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So Drew had to cancel on this record and our scheduled guest had to cancel on this record, but that's ok because cancelling on podcast records is self care, especially when you have the wonderful Joan Ford to guest host! Joan and Cait talk all things Artist Way, what to hang in your locker and so much more! We love a bonus Joan!! For more episodes and our brand new RECIPE FOR BOREDOM self care package featuring the Phone Gobby check out https://www.patreon.com/thispodcastisselfcare  Follow Joan on twitter | @joanhaleyford and get all the details on her new podcast If you are in LA come to Drew's comedy show Freeway every Wednesday in March in Hollywood freewaycomedy.eventbrite.com  Follow us on Twitter | @ThisPodSelfCare Follow us on IG | @ThisPodcastIsSelfCare  Follow Cait on Twitter | @CaitRaft Follow Drew on Twitter | @DrewSpurs

Recorded 9 25 2019:  Peter had to sit this one our due to a schedule conflict. So Drew brought in and old friend Adam. And they had a great time digging through the news and discussing Adams adventure through the Arrowverse.  Then they talked about their top five favorite TV shows.

Adopting a child can be a long process, full of waiting and hoping and so much paperwork.  Friends, family, and coworkers can be unaware of the stress and high emotion involved.  Beth and Andy Long share the story of bringing Drew from the forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo to Bloomington, Indiana and the hardest six months of their lives.  In that story, they reflect on how people supported them well, the dangers of work/home compartmentalization, and the bravery it takes to create change in a workplace culture.    Opening Quote: [00:17:54.430] - Beth Long  It was extremely chaotic. You've got this little boy, Drew, who's two and a half at this point, who we've we've been preparing for, you know, we've got a room for him. We've been talking about him but really to him we're strangers.   Intro   Today, we talk about adoption.  But the conversation is much broader than adoption, it ranges from the forests of the Congo to the NICU to a car dealership in southern Indiana. Along the way, we will talk about how the stress of work impacts home, learning to say yes to offers of help, and the bravery that it takes to create change in a workplace culture.   My guests are Beth and Andy Long, two people that I have had the pleasure of calling friends for more than half of my life.    [00:00:00.610] - Andy Long So should we introduce ourselves? What's our format? I'm Andy Long   [00:00:01.910] - Beth Long I'm Beth Long.   [00:00:08.790] - Liesel Mertes Tell us a little bit about yourselves. Andy, what do you do?   [00:00:12.890] - Andy Long So I grew up in Indianapolis and then, after college moved down to Bloomington to join my family's business which is automotive retail we own several dealerships in Bloomington Ind.. So that's what brought us down here   [00:00:26.560] - Liesel Mertes Beth, a little bit about you.   [00:00:28.900] - Beth Long Well I stay home with our four kids. They're 9 7 5 and 3 at this point and, at this point, I've been in Bloomington eleven years.   Beth and Andy met in the halls of Heritage Christian High School, where Beth was my teammate on the soccer team and Andy was my co-lawyer on the mock trial team.    [00:00:51.880] - Andy Long I tried to date her in high school, but she was having none of that. I didn't drive a hard top Jeep Wrangler that wasn't several years older than her. So I did make the cut.   [00:01:05.380] - Beth Long Yeah. No, what he means by trying to date me was he was trying to date everybody else.   Musical interlude Beth always knew that she wanted to adopt.    [00:01:42.010] - Beth Long we had always talked about adoption. It was something I knew before we even got married that I had kind of put on Andy's radar.   Beth and Andy had two biological children, daughters that had come after complicated pregnancies.  They were advised to take some time before conceiving again, and this was when they embarked on the adoption journey.   [00:02:26] - Beth Long And so, that's when we drove in to the world of international adoption which is what was really on our radar at the time. And we're not really like super organized chart people but we made this big chart of all the countries in the world that you can adopt from and just sort of the different regulations there were because they're all different in terms of family size and length of stay in country and age of child you can adopt. And so we just made our chart and from there sort of narrowed down to the Democratic Republic of Congo which is where our son Drew is from.   One of the reasons that Andy and Beth chose the DRC was because it only required a ten day stay in country   [00:03:44] - Andy Long I get two weeks off a year and so that ruled out countries that require like 30 days in country or multiple visits that would be a couple of weeks apiece. So we had ruled those out. So Congo fit with our with my work schedule being off two weeks. So a 10 day stay in country was what they what the program called for. So that fit. And then they had estimated a timeframe from the inception of the program to bringing your child home and about nine months.   About nine months, at least that was the hope.  But things did not go as planned Music here   [00:04:46.030] - Beth Long Well we were matched with Drew, our son, when he was nine days old and that was in August of 2013. And in September of 2013, the country essentially shut down adoptions. There were the adoptions were still proceeding but they were not allowing adopted children to leave once their process was complete. They said you cannot have an exit letter. And they had done some suspensions like this before and they didn't last very long. They said initially it would last up to a year and everybody thought, oh it'll be a month maybe two months...Given the history, it ended up lasting about two and a half years.   [00:05:24.580] - Liesel Mertes Wow. So two and a half years. What, what did that look like relationally for you guys to navigate that journey? I assume that it wasn't just calm and, OK, this is another delay, this is the next thing. How is it feeling to you in real time?   [00:06:12] - Andy Long We were relatively new to the program and some of the people that had been either, they had adopted previously from the DRC or they had friends or family that had, they had seen some of these suspensions kind of come and go. And so they gave us the expectation of, oh it'll be a few months or maybe a year. So then as it exceeded those timeframes. I think everybody that was in the program we're really confused and nervous about, well maybe this is going to be a permanent suspension of the adoption program or maybe our son will never come home and we certainly had those thoughts as well. There was no timeframe given. So you know after a year or two we thought, you know maybe, maybe that Drew will never come home. Maybe this is just not going to happen.   Musical transition here   [00:06:57.280]  We didn't really know what to do. There wasn't anything we could do on our end in order to speed the process up or to do that. So there was a lot of confusion. I think Beth and I were on the same page which brought us closer together, probably because it kind of felt like us versus them or us versus the world.   [00:07:16.720] - Liesel Mertes Was there a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy?   [00:07:18.220] - Beth Long Oh, absolutely. Oh yeah so much.   [00:07:22.390] - Liesel Mertes And how much time did that take up for you and a given week or month because I picture there's a cost of just your bandwidth of having to do all of this.   [00:07:32.740] - Beth Long Yes so I mean every day, and I was sort of reporting back to Andy, but every day I'm online looking at the rumors talking about the chatter of what's going to happen. I heard this, you know the senator said this, I heard this from DRC. You know, everybody was just kind of putting the information together because like Andy said we really had no idea, we're going on rumors and tweets   [00:07:57.850] - Andy Long There are different Facebook groups and different message boards that we were a part of that we're trying to get information out. There was a big push to contact your representatives in Congress and let them know, hey this is what's happening over there. We need governmental support to put pressure on the Congolese government to get these kids home.   [00:08:18.460] - Liesel Mertes Did you have much... So you're here in southern Indiana. Did you have much in the way of real time community of people who understood what you're going through? Because I imagine that this potentially could feel like very isolating and particular sort of experience as you're dropping your kids off at the local school and going grocery shopping at Kroger and checking about the geopolitical functions of the government in Congo.   [00:08:46.960] - Beth Long Yes. So we had a lot of online support as any sort of Facebook groups but I think we had wonderful people in person but you know how it's difficult to follow another person's health journey or you know their court dates. It's hard to keep all that straight. I'm using a whole different language when I'm talking about this adoption world. And so there were definitely times when people were kind of like, oh you're you're still doing that you're still trying to bring that kid home? Yes this is my daily reality. I'm daily still working on this every day is our son and every day we're thinking about it talking about it trying to figure out how I can make this happen.   [00:09:22.870] - Andy Long I think that even for close friends and family,  after after it went past two years of this indefinite, you know like we're going to try to bring Drew home one day, I think even our friends and family were a little skeptical, maybe nervous for us that it wasn't going to happen and they didn't really know how to feel about that. They didn't, they were nervous that we were going to be really hurt and obviously just crushed if this adoption failed and we weren't able to bring Drew home. I think that they processed that and that manifested itself in the way that they dealt with us and the way that they dealt with our adoption. Maybe it's kind of like a hands off or arm's length that you didn't want to become too invested because they were nervous for us and maybe nervous for their own emotions and that felt isolating or that felt like they weren't invested like we were invested or they weren't sure they were skeptical.   Musical interlude    10:40, Andy They were really nervous. And so I felt like they maybe moved to, maybe be wary of the way that they approached it. They kind of didn't want to talk about it or ignored it. In some ways, because it felt like they were really nervous for us and we interpreted that as, they didn't care as much or they were skeptical, which I think they had every right to be because it was an indefinite suspension. They didn't know what was going on, neither did we. But, it felt hurtful in the moment.   Musical interlude   [00:11:23.370] - Andy Long They had a friend that had tried to adopt from the Soviet Union or a country. I think in the early 90s or the mid 90s and they were close friends with my parents and they had pictures of this little girl and they had spent a lot of money and they had invested over I think over a couple of years and trying to bring her home. And then, at the end of the process, the adoption was scuttled. They didn't have any answers. There was you know, accusations of fraud and maybe that there was never a girl that they were going to adopt. And the family that they were friends with were devastated. And I think that that informed their opinion and they saw maybe that coming back around and they were nervous for us that we were being defrauded or that there was a scheme to bilk us for money and that Drew was never going to come home, which were legitimate concerns because there was no timeframe and very little information. But, that felt really hurtful, because it felt like they were skeptical of the process and they weren't rooting for us to bring Drew home but were maybe rooting for us to have our guard up.   [00:12:32.720] - Liesel Mertes Do you feel like, by extension, there was any sort of implication of:  you're being foolish in this, you're being taken or had ,that felt offensive in its own way?   [00:12:46.330] - Beth Long Yeah.   [00:12:46.730] - Andy Long We are both shaking hands before we answered yes. I don't think it was intentional in their mind to make us feel that way.   Musical Interlude   [00:13:24.750] - Beth Long And I think, just in general just in, sort of in the way that when you're pregnant, like that baby isn't as real to everybody else as it is to you. That's sort of how I felt with Drew. You know, I knew this child. He was ours. I had the pictures. I was invested and it wasn't real to anybody else. They couldn't see him. You know they weren't, they weren't experiencing him and so, I think that was the hard part for me just in real life. Friends seeing, you know I think sometimes they felt so worried for me and concerned that I was really invested in this thing that really wasn't going to happen, maybe.   Andy also felt missed in his workplace [00:14:49] - Andy Long Well, I think the people knew; I had been very open that we were adopting. I've got pictures of Drew. This is my son. So I think they're aware of that, but I don't know if they were super supportive. Well, our workplace is very much like you try to leave your problems at the door, you come in when you're in the office you're focused on work. It's not really a community where we would share problems from home or family life, But there was a moment, towards the very end of the process when Drew was coming home and was literally flying home that there was a major hang up and a copy of the visa wasn't the right one and there was a big problem where they were stopped on literally on the way to the airport. He was stopped and detained with his escort. And I remember getting that phone call at work and I literally just took the phone callm found out that that was happening and just left the office and went home. I don't think that I told anyone that I was going they probably thought that there had been a big emergency, which there had been, but that was the one time maybe where I have a really vivid memory of just having to leave work and it was that environment wasn't gonna be suitable for handling or dealing or processing what was happening with our adoption.     Although there was a disconnect with family, friends, and work, there was still a community of people that supported Beth and Andy.      [00:16:13] - Liesel Mertes Where were the places that you were finding people that came alongside you and supported you well and what did that look like?   [00:16:20.850] - Beth Long I would say mostly our family and our church here in Bloomington   [00:16:25.110] - Andy Long Our small group a church was extremely supportive throughout the entire process.   [00:16:29.190] - Liesel Mertes What were some of the best, tangible things that they along this two year journey with you?   [00:16:36.650] - Beth Long Well, I would say, to back it up just a little bit. So Drew did come home as we said in February of 2016 but in December of 2015 we had a baby. So that's a whole other part of this because it led to sort of a six month period for us that was probably the most difficult of our lives. So we had Luke the baby as he will forever be known   [00:17:01.610] - Liesel Mertes As babies are.   [00:17:04.370] - Beth Long So he was born a month early in here in Bloomington and he spent ten days in the NICU and, unfortunately, I had the same crazy delivery but but worse with him. So he had to spend some extra time sort of getting used to life on the outside and and then Drew came home February. And then Luke, in April, began having seizures. And so, we took an emergency trip up to Riley and a second trip up to Riley the following week.   [00:17:36.680] - Liesel Mertes And Riley is in Indianapolis, which is about an hour and a half drive.   [00:17:42.470] - Beth Long So that was December to May was really taken up with, I mean it just felt like to us, absolutely more than we could handle.   [00:17:52.390] - Liesel Mertes It sounds so chaotic.   [00:17:54.430] - Beth Long  It was extremely chaotic. You've got this little boy, Drew, who's two and a half at this point, who we've we've been preparing for, you know, we've got a room for him. We've been talking about him but really to him we're strangers. We'd been to visit him for a week. But, the language, the food, the clothes that everything every place that he went, every person he saw was new to him. And so you can imagine, that that was an extremely difficult transition for him. And then we had this baby who had these health problems that of course we were not anticipating. So this was a really difficult time for us. And we just we feel so thankful to the people that are in our life that were really there for us. I mean we had friends that were stopping by too because Andy was still working very long hours at this time too.   [00:18:45.550]  And I had a friend that came over many nights during bedtime just to help me with bedtime because I've got now four kids to put to bed. I have friends that would say hey, I'm running to the grocery store. What can I get you today? We had so many people bring its meals. People take our older girls, you know for a playdate, so I could just handle the boys.   [00:19:06.100] - Andy Long My parents came down, your parents came down to watch the kids and help you around the house.   [00:19:11.360] - Liesel Mertes Because Andy, you're still operating on, I have 14 days to use over this year. Did you, did that feel like a pressing concern all through this of I can't be present because I have...   [00:19:25.470] - Andy Long Yeah, that was, that was it I'm not proud of the way that I handled that but, I was so ingrained in the culture of my particular workplace which was you don't miss work, that is unacceptable. As a leader, as a manager, you're gonna be at work no matter what. And I had had over 10 years of being in that environment and it seemed so natural and I had blinders on to how unreasonable that would be. But I I had taken time off for Luke's birth and I had been to the hospital and I would go my lunch break to the NICU but I didn't feel like I had enough time or I had already taken off too much time. So, I had my mom pick up Beth from the NICU when they were released to bring them home. So, I didn't even go and pick up my own child when he was released from the NICU to bring him home for the first time because I felt like I didn't have enough time in my day right or I taking off too much time for this for the birth and that that kind of came around when Drew came home I took off one day but then after that worked my normal schedule, which was really close to 8 to 8. So, I was gone all day throughout the week and then Saturdays.   [00:20:43.170] - Liesel Mertes That sounds exhausting for both of you on a number of levels when you talk about that culture, Andy, so you're going to the NICU on your lunch break and then coming back and needing convince someone that this is the car for them to buy. Was it difficult for you to re-engage with work? What did you find your capacity for coping or compartmentalization needed to become in the workplace?   [00:21:11.430] - Andy Long You know, looking back, I'm not sure how I did that or if I did a very good job. I probably suffered at work and wasn't aware of how distracted that I was. It felt like, maybe I probably was trying to do my best but I would imagine if I look back now was probably very distracted and was underperforming. I think the part that suffered the most was home life because it's more difficult to turn off work and being on stage and you know trying to be pleasant, providing great customer service acting like everything is fine, leaving your problems at the door. I think I became very good at turning that off and when I was at work focusing on work, so that it became more difficult to engage when I came home to pick that back up and then engage with the problems and the difficulties that we had which became a major stress point for Beth and I. Probably the hardest thing that we've been through was my inability to say no to work or to change what I was doing there, which lasted for months and months probably six months. Throughout that time when we had both boys home and Luke was diagnosed as epileptic and we just had tons of reasons to not be at work as much.   [00:22:26.960]  But I wasn't able to see it that way. And didn't turn that off and was really embarrassed and ashamed of how I dealt with that. Looking back. But in the moment, it felt like that was just the reasonable way that you would handle life's problems would be to check them at the door go to work act like it was normal leave work come home and try to re-engage.   [00:22:50.970] - Liesel Mertes Beth what does it feel like even as you listen to that and reflect on that season?   [00:22:57.470] - Beth Long Like Andy said, he was so entrenched in, this is just the way we do it. It's not like anyone at work was saying, you better get back here, you know. That was just the expectation. Sort of an unstated expectation but he had been in it for so long that he didn't see what it was doing to our family life as well. And, honestly, during that time I mean I was barely hanging on. I felt like I was barely treading water and I really needed him and he wasn't there. And so thinking back on that time I just it brings back a lot of emotions for me and I'm just trying to navigate all of that and also to help him see, hey this is not the right path for us.   [00:23:42.200] Something needs to change about your work life and that's a hard conversation to have. For me it's a family business. It's work that he loves. He loves working for his grandfather. So those are really difficult conversations to have. He wants to be the one who's working the hardest. He wants to be there and I really respect that about him, he's a hard worker. But there are also times in life when that cannot be the focus.   [00:24:08.720] - Andy Long We didn't have real clear policies at work about, hey if you have a baby or if your family has a baby, this is what's normal to take off or these many days or this doesn't count against your vacation time or if you've got a medical emergency you know take this amount of time away from the office. We didn't have any of those policies really, really clearly stated at all and so then it was kind of, we were jumbling through it together where there was a lot of weird expectations on my side and I'm sure my co-workers at work needed me there and so they didn't really know how to process that or, you know, they, I'm sure would have liked to have me there more but they also understood it was inappropriate to ask me to come home or to skip some of that family time, so that I made it more difficult that we didn't have any clear policies on how much time I should take or what the procedure was for something like that like a medical emergency or traumatic birth.   [00:25:11.440] - Liesel Mertes Do you think back oh let's update the audience though. How is the Luke doing?   [00:25:16.800] - Beth Long He's doing very well. So, it took a while to find the right medication for him that would control his seizures. And then once they were controlled, he was on the medication for about two years without any repeat seizures. And so we did another EEG last summer and he was able to wean off the medicine. So he's been doing very well.   [00:25:39.850] - Liesel Mertes And Drew's here, he is going to be starting kindergarten not next year but the year...   [00:25:44.420] - Beth Long No, this year. So crazy. So yeah he's ready. He's very excited.   [00:25:51.310] - Liesel Mertes And Andy and Beth, you guys made some purposeful shifts in some of your work life structuring in the aftermath of this. What decisions did you make for your life balance moving forward based on some of what you experienced?   [00:26:07.350] - Beth Long Well I think after the NICU situation and having his mom bring me home and then only taking a day off when Drew came home those two situations and the chaos that was our life at that time, for me was the final straw. Really Weave some music through the drama of the following section…   [00:26:27.160] - Andy Long The breaking point   [00:26:28.130] - Beth Long Yeah, breaking point, I just said I can't I can't keep up with this anymore. And so when, when we were Riley for the seizures, Andy was there for all of that, he was able to take time off and I think everybody at work was really understanding about it. It was just your own I think expectations to it, you you felt really bad because the nature of his position is that he is the one who does that work. You know it's there isn't it.   [00:26:55.780] - Andy Long We a very lean operation. So there wasn't a second person or third person who did my role. I was the president who was in charge of those dealership roles and those tasks. So, if I wasn't there there, I was nervous that those were going to get done and the dealership was going to suffer substantially because we don't have someone else who backed up my role   [00:27:18.730] - Beth Long But, that's when we did make some major changes.   [00:27:22.860] - Andy Long Yeah it wasn't that Beth had not brought up the work life or work family life balance before, but she said it was a lot more urgency in, I think that the combination of events finally got through to me and I realized, man this is crazy. I'm putting work way before my family. I need to make some big changes. And we did after that. It took about a year to enact all the changes. But there is a shift at work. I requested to be moved from what I was doing to another role, which required some really difficult conversations over a period of about six months with my grandfather, who's the owner of the dealership, and we had some conversations about what that would look like and how that's very different than the way he came up in the business, which was a lot more old school of, you work every hour that the dealership is open. You're at the at the bridge of the ship. You're commanding it. You've got to be there every minute every day. And what that would look like maybe  for my schedule, which was going to be more family focused and maybe more new school and millennial where I'm placing a greater, a greater value on being with my family and having time away from the dealership, which was some pretty new territory for him but we were able to work it out.   [00:28:41.500] - Beth Long Yeah. It's a difficult conversation as you can imagine to have with your grandfather, because I think it feels a bit to him like an indictment of the way he raised his family. And so, he had five children and they are greatly loved and he showed his love by working super hard for them and providing for them. And so, when Andy says I want to do it this way it feels a bit like, hey you did it the wrong way. And that's a really difficult conversation to have with your grandfather.   [00:29:06.940] - Liesel Mertes The complications of what is a culture shift in a lot of ways, and even a translation of a different set of values coming in and being, still furthering the mission of the company, but not the way things have been done before. This been a really helpful conversation on so many levels, as you think back and have snapshot in your mind of yourselves as you're going through that super intense season, what words would you offer back to that to that version of Andy or Beth from where you are now?   [00:29:47.410] - Andy Long Well, hindsight is 20 20. And as I look back at the younger Andy of those years he was so wrapped up in the culture of the business that he was in. He was really blinded to the effects that it was having on his family and the tremendous amount of stress it was putting on Beth and his kids. And it seems crazy now that I would have thought, yeah it's totally normal, I should have my Mom pick up my wife and newborn baby from the NICU and bring him home. In the moment, that felt like the appropriate thing to do for work. So, sagely old Andy would tell that young guy,hey there is, that's crazy and you need to try and seek that balance way before you get to a point where you're at your wits end and you're really just treading water and trying to make it through each day. We should have addressed those concerns years previously and tried to figure out, hey what's a, how can we slide gradually into a different schedule or how can we have some backup at work that or some overlapping roles that would allow not just me but other managers to take more time off if something like this happens or to to enjoy a better work life balance?  We should have addressed those years ago not just when a crisis comes.   [00:31:04.150] - Beth Long Yeah, and I would say, for me, this is something I really had to become more comfortable with. But, in the beginning, did not know what to do when people said, let me know how I can help. You know, alright, let me let me...even when they were specific about it, let me take your kids or you know, in the beginning I felt very uncomfortable taking that kind of help. But pretty quickly realized like nope, I just need to say yes you could take my girls or you could come over you know whatever those things were that were going help, I had to get real about that because I I couldn't do it. I really needed that backup.   [00:31:39.750] - Andy Long Beth is really independent. And I do remember us having that conversation about, it was it was unnatural and a little bit against your personality to accept help especially from strangers or people that we didn't know really well. It was different when your best friends like, let me take your girls. But when someone from church was like hey let me bring you a meal or can I bring you some groceries. That felt maybe uncomfortable at the beginning, especially because Beth is very independent, so that was a big change, but it was a good change once we said hey these people are wanting to engage with us wanting to help. This is the way that they're going to show us love. We need to be way more accepting of it. That was huge.   [00:32:19.570] - Beth Long And I think, also, one thing I wish that I would have done is just feel more comfortable to be, to tell people, this is how I'm struggling I feel, I actually later in the year started extreme problems sleeping. I started having chest pains and I felt like I was going crazy, which I think if I had just talked to people they would say know that, you're experiencing anxiety and you probably should be based on your life circumstances right now. It took me slowly telling people small parts of that to put that all together, but I wish that I would have been braver with those emotions to say, hey here's what I'm experiencing. What do I do with this? Or even start, as I ended up seeing a counselor starting in the fall. And I wish I would have started much earlier. So that's something I would have told myself like:  hey look at your life right now. In fact I remember once in that time in that six month timeframe someone gave me a picture that said something about:  in mountains high and valleys low, ttill I am with you. And I was like, why did they give me this? Which is like, I was so unaware of like how chaotic my own life was that I was like, Oh this is a valley low. You know, I didn't even, I wasn't aware enough to know that I needed help beyond groceries, that I needed to see a counselor that I needed to work through the aftermath of watching my son go through seizures that I needed...the traumatic birth, I needed to go through that. You know I need to talk to me about that. So that took me a long time to realize, hey I need to deal with this and my body betrayed me, because I thought I was doing so well. I thought I was holding it together so well. But then I was not sleeping. You know, I started sleeping as you're having chest pains and my body said, Look you're not handling this as well as you think you are   Musical Interlude Here are three take-aways from my conversation with Andy and Beth What are the implicit demands that your company makes on employees? Have you stopped to wonder?  If not, now is a good time to ask.  Go ask a coworker or a direct report about how they think the company views time off.  And, call this lesson 1, part b, do you have established policies around time off and leave? Andy and Beth were trailblazers in many ways, creating policies and precedent around NICU stays and adoption. If you don’t have established policies, its time to get some things in writing.  As you create these policies, ponder, what kind of a culture do you want to create?  If you are going through the stress of an adoption or a prolonged hospital stay or any sort of substantial stress, coax yourself to be able to accept the help that is offered.Taking your other children to play, receiving a delivery of groceries, it is good to be able to accept the help that is offered.  Beth talked about the world of adoption policy and news and updates that was “an entirely different language” than what was being spoken around her in southern Indiana.If you are part of a support system for someone that is going through an adoption process, take time to ask them about the policy and the Facebook groups.  And then listen. Really listen. Andy and Beth spoke about how it was difficult for them to feel that some people close to them were not “in their corner” and rooting for the adoption to go forward, as you hear about difficulties or obstacles, before rushing to judgment and advice, instead consider offering a statement like, “I’m so sorry for that hassle!  That sounds complicated and difficult; I imagine that you just want to be united with your son or daughter as soon as possible.”  This sort of statement conveys empathy without pronouncing judgment.   Outro

Listen to the final part of my keynote presentation from FHL. During this part of the presentation, I dive deeper into understanding and mastering hooks. On today’s episode you will hear part 4 of 4 of Russell’s first presentation at Funnel Hacking Live 2019. Here are some of the super awesome things you will hear in this part: Find out why the hook is a little harder to catch onto, but why it’s also the most important part. Find out why you should practice different hooks, much like a comedian practices different jokes. And find out how you can find examples of other hooks proven to work, and model your own after them. So listen here to the exciting conclusion of Russell’s keynote presentation at Funnel Hacking live this year. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. You are about to listen to part 4 of 4 of my keynote presentation from Funnel Hacking Live, the exciting conclusion of this presentation. We’ve talked about offers, we’ve talked about stories and now we’ve dived into the hooks. And the hooks aren’t something that take as much time to explain, but it’s probably one of the hardest parts for people to do. So make sure to pay a lot of attention to this part of it and start thinking through what are the hooks you could be throwing out. And hopefully you notice allt he hooks I throw out. I’m throwing out hooks every single day between my podcasts and the blog posts and the Facebook live’s, and Instagrams and on and on and on. So hooks are the key because that’s what gets somebody’s attention and let’s them focus on your story so then you can make them your special offers. So I hope you enjoy the exciting conclusion of my keynote presentation at Funnel Hacking Live. With that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song, and then we’ll jump right in to part 4 of 4 of my presentation. Okay, I’m going to go over the last step. We talked about offer, we talked about story, the last piece in this is the hook. So what is the hook? To understand this really well, I want you guys to imagine what happened right before you probably came into this room. You were in the bathroom and you were sitting kind of like this, and most of you had your phones and you’re going like this. So what a hook is, is the thing that makes you stop and be like, “Whoa.” That’s a hook. This is how I judge my hooks. I imagine all of you guys swiping and what’s going to make you like, “Whoa, hold on. I gotta finish so I can find out what that thing is.” This is literally what’s happening, in case you’re wondering like, ‘Oh my customers don’t do that.” They do. I was in the airport two days ago, I walk into the airport and for the women I’m so sorry you have to find out about how gross and disgusting men are. But there’s a dude swiping while he’s…I’m like, seriously. Put it in your pocket for like 30 seconds, it doesn’t take that long. It was just amazing. That’s what they’re doing. So you gotta imagine, this is what’s happening in today’s world. It’s not that they’re sitting at their desktop, studying you and reading things and researching. What’s happening is this. They’re flipping through their phone and seeing their friends and their pictures and their profiles and their cat videos and thing after thing after thing after thing. And your ad has a shot in there for like 1 second, probably less, in the middle of the scroll. If you don’t stop them right there and they don’t say, “Hold on, put the phone down, I gotta come back and check this out.” You’ve failed. The hook is the key. Without a good hook nobody will ever hear your story, without a good story no one will care about your offer. Now the hook in and of itself does not provide, does not increase the value. The hook does not increase the value of what it is you’re selling. What the hook does is it grabs your attention long enough that they’ll listen to your story. The story increases the value and then the offer increases the value. The hook grabs them just long enough that you can tell them the story. So every story you have has multiple hooks. That’s why it’s so important for you guys to be publishing and putting things out there all the time because I have no idea what hooks are going to land, which ones people are going to resonate with and which ones don’t. I was at a retreat, like a mastermind group with Brendon Burchard and Dean Graziosi and a bunch of really cool people, both of whom are going to be here this weekend speaking with you guys, it’s going to be amazing. And we’re sitting around the campfire and Dean told this story that was so good. He said, “It’s interesting, if you look at a comedian, you see them on the Tonight show and they pick up the microphone and they do their thing. They do the thing and they land it and everyone’s like, ‘oh my gosh, this is the funniest person on earth.’ You don’t understand. The comedian doesn’t just get up there and do his thing. “What happened is two years prior he got a job, he went to a dive bar over here, wrote ten jokes, got in front of like 30 people and tried his thing and he tried it. He told joke one, two, three, four, five…and one of the ten jokes landed. And he’s like, ‘okay, that joke was good, the rest were horrible.’ Goes back to his apartment, writes 9 new jokes, got the ten new jokes, goes to the next dive bar and gets in front of it, boom he does it. Nails the first joke because he knows it’s amazing, does the other 9 and like 2 of the other 9 work right. Now he’s got 3 new jokes. Then he goes back, rewrites the other 7 comes back the next night. Boom, he keeps doing it and doing and doing it, until he knows he’s got ten of the most amazing jokes in the world, then he gets on the big stage and performs and every single joke lands.” It’s the same thing that we’re doing right now. I have no idea what hooks are going to work, right. So what do I do? When I hear a story in the morning I jump on my phone, I get my phone out as I’m driving to the office. And half of you guys are like, “Russell, don’t drive while you’re podcasting.” It’s like a block, and there’s no anything anywhere. I wish I could show people that. I get…anyway, whatever. So I’m doing my thing, talking and I tell a story right. That’s my first time. Then I come in and I see Dave and Dave’s like, “Ah!” and I’m like, “Ah! I gotta tell you a story.” I tell Dave the story. I tell it a little differently this time. I’m like, ‘okay, that worked. It made sense, he got excited.” Then I go out to the bull pen with all the marketing team and I tell them the story. Then I jump on a Facebook Live, I tell the story there. I tell it 4 or 5 times until I know how to tell the story. I see what lands, I see what hooks that got people interested. Or If I tell a story and Dave’s like, “That’s really cool.” I’m like, “Crap. If Dave’s not flipping out, it’s not a good story.” And that’s how we know. So it’s testing these things, testing it, and testing it. So when you have a story you’re putting out different hooks, like which of the hooks are people grabbing onto? What are the ones that are interesting? What are the ones that people actually pay attention to? And then like, “Cool, now we’ll build things bigger on those.” But you gotta be practicing stuff all the time, because if you’re like, “I gotta, this one has to work. It’s gotta be perfect, it’s gotta be, I don’t want to screw this up so I’m going to wait to tell my story, I’m going to wait, I’m going to wait.” It’s the equivalent to walking up on the Tonight show and being like, “I’ve never tested this material. Let’s go.”  You would never do that, right? Yet we do it in our businesses all the time. You can’t do that, you gotta be telling the stories, telling the stories. Every single one of you guys in here should be Facebook Living your experience today. Seriously. If you’re not, why did you waste that experience. There’s some story that will impact you today, if not me, by somebody else, that affects your life and your customers directly, and you better be talking about that tonight when you get home. Either podcasting, video, facebook live, something to start practicing. It begins tonight. It doesn’t begin manana because manana never comes. Alright so how do you find the hooks that you want to model? So next time you guys are doing this, and you shouldn’t do this, it’s really disgusting, but maybe you’re at your desk doing this, but as you’re scrolling through look at the stuff that stops you. Look at the stuff that stops you and be like, “Why’d that hook work? What was it?” Okay, the Thirty Days book was not my idea. Someone else had a Thirty Days thing in another industry, I was like, “That’s a good idea. He hooked it over there, I’m going to hook it over here.” because it made me stop. Now if you find an ad, instead of just looking at it and being like, ‘That’s a really good ad.” Then you go the ad and Facebook had done the coolest thing in the world, there’s a little tab here that says ads and info, you click on it and it literally shows you every single hook that that person is running right now.  So if you clicked on that right now, you would see, “here’s a couple of hooks that Russell and John and the team are currently running.” “Russell, that’s a lot of ads.” Yeah, we’re throwing out insane amounts of hooks every single day. And you can do this with any advertiser, you see their ad on facebook, you click on their thing and it will show you, here’s every ad they are actively running right now. You can see all the hooks. So every time someone hooks you, stop, pay attention, go look at the thing and look at all the ads and start studying, start looking, start geeking out. That’s a lot of ads, how many do we have on here? Now this is, I was doing this last night. At one in the morning I was still working on slides and I was like, “how do I really sink this in?” and I started thinking about the Two Comma Club winners, the Two Comma Club X winners and I was like, I want to show some examples of some of these. Because you hear these people all the time, right. You see their pictures, you hear the stories and you’re like, “This is amazing, I want Two Comma Club.” Now how many of you guys have actually looked at the hooks that they’re throwing out. If they’re in the Two Comma Club and Two Comma Club X it means they are insanely good at hook, story, offer otherwise they would not be here. So we should be looking at it. So I started looking at it, I’m like, I’m just going to pull up a couple of random people. So the first one I pulled here is Drew. Is Drew in the room right now? I think he is. So this is, this is amazing. Drew owns a company called Fit 2 Fat 2 Fit, have you guys seen his ads before? So Drew is a personal trainer who was ripped and amazing, and I might be telling the story wrong, it’s awkward that he’s in the room, so hopefully I tell it right. But he was ripped and amazing and his clients were like, “Well, you’ve never been fat, so you don’t know what it’s like.” And he’s like, “Oh yeah? This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to get fat, super fat.” So he gained a whole bunch of weight to prove to everyone. He went from being fit to getting really, really fat and then losing all the weight again. Probably not healthy in retrospect I’m guessing, but that is an amazing hook. So you see, here’s like a thousand different weight loss offers out there, “Hey I’m sexy, I’m ripped.” Then you see Drew sitting here with Jay Leno and he’s like, “I went from being fit to fat to fit” and shows the before and after, and that hook is amazing. Boom, Two Comma Club X winner. This is Natalie, how many of you guys remember Natalie Hodson from last year? There’s Natalie right here.  Two Comma Club winner, she’s getting close to Two Comma Club X, same thing. What’s interesting, Natalie’s business prior to this was a good business. She had good hooks, good story, good offer, it was doing well, but never like amazing. Then she came back and she was like, “What’s the hook, what’s the story, what is it?” and she shifted from her other business that was doing okay to this. And you guys remember Natalie’s story? She talked about vulnerability last year. She talked about how she was doing this live video and she peed her pants during it, which is like the most humiliating thing ever, right. And then she turned that into a product teaching women how to control that, and went from zero to Two Comma Club winner in 4 months, because of the hook. Find a better hook. Again, if your funnel’s not working, it’s always either a hook, story, or an offer. That hook’s amazing, her story is insane, and the offer was amazing. A million dollars in four months. Garrett White there in the middle. Here’s a landing page I found of his, one of my favorite landing pages. How is this for a hook? “Attention married business men, learn how to unlock nearly unlimited sex, power, and money without having to cheat on your wife, get a divorce, ignore your children, leave your church, sedate with drugs, or party like a rock star in Las Vegas.” What? How do you not click on that as a man? I could have everything I want in life without all the bad stuff, this is amazing. He’s a master at hooks. If you look at anybody in this club, anyone who is on stage, all the people who are doing what you want to do, you guys, they’re amazing at hook, story and offer. And if you want to be on stage you have to become better at hook, story and offer. So as you’re telling your story, start building your inventory, “What are the hooks I can test out?” Test out this, test out this. And my question is, how many hooks are you guys actually throwing out. You need to be throwing out a lot. Okay, hook story, offer. And then one last thing that I want to kind of show you guys. If you look at this hook, story, offer, this is happening at every single step in your funnel. Your ads, there’s a hook, a story, an offer in your ad. Someone’s scrolling, there’s a hook, you’re telling them a quick story, you make an offer, click here, there’s the offer. Then they come to your landing page, there’s a hook,  there’s a story, there’s an offer. Then they come to buy your product, hook, story, offer. Upsell, hook, story, offer. This framework is essential for you guys to master. It’s so simple. That’s why I wanted to start today, it’s so simple, but it’s the most important thing. You do it over and over and over again. If something isn’t working inside your funnel it’s always either your hook, your story, or your offer. I don’t care what funnel it is. You’re going to learn about a ton of different funnel types this weekend. You’re going to learn about challenge funnels, and summit funnels, and book funnels, 100 funnels, it doesn’t matter which one it is. This framework fits into every one of these funnels. And the last one it mentions, the hook, story, offer, this is the key. Hook story offer is the thing that grabs somebody, brings them into your world, and after you have them, the next phase then is how do we increase the value? How do we help these people along the line? In the books you guys got yesterday, I actually printed off a copy of our value ladder so you guys could see, this is our value ladder. And the person speaking after me is Stacy Martino, I’m so excited to have her. You guys are going to love Stacy. But she is a master at taking people up the value ladder. How do you take people, after you’ve hooked people and you’ve got them into your world, how do you love them and give enough value that they want to continue to progress with you throughout everything else you’re doing? So I am out of time. I want to show one quick video and then I’m going to be done for this morning, and then Stacy is going to be coming out, which I’m so excited for you guys to meet her. This is a video we made last year at Funnel Hacking Live, we showed it at the very beginning. I want to show it really quick, it’s only about a minute long, but it’s going to kind of re-sum up my feeling of you guys as our funnel hackers and why we’re so passionate about this weekend. After the video is done, if you guys could go crazy, do a huge round of applause, and we’re going to bring Devon back out, when the video’s over. You guys ready for this? Here we go. “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, about the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things, they push the human race forward, and while some might see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Josh is gone. But the show must go on! Don't worry, he's just on vacation. So Drew talks to himself...sort of. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nothingtosaypodcast/message

Guest Bio:Drew Manning had never been overweight in his life. He grew up with three sisters and seven brothers. He excelled in sports and his obsession with health grew from there. As a personal trainer, Drew was addicted to exercise…to having large muscles and six-pack abs. His idea of a “treat” was a spinach shake! “I was such a health addict that I invited the opportunity to both judge and attempt to help individuals who weren't born with the ‘health-nut gene,'” says Drew. The goal for all his obese patients was the same: to get them to see that they were doing this to themselves and show them how to think, act and live differently. Certain clients listened and acted on his advice. More often than not, his clients were full of doubt that Drew was really there to help them overcome their struggles. “They saw me as someone who didn't get it; I didn't understand how hard it was to set aside the food or how difficult it was to go to the gym,” says Drew.One day, James, one of Lynn's relatives, asked Drew to help him lose weight. At first, James followed Drew's meal plans and pushed himself at every workout three times a week. After a few weeks, James decided to fight the battle of the bulge on his own. Drew thought, Something is missing, and wondered if he would ever be able to impact anyone other than himself. So Drew decided the best hope to understand weight-loss struggles would be to purposefully gain weight and get out of shape, with his wife's support. Drew would stop following his meal plans and avoid physical exertion whenever possible for six months. Then he would journey back to fitness for the next six months. Drew launched a website that would chart his progress and blog about his journey from fit-to-fat-to-fit again. He invited followers to blog their life changes on their own. After months of planning, Drew ate his last healthy meal on May 5, 2011. He weighed 193 pounds, had a 34.5” waist and 17” neck.After just two months, Drew gained over 20 pounds and could not fit into his clothes. His self-esteem issues became an obsession and he feared everyone would notice every new pound. He hated taking any trips out of the house. Lynn, who is also physically fit, was shocked by his plunging self-image, thinking this journey was “on purpose” and that he would only endure a physical transformation. Drew became lazy and stopped helping around the house. He got winded easily and avoided playing with the kids. She says that it wasn't the weight he put on but the lack of confidence that resulted. “It was as if his waistline and confidence were on the same sliding scale,” she says. At week 26, Drew weighed 268 pounds, had a 47.5” waist and 19” neck. He gained 75 pounds.“The process humbled me,” says Drew. “I became more empathetic about the emotional issues as well as the physical issue in losing weight.” He says the food was actually good and his body had begun to crave it. “Food addiction is powerful and real,” he says. The foods he found hard to give up to get fit again were Mountain Dew (he would drink two a day) and the bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal at night. He says it was hard getting back into the gym. Drew had never experienced having his belly touch the ground while doing a push up. Getting out of the lazy routine was brutal. While it seems like he didn't gain or lose anything in his journey, Drew says mentally and emotionally he is different. “It's amazing what you take for granted when you're healthy,” he says. “The process humbled me.” On March 1, 2012, Drew's blog went “dark,” and Lynn took over the daily video exercises so that on June 4, 2012, Drew's results could be revealed on Good Morning America

Its that time of year, where despite other things on television we watch tons of Christmas movies. So Drew and Pete talk some news and then, they look at what movies make the holidays for them. Don't worry no one shot their eye out.

It's so important to keep your immune system strong not only all the time but especially at this time of year. So Drew and Dorothy decided to sit down and talk about their best tips on how Keeping Your Immune System Strong will make your life so much easier! Have a listen to these tips to stay strong and healthy, taking it one step at a time to a healthy you! Thank you so much for your interest in this show of Exploring Mind and Body, if you haven’t done so already please take a moment and leave a quick rating and review of the show in iTunes by clicking below. It will keep us delivering valuable content each week and give others an opportunity to find the show as well. Click here to subscribe via iTunes (and or leave a rating)

This started as a podcast episode about Shadow of the Colossus, but turned into Drew and Chella discussing control systems. The remake of Team Ico's Shadow of the Colossus hit PS4 last week and Chella finally got to play it. So Drew and Chella compare notes on the game. Then Drew talks about a new pixel art platformer called Celeste.   

Coach of Loudon Valley in Virginia. Drew Hunters mom. Her and her husband Marc coach the team. Took over cross country program in 2014 so going into third year. Never had a state title in 50 years of school, won last year and second on girls side. School about 1200, have 120 kids now on team. We know you as a successful coach and the mother of some successful runners. How did you get started in running? You mentioned you used to be high intensity, low mileage. When did that change? You had a lot of success as a masters runner, tell us about your achievements with this training. You took over the XC program at Loudon Valley in 2014. What lead you to wanting to get into coaching?  How was it taking over with Drew on the team, was he on board with it? You took over a program and turned it around quickly, what were some of the things you changed when you took over the program? One of the things we are seeing from doing this podcast, in people taking over programs you are getting a good bump in the number of kids coming out, tell us about your numbers? 120 kids is a lot to deal with, can you tell us how you structure your workouts with that many kids? Last year your boys won the first ever state title for the school and the girls were second at state. For those wondering if all that success was just because of Drew you opened this year at Great meadows invitational which had 28 teams this year your boys won and to compare that you were a distant third last year. Walk us through what your team did this summer to get ready to defend the title. What type of mileage did your boys and girls get up to over the summer? Can you walk us through what a typical week may look like? Were you happy with your Great American meet results from last week? When you are #1 in the state, you have your eyes on the Nike Regional meet, how do you structure training for what will hopefully be a long season. You mentioned critical velocity, can you explain it a little bit as it is the backbone of your training plan? You mention you are doing them most of the year, what is changing, is it volume or duration? And what does your add on speed look like? Do you run CV workouts on a track or a course? So Drew decided to not run at college and turn pro, what is he up to right now? Talk about how Adidas has handled the decision for him to go pro and how they are supporting him. Going forward will he remain with Tom Schwartz and maintain the same coach? You coached Alan Webb at one point and remained friends with him. He has served as a mentor with Drew. Was he an influence at all in making this decision? When you were working with Alan and Drew, what was the moment you knew they would be really good? Having 120 kids on the team is a lot. And then you have 9 of your own kids. How do you work on that time balance? Where do you see Drew’s future, more of 800-1500 or more 15/5k?

Today, we are talking about how to run your business and still be a good parent and spouse. One of the biggest hurdles for entrepreneurs when they have kids, is transitioning from the 24/7 entrepreneur, working whenever you would like, to a parent AND an entrepreneur. So Drew and I are here to help! We discuss the big hacks we have found for good fathers and keeping our businesses running, along with several reality changes we have come to understand as fathers. If you have small children, or have planning on having one soon, you do not want to miss this episode! You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: http://bit.ly/1Cv3a4S

We are back after a few weeks off. Although episode 20 should have been a top ten, we decided to hold off as Adam was out on baby duty (hehe). So Drew, Sean, & DP take on a few topics! * The PS5 Sage * Cyberpunk * Immortals Fenyx Rising * Resident Evil Remakes TWITTER: @awinnerisu @itsmedpp @chairshotmedia www.thechairshot.com Facebook.com/awinnerisu Visit prowrestlingtees.com/thechairshot and support your favorite website and podcasts For the latest, greatest and up to datest in breaking news, opinions, and podcasts ALWAYS #UseYourHead and visit TheChairshot.com Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/chairshot-radio-network/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy