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Introducing thoughtbot's ongoing maintenance service. Need reliable support and maintenance for your software? Look no further. Our expert team handles upgrades, bug fixes, UI adjustments, and new feature development. And the best part? Our maintenance packages start at just 5k per month for companies of all sizes. From Ruby on Rails to Node, React, and, yes, even PHP, we've got you covered. Trust thoughtbot for top-notch support and optimized performance. To receive a custom quote, contact sales@thoughtbot.com. __ Maggie Bachenberg, CEO, and Trisha Ballakur, CTO, are the co-founders of Pointz, a mobile mapping app that helps navigate bike and scooter riders through safe routes in cities. Victoria talks to Maggie and Trisha about their cycling backgrounds, how they met and became co-founders, and what they feel is the differentiator for their app versus what was/is already on the market for biking-related apps. Pointz (https://www.bikepointz.com/) Follow Pointz (https://www.instagram.com/bikepointz/) on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/bikepointz/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/bikepointz/), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/bikepointz/), or TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@bikepointz) Follow Maggie Bachenberg on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggiebachenberg/). Follow Trisha Ballakur on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/trisha-ballakur-070138187/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. With me today is Maggie Bachenberg, CEO and Co-Founder of Pointz, and Trisha Ballakur, CTO and Co-Founder of Pointz, a mobile mapping app that helps navigate bike and scooter riders through safe routes in cities. Just to get us started here, are you both cyclists? And if so, where do you do that at? What's your city? Where do you bike around? MAGGIE: Yeah, we both bike. So I live in Providence, Rhode Island, along with Trisha, and use my bike primarily as a transportation device. So I'm riding around from my house to work, to get groceries, to my friend's house, kind of all different types of purposes. TRISHA: Yeah, and I grew up biking but kind of stopped after age, like, six or seven. And it was only when I got to college at Brown, where I met Maggie, that I got back into it and felt more confident to get back on the bike. And that was completely actually because of Pointz. VICTORIA: Oh, that's nice. Yeah, speaking of confidence, I am not confident on a bicycle. I actually only learned after college. [laughs] And there's a video out there of my college friends helping me learn how to ride a bike. It's very cute. But still not my expertise. So I'm excited to learn more about it and learn about how Pointz could give you that confidence. So, whoever who'd like to start, why don't you tell me about what caused you to want to create Pointz? MAGGIE: Pointz was originally kind of my idea. And I got into biking in 2017 when I did a long-distance bike trip. I biked from Virginia to California. And it was my first time doing long-distance cycling, and I just kind of fell in love with it. But I realized that when I was riding, it was pretty scary to navigate cities in particular. And so, a lot of locals would redirect me onto different routes that were safer. And I was confused why this wasn't captured in a mapping app already. And so, that's kind of where the idea was seeded. But I didn't start working on it until I got to college and met Trisha. VICTORIA: Great. So you got to college, and you saw that there was a need to have easier access to biking and biking information in an area, right? MAGGIE: Yeah, exactly. VICTORIA: Very cool. What was that initial process like? It was just the two of you, and you started building stuff? How did you really get the traction going early on? MAGGIE: It started with doing some customer discovery interviews with local cyclists. And so we interviewed over 100 initially and just asked kind of what their biggest barrier was to start riding. And we kept hearing this recurring theme of people not feeling safe enough to go on different routes. And so we brainstormed a bunch of different ideas in a class that Trisha and I were in together. But we ended up landing on the one that we're working on today, which is, like, you know, the rating system, and then also putting the rating system of bike friendliness into a routing algorithm where people could actually find routes. VICTORIA: That's very cool. And was there anything that really surprised you in that customer discovery process? MAGGIE: Just maybe the consistency around people's fear and, like, I guess, being nervous on a bike because we were interviewing people of all types of backgrounds and experiences. And even people that were more experienced had this fear of getting hit by a car because of lack of infrastructure and that sort of thing. TRISHA: Doing customer discovery and chatting with so many different types of riders...and we call them riders, bike riders, rather than cyclists for the distinction that, you know, in the bike riding community, there's a lot of very avid fitness-geared cyclists, maybe who want to go on their bikes to burn calories and challenge themselves. A lot of people they would call themselves someone who rides a bike. And it's to those types of people where safety is really critical, especially in allowing new people to go and try to ride a bike for the first time or the first time in many years. And so, that's something else that we noticed from those customer discovery interviews is identifying the different types of riders. VICTORIA: Thank you. That clears it up for me because I never know to call someone a cyclist or a rider, but it makes sense that cyclist is more, like, the athletic pursuit versus riding and, you know, just trying to get about your day. [laughs] And it also makes me feel better that even people who are really experienced riders have fear of being unsafe or getting hit by a car because that's certainly what I'm thinking about when I'm [laughs] venturing out there. So, what was your initial build like for the app solving this problem? TRISHA: Initially, we had a couple of different Brown University interns or students working on it together one summer and myself included. And that evolved to me and this one other student who was working with us figuring out how to transition the app from, like, an iOS Swift native app to React Native so it could be cross-platform. And we had to teach ourselves React Native for that. So our intern at the time he had done an internship during the summer at this one startup where they taught him React Native. So he had done a couple of projects there. And I had a little bit of experience writing in JavaScript but really not as much as him. And so, together, we worked on coding the app from what we had in iOS in Swift, which was pretty limiting. But, at the time, it wasn't very much. But we were able to replicate that in React Native during; I think it was my junior...Maggie in my junior winter break. That became the start of our MVP, which had many, many more iterations to get all the features in and was a little bit slow to build until when we released it out, which was our senior year in about March or so. VICTORIA: So that's really exciting. So, like, how long did it take you to really get to that initial MVP with the team that you have? TRISHA: It took quite a bit longer than expected, as with all sorts of technology when you're building it for the first time. So what was important to us throughout the process was making sure that all the features we put out there were really well tested, and were useful, and were actually solving the problem of providing safer routing. And to get to that stage, at first, we, you know, we had an app in Swift. Then we wanted to make it cross-platformed, and we needed to have the routing algorithm actually take those different weights, the different bike friendliness ratings of the roads into account. And that took a lot of researching and talking to mentors. So there were quite a few really hard challenges to get to the MVP, which is why it spanned about a year to get to that point. But throughout it all, we worked with other students at Brown. Then we pulled in some front-end contractors from online, like contractor sites, who were awesome. And we were just focused on being really scrappy to get it out in March of 2022. VICTORIA: That's great. And maybe it felt like a long time, but I feel like a year for a really solid MVP is pretty good, [laughs] especially when you have those safety concerns, and the quality of your data, and what you're giving out is super important. So now you've got the MVP, and I believe you just raised your round of seed funding last year. What was that process like for you? MAGGIE: Yes, so the round of funding that we did, we raised the first initial amount actually going into our senior year, and that was from a firm called Rogue Venture Partners. And we also got a little bit of it from their Women's Fund. And, yeah, that was the kind of piece of funding that got us started and allowed us to really, you know, add additional resources to the product to get it out there, at least the MVP. And then, after that, we got a little bit more funding from them. And then we raised money from Techstars as well because we got into their accelerator at The Roux Institute. That's kind of in association with Northeastern, and that was out of Portland, Maine. I guess it wasn't really necessarily, like, a cohesive round. It was, like, a couple of different checks that all kind of went into, like, our early funding for Pointz. And I would say it was very much so based on, you know, our relationship that we had with our initial venture firm that were working with Rogue. They actually mentored us for quite a few months before they invested in us. So they started mentoring us our junior year when we were in school. And then we got the deal together September of 2021. VICTORIA: That's awesome. Well, congratulations. And I'm glad you were able to find the right partnerships, and mentors, and funding that you needed. What did you find was really the differentiator for your app versus what was already on the market for biking-related apps? MAGGIE: There are a couple of different types of competitors, so there are the biking-related apps that you just mentioned, and then there are the general kind of use case apps like Google Maps or Apple Maps. And so, for the bike-related apps, the main thing that's different about Pointz is that we're more focused on, like, bike riders in general, so people that are riding around for transportation and recreation, not so much the cyclist type of a person that Trisha described earlier. So, you know, a lot of our features are geared towards people that are getting around the city or maybe are exploring a city or a neighborhood. It doesn't necessarily have to be a city, but that's kind of the focus. Whereas for other cycling-specific apps, like Komoot or Ride with GPS, it's focused a lot on, like, the fitness side of things and the recreation fitness side of riders. And so, at least the Ride with GPS and a few other of, like, the technologies that are available to more hardcore cyclists tend to have a more sharp learning curve. And ours was built more as, like, a general use case in navigating and exploring. VICTORIA: That makes sense. So it's more for people like me who are trying to go the most scenic [laughs] or the flattest and the safest way, not necessarily the fastest or the more fitness-focused aspect of cycling and biking. MAGGIE: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, we actually built this for people like us. Granted, I did do that long-distance bike trip. But, generally, I don't consider myself that hardcore of a rider, I mean, in my daily life. So it's for people who don't really identify as a cyclist and are more just, like, riding their bike around and, honestly, for people who are new to riding in general. Because a lot of our riders have recently gotten into biking or have recently moved to a new area, and so, they're just trying to figure out, you know, where are the good places to ride? Where do I feel safe? And, you know, how can I get more comfortable on my bike? VICTORIA: I'm loving this idea because I have a bike that's been sitting in my patio for over a year. [laughs] I haven't used...my partner is like, "Can we get rid of it? Because you don't use it." But I'm like, "I will. I will use it." I know my neighborhood problem is that there are giant hills if we leave our street here. So getting out is fine. But getting back in [laughs], it's like you need an electric bike. So that's very exciting. So, tell me more about now that you've graduated and you're taking this up full time; what does the future look like? What's on your horizon? MAGGIE: I mean, we've been working a lot with one of our advisors on, you know, getting to the point where people really love the product, and that's been kind of happening over the last year. We met Anuj Adhiya from Lenny's Newsletter. We've been working with him to really hone in on what the thing is that people really love about Pointz and make that experience better. And then also figure out what exactly the persona is so we can target them eventually with marketing, which is kind of the stage that we're at right now. So we were seeing our retention curves really evening out in especially a couple of cities that we're targeting. And so, this summer, we're focusing on getting our user base up in Los Angeles and then trying to figure out how, like, a playbook for scaling up a user base in a specific geography. Right now, a lot of our users are distributed throughout the United States. And there are clusters, but there's not, like, a huge spike in one city. And so, that's what we're working on right now is figuring out how to get a geographic kind of density to happen. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And it sounded like the app also uses a lot of user-generated data for safety ratings and things like that. Am I getting that accurately? TRISHA: Yep, that's correct. And what we do is we have a bunch of different layers of our data that we pull from. We have a base layer of data that comes from OpenStreetMap, and then we build on top of that. We rate all roads on a one through five bike friendliness scale. And building on top of that, we pull from city-specific data sets from cities, and towns, and municipalities. And then, we layer on the crowdsourcing similar to how Waze does at the top. VICTORIA: Got it. So taking advantage of that open data, the open city data, and what other data the city is putting out there. Are you finding that you're using whether or not a city has open data to inform if you're going to expand into that location? MAGGIE: Kind of as a focus point. So, the way it works right now is Pointz is available actually anywhere in the U.S. So; it doesn't matter if you're in a city or a rural area, you can use Pointz. And you can use it for routing and navigation and all the features that are available. However, we only have visualized the ratings in all 350 or so urban areas in the U.S., and so those are all visualized, but not all of them have the supplemental city-data. And so, the way we decide when we pull in city data is based on gaps in, like, the base layer. So, if we're seeing that there are a lot of accuracy issues in a specific city, we'll go, and we'll look and see if there's a more accurate map that the city has put out or that an advocacy group has put out. And so, we've done this recently in Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, Oregon, just to supplement the base layer of data, and it has helped a lot in terms of accuracy. And users or our riders really like it. VICTORIA: That's great. And what is your current level of usage in the app? How well have you been adopted? MAGGIE: Are you talking in terms of, like, user numbers or just, like, our engagement levels? VICTORIA: Yeah, whatever you're using to measure your level of engagement or number of users on the app. Like, what are your stats looking like? MAGGIE: Yeah, so, we use...we have our overall signups. And then we have a subcategory of, like, active and engaged users. And so, for our overall signups, we're at just over 9,000 total signups since we launched the MVP, and we haven't marketed it at all kind of until right now, where we're trying to push it out in LA a bit more. And then, in terms of our engaged cohort, I'd have to pull up the exact number. But last I checked, it was around 1,800 monthly active users. We kind of look at that cohort, and then we break it down into, you know, who's even more engaged in that? Who's coming back every week, every day? Mid-Roll Ad: VICTORIA: Introducing thoughtbot's ongoing maintenance service. Need reliable support and maintenance for your software? Look no further. Our expert team handles upgrades, bug fixes, UI adjustments, and new feature development. And the best part? Our maintenance packages start at just 5K per month for companies of all sizes. From Ruby on Rails to Node, React, and, yes, even PHP, we've got you covered. Trust thoughtbot for top-notch support and optimized performance. To receive a custom quote, contact sales@thoughtbot.com. VICTORIA: And with me here, I have Richard Newman, who is the Development Director on our Boost Team, to talk to me a little bit more about what maintenance actually looks like once you've built your software application, right? RICHARD: Hi, Victoria. VICTORIA: Hi, Richard. You have experience building applications. I wonder if you could describe to a founder who's considering to build an application, like, what should they consider for their long-term maintenance? RICHARD: Well, like you said earlier, part of what you're going for with that long-term maintenance is making sure the health of your project, of your application, is always there. And you don't want to be surprised as you're continuing to work with your users and so forth. And so, a number of things that we pay attention to in maintenance are, we're paying attention to keeping the application secure, providing security updates. We want to make sure that the ecosystem, basically, all of the tools and third-party services that are tied to your application that, we're responding to those sorts of changes as we go along. And then part of it is, occasionally, you're going to find some smaller issues or bugs or so forth as your user group continues to grow or as needs continue to change. You want to be able to respond to those quickly as well. And so, a lot of what goes into maintenance is making sure that you're paying attention and you're ahead of those things before they surprise you. VICTORIA: Because what can happen? Like, what are the consequences if you don't do that ongoing maintenance? RICHARD: Well, the security updates those happen across gems and in the platform sort of tools that are there. And so, if you're not keeping those up to date, your exposure, your vulnerability to being hacked, or having a bad actor come into your application start growing on you if you're not doing the maintenance. The other ones that can come up is there's new interfaces that these third-party services...they may be updating their APIs. They may be updating how you're supposed to work with their tool. And so, those can occasionally break if you're not paying attention to what's going on or you're suddenly surprised by an upgrade that you have to make. And then, finally, there's this long-term sort of code change that just builds up over time if you're not keeping it refactored for the changes that are upcoming in a language or the gems that you work with. And then, suddenly, after a while, it suddenly gets to the point where you have a lot of work that you might have to do to rehabilitate the application to take on some of the newer features that are being released. And so, that makes it that much more difficult, that much more friction about being able to deliver updates for your users or to be able to respond to changes that are happening out there in your application. VICTORIA: Right. So, if you don't have that ongoing maintenance, you could run into a situation where, suddenly, you need to make a very large investment and fixing whatever is broken. RICHARD: Absolutely. It's going to be very tough to plan for if you weren't keeping up all the way along and, yes, absolutely ends up being much slower if you have to remediate it. VICTORIA: That makes sense. I wonder if you have any examples of a project you've walked into and said, "Wow, I wish we had been doing a little bit more maintenance." [laughs] And maybe you can share some details. RICHARD: Yeah. We had a fairly large application that involved a number of clinic services. So, we had an application that users were going in every day and counting on our fast response. And, over time, we've got surprised by a database upgrade that had to happen. Basically, the database was going to be changed by our third-party hosting service, and that hadn't been tested. There hadn't been procedures in place when we discovered this need. And there was a very hard date that that change had to be done or else the entire application was going to go down. And it came at a very inconvenient time, at the end of the year around Christmas, that we had to respond to all of that. And had we been in front of it and just updated it every quarter and staying current with it, it wouldn't have been nearly the lift that it turned out to be. We were facing a pretty hard deadline [laughs] there to keep things going. It was very, very stressful and disruptive for the team and potentially for the clinics. VICTORIA: Right. And it always happens around a big holiday or something like that, right? When it all comes to a head. So... [laughter] RICHARD: Absolutely. You want to be in control of the timeframe and not have the timeframe be in control of you. VICTORIA: Right. And if you have a team like thoughtbot supporting you, you can go on your vacation with a little bit more knowledge that if something breaks, there's someone there who can respond and fix things, and you don't have to interrupt your very valuable time off. So... RICHARD: [chuckles] Absolutely. VICTORIA: Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Richard, for joining me today. I appreciate you coming here to talk with us. And we'll talk to you again soon. RICHARD: Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you. VICTORIA: I'm wondering if you have any incentives built into the app for users who are, like, contributing data back, or maybe they're writing every single day. Are there any little challenges or achievements that you could unlock within the app right now? MAGGIE: We do have some gamification, yes. And so, the way that people can earn points on the app...we call them points with a Z because of the name. The way that they can earn those points are a couple of ways. So, one is through riding their bike and using Pointz as a navigation tool or as a tool to record their ride. And so, for that, you get one point for every mile. And then the second way is by contributing to the map, so either crowdsourcing an amenity like a bike parking that isn't on the map already or by adding information about a hazard that might be on the map, like, for example, a car parked in the bike lane. And for each of those, you know, you get one point. And so, yeah, we have that gamification system built out and a couple of...like, we have a leaderboard. And then, also, we have, like, a way for you to kind of go up in your avatar on the app. But besides that, we do monthly contests. And so, this past month, we partnered up with a company called Po Campo, which makes stylish bike bags that can be taken off your bike and then worn as, like, a purse or a handbag. And so, they sponsored the prize, which is one of their bags, and whoever kind of gave the highest quality and quantity of crowdsourcing reviews and miles ridden they're the winner of the contest for this month of June. VICTORIA: That's very cool. I love to see that and hear about what strategies people have for engaging with their users within the app. I'm curious to go back to, you know when you two first met, how did you know that you were going to be good partners to work on this project together? TRISHA: One of the ways that we knew that was because we had first been introduced to each other from our mutual friend who is a close friend of both of ours, and she had been telling the other person about each other. And it was one day where we just met up, and we really clicked. But, at that point, Maggie was looking for someone who could work on the mobile development, and I didn't have any experience with that. However, I joined a club, which Maggie was leading, which was called The Women's Entrepreneurship Group. And we got a chance to work together and plan out many events, including a large conference right before COVID hit. Like, we saw how we'd worked together. We really enjoyed it. And we had very similar aspirations and motivations towards entrepreneurship. When I had the chance to basically join what Maggie was already working on with Pointz in the summer of 2020, I knew that that was going to be a great opportunity. And we decided to become co-founders by the end of the summer. VICTORIA: That's very cool. And I know how important it is to have the right team together to work on a project like this and to start something up from scratch. So, were there other big turning points? And you mentioned COVID, so I'm curious how that affected the growth and progress of this effort. MAGGIE: Yeah, to be honest, in the heart of COVID, like 2020, we weren't really built yet. So, it didn't quite affect us a whole lot, just because the product didn't get launched until the spring of 2020 to actually, you know, kind of publicly. But there were a couple of other turning points in our company, one of them was Techstars and kind of the progress we made during Techstars. We joined the accelerator, and we were having a bit of a hard time getting tech kind of pushed out really quickly. It was taking us a long time to build the features. And so, Trisha and I kind of evaluated why that was happening. And we came up with a process that worked a lot better, which we still use today. And speaking of team, we got a couple of really awesome teammates that made a huge difference on how quickly we could turn around features and bug fixes. And so, that was a really big turning point because we were able to iterate much more quickly and get feedback from our riders a lot faster. So that happened November, December of last year, of 2022. The other big turning point, I would say, is the slider that we released in March of this past year of 2023. And so we were having a hard time retaining users and getting them to really like the routing because people who bike tend to be very opinionated. And if the route isn't exactly kind of how they wanted it, they would be upset. And so, we'd fix it for one group of users, and then we would upset another group that didn't want that, you know, added to the routing. What we ended up doing was releasing this safety slider, which has the fastest routes on the left side of the slider and then the safest or the longest routes on the right side of the slider. And that really helped people get a wide variety of routes that fit their use case. And it's helped a ton with retention. And also, the feedback we were getting from users really changed from, like, really honing in on a very specific issue with routes that they were getting to general feedback about how we could enhance the app and keep people coming back more consistently. TRISHA: I just want to emphasize again that, yeah, the team is really critical. And, like, on our team, we have really awesome people who are 10xers and just great. Also, have someone who worked at MapQuest and has...I think our combined mapping experience is around 20-plus years. So it's really awesome to have that sort of a team together. VICTORIA: Yes. And, you know, talking about it now on the podcast, in retrospect, I'm sure it all seems like it came together, and it was kismet, and everything just worked. But was that how it really felt? Or were there moments where you doubted it and thought, maybe this isn't going to come together? MAGGIE: Yeah, definitely. There were moments of that feeling. One thing that gave us a lot of confidence was getting to the point where we felt like we could really iterate quickly and release features at a consistent and predictable cadence. So that gave us confidence that you know, there is a process for this, and there's a process of gathering user feedback and rider feedback, and then translating that into features, or bug fixes, or UI fixes. I think that gave me a lot of confidence that we could solve it. But, of course, it always takes a lot longer than you expect. And our advisor, Anuj, always says that 80% of what you're going to do won't work and 20% of it will. And it's all about how quickly you can iterate and figure out what works. And sometimes you get lucky, and it happens quicker. Or maybe you have unique insight into the problem, and you can guess, and it works out quicker. But I don't know; I definitely think it's been a learning process for everyone on our team. VICTORIA: That's great advice. And now that you've got your velocity up and you have your confidence, what's on the horizon? Are there new features that you all are working on that you're excited about? TRISHA: Yeah, so we're really excited about leaning into the whole generative AI trends that are happening, especially with ChatGPT and others. One thing that we've been hearing from most of our riders, people who use Pointz, is that using the app to create routes, which will allow them to explore new places, go to a new coffee shop that they've been hoping to go to but just don't know how to actually get there is critical. And most of our riders on Pointz are people who are new to a city. Maybe they've only lived there for a max of one year or less. So, exploring the area around them is really important to them, and that's why they use Pointz. And so, leaning into that, we're going to be releasing, in the next couple of weeks, a new explore feature where someone can go and, you know, describe to Pointz what type of route or...not even route, what type of things they want to see in a city, and Pointz will come up with that. It'll learn their preferences and continue to suggest really awesome places to get to, which they can do car-free, basically, through bikes, because they can be safe and, you know, they can rely on this app to get them through the city safely. VICTORIA: That's really exciting. And I'm excited to try it out myself [laughs] once you have that feature launched. Maybe you can tell me how that feature plays into...or what your success really looks like for Pointz in the next six months. MAGGIE: Yeah, so I think that feature is something that will be, I mean, of course, we got to test it, but I think that it will help people kind of use Pointz as an exploration tool more effectively. People are already using it for that, but it's not specifically built for exploration. Right now, it's built more for, I guess, routing to, you know, new places but not specifically, like, oh, let's go on a route that takes me through all these tourist destinations in the city I'm visiting. But this new feature will allow people to use it for that more. And I think, overall, you know, our mission at Pointz is to help people feel comfortable riding bikes so that they can drive less and feel like they can get around in a sustainable fashion, rather than having to rely on their car so often. And this feature is tied to that in the sense of, like, people can use it as a tool to help them, you know, find the safe route or a route they're comfortable with, and then use it to explore an area but maybe a bit more geared towards, like, tourists or, you know, more recreational-type use cases. VICTORIA: That's very cool. Thank you so much for sharing that. And what is your biggest challenge to achieving that success? MAGGIE: I think biking is a first step in that process of helping people feel like they can be more car-light or car-free, you know, use their car less. There are obviously a ton of other factors that go into whether or not you're driving, or you're taking a bike, or you're taking public transportation. And, you know, our next steps after we have really nailed this product are to explore those opportunities and build tools that help people choose alternative transportation more often. That's what we're excited about going into the future. You know, there's a ton happening in cities all across the U.S., not only for biking but also investments in transit, infrastructure, and whatnot. So, you know, young people and people of all ages...I think a lot of people feel comfortable and that they don't want to be sitting in traffic a whole lot [laughs] because that's not fun for anyone. And, you know, traffic and congestion is always frustrating. So, as much as we can reduce that, I think that's the mission of our company. And, of course, it takes a ton of scale. But it's a big goal, but we're going after it. VICTORIA: That's great. You know, I heard about a town in the U.S. that actually had banned cars and was pedestrians only for the whole town. It's like, what a great idea. [laughs] But I love it. I love that you're working on it. And I wonder now, you know, you're a couple of years into it. If you could go back in time and give advice to yourself when you first started this project, what advice would you give yourself? MAGGIE: For me, I would say to get a minimal viable product more minimal, [chuckles] so reduce it to, like, a single feature, get it out quickly, and start getting feedback more quickly from, like, a very practical, you know, piece of advice. And then, like, an overall piece of advice would be just to be more confident earlier on. It took a long time for me to gain the confidence of, like, being a thought leader in the space. And, you know, I felt like I was young, so there were all these people that knew more than me. But I think everyone has a really unique perspective, and if you really lean into that and share that with the world, it can inspire a lot of people. And you just have to be confident enough to do that. TRISHA: Yeah, I definitely second what Maggie just said. I think also from the tech perspective, if you're someone who is maybe more inexperienced, like, I just got out of college and did this, and I have never worked a full-time job before anywhere except this. And so I think there was a lot of doubt that I had of being able to lead the technical side because I didn't have 20 years experience working somewhere. But, actually, at the end of the day, that doesn't matter. It just matters that you're able to be in touch with what it takes to build certain features and talk to the users, or your riders, or whoever because they're the ones who are going to be dictating whether this is a success or not based on what you build. It's really not good if you're building and wasting a lot of resources and time on features which nobody wants or nobody uses. And so, that's been core to why I think I've gotten a lot of confidence in being able to be, like, the tech leader in this app and in this space. VICTORIA: Yeah, I'm curious to hear more about that. You touched on this really being your first full-time job. So, how do you build your personal brand as an executive leader in this company that you're building? TRISHA: For anyone who does startups, they'll know that it's a lot of figuring it out as you go, and things that you're taught in school don't necessarily translate well to the startup world because, like, I did, like, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. I did operating systems. I built a whole bunch of random stuff in school, and I studied for hours and hours. Of a lot of that, the most important thing, which actually translates to working in my field, is the perseverance to, like, keep going and working really hard. Otherwise, none of that stuff which I learned honestly translates. I had to learn everything myself with regards to building mobile apps. And I think the foundations were really critical from school but not really much of the hours of studying. I don't think that that's necessary, but I think it's necessary to build that sort of perseverance mindset. VICTORIA: That makes sense sort of to reflect that back a little bit, just having the perseverance to keep pushing, and keep learning, and keep understanding what is it going to take to build the features that you want? And that's really the core of being a CTO, right? TRISHA: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. VICTORIA: And, Maggie, I wonder about you as well, like, what resources are you drawing on to really perform as a CEO for this company? TRISHA: One thing that I read a lot is...it's more product-focused, actually, but it's product and growth-focused. It's Lenny's Newsletter, which I mentioned earlier. I use that as a resource a lot. I listen to their podcasts, and I read their articles. And then secondly, I interact a lot with other CEOs and founders because I think that's one of the best ways you can learn is from other people who are in it right now, maybe are a couple of steps ahead of you, or who have done it before. And so, I lean into that quite a bit. And just, you know, try to get advice from people, take what makes sense, and apply it to what we're working on. VICTORIA: That sounds great, yeah. I can relate to that; just building your personal network with people who are in similar roles helps you stay in touch and understand what other challenges people are facing and what you might face someday, right? [laughs] That's really cool. I love that you have all that set up. And is there anything else that you all would like to promote today? MAGGIE: I would just say to anybody who's interested in biking or maybe is, like, a beginner rider, we'd love to have you try out the app and then explore your area and give it a try one weekend when you have some time and see if you feel more confident, you know, given the routes that are on more green and protected roads. VICTORIA: I'm really excited to be talking to you because I am that person. I need this app. [laughs] I'm excited to try it out. Thank you, Maggie and Trisha, for joining us today. [laughs] It was a really great conversation, and I'm excited to follow along and see what happens with Pointz in the coming years. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thank you for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guests: Maggie Bachenberg and Trisha Ballakur.

Ash came to Canada in 2019 to study at Algoma University and is now the first South Asian to be a part of the Alumni Council of Algoma University and also runs a non-profit called Student Connect. He is a true believer that if you actually join the dots, everything happened for a reason.Listen to his journey from connecting the dots to starting Student Connect.Ash's LinkedInAsh's InstagramStudent Connect Instagram Student Connect LinkedIn Did you enjoy the episode? Don't forget to rate us. We'd love to hear your feedback. Official Instagram MTA Page: @MyThickAccentGurasis's Instagram Profile: @IAmGurasisMTA Podcast Website: MyThickAccent.comWant to share your story? DM us or write to us at Hello@mythickaccent.comStay tuned for the exciting new episode every Thursday at 10:00 AM EST and let's continue knowing each other Beneath The Accent! _______________________________________________Audio GlossaryDal Chawal -Dal Chawal translates to Lentil Rice. It's a 'whole meal' dish served in the sub-Indian continent. Lentil or a combination of lentils are pressure-cooked (with spices) and is served over cooked rice.Maggie - It's the classic Indian snack, made with authentic Indian flavours.Tiffin Service - A home-made style food, delivered to the students or young professionals who are living away from their homes. Rupees (₹) - Rupee is the modern monetary unit of India and Pakistan. The modern unit is divided into 100 paisa (like cents). The name derives from the Sanskrit rupya (“silver”). Fun Fact: On 15th August 1947 the exchange rate between Indian Rupee and US Dollar was equal to one (i.e., $1= ₹1). Now 1 USD= ₹83 and 1 CAD=  ₹60._______________________________________________Want to share your story? Or know someone I should invite next on the show? DM us or write to us at Hello@mythickaccent.com

Through the eyes of a native storyteller and experiencer of human emotion, tune in for powerful insights of the human conditions and the things that keep us moving forward.  If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co . And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:Your inner child is how you find your voice Keep going, you'll get to your destination.‘No' isn't scary Rejected that leads to something better The importance of finding the right people Process of publishingWriting despite dyslexia BIO: Maggie Daniels is a poet, writer, and director passionate about storytelling through her raw perspective. She was born and raised in the bible belt. The notorious culture of southern grit and charm shines through her words giving readers a sense of home and familiar comforts. Maggie's work reflects the mountains of emotion one can experience with life, love, & loss in a way that is deeply honest and healing for those reading. Her mother used to tell her she was a magenta girl living in a khaki world, that analogy shows through in her work as a unique take on the human experience. Episode References/Links:Maggie Logic WebsiteFollow Maggie on InstagramSupport ‘Swimming'  If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.ResourcesWatch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable PilatesSocial MediaInstagramFacebookLinkedInEpisode Transcript:Lesley Logan 0:09  All right, Be It listener. I've got someone special for you, Maggie Daniels is here. And I was really intrigued by her for a variety of reasons. But you're going to understand in a moment when she starts talking, but I actually find people who can take time to write very interesting. I think everybody, at some point has thought, "Oh, maybe a write a book, or might be nice to sit down and write something down." And then inevitably think we're not writers. We don't know what we're doing. And and then we get in our head, and then we think, "Oh, I can't do this." And we get impostor syndrome around it. So I just wanted to bring on Maggie to talk about how she got to where she is, and give you some advice along the way. So thank you for being here. Maggie, can you tell everybody who you are and what you're writing about?Maggie Daniels 0:51  Thank you so much for having me today. Yes, I'm, I'm a poet, writer, director. I use poetry for like the micro moments of emotion to process like what I'm feeling in the moment. And then I use screenplays to like, dive deeper into my psyche, like through the characters, like, "Why did this trigger me? Why do I feel this way?" And I am really glad you brought up the imposter syndrome and the insecurity because I had that for years, like I've been writing my whole life. And I never considered myself a writer. Isn't that crazy?Lesley Logan 1:25  That's that, it's crazy. And also, like, I completely understand it. (Maggi: Yeah.) You know,Maggie Daniels 1:29  Yeah. And it was one of those things I didn't go to college, I grew up very dyslexic, in a small town in the south, so I just didn't, internally, I just had this voice that wasn't mine in my head that said, "You know, you don't know enough words, you're not smart enough. Like, there's someone else with that job already." Like, you know what I mean? (Lesley: Yeah) And I remember my mother in law sent me this book. And I can't remember the exact name of it, but it had it had magic in the title, where it was like, a pun on words, like creativity is literal magic. And ideas, bounce around, like, if you don't use them, they'll go away and find someone else that will. And the crazy thing is that everyone's capable of it. Every human being, I feel like we were here to be creative not to work and pay bills and die. I feel like our soul needs to express itself in many forms, whatever that may be. And a lot of people don't realize that creativity isn't just making art, creativity is anything that drives you, and makes you want to get up and do something and make something like that could be crafting, that could be engineering, that could be anything making rockets. (Lesley: Yeah) Whatever drives you to want to create something, is I feel like the basic necessity of our souls.Lesley Logan 2:57  Ah, I mean, agreed. And I actually think like, that's becoming more and more something that a lot of people are talking about, like we're all born to be creative. And I think a lot of people that, "Oh, it's those left brainers or those right brainers" or whatever side of the brain it is. We'll go back to the neurologist who is on the show for that. But I don't, we weren't given like only half a brain, we have a whole brain, we can use it. And we we all have this ability to be creative. And I want to go back to the that voice in your head. Because I, I think that we all have that voice. And some of us have the volume turned up louder (Maggie: Yeah) on that voice and others. And it is, it's that voice that holds back some of the most amazing people out there. Because every single person has a story that can help somebody else like we learned through story, right? We learned, we don't remember, like statistics, but we remember the story that was told around the numbers. And that kind of helps us there. We can visualize that story. So, how did you get that voice volume to turn down enough for you to attempt what you're now doing?Maggie Daniels 3:58  Oh, man, it was a lot of different things. I really want to say I had to do with a lot of different influences. Gary Vee is one of them. I don't know him personally, but just following him on social media is a very positive mindset in person. And a lot of his like personality and his branding is he just puts out positive just, that's his vibe. And always he's just reminding the public like, "Hey, that voice in your head isn't you? Like, don't listen to it, like find the one that's you in there." And I was emotionally, physically and sexually abused as a child. So I had a lot of different voices in there. And it took me a while to tune out to remember which one was mine, but I kind of went back to like my five year old self, and that inner child, and I feel like that's how you find your voice, is it's your inner child, (Lesley: Yeah) and just have to listen for him because they're, they're quieted by all the noise. And the best advice I ever got was from my mentor, dir... film director and writer, Diane Bell. She told me do, "What you want, the rest is noise. So, listen to your inner child, that's your voice. And just go back to an age where you really felt your personality, like, started or like rounded out to your core to who you are." And for me, that was five years old. And from then on, I was who I am. And yeah, I feel like find that age, and that's your voice and you and you just whatever you're doing in life is to protect that part of yourself. Like, think of it as a separate entity, almost like your inner child is someone that you need to treat that you wish that you were the adult in your life kind of thing. (Lesley: Yeah) Like that you were there to protect them. And I feel like that's the first step of healing.Lesley Logan 6:02  Yeah, I think we also like, you just said that, like, we also like protect, sometimes we do things to protect them so much that it's actually holding us back. Like, (Maggie: Yes) does things help to get you to survive and get to this point. And then (Maggie: Yes) you know, and I think that's, um, I think that's really interesting. Like, I was talking with my own therapist, but I was like, when when the pandemic happened, I like fe... like was like, it was almost ease like, like, the world crashing down. And like, everything canceling on my calendar... (Maggie: It was relatable. I was like, "What is in my world?") Oh, I totally get this survival mode, check, guess what, but then, a few months later, when we moved and all this stuff, and, and she's like, "You know, you don't need to be in that mode anymore." And I was like, "Oh, I'm still driving in that mode." (Maggie: Yeah) And so it's like, it's so good that we can tap into that, it's so good that we have the ability to protect ourselves when needed, because, you know, sometimes you're walking down the street with like, maybe somebody you want to, like, have a contract, book deal, (Maggie: Yeah) or a screenwriting thing with and someone steals something at you, you don't exactly always get to just go eff off, whatever (Maggie: Yeah) you might have to like, just ignore that that happened to you. So it's good to have that ability to put those protectors up. But we also be able to take them down.Maggie Daniels 7:10  Yes, yes. And the key to that is, I feel like in a way you you find your inner child voice, you protect them, you let them know that they're safe with you. And then you show them that they don't have to be afraid anymore. And I (Lesley: Yeah) feel like that's a process of delayering all of that. (Lesley: Yeah) And I'm not sure where I am on that process. (Lesley laughs) But I have found so much relief with writing, especially with my film once I got done with the first draft, I really felt like things I've been holding on for years I just placed on the characters like they have to carry that shit. Now it's not mine. And it, ah I can't even describe it. It's just such a relief.Lesley Logan 7:51  So I find this really fascinating. So okay, first of all, because I lived in LA and so I was around people who everybody's writer, everybody's director, ever... And I I would love to hear your how you got into doing that. Because that is also like, that's there's like 1000 stories that people tell themselves every day in Hollywood. And they actually have the access and the means and the agents and like, "I don't know where you live right now." But like how how did you get about to writing, writing this film, and then getting it put together and where it is now?Maggie Daniels 8:23  Well, honestly, it was, it's been a long time coming. I've been working on it for about 10 years, because for so many of those years, I had that voice blocking me. And I it's like Donnie Darko, if you haven't seen it, there's this like thing that comes out of his chest, and he follows it. And that's how I feel with writing. I'm just being pulled from my chest. And I feel like there's so much pressure, if I don't write, I'm gonna burst. And that's really what motivated me to really keep the interest and really like work through the hard... the hardness of it. And once I sat down and really wrote the script, when I knew what I was doing, I had to sign up for a writing class because I was really insecure. I looked up the formatting, but I didn't know if like I had it right. And I booked a class with the writer, Diane Bell, and she changed my life. And it was the first time that someone came up to me and was like, "You get it. This is good. Like this is better than good. Like, this is something." And so I don't know having that outside voice and growing up being like emotionally abused. I've never had those like compliments. So it was like hard to process at the time. But it's it's really changed my life and the whole like the rest is noise that she always reminds me of it really is. I've I've had some highs and lows on this project, but it just keeps getting better. (Lesley: Yeah) And if you just keep moving forward. I like to think of it. It's an old old Christmas movie cartoon about Santa Claus that they play on ABC Family every year, I forget the name of it. But it might be Kris Kringle, but he has a song with the Father Ice. And it's one foot in front of the other. And if you just put one foot in front of the other, soon, you'll be walking across the floor, you put one foot in front of the other soon, you'll be out the door. And I feel that plays out in life, if you just keep going, you'll get to your destination.Lesley Logan 10:25  Oh my gosh, this is amazing. I feel like I'm like, so grateful for this conversation right now. Because you know, when you're in the middle, when you know all these things, like you know, all these things, I mean I know it. I know you have one foot, but sometimes you like get stuck. You just get stuck (Maggie: You do.) in your own head, (Maggie: You do.) you tell yourself a story and you're just like stuck in your own head. And like the story I'm telling myself right now is like, there's just like, we're not, we don't have enough time. (Maggie: Yeah, yeah.) And I, this is a story I'll that will come up, like, pretty much every other year. And it becomes like the thing. And it's such an interesting thing. Because I think a lot of people who are listening this will blame themselves because they should know better. (Maggie: Yeah) They like ... (Maggie: I feel that way sometimes too.) "I should know better. I tell my clients this. I tell my, I tell my kids, this. I, all these things," we read the books, (Maggie: Yeah) and but you, you know, we're not perfect people you (Maggie: No) cannot like and sometimes that voice that you thought you turned down found a way to like, untie hands (Maggie: tic tac) and it goes 'tick, tick, tick.' Let me, if I just do it a little bit at a time, they won't notice, they won't (Maggie: Yeah) notice the volume going up. And you know, I think it's um, it's so important to just remember that you are going to get in your own way. And it's so important that when when someone comes into your life in a moment to just say that one thing or there's a song playing like, like, it's, it's happening to help get you out of it. And if we just pay attention a little bit, we can go, "Oh," and then be forgiving, that we may be took a little longer to (Maggie: Yeah) remember that.Maggie Daniels 11:59  Yeah. I'm slowly learning that the word 'no' is not scary. It's not scary. Every 'no' leads to a better yes. (Lesley: Yeah.) You just have to get through it. And if if you find it hard to motivate yourself, find a community. (Lesley: Yeah) Even if it's just one person where you're like, "Hey, my weekly checkup. How's it going?" (Lesley: Yeah.) You it's really about community. And it's the whole who you know, not what you know, really in life who you know, really changes the game. (Lesley: Well you ...) For creativity or anything.Lesley Logan 12:38  I have to I want to go back to the fact that you like signed up for a class because I think (Maggie: Yeah) this is really key. I really like (Maggie: finding people) finding people. So here's the thing, I just interviewed this guy who John Molluro, Mollura. And he was a rocket scientist, who is a photographer, and he is now like he like he has been for many, many years, full time photographer, like, that's his thing, right? (Maggie: Yeah) That's how he pays his bills. And I had asked him, I said, well, like how, like, give me some like, "What your BE IT action item?" and he said, "You have to invest in your idea." (Maggie: Yeah) Like you have to hire someone. And that ... (Maggie: ... doing) Yeah, and that's where people get stuck. Because they'll tell themselves, "I don't have the money ... I don't have this or (Maggie: Yeah) this is why should I spend money on this as just a writing class." (Maggie: Yeah) Like people will say that as opposed to like, it's, you know, not something that like makes sense. But (Maggie: Yeah) if you invest in an idea that you have. You like first of all, you get someone who had more information than you have, there are few more steps ahead. And you're literally showing your brain and the universe and the people around you, "This means a lot to me."Maggie Daniels 13:45  Yeah. I spent my last like $300 on that workshop at the time. I had nothing to my name. And I just went every every week. And it gave me so much life and it's it's literally changed my life. And I don't want to go back to not pursuing my dreams. And the thing is people don't feel comfortable asking for help, ask for help. No one knows what they're doing. Everyone use Google for spellcheck like c'mom. Like we're in an age of it's so easy to find your community because of access online. Like you can find somebody that matches your energy, that you can communicate with, that's going to have the answer, you're looking for. Just pat get get through that discomfort if you're like shy, intimidated, like everyone's awkward, you know what I mean? But if you're just being genuinely yourself, the whole fake it till you make it, is it's expired. Everyone wants kindness, everyone wants a genuine authenticity. So just be yourself and ask for help.Lesley Logan 14:49  Yeah ... yeah, well and I read the the book - Rejection Proof this year and Oh, Maggie put it on your book list. I mean, like you mentioned like, 'no isn't a bad thing.' He went on 100 day like rejection journey. And he came up with like creative ways like to get rejected so he can get over his fear of rejection, because that's what people have the fear. That's what's holding them all back. And we and I definitely want to get into your poetry because I think like that right there. Like every time you get up and speak poetry, I feel like it's like comedians, anyone who does stand up, like you're just putting yourself up there to be rejected, because not everyone's going to like what you do anyways. So anyway, but the book he like, did crazy things like he knocked on people's doors in Texas on a super on like a football Sunday. I was like, "Hey, can I go in your backyard and take a picture of me kicking a ball?" And like, people were like, "Yeah." You'd be surprised. Like, I had said earlier in the year, I want the specific person on my podcast, if you know, her, helped me out. And then I was just like, "I'm just going to ask her myself." And she said, (Maggie: Yeah) "Yes." And I'm interviewing her next week. So like, I think, we pre reject. We like put the rejection there before it's even even happened before like it can even happen and then we build up this, this event that's going to happen that even if people actually reject your idea won't be as bad as you just dream up in your head.Maggie Daniels 16:13  Dude and it always can even lead to something better. Like don't even if you get rejected by someone don't burn that it's not a burn bridge is professionalism. Like it's not a burn bridge, you can still maybe spark a friendship, like my favorite rejection that I've experienced so far. Because I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know it was like, not appropriate till just like send someone your script. (Lesley laughs) I didn't know that. So I was just sending people my script that I thought vibed with the story. (Lesley: I love you.) Yeah. (Lesley: Love that so much.) Poems and shit. I didn't know. And so at the time, it was during the pandemic, and the comedian, Byron Bowers was doing like, Zoom meetings. And it's just like six or seven of us from around the world that met every week. And we all like, had like trauma problems, and we all bonded on trauma and stuff. And one day, he was talking about city life, and it reminded me in my film, so I just sent him the quick dropbox link on Instagram, DM, and he immediately sent me back like a whole lawyer response, like, 'blah, blah, blah.' And yeah, totally professional it's fine. But my heart went into my ass, okay, like I was so just cringe embarrassed. And then my husband was like, "Oh, it's no big deal. Like, that's just like what it is. It's just professionalism." He just reminded me and I breathed it out took some dabs. I was like, "okay, namaste." And then the next morning, I just hopped on the group chat, and it wasn't like one awkward or anything. It was just like, keep pushing. And long term like six few months later. I was in LA, we go on a hike. We ended up becoming really great friends. Like, really awesome, dude. I love comedians now. Comedians are like, my favorite human beings. Comedians and musicians have (Lesley: Yeah) have the best souls, I swear to God. (Lesley Yeah) But yeah, so that experience for me, just makes me not scared of 'no' anymore, because now he's like, I just I appreciate his friendship. Like, you know what I mean?Lesley Logan 18:15  Well, and also like, I think it's, I think it's so great that you just showed up because you didn't make it a thing. And I (Maggie: Yeah) think like, the things are only there because we make things ...Maggie Daniels 18:27  Exactly, I made it up in my head. He didn't have any thought. And you know, like, there was nothing registered.Lesley Logan 18:33  Yeah, he sent you that response. Because probably there like if he reads that. And then somehow he makes a film and you're like, "Hey, I have that line on my thing."Maggie Daniels 18:41  I know. I'm ... he explained it to me, it's a thing. It's a thing. (Lesley: It's a thing. It's a whole thing.) I didn't know.Lesley Logan 18:45  Yeah. And so you know, but like, I love that you shared the story. And I loved how I love how the story has progressed in your life, because it is something we can all remember, you know, (Maggie: Yeah) like, some like, I just think it's interesting. We, I think anybody listen to this, who has held themselves some whoppers. I think you should go into writing because (Maggie: Yeah) look at what, look at the stories you've made up ...Maggie Daniels 19:08  And you know what's crazy? Is S                                                                                          wimming probably wouldn't have happened if I didn't keep going to that Zoom meeting. Because we talked about some really deep stuff. And one day he started talking about like, writing writers, and he was just asking, because he knew some of us wrote poetry in the group and wrote whatever, then he knew I was a writer because I embarrassed the shit out myself. And he was asking, you know, like, how many times a day do you write and that was the conversation like, if you like and I said how often I write. He was like, "Oh, that's pretty. That's pretty like that's like, above average." You know? I was like, "Yeah, I do have a lot sitting around like, I should just like what am I doing? I'm just sleeping on it." So like, because of that conversation with Byron like that week I got Swimming together and ended up publishing it later in the year. And when we went on that hike in LA, I brought him a copy. And there's actually a poem I wrote about the Zoom meeting. It's called Zoom. And Swimming, it's called the Zoom. But yeah, it's I haven't kept showing up and getting that creative input and inspiration from my own community of related minds. (Lesley: Yeah) I don't think I would be on this interview right now talking about my book.Lesley Logan 19:08  Well, let's so let's talk about that. So so Swimming is your book. (Maggie: Yeah) And so and you know, and y'all can get it. We'll put it in the link in the in the notes below. But how? Okay, so you just started, like, you went to these meetings. (Maggie: Yeah) And he, he told you like, "Oh, you're writing more than the average person." (Maggie: Yeah.) And it's so again, we go back to like, we talked about this a lot in the podcast for those been listening for a long time. We keep talking about surrounding yourself with people, like you have got a community around like you, you put yourself in a creative network, and you showed up. (Maggie: Yeah) And you not only do you get feedback, but you get ideas. (Maggie: Yeah) And so, so not only had had that not happened, you wouldn't have this book. So what made, what was the process? And like, how, how did you talk yourself into publishing? Because putting it all together, as one thing, (Maggie: Yeah) put it out for the world to read is a whole other thing.Maggie Daniels 20:56  Yeah. Okay. So first, I went to Google, because that's my best friend. And I Googled, like, "How to Self Publish?" And I didn't want to do to do Amazon because everything like Amazon to me, it's just books get lost, I mean, their number one retailer for books, I don't hate on ... I love the Amazon. But I just didn't ...We love Amazon, too. We got stuff on there, too. (Maggie: I just didn't want ...) In case Jeff is listening. Don't worry, Jeff.Yeah. I just didn't want to get lost in the massiveness of it. (Lesley: Yeah) I just wanted it to be a book only thing. So I looked into Barnes & Noble. And Barnes & Noble, if you go through Barnes & Noble Press, you can publish, self publish. And so they (Lesley: I didn't know this.) the book. Yeah, it's amazing. They print the book. And they don't take that much. Like I told my cousin has been an author for many decades. And she only makes a couple cents. And she's got trilogies, she only makes a couple cents. And I make like almost $4 per book through Barnes & Noble Press.Lesley Logan 22:25  And also, y'all just so you know, when you see like, self publishing is, like, when it first came out, we're like, "Oh, yourself," like, it was a thing. But now like, (Maggie: Yeah) a lot of writers are self publishing. Because when you go through a publishing company, there is a lot more input on what you're writing. (Maggie: Yep.) And you have to sell whatever amount pass your advance before you start getting paid on it. So it's, anyways, it's really is like six one way half a dozen other of course, if you get published by a publishing house, you know, obviously, there's other things (Maggie: Yeah) can happen for you. But we self published, I did it through Amazon. And, you know, we on the we don't do the Kindle version, that's where we, so that's where ...Maggie Daniels 23:09  I couldn't figure out the formatting to save my life.Lesley Logan 23:11  Well. And also like, you I couldn't price the book at a place that would get me more than 99 cents. And I this was like, I this the actual everything that went into this, my team, myself everything, like I just, I want you to value this book, because I want you to read it. And I do believe that when you pay for things like your class, (Maggie: Yeah) it was like your last $300. I do believe that. Because from my own experience, like (Maggie: Yeah) I paid for college, so you better believe was in fucking every class. (Maggie: Yeah. Yeah.) I was like, "This class is cost me $700. I'm not fucking missing.") (Maggie: Yeah, exactly.) So I, um, so I just really wanted my book because it's for for business people to actually be something that they read. (Maggie: Yeah) So we print through Amazon. And then if you want the e-book, you get it through our site. So it's just just a little bit more under our control. But I think that's so cool. So (Maggie: Yeah) like, y'all, all she did was go to her best friend Google, 'how to self publish', and then did some research. And now you're, Barnes & Nobles that's a big fucking deal.Maggie Daniels 24:09  I know. I feel classy as shit everytime I say it. Yeah. But Barnes & Noble and I got picked on. I couldn't read as a kid. Okay, I learned how to read through reading poetry. It just clicked for my brain. And so to be in Barnes & Noble, it just blows my mind.Lesley Logan 24:27  Can we talk about that? Because you were were dyslexic. Correct? (Maggie: Yes. Yeah.) Yeah. And so that again, just another story we can tell ourselves about reading and writing. And you are a script writer, a film writer, and you have a book and and tell me, so what about poetry? Because like, that is that one I think is the most the writing genre that most people are misunderstood about what poetry actually is. And I think more people can be poets than we think.Maggie Daniels 24:52  Oh, man, the thing I love about poetry is there are no rules. And I think that's what drove, well, I didn't get go to college. I'm sure there are rules. I follow up poets that are in college on Twitter and don't know what the fuck they're talking about. So sorry in advance. (Lesley laughs) But to me growing up, I got the impression that there are no rules and poetry. And I used to get in arguments with English teachers, because I would get pop quizzes during Poetry Month. And they'd be like, "How is this line supposed to make you feel?" And I'm like, "You can't fucking do that." You can't like you can't, you know there's no correct answer in that. (Lesley: Right) It's gonna make you feel how it makes you feel. And it's already done it's work for the writer. So don't worry about how the writer wanted it to be. It's done (Lesley: Yeah) its work for them. It's all about how it makes you feel in the moment. And I would get really heated about that. But poetry just it clicks for my brain. My mom was really passionate about tutoring me after school and I had tutors during school. Hated it at the time, I would come home and be like, "It's killing me." Yeah, that was really dramatic.Lesley Logan 25:56  Yeah, that's hard. Oh, that has to be hard. I mean, like, nowadays, if you have if you're dyslexic, there's like the schools are ready for it. But I don't know (Maggie: Yeah) how old you are. I feel like we're about the same age and like, my uncle was dyslexic. He's a doctor. Right. (Maggie: Yeah) But like, he really struggled because no, people just thought he was like he couldn't read.Maggie Daniels 26:14  Yeah, they just want to put you in on the short bus.Lesley Logan 26:16  Yeah. They're like, "Oh, there's something wrong with this kid. He can't read." It's like, "No, he can't... He's dyslexic."Maggie Daniels 26:21  Yeah, I just can't read it at the level there reading at, it's fine. And then I learn all this stuff. And then you grow up. And then professional businesses are spelling shit wrong. I'm like, "What was this even for?"Lesley Logan 26:33  I know. I do whenever I see an error. And I think I was reading one of Oprah's recent books. And there I've read the sentence three times. I'm like, "That was the wrong word. That there's something wrong with this word, like it's missing an R or something's (Maggie: Yeah) wrong here." And I was like, and I laughed so hard. I was like, I am, you know, like, obviously, you don't want to have the, like, you could put the wrong word with the wrong meeting. So you (Maggie: Yeah) definitely have the right meaning in there. But you can also spell word wrong, and it's gonna be okay. Because people's brains are just scanning anyways.Maggie Daniels 27:03  So, you know, I went over with a toothpick, my book Swimming so many times, but there's still one misspelled word and it eats me alive. I won't say it ... But that's my bad.Lesley Logan 27:16  You know, maybe, but it's also a part of the poet, poetry of it, right? It's part of the creativity of it.Maggie Daniels 27:21  Yeah, whenever I send my script for edits to my producer, he's like, "So many edits and my ..."Lesley Logan 27:29  Well, we had another writer on and she said, was worried about grammar (Maggie: Ah fuck them, fuck grammer.) And somebody said, somebody said, there's but that's why there's writers and there's editors.Maggie Daniels 27:40  Editors. Yeah. That's not my department.Lesley Logan 27:43  Yeah, just like, you know, so oh, my goodness, Maggie, you are really awesome. I mean, you know that but I really, I really do love this authenticity that you you bring up and I think I've even if somebody listen to this is not a writer doesn't want to be a writer, like you can relate so much to your story, which is like, we all have had times in our life where we didn't think we're good enough. And we all need people to remind us that what we have is good. (Maggie: Yeah) And it's and it needs to be out there. And I'm just so grateful for the angels that were put into your life to make sure that you did this so that you could share your story with our listeners today. Because they need to hear you, they need to hear this.Maggie Daniels 28:23  Definitely, definitely makes you feel a little less alone in the world when someone says something that makes sense to you.Lesley Logan 28:31  Yeah, well, we're gonna take a quick little break and then we're gonna find out how people can find you, follow you and read all of your work. (Maggie: Awesome.)All right, Maggie, where do you hang out? Are you on the socials? Where can people get to read more of your work in here and what are you up to?Maggie Daniels 28:48  maggielogic.com has all the links to my socials. Instagram is at @maggielogic, and you can buy Swimming at barnesandnoble.com. I'm currently sold out on maggielogic.com. I gotta order some more books. (Lesley: Yeah) But you can also check out the really awesome audio book on all music streaming services, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Amazon Music, all of them. It's really awesome. I teamed up with the composers Corey Campbell and Jenna Desmond out of Charleston, South Carolina and Mike Henderson and out of Colorado for recording studio. And it's masterpiece. I'm reading it and my my friends joke with me. They're like, "Who'd you, who'd you get to read your book." And I was like, "Me, I say it that in the beginning. And it's me." (Lesley laughs) I was in character. And that was the first time I read the book from cover to cover. And it was it was it was it took its toll. I did take some breaks. It was emotional. So shout out to voice ... voice-over artists. It's a lot.Lesley Logan 29:51  Yeah, that's that's a skill that I think a lot of be like, "Oh, I should like I should be a voice-over person." Like ...Maggie Daniels 29:57  It takes a lot out of you. It really does. (Lesley: Yeah) It really does. (Lesley: Yeah) It was fun. It was fun. It was fun.Lesley Logan 30:02  I hope that you do more work. I hope that you, I hope this is first of many, and (Maggie: Oh yeah. I got two more books coming out.) Ah, okay, keep us posted on that. (Maggie: Will do.) I definitely, I'm really excited about what you're doing. Okay. So before we let you go, BE IT action items, bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. What do you have?Maggie Daniels 30:24  Definitely, number one, find your people because when you have your low days, you need that extra motivation and always show up for them and they'll show up for you. And number two, I would microdose your tasks. So just like working out 10 or 20 sounds a lot but you can do five and five sounds a lot, you can do four. So like just a couple minutes a notepad if you'd like to write or I just sometimes just write notes on my phone, you always have your phone on you. If that's your genre, you know if you want to write but yeah, just microdose your tasks and yeah.Lesley Logan 31:01  I like that. I like that a lot. Okay, Maggie, you're amazing. Thank you for being here and thank you for sharing your story and all that you're up to. I'm leaving very inspired. I hope everyone listening is, well how are you going to use these tips in your life. Tag @maggielogic, tag the @be_it_pod. Let us know and please share this podcast with someone. If you don't know how to share it on the on the gram, I get it like not everyone's a professional, social media person then text it, screenshot it, send it however you can because not only does it help our our guests out, it helps the podcasts up but most importantly helps all of the people in your life out. You know if everybody is getting this powerful inspiration dose each day, then the world is a much better place. So until next time everyone, Be It Till You See It.Transcribed by https://otter.aiSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Summary by author Maggie: It's common to view that people will somehow show their over-sympathy or under-sympathy towards people with disabilities. Sometimes, people with disabilities will be ignored and disregarded by people around them as they are invisible. While, sometimes, people will pay too much attention to them like this disabled people is unnatural landscape or sculpture. What do disabled people need and what are they puzzled about? Through interviews with a Chinese and an American, the truth is it is not the disability that bother disabled people's lives, but others' response they can receive. So, to respect their rights and keep right. Works Cited: Fois, Daniela. “Disability Bias and the Misrepresentation of Chronic Illness and Invisible Disability in Contemporary YA Fiction.” Stockholm University, 2018. Hampson, Margaret E, et al. “Beliefs About Employment of People Living with Psychosis.” Australian Journal of Psychology, 2018, pp. 103–112. Healey, Justin. People with Disability. Spinney Press, 2017. Stoddard, Martha. “Melodramatic Bodies.” University of Michigan Press. 2004.

Listen in on Maggie and Christopher, who after years of dating online, never in person, finally met in person. If you’ve ever been hesitant to share your burdens with a loved one, this conversation beautifully touches on not only the source of that worry, but ways to overcome it. They discuss the long distance nature of their early relationship and lack of daily physical contact and offer a unique insight into what a relationship really is. What do we carry of our partners that becomes part of us? How much of that is based on our physical relationship and our proximity? Maggie and Christopher share an insightful conversation about balancing their love with the ever-important need to grow and develop on their own.  FROM THE EPISODE: CHRISTOPHER: If you could go back to the first time we met, what advice would you give yourself regarding our relationship?  MAGGIE: We were young. I don't even think I ever thought, “am I ready to be in a relationship?” We just went in it...We had to grow separately, without each other knowing sometimes. CHRISTOPHER: Honestly, if you're in a unit, that unit isn't going to work if the two people aren’t content themselves, if they're not okay with themselves. MAGGIE: So I think I would say [to myself] “girl, you're young!” and when we're younger, we just accept a lot of things for what they are and just move, without thinking, CHRISTOPHER: I think young people accept and romanticize a lot of things about relationships. MAGGIE: It’s not just flowers all the time. It’s crying. It’s being upset and mad. It's getting over it and through stuff. When do you think I need you the most and why? CHRISTOPHER: When something's going on. It's not that I think you *need* me, but I know it'd be nice to have something else to focus on, some other energy, as opposed to certain things completely compounding at once. Maybe I could take some of that away, sing a jingle… When have you seen me the most vulnerable and what have you learned from it? MAGGIE: I just don't like thinking about it, but it was that night when you were just feeling really bad. Hold on…I ain't crying… You just think you're a bad person sometimes, and you're not... And that night... You were just very vulnerable ,,, and alone. And you already know how I feel about being alone with your thoughts and not sharing them. I just learned from that night to always check up, even if you seem like you're doing fine. CHRISTOPHER: I’m good… MAGGIE: You always say that though. That's what I'm saying…  CHRISTOPHER: I learned a lot from that. I know I'm not a bad person, as humans, we carry that…we carry the flip side. So I guess that was my hardest thing to deal with is wanting to be this version of myself that I want to be, but then seeing all the effects of the other side of myself. But I'm good… MAGGIE: What am I always carrying that I should let go of? CHRISTOPHER: I think just the way other people around you affect you. I think you should not hang on to that. Just let it go. I feel like there's a better way to say that though, because it's not necessarily what they think, but like the way other people's energy affects you. Cause it can linger. Once you got that out the way, man, you're a bird, you can fly all the way up there and just go… MAGGIE: I definitely agree.  CHRISTOPHER: What do you admire most about me? MAGGIE: I admire your confidence a lot and your drive. I think that's what is most of your energy. It's just, “let's just go do it. Let's do it right now”. Your drive and your confidence in yourself and your thoughts and your morals and your beliefs, and just being like a nice example of energy.  CHRISTOPHER: That was beautifully said. Wow. “A nice example of energy.” You might have to write that down somewhere. MAGGIE: I got it. CHRISTOPHER: Wow. Thank you.

 As Pittsburgh prepares to mark one year since the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue, we invited Maggie Feinstein of the 10.27 Healing Partnership to discuss the new center’s mission and how Squirrel Hill has healed over time.Also in this episode, we talk about fear-based marketing, future modes of journalism with a guest who has a special connection to the podcast, and hear a track from a promising singer from Sewickley.----more----This Episode is sponsored by WordWriteCenturies before cell phones and social media, human connections were made around fires as we shared the stories that shaped our world. Today, stories are still the most powerful way to move hearts and minds and inspire action. At WordWrite, Pittsburgh's largest independent public relations agency, we understand that before you had a brand, before you sold any product or service, you had a story.WordWrite helps clients to uncover their own Capital S Story. The reason someone would want to buy, work, invest or partner with you through our patented story-crafting process. Visit wordwritepr.com to uncover your Capital S Story.The full transcript to this episode is here:Logan: You are listening to The P100 Podcast, the biweekly companion piece to The Pittsburgh 100, bringing you Pittsburgh news, culture, and more. Because sometimes 100 words just isn't enough for a great story.Dan: Hey, everyone. We're back. I'm Dan Stefano, host of The P100 Podcast. I'm here with Paul Furiga.Paul: Dan, how are you, my friend?Dan: And our other co-host, Logan Armstrong.Logan: How's it going, Dan?Dan: All right. Yeah, great to have you guys here, and we're happy for everybody to be listening today because it's a special episode. We're coming up to the one-year commemoration of the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in our Squirrel Hill neighborhood here. And there's a lot of interesting things going on this time of year. It's been a year of healing, and that's a highlight of the interview we're going to have this week. We're pretty happy to have that. Paul, what are your thoughts?Paul: I'm really looking forward to hearing from Maggie Feinstein, who's now leading the healing center. As you said, this one-year mark is really important for the community. Not just here in Pittsburgh, but beyond as well.Dan: That's right. That's Maggie Feinstein, the director of the 10.27 Healing Partnership and we're really happy to have her today. Also, we'll be talking with Erin Hogan. She's a fellow WordWriter and we'll be talking about fear-based PSA. It's kind of based on a blog she recently wrote. After that, we'll hear from Chris Schroder, the founder of The 100 Companies.Paul: The 100 Companies, right.Dan: Paul, you've met him. You have a pretty deep professional relationship.Paul: We do. And I think folks will enjoy the interview, three ex-journalists sitting around the table commiserating about journalism's past and talking about the future.Dan: Right? Yeah. That's always a lot of fun. And then we'll follow up with a Pittsburgh polyphony and Logan, you have somebody pretty exciting we're going to be talking to, correct?Logan: Yes, I do. We're going to be talking about a young neo soul artist coming out of the city. So I'm excited to talk about that.Dan: Right, yeah we're going to be really happy to hear from, well, we're not going to hear from her I guess, but we'll hear from her in her recording from one of her singles and we're really happy to hear that, and let's get to it.Dan: Okay, everybody. As we mentioned in the introduction, we are nearing the one year mark of the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue. With us is Maggie Feinstein. She's the director of the newly named 10.27 Healing Partnership. 10.27 that being a reference to the date of the attack in which 11 worshipers were killed on a Saturday morning going to synagogue. It was an act of hate, but our city has responded with a lot of acts of love, including programs like this. So thank you for taking the time to be with us here Maggie.Maggie: Thanks for having me here.Dan: Absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what you do with the healing center?Maggie: Absolutely. Thank you very much. My background is as a mental health clinician. I'm an LPC, a master's level clinician, and for the last 10 years or so, my work has really been around what we call brief interventions, working with medical doctors and working in medical environments and providing support to the doctors as well as to the patients when they come in for visits.Dan: Are you from Pittsburgh?Maggie: I'm from Pittsburgh. I grew up in Squirrel Hill. Yes.Dan: Oh wow.Maggie: I still live there and I'm currently raising my kids there.Dan: Being from there, can you tell us what that morning was like that Saturday?Maggie: Absolutely. I think that being from there – it is a very familiar place and it is actually somewhere where I've walked all those streets for many, many years. But that morning I was out for a run with a friend and usually we run through the park, but that morning because it was raining, we had run up and we weren't really paying attention. We ended up on Wilkins and we were running up Wilkins and remarked, Oh my gosh, we keep seeing people we know because that's sort of Squirrel Hill for you, people travel the same routes. And so people kept waving out the windows. So it was a morning unfortunately that I found myself outside of there, but was just about 20 minutes earlier and I was reminded of community really, which is what growing up in Squirrel Hill feels like, that it was hard to run down the street without having to stop and talk to lots of people. Which is a wonderful thing, though on that morning it did feel a little bit scary.Dan: That was an incredible day for all the wrong reasons. Can you tell us a little bit about the healing center then? When we talked previously, you'd mentioned being part of that community and now it's going to be a pretty integral piece I think.Maggie: So being from the neighborhood, it was this opportunity to try and serve the community that's been so great to me. And so after the shooting happened on October 27 there was a lot of amazing community activity going on, which I wasn't part of, but I'm really inspired by the community partners that stepped up to the plate. In Pittsburgh we have had such wonderful cooperation between the congregations, the nonprofits like the Jewish Community Center, Jewish Family and Community Services and the Jewish Federation. And so between the synagogues, those three major institutions as well as the Center for Victims, which is always ready and able to respond to community mental health needs, there was just this really amazing partnership that happened and then being able to eventually incorporate the voices of the victims and the survivors.Maggie: They all together created the 10.27 Healing Partnership. So I'm the director of it, but the truth was that it was the efforts that happened week in, week out afterwards of people really caring and people wanting to have their voices heard when it comes to what community recovery looks like since it was a community trauma.Dan: Right. And there is a level of a federal involvement with this?Maggie: Yes. And so immediately in the aftermath the federal government came, FBI, as well as the Office of Victims of Crime have offered a ton of support. They have people who were able to come in, help our community, help that group of people who were gathering to decide what to do next, help guide them through the process of creating what is generically known as a resiliency center. And those federal groups really were able to give perspective on how do we move forward, how do we gather, how do we anticipate what the community needs might look like, and then respond to those needs.Dan: Right.Logan: And so the, the healing centers recently opened, it opened on October 1st, correct?Maggie: It opened on October 2nd, yes.Logan: October 2nd, okay. And so it's been opened recently. Have you had a chance to gauge how they're responding to it now that it's open?Maggie: I think that opening our doors was a really awesome opportunity because what we say when people are feeling this sense of loss is that there's no wrong door and that the more doors that are open to people, the better. But I also think that before we opened our doors on October 2nd, a lot of people were accessing services through the Center for Victims or through JFCS. And so what we have seen in the last two weeks is that a lot of people are saying this is a relief to know this is here. It's good to know there's a door.Maggie: It doesn't mean that people were sitting and waiting to go just there because there are other places. But what a lot of people say is that I do have a therapist or I've been part of a support group and then there's just some days that feel really hard. And so knowing that I could come in here on those days that just feel hard to be with people, to gather, to maybe get some emotional support or maybe to practice some self-guided relaxation. People are saying, Oh that's really nice to know that's there.Logan: And going off that, I read that you guys actually have someone that will come to greet you when you get there and as you said, some days you're just feeling vulnerable or sad. How do you feel the importance of that is, just kind of having someone there to greet you and bring you in when you're going to the healing center?Maggie: I think it's so important. I think, I mean one functionally for the JCC, for people who are not members of the JCC, because that's where we are housed, we're using space within the JCC. For people who aren't members, it's helpful because they don't know their way around. But more importantly as humans it's nice to connect to people. And one of the things we know is that with trauma we kind of disconnect, we pull away. And so I think the earlier that people can connect and feel like somebody cares and feel like they're not alone, the better it is. And so the greeter role is a really important one where someone can come to the door and walk you up, make sure you have what you need and make sure you're comfortable.Dan: What do you see as a therapist, say the difference between an individual trauma and then traumas that might affect an entire community? I mean, there might be a guy who just works down the street who really, maybe he's not a Jewish person, but this tragedy, I mean, could greatly affect them.Maggie: Absolutely. And I think that's a really important point. And I think it's a good question because I've thought a lot about what is different than when something terrible happens to me and something terrible happens to the bigger community. And I think that there is a challenge because there are so many levels of grieving that can happen when there's a tragedy within the community and all of those different levels of grieving mean that people are hitting it at different moments and people are feeling different things. And so there's sort of these waves, but people aren't necessarily on the same wave as other people. And so that's one of the reasons that the federal government has thought through this, thought of having these resiliency centers and in Pittsburgh our resiliency center is the 10.27 Healing Partnership.Maggie: But to have these resiliency centers was thought out by Congress a long time ago after 9/11 when they realized that as communities continue to experience the losses that happened during a communal trauma, that it's very, the needs change and the needs need to be attended to. We have to keep ourselves aware of them. And one of the things that I would say is that the needs will evolve over time, that just like grief and like other experiences, that because it's a communal trauma, we want to evolve with the community's needs. We don't stay stuck. So the space that we created is meant to be as flexible as possible, but equally the services will be driven primarily by the people who come in and desire them. And the hope with that is that we can respond to what people are looking for rather than what I, with my mental health degree, believe people might be looking for because that's a lot less important than what it is that people are seeking.Dan: Maybe stepping outside of your professional role and just thinking of yourself as a Squirrel Hill resident. After this last year here, what do you see from the community and how do you see that either it has changed, good, bad, where people, where their heads might be and just where people are, how it feels there right now.Maggie: I think that this a high holiday season, Yom Kippur that just passed felt very different for most people. And I think that like most other grieving emotions, there's good and bad, they're complicated, they don't feel just one way. And the good part, I heard a lot of people say how relieving it was to go to synagogue this year and be around old friends, people that we haven't seen for a while and to feel that sense of connectedness. Like I was saying, that's one of the more important things. But for a number of the congregations there was also a sense of being displaced or the absence of the people who had been such wonderful community leaders in their congregations. And so I think that there is a lot of complicated emotions.Maggie: There's a lot of new relationships. There's also deepening of old relationships that are beautiful and wonderful to see and that people have connected not just within the Squirrel Hill community but within Greater Pittsburgh, like you were saying, there's a lot of people who've been affected from outside of Squirrel Hill of course, and a lot of them have come in to reconnect with old friends, to reconnect with community.Maggie: And so those are the moments that feel, we call that the mental health side, we call that the post traumatic growth. Those are opportunities where when something has been broken, there can be a new growth that comes out of it. But that at the same time there's just a big sense of loss. Like I was saying earlier with my morning that day when I came through Wilkins and it's just a small street, anybody from another city wouldn't consider it a major thoroughfare. But it is really hard to have the feeling of the change of the neighborhood with that building currently not being able to be occupied.Dan: What can you tell us with October 27th coming up here, what types of activities or events are going to be going on either at the center or just within the community?Maggie: There has been an effort by that same group of people that I'd mentioned earlier who helped to create the 10.27 Healing Partnership to create community events that happened on 10.27 this year, 10 27 2019. And that was something we learned from other communities was that it had to be owned by the community. And that there has to be something for people to do because there's often a lot of times where we have energy we want to give. So together that group's come up with the motto for the day is remember, repair, together. And those are lessons we've learned from other places. So there'll be community service, there's community service throughout the city. There's ways that people can sign up for slots, but there's also an encouragement that communities can gather on their own and create their own community service. It doesn't just have to be through organized community service.Maggie: And then also there'll be Torah study, which is really important in the Jewish tradition in terms of honoring people after death. And so the Torah study will be happening and there is a communal gathering at Soldiers and Sailors in the evening and throughout the day there'll be activities going on at the 10.27 Healing Partnership at the JCC, we'll be having for people who just don't really know what else they want to do that day. They're welcome to come and gather in community, sit together. The Highmark Caring Place will be there doing activities that are really geared towards being present with ourselves, being able to honor lives that were lost and also being able to support each other in this hard time.Dan: Right. And I'm not sure if we mentioned it earlier, but the Healing Partnership that's located, is that on Murray Avenue at the JCC?Maggie: Yeah, so the JCC sits at Forbes and Murray and Darlington.Dan: Okay, right.Maggie: It takes over that whole block. But yeah, so in Squirrel Hill, Forbes and Murray, and there will not be regularly scheduled activities that Sunday at the JCC. And the only real purpose for coming there will be people who want to gather in community. There won't be exercising or basketball or any of those other things that day.Dan: Right. Where can we find you online?Maggie: So the address is www.1027healingpartnership.org. And on the website we really tried to promote a lot of ways that people can do their own learning, exploration. Even some things that we can do on our own with apps and podcasts and things that people can do at home.Dan: Well Maggie, thank you so much for coming here and thank you so much for what you do in the community. We really appreciate you being here today.Maggie: Thank you so much for having me and thank you for highlighting the important things going on in Pittsburgh.Dan: Absolutely.Dan: All right, we're here with Erin Hogan, she's an account supervisor here at Word Write. And we wanted to talk with Erin here about one of her blogs that she just wrote for our storytellers blog. The title is fear based marketing campaigns are not always the right approach. A really interesting topic. It kind of sparked out of a conversation that we were having in the office and Erin, thanks for being with us and can you tell us a little bit about the blog?Erin: Yeah, thanks for having me. So really, this stemmed from a conversation I actually had with my husband. He sent me this video and asked for my opinion on it. I was, just had to be honest that I really didn't like it.Dan: Okay...Erin: I think it's from a-Dan: You didn't like the video. What's the video?Erin: So the Sandy Hook Promise PSA. It's basically this really dark play on a back to school supplies commercial. So it starts out with kids showing their folders and their backpacks and their skateboard and just general things that people and parents purchase their kids to go to school for the new year. And then it just starts to take a turn. You kind of see some shuffling happening in the background, and you start to notice that there's something happening at this school.Dan: There's an active shooter.Erin: There's an active shooter. And that's really what the video is supposed to get across, supposed to. The goal of this campaign is to show people, it's to encourage knowing the signs of gun violence before they happen. But the thing that really got me going with this video is that you're encouraging to know the signs about gun violence before they happen, when depicting an act of gun violence. That just seems to me counterintuitive to what they're trying to convey. Just in general, the whole concept of my blog, getting back to the point of this segment is fear based approach versus a positive tone of an ad. How do you, what's the best way to tell a story? I mean we're at WordWrite all about storytelling, finding the best way to tell a business story. But even in a general cause related marketing effort, what's the best way to tell a story?Dan: In advocacy, right.Erin: Right. And based on the evidence that I've found in the research, it really doesn't work. So sure everybody remembers the anti-drug PSAs in the ‘80s and ‘90s and 2000 that were funded by the Partnership for a Drug Free America. There was the your brain on drugs. That one was a big, everybody remembers that one. It was the guy in the kitchen saying this is your brain and he shows an egg. And then he hits it into a cast iron pan and says, this is your brain on drugs. And it's supposed to say your brain's fried on drugs. And basically over the years they had a bunch of variations, that it was basically saying if you do drugs, your parents won't approve. Well when was the last time a 14, 15 year old kid listened to what their parents do.Erin: They didn't work and in fact it caused the adverse effect. It encouraged kids to think that drugs were cool. There was something, it was the anti, going against my parents. Whereas they took a shift, a more encouraging shift in the mid 2000s, many of the younger generations will remember this, the above the influence campaigns. Which basically, instead of showing imagery of kids defying their parents and the consequences of their actions, it took a more positive tone, basically showing the positive ramifications of making an informed decision on their own and having the independence and the courage to say no without any oversight from their parents. Those actually performed far better.Erin: So it begs the question to me for a PSA like the Sandy Hook Promise PSA. Would it have had a more resounding impact or a better impact on the viewers if it showed the positives of stopping gun violence versus the negatives of what happens after gun violence occurs?Dan: One thing I think that's important that we'd be remiss if we didn't add here is that the ad itself within, I think a couple of days of it, I think had actually earned millions of dollars or a great sum for Sandy Hook Promise. So for that group, so-Erin: Donated ad spend.Dan: Donated ad, yeah there we go.Erin: Or ad, media placements.Dan: This is why we have Erin on because she can say the right words.Erin: I'm here all night.Dan: Exactly, this is going to be one of two hours now with Erin. No, but it did have an impact. It did, it did, it was successful. And I think something important right now that we have to think of is, do we have to be provocative today? Is that how you get people's attention or is there a way to balance that? Logan, you want to jump in?Logan: Yeah, sure. I think also this is just a microcosm of society at large where we've become less of, even in the media where 20 years ago it counted on who was reporting the right news at the right time and now it's become who's reporting it first, whether or not they have to issue corrections later or not. And so I think in that same kind of click-baity kind of way that that society on, especially on the internet has become, I think that this PSA may have fallen victim to that. And as you said, whether or not that was the right move is kind of debatable, but I think this is a small part of a society's directional move at large.Erin: Yeah, I mean certainly you have to cut through the clutter. No one would dismiss that. Especially any talented marketer. I'm also not insinuating or advocating for doing nothing. Doing nothing is never an answer either-Dan: Right.Erin: They certainly have an admirable cause that they're going after here. And obviously the genesis of the Sandy Hook Promise Organization, it comes out of, it was birthed from a really horrible, horrible tragedy in United States history. But in terms of the approach and just looking at it from a technical messaging standpoint that we as marketers do, I'm just not sure it fully executed what it’s intention initially was.Dan: All right. Well Erin, you definitely gave us a lot to think about here. We thank you for coming on and I think for sure we'll be seeing, as long as we have television, as long as we have advertising, we're going to see similar ads like this, so we'll be sure to keep our eyes on it and follow those trends. So thanks a lot.Erin: Yeah, thanks for having me. Bye guys.Logan: Centuries before cell phones and social media, human connections were made around fires as we shared, the stories have shaped our world. Today, stories are still the most powerful way to move hearts and minds and inspire action. At WordWrite, Pittsburgh's largest independent public relations agency, we understand that before you had a brand, before you sold any product or service, you had a story. WordWrite helps clients to uncover their own capital S story. The reason someone would want to buy, work, invest or partner with you through our patented story crafting process. Visit wordwritepr.com to uncover your capital S story.Paul: We mark an anniversary with this episode of the P100 podcast, the audio companion to the Pittsburgh 100, and that is the second anniversary of the Pittsburgh 100 e-zine. Our podcast is a little bit younger here but we're pleased to have with us in the studio for this segment, Chris Schroder, who is the founder of The 100 Companies. Say hello there Chris.Chris: Good morning Pittsburgh.Paul: The Pittsburgh 100 and this podcast are one of more than 20 affiliated publications in The 100 Companies network. Chris is in town for a few days, visiting, working with us on a few things. So we thought it'd be a great opportunity to give the listeners a little bit of background on why we do the 100, why we do this podcast. And since Dan and I are both former journalists and so is Chris, to have one of those, “didn't journalism used to be great and now where the hell is it going”, sort of a conversation.Dan: Was it ever great?Paul: Dan, your experience might be different than mine.Dan: I wasn't in the Woodward Bernstein era, so I don't know.Paul: I had a tee shirt when I got into journalism, which was during that era. The tee-shirt said "If your mother loves you, if your mother says she loves you, check it out".Chris: Trust, but verify.Paul: That's right. That's right. So Chris, tell us a little bit about your background.Chris: My blood is full of ink. I was a high school newspaper editor, college newspaper editor, came up in the Watergate era, graduated from high school when Nixon was resigning and then worked for six daily newspapers, and then started my own neighborhood newspapers in Atlanta. And we built that up to about a hundred thousand circulation, had about three different titles. About 10 years ago I started working with some journalists in the Atlanta area who worked for the daily newspaper and they were unfortunately being downsized out of the daily paper.Paul: A common refrain.Chris: Yes, and so they, I helped them start a publication there that had a newsletter, website and social media platform. So I helped them start that. I'd developed a revenue model for them. It's doing great 10 years later. But I noticed three or four years in that people were not clicking on the read more link in the stories as much as they used to in the newsletter. They were seeming to be fine with a shorter excerpt. So I tried to come up with a newsletter where you did not have to click through, where everything was contained in the newsletter itself and so we started designing that, realized that might be about a hundred words. So we said, why don't we call it the Atlanta 100, every article be exactly 100 words, every video be exactly a hundred seconds. And we went to market, people really enjoyed it.Chris: And later I talked to a conference of PR owners, about 150 owners in the room, and was telling them the history of content marketing all the way through the rise of newspapers and the fall of newspapers and ended with a journalism project on the Atlanta 100. And at the end of it, 12 owners came up and gave me their business cards and said I'd like to start a 100 in my city. So that thus began the expansion into a network of The 100 Companies.Paul: So Chris, something that Dan and I get a question about quite often, and really Dan is the editorial director here, having come to us directly from journalism. Where do the 100 publications and podcasts like this sit on the journalistic scale? I mean we joked about Woodward and Bernstein, obviously we're not an investigative journalism enterprise. How would you describe what we do?Chris: Well, we are part of what I see as the new emerging marketplace in media where we've had a sort of disassembling over the last few years of the traditional media marketplace. So 1,800 newspapers have closed in the last 18 years. Tens of thousands of journalists have been let go to be put into other jobs or find other careers. We've had a lot of changes, a lot of new emerging media coming up digitally. There's a lot of interest of course in the last 20 years in social media, but now we're finding the problems in that with Facebook and other issues of privacy.Chris: So I think what we are is a part of the solution and part of the experimentation that we will in another five years start to see a lot of clarity as people start to organize and merge. And there will be some platforms that emerge and some that fall away as we're seeing now with the larger level of some of the streaming, a lot of organization going on with HBO and AT&T and Comcast and different people trying to organize who's going to win. There'll probably be three or four winners in the streaming of video. Disney's getting into it, so many other people are. But there's going to be a consolidation there. Eventually, there'll be a consolidation of, as there was in the beginning of traditional newspapers in America in the 1700s, there will be eventually a settling of the industry and we certainly expect the 100 platform to be one of the winners.Paul: So gentlemen, last question, biggest question. What is the future of journalism?Dan: Well, if I could jump into it first here. Obviously the 100 gives us again, just a small little piece of the media landscape here in Pittsburgh. We're not going to be, we're never going to be the PG. We're not that. And it's not what we're trying to be. But I see a lot of former journalists in Pittsburgh that have found websites that maybe five, 10 years ago people would've considered blogs and blogs maybe had a stigma compared to them. But now we're seeing really sharp good people with news sense.Paul: Yes.Dan: They understand what is newsworthy.Paul: Storytellers.Dan: They're good writers, they're storytellers and they're finding these outlets that people are starting to gravitate to. Not long ago we had Rossliynne Culgan of The Incline on. They're doing a lot of great work there. Between say Next Pittsburgh, we see good stuff from out of them. There are a lot of good small outlets that journalists are flocking to after they either lose their job or they just realize that, I hate it, there's not much of a route forward in the newspapers. So there's always going to be room for people that know how to write, I feel like.Paul: Yes. And tell stories and write information. Chris.Chris: I think storytelling is very primal. That's how we all learned to hear, store and retrieve information as children. And it goes back millennia, the storytelling tradition. So I think it's very important to do it in as few as a hundred words or as many as 10,000 words. I'd like to look at journalism on a continuum and I think what's going to happen, I like to think that it's all sort of a pendulum. And that while in the last five to 10 years, our attention spans have gotten much shorter, I think we're poised and ready for what I think might be one day a pendulum swing by a future generation who, attention spans will start to push to be much longer and they'll appreciate the longer read and the longer write. And I think that could happen. Right now we're still in the throws of people just getting very short morsels of information. Twitter did expand from 140 to 280 characters, but I think we're going to see two or three years from now, people start to settle in and realize that morsels are good, but it still leaves them hungry.Paul: Well, Chris, really appreciate the perspective. Thanks for being here in Pittsburgh and joining us for this segment on the podcast today. We will have to have you back at some time in the future and see how some of your predictions and Dan's have meted out.Chris: Well, you all are doing great work. You're one of the leaders of our national network, and so thank you for the work you're doing and the innovations you're doing with this podcast and other things. Keep up the great work.Paul: Thank you, Chris.Dan: Thanks, Chris.Dan: Okay, we're back for another edition of our Pittsburgh polyphony series here and really enjoy this one because we get a chance to learn about some new artists that are doing some great things in the region here and Logan, this is a pretty new, interesting artist that we want to talk about here and can take us to introduction.Logan: So we're going to be talking about Sierra Sellers today. Neo soul, RMB, jazz artist in the Pittsburgh region and she's been putting out some tracks, but she's really seen some recognition in the recent past and I had the opportunity to see her at Club Cafe about a month ago and she just really brings a lot of great energy to the room. She has a great voice and her and her band really interact well and she just brings a lot of positive vibes to the audience.Dan: Yeah, that's one thing I think, you talk about the energy here and that's an important part of a performer here. As a guy, as an artist yourself, what do you think that offers whenever somebody can kind of control a crowd?Logan: Oh, it's invaluable. I mean it's the same as any other kind of entertainer, whether you're a comedian or anything else up on stage. And being a performer versus doing a performance is the difference between getting up on stage and singing or rapping or whatever you're doing, all your songs or giving an actual performance and putting on a show to the audience. So, one is vastly more memorable and more connective than the other. And being able to do that on stage is something that, if you want to be a successful artist, you're going to have to learn how to do.Dan: When you talk about Sierra, what exactly is it that she uniquely brings to the stage?Logan: Yes. So initially it's just herself. She just has kind of a bubbly personality, but she also gets the crowd to interact and she tells some stories from inspiration behind the songs or inspiration behind the instrumental or the production and talks with the band and just really kind of gets a feel for the audience and kind of feels them out and is able to work the crowd.Dan: That's awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about the track we're about to hear?Logan: Yes. So we're about to hear a track of Sierra's called Shine. It's a recent track, the leader on Spotify's playlist. They have a set of astrological sign playlists, with a pretty prominent following, and this landed her on Spotify as Libra playlist. It's collaboration with fellow Pittsburgh rapper who goes by My Favorite Color, which is a great name. But yeah, we're going to lead you out with Shine by Sierra Sellers. A nice vibey track. Great for just a chill day. Just a little mood booster. So hope you enjoy. 

Talking Through Stradivarius On this episode 89 of The Walking Dead Talk Through, Mark and I discuss The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 7, which is titled Stradivarius. This was written by Vivian Tse, who is a new writer to the show, and directed by Michael Cudlitz, who I’m sure you all remember played Abraham. This season continues to be the best in years. SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! The rest of this blog post requires a SPOILER WARNING!!! If you haven’t watched this week’s episode, then you probably should stop now. Daryl’s been searching… but won’t ever find what he’s looking for It seems like Daryl has been out there, searching for Rick for the past six years, living alone, except for a new dog named Dog. It turns out that Daryl has the same X scar as Michonne does. Speaking of Daryl and Michonne… and Maggie… It was postulated that perhaps the rift between Michonne and Maggie could have been based upon Michonne finding out the circumstances behind why Rick was out there in the first place. If she found out that Daryl kept Rick out there to keep him away from Alexandria, and that Daryl’s actions were in part to blame for Rick’s purported death, then I could see there being a rift between Michonne and Maggie, and Daryl could have also been blamed. Maybe that’s why Daryl never went back to Alexandria, in addition to the guilt Daryl has. It doesn’t explain why they both have the same scar. I doubt that Maggie would have done that to them both. The walkers are speaking now??? Or are they??? Continuing from the end of the last episode, we see Rosita being pursued by a herd of walkers that can speak. She somehow got separated from Eugene, and the episode ends with the search for Eugene, led by Dog! Unfortunately, ratings have reached a new low… This week, TWD only got a 1.80 in the 18-49, with 4.794 million, down from 2.02 and 5.396 million last week. The 1.80 marks the all-time low for ratings in the 18-49 demographic. There were two episodes lower in viewers in Season 1, but this episode isn’t far ahead of them. With the mid-season finale airing on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, it’s highly possible that next week’s ratings could go even lower, although I hope I am wrong. Charts below. Leave us your feedback! Please leave your feedback for The Walking Dead, Season 9 Episode 8, titled Evolution, by 6 PM Eastern/5 PM Central on Tuesday, November 27, 2018. Check the Facebook group for any deadline changes, and that’s one of the best ways to leave feedback for us! Other Fun Stuff Completely Unrelated to Stradivar

Talking Through Stradivarius On this episode 89 of The Walking Dead Talk Through, Mark and I discuss The Walking Dead Season 9 Episode 7, which is titled Stradivarius. This was written by Vivian Tse, who is a new writer to the show, and directed by Michael Cudlitz, who I'm sure you all remember played Abraham. This season continues to be the best in years. SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! The rest of this blog post requires a SPOILER WARNING!!! If you haven't watched this week's episode, then you probably should stop now. Daryl's been searching… but won't ever find what he's looking for It seems like Daryl has been out there, searching for Rick for the past six years, living alone, except for a new dog named Dog. It turns out that Daryl has the same X scar as Michonne does. Speaking of Daryl and Michonne… and Maggie… It was postulated that perhaps the rift between Michonne and Maggie could have been based upon Michonne finding out the circumstances behind why Rick was out there in the first place. If she found out that Daryl kept Rick out there to keep him away from Alexandria, and that Daryl's actions were in part to blame for Rick's purported death, then I could see there being a rift between Michonne and Maggie, and Daryl could have also been blamed. Maybe that's why Daryl never went back to Alexandria, in addition to the guilt Daryl has. It doesn't explain why they both have the same scar. I doubt that Maggie would have done that to them both. The walkers are speaking now??? Or are they??? Continuing from the end of the last episode, we see Rosita being pursued by a herd of walkers that can speak. She somehow got separated from Eugene, and the episode ends with the search for Eugene, led by Dog! Unfortunately, ratings have reached a new low… This week, TWD only got a 1.80 in the 18-49, with 4.794 million, down from 2.02 and 5.396 million last week. The 1.80 marks the all-time low for ratings in the 18-49 demographic. There were two episodes lower in viewers in Season 1, but this episode isn't far ahead of them. With the mid-season finale airing on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, it's highly possible that next week's ratings could go even lower, although I hope I am wrong. Charts below. Leave us your feedback! Please leave your feedback for The Walking Dead, Season 9 Episode 8, titled Evolution, by 6 PM Eastern/5 PM Central on Tuesday, November 27, 2018. Check the Facebook group for any deadline changes, and that’s one of the best ways to leave feedback for us! Other Fun Stuff Com

Adam Whiting, now a well-known yoga teacher around the world for his smart sequencing and anatomical focus in class, was at one time just trying to understand what was going wrong in his body. After seeing doctor after doctor in Manhattan, trying to diagnose massive dizzy spells, headaches and seemingly random spouts of numbness throughout his body, he was told by all accounts that his body was "fine." "I was diagnosed with having anxiety disorder and panic attacks," Whiting told me. "And it didn't fit for me, because it wasn't presenting itself as anxiety. I wasn't stressed. I wasn't depressed. And in my mind, at that point, my knowledge about anxiety disorder was so limited that I was sort of in denial." At that time, Whiting was working in New York as a musician. But in order to pay the bills, he worked nine-to-five at an insurance agency - a job which, he describes, was a major catalyst for his anxiety disorder and also the catalyst for him finding what he was truly meant to be doing. "A friend introduced me to asana, to postural yoga. After several months of just doing yoga...I could feel the anxiety start to unwrap itself. It was just the most amazing feeling of actually feeling safe in my own skin again." After feeling how yoga helped and healed him, he knew it was something he wanted to teach. From that point forward, he launched into his first teacher training. He began teaching right away, supplemented that with playing music, and didn't look back. And even though it became a greater hustle to make ends meet, it was all building towards a greater purpose, or Dharma, as you'll hear Whiting describe in the episode. He started teaching more and more classes, then began traveling for workshops, and then started running trainings and retreats, all in addition to playing music on the side and weaving it into his teaching repertoire. He describes it as all part of a tapestry in "whatever this career is." Whiting sums it up nicely, but his tapestry is composed of many moving pieces that all move him in the direction where he wants to take his career and his life. From moving to Australia to lead trainings alongside owner of Power Living Duncan Peak, to hosting retreats across the world, to moving back to the U.S. to lead his first 200-hour yoga teacher training on his own, Whiting lets meditation be his guide in setting goals for his future. And rather than setting traditional, tangible goals, Whiting is focused on following his Dharma. He sees those action items to achieve more as the logistics to align in order to go after something bigger. "I absolutely do have goals of running more teacher trainings, of having my advanced 300-hour training up and running, of having a tour in Australia and running retreats in Australia and Bali. But in my mind, I sort of think of them as logistical things to align so that I can look out past that and set my sails towards that journey with the knowledge that the winds are going to blow me somewhere completely unexpected, but also with the the trust that wherever I end up is where I'm supposed to be." Listen to Adam Whiting’s episode of the #WeGotGoals podcast to hear more about how he views Dharma, his purpose and duty in life, and the way he views goals that ladder up to that. Thanks to Cody Hughes for the photo used in this post. You can listen anywhere you get your podcasts (including Spotify!) and if you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or a review. And stick around until the end of the episode, where you’ll hear a goal from one of you, our listeners. (Want to be featured on a future episode? Send a voice memo with a goal you’ve crushed, a goal you’re eyeing, or your best goal-getting tip to cindy@asweatlife.com.)   --- Start transcript: [0:00] Jeana: Welcome to We Got Goals, a podcast by asweatlife.com, on which we talk to high achievers about their goals. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen with me I have Maggie Umberger and Cindy Kuzma. Cindy: Good morning Jeana. Maggie: Morning Jeana. Jeana: Good morning. Maggie, this week you spoke to Adam Whiting. And you actually got to do that interview from home. Maggie: I did. I talked to Adam who is a yoga instructor. Who I think started teaching in Charlotte, North Carolina. Where I am from. And then has since moved to Australia and then back to North Carolina. But he continues to lead trainings and retreats and experiences across the world. In Bali. In Sri Lanka. In throughout Australia. He's taught at Wanderlust. He teaches in a lot of places. I've always just really respected his classes. I have loved them and I wanted to know a little more about his journey to yoga. How he got to the idea of wanting to teach internationally. Because that is a whole other track of teaching that I don't know a lot about. So I was really excited to get to talk to him and then I was home. So I got to do it in person before taking one of his awesome classes. Cindy: Oh, that's so great and it sounds like not just what he said but how he said it left an impact on you. Maggie: It did. And I didn't even say this to him after. So if he listens to this episode he'll be like, "Oh, she didn't tell me that." But I was noticing how mindful he was as he was answering any of the questions that I asked. Or response to something he would say. And thinking about that a little bit more. And even like closing his eyes. Taking time to answer mindfully. I don't do that always. And so I think we don't always love silence and we kind of mumble through things until we get to the point. But he was just really thoughtful about what he wanted to say. And then speaking to that versus talking around the point at all. So I thought that was probably a testament to, in general, his journey toward mindfulness as a teacher. He didn't begin teaching yoga with this meditation center. He actually talks about this in the episode of being very anxious and having anxiety attacks and not really sure of what was going on in his body. He was a musician in New York. Doing that grind of working other jobs. Sitting at a desk while he was trying to have gigs at night and make it as a musician in New York. He was getting beat down through that grind. And so meditation actually, when he was introduced to it just had him sitting with his thoughts more. And he didn't really like that. And so the Asana practice, the movement piece of yoga was what keyed him into a different way of life. Or a different kind of thought pattern. And that he could get out of that anxiousness mode. So the meditation piece came later as I learned. But it really is like a stronghold to his practice and how he teaches now. Jeana: And Maggie, Adam almost didn't do this interview at all, right? And this isn't the first time this has happened to us. Can you talk a little bit about why he sort of has trouble with the concept of goals? Maggie: Yeah, he asked me like, "Is it okay if I don't really have goals. If we do this interview?" And I always think any input on how people view goals is beneficial. However, you see it. Whether you notice or, you know, want to kind of go down the path that one of these goal-getters goes down. Or you kind of take that at face value and choose something different. That's what's cool about this podcast is there's so many different viewpoints. And he said that he's worked with brands and at companies where setting goals has been a central piece of the puzzle. And so he understands it. And he knows that there's benefits to setting a ten-year vision and going after it. And then really executing on your one-year goals to make that ten-year vision a reality. But for him, what's he's found along the way is that he is much more in tune with the idea of dharma. Dharma he says is widely known as your calling but really it's more like your duty. Like your purpose. Why are you put on this earth? And you've got to find that. You've got to search for that. And then you've got to do it. And so that's really what leads him. And that seems ambiguous. And that can be scary. Like that's scary for me to think about. Just, oh my god, what is the one reason I'm here on this earth. But that doesn't really scare him. That's more of like what lights him up. And I think when he speaks about that you'll hear just how much of a guiding force that is for and all of the teachers he has learned from and how teaches now. Jeana: Well what a mindful way to think about goals and we're so excited to hear this interview with Maggie and Adam. Keep those earpods in goal-getters. There's more to this episode at the end. We'll hear from people just like you out there achieving big goals or trying new things or maybe just setting big goals. [4:56] Maggie: So I'm here with Adam Whiting. Who I have had the pleasure of taking class from many times before he moved to Australia. He's a yoga instructor traveling around the world teaching yoga. Also a musician. You're many things Adam and I'm really, really excited to get to talk to you about your journey as not just a yoga teacher but I mean really as a teacher. For a lot of different people across the world. It's a pleasure to have you on our podcast. So thank you for joining us. Adam: Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. It is completely my pleasure. Maggie: So I did take your class probably first six years ago. Before you moved. And I remember it was like a Wednesday night, 8-9pm or something. And it was a class that I felt like changed my life. I loved it. Adam: Oh wow. Maggie: Yeah, it was just like the transitions were so interesting and you had such a unique perspective. And I remember the savasana was like 15 minutes long. And I had never had that before. And I so appreciated it. So before we jump into talking all about goals. I would love for the listeners at home to just get to hear your journey to yoga, just really briefly. [6:14] Adam: Yeah, absolutely. The story sort of starts in New York City. And I was living there. I moved up there in 2001. And lived up there for a few years. While I was up there I started getting some pretty massive dizzy spells. Some pretty massive headaches. Some random parts of my body, my arm, my face, my legs, were going numb at random times. And I really wasn't sure what was happening. And after taking a tour around several medical professionals, neurologists, doctors, general doctors, MRIs, spinal taps, blood tests. They basically all came to the conclusion that my body was fine. And I was diagnosed with having anxiety disorder and panic attacks. And it didn't fit for me because it wasn't presenting itself as anxiety. Like I wasn't stressed. I wasn't depressed. And in my mind at that point, my knowledge about anxiety disorder was so limited that for me I was sort of in denial. Saying no these are physical symptoms. These are symptoms that I'm getting headaches, I'm getting dizzy. This is physical things. Something has to be physically wrong with me. And it took this really compassionate doctor speaking to me about. Well, she actually made a bargain with me. She's like listen. I understand where you're coming from but let's put you on these anti-anxiety medications for just a little bit. And if your symptoms go away then we can talk, right. Then if you come in believing that this is actually what's going on with you then we can work around different ways to sort of treat the symptoms. So I agreed. And lo and behold she was right. And immediately, I started sort of seeking different ways to address the issues. Medication worked wonderfully for me but I also knew that it wasn't something that I wanted to be reliant on long-term. And I knew that there were other answers out there for me. So I started looking at meditation as the means to heal and to move on from this. And to be completely honest with you, meditation in and of itself actually made it worse. Because I was at that point, just in this state of just. I didn't realize how stressed I was. I didn't realize how just overflowing with anxiety I was. This was just post September 11th and the city was in turmoil. And the world was in turmoil. And to be there during that time. I didn't really realize how deeply those rivers of anxiety were flowing. So when I was asked to sit in the stillness of meditation it actually triggered more anxiety. And it triggered more panic attacks. So I moved away from that. And then finally, you know, a dear friend of mine introduced me to Asana, to a postural yoga. And after several months of just doing postural yoga I could finally start to feel that sort of barbed wire of anxiety, you know, start to unwrap itself from my being. And it was just the most amazing feeling of actually feeling safe in my own skin again. But like I said, not realizing how unsafe I felt. And then I started exploring more meditation with the postural yoga. And immediately when I felt how amazing this practice was. And how much it served to help me and heal me. I knew it was something that I wanted to teach. Pretty immediately, I knew that this was calling out to me to share. So after getting my first yoga teacher training certification. I just jumped into teaching right away. And, you know, I was young and fresh and so passionate about it. It's funny looking back on those first classes those, you know, six, seven, eight years ago. I sort of shake my head a little bit. Of like, oh my god those classes must have been awful. But I think that's sort of true in any sort of medium you care so much about. And as you grow and evolve and mature, your teaching and your skill and your craft evolves and matures. So hopefully, eight years from now when I look back at the classes I'm teaching now I'll be appalled because I've learned that much more in the eight years. So after teaching. I was in Charlotte, North Carolina for a few years teaching. And I got this amazing opportunity to teach in Australia. This wonderful man, teacher, business owner. His name is Duncan Peak, owns Power Living Australia Yoga. And that is a group of nine studios around Australia and New Zealand. And after some sort of back-and-forth and a wonderful trip to Australia. I agreed to move out to Sydney and help coach their teachers and lead their teacher trainings. And travel around to the cities in Australia where they have studios. And teach classes, run workshops, run teacher trainings and, you know, also run retreats in Bali for our teacher trainings. So it was an amazing few years of really quick growth. Really rapid education on my part. And just to be in that part of the world was unbelievable. It's still some of the most beautiful places I've ever been are there. So I lived there for a few years and it was absolutely amazing. But towards the end of those few years, I could feel these little strings pulling my heart back to America. My family's here and we'd always been really, really tight. And in Australia, just being able to come back once a year was amazing but it wasn't quite enough. And there were some issues with family stuff that were really pulling me back to be home. To be closer with family. And it also sort of aligned really beautifully with my desire to be an independent yoga teacher. Working out in Australia was absolutely amazing but I was also working for another brand. And it was an amazing brand but it was a brand that wasn't Adam Whiting or Adam Whiting Yoga. It was another brand. And there's always been a craving inside of my journey and my career to just speak from my own voice and teach my own trainings in the way that I've learned. And the way that I want to share. Without really, it might sound blunt, but without really having to answer to anybody else. So in moving back to America and back to Charlotte. And running my first teacher training here which is an independent Adam Whiting Yoga Teacher Training. It feels amazing to be able to, you know, put my stamp on the certificates. And say that, you know, these students learned from me. And to be able to craft my own calendar and run my own events. And just sort of again, it sounds blunt, but not to have to answer to anybody else. To be able to craft my own future in the way that I want it is really encouraging and I'm really excited about the next few years. Maggie: I hear probably something that a lot of people would nod their head at and say that they want to be in charge of their own destinies too. Adam: Absolutely. [14:28] Maggie: And that's a huge, like. I can imagine that feeling, that calling inside you. Cause I feel it in me. And I feel like so many people. Especially now, that there are so many avenues to create your own path. That it isn't the 9-5 structure of jobs as much as it used to be. Especially in the recent years. So I wonder, what for you was some of the helpful guides in pushing along this path. To create it for yourself. Because while I know a lot of people want it. It's another to actually go for it and do it. [15:02] Adam: Yeah, absolutely. It's I think my journey is not quite a typical journey. My journey started playing the guitar. As you said, I'm a musician. And I started playing the guitar when I was eleven or twelve. And I was only playing it for a couple of years. And just by sort of coincidence and I think we'll talk a little bit more about coincidences later. The guitar teacher that I had was graduating from college. And he said, "Okay. I'm leaving you. I can't teach you anymore. But there's this amazing school. And I want you to go down for a summer session." So and that was University of North Carolina School of the Arts. And it was between my eighth and ninth grade year. And I studied there for a few weeks. And it was my first sort of time away from home. And I remember I was really homesick. And I think I cried a lot on the phone with my mom. It was terrifying being away from home that young for me. But then basically by the time I got back home from the training or the summer session, the guitar teacher at this university had called my mother. And said that he wanted me to study there full-time. So I studied at this university, at this conservatory for seven years. Through high school, through my undergrad. And immediately that's when I moved up to New York City. And when I got to New York was the first time I ever had that real 9-5 job. And, you know, like any musician in New York, especially. You're a musician which means you're unloading trucks. Or you're a waiter. Or you're, you know, working data entry at an insurance agency. Which is what I was doing in a cubicle from 9-5. And I think that working that job was one of the catalysts for one. One of the catalysts for my anxiety disorder and my stress because I was so deeply unhappy there. But because of that was the catalyst for me getting out. You know, and I remember the day that I quit and it was. I remember walking around. It was in downtown New York, in Manhattan. And I remember walking around after I had resigned. And I was sort of like halfway smiling, halfway crying, like halfway like I don't know how I'm going to make a living now. But I had no choice. It was one of those things that comes up with me quite often is I don't have a choice right now. So this is the path that I'm going to walk down. So from there on out, I pretty much just started hoofing it as a musician. I started teaching lessons. I started performing as much as I could. I recorded an album. And I was still unloading trucks at a Crate & Barrel in midtown at the same time. So I was still working jobs to pay my rent. But there was always this sort of, just this hustle, of you've got to do this. Because you don't really have a choice. And then I moved back to Charlotte. And when I moved back to Charlotte from New York. One, the cost of living was significantly less. So I was really surprised that I could make a living as a musician at that point. You know, gigging on the weekends and teaching lessons. And then teaching yoga. And all of a sudden teaching yoga so sort of started to take precedence. And I started teaching more and more classes. And then I started traveling for workshops. And then I started running trainings. And then retreats. And it was sort of this beautiful crescendo where more and more yoga opportunities were coming and the music opportunities were sort of fading away. And what's beautiful now is that they've both sort of come together. Like I'm still playing music, we're running Kirtans. This, you know, traditional chants in yoga. And recording a cd. And it's sort of come together in this beautiful tapestry of whatever this career is. But I think what you said is really important. Is that I think the definition of career is really changing. That the idea of that 9-5 job that my dad had where he worked for Federal Express from out of college until the day he died. Really it still exists but it's not. I don't think it's really the stronghold that it used to be. And now there's sort of this freedom of creating what you want to create for your life, for your job, for your career. And it still terrifies me. Because I'm sitting here. You know, meandering into my late thirties. And really happy with my career and really happy with where everything is right now. But I'm also thinking about retirement funds and do I want to be teaching yoga when I'm in my fifties. Or what's going to happen and how am I going to create this financial stability that. You know, if I did follow the path of my father or my grandfather that they had the retirement funds and the IRAs and all of this stuff set up which I don't have. And part of me gets really terrified about that and then part of me also is just sort of trusting, right? Part of me just sort of thinks. Okay, well here we are. And this is the path that I'm moving through in this lifetime. And, you know, these first few decades I've figured it out. So hopefully I'll continue to figure it out. Maggie: I think it's a good mentality. I mean if your past is any track record for the future, you will figure it out. So let's talk about big goals. The biggest question that we ask on the podcast is what's one big goal that you've accomplished that you're proud to say that you did and how you got there? [21:07] Adam: It's interesting. I knew that you were going to ask this question and I've spent some time these past couple of days sort of hovering around that question. And I really didn't come up with one goal. Because I'm not really the type of person that sort of makes a goal list. Or a vision chart. And, you know, through my teaching and yoga I've interacted with several brands who have put me through that sort of, you know, vision statements and ten-year goals and five-year goals and one-year goals. And I think that's very helpful and I think there's a lot to be said for that. But at the same time even when I was doing it. It wasn't really lighting me up. Like it wasn't inspiring me for the future. For creating something that moved me closer towards whatever those goals are. It actually sort of intimidated me a little bit. So I was like well I don't know. I don't want to set this goal that I'm not sure of this house or this family or this career. Like I want these goals and I want these visions but I also want to be able to flow. And if I didn't have that idea of flow in my life. I wouldn't have ended up in Australia or Bali or back here. And I don't think I'd be where I was right now. So there's something to be said for. In yoga, we call it Sankalpa and Sankalpa means intention. In yoga, we speak towards the word dharma a lot. I think it's softly and steadily turning into a phrase that might be a bit overused these days. Or maybe mistranslated is a better way of saying it. But in dharma, a lot of people think of dharma as being your calling. But the more accurate translation actually means your duty. I think that's a little bit more accurate because it's not just what am I inspired to do. It's like what do I have to do? Like why was I put here on this earth? And I have to with everything that I have and with my entire being and with my entire life I have to find that. I have to find my calling. Why I'm here. It's my duty. And for me, instead of charting out ten-year, five-year, one-year. The way that I've sort of navigated through it is more silence. More meditation. More introspection. And when I sort of back away and take those times of stillness and of meditation. I feel like I'm shedding away the layers of the external thought patterns. Of my doubts and of my worry. And of that constant negative chatter that lives in my head and a lot of other people's heads. To just sort of sit in my center. To sit in my being for a little while. And to actually listen. And to listen to what my heart truly wants. And it's in that listening that my compass sort of sets itself. And what the yogic tradition believes is that once you find that connection to your source. That connection to your calling. And you notice, we could several words here. We could use the word the universe, we could use the word divinity, we could use the word grace. But when you start to notice the essences of that force, that power, that energy resonating in your life. That energy starts to notice you noticing her. And she begins to unfold for you. And what I mean by that. One of my favorite quotes which may or may not be tattooed somewhere on my body in some way. Is an Emerson quote which is, "The world makes way for the man who knows which way he is going." It really resonates with the Vedic knowledge, with the yogic knowledge of once you have discovered your dharma. Your path down this life and you set your sails and you start moving in that direction. The world has a beautiful way of creating the path for you. And it's not going to be the path that you think it is. You know, it's not going to be the route that you think you should be going down. But it is a path that if you trust it, it will lead you to somewhere beyond your wildest expectations. So in goals, I absolutely do have goals. Goals of, you know, in 2019 running some more teacher trainings. Of having my advanced 300-hour training up and running. Of having a tour in Australia. And running retreats in Australia and Bali. And these are sort of, I guess we can consider them short-term, one-year goals. But in my mind I sort of think of them as logistical things to align. So that I can sort of look out past that. And like I said set my sails towards that journey with the knowledge and the expectations that the winds are going to blow me somewhere completely unexpected. But also with the trust that wherever I end up is where I'm supposed to be. Maggie: I have a two-part question. Or maybe two separate questions. Adam: Okay. Maggie: First, do you know what your duty is now? [26:55] Adam: Okay, interesting. So good. I'm leading a teacher training here in Charlotte. And we just, and I think a couple weekends ago we just had this conversation. There's this beautiful book. It's called The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope. And it's this modern sort of retelling. Not necessarily retelling but a modern analysis of the Bhagavad Gita. And it talks about all of these characters who've found their calling. And they pursued it. And we had this big conversation with our trainees. And some of them knew and some of them didn't. And some of them were really stressed out that they didn't know. And some of them were really disappointed that they didn't. And some of them weren't sure that it was right. And it was really revealing. And we have a retreat coming up in a couple of weeks where we will go through a process of finding their dharma. Or I don't know that puts a lot of pressure on the retreat. Let's say getting closer to discovering it. In my journey in discovering it and what I've found. And this is through working with an amazing book called the Four Desires written by an amazing yoga teacher named Rod Stryker. He puts you through several writing exercises. In several different manners which pulls away sort of this layered thought of what dharma really is. And I think in Western wrapping we often think of dharma as your career, like your job. And if not that, maybe it's your family. And if not that, maybe it's something along those lines. And when I went through this, these exercises through this book and through working with Rod Stryker. I came upon what he calls your dharma code. And it takes several sort of drafts. And several pages of writing and crossing out and editing and writing and crossing out and editing. And I came upon one, and the person I was working with had me read it out loud. And as soon as I read it out loud. I looked and she looked at me. And she said, "Nope, that's not it." And my feelings were really hurt. And I was like what do you mean, this is it? And she asked me, "Were you editing yourself along the way when you were writing? Were you trying to steer the ship in a different direction? Were you editing along the way?" And I was like "No...yes." And I looked back at what I was writing and I was like totally I was. Because I thought I knew the answer already. And I wasn't leading myself into being vulnerable and open. So we tore it up. We started over again. Rewrote it all over again. And then at the end of this process. She said, "Okay, read it to me again." And the dharma code that I wrote was, "I share my story with the world without hesitation or doubt." And as soon as I said that I saw her face light up. And my face lit up. And she said, "Did you feel that?" And I was like, "I don't know what it was but I felt it." And it was just as soon as I read it, it was this surge of energy running through every cell in my body. You know an energy that we call alignment. And I was like oh, it totally redefined this idea of dharma for me. It's that I've always been a storyteller. As a musician, as a songwriter, as a yoga teacher or a workshop and a training facilitator. It's always been about a story. And sharing a story. And when this dharma code came about saying I share my story with the world without doubt or hesitation. It landed in a way that it didn't define me. In a way of putting boundaries around me. But it defined me in a way of lifting me up and giving myself permission to pursue these dreams with everything that I have. And that's the second teaching of the Bhagavad Gita which we said before. You know, the first teaching is find your dharma. Find why you were put here. Because you being in a body that is breathing and alive right now is nothing short of a miracle. And there's a reason for it. So step one is to find that. And then step number two is to pursue it with everything that you have. With absolutely every cell of your body. And in finding this dharma code. That little, short little sentence. It was, it felt like somebody put a match to my fuse. And all of a sudden just this rocket was about to go off. It felt unreal. Maggie: Like you could almost get out of your own way. Adam: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And I was in my way more than I wasn't. And I still am, right? It still happens where I'm just like tripping over myself. Because my mind and my chatter and my doubt gets in the way. But, you know, all it takes is that, those moments of daily meditation and coming back to that dharma code. Which is like, oh yeah. I get it now. Maggie: That actually is a good segway to my other piece of the question. Because I'm interested in hearing you talk about the space in between where you went from being anxious by sitting with yourself and trying to meditate. And then to having such solace with meditation and really cherishing that time. How did you find that? Or how did that progression in your life happen? [33:09] Adam: Yeah, absolutely. For the first several years of my yoga practice, it was really predominantly a postural yoga practice. It was an Asana practice. And meditation was an off and on thing. You know, I would do meditation when I was in teacher training or when I was studying or when I was on a retreat with my teacher. And it was something that I always knew the benefit of. But never committed to a daily practice. And then several years ago, I made a trip to India during a pilgrimage called the Kumbh Mela. And the Kumbh Mela is every twelve years. It's this pilgrimage at the banks of the Ganges River. In a little town Allahabad. Not that little. But it is the biggest gathering of human beings in the planet. I think it's some 80 million people make the pilgrimage to what's known as the Sangam. And the Sangam is the confluence, the joining together of the Ganges River, the Jamuna River and the mystical Sarasvati River. And every twelve years, it's the alignment of the planets is said that that spot in the planet is the third eye of the planet. And every twelve years, the third eye opens. So if you are lucky enough to bathe yourself in the Ganges at this time. It's said it's so holy that your sins are forgiven, your children's sins are forgiven and your grandchildren's sins are forgiven. It was beautiful. It was amazing. It was one of those pilgrimages that words can't really capture. We were staying, our campgrounds for this pilgrimage was about a kilometer downriver from the actual Kumbh Mela. But there were millions and millions and millions of people in this festival ground, pilgrimage grounds and there were 24-hour chants happening. Fires burning. Just millions and millions of people. And that energy was just rolling down the Ganges. The smoke was rolling down the Ganges. You could hear the chants. And it just sounded, in the middle of the night you would wake up and you would just hear [...]. Of just these chants happening and the energy was palpable. It was amazing. And I was there with Rod Stryker and another great teacher. His teacher, Pandit Rajmani Tigunait. And it was there that I really found my meditation practice. We worked a lot with mantra. We worked a lot with different sort of meditation techniques. That finally just sang. You know, it felt like music to me. It felt like a song. And I think, you know, in the years prior when I was working in yoga and trying to find this meditation practice. I couldn't really find it because I didn't really have a teacher. Like I didn't have someone to teach me the technique. You know, it's like trying to do a handstand but you're just alone in your room. And you're just flinging yourself up and down. And there is nobody there to tell you the technique to get into it. Meditation was the same way. So I finally had found a teacher. I had found somebody to lead me into the technique and to guide me and to answer my questions and to relieve my doubt. And so for years after that, I was meditating in this japa mantra practice. Which is a repetition of a mantra. And it's the practice that I've relied on heavily throughout these last several years. And then when I was in Australia I met another amazing yoga teacher, meditation teacher. And his name is Jonni Pollard. And his organization is called One Giant Mind. And his manner and his way of speaking about meditation and teaching mediation is profound in it's simplicity. What he is doing now is he working to strip away all of the pretenses, all of the structure on meditation. That for a lot of people can seem really daunting and really intimidating. And his technique is so simple but it's so refined. So I've started studying with him. And I'm actually right now moving through his teacher training to become a certified meditation teacher in One Giant Mind. And it's this very simple mantra. It's this very simple beautiful process. That you just sit down for twenty minutes twice a day. And right now, that's the practice for me that's having the most profound effects. You know, I will always be a fan of postural yoga. I will always be a fan of moving my body and finding freedom through that movement. But right now, in this sort of journey through the meditation practice which is now spanning a couple decades. Meditation is where I find the clarity, the peace, and the reconnection to myself that I'm so often missing. And in trying to teach others now. In my teacher trainings and in the retreats, the skill and the craft of meditation. It really is learning a new practice and it's creating and cultivating these new habits. But without fail if I can get one of my students to sit down for 30 days straight of meditation, then they're in it. They're in it for life. Because within those 30 days they have noticed such a profound shift in their connection to joy, in their calmness, in their balance, in just their way of being. The way that Jonni Pollack often says it, "You know those points in your life where, you find yourself just happy for no reason. Like you're sitting and watching a sunset. Or you're walking your dog. Or something beautiful happens and just this like really gentle wave of contentment and happiness sort of waves over you, washes over you." He says that's your natural way of being, right? That should not be an anomaly. That should be your regular state of being. And connecting to a meditation practice lets you access that state of being with such ease. And it's been a practice that has saved me several times. And like I've said, I love Asana and I love moving my body and I love sweating. But for me now, the postural yoga practice and the meditation practice are two sides of the same coin that I don't really want to live without either of them. [40:34] Maggie: So the last question which you sort of touched on. And I think maybe it wraps up a lot of the things that we're talking about of kind of getting out of your own way. Or being able to sit to really know where you want to go and where you can live out your duty or your dharma. Maybe that kind of comes up in this question of what's a big goal that you see for the future, that you want and why do you want it? Or how do you plan on getting there? [41:01] Adam: Yeah. About a year ago. Or it's been a little bit more now. A year and a half to two years ago. I had a pretty catastrophic injury. My L4/L5 disc blew and the extruded disc actually wrapped around one of my spinal nerves. And I lost function of my left leg and I lost feeling in my left leg. And coming from a state of yoga aware and movement where I really define myself as a mover. As a postural yoga practitioner. To have that taken away from me was heartbreaking. I mean the pain was excruciating. But it also forced me to redefine where I stand as a teacher in this practice. And after the surgery. And after the rehab. And reintroducing my body into this movement practice was so enlightening. One in terms of what my body was capable of doing. Or more accurately what it's no longer capable of doing. How to be okay with that. But also looking back over the past ten years of moving my body in Asana and being able to see really clearly with. Hindsight is 20/20. Being able to see really clearly the movements that I shouldn't have been doing. The transitions that I shouldn't have been doing. The fighting my body to try to get deeper mobility. To try to get a deeper forward fold. To try to get the legs behind my head. That, you know, in hindsight really was just ego. It was really me just fighting to prove something that was really pointless in the first place. And what I find now that I'm back on the mat, back in my practice. Is that I'm still so inspired by the movement. I'm still so inspired by the Asana. And it is an exploration and it is a joy to find new ways to move. It's an art. It's just like music. It's like songwriting. It's creating a sequence and moving your body through the sequence. It's dance. It's songwriting. It's poetry. But what I've found is that there needs to be science behind the art. There needs to be knowledge behind the art. And in all bluntness and in all openness. I think that is lacking, that knowledge is lacking. Especially in the new yoga teachers around today. Which we were all there. I was a new yoga teacher. And I was just sort of making it up as I went along. But one of my goals now is to. Number one always keep refining the way that I teach. And to keep building my knowledge base so that my knowledge of anatomy, of the biomechanics of the body, of how bodies are supposed to move and how to keep people safe is always growing. But now on top of that. Now that I've become. I've been teaching teachers how to teach. My goal is to educate yoga teachers in how to keep people safe. In how to try to in as many instances as possible avoid the injuries that we all get so often. I mean, yoga is movement and in movement, there is inherent risk. Right, there is inherent risk in hamstring pulls or wrist injuries or shoulder injuries. Like it's going to happen. And, you know, if you compare yoga to American football the risk level is quite low. But what I see is that the level of injuries in this practice is much higher than it should be. And it's much higher than it should be because I think there are inherent flaws in the structure of how we train and certify teachers. Which is a really long conversation probably for another day. But I think it's really important to, number one allow the people who are so passionate about yoga and who really want to teach the yoga to allow them to teach. But I want to in my trainings guide them to teach in a way that is knowledgeable and educated and is capable of moving people through their practice in a safe and empowering way. So in creating my 200-hour program and in 2019 unveiling my advanced 300-hour program. That's really the goal of it. Number one, get people meditating. And as always learn about the philosophy, the vedas, the mantra, learn about the heart of the yoga. But at the same time heavily immerse them in anatomy, in functional anatomy, in alignment. In getting people to understand what safe movements are. What aren't safe movements. What transitions we shouldn't be combining. And how we can continue to watch this beautiful methodology of yoga grow in the amazing expansive way that it has been growing. But to ensure that it's growing in a mindful and responsible way. Maggie: So Adam, how can people find you and listen to you through your new cd? And keep up with where you are and where you're going? Adam: Yeah. So the website is adamwhitingyoga.com and everything on social media. Well, Instagram and Facebook is Adam Whiting Yoga as well. So Adam Whiting Yoga and you can find me anywhere. And the new cd is hopefully coming out sometime in 2019. Fingers crossed. I'm really excited about that. But the partners that I'm working at are touring musicians in Australia. So we have just a little bit to go. So hopefully the stars will align and we'll be able to get that sooner rather than later. Maggie: Thank you so much for joining me on this podcast, We Got Goals. And it was an honor to have you. Adam: The pleasure was all mine. Thanks so much. Cindy: He goal-getters. It's Cindy Kuzma. Just checking in to let you know that we're about to play another goal from one of you, our listeners! If you would like to be featured on an upcoming episode of We Got Goals here on A Sweat Life. You can record a voice memo with a goal you've set, a goal you've achieved, just maybe your dharma, your purpose. Whatever you want to tell us about that's related to goals. Record that, send it to Cindy@aSweatLife.com. And we could feature you on an upcoming episode. Thanks for listening and here is one of your goals. Britney: I am Britney and I am from Southern Indiana. One goal getting strategy that's worked very well for me is keeping my goals to myself. Which is a little different then what some people do. But I've found that it helps me because it helps me make more attainable goals rather than goals I share on social media that maybe are a little more grandious then they should be or aren't quite as fleshed out as they should be. You know, we're in the age where we want to share everything with everyone on social media. And sometimes in my experience, it's worked best for me to just keep it between me and myself. A really good example was when I was finding my new job. I kept it kind of vague when I talked to people about it. And I just said you know I'm hunting. And I wrote down everything I wanted out of my job. I wanted very specific benefits and I wanted a very specific atmosphere and culture. And I just kind of went after it and found it. And it was nice because I wasn't cluttering it with other people's kind of input. And it was just me and my goal. [50:00] Cindy: This podcast is asweatlife.com production and it’s another thing that’s better with friends. So please, share it with yours. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts including on Spotify. And while you’re there if you could leave us a rating or a review we would be so grateful. Special thanks to Jay Mono, for our theme music, to our guest this week, Adam Whiting, to TechNexus for the recording studio, and to Kathy Lai for editing. And of course to you, our listeners.

There's something to learn by listening to any individual's success story, but when the story starts with being kicked out of high school at 15, one can get pulled especially quickly into hearing how it panned out. I found myself at the edge of my seat while sitting across from Pivotal Coaching Co-Founder Scott Hopson for the latest #WeGotGoals podcast episode interview because that was exactly how his story started. If you're in the training industry, maybe you've attended continuing education sessions through NASM, EXOS, The Gray Institute, or Power Plate International; if so, you've probably studied Hopson's material or done a workshop with him. He also helped launch Midtown Athletic Club, Chicago's first urban sports resort with 575,000 square feet of health and wellness amenities. And, as the co-founder of PTA Global, he's coached countless personal trainers in a unique approach focused on behavioral science. Essentially, Hopson has worked his entire professional life on becoming the best version of himself as a personal trainer, but he's also dedicated his life to the fitness industry from a practical coaching, educational, and business perspective. And with the prestigious laundry list of titles he possesses, you can imagine why I found it unbelievable that it all started with being kicked out of school. But, as Hopson told me during the interview, when he decided he wanted to turn his life around, he started at the source where he felt like he was always home, the one place where he felt "in flow" amidst it all - with his coaches when he was playing sports. He held onto the memory of being coached and let that passion drive him forward. Now, helping others achieve their movement goals makes him feel alive, and he's equally passionate about training other coaches to bring out their fullest potential and thus, inspire clients to become the best version of themselves too. The most interesting thing about our interview, though, had nothing to do with fitness and everything to do with the human behind the science of coaching. In order to go after the "what" (whether that's a specific fitness goal or any other transformational goal in your life), "you have to articulate the 'why,'" Hopson said. Ultimately, understanding that it's not about him as a coach at all when he's in a coaching session has helped him understand how to navigate every other kind of partnership and communication in his life. "If I'm going to coach you, I've got to create an environment for you to train yourself, because I can't do it," Hopson said. "That'd be quite arrogant and ignorant of me to believe I can. If I create an environment for you to change yourself, that affects how I communicate to you, how I listen, do I have empathy? And I apply that to my business relationships. Am I listening? Am I willing to consider the possibility that they don't only have a point of view, but they might actually change mine?" Hopson also mentioned that he leans into his intuition to help guide his unique, nonlinear career path and what big goals he goes after. "I'm at my happiest, and in flow, where nothing else matters than that present moment, when I'm being of service to someone as a coach," he said. I commented on how lucky he was to know that feeling - a feeling of just being in total flow. He replied that we all have it, in some way, shape or form. We just have to notice and be open to tapping into it. "It doesn’t happen every day, [but] there are things you can do to connect you back to it if you lose it – whether it’s prayer or meditation, or whatever it is that connects you to that thing," Hopson said. Listen to Scott Hopson's episode of the #WeGotGoals podcast to hear one success story you likely won't ever forget. You can listen anywhere you get your podcasts (did we mention, we're on Spotify now?) If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or a review! We'd really appreciate it. And stick around until the end of the episode, where you’ll hear a goal from one of you, our listeners. (Want to be featured on a future episode? Send a voice memo with a goal you’ve crushed, a goal you’re eyeing, or your best goal-getting tip to cindy@asweatlife.com.)   --- Transcript: Jeana: Welcome to #WeGotGoals a podcast by aSweatLife.com on which we talk to high-achievers about their goals. I’m Jeana Anderson Cohen. With me I have Maggie Umberger and Cindy Kuzma. Maggie: Morning Jeana! Cindy: Good morning Jeana! Jeana: Morning! Maggie, you talked to Scott Hobson this week, right? Maggie: I did! I spoke with Scott Hobson and he has a lot of roles which I will try to give you in the upfront here but he will do a better job of talking about the many companies that he has started. And from his career trajectory, he’s been a personal trainer, he has coached coaches. He still loves to coach people on how to help other people achieve their goals. He is the founder, co-founder of PTA Global as well as Pivotal Coaching. But essentially what he does, is he helps people move better.  Whether that is individuals or people within big gyms or at really large conferences and for fitness professionals across the world. He’s been to 40 countries to teach. He’s also an author, a writer, and a speaker. And I was so lucky to get to speak to him about his goals of which he has many. Jeana: But he also failed big once, right Maggie? Maggie: I didn’t realize this. I didn’t know this until we were talking for this interview, but he was kicked out of high school. And he kind of tossed it out there and I was honestly shocked because he has done so many things. He is the co-founder of Pivotal coaching which is a world-wide coaching business now. And I was honestly surprised because he is so accomplished. He’s so well spoken, he’s so driven. But I learned that he did get kicked out of high school and it took something for him to realize that in order for him to turn his life around he needed to find the thing that made him feel like he was in flow, is what he calls it. And when he feels like he’s in flow, he knows he’s doing the right thing and the only thing that he felt that kind of sensibility around was when with his rugby team and when he was being coached by his coaches. He felt like he was at home and he wanted to do that more. He wanted to do that in any capacity he could, so he became a personal trainer. He kept going back to school, he kept learning more and his fervor for learning more about human movement and just how people behave around fitness. It’s a much broader topic for him then just like what happens in a coaching session. And he’s really turned that enthusiasm, is what he calls it. This spirit for understanding how people move into his life-long career. Which is huge leaps and bounds away from getting kicked out of high school years ago. Jeana: And he feels like it’s important to coach the humans who are doing the movement and not actually coach the movement. Which is an interesting semantic issue, it’s an interesting word choice. What does he mean by that and how does that fit into his overall philosophy? Maggie: So Scott has the wherewithal to know that what happens in the gym is only a tiny part of your day. And he knows that as long as you just throw anatomical cues at people it’s going to go over their head. They have to find their why. And so he’s become really, really passionate about helping other coaches learn how to speak to people to meet them where they are and to really influence and inspire change for people on a greater level than just going through the motions of a program, of going through the workout. We say this all the time at aSweatLife that fitness can be the catalyst to you living your best life and that what happens in the gym can absolutely affect you life outside of the gym if you let it. If you want it to and he has started to focus a lot of the training and the protocols within Pivotal Coaching around human behavior and how can what coaches do in your training sessions influence how that training session goes. It's so much more of an emotional thing than just a physical thing which is interestingly a large part of the conversation that we had was just about how connected to his own emotional well-being he is. Like when he’s not in flow as I was saying, he knows it and he needs to make a change. And that's what happened when he was director of a really large facility that he's still incredibly involved with and he loves it very much. But when he was doing a role that he could do but he felt a little bit more stressed by being in it. It was apparent to him that he needed to make a change and he could be a better asset in a different capacity. So that when he could actually get back to working with people, for people and helping. Really his passion is working with coaches then he could really feel, do better work, help people on a greater scale. And so that's been his guiding force, like getting within the process, finding the joy, finding the payoff in the process is what he says. Not just that the end goal or whatever the thing he's trying to accomplish gets checked off the list. It's about feeling the way he needs to feel all along the way. Jeana: What an incredible story of overcoming obstacles and finding your true path I can't wait to hear Maggie talk to Scott. And stick around at the end of the episode we’re hearing from you listeners. Maggie: Thanks so much for joining me Scott, on the We’ve Got Goals Podcast. Scott: I'm excited. Maggie: We're excited to have you! So Scott for the listeners at home I know that you do a lot of jobs and that they probably sometimes they overlap, sometimes they’re different. You're a one-on-one coach, your a group coach, you have managed big facilities, you also coached on a global scale and your a founder of a couple companies. For the listeners can you give a little brief description of, I know you said what you do on a daily basis is different, but how you spend your days and what your general title is? Scott: Yeah, it’s wonderful. Well I mean the single biggest thing right now is I’m a co-founder of Pivotal. We’re a development company. And our mission is really simple it's to empower people to fulfill their potential. And our clientele if you will is anyone that has a passion for movement. So what I do on a daily basis could be considered coaching - one-on-one, groups, and teams from everyday people at health clubs to Olympic-level teams I work with all of them. But my real passion is teaching and you could say I coach the coaches. So what I travel the world doing, I think I've been to about 40 different countries by now, I coach coaches on how to be a better coach. We can talk later about what that includes maybe. But I also consult.  Having been an operator for 20 years building health clubs, big beautiful sports resorts around the world. I know what it takes to actually build facilities, operate facilities, manage people, sales marketing, membership and on it goes. But ultimately I think it all comes down to coaching. I’m in the people industry and my job is to build meaningful relationships and I think that’s what coaches do. I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s kind of what on any given day one of those is what I’m doing or all of those is what I’m doing. Maggie: That’s fascinating.  Not only the breadth of what you do but the depth to which you do it. So like you're talking about working on the business side of the athletic club and building out a club. And then also building out an amazing coaching staff and helping people become better coaches. And then helping individuals also reach their fitness goals. It just runs the gamut. Scott: Yeah, it does. Maggie: Did you start as a personal trainer yeah in terms of profession? Scott: Yeah, in terms of profession that's the first real professional job I had. But I've been in the movement industry my whole life the only thing that's really kept me sane through life's adventures that don't all start out the way you want them to. But that one kind of bedrock of always connecting to why I'm here has been either playing sport, coaching sport, moving, coaching people, something to do with this idea of I'm here to move and I'm here to help people move. Not just physically but towards their dreams in life, you know? So 1998 is when I became a personal trainer and fitness instructor in the UK, in London. But immediately, the minute I was in the industry I knew this was only part of what I was going to do here. And that's when I went back to school to become a physical education teacher. Which is the problem when you get kicked out of high school at 15. Maggie: Wait a minute, should we go back and ask about that? Scott: There would need to be some whiskey in the room.  Yeah you're talking to a guy that didn't even graduate high school at 15. I left and then when I realized “oh, I probably should have stuck around” I was 24, 25 and I decided I wanted to go back and become a coach and a physical education teacher. So the problem is that you've got to graduate high school first. So believe it or not I was a 25 year old in school with a bunch of teenagers. Maggie: Wow! Scott: Yeah, that’s where it started for me. Actually, I answer it that way because that’s where it started, was the realization that I needed to do something different with my life. And I found out pretty quickly it was in this area of movement and coaching. That was my only real love in life, was playing sport and being coached.  So how do I do that, Okay I'll go to university. Okay, how do you do that, you’ve got to graduate high school. Problem, big problem. So I had to go back in order to go forwards and then it's been an unbelievable journey since then just exploring all the possibilities in this industry, you know? And there's multiple Industries- it's not just fitness, it's not just performance, it’s wellness, it's all of it really. You know? Maggie: Oh, yeah. And it’s a huge world. And it can feel, it seems like you have this outlook that is just wide-eyed and excited versus daunted. You know, because you talk about there being so many facets to movement, and to health and wellness. That I can get intimidated by where do I spend my time? Scott: Where do I begin? Maggie: What to learn. Oh my god, there is so much to learn. Scott: There is. Maggie: But, based on what I’ve seen and how you have grown your career. You’ve just gone after the things you wanted to go after. And created your career based on what excites you. Scott: That’s probably quite accurate actually. For me we’ve also got passion. But I’ve kind of shifted. I think passion is a good thing. If you aint got it, it’s too darn hard to do anything. You know? Maggie: Yeah. Scott: But for me it’s become more enthusiasm. And it sounds like semantics but that word. When you’re enthusiastic about something. Like it literally means to be in spirit, right? It means to be, the payoff is in the process. I think you've got to passionately follow where the payoff is in the process. Whatever that is in your life. Like that burning desire to do something just because the act of doing it is the payoff. And that really sums up my career. Every few years there seems to be another door opens or something says no, you should take a left here. When my best laid plans said to take a right but something says in me says no, you’re supposed to follow that. It leads to failure, a ton actually but if your enthusiastic. The saying about enthusiasm, it's the ability to keep falling on your face and not care anyway. That’s a big part of enthusiasm. Maggie: Well, I think that kind of transitions to the question that we ask on #WeGotGoals, which is what's one big goal that you're proud to say you've accomplished and how did you get there? Scott: Wow, that's I knew you were going to ask it and it's surprisingly difficult to answer, right because you don't want to sound trite or have too much levity. But the reality is there's two things that all stand out. One is, one of the company’s that I'm a founder of is PTA Global, Personal Training Academy Global, we launched that out of nothing. We literally traveled the world.  Me and my five brothers who created it. Not biological brothers and we asked every health club we had worked with in 40 different countries. What are your problems? What are your pains? And we built personal training certification to answer their problems. Not just based on whatever we thought was the best way to train. We actually tried to build something on what people needed rather than what we thought. Then we went out and recruited 26 of the best educators in our industry. Many of whom we were told they won’t even be in the same room as each other. They had conflicting opinions, philosophies, they argue. We got them all in the same room to write PTA Global. All of them in the same room and we launched it in 2009 which was the worst economic time. Little did we know what was coming.  And now we're 35, 40 countries, you know? And it all just came from sharing a common purpose, you know what I mean? That drive, that desire to do something. So that stands out professionally as the best thing I've done in my career so far. Is to truly just go all in, we all quit our jobs with salaries and put all our chips in. And said it's this or nothing. Just once we have to try and do the right thing, rather than to do things right and it cost us everything we had. If we didn't sell, we didn't eat. If it wasn't successful, it was on us there was no one to blame, no corporate structure or nothing. It was incredible! I'll tell you that's the biggest achievement in my career other than being in it in the first place. Because it wasn't easy for me to be in it in the first place you know I talked about getting kicked out of school and I had to go back to college. I was the first person in my entire family history that has ever done anything outside of high school. And I think just having to pay for your own way you know what I mean despite life willingness to say you can't do it. Maggie: Where did you learn that? Where do you think that drive comes from? That just openness to enthusiasm and willingness to lean into it. Scott: Truthfully, I think for me it was just not failing a lot, but really discovering who I was in the first. I think some people it's wonderful they seem to have the playbook, they come with it. They can be like oh this is what it's like to be a good person. Or this is what it's like to follow your dreams. But that wasn't my experience. My experience was a lot of failure and a lot of pain and alot of looking at who I was at first. And then finally when you hit it enough bumps you say holy crap I’ve got to change something. The second part is you can’t do it alone. I've been very blessed to have people that showed up right on time. When I needed help so I think surrounding yourself with the people that you hope to become you know what I mean. I mean truly looking at people, I don't know what it is that you have but I want that. Whether it's their spiritual fitness, their ability to be kind, their ability to be successful in business. Like you clearly have something I don't, where I lack or and I'm unable to see. I should probably surround myself with people like you and try to learn it, you know? And it's really those two ingredients and that burning desire. For me to pick up a book and study coaching and movement or isn't a drudge, it's a joy. You know what I mean? When I'm bored it's the first thing I want to do. Wow I’d love to learn more about [...] or how did that Olympic coach win it for the fourth year in a row. Whatever. I'm fascinated with not just human movement but with the human being inside it. So I think when you're fascinated, I think that curiosity, that’s the word. Maggie: Yeah. Scott: You’ve got to have a relentless curiosity for whatever you’re passionate about. You know? Maggie: Yeah, absolutely! Did PTA Global come about, you said you visited countries you visited the big clubs that you worked with and answered some of their problems or their needs. Was it also an equal part you finding those extra elements that you were excited about. Like what's inside a human being and how can we help them feel their best while they're working out. Those little nuances, did that kind of come together as the marriage. Is that what PTA Global is? Scott: 100%, yes. if you're going to solve a problem, you’ve got to first know what that problem is. And the key to getting clarity is to ask better questions. If you keep asking the same questions, it doesn’t matter about how many ways you phrase it. So part of the fascination was what are the real problems of our industry. We’ve got 300 times more education than we’ve ever had, we’ve got more gyms and health clubs than we’ve ever had and we’ve got more billions of dollars invested in health and wellness than we’ve ever had. Yet we’ve got less human beings moving than anytime in human history. We’ve got more disease, disability and dysfunction than anytime in human history. And believe it or not we have the first generation of youth with a lower life expectancy than their parents.  If that don't make you wake up like our kids are scheduled to die younger than we are. It’s supposed to be the opposite. We're keeping old people live longer and sicker and younger people are dying sooner with more sickness. So part of it was that we've got to solve this problem. But the other part wow I've got to go find something that maybe isn't there or I've got to find the missing link. There’s that journey of discovery, right? The merging of that and the guys and girls we did it with are geniuses in their respective fields. Nutrition, behavioral change, movement, anatomy, whatever it is. So to actually go to each of these leaders and get their take on how it answer that. It was, you don't get many opportunities in life to do that to. Say here are the problems let's go speak to the world's best and find out how they might solve it. And then bring it back to the people who asked for it. That really was the journey. Maggie: So for the listeners at home what does PTA Global do or what does that certification earn you? Scott: A couple of things. One, if you woke up today as a fitness enthusiast and said man I would love to become a  professional coach, a personal trainer or a fitness professional, you have to get legally certified. Now you can do it the right way or the wrong way. The wrong way is you could go online trough some swipe your finger, take an exam, call yourself professional. Or you can go study, whether it’s 6, 9, 12 month program. Some of them are two years, actually study the human body anatomy, kinesiology, program design, behavior.  Then you have to sit for an actual exam and there's a practical in a room. One of those companies is PTA Global, we created a brand new approach to becoming a globally certified fitness professional. So if you take our course whether you're in Dubai, London, Amsterdam. You are legally certified anywhere in the world to practice in this profession. So that's kind of a big deal. It very much a behavioral change approach, we say when you find the why, you find the what. Everyone’s got a what, weight loss, weight gain, whatever it is. Until I find the why, the chances are we aren’t going to get you there. So that's how our philosophy is meeting people where they need to be met. And then we have advanced curriculums. One of them is called Exercise and Stress Management. We are nothing but a bunch of cells that get stressed on a daily basis. And how I move today is as much to do with my nutrition, my sleep, my emotions as much as it is my posture and flexibility, you know? So we can go on a very deep journey with you. And that then that leaves into Pivotal, my company now, which is that my passion is to travel the world and connect those dots. With the operators, with the product manufacturers, with the educators, with the certification bodies. We work with all them to bring people together to connect dots. So we travel the world, me and Haley, creating partnerships between global leaders. Delivering education for these people, creating education for them. One of our biggest passions is to teach the teachers. When you're in a room of a hundred coaches you’re really touching hundreds of thousands of people, right? Maggie: Sure. Scott: But when you’re in a room of 50 teachers your reaching exponentially more. So that’s what Pivotal does. We’ve kind of gone even bigger, how do we touch the most people to empower and fulfill their potential. Whether it is the club operator, whether it is the coach, whether it is the educator. And that was really the birth of Pivotal. Was to take everything I learned at PTA Global and kind of go one layer deeper. Which is really connecting people. I can’t think of one single movement in human history that hasn’t come from those first followers finding their fanatical fans and on and on it goes. So that’s kind of our gig now. Maggie: Yeah. So this conversation that is generally focused on goals. Is interesting to me I think to ask this question about how you’ve worked with people in the fitness world, in the fitness realm about how to tap into their why by them articulating their what. And then going through the behavior change process to get them to meet their goals. And how has that potentially shaped the way you view goals? Scott: Utterly, completely. You know one of my most important values to me is authenticity. Sometimes I feel like saying no experience, no opinion, you know? How can you coach someone one-on-one personal training or in small group or large group and hope to not only inspire but guide them to transformation. Because really everyone is looking for a transformation. No one wants to be what they are. You want to be more than they are. You want to be the best version of yourself you can. So if I want to coach you my job really is to create an environment for you to change yourself because I can’t do it. It’d be quite arrogant and ignorant for me to think I can.  So behavioral change, this whole view point is if I create an environment for you to change yourself that affects how I communicate to you, how I listen, do I have empathy can I be a GPS because you're coming today and you're stressed because you’ve had 15 coffees, you didn't eat, didn't sleep, you busted up with your partner. Okay that changed our program like instantly. How do I create on demand based on your behavior. So what that does authentically as coach for me. Man am I applying that to myself? Am I applying that to my business relationships? Am I listening when I’m speaking to my partners? Am I willing to consider maybe the possibility that they don’t really have a point of view but it might actually change mine. That’s empathetic listening. I'm going to listen at a level where I actually might realize that I'm wrong. Do you know how hard that is as a personal trainer because we always think we're right. Don’t eat this, do eat that. Stop doing that, go to bed on time.,   Okay, you just told them to change their whole life and you're there for maybe 3 hours a week out of the 168. So you're like 2% of their life but you've asked them to change a hundred percent of their life. That seems a bit drastic and you're not there to pick up the pieces because there's going to be a lot of falling pieces. When you ask someone to change everything. What if their partner doesn't like that? What if it means now, when everyone else is eating fried chicken. They’re saying “ugh, couldn’t we have grilled it?”. But no one else in the family likes grilled. And on it goes. So it's affected everything I do because it makes me stop and go am I applying that same principle to my life? And is what I'm asking them to maybe consider doing, have I consider the choices in my life today or this week? Am I making the right choices for myself? That's authentic. So when someone says I come in today Scott. No I didn't fix my nutrition plan, I didn't work out three times this week, empathy would say man I know how that feels. There’s no judgment. It’s just like I know how that feels. Now ask more questions. What would your block? What was your break? What do you want to do about it? That's shifted how I am in my relationships and life for the most part this aint about me, right? I wish it was. Then my script would work. Maggie: Well it's interesting because the world of fitness has like you said kind of blown up. And everyone has a place in it in a really cool way. Brands are part of it. Different kinds of fitness have become hybrids and people aren’t just one thing were multiple things. And I think that's an awesome thing that health and wellness has become a little bit more top of mind. But I also think that creates a lot more ego about who is right and who is wrong so the idea of taking it back, maybe I’m wrong is probably very slim to none in the health and wellness world. Scott: One of my favorite quotes I heard was in 2004, it was at a conference I was speaking at called Meeting of the Minds. And it was like TED talks back in the day every presenter got 20 minutes and they were leaders and what they did. It was incredible I got to ask to present, I was the new kid on the block. I heard this guy say, “I’m pretty sure standing here today, after 30 years as a world-class Olympic coach”, which he was and educator. “He said 50% of what I’m about to tell you is complete BS.” So everyone laughs. And he goes, “The real problem is I’m not sure anymore which 50%.” And it really struck me. That’s probably the wisest thing anyone in this room is going to say all day. There is what I think is right and there is what I know, I don’t know. Then there is what I don’t know, I don’t know. And in every area of research in every industry, every few years there’s like wow that changes what we think about technology or medicine. And yet our industry for the most part still wants to practice fitness the way we did 30 years ago. Even though what we’ve learned about the body and the mind is dramatically more evolved. So you go into these operators and you see them building clubs the same way they did 30 years ago. If medicine followed that it would be a problem, right? And so to your point, I think fitness itself needs to be dramatically redefined. Because fitness just means your fit to perform the task that you were here to perform. So what is that? Your a mum wants to pick up her kids is different from someone who wants to look better naked that’s different from someone. It’s just you know? So the industry itself could really do with redefining a little bit of its purpose I think. Because we are more wellness, we are more healthful. We should be. I think fitness itself is what could with a little bit of a tweak. Maggie: Yeah, yeah. So moving forward, as you look down the line. Whether it's tomorrow kind of goal or 10 years down the line. What is a big goal you hope to accomplish? Scott:  I've got too many, I think. Maggie: That's okay. Scott: I think for me, I would love, love for us to get rid of names like personal trainer and instructor. And I’d love for us to get rid of the definitions of I’m a yogi, I’m a pilates, or I’m a [...]. We’re coaches, I know I keep saying it. We’re coaches and what’s fascinating about the word is it comes from the 14th century. Like the stagecoach, it was a vehicle of transportation that carries people from where they are to where they’re going. So I always like to say you can be a personal trainer, you can be an instructor but what people are looking for is to go from where they are to where they want to be. From who they are to who they want to become. When you’re a coach you’re this vehicle of transportation, you know? And you remember your coaches, the good and the bad. I think we’re bigger than just trainers and instructors. But what I would love to see, is if we could all come together to say this is what we agree on this is how we coach the human being inside the human body. These are our ingredients for human movement. The thing about ingredients are you can create infinite different recipes. But we’ve got to agree on the ingredients, surely.  A world class chef can cook all different kinds of cuisines. But they know the food, they know the ingredients, they know their basics. And I don’t think we have that. So if I go to physical therapy [...], there’s not a lot of respect for the fitness professional world or the professional training world. There’s not a lot of respect for the group exercise instructor. You go into mind body and there is a complete dissonance between what you’re do in a yoga studio versus what you do in a swimming pool. Movement is movement. Coaching is coaching. And human beings are human beings, man. I would love for us to just have a commonality around those basic ingredients. I really would and that’s kind of what my journey now of Pivotal is about. Is because I can be in a room with physical therapists looking at movement assessments, joint mechanics, knee pain, back pain. The next day I’m at a conference with 300 people going through small group training. And [..] understand is I’ve actually given them the same ingredients, just a different recipe. It absolutely blows my mind sometimes. People go, “Oh yeah, you do the rehab stuff and you do the small group.” I’m like I do movement and coaching. Maggie: Yeah, and from the consumer side of it. Like, it can be taxing to go to so many professionals. Not only for your own dollar that you’re just doling out to hear the latest and greatest from this party and then you hear a contradictory thing from another person. Then you’re like where do I spend my money? But it’s also like how do I get better from this injury? Or how do I actually perform better in this goal that I’m trying to reach fitness-wise? That can be really hard on the just fitness enthusiast. Scott: Go back even more right. The person who’s not enthusiastic about it Maggie: Right. Scott: So your mom and dad passed away when they were say 55. You’re 53, 54. You’re one year away from the exact age where you might have lost your parents. Your sedentary, you're overweight, you're in pain, you don't move. It's not lack of information or lack of education. You need to move, everyone knows. Exercise is probably gonna do. Going to  bed on time is probably a good idea. You pick up a cigarette packet it's got a picture of death on it with a cross. It's kind of very ignorant of us to think people need more education they don't they don't. They don’t need education. But they haven't found a meaningful and relevant reason to do it that outweighs the reasons not to do it. And so I would suggest that what we need to do as a movement and industry is get back to coaching human beings. Because when you find the what you find the why.  But, we just got back from China, here’s my example. And it blows my mind. It's one of the hottest places to go and travel. I don't speak Mandarin. Very very to no English. Not that there has to be but it makes it hard to even get a cup of coffee let alone eat or move around. And loads of smoking. Loads of pollution. Crazy packed busy. But everywhere you go is movement. I’m not lying, there’s eighty, ninety year old people riding bikes in the middle of a busy cross-section. Music’s playing, you turn around someone’s just doing [...]. You walk to the nearest park, hundreds of old people dancing, doing pull-ups and then they drop, no lie. Light up a cigarette and get back on their bike. No obesity, I don’t see the diabetes. I see people moving in ways that make them feel good. It’s nearly always in a community. They’re not doing it alone. Maggie: Right. Scott: Do you know what I mean? I think we really need to look at that part of it. Is how do people want to move? What's their style of moment? What's emotionally attaching to them? Not just physically but emotionally attaching. And so we put people in boxes and there’s good to that. Chances are they've already had a bad experience most people have exercised their life. Most people have failed at it.  It goes all the way back to that crappy gym teacher who told you we're good enough. There’s a lot of emotional triggers going on as soon as they walk through the door. And they're met by trainers that often are wearing shirts that are 3 sizes too small. It’s not the most enticing model of movement. And I think we can shift it. It wouldn’t take too much. The shift come from the neck up. Not the neck down. So I hope, my biggest goal coming is that Pivotal really, we just would like to leave the world a little bit better than we found it. And so if we could get more people moving more often that’s a win. But more importantly, in ways where the payoff is in the process. They move because it feels good. They move because emotionally connects them. Not, “Oh, I have to do it.”  I've got to do it. Or I’m doing it just for an outcome - weight loss or whatever it is. We know that doesn't work, it never has worked. If it does is short-term. I move because I love to move. Some days I swing a tennis racket, some days it’s playing rugby, some days it’s lifting weights. I move because I just love to move. I think everyone is wired to move, we just haven’t worked out how they want to move. Maggie: So, if we were to imagine that I were coming in for a first time coaching session with you, And it probably begins a little bit more about the conversation and what's happening neck up versus alright let’s do this functional screening and figure out where your compensations are. What would be some of the questions that you’d ask me as the client to tap into something. Scott: Wow, wow, wow. Maggie: A reason for moving. Scott: I love what you said because let’s call that the client intake consultation, whatever it is. There is a movement screening involved. There is a nutritional screening involved. But it starts with a motivational interview. And so one of the first questions we’ll ask. Repeat the questions you feel comfortable with. Because if I create emotional insecurity right out the gate, I’m already a threat to you. So the first questions can’t be too deep or you’re immediately thinking I don’t know if I like you or trust you, why on earth would I tell you that. So we even teach, not just the kind of questions but the sequencing, the language, all of it. But one of the first things would be what is the single most important goal you would like to achieve in your time with me. Okay, there’s a couple of big words in there. Not all your goals, the single most important in your time with me. Another big question right out of the gate is what are your expectations of me in the next 60 minutes. Because I need you to know right out the gate that I am here for you, it’s all about you. But I’m accountable, right? If I go to the doctor and they misdiagnosis me or prescribe me to wrong medicine, I’m holding them accountable.  What are your expectations of me. If I got type A directed, I like just tell them what to do and just make sure I know why we’re doing it and kick my butt. Okay. You’re not a high-five kind of guy. You just told me a lot of information on how to coach you. But someone else might say, I have no idea where to start. So giving you an entire game plan in 60 minutes is overwhelming, confusing and the opposite of what you asked for. The only thing I need to give you is the one next thing, then you do it and you’re going to feel like a success. Another question we might ask would be we get further into the questionnaire and we say 1 through 10, 10 is most important, 1 is least important. How important is it that you are successful moving toward your goal? We don’t judge it. If I say a 5 out of 10, that’s wonderful. Why is it not a 2? We don’t go to how can I make it a 10? Why is it not a 2? Because you’re already thinking that. Oh, it wasn’t a 2 so I’m not bad as I think. I’m not as behind as I think. Yeah, it was a 5 that is important to me. We’re reinforcing in your brain with your words. And you’ll get things, oh it’s not a 2 because if I don’t change now it could be too late. Or it’s not a 2 because I waited to long and my pain has gotten worse. They start to unravel the magic. But then another question and this will be the last example I give you. Will be 1 through 10, 10 is the most confident, 1 is the least confident. How confident are you, you can successfully achieve your goal? If someone says oh, I’m an 8 out of 10. Interesting, because it was only a 5 out of 10 for importance. But it’s nearly a 10 out of 10 on confidence. So you’re really confident about a goal that’s not that important. Or it could be opposite, it’s really important but I’m not confident. Two completely different people to coach. We literally have an entire script of motivational questions that are based in neuroscience and behavioral change. Not just the language but the sequence. So by the time you get to the end and you do a summary, they say how did you get all of that out of me.  Number two, you clearly listened. But most important, they say I just admitted that to myself outloud and another human being. That is the start of a valuable change. Is getting clear on what you’re willing to do and ready to do versus not. So there’s not sets and reps, there’s no calories, or anything. What’s your why? And are you ready and willing to change at this time because if you’re not it’s a trainwreck. And I’d be irresponsible to offer you to do it, quite honestly. Maggie: What I think is really fascinating about everything that you just outlined and all the questions that you brought up the word goal with. Those questions could be transitioned from a pre-coaching session to a goal setting session for your career, for your family, for how you want to set up your life at home or whatever it is. It’s how you do anything is how you do everything. Scott: Yes. Maggie: And so I think, at aSweatLife we do really believe that like what happens at the gym is not just that little box of time in the gym and then you leave and your gone. It’s those things that come up in there can carry out to the rest of your life if you let them. And it’s just about. Scott: It’s supposed to, right? Maggie: Right. And it can in a really positive way if you’re open to it. And if you say. Oh yeah, this small victory I did do this thing that was awesome. I’m going to go carry it into my meeting at work. Then I’m going to do the next thing that’s awesome.  So it’s really fascinating and really cool to hear because it is just a conversation around like how do we feel about goals, in general. Scott: Yeah. And what do I mean by goal? Is that just the outcome, is that the process. How will I know when I’ve got there. Measurably and subjectively. How do I know when I’ve actually got there. Most goals are subjective. I want to be in less pain, I want to feel better. That’s a subjective goal. How do we know when we’re there when you’ve arrived? And finally, how do you want to get there. Are you a kind of person who says I’ve got to get on the freeway and get there as quick as possible?  Okay, but then it’s the freeway and it’s concrete jungle and there’s lots of in and out. No, I’d rather take the scenic route. I’d rather go slow and take in the sights. So there’s where you’re going and then there’s how you want to get there. But invariably there is going to be traffic and roadwork. So as a coach, you’ve got to be a GPS and recalculate the route. Which for me, in my experience is every session. You can just see it emotionally in people when you get used to coaching wise. Something just happened where you stopped enjoying this session, that didn’t feel good. Maybe I said something that wasn’t. You know? Or maybe I didn’t listen to something you needed me to listen. I saw something in my client, the entire posture changed. You better recalculate right now.  And so for us, we’d say most people what they emotionally care about is outside the gym. There is very little emotional connection to the dumbell. So yes, in groups that’s different. Don’t get me wrong. That sense of tribe, community, relationships, being part of something bigger than yourself, agreed. But in one-on-one, I would honestly say that most people what they care about is outside the gym. They’re hoping what they transform inside the gym makes that better out. That’s what they’re trying to improve is their life outside the gym. And the people who care about their life inside the gym are the people who work inside the gym. Quite honestly most clients don’t. Maggie: So, I want to pull it back to you for a minute. Because you’ve talked about going from not finishing high school at first. To where you are now which is cofounder of multiple companies. And a huge contributor to what we know about  modern fitness today. You’ve written 50 or more accredited courses that people now go through to get their own certifications. And how you’ve gone from one step to the next. When you look back on it now, what do you think was your guiding force throughout? Or has that changed? Scott: That’s a really great questions. Today, looking back I’ve got a different lens than if you had asked me a year ago or ten years ago, right? But the common thread is to truly be of service. I know it sounds really cheesy but from PGA Global to Pivotal to coaching people or teams or kids. And a lot of what I do is volunteer work in the community. A lot of the teams that I coach, the high schools and the local soccer leagues. It’s all volunteer work, right.  I find that I’m at my most happiest, in flow. When you’re not thing about the bills or the money. When nothing else matters in that present moment is when I’m being of service to someone as a coach. Whether it’s the teacher coach, the sports coach, as a coach. And it could be 4:00 on a Friday night, pouring rain on Foster Lake shore where I coach soccer. And we’ve got out ten year old kids, our eleven year old kids, our sixteen year old high school girls and it’s pouring with rain and it’s 25 degrees. The time just flies. And you get home soaked and cold and you think I want to do it again. It’s those moments where you feel that in flow there is something going on in you. You know what I mean? There’s an internal something directing you. So the single biggest directive force is that, I find that when I’m of service to people, selfishly it seems to make me feel really great. So maybe that’s one good use for being selfish [...]. And I really do want to know that it mattered, to be honest mate. I want to know that the work I do matters. I guess I can only speak for myself but man some many times you go through life and you think did anything I do today make a blind bit of difference. Do you know what I mean? Or, in some cases made it worse. But at the end of the day you want to know that your life made a difference. To someone or something bigger than yourself. I think that’s the biggest directing force I’ve had is the sense of I think this makes a difference. I just have a feeling this makes a difference. I don’t know if that answered your question or if it was too esoteric. I can make it more pragmatic if you want. Maggie: No, I think that it gives me goosebumps because I think that’s what everyone wants to some degree. And that’s a really special thing to find your flow. I don’t know that we can all say that we have it enough. We have probably been in flow at some point in our lives. But maybe we’re not attuned enough to saying this is it, how do I recreate this. It seems like you do have that awareness sort of around what is the secret sauce to when you’re feeling in flow and how you can keep doing it. Or keep bringing it back as much as possible. Would you agree? Scott: Yeah. I think the struggle for all of us, myself included is I think we do know what that is. There’s just an innate knowing, you know? It like saying I don't know if I love my kids. You know you love your kids. You can’t find the words. You know, right? But life, we allow ourselves to be distracted by what’s urgent rather than important. By what’s demanding. So I’ve often taken jobs that didn’t feel good. Because the money was a safety net. Or the benefits were a safety net. Or whatever it was, even though I knew there was a big [...] I would love and yeah it’s in my industry. And then a year in you’re like, this is not me. But you go along because now you’ve got bills and kids. We do and that’s real man. But at some stage you know you can’t die with your music in you. That’s for sure. Maggie: Yeah. Scott: You know what I mean? Maggie: Right. Scott: It’s like being in flow is when you sit down and you’re writing. I write alot for work and also non-work stuff. And you’ll just be in flow and you have it going you don’t realize 3 or 4 hours are gone and it’s 20 pages on the floor. And you realize crap, I didn’t number them. Because you’re just in flow. It doesn’t happen every day. It doesn’t and there’s things you have to do to reconnect to it when you lose it. You know, there’s prayer or meditation, whatever it is that connects you to that thing. For some people, it’s playing sport. It’s dance. Maggie: Yeah. Scott: When you feel disconnected, you better reconnect. You know. You have to because that is really painful being constantly disconnected from your source, your flow. That’s a really painful existence, for me it was. Often, what sparks me into reconnecting is how much more miserable do I have to get before I reclaim happiness, you know? How much more self-pity, wallowing. Sometimes you have to say hold on, there’s what happens to you and then it’s how you react to it. And sometimes you have to say stop that’s enough. I’m going to reconnect to what makes me feel good. I’m going to go back to where I’m in flow. And it requires a leap very often. And Pivotal started when, two years ago. I had been at Midtown Athletic Club as their national director for five years rebuilding the facilities, re-recruiting the coaches, developing Midtown University, it was huge projects. And I realized I was getting more into operations again. More into PNLs and that’s what the job deserves and that’s what they deserve. But in my mind I thought maybe I could manipulate it to be more education so that wasn’t fair. So I had a wonderful chat with an incredible COO, John Brady. And [...] changed. It was like I need to reclaim and he said Scott just do what you love and you’re great at. That’s why I recruited you in the first place. And I went home and I realized I need to make a change. Loved the club, loved the people but I wasn’t in flow anymore. I made two phone calls on the way home that day to two leaders in the industry that I hadn’t spoken to in years. I said what would you say if I said I was available to write education, deliver education, and teach teachers again. Within 24 hours, I had a plane trip to China and I was in boardrooms speaking to these leaders. And I came home to Haley and I said I think we need to start a company. But you honestly need to stop doing one thing that wasn’t making you happy but do it the right way. Don’t just cut and run. Consider other people. And then took this leap of faith, like these two names came to me and it was like wow, they’re leaders man. Should I really call them. They picked up immediately and said I want you on a plane. And it was that reminder light that when you say yes to life it conspires to help you, you know what I mean? That’s my experience but you’ve got to do the work. It doesn’t just come. It’s not Mary Poppins sitting around and hope that if I meditate good things come. No, you’ve got to meditate but then you’ve got to take action, right? It takes a lot of work. Relentless effort, actually. Relentless effort and I think that’s the final piece. For successful people I see is, if it sounds like a lot of work, it’s because it is. Maggie: It’s probably ten times more than it even sounds like. Scott: Success is always hard work whether in love relationships, raising your kids, business life. To be good at anything is probably going to take a bloody lot of work. But if you’re enthusiastic and you’re in flow more often than not, even on the bad days it’s like you know what, I can do that. Maggie: Well this has been an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast, Scott. Scott: Thanks for having me! I hope the listeners get something out of the crazy stuff that comes out but it was an honor. It was really nice. Cindy: He goal getters, co-host and producer Cindy Kuzma here. Just letting you know that we have coming up for you now a goal from one of you, our listeners. This is another one recorded live at the Michelob Ultra Sweatworking Week Fitness Festival last month. If you want to share one of your goals with us, whether it’s a goal you achieved, a goal your setting up to achieve, even a piece of goal-getting advice that you’d like to share you could do that and you could be featured on this very podcast. All you have to do is record it and email it in mp3, wav, whatever kind of file you want to  Cindy@aSweatLife.com. Thanks and here is you and one of your goals. Speaker: So I set a couple of goals earlier this year and I noticed that one thing I didn’t do was have accountability in a plan. So I find myself now it’s June and I haven’t accomplished the goals that I set for myself.  Because I haven’t set those checkpoints to say, hey, you know how are you going to get there? Have you been doing everything on a daily basis, on a weekly basis? And then just that accountability. So whether that’s telling someone and having them check in with you, or just saying by first quarter I’m going to accomplish this and then next quarter I’m going to accomplish that. And then I just found myself not having achieved anything. So, for the second part of the year I’m going to reset and visit some different goals and create strategies that are more focused around holding myself accountable for those specific plans. Cindy: This podcast is produced by me, Cindy Kuzma and it’s another thing that’s better with friends. So please, share it with yours. You can subscribe pretty much anywhere you get your podcasts including now on Spotify. And while you’re there if you could leave us a rating or review we would be so grateful. Special thanks to Jay Mono, for our theme music, to our guest this week, Scott Hobson, and to TechNexus for the recording studio. And of course, to you our listeners.  

How to be the CEO of Your Own Business with Maggie Patterson. In this episode of the Boss Mom Podcast, Maggie shares her tips, tricks and best practices when starting a business and hiring a coach. Sponsored by Throwing Pinecones Gathering.   Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes:  In this episode you’ll hear: Maggie's boss mom journey complete with her starting her own business at 18! Her current business. The answer to the question of how to find a first client as an entrepreneur. The power of networking. Hiring and outsourcing as business owners. Investing in a business coach. What is important for a new business owner. Our Podcast Sponsor: Throwing Pinecones Gathering The Throwing Pincones Gathering is a one-day event in Portland, OR, to help Christian women foster vulnerability, growth and depth in Christ. At the Throwing Pinecones Gathering, you will be equipped with the tools you need to seek this strength and courage and empower you to utilize them. All proceeds of the event go to benefit the human trafficking education and awareness through the organization She Has a Name. To get your ticket to the event, visit their website, Throwing Pinecones Ministry. Recommended links and resources: Google Basecamp Ego is the Enemy Boss Mom mugs Boss Mom Academy Boss Mom Facebook Community Can I quote you on that?  If you're an entrepreneur at heart, you're going to figure business out as you go. - Maggie It's important to get really good with what you do and getting known for that expertise. - Maggie One to one networking is important! - Maggie Selling is an invitation and allowing others to see what you're offering. - Maggie Get a coach before you get a course because a coach will be helping you directly. - Dana When working with a coach, you really need to have chemistry and a connection before you put down money. - Maggie If you can look at a 12-week chunk, goals don't seem so overwhelming. - Maggie More about our guest, Maggie Patterson. Maggie Patterson is a copywriter and communications strategist. She works hands-on with entrepreneurs to help them market their businesses, using content and communications strategies along with copy that converts, to meet business goals. With more than 15 years of experience, she has worked with companies of all sizes from big brands to solopreneurs. After cutting her teeth during the dot-com bubble and bust in Canada’s leading PR agency, Maggie started her own highly successful marketing and communications consultancy. Wife of the local volunteer fire chief and mom of the 11-year old Lego King, Maggie loves travel, her half acre outdoor oasis in the middle of nowhere, reading, papercrafts, wine and far too many other things to possibly list. Facebook / Twitter / Website / Podcast Connect with Dana: Instagram / The Boss Mom Facebook community (her total happy place) We love hearing from you guys! If you’ve got a question about today’s episode or want to leave us some inbox love, you can email us at hello@boss-mom.com Or, you can always find both Dana hanging out in our Boss Mom Facebook Community.  We would LOVE it if you’d leave a podcast rating or review on iTunes. We also know it can be kind of tricky to figure out. Here are a few step by step instructions on how to leave an iTunes rating or review for a podcast from your iPhone or iPad Launch Apple’s Podcast app. Tap the Search tab. Enter the name of the podcast you want to rate or review. Tap the blue Search key at the bottom right. Tap the album art for the podcast. Tap the Reviews tab. Tap Write a Review at the bottom. Enter your iTunes password to login. Tap the Stars to leave a rating. Enter title text and content to leave a review. Tap Send.