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November 6, 2011 Julia wakes around 8am to find Sky not feeling well. So she gets Sky and his sister dressed, grabs only her keys, leaving her phone, wallet and purse at the apartment, she leaves for the hospital which is just a few miles down the road. She takes a very desolate road, it's on that road Julia claims her car ran out of gas. So Julia gets her 4 year old daughter out of the car, secures Sky in his car seat, shuts the door and walks about a mile to the nearest gas station. She left Sky in his car seat in the car, and left to go get gas. It takes her an hour to make the one mile walk. When she gets to the gas station she calls a friend who lives nearby and asks if she can come pick her up. They make it back to Julia’s car only to find Sky’s car seat empty, and Sky nowhere to be found. Patreon.com/sandupodcast Merch: truecrimeguys.threadless.com Email: sandupodcast@gmail.com Social Media: @sandupodcast Sources: https://www.q13fox.com/news/bellevue-police-sky-metalwalas-mother-is-lying-about-his-disappearance https://charleyproject.org/case/sky-elijah-metalwala https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2064429/Sky-Metalwalas-mother-Julia-Biryukova-speaks-time-boys-disappearance.html https://mynorthwest.com/144981/mother-of-missing-child-has-new-baby-declared-unfit-mother/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlbmh7z06K0 https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/ocd/what-is-obsessive-compulsive-disorder https://youtu.be/Mq-rDrWvBF4 https://youtu.be/caDObLm6t5g
JOIN US IRL: www.instagram.com/wisemillennial Julia Sokol, Founder of "Sass Class," a women's empowerment dance studio and community, sits down remotely to discuss her novel “Dance Video Program”, her journey growing up in Manhattan and New Jersey to graduating cum laude from Brandeis, her marketing background working for Tripadvisor and Carat; choosing a career path solely to appease friends and family, sex and empowerment, balancing masculine energy of the workplace, Sass Class for men and male empowerment.....Do men need to feel more empowered? Or less?..... a female's innate desire for celebrity and fame (hint: it's more about wanting attention and admiration), her business model, competition, franchising vs. licensing, and the importance of trademarks and having a good accountant!JOIN SASS CLASS: https://www.sassclassnyc.com/INSTA: @sassclassnycYOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCiccpOHsjT4KlvU0yOQkWgSLIDE INTO JULIA'S DMs (business & cat videos only): @julsokoINTERVIEW QUESTIONS:So briefly explain what is SassClass?Why do you focus on female empowerment? This seems to be more about the emotional experience than the dancing.When did you realize you weren't passionate about the corporate trajectory you were on?What advice can you give to Millennials that are struggling with this idea of being disowned from their family?Let's talk about sex and empowerment. To be frank, a lot of your dance style is very sensual. You talk about part of the genesis of SassClass is being rooted in balancing the “masculine energy of the workplace.” You would naively hope that it's 2021 and we've overcome this by now, but it seems we still have a long way to go. How does dance liberate you from feeling overpowered by men? And is sex, as a weapon, the solution to this problem?Let me play devil's advocate….,not to be controversial or make it about gender, but whats the equivalent of sassclass for men? Do men need really need to feel empowered more? Or less?Okay, so I understand the appeal of sass class from a female empowerment perspective. You've also mentioned it makes you feel like being a kid again – a feel of innocence, childhood. But let me take a different perspective. On the other hand, part of the appeal is this fantasy and desire for celebrity and fame. If that didn't exist, there would be no Sass Class. Why do we glorify media and entertainment, and is this a problem? Is this really where we should be putting our attention to?Let's talk business..What is your competition? Are you competing against the yoga and classpass studios of the world? I noticed you have “drop in” classes. Or is it all these tik tok dance videos? What about a company like steezy?You previously stated, “I persist knowing that what I'm doing is for the greater good. In the same way, my clients and even colleagues do not see the big picture that I see as the CEO & Founder of my company” – So Julia, What is the bigger picture here? Do you want to create a franchise or licensing model?What is something you wish someone had told you five years ago, or you had told yourself, that you had to learn on your own. But would have made life so much easier had you known?How can we find out more about you and get involved with Sass Class?
CW: We discuss sexual assault when summarizing the events of this chapter. You can fast forward about 5 minutes to skip.Vanessa and Julia have read chapter thirteen of Eclipse, but they honestly can’t bear to talk about it. So Julia has used her one and only Uno Skip Card to save us from having to re-live Bella’s sexual assault. Instead, we turn our dial to see what’s happening at Forks High School. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s prom season! What hijinks do our favorite high schoolers get up to at prom? Eclipse doesn’t tell us. But fortunately Vanessa and Julia are here to fill in the details.---If $2/month doesn’t feel like a vampire sucking your blood, we’d love it if you could support us on Patreon. Your support will help us help Bella through book three! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
TikTok. It's something that is top-of-mind for everyone by now. Whether you've joined the bandwagon and you're a milennial who is frequently falling down hour long TikTok rabbit holes, OR you're soo OrIgiNaL and you refuse to download it - we're willing to bet all of the doll hairs in our bank (which, like, isn't a ton so calm down) that you have had a convo around TikTok this quarantine season. So Julia and Emily decided to sit down with our very own TikTok queen, Mary K to pick her brain on all things TikTok - from the algorithm to the shocking amount of creepy old men there are trolling the site. Fucking creepy old men. They always find a way. We're never safe. Tune into our social media guru, Mary, while she tells all on the latest social trend! And, as always, rate, review, and subscribe betches. And follow us on insta at @contentforanotherday. LOVE YA!
TikTok. It's something that is top-of-mind for everyone by now. Whether you've joined the bandwagon and you're a milennial who is frequently falling down hour long TikTok rabbit holes, OR you're soo OrIgiNaL and you refuse to download it - we're willing to bet all of the doll hairs in our bank (which, like, isn't a ton so calm down) that you have had a convo around TikTok this quarantine season. So Julia and Emily decided to sit down with our very own TikTok queen, Mary K to pick her brain on all things TikTok - from the algorithm to the shocking amount of creepy old men there are trolling the site. Fucking creepy old men. They always find a way. We're never safe. Tune into our social media guru, Mary, while she tells all on the latest social trend! And, as always, rate, review, and subscribe betches. And follow us on insta at @contentforanotherday. LOVE YA!
When 11 year old Elise Sammis applied for the Food Network's Kids Baking Championship, she didn’t think twice about telling them - right up front - that she lives with type 1 diabetes. She says she wanted everyone to know in order to show that diabetes wouldn't keep her from her love of baking, or anything else. Check out Stacey's new book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! Turns out, there's another young woman with type 1 on the show this season! You can learn more about Naima Winston here. Stacey met Elise & her mom, Natalie, at an event in South Carolina. They spoke about the show, the stress and her diagnosis two years ago at Disney world. Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! In TMSG - good news at the dentist - and it wasn’t about cavities.. and we'll share a story of a lot of spirit at Walt Disney World Marathon weekend. This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Sign up for our newsletter here ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone Click here for Android Episode transcript (rough transcription, please forgive grammar, spelling, punctuation) -----------Stacey Simms 0:00 Diabetes Connections is brought to you by One Drop created for people with diabetes by people who have diabetes, and by Dexcom take control of your diabetes and live life to the fullest with Dexcom. Announcer: This is diabetes connections with Stacey Simms. Stacey Simms 0:23 This week, when 11 year old Elise Sammis applied for the Food Network's kids Baking Championship. She didn't think twice about telling them right up front - she lives with Type 1 diabetes. Elise Sammis 0:36 No, that was very important to me, because I wanted like everyone to know that if you have diabetes, you can still do the things that you want to do. And it was super cool because there was another girl named Naima. She's my super good friend and she had also had type one, and she's super sweet. And we were both like, yay, we both have type one! Stacey Simms 0:52 That's right. There are two young women with T1D competing on this season of the show. I met Elise at an event recently, and I talked to her and her mom about the show the stress, enter diagnosis at Disney World in Tell me something good. Good news at the dentist and it's not about cavities and a lot of spirit at Walt Disney World marathon weekend. This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Welcome to another week of diabetes connections. I am so glad you're here. We aim to educate and inspire about type 1 diabetes by sharing stories of connection. I'm your host Stacey Simms. My son was diagnosed 13 years ago right before he turned two. The show this week is airing a little earlier than usual. Yeah, we almost always drop the interview show the longer show of the week on Tuesday. But because the Kids Baking Championship is on the Food Network on Monday nights. I thought it would just be fun to release the show with Elise on the day of her show. I love the baking shows, and we used to watch them. I feel like it was around the clock for a couple of years my daughter got into them right around the same age as Elise between the ages of like nine and 12. We've watched so many of these baking shows, we made cupcakes, we didn't ever compete. My daughter never wanted to be on TV like that. But it was great. And we certainly got a lot of comments about the cupcakes because I would post them on social media and I'll put some pictures up in the Facebook group because these were, you know, really big. I mean, they weren't beautiful, but they were sharks and cupcakes that look like popcorn and you know, all the dramatic fun stuff. And people would say all the time. Oh, it's too bad that your daughter has that hobby. What are you doing about your son? And I'm like, I'm not letting him eat 17 cupcakes, but I'm not letting her eat 17 cupcakes either. You know, it's fine with Type 1 diabetes, you just have to know exactly what you're eating. Right? It does take extra work. But now go ahead eat the cupcake. And with those memories right in the back of my mind, it was even more fun to talk to Elise and to Natalie It is always a bit dicey talking to reality show contestants. You know, we've done this before, and it is always fun. But it's not just about what they can't say because here obviously they can't talk about the show, even though it's taped weeks and weeks months ago, but because you never know they could win the whole thing. They could be off the show before this episode even airs. But I'm so thrilled that Elise is is one of two girls on the show with Type 1 diabetes and it was great to talk to her and her mom and no matter what happens on the show, she is well on her way quite a personality and really just a fun kid. All right, first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by One Drop and getting diabetes supplies is a pain and not only the ordering and the picking up, but also the arguing with insurance over what they say you need and what you really need. Make it easy with One Drop. They offer personalized test trip plans, plus you get a Bluetooth glucose meter, test strips, lancets and your very own certified diabetes coach. Subscribe today to get test strips for less than $20 a month delivered right to your door. No prescriptions or co pays required. One less thing to worry about. not that surprising when you learn the founder of One Drop lives with type one. They get it. One Drop, gorgeous gear supplies delivered to your door 24 seven access to your certified diabetes coach. learn more, go to diabetes connections dot com and click on the One Drop logo. My guests this week are Elisa Sammis and her mother Natalie. Elise is a contestant on this season's Food Network kids baking show. She was diagnosed with type one at age nine and we talked about her diagnosis. But she was already baking a lot by then. And luckily her family realized you can continue to bake and enjoy dessert even with Type 1 diabetes. Being on a big show like this is a great chance to educate and what's really fun is as we mentioned, Elise isn't doing it alone. There's another young woman on the show Naima Winston from Baltimore is her name and I will put some links and information on our episode homepage, where there is also a transcript about Elise about Naima about the show and more information. So please check that out. That's a diabetes dash connections.com. And while you're there, please note every episode from the last four years is there you may be intimidated to scroll through I get asked all the time, what's the best order? I actually think the best way to listen is either to use the search box and put in whatever interests you Disney, Dexcom, Tandem, Omnipod, right or you can search by category as well. If you click on the tab that says all episodes, you'll see another search box to the right and then filter by category. And that is a really great way to dial into what you want the categories including advocates, athletes, artists, actors, education, technology, travel, family, you know, there's a whole bunch of ways to narrow this down because we've got more than 270 episodes now Holy cow. And I really urge you to go take a stroll through and see what interests you. Quick note, this interview was done on the road, I was speaking at the JDRF chapter, the Palmetto chapter in South Carolina. So the sound quality is a little bit different than when I'm doing things in the studio. And I may be a little soft at times. I'll tell you about the technical nonsense that happened. I'll tell you about that at the end of the show. So let's get to it. Here is my interview with Elise and Natalie Sammis. Let me start with you, Natalie. How did you guys even find out about this? How do you get your kids on a show like this? Elise Sammis 6:38 Well, actually, I didn't get my kid on the show. Elise put herself on the show. Basically, we live in the south and hurricanes are prevalent. And about a year and a half ago, at least you think it was Hurricane Matthew and we got five days off of school. And so I was very bored around the house. So I looked up, like, because I like to bake and I was getting into it. So I looked up like baking competitions and I saw like form so that we could, like fill out a form so that we could try out. And so I made a video for it and I sent it into them. And after that we didn't hear until like six months later. Stacey Simms 7:23 So during that five days and your home and baking was that your first foray? Was that your first time into baking or is it something you'd always like to do? Elise Sammis 7:30 I'd pretty much always like to bake from like, I guess like when I got diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when I was nine, it was really stressful. So it was just really like stress relieving to be able to bake and it was like creative. Stacey Simms 7:46 Alright, so we have an audience that knows about diabetes. But what you just said when I was diagnosed with type one I found it really stress relieving – that could sound strange. What were your thoughts as she was enjoying this as a younger kid? Natalie Sammis 8:06 The two background stories, I think that are important in this piece are that a I am an avid Baker. And so literally, sugar is in my blood at all times. No, I my motto is dinner is always just a means to dessert. That is my life motto since a small child. And also number two, I'm actually an RN, I have my Bachelor's of Science and nursing. So I understand the principles. I understand that Yeah, you skirt the line a little bit closer. When it comes to desserts. It is a little bit more complicated in your carb counting. But it's also it's very doable. It's not off the table. It's not something that someone should be terrified of. It's something that you can balance and put into your life. And also we realized that half the time that we bake, we don't even eat it really we are sharing it with our friends or we're posting it like on social media to feel unify with other people. People It is really, truly a creative outlet for us probably like how people feel with art, but I don't get art and I cannot eat art. So we just go with the dessert side of the world and we like it and we make friends by giving people desserts. Stacey Simms 9:15 How old were you when you were diagnosed? Elise Sammis 9:17 It was the day after my ninth birthday, and we were in Disney. And there was my birthday and my mom actually fed me a chocolate chip cookie for breakfast. Right there. So we were like noticing a lot of symptoms. I was really thirsty all the time. So then my mom took me to the urgent care clinic, the CBS for CBS. And like the MinuteClinic the MinuteClinic Yep, yep. And I got and she got a glucose meter and she thought as a UTI at first. Natalie Sammis 9:52 Right. So she took a blood sugar first and it just read error. When the very first meter read error. The nurse in me problem solving. I thought, ooh, there's something wrong with the machinery that that Wait a second, I know how to litmus test this. So I stuck my own finger, I tested my own blood sugar and it said 96 I still remember the number and my heart sunk. I knew at that moment, deep down that she had diabetes, but I didn't even then didn't want to admit it. Because, you know, that's the worst. So we went to the urgent care and the urgent care. I still remember they looked at us like we were crazy because we walked in. And Elise is holding a Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. And she's just flipping through and reading it and she has a bottle of water in one hand, because at that point, I said, You drink as much as you can. Right? Right, right. Just drink this. And I said, I think my daughter might have diabetes. They look at me, like, does she fall down? Did she pass out? Like I'm like, No, but she's drinking me. Are you from the area? No, we're on vacation at Disney. And they're like, so you stopped your Disney vacation and you think she has diabetes? I'm like, I know. I basically said tell me I'm crazy. I want to walk out of here laughing like I'm just a paranoid Mom, I just cannot in good faith just go back home after seeing the error recording and having those symptoms and I just need to know so we waited quite a while because we were not on the urgent list at that point. And even the doctor said, I think it's probably just a UTI. But he respected my wish to check your blood sugar. And at that moment, their meter read error Hi. And they said he pulled out his personal cell phone and said go directly to Orlando Children's Hospital. Stacey Simms 11:31 Do you remember any of that? I mean, nine is old enough, but sometimes things get confusing. Do you remember like, anything that your mom was saying? Or what's going on in the hospital? Elise Sammis 11:39 Well, I remember that like when I got in there. I was asking like, Is it ever going to go away and everything then I remember the turkey bacon was disgusting Natalie Sammis 11:49 They put her on this restricted carb diet. So all she could eat with like a massive amounts of turkey bacon, Elise Sammis 11:57 turkey bacon. like sugar free jello. Stacey Simms 12:03 So did you ever get back to Disney World? Natalie Sammis 12:05 Yeah, we did we After that we went to Hollywood Studios. We took it that Disney paid for us for a taxi or an Uber. I can't remember which one back to our place that we were staying in the other. My Elise is the oldest of four children. So the other kids and my husband were already at the party because we said go on without us because we had been in the hospital for about three and a half days. And we got in that taxi cab we threw our suitcases in there and we saw the next bus to Disney and we ran our little hearts out and barely caught the bus and we didn't get to do too much that day. And then we went home the next day but Disney was kind enough to give us passes to come back and when we had kind of our life under control a little bit more and we understood more about diabetes in real life. We came back probably three months later in May Elise Sammis 12:52 is a lot better experience than the last. It was a lot more fun. Okay, Stacey Simms 12:57 so after Disney World when you go home You say you figured out diabetes in a bad life? You were already enjoying baking at that point. After all that turkey bacon. Were you worried? Like that's it for baking or cupcakes? Or did your mom kind of jumped right back into it with you? Elise Sammis 13:14 Well, for about a week later, I was like, I don't even know like what I can or can't eat. And so we like kind of researched a lot. And then I was like, wait, I don't have to just not eat sugar. I can just take insulin for it. So then I was like, Well, I can still bake and stuff. And so that's I was like, yeah, you know, it's got really excited about it. Stacey Simms 13:39 That's great. So what a whirlwind diagnosis and hopefully we'll have time I want to talk a little bit more about Disney World later, but let's talk about the bacon. You send in the video. You wait six months later, what do you hear what happens? Elise Sammis 13:53 So like, I've been waiting and then another season came out, and that was like, they just didn't see it. The following, never gonna happen. And then like, six months later after that, I was on the bus and my mom called me She's like, you're not gonna believe who just called me. And I was like Harry Potter. Stacey Simms 14:14 well, she was almost 11. Elise Sammis 14:18 And then she's like, no, it's the kids baking championship people and they want to interview and I was like, Oh my gosh, yeah. So I ran home. We did a lot of Skype interviews, and I had a lot of assignments and I had to make a ton of desserts. And there's a lot of other videos I had to make for it. And there's a lot of interviews as the mom you know, please seeking I mean, this is an exciting time but at the same time it's a lot of hopes for a young woman to have Yeah, yeah. Nervous that after all of this work, she wasn't gonna get on the show. Oh, very, very guarded, I guess will be the word. Natalie Sammis 14:53 I mean, I'll backtracking when she said mom can I turn in the video and I did have to click like I agree and I help fill in. Some of the, like contact information so it was correct, because at that point, you were 10 years old when she turned in the video. And I told I still remember and people laugh at me still, at least still less than me. My caveat was sure I'll turn in this video but you need to understand that you will never hear back from them, they probably will never see it and you're never going to be on that show. And if you're okay with all those three sentences, I'm feeling okay with letting you turn this in. Because I'm more of a realist. I am Elise is a is a goal setter and a go getter and a dreamer. And she proved me wrong every time so I don't know why I keep doubting it. But I just I think I do that out of protection as a mom and so yeah, as time went on, you couldn't even the process is when they Skype, the parent in the room is not allowed to be in the room. You can't be there. They want the kids to stand on their own. They don't want some mom in the corner given them most of coaching and so I would put my ears to like the door but I have a he was four at the time. And he would be like read to me we've got this new dog that was like two months old and an idiot, so I'm literally like hearing every fifth word. And even then I'm like, oh, like so excited out of my mind that I couldn't even concentrate. So I mean, it was crazy. Just week after week, it went on for from March until June, just on and off on enough like, yes, you made it to the next step. Then we would hear crickets, crickets crickets, and you don't want to be the annoying mom. And then they not pick you because you're this weirdo psycho. So you had to play it cool. You have to kind of just wait for them. And then the next kind of like little piece of cheese would come and he would chase after that. Stacey Simms 16:34 so then this is going on for a while. When did you really start to get close? What happens? I don't know how much you can share. So don't tell us what you can't. But how do you know that? This is going to be it? Elise Sammis 16:44 Yeah. Well, we were doing all these interviews and videos and I was it just kept going. And I was like, when are they going to cut to the chase and like, actually do it. And so then we got a call in like early June. They're like, we want to fly out 15 kids, we're gonna send three home and all the other ones are going to be able to be on the show. And I was like, we're finally going to LA. Natalie Sammis 17:09 Yeah. So we knew flying out there all the way to all this work. I mean, this is now we've been up till 2am, baking things having to print that present the next day unless it's work. I mean, huge amount of work. And it's a risk. It's Stacey Simms 17:24 already going home. And then the competition, you know, Natalie Sammis 17:27 oh, yeah. So our goal was to get on the show, and knock it out the first episode. And we didn't do those things so that we can just hang our head forever. Stacey Simms 17:36 What happens when you're there? I mean, you know, kids are generally pretty friendly, I would think. I mean, you want to be friends, you're hanging out. There's got to be a lot of downtime. If you're not familiar with TV production, there's so much downtime, is it hard doing that knowing that they're not going to stay? Elise Sammis 17:52 It was super hard because like, the first day like all of them were super nice, and they're all like super friendly, and like we went to the mall, and we hung out at the pool together. And like, I didn't want any of them to go. But they had to, there was no thing in me that was like, I want so and so to get out. Yeah. Stacey Simms 18:13 So yeah, be nice if everybody could win. But that's not how the show works. Yeah. All right, what can you tell us because a couple of episodes have aired already, but when this podcast airs will probably be further down the road. So I'm curious if you can share anything about what goes on behind the scenes because I've seen the show and some of it looks very ordered. Some of it looks very chaotic. is some of that chaos planned? Or is it just you guys are really doing what you're doing? What do people really knock stuff over? Elise Sammis 18:38 Sometimes they would tell me to ask how are you doing so and so? And they really like good. And then sometimes they would say like, tell all the other bakers you have 15 minutes left. And the other stuff we would just say random things. Yeah, your mind. Natalie Sammis 18:56 Well, it was funny to that. I think there's a couple times that the cameras People I thought it was interesting. They have 13 different cameras going to get all the angles. They have one big overhead camera. And she said, anytime anyone made a mistake, you knew it, because you'd feel the crane. Whoa, hovering over you. So you didn't want the big camera to go on you. You knew that either something's on fire or going downhill fast. So no one wanted the big camera to be swooping in their direction. Stacey Simms 19:27 we haven't really talked about diabetes and the show. That was in your video, some of your audition. Yes. You mentioned it. Was there any hesitancy on your part to put that in? Was that important to you Elise Sammis 19:37 know, that was very important to me, because I wanted like everyone to know that if you have diabetes, you can still do the things that you want to do. And it was like super cool, because there was another girl named Naima. She's my super good friend and she had also had type one, and she's super sweet. And we were both like, yeah, we both have type one. Stacey Simms 19:55 I was gonna ask you about Naima because I'm obviously we're not interviewing her for the show, but I've seen her story. Well, and it was incredible to me. So far the posts have all been, oh, there's two kids with type one on the Food Network. And everybody's been saying no, no, no, you're confused this name and no, you're no, you're confused. Oh, it's really Natalie Sammis 20:12 well, well, even we were confused. But we walk in the first day and its orientation and all the sudden I'm hearing Dexcom alarms and I'm going Elise, Like what? Like, like it is because it sounds too far from us. And she should have it in your bag. And I said, Who's next column? What Where's your Dexcom? And then this other little girl pipes up and says, Oh, that's mine. And that moment, it was that instant bond of like, you have to wait, we have to. It was our first I think your first real friend like you have acquaintances that have type one, but this is the first time she connected with some one else on this kind of level who has type one and I think that's special. Stacey Simms 20:48 So you guys have kept in touch. Elise Sammis 20:50 We have a big old group chat. We all talk every day. Stacey Simms 20:54 That's cool. I wish I can ask you more but I know Yeah. Elise Sammis 21:00 Did any of the other kids talk to you about diabetes? I mean, kids don't always do that. I'm just curious. They were pretty curious. And they're like, what's on your arm? And I was like, Oh, that's my insulin pump and everything. They were super nice and they're like, they didn't really care about it. They were just super sweet. Stacey Simms 21:29 Did any of the parents because I mean my son doesn't bake and I remember when I've been parental settings for sports or there's always somebody who's like, well can you really eat that? You know, anything like that? Natalie Sammis 21:30 No one really I think because we had gotten that far. And they knew we were that serious about baking. They can't bear Yeah, there's two of us they dare not I think what we are all became like very good friends. I think it's always eye opening when you get to know other people that the little bit of understanding of what type one really means day in and day out and on vacation and we were in a very stressful situation and we were up I mean, her blood sugar would just go crazy every time she baked it every time she was on set I wouldn't even let her eat a single carb because I already knew her blood sugar would be through the roof when she's getting stressed her her levels go high and so her Dex have just been going off. I can't believe we can't hear it at the show you you are only there but it almost felt a little good to be able to just kind of explain and see what is really like it Yeah, we were up at 2am and 3am and 4am treating highs and then treating lows and this is our everyday and oh at least go change your pod or and they kind of like look at you with like huge eyes like you do this every day and you're kind of like Yeah, we do. It's all right that like what I am so proud of at least and I don't know if everyone told you this really but she did not once ever use diabetes or her blood sugar level as an excuse whenever she didn't perform how she wanted to perform or when she was stressed or other kids won certain competitions. She Never ever, ever even had that in a thought like it does not hold her back physically or mentally ever. I want to have my little mom sign like “do you know her blood sugar is 328, do you know hard it is to be thinking clearly?!” like, I just wanted to say that like you don't understand how cool she is right now. Stacey Simms 23:19 So but let me ask you because obviously diabetes did not stop you from doing this. But did anything happened during the competition where you did have to leave to change a pod? Or it Did you know, mess you up? Did anything ever happened along the way because it does happen sometimes. Elise Sammis 23:32 Thankfully, like nothing like sometimes the medical my medical person, she was super nice. She would like come over and give me some insulin but I would just keep on baking and she would like BB Stacey Simms 23:46 Yeah, so was this somebody that the show provided Natalie Sammis 23:48 that they had two medicd, so they had one assigned to Naima one assigned to Elise and I'm sure they would cover the other kids who like cut themselves to cut themselves on fire, but they were basically there to hover over The two diabetics. Stacey Simms 24:01 Did you ever catch yourself on fire? Unknown Speaker 24:02 No but someone did we had to slap it down with a giant pan. Natalie Sammis 24:07 Yeah, yeah, there's some fire soon. Yeah. Spoiler alert. Awesome. Stacey Simms 24:13 So much to ask you about the show. But I'm curious as you watch the show, the judges are a big part of it. You know, were you nervous meeting them? Was it fun? Anything stand out. I don't know what you could tell us. Elise Sammis 24:25 It was super exciting meeting them and like Valerie was super nice. And she was just like a mom like the whole time she like was very nice. That was nice. Stacey Simms 24:37 Sweet the judges of Valerie Burtonelli, who we all know from one day to time, all those great shows and then Duff is the.. he did Charm City cakes, right? Yeah. Duff Goldman. We were huge fans. My daughter is in college now. But we watched Charm City cakes a ton. He was our guy. Yes. And you said he was interesting? Elise Sammis 25:00 He really funny and like sarcastic and he was really, like nice about the judging and everything and he was really, like supportive. Stacey Simms 25:08 Maybe you can answer this. They also seem like they're taking it seriously. I mean, they're Valerie's nicer. Some it seems right to the kids, but they're straightforward. They're not telling you Good job when it wasn't right? Natalie Sammis 25:20 Yeah, well, what's actually funny on I never got to meet them. They only let the kids talk to them meet them. I saw them through like closed circuit TV with no audio feeds, because their parents had to have some sort of eye on their child, but I didn't even get to meet them. But when those kids would come back from tastings and judging things and just baking during the day, they would just say, oh, def came over and talk to me and he was funny, and oh, Valerie, like gave me a hug and I trusted the kids in that setting there. They're not the other I don't want to call it other people's judges names and other shows, but they're not harsh. They're not on kind but they are they are very, they're. Stacey Simms 26:03 Yeah. They seem to balance the fact that there weren't a kids show. Yeah. But if you're going to be good feedback, Natalie Sammis 26:07 yeah. If you're going to get that far, though, and how hard we work to get there, those kids can take it. They're not delicate flowers at this point. Stacey Simms 26:15 So of course, you can tell us how everything went in the end of the show, and you won't get in any trouble. even letting a word well done. I obviously can't ask you about the outcome. And I would never. Was it fun are you glad you did it? Elise Sammis 26:29 It was super fun. I'm so glad that I did it because it's such like a good experience. Like you got to meet so many friends. It was really like a lesson to me about patients. Because all those interviews and all the time that was like put into it. It was a lot and yet there's a lot of waiting. So that was a really good lesson for me. Do you still enjoy baking? Is that something you think about? Please do? Yes, I feel like I would always do baking is really fun. In like, it likes me be creative. Unknown Speaker 27:02 This is a good experience for your families. Natalie Sammis 27:04 It was a really good experience me and at least had a great time. We were kind of out there as buddies. And then my, my husband and the other three younger kids flew out for a couple days to visit us. And they decorated our hotel room with balloons galore and messages on the mirror of good luck. And the little kids and me, myself included this kind of trail along on her coattails and got to have this amazing experience. So it was wonderful. Stacey Simms 27:30 I have to ask you, she was three younger children. Do they know the outcome? Because I wouldn't trust my kids. No offense, I don't know your family. Unknown Speaker 27:41 No, they don't. Natalie Sammis 27:42 They even will sometimes, like try to guess and like act like it's real. They're like Oh, so and so did this and they probably did this or that and will be like, oh, whatever you want to think like we don't even validate it because the the what's the number at least that we will be sued if we let information that we Elise Sammis 27:58 will be sued 750,000 Natalie Sammis 28:00 Yeah 13 page contract saying that we will not disclose information so we didn't tell the five year olds Yeah. Stacey Simms 28:07 Anything something else exciting that you all are a part of and I guess this is pretty brand new is your clinical trial for horizon from insolent which is the hybrid closed loop system using Omnipod? So Natalie, can you share a little bit about what is being tested? Is it the full system with the phone app? Natalie Sammis 28:26 Yes, it's the full system. So it involves they gave us a brand new Dexcom transmitter that has the capabilities of obviously talking to the the Omnipod and to the new I don't do they call it a PDM Do you remember lease, I don't know. They still called the PDM. But it's basically a locked out Samsung and they provide that as well. Along with pods that look identical except for this little blue tab. That worked just the same. Also, what I really really like about this, the whole point of it is that you are able to put it in that Automatic mode they call it and with the auto mode, it's every five minutes the Omnipod index home will talk to each other and adjust the Bazell every five minutes as needed. What's cool about it too, is let's say you forgot your PDM you're locked out Samsung somewhere. Even if it has no range, if you could throw it off a cliff even for at least three days, your basal insulin would still be being adjusted because the Dexcom and Omnipod can talk to each other independently. Stacey Simms 29:29 Have you used any hybrid closed loop stuff before? Elise Sammis 29:32 No, this is our first time. Stacey Simms 29:34 All right. How many days? It's only been a couple of days. We started last Wednesday today. To 60 All right, though. Yeah. So have you seen a difference? Elise Sammis 29:42 Yes, it is crazy. Like even we went to Disney World last week, and I ate a ton of junk and everything. And I like went to sleep and it would be a little high but that's what your blood sugar does. And I went to sleep and for the night It would be like a straight line I was so amazing it was it's a big difference. Just the normal taking insulin every time you hear ringing Natalie Sammis 30:09 Yeah, it is just made me feel like less of a nag to like, oh at least check your blood sugar. Oh, I heard your alarm three times a baby. Have you looked at that like that is now silencing our neck. So I have high hopes for it and it really is giving us better control. She's in that crazy stage of life being 11 about to be 12 where it makes no sense. She goes to sleep it looks like she ate a box of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts for no reason and it's nothing but hormones and I don't know unexplained highs and lows. So already this week, it is refreshing to see so many more straight lines. I mean, there's still today we were stuck in the three hundreds for hours and that's just what it is. And but I'm really pleased so far and I'm ecstatic to be able to have it for longer than the three month trial period. Stacey Simms 30:57 All right. Before I let you go you said you have at Disney World, you ran in half marathon full marathon Natalie Sammis 31:04 on Team JDRF. The half marathon half marathon. Stacey Simms 31:07 Yep. So you went back to Disney World. You ran the team JDRF half marathon. Let me ask you first though at least what's it like for you to go back at Disney World? Do you think about diabetes you just have fun when you're there. Elise Sammis 31:18 I have like weird flashbacks kind of. Because I like like remember walking in that same spot being like, all frazzled, like what am I going to do? But then like going back and feeling like Well, I'm kind of normal now. Like, I got it under control. So like happy for me. Unknown Speaker 31:35 That's fantastic. So like, Natalie Sammis 31:37 I had some a mom, I'm going to get weepy no problem very silly. But to see it come full circle to leave Disney World that first time. And you know wonder what your future is going to be like wonder what your daughter's life is going to look like. It's kind of being scared out of your mind. And then to come back to the literally the same place in Disney. I don't know. It has some feel to it. Like, even if you had gone 20 years ago, there's something magic. There's that little spark of Disney that kind of remains the same. So it puts you right back where you were in this time to feel so much confidence. And I still remember on the half marathon, you turn a corner and run into the Magic Kingdom in the it was still dark because it's a ridiculously early marathon. But the castle was all lit up. And I had this like moment of like, Oh my goodness, we've made it so far. I am so happy where where we're at now. We're beating diabetes. I'm not being beaten by diabetes. And at that very moment, as I'm like, getting all bizarre and emotional. I look up and there's Team JDRF fans, right? They're saying that moment of like, oh, then I'm like, wait, I can't praise because I'm practice. So I stopped crying and I kept running and that was it. But yeah, it is a quite a journey, I guess, to come full circle and to go back in that way with so much support and so much like people behind you and helping you raise money for a cause, you know, to help your kid just live a happy, normal life. So it was great. Stacey Simms 33:18 Thank you both so much. I would say Best of luck, but it's all. So excited to watch. To see how this goes. I hope you'll come back and talk to us again. Thank you so much. Unknown Speaker 33:29 Thank you. Unknown Speaker 33:35 You're listening to diabetes connections with Stacey Simms. Stacey Simms 33:41 Alright, so fingers crossed for Elise and for Naima. I am taping this just after the second episode has aired. So who the heck knows what has happened since and what will happen going forward, but we will certainly be following cheering these girls on. Up next. Tell me something good but diabetes connections is brought to you by Dexcom. And you know, when Benny was very little, and his fingers would get wet, right? I'd give him a bath or we'd go in the pool. I would always notice his fingertips. And you know exactly what I mean, right? They were poked so much that they were just full of little little pinprick holes. You could see when they got wet. He is 15. Now, I don't really see his hands much anymore. But the other day, he's such a ding-a-ling. He was doing a project for school. He was using a hot glue gun and he you know, he burned himself a little bit. He's fine. He's fine. But when he came into show me I noticed again and every time I do see his hands, it just knocks me out. his fingertips look normal. We've been using Dexcom for six years now. And with every iteration, we've done fewer and fewer finger sticks, the latest generation, the Dexcom g six eliminates finger sticks for calibration and diabetes treatment decisions. Just thinking about doing 10 finger sticks a day in the past. Makes me so glad that Dexcom has helped us come so far. It's an incredible tool. If you're glucose alerts and readings from the G six do not match symptoms or expectations. Use a blood glucose meter to make diabetes treatment decisions. learn more, go to diabetes, connections calm and click on the Dexcom logo. It's time for Tell me something good. I've got two great stories one was sent to me via Facebook Messenger. The other one I saw in a Facebook group and if you've got a story for me, the easiest way is in my Facebook group at diabetes connections the group or email me let me know what's going on. What is good for you. Melissa wrote in “I have a Tell me something good. I've been listening to your podcast since maybe the summer and my four year old daughter was diagnosed March 28 2019. You are very optimistic. I haven't found a positive thing with my daughter's diabetes. Until today. It's been a horrible nine months with everything. We had our first dentist appointment Since diagnosis I've dropped a lot of ball since April, when the dental hygienist saw the pump. She knew what it was. I didn't have to explain. The conversation got direct to where we treat for Lowes, Skittles and starbursts and gummies. All bed for her teeth. When the dentist came to check, we had a discussion about the candies. He asked for her Endo's name, and he knew her. He's the pediatric chief of dentistry at the local Children's Hospital where her endo is affiliated, he texted an email to find better candies to use instead of the sticky kind. He went on to say collaborates with a lot of specialized doctors in the Children's Hospital to take better care of the kids. And he said get back to me after a discussion with the endo. I found the experience relieving that I wouldn't have to fight this battle. The dentist got it and my daughter was in good hands being cared for. I didn't think I'd ever find anything positive about our new normal. Today I did. So that's my Tell me something good.” Melissa, I'm getting emotional reading what you're saying here. Thank you. She writes for your podcast your optimism, and having somebody to tell the story to understand. Her daughter's name is Katarina, beautiful name. And she told me that it's been difficult to find care for her. You know when they're that little it can be so hard preschools, that kind of thing. But she went on to write that they have been blessed. She's been taken care of by her school nurse in an all day preschool. Her endocrinologist who they love and her mother, Melissa's mom, the grandma, who was able to watch her while the parents are at work, and now the dentist, she writes, “I didn't realize until this how lucky we have been. These are battles. I do not have to fight. Your optimism about any life with T1D is something I was envious of. I wanted some of the burden of this disease lifted off of my shoulders, and I was able to see that I have that after this visit. So I'm a little bit emotional here because of all the nice things she said and just having a place to share that with right. It's important to have people who get it and know important it is that the dentist didn't scold her and say you shouldn't be doing that. But said, Let's find a way to do this that works with Type 1 diabetes. And I think that's fantastic. But if it was a little strange for me to hear, even though I know it, I am very optimistic. I am very positive. I put these rose colored glasses on a lot and diabetes is hard. Type 1 is difficult. Being a parent of a kid with type one it's difficult to it's not all sunshine and rainbows over here. Trust me, I hope I'm open and honest about it. But at the end of the day, we've been really lucky. And I am optimistic and if you're feeling down or things are hard, no judgment, man. It is hard all around. I think I do an okay job of being honest and sharing the ups and downs. But I do know that my general outlook with type one is is an uplifting one. I hesitate to say it because I feel like it's an odd thing to say I feel like it puts me like I'm trying to be uplifting, but the truth is that's how it was presented. To us when Benny was diagnosed, and that makes all of the difference. When you're diagnosed on the very first day you meet a nurse who says, he's going to be fine. I have type one. And I have one child at home and I'm pregnant with my second and don't listen to the scary stories and don't listen to the hard stuff. It's fine. And then the next day, you pick up the phone and call three local people that you know who have kids with type one, because you've met them in your health reporting over the years, and they all say that he's gonna be great. My kids Is this my kid does that it's fine. It really changes than if you don't have those things. And I know how lucky I am to have them. So Melissa, thank you for reaching out. Thanks for a little bit of the gut check, as I like to say the rose colored glasses, but send us any good news and send us anything you want to vent. I hope you join the Facebook group. I'd love to hear more about Catarina. Our other Tell me something good this week comes from the Walt Disney World marathon weekend. That's where Natalie Sammis was when they said they were in Walt Disney World again. Very recently. She was running the half marathon. You talked about with all the jdrf people, they're getting emotional. Well, there's so much going on for that weekend. And I wanted to spotlight Julia Buckley, who's a friend of mine and I've mentioned her on the show before. She is a flight attendant and she is amazing. And she won the Spirit Award for jdrf. She ran on Team jdrf. I don't know how she does it. She flies all over the world comes home runs at Walt Disney World. She always has a smile on her face. So Julia, thank you so much for all that you do. I love some of the pictures maybe we'll throw some of those in the Facebook group as well but to everybody who ran at Walt Disney World, hats off man and now it's a fun race but it's still a lot of work. If you've got to tell me something good story, send it my way. I am so excited. We're getting more and more of these all the time or put them out on social media every week. So I'd love to hear from you tell me something good. Before I let you go, this is not a Tell me something good. This is a Tell me something embarrassing. So I mentioned the very beginning of the show that there were some technical difficulties when I recorded the interview with Elise and Natalie. And real quick, the way I taped the show, usually is that I do the interviews right from my home computer. I have a little setup little home studio. But the interviews are generally conducted via Skype, and then into my computer and then into a backup hard drive. Later on, I record this part of it like a round the interview, right and that goes right into the computer. But when I'm on the road, I don't want to slip my computer. It's only got one input for the microphone, and I had basically needed three inputs. my microphone, Natalie's mic, and Elise's mic. So I use I mentioned that hard drive. I use a recorder for all of you audio files out there, I use an H five zoom. It is a wonderful little recording device and i i only scratched the surface. I know I'm not using it to its full potential. I can plug two microphones in there. And I know I can do more with it. I could use a sound mixer or whatever. But generally when I have more than two microphones that I'm using a plug two and two Each five zoom. And then I have another recorder where I put on a lavalier mic and a little Clippy mics that you see on the evening news or maybe you've done an interview or recorded something for work and they put a little clip mic on your collar. That's a level layer mic, and I use that for myself. And here's the embarrassing part. The recorder I use when I do that is an old iPhone. And I'm not even sure how old it is. It might be a four, it might be three. It doesn't work anymore for anything else. I mean, I don't certainly have service on it. But it is a perfect dumb recorder. And it's like a tape recorder back of the day. And I had purchased over the years, these level ear mics that plugged into your phone. They're fantastic. But when you switch to the newer iPhones and you got rid of the headphone jack well guess where the lav mic plugged in. So I'm out of luck. I can't use my newer phone as a recorder if I want to use the lav mics. So we get to South Carolina. I'm setting everything up. I'm there early and speaking doing a book event before First I'm going to interview with Lisa, Natalie. So I set everything up. Everything sounds good. The stick microphones, the regular microphones, the one if you ever see pictures of me the ones that have the logos on them. Those are plugged in. They're working fine. They're a little low. I'm not really sure. I think maybe Elise was just very soft spoken. So I'm trying to adjust audio levels. I plug my stuff in, and the old phone, the editing software will not open. I use a program called twisted wave. And it's a great program. It's it's up to date, but the phone is so old. I think it was trying to update the the editing software. So I said, forget this. I'll just use my voice memo. So every phone has a voice memo app. It's fabulous for podcasting. It really works well. You can just record your voice for however long and then you email it to yourself. I have guests do this. Sometimes if it's a really short interview. I don't do it much. But you know, once or twice. I've had people do a short segment and a voice memo is great for them. So it looks like it's working. Everything's fine. We do the whole interview. voice memo is there I can hear it. It's recorded Elise Natalie are fine. I can't Email the file to myself. I can't get it off the phone. It's stuck on this old iPhone three, four. It's sitting there. It's It's wonderful. Amazingly, the microphones I was using picked up my voice enough so you heard the interview. It wasn't terrible. It probably wasn't great, I'm sure john kennis my editor worked a ton of magic on it every time he gets a file from me probably shakes his head and said, yes, this person obviously worked with a technical producer her entire radio career. So I'm now in the market for a new level ear mic, because if you know anything about audio, and you heard me say the h5 zoom, you know that you can also plug a lav mic or any kind of really smaller mic into another outlet very easily. And this whole thing could have been avoided if I had just done that. So that was my adventure. I figured we'd just soldier on right you just want the stories. You're less concerned with pristine studio sound, right? Haha. Well, look, I'm going on the road a lot this year. So I figured I better learn how to do that. And figure out how to better get it done. So stay tuned for the continuing saga of how the heck Stacy makes her lovely mix work. Alright, the next stop is not too far from me. I'm going to Raleigh the first weekend in February Raleigh, North Carolina for a jdrf type one nation summit. Then I am going to Maine the following weekend to South Portland, Maine, to talk to the main pea pods, very excited to talk to this group. And we have a very busy schedule after that. Thank you, as always, especially this week to my editor, john Drew kennis from audio editing solutions. Thank you for listening. Remember this Thursday, we do have another minisode coming out this week. I'm talking all about untethered, what that means, why we have loved it. I got a bunch of questions after I mentioned this in a couple episodes back. I talked about receiver a little bit which is a newer, long acting. So I'm going to go through untethered, what it means why it's not just for teenagers, and why we've had such good success. With it, and that is our next little mini episode. I'm Stacey Simms and I will see you back here on Thursday. Benny 46:11 Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacey Sims media. All rights reserved. All wrongs avenged Transcribed by https://otter.ai
This episode is presented by Chicago Sport and Social Club, reminding you that summer is just around the corner. Get into a summer volleyball league now and use code "GOALS" to get 5 percent off until March 15. It's no secret that we're majorly in awe of the ladies of Stylisted — after all, this isn't the first time we've talked (okay, gushed) about co-founders Julia and Lauren on aSweatLife. But when we brought them into evolveHER to be interviewed during our Lunch-and-Learn live podcast recordings, we were reminded all over again why these ladies have inspired us so much in the first place. Seeing them speak in front of an all-female audience (many of whom had entrepreneurial inclinations) was nothing short of a kick in the pants to go after what you want. Another thing that really came through over the microphone was the true teamwork and friendship that acts as the foundation of Stylisted. "The partnership is our business," Lauren stated matter-of-factly. "It was in the very beginning and it is to this day." As friends and partners, Julia and Lauren learned to rally each other when one was feeling down. At the same time, they learned one major entrepreneurial lesson early on: never be afraid to ask for help, whether from each other or from outside resources. "People want to help," stressed Julia. "Everyone is eager in a way to show off what they're good at and help you out... definitely don't be afraid of that." Just in case we weren't convinced, Lauren added, "Your ability to ask for help and leave your shame at the door is all you have for the first two years.” When you don't have money or experience, you're forced to admit when you don't know something. Luckily, as the co-founders discovered, all it takes is a simple ask, and the entrepreneurial community is usually excited to help a fellow founder. Julia and Lauren recognize that they're fortunate to have been able to grow together as founders, when all too often you read about rough breakups and unwanted exits between partners in start-ups. They attribute that path to having the same long-term vision for the company. At evolveHER, Julia and Lauren spoke about the importance of having the same overall vision for a company when working with a partner and co-founder — but at the same time, they make sure to set small, achievable goals that you can accomplish on a shorter timeline. With balanced goals and a balanced partnership, one thing is clear: the Stylisted co-founders are paving the way for female entrepreneurs in the tech space to empower each other. --- KG:All right, welcome to the #WeGotGoals podcast, live edition from SweatWorkingWeek. My name is Kristen Geil. I am sitting here with Julia and Lauren from Stylisted. Hi Guys. Thanks for being here. JC, LK: Hello, thanks for having us. KG: We're excited to hear everything that you have to say. So let's start from the beginning. The story of how you guys came to be is more than just, you saw a problem and you worked to create a solution. It's also about the two of you coming together with your unique strengths to make an idea into a reality. Can you guys share your origin story with us? JC: Sure. It’s Lauren's brainchild, so I'll let her tell the tale for us. LK: Stylisted was very much born from a personal pain point. We were inspired by a professor who told us to start what we know. We had both just moved to Chicago to attend business school and we were both entrepreneurial. We had always wanted to start a business and we had kicked around a bunch of ideas, but this start what you know concept, which seems so obvious to us now, was kind of a novel idea. We had these ideas that had nothing to do with our experience or expertise. And after many failed attempts to get my makeup done before friend's wedding, all coming to a head at a wedding that I had in Atlanta. I called Julia and I said, why is it so difficult to find out who's good and who's available when it comes to event prep? I want to get my makeup done or my hair done, but I don't know who's in my area, who can do a great job. And she completely commiserated, shared her own failed attempts and also kind of educated me on this call and told me about the life of the freelance makeup artist. She had worked directly with makeup artists in her time at NARS cosmetics before business school and understood their pain points that they work at some salon or cosmetic counter only to be told how much, how many hours that can work and when and to give 50 percent to the salon owner. And they want to freelance more to supplement their income, but they can't find clients. So Julia's experience in my experience really came together. It was the perfect marriage and we decided to build a solution. KG: So how did Stylisted start? I know you didn't come up with the app right off the bat. JC: No, it was incredibly manual. We took a Powerpoint Deck and I reached out to makeup artists and hairstylists that I knew from my previous position. I told them about the idea. We got validation that they wanted what we were proposing to build and got them to send little bios, photos of their work and we created this pdf deck and started sending it to all of our friends who are getting married, who had business school formals, interviews, things like that. Anything you could think of where you'd want a blowout or you know, full-on makeup for you and your friends and people were being very receptive to it and they liked the idea. They started asking to book people and the stylists were getting excited about it. So that was our absolutely free way of starting the business and beginning to test it out. KG: And then you saw that there was a demand for these services and you moved forward with creating an app from there. JC:A website, your website first we scraped together our pennies and decided to hire someone. Actually it was like a godsend. Lauren met our CTO, advisor, our technical advisor at an internship and he recommended this guy to us who needed to diversify his portfolio. He had been doing political websites in DC and we're like, we have a doozy for you. We're going to have you build this beauty website. LK:Here’s something different. JC:And he did it for a few thousand dollars and a lot of hours and sweat and we spent our Christmas vacation our second year of business school just working on the website and iterating. And then we launched essentially when we graduated. KG:Wow. That's a lot to accomplish while you're still in business school and dealing with all of that course load. JC:Yes it is. But we at Chicago Booth, we did the new venture challenge, which essentially was a class that allowed us to grow and cultivate this business and test it out and get feedback. So I would argue that it's easier to do it in business school then it would be for someone with a full time job family, things like that. We were very much in a position to take the risk and spend the time. KG:And because you guys were in this together from the start, you had that advantage of having someone to lean on when things got tough, sleepless nights. I'm sure countless hours spent trying to accomplish just one thing. We've all heard about accountability is the strategy for going after your goals, but you take it to a new level when you're talking about starting a company with a partner and a co-founder. So how do you think that partnership has impacted your business and how you guys approach goals as a team? LK: I mean the, the partnership is our business. It was the very beginning and it is to this day. You know, for us, and I've said this before, it almost felt like the game of chicken at the beginning where we would bounce an idea or something we're going to do off the other person and say like, I'm going to email so and so like five women's groups this week and see what they say. And once you say it out loud and you commit to that person, you're going to do that. Then they also feel like they have to do something and you're kind of like, OK, and then after awhile you're like, we're doing this like we are building towards beginning of business. So that was kind of the origin and um, you know, to this day we keep ourselves accountable and it's, it's been almost five years, very much like a marriage. You hope that you grow together. And thankfully we have. But I think in terms of goals, I think we think about goals in terms of short-term and long-term. And I think it's really important on to make sure that you have the same long-term goals or vision, but to spend most of your time and your energy on those short-term goals to make this feel digestible and something that you can actually accomplish. So instead of saying, I'm going to sell this business in five years, and that be your primary objective, say, OK, we're going to have a thousand customers by January, or we're gonna, you know, what are the smaller chunks of short term goals that you can actually accomplish? It's like saying, if you want to start going to the gym, you're not going to say, I want to look like a babe by summer. We're going to say, OK, no, I'm going to start going to the gym every three months. Or you know, start drinking more water. Like what are those really small, shorter term goals that you can actually achieve? KG: Speaking of goals, on the podcast, we ask everyone who comes on to main questions. So let's get into the first one. What is one big goal that you've accomplished with Stylisted? Why was it important? How did you get there? And it can be the same or different for both of you. JC:I want to say just existing to this day has been the goal. I think from the beginning there were a few things you want to accomplish. You want to solve a problem, you want to help people. In our case, the women like us, the clients with this pain point and the stylist who now we have men and women who’ve doubled their income by working on Stylisted and it's amazing to send out the W-9s. Holy Cow, she made this much that year? And Lauren is so much more in those weeds that when I get to see it, I'm like, Whoa, that's so great. LK: And people applying for apartments are emailing us, asking them how much did I make this year? And then we're like, oh wow, you made $30,000 last year. That's pretty good. JC:Yeah, that's, that's amazing. So yeah, there are a lot of different goals that we had when we started it and you know, we're kind of checking them off and obviously we won't sit here and say that a lucrative exit wouldn't be the absolute, you know, wonderful end goal or what we've always said is the company, you know, outgrowing the two of us and how can we work with some larger to continue to grow Stylisted and make it the best it can be. Yeah, I mean we're here four and a half years later and I'm just so proud of. I mean, that's not a great answer. Sorry. That's not a great answer. KG: That's a great answer. Lauren, would you agree or do you have anything else? LK:My answer is similar. I like that I created a job for myself that actually now has a paycheck and insurance, health insurance and that we've created that for other people, jobs that they really like, that you know, they're excited to show up to work every day for and that's really a huge. That was a huge goal for us at the onset and we accomplished that. KG: Yeah. You can tell that you've really made a tangible impact on these peoples lives. The freelancers that you employ through Stylisted. Has that sort of affected how you look towards the future knowing that you're to thank and sort of responsible for these people and how their lives proceed from here? JC:Absolutely. It's a lot of pressure, but in a way I think it helps keep us motivated towards those goals because we are a small internal team, but we have, you know, nearly 300 stylists who depend on us for their supplemental income and it's very much a symbiotic relationship. We work really hard for them every single day so that when they go to a client they want to work really hard for us, for the brand and I think so far that's working out. KGI read an interview that you guys did. I'm not sure when it was from, but I think you said something about the importance of having a short term memory when it comes to achieving goals. Can you sort of share what you meant by that with the group and how it goes into, you know, accomplishing one thing and then moving on to the next. LK:One thing that we've tried to do is celebrate really small wins but then not allow ourselves to get too hung up because you need to move on to the next small when there are so many setbacks when you're starting a business and running a business and you can't really let yourself get in too much of a funk about anything negative, you have to move forward and celebrate the small wins as they come, even if they feel really small because that kind of thing will just allow you to feel your progress and allow you to wake up the next morning and do it again. KG: What kind of small wins for examples that you guys celebrated back in the early days or even still today? JC:Oh, like a celebrity booking us. That’s always fun. I mean hitting a new number, like a weekend where we have, you know, dozens and dozens of weddings like, wow, I can't believe we're doing this. Things like that. They're just special for me or those moments where you do see how it's impacting the freelancers and when they send a little note of gratitude or something like that, it's so small, but that's like the coolest stuff that we love. Even seeing a five star review from a client, we look at that stuff all the time and it means so much when we know that they're getting great service and we're really proud of the brand that we built and what we're putting out there. KG:Does it get a little bit sweeter? Being able to celebrate those, hitting those small goals with a partner and a friend? JC:Absolutely. LK:Absolutely, and it works both ways. The good bad to have somebody to share that with is just necessary. KG:Yeah, takes a little bit of the burden off you. LK:Yes. KG:I know that with a startup, setting realistic goals can be tricky because on the one hand you want to reach for the stars and change the world or change people's lives, but on the other you don't always have a full picture of the data that you're working with or your customer base. Especially early on when you're still sort of experimenting and navigating the new platform that you're creating. How was your goal setting at Stylisted impacted by those unknown factors and how were you able to overcome that? LKYeah, this kind of goes back to something I touched on earlier, but just starting small setting really small digestible goals for yourself, you don't have to know everything to take what you know and try to act accordingly so your goal can be super small. Like I'm going to email five media outlets today or this week and I'm going to aim to get a response from at least one of them, to have at least one brand placement. You know, you don't have to have all the answers to do something like that. And I think it's important to never use not having the answers as an excuse to not act. JC:Yeah. I would also say find the data somewhere you can. And we, I mean coming from Booth that was necessary, like, well we would tell all of these teachers and advisors, excuse me, professors, you know there, this doesn't exist, so how are we going to tell you how big the market is? And simply they wouldn't take that for an answer. You'd go out there, look into to the beauty market. Tell us what the salon industry size is, whittle that down to what you think the, you know, how many women who go to the salon would want to take it in home, how many women are going to a makeup counter, things like that, and then start with an MVP and see what actually happens and get that small sample pool and use that and that's kind of what we had to do and that's I think what every entrepreneur has to do because you're going to be convincing a lot of people that your idea is something that you have something here with nothing to fall back on, especially without a track record, especially as women and we needed numbers to back us up and not just two women saying we have a lot of events and we really want this and we think all our friends do so like get on board. LK:This is gonna be huge! JC: It wasn't enough, so you find that you figure out a way to find it. KG:I did an interview with someone who works with entrepreneurs recently and he said the two biggest qualities he tended to see over and over again in successful entrepreneurs was tenacity and being comfortable with the unknown in working with that every day, and it sounds like that's something you guys have navigated really well over the past five years. JC:Thank you. We've tried. LK:We’re kind of chipping away at the unknown and in a way you're helped by having it limited resources. In our case, no money because I feel that when some people have unlimited funding, they go right to the solution and they spend thousands or millions of dollars on building what they believe to be the right solution instead of really focusing initially on the problem and figuring out what the right solution is. So we've iterated and our platform has changed and our processes have changed. Our infrastructure has changed. All of that has changed because we couldn't just jump at building that million dollar platform right off the gate. KG:At aSweatLife, one of our favorite sayings is everything is better with friends and I was really struck by your all's partnership because you weren't afraid to ask for help from each other or from outside people and I think that's something that we struggle with a lot because you don't want to appear weak or like you don't know what you're doing. What advice would you give to women who have big goals for this year, for the future and want to enlist their friend's talents and support in trying to achieve those? JC:I think people want to help is the first thing we have asked for so much help for the past four or five years and everyone is eager to, in a way, you know, show off what they're good at and help you out. When you ask for someone's advice, they're flattered. It's a good thing to be asked for help. So definitely don't be afraid of that. And at the same time, you know, be careful who you align yourself with. You want someone who truly is there to support you. You don't want someone who's going to knock down your ideas or you know, be in competition with you. It's hard to. It's hard to find what we have. I feel very, very lucky and I think that everyone can do it, but you really have to be careful in picking that counterpart and so many times in the beginning we had people say, why are you doing this with your friend? It’s not going to end well, and here we are. We're still going. LK:Totally. JC: I’m Lauren's maid of honor in April. LK:She is. KG:Congratulations you guys are going to look beautiful I’m. You guys are going to have the best hair and makeup and the business that day. JC:Exactly, that’s the hope. KG:What was an example of a time where you remember having to ask for help either from each other or from an outside source? LK: I mean, your ability to ask for help and leave your shame at the door is all you have in the first, I would say two years. You don't have money. You don't have any experience and you just have to continually put yourself out there and ask people for help and admit when you don't know something and empower people that do know that thing that you don't k
Canadian actress & model, Julia Voth (Package Deal, Bitch Slap) is this week's Decently Funny celebrity guest. Julia brought her sister Katelyn with her because she was afraid of being alone with Nuzzy & Guy in the same room. So Julia isn't just beautiful & talented, she's pretty smart too. Julia details her recent experience at Burning Man and you wont believe what she said she wore (or should we say, didn't wear)! Julia also talks about her former relationship with a Japanese rock legend, losing a boyfriend over his jealousy, being immortalized in a video game, performing in a commercial with P. Diddy, and her multiple lesbian sex scenes in her film, Bitch Slap. If that wasn't enough, we also play a game of "Play it Forward" where Julia & Katelyn have to match wits with last week's Decently Funny guest: actor & poker player: Joe Reitman. If you live in Canada, check your local listings for Package Deal. Follow us all on twitter @JuliaVoth @theNuzzy @theguydf @littleboatjack & @DecentlyFunny. Download all of our shows on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher and DecentlyFunny.com. Theme song written by Little Mikey and performed by Panic! at the Disco.
Julia Schopick discovered alternative medicine when her husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Like many cancer patients, after one of his surgeries he was left with a wound that wouldn't heal. Doctors tried everything, but nothing helped. So Julia took matters into her own hands and found a medicine that not only healed him; it healed him immediately. She thought the doctors would be thrilled and curious about the magical medicine that had finally healed her husbands wound. They weren't. In fact, they were mad. And that began a journey for Julia to find more proven methods of treatments that doctors still consider anecdotal. And in this audio, you'll hear all about them. No pharmaceutical companies make money off the treatments spotlighted on Julia's website, and that's probably why you may not have heard of them before. But the best part about these alternative methods are, they're usually cheaper and less harmful than traditionally prescribed medications. And in this audio, you'll hear all about it. This is an exclusive interview from Michael Senoff's www.hardtofindseminars.com
Audio File: Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Julia Hartz Co-Founder & President, Eventbrite Date: July 12, 2010 NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes [music] Lee Kennedy: Hi this is Lee Kennedy, board member for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT. And we're here today as a part of a series of interviews that we're doing with extremely interesting entrepreneurs. These are women who have started IT companies in just a complete variety of sectors, and they all have just very cool stories to tell us. Today with me is Larry Nelson. And Larry is from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi, I really am happy to be on this show. And by the way there are so many parents and so many managers and leaders that listen to this show. So that's why we're tapping into all these great entrepreneurs and leaders. Lee: Great. And we also have Lucy Sanders who is the CEO for NCWIT. Thanks for joining us Lucy. Lucy Sanders: Hi Lee. Very happy to be here. And I wanted to mention that very often our entrepreneurs that we interview for this series are showing up more and more on the top 10. To watch the top 10 there, the most in this region, so the women we're interviewing are just top five entrepreneurs. Larry: You bet. Lee: Cool. Just to get right to it today we're interviewing Julia Hartz. And Julia is the co-founder and President of EventBrite. And EventBrite is the leading provider of online event management and ticketing services. Is just a really cool company, and Julia has brought the creative and energy of the entertainment business. She was at MTV formerly. Lucy: Oh wow. Lee: Welcome Julia. Thanks for coming here today. We're looking forward to talking with you about entrepreneurship. Julia Hartz: Thank you. I'm really honored to be here. Lee: Wonderful. So can you tell us a little bit about what's going on at EventBrite lately? Julia: Oh goodness, a whole lot. Well, we were originally founded in 2006 by my husband and I and our third co-founder Renaud Visage, our CTO. And since that we bootstrapped the company. We were just three people for two years, very product focused. But I'm happy to report that we are now nearing 60 employees. So it's quite a different company today than it was even back in 2008. On the topic side we're just really focused on making life simpler for the organizers, and delighting our customers through innovations of simple tools they can use to publish event pages, promote their events to a wider audience, and sell out their events. So sell more tickets to their events. And we're also now looking at our relationship with ticket buyers. Now that we've helped event holders host over 200, 000 events, obviously that there is a larger accumulation of attendees that are now coming back to EventBrite to find out about more events that they want to attend. So that's a current feature trend that we're seeing. Lee: Well you know NCWIT runs events, so we could well be one of your future customers. Julia: [laughs] I'll give you the sales pitch. Lee: All right. [laughs] Julia: On a different time maybe. [laughs] Lee: Yeah. I would love to hear more. We find that running events can be very time consuming. So it sounds like EventBrite is on to something. So Julia, the first question is about technology. And first of all, how you became interested in technology? And also really interesting technologies that might you see on the horizon that would interest our listeners. Julia: All right. So my career as you said it before began in television. I was a development executive at MTV, and I worked the first season and the first movie of a little project called Jackass. Sorry, I'm not sure if I can say that on radio. And then I went on to FX Networks, and I worked on shows like Nip/Tuck, The Shield, and Rescue Me. So my career there was really high in creativity, and it was definitely pushing me up a little as they were in cable television, and the projects they worked on. But it was very well in technological innovation. So we found it very hard to break the traditional distribution mold as well as the traditional advertising mold for that matter. So my last year at FX I spent a lot of time on product placement, which was sort of a thankless job, trying to make sure that the label of the beer can was pointed in the right direction at all times in a scene. I started to get the inkling that there was something out there that would make me feel fulfilled, and I was lucky enough to meet Kevin about two years before I left television. I was able to see him start a company from inception. I was sold. Two years later I was ready to leave my traditional career and take the leap. So that's how I first got into technology. I felt like it would be something I would feel, I wanted to be ahead of the curve instead of trying to chasing trends, which I felt like we were doing in television at the time that I was working at MTV and FX. Technologies that I think are cool? Kevin is an avid angel investor and adviser. By virtue of that we were really lucky to be involved in a lot of different companies and see a lot of great trends come out of those companies, and very bright people. I always say that what I feel like is cool right now for me personally is not exactly original. But it is in the way of communication and information dissemination and I'll give you an example of how that applies to me and why I think it's cool. We were recently on a trip and our trip itinerary was shared with our family and anybody else who needed no know where we were through TripIt. We were not in touch with our family during the trip so I posted mobile photos of our two-year-old on Facebook so that my mom would know how she was doing at all times. In our company we share information through Yammer and we also share expenses through Blippy. Then, on the social side oftentimes, I'm checking in through Yelp to let people know where I am in case they're in the same area. We live in the city so it's not so large. So that idea that I can instantly broadcast and disseminate information easily and with no friction is really huge for me today being an entrepreneur and a mom. Larry: Well, entrepreneur and a mom, and you got this "techie" background, why are you an entrepreneur? Also tying in with that, what is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Julia: I'm an entrepreneur because I believe that I can change an industry. I also love helping to build something that people want and that's extremely valuable. I feel day-to-day glee in making a difference, in working on projects that are both very large scale and very small scale. I also feel like being an entrepreneur, for me, I feel like I'm part owner in a movement. So I think if I were to sum it up, being an entrepreneur and being a parent, I feel equally about both. [laughs] So EventBrite is very much our baby and there is just something inherently satisfying about working on something that you feel such ownership and passion about. That's what entrepreneurship means to me. That's what excites me about it. Lucy: That's great. So Julia, who would you say influenced you or was a role model or mentor along the way to get into being an entrepreneur? Julia: The reason why I took the leap and didn't hesitate was because of Kevin. Entrepreneurship comes like second nature to Kevin, and he had founded two companies before that. So I really believed that everything would be OK [laughs] and that somehow, someway we would succeed. So for him there was just no question that he wanted to always be an entrepreneur and it was almost like, "Why not? Why not come work for free with me and see what we can do and how we can change the world?" So really he's the one that influenced me first and foremost. Our families really support us along the way. They're very unconditional about everything we do. As far as role models go, we have mentors in Michael and Xochi Birch who are a married couple who founded a few companies. But most notably and recently Bebo, they founded together. They gave us some great advice in the beginning, which was divide and conquer. As a married couple if you're working together never work on the same thing at the same time. Not only is that sort of a recipe for disaster if you're behind the same spreadsheet in trying to share them out, but also you get from point A to point B two times as faster, even maybe faster, because you have complementary skills. And that very much applies to Kevin and I. We divide and conquer in everything we do. At this point in the game we work on very different aspects of the business, and actually get to catch up at the end of the day. And ask each other how each others day went. And my parents are role models because just everything that they've done they've done with a lot of grace. And finally, two-year-old daughter Emma is a huge role model to both of us. Because I think, for me it's because she never backs down from wanting to know why. She doesn't settle for an answer that she can't completely believe. She can definitely be a role model for us in many different aspects. Lucy: Well, I certainly think parenting has taught me up. That's for sure. She probably got a double dose of entrepreneurship. We'll have to see what she ends up starting. Lee: Or determination. Lucy: Or determination for sure. So Julia along the way you've been encouraged, you started a company, you've worked in entertainment, you've had a great career so far. What's the toughest thing in your professional career you've ever had to do? Julia: The only thing that I dread and the toughest part of this gig is coming to the realization that a team member is not a right fit, and having to let them go. And for us it's been, we haven't had to let go many people, and that's great. But it's really hard when you're building a team, because you feel like this is your family. And for me, I feel like each person on our team is like an athlete. I have to keep them like well-feed and you know hydrated, and well, and out of the tabloids. [laughs] I want to take care of everyone who works at EventBrite. And to have to part ways with somebody is by far the toughest part of this gig. Secondly, I think making decisions that I feel like are going to maybe not sit well with our customers. And our interests have been extremely aligned with our customers since the inception of EventBrite. And we really built EventBrite through having a dialogue with our customers and understanding event organizers' pain-points, and how can we alleviate them through technology. But making decisions like pricing changes it's totally agonizing. And we have a story where we went from a freemium service to offering a free service and paid service, to just a completely paid service. And we fretted over it for months. And when we finally reached the decision and pulled that cord, not only did we not see the turn that we had expected, but we saw our conversion go up. Because people who were coming to the site going to have to make that decision over or whether not to sign for the free or paid service. So these kinds of decisions are really tough for us. And I feel like one thing we could have done better is not fret so much over it, and believe in our product, and our ability to delight our customers. Larry: That's great advice. So one of the things we wonder about and always ask and that is if you were sitting down right now with a person who's considering becoming an entrepreneur or just starting to be an entrepreneur what advice would you give them? Julia: I think that if you're going to do it you have to jump in. I mean I feel like when I visualized the leap that I took from a corporate secure job to running EventBrite and working on this project, I envisioned myself jumping in with my eyes closed, head first and all hands and feet in. I mean I don't think that it's possible to have success without completely committing yourself. So whether that is committing yourself completely mentally, or if it's mentally, logistically and financially you really have to put all your skin in the game to actually have a chance. Most start-ups don't' succeed and I think that it's for obviously a variety of reasons. But first and foremost, if you're going to choose entrepreneurship, you have to commit in every fiber of your body. Lee: The word devotion comes to mind. Lucy: Yeah. Julia: It takes a lot of devotion. You can't have one put in and one put out. It doesn't work very well. Lee: So, on the same note what it takes to be an entrepreneur, there's certain personal characteristic that everyone thinks of that makes us entrepreneur successful. What would you say are your personal characteristics that have given you the advantage as an entrepreneur? Julia: So, me personally, I feel like I have a very strong willingness to pitch in. Now, that we are 60 people and our roles as founder, I feel like at this point I do not get in the way of greatness. We hire very, very smart, capable, talented people and we need to let them have their freedom to really change this industry. But on the flip side, I am always willing to pitch in and help so whether that be any sort of mundane task. It is not mundane to me because it contributes towards the success of the EventBrite, of my baby. So, that willingness to pitch in is key. I also have an ability to be objective. So, because of my first start up, I'm not very dated and everything is very new. I try to just come about it and to have a fresh perspective and being very objective about everything that is happening and not ever feeling like we have to be status quo. We are actually trying to disrupt an industry, the ticketing industry, and so to look at it from a fresh perspective is an advantage in many different aspects of running a start up. And, finally I feel like I'm a 110 percent committed. I mean I feel extreme honors over EventBrite in a way of like I really care about it and I care about everybody who works on changing the world with us. And so, commitment and then accountability really being accountable for the bad things and the good things. I think that makes a big difference. Lucy: Julia, you've mentioned that you travel and you mentioned your family and you mentioned your devotion to EventBrite. So, we're curious. We always ask this question. How do successful entrepreneurs bring balance into both their personal and their professional lives? Julia: Right. So, first of all you have to prioritize and you have to perhaps write it down on a white board. What is most important to you and then write everything up. I mean we talk a lot about [inaudible 15:15] optimization here and I kind of feel the same way about balancing your life. For us, it is an interesting talent because EventBrite is very much our first baby and we have and I who is a part of this process. So, instead of dividing them into two things, we feel like we are in it together. Sort of cliché to say but it is very true. It takes a village and for me personally, I have to find my vortex of happiness so that for me is being a great mom and being a great entrepreneur. I have to be confident enough to ask for and receive help from our village of family and friends. And I have to prioritize. And so, I have to note that if push come to shove, what would I do in each scenario and how do that emergency sort of exit plan. That is also very applicable to working with your spouse. And so, I feel like for us, our family and our friends and our daughter, they are in it with us and so they feel invested and understand what's going on as well. Larry: Well, you have already achieved a great deal. You are doing a lot. You are young. You are building a family. What's next for you? Julia: My goal for EventBrite is to grow the service and to the only place you would ever go to buy a ticket for any event you would ever attend. And then secondly, I want to have more kids. Lucy: There you go. Julia: It gets a little bit harder to scale for some reason I don't know. I look at it and I'm like, I am pretty sure one plus one doesn't equal to so we'll see. [laughs] Larry: Well, I've got five kids and my wife and I are in business together so it works. Lucy: I have three. Julia: I need to sit down and pick your brain. Lee: Well, thank you so much Julia for talking to us. We really appreciate it. I want to remind our listeners where they can find this interview. w3w3.com and NCWIT.org and please do pass this along to other people who would be interested in listening to it. Thanks very much Julia. Julia: Thanks so much for having me. Larry: Thanks, Julia. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Julia HartzInterview Summary: Julia is a reformed Television Network Executive and comes to Eventbrite by way of FX Networks and MTV. "I'm an entrepreneur because I think I can change an industry. I also love helping to build something that people want. Being an entrepreneur, for me, I feel like I'm part owner in a movement and there is just something inherently satisfying about working on something you feel such ownership and passion about." Release Date: July 12, 2010Interview Subject: Julia HartzInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 17:20
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