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Randy Mercer is an omnichannel product content expert with over 15 years of industry experience. He leads 1WorldSync's global product management and solution architecture teams, aligning the company's portfolio with current customer needs and emerging market trends. A frequent commentator for national and trade media outlets covering retail and e-commerce news, Randy leverages his extensive background in item and data content alignment, e-commerce application development and solution designed to guide 1WorldSync's strategic product roadmap and vision.  Questions •  Now, could you share with our listeners a little bit about your journey? How it is that you got from where you're coming from, to where you are today? •  Could you tell our audience a little bit about 1WorldSync, what it is that your organisation does? •  What are some key things that if we had a listener, tapping into this podcast, who was in that similar space looking to strengthen the architecture of their user experience, whether it be the digital web, or even the face to face or even through the contact centre that you believe they should be focused on primarily at this time? •  What have been some maybe one or two emerging market trends that you've seen in the whole customer experience space, not just necessarily from a face to face interaction, but even digital? •  Could you share with our listeners based on your experience especially from a design perspective, what are some key things that you need to consider in order to ensure or at least to get as close to being consistent? •  Could you share with our listeners as well, what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? •  Could you also share with our listeners maybe one or two books that have had a great impact on you, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently? •  Now, could you also share with our listeners what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. •  Now, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you will tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed? It kind of helps to get you back on track.   Highlights Randy's Journey  Me: Now, could you share with our listeners a little bit about your journey? How it is that you got from where you're coming from, to where you are today?    Randy shared that he started out as an application developer about 20 years ago, and through that, doing some customer development for a few customers, he found himself developing applications for the space that he's in today, which is product content and sharing and distribution of that content. And fast forward, about two decades, he's now been with 1WorldSync for about 10 years, and had been leading the product organization for about the last 5 years or so of that.   What is 1WorldSync and What Your Company Does? Me: Could you tell our audience a little bit about 1WorldSync, what it is that your organisation does?   Randy shared that they're a SaaS platform that sits predominantly in the retail space and they sit between large manufacturers, CPG manufacturers primarily, and large retail organizations, many of which you would know, and they allow those organizations to share master data and e-com content back and forth between the two organizations to power pretty much any channel.   Strengthening the Architecture of the User Experience Whether by Digital Web, Face-to-Face or Contact Centre Me: So, you're in that digital space, I was reading something that Shep Hyken sent out recently about the different acronyms that you have now, you have EX, CX, WX, UX and he was kind of giving a breakdown in his newsletter as to the different user experiences that exist on what the acronyms represent. Just thinking about the different experiences that the customer has, based on your experience and your area, what I picked up from your bio was you focus a lot on the landscape and the architecture of the experience. What are some key things that if we had a listener, tapping into this podcast, who was in that similar space looking to strengthen the architecture of their user experience, whether it be the digital web, or even the face to face or even through the contact centre that you believe they should be focused on primarily at this time?   Randy stated that when they look at their customer base, and their target market, what they're primarily helping them with is to the consumer experience associated with e-com primarily. But they also extend that into the in store experience as well. So, they're often very focused on for them, that consistency between the in store experience and the e-com experience, in terms of the content that they're using to power all of that. So, a very consistent product representation across all of the channels to include the imagery, the search engine optimized copy, rich media, in the terms of videos - AR, VR, all of those things.  But aside from all of that, when you think of just how all of that comes to be something that they help their customers with a lot is what they describe as orchestrating the content or the consumer experience. How do you get from creating content, managing it, distributing it into the marketplace, and then monitoring how it's selling for you. All the things that go into orchestrating those behaviours and those activities is just secondarily something that they help their customers with a lot.   Market Trends in the Customer Experience Space Me: Now, in your space, your business and what you're doing. What have been some maybe one or two emerging market trends that you've seen in the whole customer experience space, not just necessarily from a face to face interaction, but even digital seeing that many customers, that's where they hang out, it's easier for them, the convenience is better, and it's less hassle for them.    Randy shared that the biggest thing that they recognize today is just the expectations of the consumer that's shopping online, in terms of the types of information and the types of content that they're expecting to see when they're doing their shopping on any e-commerce site. Beyond that, he just mentioned the consistency related to that, what they know in the consumer surveys that they do is that consumers today are not just shopping on one site, they're often looking at items across a number of different digital properties before they finally make a buying decision. And they're looking for more and more content.  So, one of the expectations that they see evolving is just this expectation of consistency across these digital channels, if they don't see that, it damages the trust they might have in the information they're seeing. If it's not the same, like which one of them is correct. And then sometimes they just move on to other products, and things like that.  So, the other thing that they see evolving around the online consumer experience, is the fact that consumers don't like to read, they like to look at pictures. So, when they help their customers with the imagery that they use to depict their products, more and more, they're starting to create imagery that contains some of the verbiage that is actually in the SEO copy. But again, consumers don't often read that, they're just looking at the picture so annotated images becoming more and more frequent, hotspot images where they've got spots on the images, where you can click and pull up some specific details.  And then hero imagery, where they take a front facing product image and they call out a few very key details about that product as a way of just informing the consumer without them having to read some of the text. Me: Right, so you kind of have to find a way to make the information pop, making it less frustrating for them to try and dig through your website to try and find what they're looking for, but it's there.   Key Things to Consider in Order to Ensure Consistency Me: You mentioned expectations and consistency and I quite agree with you as it relates to both. I find a lot of organizations, it's not that they don't deliver a great experience or maybe that's their intention is to give a great experience. But the challenge is that they don't do it consistently. Could you share with our listeners based on your experience especially from a design perspective, what are some key things that you need to consider in order to ensure or at least to get as close to ensuring because I know nothing in life is guaranteed, to get closer to being consistent?    Randy stated that it is just attention to detail. So, within their platform that allows the manufacturers to manage and prepare their data to be sharing that with the marketplace, they just provide a lot of tools that help them with the finer points of the content. A really good example of that is, a significant percentage of their customers are in the food CPG space, so selling food products into retail channel. And today in the area of transparency and an intense interest in nutritionals, allergens, those kinds of things is related to food, the key to all of that is the nutrition fact panel that you often see represented on the back of food packaging, being represented digitally online, if that is not absolutely consistent with the package itself and then maybe other digital representations of that, you're very quickly going to damage the consumers trust in that particular product is related to what they're putting in their body or feeding to their family.  So, they provide a lot of things, a lot of tools to help ensure that consistency all the way down to the point that they'll assemble that information on behalf of the brand, driven by imagery of the packaging and they use OCR, so optical scanning and some AI to digitize that information. So, just an example, that's just a really key one in their space.  Beyond that, just always goes back to the imagery, that's the first thing that consumers are looking at when they look at a product online on any digital channel is that imagery. So, the degree to which you can distribute that all from one point of origination, which in for their customers oftentimes is their platform, the better chance you stand of having it consistent across the digital channels that you're trying to sell that product on.   Me: And of course the consistency leads to trust because if you're consistent then you become a brand that they trust and if the trust factor is there, then they're more likely to continue purchasing from you. You also mentioned at the beginning, the expectations and I find a lot of times that there is a big disconnect between what is advertised and marketed, and of course, that's what sets up the expectations of the client. And then what the client actually receives, what has been your experience in trying to ensure that there is as close an alignment as possible between customer expectations and what is actually communicated by the brand?   Randy stated that that is a really good question. And it's something that they talk about a lot on the retailer or the e-tail side. They talked to those customers about making sure they're not manufacturing returns, right. And you can manufacture return by doing exactly what you just described, misrepresenting the product online, somebody buys it, they think they're getting one thing, they get it, and it's not exactly what they thought they were buying, and so they return it. And then as the e-tailer, you're in a worse position than if you had not even sold the thing in the first place, because you're dealing with the expense of that return.  So, again, when they work with their brands, relative to how they can provide the best content out into the marketplace to represent their products online, oftentimes, for some of them that they're encouraging them to just let them do it, ship the product to them, they'll take the imagery of the product, they'll drive the product information, and that way they know when it leaves their platform, out into whatever retailer or e-tailer is going to use that content, they're confident that it's absolutely representative of the product itself.  That said, they never do that without the brand sign off on it, right, they give them the chance to say, “Yep, that accurately represents my product.” But as opposed to just letting the brand provide some content that they don't really have visibility for the origination of that. It's just easier often if they just do it on behalf of the brand, to just makes sure it's absolutely representative of the product.   App, Website or Tool that Randy Absolutely Can't Live Without in His Business When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Randy stated that they use a lot of tools that provide digital read only representations of product data that they assemble from a lot of different sources. And often they're using AI to do that to draw up a number of sources within their applications, create that representation as a way to visually represent the items that will be in in ecom. So, in their case, they use an application within their enterprise called Digital Catalog and it's literally what it says. And that's just the primary mechanism they have to cross check, what is the product going to look like when you actually do publish it online across any channel? So, that's a key one right there.    Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Randy When asked about books that have had a great impact, Randy shared that he tends to read a lot of books about product management. And so, most recently, can't remember the titles, but two of them are the most recent ones are just around the evolution of product Management. And how folks think about doing that today in ways different than they used to. And what he means by that is at one time, it was very driven around the expectations of specific customers and trying to drive your products based on maybe some expectations that may not be pervasive to your entire community. And today, we think about it a lot more from a pragmatic perspective.  In fact, pragmatic marketing is one of those areas of materials that they leverage in their product management practice. And the net of all of that is, think very pragmatically about the solutions that you're developing or the products that you're managing, in a way that the solutions you're providing are pervasive to your customer community is something that they're willing to pay for because you're solving a valuable problem for them. So, he thinks pragmatic marketing is probably one of the most recent things that he can refer to.   What Randy is Really Excited About Now! When asked about something that he's really excited about, Randy shared that for him, in their organization specifically, they've acquired a few technology platforms over the last to 2 or 3 years, that the fun part of that is not only having access to some additional technology to add to your solution portfolio, but just the opportunity that you have to work with just brand new sets of people that come along with whatever platform you might acquire.  And what they always find is, in addition to the value of the technology itself, it's the value of the people that comes along with it, right. So, just new skill sets, new personalities, new energy. So, for him, he's literally on the road right now just visiting one of their recently acquired organizations. And it's just very exciting to him to just have that new experience and bring new people into the organization. And you get a lot of new perspectives and so for him, that's top of mind.   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Randy Uses  When asked about a quote that he tends to revert to, Randy stated yes, he just used it earlier today. And it might sound kind of negative when I says it but he always say, “Don't come with problems, come with solutions.” And it's just so often that folks want to expose or draw attention to an issue without much forethought to what you can do about it and just the approach that he just tries to encourage is, if you see an issue or some friction within either the organization or maybe something that you're trying to do, think through it first, how can you solve that problem and then that's what you bring forward. And that's what you shed light on, versus just the issue itself.  So, he always tend to draw back on that, even with himself because the knee jerk reaction is to just moan and groan about something that isn't working quite the way you want it to. And he just has to remind himself, think about it first and find the solution and then that makes the rest of it much easier to deal with.   Me: Thank you so much for coming on our podcast today and sharing all of these great insights as it relates to your organization and your expertise. And also some of the things that organizations can consider as it relates to consistency and expectations when they're trying to design a landscape for customers across the different channels that they're serving them to ensure that they have a delightful and a fantastic experience. I'm sure our listeners gained great insights from the information you shared with us today. Thank you so much.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest    The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners  Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.” The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! 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Peter Mullen brings more than two decades of marketing leadership to his role as Interactions' CMO. Previously, he was Senior Vice President of Marketing at Payactiv, where he led customer success marketing, lead-gen programming, customer acquisition, product marketing and more.  Prior, he held prominent marketing and communications roles at VXI Global Solutions, Comcast and Netflix.   Questions •  We always like to give our guests an opportunity to share in their own words, a little bit about your journey, how it is that you got to where you are today. •  So, you are currently the CMO of Conversational AI at Interactions, correct? • Seeing that you work at an organisation that you're dealing with troubleshooting of customers challenges on a daily basis, could you share with us maybe one or two success stories that you've had with clients? And you know what the impact has been for their business as a result of your approach and methodology? •  How do you maintain the human touch even though you're using AI and how impactful has that been for your clients? •  What would be two to three things that you would recommend that they need to focus on for the latter part of 2023, preparing for 2024, in order to ensure that they stay relevant, and they're able to hopefully do a better job than their competition? •  Could you also share with our listeners what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? •  Could you also share with our listeners maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you, it could be a book that you read recently, or even one that you read a very long time ago, but still has had a great impact on you. •  Could you also share with our listeners what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. •  Where can listeners find you online? • Now, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests in times of adversity or challenge, do you have a quote that you would use or revert back to, to kind of help you to get you back on track if for any reason you got derailed or you felt demotivated or you just got off the course of what you were doing? Do you have one of those?   Highlights Peter's Journey Peter shared that he lives in Silicon Valley. He's been doing marketing for more than 20 years, which means he had the opportunity to arrive in Silicon Valley just as the internet was becoming massively adopted across the world and began to change everything. His background is as a journalist, and more on the liberal arts side of things. So, for him, his journey was one of spending several years moving into the tech world, and really focusing on narratives, how do we tell the stories about the great things that we're building? How do we make it understandable, digestible? And ultimately, what type of impact can we bring to people in many cases who are seeing things for the first time? And Netflix was a defining moment where they reinvented how the world gains its entertainment, with all the beautiful personalization and customization.  Throughout the career, his journey has been sitting in that intersection of new ideas, new technology, making it explainable to people, and how the CX element has come in in the last decade is really simple.  What he discovered was that we could build the greatest things in the world, we could communicate in the best way. But if it was not embraced by CX, if CX was not leading how we presented that to the rest of the world, we would stall. So, for the past decade, his focus has been in the CX world, working in all elements from BPO's, from contact centres, and right now with a wonderful technology company that helps provide better digital experiences for customers around the world.    What is Interactions? Me: So, you are currently the CMO of Conversational AI at Interactions, correct?   Peter confirmed, correct. It's a really simple explanation of who they are and what they do. They are the digital front door for the brands around the world that care the most about that first front door experience. They lead with voice and what that means is that when millions of people call into any of these brands, they start their conversations with, “How may I help you today?” They have AI, plus human in the loop, it's unique, they're the only ones who do that. And it enables the customers to speak in their natural language, ask natural questions and all of their technology processes that really efficiently. The outcome and what that means for millions of call centre agents and businesses alike, is that they have customers that are more satisfied, they're having better experiences without the friction and when they ultimately have to talk to an agent in a human experience when that's necessary, they are further along the customer journey and it's a quicker resolution, so that adds to operational efficient in a significant way.   What Has Been the Impact for a Business as a Result of Your Approach and Methodology? Me: So, seeing that you work at an organization that you're dealing with troubleshooting of customers challenges on a daily basis, could you share with us maybe one or two success stories that you've had with clients? And what the impact has been for their business as a result of your approach and methodology?   Peter stated that it's a great question, he'll give two answers of examples. So, they work with one of the top five financial institutions in America, and a customer of that financial institution will call in with a lost credit card, they're able to process that fluidly and effectively without having to have a human agent engage on that.  And in this sequence, this customer journey, they can actually with their digital technology and their AI cover over 40 different requests that the customer may have just on that simple one call in. They can do it all in one call, leading to an overall better customer experience.  Another example, they work with one of the largest consumer technology companies in the world, they have outlets around the world, you can schedule an appointment at any one of them around the world, call up, talk to their automated assistant, reschedule it for any time, any date with different products that you want to come in and discuss and any different location in the world. Again, without ever having to talk to a human being that can be handled in mere minutes, with their solution, there's no hold time, no waiting in any way. And the processing is just effective and fluid for everybody.   Me: Wow, no wait time, goodness me. Sounds like we need your company here in Kingston, Jamaica.   Peter shared that they did a customer survey in the spring of US base consumers, what their biggest concerns and complaints were, this is no surprise, there are 77% of us who complain that wait times are the number one problem in customer service. If we could eliminate that one thing, let's even reduce it by half, the entire CX experience is transformational for the rest of the journey.   Maintaining the Human Touch While Using AI and How Impactful Has That Been for Clients Me: Could you also share with us that as an organization, I know you mentioned that you're heavily into AI, but you're one of the few companies that also has a human touch that's integrated with the AI in your methodology and approach. How do you maintain the human touch even though you're using AI and how impactful has that been for your clients?    Peter stated that first, he will just acknowledge this remarkable moment in time in the second half of 2023. We are all trying to figure out what to do with generative AI, the world truly changed in November of 2022 last year, when open AI debuted and everyone could see how powerful it was and it's only scratching the surface. So, he's had more than 100 customer conversations this year, he's been to more than a dozen events, walking the floors, talking to everybody. And AI is the number one word being spoken in all of those corridors.  Number two word, however, is human, and this is really important because as all as these businesses around the world and all these people around the world are trying to figure out what the New World Order is going to be. The aspect of having the human touch, the human empathy, the human brain is absolutely essential.  And we all have to acknowledge that the greatest computer for the foreseeable future is going to be the human brain, it is today, it will be over the next coming years. Let's see where it is in the next decade. But for now, let's use that as our baseline.  Now his company is a company that was one of the OG's, the original gangsters of Conversational AI with an emphasis on the artificial part of it, the AI. They started 18 years ago, when they started 18 years ago, AI was not that good. So, from day one, they had put a human in the loop. What that means very functionally is if the technology cannot understand what the customer or the client is looking for, they've always had a human in the background ready to nudge the conversation forward. That agent he or she is not engaged in the whole conversation, but rather, will catch a snippet of the voice conversation or the text or the chat and be able to say, “Aha, this is what Yanique is trying to do, this is where she wants to go next in her journey flow.”  And the agent will, as he said, nudge it forward. That's unique for what they do. So, they focus AI first, and about 90 plus percent of the time AI is all that's needed. But for that last 10,% it's essential that the human helps move it onward. And other companies today don't do it that way, other companies are typically starting with the human first and then augmenting AI on the back end for automation. Does that make sense?    Me: Right? So, basically, you're saying because the human comes in at the tail end of the experience, you're able to have the resolution done quicker. Because now it's moved up, it's escalated, especially if it's something that can't be fixed that first point of contact.   Peter stated that that's exactly right. If you think about the IVR, and the prompts that typically exist in many frontline solutions, the moment that we run into trouble, we get into a loop, or we can't move forward in a way we want, we start pressing zero, we start yelling for the agent, 33% of us swore at a robot last year, that just let you know just how peaked, he thinks that percentage is low, but it shows how peaked people are with their customer experience. And for what typically happens, as you know, as the first one or two engagements are okay, then it starts getting more complex, more layered, more nuanced, that's where a human can play this essential role of coming in and understanding what you want to do and then pushing it forward.   Recommendations Companies Need to Focus on to Ensure They Stay Relevant and Do a Better Job Than Their Competition Me: Now, you mentioned that we're like halfway through 2023 and it's so true, a lot of us are looking to what's next, what's the next innovative, creative, exciting thing that my organization can do that would set me apart from my competition? So, if you were to give advice to our listeners that are tapping into this episode that are in the customer experience space, what would be two to three things that you would recommend that they need to focus on for the latter part of 2023, preparing for 2024, in order to ensure that they stay relevant, and they're able to hopefully do a better job than their competition?  Peter stated so first, he wants to use the word he used earlier, which is baseline. He thinks it's really important to have a baseline understanding of what AI is doing, and what it's going to be doing over the next several years. His perspective and opinion is that it is much more significant than even any of us understand that this is truly a game changer that is going to impact every aspect of the customer contact centre world, customer experience itself, that's his baseline.  Now, on top of that, here's another trend that is not just for the rest of this year, but essential to understand how fast it has changed the world. Personalization, and customization is transformational. You and I have had all of our behaviours changed by that incredible computer that we hold in our hand, we expect instant resolution, we expect customed and tailored experiences, AI then offers the solution for that expectation.  Over time in the next several years, we're going to be able to automate, we're going to be able to speed up resolutions or experiences. And we're going to be able to customize and personalize those experiences, these are essential to understand as macro themes. And they're secular, which means they are long standing, it's not just going be a blip on our radar.  So, if he's a young person in a contact centre, moving his way up, ambitious, he leans forward, he's thinking about how rapidly this can potentially impact and change the ecosystem that he works in today. So, as an individual, he's thinking to himself, how am I going to evolve and ride the wave in a way that will be beneficial for me, for my family, and for those around, there's tremendous opportunities. But it's absolutely essential to understand how big this is.   If he's a business, so, now moving up the food chain a bit, he needs to be thinking about how AI can bring operational efficiency, improvement in Op X - operational expenses, and how we can truly automate and streamline my overall operations. And if he's that person, which many days he's talking to those people by the way, he's thinking to himself every day, how do I take the incredible human capital and the talent I have, and build solutions around them so that talent can be unlocked?  You and I both know how much processing takes place, how much wrote automation occurs right now with human beings. Think about what it's going to mean as we can start to unlock all of that talent, because AI can put in the automation, freeing us up to do a lot more important and essential things which ultimately reinforces at that whole personalization opportunity back to the clients.   App, Website or Tool that Peter Absolutely Can't Live Without in His Business When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Peter stated that this will probably not surprise many people, he believes that Slack is absolutely a game changer for businesses today. So, the challenge that we have is that in the past three years, our worlds have turned upside down and we've gone hybrid, we've gone remote, we've gone back to the office, typically kicking and screaming in that case. It is a true challenge for business leaders to understand how do you effectively communicate with your teams in this new disrupted world.  He'll give you one example. If you are a business that has veterans who have worked there for multiple years, they have a tonne of tribal knowledge, they also have positive relationships that they've formed over the years with each other, then you have now new people coming in who don't have any of those connections, they don't know where things even are. A tool like Slack has one beautiful element that he doesn't think is talked about enough. It enables you to process both business in real time, but it also enables you to process personality and more of the informality that used to take place in offices all the time, even a smiley face or a thumbs up is a different type of communication then you would have on email, you have on the phone. This type of connecting of the fabric is absolutely essential to be doing right now for business success.   Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Peter When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Peter shared that there's a book that is called Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal. He's a Stanford Professor and this came out about a decade ago, Hooked is a very friendly, easy to read, B to C book, describing how to capture the curiosity of people online, typically using apps. It's simply how you build their confidence, which leads to trust, trust leads to engagement, engagement leads to loyalty and sales. And the reason that he's calling that out is because it is so darn simple. He keeps it on his bookshelf and reread it at least once a year simply to reinforce how important it is to build confidence and trust with a buyer no matter B2B, B2C, client, customer, anyone. Trust is the absolute currency of the next 20 years.   What Peter is Really Excited About Now! When asked about something that he's excited about, Peter stated what a great question. So, he's going to speak about people and team for a second. It's been a rough 18 months for many of us, it's been a rough 3 or 4 years for many of us. He's really excited about how to think structurally about teams, think about this hybrid environment all of us are in and think about how to motivate groups of people to lift their heads above all of the different conflicting confusions and excitements and pressures that are hitting us to deliver good results. So, very specifically, he's using this year to think about how on a one to one and a one to few and a one to many, he can help the teams and the people around him optimize their own success.   Me: And do you have some tools that you have in mind in getting that done? Are you kind of just still in the strategy phase?   Peter stated that he believes that there is a tremendous power in having slogans and using those slogans repeatedly to help build momentum, build a movement, almost like a sports team. So, this year in 2023, from a team approach, which is one of the things that's very important to him, he has 3 of them.  One is a zero to one mentality. And what that means and what he share with the team is that there are massive things that they are trying to change but if they take a quote, unquote, one, zero to one mentality, what it means is that they constantly want to think about start-up and start-up innovation. Take small steps forward, look at everything you're doing as going from nothing to something. And what that does is it enables you to have small fast wins. It enables you to appreciate those wins. And when you have setbacks, and we all do, it puts those setbacks in a framework that says they're minor and the next day we can move forward, that's zero to one.  Second slogan is “Rungs on your ladder.” And he learned this by working at one of the top 20 largest BPO's in the world. It's incredible to him to think about nearshore, onshore and offshore, millions of folks who are moving up every day with their careers. And so, we focus a lot on rungs on your ladder, what's the right thing for you, wherever you are in your career stage to take the next step up. And they're very explicit with that on his team, every person knows what the rung on the ladder is for their teammate. That type of transparency means that they are a team all working together.  The third one, and the third slogan is lean forward, he has a very strong bias that people who are going to lean forward in their chair are going to be the ones who are going to move forward and be the most successful. But really importantly, because of those first two ideas, if he's getting his team to lean forward, it's in a cooperative, supportive way and that radiates around and their teammates start leaning forward as well.   Where Can We Find Peter Online LinkedIn – Peter Mullen LinkedIn – Interactions Website – www.interactions.com               Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Peter Uses When asked about a quote or saying that he tend to revert to, Peter stated that that is a surprise question that he will answer very authentically. He's a cancer survivor. He has had setbacks at multiple times in his life in various ways and spaces. And he thinks many of us have, he thinks that there's a lot of hidden challenges but also triumphs that all of us have experienced. And so for him, a simple phrase that he often uses for himself is, “Always tomorrow.” And what that reflects and means for him is that no matter what setbacks we have, no matter what move forwards we have, there's always going to be the next day to do it again and do it a little better.    Me: Brilliant. Always tomorrow, I like it. Thank you so much, Peter, for taking time out of your very busy schedule and hopping on this podcast with us, sharing all these great insights as it relates to AI is wonderful, but the human touch is also very critical. I'm glad that you did reinforce that in your message and our conversation that the human element isn't going anywhere and it's still going to be the baseline of everything that we're doing, I think that was really critical to what you brought across. And also, some of the recommendations that you believe our listeners can focus on as we move towards closing off 2023 and tap into 2024, what are some of the areas that they need to really engage in. Whether from a as you mentioned, B2C approach, or B2B or even in just building your career. We really appreciate it and just want to say thank you so much.    Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Links ·  Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners  Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.” The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience! 

Al Gore: The Internet is a series of tubes. Me: Say what? Al Gore: Naw, Nice talking to you kid. But what if instead of a series of tubes, it was a series of podcasts and those podcasts were arranged in a network? Me: Right. Al Gore: Well let me recommend you a podcast network: Globe Hell Family Podcast Network. Me: Epic! Al Gore: Yes.

Storytime With Managers is a collection of twenty minute conversations where Jennifer Tu finds answers to questions of interest for both established and budding leaders in technology fields. Today's episode covers building trust across differences with Annyce Davis (@brwngrldev on Twitter or annycedavis on LinkedIn). Annyce is a software developer and leader focused on Android and mobile development. She shares her mobile expertise through videos, blogs, and conference talks (ask her to present at yours!). Annyce is an engineering manager who leads the software team at Zola Electric, which provides clean energy to households that suffer from unreliable energy grids. We talk about building trust in a business setting, how different people may value different ways to build trust, and how to learn and do this in your own team. Tell us what you think of our podcast! We're on Twitter as @wecohere. --- Episode references: The culture map by Erin Meyer: https://www.erinmeyer.com/book/ (or fnd it at your library) Talk to Me Right! by Annyce Davis: http://adavis.info/2019/02/talk-to-me-right.html (or watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8a49CilmEU&list=PLlMnG4OZ1S7mvmBs4sXvfIgW3uHLrtxjb) ---- Our theme music is by Kevin MacLeod (CC-BY): www.orangefreesounds.com/electronic-ambient-easy-listening-music/ Editing by Bryant from Zinc (https://www.zincma.de/) - thanks for making us sound so good, Bryant! Tell us what you think of Storytime With Managers! Twitter: @wecohere

Description: Heather Craik shares with us some pitfalls of dating as a single mom, with some pretty crazy results. Plus a food that fills you up from the inside outHi everybody, I'm Barbara Fernandez, the Rocking Raw Chef, here with my Clean Food, Dirty Stories: one to entertain, the other to inspire.I help people stamp out stress, depression and fatigue over at RockingRawChef.com, and today's title is:How Not To Date As A Single Mom (And Still Find Love Anyway)In addition to this story, at the end of this episode I'll share with you the best food to feel full, in other words, to fill you up from the inside out.OK enough hints from me, let's get on with the story.Our guest, Heather CraikI am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Heather Craik. Heather's going to share with us what it can be like to start out life as a single mom, explore dating on Tinder (which like I've never done) and have long distance relationships (which I haven't done either). So all that sounds super interesting to me! She now helps people solve a completely different kind of problem which we'll mention later.For now though, Heather, welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I've been looking forward to having you ever since you told me about your incredible, roller-coaster story!Heather: Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.Me: You're so welcome. So I think if I understood it correctly that your story starts where you were with somebody and you got pregnant? And then you wound up being a single mom? Can you talk about how that came about, maybe?Heather's storyHeather: Yeah, sure. I mean I'd been with this guy for about nine years or so and that's an entirely different story in and of itself. But what happened was I was in Canada when I fell pregnant. And because I wasn't expecting to fall pregnant in Canada, I didn't actually have medical coverage for that. So I came back home to the UK which is where I'm from. And you know a couple of months after that I realized that it was really not working out with this other guy.Me: The nine year guy.Heather: So that was just a bit entertaining for a while. I broke it off with him and went through the rest of my pregnancy, it was just me. My parents were there which was really helpful. But I was about 5 months pregnant I reckon when it ended.Me: That is so, I have to say that is just so, so brave! Oh my goodness. Like how did you...how did you feel like when you... I mean, yeah, how did you feel? I can imagine – I can't imagine, I mean I've been pregnant, I have two kids. But how did you feel when you just like made that, made that decision, you know? To...Heather: Well I think leading up to it was quite stressful. And I noticed that before the decision was actually made, I felt stressed for a lot of days, but once it was done and it was over I actually felt relieved. Which I think was really telling.Me: Wow. That's really telling. Especially like the situation you were in, right? Cause I know that for me, when I was pregnant in some ways I felt kind of vulnerable, you know? Because you're carrying this childHeather: Oh yeah, entirely. I was back staying with my parents even. So yeah. But they were great, by the way. My parents were fantastic from the word go.Me: Oh wow, that's really good. Well I'm sure that at the end of the day they just really want you to be happy, right?Heather: Yeah, they're really good that way.Rebuilding a businessMe: So then you started out as a single mom, so was your son born when you were still living with your parents? I mean, were you working at all?Heather: Yeah, I was still with my parents for about 10 months after he was born, actually. So I was working, I had started work on my business at that point but it hadn't really fully taken off. I had my business before I fell pregnant, let's just clear that up. But then it sort of, you know, the whole moving country and then being very pregnant and then having a very small child, it had fallen by the wayside. So I had to kind of build that back up again.Me: Yeah. Wow. I can't even imagine, like, I don't know, I started...I started my business when my kids were like 10 and 12 or something like that. But I think I was so traumatized when my son was born, my first child, that I don't think I could have had any head for business at all. It was like...Heather: Oh I tell you what, pregnancy brain is such a real thing though. You don't realize it, but probably the last couple of months of my pregnancy and for three months after I couldn't focus on my work at all. I would try, I would sit down in this dazed fog and try to code and it just did not work.Me: Wow, I guess because...that would be an interesting topic in and of itself, right? Pregnancy brain and why it happens and everything. I mean you've got another being with you, right? That's, that could be...that's the first thing that comes to my mind. That must have been really hard. But at least your parents were there to help out, right? I imagine when your son was born, then...Heather: Yeah, I didn't have to cook for the longest time! That was hugely helpful!Me: Oh! Heaven! (laughs)Heather: I know! I do miss that!Time to start dating againMe: Yeah! So then how old was...cause I know that at some point you did...you did want to start dating again. How old was your son when you were like, 'OK, I'm gonna just, you know...'Heather: I think just over a year, actually.Me: And was there anything that happened? Any specific, I don't know, moment or incident that caused you to think, 'OK I'm ready to date now'? I mean, it's a pretty big decision, right?Heather: Honestly, it had been a very long time for me since I'd had any...you know, any of that wonderful sex stuff. Me: Any action. Yeah, of course!Heather: And it was getting to that point...I had moved out which was, you know, helpful. So I'd moved out and had my own place and my son was more settled, he started to sleep better at night which was a real help. Yeah, that was pretty much what led up to it.Me: Wow. And then so you said that you started finding people...How did you start finding people? I'll let you talk about it!Trials of TinderHeather: Well since I pretty much live online anyway, I automatically gravitated over to dating sites. You know, I'd been hearing a lot about Tinder because I'm of that age group that they obviously target for that kind of thing. So I thought 'OK whatever, I'll have a look'. I wasn't expecting to find anybody but I thought whatever, it would be worth a laugh at least.Me: So then like sorry, for people who don't know what Tinder is, can you say a little bit about like how it works?Heather: OK well basically, what Tinder is, it's an app first and foremost. It links into your Facebook but it doesn't post to your Facebook. It just pulls information from there. And you know, you get these photos that come up and you either swipe right if you'd like to talk to them or swipe left if you don't want anything to do with them. Me: Yup (laughs).Heather: So what happens is if you swipe right and someone else, like the one you just swiped right on also swipes right, then you can start a conversation.Me: Right. Kind of like shopping, I guess.Heather: Kinda sorta. You already have that 'OK well we both agreed we like something about you'. You get that. By its nature it can be quite shallow, but there actually are descriptions and bios as well. People don't actually read them...Me: That was my other question as well. Cause if you swipe...So do you have the description under the picture that you can read before you swipe? Or do you only swipe based on...Heather: Yeah, you can see it under the picture. You just have to click and you can read it. Not everyone does.Me: Of course, yeah I can imagine. Interesting people...or notSo you met some pretty interesting people on Tinder, right? I believe there's a little story there...Heather: Oh, yes, did I ever!There were a few interesting ones I will grant you, but the one that still sticks in my head was this one guy. And I don't remember his name, I don't even really remember what he looks like, but I remember he was quite reasonable at first. So obviously we'd both swiped to the right to talk, whatever. We'd exchanged a couple of messages and then pretty much off the bat he was like, “Well I like Lego”. As one of his interests. And I was like “OK, well Lego's pretty cool, fine.” And then he comes back with, “No, no, I really like Lego”. Before I had a chance to respond to that, he follows up with this other message saying that he likes to put it in certain places and I'm afraid that I was out. All done. No way!Me: Oh no, that's too weird (laughs). Did you actually like meet live with anybody on Tinder?Heather: I did actually meet live with one of them and honestly it was probably one of the more shallow ones. It was just one of those 'hey he looked good I looked good'. Fine. We'll meet up. And he was a nice guy, still is a nice guy. Not the brightest tool in the shed, but yeah, we did meet up and we did engage in some activites and that was fine. But not particulary fulfilling, I would say.Is Tinder worth it?Me: Yeah. So is your conclusion that it's probably good for the shallow stuff but not much more? Is that what you would say?Heather: I reckon it probably could work for people that had a bit more time. There were certainly some interesting people there that I reckon if you'd gone out and spoken to them in a coffee type setting that might have been OK. But a lot of people do just go on and use it for shallow whatevers.Me: Yeah. So then, how long did you kind of like play around with Tinder before you went on to somebody else that...yeah? (laughs)Heather: Probably around a month and a half or two months, I was just bored by that point. And you're having to keep up all these other conversations too. It seems sort of mean to be like 'OK I'm not that interested' but at the same time...not that interested.Me: Yeah, and it's time and everything that you're taking up, right?Enter the former loverSo then how did the former lover come into the picture?Heather: Ah, well you see he was one of those people that we never went particularly far emotionally. That was just never our thing. But we had been lovers obviously on and off. And he...I'm not sure how that started again actually, I think what happened was we started talking again cause we were phasing in and out of each other's lives anyway. We started talking again and it was just one of those 'hey OK, so do you just want to come over' type things. I think I actually started out telling him that nothing was gonna happen, and that was obviously not what actually happened.Me: I had somebody like that too. It was actually quite handy, it was because I used to be a singing waitress and a singing coat check girl in this like fancy French restaurant place. Very, totally random and there were lots of different bands that came through and there was a guy like that. You know, we had a kind of understanding that if, you know, if we were in the mood for just something superficial, we'd just, you know, it's fine.Heather: Yeah, and it's not like you don't care, it's just never ever gonna be anything else.Me: And then I feel like, you know, well I think there's a place for that right? If that's what you want and that's what they want, I mean why not, right?Heather: Yeah, I mean it worked out pretty well for that.A long distance relationshipMe: And then you said that after that you somehow then found yourself in a long distance relationship, I mean how did that happen?Heather: Yes, I kinda did. So this guy was somebody that I'd met in Canada about 6 years prior, nothing ever happened there. He was friends to us both but we'd sort of lost contact for a while. We hadn't really seen each other for a while. We started talking again, it must have been a couple months after Gabriel turned one, so it must have been September probably that we started talking again. I was minding my own business, not looking for anything in particular. And he just admits that he likes me, and I'm like “Oh, OK” because I'd always sort of had a thing for him too. So we did that and then it just went boom. Right time. We gave it a go.Me: And then how did you...but you said it was long distance, so like how did that work? Did you like Skype each other?Heather: What we used to do was we would talk a lot on Facebook messenger because that was the quickest and easiest way. But he would also video call. Like after a few months we realized that worked a bit better. He would hop on video and we'd talk. Which, you know, it was fine when my kid was asleep.If he isn't a kid kind of guy...But for whatever reason my sweet, darling toddler that loves everybody hated when I was on video with this guy. He was fine with video with other people even. Hated it. Tantrum after about 10 minutes, did not like it.Me: I wonder why.Heather: Yeah, I mean to be fair, this guy didn't particularly like him either. He tried, but he wasn't ever a kids type person and you know he really didn't like my ex either which didn't help matters because honestly...they're related, so...Me: Oh, your son and your ex, yeah.Heather: Yeah. So, yeah, that didn't go very well. He did make an honest effort but that's not really something you can make an honest effort on. Which is kind of why we ended up splitting actually. It was that and the distance. Because I realized that I didn't want to move back to Canada and he had realized that he didn't want to move either.Me: So how long were you in that kind of situation with him before you were like 'oh well this isn't really gonna go anywhere'.Heather: Well I think probably that entire relationship lasted about 5 months. It was about a month or two of 'OK what are we gonna do about this' so that wasn't particularly fun. And then it became really obvious at the end that it was just never gonna change really. I did entertain the thought of moving for a little while. And I know that he tried thinking about moving too for a little while, and we just wouldn't have been happy moving, either of us, so.Trying out BumbleMe: You said that once you moved on from the long distance relationship, you mentioned something called Bumble. What's that?Heather: Oh, Bumble, right. So it's kind of like Tinder, but with a very noticeable difference. Only the women can do the first message and you only get 24 hours after you've matched to make that message. And then they get 24 hours to message back, and if no-one does within their time frame, that's it. Unless you pay. Some people pay.Me: And how did you find that compared to Tinder?Heather: Honestly it was very similar, but the people seemed to be looking for deeper connections in general. In general. But there were obviously still plenty of the 'oh hey, I just want a casual something'. That's fine, if that's what you're looking for.Me: And then did you meet a lot of people on Bumble?Heather: There were a few people I spoke to actually, and some of them were quite lovely. And there was one I actually met up with. He was fine, we sort of met up during the day at one point first of all. You know, we got on great, it was OK. I think we went to the park actually, so Gabriel was actually there. He was running about at the park. This other guy was there and it was fine, there was nothing going on. We would up meeting up the next evening. And basically we did the kissing thing and then the other stuff, but oh my God no!Kissing a black holeHow would I describe this delicately? Probably not very well, but I'll describe it anyway. Imagine a black hole and imagine chicken pecks and combine the two. And that was his kissing.Me: Oh, that's horrible!Heather: And the sex itself was not much better.Me: Oh, OK that's actually, that's a really good image. That's a bit scary, it's kind of a bit freaky.Heather: Yeah, you sort of wonder how they get to that age without knowing how to kiss. But anyway.Me: I guess some people do, right? I guess that didn't go anywhere! Heather: That did not!Me: (laughs) And then you said you found yourself in another long distance relationship? Or not a relationship?Heather: Ah, completely accidentally, I had in fact sworn off boys at this point. I was like 'you know what, I don't even care anymore. I'm not doing this dating thing anymore, I'm happy on my own'. Because it had come to that point, right? My business was going well by this point. I was perfectly happy just not looking for somebody. That was me at this point.Me: I mean then did you think...sorry, did you think that...when you say you were perfectly happy not looking for somebody, was it because you thought 'oh there's no point, they're all gonna be a bit crap' or was it because...Heather: There was a bit of that but it was more that I wasn't that fussed about it anymore.When you're perfectly happy on your ownMe: Oh! What happened for you to like be not fussed?Heather: I think it was a combination of the ending of that long distance relationship. Because I had cared quite a bit and then obviously it didn't work for practical reasons. Combined with...I'm gonna call it a sex experience, but it's not...you know the one. And then also combined with I'd reached a point where I really wasn't lacking anything.I think probably the reason I started looking in the first place was that I felt this longing for a connection, right? But by that point I was actually OK on my own. I didn't need that to validate me anymore.Me: So the interesting thing I find about that is that there are so many people who try to get to that point through conscious effort, right? For example they think to themselves, 'oh I keep reaching out to others for connection and I'm kind of just fed up because nothing's working. I'm just gonna be by myself and do a lot of introspection'. And stuff like that. Whereas with you...Like in other words, they try to get to that point by working on themselves in a very conscious way. Whereas with you it sounds like it was a very kind of like organic process.Heather: It was completely accidental! I was just doing my own thing.Me: Did it have anything to do with your business doing well? Because I know you did say at one point that it was quite hard with your business, right? There was a bit of a tough period.Heather: Well yeah, because obviously I had a young child. It's not that easy to juggle with business, especially since I was used to just running it by myself.Being your own personI think that took some getting used to. But no, what happened was over the course of that long distance relationship that lasted about 5 months, my business started to take off and have more traction. My child, very helpfully, started sleeping through the night. I wasn't a sleep-deprived zombie anymore. That was a lot more fun! I started to take better care of myself again and you know what? He was actually quite good for me in that regard because I started to explore being my own person again which was really quite helpful too.Me: Oh I know what you mean.Heather: All that combined so that I found who I was again.Me: I know what you mean, it's kind of...cause I can remember that stage with my own kids. It's kind of like, yeah, you do get your own life back in a sense. I think you put it well to me in an email when you said like a mombie, right? You're walking around with no sleep.Heather: Yeah, up until that point I don't think I had slept more than two hours in a row since he was born. Because his longest period of sleep...And that only happened when he was about a year old maybe, was four hours and then two hours and then two hours and then one. But obviously I was still up. So I got two, two, one and a half if I was lucky...Self-affirmationMe: Oh wow. So then...I was gonna ask you something about that. And then your business started to take off, right? You got more clients and everything? Do you think...cause I don't know about you, but for me I know that when the business stuff starts to go really well, that's a big, a big kind of self-affirmation, in a way.Heather: Yeah, it's like this realization 'oh hey I can make it work. It's doing well, I can do this'. That point that you get to. I'd had it before, but I think with being pregnant and having my kid...There was a part of me that was initially worried that 'oh my gosh, what if I don't ever get this back?' You know? So obviously that had been appeased by that point because I started to see it come back again.Me: So then now where are you at now with that? I mean I know that your business is going well. But do you also like, are you at the point where you have somebody in your life? Or are you at the point where...Heather: Oh yeah, it's actually really funny. It was probably about a week after I got to this realization that I was totally fine. I could just have a business and have my son and maybe go travelling and all this fun stuff....Along comes the right guyAlong comes this guy that I'd been speaking to probably since October. He was a friend of a friend, we'd started talking on Facebook. I think we met once some years ago for like 5 minutes. So we'd been talking and we get along really well. We'd video chat just as friends, whatever. And so somewhere in there he decided to profess his undying love for me which was helpful.Me: Oh, wow.Heather: I'll be fair, I do love him too. We are not together. I am still single because I'm incredibly stubborn and I'm not doing the long distance thing again. But he's actually looking at moving here at some point.Me: Wait, so is he in Canada at the moment?Heather: Yup, he's in Canada as well.Me: Oh! Yeah, you've gotta get those guys out of Canada, right?Heather: Yeah, I'm just gonna need to import somebody.Me: Exactly. Well, just the good one, right? The other guys can stay over there.Heather: Yeah, they can stay as far away as they need too.Me: Just get the good one. Being clear about what you wantMe: So are you...how can I put this? Have you basically just said to him, you know, “I'm not moving, if you want us to be together then this is how it's gonna work. And I need you to come here” kind of thing?Heather: Pretty much, yes. What happened was that I was quite open with the fact that I'm not leaving here. Or that if I did leave from here, it would just be to Europe maybe. You know, fairly local because I don't want to leave my family behind again.Me: Especially with your son and everything, right?Heather: Yeah, and a ten hour flight each way is not ideal.Me: Oh I know, I've done that, yeah!Heather: That's where I came into it. And he was all like, well he was initially all 'No I don't want to move either'. Which was fine because, you know, we weren't dating. But he sort of came round to the idea. I think what happened for him basically is he looked at it and decided, 'Actually I don't have much to keep me really. And I want to be over there with her, so...' That's where he came to it.Me: Wow, so yeah, you'll soon have somebody flying halfway across the world to be with you, which is pretty cool, right? Heather: Yes, it makes a change.Me: Exactly! Rather than you doing all the flying, that's really good.What Heather does nowSo what about...so now I know that with your business and everything, well. I'd love to ask you about what you're doing now because I know for a fact that what you're doing now is super helpful to people like me!Heather: Yeah, OK. So what I do is, I run Designmancy. And basically what I do there is I will take your WordPress site and I can build it, I can repair it, I can train you how to use it. I can fix it...Anything you could possibly need for WordPress, that is what I do. I'm your coder fixer gal, basically.Me: Wow that is really cool. And you take on all different kinds of projects, everything from like building sites to fixing existing sites...Heather: Oh yeah, I mean I am honestly at my happiest when I'm getting to fix bits and pieces of code or getting to build something new. Really I get kind of twitchy if I've not fixed anything for a couple of weeks, so just give me something to do!Me: Oh just give me a call, I've got plenty to fix!Heather: Basically that's how I work.Me: That's really cool. And of course you can do it from anywhere, right?Heather: Well yeah, that's a big help too.Me: That's fantastic! Brilliant! What's your...Oh I'll put the link to your website in the show notes. But for the benefit of people listening, where's the best place for them to find you?Where to find HeatherHeather: OK, probably the best place to find me is designmancy.com. I'll spell it cause it's a bit of a weird word. It's design, I think we all know that bit! And then it's mancy dot com. That's the best place to reach me. Depending on when you get there my site may still just be a 'coming soon' page. Because cobbler's shoes and all that stuff. But it does have this really nice early bird discount, so hop on over!Me: Super! So then I have another question for you. Is that the new design of your website? Because your business is already, you know, going well and making money and stuff, I assume you got your previous clients from a previous website? Is that right?Heather: Well I had had a website there for a while but it was never really that good. I've actually been getting a lot of my clients from Facebook groups and referrals and word of mouth. I've not been using my site as much but it has gotten to the point where I really need it to work. I'm really excited by this actually, I've hired a copywriter to help me. So she's doing all my written content. Obviously I'm doing my website bit but I've got a photographer and all that fun stuff as well. It's coming together really quite nicely and it's exciting!Me: Super! And I do know that it's very cobbler's shoes, right? That, you know, the WordPress site designer whose WordPress site isn't designed yet because you're doing everybody else's, right?Super! Oh thank you so much Heather for being here to share your story with us. I love that, so...Heather: Thank you Barbara, I'm so glad I got to be here and thanks for having me!An ideal food to feel fullMe: You're so welcome! So, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you one of the best foods to fill you up. It's a great comfort food that's actually good for you. And that food is...oats!Now oats are a very powerful yet often underestimated food. They really do help fill you up and give you energy over long periods. As do chia seeds, which I've spoken about in a previous episode.And the reason I'm mentioning food to feel full is because a lot of us could reach for fulfilment in the arms of someone. Man, woman, whatever. But this food can actually fill you up without reaching for anybody's arms. And then you can still reach for the arms of somebody if you want to!In terms of food to feel full, in one study done in Australia, oats actually ranked at number 3 for a 'satiety index'. Which basically is a number allocated to how good particular foods are at satisfying hunger and contributing to a feeling of fullness. Some researchers have found that eating oats can help reduce appetite as well. So if you make yourself some oatmeal with apples, you'd be giving yourself a double whammy of food to feel full, as it were, because apples are good appetite-reducers too.I'm sure that if you've eaten oats, well you may not be very surprised at that because you've probably experienced feeling pretty full after a bowl of, say, oatmeal or porridge as they say in the UK.Other benefits of oatsDid you know that oats do have a lot of benefits, and one of the benefits is that they're great for your gut? They're high in fiber so they're very helpful for digestion, and some researchers believe that they may even help boost some of the beneficial bacteria in our gut.The other cool thing about oats is that they can be very helpful for lowering cholesterol. The oats bind with cholesterol and therefore help remove excess from your body. I've got personal experience with this because my ex-husband used to be on medication for high cholesterol, until he did two things. The first one was he started eating my food, but also he added in oats at breakfast. Within a year he was off the medication and that was about 10 years ago now. And if anyone comes near him and says the word 'oats', they will get an earful about how oats bind with cholesterol and you know, blah blah blah. He goes on about it(!)But the benefits of oats don't stop there. You don't have to eat them, you can bathe in them! For help with inflamed skin conditions such as eczema, chickenpox or even sunburn, you can add one cup of finely ground oats to your bathwater and let your skin soak up all that goodness.What oats containAs to what oats contain, they have many minerals, such as selenium, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese and zinc. So the phosphorus helps if for example you've got students in your house for example and they're studying for exams and things, phosphorus can help there too.Many people ask if oats contain gluten. It's important to note here that oats of themselves don't actually contain gluten. However, if you are celiac or extremely sensitive to even traces of gluten, you'll want to check the provenance of your oats. Because sometimes they can pick up traces of gluten if they are grown next to a field of gluten-containing grains such as wheat or barley. You can buy packages of oats that are marked gluten-free, they're just a bit more expensive. But you can get them.How to eat oatsAs to how to eat oats, when you're faced with buying oats in the supermarket, you may get a bit confused. There are steel-cut oats, oat groats, rolled oats, Scottish oats... all kinds of oats! I'll link to an article below that spells out the different kinds so that you'll know what to buy without tearing your hair out.Personally I use two kinds. I use oat groats, which are the whole grains. They're great for soaking overnight and making into oat milk, and they're also really good for grinding for making oat flour. I also use rolled oats which are basically hearty flakes. They're oat groats that have been pressed flat and they're great for making energy bites.I've got some recipes that use oats in my 5-Minute Chocolate Heaven ebook, so if you'd like to take a look, I'll post the link below in the show notes. Have YOU got a story to share?Which brings us to the end of this week's story – and if you've got a true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day or enhanced your situation), I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment?Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn.I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESLink to 5-Minute Chocolate Heaven and other recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/Article on health benefits of oats: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/270680.phpAn easy explanation of the different types of oats: http://www.webmd.com/diet/oatmeal-benefits#1Heather's bio: Heather runs Designmancy, your place for WordPress design, repairs and training, while raising a 2 year old son and generally plotting to take over the world.Heather's website: http://designmancy.comFind Heather on Facebook and Instagram​

Sohini's discovery of a young boy and his amazing story, and how he inspired her to leave an upscale London legal firm to become a solicitor who helps change lives, one drop at a time. Plus one of the best foods to help fight overwhelm.In addition to this story, at the end of this episode I'll share with you the best food to help fight overwhelm, because our guest today went through something that was pretty emotionally intense.Our guest, Sohinipreet AlgWhich brings me to say that I am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Sohinipreet Alg. Sohini is a solicitor – a lawyer – who has an incredible story for us about how she left what could have been a very financially lucrative career to take a very different direction as a solicitor, all because of a young boy. She is compassionate, determined and very caring, as you will hear. So Sohini welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I'm really happy to have you here today!Sohini: Thank you for having me Barbara, I'm excited to be here.Sohini's storyMe: Super! So Sohini, why don't you start by telling us what kind of work you were doing before you met this young boy, when you first got started as a solicitor?Sohini: OK well I think that was quite early on in my training contract, so I was doing various areas of law at that point. I hadn't finalized what I wanted to do, which area I wanted to go into. Immigration was actually not something that I wanted to go into, but as you'll see I kind of just fell into that.My main area of interest was kind of a corporate, commercial area of law, so I was mainly concentrating on that.Me: And is there any reason why you were concentrating on that to start with?Sohini: You have to do a few seats in your training before you qualify. So they gave me a commercial seat, and an immigration seat, and also a housing and litigation seat.Me: What's a seat? Is that just like a temporary post, or something?Sohini: It's about 6 months, 6-8 months of training in each area over a period of two years, and then at the end of the training you kind of naturally go into one of those areas and specialize in that.Going for the moneyMe: OK. So then your story I guess would begin... How did you find the corporate seat, first of all? Did you do that one first?Sohini: I did, and I really enjoyed that. It was something that I thought I'd like to go into just purely because of the financial side of it I think. A lot of people obviously end up going into law or anything similar thinking “oh yeah, the money”! So I think I was probably quite similar in that way.I didn't have a real interest in law in that sense, I did a History and Latin degree so completely different to law. But I didn't know what I would do with my history and Latin degree, so I thought 'the corporate and commercial side of it's gonna make a lot of money so let's try and do that!'Very long hoursSo first I went into a firm which had quite a strong corporate field and that was the first seat that was given. And I enjoyed that, it was very cutthroat, very long hours.Me: That's what I was going to ask, yeah, I mean, what was the atmosphere like? What kind of hours were you working?Sohini: Well it would easily be...you'd start at eight o'clock and you'd be finishing at maybe ten or eleven o'clock at night.Me: Wow! And was that normal even for people that were...once they'd finished their training?Sohini: Absolutely, people would just continue into the early hours of the morning if necessary. So if you're working on a deal, if you're working for an organisation or a company, they expect you to be at their beck and call so you'd be available 24/7 really. Me: Wow!Sohini: It wasn't actually too bad compared with some of my seniors. So yeah, it's pretty difficult.Me: But you enjoyed it!Sohini: I enjoyed it, well not as much as I actually then enjoyed other areas as you'll see but especially because I thought that was what I wanted to do and that was what was going to make me money. So that's what I was seeing more than anything else.Me: And you did 6 months there and then what happened? Then was it the immigration seat?Defending the homelessSohini: No, then I went to do a public law and housing seat. So it was kind of...I was dealing with local authorities, dealing with a lot of homeless people, dealing with landlord/tenant issues, nuisance, etc. It was a completely different seat, it was more personable, more client contact. That was quite nice actually, I enjoyed it. There was a lot of appearing in courts etc and assisting barristers and solicitors.Me: Were you assisting...I mean I just want to get an idea because I know nothing about law. So were you assisting...for example with the homeless people, were you assisting the homeless people? Or...I mean to me I kind of see it always as two sides, right? There's the side of the homeless person and what they want and the side of the, I don't know, the council and what they want.Sohini: I was working primarily for the individual so it would be for example the homeless person. So I wasn't working for the local authority, I was working for the individual in that situation.Legal AidMe: And how did they...so was that pro bono? Like how did you get paid?Sohini: Yeah, well it's Legal Aid, so our firm also had a Legal Aid contract with the government as well. So if you aren't able to pay and you can prove your financial situation, you do get free access to legal care.Me: Wow!Sohini: The government paid for it. We just had to basically at the end of the case prove that we'd put in x number of hours and this person wasn't able to pay privately and so we were paid accordingly from the government.Me: With the homeless people, what kind of things would you help them do? Did you help them get housing then?Sohini: Exactly. So it would be where they were refused temporary housing and they could prove they were homeless, there was criteria that they had to follow. Sometimes it's pretty difficult to prove everything. Or it was just that they had temporary accommodation but they got kicked out of the accommodation because they'd spent too long in the accommodation etc. Basically it was just trying to get them housing when they deserved the housing and the local authority wasn't giving it.On into the world of immigration...dragging her feetMe: Wow, OK. And then from there you went to immigration, I guess?Sohini: Yes, my final seat was immigration and that was the seat that I really didn't want to go into.Me: And why not? What were your thoughts about it before you went into it?Sohini: I think it was just...Well, I didn't think there was much money in that area also, and I was also concerned because it's a very fast-paced, very rapidly moving area of law and I wasn't sure I'd be able to get to grips with. It's an area that you need to just keep retraining and keep on top of it because the immigration rules change that quickly. And there are so many...there's a variety of countries that people can come into the UK from, and there are different rules according to where you might be applying from. So it was just such a difficult area, that's just what I thought, it wasn't something that I wanted to move to naturally.Me: Right, so then you started going into it not really wanting to do it, and then what happened?Discovering new aspects of herselfSohini: Yeah well I think not even a couple of months into the seat, just a few weeks into the seat I quickly became very absorbed with the area actually. I was doing longer hours in immigration than I was when I was doing the commercial seat.Me: Really!Sohini: Yeah, and I think that was purely because I enjoyed it that much, and I felt that compassion that I didn't have initially, I didn't think I had in me.Me: Oh wow! That's honest!Sohini: Yeah, so it was just quite overwhelming when I joined. I mean the firm that I was with, they have an excellent track record with immigration law and it's one of the biggest departments in the UK. So we had a variety of immigration clients. We had private clients, we had Legal Aid clients, we had asylum seekers, you know it was all sorts of clients, people who were in the UK unlawfully or illegally trying to legalize their stay. There was just such a variety and listening to people's stories, finding out what their background was, why a lot of them really felt the need to live in the UK, what had happened in their past, it was amazing. Hearing the stories was just amazing. Very heartwarming and very humbling as well.Me: And so speaking of stories, this brings us to the story that you mentioned, right? That seemed to affect you the most, is that right?A young boy...under a truckSohini: Yeah, exactly. I think it was because I hadn't come across many such cases before. But it was a young boy who...and I think it was early in the evening and I was getting ready to actually leave the office. We got a call that there was a young boy who had entered the UK unclaimed. That was assumed. He couldn't speak any English and he'd come under trucks. He was kind of held on under the trucks, so the truck drivers didn't even know that they'd picked him up in Calais for example.Me: Oh wow, how was he under the truck? I think you said he was strapped? Like somebody had...Sohini: He was strapped under the truck so...Me: So somebody presumably strapped him under the truck, right? Because he came from Afghanistan, right?Sohini: I mean you'll find a lot of kind of people who help or assist asylum seekers to cross the borders in very dangerous ways. We all know about what's been happening with you know, people crossing the rivers and things like that and people go to extreme lengths and this boy was very young, you could see that straight away.Me: How old was he about do you think? Roughly?Sohini: I think he was probably about nine or ten.Me: And do you have any idea how long he was strapped under that truck?Sohini: He was strapped for quite a number of hours. So he had come from Calais, he was strapped from Calais and he came into Dover, so yeah, he risked his life.Me: At least six or seven hours, right?Sohini: Yeah, a very long time.Going to DoverMe: So what happened? They called you and they said what? Did they say “Can you come? There's a boy that's just entered the UK”?Sohini: Basically I think the lorry driver then realized when he stopped at Dover that somebody had just come over under the truck. And the boy couldn't speak much English but I believe as far as I can remember the truck driver tried to call the local authorities etc and they didn't know what to do. They called the firm I was working with because they knew that the immigration team was pretty big and we dealt with a lot of asylum cases at that time. We got a call and they asked us to come to Dover to speak to the boy and find out what it is that he wanted to do in the UK.What to do firstMe: So what was your reaction when you first saw him? Like you arrive in Dover and then you see this boy...Sohini: It was just... gosh, the fear on his face, I still remember that. It was just...he couldn't speak any English, he didn't know where he was, he'd left his family behind, didn't know what had happened to his family. He didn't know what was going to happen to him. So there was just this kind of overwhelming fear in his eyes that I still remember. That was quite upsetting.Me: What did you do at that point? Because you couldn't...I mean, you didn't have a language in common, so...Sohini: No, we had to wait for a translator, we did have somebody come to translate so that was really helpful. Then I had to sit with him, find out what was happening, why he'd come to the UK, where his family were, which country he'd travelled from, etc.Me: And so what did he tell you?A boy's harrowing storySohini: That he'd left Afghanistan because of the troubles that were happening there, that a lot of his family members had been killed...I think he had another couple of siblings who had all dispersed as well so his parents...his father had been killed, his mother said that they needed to flee. His mother couldn't leave because there were elderly people that she was looking after so she told the kids to leave and he was the only one who seemed to have made it to the UK.He didn't know what had happened en route to his siblings. So he was just terrified and he was just so worried for his family, he didn't know what happened to his siblings or his mother. But we couldn't get in contact with them, we didn't have contact details for them.Me: So I suppose he never found out, I imagine.Sohini: No, he never found out.Getting him helpMe: And then what did...you're with the boy, you're with the interpreter, you find out what happened, and then what did you do? Because presumably he has to sleep somewhere and get food, so who did all of that?Sohini: Well, he was initially put in a detention center.Me: What's a detention center?Sohini: It's basically a lot of people that come into the UK for example unlawfully or awaiting decisions, they're held in detention centers. They have specific ones where children can be held. So he was held in the detention center and that was quite distressing for him.Me: I'll bet.Sohini: My main aim was to obviously put in his asylum claim as soon as possible and try and get him in with a local authority so that they could care for him and he could get the right provisions. So that evening I still remember going back to the office and he remained in contact with me. He had access to a telephone number and he was just so scared. I tried my best to kind of prepare an application and try and get him suitable accommodation as soon as possible after meeting him.Me: Yeah, of course. Do you remember how long he had to stay in the detention center?Sohini: He was there for about a week.Psychological as well as physical help...Me: Wow. And so...oh you mentioned, I think you mentioned to me that they gave him a place to stay but then he also had mental health assessments or something like that? How does that work?Sohini: Basically we had to first of all verify his age and make sure that he was in fact a minor and wasn't an adult because we did find a lot of people who were trying to claim to be younger than they were so they'd get preferential treatment. So we had to establish and confirm his age. We also had to find out that he was OK. He'd been abused, there was a lot of violence used against him. So he had to have assessments taken. He had medical assessments to make sure that he was OK.Me: Physically OK, yeah.Sohini: Exactly. He was referred to a psychiatrist as well for mental health assessments and that all contributed, assisted his asylum claim because obviously we could prove that he wasn't lying and that he did go through the torture that he said had been inflicted on him. So that was all important to his case.No more contact...Me: Yeah. And so once you got housing for him, did you find out what happened to him later on?Sohini: He was...as far as I can remember, he was then put into a foster home I believe it was. So someone looked after him. Unfortunately we're not able to maintain contact on a personal level with a client.Me: Of course.Sohini: Which is a shame because I would have liked to, you know, find out how he's doing etc. I still do wonder, actually.Me: Of course, yeah.Sohini: Although I came across many such cases afterwards and even continue to do so right now in my professional life. But because I think that was the first one I came across, it stayed with me all these years. So yeah, I would like to know actually how he's doing, but...I'm sure he's doing well now.Me: How long ago was this then?Sohini: This was, oh gosh, about ten years ago.Me: Wow, so he'd be about twenty now.Sohini: Yeah. He would be, yeah.What Sohini decidedMe: Wow. Oh! So then...so then after, having experienced all that, what did you do next? I assume you...I mean you said that you decided that that was why you wanted to go into immigration, but what kind of thoughts were going in your head when you were thinking about making that decision as to what part of law you wanted to practice?Sohini: Well I think it really kind of hit me that I'm more inclined to work with people on a personal level and I just felt so satisfied and kind of content knowing that I had helped him in some form. He was so appreciative, you know, at the end of his asylum claim when he got asylum and he got accommodation, he got leave to remain, etc. Just the appreciation that he had, it was so, so nice to see. And that just beats any other feeling I had when I was in my commercial seat! It was absolutely something that I knew that I had to carry on doing.Me: Yeah. That was really nice that you felt that from him as well, right? Despite the...some things go beyond language barriers, don't they.Sohini: Exactly, definitely.What Sohini does now to help peopleSohini: So... what do you do now? What kinds of things are you doing now for people?Sohini: I set up roughly about three years ago my own immigration business, and I continue to do immigration. After I finished my training contract I was working in the City in London for an immigration firm, so I continued doing immigration law. I've since set up my own and I deal with all sorts of immigration matters. It is all private immigration matters, but I help applicants with discretionary leave, asylum seekers have asked for my help, I help private clients with work visas and I help a lot of organizations with their tier 4 visas etc. So I do a cross-section of immigration and applications just now.Me: OK. Wow. And so how can people find you if they want help with any of these things?How to find SohiniSohini: My website is probably the best place to find information on, and that's www.elmrose.com and the firm is called Elm Rose Consultancy and you'll get an idea online about what services we provide. And they can pick up the phone and call me, I'm available at any time. So everything's available on my website, you can find out a bit more there.Me: Yeah, if anybody needs help with that kind of thing, right? Especially as it's such a...I don't want to say hot topic, but well yeah, hot in the sense of controversial hot, right? It's just...it's a bit unreal, right?Sohini: Especially with Brexit just now, the European clients that I have. Their case is now just to kind of confirm their right to be in the UK. Me: Yes of course.If you're in the UK and feeling concerned...Sohini: There's a lot of concern just now. I'm even happy to speak to people just to allay their concerns or fears about what's happening in today's climate.Me: That's fantastic, that's really good to know because I'm sure there are definitely people listening who may be thinking 'I'm not British, what's my situation' and all that stuff. Yeah, thank you for that. Sohini thank you so much for sharing this story with us.Sohini: Thank you for having me.Me: You're very welcome! Yeah, I'm just very grateful that there are people like you out there that people can reach out to, you know? Because I think having lived in two foreign countries now, it can be quite a scary thing. It's good to know that people have someone like you to help them out when it all gets a bit scary. So thank you!Food to fight overwhelmRight! At the beginning of this episode, I said I'd share with you one of the best foods you can eat to help fight overwhelm. If you're in any situation where you just feel emotionally overwhelmed or wired and you need to relax. It's a food that has many, many properties besides helping us relax. And that food is...celery!Now before you start screaming and saying “Oh celery, that's diet food, it's absolutely horrible!”, it is not! There are delicious ways to eat celery that I'll share with you later.But first I would like to say just one or two benefits of celery that I think are especially cool.Benefits of celeryWay back when, Hippocrates – the father of modern medicine so I'm told – he used to prescribe celery as a tonic for people suffering from nervous tension. I mean apparently even in his day, people still got stressed.This is because celery has potassium which has been shown to help control blood pressure. Now Chinese medicine prescribes celery for the same reasons, in addition to its being an aphrodisiac, I had to throw that one in. Gotta try that one, right?Another cool thing about celery is that it appears that celery doesn't actually lower blood pressure in someone whose blood pressure is already low. I mean how cool is that!Celery also has high levels of magnesium, as well as other minerals and essential oils, all of which can help us relax. So if you're wired in the evenings, or if like Sohini you have super long days, try a glass of celery juice before going to bed. It actually tastes pretty good, and it tastes way different than munching on the celery sticks themselves.Celery is also great for detox. It's a great diuretic so it can help flush toxins and other waste out of our kidneys. Plus I think many people know that we require more calories to eat and digest celery than the celery actually contains, so it's a great food if you're looking to slim down which I think is how most people know about celery.How you eat celery...the tasty way!So how do most people eat celery? Well, I think you know that, right? We usually pick up a stick and munch on it if we're on a diet, usually cursing the poor veg at the same time and we feel like we're punishing ourselves.But there are way better ways to eat celery. One way is in a juice with other fruit or veg. You can mix fruit and vegetables in there. And one of the articles that I'll link to has a great recipe for a green juice that I'm definitely gonna try. Let me know if you try it too!My favorite easy way to eat celery is super easy: I just dip it in some nut butter. I'd say my favorite is almond butter. It's really delicious and you don't feel like a rabbit.I'll link to an article in the show notes that also has a recipe for a salad using celery that sounds pretty good, if I do say so myself. In this recipe they do mention parmesan so if you don't eat dairy, just substitute the parmesan for some nutritional yeast. It looks pretty tasty so I might try that myself.I also have an amazing recipe for my Way Better Than Waldorf Salad which takes celery to a whole new level, and I'll link to that as well. Have YOU got a story to share?Which brings us to the end of this week's story – and if you've got a true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day in your situation),  I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment?Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes.I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESMy 5 Minute Salads & Sauces recipe ebook with my Way Better than Waldorf Salad recipe: rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipesMedicinal uses of celery, including juice recipe: www.wellbeing.com.au/body/recipes/Celery-Worth-stalking.htmlOther article with salad recipe: www.doctorshealthpress.com/food-and-nutrition-articles/10-health-benefits-of-celeryWhere to find Sohiniwww.elm-rose.comFacebookTwitterLinkedInSohinipreet Alg is a qualified Solicitor and specialised in Immigration law.  She is Level 3 OISC accredited and is a Senior Caseworker under the Law Society's Immigration & Asylum Accreditation Scheme. Sohini has worked all over the UK, including large London city based firms, and is the Director of Elm Rose Consultancy. She has an unparalleled passion and commitment to her clients.

  From the arms of a martial arts instructor to a Russian yoga teacher, all while mourning the loss of her mom and renewing herself, Francesca shares her journey which has led her to teaching and coaching others worldwide. And at the end of this episode I'll share with you a tiny food that is a big powerhouse for helping fight depression as well as balancing hormones. Our guest, Francesca Gentillé I am very excited to be joined here today by Francesca Gentillé, who is an initiated shaman in 4 traditions, a clinical sexologist, she's an empowered aging specialist, and a relationship counselor. She has published, appeared on television and also teaches all over the world. Francesca has an incredible story to share with us today as well as a really generous gift just for listeners of Clean Food, Dirty Stories, which we'll share with you later. First though, let's get to the story. So Francesca welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I'm really excited to have you here today! Francesca: I am so delighted to be here Barbara. Barbara is also one of my favorite people in the world; creative, talented, big hearted. Me: Well we've had a lot of adventures together. We have enough stories to fill up an entire season of a podcasts all by ourselves. But for today's story I know that like me you grew up with depression. Also, you had some quite heavy food intolerances where you may have felt like you were almost in the wrong kind of family. So can you tell us a bit about that? Francesca's story Francesca: Yes absolutely. I was raised in a very loud, periodically, emotionally volatile, creative, dynamic, great cook Italian family, an Italian American family. And my mother was bipolar: it was the worst of times and the best of times, and of course they were cooking Italian. So there were lots of pastas and wonderful homemade pizzas and canola. Me: Sounds like heaven. Francesca: It was on the one hand beautiful and so tasty but I would always feel tired and I would feel depressed and they would say in the family that I was always sleeping. They'd say "Why is she so sensitive?" Enter the food intolerances I think some of our sensitivities are signs of being a shaman and but on the other hand I think some of the sensitivity was exacerbated by the food intolerances. And I didn't know this until many years later when a friend of mine was reading The Body Ecology Diet for candida yeast infection that wouldn't go away. She said that when she started doing the diet her yeast infection not only went away, but within two weeks her body pain went away and within a year she lost thirty pounds. And it was the body pain that I that I kind of tuned into and I decided to try it and as I tried it I realized that my body wasn't hurting. Suddenly I felt like I had more energy and I also felt like my mood was stabilized. Yes, a huge difference. Me: So what food did you cut out for that? What were you intolerant to? Francesca: I was intolerant to gluten. Me: Wow! So Italian food was a big no, no. Francesca: All the breads have lots of gluten. So all the pastas all of that is gluten. We eat that and I was also intolerant to cow dairy; so lactose basically. Me: Well so cheese. Francesca: Cheese, and I could have a little goat or a little sheep but in general they were cooking with cow cheese. And so those were two things that were death to my body and my immune system and really I think creating that leaky gut syndrome for me too. Cutting out the bad stuff Me: I know that you said that later on you solved all of that. So besides cutting out gluten actually what other foods did you cut out? Francesca: Well eventually, I have to say I'm somebody who does my life in like small steps. I'm not someone who has created success by changing my whole life overnight, whether that's in relationships or whether that's in business or whether that's and in food. Normally I'll try one little thing and then try another little thing. Me: Sounds like me. Francesca: At first it was gluten and dairy but I was still eating processed, you know like quinoa pasta and millet bread. And then eventually I went on a two week kind of cleanse where it was no processed flours at all; some grains but no processed flours. No sugar, no caffeine, no dairy of any kind and lots of vegetables - cooked and raw. A little bit of grains that might be cooked and then a small amount of either fish or chicken, but lots of vegetables everyday. Many more than I had normally done in any given day and some fruits. And I found in two weeks that I started to feel better and I found in a few months that even though I actually hadn't lost any weight which was something that I wanted but even though I hadn't lost any weight people would start to say "What have you done to your face? You look younger, you look radiant!" It was all these fruits and vegetables and wonderful fruit and juice smoothies. Then within a year I was down to my ideal weight and I just felt amazing! Me: Wow, that's fantastic! Francesca: I did it the healthy way. Enter the martial arts instructor Me: So then I guess you looked so radiant and so amazing that the martial arts instructor found you right? You mentioned that - how did you meet him and what happened? Francesca: Well in this process it wasn't at the complete end of the steps towards health. But in this process of getting more and more healthy, I am also a teacher of relationships and sexuality, and I teach recovery from trauma, and I teach about tantra in a healing way for couples. So while I was doing this, this gentleman came to one of my classes. I felt some energy between us, but at the same time I had learned that sometimes the man I'm most attracted to is the one that I need to walk away from. My animal instincts that get very attracted to people do not tell me that that person is honest. They do not tell me that that person is good. They only say that we have compatible histo immune systems. I thought I should walk away and I did. But he kept writing to me and one day the email wouldn't work. I tried so many different ways but it would not go through. He had given me his phone number so I called him and I said "Do you know if there's a problem with your email?" and he said "Maybe you're just supposed to talk to me." A beautiful relationship So we started to talk and it developed and it really became a very beautiful and magical relationship. He had been studying Dzogchen Buddhism which is a very spiritual form of tantra for twenty five years. We had a lot in common in terms of core values, and it became a relationship which I think of as a soul mate relationship of the best kind, where we were passionate and compassionate. In the six years we were together we never yelled at each other, we never raised our voices. That's not to say we never had a problem or a disagreement, but we were able to work through those disagreements while staying in a centered, mature, adult state. It was such a grace. When I would walk into the room we'd each take a breath like "ah, now I'm safe, now I'm home". And even though he swore he would never get married because he'd been married twice before and they were these terrible relationships, in four years he asked me to marry him. Are you sure you want to marry me? I always knew he would. Although I thought it was going to take a decade, but I always felt like "yes, he's going to ask me to marry him. He just needs to heal a little bit from these past relationships". So when he asked me to marry him after four years I was shocked. He said "You're not saying yes!" and I said "Well I-I didn't expect you to ask me to marry you yet!" I said "Are you sure you want to marry me? Do you know my flaws? Sometimes I'm messy and I don't clean up right away". He said "Yes, I know that". I said "Oh and I love pretty things and sometimes I can kind of over shop and I'm not good at saving money". He said "Yes I know that". So I was like going through the list of all my flaws and he said, "Why do you think it took four years?" He said "I actually wanted to marry you sooner, but I wanted to make sure that I could hold space for your imperfections". And so I said yes, but we decided to wait until my son graduated from high school. That was a few more years down the road. Good news So you know, things were going well, but his business was failing. He was a full time martial artist, he taught martial arts to school children and adults. And it really wasn't financially successful and that was very hard on his heart. It was very challenging for his self-esteem. One day he came to me and he said "Francesca I have some good news and some bad news". And I said "Tell me the good news!" He said the good news is that a friend of his was selling a fitness center, a gym in town in his town with all the workout equipment etcetera. John said "If I combine fitness and martial arts, maybe that will be the ticket for success". I said "Honey, that's great!" Because of course we want our partners to be happy and fulfil their life's mission. I said "You should do that, what's the bad news?" And bad news His martial arts studio would be open from about 8 or 9 in the morning till 9 at night with some breaks in the day. It would get very quiet until the kids came after school. So it had a certain pace that had some spaciousness in it. And you know 8 or 9 in the morning till 9 at night, although still a long day, is not terrible. He said that this fitness studio was open from 4 in the morning till 11 o'clock at night. Because he was investing his money into it, he felt that for at least the first maybe 4 to 6 months he needed to be there. He needed to see how it was being run so that he could try to change it and make improvements. And he said "For approximately 4 to 6 months sweetheart I'll be getting 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night and I really won't have any bandwidth". Well, be careful of what you say to the universe! I said "Oh don't worry, our relationship is so strong, we can handle this". And 5 days later... Within 5 days of that my mother died. 5 days after he signed the papers and put the money into the investment. You never know how you're going to respond to the death of a parent or someone that's very, very close to you. You don't know until it actually happens. And I adored my mother but I was also afraid of my mother. I was conflicted and although I had a lot of anger towards her while she was alive, I made a choice never to bring that anger to her. As she got older her bipolar got worse and she eventually had Alzheimer's, and it just isn't appropriate to bring these kinds of unresolved issues to people who are mentally ill. Me: But then you have to solve them for yourself, right? How do you do that? The grieving process Francesca: And all of those unresolved emotions were there. All the anger and rage that I never expressed to her was there. And then the grieving, because since about twenty five till when she died when I was fifty I had chosen to mostly be separate from her even though we'd been very close when I was young. So I was not only grieving that she was now dead, I actually was grieving the twenty five years that I had chosen to be separate from her. Me: And did you regret those twenty five years? Francesca: Yes and no, because if I had to go back I would probably still make the same decision because she didn't feel safe to me. On the other hand, for the little girl like when I was very young and she was a bit healthier, probably from you know birth till about thirteen we were very, very close. And so the little girl in me just missed her mommy. I would be at home alone curled up into a little fetal ball rocking and this little voice would come out of me saying, "I don't understand!" It was this little girl who just didn't understand that her mother was gone and didn't understand that she would never have an opportunity to be close to her. I think the magical child always hoped in some way that they would reconcile. So yeah I was very shattered. My son would later say that it was like I was missing for two years. Me: How old was your son? Francesca: My son was... I think he was either, maybe about fourteen, something like that. Me: Oh wow! Okay, so old enough to know that yeah there was some heavy stuff going on. Walking in the underworld Francesca: And yeah, those two years in many ways are a blur. I would eventually end up going to two therapists a week for over a year, a year and a half. And I really ended up feeling like I was later like I was walking with my mother in the underworld for that time. Me: Oh wow! Francesca: Yes, it was very deep, it felt very profound. Me: That must have been very helpful, very healing. Francesca: Where I am now, I'm at peace with her. I feel her love for me, I feel my love for her. It's like we've completed what we were meant to complete in this life, and I feel like I've known her many lifetimes and I'll probably know her again. Me: Yep, I'm sure you will. The birth of a crazy idea Francesca: But in this time period where so much of my energy is now in the underworld or so much of my little girl is grieving and crying while my adult self is missing...In that time period John is getting three or four hours sleep a night. He needed me more than he ever needed me and I couldn't be there emotionally. And then I needed him more than I ever needed him, and he couldn't be there for me emotionally. Neither one of us were thinking particularly straight. But we were noticing that we were getting more and more depleted, more and more raw. It's almost like when you haven't had enough sleep and your mind is just starting to think sort of crazy, and you almost feel like you're shaking because you're under-slept. Both of us were like that because I wasn't sleeping well with the grieving. Me: Well and you do literally start to lose your mind when you lose sleep, when you don't have enough sleep, right? I mean that's a proven thing. Francesca: Exactly, and we came up with this crazy idea which is "We need more support, we need more energy in the relationship. I know! We'll open up the relationship in a 'don't ask, don't tell' model". Me: Wow! So can you explain? Because some people might not know what that is. How not to navigate an open relationship Francesca: I'm not against open relationships or polyamorous relationships or swinging or anything else. And I think there are ways to have open relationships that are beautiful and ways to do them terribly. Just like there are ways to be monogamous that are beautiful and ways to be monogamous that are awful. I mean it's not the design of the relationship that is the grace or the problem. It's really "Are we centered? Transparent? Collaborative? Compassionate? Do we have good communication skills?" That's what's going to make any design better or worse, depending on who we are bringing to that relationship. Well one of the things as a relationship counsellor that I would say is that if you're going to have an open relationship it's actually healthy to be transparent, to reveal to your partner, to not lie, to not hold things back, to be able to collaborate so you still feel like you're a partnership. So even though you might be dating someone else, or going to a party and canoodling with someone else, you still feel like your home partnership is your best friend, is that place that you're the closest to, is the person that you're revealing everything to. And I think it's very dangerous to try to do this without revealing to each other. It's very easy when we start withholding information, whether about sex or anything else. Sex, money, you name it; when we start to withhold information, it's easy to build resentment. So it's easy to start feeling more and more separated. Now this is a crazy notion that I never would have agreed to in my right mind, but I wasn't in my right mind. Where's my primary care support? So we agreed and we weren't living together at this time. We were living in different houses but we'd see each other every weekend and talk every day. And he ended up having a couple of, you know, kind of flings. Things that were a little lighter, it was fun, it was sexy but it wasn't particularly emotionally depthful. But I felt - oh my God! Barbara, I felt like I was going crazy. I felt like I just wanted someone to hold me when I cried. And I wanted someone to hold me in the night when I felt so frightened and alone. For me, I didn't want just a little sexy fun fling. I felt like I needed what they call in the hospitals in America 'primary care support'. Like when someone is in the intensive care unit and they need twenty four hour care. I felt like that was me. Enter the Russian yoga therapist And there was a man that had been a student of mine who was very, very alluring, kind of reddish brown copper hair, big almond brown eyes, slender...He was a Russian yoga therapist and massage therapist. Me: You already got me intrigued! Francesca: With long hair...and he and I started to spend more time together and he was being emotionally supportive. And when this open relationship design came into being I went to him and I said, "What do you think?" Well he was all over it! Me: Literally! Francesca: Oh my God all over it and all over me! I remember a night, I think it might have been the night where I said you know, we've opened the relationship and we could get together where I think he said like he couldn't get out of this chain link fence, he was somehow locked in. He actually climbed the fence, and he ripped his clothes! You know, this person who's just like running to try to get to you... Me: Like in a movie, right? Francesca: And it was the beginning of...of course it was very passionate in the beginning and we were, you know, making love at night and in the middle of the night, and in the morning, and we were traveling together...within a month I had actually moved this guy in! Me: Wow! Did John know at that point? Francesca: No because we were doing the 'don't ask, don't tell' model! Me: Oh! Oh my God...okay! Francesca: Yes! Life with a sexy fitness coach And this guy was this primary care support where he would cook for me, and he was someone who cooked very vegan, very healthy. So he would cook for me. He was also a fitness coach so in the mornings he would have me do yoga stretches. And it was in a way it was exactly what I needed. I could tell that this was moving too fast and that John... I couldn't keep doing 'don't ask, don't tell'. When 'don't ask don't tell' becomes 'you'd better tell' So I visited John and I said I need to talk to you. I said "I have gone and not just dated someone, I've not just had sex, but I've gone very, very deep. I've formed another primary relationship and I've already moved this person in". And of course John was shocked and hurt but once again he was getting three or four hours of sleep a night. He just didn't have the bandwidth to even talk about it. It was just...we tried to talk, but he didn't have the bandwidth, and I didn't have my normal skill sets. I'm normally quite erudite, normally very adept in language and communication and in graceful language and communication, and I wasn't. Within I would say maybe a couple of months, John called me and he asked me if we were having unprotected sex. And we were. John said, "Were you planning to tell me?" I said "Yes". He said "When were you planning to tell me?" And I said "You know, I think the next time we were going to get together". John said "Well, it's over". Another death to grieve And then I was not only grieving the death of my mother, but I was grieving the death of the relationship with my soul mate. It really was the best relationship I'd ever had and it's now been ten years and it will be best relationship I've had so far; hope springs eternal, but so far - and it was another shattering for me. So now I'm with this seductively charming Russian yoga master, and it seemed like 'well maybe you're supposed to be with him'. Is this my stuff or his stuff? But something starts to happen where I start to feel more and more insecure. And at first you know maybe I'm thinking 'well it's because I'm grieving' or 'it's because I'm not centered' But I've come to find out over the years - I now have a data collection taken from many relationships - that in the relationships where I feel the most calm, I am with someone who is honest, with good integrity and who is in fact trustworthy. And when I'm in a relationship with people who are lying to me or withholding or cheating in some way, I start to feel more and more insecure. Me: Well that makes sense, right? Francesca: There is an exception to this and usually whenever I start to feel a little insecure, possessive and obsessive in a relationship, I make sure to get counselling. I make sure to get the support so that I'm coming back to the center and I've separated out what are my issues from my childhood versus what is my energetic intuition saying about this relationship. Me: Yep I get it. When a healthy influence turns to dysfunction Francesca: And so sometimes we do have some of our own issues from the past. But with all the therapy and everything...One week the therapists both said - even though they weren't talking to each other - in the same week they both said "I think you need to look at your relationship. I think you're not just grieving and I think that there are some things that might be unhealthy in your relationship" and they both said it interestingly enough the same week. So with this guy, something would just snap in him and he would begin to yell at me. He'd yell at me and shame me and denigrate me - not just for like three minutes, but I would time it. For fifteen minutes, for twenty minutes, for twenty five minutes, for thirty five minutes. Me: Right, so super unhealthy. Francesca: Super unhealthy! and I would tell him, you know, "I'm grieving, this is not okay, I can't handle this". It would be fine for a little while and then he'd go back to it again. Very emotionally abusive. I didn't actually find out until after we broke up that he had been... we also ended up teaching together and he had gone to some of the students in our classes after he found out that they had been molested as children, after he found out that they had terrible family backgrounds and it was hard for them to understand their boundaries. After he found that out, he would seduce them. Me: Whoa! He should be in jail! Seriously! Francesca: Yeah! I didn't find this out until after we broke up and then ... Me: So what did you do? What's the lesson here? Francesca: I tried to let my community know that this person was very, very unhealthy. And you know I did my best to get that information. But it felt terrible, really, really terrible. I had allowed him to stand beside me and teach, I'd actually helped promote him in my community. That's still something periodically that's heavy on my heart. And for me I want to say that I've learned to forgive myself and that's an important part of healing. Me: Oh yeah. Francesca: We can't just beat ourselves up, we have to get the lesson. Like what's the lesson? Part of that lesson - this is very interesting - when my mother died, no one came to visit. What do you do when someone dies? Where I come from back in the center of the United States, it's more farmland, it's more...people are in the same area generation after generation, and when someone dies, your friends show up or your family shows up and they bring you food. They understand that you're not going to want to cook, that you're going to feel sort of out of your body. So people show up and take care of you at least for the first couple of weeks if not longer. When my mother died, no one came to visit. I tried to email and say, you know, my mother has died, I feel very shattered, this is so hard, I'm having so many emotions...and no one came. Tough questions and enlightening answers A couple of months later when I was out in the world I would see my friends and I would say "Do you know that my mother died?" "Yes". "Okay uh...I'm curious, why didn't you stop by? Or why didn't you call?" And what I heard really highlighted the wounding that we have in our culture around grieving. So what they said was, "Well you're such an independent woman, I thought you would want to do it yourself". Well this is weird because you know, in most cultures in the world you grieve in community. You don't grieve by yourself! That's such a weird modernization. We're meant to do this together. And so I thought 'hmmm, that's a wound of culture that they thought I needed to grieve by myself'. Some people said that they were afraid of death. I understood that and I could have compassion for it, but I thought that's another wound of culture. Because death is so removed. It's in the hospital, it's far away, it's in a hospice. We don't see death like we would have seen it a hundred years ago, a couple hundred years ago where death was a part of life. You learn to work with it. Once again you learn. People would say "I wouldn't know what to say, I didn't want to make it worse". I would say "Well, let me give you an option. One possible thing to say is 'I'm so sorry for your loss'". Me: Yes exactly! Francesca: Fairly safe, but they literally didn't know that! Enter the life-changing answer So the answer that started to change my life was when people said, "Francesca of course I love you, of course you're important to me, but I thought that you're so well loved that you would have people that were closer to you than me. People who would be with you". And I said "Well what I think I hear you saying is that you don't realise that you're important to me. That you don't realise that you're actually really close to me". And they said "Yes!" and I thought 'Whose job is it to let you know that you're important to me?' Me: Yours! Francesca: It's my job! But I'm not doing a good job of letting people know that they actually matter to me! When walls no longer serve When I saw that I thought 'Oh my God! I have a wall around me'. It's the wall that I built to protect myself. I built it brick by brick as a child, as an adolescent, as a young woman. And I built this wall to try to protect me from being hurt by my family or being hurt by mean kids or etcetera. But now I realize this wall that has been designed to protect me also keeps people from me and I have spent my life proving my independence and that I can take care of myself. So if I need to move forward in life, the next development in life is to let people in to care for me and to let out, to be vulnerable, to reveal how important you are to me. Me: Wow! That is almost freaky because I had the same realization about the wall about a year ago. And in fact that was one of the reasons why I started this podcast! Because I thought, 'What way can I start to share some vulnerability with the world?' How can I start to yeah, just you know, tear down the wall, basically! So that is really freaky because I didn't know that that was going to come up today. Wow! Francesca's gift We have to wrap things up pretty soon but before we do that, I mean what an incredible story! I want to put links obviously to what you do in the show notes. But before we get to the food tips for this episode I know that you have very generously offered a special gift for our podcast listeners. So can you say something about that? Francesca: I have! You know, all of the suffering becomes a grace when we learn from it and in that we can help others. So if anybody's listening and they've suffered a lot, on the other side of that suffering is who you are as a healer. I want to offer my support to all of the listeners and to say that I'm happy to offer you a gift session by phone or Skype. This will be approximately forty five minutes to an hour. You would email relationshipdiva@gmail.com and put in the subject, 'gift session'. I'm happy to collaborate with you and really offer my support for our time together. Me: Wow! That is awesome Francesca, thank you so much. I know that people will take advantage of that because I mean you've got so much to offer in so many areas. Around sexuality and relationships and even, you know, life's journey and the whole thing. So thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. It's been super, super having you on the podcast! So thank you again so, so much! A food that helps you fight depression and helps with balancing hormones So, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you a tiny but amazing food that can help fight depression as well as help with balancing hormones. And that food is... Flax seeds! Benefits of flax seeds, including balancing hormones Flax seeds are amazing and if you aren't eating them yet, you've got to get yourself some. The reason they can help fight depression is because they're high in omega-3 fatty acids. But they also can help with balancing hormones. I'll link to a study in the show notes that seems to say that eating flax seeds may help prevent some forms of cancer. Flax seeds are also high in fiber and low in carbs, and they help reduce sugar cravings, they improve your skin and hair...I mean there are just too many benefits to mention here, so I'll link to an article or two in the show notes if you'd like to read more about flax seeds. How you eat flax seeds Now, how do you eat flax seeds? Well, some people buy flaxseed oil and pour that over salads and veggies. What I like to do though is buy the whole seeds and then grind them quickly in a coffee grinder or high-speed blender. You can then sprinkle them over salads or cereals, or use them to make crackers, bread, pancakes and all kinds of things. They're great to thicken recipes. And of course if you want some specific recipes that use flax seeds, I've got a gorgeous recipe for Nut Burgers (and ketchup) in my 5-Minute Mains recipe ebook that I'll link to below. Have YOU got a story to share? If you've got a true story to share, and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day in your situation), I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment? Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes. I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now! RESOURCES Francesca's website: www.FrancescaGentille.com For a 30 minute Gift Session, email Francesca and mention Gift Session from Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Article on benefits of flax seeds: https://draxe.com/10-flax-seed-benefits-nutrition-facts/ Article on brain benefits of flaxseed oil: http://www.livestrong.com/article/472237-flax-oil-for-mood-brain-functions/ Scientific study on flax seeds and cancer: http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/11/10/3828.short Recipe ebooks including 5-Minute Mains (for Nut Burgers and Ketchup recipes): https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/   About Francesca Gentillé Francesca Gentillé is a Certified Clinical Sexologist & Relationship Counselor. She is the popular internet radio host of Sex: Tantra & Kama Sutra and co-author of the award-winning sex & relationship book "The Marriage of Sex & Spirit." Francesca is the co-director of the The Somatic Sensual Healing Institute, and the founder of The Sacred Courtesan School of Feminine Mystique and Power. She says: "There is no one true, right and only way to design a relationship, fulfill you purpose, or heal from past trauma. Together we will create a path that is uniquely suited to you. In a gentle, graceful yet powerful manner you will deepen your authentic life."