Podcasts about so melissa

In the wild world of ecommerce, the status quo is always changing. New companies enter the market to disrupt the norms. Legacy brands pivot to get a piece of the pie. Successful niche businesses get acquired left and right. With so much happening all at once, it takes a lot of work for brands to not only keep up but to get out ahead and win.Andrea Leigh and Melissa Burdick have made it their mission to stay on top of everything that’s happening and use their knowledge to help companies large and small make an impact in the market. Andrea, who you may remember from a previous episode where she discussed how to win on Amazon and the death of the category, is the VP of Strategy and Insights for Ideoclick, and Melissa is the Co-founder and CEO of Pacvue, a company that helps advertisers scale on big ecommerce platforms like Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart. A few customers of theirs include Unilever, Duracell, and Johnson & Johnson.These ladies each spent 10 years at Amazon “back when ecommerce wasn’t cool,” as Melissa says. Today, at their current companies, they work with disruptors and major brands alike as they come to realize that ecommerce is not just a fad, but the way of the future. And that’s why I was so thrilled to invite them on this roundtable episode to talk about all the trends they’ve been seeing recently, and to get their take on where things are headed. How are major brands moving to digital? Why are companies investing more in shorter product life cycles? What is the future of dropshipping and ad platforms? I wanted to know, and they delivered the goods. So sit back and enjoy! Main Takeaways:David vs. Goliath: In the world of ecommerce, it often boils down to small, niche brands competing against the bigger companies with a long history and much bigger budgets. In order to compete, small brands are forced to think differently, be more hyper-focused on product and customer feedback, and be intensely in tune with the ROI of any ad spend.Shorten That Lifecycle: Brands today are finding out the importance of being nimble and developing shorter product life cycles. When the unexpected happens, markets shift, or industry standards change, having a product already in process of a nine-month cycle puts you at a disadvantage to other brands that can pivot and change course quicker. Having a pulse on what consumers want, gathering data, and digging into feedback can help with the acceleration process.Show Me The Money!: In the past, measuring the ROI of advertising was a bit more challenging. Now, with the amount of data that you get from digital campaigns, measuring the return on investment of an ad campaign is much easier to track because you can correlate clicks and track customer journeys from ads. And with the number of new platforms that are constantly popping up, there is a bit of a new retail explosion that brands can take advantage of and track in unique ways. And today, regardless of the platform — new or old — brands will not advertise at all unless they can get a full view of the data and metrics from the ad platforms they work with.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey, everyone and welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at Mission.org. Today is a very special episode because it's our second ever round table and our guests are going to blow your mind or at least going to blow mine for sure. First up, we have Andrea Leigh who you probably remember. I think she was on episode 81 or so. She currently serves as the VP of Strategy and Insights for Ideoclick. Andrea, welcome.Andrea:Hi Stephanie, thanks for having me back.Stephanie:So glad to have you back. Your episode really was one of my favorites, which is why it's very clear we need to have Andrea back on the show. I think we even said that in our episode, so probably no surprise that you're here. All right. And joining Andrea and I is Melissa Burdick who serves as the president and co-founder of PacVue. Melissa, welcome to the show.Melissa:Thanks so much for having me.Stephanie:Yeah. We are excited for you to join our party. So you guys seem like you have some history. You seem like you're friends, you're in club house together. I was hoping to start there just so the audience knows who are you and how do you guys know each other. Andrea, you want to kick it off?Andrea:Well, I would love to tell the story of how I remember first meeting Melissa. We worked at Amazon together. I think this was in maybe 2006. She was the buyer for the health and personal care side of the business and I was the buyer for the grocery side. And we both negotiated with the same vendor, same brand that span both categories in the same day. We met in the kitchen afterwards and she had gotten such a better deal on her negotiation. Such better terms than me and I couldn't believe it because I was a total newbie and she was a really experienced negotiator. And so I made her teach me all of her tips and tricks. That's my memory of my first time meeting Melissa.Stephanie:Wow. Melissa, do you remember that day?Melissa:I didn't really remember it until Andrea told me and I didn't remember it that way. So it's funny the perception that she had versus what I had, but she and I both spent 10 years at Amazon. We were early pioneers of the consumables category back when ecommerce wasn't cool. And so we really got to do a lot of great stuff. I call it the cheapest MBA I didn't have to pay for working at Amazon, because we learned how to ship tubes of toothpaste probably. Well, I don't know if we've ever figured that out or will across the internet, but it really was Wild Wild West of ecommerce times and Andrea and I were there at the beginning and that's how we met each other.Melissa:We actually had a consulting practice together. We've been friends in the industry. Now we're competitors in some ways, but that's the beauty about our community and industry is that we're still friends. I tell brands, it takes a village to do ecommerce because it's so complex. And so having thought leadership and experts is what we like to do. So Andrea and I have a Clubhouse show that we do together and still keep in touch.Stephanie:Yeah, I remember when Andrea, we were like, who should we have on for a round table? And she brought you up and then when she was explaining, she was like, "Kind of a competitor to our firm, but we're friends and we work together." And I was like, "Whatever you want, girl. We'll bring her on if you love her." I'm sure I will too. So yeah, that's awesome. So, okay. I want to get into the topic. I know you all have a Clubhouse later on today that you're going to be hosting, which I think the topic that we're going to be covering there is perfect for this show.Stephanie:And like I said earlier, it'd be perfect practice all around how brands are going to market and how the world of ecommerce and commerce in general is so different now. So maybe Melissa, if you want to start with how do you even view the world now versus a couple of years ago? Like what's different? What are brands struggling with that maybe they never had to think about before?Melissa:Yeah, I mean, to the earlier point of your question, the moat is so much smaller now. The ability to create a brand is much easier. So years and years, 20 years ago, when ecommerce didn't really exist, it was, you're a big brand, you get into the shelves of a Walmart because you're tied or something like that. But with ecommerce and with more platforms and marketplaces, there's this ability to create a brand and a loyal following and base through things like social media, TikTok, or viral ways that you can build communities and brands.Melissa:And so today we're talking about a couple brands, DUDE Wipes, and Wyze camera or I guess Wyze actually they started with a camera. They both are emerging brands. They weren't the big P&Gs and Samsungs of the world. They built emerging disruptive brands and they've been very, very successful. And so that's a little bit about today's show. What about you, Andrea, what do you think about these emerging brands?Andrea:Yeah, I mean, I think another thing that has really changed is the ambitions of brands. So I think brands were to your point Melissa, they were built by large organizations and they were, you layer on this enormous supply chain and distribution and then a marketing engine on top of that in that order. And I think the two things that stand out to me as being different now with marketplaces is that first a brand can aspire to be smaller than that. A brand can aspire to just address a certain niche for a certain customer segment and do it really well. And maybe a brand wants to only be 100 million dollar brand versus a billion dollar brand and think that's posing some really stiff competition to some of the more established brands in the space, particularly in CPG.Andrea:So I think those brand ambitions are changing for sure. We did an internal panel with some clients and thought leaders and this was like a big topic there too, was these ambitions of brands and how they're different than they used to be. So I think that's a big one and then I think what those smaller brands can do better. And I think we've seen this with both DUDE Wipes and DUDE Wipes is that iterative approach to product development that incorporates the customer and their feedback. And so really thinking about why is this such a great example? They entered a super highly competitive market.Andrea:The category was already highly competitive with a lot of players and they just went in there and they did it better. And they did that because they were able to really listen to customer feedback, not just through reviews, but through all the social media channels and approach brand building in an iterative way. And so those are a couple of things that I've seen with some of our more upstart clients that have been really successful. That iterative approach and that really laser focused on a specific segment.Stephanie:Cool. So talk a bit about the ambitions of the brands. Do you think the brands that... like you said, maybe they don't need to IPO, they don't need to get acquired, they're looking to stay more niche and they're okay with that. Do you think they can sustain longterm because it feels like if you don't have goals to really make a mark, you're just going to get beat out by people who can spend a lot of money on ads and who just has a lot of other channels to create content and create content platforms. It's like they can do so much because of how much capital they have access to. What do you think about the brands who don't have those ambitions right now?Andrea:Well, I think for a handful of our clients, it's just a lifestyle business, right? We have a couple of brands who are a family owned and they've been family owned for generations and that's a lifestyle brand. They're running it because they have a lot of passion for the product or the category and they're product people. But I think in the other cases, they're mostly getting acquired. I mean, I think that's what we're seeing across the industry. They're getting acquired by a larger CPG. They get acquired by one of these newer FBA roll-ups or FBA aggregator companies that goes in and buys up all these small sellers on Amazon. But I think they get acquired. I think the challenge with that is that what I see is these CPGs either acquire them really early and then they try to scale it because most larger CPGs are in the business of scaling brands.Andrea:And so they try to scale it too fast, which kills what made the brand so special or they buy too late and they overpay. And so I don't think there's a super win-win there, but I mean, I guess it's a win for the brand because they walked away with a bunch of money. But I think that in terms of aspirations, maybe it still is to get acquired later or have investments or whatever, but still they're really focused on that segment that they're addressing.Melissa:The other kind of an offshoot of your question when you say, these brands don't have as much money to do these big TV ads. The other piece of that is they are extremely savvy and even savvier than these big brands to grow their brands. So they're actually able to do more with less because they're forced to. And so they have amazing product content or they figured out how to get to number one slot for their most frequently searched term because they understand the algorithms, they figure it out faster and they're more nimble and they have less of a portfolio to worry about. They just focus on a few products.Melissa:So they have a lot of benefits in that regard because they don't have that cushion and fluffy ad budgets and things like that to rely on. So they have to rely on having an amazing product, this iterative process of being able to mind keywords and understand, "Oh, this is the flavor that people are asking for. I need to go create this product." Product development takes a lot faster for them as well. And we've seen that with the Wyze. They're able to create more and more portfolio pretty quickly.Andrea:Melissa, do you think it's fair to say that some of these more disruptive brands are maybe more likely to channel their ad dollars towards the retailer ad platforms because they really need an ROI. For them to spend in some of the more sort of upper funnel activities might be harder.Melissa:Yeah. I mean, we see that especially with the seller marketplace. They are so ROI driven. It's all about if I pay a dollar, I better get a huge return for that dollar and ad advertising whereas these bigger brands are more focused on marketing their portfolio. And so they're much more focused on ROI of their advertising, whether it's anything from Google AdWords, Facebook advertising, whatever it is. They want real time data, real-time understanding of what's happening to their brand and it has to be profitable. And it's quite a bifurcation in how they look at advertising and marketing their products versus these bigger brands, which is more of a marketing play.Stephanie:Yeah. I think that agility to adjust and move quick is so key. I was just talking with a guest yesterday from a company Avocados From Mexico. Y'all ever heard about them? Wow. Their content strategy, like what they're doing. I mean, they've been winning the number two slot in the Super Bowl ads and her whole thing was like, you just have to be able to move quick. You need to be able to work with agencies who can try it on their own, run with creativity and just act quickly. And even when you don't have a budget, you can get scrappy and use organic growth hacky tactics to at least get up there in the beginning until you do have access to that budget. That was her number one thing though, move fast, try things out, fail quickly, and then iterate.Melissa:Exactly.Andrea:I just Googled them as we're talking and yeah, I can't wait to watch some of these videos. They look hilarious.Stephanie:Oh, her Super Bowl ad was so funny. I mean, all their stuff is funny. It was funny at first I was like, "Wait, why did Hillary schedule an avocado company for the show?" Americans super confused by this and I instantly got hungry, went out and started eating avocados. Once she came on I was like, "Oh, wow. They're a whole different level." Like you think about produce and a whole different way. I mean, they're doing AR stuff with their avocados. They're doing let's see, NFTs. They have been ahead, like years ahead trying stuff.Stephanie:I mean, they were trying NFTS and 2020 before it even became popular and they were trying to put ad campaigns on the blockchain. She was telling me a story about how they had an avocado Macy's day. What is it? Float. The only way the float would get there from Mexico to New York as if users would tweet about it. And so when you would tweet, enough tweets would happen and it would move the float to the next city. That's the only way it would ever reach New York is if they had enough engagement.Andrea:Oh, that's so fun.Stephanie:I know. It's so genius, but her whole thing was like, that's why you just try things and have that permission to experiment and a brand that can move quickly and not have to worry about competing top of funnel. Like you'd get it on that engagement level and scrap your tactics and you can win, which I think is awesome.Melissa:And I think that's harder for some of the larger companies to do, because I mean, even just that example you gave about like tweeting to get the avocado from city to city, which I think is hilarious and super fun. If that flopped, no one's going to say, "Oh, that dumb avocado company." It's just a memorable thing, but if it flopped and like, I don't know L'Oréal was doing that or something, I think it makes bigger, bigger news in not a good way.Stephanie:Yeah. Which always makes me think about the integration process of all these big brands are of course acquiring these hot D2C companies and it feels like there's so many out there right now. I mean, so many people come on our show and I always think like, "You're going to get acquired. You're going to get acquired." I mean, it just seems like that's the world we're in, but then figuring out how to integrate them into a culture, but not in a way that ruins it. I mean, have you guys seen good examples of that of companies who are acquired and then keep them in their own little startup hub of like, keep doing what you're doing. We don't want to ruin you.Andrea:I mean, we've seen it go both ways. So we have one client and I unfortunately can't share their name, but they were acquired by a really large CPG and they were allowed to operate separately because they're performing really well, but they're taxed so heavily by the rest of the organization because everyone wants to know how they're doing it. And so the amount of reach outs and coffee chats and all of that stuff and presentations and stuff that they have to give. I mean, it's an enormous burden on the small brand to try to teach a huge CPG how to be like them, you know? And I think that's hard. That's really hard for them.Andrea:I've heard that happens a lot of the time or they get folded in a little too quickly, but something that I was thinking about is what happens to the customer? Because a lot of times we buy these products from these smaller upstart brands. I mean, I think about like in beauty, two of my favorite brands are Glossier and Beautycounter and I love them. I love them partly because I feel like I'm supporting a company, well, at least in the case of Beautycounter, a company that stands for something which is like low chemicals and things like that.Andrea:I'm supporting their sales associate network and I'm supporting the smaller brand, but if they were to be purchased by like P&G tomorrow, I don't know at what my relationship with them feels like anymore. I'm not sure. I don't know. And so I wonder for some of these disruptive brands. What happens to that sort of authenticity and integrity when they're acquired? I don't know the answer to that.Melissa:The other thing that I've seen also is a lot of these bigger companies will siphon off people into a team of incubators and they just let them go. So they take them out of their company organization structure. Like you need all this approval process to go do your stuff. They then go create a direct to consumer brand or they're able to operate in that name nimble way. And they've been pretty successful getting learnings and trying to teach their organization some more nimble habits. So one route is buying the brand and then trying to keep them operating the same way and not to integrate it into that more bureaucratic process. And there's some successes and failures there. And then there's the big companies actually taking internal team to go do and not be subject to all the bureaucracy.Melissa:I've seen that as well, but I think the key that we all agree on is just this ability to be nimble, speed and if we've seen anything from ecommerce that's, what is the push.Melissa:So this nimbleness is something that's really important. In these product cycle times you need to get faster. And just the data like with this whole year of COVID when we're working with brands the question is, is this year I throw out your, because the behavior is just like totally off the chart. We know it's totally different. So how are you making decisions knowing that last year was not a good year to look at because things will return back to normal. How are you looking at it? And so getting faster at being able to look at data, to understand what's happening, knowing the trends of what's happening.Melissa:So the best example is like, MMM, Market Mix Models, where it's like, oh, from six months or a year ago, and you're making decisions on your media based on that. You can't do that. You can't look at six months ago because nobody's doing TV advertising because they didn't have any inventory. So you need to get much faster and that's what's really propelling more of this in this ecosystem. So I think we will see brands being faster because they've been given that inertia because of COVID.Andrea:Yeah, I totally agree with that. I mean, I read some study. I can't remember who put it out. I think it was McKinsey and they said something about, it was more than 70% of brand leadership said that they make decisions faster now than they did previously. I think you're totally right. You have to speak and COVID taught all these companies how to reduce their cycle times and be faster and be more diversified and all of those things. And I think those are the good things that we get to hopefully walk away from the pandemic with which are some changes to how decisions are made and things like that. And I would add to, Melissa, you talked about how these companies need to reduce their cycle times for everything, from budgeting to product development and I totally agree with that.Andrea:I think the other thing that these disruptive brands and particularly, Wyze and DUDE Wipes, is they incorporate that user generated content into their product development. So it's getting the cycle time down, but it's also figuring out how do you take all the stuff that people are saying about your brand in social media and in reviews and all these other places and incorporate that into your product development and your advertising and your content and all of that. I think the reason maybe that's some of the more scrappy upstart brands are better able to do that is because there aren't a lot of scalable ways to do that yet.Andrea:There are some tools that you can subscribe to and you can look across these channels and you can track your mentions and all that stuff but it's really a manual effort to be tracking a lot of that. And I think it's qualitative more than it is quantitative. And so I think some of those smaller brands that are still owner operator run just are more in tune with some of the sentiment of the customers and what needs to happen in the company versus maybe a brand conglomerate that has like 60 brands.Stephanie:Yeah. It also seems like bigger brands... I mean, I was talking with Stitch Fix a while back about how models can start running so quickly with training based off of how the consumers are feeling now, what they want right now and it seems like a lot of bigger brands do have access to crazy ML technologies and things like that to train these models to maybe make new product decisions, change their website every second based off how people are interacting with it. But I do also wonder, will we enter a year next year or the year after where it's like, whoa, what the people want now is not what they wanted two years ago and now all of our models have been falsely trained based off a two year craziness. I don't know.Melissa:Exactly. Yeah.Andrea:It's hard to look at anything. So much has changed in the world, I think in the last year that it's hard to look back at anything.Stephanie:What's real?Andrea:It's hard to go back and look at anything as a data point that's a predictor of the future. I mean, I think it's just really tricky.Stephanie:Yeah. I think about forecasting then that's my thought is like, I mean, that was exactly what I'm the VP of data science at Stitch Fix was talking about is like thinking about forecasting what clothes people are going to want and thinking about your inventory. And it seems like now you have to be able to shift so quickly, but then also you could be left flat-footed where you were planning for something that didn't end up playing out and people, all of a sudden want to be looking nice again, going out into the world, wearing high heels. I don't know. It seems like there will be a point when brands are like, oh shoot, I got to pivot again and get back to maybe our roots of where we started three or four years ago.Melissa:Yeah. And that's why it's all about-Andrea:... it's funny I would...Melissa:Yeah. I mean, it's art and science because the science, the AI models, they need data to work and they aren't very good with anomalies like COVID or like Prime Day or Sun Care member being like the sun care buyer and every single year at Amazon, we never bought enough Sun Care because it was like, couldn't predict that spike in the summer because the models were for the full year. But the modeling needs a lot of data for it to run. It doesn't do well with spikiness or anomalies and so that's where the art comes into play and the creativity you know, as well. So you have to think forward looking in terms of what are these trends, what are they going to be and Marriott together.Andrea:Well, Stephanie, you'd asked this in the beginning of what are some of the big challenges we're seeing across our clients and this one's not very sexy, but it's forecasting. It's so hard right now and they're all trying to figure out how do they forecast? Well, there's a lot of things you have to forecast. It's like, what are your year over your comps don't make any sense right now. I mean, it's like you can't even look at that. And so how do you forecast just demand on one platform because you don't know how much that platform is going to get, and then you don't even know how much of your business is going to be commerce, because that's all up in the air.Andrea:There used to be a pretty steady track of that getting a point a year or something like that. And now that's all over the place. Depending on the category you're in, you may be gain 20 points or something in ecommerce and then it's like, which retailer? It feels a little bit like a gambling exercise right now for these manufacturers trying to figure all that out. And then to Melissa's point, you have to line up an ad budget around that for these different retailer ad platforms and I think the forecasting is just so hard for them right now.Stephanie:Yeah. So let's talk a bit about the ad platforms and I know most of this right up your alley. So maybe you can speak a bit about how are companies thinking about ad platforms and approaching that? I mean, it seems like there's so much to pay attention to, so much to track, so much data. Like you're getting hit in the face all different ways of stuff now. What are you seeing behind the scenes when it comes to ads and platforms and how to go about that world?Melissa:Yeah. I mean, we've really seen an explosion of retail media. So it really started with Amazon, I think at this point, like five, six years ago when their app platform really started getting going, and Amazon makes a lot of profit from AWS and ads. And retailers can't really replicate AWS, but they can replicate advertising, which is great margin for them. And so just last year, we saw a launch of Walmart self-service ad platform, Instacart came out of nowhere. So to Andrea's earlier point, literally brands didn't have a budget allocated to Instacart and then off a planning cycle during COVID, this explosive new platform launches. Luckily a lot of brands had money because they weren't investing in TV advertising or other places. So they're able to allocate some dollars to it. But one of the big issues is nobody knows who owns the Instacart budget or platform, who's running that.Melissa:And then since then, there's just Criteo, what Target has launched, which is a slew of other retailers. So if you're not creating your own self-service ad platform like Amazon, Walmart Instacart you can leverage the network of Criteo who has Target and a bunch of other ones, CitrusAds is coming online as well. We went from not having a lot of retail media opportunities to advertise to now lots of opportunities to advertise with all kinds of different formats. And so it's a whole new brave world of trying to figure out where to advertise, but what I think brands believe is they want to be where their customers are. And so that's where it's really having a test and learn mentality of being able to get some of these test and learn budgets to see what's working well and get some data points and proof points and go from there.Melissa:And so that's where like tech stacks, like Pacvue or agencies who also have technology, like Ideoclick can help brands because they can help them figure it all out. And our value prop is really around unifying retail media so that you can see everything in one place, which is really important for these brands. So I think at the end of the day, you need savvy partners to help you, you need technology to help you, and then you need the strategist at your own company thinking through how to do these things.Andrea:Yep. I feel like right now all the money... and I also read that Dollar General recently launched an ad platform. That really surprised me.Stephanie:What? How [crosstalk] around really.Andrea:No, they did ecommerce. Sorry, Dollar General. [crosstalk]Melissa:How do you make money on that? Is that profitable?Andrea:I know, right?Stephanie:What are they doing?Andrea:It's pretty much like their value proposition is that everything cost less than $10 pretty much. So I don't know how they ship that online very economically. But in any case-Stephanie:$10. What? That cost will be less than a dollar. What happened? They really lost sight of [crosstalk].Andrea:Inflation. I think in the short term where the ad dollars are coming from. They're coming from the other ad options, like the theatrical releases or out of home advertising and TV and billboards and all that stuff. But when people start leaving their houses again, how much of those ad budgets go back to some of those more, I don't know, non retailer ad platform ad types and how much stays with retailer ad platforms. And I predict that a lot of it is going to stay with the retailer ad platforms. I think the reason is the metrics and ROI that you can get from that is like crack for marketers.Andrea:I mean, I don't even know how you would go back to spending on advertising where you don't get ROI metrics. I mean, I remember when Amazon advertising first launched, and that was one of the first performance marketing retailer ad platforms that you could work with and the reaction of the manufacturers just being like, "Oh my gosh, I can directly see a correlation between what I spent, who clicked on it, how many people saw it and then how many people bought it." And so I just don't..Stephanie:Wow. What does the ROI look like because I'm not deep in the ad world. So I don't know how to think about what retailer ad platforms looks like versus traditional. So how do I envision what you're getting in that world that you wouldn't be getting otherwise? What is that ROI look like or what are brands getting used to now where they're like, this is the only way I would do it going forward.Andrea:You want to take that one, Melissa?Melissa:Yeah. Well, I mean, I think traditionally if you're doing normal advertising, you're more focused on impression focus, right? You're really trying to get impressions. You're not tying back to sales of a product. And so in ecommerce, there's a direct tie back to, I spent a dollar, I got $5 of sales and there's like a brand halo associated with that. And so that tie back where I put an ad, if you leverage Amazon DSP, which is their programmatic display advertising, that's retargeting. So you can target to people who are looking for men's shoes within this certain zip code who shop Nike, but didn't buy it in the last 90 days.Melissa:You can get very, very specific targeting. You can show them an ad, drive them back to Amazon, to your product and then you actually know if they bought that product or not. And the actual sales attribution and return that you got from that versus just an impression buy like a Super Bowl buy, right? Where you've no data to say, "When I do a Super Bowl ad, you can try but there's no actual ROAS, return on ad spend that you get that correlates directly to an ecommerce sale. But I do think that media... people are doing all of these things, because some is upper funnel where you're more branding dollars and some as much lower funnel, direct marketing, that's conversion to a sale.Melissa:And so that's where these bigger brands are like, if there's a new product launch, you've got to get people to know about this product. So you might do like during the Super Bowl, the Super Bowl ads are like everybody's watching the Super Bowl and this year they had some weird like caveman soap. I can't remember the name of it, but on their Superbowl ad and so that was really to get attention and drive traffic to awareness of their brand. But not tied to specific ecommerce metrics.Stephanie:So how have you seen brands changing the way they're thinking about ads in a way that's focused on first party data collection, really trying to create that relationship from the start where maybe they weren't always thinking about this before. Have you seen brands shifting their mindset around creating an ad that maybe has the focus on that now?Melissa:Well, I mean, with all of the things happening within the privacy world where third-party cookies are going away. First party data becomes more important and so I think that this benefits platforms like Amazon who have a significant amount of first party data and hurts platforms like Facebook that rely on more cookies. But I think brands in general are really trying to build their own databases. So a lot of them have publicly talked about building direct to consumer businesses so they can own their customer. And so I think that they view first party data, building their own CRM and their own databases pretty highly. I don't know what have you seen Andrea in terms of brands that you work?Andrea:Yeah, I've seen the same thing. I think a lot of them are building their own CRMs, trying to figure out how to access more direct customer data. We talked about how it encouraged a lot more speed of decision making. I think it also encouraged a need for diversification in all ways like manufacturing and the ecommerce platforms that you sell on and how you source the product and I think diversification is really important. And I think there are a lot of manufacturers who've been feeling a bit squeezed by Amazon and it's nice to have options to have a D2C site. I mean, the D2C thing, I think is like a whole other topic, but I do think it's a lot more expensive to drive traffic to those sites. You're going to get a lot.Andrea:It's not going to be a hugely accretive to the business in the short term, but I do think it gives you access to your own customer data, which is, it can be a really important point of experimentation in a sandbox for manufacturers to really see what kind of marketing is working for them. So I've certainly seen that and then I think just looking across the retailer ad platforms, I mean, we've seen a push onto all platforms for a lot of our major manufacturers and wanting to access... If the customer's cross shopping, maybe it's the same customer, but also access different customers that are shopping across different ad platforms to Melissa's point earlier about wanting to be where your customers are.Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. So the other day, Andrea, I was creeping on your Instagram, I think I was. And you were talking about omni-channel strategies and drop shipping as a catalyst for growth. I thought that was interesting because I feel like when I think about drop shipping, it's had this like crazy heyday drop ship, white label, everything. No one has to know who you are. You don't really need a brand. And then no one was really doing that anymore. It didn't seem like there was margins there to do that anymore or people really want to connect with a brand.Stephanie:Like, especially now everyone wants to know who's behind that brand, the story, they want to feel some connection with them. And when I saw you mentioned drop shipping, I was wondering, how are you guys viewing that? Maybe it's always been around and that's just my personal narrative I've written around it or how do you see brands maybe leveraging that right now?Andrea:Well, I think of drop shipping a little bit differently. It's still the brand. They're just bypassing the retailer and they're shipping directly to the consumer. You can do that as a seller in your own right on the marketplace platforms or you can also just do that behind the scenes. And there are a number of categories that are high percentage drop-ship and always have been. It's never going away. It's just not obvious to you as a customer. So shoes is a great example.Andrea:Those are often coming directly from the manufacturer. That's an industry that's been pretty heavy drop-ship for a long time and mainly because so much inventory, you have to carry. There's one style and then there's five size color combinations. And so it doesn't make sense to ship all that to a retailer and then have them re-ship it to a customer and try to keep the inventory levels right.Andrea:So shoes has always been a really big drop-ship business. If you pay attention to the stuff you get from Nordstrom and others, you'll notice that it's often coming directly from the manufacturer. Sporting goods is another one. Some of the bigger bulky categories have been traditionally drop-ship because you don't want to ship like a treadmill to a retailer district warehouse or whatever. It does expose the retailer to a degree of risk because you're not packaging the product. So you lose a little bit of control over the quality, the consistency of the customer experience. I think what I posted was that Nordstrom was going to try to open up more assortment through ship.Andrea:It's a little risky. I mean, I don't think it's highly risky, but I do think it presents some risk in losing control over the customer experience, depending on if the retailer is still deciding the assortment, you could lose a little bit of your credibility as a retailer. I mean, I think part of why customers are starting to shop a lot of places besides Amazon is for the curation. Is because it's a little bit of an easier shopping experience.Andrea:I would much rather shop for shoes on Nordstrom where I know that someone actually made a decision to carry each of those products versus on Amazon where it's the wild west and it's just overwhelming. So I think a lot of these retailers that are competing with Amazon and doing well with it right now, I think are doing it well because of the curation. And if you open up those retailers to just unlimited drop shipping with the brands, I think you just lose a lot of that value proposition.Stephanie:Yeah. I agree. I mean, it seems like the AMSEC could just come in and just have a curated collection and maybe they're already doing this. This is the Radan collection, this is the [inaudible] and like, you go there knowing what you're going to get, because I thought the same thing. The other day I was trying to find, I don't know, some piece of yard furniture and it was so overwhelming. I was like, "Oh my gosh, there's so many egg chairs. I know the egg chair I want, but there's so many." 90% of them are not egg chairs [inaudible] is and I just went to Walmart and they had the exact what I wanted, which I found through an influencer, or I would just go to West Elm. I just feel like they have the exact selection that I want. I'm not going to mess around, but it seems like they could come in really quick and change that if they wanted to.Andrea:They can't. it's so hard. I mean, they have a one size fits all platform and it's heavily search-based. And I remember, how do you say her last name Melissa, Kathy who used to lead soft lines at Amazon? Kathy Boudin. Well in any case, sorry, if I'm mispronouncing your name, but I remember hearing her say, in all hands one time, she was like... They came in and I think Amazon fashion had its best a couple of year run. They really created some curated lists and some storefronts and they started the Amazon Delivers for fashion and I thought it actually was really good stuff. But she said, "It's a thin veneer that we've put over the site." I remember her saying that. It's a thin veneer.Andrea:And once you scratch it, you see just all the assortment and everything that's there and it's overwhelming. I keep a little like goofy quote lists that people on my team say and this guy in my team, Jamal the other day. I can't remember the context, but he said, "If you're going to go shopping on Amazon for a Teddy bear sweatshirt, I'll see you in a week."Stephanie:That's so true.Andrea:I don't remember why someone was shopping for a Teddy bear sweatshirt or what the context was, but it cracks me up because it's so true. I mean, you could spend a week just combing through, even for something super specific like that, a Teddy bear sweatshirt. You could spend a week just coming through this.Andrea:There's this S&L sketch about Netflix, but I highly recommend that you watch because it's like a fake ad for Netflix, but it says, it's the endless scroll. "By the time you get to the end of the scroll, we've added and created new content and so it's the infinite loop." They call it an infinite loop. And Amazon is like that. By the time you get to page 10, they've probably added more assortments. So it's never...Stephanie:Yeah, people are working in the background. "She needs 10 more of these, keep going." Oh my gosh. All right. So I know you guys have a hard stop in a couple of minutes on Clubhouse and maybe I'll even try and join you over there, but I do want to get one last question. Usually I do a quick lightning round. Lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce commerce cloud. But for this one, each only get one question because we're on a time crunch. So Melissa, we'll start with you and it'll be the same question. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Melissa:Oh, man. That's a hard one.Andrea:Yeah. I'm glad I get to go second.Stephanie:Andrea already had to do it once on her last episode and it can't be the same answer, Andrea.Melissa:What's going to be the biggest impact to ecommerce in the next year?Stephanie:In the next year. Yeah.Melissa:I mean, we already had COVID so that's what had the biggest impact on ecommerce? I guess, I mean, maybe it's a ripple effective. I'm going to have to say COVID because that has had the biggest impact on ecommerce because it's accelerated it so much with new people especially at different age brackets. The older age bracket is shopping online and so we know the baseline is never going to return back to where it was and it has changed behaviors and it will be accelerated. The other interesting thing, I just notice this when I walk into a beauty store, like in Ulta is that beauty used to be a way better experience in store than it was online. Now it's the opposite. It's way better online.Stephanie:I order from target all the time, just directly from Target because I'm like way better than going in store.Melissa:Because you can have virtual reality, but what's this color going to look like? When I walk into an Ulta, everything's taped down, you can't try on anything. You can't see the format of anything. I don't know how much of that's going to return. I don't think people are going to be very comfortable trying, like picking things up that other people have touched for a very long time. I don't want to.Stephanie:I never wanted to. I never wanted to try lip gloss. I'm like, how many... thank you.Melissa:I think the interesting, and then Amazon announced opening a hair salon where a lot of it is going to be tech focused around what's this color going to look like. Virtual reality of hair color. So I think that Cover Desk has accelerated this complete change in behavior lifestyle. And the other thing is, I don't know if I'm ever going to wear jeans again. I might just wear my VRA joggers to work if I ever go back to an office.Andrea:There's a great YouTube video on how to dress up joggers, that I'll send you.Stephanie:All right. Andrea, you're on the hot seat.Andrea:Okay. I'm going to go with social shopping and live streaming and I don't know if it will be in the next year, but I think it is going to be the biggest disruption to ecommerce because it is going to start taking the transaction or at least the beginning of the transaction off of the ecommerce site and onto social media. I know that I don't have a lot of agreement on this in the industry. A lot of people are like, "Oh, it's going to take longer or like people aren't going to shop on social media," but I'm feeling super bullish on this. And I think it's primarily due to my own behavior, which is that I am almost exclusively buying things that influencers have recommended to me and it's a super clunky experience. You have to go down to the bottom of the YouTube show notes and find the top she had on and it's annoying and I'm still doing it because it's preferable to the endless scroll of Amazon.Andrea:So I really think that that is going to be a huge disruptor to ecommerce and have a big impact on it. Although I was wrong about this once before, I helped start a company, I guess it was like 15 years ago now. It was about social shopping. It would like loud allow it. It was kind of an old version of a screen share before we had screen shares, but it allowed you to shop reseller websites with your friends.Stephanie:That was awesome [crosstalk].Andrea:It took a long time to get it off the ground and we eventually sold it to Nordstrom for their style boards, which is a very different application than what we originally went into the idea with, but I still feel super bullish on this. People prefer to shop together or they prefer to feel like they're shopping with someone in the case of like the curation from influencers or whatever. I'm feeling bullish on social shopping and live streaming.Stephanie:I will 1000% back you up on that because yeah, almost all my shopping behavior comes from influencers and I will go through all the hoops and hurdles to try and find something even through that, dang, like to know it app, which is horrible to work through. You're like, "I'm just trying to find my shirt." And then you're like bouncing around like 10 different apps and it throws you over back to Nordstrom and then you're back again. It's not fun. So I hope that process gets easier.Andrea:I'm a huge fan of taking the screenshot and using Google lens. I don't know if you ever do that.Stephanie:I don't do that.Andrea:If you can't find it, Google lens is... I don't know that that's their intended application, but it's really, useful.Stephanie:It is today. That's great. All right. Well, I really think we need to have a quarterly round table. This is super fun having you both join us and yeah. Where can we find out more about you, Andrea, Melissa? Where can we find about Ideoclick and Pacvue?Andrea:Yeah. Well, you can follow me on LinkedIn. I post and write a lot about ecommerce there or on my website, andreakleighconsulting.com and you can learn more about Ideoclick at ideoclick.com.Stephanie:Melissa.Melissa:Ditto. LinkedIn, you can find me Melissa Burdick there. And then pacvue.com. P-A-C-V-U-E dotcom. Yeah. We'd love to hear from folks or you can find Andrea and I in Clubhouse later this afternoon.Andrea:Yes, four o'clock. After this'll air, after that.Stephanie:Yeah. You guys are giving a preview of this, so, yeah. All right. Thanks so much y'all.Andrea:Okay. Thanks for having us, Stephanie. 

Melissa and Kevin Lee played an important role in what we know now as NightScout and the DIY movement.  Their interest was initially sparked because they wanted to have children. Melissa lives with type 1 and Kevin has an engineering background. They jumped in with many other "hackers" to create what we know now as Nightscout and other DIY systems. By the way, the Lee's children are now ten and eight! Check out Stacey's new book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! In Tell Me Something Good, wedding bells for a T1D couple – which spark some fun stories from others in the community.. and an update on a change my son made after our last episode. Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! 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 Listen to our "Steel Magnolias" episode about pregnancy, type 1 diabetes and community featuring Melissa Lee, Kerri Sparling & Kyrra Richards here. Find all of the "We Are Not Waiting" episodes of the podcast here #Wearenotwaiting ----- 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 Transcription: Stacey Simms  0:00 Diabetes Connections is brought to you by One Drop created for people with diabetes by people who have diabetes. By Real Good Foods, real food you feel good about eating and by Dexcom take control of your diabetes and live life to the fullest with Dexcom.   Announcer  0:19 This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  0:25 This week, Melissa and Kevin Lee played an important role in what we now know is Nightscout and the DIY movement. It's kind of hard to remember but those early days very different. Melissa remembers what it was like the first time Kevin for husband followed her numbers and acknowledged what a hard day she'd had.   Melissa Lee  0:45 And I didn't realize I just looked at him and he said, this is how every day is, isn't it? And like I still get chills thinking about it. They say it was the first time that anybody outside of me or another person with diabetes looked at I said I see you. This is hard.   Stacey Simms  1:02 Melissa and Kevin were interested initially in the DIY movement because they wanted to have children. Their kids are now 10 and eight. We have a lot to talk about. And tell me something good wedding bells for a couple who live with type one. And that sparked some fun stories from others in the community. plus an update on a change my son made after our last episode. 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'm so glad to have you here. I'm your host Stacey Simms we educate and inspire about type 1 diabetes by sharing stories of connection. And this is a story of connection. Melissa and Kevin have so many wonderful anecdotes to share about finding the DIY community about those early exciting days about the projects they worked on. And we talked about what it's like as a married couple to go from not sharing any information. about diabetes to being some of the first people to be able to see CGM information, you know, how does that change your relationship? How do you talk about it? And we'll get to that in just a couple of minutes. It was great to talk to them. I wanted to bring you up to speed first, though, on something that I mentioned. Well, Benny mentioned it when I spoke to him last week. So Benny is my son, if you're new, he was diagnosed right before he turned two. He is now 15 and a half. And we talked last week about changing a bit of our routine, he has been taking a long acting insulin called Tresiba for almost two years along with using an insulin pump. It's a method called untethered, I'm not going to rehash the whole thing. I've talked about it many times. But if you are new, that will link up more information in the show notes and you can go back to listen to last week or previous episodes with Benny about why we did that. bottom line he was using so much insulin because of puberty and maybe some other issues genetics who knows that it was very, very helpful to add an additional basal source that took the pressure off the pump inset, but Over the last month, his insulin use has gone way down. And that is because of three factors. He's probably coming out of puberty, he has lost a lot of weight. And we are using the control IQ system, which we noticed right away meant we were doing far fewer big corrections and we just used it so much less insulin on it. So during the show that the last endocrinology appointment, Dr. V, had said it was fine to go off the Tresiba, no problem, do it when you want if you want, and Benny said that he did want to do that. So as I'm taping this, it's probably about eight days since we made this switch. It takes about two to three days everybody's a little different to get Tresiba out of your system. It works a little differently than some other long acting so it takes longer to get out of your system. We did have a rocky three days but we were used to that we knew that was coming and just as I had hoped control IQ the software system with the tandem pump and the Dexcom just has worked even better than it did before and I don't talk about specific numbers with my son. That's not how we Roll, but just to give you some perspective has been about 70% in range, you know, it goes up, it goes down very happy with that number. He has been 80% in range, I think 82% in range for the last seven days as an average and two days where he was like 98% in range. It's crazy. So I don't think that'll continue because that's how diabetes works. Right? Don't you find sometimes it like lulls you, when you make a switch, it always starts out great, and like a week or two later floor like the rug just pulled out from under you. So we'll see. I want to get to Melissa and Kevin. But at the end of the show, I'm going to talk a little bit more about some changes we've made recently, in addition to Tresiba, we have changed how we use sleep mode. So stay tuned at the very end. I'm going to talk about that. But I know not everybody uses control IQ. So standby Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Real Good Foods. It's really easy to compare and see what we love about Real Good Foods. If you put them side by side to other products, I mean their breakfast sandwiches, six grams of carbs, 18 grams of protein compared to like, you know 2636 grams of carbs in other products and a lot less protein and a lot more junk. If you look at their cauliflower crust pizza, you It's amazing. Not every cauliflower crust pizza is actually low in carbs, you know this you got to read the labels. So Real Good Foods, nine grams of carbs in there cauliflower crust pizza. Some of the other ones have 3540 grams of carbs. I know everybody eats low carb, but you know, you want to know what you're getting. You want to really be able to see, well if I'm eating a cauliflower crust pizza, you might as well eat you know, a bread crust if you want 40 carbs per serving. Real Good Foods is just that they are made with real ingredients, you know stuff you can pronounce. It's so easy to find. They have that locator on their website, it's in our grocery store. It's in our Walmart, and you can order everything online, find out more, go to Diabetes, Connections comm and click on the Real Good Foods logo.   My guests this week are part of the history of the diabetes DIY movement. longtime listeners know that I am fascinated by the we are not Waiting crowd. And I can't say enough about what they have done for our community. In fact, I'm actually trying to put together an oral history. And we've talked to a lot of people since 2015. When I started the show about this movement. The big problem is a lot of these wonderful engineering and tech types are a little spotlight adverse. You know who you are, but I'll get there. I did reach out to Kevin and Melissa, because, you know, I've talked to Melissa a few times about pregnancy and type one and other issues. I think that the show we did as a panel with other guests about pregnancy in type one and Steel Magnolias is frankly, one of the top 10 episodes, not because of me, but the guests are so amazing. And that night gets so much praise on that episode, people, you know, women pass it around. I'll link that up in the show notes. But you know, I hadn't heard Melissa and Kevin's story, and their names always come up when we hear about the early days of the DIY builders. So our talk today is about much more than the technology it's also about marriage and kids and diabetes and sharing data. You know how that affects your life. Quick note, Kevin now works for Big Foot biomedical and Melissa works for tide pool. If those names don't mean anything to you, if you don't know what those are, or you know what they do, might be a little bit of a confusing interview. There's some presumed knowledge here, I will put some links in the show notes, you may want to go back and listen to previous episodes about the we're not waiting movement or just check out the links. Also, it is really hard to get people to acknowledge the difference they've made. These are all very modest people. God loves them, but I do try. So here's my interview with Kevin and Melissa Lee, Melissa and Kevin, I am so excited to talk to you two together. Thanks for making time to do this. I know how busy you both are.   Melissa Lee  7:43 Thank you for having us on. This is a fun thing to get to do.   Stacey Simms  7:47 I don't know if Kevin's gonna think it's that fun. We'll see. And I say that because in the small way that I know you you don't seem like you're quite as conversational and chatty is as we Melissa, well, we'll see how it goes. Kevin, thanks for joining us and putting up with me already.   Melissa Lee  8:04 Well, you know, he actually is until you stick a microphone in front of his face. Oh, okay. You know, beyond that, yeah.   Stacey Simms  8:12 Well, let's start when when you guys started, and Melissa, I will ask you first How did you meet?   Melissa Lee  8:17 Oh, this is a story I love to tell. And Kevin's gonna already be like, why did I agree to do this? So this was like 2006 and I spent a couple of years doing internet dating. And you know, I'm very extroverted and and like a go getter. And I had just been on, like, 40 bad days, basically, on the internet. Basically, I was broke from spending money on lots of different dating sites, and I found a free one. But during that one, it turns out that this guy was on it because one, it was free. And two, he liked their matching algorithm that tells you a little bit about why you needed so we met online and then What a year and a half later, we were married. Wow. So yeah, we were married in late 2007. At the time, I was a music teacher. And Kevin, how would you describe what you did in the world? Kevin: I was working at Burlington, Northern Santa Fe, just deploying web applications as a contractor to IBM. And then in our early years, you worked for capital, one bank doing infrastructure architecture, and then later for American Airlines doing their instructor architecture. So we like to say, you know, we've been in finance he's been in travel is been in transport. He's been in lots of different fields doing that same thing that I just said infrastructure architecture, which I will not explain.   Stacey Simms  9:44 So, Kevin, when did you go from checking out the algorithm of the dating app, to noticing that perhaps the diabetes technology that your girlfriend and fiancé and wife was using, when did you notice that it really could be done better. And then you could do it   Kevin Lee  10:02 became a little bit later. And it first I kind of just let her her do her own thing. She managed it. She managed it well. And then as we started to progress, and we both wanted kids,   Melissa Lee  10:16 yes, we got back from the honeymoon and I had babies on the brain and two of my bridesmaids were pregnant. And then I have this whole, you know, in our pregnancy podcasts that we did together, I had babies on the brain, but I had this diabetes hanging over me. And I think that that was a huge motivator for both of us. So like mid 2008, my insulin pump was out of warranty. Kevin Lee And so that's that's whenever I really started to encourage her and I started getting involved and saying, hey, let's let's go experiment. Let's find what's what's right. Let's look at what else what other options exist and didn't find too many other options but no, we I did switch I switched insulin pump brands and we started talking about this new thing that was going to be coming to market called the CGM. Melissa Lee So I got my first CGM within the next year. And Kevin immediately started trying to figure out how it works. So this was the freestyle navigator. And this was like 2009. I think I was maybe already pregnant or about to be pregnant. And Kevin was trying to hack this device.   Stacey Simms  11:25 So what does that mean? When you said you started to figure it out? What did you do?   Kevin Lee  11:29 Well, it bugged me that the acceptable solution was the we had this little device that had a range of measured in the 10s of feet. That was it. And I had a commute. At the time, I was working at American Airlines and my commute was 45 miles one day daily, and she was pregnant, and I just wanted some sort of assurance that she was safe and there was no way to get that and I just wanted to be able to You know, it was obvious that this center was sending the data that I wanted on the available through an internet connection. How do I get that? Ultimately, that effort was unsuccessful. And that's when we started going to friends for life. And there, that's where we saw I guess Ed Damiano’s connected solution where there's remote monitoring, and we saw the Dexcom. And that's whenever I thought, hey, if that's an option, and so we started looking into the Dexcom and switched over.   Stacey Simms  12:39 I'm gonna jump in because I'm a little confused. When you said you said Damiano’s connected set up, I thought that he was showing off what is now called the iLet and the new the bio hormonal insulin pump. What was the Dexcom component to that that you hadn't seen before?   Kevin Lee  12:54 So it was just a simple remote monitoring, you know, he needed to be able to as part His research to be able to remotely monitor the patients that were well,   Melissa Lee  13:05 specifically, he had an early version of the bionic pancreas had a Dexcom that was cabled to a phone. Oh, and so if you look back at like, 2012 And so like he I remember Kevin holding the setup in his hand and looking at it and being like, you know, this is fascinating. Like, I have an idea.   Stacey Simms  13:30 Because at the time and I'll find a picture of it, but it was cable to a phone. And there were at least two insects from the pump. So you had to have the the CGM inset and then you had to have two pumping sets and then the phone cable for the bionic pancreas at that time. Am I thinking of the right picture?   Kevin Lee  13:45 No, I really should   see all of that.   Melissa Lee  13:49 You know, like we're so old at this point.   Like, like eight years ago now I wasn't realizing because how have my children are but this You know, I want to say that this was even before we'd have to go back and back with them.   Kevin Lee  14:05 Yeah. And that was just the moment that hey, okay, this is another alternative. And we were, we were actually looking to switch at the time because I think that's when the note and I switched.   Melissa Lee  14:17 Okay, we had to switch because navigator went off the market in 2011. So this is right around the time, we just switch to that.   Unknown Speaker  14:24 So what did you do with the Dexcom ,   Kevin Lee  14:26 whenever we noticed that there was a little port that was also used for, for charging and for data, I connected to it and started reverse engineering it sending data and seeing what we got back and trying to get that data off. It was first connected to my little Mac MacBook Pro. And I just had a goal over Thanksgiving to be able to get that data out of the CGM. And it took three or four days and I was able to get basic data out of the system. In premiere, it was just as simple as uploading it, and then visualizing it.   Stacey Simms  15:06 So for perspective, and I want to be careful here because I know there were a lot of people working on a lot of different things. I'll be honest with you. I'm not looking for who was first or when did that happen? Exactly. But just for perspective, is this basically the same thing that we then saw, like john Costik, put up on Twitter when he said he got it like on the laptop? Or, like, what would we have seen if we had been sitting in your house that day?   Right back to Kevin and Melissa, but first, you know, it is so nice to find a diabetes product that not only does what you need, but also fits in perfectly with your life. One drop is just that it is the sleekest looking and most modern meter I family's ever used. And it's not just about their modern meter setup. You can also send your readings to the mobile app automatically and review your data anytime. Instantly share blood glucose reports with your healthcare team. It also works With your Dexcom Fitbit or your Apple Watch, and not to mention, they have that awesome test strip subscription plan, pick as many test strips as you need, and they'll deliver them to your door. One drop diabetes care delivered, learn more, go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the one drop logo. Now back to Kevin answering my question about what does it look like when he figured out how to reverse engineering the free the Dexcom data.   Kevin Lee  16:30 Absolutely that we would you would have seen a little text flying by saying this is the the glucose number. Yeah, on the on the computer. It wouldn't have been very exciting to most. And from there, Melissa tweeted out saying hey, we have the data available from our Mac and I guess that's where Joyce Lee picked up on it and wanted some more information.   Stacey Simms  16:55 All right. So Melissa, take it from there.   Melissa Lee  16:56 Yeah, you know, Joyce has been a real champion as those early days. Why date and so I remember her reaching out to me and saying this is this is really interesting. I want to know more. And in this was the same year that Dana and Scott were bringing their thing to life with what was then DIY APS. This is around the same time, same era in history that, that john Costik was doing his great stuff and with Lane Desborough and the early days of Nightscout, so all of these things were happening in these little pockets, and we were just another little pocket at the time. One of the things that concerned us was whether we were doing something that was going to be shut down really quickly, like there's something that you find knowingly or unknowingly, it's kind of like when you agree to the terms on iTunes. So when you use these devices, there's something called an EULA and End User License Agreement. And these eu la say, you're not going to reverse engineer this product. And so we were a little cautious about what we wanted to diseminate in terms of like your take this and run with it, but that culture was still developing. And so at the end of that year was the big d-data event at the diabetes mine summit, where there were a few really key DIY influencers sort of in the room. This is where Lane first coined the we are not waiting and, and the next day I was at that summit, and I was hearing Howard Look speak about what had happened at the d-data summit the day before. And I was like, Oh, my God, Kevin has to plug into this. So we want to help this initiative. Like we want to be a part of this. We have so much to offer we this whole remote monitoring setup that he had built for me. And at the time, like by then I think one of the biggest things we have done is Kevin has developed do you want to talk about glass.   Kevin Lee  18:51 Yeah, it was just a another way to visualize the data. So Google Glass, I don't know if you remember that. It was a kind of a connection eyeglass. Yeah, in some ways, it was ahead of its time in other ways. It was just a really interesting idea. I got a pair, and I was able to have it alert me when she crossed the simple threshold. And I was able to see historically three hours or 12 hours or whatever it was without having to pull up a web page. It was just kind of always there and on available for me if and when I needed it. So it was just kind of an ambient thing in the background that I didn't feel like a I had to worry about.   Stacey Simms  19:38 Interesting. Kevin, I'm curious in those early days, so if I could just jump in. You know, you you don't have type one. You care very much about someone with type one and you're doing this because you care about her and want to make sure she's safe. When you started meeting other people who were doing the same thing. What was that like for you? I know it's chancy to ask an engineer about how they feel but it had to have been nice to get kinship with these other people who basically spoke your language and also understood the importance behind what was going on.   Kevin Lee  20:07 Yeah, so that was actually really kind of interesting whenever we first started sharing that we wanted to share it just with a small group of people. And I think it was Manny Hernandez that introduced me directly to Wayne and Howard and a few other Brian Maslisch.   Melissa Lee  20:28 yeah, so I like to tell the story that I chased Howard Look down in the hallway after that, and was like, you have to connect with my husband. And then that didn't seem to work. So that's when Manny was like Manny Hernandez, who was the founder of Diabetes Hands Foundation. He is a good friend of ours and he was like, No, I have to connect you to these guys.   Kevin Lee  21:15 And so there's this pivotal email thread from January of 2014, where we started exchanging The well, here's the project that I've done and Lane says, Well, here's a project that that we've been working on and we call it Nightscout. And so we, we kind of exchange notes. And then it was a little bit later that Lane, well, maybe not lane. Exactly. But that's when the the whole CGM in the cloud and the Nightscout. Early foundations started to show up on on Facebook. I think that's whenever another engineer had published the code on GitHub, and started to set appears. Here's how you set it up. Well, there weren't many in my situation, you know, one of the engineers was a parent. And I think we actually made a really great mix. And I think that that's part of what made the successful so one of the engineers working on the project was A father of a type one I represented the spouse and some of the other engineers were personally affected by by type one, and definitely added a different level increase the camaraderie between us. Those are early days we were were on the phone almost nightly. As soon as I get off my my day job, I'd go home and work on the evening job of trying to get the next set of features out or to fix some new fixes. I love to describe this day because throughout 2014 he would walk in the door and he was already on the phone with the other devs from night out. And if I walked in the room where he was working on the computer, I would be like, Hey, Kevin, and then I'd be like, hey, Ross Hey Jason, because I assumed that they were on the phone. Hey, Ben.   Melissa Lee  22:56 Like it was staying up all night long. They didn't sleep. They did this all day long. Kevin talk a little bit about the pieces you brought in tonight that from our system that we created, and then we like I, I have two producing diabetes data. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna claim a lot of that. But I was just plugged into it. If people are familiar today with Nightscout, which many listeners may be like, what piece did they hold in their hands? That was yours.   Kevin Lee  23:26 So the the piece that I was so connected with was the what we refer to as the uploader. It was just a piece of extracted the data from the CGM and then uploaded it to the Nightscout website. The early days. I don't know if you remember it was the little 3d printed case with a phone that you got that happened to have a data plan and a wire connected to the the CGM. Right whenever Nightscout first came out, I was I was hesitant to start I mean, this was like the first few months I was hesitant to contribute. I wanted to see What I could do, but as it started to pick up be there, it was obvious that the pace of development that I was doing on my own was not going to equal what the rest of the community could be doing. But then he and I had these other features, which I'll go into in a moment here that I felt the community could benefit from. So we started having early conversations with Ben and others. How do we fold in functionality that I had into the current uploader, that functionality was essentially the early ability to follow on a native phone app, it was decreasing the size of the packet and uploading more so using less data. It was an Android watch, being able to get the latest data on an Android watch. It was used in camping mode. I don't know if you're familiar with that. But the early days of knights count we had the pebbles that We're kind of Bluetooth connected smartwatch, that use the little EEG displays. Those required you to be connected to the internet. And one of the devs Jason Calabrese had said, I'm going camping next week. And I'm not going to have internet connectivity. And I sure wish that that I could. So I thought about it for a minute. And were able to quickly reconfigure it the existing code to be able to get that data on the watch without an internet connection. So   Stacey Simms  25:32 camping mode literally came from a camping trip. Yes.   Kevin Lee  25:37 Jason Calibrese’s  says camping trip.   Melissa Lee  25:40 So well, and then the code that became xdrip which like thousands of people use today.   Kevin Lee  25:46 So that's, that's a great thing about open source community, whatever ideas reverberating off of each other and become more pronounced and it essentially becomes the sum is greater than the whole.   Unknown Speaker  25:59 Let me ask about xdrip, though, was it originally called Dexdrip? was that one of the first times Dexcom got involved and said No thank you, or did I miss remember that,   Melissa Lee  26:10 that was all part of Emma Black’s history. Emma took the code that Kevin and created and, and created built on top of that to create Dexdrip. And Dexcom did say you can't use our name and became accept yeah that you're remembering correctly. It was a very friendly discussion. And so it was renamed to xdrip. But you bring up an important point about how industry was reacting to all of us in late 2014. The team at Medtronic actually invited many of the community members who were working on that into sort of the belly of the beast, and to come in and talk to them about the why and the challenges and the what could industry do and and What are we not hearing and just sort of like a meeting of the minds. But what was so cool about this is this is the first time that many of us had met one another in person. So here, people have been working on this for a year or two. And now suddenly, it's a table with Dana Lewis and Scott Lybrand with john Costik with Ben west with me with Kevin, with Jason Calabrese, like we're sitting around a table for the first time and talking with industry as this United Community. So it felt a little less, to me, at least as someone who's been really involved in fostering community, right? It felt to me like there's the start of something here. And that was a really exciting meeting. We like to joke that nothing came of it. I was gonna ask about that. But to me like that was exciting. It was this energy of like, we all came to the table and said like, these are the needs of the community. This is why we need remote monitoring. And this is what we're gonna do next. And you can either help us or understand we'll do it anyway. And so that was that we are not waiting spirit.   Stacey Simms  28:08 Well, and that was a very pivotal time. And, Melissa, let me just continue with that thought if I could, it was such a pivotal time, because you all could have said, we are not going to continue without you. Right? We need this. But it seemed to me and again, it's hard to for me, you know, it's funny that it's so long ago now. But it's only four. It's like, it's only five or six years ago, really? The seeds of that community. And you can see it just in the Facebook group with CGM in the cloud and everything else. There's 10s of thousands of people now who are part of this community. You know, did you saw the seeds if it Then did you ever imagine it was gonna get as big as it is now?   Unknown Speaker  28:48 Is it crazy to say yeah?   Kevin Lee  28:54 to directly answer the question. Yes. And that's where we were actually Faced with a another really tough decision of how do we continue to solve these problems? And we started to see the scalability problem that what we viewed as a scalability problem within the community. How do we continue to support it? And how do we deliver this safely to masses? It was a choice that we had to make of if we're doing the industry and we, we try to do it this way. I don't know there, there isn't really one right or wrong way to do it, but it was just a another way. And we believe that by joining the industry that we could deliver something simple, easy, and we could make it scalable and supportable for the masses.   Melissa Lee  29:44 I think those things like those meetings with Medtronic or, or Dexcom, early on. I mean, I remember sitting in Kevin Sayers office at Dexcom and I was there for a completely other reason. I was there on behalf of Diabetes Hands Foundation said and I just like went off about night prayer. But those conversations gave us a really like I want to recognize my privilege in that to be able to be in a position to go sit with leadership at these big diabetes device companies. But let us see that there was a way to bring the change we were doing outside. I don't want to use the word infiltrate because that sounds   to infuse what industry was trying to do with community perspective and patient perspective and and the change that we knew was possible. And that resulted in both of us for huge career changes.   Stacey Simms  30:43 And we will get to that for sure. Because it's fascinating when you mentioned and you know, we're doing a lot of name dropping here. And if you're if you're new to this and you've listened this far, I promise. I will be putting a lot of notes on the episode homepage and you can go back and listen to other episodes, but there's a lot of names that have Gone By. And a lot of names that you mentioned are people who either founded or were instrumental in the founding of newer independent companies that came out of at least as I see it, this DIY wave that happened in the mid 2010, that you all are talking about. And now you both, you know, you work with these companies and for these companies, but I want to continue this the scalability, as you mentioned, because it's remarkable that even as all those companies, I mean, Big Foot tide pool, you know, even as these companies came out of this, you're still servicing all these, and I'll call us lay people. I mean, I, you know, most of the people who were early adopters of Nightscout or things like that seem to have some kind of engineering background or something that helps software makes sense. But then the floodgates opened, and it was just easy for people or easier than it seemed for people to do that. Kevin, was there a point that you kind of remember looking at this and thinking, you don't have to be an engineer.   Kevin Lee  31:59 That's actually part of the reason why I continue to contribute with Nightscout and in the early days, we decided we were going to go ahead and launch on the Play Store. So we set up an account. And you know, instead of having to go out download the source code, compile it, we distributed it is via the channel that users were used to receiving their their app from. Another thing that we introduced was the barcode scanning. So what we found out was set up of the app was a little more complex than it needed to be. And so we introduced the the concept of barcode scanning to set that up,   Melissa Lee  32:42 which now exists in the commercial like every time you start a new transmitter on a Dexcom system today, you scan a barcode on the side of the box. Kevin did that. I remember, I'm not claiming but next time did not develop that on their own. I am just claiming Hey, we.. yes.   Unknown Speaker  32:59 out Yeah.   Stacey Simms  33:02 Yeah, that's wild. I did. Yeah, I was thinking about that. Because now that's, of course, that's how we do it. And Melissa, I know I'm kind of jumping around here, but I have so many questions. I wanted to ask you earlier. What was it like for you? At this time? You said, Well, I just provided the data. I mean, what was it like for you during this time other than, you know, just popping in and saying, Hey, honey, how were the phone calls going? It had just been exciting and a little nerve racking for you. What was it like,   Melissa Lee  33:30 by my count, and again, Not that it matters? I think I was the first spouse to be followed.   Sounds creepy, doesn't it? I was the first CGM stocks 4000. Now, um, but one of the things, it did a few things for me, and I'll never forget one day I was in the kitchen and I've got babies and toddler and lay like it had just been a day right when you're a young mom, and you've got Little ones and it has just been a day and Kevin walks in and he said, and you've had a really hard day and I just looked at him like, Are you an idiot? Yes.   And I was like, What are you talking about? And he was like your numbers. Oh, and I just looked at him and I didn't realize I just looked at him and he said, this is how every day is, isn't it? And like I still get chills thinking about it Stacey I like it was the first time that anybody outside of me or another person with diabetes looked at me and said, I see you this is hard. And I didn't even know like I probably said yes, you idiot I've had a hard day   Unknown Speaker  34:46 I doubt it.   Kevin Lee  34:48 I had worked on some some code to make Nightscout available via personal assistance. Think the Alexa and Google Home and, and other things. And while I was experimenting and testing it, it became very clear that I was not allowed to ask what what those values were.   Melissa Lee  35:14 He was like, it’ll will be so handy. And if you're in the middle of cooking and you've got like, you know, stuff on your hands, you can just ask it. But like, what you don't do is you know, your wife snaps at you. And you say, Alexa, what's her blood sugar right now? Like, that is not what you do. So now the story I was going to tell Oh, Stacey, you're gonna love this one. So this is like early 2015. And I am the Interim Executive of a nonprofit and I'm representing patients at this endocrinologist a meeting, and I'm alone in a hotel, and I had been out with all these endocrinologists and we've had tacos at a bar and I have no idea what my glucose was, but I had calibrated my CGM with probably tacos all over my hands. I go to bed. Well, this poor man, I'm in Nashville. He's in Dallas. This poor man is getting   Kevin Lee  36:09 the blood sugar was reading his 39. Yes, for those who don't know, is the world. The CGM can read anything below that he registered   Melissa Lee  36:19 as low. I have my phone on silent because I've been out with all these professionals. So he had called me 18 times. It didn't go through Sunday night disturb so far in two hours reading, like a 39. So hotel security burst into my room. Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Lee, are you okay? Do we need to call an ambulance, this string of expletives that came out of my mouth? I will not repeat on this good family show. But I was so mad and you know, I'm calling him and I'm like, I'm like 130 right now. Fine. by that same token, I have lots of like really lovely stories where You know, I'm alone in a hotel in New Jersey, and he wakes me up in the middle of the night to say, you know, wake up and eat something, honey. So, yes, there is a good story, but I must prefer the story where he had security break into my room. Oh, my God over over what nights? That was it. So, you know, but to your question, we really were on the very bleeding edge of understanding things that you actually already deal with, with your son today and that people deal with today in terms of how will we actually establish boundaries on how much of my data you get to react to and for all the times that it is a benefit? Where are the times where it's like, no, I actually have to cut you off. We're now like seven years into him following my data. And so in some ways, I think we both see where people will get to when following data is the norm you know, should it ever scale by Live in terms of now, he doesn't look at my data all the time. Now he knows when to respond when it weren't so good. But it made me feel understood. It also made me feel a lot safer to know that just have somebody else watching my own back. I'll be celebrating 30 years with type one this year and celebrating is, you know, you've been   away there. But like to know that like somebody else is just there to pick up a little bit of slack you have for someone like where you are, it can be hard because I know when teams don't always appreciate or show their appreciation in the same way. But there is an appreciation for the fact that that you're there to pick up a little bit of slack just as much as there is resentment and issues with boundaries. And in times when they really need to just shut your assets off. And so I feel like we're just a little bit further down that road in some ways, you know, we'll let you know when we have it all figured out. But Exactly.   And what's right for us as a couple is not necessarily going to be right. For every couple, you know, there are couples that really feel like, no, my data is mine. And I don't trust you not to react to it in a way that's going to make diabetes any harder for me. And I think that that's what we 100% have, that I'm very fortunate to have is that I trust Kevin, to react to my data, the way that I'm comfortable with him reacting to my data.   Stacey Simms  39:33 So both of you, through this process wound up not only having two kids, but you made big job changes. And you now both work in the diabetes sphere. And I hope you don't mind I'd really like to talk about that a little bit. Because I mean, you mentioned the beginning. Listen, you're a music teacher. And you're right, your background, your music professional. You are Bigfoot for a couple years and now you are a tight pool and you're basically I'm going to get a But you're helping tide pool so that they can better train people and kind of explain to healthcare professionals and the public to kind of I look at that as translating, is that sort of what you're doing there?   Melissa Lee  40:12 Yes or no. So for instance, I know your family has just started with a new piece of diabetes technology. There were certain training modules that were there to support you. There's certain learning materials that were provided to your child's doctor so that they understood what they were prescribing. There's a user guide that comes with the stuff that you use in your family today, if you're buying things from companies off the shelf, and what the DIY community when we're talking about scalability, and how important that is to each of us having a knee accessibility, scalability availability like these important, how do we bring this to people in a way that they will actually be able to access tide pool announced about a year ago that they were going to take one of the DIY, automated insulin dosing systems and actually bring it through FDA review. Part of that is it has to have the kind of onboarding and support materials that your insulin pump he buys a medical pump and has today. So I am leading the development of all of those materials for both the clinics and the doctors, as well as for the end user to learn the system.   Stacey Simms  41:30 And Kevin, you're still a big foot. So you're a principal engineer there. What excites you about what you're doing there? Is it again about the accessibility because I know you know, Bigfoot is not yet to market but people are very excited about it.   Kevin Lee  41:41 Yeah. Accessibility is one of the large parts and reliability going through the DIY stuff. It's happening at an incredible pace change is happening there and things break things don't always go the way that you intended. There has to be balance there somewhere? Well, you have to have services. I mean, look at what happened recently with server outages and different companies, you have to be prepared for how am I going to support this time, I'm going to keep it running, you know, whatever the it is, it's that the reliability, we're all we're all human, that's humans behind the scenes, making the the changes and improvements that we rely on. So how do we do that safely and effectively as possible to minimize the impact and continue to increase the value to the user?   Stacey Simms  42:37 This might be a very dumb question. But Kevin, let me ask you, Melissa mentioned the the new software that we're using, and she's talking about control IQ from tandem, which is the software that we've got now. And there are other commercial quote solutions. There's other commercial systems coming out when you look back at all the stuff that the DIY community did, and is continuing to do. Do you feel like you guys really, really pushed it along? I mean, I gotta tell you and I know nothing. And I never even used Nightscout and people laugh at me. But I think we would never be close to where we are commercially. Does that add up to you?   Kevin Lee  43:12 Yeah, it adds up. It's not for everyone. You know, it is bleeding edge, the community, in a lot of ways drives industry.   Stacey Simms  43:21 You I'm not asking you to say specifically without this wouldn't have that. But it just seems to me that we would have gotten there eventually. But I don't know that the people behind Knight Scott and so much of the other things you've mentioned, really either got into industry and help push things along or helps with the FDA. You know, is it as kind of an outsider on this. Can you speak to whether that's true?   Kevin Lee  43:44 Yeah, absolutely. I think that it had you I mean, that's the nature of competition. There was an unmet need in the community and the unmet need was was fulfilled.   Melissa Lee  43:55 Well, what I would say is industry needs to see that something viability as an idea and so, I firmly believe that many of these things were floating around in companies as potential developments in the pipeline. What the community did with our DIY efforts is say, we are so desperate to this thing, we will just build it ourselves if you can't deliver. And so I think it helps prioritize like I've seen almost every company in the industry actually skip over other things that were in their pipeline to get to these things and reprioritize their own product roadmap to try to deliver. And I don't think it's, I it's not in a Oh, we better get this or the community is going to do it themselves way. It's a, okay, this is a real need, and we should, we should focus our resources on this. A lot of ways it's a playground for industry to concepts, live and die much more quickly in the DIY community than they do and it allows you to to iterate faster and find out what does and doesn't work, open source communities have existed outside of diabetes, obviously, it's a and throughout the last few decades, we've seen what happens in the open source world actually drive change in the industries to which they're associated. And so I think there are analogies to this in terms of like, what happens in the software industry, with personal computing with consumer electronics, so I don't, I don't find it at all odd or ridiculous to say that the DIY community and diabetes has actually resulted in change within industry. I mean, if only if, like you pointed out so many of those names, but we, you know, we're dropping them because we want to see people recognized for their extraordinary contributions, right. But all of those people, many of them have gone on to found companies, invent new things, join other companies. What's your Modeling about open source communities, regardless of field or genre or whatever is that you see that you see new people roll in with new ideas and lay new work on the foundations of code that were left behind and innovate and continue to innovate. And so we will see the DIY community around forever, they will continue to innovate. And we will also see many of those innovators move on into the industries in which they're working. This is a personal choice that they have to make them they'll go through the same decisions that we did. And not everybody. Well, I mean, Dana lewis is not associated with the company. We're not saying that that's an inevitability, right? But it's pretty common. You have to be pretty geeky probably to know of other open source communities. And I'm, you know, Kevin is way more well versed to speak about that, but in the way of fan   Stacey Simms  46:56 before I let you go, this all started because you wanted have kids, right? This this is the timeline that you set out from your weight the beginning here, and your kids now they're both in grade school, your daughter's 10, your son is eight. I'm curious, do they know their part in this story? Because it's not an exaggeration to say, and I'll say for you, it's not an exaggeration to say that you wanting to have kids sparked action in Kevin, that, frankly, has helped thousands of people. I know you didn't do it alone. I know. I know. I know. But your kids know the part that they played   Melissa Lee  47:31 to a degree like they know that we help people with diabetes. And they take that really seriously. As a matter of fact, when I was changing roles from my role at Bigfoot to my role at tide pool, my daughter's first question was like, but you'll still be helping people with diabetes, like will Bigfoot still be able to help people with diabetes like yes, it's all it's all good. We're all good. We're all still helping people with diabetes and they've grown up with these things in the sense that we love to tell the story of when our son was about three years old and he would hear the Nightscout song that would was basically the alert that would play. And he knew that when I was low, there was a bag of sour ball candy on the top shelf of the pantry that came down. So he would hear that sound that Nightscout song and that song was sour balls to him and he was “sour balls sour balls!” he  was all in or maybe like two I mean, he was little It was too and so like it became the sour balls song, right? You know, the other day he heard the Nightscout will song play and he said mom who undid that song and I posted something to Facebook. Well basically lane desborough and better that song or found it. I wrote something about like I just set my son down. I said, let me tell you the story of our people and how we came to the valley of silicon you know, which is of course not the way I said it to an eight year old but as you know amusing myself But essentially, you know, there is some of these folks that they literally do talk about uncle lane and Uncle Manny and Uncle Ben and like my daughter thinks she has a lot of uncles. But, you know, so they know that we've helped a great many people. And as they as they get older, and we can sort of expound on that, then I think, well, let's be honest, they won't care.   For a while, right? teenagers will be like we shut up about, oh, they'll care.   Unknown Speaker  49:30 They just want to know they care.   Melissa Lee  49:34 Someday, they'll appreciate it, and a different way, but that's what they know. Now,   Stacey Simms  49:40 Kevin, you also said this was about your commute, making sure Melissa was safe. Knowing that Melissa is a very strong and independent woman. Do you feel like she's safe? Did that check that box for you all this hard work?   Kevin Lee  49:53 Yeah, absolutely. This is kind of something that she went into earlier, but I really view the monitor. That I've done and the work that I've done is really just augmenting and trying to simplify and make her life easier. We first started dating, I actually told her that you will never find somebody work harder at being lazy than than me. And, you know, that was just the testament of I wanted to automate all the things that are just repetitive and predictable and easily managed to try to get that out of the way. And that comes from the background of operations and managing online sites. Being able to automate those those aspects have helped me feel like it's more safe. And then you know, other times like with with monitoring, it's great to be able to just see that you know, she's about to go out for a walk and then I happened to look over at Nightscout see how much insulin she has on board and where she is and say, you might want to run a temp basal. So it's just there. To try to augment and help her navigate it. And so yeah, it does give me a sense that she's safer because of this. Melissa Yeah, that's right. I got really mad at him the other day, he was right. I was like, whatever. And I left the house and I went massively low. I was walking the kids to school. I was like, Yeah, well, fine. So you know, there's that two parents completely unfamiliar to you. And   Stacey Simms  51:21 it sounds more like my marriage actually diabetes or not. That's just a component of marriage. Yeah, she was right again. Oh, oh, well, you know, thank you so much for spending so much time with me. I love your story. I just think that there are just amazing people that I hate have diabetes. But I'm glad if you had to that you've done so much for so many others who have it as well. And I really appreciate you spending some time to tell us these things from years ago now because they're really are important as we move forward. So thanks for being with me.   Melissa Lee  51:56 Thank you so much for being interested in the story and for help. Others here are cranky, Stan.   Unknown Speaker  52:08 You're listening to diabetes connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  52:14 Much More information at Diabetes connections.com you can always click on the episode page and find out more transcript is there as well. I just adore them. I know the interview went longer than usual, but I couldn't help myself. And as I said in Episode 300, when I looked back on 300 episodes, Melissa really helped change my place in the diabetes community by inviting me to speak at master lab in 2015. That really did change how I felt about where I want it to be helped me find and focus my voice. I really can't overstate that enough. So thanks Melissa, for doing that. And again, lots of information went by very quickly let them name dropping there in a good way. And I promise I will keep on the Nightscout crew. I may ask some of you as you listen to lean on your friends, I'm not going to mention any names here. But people that I have reached out to, and they're the usual suspects. If you search, we are not waiting, or Nightscout on the website, you'll see some big omissions. So I'll talk more about that on social media, we'll get them as a community. Maybe it's just me, you know, who's fascinated by this. But I do think it's a very important part of our history that we need to document because in a few more years, many of the solutions that people like Kevin were working on are going to be all commercial and all FDA approved. And isn't that wonderful, but I don't want to forget what happened. And I think it'll be great to look back. Okay, enough about that. I got Tell me something good coming up in just a moment. And then stay tuned. Later, I'm going to tell you another change we made to how we use control IQ with Benny, but first diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dexcom. And it is really hard to think of something that has changed our diabetes management as much as the Dexcom share and follow apps. I mean, what really amazed me we started it when Benny was about nine years old, the decks calm and we got shareable. little less than two years later, and the most immediate change was how it helped us talk less about diabetes. And boy did that come just in time for us because that's the wonderful thing about share and follow as a caregiver, parent, spouse, whatever, you can help the person with diabetes managed in the way that works for your individual situation, and going into those tween and teen years. It sounds counterintuitive, but being able to talk about diabetes less what's your number? Did you check what's your number? You know, so helpful. Internet connectivity is required to access Dexcom follow separate follow app required learn more, go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the Dexcom logo.   I am cheating a little bit this week for Tell me something good because while I usually read you listener submissions, I saw this on beyond type ones Facebook page, and I just had to share they did a whole post about people with type one getting married and they wanted Hear the wedding stories. So they started out with a a big Congrats, by the way to Kelsey, her husband Derek, and this adorable picture of them. They're both low at their wedding and they're sipping some juice boxes. And Kelsey is part of the beyond type one Leadership Council. So congratulations to you both. It's a really adorable picture. I'm gonna link up the whole Facebook thread because people share stories like you know, I had my pump tucked into my bra and I didn't think I needed during the wedding or I was a bridesmaid and I had it there and I had to reach in, um, you know, other people who went low trying on wedding dresses. I mean, I remember this. So this person writes, I went low in David's bridal trying on wedding dresses. It's a lot more physical than you think getting in and out of dresses and slips, hot lights and just emotions. My mom had to run across the street and grab a Snickers. I was standing in the doorway of the fitting room and inhaling a Snickers, praying I didn't get any on the clothes, which just added an extra level of stress. I remember a Polish ties into the employee helping me and he was like I don't even worry about it. And he stayed with me to make sure I was okay. Another woman writes my mom came up to me right before we were set to walk into the reception. She told me she had hidden a juice under our sweetheart table in case I went low. I've been diabetic 30 years and my mom still carry snacks for me in her purse. Sure enough, right after dinner, I ended up needing it. And the last one here, being excited, nervous and unable to sit still. I did a long and intense bike ride prior to my evening wedding. Luckily we had a chocolate fountain at our reception and I spent a large chunk of the night at or near it, and this goes on and on. So what a wonderful thread congratulations to everybody who is talking about their weddings and their their wonderful stories of support. And the humor that's on display here is amazing. So I will link that up. You can go and read there's there's dozens of comments. If you've got a story like this Hey, that's what Tell me something good is for send me your your stories, your milestones, your diversities, your good stuff, you know anything from the healthcare heroes in our community. With cute who put his first inset in to a person celebrating 70 years with type one I post on social media just look for those threads. Or you can always email me Stacey at Diabetes connections.com. Before I let you go, I had promised to share the other change we made to control IQ. In addition to eliminating the long acting basal that we had used, you know, untethered for almost two years, we decided recently to completely turn off sleep mode. I know a lot of you enjoy sleep mode 24 seven, as we said back in our episode, gosh, in late December, when control IQ was approved in the studies, they called you folks sleeping beauties, because you enjoy that 24 seven sleep mode. But I found that since school has ended, and we're trying to figure out what to do with Benny for the summer, there is nothing really that's keeping him on a regular sleep schedule, and it's gotten to the point where he is now so nocturnal, and I'm hearing this about a lot of my friends with teenagers. Maybe I sound like a tear. Parents go to bed at like four or five, six o'clock in the morning. I walked into his room at eight o'clock in the morning the other day, I wanted to ask him a question. I was like, I gotta wake him up and he was awake can come to sleep yet. You know, it boggles my mind. It's all topsy turvy. And we'll get back into a routine at some point, but I'm not really willing to make a big fuss about it. He's key is keeping busy overnight. I guess his friends are up, I don't know. But anyway, the point is, he's eating it really weird hours. And when he was in sleep mode, we noticed that it wasn't helping as much right because it doesn't bolus you in sleep mode. It only adjusts Faisal. So if you under bolus for his you know, Pad Thai at two in the morning, it wasn't helping out and true story. I asked him about that. Like, what's this line? And what happened overnight here, were you sleeping He's like, No, I was in the kitchen eating leftover Thai food. So we decided that his numbers during the the quote, day when he was sleeping, we're hovering right around 90, maybe a 110. I mean, it was very in range, right? No need to mess with that. So I didn't think we needed to add sleep mode. And I did want to predict when he would actually be sleeping. So we just turned it off. And that has made a big difference too. So I guess the bottom line is figure out what works for you for your individual situation, the weirdo wacko situation, if it's us, but you know, use this technology to benefit you, whatever way that is, if it's sleep mode right now, 24 seven, if it's no sleep mode, it's exercise mood all the time. And it'll be so fascinating to see. And this ties back into the DIY movement, right? It'll be great to see the flexibility that we will get in the next couple of years because, you know, Medtronic had a tie a higher target range, because they were first with the hybrid closed loop. tandem has a lower one Omni pod, we'll have a more flexible target, you can set your own target when they come out with horizon and of course, tandem and everybody else is going to be moving to that direction as well. And it just keeps getting better. But it gets better because people like Melissa and Kevin Lee pushed and pushed and without these folks, and there's so many of them, of course, right who said we can do it better, we would not be where we are. I truly believe that technology companies would be five or six years behind and if you're new To the show new to the community and you're excited about, you know, control IQ or horizon or whatever you're using. Or maybe you're using, you know, loop off label with Omni pod, I would urge you to go back and check out our earlier episodes from 2015 and 2016. And learn about the really early days of the community, obviously, by 2015. We're talking about things that happened in the early 2000s. You know, I don't want you to misunderstand that. That happened in 2015. But you know what I mean, okay, obligatory book commercial. And if you've listened this long, you maybe you own a copy of the world's worst diabetes mom, if you own it and love it, do me a favor post about it. The best way to word of mouth about the podcast and the book is always if you could tell a friend post in a diabetes group post on your own Facebook page, you know, I love this book. It's on Amazon, highly recommend it. If you've read it, and you don't like it. Forget that, you know, you know, just recycle the book. It's thanks as always, to my editor, john Buchanan's from audio editing solutions. And thank you so much for listening. I'm Stacey Simms. I'll see you back here next week. Until then, be kind to yourself.   Unknown Speaker  1:01:09 Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacey Simms media.   Unknown Speaker  1:01:13 All rights reserved. All wrongs avenged

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

Ashlie: (00:18) Welcome back to another episode of Tactical Living by LEO Warriors. I'm your host Ashlie Walton, and today I am joined by a very special guest named Melissa Watson. Melissa, how are you?   Melissa:   I'm doing well, thank you. How are you doing?   Ashlie:   I'm good. Thank you for asking. Thank you for joining me today. You're taking the seat of Clint who is currently outside throwing around my nephew in the pool. I appreciate you coming on, Melissa, and the reason that I invited you onto our show was because you have such a rich history as it pertains to your family experience and relationships with law enforcement.   You also hold a story of what I believe to be an incredible hero who was lost and Iraqi Freedom. You are probably one of the only people that I know personally that has lost 145 pounds. I just blows my mind and you've even survived what I believe is an incredibly physically abusive relationship in your past and getting even deeper than that. You shared with me that there's a layer to your story, which involves you being married to a man adopting two children and then later finding out that that wasn't his path and having to let go of those kids.   Melissa:   Yes, that is all correct. Ashlie: (01:38) That's a lot, and it's even heavy for me even saying that and recounting that, and it's not my story. The whole purpose for the listener is for us to just be able to give a space to really show the transformation of how much strength a woman can have and how going through the journey of some of the most difficult elements of life could really transpire into something beautiful.   Which I believe is what led you to meet Kevin, who you're with right now. And we'll get to that in a second. Melissa, I just wonder if you could just take us back. I know you're 38 years old, can we go back to that space where you're 21 and you're just getting into a relationship with somebody who you would have never imagined, would have turned out the way that you would thought?   Melissa:   Um, okay, so it's 21. I met Miguel and we had a pretty good relationship and then he just started turning violent. Melissa: (02:46) I mean, the first time he was, he was violent with me was, when he told me he didn't ask me, he just literally ordered me to give him his glass of water, which was right next to him. And I was on the other side and I said, it's right next to you. Why don't you get it? And he turned around and he just slapped me and he said, if I tell you to do something, you do it. The breaking point was one night he was sitting on his doorstep. I was with him, I had my best friend with me and he was, for lack of better words, cleaning his weed. I just flat out told him, if you cared about me half as much as you cared about your weed, we'd have a better relationship.   He put everything down, he got up and He told me to stand up and I thought he was going to hug me and he punched me in the face. He knocked me down, he started kicking me and I thought I was going to die. I was in so much pain and I heard the, the unmistakable sound of a gun, you know the clicking, it was being cocked and I thought, this is it. I'm going to die. And it was my best friend. And he told, him that if you touch her one more time and I'll blow your head off.   Miguel said, go ahead and do it. I don't fucking care. My best friend said, you know what? She's more important than you. He picked me up, put me in his car, and he took me to the hospital. Surprisingly, regardless of what I told everybody in the Er, they were like, did you fall? Did you do this? And I said, no, my boyfriend did this to me.   I ended up having a concussion. I had two broken ribs. One of them was slightly fractured and law enforcement surprisingly didn't do anything. After that I did not see Miguel again. I stayed away from him and I just, I tried to live my life as much as I could.   On the dreadful day of September 11th, he showed up at my house and he basically just put me against the wall and he tried to choke me and I had one of my friends on the phone and I said, you need to get here, get here now. I had called 911, and they said, because of what's going on right now, we can't send anybody over there. So my friends showed up, he took off and I went to stay with my friends. He didn't know where they live so he couldn’t find me. But from what my parents say, he kept going to the house looking for me. Melissa: (06:08) After that, I just did my best to stay away from him. He finally forgot about me. His family did too, so I was okay. I was good, he did kind of stick with me a little bit. If I went out on a date, he knew about it, but after a while he just, he let me go and I found out a few years ago, he is now a registered sex offender. He tried to forcibly rape somebody and was abusive so they filed battery charges on him and rape charges and now he is his sex offender and I couldn't be happier about that because he has reported every year. And that means hopefully everybody else is safe from him now. Ashlie: (07:14) Melissa, I can tell the emotion as you're recounting this story and I couldn't agree with you more in knowing that at least when we have this title on somebody, as disgusting as it sounds like Miguel was. At least when they're in the system, they're traceable, they're trackable, he has to check in. There's something consistent about his whereabouts at all times. There's limitations on those things. I wonder if you could just share with the listener how it felt when you found out that he was registered in this system and at least there was some sort of container surrounding him in what he could potentially do to you or somebody else. Melissa: (08:06) I was relieved because he can be traced. You can be watched, but at the same time, some what I know about him and what I've learned as far as, you know, studying criminal justice, it can still happen and victims are likely to stay silent because they're just afraid. They're afraid he's going to come back. Me being a victim of him, I was very open about it, but nobody did anything and that really, really hurt. But knowing that he is registered now and he has to check in, it doesn't mean he can't hurt anybody, but hopefully it has just calmed him in a sense and he's not going to do it. But I do, I do hope that he doesn't because nobody needs to go through that. Nobody. Ashlie: (09:23) Yeah, absolutely. Melissa, what are some recommendations that you would have for anybody else? Being a man, a man, or a woman in a potentially physically abusive relationship who maybe feel like they are alone and don't have that courage to, voice what's really happening. Melissa: (09:45) The best thing I can say is find your strength and get out and know it's hard. I put up with it for over a year. There are so many resources out there. You are saved as soon as you reach out, you are saved. Law enforcement will help, hopefully you have people as a support circle that will help you just like I did. Melissa: (10:16) But the best thing to do is just get out because your life is infinitely more valuable than a relationship with somebody who is willing to hurt you. Ashlie: (10:28) That speaks right to the center of my chest because I think that a lot of people are still living in these homes and in these relationships. So silently because of that fear. And I think that message of just knowing that they're worth it and more important and to just get out is the best advice that somebody who has experienced this before will give. So I thank you for sharing that. Melissa: (10:52) No, definitely. I mean it was, it was hard for me, but knowing that I had my friends, I could definitely get out of it and it took a while, but at some point you realize your life is, worth it. The relationship is not, you know, if you have kids, if you're just dating, it's, it's not worth it to go through the pain. You can save your kids, you can save yourself. I mean, if I could, I'd reach out to everybody that's in that relationship and let them talk to me, let me help them. But I know there's so many relationships that are abusive, whether it's a husband, a boyfriend, a wife, a girlfriend, it's difficult to reach out. Ashlie: (11:45) Yeah, for sure. So at that time, when, when you were healing or, or at least starting to walk away from history with Miguel and growing away from that and building your independence as a young woman in your young twenties take us to that point where you came across private first-class Sean Tharp, what was that like? What was that interaction like? When that friendship first happened. Melissa: (12:11) That was back when AOL was a big thing. Ashlie: (12:17) Right. For you as you listen is if you do not know what AOL is, that makes both Melissa and I undoubtedly feel way older than we are, but all in all it was an instant messaging service. Very comparable to what those young kids today would compare to Facebook messenger. Melissa: (12:35) Yes. And he chimed in on somebody just being stupid on the Messenger. And I said, why don't you, you know, private message me? And he said, okay. And we just kind of started our friendship and I will never forget his handle for all. It's Merv engineer, M E R V engineer. I asked him about that and he was telling me about all this military stuff. He was, he was really into military.   His mom and dad were a retired military and man we just, we clicked, we became friends and there was so many times where we would spend hours on the phone, you know, just talking and laughing or he would share any kind of grief he was having. I would share it with him, what I was going through. We just knew that we were soulmates. He was undoubtedly the best friend I could ever have. Melissa: (13:47) He told me he wanted to enlist in the army and I told him, I said, considering what you've gone through, what you've done to yourself, I don't know if they'll take you, but I, you know, if that's what you want to do, then you know, I support you and then he called me one day. He said he spoke to a recruiting officer and he enlisted in the army and I felt just so down deep inside my soul that I was going to lose him.   I told him, I said, if that's what you want to do, then I support you but, you need to come back home. And he went through his training. He, he did AIT, he wrote to me from basic training through AIT. I have his last letter he sent me. Then he told me when he was being deployed and he deployed in February of 2006 and he would call me and his mom every other day. Melissa: (15:02) He would spend about 15 minutes on the phone with me and 45 minutes with his mom. The last time I talked to him, he spent 30 minutes on the phone with me and I said, you need to call your mom. And he said, no, I want to spend some time talking to you. He told me a few days before that he almost got blown up and I said, I don't want to hear that, please. And he said, it's just, it's crazy out here.   What's going on and at the end of our phone call, I told him, I hope you know me and your mom are very proud of you and I want you to know that I love you. And he said, I love you too, Melissa. And I said, you just be safe. Please come back home. And he basically said the same thing to his mom. A few days later he was shot by an insurgent and somebody from his unit told me, “I’m sorry,” and a fellow soldier told me that he held Sean while he was lying there and he told this soldier, please tell my mom I love her and I'm sorry. And tell Melissa I'm coming home, but not alive. And they had just sent out, Melissa: (16:58) I just sent a care package to him and a couple of weeks after he was shot, it came back to me. I still have the letter I put in there and it just, it killed me. I reached out to his mom and she said that all he ever did was talk about me and how much I meant to him. And his mom's pretty much become like another mother to me and we just, we have this bond. It was because of Sean. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss him. He, was this huge light in my life. And one of the favorite things that I remember about him, I told him I had, you know, a couple of guys that were, you know, kind of hitting on me and flirting with me. And he told me, I don't get why they want you. Melissa: (18:10) You're not like a supermodel or anything. And I hung up on him and he called me back and I said, what do you want? And he just started talking about like the Russian military, the German military, and that was his way of apologizing and that's something, you know, I will take with me forever because that’s his way of apologizing. It just, it makes me laugh now. But then I was really mad at him and every year, memorial day and his birthday, I have a milkshake for him. His favorite was strawberry, but I can't do strawberries. So I do chocolate and I call his mom and we just, we just share our times, our times with Sean. He was, he was such an amazing, amazing man and we had this really deep connection. Melissa: (19:14) One of the last things he told me was I will always be with you and I will always protect you. And after he was shot, I remember being in my room at my parents' house and I was crying and it looked like he was standing right there. He was just leaning against the wall. And I know he is with me there so many times. I just talked to him like I'm, for lack of better words, like I talked to the stars and I know he's there and it never fails. Whether it's summer, spring, fall, winter, there's always this green humming bird... I mean, this bird has been showing up since I lost him. Melissa: (20:23) I know it's him. I miss him so much. One of the things, sadness about him was just him being stoic, just so proud of what he was, but being very open with me about his depression. He was going through so much and important to me to always be there for him. And in turn, he's always there for me, even though he's not, he's not here physically, but I know he's here. He's with me. So many times I've just reached out to him and telling him, please help me. And somehow I find the strength, I find happiness. I find just a comfort with whatever's going on. Melissa: (21:37) I just, I don’t know, I will always love him. Yeah. And I know he will always love his mom. He will always love me. No, he was, he is. He is my hero and he is my soul mate. He's my best friend and I am so grateful that just by chance we met. you use so man some so strong just to get through what he went through fighting these demons and confided in me about his demons. Just being able to do what he did to enlist in the army, do what he wanted to do. He told me he was, you know, the fastest in the mile in his unit in basic training and he wanted to go to training for a paratrooper, but he got deployed and he was so close to home. He was, in Fort Hood and I wanted to see him. I wanted to go there and just, you know, see him one last time because I knew he wasn't going to come home and it's just, I don't know. He's my, he will always be my soul mate. There's no doubt about it and I will always love him. Ashlie: (23:27) Melissa, as you share this, the amount of strength that it's taking me to hold back my emotion does not even compare it to the amount of strength that it took for you to share everything that you just shared with us. Ashlie: (23:45) I thank you for that. As you listen, if we could just pause for a moment, pause for a moment to realize all of the gifts that we are given on a daily basis based on the sacrifice, the sacrifice of heroes like private first class, Sean Tharpe, the sacrifice of friends, of mothers, of fathers and siblings. Melissa, I am so grateful and proud of you for sharing that story, but I am so honored to be able to showcase a story like Sean's and I hope that you can share a message with his mom, his family, and just let them know how proud we are to live in a country that we do. To know that there are people that are just like Sean that are Sean, that have lost their lives, defending our freedom, Melissa: (24:53) His mom, knows we talk often and she always tells me, thank you for keeping this memory of life, but I wouldn't do it any other way. I was asked once, if you could go back and do it all over would you have any friends that you have enlisted? In a heartbeat. We weren't meant to know each other and there were so many times we both, we literally saved each other's lives and his mom, like I said, she's another mother to me. She was at my wedding. We had a little table set aside just for Sean. It was the fallen soldiers table and there's photos of us just standing there hugging each other crying because we miss him so much. He's such a huge part of my life, even though it was just a moment in the grand scheme of things because he's such a huge part of my life. She knows that he brought me and his mom together and we, we do rely on each other. Sometimes it gets hard and we just reach out and we're there. We're there for each other. Ashlie: (26:41) It's a beautiful misery to see what a special relationship came from something so tragic. And again, private first class, Sean Tharpe died in Iraqi Freedom on March 28th, 2006 and we are forever in his debt for his service and his loss of life. Well Melissa I know how heavy this is and if, if you want to stop here, I'm fine with that too. But if not, and if you want to continue forward a little bit past everything that had transpired in 2006 and your move to Sacramento and what had taken place when you started to uncover those emotions and try to move on after the death of Sean Melissa: (27:43) I'm totally okay with moving forward. After I was notified about Sean's death, my really close friend who was like a sister to me, I called her and I told her. She came up to my house, I was absolutely in no state to drive. And she picked me up and she just let me cry. I don't think, I don't think I will ever heal because that's just, that's a wound that somebody can't heal from. You know, you're, losing your best friend. His mother lost her oldest son, her only child. It's a wound you don't heal from, but you just, you just kind of put a band aid over it that you carry it you’re your life. A few months after his passing, I got engaged to a truck driver, which was not a smart move on my part, but I think I was just trying to get over the loss. This person, this man, I don't even want to call him a man because he's not, he apparently had a bunch of girlfriends along his route, you know, throughout Texas, Alabama and California. And he was engaged to I think seven other women. Melissa: (29:43) He drained my bank account. He left me with $24 and 17 cents. I never heard from him again after that. I was done. I was done with where I lived. I was done with dealing with people who were toxic. I contacted my then friend and I said, I need to move. And she told me to move to Sacramento, you can live with me Melissa: (30:21) She said to just pay me 300 a month for rent. I said, okay, I'll do it. Just give me a month to tie up loose ends here. Much later. It was the end of September. Melissa: (30:39) I packed up my car, put my cat in the car and I made my journey to Sacramento and I started my new life. Melissa: (30:58) Shortly after that I met my ex-husband. At the time he, he courted me. He just swept me off my feet. In 2009 I moved in with him. Our relationship just took off from there and he proposed to me in front of my grandparents. He asked my grandfather for his permission. He wanted my grandfather if it was ok for him to propose me. When he proposed to me, I was just beside myself. I was crying and I said yes. And my grandparents were so happy. Probably about a year, year and a half later is when we got married. Melissa: (32:11) Looking back at the wedding, I honestly regret it. I don't have many regrets in my life that I regret marrying him. We found out about six to eight months after the wedding that I wasn't able to conceive children. So we started the adoption process and he would go back and forth. He was like, I don't want to do it. Let's do it. I don't want to do it. The third time he said, okay, let's, let's go through with everything. I told him flat out, if you change your mind again, I'm leaving. You can't keep playing with my heart. You can't keep, you know, being a puppet master. I'm not going to put up with it. He told me no, he was sure he wanted to have a kid. He wanted to be a dad and it took about a year. We went through the whole adoption process. They do background checks, they do inspections of the home, they do interviews, they ask like really deep personal questions. Melissa: (33:42) It was in November, we got called, they told us they had a brother and sister or another child and they wanted us to choose the other child. It's that that kid's family was kind of vying for custody of him. We went through the history of the two kids that we ended up deciding on and it took a couple of weeks and we just, you know, we debated, do we want these kids who comes from an abusive home? I mean she was five years old taking care of an infant in. We just stated. Yes. That's,  usually the kids we went and we were told, you need to get down here or I'm sorry, you need to get up here to where they're at and you're going to take them home. And it was just like such a quick, just, I don't know is, it was almost weird, but we had to drive up to northern California, to pretty much the state line between Oregon and California. Speaker 5: (35:17) We met these two beautiful kids. They were staying with their aunt and she told us, you know, he's nonverbal, he's violent, he does this, you can't take them out into public. And I refused to believe that, you know, we met these beautiful kids and they look just like us and we took them out to go eat. We spent time with them. We took them to the beach and they were just, they were perfect, perfect angels. And we brought them home and they got to meet my mother. They've got to meet my ex husband's stepmother. Melissa: (36:13) Within a month we had the little boy talking. He was, you know, just extremely verbal. And he would tell us everything from what he wanted to eat, to what he wanted to watch. We were told that he would not be potty trained until he was six, if that, if we were lucky within a few months he was potty trained. We had to take we had to take him in to be tested as far as his mentality goes. And they scored him in the 98th percentile that he was extremely smart and his sister would help me with him. She would teach him the alphabet, how to read numbers, and both of them were extremely smart and I just, I love to be with them. They both had their emotional issues from what they had been through, but they were my kids there, my son and daughter. And when it came time to officially adopt them, I asked her, what do you want your name to be? Melissa: (37:46) She had been watching Grey's anatomy with me and she said, that lady is so pretty. I like her name. And she was talking about Addison and I said, well that can be her middle name, baby girl. And she said, I like that. So we, you know, we had filled out the paperwork, we were weeks away, two or three weeks from going to court to make it a hundred percent official. And I came home from the gym, it was the day before my birthday and my ex-husband said I needed to talk to you. And I thought the kids had done something because whenever they were alone with him, they apparently always acted up, never listened. And I said, what happened? And he told them to go to their rooms and watch TV and close their doors. And I thought, oh my gosh, they had to have done something really bad. And he looked me dead in the eyes and he said, I can't do this. I don't want to be a father. I never have and I never will. You need to contact the adoption agency and get rid of the kids. And it just shattered me. Melissa: (39:29) I hated him after that. Melissa: (39:34) I was berated and accused and yelled at by the adoption agency when we had our meeting with them after he said that it really hurt. They do not find fault in him, but they questioned me. They said, if your marriage was so bad, if he didn't want this, why did you do this? And they just, they, they accused me and I told them I love these kids. If I could, I would keep them. I would walk away from him if I could support them, but I couldn't because he would not let me work. And they asked if divorce was an option and before I could say anything, he said, no it's not. And I looked at our case worker and her boss and I said, it's on the table and they asked if I would be able to support the kids and I said, I can't, not alone. Melissa: (40:53) Eight days later, okay. They were there to pick up the kids and they moved them to Redding with another foster family who ended up adopting them the night before they picked them up, they were over to explain to them what was happening. My little girl, she came into the den and she said, Mommy, can I ask you guys a question? And my ex got up and left the room and I said, of course you can ask me anything. And she said, why don't you love us? And I fell apart and I hugged her and I said, I do. I do love you guys. Melissa: (41:49) For her being so young to look me in the eyes and tell me, why don't you divorce him and keep us, that just, that broke my heart. You know, she was crying, I was crying, her brother was crying and I hugged them and I said, I love you guys and if I could, I would keep you guys. I will always be your mommy. I will always be there for you. And I'm sorry this is happening. Then both of them looked at me and they said, we hate him and all I could do is hug them and I love those kids and I miss them, but I know they're in a better place. They're with a family that's going to take care of them. I know they’re happier because the fact that my ex was jealous of the attention I gave them there's no way they would've had a happy home with us and for him to tell me that he didn't like that I was paying more attention to them than him and for him to tell me a month later if they had been our children, if you had given birth to them, it would have been different. Melissa: (43:36) That's what I knew I was officially in. Totally done. Melissa: (43:42) I was done with him. I could not be married to a man who was that narcissistic that he would get jealous over a mother's love for her children and things went downhill really quickly. From there. He got even more so emotionally abusive. He would get basically to the point where he was about to be physically abusive, but because of what his job is, he wouldn't do that. He would back me into corners and yell at me. He would slam his fist on the counters. He would, he would just basically tell me I was worth nothing. And if it wasn't for my small circle of friends, I probably wouldn't be here today. Ashlie: (44:59) Wow Melissa. And going through what had happened and you moving to Sacramento and thinking that everything that had happened after Sean passed away and you meeting your ex husband and him sweeping you off your feet the way that he did. And then getting the opportunity to meet these two angels, the son and daughter, and having them in your home and raising them as your own for a year. And then the devastation of what transpired with your ex husband. Ashlie: (45:34) How did you pull yourself about that after the divorce? Melissa: (45:42) My friends helped a lot. My best friend Austin, my best friend that was here, um, my sister, I call her my sister Cathy. She was a huge role in making sure that I was okay. Her husband, her, her kids, my friend Becky and her husband, everybody just kind of rallied around me. My ex husband had called a bunch of people and told them it was my fault and I did lose a few friends, but they were also his friends and it just, it opened my eyes to who was really, really my friend and I had met, I had met Kevin and I think one of the pivotal points in me deciding to walk away from my ex was I have to fly to Texas because my, my grandmother had passed away and the entire time I was there, Melissa: (47:15) my ex would call me and just complain about the kids and you need to talk to them to tell them to listen to me. You need to do this. They're not listening. They're screaming and they're doing this. But Kevin checked on me. He asked how I was holding up. My ex never asked. He just called to complain. Kevin checked on me, my friends checked on me. They asked how I was holding up, how I was doing, if there was anything they could do, what my ex never did. All he did was complain in that. That was when I knew, you know, I had been thinking of it before, but that's what I knew I needed to divorce him and that that's what made my decision was he didn't care that I was hurting, that I had lost somebody so dear to me and all he could do was just complain. Ashlie: (48:29) So Melissa, let's fast forward a little bit. We were in 2014 to 15 you lost 145 pounds. Just from seeing your feed on your Instagram, seeing the pictures and the transformation, I can see the level of confidence and self ownership that had taken place during that time. Ashlie: (48:50) Talk to me a little bit more about how the relationship between you and Kevin, who you are still with today transpired since 2015. Melissa: (49:04) Kevin was his a rock for me. He um, Melissa: (49:12) yeah, him and a couple other people would cheer me up by telling me I could do this. Melissa: (49:22) I met him shortly after I had lost a hundred pounds and he was, he was blown away that I had done that in seven months. And then along the way I lost another 45 pounds and that just that totally change my mentality because it wasn't, Melissa: (49:47) I was almost 300 pounds. I was this woman who was just trapped in the shell and just assuming everything that came her way was because of her. I flourished. I had so much confidence and I decided I was going to become a trainer and my friend who's a retired marine, he was cheering me on. He said, you can do this, you're going to be an awesome trainer because you can definitely relate to people who want to lose weight. And Kevin was the same way. My friend Dee at the time, she  was cheering me on everybody, but my ex was supportive and I became a trainer. I was certified and that just made me so happy that I was able to help so many other people change their lives and lose the weight that they wanted to and just become happier with ourselves. And that was just so rewarding to me because people saw me, they knew what I had done and they realize that they're capable of doing it too and me helping them along. Just that, that's what made me happy, was being able to help other people and through thick and thin three people were always by my side. Melissa: (51:49) My friend who's the retired marine, my best friend, Adrian and Kevin, they were always by my side and they encouraged me so much and the three of them even asked me for advice on how they could lose weight gain muscle and I was wanting to happy to help them and I'm glad that the three of them are still a huge part of my life. Ashlie: (52:21) Oh, Melissa, I know as you listen, this has been quite a heavy show, quite heavier than most of our episodes, but I am so honored and proud and privileged to know you and to see the journey that you have come through really in such a short amount of time. And I just wonder, Melissa is as you sit there for the listener, if anybody is dealing with something like domestic violence or the loss of a loved one or having to cope with, with even the loss of a child or whether or not to adopt, there are so many elements to your story that are relatable. If you can leave the listener with one solid piece of advice, what would you give them? Melissa: (53:08) It gets better. You will make it through Melissa: (53:13) and if somebody needs to reach out, I am always there. They can definitely find me on, on Instagram Melissa: (53:25) I know there's a lot of people that are afraid, whether it's domestic violence, whether it's those in somebody's, whether they should adopt, shouldn't coming to terms with not being able to have kids. Yes. If they need to, they can always find me on Instagram and I will gladly be there for anybody. Melissa: (53:53) A veteran just recently reached out to me on Instagram and he had told me that there's so many times he wanted to take his life and then just talking to him, he's told me that he feels like there's something worth living for now. Melissa: (54:11) But for anybody out there that's going through anything, whether it's sorrow, whether it's pain, it will get better. It will. I'm living proof that it will get better.   Ashlie: Such an inspiration. Melissa, I just, I don't want to forget this, but if you could share with the listener what your Instagram handle is Ashlie: (54:38) It is @the_Camaro_wolf. Perfect. And I'll go ahead and I'll put that in the show notes too as you listen to, if you're interested in reaching out to Melissa with any questions, even sharing how her story might've inspired you or touched you, always reach out and just drop that comments. It means so much Melissa to us, for you to be able to come on this show and share this space with us and most importantly to share the story of your friend Sean Tharpe. We thank you for sharing that with us. We thank him and his, his family for his service and the sacrifice that they ultimately made in order for us to preserve our freedom. It's something that we are indebted for forever. And I think as you listen, if there's one piece of advice to take away from this is to know that as we live our day to day and we're privileged to drink a cup of coffee every morning go to work.   Enjoying time with the family and, and friends that we hold dearest. Even listening to shows like this popping on Instagram or Facebook, it's all because we have such heroes fighting for us and ultimately giving their lives to be able to have that freedom. And I think when you understand that and you live by that, and you're able to acknowledge that on a day to day basis, then you're really able to enjoy your Tactical Living.  Balance. Optimize. Tactics.  Hit that subscribe button so that you don’t miss a day of the added value that I am dedicated to sharing with you weekly.  Let’s Connect!  Facebook  Instagram  Email: ashliewalton555@gmail.com  LinkedIn  Website: www.leowarriors.com Free Training: www.leowarrior.com

Ready to Positioning Your Business to Profit? Go to-->>> http://positioningtoprofit.com/Patty Hey hey my legacy LEADER This is Episode 30 we are on Episode 30. Can you believe it of her legacy podcast? Today's episode is Sandy Vo. She is one of the most grounded people I have ever met. I'll give you the official she is a New York based meditation teacher self-care practitioner soul centered marketing whiz podcaster in a big believer in humans. And to say that she's probably one of the most grounded people I've ever met is an understatement.We connected through an introduction with Tara Romano. The rest is history. I absolutely adore her and why is because she's so real so authentic you will see right from the start of this episode. You see she is all about being online and showing up in the way that she's showing up. She's also super excited to introduce her ladies aligned event. You can find that. ladiesaligned.com. April 26-28 in Saratoga Springs New York.If you're in that area or interested in some deep connections with other women they're going to be talking about how to take that aligned perspective on life and they're covering the three pillars of living aligned with self-care money mindset and a roadmap to success. Again you could find that out ladiesaligned.com but for this episode we're talking about taking aligned action with Sandy Vo hope you enjoy the episode let me know what you think. I'm on social media Instagram Facebook even LinkedIn and of course at herlegacypodcast.com. Here is the show.Patty Sandy welcome to her legacy podcast. I'm so honored to have a fellow podcaster on so you know it's going to be a good show. And before I hit the record but we started talking talking about everything you have I mean it's an exciting year for you. So I want to hear more and Welcome to the show.Sandy Thank you so much. I am so honored to be here. Patty we had such an amazing conversation prior to even recording on the podcast show and just the first time that we talked. We talked for a little over an hour within 30 minutes. We were like you're my sister.Patty So cool it was so close we are connected via the amazing Tara Romano from Tone and tease and she just thought, Hey you too should connect. I was like OK. I'm always willing and ready because there are no mistakes. Right. So everything is divinely set up and it was a phenomenal conversation and afterward I caught up with Tara Romano and I said Oh My Good she is amazing.And she said actually Patty she's like she's in her 20s and I'm like oh my gosh she's so grounded. Like I literally was, not a basket case but legitimately finding my way in the dark. Like how are you so grounded? Let's start there.Sandy Oh my gosh I feel like you come to the place that you're up because of where you've been. And so I mean when I was 12 years old 13 years old in the seventh grade I was already doing ecstasy and smoking marijuana and drinking Heineken and literally skipping school still got great grades and everything but I just started so young. I mean even when I came to like my menstrual cycle I had it when I was 8 years old was when I first had my period.So I don't know. I often hear that I am an old soul and I don't know if my life in this like physical reality is just like catching up really quickly but yeah definitely been through some really wild times in my life. And by the time that I was 21 years old I was ready to just discover my soul and know who it is that I am and ask myself those deep deep profound questions that sometimes it takes us until we're in our seventies to ask ourselves like who the hell am I. Why am I here?Nowhere did I come from. Where am I supposed to go? What am I to do? Those are the five essential questions of life and you know all of that led me to my meditation teacher and then developing a meditation practice and then now becoming a teacher. Being a teacher and being able to work with a lot of women entrepreneurs and helping them to tap into their unique gifts so that they can really live a life of purpose. So it's definitely a journey.Patty I say, so I guess going back to that point where you said at 21 you had that realization. What was the epiphany that brought you to that crossroads where you own need to do something different?I was in a conversation you had something you witness. What was because it's always some events a moment the catalyst for that call to adventure to a new adventure?Sandy Well yeah I love that question and I think it's always a series of things that actually lead up to that pivotal moment it's never just like this moment comes up and you suddenly decided to change your life. It's a series of all these events. And you know I had always thought that my story had stems from a period in my life where I had dealt with really deep depression.So my dad had just left our families so I'm the oldest of two younger siblings and then my mom and my dad and they are both immigrants from Vietnam and we had this really like happy childhood like we had a really happy family and everything but you know my mom was again Bucolic. And I think that really drove a lot of arguments between my parents and then it got to a point where my dad just couldn't handle it anymore and then he left like he just left. And that was so hard for me because I'm so close to my father. Definitely a daddy's girl.And we also share the same birthday. We're both Scorpios. He is the person that I can really have this like soulful conversations with even when I was 12 years old you know just sitting in the car on the way to get groceries or something we would have these amazing talks so for him to just leave was so difficult. And then fast forward to when I became a freshman in college that was a really really one of the most challenging years and then years to come in my life because that was when the depression really hit me deep. I found out that my cousin who was really the only person that I could go to to share some of this things that I been experiencing in my life.And you know how like we all have that one person like that one person that you can pick up the phone or you can call and you can just like share whatever it is on your heart and you know that they're not going to judge you and they're just going to love you. Like sometimes they give you tough love sometimes they make you cry. But anything that comes out their mouth is just like wisdom that need your soul and that's who my cousin Lena was and he's yours truly like my big sister.I've never had. And so Lena I got diagnosed with leukemia back in 2008. And you know when my father had left it was her sickness and everything that was going on with her was a great distraction for me to not deal with that pain because I was so focused on you know I was living in New York driving down to Virginia at the time and being there by Lena's side of the hospital and just like lifting up her vibes. So I find out when I'm about to head into my freshman year college that Lena passed away from leukemia at the age of 20 years old. And like I didn't make it there in time and I was so hard on myself. I remember like her mom calling and saying Sandy like she doesn't have much longer like get down here as fast as you can.And I was literally about three hours away when I got the phone call that she that she's gone. And so that was a very pivotal time in my life and it led me to this place of just like becoming someone that I don't even realize who I was anymore. You know and then at the same time you know this is something that we've all dealt with in college. I was in a relationship for six years and my boyfriend at that time had left me as well. So I got to this place where like I'm made up these stories in my head that you know everyone that I will love in my life is just going to leave me. And I started developing this fear of abandonment and so what do we do.What is our ego do to protect ourselves? Because it's so smart. It starts to build up walls and then I started isolating myself. And while in front of you know if you accept everything at face value then I look like I'm a happy person you would have no idea that I was depressed. I had friends I went out to parties and all the things but when I went back home to my dorm room and I was there on my own and I just I just wanted to stay there and it got to a point where that's exactly what happened. I remember I would walk out on Campus and people would see me and they would be like Oh my goodness I thought you transferred.And that's how like depressed and how isolating I became. And I had always thought that that's where my story stems from. Eventually you know I reached this point where it was my sophomore year in college I had racked on about 50 pounds of my body. And you know how you don't listen to pain when it's just whispering to you. You listen to one it's actually like viscerally something that you can feel in your body well. I felt it in my body I remember like literally like licking the crumbs off a plate in my dorm room like because this food brought me so much comfort but pain at the same time and I looked down at my body which was like you know at the time it was before I got to college I was like 115, 118 pounds and then I you know I became like 145 pounds.And I just look down and this extra weight is really like this extra like weight of pain that I'm literally holding on in my body. And I was like this needs to change like I need help. So I didn't talk to any friends about it I didn't vocalize anything about it. I just brought myself to a psychologist at the school and I was like I need to get out of these. I don't know what's going on with me like I'm not the same like I'm usually vibrant passionate and happy and I don't feel that way at all I just feel like I'm faking a smile on every day. And I like things feel gloomy and I don't know how to describe it.And I thought that I could really dive in deep with her because of her profession. But she literally had her legs crossed and then she had a clipboard on her lap and she without diving into my story or asking me any further questions she wrote me a prescription for antidepressants.Patty OH my God.Sandy And for so many people medication is a route that helps them to become stabilized and helps them to get to where they were. But in that moment something greater my soul was just telling me you do not need this. Like there is another way and it was a very subtle subtle whisper and I made a decision to listen to it. So I just left that prescription there and I was like No thank you. I walked away. I watched a documentary on Netflix about juicing this about intelligence.Patty I'll say the same I'll probably say this one because it was really I went out and I bought a very expensive juicerSandy I did too. Oh yes. Yes. This was back in 2012 and then I decided I wasn't going to stay and like the college world anymore because I had gotten sick of just drinking too much alcohol and doing too many drugs and just hanging out with you know the wrong people at that time for me.So I went back home and bought myself the expensive juicer and I just started exploring right. I just gave myself permission to explore even if it's not like the healthiest thing to do. But for one whole week I just juice. And it did its job for me because they cleanse my body of all these heavy toxins that were in it. For that I stopped it every single day and I started feeling really really good about myself. You know how when you like change how the habit and it feels good because it feels so good. Why would you not want to keep doing it right? Like if something is pleasant to you and it brings you pleasures then you're going to want more of it. And that's exactly what happened.I suddenly stopped craving like this foods that were not good for my body. Then I started being able to really turn into my body and listen to like what it's asking for and just doing tons of research and everything. And then I got to a place where I was like oh I love working out. It makes me feel good. It's that really likes the feel for me to release all of this energy that's inside of me and really at the time I had no idea.But this anger and so I started doing bodybuilding and I did that for one year and I decided that I wanted to commit to getting on stage for an organization and this was not my idea. Someone had come up to me and saw that I was like you know really toned and like I had all but like the fit muscles and tone body and everything.She was like Have you ever competed in a bodybuilding competition and I was like no that's really not for me. Like what I wouldn't do that long term or anything like that she was like oh you could just do it for a one time line just to prove something to yourself that you can make it on that stage. And that spoke to me because it's so easy for you to give up when you're doing something on your own.And at that time like I had built a really large following because when I was going through this depressed period I was sharing anonymously on Instagram like this was back in 2012. And like where I still have my own personal account and then I had this like anonymous account and my anonymous account had everything to do with like that and it's like diary and this is before fitness became really popular on Instagram and I started like having thousands of people from all around the world.And that was crazy to me because I was just a girl in a dorm room you know following my journey. And then I was like OK well if I tell these people that I'm going to commit to being on this stage it's called the WBFF organization in Boston on this date that it means that I have to do it. So I announced it. I was like on June 26 2013 I'm going to be like committing to making it to the stage. So I hired a coach to help me with my journey to the stage. And then. A few months later I made it there. And that day is also the same day that my cousin Lena had passed away three years ago. And it was the most beautiful day.Patty Event. And so what happened at that event. You know did you remember her during that day. Did you feel like her presence at her guide? How did the competition though. Was it a pivotal moment for you?Sandy Yes it was. Because you know I was telling you I had spent so long isolating myself and keeping everything inside. And I think it really helped about creating this anonymous Instagram account was that it really helped me to like verbalize how I was feeling because no one knew who I was. Eventually of course I showed my face. So what happened was by the time that I got to the stage that day you have a fitness aspect of it and then you have a fashion aspect of it.So I bought this beautiful white gown that I don't know how I got the money for like seven hundred dollars and I was just still in college at the time because I worked three jobs and then I wore on this white gown and I was like you know this is a commitment to me on this day to marry myself like I'm not going to get into other relationships. I'm really just going to focus on like what the heck is going on with me and really making me happy and making that commitment because I was really on the verge of just giving up. And so when I got there that day I felt her presence all around me.It was so strong. I remember going outside in the back of the building and taking a break and I felt like the sun rays kissing my body and I'm just like breathing and this fresh air and feeling her energy all around me. And then I had this like intuitive hit of sting. So I go and I asked the host you know can I sing a song called.There you'll be by Faith Hill and dedicated to my cousin Lena and they were so moved by my story and they had also featured me on their website because of my story just through Instagram and everything that they said yes. So I went onstage and I sang there you'll be. And I also shared my story and it was my first time being so so vulnerable about what I was going through. This like really deep and almost manic at the time depression and afterwards like I could just see tears like on all these people's faces. They're like over a hundred something people there and they were all strangers.And after that I come out backstage and there's a girl that comes up to me holds these gorgeous green eyes. Her name is Melissa Martin and she was like I just want to thank you so much for sharing your story. It touched me so deeply because I also lost my sister from looking at youPatty Oh my gosh. Oh my God. I literally just got chills.Sandy Me too, me too.Patty That is so, no it's not insane. It is so perfect. Wow. And if I could just because I litter I was like what. OK. First thing I have to tell you. Please write a book because I would buy your book literally immediately I'll be the president of your fan club. I love your story. I love it.For so many reasons is because through that depression that you went through you really found your personal power without probably even knowing that it was your personal power and then the vulnerability and the authenticity is what led to that perfect unfolding of you meeting the woman that became it is now your business partner. And to me that am the perfect path of aligned that is so amazing.So the fact that that happened and so now just kind of moving into your brand your brand is about alignment and you live it and you own it. And I just think that's amazing. So now they you know or you speak or you help women with alignment. What is that alignment? That concept of alignment what does it mean to you.Sandy Yeah. So just going back into what you were saying about my business partner when we met that day we just exchanged social media information and that was it. And then two years later remember this was in Boston. Two years later I check into a coffee shop in Hudson New York at the time and then she sends me a message was like oh you live in Hudson and I live in Hudson Falls at like an hour away from you. So I was like No way. It's amazing and then she reaches out to me and we set a time to have a girl day to paint pottery.And that's when our like relationship develops in such deep ways because we realized that we were living parallel lives and we both had experience such traumatic things in our lives and we're both boss babes and we could connect and relate to each other so much and all of this happened through what you you're saying Patty of living in alignment and living in alignment to me is really about uniting your outer world like what you see in front of you with your inner world. And a lot of times like we accept our reality of our outer world for what it is and we don't question. We don't ask the questions right it was really when I asked that question of who am I.Did I start going on this journey to really discover like who I am. If the question came from you then can't you also trust that the answer will also come from you? And so when we live in alignment it's really learning to follow our intuition that will guide us to unite the things that are happening in our outer world. And when I say that I mean our actions our thoughts and then with our inner world of our wisdom which we all have. And that's really what I call super consciousness like when you can reach that place of union or yoga right that's what the word yoga means.It means to yoke it means to yoke the outer worlds in the inner worlds then you are afraid this place of super consciousness and that's where the vaults of creativity and everything amazing that you ever experienced in your life like this mac book computer that Steve Jobs came up with like that comes from the super conscious wisdom that we all have. So that's what living in alignment means to me. And then the ways that we teach it through ladies align.So as Patty mentioned Fast forward to seven years later Melissa and I became business partners and it's through this path of living in alignment and we do that and we teach eliminators repeaters amount of self-care a wealth mindset and a roadmap to success. And those three pillars that really help women to recognize their own abundance and purpose and everything.Patty Let's continues with the show and I know we're super excited because you have an event that's right around the corner. Align & Rise. So are you going to be covering those three pillars or what is the intention that you're setting for that event.Sandy This event is so much something that originally is built through the relationship that both Melissa and I have. It's a deep rooted connection. So when we have our 150 women walk into this beautiful space that we're facilitating. We want them to have a deep ribbed connection with themselves and then with the women that are in the room so that by the end of the event they walk away with their sister and the way that we facilitate this is like you said you know our Friday night is our VIP night.And that's really the alignment experience. We have a really special mentor of ours that's flying all the way from the U.K. named Harriet Hill who is going to be helping us to facilitate that on Friday night it's really about activating women into their power. We're going to be doing a garden circle really holding hands and allowing that energy to just move through this beautiful feminine space. And then on Saturday we're going to have Tara you mentioned Tara Romano earlier. She is going to be opening up with her tone and tease experience a really helping women to move through those chakras and getting comfortable in their body.And Saturday is really the self-care and the wolf mindset day. So I will start off with grounding women into that soft care talk and a little bit about my story and then it's teachings of self-care. And then we'll have another guest that will talk about frequency and vibration. Melissa will talk about money mindset and then money consciousness and really helping women to understand that self-care is not just about a manicure and a pedicure. It's self-awareness. It's something that you do. Moment to moment and a money mindset isn't just about making a lot of money. It's learning how to receive abundance receive abundance at a small level.For instance when you're at the airport and a man is asking you would you like me to help you put that luggage you know on top of the compartment. Typically we say no you know and if we're rejecting abundance add a really small level of someone asking us if they can help us. We reject that. Then we're also rejecting abundance at a larger level and we wonder why we're not able to hits you know that monetary income that we want to have and it's so much due to what we're able and willing to receive because it's all energy right. So Melissa is going to talk about that and Harriet as well. And then Sunday is really the road map to success.So a lot of times women will feel like oh I have all of these tools. Now I am so equipped myself care practice. I'm going to a place where my creativity is just going through the roof and I really understand what my gifts are. But now how do I market myself like how do I do it in a like way that is in alignment to who I am instead of getting caught up in like the paid followers and like those paid sponsors and all those things right.So a lot of that is built on relationships that we have amazing women that will be coming through and they'll be teaching business strategy and really helping these women to understand who their ideal target audience is and how they can speak to them and how they can build a loyal following that will sustain their businesses for years to come and not just get so caught up in the craze of having tons and tons of followers so that's going to be our Sunday so it's an implementation of this feminine and masculine energy and this energy of being and then this energy of doing and you get to have both like you get to implement both.So there's as harmonious action that happens and you walk away with not only the shifts in your own inner being but you also walk away with the tools and a game plan to get there.Patty That is so comprehensive and amazing. And I want to go back to this one point that you made which I literally was like oh my god I get chills it so good is because for a long time I was guilty of this inside anybody that will just like you said they try to help you with your suitcase.Right. Putting it in the overhead bin on the airplane. I really don't know how I got that I got it. And it's so true what you said is these little actions that is opening our channels of abundance that we're cutting off or I can't tell you how many times growing up I had this desert issue. Somebody wanted to pay for my water.But that's ok that's ok. Say you're cutting off so much of the natural flow of what is wanting to come to you. And they know that that manifests in bigger and bigger like the snowball effect of a business as deserving issues and that is why isn't it made is this working. And why am I working so hard it is coming from such force as opposed to what you're saying or the way that I am uprooting it is just play into the power of it.Sandy Yes exactly. And that's from much of what this whole alignment thing is. You almost don't have to do anything like you just have to listen and then follow what's coming out. Ladies aligned our company that Melissa and I forms was not our intention. It just happened and we were open to being the instruments in the vehicles to carry this action.We literally just came up with a line and rise the idea that seven months ago in November and we were supposed to have our event in January and we had a huge snowstorm here in upstate New York.So we got rescheduled and cold or postponed till April and now we're able to have women from all over the world come speak at our event and then women's flying from all over the nation to be there because we are able to move to the state. It all happens the way that it's meant to you when you live in a climate and when you allow yourself to receive.And I was sharing this on my my insta stories and if you guys are on Instagram please connect with me I Love like just voice memo and chatting. I am Sandy Vo on Instagram but I was just talking about how I had signed up for this new class. I was telling you about that earlier Patty Blake doing the combination of orange theory and then it's like length. And at the end like you do this press with these heavy sandbags. So I was doing a clean press and then I was doing shoulder presses.And so by the end of all of that I'm exhausted but I still have to take those heavy sandbag and I have to put it back where it was and yet the lips and I'm five two like I had to lift it up a little higher to reach that point. And meanwhile there's this gentleman next to me. And the old me that is fierce independent like I can do it on my own. I'm strong enough right. I would have just been like I'll push through like I got this.But the new me pays attention. The new me is aware of my body and also of my surroundings and I notice a guy that's really tall has muscles is like standing there. And he had just put his sandbag up. He turns his body to me and he is ready to help me put mine out.But then he doesn't say anything because I'm thinking in my mind that this is probably happened to him so many times of a gym where he would offer to help a woman with putting her weights up or putting something back out for her and she'll say no I got it like I'm good. And that has been me so many times.So I notice this body language and I turned to him and I made eye contact with him and I was like oh this is really heavy. Do you mind helping me lift it up? And then he goes yeah like. And then he just grabs it and lifts it right up and like it was always like he like this with his hands that you can't see me right now. But just like like wow I did that and I felt in that moment this equal energy exchange.I feel so much like a woman like I feel like a queen for letting him do that for me. And it probably made him have this space that made him feel like such a man. And I walked away like oh like that feels good.Patty That feels really good and I love that. It's yeah you're honoring that chivalrous offer. Yeah what happened to the stove through it and its like God is so good. That's such a good lesson. Just allow it to naturally flow like whatever comes instinctively intuitively that's the biggest thing. Intuitively just like ease into these types of things and any time that you go with intuition your gut your inner light just always doing in the right direction always.Sandy Yes.Patty When it starts with something as small as that and that was for me the big epiphany I and that's why you said it's the little things. And so we focus on intuitively big decisions is no. It's this incremental sort of cyclical muscle that you build by the little things and the little ass and the little exchanges and be really present and grounded and trusting that that power within you is going to guide in the right direction.Sandy Yes. Even at the little levels even when you're at the gym even when you're walking to the store and someone's opening the door for you let them open the door for you. Right.If someone wants to open your car door for you let them open your car door. If someone wants to pay for your lunch let them pay for your lunch. You're going to give that energy back. You know somehow some way.Patty Yeah I love it. I love it. It's like you're opening up the channels of abundance and you're giving them a read that like Ok I'm open you know the vessel for the abundance and everything that's coming to me like I'm a like I'm trusting. I'm you know seriously huge epiphany for me with what you just said literally. It was awesome. I love it. So tell me what you envisioning for your business in the last say over the next two three years. You're such a great trajectory.Sandy Oh my goodness. I love this question that I've never been asked before. So I shared with you this in our previous conversation that we had but I really have this calling to shift to the brand that I have right now on. I have a podcast called Dear Self and Co. I'm going to make a pivot.Call it super conscious soul so I feel so called to help a lot of these women entrepreneurs or influencers I have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram that has a six figure income and all those scenes you know.But I'm seeing that there is behind the scenes of it all. There's so much of this like emptiness and this void and this need of like wanting to achieve and achieve and do more and do more to prove their worthiness. And so super conscious soul is really going to be about helping women to tap into that super conscious wisdom that we all have in yoga. They say that all the body is in the mind but not all the mind is in the body. So there is a portion of your mind that is beyond the mind and when you can access that portion that's when you'll have that creative idea or downloads a call for you to really fulfill your purpose in life.And I just also want to say that sometimes your purpose in life is not about writing a book or like doing all these big amazing things like your legacy can be and you like helping an old woman cross the street or taking her bags and keep bringing it to our car sitting down with a homeless person and just how looking him in the eye and having a conversation with him and asking him how his day was and getting him some food like.Those are the little things that make up your legacy and it doesn't have to be anything grand. So that's what I want to shift my business into and definitely teach more of meditation I want to teach at least a million people meditation within the next two years and I will also be writing my book.Patty Oh good. And feared out I will be part of YOUR LUNCH TEAM.Sandy Yes I'll definitely keep that in mind.Patty Amazing. OK so a couple more questions what's the best piece of advice you've ever received.Sandy I want to go to the very first one that came in my mind and it is a quote from the Upanishads and the stages say you are what your deepest driving desire is and as your deepest driving desire is so is your will and as your will is so is your deed. And as your deed is so is your intention and as your intention is so is your destiny.Patty Oh my gosh you're so profound. It's amazing. It's so beautiful. Who's that? Who's at by?Sandy the Upanishads.Patty Oh God the Upanishads I love that and dear Sandy. After all is said and done. What do you want your legacy to be?Sandy Gosh it's such a great question. I'm just picturing myself right now like I'm time traveling to the end of my life and I just want to be able to look back and say I was here like I came to do everything that I was called to do. I loved I lost. I had the full human experience. I honored the pain. I honor the happiness and I was able to give to people by just being present. And I was able to love and be loved. And that will be my life.Patty So you're totally aligned.Sandy Yes totally alignedPatty Sandy I find used to be just so remarkable. And I'm sending you so much love and I honor your personal power at the highest level. I know that your event is going to be a huge success. So how did people find out more about your event how to get a hold of you everything that you have going on.Sandy Yes. So first of all as a thank you to you and the her legacy tribe. I just want to give the code aligned 10 for those of you that can still hear those podcasts in time and can make it to New York it's in upstate New York Saratoga Springs. I you can't find the events www.ladiesaligned.com/alignandrise and again use the code aligned 10 so that you can get 10 percent off your ticket.Patty Brilliant and out all of the social media handles for Sandy will be in the show notes Make sure to catch that Sandy. Thank you again so much for being on the show. I absolutely invite you to come back on anytime you want. I love our conversations.Sandy Oh we can go forever for surePatty Actually.Sandy I love you and I really do appreciate you just holding the space for just to pull out the stories. It's amazing and it's truly a gift that you have Patty and I really appreciate you for that.Patty Thank you Sandy. Alright till next time.Links:Sandy Vo (contact@sandyvo.com),Website: www.ladiesaligned.com or www.sandyvo.com,: Align & Rise 3 day live event April 26 27 28Social Media Handles: @isandyvo@ladiesaligned,: Send me a DM on instagram @isandyvo oremail contact@sandyvo.com,

Melissa Perri is a Product Management coach and consultant, and founder & CEO of Produx Labs.   She has trained organizations and teams on Product Management best practices and has spoken at more than 30 conferences in 14 different countries.  Melissa is also author of “Escaping the Build Trap” as well as launching her own school, Product Institute, in 2016. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Melissa Perri.  She is the CEO of Produx Labs, a Product Management consultancy, training, and coaching firm. In 2016, she started the Product Institute, which is a 10-week online course, which anyone can take. She also developed and taught the product management section for generalassemb.ly. Over the years, she has spoken at numerous conferences, including Mind the Product, QCon and Lean UX NYC. In 2018, her book “Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value” was published. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (1.09) – So Melissa, can I ask you to expand on that brief intro and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Melissa starts out by explaining that she works pretty much on a daily basis with the C suite of growth stage companies, mostly CEOs, Chief Product Officers, and CTOs. Her primary role is to help them to work out how to scale their organizations. It is a very fast paced environment, with new people are joining them every day. So, they need to standardize their procedures as much as possible. Melissa’s company, Produx Labs, also has a partnership with Insight Partners, a venture capitalist company. The rest of the time Melissa works with larger organizations helping them to transform the way they work. Her company works with the executive management team then moves on to training their product managers. This gives her the chance to get involved in solving interesting problems at all levels. (2.37) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Melissa’s advice is to always go somewhere you can find someone to teach you. Joining Google as an intern is much better than taking on the role of product manager at a startup. If you work for a well-established firm, they will be in a position to take you under their wing and teach you. (3.23) – So, do you have any specific advice for anybody who may be looking to get into product management? Getting into the field is still tricky. Right now, there is no clear path. If you have been working with an organization for a while you will likely be offered the role. Or a startup will be desperate to fill the position, so will hire you even if you have relatively little experience. Until now, that has been the fastest way into that particular role. Moving forwards, Melissa and a number of her colleagues, are trying to change that situation. They are working on setting up an apprenticeship path or associate pm model. But, right now, her recommendation is to find and follow one of the great product leaders. Choose someone you really admire, reach out to them and learn from them. The other route is to work in an adjacent field, for example, user research or UX. Once you are established, make it known that you want to learn more about the product side of things and take it from there. (4.35) - In terms of the evolution that's going on around product delivery, is the area of product management growing as well? Yes, it is probably one of the most in-demand jobs there is, at the moment. Yet, it is still hard to figure out how to break into this very well paid field of technology. (5.20) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. A few years ago, Melissa became the product manager for a marketing platform. She had some experience and had just started to teach others about the field. So, she was pretty confident she knew the right way of doing things. Unfortunately, her CEO did not see things her way. Like most founders, the CEO wanted things done their way. At the time, Melissa did not really have the skills to explain things in a way that would enable her to “bring them along on the journey”. She just butted heads with everyone and got upset when nobody appeared to be listening to the customers. It was a pretty awful experience. But, after 6 months she started to learn how to change her approach. Today, she always tries to see things from the other person’s perspective and adjust her approach accordingly. These days, she works hard to take people with her rather than try to push them down a certain path. She sells to them instead of using brute force. (7.49) – What was your best career moment? For Melissa that was when she had an epiphany moment, fairly early in her career. At the time she was working in a traditional work environment. The CEO would come up with an idea and ask the development team to build it, which, naturally is exactly what they would do. Nobody would stop and ask if that is really what the customer wanted. At the time, Melissa was learning about how to experiment with users as a way to better understand what they really wanted. The firm she was working for agreed to try some of these experiments. It proved to be a very good move indeed. For the first time, the CEO and the rest of the team had hard data that proved what the end customer wanted and what they did not. The CEO recognized the true value of doing things this way. Even though it meant his decisions were being questioned and challenged. It was these experiments that set Melissa on the successful product management career path she is now following. She was also able to position herself as a leader within the organization. Having access to the data made it much easier to have a frank and open discussion and make the right decisions. Often, the data made the argument for Melissa. (10.53) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact that the technology sector is becoming more dynamic is something Melissa welcomes and finds exciting. New roles are emerging. The creation of UX and UI managers, data analysts and engineers is making a huge difference to how effective developers and product managers can be. These changes are also enabling more people to get involved in the technology field. (11.50) – Are there any particular technologies that interest you or any particular direction that technology is going in? Melissa is particularly interested in the way ethics are starting to play a role in how products are developed. In the past, everyone’s time and energy went into solving the technical problems with very little consideration being given to the social ramifications of what they were doing. That is starting to change. (12.59) – What drew you to a career in IT? Melissa remembers her dad bringing home a magazine with Bill Gates on the front. It was then that her dad first encouraged her to become a computer programmer. She was very young, but it struck a cord. Her uncle worked for Microsoft and she knew she enjoyed playing with computers, so she was actually quite keen to follow her father’s advice. Melissa ended up studying to become an engineer. A lot of her friend’s got involved in the investment banking and financial side. But, she was always fascinated by the technical side of things and wanted to build the products rather than use them. (14.34) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? When she graduated from college she sat in front of a panel and was asked what phase of her career she was on. Was she ready to learn or earn? The panel pointed out that she still did not know that much, so suggested that she might be better off taking positions that would help her to build up her knowledge quickly, at least at that stage of her career. It was very good advice. Even today she makes sure that she is learning continuously. She pushes herself to go in directions that push here to try and learn new things. (15.45) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Melissa left college and immediately started working for a major bank in a developer role. It was a very slow paced environment, so she learned very little. She did not have a mentor either. If she were to start her career again she would not dismiss the idea of getting a job where she could have a mentor, or maybe working for a startup. A role that would have pushed her and provided her with an outlet for the energy and enthusiasm every new developer has. (17.16) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? Right now, Melissa is trying to learn more about domains she is not yet familiar with. For example, last year, she got involved in learning about pricing and packaging. She is also trying to get a seat on a company board. (18.14) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Executive presence is Melissa’s number on non-technical skill. If you want to get into leadership you need to work on your executive presence from day one. You need to be a good presenter and sway people with your ideas and data. It is very important to adapt your style to suit your audience, so you can reach them. (19.37) – Phil asks Melissa to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Once again, Melissa echoes her early advice, which is to go somewhere you can learn. BEST MOMENTS: (2.51) MELISSA – "Always go somewhere where you can learn from somebody who is already there." (4.38) MELISSA – "Product management is a growing field. It’s also one of the highest paid fields in the technology industry." (7.19) MELISSA – “Always try to approach it from the perspective of the other person." (14.52) MELISSA – "Are you ready to earn? Or are you ready to learn? Which phase of your career are you on? " (18.37) MELISSA – "If you want to get into leadership, the thing that you really need to hone and work on, from day one, is executive presence." CONTACT MELISSA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/lissijean LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissajeanperri/ Website: https://melissaperri.com/

Some people would view the loss of a leg as a tragedy, or at least, a significant obstacle to pursuing the path they’d painstakingly planned out for themselves. For Melissa Stockwell, my guest on this week’s episode of #WeGotGoals, losing a limb offered a second chance at a lifelong aspiration. As a young gymnast, she’d always dreamed of going to the Olympics. She practiced twice a day. Her walls were covered in Team USA posters, her entire life decorated in red, white, and blue. Her love for her country eventually took her to the Army and to Iraq, where in 2004 a roadside bomb took her leg. While recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, she learned about the U.S. Paralympics. That, she knew, was where she needed to be. “Here I was, an athlete with a physical disability, and I was being told that I could compete on the world’s biggest athletic stage and represent a country that I defended over in Iraq,” she says. “What greater honor would it be to wear that USA uniform on that stage?” Stockwell picked a sport—swimming—and trained hard. She made it to her first Games in 2008 in Beijing. The experience was incredible but the results, not what she’d hoped. So she transitioned to triathlon, stayed dedicated, and won a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games. Standing next to her teammates on the podium—Americans took all three medals—was the ultimate payoff for all her challenges and sacrifices, she says. And it was all the more meaningful for having come after another major feat—having her son, Dallas. “To be in Rio on that podium as a medal-winning mom was really just really one of my greatest accomplishments,” she says. “I mean, when I think of that moment, I think about everything that went into it and just how amazing it was to be there.” Her path to the medal stand offers one compelling example of the way she digs deep to find the positive in any situation. But it’s far from the only way she’s wrested control of her own narrative, turning challenges into opportunities to transcend them. Sure, balancing training, speaking gigs, her role with the Dare2Tri Paratriathlon Club (which she co-founded), and two kids under the age of 4 often proves tricky. But rather than bemoan her lack of time, she maximizes every 15 minutes, and draws a deeper motivation to push ahead from her children and the athletes who come through the Dare2Tri program. Of course, training comes with its peaks and valleys, days of exceeding your expectations interspersed with not-so-great rides, swims, and runs. Each day, she pinpoints one thing she did that drew her closer to her goal, even if was as simple as getting off the couch. And yes, she’ll be 40 by the time of the next Paralympics, in Tokyo. Her competitors are far younger, have fewer responsibilities. But age has brought her wisdom and a desire to show her children—she now has two, including eight-month-old Millie—that hard work pays off. So she’ll do everything she can to make it there. We won’t be surprised to see her on the podium again in 2020. Hear more about how Stockwell is working to involve women in the sport as chair of the USA Triathlon Women’s Committee, what tips she has for other busy moms trying to achieve big goals, and the special way she commemorates the day she lost her leg on this week’s episode. And if you like what you hear, subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts and leave us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts.   --- Episode transcript: JAC: Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatLife.com. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen; with me,I have Kristen Geil and Cindy Kuzma. CK: Good morning, Jeana. KG: Hi Jeana. JAC: Good morning. And Cindy, you did the interview this week with Melissa Stockwell. Isn't that right? CK:Yeah, I'm Melissa Stockwell is a Paralympic triathlete. And she's also a veteran, she started an organization called Dare2Tri that helps other athletes with disabilities get into the sport of triathlon and fall in love with it as much as she did. She's an incredible guest and I was so excited to talk with her. KG:Melissa lost her leg in Iraq and throughout it all she's remained incredibly positive. How was she able to do so with such a traumatic experience in her past? CK:Yeah. I wonder how much of that is sort of integral to her personality and how much of it she learned along the way, But she really focuses a lot on finding the silver lining in difficult experiences. In fact, there's a great story about how she kind of has turned the loss of her leg around. I don't want to give too much away because it's, um, pretty fantastic the way she's turned that into a positive for herself, but really she just focuses on finding whatever she can to kind of make the story her own out of whatever obstacles she's faced and overcome. And you know, you can't control everything in life she talks about, but you can control your reaction to it. And she has really tried to do that to make her reaction in a positive one. JAC:And along the way, going through that experience in them becoming an athlete, she adopted this sort of interesting way to set and achieve big goals. Can you talk about how she uses small steps to achieve big goals? CK:Sure. Like many of the accomplished athletes we have on the podcast, you have to have a big goal, right? Like you want to be a Paralympian, an Olympian, and you want to be the best in the world, but it's pretty hard to just set your sights on that and then wait for it to happen. Right. You have to do a lot of work along the way and she talks about how she every day just tries to do whatever she can to achieve that goal. And then at the end of the day she writes down one thing she did that took her closer to her goal. So even if things didn't go exactly the way she planned, even if she had a run that wasn't great, at least she got out there and ran or she did something she didn't want to do and that took her a step closer to our goal and then she can reflect on all of those accomplishments later on and realize how much hard work she really did and how she's prepared to achieve what she set out to achieve. KG:And her life would be easy enough if all she had to do was train for triathlons or whatever sport she's competing in. But of course, that's never the only thing you're doing with your life at one time. There's always other things that demand your attention and your time. So how is she able to manage her priorities with a family and with a career? CK:So, she definitely has a lot more responsibilities now with the family, but that actually has helped her connect to a deeper motivation to her sport so she can't always do as much training, but she is really motivated to stay active and to show her daughter and all the other women out there that you can continue to have a career and a full life and be an accomplished athlete. So I think connecting to that really helps her continue to achieve. JAC: And here’s Cindy, with Melissa. CK: All right. This is Cindy Kuzma from aSweatLife and I am here on the #WeGotGoals podcast with Melissa Stockwell, who’s a Paralympian, and the co-founder of the Dare2Tri program. Melissa, thank you so much for joining us on the #WeGotGoals podcast. MS:Thank you for having me. Excited to be here. CKNow. Melissa, you just came back from a couple of trips I know, including to Sarasota for the American Championships. Is that right? MS:I did. I, um, in my first race back kind of post having my baby Millie who is eight months old today. So yes, I was down in Sarasota doing a race and it went quite well, much better than I expected it to. CK:That's always awesome when we have those victories when we don't even expect them. Right, right. Exactly. So Melissa, I know you were an athlete from an early age, you were a gymnast growing up. Right? MS:I was. So I was a big gymnast, so it was kind of my definitely my thing growing up, you know, I think as all young aspiring gymnasts do you know, dreamt of going to the Olympics and being an Olympic gymnast and had posters all over my room and you know, red, white and blue everywhere and gymnastics before school after school. And that was definitely what I hoped to do. CK:Yeah. I often think that people who have that early experience of being an athlete that really often shapes the way you think about goals and opportunities for the rest of your life. Do you think that that was the case for you? MS:I definitely think it helped. You know, obviously when I was younger I had had two legs, I had both of my legs. I didn't really know any different, I’d always been kind of goal-driven, so wanting to dream big and reach high and my parents kind of let me do that, which I think has shaped my life kind of this many years later and as I've grown up it's kind of allowed me to do, to do just that and just to keep going with it. CK:So how did you get from those early days to Iraq? What, what led you to service and what goal did you hope to accomplish there? MS:So I realized at a young age kind of, you know, how lucky we were to live in the country that we live in and always wanting to be in the military and to be in the Army. So I made that a reality in college when I joined ROTC and then, and when I graduated in 2002, I was commissioned as an officer and two years later I ended up being deployed over to Iraq. So, you know, I joined, I joined the army, I mean pretty short and simple. I love our country. I wanted to give back. That was really my, my main reason for, for putting the uniform on CK:And I know it didn't take too long after that before you had a change of plans. I know it was April 13th, 2004 when your convoy hit an IED and, and you lost your leg and we're talking now a little bit before that day in 2018 and I know you have a special tradition for our commemorating that, which maybe we'll talk about later. But what I'd kind of love to hear about first is, is how you shifted your goals and your mindset while you were recovering. Talk to me a little bit about the moment you kind of set your sights on the Paralympics and what effect having a big, audacious goal like that had on your rehab, both physically and mentally. MS:So. So after I lost my leg, I wasn't, you know, I was 24 years old, didn't really know what my life would be and I did all my recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and being there and being surrounded by so many other soldiers who had worse injuries than my own kind of helped me realize how lucky I was. So I wanted to kind of live my life for them and that those, that no longer could and have given that ultimate sacrifice. So after I learned to walk and wear a prosthetic, I learned about the US Paralympics and you know, having dreamt to go on to the Olympics as a young child and that never happened and it was almost like I had a second chance because here I was an athlete with a physical disability and I was being told that I could compete on the world's biggest athletic stage. MS:Represent a country that I defended over in Iraq. And I mean, what greater honor would it be to wear that USA uniform on that stage. So a dream was born pretty quickly of wanting to be a Paralympian and you know, I kinda set right to it, you know, somehow, some way I want it to be a Paralympian and it was kind of a natural goal I feel, you know, I think just having been an athlete growing up, been an athlete in the past, it was just kind of something that fell into my lap and the realization that if I worked hard enough and picked a sport and dedicated myself to it, that I could actually get there. CK:and, and you made it not once but twice in two different sports and I know you took home the bronze medal in triathlon in Rio in an American sweep, which was so incredible. And those are just two of the many things you've accomplished since then. So this kind of feels like a good time to transition into the first big question we always ask on #WeGotGoals and that is what is one big goal you've achieved, why it was important to you and how you got there? MS:So definitely when I think about the past many years, the one that stands out is winning a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games in the sport of triathlon. It was— everything that came with it. Everything from losing my leg over in Iraq to competing in the 2008 Paralympic Games in swimming, but not doing as well athletically as I thought they could, and then continuing with it and turn into the sport of triathlon, having my son Dallas and then trying to come back from that to make it to Rio, kind of everything that went that moment. All the dedication, the hard work, the sacrifice of having to be away sometimes from my family for training, for racing, the team that I was with, my coaches, my, my mentors, my family, everyone that kind of believed in me to get there, to be in Rio, on that podium as a medal winning mom was really just really one of my greatest accomplishments. I mean, when I think of that moment, I think about everything that went into it and just how amazing it was to be there. CK:I'm getting chills hearing you talk about it. We've talked to several elite athletes on this podcast and I'm always so curious about how they approach goals because it seems so overwhelming to say, like, my goal is to win a Paralympic medal be a world champion or be the best in the world and it seems like most people kind of break goals down into smaller chunks and maybe make them process goals versus outcome goals. Um, what did that look like for you when you were training hard for that, for those games? How did you approach goal setting? MS:So you're right, so goals, I mean you have this huge goal, like if you have a huge goal, it doesn't, it doesn't happen overnight. You don't. I don't say, Oh I'm going to qualify for Rio in the Paralympics and then wake up the next day and do it. It takes days and months and years of training and really believing that you can. So really, yeah, kind of taking it down into, into each day. So, you know, every day I wake up, I do my training and at the end of the day I kind of look back and I say, OK, what's one thing I did today that got me closer to my goal? And some days it's something as little as, I didn't want to go on my run, but I got up off the couch or I, I, I did what I had to do to make it happen. Whether the run was a good run or not, it doesn't matter some days. MS:What matters is just that you got out there and you did it when you didn't want to do it that day. Another day you look back and you say, wow, that run was amazing. I had this time goal and not only did I make it, but I surpassed it, and then that kind of makes all those other days of training that didn't go so well worth it and it kind of pushes you for the next block of training. So goals I think have to be broken down into little chunks and little steps at the end of every day. You can look back at your day and I guarantee you that whatever it is, even if it's the smallest little thing, there's something in that day that got you closer to that goal and some days they’re hard to find, other days are easier, but at the end of the, at the end of the day, you didn't have a good day. If it's a bad day, find the positive in it, find something that got you closer to that goal because it's there. Sometimes you have to just look a little bit deeper. CK:I love that so much and I can see how if you kind of stacked those moments on top of each other, you would also really stoke your confidence. Like you say, that is such an important of it too. Not just the physical preparation but the mental preparation. MS:Exactly, and you know, I think everything in life and especially goals as well. It's not this, it's not just an upward trajectory, right? I mean there's dips and there's valleys and there's peaks and—but it's a gradual, if you stick with it and if you stick with believing in yourself, having a team surrounding yourself with people that want you to get there, want you to, you know, reach those goals. The gradual trend is up, but it might, it’s all about when it does dip down, when you do have those valleys about not getting up and keep moving forward. CK:So how do you keep track of this moment? Are you a person who has a paper training log? Do you do it online or do you have some way that you are really capturing all of this to use later on? MS:So I used to have it written down where every day or either every night before I go to bed, I would write down what I did that day or the three good things that I did. And then every morning I would write down three things that I wanted to achieve that day. Since my daughter was born eight months ago. I have yet to continue that because I was kind of busy with, you know, middle of the night feedings and not, not a lot of sleep, but something that I should definitely start now that that’s getting a little bit better. I should start again because I think having it written down and being able to go back and look at that and you know, six months down the road, going back and looking back at the things that I achieved six months prior and realizing how far I've come from them can really help. CK:Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that's what's so powerful about having those little rituals too, is that sometimes life does get crazy and you kind of move away from them. They give you something really sort of tangible to get back to, right. Like, you know, you can do that again. MS: Yeah, absolutely. CK: Let's talk a little bit now about Dare2Tri, which is an organization I know helps so many other athletes achieve their goals. What motivated you to launch it and how has it grown since? MS:Yeah, so back in 2011. Two of my friends, Dan Tun and Keri Serota and myself co founded Dare2Tri Paratriathlon Club. Obviously I'm an athlete with a physical disability and both Dan and Carrie are able-bodied athletes, but they’ve had worked with adaptive athletics all their life. So all of us were triathletes and kind of realized how much sports can impact somebody's life at all, but especially somebody with a disability. So we decided that we're going to start Dare2Tri and get however many athletes we could find that had physical disabilities and show them that they could do, not only be an athlete but they could be a triathlete. So we launched it back in 2011. It's based in the Chicago area and we had the modest goal to get eight athletes to do a triathlon that first year that had, where there was a amputation, visual impairments, spinal cord injury, and really provide the athletes with everything they needed to do a triathlon. MS:So expensive adaptive equipment, coaching, training and really helping them get to that starting line, so we started it and it grew faster than we ever could have imagined. Not only did we get eight athletes to that starting line in the first year, I think we were upwards in the, in the mid twenties, 24 athletes and then this many years later, seven years later, we have over 300 athletes on our roster. We have year round programming, we have camps, we had clinics, we have two, three-day camps, one that's for military, one that's for anybody with a physical disability and it's been really impressive and incredibly rewarding just to see how many lives we've impacted. Because you take somebody who has a disability, you know, take a youth athlete who's eight years old, they're in a wheelchair. Neither they or their families, you know, they're not sure kind of what their lives can be and how, that it doesn't matter if you’re in a wheelchair or not you can still accomplish whatever you want and you see them get to that starting line, cross the finish line and just kind of see that self confidence not only in them but in their families as well. And it, it's, it's really incredible. Our motto is one inspires many and our athletes inspire both on and off the race course. CK:Oh, that's got to give you fuel for your own accomplishments too, just seeing these athletes do things that they didn't think were possible for them. MS:Oh yeah, 100 percent. I do a lot of speaking around the nation and I get asked a lot like who inspires me and I am 100 percent inspired by our athletes. You know, anybody that doesn't think they could do something and they decide to go and try it and they realize that not only are they good at it and can they do it, but they actually enjoy it and then they continue on with it. So you know, our athletes in swear, anybody that sees them, but they help with my own goals and my own motivation as well. CK:I know that that's not the only way that you're working to help other athletes achieve their goals. You're also chair of the USA Triathlon Women's Committee. Tell me about that role and what goals do you hope to accomplish through that leadership position? MS:So USA triathlon has a good number of committees and the women's committee, which I recently the chair of, our goal is to get women into the sport of triathlon. So if any triathletes are listening, especially female triathletes, I think somebody asks you, Oh, what do you do and you say, Oh, I'm a triathlete, I swim, I bike, I run. And a lot of the response you get from women are, Oh, I could never do that. But the reality of it is actually yes, you can do that. So it's really what we hope to do as a committee is to really kind of break down those barriers. And when somebody, when a woman says, oh, I could never do that, you say, actually, yes you can. And this is why you can because there is a community of women athletes that are going to help mentor you to get there because there is a race you can go to and to start your career in triathlon. You can start out in a women's only triathlon or a women's only race and this is a uniform that, that you can wear and isn't it cool? You can pick from these colors and you know, it's not about winning the race, it's just about being out there and doing the race, so really kind of trying to break down those barriers on why women can be a triathlete and really to help them achieve it and to get to that finish line. CK:That's such an incredible goal. What does that look like in terms of like how you go about that? I mean are there conferences or is it just like individual outreach or group outreach? How, how practically speaking are. Is that committee working to make this a reality? MS:Yeah, it's kind of a combination of. So we have some partnerships with various other foundations kind of around the nation where each one of us has an athlete that we're mentoring to become a triathlete this year. We also provide grants, so grants to individuals that want to do their first triathlon to kind of help with travel or to help with coaching or to kind of help initiate the process on getting to that starting line. We also have grants that we give to women that are triathletes that are kind of looking to expand their leadership capabilities within triathlon, so if they’re a triathlon coach, but they want to take it to the next level and become a, get certified to coach athletes with disabilities or become a coach at the collegiate level to really kind of help women become advocates kind of within their own lives and kind of take that next step just so there's more females on the coaching level as well, so we provide resources on our Facebook page, it’s USA triathlon women's committee tips for women on how they can get into the sport and just hoping that women will take a liking and realize that they can do it also. CK:That's great that there's both informational and and financial support. I know that those are both really big needs for women who may be considering this kind of a sport. So that's, that's incredible. And thanks for giving the facebook page too. Because, yeah, I was going to ask how women can find out more about this. So that's perfect. The second big question that we always ask and #WeGotGoals is about a future goal you have and how you plan to get there and you've touched on some big goals that you have for the different organizations you're involved with. But I wonder what's, what's next for Melissa Stockwell? What's a goal you have personally? MS:So I have two young kids. I have an eight month old and I have a three year old and my husband Brian. And my kids motivate me to want to be, to dream even bigger and I want to kind of dream big and hopes that they see me dream big and they had big dreams of their own someday. So you know, I'm very athletically driven. I've found I have a passion behind sports and just the way it really makes me feel and just kind of proving to myself that I can still have these big goals, athletic goals, whether or not I have one leg or two. So for me, 2020 is the next Paralympic Games for triathlon and it is definitely a goal of mine in coming back from after having my daughter Millie eight months ago is not an easy thing to do, you know, a lot of my competitors are much younger than I am, no families, so the training dynamic is very different but the goal of showing them that I will be 40 years old, and as a 40 year old triathlete that has two young kids and I can still be out there on the course and not only that I can still be out there and be fast and keep up with them as well. MS:So that is definitely one of my big goals is to try and make it to Tokyo and kind of have that be my final Paralympic Games and just to do it to prove that I can and to challenge myself and just to show my kids that you put in the work and dreams can come true. CK:That's incredible to hear. And so interesting to hear too about how your motivation has changed a little bit or at least maybe expanded. I feel like often when I do talk to athletes who have long careers like you, they do find that like as life goes on, they find even more reasons to get out there and more fuel for the fire and, and more ways to stay motivated. So it's fantastic to hear that that's the case for you. MS:Yes, definitely. CK:And obviously that is like sort of a logistical challenge too, to train with the family. What are one or two of the things that have shifted for you and what advice do you give other people about fitting it all in when you have a family and, and want to train at a high level. MS:It's hard. There's never enough hours in the day, there weren’t before I had kids and now there definitely aren't. So I think fitting in what you can when you can and my coach had taught me that, that if I have 15 minutes to go on a run before kids, I would've thought that's not even worth it. Why would I even go for 15 minutes? But you go and you run a mile or a mile and a half, and instead of doing nothing that day while you've just gotten a mile in and those miles add up and they make a difference. The other things I've had to do is just kind of adjust my time so you know, instead of waking up and having breakfast and then doing whatever I do and then doing my workout, I again, I had to do what I can when I can. So in the summer when it's not cold and icy, I was known to put my kids down to bed because of course you want to spend as much time as you can with them. So I put him down to bed, 8:30 PM, put on a reflector vest, put on my headlamp and actually on my run around the neighborhood. Things that I never thought I would do that in order to make it work. It's things like that that you have to do. So get that headlamp, get that reflector vest.  Use, if you have 15 minutes, take those 15 minutes and do what you can with that much. Really just any little time that you have throughout the day, just doing what you can when you can. CK:Yeah. I think it's just like we were talking earlier about, you know, noticing your accomplishments for the day like that—all those little bits definitely add up to something much greater in the long run. MS:Yes, yes they do. CK:When you speak or give advice to others, what are, what are one or two of the key lessons you share about overcoming obstacles that come up in route to your goals? MS:When we're younger, we have, you know, you have these dreams of what you want your life to be like, right? Like you want be a doctor, you want to live in this area, you want to be married, you want to have kids, but it never happens that way. I think the older we get, the more we realize that you can't really plan your life because you can plan it to an extent, but there's so many obstacles and kind of twists and turns that happen that you're not prepared for because you don’t, there are so unexpected, but I think knowing that those things happen, that those roadblocks come up and that there's going to be diversions you know, to get to where you want to get and just the ability to really accept them and to really, to overcome them and to find a silver lining because it's hard to find a silver lining, but it is there. MS:And to really kind of dig deep and find a way to make whatever difficulties come your way, like to make them almost desirable and to make it so you end up even better. On the other side, you, you learn from your challenges and you make, in turn, they make you better in the long run. Another thing is to do that, you have to. You have to believe in yourself, but you also have to, you know when these obstacles come your way, you, you have the power to choose how you want to react to them. So that's kind of the beauty in life, right? You can choose for them to get to you and put you down or you can choose to help them make your life even better. So to try to choose to take the high road and you know, to help them make your life as good as you want it to be. So we can all choose what we want our life's path to be like. And just to try to choose to make your path to good one. CK:Those stories we tell ourselves definitely so powerful and can really shape our experiences and our future. I know. So I mean along those lines, April 13th is coming up and we mentioned this earlier, but talk to me a little bit about how you commemorate this because I think that it's such a great example of what you were just talking about. MS:Yeah. So, um, it is coming up, but I'll just a few weeks now. So every April 13th, which is a day that I lost my leg over in Iraq, every year we actually celebrate the day. So I named what’s left of my leg Little Leg and we have a birthday for Little Leg. So this year will be Little Leg’s, sounds kind of crazy to me but 14th birthday, which, I can’t believe it’s been 14 years. But it's really a celebration, so family and friends drive in or fly in. We celebrate the day. We celebrate not just Little Leg’s life or my life, but really everybody's life because in the day to day lives that we live, it's easy to get kind of caught up in everything that's going on, but when you take a moment or a day to kind of take a step back and to think about your life and it’s, we’re all very lucky to live the lives that we do. So just to take a day to celebrate that and to be with your loved ones and to celebrate, to dance, to, to eat cake, to, to share some drinks and just to kind of enjoy, enjoy life. CK:Well Melissa, that's such good advice and thank you so much for joining us on the #WeGotGoals podcast. Before I let you go, how can people find you and keep track of you and keep tabs on the celebrating that you're doing and all of the accomplishments that you have in the future? MS:Social media is obviously the best way. I do have a website that's melissastockwell.com. On Facebook, it’s Melissa StockwellUSA and then on both Twitter and Instagram it’s mstockwell01. So I encourage everyone to kind of follow along. I promise that there is never really a dull moment CK:And lots of adorable baby photos, that's for sure. Well thank you again Melissa. It's been great talking with you. Really appreciate your time. MS: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. CK:This podcast was produced by me, Cindy Kuzma and it's another thing that's better with friends, so please share it with yours. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and if you give us a rating or review while you're there, we would be so grateful. Special things to J. Mano for our theme music; to a guest this week, Melissa Stockwell; and to Tech Nexus for the recording studio.  

Though Vancouver continues to be as smokey as ever, it didn't stop people from going out and enjoying themselves during the pride weekend. So Melissa and Michael chat about that for a bit, as well as loneliness death, Microsoft Office competitions and even that popular social topic 'The Swastika'.