Podcasts about Ooh

If a BigBoss Monologs but your technically not there to see it, does it count?www.RollMongers.comwww.TeeSpring.com/RollMongers for Merch!www.Patreon.com/RollMongers Thank You For your needed Support, because sponsors don't pay you, they just give you free stuff lol!Also Thanks to our new sponsor "Devin Night" for providing use with all his art work minis with the folks at Fantasy Grounds to use here!https://immortalnights.com/tokensite/​Music:Intro: Star wars soundtrack x-wing formation by Kurt Thomlinson"Cyber punk Bar""Cyber Punk City""Space battle""Busy Space Port""Dying Planet""Starship medical""Starship Bridge""Deep Space eva""Alien night club""1940's office"All by Table top audio .comStar Wars - The Force Theme (Far Out Remix)"GAurdians" by Evan King""Dark Choir" by Mattili Cupellai musicFREE LICENSE TO USE: https://gum.co/hhVjx​DOWNLOAD: https://gum.co/hhVjx​www.youtube.com/user/MattiaCupelliMusic​"Satiate" By Kevin Macleod"Scientific Reasoning" by TechnoAxewww.youtube.com/channel/UCtgf00GvfFQV...​"Enchiridion" by Evan King"End This" by Evan King"Tactics" by Alex Lisi"Helipad Siege" - Alex lisi"Speed Chase"- Alex lisi"Match" by Alex Lisi"War Gods" Alex lisi all on you tubewww.youtube.com/channel/UC2Wkg85Gabk3...​Crossing the chasm by Kevin MacleodKevin-9-1 – Crossing-the-chasmSuper hero by Tabletop audio @ Tabletop audio.comStar Wars Soundtrack | X-Wing Formation (Fan-Made) by Kurt TomlinsonTrukmai – Star-wars-ost-x-wing-formation-fan-made-1External terminal By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – Eternal-terminalDarkling (Destructive device) By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – DarklingMalicious By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – MaliciousMusic maker test 2Inductrial CinematicKevin-9-1 – Industrial-cinematicOribital promonade by tabletop audioStar Wars - The Force Theme (Far Out Remix)@faroutofficial...Desertwinds by Tabletop audio.comOutroImperial march remix by Goblins from marsGoblinsfrommars – Star-wars-imperial-march-goblins-from-mars-trap-remix-free-downloadMusic in this videoLearn moreListen ad-free with YouTube PremiumSongDark Side BeatArtistGoblins from MarsAlbumGoblin Instrumentals And BeatsLicensed to YouTube byRecord Union (on behalf of Goblins from Mars)Music in this videoLearn moreListen ad-free with YouTube PremiumSongDark Side BeatArtistGoblins from MarsAlbumGoblin Instrumentals And BeatsLicensed to YouTube byRecord Union (on behalf of Goblins from MarsOUTROOriginal track is "Feel it still" by Portugal the ManParody Lyrics:I keep the force to myselfAll because the emperor ruined it for everyone elseWe gotta find a place to hideGuess we`re going underground nowOoh woo I'm a rebel just for kicks nowI`ve been rocking it since order 66 nowThe force is strong, and I feel it stillOoh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks nowWhy`d the emperor say order 66 nowBut the force is strong and I feel it stillGotta make it out to TheedGonna reason with the senators try to make it better nowSomewhere out theres gotta be freeI guess I`ll head to Alderran nowOoh woo I'm a rebel just for kicks nowI`ve been rocking it since order 66 nowThe force is strong, and I feel it stillOoh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks nowWhy`d the emperor say order 66 nowBut the force is strong and I feel it stillWe should fight a war for peace(Ooh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks now)Ressurect the Jedi, bring the emporer down to his kneesThe Sith mean nothing to meI should strike them all down now(Ooh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks now)There'll be no aquittal for the sith who killed the littlePa-da-wansHe is my enemyIs he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming back?Ooh Woo I'm a rebel just for kicksand I'm gonna keep on going till the galaxy is fixed nowCause the force is strong and I feel it st

Ooh lots of ground to cover this week, as get this, Corran Horn is leaving Yavin 4!  With about half of the book left, will we finally start the book?  […]

Ooh, a steampunk one!  You can tell because of the brown and the gear and the goggles and all.  Oh, I guess it also says steampunk on there, in retrospect […]

For those who have haters, enemies or competitors that are driving you nuts, listen to this sage advice from Napoleon Hill. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Seekers podcast. I am publishing this episode from inside the Napoleon Hill room in my makeshift library. And I want to share with you some thoughts on competitors, on enemies, on people that are frustrating you in your life directly from Napoleon Hill back in 1922. All right. So I'm working right now in the Napoleon Hill library on actually the No BS May newsletter, which is fun. Well you guys don't know, I spend multiple days each month writing out the No BS newsletter, Behind the Scenes newsletter, a bunch of other things. So if you want to hear the thoughts inside of my head, without waiting for my next books to come out, make sure you are a subscriber. You can go get subscribed to nobsletter.com, which is where we have our print newsletter. It comes out twice a month for marketers and it's awesome. But anyway, in these issues, most of the issues I have some kind of something from Napoleon Hill or someone who I respect, personal involvement things from back in the day. And today I was going through a bunch of my old Napoleon Hill magazines and this one was from 1922. And at the very beginning, God, there's so much gold here. Some of these things are in the public domain, I'll be republishing. But yeah, this is from the January, 1922 issue. And at the beginning he has the thing says, the editors thought inspiring epigrams and I actually didn't know what epigrams meant so I had to look up that word. It means like statements. So these are almost like memes or I don't know, quotes or whatever you want to call them. But they're things that he said he had gathered as he studies the motives, which actuated men and their dealings with another. And there's five or six pages of these and they're all these little cool quotes. And so a bunch of them I'm actually republishing in this month's newsletter, but there were five or six that were in a row all about enemies. And it's actually interesting because those who don't know Napoleon Hill's story, he had a business partner when he launched his first magazine called Hills Golden Rule. And then eventually his business partner screwed him over. I don't know the whole story behind it, but in fact, I have the issue. It was March, 1921 when it shifted from Hills Golden Rule magazine to the Golden Rule. And basically his partner, I believe, kicked him out. And so he did what any good entrepreneur would do. And he started a new one, so he started his own magazine a year later called the Napoleon Hill magazine. And it's interesting as you read his writings, he doesn't say exactly it at all times, but he's very much blatantly like, "Hey, I got screwed over here." Not so much that, but he's talking about the circumstances and what he's learned throughout it. But it was interesting because in this issue, he's talking about enemies. And so I don't know if he's specifically talking about the enemy who was his partner in the Hills Golden Rule magazine or something different, but he has five or six bullet points. And again, I don't know if he wrote these, if they're quotes he found from other people, a lot of them do sound like him the way he talks. The more I read him, the more I understand him and I feel like these are his thoughts. So in fact he says on here, "This is the page of condensed philosophies." And so these are condensed philosophies and there's five or six of them here specifically about your enemies. I thought were fascinating, so I wanted to share just a couple of those here with you. So the first one says, do not try to destroy your enemies. Only combat them to the point of holding them in check so that they cannot destroy you. And from that point on, thank God that you have enemies because they keep you alert, active on the job and at work on the plan to keep them from getting the better of you. This develops strength and power in you that you would've never otherwise known. And as I read that, I was like, "Oh, this is so cool." Right now, I'm sure you guys see, ClickFunnels, we're the first funnel builder. And now there's a whole bunch of knock offs and competitors and things. And part of me gets annoyed and angry about it. But then, after reading this, I'm like, "You know what? The reason why we built 2.0, the reason why we're doing what we're doing, the reason why we are about to come in and just rock the entire marketplace is because of these enemies." Because these people who are fighting against us. And so it keeps you sharp, keeps you alert. Wrestling the same thing, the better the opponents I had, the better I became because I to get good enough to beat those people. Having really easy matches didn't help me ever. It was the competition that made me great. That was really cool. Here's another one. It says, "If our enemies are constantly watching us, we are careful not to let them find a weak spot in our fortifications. And this eternal watch list develops qualities in us, which we would otherwise permit to lie dormant." Again, they're watching you, they're trying to figure things out. Don't give them your weak spots, fortify yourself against these weak spots. And again, it's going to be a benefit to you. Another one he said, "If I had no enemies, it would be necessary for me to go out and to create some because I need them to keep me stimulated to top notch speed and determine to do nothing except that which will pass inspection under the closest sort of scrutiny." Saying, you need enemies. If you don't have them, go out and create some so that you have this new pressure that's pushing you to become more, to do more, to create more. He says, "You will be fortunate when you adopt this philosophy concerning the advantages in having an enemy or two. And you may rest assured that you are developing power and bigness and depth of character. When you can smile, as you watch your enemies, trying to undermine you, knowing that your house is built upon a rock that cannot be disturbed by the destroyer." Oh, he is so good. I love Napoleon Hill. Here's another one. Never give your enemies the satisfaction of involving you in a foolish argument. Ooh, this is for all of us who get in debates on Facebook with our enemies. He says, "Never give your enemies the satisfaction of involving you in a foolish argument. You might as well know in the beginning that neither logic nor right will convince an enemy. Therefore, you will be unwise and waste much valuable time and energy if you stop to argue with a man who's looking only for arguments and not for facts." Ooh, this is so good. And the last one I'll share says, "If you have enemies who are trying to get between you and the star of your definite aim in life, you should pay no attention to the enemies, but increase the luster of that star so it will shine over and above those who would shut it off." Oh, so good. So good. Anyway, Napoleon Hill from the grave. Thank you. He's amazing. And again, one of my favorite authors. And you're going to hear more Napoleon Hill stuff from me, there's some cool things happening, cool projects I'm working on that I'm excited to share with you guys. So I hope you enjoy this episode. If you did, and you have enemies, there's some good advice for you. Don't let the haters hold you back. Don't argue with them. And if you don't have enemies yet, go create some because it will make you sharp. It'll make you better. The competition will make you better at your craft. So hope that helps. Thanks you guys so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.

Matt Schlegel is the Principal of Schlegel Consulting and Evolutionary Teams, he's an entrepreneur and ex Tech Executive and now author of Teamwork 9.0. In this show you can learn: How Matt evolved Teamwork 9.0 and why numbers and not letters? How Teamwork 9.0 plays to “Whole Brain” thinking Neuroscience and the Enneagram How to build problem solving muscles Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com   Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services.   Find out more about Matt below: Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattschlegel/ Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MattSchlegel Company Website: https://evolutionaryteams.com   Full Transcript Below ----more---- Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband, or friend. Others might call me boss, coach, or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker. Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as The Leadership Hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors, and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush, and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you Matt Schlegel is joining me on the show today. He's an author, consultant speaker, and founder of Schlegel Consulting. But before we get a chance to speak with Matt, it's The Leadership Hacker News. The Leadership Hacker News Steve Rush: We've all heard of the great resignation, right? However, employees say and sustainable workloads and expect are the things that are driving to quit. In a recent article by Emmy Lucas of Forbes. She describes that not only unsustainable workloads or one of the top factors contributing to the great resignation, others such as uncaring managers, inadequate compensation, lack of career development are all contributory factors. However, survey completed by McKinsey recently, which queried nearly 600 employees looked at those who'd left without another job lined up and those who returned to work. Much of the analysis of how to solve the great resignation is really focused on giving workers higher pay, better career opportunities and nicer perks and days off and mental therapy and help and better family leave. But there's been less attention paid to actual workloads employees have. And how employees plan to address that issue. 35% of respondent said unsustainable work performance expectations were they reason that they left their job without another in hand. And the same percentage said that they would leave uncaring leaders or a lack of career development. Following these reasons were a lack of meaningful work, better support for employee health and wellbeing, inadequate compensation, but ironically compensation ranked six as a reason of leaving, suggesting that evidence that pay isn't everything. It means something, of course, the report showed that those who work in an environment, they like also find purpose in their work and have better relationships and therefore, probably stick around. When it comes to returning to work. 47% of the 600 respondents polled and about a quarter of those return to non-traditional work, whilst three quarters went back to traditional employment and of those 600 respondents who left without another job lined up, 44% of them said that they'd have little or no interest in returning to the same job doing the same work in the next six months. The highest-ranking reason for why people did return to work in the work they were doing previously was having a strong identity and policy that addresses workplace flexibility. So, post pandemic workplace flexibility includes not just ours, but flexible places, space, time, empathy, understanding. Commitments to the work that they're undertaking. So, organizations and employers really need to take a hard look at whether they're ready and can actually deliver on making the right structural changes to actually deal with things like work overload. As we move into the next phase of change, we're already in the future of work. So, it's really important that the work itself is prioritized. We tend to want to make those quick and easy solutions, but it will take us all effort and time to readjust in the hybrid world or whatever label we choose to give it. So, my leadership hack here is. Often when people leave an organization, we conduct exit interviews. I wonder if it is time for us to have stay interviews, to really get to the heart of understanding. What's really driving the needs and desires of people who want to stay here. And if we listen, adapt, and create the right environments for our teams, our coworkers, and our organization, we're all going to be the beneficiaries of that. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. Really love for you to share any stories, insights on either our social media or through our website. Let's get into the show. Start of Podcast Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Matt Schlegel. He's the principal of Schlegel Consulting and Evolutionary Teams. He's an entrepreneur and ex tech executive. And now the author of teamwork 9.0. Matt, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast. Matt Schlegel: It is a delight to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Steve Rush: It's our delight too. And we always like to kick off our shows to dive in, to find out a little bit about the man behind the magic. So, tell us a little bit about how you, Matt ended up doing what you're doing now and moved away from the tech business to help lead Evolutionary Team. Matt Schlegel: Oh yeah. thank you so much. Yeah, so like you said, you know, I started out with a tech background, studied engineering, electrical engineering. And as I, you know, proceeded through my career, my boss came to me one day and said, hey, Matt, you know, we want you to manage a team. I'm like, why do you want me to manage a team? I know nothing about leading people. I only know about leading electrons. And he is like, don't worry, you'll be fine. Well, I'm not the type to be not worried. So, I was worried. And when I get that way, what I do is, I go and study and get my hands on everything, you know, information I could find and learn about, you know, what it is that I'm embarking on as you know, a leader of people. So, along that journey, I encountered a system called The Enneagram and Enneagram is, you know, commonly understood as a personality system, has nine types that are in the system. And by the time I had encountered The Enneagram, I had already been exposed to other you know, personality systems in the workplace like Myers Briggs and Disc and Strengthfinders, there's a bunch of them. And so, I kind of put it into that category and, you know, I want to use it and I tried it and I used it for myself and my family just to kind of test it out. And I found that it was so powerful and fascinating and helped me understand myself in a way that I'd never understood before and understand my relationships both professionally and personally as, you know, my type interacted with the other types. And so, yeah, so, you know, that fascination just led me on this journey of exploring it more and more. I started to use it in the workplace and had incredible results and that's why I went on to build a consulting practice around that. And you know, eventually wrote my book Teamwork 9.0 to share, you know, some of the learnings that I had along the way. Steve Rush: And was there a pivotal moment for you? Because, you know, let's speak quite frank about it. You're quite modest. You had some big roles in some big organizations, you know, you were part of the PalmPilot evolution, you know, back in the day, there must have been, you know, you were riding the crest of a corporate career at one stage and there must have been a pivotal moment you thought, you know what, I can take what I'm learning and I can share it with others, what actually happened there? Matt Schlegel: Yeah. So, my career you know, it started out in tech. Started in San Diego, I was raised in the Bay Area. And so, when we had children, we wanted to move closer back, you know, to where our families are to raise the kids. And so, I started on the, you know, just that journey of startups and it was just exhilarating to be in that environment, and you know, and developing new products, you know, cutting edge all the way. And so, you know, being in that for, you know, 15 years or so, just very intensely, I got to the point, and I guess it was around 2007, it was during the downturn. And I just had this idea of, you know, one day I wanted to go into consulting and have my own practice. And at that point in my career, I said well, if that's kind of what my long term path is, why not test it out? Why not see if I can start a consulting business and run a consulting business now and, you know, if it works, great, because then, you know, in my dream role, you know, earlier than anticipated. If it doesn't work out, then my Plan B, you know, go back into tech. Well, fortunately and gratefully it did work out really well. And so, I was able to just go down that path and build my consulting practice. And I've been doing it now for 15 years this year. Steve Rush: Yeah. Excellent story. So, when you talk about The Enneagram, it's revolved around nine numbers, which I guess is what's driven the whole Teamwork 9.0. Matt Schlegel: Right. Steve Rush: What is it about the numbers then that is so different with what you do versus then some of the others which are letter driven like Disc and Myers Briggs and the like? Matt Schlegel: Right, as an engineer, you know, one of the things that I found really satisfying about The Enneagram as opposed to some of the other systems is that it, really speaks to, you know, our evolving over time, how our behaviors change over time. And those behaviors will change depending on our stress level. Are we feeling secure or insecure? And our level of maturity. Are we younger? Are we older? And so, this is one of the fascinating things. And if you look at The Enneagram diagram, you'll see these lines within the circle. And that's what those lines are talking about is, how it moves. Well, so that was one aspect. But then I did ask that question, why are they numbers rather than letters? And it turns out there's a reason why they're numbers and it's because it speaks to motion around the outer circle. And so, if you look at The Enneagram, you just look at the circle and numbers, it looks like a clock, right? And just like the hands of a clock, go, you know, clockwise around the circle, The Enneagram is also describing a dynamic of clockwise motion around the circle. And when I thought about it more, I realized, oh, this is describing a process. And these are the steps, the order in that process, one through nine, and it describes the way humans solve problems. It's a problem-solving process. Steve Rush: Right. Matt Schlegel: Once I had that epiphany, I'm like, oh, now I have a problem-solving process. I can work with my teams on. And there is a personality type that's perfectly tuned for each step-in problem solving. And once you have that, you know, model, then you can have, you know, great success with teams understanding how to work teams around problem solving to get results. Steve Rush: So, it's almost kind of decoding the problem inside out, isn't it? Matt Schlegel: Exactly, exactly. And it lets you understand, you know, where your teams are going to be really good at problem solving. It's going to tell you where they might struggle or where, you know, steps they might skip altogether, just because there's no dynamic represented by the team at that point in problem solving. Steve Rush: And from the top to the bottom of those nine steps, there's a neurological and chronological order in the which way we do this, right? Matt Schlegel: This is another thing that before I really dove into The Enneagram, I wanted to make sure that there was some neurological underpinning to the system and it's still very early. And we don't have, you know, really good understanding yet. But I found a fellow who described a model of how you could get those nine distinct types out of two parts of the brain, which is the Amygdala and The Prefrontal Cortex. Each one of those parts, since we have a Bicameral Brain, you're going to have right dominance, left dominance and then a middle, Ambi or Ambiguated. And it's the three states of the Abliqua, times the three states of The Prefrontal Cortex give you the nine types. So that's a model that I came upon and it seems to match well, the behaviors described by those states of the Abliqua and The Prefrontal Cortex match well to the behaviors described by The Enneagram. So, it kind of gave me, you know, at least two ways to look at the way people are behaving that were consistent with one another. Steve Rush: When we first met Matt, I had this kind of look bit of an aha moment around the fact that this is where it can really start to engineer great teamwork and thinking, because if we're thoughtful of what triggers a reaction or a threat response in our Amygdala, which is that part of the brain that regulates the emotion. Matt Schlegel: Right. Steve Rush: We can maybe think about tactically, how we can avoid them. And then we can practically spend more time in our executive thinking, which is that Prefrontal Cortex. And it was that aha moment for me around, ah, that's why there's nine and that's how they kind of fit together. Matt Schlegel: Yes, exactly. And you bring up such a good point. And this, you know, speaks to one of the ways that an individual can use The Enneagram is, once you understand, you know, that  Amygdala trigger in yourself and what that feels like, and what you know, that's going to cause you to do. Once you have an understanding of that at intellectual level, then when you do go into that state, you know, you can know it better and manage it better and then, you know, bring yourself through it and back out to, you know, a more secure and healthy state without inadvertently just letting yourself be taken over by that emotional state. Steve Rush: Right, yeah. So, let's dive into the nine themes. Like, it'd be really helpful just to get a sense of what are they and how they work and how they all related? Matt Schlegel: Right, right. Yeah. So, you know, I'll go around in order and also describe how each one of the types helps in problem solving. You know, so, you know, what's the first step in problem solving? It's, you know, hey, there's a problem. It shouldn't be like that. Steve Rush: Yeah. Matt Schlegel: It should be like this. Well, that's the dynamic of type one. Often called the perfectionist and the perfectionist is the one who's going to like identify, hey, things shouldn't be like that. They should be like this. So, that's the dynamic of one. And then the dynamic of two, speaks to, you know, who cares, right. And that's the next step in problem solving is like, you know, if there's a problem, then you need people to care enough about the problem to actually want to do something, to solve the problem. And type two is called the helper. And so are there are ones who identify, oh, there's something that needs to be done and I'm going to help get that done. So that's step two, and that's the dynamic. Then, you know, step three in problem solving is just coming up with ideas for how to successfully solve the problem. And the dynamic of three is, they're often called the achiever and they're the ones who want to succeed. And there always scanning for, you know, what ideas can I work with and execute for ultimate success. And they also have this wonderful ability to suppress their emotion because every time somebody throws out an idea, you know, most of us are going to go, oh, that's a great idea or, Ooh, that's a terrible idea. Well, the three doesn't have that filter and so when they start throwing out ideas, they can generate lots of ideas, kind of unfiltered. It's like throwing spaghetti against the wall. Steve Rush: Right. Matt Schlegel: Right. So, then you get to step four because step four is to see what sticks, right. It's that, oh, that's a great idea. You know, it's that emotional reaction to any idea and type four they're often called the romantic. But what it's saying is that they are the most emotionally tuned in to, you know, the emotional content in their environment. But it also in problem solving gives you kind of this emotional filter to pass ideas through so that you outcome, you know, the most positive ideas. The ideas that the team wants to pursue and has the emotional energy to pursue because, hey, we still have a long way to get the problem solved, right? Steve Rush: Right. Matt Schlegel: So now we move over into, what's called the head group. The head group is the five, the six and the seven. So, after you have your positive idea, then what you want to do is validate that idea. You need to test it; you need to analyze it. You need to, you know, so you do your pro, con analysis, your cost benefit analysis, and maybe some prototyping to make sure that the idea's going to work. Once you have validated your idea, then you need to build, oh and by the way, type five is called the analyst or the observer. They're the ones who like dig in and go very, very deep and explore ideas and collect lots of information. So, then you go to six. Type six, it's kind of like a planner. They're always thinking about the future, and they map wherever they are, connect the dots into the future to a successful completion of the goal. And so, you have that idea. Now you map into the future, and you create your plan, okay. Next step is, you need to sell the plan to, you know, the rest of the team or the broader collect of stakeholders and get buy-in and that's step seven, that's called often called the enthusiast. So, you can imagine a cheerleader, you know, saying, hey, we found a great idea. Let's go, let's go solve the problem. Steve Rush: Yeah. Matt Schlegel: And get everybody excited, okay. Now what have we done steps one through seven? Talk, talk, talk. Now we get to eight, time for action. The type eight is one of the most action-oriented types and they want to get stuff done, you know, they want to just get to the point and just move forward. And the type eight dynamic is essentially wanting to secure control of the environment. So, it's really a take charge, get stuff done, type of dynamic. And then finally we get to nine, you know, you think, oh, after the eight's done, you know, oh, okay. We solve the problem. And inevitably whenever you have any kind of transformational change, some feathers are going to be ruffled and some toes are going to be stepped on. And so, what you want to do is, you know, have the conversations to smooth out and integrate the solution with the broader community. And that's the dynamic of nine, is listening, understanding other people's perspectives and trying to reduce and conflict and harmonize with everybody. And inevitably in those conversations, people are going to identify new problems, which is why The Enneagram is a circle Steve Rush: And it goes round again. Matt Schlegel: Exactly. Steve Rush: Yeah. Matt Schlegel: So that's in a nutshell, that's the dynamic. Steve Rush: So, if I completed an assessment on Enneagram, would it give me a kind of a push and a pull kind of, so I might be strong in a nine, but less in a one, how would it kind of play out as a result? Matt Schlegel: Right, and that's a great question. And, you know, I advise people when they take an assessment to just, you know, use it as a process of eliminate because whenever most people take the assessment, they score highly on two or three types and low on other types. So, you eliminate the low scoring types, and you keep the higher scoring types. Steve Rush: Right. Matt Schlegel: And, you know, the first time I took the assessment, I scored highest on type eight. But I'm not a type eight. It turns out I was a type six and that was my second highest scoring. But I was in an environment where I had to behave like an eight and environment the encouraged me to be like an eight. And so, when I'm taking the assessment, it's like, yep, I do that, yep, I do that. Yep, I do that. But it wasn't really speaking to, you know, the way I would like innately, you know, respond is just my environment was encouraging me to respond in that way. So, you know, that's pretty common. And so, when you have, you know, high scoring on several types, then you have to kind of go to that next level of understand those types, understanding the underlying motivators of each types, and then identifying which of those motivations best match with your internal innate motivation. Steve Rush: Got it. So, is there a naturally occurring opportunity or is there a natural occurring time when it's best to do this? Matt Schlegel: Oh yeah. It's probably okay to do it anytime if you are interested in, you know, knowing more about yourself, knowing what, you know makes you tick and knowing that, you know, having that knowledge will make you, you know, a better leader, a better entrepreneur, you know, it just can improve, you know, all of the relationships that you have in your life, both personally and professionally. So, you're ready for that, then that's the best time to take the test and then start to ask those questions about yourself. You know, what is making me tick? You know, where is it that I excel? Where is it that I'm not as interested? And I want to put people around me that can, you know, compliment my skillset so that we can be an ever stronger and more effective team. Steve Rush: And I love the whole idea as well, that, you know, when you first did it, you came out as an eight, but actually you recognize you're more of a six and it's important that we don't just do this once in isolation, that we may be revisit it from time to time to ensure that we fully understand that, how the environment's impacting on our behaviors as well, right? Matt Schlegel: Exactly. And once you do understand your dominant type, you know, and I kind of look at it this way, it's like handedness, you know, our brain has dominance that drive our handedness and it will, you know, people will say they're right-handed or lefthanded, or maybe you know, they're ambidextrous, well, the same way with your Prefrontal Cortex and the same way with your Amygdala. And so, you know, one of these Enneagram types tends to be more dominant than the others. And that's kind of your starting point. And then you can, you know, once you know that, then you can see yourself change over time based on that Enneagram model and those lines within The Enneagram. Steve Rush: So, is there a perfect map for a team? So, you've just studied this for years, and I'm just curious to find out whether or not you've noticed a pattern occur over that period of time that said, in order to have the perfect mix across a team, this is what it might look like. Matt Schlegel: Yeah. And so, you know, I'll start off and say, you know, it's highly unlikely that any team that you come across is going to be completely and well balanced. For whatever reason, you know, you're not going to have all nine types represented on your team. Steve Rush: Right. Matt Schlegel: When you start to, you know, work with a team to try to, you know, solve a problem, you know, if you have an initiative that you want to, you know, bring your team together to tackle, what I found is, you need to pull people in from whichever starting point they're at. Pull them into the dynamic of that step-in problem solving, right. So, you know, step one is that, you know, let's define the problem and take the time to get everybody to think through what is the problem from their perspective. And then also think. Once the problem is solved, you know, what will the world look like? So, in that step, you're essentially getting your list of things that need to be solved, and then also creating a vision for the team of how the world would look like once the problem is solved. And, you know, and even though you might not have any type ones on your team and type ones would just naturally get this, but you can pull people into that if, you know, direct the team to actually focus on it and make sure that all the voices are heard. And so that's how I use it. I just pull people into that dynamic and then work through the various steps so that the team systematically hits each one of those energies. Steve Rush: Yeah. And I suspect also, if you are highly dominant in any one of these nine, then that also becomes then a development area I suspect. Matt Schlegel: Right. Right. And, you know, and this speaks to, you know, how people want to play to their strengths, right. So, they want to jump to that, you know, point in problem solving where they're naturally gifted, right. So, the eights want to jump right into action, you know, so they already have a sense, I know what needs to happen, let's just go do it, you know, and they want to jump straight to type eight, or excuse me, step eight, without having worked through, you know, the other steps. And so, you'll see this in teams, you know, so if you go into a team that is dominated by a type eight leader, you know, you'll find that the team has kind of learned to just, you know, do what the eight said. And then, the type eight leader might confide in me and say, you know, I really wish the team would take more initiative and you know, come up with ideas and execute them themselves. Steve Rush: Mm Matt Schlegel: Well, right. And I'll say, well, you know, you would need to let them do that in their way, working through those steps, because the team might not have that same intuition about what to do that you do. So, if you want to encourage them to, you know, take initiative, you have to allow them to do it in their way, which won't be your way and give them the space and the time to work through this process. Steve Rush: Hmm. Matt Schlegel: So, that's one of the ways I guide, you know, my clients who are type eight leaders is to, you know, let them work through the process and let them kind of build that problem, solving muscle themselves. So, they're not always relying on the type eight leader for direction. Steve Rush: Right. And I also wonder if a type eight leader might make assumptions by jumping straight in at eight that could have been identified by going through the steps proceeding that? Matt Schlegel: Well, of course, you know, when you jump straight to action you know, you are having assumptions and you're making assumptions and, you know, the interesting thing about the type eight you know, they're in the intuitive group, which is the eight, nine and one. So, they already have intuition about what it is that they want to do. The other interesting thing about eight is that they don't really dwell on, you know, failure, you know, they're happy to just jump in, try something, hey, it doesn't work, okay. Let's adjust and you know, do a course direction and start going in this direction, right. So, they will, you know, just, you know, by always acting iterate towards the solution without necessarily stepping back and taking time to think things through. This works great for type eights, but, you know, for those of us who aren't type eights, it can be a little uncomfortable because, you know, like type six right. We're trying to map the dots into the future, right. And we're thinking, but if we do this, then this could happen or that could happen. And then our brains start racing on, you know, all of the problems and that we want to try to mitigate, but, you know, rather than, you know, crashing into the wall and then changing direction. So, you know, and that's where a dynamic, you know, that's just like a six, eight dynamic that happens on teams. Steve Rush: Yeah. So, you wrote the book Teamwork 9.0. Matt Schlegel: Yeah. Steve Rush: How does that differentiate from the traditional Enneagram? What would be the kind of the extra layer of context they get from that? Matt Schlegel: Right. So, the thing that I really wanted to focus on in my book was that dimension of problem solving, and, you know, there are many books about The Enneagram as a personality system. So, I didn't want to write another book just about the personality side of The Enneagram. What I wanted was to take that and then build onto it that dimension of working through that outer circle of The Enneagram in order of those steps with teams to you know, show that The Enneagram has this other dimension to it, of a problem-solving process. And so that's where I talk about the problem-solving process. I give some case studies and anecdotes. I talk about as a leader, you know, how do you respond when your team doesn't have a specific strength in problem solving and how to overcome that? How to get each of the team members to step up, I call it shared leadership, you know, because if you know, you have somebody who's really strong at a certain point will then encourage them to take the lead at that step and problem solving. I talk about the creativity, you know, each type brings a distinct creativity to problem solving. So, there's, you know, a number of aspects that you can apply The Enneagram to when it's in the context of team, problem solving. Steve Rush: Love it. And we'll have an opportunity to share with our listeners at the end of the show, how they can get hold of some of that information too, before we get there, want to dive into and hack into your leadership brain. Now having led and worked with numbers of teams all over the world to distill all of that great knowledge and learning you've had on your career, Matt and hack into those top three leadership hacks, what would they be? Matt Schlegel: Right. So, you know, the first thing that, you know, I mentioned at that opening story, you know, is, I realize that you know as a type six, that worrying is a part of my dynamic and that is caused by anxiety. So, you know, the five, six and seven are in the thinking group or head group, but the underlying issue for us is anxiety. I have this like feeling in my gut, that's kind of a constant friend I have, and I could feel it kind of go up or down. I like a thermometer and The Enneagram gave me a word for that. It's like, oh, that's anxiety. That's, what's causing that. Steve Rush: Yeah. Matt Schlegel: But it's also, you know, it's like a nuclear furnace for me. It gives me tremendous energy. And now that I know what's going on, I can use that and say, okay, well, where am I right now? Am I feeling comfortable? Are we headed in a good direction or my Spidey senses telling me, oh, you know, something amiss and we need to kind of reflect and look back? So, you know, so that's one way as a leader learned to just be more conscientious of my internal state, both to, you know, understand myself, but also to make sure that, you know, whatever is causing my anxiety, doesn't spill out over into my relationships with my team that, you know, might adversely affect our forward progress, right. Steve Rush: Right. Matt Schlegel: So that's you know, I think just that self-awareness is super important. And then, you know, the other aspect is, you know, once you understand yourself, you can really start to understand the dynamics of the other folks on your team. And they really appreciate this because you are understanding them in a way that helps you better communicate with them, helps them better motivate themselves, you know, and you can put them in roles where they can really thrive and show off their natural gifts and allows you to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with your team, so that you can better build rapport and trust with them, which is another key to leadership. Steve Rush: And your third Matt Schlegel: And the third I would say is, you know, once you have that, then you can understand what your, you know, the strengths and weaknesses of your team. And then what you want to do is like realize, okay, I have gaps in my I team. I want to make sure that, you know, we have a diversity of perspectives and so many people are talking about the need for diversity on teams. And there are many dimensions of diversity, but I would also say that, you know, be aware of style diversity. Steve Rush: Yeah. Matt Schlegel: Because people tend, you know, to like people like themselves. That's why we have the saying, you know, birds of a feather flock together. And, you know, if you're a hiring manager and then you're hiring people, you like, what's going to happen is, you're going to build a lopsided team. So having the understanding of, you know, the value of having a more diverse team in terms of styles, you're going to get, you know, a better set of ideas to work with. And you're going to have, you know, better overall outcomes, because you have all of these different perspectives that are adding to the overall success. Steve Rush: I love that last one. Difference makes a difference. Matt Schlegel: Yes, exactly. Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, we actually call it Hack to Attack. Matt Schlegel: Okay. Steve Rush: So, in essence, this is where something is just screwed up. It hasn't worked out well, maybe it's been catastrophic, but as a result of the experience, you've now taken that as a learning, and it's now a force of good in your life or work, what would be your Hack to Attack? Matt Schlegel: Yes. And you know, so one of the things that I've learned, you know, as a person who is somewhat based in anxiety, I tend to be on the cautious side. And so, I might overcompensate on being too cautious. And so that's one of the things I have to, you know, I've learned about myself. And then I learn, you know, and this is where I can, you know, value the perspectives of others who, you know, aren't necessarily as prone to that perspective. And then, you know, tap into that dynamic when I need to. And that's been a great learning for me, and it's allowed me to better appreciate the other perspectives and the other members of my team so that I can, you know, rely on them when my anxiety might start to, you know, get too much. So, I would say, you know, one of the, you know, bigger learnings I've had to, you know, deal with personally and overcome personally Steve Rush: All starts with self-awareness again, though, doesn't it? Matt Schlegel: It does. Steve Rush: Yeah. Matt Schlegel: It does. And I think, you know, that was the starting point. That self-awareness was the starting point for some of, you know, the best learning and experiences that I had in my career. That's why I got so excited about this and wanted to pursue it and write the book Steve Rush: Exactly. Last part of the show. We get a chance for you to do a bit of time travel bump into Matt at 21 and give them some advice. You have a chance giving some words of wisdom, what would they be? Matt Schlegel: Yeah, that's a great question. And if you ask my kids, they'll tell you what it is because they know, and that's you know, learn The Enneagram. Learn that, you know, style is, learn, you know, how that's influencing your behaviors and your decision making and learn that, you know, your style, isn't the only style. It's not the correct style. It's not the right style, you know, and once you understand that, you know, there are these distinct styles and that you can now put them into context of, you know, it's valid to just be, you know, like the type four swimming and emotions, what does that bring to the party? How does that help the team move forward with that, you know, connection to emotions or, you know, where are the intuitive people that sense of how is that informing the team? And so, just that appreciation of you know, where each type is coming from is hugely important. And I think as a young person, to be able to appreciate that and understand the value in it, you know, just makes you have a better appreciation for all the people in your life. Steve Rush: Great advice, as you are sharing that, you know, I'm thinking I need to get my young teenagers and my kids in their early twenties into this, because actually the more dynamically they're aware of things, the more it can help them. And also, I wonder if this works across the family as well, right? Matt Schlegel: Absolutely. Steve Rush: Yeah. Matt Schlegel: You know, and this is really, you know, how it's commonly used to help people, you know, understand, you know, the dynamics with, you know, in your personal relationships. It's, you know, very valuable for that, because then you can end up you know, avoiding, you know, conflicts and understanding if you do go down the path of conflict, why that's happening and then how to get back out and great tool for that. And then young people, you know, they're experimenting with different relationships in their life, you know, and then, you know, having a framework for, oh, okay, well, I'm a type eight. And I was, you know, I had a relationship with a type nine. And what did that feel like? How did that work? Is that feel right for you? You know, and at least understand and navigate those relationships a little bit better when you have that framework to work with. Steve Rush: Awesome stuff. So, as folk have been listening to this, Matt, I'm pretty certain they're thinking I need to get a copy of Teamwork9.0. I need to find out a little bit more about The Enneagram. And of course, you've got a bunch of resources that can help them. Where's the best place that we can send them so they can connect with your work? Matt Schlegel: Oh yeah. Thank you so much. So, my website is evolutionaryteams.com. So that's all one-word evolutionaryteams, and there you'll find you know, some resources, there's a complimentary assessment. Enneagram assessment that you're welcome to take there. And also, you can find out information about teamwork 9.0, and then I blog and share, you know, different topics on leadership decision making and teamwork. And I'm doing a series of interviews with leaders who are using their essentially self-awareness about their emotional state in their leadership practice and how that motivates, inspires, and drives their leader of behaviors. So, it's really fascinating stuff. Steve Rush: Great. We'll put those links and the links to your social media connections as well in our show notes. So, folk can connect with you as soon as they finish listening to this. Matt Schlegel: Well, thank you so much, Steve. I really appreciate it. Steve Rush: Matt, it's been fascinating talking. I am incredibly excited about the different dynamics that Teamwork9.0 brings about, and actually how that can help other teams become more effective in their work that they do. And thank you for coming and sharing your stories and being part of our community on The Leadership Hacker Podcast. Matt Schlegel: Well, thank you so much, Steve. I really enjoyed the conversation. Steve Rush: Me too. Thanks, Matt.   Closing Steve Rush: I want to sign off by saying thank you to you for joining us on the show too. We recognize without you, there is no show. So please continue to share, subscribe, and like, and continue to get in touch with us with the great new stories that we share every week. And so that we can continue to bring you great stories, please make sure you give us a five-star review where you can and share this podcast with your friends, your teams, and communities. You want to find us on social media. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter @leadershiphacker, Leadership Hacker on YouTube, and on Instagram the_leadership_hacker and if that wasn't enough, you can also find us on our website leadership-hacker.com. Tune into the next episode to find out what great hacks and stories are coming your way. That's me signing off. I'm Steve Rush, and I've been your Leadership Hacker

Ooh, I just know that something good is gonna happen… on show #244 of Neon Nights – “Cloudbusting”  (hosted by John von Ahlen / Parralox & Costa Lakoumentas) – the sun's... LEARN MORE The post Show 244 – Cloudbusting appeared first on Neon Nights.

Consider this as an invitation to take your healing journey and personal development journey to the next level.Marina Nabão is embodiment coach dedicated to supporting people through a trauma-informed journey of somatic healing and empowerment. She is a Brazilian, biracial, Black, cis-woman living in the SF Bay Area, CA.As a daughter of a psychologist and a philosopher, curiosity and the search for a broader understanding of life is her natural state. So it’s no surprise that her own search to understand her inner world and grow in all areas of life – professional, relational, affective, sexual, and spiritual – have taken her on a very rich journey.This episode we discussHow trauma remains in the bodyStages of healingHealing through meaningful self-connectionSomatic work for non-binary folxDalia: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Body Liberation for All. I'm your host and decolonize wellness and body image coach Dalia Kinsey. I help queer folks of color heal their struggles with shame self-acceptance through nutrition and self-care so they can live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of their lives.Today I have a special guest on the show to talk about a subject that's really been calling my attention a lot lately. I have been rereading The Body Keeps the Score and thinking about the ways that trauma and unprocessed emotions get trapped in the body.I've noticed myself some very strong reactions to seemingly minor incidents in my life at work clearly connected to previous negative experiences and racialized trauma is just like any other kind of trauma. You can have issues with purging these negative sensations from your body and having a very powerful instantaneous, negative trauma, like response to anything that reminds you of these past experiences.So, embodiment work and focusing on the body and those sensations and moving them along so that I can have a reaction that feels manageable to stressful things is what I'm focused on right now. So, I’m so excited to have Marina here, Marina works with them, body meant and trauma of all kinds. The things that Marina discusses, and this episode will be useful for everyone, but very useful for somebody working with trauma, you've already gotten other treatment for that you still aren't feeling peace around, because the embodiment piece has been missing from your healing work so far.This is such a good conversation. Let's jump right in.Body Liberation for All ThemeYeah. They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them live your life just like you like it is.It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.Dalia: Hello. Thank you for being on the show.Marina: Yeah. Thanks for having me so excited to have this conversation.Dalia: I am excited, always to connect with other folks of color from all over the world, but in particular folks of color that do healing work that come from different cultural backgrounds, especially anybody connected to the diaspora.  I just get super excited about that, because it's interesting to me to see how as you change, as you kind of become part of the country that your ancestors were pulled into and you become a blend of the different peoples that are from there. And then the people who colonize that area, we all have really interesting ways of manifesting some of the old healing traditions, you know, that we have no possible conscious way of connecting to.It's just beautiful to see how nothing is ever lost and keep coming back to the surface and it looks different on different people and in different parts of the world.Marina: Yeah. I love that cause I love that integration of the different ways that we can approach healing and really reclaiming the old ways of healing that have big been parts of generations of the original people of the planet.  Dalia: Right. Right, exactly. So I know you're based in the U S now and you're on the west coast. But can you tell us a little bit about where you were raised and when you were growing up, did you have a connection to healing practices or what was that relationship like with you?Marina: Yeah. Yeah, so I was raised in Brazil that's where I'm from and I think that's part of my upbringing was connected to receiving what we can call unusual healing.  There are many people who are, I don't even know how to say this in English I think it would be something like ‘the blessers’. So these old grandmas who actually developed such a beautiful connection with themselves and their intuition and their spiritual guides that they can bless other people. And we’d go there to receive a blessing. Then they share something that they feel called to share around the ways that you are treating yourself. The food you are eating the people that you're hanging out with and things that you could do so that you would find more balance in your life.So this is a big thing in Brazil, especially in communities where people are more integrated socially. So like Black communities, people who live in what we can call marginalized neighborhoods or something. And this has always been part of my life. I never even thought of a life without it.That's what you do. You feel you're feeling off. You're not so sure. You are feeling sad then you communicate with one of these grandmas, they will share their wisdom. So that is one thing, the other is that my mom was always  into what we can call integrative medicine.She was always into floral therapy, healing, our body and spirit, good eating habits, macrobiotic, whole food products, and things like that. So for me, I think part of my growing up was learning that our bodies have this self-healing capacity. That it's a matter of us being patient enough and aware enough to connect with it intentionally so that we can find ways to notice what a disease is trying to tell us, what a discomfort is trying to show us. To find ways to address the environment that is creating the disease, the environment that is creating discomfort not just the symptoms.  Dalia: Now it makes so much sense, but you said something really crucial it's being patient enough to wait for it to work because that I think is one of the hallmarks between western medication when we approach our symptoms that way. And sometimes those don't even work as quickly as you want them to, but typically you can expect to see a change maybe that day, maybe in a week, maybe two weeks and a lot of other approaches because you're not just putting a band-aid on one symptom, you're trying to get to the root of the problem, it can take longer. So in a culture where we feel like we don't even have time to sit down and feel unwell. We don't have time to take one day off, then what do we do? So, what has it been like for you coming to the U.S. do you feel a big difference in the pace that we're living at running counter to the way the human body actually functions and thrives?Marina: Oh my God. That was shocking. That was really shocking. To really notice this shift in the speed at which things happen here. Right. So, I don't know if I can speak for all Brazilians, but in our culture in general, we have this idea of the U.S as the land of opportunity, right? Hollywood sales that so beautifully to us.So you come here, you're nobody, you come with a dollar in your pocket and then you become this millionaire, blah, blah, blah. You know, and also the fact that in order to do so, there are no boundaries, no limits to the amount of work that you do. Because if you want to be a self-made millionaire you have to put all of yourself in it.Right? So there is this image, at least for me about the U.S. but it was not until I actually moved in here, and I didn't come here for work or anything. I came to the U.S. for love because my husband is American and that's how we ended up here. So it was very interesting to notice that everything is so fast.It's boom, boom, boom. Now, now, now, yesterday, it's not today its yesterday.  And no wonder people are so stressed out. No wonder people are so disconnected from themselves. No wonder people feel so lonely because they can not even connect with themselves much less meaningfully connect with others, right?So, when you say that here people don't have the time to rest or to take a day off. I would say, well, maybe that's actually why people are getting so sick. Maybe that's actually why people are feeling so, so many discomforts on a physical level, but also on a mental health level.Dalia: Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. And when we look at, when scientists look at other cultural groups that are living a lot longer than the average person in the United States, that's always a factor like prioritizing connecting to people, communicating with people and not prioritizing work over all other things, but that is a very, very American thing.If you're not working, then who are you? And even when people introduce themselves, their identity centered around, do you do? And I can understand that if what you do is something that you were called to do like if your healer, your preacher, your something that's central to your belief system.Okay, fine. I can understand that. But a lot of times people leave. Something that just signals to other people. I earn money and I work long hours because it has become a value here.You mentioned something really interesting when we were talking before the call, when we were just getting to know each other, after we'd come across each other in a group it's focused on decolonizing your mindset around business, and it's led by an American person who really has made a difference in my life in how she explains how so much of what we believe about how business must be done. It's not the only way. And talking to you and hearing about how you've noticed that people who can't seem to get into their body who have issues with embodiment and that causes problems throughout your life.And maybe on some level, I knew that, but nowhere near the level that you were explaining. So can you tell us about the work that you do and then we'll talk about how did he ended up doing this?Marina: Yeah, so I like to call myself an embodiment coach and a somatic healer. The work that I do, basically it should help people reconnect with their bodies. It is to walk back into this connection with self  with intention, with awareness, with patients, with care that this body is sharing information all the time. That this body is much wiser than the mind at times and it's telling us what to do, how to do at what pace we should be doing things.If we learn to integrate that that with the mind, the work that I do doesn't mean this disregarding the mind, it's about integration. It's about the combination of mind and body, and of course, giving space to spirituality in that connection. But to really allow people to notice that we can not just function from the neck up.We can not just live our lives, thinking that we can think ourselves out of a disease, out of a discomfort out of, you know, all the things that people have been experience thing in terms of physical and mental. We actually need to be able to feel those in our bodies and from this space, learn to reconnect to make the changes that our bodies need so that we can lead a healthier life.That is the gist of it. The big part, the big picture of it. And there is the trauma healing component of my work, because if we study what research has been showing us trauma lives in our bodies, right?Trauma is not the experience. Trauma is actually our body's perception of or reaction to a life-threatening experience, to something that was too intense, too overwhelming, too difficult to handle.And then our bodies trap that information and start responding to events, freeze,  fight, flight, fawn mode. So in order to heal evil trauma also should integrate the the body. We cannot talk ourselves out of trauma, right? Talking about trauma is only a piece of the healing process that happens when you're a further ahead in your healing. First it's around connecting with your body, noticing how your body's responding to traumatic experiences and then finding ways to regulate your nervous system to discharge some of the energy of that trauma so that your body can find balance again. Right? So, but the beginning has to be about embodiment. It has to start with recognizing tension in the body and then from there we develop a somatic to healing trauma. If that makes sense…Dalia: It does make sense. When I read The Body Keeps the Score. I felt like some of it, maybe we all knew intuitively, tiny bit. Right. But then to see someone study how deep the lasting effect is on the physical body when you're in a situation where you feel you have no control, or you literally have no control, and you're afraid you're going to die, that you could even lose sensation in extremities that had nothing to do with the incident. And we all heard about adverse childhood experiences and how that shortens your lifespan, not as a rule, but your chances are higher if you never have an opportunity to heal what that experience did to your body, how your body internalized, all of that fear. How did you even realize this was an area you wanted to work in? Because even if you interacted a lot with healers as a child, sometimes it's hard to see yourself that way, especially if those healers were like people almost had to live the experience, like you said, they're old grandmas, so it's like they took years and years and years to get it. So when did you understand that you, as a young person could also be working in a healing space?Marina: Yeah. Well, I think it's a combination of factors first. My mom is a psychologist, which is a healing modality in a way. So I had that beautiful example and home. And I have been to healers myself to view my body, to heal my own traumas and to actually get to know myself better because healing is also about self-development. It's not just about feeling one specific thing, right? It's about learning more about ourselves. And for me, when I started, I was always curious about so many things in life.And I started learning more about holistic sexuality. I've started doing workshops and programs and courses to learn, to recognize my body in a more loving and even spiritual perspective of this body as a sacred temple. And to for me to really tap into the deeper knowing of who I am in the deeper knowing of who I am in my mind, that leads me to reconnect with my spiritual self, right.And by doing so I've found so much healing for myself. I've found so much empowerment for myself as a Black woman in a Latin country. Empowerment is a big, big word for us, right? Because of that so many things started shifting for me in terms of how I perceived myself, how I perceived the relationships that I had not just with other men, but the relationships that I had with friends, with family, the relationships I had that work. And so I was an executive in the corporate world that is dominated by white, straight, very conservative man, interesting place. And then noticing that I didn't fit there anymore.That environment was not fulfilling me anymore. And, then I had this inner calling, this inner knowing that, you know, my life is going to change a lot and actually I want to  dedicate myself to supporting other women and non-binary people who have vulvas, because that's what I understand more of the female body that the vulvaed body.And then I started transitioning and studying. I already had the business MBA because I was in business for 14 years and then started shifting gears into coaching. I did the ontological coaching training in Brazil at the same time. I got married to move here and did my sex love and relationship coaching training here.And I've been supporting people since then. And it's been fabulous. And the idea that coming back to the body and connecting with sexuality, sexual desires, eroticism, what I understood that most people would come up with, come across traumas there, you know, things even that were healed or that were forgotten, because that's how the mind works as well.Our brains protect us so much that they make us forget some of the traumatic experiences that so many of us have gone through. And this became a very big passion of mine to really be able to support women, to feel their central traumas. And it's been a very beautiful journey for me, very humbling as well. I feel very honored to be supporting people in, in this path and yeah, that's what I've been doing.Dalia: It's amazing to me, how many entry points there can be to starting to reconnect to your body and how deep the symptoms go when you are disconnected. Because even though with my work as a holistic dietitian, I'm helping people use food and listening to their hunger, physical, and emotional hunger to reconnect to what their body's trying to tell them.I had never thought about how many relationships will need to fall away if you actually start listening to what your body's telling you. And that, that in itself might be a reason why some people don't want to reconnect to their body because they wonder how will my life have to change if I actually listen to myself.And what will that feel like? Is that something that is a source of resistance you come across and peopleMarina: Yeah so much. I can see the faces of some people with shared that with me, like, oh, well who will I become then? If I go this deep into myself, I will have to face things that I am comfortably hiding under a rug, you know, so that I can live the way I've been living.It's a path of truth. It’s a path of really facing the truth of who we are. And once you've faced the truths, making that judgements that we need to make in life to live in a way that is more fulfilling, right, and more fulfilling for whatever it looks like to a given person.It's a path of tapping into one's authenticity. And I don't think everybody's prepared for that and that's okay. That's okay.Dalia: Now, how long did it take you to accept that? Because that's something I feel like I struggle with. When I'm not ready to change, then it's fine. But when other people aren’t ready to change and I see where something could be of service. I'm just like, I don't get it. I don't get it. So when did you understand that?Marina: When I really started understanding trauma, so I'm taking the somatic experiencing training, and this is focused on trauma healing from a somatic perspective. The deeper I went into understanding how trauma acts in our bodies and our minds in our behaviors in the way that we are enabled to lead our lives the more compassion I felt in my heart for myself and for those around me. So when I'm aware that trauma exists. So many people have trauma and they have no idea so there is a space in my heart that can easily understand why it is so scary to go through change.Why it is so scary to connect with your body because your body has overwhelming and difficult memories stored there. So it makes a lot of sense for me when a person shares, Well, I, I don't know if I can live more lovingly, you know, this is not good. I'm not happy, but that's the way I've been living for so many years for so many decades. And I don't wish I can make that change.When I hear someone say that for me, it's like, huh, there is some wound there that might be so scary and so painful that this person is ready to touch it. For me, that's invites my radical acceptance of who people are and where they're on their journeys. Because it is not easy, right?It's not easy repeating patterns over and over again that are painful, that are harmful, that hurts you, that keep you small and keep you in abusive relationships for that matter. But it's also not easy to break free of that. Right? I think there is a path that can only happen when people are ready.So like whenever I'm talking to someone who wants to work with me for the first time and heal child wounds, most people working with me are focusing on healing sexual trauma. My first questions is why now, so I can understand the motivation that the person has. Like some people live with a traumatic memory for 20 years, 30 years, and then they come okay, I want to, I want to look at it and I want to heal this. My question is why now?What shows you that you're prepared to deal with it right now? And a lot of times it is because people have had the opportunity to walk through a path of self-development or some lighter kind of healing and then they see that they can handle this, this big transformation.And I think that when people say, oh, I'm scared. I don't know what's going to happen. What I will become?  Maybe they have some steps to take before Does that make sense?Dalia: That makes so much sense.Ad breakTired of being at odds with your body, sick of diets and weight cycling that make you feel like trash. Would you like to finally make peace with food so that you can focus on what your actual purpose in life is?What would your life look like if you trusted your intuition and let your true desires guide your actions? This episode is brought to you by the master intuitive eating and self-care total transformation package. This is the program for you if you're ready to heal your relationship with food once, and for all this, isn't another generic bod pos coaching program.This program is centered on liberation together will free you from chronic dieting, poor self-image and self-doubt. Nutrition is the tool that we use to reconnect to your inner wisdom and your sense of self-worth. This three month coaching program will give you the sustainable results you've been looking for by the end of our time together, you'll have a firm grasp on intuitive eating, you'll be at peace with your body, and aligned with your purpose and your true desires. If that sounds good to you, just visit daliakinsey.com/coaching.Dalia: I saw recently online someone who does consulting, not necessarily healing work, made a point that just because someone isn't ready to work with you, it doesn't mean they don't think that what you offer is powerful or valuable.But if it's a service that requires a partnership with the client that requires them to also participate in the process, they may not want to work with you because they don't yet believe they can complete their end of the relationship. And I had never really thought about some of us offer services that are not for people at the start of their journey.And that's also incredibly important. So I see things all the time where I'm like, wow, this is so popular. Something that someone's offering, but I'm like, but it feels like it's on the surface. And for me, it wouldn't take me deep enough to get to another level, but I've been obsessed with personal development and healing since I was in my early, early teens.So of course that stuff doesn't appeal to me anymore because that's not where I am on my journey. So learning to respect where people are and to stop wanting to kind of force healing on people has been a process.Marina: Yeah. Yeah. And it makes so much sense because everybody has to start somewhere really. And also there is a part of me, I don't want people were not ready to do the work to actually hire me 'cause then it's not effective.You know, if people are not ready to take responsibility for their healing to understand that the healing process is bumpy, it's not like a walk in the park, it’s not full of flowers, right? It's, it's hard at times, depending on the amount of trauma there, the depth of the wounds it's hard.And if people don't have some of, even that stability in their lives to hold them through that.  I prefer that first they do some other work. Some foundational work. And then they come when they're ready, because that's where I can serve them in my best. I can really be of service to them as opposed to someone who is not ready.Dalia: Right. What might that foundational work look like for some people? Cause I have heard from some people that are really worried about their own health, someone who's multiple people because you know, so many people have survived, sexual abuse as children. So, so many people and a lot of these people in my personal life are tired of living with the effects of having to distance themselves from their body to be safe and to feel comfortable, but they don't feel ready and they want to be ready and they don't know what that in-between space looks like.How do you bridge that gap or figure out what might be a step for you?Marina: Yeah. So I am going to use the same book.That you brought us as an example. The Body Keeps the Score, which is an amazing read Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk wrote the book. He mentioned that yoga, theater, acting classes, dancing, classes in like martial arts, things that involve the body are great ways for people to start befriending their bodies and coming back in a connection that it's not targeted at healing, their trauma.So it's not a therapeutic work, but it is bringing them back. So if you're doing yoga poses you need to be aware of what you're doing.  If you're acting you're aware not just of yourself, but of the, all their actors around you, in your positioning in relation to them on stage. All of this contributes for a person to slowly come back to a possible relationship with their bodies, even when their bodies are still carrying so much memories of trauma. They're coming to a more deep work into embodiment work in somatic healing. That makes a lot of sense to me.Dalia: Yeah.Marina: For some people, it's actually some talk therapy, some workshops, women's circles, community circles, you know, things that invite people to connect little by little to who they are, their feelings, their emotions, their expectations of community, relationships. Even if it’s a more shallow level, even if it's not very deep, but it opens the way to come to an environment for somatic healing being a little bit more prepared, if that makes sense.Dalia: Yeah, that does.Marina: If you look at The Body Keeps the Score he's sharing some amazing results of clients and patients who are suffering like post-traumatic syndrome. I don't like to say disorder. I think it's an injury. It's not a disorder. And being able to know slowly come back to themselves with yoga, acting, martial arts, qigong  and things like that.So that would be my suggestion for people who want to start. You know, start light, but with things that are inviting you inwards, You know, and then you go into a deeper process. If that makes sense.Dalia: That does make sense. Have you found that for people who are maybe feeling uncomfortable in their body because their gender identity and their assigned gender doesn't match are the same interventions helpful?And if so, how do people get to that point where, okay, maybe you still have other things you need to do to feel totally at home in your body, like maybe gender affirming surgeries and your future, but you can't do it now.How do you make friends with the body that you feel like isn't yours and you know?Marina: My training in somatic experience is such a beautiful invitation to reconnecting befriending and getting curious with the body and the physiology and the nervous system regulation and all of it that I can only imagine how a person who is not, who doesn’t feel this body really represents their identity and how they want to express in the world. This would be like invaluable for someone to have a space with a qualified professional to explore how they feel about their bodies. Right?So for example, for a person who was born with a vagina in actually would prefer to have a penis. Perhaps exploring the relationship with that vagina first so they can get into the core, the deepest part of their desire for a penis, then from that, knowing that it's not just a rational knowing, but it's a felt knowing in their bodies start making, you know, designing the steps to get what they want.So I know many practitioners who specialize in trans and gender nonconforming and non-binary people doing somatic work and the things that they share is like, it's amazing. It's amazing. This populations could benefit a lot from somatic work, because there's so much about the gender identity and expansion that is stuck in the body. Right.So how can we, again, how can we have these conversations while we actually ignore the body, while we actually ignore the object of our discomfort of our disalignment? Right? So if we're, if I have boobs and I'm uncomfortable with boobs, it's not just thinking about this, it’s really addressing the boobs in the body, how do you feel about it. What is some sensations that comes to you when you connect with that?Right. And from there finding what it is that this body really wants to express.And for people who cannot go and have surgery and make the changes that they want right away, I think, I think then the coaching way of addressing things. It's like, okay, what can we do now that can be helpful for now that can be supportive for now.And what are the steps that we need to take in order for you to achieve this bigger desire to do whatever it is that you want to, you know, and then I think it's really about the coaching way of reaching a goal of connecting with the desires that are within the desire that that's living the wisdom of the body.Dalia: Yeah. Oh, that makes sense to me. And I think has people don't talk about the experience of being gender nonconforming, but finding a way to still connect to your body 'cause they don't talk about it enough. It almost feels like, oh, well, what if it's not possible for me to be friendly with my body while I feel like simultaneously it betrayed me around the time of puberty, but it's encouraging to know that other people who are trans, who are non-binary are doing this work and feeling the benefits.Marina: Yeah. It's really, it is really powerful. It is really powerful because then all the transformations that you end up performing in your body come from a place of deep understanding, acceptance and love for who you are. Right. And then the body starts reflecting that.So as opposed to a place of rejection, you know, it's really all honoring who you are, your real identity. And then the body is slowly, starts conforming to the way that we want the world to perceive you, that you want to see yourself. But yeah,Dalia: That feels so subtle, but that resonates the idea that, it's just so interesting, I think it's that framing from kind of a binary perspective that it almost has to be rejection, but in reality, it is simultaneously a deep acceptance of who you are of knowing that you are not cis-gender person and allowing that to take form in your life. However it's supposed to take form for you.Yeah. That's a, that's a powerful perspective shift. Yeah.Marina: It's, it's shaped seeing through the lens of love. And for me, that's where the beauty lives. So I love who I am. And although the world thought, because I have a vagina and I should be a woman, I say no to that. And out of love for who I am, I express my gender the way that it makes sense to me, that the way that is true, not only in my life but in the core of who I am in the core of my body. And this is expressing from a place of love, pure love, radical love, actually.Dalia: Yeah. Ooh, that is powerful. In an actual session what might somatic healing look like when you do it with a guide? What is that?Marina: Yeah, it can look like a lot of things, but basically. A session can start with a conversation.So for example, if I'm working with someone keening sexual trauma, it's not a conversation about what happened, you know, revisiting the past. It's not about that. It's about noticing the patterns, how you are feeling. What are things that are working for you? What are things that are not working?So many people who experienced sexual trauma have a very and hard time with relationships with romantic relationships, with intimacy, with having sex.Right? So we will have a conversation around that and then invite the body to the conversation. So when you think about relating to someone new, how does your body react? Oh, I noticed contraction. I noticed that heartbeat goes high and I feel the temperature change.All right. And then from there addressing the sensations. Right? So giving space for those sensations first to be felt to be seen, to be prepared and also using some somatic, um, movement, sounds, breathing, making movements with your body, shaking, dancing, all kinds of things so that those sensations can have a space to, to be really well not just released, but to be moved, to be expressed, and then coming back into stillness and laying and giving space and the time for your nervous system to find some regulation, to discharge some of the energy that it is ready to discharge. And then another way, what else are we talking about and how are we going to address this? So it's, it's always, um, almost like a back and forth conversation. So the rational mind, you know, storytelling narratives and then noticing the body, what is happening here? Right?Of course, this is a very simplistic way of saying how this works, but in reality, this takes people into such a deep place of inner knowing of inner understanding. And that's where healing is. You know, healing is not in my hands as the somatic healer. Healing is inside the person looking for it.So as a somatic healer I guide the person into noticing into being. And of course, using my own way of doing that, really allowing the person to know that it's okay to feel what they're feeling. But they have confidence that they're not alone.And that the body is so wise it's so wise and knows what to do. And slowly because we're healing the present because we're healing our relationships to ourselves right here right now, slowly we build some strength in our emotional body, our physical body in the ways that we can experience intense sensations, thoughts, emotions, feelings, that's going back into past traumatic memories become possible.And then we can find integration. We can renegotiate that experience if that makes sense. So healing trauma, it's about feeling now healing the body now so that you can renegotiate what's happened in the past.Dalia: Oh yeah. That's such a clear description. I know. As we age, we stop using our bodies are moving our bodies and ways that are maybe unpredictable.So I could see you would need a guide to even do that. You can see children intuitively release tension after unpleasant things happen to them. Assuming it's a small and manageable negative experience, you know, but they do it in ways that you would never think to do in an office setting. After you have a conversation that makes you feel some type of way.So it's fascinating to know who we can go to, to recapture those skills that we forgotten and probably a bunch we've never heard of before as well. Where do people find you?Marina: I invite everybody to come to my website https://marinanabao.com/. I think you're going to type this.Dalia: I'll put it in the show notes.Marina: Yes. I'm a little bit old school. I really like keeping my website updated. All the information is there. And also Instagram @marinanabao. I'm not there every day, but I'm there every week. Sharing a little bits of inspiration, little bits of what I do. And for folks will want to get to know my work better if you are called to work with me I offer a free conversation so that we can get to know each other.I can understand what people are looking for. We can see find the best person for them and from there we can start a coaching and somatic healing process.Dalia: Thank you so much for coming on. I only have one final question. If there was one thing that you could say, and everyone would instantly understand it and internalize it for the rest of their lives.What's something you would like for everyone to know?Marina: the chains of trauma don't need to be the way that you lead your life forever. You have right here right now, regardless of what happened, regardless of how hard it was, you have the capacity to heal, to live a life that is filled with joy, with radiance, with vitality, and you can fully thrive.  I think that knowing that we have this self-healing capacity and that our bodies are the key to that our bodies are pure medicine, that is what I really want people to know.Dalia: That’s beautiful.I love being able to discuss things that really aren't on everybody's radar as a healing tool, and very often and indigenous cultures you'll notice that healing work always involves a physical element, an embodied element, but because many of us live in areas where disconnection from the body is the status quo it's frequently left out of the healing process.I love the idea of reclaiming our connection to our old ways and also incorporating information from the collective. Because the African diaspora is now spread all over the world, all of us have integrated with the local cultures in many different ways. Thanks to the internet as well, we are able to create hybrid versions of healing practices that work for us that are grounded in what our ancestors did, but are also a blend of what people in our part of the world are using. This is something that can evolve over time using your intuition and doing what feels right for you.I personally use all kinds of quote unquote modern healing tools like cognitive behavioral therapy, pharmaceuticals that support mental wellbeing and embodiment work and meditation. I approach my wildness with all cylinders firing. I am interested in anything that has the potential to enhance my experience of life with a minimal to acceptable level of risk. Even holistic health practices sometimes come with a little bit of brisk, but I love how many different embodiment practices are totally gentle with minimal risk. So this is an under-utilized tool that I'm sure we're going to see more and more of.Be sure to check out Marina. I have the link to her website in the show notes. Marina is doing amazing work and is taking on clients at this time. https://marinanabao.com/Remember the only fee for the show is that you share it with others. Anytime you hear something useful, and around here, that is every episode.So feel free to share the episode on IG on Facebook, wherever you hangout online and let everybody know what you got out of the episode. Also, you can always like, and review the show on iTunes so that it's easy for other people to find.Thank you in advance for helping this message reach more folks that need it.Also Decolonizing Wellness is now available for pre-order. If you're listening to this after February of 2022, it's just available to be ordered. So check that link out in the show notes and get your copy. www.daliakinsey.com/bookDecolonizing Wellness is perfect for you if you enjoy the themes I talk about here, it's focused on QTBIPOC looking to heal their relationship with their self image and their relationship with food. Even if you feel like you have a peaceful relationship with food I go a little deeper there and look at using food and eating as a mindfulness tool and a self-empowerment tool.So there's something there for all of us.I hope you'll check it out and let me know what you thought. Okay. Thank you for joining me. I will see you next time.Body Liberation for All ThemeYeah. They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them live your life just like you like it is.It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So I thank you for tuning in. Let's go. Get full access to Body Liberation for All at daliakinsey.substack.com/subscribe

„Welche Rolle spielt Kommunikation im öffentlichen Raum für die gesundheitliche Aufklärung einer Gesellschaft, Martin Dietrich?“. In dieser Ausgabe des OOH!-Podcast erläutert der Direktor der BZgA die inhaltlichen Schwerpunkte seiner Arbeit und warum OOH seit Jahren fester Bestandteil des kommunikativen Spektrums der BZgA ist.

Ooh, this one is a tricky one if you don't know how to recognize it! And it's tricky because there are some Appeals to Heaven that are proper and some that are faulty. The hard part, sometimes, is telling the difference. Here's how to do exactly that. When you can recognize the foolishness, you won't get fooled by it! Send me any questions, comments or even the fallacies you're seeing around you! think@filteritthroughabraincell.com Or, tag me on Instagram: @filteritthroughabraincell Sign up for notifications: www.filteritthroughabraincell.com

Spray sticks? What a Net Grapple can do in the wrong hands...www.RollMongers.comwww.TeeSpring.com/RollMongers for Merch!www.Patreon.com/RollMongers Thank You For your needed Support, because sponsors don't pay you, they just give you free stuff lol!Also Thanks to our new sponsor "Devin Night" for providing use with all his art work minis with the folks at Fantasy Grounds to use here!https://immortalnights.com/tokensite/​Music:Intro: Star wars soundtrack x-wing formation by Kurt Thomlinson"Cyber punk Bar""Cyber Punk City""Space battle""Busy Space Port""Dying Planet""Starship medical""Starship Bridge""Deep Space eva""Alien night club""1940's office"All by Table top audio .comStar Wars - The Force Theme (Far Out Remix)"GAurdians" by Evan King""Dark Choir" by Mattili Cupellai musicFREE LICENSE TO USE: https://gum.co/hhVjx​DOWNLOAD: https://gum.co/hhVjx​www.youtube.com/user/MattiaCupelliMusic​"Satiate" By Kevin Macleod"Scientific Reasoning" by TechnoAxewww.youtube.com/channel/UCtgf00GvfFQV...​"Enchiridion" by Evan King"End This" by Evan King"Tactics" by Alex Lisi"Helipad Siege" - Alex lisi"Speed Chase"- Alex lisi"Match" by Alex Lisi"War Gods" Alex lisi all on you tubewww.youtube.com/channel/UC2Wkg85Gabk3...​Crossing the chasm by Kevin MacleodKevin-9-1 – Crossing-the-chasmSuper hero by Tabletop audio @ Tabletop audio.comStar Wars Soundtrack | X-Wing Formation (Fan-Made) by Kurt TomlinsonTrukmai – Star-wars-ost-x-wing-formation-fan-made-1External terminal By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – Eternal-terminalDarkling (Destructive device) By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – DarklingMalicious By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – MaliciousMusic maker test 2Inductrial CinematicKevin-9-1 – Industrial-cinematicOribital promonade by tabletop audioStar Wars - The Force Theme (Far Out Remix)@faroutofficial...Desertwinds by Tabletop audio.comOutroImperial march remix by Goblins from marsGoblinsfrommars – Star-wars-imperial-march-goblins-from-mars-trap-remix-free-downloadMusic in this videoLearn moreListen ad-free with YouTube PremiumSongDark Side BeatArtistGoblins from MarsAlbumGoblin Instrumentals And BeatsLicensed to YouTube byRecord Union (on behalf of Goblins from Mars)Music in this videoLearn moreListen ad-free with YouTube PremiumSongDark Side BeatArtistGoblins from MarsAlbumGoblin Instrumentals And BeatsLicensed to YouTube byRecord Union (on behalf of Goblins from MarsOUTROOriginal track is "Feel it still" by Portugal the ManParody Lyrics:I keep the force to myselfAll because the emperor ruined it for everyone elseWe gotta find a place to hideGuess we`re going underground nowOoh woo I'm a rebel just for kicks nowI`ve been rocking it since order 66 nowThe force is strong, and I feel it stillOoh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks nowWhy`d the emperor say order 66 nowBut the force is strong and I feel it stillGotta make it out to TheedGonna reason with the senators try to make it better nowSomewhere out theres gotta be freeI guess I`ll head to Alderran nowOoh woo I'm a rebel just for kicks nowI`ve been rocking it since order 66 nowThe force is strong, and I feel it stillOoh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks nowWhy`d the emperor say order 66 nowBut the force is strong and I feel it stillWe should fight a war for peace(Ooh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks now)Ressurect the Jedi, bring the emporer down to his kneesThe Sith mean nothing to meI should strike them all down now(Ooh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks now)There'll be no aquittal for the sith who killed the littlePa-da-wansHe is my enemyIs he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming back?Ooh Woo I'm a rebel just for kicksand I'm gonna keep on going till the galaxy is fixed nowCause the force is strong and I feel it stillOoh woo I'

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT The spectacle of pro sports used to be almost entirely about what happened on the playing surface, but these days it's also about the venue and the technology and creative used to create memorable and shareable experiences. If you are paying $75 a ticket, and $12 per beer, there should perhaps be more entertainment than someone belting out national anthems. The Seattle Kraken are a new team in the National Hockey League, based out of one of the most tech-adept cities in the world, in a brand new arena that has digital screens everywhere. There are 224 LED displays at Climate Pledge Arena, populated with content specifically geared to the game day experience of hockey fans. I had a terrific chat with Jonny Greco, the very exciteable Senior VP of Entertainment and Experience for the Kraken. We spoke about what fans see before and during games, the thinking behind the creative, and the technology used at the venue. We also get into his mindset and insights drawn from years and years of delivering experiences - including the over-the-top world of WWE pro wrestling and the mother of all pre-match experiences - the knights and swords opener to Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey games. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Jonny. Thank you for joining me. I wanted to read out a description so listeners can get their heads around everything that's going on with your gig. There are 224 LED displays at Climate Pledge Arena, which has more than 28,000 square feet of digital signs. There are 173 displays outside the main seating bowl. So you have one hell of a lot of screens to operate. Jonny Greco: That's a good intro. You've got all these amazing world-class tools. You get them during a pandemic while the arena is being built. You're about to start a brand new franchise, and now what, where do we go?  So super excited. Unbelievable honor to be here. I truly think we're just scratching the surface with all of this incredible technology and you'll hear me a lot as a theme as we chat here, and I'm so thankful to be on your podcast, but “story over sexy”. We can have the most expensive toys and all these phenomenal, shiny lights but if you don't create a compelling story and a narrative that pulls people in doesn't really matter. So I'm always threading that line of technology and the art, where they fuse together to find that really happy galvanization of spirit. Yeah. I think creative direction is so important. I get press releases every day about the next giant LED display at a sports venue and in a lot of cases, it's a 100 meters/yards along and this big and everything else, they don't talk at all about what's on there and it's just this big ass display and so what? Jonny Greco: They put up color bars and say, “It's cool. Look at it!”  So with all those displays, does your gig extend out into the concourses, or are you just talking about the game experience once you get into the seating bowl?  Jonny Greco: That's a thoughtful question because I think traditionally as we know, game presentation, whether you're juniors, minor league, collegiate, major league sports, game presentations is kind of on the football field, the music, the mascot maybe the cheerleaders, maybe your promotional team the intermission performances or concerts, but everything that lives in the bowl. And I think holistically game presentation has turned into less of a presentation and more of an experience over the last few years especially, and we're looking at this holistic approach: you can't just be in the bowl to hear the song, or oh, they just scored.  You need to know about this on the entire campus that might be your home base. You should know something happened in my opinion, in the parking lot, as you're walking in, you should know about it whether you're on Twitter as you're looking at it as you're going up the escalator, if you're in line to get a burger. The screen displays should have your goal animation going if you score a goal and you create this kind of connected experience as we roll and again, as you teed it up 28,000 square feet of lead on a 74 acre campus, there are a lot of screens to cover. So you have to do it thoughtfully, then you have to balance the wayfinding and the marketing, and then just the straight energy game presentation, for that moment, while promoting other events that are coming. So there's a lot to juggle and like I said, we're just dipping our toes in the water. So we learn a lot every day and sometimes we get it really right. Sometimes we miss and sometimes we're like, oh yeah, we forgot about that. So we're excited about the evolution game in/game out, event in/event out here in Seattle. So I have not been to a Kraken game. It's a bit of a drive for me, given where I live. What's the game day experience? As you described, if you're out in the parking lot, or you get off the Monorail. So where do you start seeing the stuff that you're controlling and influencing?  Jonny Greco: Yeah, I think we have a really connected organization as far as the storytelling of our brand, right? Like early that day, the team had a morning skate. There's going to be content on all of our social channels that's going to tell a little bit of the story of that night. We've got our own app where it's going to talk to you about traffic. It's going to give you your ORCA card so you're able to take that Monorail that you speak about to be able to get in, to help mitigate the traffic.  So the game day experience is, you could argue, it starts before the game day, but the day of the morning when you're getting messages, you're hearing about what's going on. You're finding out what, what's the strategy going into the game as we play, and it also just ramps up as you get near the puck, things that you had just mentioned that Monorail experience, which you know is a mile or two away, we have an audio file with our broadcasters welcoming fans onto the Monorail, right? We've got this armory sort of indoor space that we activate with our promo team, our icebreakers and our C squad. And, we've got video screens there and we're doing trivia. We're welcoming people in the most hospitable way we can to just thank them for being a part of this. It's not just, once you sit in your seat and you have your beer at the game that you're connected to the Seattle Kraken Climate Pledge Arena, it is way more extensive than that and that's something we're continuously working on because yes, the screens all over that campus are helping you find your way or teach you about what's coming. But we also just want to completely engage with our audience all the time, so they get excited. They know what's going on there. They're being educated about the process, particularly as this building opens, but we can continuously inform our fans to illuminate their experience when we can.  Now is part of that because going to a sports event now is expensive? For the ticket, for the concessions, for everything. In my days when I would go to a Calgary Flames game, when I lived out west, the game day experience was getting through the gate, grabbing a beer, sitting down, and then the entertainment was somebody singing “O Canada”, and then the game was on and that's it. Modern pro sports is like a total spectacle, right?  Jonny Greco: I think it's changed a lot. And don't do a disservice to O' Canada. It's a heck of an Anthem. I love it. But I do think humanity looks at experiences differently than we ever have before. It's always evolving. You can go back 20 years and what the experience was about, it was exactly what you explained and that even upwards of 10-15 years ago, it was that, and now people want more bang for their buck, whatever they're paying for tickets or beers or snacks and concessions, time is our most valuable, precious resource and we're understanding that more than ever over the last couple of years.  So when we have this time, how we spend it is so important to us. So we need to make sure that we're being thoughtful in creating that experience that connects people with the brand, with the team, with the game. But in my opinion it also protects you from maybe a game where the Flames at the Saddledome don't play very well at night and they lose 5-0, but they still had a great experience and they're telling their friends about it. And even though they have, we've done our jobs in creating that fun. Let's just call it. I go to a game cause I want to have fun for a few hours and I still had fun even though some of the things we couldn't control didn't go our way. I think that's just what fans in general are coming to experience regardless of the costs. It's that way, if you're going to Disney world, if you're going to a Jazz club or you go to the beach like you want to make sure that you have as much of an engaging experience as you can. It's definitely part of the consciousness of us as humans nowadays, for sure.  You came to this gig, having done a whole bunch of what looked like pretty interesting gigs that are mainly in sports. The three that hit me were live event production for pro wrestling and  video direction for curling at the Olympics in Vancouver, a little different for pro wrestling, and then the big one was working for the Las Vegas Golden Knights.  Is the spectacle that is the openers of the Vegas Knights games with the, with all that hoo ha going on, ts that you, did you do that? Jonny Greco: Yeah. Some people would definitely call it hoo ha. I think, yes, I was a part of and we had a hell of a time. Hell of a great leadership who saw vision and put entertainment at the forefront of the experience and then just knowing you were in Vegas, like you were going to do it a little bit different, right? You were just allowed, you had a different kind of permission to get a little wild that fit the region. On brand, in a style that fits the team, and then, you start winning games. There's a lot more permission you have to fail and try different things because people just are in a better mood. People like to win. That's been around for a long time.  So yeah, I think that list, you just mentioned it. It is a funny list when you go Curling to WWE wrestling, shout out to Halifax. I've been there. We did a show there. I loved it. Absolutely beautiful. But, and then, Vegas and Seattle, the truth is though, the more different opportunities I get blessed to be on and be a part of the more projects and teammates I get to like to collaborate with and contribute to the more I realize just how similar there is to all of it, right? Curling again, what we were talking about, it's an experience you're enjoying, you may love the sport. You may never have seen it before, but you want it to be at the Olympics, but you're going to love the music. You're going to love the natural inherent drama of sport. You may not be a WWE fan, but you probably know who Hulk Hogan is. There's elements where we're all connected in these experiences, and the truth is we all love good. Stories have been around for thousands and thousands of years, and it may be the story within a song, maybe a story in the written form of a book. It may be a micro story of the kiss cam within 30 other promotions at a game in St. Louis that you see, but they're stories inherently every day that we see, and if you can share them in a certain way and you can make your good guys bad guys compelling then all of a sudden people are pulled into it and they care about the story, then they care about, again, whether it's a pro wrestler, a pro curler or a pro hockey player they're all characters in the ensemble, of the show, the entertainment of the film, of the movie, of the story that we want to be a part of.  Did the work that you were involved in with the Las Vegas Golden Knights, the NHL team there, was that what got you up to Seattle? Did the Seattle people go, “Yeah, we want that”?  Jonny Greco: I think, like all of us. we're on these journeys and paths and, I was doing some research on you as I was prepping for this podcast and, it said you had a boss back in the day. The Internet's just a fad. It's not going to last, but you are somebody who was like, no, I see where this is headed and sometimes you gotta just have the guts to do something that isn't necessarily what people expect or see, and one of my favorite quotes of all time is from Henry Ford with cars, and he went on to obviously do pretty well for himself, but he was asked at one point, your clients, your people buying this and the thing was, he says, if I would have asked people what they wanted versus just doing my own thing, “if I would have asked people what they wanted, they would've said they wanted a faster horse” and I love that because it's a little bit about sometimes we need to show people or expose people to things that they don't know they want, they don't know they're going to love this, and if we talk about it, we may talk ourselves out of it. Cause it sounds crazy because it's never been done cause it won't work and all those reasons, yes, that may be the case, but if we can suspend their own disbelief a little bit and just go for it sometimes and be willing to fail because you're going to, I think you get really unique opportunities. So Vegas, an amazing opportunity built off of relationships from previous jobs, the team president there is a great friend and just an awesome human being. I used to work with him back in the Cleveland Cavaliers days when we were working with LeBron James a million years ago, and you stay connected to these people. It was a recipe of pretty interesting elements when we got to Vegas, it worked out well and I've been given some pretty neat opportunities since then, but I do think the opportunities come from more of the relationships then, and your last gig matters. It really does, but I do think it's the body of work as you continue on, and I had actually gone from Vegas to Madison Square Garden to go work for the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers, which was unbelievable to be at Mecca, but I'd only done it for nine months before the Seattle opportunity came and there was a pandemic that happened as well. So there were a lot of variables, whereas what's the right move right now, creatively for my family and everything else. So it was only a cup of coffee in New York, but I've had a few really neat opportunities and I've been able to meet and connect with some really interesting people through Vegas, and even before that with WWE and some of the other opportunities as well.  Yeah, and I must have been pretty cool to effectively have a blank slate that like Madison Square Gardens is a pretty old arena, I don't know how old it is, 40 years or something, and there's only so much you can do in terms of LED displays and new technology there versus Seattle is tech central and they went to town with it.  Jonny Greco: Yeah, they did, and that's a really good point. You've got these beautiful venues and arenas all over the world and you don't really want to mess with them like Wrigley field, you probably should only go so far with how much led you put there. Fenway, same idea. Like it would almost be a disservice to the history of the game in that space. I think in Seattle, it was really unique, and at the time, what I had read was it was the most LED in any arena, on the planet, and that probably changes every five minutes. But I know a few months ago that was the case. But they had the opportunity cause it was a brand new arena, in this beautiful city that is this transcendent science technology, medical, you think of Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, all of these companies, Starbucks, these companies that are out here that have these pioneers of creativity and technology, it was very fitting out here. But I think you learn a little, in the hockey term, original programming that is innovative, super unique, but then also honors the original six, right? Honor the tradition knows whose great grandpas were here playing the game and what they loved and trying to fuse it together, and I think depending on the city you're in, if you're in Boston, it's going to be a lot different than if you're in Arizona, like how you ratio those two elements. But again, whether you have one screen or you have 344 screens, make sure you're putting up content. That's interesting. Otherwise people are going to walk right past and they're not going to notice it anyway.  Yeah. That's one of the things that struck me about what you're up to or what the, what your team's up to is, I've been in a number of new build or renovated arenas in the last few years when we were still doing things like getting on airplanes, and in those cases, they're putting in big LED video walls and everything else, but it was all about commerce.  It was about running different sponsor messages. If it was an NBA game versus an NHL game, it was about efficiency and so on, and what I'm seeing with what's being done at Climate Pledge is it's about the experience and it's about setting the tone. So you've got like this giant aquarium and things like that, can you describe what people can see?  Jonny Greco: Sure. Yeah, and I think it's interesting, Dave, when you talk about just the philosophy of other venues. Like you go to the arena formerly known as Staples Center in Los Angeles, they need the digital signage to help with some of their changeovers, right? Like I've been there when they had an LA Kings game that afternoon, and then an LA Clippers game that night, like they needed to switch from black and white design to red and blue within a few hours,completely transforming the arena, and nothing can make that process quicker than like the digital signage abilities.  So like you said, not even a few years ago. It was signage. It was sponsorship, and it was like, put the logo here and buy a hot dog or whatever else. But now they're trying to connect it to just, again, more of like where you're being sold, but it sure doesn't feel like being sold. I feel like I'm watching something really cool and threading it into the show, and it was a big part of our own storytelling as you entered the Climate Pledge Arena with this grandiose atrium space that we have, where we were like, one of our taglines for the Kraken is, ”Welcome to the deep” right?  It's the deep fear, fear of the deep, we're in the deep, right? That's where the Kraken lives, this mythical beast. And, the arena itself is subterranean, it's underground. To do this insane over billion dollar arena build, they literally lifted the historic roof from 1962, took everything else out of it and rebuilt this insanely beautiful arena underneath, and then put the roof back on. To do that, you had to go underneath as well. So as we looked at the layout of the arena, and as we looked at these video screens, part of this really cool grandiose entrance, as you come in, you get to go down these massive escalators with these huge video LED screens, video screens through Daktronics and we said we could put a Pepsi logo on there, but that's not again, that's just a big logo. That's not innovative. There's not a story. It doesn't necessarily make me thirsty. But instead we have the support from our leadership to let's create an atmosphere and what we thought of it's like, all right, you're going down underground. We're going to the deep, we're seeing the Kraken which is an underwater creature. We're in Seattle. Let's dig deep, and as you go down the escalator, let's go underwater. Let's see an Orca that's indigenous to space. Let's see the type of rock formations that you would see at the base of the Puget sound. Let's build out a space to give people again, that kind of experience, and it almost feels like you're like the Atlanta aquarium or something as you go, and you're like, oh, there's a seal. There's a sea lion going by so it was neat that we had that sort of support, and then instead of just a founding partner logo, splattered all over the place, we have a school of fish swimming by as it goes past the Amazon logo, or the Alaska airlines logo. So it's a thoughtful way of fusing the two together where it's like, of course we have incredible partners that we want to honor and showcase, but we also have their support to create this experience that just felt a lot more elegant than even in previous worlds I've been a part of it, it's just not slapping it on there. It's much more of a collaboration and integration of brand fusion together to help it feel just more like an experience than me just looking at a sign.  Yeah, I'm guessing you've fought this verbal battle a few times with the specialty leasing people and other folks who say yeah, this immersive entertainment stuff is awesome, but I need this Pepsi logo on here or this other logo? Jonny Greco: Yeah, I think we all have. I think it's one of our biggest opportunities as people in the sports entertainment production world to lock arms with your corporate partnership side of things, because it does bring in a lot of revenue and it does bring in great brand awareness. It does bring in great relationships long-term that help a business work, but you don't want it to just be all or nothing. You don't want it to always be black and white. There's this really neat fusion of gray that you can find that kind of everyone can be aligned on, and it goes back to the point we were making before about, let's show you how this works. It's not always the most quantifiable, but there is a feeling when something just lands well and it's not a perfect science, and again we make plenty of mistakes on our journeys and our professional careers for sure but it is fun when you're in a supportive place that nurtures creativity, nurtures storytelling and lets you try some things sometimes.  We know we did some things pretty well here, but we also know we've got a lot of places to grow and develop and keep evolving because everyone's chasing, everyone's trying to do a great job together. So let's lift each other up and inspire one another.  Does the job touch some of the purely commercial aspects of digital signage? I know in some arenas, if somebody scores a goal, and I think you talked a little bit about this before, the concession displays that are showing a beer is $500 or whatever they cost now, it'll go to a replay of the goal and then go back to the beer menu or whatever. Are you doing that? Jonny Greco: Yeah we're not doing it as well as we'd like yet, but we had some recent meetings about this to do a really thorough walk arounds in the arena itself because when you start and open up a brand new arena this quickly in a pandemic, a lot of is it let's just get it going. Let's get it working, and literally as we're doing this conversation, we just got some decimators to help us with some of our delays on our LED screens on the back wall of our press bridge. Because our fans in that area, this super unique area, they don't have a complete line of sight to our video screens are twins as we call them. So they have these LED screens with our program out, which is awesome, except it's, I don't know what the time is, Two to three second delay on some things, and we all know if you're a little bit late to the joke or the punchline or the goal, it's a little bit less of a connected experience. So there's constant little technical elevation we're trying to find a more comprehensive experience for people. But I do think we have ways to go. As far as we score a goal that lights up everywhere, that underwater space currently, when we score a goal, that's not being lit up with our goal animation and cutting cameras and stuff, but we know that's where we want to go to just create that moment where even if you're not in the bowl for a second, you feel what just happened? Cause there's not many cooler moments in sports entertainment than that horn going off crowd going nuts, and if you can be a part of it, somehow we want to include everyone. But you know what, when you walk out of the bathroom oh, what just happened? No one wants to be the last one to the dance floor. So we want to help everyone feel like they're the first.  Is there some sort of a show control system that's running all this? What are you using?  Jonny Greco: Yeah, so we work with Daktronics and I'll say this right away. 15 people way smarter than me on the technology side that I work with, that could go a lot further into this, but it is show control for all of our ribbons and Daktronics video screens. And then we're using Triple Play for all of our IP TV needs, and that's run through our incredible group from the Climate Pledge Arena side, because they're doing more than just the Kraken games. They have events all the time, a hundred percent.  So if you're using Daktronics, for that, as you add more stuff, you just go back to them? Jonny Greco: I think, with technology, you're always looking for, I don't want to say the best, but who helps us tell our story? Who helps us create that experience? Daktronics have been incredible partners and they have a whole lot of their product all over the place and they understand that this is this crown jewel space for their own product as well. So it's just been a really good relationship as far as, Hey, this isn't working or would we be able to develop this? And they're on it. They want this to succeed because they're great partners and we want to keep pushing the envelope, but obviously trying to always see what's out there. Daktronics does a ton of things, but obviously we're working with Ross in our switches and acuity expressions. We got Dreamcatcher for our replay systems. Like you're going to try to grab a whole bunch of different tools and you just want the best tools to create the best kind of narrative that you can and it's rarely going to be just one thing, right?  There's not a one-stop shop for many things. That's where we are right now, but always looking to evolve what you have, right?  How many people are working on this?  Jonny Greco: Ee call it Entertainment experience and production on the Seattle Kraken side, and for that group, which is creating a lot of the social content, we are creating elements like ice projection and half a million dollar shot promotions and, commercial spots and B-roll and everything else. There's 15 of us in that group. So that's on the Kraken inside. So that's your show callers, your scripters we're working closely with corporate partnerships, you're working with your promo teams, and so that group of 15 is split into two. As far as the game presentation side, that entertainment experience, but then also just that content and production side as well, which ranges from creating because we are a brand new team, videos for human resources or maybe working and this is really common in pro sports, working on like a free agent video project that's super secretive or whatever they like.  So you're creating the very forward facing stuff, but you're also doing a lot behind the scenes, and when you have no library to pull from last year, oh, remember Dave, last year when this happened, we didn't have that. So that's another role that we talked to a lot of people about, and they were, if you can get it, get that archivist role, get that digital asset management person role in your space. So that's something we're working diligently on. We have a person who's phenomenal and we're testing the waters, working on this and then we'll look to be implementing this, over the summer. But just to build that archive, because, season one happens, but really quickly, you're celebrating your 10th anniversary and remember game six, when that thing happened, you want to have that you want to have those things properly logged and an archived for us and or for the next people who come into this incredible role. Yeah. I  hadn't thought about that. I guess you've got to do like the player video pieces where, they're smiling and then they do the arm, the cross arms, and don't mess with me look and all that stuff, you gotta have all that, right?  Jonny Greco: Gladiator shots. Yeah, absolutely, and some of that stuff becomes evergreen, so you can shoot it once and use it for a few years, and some of the stuff, as guys get traded or retire, goes away but they may someday have their Jersey retired here. They may just come back, right? You want to use some of those elements. I learned a lot of that at Madison Square garden. It was interesting how they had archived up until this point, and even there they would admit it themselves. We could do a better job with our digital asset management. We're one year in or half a year in, right like between all those seasons, you're like a hundred years in. So that's a lot of games you've literally filmed. I remember working at the Cleveland Cavaliers, it was the same idea. We had all of this craziness going on with Betamax and 16 millimeter film, and we had to transfer all of that content as DVDs were coming around and then, it's like these video files, is that going to last? So when you have to go back and grandfather in content, that's a much heavier lift, so we're trying to mitigate that as much as we can.  Yeah, it's interesting. Technically, it used to be a lot harder to pull off what you're doing now, but the flip side of that is there's a lot more that you have to produce than in the old days. Jonny Greco: Absolutely. You're putting out so much content and you're trying to individualize something on Instagram versus Twitter versus LinkedIn versus in arena versus the app, and that's something like strategy-wise, I think, everyone's working on, how are we unique and original but also how are we creating content that can be used in multiple ways, because you don't need to create, oh we have “Mark Giordano, legendary hockey player, tomorrow night's going to be us honoring his 1000th game, the silver sticks ceremony,” it's really cool.  Do you need a different sort of acknowledgement or graphic on every single one of those channels or do you keep it very brand centric with a look and then you figure out whatever the content design look needs to be to fit that scale, and then you go from there. So it's a pretty subjective space, but you're always trying. With the narrative and story in mind first, you're trying to work smarter, not harder cause we all work hard, we know that, but there's a lot of content to create, and once you start, you don't want to pull back. You want to only add to it. So we started out of the gate with a lot. We know we have a lot more stories to tell. We know we can engage Seattle and Kraken fans in such a different way and further it, and like you said, scratching the surface. We've started, but now we've got to keep rising.  Is the pregame show the big job, the one that sucks up most of the time? Jonny Greco: Yeah, I think depending on the organization, it can be a little bit different here. It was a big part of the show. We ran into a couple of bumps along the way, just again, with the arena opening, supply chain issues, not being able to load some of our beautiful set pieces for the opening night. And it was honestly one of the more frustrating moments for a lot of us because we weren't able to physically. But we got there and come the new year, we were in place and it's emotional and it does take a lot of our focus and attention, but as cool as the moment is, it can get cooler and we're excited to evolve it and grow it, and now that we have all the pieces in place, take that next iteration up another level.  Yeah, that was going to be my last question. Now that you've got yourself grounded there and sorted out all the technology and the folks and know what everybody's good at and the drill, what's coming? Jonny Greco: Yeah, there's a whole bunch of exciting things that I'm not going to tell you about right now, my friend, but starting a new franchise, just because I've been super lucky or super crazy, probably both to have done this now a couple of times, I think you got to look at being a part of a new organization much more than just like a few games or a season. I think to really get your footing and your steps, right? For every part of the business it's two to three years easy. It's not a one-year thing. So there's a lot that we dreamed up a year ago that just wasn't able to come to fruition this year for a million great reasons but as you get into actually activating right pre op mode versus operating mode, very different for us, right? The red light goes on, lights, camera, action. You see how people handle it, you see how the equipment functions, you see what you dreamed up while we were in Zoom calls saying, Hey, what would be cool is a camera that does this and does this well now we're using those said cameras and we're like, oh, what else would be cool. So you want to lock arms. You want to step on each other's shoulders and jump higher on some of these things, and some of the things that you envision just didn't really land the way you had expected for a few different reasons. And in my case, I know sometimes I just dilute myself a little bit because I get so excited about so many things and I don't keep it concentrated on just a few big ones, and I also like to test and learn. So I like to throw a lot against the wall, and it's like ooh, that was great. Oh, that was terrible. Ooh, that's workable. Oh, that was terrible. I would rather cast that super wide net and work off of that, then be like all my eggs in one basket, and whether it works or not, I'm like I don't want one basket, I want 14 baskets, and that's a philosophical difference, probably organization to organization, sport to sport that, just personally, that's the way I like to function. It's not right or wrong, but it's definitely the way I look forward to evolving in this season too, because there's a lot of stuff that we have ready to go that intentionally we're holding back, like it's ready to go, but we're going to wait. We're going to wait, and plan to do that over the summer, to do that in season two, which generally I don't have that level of patience. I get so excited. I'm like, let's do it. Let's get everybody excited.  But I do think the chess game, the slow play, sometimes it's really thoughtful and strategic and it just, it helps with the pacing of the whole experience. If you do think of that brand launch, not just the day the logo comes out, not just your opening night, not just your first season, it's something we're building upon it and creating an equity with it's a nuanced art, I think over the next couple of years that we're going to be working on. This was a lot of fun. I appreciate you taking the time with me.  Jonny Greco: Oh, Dave, thank you so much for asking. Anytime you want to chat about this kind of stuff. I would love to be a guest. It's an honor to be on the 16:9 podcast and really happy to share some energy with you.  That's great. Thank you.

Today on the podcast, we have one of our most loved returning guests; naturopathic doctor and best-selling author Lara Briden. If you have had the pleasure of listening to Lara on one of our previous podcasts, you know she is an absolute wealth of knowledge for all things women's reproductive, menstrual, and hormonal health. As a woman, listening to her illustrate the inextricable relationship between female reproductive health, mental health, and hormone systems, there is a sense of belonging and reclamation for the natural cycles that have been medically interrupted.   Over the years, we've had Lara on the podcast talking about period repair, PCOS, Hypothalamic Amenorrhea, and all they encompass; Today, Lara is joining us to talk about the transitions into perimenopause and menopause. Lara's enlightened wisdom reminds us that menopause is not something to dread or treat as a medical 'condition' to be corrected; but rather a gateway and rite of passage to be honoured and exalted.    In this beautiful conversation with Tahnee, Lara dispels menopausal fallacies replacing them with profound knowledge and biological facts about what this sacred transition within the female body/psyche represents. Lara reframes the metabolic/hormonal shifts between the reproductive years and perimenopause,  details the best diet/herbal medicines for menopause, and offers a beautiful evolutionary perspective of menopause across time and cultures. "How the perimenopause transition is going for a woman depends on a lot of factors. Your stress, your adrenal system, your stress support system, how stable it is, how strong your circadian rhythm is, how well-nourished you are, how your immune system is. All of those things, including, unfortunately, how many environmental toxins you have been exposed to. Any of those negative things can increase the symptoms of the perimenopause transition".    - Lara Briden    Tahnee and Lara discuss: Menopause. Perimenopause. Contraceptive drugs The reproductive years. Pill bleeds are not periods. The phases of perimenopause. The transition into menopause. Herbal medicine for menopause. Hormone therapy for menopause. Why alcohol and menopause don't mix. The difference between progesterone and progestin. Bone density loss with perimenopause/menopause. The hormonal shifts during perimenopause/menopause. At what age do women start getting symptoms of menopause?   Who Lara Briden? Lara Briden is a naturopathic doctor and author of the bestselling books Period Repair Manual andHormone Repair Manual. With a strong science background, Lara sits on several advisory boards and is the lead author of a 2020 paper published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. She has 25 years' experience in women's health and currently has consulting rooms in Christchurch, New Zealand, where she treats women with PCOS, PMS, endometriosis, perimenopause, and many other hormone- and period-related health problems.   CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON APPLE PODCAST    If you're wanting to enrich your knowledge and dive deeper into Lara's work, make sure you check out the resources below linking to Lara's websites, books and previous podcasts.      Resources: Dr. Lara's website Dr. Lara's Instagram Dr. Lara's Facebook Lara Briden Forum The Period Repair Manual-Lara Briden Period Repair with Lara Briden (EP#21) The Power of Menopause with Jane Hardwick Collings (EP#77) Is It PCOS or Hypothalamic Amenorrhea with Lara Briden (EP#99)   Resources Mentioned In The Podcast:   The Power of Eating Enough - Lara Briden Blog Post The Difference Between Progesterone and Progestin - Lara Briden Blog Post The Slow Moon Climbs - The Science, History, and Meaning of Menopause (book mentioned by Lara in podcast)       Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We'd also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee: (00:00) Hi everyone, welcome to the SuperFeast Podcast. I am here with Lara Briden, she is one of our friends of the podcast. It's our third episode with us today, really excited to have her here. And we're speaking about perimenopause and menopause, really in reference to her book, the Hormone Repair Manual, which if you're my age and over, I'm in my mid 30s, highly recommend getting a copy. It's actually a really good, fun read and really interesting just thinking about preparing for this stage of life. So thank you for joining us on the podcast again, Lara. I'm so happy to have you here.   Lara Briden: (00:34) Thanks for having me. Looking forward to our chat again.   Tahnee: (00:39) Yeah, another one. And we've been sort of all over the world. I think we've done a lot of stuff on menstruation really when you've been on with us, but I was really excited when I saw you publish this. It was last year, wasn't it?   Lara Briden: (00:48) Yeah. Came out early last year.   Tahnee: (00:50) Yes. I think I've had it for quite a while. And I guess from I think women hit this, I hit middle 30s and was like, "I don't have much information about menopause and I've only had these sort of anecdotal stories from family and friends about what happens to women and it's usually pretty negative. It's not really framed up in a positive way." And then I was telling you we had Jane Hardwicke Collings on the podcast and she spoke a lot around the spiritual side of things and these important transitions that we have in our lives. And it just made me a bit more interested and excited about what's coming.   Tahnee: (01:28) I think reading your book, yes, obviously it's a complex time, but just how you mapped out the stages and took something that can feel really sort of dark and unknown and maybe even a little bit scary and... I don't know, I think it just made me feel a little bit more confident and reassured, so thank you for that.   Lara Briden: (01:43) That's sweet. I had one review say, "Yeah, made me feel like everything's going to be okay." Which is-   Tahnee: (01:53) I think it's like with pregnancy, because I'm pregnant right now and you hear about birth growing up and it's always people's hectic horror stories. It's always like, "Oh and you have to carry a baby around this and that." And I think when you actually go through it, it's like, "That's actually really magical and quite beautiful." I mean, I know it's not for everybody, but that's been my experience and it's reframed a lot of that for me. And I think, just this book started that journey for me. So hopefully menopause is a fun experience. But I thought that idea of it being predictable was really interesting that you speak about early in the book, in the sense that there's a rhythm or a pattern that unfolds.   Lara Briden: (02:33) There's a sequence of events, it's not just chaos. It's portrayed as this hormonal chaotic time. That's not actually what's happening, it's a sequence. We'll start with this, it's second puberty. So we have first puberty, which we know is temporary, which we know is turning one thing into another thing. That's what perimenopause is. It's at the other end, it brackets our reproductive years. And it's second puberty, it's the end of periods.   Lara Briden: (03:08) The other good thing about that is it's temporary. And also, I guess the thing I want to say is that writing this book and going through menopause myself, I've reframed actually how I think about female physiology. I now have this sort of view that we have our basic female physiology, which starts at in childhood, we have low hormones, and then we go through 35 to 40 years at the most of our reproductive years, which is amazing. As you know I'm a huge fan of ovulation and periods and pregnancy and all of that's amazing and that helps us make hormones and build metabolic reserve.   Lara Briden: (03:44) But then that has to end, this is the thing about reproductive years, that is, there's an end point. And then we revert back to our more baseline female physiology. So for me, that's sort of really normalised it. It's far from being, "Oh, I'm longer a woman." No, it's the opposite. This is the basic female physiology and then I'm just thankful to have had, in my case about 38 years of periods, I guess.   Tahnee: (04:12) That's a really interesting way to think about it, I guess, because it's almost like this heightened state through these reproductive years, which are so intensive, really in many ways on us and then having this stability afterwards.   Lara Briden: (04:27) The reproductive years are a special time and that's true whether you have pregnancies or not, actually I would say. I mean, obviously pregnancies are a very special part of that, but even for women like myself who did not have pregnancies, it's still those years of ovulating and it's amazing. It also just, for example, having menstrual cycles and pregnancies increases our metabolic rate, increases our demand for calories. So when we exit that, come up the other end, our metabolism shifts, and that's always portrayed as a bad thing. You start to gain weight with menopause. But again, I've sort of reframed it as we need fewer calories in a way. And so from a-   Tahnee: (05:07) Less resources.   Lara Briden: (05:08) Yeah. From an evolutionary perspective, I might jump to that because as you know, I might have mentioned on the podcast before, before I became a naturopathic doctor, I was an evolutionary biologist and I see a lot of things through that lens. Menopause is particularly fascinating from an evolutionary perspective because all the evidence is now that even in ancient times, even in prehistoric times, there were women who made it through to 80 years old. Contrary to the mistaken belief that we all died by 40, that is not the case at all. A lot of people died young because of injuries and unfortunately childhood mortality and death in childbirth as well. There's lots of hazards before modern medicine, but it was always still possible and not uncommon for individuals to live to 80.   Lara Briden: (06:04) And actually what some of the research shows and in my book, I quote another book called The Slow Moon Climbs, where she builds the case that a longer human lifespan for both sexes evolved because of beneficial selection pressure on women in their post reproductive decades. So basically it's about the fact that 50 something, 60 something women are so productive for their group. They gather more food than any other demographic and they share it and they also need less themselves. So that's the perfect member of a society. They're helping everyone, they're gathering food. They're very lean, efficient machines themselves because they don't need as much energy. And it's a good thing, it's like a superpower. It's that reframing of the shift in metabolism as certainly beneficial for our ancestors.   Lara Briden: (07:00) It's a little bit trickier now in our modern world where we live with so many surrounded by sugar and processed foods. That's what you would call an evolutionary mismatch with our ancient metabolism. We can explore that a little bit, but just the basic message being, menopause is meant to happen. It evolved, it's not an accident of living too long. It's something, if we're lucky enough to live this long, that we do as women. I think understanding all of that just changed it all for me personally, I just feel far from feeling like I'm done. I feel now this is the next exciting chapter where you get to do lots of things.   Tahnee: (07:43) Well, I want to bookmark a little bit there because there's a couple things I want to drill down on. I think that piece around the mismatch evolutionarily is really interesting, but I just want to go back a little bit to what you said about, which I guess it's lining up, if you think about how we live now, back in those days it would've been that support of the older, wiser, probably more hands on members of society to the reproducing ones. And I think now we've got this interesting cultural thing where even with myself, I work full time, I have a kid, I'm going to have another kid. And I can see how that drains women as well as they head into their perimenopausal and menopausal years. I wonder if you've noticed that in your clinical work, is there's this extra pressure now on women during their reproductive years and how that affects menopause.   Lara Briden: (08:40) Oh yeah. Well, there's so many reasons. Couple things I'll say so that'll answer your question about clinically what I'm saying. If I could just allow me for a little bit to talk about the evolution a little bit more and restore of humans because I've [crosstalk 00:08:55]. So what we know now about hominids, well, ancient human groups is that we had to have a lot of... To do what we did and spread over the world and be so successful, there always had to be a high ratio between adults and children, which is very interesting. You had to have what they call, I think they called them alloparents. So you had to have non reproducing adults basically who would support and help the reproducing women do what they had to do.   Lara Briden: (09:28) And that's actually what enabled women, the reproducing members of society, to make babies every three years, back to back like that. Because you can imagine a individual human, a woman in the wild, there's no way you could raise baby after baby with no help. [crosstalk 00:09:46] And a husband isn't enough, one person isn't enough. You have to have aunts and uncles, grandmothers. And so there's that.   Lara Briden: (09:57) So obviously yes, I think to speak to your question, young mothers are under a lot of pressure now that they wouldn't have been. And that is a drain on their stress response system. That's certainly not ideal, in terms of stress level throughout the reproductive years. A lot of what happens at perimenopause, you know how in my first book I talk about the period as the monthly report card, perimenopause is like the final exam. It's everything that's been happening, what amount of metabolic reserve you were able to build up through... When you get to your early 40s, because for a lot of us, the change does start in our early 40s. It's not somewhere off in your mid 50s. I mean, that's a mistaken understanding that a lot of women have, like, "It's happening now." Not now for you, but for a lot of women, by 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, that's pretty common to start to get some of the neurological symptoms.   Lara Briden: (11:05) And the way that is going to be will depend on a lot of factors and certainly your stress, your adrenal system, we call it naturopathically, or your stress support system, how stable that is, how strong your circadian rhythm is, how well nourished you are, how your immune system is. All of those things, including unfortunately, how many environmental toxins you might have been exposed to. Any of those negative things can increase the symptoms of the perimenopause transition.   Lara Briden: (11:40) Because I'm convinced from a biology evolutionary point of view and also as discussed in the book that I mentioned, low Moon Climbs, the actual transition of perimenopause to menopause, historically would've not been symptomatic. There's no reason that we would've... The body should be able to make that change symptom free. Obviously you stop ovulating and stop having periods, that's what happens, but there's no reason that should go along with distressing, sleep or hot flushes or all the things that can happen. Just as there's no reason periods should be... Periods are not painful inherently. They are commonly painful, but that's a mismatch a lot of the time with our modern food supply and other things going on.   Lara Briden: (12:30) So that's the idea of evolutionary mismatch. I think actually to perimenopause and perimenopause symptoms is the classic example of evolutionary mismatch. This idea that symptoms arise from a mismatch between our ancient physiology and our modern environment. And not just food, not just environmental toxins, but circadian rhythm would come into that a lot, disrupted circadian rhythm. On the topic of environmental toxins, there's actually a bit of interesting research. I do include it in the book just only like one sentence [crosstalk 00:13:00].   Tahnee: (13:00) Lead stuff?   Lara Briden: (13:00) Yes.   Tahnee: (13:01) Yeah. I was going to ask about [crosstalk 00:13:03].   Lara Briden: (13:03) Good eyes. There's like one sentence about that, but possibly, and this is just one example of the way environmental toxins can affect us, but there's some research to suggest that some of the neurological symptoms of the perimenopause transition, so that would include anxiety, sleep disturbance, potentially hot flashes, may arise at least in part from the release of lead from our bones. It's sounds awful, but this is the case. That we've accumulated through a lifetime and now with increased bone turnover with dropping oestrogen levels, more of that lead is liberated into the bloodstream.   Lara Briden: (13:44) And so for example, just to give you... When I was a kid, we had leaded petroleum or leaded gasoline. Obviously the society has been trying to reduce lead exposure, but some of us, especially born in the '60s and '70s, were exposed to more. And with heavy metal toxins, as you probably know, the body sequesters it, so it's like, "Oh, this is bad." Puts it in the bones, which takes it out of circulation for a while, but eventually comes back. So that's an intriguing bit of research to kind of wonder if without body burden of lead, what would... I think there's other factors too. I don't think that would mean we're all of us symptom free, but it's an intriguing-   Tahnee: (14:26) It could be a tipping point or something.   Lara Briden: (14:27) Yeah. It's a factor.   Tahnee: (14:30) I found that really interesting too. And even just because you hear about osteoporosis in sort of menopausal years, but I think, I didn't really understand that it was just that turnover process was heightened and faster, I suppose.   Lara Briden: (14:43) Yes, it's an increased bone turnover. Which is real, and a lot of that's comes from losing oestrogen and progesterone to some extent.   Tahnee: (14:50) So that's happening in the body anyway. We have osteoblast clast going around and [crosstalk 00:14:56].   Lara Briden: (14:55) Yes, the turnover is always happening. Yes, exactly.   Tahnee: (14:57) So can you explain, is the difference with menopause is as the progesterone and oestrogen drop-   Lara Briden: (15:04) Yes.   Tahnee: (15:04) Is that just completely affecting the speed of that process, is that [crosstalk 00:15:09]?   Lara Briden: (15:09) So there's more osteoclast activity or the cells that kind of chew up bone. Osteoclasts are suppressed by oestrogen, not completely, but... So as you know, we're always, from peak bone density, peak bone mass around age 30, we, everyone, men and women, it's downhill from there basically. We're losing bone mass incrementally, continuously, and that's normal. But the idea is we want to have hopefully strong enough bones to last into our 80s or 90s. At some point we're not going to need our bones anymore. But around the later phases of perimenopause when oestrogen drops, because I just point out oestrogen is actually high in the early phases, which is interesting. But around the later phases and into after your final period, it is true, there is acceleration of that bone loss for at least about five years. And it's real, I think it's just, it's a lot of it your outcome.   Lara Briden: (16:15) And then, the concern is because you're not going to break bones from osteoporosis in your 50s, it's actually, what's going to happen when you're 75, 80. So it's all about this prevention for down the road, so it's about assessing risk. What other risk factors for low bone density might you have? A good example is eating disorders like undereating as a young woman is not good. There's some evidence that hormonal birth control actually impairs bone density, smoking. These are some of the obvious ones, smoking's [crosstalk 00:16:48] not good. So if you have any of those risk factors and then plus, especially if you have an earlier then for the sake of bones, there is a real argument to be made for taking oestrogen potentially long term to protect bones. So I'll just acknowledge that.   Lara Briden: (17:04) There's also lots of other ways to help bones. The muscle and bone are just connected like hand in hand. So maintaining strong muscles is a excellent way to maintain bone health. And we are unfortunately with the final phases of menopause or perimenopause and dropping oestrogen levels, we tend to lose muscle mass, which it's real. It's like you lose your bum, you just start to not have... You can maintain muscles, but you have to work at it. And well, it's a sad reality. And I guess just also speaking back to our ancestors, they didn't work at maintaining muscle exactly. They were walking around carrying [crosstalk 00:17:49]. Yeah. Carrying bundles of food and babies and-   Tahnee: (17:52) Children.   Lara Briden: (17:52) Yeah.   Tahnee: (17:53) Yes. 20 kilos to laugh that to me at the moment, people like, "Look at your arms." I'm like, I would, I have a 20 kilo child. I think that's a really interesting piece with our modern society. And we seem to keep looking back at this mismatch, but we would've been so much more active and just incidentally active through our day to day lives [crosstalk 00:18:17].   Lara Briden: (18:17) They didn't exercise.   Tahnee: (18:18) Yeah. They're not working out at the gym or anything.   Lara Briden: (18:20) No. [crosstalk 00:18:22]   Tahnee: (18:23) And I think that that losing that throughout our whole lives, it's a challenge, and for younger people.   Lara Briden: (18:29) Younger people. Sure.   Tahnee: (18:29) But I notice you mentioned walking, that's something you do a lot and-   Lara Briden: (18:33) Yeah.   Tahnee: (18:34) Some of the women I know who've had easier transitions movement does seem to play a part in that for them the more active jobs or people who walk a lot or do those more active things.   Lara Briden: (18:45) For sure. I love the fact that you use the word movements rather than exercise. I'm a convert to saying movement because of the inherent sort of just joyfulness of it. You're not, as you say, working out, it's not a chore. You're moving your body. So I would emphasise, it's pretty important to find a style of movement that is enjoyable because that's the way you're going to do it on a regular basis. Not to be healthy, not to specifically to build bone, but because it feels good to move your body.   Tahnee: (19:19) You actually like to do it. And I think that was interesting because you had some research around, I think it was yoga and hot flashes, which I hadn't heard and thought was super interesting, but I know yoga's not for everybody because some people it's too much stretching. Because sometimes I think resistance training can be better for like what you're talking about, holding muscle mass and strengthening bones and things. But I thought that was an interesting study because I hadn't heard of that symptom.   Lara Briden: (19:45) A lot of things affect hot flashes actually, because there are nervous system symptoms. So there's lots ways to help to stabilise. The nervous system is recalibrating. We can launch into that now, but I'll just say a word for... I love yoga and I agree [crosstalk 00:20:01].   Tahnee: (20:00) I love it. I'm a yoga [crosstalk 00:20:02].   Lara Briden: (20:01) You either love it or you don't. If you don't, that's fine, but it has a lot of things going for it. You do build muscle with yoga, especially if you're doing some of the stronger squats and lunges and things. And also as I talk about in the book, it's so good for the nervous system. It's this combination of actually arms above the head, controlled breathing, long exhales. That's really good for the vagus nerve as you probably know. And it's very stabilising for the nervous system. So I love it. I acknowledge not everyone feels the same, but I'm in the camp of how do people survive without yoga? [crosstalk 00:20:36]   Tahnee: (20:36) No, trust me, that's me too. But one thing I've noticed with, I don't know, I used to teach a lot of menopausal women and they seem to have, you mentioned it in the book, a lot of energy. And I do find sometimes I feel like they actually don't connect to the... They seem to enjoy moving more.   Lara Briden: (20:58) Okay. More vigorously maybe sometimes [crosstalk 00:21:01].   Tahnee: (21:01) Which is something interesting because I teach a lot of Yin and slower. I did used to teach hectic stuff too, but it was just interesting when I was watching how different people responded to practices. And look, it could be a nervous system thing too, like you're talking about. I thought that was an interesting chapter. I guess just thinking about how much, I mean, that affects all of us, like heart rate variability and all of these things. But I thought that was really interesting in relation to peri and menopause. So can you talk a little bit about that side of things?   Lara Briden: (21:33) Oh, about the nervous system [crosstalk 00:21:35]. Yeah. So let's talk about that. Perfect, because I mentioned about recalibration of the nervous system. And we'll get our terms straight too. So perimenopause is the lead up to menopause basically. I mean, there's different ways. Menopause itself as a word has different definitions depending on who you ask. But the definition I use comes from the professor who helped me with my book, Jerilynn Prior. She is in the camp that defines menopause as the life phase that begins one year after your final period. So she would call that menopause is the next 30 years going forward from perimenopause.   Lara Briden: (22:22) Some people define it differently. Some people call that post-menopause I'm with her, that menopause is all of those decades that come after. Whereas perimenopause is the change and that's where the symptoms come from. Most of the symptoms are temporary. With the, we probably won't get to it today, but just acknowledging that longer term symptoms with menopause or post menopause depending on how you want to define it, would be things like vaginal dryness and that whole syndrome that goes along with low oestrogen and how that affects the pelvis and bladder. And so that's obviously [crosstalk 00:22:57].   Tahnee: (22:56) Not the prolapse sort of.   Lara Briden: (22:58) That sort of thing. So that's-   Tahnee: (23:00) And you speak to that in the book.   Lara Briden: (23:01) I do. There's a chapter section on that. That's not temporary, but a lot of the other symptoms are temporary, especially the neurological symptoms of which most symptoms of premenopausal are neurological, and they arise from the recalibration process. So just as first puberty is, as you can imagine, a recalibration of the brain. The brain undergoes pretty major changes in first puberty, obviously. And the immune system undergoes changes with first puberty. The same happens with second puberty or perimenopause. So a brain rewiring, that's what I call chapter to seven in the book, is rewiring the brain.   Lara Briden: (23:44) The other system that undergoes quite a profound recalibration is the immune system. And that's why there's such thing as perimenopausal allergies and an increased likelihood of autoimmune flare. And the other system that undergoes a recalibration is the metabolic system and cardiovascular system all around a shift to insulin resistance, unfortunately, which also affects the brain.   Lara Briden: (24:09) But in answer to your question about the nervous system, I'll just talk about the nervous systems. So nervous system symptoms include hot flushes, night sweats. Night sweats are usually first, premenstrual night sweats, first in terms of sequence of symptoms to arise. And then sleep disturbance is quite a common one, increased likelihood of anxiety and depression, dialled up premenstrual mood symptoms potentially, and migraines. Did I already say migraine?   Tahnee: (24:44) No.   Lara Briden: (24:45) [crosstalk 00:24:45] No, increased frequency of migraines. I just had a patient the other day actually with classic. She said she'd had maybe two migraines in her first puberty and then they went away completely. And then they came back at 42, 43, they started coming back. And so I can talk about some of the underlying physiology that's contributing to that.   Tahnee: (25:07) Well, I just think it's super interesting because I guess reading the book that I noticed a lot of it seemed to come back to that nervous system piece around there's all the sleep symptom and that's really, if we work on regulating nervous system that helps. The hot flash if we work on [crosstalk 00:25:25]. And I guess one of the things I hear a lot from people is, how do I fix my hot flashes? Or how do I fix my insomnia? How do I fix my... And it's like the symptom becomes the focus instead of really drilling down to that root cause around well, maybe there's this imbalance in the activation of the nervous system.   Lara Briden: (25:43) Right. Or just the general strategy of supporting the nervous system rather than having to eliminate that [crosstalk 00:25:50].   Tahnee: (25:49) Yeah. Like focus on cooling down or eating [crosstalk 00:25:53].   Lara Briden: (25:55) For sure. And one thing before I launch into the nervous system and the physiology underlying that, I do just want to point out while I'm thinking of it, there's no diagnostic test for this. This is a little bit... This is worth mentioning-   Tahnee: (26:13) Like it's subjective kind of?   Lara Briden: (26:15) Because it's such a classic story, as women start having night sweats, increased migraines, they feel different. They're like, "Ooh something's happening? Could this be perimenopause?" And then the answer is probably yes. But they go to the doctor and they're like, "Oh, your blood tests are fine." That means nothing. That means absolutely nothing. And same with DUTCH testing or any kind of... There's no diagnostic test for perimenopause. It's purely based on context and symptoms. By context, meaning if you're older than 35, and symptoms and ruling out other causes. For example, thyroid disease can look and feel a lot like perimenopause, but it's something different. Although you can have both happening at the same time, which is confusing.   Lara Briden: (27:08) But I will say just to be clear, so I'm talking about a normal perimenopause, a normal progression where your symptoms might start in your late 30s or early 40s, but you're heading to a final period anywhere between 45 to 55, that's normal. Period stopping due to early menopause at like 35, that's different, and that can be diagnosed by blood tests. We'll leave the early menopause thing. I talk about it in the book, but we'll just leave that separately because obviously that's a whole other conversation.   Lara Briden: (27:45) Today we're talking about the normal timing of things. So what's happening with the nervous system is the sequence of events. Like I said, there's a logical sequence of events, it's not just random chaos. The first thing that happens is start to make less progesterone because we're having shorter luteal phases, your listeners know what I'm talking about, so we're-   Tahnee: (28:13) Yeah, I think so. I mean, the book has that beautiful graph I think. That visual was really good to show my husband. [crosstalk 00:28:20] But so we get that big curve of progesterone and sort of [crosstalk 00:28:26].   Lara Briden: (28:27) In the ovulatory cycle when we're healthy, when we're younger than 40, if we're not on hormonal birth control, we should be having every month, a couple weeks of strong progesterone production. And that helps to lighten periods, that is usually quite good for mood. Although there's a little bit of nuance around that, but generally progesterone for most women is a little bit tranquillising. Well, you've got lots of it right now. Second trimester pregnancy is usually quite tranquillising. I mean, again, it can vary as other factors.   Lara Briden: (29:00) But with on the journey to perimenopause, we just start, our ovulation just becomes less robust. It's nothing you've done wrong. In my first book, I talk about all the ways to promote healthy ovulation and we still want to do that. And in my new book, I have a chapter called cycle while you can. You still want to ovulate as best you can for as long as possible and always remove any obstacles to ovulation, but also accept the fact that ovulations are becoming less robust. Eventually they're going to stop, that's normal.   Lara Briden: (29:35) So with this reduction in progesterone, with shorter luteal phases, maybe a shift to having more anovulatory cycles or cycles where you don't ovulate, but still bleed, we make less progesterone. And that feels like trouble sleeping, increased migraines, increased anxiety potentially, and heavier periods as well, which we might not go into today. We'll see if we have time. But there can be heavy periods going along with all of this. So we lose progesterone, which is one of the reasons taking progesterone, not a progestin in the pill, but natural progesterone can be actually very helpful.   Lara Briden: (30:18) At the same time, we're getting in the early phases of perimenopause. And there's four phases, which I give a little chart in the book. But in the earlier phases, which in total last four or five years, we're also getting potentially oestrogen higher than ever before, up to three times higher than before and spiking up and down. And you can't really that with a blood test, because it's all over the place. But you know from symptoms and from some of the testing research that professor Prior has done, you can see this big oestrogen spikes. And along with oestrogen spiking up high can come this whole immune system reaction that I talk about in the book of high histamine and which is also very-   Tahnee: (31:04) Muscle reaction.   Lara Briden: (31:04) Very muscle activation and this in part is the perimenopausal allergies and it's headaches and irritability and hives sometimes or urticaria sometimes. There's definitely an immune thing going on that can feel terrible. And that I have noticed sometimes gets called oestrogen dominance, although I don't really use that word. But that's that kind of high oestrogen immune stimulated picture with very little progesterone sometimes to counterbalance that. And so that's the first phases and that is not pleasant. Sorry, so that affects the nervous system. That's where some of the other anxiety symptoms come from is that high oestrogen, high histamine plus then estrogen's on a rollercoaster. Then you get some oestrogen withdrawal symptoms leading up to the period, which also doesn't feel very good. That's where the night sweats come from is oestrogen dropping from high to low. So lowest [crosstalk 00:32:02].   Tahnee: (32:01) Kind of addictive. I just want to quickly dive in because I thought that was interesting. I'd never thought of it that way. It's a first.   Lara Briden: (32:10) Yeah. Oestrogen is addictive [crosstalk 00:32:11] for the brain.   Tahnee: (32:11) So when we're swinging, that's this kind of the low is like a withdrawal. [crosstalk 00:32:18]   Lara Briden: (32:17) Yeah. We get oestrogen withdrawal. Yeah, for sure. It's not pleasant. And just to reassure, it was perfect timing with your question, because I was about to say that once we get into that menopause phase, stable, low oestrogen... Not no oestrogen, we still make actually quite a lot of oestrogen still, but we don't get hot flushes and night sweats because it's not the like up and down crashing down part of the oestrogen roller coasters. So a lot of it comes from oestrogen withdrawal and also the oestrogen addiction side of things. It's worth mentioning that if women do take oestrogen therapy... And I think it's fine to take it. I just want to say, in general pro hormone therapy, not everyone needs it, but I think it's reasonable to take that.   Lara Briden: (33:09) Just one thing to understand, that if and when you decide to stop it, you have to taper down oestrogen. I've had patients who they want to take a break and so they've just stop it immediately, and of course get hot flushes back because you're going through oestrogen withdrawal. That doesn't really tell you anything about your underlying need for it, if you know what I mean.   Tahnee: (33:30) Okay. So that makes sense. It's like, you're got to be gradual in changing the body biochemistry [crosstalk 00:33:37].   Lara Briden: (33:36) When you're coming off hormone therapy, you can go on it more-   Tahnee: (33:39) Aggressively?   Lara Briden: (33:40) Rapidly. No, not aggre... No, I always think start low actually. I don't know if we'll have time today to go into all my thoughts about hormone therapy, but if [crosstalk 00:33:46].   Tahnee: (33:46) I think you really talk a lot about that option in the book and I think it's probably something better discussed clinically I think with a practitioner appointment and [crosstalk 00:33:57].   Lara Briden: (33:57) So read book and we'll talk, because I think we want to talk more about the nutrition side of things and-   Tahnee: (34:02) Yeah. I guess the distinction I thought was interesting in the hormonal chapters or sort of, was around the, so you're distinguishing between body identical, bio identical and then the more chemical like synthetic hormones, I suppose. Do you mind just giving us some distinctions around?   Lara Briden: (34:18) Yeah. So just very broad strokes. And I agree, because I think we should focus more on the nutrition side of things today. But I will say, put this simply, so-   Tahnee: (34:27) Good luck.   Lara Briden: (34:30) There's a confusion happening, which is that up until about eight years ago in Australia, it's different in different countries, but I remember exactly when body identical hormones went mainstream in Australia, it was 2016. So that's seven years ago. No, six years ago.   Tahnee: (34:48) Five or six.   Lara Briden: (34:49) How many years ago? I don't even know. With the pandemic, we're like, "Wait, how many years..."   Tahnee: (34:53) "Have I been?" I think it was five because my daughter was born in 2016 and she [crosstalk 00:34:58].   Lara Briden: (34:57) Okay. So it's only five years ago. Five or six years. [crosstalk 00:35:00] That's when body identical also called bioidentical hormones became mainstream. So until that point, which is not that long ago, the only way to access hormones that are actual hormones, actual estradiol, identical to the hormones we make, the only way to access those was compounded. You have to see an integrative doctor. So we have to be a special route to get to those hormones. And now they're pretty much mainstream, and I talk about it in the book, you have to ask for them by brand name. Not all the hormone therapy products on the market are bioidentical, but some of them are, and doctors do know now that it's safer and it's better.   Lara Briden: (35:51) And the real advantage, one of the big differences is that body identical or bioidentical, means the same thing, progesterone is safer for the breasts. So progestins, not progesterone, but the progesterone analogue drugs are not safe for the breasts. And that's actually where a lot of the breast cancer risk came from was the progestin part. So real progesterone in Australia is called Prometrium. This is the brand name in the US. It's Utrogestan in New Zealand and the UK. So hopefully there's a lot more detail in my book, but I hope that clears things up for some people listening.   Tahnee: (36:30) Well, I think that was interesting because you talk about women who've been on the pill until their 50s or some, and then they're like, "Oh I want to go back on the pill, because I got..." [crosstalk 00:36:43].   Lara Briden: (36:44) Don't do that. And then I say, "Yeah, no, no, exactly." And then [crosstalk 00:36:49].   Tahnee: (36:49) In the book you were like, "No," but they were yes in... Anyway, I thought it was an interesting, because I might have mentioned this another time [crosstalk 00:36:54]. But I had a professor who was doing all this research into how the pill's so great because it stops us having periods and blah, blah, blah. This is when I was 18, so this was a long time ago. But he made the point that if you're on the pill, it's mimicking preg... So he was coming-   Lara Briden: (37:10) No.   Tahnee: (37:11) Yes, I know. It's very [crosstalk 00:37:13].   Lara Briden: (37:12) Keep going. Yeah, yeah.   Tahnee: (37:14) But he was like, "It's just like these, our ancient ancestors, how they had lots of babies and they never were bleeding and blah, blah, blah." And so 18 year old Me's like, "Okay, this is making sense." And anyway, long story, but I feel like there's a little bit of that lingering sense of the pills keeping everything in balance and if I go off that it's going to... I hear that a bit in the world when I talk to people and yes, I'm curious if you could talk about how the pill relates to perimenopause and menopause.   Lara Briden: (37:42) Very good question. There's a whole section about that in my book. Again, I'll try to be concise here so we have time for some of the other things too. Just quickly to answer to what this professor was saying to you, which is that the pill mimics pregnancy, which is absolute standard narrative that we've been fed, not my strong word, but that's been out there-   Tahnee: (38:07) Well, this was in university biology course on human reproduction. It's a big thing to teach a bunch of kids.   Lara Briden: (38:13) Yeah. So the problem with that version of things, is that contraceptive drugs, just if we name them, let's say the drug called levonorgestrel and most pills or ethinyl estradiol, that's the synthetic oestrogen. They are not the same as the oestrogen and progesterone you make during pregnancy or during menstrual cycles. In terms of mimicking pregnancy, I mean only very superficially, not in terms of what that means physiologically for the body because the hormones of pregnancy are actually quite beneficial and particularly on the breasts.   Lara Briden: (38:53) And as you know, pregnancies in general, have a risk reduction effect for breast cancer long term. And part of that is the progesterone exposure because real progesterone that you make during pregnancy, that you make during a menstrual cycle, that you can take as Prometrium arguably has a risk reduction effect for breast cancer, whereas progestin increase the risk. So that's just one example of how progestins are different from progesterone. I have a blog post called the crucial difference between progesterone and progestin. So you can look at it there. So an answer to-   Tahnee: (39:28) I think you had the diagram in your book with the two different molecules as well.   Lara Briden: (39:32) Yeah, they're different. So an answer to your question, what does the pill mean for perimenopause? Well, it masks it for one thing. So as we talked about, we'll have to refer, you can put the show notes back to our first episode where I'm sure we had a little discussion about why pill bleeds are not periods. That's true in our 40s as well. So if you're having regular pill induced bleeds, you'll keep having those even after your body went through menopause. It doesn't delay it. If anything, the pill brings menopause a little sooner, it doesn't stop menopause. What will happen is if you've been on the pill and having those bleeds, then when you stop it, you'll be instantly into menopause, over the oestrogen cliff, which is probably why you asked that question thinking, but that's an example of oestrogen withdrawal going straight over. It's like... It's potentially not good.   Lara Briden: (40:32) And so in the patient story that I think you were mentioning from the book, she's like, "Oh, I need to go back on the pill is this is awful." And I'm like, no, well you might as well go on to modern menopause hormone therapy, which is body identical, which is at least giving you real hormones and safer than the pill because the pill is hormone therapy. It's a big dose of synthetic, almost like an old school type of hormone replacement therapy that's not even as good as what they give menopausal women now. So it always feels like a bit of a cruel thing that now finally menopausal women get access to natural hormones conventionally. The young women are still put on these horrible synthetic hormonal drugs that don't have...   Tahnee: (41:19) Very not good for us.   Lara Briden: (41:21) Yeah. So I have a chapter in Hormone Repair Manual called cycle while you can, making the argument. And I quote, professor Pryor, she said, "The 40s is not a time to take the pill because if you need something, you might as well take real progesterone to get those benefits rather than..." Yeah.   Tahnee: (41:39) Well, I thought that was an interesting point you made, I think it was in that chapter around just to have as many cycles as you can leading up to menopause and even pregnancies and things like how biologically we would've probably had babies until we couldn't. And that's actually quite potentially helps smooth that transition. Again, this is sort of [crosstalk 00:42:04]   Lara Briden: (42:04) Good eye. You have a good memory for all those parts of book. Yeah, it's true. Because-   Tahnee: (42:08) Not as much as I usually do, pregnant brain.   Lara Briden: (42:12) No, I'm impressed by those little parts that you remembered from the book, but yes, that's another example of evolutionary mismatch is our prehistoric ancestors. Well, and even historic, to some extent, would've had quite a different life menstrual history in that likely they would've kept having babies and breastfeeding and severe periods. Potentially what perimenopause would've looked like for them was you have your last baby at 42 or 43 or something, and then you breastfeed for three years and then you just never get your period back. It's just kind of a slow glide into... You come from the low oestrogen stage of breastfeeding into... And so there's no oestrogen withdrawal. You don't necessarily, they wouldn't have been going through these crazy up and down oestrogen roller coasters that we modern women do. So that's another explanation potentially for why they wouldn't have had the symptoms. I say wouldn't have, I mean, they don't have. In modern, I mean, the information we have is modern day hunter gather people like the Hadza don't report symptoms. They report stopping their periods at 45, but they're generally happy about it.   Tahnee: (43:30) Well, I've often fed this to my husband and it's something I think about with all stages of our biological shifts through life, but it shouldn't probably be as hectic as it is. You think about puberty, you think about pregnancy. Some people I talk to, they just have the most awful time. And I think, there has... And I guess that comes back to what you were talking about at the beginning around that mismatch around how we live and what we eat.   Lara Briden: (43:59) And environmental toxins. I mean, we really can't underestimate, environmental toxins are affecting our menstrual cycles and our perimenopause experience, unfortunately. And that's not-   Tahnee: (44:10) On pregnancy too, I'm sure.   Lara Briden: (44:13) ... women's fault. This is why I talk in the book and I'm starting to talk more about our environment, including our food environment, because we're like animals inside an environment. Certainly in terms of diet, we're eating because that's what's around us. I mean, it's not all about making the wrong choices, it's-   Tahnee: (44:34) It's what's available.   Lara Briden: (44:35) Yeah.   Tahnee: (44:37) Well, so on diet, I think in terms of what women... Because I noticed the piece on soy as well, which was interesting because I think we all grow up hearing soy good for menopause and don't really... Thought that was an interesting... You sort of debunked that.   Lara Briden: (44:52) Well, it's not oestrogen. This is the thing with phytoestrogens is their antiestrogen in young women, which can be good. That's not a bad thing. I actually think phytoestrogens are great. And they're somewhat pro oestrogen with menopause, just very briefly on phytoestrogens, and I do talk about it in the book, we're calibrated to them actually. Our ancestors, there's some research to suggest that especially those of us with agrarian ancestors, so ancestors eating grains and legumes, women evolved a higher level of estrodiol, ramped up our oestrogen to sort of overcome the anti antiestrogen effect from phytoestrogen.   Lara Briden: (45:41) So in that sense, we're calibrated to have those in our diet and phytoestrogens actually do have quite a stabilising beneficial effect on all stages of female hormonal health. In part with menopause, one thing they do that's very beneficial is they help to, this is a little bit technical, but they increase something called SHBG or sex hormone binding globulin, which actually helps to prevent some of the testosterone dominance and insulin resistance that can also happen, that I talk about in the book. So just to say, no, soy is not a substitute for oestrogen therapy or anything like that, but phytoestrogens generally are probably quite good for the perimenopause [crosstalk 00:46:26].   Tahnee: (46:26) Which would explain, I guess, why all those herbs that you use in those periods are very estrogenic.   Lara Briden: (46:32) And linseeds. That kind of thing can be very beneficial. So I certainly in trying to debunk that soy is oestrogen, would never want to take away from the fact that phytoestrogens broadly speaking are quite good for us. Yep.   Tahnee: (46:48) And I guess you did speak specifically to the isolates if I'm remembering correctly. So I'm probably putting words in your mouth.   Lara Briden: (46:54) Yeah. No, no. It's [crosstalk 00:46:57]. It's good to [crosstalk 00:46:57].   Tahnee: (46:57) But it's an interest. I do think like with that herbal piece, because there's... I mean, you mentioned black cohosh and there's a few talked about for sleep, which is one of my favourite herbs.   Lara Briden: (47:07) I love it.   Tahnee: (47:08) Yeah, it's a beautiful one. But I thought that was interesting because a lot of women, I think lean toward herbal therapy in the sort of, I guess alternative space. Can you speak a little bit to [crosstalk 00:47:20]?   Lara Briden: (47:19) Yeah. So herbal medicine can be very helpful. So I would say in the perimenopause space... So let's say if we're in the earlier phases of perimenopause, when oestrogen, as we've said is high, going high and then spiking low. There's different strategies to try to help with that. We're trying to stabilise the immune system, so stabilise histamine, that herbal medicine can be very helpful for that. We're trying support the gut so that the high oestrogen can clear safely through the gut, herbal medicine and supplements can help with that. And then there's the whole during the recalibration of the nervous system is where adaptogens can be quite helpful. So I don't name a lot of them, I don't go into a lot of the detail in the book, but things like Ashwagandha. A lot of those have anxiolytic kind of like, I mean calming, tranquillising-   Tahnee: (48:16) Effects. Yeah.   Lara Briden: (48:17) ... stabilising the nervous system. So there's a role for, I use herbal medicines quite a lot. I mean, I guess I do talk about how I've never seen that black cohosh as a standalone single intervention.   Tahnee: (48:33) Yeah. Well you mentioned you don't really use it, [crosstalk 00:48:35].   Lara Briden: (48:36) I've just never seen that it's... But I think as part of the whole programme, including diet, which we can talk about, and no alcohol, which we'll have to talk about, then I think adaptogen type herbal medicines can be part of that for sure and helpful. And phytoestrogen herbal medicines can be helpful in terms of stabilising the oestrogen roller coaster, sheltering from the spikes and at the same time helping with SHBG levels. And so it's lots of mechanisms by which phytoestrogens are helpful.   Tahnee: (49:10) It sounds like it's sort of a tapestry in a weave of maybe using the herbs, but also lifestyle changes. And maybe if we can talk a bit about diet and the alcohol is interesting because of the histamine. So let's jump into that.   Lara Briden: (49:23) Let's do my two big things. For my patients, this is basically what I say. If you could do these two things, there's a 50% chance that's all you're going to need to do. And then's 50% chance you might need some adaptogens or you might need some hormone therapy eventually or different options. But the two things are take magnesium because it's-   Tahnee: (49:45) I was about to say.   Lara Briden: (49:46) ... so stabilising and so-   Tahnee: (49:48) Nervous system, everything.   Lara Briden: (49:49) The nervous system loves it. And in the book, you'll see I talked about using of the magnesium taurine formulas, which is very easy to get in Australia. Taurine is an amino acid but it's also a neurotransmitter that's very calming. It's one of my favourite things for perimenopause, obviously, because I talk about it so much in the book. So, magnesium.   Lara Briden: (50:12) And then the second thing I would have to say quit alcohol. I mean, not forever potentially, but during the thick of it. If you're in that more intense part of perimenopause, phase two heading into phase three, approaching your final period, just removing alcohol entirely can be a game changer. There's several mechanisms by which that helps. I think definitely you talked about alcohol itself destabilises muscles and causes a histamine release. Also alcohol is just, well to put it bluntly, it's toxic to the nervous system, so there's that. I mean, it's just not friendly. It causes intestinal permeability, actually quite profound intestinal permeability when drinking, short term after alcohol intake and depending on the number of drinks.   Lara Briden: (51:14) And then also there's some research around habitual or even just moderate alcohol intake, sort of weakens the circadian rhythm response. So this is where alcohol can disrupt sleep. Not just the night you've had it, but more broadly. So I would invite people if you haven't before, try quitting it for a month and see what happens to your sleep, because it can be really quite interesting.   Lara Briden: (51:43) And the other thing about alcohol, I always try to mention this because for some reason, this is not common knowledge, but alcohol is conclusively linked to a higher risk of breast cancer. Now, the risk is not enormous. I don't want to scare people, but it's very robust in terms of the research is very clear. It's not, oh, we need more research, it's it definitely increases the risk of breast cancer. And as much as oestrogen therapy does in fact, moderate alcohol intake, five or six drinks in a week increases the risk of breast cancer as much as oestrogen therapy does. So it's quite a strong effect.   Tahnee: (52:32) And a fairly, I mean easy one to... I guess it's that sort of thing around a lot of women probably reach for a glass of wine as a nervous system thing. And it's really about reframing how you manage that.   Lara Briden: (52:46) They do, and I see on social media, a lot of messaging around wine for menopause or kind of... It makes me sad because I feel like that's damaging messaging potentially.   Tahnee: (53:05) Magnesium for menopause has more [crosstalk 00:53:07]?   Lara Briden: (53:10) Yeah. This has a better reason to it, I think.   Tahnee: (53:10) I noticed you spoke about neurotransmitters a bit, and that was a super interesting thing around you spoke about it earlier, the brain changes. But you mentioned glycine and a couple of others as well for... And I guess I'm hearing a lot, like the liver needs supporting. Is that sort of a fair thing to say? Because I mean, thinking about histamines, they all end up affecting the liver, and just thinking about these hormonal clearing through the blood, that's going to have to happen with all these changes. It seems like this organ gets to work a bit harder at this time. Is that something-   Lara Briden: (53:40) I mean, generally broadly, yes. And also, I think when we say liver and natural medicine, we do also mean other things too.   Tahnee: (53:49) I'm even thinking Chinese medicine.   Lara Briden: (53:51) Yeah. But from a Chinese medicine perspective actually encompass, definitely actually that's one of the main angles is using another really nice herb is herbal medicine is bupleurum, which I also love for [crosstalk 00:54:02], which is a cooling... I mean, that works on the liver in a TCM perspective. But the liver, I mean maybe correct me or you can agree with this or not, but from a TCM perspective, liver also includes the digestion, the gut and definitely that's... And the whole histamine system is probably sort of liver related I guess if we're trying to sort of put that across the two medical traditions, trying to connect [crosstalk 00:54:30]. Because from a Western medical perspective, liver means different things, but yes, all that kind of stuff.   Lara Briden: (54:37) And also just to bring into it, and we're not going to have time to go into this in detail, but I will just say there's this shift to insulin resistance that happens in the later phases of perimenopause and that can actually cause fatty liver. So that can actually... Now we're talking real liver things. And so I guess one of my takeaways might be if you're 40 something or late 50s or early 50, or at any age after that really, and noticing a significant thickening around the waist, especially if you've got higher cholesterol and fatty liver, and it's really time to find out if you have insulin resistance or not. I've written about that in the book and how testing... You have to test, not just for glucose, because that won't tell you, but you have to try to test insulin if your doctor will do it and then reverse that and [crosstalk 00:55:32].   Tahnee: (55:32) Of your diet, are you recommending more of a paleo-ey kind of a-   Lara Briden: (55:41) I mean, I lean that angle, but I guess I would say what seems to work is finding a way to feel satisfied with the meals, which always involves mostly about protein. Getting satisfied, having a functioning digestion and yes, liver to some extent. And then being able to, because you feel better and you're on magnesium and feeling better. That's when it's time to say no to both alcohol and concentrated sugar. So I mean-   Tahnee: (56:11) Dessert.   Lara Briden: (56:13) Dessert, [crosstalk 00:56:13] like a soft drink and fruits. This always becomes a tricky topic as people think... I talk about high dose fructose and how that research is really clear that that's bad for insulin sensitivity. And then people are like, "Well, do you mean fruit is bad?" It's like, no. So whole fruit is fine, just to be clear, but desserts, full on ice cream and fruit juice and date balls and-   Tahnee: (56:37) I'm pregnant. I know all about dessert.   Lara Briden: (56:38) Yeah. The thing is, even then it's a nuanced conversation because some people can have desserts and get away with it. And it depends on your insulin sensitivity. It depends on so many things. And then there's different desserts. There's lots of really delicious treat, things you can make with low sugar. They don't have to be... So I don't want to make a blanket statement [crosstalk 00:57:03].   Tahnee: (57:02) Demonising it, but-   Lara Briden: (57:03) No, no, no. I mean, but it is [crosstalk 00:57:07].   Tahnee: (57:06) Well, I think what you're really pointing to is you want to avoid these things that are going to spike the blood sugar dramatically. Because if you don't have the capacity to process-   Lara Briden: (57:15) It's partly about spiking the blood sugar, it's actually more about some actual physiological damage that high dose fructose does to the liver. That's kind of how we got on this topic actually.   Tahnee: (57:25) Do you mean the actual molecule fructose?   Lara Briden: (57:30) Above a certain threshold. So it's really-   Tahnee: (57:33) And that's what you're looking at [crosstalk 00:57:34].   Lara Briden: (57:37) The threshold is different for different people, and at different ages, and in different situations. And some people, especially people who are very active and have a healthy gut and liver and everything's good. They can probably have fruit juice and it's fine, it's not a problem. But for people with insulin resistance, because there's been a lot of confusion. I just get that from my own patients. They might be for example, very scared to eat potatoes because they've heard that that's... but still then hungry, so then bingeing on like a date bar, slice paleo dessert after dinner. That is-   Tahnee: (58:18) Backwards.   Lara Briden: (58:19) That's back to front. This is where I talk about getting full. I have a new blog post called the power of eating enough, which is protein. I actually mentioned potatoes by name because they're actually quite filling.   Tahnee: (58:28) It's a good starch. Yeah.   Lara Briden: (58:29) They're quite good. And then feeling good and then being like, "No, I'm not going to have that fruit juice. I'm not going to have that SoBe. I don't need that. I might have a little dark chocolate or some fresh fruit or some frozen berries or something. And that's enough for me."   Tahnee: (58:46) So that's drilling down on getting tested if you can around insulin.   Lara Briden: (58:50) Yes.   Tahnee: (58:50) And that's really, you're looking at symptoms of weight gain and you said this in the book a lot, specifically this middle area, this-   Lara Briden: (58:57) Yes. Specifically that apple shaped around the middle. And just to point out for everyone listening, some thickening around the waist is inevitable with menopause. So that's just-   Tahnee: (59:10) So don't get too stressed out.   Lara Briden: (59:12) It's just a fact. I mean, it's a hormonal... How it's interesting actually, because I heard this interview. There's a scientist who just did this quite groundbreaking study debunking the idea that our metabolism reduces with age, which was quite controversial. But I heard an interviewed by a friend of mine actually. And he said specifically, he gave the example, he said, "Well, there can be other things going on. Like for example, at menopause, there's a whole hormonal redistribution of fat. So this is a change in body shape." This is what I'm saying, this is inevitable to some extent. So young women have an hourglass. Well some, the kind of normal healthy figure is hourglass figure. That's estrodial, that's oestrogen fat on the bum and a narrow waist. That is what that hormonal profile does.   Lara Briden: (01:00:05) When we shift with menopause, even on hormone therapy actually to some extent, there is a shift, we never take as much estrodiol as you would've or we made when we're 25, you wouldn't do that. And then we get this shift to what I talk about in the books, sort of a testosterone dominance. It's a shift to a more male body shape, and it's going to happen to some degree to everyone. So don't worry about it too much. But if there's significant waking happening around the middle and progressing more to a strong apple shape, that is insulin resistance. I hope that... Yeah.   Tahnee: (01:00:43) And I mean, the other thing you mentioned getting looked at and tested is Hashtimoto's autoimmune, which I thought was really interesting because I've had a few friends who have had that be triggered by pregnancy or maybe postpartum and I thought it was interesting that you [crosstalk 01:00:59].   Lara Briden: (01:00:58) That's a hormonal transition state. I don't know how much more time we have, but I'll just say-   Tahnee: (01:01:03) Well, we don't have much, but I've wanted to say that word that you said in the book, it's... What did you call that [crosstalk 01:01:10].   Lara Briden: (01:01:09) Critical window.   Tahnee: (01:01:10) Critical window, yes. Here it is, critical window for health. I thought that was a super important concept.   Lara Briden: (01:01:16) So this it's a critical window. Perimenopause is a critical window for health because it's a hormonal transition like puberty, postpartum. Postpartum is another critical window and perimenopause. And what that means by critical window is if things start to go off the rails health wise during a critical window, you're potentially going to skew a lot more in a bad direction than if things go a little bit off the rails when you're in a more stable state, if that makes sense

Ooh boy we've got a doozy of an episode for you today, freaks!First up, Megan wins the episode immediately with graphic descriptions of old (and new) torture methods that leaves us all a little clammy. Then Lauren tells the story of Jose Salvador Alvarenga, a fisherman who floated in the ocean for over a year. OVER A YEAR YOU GUYS.Sorry / hope you like it  / send us suggestions at thefreakshowpod@gmail.com. 

Intro: teenage hackersLet Me Run This By You: setting limits with KanyeInterview: We talk to Josh Sobel about Cal Arts, Travis Preston, Yale School of Drama, Robert Brustein, Fig and the Wasp, Oberlin College, The O'Neill Theater Center, Michael Cadman, Royal Shakespeare Company, Chicago ensemble theatre, Strawdog Theatre Company, Ianesco's Rhinoceros, Rochester NY, Brighton High School, A Chorus Line, Cabaret, horizontal hierarchies, The Wooster Group, change talk vs. change action, Chris Ackerlind, Light in the Piazza, Paula Vogel's Indecent, Samantha Behr, Haven Chicago, The Den Theater, Rochester Philharmonic, Lorenzo Palomo, Ian Martin, Hal Prince, Dr. Seuss' The Sneetches, John de Lancie, Rochester Academy of Medicine, radiation oncology, The Xylophone West by Alex Lubischer, Isaac Gomez's The Displaced, Center Theatre Group, Jeremy O'Harris' Slave Play, Rashaad Hall, Chris Jones' review of Ms. Blakk for President.FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):3 (10s):And I'm Gina Pulice.1 (11s):We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.3 (15s):20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.1 (21s):We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?2 (32s):I think, I think my son has fig he's gotten into sort of like the hacking side of things and he always wants to get around all of the restrictions we put on him. Like we have content restrictions, we have time limits. And I think he's just made it his mission. I mean, this is like the theme of his life. He has made it his mission to subvert the paradigm as my husband would say. And it's exhausting because all I can do is try to be like 10 steps behind them and learn like what's a VPN. That's what I, I think what he did. I think he installed a VPN to bypass the internet control that I have.2 (1m 20s):Oh1 (1m 20s):My God.2 (1m 22s):And it somehow how that relates to, I can watch, I couldn't tell you. I can tell you that if I turn off the wifi, I can watch it on my cellular data.4 (1m 33s):It's insane.2 (1m 35s):Yeah. It's, it's beyond insane. I, and you know, I like, I'm always on this thing where I'm vacillating between letting it go and just trying harder to, you know, impose the limit. I mean, you, I wouldn't, before I had kids, I would not have imagined it was this hard to impose limits on people, you know, because you don't want them to not have what they want. Right.4 (2m 6s):Right.2 (2m 7s):And, and it's a real battle to like, make myself, give myself and my children limits. It's really hard.4 (2m 17s):My God. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I'm stuck on, it's like maybe there was okay. I think I'm like trying to figure out the thing, which is like, I know what I think I know what happened. So you have restrictions on content. Like, and I think a genius, the Kanye trilogy, like completely has all those triggers in it. Like all the things are in it. There's sex, suicide. There's, there's, it's all the things you, I wouldn't want a susceptible teenager to watch. Right. Like just for various reasons, not, not for anything other than triggers. Right. So like my nieces and nephew, the same thing, so, okay.4 (2m 57s):So then you set that right? And you're like, no, no, but then the kid or anyone can get a VPN, which then resets, I think the con, but I think you're still on the, you're still, you're still on the content warning site, which is blocking genius. You from watching genius. That is fucking, I mean, it's kind of genius in a way, but it's also so infuriating. It's like, come on, dude. I'm just trying to watch my fucking Kanye west bullshit.2 (3m 26s):It's literally just this race of like today I'm on top. And then the next day it's like, oh my God, they, they, they run the show. I'll never forget. There was a scene in the first season of the Sopranos where Tony and Carmel are having a problem with Anthony, or maybe it was with the daughter, a meadow and they're in their bedroom. And he goes, if she finds out, we have no power. We're screwed. And I laughed. It was the time I had watched it after I had teenagers. Yeah. Like that's what it is. We actually have no power. And yet the, the, the con that we're forced to do is pretend like we have all the power.2 (4m 12s):It's4 (4m 13s):Like2 (4m 13s):Covering4 (4m 14s):A metaphor also for life about like my mom's friend sent me something that said, you know, I forget it was like her friend had passed away and it's not fair and it's not fair. And I, and it isn't, and that's the thing. Like it, the truth is not fair. Like it sucks. But like, and, and we pretend that things are fair because if we don't, it's absolute chaos. Like if we didn't pretend really that red means stop and green means go, we'd have a real fucking problem. If we all rebelled and said, you know what, fuck you, green means go. And red means stop. And we all sent a mass media thing around.4 (4m 56s):There would be chaos. It would be2 (5m 13s):The bus. And I guess that's just the headline right there. That's like the headline in the story. Like you took the bus from LA to San Fran, Fran, because gas is so expensive.4 (5m 22s):Well, many things. Okay. So driving, it's really a grind on the five coming home, especially it's like, so rough, like, it can be a nine hour instead of five, six hours situation. It's crazy. Cause the five sucks. So, so that was the first like, and then gas. So I wasn't gonna drive cause I did the drive Thanksgiving and it was like, oh God. And then, so I was like, okay, well I'll, I'll just, I I'll fly. But then I'm afraid to fly. Even though the flight is literally 45 minutes. And then I was like, okay, but then because of gas, I said, okay, I'm going to just get my balls into it. I'm going to build up my balls and I'm going to fly. But then because of gas, you know, does jets use gas fuel though?4 (6m 6s):The flights really went up six San Francisco. You shouldn't even get a flight for a hundred bucks on Southwest round trip, like 120. No, no, two 20. So I'm like, oh no. So then I say, okay, well I'll take my Amtrak. Of course, which is actually what I, what I looked at first. But the track of it, it's a beautiful ride. It takes forever, but it goes up the coast and it's gorgeous. And you can like bid to get a fancy room,2 (6m 28s):Right? Yeah.4 (6m 29s):Well, okay. Well the tracks being repaired, so then you'd have to take a Greyhound. I'm not taking a Greyhound. So then I was like, okay, what would it take a fancy bus? And it's a flick2 (6m 38s):Of a fancy4 (6m 39s):Flex bus flicks. And Flix is big in Europe and they're charter buses and they have bathrooms and it's like assigned seating. And I bought two seats because I was like, fuck you. And it's so inexpensive, but still listen. I just, you know, and I worked, my dad was an addict. I have food addict issues. I get addicts. So don't come. People don't come at me for saying this. But the bus is a place where heroin, heroin, addicts thrive. Like that2 (7m 9s):Is the heroin addict doing on the4 (7m 11s):Bus nodding out. So there's two, there was a couple and I was like, oh, these are heroin addicts. They just looked so like, their luggage was all fucked up. They couldn't barely get on the bus. They were fighting young people, LA style tattoos. Fine. I am tattoos. It's not that they, but it was like this very specific look thin bedraggled, but not, not, not a curated look like more like, I'm just fucked up inappropriate clothing for the weather. Like big. Although in San Francisco is cold. Maybe they need something. I didn't know. They had like heavy coats on it's like 90 degree, all their shit. Right? Like they're, you know, I've got one little carrier. They've got like bags, like big things.4 (7m 52s):Okay. And that you can check, but you have to pay more for it. And their suitcases are falling apart. Okay. Fine. But they have cell phones, which is so, but a lot of people have cell phones. I mean, I I'm always shocked when people have cell phones that look like they shouldn't, I'm like, what? How do you maintain that? But anyway, so they get on an immediate, they sit in the, they got the seats in the way back, which is like a little bigger, but also your brother bathroom's gross, but they just not out immediately. They get on and like midfoot, mid fighting. They just like pass out and I'm like, oh my God. Like not out like out. And then don't wake up until we get there. Like literally it's an eight hour ride.4 (8m 32s):They don't get up at all.2 (8m 35s):Wow. They'd probably been awake. Yeah. Or I guess maybe not4 (8m 41s):How2 (8m 42s):It works with the4 (8m 42s):Heroin. Well, it depends like, I mean,2 (8m 44s):Not the heroin.4 (8m 46s):That's my new band name. That's our new band name. The heroin's got mics on two levels.2 (8m 51s):Yeah,4 (8m 53s):That was good. Gina. Okay. So no for me and my, my, my clients were a lot of them on heroin. And what would happen is like, you can't always get heroin. Right. Because it's expensive. And because I mean, it's cheaper than whatever, but it's expensive. And then, so you go without it and you start to detox and then you're up, you can't sleep. You're a mess. And then when you finally score again or whatever, get your heroin, then you just feel great for about half an hour. Then you pass out. It's just so it's such a waste, but okay. It's a process.2 (9m 25s):You know, although I would never want to be a heroin addict. I will say something like what's occurring to me. As you're talking about this couple is like, you know how with addicts, their life is very focused around just scoring or whatever. So to be able to have your life goals in these little chunks is really appealing to me.4 (9m 47s):Yeah. Well, it's a very, very, very specified job2 (9m 52s):World. Right? You make, I think when you're a heroin addict, you must have a really small world and your objectives are like, get score. That's at a place to4 (10m 1s):Sleep and don't get arrested and don't2 (10m 3s):Get, don't get arrested. Like there's something and I, I'm sorry to be cheeky about it. Cause people have really suffered with heroin addiction. I, I'm not suggesting that people, anybody should be an addict. I'm just saying like the idea4 (10m 14s):Yeah. To you. It's like, yeah, me too.2 (10m 17s):Actually even just the other day I was thinking I was watching somebody who had, what I imagined was probably a minimum wage job. And I don't remember what the job was now, but I just, I was looking at the person doing their tasks and I was thinking, yeah, maybe I should get a job like that. You know? And then 30 seconds in, I'm really trying to imagine myself. And I'm like, what am I talking about? Oh, people don't love working at McDonald's. Don't love, you know, whatever the4 (10m 47s):Jobs. And I will in, in adulthood in 30 dumb, in 40 dumb, like the last one I had at that fucking donut shop, I was like, oh, this seemed quaint. The chef was a jerk. I got in like a fight with the chef was so rude. Like here I am 42, right. Or 43 or something. And I was working at this place in Rogers park for like cash only under the table owned by these two young SIRS. They, whatever their business was working. But like the fucking chef was like talking shit about me. Like,2 (11m 23s):Is that a doughnut chef? No,4 (11m 28s):I should have said that. No, they also serve sandwiches. That's brilliant. That's brilliant. I was2 (11m 33s):Just thinking to myself, like, do you have to be a chef?4 (11m 36s):No, that's hilarious. But she was like, or they were, they were talking shit about me. And I was like, oh no, no, no. And I was basically volunteering there. I was so outraged. I was like This person that2 (11m 51s):To read an essay about that, you've got, write an essay about your donut shop stint.4 (11m 55s):Oh, I will. And I want to name names. They were fucking assholes. And also they, like, when I went to confront the PR, like I was like, I like when you walk behind someone you're supposed to stay behind. Right. But if you've never worked in the restaurant industry that does not come naturally. And also I'm really fast moving. So like I just met, she goes, you have to stay behind. And I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna fucking kill you. And then she would under her breath talk shit to me about to the other people. And so, and so I finally, you get them, you get them every time, this way. So I pulled the owner aside and I was really upset, like crying because she was treating me like shit. And I said, listen, what the fuck is this? And then the next, the person wanted to then that the owner was like, look, this lady is doing as a favor by working here basically because we have no one and she's working on under the table.4 (12m 42s):So then the, the, the person wanted to talk to me, the chef and I talked to her, I'm like what? She goes, I'm sorry. If I come off a little, I go, oh no, no, you don't come off. You are. And I said, I don't know what's happening here. I'm like, just try to do my job and go the fuck home and make my money to pay my cell phone bill, bitch. Like I wrote that and then I just quit. I was like, fuck all. Y'all. So, no, it sounds really quaint, which is why I fucking get those jobs. And then you get in there and you're like, oh, this is how on earth.2 (13m 11s):Oh God, I am sure it was, I4 (13m 15s):Don't do2 (13m 15s):It. Yeah, no, no, I won't. I will not do it. It just, it just periodically, it just occurred to me4 (13m 20s):Because there's a set skill set set of tasks that no one eat you ma I imagine that no one is like on their high horse. No, no. People are still on their fucking high horse in minimum wage jobs. There's a hierarchy of fucking assholes anywhere you've.2 (13m 37s):But then I did get to watch the third episode of the Kanye documentary and then, okay, well, I didn't finish it though. I'm only like 20 minutes into it. It's so sad. Right? It's going to go on. It's going to turn4 (13m 50s):It. It does. But in also in an unexpected way, what I will say, I think we should talk about the third episode next time. Okay.2 (13m 58s):But4 (13m 59s):The first two, for me, fucking amazing in the storytelling, whether, regardless of how I feel about Kanye west, which I don't feel any kind of way other than, I mean, I just, I I'm talking about the, since we're about to make a documentary, right? Like I'm looking at, I love the first two. I love cooties filmmaking. And the first two episodes, it then takes a turn on the third, but like the first two are so packed with information and visuals and, and storytelling.4 (14m 39s):Like, I loved it. You and you also get a S he such a great job of like showing a slice of time, you know, and, and, and all the characters in it and real life people we know and get glimpses of. And I just thought, and for me, the most moving part of it, I mean, I have real lot of feelings about Donda and Connie's relationship and Donda herself. I have a lot of diagnoses for both of them, but I'm not, you know, like, I feel like she's got bipolar. Like, I think there's a whole thing going on there, but what I found, I have never, I have never been so moved for, for the hustle and the perseverance of a human being and the just sort of neutral and unwavering.4 (15m 32s):We know it's not really true, but like they're like, but the unwavered, what I saw was an unwavering unshakable, almost naive belief in oneself.2 (15m 42s):This is what I wanted to talk to you about. This is what I wanted to run by you. Cause the, the connection between talking about that, me working on the documentary and, and this a, I agree with you, Cody is an amazing documentarian. And we could totally learn a lot from the way that he weaved his own personal story into that, his relationship with this, you know, mega personality. But yeah, you know, the scene where he's talking to a bunch of kids and he's, he's talking about self-compassion, I mean, he, he has a point, you know, what, what should you, you created an amazing piece of art and somebody compliments you on it and you you're supposed to pretend like you're dumb.2 (16m 29s):You all, you don't agree that it's, that it's amazing. You know, like there's something to be said for that. And there's something to be said for what you're just describing the unshakable confidence, but I want to hear what your thoughts are about their relationship.4 (16m 45s):It was interesting to watch the process of what I would call a simultaneous process of infantilizing him as well as idolizing him as well as parental defying him, as well as believing in him. It's a combo platter. And I believe from watching her and watching what I noticed in her mannerisms and his that I think they both had a mania thing going on, like in her eyeballs. So I have become really good at looking at people's eyeballs.4 (17m 26s):And I notice in the documentary, as it goes along when Kanye is manic, his voice goes up in pitch and his eyeballs looked different and she had this eyeball situation, which is this sort of darty, Desperate eyeballs. And I noticed it in my clients all the time and I'd be like, oh, they're manic, they're manic. It's not an, and it's like, hypomania, it's not for her. But like, I saw that in her. And I was like, oh, like, what's happening? Where am I going? What's happening? Who can I okay. And, and covered with a bit of like, you know, self-help, you can do it this and perseverance, but it's, it's all a combo platter, but that was my take.4 (18m 15s):What was on their relationship was like a, I need you, you need me, what's happening. I'm worried about you, but I'm going to then hope that by, by really pumping you up, that I'm going to pump up the mental illness away.2 (18m 31s):. Yeah. Well, I, I agree with what you say about the, their relationship, their dynamic, and it makes sense that yeah, maybe she had a touch of the bipolar too. What I was thinking about it is, and like I say, I haven't gotten through the third episode, but what I was thinking is it's so evident how meaningful their relationship was to both of them, but in this case for, for him and that he could just maybe spend the rest of his life, chasing that relationship, chasing a woman who will fall over him, the way that she did.2 (19m 14s):I mean, really what it seems like, what he needs is a person who kind of use it as their sole purpose in life to, to, to support his genius, which is why he probably makes a terrible partner, But that the, she gave him like this, like she was mainlining love to.4 (19m 35s):Yeah.2 (19m 37s):And you know, he's unlikely to find that any place else. Right,4 (19m 41s):Right.2 (19m 41s):But he's still looking, I think, Well,4 (19m 46s):And then it's really interesting. So like Cody gave up his whole life to, to follow him and it wasn't enough. Like it, it becomes not enough. And then when the person literally is removed by death, then what do you do is what we're seeing in the documentary. But like the it's, it's a it's, it's so fucked up because I, I feel like from watching from the outside, she must've felt like she was his only hope. Right. Which is which, okay. Which I'm sure is it's2 (20m 18s):Hard to me was her only hope.4 (20m 19s):No, she was, she's like, I'm my son's only advocate. Right? My old, his only hope for love and happiness comes from me ultimately. And whatever went down in his childhood, I have to make up for what other, all of them, with the other, all the mothers stuff happens. Right. I can imagine. And then it's like, yeah, it sets him up to be, like you said, chasing that the rest of his entire life. And she's not going to be around forever. And she did the best she could. And she did so much compared to what a lot of people do. And he's, it's just, it, you throw in mega stardom in there and it is a recipe for absolute meltdown.2 (21m 6s):It actually, it really relates to the thing we were talking about when we started talking today, which is about limits and limit setting. And I think I mentioned to you that I'm also reading this book about Sandy hook conspiracy and the straight line between Sandy hook conspiracy and the January 6th instruction. But in the part of the book where they're talking about Adam Lanza and his mother, I hadn't heard this before that, you know, he, he he'd been flagged in the psychiatric system, you know, going back since he was a young boy and I don't know why she opted out of treatment for him. But what I do know from this book is that what she strove to do was keep meeting his needs wherever they were.2 (21m 53s):But because he was so mentally ill, his needs were things like w w when he had his, the intake at Yale, the clinician noted that he said to his mother, you need to stand with no part of your body touching the wall and that she just did it. And that at home, it had gotten too, there were things he couldn't have cooking odors, curtains, door knobs.4 (22m 23s):Yeah.2 (22m 24s):And she just kept meeting the need. And this was something that I really relate to. Hopefully I have not going off the rails like that, but when your child is suffering and what they're telling you is I want this thing, the decision to say, I know better than you. You think you want this thing, but that is not the right thing for you and for that child to be screaming in your face or not. But, you know, with all of their energy, all of their conviction, they're coming to you saying no, this with my kids, it's the screens.2 (23m 4s):No, I need my screen time. And I'm going. Yeah. But you, you can't know what I know, which is that you, it's not good for you. It's simply not good. And it's just so hard to tolerate when your child is enraged or hurt by you4 (23m 22s):Suffering the suffering.2 (23m 24s):So nobody said any limits for Kanye, and he's now floating like a balloon in the ether, right?4 (23m 32s):Yeah. It's, it's really bad. He's now he's now has restraining orders. And now he's got the Grammy said he can't perform there. So now the limits are being imposed that are huge. And I don't know what's going to, and I also, from working in Hollywood, what I noticed was it is so easy when you have money and power yeah. To, to develop a team that will, will do what you're saying. That, that Adam Lanza's Mrs. Or miss Lanza did. It's so easy to have that bought and built in.2 (24m 15s):And I will tell you this, my, one of my very most successful treatments that I did when I was at private practice therapist is I treated somebody with very, very severe borderline personality disorder. And it was a kind of situation where the client would quit all of the time, you know, quit, quit therapy. And then, and then you would do this dance of like, they, you know, they don't really mean it. So you don't, you don't give up their appointment time because they're going to show up. Sometimes they're going to show up and act like nothing happened. Like they never said they were going to quit. So with this one person that I've been working with for a really long time, and we had a good relationship, which, which is to say yes, she was very, very sick.2 (25m 4s):And she was very, very difficult, but also she had so many great qualities that it kept me. Like, it kept me really invested in her, but the 50th time or whatever it was that she quit after I, she was also in this group that I was running and she like got violent Sharna in the group and left and whatever. Anyway, this time around, when she quit treatment, I said, okay, we're done now. And then she showed up for her next appointment. And I said, no, we're, we're done now. And that precipitated a year long hospitalization for her, but this person is now doing amazing, honestly.2 (25m 49s):And I knew in her family dynamic, her parents were afraid to set limits with that because she was a very, very strong personality, but it was only through the limit setting anything. It had to go all the way to the end, right. For her and, and to, to reject and decry and be victimized and blah, blah, blah, for then her to like follow her dream College. She, she, I can't say what it is obviously, but she has a job that was the job of her dreams and that she learned, she only discovered was the job of her dreams in treatment and that she could have only gotten to do after having really had to contend with actually living with the limit.0 (26m 42s):Well,3 (26m 55s):Today on the podcast, we are talking to Josh . Josh is graduating this year with his MFA in directing from Cal arts. And he formerly had a whole career in Chicago as artistic director of the Haven in Chicago. And he has a lot of interesting insights about his experience of being in school again, after having well launched into his career. So please enjoy our conversation with Josh Sobel.2 (27m 36s):So Josh was just explaining the Cal arts is, I was saying, is it a conservatory? And he was saying, it's an art school in the truest sense. So go ahead and repeat what you're saying.6 (27m 44s):Yeah. So like Travis, who's an alum of like Yale back from the Robert Brustein days of Yale. He he's like, look, Yale school of drama is always considered like, Ooh, Yale school of drama, but he's like, if you think about it within the larger Yale structure, you've also got like the business school and like, you've got the journal, you've got the medical school, you've got all these things. So like within the theater universe, it's huge, but within the structure of the university, it Yale, you know, and so the beauty of Cal arts in a way is that it exists outside of that larger sort of academic structure. It isn't part of a university. It is an art school with a theater department.6 (28m 27s):And there's something that, that is really freeing honestly about that. And the Cal arts in particular sort of leaned into in terms of its sort of generative and, and experimental sort of Ben it's, it's been an interesting experience. Yeah, please.2 (28m 45s):Gina Bridget went there. Yes. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I think she's the another co Cal arts alum we have.6 (28m 51s):Well, and it's funny, cause you mentioned they were an acting alum and the acting program I have to say is in particular fascinating and unique. And I love it because unlike a lot of programs I've encountered and I've like taught in academia a little bit before I went in, before I started as a student in it, it's like very few programs encouraged teach and want their actors to be generative artists in their own. Right. And bring that to the table in the room. And honestly, as a director, I'm like, it's a gift. It is such a goddamn gift in terms of the collaborative process. Like I, I can sometimes when I'm hitting my own moment, like really feel comfortable being like, I need like a physical gesture representing a panic attack in slow motion that moves across the stage this way, take third, take 30 minutes.6 (29m 44s):Here's some music and an object.4 (29m 46s):Oh God, that sounds like the greatest thing I've ever heard.6 (29m 51s):I did something similar with a particular actor in my thesis show thesis show, quote unquote. And like she killed it. Oh my God. Avalon Greenberg call. She's about to graduate from the BFA program and she's, or a couple of years. And she's incredible. But like she ran with it and these actors are sort of prepared to take that and like, just make shit and be like, is this what it is? What does it need? And then I can sit there and like sculpt, we can then like work together to be like, Ooh, let's expand that moment out. Let's tighten that bit. And we're then working collaboratively on this other thing.4 (30m 25s):So amazing Josh, like, like I, I, I do this every time we talked to someone that I really like, and I like their vibe and I like how they're talking about their education. I'm like, oh, I'm going to apply there. And then I remember that I did apply to Cal arts for undergrad and I got a call back, which was like the greatest thing, because I was a terrible actor. And I like in the truest sense, like what you're talking about, I would have been like, so, so I am, so I am so glad to talk to you because I, when you say things like that, about how you direct as well, and I'm not a director, Gina directs, I don't direct, but like I want to work with someone who says shit like that.6 (31m 7s):Well, I, I really, I don't know. It's funny. I, you know, outside of like grad school, when I was in undergrad, I went to undergrad at Oberlin college, which is really sort of a diamond in the rough school for theater. It's like, and it's a lot of OBS do well out there. And it's weird because it's like, it's not known, but it's really good. But while I was there, I also did a semester at the O'Neill and I don't know if you're familiar, the national theater Institute. Yeah. So I, I did fall 2007 and like, I really lucked out my partner and I were a year apart actually, before we ever met weird small world, but we both walked out because we've got there right at the time as this particular artistic director was there, Michael Cadman, who was a, an alum himself of the Royal Shakespeare company.6 (31m 52s):And like he understood ensemble. It's funny. Cause I always like, what am I, I love Chicago and I miss Chicago so much, but one of my like little gripes with Chicago is that the word ensemble gets thrown out a4 (32m 6s):Lot.6 (32m 7s):And I, I have a very particular opinion about that because it's like, I think ensemble sometimes it's just meant to mean or thought to mean like a collection of actors, you know, or the company members, you know, the, the Steppenwolf ensemble or the straw dog or whatever. And I'm like ensemble is a value. I think ensemble is, is some it's about how one sits in the middle of a collaborative process. It's about how the threads are drawn. Not even just in the actors, it's about the threads are drawn outside to stage management, to producing, to designers, to everything. Like, and we're all coming together to sort of generate something together, right?6 (32m 49s):Like that's ensemble and Michael understood more than anyone I've ever met in my life. Like how to nurture, how to build, how to find the ensemble impulse in people. And he would just build semesters of the young students and sort of demonstrate that for for four months. And yeah, that's sort of been a foundational thing from that point forward. So I'm, I'm always ready to like chill for the O'Neil. Like, I love the, I love being,2 (33m 16s):Yeah. I actually live kind of near there. I live in Connecticut. Yeah. Oh, that's6 (33m 21s):Brilliant.2 (33m 21s):So you just made me think about something. Has any group of theater artists ever called the ensemble? Also the, the whole entire staff, like everybody on crew, because it is such a group effort. And we as act, this is one of the big things about, you know, going through an acting program, you just, and maybe it was just me, but you just think like, it's all about this. It's all about the actors and you just think everybody else is there supporting what you're doing.4 (33m 55s):Well,6 (33m 56s):It treats it like a technical term, right? It's like, it's a category. And rather than like, no, it's actually about an energy. It's about a trust. It's about something else. And I will say to answer your question like that w when I was a strong dog ensemble member, that that was one of the things I loved most about being on the straw dog ensemble was you had designers, you had managers, you had people like from every aspect of the creative process, sort of understood as part of the ensemble. It was all framed that way.4 (34m 24s):It's interesting. Like, I feel like what happens maybe is like, so take Steppenwolf because everyone talks about Steppenwolf as the original ensemble, which really you're right. A side note tends to mean in Chicago. And I can say this because I'm from there means that nobody is prettier or more famous than, than other actors. Like, that's what they mean by ensemble. Like that's how people talk about that. They're like, no, this is an ensemble piece. Meaning that even though you're really pretty, you're not going to be the star, like to someone, they never say that to me. You know what I mean? Okay. But anyway, side note, but ensembles. So when it's interesting, because it's like when a theater gets bigger, meaning a broader audience, more money, I feel like there becomes a really strong, clear delineation between technical staff and the actors.4 (35m 15s):And it comes, becomes compartmentalized probably because they have to run a freaking business with a multimillion dollar budget as we're like straw, dog. Like you can kind of stay it's like that storefront. It kind of, you can really get in there, which is how stepping will start it. So I think what we're talking about is the capitalization of the,6 (35m 33s):Oh, always, I mean, honestly, always all the time,4 (35m 37s):But yeah, but I'm, I'm curious about she and Gina, did you say2 (35m 42s):I did and I'm so sorry. I forgot to say Josh Sobell congratulations. Your surviving theater school. You're almost done4 (35m 49s):Art school theater school, you know, it's all the thing, but yeah. So I wanted to ask, I guess, take it back before I get on the runaway train of like, did you start out as a direct, like where you would act what's what was your path to the school of Cal arts? I guess6 (36m 7s):I've, I've been a director most of the time. I of course did a little bit of actually got rather late. Like I'm not one of those people who was like really involved in a lot of things when I was really, really little, but I had sort of a formative experience in high school as an audience member. My school was really remarkable. I, I unfortunately should catch up with them and see what they're doing in their theater department. But at the time, like we were a high school that was doing like Ian ESCO and Tom Stoppard and shit. Like, it was pretty cool. I assistant directed rhinoceros my senior year of high school, like Steve Rochester, New York, right in high school, shout out to Steve angle, Mr. Angle.6 (36m 47s):He was incredible. He also was the AP lit teacher and ran an incredible AP lit class. Like, oh my God, we, we read and watched just incredible stuff. And so actually his show, but he was one of the other directors there did chorus line and they did like an unedited chorus line in high school, which I also very much admired. And Paul's monologue hit me like eight when I don't know how familiar you are with, with the show. But like, you know, it's a classic Broadway, 1970s. It was sort of groundbreaking at the time because it was all real interviews of people who were all fighting chorus.6 (37m 27s):Of course, Paul Paul's monologue when he sort of finally breaks down and tells the story about his, his parents meeting him at the drag show in the back of, I lost it. Like I was a weeping mess. I don't know. And I had not had that particular experience before. And I walked out, I remember going home nerdy, like misfit fucking high school student hadn't found themselves yet and was like, I feel different. I don't know how I don't, I can't quantify it, but I feel like I am moving through the world differently than I was before I had that experience.6 (38m 8s):Wow. I want to do that. And that was, that was the moment. And so I started auditioning a little bit, but I always got interested in directing because I, it was the idea of like creating that holistic experience for an audience member, the way it was created for me. And so we also had, I think it was like an official partnership, like you could license with the 24 hour plays in New York. So my high did the 24 hour plays every year. And so I would stay overnight at the fucking school and, and do and direct. And that was sort of my first directing configuration. I was terrible. God. And my first few shows like first few shows at Oberlin were terrible.6 (38m 55s):Why, why? Oh my God, too, in my own head, I'm still too in my own head. It's the main thing I'm working on. I'm a very cerebral artist and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I just am seeking balance. That's part of the reason I went to Cal arts and Kellogg's was actually really the right choice for that in a lot of reasons to sort of break down some of my more cerebral and rigid habits. But I just didn't like, I, I was in my own way. It was that classic. Like it, my insecurity, I was second guessing. I was, it was actually Michael Cadman. It was the O'Neil. That was the turning point of that as well. So like I, anyways, I went through high school, got into it, went to Oberlin, was sort of jumping between theater and film got focused in theater because I liked the linearity of the process.6 (39m 40s):It just fit my brain better. You can really build the Dominos in order and watch them fall. And I love that from a process standpoint, joy. And so I went to the O'Neill and I was still like, I was overthinking and I was over like complicating and convoluting and Michael Cadman who I'm the final day of the program. I was like, you asshole, you couldn't have said this to me like weeks ago. I'm the final day of the program was like, you're very, very smart stop trying so hard to prove it.7 (40m 19s):Ah,6 (40m 20s):And that was, that was another game changing moment for me. And I, I started sort of stepping back and letting myself have more fun with it and just found myself sort of like what were my passion projects? What were the things that made me feel the way I did it, chorus line in a way. And my first show back in undergrad was a cabaret. And that was, that was a really huge, huge show for me. And I was very proud of that show and still have, like, I watched the video sometimes I was like, oh God, those transitions fucking suck. But, but yeah, directing, directing has always been sort of my thing because of that idea of like, I get to sort of, I don't know.6 (41m 4s):I, I, it's funny because so many people think about directing in this very hierarchical standpoint, right? Like they like the sort of like top-down, they get to sit at the head of the thing and create their vision. I challenged that constantly. And it's funny because people think by challenging that you give up the sort of directorial authority I call bullshit. I I'm interested in what I like to refer to as horizontal hierarchy. I say, I refer to it. I didn't invent the phrase, but like I've sort of taken it and I really love applying it to collaboration. I like the idea that as the director, I'm sort of sitting in the middle, I'm the same plane as everyone else surrounded by all of these brilliant fucking artists.6 (41m 48s):And I get to be like, Ooh, yes, it's a bit of that. It's not quite that. Can we bring it over there? I, yes, let's bring that in and pulling all of it towards the middle. And I still get to, by virtue of being in the center of a doll, just make decisions I get to make, be the arbiter of the quote, unquote vision or whatever you want to call it. But it's not that it breaks down the hierarchy in a way I'm not above anyone else that doesn't have to be my idea. It has to be the coolest idea. And so by sitting in the middle of it, I just get to sort of help tie the threads together in a way that feels like the audience experience we're going for. Like, that's my job to God.4 (42m 30s):Interesting. So it's so, oh yes. And I'm so curious as to why more directors don't do a horror. Is that, is it just an ego thing? A horizontal.6 (42m 47s):Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of like, I'm not even going to call it insecurity. Cause I actually think that doesn't do it justice and I think it's too easily dismissible. I think it's fear. I think there's a lot of fear. I mean, if I'm really Frank, I'm confronting it in certain areas of my program right now.4 (43m 25s):Okay. Wait, so you're saying that I just want to reiterate for my own brain because this happens all the time in all organizations across the board. So I'm really, and we're like, we were talking about it yesterday sort of. So, so you, you, you, there is an atmosphere of like, we want to make change, right.6 (43m 43s):Faded a stated goal,4 (43m 46s):Right? Not an atmosphere. Okay. So a stated goal, which a lot of theaters that I am familiar with and institutions are making these statements right now that the statement on paper or on the web or wherever it is saying, we want to take your feedback and make change. And it usually revolves around the word change. Like we're open to change. And if we're always, if we're honest, nobody's fucking open to change. We fucking,6 (44m 14s):And that's what we're talking about. It's the same fear to me. It's the same fear that you find in directing. It's a fear of some, some kind of loss of authority. It's a fear of some kind of loss of control. It's the fear of, I don't know. And it's so funny, like all of the ways you encounter it, because then yeah, you go and you actually say, here's the thing. And like I did this recently and I got yelled at, I got, and again, I've been, I've been working in Chicago theater for a decade before this. I don't give a shit. I was an artistic director, right. Like I was artistic director of Haven, Chicago. I don't like, this is, I don't need your ego. So I think it was actually kind of fun.6 (44m 56s):I think whether it's directing, whether it's artistic directors and institutional leadership, whether it's corporate leadership, whether it's, it's all of this, it's, it's, it's a full each year that, that somehow you're going to lose your Control.4 (45m 10s):This is so classic in, in terms of, so Gina and I were both therapists for years and look, and obviously we were children of parents. So I would go to my mom and say, this is the exact same thing. I would go to her and say, Hey mom, you're pretty abusive verbally. And she would say, but I'm the best mom. I know how to be. And at least you're not being beaten. Like I was beaten. And I'm like, okay. Yes, true. That all that is true. I, and you're still abusive to me. You're hurting me and sh and whether or not you want to make changes. That's the thing.4 (45m 50s):So we, we are literally reenacting parent child relationships in every walk of life. Like this sounds like a conversation a kid might have with their father where the father is like, well, I provide, we we're great.6 (46m 8s):And it's not about perfection. Like, it's not about like everyone and just like, we're all human beings. Right? Like I, I never wanted to feel like, and that's sometimes my problem with like, like I'm, I'm as left to center as you can get in a lot of ways, but it's like my one problem with sometimes a lot of left wing stuff is w where it's like, I think there is a purism that sometimes get, gets into it. And it's like, no, like we're all fucking human beings, right? If we believe in the ability to change and restorative justice and all of these things, then we have to actually believe that people can improve and get better. But it's like, there needs to be that honest interest in improving and getting better. There needs to be that genuine interest in it. And it's like, it's one of the things I was really proud of that we built it at Haven in Chicago with4 (46m 47s):Such a great theater. Gina Pavan is amazing. We're going to be there in the summer. So maybe we'll check it.6 (46m 53s):Ian Martin, like it's so funny. Cause it was such a, it was also a gift to really be able to do a transition process with Ian, you know, cause we really tried to be in, I've been part of some really unintentional transition processes. So like there were a lot of reasons where I really felt like Ian was exactly like, not, it wasn't even about sustaining what Haven had been doing. It was about how do we build and evolve on what Haven had been doing. And so Ian was sort of perfect. And we built the structure that you don't see very often where I, he was, yeah, he was my art, my associate artistic director for half the final season. And then we switched and he became artistic director and I was his associate artistic director for the other half of the season.6 (47m 36s):So he could have the responsibility and be in the decision-making position, but have the institutional memory sort of right at hand. And then it's like, and then I step away. So like I bring that up because there was an intentionality that we tried to bring to, like, we're going to be a theater company, let's be a theater company. Like you mentioned the business. Like let's, let's try to be a business, but let's try to be a next generation business.2 (48m 2s):And by the way, statements statements are to change as you know, sex is to relationships. Like it's a good start, but like you have to do more6 (48m 12s):Exact than just exactly.4 (48m 13s):So I guess the question is, what is it for me for me anyway? What is it in you, Josh? That is the kind of person because what is it? And there's a reckoning, obviously that I talk about a lot in, in terms of American theater and theater in general and the movie industry, the reckoning that's coming or in is, is that part of your drive right now to do this? Or it sounds like you've always been this sort of way, but why the fight? What, what, what about the fight?6 (48m 43s):Yeah, I think, I think, I think it's got it. That's such an interesting question because it's making me think in a chicken egg way, like is my ethics and my politics, like in here, like I don't know, the weirdest thing just came to mind and I'm going to follow that impulse.4 (48m 58s):Great.6 (48m 59s):Do it. And forgive me if I get a little bit emotional right now, it's it's my dad. If I'm really being honest, my dad is actually, he's not in the arts, but he's very artistic. He's a cellist. He's a musician. His odd actually, if you go to the Dem theater in Chicago, where Haven is the space that Haven exists in is the Bookspan theater specifically, the Janet Bookspan theater. Janet Bookspan is my aunt, his sister who was a major opera director, vocal coach, teacher, performer, actor assisted how prince back in the day, like holy4 (49m 40s):Shit.6 (49m 41s):Yeah. So like, and I have it on my mom's side as well, but my mom actually is an artist. She's a painter, but my dad, my dad is a radiation oncologist. He's a cancer physician, but music and art has always been a very big part of his life. His family, my life, he actually sidebar. Cause this is just a fun thing. And I hope this gets included. Cause I love bragging about this. My dad talk about politics and, and art colliding and art ed creative ethics. My dad has always been a big fan of Dr. Seuss's the snitches, this exists. You can go online. It's amazing. I'm so inspired by this. He was part of the Rochester academy of medicine and they have this amazing old building that has a roof.6 (50m 23s):That was basically, it's like a mansion that was donated and it's got this that was built for chamber music. And he developed relationships with the Rochester Philharmonic re developed friendships with musicians and created basically a chamber trio to play at the Rochester academy of medicine. And through this met a composer as Spanish composer, living in Berlin, named the Lorenzo. Palomo, who's pretty bright. His music is pretty outstanding and ended up commissioning a piece of music for this trio. And one thing led to another. And we found out that since my dad was young, he had believed that Dr.6 (51m 6s):Seuss is the snitches one. It was one of the most impactful, universal and effective lessons about acceptance and like anti-racism that you could find. And it was always his dream to have a piece of music, Allah, Peter, and the Wolf that was composed to be performed in tandem with a narration of Dr. Seuss's the snitches. So you can license this now on music theater international, because he did it. He commissioned Lorenzo to compose a piece of music for Dr. Seuss's the snitches. And we also by hooker by crooked premiered at my Alma mater at Oberlin and has since played around the country actually.6 (51m 52s):And I believe internationally. And, and it was all because he wanted to spread the message. It was because he wanted to use art to create an anti-racist piece of art. And the other cool thing is through a connection with his niece who ran the department of cultural affairs in Miami Dade county. She had a connection to John Delancey, who you might know as Q from star Trek, the next generation who did the original narration, the premiere. And so actually it's all on YouTube. You can hear John Delancey doing the speeches. And so like that's an aspect of my dad right there.6 (52m 33s):Another aspect was that I'll never forget this story. He actually built, he in Clifton Springs, New York built the cancer center, finger lakes, radiation oncology, because there, you know, there was a large elderly in particular community out there if I recall. And so, you know, as people are getting later in life, you know, biology happens and access to cancer treatment was non-existent except like 45 minutes or more at least minimum drive out of the way, if not hours out of the way. And especially as you're getting older, that becomes less and less sustainable for radiation treatments, for chemo treatments for all of these things.6 (53m 15s):So he found funding and worked his ass off as I, in some of my youngest days and built this cancer center from the ground up. And there was a day that I remember very distinctly hearing this story where as we've all been in any doctor's office, they were just running like, you know, three, four hours behind and sorry, I get emotional tug this story. It's so funny because it's like, that's, that's my true north in a way. You know, he, he sent his technicians out. This was back in the day when like Rent-A-Center was still a thing and blockbuster and shit, and like went out to get like sent them out to get like a television, sent them out to get a bunch of movies, sent them out to get like a sandwich platter and just showed up and basically were like, Hey, we're sorry.6 (54m 11s):We're we know we're running behind. We just want you to know, we haven't forgotten that you're here. You know? And like when does that happen at a doctor's office? Like when has that ever actually happened? Right. That's my,2 (54m 27s):Not for nothing, but my dad sold x-ray equipment. I've met a lot of radiation oncologists, and it's very unusual. Like there tends to be kind of a personality type with people who go into radar and it, it's not that what you're describing. So your dad must be a really remarkable person,6 (54m 45s):But yeah, no. And so I think it was a values thing. If we really want to talk about it, it's a values thing. It's, it's, it's a sense of how can we make this better? Like how can we be people first? How can we like again, we talk about Haven, right? One of the things I used to say, and I, and I would try, I tried to work hard to embody was like, oh, sorry, this does plug into our original conversations to bring it back perfectly on topic. One of my first shows I did in Chicago, I did a production of a play called xylophone west by Alex who's becoming a leg. Yeah. Alex is great. He's he's rising really well.6 (55m 26s):And like, we, he was actually, when I was the associate director of the summer Oneal program, he was a playwriting student when I was associate director. And that was our first. So it's cool. Just like, as we've sort of grown together, it's been amazing. And we did a reading of it and I, we have very strong opinions, especially because of the O'Neil being sort of a hub of new play development about what new play development is. There's a lot of bad, new play development. There's a lot of bad talk-backs, there's, there's a lot. And really it comes down to the difference between responsive feedback versus prescriptive feedback and how to cultivate that and understanding the difference.6 (56m 6s):And these, this artistic director did not understand this. And well, similar to what we're talking about, we were like, Hey, can we structure the talk back this way? Can we, this would really help Alex, Alex would say, this would really help me, like understand my play better. And artistic director's response was, I'll never forget this. Just remember who's the employer and who's the employee.4 (56m 34s):Right, right,6 (56m 35s):Right,4 (56m 35s):Right.6 (56m 36s):Case in point to everything we're talking about. And so like, I, it's sort of, when I think about like the sort of challenge to, sorry, I completely lost my train of thought.4 (56m 49s):No, no. What we're talking about is no, no, it's fine. It's when we're talking about a lot of things.6 (56m 53s):So4 (56m 54s):That's okay. What we're talking about is like this whole idea of like that your mentor wasn't your mentor anymore and why people don't want to change and the message versus what is actually happening in.6 (57m 6s):Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to remember why I specifically brought up xylophone west, but it was like this idea of, I don't know. I think about this, this, I owe my, my dad my values. Yeah. Value system. That's right. Thank you. I just needed to hear about, yeah. Yeah. It's a value system thing. It's like, that tells me what that person's value system is. Right. That tells me sort of the culture that they built. And for me as at Haven, sort of taking a note from my dad, right? Hey guys, that you're here. We see that you're here. The way I would phrase that as an artistic director was like, yes, you are our employees. Let's be like, it's not that, that isn't real. Like we are, you were signing a contract to work for us.6 (57m 49s):We have expectations based on their contract. You are also a guest in our home. And that is our responsibility. Like as leadership as a company, as an institution, as a director, like you are, you are a guest in our home. This is our home. We are responsible. Especially if we want to talk about mentorship in academia, some of us are paying $50,000 a year,4 (58m 14s):Right.6 (58m 15s):Be in your home. Like you have all of the control of this space. You can, you can make this, whatever you want it to be, and we're paying you to exist inside of it. And, and it becomes a question for me of how do you take that responsibility? Like what if, whether it's an academic responsibility of like, we are literally paying for the privilege of this, or in a professional standpoint where it's like, it's, it's a little bit in the reverse either way. It's like you are in the position of power. You are in the position where you can like build culture that I use, that I find that word comes up a lot. When I rant about this, which I rant about4 (58m 53s):Culture, building culture,6 (58m 54s):Building culture, whether it's academic, whether it's professional, like that's the responsibility. And if you don't take that as the responsibility it's so,4 (59m 3s):Okay. The, the, the other thing that I was going to say is you had a moment where, so I have these moments where I say to myself, usually not out loud, but you kind of almost said it out loud, but you didn't either. Which is I say, my mama did not come to this country as an and work her ass off for this shit. And your moment was, my dad did not build a fucking radiology oncology center and then get Rent-A-Center furniture and sandwiches for me to be doing this shit like that is that moment. Well, I think, well, that's what I heard there. Everyone has a line and a true north of like, wait, wait, my legacy is not going to be, this is not going to be not saying anything to you.6 (59m 47s):And legacy is, is something I think about sometimes, but it's like, it's not even about that per se. It's like, I see what it means to people. Right? And like, if, if we believe in our own bullshit, like, especially as artists, you know, because artists are, are at the forefront of talking a lot of shit about like empathy, right. About community, about humanity, about seeing each other about uplifting each other about making the world a better place. And it's like, well, that's all well and good. But like, are you like how? And it's not even just like, again, like there's so many ways to do it, but I think sometimes we take for granted the small ways of doing it.6 (1h 0m 29s):I think sometimes we take for granted the like, what if we just buy everyone dinner? What if we like make a concerted effort to pay people a little bit better? Like, what if we, what if we show our work in that? Like, what if we actually believe in the transparency that we add? Like so much, like we talk about transparency so much in our industry, like, or rather not in our industry, I should say like artists talk about transparency in the world, right? Like we want corporate transparency. We want more governmental transparency. What are some of the least transparent motherfuckers?2 (1h 1m 4s):Yeah. I feel like I know why that happens in theater too. It's because there's no money. So everybody goes into it with all of their, like very theoretical and ideological approaches. And when you get very cerebral, very theoretical, you forget about things like, oh yeah, people don't want to do 10 out of twelves anymore because it's, it's, it's too fatiguing. And it actually works against the thing that they're there to do, which is create a new each performance, like being able to offer something fresh each time. So it, it, that is actually an area in which it's helpful to think about theater as a business.2 (1h 1m 47s):Because if this, if you were running a seven 11 and you had an employee, you'd have to have a bathroom, like it's, you know, you just think about the pragmatic things more when you're thinking about it as a business.6 (1h 1m 57s):Right. And, and it's like, I, and for me, it's like a lot of these things are considered mutually exclusive for some, or they're treated as mutually exclusive, but like, you have to, it's like the business and the sort of like cultural, ethical side, somehow don't mix. And I just don't agree. I don't agree for a lot of reasons. I don't agree in part through the Haven experiment. You know, I it's like, look, we, we're still not making money. And we, we, I want to say we were very privileged to have particular financial support. I don't want to take that for granted that we were not starting in the same place as a lot of other people. And I, and I don't take that for granted. It's not a brag. It's like a, like the bootstrap Smith. Like I want to make sure that it's not like, you know, taken for granted, but it's also like, there's still this idea that people won't show up sometimes like that, like literally I've had other artistic directors talk to me about Haven work in Chicago being like, what are you sure there's an audience here.6 (1h 2m 53s):I'm like motherfuckers. We just sent like 15 people away at the door for Isaac Gomez, horror play. But no one else would produce like, like why, what are we it, and those decisions are made because of business, right? Because, because how are we going to sell it to Chris Jones? Because like, how are we going to, and I, I, we found time and time again, that there is an audience for this work that we were able to at times even make money on, like compared to what we, what our show to show budget work. We were able to make money back, like, and we were paying people, you know, it still stipends, you know, not what they're worth. I don't want to pretend we were ever able to pay people what they worth.6 (1h 3m 35s):But we were able to pay people, usually double the typical storefront stipend it's like, and, and still keep ourselves on a typical like budget that I was used to for other storefronts. So it's like, it's this question of like, why are these things treated as mutually exclusive on a bigger scale? Look at center theater group right now, an article just got written. I got to see slave play out here, which amazing production also Chicago, shout out. I got to see cause he's under studying. And I got to see him perform that night. Rashad hall. Brilliant, brilliant. And his2 (1h 4m 11s):Shot6 (1h 4m 11s):Is brilliant. Oh my God, his Phillip just broke my goddamn heart. Oh my God. He was so good. That's a show that is deeply controversial, deeply challenging queer by PAC sexual BDSM oriented, racist, racist, racist, or in terms of its its topic matter like racism in the United States. And historically, and today it's it's and they gave away like 5,000 or more like free and discounted tickets. And they still made money.2 (1h 4m 48s):Jeremy DOE he recently just put something up on social about this that he made. He made accessibility like the most important feature of his, you know, this play being produced and it worked and it worked better still made money on this scarcity model, which is, I mean, that's a lot of this just comes from the scarcity model, influencing how everybody feels. So constantly afraid of losing the one little sliver of the pie that they have that, you know, all they can think about is how to make that tiny little sliver. How to divvy it up instead of saying no, how can we get more pie people? We want more pie. We want to just keep getting our tiny little slivers we want, we, we want to add.2 (1h 5m 28s):So I'm mindful of the time because I know we're about 50 and we're going to be having to wrap up and I want to hear about it's your last semester and you're working on a project and you're going to have spring break next week. What is your, is it a thesis? Is that, is that,6 (1h 5m 43s):That, that was actually last semester. That last semester. Yeah. That's so that's done. I've I've kept myself a little bit busy. I don't know. I, I found myself strangely in spite of the pandemic lab, maybe because of the pandemic last year and now being back in in person and, and all of that. I just, and also I think because of like big was amazing and like my designers were incredible. The students here are unbelievable, but it was also because of some of the things I shared, like an exhausting process, excuse me. And so I sort of took a break and then got into the semester and for some reason just was like, I want to make shit. I want to be involved in making shit.6 (1h 6m 24s):I want to, I want to be involved in my own shit. I want to get involved in other people's shit. I just want to make shit. And so I'm like, I just finished up working on a collaboration with a doctoral student in the music school where we created a, I worked with a lighting designer and we worked collaboratively to create a light based sort of design journey, like a sort of light experience in conversation with the music called busking style in real time, as part of his doctoral thesis.2 (1h 6m 60s):Wait, you're saying it was busking like that the project was6 (1h 7m 4s):The, the style of, of calling the lighting. Was it wasn't like, it was sort of like, Yeah, it was a, yeah. So it was board op up in the booth watching and listening for particular moments. And the music was also highly improv. The reason is because the composition had moments of high improvisation. So there were moments where it was literally like just listening for certain things to shift the lighting responsibly to the music as it was happening. And it was just something I had never done before. So I'm like, let's try this out. And then I'm, I'm drama turking and assistant directing a play that an acting MFA student who's a dear, dear friend has written in his performing it.6 (1h 7m 48s):So I can be sort of the outside eye while she's on the inside of it. And then I might have another project cooking for right before graduation. I'm I'm figuring that out right now. And then I've also got things outside. I'm thrilled to say my partner is actually going to be going to USC for film school next year. So she and I are actually working collaboratively on a couple of things with another acting alum from, from Cal arts, actually a which I'll be able to share a little bit more, actually there's some stuff online with little like BTS stuff it's called goon and I'm actually really pumped about it. Yeah. I'm really, it's, it's, it's super fun, super quirky.6 (1h 8m 30s):We found a great cinematographer. Right. We shed who's just has an inspired eye. And so, yeah, just, I don't know, just finding myself in that moment of like, I think also out of frustration, maybe with Cal arts at times, like I just want to get with the students here and make some shifts. Let's just make some,2 (1h 8m 47s):I think your thing is you want to helm your own ship, always. You want to kind of be in charge of your own destiny and which is a very good, I mean, I see you're making a face about it, but I just, from my prime saying that's a very good quality to have. And it actually leads me to another question I was going to ask you, which is, are you, age-wise about there with your peers in this MFA6 (1h 9m 9s):And that's been interesting. Yeah. Older, older. Yeah. I'm in my mid thirties. And that has been a, an interesting difference of experience at times. Yeah.2 (1h 9m 19s):Yeah. Well, we've talked to a lot of MFA's who, because they were in their thirties, we're able to see the whole thing about school in a m

This week, join authors Steven Lubitz and Associate Editor Mark Link as they discuss the article "Screening for Atrial Fibrillation in Older Adults at Primary Care Visits: VITAL-AF Randomized Controlled Trial." Dr. Carolyn Lam:             Welcome to Circulation on the Run, your weekly podcast, summary and backstage pass of the journal and its editors. We're your co-hosts. I'm Dr.  Carolyn Nam, Associate Editor from the National Heart Center in Duke National University of Singapore. Dr. Greg Hundley:           And I'm Dr. Greg Huntley, Associate Editor, Director of the Pauley Heart Center from VCU Health in Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Carolyn Lam:             Well, guess what we have for the featured discussion today, Greg. It's about screening for atrial fibrillation in older adults at primary care visits. Very, very important topic. And what we'll be looking at is the vital AF randomized control trial. Ooh, we're going to keep everyone in suspense here as we carry on and discuss today's papers. Can I start? Dr. Greg Hundley:           Absolutely. Dr. Carolyn Lam:             Alright. This first paper is about infective endocarditis. Now, we know that cardiac surgery often represents the only treatment option in patients with infective endocarditis. However, infective endocarditis surgery may lead to a sudden release of inflammatory mediators, which is associated with the severity of postoperative organ dysfunction. So, authors Dr. Doesnst from Friedrich Schiller University of Jena in Germany, and colleagues, decided to investigate the impact of hemo absorption during infective endocarditis surgery on post-operative organ dysfunction. This multicenter, randomized, non-blinded controlled trial assigned 288 patients undergoing cardiac surgery for infective endocarditis to hemo absorption, which is integration of cytosorb to the cardiopulmonary bypass or control. The primary outcome was defined as the difference between the mean total postoperative sequential organ failure assessment score, calculated maximally to the ninth postoperative day, and the difference with the basal score. Secondary outcomes were 30 day mortality, durations of mechanical ventilation, basal presser and renal replacement therapy. Cytokines were also measured in the first 50 patients. Dr. Greg Hundley:           Interesting study, Carolyn. Wow. So, what are the results? Dr. Carolyn Lam:             Yes, this trial involved a lot of work and results showed, however, that there was a failure to demonstrate a reduction in postoperative organ dysfunction, 30 day mortality, or any of the clinically relevant secondary outcomes through intraoperative hemo absorption. Although hemo absorption reduced plasma cytokines at the end of cardiopulmonary bypass, there was no difference in any of the clinically relevant outcomes. Dr. Greg Hundley:           Great description, Carolyn. Well, my first paper comes to us from the world of preclinical science. And Carolyn, the ascending thoracic aorta, site of aneurysm formation, is populated by a mosaic of medial and adventitial cells that are embryonically derived from either the second heart field, or the cardiac neural crest. Second heart field derives cells, populate areas that coincide with the spatial specificity of thoracic aortopathies that are often associated with aneurysms. And so, this study, led by Dr. Alan Daugherty, from the University of Kentucky. Its purpose was to determine whether and how second heart field derived cells contribute to as sending aortopathies. Dr. Carolyn Lam:             Wow, an important topic, Greg. What did the authors find? Dr. Greg Hundley:           Okay. So, Carolyn, first, ascending aortic pathologies were examined in patients with sporadic thoracic aortopathies and angiotensin 2 infused mice. And so, the investigators found several things. First, second heart field derived smooth muscle cells and fibroblasts associate with angiotensin 2 induced aortic pathologies. Second, angiotensin 2 induced a distinct fibroblast sub-cluster that was less abundant for messenger RNAs related to major extracellular components and TGF beta-ligands and receptors, but more abundant for proliferative genes. Third, TGFBR2 deletion in second heart field derived cells were embryonically lethal, with significant dilatation of the outflow tract in the mice. And finally, second heart field specific deletion of LRP1 led to aortic pathologies in mice, supporting the importance of second heart field derived cells in maintaining ascending aortic wall integrity. Dr. Carolyn Lam:             Wow. Could you just sum up the clinical implications for us, Greg? Dr. Greg Hundley:           Well, Carolyn, I knew you were going to ask me that. So, these results indicate that heterogeneity of the embryonic origins of smooth muscle cells and fibroblasts contributes to complex mechanisms of vasculopathy formation, which should be considered when investigating the pathogenesis of thoracic aortopathies. Dr. Carolyn Lam:             Wow, thanks Greg. Well, my next study is also a translational study, and this one provides a deeper understanding of insulin regulation of cholesterol metabolism, and its disruption in type one diabetes. So, this is from Dr. Biddinger from Children's Hospital Boston and colleagues. In order to define the mechanisms by which insulin controls plasma cholesterol levels, the authors knocked down the insulin receptor, FOXO1, and the key bioacid synthesis enzyme, CYP8B1, in mice. They measured bioacid composition, cholesterol absorption, and plasma cholesterol. In parallel, they measured markers of cholesterol absorption and synthesis in humans with type one diabetes treated with ezetimibe and statins in a double blind crossover study. Dr. Greg Hundley:           Oh, wow, Carolyn. So, experiments in both animal models and in human subjects. So, what did they find? Dr. Carolyn Lam:             Insulin, by inhibiting FOXO1 in the liver, reduces 12 alpha hydroxylated bio acids, reduces cholesterol absorption and reduces plasma cholesterol levels. Thus, type one diabetes leads to a unique set of derangement in cholesterol metabolism with increased absorption rather than increased synthesis. These derangements are reversed by ezetemibe, which is a cholesterol absorption inhibitor, but not simvastatin, which is a cholesterol emphasis inhibitor. So, taken together, these data suggest that a personalized approach to lipid lowering in type one diabetes may be more effective, and highlight the need for further studies specifically in this group of patients. Dr. Greg Hundley:           Nice, Carolyn. Well, we've got some other really interesting or articles in the issue. And first, from the mail bag, there's a Research Letter from Professor Bers, entitled "Empagliflozin Reverses Late Sodium Current Enhancement and Cardiomyocyte Proarrhythmia in a Translational Murray Model of Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction." Carolyn, there's another research letter from Professor Shu entitled, "Activation Of INKY Cells at the Maternal Fetal Interface that Predisposes Offspring to Cardiac Injury." Also, there's a really nice, in depth article entitled, "Takasubo Syndrome Pathophysiology Emerging in Concepts and Clinical Implications." And it's from Dr. Trisha Singh. Dr. Carolyn Lam:             Nice. We also have an ECG challenge by Dr. Mugnai on “A Tachycardia in Disguise” and a Perspective piece by Dr. Alexander on “Equipoise in Clinical Trials: Enough Uncertainty [but] in Whose Opinion?” Isn't that interesting? Wow, thanks, Greg. Now, though, let's go on to this super exciting feature discussion on screening for atrial fibrillation in older adults' primary care. Dr. Greg Hundley:           You bet. Well, listeners, we are here for the feature discussion, now, on this March 29th issue. And we have with us Dr. Steve Lubitz, from Mass General and Boston, and our own associate editor, Dr. Mark Link, from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Welcome, gentlemen. So, Steve, we're going to start with you. Can you describe for us some of the background information that went into the construct of your study, and then what was the hypothesis that you wanted to address? Dr. Steven Lubitz:            Sure. Well, thanks for the opportunity to talk with you today about our work. So, as we know, AFib is a common and more bitter arrhythmia. And the first manifestation of AFib can be stroke in a substantial number of individuals. Strokes from atrial fibrillation or debilitating, but they can be prevented using oral anticoagulants if we know who has atrial fibrillation. But atrial fibrillation can be a symptomatic and it's possible, therefore, that screening pre-AFib could lead to new diagnoses and ultimately improve outcome by enabling stroke prevention. Point of care screening for AFib has been embraced by some guidelines for individuals age 65 or older, such as those in Europe, and mobile technology has now evolved and enables rapid mask screening using handheld ECGs, single lead ECGs, which obviates the need and expense of performing 12-lead ECGs to screen for AFib. Nevertheless, though, some guidelines have suggested that data are insufficient to recommend screening AFib using ECGs, such as those from the United States Preventative Services Task Force. We tested whether screening individuals age 65 or older at the time of a primary care clinic visit using a single lead ECG would lead to an increased rate of detection of AFib in contemporary United States practices. Dr. Greg Hundley:           Very nice. And so, maybe describe for us this task force, and also what was your study design and, again, your study population? Dr. Steven Lubitz:            Sure. So, specifically our study design, we performed a cluster randomized control trial in which primary care practice clinics were randomized to the screening intervention or to usual care, and patients aged 65 or older arriving for a primary care visit with their provider were eligible for participation. Patients were offered screening by practiced medical assistants at the time of their vital sign assessments, and screening was performed, if they consented, within a live core cardio mobile single ECG device, which was affixed to an iPad and stationed in the clinic. The results of the screening were made available to the providers at the time of the visit, and then the provider was able to make any and all decisions about subsequent management, confirmation or treatment. The primary outcome was a new diagnosis of Afib made in the medical record at one year following the start of the screening intervention, and the outcome was ascertained using the electronic health record and then manually adjudicated. We powered the study to detect a difference of nearly 0.5% in the rate of atrial fibrillation diagnoses at 12 months between the screening and usual care arms. Dr. Greg Hundley:           And how many patients did you enroll? And then what were your study results? Dr. Steven Lubitz:            Well, eight practices were randomized to the screening arm and eight practices to the usual care arm. And in total, that equated to about 15000 patients without a history of atrial fibrillation in the screening arm and 15000 patients in the control arm without a history of atrial fibrillation. The mean age was about 74, about 60% were female, 82% were white. And the mean chad-vad score was 3.4. We observed several main findings. The first is that, of the individuals in the screening arm, 91% were screened at least once. And this is the largest point of care screening study to date. The rate of screening in the intervention arm was substantially greater than any other contemporary trial, point of care, single ECG screening. We think that high rate of compliance with the intervention reflects patient enthusiasm for screening and a widespread feasibility of incorporating single ECGs into the routine vital sign practice workflow. Secondly, the primary endpoint, however, incidence of new AFib diagnoses at 12 months, was 1.72% in the screening arm, and 1.59% in the usual care arm, which equates to a risk difference of .13%. That was not statistically significant in the overall sample. We observed a substantial difference in new AFib diagnoses among those aged 85 or older in pre-specified subgroup analyses, 5.56% in the screening arm and 3.76% in usual care arm, which corresponds to a risk difference of 1.8%, where a number needed a screen of about 55, raising the possibility that point of care single ECG screening among the oldest and highest risk individuals might be effective. But this finding warrants future study. Third, we observed a shift in the location of diagnosis. So, they fit with a higher likelihood of diagnosis at a primary care practice encounter in the screening arm, as compared to the usual care arm, which is as expected. And the implications on downstream management pathways, cost of care, other downstream work flows is unknown at the moment. And lastly, we observed it in anticoagulation use was high, even among those with AFib diagnosed in the screening arm, which is a reassuring finding, suggesting that clinicians recognized that AF detected using this single lead point of care screening is likely to represent high burden, persistent AF that carries a substantial risk of stroke. Dr. Greg Hundley:           Very nice. Well, Mark, I know you review many papers for us here at Circulation. What attracted you to this particular paper? Dr. Mark Link:    This issue of point of care screening for AFib is a very hot topic. We all know that clinically diagnosed AFib carries with it a high risk of stroke, but what we don't know is incidentally found Afib, or nonclinically found Afib, what does that mean? This was one of the largest, if not actually the largest, study of point of care screening. And the i-cors are a very accurate device, or reasonably accurate device. So, we thought it's an important contribution to the literature. I think it surprised the authors, as well as us, there wasn't a difference in the diagnosis of AFib between the two arms. I think all of us would've expected to see that. But we're still learning a lot about point of care screening, and we're not to the point where we know what to do yet. Dr. Greg Hundley:           And Mark, what are some of your thought? Steve raised the point that, in that subgroup, greater than age 85, any additional insights there? Dr. Mark Link:    Yeah. I think that, if you can enrich your group with people that are more likely to have AFib, and the older you get, the more likely you are to have AFib, you are more likely to find Afib. But then treating people over age 85 also becomes a little bit riskier, with both anticoagulants and antirhythmic drugs and ablation. Dr. Greg Hundley:           Great points. Well, Steve, coming back to you, what do you see as the next study to be performed, really, in this sphere of research? Dr. Steven Lubitz:            Thanks. I think I proposed two additional lines of inquiry. At first, I think our hypothesis generating observation to the point of care screening with a single EDCG can lead to higher rates of AFib detection among the oldest individuals, age 85 or older, with a small number needed to screen warrants, replication, and the downstream implications of that on stroke and bleeding merit further evaluation. I think secondly, given the proliferation of wearable technology, future studies should examine the effectiveness of detecting perccismal atrial fibrillation for preventing downstream adverse events, including stroke. This point of care screening is likely to detect the highest burden persistent forms of atrial fibrillation in contrast to some of the wearable technology, like consumer wearable technology, that might detect paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, more commonly. Dr. Greg Hundley:           Ah, great point. And Mark, how about you? Anything to add? What future study do you see needs to be performed in this space? Dr. Mark Link:    It's clear from a number of studies that the longer that you monitor someone, the more likely you are to get a diagnosis of AFib. And that's pretty clear. This was a 30 second monitor. We have a number of studies that have shown two week and ILS monitoring is far more likely to get a diagnosis of AFib. But what we don't know is, if making that diagnosis of AFib makes any difference on ultimate outcomes. That's the studies that we need to see, is does treatment of incidentally found AFib improve clinical care. Dr. Greg Hundley:           Very good. Well, listeners, we want to thank Dr. Steve Lubitz from Mass General in Boston, and also Dr. Mark Link from UT Southwestern in Dallas, bringing us results from this study indicating that screening for atrial fibrillation using a single lead EKG at a primary care visit did not affect new atrial fibrillation diagnoses among those that were aged 65 years or older. There was, perhaps, a difference in those aged greater than 85 years, but more research is to come in that space. And, of course, looking for peroxisomal AFib with handheld devices is another area you yet to be investigated. Well, on behalf of Carolyn and myself, we want to wish you a great week and we will catch you next week, On the Run. Dr. Greg Hundley:           This program is copyright of the American Heart Association 2022. The opinions expressed by speakers in this podcast are their own and not necessarily those of the editors or of the American Heart Association. For more, please visit ahajournals.org.

SHOWNOTES I know a bunch of you are readers - today I'm giving you a bunch of books that I'm either reading or want to read!     • DISCLAIMER Colorful words may be used. don't be alarmed.     • NEWSLETTER https://view.flodesk.com/pages/61525a85337f1c2aacf52f6d     • Etsy Shop is open! https://www.etsy.com/shop/CGBPrints       • FIND ME ON ALL THE THINGS Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/cindyguentertbaldo YouTube - https://youtube.com/c/CindyGuentertBaldo Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/llamaletters/ Discord - https://discord.gg/Rwpp7Ww Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/llamaletters/ Website - www.cindyguentertbaldo.com     • STUFF I MENTIONED (these are affiliate links - I receive compensation if you purchase through them) The Exorcist - https://amzn.to/3hem73D The Leftovers - https://amzn.to/3JQleeb Courtesan - https://amzn.to/33KquR8 Catherine The Great - https://amzn.to/3Hfo4Ye Peter The Great - https://amzn.to/3JM2goV Burnout - https://amzn.to/3s9SBlW The Fifth Season - https://amzn.to/3vbd1NC We Are Not Like Them - https://amzn.to/3h9IY0h Hello Habits - https://amzn.to/3v8qohn       Inquiries - cindy@cindyguentertbaldo.com   TRANSCRIPTION We're talking books today, my friends we're talking books, I'm Cindy Guentert-Baldo. Welcome to the uncurated life podcast, where we talk about life on and off of the internet. And today my husband is walking around upstairs too. You might be picking up a bunch of that noise and there's nothing I can do about it, but we're going to drown it out with talk of books.   One of my favorite things to talk about, I might do this more often if you guys like it, but I'm going to give you three books in three different categories. Those categories are. Three books. I read recently that I enjoyed and want to tell you about three books. I'm in the middle of that. I am enjoying and am hoping that I will continue to enjoy, but books I'm starting and then three books that I want to read that on my TBR list and I'm going to be attacking next.   So hopefully somewhere in these nine books, you'll find something that's interesting to you. So let's start first at the books that I've already read recently. They're all fiction. One of them is historical fiction. Uh, these were all first time reads. I believe I may have read one of them years and years ago, but I don't remember.   So those three books we'll start with the one. I think I may have read a long time ago, but I don't think I have. And that is the Exorcist by William Peter Blatty. You I'm sure you've heard of the movie. Uh, the book was written before the. The book is excellent. The movie is an excellent adaptation of the book.   If you enjoyed enjoy, it might not be the right word. If you, if the movie was something you were into, you may be into the book. The movie is a very straightforward adaptation of the book. I would suggest that there's like a little bit more color or flavor to the book than there is in the movie, as there is with any book adaptation.   But if you're not. If you weren't into the movie or whatever, or if the movie was too much for you while the book is not super graphic, it is intense. So there is that, but I enjoyed it. I actually have the SQL Legion, which I know he wrote after the movie came out. And is what the third movie was based on what that one scary fucking scene that's like fucking terrifying if you know, you know, I haven't read that one yet though, but I have it.   I'm pretty sure I've read that one before though. I think I remember getting it from a garage sale years and years when I was a kid, but I don't remember it very well. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. So yes, the first book is the Exorcist. The second book on my list that I read recently and really enjoyed was the leftovers by Tom Parata.   This is the book that the TV show was based on. I have not seen the show. I've only watched the pilot episode, but have not really made time to sit and watch through the show. But I had heard the show was interesting and I had heard that the book was good. I am a fan of dystopian fiction. I am. Of end times fiction, uh, all those sorts of things.   I thought it could be really interesting. And it was, it was a very interesting book, kind of a quiet book, kind of, uh, um, contemplate of almost, but a good book, not high adventure at all. If you're looking for like an adventurous dystopian style book, this is not the book for you, but if you're, if you enjoyed what was one that I recommended in my newsletter recently, uh, never let me go the book about the donor.   If you enjoyed that book, you may really love the leftovers. It has that same kind of mundane in a world, surrounded by what the fuck kind of situation. Really liked it. And then the third book I read recently is another one I've talked about on live streams and that is court isn't by Diane Hagar. It's a historical fiction book that is about Deanna , who was the main mistress of Henri.   The second, I believe it was on rave. Second of France. He was married to Catherine and they had a whole bunch of kids, but the end of TA was his teres on teacher. On teacher. I believe that's how you, I don't speak French, like the main, the official mistress. Right. And she was his alleged true love and was like one of the main political power movers in the kingdom where I see his wife was kind of pushed to the side, Catherine Domenici, wands Ryan's up taking a lot more power into her own when her husband dies in her kids become a king.   That's not what the book is about. The book is mainly about, uh, the relationship between DeAnn, Henri and Catherine. And it was a very, very fun read. I would suggest that if you like reading historical fiction, especially historical fiction, along the lines of say Philip Gregory, where there is some liberties taken with the history, there's recognizable history, but there's also plenty of liberties, especially when it comes to adding in sexy times, you will probably enjoy this.   So those are the three that I have read recently that I enjoyed the three books. I am either reading or just cracking into, I have not gotten very far in any of these yet, but I am starting them. So I just thought I would let you know, two of them are books that apparently are the first two in a series of four about the Romanoffs.   So, uh, Hear me out here. So I started watching, I watched the great, right. I watched both seasons of it, which I am fully aware that it is historical fiction in the sense that it has, like, it's a little Iqua of historical fiction, right? Like if fruit sneezes in the general direction of a fruit flavored sparkling water, then the great history sneezed in the general direction of the show.   And they even, they mention it like in the title of the show, it's like an occasionally true story or whatever. But like most historical fiction, at least for me, what winds up happening is I, I see enjoyable historical fiction. And when I'm done with it, I immediately want to find out what really happened.   So when I was done watching the great, I decided to look up some biographies to find one on Catherine. The great, and I discovered that this, uh, reporter named Robert J uh, Robert K. Massey had written a book about Catherine, the great, and he had written a book about Peter, the great who shows up sort of in.   In the gray. And I was like, Ooh. So I got both of them. And I started reading them. The reason I went with his books is because I had already read two of his books, which were both about the Romanoffs. They were about Nicholas and Alexander. One's called Nicholas and Alexandra. And the other one is called the Romanovs the final chapter or something like that.   It's about like the last year of their lives. And I had read both of those and I had enjoyed them both as books, but also his writing style. It's very important to me. If I'm going to read a biography that I enjoy the writers, the authors writing style. Otherwise, I can't get through it. I need biographies to read at least somewhat like a novel.   They could be very much full of facts, but they need the writing style needs to be an enjoyable one for me to read. And I liked his books. And so I was fine picking up those two, but then I realized when I pick them up that they're technically those two books and the two I've already read are a series of four book series about the most famous Romanov.   So Catherine, the great Peter, the great and Nicholas and Alexandra and their kids. So I was like, oh cool. I'm just reading it backwards order. Anyway. So both of these books, one of them is called Catherine, the great portrait of a woman and the other is called Peter the great his life and the world. Um, and I will mention these are all linked.   All the books I'm talking about are linked in the show notes, other Amazon affiliate links. So using those links will support this podcast. I appreciate that, but if you don't want to, uh, if you don't want to use those links, you can just Google the books and find them. Anyway, just started both of them.   I'm barely into them, but I did really like the other books. If you're into biographies and you're into historical biographies, these may be books for you to give you some context as to other biographies that I've read and really enjoyed the writing style. In case you have read biographies and like to know kind of where I gravitate.   I really like Antonia Frazier's writing her book on Marie Antoinette is probably one of my favorite biography books of all time. And then, uh, Jeff Gwynne has written some fantastic biographies. The ones I've read of his are, um, his book on Charles Manson, his book on Bonnie and Clyde, which is just fucking outstanding.   And his book on Jones. Uh, great, you know, super cheerful reading materials, Cindy. Anyway, that just gives you an idea of some of the biography sort of writing styles that I tend to gravitate towards. So those are books I'm working on. I will report back on how good they are, but in general, They are something that I'm excited about.   The final book I'm working on was actually sent to me by the authors, but it was already on my radar. It was going to be a book club book last year before I had to basically shut the book club down until I could figure out what I wanted to do with it, especially with the move. And that is called burnout.   The secret to unlocking the stress cycle by Amelia and Emily. Nagorski their sisters. Uh, they S Emilia center. And I am just about to get into it, but one of the reasons I've been looking forward to reading it is because I have been burned out so badly and I'm, I'm sitting on the edge of burnout right now.   And what I would like to do is get to a point where I can recognize the signs earlier so that I can avoid it a lot more efficient. Not just for the sake of being productive, but for the sake of my own mental health. So I'm starting that book. I have heard wonderful things about it. It has been recommended to me so many times by so many people who I think see the signs of burnout in me.   I actually have it. They sent it to me and I'd actually bought it last year too. I found it on my Kindle. So I've got two versions of it and I'm going to be digging into it. It might be the book I take on the airplane with me to go wild. Um, you guys are. Few weeks later, but I'm recording early. So there is that, but I had, I have just cracked into it.   And again, there's there all three books or books I just started, but I am very excited to dig into all of them. And I think what's going to happen is the burnout book will be a travel book. And the two books about the greats will be my bedside books to read before bed. Anyway, moving forward from those three books that are on my TBR list, I actually own two of them and need to buy the other.   But I will be starting those ones right away. Two of them are fiction. One of them is non-fiction and the August we'll start with a nonfiction book, which is one that caught my eye while I was at of all fucking places, an Amazon store. I was there at the mall there for something else, and I saw it and I got sucked into it and I bought it.   And that is called hello habits, a minimalist guide to a better life by . Now I have no interest in being a minimalist. I love my stuff. I love my stuff and I'm happy with my stuff, but I am interested in habits and how we build them. And I have read atomic habits. It's a great book. But I'm curious to read other books on building habits.   And this one seems like an interesting one and I'll be the real, the cover just was fancy looking. And I was like, okay. So I have that sitting on my kitchen counter. That's the non-fiction book that I am excited to start reading, but I have a lot of other nonfiction books I bought because I was excited to start reading them.   And then I didn't. So we'll see how that goes. So I'll check back in with you. The two books that are fiction are both books. I am very excited about. The first one is the one I do not own yet. And that is the fifth season by NK. Jemisin many of you in my audience, my patrons, whoever who are fed to see readers have recommended NK Jemisin to me, like hardcore recommended her to me.   She's a woman of color. She's black, I believe. And she has written. Uh, apparently some outstanding fantasy. I love fantasy. One of my bucket list items this year is to read a new fantasy series new to me because I'm a reader. And so often I will gravitate towards rereading something like the wheel of time that I have already read a million times before, but I wanted to start with her.   It was either her brand in Sanderson. And I wanted to start with her mainly because Brandon Sanderson much like Robert Jordan is, is a girthy writer. He was. Like doorstop books. And I would like something a little less, uh, massive to start with. And her, her BR I think it's the broken earth trilogy, which is what the fifth season is the first book.   It's a trilogy, it's three books. So it's an easily digestible series for someone like me who tends to blow through books. I have high hopes for. Um, I don't have a lot of information about it yet, but I'm excited I'm gonna order it. And I will probably start that one as soon. Maybe that will be my reward to myself for when I finished one of the biographies of the great one of the greats, or I might just pick it up because currently those three books that I've got on deck, none of them are fiction.   So I might just pick that one up the other, or I might start with the other fiction book on my list, which is we are not like them by Christine pride and Jo Piazza. Now I found out about this book, which is a story about. A white woman and a black woman who are friends and then there's like a police shooting and how they grapple with it.   It's supposed to be a really good fiction standalone book. I heard about it because Jo Piazza, the white co-author, the other author, Katherine Christine pride is black. Uh, Joe Piazza is the host of the under the influence podcast, which I've talked about on the show before. Um, and so I had heard about it that way.   So. It just sounds like a good book. And I might start with that one because since it's not a series, it's a one-off. I can usually blow through one of those very quickly, either way. All three of those books are books I'm super interested in and what I might wind up doing. Well may wind up happening is I may take like the Catherine the great book and work on that.   Set the Peter the great book aside and grab a fiction book and stick it in there. Because what I find is if I overdo it on biographies and nonfiction, my joy of reading plummets, it's like a fucking erection that just like go sad. When you think about, you know, something heinous. Taxes or something. I don't know.   My penis goes pew. When I read too much nonfiction and, and biographies now non-fiction tends to be the, the most, not the biographies aren't non-fiction but I like self-help versus biography basically is what I'm talking about here. And even that I was going to spend some time with this podcast talking about genres and trying to avoid, and self-help was going to be like the number one.   But then I realized I bought that habits book and that self-help. So maybe I didn't actually think about that too clearly, but what I have found is for me, if all I try to do is read books that I'm reading for like a quote productive reason, or a learning reason, my joy of reading disappears. I do like reading books like that, but they need to be.   Balanced with fiction books that I'm just reading because I love reading. There has to be some level of that when it comes to reading. And so that's, that's maybe the lesson I'm leaving you with today's to recognize what kind of a reader you are. Are you somebody who can read more than one book at once?   I tend to be somebody who gets made fun of by my family because I leave books open on the couch to the page I'm on. And they'll be like four different books that I'm going with at any given time, because that's just the way that I read. But it's very important to me that I read books that are. There's a mixture of them.   Now, if I go all fiction, like I did in January reading those books, we already talked about that's different. I'm fine reading all fiction all the time. But I do like to bring in nonfiction books and biographies and other books like that because I do enjoy reading those, but they are not the books I gravitate towards when I'm really just reading for pleasure and reading for relaxation.   My first. Instinct is to go to fiction. And while I can relax reading these other things, I do like to, to spread it out. I will also add I'm not somebody who takes notes in the books that I read. I do, if they're non-fiction and I feel like I need to, but a lot of the times I just read it. That's just my style.   That's just the way I tend to do things. I have wanted to be like a book journaler. I have that I'm always fully booked planner. I looked at recently where I'm like, yeah, fuck. Yeah, I'm going to fill this out. Probably not though. So I just wanted to bring that up though. Give you an idea of what I've been reading, what I'm planning to read and how I'm sort of approaching my reading right now.   I'm not trying to like schedule time to read. That's never worked for me. I just need to have my book. Available by Kindle needs to be charged. My books need to be out where I can find them so I can pick them up when I feel the moment, especially if I'm trying to aim towards grabbing my phone and opening up candy crush.   Instead, again, listen to the boredom podcast. If you'd like to, or the one other one that came out recently about hobbies, talking a lot about that shit lately. And it's true. Like if I have the books available, I will write. So that's what I'm going to work on. I'd love to hear from you anything you've enjoyed reading recently, something that you have on your TBR list.   Let me know, tag me in your stories on Instagram at @llamaletters so that I can see what you're reading. I'm curious. Maybe I'll add some books to my list. I love books. If you love books, let me know. This is not a book podcast, but there will be books talked about here, just like. In the meantime, don't forget to thank my patrons.   They sponsored these episodes. They're awesome. www.patreon.com/cindyguentertbaldo. And you will find out more. And until next time, my friends, I hope you find a good book to read. I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you next time. Peace out.

In part 2 of our Building While Flying Q&A, Joe Quattrone, SVP, Head of Education, answers more questions from our listeners. Topics include: Creating content efficiently Working with small ad budgets How to market on LinkedIn Marketing trends to know OOH media Like what you heard? Want to have YOUR questions answered on the podcast? Connect with us on Instagram, Twitter, and/or LinkedIn and tell us what you want to know. Connect with Joe: LinkedIn / Twitter

OOH. Chris and Mary are so excited about the Teton Grooming Show and Gabby dishes on what goes on in the back end of setting up a trade show.

Nick Stanitz-Harper, CRO & Co-Founder; Edison Interactive | Riderflex - Recruiting & Sourcing Nick is known for his exuberant enthusiasm in and out of the workplace, Nick Stanitz-Harper is an award-winning entrepreneur and business leader. As CRO, Co-Founder and member of the Board of Directors at Edison Interactive, Nick focuses on driving revenue and bringing strategic partners to the table. Under his leadership, Edison Interactive was ranked #144 on the 2021 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America. In 2021, he was recognized as a winner of the Denver Business Journal C-Suite Award and is currently a member of the Business Journal Leadership Trust, an invite-only organization. Edison Interactive is a leading out-of-home (OOH) content management system (CMS) for connected devices in golf cars, rental vehicles, hotel rooms and more. Edison is known for its vast network of premium displays, digital signage, and infotainment solutions. Edison platform delivers valuable back-end insights and management capabilities for businesses while providing end-users with meaningful content and features that can be monetized. https://edisoninteractive.com/ Watch the Full Interview: https://youtu.be/6PVdJmUN8aM On the Riderflex podcast, CEO Steve Urban interviews some of the most successful entrepreneurs, CEO's, and business leaders. Hear them tell the "REAL" stories of what it's like to start and lead businesses. Riderflex is a national, Colorado based, premier headhunter, RPO and employment agency; recruiting and searching the top talent for staffing your teams. Top Executive Recruiting Firm - https://riderflex.com/ Podcast sponsor: Marketing 360 is the #1 platform for small business and it's everything you need to grow your business. marketing360.com/riderflex #NickStanitzHarper #EdisonInteractive #Titan100 #podcast #interview #entrepreneur #ColoradoRecruitingFirm #TopExecutiveRecruitingFirm #staffingagency #employmentagency #headhunter #recruitingfirm #staffing #staffingfirm #Denver #Colorado #National #Riderflex --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/riderflex/support

About ClintClint is the CEO and a co-founder at Cribl, a company focused on making observability viable for any organization, giving customers visibility and control over their data while maximizing value from existing tools.Prior to co-founding Cribl, Clint spent two decades leading product management and IT operations at technology and software companies, including Splunk and Cricket Communications. As a former practitioner, he has deep expertise in network issues, database administration, and security operations.Links: Cribl: https://cribl.io/ Cribl.io: https://cribl.io Docs.cribl.io: https://docs.cribl.io Sandbox.cribl.io: https://sandbox.cribl.io TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Today's episode is brought to you in part by our friends at MinIO the high-performance Kubernetes native object store that's built for the multi-cloud, creating a consistent data storage layer for your public cloud instances, your private cloud instances, and even your edge instances, depending upon what the heck you're defining those as, which depends probably on where you work. It's getting that unified is one of the greatest challenges facing developers and architects today. It requires S3 compatibility, enterprise-grade security and resiliency, the speed to run any workload, and the footprint to run anywhere, and that's exactly what MinIO offers. With superb read speeds in excess of 360 gigs and 100 megabyte binary that doesn't eat all the data you've gotten on the system, it's exactly what you've been looking for. Check it out today at min.io/download, and see for yourself. That's min.io/download, and be sure to tell them that I sent you.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Sysdig. Sysdig is the solution for securing DevOps. They have a blog post that went up recently about how an insecure AWS Lambda function could be used as a pivot point to get access into your environment. They've also gone deep in-depth with a bunch of other approaches to how DevOps and security are inextricably linked. To learn more, visit sysdig.com and tell them I sent you. That's S-Y-S-D-I-G dot com. My thanks to them for their continued support of this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. I have a repeat guest joining me on this promoted episode. Clint Sharp is the CEO and co-founder of Cribl. Clint, thanks for joining me.Clint: Hey, Corey, nice to be back.Corey: I was super excited when you gave me the premise for this recording because you said you had some news to talk about, and I was really excited that oh, great, they're finally going to buy a vowel so that people look at their name and understand how to pronounce it. And no, that's nowhere near forward-looking enough. It's instead it's some, I guess, I don't know, some product announcement or something. But you know, hope springs eternal. What have you got for us today?Clint: Well, one of the reasons I love talking to your audiences because product announcements actually matter to this audience. It's super interesting, as you get into starting a company, you're such, like, a product person, you're like, “Oh, I have this new set of things that's really going to make your life better.” And then you go out to, like, the general media, and you're like, “Hey, I have this product.” And they're like, “I don't care. What product? Do you have a funding announcement? Do you have something big in the market that—you know, do you have a new executive? Do you”—it's like, “No, but, like, these features, like these things, that we—the way we make our lives better for our customers. Isn't that interesting?” “No.”Corey: Real depressing once you—“Do you have a security breach to announce?” It's, “No. God no. Why would I wind up being that excited about it?” “Well, I don't know. I'd be that excited about it.” And yeah, the stuff that mainstream media wants to write about in the context of tech companies is exactly the sort of thing that tech companies absolutely do not want to be written about for. But fortunately, that is neither here nor there.Clint: Yeah, they want the thing that gets the clicks.Corey: Exactly. You built a product that absolutely resonates in its target market and outside of that market. It's one of those, what is that thing, again? If you could give us a light refresher on what Cribl is and does, you'll probably do a better job of it than I will. We hope.Clint: We'd love to. Yeah, so we are an observability company, fundamentally. I think one of the interesting things to talk about when it comes to observability is that observability and security are merging. And so I like to say observability and include security people. If you're a security person, and you don't feel included by the word observability, sorry.We also include you; you're under our tent here. So, we sell to technology professionals, we help make their lives better. And we do that today through a flagship product called LogStream—which is part of this announcement, we're actually renaming to Stream. In some ways, we're dropping logs—and we are a pipeline company. So, we help you take all of your existing agents, all of your existing data that's moving, and we help you process that data in the stream to control costs and to send it multiple places.And it sounds kind of silly, but one of the biggest problems that we end up solving for a lot of our enterprises is, “Hey, I've got, like, this old Syslog feed coming off of my firewalls”—like, you remember those things, right? Palo Alto firewalls, ASA firewalls—“I actually get that thing to multiple places because, hey, I want to get that data into another security solution. I want to get that data into a data lake. How do I do that?” Well, in today's world, that actually turns out is sort of a neglected set of features, like, the vendors who provide you logging solutions, being able to reshape that data, filter that data, control costs, wasn't necessarily at the top of their priority list.It wasn't nefarious. It wasn't like people are like, “Oh, I'm going to make sure that they can't process this data before it comes into my solution.” It's more just, like, “I'll get around to it eventually.” And the eventually never actually comes. And so our streaming product helps people do that today.And the big announcement that we're making this week is that we're extending that same processing technology down to the endpoint with a new product we're calling Cribl Edge. And so we're taking our existing best-in-class management technology, and we're turning it into an agent. And that seems kind of interesting because… I think everybody sort of assumed that the agent is dead. Okay, well, we've been building agents for a decade or two decades. Isn't everything exactly the same as it was before?But we really saw kind of a dearth of innovation in that area in terms of being able to manage your agents, being able to understand what data is available to be collected, being able to auto-discover the data that needs to be able to be collected, turning those agents into interactive troubleshooting experiences so that we can, kind of, replicate the ability to zoom into a remote endpoint and replicate that Linux command line experience that we're not supposed to be getting anymore because we're not supposed to SSH into boxes anymore. Well, how do I replicate that? How do I see how much disk is on this given endpoint if I can't SSH into that box? And so Cribl Edge is a rethink about making this rich, interactive experience on top of all of these agents that become this really massive distributed system that we can process data all the way out at where the data is being emitted.And so that means that now we don't nec—if you want to process that data in the stream, okay, great, but if you want to process that data at its origination point, we can actually provide you cheaper cost because now you're using a lot of that capacity that's sitting out there on your endpoints that isn't really being used today anyway—the average utilization of a Kubernetes cluster is like 30%—Corey: It's that high. I'm sort of surprised.Clint: Right? I know. So, Datadog puts out the survey every year, which I think is really interesting, and that's a number that always surprised me is just that people are already paying for this capacity, right? It's sitting there, it's on their AWS bill already, and with that average utilization, a lot of the stuff that we're doing in other clusters, or while we're moving that data can actually just be done right there where the data is being emitted. And also, if we're doing things like filtering, we can lower egress charges, there's lots of really, really good goodness that we can do by pushing that processing further closer to its origination point.Corey: You know, the timing of this episode is somewhat apt because as of the time that we're recording this, I spent most of yesterday troubleshooting and fixing my home wireless network, which is a whole Ubiquity-managed thing. And the controller was one of their all-in-one box things that kept more or less power cycling for no apparent reason. How do I figure out why it's doing that? Well, I'm used to, these days, doing everything in a cloud environment where you can instrument things pretty easily, where things start and where things stop is well understood. Finally, I just gave up and used a controller that's sitting on an EC2 instance somewhere, and now great, now I can get useful telemetry out of it because now it's stuff I know how to deal with.It also, turns out that surprise, my EC2 instance is not magically restarting itself due to heat issues. What a concept. So, I have a newfound appreciation for the fact that oh, yeah, not everything lives in a cloud provider's regions. Who knew? This is a revelation that I think is going to be somewhat surprising for folks who've been building startups and believe that anything that's older than 18 months doesn't exist.But there's a lot of data centers out there, there are a lot of agents living all kinds of different places. And workloads continue to surprise me even now, just looking at my own client base. It's a very diverse world when we're talking about whether things are on-prem or whether they're in cloud environments.Clint: Well, also, there's a lot of agents on every endpoint period, just due to the fact that security guys want an agent, the observability guys want an agent, the logging people want an agent. And then suddenly, I'm, you know, I'm looking at every endpoint—cloud, on-prem, whatever—and there's 8, 10 agents sitting there. And so I think a lot of the opportunity that we saw was, we can unify the data collection for metric type of data. So, we have some really cool defaults. [unintelligible 00:07:30] this is one of the things where I think people don't focus much on, kind of, the end-user experience. Like, let's have reasonable defaults.Let's have the thing turn on, and actually, most people's needs are set without tweaking any knobs or buttons, and no diving into YAML files and looking at documentation and trying to figure out exactly the way I need to configure this thing. Let's collect metric data, let's collect log data, let's do it all from one central place with one agent that can send that data to multiple places. And I can send it to Grafana Cloud, if I want to; I can send it to Logz.io, I can send it to Splunk, I can send it to Elasticsearch, I can send it to AWS's new Elasticsearch-y the thing that we don't know what they're going to call it yet after the lawsuit. Any of those can be done right from the endpoint from, like, a rich graphical experience where I think that there's a really a desire now for people to kind of jump into these configuration files where really a lot of these users, this is a part-time job, and so hey, if I need to go set up data collection, do I want to learn about this detailed YAML file configuration that I'm only going to do once or twice, or should I be able to do it in an easy, intuitive way, where I can just sit down in front of the product, get my job done and move on without having to go learn some sort of new configuration language?Corey: Once upon a time, I saw an early circa 2012, 2013 talk from Jordan Sissel, who is the creator of Logstash, and he talked a lot about how challenging it was to wind up parsing all of the variety of log files out there. Even something is relatively straightforward—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—as timestamps was an absolute monstrosity. And a lot of people have been talking in recent years about OpenTelemetry being the lingua franca that everything speaks so that is the wave of the future, but I've got a level with you, looking around, it feels like these people are living in a very different reality than the one that I appear to have stumbled into because the conversations people are having about how great it is sound amazing, but nothing that I'm looking at—granted from a very particular point of view—seems to be embracing it or supporting it. Is that just because I'm hanging out in the wrong places, or is it still a great idea whose time has yet to come, or something else?Clint: So, I think a couple things. One is every conversation I have about OpenTelemetry is always, “Will be.” It's always in the future. And there's certainly a lot of interest. We see this from customer after customer, they're very interested in OpenTelemetry and what the OpenTelemetry strategy is, but as an example OpenTelemetry logging is not yet finalized specification; they believe that they're still six months to a year out. It seems to be perpetually six months to a year out there.They are finalized for metrics and they are finalized for tracing. Where we see OpenTelemetry tends to be with companies like Honeycomb, companies like Datadog with their tracing product, or Lightstep. So, for tracing, we see OpenTelemetry adoption. But tracing adoption is also not that high either, relative to just general metrics of logs.Corey: Yeah, the tracing implementations that I've seen, for example, Epsagon did this super well, where it would take a look at your Lambdas Function built into an application, and ah, we're going to go ahead and instrument this automatically using layers or extensions for you. And life was good because suddenly you got very detailed breakdowns of exactly how data was flowing in the course of a transaction through 15 Lambdas Function. Great. With everything else I've seen, it's, “Oh, you have to instrument all these things by hand.” Let me shortcut that for you: That means no one's going to do it. They never are.It's anytime you have to do that undifferentiated heavy lifting of making sure that you put the finicky code just so into your application's logic, it's a shorthand for it's only going to happen when you have no other choice. And I think that trying to surface that burden to the developer, instead of building it into the platform so they don't have to think about it is inherently the wrong move.Clint: I think there's a strong belief in Silicon Valley that—similar to, like, Hollywood—that the biggest export Silicon Valley is going to have is culture. And so that's going to be this culture of, like, developer supporting their stuff in production. I'm telling you, I sell to banks and governments and telcos and I don't see that culture prevailing. I see a application developed by Accenture that's operated by Tata. That's a lot of inertia to overcome and a lot of regulation to overcome as well, and so, like, we can say that, hey, separation of duties isn't really a thing and developers should be able to support all their own stuff in production.I don't see that happening. It may happen. It'll certainly happen more than zero. And tracing is predicated on the whole idea that the developer is scratching their own itch. Like that I am in production and troubleshooting this and so I need this high-fidelity trace-level information to understand what's going on with this one user's experience, but that doesn't tend to be in the enterprise, how things are actually troubleshot.And so I think that more than anything is the headwind that slowing down distributed tracing adoption. It's because you're putting the onus on solving the problem on a developer who never ends up using the distributed tracing solution to begin with because there's another operations department over there that's actually operating the thing on a day-to-day basis.Corey: Having come from one of those operations departments myself, the way that I would always fix things was—you know, in the era that I was operating it made sense—you'd SSH into a box and kick the tires, poke around, see what's going on, look at the logs locally, look at the behaviors, the way you'd expect it to these days, that is considered a screamingly bad anti-pattern and it's something that companies try their damnedest to avoid doing at all. When did that change? And what is the replacement for that? Because every time I asked people for the sorts of data that I would get from that sort of exploration when they're trying to track something down, I'm more or less met with blank stares.Clint: Yeah. Well, I think that's a huge hole and one of the things that we're actually trying to do with our new product. And I think the… how do I replicate that Linux command line experience? So, for example, something as simple, like, we'd like to think that these nodes are all ephemeral, but there's still a disk, whether it's virtual or not; that thing sometimes fills up, so how do I even do the simple thing like df -kh and see how much disk is there if I don't already have all the metrics collected that I needed, or I need to go dive deep into an application and understand what that application is doing or seeing, what files it's opening, or what log files it's writing even?Let's give some good examples. Like, how do I even know what files an application is running? Actually, all that information is all there; we can go discover that. And so some of the things that we're doing with Edge is trying to make this rich, interactive experience where you can actually teleport into the end node and see all the processes that are running and get a view that looks like top and be able to see how much disk is there and how much disk is being consumed. And really kind of replicating that whole troubleshooting experience that we used to get from the Linux command line, but now instead, it's a tightly controlled experience where you're not actually getting an arbitrary shell, where I could do anything that could give me root level access, or exploit holes in various pieces of software, but really trying to replicate getting you that high fidelity information because you don't need any of that information until you need it.And I think that's part of the problem that's hard with shipping all this data to some centralized platform and getting every metric and every log and moving all that data is the data is worthless until it isn't worthless anymore. And so why do we even move it? Why don't we provide a better experience for getting at the data at the time that we need to be able to get at the data. Or the other thing that we get to change fundamentally is if we have the edge available to us, we have way more capacity. I can store a lot of information in a few kilobytes of RAM on every node, but if I bring thousands of nodes into one central place, now I need a massive amount of RAM and a massive amount of cardinality when really what I need is the ability to actually go interrogate what's running out there.Corey: The thing that frustrates me the most is the way that I go back and find my old debug statements, which is, you know, I print out whatever it is that the current status is and so I can figure out where something's breaking.Clint: [Got here 00:15:08].Corey: Yeah. I do it within AWS Lambda functions, and that's great. And I go back and I remove them later when I notice how expensive CloudWatch logs are getting because at 50 cents per gigabyte of ingest on those things, and you have that Lambda function firing off a fair bit, that starts to add up when you've been excessively wordy with your print statements. It sounds ridiculous, but okay, then you're storing it somewhere. If I want to take that log data and have something else consume it, that's nine cents a gigabyte to get it out of AWS and then you're going to want to move it again from wherever it is over there—potentially to a third system, because why not?—and it seems like the entire purpose of this log data is to sit there and be moved around because every time it gets moved, it winds up somehow costing me yet more money. Why do we do this?Clint: I mean, it's a great question because one of the things that I think we decided 15 years ago was that the reason to move this data was because that data may go poof. So, it was on a, you know, back in my day, it was an HP DL360 1U rackmount server that I threw in there, and it had raid zero discs and so if that thing went dead, well, we didn't care, we'd replace it with another one. But if we wanted to find out why it went dead, we wanted to make sure that the data had moved before the thing went dead. But now that DL360 is a VM.Corey: Yeah, or a container that is going to be gone in 20 minutes. So yeah, you don't want to store it locally on that container. But discs are also a fair bit more durable than they once were, as well. And S3 talks about its 11 nines of durability. That's great and all but most of my application logs don't need that. So, I'm still trying to figure out where we went wrong.Clint: Well, I think it was right for the time. And I think now that we have durable storage at the edge where that blob storage has already replicated three times and we can reattach—if that box crashes, we can reattach new compute to that same block storage. Actually, AWS has some cool features now, you can actually attach multiple VMs to the same block store. So, we could actually even have logs being written by one VM, but processed by another VM. And so there are new primitives available to us in the cloud, which we should be going back and re-questioning all of the things that we did ten to 15 years ago and all the practices that we had because they may not be relevant anymore, but we just never stopped to ask why.Corey: Yeah, multi-attach was rolled out with their IO2 volumes, which are spendy but great. And they do warn you that you need a file system that actively supports that and applications that are aware of it. But cool, they have specific use cases that they're clearly imagining this for. But ten years ago, we were building things out, and, “Ooh, EBS, how do I wind up attaching that from multiple instances?” The answer was, “Ohh, don't do that.”And that shaped all of our perspectives on these things. Now suddenly, you can. Is that, “Ohh don't do that,” gut visceral reaction still valid? People don't tend to go back and re-examine the why behind certain best practices until long after those best practices are now actively harmful.Clint: And that's really what we're trying to do is to say, hey, should we move log data anymore if it's at a durable place at the edge? Should we move metric data at all? Like, hey, we have these big TSDBs that have huge cardinality challenges, but if I just had all that information sitting in RAM at the original endpoint, I can store a lot of information and barely even touch the free RAM that's already sitting out there at that endpoint. So, how to get out that data? Like, how to make that a rich user experience so that we can query it?We have to build some software to do this, but we can start to question from first principles, hey, things are different now. Maybe we can actually revisit a lot of these architectural assumptions, drive cost down, give more capability than we actually had before for fundamentally cheaper. And that's kind of what Cribl does is we're looking at software is to say, “Man, like, let's question everything and let's go back to first principles.” “Why do we want this information?” “Well, I need to troubleshoot stuff.” “Okay, well, if I need to troubleshoot stuff, well, how do I do that?” “Well, today we move it, but do we have to? Do we have to move that data?” “No, we could probably give you an experience where you can dive right into that endpoint and get really, really high fidelity data without having to pay to move that and store it forever.” Because also, like, telemetry information, it's basically worthless after 24 hours, like, if I'm moving that and paying to store it, then now I'm paying for something I'm never going to read back.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Vultr. Spelled V-U-L-T-R because they're all about helping save money, including on things like, you know, vowels. So, what they do is they are a cloud provider that provides surprisingly high performance cloud compute at a price that—while sure they claim its better than AWS pricing—and when they say that they mean it is less money. Sure, I don't dispute that but what I find interesting is that it's predictable. They tell you in advance on a monthly basis what it's going to going to cost. They have a bunch of advanced networking features. They have nineteen global locations and scale things elastically. Not to be confused with openly, because apparently elastic and open can mean the same thing sometimes. They have had over a million users. Deployments take less that sixty seconds across twelve pre-selected operating systems. Or, if you're one of those nutters like me, you can bring your own ISO and install basically any operating system you want. Starting with pricing as low as $2.50 a month for Vultr cloud compute they have plans for developers and businesses of all sizes, except maybe Amazon, who stubbornly insists on having something to scale all on their own. Try Vultr today for free by visiting: vultr.com/screaming, and you'll receive a $100 in credit. Thats V-U-L-T-R.com slash screaming.Corey: And worse, you wind up figuring out, okay, I'm going to store all that data going back to 2012, and it's petabytes upon petabytes. And great, how do I actually search for a thing? Well, I have to use some other expensive thing of compute that's going to start diving through all of that because the way I set up my partitioning, it isn't aligned with anything looking at, like, recency or based upon time period, so right every time I want to look at what happened 20 minutes ago, I'm looking at what happened 20 years ago. And that just gets incredibly expensive, not just to maintain but to query and the rest. Now, to be clear, yes, this is an anti-pattern. It isn't how things should be set up. But how should they be set up? And it is the collective the answer to that right now actually what's best, or is it still harkening back to old patterns that no longer apply?Clint: Well, the future is here, it's just unevenly distributed. So there's, you know, I think an important point about us or how we think about building software is with this customer is first attitude and fundamentally bringing them choice. Because the reality is that doing things the old way may be the right decision for you. You may have compliance requirements to say—there's a lot of financial services institutions, for example, like, they have to keep every byte of data written on any endpoint for seven years. And so we have to accommodate their requirements.Like, is that the right requirement? Well, I don't know. The regulator wrote it that way, so therefore, I have to do it. Whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing for the business, I have no choice. And their decisions are just as right as the person who says this data is worthless and should all just be thrown away.We really want to be able to go and say, like, hey, what decision is right? We're going to give you the option to do it this way, we're going to give you the option to do it this way. Now, the hard part—and that when it comes down to, like, marketing, it's like you want to have this really simple message, like, “This is the one true path.” And a lot of vendors are this way, “There's this new wonderful, right, true path that we are going to take you on, and follow along behind me.” But the reality is, enterprise worlds are gritty and ugly, and they're full of old technology and new technology.And they need to be able to support getting data off the mainframe the same way as they're doing a brand new containerized microservices application. In fact, that brand new containerized microservices application is probably talking to the mainframe through some API. And so all of that has to work at once.Corey: Oh, yeah. And it's all of our payment data is in our PCI environment that PCI needs to have every byte logged. Great. Why is three-quarters of your infrastructure considered the PCI environment? Maybe you can constrain that at some point and suddenly save a whole bunch of effort, time, money, and regulatory drag on this.But as you go through that journey, you need to not only have a tool that will work when you get there but a tool that will work where you are today. And a lot of companies miss that mark, too. It's, “Oh, once you modernize and become the serverless success story of the decade, then our product is going to be right for you.” “Great. We'll send you a postcard if we ever get there and then you can follow up with us.”Alternately, it's well, “Yeah, we're this is how we are today, but we have a visions of a brighter tomorrow.” You've got to be able to meet people where they are at any point of that journey. One of the things I've always respected about Cribl has been the way that you very fluidly tell both sides of that story.Clint: And it's not their fault.Corey: Yeah.Clint: Most of the people who pick a job, they pick the job because, like—look, I live in Kansas City, Missouri, and there's this data processing company that works primarily on mainframes, it's right down the road. And they gave me a job and it pays me $150,000 a year, and I got a big house and things are great. And I'm a sysadmin sitting there. I don't get to play with the new technology. Like, that customer is just as an applicable customer, we want to help them exactly the same as the new Silicon Valley hip kid who's working at you know, a venture-backed startup, they're doing everything natively in the cloud. Those are all right decisions, depending on where you happen to find yourself, and we want to support you with our products, no matter where you find yourself on the technology spectrum.Corey: Speaking of old and new, and the trends of the industry, when you first set up this recording, you mentioned, “Oh, yeah, we should make it a point to maybe talk about the acquisition,” at which point I sprayed coffee across my iMac. Thanks for that. Turns out it wasn't your acquisition we were talking about so much as it is the—at the time we record this—-the yet-to-close rumored acquisition of Splunk by Cisco.Clint: I think it's both interesting and positive for some people, and sad for others. I think Cisco is obviously a phenomenal company. They run the networking world. The fact that they've been moving into observability—they bought companies like AppDynamics, and we were talking about Epsagon before the show, they bought—ServiceNow, just bought Lightstep recently. There's a lot of acquisitions in this space.I think that when it comes to something like Splunk, Splunk is a fast-growing company by compared to Cisco. And so for them, this is something that they think that they can put into their distribution channel, and what Cisco knows how to do is to sell things like they're very good at putting things through their existing sales force and really amplifying the sales of that particular thing that they have just acquired. That being said, I think for a company that was as innovative as Splunk, I do find it a bit sad with the idea that it's going to become part of this much larger behemoth and not really probably driving the observability and security industry forward anymore because I don't think anybody really looks at Cisco as a company that's driving things—not to slam them or anything, but I don't really see them as driving the industry forward.Corey: Somewhere along the way, they got stuck and I don't know how to reconcile that because they were a phenomenally fast-paced innovative company, briefly the most valuable company in the world during the dotcom bubble. And then they just sort of stalled out somewhere and, on some level, not to talk smack about it, but it feels like the level of innovation we've seen from Splunk has curtailed over the past half-decade or so. And selling to Cisco feels almost like a tacit admission that they are effectively out of ideas. And maybe that's unfair.Clint: I mean, we can look at the track record of what's been shipped over the last five years from Splunk. And again they're a partner, their customers are great, I think they still have the best log indexing engine on the market. That was their core product and what has made them the majority of their money. But there's not been a lot new. And I think objectively we can look at that without throwing stones and say like, “Well, what net-new? You bought SignalFX. Like, good for you guys like that seems to be going well. You've launched your observability suite based off of these acquisitions.” But organic product-wise, there's not a lot coming out of the factory.Corey: I'll take it a bit further-slash-sadder, we take a look at some great companies that were acquired—OpenDNS, Duo Security, SignalFX, as you mentioned, Epsagon, ThousandEyes—and once they've gotten acquired by Cisco, they all more or less seem to be frozen in time, like they're trapped in amber, which leads us up to the natural dinosaur analogy that I'll probably make in a less formal setting. It just feels like once a company is bought by Cisco, their velocity peters out, a lot of their staff leaves, and what you see is what you get. And I don't know if that's accurate, I'm just not looking in the right places, but every time I talk to folks in the industry about this, I get a lot of knowing nods that are tied to it. So, whether or not that's true or not, that is very clearly, at least in some corners of the market, the active perception.Clint: There's a very real fact that if you look even at very large companies, innovation is driven from a core set of a handful of people. And when those people start to leave, the innovation really stops. It's those people who think about things back from first principles—like why are we doing things? What different can we do?—and they're the type of drivers that drive change.So, Frank Slootman wrote a book recently called Amp it Up that I've been reading over the last weekend, and he talks—has this article that was on LinkedIn a while back called “Drivers vs. Passengers” and he's always looking for drivers. And those drivers tend to not find themselves as happy in bigger companies and they tend to head for the exits. And so then you end up with the people who are a lot of the passenger type of people, the people who are like—they'll carry it forward, they'll continue to scale it, the business will continue to grow at whatever rate it's going to grow, but you're probably not going to see a lot of the net-new stuff. And I'll put it in comparison to a company like Datadog who I have a vast amount of respect for I think they're incredibly innovative company, and I think they continue to innovate.Still driven by the founders, the people who created the original product are still there driving the vision, driving forward innovation. And that's what tends to move the envelope is the people who have the moral authority inside of an even larger organization to say, “Get behind me. We're going in this direction. We're going to go take that hill. We're going to go make things better for our customers.” And when you start to lose those handful of really critical contributors, that's where you start to see the innovation dry up.Corey: Where do you see the acquisitions coming from? Is it just at some point people shove money at these companies that got acquired that is beyond the wildest dreams of avarice? Is it that they believe that they'll be able to execute better on their mission and they were independently? These are still smart, driven, people who have built something and I don't know that they necessarily see an acquisition as, “Well, time to give up and coast for a while and then I'll leave.” But maybe it is. I've never found myself in that situation, so I can't speak for sure.Clint: You kind of I think, have to look at the business and then whoever's running the business at that time—and I sit in the CEO chair—so you have to look at the business and say, “What do we have inside the house here?” Like, “What more can we do?” If we think that there's the next billion-dollar, multi-billion-dollar product sitting here, even just in our heads, but maybe in the factory and being worked on, then we should absolutely not sell because the value is still there and we're going to grow the company much faster as an independent entity than we would you know, inside of a larger organization. But if you're the board of directors and you're looking around and saying like, hey look, like, I don't see another billion-dollar line of bus—at this scale, right, if your Splunk scale, right? I don't see another billion-dollar line of business sitting here, we could probably go acquire it, we could try to add it in, but you know, in the case of something like a Splunk, I think part of—you know, they're looking for a new CEO right now, so now they have to go find a new leader who's going to come in, re-energize and, kind of, reboot that.But that's the options that they're considering, right? They're like, “Do I find a new CEO who's going to reinvigorate things and be able to attract the type of talent that's going to lead us to the next billion-dollar line of business that we can either build inside or we can acquire and bring in-house? Or is the right path for me just to say, ‘Okay, well, you know, somebody like Cisco's interested?'” or the other path that you may see them go down to something like Silver Lake, so Silver Lake put a billion dollars into the company last year. And so they may be looking at and say, “Okay, well, we really need to do some restructuring here and we want to do it outside the eyes of the public market. We want to be able to change pricing model, we want to be able to really do this without having to worry about the stock price's massive volatility because we're making big changes.”And so I would say there's probably two big options there considering. Like, do we sell to Cisco, do we sell to Silver Lake, or do we really take another run at this? And those are difficult decisions for the stewards of the business and I think it's a different decision if you're the steward of the business that created the business versus the steward of the business for whom this is—the I've been here for five years and I may be here for five years more. For somebody like me, a company like Cribl is literally the thing I plan to leave on this earth.Corey: Yeah. Do you have that sense of personal attachment to it? On some level, The Duckbill Group, that's exactly what I'm staring at where it's great. Someone wants to buy the Last Week in AWS media side of the house.Great. Okay. What is that really, beyond me? Because so much of it's been shaped by my personality. There's an audience, sure, but it's a skeptical audience, one that doesn't generally tend to respond well to mass market, generic advertisements, so monetizing that is not going to go super well.“All right, we're going to start doing data mining on people.” Well, that's explicitly against the terms of service people signed up for, so good luck with that. So, much starts becoming bizarre and strange when you start looking at building something with the idea of, oh, in three years, I'm going to unload this puppy and make it someone else's problem. The argument is that by building something with an eye toward selling it, you build a better-structured business, but it also means you potentially make trade-offs that are best not made. I'm not sure there's a right answer here.Clint: In my spare time, I do some investments, angel investments, and that sort of thing, and that's always a red flag for me when I meet a founder who's like, “In three to five years, I plan to sell it to these people.” If you don't have a vision for how you're fundamentally going to alter the marketplace and our perception of everything else, you're not dreaming big enough. And that to me doesn't look like a great investment. It doesn't look like the—how do you attract employees in that way? Like, “Okay, our goal is to work really hard for the next three years so that we will be attractive to this other bigger thing.” They may be thinking it on the inside as an available option, but if you think that's your default option when starting a company, I don't think you're going to end up with the outcome is truly what you're hoping for.Corey: Oh, yeah. In my case, the only acquisition story I see is some large company buying us just largely to shut me up. But—Clint: [laugh].Corey: —that turns out to be kind of expensive, so all right. I also don't think it serve any of them nearly as well as they think it would.Clint: Well, you'll just become somebody else on Twitter. [laugh].Corey: Yeah, “Time to change my name again. Here we go.” So, if people want to go and learn more about a Cribl Edge, where can they do that?Clint: Yeah, cribl.io. And then if you're more of a technical person, and you'd like to understand the specifics, docs.cribl.io. That's where I always go when I'm checking out a vendor; just skip past the main page and go straight to the docs. So, check that out.And then also, if you're wanting to play with the product, we make online available education called Sandboxes, at sandbox.cribl.io, where you can go spin up your own version of the product, walk through some interactive tutorials, and get a view on how it might work for you.Corey: Such a great pattern, at least for the way that I think about these things. You can have flashy videos, you can have great screenshots, you can have documentation that is the finest thing on this earth, but let me play with it; let me kick the tires on it, even with a sample data set. Because until I can do that, I'm not really going to understand where the product starts and where it stops. That is the right answer from where I sit. Again, I understand that everyone's different, not everyone thinks like I do—thankfully—but for me, that's the best way I've ever learned something.Clint: I love to get my hands on the product, and in fact, I'm always a little bit suspicious of any company when I go to their webpage and I can't either sign up for the product or I can't get to the documentation, and I have to talk to somebody in order to learn. That's pretty much I'm immediately going to the next person in that market to go look for somebody who will let me.Corey: [laugh]. Thank you again for taking so much time to speak with me. I appreciate it. As always, it's a pleasure.Clint: Thanks, Corey. Always enjoy talking to you.Corey: Clint Sharp, CEO and co-founder of Cribl. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry comment. And when you hit submit, be sure to follow it up with exactly how many distinct and disparate logging systems that obnoxious comment had to pass through on your end of things.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Intro: when you don't feel your best, do the thing anyway, Fake Famous, H&M is 40 shades of putty, Stitch Fix,  Let Me Run This By You: Selfie vacations, Paul Stuart, rent a fake jet, Tevas, we are old enough to accidentally wear cool clothes. Interview: We talk to Mickey O'Sullivan about body image, sibling relationships, getting bullied, Illinois State University, The Wake, Henry Moore is Melting at The Athenaeum, addiction, Sophia Bush, Chicago PD, Casey Affleck.FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):2 (10s):And I'm Gina .3 (11s):We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.2 (15s):20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.3 (21s):We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?2 (35s):Isolation is a funny thing because it's both the thing that you feel drawn towards when you don't feel well. But it's also the thing that, you know, that makes it worse. And I saw another thing that said, the more comfortable you get with you and who you are, the less likely you're going to want to isolate because it does, you know, it it's effort to be who you are when you're, you know, not kind of sinked up. Yeah. That's all just to say that when my kids have their aches and pains and two of my kids are real vocal about every single sensation they ever have in their body at any given time. Like, I can't think of a time where these two leave the house where I haven't heard my foot hurts.2 (1m 20s):My shoulder hurts. I have a headache. My stomach hurts. It hurts when I do this. And I, I believe it all. And yet I'm like, yeah, but if you stay home, I'm not going to let you be on a screen. So you're just going to literally be staring at the wall, feeling that I wouldn't, you rather go to school. Right.1 (1m 38s):Interesting. But Gina, it has taken me to 46 to actually realize that. So they're like, literally like a year ago, I probably would've been like, you know what, I'm just gonna stay home. And like, I have a headache, but like now I realize like, oh no, I think it's also like, time is slipping by like, I'm getting older, we're marching towards death. Like I got to get outside2 (2m 3s):Dude. And1 (2m 4s):You know, so like, I, I think it takes some what it takes, but yeah, man, I know that this pandemic has created the sense that the outside world is dangerous because literally it was, so it is like a war in that we, I felt like we were in a war when, when this all started, it was two years ago this month. Right. So right. I came to visit and then all to you and then all hell broke loose. And it, yeah, it created this thing of like the danger is outside the home. And so now it's like so easy to, but I actually realize that I feel worse at home because not only then do I have a headache, I have to deal with my fucking dog.1 (2m 52s):Who's a pain in the ass and get triggered by my husband who I think should be doing his job differently. And I hear him because we're in a teeny house. So that's torture. That's worse.2 (3m 3s):That's terrible. That's no good. My corollary for that is just, I do spend all of my, I mean, I do my, everything I do is, is at my house. I take care of my house. I take care of my kids and then I write and, and work, work on, you know, artistic stuff when you're home and your office, maybe miles experiences this too. Like you don't, you're never not at work in a way. So you're, I gotta do some, I gotta do something to have more of a separation. Maybe I should just like, bro, did you, did you see what about Bob? When he, he worked from home, but he clocked in. I should know that.1 (3m 42s):Well, the other thing that I was thinking, so I, okay. I thought about this cause I was asked. Okay. So I, a friend of mine said, I have this free thing for stitch fix. Right. One of these bottles. Okay. Right. I've done those before I did DIA and co and whatever it lost, its luster, it's a waste of money. Eventually. It feels like, and it's ridiculous. Okay. But good, good news about stitch fix is that, or one of these services is that one. I love the jeans they sent me, but two, you have to leave the house to return the things you don't want or you pay for the things. Right. Okay. So that's a side benefit. And so that got me out of the house and three I'm wondering, I was like, oh, maybe I should send my code to Gina.1 (4m 26s):But then I'm like, Gina, doesn't like to shut up. Right. And Gina doesn't like, so they do the shopping, but you also don't strike me as someone who would want to dress up for our meetings.2 (4m 36s):Exactly. And I did stitch fix and did it for a while. And then I was like, well, what am I dress for? This is a big conundrum. I have just life in general. And we should tell our listeners that, you know, we're, we're contemplating recording, doing a video recorder recording of these podcasts, which will be great, but then it'll make me feel like I need to, but maybe, but maybe it's okay to feel that way. Maybe it would be actually really good for my mental health to be like, I have to get dressed for my day.1 (5m 8s):I think it helps me. I mean, look, I'm literally wearing a tank top and a bra, but like2 (5m 14s):No, that's huge. Yeah,1 (5m 15s):Yeah, yeah. Right. No, and pants without an elastic ways. So like, I think it helps me in that. And some days it's just a pain in the ass, but it also helps me to think that, yeah, at least I'm trying in some area of my life, which we're all trying in all areas, but I'm just saying it's a visual representation of the fact that like, oh, I'm trying, the other thing about coworking that I like is I get to see other people's outfits. And sometimes they're really cute. Sometimes they're fucking horrible. Like it there's a lot of like 20 year olds that are here at co-working because are 20, 25. I'm a little old. So I like age everyone down, but like a 25 year olds that cause you can rent big offices here too.1 (5m 59s):Like for companies like marketing companies. So I see the fashions of the 20 five-year-olds and I'm like, whoa, you are opening my eyes to a whole hell scape of fashion that I did not know existed.2 (6m 14s):It's all so bad. It's all so bad. By the way, before I forget the, the getting dressed is, is this the reason to do it as the same reason to make your bed every morning? Like you don't have to sure. But doing it creates a nice demarcation that you're not always just, you know, in this miasma of like doing the same, same thing. But yeah. Getting back to the fashions of it's all terrible. And I just watched this documentary called fake famous. You might really like it it's is actually so fascinating. It's a, some guy who, I'm not sure if he's a journalist or whatever, but he speaks all of the time on news programs about social media.2 (7m 2s):Like that's just his area of expertise. So he says the social experiment where he, they have a casting call where the casting call says, I'm asking for people who want to be famous. So they get 4,000 submissions1 (7m 18s):And it's is it called the theater school?2 (7m 20s):Yeah, no, it's not going to theater school. And of course, you know, they paid these people to do it inverse of what we did and they pick these three people who wants to be famous. And he was, he set out to use his knowledge of social media to make them famous, artificially famous. And it was so interesting. It's a, it's something, it's a culture that I knew about. Like, but I'm not, I don't participate in influencer culture. Right. And I don't know if you saw this thing, I posted that 40 million people in the world have a million or more followers, like really puts things in perspective.2 (8m 5s):You know? And, and, and it was also talking about how the algorithm shapes itself. So like I'm also reading this book about Alex Jones and conspiracy theories. And you know, he will say on his show, he'll say a lie. And then he'll say Google it, because he's got millions of listeners and millions of listeners Googling something. Right. Makes it, shapes it into something. Right.1 (8m 35s):It makes it true. Makes it true. You can literally an impact the truth. It's gross. But it's also, it's like literally how for me, yeah. It's like how Hitler got to power, right? There was no Google, but it is the same. Like if you believe it, it will be so on some level. And if 40 million people believe it, it will really be so on some level. Yes.2 (8m 58s):And if they tell us that earth tones and no patterns and no structure to garments looks good, eventually will believe it. And they probably are doing it because there's a glut of earth, tone fabric, and people are trying to write, but I haven't seen something that I would consider a cute outfit on a person under, or maybe even anybody, but in years, like going to the mall, I don't say, Ooh, this is great street1 (9m 29s):Snapper.2 (9m 30s):It's all just looks gross.1 (9m 33s):I went to, so I walked down my street to get to coworking and there's an H and M there. And I, and also when my niece was here, we went to H and M because they love that shit. And I, I was like, literally, this is all 40 shades of putty. Like honey, 40 shades of putty. I said, and she goes, what's potty. And I go, it's this color? 40 shades of putty is my new memoir. And it's all about this color scheme they've got going on. Right? Like it is literally Putney. The putty that came in, the eggs that we used to play with silly putty or whatever, the fuck,2 (10m 9s):Petty wood glue,1 (10m 12s):Like coffee2 (10m 13s):Grounds call,1 (10m 19s):Let me run this by you.2 (10m 27s):So one of the places, I guess that Instagram is a very popular Instagram spot, by the way, people do whole vacations that are just centered around where to have their picture made. And like, not even thinking about the vacation itself, like people come to LA. Yes. Ma'am people come to LA, let's say they had this one story on their two girls from there might have been from Russia. Now that I'm thinking of it came, you know, spent $2,000 or whatever on their ticket to come to LA. And it was literally just touring these selfie spots. One of them is the Paul Stewart building. There's a big pink, it's a Paul Stewart it's fashion design.2 (11m 9s):And it was just like, his store is the, it's a huge, huge, huge pink wall. Oh. And this is where people at any time of day, you could drive by it. And you're going to see people taking selfies there because it's an Instagram spot. Oh. So people come to LA by the droves with a list of selfie spots.1 (11m 33s):This is like fucking Pokemon people situation.2 (11m 37s):Okay. Like by dying because you're being pokey while you're driving. Yeah, exactly.1 (11m 42s):Wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah.2 (11m 43s):So I guess you don't see too much of this.1 (11m 45s):No, not, especially not in Pasadena. I can't2 (11m 48s):Imagine1 (11m 50s):Fucking suburb dude. And, and, and I would also, oh, but I did see, okay. So miles surfs. Right? And we, while he's a new surfer, I shouldn't, it's not like Kelly Slater or whatever the fuck. Anyway, the point is we went to a surf lesson once and I fucking kid, you not, there was a guy who I believe was speaking Russian on the phone at the Santa Monica parking lot at 7:00 AM beach parking lot with his Mercedes that was rented clearly with a camera on a fucking tripod, taking selfies at 7:00 AM with a rented Mercedes in a crazy outfit there when he was doing and, and, and me and miles and I, and, and, and the surf teacher, who's fucking hilarious.1 (12m 41s):Who's this stoner comedian named Jared, who is hilarious, was like, yeah, yeah, dude, this is, this is, this is it, man. This is how they do it. They like stop traffic. And, and I didn't know what he was talking about, but now that you're saying it, this is what this guy was doing. And I, he was on the bash Dudley doing it. So like, there was no embarrassment. I was like, what the fuck? And music was playing. It was videos too. Like Instagram videos, reels or something. He's fucking, he was playing rap music, which was the best thing about the whole thing was the music. But he, it was raw. And he was crouching down, like by the car, in an outfit at 7:00 AM.1 (13m 21s):And Doris was, I was with the dog of the dog was like, even the dog was like, what the fuck is this guy doing? Like what?2 (13m 28s):I never bring my personal. I was like, just taking a selfie. I have to do it usually with one of my kids. And even then it feels it's something about it feels wrong. And did you know that you can rent the space that looks like the interior of a private jet for $50 an hour so that you could take pictures and make it look like you are traveling,1 (13m 58s):Which is like my nightmare, because I'm afraid to fly. I'd go to, I'd be in hell, but okay.2 (14m 2s):Oh, you can rent a mansion for $600 in a day and have, you know, these Instagrammers, they get together like four or five looks and they rent out a mansion and they pose themselves in these ridiculous things. And then they, because they post, they have to post four times a day in order to stay relevant and to get brands that want to get a sponsor them or whatever. So they are just constantly going around looking for content. And then the pandemic happened. And I think that really gave rise to like renting these spaces because they couldn't actually go on these vacations and so forth.2 (14m 43s):Isn't that wild. It's just1 (14m 45s):Craziest shit I've ever, I'm going to watch this documentary. I M it is again, I know why you find it interesting too, is because it really reminds me of Adam McKay's work. Like what is happening? It's so meta. It's like, what? Wait a minute, wait, what is happening?2 (15m 7s):Well, ironically, I think one of the things that's happening is whereas, you know, initially the feeling about the internet, it was just made everything opened up, right. And that's still true to, to a large degree, but on another way, everybody's life is just about their phone. You know, your life takes place on this tiny little screen and, and to be in a group of people under, I mean, maybe not even that maybe just to be in a group of people is to see like 80% of them at any given moment staring at their phone, wherever they are out in the world. Right. They, one of the scenes in the movie is they, some company hires a bunch of influencers.2 (15m 51s):It's a junket, essentially. Like they take them to these selfie spots, including a abandoned water park. That's like a, that's like a great place to take salaries. They get this crew of girls and they just take them to these various spots to model this ugly, putty, colored clothing, and then get paid for brand, you know, for hashtagging the brand. And there, I was just like so depressed. I felt sick after watching that Pressing right. There was one guy who did not, he decided that actually of the three people, they picked, two of them quit during the experiment, because one of them was getting comments from his real cause the guy was buying them followers.2 (16m 38s):That's what he was doing. He bought them followers, which are all of these bots. And did you know that like people like Kim Kardashians who have whatever millions and millions it's estimated this 60% of their followers are bots. Yeppers. Yep. Yep. Yep. So I guess1 (17m 1s):I can't, I can't even process what's going on here today. Like, I, I, you, you can't people can't see what they will. Once we start recording these bad boys, the video, I like looked down at my fucking TIVA sandal. Okay. My Tivas okay. By the way, by the way I was wearing, I bought Tivas because my feet are fucked up. Right. And I had to wear, I got, I have two shoes now I can really wear, which are Hocus. And then Tivas alright, terrible. Sarah will situations. But anyway, I'm wearing black Tivas sandals that I wore literally wore in eighth grade. And then I have a fucking LL bean like throw back at, or is it an Adirondack2 (17m 45s):And1 (17m 47s):Adirondacks a chair. Right. But okay. And it has like kind of nineties, throwback colors, not on purpose. I just liked it. And I bought it has a hood. I fucking wearing that. Some jeans and my Tivas and I look like I'm going to summer camp. Right. And I'm in the coworking and these young, these young ladies go, oh my God, we'd love your throwback nineties outfit. Literally. They said that. And I was like, Oh my God, I, oh my God, I didn't ha I didn't know what was going on. And I was like, oh my God, the one there. Right. I literally looked like I was going to camp echo, which was the camp I went to the Y camp.1 (18m 30s):And I also was like, it's also kind of hideous. And yet these youngsters are thinking I'm doing it. Ironically.2 (18m 38s):Let's, let's give up.1 (18m 44s):Let's just give up. Let's kill ourselves.2 (18m 47s):Let's wave the white flag. I tried Lord. Oh Lord.1 (18m 53s):I mean, I, I couldn't understand what's going on. And I looked down and I was like, oh my God, they're so right. And I just smiled. And I was like, are they2 (19m 1s):Literally Chivas from eighth grade? Like, you literally still have your same. No,1 (19m 4s):I bought Because my feet hurt. I need sandals that are literally, it's so sad. It's so sad. And I was sitting at coworking and they walked by and they said that I looked down and I was like, I, I did, I did feel Gina. Like I just, I gave up2 (19m 23s):Trying to give up. Now we're all set.0 (19m 28s):Well2 (19m 39s):Today on the podcast, we are talking to Mickey O'Sullivan. Mickey O'Sullivan is a Chicago actor. You know him, you know him from the shy and from Chicago PD and athletes. So many television shows. I couldn't possibly mention them all here as well as theater and commercials. And he is a related and relatable, insightful, funny, warm, talented person. So please enjoy our conversation with Mickey O'Sullivan1 (20m 15s):I'm talking about right now, filling her age. I don't know. It's great. It's great. It's in a good way. You will see that my internet was in and out. It's just,2 (20m 24s):Yeah. Are you close to your router or1 (20m 27s):Even know where the router is? So there we5 (20m 29s):Go. What's the router.2 (20m 33s):Good point. Make you good. Bye. Nice flex there with your Peloton in the background.5 (20m 39s):Oh yeah. Check that out. Just like slid it over. I've got it on one of those lazy Susan's right now. This is my current look. And it just,1 (20m 48s):Do you have another lip?5 (20m 52s):Who's a lazy Susan on the table and you know how you got to kind of prop up your, your laptop. So,1 (20m 57s):Oh, I thought you had the Peloton on a fucking lazy Susan. I was like Next level.2 (21m 4s):I was adding a whole new dimension to that workout, which is already very difficult.1 (21m 8s):I was just feeling Gina and about the things, which is interesting that you popped on. So I can tell, I can say it in front of you and make you really embarrassed. So in a good way. So I was just saying, and we'll, we'll, we'll start with the official Gina opening, even though you left theater school still the same opening applies. So say it,2 (21m 27s):Congratulations. Mikio Sullivan, you survived theater school. Hey, Mickey, serve a cookie.1 (21m 35s):You deserve a cookie and all sorts of things and free therapy. And Yeah, so we all need that. But I was just saying that one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about, and we'll just dive right in and see Gina and I talked before our guests. So we're like warmed up about like psychological issues. Other people are like, what are you talking about? Like, why are you starting here? But here's how I have to start, because this is what I've realized lately. You're the only male identifying person that I've ever talked to. That talks about body image.2 (22m 8s):Oh,1 (22m 10s):I had never had a conversation where casually come up in conversation, your history of your relationship with your body as, as you from a kid to an adult, no one ever taught male, identifying person has ever talked about that with me and eight, I, it opened my eyes to like, oh shit, oh shit, men have body image issues. I did. It didn't even occur to me. So that's where I want to start. Good morning to you.5 (22m 40s):No, I'm also kind of jealous, right? So I listened to your podcast and you do you get like a real ramp up. And so this morning I was like, you know what? I need this a little bit. So I, you know, I drove the wife to work. I have a wife, I would say the word wife, which is really exciting. Thank you. And I'm also a chauffeur, which I love being. I like to be of service. I'm driving her there and I'm trying to have conversation to like warm up, you know? And she is so focused on work.2 (23m 12s):She's like, yeah. Anyway.1 (23m 17s):Yeah. She's like, that's all good. I didn't listen to the last 10 minutes. You said? Yeah. I mean, so I I'm glad that you, that was nice of you to do a ramp up, but no need, but, but, but also, can you talk a little bit about, and then we'll leave that that'll probably lead into acting stuff too, obviously in schooling, but like, what was your experience? Because you've talked about that. Like, I guess my first question would be like, what are the thoughts when I bring that up about a dude talking about body image,5 (23m 49s):To me, it makes total sense. And I'm also kind of shocked that more people don't talk about this. I mean, growing up, right. Like, yeah, kids are cruel for sure. But like, it's kind of very insidious the way that guys can be cruel to other guys. And also this idea that like, in order to be attractive to whoever I'm, whoever I'm like crushing on, like starting from a real young age is I better look like these people. And when we were growing up, those people were athletes. Right. It was never like Neil deGrasse Tyson. Right? Like it was never like these like really super intense or if it was, it was like bill gates or something.5 (24m 31s):And I don't know, like there was, there's this disconnect between masculinity and like being okay with your, your body and your body image and the way that you give off your image to other person, people so much. So to this day, I still struggle with it on a daily basis for a little while there, I was like, you know what? I think I understand the key to Hollywood success and that's the six pack and the really fucked up part was that the more, the closer I got to that goal, the better my career got. And I don't think that the two are linked. I don't think so. But I think that like, being, having to think that as somebody who's, who understands the industry pretty well and who has kind of had highs and lows in their career, if I'm thinking that then what is, you know, the version of 15 year old Makey, who's like, oh, I wonder what being an actor is like thinking.5 (25m 27s):And so that starts super young, but I was also stop me if you have questions, but I'm going to go on like a tangent here. Sure. So very young right. Actor on a baby soap opera before image is even a thing, right? Like before you have any concept of that, you give off your image to other people. I don't remember any of it, obviously. Right. And then parents separated. I come to Chicago, dad stays in New York, me and my brother growing up. My brother is always super thin, super smart. And I am always not super thin and not super smart. And so there's this kind of competitiveness that's going on right there.5 (26m 11s):But in order to fit in my brother developed a real good sense of humor at new school, very young. And I didn't, I was, I, I struggled to acclimate to like a new environment. And I guess, I don't know necessarily that I, I think that I wanted to tell myself that I had an eating problem growing up, but I don't know that that's true. I don't think I understood food or my body or energy really well because later on I started getting into athletics probably out of this complex.5 (26m 50s):Right. But I started using food for fuel and that kind of started my journey towards like understanding my body and understanding of what goes in there. But as a kid, it was like, if it's in the cupboard, I'm going to eat it. And I am a very energetic person. And so I attached myself to like food, energy, just keep going. But then when you're getting made fun of on a daily basis, energy emotions take like a lot of energy to process. And so I would come home and I would be in tears from, you know, being, they call me Shabaka my brother's name is Danica.5 (27m 30s):And they like, you know, the, the terrible people that our children. So I was always known as like, what is the one thing that is different between you and your brother? Well, you're fat and you're not. And, and yeah, like going into the career, it's awful.1 (27m 51s):But wait, I have a question. Was your family, I always wonder this because my family was not supportive. So, so I was bullied at school and I was also bullied at home. Were you bullied by your brother and your mom or no,5 (28m 8s):For sure. My brother, like, we were awful to one another, the fact that we have a relationship now and like a really good one is, is mind blowing. But yeah, we were awful each other. My mom, not so much, my mom always struggled with her body image and her weight and her reflection of herself. And I think still does to this day, like I remember like some of the conversations before our wedding was like, for both her and I like, you know, gotta start to trim up for the way, you know? So, so yeah. I don't know if I was bullied at home as much. I was, it was definitely a safe space for me coming home in that regard.5 (28m 50s):But my brother around his friends, it would increase a bit. And then of course that's like a role model to all of my friends or whatever. And then I just started hanging out with people who like, probably weren't the best for me because they weren't making fun of me. They weren't the best for me because of,1 (29m 10s):I mean, I think that it's like, we go, I'll speak for myself. I went, you go where the teasing stops. Right. Whoever's not, the love is great. And the love5 (29m 22s):Has an absence of love.1 (29m 24s):Right. I see. I always say like, I didn't necessarily want to be not if once I realized I was just going to keep being bullied, I then just wanted to be left alone. So whoever would leave me alone, if not mention it became my friend, even those people were fricking had troubles of their own. I mean, like were troubled, at least they weren't picking on me. Right. So it's like you start settling for more and more, less and less love. And like, you just want to disappear. I mean, that's what happened.5 (29m 56s):Do you think that that led to you being an artist in the sense that you started focusing more on self through isolation? Do you know what I mean?1 (30m 5s):Great question. I started. Yeah. I think that what happened was it led to my brain and heart madly trying to figure out why this was happening to me. Why was reading, being treated this way by school and at home and what I could do that was safe. And the only thing to do that was safe was make believe and create in a world where, yeah, where it wasn't about the way I looked because you know, but then you mix2 (30m 37s):Except until it totally was1 (30m 41s):When you then go to a theater school. So there you go.5 (30m 44s):Yeah. Yeah. Super weird to how that kind of comes into the mix. Right.2 (30m 50s):So I, I'm being quiet as you're talking Mickey because you're describing a dynamic that is happening in my house right now with my two sons and, and you're, so you're the, you're the grown up version. I'm really happy to hear you have a good relationship with your brother, because this is like one of my biggest fears. I had such a terrible relationship with my sister and my sons are on their way to, you know, how it seems to me is they're on their way to having that type of relationship. And maybe it's the thing about, you know, because kids are like, prof, I forget sometimes how much they have to take on at any given day.2 (31m 30s):Maybe even 90% of it at school is social. And only 10% of it is academic, but that's, that is so much that just, just like information processing and it has to happen in your body. So if you're having a hard time with it and then you're having, you know, body image issues on top of it, it's, it's all, it just seems like impossible to survive high school, you know? Like how does anybody survive high school, let alone theater school,5 (31m 60s):But oh,2 (32m 2s):No. The 15 and 13.5 (32m 4s):So part of the pandemic was they were being judged on this while they're going through like fuck and hormones and brutal. I could not imagine2 (32m 16s):Completely, completely brutal. And that's a whole other thing about education and the pandemic and how like we'll never get it back. Like, you know, it's just, there's just last years basically. But anyway. So when did you start getting into acting? When did you decide that that was something you wanted to pursue?5 (32m 34s):All right. So like alone, personally, like walking home from school, right. That, that mind was already there. Like my entire life. I was like, I'll be an actor. Not that I wanted to, but like, oh, that seems like, like I was the liar growing up. I was the storyteller I told the fucking biggest bibs in the world. And so I think like in my mind, but then it was like, oh, I'm very distractable. And I, this is how I knew I wanted to be an actor. Was that like one day that, wow, I could be a doctor. I could be a firefighter. Oh my gosh, garbage man. Why not? Right. And then the idea, like, I'd maybe like work on that for like a day.5 (33m 17s):And then the next day I'd be like, oh, I'm so interested in this. And I think later on, I was like, oh, you can go. It's a really cool way to learn about all sorts of these little things. It was just kind of like spin the wheel of roulette, acting, you know, go out for tons of commercials. You get to play a handyman for a day. And for me, like, I personally loved the pretend of like, oh, I wonder what a handyman stays like.1 (33m 41s):Yeah. That's what I remember about you is like a super curious kid, like super curious and maybe like that's part of the artist's brain too, is like, you were always curious, curious, curious, curious a hundred times curious. So what, okay, so you were like, that was your thought as you're walking home and then how did that translate into like being in a play or auditioning for shit? Or like how does that work or going to school? Yeah,5 (34m 7s):Definitely thought, right. Like funny person was my option in terms of getting out of like the social anxiety. And so my mom got me involved in a play, I think in like sixth grade, but it was outside of my social circle. It was like, we were on like the Southwest suburbs and this was way in the south suburbs. And so I didn't know anybody there only relationship to me was this thing. I played a skunk in a Winnie, the Pooh play. And then I proceeded to like rip my pants and fart in my own peace scene. So That helped the whole shitty body image to thing. Cause right.5 (34m 47s):Cause who splits their pants.2 (34m 50s):Right. Miley Cyrus actually. I mean, anybody can start therapy6 (34m 56s):It's me and my2 (34m 58s):Okay. But when it was time to pick college and you were looking around, did you look at a variety of theater programs or conservatories?5 (35m 8s):No. I don't think that I admitted to myself at that point that those was like a valid career option. So my senior year of high school, I had this like real stint in hockey where like I thought that that could be a career path for me. And then that was ended through like a variety of like injuries and you know, like personal stuff. And so then it was like I had a theater professor pulled me aside and was like, Hey, not professor, but high school teacher, special ed teacher who then ran the drama program was like, Hey, maybe you should consider doing this with your free time. Instead of just like smoking pot and smoking hookah and like driving around with your newfound free time.5 (35m 51s):And I was like, oh, maybe that's a good idea. So I did like beauty and the beast high school as like, you know, this like a side character kind of like not in the limelight. And then later on did a Shakespeare comedians, LR where we just totally ripped off of the American conservatory theater's production from, we like copied it, move by move and called it acting. And then we won state for that, which is kind of backwards, you know, like we won state for copying and production. So I definitely thought it was good, but I didn't think that I was any good at like creating my own versions of characters or anything. So I knew I had to apply to a school.5 (36m 32s):I had no idea what I was going to apply to. That seemed to be what I was good at. So I did a double major and special education and, and theater because I didn't think that a, my parents would approve of me being fully theater student. And then B I felt like maybe it was either a selfish career path or yeah, not like, I think I wanted something more noble maybe. And I had experience working summer camps for special Olympics and stuff like that growing up. So I was like, oh, that's a, that's an interesting thing. So then when I got to Illinois state university, they were one of the schools that accepted me.5 (37m 15s):I had no concept of what a theater school should be, none whatsoever. And a lot of the other people were like, oh, I did four years of drama and four years of forensics. And in the summers, I go away to theater camp and I was like, I played hockey. And so I didn't fit in again. Right. Which was fine because I learned how to be by myself. And so I started making all of my social circles outside of the theater department for the most part. And I think in a way that kind of helped me, like I practice my monologues in front of my buddy, Greg, who I think Greg does like computer science and you would just go, I think that was good. You know, it really became self self reflection.5 (37m 59s):And the weird part is like, I would go in and I, I really did become the, the, one of the golden children of my department. I was an asshole. Yeah. So a hundred percent I was cast in a li almost immediately. And2 (38m 18s):It does not surprise me because this is what always happens. Like the, the men who go into drama don't tend towards the masculine. Right. So then when they get somebody who's like, I played hockey that, I mean, you know, that happened in my high school. That1 (38m 35s):Happened our theater school too.5 (38m 37s):I think it's backwards too though. Cause you the more in touch with my feminine, oh, I hate that word. But like, you know, like this idea that like there's a masculine, the more I got in touch with myself and with art, I felt the better I did. Right. I still think that to this day, like the more I'm receptive to my own emotions and the emotions of those around me, the better I'm able to handle my career.1 (39m 4s):Yeah. It just sounds like the, the, the bind that we're all in, which is people want you to be a certain way. But when you actually invest in being another way, it's going to make you a better person than artists, but nobody really wants that, but they say they want it. So men are in a bind. I guess what I'm saying is like, you're the first male guest that we've had on that I've known. And I know the struggles that you've been through and it, it opened my eyes to theater school for men straight men specifically are men that identify as straight, whatever. It's a, it's a bind for you too. It's a bind for you. So I guess, what did you love about theater school and what were you like? I'm outta here.1 (39m 46s):That's my question.5 (39m 48s):Yeah. And those are all awesome points. Like it continues. The body image thing continues all throughout college. And I do grow closer to myself through that. But I think the thing that I loved about it is that I had that opportunity for the first time in my life. Like hockey was definitely an obsession for me. I tend to gravitate towards obsessing. And so to get into theater school, I didn't take any gen EDS. I like, I, I forgot my degree. I failed out of school. And finally, because I just, I wasn't interested in anything except for learning all of the theater that I think at some point I looked at somebody I MDB and I was like, oh, they were, you know, working for 15 years before they had their big, big, big break right there before they were discovered.5 (40m 36s):And so I was like, oh, I have a lot of catching up to do. Right. I didn't do this until my, until I was 18. Now it's time to catch up. So I just started like taking only theater classes. And then the idea that you can sit or lay on the ground in a dark room, surrounded by your peers and think about what shape your body is making and what noises are coming out to me. That was super interesting to me. I got lost in that world. And I still think to this day, like my brother is a finance guy and he he'll never know what it's like to just weep behind a mask because you saw something a certain way one day. And so for me, that was a celebrated thing.5 (41m 18s):It was like, congratulations, you, you cried behind the mask. I don't know. It's still is kind of a bizarre thing to like to reflect on. But my, my presentation skills got better at, than my social emotional skills got better. I was spending every night in a rehearsal space getting to know how to best work with people and how to make mistakes, like going back. I love college. I don't like the results of college. I don't like the way that it was kind of organized. People were cut after certain years. It was very dramatic. But theater school for me was, I mean, what a dream, right? Like I got to wake up, put on a leotard and go stretch for two hours and then go into a voice class.5 (42m 1s):Talk about my feelings towards words, study history.1 (42m 8s):I wish I could, I want to go. What if I apply where they, that's a horrible idea. I do this all the time, by the way. But like, it sounds so great when you guys, when you say it, I'm like, wait, I was wasted. I wasted my time there. I wasted my time.5 (42m 26s):I don't know though. Right. Like I think I've spent the rest of my career being like, okay, so what can I take from that? Because that's not the real world. The real world is not that you get to wake up and do that. But like, certainly I've recently gotten back into like stretching and mourning, like yoga in the mornings and stuff. And I'm like, oh, that was something that really works for you back then. Where did that go? And so, right. Like creating my own schedule. I think also I got, I was supposed to get a, B S and not a BFA. So I think I definitely missed some of the, I had more rigidity in my schedule that I think some of my peers and that made me resist the regular general education stuff and spend more time.5 (43m 16s):Like I committed to every directing project that somebody was doing. Right. Like they're in a class. And I was like, I'll do it. When they were like, bring one monologue to class. I was like, well, I'll take up the whole class and bring 10. I was super selfish about theater classes as well. Like if nobody else wanted to go, it was like, well, what are we doing here? I'll go.1 (43m 37s):Wow.5 (43m 38s):So I S I experienced a ton. Right. I was looking through, I, I was like reflecting the other day and I don't understand how I did all of that in four years or four and a half years or whatever, because I probably did at least 10 projects a year. And then I stayed during the summers and did community theater, like a playwrights festival there as well. And so I was just constantly going, but a weird body image thing. Right. So freshmen, what are the freshmen 15? I put on like the freshmen 45 drinking a lot. Right. Partying, a lot, eating food from the food Corp,1 (44m 18s):Chicken fingers, chicken fingers, fingers.5 (44m 22s):So much cheese.1 (44m 25s):Yeah.5 (44m 25s):And then I played my first like bigger role was Toby belching 12th night. So, so, oh, you have extra, you are bigger than other people. Now you're going to play the funny role, right. The drunkard, the, this or that. And I don't know what came too, but I think somebody made a body image comment in my final assessment that year. And regardless of whether that was a positive or negative thing, I committed that summer to not being what they thought I was. Right. I was like, I'm not just this1 (45m 6s):Comment. Do you remember the comment?5 (45m 7s):I don't remember. I just know that there was a catalyst, right. Something happened in that last little meeting where either what was said, or what was not said was not what I wanted to write. And so I was like, I have, I have a fucking chip on my shoulder. I love to prove people wrong. It's like a weird obsession thing as well, prove myself wrong. And so I, I went and I went running and I went back to this like, athlete, like, oh, this is how I preserve myself. And maybe if my feelings were hurt, right. Like I can focus all of that into this.5 (45m 47s):And I lost, like, I lost a lot of weight very quickly. And then that next, you know, I was the romantic leading man, the next fall In Philadelphia for the story. And to the point where like, this is how little I understood. They're like, you're doing the Philadelphia story. Will you come in and read for like the dad role? And I was like, okay. And I was like, oh, this is the dad role. It's a musical, obviously in my brain. And it's not, yeah. It's not, it's, it's Carrie gray Audrey. But I was like, I didn't read the play. I had no idea.5 (46m 27s):And then they cast me as like the leading romantically, not Carrie Grant's character. And I was like, oh no, this is a terrible idea. They don't know that. I can't say6 (46m 43s):I showed up to them like ready to like, 2 (46m 50s):Mickey. Would it be fair to say that, like, you've had to figure, I mean, a lot of people come to acting as a way to figure themselves out. Right? Like a lot of people like the idea of trying on roles. Cause that's what they're also doing with their own identity. And I do see like a little bit of a trend where a lot of people who do it for that reason, maybe didn't get enough reflected back to them when they were a kid or they got reflected only these negative things like you're describing about getting bullied. So, I mean, would it be fair to say that it's taken you oh, a long time to get to know who you really are?2 (47m 31s):Are you still in a process of figuring that out? Like, did you, how much, or how little did you know yourself when you were at theater school?5 (47m 41s):Yeah, totally fair to say. I didn't, I didn't really know myself. I definitely was enjoying the process of getting to know myself, but I didn't really have an understanding of like why I was the way I was. I, and I am definitely still in the process of trying to figure that out. I think I did a play right when I left school called, called awake. And it was about a young man. Who's a poet who's who thought his father was a poet and turns out there was, it was his brother. Like my, my father's brother was my actual father.5 (48m 22s):And it was just like, I don't know myself. I need to go figure out who I am. And that really resonated with me. It was like this idea that like sometimes what we feel is just the, the anxiety or the poles that we feel is just us going while I thought I would have known myself more by now. And so, yeah, definitely still trying to figure it out. My process, creative process. I mean, like that's constantly in flux, never the same. And that's like hockey stuff too. The reason I liked hockey was you could run a set play, and it's always going to be different every single time.5 (49m 4s):And the idea of theater, right? Like you, you get up every night and you do it. And like something about the way that your day went will be reflected in your performance. And, and so that's interesting to me. Yeah.1 (49m 23s):Interesting. I never got that. I never, I never knew that that acting was about me. Do you know what I mean? Like I never got that note. Like that message. I missed that whole thing that like, I could bring my whole self to a role. It doesn't mean that it's me. Like, but that I was allowed to bring my whole self to the role. And in fact, if I did, my acting would be better. Like I miss so much, I'm just so bombed, but I'm learning it. I'm learning it from, from listening to people like you on the podcast and talking with them like, oh, I'm helping to, to, when I teach now, I'm like, bring you, you're helping me.1 (50m 7s):The other thing I want to say is that when I saw you Mickey in my first time seeing you in a lead role or any role was at the greenhouse, I dunno, Athen am in Henry Morris, melting this, play it. And I'd never seen Mickey act. And someone was like, I have my own problems. Like, why am I going? I went to this5 (50m 36s):That's great advice. Yeah.1 (50m 40s):Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I give you terrible advice. I was like, go to LA, you're going to be famous. But like, yeah. Well, anyway, so I saw this play. I saw you in the play and I was like, this is one of the best actors I've ever seen in my life. I, I, I was blown away. I thought, oh, this kid knows what the fuck he's doing. And commits 125% on stage, which is, it just was miles ahead of what everyone else was doing onstage, but not in a real snarky way, in a real working man sort of a way so that you don't hate Mickey because you're like, oh, this is a good person.1 (51m 26s):They just really are committed to what the fuck they're doing. I had never seen that from an actor your age, because we're2 (51m 34s):Obsessed.1 (51m 37s):And I was like,5 (51m 38s):Oh,1 (51m 39s):This kid is the real deal. Like I,5 (51m 43s):That maybe I was avoiding My work. I was avoiding all of the other things that were sitting outside of that. Right. That like were valuable pieces of insight that I could have learned about myself. But like, I, at that point, Jen, like I was moving to LA because I did not have a home. Right. Like it was a warmer climate. Like I had no money to my name whatsoever. I struggled with addiction. I right. Like I had all of these personal life crises going on, but theater is a place where you can go for two hours, whether you're seeing it or whether you're in it and totally just purposefully forget everything else.5 (52m 26s):And so I put off a lot of like personal growth until probably like 30 years old, at least like real is true. Like this might work for you, but it is destructive. I put off that work because I was like, oh, it serves me. Right? Like it's, it gives me energy to put into my career. It is going to better knees somehow to hurt.2 (52m 49s):How do you, how, how does the casting world see you? Like who are you as an actor?5 (52m 56s):That's a good question. I wish I knew. I think I'm, I think I play intense characters that I played, blue collar characters, definitely people with an emotional depth, like an intense, emotional depth. I have, I'm starting to play the good guy. All of a sudden, which is interesting. I like playing the best friend role. And I think I kind of look at every role as the best role, you know, I am there to do something.8 (53m 32s):Yeah. Right.1 (53m 37s):Which is why they want you for the leading man role. Look, this is, it makes perfect sense to me from an outside. I'm like, they want you, so you are finally what I'm hearing too is like, you're finally what you said is like starting to do the work on yourself, right? Like as a person, as a human, as a father, as a, as a, as a husband, as all the things. Right? So it makes perfect sense that you are now playing the good guy. And also that you now are wanted by people to play the lead. Even though you want to play the best friend and you play leads to, I'm not saying you don't want to play the lead, but it, it just all makes sense.1 (54m 18s):It all makes sense that when you work on yourself, if, and if you're lucky and all the things that You5 (54m 24s):End up your1 (54m 24s):Career advancing when you do the work on5 (54m 27s):Yourself1 (54m 28s):Internally, but5 (54m 30s):Then you can decide whether or not things are working. And that's like the, the small business perspective, right? Like you open a small business on the corner, your first year, you're, you're looking at like high expenses, right? Like expense your entire store. You're going to be in the red for a while. Second year, you maybe are developing a customer client relationship. Third year, maybe you have a personal crisis and things take a step back fourth year, whatever fifth year, by the time the fifth year goes, you go, I have some solid data to work with. Right? Maybe this network isn't working for me and I need to go to a different network. And I S I subverted a lot of bad advice. I didn't listen to any of it.5 (55m 10s):I went from New York back to Bloomington, normal Illinois to try to get my degree and failing out again, because I did too much theater up to Minnesota, Chicago, California, Colorado, back to Chicago, and about three years, four years. Yeah. And so then I got back to Chicago and I was like, oh, this is what it's like, when you stay in a place for a little while, maybe people have a chance to respond to the postcards that you're sending up.2 (55m 40s):Yeah. And what's that whole thing, like now, since I've been out of it for so long triangle, when you're first starting out and trying to get people to know you, you said you still send them postcards with your, with your headshot on one side or something.5 (55m 54s):Snail mail, baby headshots. Right. I would print go to Kinko's or FedEx or whatever. I've had tons of headshots, tons of resumes, tons of cover letters. And I'd send them to everybody which maybe is what I'm learning. Now. Thankfully, I have representation. I've had representation for a really long time. Is that like, maybe be targeted with the people that you want to work with and focus on that rather than like, will anybody like me please will anybody, But maybe I had a better, I I've never thought about this. I submitted to two agencies or one agency that called me, and it was a really big name in Chicago.5 (56m 39s):And they called me in and they kept calling me Maki, like, Hey, Maki, come here. And then they were like, yeah, my name is Mickey. Sorry. That was the thing that they call me,1 (56m 59s):Excuse me.5 (57m 1s):And I was like, well,1 (57m 2s):That's the greatest fucking name I've ever heard of. I mean, it's not your name, but it's a great name. Yeah.5 (57m 8s):They brought me into the room and they're like, okay, give us your monologue. But look at the wall. They're so spot on the wall, look at it. So I did the whole thing and they were like, how are you expecting to have a good relationship with casting? If you just stare while you talk the entire time. And I was like, oh, I thought you said, like stare at the wall and talk. And they were like, you know what I think, like with your look and your experience, we could do a trial contract. And I was like, maybe finally at that point, did I have the guts in my life to be like, I don't need just anyone to be my friend or to work with me.2 (57m 48s):Maki need somebody who can really connect with5 (57m 51s):It knows my name, you know, that read the email. And then sure enough, I, I reached out to somebody who I knew was an agent and I had a meeting with them and I was like, Hey, is that how all of them should go? Because if it is, I'll just take the contract and I'll work in the industry and whatever. But if it's not, I'm not going to sign with somebody who's a Dick. Who's like too overwhelmed to actually build new relationships. Let me go and focus on somebody who like, wants to have a conversation about what I think of the industry and my place in that.2 (58m 23s):Oh, it makes me sick to think about how many people who are in those positions of power. It's, that's all they're interested in is the sort of the power play of it all. Like this thing that we start doing when we're kids and for some people we don't ever outgrow it, which is like, I don't need you. You need me, you know, the way that I show my, you know, whatever that ability in the world is to reject you instead of, you know, to be inclusive or, or even just, I mean, just a kind thing, because by the way, nobody has, is named Maki. So they should have had a sense of like, wait, why are we saying this? Right. I mean, right.2 (59m 3s):Shouldn't they have had some idea that5 (59m 6s):I do. Like, maybe I'm a sucker and lately I've been trying to think of like, what are all of the reasons that people could act like that? Because I don't get it right. Like, I don't get like, the I'm going to go brag to people about how I treated this person, like shit. And I, I think maybe it like it, it is just a really deep, deep, personal thing that's going on. That's totally clouding. Then being aware of how they're treating other people at all. Because I don't, I it's gotta be because I don't, I I've never heard anybody brag to me about how they treated somebody like shit in my entire life. I know that that's a thing that generally, as humans, we feel deep shame about and how maybe that deep shame manifests is just constantly being so focused on, on you and the things that you have to do and, you know, maintaining your own personal level of success and survival.5 (59m 59s):It's this fucked up survival tactic of like nobody else matters only what I'm doing matters. Maybe. I dunno. Maybe I'm just a sucker.1 (1h 0m 8s):No, I think it's, I think you're right. Like I think people get so caught up in their own process. They don't even know some people do, but I think that's like the exceptional sociopath psychopath, but like most people are just like low level nurses. We're all such low level narcissists mixed with our childhood trauma. We don't even realize what we're doing. I swear because I have confronted people, you know, that I've, I've confronted big wigs and said, do you realize that you're talking like this person is a piece of shit and they're like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, oh my God, most people don't understand.2 (1h 0m 50s):And most people are so far from understanding that the, that the farthest they'll ever get with that is just a defensive will know you're the asshole for pointing out. Right. I mean, that's, that's, that's usually the limit. It never ceases to amaze me. And yet it always amazes me. No, that's the same thing. how with, you know, my, the thing I'm always interested is getting from surface to depth with people. But I think like maybe 98% of the population is just really interested in staying or maybe it's just because of where I'm living. I don't know. But I, I find that not only do people not want to go from surface to depth, they're frightened and weirded out by you wanting to do that.2 (1h 1m 35s):You know what I mean? Because my thing is always like, we all know that the weather is how it is. Like, can we just like, let's skip that part. Let's go to the next thing. And people don't like that. They really don't like that.1 (1h 1m 47s):No people are not interested in that because what they have to, I am convinced that at the, at the core of that is, oh, one day I'm going to die and everyone I know is going to die.2 (1h 1m 59s):And1 (1h 1m 59s):If we talk about real, if we talk about real stuff, it'll inevitably lead me to, oh my God, everyone I love is going to die and I'm going to die. And I can't handle that. So I'm going to do drugs or do anything else instead, or not, or talk about the,5 (1h 2m 13s):Not the talking about the weather, but that's where I'm at right now is that I'm like, oh, the most important thing that we could do now is acknowledged the back that we're going to die2 (1h 2m 23s):Because it's so much freedom by the way, because it's not like, sorry to spoiler alert, but everybody is going to die. So like let's instead of being, spending your entire life afraid of that thing, embrace it because you're not going to die right now necessarily, you know, like you could make right now more interesting, right.5 (1h 2m 43s):Enjoy right now. Right. In a way1 (1h 2m 46s):Even noticed right now, just notice that we're actually alive. And I, and that we are here now doing things, talking, eating, all the things that we do it's happening. I think that that's what I've come to in this podcast. And in my life is like if the most I ever get to is, oh, this is actually happening. I'm here. This is going on. How I feel about it as how I feel about it, but this is what's going on. Acknowledging them. That's going to have to be enough because to go deep with people is such a treat and so rare. But like, I have to still stay true to the acknowledging part.1 (1h 3m 28s):Like, oh, you, you might be uncomfortable, but I'm going to acknowledge in my own way that, that, that we're all going to die in. And that's part of the impermanence. I'm going to acknowledge it to myself because if I don't, it just really leads to2 (1h 3m 40s):You just feel so isolated and desperate and yeah. Yeah. Well, anyway, speaking of isolated and desperate and alone, you mentioned going through some issues with addiction. How, how do you, could you say anything about that and how you, how you got ahead of it?5 (1h 4m 0s):Yeah. Never out of it, right? Like I am an addict through and through, right? Like it's anything that make me feel better and then like learning what those good things are and what leads to right. This path of destruction. I think really early on, I was constantly the kid that was if he only put his mind towards things, but I think if you only focused on those thing, and so that got me on this idea of like, whatever it is, and this is where obsession came in, right. Like if I could just focus on stuff and then I would dive 110%. And so what were the things that allowed me to do that?5 (1h 4m 41s):Right? Like first it was, you know, cigarettes, right? Like I could just sit there and read a play and read another play and smoke cigarettes, I guess. Right. Like definitely alcohol is in there. It's not like my primary. I, I do not go into functioning or nonfunctioning relationships where this, where I'm like, oh, I need this to function. Or I need this not to be totally dysfunctional. But early in my life, it was definitely a medicine of some sort. Right. Like I was definitely looking at it for relief. I drank a lot and drank, it was binge. Like, that was the way that we drank in high school and college.5 (1h 5m 23s):You had three hours to drink. You better drink a lot of it. Right.9 (1h 5m 27s):So true.5 (1h 5m 30s):So that was a thing. And then Adderall became a thing for me where it was like, this is something that allowed me to sit and work for hours on end. And certainly I think that, like, if I'm going to go to a psychiatrist, they would be like, I think you definitely have some traits that are right there with add or ADHD, but I did it. And so I would just abuse on my own. Right. Like, and I, I looked at it as the investment opportunity of a lifetime. Right. It was like, you're going to constantly have this on you. You're going to constantly be taking it. You're going to constantly be working. And that led to cigarettes. Right. That led to me avoiding all of my own personal shit.5 (1h 6m 13s):And then, right. Like the way I quote unquote got out of the throws of it was total collapse2 (1h 6m 24s):All the way to the bottom5 (1h 6m 26s):All the way. Right. Many times where I thought that I was going to die. Right. That I thought I was like, I would not sleep at night and a very functioning. Right. Nobody, nobody knew at least that I know of. Right. Like, I'm sure, like now looking back like, oh, something's going on there? Like, but it was a whole production for me. Right. Like I had the hand sanitizer to stop my hands from smelling like smoke. Right. So nobody needed to know that, like that was my preparation to get myself right. For, you know, the audition. And then it was, you know, I've got gum, I've got Gatorade to keep my body, like all of the, the electrolytes in my body up because I haven't slept in two days, I've got like coffee.5 (1h 7m 17s):And so like financially fell apart. Right. And no good reason. Right. Like best point in my career probably was like, you know, commercial money coming in, episodic money coming in. And for me, this was just like, great. Double-down on my investment. Great. Like be better, be better. And in my version of better was more, more altered, I guess. So never out of it and re emotionally my relationships fell apart. Right. I stopped paying attention to what other people, how other people were reacting around me.5 (1h 7m 58s):And that kind of led into acting, I guess, a little bit that like, it wasn't maybe until like five years ago. And Jen, this is where I'm a little bit jealous of you. Is that like, I did think that what you said earlier was like, I never considered myself, like the main part of gen actor being so valuable to whatever character I'm playing. I never considered that, the shit that I was trying in rehearsal, like just like a kid in a box, like had real time attacks on the other actors that I'm working with.1 (1h 8m 31s):I never considered that either. Like, but you're right. Like, it goes both ways, right.5 (1h 8m 37s):If you're in a, if you're in a meeting with a coworker at an office and they never focused on one idea long enough for everyone to kind of like gel with the idea, you don't work with that person for very long, even if what they're doing is an abusive or hurtful or anything like that, it's just not conducive to like, right. Especially for theater, where in Chicago, right? Like you get $300 for an eight week stipend. And so you better really get everybody read it better, really be getting something out of that rehearsal time. And I was selfish, you know, like this is about me and my journey and my character and, and everybody else better fight for that.5 (1h 9m 17s):And there's, and that's what conflict is. And that's what drama is.2 (1h 9m 22s):Well, what are your feelings about that? The stories that we hear about famous actors who do that, who still do that, that's still their process. Does it make you mad?5 (1h 9m 31s):Yeah, I think it's so misguided. Right. And I'm thankful that I've had enough experiences where I'm like, oh, you're, you were kind of the Dick there that could be bad. That could develop. Right. Or somebody who pulled me aside and was like, you know, that just wasn't necessary or whatever, really, really early on, I moved to New York and I was in a play festival. And it was like about what is that? The witch who they shove into the oven, what was that called? The Hansel Hansel and Gretel. I was Honsel I guess. And we were pushing the witch into the fire and they were like, yeah, you used a broom and we didn't have a broom.5 (1h 10m 17s):And so like fresh out of college, Mickey was like here, hand on the butt. And afterwards this woman came up to me and she was like, don't do that ever again. And I was like, oh my God, what did I do? I have no idea. I'm so sorry. And at first I was really kind of like, come on, like, what are we going to do? Like you needed to get it. So it was my first time being like, oh wow. And she was older than I was. And so to me that told me that she's been hurt in this process and that through whatever trauma that she's been through, like this is not the, the road to working with other people.5 (1h 11m 2s):Right. And so there's just like little moments like that, that I think if you're so blind you're so like, I need to get to the top. I needed to get to the top. I needed to get to the top. It's really easy to just that everybody is being1 (1h 11m 16s):Right. Right. It's like, that's5 (1h 11m 19s):Like1 (1h 11m 20s):This whole reckoning, this whole reckoning that the arts and humanity and the U S and everyone is doing, which is like, that may be true. You said something really important to me, which is, it may be true that people are overly sensitive. You didn't say this part, but I, I think people can be, oh, I can be overly sensitive. That's for fucking shirt. And it's also true that that is not the way to working with others. So like, both are true. Like I have sensitive issues. And you notice that like, doing that kind of behavior is actually not conducive to doing good art and creating and not, and getting jobs, the whole thing.1 (1h 12m 2s):So like, it's interesting. It's like you took the note and actually took it. Whether you took it all in or whatever, you took the note, but a lot of these dudes aren't taking the note. They're not getting the note. They're seeing it as the people are over sensitive, which they might be, but they're also not taking the note, like take the note, you know,5 (1h 12m 21s):I take the note. Absolutely. That's something like in college that we were constantly reminded. It's like, you don't have to respond. Just take it, write it down and think about it for a, for an eye and then com

Full Transcript: Captain Janet:Welcome to The JP AstroCast, where we are traveling at the speed of thought. Today's episode is brought to you by Hunt Brothers Pizza. Eyezak, can you come help me tidy up our hologram stage for our guest today?Eyezak:Oh, I'm kind of in the middle of something. Can you come here for just a sec?Captain Janet:Oh, well sure Eyezak, how can I help?Eyezak:Well, captain Janet, after hearing Dr. John Grunsfeld speak about being an astronaut, going out for spacewalks, and fixing things in space, I decided that I want to be an astronaut. (Singing).Captain Janet:That's wonderful Eyezak, but as an alien, aren't you already an astronaut?Eyezak;Not the official NASA kind. I'm just looking for where to start.Captain Janet:Well, maybe let's use the search words, 'Apply to be a NASA astronaut.'Eyezak:Wow, This is the link. I'm going to send my information in. Oh, a master's degree in engineering? I don't have that. Oh, but I am a pretty good pilot. Well, not really, but I am very good on my PlayStation 4. Any special talents? Well, I am an alien that ought to put me way ahead of the pack.Captain Janet:Well, certainly you have some interesting qualities for sure. I'll tell you what, help me get the hologram stage ready and you can ask our guest astronaut Don Thomas, some questions about how he became an astronaut.Eyezak:Perfect. And then I'll become an astronaut for sure.Captain Janet:Well becoming an astronaut can take years of preparation and applying.Eyezak:Years? Like how many years? I'm not getting any younger in alien years, or human years, or dog years.Captain Janet:Let's talk about that later. I think I hear the kids coming.Kids:Eyezak:Captain Janet, the crew is here. We can work on my astro thing later.Captain Janet:Perfect Eyezak! Sounds good. All right my JP space crew, happy to have you gather here at our hologram stage to hear from astronaut Dr. Don Thomas. We have some great snacks for you, so please help yourself, get cosmically comfy and then we'll beam up Astro Don, and talk about his experiences as an astronaut.Eyezak:Hunt Brothers Pizza is proud to support the JP AstroCast, with over 8,000 locations in convenience stores near you, finding a Hunt Brothers Pizza is easy as pie. Choose between Hunt Brothers Pizza's original crust or thin crust, and top your pizza with any of our 10 toppings at no extra charge. With that many options, there's sure to be a topping combo for everyone to enjoy a Hunt Brothers Pizza.Captain Janet:All right, everyone allow me to introduce our guest today. What an honor it is to have Dr. Don Thomas beam up today. Astronaut Don Thomas first got interested in becoming an astronaut when he watched the early astronauts like Allen Shepherd, John Glynn, and Neil Armstrong blast off into space and that made him want to follow in their footsteps, and 33 years later, he would do exactly that.Captain Janet:Don started his professional career as a senior member of the technical staff at the Bell Laboratories Engineering Research Center in Princeton, New Jersey, working on materials issues and semiconductor devices. Ooh, he's super smart. From there, he joined Lockheed's Sciences and Engineering in Houston, Texas as an engineer, working on the space shuttle program. Selected as a mission specialist astronaut in NASA's 13th group of astronauts in 1990, he is a veteran of four space shuttle missions, three aboard Columbia, and one aboard discovery.Captain Janet:He has spent 44 days in space, completing almost 700 orbits of the earth, and traveling 17.6 million miles in the process. After retiring from NASA in 2007, Don became the director of the Hackerman Academic of mathematics and science at Towson University, working to encourage and inspire young Maryland students about the wonders of STEM. Since 2015, Don has been engaged in public speaking, continuing his efforts to excite and inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and astronauts and encouraging all students everywhere to reach for the stars. Most wonderfully astronaut Don Thomas always says yes to speaking to the students of Janet's planet. Welcome Astro Don, thank you for being here today.Kids:Hello Dr. Don!Dr. Don Thomas:Oh, that's the way to do it there.Captain Janet:Eyezak has a question. Eyezak, can you ask about how one becomes, what you want to become?Eyezak:Yeah. How do you become an astronaut?Dr. Don Thomas:Yeah, that's a great question, Eyezak. I wanted to do this since I was just six years old, and when I was six years old, back in 1961, that's when we launched the first American into space and I watched the launch at my kindergarten class there. And as soon as our astronaut was in space, I knew I wanted to do that as well. So this was the dream my whole life, and one thing I recognized early on was, it was going to be really difficult to do this. I knew there was a lot of competition, thousands of people apply to be astronauts and then just a small handful gets selected. So I knew the key, had to be working hard and doing my best in school every single day.Dr. Don Thomas:I never knew if I was good enough, if I could get selected, but I figured I'm going to give it a try, and to do that I got to work as hard as I possibly can and do my absolute best. So that's what I did all through school, and after high school, I went on to college and got my bachelor's degree in physics, one of the sciences. And then I went on to graduate school and got my master's and Ph.D. in engineering, just because I knew that would help me become an astronaut. I also learned to fly. I got my private pilot's license. I learned to skydive, and I taught a university course.Dr. Don Thomas:These are things that are not requirements to be an astronaut, but I noticed that they seemed to really help. I looked at the people that they were selecting, and most of the people had flying experience, skydiving or maybe had taught a university course. So I watched who NASA was selecting and tried to model my career, a little bit around those requirements and what everybody was doing that was getting selected, and the key also for me becoming an astronaut was persistence.Dr. Don Thomas:I dreamed of this when I was six, and I started applying to NASA when I was in my late twenties, and I applied four times, and I got turned down the first time, the second time and the third time. And I felt like giving up on it all, but I really wanted to do this. So the key in any dream you have in life is to never give up on it. You want to keep improving yourself, keep making yourself a better candidate. You don't have to be a A++, 100% perfect student, you just have to work hard and do your absolute best, and nobody will ever argue with that ever. And if you don't give up, you work hard, you keep going on your journey, on your dream. I'm convinced that you can become anything you want to in your lifetime.Captain Janet:One of my favorite stories is how deep they went into looking into Dr. Don's past when he applied to NASA. And wow, can you imagine being investigated by the FBI? Maybe you might think twice before you post something that isn't so nice on social media. Dr. Don, can you tell us more about that?Dr. Don Thomas:Yeah, that's a great question there Miss Janet. The third time that I applied, NASA invited me down to the Johnson Space Center for a week of medical testing in an interview. And out of the thousands of people that apply NASA selects a hundred individuals. They bring you to Houston and again, you spend a full week, most of it is on a very thorough medical exam, and then there's a one hour interview. The interview is very simple, they just ask me, "Hey, tell me what you did since high school? Why'd you major in physics." They're just asking... They want you to talk about yourself and asking general questions.Dr. Don Thomas:And I went through all that and it went really well, and then a week later, some of my friends started calling me up from across the country. And they were calling me up and they said, "Hey, Don, the FBI's been calling about you." So usually when the FBI is calling about you, it's either really good or really bad, right? In this case, it was really good. NASA was doing a security background check on me and they looked into my background. They checked the police records in every city, wherever I lived.Dr. Don Thomas:They met with all my former bosses, every company that I worked for, from high school on. They would talk to my bosses and ask, what kind of worker was I? How did I treat the customers and coworkers? And did I show up to work on time? And then they went up and down the streets in all the neighborhoods, wherever I lived talking to the neighbors, and asking what kind of person was I in the neighborhood? How did I treat people? And had we had social media, we didn't have social media 40 something years ago when I was going through this but had we had social media, can any of you guess what they might have been doing?Isaiah:Stalking it?Dr. Don Thomas:They would've been looking at every single post that I had put online there. So you have to be careful today, because you never know, maybe five years, 10 years, 15 years from now, you're applying for some incredible job, maybe to go to Mars or do something else really incredible. And they may do a security background check on you, and just know they're going to be looking at everything they can find, and all your posts are there forever. So you got to be really careful. Be smart about what you post today, because you never know in the future if somebody's going to be looking into that.Andrew:So I've heard that you've had an engineering career. So my question is, how did your engineering career compare to your astronaut career?Dr. Don Thomas:Good question, Andrew. I start it off as an engineer, I became an astronaut, and for the last 15 years, I've been working in education. I had a great job in engineering. I really loved the work that I was doing, but almost nothing compares to going in space. I worked as an engineer for six years at a company called Bell Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey, and then three years I was working at the Johnson Space Center as an engineer before I became an astronaut. And I loved those careers. And I was just so thankful to be working at NASA as an engineer. I really loved it, but I'll tell you nothing can compare to being an astronaut and going in space.Dr. Don Thomas:And I did that for 17 years, and then I told you I've been in education for 15 years, and this is pretty close. There hasn't been a day since I left NASA that I've been sitting around saying, "Why did I leave? Why oh why did I ever leave?" I found a good career to do after the astronaut job, working with young students like yourself, working with great educators, like Miss Janet here. And it's really rewarding work for me. So, I think my favorite career would be the astronaut, the second favorite on the list would be working in education, and maybe the engineering was a close third there.Dharma:You mentioned that you got your private pilots license. So what was the best memory you've ever had about learning how to fly? And what's some advice you would give to a student pilot learning to fly like myself. I really look up to in your whole flight career.Dr. Don Thomas:Wow. That's fantastic. That's great. You're doing that Dharma. I'll tell you my memory of my very first flight. We took off, the instructor gave me the controls, and we started bouncing around. It seemed like a really rough day. And I asked the instructor, I said, "Is that me? Or is this turbulence?" He said, "Let go of the column." So I let go of the stick and the plane smoothed out. And then I took control again and I was bouncing around the sky.Dr. Don Thomas:So that's one of those funny moments that I remember. I also remember when I soloed the first time, I don't know if I had 20 or 30 hours, I don't know how many hours of flying time I had, but we were practicing touch and goes, coming down, landing, taking off, going around and doing more landings. And after one of those, the instructor just said, "Hey, go over to the control tower, let me out, you're going to go solo." And my jaw dropped, it's like, "Wow." And it was an amazing feeling knowing that, once I took off, there was only one person that could land that plane. That was me. I always had the instructor sitting next to me, and that made it a lot easier, if anything goes wrong, there's an instructor there to take over. But when you solo, you're there on your own. It's a little scary, but in incredibly exciting.Captain Janet:Dharma, do you have a favorite moment from your flight training so far?Dharma:I'm often very stressed, but when I get in the plane, just this calmness washes over me. So anytime I get to be in the plane is my favorite moment ever, just that I could be away from everything. So that's my favorite thing ever, I couldn't pick a single memory.Isaiah:Did you serve in the military, and is it a requirement for the astronauts?Dr. Don Thomas:Yeah Isaiah, good question. We have two types of astronauts that we select, pilot astronauts and then mission specialists. And almost all the pilot astronauts come out of the military, and even some of the mission specialists do as well, but I never served in the military. I just went the science route. When I was in high school, the United States launched a space station called Skylab, it was our first space station, and they were selecting science astronauts to fly on those missions to do science. And I loved science when I was your age, and I knew that that was my path.Dr. Don Thomas:Probably about two thirds of the astronauts they select, come out of the military, maybe a third or just strictly civilians. Typically, they select a lot of people out of the military.Eyezak:What makes a good crew mate?Dr. Don Thomas:Eyezak, good question. We are in space, like on the space shuttle on my missions, we're in a very small area for two weeks or more in space. So, the number one requirement is to really work as a team, to get along with other people. That's why NASA was carefully looking at, interviewing my neighbors to see how I treated people in the neighborhood and talking to my former bosses to see how did I get along with my coworkers. Because it's so important in space, almost everything we do in space, it's a team effort, and it takes everybody working together, and you have to learn to work with different personalities.Dr. Don Thomas:So I think that would be the number one thing to be a good crew member. You need to be a really good team player, and work together with the team.Isaiah:What was your favorite food in space?Dr. Don Thomas:You are talking with the very first human being to take pizza to space.Captain Janet:Famous even, right? You're famous for this, right?Dr. Don Thomas:I'm, famous for that. Yeah. I'm not famous for much else, but I'm famous for flying the first pizza in space. And I'll just tell you the story quickly, we're allowed to carry a sandwich with us out to the launchpad, on launch morning, because we may be laying on our backs out there for a few hours if there's weather to even longer than that. So they would let us take a sandwich, and most of the time you may take a Turkey sandwich or something like that. But on my third mission I asked instead of a Turkey sandwich, could I get a slice of pizza? Because I love pizza. And they said, "Yeah, we can do that." So they made me a little personal pizza. It was pepperoni, and we flew that in space. I did that both on my third and fourth missions.Dr. Don Thomas:So, we don't normally fly pizza, most of our food, as you probably know is freeze-dried food or military rations, MREs Meals Ready to Eat, that come out of the military. And most of that food is okay. When I get asked the question, what's my favorite space food? I say none of them. Because it isn't that good, and I would never go to a restaurant that was serving space food. I wouldn't do that. But it's okay, it's a lot like camping food.Dr. Don Thomas:My favorite overall of the food that I had in space, they had beef and barbecue sauce. That was one of the MREs, the military rations that were pretty good. And we had sweet and sour chicken, which was good up there too. I did make, before I flew the pizza in space, we made what we call space pizza and that would be taking a tortilla, and then I would spread some spaghetti and meat sauce on top of that, and then roll it up. And that was as close as I could get to a pizza.Andrew:What was the funniest thing you saw in space?Dr. Don Thomas:We don't do a lot of practical jokes. People always ask that, so tell me about the practical jokes you do in space. And it's like, "Boy, I don't have any stories like that." Because you don't want to go up to somebody and try to scare them going, "Boo." And have them jump and maybe hurt themselves. So, we don't do a lot of practical jokes up there, but one of the funnier things that I saw in space, is sometimes when the astronauts have free time, we goof around. I don't know if any of you guys goof around all, but sometimes the astronauts goof around and what we like to do, we play catch, up in space. And when you play catch here on earth, you're probably using a football or a baseball. In space we don't have anything like that, so what we'll do, we have one of the astronauts, we'll tuck themselves into a little ball and then two of us can play catch with that individual. And it's really funny to watch two people playing catch, with a third person going back and forth, just tucked into a little ball like that.Dharma:Was there any feeling that compared to looking back on earth while in space?Dr. Don Thomas:There is nothing like that. Before I first flew in space on my first mission, I trained to be an astronaut for four years for that flight, and in that four-year period, I probably had 40 or 50 hours of training on earth observation training. So, specialists would come in, show us pictures of the earth taken from space and tell us what we're looking at. So once we got to space, we would be very familiar with what we're looking at back on planet earth. So I thought, okay, I've seen it, I know exactly what it's going to look like when I get to space, but that wasn't the case. Once I got to space and I looked out the window the first time I just gasped, I went, "Oh wow." It's just so incredible when you see it with your own eyes.Dr. Don Thomas:The pictures that we take, the IMAX movies that you'll see of the earth, they don't do it justice. You see much more detail and subtle color variations with your eyes, than any of the pictures can take. So, it just doesn't do it justice, and every astronaut, the very first time they look out the window with their own eyes, you'll hear that gasp. And I'm gasping at how thin the atmosphere is from space. Our atmosphere is just a paper-thin layer around the earth and it's glowing blue, like a blue fluorescent light glowing. And then I'm all also gasping at the black sky. The sky in space is a darker black color than I've ever seen anywhere else. I've been caving, where we all turned off our lights, it's pitch black, but I think the sky in space is even darker, darker than that.Isaiah:How old were you when you went to space?Dr. Don Thomas:Okay. When I got selected to be an astronaut Isaiah, I was 35 years old and the first time I made it to space, I was 39 years old. And 39 years old, that's pretty much an old man, right Isaiah? You could be honest. That's okay. Is that an old man or not?Isaiah:Kind of.Dr. Don Thomas:Kind of. Yeah. And my point is, some of the careers you're going to pick, it's going to take time to get there. If you want to be a teacher, doctor, lawyer, scientist, professional athlete, it takes a lot of time after high school to get there. So don't be turned off by that, just keep working hard, keep following your dream, follow your path. You can accomplish anything you want to, don't worry about how much time it takes.Captain Janet:JP Space Crew I really want you to hear this. I think sometimes we think that things are going to happen instantly, the moment that we apply, and if we just put our best out there, there's going to be an instant yes. But as we listen to Dr. Don's story, he applied, and applied, and then applied for a third time and got another no. And Don, I just have to say, please tell them more about this experience of getting that third no, going to bed that night and then waking up the next with what decision.Dr. Don Thomas:I thought I got to do something else. NASA doesn't want me, and I thought I'll go to bed, get a good night's sleep and then in the morning when I wake up, I would put together a new plan for my career that did not involve being an astronaut. Because I had worked hard, I did my best, and just three times in a row NASA said no to me. I went to bed that night, the next morning when I woke up, the very first thought that popped into my head was, I still want to be an astronaut. And that dream never died as I slept that night.Dr. Don Thomas:So I just kind of dusted myself off and said, "Okay, what else can I do? I've learned to fly. I've learned to skydive. I've taught a university course." And just looking at who NASA was selecting and who they weren't selecting, it was pretty clear that I could increase my chances quite a bit by working down at the Johnson Space Center. So I moved, I quit my job. I moved down to Houston, got a job there with NASA, as an engineer and did that for three years and then became an astronaut.Dharma:What is your life advice for students?Dr. Don Thomas:My life advice for students, whatever your dream is in life, you don't have to be dreaming of being an astronaut, whatever your dream is, if you want to be a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, whatever, just work hard and always do your best. You want to do your best every single day, in all your subjects, because you never know when something you're learning today is going to help you out in the future. And the other thing is to never give up on that dream, keep working hard towards that goal. You'll get discouraged. You'll fail along the way, I failed three times, but you just got to pick yourself up and try to figure out, okay, what am I missing here? How can I make myself a better candidate?Dr. Don Thomas:But the key is to never give up. It takes hard work. It takes time, and never give up on your dream and you can accomplish anything you want to in your lifetime. Because I was just an average student in school, but I had a big, big dream and I was going to go for it and nothing was going to hold me back.Captain Janet:We are so glad that you stuck with it, that you didn't give up and that you persevered, otherwise we wouldn't be having this incredible conversation with you. To learn more about astronaut Don Thomas, you can visit his website, Ohioastronaut.com. And if you're really wanting to know more, read his book Orbit of Discovery available on Amazon.Dr. Don Thomas:Thanks. It's been great being with you, Isaiah, Andrew and Dharma, thanks for the great questions and Eyezak always great getting your questions as well. Thank you so much.Captain Janet:ByeKids:Bye.Eyezak:Wow. Astronauts are the best!Captain Janet:Indeed they are, and just like astronaut, Don said, NASA is looking for all kinds of people to be astronauts and especially those who are kind and know how to get along well with others. And Isaac, you definitely are one of the best crew members I've ever had.Eyezak:Wow, thanks Captain Janet. Hey, would you be willing to write me a recommendation letter?Captain Janet:You bet I would. Thanks everyone for listening to the JP AstroCast. Let your mind revolve around this thought, the universe is always expanding, let your dreams do the saying. And that's the view from the JP AstroCast. (Singing).

Heather Staller is a mom, cooking instructor, and recipe developer dedicated to getting kids into the kitchen. After culinary school, she worked for many years at a recreational cooking school teaching kids camps and workshops for ages 3 to 16. Currently, Heather runs her own business and online platform where she shares recipes, lunch box ideas, and cooking knowledge on her website HappyKidsKitchen.com and her Instagram page @heather.happykidskitchen. In 2019, she published a cookbook, Little Helpers Toddler Kitchen, with over 40 healthy recipes written with specific instructions for toddlers to help make, but for everyone to enjoy. Currently Heather lives north of Boston by the beach with her two elementary school-aged boys and her husband.In This Episode, We Discuss…How to cook with toddlers without adding to your to-do list (02:00)How using language keeps kids interested in food. (Ooh la la!) (05:45)Fun ways to easily get kids involved in the kitchen (07:00)Cooking activities for toddlers (13:30)When to start teaching your kids about food (15:45)

A Prisoner in a Universal Energy cage that ...wait doesn't want to leave?"www.RollMongers.comwww.TeeSpring.com/RollMongers for Merch!www.Patreon.com/RollMongers Thank You For your needed Support, because sponsors don't pay you, they just give you free stuff lol!Also Thanks to our new sponsor "Devin Night" for providing use with all his art work minis with the folks at Fantasy Grounds to use here!https://immortalnights.com/tokensite/​Music:Intro: Star wars soundtrack x-wing formation by Kurt Thomlinson"Cyber punk Bar""Cyber Punk City""Space battle""Busy Space Port""Dying Planet""Starship medical""Starship Bridge""Deep Space eva""Alien night club""1940's office"All by Table top audio .comStar Wars - The Force Theme (Far Out Remix)"GAurdians" by Evan King""Dark Choir" by Mattili Cupellai musicFREE LICENSE TO USE: https://gum.co/hhVjx​DOWNLOAD: https://gum.co/hhVjx​www.youtube.com/user/MattiaCupelliMusic​"Satiate" By Kevin Macleod"Scientific Reasoning" by TechnoAxewww.youtube.com/channel/UCtgf00GvfFQV...​"Enchiridion" by Evan King"End This" by Evan King"Tactics" by Alex Lisi"Helipad Siege" - Alex lisi"Speed Chase"- Alex lisi"Match" by Alex Lisi"War Gods" Alex lisi all on you tubewww.youtube.com/channel/UC2Wkg85Gabk3...​Crossing the chasm by Kevin MacleodKevin-9-1 – Crossing-the-chasmSuper hero by Tabletop audio @ Tabletop audio.comStar Wars Soundtrack | X-Wing Formation (Fan-Made) by Kurt TomlinsonTrukmai – Star-wars-ost-x-wing-formation-fan-made-1External terminal By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – Eternal-terminalDarkling (Destructive device) By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – DarklingMalicious By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – MaliciousMusic maker test 2Inductrial CinematicKevin-9-1 – Industrial-cinematicOribital promonade by tabletop audioStar Wars - The Force Theme (Far Out Remix)@faroutofficial...Desertwinds by Tabletop audio.comOutroImperial march remix by Goblins from marsGoblinsfrommars – Star-wars-imperial-march-goblins-from-mars-trap-remix-free-downloadMusic in this videoLearn moreListen ad-free with YouTube PremiumSongDark Side BeatArtistGoblins from MarsAlbumGoblin Instrumentals And BeatsLicensed to YouTube byRecord Union (on behalf of Goblins from Mars)Music in this videoLearn moreListen ad-free with YouTube PremiumSongDark Side BeatArtistGoblins from MarsAlbumGoblin Instrumentals And BeatsLicensed to YouTube byRecord Union (on behalf of Goblins from MarsOUTROOriginal track is "Feel it still" by Portugal the ManParody Lyrics:I keep the force to myselfAll because the emperor ruined it for everyone elseWe gotta find a place to hideGuess we`re going underground nowOoh woo I'm a rebel just for kicks nowI`ve been rocking it since order 66 nowThe force is strong, and I feel it stillOoh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks nowWhy`d the emperor say order 66 nowBut the force is strong and I feel it stillGotta make it out to TheedGonna reason with the senators try to make it better nowSomewhere out theres gotta be freeI guess I`ll head to Alderran nowOoh woo I'm a rebel just for kicks nowI`ve been rocking it since order 66 nowThe force is strong, and I feel it stillOoh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks nowWhy`d the emperor say order 66 nowBut the force is strong and I feel it stillWe should fight a war for peace(Ooh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks now)Ressurect the Jedi, bring the emporer down to his kneesThe Sith mean nothing to meI should strike them all down now(Ooh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks now)There'll be no aquittal for the sith who killed the littlePa-da-wansHe is my enemyIs he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming back?Ooh Woo I'm a rebel just for kicksand I'm gonna keep on going till the galaxy is fixed nowCause the force is strong and I feel it still

This episode originally aired on 2/4/2020. New episodes coming soon. Learn about the 13 categories of emotions that music makes you feel; how scientists solved the mystery of two strangely small tyrannosaurus rex fossils; and surprising things that happen to a pregnant person's body.Research Suggests That Music Evokes 13 Key Emotions by Kelsey DonkAnwar, Y. (2020, January 6). Ooh là là! Music evokes at least 13 emotions. Scientists have mapped them. Berkeley News. https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/01/06/music-evokes-13-emotions/Noonan, D. (2020, January 6). Is a Sad Song Sad for Everyone? Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-a-sad-song-sad-for-everyone/Cowen, A. S., Fang, X., Sauter, D., & Keltner, D. (2020). What music makes us feel: At least 13 dimensions organize subjective experiences associated with music across different cultures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(4), 1924–1934. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910704117Two Tiny T-Rexes Turned Out to Be Teenagers by Mae RiceSecrets behind T. rex's bone crushing bites: T. rex could crush with 8,000 pound bite forces. (2017). ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170517090520.htmResearchers learn more about teen-age T.Rex. (2020). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/osuc-rlm122019.phpWoodward, H. N., Tremaine, K., Williams, S. A., Zanno, L. E., Horner, J. R., & Myhrvold, N. (2020). Growing up Tyrannosaurus rex: Osteohistology refutes the pygmy “Nanotyrannus” and supports ontogenetic niche partitioning in juvenile Tyrannosaurus. Science Advances, 6(1), eaax6250. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax6250Surprising Things Pregnancy Does to the Body by Kelsey DonkNierenberg, C. (2015, May 19). Body Changes During Pregnancy. Livescience.Com; Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/50877-regnancy-body-changes.htmlCatriona Harvey-Jenner. (2017, April 12). 10 weird things you didn't realise happen to your body during pregnancy. Cosmopolitan; Cosmopolitan. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a9266776/weird-things-happen-to-body-during-pregnancy/Cari Wira Dineen. (2016, May 4). Crazy Ways Your Body Changes During Pregnancy. Parents; Parents. https://www.parents.com/pregnancy/my-body/changing/crazy-ways-your-body-changes-during-pregnancy/Want to learn even more? Head to discovery+ to stream from some of your favorite shows. Go to discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms apply.

Kimberly Grigg welcomes Kate Dryer, founder of Kate Decorates, to the show to explore beautiful family-centric decor on a “normal person budget”. Kate shares how she puts her belief that form and function can coexist in design into action.  Kimberly and Kate debunk the theory that beautiful living must wait until children are grown. To that end, Kate breaks down the benefits of performance fabrics, how to test them for durability, and recommends carpet tiles as easy-to-replace solutions. They explain how to find a color palette based on a signature piece and where to find less expensive options for furniture and accessories. Kate is an enthusiastic DIYer and Kimberly prompts her to divulge secrets on decorating with peel and stick wallpaper, ways to visually upgrade plain countertops without breaking your budget, and how to bring color and pattern into your spaces like a pro. Kate's ability to create attainable beauty for any family home will surely inspire you in decorating yours. About Kate Dryer: Kate Dryer is a thirty something wife and mom to two kids and one incredibly energetic labradoodle. She started her blog, Kate Decorates, as a creative outlet in 2015 and has been DIY'ing and decorating ever since. Their family's 1980s builder-grade home in the Washington, DC suburbs (where she was born and raised), was a beige box when they bought it which wasn't really her jam, so she immediately got to work adding color and pattern. Kate's mission is to help busy families create beautiful, functional homes they love… and have fun in the process. Resources discussed in this episode: Kate Decorates Kate Decorates on Instagram Easy Home Renewals  --  Contact Me: Email me at kimberly@kimberlygriggdesigns.com Visit my website: www.kimberlygriggdesigns.com Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest Check out my Youtube channel You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify. Transcription Kimberly Grigg  00:00 Welcome to another episode of Decorate Like A Design Boss. And today I am so happy to share with you my new friend Kate Dryer. Kate is the founder of Kate Decorates where she's dedicated to sharing tips and tricks for creating a fun, functional and family friendly home. All on a normal person budget. Kate founded her business in 2016, shortly after giving birth to her second child. Despite searching Pinterest and her favorite magazines for attainable decorating advice that could help young families like her own, she quickly found that there were next to no resources out there for parents who wanted homes that were stylish enough for adults, but functional for life with kids and pets. You're gonna love Kate dryer. So let's welcome her as we discover all sorts of tips and tricks for family centered homes, but, not just that, for some very, very gorgeous decorating. Welcome to Decorate Like A Design Boss, a podcast for design lovers who want to create beautiful spaces in their very own homes. My name is Kimberly Grigg, and I'm a professional interior designer who teaches design lovers like yourselves how to decorate. And when I say decorate, I mean decorate like a design boss. If you're ready to create a space that your family loves, and your neighbors can't stop raving about, well, buckle up honey, because it's time to design. Well. Hi, Kate Dryer. I'm so happy to have you here.   Kate Dryer  01:58 Thank you so much, Kimberly, it is great to be here with you today.   Kimberly Grigg  02:02 Ah, well, I wish everyone could see how pretty you are and how pretty you look in your surroundings like, wow, this is perfect. I'm gonna have a good time watching.   Kate Dryer  02:13 Thank you. A box full of jewel tones, I guess.   Kimberly Grigg  02:16 There you go. And your sweater and everything is so color coordinated. So I want to kind of dive in, Kate. I mean, there's so many interesting things about you, including your cybersecurity background, and like all this cool stuff and your, your whole process, your brand. Kind of describe to me what it is that you do.   Kate Dryer  02:41 Sure. So about six years ago, after I had my second child, I needed a creative outlet. You know, it was... I heard someone say once - which now being a mom of more than than one I get it - they said 'one is one and two is twenty'. And I felt that so deeply at the time that my son was born. And so I started Kate Decorates, I started my blog, again, just kind of as a hobby for me to you know, have something to sort of, you know, maintain my own identity and give me some me time, which was great. But one thing that I noticed, as I was talking to a lot of my other friends who were at a similar stage in life, you know, they were just getting married, just starting families, everyone would come over to our house, and they would look around and say, Oh my gosh, you know, your home is just so calming and really put together and polished and like, Okay, how did you do that with two young kids and toddlers who make messes and hit their heads on the corner of tables and things like that. And it kind of dawned on me that there really was not a lot of information or great resources out there for parents who were a lot like myself, you know, just kind of starting out, but you know, needing their space to be functional, but also wanting to feel really good about their surroundings, especially during what's really a hectic time, I think, in a lot of people's lives. So fast forward to today. I actually left my full time marketing job a few months ago to focus full time on my design and doing consulting there. So it's been quite a ride, but it's been really fun, I think, to share really simple, easy family friendly decorating tips that people can, you know, put to use in a few minutes. You know, they're not difficult, it's not expensive, and it's just attainable and fun and makes you feel good about the home that you're in.   Kimberly Grigg  04:53 Love this. So I'm going to let you in on a secret. Well, it's not really a secret but something that is kind of interesting along these lines is I raised six kids in my home, and I can so relate. My youngest is now 21 and off at college, but I can so relate to how valuable this information is. I know for us, my husband would say things like, Why are you bothering? They're just gonna put peanut butter and jelly hands on everything. But I insisted that we live beautifully and that I have to somehow make the home function. So now that mine are grown, you're in the thick, you're in the thick of it. And so tell the listener, the audience, like, let's just dive in: what are some starting points for how people can live beautifully with children and peanut butter and jelly hands?   Kate Dryer  05:57 Right, and goldfish cracker crumbs and all those fun things? Yes. You know, one thing that I noticed, especially as a young parent, is that if your space feels chaotic, your life is going to feel chaotic. You know, home should be kind of your safe haven, a place that brings you joy and peace. And it is more important than people usually think to create something that you feel good about. And so I would say, you know, number one, think about how you want to live and how you want the space to feel. Do you want to decorate with neutrals and have it feel really calm and airy? Does, for example, like me, does color energize you, and does that bring a smile to your face? So think about what's going to make you happy, and then start to plan out, probably starting with... I always like to say start with the room that you spend the most time in and kind of create a plan for yourself and start there. It can be really overwhelming when you try to tackle too much at once. So focusing on one space in the beginning and getting that right, where you feel good about it, is really important. And then I think it gives you the confidence too to move on to other spaces in your home and sort of apply the same patterns, I guess.   Kimberly Grigg  07:23 Yes, and that's such good advice. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I tell people, Don't polka dot your house, like start somewhere and finish something so that while you're working on other spaces, you've got somewhere for the eye to rest. And I find that that's so important, because sometimes people will take their budget, we're going to talk about your cool thoughts about budget in a second, but they'll take that budget and they will start spending it in various areas of the home. And the next thing you know, you have nothing to show for your results. You got a lot of stuff. And you've done a lot of things but nothing is really complete. So I love the way that you said that. And one of the things that you also say that I'm very fond of, and this is right up my listeners' alley, is you like to decorate with normal people budget. So tell me a little bit about that. And how do you accomplish that?   Kate Dryer  08:26 Yes, I am so glad you asked. This is one of my favorite things to talk about because I think there's such a misconception in the design world that great design has to be expensive, which is absolutely not true at all. And so when I think of normal person budget, I think of, you know, I typically I'll put money into kind of the larger pieces that I know I'm going to have for a really long time. For example, you know, I have a great Crate and Barrel sofa in our living room that has been with us for years. It's withstood all kinds of incidents, and still looks great. So when you know there are those pieces that you're... they're kind of the heart of your room, I tend to invest a little more there. But when it comes to a lot of other pieces, you have to be realistic. So even thinking about, particularly with young kids, area rugs, okay? I would never at this stage in my life, invest in a really pricey rug. But the great news is there are so many different options today to find affordable decor, whether it's going to places like, you know, Target or Home Goods or looking online at places like Wayfair, there are so many different options that I think it is totally possible to mix and match in terms of kind of price, and just find ways to incorporate things that maybe look expensive but aren't, without without breaking the bank.   Kimberly Grigg  10:02 Yeah, so kind of even a high low, but like really sourcing and looking and I agree, I do feel like a steady piece, something that is a statement strong piece like your Pottery Barn sofa, but that also will withstand the hardships of everyday life, is a great place to start. So do you think that - can anyone learn to decorate?   Kate Dryer  10:31 I think so. You know, I was not always a decorating enthusiast myself, funny enough. I was always creative from a young age, but I love to write, and then I danced my entire life. And, you know, I think I've always had a good eye for design, but I've developed it, for sure, over the past couple years as I've become more interested in it. I think the other thing, you know, going back to kind of the normal person budget, the way that you can execute on that easily - because I think, you know, in theory, it sounds great, right, but somebody is probably sitting there going, Okay, this is cool and all but like how do I how do I do this in practice - having a plan for your space, and knowing what pieces you're looking for, is really, really important. And the other thing I would say is as a Type A person who is always in a rush to do everything, it like hurts my heart a little bit, but great decorating takes time, don't be in a rush to just kind of go out and get everything all at once and set up your room. It is just so much better if you can kind of make that list and think about, okay, I'm looking for a martini style side table or a rug with these colors in it. And kind of keep a list on your phone or in your pocket. So when you're out at stores or when you're, you know, shopping online, or, you know, at the local flea market, you can keep an eye out for those pieces, as opposed to just, you know, hitting the panic button and just getting things that are good enough in the moment.   Kimberly Grigg  12:13 So let's break that down even further. When you start your plan, let's say you walk into a space, tell me kind of step by step. What do you do? How do you develop that plan? How do you create your concept? How do you really, in a bare roots way, tell someone this is your process, this is how you do it?   Kate Dryer  12:36 Sure. Yeah, so the first thing I always like to do is just find out how people are going to use the space, how they use it today, or how they want to use it, because maybe their vision for it is a little bit different than how they're using it right now. So understanding the functionality of it is step number one, always. Then I like to understand kind of colors and things that they gravitate toward, you know, what colors, make them feel happy, what brings a smile to their face, are there certain, you know, places or experience or interests, maybe, that I can kind of listen to and figure out a way to bring those kind of feelings of those activities into the space. And then when I sit down to actually create a plan, I typically start with, in terms of figuring out a color palette and textures and things like that, I start with what I like to call the inspiration piece. And that is typically something that has a lot of color and pattern in it. So most of the time, that's, for me anyway, a piece of art. And then I build my color palette from there and then add in, keep in mind kind of the the functionality and ,you know, what the client has articulated that they want to use the room for, and I build it out that way.   Kimberly Grigg  14:04 I love that. I have a very similar approach often. And there's something about, especially when you start with a piece of artwork or a piece of fabric, there's something about so much of the work has already been done for you. And a) you already relate to it, and b) you can even take a smidgen of something that's in that - you like that word smidgen - something in that artwork and pull it out and can create some of the most unusual color schemes that exist. And I love to do that too, and I think that it also gives the average person who's trying to decorate some confidence, and you at least know that these things are going to work together. So I love that tip, that idea. Let's talk, let's kind of circle back round just a wee bit to when you're decorating for a family centered home, like speak to me about fabrics. And we talked a little bit about rugs and durability. And for that mom who says, I'm gonna wait until my kids graduate from high school to decorate my home because I don't want to spend money that is not going to necessarily be a long term investment, because there's peanut butter and jelly hands and all this stuff. So how do you kind of handle that with your clients in the spaces that you're creating?   Kate Dryer  15:38 Sure. So performance fabrics are your friend. There is just, for young families, there's no other way to go when when it comes to upholstered pieces. So I have - every room in my home and most of the spaces I design do include sofas and, you know, accent chairs that do have performance fabrics. And I tell my clients too, Okay if you really want to put this to the test, go to your local store where we're planning on getting the sofa from, ask for a fabric sample, take it home, and spill red wine and ketchup and grape jelly on it ,and like take your keys and rough it up. And that will give you a sense of how well it's going to last. You know, just like put it through the wringer, and make sure that okay, that's gonna work for us. The other thing that I like to do as well, because a lot of people are concerned about textiles, particularly like throw pillows, when we're decorating a space, a lot of times for my clients, and you know, even in my own home, I use outdoor pillows. Because, you know, I think if you look back years ago, outdoor pillows were not available in as many fun colors and fabrics as they are today. I mean, right now you can pretty much get almost any fabric and design in an outdoor really durable fabric. So that's another thing that I like doing. They're just easier to clean and withstand a lot more. And then the last thing that, you know, I typically look at is when it comes to rugs, you have a couple options. I think, yes, you can buy kind of a less expensive rug where, hey, if something happens, you're not going to cry if you have to throw it in the trash. But there are two other options that I really like, both of which I have in my own home as well. So one is I love carpet tiles. So there's a particular brand  Flor, F-L-O-R, and they have some carpet tile sets that basically look like really lovely, you know, area rugs. And that's great because if something happens, you pull up the tile, you clean it, if it's messed up beyond repair, you just order a new tile instead of having to kind of, like, throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak. So that's great.   Kimberly Grigg  18:09 I love floor tiles, I used those when my kids were growing up, I thought they were amazing. And inevitably that would happen. I mean, I remember my 11 year old daughter spilled fingernail polish. And all I had to do was just replace two tiles and off we went, and I bought extra cartons when we started and it just worked out.   Kate Dryer  18:33 That's a great idea, buying the extra.   Kimberly Grigg  18:35 Yes. And just for the listener who doesn't know what we're talking about, these tiles come in... I know they used to come in 12 by 12s but now I'm sure they have multiple sizes, and they are literally tiles that you can put down just like a carpet. And you can pull them up and replace anything that gets damaged. It's wonderful. For families, for pets, for any, for rental properties, AirBNBs, I can't say enough great things about the usage of products like this. So yeah.   Kate Dryer  19:12 Yes. And I have to say, so we've had, I think three different floor rugs now. They have outlasted kind of my basically urge to redecorate, because I've never gotten rid of them because they're in bad shape. It's just like, oh, okay, we want to refresh the room and now I need a new rug. And I do have to laugh too because the only person who spilled something on our rug is me. I spilled a cup of coffee and cleaned it up with baby wipes and no problem.   Kimberly Grigg  19:43 And there you go. And so many of today's materials do speak to this. You know, somewhere along the line the manufacturing industry really got savvy to the way that people need to live. And it's not just people with children, it's people with messy husbands, it's people who, like you just said, spill coffee. I mean, I spill coffee too, or tip over a glass of red wine, or the spaghetti plate falls, or whatever - I mean, life is to live. And I know that when I was growing up, my family didn't use a lot of things, like we had towels that were the guest towels and you never touched those. And I'm sure they probably had dust on them eventually. But we used the regular towels, and I made it a life's mission, and I bet you have too Kate, that I don't want anything in my house that I can't use. I can't stand to see an unlit candle. I can't stand... I have a dining room now that I'm completely changing because we don't use it. And why have it? I mean, I'm not up for once a year, that's just not enough usage for me. And it's just a wasted space. So I love it when people use their homes, I think people are freeing up a little bit to utilize their things. I think that's been a big thing since bloggers and people started decorating with all these fabulous materials that we have now. But I still get pushback, and I want to know your answer, I still get pushback from that mom who doesn't want to decorate right now, who literally feels like she's just gonna wait and save her money until the kids are older, and they can somehow accommodate the home a little better instead of the home accommodate them better. So how do you handle that? And what do you what do you say to that mom?   Kate Dryer  21:49 Yeah, that's a great question because I've definitely gotten into conversations with people about this exact topic. So number one, you know, I like to gently remind people that there's a reason you contacted me, right? There is, you know, there was some trigger, where you looked at your home and were not happy with it. And were just like, Okay I'm fed up, I'm frustrated, and I want someone to help me create something that I really love. I also dig into kind of how spaces make people feel. And I will ask questions like what I just said: How do you feel when you wake up in the morning and come downstairs to your great room? Or, Do you enjoy having people over? Are you proud of the spaces that your family and your friends see? And typically no one is giving a resounding, like, Yes they're awesome. And so I also, in that moment too, I think it's good to remember that you can also start small. And so if someone is kind of on the fence about whether they want to put some money into it now or just, like you said, save up for the quote/unquote, real decorating later on, I like people to think about, well, let's, instead of tackling, you know, your living room, your kitchen and your dining room, let's focus on one area. Let's kind of work through this process together, and figure out, when we get to the end of it, how are your feelings different than they were when we when we started the process?   Kimberly Grigg  23:35 Yeah, and I bet that it's sort of like a snowball effect. I'm sure it is for you as well, you get that one room looking all pretty, and you start to notice that if done correctly, and if you've really considered who lives there, how they live, what the obstacles are, what the solutions to the obstacles are, then suddenly you have a room that functions, you have a room that lives well, you have a room that is so aesthetically pleasing that nine times out of ten that client will forget that Oh the pushback was all about my kids are young, and say this is so great I want to do this in the rest of my home. And I want to feel good about walking in my front door instead of just one room and I find people let up a little bit. And I encourage my listener to really put some thought into this. Do you really want to wait? Do you want to deprive yourself of living beautifully because you have young children? Or do you want to incorporate them, and we're going to really get into some of your DIY stuff, do you want to incorporate them? Because I also have found, and again raising six children in a home and insisting that it be beautiful and functional, I felt like by exposing my children to pretty, they became more reverent of the pretty, nothing really was ever broken in my house - to your point about the coffee, except my husband threw a nerf ball at or to one of the children and it knocked over a vase. The children didn't do it, my husband did it. And you know, and we lived through it, no biggie. But when kids learn that pretty is around them, they learn to respect that those things are there. And when they go to other people's homes, they're more respectful, in my opinion, of other people's things and the way that they live because they've just sort of been around it, exposed to it. Do you feel that way?   Kate Dryer  25:51 Oh, I completely agree with you. That is a great point. Because I think when, you know, and I've had clients where they're like, Oh well my in laws gave us this couch, and it's fine. But I think yes, absolutely, there is a tendency when you are living with pieces that you really don't have a vested interest in, it's really easy for... to see the kids jumping on the couch, or the dog jumping up, and you kind of shrug your shoulders and turn a blind eye, but then that behavior and that mentality is kind of set. And you don't want that for all the reasons that you mentioned. The other thing, I think, too, that has been helpful for me with my own kids, is we've decorated both of their rooms, and they have been really involved in the process. And you know, certainly yes, okay, I like a little bit of control over what the final product is going to look like, what a surprise, I give them choices, and I give them a voice, and want to make sure we're creating something that they feel really good about. So for example, my husband and my son built bunk beds for his room. And my son, I mean, he was, I guess he was five at the time, he actually painted the frame of the bunk bed. So I think when you can find moments to involve your kids in that process, I think it results in exactly what you mentioned Kimberly, is them having a deeper respect for their surroundings, for their things, and then that's going to translate for the rest of their life, which is great.   Kimberly Grigg  27:33 Yes. So I want to segue a little bit because I think, you know, we've talked a lot about how to live beautifully with obstacles. Now let's talk about how to live beautifully. And so I'm looking around at your beautiful spaces and of course I've been totally stalking you with your website and your Instagram and all of that, and your aesthetic is so lovely and a couple of things that I've noticed, and I do want you to speak to this, is girl you are not afraid of color. And what I've noticed, though, is you have a wonderful way of inserting wall color without it being overpowering. For example, I'm looking at the room that you're in with a beautiful shade of green on the walls and then it looks like a maybe a navy sofa and, so speak to me about how does someone not - especially with all the white in the world that we're living with, everything's white, white, white, white, white, white, white, and you know we're besieged with Pinterest and everything else like paint your walls white, paint your walls neutral, paint your walls, you know all that stuff - but yet here you are living in this gorgeous space and the walls are definitely not white. Tell me how you arrived at that and how you help people feel confident about putting a color on their wall.   Kate Dryer  29:11 Yeah, well, thank you for the kind words, first of all. When it comes to painting walls a saturated color, I still go back to what we talked about before: thinking about kind of that inspiration piece. When you are designing, for me actually it informs because we basically have no doors on any of the rooms on our first level, it informs everything I do on the entire first floor of our home. And so I think with... the biggest thing to remember when you do choose a wall color, like the green that I have here, which green is my favorite color so it wasn't a hard sell, although I will say my husband definitely questioned this decision but he got on board and painted anyway, like God bless him. But I think when you are painting walls a saturated color, for me at least, it's important in any room for your eye to kind of have a place to rest so that saturated color doesn't feel overwhelming. So if you're going bold on the walls, try to incorporate more neutrals. And you know, maybe textures, instead of more color and pattern, to still make the space interesting but not overwhelming. I just had a conversation with a client the other day, actually, who just has an amazing eye for design. And one thing we were talking about is that when you're decorating a room, not everything can be the superstar. Because when you have, you know, too many shining stars in a single room together, it's overwhelming. And you're just not sure where to look. And it starts to feel a little chaotic.   Kimberly Grigg  30:57 I call that 'one wow per room'.   Kate Dryer  30:59 Yes, yes, exactly, exactly. So with the green walls, you know, as you mentioned earlier, we have a navy blue sofa, we have, which you can't see, a tan and white area rug. And then aside from the pictures over here, you know, we don't have a lot of, I would say like extra elements. I have a white shelf back here that holds some toy bins, again in a neutral color. So I tried to kind of tone everything down around it, knowing that the green walls in and of themselves do make quite a statement.   Kimberly Grigg  31:35 Agreed. Although I do notice that you have some yummy patterns mixing up and I've noticed this in your work as well. So you mix patterns as boldly as you decide to put a color on the wall. A lot of people are terrified of patterns. So how do we get them comfortable with pattern and even mixing pattern?   Kate Dryer  32:00 Yes, it all goes back to, again, you know, start with that inspiration piece, you take all your color from there. And then, you know, I typically... I know a lot of people have different rules for mixing patterns. I like to think of it as basically make sure the patterns that you're choosing are visually different. And I work usually in the rule of threes. So thinking about, you know, okay, you can see behind me I have a buffalo check pillow, I have an embroidered colorful striped pillow, and then I have one that's more abstract in green. So a lot of the formulas, I think, that you read about on design blogs and in magazines are like: go with a geometric, go with a floral, or a more abstract pattern. And then for the third I say either go with a solid or you could incorporate some texture, for example. But I think working in the rule of threes is helpful because it can be easy, I think, to get carried away and not necessarily know when okay, I have enough here that it's going to be beautiful without being overwhelming. So typically yeah, I would say start in threes. And then go from there.   Kimberly Grigg  33:22 Love that. That is such great advice for the listener. And you got to go to Kate's website to see the way that she incorporates what she just said, it's so beautiful and interesting. And it keeps, I think, things from getting, like, again that polka dot feeling, like you could have a strong wall and then a strong sofa and then some solid pillows and the whole look would sort of be not right. But the movement in the artwork and the movement in the textures and the patterns of the pillow bring it all home in such a nice nice way. So you make things look so easy, Kate. Like that looks so effortless to me. And at the same time I was reading through some of your DIY stuff and I'm transitioning to DIY because a lot of my listeners love projects. So speak to me about some of your more successful DIY projects and how you brought them about, like tell me what you did and what someone at home could do that could have max impact.   Kate Dryer  34:42 Absolutely. So I am, I will say like a light DIYer. I'm not, you know, building bookshelves and built ins and things from scratch - actually my husband does which is very convenient. In those situations I'm the supervisor, not the person doing the building. I like, you know, easy DIY projects that you can do in a weekend or less. So a couple that I have done that I have really loved, so a couple actually have to do with wall treatments. You can see in my background, that there's patterned wallpaper in our foyer.   Kimberly Grigg  35:22 And I love, by the way, just love that, by the way,   Kate Dryer  35:26 Thank you. Thank you, it was, you know, it was... we have gray door, gray walls, it was very boring beforehand and I just felt like, you know, it's kind of cornered off nicely, because you have the coat closet and the stairs there, so it was the perfect nook to inject a little bit of personality. And so the wallpaper that you see is actually peel and stick wallpaper. Don't get me wrong, I love traditional wallpaper, but I am also to a degree like a little bit scared of commitment, and we're gonna long term. And this was our first kind of foray with wallpaper in general. So wanting to do something a little bit safer. But I think I spent less than $100 on wallpaper on Amazon.com. Showed up on my doorstep in two days and, I mean, it completely changed the look of our foyer. We did the same thing in our powder room on the main floor as well. It used to be a pretty boring, beige box. And, you know, lucky for me my husband added some wainscoting in there. And then we ended up putting, again, peel and stick wallpaper in a really pretty floral pattern with yellows and blues and greens above that. I mean talk about like an instant burst of sunshine.   Kimberly Grigg  36:47 So I'm looking at the foyer that you're speaking of because we're on screen together. And no one else can see this right now. But I am here to tell you, as a witness, I can imagine that space without that wallpaper, and you're right, it would have been a nothing. And because you do have a bit of an open floor plan, even, like you don't have doors, but... so you're open, your rooms are open to one another, I could only imagine how boring that would have been, or lackluster against these beautiful green walls that are sort of a showstopper. You needed something with strength to carry, something that could stand on its own. And, and that does it. I love the pattern choice especially. But I've got to ask you, I've not worked with peel and stick wallpaper. So how hard was it?   Kate Dryer  37:47 It wasn't hard. And the great thing is, if you mess up,you can take it off and do it again.   Kimberly Grigg  37:53 So you basically just... is it pre cut and you just, like, put it on and roll it? Or what do you do?   Kate Dryer  38:00 It comes in typical rolls just like a traditional wallpaper would. And, you know, we used let's see, a level, a razor blade, a pencil just to mark different areas of the wall where we needed to attach the piece of paper. And there is, of course you can get a smoothing tool. We we did not get a smoothing tool and just use our hands instead but that ended up being fine. But it was it was really easy.   Kimberly Grigg  38:30 Great to know. I have a lot of people ask me about peel and stick and I have not personally done that. So I was curious with someone who has done it. So it sounds like what a great idea and what a breeze and you can remove it and you're good to go, right? So this is great for renters, this is great for people moving into apartments, that kind of thing, or the ones who don't want to make a commitment. It would be great for me because my home is my laboratory and my husband says you change the walls in our homes like you change your underwear, which is probably true. So another DIY project that you've done that sounds fascinating to me and very helpful is a $10 trick to display your kids art. And I guess it could be anyone's art, I don't know. But, so tell us about that.   Kate Dryer  39:27 Yes. So in our previous playroom I wanted to create a place where we could display all the creations that the kids were bringing home from school. So I kept it really simple. We had a big blank wall and I ended up getting picture wire and eye screws and creating basically almost like a clothesline, in a way, for the artwork and then I got colorful clothespins to be able to display the art. And it was great it, you know, 1) it took up a lot of space and kind of helped us fill in what used to be a big blank wall. So that was great. 2) it was, because we were using clothespins, it was so easy to swap out the different pieces of art. And 3) I think, my kids anyway, they love seeing their creations displayed in our home. I have framed some of it, but, you know, obviously, gosh, they're bringing home so much stuff, you can't frame all of it.   Kimberly Grigg  40:31 Yes, so true. And I love that because the kids could actually change it out. Instead of you having to do it, it gives them some ownership in displaying what they have. I love that tip.   Kate Dryer  40:43 Exactly, yeah, my son in particular is really good about saying, Hey, I just did this, can we swap out this print over here for the new thing I just brought home, so it is cool to see them be excited about it and want to take part in that.   Kimberly Grigg  40:58 Yeah. So you also talk about making a faux slate countertop. Now how did you do this, and because a lot of people have not so ideal countertops, especially in places like laundry rooms or play rooms or things of that nature. And sometimes they don't have the budget to go out and just buy stone or tile or whatever for that countertop. So this sounds very clever. Tell me about this.   Kate Dryer  41:25 Thank you. Yeah, so our laundry room is in our basement. And again, like a lot of the other rooms in our home when we moved in, was just sort of a big, boring beige box. And obviously, with two young kids, we spend a lot of time in the laundry room. So I wanted to do something that just made it feel a little bit more cheery without spending a ton of money. So I used chalk paint to paint our cabinets. And then, this is a bit of an experiment, but I used chalkboard paint, just flat black paint, to paint over our laminate countertops. And now it, you know it worked well because there's no water or moisture on top of the counters here. We strictly use them for folding clothes, so they don't see a lot of wear and tear. But there are so many good options for updating your countertops these days, you know, I have seen people use chalk paint on their counters, I know that there are kits you can buy at, you know, the big hardware stores to kind of mimic the look of granite or marble. And then another thing that actually a few of my blogger friends have done, that I have loved, is that there is a company called Easy Counter Renewals and it's essentially almost like contact paper that looks like marble that you put over your counters   Kimberly Grigg  42:46 Ooh how cool. That sounds really great. Especially if you have a home that, again, maybe the budget won't allow new countertops, maybe it's not your forever home, maybe you don't want to spend, but you want to make things look a little better while you're there, kind of thing, these are some wonderful options and solutions. And I have to say, though, this must take courage, you must be very courageous, because if you haven't done it, and then you decide to wallpaper your foyer, or you decide to paint your countertops with chalk paint, like how do you get the courage? How do we give people confidence to embark on something like that?   Kate Dryer  43:32 I think there's always a Plan B, right? There's always another option. And I also tell myself, as funny as this might sound, and this actually hits close to home because we recently, kind of on a whim, ripped the carpet off of our staircase that leads from the main level to our upper level without really having a lot of experience in redoing staircases. But I think, like I said, there's always another way you can approach it. Or too, you know what, you can always make a phone call to a professional if something really goes south.   Kimberly Grigg  44:11 Sure, sure. And I think good design has a lot to do with developing a practice and really honing in on that practice, just like yoga. And I think that good design, once you have a little confidence really, and one way to get confidence is to take risk, and once you have a little confidence, good design, really, especially when you get into the category of things that are extraordinary, it's because you took some risk. And because you were brave enough to do so. And the homes that really become stellar have that combination of confidence and risk taking, don't you think?   Kate Dryer  45:00 Yeah. No, I agree. And I think too, especially when it comes to DIYs, I mean, you know, taking cues too from people around you. And that doesn't necessarily mean copying exactly what someone else is doing, but sort of learning from, and picking up tips and tricks along the way, from other people who maybe have tried similar things, to whatever it is you want to do. Because, you know, I'm not the first person to ever paint a countertop, but there probably aren't a lot of people out there who have said, Okay, I have leftover chalkboard paint. How else can I use it in my home?   Kimberly Grigg  45:39 Yes, yes. And, you know, I think that, to your point, there's so many things you can do. But the design enthusiast has a way of reading blogs, listening to podcasts, studying Pinterest, studying Instagram, all these things, to me that's part of the practice. And it's part of how you develop your eye, and really can hone in on what it is you love, or start to narrow, or weed out what you might love, but you don't want to live with in your own space. So, Kate, I could talk to you all day about all these fabulous ideas, and these tips and all of this stuff. And what a wealth of information. And a lot of this people can find on your blog, and on your website, and of course your Instagram, and I want to get into how those contacts work. But I always conclude with a signature question. And kind of think of it as a billboard of what you would be saying to the world about your craft or what you stand for in this craft. And I pose the question this way: if you had a hashtag on your tombstone, what would it say?   Kate Dryer  47:09 Oh, wow. Hmm. That is a good one. You may have stumped me. Ah, let's see. Attainable beauty.   Kimberly Grigg  47:23 Oh, that's really beautiful. And to me, it's what you stand for. When I first noticed your work, and I really noticed because obviously I asked you to be on my podcast, so I was drawn to it. Because I can tell that you are living life in a beautiful way. And I could tell immediately by your work that that was important to you. And my mission is to encourage people to do that, to live their lives in a beautiful way that is meaningful to them. Not what I consider beautiful, necessarily, but what they consider beautiful. So I love the way that you said that because to me, that is what your work embodies. And I think that is to be championed. So yay, hat's off to you. Now tell everyone how they can find you, get in touch with you, all those things. Like where do they look at this beautiful body of work?   Kate Dryer  48:34 You can find my brand, Kate Decorates, on my website, of course. And it's www.KateDecorates.co. So no "m" on the end of the URL. And you can find me on Instagram as well. My handle is @Kate_Decorates.   Kimberly Grigg  48:52 Fabulous. And for you listeners, you really want to check this out. It is breathtaking work. And Kate, thank you so much for being here and for sharing all of this great information. I really appreciate it.   Kate Dryer  49:09 Thank you. It's been so fun talking with you today.   Kimberly Grigg  49:12 You too. I hope you enjoyed getting to know Kate Dryer as much as I did. What a talented young gal. She is chock full of great tips and tricks for making your home not only attainable, but drop dead gorgeous. I loved this conversation and I'd love to hear from you how you enjoyed it and how we're doing on this podcast. Please leave a review. And I'll love it if you would subscribe and share this podcast with someone you think might benefit. And as I like to say don't wait: today is a great day to decorate. Bye for now.    Thanks for listening to Decorate Like A Design Boss. If you want more info on how to decorate your space like a pro, visit KimberlyGriggDesigns.com. See you next week.

Intro: Boz did not invent timezones, JetBlue, Gina makes an embarrassing mistake, Boz has to run her own job interview. Let Me Run This By You: The world is coming to an end so do we still have to do yoga and stuff? Feminist Body Horror, Bros in Hollywood, Vincent Kartheiser, there's a FIGHT AT CO-WORKING!! Interview: We talk to Dave Deveau about being a child actor, Are You Afraid of the Dark, D.J. McHale, the way we stigmatize the bodies of actors (incl. child actors), York University, the Toronto drag scene, Peach Cobblah, Zee Zee Theatre Company, and Carousel Theatre For Young People.FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):1 (8s):And Jen Bosworth and I'm Gina . We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? How you doing? What's going on? Oh my God. I have a similar, I have a similar situation going, whatever that look was. Yeah, you go first. You go first. Okay girl. So, you know, I'm hustling, hustling, trying to get a job. And yesterday, so weird.1 (49s):I yesterday we finally miles and I finally figured out like, maybe I should just work at his company because there are good anyway, lovely people, whatever. So I just submit my resume and a cover letter for a job that I, that is supposedly open, write a great cover letter. Cause that's what I Excel at. I mean, anything else goes to shit, but I can really do a cover letter. So no, but so I sent it and then I get this call. Okay. So then I'm going to see in the car, our friend, Erica, our good friend, Erica. So I'm going to see her and we're going to take a walk and talk about this possible documentary. You know that you and I want to make whatever.1 (1m 30s):So I get five Ms. Calls from Miami and I'm like, what? I know no one in Miami, like Miami is like a place. I know no one. So I'm like, well, I'm not going to pick up. And finally I'm in, I'm in the drive through of the Starbucks and I make it a habit of not talking on the phone while I'm picking up my drink. So I'm like someone I'm like thinking someone's in trouble. You know? Like that's where I go. I'm like someone's in jail or my knee is whatever. So it's this woman. And she, you can tell, you know, like English is not her first language. That's fine. Like English is barely my first language anyways. So I'm talking, she's like, hi, we have an interview for you today at this company.1 (2m 11s):You know the company. And I'm like, oh, okay, well she's like, can you do it at 3:00 PM Eastern time? And I'm like 3:00 PM Eastern time to one to one that's that's noon. Right? Yeah. Noon. I, sorry. I had to do the thing. That's what you were saying. Oh no, no, no. It's noon. And I'm like any it's 1140 at the time or yeah, it's 1140 LA time. And I'm like, okay. So, so in 20 minutes she goes, no 3:00 PM. And I said, okay, just send me the invite. I'll cancel. So I canceled with Erica and then I'm waiting on the invite. And then I get the, I rushed back to put, throw some lipstick on and rush back to coworking to do the interview.1 (2m 57s):And I have like a, an invite from her that 5:00 PM LA time. Okay. So then I'm like, okay. So then I call this person and I'm like, Hey person. And then it is a comedy of mother. This is just like a tip of the iceberg of my day. Yesterday of motherfucking errors. She goes, no 3:00 PM. Your time is 5:00 PM. It became it. And then it was, it was so insane. And I'm like, listen, lady, am I supposed to jump on a call in five minutes? Do I click this in five?1 (3m 37s):Like at this point I'm shouting. I don't know what to do. And she's like, no, you're not letting me speak. I said, okay, go ahead. And she proceeds to say, I'm looking, I don't know what, she doesn't know that my husband works for the company. She goes, I'm looking at my boss's calendar and we have you. And then she starts talking about mountain time and I'm like, lady mountain time is an hour let later. And then she didn't understand. So I literally Gina, Gina, this is what I said I am. So I didn't know what else to do. It was like talking to a drunk, right. Or a person out of control or a crazy like, like I said, listen, ma'am ma'am I don't, I don't invent or make time zone.1 (4m 26s):I didn't know how else to. I said they are a thing that I cannot change. And she goes, what? And they said, here's the thing, like what you're saying? Is it actually making any it's not working? And I go, I don't, I didn't invent time zones. It's a real thing. And she just was quiet. And I said, okay. And I had her boss's email and I'm the kind of bad bitch now where I'm like, I'm just going to cut out. I can't do this. So I just don't have it in me. I'm old. And I'm, I'm just, I know my shit. So I'm like, thank you so much for your help. I got to go. And then I just emailed her boss and was like, listen, your assistant. And I are like having an epic comedy of errors, like time zone, garbage fire.1 (5m 12s):What do you want me to do? And she goes, oh, she wrote back and said, no, no, it's, it's one 30 your time, two 30 mountain time. And the other person on the call is in New York. It just, this is the working remotely different times, zones, English being a problem. And also like, I think that it's so interesting. I think the assistant was trying to be assertive and like hold boundaries and thought, I didn't understand that we actually had a fundamental problem about like math. Right, right, right. So then, and then this, and then I said, okay, so I got that settled. I said, I'm going to jump on this call in an hour then.1 (5m 54s):Yes. Okay. Then I get a call from the assistant again. And like, hi, she goes, I am so sorry. And I said, you know what it is. Okay. She goes, I, I said, don't even worry about it. I just, I couldn't. I literally said like, Gina, I couldn't take it anymore. Ma'am I had, I had to, I had to do something else.2 (6m 16s):Yeah. Yeah. I had to stop. It had though, we were just like Susan powder. We had to stop the insanity. It was just getting out of control. I had a similar comedy of errors with jet blue. Okay. Which is to say, go going back about, no, not even a month. Like actually it was only two and a half weeks ago. You know, we had this plan thing where Aaron was gonna take the boys to Utah and I was taking precedent for them. And I had a feeling that he never booked the tickets, but I didn't, I didn't put that fee.2 (6m 57s):It was one of those things. I didn't put it in the front of my brain. So we're sitting around and I go, what time do you leave on Saturday? He says, oh, I gotta look at my email. So he's looking, I could see the panic is going over his face. And long story short, he, he didn't book the tickets. And so I, I said I would do it, but the jet blue website was having a problem. So I would go, I would get everything all teed up. And then when I tried to book it, it would say there was a problem. Correct. So I did that four times.1 (7m 27s):They charged you four times. So2 (7m 28s):They charged my credit card. I mean like $15,000.1 (7m 36s):Yeah, sure, sure.2 (7m 38s):And so when the first time we called the guy, I said, oh, don't worry. The charges will fall off. Okay. And some of them did, the three big ones did, did fall off. But now it's, you know, it was a few weeks later and not all of them had fallen off. So I called JetBlue. And of course, whenever you call any company, the first thing they do is say, we are so grateful. You called, please don't call us. Please email us, please go to our website. Please talk door robot. So I did, I exchange, I started here. It was nice of me. And I, I agreed to be in line on a text.2 (8m 19s):So they were going to contact me when it was time to start texting with this person. So I'm getting notified. 45 minutes later, Helena is available to text me. So Helena and I are back and forth.1 (8m 32s):Hell2 (8m 34s):Yes. And she, it quickly, she quickly realizes that this is not, this is above her pay grade and I'm going to have to speak to a supervisor. So she tells me to call 1-800-JET-BLUE. And I said, well, Helena, we have a problem here because I did call when 800 jet blue. And it told me to text you, instead of calling, she says, no, you call this number. And, and, and that's a customer service I said, but your customer service. Yeah. But I can't help you. And we're just having this weird back and forth until, until finally I get a thing on the text that says, hello, this is Helena.2 (9m 16s):How can I help you? And I said, is this, I wrote back, is this a robot or a person I could get back? I am a person. Okay. Are you the Helena who couldn't help1 (9m 30s):God?2 (9m 31s):Or are you Helen or the supervisor? No answer. Are you both named Helena? It was so crazy. Anyway. So it's like1 (9m 40s):A fucking movie, right?2 (9m 42s):Solved. It got resolved. And then yesterday I see, I go up on my credit card and I see that they've been recharged. So I called Jack Lou. I wait on hold for one hour.1 (9m 60s):Sure. Oh, I ex2 (10m 2s):Calmly explain to the lady. And she, she asked me, does it, does, does the credit card show like a ticket number? I said, it just says American airlines, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I went, it's American airlines, not jet blue. I'm sorry.1 (10m 26s):Oh my2 (10m 29s):And her response was like, girl, I feel you like that is just what is happening in this world.1 (10m 37s):We are.2 (10m 37s):So like, I know every generation says the world is going to end, but in our case we really have a good case for beating out every1 (10m 48s):Yeah. Like it is. I have noticed. So like then yes, she and Gina, that is like a perfect thing of why the world is going to end. It's just because we're all, we're all doing that. And then, so I get on the interview with these two people and I'm not gonna, you know, bad mouth, a perspective employer. I will say they looked so whooped in not their fault. I'm not saying ugly. I'm not, but like they have been through it, like through it, sweatshirts, akimbo, like China,2 (11m 25s):You're wearing a sweatshirt habits, a Kimbo that's bad. Right.1 (11m 29s):It's a thing is a Kimbo. And the t-shirt under it's akimbo. And like, there's like half drawings of kids' stuff on the back wall. Like everything. I'm like, oh, wow, wow. I'm like presented. But I got like lipstick on I look and I'm like, oh, whoa, everyone needs a lot of help right now.2 (11m 49s):Yes.1 (11m 49s):Like a lot of help.2 (11m 52s):So how'd the interview go?1 (11m 53s):I a blast. I was like, okay, here's what you get when you get me, these are all my experiences. If there's a way to make it fit in your organization. Great. If not, maybe not like I that's how I said that.2 (12m 9s):I love that that's so wise.1 (12m 12s):'cause I, I have so much different shit in my background. And also I'm open to things. And also at the core of who I am is I want to work with people who are kind, but also efficient who are, have their shit together, but also are compassionate. And the kind of work is actually less important than that. And the pay rate.2 (12m 37s):Well, that's all true. But what I, what I feel so impressed by is that inherent in that was a decision not to do what you've probably always done in the past and what I certainly have exclusively done, which is, let me see what the need is. And then let me just contort myself to be, to meet their need, which never works like at like, no matter how many times it didn't work, I stood. That's still the approach that I took.1 (13m 2s):That's our manifesto link. That's the whole thing. And our manifesto it's like trying to fit into something. But here's the other thing, like literally when they started talking about the actual job, it was so vague. I, I, I don't, I didn't know what was going on. They were using terminology and like, part of it is that I don't know that world like comms, a lot of comms talk communication,2 (13m 27s):Vacations. Okay. What will you say the name of the company, but what does, what do they do?1 (13m 33s):It's like a tech company that like, but they're all over the world. It was started as a startup and just went public. They have a lot of good people, but like, I don't know their lingo. Right. So even if I knew the lingo, it was as if, I don't know. I dunno. I was just like, okay, so you, your description of actually what I'm doing on this call is so vague that I actually have to take over,2 (13m 57s):Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Communications was being thrown around a little1 (14m 3s):Calm,2 (14m 4s):This entire story. So far is just rife with terrible communication with this time zone thing and what they're communicating to you by wearing the Kimbo sweatshirts and that they can't communicate to you about what, what the job is or what they're1 (14m 19s):Doing and understand what Insane. And so, and also I think they do, they have a tremendous amount of clients and partners in the Ukraine, so that they're like, and they're doing really a lot of work to try to keep their workers safe. Obviously. I mean, it's not altruistic I'm they need worker, you know what I mean? But, but they're also really helping, but they just literally had looked like they'd been through a war. I was like, w2 (14m 45s):W1 (14m 45s):Wow. So basically I was like, okay, well, I need to take over this interview if there's going to be any kind of, any kind of anything. I mean, and so I just pitched myself. I mean, that's what I do all day, every day in Hollywood. So like, I it's a good at it. And it also doesn't fucking scare me. Like I, what is scary to me is auditioning. Sure. Callbacks. Yeah. Being on set horrified, but like talking to people in a meeting, what have I got to lose? I've done it 4,720 times. And also tangible things have not come out of it, but it doesn't. So it's not as though I've had a bad experience.1 (15m 27s):It's just like, I've had the experiences where like, I haven't seen the flowers yet of the seeds I've planted, so I'm not traumatized by it. I'm just sorta like, whatever. It's like, I'm at coworking anyway. So I can do this. I could do a general with you guys, you know, with you too. I will. Did they seem to feel reassured by quality to take over the okay. That's good. Yeah. And I, I didn't like say like, okay, I wasn't like, I didn't go whole hog, like crazy. Like, what's wrong with you? People, I guess I have to run this interview. It's more like, okay, well, I'm going to just do silence. Right. A lot of sense. And they looked at each other, like I, one just grabbed the other, I think, to come on the call, nobody knew it was happening.1 (16m 12s):It was when I said to the assistant, Hey, can we do this Friday afternoon too? No, they really want you on today. Today. It has to be. And I was like, really? Are you sure you're talking to the right person? They don't know what do they need me on today for? I don't know what's happening. So it was just an interesting, it's an interesting time, Gina. It's like a crazy fucking time. Let me run this by you. I'm really struggling with his life.1 (16m 53s):The world is ending. Do I really need to keep refreshing our download numbers on my web browser? Do I really need to like start doing yoga? I just feel like the world, but then there's this thing like you're describing it's humanity. That's the thing that always comes through in the end. I have to say, life finds a fucking way. Life runs away as garbage as people are, particularly men. I'm sorry to say, but it's true. Like men ruin everything as garbage as people are. There's also, and I guess as landscaping being a great example of a good exception, a good man, there's always people there who are ready to turn it around and do the right thing and make the better choices and, you know, Medicaid people who are out of control and their decision making.1 (17m 40s):We have to take comfort in that. Yeah. I mean, I, there is comfort. I think that it is. Yeah. And it reminds me of like this sort of Adam McKay stuff of like, I mean, I haven't seen all of don't look up, but like, you know, I think through art, there's gotta be a way to, to like help in some way. Like I was just, I I'm thinking about like, yeah. Humor, humor, helping. The other thing that I have stumbled upon is I think, okay. So I wrote, I have a friend, a guy friend from Chicago, who's a director and he moved to LA and he's hilarious.1 (18m 23s):And he's like me married to someone, not in the business. He's like a normal guy. Right. And so he's, he's like, he wants to direct horror. He's a commercial director, but he wants to do horror. And he's like, do you have a horror film? I'm like, well, no, I don't have a show. He wants to strike to horror short. But then I wrote this piece called the weight of breath about my body. Right. And, and he's like, oh, this is body horror. And I was like, what? It is a whole new genre, feminist fucking body horror where it's a genre. And I was like, oh my God, I'm obsessed. So it is like,2 (18m 57s):That's very much was in your piece that you wrote, explain it to me more than,1 (19m 1s):Okay. So I didn't know it existed. So this, it all kind of coincided. So I talked to this guy, Justin, who I adore and I said, and I said, well, I could send you the only short, short I have. That's written that I wrote for a submission and didn't get anywhere. Sure. I'll send it to you. Whatever. It's about a woman who is covered in Spanx, can't breathe, get broken up with grabs a huge pair of scissors and starts hacking away at her at her Spanx. And then you think she might kill him. And then he leaves, okay. By a fat lady that, that like has a breakup kind of anyway, he's like, oh, you're like one step away from her. And that she just needs to, it's the way we'll shoot it. And she'll hurt herself a little bit while she's, you'll see blood.1 (19m 44s):And also the Spanx metal we'll dig into her body and you'll see like a puncture. So that is body horror. And I was like, oh, I'm all in. And the, and the impetus for that short was I was on set. I don't know if I ever talked about this. I was on set. I was cast in something as a nurse. And I had S and the, and the costumer said, you're going to wear Spanx right in under my2 (20m 12s):Scrubs. Yeah.1 (20m 13s):I was like, okay. So I bought this special pair of Spanx that I did not try on before I got to set that had metal, ribbing, metal, ribbing too small, but now I'm in them and I'm on set and I'm already petrified because I'm petrified and they start cutting. It broke loose of its binding. And the metal started cutting into my stomach and you2 (20m 36s):Couldn't sit1 (20m 37s):Down and I couldn't sit down. And I couldn't, I couldn't tell anybody because I was so embarrassed. And I told this to Justin and I couldn't and I got home and I had a huge gash that was infected in my stomach, my area of most self hatred, my belly, my gut. And it was bloody and it was bruised. And I thought, oh my God. So that's body horror. Right? And like, the way you tell that story is feminist body horror. And I'm like, oh my God. And I think Gina, it's going to be, well, what I'm wondering is, is it the only way that women get to express themselves in Hollywood is by making like body horror.2 (21m 17s):First of all, having a body is a horror, correct? I mean, do you know that that's a great premise for a whole pardon? The pun, big body of work? Because I think about that with relate, with respect to being fat. But I also think about it with respect to being old aging, Aging is such and, and being fat. And aging is like such a horrible combo because young and fat is a different thing than old and fat. Right. Older fat is just like, that has this positive connotation.1 (21m 57s):Also you could, there's underlying is that you could always lose it. You're young enough to lose it. There's2 (22m 2s):Still time. Right.1 (22m 4s):And it's not like it's not body positive, fat, positive movements are like taking hold, but old and fat. No,2 (22m 11s):It's all. Yeah. Yeah. I always often wonder do the body, body positive folks know that the biggest thing they have on their side right now is that they're young and fat as opposed to anyway. So to answer your question. Yeah. I'm sure that is the only way. And I mean, our only way in as women to anything that has been traditionally closed off to us is violent. Right? I mean, that's the only way we ever get into anything. And we always have a lot of casualties in the fronts of these feminist wars, you know, the sexual revolution. I mean, not that it didn't happen always, but you know, more spotlight on the free love movement meant that women were the casualties of a lot of sexual abuse and rape pregnancy traumas, all this kind of stuff.2 (23m 1s):Yeah. So, but you know, like you did in your beautiful blog, posts people, if you haven't read it, please go to our website and read Jen's posts. Luckily for us, we're really, we're really familiar with this horror. We're really familiar with this pain. And if we can turn it into art, then, then I hesitant, I hesitate to say will have been worth it, but at least we can do something.1 (23m 30s):Well, I'm going to turn it. Yeah. I want to turn it into money too. That's where it makes people pay. I mean, that's the pocketbooks way, which is why, like I'm getting a job outside of this industry first to be like, okay, I'm studying that, did it. And how they did it. One their bros. And they'd probably, it's all nepotism. But also if that's not the case, they started an advertising, nothing to do with Hollywood, but Hollywood, but not Hollywood per se. And they, they made money that way and then sunk it into their own projects. And then they were able to, and they made contacts in the advertising industry.1 (24m 12s):That's how so many bros have done it in Hollywood. So many bros2 (24m 15s):That, that the Genesis of that is so beautifully displayed in mad men. You see the character, I forget the name of the character that Vincent CHRO Heizer with Where he, you know, he, he, I just remember he gets involved in hire a campaign for the sport of Jai Alai and he starts, there's something about it's going to be on television and you just see him getting so sucked into the Glen. I, you know, it's, it's an, it's an undeniable glamorous draw for people who are not in the industry. Like, Ooh, everybody thinks it's glamorous to be on TV. And yes.2 (24m 56s):And people in advertising are like the perfect blend of, you know, cutthroat and creative. Maybe a little bit. And yeah. Anyway.1 (25m 6s):Yeah. I mean, I, I like doing yeah. That, that my blog post was completely completely w started by that. Like, because I'm one nosy too quick, three know my way around. And my memory's great. And know my way around research. I literally saw names did this, did this, did that, did this?4 (25m 41s):I don't know. I think there's a fight. What? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's the, it's the, it's the1 (25m 51s):Guys, it2 (25m 51s):Seem like it's inside the building.1 (25m 53s):Oh, it's two coworkers. It's two people at co-working and there's a guy there's a movie maker on the left and a, a professor on the right. And they got into it2 (26m 4s):About Ukraine. Probably. They're probably talking about that.1 (26m 7s):And they might be, I dunno, anyway, that's what's forgive me anyway. No,2 (26m 10s):No,1 (26m 12s):Whoa. So, okay. So, but it was, I just couldn't research and put it together and I'm like, okay, who are these people? What are they doing? Oh, they did this. Oh, and look, look, look, look, look, look, of course people are like, well, someone was like, well, you know, you know, at one it's bad for business to talk shit about the industry. And I'm like, oh, okay. But there is no business. I have no business. What business do I have? I don't2 (26m 35s):Have any said that. Like, you shouldn't write1 (26m 37s):That. Like, like, like you want to be careful. And I was like, okay,2 (26m 42s):Well, it's never as if that's ever1 (26m 43s):Worked. Also. I said, lady, it was a woman too. And I said, listen, I have no work. There is no work. What am I, what do you mean? I won't get hired. I'm not getting hired. Not I, this is not no, like that doesn't even make any sense. It holds no water. Cause it's just, it's not true. And you know, I won't be hired if I'm dead because I stifled myself and then have a heart attack. You know what I mean? So anyway, that people say all kinds of stuff, but I also know that it is a bigger problem. I guess that's what I'm saying. It's not about these 2, 3, 2 dudes in an assistant at a table. And it is about the dues and the assistant at a table.1 (27m 25s):It's a much larger problem. So I I'm well aware that, that these three dudes are not the whole problem because people are like, you know, maybe they're nice. I'm like, oh my God, you're missing the fucking point.2 (27m 41s):You're missing the point. I'm1 (27m 43s):Nice too. I don't have a fucking job with an a, or a script with my name on it.2 (27m 47s):And we have all internalized patriarchy to such a degree that like, we miss it when it's gone. I, that group that I left. Oh yeah, it has gone. You know, I'm still, I'm still a member of the group, even though I'm not, you know, in any type of a leadership position because everything okay.1 (28m 2s):Yeah. Everything is okay.2 (28m 4s):Okay. The first thing that happened when the majority of us left is a bunch of men or like a few men came in to, it was an all female board and now it's, there's there's men on it, which is fine. And the, one of the first things they did was they re-instituted, do you know what Robert's rules1 (28m 26s):Is? No, what's that,2 (28m 28s):It's like a way of conducting a meeting where you have to have motions and seconds and all of, you know, it's1 (28m 34s):Is it like a business meeting in a 12 step group? Have you ever done?2 (28m 39s):And I, I dunno. Okay. Well sure. And I, and on the face of it, I understand it's, it's meant to be, it's meant to ensure that everybody gets to speak their mind and you know, and it, and it's meant to be, you know, it's meant to promote cohesion, but it just something about it. It's like, Robert's for like, that's what came in. It's just Robert's rules. It's just1 (29m 8s):Gross.2 (29m 9s):And it's, and, and, you know, and the organization is just gone. It's as it's as if our whole tenure, there was a fever dream and they all went like that was weird. And they just moved right back to where it all was1 (29m 23s):Before. Right. That's really sad. That's super sad.2 (29m 26s):It's sad. And I feel like in the same way that a group of humans will always look for a leader, a group of humans will always look for the, a man to be in charge. Right? It's it's, it's so deeply embedded in our DNA5 (29m 55s):Today on the podcast, we are talking to Canadian playwright, Dave devote a K a peach cobbler has drag queen alter ego. If you watched a television show in the, I think it was in the early nineties called, are you afraid of the dark? You probably saw Dave because he, in addition to being a playwright and a drag performer and an actor, he wasn't child star. So David's warm and funny and look just really a breath of fresh air. So please enjoy our conversation with Dave Devoe.6 (30m 40s):So2 (30m 44s):Anyway, Dave dissolves, congrats. Wait, actually, I have to phrase this differently for the first time I'm asking Dave devote. Did you survive theater school? Did you go to theater7 (30m 54s):School? Parts of me did.2 (30m 57s):But you went to theater7 (30m 58s):School? I did. Okay. Okay.2 (30m 60s):Good.7 (31m 2s):I'm like, what are you talking about?2 (31m 4s):Yeah, we have, we've had just one person who she actually, more than one person. People have different conceptions of what theater school is. And some people do a theater major and they don't know the difference between that and the conservatory. I couldn't care less, but I just didn't know for certain with you. So congratulations. You did survive theater school, but what, see what you're going to say more about you've survived parts of it?7 (31m 29s):Well, no, like I think like parts of me survived, right? Like I think, I think we, we all come out of theater school, like a slightly different assembly of parts than we come in. And I think for some people that's great. And I think for some people that's super detrimental. So we'll see where we all fall on that stuff.2 (31m 47s):Part of you was a casualty,7 (31m 52s):You know what, oddly enough, the, the actor part of me with, I think, was a casualty, like, because I sort of came to theater school from a very let's start at the beginning. I was a child actor in film and TV from a young young age. And so then sort of went to theater by starting in film and TV because theater felt, you know, like a really safe, lovely community-driven space. But, but I think what theater school gave me is like, I came into theater school thinking I'm going to be an actor. And I left knowing I would be a playwright for my life.7 (32m 35s):Yeah. So that was a good, first1 (32m 37s):Of all, back back it up Child, we've had one other child star Jonas Avery was on, but, but he went theater and then film and TV and back to theater school. So tell us you really, how, what happened there? That,7 (32m 54s):Yeah, I mean, it, it's, it's a bit bizarre. I was, you know, a sort of theatrical, precocious child and there, you know, and I was really into like, we, we go see a lot of theater growing up, but not a lot. I mean, we, but my parents don't come from the arts, but they were like, let's expose our kids to interesting things. And then I was, I must've been in like kindergarten grade one, something like that. And there was a teacher's assistant in our class who spoke to my mother saying my mom's an agent and your kid is really like vivacious. And do you think that's something he'd be interested in? My mom was like, I don't, I have no idea what you're talking about.7 (33m 38s):So anyway, we met with her and, and my mom's like, is this like, is this something you're interested in? I was1 (33m 44s):Like, sure, let's do it. Let's7 (33m 45s):See what happens. And, and so I just started doing like a lot of commercials, you know, when, like when I was a little, little one and then my mom was great as far as just really constantly checking in of like, is this fun? Like, is this a thing you'd like, because I mean, I don't think it was fun for like schlepping a kid around to endless auditions. That's not fun.1 (34m 7s):She knows2 (34m 9s):My kid. It's not fun. Wait, I have to time out one second, Dave, your, either your microphone here, it is sometimes7 (34m 17s):Just hold it. Cause1 (34m 18s):It2 (34m 18s):Hits your shirt and it makes up, sorry, please continue.7 (34m 22s):Yeah. So, so you know, okay.1 (34m 26s):So wait, wait, wait, I can, I can start us up with what you just said was super interesting when you met this person, were you thinking like, oh, this is an agent like, or were you just like, what was going on in your brain?7 (34m 39s):What I was thinking? I think it was more, you know, they're like, I think that the, the idea of like being on camera is really novel to kids because I think it's very different now. Like we live in a social media age, but like in the late eighties, early nineties, whenever that, yeah, probably like late eighties at this point, that's like, that's a cool thing. You know, we don't even have a big camcorder at home. Like this. I can be what in front of a camera, let's try that. So it was great. And, and then when we, when we moved, we had to move a lot for my dad's work. And so, but we kept moving to like bigger and bigger film, TV hubs, right?7 (35m 20s):Like, so when we settled in Montreal, I, the agent I'd had in Calgary had sort of forwarded us to an agent in, in Montreal. And, and then I started actually going out for like, like real stuff, like films, and then I booked a series and then it was, oh, we're doing this. Okay. And so1 (35m 42s):How old were you when you booked a series? Like that's, everyone's dream by the way that in LA, right. So7 (35m 47s):Yeah, I will, the first1 (35m 51s):Season, first series I7 (35m 53s):Would have. Oh God, that's a great question. I was probably like nine or 10. I might've been like, I might've been 12 by then.1 (36m 4s):And you were series regular, like7 (36m 6s):Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's1 (36m 7s):So, but I mean, it's,7 (36m 11s):It sounds like it's way more work than it is because, so do, do you remember the Nickelodeon show? Are you afraid of the dark?1 (36m 18s):So that7 (36m 19s):Was, that was the show. So I was part of the campfire, which so yes, I'm a series regular and I appear in every episode, but it's like, there's a scene at the beginning. There's a scene at the end. We shoot the whole like season in like three weeks.1 (36m 33s):Right.7 (36m 34s):So it's not1 (36m 37s):Awesome. Yeah, because that's a show where like, yeah, you, you, the kids, and then you go into the story in the middle. Right. The actual story. That is fantastic. What was that like for you?7 (36m 49s):Th that series was, was incredible because I mean, a, I was a huge fan of that show. So I actually got cast at first. I got cast in one of the episodes, like in the story, not the campfire and had a real blast. And, and then I thought, wow, are you for the dark? This is amazing. We shot it. And then the series was done. It got canceled. And I thought, oh, okay, well, I'm glad I just snuck in there. So then two, three years later, they announced that they were going to bring the show back. And I called my agent immediately saying, if they're casting campfire, you have to get me in there.7 (37m 29s):Like, please, please, please, please, please I'll do anything. And she said, yeah, yeah, I'm trying. And they wouldn't see me. And I was, I was livid. And then I called us, like, sneak me in for callbacks. Like we know this casting director, she cast me before, like, please just get me in there to like, you know, all of my child, actor, friends, like went and had their callbacks. I had nothing. I was so angry. And I was like, can you sneak me in with like the girls? Cause like first they did the boys. Like, can anything please1 (37m 55s):Hustler, man, you're a hustler.7 (37m 58s):I love that show like so much. I don't know. And, and I mean, that is not, I'd never hustled for any other thing ever, but I was just, so it just felt like it's a sign. I, you know, it's, it's coming back and I just had this thing and I had such a great rapport with like the producers and the director and blah, blah, blah. So months go by and I'm, I, you know, I'm sad and I move on and then I get a call from my agent saying, they, you know, you're, you're coming in for a meeting. It's like a meet a meeting. Like, what does that mean? What's a meeting. We've never had a meeting.1 (38m 31s):Right. What is a meeting?7 (38m 32s):But it's at the, it's at like the casting directors office. I'm like, okay. So we go in and there's, you know, DJ like DJ and Ned that the creators, the producers. And they're like, Hey Dave, Hey guys. And they said, you know, You, you you've been really trying to like get in the room, haven't you? Like, I was like, oh God, that's this mortifying. Like I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're like, and they said, you know, well, we, you know, we had to, we had to audition a bunch of people, but, but we wrote a role in the series for you.7 (39m 12s):And they were like, so what do you say? Like, like, is this, am I being punked? Like what's happening right now? So,1 (39m 21s):Oh my God. I just feel so. And I just want to say, I don't think there's any coincidence that it was in Canada where people are fucking nice.7 (39m 30s):Right? Yeah.1 (39m 32s):Anyway,7 (39m 34s):This is a1 (39m 34s):Dream7 (39m 35s):And what happened? And, and then, you know, suddenly it was, I was off to like, we started about a month later and it, it was shot in Montreal. Like the whole series was always shot in Montreal. And, and so we did the first season and I thought, well, that's exciting. And then suddenly they were like, Hey, we're flying all of you to New York. You're going to host Snick. I was like, I don't know what that is. We don't get Nickelodeon in Canada. Like, so they suddenly, we were in Manhattan, like shooting all this promo stuff and there were billboards and we were like, what is going on? And that was, so that was like, really, I mean, you know, I did a bunch of like real garbage, like movies and things, but that was like my one little sort of touchdown in like, oh, is this, what is this?7 (40m 17s):What fame is like1 (40m 18s):Stars to be a star. And I7 (40m 20s):Felt a bit uneasy about it truthfully. Like I was like, I don't know that that's I could see, I could see myself on that track and I could see what that probably would be for me. And I think I worried a bit about what that would, what that would1 (40m 38s):A lot about that. We talk a lot about that, about like, if I had gotten famous right out of theater school, I'd be dead. I mean, I would probably have done so many drugs and then been so interacts. Like I would have killed, I would have died at7 (40m 50s):Some point.2 (40m 52s):So what does that mean? I'm projecting ahead. Does that mean your eventual move into theater was a way of stepping back from the insanity of television?7 (41m 5s):I mean, I wonder like, it's interesting. Cause I shouldn't say that I sort of discovered theater. Like they were happening in tandem. I was doing community theater, you know, I do like the community musical in the small town where I lived and then I'd say, Hey guys, I've got to go away for three weeks to shoot. Are you afraid of dark? I'll be back and I'll resume my role. So,1 (41m 26s):So7 (41m 27s):I think, I dunno, I think so. So, okay. So, so the show happened and then I was, I was going to a fine arts high school in their creative writing program because originally I wanted to audition for the drama program, but I had, I was already on, are you afraid of the dark at that point? And so they were like, okay, but if you have to go shoot it, like you can't just not show up for drama classes for weeks at a time. Like that's not, that's not a thing. And so I was like, oh, that's a solid point. So, but I could do that in, in creative writing because it's like, I was a studious kid. I was like, I will get everything in on time. I will fax in every assignment from Stax facts. Yeah. Right.7 (42m 8s):So, so towards the end of high school, I knew by then through this creative writing program was really when I, because we were writing in every genre, but I kept going back to playwriting because it was like dialogue, dialogue. I get this, like I come from film and TV. Like I get this, this is how I see the world and hear the world. So I started applying for theater schools and then, and then got cast, I got offered another series.1 (42m 38s):Are you fucking the greatest fucking story I've ever heard?7 (42m 45s):And I, and I, then this is not self-deprecating. I think I'm a, I think I'm a good play. Right. But like, I've never been a good actor ever, like, but it was a time and place where there were roles for like a vivacious fat kid. I was much bigger as a kid. And I was it like, I was that kid,1 (43m 2s):Right?7 (43m 4s):Yeah. So it's like, there were a lot1 (43m 5s):Of, you had a niche and7 (43m 7s):You really1 (43m 7s):Did.7 (43m 8s):Yeah. So it was like, I knew that, you know, oh, you're shooting, there's, there's a film coming to town about a soccer team. Right. And they're going to cast a bunch of kids, that's you? There's a fat kid role. Sure enough, there I have.1 (43m 21s):Well, let's talk about that because that's really interesting to me and really, I mean, I also, I was an overweight kid and I'm plus size lady now. And I know that. So tell me about that. Was there an I was there, did you have feelings about being that kid?7 (43m 37s):It's interesting. Cause I don't, I don't know that I had them in the moment, but my God have I had them since I, years, years later, I was in a, like an emerging filmmaker program for the queer film festival in Toronto. And I made this short film called belly, which was all about like, not, you know, not just being like, like coming of age as like a chubby gay kid and like their staff attached to that. But specifically coming of age as a chubby gay kid on camera and being chronicled as such and like, and having like, and then, you know, we edited together footage of all of these things.7 (44m 17s):Like, like things that I was like, I can't even believe they asked like an eight year old kids to say that on camera. Right?1 (44m 23s):Like, like stuff about your weight and stuff7 (44m 26s):Pan to this character. Anyways, we're filming this guy ends up in hospital. And so I'm the kid in the bed next to him. And he starts like chatting like, oh, Hey, what's your name? Oh, I'm Stan. Oh, what are you doing in the hospital? Oh, I'm fat. Oh, but like, what else is wrong with you? No, nothing. I'm just fat, but my parents think there's something else wrong with me. Cause I'm so fat. And I was like,2 (44m 47s):Wow,7 (44m 50s):Like how, like how potentially lethally damaging that could be. Right.1 (44m 55s):Did you just compartmentalize it or?7 (44m 58s):Well, cause I think I was like, I'm on set with like, I mean, you know, a bunch of friends who I knew, like we'd done a bunch of films together. In fact, Ryan Gosling was in that movie with us back when he was, you know, a young kid, Burt Reynolds was in it. Like, it was just like, we're doing this fun thing, but also, huh. So2 (45m 18s):Yeah, there's, there's just no attention paid even w cause my son is also gets called in for those roles. He only gets called in for the bully. That that's the only role he ever gets called in for it. And when he gets cast, I just feel like it starts with costume fittings. It, the otherness, the separateness starts there and it's like, they're, they're calling me back. Is this really his like, I can't are these really his measurements? Yes. These are really his measurements. Okay. And then, and then inevitably it's something like we had to, we had to, it was hard to find pants, that kind of thing and saying that to him and or in front of saying it to me, but in front of him,7 (46m 2s):But isn't this like, isn't this your job? Like, isn't your job finding clothing for bodies. Yeah,1 (46m 8s):It is. And, and, and, and I, I, yeah. And as an actor, I have the same thing. So I find that if I had been so traumatized by, by the, not just the words on sets and ER, intelligent film, but also as an actor by the crew and by the especially wardrobe and makeup and hair and, and anyway, so you compartmentalize that part of it and you also, it sounds like no one was like, mean to you to your face. Like they weren't like, oh, we can't find clothes for you. Or,7 (46m 41s):I mean, I, I think they were a bit, but I, but I think I was really sheltered by like really good parents. Like, and I mean, you know, cause, cause I was in, there were the kids on set who had like, you know, that stage parent who like really is there to make sure their kid is successful and make sure that kids like that. And that was not the energy I had. Like I had, you know, like my mom is, is a refugee. Like she came to Canada as a refugee. Like she grew up in a very particular context and this is a very different context where she's like, I'm just here to make sure no one is fucking with my kid. Like, and not in like an aggressive way, but just in like, okay, let's, let's walk away from this conversation.7 (47m 23s):We don't want to do that. So I felt I was very taken care of in that sense.2 (47m 28s):So you, what, describe the bridge between doing all of that and then when it's time for college and you're looking into acting program or at the beginning, that's what you were going to do as an acting program.7 (47m 40s):Yeah. Yeah. So I applied for a bunch of programs, like determined that I was going to be that, you know, conservatory actor. And like, I, I look back at it now and it's so funny. It's like my, like I'm trying to sort of rationalize what my 17 year old brain, like how I chose, who I applied to. It's so confused. Like I I've applied for Juilliard like two or three times in my life, but like no other, like, but it's like Juilliard and then like the local college in my town.2 (48m 13s):Interesting.7 (48m 13s):Interesting. Like what's the Juilliard connection I have anyway. I probably someone told me once probably that Juilliard was the place and that really set in somehow. So I applied for a bunch of theater schools and there was one program in particular that I was curious about because they have a conservatory program and they have a playwriting stream and they also had what they, at that time called creative ensemble. So like devised theater. And I thought like that there's something in that maybe that's a thing. So, so I got accepted to that school and that, that school is a funny way.7 (48m 54s):It's called York university. It's just outside of Toronto and, and I mean, I'm sure there are many theater schools like this, but at that school, like everyone starts in first year in sort of a general, like all the theater students, you don't, you don't start your conservatory till second year. So you have your first year to do some shit and then you re audition for the streams. So I went there pretty determined that I really wanted to see the conservatory stream. And then there's something about the, like, you know, my acting and movement and voice classes in first year that I was like, I, I think the writing was like kind of on the wall there of like, I'm not great at this.1 (49m 39s):Okay. So say more. Yeah, yeah.7 (49m 41s):Yeah. Like I, because I mean, I think, you know, filming TV was such a fun thing for me that I was like, this needs to be fun. And like, I think it was like, I have to learn how to work in a very different way than I think my brain, or even like how weird and disconnected from my body. I am these years. Like more than I'm prepared to do.1 (50m 10s):Where you at with your body in that, in terms of when you started that school, like had you sent out or like, were you still in7 (50m 18s):Like, like many of us, like, you know, you thin out and then you don't and then you thin out again. Sure. Cause I know that between, between my first season of our, for the arc and my second season, I lost a ton of weight. And so when I showed up for fittings the second year, there was a bit of panic in the room of like, we don't know, like, Ooh, like you're, you're like the fat country bumpkin kid, like, Ooh. Hmm. So they, they padded. Yeah. They just like, they, they put they'd put me in like really bulky layers with like things on top. Like not like actual, like a fat suit, like right. Definitely shit like went out of their way to make me heftier because I think they were like, you know, kids at home, they don't want to be like, what's with Andy looks different.7 (51m 6s):What's going on.2 (51m 7s):Right, right. Oh my God.1 (51m 10s):Oh my God forbid, people change. God forbid.7 (51m 14s):So I think, you know, I like I came out when I was probably about 15. So I think after coming out was probably when I became hyper aware of my body because you know, body image in queer men, especially in that era, I think like we're in a very different time now when I think about like body positivity and in all kinds of communities, but less so then, so I think I probably started theater school, like probably slimmer than I'd ever been, I would think, but still feeling like that was not the case.1 (51m 58s):Interesting. So you're in these movement classes, these voice and speech classes and you're like, I don't think this is really right for me. So then what do you do?7 (52m 8s):So I, I like, I, I signed up to audition for the, for the conservatory, but I also sign up to audition for ensemble. And when I look at like the actual requirements of the audition, as I'm building my materials, I'm like, I don't want to do a fucking Shakespearian monologue, like ever. I do not to this day. Like, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm an artistic director of a company here. We have a Shakespeare component. Like1 (52m 38s):I was going to be a hard pass on the old Shakespeare for me.7 (52m 41s):Yeah. I dunno. Like it's just, I think I'm, I'm so I, so contemporary in my, in my taste of everything, you know, I, I read voraciously, but I want, I like historical fiction book. That's a bit of a slog for me. So, so I think it was like, I want, I think I started to take ownership of like, I know my creativity and I know where my strengths lie and my strengths lie in creating things. And I just, I think having come from like my creative writing intensive, like high school program, I was like, I don't know if I can spend every minute of the day interpreting rather than, than creating, or at least like, I'm now sort of imbuing that with like some kind of like, I have no idea if this is actually true, that, that I had this aha moment.7 (53m 44s):Or if I just panicked, I was like, I don't want to learn Shakespeare. I'm going to do this thing2 (53m 49s):Some for some reason. And maybe it's because I know that you went on to become a drag performer, something for some reason, I have this idea that maybe what was off putting to you is this idea that you were always going to be in that context, just embodying the words that, you know, I was actually just saying this to somebody the other day, actors have a unique kind of prison as artists in the sense that if they don't go on to direct and write, which almost everybody is doing these days, but if they don't, they're, they're, they're limited to only ever expressing the words of another person.2 (54m 32s):And it actually makes them in many cases we've learned even from doing these interviews, not that great at talking about themselves and their way of thinking. Cause it's all just been inside and what's been outside is the words of other people. I wonder if that somehow seemed true for you even then.7 (54m 49s):That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, that really resonates. So I went into this, I audition for this device theater program and even just like, you know, sometimes like sometimes you just know like when, when I, when it was like, okay, this is what I have to prepare. Okay, this, this has a lot to prepare, but like, let's do it. Let's, let's go to the studio and let's just spend hours and hours and hours getting this down. And I thought like, okay, that's interesting. Like I'm really leaning into this rather than pulling away. So like, okay. So I got into that program. And1 (55m 28s):So this was a devised7 (55m 30s):Theater, so it's like third, I think 25 of us. And, and it was literally like, you know, on Monday they're like, okay, we're this week we're in groups of four, your central theme is isolation and, and you need, you know, like there'll be certain other components and you present Friday for an audience go Was, it was great. It was really, and, and I mean, and they'd give us some really specific projects and, but it was great. It was just like generative, constantly generative. And, you know, I do think, you know, if someday I end up in a TV writer's room, like it, it, it will be because of that, of just knowing that I have to make something and I have to make something, I just have to make it work in a tiny, tiny of time.7 (56m 24s):There's no, there's not room for like this deep contemplation up, but what, I don't know, it's just do it.1 (56m 31s):Oh, you're going to, that is, that is going to, if you ever did want to do TV and a TV, like I know I'm not in a writer's room, but like, from what I know, yeah. That's like extremely helpful because overthinking and second guessing in those situations is like, nobody has time, time is money and just make a choice and fucking move on versus having an hiring. So good for you. So you, so that taught you that like you just go with it.7 (57m 3s):Yeah. And I, and I do think that how I work as a playwright is still very much that, of, of like I, and sometimes to my detriment where it's like, just, I'm just going to dive in and just write and write and write and write rather than like, I'm going to sit, I'm going to actually like outline this thing and really figure out beat by beat where I'm headed, which I'm starting to do a bit more now in my practice. So, so yeah, I got into that program and then still took like voice and movement classes with, with some of the conservatory kids on top of that. And then also started in playwriting and dramaturgy classes because I just thought it would all support what I was doing.2 (57m 47s):Oh. And I'm sure it really did. I am obsessed with drag performance and I would love to know when that started for you and what the whole journey has been like.7 (57m 58s):Yeah. So I always, I mean, when I, when I was in theater school, I was always going out to drag shows, you know, like the, the, the gay bar was, was really like, like sacred space that, and I mean, I remember, I remember not really under Steven understanding. I remember seeing drag for the first time and thinking like, why does this happen? Like, what is this? Like, you know, like why, and also like, why is it so compelling? Because on paper, it shouldn't be right. Like, okay, so someone's going to dress up and they're going to, they're not going to sing, but they're going to lit, like, they're going to pretend they're singing to a song, but it's, but I ended up being so like when it's done well, it can be really moving.7 (58m 49s):And I remember like really, I think started starting to sort of study it of like, what is that, like, why is this, why does this resonate? And then got really into sort of researching the history of drag. And I had never, and I always said like, I have no intention of ever doing drag. I just love witnessing it. I find it actually quite like that shared energy, I find quite compelling and it sort of speaks to human level.1 (59m 17s):It sounds, you know, Jean and I are both former therapists and it, to me, it sounds therapeutic. I mean, like that's when you talk about it, like it sounds and, and, and it sounds, yeah, you said it sacred. So whenever there's sacred space, there's usually some kind of healing that goes on. Yeah.7 (59m 37s):Yeah. So then my, my husband, well then the guy was sort of dating. He was, I was living in Toronto. He was here in Vancouver and he came up to visit me and I introduced him to, you know, the world of drag and all these shows, which again, he'd never really participated in, but, but it became this, you know, we were there every week to see the same show with the same Queens and being really into it. And, and then we, and then I found out I got into grad school in Vancouver, so we both moved back to Vancouver. And when I arrived here, I thought like, wow, drag here is really, it's really different from, from Toronto drag. Like it's different in the structure of shows.7 (1h 0m 19s):It's everything about it. Like in Toronto, you know, a drag queen comes out and in one costume will, you know, do like eight numbers and talk to the audience in between. And then she rotates up in the next one comes in and then you sort of rinse and repeat. So it's just like, it's endless and like lots of1 (1h 0m 34s):Show kind of a thing.7 (1h 0m 35s):Yeah. But it's Vancouver, it's like a drag queen comes out. She does one number and address. She disappears and then the next one comes out. It's just like one number, no talking. I thought like, oh, this is odd. It's hard. It's hard for me to sort of penetrate it because there, you're not developing that rapport with an audience. So, so we were sort of watching a show one night, having just seen all these magical shows in Toronto and saw the show that was just not particularly moving. And I remember leaning into my husband saying, you could do way better than this and not wanting to be those naysayers who just shit all over everyone else's efforts without actually doing anything. We said, yeah, actually like, let's do that.7 (1h 1m 19s):And so my husband had started a theater company here in Vancouver and I come from a bit of a fundraising background and, you know, they had no grant, they had no money to, to, to do the first show. So I said, you know, let me run some events. I used to run some events in Toronto and let's have you as the drag queen star. And then for years and years, I mean, our, our events took off and, and you know, at first we're doing them quarterly and then monthly and then weekly. And, and we really were living like the like casual fall kind of life. Like I was the producer who carried the bags and, and he was the star. And then as he's a, he's a theater director.7 (1h 1m 59s):So as he then had to go direct a show, I was like the, the understudy. And I started hosting his show just on sort of on a whim. I was like, I'll do this once because I really want to make some tip money because I've been producing the show for free for years. And it'd be great to just be able to pay my liquors Hab. And I did it, and it was really magical. And, and it was like, and also kind of emotional because I was like, oh, Hey child, actor, Dave, who did this thing for years and years, and then stopped how you doing there you are.7 (1h 2m 39s):Hmm. Interesting. And so it's stock and I've been doing it regularly for a decade and had a weekly show. And yeah,2 (1h 2m 51s):I was expecting you to say so that you then started in Vancouver, the kind of drag that you really related to more in Toronto. Is that, is that how it worked out?7 (1h 3m 2s):Yeah, we just sort of, yeah. Yeah. I think, and I mean, we, you know, we still do a lot of shows. Like we do guest spots on other people's shows that still have that sort of Vancouver structure. But yeah, I started, I started a show here called shame spiral, which was literally, I show up in and outfit. I do have a guest in the show and, you know, she prepares some numbers, but I don't know what I'm performing on any given night. So I have, what's called the blender of shame, which is an actual blender with the blades removed full of a hundred different songs on pieces of paper. And so when it's time for me to do, like, I talked to the audience relentlessly, when it's time to do a number on audience member comes up, picks a number, it brings it directly to the DJ.7 (1h 3m 44s):And then the whole gimmick is like, will she even, will she know this? Will she even recognize it from the opening bars? Let's see what happens. And so it's like this gag that everyone's in on2 (1h 3m 56s):And,7 (1h 3m 58s):And yeah, and, and it became, it was just so different than anything. Cause everyone was so used to like, Nope, you have to be in the exact outfit. That's in the music video to do that song. And I'm like, well, no, this week I'm going to be in this sort of like flowy number. And maybe I'm getting Shirley Bassey or maybe I'm getting Nicki Minaj or maybe I'm getting Dolly Parkin. And any of those songs are going to happen in what I'm wearing.2 (1h 4m 21s):What's it like to do Nicki Minaj number in a flowing Therese?7 (1h 4m 26s):Well, it's great. Actually, it's wild. I actually broke into the drags in here by doing Nicki Minaj. Right? Like just did wrapper drag, which is very weird to think about, but it's, you know, it's my, my husband talks, we both get interviewed about drag a lot, I think because we're like the theater professionals who are also drag Queens in the city. So we sort of straddle two worlds that are pretty associated, but a bit loosely. And he always talks about how drag is part, part, foot soldier and part court jester of like, like the, you know, the court gesture is the only person who can like make fun of the king without losing his head.7 (1h 5m 9s):And that's why Queens, like people listen to drag Queens, you know, you have Mike time and people will listen. So you really gotta make sure, you know what you have to say. And we take that very seriously. Like as a result, you know, we get hired to do political interviews with candidates running for premier here. Like,1 (1h 5m 28s):Oh,7 (1h 5m 29s):Cause it's just like, because you can, you can sort of penetrate a bit further than if Dave was interviewing someone because there's a certain grand jury and a certain shirt that's so performed, but it, it gives you, it gives you entrance. So1 (1h 5m 46s):Well, gee, do you have any idea? Cause of what goes on in my head when I hear this as like, oh, they should have a television show, like a talk show where they in drag, you know, they, that those characters interview do hard hitting interviews, but as queen, as drag, that'd be great. That'd be fantastic because also what I love, what I love about what you're saying is that the mixture of yeah. Being able to it's so worth humans are so funny. It's like if someone puts on a beautiful costume or a funny costume or a crazy costume or whatever kind of costume, and then asks you a question, there is like even a hard hitting question.1 (1h 6m 27s):There's a, what is it? It softens the blow of reality, I think. And it sort of can be make-believe, but it's not really make-believe, which is what I think is great about that is also reminds me of like Sasha Baron Cohen stuff, which is where if you put on a character, you can sort of get away with a lot of shit. And also you can pinpoint in without people taking you too seriously. And so when someone's not taking you so seriously, they're apt to actually tell you the truth more Like, what does it matter? I'm just talking, I'm just talking to these Queens. Like there's, it's so fun. It's so fun.1 (1h 7m 8s):And then all of a sudden they're dropping these serious. Now they're getting into serious stuff. And you're like, oh, like when I watched stuff like Sasha Baron Cohen, I'm Baron Cohen. I'm like, oh, oh my God, this is so intense and deep. And yet I don't really feel like I'm going to go off the deep end because it's under this guise of quote font. Right. It's like, whoa, it's real deep. It's like a real deep, it's like a real multi-layered. So I, I love this idea that you interviewed. Do you work as a team?7 (1h 7m 37s):Yeah, quite, quite a bit. Not always, but, but quite a bit. We do everything to, I mean, we, we run a company together. We raise a kid together. We do drag together. He directs the plays. Most of the plays that I write.2 (1h 7m 50s):And so you haven't been performing, but I just saw on your Instagram that it's you're reopened and you're, you've got to show up or coming up soon.7 (1h 8m 1s):Yeah. So I, so, so my husband runs a company called ZZ theater and I, which I have worked with and for, for 14 years. And so ZZ is doing its first show in its first live show. In two years, we did a full season during pandemic, which, you know, great. I'm glad we did it. And we were able to employ a lot of artists, but it's not, it's not what we're designed to do. Right. We're we're theater artists, so we're not filmmakers. So it's really exciting there that we're, it we're in rehearsal right now. But then about five months ago I started a new job. So I'm the artistic, the courts of second managing director of the children's theater here in Vancouver.7 (1h 8m 42s):And so we just opened our first show in two years yesterday and1 (1h 8m 48s):Oh, congratulations. What how'd it go? What are you doing?7 (1h 8m 51s):It went really well. I mean, yeah, it's, it's a show called Groth. It's a sort of a, an adaptation of the three Billy goats gruff. That's, that's really actually like quite beautiful and timely because it really deals with, with immigration and displacement and like who, who does or does not deserve to be in a place that has resource it's really, but, you know, but in like in a, in a whimsical digestible musical piece for kids, so that's really exciting.1 (1h 9m 29s):And then my other question is can you mix kids theater and drag?7 (1h 9m 32s):Oh, we do. Yeah. I mean, we do a lot of drag queen story time, but also the children's festival here in Vancouver commissioned our company ZZ a couple years ago to create a drag show for kids, which we perform with our son. Just the three of us.2 (1h 9m 50s):Oh, he performed.7 (1h 9m 53s):Yeah.2 (1h 9m 53s):Wow. Amazing.7 (1h 9m 55s):Yeah. The first time we did it, he was, I mean, he was like a year and a half. So he, you know, he, he was basically acute prop, you know, like he like the Simba reveal in lion king. He was the lion, right. Like genuinely in the show. And we're about to do, they sort of recommissioned the show because of course, you know, we did the show and then in 2020, we'd been booked to tour that show to every children's festival in Canada. And then clearly we all know if that didn't happen.1 (1h 10m 26s):Right.7 (1h 10m 26s):So the festival has actually recommissioned the show now because it's very different doing a show with a four year old because he like, he's like, I want my own numbers. We're like, okay. But let's figure

In this episode, Hosey and the hoe go without a guest. They are still waiting to get the results of their STD test after being in the same room as their previous guest. Carrie has a queef stroke and clears the air, I mean the room. Ooh-ooh that smell, Can't ya smell that smell, Ooh-ooh that smell, The smell of cooter surrounds you. They discuss some unanswerable questions and Carrie talks about being in the illuminati, but we know she means the alluminutty. Tune in and laugh at us, you deserve it. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/justin-hosey/support

Ooh, man, we throw out the rule book this week. Jack and Leeann completely abandon format as they tackle Harry Potter, Colin Farrel, Jennifer Anniston's nose, and 13 inches of Lep dick all within an hour and a half. Leprechaun is briefly mentioned...but it's a hell of a fun ride. Happy St. Paddy's Day! 

It's time for another personality test podcast. And this one is fun because it also is going to tell me what time I should be doing things. Hi everybody. I'm Cindy Guentert-Baldo. Welcome back to the uncurated life podcast, where we talk about life, both on and off the internet. And this is an episode in an ongoing series. I'm doing that. Really titled anything but loosely known to me, at least as personality tests, test for a cynic when it comes to personality tests. And this week I am talking about the chronotype test. Now there's apparently a chronotype test that has been used for years. Uh, called the morning eveningness questionnaire, but it has been expanded by a doctor named Michael J. Bruce, who has expanded it into four. Chronotypes used to be three, but he expanded into four. Now this has to do with like your sleep and wake preferences. And when the best times are for you to do certain things, when your energy is highest and lowest and blah, blah, blah, he's written a book called the power of when I have it. Maybe I will, maybe I won't, I don't know yet, but the book is all about discovering what your chronotype is and then making sure that you do your best to work along the lines of your internal clock. Now, I recognize that something like this in and of itself is inherently privileged because not everybody. Choose to work at jobs or in careers that respect your internal clock. You know, I don't know what my internal clock is yet. I haven't taken the quiz yet, but I used to have to work at 4:00 AM. When I worked at a grocery store, when I was in the bakery, I'd have to go in at 3:00 AM and that was not necessarily something I use, but it got to pay the bills. I get that. I just wanted to preface it with that mainly because when I talk about being able to. Alter how I do my work or when I could do my best work, I work for myself. And so that is both a blessing and a curse, but the blessing of it is that I'll be able to adapt based on whatever information I get from this shit. Should I choose to? But the curse is that because I can adapt. It means I also sometimes adapt my way into doing nothing for a while and then I don't get paid. I just, I wanted to add the context there. Anyway, let's get. This Dr. Bruce Bruce Wayne situation here. So the tagline, one of the taglines for the novels is, or the book is to learn the best time to do everything from drinking your coffee to have sex or go for a run, according to your body's chronotype. Okay. Well, one out of three ain't bad, right? Anyway. So I'm going to read to you about the chronotypes that he talked about in an article for psychology today, uh, so that we can understand which one is which, and then I will take the test and then we will come back and talk about it. He based the types on mammals, I guess, birds, I think I could be wrong about this, but I think the idea of like, um, an evening, a night owl or a morning Lark or whatever those ideas are from the original Kronos. Framework. He has framed them around mammals because as humans we are. We got the boobies. Anyway, the first one is lions. Lions are morning hunters and people who are the lion chronotype are the early risers of the world. Lions are optimistic, naturally disciplined, including about their sleep routines, practical and goal oriented. They're generally good sleepers with a medium sleep drive. It's rare to find a lion who struggles to stick to a regular early bedtime. Lions have a natural tendency for routine and moderation in their daily habits. And this shows in their overall health picture studies show that morning types of early bedtimes have a lower risk for cardiovascular disease, less obesity, and may have lower risks for mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, and others lions leap into their days full of energy the morning and early afternoon, or when lions are at their most productive. Aside from that. I, I don't, I don't anticipate that I'm Elian. He also adds that about 15 to 20% of the general adult population are lions. The second chronotype is bears. Bears are all day hunters and bear chronotypes are go with the flow types with middle of the road, sleep wake preferences of the four chronotypes bears adhere most closely to a solar schedule. Bears are most alert and productive during the middle of the day. From late morning through early afternoon, bears are easygoing and social fun-loving team players. They have a high sleep drive and tend to sleep deeply, but many bears carry a sleep debt. They don't get enough sleep to meet their needs. Bears are prone to inconsistency in their sleep routines. They often under sleep during the workweek and sleep extra on the weekend to make up for their insufficient rest inconsistent sleep habits can put the bare circadian Nicholas. Chronically out of sync, social jet lag has been linked to higher BMI and greater risk for obesity exists. Weight is a common challenge among bears who tend to carry weight, particularly around their midsection. Their vulnerability to social jet lag is one highly likely factor bears are the most common chronotype. About 50% of the adult population are bears because it is the most common chronotype bear time has. Influence over our social time. Six o'clock is the standard dinner hour because that's when bears are ready for their evening meal. Remember settling in to watch your favorite TV show at 10:00 PM. That's when bears are ready to lay low, but aren't quite prepared to fall asleep. And the majority of bear chronotypes modern society as long adopted bear time is the norm in large part. All the other chronotypes live on bear time. When it comes to daily social schedules for schoolwork and social. I will say just from all of that, I think I'm a bear. I'm just going to say right now, bear is the front runner. Uh, the third one is wolves. Wolves are nighttime hunters and the Wolf chronotype has a strong preference for evenings wolves are the people who drag themselves out of bed before 9:00 AM. And don't start really feeling tired until midnight or so. Wolves are creative, impulsive, and emotionally intense. They love to seek out new experiences and are natural brisk takers wolves have a medium sleep drive with peaks of productivity in the late morning. And again, Evening, because if their strong preference for evening hours, wolves often struggle with living. According to the schedule society demands of them. Things like work in school, get going too early and social fund ends too soon. What was, they're highly vulnerable to chronic social jet lag and insufficient sleep. And that can have consequences for their mental and physical help. Health research shows. Evening credit types are at greater risk for. Diseases wolves typically perform at their best with a run seven hours of sleep. Getting that much sleep can be tough for wolves because their biological rhythm is so at odds with society's timetable for daily life, about 20 to 15 to 20% of the population are wolves. Yeah. It's not me. And then dolphins. Dolphins of the mammalian world, our uni hem, what the fuck dude, can I even read this uni hemispheric sleepers? That means they sleep with one half of their brain at a time with the other half awake and active. That is a pitch perfect analogy. The fourth chronotype of restless light sleepers, as I've said, dolphins are wired and tired types. Chronically tired during the day. And wired with restless nervous energy at night, dolphins are light and restless sleepers with a low sleep drive who tend to wake frequently during the night, their minds are active in the evening with often racing thoughts and they feel physically keyed up. There are biological reasons for dolphins, nighttime, restlessness, and agitation. It turns out that dolphins have a circadian biology that's turned upside down. In contrast to other chronotypes dolphins, brain activity increases at night in areas of the brain that promote alertness and unlike other chronotypes dolphins, blood pressure and cortisol levels rise in the evening, which leaves them in a state of physiological arousal at bedtime. Come morning when the other chronotypes are experiencing elevations to blood pressure and cortisol that are fueling their morning, alertness, dolphin levels are playing. Personality wise, they're highly intelligent, cautious detail oriented. Perfectionism is a common dolphin trait and often anxious, as I've said, about 10% of the population are dolphins. I don't think I'm a dolphin, but I do resonate with some of that. I tend to not be able to turn my mind off at night and that will lead me to not being able to fall asleep for hours. If I can turn my mind off, I can fall asleep. But if I can't, if I get going on anything, that's the cause of a lot of my like, slow to sleep until. Anyway, I'm super interested in this now. So I'm going to take the quiz. It is@thepowerofwhenquiz.com. Everything will be linked in the show notes, and if it costs anything to get your big info at the end, I'll be sure to let you know, I'm going to take a pause here and I will be back in just a second with my results. Okay, so I'm done. And like I thought I am indeed a bear. I was actually talking to Jesse about it when he popped in here to ask me if I wanted lunch. And I was like, what do you think you are? He thinks he might be a dolphin, which actually would track with a lot of things, but moving forward. So when I, the, the quiz itself, uh, was just a series of questions. It's just, you drop your it's multiple choice type questions, and then you give them your email and they send you your results. Allegedly, I haven't actually gotten my results. There it is. They just showed up. This has been like 15 minutes since, um, since that's the case, now it does say he's going to be sending me a series of emails to tell me all about being a bear. So I'm unsubscribing because I don't want all of those emails and a. But it's just some interesting information about being a bear. I guess I'm kind of interested in reading the book. I'll be real with you. That's not always the case with these personality tests, but I am curious, but I was like, okay, wait, this is not giving me what I want. Like he's giving me all this info allegedly about being a bear. But what I really want is to know, well, if I'm a bear, what am I supposed to drink coffee and have sex and run. So I. Bear chronotype. And I came to an article on the website, bright side.me that has hell ads on it before warned, but it also has the perfect daily schedule that corresponds to your chronotypes. So we're gonna go to the bear. And it says here on there, little infographic that bears are 50 to 55% of all people. They sleep a lot, but don't get enough sleep, lack of energy after lunch and on weekends, they try to recoup the sleep that that's basically me. I will be real. That is basically me. So here we go. They, uh, Ooh, the main rule bears shouldn't sleep more than eight hours. Even during the weekends. I wonder if being chronically ill with kidney disease is changes that because I swear sometimes my body just needs sleep. It feels like regardless. Let's look at the daily schedule for bears morning from 7:00 AM to 11. Wake up and exercise from eight for eight to 10 minutes, eat a hearty breakfast and drink coffee. It'll help to not overeat in the evening. And the excess calories will give you the necessary energy for the whole day plan your day. Maximum productivity from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Do things that demand a lot of energy and concentration. First you'll complete them faster. You'll get tired as lunchtime approaches. That's why it's better to go out for a walk, bright colors, and the sun will wake your organism up and will help fight drowsiness have lunch at 12. It'll give you energy for the rest of the day. By two, you may start feeling tired again. So arrange meetings and coffee breaks to help you get through the afternoon. After work from six to 10 is the best time for a workout. It's hard to start, but only at the beginning have a light dinner after exercising, more protein, fewer carbs. And the end of the day from 10 to 11 bears can stay up late, but they always feel tired in the morning. You better turn off your gadgets at 10 and go to bed. The funny thing is looking at this schedule. A lot of that's already what I'm doing, kind of, I usually try to wake up around six 30 because I get my kids if it's seven for school and it gives me time to take a shower before they get up, or at the very least have coffee before they get up. I don't usually eat breakfast because my stomach is really upset in the mornings, but I've been thinking that it might make me feel better if I eat something once my stomach has mellowed out. The daytime schedule is very similar to what I liked in an ideal day is what I would do. Eat lunch at noon. Take a walk to like wake myself up, schedule things in the later half of the day. Like that's what I try to do anyway, but it's something to keep in mind. I actually have found myself when I do ride the Peloton. It tends to happen more frequently in the evenings, usually after dinner around eight o'clock. That's just what it seems to work the best for me the end of the day is just shoot. Right anyway. So the idea here is, is this schedule actually feels very. Reasonable to me, I should look at a different one and see if they feel a little bit less reasonable, but this bear schedule, I'm looking at it and thinking Yeah. So we'll look at the lions. The morning, people waking up at five 30 drinking coffee around 10 end of the day. Go to bed at 10. And then for the wolves, wake up, set two alarms, 20 minutes apart, postpone all your main test to one PMC that would never work for me because I feel like a lot of my creative work gets done between like 10 and 12 and then dolphins, very neurotic, restless sleep loved to spend time on the internet till late at night. Oh my God. I need to send this to Jesse. I'm pretty sure it's him. Cause it says it's better to start your day with a morning and running some exercise. I've been telling him he needs to do this for years now. Holy shit. Anyway, I think this out of all of the personality tests that I've taken has been the one that I'm most amused by partly because I have been so stressed out about sleep anyway, because you know, being a kidney failure exhausted. These schedules are actually like, kind of give, throwing me for a loop. I may just read this book. I don't know. So I would love to hear from you in the comments or in the comments. This is not a YouTube video, but on the podcast we go to the Instagram and the stories and you tag me at @llamaletters and you tell me what you think I'd love to know what your chronotype is. And do you actually like subscribe to any of this? Does it work for you? Thank you so much for listening. Thank my patrons. They're the ones who, uh, subs who sponsored these episodes. You can find out more at www.patreon.com/cindyguentertbaldo. And until next time I hope you get some sleep. I hope you take care of yourself and peace out.

Boundaries. Ooh boy.You don't have to explain your boundaries to anyone. Go ahead and set those however you need to live a full life for Christ.HEY YOU! Yep. You. Are you Pam Beesly, Kelly Kapoor, or Jim Halpert? Could you possibly be Dwight?No idea what I'm talking about? Then you need to check this out –> Join my team, Become a Patron, and join me in bringing and highlighting God's beauty in the world!Have you checked out the Lux app? The Church and the world need you to be a light and to become who you were meant to be, and we believe in your ability to do it! Come join the community, be joined in prayer with a priest chaplain, get Catholic content and formation, and become the leader the world needs.Support the show (http://www.patreon.com/leahdarrow)

Ooh, what a joy it is to talk Thingies with Véronique Hyland, the fashion features director at Elle who coined the term millennial pink and has a brilliant new book, Dress Code: Unlocking Fashion from the New Look to Millennial Pink, that checks so many boxes for us. But first, can we discuss cooking motivation…or lack thereof?   A smattering of dinner-making inspo if you need some too: 1) Brothy soup recipes—vegetarian lemon rice soup, beans and greens soup with harissa, and Helen Rosner's Roberto specifically 2) The Magic of Tinned Fish: Elevate Your Cooking with Canned Anchovies, Sardines, Mackerel, Crab, and Other Amazing Seafood by Chris McDade 3) @glucosegoddess.   Véronique's Thingies, coming through! Joe Iconis & Family, beach noir films + TV shows (including but not limited to Inherent Vice, Night Moves, Cutter's Way, Veronica Mars, Terriers, and Moonlighting), and entertainment podcasts like I Saw What You Did, Junk Filter, and Nostalgia Trap. Key Twitter follows: @the_80s_man and this one account that recaps Paul Schrader's Facebook posts. Her music recs: atmospheric YouTube videos (see: Music in an Empty Mall) and Mother Earth's Plantasia. And when it comes to fashion, she needs you to know about Dauphinette by Olivia Cheng—amazing coats and other incredibleness also. You can find Véronique at @niquepeeks,  veroniquehyland.com, and, of course, in the pages of Dress Code: Unlocking Fashion from the New Look to Millennial Pink   Book events—something we love and have missed! See Véronique in conversation with Robin Givhan in D.C. on March 19 and chatting it up with Marisa Meltzer in NYC on March 25.   Share your Thingies at 833-632-5463, podcast@athingortwohq.com, or @athingortwohq.   Get all the recs, all the weeks with a Secret Menu membership!   Download the free Zocdoc app and book that doctor's appointment today. Feel oh-so-fresh with Native and get 20% off your first order with the code ATHINGORTWO. YAY.   Produced by Dear Media

There are many amazing engineering marvels to gaze upon, perhaps none are as striking as this awe inspiring Parisian pillar. This significant structure symbolizes a city, a state, and so much more, to the French and foreigners alike. Ooh la la! We'll ogle over the ever-iconic Eiffel Tower on this week's episode of FYI! Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/albertoalonso)

This week we're joined by WARC's Alex Brownsell, Head of Content for WARC Media, and the editor of the recent Global Ad Trends report on the IRL ad economy. Alex takes us through the forecast for investment in ‘IRL' media, the differences in investment across regions and OOH formats, and the state of cinema advertising. Stay up-to-date with the latest marketing and advertising news with our free daily newsletter.

Battling a Dragon indoors can be a lot of bottle neck tactics...www.RollMongers.comwww.TeeSpring.com/RollMongers for Merch!www.Patreon.com/RollMongers Thank You For your needed Support, because sponsors don't pay you, they just give you free stuff lol!Also Thanks to our new sponsor "Devin Night" for providing use with all his art work minis with the folks at Fantasy Grounds to use here!https://immortalnights.com/tokensite/​Music:Intro: Star wars soundtrack x-wing formation by Kurt Thomlinson"Cyber punk Bar""Cyber Punk City""Space battle""Busy Space Port""Dying Planet""Starship medical""Starship Bridge""Deep Space eva""Alien night club""1940's office"All by Table top audio .comStar Wars - The Force Theme (Far Out Remix)"GAurdians" by Evan King""Dark Choir" by Mattili Cupellai musicFREE LICENSE TO USE: https://gum.co/hhVjx​DOWNLOAD: https://gum.co/hhVjx​www.youtube.com/user/MattiaCupelliMusic​"Satiate" By Kevin Macleod"Scientific Reasoning" by TechnoAxewww.youtube.com/channel/UCtgf00GvfFQV...​"Enchiridion" by Evan King"End This" by Evan King"Tactics" by Alex Lisi"Helipad Siege" - Alex lisi"Speed Chase"- Alex lisi"Match" by Alex Lisi"War Gods" Alex lisi all on you tubewww.youtube.com/channel/UC2Wkg85Gabk3...​Crossing the chasm by Kevin MacleodKevin-9-1 – Crossing-the-chasmSuper hero by Tabletop audio @ Tabletop audio.comStar Wars Soundtrack | X-Wing Formation (Fan-Made) by Kurt TomlinsonTrukmai – Star-wars-ost-x-wing-formation-fan-made-1External terminal By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – Eternal-terminalDarkling (Destructive device) By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – DarklingMalicious By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – MaliciousMusic maker test 2Inductrial CinematicKevin-9-1 – Industrial-cinematicOribital promonade by tabletop audioStar Wars - The Force Theme (Far Out Remix)@faroutofficial...Desertwinds by Tabletop audio.comOutroImperial march remix by Goblins from marsGoblinsfrommars – Star-wars-imperial-march-goblins-from-mars-trap-remix-free-downloadMusic in this videoLearn moreListen ad-free with YouTube PremiumSongDark Side BeatArtistGoblins from MarsAlbumGoblin Instrumentals And BeatsLicensed to YouTube byRecord Union (on behalf of Goblins from Mars)Music in this videoLearn moreListen ad-free with YouTube PremiumSongDark Side BeatArtistGoblins from MarsAlbumGoblin Instrumentals And BeatsLicensed to YouTube byRecord Union (on behalf of Goblins from MarsOUTROOriginal track is "Feel it still" by Portugal the ManParody Lyrics:I keep the force to myselfAll because the emperor ruined it for everyone elseWe gotta find a place to hideGuess we`re going underground nowOoh woo I'm a rebel just for kicks nowI`ve been rocking it since order 66 nowThe force is strong, and I feel it stillOoh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks nowWhy`d the emperor say order 66 nowBut the force is strong and I feel it stillGotta make it out to TheedGonna reason with the senators try to make it better nowSomewhere out theres gotta be freeI guess I`ll head to Alderran nowOoh woo I'm a rebel just for kicks nowI`ve been rocking it since order 66 nowThe force is strong, and I feel it stillOoh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks nowWhy`d the emperor say order 66 nowBut the force is strong and I feel it stillWe should fight a war for peace(Ooh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks now)Ressurect the Jedi, bring the emporer down to his kneesThe Sith mean nothing to meI should strike them all down now(Ooh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks now)There'll be no aquittal for the sith who killed the littlePa-da-wansHe is my enemyIs he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming back?Ooh Woo I'm a rebel just for kicksand I'm gonna keep on going till the galaxy is fixed nowCause the force is strong and I feel it stillOoh woo

 I have been fortunate to interview several visionaries in our industry over the past year. This interview with Ricky Regalado was different. He is such a visionary that he inspired me to do greater things in this amazing industry. Take the time to listen to this one all the way through and then listen again. You will not be disappointed.  The first portion of the interview covers Ricky's upbringing and deep family ties. This is where you start to feel the deep sense of connection that he has to the blue collar workforce in America. In the second portion of the interview, we shift gears and talk about the cleaning industry and where it's going. We covered the integral values of  hard work, grit, and perseverance that founded our country and is not being taught like it used to. In the final portion of the interview, Ricky shares his vision for the cleaning industry and how we can be a part of rebuilding America. Here are a few notes and quotes that stand out from this interview."If we were going to make this work, there wasn't enough time to have a social life because we had a vision. At some point, we'll be working on this business and not in it.""Love it or hate it, you don't get a 10x return on a blue collar business. You get a 10x on a technology company or an invention.""A trend isn't a short amount of time. That's a risk, a high risk and can turn around on you as fast as it went up."Where does this generation learn grit and develop a backbone? We learned it from our baby-boomer parents and grandparents, who watched their parents and grandparents survive the Great Depression. We learned it from our immigrant parents who scrapped for everything they had. We learned it from our single moms who had no other way but up.This industry is so poised to keep growing. We're foolish not to capitalize. Ricky is getting letters from private equity firms all the time offering to buy his company. These firms see the marketplace and see commercial cleaning as recession proof and pandemic proof. For the first 5 years, Ricky didn't like being known as a cleaning service owner. It wasn't glamorous. Now, he shouts his business with confidence and excitement. It generates responses like. "Ooh, I need a cleaning company."There have been 30,000 new cleaning companies formed from 2006 to 2018. That number nearly doubled in 2020 to 52,000 and 2021 is likely more than 2020."I feel like they need to know what it is to walk in the shoes of a cleaning technician before any other thing cause then they'll get that humility." Ricky requires every employee of the company at every level must spend their first 30 days in the field cleaning. "The greatest generals started with basic training."Ricky's Business Growth (Year to Year)2012 $80k Coverall2013 $250k Coverall2014 $600k Coverall2015 $800k Coverall Sold, $0 Rozalado2016 $1.8M Rozalado2017 $2.4M Rozalado2018 $4.8M Rozalado2019 $6M Rozalado2020 $9M Rozalado2021 $10M++ RozaladoRicky's Vision for our IndustryRozalado is currently at the top 1% in our industry. 9% of the general labor (blue collar) workforce comes from cleaning & maintenance industry! Think of it this way. 9 of every 100 blue collar workers in the US are working for cleaning & maintenance companies. That is mind-blowing. Ricky believes very deeply that he can make a sizeable impact on the American labor force by strengthening cleaning companies. It goes back to the way of life he grew up in. All Ricky knew was blue collar and now he is able to raise the standard of living for the very people he represents through the most unlikely of businesses. Read the rest of this article at the

About BrookeBrooke is the Head of Enablement - AI/ML and Data at Blackbook.ai, an Australian based consulting firm and AWS Partner. Brooke has degrees in Mathematics and Data Engineering and they specialise in developing technically robust solutions that help “non-data people” harness the power of AI for their industry, and communicate this effectively.Outside of their 'day job', Brooke speaks at Data, AI, Software Engineering, UX and Business conferences and events to Australian and international audiences, and has guest lectured at the University of Queensland Business School and Griffith University. Brooke is proudly a volunteer member of the Queensland National Science Week Committee, and is always on the lookout for new ways to promote STEM pathways to young people, especially young women and members of the LGBTIQA+ community from regional Australia.Links: Blackbook: https://blackbook.ai/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brooke_jamieson TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brookebytes LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookejamieson/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: The company 0x4447 builds products to increase standardization and security in AWS organizations. They do this with automated pipelines that use well-structured projects to create secure, easy-to-maintain and fail-tolerant solutions, one of which is their VPN product built on top of the popular OpenVPN project which has no license restrictions; you are only limited by the network card in the instance.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Sysdig. Sysdig is the solution for securing DevOps. They have a blog post that went up recently about how an insecure AWS Lambda function could be used as a pivot point to get access into your environment. They've also gone deep in-depth with a bunch of other approaches to how DevOps and security are inextricably linked. To learn more, visit sysdig.com and tell them I sent you. That's S-Y-S-D-I-G dot com. My thanks to them for their continued support of this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. As my 30s draw to a close, I am basically beating myself up emotionally by making myself feel tremendously, tremendously old. And there's no better way to do that than to go on TikTok where it pops up with, “Hey if you were born before 2004”—and then I just closed the video because it's ridiculous. It's more or less of a means of self-flagellation.But there are good parts to it. One of those good parts is I get to talk to people who I don't generally encounter in other areas of the giant cloud ecosystem, and my guest today is a shining example of someone who has been very prolific on TikTok but for some reason or other, hadn't really come across my radar previously. Brooke Jamieson is the Head of Enablement of AI and machine learning at Blackbook. Brooke, thank you for joining me today.Brooke: Thanks so much for having me. Welcome to 6 a.m. in Brisbane. [laugh].Corey: It was right before the pandemic that I did my first trip to Australia, discovered that was a real place. Like, “Oh, yeah. You're going to go to give a talk in Perth. What, are you taking a connection through Narnia?” No, no, it turns out it's a real place, unlike New Zealand.Brooke: Oh, yeah. New Zealand's fake.Corey: [laugh].Brooke: I booked a conference in Portugal soon, and it's going to take me 31 hours to get there from here. So. [laugh].Corey: I remember the days of international travel. Hopefully for me, they'll come back again, sooner or later.Brooke: Fingers crossed.Corey: What really struck my notice about a lot of your content is the way that you fold multiple things together. First and foremost, you talk an awful lot about machine learning, data engineering, et cetera, and you are the second person that I've encountered that really makes me think that there is something to all of this. The first being Emily Freeman, which I've discussed on the show previously, and on Twitter, and shouting from the rooftops because she works at AWS and is able to tell the story, which basically, I think makes her a heretic compared to most folks over in that org. But there's something about making incredibly complex things easily accessible, which is hard enough in its own right, but you also managed to do it basically via short-form video on TikTok. How did you discover all this?Brooke: Yeah, I have a very strange resume. [laugh]. It is sort of a layered Venn diagram is the way I normally talk about it if I'm doing a conference talk or something. So, I studied pure maths at university the first time, and then I went back and studied data engineering after. But then I also worked in fashion as a model internationally, and then I've also worked in things like user experience, doing lots of behavioral science, and everything even design-related around that.And then I've also done lots more work into cloud and AI and everything that happens. So overall, it's just being about educating people on this. Most of my role now is educating executives and showing them how they were lied to at various conferences so that they can actually make an informed decision. Because if I go to talk to a board, I know when I leave, they're going to have a conversation about what we talked about without me in the room, and I think executives keep making terrible decisions because they can't have that conversation as a group. They don't know what to do when the tour guide isn't there anymore because they don't have a shared vocabulary or a framework to talk about what they might like to do, or what they might like to prioritize to do first, things like that.So, so much of what I do is just really helping people to understand, conceptually from a high level what they're actually trying to do, so that then they can deliver on that rather than thinking, oh, I just really saw this cool model of a specific AI thing at a conference, and it was a cool animated slide. And I would like to purchase exactly one of those for my company, thank you.Corey: It's odd because you don't have a quote-unquote, “Traditional”—if there is such a thing—DevRel role: You're not an advocate, you're not an evangelist. And none of your content and talks that I have seen have been actively selling any product, but they very much been selling ideas and concepts. And it really strikes me that you have threaded the needle beautifully as far as understanding the assignment. You're trying to cause a shift in the audience, get them to see things in a way that they don't already without trying to push a particular product or a particular solution. How much of that was happy accident and how much of that was something you set out to do intentionally?Brooke: First, thanks so much. Second of all, I think this comes from studying maths. So, the number one skill you get from doing a pure maths degree is you have a toolbox with you, and then there's a number of things in that toolbox. There's different ways you can solve problems, and usually, there's a few different ways you can solve a given problem, but you just open up your toolbox that grows over time, and you can see what you can use in there to solve a problem. So, that's really how I've continued to exist, even working in user experience roles as well, just like what elements do we have to even work with here?And I brought that with me into the cloud as well because I think the really big thing with actually selling tech products is being confident enough to know that there are a number of things you can actually use instead of your product, but if you're confident enough in the product you have, it will be the obvious solution anyway, so instead, I just get people thinking about what they actually need it for, how they could use it solving a problem and give them ideas on how to apply it. And you would know this: In cloud, there's always ten million different ways to do something. [laugh]. And it's just, instead of getting them to think—because then you just get stuck in a thought vortex about, “This one or this one?” Or, “What am I doing,” but instead latch on to an idea of what you're trying to achieve, and then work out the most optimal way to do that for your underlying infrastructure as well. And even the training of staff that you have, is really important.Corey: There's a definite idea around selling—like, I think it's called ‘solution selling.' I don't know; I don't have a background in this stuff. I've basically stumbled into it. But periodically, I'll have folks come on this show, and I'll chat with them, “So, what is the outcome we're looking to have in the audience here?” Because again, telling a story with no real target in mind doesn't always go super well. And, “Oh, I want people to sign up for my product.” “Okay, how do you envision them doing that?”And their story is to sit there and pitch the whole time, and it's, yeah, that's going to be a really bad show, and I don't want to put that out. Instead, if you're active in a particular space, my approach has always been to talk about the painful problem that you solve and allude to what you do and a bit of how you do it. If you make the audience marinate in the painful problem, the folks who are experiencing that are going to sit up and self-select of, “Ooh, that sounds a lot like the problems we have. If they're talking about this, they might have some ideas and solutions.” It's a glimpse and a hook into reaching out to find out more.And to be clear, that's not the purpose of this show, but if someone wants to pitch a particular product or service, that's the way to do it because the other stuff just doesn't work. Giving away free t-shirts, for example, okay, you'll get a bunch of people clicking links and whatnot, but you're also effectively talking to people who are super willing to spend time filling out forms and talking to people to get a free t-shirt. I don't know that for many products, that's the best way to get qualified leads in.Brooke: Yeah, it's tricky. And I think it's just because everyone's doing what everyone told them to do. I love reading really terrible sales books. I started when I was younger, just because I could see people trying to use these tactics on me; and I just wanted to know everything there was to know about what it's like to be a used car salesman in the middle of [laugh] America. And so I've read all of these things, and lots of the strategies in them, they only work if you're in a very specific area that they're actually working in, and no one's getting to the problem of how do you actually like to be sold to? How can you improve the experience?And overall, for consulting, usually, it's someone—the best end game is someone has seen you around doing other things, and then they come back and they're like, “I've got a really weird problem. I didn't even know if this is what you can do. Can you help me with this?” And that is—the best client to have, they're the best—they're so open to ideas, they trust you because they've seen you do good work over time. And you would have seen this so many times, it's about someone just come to you with a really strange problem, and it may or may not even be what you've actually helped them with.Corey: Help me understand a bit what you do as a Head of Enablement? Because I've heard the term a few different ways, always at different companies. As far as day job goes, where do you start? Where do you stop?Brooke: Yeah, it's a very fake-sounding job title.Corey: [unintelligible 00:08:53]—“Oh, what are you?” “Oh, I'm an enabler.” Like, effectively standing behind someone who's debating relapsing into something, like, “Do it. Do it. Do it.” Now, I don't imagine that's what you do. But then again, AI and ML is a weird space. Maybe it is.Brooke: Just when my friends are online shopping, and they're not sure if they should buy something. I'm the one messaging them saying, “Yes, get it.” That's me. So no, what I do is I—there's really technical people in our teams, we've got about 150 consultants across Australia, and then there's very non-technical business executives who have a problem. And if you don't have a good conduit between those two groups, the business won't get what they need, and the technical people won't have the actual brief they need to solve the problem.Because so many times people will come to us with what they think is a problem, but it's actually a symptom, not the root cause, so you just need a really good understanding of overall how businesses work, how business processes work, as well, and then also just really good user experience, information architecture knowledge to go through that. But then all of that would only work if I also had the technical underpinnings so I can then make sure we have everything we need and then communicate that to the development team to make sure that everyone's getting what they need from it. Lots of places, my job doesn't exist in a lot of companies, and that's because they just try to mash [laugh] those two groups together with varying levels of success.Corey: Or it's sales enablement of, “Here's the pitch deck you use. I'm going to build slides all day,” et cetera. “Here's what the engineers are going to babble about. When they use this phrase, go ahead and repeat this talking point and they'll shut up and go away,” is often how it manifests. And I don't get that sense from you at all.I'm going to call you out slightly on this one. The way you just describe it like, “Well, there are some very technical people, and there are some non-technical people.” And you didn't actually put yourself into either one of those categories, but let's call out a bit of background on you. You have a degree in mathematics, but that wasn't enough, so you decided to go a little more technical than that; you also have a degree in data engineering. If you're listening to this, please don't take this the wrong way—Brooke: Definitely take it the wrong way. [laugh].Corey: —but you do not present as someone who is first and foremost like, “Code speaks. Code is everything,” the stereotypical technical person who gets lost in their absolute love of the technology to the exclusion of all else. You speak in a way that makes this stuff accessible. Never once in watching any of your content, have I come away feeling dumb as a result, and that's an incredibly rare thing. But make no mistake, you are profoundly technical on these things.Brooke: Yeah, making people not feel worried is my number one marketable skill when talking to executives because executives make bad decisions when they don't know how to have that conversation. But all of that is because they've been rising up in their organization for 20 to 30 years, and they didn't ask questions early on when tech was new, and then it's gotten to a point where they feel like they can't ask questions [laugh] anymore because they're the one in charge, and they're too nervous to admit they don't understand something. So, much of what I do that is successful when talking to executives is just really making sure that I'm never out to try and look like the smart one. So, I'm not ever just flexing technical knowledge to make people think that I am the God Almighty of all things tech.I don't care about that, so it's mostly about how can I make people really comfortable with something that they've been too scared to ask about probably for quite some time? So that then they can make an informed choice on that front and so they can actually be empowered by that knowledge that they now have. They probably were too scared to ask it the whole time. But it's just a way of getting through to them. And then you get so much trust from that as well, just because, as well, I'm always very confident to tell people if they've been given the wrong information by other parties, I will absolutely tell them immediately, or if they just don't know how to give success metrics for project, so they end up just forgetting that false negatives or false positives can exist. [laugh].So, educating them, even on accuracy and recall measures and things like that, as well and doing it in a way where they don't ever feel threatened is the number one key to success that no one ever tells you about as a thing because no one wants to even admit that people could possibly be threatened by this.Corey: A lot of the content that you wind up building is aimed around career advice, particularly for folks early on in their careers. And the reason I bring that up is that you are alluding to something that I see when I interview folks all the time—I went through it myself—where there was a time you're going through a technical interview, and you get the flop sweat where I don't know the answer to this question. And there are a few things you can do: You can give up and shut down, which okay, that is in many cases are natural inclination, but not particularly helpful in those environments; you can bluff your way through the answer, which I generally don't advise because when an interviewer is asking you a technical question, it's a reasonable guess that they know the right answer; but the mark of seniority that it took me a distressingly long time to learn this is I just sometimes laugh, I say, “I have absolutely no idea, but if I had to guess…” and then I'll speculate wildly. And that, in my experience, is the mark of the kind of person you generally want to have on your team. And there are elements of what you just said, threaded throughout that entire approach of not making people feel less than.On the other side of that interview table, when I'm sitting there as a candidate. I hated those interviews where someone sits there and tries to prove they're the smartest person in the room. Yeah, I too, am the smartest person in the room when I wrote the interview questions. But for me, it's a given Tuesday; for the person I'm interviewing, it's determining the next stage of their career. There's a power imbalance there.Brooke: Yeah. And this has always happened to me in job interviews as well. I have a very polarizing resume just because it's not traditional. I didn't do software engineering at university and then work as a software engineer. I just haven't gone through that linear pathway, so there's lots of people just trying to either figure me out or get to a gotcha moment where they can really just work out what's actually happening.I have no interest in it. I'm happy to say that I don't know something. And being able to openly say that you don't know something is so helpful, as you're saying. It's the number one skill I wish people would learn because it's fine to not [laugh] understand things.Corey: A couple of times, I was the first DevOps hire in startup that was basically being interviewed by a bunch of engineers. And I went through a lot of those interviews and took the job only a couple of times, and one of the key differentiators for me was when they sat down and looked sort of sheepish and asked me a question of the form, “Look, I know how to interview a software engineer, but I sort of get the sense that you're not going to do that super well.” Yeah, surprise; I'm not a software engineer. “What is the best way to interview you to really expose where you start and where you stop?” Which I think is such a great question, if you don't know.Now, in my world, the way that—now that I'm on the other side of the table, I bring in experts to help me evaluate people, otherwise I run the very real risk of hiring the person that sounds the most confident, and that doesn't generally end well in technical spaces. And really figure out what it is that makes people shine. Everyone talks about how to pass the technical interview, but there's very little discussion on the other side of it, which is what kind of training do most of us—are most of us given to effectively conduct a technical interview?Brooke: Yeah, and not even just interview skills, but leadership skills. Number one thing I always talk to you when I'm talking to university students is I let them know that probably the manager they will end up having, if they work in tech, probably has no leadership training or management training of any sort. So, [laugh] if you are just assuming that they will be, like, really just a straight, always making the best management decision or always doing something the most perfect way, they probably have no idea what they're doing as well. And that's really important for people to go into jobs and interviews knowing, is that it's fine if the other person doesn't know as well. Do they want you to win? I think that's the number one thing I always am left with after interviews.And even when I was interviewing—I worked as a marketing manager for a while, so even when I was interviewing for marketing jobs, you could tell whether the person on the other side of the table wanted you to do well or not. And especially when you're looking for an early career job, regardless of any other factor, if someone wants you to do well, that is a good job for you to have. It will just mean so much more to your momentum throughout your career.Corey: I'm a big believer in even if you decide not to continue with a particular candidate, my objective has always been that I want them to think well of the company, I want them to consider reapplying down the road when their skill set changes or what we're looking for changes. And I want them to walk away from the experience with a, “That was a very fair and honest experience. I might recommend applying there to other people I know.” And we've had some people come through that way, so we're definitely succeeding. Whereas I went through the Google SRE interview twice—the second time, I think, was in 2015—and I swore midway through the process that even if they offered me the job, I wouldn't accept it because they didn't want to work with a place where they were going to treat people like that.Full disclosure, I did not get the offer because I'm bad at solving, you know, coding challenges in a Google Doc. Who knew. But it was one of those, I will not put myself through that again. So yeah, it turns out now I've made myself completely unemployable by anyone, so problem solved. “Oh, yeah, I'm never going to put myself through one of those job interviews,” says man who made himself completely un-interviewable, any job ever, ever again. I'll have to change my name and enter witness protection if I want to [laugh] enter the industry after the nonsense I'm pulling.Brooke: Just wear a mustache. They'll never know.Corey: Oh, yeah, you joke but I—some of me wonders on that one. So, I am curious as to your adventures with TikTok. I know I started the show talking about that, but it's still a weird format for me. I thought I got weird comments on Twitter. Oh, no, no, no, not compared to some of the people responding to things on the TikToks.And it's a different format, it's a different audience, it feels like, but there's still a strong appetite for career discussions and for technical discussions as well. How did you stumble on the platform? And how did you figure out what you would be talking about there?Brooke: Yeah, I put off making a TikTok for so long. So, I worked as a model internationally before my current job—I did it during and after uni—and so I have a very fashion Instagram that's very polished… like, I put thought into the outfits that I'm wearing in photos, which means I just haven't posted a lot lately because I just don't have the energy. So, the idea of going on TikTok to do something that is very quick is horrible to me [laugh] as a thought. Also, I hid my fashion past, I was closeted for a long time in tech, just because it was actively negatively impacting career prospects. But one of the best gifts about moving to a leadership team in a management space is that people don't care about that as much anymore, which is really good.So, just it was a big move for me in terms of bringing my closeted to past back into what I'm actually doing in tech, just to get more people aware of the opportunities that are out there. Because there's so many people during Covid that wanted to work from home and they wanted to transition to a job that would allow them to work remotely with benefits and security and everything that goes along with that, and tech is a really good industry to get that in.Corey: Oh, there are millions of jobs now that didn't exist two years ago that empower full remote, either within a given country or globally. Just, do you have an internet connection wherever you happen to be? I mean, we have people here who are excited to go and do all kinds of traveling, and we have people who have—this has been challenging for them—but, on the paperwork on our side, just fill up the forms, but we've had to effectively open tax accounts with different states as they relocate during the course of the pandemic. And power to them; that's what administrative teams are for. But it's really nice to be able to empower stuff like that because for the longest time—I live in San Francisco, and it felt like the narrative was, “We are a disruptive industry that is changing the face of the world. And we are applying that disruption by taking a job that can be done from literally anywhere and creating a land crunch in eight square miles in an earthquake zone.”It really didn't seem like it was the most forward-thinking type of event. And I'm hoping—in fact, we're seeing evidence of it—that this is going to be one of the lasting changes of the pandemic. People don't want to go back into the crappy offices.Brooke: Yeah. And especially in Australia, as well. So, when you're talking about San Francisco being crunched into eight miles, Australia is like that, but the whole country. So, it's a very large space, but there's only a few capital cities dotted around that I think more than 90-something percent of people live in those big centers.Corey: Yeah. Yeah, I made that mistake by taking my week down there and visit—and giving talks in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. And it was, well, why not? Like, I'm flying all the way over there. How far apart could it be?It's, “What do you mean, there's that many time zones? And the flight is how many hours to go from one side to the other?” Yeah, on professional advice for people who are considering doing that: Don't.Brooke: Yeah, it's not for the faint-hearted. But it also means that there's so many people that don't live in capital cities that could now work remotely for tech companies. Or I know friends that they originally lived in a capital city, and then have gone to move into regional centers. And as someone that grew up in a regional center, that's so important to be able to spread the tech ecosystem out further. It's 1000 kilometers from where I live now, which I don't know what that is in miles in freedom units, but probably it's about a ten-hour drive if you're driving there; if you're driving without stopping.So, it's a really long way away. And that's just—it's not, like, something you can just drive a few times over for a meetup. There's just nothing around for quite a long time. So, being able to disperse technical knowledge throughout the country is something that's really important to me, especially just because it's opening up futures for more diverse groups, even the people that are using tech in the vast majority of geographically distributed Australia are completely ignored from making that tech. And that's something that's really a growing issue that is getting fixed as there are more opportunities to move remote jobs there. But people don't even know that these jobs exist, so it's just about getting out into the regions to show people that it's possible.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Vultr. Spelled V-U-L-T-R because they're all about helping save money, including on things like, you know, vowels. So, what they do is they are a cloud provider that provides surprisingly high performance cloud compute at a price that—while sure they claim its better than AWS pricing—and when they say that they mean it is less money. Sure, I don't dispute that but what I find interesting is that it's predictable. They tell you in advance on a monthly basis what it's going to going to cost. They have a bunch of advanced networking features. They have nineteen global locations and scale things elastically. Not to be confused with openly, because apparently elastic and open can mean the same thing sometimes. They have had over a million users. Deployments take less that sixty seconds across twelve pre-selected operating systems. Or, if you're one of those nutters like me, you can bring your own ISO and install basically any operating system you want. Starting with pricing as low as $2.50 a month for Vultr cloud compute they have plans for developers and businesses of all sizes, except maybe Amazon, who stubbornly insists on having something to scale all on their own. Try Vultr today for free by visiting: vultr.com/screaming, and you'll receive a $100 in credit. Thats V-U-L-T-R.com slash screaming.Corey: You were mentioning that you are about to embark on a 31-hour travel nightmare nonsense thing to go to Portugal to give a talk. What is the talk you're giving, and what's the venue?Brooke: It's for NDC Porto. And so, I've done NDC in Sydney, virtually, twice—Corey: NDC is… I'm sorry?Brooke: It's a really big conference. I think it started as… Norwegian something? Norwegian Developers Conference, someone will roast me in the comments of this.Corey: Well, not on this show. Generally, we get a pretty awesome audience base compared to, you know, the TikTok. So, I'm sure we'll excerpt parts of this for the TikToks, and then oh, then all hell is going to break loose.Brooke: [laugh]. That we'll find them. Yeah, it's a big conference series. So, they have them in Oslo, Copenhagen, Sydney, London, Melbourne, and Porto as well. So, it's quite a big—I think it's very eurocentric. I don't know if it would have be in any of the US audiences yet. But it's a really wholesome group.Last time I did the conference in Sydney, the segment before me was someone showing their pet llamas on camera. So… love that. [laugh]. But my talk is just about enterprise applications of AI and machine learning. So, it's mostly the same sessions that I give to executives; I just give it to software engineers, and then tell them about how I talk to executives while I'm doing it to show why it works.Corey: You also give periodic talks at universities as well. You have been very prolific on the speaking circuit. What's the common thread that winds up tying all of these disparate audiences together?Brooke: People ask me and I say yes. Um—[laugh].Corey: Hey, there we go.Brooke: Yeah. No, it's mostly about I just want to make this an easier pathway for other people. If you can see this art here—it's backwards, probably, but it says, “Be who you needed when you were younger.” I made this, and it's just how I go through my tech life. When I talk to high school students and university students, no one's ever honest with them about what it's actually like to have a job because everyone is just telling them how fantastic it is and how everyone will think it's so fantastic that they're a graduate of that institution, and they will get their dream job, and they'll ride home on a unicorn and everything will be perfect.And no adults are ever honest to people because everyone wants something from them. So, it is an absolute immense position of privilege to be able to go in and say, “Here is unfortunate realities of what you're about to step into.” Because my parents, neither of them worked in office, my mom teaches children with disabilities—so she's retired now—and my dad is a telephone technician, so like, I didn't know anyone working in office growing up, it wasn't part of what I did. So, I can't tell people that this is what networking actually is. That will be someone who you are in the room with right now who is extremely wealthy, and their parents own something, and they will sail through life. You need to work much harder than them. [laugh].And just being able to have these actual conversations with students—because it's so valuable—and it's guidance that I wish I had earlier on and that you can actually, if you're aware of what's happening in these systems, you can hedge against it. But it's just, I think it's doing students a disservice to not be honest to them, so I take a lot of pride in doing that. [laugh].Corey: I like doing that, but I'm also worried that I am going to send the wrong message if I do. Because let's be honest, I can get away with an awful lot of stuff based upon my perceived position in the industry, the fact that I am clearly self-employed—when you own the company, it turns out you can get away with a lot—and also I'm 15 to 20 years into my career, whereas if I pulled a lot of this nonsense fresh out of school in my first job, I would have been fired. No ‘would have' about it; I was fired and didn't even pull half of the jokes that I pull now. So, when I give interview advice on TikTok, like here's how you pick a fight with the interviewer. Yeah, if someone actually does that, it's not going to go well, so I live in fear of effectively giving the kind of advice that is actively harmful. If I'm going to do that, I at least try to put a disclaimer into it. But we'll see.Brooke: Yeah. And even just showing people that it is possible for an interviewer to not want you to do well. So, many people are not aware of that because the only idea they have of interviews is that… been something they've been told at whatever school or boot camp they went through that someone really wants them to succeed and will help them to develop their journey. That's not… it's not normal, so being able to actually decipher what is and isn't happening there is a really good skill. And people just aren't aware that things like that are possible, or even I don't know, as a… [unintelligible 00:27:33] person in STEM, I have a lot of sage advice to give to people about what it is and isn't like in reality.And that's where my history of very strange jobs comes into play as well. So, I worked at a car parts store for four years growing up, selling people different types of filters and fuel filters and sound systems for their car.Corey: And blinker fluid, depending on how sketchy the numbers look that month. Of course, of course.Brooke: Yeah. But people would come into the store and just ask for a man straightaway, or call up, and then I was the only one that had any physics education in the store, so some days if [my brother 00:28:08] wasn't working, so they would call up and ask for what type of resistance they needed for their car stereo, and I would tell them, but they would [unintelligible 00:28:17] put a man on. And then eventually they would be like, “I don't know. I have to ask Brooke.” And put me back on the phone, and I would just pretend to have never heard the start of it.But it's just, if you don't have a diverse background of jobs you've had, or different service jobs, it gives you more structure about how to actually talk about what it is like to work in tech because some bits are much worse than they appear, and some things are actually a lot better than they appear as well. It's just depending on who's talking about it in the media at a given day.Corey: And I've said it before—it's always worth repeating—this is what privilege looks like because it's easy for me to sit here and say, “Look, the stuff that I built, the company I've put together, the reputation for myself that I wound up establishing, well, I had to do it all myself. None of it was handed to me.” And that is true. However, I didn't have to fight against bullshit like that. I didn't have a headwind of people telling me that I was somehow unqualified or didn't belong in the place that I was in.When I made a pronouncement, even when it was wrong, it was presumed accurate until proven otherwise. So, there's a lot of stuff around this that just contributes to a terrible toxic environment. That is what privilege is, and you can't set that aside, you can't turn that away. And we all have privilege in different ways, but it's often considered to be controversial. I don't see it that way at all. It's one of those, “You were born on third base; you didn't hit a triple.”Brooke: And it's just about what you do with it, as well. There are some people who are immensely privileged and then they just do nothing to help anyone else. They don't let the ladder down for anyone else after them, so—Corey: “Send the elevator back down,” is what Stephen O'Grady over at RedMonk said, and is a phrase that's stuck with me for years now. And it's the perfect expression of it. It's as opposed to folks who wind up pulling up the rope behind them, “Well, screw you. I got mine.” No thanks.Brooke: Yeah.Corey: That's not how I want to be remembered.Brooke: And that's why it's so important to talk to people about this early in their career as well because these people will become a manager probably. So, then say, “Hey, when you are inevitably a manager, [laugh] you are in a position of power now. Here are things you can actively do that will be who you needed when you were younger.” That's what will actually help people, too. So, being able to really specifically say, once you are in an organization, you have the opportunity to make change, especially in graduate roles in organizations, I noticed they get so much bandwidth to actively make decisions because higher-ups are just so excited that there's someone young working there.So, being able to go through and look at what they are actually doing. And people trust you, then they trust your opinion, and they'll trust your opinion. Especially on issues like sustainability, everyone's just, “Oh, who's a child we can ask?” So, being able to then give them an answer that's helpful. Or say even, “I didn't know about this. Maybe you should ask someone that this affects.”Being able to then hand the microphone to someone else is a skill that is never actively taught to anyone. So, I think that's what's really—it's a slow part of diversity and inclusion changing over time, but it's a really important part of actively modeling that behavior of what it looks like to do a decent job.Corey: Brooke, I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. If people want to learn more, where's the best place to find you?Brooke: I'm on Twitter as @brooke_jamieson; I'm on TikTok as BrookeBytes, and I'm on LinkedIn is probably the best place to—I check that inbox the most. And my name is just Brooke Jamieson, which will be in the show notes.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to all of that in the [show notes 00:31:38]. Thanks again for your time. I really appreciate it.Brooke: Thanks so much for having me.Corey: Brooke Jamieson, Head of Enablement for AI, ML, and data at Blackbook. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with a long, rambling, angry comment that says this is not the content that you expected, you were not happy with it at all, and if I really wanted to have these conversations, I should have instead first demonstrated both of our technical suitability by solving algorithm problems on a whiteboard.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

How can you retire five to ten years earlier?   JoeDiSanto is a semi-retired business consultant who has figured out how to live the life you want even if you are still in your pre-retirement age. He believes that building and managing a business is actually easy. What is difficult is managing what he calls the “business of you,” a concept that he happily breaks down in this episode.   Joe has built multi-million dollar businesses, produced critically acclaimed documentaries and an Emmy-winning TV show, invested millions in real estate, and was semi-retired at age 43. Now, he's sharing a lifetime of know-how via Play Louder, an invaluable resource that helps individuals and business owners increase their net worth and plan better for their future.   [00:01 - 03:40] Opening Segment Joe DiSanto is enjoying a semi-retired life right now Here's how he got there The reality about building a business according to Joe [03:41 - 08:49] Balancing Family and Business Joe talks about the adjustments that he and his wife did when they had a child People usually have a three-act life structure, but Joe has four acts How does this relate to his life and business? The challenges that Joe had to face in living the life he wants [08:50 - 13:57] The Life of a Semi-Retired Individual This is the daily life of a semi-retired individual like Joe He does not feel the need to save money today He tells us why Joe explains the fractional CFO model and [13:58 - 18:44] Why Bookkeeping is Important in a Business Joe gives us a sneak peek about his role as a business consultant Business owners should learn what Joe calls the “business of you” How is it related to building a business? The importance of knowing your finances [18:45 - 22:11] “The Business of Your Business” Here's how you can retire 5-10 years earlier The difference between the “business of you” from the “business of your business” These are the ways that Joe tried before to learn business [22:12 - 23:05] Closing Segment Reach out to Joe See links below  Final words   Tweetable Quotes   “...every time you save more dollars, you take off more months or days or years of work off the backend of your life.” - Joe DiSanto   “By knowing your finances and knowing what you spend money on, you'll also then know where you can save and you'll very likely save more than you spend on the bookkeeping just by being knowledgeable about your financial situation.” - Joe DiSanto   “If you hit a certain income threshold, and you are a business owner…it really can pay off to engage someone to [manage your finances] or at least even just coach you.” - Joe DiSanto -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Email joe@playlouder.com to connect with Joe or follow him on LinkedIn. Do you want to learn more about finance, business, and real estate? Go to Play Louder now! Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Joe DiSanto  00:00 I succeeded, you know, some people out-earn their need to do this kind of work, you know, and if that's the case, that's great. I say to those people, you're doing well on so congratulations. But I can say with almost 100% of surety, if you put time to this, you would actually be saving more of that money that you're making. And every time you save more dollars, you take off more, you know, months or days or years of work off the backend of your life.   Intro  00:27 Welcome to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we will teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.   Sam Wilson  00:39 Joe DiSanto has built multi-million dollar businesses, produced critically acclaimed documentaries and an Emmy-winning TV show. He's invested millions in real estate and semi-retired at age 43. Now he's sharing a lifetime of fiscal know how via Play Louder, which is an invaluable resource that helps individuals and business owners increase their net worth for a better life, and a better future. Joe, welcome to the show.   Joe DiSanto  01:03 Hey, what's happening, Sam, thanks for having me on.   Sam Wilson  01:06 Hey, man, the pleasure is mine. There's three questions I asked every guest to come to the show. In 90 seconds on me. Ooh, I'm second to last. Here we go. All right. Where are you now? How did you get there?   Joe DiSanto  01:15 Okay, well started in Providence, Rhode Island. That's where I was born, ended up in Los Angeles and started a post-production company, which achieved those accomplishments. You mentioned in a great intro, thank you. And now I live in Tampa, Florida area, we did our kind of exit our life as we know it. And I'm in sort of a semi-retired state now, which I can explain if you like.   Sam Wilson  01:37 Yeah, that would be interesting. And maybe we'll get into that, as part of, you know, the topic you know, of today is the logistics of living your best life. Mm. And, you know, we kind of talked about that a little bit before we kicked off the show, but maybe you can just break down a little bit of your story. And tell us what that means to you and how you got there?   Joe DiSanto  01:55 Yeah, sure. Well, you know, we're trying to live our best life. And it's a daily effort. But you know, the logistics part is that it does take some effort to kind of be able to engineer what I think is, you know, your best life. And that can be, you know, variety of things to everybody, or different things to everybody I should say. But in our case, I was always into business, amongst other things, real estate as well. And investing and personal finance, which we'll probably talk a little bit about, but long story short, after college, kind of get started in post-production biz, in New York, moved to Los Angeles, but always wanted to own my own business, and just had that on my radar, you know, as a very definitive goal. And luckily, was able to achieve that in post-production, which I got into I was actually oddly a photography major in college photography, digital imaging, and really just had a passion for sort of finance investing and personal finance that I, you know, always was pursuing. But post-production just happen to be a kind of business that was achievable. I think, you know, for me, in terms of opening a business, it's not, you know, it's a kind of a niche industry, a boutique industry. And you can have a business that has anywhere from, you know, a few to a couple 100 employees, if you like, but it's not like trying to start, you know, some multinational company, so it fit in well to my plans. And I was able to do with my partners, I had three partners who really are my closest friends, and we're still friends. And we set out on it, and we accomplished it, but it took a lot of work. You know, running a business is hard. You know, it's like, if you're owning the business, it's like you're doing your quote, unquote, job, but then you're doing a whole bunch of things on top of that. So it's time-consuming, it's demanding, it's can be stressful, can also be super fun and super rewarding, which it was for me, but we eventually had a child, and we didn't have kids too late. I was 40, my wife was 36. And because we really enjoyed our work, we enjoyed our career, and we kind of lived our work, but it was really fun, you know, and we did a lot of socializing our business, it's a social business, we hung out with our employees all the time, we were all honestly just friends. And you know, we worked a lot, and we went out a lot, and it was a good time. But once we had a kid, we were like, wow, you know, this is kind of really stressful. Now, you know, they used to be like, we can just do whatever we wanted, work as long as we wanted if we needed to whatever. And now it's like, wow, we're rushing to get home. You know, it's like we're trying to balance it all, the work demands didn't really decrease. So it became kind of stressful. And we started to think, well, you know, what can we do you know, if we can, you know, how could we change this if we wanted to, and we came up with the cockamamie idea of literally kind of abandoning our life as we know it and when I have to say is retreated to cheaper ground, we moved from Los Angeles to Florida, my partner's very graciously cashed me out of the business, they're still doing it and they're still doing well. And we just kind of re-engineered a life so our overhead was way less so that I could work way less and my wife didn't have to work at all and we could, you know, devote more time to Our family, you know, because that's what we decided, we really wanted to focus on in this kind of, you know, next chapter of life. And we started to kind of define a little bit about, like, you know, what we think about life, and you know, how it kind of works and how it worked for us. And a lot of times in life, you know, not a lot of times, I think pretty much all the time, we're kind of pitched what we call it a three-act life structure, if I may use the filmmaking, you know, analogy, which is basically, you're born to get educated, you know, roughly ages one to 20, then you work for 40 years, hopefully, 20 to 60, then act three, you retire and start a start your slowest end to death, basically. And we're like, “Well, I don't know, that's okay. But I'd rather be a little bit more vital, while not having to work so much,” you know. So we kind of invented this system of the four-act life where, you know, you do the one to 20 education, you work super hard 20 to 40, but save a lot be strategic, you know, really put your mind to the fact that you have to prepare for your own retirement in your own future, and no one's going to really do it for you. And you can just stick your head in the sand. And hopefully, that goes well. And then you actually have enough money where you can win I call downshift into more of a part-time work situation, where you're not particularly old yet, you know, you're older, you're in your 40s and 50s. But you can enjoy a little bit more like, Well, like I guess, you know, kind of say you're more vital, you know, or was eloquently put, I feel like in a blog post before you have sausage legs, have to wear compression hosiery. And then you know, 60 to 80. After you've had your act three, now you move on to act four and hit the rocking chair and just cross your fingers.   Sam Wilson  06:53 That's really, really intriguing. Tell me some of the things that you guys, strategic decisions that were difficult in that process for you?   Joe DiSanto  07:01 Yeah, well, I mean, for us, I mean, when I say again, back to the logistics thing, like I'm not above putting, you know, any concept into the logistics aspect of this, and we decided to have kids late because we wanted to accumulate more money and be able to devote more time to work careers in those vital working years of 20s and 30s. Right. I think what I know about kids now, if we had had kids in our 20s, that would have derailed a lot of the time, you know, we spent building our career, building the business in all those things, allowing us to make more money and save more money by having a kid earlier. Now a lot of people think that's weird, and you probably shouldn't commingle those things, but like I do, because I guess I'm a little bit weird. You know, I mean, I think like engineering your best life, like, it's some big decisions. It's not like, you know, little minor things. It's like, significant stuff. Like another thing that we were talking about before we got on the air here, was I think you should marry a bookkeeper. If, like, your parents were right, you know, like, you need to actually think about your financial future in your mate selection process. Now, that's not to say you should, you know, forego love and all that. But you know, it's like, I say to, you know, because I coach a lot of people now if like you and your spouse, both know that neither of you want to do the finances, well, you need to pay someone to do like, it's so important that you are in the know about your personal financial situation, you should be paying someone but you know, again, if that each married, you know, someone that was interested in doing your family books, then you know, you would have saved that money. But you did. So there you go.    Sam Wilson  08:42 Yeah, that's really, really intriguing. Let's get on the topic of money and tell us what semi-retired means for you now because I know you spend a lot of time, like you said, coaching people on financial matters.   Joe DiSanto  08:53 Yeah, so semi-retired, for me means kind of two things. One, I am able to cover my monthly expenses, you know, working part-time, right. And the way I'm able to do that is I have some passive income sources that I'm putting towards my monthly expenses. And then, you know, what is not covered through that I'm covering through my consulting work, you know, so I kind of switched my career from owning a business. And, you know, I do a lot of things by business, but one of the things was, I was the CFO, and I managed the money because we just again, always something that I was interested in. And I really believed it was critical for the success of our business, that I as an owner, manage the money, look at it weekly, and you know, make it a very, you know, religious part of my weekly practices, but I'm quite good at that. So it turned out, you know, after I left LA and kind of was, you know, figuring out well, what can I do to do this part-time work that's going to fill in my income requirement gap. A lot of friends actually, well, actually, what happened was my partner's originally was like, Hey, okay, you're gonna leave and we're gonna miss you, but maybe you could just like stay on and do the finances from afar. We'll just like pay you, you know, consulting thing or something. And I was like, “Yeah, sounds great.” Well, once I told other folks that I know that I'm businesses, as I'm doing that, they were like, oh, man, we need that, like, We need someone that can do that, like, that's really good. But we can't afford to pay them full time, right. But we could afford to, like pay you like part-time, you know, and so they're in line, you know, that the fractional CFO work that I've done, but it's pretty good paying work. And I don't have to do even with all my clients, I got them to work full time. So that's part of the part the semi-retired. The other part is, is that we're able to mass enough, you know, in our, you know, Act Two are working and accumulation phase where I don't feel the need to save more money for the future. Like, I feel like my pot is good enough. And if I don't, you know, burn any principle off that and that just keeps growing through my investments, that really, I just need to pay my kind of overhead right now. And I don't need to worry about saving. Now, that's not to say I won't save more, if I can, I certainly will. But I don't feel like I'm under the gun to have to do that. Oddly, the consulting thing is actually working out pretty well. And I was able to save more money last year, unexpectedly. But when I fit into this, like, I didn't feel like that was a requirement. And there you go. So that's my semi-retired state, just basically a downshift into working less hours, less stress, less pressure, in terms of insane deadlines, and all this sort of stuff, right? So I don't have to basically constantly call them be like, I can't make it home again, you know, because I got to do this, I got to do that to clients. Or in my case, you know, I can basically, you know, call the truly call the shots even when I own a business, you call the shots, but you still got a boss, you got your clients, your boss now like I'm just in a scenario where my work, it's not mission-critical, like on a timeline doesn't have I get what I need to get done in the week. But no one's even calling me I'm usually calling and be like, “Dude, we got to sit down and like, look at your finances. You hired me, like, come on.” I can't help but I'm so busy. I'm so busy. They'll just tell me it's good. It's a good, pretty good, it's pretty good.   Sam Wilson  12:10 Well, Joe, talk to us about the fractional CFO model. I know, you kind of wandered into this, you know, unintentionally, but what are some things especially as companies are scaling? I mean, what is how does someone budget for that? What should they be doing? Or where do they be, I guess, size-wise, just start bringing on a fractional CFO, I mean, a lot of the projects we're dealing with, especially as you're starting out scaling and commercial real estate can be, you know, five to $10 million projects, is that all it takes, we start on that?   Joe DiSanto  12:39 Well, I'll start by saying that I've kind of found that this is a good little niche. And part of the reason is, and I'm dealing with kind of smaller businesses, so anywhere from five to about 40 employees are mind companies. And what I've kind of learned is and it kind of intermingled with personal finances, business finance, but if from the business sense, if the partners that start the firm, if none of them are financially oriented people, and there isn't like that financial partner, you know, that one of the partnerships that is really focused on the finances and takes that responsibility, there's often a big, just kind of gap there, right. And it's hard for a smaller business that can't commit to, you know, a pretty sizable salary to get an experienced CFO kind of character to come in and fill that role. So what I found and the reason why people kept saying, oh, we need that we need that is like, a lot of my clients don't have that financially oriented partner, that's an owner of the company. And they can afford to like have some good they can afford generally a bookkeeper, you know, if that. So there's a big gap there, because they're not financially oriented people, they're not really deciphering the numbers. They're not using all the data that's there to help them make better decisions. But you know, their bookkeeper can't do that either. And really, they're just kind of flying by the seat of pants, a lot of some of them aren't even don't even have a bookkeeper. Like they're not even doing books, you know, and you're like, Wow, that's pretty rare. But even that's happening out there. So what I've kind of do is like I charge, I take on the bookkeeping role as well, because then like people are willing to spend some money on that. So and oftentimes consulting, you know, kind of makes people nervous. They feel like I don't know what I'm gonna get, and is it gonna be worth it? Am I just gonna like regret that I gave you money? So for me, the entry kind of is like, well, you're gonna pay for bookkeeping. So you know, I can do that. And now I have an employee that helps me kind of do the books, but you're gonna pay more for me to be the CFO character on top of that, but I very likely can actually pay for myself through the knowledge I have about running a business and I come at it from like, I'm not like a CPA. I'm not that person that's worried about your tax return. I do help everyone get their taxes done and all that. I'm more the business owner that you know, kind of has been through the wringer for 20 years and just educated myself on, you know, taking advantage of all the tax benefits, you know, businesses offer, looking at financials and seeing what's coming, figuring out how to, like, look into the future, and not just only worry about the past of your numbers, and do all these things, you know, that a CFO could do, and I'm like, but you're just going to pay me, you know, a fraction of what you would pay some full time and I end up kind of being like, like a part-time employee. So, you know, me and my small team, I would employ, we get all the books done, and we do, you know, the reports, but then I get on the phone with everyone and I explain, you know, what we're looking at, and why the information is valuable. Then, of course, you know, towards the end of the year, I prep everything for the CPA, I work with the CPA, I shepherd the returns, I get all the taxes, and basically, you know, and then they can call me, you know, anytime, you know, like, in business hours, my phone's on and anytime you have a random question, like, hey, you know, we're gonna buy this piece of gear should like, should we finance it? What should we do? If we want to finance it? How do we get that done, you know, whatever. So that's the CFO part. But one thing I kind of like to really impart on my clients, and I said, we're gonna miss that, well, you're a business owner, but you're doing this to ultimately make money for yourself, right? So you need to do your business books. Of course, I think everybody roughly agrees on that, like, who would invest in a company that didn't actually do bookkeeping for their business? Nobody, that would be weird. But the money is really not that meaningful, until it's in your savings account, you know, until it's like officially, like taxes are paid taxes, like you have actually improved your financial situation this year. And you can't really know that, unless you're doing books for your personal life as well, you know, I call it the “business of you,” it's just as important and really, even from a tax perspective, as a business owner, like the money comes in your business, but you really settle it all up in large part on your personal tax return. And that's when you know, like how much money you've actually, you know, saved this year. I mean, a lot of people do these systems like, oh, well, I got this thing where I put 5% of every dollar that comes into this account, and that account, and I got whatever, and I'm again, but none of that matters. That's all just games people played in ultimately, I think, basically gives them a false sense of reality, the only thing that matters in your life is I made this I spent this was the difference, right? That's either what you saved or you lost, it doesn't matter if you put $10,000 in your quote, unquote, long-term savings account. But if you put 15 on a credit card in order to do that, really, you just lost $5,000, you know, so I try to strip people away of all these gimmicks, and explain to them that like money is not that hard. You don't need gimmicks, you just need to count it. You know what I mean? And like know, the end result, it's like, it's not a mystery. And they're like, “Yeah, but I hate counting it. It's so boring,” you know, and I'm like, well, therein lies marrying the bookkeeper. Or if both of you hate counting, then you should hire a bookkeeper for your personal life as well. And you can actually do it relatively inexpensively. I would say to people, by knowing your finances and knowing what you spend money on, you'll also then know what where you can save and you'll very likely save more than you spend on the bookkeeping, just by being knowledgeable about your financial situation. That's what businesses do, you know.   Sam Wilson  18:17 You're convicting me here, because that's a been a consistent thought of mine is why don't I have a bookkeeper? On the personal side? Because you're absolutely right. I'm guilty as charged. It's like, yeah, we'll take everything on the business side, make sure everything's T's crossed, eyes dotted man, it's, it's by the book, no personal side, it's like money, we're saving a little bit, we have enough to invest moving on. And that's just dumb. I feel dumb. Before this conversation, I felt dumb. And now I feel even more dumb having this conversation.   Joe DiSanto  18:45 All right, well, I succeeded, and succeeded. You know, some people outearn their need to do this kind of work, you know, and if that's the case, that's great. I say to those people, you're doing well. So congratulations. But I can say with almost 100% of surety, if you put time to this, you would actually be saving more of that money that you're making. And every time you save more dollars, you take off more, you know, months or days or years of work off the back into your life, that's how I kind of look at it. So if you could save an extra 2,000 to 5,000 or $10,000 a year just by making simple changes that actually wouldn't even affect your life in any meaningful way. Maybe you could end up retiring five to 10 years earlier, especially when you put that in, you know, invest that in something, it's compounding, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and then of course, the other thing that people need to do and are in the business of you, you know, it's like, especially if your actual business owner is understanding your tax bill, understanding how you pay taxes and making sure that you're using your business or your real estate or whatever, to be as efficient as you can in taxes. And then also when you start to understand taxes, you might actually make decisions about certain investments that you know, will benefit you tax-wise in the future and ultimately save you more money. So the business of you is actually almost more complicated than the business of your business, your business business kind of simple relate, but there's more angles to be played sometimes, you know, on the personal side, which real estate and with other things, and so on. So, yeah, I mean, it's not that I, you know, was born and set up for this. I literally started using Quicken when I was like, get out of college because I didn't have any money. And I was like, wow, I just feel like it's getting worse and worse, you know, I least need to know what's going on. And then I knew, and I was like, wow, I wish I had it. No, it's pretty bad. But that process of like, tracking things, and sort of getting my head into it, that actually educated me to run a business, you know, but I just started kind of with my own stuff, and then you get, I was always into it, you know, I read books, I read books about real estate, and investing in taxes and things and you know, kind of, it's a fun game to me, but I realized that it's not for everybody, like, it's a hobby of mine, you know, so I'm lucky in that some people's hobby, you know, is scuba diving. And that's super fun. It's also kind of expensive, but you know, you can be honest with yourself, it's like, I'm gonna just spend the next 20 years talking about doing this and then lose all that time, maybe I should figure out a way to, like, take it seriously. So a lot of my clients end up, you know, they're just like, alright, just do my whole life, you know, just do everything, you know. And it's almost like, if you're a high-income earner, like, I lived in Hollywood and all that, and actors and actresses, you know, they have business managers, they have people that manage their personal money. So I think, you know, if you hit a certain, you know, income threshold, and you are a business owner, whatever, like, it really can pay off to engage someone to do that, or at least even just coach you, like, you know, like a personal trainer, you know, what I mean? Like, sort of keep you on task and sort of in that sort of thing. So, yeah.   Sam Wilson  21:50 Fantastic. Joe, I've enjoyed this man, you've given us a lot of compelling things to think about. Yeah, lots to consider on that front, especially as a business of you, thanks for making it come on the show and chat. And learned a lot love hearing your backstory and how you got to where you are. Now, if our listeners want to get in touch with you and learn more about you what is the best way to do that?   Joe DiSanto  22:12 Now you just go to my website, playlouder.com. It's a site where you can kind of see my consultant services, but it's also a blog. So I have lots of free information there, things I write things other people write on these topics. Also, have some free courses to kind of get you going on some of these topics. And then also some paid courses if you want to, like, you know, go to the next level and sort of get into this. Take the business of you more seriously.    Sam Wilson  22:36 Joe, thank you for your time today.   Joe DiSanto  22:37 I do appreciate it. Absolutely, man. It's good to meet you, Sam.   Sam Wilson  22:40 Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen, if you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners, as well as rank higher on those directories. So I appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.  

This week we sit down with BMC's Joan Hanscom to look at the URS LT suspension gravel bike. With 20mm of HiRide powered front suspension paired with a Micro Travel Technology (MTT) Rear stay, the URS LT is up for any adventure. Episode sponsor: Athletic Greens BMC URS LT Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Joan - BMC [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello and welcome to the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host Craig Dalton This week on the podcast. We've got John Hanscom from BMC here to talk about the BMC ERs, L T you might remember re mentoring this bike. Back in the, in the dirt episode, a couple of months back when it first came out and a quick interview we did down at If you recall, the ERs has been in market for a few years, but the LT version actually has a front suspension on it. So as you can imagine, I was eager to talk about it. Before we jump into the show. I need to thank this week sponsor. AIG one by athletic greens. I'm always happy to shout out our friends at AIG one, simply because I've been using the product for many, many years. It started really, when I realized post-chemotherapy that I had a suboptimal immune system. I was getting sick easier, and I really just hated taking vitamins and pills every day. And I wanted something that I could drink each morning that would cover my nutritional basis. I discovered athletic greens originally through another podcast. So it's poignant that it's coming full circle and athletic greens is now supporting this episode. So what's athletic greens all about it's a green drink. It's got 75 high quality vitamins minerals, whole food source, superfoods. Probiotics and APTA gins. Packed in there to help you start your day. Right? It's a special blend of ingredients that support your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy recovery, focus and aging. 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All you have to do is is it athletic greens.com/the gravel ride? Again, that's athletic greens.com/the gravel ride. To take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. With that business out of the way, let's dive right into my interview with John from BMC. Joan, welcome to the show. [00:02:52] Joan Hanscom : Hi, thanks for having me. [00:02:54] Craig Dalton: I'm excited to have this conversation with you. I've been eager to talk to someone about this BMC or is LT for awhile. It's a bike I've known about prior to the LT model, but something I've always been excited about. So why don't we start off with just a little bit of your background and how you found your way to BMC, and then let's talk about the BMC. [00:03:14] Joan Hanscom : Yeah, right on. And it's not a terrible thing to talk about breaks on a Friday afternoon, right? So the most fun topic we can have going into a weekend. Oh. So. My background. I started racing a long time ago and I really, really loved I started as a multi-sport athlete and was a terrible runner. And so find myself racing bikes and loving racing bikes and At the same time I was experiencing some, I don't know, career stress we'll call it. I was working for AOL and they merged for AOL time Warner. And it went from being like the super awesome place to work. And be too sort of stressful and political. And I asked myself, what do I love? I love bike racing. So I reached out to some guys in Philly, Dave, Shawna, and Jerry castle, and said, gosh, you should hire me to work for you. And. Dave and Jerry we're producing the biggest road events in the country at the time, the Philly week, San Francisco, grand Prix. And I just threw a hail Mary and said, you should hire me. And they lo and behold they did. And so I've been working in bike racing ever since. So that was probably 2002, a long time ago. So I've been, been around bike racing for a good long time. And I would describe myself as an enthusiast, a bike racer who has more. Passion, then talent will go with that. But, but yeah, so I've been kicking around in the bike industry for a long time. Ran my own business for a while. The U S grand Prix of cyclocross, which some of your listeners may be familiar with. So I had a really good run with U GP and that culminated. The Louisville world championships in 2013. And after that I said, I needed a little break from bike racing. I went to work for a German brand called Avis who makes great bike blocks and helmets. And then I started missing bike racing and I went to work for USA cycling and I was there for three years and then an opportunity came to become the executive director at the velodrome and T town. So I went there to do some work on the east coast. I was missing my family at the time. And. Feeling like I should be closer to home. And then. Suddenly this opportunity to move to Santa Cruz and work for BMC came along and I've always wanted to live by the ocean. And I actually was a long time BMC rider myself. So I had to jump at the opportunity to come to work for BMC. And I do not regret one moment of moving to Santa Cruz. At all, especially looking at my friends back in Houston, they're moaning and groaning over the terrible weather. So that's the short, quick and dirty of how I came to be in bike racing. And at BMC. [00:05:50] Craig Dalton: Amazing. Thanks for that. And thank you. Thank you for putting so much time into putting events on in your career. I think it's you know, it's something that people don't get enough credit for, but it's so critically important to the sport. So to have such a long journey and for you to name drop some of those great events that I was a fan of or attended over the course of the last couple of decades, it's amazing. So kudos to you for that. [00:06:12] Joan Hanscom : Oh, well, I thank you that I think my event directing career much like my bike racing career is, is based in sheer stubbornness or for sheer force of will. We'll call it because both are somewhat thankless. My, my racing career and event production. So thank you for that. Yes. [00:06:30] Craig Dalton: That makes sense. And, yeah, kudos to California. I mean, I sh I, I rode in shorts and a Jersey today. This comment is going to make lots of people angry as they listen to this in their colder weather, climate homes in this February. [00:06:43] Joan Hanscom : Yes. And since I spent last February, you know, buried under 30 inches of snow at this time of year, I'm nanny, nanny, new, new, I'm very happy to be here. It's terrific. Well, I'm sorry if my friends are jealous. [00:06:58] Craig Dalton: Let's talk about the BMC brand. I'm sure some listeners are familiar with it, but it's got a long history and I'd love to learn a little bit more about it. [00:07:08] Joan Hanscom : So first of all, the thing that people ask me about BMC, the most, which I think is amazing and charming is everybody asks what BMC stands for. And then I tell them and they're just like, oh, duh. So BMC actually stands for bicycle manufacturing company. How can you not love that? Right? Like, oh, everybody thinks BMC is acronym for something else. And it's really so beautifully simple bicycle bicycle manufacturing company. And people are like, oh DMC was founded in in 1994. In 2000 Andy Reese, who was the chairman of the phone act group and phone AXA hearing aid group. Andy Reese took over the company along with his, his Phonak's cycling team and thus the high performance high precision thing that we know came really into being. And it really changed the trajectory when Andy Reese came on board with the company And in 2002, they launched really what is a bike that's still running today? Which is, I mean, it's been innovated on and changed obviously. But the team machine launched in 2002 and people are still racing and winning big bike races on the team machine. Right. Again, it's been innovative and it's been iterative. But still that's a, that's a bike. That's got quite a legacy at this point. [00:08:26] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I certainly remember lusting after the team machine. So that's just a great looking bike and the company, you know, as you said with that tour de France racing pedigree, it was definitely positioned as this is a brand that is sparing no expense to make the fastest machines out there. [00:08:42] Joan Hanscom : And that really is the brand ethos. You'll hear us talk a lot about creating speed and they really hang their hat on precision Swiss engineering innovation, and all of it really, really drives towards this notion of creating speed and, and producing speed and finding speed. And I want a cool identity, right? I mean, and everything they do is about that. And. What, and one of the cool pivot points for BMC is that in 2010, they launched what they call their impact lab. So I was just over in Switzerland in Gretchen at the headquarters. They have the offices across the streets of Ella Jerome, where they can obviously take advantage of doing a lot of testing and and speed work. But also they have this impact lab, which is another building down the street. And that's really where the magic happens in terms of the engineering, because what the impact lab does without giving away all the secrets. enables innovation to happen at a, at a pace that nobody else really is matching. Right? So they're able to have an idea and really get into prototypes immediately. And that that impact lab is, is really something that distinguishes BMC and where all of this really cutting edge technology is born. And so it's a really cool thing that they launched, but it really does enable that pace of innovation to be always high. [00:10:05] Craig Dalton: Are the frames manufactured in Switzerland. Okay. And do you do, do you know when they introduced the mountain bike lineup for the first time? [00:10:14] Joan Hanscom : 2007, they launched the four stroke, which is another, I mean, obviously a hugely innovative bike. That's still won the Olympics in Tokyo, you know? So, so yeah, that's, that was a 2007 and again, it's iterative, right? It's just, it's, it's a bike line that keeps evolving. And personally, I thought it was the coolest thing ever when they got Pauline for provoke to be. BMC athlete and now Pauline's racing a four stroke and I think that's super bad ass. [00:10:43] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I feel like it must have been 2008 or 2009 that I got a BMC team machine 29 or heart. And what, what impressed me at the time as I had come off another hard tail. And at that time, I think BMC was one of the first companies to do a drop stay and they were touting with a 27 2 seat post. We've built some compliance into the rear end of this. And it really did feel like a technological leap forward when I got on that bike. And it really crystallized for me that this understanding that you can build that type of compliance into a, essentially a rigid frame and get these performance benefits that I know we'll get to and talk about with the, with the ERs model. [00:11:29] Joan Hanscom : Yep. And, and that's true. And, and, you know, they've, they've been really with the Forester Oak. I mean, their dropper post is incredibly innovative. I mean, they were, they were, you know, Doing geometry adaptations for, for the 29 inch wheel, the 29, or like before anybody else as well. Like they, they really always are pushing this innovation for speed. So, which I think, you know, you'll continue to see as our gravel as our gravel line evolves and, and, you know, emerges as well. So yeah. [00:11:59] Craig Dalton: Am I correct that the ER's the original was the first Scrabble bike that they introduced or was there another one prior to that? [00:12:07] Joan Hanscom : that's correct. So the ORs was there first. It was 2019 when they launched the ERs and that was their first gravel bike. They though we have a bike that's sort of, light gravel, maybe call it the road, machine X. But the ERs was the first really, truly like disruptive gravel bike that, that BMC came out with. [00:12:25] Craig Dalton: And let's talk about some of the design philosophy behind the original ERs, and then we'll get into the LT later because obviously they share the same frame design. So let's talk about the base frame of the errors, and then we'll get into the LT a little bit later. [00:12:39] Joan Hanscom : Yeah. So, so I think. It's carbon obviously. And, and I think BMC really looks at you know, precision engineering. They, they look at geometry really purpose-built for the specific thing. Right? So, so the ERs is, was designed from the beginning. To, to eventually have a suspension fork. Right? So they, they, they were, even though they didn't launch with a suspension fork, they, they conceived of this. So the original ERs was launched with a suspension corrected fork and the ability to upgrade it to a Fox 32 step cast AIX suspension, or, or a RockShox Rudy. So even in the first iteration, you were able to go to a suspension if you wanted to it's dropper, post compatible Even, even in the first iteration that didn't have that built in or, or, you know, SPECT they were thinking along those lines, [00:13:34] Craig Dalton: that was super interesting. I remember interviewing Chris Mondell from SRAM rock. And he rides that bike. And I was quizzing him about how it changed the geometry of it, because he acknowledged, like, if you're putting this on as a aftermarket product, it is definitely going to slack an out your bike. But offline, when I was talking to me, he's like, it just didn't have that effect on the ERs. And he did discover after the fact that they had built in this suspension adjusted geometry already. [00:14:04] Joan Hanscom : Yeah, yeah. From the beginning, they knew where they were going to go with that, which is super cool. And again, that just sort of speaks to the, the mindset or the, the, you know, the innovative thinking that goes into the design of all of these bikes. And, and so, yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's a. It's backed with a saran Eagle in the back's Ram red in the front. Which some people, you know, there's, I guess that's a hotly debated topic, right. About one buy versus to buy. And is it a real race bike if it's a one by and but you know, it's, it's specked with 40 millimeter tires up to 45 millimeter clearance. It's six 50 be compatible. All of this stuff was. You know, conceived of in the first iteration it's got a 70 degree slack head angle which, which creates a really long front end and wheel base. And that builds in like a lot of stability in the ride. And I can speak to that myself. I think I told you this when we were first chatting, I, I had, I first rode the ERs at unpaid. PA this, this past October, and it was horrible conditions. It was just like a horrible, horrible, horrible conditions. It was cold and raining and just people look like mud people. And I had a big, stupid grin on my face the whole day from this bike because you know, there's a lot of descending it unpaved and. It was just so stable in those conditions. Those are going to just really awful muddy, slick, downhill, Rocky, and I was just having fun. And so that stability, I just think, you know, really makes it a delight to ride and that, that rear suspension, the MTT technology and the stays it's 10 it's 10 millimeters of travel. But what it does is it just sucks all the fatigue out of your ride. It just, it makes it so. You don't feel fatigued. [00:15:53] Craig Dalton: Yeah. When we talk about that rear end technology. So I'm on my mountain bike. It was a completely rigid stage, just dropped and kind of compliance built in. But in this particular bike, there's actually, is it a little elastomer? [00:16:06] Joan Hanscom : Yeah. It's it's we refer to it as, as, as micro travel technology, right? It's it's 10 millimeters of travel and it just has this incredible. I don't know. It makes it, you get less tired. I, I don't know how to describe it. It just, it takes. It, it, it, it allows for this really great power transfer and, but adds to control. And for me, it was just like the fatigue, eraser. And, and it's amazing that the, that this micro travel technology it's so minimalist, but it makes such a big difference without, you know, you feeling like you're bouncing along on a suspension. So it, it feels good even on, on paved, [00:16:48] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I think, you know, it's so it's so interesting. The resistance that the market tends to have towards suspension. And I know it's going to go away over time because the performance or benefits are there and you have to in the listener, the frequent listeners, going to know I'm a broken record on this. You have to sort of add the suspension. In your bicycle through your tires, through your body, potentially through some compliance in the frame, maybe a suspension fork, maybe it's suspension, stem, maybe suspension in your C posts, but all these things are going to combine to just helping you become less fatigued or have more control in super Rocky environment. So I think it's super interesting, and I know some writers personally, on the original owners frame. Mimic the same thing, as you're saying, it's just, it's just a bike that feels good. Being out on it all day. [00:17:35] Joan Hanscom : Yeah. So funny enough, and I know I'm probably jumping the gun because you, you, you had sort of teamed up for me. Hey, what are people saying about the ride? And I, and I actually about specifically about the LT and. And I was talking to one of our ambassadors a writer named Chris Meacham. Who's on the east coast and we talked about the, this is front suspension and we can talk about that later. But we, we started talking about the stays in the, in the, in the back and he, he he and I share the same coach. So, so his coach. He rocked up to this hundred plus mile road ride fast, you know, fast roady road ride last Saturday on yours. And his, his coach was like, you're an idiot. And, and, and Chris has a bad back. And so he had the suspension locked out on the front, but he, you know, he still was on, on the ears with the, with the rear suspension and. he said he was tired because obviously he's riding on. I think he said 40 twos. So trying to keep up with people on road bikes. Okay. Tired. He said, but he never got the sore back that he normally gets on his road bike. And he said, when he finished, he just felt great. [00:18:44] Craig Dalton: Yeah. [00:18:45] Joan Hanscom : And I thought, well, that's a Testament, right? If you're riding this out on the road for a hundred plus miles and you finish feeling awesome, it's a Testament to saying that there's something to this, this micro travel technology and fatigue. So, so yeah, I [00:19:00] Craig Dalton: I think it's one of those things that I just hope that more people get to try these types of solutions before they malign them. Right. Because you need to be able to just put a leg over it and see, Hey, well, it's not really T you know, maybe it's taking away a fraction from. On-road performance, but what is it adding and where do I care to have that additional performance? [00:19:20] Joan Hanscom : And when you're talking about gravel, where. What do they start at 70 miles and go up to 350. I mean, you know, it's, when you're talking about that, that type of distance fatigue matters, you know, that that's a, that's a real performance gain when you, when you don't have discomfort or when you're not feeling massively fatigue, because you're not your, body's not taking the abuse that maybe it would, if you were. Having that, that benefit of the, of the technology then? Yeah, it definitely, it's one of those things where distance is a multiplier of fatigue. Right. So, [00:19:56] Craig Dalton: yep. A hundred percent. You talked about BMC and it's very performance oriented background and history. When it entered the world of gravel with the earth. W, where was it intending that bike to slot into the, to the spectrum of bikes? [00:20:11] Joan Hanscom : So I think that's such an interesting question. And I honestly don't know if they were geniuses or or not. The name of the bikers really means unrestricted. And I don't know if they were seeing into the future of the direction that gravel racing was going to take, you know, because it, it has gotten more extreme since, you know, the first, oh, we're going to go out and ride some gravel roads with our friends. I think the terrain has gotten to be more. More challenging. People are looking for it to be a little bit more epic. I hate that word, but you know, so I think what gravel racing has become, or is evolving into, is there some that's just beautiful, you know, No magic carpet ride, gravel roads, and then there's others that are Rocky chunky, single tracky. And so I don't know if they had that evolution in mind when they design the years or not, but but it's certainly a bike that I think has evolved or nicely to align with the direction that some gravel racing is taking. But I think going back to the unrestricted thing, You know, unrestricted says a lot about what this bike is intended to be. It's got, it's got mouths, so you can load it up with your bike packing gear. It's got you can, you can run a dynamo hub, so you could really take it as an adventure bike or you could not, and just race it and find that You know, w th this technology that we've been discussing actually enhances your race a lot. Now, there are some people that will argue that in no shape or form can a one by drive training, be a race bike. I, I personally would answer. It depends on the race. You know, and I think there are races where. That one buys probably pretty great, you know, you know, not all, not all gravel races are flat, you know, essentially dusty road races and for some of the climate year things, you know, the right terrain. I think that people are pretty stoked to have that, that 52 option in the back. [00:22:06] Craig Dalton: totally. Especially on the Western half of the United States. [00:22:10] Joan Hanscom : Yeah. So, so I don't think you can dismiss it. It's not a race bike because it's got a one by, but I think it was really designed to be all of the above. It was supposed to be an adventure bike that could take you where you want to go. And it's a bike that you can definitely race if you want to. I know, I know. I thought I was racing it when I was out on it. So. [00:22:29] Craig Dalton: I know you mentioned this before, but what is this tire size capacity of the bike? [00:22:33] Joan Hanscom : It comes back with forties and it can go up to 45. And then it's six 50 be compliant. So you could, you could add six 50 bees if you wanted to. [00:22:42] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Great. Great. So let's shift gears and let's talk about the ERs LT at this point, which was introduced, what is the very end of 21? Am I getting those [00:22:52] Joan Hanscom : Yeah, no, wait, I don't even know what [00:22:54] Craig Dalton: Actually a little bit earlier. You're right. Because I, I met at, I met one of your colleagues at and got a little bit of a preview of it. So that was back in October. So it must've been earlier than the. [00:23:03] Joan Hanscom : Yeah. I honestly like the time is so weird now. Like, wait, what? I don't even know what you're wearing right now. The first time we showed it publicly in the U S was at that seawater event in 21 though. Right? It was 21 right now. Now I sound like a crazy person. But yeah, that's so it's very, it's very new to the market. In a lot of places just getting into shops now. So not a ton of people. I'm, I'm certain I've had the opportunity to ride at yet. And, you know, everybody knows the bike world is a little bizarre right now in terms of supply chain, but that the bikes are out there now and being delivered, which is super cool. And like I said, we have an ambassador who's out on it now. So, so yeah, they're, they're starting to be out in the wild now. [00:23:45] Craig Dalton: So the big thing we need to point out for the listener is that the ER's LT, unlike its cousin, the ERs, the ears LT comes with a front suspension fork. [00:23:55] Joan Hanscom : That is really the only difference. Correct? It's the same. Everything else is the same. With the exception of the front suspension. [00:24:02] Craig Dalton: Yeah. As podcasting as a medium, we don't have the opportunity to hold one up in front of us. Maybe on this video we could have, but the suspension actually occurs within the head tube. So unlike a rock soccer, Fox shock that you may have been familiar with from mountain biking, with telescoping legs, you're actually getting the travel within the head tube. [00:24:23] Joan Hanscom : Yes. Yeah, I think it's pretty cool. Right? It's like all up inside. You can't see it really. And, and yeah, it's, it's integrated into the design, [00:24:33] Craig Dalton: And that's based on a partnership with a company called high ride. [00:24:37] Joan Hanscom : correct? Yup. [00:24:39] Craig Dalton: Yeah. So not, not a new idea in the world of bikes, obviously Cannondale has their head shock. And prior to that, my old mountain bike memory recalled the action tech being another brand that had a, a fork that was pursuing this strategy. But I have to say, as, as an implementation, it's, it's super elegant. Like you can look at that bike and not necessarily see that it has any suspension in it, [00:25:03] Joan Hanscom : Right. [00:25:03] Craig Dalton: is pretty tricky. [00:25:05] Joan Hanscom : Yeah, you can. I mean, you can definitely see below the head tube and I'm making gestures now with my hands. Like people can see me, you can definitely see where there is, you know, at the top of the fork, it, it would look like there's a suspension. But it doesn't look like you said, traditional what you would see on a, on a front suspension, on a mountain bike. And it's, I think it's just super, like you said, elegant. [00:25:27] Craig Dalton: And how much suspension is the system offering riders? [00:25:32] Joan Hanscom : 20 millimeter. So, so it's, it's really pretty minimalist. And it's, it is manual, right? So you, with the, with the, it's a turnkey damper on, on top of the stem, right? So you just turn it to turn it on, you turn it back to turn it off. And yeah, you, you can control it. [00:25:51] Craig Dalton: are the writers that are on the product now, and maybe you have this from testing back at the BMC facility. Are they tending to use the lockout or have they found. It doesn't actually make it. It's not a negative thing that there's a little bit of motion in the front when I'm climbing, for example. [00:26:07] Joan Hanscom : So I actually talked with, again, the aforementioned Chris Meacham about this, because he's really been putting it through its paces. And he, he told me that he absolutely uses it. He said, you know, seven, depending on, along the ride, like 7, 8, 9 times during a ride, he's changing that suspension. So I think we've all done gravel rides where you're on pace. And when he's on pavement, he, he locks it out. And then, you know, when the, when he's doing a downhill or it's particularly like chunky, he definitely opens it up and he finds himself actually, you know, adjusting it with a lot of regularity, which I think is pretty cool. [00:26:47] Craig Dalton: Yeah, no, I mean, it's great that it's there as an option. I'm curious if you, if you had heard from him, whether, if he was on an off-road climb with a lot of rocks, whether he would leave it open or it's something he would close up. [00:26:58] Joan Hanscom : He said he closes it when he stands up to climb or stands up to ride out of the saddle. But but he leaves it open otherwise, depending on the terrain. Yeah. [00:27:07] Craig Dalton: Interesting. And I think you mentioned this, but just for the listener, it's got a dial on top of essentially on top of the steer tuber on top of your stem that you're reaching over and just clicking over to a locked out position. [00:27:19] Joan Hanscom : Yep. Correct. [00:27:21] Craig Dalton: How are you able to adjust the product for different weights, body weights? [00:27:25] Joan Hanscom : You know, you've, you've just stump the chump. I don't know. Nobody's ever asked me that before. [00:27:30] Craig Dalton: I think I saw and I'll try to maybe refer. In the show notes and that you might be able to swap out the Springs with inside that, that H ride high ride suspension. [00:27:41] Joan Hanscom : Well, I can say that high ride does have additional suspension offerings that, that you would need to take to a dealer to make those changes so you can change out. I think, I think. What it comes standard with would be quote unquote, mid stiffness. And if you wanted to change that high ride provides an option for you to do that, that you would take your bike to the dealer and have them make that change. [00:28:07] Craig Dalton: Okay. Gotcha. And is that, is the, is the front end of that bike different to accommodate? Is there any additional sort of size that the high ride suspension needs in the head tube? Or can you swap things out? I don't even know. [00:28:22] Joan Hanscom : I, I mean, swap things out, [00:28:24] Craig Dalton: Like swap a fork. Is Schwab a different fork in, To that? The high ride system? [00:28:29] Joan Hanscom : honestly that I don't know either. I don't know. I think you can change out the fork, but I'm not sure I would, I would [00:28:36] Craig Dalton: be fair. I did, to be fair to the listener. I did promise John, I wasn't going to drill her on a highly technical details because as, as the listener knows, I'm not super tactical myself, but these are just things that are popping into my mind as [00:28:47] Joan Hanscom : No, it's, it's, it's a great question. And I can absolutely. I seem to recall that you could change it out, but I don't want to swear a hundred percent. But I will definitely check for you. And, and let you know, after the fact, because yeah, don't no one's ever asked me that one either, but I haven't really had a chance to talk about it. Cause like I said, it's just shown up. [00:29:05] Craig Dalton: Yeah. There's not, not enough of these bikes out there in the world yet. [00:29:08] Joan Hanscom : No, and I haven't even gotten to ride it yet. So I'm like, I love my, my ears are one, but I haven't gotten dry BLT yet. So, that's how rare they are so far. [00:29:18] Craig Dalton: How are you planning on getting the word out in 2020? [00:29:20] Joan Hanscom : Well, first, first up, we're going to be at sea Otter, which is cool. So you can come check it out at sea Otter, and then we're actually doing some very rad things. We're going to be at all the lifetime grand Prix events with the bikes so people can check them out there. We won't be able to demo them, but we'll be showing them off so people can come turn the knob and see what the suspension is like. We're going to be at, at a bunch of other events too. One of the ones I'm particularly excited about. Coming as a surprise to absolutely. No one is we're going to be at the girls, gone gravel, gone graveling weekend in Bentonville. So we'll have it there to show off as well. So we'll be at a bunch of gravel events throughout the season showing it off. So people can actually touch it and, and see what it's all about and, and, you know, just get a general sense of, of how it works. Cause think. You said it pretty well. You can't see it on a podcast. So some of this may sound a little weird, but if you're at any of these events that we're at, we encourage you to come over and say, hi, check it out. [00:30:15] Craig Dalton: And then are your European colleagues doing events over in Europe this year as well with the bike? [00:30:21] Joan Hanscom : yeah, they share our they, they share our, I think everybody everybody's pretty stoked on this bike and because we're BMC, we're innovating always. And you never know, there could be, there could be innovation in this space coming again in this, in the future. So stay tuned. [00:30:36] Craig Dalton: What did you get from your, your, your Swiss colleagues about the rise of gravel in Europe? What's the scene looking like over there? If you, if you had any of those conversations. [00:30:46] Joan Hanscom : We have some, I think that, you know, they really look at the U S as the, as the. Epicenter of it right now. But, but it's definitely growing in popularity, particularly, I believe in Gerona and the Alma Rawlins and Gerona, and certainly in Italy. And it's, it is starting to capture the imagination, obviously with the UCI focus now on, on gravel. It's starting to capture the interest of the higher level pros and a lot of ways similar to what we're seeing here. So they see it as any, I think an emerging race space, which of course, BMC being a high performance brand is very attractive. So my Swiss colleagues are starting to see that. This is a viable racing space for BMC to play. And so I think they find it quite intriguing. I think what's really nice for, for, for me to hear from BMC as well is, and why it's partially, why I'm excited to work for the brand. They see a lot of potential with the women's market for this bike. And I think that's massive. Like I love hearing that, that the brand I work for is. Profoundly interested in the female market. That's exciting. So, so yeah, so I think that's, that's, that's where they're at, but they, they get it that something cool is happening here. [00:32:07] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I feel like the European scene got set back a year through COVID. Whereas there was a couple of series and a couple of big events that were set to launch in 2020. And obviously they didn't get off the ground, but I think I imagining that this, this summer in Europe, we're going to see a lot of events start to kind of just take that Marquis place of like, what's the big one that someone wants to travel to. And. [00:32:28] Joan Hanscom : Right. And I think too, I mean, you're just starting to see in conventional road races, more gravel, right. I mean, that's certainly controversial for you know, should, should there be graveling tours? Ooh. And, you know, you can have, you can have , but can you have gravel? And so that's controversial and. You know, we have strata Biyanki now, which is left in a short tenure or 10 plus year history to, to be a classic. And certainly that's got to a fair bit of gravel in it. And we just had a race in Spain, a road race in Spain that had graveled sectors and sort of like the pre strata Biyanki strata be hockey. And so, you know, I think it's starting to have more adoption there as well, and people are starting to see the potential in it there. So. Ooh, belong in a tour. We don't know yet. Stay tuned. [00:33:15] Craig Dalton: well, this is awesome. I appreciate you coming on and giving an overview of the brand. I mean, it's, I think it's great. High performance brands are looking at gravel and really putting resources towards thinking about what's the best type of equipment that they can create. And the space, I think, has room for a lot of different perspectives. So I appreciate BMC bringing something new and innovative to the table. [00:33:38] Joan Hanscom : Yeah, I think it's super cool. And I think they're not going to stop. So I think as the sport evolves as the discipline evolves, they'll keep evolving as well. So we'll see. [00:33:50] Craig Dalton: Well, we look forward to seeing you down at this year, [00:33:54] Joan Hanscom : Yeah. Right on. [00:33:55] Craig Dalton: I hope you have a great weekend down there in [00:33:57] Joan Hanscom : Thanks. Thanks. I'm going to get out of my ears on Sunday and I can't wait. [00:34:01] Craig Dalton: Yes. [00:34:03] Joan Hanscom : good, good [00:34:03] Craig Dalton: for the time. [00:34:04] Joan Hanscom : scene. Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Have a great weekend. [00:34:07] Craig Dalton: So that's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Huge. Thanks to John from BMC for joining us. I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I know for me, the idea of suspension in gravel bikes has been something that's provoked a lot of thoughts and interest. I very much appreciate the innovation in the space. And I encourage you to take a look at that bike and others in the category. As always, if you have any feedback for me or the podcasts in general, I encourage you to join us over at the ridership. Simply visit www.theridership.com. It is by far the best place to connect with me, but much more importantly, other gravel athletes from around the world. Just talking about bikes. If you're interested in supporting the podcast directly. Please visit, buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride. Or leave us a rating or review or better yet share it with a friend. Any of these things helped me immensely. And I truly appreciate it. Until next time here's to finding some dirt under your wheels

Childhood trauma comes in a variety of different forms – no two trauma survivors have identical histories. However, what all trauma survivors have in common are experiences with the five core wounds that have led to depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other mental health disorders. In this episode Alyssa talks about the last two (2) core wounds and how they manifest in adulthood (to hear about the first three (3) core wounds, please listen to episode 84). Alyssa also discusses how we can begin to heal from our core wounds.  **Every donation to Patreon for the month of March will go to Doctors Without Borders to help support those injured in Ukraine. Alyssa will personally match your donation. See the podcast Patreon and learn more about Doctors Without Borders below!** Patreon Learn more about Doctors Without Borders   Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma   Transcript   Alyssa Scolari [00:23]: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari. And welcome back to part two of the two part series that we are doing on the five core wounds. This episode was a huge hit. I loved it, and you all loved it too. We actually broke our record on the podcast, which is really exciting. So thank you so much. I'm really happy to be doing part two. I hope everybody's having a good week. I'm having an okay week. I think personally, I'm doing well, but I don't know. I feel very, very heavy this week emotionally. I think everything that's going on in Ukraine is just really weighing on my soul. And I've been feeling pretty isolated as a therapist. There's been so much going on and I people that are being so affected by it, my clients included, and it just feels it's just very upsetting. Alyssa Scolari [01:31]: I don't know what's in the air, but there's been lots of crises and just really difficult moments and just bouts of injustice after are injustice, and it's hard to wrap my brain around. So I'm feeling rather heavy this week, and I'm just trying to work through those feelings. And I think the other issue that's been coming up for me a lot is feeling helpless. I feel very effective as a therapist for the most part. I have my moments, of course, but I'm feeling pretty helpless when it comes to everything that's happening in Ukraine. And I don't know what to do. So I've been really trying to rack my brain on what I can do to help, if anything, because it's very, very hard for me to sit here while other people are being so traumatized and just not do anything about it. So I actually think, what I'm going to do for the month of March is, if you become a patron on the Light After Trauma Patreon, whatever donation you make for the month of March is going to go directly to the efforts to help Ukraine. Alyssa Scolari [02:52]: And specifically, I am going to donate, or we are going to donate, to Doctors Without Borders. And Doctors Without Borders is this organization that works in conflict zones and they are partnering with Ukraine. They're helping people travel to healthcare facilities. They are making sure that people have access to healthcare and medicine. So whatever you donate, the LinkedIn of the Patreon is in the show notes, so just go right into the show notes. And I'm also going to include the link for the Doctors Without Borders so you can check it out a little bit more if you want. But, go onto the Patreon, and whatever you are able to donate would be great. And whatever you donate, I personally am going to match. So if you donate $5, I'm going to donate $5. If you donate 50 cents, I'm going to donate 50 cents. So I feel like this is a really great way for us to just join in together as a family and help when we are otherwise feeling pretty helpless. Alyssa Scolari [03:55]: Now with that being said, if you are not able to give, that is totally fine. But if you are, hey, go right ahead. I feel like that would be a great way to contribute, a great way for us to help. And I will, of course, after the month of March announce how much we have donated to Doctors Without Borders. So again, head over to the link in the show notes, and you will find everything that you need there. And with that being said, let's launch into part two today, which I'm pretty excited for. So if you haven't listened to last week's episode, you might want to go back and do that, because in that episode, we talk about the first three of the five core wounds, but we also talk about what the five core wounds are. Alyssa Scolari [04:46]: As a little recap, basically what the five core wounds are, childhood injuries, injuries to our soul, injuries to our brain. Every trauma survivor has a uniquely different story. No two trauma survivors have the same story, but all of our stories fall within the realm of these five core wounds. And last week, we talked about the first three being abandonment and rejection and betrayal. And we talked about what they are, how they can come about in childhood, and then what they manifest into in adulthood. This week, we are talking about the final two, which are humiliation and injustice. Now, we will start with humiliation. Now, humiliation, this can be felt as early as one to three years of age. And humiliation is [inaudible 00:05:50] exactly as it sounds, right? It is something that causes us to feel like we are bad. It's that feeling of wanting to crawl under a rock and die. It's belittling. And it comes out in a variety of different ways. Alyssa Scolari [06:04]: There are different types of humiliation. There's, I guess you could say indirect and direct humiliation. Maybe the phrase is... And I'm making this up. This isn't coming from anywhere, but I feel like it might be more accurate to say there's aggressive forms of humiliation, and then more passive aggressive forms of humiliation. So let me give you some examples, right? So children who are humiliated are basically being told that they are bad if they do a certain thing, look a certain way, right? So if you get a C on your test at school and your parent says, "I didn't raise no dumbass," or "What are you? A moron. You got to C on a test in the third grade?" That is humiliation. You are calling your child a horrible thing, and then your child is then internalizing that and feeling as though there is something wrong with them. "I am stupid. I am a dumbass. I am a moron." Now, school is just one of the many ways that humiliation can take shape, right? Alyssa Scolari [07:30]: A lot of humiliation also comes with potty training. If you wet the bed, if you miss the toilet, if you don't do something right when it comes to your potty training, sometimes parents or caregivers or adults may scream, may scream at you, may call you names, and this can be very humiliating. It's not so much the screaming that does it, although of course the screaming can be very traumatizing too, but that kind of borders more on rejection, I would say, but it's typically what that parent is saying and their body language. They are so angry at you. They feel some kind of way about you, almost like they feel you are a failure and that you will never get this right. Lots of children tend to experience some of their first bouts of humiliation during the potty training process. And when I say lots of children, I probably should re-say that, because potty training is, some children, they never get humiliated. Most children don't, I would think, but there are quite a few children out there who have been humiliated through potty training. Alyssa Scolari [08:56]: So with humiliation rates, sometimes it can just be very aggressive and very direct. "You're a dumbass. You're stupid. Why are you even bothering playing basketball? You sucked the whole time." Humiliation can also look like the dad on the court. You're five years old and you're in your first basketball game or t-ball game or whatever, and your mom, dad, whoever is on the sideline screaming at you, because you're not fast enough, you're not strong enough, other people are better than you. And this happens. I'm sure so many of you can relate to this. Humiliation, for me, did not happen when it comes to playing sports, because honestly, I never stood a chance in sports, but it does happen, and it is very, very devastating. Alyssa Scolari [09:45]: And then there's more passive aggressive humiliation. And sometimes that comes in the form of people who think they're trying to help you or people who are teasing you. So let me give you a few examples. I'm going to give you some personal examples. People used a lot of passive aggressive humiliation with me with my weight, right? Nobody in my family ever screamed at me for being overweight or outright told me that I was fat and lazy and this, that, and all the other negative connotations that this fatphobic world has against children or adults who are overweight. But I was a pretty chunky child. I had a lot of meat on my bones. I look at pictures of me now and I'm like, "Oh my God, I was adorable. I can't believe people called me fat as a kid." Alyssa Scolari [10:48]: I was freaking so cute. I can't even stand it, but I digress. But basically, I have distinct memories of parties, family parties. A family member, and I'm going to try hard not to out anybody here, but a family member who is no longer... She's no longer alive. When I would go to reach for food at the table, she would take my hand and kind of pull my hand away from the food, not aggressively by any means. It was kind of in a loving manner. And she would go, "Oh, don't be a little świnia. Now, for those of you who are not Polish and don't know what świnia means, it means pig. So I was a little girl going to get some food and I would be told, "Oh, don't be a little piggy." And the way it was said was almost like it came off in an endearing term, right? Alyssa Scolari [11:45]: It's like, "Oh, I love you and I care about you, and I don't want you to be a little świnia," but the impact was... I was freaking humiliated, because it was said in front of everybody else who was at the table, and it was horrifying. As another example, I remember this was maybe 10 years ago. I was at a bridal shower, and I was in the throws. Was it? It was maybe a little... Eh, it was about 10 years ago, maybe a little less. I was in the throws of my anorexia. I was a very, very low weight, a weight that I think for the people in my family thought was great. People were praising me all the time, but I was probably the sickest I've ever been in my life. And there was a bridal shower that I was at. And I was there, I was wearing this dress, everybody was complimenting me, telling me that I looked so beautiful, that they were so proud of me because I had lost all this weight. Oh, it makes my blood boil just thinking about it. Alyssa Scolari [12:55]: But basically what happened is, the dessert came out and I got up to go get a piece of cake. Now, I walked all the way across this room that we were in, and this room was massive, and I grabbed a plate with a piece of cake on it. And as I went to grab the cake, I heard this person from across the room, a family member, yell at me and she went, "You better drop that cake on the table because you don't want to gain back all that weight you lost." And everybody heard, and I was mortified. Again. I was a little bit older, but it opened up that already core wound that I had of humiliation. And she thought she was helping me. She didn't mean it in a mean way. She wasn't being aggressive. I mean, she was screaming, because hey, we're Italian, and that's what we do, we scream. But she thought that she was doing a great thing. She was like, "You got to keep that weight off. You're doing so great." Humiliated. I cannot even begin to tell you. I will never ever forget it. It was horrifying. Alyssa Scolari [14:12]: But also as a kid, I got made fun of not just for my weight, and made fun of/humiliated not just for my weight, but for the way I looked in other ways. Even something that might be as seemingly innocent as... I looked very different from the rest of my family. I'm very fair skinned, whereas a lot of the family members that I grew up with are really, really dark skin, dark hair. I'm really, really fair. So I used to be told all the time that the milk man dropped me off. And I was little. And my older cousins and stuff, they would say this to me, and I would sob and be so embarrassed and humiliated because they would then go on to be like, "Oh yeah, you don't really belong with this family. You weren't wanted, so just the milkman dropped you off." And I was little. I believed that, and it was horrible for me. Alyssa Scolari [15:10]: And then also, because I was so fair, again, I was with a bunch of family members who had very, very dark complexions, and then there's me over here. And they would say, even just at the dinner table, somebody would look over at me and be like, "Hey, where are your eyebrows? I can't even see your eyebrows. Do you even have them? Do you think they'll even grow in? Do you think you'll get them?" It was kind of in just a light teasing sort of way, but why? Why? Because to this day, I am extremely self conscious about my eyebrows. And when I look in the mirror, I wonder if anybody else can even see my eyebrows. It has become such a part of my body dysmorphia. Alyssa Scolari [16:01]: Now, of course, if my family, the people who said these things to me were to listen to this, they'd be like, "Oh my God, you're so sensitive. You're making such a big deal out of it." And that would be gaslighting, right? Because that's the thing, people who use humiliation as a form of relating or communication, especially adults to children, they're always like, "Oh, it was just a joke. What a sensitive kid. She can't take a joke. He can't take a joke. They can't take a joke." But that's not at all the case, right? If you have some of these similar experiences, this is humiliation, right? This is a core wound, and it is devastating. I have so much experience with this. I could honestly go all hunt all day. I will spare you, but parents and adults foster just this horrible fear in children that they are forever going to be criticized and that they will forever have disapproval and that they aren't good enough. Alyssa Scolari [17:10]: And when we become adults and we have this core wound of humiliation, it can go really one of two ways. Some people who have a core wound of humiliation end up being narcissists. They end up having a lot of narcissistic traits, and they can also be people who then go on to humiliate others. On the other hand, you can have people who become extremely dependent when they get older, people who feel like they constantly need the approval of others. This is something that I struggle with. Even in my profession, it took me a long time to be able to make decisions in my job and not feel like I immediately needed to call my supervisor right away and ask if I did the right thing. I was sort of dependent on the opinions of others and the approval of others to be able to function. I don't do that anymore, but I had to work so hard on knowing that I am okay as I am and that I don't need the approval of others. Alyssa Scolari [18:29]: If I would go out and I didn't have at least one person tell me that I was cute or looked great, I would feel humiliated. I would come home and I would dive right back into my eating disorder and feel like, "Oh my gosh, everybody hated me. They must have thought I looked ugly, X, Y, Z." Again, I had a ton of internalized fatphobia back then. I was extremely unwell. I'm being honest about how I was. I've worked on these things, so I don't do that anymore, but that is another way in which humiliation can show up in adulthood. So that is a heavy one, so take a deep breath if you need it, as we transition into this last one. Alyssa Scolari [19:16]: Now this last one is the fear of injustice. And this one is probably one of the lesser talked about of the five core wounds. This one isn't quite a self explanatory as the others, and it's a little deceiving based off of the name. But basically, injustice is when during your childhood, you had excessive demands that were pushed onto you by your caregiver, parent, guardian, whoever. So for example, let's say that you're the oldest and you have two younger siblings. And you're eight years old, seven years old, and you are being forced by your caregiver, your parent to take care of your younger siblings, right? Mom, dad, whoever goes to work all day and you're left at home, at eight years old, to change diapers, feed, play with your siblings, take care of them when you're truly just a child yourself, right? Alyssa Scolari [20:21]: And your parents aren't necessarily really understanding, and they're just like, "You got to do this. This is part of what being the older sibling is." It's excessive amounts of responsibility, too much responsibility with very little compassion and awareness and acknowledgement from the parent, meaning your parents or caregivers are very authoritarian and ice colds. They are very much not about your feelings. They don't really care about you getting your emotional needs met. They put a lot of pressure on you, even to meet your own physical needs and the physical needs of your siblings or whoever else is in the home, or maybe you grew up in a house where your dad was an alcoholic and he was unable to function or provide for the family and your mom made you go to work early, go to work illegally, right? When early, I mean, go to work when you're young, right? Alyssa Scolari [21:25]: Go to work, make money, support the family. Maybe you were also mom's emotional spouse, where instead of confiding in your father about her emotions, she would then turn to you because your father isn't available. Things like that create this core wound of injustice, and it causes a lot of mistrust in the world around you. It also causes this hyper-dependency, but also at the same time, core feelings of ineffectiveness and uselessness. Honestly, because when you are having such excessive demands as a child, you begin to feel like you're never good enough, because truthfully, you are not developed enough to even try to meet the demands of your caregivers. I hope that is making sense. For example, if you're in the fourth grade and you're eight years old, how are you supposed to be expected to take care of yourself, show up at school, be fully rested, and then also come home and take care of your two younger siblings, right? Alyssa Scolari [22:38]: So then let's say you go to school and you're falling asleep at school all the time and your teacher sends home a note to your parent that you're falling asleep in school and your parents screams at you and tells you that you need to get it together and that you shouldn't be falling asleep in school instead of taking a moment to reflect, "Well, why is my child falling asleep in school? What do I think I could do as a parent to support my child?" The blame is pushed onto you, and you alone as the kid. It would be completely possible to expect that you would have all these demands on you at home, and then be able to function in school, but your parent doesn't see that. Your parent expects that out of you anyway. So then all your life, you are expecting the impossible from yourself. And because nobody's perfect, we can never live up to that expectation. Therefore, as much as we need independence and perfectionism, we still feel at our core that we will never be good enough and that everything we do isn't effective and that we ultimately are useless. Alyssa Scolari [23:47]: So, that was a lot. I hope that is making sense, but basically, as you become an adult, those feelings sort of stay the same. Adults tend to just be really, really dependent. They are extremely rigid, and they are extreme perfectionistic. They have a lot of difficulty making decisions for fear of making the wrong one because they believe they're ineffective and ultimately will make the wrong one. They have a huge mistrust of other people because they have been taking care of everything their whole lives, but they also really don't trust themselves. It's a really, really scary and difficult place to be in as an adult. And as you can imagine, it makes getting into relationships, even friendships, even if we're not talking about romantic relationships, it makes all interactions that aren't superficial very, very difficult. Alyssa Scolari [24:51]: So those are the five core wounds. And one of the natural next questions would be, okay, so we know about these core wounds. We've gotten justice, we've got betrayal, we've got humiliation, rejection, and abandonment. Well, what do we do about that? What do we do? Unfortunately, that's really not a question that I can answer, that's very black and white, right? Because everybody heals from their core wounds in different ways. But I will say this, I think that understanding and acknowledging is the first half of the battle. And that's part of why we're doing this episode, because I don't think a lot of people are even aware that core wounds exist. And if we don't know it, we can't heal it. If we can't feel it, we can't fix it. Oy, I sound like such a cheesy therapist now. Geez, somebody make me stop, but I'm serious, right? In all seriousness, we really need to be aware, and awareness is really the first step in healing. Alyssa Scolari [26:04]: And I don't know what healing might look like. For me, healing has looked like not so much therapy, I guess. And I'm in therapy, right? That's no secret. I love therapy, but there's only so much that I think that can be done with talking about these core wounds. I'm very aware of what my core wounds are and I could talk about it in therapy, but I've sort of been in a place over the last couple of years... Well, ever since I started working with the therapist I have now, I've been in a place where I'm ready to really start to try to heal those wounds. Now, I feel like those wounds will always be sore spots. I'm always going to have some sensitive or tender scar tissue around those wounds, but that doesn't mean that they're going to drive my actions for the rest of my life. Alyssa Scolari [27:03]: And one way, for me, that I have been able to stop these core wounds from controlling my life is by putting myself out there and forcing myself to do the opposite of what comes naturally to me. That's part of the reason why this podcast even exists, because I am so good at being a therapist that sometimes I forget how to be a client. And I'm not saying that I'm being a client by doing this podcast, but I am very vulnerable here, and vulnerability does not come easy for me. And I am putting my trauma and my pain out there into the world. And it's, whoo, it gives me chills as I even say it, because every once in a while I'll have this voice in my head be like, "Alyssa, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you sharing this?" Right? But I'm sharing this because it's not in my nature, because my core wounds tell me that I'm not allowed to speak, because I came from family members who always said, "Don't air your dirty laundry." But my laundry isn't dirty. I'm not dirty. My issues aren't dirty. Alyssa Scolari [28:33]: Everybody struggles, everybody. So this is me pushing myself past my limits, past what I've been taught, past what I know, and trying to myself that it is okay, it is okay to speak, and that, airing your dirty laundry is just another way to add shame to mental health issues and adds to the stigma. And again, I don't blame anybody for telling me that. I don't think the people who told me that knew any better, but I know better now, so I can do better. So, so much of what has helped my healing is to just push myself and talk about it in therapy, but then I try to live it in my life. This fear of abandonment that I have, that core wound is huge for me. Alyssa Scolari [29:27]: It shows up in every way, shape, or form in my life. It shows up in ways that I still have difficulty talking about, but I still put myself out there. I still do my best to make friends. I do my best to communicate if these triggers are coming up for me. And I also do my best to try to sit with those feelings and label them for what they are, because I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe that when you label something for what it is and you see something for what it truly is, it takes the power away. Right? If I'm able to say what I'm feeling right now is a fear of abandonment because my friend has not texted me back in seven days, and I think that she hates me and that she's going to leave me probably because of something stupid I said in my last text. Right? If I'm able to look at that thought pattern and I can say, "Ooh, this is my abandonment stuff, and this is definitely coming from my core wound," suddenly things feel a lot more manageable, a lot more manageable. Alyssa Scolari [30:49]: So those are some things that I do to help. I just keep on putting myself out there and making myself vulnerable. It's scary. It's terrifying. It's horrifying. I've got a lot of work to do still, but hey, don't we all. Don't we all. And of course, therapy. I don't want to minimize therapy. Therapy helps so much, and it has helped me so much too. I just, I think in a place right now where I'm ready to put what I've learned in therapy and what I'm talking about in therapy into action in the real world. And if you're not there yet, that's fine. One of the first things you can do is really start identifying which of these core wounds do you have, if any of them. Maybe you have all of them. What do you relate to? What stings the most for you? Alyssa Scolari [31:41]: And I feel like writing about that, journaling can also be really, really helpful. So I hope that this episode was another helpful one for you. I've really loved talking about these core wounds. If you are enjoying what you are hearing, please leave a rating or review for the podcast. It means so much and helps the podcast grow. And again, in order to help with the efforts in Ukraine, anybody who becomes a Patreon member for the month of March and makes a donation, I will match that donation. And all of those proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders. They are helping with medical aid in Ukraine. So my Patreon link is in the show notes, and the Doctors Without Borders link is in the show notes. And if you are a Patreon member, or if you become a Patreon member, you also are able to request specific episode topics. Alyssa Scolari [32:42]: So if there is a topic that you want me to speak about that I have not spoken about yet, or one that you want me to do again, but a little differently, if you are a Paton member, you can request that. So I hope that everybody has a great week. I am sending so much love to you all. I am holding you in the light. And I will see you next week. Alyssa Scolari [33:05]: Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma, and on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over again. That's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support.

Check out "Love Jones" Live Every Wednesday from 9 pm-11 pm (ET) on www.excitementradio.com. Hosted by Shai Will. She plays the best in R&B, Slow Jams, and has Real Talk Discussions. This show's topic: Ooh no you didn't! What's your instant turn-off in a relationship? What are your thoughts? Tune in for the podcast. (Recorded 1-12-2022)

Hi lovely, Ooh we loved recording today's episode!  We got together to reflect on 7 years of running 28 days of love, our self love challenge that we've been running on Instagram since Valentine's day (have you been doing it with us?). Every year we do this challenge, we discover something new about ourselves on our self love journey and our understanding of self love deepens each time.  If you've been doing 28 days of love with us (yay!) then we‘d love to hear how it's been for you and what lessons you're taking away from it. And if you'd like to start the challenge then you can do it anytime - simply head over here and download your free PDF guide to getting started (plus you'll also find a big list of ideas to inspire you). It's a great one to do with friends! Whether you're new to self love or you are wanting to deepen your practice, we hope these lessons will inspire you on your own self love journey.  EXCITING NEWS Plus in the episode, you'll hear us celebrating that we have a brand new journal that is being released TODAY!!!

What Rhymes with Wagon and is appearing in the wrong RPG!www.RollMongers.comwww.TeeSpring.com/RollMongers for Merch!www.Patreon.com/RollMongers Thank You For your needed Support, because sponsors don't pay you, they just give you free stuff lol!Also Thanks to our new sponsor "Devin Night" for providing use with all his art work minis with the folks at Fantasy Grounds to use here!https://immortalnights.com/tokensite/​Music:Intro: Star wars soundtrack x-wing formation by Kurt Thomlinson"Cyber punk Bar""Cyber Punk City""Space battle""Busy Space Port""Dying Planet""Starship medical""Starship Bridge""Deep Space eva""Alien night club""1940's office"All by Table top audio .comStar Wars - The Force Theme (Far Out Remix)"GAurdians" by Evan King""Dark Choir" by Mattili Cupellai musicFREE LICENSE TO USE: https://gum.co/hhVjx​DOWNLOAD: https://gum.co/hhVjx​www.youtube.com/user/MattiaCupelliMusic​"Satiate" By Kevin Macleod"Scientific Reasoning" by TechnoAxewww.youtube.com/channel/UCtgf00GvfFQV...​"Enchiridion" by Evan King"End This" by Evan King"Tactics" by Alex Lisi"Helipad Siege" - Alex lisi"Speed Chase"- Alex lisi"Match" by Alex Lisi"War Gods" Alex lisi all on you tubewww.youtube.com/channel/UC2Wkg85Gabk3...​Crossing the chasm by Kevin MacleodKevin-9-1 – Crossing-the-chasmSuper hero by Tabletop audio @ Tabletop audio.comStar Wars Soundtrack | X-Wing Formation (Fan-Made) by Kurt TomlinsonTrukmai – Star-wars-ost-x-wing-formation-fan-made-1External terminal By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – Eternal-terminalDarkling (Destructive device) By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – DarklingMalicious By Kevin macleodKevin-9-1 – MaliciousMusic maker test 2Inductrial CinematicKevin-9-1 – Industrial-cinematicOribital promonade by tabletop audioStar Wars - The Force Theme (Far Out Remix)@faroutofficial...Desertwinds by Tabletop audio.comOutroImperial march remix by Goblins from marsGoblinsfrommars – Star-wars-imperial-march-goblins-from-mars-trap-remix-free-downloadMusic in this videoLearn moreListen ad-free with YouTube PremiumSongDark Side BeatArtistGoblins from MarsAlbumGoblin Instrumentals And BeatsLicensed to YouTube byRecord Union (on behalf of Goblins from Mars)Music in this videoLearn moreListen ad-free with YouTube PremiumSongDark Side BeatArtistGoblins from MarsAlbumGoblin Instrumentals And BeatsLicensed to YouTube byRecord Union (on behalf of Goblins from MarsOUTROOriginal track is "Feel it still" by Portugal the ManParody Lyrics:I keep the force to myselfAll because the emperor ruined it for everyone elseWe gotta find a place to hideGuess we`re going underground nowOoh woo I'm a rebel just for kicks nowI`ve been rocking it since order 66 nowThe force is strong, and I feel it stillOoh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks nowWhy`d the emperor say order 66 nowBut the force is strong and I feel it stillGotta make it out to TheedGonna reason with the senators try to make it better nowSomewhere out theres gotta be freeI guess I`ll head to Alderran nowOoh woo I'm a rebel just for kicks nowI`ve been rocking it since order 66 nowThe force is strong, and I feel it stillOoh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks nowWhy`d the emperor say order 66 nowBut the force is strong and I feel it stillWe should fight a war for peace(Ooh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks now)Ressurect the Jedi, bring the emporer down to his kneesThe Sith mean nothing to meI should strike them all down now(Ooh woo I`m a rebel just for kicks now)There'll be no aquittal for the sith who killed the littlePa-da-wansHe is my enemyIs he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming?Is he coming back?Ooh Woo I'm a rebel just for kicksand I'm gonna keep on going till the galaxy is fixed nowCause the force is strong and I feel it stillOoh woo I'm a

Ooh. This, one of the most chilling episodes of Doctor Who was transmitted on one of the hottest days of the year. Not ideal with an ice lolly, it's a story best experienced in the dark. Special guest, podcaster Nick Randell, goes above and beyond the call of duty with his contribution outlining his love for these episodes - can guest Toby Hadoke guess what Nick's favourite things are? And what is the secret of Sylvia and Keith?

Welcome to Episode #49! This was our second attempt at recording this instalment so we had two weeks of stuff to catch up on. We discussed developments with Rob's running and work and John's music activities and then got into such things as: The Power Of The Dog Euphoria What happened to the first #49 Escape room Movie extras we know Dr Strange and The Multiverse of Madness trailer The Good Liar The Walking Dead returns Game Reviews: Fireball Island and Tiny Epic Galaxies Hot Ones Listener question discussion And lots more! Send in your "Ooh! Electric Shock!"s to oohelectricshock@mail.com for next weeks big 50th episode Check out The Lucky 13s latest video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ogkaCkCYGM Thanks for listening! John & Rob  

Allyson was a high school senior in 1999, so this high school romcom was super relevant to her. She also wore glasses. Ooh, Allyson's middle name is also Leigh, just like the star Rachel Leigh Cook. Nerds! Sure, She's All That is a cheesy and predictable movie, but will the mere presence of Star Wars super fan Freddie Prinze Jr. and the always great Matthew Lillard be enough to make Mike enjoy this one. Or maybe he was better off only seeing Not Another Teen movie, the movie that sharply parodied this. Here's a link to the Freddie Prinze Jr. Star Wars rant Mike and Allyson mention: https://youtu.be/wYsnb61JPmM If you want to let us know what you thought about She's All That, or you have a movie you think we should watch, let us know. Join our https://www.facebook.com/groups/youmademewatch (Facebook group) for more movie talk! https://www.facebook.com/groups/youmademewatch Follow us on Instagram @YouMadeMeWatch to get sneak peeks at which movie we'll talk about next. Logo by Martin Butler. Follow him on Instagram @MartyButtons Theme song by Thomas Medelheim. https://www.fiverr.com/medelheim

The Black Girls' Guide To Surviving Menopause   Read Omi's Zine!   Follow Omisade on instagram.   Watch Omi's interview with Stylikeu.   Other Inquiries: decolonzingthecrone@gmail.com    About Omisade: Omisade Burney-Scott is a Black southern 7th generation native North Carolinian feminist, mother and healer with decades of experience in nonprofit leadership, philanthrophy, and social justice. She is a founding tribe member of SpiritHouse and previously served as a board member of The Beautiful Project, Village of Wisdom, and Working Films.  Omisade is the creator of The Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause, a multimedia project seeking to curate and share the stories and realities of Black women and femmes over 50. She is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, the proud mother of two sons, and resides in Durham.   Transcript: Sophie Shiloh   You're listening to the codependent millennial podcast with Sophie Shiloh episode 49 Omisade Burney-Scott on being sweet to your damn self Hello, my love. So nice to be talking to you so happier here right now. Today's episode is a treasure. It's a conversation I had with a woman named Omisade Burney-Scott. I want to read to you the words that she uses on her website to self identify. But I think powerful introductions are about so much more than someone's bio resume or a list of all their most notable accomplishments and she has many. But I think it's really important when introducing someone to emphasize the impact they've had on your life. And so that's what I want to do here in this intro as well because while I've only known that Omisade exists for like, two weeks, she really has had an incredibly profound impact on my life. I learned about Omisade and her multimedia project called the Black Girls Guide to surviving menopause a few weeks ago on YouTube, I was watching those amazing style like you interviews and one really stood out there was this radiant, gorgeous woman on the thumbnail. She just looked electric. She was radiating. And then I saw the title. It said my body was screaming at me how depression saved Omisade Burney-Scott's life. And that's my story. So immediately, I was just like, Okay, this is a human that I need to learn from immediately. It was such a moving interview, but I was left with so many questions. So I went to her website started devouring podcast episodes, started seeing all of the incredible things that Omisade is doing out in the world and I was just overwhelmed and inspired and enlightened by her work. So go to the shownotes to find everything that she has going on because there's a lot and it's all really good. She has a zine called messages from the menopausal multiverse. She has an amazing podcast called The Black Girls Guide to surviving menopause. She has essays on grief and love and liberation and so much more. Her website is Black Girls Guide to surviving menopause calm. Her podcast is Black Girls Guide to surviving menopause and you can find her on Instagram at oceans sweet and sour, sweet and sour ocean sweet and sour. I'm seriously so honored that these women that I admire and appreciate and call on as guides want to talk to me. My intention with that statement isn't to belittle myself at all. But after the conversation with John on the last episode and this conversation with Omisade and with a couple of other things that I have in the works like I'm just blown away, really by this huge web of a community that you don't even realize exists before you dip your toe in. Please don't wait a single moment or talk yourself out of it when you feel the spark of wanting to get in touch with someone even if your brain tries to tell you that they're too important and smart and busy and powerful and cool to talk to you. I just recorded interviews with two of my heroes in the span of 30 days so you can literally do anything. Trust me. Trust me. Before I roll this interview with her I'll read to you her own words about who she is and what she does. Omisade Burney-Scott is a black southern Seventh Generation native North Carolinian feminist mother and healer with decades of experience in nonprofit leadership, philanthropy and social justice. She's a founding tribe member of spirit house, and previously served as a board member of the beautiful project village of wisdom and working films. Omisade is the creator of the Black Girls Guide to surviving menopause, a multimedia project seeking to curate and share the stories and realities of black women and femmes over 50. She's a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, the proud mother of two sons and resides in Durham. Now, without making you wait another moment, please enjoy this conversation that I had with Omisade. Omisade Burney-Scott, you are amazing. I want you to give a little bit of an introduction. I'm going to introduce you of course before this, but I want you to tell my audience who you are what is really important that people know about you. Omisade   That's a great question. And thank you for having me. So I think the things that are really important to me, that I want your listeners to know is not what I do, but who I am and who I'm trying to be. So who I am. I am a seventh generation North Carolinian so I'm southern who I am As I'm A I, my parents daughter, and my parents or ancestors have been deceased now for almost 20 years or more. So, I move in the world as somebody whose child but not somebody who's here physically anymore. I am a sister. I have older siblings and a younger sister. I'm mom to two spectacularly beautiful black boys, who aren't boys anymore. My oldest son will be 30 next month, my youngest son will be 14 in October. But they they've taught me so much about like, how to love and how to love myself and be more soft and open and gentle with them and with me. I am an Aries. Me Sue. Yeah, but with a Leo moon and Leo rising. So I am fire fire in fire. Sophie Shiloh   Incredible. That's so powerful. Omisade   I think that's important for folks to know. Sophie Shiloh   Yeah, exactly what they're getting into, Omisade   you know, just just be prepared. And I'm a really passionate person around healing. My own healing, and the healing and safety of my people, black people. Healing of our country, healing of our culture is my my thing. I think that liberation and radical love, like is at the core of healing. So that's really important to me. And like who I'm trying to be, it's just a really happy, vibrant, safe, joyous, young person. That's who I'm I'm trying to be? Sophie Shiloh   Can I ask you to elaborate a little bit about radical love and what that means to you how you embody that how you use that in your relationship with you? Omisade   Yeah, so I think, you know, I had a very traditional kind of view of what love is, I have older parents, who were both born during the Great Depression, and raised in Jim Crow South. And so a lot of the ways that I experienced love from my parents was, you know, providing you something, right, like you have a home, you have a safe place to live, you have a safe place to lay your head, you you are going to school, you'll get to go to college. You're safe, like your physical safety, in terms of like stability was like a really important thing. But kind of emotional vulnerability was not something that was always available to them. And I understand why. And I also feel like for me, I didn't think that I could be as sensitive as I am emotionally, I felt like that was problematic. So I started to try to figure out like how to mask my emotions or mask my sensitivity, not very successfully, honestly. And so as I've gotten older, and also have been on a pretty consistent journey around my mental health and my wellness, radical love looks like me actually allowing myself to be much more curious and open to my authentic self. Like, who is she? What does she want? What does she desire? What does softness look like? What does intimacy and vulnerability look like? In all relationships, I choose to do have access to that, because I don't think that everybody should have access to it. I think boundaries are really important. But I think that the radical part of it is like, what does it mean for me to be vulnerable to myself, and allow myself to have whatever kind of thoughts I might have? And be curious about the origins of those thoughts without shaming or being embarrassed? Or if I am feeling some embarrassment for a thought or if I am feeling some shame or whatever, for thought to allow that to just be released from me in his time, you know, and not like you're failing you have to hurry up and get over this thought, like no, I'm not feeling I'm like this thought has is here for a reason or this feeling is here for a reason. And so I think the radical part of that is like, working everyday to suspend judgment working everyday to sit to alleviate shame, working every day to be more open to who I am in who I allowed to have access to my authentic self. So. Sophie Shiloh   So that is a beautiful lead into just me saying just for a second about how I discovered you, because I found out about you five minutes ago, essentially. And I really, I saw your style, like you interview and I was immediate. I'm like, I'm done, like, so I'm done. It's, I was blown away. And so I haven't had the chance yet to like, listen to quite every single podcast you have. But I just dove in immediately and started gobbling them up. So the the thing you said the phrase you said, that kind of hit me and just told me that I had to reach out to you and talk to you and learn everything you have to say. And all of that was you talking about just being sweet to your damn self. And part of that, you know, includes not coming to yourself with judgment and shame, like you just mentioned, which is amazing. I want you to talk more about that. But that there are so many ways for us to be sweet to our damn selves. And you also had an interview with blue now, who was that interview? Everyone has? That's just, it's prerequisite information for like, a woman on earth. You know what I mean? Omisade   I think so too. She was a absolute hoot when we interviewed when he was in her night dress, like she was actually like, anybody gonna see this? I was like, no, no, I'm in my pajamas. As it's fine. I'm in blue. Now it's fine. Sophie Shiloh   For her to just show up so much as her that she didn't even check before. Like, that's just so powerful. And so. So this concept of being sweet to your damn self, talk a little bit about that, because coming out of, you know, a childhood, where you're describing you were shown certain kinds of love, and you were probably not shown how to love yourself in other various important ways. So like, what is what does it mean to you to be sweet to your damn self? Now? How do you do that? How have you learned that over the course of you know, having kids experiencing menopause? This simple question should only take, you know, one or two sentences to answer. It's no big deal. Omisade   Maybe maybe 12 or 13. But um, so I want to say something, you know, I my parents worked really, really hard, really hard. And my, my mom was super lovey. And like a huge cheerleader of anything that my younger sister and I wanted to do in terms of like, extracurricular activities, if we wanted to do dance, if we wanted to, whatever she was like, yes, let's do it. Let's make it happen. And I think that was born out of her not having access to so many things as a kid, like they were really, really, really poor. The thing that I didn't see my mother do was take good care of herself. She was always extending that out to other people. Are you good? Are you hungry? Are you cold? Are you sleepy? Let me take you here. Let me take you there. I didn't see my mom rest until my mom gets sick. And that that felt like a really, really important part of my framing of like, what does it look like to take care of yourself? What does it look like to be sweet to yourself? What does What does rest with this care look like? She just did not read. And she wasn't the only one that I observed doing that inside of our family? Like, none of the black women inside of my family? Didn't know. Yeah, that they were always in Sophie Shiloh   the concept was just like, foreign entirely. You know, Omisade   the concept is foreign. Because it's not a luxury that black women are afforded in many ways. It's definitely that generation. Right? Like I said, my parents were not boomers. My parents were the greatest for Sophie Shiloh   Yeah, so that was not even a question. Omisade   Absolutely. What do you do you work hard? Yeah. And you take care of your family. And you're in constant motion, you're cooking, you're taking someone to this class or someone to this club, there's always something going on. And so my relationship with rest to me is like an exemplar of a place where I wasn't I didn't know how to be sweet to myself, like rest to me is such a really important part of my sweetness practice now. And I think that what are the unintended outcomes of the pandemic, is that it allowed me to lean in more deeply into the fact that I don't know I don't know how to rest. I still struggle sometimes even working remotely even still working primarily from home Like carving out times in my day, where I'm just in a place of just rest and ease, and not in motion. Even inside my house, you know, I teased that, you know, the virtual world that we kind of operated now I feel like I'm in a long hallway and I'm running from one Zoom Room to the next, you know, Oh, are we on Zoom? Are we on Google me? Are we on Google meet? Are we on Skype, and I'm just running around in this virtual space. And like, giving myself an opportunity to stop in this virtual space and go outside and get to stop and to lay down even if I'm not taking a nap. Like if I don't close my eyes to go to sleep, but just to, to recline. Yeah, and let my body soften and be quiet and just settle in. I listened to music all the time anyway. But to put on some music that just lets me just like time travel or relax? Yes, time travel. Yeah, all the time, all the time, whatever it may be. So the being sweet to myself, right now primarily looks like the ways in which I allow myself to rest. And I think it's still a journey of figuring out these things, and unlearning a lot of what I saw growing up as a kid. Yeah. Sophie Shiloh   So unlearning. Let's pause there for a minute, the undoing you mentioned that in your interview with Dr. Jenn from decolonizing therapy, you talk about the undoing of so much of what we were taught, the disguises that we put on ourselves in order to survive and the, you know, just the various habits of either not resting or telling yourself that you're not allowed to not giving yourself permission to do all of this. Like, I think it relates also to sovereignty, having sovereignty over your own body in your own life. Literally just living it as if it is yours because it is it is so tell. Tell talk a little bit more about what you have to undo what you have to unlearn in order to be a happy woman. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, that's really the essence of it. Omisade   I mean, you know, I want everybody to be happy people, however, right? Cis, hetero woman, whoever's listening to your podcast may not identify that way. Exactly. Everyone who listens to you to know that what hat for me, the undoing or the unlearning? Absolutely kind of exists inside of these constructs that we live in, in this country. Right? So capitalism tells you gotta be like producing, producing, producing, producing, I'm a genetics kid, right? So it's like, Where is the evidence that you are a valuable person? In? Did you go to college? Where did you go to college? You know, there's always the bar of like evidence of your legitimacy. Or if you're fraudulent, like, it feels like it's like one of those kind of like Whack a Mole situations like you can never actually get it right. So it's like, okay, inside of a capitalistic construct, what does success look like? You got to go to college, you got to go to a particular kind of college. You got to have a particular kind of degree or a particular kind of job, but you got not just have any job. What's your title in your job? What do you do? What are you responsible for? Are you a supervisor, like how many people use provides? Do you have a budget? Well, how big is your budget? Like it's always like, Sophie Shiloh   proof and also the competition of how much do you overwork this masochistic competition? Omisade   masochistic competition of like, I literally put in 65 hours, I'm killing myself. Yeah. Right. And if you being like, Oh, my God, I put in 80 hours last week, and then they're like, but I'm getting to go to Cabo. So I feel so much better about it. So it's like, Well, why do you have to do that? Yeah, like, it's very bizarre way in which we're in the hyper productivity, hyper, you know, hyper speed of work, like you have to prove your worth. Yeah. And I you know, and because I operate with an intersectional identity of someone who is a black who's black, who's a woman who sits who's heteros college educated, who I feel like has been pretty successful and being able to take care of myself most of my adult life, not all of my adult life. Most of it, yeah, you know, you you move in a way where you're like, you also realize how much white supremacy and patriarchy is like jacked you up. Sophie Shiloh   Yeah. And that hits you and then you're like, Omisade   Alright, and so the unlearning is why am I doing this? Yeah. Am I actually really happy don't want to do this. Well, if I stopped doing this what what will I lose? Am I'm willing to lose whatever that is? Like cuz some But what I think I will lose is like, actually not real anyway. So like, how do I give myself permission? To be very clear, I've never worked in corporate America. I've always worked. I worked in higher ed. And I've worked. I've worked in social justice in the nonprofit sector. And so in the US think, Oh, well, that doesn't happen inside of the social justice nonprofit. That's not true. Sophie Shiloh   Yeah. Oh, god. No, I mean, ya know, Omisade   the hyper hyper work that exists inside of nonprofits is to me again, an example of like, how capitalism and white supremacy work ethic, like, what have you working seven days a week? Every Dragon, I Sophie Shiloh   come from that world to it, Omisade   and I'm talking to you, so drag, my oldest kid is to drag him to every single meeting every single action, every single protest every single phone game, you know, every single board meeting, you know, he, for the longest time, che was always the only kid in the room. Yeah. You know, and, you know, there was some, you know, I don't know, honor in being like, oh, yeah, right. Sophie Shiloh   Yeah. Which I mean, it honestly, that does make sense. Because like, fuck, yes, you're raising this incredible aware child who's engaged and who sees the impact of how he and how his mom walks in the world. But then there's like, what you what you're saddling yourself with, when you allow yourself to live only in that way. There's, there's no rest, there's no connection with hand, there's, like, Omisade   no rest, and there's no there's no boundary, right? There's no boundary, there's no like, somebody could call me at nine o'clock or 10 o'clock at night. And when, especially with Che, because my boys are 16 years apart. Yeah. So Jay, you know, focus, disrupt whatever time that I should have been really dedicated to being in mommy mode with him. Yeah. And be like, Listen, I need to talk to you about this, or I'm working on X, Y, and Z. And, you know, he just learned to go with the flow with it and be like, you know, snuggle up underneath me while I'm working, um, or, you know, take care of himself and be in his room. And you know, both my boys are very, Loki, chill, chill as kids. So I'm very blessed in that way. But I also know that the way that I sometimes showed up for him, I won't do that with Taj. I've changed with Taj. And I think that, and che sees that we've talked about it, too. We've talked about that, as he's an adult, and what that was like for him. And, you know, talk about that with ties, you know, and I'm very clear with people who are working with me now, like, I'm, I'm not available to talk to you after a certain time. Yep. And I will not allow that time to take away from ties. Yeah, it's very important to me now, I'm, I'm divorced. I've been divorced now, for nine years. And so it's really important to be in a healthy co parenting relationship with his dad. And it's really important to be in a healthy relationship with both my boys as I'm still parenting an adult child and a teenager. Yeah. And so those boundaries became even more clear to me with my depression around really needing to take care of myself and really needing to be at home and comfortable with my kids and math and my family and allowing them to take care of me and be be open to that. Sophie Shiloh   Yeah. So one of the most challenging things for women to do, I think, just based on observational and, and personal experiences, receiving love, receiving care, not only from ourselves, but from others as well. So, how have you been able to really sort of surrender to that and say, No, I'm not going to be a martyr anymore. I'm not going to, you know, base all my worth on how much I'm willing to sacrifice anymore. I'm not going to play this masochistic competition game of how much can I suffer? How much can I work? How much can I sacrifice? Um, you know, talk a little bit about your experience of just saying no, I'm, I'm going to allow myself to exist and exist beautifully and exist with joy. Omisade   Hmm. Well, the first thing is I don't have any illusions of perfection. What's that quote? that perfection is the thief of joy. Yeah, so I don't know. Sophie. I'm still figuring that shit. Yeah. Like I legit. Don't know. Like, fully. Like, I'm just I know what I do know is I'm committed. Yeah, I know that. It's a practice for me. And so I know that every day I'm like, I wantOmisade to be happy. I want Omisade to be whole. I want Omisade to be safe. I want Omisade to be creative. I want Omisade to be committed. But I, every day, I am trying to disrupt any illusions of perfection. And some days I feel really good at it some days I suck the entire. Yeah, some weeks, I sucked the entire week where I'm just like, oh, this was just like, pushing a boulder up a hill all week long around all of my imposter syndrome, all of my ways in which fraudulent even at almost 55 years old. Yeah. All the ways where I feel like I'm still in my own little anxious attachment style, dancing as hard as I possibly can to get people to be like, aren't you just the sweetest little lovable thing, right? And then that doesn't happen and be like, dance faster, dance harder, be more shiny, you know? And then maybe someone will be like, Oh my God, did you see this person over here, just dancing, and sweating profusely? Let's give them all the love that they need. Let's protect them. Let's Let's offer them resource. So they can feel really, really good about themselves. And so I don't have a perfection. I don't have a way that I will say to someone. This is this is the life hack. Here, look, here's the plot twist. Sophie, there is no life hack. Yeah, there is no life hack. I think the life hack is if you decided that the way you've been moving in the world is detrimental to your spirit, to your soul, to your happiness to your heart to your mind. And you just got to figure out ways to cut that shit out. Just cut just figure out everyday, how am I gonna disrupt this? What's a real simple thing I can do to disrupt this today? How can I disrupt tomorrow and just be in a constant place of oh, if something pops up, and I realized that I'm dancing again. I'm dancing really hard. And you're like, What are you doing? Oh, are you tired? Are you? Um, does this feel like a familiar scenario? You feel like you're time traveling right now back to Yeah. Sophie Shiloh   Like where'd you go? What happened? urge you go, Omisade   come back, come back, come back. You can actually breathe. Take a moment. Like I need a moment. Let me hit you. All right back. Take a break. Take a walk, take a nap, drink some water. chill out for a second. And then decide what you need. Like yesterday, I was on a call with some folks that I work with. I trust so much. I've trust them, respect them. I love them so much. And I was feeling really crispy and tired. And so I asked for support, which is not something I would have done. Previously, I would have likely just been sitting on the zoom with pinched eyes. Mm hmm. Oh, and like, headache brewing behind my eyes. And they would say, Oh, me, so are you cool to do that? I'm like, sure. Yeah, no problem. I'll get something to y'all tomorrow. And yesterday, I was like, Y'all, I cannot I need someone else on this team of people who I believe in and trust and nor fully capable to take this piece for the next couple of weeks. I can't do it. I have too much on my plate. And I will not only will I not do it. Well, I'll be resentful if I have to do it. And they were like, nice. Thank you for being honest and asking, of course, we can take that for you. And I was like, thanks. I really appreciate that. Sophie Shiloh   so valuable. That honesty, that self awareness to self knowledge. Yeah. And I just want to also honor how and thank you for doing that. Because when when women who younger women like me look up to do that. It really does. I know, blah, blah, blah permission is something you can only give yourself, you know, whatever but but it's also not, you know, it is really really valuable and helpful for us to see. strong, capable, confident, beautiful women or genuinely people of any gender identity, none of this matters, you know, etc. But seeing you do that knowing that you have that experience of doubting yourself in that moment saying no, I really should over extend. No, I really do want to bend myself until I break here but you don't. And that gives us permission not to as well. It's just I just want to thank you. It's really powerful. Omisade   It is so important. Yeah, love is it is so important and I think that we often see people in front was we see them doing it, we can we can see bear witness to folk engaging in the back bend in the breaking in the hype speed in the hyper productivity. And we also we watch, we are bystanders, yeah, in order for there to be reciprocity in this healing in this unlearning, where we actually extend ourselves to the folks that we care about in the book that we're working with are being created with and say, Listen, I'm noticing that you've been really doing a lot of work. Are you taking care of yourself? Is there something I can take off your plate, you know, and it's really ironic I, you modeling that will transform how you show up in the world, and also the next generation. Case in point. A couple of weeks ago, I was working, I had a really, really long day, working with a client with my consulting practice. And I had been in my little office space all day long. And Taj came home from school, and I was still here and I said, Listen, I'm just going to be a long evening, so I'm going to actually just ordered some food and he was like, no problem. Then he came back upstairs. He said, Is there anything that I can do for you? And I was like, um I don't know. He said, Is there anything around the house that you need done that I could just take care of for you? And I was like, what the kitchen cuz you some support. He was like, considerate that. He's 13. Oh, like, Consider it done. So this kid goes downstairs. Oh, me. It should. Anyway, that's his job. But we got there, cleaned the kitchen, took the trash out. Just and then I ordered the food. He unpackaged the food put on a play. It gave me some sugar. And was like, wow, I was like, I love you too sweet. And that that's a big deal for me. Because this this kid was like, I know she's got some stuff. She's She's committed to I had a deadline and I couldn't like yeah, wiggle out of that. Yeah. So he was like, was there anything I can do to take something off? You're Sophie Shiloh   like, we're on the same team. Mom, you're going to pull an all nighter? What can I do? Yeah, I got you. Yeah. Omisade   I think is important for us to extend that kind of care to the folk who are in our lives. Yes. We're doing work with to be able to say to someone, look, Sophie, I see you're working really hard. Sweetie. Is there something I can take off your plate? As opposed to just watching you burn? Yeah, we watch each other burn all the time as as women we watch each other burn. We like who she is just, she's gonna crash and burn. Don't stand there and observe Sophie Shiloh   dad there. Yeah. witness to that and then be like something. I knew you were gonna crash Omisade   and burn. I was I was concerned. Were you really not Sophie Shiloh   helpful? Were you really? Yes. Omisade   Really? Like, that's a big Aflac. Sophie Shiloh   I didn't hear from you. Omisade   I was like, stretched out to you like I was concerned. But I figured if you was doing it, you knew what you were doing. Sophie Shiloh   Like, I told you to reach out if you needed anything like, yeah. Omisade   Which is another thing that we do when we see somebody in kind of in a grief cycle. Yes, exhibiting their their post traumatic stress are their trauma responses. And so we just watch, Sophie Shiloh   don't wait for them to ask for help. Yeah, you cannot do that. And you know, it's so trendy for people now to talk about being trauma informed. You can't be trauma informed. If you talk about relying on this hyper individualistic method of healing. It's just Yeah, I know that we could just rant on that forever. Really Omisade   good. You really could I think that, you know, some of the ways in which I feel like people are talking about trauma informed work, or trauma informed activism, sometimes feels very passive where you're watching someone and you're like, oh, what I'm observing right now is their trauma. So I'm just gonna have their trauma, as opposed to, oh, what I'm observing right now, is this person operating in their trauma? And that can activate me to speak to this person and say, I'm observing some things. I'm curious about some things. Are you open to us having a conversation about it? And also, this is what I'd like to offer you. Are you open to that? Like it's always to me like, I don't just want you to be curious and observing the from a kind of like an anthropological study. Sophie Shiloh   Yes. A voyeuristic kind of No, Omisade   no, I want you to actually be engaged and invested. So I know I can't expect that from every thought, everybody. I'm not gullible enough to think that that's available to everybody. But the people who actually say that they are down for me, and I'm down for them, I would prefer if they see me operating from a place of my trauma to be like, Oh, me, I have noticed. Yeah, last couple of months or the last couple of weeks, XYZ. You want? Can we talk about that? Do you feel open to talking about this with me? And is there something I can do for you? This is what I'd like to offer. And I'm always that person. When I'm talking to folks that I work with, or that I'm in relationship with us? I will. What do you need? Do you need me to listen? Do you? Would you like me to reflect when I'm hearing? Yeah. And can I offer you something? Yeah. So you know, I'll say, Would you like to take a walk this weekend? I'd love to walk with you? Or would you like to have some tea? We'll have tea outside? Or do you feel comfortable having tea inside? And want me to send you a playlist? You know, I think I'm a DJ Sophie, I'm the you know, people. I'm a curator of vibes. Sophie Shiloh   I was gonna ask you for your music earlier. And I was like, I don't know if she'd give me her personal Spotify, but I'm gonna need Omisade   it and I will send you my Spotify. Curator of vibes and I will say to someone you want me to make your playlist? Sophie Shiloh   Um, that's, that's like a special kind of love. Omisade   That's deep. That's like a 21st century mixtape? Are you kidding me? That's, Sophie Shiloh   that's intensely special. If someone does that for you, Omisade   if somebody thinks enough of me to curate a playlist for me, I think we go together. I think you want to say yeah, like, do you want to do that? Sophie Shiloh   Yeah. Are you like, what's going on here? What do you what kind of messages are you sending? Yes, but this, this is huge. You also talk about music like that. That is, okay. So when you ask someone, how do you want me to support you right now? How can I show up for you? So many times, we don't know how to ask, we don't know what to say we don't know, like, especially if you're at the very beginning, like clients, when I first start working with someone, oftentimes, they don't know what they like to eat. They don't know what kind of music they like, they've lost themselves, they've abandoned themselves for so many years. They just they don't know. But for you to say, hey, here are some of the ways that I like to, to connect to nature to my self, that I like to ground. Let me let's do some, like that's extremely helpful for people who just have gone so far off the path of self love that they do not know how to care for themselves. They need like, let me show you how to do this. Let me like, yeah, it's a, you need Wayshowers I think, Omisade   though, you need Wayshowers. And you need wayfinding tools like to get back on your path. You know, and it's sometimes you're, when you're off your path, it can feel really scary and isolating it to have someone look at you and say, I'll go with you. Yeah. And you're like, you will be like, Yeah, sure. I'll go, let's go, let's go. Sophie Shiloh   Let's go, this path is one that you can walk, it's not going to kill you. It's gonna, it's gonna be the best thing that ever happened to you this actually. Okay, let me ask you this question. Because that reminds me so much of the language that I use for this question be being afraid of something and it actually working out beautifully. So, um, oh, okay. So what do you wish you could tell your pre menopausal self yourself in your 20s or 30s or 40s? yourself during your most confused or uncomfortable? So like, when you were on your path, and you were the most confused or the most discouraged, the most lost from yourself? What do you think helped bring you back? What were your wayfinding tools? What helped you bring or come back to yourself? Does that question make sense? Omisade   It does. Yeah, I have I, you know, I'm having this visualization right now of, you know, times, especially in my 20s and 30s. My, you know, my parents passed away in my early 30s. And I felt very much like wow, like, how am I moving in the world now, without parents like, this is such a hard thing. I still have so many questions and so many things I want to know and I'm, and I'm grateful that I actually developed it and started practicing African traditional religion that allowed me to develop a really deep relationship with my ancestors. And so, one of the things if I could time travel back to myself in my early 30s, I would say you can slow down, slow down for a second. I have a seat at the seat. Here, drink some cool water. Take a couple of breaths. I'm holding your stomach and let your stomach just before. Just relax, soften your belly, soften your jaw, relax, your ancestors are all around you, your parents are all around you. They might not be here with you physically, but you can still talk to them, you can still have a deeply loving relationship, you can still heal with them. And you're going to get to know them better. Now that they're not physically here, you're going to be surprised by some of the things you learned about them in the next 20 years. And it's true, there have been things that have been revealed to me, inside of our family about my parents, in particular about my mother that I didn't know, until, like you before last, during the big things brought to my attention, things were revealed really important things. Yeah. Understand her more as a woman, not as my mom. Yeah. But as a woman. Sophie Shiloh   Right, that distinction is everything, I think, Omisade   is the complexity of who we are as people. And when we get relegated to a one dimensional or two dimensional identity of just like, oh, well, they're a mother or their partner or their XYZ, like your your, we engage in a ratio all the time. Oh, yeah. All the ways that wait, the people show up. And so I would want to time travel back to myself and be like, you're getting ready to find out some things that are gonna help you understand yourself better. All of who you are, what makes you tick, what you need, what you deserve, what you actually want, and give yourself permission to say out loud what you want. Without hesitation. Right. And so, I do think that it is an ongoing journey of returning to yourself. I used to be in this place where I felt like if I was evolving as a person, I was leaving parts of myself behind, which also in you know, if I'm being honest, I was like banishing parts of myself. Yeah. It's like, oh, I'm evolving. And so it was like hateful. Oh, it was just like, Oh, she was so problematic. 16 Ooh, she was so messy of 25, blue sheep, or whatever, at 30. As opposed to being like, Oh, I kind of understand why the 16 year old did this, or why the 25 year old this or why the 30? Or the 35? Did this. All of the avatars, all of the versions of myself were invested in keeping me safe? Yeah. And some of the ways that I tried to keep myself safe. Were like, ill informed. Yeah, or immature. Right. And so Sophie Shiloh   they were the highest capacity that you had at that time, at that time. Omisade   And so what I get to do is engage in reunification of all my avatars. Listen, I love the 16 year old. I love the 25 year old. I love the 30 to 35 to 40 to 50 year old, I love all the versions of myself, and I have like, invited all of myself to be the CO conspirators of me being happy and safe and unhealthy and whole. And when I get peaked, or trauma response shows up and that 15 year old Omisade shows up and she's like, bout it bout it. I'm like, listen, you're actually safe. It's not a real thing. Is not 1982 You don't have a right. You can you can just show this. Okay? That's that was 40 years ago, I get why you were doing that. You don't have to do that. Yeah, what's wrong? Let's talk about it. Let's drink the water. Just walk outside. And then I'm not and I'm not mad at you. And I'm not putting you out. And I'm not pushing you away. I'm actually inviting you in. And then the 15 year old gets to relax. And be like, Oh, this is cool. Okay, you know, you're not bad for almost 35 year Sophie Shiloh   old version. Yeah, she learns that you're not going to punish her not gonna punish Omisade   her. I used to punish her. You have to apologize to her because I was punishing all these younger versions Sophie Shiloh   of mine and abandoning them and yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so you brought up two really important things. This for unification. I want to ask you about what or whom you've had to walk away from in order to choose you in order to walk towards you, you know, what you've had to walk away from in order to walk closer to yourself. And also you mentioned stating what it is that you want when you when you finally admit to yourself and say out loud in no uncertain terms what you want. There's obvious power in that and I want you to talk about that. And you know, because we don't so often or we don't for years, or we do it very indirectly in a very apologetic way. So yeah, I mean, take all of that and run with it. Omisade   Right? You know, the thing that I, I definitely feel like the thing that I had to walk away from it wasn't a person, it was a belief or a mindset. And the mindset that I had to walk away from that I'm still walking away from is that I don't inherently deserve love or care unless I am performing. Unless I'm sparkly, unless I'm producing something that's so amazing that you can't find someplace else. And so this like anxiousness that gets attached to the performing the anxiousness that gets attached to producing that anxiousness that gets attached to, I got to do it better than anybody else has ever done, I got to do something that's like spectacular, because if I don't, at some point, so whoever I'm engaged with, whether it's a co worker, whether his collaborator, whether it's a lover, a partner, or an ex spouse will look at me and be like, you know, you're not that great. You know, I changed my mind. I don't mind appealing. I actually don't love you. I don't think you deserve my love. I don't want to keep you safe. Right? So this this mindset was like, Oh, shit, well, let me just keep doing this, you know, Glamour you to glamour myself to glamour, these folks. So that way, they're always like, wow, there's just a whole lot of activity going on here. Oh, my goodness. Oh, let me shut is just so fantastic. And she's so bright, and she's so sparkly. She's got this big personality, and she does things big. And so Oh, cool. Oh, my goodness. It's just like, overwhelmed with all the stimulation that I'm providing right on the stimulation, new sexual stimulation as well. Like, Sophie Shiloh   oh, yeah, all kinds of stimulation. Yeah. Oh, she's right. She got it all. Omisade   I'm trying to keep you distracted. So you don't see me? Sophie Shiloh   Yeah. Yeah. Omisade   Really see me? Full Face. No makeup. No judging. No mask? Yeah, no dancing. No sexy. No Sophie Shiloh   performance, no performance. No amazing Omisade   speaking, or training or facilitation or whatever that I'm engaging in. And you just looking at me? Straight on, that you won't find me wanting that you won't look at me and say, Oh, I don't know if I'm bad. Nevermind, change my mind. Onto the next thing. Good luck. Right. And so that had to be the thing that I was willing to walk away from. And also the thing that I needed to be willing to turn to which was my more authentic self, right? To know that it is okay for me to remove the mask. You know, there's some masks I'm gonna hold on to because I'm a black woman live in this country? Yes, yes. Yes. Look like me here. So there's a max that I do keep that I will always keep? Yeah. You know, I would I wish I could say that in my lifetime that that mass Osco also could be discarded that I could be like, Oh, I can move in this, this world in this country and feel safe as a black woman. But I don't know if that's actually going to be a true statement for Sophie Shiloh   me. Yeah. I mean, we're not going to be alive. Long enough for No, that's Yeah. Omisade   Right. So there are some that are very functional. Yeah, I understand. But there are also some masks that were just really choking the air out of my body. Yeah. Was not allowing me to see myself fully and also the folk that I would actually like to see me fully. You know, once you want, yeah. I get to choose who my enemies are. Yeah, I can choose who I want to expose, reveal. Lean into with my vulnerable, authentic, soft open heart itself. Right. And so the decision to know that oh, you know, that I am sparkly, I think naturally. And then that's an Sophie Shiloh   obvious like emanates, you know, Omisade   I appreciate that. And I also am I have a very strong performative mask, and so like to be able to really level down into a more authentic place has been such a beautiful, hard, generous journey for myself. I feel like I'm extending myself a lot of generosity in this space, a lot of grace. Sophie Shiloh   A lot of respect, you have to be courageous, Omisade   like Yeah, like very scary thing to be like, Oh, here you go, this is just look, this is me, here I am, when I'm going to write this thing, oh, when I'm feeling really good about myself, and also when I've messed up, like, you know, to be able to be like, that was not okay, I need to fix this, I need that I need to apologize, I need to take responsibility be culpable for situation, Sophie Shiloh   or now that you know how to treat yourself without shame. And you don't approach your own self with derision and hatred anymore. You can take accountability and take responsibility and apologize in like a restorative way, in a collaborative way, you know, it doesn't feel horrible or like an indictment of who you are. Omisade   It doesn't feel like an indictment. But it can still feel hard. I had a recent situation where somebody shared with me some really important things that they experienced with me that was hurtful to them. It was hurtful. And I'm grateful that they were honest with me. I'm grateful that they were vulnerable with me. And I felt it in my chest. I felt sick. I was like, Oh, I cannot believe that I did that. Right. And my initial reaction was to be defensive. And to be like, well, that's not what I meant to do, or that's not that's not that's not what I really feel like. But that's not useful. And it doesn't actually matter. Yeah. So it doesn't matter. Sophie Shiloh   It doesn't matter. Omisade   So like me centering my feelings, exactly. Who was courageous enough to say to me, Oh, me, there's something that you do that's hurtful to me Sophie Shiloh   doing it? And what a friend. That's powerful. Omisade   Right, which lets me know that this person actually loves me. Yes. Right. Like they have our relationship and they want our relationship to be stronger, more Sophie Shiloh   unlike guess what, oh, me, I love you. And I love our relationship, even when you do something that hurt me, like, Omisade   invite you to stop doing it. And I want to talk with you about it. So the first thing I did was, you know, give myself permission to feel my feelings. You know, like, I kind of walked around, you know, I needed to get myself together. And then I responded and was like, Thank you. Yep. And I'm sorry. And I take responsibility. And I'm committed to fixing this. And we can talk about this when you're ready. I got there's work I gotta do. Sophie Shiloh   Yeah. And that's so simple. Omisade   It's so simple. I was all the rage of emotions. I felt like crying. My heart was just racing, shaking. And, you know, I also was trying to be very, very vigilant in my response. I was like, I want them to know that this is not a knee jerk reaction. Take your time. Take your time. Take your time. This is important. Like, again, there is no perfection, we will hurt people. Yeah. We will mess up. People will hurt us. They will mess up. And like they this person model for me how I can also let people know when I feel harmed by someone's actions or words to say, Listen, I really care about you. And I care about this relationship. There's some things that you've done that really hurt me. Yeah. And I'd like for us to talk about Sophie Shiloh   I think that having those kinds of conversations, in friendships and relationships and in, in professional relationships with colleagues is becoming more normalized and more accepted. And I think that's so exciting because you can have, we don't have to have relationships anymore that feel like putting on a mask for 30 years. Omisade   Right? Right. Or waiting for you know, part of my my shadow side of my fire is I would allow myself to get angry. And then my main three will be the fuel for my honesty. Sophie Shiloh   Yes. Yeah. I mean, as an Aries. Literally you're just speaking my soul. Yes, Omisade   I know lighter as all the way up. Like I was like, wait until I am like looking like Jack Jack from the incredible. Yeah. And then I'm gonna let you have it. Yeah. And I was I'm gonna be honest, like brutally honest and say, everything that I've been holding on to, as opposed to like giving myself permission all along. To be like, that was not okay. I'll feel good about that. You know, Sophie Shiloh   when I was always open, and Omisade   anger and rage is a real emotion that I also don't want to deny myself or act like I'm not exclusionary. Yeah. And also that that gives me more information again, about where I'm at what's going on with me. I'm experiencing your rage, which I think is scary to not scary about It's been problematized like, yeah, Sophie Shiloh   if you are, it's been pathologized. And yes, of course, Italy has Sophie. So like, if you are, I cannot even Yeah, it's it's horrific like for, for me to talk about, like how I'm like healing my relationship with anger. It's one thing but I'm like, I cannot even understand a black woman or healing her relationship with anger, like, when you've been told by everyone in in all areas, you're not allowed to have this. If you do, it will be like we said, pathologized and you'll be legalized. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Omisade   The indictment is really intense. And the punishment is really intense is just like, what, Sophie Shiloh   if you're going to actually punished for having emotion Omisade   actually be punished for having emotions that happen generationally? Sophie Shiloh   Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that is a lot to overcome. So you know what, let's, I know, we're like at the end of the hour. Um, and as far as I know, you're not free for the rest for the next eight hours of the day to keep. Omisade   I'm, like, be like, let's go get some tea, and come back and continue this conversation. And don't be like, get some wine and continue this conversation. Sophie Shiloh   Let's just keep going and going, seriously, I love talking to you. Um, but I do want to, like in the in this next transition to the end of the conversation, where I want you to tell everyone how they can find everything from you, and learn from you and all of the things that you have to offer. But also just, this is gonna be where we started the conversation, but it wasn't in discussing decolonizing, menopause, and decolonizing, healing and decolonizing what it means to just be a person in the world. What, tell us tell us a little bit about what how you'd like to end this conversation on that note. Omisade   Mm hmm. I think that, you know, a lot of people have been using the moniker of decolonization as it relates to a lot of constructs that we move inside of, in our culture, right. So people talk about decolonizing fitness, they talk about decolonizing aging. But the decolonizing construct was first introduced to me by my indigenous brothers and sisters who talked about the decolonization of an of an indigenous mine and an indigenous land indigenous bodies, right? It's like, what does it mean for someone who is not a part of your culture, who did not originate from the land, the space, the region are, who you are, to come in, Co Op, and take your land, and then also engage in the erasure and the genocide of your, of your people? Like intentionally, right? So the decolonization systematically Sophie Shiloh   intentionally for centuries? Yeah. Omisade   So the decolonization language was first introduced to me through indigeneity. It's like, what does it mean for indigenous First Nation people to be engaged in the decolonization not only of the land, but of their culture and their people, right. And that requires deep study in history. It requires a deep understanding of constructs and systemic oppression. It requires a commitment to this radical liberatory healing and love and what is possible in terms of reunification and really understanding who you are. And so when I talk about decolonizing, menopause, I really begin by thinking about what has been the journey of women, women identify people or gender expansive people's bodies, in our culture, and how our bodies have been problematized? In particular, black bodies, right. So what's been our experience with not having agency over our bodies? What's been our experience of not being believed about how we're experiencing our bodies, whether that is pain, right, where the best is comfort with an S concern or fear, and being told, well, that couldn't possibly be true. That's not you can't be experiencing that amount of pain. You're Yeah. You're fine. And the implications can range from like, just real confusion and discomfort to death. Yes, of course. Yeah. No, the outcome can be death. Yeah. And so if we are decolonizing, menopause and aging, it kind of lives inside of this rubric of like, what does it mean for you to have agency over your body? And what were you told about your body? Who told you that? Where did the message Yeah, about your body? What your body can do as your body continues to evolve. Your body is always changing and evolving. From the moment you take your first breath to the moment you take your life. And in between all of those moments, we have been told as black people as black women, that your body is a problem. Your body is a problem the way is shaped, your size, your sex, your sexuality, Sophie Shiloh   your, your hair, every everything, Omisade   everything is a problem. And so that you find yourself in at this stage of your life where you're aging, your body shifting and changing again. And then people are telling you what menopause is the whole shit show. Sophie Shiloh   You're going to be hot problems get different and worse. Omisade   It's going to awful awful in your your vagina is going to dry up and then you're going to die. Sophie Shiloh   Yeah, that's it. No one's gonna ever love you again. And Omisade   absolutely not. You were not lovable. You weren't lovable to begin with. But now you're Sophie Shiloh   now you're extra disgusting. Yeah. Right. Omisade   And so the decolonising have added the deconstructing of that and pulling the pulling apart and looking in. I'm always I'm always a student of history. I love I love history, I'm a student of culture, I pay attention to the way culture moves, and the way we treat each other and what we value what we don't value. And then so the framing of decolonizing, menopause, decolonizing aging decolonizing. The Crone is to deconstruct through my understanding of history, and contemporary constructs, what we believe about our bodies and our value and our ability to have agency our ability to choose our ability to evolve, and love and heal and be safe, and experience, pleasure and joy, all those things. Sophie Shiloh   So let's end with talking about the word beautiful, because when I hear you speak, and when I read your words, and when I look at you, that word just flashes in front of me, I mean, so unbelievably, unspeakably beautiful. But you mentioned in your style, like you interview which everyone should go listen to that that's not a word you use to describe yourself. So and I'm also obsessed with, with women and, and female bodied people finding value in finding identity and things that have nothing to do with physical beauty. You know, for so many reasons, we could talk about that consumption, etc. But how do you describe yourself? What are the words that you love to use to describe? Only Shodai? Omisade   I do think I have a beautiful heart. I think I have I call myself lionhearted. Because I think I'm very courageous. I think I'm very generous. And I think I'm very protective of the people that I love. So that's definitely one of the first things that I would describe myself as. I also think I'm funny as hell, like, I think I'm a hoot. And I have a quick, quick body sense of humor. So I enjoy that I enjoy the quips that I can pull out to bring levity to the situation or just just enjoy and be raucous. Yeah, I have a rock if the sense of humor, I think I'm also very sensual person. Enjoy touch. I enjoy being touched, and I enjoy touching people. I like the sensory experience of pleasure. So smell and touch and music. So I think that I'm not always I don't always say it in that way. But I do think I'm a very sensual person. You know, as far as my aesthetic is concerned, I still wouldn't say that I'm beautiful in terms of what people would see physically. I think I'm striking. I think that I sassy, sexy, even, um, but not Not, not beautiful. I think there's someone will look at me like, Oh, she's striking, but not like, Oh, she's really beautiful. You know, I don't know why that still feels that way. I'm still committed to exploring that and being open to seeing myself beautiful inside and out. Yeah. I think that I am a very emotive, emotionally sensitive person. So, you know, a lot of people these days are using the language of Empath, or empathic, or empathetic. I think I have a certain sensitivity to energy. And so when I see someone struggling, I want to understand what's going on. I want to be helpful. If I see somebody happy or excited, I want to be excited to be like, This is so good. We should talk about this. I want to celebrate, like I'm definitely like, we should share that. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely my mood can be affected by the people who I really care about in their, in their, their joy and in their sorrow. I have a particular sensitivity in that way and I'm a lucid dreamer. So I Eve in the spirit realm. I'm very spiritual. I have a deep spiritual practice. And I know that I sometimes receive messages through my sleep, that I know our dreams. And I'm a lucid enough dreamer that sometimes I'll even talk to myself in a dream and say you should pay attention to this part of Sophie Shiloh   this. Yeah. Well, that's helpful. That's convenient that you have that. It is helpful it like pay attention. Omisade   But sometimes it doesn't lend itself to actually restorative deep sleep because I'm just busy all night long. Sophie Shiloh   All night long. Yeah. Is with myself. Yeah, that is true, then you'll wake up and you're like, I just I was at work all night. Right. And I was getting shit done. Omisade   getting stuff done. And I need to think about what I was getting done. And I need to figure out what this means. Sophie Shiloh   Right? Yeah. Seriously? Oh, that is so funny. Yeah. Completely. Oh, my goodness. Well, I cannot thank you enough. I think that this was a really important conversation that I wanted to have. And I really wanted you on my podcast because when I think about it, I I have to be obsessed with what is going to help my clients stop wasting their 20s on people pleasing and start being alive and start loving their lives free from codependency free from all the codependent bullshit, not having boundaries, feeling insecure, not living life as fully as it wants us to live it. And so you were the perfect person I was like she has to come on my any of the millennial women who are struggling with codependency needs to hear about how Omisade is done fucking around, not living a beautiful life that you savor all the time. And I again, I cannot thank you enough for your example, in that. And for all the guidance you've given us. Everyone has to go listen to your podcast. It's genius. And I want you to tell us where we can learn from you. Tell everyone your offerings now please do that. Omisade   I appreciate Sophie so much being able to have this conversation I absolutely enjoy the relationships I have with the millennial women and women identify people in my life. I learned so much from them. Yeah, well, you can check us out on our website is WWE dot Black Girls Guide to surviving menopause, you can listen to the first three seasons of the podcast wherever you listen to your podcast, whether that's on Apple, or Stitcher or Spotify or wherever we are about to launch season four in March. So we're really excited about that. And we just had our first interview episode interview for season four is going to be so juicy overview I Sophie Shiloh   cannot wait. Omisade   Oh good. Um, yeah, and you can follow us on social media. You can follow me at Oshunsweetnsour that's Oshunsweetnsour or you can follow Black Girls Guide at Black Girls Guide to menopause on IG So yeah, that's where you can check me out. Sophie Shiloh   And regardless of your racial identity or your age, I want every you know tiny little like Chinese 16 year old high school student to listen to Black Girls Guide to surviving then it's like your everybody is welcome. Everyone who has a child, anyone who has a daughter like everyone has to listen to it. It's genius. Oh me thank you so much for today. I hope you have a beautiful day and I'll talk to you soon. Omisade   Absolutely Beloved. Thanks so much. Sophie Shiloh   Bye gorgeous. Thank you so much for listening. If you love this episode, which I don't know how you couldn't go find everything Omisade related in the show notes. Go follow her on Instagram at Oshunsweetnsour. Go listen to her genius podcast Black Girls Guide to surviving menopause and you can also find all of her work and how to hire her and connect with her at Black Girls Guide to surviving menopause.com To learn more about me and the work that I do with my clients to heal their codependency and to apply for one of the last few spots in my next group coaching round. Find me on Instagram at codependent millennial, or visit my website at codependent millennial.com. You can also text me at 216279 4035 And yes, it's really me, I promise. Until next time, have a really, really lovely time being alive and I'll talk to you very soon. Bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Sunday Special: 02/13/2022 BLOCK A: 30 INTRO: 60 Plug: GABE: Col. Hall Show Axed by Youtube This past week, for our midweek fix, we interviewed Colonel Hall, who has served our country for over 23 years and has numerous accolades from his service, and YouTube deleted our show with him in less than 24 hours. 23yr Colonel who defends our country so YouTube can exist in a free country. 23yr Colonel who literally signed up to die for YouTube’s freedom to exist. What big tech is creating is a dangerous divisive country moving forward. It is horrible that they banned President Trump, but now you are going after members of our military. What YouTube and big tech are doing, is waging digital war, and make no mistake, that after they go after CrossPolitic, Babylon Bee, President Trump, then they will eventually come after you. And once they have eliminated all the proactive threats, like us, and mind you without any real debate or substantive conversations, then they will build tech fences (digital concentration camps) to keep the rest of you in line. The government has a new 30 million dollar Harm reduction strategy to “minimize negative consequences of aids in pedophila”. In order to save the children from getting aids the plan is to provide “safe sex kits” and rooms where the pedophile… Knox there’s no such program… What? So there’s no 30 million? No, there are 30 million? Wait, so is there a harm reduction program? Ooh yea there’s a program? It’s just from drug addicts not pedophiles…yet. The harm reduction grant program allows reimbursement to local governments that provide "smoking kits" for users of crack cocaine. Existing smoking kit programs in other cities all include smoking pipes. And a HHS spokesman initially confirmed to the Free Beacon that the kits provided through the grant program were designed to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, as well as "any illicit substance." After publication of a report on the funding, HHS backtracked in a Tuesday statement that labeled the story "blatant misinformation." Press secretary Jen Psaki helped claraLIE the situation: CLIP 3rd News Story: TOBY: The Female Ice Skaters are no longer “Ladies” Include this story: https://pagesix.com/2022/02/09/adele-says-i-love-being-a-woman-at-gender-neutral-event/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow You know which Olympic Winter sport is finally shedding its gendered, classist, and racist roots? Women’s Ice Skating. Did you notice how non-gendered, non-classists, and non-racist that was? I said “women’s” ice skating. Since 1924, men have competed under categories for “men,” but women could only compete under “ladies.” The 2022 Winter Olympics is the first to let women compete as women, not ladies – in their underwear. Why? To make a more accepting culture for LGBTQ skaters. What about the plusses? Ice dancer Kaitlyn Weaver, a two-time Olympian and three-time World medalist, said the terminology further emphasized the gendered nature of the sport. Women were celebrated for being graceful, polite, demure — all the qualities of a “lady” — instead of being athletic. “The term ‘ladies’ takes away our power, our athleticism, our sexuality,” Weaver said. “Even in the English language there are instances where ‘ladies’ feels right versus where ‘woman’ feels right — ‘the ladies who lunch’ versus ‘the first woman to land a triple axel.’ When we talk about any type of athletic feat or strength or power, we use the word ‘women.’” U.S. Figure Skating, however, has still not made the change. Idaho Family Policy Center: I wanted to let you all know about Idaho Family Policy Center and their Spring Banquet on March 10, 2022, at Still Water Hollow in Nampa, Idaho, featuring Uncle Gary Demar, as the keynote speaker. Gary has served as president of American Vision for nearly four decades. His monumental work, God and Government, has long been the quintessential textbook on government for Christian private and homeschooling students. Blaine and IFPC have been leading the efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, end abortion in Idaho, and protect children from the transgender agenda. Right now you can partner with Idaho Family Policy Center by sponsoring and hosting a table of eight at their Spring Banquet with Gary Demar. Can do this for $600 and invite seven guests to join you for the evening. Your prayers and support are the backbone of this work. By sponsoring a table or making a tax-deductible gift in your absence. If you would like to reserve a table or have any questions about this event please contact Kelly Cope at (208) 871-2904 or kellymaecope@gmail.com Go to www.idahofamily.org to learn more and make a donation. BLOCK B: 60 Plug: Classical Conversations Classical Conversations supports homeschooling parents by cultivating the love of learning through a Christian worldview in fellowship with other families. We provide a classical Christ-centered curriculum, local like-minded communities across the United States and in several countries, and we train parents who are striving to be great classical educators in the home. For more information and to get connected, please visit our website at ClassicalConversations.com. Classical. Christian. Get Connected. Get Community. https://www.classicalconversations.com/ 30sec REJOIN Arthur kWon Lee BIO Arthur Kwon Lee is a Korean American fine artist who has exhibited in Tokyo, Milan, Berlin, Mexico City, New York, etc. He is most notable for winning New York City’s Artist of the Year in 2020 by Eileen S. Kaminsky, one of the top art collectors in the city. Arthur Kwon is also known for selling out Art Basel Miami in 2019 during the SCOPE Exhibition with other world renowned artists… Until he was blacklisted for being a Trump supporter. Recent Tweets: Things I’ll miss in NYC: Central Park, The Met, the Restaurants. Things I won’t miss: Living under the controlling Matriarchy that uses violence with state power. 2. Quote tweeting Will Spencer who wrote “Someone please help me understand why all these people are still wearing masks.” Arthur Kwon Lee wrote “Homesexuality.” Question about modern art and the sexual revolution (Modern Art and the Death of Culture by RookMaaker)

Sunday Special: 02/13/2022 BLOCK A: 30 INTRO: 60 Plug: GABE: Col. Hall Show Axed by Youtube This past week, for our midweek fix, we interviewed Colonel Hall, who has served our country for over 23 years and has numerous accolades from his service, and YouTube deleted our show with him in less than 24 hours. 23yr Colonel who defends our country so YouTube can exist in a free country. 23yr Colonel who literally signed up to die for YouTube’s freedom to exist. What big tech is creating is a dangerous divisive country moving forward. It is horrible that they banned President Trump, but now you are going after members of our military. What YouTube and big tech are doing, is waging digital war, and make no mistake, that after they go after CrossPolitic, Babylon Bee, President Trump, then they will eventually come after you. And once they have eliminated all the proactive threats, like us, and mind you without any real debate or substantive conversations, then they will build tech fences (digital concentration camps) to keep the rest of you in line. The government has a new 30 million dollar Harm reduction strategy to “minimize negative consequences of aids in pedophila”. In order to save the children from getting aids the plan is to provide “safe sex kits” and rooms where the pedophile… Knox there’s no such program… What? So there’s no 30 million? No, there are 30 million? Wait, so is there a harm reduction program? Ooh yea there’s a program? It’s just from drug addicts not pedophiles…yet. The harm reduction grant program allows reimbursement to local governments that provide "smoking kits" for users of crack cocaine. Existing smoking kit programs in other cities all include smoking pipes. And a HHS spokesman initially confirmed to the Free Beacon that the kits provided through the grant program were designed to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, as well as "any illicit substance." After publication of a report on the funding, HHS backtracked in a Tuesday statement that labeled the story "blatant misinformation." Press secretary Jen Psaki helped claraLIE the situation: CLIP 3rd News Story: TOBY: The Female Ice Skaters are no longer “Ladies” Include this story: https://pagesix.com/2022/02/09/adele-says-i-love-being-a-woman-at-gender-neutral-event/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow You know which Olympic Winter sport is finally shedding its gendered, classist, and racist roots? Women’s Ice Skating. Did you notice how non-gendered, non-classists, and non-racist that was? I said “women’s” ice skating. Since 1924, men have competed under categories for “men,” but women could only compete under “ladies.” The 2022 Winter Olympics is the first to let women compete as women, not ladies – in their underwear. Why? To make a more accepting culture for LGBTQ skaters. What about the plusses? Ice dancer Kaitlyn Weaver, a two-time Olympian and three-time World medalist, said the terminology further emphasized the gendered nature of the sport. Women were celebrated for being graceful, polite, demure — all the qualities of a “lady” — instead of being athletic. “The term ‘ladies’ takes away our power, our athleticism, our sexuality,” Weaver said. “Even in the English language there are instances where ‘ladies’ feels right versus where ‘woman’ feels right — ‘the ladies who lunch’ versus ‘the first woman to land a triple axel.’ When we talk about any type of athletic feat or strength or power, we use the word ‘women.’” U.S. Figure Skating, however, has still not made the change. Idaho Family Policy Center: I wanted to let you all know about Idaho Family Policy Center and their Spring Banquet on March 10, 2022, at Still Water Hollow in Nampa, Idaho, featuring Uncle Gary Demar, as the keynote speaker. Gary has served as president of American Vision for nearly four decades. His monumental work, God and Government, has long been the quintessential textbook on government for Christian private and homeschooling students. Blaine and IFPC have been leading the efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, end abortion in Idaho, and protect children from the transgender agenda. Right now you can partner with Idaho Family Policy Center by sponsoring and hosting a table of eight at their Spring Banquet with Gary Demar. Can do this for $600 and invite seven guests to join you for the evening. Your prayers and support are the backbone of this work. By sponsoring a table or making a tax-deductible gift in your absence. If you would like to reserve a table or have any questions about this event please contact Kelly Cope at (208) 871-2904 or kellymaecope@gmail.com Go to www.idahofamily.org to learn more and make a donation. BLOCK B: 60 Plug: Classical Conversations Classical Conversations supports homeschooling parents by cultivating the love of learning through a Christian worldview in fellowship with other families. We provide a classical Christ-centered curriculum, local like-minded communities across the United States and in several countries, and we train parents who are striving to be great classical educators in the home. For more information and to get connected, please visit our website at ClassicalConversations.com. Classical. Christian. Get Connected. Get Community. https://www.classicalconversations.com/ 30sec REJOIN Arthur kWon Lee BIO Arthur Kwon Lee is a Korean American fine artist who has exhibited in Tokyo, Milan, Berlin, Mexico City, New York, etc. He is most notable for winning New York City’s Artist of the Year in 2020 by Eileen S. Kaminsky, one of the top art collectors in the city. Arthur Kwon is also known for selling out Art Basel Miami in 2019 during the SCOPE Exhibition with other world renowned artists… Until he was blacklisted for being a Trump supporter. Recent Tweets: Things I’ll miss in NYC: Central Park, The Met, the Restaurants. Things I won’t miss: Living under the controlling Matriarchy that uses violence with state power. 2. Quote tweeting Will Spencer who wrote “Someone please help me understand why all these people are still wearing masks.” Arthur Kwon Lee wrote “Homesexuality.” Question about modern art and the sexual revolution (Modern Art and the Death of Culture by RookMaaker)

Who is Janene?Janene is a highly trusted Value & Profit Expert, working with small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs across industries and the globe...and she’s a Certified Pricing Professional. Her mission is to empower small businesses to sustainably grow their revenue and profit. By showing them how to use the pricing strategies and tactics that help them confidently create, communicate and charge for the value they deliver. Watch out, her passion for pricing is contagiousKey Takeaways1. When people start in business they under-price. They're trying to cast a wide net, and attract anyone. They need to target.2.. Pricing is rooted in a deep understanding of the customer. Because the customer is the final judge and jury on value. It's about making sure that your offer is pitched to the right audience.3. Show Me the Money matrix. Four questions to help determine value to your customer offer. How do I help my customers reduce risk? How do I help them be more competitive? How do I help them improve quality of their of their businessHow do I help them bring economic efficiency? Take those four questions, not only about apply, write down your answers, and then try to quantify them. And then you'll be on your road to understanding better the quantifiable value but that your offer delivers customers,Valuable Free Resource or ActionJanene has a free webinar - details at her website thepricinglady.comA video version of this podcast is available on YouTube : _________________________________________________________________________________________________Subscribe to our newsletter and get details of when we are doing these interviews live at https://TCA.fyi/newsletterFind out more about being a guest at : link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/beaguestSubscribe to the podcast at https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/podcastHelp us get this podcast in front of as many people as possible. Leave a nice five-star review at  apple podcasts : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/apple-podcasts and on YouTube : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/Itsnotrocketscienceatyt!Here's how you can bring your business to THE next level:1. Download my free resource on everything you need to grow your business on a single page : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/1pageIt's a detailed breakdown of how you can grow your business to 7-figures in a smart and sustainable way2. Join The Complete Approach Facebook Group :  https://TCA.fyi/fb Connect with like-minded individuals who are all about growth and increasing revenue. It's a Facebook community where we make regular posts aimed at inspiring conversations in a supportive environment. It's completely free and purposely aimed at expanding and building networks.3. Join our Success to Soar Program and get TIME and FREEDOM. : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/Success-to-SoarIf you're doing 10-50k a month right now: I'm working with a few business owners like you to change that, without working nights and weekends. If you'd like to get back that Time and still Scale, check the link above.4. Work with me privatelyIf you'd like to work directly with me and my team to take you from 5 figure to 6 and multi 6 figure months, whilst reducing reliance on you. Click on https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/DiscoveryCall  tell me about your business and what you'd like to work on together, and I'll get you all the details.————————————————————————————————————————————-TranscriptNote, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)SUMMARY KEYWORDSprices, pricing, question, business, customer, janine, great, offer, talk, coffee mug, quantify, spend, wide net, profit, webinar, generalist, common mistake, startups, differentiation, brilliantSPEAKERSStuart Webb, Janene ListonStuart Webb  00:42Hi, and welcome back to another episode of, it's not rocket science, five questions over coffee. I have my coffee mug here in front of me. I'm here with Janine, who is the pricing lady? This is gonna be a really fascinating discussion. Because for me pricing is something so many people get wrong. So many people are afraid of pricing, they're afraid of what it does. I think it's a real differentiator. It's the thing which sets you apart. If you are even a small business, even a solopreneur, your pricing can really set you apart. So I think Janine is going to give us some great tips to great points today. Get your coffee ready. This is going to be a great discussion. Hi, Janine. Welcome to the podcast.Janene Liston  01:22Hi, Stuart. Thanks for having me here. Hello, everyone.Stuart Webb  01:25This is this is going to be absolutely fascinating. So Janine, let's start off with the obvious thing. What's the biggest challenge? And I think we've sort of started to get into this already. What's the biggest challenge your ideal client has faces today?Janene Liston  01:39Right. So I think there's two things for the startups, the solo entrepreneurs, that group of people, it's really about, how can I understand the value of what I'm charging and set the right prices. So it really comes down to a confidence piece for more established businesses is really about optimising profitability, not chasing after profits at all in any cost, but optimising their profit.Stuart Webb  02:07I think that's a really good point you need the word optimising profit is something which I think a lot of time people forget the profit element of system, they're afraid of really understanding the profit margin. So, you know, that leads me on to the next question, what's the common mistake people make when they're trying to solve that problem of their price, withoutJanene Liston  02:30without help? Right. So I think one of the common mistakes that people make when they're first starting out, is under pricing. And usually, a lot of times that will come from trying to sell everything to anyone. They're trying to cast a wide net, and attract anyone. And in doing so they position themselves as a generalist. And when you're positioned as a generalist, your prices, quite frankly, if you're lucky, will be average at best, but you usually they're below average. So casting a wide net for most businesses isn't going to be the way to get enough traction, to be able to get going on a profit context. And quite frankly, profit is how you're going to grow your business later. So without that profit, you basically won't be there to serve your clients later on.Stuart Webb  03:24Janine, that's really interesting, because I think you've said something really interesting, which is this generalist point. And, yeah, I just like to, you know, we're going to expand a little bit on this, because I think it's really important. What you were saying is a differentiator, I've said that I think differentiation is a real key issue for many small businesses, many business, it's differentiation. But you've just sort of talked about the fact that that it, if you're trying to Castle wide that you become too generous. Can you expand a little bit on what you think that means in terms of what that does to your pricing?Janene Liston  03:56Right. So basically, what happens is, there are lots of people who want your product or service or who could use it, and different people will have a different value to it. So this guy over here may think it's nice to have, but I'm not going to spend a whole lot of money on it. This one might think, Oh, that's good value for money. And this one might really think, Wow, this is the best thing ever. And I'm going to give all my money for it. Now, if you're going to price for all three of them, then basically you're going to average those prices. And in order to capture a sort of majority of them, you're going to have to be on the lower end when it comes to an average price or target price. So in reality, what you either want to do is focus on one or segment them have different offers and therefore different price points.Stuart Webb  04:49You know, I was I'm reminded of a story and we could develop this but of a an experiment, a social experiment that we run by I think it was New York University where they put a virtuoso violinist outside of the New York subway station. And he played for 45 minutes and counted the number of coins that were thrown into his violin case. And the answer at the end of that, at that time were a few, a few dollars, He then played a 45 minute concert at a concert venue in front of an audience that had paid to come in here and play. And he gained something in the region of 1000s of dollars for that particular performance. The difference was the audience. It wasn't his playing. It wasn't his his performance, it was the audience he was playing to second audience paid to hear him play because they appreciated his art, his craft, whatever, that's what we're talking about, isn't it? It's about making sure that your offer is pitched to the right audience.Janene Liston  05:56Yes, I always say pricing is rooted in a deep understanding of the customer. Because the customer is the final judge and Judge Jury on the value. And the value is going to determine in the end with the prices. I think also in your story, you can say Location, location, location, also makes a difference. But you're right, it really pricing comes down to the customer. And if I may, this leads me to another mistake that people make. It's that they I lost my train of thought there. Oh, yes, I know what it is. So your service based businesses, when they tend to set prices, they go, Oh, I do this really great thing. Let me see what everybody else is charging. And let me price a little bit less. And your product based businesses tend to go, Ooh, I developed this really cool widget. Let me add at my costs and add a margin. And that's where I'll put my price. Now, if your were listening just a moment ago, then, you know, there's one problem that these two methodologies have in common. And that's both of them completely ignore the customer.Stuart Webb  07:08Brilliant, absolutely. Love that. I love that. And you know, the thing, it just there is it's highlighted, is that that value is that what is the value? What's the value to the customer? Just Just one other thing I was talking to somebody yesterday about a landing page, question that I had for them is how many additional customers and customer and customer value will that bring to your business, because that determines how much you want to put into the cost to develop that landing page. If it's going to bring you one extra customer, they spend another $1 a pound, then you don't want to spend a huge amount on that landing page. But if it's going to bring in 10,000 customers, and they each spend 10,000, you need to spend more on testing and proving. So it's all about the value it brings to your business as well as the value it brings to the customer. Absolutely. Terrific. So, Jenny, we could talk for many hours, I'm sure and we get and we won't, because otherwise this podcast will not be called five questions over coffee. But 10,000 questions over coffee? Well, let's just get to, you know, you have got some great ideas. You've got some great things teach us, what's the way that we can get hold of that knowledge from you, and hopefully, at great value to us.Janene Liston  08:25And so in terms of you're asking, likeStuart Webb  08:29free action or free resource that you're going to be able to sort of pass to us.Janene Liston  08:33Excellent. So there's, I'm running a webinar this weekend next week, which is Is it time to raise my prices and how to do it confidently? Twice? Yes, this time of year that is on top of everybody's minds. What am I going to do with my prices next year. And of course, this year, we're in really unprecedented sort of set of circumstances, right?Stuart Webb  08:59I think I think there's I think there's a drink there. If you've used the word unprecedented, I think we will have to take as longJanene Liston  09:05I don't have a coffee mug, I have my water bottle. Yeah, so this is a hot topic. And everybody is you know, a bit sensitive about what to do wants to know what to do. So I'm going to share with people how to know when it's time and give them some tips and strategies on how to raise prices really effectively.Stuart Webb  09:28Brilliant. I love it. I think it's gonna be a good webinar. So the details of that if you can see scrolling across the bottom of the screen, it's the pricing lady.com forward slash raising, raise prices sorry. Exactly. The pricing lady.com raise prices. Brilliant. Thank you so much to need. So what what contact book or talk has really been impactful in your experience.Janene Liston  09:54So one of the books that I read years ago well before I ever started my own business was called the E myth, and it has stuck with me for a day. And well, there's a couple of things. So first of all, it's really great for young businesses, startups, entrepreneurs. And what stayed with me one was a, it's an easy read. So pretty much anybody can read it. Being an American living in Europe, a lot of people hear English as a second language. So I recommend also for people who's you know, who are, maybe English isn't their strongest language, but it's also published in many languages. And there are two things that I like about it. One is its simplicity. And the two things that stuck with me are one that your business is about creating experience for people. So a lot of the value that you provide beyond the service or beyond the product is actually related to the experience that you create for people. And that can bring as much value as the service or the product itself. And I think that that's really such a strong message to keep in mind. And then the other thing is that when you start your own business, you think, Oh, I can do this better, or I can do this differently. And you think that what you're an expert in is what you're going to spend all your time doing. But those of us who have have a business now, that's not the reality of the case, you do have to be the salesperson and the marketing person, the accounting person, the finance guy, and so on and so forth. And there's a time and a place to do those things yourself. And there's a time and a place to outsources things.Stuart Webb  11:31Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right. That is a really key thing. I often say, to many entrepreneurs, I come across us what I call the path of least resistance, and they really should understand the value of their own time to their business because we get it wrong so many times. Jenny Lister fast, fascinating discussion, we could go on for hours, but I'm gonna come to question five. Okay, question five is my Get Out of Jail Free card, which is where I can't think of any good question. So I throw it over to you. What's the question that I should have asked you, that you think would have really delivered great value? And, and then please don't leave us hanging? Give us the answer to that question. back for another one of these in just a few days.Janene Liston  12:12Yes, of course. So I think that the the question is probably in people's minds right now is okay, you've told us we need to focus on value. How do I do that? Yeah, so I use something. I love the question.Stuart Webb  12:25I'm hoping we're gonna get a brilliant answer.Janene Liston  12:28Yes, you're about to get a good answer, a great answer, maybe even a really an answer. So I use something with my clients, I call it the Show Me the Money matrix. Okay. Okay. And what we do is we ask ourselves four questions, to help us quantify the value that comes out of our offer. It's not the features in your product, that brand, that is the value, it's what those features do for you. It's not the type of service that you offer. It's that experience that you have and what it brings. So there are four areas that we look at. The first is how do I help my customers reduce risk? How do I help them be more competitive? How do I help them improve quality that can be of life or of their business of their offer? And the last one is how do I help them bring economic efficiency? Take those four questions, not only about apply, write down your answers, and then try to quantify them. And then you'll be on your road to understanding better the quantifiable value but that your offer delivers customers,Stuart Webb  13:35gee, I love it. Sell the benefits, not the features sell the whole not the drill. We've always said it. Haven't we quantified a brilliant way of actually capturing what the benefit is in those four great questions. I love those questions. I will be writing those downloads and I shall make sure that I get it getting bedded into some question matrix that I use. Don't think I can steal your name because it will surely come shortly copyrighted. But those are four great questions about what it is benefit. Yeah, this has been a fascinating discussion. Thank you so much for spending some time but I think I think pricing is such an important topic. It's such a such a difficult one for people to get right. I think you've given us a really great highlights of how to get pricing right. I hope we can get people to come along and get onto that. That webinar. Yeah, just repeat it's the pricing lady. That's that's Janine she is the pricing lady the pricing lady.com forward slash raise prices get along to that webinar, see what you can do with your prices to help you to get the right price based upon the value you deliver to clients and and this is a great topic. So I think there's gonna be some great stuff coming out of that. Just to remind everybody if you want to see in the future, we send out an email before these to try and make sure that you know what's coming up if you want to get onto the newsletter list so that you can see what who get whose guests we get coming up. Get almost going and subscribing to TC a dot FYI, forward slash subscribe if you got to TCA FYI folks have subscribed to before filling your details. Let us know that you want to be told that we've got great interviews with people like Janine coming up, and we will send you an email on the Monday of the week coming up, so that you know who's coming up that week. Janine, thank you so much for being with us today. Really appreciate it. Really appreciate the stuff you've told us. I hope people come and come and populate that webinar. Myself, I'm gonna I'm gonna see if I can get on there and steal some great ideas from you because you've got so much to say about this. Thank you so much for being with us.Janene Liston  15:34Thanks for having me here. It was a real pleasure.Stuart Webb  15:36It's a real pleasure. Thank you Get full access to It's Not Rocket Science! at thecompleteapproach.substack.com/subscribe