to say that.And I, I remember asking for a different producer when I didn't, when I was in vibing that, you know, the, this, this isn't coming out through for my best interest. This is coming out for. Airtime or production, and I'm not here for it. Like I wanna be authentic, Andrew and what I came up with, what's called my Zend.So they listened to that and I went, I had another producer, and she really made me feel like safe, made me feel heard, and, and, and I feel it's because of her. She was another angel that I was able to, to be vulnerable and to, and to be just true. And then the last part of the day was the next challenge.And then you're introduced to a new a new ex whatever [00:59:00] project you're gonna come up with. And I, I felt everybody's anxieties, right? I felt everyone's trying to, like some people were trying to be shady. So the what you see is real, you know, some of it, yes, it's beefed up because they want to stir up some drama specifically on America's next time model.But for American Beauty Star I think they were, they would, they would find. People's strengths and weaknesses and then enhanced them by and, you know what's the tar the right word? By instigating stuff and by asking right questions and by like probing. I wasn't here for it. I think they picked up on that.I think that's also why I didn't win. But I think that's why I made it to the finales because they knew like, oh, this guy, he's well put together. He's corporate, he's professional, but I wasn't drama. You know what I mean? And because I sense everyone else's anxieties, I would try to give them positivity and, and give them zen as and just tell [01:00:00] 'em to, Hey, just trust your, in your intuition.Just go with what brings you joy and follow that regardless of what everybody's telling you. Like follow that. And I feel like that's kind of like what helped me stay at towards the end. Although I didn't win in the winning title, I won so many other ways and growth and exposure and experience, I was able to open up a salon after that.And I'm very grateful for it, you know what I mean? Would I do it again? Absolutely. I would bring it on all stars. I will come back on season four and go up against my students, go up against whoever. And I'll win that. I'll win that bitch. I'll take that bitch home. Hell season four all stars. De'Vannon: Take me with you.I can I can supply the underwear. I'm sure y'all need a pit crew for my down under apparel brand. Hey, I can do something. Andrew: Let's go. De'Vannon: Okay. So then, so as you thank you for that breakdown. I love you had this fabulous experience and I just speak more exposure over you and riches, both in this world and in the one to come and in the [01:01:00] unseen realm too.Yes, Andrew: yes, yes. Between De'Vannon: Lady Gaga, RuPaul and Demi Lovato, which one of these can you give us the most dramatic story from, from working? Andrew: I mean, I can, I can talk about all of them briefly. Who did I work with first? It was probably RuPaul. We, Mac Cosmetics was the sponsor brand for season one, and through that sponsorship, David not only provided the cosmetics, they provided artistry support, which was myself and I managed the pro store on North Robertson in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood.So we were like the flagship that all entertainment would approach for. Sponsorship product, artistry help, whatever it was. So I worked on season one and we were in charge of just doing the guest judges. So I did like Michelle Williams from, you know, Destiny's Child. And Ru [01:02:00] Ru is just great.She's just such a big flirt and just you can feel her energy when she comes into the, the room. And this is still season one, so it was very fresh. I was invited to come back for season four this time through an agency and still do the guest judges and the pick crew as well. So we had to oil them up and and then you can see me actually on season four in the background cause they would sometimes have us be in the audience.And this is the one with Sharon Needles. I think who else was. Fifi O'Hara and they're fighting like on the wwf, kinda like wrestling. So you can see me in the back, like yelling. So that's a little behind the scenes. And then Gaga was through Sharon Gold, who was Madonna's hairstylist during the Blonde Ambition tour.And Sharon we're shop with us at Mac frequently to get product, to get her discount. Cause we offer, they offered a pro membership [01:03:00] discount for anybody in the industry. And so she hit us up once and said, Hey, I'm coming in tomorrow. Can you make sure that we have. A little private area. Yeah, absolutely.Yeah. We're gonna need your face charts, your pigments, and some brushes. I have an artist a musician that I'd love to introduce you guys to. She's new. She's up and coming. Okay, great. This is like during MySpace, right? So she was, they kept calling her a MySpace artist. I'm like, all right, cool, whatever.MySpace come in. All good. So here I meet this little tiny brunettes you know, skinny young, like 20 year old. She was like, twinky, right? Her name is Stephanie. And she is like, how do you, what do you do with these space charts? Show me how to use these space charts. I'm doing this music video and I want you to work on the music video.I'm like, okay, cool. Yeah. So I was Sharon's assistant for the music video love game. But again, not knowing who this individual was, I didn't even know her artist's name until we got to the set. And now they're saying, oh, you're working with Lady Gaga? Who's Lady Gaga? What is that? What does that [01:04:00] mean?And literally, In like a matter of two weeks, she was on logo Next, next now award show and overnight she just became this huge sensation and her album just like skyrocketed. And that was it. Like that was the one time consulting with her in the store and then working in the music video. And I will forever take that to my grave cause she's Queen, you know, to all of our LGBTQ community as well.And then Demi was for another big queer moment during the la gay Pride. And I was in charge of the avant garde body makeups. And I was also able to do her like glam that morning for a really don't care music video. So it was a 13 hour day. She's such a hard worker. I remember she just came back from Paris.She, this is when she used to shave the [01:05:00] CI of her hair. She's like, You know, can you clean me up? I didn't bring clippers cause I wasn't aware that I was gonna do like grooming and I, I just was prepared for makeup artistry. So I had to, th this is another fun fact I'm gonna share with your audience. I had to taper and sh and shave, fade the side of her head with lash scissors and a mascara one and just like a cute little blend to make it look tight.And then the rest of the day was turning these dancers into like mannequin avant garde, like avatar makeup. So like blue, pink, gold and black. And it was hot during real life on afloat, during la gay pride in a little pickup truck behind her, touching her up every so often and touching them up. Just exhausting, but, you know, really, really great to work with.And she was very gracious. And this is when she was dating I forget his name. The my Latino, I should [01:06:00] know his name, HETE. But anyhow, it was a, it was a great experience. She was fun. Gaga was fun, RuPaul was fun, and I love them all as artists. I think what they represent as, you know, ex a self-expression and what they do for our community is just, is awesome.So I'm gonna forever take that to my grave. Hell yeah. And De'Vannon: look, I hopefully you get to work with them again. I speak it so. Mm-hmm. So I've

Carl Phillips reads three of his poems, "What Are We for What Are We," "Like So," "On Why I Cannot Promise", for MQR's Winter 2023 issue.

2022.09.30 – 0638 – Do You Like “like”?Do you like “like”?Many people find the developing use of this word infuriating. Critics say that it makes speakers sound stupid (“It's like, when you're, like…”), and there's even an app, LikeSo[1], which listens to your speech and promises it can stop you using the word. “Like” tends not to, in comparison to “umm” and “err”, have an audible silence either side of it and it is used in many different ways, not just as a ‘filler'[2],[3]:It is used as a verb: “I like the smell of what's cooking”As a preposition: “This tastes like (“as though”) it was made in a restaurant”. As a quote: “I said, like, that's delicious”As a discourse marker, to start and to end conversations, or to start new topics or change topics. “What did I do last night? Like, had dinner, hung out” and the related use in the Geordie tradition of finishing sentences with a “like”: “He cooked dinner for me, like”As an adverb to mean approximately, “It was super quick to cook, like 30 minutes”As a noun in reference to social media “I gave it a like on Facebook” “If you say, “He was like, seething about the pasta sauce”, you are quoting someone's reaction, but at the same time highlighting you are approximating their response, while pausing to highlight that you are thinking meaningfully about this reaction in real time. That one word is doing all those jobs.Sam Wolfson, The Observer, May 2022[4] The number of ways the word is used is actually quite skilfully included in a conversation. After all, the English language is an evolving one and there's no one ‘right way' to use it to convey your thoughts and feelings, so the person you are talking with understands you. [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/likeso/id1074943747 [2] In 2017, contestants on the UK dating series ‘Love Island' used the word “like” 76 times in a five-minute conversation – that's once every four seconds. Hear the exchange here: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/4060212/love-island-2017-girls-say-like/ [3] Adapted from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/may/15/why-do-people-like-say-like-so-much-in-praise-of-an-underappreciated-word [4] In https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/may/15/why-do-people-like-say-like-so-much-in-praise-of-an-underappreciated-word Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Like SO many freelancers I speak to, marketing consultant Danni Greene once worked in the corporate world – a world that stifled her ideas and left her craving an opportunity to do things differently. Using her marketing knowledge and local connections, Danni began building a freelance business on the side of her full-time job which eventually created enough income for her to quit.Listen in to hear how Dundee-based Danni found the courage to quit her job on a Teams call with her boss and go all-in on her marketing business, plus her top tips on making the transition from employment to freelance life.Thank you so much for sharing your story, Danni!〰️Frankly Freelance is our monthly mini-series where I have conversations with real freelancers about their experiences in business and the lessons and wins they've had along the way.  If you'd like to share your freelancing story with our audience, write to ceels@fiercelyfreelance.com to apply!…………………………………………………………..Follow Danni on instagram @greenecreativesDanni's LinkedIn profile Greene Creatives: The Membership https://greenecreatives.co.uk/marketing-membership…………………………………………………………..Connect with CeelsEnjoying the podcast? Leave me a review + tell me about your biggest takeaway ✨You can also find me on Instagram @fiercelyfreelance and on LinkedInJoin the Fiercely Freelance Community!Want to access free Monday co-working sessions + a private Facebook community of freelancers?Join the The Confidence Club today!For more on how to work with me, plus details of my membership, head towww.fiercelyfreelance.com---

A few years ago, my friend Kristen and I created a podcast called “The Exotic Fruit Review.” In it, we sampled exotic fruits, discussed them and interviewed people who were leading extraordinary lives. While we enjoyed having a quirky podcast, Kristen and I had to do all the scheduling, producing and editing work ourselves.One of the things that drove me downright batty was editing our episodes. While the content was interesting and even mildly entertaining, I hated listening to the sound of my own voice.I began to notice a verbal pattern where my voice would get ahead of my brain. While I was thinking of the right words to say, I'd fill the silent voids with a steady cadence of “uhs” and “ums.”While Kristen and I loved trying exotic fruits, including durian and mamey sapote, the production toll (as well as parenting our respective kids) caught up to us and we halted production indefinitely.There's a term for filler words and sounds we utter while navigating to the right word or thought: “embolalia” (or “embolololia”). It comes from the Greek compound word “embolos,” a combination of “emballo” (to throw in) and “lalia” (forming language with abnormal or disordered speech).Other terms to describe this type of speech include “hesitation forms,” “automatic speech” and “formulaic language.”Before you recognize this pattern in yourself and think that you have some kind of worrisome disorder, know that nearly everyone includes some form of embolalia in their speech, whether or not they're aware of it. Embolalia encompasses all filler words, including “like,” “kind of,” “you know” and “I mean,” as well as nonwords, including “um,” “uh,” “er” and “em.”Formal speech courses discourage embolalia so that speakers' messages get their points across without any communication barriers. In fact, the public speaking organization Toastmasters International refers to embolalia words and sounds as “crutch words.” You can even download an app called LikeSo that will tally your overused filler words and train you to drop them from your rhetoric.Legendary Los Angeles Times columnist Jack Smith discussed embolalia back in 1991. Writing a daily column for 37 years, Smith took particular issue with the filler word “well” creeping into common parlance. He decried “the insertion of the word ‘well' where it is not necessary and has no grammatical function.”Well, I know what he means, because I use it all the time — in newspapers, of all places! That is to say, um, we all have a couple of, you know, bad habits.

Part 3 is finally here and it's pretty dang great!!! We're still chattin all about the Simpsons with Gregory from Solidarity Club Records (and Rat Fancy and Nailpolishh)! This time we're chatting about Homerpalooza and Summer of 4 ft 2, that's right, WE'RE GETTING SENTIMENTAL!    Also we talk about bands a bunch!   Stay tuned for part 4!!!   Oh and go check out and support Solidarity Club Records and all their super sick cassette tape releases! They're great! Like SO freakin great!   Sound effects from zapsplat.com   Thanks for reading all this! Hope your enjoying this Garbage Disposal series! It's a pretty massive one as well as being pretty wild haha. I think it might be 5 parts, but I enjoyed it all, so I hope you do to! And especially, if ya don't, thanks for being kind enough anyways to read this. Your rock :)

Sheryl Bailey & Jon Herington talk about their guitar lessons available on TrueFire, perform, and answer questions. To learn more and watch the video from this live session, please visit truefire.com/live.About Sheryl:The Downbeat Critics Poll voted Sheryl a Rising Star (2013-2016) and One of the new greats of her chosen instrument Phillip Booth, Downbeat MagazineAs a leader, she has toured the US, Canada, Finland, Austria, Italy, Australia, Hong Kong, China, Japan, and the UK with her many projects: The Sheryl Bailey 3, The Sheryl Bailey 4, The Electric Ladyland Project, Acoustic Muse, and Plucky Strum. She has 10 critically acclaimed releases as a leader. Her latest is Plucky Strum with bass master Harvie S via Whaling City Sound.She has toured and recorded with Richard Bona, Anat Cohen, David Krakauers Ancestral Groove, Abraham Inc., John Zorn, Irene Cara, Lea Delaria, George Garzone, Jack Wilkins, Shingo Okudaira, Steve Slagle, Harvie S, Ken Peplowski, Kim Plainfield, and Gary Thomas.As an educator, she has been Professor of Guitar at Berklee College of Music since 2000, is faculty at The Collective School of Music in NYC, and has hosted master classes and workshops worldwide. Her Mel Bay publication, Moveable Shapes, is a top seller in their Jazz Curriculum Series. Her latest adventure is her TrueFire Channel Bebop Dojo Bootcamp. Bebop Dojo Essentials course and 50 Bebop Licks Everyone Should Know are also top TrueFire titles from Bailey.Sheryl plays her Signature McCurdy Mercury Model, Acoustic Image Amplifiers, Stone Bridge Acoustic Guitars and Earthquaker Devices.About Jon:Jon Herington is a longtime New York city based guitarist, singer/songwriter, producer, and bandleader. He is the leader of the Jon Herington Band and has been the guitarist of choice with the iconic band Steely Dan for both recording and touring since 1999. With the launch of Adult Entertainment, Jon now has five solo releases in his discography. His previous release, Time on My Hands, was nominated for Vintage Guitar Hall of Fame Album of the Year.In recent years Jon expanded into education and is currently offering instruction via TrueFire, the world's most comprehensive library of guitar instruction. The TrueFire Ear IQ series currently has two offerings, “Reactive Improvisation: Develop Big Ears and Powerful Improvisation Skills” and “Soloing Strategies: Creative and Harmonic Approaches for Crafting Solos”. In 2015, Jon released “Arrangements for Guitar”, a collection of 18 songs arranged for solo guitar, presenting the unique “chord melody” style of solo jazz guitar that impressed him as a young player.Jon's love for music surfaced early, and he studied piano, saxophone, and harmony in his grade school years. Just before his high school years, however, he developed a passion for pop music and the electric guitar, and soon was writing songs and performing with his own band near his New Jersey Shore home doing opening slots for local hero Bruce Springsteen, beginning a performing career that has continued ever since. College followed, with extensive musical studies in both classical and jazz composition and theory at Rutgers University, and private jazz guitar study, with the help of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, with the late, great jazz guitarist, Harry Leahey. Next came several years of study with the late Dennis Sandole, the acclaimed music teacher from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who once taught the late greats James Moody and John Coltrane.Jon's gigging life took a detour for about three years when he moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, home to jazz guitar great Wes Montgomery. There Jon played jazz, with the many accomplished local players and former band-mates of Wes, including Wes's brother Buddy Montgomery, "Killer" Ray Appleton, "Pookie" Johnson, and organist and vocalist Terry Hayden, as well as the many talented young players who were students or residents in Indiana, including Jim Beard, Bob Hurst, Kenny Aronov, Chris Botti, and Shawn Pelton. Jon also began doing extensive session work at the time in several of the local studios and played on dozens of jingles and albums.After a return to the New York area, Jon began the challenging process of establishing a working life in New York. His work included performing with many different bands and for many Broadway shows, session recording, teaching, and an occasional writing or arranging job.Jon's debut release in 1992 titled The Complete Rhyming Dictionary (remastered and retitled as Pulse and Cadence) was an instrumental recording, showcasing eight of his own compositions as well as the brilliant playing of keyboardist Jim Beard, bassist Victor Bailey, drummer Peter Erskine, and percussionist Arto Tuncboyacian.Since late 1999, Jon has been the guitarist of choice with Steely Dan for both recording and touring. Jon has also toured with Donald Fagen, Boz Scaggs, Bette Midler, the Jim Beard group, The Blue Nile, Phoebe Snow, Madeleine Peyroux, Bobby Caldwell, Catherine Russell, Rob Morsberger, saxophonist Bill Evans, the contemporary jazz superband Chroma, Lucy Kaplansky, jazz/blues organ great Jack McDuff, and The Dukes of September (a supergroup featuring Donald Fagen, Boz Scaggs, and Michael McDonald).Some of Jon's recording highlights (aside from Adult Entertainment, Time On My Hands, shine (shine shine), Like So, and Pulse and Cadence) are the Walter Becker release Circus Money, the most recent Donald Fagen release Sunken Condos, as well as his prior release Morph the Cat, the Steely Dan albums Two Against Nature (Grammy Award Winner) and Everything Must Go, Jim Beard's five recordings (the first four co-produced by Jon), two Bill Evans records, Escape and Starfish and the Moon, Michael "Patches" Stewart's Penetration, Bob Berg's Riddles and Virtual Reality, Lucy Kaplansky's 10 Year Night, Michael Brecker's Now You See It...(Now You Don't), Randy Brecker's Toe to Toe, Victor Bailey's Bottoms Up, Chroma's Music on the Edge (with Mike Stern and others), Rob Morsberger's The End of Physics, Relativity [Blues], A Periodic Rush of Waves, The Chronicle of a Literal Man, Ghosts Before Breakfast, A Part of You, and the DVD Rob Morsberger Live, and Lynne Robyn's Red Bird in Snow, one of Jon's production efforts. Jon can also be seen on Steely Dan's live Two Against Nature DVD, the Making of Aja DVD from the “Classic Albums” series and the Dukes of September Live at Lincoln Center DVD. Jon's current work remains a combination of free-lancing as a guitarist and producer in New York, song-writing and band-leading work with his own group, and world-wide touring in support of some of the world's most renowned musical artists.

Show Notes:Connect with Dr. Shahana Alibhai online in the following places:www.drshahana.comHosted: Andrew Bracewell @everydayamazingpodcastProduced/Edited: Justin Hawkes @Hawkes21Full Transcription of this Interview:Andrew Bracewell: This is the podcast that finds the most elusive people the everyday amazing kind that you know nothing about. I’m hunting these people down and exposing their beauty to the world. I’m Andrew Bracewell, and this is every day. Amazing.  Dr. Shahana Alibhai: It’s okay to feel anxious. It’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to feel scared. All of this stuff is OK. Andrew Bracewell: Way. Welcome to the everyday amazing podcast. Today I am in way over my head. Joining me is Dr. Shahana Alibhai. I recently met Dr. Alibhai through a Ted X event where she spoke about emotional literacy and reimagining how we treat youth who suffer with their mental health. As I listen to Dr. Alibhai, I was struck by her sincerity and how non clinical she was as she peeled back the layers of a very complex issue. I knew immediately that I wanted to spend more time with Dr. Alibhai and convinced her to come on the show. I’m ecstatic that she agreed. Dr.. Alibhai. Welcome. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Thank you so much for having me. Andrew Bracewell: Have you ever done this before? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: First time. Doing a podcast. Andrew Bracewell: First time. Excited, nervous, Dr. Shahana Alibhai: actually. Really excited. I don’t need to memorize anything. So It’s a good thing Andrew Bracewell: that’s true. I get to play doctor today and you get to play patient. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: I know this’ll be interesting. Andrew Bracewell: I’m excited. Before we begin, I thought it would be. It would make most sense for me to read your bile from your website in your words, so that everyone could hear your perspective on what it is you’re doing. Does that make sense? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Sounds great. Andrew Bracewell: Here we go. In Dr. Alibhais words, I know the pressures many women face trying to be there for our kids trying to push forward in our careers and at the same time doing it all with a smile. Like many of you, I also have a story. I thought I knew the importance of eating well and moving more. But after completing my residency and family medicine, the stressors of life caught up to me. After the birth of my first son, I found myself deep into what I would later find out was postpartum anxiety, the lesser known counterpart to postpartum depression. Postpartum anxiety can present with panic attacks O. C. D type symptoms and feelings of being constantly keyed up and on edge. With over 10 years of studying nutrition, exercise and medicine. I thought I knew what it took to keep me well, but I fell short. The missing link for me was healthy, thinking I was used to sprinting through life at this pace. Eventually you hit the wall. I’ve come up with the pyramid of optimal health because it’s something I’ve used personally with my patients. By focusing first on our thought patterns are internal dialogue and our state. We can then set ourselves up to make better decisions when it comes to things like eating and exercise. How long ago did you write that? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: You know, listening to that again I have for gotten. I wrote that. So it’s probably being about two or three years since I wrote that. It’s refreshing to hear again, though Andrew Bracewell: you touched on something in there called Your Pyramid philosophy, which I really wantto dive into deeper with you. But before we do that, I have a question. How does a person who starts in chiropractic end up in family medicine, then somehow end up in helping youth with their mental health? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: I think that’s called life in some ways, you know, it’s just so I think, to understand the journey have to understand a little bit about my upbringing. So my parents came to this country as refugees. Basically, they were thrown out of their home in Uganda at 1972 with the exit is so you can imagine when you’re 19 basically there on the first flight to anywhere they could get out of the place. And it happened to be Canada. Thank goodness. But when you’re raised by parents who have that mentality for them, it was find a career that is a safe career, so that would often be nursing or engineering. Or in my dad’s case, it was pharmacy. So for the longest time, they raised my sister and I ah, with the notion that, you know, go into pharmacy. It’s a great career. You have a stable job, you help other people. And that was the goal for me. So I actually wrote it was called the P Cat at the time, did my full application. But the day before I had to submit it. I never did. And the reason for that it was there was something in my heart that told me that this is just not the path for me. I knew it was safe, but what I loved the most was, and it sounds maybe pretty innocent right now, but just exercise. And the reason I loved it is because at the age of 16 I took night classes while I was in grade 11 to become a certified fitness instructor, basically, and I never grew up playing team sports. I never was on a soccer team, and I always really wanted to be good at sports. My parents always stressed individual sports. I was a big tennis player and squash player. I loved that. But you come to an age where you’re just like I want to be involved in people kind of working out together because I never got that when I grew up and I went to my first fitness class. I think I was 15 and I just tripped all over myself doing aerobics. My sister and I were in the back, but they were something about it, of people just working out together, trying to be healthier. Great music is playing, and I was like one day I’m gonna be at the top of that class, teaching everybody, and that’s what I did so long. Story short, I fell in love with group exercise. I fell in love with personal training and then I discovered this thing called kinesiology that you could actually study. And I enrolled myself in what was called human kinetics at the time at UBC. And that’s how I met my now husband, who is a chiropractor. But most people from kinesiology think of one of three things physio Cairo or met, and I thought about all three of them. That chiropractic made the most sense for me because it combined my love of business with my love of health and wellness. And for the first time, it was about keeping people well, not diagnosing people with diseases like I didn’t want that I didn’t want to push medication. The missing link for me was that if you’re going to be, I hope a successful fizzy or chiropractor, you should like treating people with your hands. That should be something that you should enjoy. I didn’t get the memo on that. Basically, I liked everything else. But when I entered choir practice school, my worst class was manual therapy, and I’m thinking well, that I should actually enjoy And so I rerouted. And, um, I applied again to UBC medical school, kind of telling them that I’d made a mistake. Ah, by not accepting their offer the first time. And they luckily let me in the second. Andrew Bracewell: So how long? How long were you in car Practical Year, Full year for you. And previous to that, though you had been accepted correct into med school. Yeah, ABC turned it down to do the cover Dr. Shahana Alibhai: price thing. You met your husband. That’s right, Andrew Bracewell: future husband says. But now you go back. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: That’s right Andrew Bracewell: into into the medical field. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Exactly. And it was, and I’ll be honest. At that time, I thought about national Catholic. I thought about medicine. But my and I think the date has changed where people is because you have an MD behind your name doesn’t necessarily mean you are trusted. But realize that this was I think we’re talking almost 10 years ago now, right? So things have changed a lot, but I think there was that hope that if I could get through medical school with this love of what I now know as integrative medicine still in my heart, that I would be successful, but I never realized what a kick in the pants medical school would be. Andrew Bracewell: So let’s unpack. You just made a statement that always jumps out at me. Integrated Medicine Canyon pack without Dr. Shahana Alibhai: war means. Or so it’s a term that’s actually I was coined by Dr. Andrew Weil, who is the father of integrative medicine. And all that, it really means is blending the best of what we know as conventional medicine with what we think of his complimentary medicine. And the idea is that you take the best of both worlds in a patient centric approach to treat the fur full patient, not to put a Band Aid on the problem. Andrew Bracewell: So what falls under the banner of complimentary medicine? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: So complimentary medicine is everything really outside of conventional medicine, so it can span from chiropractic scare, acupuncture, homey apathy, all the counseling mechanisms, biofeedback. There’s all of the other stuff that people are looking. Besides, I want to say it. Prescription medication really played Andrew Bracewell: and natural path. A cure also fits in with an umbrella Dr. Shahana Alibhai: under percent naturopathic care in not my sister’s in after path. She was a pharmacist and then went on to study naturopathic medicine, and they get taught everything about everything. I mean, manual manipulations, homey apathy, acupuncture, herbal remedies, nutrition. So it’s a huge curriculum Andrew Bracewell: you have within your family yourself, an MD, your sister and Andy and your parents who are pharmacists. You have the entire spectrum nearly well, and you have your husband. Callen, who is a counter proctor Dr. Shahana Alibhai: and my brother in law is owns medical clinics. So it’s It’s funny. So Andrew Bracewell: what is? We’re approaching the Christmas season. Take us inside family Christmas dinner with all of those opinions around the table on how to treat patients properly. Do Dr. Shahana Alibhai: you know what this conversation comes? At a time where I think if we take a step back, why did we all go into the health profession? But I mean, my sister and my my husband is because of my sister’s health journey, so that’s what we need to understand. So the conversations are a lot of the time centered around her own experiences as a patient with the health care system and the deficits that she’s felt. So just in a quick stories that at the age of 19 she was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a very common condition or a type of inflammatory bowel disease. But hers was extremely aggressive. Within about a year, she had what’s known as toxic Mega Colon, so basically the entire colon could have ruptured. She was taken into, Ah, surgery. Her entire colon room was removed in the age of 19. She had a bag basic, really? So you can imagine what that does to a woman’s psyche to anybody. Psyche. So we live together a TV, see, and she’s my hero. She’s the most amazing person I’ve ever encountered. Andrew Bracewell: Younger, older than Dr. Shahana Alibhai: older. We’re only 19 months apart. And now for the last 16 years, basically she’s had multiple surgeries, one of the only patients in BC to have a spinal cord stimulator for abdominal pain. So she actually has a implantable device in her spinal cord for pain. So there’s Bean so many negative sequelae because of all of the surgeries and everything else she’s being through. But it’s because of her journey. She completely realizes. Yes, you need the conventional medicine. Yes, you need emergency and all the rest of it. But there were gaps in her care, and she’s able to be able to fill those gaps with naturopathic medicine. Andrew Bracewell: Okay, so that spawned the family’s pursuit of health care. Is that is that a fair statement? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Completely. And it spawned our our love hate relationship with health care because it’s so different. We all stand on the other side. We all are practitioners in our own way. But just two weeks ago, she was at ST Paul’s emerge. So then we’re on the other side as patients, and you never go in saying My husband’s at this. My sisters of this, you just I’m in pain. I’m a patient, I need your help. But she’s being They’ve been amazing experiences with the health, your industry, and there’s been some not so amazing experiences and me being on the other side. I’ve worked in emerg. I know what their mentality is like, so I can help fill some gaps for her as to why she might be treated that way as well. But, uh, everything goes out the window when you’re a patient and you’re in pain and you need help. And I think for me, this goes back to why I love working at the youth, the Knicks so much not that it’s an emergency But it’s the idea that I can spend time. It’s time that we need more of in our health care system, and it’s nobody’s fault. It’s just the funding mechanism, for better or for worse. But because I have the luxury quote unquote of time when I work with my youth, I feel like I can answer some of those questions that they need answering. Andrew Bracewell: Okay, you just said Wade perfectly. Thank you for that. But we need to unpack this. So your ah, family practitioner MD yet you’re working at a youth clinic? How is this possible? And how did this come to be and who’s funding this youth clinic? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: So basically, the clinic was a vision of my mentor, Dr. Elizabeth Watt, and it was started in the very, very grassroots level about 10 years ago now. So when I joined it, we were working out of one room or two rooms at the hospital, basically, and since then we’ve had a number of different moves finally to move into our purpose built building the foundry here in app. It’s for that was approximately a year ago, so the youth clinic is funded in a number of ways Fraser. Health helps fund it. The Ministry of Child and Youth and families Health abundant. But yes, we do have to fight for our finding quite a bit. So the youth clinic functions just is a normal walk in clinic. So we see everything we see source throats, we see even minor traumas. But at the end of the day, what we end up seeing most of is sexual health and mental health. Because, let’s not forget, the youth clinic is for the ages between 12 and 24. So those are the two biggest things that will get them through our doors. Andrew Bracewell: So just to put things into, let me repeat this back to you, to make sure I’ve got it right. We have a clinic that’s staffed by medical professionals, where youth can just show up, check themselves in, see a doctor. But as it turns out, the majority of the time you’re you end up dealing in the mental health field as often, if not more, than you’re dealing with sore throats, fevers, whatever. Is that a fair statement? Absolutely. This is incredible. And how did how did this clinic come to be? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: So I think there was a gap, right? If you think about how we we do really well when it comes to pediatrics, because typically the parents take the onus of that to try to arrange those appointments. And then when you turn to be an adult, let’s say after the age of 19 Okay, you can hopefully find your way to a walk in clinic or hope. Well, you have a family doctor. But what about all the rest of it, right? And who We tend to forget that adolescence is the time of supreme transition in so many ways. So I think it came to be was because my mentor, Dr. Elizabeth Watts, saw this this gap in our health care system and saw that there was a need for it and fought, fought hard for funding and for space and for time. And she rallied not just physicians, but nurses and social workers. And now it’s this entity called the Foundry that we’re not just seeing in BC ah, but with us. They’re not too seeing in Abbotsford, but we’re seeing across BC as well, so it’s become a model of how we should be treating our youth Andrew Bracewell: approximately. How many practitioners are in touch with the foundry. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Oh my goodness, it’s hard to say, because we we’re on the first floor of the foundry and we have a rotating, so there’s probably a good 10 to 12 doctors that will come and go throughout and try to pick up shifts throughout the month. Ah, then we have nurse practitioners. Then we have nurses that deal with a lot of contraception and sexual health Andrew Bracewell: is Sorry, I’m There’s so much good stuff here. I just don’t You’re blowing my brain. Doctors who are quote unquote picking up shifts. Are these doctors just getting involved because this is something they’re interested in? Or how is a doctor saying I’m gonna start spending some time here? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Absolutely. That because they’re interested in it because we and Abbotsford have a residency program. So we train. So after you finish your your four years of undergrad four years of medical school, you still have to do two years of family practice, residency or training. And Abbotsford is one of those sites, so these residents have to rotate through the youth clinic, and I was a resident. I rotated through the clinic and there’s I never thought I’d want to work with teenagers. Let’s be honest, like it just was not my I don’t think I could relate. But there was something about working in this environment with the group of passionate people, so we tend to Once the residents graduate, they tend to keep coming back for more. And I was one of those. Andrew Bracewell: So we’ve got the practitioners we talked about, but then you started talking about the other people in the building and what else is going on? Keep going on that. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: So, like I said, First floor is just the typical. What you think of is a youth clinic or a walk in clinic. But as he start going on the second floor and third floor, then you’re starting to see programs for youth. So we have walking counseling. So basically a youth can just walk into our building, go up into the second floor and, if available, see a counselor right there and then on the spot so it takes away all of those barriers in terms of ocean like how do I book an appointment tour? Which counts, or should I see? And you know all the stigma around counseling cost. Let’s be exactly, let’s our most important one is cost. So there’s there is what we call the start team, which is the suicide intervention team that is lived up on the second or so the things I can floor there. There’s an adolescent day program for kids that need some extra help during the day. So impact or drug and alcohol abuse counselors are part of our staff. Social workers. So it’s it’s this is this is the root of multi disciplinary care. This is what we need is what our youth need. Andrew Bracewell: It must be fair to say that you guys are plugged into all of the major players and assets in the city. I would imagine policing department is involved from time to time or you’re communicating with somebody there. You mentioned there’s counseling. There’s medical side. Speak to some of the significant people in the community. Who are you you’re involved with on a regular basis? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Yeah, for sure. So it’s the list is so extensive, but if you just kind of hone into the social work realm of things, for example, we have a food bank now on site. So where were directly an affiliation with the Abbotts for food bank. We have kind of an area for used clothes and use products, so there’s a kind of a thrift ing component that’s going on to There’s an exercise component. So innovative fitness is being extremely involved with helping teach our youth the power physical activity. I used to run yoga classes for the youth to like. I could just go on and on. There’s every aspect that you can think of. We try to enmesh ourselves in. Andrew Bracewell: It’s totally holistic. Completely, completely. How often and in what way are you encountering parents? I imagine there are a huge part of this process or can be, anyway. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Parents are when a youth walks in with their parents and allows willingly the parent to sit there in the interview, I can usually breathe a sigh of relief because I know someone is watching over them, and I know that the youth trust them and I say the word willingly very carefully because there have bean many times where I can sense that that dynamic between the youth and the parent isn’t so great, and I often will respectfully ask if the parent can just wait outside so I can speak to the youth one on one, and sometimes it doesn’t come out the first time or the second time. But by the 10th time I can start to maybe understand where the youth is coming from. And often I’ll ask to speak to the parent individually to because let’s not forget, I see the youth for what, 10 23 30 minutes once every week, once every two weeks. These parents are living with these individuals with they’re teenagers. So it’s no easy on them too, right? They have to deal with that day in and day out. So, yes, I listen to the story that the youth present me. But I also have to listen to how the parents are coping. And oftentimes I will recommend How are you coping? How is your mental health? Because dealing with somebody who is struggling with their own mental health can be just as exhausting for the caregiver. Andrew Bracewell: Okay, you just said something that I want a key in on there. I think most people’s perspective of a patient doctor relationship is we’re dealing with something on acute level, you know, experiencing something. You go see your doctor. You deal with the issue, and then you may never see them for six months. 12 months, 18 months, 24 months. Who knows? But you just made a statement as if you said something to the effect of, you know, I meet a youth, and then I’m gonna see that youth in a week or three weeks or four weeks or six weeks. That sounds totally foreign to my doctor experience. Once you engage with somebody, what does that look like? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: So it really depends on why they’re engaging with me. So of course I was actually at the clinic. They had no doc yesterday, so I quickly went in to fill in on the end. You know, patient came in with gastroenteritis, like a stomach flu. Easy peasy, right? She would make sure she was hydrated. We figured all what? The root cause, Woz. And you’re gonna be fine. You’re on your weight, and I tell them you come back if X y and Zed, right? That’s very easy. Had another youth. The next patient came in who had been off of his medications and was starting to feel symptoms of suicide. Ality again was starting to feel symptoms of anxiety, depression, all the rest of it. I’m not going to see you in four weeks. I want to see you next week to make sure that everything is going okay. Andrew Bracewell: And there’s time and money for this. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yeah, because the doctors at the youth clinic are paid session Lee. By that, I mean that were paid per hour. So if I see 15 patients in an hour or one patient an hour, I’m not incentivized either way. And to be honest, I don’t care about that. I I care about, you know, giving the time and space to the youth. But the problem now, like anything in health care, is that I would love to spend 1/2 hour or 45 minutes with a patient. But I also have to be respectful that I have a waiting room full of kids who have been waiting for two or three hours. Andrew Bracewell: This is a significant difference in this clinic versus every other clinic and doctors office correct under present. And how did it come to be that this clinic was set up this way financially? Because this to me, just makes so much logical sense. I understand these issues are complex and, you know, difficult to unwind. But just talk to that and how that impacts patient care. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: The reason it was is because because what we see most of all, like I said, it’s either is, you know, sexual health or it’s mental health. Let’s put a number on it. Like I would say, about 50% is mental health. Not to say that a regular Family GP would is not dealing with mental health. Yes, they are. But you need the time in space. So to give the youth time in space, the doctor also has to be compensated. So by that I mean, if you are getting paid $35 for a typical office visit and you spend an hour with the patient, you’re not really gonna have a doctor who is? That’s not the sustainable model. No, But then again, the amount that were paid per hour is much less than what a walk in doctor who can see Ah Andrew Bracewell: 6789 10 patients. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Correct, correct. Correct. So you also I think, 10 to find people who yes, you need to be compensated appropriately. But you’re there. The whole notion is not to make money. They’re there because you’re there on purpose. You believe in something, right? That’s the whole reason why When there s o otherwise, could you spend five minutes with a patient who has anxiety? Sure. You just It’s nothing. Take long to write a prescription. It takes a second to sign a prescription. All the rest of it takes time. And that’s why my Ted talk came about because I was signing. And I still do not to say there is a place of his time and place for medication. Absolutely. But when I see the same story played out, over and over and over again, I take a step back going. Okay. What more can we do? What more can I do? What more can our schools do? And that’s how the emotional literacy talk was kind of came to be, right. Andrew Bracewell: So how much of your time are you devoting to the youth health clinic right now? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: So right now, because I’m considered my own, have a four month old at home, so I guess I’m technically should still be on maternity. We’re gonna We’re gonna talk about that S o. You know right now, because I if I try to work at least one shift a week, one shift every two weeks, I’d love to be there every day. If I could. It’s just child care. That’s my biggest ah thing. But it’s between right now. I work primarily at the youth clinic and I work at the Breast Health Clinic, and, ironically enough, both our session only paid. So I think I gravitate towards things that I can spend time with. Patients Andrew Bracewell: will jump to the breast health clinic in a second, but I want to come back Toto. One more salt or question I had. When you’re engaging with these youth and somebody walks in and says My stomach’s hurting or this is hurting or that’s hurting is your radar up for what is possibly a deeper underlying issue as the cause of what’s going on? Or how are you? How are you engaging and and what are you looking for? Even if you’re not being told something or how are you approaching that? Does that make sense? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: It makes complete sense, so I think this is what is what you learn through medical school. But you. You also either have it or you don’t have it in the sense that when a patient walks in you, there’s this almost a Spidey sense that you understand could look at the patient. You could start to ask questions if they’re in new patient to me, never met them before. I can tell quite quickly. Are you here because you want to address the stomach pain or you here? Because there’s something more on the reason I know that is because if I’m asking them about the stomach pain, I might get very flaky answers like it’s just not fitting. Like, for example, the woman that had for the teenager that had gastroenteritis yesterday or the stomach flu. It was, you know, I was vomiting. I had this. I had that. Okay, it was very black and white. Very strange forward. Where is some cryptic kind of abdominal pain? As I start toe unpeeled the layers, I’m thinking, I asked a very simple question. Just tell me what’s going on in your life right now. I’m new to you. So just tell me, what are your stressors? What are you happy about? Who lives with you at home? and then it’s their facial expression. They might turn away from me. They might really engage with me. They might be a long pause, all of this kind of stuff. And then I’ll use the words. Tell me more, Tell me more, Tell me more. And then they might have broken up with her boyfriend. They might have been sexually assaulted. They might have all of these different things have come up to. Sometimes you can get it all in the first visit. Sometimes you can’t, but you always first have to wear your medical doctor your hat before you wear your psychologist hat. I don’t want to be missing that you have an acute appendicitis because I want to talk about your anxiety like there’s There’s that, too. So I quickly try to rule out all of my red flags in my head, and then, if I’m not sensing anything, I’ll give them a plan. Let’s do X Y and Zed will do some blood. Work will do this, but then I want to talk more about this right and leave the door open and they know where to find me. They can always come back for more right And with that, Like I said, there are red flags with mental health stuff, too. So I need to be careful with that. I’m to be careful. Are you feeling suicidal? Are you feeling that you’re safe? You’re not safe with yourself for others, all of that kind of stuff. So I guess it’s a bit of a juggling act, and that’s what I love about. That’s part of the reason why I love medicine is because no patients ever straight forward, you’re always gonna get surprised. But sometimes that can also be emotionally draining. Andrew Bracewell: So you and R I aren’t identical in age, but we’re both in our thirties. We’ll leave it at that. We don’t need to get specific. When we were youth number one, there’s no way a resource like this existed. Number to the mental health conversation was not even a conversation, and something that I’ve gone through as an adult is transforming the way I think about mental health. Going from a place where I believed it was fake was made up. It was it was a thing that that weak people used as an excuse to now understanding that not only is it riel But it’s something that needs to be researched, more discussed more. And it’s all around us, and I’m impacted by it in my own life by people around me. How do your youth patients know that you exist is a resource? And what’s the conversation in their mind? Given that they’ve been now raised in a hopefully a better generation than we were raised in? Are they coming in with shame or when the topic of mental health comes up? Is it something that they’re ready to embrace right away? Or are they in denial? Because I can imagine, as a youth, I would have immediately denied I would have said No, this is I’m not weak. There’s no way I have this. This is not a thing. How are they dealing with this issue versus how we would have potentially dealt with it? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Absolutely. So, to your first point, how they hear about us, we’re we’re very, um, meshed into the school system, and the counselors at the school know about us so they will often refer. Patients are away, even at the University of the Fraser Valley. There, counselors know about us so as the community resource will got and more well known, Um, and even the family doctors will often refer to our clinic if they find that they need help with a certain patient because, respectfully, they might just not have time to deal with it. To your second point about this change in dynamic with the conversation of mental health. It’s extremely tricky. So let me give you a story. When I was probably about seven or eight, I started noticing what I know now that I had a lot of had some anxiety at that time. I had some O. C. D type tendencies at that time that later translated into restricted eating behavior. All of this stuff was going on in my background. And now I understand it so well that all of these this symptom Atala, jeez, all linked together as a kind of personality type in some ways. But when I told my mom about this, this is now what you know, 25 whatever. Years ago, she just said it’s gonna be okay. Don’t worry, you’re fine. She just tried to normalize everything because she did the best that she possibly could. And her We’ve also haven’t had this conversation now, later on, I kind of said, Well, why didn’t you take me to a place? So there wasn’t a place. There was nothing that existed back then. And in fact, she was so scared of me getting put on some sort of medication that her mind her providing her version of counseling was the best possible option. So I think nowadays, yes, we’re very fortunate that we have these resources, but we have to be careful that the pendulum hasn’t swung the other way. And by that I mean that we start to pathologize or make a disease out of any abnormal emotion. Interesting. So by this, I mean, it’s okay to feel anxious. It’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to feel scared. All of this stuff is okay. It doesn’t mean that you have depression. It doesn’t mean that you have anxiety because we’ve got to realize that the criteria that you need to meet depression is a checklist. The criteria for anxiety is a checklist. And you might meet that checklist one day and not the other day in trusting to meet to actually have a fully fledged, you know, diagnosis. Yes, you have to have those symptoms for more than two weeks. But I think we’ve become so on board with mental health that by telling everyone it’s okay, you have depression. We also have to be careful that we’re not putting a label on their head. So some this I was listening to actually great podcast the other day, and a professional in this field was saying, It’s OK just to say that I feel stuck right now. I feel stuck and that’s okay. And I often tell that to the youth, too. But we also have to realize that these youth walk in our doors with so much often with so much baggage and such a story that it’s their story that needs unpacking. You need to hear about their upbringing. You have to hear about their lack of a stable home. You have to hear about their encounters with abuse toe. Understand that, of course, you have the feelings that you do, sure, but it doesn’t mean you need to be a victim to those feelings. Andrew Bracewell: Is it fair to say that in your one of the challenges in assessing a patient who’s a youth versus assessing a patient who’s not, is that there’s hormones that play as well, and bodies are changing. And there’s that whole spectrum that could also be impacting things. Is that a Is that something that is relevant to the conversation? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: There is absolutely, and I think, more than even just the hormones and body changing is that the brain is not fully developed. Your brain doesn’t get fully developed to the age of 21 by that I mean your actual prefrontal cortex, which is what helps you with executive planning and decision making. That idea that you can assess a situation, think about it rationally and then make a decision. So impulse control for youth is not going to be where it is for an adult at the age of 35 or 40 right? And hence why It’s so much easier to make poorer choices as a youth, whether it be for drugs and alcohol or sex, or all the rest of it, too. So, and there’s also a very normal phase of experimentation, and if you don’t experiment, really, how do you learn? So there’s all of that at play, too, and they’re also trying to find their own identity, right? They’re also trying to figure out where my favorite question like I mentioned, the Ted talk is asking, Well, what do you want to be like? Where do you imagine yourself? And sometimes I’ll get these blank spaces like, Well, what? Like I’m going to be 30 or 41 day because Andrew Bracewell: they haven’t even stepped outside the space. There is Dr. Shahana Alibhai: not at all. Andrew Bracewell: Whatever they’re in is all there is. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Clea. They live in that like they’re very present, right, So and realize that the views clinic we see between the ages of 12 to 24 a lot happens between the ages of 12 and 24 right? Right. So I if I see a 13 or 14 year old who has become sexually active and is trying to figure all of that out, that’s a very different conversation than someone who is 1920 2122 right on all of the considerations with regards to that. So, yeah, it’s a complex discussion. Andrew Bracewell: Well, fascinating. We’ve only scratched the surface there, but I you alluded to something else earlier that I that I do also wantto get to with you. You mentioned you spend time in the breast Health Clinic. Yes. Tell us a little bit about that. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: I I love it. I love the breast health clinic. So very similar to the youth clinic. Is that it? Once again, it’s healthcare innovation in the sense that we need to change some things. Once again. There was a problem with the way that women were being screened and treated and tree ours with regards to their breast health. Right. So you could imagine the percentage is still that many of the family doctors are male, and sometimes a female patient wouldn’t feel comfortable discussing their breast health complaints with their male physician. Fair enough. We often know as well that regular breast exams are now not standard of practice unless a woman has a complaint of some sort. So there isn’t that chance to have a dialogue with the healthcare practitioner as to what should I be looking for? And what are my concerns in my family history? Enter the breast health clinic. So the Breast Health clinic is situated at the hospital in the first floor. And once again, we’re a team. We’re a team of physicians. Were a team of nurses that go in and basically treat and surgeons, I should say that treat from the time of diagnosis to the time of treatment for breast cancer and everything in between. So I’m one of the four female family physicians trained in breast health at the breast care center, along with two female surgeons and a host of female nurses that work there. And we see everything breast related, from lumps to breast pain to our skin related breast changes to any mammogram recalls. If there is something that’s looking sinister or suspicious, we will arrange the biopsies. I will break the news to the patient as to what is happening, whether it be that they are fine, or whether it be that they actually need more treatment or if they have breast cancer. And on my slate of when I go in every week of 16 17 patients, at least once or twice, I’ll have to walk into the room of a patient I’ve never met before because we’re a rotating Andrew Bracewell: group of Dr. Shahana Alibhai: doctors and sit down with them and tell them that they have breast cancer and it is I’ve done it hundreds of times now, and it never how could it ever get easier. How could it ever get easier that you I just had this conversation. I just worked two days ago and were hitting Christmas time soon. And you were telling somebody? It’s actually if I might give my opinion here. It might be somewhat worse to tell a patient that you have a very, very suspicious lump, but we can’t arrange a biopsy for another week or another 10 days. Like, let’s be honest that How do you live with that? Right. Andrew Bracewell: Okay, you just went into a hole. You just went into a whole another rabbit hole that I wanted. So my first thought, when you say that is, what are you doing for yourself when you’re delivering this kind of news and then you’re going home to your family at the end of the day? I mean, you just dropped a bomb on somebody’s life. It’s not your bomb. You didn’t make the bomb, But you were the one who had to deliver the news. How are you unpacking that in your mind and living with that? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: I wish I had a good answer. I wish. I wish I was numb to it by now. And I think that would be a bad sign if I was, But I’m not, um, even though it had experience. I’ll be honest when I go home. I see the faces of the women that I have broken the news to. I see the faces of their partners, and that’s what I think about. But the only thing that gives me solace or hope or feeling like I’m making a difference is the way that I break the news to them. If I can make that moment even a little bit easier for them, then that’s what I hang on to. So even though I will tell them they teach, they try to train you a little bit for this, although a lot of it you have to learn by yourself is that you never. You never beat around the bush Never Haman Hall when you go into the room there often sitting in the room for a good 5 10 15 minutes, and this room is covered with breast cancer paraphernalia, so they’re already on it. They’re often with somebody there, and ah, I’ll quickly introduce myself. I’ll quickly tell them, You know, I’ve read through your chart just so that they know that I know what I’m talking about and then I’ll get straight to it. I’ll use the There’s often different schools of thought. Do you use the word cancer, do you not? Well, cancer is cancer. Used the word Be blunt about it in the sense, but then jump right to the point that, yes, you have breast cancer, but you are in the right spot. You were in the spot that you can be treated. Andrew Bracewell: You’re trying to provide hope exactly immediately. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Exactly right away that this is for us as women. This is one and eight of us. Yes, Unfortunately, you are the one, right? But there’s one in eight. Andrew Bracewell: So we one of eight in Canada, Dr. Shahana Alibhai: in Canada? Yeah, that’s unbelievable. And it’s the same feeling in my gut that I get with you that why can’t I do more than write a prescription when I see the biopsy report, I always feel Why can’t we do more? How do we prevent this? And of course, there is so much conversation people a lot smarter than I’ll ever be who are doing the appropriate kind of research. But you start to think about lifestyle and genetics and environment and all the rest of it of how, uh why is this such an issue for us, right? Andrew Bracewell: Yeah, it’s a convoluted conversation, and there isn’t one thing and it could be environment diet habits. I mean, there must be other places in the world that don’t have this rate of breast cancer. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: And then you start to dig into the whole complex discussion about mammography and the frequency of mammography and us detecting things that we might have not even detected before. And the idea of overdiagnosis There’s There’s so much there to unpack two, which could be a slippery slope because I literally every task force has a different notion as when we should best screen. So there’s not even a good, solid consensus per se if you look across Canada or even different regions in the world as to how often you should be having mammograms and all the rest of it. So we have done our best by saying OK every two years if you don’t have a family history. But at the end of the day, we know that mammograms can also lead you up the garden path in the sense of having a ton of biopsies and testing that actually turned out to be a nothing and in the realm of it caused women a ton of anxiety. So how do you How do you rationalize that? Yes, we’re helping some, but for for a large proportion of them, they’re having all these biopsies, and thankfully they’re okay. But the stress of that time period put a number on that. I don’t know, right. Andrew Bracewell: It’s fair to say, say yes or no if this is true or not. But this is all in the name of prevention. Yes, which is actually something unique to the medical field. Also true, Dr. Shahana Alibhai: All such. Andrew Bracewell: There’s no easy answers there. How are you traversing these issues? So circle back to something we alluded to earlier. Your husband, College chiropractor. Your sister’s a naturopathic doctor. You’re an MD. Your parents are pharmacists. You’ve got the full spectrum in your brain. And I’m sure that sometimes the way you think doesn’t always align with standard MD field or what you’re supposed to think. You know what you’re told to say. How are you navigating that when you’re in these crucible moments and determining what you recommend or what you say to a patient or how you go about best practicing with the people you’re trying to love and care for. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: I think I feel undereducated. Ill, be honest, even though I do have the full, we have the full realm in our household. The way that I’ve Bean trained as an M. D still makes me feel like I’m at a loss on. The reason for that is because I feel like I’m missing this whole other segment of knowledge that could potentially help patients. But even more than that, coming back to my pyramid is that forget nutrition, Forget exercise. Forget all of these other alternative therapies. If I could focus on one thing keeps coming back to mental health. You just can’t escape that I couldn’t escape it. My patients can escape it. And I think if I could choose more training in any one of those fields, it would be Mawr in, you know, realms like cognitive behavioral therapy counseling. But I also have to realize that I’m I’m not accounts there. That’s not what I’ve been trained to do, but I doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize the importance of it so I think for me in my future I want to do more training and there is a program. Actually, it’s a two year program, but it’s through. It’s through the U. S. For integrative medicine, where family practice physicians can go and get trained in the best of the best of off what we call complementary and alternative medicine. But it’s the evidence based stuff of shrimp. The only problem is that it’s a If I go and do my two years of training, I’ll come back to Canada. And then what? There is no funding for it. There is no I’m not prepared to open a private clinic. Then you start going to the discussion public versus private room, and I don’t That’s a tricky, tricky conversation. Andrew Bracewell: Yeah, the system is designed to function a particular way, and the system needs to be efficient. But efficiency doesn’t always mean that we’re hitting every patient where they need to be hit. Absolutely, absolutely Dr. Shahana Alibhai: medicines really good at trying to keep you alive. It’s trying to rule out red flags, sure trying to diagnose diagnosable conditions, but for but I’m not gonna be the only one to say that conventional medicine has gaps. We all know it does. And that’s why people seek out rightfully so other therapies. But the problem becomes is that unlike when you see a physician, you kind of know when you go to a clinic, you know what you’re going to see. You know what you’re gonna get. The doctor’s gonna ask you bunch of questions might do a physical exam. You might leave with a prescription. Okay, for better or for worse, that’s your experience. If you see 10 chiropractors, if you’d see 10 natural pats, you’re often gonna get 10 different experiences and and right there lies the problem. Andrew Bracewell: In our own household we’ve fallen into, I would say it’s probably accurate for me to say I don’t have a family. I don’t have a doctor. I do have a doctor and that I have a friend who’s a doctor. And when I have something really bad, like I’ve broken something or, you know, it’s very obvious that, you know, I will use my doctor and as this circumstance, my friend, to get the treatment I need. But for the things that aren’t obvious, we have fallen into this habit. Sometimes I think it’s good. Sometimes I think it’s bad of doing the research for ourselves and self diagnosing, because the frustration is that when you go to one particular person in one particular field, you’re not necessarily getting the full scope, and nor is it reasonable or fair to expect that person to be able to give you the full scope. But holistic treatment requires the full scope. Sometimes you have to look at nutrition. You have to look at mental health. You have to look at exercise. You have to be aware of. You know what a physiotherapist can do versus what a coward Proctor can do. And so it’s frustrating. I have found myself frustrated. I know we’ve been frustrated in our health journey and that when you have a conversation with one particular individual, you know you’re only getting advice from one particular perspective. And that isn’t always what’s required. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s and we come back to that conversation of time right without spending time with somebody. How do you know all the facets of their life? You just don’t write. And I think that’s once again why? Why gravitate to working at the youth clinic? Because even if it’s not me. I hear from the social worker I hear from the counselor. I hear from the nurse, and all of that puts a picture together, right? And it just makes treating them that much easier If I know what’s happening in their life. Andrew Bracewell: Okay, let’s switch gears, Okay, we crush that way. Did that the best we possibly could. There’s nothing else we could ever say. Exhausted it. You are a mum. Yes, you have a four month old. We’re currently on a nursing break. Yes, you have a two year old and a four year old. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Yes. And you have this career? Yes, and you probably have to make dinner from time to time or vacuum or vacuum Andrew Bracewell: the house or do laundry or whatever. How in the hell does this work? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: So motherhood is being my greatest gift in my greatest teacher. Everyone who knew me in medical school knew that I talked about one thing on Lee, and it was to be a mum, to be a mom, to be a mom. That’s all I ever wanted. And I wonder if it’s because I had this notion that maternity leave would be like a break My one thought Maybe that’s why I wanted to be a mom. But ah, like we had caught, you did. Alluded to as well, quickly after residency. I finished my residency in six weeks. Afterwards, I was pregnant with you, Sean. My first child. And it was go time. That’s all I wanted. I spent that year researching, and I was gonna be I read basically every book I could get my hands on on motherhood and the best things to buy. But as any rookie mum, of course, no book ever trains you for a child that doesn’t sleep and breastfeeding problem. You mean you didn’t perfectly sleep? Train all your Children? What exactly? Speak given them completely deprived right now, right? Exactly. So And I think for the first time, motherhood was not just an intellectual hit. It was an emotional hit. I’m used to having intellectual hits are okay. You know, you can you can get a B on a paper or you can not do so well on an exam or whatever the case might be. But I’ve never had an emotional hit before. And by that I mean the fact that something this baby was responding to me as if I wasn’t a good enough mother. And it made me feel like what I ever be a good enough mother because I didn’t feel that quote unquote bond that you were supposed to feel. You know, all of that for you. Were you a natural? I like Andrew Bracewell: some women. You don’t mean some women. They would explain the first a Ziff like it’s like I’ve done this my entire life. It’s like riding a bike. And then I know some women would say the opposite like this was a foreign experience for me. How would you put yourself in that spectrum? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: You know what it’s like walking through a cloud. Parts were blissful and parts were completely hazy. You know, it felt like I was on Cloud nine, but yet I didn’t know where I was going. If that makes any sense, that’s very good. That that’s exactly the analogies, right? Actually, So and no. And for the first time in my life notebook or my mind couldn’t get me out of it, and I tried and I tried so hard. Ethicists will sound crazy, but between nursing sessions, I actually with schedule meditations I knew. I knew on paper that I needed to do yoga and meditate and do all this stuff for me. Andrew Bracewell: Were you practicing meditation already for your life? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: 100%. Yeah. You are a guru. No, but meditation doesn’t work. If you’re trying to do it with for, like a minute between switching breasts and you know it doesn’t work, it takes time Andrew Bracewell: to get in. Absolutely. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Like it doesn’t work to schedule your yoga and get anxious while it’s loading on the last talk like that. Kind of That’s the opposite of what you should be doing. So all of this stuff I laugh about in retrospect. But man, did I hit the wall, man. Did I hit the wall? Because, oh, I can’t even begin to tell you I I was on my knees, figuratively, literally. All the rest of it. I I was at my rock rock rock bottom, and I didn’t hope. Of course, my husband knew what was going on. To some extent, my family knew what was going on to some extent, but once again, very much. It’s okay. It’s going to get better. Postpartum is normal. You just had a baby Andrew Bracewell: It’s the tools they have in the bag that a very dear friend of mine has explained it to me that way. When talking about you know how are parents have dealt with us, it’s easy to harbour bitterness or to say they screwed up or whatever. But when you realize that they had a hammer and a wrench and that’s all they had, and today we have hammers and wrenches and screwdrivers and way more tools than we had, so we might approach the conversation differently. But they’re just doing what they’ve always known how to do, because that’s the tools I’ve always had Dr. Shahana Alibhai: and they’re doing it out of love and they’re doing it just I’m sure I’m gonna screw my kids up bad to look high because you do the best that you can. But so sometimes it’s the hardest for family to see what you’re going through, because they just want to see the version that they know of you, not the version that you are now, which was the worst of myself. I’ll share a story which is a little bit of never actually told this to anybody before, but I was driving one day and, ah, I had the split second thought that what if I just drove into the other lane and then it would all be over? And this is the kind of stuff I talked with to the youth. I work with thistles, the kind of stuff I am comfortable talking about. But when I had that thought, and when I realized that you boy, I better take a step back for myself because that kind of thought should not bring me peace. It should bring me fear in some ways that I’ve reached that point right, and that’s what sleep deprivation and emotional burnout and even intellectual burnout will do to you. So I actually reached out to a good friend who’s a nurse at the youth clinic, and I texted her one day and I said, I think I need some help here. And I spoke with my mentor, Dr. What and, ah, my good friend Joanne, who’s the nurse of the youth clinic? And she said, Yeah, this is you need some help here, So I wasn’t comfortable enough to go to my family doctor because she’s a good friend of mine. Um, and this is where ego comes into play. Sure, this is where I wanna be. The super mom. I don’t wanna have any of the stuff going on, so I called. We actually are very fortunate. I think I don’t know if we have it in other provinces, but in BC, We have a confidential physicians help blind or health line. So any physician and their family can call this line and basically access help for anything physical, mental, anything Andrew Bracewell: for physicians. Only Dr. Shahana Alibhai: for only physicians and their spouses are pregnant. So I called this and I got put through to an intake worker. And even as they’re doing the intake, I’m thinking, actually, I’m fine. Actually, I’m good. I don’t need help. I’m good. I just made a call like I don’t know what I’m doing for you. Everything’s fine. Everything is blissful. So then, of course the doc calls me and I’m trying to have a very professional conversation. You know, according to the D S M five criteria, I have X, Y and Z because we’re both doctors here, so I’m not sexually Hannah like, just just take it easy. First of all, and second of all, I think you’re gonna need some help and I said, No, I don’t need help. I know what I have. I’ve got postpartum anxiety. Perfect. I’m done. He’s like, No, you’re gonna be Just talk to somebody You might need to consider some medication. And I said absolutely not. Because here I am writing it out for every patient I see, not every but a lot of them. But when my name was at the top of that prescription pad, are you kidding me? I’m too good for that. And that’s rock bottom. Andrew Bracewell: It’s just fascinating. Like So what do you think is going on in the human brain? This absolutely is not something that only physicians air you you deal with. I mean, I I can say in my own life, I have also dealt with this for some reason. In whatever area that we are deemed to be the professional. There’s this mental block where we cannot suffer with that challenge. And the irony is, is we’re helping people with these things every day. Absolutely, absolutely. And there is I don’t I don’t have an answer for I’m just I’m fascinated by that, and I know that that can’t That can’t be the best of what there is. We’re better than this. We’ve got to get past that. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: I think part of it, too, is because it’s a self protective mechanism, right? If you feel that if I need to help other people will how can I be down and out? I need to be in a role that I can lift other people up. I didn’t mean to get swept under the current, but we’re all susceptible. We’re all human, right? And then the eagle part comes from the fact that like it or not, mental health still is associated with the weakness. Right there is if you just tried harder. If you just thought CB teeter Cognitive behavioral therapy To your way out of this, do more yoga, do more meditation, eat better, drink more fish, oil, whatever you know, make it go away. And it’s not that easy. And this the other piece, too, is that it doesn’t have to be. We use mental health, but mental health could just be an having a really tough day. I’m having a really tough week. When are we going to start to say that that is OK? Because as a society we never go toe. You ask. How are you doing? I’m doing great. I’m doing perfect. I do. Fine. We’re approaching the Christmas holidays. If you ask somebody, how are you actually doing Andrew Bracewell: their melting down? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Exactly. But do we have to say that you have quote unquote depression needed medication? No. Where is the middle ground? We’ve stopped having riel conversations because all we want to do is present a facade of our life on social media that everything is perfect. And it’s not. Andrew Bracewell: Don’t go there. Don’t take me to social media. I don’t want to do it. Today started. Let’s rewind, rewind you, you and I. So we got to go for coffee. A few weeks ago, as I was chasing and pursuing you and begging you to come on the show and among other things, I we were chatting. We had a great chat for two hours and you said something that stuck out to me. And I wantto take us back to that moment and just shut up and listen to you talk, if that’s okay. You said something like at some point in time, we, as in you and college, needed to give you a designation and your designation was you were the CEO of your home. And this came in the context of a conversation where we were discussing gender roles and how to make careers work and have people feel validated. And I rolled over. And further context was Is that you’re talking from a perspective where two people have significant careers and yet you have a uterus and three Children, and I was coming out from their perspective where I have three Children. My wife’s career has been to stay home and raised the Children, and I’ve gone out, conquered while she’s done that. And then you just raise this concept of CEO of the home and I went, That’s fascinating. Can you just take off on that? Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Yes, it’s funny. There’s, ah, actually various important role model Rachel Hollis. She’s written it, really Girl, just wash your face that kind of book. And she had mentioned one of her podcast that when you have something deep within your heart that just keeps speaking to you, don’t ignore it. And that’s exactly what I feel the CEO of the house concept it. So let me tell you more So like you mentioned I have three boys, all boys think, Ah, four year old, a two year old in a four month old. And it was our choice to have, ah, what I would think of as a larger family now. And like you said, for better or for worse, there is a time frame that you have to make these decisions as to when to start your family. And, you know, typically it’s in your late twenties, mid thirties, whatever it happens to be. There’s also a choice that you, as a woman, can make as to whether you want to stay home or whether you want to re enter the workforce. But that’s a very black and white decision. And what often, after spending 10 years or 11 years in the educational system earning this degree, I was spit out with Yes, an M D. But that means nothing. An MD means nothing unless you’re really happy practicing in a regular family practice office, and that for me, I’m That’s not my happiness. That’s not my groove, right? So here I am, a mom here I am, an MD behind my name, but I still don’t know what I want to do. And if that sounds of the ironic enough, yes, I enjoy the youth clinic. And yes, I enjoy breast health. But there’s something in my heart in my soul that I want to create something. I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to create something sustainable. Four women, four mums, especially that they can start to embrace who they are, their sense of time, their identity and give them purpose. And I think a lot of women who start cos kind of start with this sort of notion in mind because they have felt that loss, so they want to give it to others. So once again, I want to go into unchartered territory with this CEO of the House, which by the white, I should say, is a concept that I came up with in the sense that it speaks to the fact that I’m not just a stay at home Mom, Don’t you hate that When somebody asked me that Oh, I cringe. What do you I’m just a stay at home. Mom, don’t say that. Take the just out of there you are doing being at hole. I got to go. I got to goto work for three hours yesterday and I came back invigorated. I was happier. I love my kids so much, but it is hard, hard, hard work. And the reason the CEO of the House idea came up for me is that my husband bought a book. I won’t say the name of the book, but it was with the theme of taking charge of your mornings. Let’s say right, how do you start to utilize the 45? Aye, aye. Ems kind of slot as, ah, time that you can really supercharge yourself. We Andrew Bracewell: don’t want to say the name of because it’s controversial or you just go Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Just because I don’t want Thio. I like the concept of the book, but I think it was missing from a God. A female perspective. I Andrew Bracewell: got it. Yeah. So you want Dr. Shahana Alibhai: to use what exactly? So you know my ass. It was all, like, charged up about this book that Oh, yeah, it’s likely. Whatever our of power in the morning, I’m gonna meditate. I’m gonna work out, and I’m gonna journal. Oh, this sounds amazing. But I looked and I said, Guess what? I’ve been doing this for four hours four months. All my kids were horrible sleepers, but I’ve been up at 2 a.m. At 3 a.m. At 5 a.m. I’ve been doing this hour of power except I’ve been nursing while I’ve been doing it. Didn’t really mean like, Welcome to the O Club. And it’s so ironic is that we have all of these books for executives and CEOs and entrepreneurs how to unlock the tools and tactics to make yourself the most successful version that you can. But what’s the biggest difference between an entrepreneur, business person, CEO and a mom? What’s the biggest difference? Andrew Bracewell: I would say the size of the humans you’re talking Dr. Shahana Alibhai: about the correct, their voices. But it’s This is what I’ve come up with. It’s the ownership of time you ask. Look at yourself. You might have a list of things that you want to do to date. Andrew Bracewell: Yeah, I scheduled this exactly where I wanted it. Dr. Shahana Alibhai: Oh, that’s interesting. I have three lit

Building on a prophecy that was brought a couple of weeks ago, saynig that we are a "Fire Church", Phil looked at 1 Corinthians 13 and how the church needed to demonstrate each of these qualities to each other and to the outside world. Introduction• Word from Tim Banfield, Sunday visitor from Wales. • We are a fire church• Go and light some firesDon't know if you have considered what a fire church looks like?What does that mean?I have been thinking and praying about it since we had this word. As you we listened to the recording we can get excited about that but what's the reality look likeSo what does a fire church look like?A place where we experience the presence of God?A place where Gods kingdom breaks into people's lives?A place where we can expect healing and deliverance to take place?A place where people are saved?A church through which God demonstrates his Kingdom rule and reign into every place he has given us influenceAs I prayed God led me this one main thing a place where his love in experienced and lived outJesus said this to his disciples, that means us.“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.””‭‭John‬ ‭13:34-35‬ ‭NLT‬‬How are you expressing his love to One another?In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul is writing about spiritual gifts, leadership, and the importance of embracing your gifting. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul continues this line of reasoning as he talks about leaders sounding a clear call.But right in the middle is 1 Corinthians 13, commonly known as “the love chapter.” If you have ever attended a Christian wedding ceremony, you have most likely heard a verse or two quoted. 1 Corinthians 13 is a chapter on how to love one another in the church, not how to be a great husband or wife.We cannot be effective as a people if we do not know how to love one another.What If we applied 1 Corinthians 13 to every area of church life, what difference would that make?The whole point of Jesus coming was that the world would know the love of the Father.The whole point of the church is that through the church the world would get to se and experience this love.Who's this letter to ?“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:”‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭1:2‬ ‭ESV‬‬Consider what love is:• Love is patient.Am I giving others the same room to make mistakes as I want them to give me?Do we get exasperated with one another when they don't do what we want them to?• Love is kind.Do the people actually like being around you? If you want to know the answer to this question, just ask yourself how much they ask to hang out with you outside of a church meeting.• Love is not Jealous or boastful or Proud or rudeAre you jealous of someone's gifting or anointing or maybe of who they are and what they have?Or do you boast or have pride in your heart?Or are you rude to people, ignoring them even when spoken to? Or brushing them of as though they are nothing?Do we do want we do out of selfish ambition?What if you were asked to give up what you do? How would you handle it? Could you do it?• Love does not demand its own wayWill we only give of ourselves on our terms?If it's done my way that's ok but if it's not I'm out.• Love always protects.Do we have one another's back?Do we speak well of on

The way we speak makes a strong impression on others—in fact, according to research in social and cognitive psychology, people make assumptions about us regarding not only what we say, but also how we say it. Moreover, women are judged more harshly than men in this realm. So, when we like, pepper our conversation with filler words, you know, and um, speak in up-talk so that statements sound like questions? then we’re perceived as less competent, confident, and intelligent than men—even when men utilize these same tendencies! But we CAN take charge of our speech and present ourselves confidently, persuasively, and powerfully by hiring a speech coach—and good news! There’s an app for that! Audrey Mann Cronin’s LikeSo and LikeSo PRO provide you (or your business) with a personal speech coach on your phone! Join us to learn how Audrey’s entrepreneurial spirit turned her passion into a mission as we kick off Love & Life’s Women Making it Happen series!Music provided by Free Vibes: https://goo.gl/NkGhTgHip Hop Instrumental #29 " 都 Miyako " (Free Download) by Piano Flava: https://soundcloud.com/snowdrop_jpn/hCreative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

We are so excited to bring you the first episode of our brand new podcast series, The Middle! Like SO excited. In this episode we discuss the energetics of your environment and finding your soul home. We discuss countries around the world and how they correspond with different chakras and corresponding ley lines. PLUS we catch up on Bachie in Paradise, how reality TV has lost it's heart, what we've been reading and what it really feels like to have a colonic! For more information on this episode join The Middle Podcast Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheMiddlePodcast/Follow us individually on Instagram: Hollie Azzopardi https://www.instagram.com/hollieazzopardi Jordanna Levin https://www.instagram.com/jordannalevin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode #45 - March 23rd, 2019 - 44:50 Welcome to Episode 45 of the Pop Culture Over Pizza podcast, a celebration of all things geeky and nerdy! This week, it's a full house! Jose, Walt, Metatron, A$AP Balrog, Wolfie, Halfa and Elias start this cast by geeking out over: Marvel Comics, Devil May Cry, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mortal Kombat, Dragon Ball Z Kai, Netflix's Love, Death and Robots, music by The Cool and Deadly and Like So and finally, Undertale! Metatron also talks about the announced ending of Supernatural with the upcoming Season 15! And finally, we wrap up by having a fun spoiler free discussion of Shazam! We really hope you enjoy the show! Important Stuff Theme music by (http://www.bensound.com/) (Happy Rock) Check out our sponsor, The Dojo NYC (10-82 Cypress Avenue, Ridgewood NY 11385);visit www.thedojonyc.com (http://thedojonyc.com/) for more information. Make sure to subscribe to Pop Culture Over Pizza on the following platforms: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, PocketCasts, Breaker and RadioPublic. We are now also on the Podbean platform, check us out! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter! Subscribe, rate and review us and send us an email at (http://popcultureoverpizza@gmail.com/) with any questions, discussions or ideas, we might just use your suggestions on our next cast! And please tell all your friends! #popculture #popcultureoverpizza #pcop #pcoppodcast #podcast #comics #superheroes #movies #tvshows #anime #manga #scifi #horror #fantasy #videogames #netflix #amazonprime #hulu #fashion #music #sports #genre #marvel #devilmaycry #mcu #mortalkombat #dragonball #dbs #dbz #dragonballzkai #lovedeathandrobots #thecoolanddeadly #likeso #undertale #supernatural #dc #dccomics #dceu #shazam --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pcop/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pcop/support (https://anchor.fm/pcop/support) Support this podcast

Knox Robinson is the Founder of First Run. Knox has spent time training alongside Mo Farah in Ethiopia, Eliud Kipchoge in Kenya and attended the Breaking2 Nike Project in May 2017. We dive into all of these topics with Knox in this podcast espisode. Don’t forget to check out our new book: Eliud Kipchoge – History’s fastest marathoner: An insight into the Kenyan life that shapes legends — — — — — — Podast Transcription (Matt) Thanks very much, Knox Robinson, for joining me today no this Sweat Elite podcast. Knox has a fascinating story, he’s spent some time training with Mo Farah and the Mudane – I think it’s pronounced – group in Ethiopia. (Knox) Mudane, Mudane. (Matt) Mudane? (Knox) Yeah, the president Mudane, yeah. (Matt) Mudane, yeah, got to get that right… Before the London marathon last year, and he spent some time with  Eliud Kipchoge in Kenya, as well, as attended the Monza sub-2 Nike event last year in Italy. So, thanks very much for joining me today, Knox. (Knox) I’m excited to be rapping with you, for sure. (Matt) Cool. I guess we can get started by talking a little bit more about yourself and your background. You were a runner in high school and in college, you attended Wake Forest University and got yourself to, I guess, a decent standard before taking some time away from the sport, but then, you were drawn back, I guess, some ten years later, or thereabouts. I guess it would be good to talk a little bit more about, I guess, what took you away, and then what drew you back, and where you’re at now. (Knox) You know, I think, you know, really, what happened was… It’s tough. I mean, like, legions of runners will tell you how hard it is to make that leap from a, you know, passionate high school runner to walking on a top level program. I mean, Wake Forest University, in the mid to late 90s, when I walked on, was – for a very small school – had an incredibly credential distance program for this moment in time. I mean, when I walked into the locker room my first year, half of the United States junior cross country team was there, in the locker room. So, you know… Like, we had guys in there, you know, beyond all Americans – we had, just, a bunch of dudes who loved getting it cracking, and on the women’s side, there was also great athletes as well. So, it was amazing, and it was a tight knit group. I kind of, on a good day, I was scratching at that 10th man position, but it was also really challenging to kind of keep going and stay inspired when, you know, you’re… You’re just, kind of, like, 18, 19 years old, figuring it out, you’re not there on an athletic scholarship, and, you know, there’s a bunch of other interests exploding around you, and so… It got to the point where it was kind of make or break, and I kind of had a… A couple of, sort of, like, disappointing, kind of, moments on my own accord. And so, I just, you know, stopped running. Now, I’m so deep in it, all this time later, that it’s weird to think that I just made the decision to stop. But that’s what I love about what I’m doing now, is, like, I want to kind of share back with, like, young people, that your own passion for running and your own pursuit – whether the competitive or non-competitive, or performance-based, or just, you know, feeling good about yourself and your body… It doesn’t really have to be dependant on university scholarship and being part of a team. You can do it on a team, you can do it on your own, you can form your own team, you can form your own crew, and I hope to share with the folks that you can, kind of, do it for the course of your life. It’s not just something you’re going to do in your school age years. (Matt) Absolutely. And I think… I don’t want to… I guess, before I go into the quote that I read from you, I did, I guess, discover your content, for the most part I’ve heard the name before, but… On the Rich Roll podcast. And on the Rich Roll podcast, you had a great quote that said ‘Running is act of religion…’ – sorry – ‘…of rebellion.’ And you go on to, sort of, talk about how, you know, nobody wants you to run, you’re supposed to just be a digit, a one of… A one or a zero in the code, and you’re not supposed to get out and think for yourself. And I think that that’s… It’s very, very true. And you can, sort of, go and do this on your own. And, as you just sort of pointed it out, you don’t have to have university scholarship to, sort of, prove that. (Knox) Yeah. I mean, to put it in a… To put it in a better way, less, like, strident way, like a friend of mine once told me: ‘You’re only one… You’re only young once, but you can be immature for the rest of your life.’ So… Definitely… You’re definitely only young once, but you can definitely run wild for a really long time. (Matt) Absolutely. And you, yourself, have ran quite a fast half marathon yourself. (Knox) I just ran 70 minutes. I just ran 70 minutes in a half, and… (Matt) That’s quick. (Knox) At Valencia, earlier this year. (Matt) Alright! Oh, I was there. (Knox) Oh. It was incredible. (Matt) It was very windy that day. (Knox) It was windy! That’s what I’m saying. Everybody can talk junk, you know, talk trash, like, ‘Oh, it was windy…’ It rained tw… It’s only a half, rained twice… (Matt) And… Yes. (Knox) And it was windy cross and in your face, and, you know, I don’t know if you’ve ever raced in Europe, but, like, European dudes don’t play. They’re mean. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) They’re out for blood. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) You know, it’s not like cross country jabbing you in the ribs – these guys are, like… These guys have, like, triangle formations, they’re talking in front of you as they’re running, like, 70 minutes for the half… They’re surgning… It’s definitely very, very competitive in the way that, like, that sort of sports culture in Europe is. And so it’s awesome to just, kind of, like, catch a plane from New York and pop into the race, and, yeah, I popped a big one. I was… That was wild. (Matt) Yeah, and I think… (Knox) So… That was a high watermark for me, for sure. (Matt) Oh, yeah. That’s awesome. And you ran 70 minutes, but I actually didn’t realize it was Valencia, and being there that day, I think most people ran at least 30 seconds to a minute slower than their potential, or their personal best, most people. So… (Knox) I was 70 low, I was 70 low. I would have… (Matt) You’ve got a… Yeah, you’ve got… People want to go here. (Knox) I was thinking… I would have leaned in for 69, but I was finishing up with two younger guys, and they were really struggling, so, like, I didn’t want them to ruin my finish line photo, I didn’t want them to, like, head to the side, so I was, like, ‘You go on ahead, let me just… I’ll give you a little room so I look cute on the finish line.’ (Matt) I’m impressed you were thinking this credibly at the end of a half marathon, well done. (Knox) Look, times are going to come and go, but, like, a good photo… You need to, like, make sure it’s crispy. (Matt) Yeah. It was super windy between, I think, what – 10 and 16 kilometer mark, but… Yeah. That’s awesome. (Knox) Yeah. (Matt) So, I guess, I think what most people listening to this podcast would be super interested in would be about your time spent in Ethiopia, with Mo Farah’s training group, before the London marathon last yeah. And, although I sort of know the backstory about how that came about, and how you were asked to go, and, sort of, what happened there, I think it would be really cool to talk about all of this over the next, sort of, 10 to 15 minutes, because it is quite fascinating how you ended up there. And, sort of, some of the stories, kind of, about that. For example, you know, the story about the… About the coffee, how they went to get some coffee one day and the coffee machine wasn’t working, and just the general culture around there and how… I guess what you went in expecting it would be like, and then what it was actually like. So, it would be really cool for us to chat a little bit about that. (Knox) Yeah. I mean, it was… It was… I don’t want to call it a fluke, but it was just kind of like a hilarious chain of events before the New York City marathon, I was kind of lucky to kind of be one of the last guys accepted into the Sub-Elite field, so I rode out on the Sub-Elite bus to the start line of the New York City marathon, and was in the holding area with the Elite guys, so everybody is in this sort of indoor track area on Staten Island before the race, a couple of hours before the race. Super chill environment, everybody’s running around on the track, men and women, elites and sub-elites, and I was… I had kind of been on a several months’ meditation wave, so I go off to the side, I meditate, I come back, and then, when I come back to the track, I’m not really friends with any, like, the elite runners on the New York City scene, you know? They’re in, like, the rich guy clubs, and they work on Wall Street and all that kind of stuff, and I’m sort of, like… You know, an older black dude with, like, a chipped tooth and, you know, kind hangs out in Brooklyn, so… I was, like, ‘I’m just going to go hang out with, like, the African dudes. (Matt) Which is a good move, which is a great move… (Knox) Like, I’m black, so, I’ll just hang out, and the black guy is, like, ‘Hey, is this, like…This is the black section, let me hang out with the brothers.’ So, I go over there, and I knew Abdi, so at least go over and sit by Abdi, I’m stretching… Meb’s over there, Meb, kind of, like, says ‘What’s up?’ And then, Kamworor’s there, I think Stanley Biwott was there, I knew Wilson Kipsang… (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) From meeting him in Berlin a few weeks… A few months before, when he dropped out. So… I knew some of the guys. I just, like, dropped myself down and hung out, and then Abdi sort of – to, like, make conversation – was, like, ‘Hey, man…’ And I’m thinking about New York, I’m thinking about, like, what I’m going to execute on First Avenue, I’m, like, in my zone, I’m trying to be cool. Not trying to, like, fan out, and, like, take selfies with these guys. And Abdi’s like, ‘Hey, man, why don’t you come out to Ethiopia? I’m going to be there training with Mo again, Mo ready for London.’ And I was, like, ‘Yeah. Cool.’ And I just left it at that. I was, like, ‘Yeah. Cool. I will.’ I said ‘Yeah. Cool.’ So… So, then, I mean, fast forward, I just booked a flight and, like, went out to the camp, which is probably north of  Addis Ababa, in this small little hamlet, this little town called Sululta, where Haile Gebrselassie’s complex is, and then, across the street, of course, is Kenenisa Bekele’s complex, or his old place that some Chinese guys bought. So, yeah, showed up in the middle of the night, they didn’t have a room for me as planned. I went across the street and stayed at Kenny B’s place… Kenny’s old place. That was one of the worst places I’ve ever slept at in my life, and I’ve slept at a lot of tough places… (Matt) This is Kenny Bekele’s accommodation? (Knox) Yeah, but it hadn’t been, like, kept up in a couple of years, because he sold it to, like, some chinese investors, and didn’t maintain it. And now he’s building a new place across the street, and that’s where Mo trains. (Matt) OK. (Knox) So, Mo trains at Kenenisa’s track, which is next door to Haile Gebrselassie’s hotel and track. (Matt) Right. OK. (Knox) So, Mo is staying at Haile’s pace, and training at Kenenisa’s place. (Matt) Big names there. (Knox) It was crazy, no, it was crazy. And then, like, you know… Met… Guys were just driving up… It was just… It was just… It’s a wild town, it’s a wild town, to think that much elite, sort of, talent is, like, in and out as much as… Goat herders are there, and, like, a church is, like, doing ceremonies in the middle of the night, all  night… It was just really a wild scene. Very, very different from the peaceful, sort of, environment that Eliud Kipchoge trains in. But I think Mo Farah really thrives on energy and excitement, for sure. (Matt) Yeah. OK. So that’s how it came about, and I guess you’ve introduced us to, like, how… What it was like coming in to Sululta… (Knox) Yeah. It’s Abdi’s fault. (Matt) Which I’d like to talk a little bit more about… (Knox) We can blame it on Abdi. Abdi’s fault. (Matt) Yeah, OK, so you were staying in this little shack. (Knox) Yeah. (Matt) Across the road from Bekele’s track. (Knox) Yeah. (Matt) I guess, what was the deal then, like…? (Knox) And then I couldn’t do that, so… (Matt) Alright, you changed… (Knox) The next day, then, I moved in… The next day I moved into Haile Gebrselassie’s, sort of, hotel spot. And that was cool. So, I stayed next door to Mo, Abdi, Bashir Abdi, who just got second in the 10,000 for Belgium at the European championships, and then, like, a bunch of young Somali guys, as well, in the camp. (Matt) Awesome. OK, and, I guess, what was it… Yeah, what was it like next to these guys and being able to… I’m assuming, you’ve mentioned in podcasts and to me before we started recording this that you attended some training runs and some training sessions, so it would be really cool to learn a little bit more about what that experience was like. (Knox) Yeah, I mean, I lived… I mean, I lived… Yeah, I don’t want to say I lived with them, because we were in the same room, but I lived next door, you know? Like… And I ran with these guys two or three times a day. I will say that I was in pretty good shape, obviously. A month after that I ran 70 minutes and a half, but… And I had spent some time at altitude… The same altitude, what, 8,000 feet or something like that, 8,000 – 9,000 feet in Mexico the month before, so the altitude wasn’t a big shock, but I will say that these guys, on the easy runs, definitely… It was definitely a bit rough. (Matt) You said it was also dead silent, too, in the… (Knox) Pardon? (Matt) You also said that it was very quiet in the easy runs, in the Rich Roll podcast? (Knox) That’s the thing, yeah, like… You know, you’d expect… And again, when you’re in school, or your hanging out in your little running crew, or even… Honestly, you know, when you go on on your long run, on the weekends, and you’re running, whatever, 20, 22, 23 miles… You’re catching up on the night before, you’re talking about this and that, you’re unloading on the week, all that kind of stuff… Then, on the easy runs, with these guys? They didn’t talk at all. Like, these runs, at a casual pace for these guys, the runs were in complete silence. And that was, like, really unnerving, that the easy runs are quiet. On other hand, the most intense track workouts that I witnessed – and It’s not like I was stepping on the track and running with these guys – but they had such a good vibe… Like, you would have thought these guys were just, like, messing around and, like, in the off season, the way the vibe was, and then, they’re stepping on the track and they’re running, like, 4 minute miles at altitude, like, on the track… And, like, dudes are falling down, you know, Mo is just, like, chewing through his pacers and, you know, the coach is on the bicycle trying to keep up, and… Meanwhile, while this is happening, they’re playing, like, Drake on their Beats Pill, or, you know, Mo is asking people to take pictures of, like, his abs and video on the iPhones, so he can post it later on his Instagram… (Matt) Yeah, he got you his phone and just said… (Knox) And he’s still ripping through reps, like, wildly. Honestly, it’s just crazy. (Matt) That’s awesome. There’s so many things I wanted to dive into there… (Knox) Yeah, yeah… (Matt) I guess, firstly, I’d like to know – before we talk about the track styles – when you were talking about the easy runs and there were, sort of, quiet. They were quiet, but you also said before that they were rough. I mean, what sort of pace are they guys punching up there? And, mind you, before we get into that, I guess the altitude is… What, it’s 2,700 meters, which… Or thereabouts, which is some… What’s that in feet? (Knox) Close to 8,000. So, yeah. Addis Ababa is, you said, 2,700 meters. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Yeah, so, I mean, that’s… That’s just casual running for them, at, like, 2,700 – 2,800 meters. And then, you know, sometimes on the long runs, they might do, like, an uphill long run, or you know, there’s a hill or a mountain right next to the training camp that these guys didn’t do, but a lot of athletes would run right up, and that’s, you know, close to 10,000 feet, so 3,200 meters or something like that. (Matt) Oh. (Knox) That’s… That’s pretty intense. I mean, if you look at… I don’t know what a lot of other places around the world are, but as far as in the United States, even a lot of these training locales in Colorado are much more casual altitude than that. Like, closer… (Matt) Oh, yeah. They’re closer to 2,000 maybe… (Knox) Closer to 64… 6,400 feet or something like that, not to diss any of my friends in Colorado, but… This was not that. This was, like, getting up and eating oatmeal at 8,000 feet, and then, you know, going out and… You know, like I said, I was in shape. I mean, I even went out and ran, like, my little 20-mile Boston marathon training run on my little Boston course before I went. And I was, like, ripping off pace, I was fit. And I went out to Ethiopia, and man… These guys were running, I don’t know… These guys were running quick on their easy runs, you know? Even their jog was just kind of, like… I was having to work. It was embarrassing, because I was in good shape, and they’re looking at me, like, ‘Ehh…’ You know? The only thing that saved me was, like, going out on a, you know, on a long run, and… Because I looked like I was dragging. I was tired, I didn’t look real, obviously I’m not stepping in their workout, so they didn’t know what it was. And when we went out on long runs, 20 milers, or 22 milers, the fact that I was able to do a 20 mile run in two hours, two hours and, you know, one minute with, like, no support, like, minimal fueling and hydration, at 8,000 feet or 9,000 feet, they’re like, ‘Ohh? OK, OK. Oh, OK. OK.’ Because, when it came to just the easy miles, the 7, 8, 9, 10 miles, man that… It was rough. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) But that’s the level… That’s the shape he’s in. I mean, Mo… Mo… Mo… Mo Farah is in shape this year, for sure, as you’ve seen by him… His run at London and then his run at the Great North Run, and then… I mean, I’m excited to see what he’s going to do in Chicago this weekend. (Matt) Yeah, yeah. It will be interesting to see how he goes there and whether or not he takes some more time off his… Off his personal best. But… (Knox) For sure. (Matt) Yeah, now thanks for, sort of, painting that picture about how it… How… What it was like to do the, the… The more aerobic running with them, and I guess it would be cool to touch a little bit more on what the track sessions were like and what it felt like to be there, and… I love the story that you told on the Rich Roll podcast, about how Mo was just, like, ‘Hey, man, can you… Can you get my phone from my bag, and here’s my password, and… Just open it up, take photos…’ (Knox) Right! This is, you know, like… This is not even in the beginning of the workout, this is, like, halfway through the workout, during, like, a… During the recovery. He’s, like, ‘Hey, mate – can you go in my bag and get my phone, the red phone.’ He had, like… He had two iPhone Xs, like… I… I… I’m from New York, I’ve got cool luggage, you know, I work with Nike. I’ve got, like… I’ve got the prototype of the Peg Turbos, I’ve got a couple of pairs of 4%s in the bag… You know. I’m cool. But I didn’t get the iPhone X before it went out. I didn’t want to, like, drop it, I didn’t want to get robbed… Whatever. So, I go out to Ethiopia, Mo’s got two iPhone Xs! I was, like, ‘Oh, man. This guy is embarrassing me, like… ‘ He’s asking me to go in his bag, gives me the passcode, and then, like, wants me to take, like, photos and videos of him as he’s doing his workout, so he can post something to IG later. And then, after I did it, he didn’t even use them. Like, he didn’t even think the photos and the videos are that good. Like, he didn’t, like… I failed. That’s the worst part. (Matt) Oh, no. (Knox) I haven’t… I haven’t told anybody that, but he didn’t any use any of the stuff I took. I was, like… He’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, oh… OK. Yeah, cool. Not bad, yeah.’ I was, like, ‘Oh, come on!’ The angle, I’m laying down on the track trying to do artistic shots as he goes by, yeah… He didn’t really respect my… My… My social media. My social media… My social media technique. He didn’t really respect it, so… It’s OK. (Matt) Awesome. (Knox) But that was incredible, man. Like, just… It just made me think, like, you know, usually I think that an elite has got, like, to approach the most serious sessions with the most seriousness of purpose, or the most serious demeanor. But, you know, you’ve got to choose the demeanor that works for you. And I realised it’s about creating a good environment and creating a good vibe, and having good energy. And then, that’s going to push you to better performances, rather than some real intense situation where, you know, you’re kind of on the wrong side of pressure and… And… And… And, and, and… And Intensity. You know what I mean? (Matt) Absolutely. (Knox) It’s better to create a vibe and then just to, like, have Mo get stoked, and then tear up the track. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Rather than just kind of, like, ‘Can I do it? Oh, I’m going to run and get this impossible workout and then fail!’ Like… The other thing is this guy loves… And this is what I wanted to bring back and also share with people in my group, Black Roses, but also with other folks in the running world at large – like, this guy loves the challenge. Like, you know, you’re used to it. People dread the long run, like, ‘Oh, I’m worried about my long run this weekend. Oh, I can’t believe I have to do this long run this weekend.’ And we always speak about our biggest challenges, I mean, as regular people, like, in negative terms. You know? But Mo would be sitting around at lunch on Tuesday, already excited and chatting about the long run on Sunday. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Like, at one point, he was pitching the coach, he was, like, ‘Oh, Sunday we might go to this other place and run with the Ethiopian group.’ And the coach says, like, ‘No. No, no, no, no, no. No.’ Because, right? Mo’s excited to go to, like, another location for the long run, and do the long run with, like, the Ethiopian national team, and Ethiopian elites. (Matt) Right. That’s really interesting. (Knox) Rather than my ‘hiding at a camp’, or my ‘training is secret’, or whatever. He wanted to go and have the Sunday long run with other guys and the best in the world, like, away from cameras, away from whatever – just for the battle. Like, the light in his eyes that went up, when he was, like, trying to get his coach to let him go run with these guys, and the coach is, like, ‘No. You’re not going to do that. Because, as soon as you guys get out there, you’re going to start going, and then you’re going to start going crazy…’ And Mo’s like, ‘No, no! It’s going to be chill!’ He was actually asking the coach, he was telling him, like, ‘No, it’s going to be fine. It’s just friendly, we’re just going to go and have a good time.’ And the coach is, like, ‘No way.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, this dude not only is, like, it’s Tuesday, and he’s already chomping at the bit for the long run…’ (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) ‘… but also he wants to go and race these other dudes that he’ll outrun, with these other dudes that he races at the olympics and championships, and the marathon.’ (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) He was, like, wanting to do that. For fun. (Matt) Just for fun. That’s awesome. (Knox) Just for the battle. Just for the war. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Like, that was inspiring. So, I’m trying to, like, really come back and, like, change the own culture around my own group that everyone, like, gets excited for the long run on the weekends, and people get excited, you hit them with a workout and then they’re, like, ‘Yeah, let’s do… Yeah! Alright! Yeah!’ You know? I want that excitement. (Matt) It’s… (Knox) Because that’s going to change the vibe and that’s going to change the results. (Matt) Absolutely. It’s a really interesting topic, this, actually. Because  I just spent, I guess, the better part of the decade living in Europe. And, other than Finland, for the most part, and in that country – I know it’s quite similar in other countries in Europe – it was very common for the… For it, sort of, essentially, to be the exact opposite of you just said, in a way that people would train on their own, they wouldn’t want to train with other people because they had a set, programmed, that they wanted to follow, from their coach. And it was almost, like… I was in Helsinki, it was almost like there was quite a lot of good runners around the town, but they were also training on their own. And the idea of getting together and doing something like you’ve just described, like, a whole bunch of guys that are all competing against each other just to, like, punch at a hard tempo around… That was, like, no way would anyone ever come up with that or do that. And it’s just… It’s not even a thought. Like… So it was really quite interesting that that’s how Mo was, sort of… That’s how Mo is. And that’s how he sees it, that’s what he wants to do. And it’s… Yeah. It’s really quite interesting. It’s… And I guess more people could do that. (Knox) I mean, it’s understandable. I mean, I come out of that, and, like, keeping workouts a secret, and training on your own… But it’s, like… And it…(audio skips, 37:29) Plan, and it doesn’t mean that, like, Mo doesn’t follow a schedule. But as, you know, as an elite, there’s only a certain number of workouts left to do. There’s only… I mean, there’s only a certain kind of workout to do. There’s only a certain handful of approaches, you know? (Matt) Absolutely. (Knox) So, what are you really going to do to get that little edge? Especially when we know that edge is .5 seconds or .2 seconds… You know? (Matt) Yeah. Exactly. Right. (Knox) What is that edge? It’s mentality and experience, and, like… I don’t know. Of course, we love that cliche of, like, the loneliness of the long distance runner. We love that. But I love seeing Mo, you know, having a whole training group of friends, and when they weren’t training, they sat around and listened to music, and laughed about a bunch of stuff, and talked about soccer and… you know? Or football, rather. Or whatever. And just, like, had a good time. And then, when it came to really go to that… To the highest heights, it was… (Matt) Game on. (Knox) It was game on. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) It was, you know… It was fascinating. (Matt) Yeah. I really found it interesting, too, that on the Rich Roll podcast, that you spoke about how they didn’t ever know what the training session was ahead of them until they were, like, warmed up in track. (Knox) Right. (Matt) Yeah. And how, you sort of said yourself, all these, you know… Nothing against all the people that have these, sort of, training programs scheduled out for months on end, and so on. But these guys, like, I think you said it well, like, Mo is thinking in his head, it could be one of many things before the training session, and that’s… You were talking about how that could be used as an advantage. (Knox) Yeah, had to step back and think about it, because it’s, like… Like I said, I wasn’t stepping on the track and, like, jumping in his workouts, you know? A couple of times, the guys are like, ‘Are you jumping in on this?’ When I was, like, ‘Come on, man.’ So, guys were cool. Wasn’t like I just, like, you know… But I was on the sidelines, and I was just watching, because it was better to… It was an education. When are you going to get to see one of the best guys in the world at the office, you know? (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Day in and day out. So, it was just fascinating to watch that… That… That particular approach, you know what I mean? (Matt) Absolutely. You also said that you had a lot of people after the trip not so much ask about the workouts, but they were asking about, like, the diet. And the… I think you said it was, like, a peanut butter, like a recipe or something… Something like that. (Knox) Yeah, I mean, it was cool because… Well, yeah. I just think that, like, in these days, we love… I mean, Eliud Kipchoge is so inspiring. His words are so inspiring, his life, his… His… His, just, entire aura is… Is super inspirational and aspirational. And then, Mo’s personality is infectious and what he’s done for the culture, you know… What Abdi’s done, like, all these guys are great personalities, and I like… I like… I like learning about that. I like studying… Studying that. And so, you know, a lot of times, Mo’s coach was really afraid that I was going to, like, leak this or that workout… You know, I Was taking notes or whatever, writing down the workouts… Was worried that I was going to, like, leak a certain kind of workout, and I understand that. It’s intellectual property, and Mo is heading up for London marathon, and Bekele and Kipchoge were entered in the race. So, I understand. It was in… The pressure was on. But, on the other hand, you don’t… No one ever asked me about a workout. People wanted to know what the diet was, people wanted to know about Mo drinking coffee, Ethiopian coffee, which is, of course, like, an incredible coffee experience… People wanted to know about the strength that they have in the camps out there, peanut butter tea and the recipe for peanut butter tea… So, you know, it’s really an interesting moment right now that we’re in, that people want to know not, like, what it is, but how it is. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) You know? (Matt) Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thanks, thanks so much for sharing a good 20 minutes there of, you know, your experiences i Ethiopia. I think it’s a perfect time to sort of transition to your time spent with Eliud Kipchoge in Kenya. (Knox) Yeah. (Matt) So, I’m actually not that… So much familiar with this experience that you had, but you did go to Kenya once, so… (Knox) Mhm. (Matt) And then, you did spend some time in Kaptagat, as did we, around  a year ago now, training alongside him before Berlin. I mean, it was really cool to learn a bit more about how you… About your experience in Kaptagat and training alongside that global NN Running Team. (Knox) Well, yeah. And I, you know… Much respect to the global NN Running Team, and  I definitely wasn’t’, like, training alongside of them, and did… It was much different from the Mo Farah experience. I was there, sort of, independently, and then with… In Kaptagat, I was there as part of a Nike team, you know, working on a project just to, kind of, like, connect with Eliud around that Flyprint innovation, 3D printed shoe that came out earlier in the year for a few elites to race in… So, it was more of just a chance to kind of connect with Eliud off the radar, Geoffrey, Abel… And then, also, like, I had connected with Patrick Sang, who’s a master coach, and just a master human being. And so, having spent time with coach Patrick Sang the year before in Berlin, and then being able to connect with him back in Kaptagat was an experience that brought all his training and coaching philosophies and arguments to life. So, it was more just a sort of an overall, cohesive experience, and a chance to witness that rarified element, and environment of Kenyan distance training, like, first person. (Matt) Yeah. For sure. I guess you’re such a… You’re very good at describing and, I guess, painting a picture, and I think it would be really cool to spend maybe a minute now describing what it’s like in Kaptagat. And coming Eldoret and then what… I guess what the little village is like. (Knox) Yeah, I mean, you’ve seen the visuals, you know it’s just, like, one highway coming into a town, it’s like that through much of East Africa, as so much Chinese investment is helping build roads and like, just, to really kind of ease with the export of natural resources… So there’s, like, a… You know, a main two-lane highway, blacked up highway, but Eliud’s camp, the NN Running camp, or the Global Sports… global Sports Communication, right? GSC camp, where Eliud’s lived for… Since his late teens, or for the past 14 or 15 years, if not more… Was really incredible. People know it’s super simple and austere, cinder block construction. But, at the same time, they also do have solar panels and solar energy that was installed last year, so really kind of looking at a well thought out training environment for the express purpose of, like, pursuing excellence in long distance running. Athletes would go out and, of course, you’ve seen the photos of them tearing up these tracks and these amazing chain groups, star-studded training groups on the track, and then you’ve seen, you know, or heard stories of the long runs where 200 people, 250 people show up for the long run. But back in the camp, it’s really amazing, it’s just the best athletes in the world sitting around on plastic lawn chairs, kind of checking their phones, playing, like, the latest music from, you know, their scene, like, on their phones, doing some dances, and then, you know, sipping tea and just kind of joking and giving each other a tough time. A lot of jokes and revelry, and then, obviously, because it’s a self-sustaining operation, all the athletes in the camp are assigned different duties and… And details. So, on one day, Eliud Kipchoge and Geoffrey Kamworor might be tasked to clean all the trains. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Even if they’re, you know, the best runners in the world, world champions in the half-marathon and, you know, world record holders in the marathon and all that, so… Dudes still have to clean the toilets. It’s super humbling experience. And the other thing is, even though Eliud’s the… An elder in the camp, he doesn’t always, like, set the schedule or set the responsabilites. Sometimes it’s the younger athletes who do the assignment. That’s how, you know, horisontal the structure is. That, like, everybody has a part in everything. So, even the younger athletes have to have not just labour, but also the responsibility when it comes to assigning duties and stuff in the camp. (Matt) That’s really interesting. So, how long did you spend at… There? (Knox) I was there a week. A little over a week. (Matt) And did you manage to get to Iten? (Knox) No, I was just in Eldoret. I was supposed to go and have dinner with Allie Kieffer. Do you know about Allie Kieffer? She is a super exciting runner on the US scene who surprised a bunch of people with a big finish at New York City marathon last year, after kind of working her way into elite status later on, and now she’s really been tearing up the roads over the past year. So, she shoutout Allie Kieffer, and she’s poised for, like, a big New York City marathon coming up in a few weeks. But, anyways, Allie was over there, training at Iten, and I don’t know if she was living with Betsy Saina, but yeah, she was, like, ‘Ah come over for dinner…’ But I really underestimated how hard it is to get from Eldoret to Iten. They’re not that far apart as the crow flies on Google, but… Or even in an Uber. But, the reality of transport between the two places is a little tough, so… I didn’t make it out there. (Matt) OK. Good, well, yeah. Thank you once again for sharing that, stories about that experience. And, I guess, a couple more things would be good to talk about. First one is, you attended the Monza Nike Sub 2… I guess, what was the official name of the race? So, I’m mind blanking, but it was the… (Knox) Well, officially, it wasn’t a race. (Matt) Yeah, the challenge, I guess. Event. (Knox) What was it? It was an experience. (Matt) Experience, yeah. (Knox) It was more, like… (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Woodstock wasn’t a concert, you know what I mean? Jimi Hendrix said ‘Have you ever been experienced?’ Monza was an experience. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) So, Monza was an attempt to see if… An attempt to break two hours in over 26,2 miles, I suppose. That’s how you would put it cleanly. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) But yeah, it was incredible. I mean, obviously, you know, it was on a Formula 1, a very famous Formula 1 track in Monza, Italy, and along with Eliud Kipchoge, who else did we have there? It was… (Matt) Tadese? (Knox) Zersenay Tadese and… (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) The young Ethiopian guy… (Matt) I don’t remember his name, but he was the one that… Did he drop out or did he run? He was a little bit far back… (Knox) No, everybody finished. (Matt) They all finished. (Knox) Those 3 guys finished, and then they had a team of all star pacers, so even though the pacers were incredible – Bernard Lagat, Chris Derrick, Lopez Lomong… So it was really… Again, to use the word, the phrase ‘star-studded’, it was a super kind of crazy experience to watch this level of execution, just in the pursuit of an ideal. (Matt) Absolutely. And you mentioned how, I guess, how motivating and inspiring the event was, especially towards the end, and you mentioned that you shed a tear towards the end of that race, and I guess I would have been absolutely fascinated… (Knox) Yeah; I mean, at this point, I have to admit, I did get misty eyed. .. (Matt) It was raining, so, you could have caught a hardest… (Knox) Perhaps it was the high dew point, it may have been the dew point from the morning… But there was noticeable fogging in my sunglasses, and there was no reason for me to be wearing sunglasses, because it was cloudy and raining. No, but just to watch Eliud Kipchoge really commit – and I mean that in, like, a bunch of senses of the word, to commit his spirit and his body, and his mind, to this unprecedented task was beautiful to watch for most of it. But then, in the end, it was so excruciating as he was, like, straining, you know? And it’s tough to related this to other people who don’t have kids, but, you know, when you’re watching your kids figure out life, when you’re watching your kids, you know… You and I, we have success and failure perhaps an equal measure. And we’re figuring out for our own, and we don’t ask anybody to feel sorry for us. But to watch your kids try and fail, whether that’s try to ride a bicycle and fall, or, you know, make a team, or, you know, run for student government president, or in the spelling bee, or even just, you know, falling down at the playground and skinning their knee – it’s tough to watch another human being attempt something that they’ve never done before, and to be fearless, and doing that pursued. And that’s what it was like watching Eliud Kipchoge come so close to breaking two hours for 26,2 miles. It was in the heart. And to watch him finish, I… I cried. And then, immediately after he finished, I thought ‘Man, this guy did it because he thought he could do it. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) And he didn’t believe in any barriers. I mean, Nike marketing aside and, you know, the shoe and the preparation, the science behind it, and then the empirical conditions and the marginal gains… Man, I just missed… I’m finished, and I thought ‘This guy doesn’t believe in limits. This guy doesn’t believe… This guy thought he could do it. And then, in the next instance, I was, like, ‘What’s holding me back from my potential? What’s holding me back from my goals? (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) And yeah, I don’t even mean, like, my running goals. Sure, my running goals are, you know, I could train that much harder, you know… I can go on the wagon that much sooner… You know what I mean? (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) I could kind of, like, scuttle various aspects of my life and commit to something in running. But also, on a life level, what’s keeping me from being a better father and a better partner? And a better friend? And a better son? And a better brother? You know? Like, what’s keeping me from being a better citizen of the United States of America? Like, what’s keeping me from being, like, a writer that I’ve always dreamed of being, you know? Watching Eliud Kipchoge at Monza made me reflect on all the other aspects of my life outside of running. I think that’s part of the power that this man holds for us at this time in our culture. (Matt) That’s perfectly said. Yeah, awesome. Thank you, yeah. I’ll let you go soon. Thank you very much for everything today… (Knox) No, thank you. (Matt) I guess, very quickly, I’d like to just… Maybe we could talk about, just quickly, where people can learn a bit more about Black Roses first run? You have a very… A very cool Instagram account, and the handle is @firstrun. (Knox) @firstrun yeah. @firstrun – that’s, for better or for worse, the only place to find me, unless you want to, like, come to New York and, like, hang out. And then, you know, I’m spinning records with friends at a reggae club, or hanging out in the park. So, come to New York and hang out, but if you can’t do that yet, check me out on Instagram at @firstrun. I’ve never been on Facebook, I don’t have a Facebook account. (Matt) OK. (Knox) And Twitter didn’t work for me, as you can tell from the wordiness and the verbosity of this conversation. Twitter… I never figured out Twitter. So, Instagram is where I’m at. (Matt) Awesome. Thank you very much, once again, Knox. (Knox) Thank you, Matthew and Sweat Elite. I’m super excited to participate in the conversation. I love what you’re doing, shoutout to everybody who’s a part of Sweat Elite, and is a fan of your stuff, because I’m a fan, too, man. For sure. (Matt) Awesome. Thanks so much. (Knox) Thank you.

If you've ever spoken in front of a group of people - whether it's a work presentation or wedding toast - you know that public speaking can be difficult. As you approach the front of the room, your hands clam up, your heart starts beating rapidly and you start to visualize an epic fail. It doesn't have to be that way! On this episode we outline the key elements of a good presentation and learn how to reinforce those behaviors so that eventually, with some practice, Obama will be jealous of your oratory skills. Key Takeaways Don’t be looking back at your slides Keep your energy high Drive distractions out of your presentations (“like,” “um,” clothing, etc.) Download the LikeSo app now Be sure to scan the room and don’t be afraid to make eye contact with people in the audience Dress appropriately

Having a friend officiate your wedding? We're going to talk about why you might want to consider hiring a professional instead! NYC Officiant, Sacha Jones is in the studio to talk about what makes a great ceremony, and DJ CherishTheLuv will talk about what doesn't! LikeSo app founder, Audrey Mann Cronin is back to talk about the importance of practicing public speaking for weddings. Rose McAdoo brings in another Whisk Me Away Cake! With a cool story to share, after all her mission is to share stories through dessert and drive global change! WHISKMEAWAYCAKES.COM Music by vegan viral Sensation Macka B, and lyricist, producer and DJ, Jordan Knoxx. Wedding Cake is powered by Simplecast

Audrey Mann Cronin, creator of the LikeSo app talks with me about the importance of “saying it like you mean it!” We discuss how filler words (e.g. like, so, um, right) impede effective communication and we delve into the pitfalls of common speech tendencies such as up-talk and vocal fry. Find out what actress Lake Bell calls the “sexy baby voice” (even if you haven’t heard about it, you’ve definitely heard it) and discover how the LikeSo app can help you communicate with poise and confidence no matter the occasion—job interview, maid-of-honor toast, or presentation at work. As always, we leave you with a Love & Life Hack—a strategy to help you, like, be a better communicator, you know what I mean?

Do you use the words "like," "so," and "um" more than you'd like? If so, this episode will teach you how to avoid using these words so you can speak with more confidence and impact. Whether you're preparing for an upcoming presentation, interview, or speech, you'll learn strategies to avoid the use of filler words and create a better experience for you and your audience. Today's guest is Audrey Mann Cronin, an acknowledged communications expert in the tech industry, a women’s advocate, writer, creator of community, Our Digital Daughters, and CEO/founder of Say It Media, Inc.  Now that soft skills like oral communication accounts for the single greatest skill gap, she was motivated to create mobile app LikeSo: Your Personal Speech Coach to empower all of us to be better speakers. This app not only tracks your use of filler words, but helps you improve how you speak! Follow her on Twitter @MannCronin and for LikeSo, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @LikeSoApp. LikeSo in the App Store: http://apple.co/1QBuByY Say It LikeSo website: https://sayitlikeso.com/

In today’s debut episode of Wedding Cake, our host Rev. & DJ CherishTheLuv and her fake-fiancé, Conscious, are joined by public speaking expert, Audrey Mann Cronin. Audrey has created LikeSo, an app that helps people become better communicators in life. You might want to gift it to those giving speeches at your wedding, or friends who are about to pop the question! Today’s wedding cake is from Paris Baguette, on First Avenue, in the East Village, NYC. We also have music by Smax Music and Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights, as well as a shout out from the Vegan Queen of NYC, Pamela Elizabeth.

Audrey Mann Cronin is founder and president of Mann Cronin PR, founder and President of Say It Media Inc., and creator of the mobile app LikeSo. She is a graduate of Cornell University where she majored in Communications. Listen in as we talk about speech fitness, the Women's March, Virtual Reality, and quoting Steve Martin to break tension. Support Audrey on Twitter (@LikeSoApp @MannCronin @DigiDaughters), Facebook (@LikeSo @OurDigitalDaughters), and downloading LikeSo. This episode is sponsored by DC Web Women. Learn more about DC Web Women on Facebook and Twitter.Stay up to date with Witty through our website, LinkedIn or email us at podcastwitty@gmail.com. Support the show (http://wittypod.com)

Audrey Mann Cronin, the president of Mann Cronin PR joins us today. She is a communications consultant in consumer technology, a speaker and blogger for Our Digital Daughters where she explores the communications and social issues of growing up in our digital world. Audrey is founder of Say It Media, Inc., and the creator of LikeSo, a mobile app that acts as your personal speech coach. And, most importantly, the mom of two amazing teenagers:-). Joining Audrey is her daughter, Amanda, young activist and a foodie. She is a junior at Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, NY, the Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper and a student of the Science Research program studying microbial genomics. Outside of school, Amanda takes classes and interns at Writopia Lab, is the Media Director at the Pleasantville Farmers Market, and a Youth Council Member, Advisory Board Member and Media Team Coordinator at iMatter, a non-profit environmental organization led by kids passionate about fighting the climate crisis. Amanda is the Chief Youth Officer of Say It Media, Inc. and was integral to the development of her mother’s speech app, LikeSo, and the contributor to the affiliated blog, Our Digital Daughters. Amanda has contributed articles to many local publications, including an interview with Chelsea Clinton for her book, It’s Your World. She is a 2016 National Scholastic Award winner, the recipient of the 2016 National Council of Teachers of English Award and publishes her own food activism blog, "Gourmanda." LikeSo: Your Personal Speech Coach, is available in the iTunes App Store for 99 cents and can be downloaded here: http://apple.co/1QBuByY

1. Voice – Cheers To Life (Precision Roadmix) 2. Kerwin Du Bois Ft. Patrice Roberts – Unforgettable 3. Kerwin Du Bois Ft. Patrice Roberts – Unforgettable (Precision Roadmix) 4. GBM Nutron – Scene 5. Fay Ann Lyons – Scene (Remix) 6. Machel Montano – Need It 7. Bunji Garlin – Take Over Town 8. Shurwayne Winchester – Truck Driver (Madd Yute Mixup) 9. King Bubba – Mash up (DJ Rusty G Dubplate) 10. Cloud 5 – No Behavior (DJ Rusty G Dubplate) 11. Cloud 5 – No Behavior (Travis World Roadmix) 12. Skinny Fabulous – Full Hundred (All De Way) 13. Olatunji – With Meh 14. Destra Garcia – Soca Virus 15. Erphaan Alves – Intentions (Wine & Touch) 16. Machel Montano x Tarrus Riley – Memory 17. Preedy – Drums 18. Lyrikal – Freedom (Mastermind Prod. Roadmix) 19. Kes The Band – People (Razorshop & Ultimate Rejects Roadmix) 20. Machel Montano – Temperature (SMJ Remix) 21. Patrice Roberts Old & Grey 22. Peter Ram – All Ah We (Travis World Roadmix) 23. Ricardo Drue – Professional (Scratch Master x DJ Puffy Roadmix) 24. Skinny Fabulous – Born For This 25. Machel Montano – Carnival Groupie 26. Bunji Garlin – Carnival Today 27. Kes the Band – Carnival is Here 28. Ricardo Drue – Bet (Jester Remix) 29. Hypa Sounds – How She Like It (DJ Rusty G Dubplate) 30. Angela Hunte Ft. Machel Montano – Like So 31. Kerwin Du Bois – All Kinda Kind 32. Teddyson John – Allez (DJ Warlock Maddang Edit) 33. Teddyson John – Allez (DJ Rusty G Dubplate) 34. Olatunji – Oh Yay 35. Lyrikal – Dip & Roll (SMJ Roadmix) 36. Kerwin Du Bois – Carnival A Holic 37. Nadia Batson – Party Capital 38. Preedy – Veteran 39. Flipo – Oh Gosh 40. Lil Rick – All Is Rum 41. King Bubba – Rum King Just Start 42. Skinny Fabulous – It’s The Weekend 43. Skinny Fabulous – Plenty 44. Lil Rick – Boom Boom Jump 45. Stiffy – Garden (Roadmix) 46. King Bubba – Whole Night (Dubplate) 47. Hypa Sounds – Sugar Rush 48. Third Bass – Bum Bum (If Yuh Stush go in D Bush) 49. Farmer Nappy – BamBilamBamBilamBilamBam 50. Aaron Duncan – Can You Feel It? 51. Orlando Octave – Road (Doc & Jes Roadmix) 52. Blaxx – Master of Mas 53. Bunji Garlin – Generals 54. Salty Ft. Fay Ann Lyons – Gyal Meets Brass (Wassy Remix) 55. Sekon Sta – Night Shift 56. Preedy – Walk Out 57. Destra Garcia – Dip N Ride 58. Tian Winter – Ms. Set Good (Doc & Jes Remix) 59. Kimba Sorzano – Sorry (No Second Chances) 60. Pternsky – Non Stop 61. Machel Montano ft. Badjohn Republic - Waiting On The Stage

Since being a guest on Inside MusiCast in 2008, Jon Herington has been running non-stop. Touring with Steely Dan, and most recently with the Dukes of September tour, which featured Michael McDonald, Boz Scaggs and Donald Fagen, the New York City singer/songwriter has focused on producing his latest solo effort, “Shine (Shine, Shine)”, the follow-up to his 2000 solo release “Like So.” But, “Shine” is different in many ways from its predecessor. This album has a heavier guitar influence, and at times, it has an edgier approach. The quality of Jon’s writing and musicianship remains second to none. Herington collaborates with some very talented players and long-time colleagues, including bassist Dennis Espantman, Frank Pagano on drums, and on keyboards Rob Morsberger and Jim Beard. Espantman and Pagano combine with Herington to form the Jon Herington Band, who performs regularly on the New York City scene. They’ve performed together for years, and their talent shines through on “Shine”. We’re honored to connect once more with one of the most proficient guitarists in the business. Inside MusiCast welcomes back Jon Herington.