Podcasts about nicole you

Fear isn't real—it's a product of your imagination. In this episode of Integrative You Radio, Dr. Nicole dives deep into the ways fear holds us back, why it's rooted in control, and how we can shift our perspective to embrace limitless possibilities. She unpacks the difference between manufactured and surrendered manifestation, explaining how our need to control outcomes often restricts our potential. With real-life examples and actionable insights, this episode will challenge you to rethink fear and step into a space of opportunity, abundance, and trust. If you've ever felt paralyzed by fear or stuck in a cycle of stress and self-doubt, this conversation is for you. Dr. Nicole also shares her personal journey of overcoming a hijacked nervous system, the science behind why our brains focus on fear, and how to break free from limiting beliefs. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion that will help you reframe challenges and start making decisions from inspiration, not desperation. What you'll learn:     Fear is a Mental Construct – Fear is imagined and often rooted in control. The possibility of your fear coming true is just as likely as it not happening, so shifting your perception is key. The Power of Perspective – Challenges always come with opportunities. By widening your lens and shifting focus from obstacles to possibilities, you can unlock new paths and outcomes. Make Decisions from Inspiration, Not Desperation – Fear-based choices often lead to misalignment and struggle. Understanding your values and trusting your intuition allows you to make empowered, fulfilling decisions.  Quotes:  "Your fear is imagined. It is a figment of your imagination."- Dr. Nicole "You are either blocking opportunities, or you are an open vessel to receive them. It all depends on how you choose to show up mentally and emotionally." - Dr. Nicole Find Integrative You Radio On: Website Youtube  Apple Spotify Curious about Integrative You? Dive into Integrative You Radio with Dr. Nicole Rivera, where she explores the intersections of holistic health, personal growth, and living in alignment with your core values. Each episode provides insights and practical advice to help you achieve a more fulfilling and energized life.  Links: Website: Integrative You Instagram: Dr. Nicole Rivera Unlock your true potential and start creating the life you desire — enroll in "Values Determination: Discover Who You Are" today! Learn More here: https://www.integrativeyou.health/offers/nkCsvtRJ.  Got a question, want to schedule a call, or just want to say hi? Text us at (732) 810-1084.

In this episode of Integrative You Radio, Dr. Nicole Rivera shares the inspiring story of her family's spontaneous move to Italy. Despite not having citizenship or a visa, Nicole explains how their decision was driven by intuition and alignment with their personal values, allowing everything to fall into place. She highlights how trusting the process and taking bold action led to unexpected successes. Dr. Rivera also explores the importance of making decisions out of inspiration rather than fear or desperation. She encourages listeners to reflect on their own values and motivations, emphasizing the power of intention and alignment in achieving a fulfilled, purpose-driven life. Tune in to learn more! What you'll learn:     Trust Your Intuition: Bold decisions made from a place of inspiration and alignment with personal values often lead to unexpected success. Inspiration vs. Desperation: Making choices out of inspiration rather than fear or desperation creates more meaningful and fulfilling outcomes. Clarity on Values: Understanding your core values is essential for guiding decisions and living a life that feels authentic and purposeful.  Quotes:  "It's the power of your intention, the power of your alignment, and the power of your vision." - Dr. Nicole"You can't make decisions out of inspiration if you don't even know what's important to you."- Dr. Nicole Curious about Integrative You? Dive into Integrative You Radio with Dr. Nicole Rivera, where she explores the intersections of holistic health, personal growth, and living in alignment with your core values. Each episode provides insights and practical advice to help you achieve a more fulfilling and energized life Links: Website: Integrative You Instagram: Dr. Nicole Rivera Interested in Concierge Integrative Medicine? Learn More here: Integrative You. Got a question, want to schedule a call, or just want to say hi? Text us at (732) 810-1084.

The Final Episode of Season Five (and the final episode of Uncertain) is a very special episode. The Board of Directors of Tears of Eden interviews Katherine Spearing, reflecting on the journey of creating five seasons and 110 episodes. They'll discuss: What Katherine is most proud of during the past five seasonsHow Katherine has navigated carrying stories of abuse and trauma while also being a survivorWhat it's like working with a team and building community after experiencing abuse within a communityWhat it's like to pioneer bringing pivotal conversations into the public eyeHow being a woman has impacted Katherine's approach and experience calling out abuse And More! Featuring Erin Pickersgill, Nikki G. and Brad Klausman Looking for a trauma-trained mental health professional to work with? www.traumaresolutionandrecovery.com/meet-our-practitionersSign up for Tears of Eden's newsletter to receive updates on the release of Katherine Spearing's upcoming book: www.tearsofeden.org/aboutUncertain is a podcast of Tears of Eden, a community and resource for those in the aftermath of Spiritual Abuse. If you're enjoying this podcast, please take a moment to like, subscribe, or leave a review on your favorite podcasting listening apparatus. You can support the podcast by going to TearsofEden.org/supportTo get in touch with us please email tearsofeden.org@gmail.comFollow on Instagram @uncertainpodcastTranscript is Unedited for Typos and Misspellings [00:00:00] I'm Katherine Spearing and this is Uncertain. So today's episode is a special one. It's a little bit happy and celebratory, and it's also a little bit sad. This episode is for the foreseeable future the last episode of Uncertain. It is the end of an era, the end of a journey, and also the beginning of one, I hope. Is the fifth season. We're ending the fifth season. There are five seasons of Uncertain. There's also over a hundred episodes. That's a really big deal. I was planning to sort of end the season with the episode from last week with Janai Amon talking about the How to prepare for telling your story publicly in a safe way.I was really excited about that episode. I was prepared to end on that episode. And then I met with the board of directors for tears of Eden. Yes, we have a [00:01:00] board of directors. We are a nonprofit. All non profits have a board of directors, and I was really thrilled that they suggested, hey, why don't we do like a final celebratory episode in which we, the board, interview you, Katherine, about the journey we're on.with Uncertain. And I honestly was so in the zone of like, okay, I need to finish the season. I need to wrap it up. I need to get everything out. I need to do the promo and I need to do the recording and I need to do the editing and just kind of full on just work task mode. And so the fact that the board suggested, hey, let's do an episode to sort of commemorate and celebrate.That was really helpful. I really appreciated it. It meant so much to me and this episode meant a lot to me as well. This whole journey has meant so much to me. I'm going to talk more about it in the episode itself during the interview. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter, the Tears of Eden newsletter, so that you can stay [00:02:00] updated on everything that is continuing to happen with Tears of Eden, including but not limited to a book about spiritual abuse that I am currently writing and will be releasing next year 2025. Thank you all so much for listening. Uh, so before I start crying, I will turn it over to the board of directors of Tears of Eden.Here is the final episode where the board of directors interviews Katherine Spearing Erin: Will you like edit things? Oh, definitely. I'll definitely Katherine: edit it. Yeah. And I'll probably just kind of speak, speak openly, and then decide later if I care.you're gonna edit Erin: yourself. I'm definitely Katherine: going to edit myself. I probably edit myself more than I edit guests, honestly, because they're going to be going to be real about that. I was like, why do I say like so much? I say like so much. Erin: You like it. You like it. I like to say like, [00:03:00] exactly. Katherine: So can we have everybody introduce yourselves? Your name, where you're located, your pronouns, and what how you found Tears of Eden, and then what made you want to be on the board of directors aside from me coercing you into it?Brad: Nicky threatening my life. Erin: That'll do it. Nicole: That's because Catherine threatened my life, so I just was passing down the baton. Hey, Erin: I didn't get threatened. I feel left out. Brad: Well, don't worry. That means you saved on therapy bills. It's okay. And Katherine: we are not a cult. Nicole: No. No. We've had enough of those. Katherine: Nikki, why Nicole: don't you go first?Okay. I am Nikki G, and certified trauma recovery coach, and I specialize in religious trauma, cult recovery, and narc abuse, and I hail from the state of Texas. And [00:04:00] how did I find this safe space that I found that I'm in right now? Well, I met Catherine, maybe about 2021, I think and we connected that way, came on our podcast with myself and another coach.And We just hit it off. We found that we had a lot of commonality and our hearts were both centered on, obviously, recovering ourselves, but also helping those who have gone through horrendous forms of spiritual abuse and religious trauma. And so, you know, Catherine reached out to me, I think the end of 2021, and said, Hey!There's a board seat. You want to get on the board? No, she didn't say it that easy, but she was just saying, I would love to have you. I think, you know we hit it off well, and I think we have the same vision. And so I came on board. I remember her. I'm not going to do that now, but I remember her explaining to me how tears of Eden, the actual name came to being, and I just fell in love with that.[00:05:00] And she didn't have the strong army. And so I said, yes. And I've been on the board since the beginning of 2022. So that's my story and I'm sticking with it Katherine: and Nikki has been with me through many a trial tears of Eden related. Yeah. And it's gotten me through many things. Very, very grateful, and also runs the support groups or has run the past few support groups that we've done.Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful support group, support person, wonderful human being. Erin, you want to go next? Erin: Hi everyone so my name is Erin Pickerskill and I'm the, I'm an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Missouri. And my pronouns are she, her I've been a priest for a few years and as I was training to be a priest, I was in England and had some of my own experiences of spiritual abuse and religious trauma.And as I was. Trying to find out if this thing was even real. [00:06:00] Found myself stomping around the British countryside, walking my dogs and listening to Catherine's voice on the Tia's of Eden podcast on certain and like just praying and wishing and hoping that I could find a community that would understand me and validate my experiences and ended up moving to St.Louis after that. And so did Catherine. So I asked Catherine if I could take her out for a coffee. And And thank her for all of the validation and comfort she gave me and probably many others. And then I strong armed her into being my friend and that's how I do friendship. And but it was just so great.And so then Catherine asked me to be part of the board like on a temporary basis and I loved it so much. Yeah, I just love being a part of this. community. Did I answer all your questions? Yeah, maybe that was about last year, Catherine, or about a year and a half ago. So Katherine: I don't remember, but also came on in a torrential season [00:07:00] of personal and tears of Eden nature.I remember when we both cried. I was like, I don't know. It was like, we laughed. Yeah. Erin: It was amazing. It was amazing. Yeah. To me, like you were, it was like meeting my hero. And Katherine: for me, it was just like, Whoa, we both moved here at the same time. Like, I did feel, Erin: you know, this story that I felt so, so scared, you were going to think I was so creepy because I messaged you and I was like, you're moving to St.Louis. So am I, let me get you a coffee. Like that is creepy. So I'm so glad that I'm so glad that you you took the chance and let me get coffee for you. Katherine: One day it was very special. And I'm so grateful that you're on the board. You bring so much life and laughter and fun and we need that desperately.And we ran into each other literally yesterday, yesterday. It was two days ago, one of those days at a coffee shop. [00:08:00] We're both at the same coffee shop. Yes. This Erin: is awesome. Katherine: Yes. I promise. I didn't Nicole: know you were gonna be there. Katherine: I didn't know you were gonna be there. You're like, I'm not being creepy. I swear. I was in your car route.So good. So good. Cannot escape Erin. No. She's always there. Erin: Oh, that's creepy. Brad's face is so scared. He's so scared. On that note. Katherine: Yeah, right. Brad, how about you introduce yourselves? Brad: Well, you know, I didn't know all that about Erin or I may have reconsidered. However I'm here. So my name is Brad. I short, brief history.I'm a former pastor of 20 plus years in the Southern Baptist church. I escaped with, with no hair, but I escaped and became a certified light coach about four years ago helping people that are deconstructing from religious beliefs. Ideology, trauma and whatever they may go through. My pronouns are he, him. I found out about [00:09:00] tears because of Nikki. Nikki and I met through Instagram discovered we had connection. And then she very bluntly threatened me to interview for tears. And right that same day that she threatened me, she sent me an application or something and said, you need to fill this out. And so with that began the process of, of interrogation, background checks floggings, you know, all that. I must say I was incredibly nervous meeting Catherine obviously the brains behind the operation. But I love tears. And the, the mission and the way in which this organization goes about providing resources and meet the needs of those that are, have, are struggling or have been struggling spiritually.And don't know where they're at. And so that's obviously one of my passions being who I am. I am currently pretty [00:10:00] busy because I'm in the midst of my clinical mental health counseling master's degree. I figure I need I need to replace my past master's degree seminary with something more relevant.No effect. No offense, Aaron. So you know, just a little, little me thing. It's, it's more of a me problem. So with that being said, I'm just excited to be here. I'm excited about this next step and tears life. Tears of Eden's life and what. The vision that Catherine has and what she's going to be doing next.So that's a little bit about me. No, just realize that I am the only male here. So, you know, just saying. Oh, he pulled the mail card. It's really hard for Nicole: him. Yeah. Brad: Oh, my privilege is showing. I'm so sorry Katherine: for you. Nicole: We're so glad that you're here. This is all in great spirit. Yes. I do Katherine: remember asking Nikki, like, he is [00:11:00] a white man.Are you sure? Apparently. Totally fair question. . Nicole: Yes. Katherine: No, we love that. I'm very grateful for you. I'm very grateful that you're on the board and grateful that you have been here. You've been through the support group with us too, and you're the champion of re-shares on Instagram, always re-sharing content.Mm-Hmm, super appreciate that. Yeah. So very, very glad that you're here. And I'm Catherine, she, her, and. Host soon to be former host of uncertain podcast. And this is our celebration episode for five seasons, 110 episodes. And. I guess I'll just announce that this is the final episode for now of Uncertain.That is why we were doing this episode, the special celebratory episode, Aaron's [00:12:00] idea. So glad that you had the idea. Cause I was just like, ah, we're just going to, you know, have a last episode and then we're going to be done. And Aaron was like, no, we need to celebrate. Can we, we need to celebrate Erin: you. We need to celebrate you.That's what we are here to celebrate. So all of you listeners, we're not just. Celebrating this podcast today. We are really intentionally reading it and asking Catherine, like returning the table and asking Catherine the questions about her experience over the last five years. Katherine: I really appreciate it.I'll just say that. Really, really appreciate it. Really grateful that you are, you had the idea to celebrate because it needed to happen. There needed to be just like a celebration and a, and a nice little cumulative ending. So I very much appreciate that. So thank you so much for having the idea and are y'all okay.If I just kind of surrender to you and you decide. What's next for the rest of this episode, even though I feel like the episode's already been awesome so far stories [00:13:00] like, man, why did I interview all of you? Erin: I would I would love to Nikki, were you making gestures? Do you want to me to me? You're pointing at me?Wow. Thanks. Okay, thumbs up. I'm gonna I'm gonna so gladly kick us off, Catherine. I'm going to give you a really easy. Easy starting question, and then they're going to get progressively harder, I'm sure. Sweet! I'm ready. Yeah, okay. And listeners, we did not ask Catherine to review or reflect on these questions beforehand, so these are all off the dub.100 percent improvised. Good luck. Good thing you're good at that. Okay, so listen, I would love to know, What is, as you reflect over the last five years of podcasting podcasting uncertain, what is a highlight of all of your interviews or, or like, what are you most proud of a particular moment? Katherine: Yeah, I was reflecting mostly on that this morning.I like [00:14:00] blocked out an hour and I was like, I want to sit with, like, go through all the episodes. I didn't listen to them, but I just like, Went through and like remembered episodes and took notes on things. And I think one of the things that I'm most proud of is, well, five seasons, 110 episodes, but also that we are exploring this topic that we are really pioneering so many different conversations.And religious trauma is in mainstream culture. We're aware of that as a Western culture, but spiritual abuse is still not a super mainstream conversation. And I think a lot of that just has to do with the culture and, you know, the United States itself identifying as a Christian nation and, and folks more comfortable with the idea that they experienced trauma, but maybe not so comfortable with the idea that so many things that we see as Christianity.As [00:15:00] normal regular everyday Christianity are actually objectively harmful and coercive and controlling and abusive and shaming and that conversation is probably still about five to 10 years out in terms of being mainstream. So we are pioneering. So many conversations and we're, and we've had so many public conversations already that are conversations that are happening.Absolutely. But we made them public. And some of the topics that we have addressed on uncertain are the first time that I am aware of that they have been discussed in public. I was just thinking about one of the episodes with Keanu Hadari about Asking the question was Jesus sexually abused and exploring that subject.Like I've never, we talked about a book. We were referencing a book up until then, like I'd never heard anyone discuss that or bring that into the public light or, or have that discussion of, is that a [00:16:00] possibility? Did that happen? Could that have happened? And so just the fact that we have just pioneered and been forerunners in this conversation, that's probably going to be happening in mainstream culture in like five years or 10 years.All of these subjects that we are covering is that makes me very proud that, that, that has been something that we've been able to do and explore in a public way that has been helpful to people. So that, that makes me really proud. I'm very proud of that. Erin: As you should be. What about over to Brad or Nikki for a question?Brad: So first of all, that was awesome. And you're so right about it not being mainstream yet. Even going through a master's degree in counseling, it's a hard topic, right? Trying to get that relevant. within the education system. So let me ask you this along those lines, and then this is going to be tough for you to answer.Okay. Because it's, it's broad. All right. Give me something or give us the audience, something that you were [00:17:00] dumbfounded to learn about, you know, Katherine: on these Brad: podcasts. Katherine: Everything coming to my mind has to do with sex. So any of the podcasts that we did about sex or purity culture, I feel like I learned something and I realized like how ignorant I was. and then came to the slow realization that I was kept ignorant on purpose, like it wasn't just like, Oh, I just missed that and sex education class.There was no sex education class. There was no discussion about. So many different things. So anytime we had like a sex coach or sex and relationship coach the sex evangelicals, Julia and Jeremiah, Lucy Rowett, Kim Cavill, I would ask questions of them, like in those interviews that like, I always wanted to ask, and I was just like, I need to ask an expert and I'm going to ask you in the context of a podcast interview, having no idea what you are going to say, because I actually don't know the answer to this question.[00:18:00] And so. That is what's coming to mind for me of just like things that I thought about a lot more afterwards and realize the power play in so much of the approach to sex and the withholding of information within the context of church,Nicole: Nikki. Well, I'm going to rewind back a little bit more and kind of shift. So track back five years ago. What's entered Catherine's mind to start on certain podcasts? Bum, Katherine: bum, bum, bum. Yes. This, this origin story is tears of Eden's origin story probably came before the podcast. And in 2019, I was still at an abusive church and.I started researching with the intent of like forming some kind of [00:19:00] more formal community for people who are leaving churches like this, because as I was going through my experience, I was talking to people all over the country, all over the world, and hearing similar stories to mine, so I just realized like, oh, My church is not the only church where this is happening.It is happening in a lot of places. And so kind of seeing this as a potential need and then wanting to find other people that were maybe already doing this and couldn't find a lot, but did find individual like Or one couple that was ran like a retreat center, like a recovery center for people who had left cults.And a lot of the folks who came through their center were from Bible based cults. And so the fact that they were naming that and working with that demographic of people, that was an episode with Bob pardon. That is. And the archived episodes that are accessible for monthly donors. And and I, I think about his [00:20:00] episode a lot too, because I feel like I learned a lot just from him, I think decades of working with this demographic.But I didn't really find. A lot of organizations working with this demographic, but I just had so many interesting conversations with people. And I just wanted a way to bottle up those conversations and share them with other people. And so that's where the idea for Uncertain came from of like, why don't I just like start interviewing people thinking, Oh, this will be easy.I'd had a podcast before. It was called Frank frog hunting and which I documented my dating dating journey. And so I'd done it before I already had a mic. So I kinda, I kinda knew what to do. And so I just started Begging, bribing, coercing, and threatening people to be on the podcast. And let me, let me interview them to talk about it.And there was a long period of time where I debated, like, do I want this podcast to be something that I put on my website and it's like separate from the nonprofit? Do I want to [00:21:00] put them together? Are they the same thing? And I don't remember. What led to the choice of like, let's make this part of the nonprofit.But eventually like that decision was made. I don't remember why. And, and connected it to tears of Eden as a part of tears of Eden. And it became a very pivotal part of tears of Eden for most of tears of Eden's existence. So I'm glad that that decision was made. I made the decision to keep them together.I think I was worried about the conversations being confrontational and potentially You know, inciting, you know, kickback or whatever. And I didn't want that associated with the nonprofit. I was like, Oh, you could like kick back against me, but don't, don't do it to the nonprofit. And I mean, they became sort of integrated anyway.So here we are. I love that question. Nicole: I'll go up to that though. Where did the name Uncertain come from? You might have [00:22:00] said this a long time ago, but for those who came in, like, let's say year three and on where did Uncertain come from? Katherine: Yeah, that came from a conversation at Coffee in Los Angeles pre pandemic.So it was probably in February 2020. I was at Coffee. Thinking about the podcast, I think I maybe recorded one or two episodes at that point, hadn't named it yet. Nothing was public. I was with my friend Alex and and so I was actually very specifically talking about the name and like, I don't know what to name it.Do I name it? Tears of Eden podcast, but tears of Eden doesn't sound tears of it. It doesn't sound like. podcast. And so I, I wasn't really sure. And she was like, well, just tell me like, what do you hope to do with it? And I just, I said, I just want to have conversations. And hold space for us to be uncertain about those conversations and not really have any like agenda and have to have an answer.We can just [00:23:00] talk and we don't have to conclude those conversations and we can just, just be comfortable being uncertain. And she was like, uncertain. That's a good podcast name. And I was like. Oh, it is a good podcast name. And so yes, Alex Scott, wherever you are is the reason that it is named uncertain. Erin: I love that.I, I remember like stomping around listening to those podcasts in the early days and, and loving the name of it so much because yeah, because I felt so uncertain and I felt like all the ground around me was shaking and just to be able to know, to like link into a group and to yourself and to your interviews that, that also was engaging with uncertain topics, you know, it made me feel so less alone.Yeah. Katherine: And that's such a pivotal part of the recovery process, I think too, because when we're coming out of fundamentalism, the, the [00:24:00] main marketing tenant of fundamentalism is. The answers, we have the answers, we will fulfill all of these answers, we will tell you how to think we will tell you what to experience and how to feel.And so the converse of that is being able to sit in ambiguity and uncertainty. And confusion even, and just kind of be able to sit in that and be comfortable with that and not have to have the answers and the onus to have the answers. I think is one of the things that will lead us back into fundamentalist spaces because we're looking to satisfy that, that angst that can sometimes be caused when we don't have an answer.Erin: Yeah. And so the opposite of being uncertain is being a learner or being curious, you know, and that, that, that sort of, you, you allowed us to be inspired to do that with you, which was, which is so awesome. I kind of, in the context of being uncertain and [00:25:00] having an uncertain posture I was wondering what did the medium of podcasting.Or even the doing of the Uncertain Podcast bring out in you in terms of strengths, and gifts, and interests, and passions? Like, what did it sort of highlight for you that you maybe before that hadn't been able to explore or know about yourself? Katherine: I love this question so much. It's like one of those questions.It's like, I didn't know I want somebody to ask me it, but then as soon as they're asking, and I'm like, Oh, I'm so glad someone is asking me this question. Two things come to mind. First is I learn. And I've only discovered this recently. I learned by doing, and I learned by experiencing some watching maybe.But I learned by an experience. And so having the experience of having an interview with someone and being in that conversation with [00:26:00] someone, I learned so much and I feel like I retained so much information in that way. Also, I think when I was in grad school. Every paper that you wrote, you had like a limit of how many personal interviews you could do as, as resources for a paper.And I always maxed out every personal interview. Cause I just really liked talking to people and learning for them. And so. When I got to do the podcast, it was like, Oh, that same part of me, like, I'm, I'm going to learn from having conversations with people more than I'm going to learn from reading their book.Even though I did read the books of the authors that I interviewed, most of them I I, I really learned more and solidified more in having the conversation than I did from actually reading their book. And so that was a better learning experience for me. And now people are like, you're a [00:27:00] like, Oh, you must have read blah, blah, blah.And you must have read blah, blah, blah. And you're like up to date on all of the literature, like not really, but I have talked to so and so on my podcast and we have emailed and we've had conversations through Instagram. But. Maybe you haven't read their book. But don't read, read people's books, buy books, support authors.I will say that if you don't have the money, ask for it from a library because they will order it for you and it will be free. That's my little plug for that. But that was one thing. And then the second thing, this is a little bit interesting. That I wasn't, this was something that surprised me. So when I was growing up in a very fundamentalist patriarchal world, and there were prescribed roles for women and prescribed perspectives of how women were supposed to behave and what a good woman was.I had a lot of people either directly tell me or passively aggressively tell me that I was mean or M E A N and or, or rude or [00:28:00] harsh or abrasive. They didn't cuss, but they probably would have called me bitchy if they did at a lot of people like make those comments about me, either in the family or in the community.And so I had this perspective from myself that I was just this really mean disgruntled bitch. But then when I would listen to interviews. And I would like get to re re listen to it and edit it, edit it. And I could hear myself after the fact. And there were particular times where like I asked a question and my memory of the question was, Oh, that was harsher.That was to redirect or, Oh, I shouldn't have said it that way or whatever. And I would like ruminate on it later. And then I would listen to it back a few weeks later. And I was like, Oh, I'm not. I'm not, I'm not mean, I'm not rude. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not all of these things that people had said about me.And it took like listening back to myself in real time conversation with some [00:29:00] distance to kind of shift that perspective of myself and sort of see some of that was probably just. Put on perceptions of like what women were supposed to be like, and I just didn't fit that ideal. And I knew I didn't fit that ideal, but I didn't know that that had directly impacted my view of myself, thinking of myself as like a mean.And rude person. Which I now know it's like, I don't, nah, that's not true. I have, I have mean moments for sure. Itchy moments for sure. But that's not who I am as like my character. And so had years of that being put on me that I got to undo in real time through podcasting. So that was a surprise.That was a surprise gift. Brad: So. If I can just kind of piggyback on that a little bit because I was going to ask you a similar question when you started going that direction. I don't know if people [00:30:00] completely understand what now follow this, this wacky train of thought. Okay. So you are obviously a female calling out religious stuff.Okay. Which naturally would create angst by people that are conservative.And you're faced with even in all those episodes, you're faced with calling out trauma and and stereotypes and all kinds of stuff that religion has, I guess you could say, impressed upon the minds of many people since they were kids.When it came to podcasting, how did you not only heal, but keep yourself healthy while going through those episodes?Katherine: Well, we first have to say, am I healthy? That's a, yeah. And I think that that's one of, one of many reasons why I think that the podcast is coming to a [00:31:00] close now is. The crux of my health is on the line and like my ability to stay healthy physically I'm having to make some difficult choices just for my own personal health.And there was always, I was always aware there was going to be a time like that it was potentially going to be more than I was able to carry. And so I think. That, that was always just a NAV, a constant navigation throughout the whole experience and dealt with so much imposter syndrome, I think with the podcast of just, I just remember the first season, every episode, every time an episode would launch, I would just.And I can guess and ruminate and all of the things. And I think always, it always came up in, you know, therapy, especially if there was like a particular episode that [00:32:00] really hit home in a specific way. Early on, there were some folks that I interviewed who, there was one particular, I was remembering that never an episode that never went up.So there were several episodes that never went up. But when I was remembering, we were talking about characteristics of a toxic church. And I think this was in season one. And as we're having the conversation in real time, the woman that I'm talking to is like realizing that she is actually in real time in a toxic church as we were doing the interview.And. Before the episode went up, she emailed me and she was like, I don't feel comfortable with it going up just like where I am and I put in my journey and all that kind of stuff. Of course, no problem not going up, but I was still in this like locked into this like I have to get an episode out every week.And, and so I couldn't get an episode out that week. And, and so I couldn't because it was like care for her or. Not get an episode out. I didn't have anything else in the lineup. And [00:33:00] I just remember just feeling like such a failure because I like, couldn't get an episode up. And now I skip episodes all the time.So like going through that experience of like, like, what is the definition of a successful podcast and having to. Define that for myself because it is a frontier terrain. And I was like, Googling some articles this morning about like podcasting and statistics and all this kind of stuff. And like, there's some podcasts of like how to do a podcast.And if you want to be a successful, you must do it this way and blah, blah, blah, as every industry has. And realizing that it is kind of like a create your own journey. You can learn from things that other people have done, but you really have to create your own journey. And I realized pretty quickly that because of the nature of the subject, how heavy it was and how many heavy conversations I needed to listen to my body.And if I was exhausted, if I was, if I was in trauma [00:34:00] mode, like I was, Working through something and the podcast wasn't something that was going to be help helping that that taking a break was necessary and just had to let, let go of the, the standard of, if you, you have it, you must have an episode out every week in order to be successful.And that just became less and less important. As I realized that. I'm also a trauma survivor, and I'm also a spiritual abuse survivor, and this stuff is going to impact me, and just being aware of that, not, not pretending like I'm okay, because sometimes I'm not.Nicole: I can understand where you're coming from with that. It's hard to juggle both, you know, sometimes, but that's another reason why we're here celebrating you, because somehow or another you got through it, and you know, you were able to do this for five years. And for those who may not know, and I don't know if I can spill the beans, [00:35:00] but she Catherine was really a one man show through the whole five years of this podcast, from, you know, obtaining the guests, obtaining the questions and the content, editing all of the episodes that you guys got to hear you know, hearing the feedback sending out newsletters.Catherine was doing a lot and I think I can speak for her and say this came from the heart. This was a heart effort, you know, and I'm pretty sure a lot of the listeners really, really appreciate that, especially leading the support groups. When, when I connect with some of the group members, a lot of them say they found out about, you know, spiritual abuse and really what they went through from listening to the podcast.So the podcast was not only helping people to find a safe space but it was a place, a platform. For people to be educated to really, you know, say, oh, wait a minute. I went through that too. That's what that's called. And so I just want to honor you [00:36:00] for, you know, the sacrifices that you made to make this be a real thing.That's been a lifeline for so many. And since I'm on that. I want to focus on the listeners now because you see the numbers, you see the hits and a lot of people have tapped into Uncertain Podcasts over the past five years. And if you're out there listening, we just want to honor you and thank you for sticking with the podcast and sticking with Tears of Eden and listening to all the episodes.We really appreciate you for that. But what is some being the fact that you have focused on the listeners a lot. It's not just about, Oh, I like this, this guest. Let me grab that person and put them on. It's okay. Where are the listeners now? We covered this in season one. Now we're going to cover this in season two.You've been very Intentive as far as how you want it to lay this stuff out. What are some of the messages or some of the themes that you really hoped in your heart? Dr. [00:37:00] Listeners would, would gain from hearing the episodes. What is it that you wanted them to really know and glean from the podcast?Katherine: Yeah, and I'm really glad that you highlighted that because I think that that is important. Concept to maintain when you're creating any kind of content is who is your audience? And I had to keep in mind, and I did every time I did an interview, Like survivors. And sometimes I would be thinking of specific survivors.I had had conversations with and questions that we had asked each other and would take those questions. Sometimes I would send out emails to like, if I knew someone really liked a certain author and they had maybe written a blog post about the author, I would like send them a DM. And I was like, . And so I would like send them direct message or an email and just be like, Hey, send me some questions.I'm going to email interview them tomorrow. And so like kind of keeping that person. In mind [00:38:00] as these conversations are happening every time, every, yeah, just like even how the questions are formed. And I think that the, yeah, just the reality that there are some conversations that we've had on the podcast that I really haven't seen anywhere before publicly.We did a, a podcast with Laura Anderson on anger, and I think I've seen a few things on anger and the health of anger in other places, usually in the psychology world, not necessarily in the, in the Jesus world. So but just having that conversation also with Laura Anderson, we talked about second wave fundamentalism, the idea of like, we leave these fundamentalist spaces and then we go recreate deconstruction spaces.Using the same principles that we learned in the fundamentalist spaces. No one's talking about that, like, right now. Like, we're having these conversations that are just, like, before, before it's [00:39:00] time, you know, coming, coming up We had an episode on forgiveness. That was one episode that I was really excited about the episode that we just aired last week that before we did this episode was going to be the last episode with Jani Amon about what if I get sued, protecting yourself when telling your story?There's not information about that out there. I'm not finding it like I've looked at at a lot of, a lot of it is just like having so many conversations with people and kind of piecing it all together. I don't remember the question, Nikki, I apologize. Where am I going? Nicole: No, no, I think you're answering it.Just, you know, what are some of the themes that, you know, you really wanted the listeners to grab hold of and you just said anger and you know what to do with that and forgiveness, which is what I call the F word when you start talking to a spiritual abuse survivor. So yeah, I don't know if there's any more that you can think.Katherine: Yeah. And I'm also thinking of just like the, the numbers if we're looking at [00:40:00] statistics of like what, what episodes were most listened to people wanted pragmatic, practical advice. Those were the episodes that people will listen to the topic based on the topic for something very practical and pragmatic celebrities.Most of our listeners did not care. Like I would have on like some big name person and think that it was going to get, You know, thousands of listeners and it got like a hundred and it was like, they don't care if the person is popular, like they were, our listeners were looking for practical application and practical advice for this season.And that, you know, definitely helped tailor The content of like, this is what, what people want and what they need and what they're looking for. Yeah, so that was really, really special to kind of have that connection to our audience of like, what this audience is looking for. And then also know, like, I am a part of that audience and [00:41:00] like, Oh, Kind of pulling from what do I want to know more about and who are people that I really want to have a conversation with.I'm thinking about Makoto Fujimora. And we just talked about healing trauma through creating art. That's also an archive episode available to monthly subscribers, but that conversation was so cool. And yeah, I was just like, I emailed Makoto, like, Probably like four times. And then finally he like responded to me.I was in line to get COVID tested and I like on my phone, got the email that he was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't check this email very often. And I was like, he's going to be on my podcast. And so, yeah, so there was just a lot of conversations that were just kind of came out of like, what did I want to talk about and what was important to me to learn about too, as well.Erin: I just love how orderly we're doing this. There's like, on my screen, it's like Brad and then Nikki and then it's like so ordered. It's [00:42:00] so proud of us. Katherine: This organization is spot on. I'm very impressed. Erin: We did a lot. It's like we planned it, but we didn't. Exactly. Okay. I love that we're talking about actual podcasting.Cause when I was thinking about this, this interview with you, I was thinking about how important the actual Thing of like, the, the means of podcasting is and how you engaged with it and how it was somewhere different 5 years ago, really in the world podcasting as it is now. And my question for you about that, I kind of see you as someone who is in terms of ending uncertain for right now.The baton on. Oh, I love that. To someone or lots of people. Yeah. I don't know who they're, but you're doing that. I feel that too. Yes. I feel like you're making space and you're saying you know what you're doing. Like the responsible, beautiful thing of saying, I think. My time here now is [00:43:00] done, but someone else will come and take it on.So in light of that, in the hope of that happening, cause we would love for people, right. Like, yeah. Continue to engage with this stuff in this way. My question is what wisdom do you have for folks who are going to take the baton and engage in the intersection of, between spiritual abuse and podcasting?Katherine: Yeah. I think a lot of people feel pressure to start a podcast because it's just something that everyone's doing.And it's kind of like, if you have an organization or you have a business, like start a podcast and it's kind of something that people. I think maybe feel like they need to do. And, and so my first thing would be like, do it if it's something you really want to do and like, you're really excited about it.And like, for me, the, the excitement was having these conversations and getting able, being [00:44:00] able to bring them to people. And, and that was the foundation of the excitement for doing this. And so find out whatever your reason is for doing it and let that be. Your passion for doing it, but don't just do a podcast just because everyone else is doing it.Cause the market is saturated, not saturated with this subject. The subject is not a saturated subject. But yeah, do something that is exciting to you and you might have to discover that. As you're podcasting. And I think that that happened for me of like, I figuring out what type of guests I did like talking to and figuring out which ones I didn't like talking to and just kind of figuring out like, what did listeners, what were they enjoying and what were they maybe not super excited about?And so like, it's just like anything. Let your passion drive you and , and then be willing to kind of learn along the way. And yeah, those are some of [00:45:00] the, some of the thoughts that I had. Erin: No, that's brilliant. Thank you. Thanks for passing Katherine: it on.I like that pass the baton. I do really feel that way. I like, I feel like it is time for other people to join this conversation and carry this, this conversation through this. mechanism. Yes. It's time for other people to step into this. I do definitely feel that a little bit. Erin: Okay. So follow up question really quick in your imagination and in your knowledge of the field, who, who are they?I really Katherine: hope it's a woman. Erin: Sorry. Yeah. Katherine: Or a, or a minority person that had that lived experience. There's already a lot of white men doing this and, and I'm, I'm sorry, Brad, I'm just tired of hearing from white men. I get it. So is he, so tired of it.I am tired of this too. [00:46:00] Yeah. I just, I just feel like as I, I mean, I kind of went on a fast from. White men in terms of like, I'm not reading books by them. I'm not listening to their podcasts just to kind of, cause I just realized that I was still being drawn to the white male as a voice of authority and trust.And so I felt like I just needed to sort of detox and, and then just realizing that members of the BIPOC community members of the LGBTQ plus community, women. Are doing amazing work. Like, it's not like we're like missing something, with the absence of the white man, that we are, we're not missing anything.If we don't have the white male voice. Right now we just aren't so and so I just really hope that the folks who feel that and I think that as someone who like, that's probably my main source of trauma from the church of having gifts that were praised in men, but [00:47:00] because I was a woman, they were sidelined and silenced and shut down.And then saying, fuck you, literally. And creating a podcast where I sermoned and taught and did all the things that I wasn't allowed to do in the context of church and faced all of the imposter syndrome and all of the, all of the voices telling me that I shouldn't be doing this, that I was doing something wrong by doing this, that I wasn't qualified, that I didn't know what I was talking about.And, and recognizing that there are a lot of people out there that feel that way and maybe aren't talking. Because of that, because of that oppression and because of being shut down and silenced. And I want to hear from you. So get your mic and start podcasting.Brad: First of all, I totally agree with everything you said. Totally. Thanks, Brad. I don't even listen to white men. I don't even listen to myself half the time. But anyway right because I want to hear from [00:48:00] minorities. as well. And then they do an outstanding job on every podcast I've listened to, whatever have you, if it's not a white male, I actually enjoy it more.So that being the case and, and, and Aaron, that was a great question. And, and handing off the baton, knowing what you being considered for all my books, I'm reading school, a minority, Being female, right? What would you say to someone that's thinking about picking up the baton and going with it, that is not a white male, but has trauma from this?I mean, what, what would you like? You had mentioned about, Hey, people really like to listen to the practical application. Would you say to them to encourage them or to support them? I hate the word encouraged because it's flashbacks. Bible Katherine: hood. Brad: So what would you say to support them? [00:49:00] And, and, and picking up that endeavor.Katherine: What's coming to mind is just how deeply embedded fundamentalism was still in my body once I left. And it just took a lot of time and a lot of just like aha moments. A lot of times. In the context of a podcast interview. And so just enjoying that journey and I'm grateful that the podcast itself was called uncertain.And I said that word every time there was an episode, because I think it was just kind of like a subconscious reminder of like, just because you don't wrap up the episode with a neat little bow. To tell someone how to do X, Y, Z what's important is that the conversation happened. And you don't have to set yourself up as an expert in a subject to ask questions about it.I [00:50:00] like that. That's cool. I like that. You don't have to set yourself up as an expert in order to ask questions about it. Brad: That's awesome. Katherine: I like that. Brad: Yeah. Katherine: That's what I have to say.Nicole: Okay. Time to get a little vulnerable. I think I know the answer to this question, but I Katherine: feel Nicole: very Katherine: by you, Nicky, your voice is,I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being here Nicole: since we're on the topic of, you know, the, the time being passed and you know, more conversations around this topic, I just want to bring some reality to it. Because yes, it's helpful. It's informative. It's supportive to the community, but it's not easy. You know, like I said earlier, you've done a lot of this on your own and I'm pretty sure there's been some bumps in the road.So real vulnerable question within the five year span of doing this, [00:51:00] were there any moments when you felt like giving up and just saying, you know what, I can't do this anymore. And if so, how did you overcome it? Katherine: Yes, definitely. . I think there was a, there was a time a couple of years ago, Nikki were very much a part of that season.That was really, really challenging in. The life of the nonprofit and it really impacted me physically had a genuine trauma response. I think that was the season I both met Aaron and Brad in that season. So I was definitely like at the bottom of the bottom. And I took a month off from the Podcasts from the nonprofit just didn't check email.Didn't do the Instagram, didn't interview. And I really just sat with like this and like asked myself the question I asked my body, [00:52:00] cause I was, it was a physical impact on my body and I just sat with. Like just asking my body, like you have done enough. You survived abuse as a child. You survived abuse as a teenager.You survived abuse as an adult. You've experienced so much abuse. You have gotten me through so much. Like you are in charge. Are you ready to be done? Is this the end for you? Are you, are you done? And just like really wanted, and I was really, really willing to just say, if my body is speaking to me and telling me we're done.Like be willing to, to to end the whole thing and didn't at the time feel like it was time to close up shop. Didn't feel like it was over. Didn't feel like the journey was over yet. But I definitely came out of that. Very intentionally. I just started like writing down my hours for tears of Eden.And even though I knew I had worked so [00:53:00] much for tears of Eden, I hadn't ever written it down, so I didn't know how much and realized I had worked way more than I thought I did. For Tears of Eden. And so when I'm like getting to Wednesday and I've already done 17 hours for Tears of Eden and I also have a full time job and I'm also in school and I'm also doing other creative projects, I, I was like, okay, that's enough.Like that is enough for this this work and, and having to be just really intentional about caring for myself. And I think that that's something that every nonprofit leader has to navigate of like, you do so much pouring out to help other people and finding the line of like. Where are you losing yourself in that process?And I definitely think the physical impact of that challenging season showed me that I had. Like kind of [00:54:00] fragmented a little bit and, and needed to spend some more time just integrating and, and approaching, approaching myself with the same care that I maybe approached other people with and not something that is easy to do at all and it, and it isn't.And I think that's some of the reasons for the ending of the podcast here is just Again, being in a season where my body has experienced a physical impact and wanting to care for my body and also recognizing it's for the health of the nonprofit too, because if the leader of the nonprofit is exhausted and burnout, that's not healthy for the nonprofit either.And so it's, they go together. So that is yes. So how did you keep going? Well, I kind of did it, it kind of led to some overhauling of the system. And I think when you reach that [00:55:00] point of, do I want to keep doing this or am I ready to be done, that's a beautiful moment of just. Restock reassess. And I am not a fan of anyone doing something they don't want to do.And like, if you were for whatever reason you don't want to, I'm not a fan of pushing through that. There are times sure that we do have to do that, but it's a lot less than I think that we have been conditioned to believe, especially in religiosity. And I think that. The pushing, if we feel like we're pushing through and just making it happen, that we're not really in it.Just take a beat, take a beat five minutes, 10 minutes, five days, 50 days. Whatever you need to just kind of restock. Nicole: That's that is so good. Catherine. And it's real, you being transparent not just being podcast and running the non profit, but I just [00:56:00] think for survivors religious trauma survivors, spiritual abuse survivors and this, this is, this is gonna make sense with all this, but sometimes we come out of what we've come out of, and You know, we look for justice, right?You know, we were either sexually abused or physically abused and manipulated in these spaces and we want justice. And as I always say, we can't go march down to the local precinct and say, Hey, Pastor so and so did so and so, you know? So there is this this desire, this voice that is not witness, this grief that is not witness of what just occurred.And sometimes if we haven't stopped to process and work through that, we can easily go into the activism side. Of, you know, this is wrong, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but before you know it, we're in the activism side, then maybe the advocate side, and, you know, now we have a podcast, now we have a Instagram account, [00:57:00] now we're on TikTok, and we're saying all the things, not saying that there's anything wrong with that, but taking needed breaks to say, okay, why am I doing this, right, and is this harming me physically, is this harming me mentally and psychologically, to hold all of this, And then go out and be a voice.Sometimes being a voice and having a greater reach is by resting, is by taking a break, is by getting the therapy, working through a lot of that first. And then if something opens up, then go for it. You know, but I, I sell that to say, you know, how you handled the podcast in the past five years is an example of that.You asked your body important questions. You included your body and say, Hey. What's up, because we've been through a lot together. What say you and your body and the rest of your faculties were like, you know what, this isn't the time right now, you know, I will work with you. [00:58:00] So you can continue to do the work.But now you're saying their body is saying, It's time to lay this down. And so I commend you for that because sometimes this work, it can seem so enormous. It's like, but I got to be a voice and people are depending on me and who else is going to talk about spiritual abuse this way. And I've got all these topics that have yet to be talked about.So I have to keep going. I'm, I'm putting this out to the listeners, some of you out there since the five years you've been there from the beginning to the end and you've been inspired by the guest, you've been inspired by Catherine and you're like, I'm rolling up my sleeves and I'm going to do the thing too.Not saying don't, but sit with your body. I'm pretty sure your body has been through a lot, listeners, with the, what you've been through and spiritual abuse and see if it's the time, if it's the vehicle. Is this, you know, the format. You know, really consider that. And don't leave your [00:59:00] body behind. Nobody's left behind.Can I say that? Don't leave your body behind, don, your body behind the work. Katherine: That's the title of this Nicole: episode. That's I didn't wanna get. Don't leave your body behind because your body is an integral part of the healing. You know, it's not just our soul, it's not just our spirit, but the trauma is in our bodies and it has a voice and wants to speak to.So I say that to say, Catherine, thank you for listening to your body. Of course, we will miss you on the podcast streets, but we have five seasons to go and rewind and listen to. And we are grateful for you and what you're doing for yourself and for the nonprofit. Katherine: Thank you, Nikki. I appreciate it. And I do think that the like that, the episodes, like, they're not, I don't think that they're time sensitive episodes.I think like those resources are still accessible and they'll still be on the podcast, still be on the [01:00:00] website. And now they'll still be on Apple podcasts and Spotify. And so they're not. Episodes, I don't feel like most of them are episodes where they're like, Oh, they're only relevant for this certain season.I think that a lot of these, these are like active resources that are going to be continue to be available. And I feel very good about. What resources we've created through this podcast. And I'm very happy that they will still be there. So it's like, we're ending the podcast, but this, this creation still exists.I appreciate that. Thank you, Erin: In the light of what Nikki was talking about in terms of you grounding in your body and really knowing yourself and being able to. like bend to the decision your body is making at different points. I am making a huge assumption in this question that you have loved working with the three of us.[01:01:00] That it has been a joy for you. And I'm saying that because it's been a joy for me. And so as I've been And it's like a true joy, you know, like when joy is real joy and you know that because it becomes a source of healing so my question, it's true. And so my question is about like what's, how do you reflect on, you know, Working alone versus working in a team, what does it mean for you to have a team?What do you yeah, just like, how do you reflect? I, I, I guess I asked that because I see a lot of folks coming from places of great hurt in community and religious communities and wanting to take it alone and wanting to go solo and wanting to be Mavericks. And I. Validate that, you know, that needs to [01:02:00] happen for safety.How do you reflect though on finding people who you can work with who are safe and how do you do that? You do that discerning and how do you do that work? Katherine: Yeah. Whew. There's a lot there. Yeah. Yeah. And I just, and I think of like, yeah, like, and I think of like the idea of like wanting to do it alone and needing to do it alone and like, yeah, that is a season that some people needed to go through. I think it's really scary. And I think that some of the earlier renditions of tears of Eden, the team wasn't great. And the early people that were involved, I'm not all of them, but a lot of the earlier people.And I think. Some of that was just like where I was, I was so just out of fundamentalism. And so I picked people who were still in fundamentalism. And so some of those same toxic you know, relational dynamics [01:03:00] still existed within that context of just like passive aggressiveness and, you know, pretending that everything was fine, but you know, it's not.And, and some of that stuff. And so I think that was some of the. What led to the, do I want to keep doing this? And, and having a good team is so important for enjoying the experience. Oh my gosh, it's so important. But we don't always have the resources to have a good team, to build a good team, to choose a good team.And, and Some of that is not our fault, like we've been infused with really toxic ways of interacting with people. And, and so, and sometimes we just don't feel safe in community. I know that that was hard for me when I started taking like classes, improv classes. And, and being a part of a class and seeing the same people every week, it felt a little bit like going to church.And I was, I [01:04:00] had a lot of just like anxiety about just being a part of a group that I saw consistently. And it's sometimes easier to not have that and just have like some one off relationships and kind of go solo because a group and a community and a team could feel really activating. And that's not bad.And it's also not our fault if we feel that way. And it actually probably means that we were hurt in the context of the community and that's a real thing. So not an answer to the question, I don't think, but just some thoughts. No, it was the answer because I just Erin: asked you to reflect and you did. And so, yeah, thank you so much.I won. Yeah, you definitely won.Brad: This isn't so much a question. It's just a observation of how you answered Nikki's question. By the way, I've been absolutely dumbfounded by the awesome questions of the [01:05:00] board. I think you ladies have done amazing with your questions. Think that your self awareness is head and shoulders above many people I, I meet.And the reason I say that is within organized religion, people in leadership are taught to the plow through to continue on to push through to it's all for Jesus, right? I mean, like, leave it here because you get the party later or worship later. I mean, like, you know, it's it's a focus on the afterlife more than it is on being healthy here.I would, I would argue you being able to. Look and step back and say, no, I'm not going to follow that pattern. I think is something a lot of people miss within themselves, because when they leave organized religion, they adhere to those patterns. They just switch it into a different avenue. [01:06:00] Right. But you go, no, I'm going to make sure that pattern never becomes a part of my life.Nicole: And Brad: so I just wanted to commend you on your self awareness and recognizing that and something that we all can learn because I've seen people on Instagram that they are trying to heal, but they go from one extreme and religion to fighting and doing the same thing. That they were doing religion against religion, the same methods and everything, and they never heal, but you show healing.And so I just appreciate that. And I appreciate that vulnerability, that display of wisdom. Katherine: That means so much. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Nicole: , Brad, you brought up some great points and, you know, I think we can all look at that and, and look at, like I said, Catherine's example of, Hey, you know, I want to take care of me in the midst of [01:07:00] trying to help others. I don't want to lose myself. As I'm helping others, you know I heard someone often say there's enough trauma in the world for everybody to have a place to, to try to help and work and see people recover, but not at the expense of us, you know, losing ourselves.So as we're, as we're winding down. I think, you know, speaking on behalf of the board and the listeners like I said earlier, we're just honored for your sacrifice over these past five years. You know, even the times you had to stay up late or you lost some sleep or, you know, like the times you were ready to give up.We're grateful that you didn't in the five years. And even now, we don't look at this as a giving up. This is a necessary ending, both for you physically, mentally, emotionally. and professionally. You know, thank you for what you have done to help so many, so many survivors out there and podcast world.If there was one last message that you could [01:08:00] give the listeners the guests that may still be listening, even though they were guests at one point, what would you say? What would you leave? And this last episode to, to the listeners out there. Katherine: And it's okay to cryYeah. I think I think, I mean maybe I'll just talk to myself of just like , just like, just hang out here. Like, just stay present. Enjoy this moment. We didn't talk about the future. And I think that that's good. Like we don't have to, we don't have to end this, but don't worry. We have all of these wonderful things coming.Like we can, we can just be in this place. So, you know, saying goodbye, ending a season, celebrating. Being together, being present, reflecting, and that's enough. We don't have to come up with a grand vision and plan for [01:09:00] right now. That's that's at the board meeting in August, for now we could just be present and I think for anyone who is listening, whether you're joining us, just For the first time, maybe, or you have been an active listener or you are a friend that I have texted this episode too, because I want you to listen to it.That it's, if there's some sadness associated with this, there's some sadness for me. Absolutely. Like judge, we can just kind of hang out with that and hang out with those emotions and that feeling, and we don't have to do anything with it. You can just be. That's what I'm feeling right now.Nicole: Okay. Well, we love that. Just being, it might be foreign to us coming out of the spaces we've come out of, you know, Brad, I love Aaron's face. I wish I Katherine: could capture that in audio. I didn't Nicole: see it. I didn't see Erin: it. It's so good. That was so good. No, [01:10:00] Nicole: I'm, you know, like Brad just said, we're always in the futuristic, you know, it's very hard for us to be in the present, but I like what you're saying, Catherine, you know, just be.And, you know, even though Catherine didn't go into what we, what we're doing next. I will, I personally encourage the listeners, if you've not joined to be a monthly subscriber and you know, you came in listening to the podcast season three, season four, or maybe even season five maybe you can go back and, and, and, you know, become a subscriber to support tears of Eden.We're doing a lot of shifting because we want tears of Eden to be here for the long haul. But there are a lot of great episodes back in the archive episodes that like, you know, Catherine said they're timeless. So wherever you are in your journey, I'm pretty sure you can glean from a lot of stuff that was poured out in those podcasts.So think about it, think about becoming a monthly subscriber. It will support the work, but it will also [01:11:00] support you at the same time. Brad, Aaron, anything you want to leave the listeners with. As we get ready to close out. Brad: Well, white man has talked enough. Katherine: That's another good title for the episode. Nicole: That's it. Done. Done. Erin: I never have talked enough. I have one more thing to say. The, the word that comes to my mind listening to you all today is gift. Keep thinking about you being a gift to this space and the, what wider world of spiritual abuse and, and religious trauma, Katherine.And what I also hear you say is that doing the podcast has been a gift to you. There's been something at moments whe

Nicole Valance, Founder of Connected with Nicole, is a passionate leader driven by the Great Commission to reach people for Christ. Through her work as a keynote speaker, executive leadership coach, and consultant, Nicole empowers business organizations to achieve leadership growth and fulfillment. However, her ultimate goal is to facilitate encounters with Christ, particularly within the business community, helping individuals experience healing, deliverance, and a deeper connection with God. "In This Episode" Section: 00:00 - Intro: Nicole and Mike Henry, host of the Follower of One podcast, introduce themselves and discuss how they connected through LinkedIn. 01:24 - How Nicole got Connected with Mike: Nicole shares how she reached out to Mike after listening to his podcast and resonating with his mission to help Christians live out their faith in their everyday lives. 02:26 - Encounters Retreats: Nicole explains the purpose and format of her Encounters Retreats, which are designed to provide individuals with an opportunity to encounter God's presence, experience healing, and connect with others on a deeper level. 06:36 - How did Nicole get started: Nicole shares her journey from working in vocational ministry to becoming involved in organizational coaching and consulting. She emphasizes that her mission remains the same—to fulfill the Great Commission—but her methods have changed to accommodate the needs of the business community. 09:55 - How to live out your faith each day: Nicole offers practical advice for Christians who want to live out their faith in their daily lives. She encourages listeners to identify three people in their lives who don't know Christ and pray for them consistently. She also suggests inviting people to coffee or lunch to build relationships and share their faith in a natural and loving way. Summary: In this inspiring interview, Nicole Valance shares her passion for reaching the business community for Christ and facilitating encounters with God. She emphasizes the importance of personal experiences with God and provides practical tips for Christians on how to share their faith in a loving and authentic way. How to Connect with Nicole: You can connect with Nicole Valance and learn more about her work through her website, connectedwithnicole.com, or on LinkedIn. She also invites listeners to attend her upcoming Encounters Retreats, which are held throughout the year in various locations.

On this episode of Integrative You Radio, the host takes a deep dive into the dynamics of health, genetics, and family well-being. Reflecting on a recent discussion about appendicitis and family history, the podcast challenges the conventional wisdom around genetic research in medicine and advocates for a return to basic, mindful living. Listeners are empowered to recognize their control over health outcomes, as the host passionately explores how lifestyle choices can reshape genetic expression and influence not only personal well-being but also that of future generations. Tune in to Integrative You Radio for a compelling exploration of the simplicity of health and the transformative power of one bold family member, illustrating that we are in the driver's seat of our health and capable of positively impacting generations to come. Interested in learning more about Dr. Nick & Dr. Nicole's courses, memberships, or private work? Learn more at Integrative You. Have a quick question, Would you like to schedule a call, or just want to say hi? Text us at 732.913.0009. Our mission to innovate humans & Healthcare does NOT start and stop with us! This is why we are also dedicated to helping other practitioners in evolving healthcare too! If you are a healthcare leader and are looking to up-level your clinical + business excellence Learn more about our course membership: Limitless Healthprenuer and start boldly disrupting this industry! What you'll learn:     Genes Aren't Destiny: Lifestyle choices influence genetic expression more than predetermined genetics, challenging the notion that family history dictates health outcomes. Simplicity in Health: The podcast advocates for a return to basic, mindful living, highlighting the detrimental impact of stress and modern, hectic lifestyles on overall well-being. One Bold Change, Generations Impacted: The episode underscores the power of one individual's proactive health choices to positively influence the well-being of an entire family for generations, debunking the idea of genetic determinism. Quotes:  "I thought about this idea of generational health only takes one bold family member." - Dr. Nicole "You are always in the driver's seat of your health. But you are also in the driver's seat of your disease."- Dr. Nicole  

In this episode of Integrative You Radio, Dr. Nicole delves into the crucial topic of stress and its profound impact on our lives. She begins by highlighting the prevalence of stress in modern society and how many of us have come to normalize it. Dr. Nicole explores the interconnectedness of stress, anxiety, and our physical and biochemical well-being. She emphasizes how our beliefs, often shaped by early experiences and societal conditioning, influence our thoughts, emotions, and overall mental health. In this thought-provoking episode, Dr. Nicole challenges the prevailing notion that chronic stress is an inevitable part of life. She underscores the significance of reevaluating our belief systems and their impact on our mental and physical health. Tune in to the full episode to learn more! Interested in learning more about Dr. Nick & Dr. Nicole's courses, memberships, or private work? Learn more at Integrative You. Have a quick question, Would you like to schedule a  call, or just want to say hi? Text us at 732.913.0009. Our mission to innovate humans & Healthcare does NOT start and stop with us! This is why we are also dedicated to helping other practitioners in evolving healthcare too! If you are a healthcare leader and are looking to up-level your clinical + business excellence Learn more about our course membership: Limitless Healthprenuer and start boldly disrupting this industry! What you'll learn:     Beliefs shape stress: Our beliefs deeply influence how we respond to stress, impacting our thoughts, emotions, and reactions. Pause for clarity: Taking short breaks to detach and reflect can help us break the cycle of chronic stress and improve mental health. Mind and body matter: Achieving well-being involves addressing both mental and physical aspects, such as meditation to calm the mind and understanding the biochemical effects of stress. Quotes:  “Stress is just part of life, and you just have to figure out how to handle it." - Dr. Nicole "You're not creating your life; you're creating more of what you don't want."  - Dr. Nicole  

Engineering manager at Vox Media and author Nicole Zhu joins Stephanie on today's episode to discuss her writing practice. nicoledonut is a biweekly newsletter about the writing process and sustaining a creative life that features creative resources, occasional interviews with creative folks, short essays on writing and creativity, farm-to-table memes and TikToks, and features on what Nicole is currently writing, reading, and watching. This episode is brought to you by Airbrake (https://airbrake.io/?utm_campaign=Q3_2022%3A%20Bike%20Shed%20Podcast%20Ad&utm_source=Bike%20Shed&utm_medium=website). Visit Frictionless error monitoring and performance insight for your app stack. Kieran Culkin on learning about billionaires filming Succession (https://www.tiktok.com/@esquire/video/7215641441597410603?_r=1&_t=8bPK4Ingkf5) The Home Depot skeleton (https://twitter.com/jenni_tabler/status/1566266554240888832) Nicole Zhu's newsletter (https://nicoledonut.com/) The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo (https://www.juliezhuo.com/book/manager.html) Saving Time by Jenny Odell (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/672377/saving-time-by-jenny-odell/) Transcript: STEPHANIE: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Stephanie Minn. And today, I'm joined by my friend and special guest, Nicole Zhu. NICOLE: Hi, I'm so excited to be here. My name is Nicole, and I am an Engineering manager at Vox Media and a writer. STEPHANIE: Amazing, I'm so thrilled to have you here. So, Nicole, we usually kick off the show by sharing a little bit about what's new in our world. And I can take us away and let you know about my very exciting weekend activities of taking down our Halloween skeleton. And yes, I know that it's April, but I feel like I've been seeing the 12-foot Home Depot skeletons everywhere. And it's becoming a thing for people to leave up just their Halloween decorations and, just as the other holidays keep rolling on, changing it up so that their skeleton is wearing like bunny ears for Easter or a leprechaun hat for St. Patrick's Day. And we've been definitely on the weird skeleton in front of the house long past the Halloween train for a few years now. Our skeleton's name is Gary. And it's funny because he's like a science classroom skeleton, so not just plastic. He's actually quite heavy. NICOLE: He's got some meat to the bones. [laughs] STEPHANIE: Yeah, yeah, and physiologically correct. But we like to keep him out till spring because we got to put him away at some point so that people are excited again when he comes back out in October. And the kids on our block really love him. And yeah, that's what I did this weekend. [laughs] NICOLE: I love it. I would love to meet Gary one day. Sounds very exciting. [laughs] I do get why you'd want to dress up the skeleton, especially if it's 12 feet tall because it's a lot of work to put up and take down for just one month, but that's fascinating. For me, something new in my world is the return of "Succession," the TV show. STEPHANIE: Oh yes. NICOLE: I did not watch yesterday's episode, so I'm already spoiled, but that's okay. But I've been getting a lot of Succession TikToks, and I've been learning a lot about the making of the show and the lives of the uber-rich. And in this one interview with Kieran Culkin, the interviewer asked him, "What's something that you learned in shooting the show about the uber-rich about billionaires that's maybe weird or unexpected?" And Kieran Culkin says that the uber-rich don't have coats because they're just shuttled everywhere in private jets and cars. They're not running to the grocery store, taking the subway, so they don't really wear coats, which I thought was fascinating. It makes a lot of sense. And then there was this really interesting clip too that was talking about the cinematography of the show. And what is really interesting about it is that it resists the wealth porn kind of lens because it's filmed in this mockumentary style that doesn't linger or have sweeping gestures of how majestic these beautiful cities and buildings and apartments they're in. Everything just seems very matter of fact because that is just the backdrop to their lives, which I think is so interesting how, yeah, I don't know, where I was like, I didn't ever really notice it. And now I can't stop seeing it when I watch the show where it's about miserable, rich people. And so I like that the visual language of the show reflects it too. STEPHANIE: Wow, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. The coat thing really gets me because I'm just imagining if I could be perfectly climate controlled all the time. [laughs] NICOLE: Right? Oh my gosh, especially you're based in Chicago [laughs], that is when you can retire the winter coat. That is always an important phase. STEPHANIE: Yeah, seriously. I also am thinking now about just like the montages of showing a place, just movies or shows filmed in New York City or whatever, and it's such...so you know it's like the big city, right? NICOLE: Mmm-hmm, mm-hmm. STEPHANIE: And all of that setup. And it's really interesting to hear that stylistically, that is also different for a show like this where they're trying to convey a certain message. NICOLE: Yeah, yeah, definitely. STEPHANIE: So I'm really excited to have you on The Bike Shed because I have known you for a few years. And you write this really amazing newsletter called "nicoledonut" about your writing practice. And it's a newsletter that I open every other week when you send out a dispatch. And last year at RubyConf, they had a conference track called Bringing Your Backgrounds With You. And there were talks that people gave about how the hobbies that they did outside of work or an identity that they held made them a better developer, like, affected how they showed up at work in a positive way. And as someone who has always been really impressed by the thoughtfulness that you apply to your writing practice, I was really curious about how that shows up for you as an engineering manager. NICOLE: Definitely a great question. And to provide a bit of context for listeners, I feel like I have to explain the newsletter title because it's odd. But there's a writer who I really love named Jenny Zhang, and her handle across the Internet is jennybagel. And so I was like, oh, that would be so funny. I should be nicoledonut. I do love donuts. My Neopets username was donutfiend, so it was -- STEPHANIE: Hell yeah. NICOLE: But anyway, so that was kind of...I was like, I need to come up with some fun title for this newsletter, and that is what I settled on. But yes, I've written personal essays and creative nonfiction. And my primary focus more recently these past few years has been fiction. And this newsletter was really kind of born out of a desire to learn in the open, provide resources, act as kind of a journal, and just process ideas about writing and what it means to kind of sustain a creative life. So it has definitely made me more reflective and proactively, like you said, kind of think about what that means in terms of how that transfers into my day job in engineering. I recently moved into management a little over a year ago, and before that, I was a senior full-stack engineer working on a lot of our audience experiences and websites and, previously, more of our editorial tools. So I think when it comes to obviously writing code and being more of an individual contributor, I think you had previously kind of touched on what does it mean to treat code as a craft? And I do think that there are a lot of similarities between those two things because I think there's creativity in engineering, of course. You have to think about going from something abstract to something concrete. In engineering, you're given generally, or you're defining kind of requirements and features and functionality. You may be make an engineering plan or something like that, an EDD, given those constraints. And then I think writing is very similar. You outline, and then you have to actually write the thing and then revise. I do think writing is not necessarily as collaborative as coding is, perhaps, but still similar overall in terms of an author having a vision, dealing with different constraints, if that's word count, if it's form or structure, if it's point of view, things like that. And that all determines what the outcome will be. You always learn something in the execution, the idea that planning can only take you so far. And at a certain point, you gather as much background knowledge and information and talk to as many people. Depending on the kinds of writing I do, I have or haven't done as much research. But at a certain point, the research becomes procrastination, and I know I need to actually just start writing. And similarly, with engineering, I think that's the piece is that once you actually start implementation, you start to uncover roadblocks. You uncover questions or complications or things like that. And so I think that's always the exciting part is you can't really always know the road ahead of you until you start the journey. And I also think that in order to benefit from mentorship and feedback...we can talk more about this. I know that that's something that is kind of a larger topic. And then another thing I think where the two are really similar is there's this endless learning that goes with each of them. I guess that's true of, I think, most crafts. Good practitioners of the craft, I think, take on that mindset. But I do think that obviously, in engineering, you have industry changes, new technologies emerging really frequently. But I do think that good writers think about that, too, in terms of what new novels are coming out. But also, how do you build a solid foundation? And I do think it's that contrast that applies in any craft is, you know, you want to have a good solid foundation and learn the basics but then keep up to date with new things as well. So I think there was this...there's this meme I actually did include in the newsletter that was...it's the meme of these two guys looking at different windows of a bus, and one looks really sad, and one looks really happy. But the two of them have the same caption, which is there's always more to learn. And so I think that is the two sides of the coin [laughs]. I think that is relevant in engineering and writing that I've kind of brought to both of those practices is trying to be optimistic [laughs] about the idea that there's always more to learn that that's kind of the thought of it. And then certainly, when it comes to management, I do think that writing has proven really valuable in that very obvious sense of kind of practical communication where I just write a lot more. I write a lot more things that are not code, I should say, as a manager. And communication is really at the forefront of my job, and so is demonstrating curiosity and building empathy, fostering relationships with people. And I do think that particularly writing fiction you have to be curious about people I think to be a writer. And I think that is true of managers as well. So I do think that has been a really interesting way that I didn't anticipate writing showing up in my day job but has been a really helpful thing and has made my work stronger and think about the people, the process, and kind of what we do and why a little differently. STEPHANIE: Yeah, absolutely. Wow, you got into a lot of different things I'm excited to keep discussing further. But one thing that I was thinking about as you were talking was, have you heard of the adage, I guess, that code is read many more times than it's written? NICOLE: Hmm, I think I have, yeah. STEPHANIE: I was thinking about that as you were talking because, in some ways, in most ways, actually, if you ascribe to that adage, I suppose, we write code for others to read. And I think there's an aspect of code telling a story that is really interesting. I've heard a lot of people advocate for writing, thoughtbot included, writing your tests like they're telling a story. And so when a future developer is trying to understand what's going on, they can read the tests, understand the setup, read what is being tested, and then read what the expected outcome is and have a complete picture of what's going on. The same goes for commit messages. You are writing little bits of documentation for people in the future. And I've also been thinking about how legacy code is just this artifact as well of all of the changes that an organization might have gone through. And so when you see something that you see a bit of code that is really weird or gets your spidey senses tingling, it's almost like, oh, I wonder what happened here that led to this piece left behind? NICOLE: Yeah, definitely. Now that you're talking about it, I also think of pull requests as a great way to employ storytelling. I remember there definitely have been times where myself or other engineers are working on a really thorny problem, and we always joke that the PR description is longer than the change. And it's like, but you got to read the PR description in order to understand what change you're making and why. And here's the backstory, the context to kind of center people in that. As a manager, I think about storytelling a lot in terms of defining purpose and providing clarity for teams. I was reading Julie Zhuo's "The Making of a Manager," and it was a really kind of foundational text for me when I first was exploring management. And she kind of boils it down to people, purpose, and process. And so I do think the purpose part of that is really tied to clear communication. And can you tell a story of what we're doing from really high-level vision and then more tactically strategy? And then making sure that people have bought into that, they understand, can kind of repeat that without you being there to remind them necessarily. Because you really want that message to carry through in the work and that they have that understanding. Vision is something I only recently have really started to realize how difficult it is to articulate. It's like you don't really understand the purpose of vision until you maybe don't have one, or you've been kind of just trying to keep your head afloat, and you don't have a Northstar to work towards. But I do think that is what plays into motivation, and team health, and, obviously, quality of the product. So yeah, that's kind of another dimension I've been thinking of. And also our foes actually. Sorry, another one. Our foes, I think, like outages and incidents. I think that's always a fun opportunity to talk about stories. There was a period of time where every time we had an incident, you had to present that incident and a recap of it in an engineering all-hands every month. And they ended up being really fun. We turned something that is ostensibly very stressful into something that was very entertaining that people could really get on board with and would learn something from. And we had the funniest one; I think was...we called it the Thanks Obama Outage because there was an outage that was caused by a photo of Barack Obama that had been uploaded in our content management system, as required no less, that had some malformed metadata or something that just broke everything. And so, again, it was a really difficult issue [laughs] and a long outage. And that was the result that I remember that presentation being really fun. And again, kind of like mythmaking in a way where that is something that we remember. We pay attention to that part of the codebase a lot now. It's taught us a lot. So yeah, I do think storytelling isn't always necessarily the super serious thing, but it can also just be team building, and morale, and culture as well. STEPHANIE: Yeah, absolutely. I think what you said about vision really resonates with me because if you don't have the vision, then you're also not making the best decisions you can be making even something as low-level as how you write the code. Because if you don't know are we going to be changing this feature a month from now, that might dictate how you go forth with implementation as opposed to if you know that it's not in the company's vision to really be doing anything else with this particular feature. And you then might feel a little more comfortable with a more rudimentary approach, right? NICOLE: Yeah, totally. Whether or not it's, we've over-optimized or not or kind of optimized for speed. Like, it's all about trade-offs. And I do think, again, like you said, having a vision that always you can check your decision-making against and inform the path ahead I think is very, very helpful. STEPHANIE: When you write, do you also keep that in mind? Like, do you write with that North Star? And is that really important to your process? NICOLE: I think it depends. I think that writing can be a little more at a slant, I suppose, is how I think of it because I don't always...just similar to work, I don't always come in with a fully-fledged fleshed-out vision of what I want a piece to be. The most recent piece I've been working on actually I did have kind of a pretty, I think, solid foundation. I've been working on this story about loneliness. And I knew that I wanted to base the structure on the UCLA...a UCLA clinic has this questionnaire that's 20 items long that is about measuring loneliness on a scale. And so I was like, okay, I knew that I wanted to examine dimensions of loneliness, and that would be the structure. It would be 20 questions, and it would be in that format. So that gave me a lot more to start with of, you know, here's where I want the piece to go. Here's what I want it to do. And then there have definitely been other cases where it's more that the conceit seems interesting; a character comes to mind. I overhear a conversation on the subway, and I think it's funny, and that becomes the first thing that is put on the page. So I definitely have different entry points, I think, into a draft. But I will definitely say that revision is the phase where that always gets clarified. And it has to, I think, because as much as I'm sometimes just writing for vibes, it's not always like that. And I do think that the purpose of revision is to clarify your goals so you can then really look at the piece and be like, is it doing what I want it to? Where is it lacking? Where's it really strong? Where's the pacing falling flat? And things like that. So I do think that sooner or later, that clarity comes, and that vision comes into focus. But it isn't always the first thing that happens, I think, because I do think the creative process is a little bit more mysterious, shall we say, than working on an engineering team. [laughs] STEPHANIE: Yeah. Well, you started off responding to my question with it depends, which is a very engineering answer, but I suppose -- NICOLE: That is true. That is true. You got me. [laughs] STEPHANIE: It applies to both. MID-ROLL AD: Debugging errors can be a developer's worst nightmare...but it doesn't have to be. 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NICOLE: When it comes to receiving feedback, I think I wrote a two-part series of my newsletter, one that was about providing feedback, one that was about receiving it. I think on the side of receiving feedback, first and foremost, I think it's important to know when you're ready to share your work and know that you can share multiple times. In writing, that can be I show a very early draft to my partner who is the person who kind of reads everything and anything at any stage. It's something less polished, and I'm really just testing ideas. But then obviously, if there's something that is more polished, that is something I would want to bring to a writing group, bring into a workshop, things like that. Similarly, as engineers, I think...thank God for GitHub drafts actually adopting literally the way in which I think of that, right? STEPHANIE: Yeah. NICOLE: You can share a branch or a GitHub PR in progress and just check the approach. I've done that so many times, and really that helped so much with my own learning and learning from mentors in my own organization was checking in early and trying to gut-check my work earlier as opposed to later. Because then you feel, I think, again, a bit more naturally receptive because you're already in that questioning phase. You're not like, oh, this is polished, and I've written all the tests, and the PR description is done. And now you want me to go back and change the whole approach from the ground up. That can feel tough. I get that. And so I think, hand in hand, what goes with that is whose feedback are you interested in? Is that a peer? Is it a mentor? I think obviously leaning on your own team, on senior engineers, I do think that is one of the primary, I think, expectations of a senior engineer is kind of multiplying the effectiveness of their peers and helping them learn and grow. So I do think that that's a really valuable skill to develop on that end, but also, again, just approaching people. And obviously, different teams have different processes for that, if it's daily stand-ups, if it's GitHub reminders, automated messages that get pulled up in your channel, things like that. But there are ways to build that into your day-to-day, which I think is really beneficial too. And then there's also the phase of priming yourself to receive the feedback. And I think there's actually a lot of emotional work that I don't think we talk about when it comes to that. Because receiving feedback can always be vulnerable, and it can bring up unexpected emotions. And I think learning how to regulate the emotional response to that is really valuable for us as people but obviously within the workplace too. So I've found it really helpful to reflect if I'm getting feedback that...well, first of all, it depends on the format. So I think some people prefer verbal feedback, some people will prefer written. I think getting it in the form of written feedback can be helpful because it provides you some distance. You don't have to respond in the moment. And so I've definitely had cases where I then kind of want to reflect on why certain suggestions might elicit certain reactions if I have a fight or flight response, if I'm feeling ashamed or frustrated, or indignant, all the range of emotions. Emotions are, to put the engineering hat on, are information. And so I think listening to that, not letting it rule you per se but letting it inform and help you figure out what is this telling me and how do I then respond, or what should I do next? Is really valuable. Because sometimes it's not, again, actually the feedback; maybe it's more about that, oh, it's a really radical idea. Maybe it's a really...it's an approach I didn't even consider, and it would take a lot of work. But again, maybe if I sit and think about it, it is the scalable approach. It's the cleaner approach, things like that. Or are they just touching on something that I maybe haven't thought as deeply about? And so I think there is that piece too. Is it the delivery? Is it something about your context or history with the person giving the feedback too? I think all of those, the relationship building, the trust on a team, all plays into feedback. And obviously, we can create better conditions for exchanging and receiving feedback. But I do think there's still that companion piece that is also just about, again, fostering team trust and culture overall because that is the thing that makes these conversations all the easier and less, I think, potentially fraught or high pressure. STEPHANIE: 100%. Listeners can't see, but I was nodding very aggressively [laughs] this entire time. NICOLE: Loved it. STEPHANIE: And I love that you bring up interpersonal relationships, team culture, and feelings. Listeners of the show will know that I love talking about feelings. But I wanted to ask you this exact question because I think code review can be so fraught. And I've seen it be a source of conflict and tension. And I personally have always wanted more tools for giving better feedback. Because when I do give feedback, it's for the person to feel supported to help push their work to be better and for us to do good work as a team. And I am really sensitive to the way that I give feedback because I know what it's like to receive feedback that doesn't land well. And when you were talking about investigating what kinds of feelings come up when you do receive a certain kind of comment on a code review or something, that was really interesting to me. Because I definitely know what it's like to have worked really, really hard on a pull request and for it to feel very precious to me and then to receive a lot of change requests or whatever. It can be really disappointing or really frustrating or whatever. And yeah, I wish that we, as an industry, could talk about this stuff more frequently. NICOLE: Yeah, for sure. And I do think that you know, I think the longer you work with someone, ideally, again, the stronger relationship you form. You find your own ways of communicating that work for you. I think actually what I've learned in management is, yes, I have a communication style, but I also am flexible with how I work with each of my reports, who, again, have very different working styles, communication styles, learning styles. I don't believe that the manager sets the standards. I think there is a balance there of meeting people where they are and giving them what they need while obviously maintaining your own values and practices. But yeah, certainly, again, I think that's why for perhaps more junior engineers, they might need more examples. They might not respond well to as terse a comment. But certainly, with engineers, senior engineers that I've worked with, when I was starting out, the more we developed a relationship, they could just get a little bit more terse. For example, they could be like, "Fix this, fix that," and I would not take it personally because we had already gone through the phase where they were providing maybe some more detailed feedback, links to other examples or gists, or things like that, and our communication styles evolved. And so I do think that's another thing to think about as well is that it doesn't have to be static. I think that's the value of a team, and having good team process, too, is ideally having arenas in which you can talk about how these kinds of things are going. Are we happy with the cadence? Are we happy with how people are treating each other and things like that? Are we getting timely feedback and things like that? That's a good opportunity for a retrospective and to talk about that in a kind of blameless context and approach that more holistically. So I do think that, yeah, feedback can be very fraught. And I think what can be difficult in the world of engineering is that it can be very easy to then just be like, well, this is just the best way for the work. And feelings are, like you said, not really kind of considered. And, again, software development and engineering is a team sport. And so I do think fostering the environment in which everyone can be doing great work is really the imperative. STEPHANIE: Yeah, I really like how you talked about the dynamic nature of relationships on a team and that the communication style can change there when you have built that trust and you understand where another person is coming from. I was also thinking about the question of whose feedback are you interested in? And I certainly can remember times where I requested a review from someone in particular because maybe they had more context about this particular thing I was working on, and I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss anything, or someone else who maybe I had something to learn from them. And that is one way of making feedback work for me and being set up to receive it well. Because as much as...like you said, it's really easy to fall back into the argument of like, oh, what's the best way for the work, or what is the cleanest code or whatever? I am still a person who wrote it. I produced a piece of work and have feelings about it. And so I have really enjoyed just learning more about how I react to feedback and trying to mitigate the stress that I feel in what is kind of inherently like a conflict-generating process. NICOLE: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Another thing that kind of popped into my head to one of the earlier questions we were talking about is in terms of similarities between writing and engineering, style and structure are both really, really important. And even though in engineering, like you said, sometimes it can be, I mean, there is a point with engineering where you're like, this line of code works, or it doesn't. There is a degree of correctness [laughs] that you do have to meet, obviously. But again, after that, it can be personal preference. It's why we have linters that have certain styles or things like that to try to eliminate some of these more divisive, shall we say, potentially discussions around, [laughs] God forbid, tabs or spaces, naming conventions, all this stuff. But certainly, yeah, when it comes to structuring code, the style, or whatever else, like you said, there's a human lens to that. And so I think making sure that we are accounting for that in the process is really important, and not just whether or not the work gets done but also how the work gets done is really important. Because it predicts what do future projects...what does future collaboration look like? And again, you're not just ever optimizing for one thing in one point of time. You're always...you're building teams. You're building products. So there's a long kind of lifecycle to think about. STEPHANIE: For sure. So after you get feedback and after you go through the revision process, I'm curious what you think about the idea of what is good enough in the context of your writing. And then also, if that has influenced when you think a feature is done or the code is as good as you want it to be. NICOLE: Yeah, definitely. I think when it comes to my writing, how I think about what is good enough I think there is the kind of sentiment common in the writer community that you can edit yourself to death. You can revise forever if you wanted to. It's also kind of why I don't like to go back and read things I've already published because I'm always going to find something, you know, an errant comma or like, oh, man, I wish I had rephrased this here. But I do think that, for me, I think about a couple of questions that help me get a sense of is this in a good place to, you know, for me generally, it's just to start submitting to places for publication. So one of those is, has someone else read it? That is always a really big question, whether it's a trusted reader, if I brought it to a workshop, or just my writing group, making sure I have a set of outside eyes, fresh eyes on the piece to give their reaction. And again, truly as a reader, sometimes just as a reader, not even as a fellow writer, because I do think different audiences will take different things and provide different types of feedback. Another one is what kinds of changes am I making at this point in time? Am I still making really big structural edits? Or am I just kind of pushing words and commas around, and it feels like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic? They're not massive changes to the piece. And then the final question is always, if this were published in its current state right now, would I be happy with it? Would I be proud of it? And that's a very gut feeling that I think only an individual can kind of feel for themselves. And sometimes it's like, no, I don't like the way, like, I know it's 95% there, but I don't like the way this ends or something else. Again, those are all useful signals for me about whether a piece is complete or ready for submission or anything like that. I think when it comes to engineering, I think there's a little bit less of the gut feeling, to be honest, because we have standards. We have processes in place generally on teams where it's like, is the feature working? Have you written tests? Have you written a QA plan if it needs one? If it's something that needs more extensive documentation or code comments or something like that, is that something you've done? Has a bit more of a clear runway for me in terms of figuring out when something is ready to be shown to others. But certainly, as a manager, I've written a lot more types of documents I suppose, or types of communication where it's like organizational changes. I've written team announcements. I've written celebration posts. I've had to deliver bad news. Like, those are all things that you don't think about necessarily. But I've definitely had literally, you know, I have Google Docs of drafts of like, I need to draft the Slack message. And even though it's just a Slack message, I will spend time trying to make sure I've credited all the right people, or provided all the context, got all the right answers. I run it by my director, my peers, and things like that if it's relevant. And again, I think there is still that piece that comes in of drafting, getting feedback, revising, and then feeling like, okay, have I done my due diligence here, and is it ready? That cycle is applicable in many, many situations. But yeah, I certainly think for direct IC work, it's probably a little bit more well-defined than some of the other processes. STEPHANIE: Yeah, that makes sense. I really liked what you said about noticing the difference between making big structural changes and little word adjustments. I think you called it pushing commas around or something like that. NICOLE: [laughs] Yeah. STEPHANIE: I love that. Because I do think that with programming, there is definitely a big part of it that's just going on the journey and exploring different avenues. And so if you do suddenly think of, oh, I just thought of a completely different way to write this code, that is worth exploring even if you just end up going back to the original implementation. But at least you saw that thought through, and you're like, okay, this doesn't work because of X, Y, and Z, and I'm choosing to go this other route instead. And I think that, yeah, that is just a good practice to explore. NICOLE: Another example of storytelling, too, where it's like, you can tell the story in the PR description or whatever, in stand-up, to be like, I also did go down this path, XYZ reason. Here's why it didn't work out, and here's what we're optimizing for. And there you go. So I do think we talk...I guess product managers think more about buy-in, but I think that's true of engineers too. It's like, how do you build consensus and provide context? And so yeah, I think what you were saying, too, even if the path is circuitous or you're exploring other avenues, talking to other people, and just exploring what's out there, it all adds up to kind of the final decision and might provide, again, some useful information for other people to understand how you arrived there and get on board with it. STEPHANIE: 100%. I remember when I worked with someone who we were writing a PR description together because we had paired on some code. And we had tried three different things. And he wrote paragraphs for each thing that we tried. And I was like, wow, I don't know if I would have done that on my own. But I just learned the value of doing that to, like you said, prime yourself for feedback as well, being like, I did try this, and this is what I thought. And other people can disagree with you, but then at least they have the information, right? NICOLE: Definitely. STEPHANIE: So before we wrap up, the last thing that I wanted to talk about, because I think it's super cool, is just how you have a totally separate hobby and skill and practice that you invest time and energy into that's not programming. And it's so refreshing for me to see you do that because I think, obviously, there's this false idea that programmers just code all the time in their free time, in their spare time, whatever. And I'm really curious about how writing fits into your life as something separate from your day job. NICOLE: Yes, I've been thinking about this a ton. I think a lot of people, the last couple of years has forced a really big reckoning about work and life and how much we're giving to work, the boundaries that can be blurred, how capitalism butts its head into hobbies, and how we monetize them, or everything is a side hustle. And, oh, you should have a page running...oh, you should charge for a newsletter. And I think there's obviously the side of we should value our labor, but also, I don't want everything in my life to be labor. [laughs] So I do think that is interesting. Writing to me, I actually do not see it as a hobby. I see it as another career of mine. I feel like I have two careers, but I have one job, [laughs] if that makes sense. I certainly have hobbies. But for me, what distinguishes that from my writing is that with hobbies, there's no expectation that you want to get better. You approach it with just...it's just pure enjoyment. And certainly, writing has part of that for me, but I have aspirations to publish. I love it when my work can reach readers and things like that. But I do think that regardless having other interests, like you said, outside engineering, outside technology, it's a great break. And I do think also in technology, in particular, I notice...I think we're getting away from it, but certainly, there's an expectation, like you said, that you will have side projects that you code in your free time, that you're on Hacker News. I think there is a little bit of that vibe in the tech industry that I don't see in other industries. You don't expect a teacher to want to teach in their free time, [laughs] you know what I mean? But we have almost that kind of implicit expectation of engineers to always be staying up to date on those things. I think with writing and engineering; the two complement each other in some interesting ways. And they make me appreciate things about the other craft or practice that I may not previously have. And I think that with engineering, it is a team effort. It's really collaborative, and I really love working in that space. But on the flip side, too, with writing, I do love, you know, there's the ego part of it. You don't have individual authorship over code necessarily unless it's git blame level. But there's a reason why it's called git blame, [laughter] even the word is like git blame. I've literally had cases where I'm like, oh, this thing is broken. Who wrote this? And then I was like, oh, surprise, it was you six years ago. But I do think with writing; it's an opportunity for me to really just explore and ask questions, and things don't have to be solved. It can just be play. And it is a place where I feel like everything that I accomplish is...obviously, I have people in my life who really support me, but it is a much more individual activity. So it is kind of the right-left brain piece. But I've been reading this book called "Saving Time." It is what my microphone is currently propped on. But it's by Jenny Odell, who wrote: "How to Do Nothing." It's breaking my brain in a really, really, really good way. It talks a lot about the origin of productivity, how we think about time, and how it is so tied to colonialism, and racism, and capitalism, and neoliberalism, all these things. I think it has been really interesting. And so thinking about boundaries between work and writing has been really, really helpful because I really love my job; I'm not only my job. And so I think having that clarity and then being like, well, what does that mean in terms of how I divide my time, how I set examples for others at work in terms of taking time off or leaving the office on time? And trying to make sure that I have a good emotional headspace so that I can transition to writing after work; all those things. I think it is really interesting. And that also, ultimately, it's we're not just our productivity either. And I think writing can be very, again, inherently kind of unproductive. People joke that cleaning is writing, doing the dishes is writing, taking a walk is writing, showering is writing, but it is true. I think that the art doesn't talk about efficiency. You can't, I think, make art always more efficient in the same way you can do with engineering. We don't have those same kinds of conversations. And I really like having that kind of distinction. Not that I don't like problem-solving with constraints and trade-offs and things like that, but I also really like that meandering quality of art and writing. So yeah, I've been thinking a lot more about collective time management, I guess, and what that means in terms of work, writing, and then yeah, hobbies and personal life. There are never enough hours in the day. But as this book is teaching me, again, maybe it's more about paradigm shifting and also collective policies we can be putting in place to help make that feeling go away. STEPHANIE: For sure. Thank you for that distinction between hobby and career. I really liked that because it's a very generative mindset. It's like a both...and... rather than an either...or... And yeah, I completely agree with you wanting to make your life expansive, like, have all of the things. I'm also a big fan of Jenny Odell. I plugged "How to Do Nothing" on another episode. I am excited to read her second book as well. NICOLE: I think you'll like it a lot. It's really excellent. She does such interesting things talking about ecology and geology and geographic time skills, which is really interesting that I don't know; it's nice to be reminded that we are small. [laughter] It's a book that kind of reminds you of your mortality in a good way, if that makes sense. But much like Gary on your porch reminds you of mortality too [laughs] and that you have to put Gary away for a little bit so that his time can come in October. [laughs] STEPHANIE: Exactly, exactly. Cool. On that note, let's wrap up. Thank you so much for being on the show, Nicole. NICOLE: Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast. STEPHANIE: Show notes for this episode can be found at bikeshed.fm. JOËL: This show has been produced and edited by Mandy Moore. STEPHANIE: If you enjoyed listening, one really easy way to support the show is to leave us a quick rating or even a review in iTunes. It really helps other folks find the show. JOËL: If you have any feedback for this or any of our other episodes, you can reach us @_bikeshed, or you can reach me @joelquen on Twitter. STEPHANIE: Or reach both of us at hosts@bikeshed.fm via email. JOËL: Thanks so much for listening to The Bike Shed, and we'll see you next week. ALL: Byeeeeeeee!!!!!!!! ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com.

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  S2:E56 - Throuple Trouble  Announcements   Announcements:   Season 2 Begins! New Video Intro We are working on splitting the Podcast more properly, so on the 1/2 hour, we will take as short 15 sec break. We are MOVING to a new studio! Well, it isn't really new, but a new place with a bit more room than we currently have! Costume Competition      Next Show  S2:E56 - Meeting People - Apps and Polyamory   News and the Likes  We are still stupid!    Listener Questions/Comments Ananymous - Reddit Curious if you would help fulfill a guy's fantasy.  I am married my wife cheated on me so now looking to cheat on wife with a random beautiful woman.  Would love to have discreet sex during the day with you if your willing.  No strings attached.   Ananymous - Twitter You will be my wife. I want to fuck you hardly   Ananymous - Twitter Hello!!! Found your profile and have to confess I can't seem to be able to get enough of it. Naughty, daring, open minded, honest, sexy, yet you've managed to keep it classy and kinky. Hard balance to achieve yet you're nailing it. Your new admirer! ? It's SOOOO refreshing. It comes across that way. It looks genuine. It also shows how much you two care about each other and that comes across clearly. You're obviously in a great relationship and having some naughty fun comes naturally. You're one in a million on here that's for sure. I'm so glad I found your profile. It's so rare to come across people like you guys       The Show    Boardroom      Labor Day Push - Back to the office!  Returning to the office - Forbes - Bosses are Winning the Battle to get Workers back [1] 1.Results indicate that 49% of Manhattan office workers are currently at the workplace on an average weekday—up from 38% in April. Under 10% of employees are in the office five days a week. The number of fully remote workers fell from 28% in April to 16% as of mid-September.2. In the first week following Labor Day, office usage in 10 major metro areas neared 50% of 2020's pre-pandemic attendance,[2] 1. Apple - 3 days per week - Can't replicate Us =  Bookkeeper - health - great,  rest - hell no!!      Bedroom  Men's Magazine Sumarize Article https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a30255960/throuple-relationship/ What does it mean to us? Having someone else to share with, to grow with As Womenshealth stated:  Which has definite benefits, Spector says: When you have a third person involved, chances are you'll expose yourself and your original partner to qualities that both of you may want but can't offer each other.     Article Notes   What do you dislike the most about being in a throuple?    Annie: Wanting to have sex when they didn't, and subsequently feeling incredibly rejected. Also, my male partner wasn't out about our relationship to his friends and family. Not being involved in his life outside of our relationship was heartbreaking and made me feel small and unwanted. John: I dislike having to check in with the other two. I have long been a very strong-willed and independent person, so making a unilateral and comfortable decision is easy for me. But I often have to check myself to make sure I'm aligned with what benefits us as a triad. Asher: Logistics—our society is built for pairs. I get plus one invitations all the time, and have to decide whether or not it's worth it to ask for an additional invitation. Incidentally, Disney World is totally built for throuples (two parents and their kid). We went there a year-and-a-half ago and were pleasantly surprised by how many activities the three of us could participate in as a unit. Cathy: Having to defend our relationship when we come up against negative judgement. Nicole: Being the third person coming into an existing relationship, people always assume that I'm being misled or coerced, which isn't the case at all.    What is/was the hardest part about being in a throuple?    Annie: There wasn't anything inherently hard about being in a throuple vs duo. Navigating boundaries took a little extra communication, though. John: The hardest part of being in a throuple is not being out to everyone. Each of our three mothers knows about us. Our closest friends know about us. But we live in a somewhat Red State, and my job, specifically, relies to a great degree on popular opinion. We have to be guarded in public situations. Asher: The hardest part about being in a throuple, like any relationship, is communication. It's really important to manage expectations and to be open and honest with each other. Like any relationship, it requires maintenance, which takes time and energy. Thomas: Time management is the hardest part about being in a throuple. Sometimes sleeping arrangements can be a bit inconvenient. Cathy: I wouldn't say it's "hard"—but having an extra person's experience to consider requires more time than when you're in a couple relationship. Nicole: Having to dedicate extra time to communication because there are additional feelings to take into consideration. However, this communication has allowed us to connect on a deeper level.]    How have you and your partners overcome issues surrounding jealousy?    Annie: First off, I'm not a jealous person. Second, jealousy isn't automatically damaging, it all depends on how you handle it. Having really open dialogues, checking in especially when something is new (i.e. solo sleepover), and being okay with feeling a little crumby—knowing that it doesn't mean the end of the relationship—is really important. John: I am less jealous than my wife, but we both experience it. We have had episodes of legitimate jealousy, and we have talked ourselves through it. It's all about the communication. Asher: We talk about our jealousy issues when they arise. Additionally, when the two of them are connecting and I'm not involved, my gut tells me to get in there and join and be a part of it. I resist that urge to always be included because it's important to give the other two space to work on their own connection to each other. Thomas: Not that jealousy hasn't been a problem in the past, but in this relationship it isn't because being open and honest is prioritized, plus we each give each other the freedom to live our lives in the way we would like to, which creates very little friction. Jealousy in the past has occurred because of an imbalance of power and lack of honest communication. Cathy: I feel like jealousy is a fear of loss for me. Nic met someone back home in Australia last year and I felt a bit jealous because I thought she may not come back to the U.K. I was just honest with her about it and saying it out loud made me feel better. I don't think you can ever completely avoid jealousy in relationships, regardless of their structure. But feeling empowered and able to speak truthfully about your feelings stops it from becoming an issue. Nicole: You need to approach jealousy head on. Speak about it the moment the feeling arises. Establish what has stirred those feelings and be understanding of your partners' views.        People often think that two people will inevitably become closer in a throuple, and the third person ends up feeling left out. Has that happened to you?    Asher: Absolutely, though not necessarily in those terms. The best lesson I've learned from being in this relationship is that it doesn't always have to be about me and that I don't need to take their relationship with each other personally; it's not a commentary on me. It's great for me to understand that resisting the urge to always be included in everything strengthens all relationships involved. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Thomas: I wouldn't say that anyone has felt left out in our relationship, but two of us getting closer has happened before. (Nic and I were closer when we first met, then over time Cathy and Nic became closer.) But like most relationships, things continually change and we adapt accordingly. Cathy: I've never personally felt left out, but we have gone through stages when two of us have been closer. When Thomas and Nicole first met they would go out partying together and I would stay home, but I really valued that time because I have a family and a very demanding job, so time alone is super rare. Nicole: In our relationship we're all compersion weirdos. [Compersion is the feeling of vicarious joy associated with seeing one's sexual or romantic partner having another sexual or romantic relation that brings them joy. Think of it as an antonym to sexual or romantic jealousy.]  What are some other misconceptions people tend to have about being in a throuple?    Annie: That it's overly complicated. Love, be loved, be open and honest, and any relationship structure can work for you. Also, that you must be super kinky. Asher: I think a lot of people think it's primarily about sex, and while our throuple certainly began with an incredible sexual connection, it quickly evolved into a much more significant and meaningful relationship. I think there is also a misconception about commitment. We're not exclusive, but the three of us are definitely committed. Thomas: There's always this idea that I'm this straight dude at the center of the relationship being serviced by Catherine and Nicole; that they are somehow my possessions and there to please me. Also I identify as pansexual and am attracted to people regardless of their gender identity, so it's likely that our throuple relationship will evolve again at some point. Cathy: That it makes us bad parents. We have an 8-year-old son who absolutely adores Nicole (Aunty Nic) and understands that both Thomas and I love her. We feel that being completely transparent with him is healthy and allows him to understand that relationships and families come in all shapes and sizes. Also our relationship choice came about because we all watched our parents struggle to stay together (all of our parents are divorced) due to lack of communication and/or infidelity. We wanted to try and do things differently and prioritize being honest with one another. For us, it felt like a much healthier lesson to teach a young person. Nicole: People often think that because you've got multiple partners that you're easy or up for anything sexual.           EndNotes [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/09/20/bosses-are-winning-the-battle-to-get-workers-back-to-the-office/?sh=44679e55783e [2] https://hubblehq.com/blog/famous-companies-workplace-strategies#apple

  S2:E56 - Throuple Trouble  Announcements   Announcements:   Season 2 Begins! New Video Intro We are working on splitting the Podcast more properly, so on the 1/2 hour, we will take as short 15 sec break. We are MOVING to a new studio! Well, it isn't really new, but a new place with a bit more room than we currently have! Costume Competition      Next Show  S2:E56 - Meeting People - Apps and Polyamory   News and the Likes  We are still stupid!    Listener Questions/Comments Ananymous - Reddit Curious if you would help fulfill a guy's fantasy.  I am married my wife cheated on me so now looking to cheat on wife with a random beautiful woman.  Would love to have discreet sex during the day with you if your willing.  No strings attached.   Ananymous - Twitter You will be my wife. I want to fuck you hardly   Ananymous - Twitter Hello!!! Found your profile and have to confess I can't seem to be able to get enough of it. Naughty, daring, open minded, honest, sexy, yet you've managed to keep it classy and kinky. Hard balance to achieve yet you're nailing it. Your new admirer! ? It's SOOOO refreshing. It comes across that way. It looks genuine. It also shows how much you two care about each other and that comes across clearly. You're obviously in a great relationship and having some naughty fun comes naturally. You're one in a million on here that's for sure. I'm so glad I found your profile. It's so rare to come across people like you guys       The Show    Boardroom      Labor Day Push - Back to the office!  Returning to the office - Forbes - Bosses are Winning the Battle to get Workers back [1] 1.Results indicate that 49% of Manhattan office workers are currently at the workplace on an average weekday—up from 38% in April. Under 10% of employees are in the office five days a week. The number of fully remote workers fell from 28% in April to 16% as of mid-September.2. In the first week following Labor Day, office usage in 10 major metro areas neared 50% of 2020's pre-pandemic attendance,[2] 1. Apple - 3 days per week - Can't replicate Us =  Bookkeeper - health - great,  rest - hell no!!      Bedroom  Men's Magazine Sumarize Article https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a30255960/throuple-relationship/ What does it mean to us? Having someone else to share with, to grow with As Womenshealth stated:  Which has definite benefits, Spector says: When you have a third person involved, chances are you'll expose yourself and your original partner to qualities that both of you may want but can't offer each other.     Article Notes   What do you dislike the most about being in a throuple?    Annie: Wanting to have sex when they didn't, and subsequently feeling incredibly rejected. Also, my male partner wasn't out about our relationship to his friends and family. Not being involved in his life outside of our relationship was heartbreaking and made me feel small and unwanted. John: I dislike having to check in with the other two. I have long been a very strong-willed and independent person, so making a unilateral and comfortable decision is easy for me. But I often have to check myself to make sure I'm aligned with what benefits us as a triad. Asher: Logistics—our society is built for pairs. I get plus one invitations all the time, and have to decide whether or not it's worth it to ask for an additional invitation. Incidentally, Disney World is totally built for throuples (two parents and their kid). We went there a year-and-a-half ago and were pleasantly surprised by how many activities the three of us could participate in as a unit. Cathy: Having to defend our relationship when we come up against negative judgement. Nicole: Being the third person coming into an existing relationship, people always assume that I'm being misled or coerced, which isn't the case at all.    What is/was the hardest part about being in a throuple?    Annie: There wasn't anything inherently hard about being in a throuple vs duo. Navigating boundaries took a little extra communication, though. John: The hardest part of being in a throuple is not being out to everyone. Each of our three mothers knows about us. Our closest friends know about us. But we live in a somewhat Red State, and my job, specifically, relies to a great degree on popular opinion. We have to be guarded in public situations. Asher: The hardest part about being in a throuple, like any relationship, is communication. It's really important to manage expectations and to be open and honest with each other. Like any relationship, it requires maintenance, which takes time and energy. Thomas: Time management is the hardest part about being in a throuple. Sometimes sleeping arrangements can be a bit inconvenient. Cathy: I wouldn't say it's "hard"—but having an extra person's experience to consider requires more time than when you're in a couple relationship. Nicole: Having to dedicate extra time to communication because there are additional feelings to take into consideration. However, this communication has allowed us to connect on a deeper level.]    How have you and your partners overcome issues surrounding jealousy?    Annie: First off, I'm not a jealous person. Second, jealousy isn't automatically damaging, it all depends on how you handle it. Having really open dialogues, checking in especially when something is new (i.e. solo sleepover), and being okay with feeling a little crumby—knowing that it doesn't mean the end of the relationship—is really important. John: I am less jealous than my wife, but we both experience it. We have had episodes of legitimate jealousy, and we have talked ourselves through it. It's all about the communication. Asher: We talk about our jealousy issues when they arise. Additionally, when the two of them are connecting and I'm not involved, my gut tells me to get in there and join and be a part of it. I resist that urge to always be included because it's important to give the other two space to work on their own connection to each other. Thomas: Not that jealousy hasn't been a problem in the past, but in this relationship it isn't because being open and honest is prioritized, plus we each give each other the freedom to live our lives in the way we would like to, which creates very little friction. Jealousy in the past has occurred because of an imbalance of power and lack of honest communication. Cathy: I feel like jealousy is a fear of loss for me. Nic met someone back home in Australia last year and I felt a bit jealous because I thought she may not come back to the U.K. I was just honest with her about it and saying it out loud made me feel better. I don't think you can ever completely avoid jealousy in relationships, regardless of their structure. But feeling empowered and able to speak truthfully about your feelings stops it from becoming an issue. Nicole: You need to approach jealousy head on. Speak about it the moment the feeling arises. Establish what has stirred those feelings and be understanding of your partners' views.        People often think that two people will inevitably become closer in a throuple, and the third person ends up feeling left out. Has that happened to you?    Asher: Absolutely, though not necessarily in those terms. The best lesson I've learned from being in this relationship is that it doesn't always have to be about me and that I don't need to take their relationship with each other personally; it's not a commentary on me. It's great for me to understand that resisting the urge to always be included in everything strengthens all relationships involved. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Thomas: I wouldn't say that anyone has felt left out in our relationship, but two of us getting closer has happened before. (Nic and I were closer when we first met, then over time Cathy and Nic became closer.) But like most relationships, things continually change and we adapt accordingly. Cathy: I've never personally felt left out, but we have gone through stages when two of us have been closer. When Thomas and Nicole first met they would go out partying together and I would stay home, but I really valued that time because I have a family and a very demanding job, so time alone is super rare. Nicole: In our relationship we're all compersion weirdos. [Compersion is the feeling of vicarious joy associated with seeing one's sexual or romantic partner having another sexual or romantic relation that brings them joy. Think of it as an antonym to sexual or romantic jealousy.]  What are some other misconceptions people tend to have about being in a throuple?    Annie: That it's overly complicated. Love, be loved, be open and honest, and any relationship structure can work for you. Also, that you must be super kinky. Asher: I think a lot of people think it's primarily about sex, and while our throuple certainly began with an incredible sexual connection, it quickly evolved into a much more significant and meaningful relationship. I think there is also a misconception about commitment. We're not exclusive, but the three of us are definitely committed. Thomas: There's always this idea that I'm this straight dude at the center of the relationship being serviced by Catherine and Nicole; that they are somehow my possessions and there to please me. Also I identify as pansexual and am attracted to people regardless of their gender identity, so it's likely that our throuple relationship will evolve again at some point. Cathy: That it makes us bad parents. We have an 8-year-old son who absolutely adores Nicole (Aunty Nic) and understands that both Thomas and I love her. We feel that being completely transparent with him is healthy and allows him to understand that relationships and families come in all shapes and sizes. Also our relationship choice came about because we all watched our parents struggle to stay together (all of our parents are divorced) due to lack of communication and/or infidelity. We wanted to try and do things differently and prioritize being honest with one another. For us, it felt like a much healthier lesson to teach a young person. Nicole: People often think that because you've got multiple partners that you're easy or up for anything sexual.           EndNotes [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/09/20/bosses-are-winning-the-battle-to-get-workers-back-to-the-office/?sh=44679e55783e [2] https://hubblehq.com/blog/famous-companies-workplace-strategies#apple

This week on Thinking OTB we're bringing things a little closer to home to give you a little peek behind the Valentine Group curtain. Nicole Porter, one of our Rockstar agents is joining us on the podcast to talk about her life before joining up with Steve and how thinking outside the box and realizing her limitless potential has changed the way she views herself and her career as a real estate agent.   The truth is her story before joining up with Steve is unfortunately not a unique one. It's been a hard couple of years for everyone. For some of us, it's been difficult to recover the flow we might have had professionally before, and it's been a game of catch-up ever since. Nicole found herself in that very same situation, having moved from Michigan to Arizona and working two jobs and trying to make her real estate career work for her. Sometimes the goals we set for ourselves take hard work and learning from what isn't working so that we can keep finding those solutions to keep your momentum going.   “I think your story represents what a lot of people listening go through in that you haven't reached the end goal yet. Like maybe you know that you have this momentum and that you're growing, and it wasn't just success just falling out of the sky for you. You had perseverance, you had conviction, and you had a gut instinct of what you needed to do, and I think that that is super, super important.” – Bernie   There are two great takeaways from Nicole's story. And no, one of them is not finding a way to work with Steve and Bernie, we could all only be so lucky! The first takeaway is that it's not always easy starting something new. Sometimes it can be the hardest thing you've ever done. It takes hard work and dedication to make those changes, and if the goal is true and right for you, the work is worth it. The second takeaway goes with the first, that if you're ready to work toward something you need to have the humility to know when you need help.   “The bigger moment, though, was her mental shift of whatever it takes to put me in a place that I can succeed. How do I be around somebody that I can learn from?” – Steve   Working in this industry as a real estate agent has great potential to help agents build wealth and strong professional roots so that they can help others achieve their legacy goals as well. It's not always easy, but if you keep working at it, if you keep growing and developing those outside the box ideas, it can take you places you never dreamed you would go.   “It's about finding the right team in the right place and being willing to do the work. It's not always just about the split conversations and who's getting what. Everybody wants to know, well, what about all that? And I would tell them, look, I've sacrificed so much, and even with the sacrifice I made, I still made almost double my income from prior years.” – Nicole   You can find Nicole at her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicoleporteraz/   Hey you! You're a long-time listener, time to be a first-time caller! Have a question or topic you'd like us to cover? Drop a line to our DM's at: Steve's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevedvalentine/ Bernie's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bernzpix/   You can find us on all the major Podcast apps: Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to be notified when new episodes are live and leave us a review and 5-star rating to help the show grow!

In this episode I speak with Occupational Therapist and Founder of Miami Handwriting Nicole Santamaria OTR/L . Miami Handwriting is a selection of programs for developing handwriting and executive functioning skills. Nicole is an expert in task analysis and occupational performance. Her mission is to guide families to help their children develop real-life strategies for success in life and in school. Listen in as we discuss the ties between ADHD and Executive Functions and some tips that could help you, your child, or both. Where to find Nicole:You can find her @miamihandwriting on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/miamihandwriting, Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkBJODtmvVDIaubH96M3VyQ @otforreallife on Instagram, and at www.miamihandwriting.com To access free resources mentioned: https://www.miamihandwriting.net/podcastBooks and Resources mentioned in the episode:Dr. Ross Greene quote " Kids do well if they can."https://drrossgreene.com/books.htmJames Clear Atomic Habitshttps://jamesclear.com/atomic-habitsPeg Dawson Smart But Scatteredhttps://www.smartbutscatteredkids.com/books/Michael Hyatthttps://yourbestyeareverbook.com/ Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/ExcuseMyADHD?fan_landing=true)

The triple eviction has Kevin, David and Danny being evicted the same night. HOHs who sent them to the jury is Cody, Memphis, and Tyler. Nicole makes it through two evictions feeling the battle scars. The final 6 houseguests are Cody, Memphis, Tyler, Enzo, Christmas and Nicole You don’t want to miss this first ever BB triple eviction recap! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jessica-musick/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jessica-musick/support

How to lean what your child is passionate about and how that can translate into their future dream job. Learn more about Chelsea at www.chelsea-whitaker.com and you can check out her online, on-demand course, The Parent's Guide to Discovering Your Child's Dream Job at: https://chelsea-whitaker.teachable.com/p/discovering-your-childs-dream-job/ Chelsea: Hey guys, it's Chelsea with my sister, Nicole, a lawyer and successful business owner. Today we're talking about uncovering your child's passion to unlock their dream job. Nicole: Chelsea, why is this so important, uncovering your child's interests and passions to help narrow down some of their potential dream jobs? Chelsea: I love what I do personally every day, and I want that for your child. I remember her saying "if you love your job, you never have to work a day in your life" and that is so true with what I do. Nicole: You are the lead occupational therapist at the nonprofit, taking the lead at Timberbrook farm, where you do animal assisted occupational therapy with dogs and horses. it makes sense for you cause you love animals. I'm a lawyer and a business owner, and I love my job. My brother is a Marine engineer and that really fits within his interests and passions; and it's so important because we spend so much of our waking lives at work. The average American spends over 90,000 hours at work in their lifetime. So it's so critical that you help your child find what they love to do, or at least the industry they know that they want to be in so they can find the role that fits them within that industry. In fact, this is one of the first things (is the very first thing) that you go over and work through in your course, the parent's guide to discovering your child's dream job, which is an online on demand course that parents can work through on the platform, teachable.com. Let's talk about how parents can identify their child's interests and passions, and kind of take a look at the paths that me and you and TJ have taken to get to our dream jobs. So, what are some things that parents should be doing to help their kids start identifying their interests? Chelsea: So one key to knowing what you're interested in, it's something that you were so involved in and so focused on that time stands still. You don't even know what time it is or how much time has passed because you're enjoying your task so much. And one thing that our parents did was just expose us to a lot of different hobbies. And, I mean, for me, it's always been animals. I even remember like books that I read were all animal related, Nicole: Right? So, you know, you can take, look at what books your child is, reading, what movies or TV shows they're watching. So you were watching animal planet, right? That channel all the time. Chelsea: Yes.

Episode 1. Journey to Stillness. Psalm 46:10 The episode in which we introduce ourselves and our own personal journeys to stillness. If you have a desire, like we do, to know God better and love Him more and more ... but life just feels like it's getting in the way ... you'll want to join us today as we talk practically about cultivating stillness in busy lives. Love, Sharon and Nicole You can download and print the transcript here. Continue reading Journey to Stillness - Episode 1 at Sweet Selah Ministries.

Ahh Nicole.  Upon first glance it's a song about unrequited love....a sweet song about a boy who looks forward to holding hands in the park with the lovely Nicole.  Then when you use your computer to separate the music tracks from the vocal tracks (on the 2nd half of the song) you realize it's actually a song about a psychotic stalker who won't stop calling Nicole and leaving increasingly threatening messages on her answering machine.  FUN! One question remains, "How come you never call my buggy, Nicole? You never call my buggy back!  You out there, Nicole? You listening to this?  He called you so many times and you never call him back!"

Some Assembly Required (A NeoSurrealist Forsaking a Habit for Lent) Note: explicit language throughout   Chapter 1 What the Anti-Formalists Thought Bennie's Got It Pop Quiz Homegrown My Brunch with Nicole "You always do this to me. First, you bring up something offensive. Then, you tell me to stop you before you go too far. But how can I?"   Chapter 2 R.S.V.P. Cat Burglar Diary of a College Graduate Backroads Telemarketed "Film Break" "Whether the goal is to become a member of the Christian Community, or the cat-killing community, or simply the campus community, there is a compelling degree of comfort to be found in membership."   Different Drummer: Ze Frank Dear Kitten ads

Rhonda: Welcome to this episode of Divorce Conversations for Women. I'm your host, Rhonda Noordyk. There's one common thread facing everyone that's contemplating divorce or even in the midst of divorce, and that is, you don't know what you don't know, right? So I want to make sure to ask the tough questions so that you can get the answers that you need. In today's episode, we're going to dive into the topic of negotiation for women. This episode is sponsored by Courageous Contemplation, our online course. So, if you're contemplating divorce, I want you to check out womensfinancialwellnesscenter.com/events. I am so excited today. I am joined with Nicole Martin and John Tinghitella. To learn more about Nicole and John, we've linked their website and additional information in the show notes. You can also check out their website at www.nofearnegotiation.com. I want to get started here today. I am so excited that you guys are here because I feel like this is a topic that definitely deserves to have its own podcast episode. So, I'm a woman facing divorce, right? What's the one thing that we want the women that are listening to know about negotiating? Nicole: It's so interesting, Rhonda, because I think that if you think of it with that directness of the question, the one thing I would say to a woman that's really thinking about negotiation is first the fact that it's a two-way discussion or conversation or exchange, and that they are worthy no matter what they are feeling or how they're feeling as they approach that table, that they are worthy equal in that conversation. And the question is, do they feel equal, first of all? Are they prepared in that conversation when they come forth? And are they also ready to listen? Because like I said, it's a two-way exchange. That's probably the first thing I would say. I don't know, John, what would you say? John: I think that's a really good starting point. I think the power to listen is crucial to any successful negotiation. But to back up even another step, negotiation is just another word for managing relationships. Negotiation tends to have a negative connotation in a lot of people's minds, which creates resistance, which creates people not wanting to do it, which usually means they end up with a bad result because they kind of faded out when they should have leaned in. But that said, the ability to listen upfront is absolutely crucial. There's also a realistic connotation to negotiation that needs to be addressed and managed. It's the fact that negotiations, by their nature, are highly competitive, and we have to be careful in a negotiation to realize there's a clear winner and loser. This is not a ballgame with a time clock and a score at the end. This is people managing their lives going forward, and everyone has to leave, not so much with a victory, but everyone has to leave with what matters to them. And Rhonda, in your discipline of managing women through the extremely difficult dynamic of divorce, they tend to be highly competitive, highly adversarial, and a lot of times there are winners and losers, and that's just not healthy. It's a horrible outcome and our goal is to have positive outcomes. Rhonda: And so I agree, and I love the perspective of it being built on relationships. I've got a client right now who is ... her attorney is a guy, then there's her husband and his attorney is a guy. And she's at the table feeling like nobody's listening to her. And so, the preparation part, I think, is super important, number one. And so I've been working behind the scenes with her to help prepare her to have some of those conversations. I think, Nicole, you mentioned the worthiness. Man, that is probably one of the most challenging pieces as women are going through divorce, their confidence has been shattered. Can we talk about the worthy piece? Do you have any suggestions or tips as they're going into this? And I don't like the whole fake it ‘til you make it thing, but I think ... Are there some specific things that women could be doing to build up, like, I'm worthy to have this conversation, and what I have to say is important? Nicole: Well, and we actually kind of put forth three letters with what we do with our process within negotiation specifically, No Fear Negotiation. And the first letter is M, and M really stands for changing your mindset. And I think for women, especially going through relationships, I can recall a particular instance for myself personally where almost every relationship that I'd had where it had come to an end and I was leaving, my counterpart in that relationship had actually driven me to a place of guilt where you're feeling like you weren't working hard enough or you didn't do enough or you need ... this is your fault that you're letting go and you're the quitter or something to that effect. And I would say that the strength that you derive as a woman through that exchange knowing that you're not to be made to feel less than and that you have tried, and feeling justified in the fact that maybe you've tried and you've come to this decision, because surely for a woman, by the time she's had that conversation, she's thought about it probably for months, if not years prior. So, she's already separated herself from it, but she can be drawn back in or even worse, just emotionally brought down. Nicole:  And I would say for a woman that's coming into that exchange, it's really important from a worthiness perspective to honor your internal voice and what you know is right for you. And knowing and having faith that you're a child of God and that that other individual is special and a child of God as are you, and it's your responsibility to speak truth, and it's your responsibility to walk in your truth. And when you're walking in your truth and you speak from a place of love, not anger, not rage, but love, where probably ... and hopefully something started, you can still love somebody and not be in love with them. And if you can bring yourself back to that place of love for that other person, then you can hopefully look in the mirror and say, but more importantly, I love me and I know this is important for me, and for what reasons. And find a mantra that reinvests that voice in yourself so that you stay strong. Whether that'd be for you, if you can't do it for yourself, do it for children if you have children in your relationship. Do it for something outside of you that makes you strong. But you must get to the place where it comes from within. Nicole: And sometimes, if you've been deceived or betrayed or you feel wronged, it's really important to talk to somebody else. And I think therapy is a great thing. I think getting a resource, somebody to talk out loud to help you reinforce you until you can reinforce yourself is, I think, critically important. Rhonda: Huge. That's huge. That is really huge. And I think spot-on, right, to all of the things that you're saying, because I do think that most of the challenge when it comes to having these types of conversations and negotiating is a lot of that is our self-talk, right, and how we're showing up for the meetings. As I've been working with women, there was one girl in particular that comes to mind. I mean, she has just been full of guilt and feels super bad about her situation. And I mean pretty much couldn't talk about it without, I mean, doing the ugly cry. And we finally got her to a point where she could show up for the meetings, and still, there's some emotion, but it wasn't like that level of not being able to really clearly think through certain aspects of it. And she's a smart woman who has a lot to offer, but she needed to be able to show up in those meetings in that way. And I know that for her, that was a really big win. I felt like I could contribute. Rhonda: Now, the challenge with that is when the other person or people in the meetings aren't used to that particular individual having a voice. There now becomes a level of ... a little bit of a ... it seems to be a little bit of a power struggle in those situations because they're used to being able to just dominate the conversation, and now she wants to be part of the conversation. She's got some good points to bring up, and so it's a whole new level of listening and hearing that is required on the other side as well. Nicole: Right. We have to remember we can only control ourselves. And so, I see, more a woman who is at that table and she's maybe finding her voice and her inner strength. It's important to come, like I said, from a place of love because not everybody grows at the same pace. And so sometimes if you have a man across the table from you who you at some point in time loved and hopefully can still love, then you're coming to a place of maybe adding some extra words, some extra things that you prepare yourself to say to affirm that you respect the other individual. I think if you're coming at a place of disrespect, then yeah, you're going to trigger another individual. And so, one tip I can say just from working with human beings, in general, is to say the word “you”, actually, you should never say the word “you” in any negotiation or collaborative context, unless it's a compliment. You come to the place of I. And a woman can own her I voice all day long just as a man can. Nicole: And as long as the woman is actually coming from a place of I, I feel, I expect, I would like, I have left with this feeling, I own, I all day long, and avoid the word “you” unless you're giving a compliment. And find other ways to wrap the conversation so you're not triggering an event of diagnosing somebody when you're not a doctor in a negotiation situation. What do you have to say about that, John? John: And Rhonda, thinking rather than Nicole, what's important to keep in mind here too is the power of the letter M, as in mindset. Hopefully, mindsets have been changed before a divorce situation occurs, but if not, it's part of a lifelong evolution. And the thing about negotiation in our book, we call it a simple repeatable process to improve your life. And M is the first letter. It's changing of the mindset. And that's an easy thing to say and a really hard thing to do. There's been a 100,000 years of social programming where men have had the power differential in the world. We get that, we totally get that. To just ask a woman to snap her fingers and change her mindset overnight is highly unreasonable. Nicole: Good luck, right? Rhonda: It's not happening. John: It's a possibility. And the idea of the mindset is you don't change it just to get through this divorce situation. You change it for the rest of your life and everything else that you do. Stop managing relationships. There's nothing about using negotiation tools to manage the relationship. And the idea here is we're pursuing great outcomes and we're preserving relationships. That's what we're trying to accomplish. And that's why M is so powerful as the starting point. As we go forward, there are two more letters. I'll let Nicole kick off the second letter here in just a second, but we have to start with the adjustment and evolution of a new mindset. Rhonda: Well, and can I get one thing here quick? Nicole: Yeah. Go, Rhonda. Rhonda: I was looking at some of the great materials that you guys put together, and one of the things that I noticed that kind of resonated with me was the fact that 70% of people prefer to avoid negotiation. And if I could do a show of hands 5, 10 years ago, that was me, like, oh my gosh, just the thought of having to negotiate created anxiety for me because I didn't have the right mindset around that particular situation. But now that I have learned how to do that and I'm continuing to learn how to do that, it takes a little bit of the pressure off when we say, “Hey, listen. Let's look at this on how can we create win-win outcomes? How can we preserve relationships? How can we respect the”... I mean that's essentially what everybody wants. In an ideal world, we want to preserve relationships; we want to be heard; we want to respect other people; we want to be respected in return. Like, oh, that's the gold standard, right? Rhonda: And yet, because we, particularly as women, don't know how, and probably many of the women that are listening to the podcast, right, you might not know how, but if you knew how you could do it, right? And so, I love the fact that it starts with the mindset piece, knowing that only 30% of the people really kind of embrace that, we have a lot of work to do. Nicole: Yeah. And I think there's something that John and I really talked at length about, which is really this concept of the tension of opposites. And I think John could probably speak to it the best, but that we have to honor the fact that yeah, there is a tension of opposites, and I think ... John, you want to speak to that really quickly? John: Absolutely. And I think we chose the phrase tension of opposites because we're actually quoting it out of a famous book, Tuesdays with Morrie, written by Mitch Albom. And in it, Morrie said, essentially, we all live in the middle. And life is like a set of rubber bands that we're pulling. But we essentially live in the middle. We're relatively normal people doing normal things. Unfortunately, we have a present-day media that is barking at us from the edges, but the whole world basically lives a relatively middle existence. And that tension of opposites speaks to how we need to approach people. We need to understand that everyone has a need and the power of listening. And this is more, I think quite frankly more of a guy evolution. But the power of listening creates the opportunity to find both of us in that middle. Once we find that common ground, we can negotiate effectively, because again, the whole objective here is that we get great outcomes and we preserve the relationship, which means we both have to, I won't use the word win, but we both have to flourish in this experience. Rhonda: Yeah. Absolutely. So we've talked about the M, the mindset. What's the next one, Nicole? Nicole: The next letter that we have is P, it's preparation. And I think we emphasized, John and I, the importance of preparation. And many people walk into situations daily not fully prepared and it only resorts to them being reactive, rather than proactive in what the outcome is going to be quite honest. And so, preparation is something where we say that we like to start with data. So how many women are actually coming to the table with data versus just their emotions? And we're not talking about data that's going to trigger emotion, that's going to put the other counterpart down. It's going to actually say, well, you didn't give me this and you didn't do that, because remember we said we're not going to use the word you. So we have to come back and say, okay, how do we start with data by saying I? Nicole: And then confronting those emotions that you're bringing emotionally to the negotiation table, especially in a personal situation such as divorce. You must confront your emotions and you must try to get to the place where you're coming to the table unemotional and with love. And that may take a lot of preparation. That may take role-playing that may, that may take a lot of investment in time getting ready for that day, whatever that day might be, and become the other side. You must become the other side. You must think about where the other person's coming from. You must think about how they're feeling. You must actually reside in their shoes for a moment mentally to say, “what is this person trying to do out of this exchange? What do they need to walk away from?” And I think for women and men, it's really unique. We always say that men are motivated by results and that women are motivated by effort. And when you think of that, and we're coming to the conversation at the table, women can do the work if they have this process. We call it the PST: the process, the sequence, and the tools. Nicole: So when you have the preparation of our PST, as we call it, process, sequence, and tools, right, so ladies, get your PST on, right, if you have that, then ultimately you're going to be able to come to the table without those emotions. You'll have some data, some facts. Hopefully, you'll be coming from both sides. You'll have a little information about what you hope or presume or think the other person wants and how you've taken that into consideration, and you're going to invent some options prepared in your mind, know what you're willing to accept, your thresholds, your tolerances, etc., and you're going to have bracketized offers, as we call it, meaning you've worked and done all the thinking to the point that you've come to the table unemotionally with actual options that are truly representative of both sides so you can kind of start to talk of a new alternative for you both of shared creation. That is really important. And I think ... John, why don't you talk about the key thing, which is most important, the final tip to our PST, as we call it, on preparation. I'd love for you to talk about just agenda. John: Well, it's interesting. One of the great things about P being the second letter in our sequence is a data point of one I observed in my life certainly with the wonderful women in my life. They're amazing life preparers, and I never ... I mean guys sometimes marvel. They may not admit it, but they marvel at the ability to multitask and manage through a myriad of issues on a daily basis, and it takes enormous preparation to accomplish that. So I think preparation comes naturally to certainly most women that I know. And the great thing about doing the preparation in the sequence that Nicole laid out, in the book we use an arrow. It's a six-step process. The great thing about it is it creates muscle memory. And once you've done it once, it gets easier the second, third, fourth time. I'm someone who had to embrace negotiation early on. I was one of the 70%. I didn't want to do it. But as I did it, the muscle memory kicked in and it became rote for me to a point where I now embraced it. John: And what Nicole was referring to with the last step of preparation, and this is, believe it or not, it's painfully simple. It's the formation of an agenda. I own a business now, but most of my career came from the sales or customer-facing end of the world, and I've made over 5,000 sales calls in my life. And virtually every time I did that, I had a piece of paper in my hand or something that laid out a few bullet points or a larger discussion of how we were going to frame this meeting. And in almost every single case, the other side would say, “Oh, thanks for bringing that. I'm glad you did that. Let's use that.” You have now subtly taken control of the meeting, not in a bad way, but you frame the discussion to where you believe it really needs to go. It is a simple and constantly overlooked tool that every time we bring it up we get people's eyebrows to raise because when it happens, it almost always creates an opportunity in an environment for great outcomes. Rhonda: Right. No. This is fantastic. In preparation with data, this is something that very much resonates with me, and I want to encourage the women that are listening to really grab ahold of this, because I always say, listen, I don't want us to assume. I don't want us to assume that the other person isn't being honest. I don't want to assume that we don't have all the information, but I do want to encourage women. I want to encourage you to gather the facts, get the data, gather the statements, organize the information, ask questions. One of the tools that we use is a financial private investigator. If there are concerns from a local or national level that there is information that's missing, let's go run the report. Let's find the information. If it comes back and there isn't anything there, then we know. If there is, then we'll deal with that information as it becomes available. Rhonda: But it becomes this ... The entire divorce process, I think if women can look at it as a fact-finding mission to say, “Hmm, isn't that interesting? Okay. Let's ask some more questions. Let's gather information.” I think they will really feel empowered as they're going through the process, because there's really four kinds of big rocks with that, finding the data, determining how to actually file for divorce. The next one is gathering all the financial documents, getting all the passwords, organizing all of that information. Then it's filling out the financial disclosure statements and all the paperwork associated with that, and doing a comparison between what their husband brings to the table and what they're bringing to the table as far as what they're disclosing. And then it's, okay, well, now we've got that information, we're going to put it into a property division worksheet and we're going to analyze that data, and then we're going to have some negotiation about what's in whose column. And then the last piece is the marital settlement agreement, that final divorce decree that we're going to again, analyze the data, review the facts, right? Rhonda: So I want to encourage everybody that's listening to say, Hmm, isn't that interesting? This step, the mindset piece, huge, right? The data piece, super important to this process. Of all of the things, this could be related to the divorce process, one of the most important. And it's getting the data as early on as possible in the process because once you start to kind of go down that divorce path is when things start to sometimes move or shift around. So, the sooner you can get your hands on the data, the more prepared you're going to be as you go through the process. The average divorce process is 52 weeks. That's an entire year that women have to set and reframe their mindset, continue to gather data, right, which is an important piece of this whole process. I love that part, such an important piece. Nicole: Well, and I think a lot of that was about the preparation, but as you're saying, we agree, preparation is probably the biggest weight emotionally or otherwise that you bring to any negotiation table. But really the fireworks can start to fly, I think, in any negotiation, especially in the context of a relationship, like divorce, when you're starting to ask for something. Nothing really is going to happen or hit the fan until that, right, John? John: Absolutely. Nicole: And we have a path to ask, and it's again, another one of our arrows in our process in our book, but it starts with that aspect of listening that comes to really getting to the other side. But I'm somebody that’s been ... I've been in relationships. I've never been divorced. But I can tell you even in the relationships that I had prior to the marriage that I have, it felt probably similar to what I imagined divorce to feel like because I'd lived with those people for years. And I think that John has a personal experience, and having him on this call is really important because he's a divorce survivor. And I think that someone who's been through this, been there, done that, can speak to it and maybe offer a unique lens to the women on the call because we really believe that the path to ask as we call it, which is where you listen, you precap, you think about all those options again and you start to build and make your case for what it is you're asking for. Nicole: You have to be able to bring things to the table to help substantiate what you're asking for and why and recalibrate that potentially based on the give and take of the conversation in exchange. But then you're ultimately hoping to ask and receive. Stay in the bracket that you've designed in terms of your acceptance, what you can live with, and then ultimately the accountability of what we call the 24-hour rule. So John, I'm going to let you really walk through a story maybe that you can speak to on the path to ask and help the women as they might embark on their journey. John: Absolutely. I'll use an example if you don't mind. It's non-divorce related. It's a business-related experience, but it's extremely relevant because the path to ask is really parallel in everything you do in life. And I'll make it relatively quick. I managed a wonderful young lady who became a sales manager for me a little over 25 years ago, and we had a very important customer in our world, who was extremely big and extremely difficult. And they prided themselves on being extremely hard. It was a high testosterone environment, extremely hard on anyone who walked in the door who was attempting to sell or supply them with products, which we were trying to do. In fact, they went so far and they were so bold and brazen about it they put a big sign over their door called Club Brutal, and the whole idea where you needed to know you were walking into a pretty nasty place. John: But what made it even more insidious, Rhonda, is that it was guys roughing up guys. But on those rare occasions when a female sales manager would walk in the door, they prided themselves, and this is really, really, really terrible, it was institutional bullying. They prided themselves on getting the woman to cry. And so, this young woman, who's now working for me, I had been through the Club Brutal a few times and I had my scars, but I did all right, and I needed to work with her to prepare her for this experience. And she had certainly heard all the rumors throughout the market in the industry. And I asked her if she needed some assistance up there and she said, “No, no, I'll handle it. I got this.” But she wanted a lot of preparation, and we dove in for two solid weeks and we prepared. And we pushed every button there was to be pushed, and we did role-playing. We looked at every possible scenario, and she had more data than they could possibly imagine. John: She went up there. She did her job, she got what she asked for, she nailed it, and she didn't cry. And from that day forward, we came up with the title for the book and that's why it's called, No Fear. That's the idea. It's a little anecdotal, but the idea of no fear is that we don't go in in a fearless, crazy way. We go in a no-fear environment where we have more preparation on our path to ask. So, when we get to the point of asking, it works. The third letter in our three-letter sequence is the A. The hardest part of negotiation is the ask. All of what we've done here, every bit of mindset change, preparation, walking the path to get there, is meaningless unless at that point in time someone asks for something. Rhonda: Absolutely. Well, I am so excited to be able to dive into that a little bit deeper. We're just going to take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about, in detail, how do we ask, right, and how do we prepare for that ask. So, I know that both of you, John and Nicole, have shared some really great tips around negotiating and I want to explore that further in just a second.   But first, a reminder that today's show is sponsored by Courageous Contemplations. It is a great place for you to start if you are contemplating divorce. And as Nicole said, you can stay in that spot for months, sometimes even years, and this is going to give you a clear pathway to know what you need to know before you make that final decision on whether you're going to stay or whether you're going to go. So, with that, you can check out that Courageous Contemplation course, www.womensfinancialwellnesscenter.com/events.   So back to the show. So let's go ahead and dive a little bit deeper into the third key pillar that you talk about, which is ask. Give us some tips around how to do that. Nicole: I think that when you think of the path to ask, and obviously John gave a great example of how it works in the context of a business scenario, which everybody can relate to, and I think what happens is in a business scenario, sometimes women can come into that logically and unemotionally. But when you come into your personal relationships, just like men, we are all extremely emotional. I think it's fair to say that we really need to think about what we're experiencing, which is in some cases it can be traumatic, it can be sudden, it can be grief-stricken. And I think most of us if you're not the one that's initiating the divorce, you could be stuck in some of the stages of grief. And the first stage of grief, which I'm sure many have heard of is denial. And you certainly don't want to come to a negotiation table when you're stuck in denial, and you certainly don't want to go into a negotiation table when you're in the second stage of grief, which is anger. You really want to get through those first stages of grief. However, you need to work through those stages of grief, before you approach the bargaining table. Nicole: But I think once you reach the third stage of grief where you're bargaining, a woman has already worked through, as far as I'm concerned, this is hard to say, but women go through hurt. You might cry when you realize something's not changing. Something's not changing and then you have to come through the hope. I think all women work through the hope that “Oh, this can change.” And then they ride that wave for a while. And then there's this sad day when you ... and that's denial for me. And then you get to this stage someday where you realize, “Oh okay, this isn't going to change.” And then you might get angry, and you get angry at the other person. You guys might fight and battle, and that could have led to months or years in a relationship, right, Rhonda? So, it's like you’ve got years of this, and that could be that second stage where you're working through just being angry with someone because they're not working with you. And how could they be doing this to you? And again, it's that you statement. How could you do this to me? Nicole: And instead of coming back to the place of power and self advocacy and control, which women are not necessarily good at, and that's something we say is critical to the path to ask, as a woman to come to this place of bargaining and not a place of not complacency or not caring, sometimes women go straight from denial and anger to, I don't care, which is a defense mechanism. And so, you need to come back from that to a place of no, self-advocacy. I care enough to care enough about me and you so that we can move through this. And that bargaining approach, coming to that table at that stage, that's when you're ready to start with the path to ask. Rhonda: Well, and I have ... The place of complacency, I want to address that for just a minute, because how I see that manifest with the women that are in the early stages of divorce is, “Oh, everything's going to be amicable. He said he's going to give me this. He said he's going to do this.” So they kind of check out, right? It's from a place of really believing that the other person has their best interest in mind, but I think women are doing a disservice to themselves if they stay in that spot, because I will say all day long, “Hey, if this thing ends up being amicable and you guys are in a spot where it really does go smoothly, I will be the first person to celebrate with you. However, my experience tells me that that isn't always the case. And so, we're going to plan as if…” Right? I want them to be involved. I don't want them to be complacent. I want them asking those questions. I want them to have the right mindset. I want them to be prepared, and they're going to be in a better spot to have those conversations. Nicole: Absolutely. And I think people ... Part of the preparation process that we're talking about, especially something specific with divorce is preparing yourself that you're going to have feelings even when you get to the bargaining table, even if you've thought you've worked through this already. And so, I want John to be able to speak to that a little bit, which is you're still working through stages of grief. I mean be prepared for the fact that you're going to feel something, and you may still feel like a great loss and a great sadness. And John, can you speak to that a little bit in terms of the path to ask and stages of grief? John: Absolutely. I think it's crucial when you're at this stage going through the various stages of grief, you're in this theoretical bargaining phase. And one thing that is so crucial, I believe, for women to be conscious of is this is a highly emotional life-changing, sea changing experience you're going through right now. It is crucial you stay in the process, stay in the process. We're talking about MPA here. We've asked you to adjust your mindset. We've asked you to do a deep dive of preparation, which you're probably exceedingly good at. So, you've got a lot going on. You are ready; you are on the path to ask; and, you're at that point where things are now going back and forth and there's give and there's take, and it's easy to jump out of the process because you just want it to be over. The hard part of the final part of the path to ask is staying in your bracket. We call it that because as Nicole mentioned earlier, in preparation, we create these bracketized offers and we use the phrase bracketized to emphasize that you're not going to drift out of your bracket. You've created what makes sense. I have a great offer; I have a realistic offer; I have a fallback offer, but I'm not leaving that bracket. I'm not saying okay at the final minute just because I want to go home and make this stop. John: Same thing is true in a business negotiation except multiplied by 1,000 here because of the extreme emotional environment that we're dealing with. It's the same basic desire to just get over it because I don't want to do this in the first place. It's crucial to stay in that process because if you changed your mindset, if you fortified yourself with great preparation. You are ready and you are okay. You're ready to have a great outcome and manage this relationship forward. At that point, the asking becomes much, much easier. But the key recommendation for me is number one, staying in the process, and number two, this is a criticism, sometimes women are guilty of, don't overthink it. John: Now, we know that there's a lot going on here. There's a lot of missiles flying through the air. If you can stay in your process and don't overthink what the downstream implications can be, even though some of that is absolutely crucial, I think I've observed certainly with women in my life, the overthinking, or the ability to overthink themselves out of what's right, and then a disagreement with themselves down the road. “Why didn't I do that?” I see it all the time with women in business, who overthink the desire to increase their compensation in their particular job. They've overthought it so much, they've talked themselves in and out of it to a point where they won't get to the point of asking. So many times women are guilty of that. Again, my two, stay in the process, don't overthink. Rhonda: One of the things ... and I love that. One of the things I wrote down, John, was to set realistic expectations for the people that they're working with. And what I mean by that is I think a lot of times through the divorce process, women are expecting their attorneys, in particular, to do the negotiating for them. And I don't know that that's a realistic expectation. There may be times when the attorney will negotiate, but the women are really the ones who need to do all of the things that we talked about and come to the table prepared. And a lot of times I'm working with them behind the scenes to help prepare them to come to the table and have those conversations. So, I wouldn't say that they have to do it on their own, but I would say, setting those realistic expectations for the attorney that they're working with, for their financial expert, even with their therapist. Those are the three core professions that I feel like should come and surround you if you're going through divorce, right, at minimum, because you need this team of people. But you've got to set realistic expectations for them as well and know that the bulk of the responsibility will fall on you because you're the one who needs to really come to the table prepared. John: Exactly, Rhonda. And I would summarize that. I think you said it very, very well. I'd summarize that by saying don't outsource the expectations. The attorney, he or she is the go-between. They may be the mouthpiece. They may be the hired gun, so to speak, but they don't decide. You decide, and you utilize their strengths in the back and forth. And sometimes it can get a little rough but don't outsize your own expectations. You own that. Rhonda: That is a tweetable quote right there, John. Yes. Don't outsource the expectations. Absolutely. And I think it comes with being able to communicate those expectations, which is having those assertive conversations that Nicole, you were alluding to those I statements, right, and just making sure that you can ... I always say divorce is two things. It's managing risk and managing expectations. And if you can do those two things, you are going to be able to navigate through a really challenging and difficult process as unscathed as possible. John: Absolutely. Rhonda: Oh my gosh, this has been so awesome. And I have to say that I think I'm going to have to go get your book because I'm looking forward to just really diving even a little bit deeper in some of these conversations. Nicole: Well, you’ll like that it's practical, Rhonda. It's a short read. We made it that way on purpose. And the reason we did that, John and I are coming from a collaboration from a male/female perspective obviously, our partnership in writing this book together and setting it forth. But I think that we made it practical and referenceable, so you'll pick it up again and again and kind of plug yourself into the arrows and the process, as we call it. And the reason is because we hope that you create a habit of negotiation and we actually hope that you take this forth as a new tool, and it's something we intentionally avoided, Rhonda, telling you, do it this way, go about it this way, do this. It's much more about giving you the process, the sequence, and the tool so you can plug yourself into it and bring the magnificence of you. Like John said, don't outsource that, own it. Bring you, based and grounded in humility and confidence and self-advocacy and self-love on to that place of healing, and plug yourself into a proven process that's simple and repeatable and hit the bargaining table ready. I mean the book is meant to be used - not theory. It's practical. So we love hearing that you're going to pick it up. We hope it empowers you and takes you forward. Rhonda: Yeah. Absolutely. Oh my goodness, this is so great. I think it's, again, it's such a great topic. But as we kind of, as I say, land the plane, right, during our time together, I first want to just say thank you so much for sharing your brilliance, your expertise, your passion, your candidness, your vulnerability with my audience. Any final thoughts, closing remarks, as we kind of wrap up our time together? John: I'd just like to say one quick thing and then I'll hand it off to my partner here. I think part of this experience too, we end the book at a place where we realize women are tremendous life coaches to people in their life, both young and old, but for the young people coming up, particularly women mentoring boys, emphasize how important it is for them to evolve to a point where they eventually in their life, they need to respect girls and absolutely come from a place of decency and respect and build your life, your business life, your personal life with that in mind. I think we can do better there as a society, and it is getting better. I observe it all the time, but we can continue to do better. Nicole: I love how ... and John has been saying that since the beginning, Rhonda. I'm a mother of boys and I love knowing that we can have that invitation and receive it and see it forth, as well, as women. As somebody who has been through trauma and somebody who has survived trauma and been through loss and come out on the other side through positive healing, even exited people from the workplace, right, Rhonda, and I have some of those people I have fired become Facebook friends. How do you move forth from things whole? And so I'm going to give you my favorite quote, which I live by and I'm going to hope that it helps every woman that you're working with come to this place, which is, “Presence is more important than just being present. And I think that if a woman thinks of her presence, the power of her presence, the brightness of her presence, the vision and the dream of what she sets forth, how does she project love and light, and how can she move forth whole? What does she need to do to replenish her presence?” Nicole: And if she can do that, if she can find the ways, whatever it takes to fill her soul cup and replenish her presence, she shall be whole. And she shall go forth and she shall help another soul. And I think that every woman, no matter how much she's hurting right now, she just regards her presence, honors her presence, and I believe good God bless Louise Hay, what you feel you can heal. Feel it. Honor your feelings. Even if you're speaking to someone your truth, like I said in a negotiation and you happen to cry, you know what, God bless it. Let somebody see how you feel, but make sure it's coming from love, not anger, and honor your presence and move forward. And I would leave a woman with that. Rhonda: I love that. I would like to give a huge thank you to Nicole and John for being our guests today. If you'd like to get in touch with them, feel free to check out their website, www.nofearnegotiation.com. We've also linked their bios and some additional resources and information in the show notes, so be sure to check that out. Today's episode has been sponsored by Courageous Contemplation, our online course. So if you find yourself contemplating divorce, I want you to check out womensfinancialwellnesscenter.com/events. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of divorce conversations for women. I'd love to have you as part of the conversation. Simply comment on this episode. Drop us a review on iTunes or get involved anytime at www.womensfinancialwellnesscenter.com. I'm Rhonda Noordyk and I help you know what you don't know about divorce. ________________________________________ Contact Information and Other Resources Our guests today were Nicole Martin and John Tinghitella No Fear Negotiations for Women Nicole Martin is Chief Empowerment Officer and Founder of HRBoost, LLC, an HR Shared Services consulting firm based in Chicago, Illinois. Her business has been honored by multiple organizations including most recently as a 2017 Annual Awardee for Business Excellence by the Daily Herald Business Ledger, and a 2016 Enterprising Women of the Year Champion by Enterprising Women Magazine. A sought-after expert, her knowledge and advice have been featured in newspapers and magazines throughout the country. Recent publications in which she has been seen include Forbes.com, the Daily Herald Business Ledger, and Fast Company. Nicole has authored, PWN International Literary Award and #1 Amazon Best Seller, The Talent Emergency, the accompanying Talent Emergency Guidebook, The Human Side of Profitability, and The Power of Joy & Purpose. Nicole serves on Advisory Boards dedicated to Best & Brightest® Companies to Work For, Social Service in the community and Women in Business. To learn more about Nicole, go to www.hrboost.com or www.nicolemartin.live  nmartin@hrboost.com | (847) 736-5085 x 103 ____________________ John's career has taken him from the trenches of sales management, to the corner office, to owning his own business so he can realize his vision for success. A self-described "sales guy," he combines a strong sense for the creative solution with a keen focus on building relationships. Collaborative negotiation is his lifelong passion. He's observed first-hand the unfairness of how much women contribute versus the rewards…which typically go to men. His negotiation message is the culmination of a career spent learning, applying, adapting, and giving back. johnt@rvdesigner.com | (845) 313-7747 ____________________ Our host of Divorce Conversations for Women Podcast is Rhonda Noordyk, CFEI Rhonda Noordyk's relentless pursuit of financial justice for women going through divorce drove her to leave the financial industry in 2014 to open The Women's Financial Wellness Center. She was in search of a better way. She used her knowledge, passion, and experience to build a leading-edge business model. The intention was to create a business that provided a safe place for women - especially those in a vulnerable position - to find their paths, find their voices and find the financial confidence they need to lift themselves out of seemingly hopeless situations. Since starting the Women’s Financial Wellness Center, after a 10+ year career in the financial industry, she has helped alleviate financial vulnerability for thousands of women. ​In addition to being the Founder & CEO of The Women’s Financial Wellness Center, Rhonda is also a professional speaker. While her platform is women’s money wellness, it is not just about money. Her topics include: assertive communication, boundaries, leadership and overcoming financial myths. Her speaking experience includes: GE Healthcare, UWM Women’s Leadership Conference and Marquette Law School. In addition, she has appeared on Fox6 News, Real Milwaukee, and Morning Blend. Her dynamic and inspirational style leaves women with a sense of empowerment. Rhonda Noordyk, CFEI  CEO | The Women's Financial Wellness Center rhonda@wfwcllc.com | (262) 522-1502 Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube Schedule a FREE 30-Minute Phone Call ____________________ Sponsored by: Courageous Contemplation (online course) ____________________ Visit the Women’s Financial Wellness Center for a full directory listing of experts. Be sure to reach out if you would like to connect personally with the Women’s Financial Wellness Center. You can visit our website or grab a complimentary 30-minute consult. Leaving a positive podcast review is hugely important: they help the podcast get discovered by new people. Please spend 5 minutes of your time to leave a review on your preferred listening platform, we’d love to hear from you!  

NO WAY is the international culture program for you, who are interested in the world, your cultural neighbours, and all the weird stuff they think the Norwegians do! In today's episode you can "meet the gang"! Who are Kirstyn, Jane and Nicole? You will find out soon ;)

Sometimes, we’ll have a guest on the #WeGotGoals podcast who doesn’t actually like or set goals (I’m looking at you, Dawn Jackson Blatner and Josh Katt). For whatever reason, they don’t connect to the term, or they’ve employed a different paradigm to accomplish great things. Which is fantastic—one of the best things about the show, in our humble opinions, is the glimpse at the wide variety of paths high achievers have taken to reach success. But this week’s guest, Nicole Bernard Dawes, has the opposite perspective. Goals drive nearly everything the founder and CEO does. She aims to set both ambitious aspirations—say, starting an organic snack company, Late July Snacks, that hit $100 million in sales this year—and small mini-targets, including what she wants to get out of each business meeting. And she’s not afraid to lay them all on the line. “If you don’t even know what you want, you’re definitely not going to get it,” she says. “And I think clearly articulating what you want helps people. Setting goals helped Dawes recover from an incredibly difficult year in 2009. First there was the recession. Then her father Steve Bernard—her co-founder (and, before that, the founder of Cape Cod Potato Chips)—passed away from pancreatic cancer. When he died, the bank called the loan, leaving Dawes and her husband/business partner Peter scrambling to raise cash. “Through that, it forced my husband and I to take a hard look at kind of who we were at Late July and what we wanted this company to really become,” Dawes says. What did they decide and how did they pull through? In our interview, Dawes shares seven lessons that kept her moving forward. Find the right people … One of the most critical changes Late July made the following year was to the hiring process. Being qualified to work at the company, they decided, meant more than just having the right education and experience. Dawes began looking for people who’d make a positive addition to the environment, and spent a significant amount of time having multiple team members interview each candidate. In some cases, that meant positions went unfilled for years, a stressor in a fast-growing company. However, the result was worth it: “I truly believe today that we have the most wonderful team in our industry,” she says. “We have a group of people that wakes up every day ready to support each other and believes in the company and believes in the products.” … and a purpose you’re passionate about. Dawes made another big decision in the wake of her father’s passing: to leave cookies behind and enter the tortilla chip market. That was no small shift—cookies made up $2 million of the company’s $9 million in sales at the time. However, Dawes felt strongly she wanted to steer the company in a healthier direction. Of course, she wasn’t satisfied with just any crunchy nibble. She aimed to create the number-one tortilla chip in the natural-food business. “Singular focus on being number one requires all your effort, and all your team’s effort,” she says. “No matter what our team was doing, we always kept that goal in the back of our mind. Start new things small and build. It took a year to perfect and introduce the tortilla chips, and they got off to a rocky start. “That was a little bit scary because we had just bet our entire company's future on this launch,” Dawes says. That taught her Late July needed to build brand awareness in this new space. So, they spent the next year concentrating on a few key accounts, securing a foothold there before spreading their wings to the larger marketplace. That focus helped them course correct quickly. “I think we might have become the number three in the first year,” Dawes says. Deliver quality. That rapid rise was built on superior flavor. As the daughter of a potato-chip mogul father and a mother who owned a health food store in Cape Cod, Dawes prioritizes making food that’s both nutritious and delicious. “I’ve always believed that as a natural products brand, we have an obligation for the entire industry to make our products taste great,” she says. “When a consumer has a bad experience with one natural product, they make an assumption about everything.” And to succeed in the highly competitive salty snack realm requires repeat business: “No consumer is ever going to buy a snack twice if they don't like the way it tastes.” Stay open to feedback. How, exactly, does Late July makes its chips so scrumptious? Besides constant comparison to competitors and making sure the whole team is eating—and loving—them, Dawes says they stay alert for constructive criticism. She applies this philosophy to all areas of her life and business; it’s a key component of her overall positive outlook. “We’re all just kind of learning and growing, and none of us are perfect. The more receptive you are to hearing things that could be done better, the more likely you are to improve faster,” she says. Set goals outside the boardroom, too. Looking to the future, Dawes is aiming for Late July to dominate the salsa category too (they’re in the midst of launching that line, and popcorn, right now). However, she also gives her personal life high priority by setting goals there, too. Her big goal is to be available to her two sons, now ages 16 and almost 12. She puts it in practice by working from home more and eating family dinner together four or five nights a week. And, she encourages her employees to take similar steps. “We all have lives, and when you’re a high-achieving person, you have to not hide that,” she says. “It’s OK—it doesn’t make you less of a productive person to prioritize your private life.” Sweat it out. “I manage stress, I think, weirdly well,” Dawes says. Some of that may come naturally, but she also finds a solid fitness routine enables her to perform her best (a sentiment that makes us smile here at aSweatLife). A couple of years ago, Dawes got a Peloton bike—and thinks they should be standard issue for any entrepreneur. Now, she has no excuse not to knock out a 20-minute ride, even on her busiest days. Listen to Nicole Benard Dawes’ full episode anywhere you get your podcasts—including, now, on Spotify! If you like what you hear, please help us spread the word by leaving a rating or a review. And stick around until the end of the episode, where you’ll hear a goal from one of you, our listeners. (Want to be featured on a future episode? Send a voice memo with a goal you’ve crushed, a goal you’re eyeing, or your best goal-getting tip to cindy@asweatlife.com.)   --- Begin transcript: Jeana: Welcome to #WeGotGoals a podcast by aSweatLife.com on which we talk to high-achievers about their goals. I’m Jeana Anderson Cohen. With me I have Cindy Kuzma and Maggie Umberger. Maggie: Morning Jeana! Cindy: Good morning Jeana! Jeana: Good Morning! And Cindy, this week you to Nicole. Cindy: I did! I interviewed Nicole Bernard Dawes who is the founder and CEO of Late July, an organic snack food company. We have some people on the podcast who are actually not a big fan of goals. Nicole loves goals! She thinks you should set them in every part of your life. And so it was a joy to talk to her for this podcast. Jeana: And her goals are shifting, I know she had big goals built around business but her future goals are built more around her family life. Right? Cindy: Right, and I think she still has a lot of big business goals too. But I was really struck by the way she talked about her intentionality with her family. Her kids are actually a little bit older. Her boys are teenagers now and she’s realizing that they kind of require a different level of energy. Like when kids are little, you have to be around them, you have to take them places, you’re coordinating logistics. But when they get to like the age that which they’re they’re kind of becoming self-sufficient people, they have deep questions about the world. She was realizing that she needs to preserve her energy. She wants to be there for them as they kind of navigate the world and answer those questions for them and be a person who’s present in their life. And she realizes that just like you have to set a goal to reach a dollar amount in sales for your business. If you want that, if it’s a priority for you, you have to set that goal. And then you have to figure out how to make the rest of your life work with that. So she’s done things like work from home more often or structure her day in different ways so that she can make sure that she’s there for them in enough quantity and quality of time to be the kind of mother that she wants to be. Jeana: And as she’s managing all of these areas of her life and continuing to grow this already fast growing company, she’s under a lot of stress as is easy to imagine. But she is pretty good at managing that stress. And one of her key tools to going after her big accomplishments and continuing to manage her stress is buying a Peloton bike, right? Cindy: Yeah, this makes all of our hearts happy at a Sweat Life to hear her talk about how important fitness has been in achieving her goals and maintaining a balance to her lifestyle. Well I say balance, she doesn’t believe in that word balance which is something I think we can all relate to a little bit. Because she doesn’t feel like the person who goes into the office is a different person then the person who sits down at the dinner table with her family. That said, she did notice that when things got really busy, one thing that kind of slipped by the wasteside was her fitness routine. And she started to realize that was affecting her productivity, her mood, her state of mind and eventually would affect her health which would be extra bad for someone who runs essentially a health food company. So she was trying to figure out how to make that work again. She set that goal and worked backward to figure out how to achieve it. And realized that having a bike in her home where she had no excuse to not do a 20 minute ride any day of the week was really important to her. So it was kind of a treat to hear that. In fact, she said she thinks a Peloton bike should be given to every entrepreneur. It should just be like standard equipment when you start your own business. So that was great to hear. Jeana: I’ll take one of those please. What a delight to hear from such a great entrepreneur about her goals and how they’ve shifted over the years. Here is Cindy with Nicole. And stick around, at the end of the episode we’re hearing from you, listeners! Cindy: This is Cindy Kuzma and I’m here on the #WeGotGoals podcast with Nicole Bernard Dawes who’s the founder and CEO of Late July. Nicole, thank you so much for joining us today. Nicole: Oh Cindy, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited about this podcast. Cindy: Well, I’m glad to hear it! We’re excited too. So most of our listeners are people who are conscious about what they eat and who love a good snack so they probably already know your brand. But just in case, can you tell us just a little bit about Late July and the products you sell? Nicole: Sure, Late July organic snacks is a predominately a tortilla chip company. Right now we make several varieties of organic tortilla chips and range from our most healthy which is a multigrain tortilla chip that has all sorts of wonderful grains and seeds in it. To our more seasoned jalapeno lime tortilla chips which are one of my personal favorites and my kids personal favorites. They’re super delicious and they are a great snack any time. We also make a line of crackers and sandwich crackers. Cindy: And that’s kind of how it all started, right? Way back in 2001 because you couldn’t find a way to fulfill your pregnancy cravings with organic real ingredients. Am I getting that right? Nicole: That is correct. I was pregnant, I actually started this company when I was pregnant with my first son which is one of those things that at the time seemed like a really good idea because you haven’t had a child yet. But I grew up in sort of a unique situation. My mom had a health food store and my dad owned a potato chip company. So I think that I’m the natural product of when those two people have a child, you’re bound to have somebody who could create a natural product that is a little bit more delicious. And that was my experience with my mom’s health food store in the 1970s was that all of the products, you know had the right idea but they really tasted bad. I mean, it was a pretty sad shelf full of crackers that I had in my childhood. But because my father was really into food and he loved to cook and he also started a potato chip company, K Pop Potato Chips. You know, food and health food, in particular, because of my mom was a big focus of my life. But even back then I knew that health food stores could do better. So when I was pregnant with my first son, I was actually living in New York City at the time. And I really desperately wanted a saltine cracker. It was early in my pregnancy. Because I was highly determined to find one, I went to like six natural food stores. And I couldn’t find anything. I mean, all of the crackers were very similar to what my mom had back in the 70s. I mean, that part of the health food store hadn’t evolved at all. I think it’s like people stereotype natural foods, you know they taste like the cardboard box that they’re packed in. That was very true of what I was finding when I was walking around those New York City health food stores back in 2002. So it dawned on me that even though other parts of the health food store had evolved since my mom’s. That part of the store was very much stuck in the 70s and I knew that I had to do something about it. Cindy: So, you’ve come a long way since then. I know you have something like 30 employees and the number one tortilla chip in that natural and organic aisle where you were looking for it before. And a chance to hit $100 million in sales for the year. And that's just professionally. Personally, I know you have the family, the sons that you mentioned and a husband who's your business partner. So I presume that you have a lot of accomplishments to choose from. But as we always do on #WeGotGoals, we’re going to ask you to narrow it down today. We ask everyone two big questions and the first one is the one I’m going to pose right now. Nicole, what’s a big goal you’ve achieved, why was it important to you and how did you get there? Nicole: I just want to mention one thing, we did already pass $100 million in sales. Cindy: Oh, wonderful. Nicole: You know, I love goal-setting. I think it’s a really important part of achieving. And understanding really what you’re trying to achieve is very, very important I think how we got where we are today. And you know those goals have changed so much since I first started the company and I'm kind of constantly checking and updating those goals. You know there's so many that have been a part of getting us to where we are. But you know just narrowing down a couple that I particularly think helped us. One is way back I mean I'm going to stay back in 2010, my husband and I we run the company together and we set a goal for our team. We discovered that one of the things that we love the most about our company was kind of the way our team work together. But we had a couple of people that we really felt weren't as positive members of the team. So we decided that we were going to revamp the entire way that we did hiring and set a goal to have our entire company be the kind of people that we really wanted to be around. That was supportive of each other just to make our company one of the best places to work that we possibly could. What made that goal a little bit harder back in 2010 is we didn't have as much money back then to pay what you needed to pay. There was a lot of challenges to kind of reaching that goal. But ultimately it also meant that would have to leave positions unfilled potentially until we kind of found that perfect fit. And so what we decided to do was instead of just hiring for a position, we started hiring for cultural fit. And completely changed the way that we interviewed people so instead of just posting a position, looking for a set of criteria, having one or two people interview that person and then hiring the most qualified candidate we decided that the term qualified had a lot of other meanings. And you know that stretched far beyond just hitting the the check boxes of right school major, right past experience and for some of the positions it required us leaving them open for a couple of years actually. And I would say that, I can officially say we met this goal about 4 years after we set it. It took that long to finally get all the open positions filled the way that we wanted to fill them. And I truly believe today that we have the most wonderful team in our industry. I mean everybody thoroughly enjoys working together, we have a group of people that that wakes up everyday ready to support each other and believes in the company and believes in the products. Cindy: That's so interesting because so often people think of goals and really hard, tangible, data-driven terms and that's such an interesting one to set. How did you sort of check, you talked about kind of checking for a progress against those things. How did it, I mean other than just filling those positions. Like what are some ways that you sort of really gauged how successful that effort was? Nicole: I think just employee morale and job satisfaction. Just seeing how our team worked together and also it mean really it's it a tangible filling open positions. I mean at the time when we set it we had the open positions that we needed to fill and under our like new new approach. So once those positions were filled and you know all future positions were done that way. It just became our way of life. Cindy: I’d imagine that was a bit of a struggle at first with your existing employees trying to communicate that message and explain to them why it might take a little bit longer to get the help that you needed. But ultimately I'm sure they could come to understand to how important this was for the health of the whole team how did you kind of navigate that transitional period. Nicole: It is, it actually is very hard. I mean still because it typically took us longer to fill positions than we did in the past and when you’re growing fast that can be a huge problem. But I think what everyone came to realize very quickly was it was much better to have a team that we all enjoyed being around and you know really truly supported each other, than just filling a position. And you know, people became believers in the process. Because they were all part of it too. You know, when somebody joined the company they were typically interviewed by five or six people versus just one or two. Anybody that they might potentially be working with and even a few people they wouldn’t be working with on a day to day process. So everyone kind of bought into it and plus they saw the results. Cindy: And when you think about how that affects your day to day business any can you think of some examples where the team has worked together in a way that you think they might not have been able to before Nicole: Yeah. One of the things that I think is really interesting is when I look at I mean our sales team. We, our sales team works very differently than most sales teams. We have a team that completely doesn't compete against each other. Which I think makes us ultimately more powerful. Our sales team isn't kind of bonused individually. We really look at it as we're all in this together. And what that has meant for some members of that team is they might have something come up like a family emergency, for example. And they can’t go to, this is a true life story, it actually happened. They can’t go to like the most important meeting for their most important customer of the year. And so one of their peers will step in and go to that meeting. Now, in a typical company that might be a threat because if that person performs and does well and then there's a chance that that could kind of come back to impact. Particularly in sales where people tend to be a little bit possessive of their customers. And in our case, the way that we work that’s just one co-worker helping another. Cindy: How do you sort of structure things, so that requires both kind of a different attitude and also like a really different incentive system as you say, right? How are some of the, what are some of the ways that plays out in the way that you kind of actually structure the company? Nicole: Well I think it, one of ways that plays out is you know we encourage a lot of cross functionality. People to kind of understand not just their role but how their role impacts the rest of the company. And particularly team members that they work with all the time but even team members that they just sort of brush up against [...] with like the various things that they’re working on. Because I think when you understand your role in greater context you understand how your choices and your decisions affect the people that you're working with versus when you are very siloed you really don't understand and you don't have a lot of concern for how your choices impact the people that you work with. Cindy: So where do you think all of these ideas came from for you? I mean when you talk about it now it it strikes me that some of this must have come out of the very difficult year that that you had in 2009. Which I mean first of all I'm very sorry for the loss of your father, I know that that was a tough time. And that you went through some learnings in terms of getting comfortable with areas of the business that you didn't know much about before that you weren't as involved in before. Is that something that kind of informed the way you've set up this newer hiring structure? Nicole: I mean it is, I mean really as you mentioned 2009 was just an incredibly difficult year. I mean personally, professionally, really in every way. It was the death of my father somebody who you know, hero, mentor, somebody who I kind of looked up to and felt I really needed. To his death resulting in our bank triggering a death of a member clause in our loan agreement. And forcing us in the height of the recession to replace debt and the significant amount of debt for the company. And ultimately kind of through that it forced my husband I to take a hard look at who we were at Late July and what we wanted this company to really become. And a couple of interesting things happened. One, we decided life is short you just don't, you really as an entrepreneur I have an incredibly positive outlook and usually my brain can't even compute failure. I mean it just doesn’t go there and I actually, I manage stress I think kind of weirdly well but kind of even given all that we just took a hard look at who we wanted to be and how we wanted to feel and how we wanted our team members to feel. And out of that we just really needed late July to be a place that. People were passionate about our mission already. But just that people were passionate about the work experience they were having. And I think bigger than that even for Peter and I was deciding who Late July wanted to be as a company. And part of kind of our early days in the cracker side of our business was something that I think was really important to building our foundation and discovering what we cared about from a mission standpoint. But the products were I think, they tasted great but I just I didn't have the passion that I needed to for where our company was headed and we made a lot of difficult decisions that year in addition to revamping the personality side of our company and the culture side of our company. We decided that as a brand we wanted to stand for something a little bit more in terms of health. And we actually decided to get out of cookies which was a significant amount of our business at that time. We were doing probably $9 million in sales and cookies were $2 million of them. So it was a big deal. And go into tortilla chips which was something both my husband and I really really were passionate about. I tried to get my father to launch them at K Pop Potato Chips but he felt pretty strongly that they were a potato chip company and that was sort of out of their area of expertise. But I felt really strongly about them and so did my husband. And this kind of comes to our next goal which I think is really probably a crazier one. But as a cracker company, we decided we wanted to become the number one tortilla chip in the natural business, in the natural aisle. And coming out of this incredibly difficult year, that was what we had decided to become. And in 2010, we started working on tortilla chips. And taking our company in this completely new direction. Cindy: Once you had finally decided this. What were some of the steps along the way that took you from okay we're going to go this whole new way to achieving that success? To being the number one tortilla chip in this aisle? Nicole: Well step one was just launching the tortilla chips, which took us almost the full year. And they officially hit shelves in December of 2010. And they were not off to the greatest start. You know, which I think was a little bit scary because we had just bet our entire company’s future on this launch. You know, and I think that was kind of the first big learning for us. Was okay, we’re going into this new category, it’s much more competitive. You know, you have to sell a lot more tortilla chips to succeed than you do crackers. So you know we kind of dug in to really understand what was causing that and we realized that because we were kind of new to this category we needed to build our brand awareness. So we just picked a couple of accounts, really built up our brand in those before kind of spreading our wings into a broader amount of stores. So we spent that full year just succeeding in the couple of accounts that we were in. And in relatively short order, I think when you kind of put your mind to it like that, we were. I think we might have become the number 3 or something in the first year. So we right away, in the accounts we were in got a high degree of success. And I attribute that to the taste of our products. It’s one thing you really need the repeat consumers and I’ve always believed that as a natural products brand, we have an obligation for the entire industry to make our products taste great. Because when the consumer has a bad experience with one natural product they make an assumption about everything. And in addition to the obligation to the greater industry, no consumer is ever going to buy a snack twice if they don’t like the way it tastes. Cindy: Right, right. So how do you go about making sure that they do taste great? Nicole: You know, I think in addition to constantly testing our products versus our competitors and making sure that everyone in our company's eating them and loving them. It's being really ready to hear criticisms and understand how to make things better. Until you're 100% satisfied never launch a product. So many people launch just to meet deadlines or they need a new item. We've never done that at Late July. Until something is 100% ready it will not be for sale. No matter what. Cindy: That’s interesting to hear you say. And also its interesting to kind of hear you say how you set about launching the tortilla chips. That you really did go deep into a couple markets because one of the things that I was wondering was. You know you haven't necessarily launched a new line since then until now or a major new product anyway. And that seems like different from the way many food companies operate. It seems like for you it’s been kind of an intentional strategy to go slow and to focus more on taste and perfection. Than on just chasing the next new thing. Would you say that’s been part of your success? Nicole: Absolutely, I mean you know the tortilla market is huge and for us there was really no need to expand past that. You know, particularly for the early days of our launch. Singular focus on kind of becoming the number one requires all of your effort and your team's effort. When we felt like spreading ourselves too thin would just kind of deal reaching that goal. Cindy: Are there kind of practical ways as you as went along this route that you kind of reinforce that focus within your team and to your employees? Nicole: I mean, I think it's interesting is that the name of this podcast as #WeGotGoals. And you know I think every meeting should have a goal. And, you know, no matter what our team was doing, we always kept that goal in the back of our mind. In particular, when it came to the tortilla chips. I think that understanding how you’re tracking versus your goal too. So you know in an account or in a retailer, where do you rank? And how are you doing? And making sure that every time you're meeting with someone, you're understanding what you're hoping to get out of that meeting. That sounds very simple but it's also very very important. Cindy: Right, I remember reading an example of one of your early sales calls where someone asked you what is there anything else you want to talk about. And you said yeah I actually just what your answer. It’s so simple but as you say really effective, right? That you just knew what you wanted and you put it on the line and and then you ended up getting what you needed out of that meeting, right? Nicole: Yeah, I mean that’s an excellent example. A lot of that came from just sheer desperation in that meeting. But if you don't even know what you want your definitely not going to get it. And I think clearly articulating what you want helps people. It helps. We’re all in this together, in our industry. And certainly within the company and understanding kind of what your objectives are and how that other person can help you achieve them is really a great step in actually achieving them. Cindy: Right, and it seems like that kind of mindset shift can also help with what you were just talking about in terms of responding to criticism too, right? That if you keep in mind that your ultimate goal, what you really want, is to improve your product. Then you can sort of start to see people who are giving you that feedback even if it's somewhat negative as people who are helping you along the way versus people who are sort of out to get you, right? It seems like that would be a much more optimistic way to look at that. Nicole: Well I think that’s absolutely true and I mean I think that's true for everything. We're all just kind of learning and growing and none of us are perfect. So you know the more receptive you are too kind of hearing things that could be done better, the more likely you are to improve faster. Cindy: So now you are in the middle of launching two new product lines - salsa and popcorn. Why did you decide that now was the time to do that and why these particular products? Nicole: Well the salsa I think is an obvious choice for a tortilla chip company. We're constantly being asked to partner with salsas and plus they're just like right next to the tortilla chips in the store. And I love making salsa at home but it’s not always practical. Sometimes you just need a shelf-stable salsa that you can take with you wherever you’re going. And this is again something that we worked on for many, many years because I was very reluctant to get into salsa because fresh salsa just tastes so much better than jar salsa. But ultimately we determine that there was enough of a need for having a shelf-stable salsa that you can just take with you anywhere that didn't require refrigeration and we were able to come up with one that we were proud of. So we felt it was time to launch it. And I think also with the salsa it’s interesting, not a lot of people are doing certified organic in salsa. And sometimes we feel that that’s our role in a category too. To kind of push people towards certified organic, certainly in tortilla chips. Us coming in as a certified organic tortilla chip has really shifted the category. We’re seeing more and more people experimenting with organic particularly now that we are the number one tortilla in both the natural aisle and the natural aisle of grocery stores. We’re number one in both. People are realizing that the number one can be organic. There are enough consumers out there that do want that, that do care about that. As long as it tastes great, I think in salsa that’s something that people weren’t really pushing that envelope. The majority of salsa out there isn’t certified organic. Cindy: So, this may or may not lead to the next question but it is about the future. What is a big goal that you have for the future and how do you plan to achieve that whether that's salsa related or are completely different? Nicole: I think it’s interesting, I also feel like as an entrepreneur it's important to have goals outside of work as well. And you know as I look to my future, my kids are getting older. I have an almost 16 year old, an almost 12 year old. I feel like kind of stepping back a little bit and looking at my family for personal inspiration for my goals. Is how can I balance a little bit better kind of my two worlds. And the whole idea of work-life balance I feel like is a little bit of a sham. Particularly for entrepreneurs. I never unplug or turn off. Even on vacation but I do feel like it’s interesting. You know you think when your kids get older, it requires a little bit less for parents. But I’m finding the opposite is actually true. That you really do need to be more to available and more present for them as they’re getting into their teenage years. So trying to kind of figure out how to balance everything. And I almost hate to use the word balance just because it’s kind of an unreachable goal. But that’s something that I’ve been personally working on as far as future. And I know that’s not work related but I think it’s very important for entrepreneurs. To kind of have personal goals too. And some of the things I’ve been experimenting with are working from home some days. We have the company set up so that it allows flexibility so that other people can do that too. Making sure that we’re eating dinner as a family if not five, at least four nights out of the week. Kind of mini goals I’ve set along the way for us and with the ultimate goal of making sure that I am present and available as my kids kind of enter this next phase of their life. Cindy: I'm actually really glad to hear you say that. Something that does strike me. I actually don't have kids but when I think about kids growing from small children where they have a lot of physical needs and then when they need to be driven places at cetera to now. Where maybe they have as you're saying like sort of higher-level needs that take more of your brain power to, to serve. Even if they don't always take as much actual time in terms of transit or cooking or or whatever those physical needs are. So I think it's really interesting the way you're thinking about how to make all of this this fit. Nicole: You know, I think it's interesting that even for our employees that don't have kids. I think it's just kind of learning too. That is okay, doesn't make you less successful of a person to kind of prioritize your private life. And that not to make that a conversation that should be hidden away. I know that when we have people who join Late July that come from much, much larger companies,, it’s a conversation people are reluctant to have. People don’t want to say we’ll I’m not available then because I have to go to my kids school or I’m not available because I have to help like an elderly parent. Or I have to take my dog to the vet. Whatever it is, we all have lives and when you’re a high achieving person you have to not hide that. I think we all have to be okay with putting that out front and having open conversations about it. Because the reality is everybody has obligations outside of work and you know it’s not something to be ashamed of. I think it’s something that as long as you’re achieving and getting your job done and it’s not impacting co-workers negatively, we should learn how to accommodate each other in a healthy way. Cindy: And you have sort of some different factors in your particular situation too because, you know, you started this as a family business. An