Podcasts about susan it

Join Susan on our podcast today as she shares her journey to a beautifully empowering CBA3C! Susan had three C-sections that didn't have anything to do with her body. They just happened to be circumstantial. All three of her births had been traumatic emotionally and did not go how she wanted at all. As far as making decisions for herself and doing what she really wanted to do, that was not present. But with her fourth baby, Susan had a lot of firsts. It was the first time that she was really able to voice what she wanted. She was able to make decisions out of peace and being educated instead of making decisions out of fear and being told what to do. That was the first truly empowering step in her process.Our mission at The VBAC Link is to make all births after difficult Cesareans better, and Susan's episode shows exactly that. Coterie Diaper Products, Code VBAC20 for 20% Discount How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. It is Megan, and I am joining you with my friend Susan. Hello, Susan. How are you?Susan: Hi Meagan. I'm doing great. How are you doing?Meagan: I am so great. You are from South Carolina, and at the time we're recording, even though this is now going to be in February, South Carolina has had crazy weather. How has everything been with you guys?Susan: Everything has been great. We're actually extremely blessed with the area that we are in. Initially, I thought it was something to talk about because I had a tree fall in the back of my house, but once I saw everything else going on in the area and just seeing the devastation that people had gone through, we are incredibly blessed with, the minimal damage with it just being a tree.Meagan: And this was Hurricane Helene?Susan: Hurricane Helene. Yeah. So all of our neighbors are pretty rough right now, so keep them in your prayers and help out where you can.Meagan: Seriously? Oh, we will be. We're actually recording right now in October, and today is the day that Florida is scheduled to be hit with another really crazy hurricane. So, yes.Susan: I've been thinking of Florida non-stop too.Meagan: Seriously, if you guys are listening, even though this is in February, oh my goodness, I hope all is well and everybody is okay.We do have our Review of the Week, so I definitely want to get into that before you share your four CBAC stories. We have people question, "Why is it called The VBAC Link, but then you share CBAC stories?" But I think the solid straight answer is because not every birth ends in a vaginal birth, and not everything always goes as planned. And you know what? Also, sometimes VBAC isn't desired, and CBAC is something that we don't want to forget about. In fact, if you didn't know, we have a CBAC Link Community. We have The VBAC Link Community on Facebook, and we also have a CBAC Link Community which is just the most amazing group as well. It's actually run by Paige, our transcriber, who I absolutely adore and just had her fourth Cesarean, which was a Maternal Assisted Cesarean. I still can't even believe all of those things happened. It's so amazing. But you guys, if you are looking for a CBAC support group, go to The CBAC Link Community on Facebook, and we'll make sure you get in. We have a review. It is by Jamie Poor. It says, "The absolute best." Thank you. That is so sweet. It says, "After having a scheduled C-section in 2016 for my son being breech, he flipped between 38 and 39 weeks, so he came as quite as a shock. I knew I wanted to VBAC for my next birth. Fast forward to 2019, my second pregnancy with our daughter, I found your podcast and obsessively listened to every single episode. It motivated me and educated me leading up to my due date. It even made me look forward to my long commutes to work. I hired a doula. I drank red raspberry leaf tea, ate the dates, did the Spinning Babies and really did all the things. And guess what? With the help and the education and advice provided on this podcast, I got my VBAC. I learned how to ask for what I wanted and advocate for myself with my doctor and when my body cooperated and went into labor, I felt prepared. My daughter was born in January 25, 2020, and I have to say her labor, delivery, and birth was the most healing, empowering experience of my life. Thank you, ladies, for providing this podcast for all women preparing for birth." Thank you so much, Jamie Poor, for your review, and congratulations on your amazing, empowering birth experience.Women of Strength, no matter how you birth, we want you to have a better experience. That is our goal here at The VBAC link to make birth after Cesarean better. A lot of first Cesareans are unexpected, undesired, unplanned, and do sometimes bring trauma. That doesn't mean even future Cesareans have to have trauma or be unplanned or be unprepared for. We want to learn all the ways we can make birth after Cesarean better no matter how that ends. Okay Susan, ending that review, we were just talking about no matter how birth ends. When you filled out your form, there was something that you said that things sometimes don't go as planned, but learning how to advocate for yourself and know that every birth is different is going to leave you feeling better. So I'm excited for you to share your four stories with us today, and I am excited to hear how you learned and grew and had better experiences with each one.Susan: Okay, so the first birth, I was 19. I was really young, and I didn't know a whole lot about birthing in general. I just did what I was told. I went to the hospital. I did what the white-coat man told me to do, and I didn't question anything. I was just a good patient all the way around. I had an amazing birth. I walked 8 miles before my induction date because I was a week over just trying to get things going and nothing was going. But you know how they are at the hospital. You know, as soon as you hit that 40-week mark, they want something to happen as soon as possible. So around, 41 weeks, I went "overdue" according to the medical standards. I went into the hospital and was super excited. They started the Pitocin drip, and my baby did not respond to that well at all. I was actually watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and I was laughing so hard while the Pitocin was going that his heart rate actually dropped to zero, his fetal heart rate. I remember all of the nurses came rushing in. They were freaking out, and they were pulling on stuff and readjusting me. It was really scary. They stopped the Pitocin and then they restarted it, and then it happened again. So his fetal heart rate dropped scarily low two times. The doctor came back in and he said, "You have two options. You can probably go home and labor for days and days and days, or don't know how long it's going to be."Meagan: He made it sound hard though.Susan: Yeah. He made that sound not appealing at all. And then he said, "Or we can just go to the back and get a C-section and get this baby out." And I was like, "Let's do the C-section. Let's get him out asap," because I was just scared, and I was young, and I just wanted him to be okay. So we went back for the C-section, and it was a perfect recovery. I didn't really think much of it. I was just glad that I had a healthy baby.The second birth came along, and I was actually in a pretty tough situation at the time. I was faced with a choice of what am I going to do with my pregnancy? A choice that many women face. Whenever you're not in the most ideal spot to have a child at the time, no decision is easy. The decision that I chose for myself at that time was to do an adoption. I chose to go the adoption route. Whenever they had asked me about what I would want to do as far as the birth goes, I was just thinking of the adoptive parents and what would be best for them. It was a completely sacrificial thing that I did. I didn't think about myself at all or what would be best for my body or my health or anything like that. I just wanted to make sure that his adoptive parents would be there. To assure that, I just elected to have a repeat C-section. Fast forward a little bit later. I'm starting to learn a little bit more about natural birth and what that can mean in a woman's body and the benefits of it. I don't know too much, but I went to my provider on my third birth, and I mentioned, I said, "How would you feel about me trying to have a natural birth?" He just looked at me with disgust, and he was like, "Absolutely not. We're not gonna do that." I just really didn't know too much, and I just felt so defeated and like that really was the only option, and I wanted to do the right thing. I really didn't fight for myself. I think I may have mentioned it to one other person just briefly, and then I just dropped it. That was the third C-section. So at this point, I've had three C-sections that really didn't have anything to do with me or my body not progressing or anything like that. It just happened to be circumstantial. It really wasn't empowering. So far,  all three of my births had been traumatic emotionally and did not go how I really wanted at all. I mean, thank God the three babies were healthy, of course, but as far as me making decisions for myself and doing what I really would want to do, that was not present. So, fourth baby. So the fourth baby, I had a lot of firsts. So it was my first baby with the marriage that I'm in now. It was my first girl, and it was the first time that I was really able to think clearly and be able to voice what I wanted and be able to make decisions out of peace and being educated instead of making decisions out of fear and being told what to do. That was the first step that was super empowering in this process.Meagan: Yeah. I think when you start feeling empowered, that's where it begins, the second you start that. Yeah.Susan: Yep. So I went to my first appointment just to have the pregnancy confirmed. They were just pushing. The only thing they were really doing was making sure I got vaccinated. "Oh, your blood pressure's high, so you're probably at risk for preeclampsia." They're already putting me in all of these little boxes on my first visit. They're telling me to take aspirin because I had high blood pressure. I had high blood pressure, a lot of it due to white-coat syndrome just due to the trauma of being in the hospital. I was completely not at peace. I hated being there. I did not want to be at that doctor's office. And so I got in the car and I immediately am talking to my husband. We call his cousin because he comes from a family where it's really common to have home births and to use midwives and to use alternative ways. I was so blocked off that I really just couldn't see, but we started talking to his cousin and she was telling me, "No, this is actually totally possible. I know some midwives who are able to do it." I'm still clenching up with fear, but I want to let it go. I'm on Google and I'm like, "vaginal births after C-sections three times", and your podcast was actually the first one to pop up. I went on there, and I specifically looked up a story that had to do with a woman having a vaginal birth after three C-sections.  I just started to listen and my heart started to open and the fear started to dissipate. I was like, "I can do this. I can at least make a huge attempt to do it." And so I started to call different midwives and see what their availability was like. A good portion of the midwives don't want to work with you if you've had over three C-sections because they're contracted with the hospitals and are contracted with the state in some way to where they can't legally do that. It was really hard because I called around and called around, and either they weren't available or they just couldn't do it. But I finally found a midwife that was willing to work with me. Me and my husband met with her, and we sat down and talked. It was the first time I had ever had a conversation with "providers" where they actually believed in me, and they believed in my body, and they believed in my ability to give birth. It just meant so much to me to be looked at as a human and as a woman that can do this and not just as a patient who you want to push through and make money on and just get the C-section and be done and not have any risk involved. But there is risk involved having a C-section after three C-sections. There's risk doing it any way, and it's just like, what risk do you want to take?Meagan: Yeah. It's interesting, but what you were saying, "I just wanted someone to sit me down and talk to me like I'm human and have this feeling." I mean, I interviewed multiple providers, and it took me a long time to find that, too. That is what breaks my heart about this community. We have to go into these situations where we're searching for support that feels like a diamond in the rough.Susan: Yeah. And I want to just point out that even though this did end a Cesarean, and we all know that. There's no suspense there. There are so many points along the journey where I did have that healing. I did have that empowerment. It doesn't have to lead to a Cesarean in order to have that healing is what I really want my story to say. You can still make decisions and advocate yourself for yourself in a way where it doesn't necessarily have the VBAC.Meagan: Yes, yes, yes.Susan: Because I'm in the Facebook Community, and I see stories of women being so defeated and so sad when it doesn't end in the VBAC. I just want to inspire people that it doesn't have to be that. The empowerment can come in so many different forms. I was just completely elated after I spoke with her, and I just felt like it was meant to be. I loved her. I loved her energy. She had been a midwife for over 26 years. She had over 1100 home births and not a single maternal death.Meagan: Wow.Susan: Yeah. I just felt totally confident in her, so I went ahead and hired her to be my midwife. Just being able to go to her house and have the prenatal visits was so nice. That was another huge thing that was just amazing and not having to go to the hospital and fight every time. We did all of our prenatals there.She didn't beat around the bush. If there is an issue and I needed to address it, I would address it. I had a little bit of issues with my blood pressure, so I tweaked my diet and I was able to monitor that that way. Towards the end of my pregnancy, I had issues with my hemoglobin being low. I tried everything in the book, by the way, and the thing that helped me, just in case anyone's having issues with their hemoglobin, is I actually froze raw beef liver. I froze it, and then we cut it up into little tablets. I took this raw beef liver every morning because it gives you energy. Don't take it at night before you go to bed because you'll have trouble sleeping. But I took it in the morning and my hemoglobin went from like 9 to 11 within a week which was amazing because nothing else was working.Meagan: Yes.Susan: Yeah.Meagan: And I was going to say that frozen wheatgrass shots is another thing that can help with that. Yeah.Susan: Oh, I did not try that. I said I tried everything, but not that. Meagan: Liver and wheatgrass. Make a delicious smoothie.Susan: The things we do to stay healthy. So, yeah, sometimes people will try to make you feel like you're being irresponsible by not doing it the way that they've been programmed to do it. I'm just saying, it was totally responsible. If not, it was even more responsible because she may have picked up on things and was able to give me advice from a nutritional standpoint which is usually always the issue. It's something to do with your nutrition in your diet that someone in the hospital wouldn't tell me because all they wanted to tell me was to take an aspirin. Yeah.I went over. I was 42 weeks and 4 days, I think.Meagan: 42 weeks and 4 days?Susan: Yes.Meagan: Okay.Susan: So another thing I want to tell people, if you're planning on doing a home birth or doing a natural birth, even if you're planning on going to the hospital, I would recommend saying your due date is actually a month after it actually is to people just so you're not hounded at that like 39, 40-week mark because that was really hard mentally. Especially if you're planning to do a natural birth, it can be such a mental battle especially right there at the end and to have to deal with people know, being like, "Is she here yet? Did you have the baby?" It's just another thing to have to deal with. I would recommend saying it's a month after your actual due date. Yeah. I did absolutely everything you can think of to be the perfect student as far as home birth goes. I read every single book I can think of to prepare you for a natural home birth. I went into HypnoBirthing. I practiced the meditations and the exercises. I had the birth ball. I did all the exercises on the birth ball with my pelvis. I took all the right supplements. I did the pre-birth tincture. I was doing it beyond. People would try to talk to me being like, "You could die. You could bleed out," and I would cut them off. "I'm not having fear-based conversations. I'm not entertaining this. Yes, I'm going to do this because I want to do this. I'm not committed to this to the point of death for me and my child. If something goes awry I have no problem going to the hospital but this is what I'm doing. Leave me alone."Meagan: Good for you.Susan: Yeah. Yeah. So I was really proud of myself because they say it's like preparing for a marathon giving birth. So I really prepared. I had my mucus plug come out around maybe 42 weeks exactly. I was like, "oh my goodness, something's happening," because previously, I haven't experienced any signs of labor. I don't know anything. I've never had a contraction before.Meagan: Right.Susan: Even though this is my fourth child, I have no idea what any of this feels like. So I'm really excited. I'm like, "Wow, this is exciting." Actually, my water broke really shortly after that. I was sitting down on the couch, and I just started having gushes of water and gushes of water. I was talking to my midwife the whole time being like, "This is what's happening. There's so much fluid. There's so much." I had never had my water break before, so that was all new. I was scared. I was excited. She just reassured me. She goes, "No, this is just your water breaking." And she had told me that she's going to treat me like a first-time mom because I never have actually had a baby come through my birth canal. So a lot of times you can expect a long, strenuous labor when it's your first.Meagan: Yeah.Susan: So she said, "Your water has broken. That could either mean that it's going to speed things up and the baby will be here soon, or it could mean there's still a long road ahead." My midwife was really good about keeping my expectations very low as far as when the baby would be here.Meagan: Hey, I think there's something to that. We know that labor sometimes can be slower.Susan: She just didn't want me to stress out about it not happening sooner than later. She was just so good, so calm, so peaceful, and confident. I love her. She's the best midwife ever. I recommend her anytime I hear about people in the area wanting to have a home birth.I was starting to have contractions and then it would be like, go, go, go, and then everything would just stop. Because my water had broken, the chance of meconium was there. I had some meconium in my fluid, but it was yellow. It wasn't a high-alert type of meconium. It was just like, "Okay, we kind of need to get things going." So we talked and we decided to drink some castor oil. So I drank a tincture, the Midwives' Brew if you look it up on Google. I did that.Meagan: A lot of midwives will suggest that.Susan: Yes. So I did that, and it did throw me into really intense labor. We just got things going. I had my contraction timer going, and I had my sister and husband here. I really didn't want many people there at all at my birth. It's just such a private and intimate thing. That was just what I felt comfortable with. It would just be that. It would be a series of contraction after contraction, and then things would die down a little bit. I did every type of position you can think of. I went to the bath. I took baths. There was so much stuff I would do. I even found if I put my feet in really hot water, it would help take away from the pain of the contraction because I hate my feet being hot.Meagan: Oh, okay. Yeah.Susan: It would help me think more about my feet being hot. I would just do anything and everything I could to just help the process and help my body relax. As much HypnoBirthing as you do and as much meditation you do, every birth is different. At that point, I was like, "All of that is BS. All of that is crap." Hey, if it works for some people, great. I really tried to do it, but I had a lot of pain happening no matter what meditations or affirmations I was giving myself. I was talking to my midwife about that too. That's another thing I want to point out is that we all might have this vision of this really peaceful birth where the baby just slides out into your hand and you catch it and yay, everything is great.But also, I just want to everyone to give themselves permission to have a chaotic birth. If that's what your body needs to do, if you need to scream, if you need to shout, if you need to look like a hot mess, if your hair needs to be frazzled, let yourself do that. Sometimes just allowing yourself to let go a little bit can really help. I was laboring for three days.Meagan: Oh wow.Susan: I got to 7 centimeters dilated. I was so happy because my cervix was folded under.Meagan: Folded under?Susan: Yeah. So it was like a posterior cervix.Meagan: Oh, it was posterior.Susan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Meagan: Oh yeah. It starts posterior and through the labor process, it comes anterior and aligns well with the birth canal and opens and dilates and all that. Yeah.Susan: Yes. So, by the time I got to 7 centimeters, that had finally come forward.So we checked myself, and I was 7 centimeters. My cervix had come forward, and I was so happy and I cried for joy. I was like, "This is it. I'm at 7 centimeters. It's go time." And typically, that's when they have-- what do you call it when there's that shift?Meagan: Well, active labor. When active labor kicks in, is that what you were thinking?Susan: Well, I had already been in active labor. But the shift when you're at the final stage, almost? Because you know how labor will get to one stage, and your body will adapt to that, and then it'll get to another stage and another stage?Meagan: So from 6 centimeters on is statistically like that active labor stage.Susan: Okay.Meagan: I'm trying to think of what other word you're meaning, but it turns into active. Transition? is that what you're thinking?Susan: Just the most intense part. Yeah. Maybe.Meagan: Yeah, so you transition into that stage. Susan: Yeah. Okay. So, I did not go into that transition. I stayed at 7 centimeters. And even though I was having extremely hard contractions, they were not productive contractions. There was a point where I was on my toilet because that was my most comfortable place to be. I felt the safest on my toilet because I was scared of pooping. That was a fear of mine, and I wanted to be on the toilet just in case.Meagan: Were you having back and butt labor at all?Susan: I was having some back labor. I mean, it was the most pain, and it was such a journey because  you're in so much pain, and you're like, "Wow, this is the worst thing ever. How am I gonna do this?" And then the contraction goes away, and you're like, "Wow, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful to be here. I'm so grateful my baby's almost here." And it's just an emotional roller coaster.Meagan: It is. Yeah.Susan: So nothing was really happening as far as the progressing. My midwife comes to me while I'm on the toilet, and she goes, "All right, Ms. Madam. Let's get your pretty dress on, and let's go for a walk." I looked at her like, "Are you crazy?" But I did it. I got my dress on, and I went for a walk through my neighborhood. I walked probably 2 miles, contracting throughout my neighborhood trying to get something going.Meagan: Wow. Susan: Yeah. And then I come back in the house, and there was two midwives there. One of them said, "If I could do my labor over, I probably would have just walked and walked and walked until the baby got there and would have tried my best not to be scared of the pain or let the pain stop me from really pushing into the contraction." So that's what I did. I started walking circles around my house, and I was telling myself, "No pain is too great to bear for my baby to be here." And I was even talking to my baby like, "Let's do this. Let's go to the next phase." I got to a point where I looked at my midwife, and I just said, "I'm exhausted. I have to lay down." I lay down, and I woke up, and my sister was lying with me. I started to just feel shivery, like really shivery. I started to get chills. It was just like I felt like I had nothing left in me. As soon as the shivers and the chills started, I knew I probably had a fever. I was looking at my sister and I just said, "I really don't feel like I can keep doing this." She said, "Well, is there something else on your mind?" I said, "Yeah, I need to go to the hospital." I'm about to start tearing up. The midwife came in and I just told her. I was like, "I need to go to the hospital. I feel like that the next step is that I just need to get in the car, and if on the way there I change my mind and I want to come back home, I'm going to give myself permission to do that."She goes, "Well, let me just check you, and let's see what's going on." It was 12 hours since my last check. It was 12 hours, and I was still at 7 centimeters. I hadn't progressed at all. I immediately just got out of my bed. I put my dress on. I don't think my husband was quite ready to go, but my midwife was, so I just started walking to her car. I'm like, "I'm going to the hospital now." I just had made up my mind, and that's what we were going to do. It was a very peaceful ride to the hospital. I had my little Depends on. She put a little pad under me. I remember asking her, "So has anyone ever peed in your front seat before?" Everything was just starting to get a little haywire. I just couldn't hold it in at all.Meagan: Yeah, yeah.Susan: We were just having a fun conversation on the way there. We got to the hospital. Well, the farther we got to the hospital, the more at peace I felt. The thought of going home was terrifying to me. As soon as we got there, I saw the nurses in the ER, and it was like beams of light were beaming through their heads. I knew I was at the right place. I got there, and they were just so sweet and so supportive. I still wanted to entertain the idea of having a vaginal birth if possible. It was just that I had to get an epidural because there was nothing left in me. I had nothing else to give in my body.Meagan: Yeah.Susan: I wanted to entertain that. And they go, "Well, yeah." They were like, "Were you hoping to have a VBAC?" And I go, "Yeah, actually I was hoping to have that," but I wasn't so committed to it to where I wouldn't have had a C-section. I already knew that I'm just going to do what's best for whatever the situation is after they assess me.But they were actually willing to let me have an epidural and have a VBAC. They were like, "Yeah, that's totally fine if that's what you want to do." And I was like, "Really?" And this was a separate group of providers that I had never experienced before. So yeah. It was absolutely amazing being talked to and being actually asked what I wanted to do.Meagan: Yeah.Susan: So they were doing all of my vitals. And as soon as I got to the hospital, that's when everything went berserk. My blood pressure skyrocketed. My heart rate went up. I was preeclamptic, and I was septic from meconium being in my uterus for that long. As soon as she was checking me, my daughter, Carrington, actually had scooted her head up a little bit to kind of show us what was going on, and the meconium was green. So as soon as I saw that there was green meconium, I was like, "Take me back for a C-section right now," because we all know that's infection. They were so relieved when I was totally fine with having a C-section. They gave me the spinal, and I just remember that being like the best feeling ever having no pain after being in such turmoil and in pain for so long.As soon as they pulled her out of me, she took another massive poop. So if I would have waited any longer, she would have been in that as well, and her chances for aspirating on it would have been really, really high. So yeah, that was it.I felt really great about the C-section. It was empowering because even up until that moment, I still was making decisions for myself and making decisions for my daughter. The decision that I made at the end was to save myself and her. To know that I made that decision and wasn't so committed to an outcome that I was able to make the right decision was like, "Wow. Yeah. I did that." Even though this is something that I wanted more than anything, I was able to let that go and save myself and her.Meagan: I love that you pointed that out of like, I had this empowering healing experience because I was really able to make the decisions along the way. You made the decision to get in that car. You made the decision to continue laboring. Then things changed. You made the decision to call it. And I think that is where a lot of the healing and growing comes from, is when we are able to make the decisions. The trauma, the fear, the hurt is when providers are coming at us and telling us what we are doing. "You are going to do this. I will only allow you to do this. You can if..." and then they give their restrictions. I think that you just nailed it on the head. You were able to make your decisions and be in control of your birth. And no, it wasn't the original outcome that you wanted. You wanted that vaginal birth. You were going for that vaginal birth. Things were really looking great, and when they weren't, you changed your mind. I just think, Women of Strength, take this with you today and know that you are in charge of your birth. Yes, babies and births can throw twists and curves and hurdles and all the things along the way, but you are the one who can make the decision for you. You do not have to be told what you do and do not have to do. Now, we also know that there are true emergent situations. There are true, true, true emergent situations where we maybe don't have a lot of time to sit and think and ponder and wonder what we should do and then follow that. It's just we have to say yes or no right then because it's an emergency situation. Susan: And being able to trust yourself that you are going to know if you need to call it and when to call it.Meagan: Yes.Susan: And that your intuition and your ability to just be in tune with your body and your baby is there.Meagan: Yeah. Absolutely.Susan: Yeah. And you'll know.Meagan: You will know. We talk about the intuition all the time. I mean, I don't know. I would say if not every podcast, probably every other or every couple other, we talk about this intuition. It is so real. I mean, Susan had this intuition. She felt it. She really did. Everybody listened to her. It's so important to be heard and to trust that intuition. So I applaud you, Susan. I'm so grateful that you were able to follow your intuition and be heard and call the shots of your own birth because you did deserve it. I am so happy for you. I know everybody else in the world cannot see your sweet baby, but I can and she's beautiful. I'm just so happy for you that you're able to have these experiences, and you have grown through each one.Susan: Mhmm, mhmm. And just the preparation of having a natural birth and what goes into it physically and mentally is worth it in itself to just give it a try if that's what you're wanting to do. And then allowing yourself to go into labor so all of your body's hormones are released in active labor, even if you do end up having a C-section, that's super valuable for your health and your baby's health.Meagan: Yeah, I was actually going to ask you that question. Yes, it ended in a Cesarean, but would you still have gone for the VBAC?Susan: Yes. I wouldn't have traded any of it for anything. I 100% would have done it again even if I knew what the outcome was going to be.Meagan: Yeah.Susan: Yeah.Meagan: Well, thank you so much for sharing your stories today.Susan: Thank you for having me here and thank you for doing this podcast and being in the business of releasing fear among women because it's like a pandemic of the mind almost.Meagan: Seriously though, we are being told that we have to be scared day in and day out. I mean, we hear these stories. I recorded a story earlier today and it was just like constant fearmongering every single time she was there. That stuff gets really tiring and it's hard to stand up to. But again, it comes down to education, learning these stories, learning your options, and then again following that intuition. So yeah, Women of Strength, you are amazing.Susan: Thank you. You're amazing too, Meagan.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Rounding Up Season 2 | Episode 7 – Making Fractions More Meaningful Guest: Dr. Susan Empson Mike Wallus: For quite a few adults, fractions were a stumbling block in their education that caused many to lose their footing and begin to doubt their ability to make sense of math. But this doesn't have to be the case for our students. Today on the podcast, we're talking with Dr. Susan Empson about big ideas and fractions and how we can make them more meaningful for our students. Welcome to the podcast. Susan. Thanks for joining us. Susan Empson: Oh, it's so great to be here. Thank you for having me. Mike: So, your book was a real turning point for me as an educator, and one of the things that it did for me at least, it exposed how little that I actually understood about the meaning of fractions. And I say this because I don't think that I'm alone in saying that my own elementary school experience was mostly procedural. So rather than attempting to move kids quickly to procedures, what types of experiences can help children build a more meaningful understanding of fractions? Susan: Great question. Before I get started, I just want to acknowledge my collaborators because I've had many people that I've worked with. There's Linda Levi, co-author of the book, and then my current research partner, Vicki Jacobs. And of course, we wouldn't know anything without many classroom teachers we've worked with in the current and past graduate students. In terms of the types of experiences that can help children build more meaningful experiences of fractions, the main thing we would say is to offer opportunities that allow children to use what they already understand about fractions to solve and discuss story problems. Children's understandings are often informal and early on, for example, may consist mainly partitioning things in half. What I mean by informal is that understandings emerge in situations out of school. So, for example, many children have siblings and have experienced situations where they have had to share, let's say three cookies or slices of pizza between two children. In these kinds of situations, children appreciate the need for equal shares, and they also develop strategies for creating them. So, as children solve and discuss story problems in school, their understandings grow. The important point is that story problems can provide a bridge between children's existing understandings and new understandings of fractions by allowing children to draw on these informal experiences. Generally, we recommend lots of experiences with story problems before moving on to symbolic work to give children plenty of opportunity to develop meaningful fractions. And we also recommend using story problems throughout fraction instruction. Teachers can use different types of story problems and adjust the numbers in those problems to address a range of fraction content. There are also ideas that we think are foundational to understanding fractions, and they're all ideas that can be elicited and developed as children engage in solving and discussing story problems.  Susan: So, one idea is that the size of a piece is determined by its relationship to the whole. What I mean is that it's not necessarily the number of pieces into which a whole is partitioned that determines the size of a piece. Instead, it's how many times the piece fits into the whole. So, in their problem-solving, children create these amounts and eventually name them and symbolize them as unit fractions. That's any fraction with 1 in the numerator. Mike: You know, one of the things that stands out for me in that initial description that you offered, is this idea of kids don't just make meaning of fractions at school, that their informal lived experiences are really an asset that we can draw on to help make sense of what a fraction is or how to think about it. Susan: That's a wonderful way to say it. And absolutely, the more teachers get to know the children in their classrooms and the kinds of experiences those children might have outside of school, the more of that can be incorporated into experiences like solving story problems in school. Mike: Well, let's dig into this a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about the kinds of story problems or the structure that actually provides an entry point and can build understanding of fractions for students. Can you talk a bit about that, Susan? Susan: Yes. So, I'll describe a couple types of story problems that we have found especially useful to elicit and develop children's fraction understandings. So first, equal sharing story problems are a powerful type of story problem that can be used at the beginning of and even throughout instruction. These problems involve sharing multiple things among multiple sharers. So, for example, four friends equally sharing 10 oranges. How much orange would each friend get? Problems like this one allow children to create fractional amounts by drawing things, partitioning those things, and then attaching fraction names and symbols. So, let's [talk] a little bit about how a child might solve the oranges problem. A child might begin by drawing four friends and then distributing whole oranges one by one until each friend has two whole oranges. Now, there are two oranges left and not enough to give each friend another whole orange. So, they have to think about how to partition the remaining oranges. Susan: They might partition each orange in half and give one more piece to each friend, or they might partition each of the remaining oranges into fourths and give two pieces to each friend. Finally, they have to think about how to describe how much each friend gets in terms of the wholes and the pieces. They might simply draw the amount, they might shade it in, or they might attach number names to it. I also want to point out that a problem about four friends equally sharing 10 oranges can be solved by children with no formal understanding of fraction names and symbols because there are no fractions in the story problem. The fractions emerge in children's strategies and are represented by the pieces in the answer. The important thing here is that children are engaged in creating pieces and considering how the pieces are related to the wholes or other pieces. The names and symbols can be attached gradually. Mike: So, the question that I wanted to ask is how to deal with this idea of how you name those fractional amounts, because the process that you described to me, what's powerful about it is that I can directly model the situation. I can make sense of partitioning. I think one of the things that I've always wondered about is, do you have a recommendation for how to navigate that naming process? I've got one of something, but it's not really one whole orange. So how do I name that? Susan: That's a great question. Children often know some of the informal names for fractions, and they might understand halves or even fourths. Initially, they may call everything a half or everything a piece or just count everything as one. And so, what teachers can do is have conversations with children about the pieces they've created and how the pieces relate to the whole. A question that we've found to be very helpful is, how many of those pieces fit into the whole? Mike: Got it. Susan: Not a question about how many pieces are there in the whole, but how many of the one piece fit into the whole. Because it then focuses children on thinking about the relationship between the piece and the whole rather than simply counting pieces. Mike: Let's talk about the other problem type that was kind of front and center in your thinking. Susan: Yes. So, another type of story problem that can be used early in fraction instruction involves what we think of as special multiplication and division story problems that have a whole number of groups and a unit fraction amount in each group. So, what do I mean by that? For example, let's say there are six friends and they each will get one-third of a sub sandwich for lunch. So, there's a whole number of groups—that's the six friends—and there's a unit fraction amount in each group that's the one-third of a sandwich that they each get. And then the question is how many sandwiches will be needed for the friends? So, a problem like this one essentially engages children in reasoning about six groups of one-third. And again, as with the equal sharing problem about oranges, they can solve it by drawing out things. They might draw each one-third of a sandwich, and then they have to consider how to combine those to make whole sandwiches. An important idea that children work on with this problem then is that three groups of one-third of a sandwich can be combined to make one whole sandwich. There are other interesting types of story problems, but teachers have found these two types, in particular, effective in developing children's understandings of some of the big ideas and fractions. Mike: I wonder if you have educators who hear you talk about the second type of problem and are a little bit surprised because they perceive it to be multiplication. Susan: Yes, it is surprising. And the key is not that you teach all of multiplying and dividing fractions before adding and subtracting fractions, but that you use these problem types with special number combinations. So, a whole number of groups, for example, the six groups unit fractions in each group—because those are the earliest fractions children understand. And I think maybe one way to think about it is that fractions come out of multiplying and dividing, kind of in the way that whole numbers come out of adding and counting. And the key is to provide situations story problems that have number combinations in them that children are able to work with. Mike: That totally makes sense. Can you say more about the importance of attending to the number combinations? Susan: Yes. Well, I think that the number combinations that you might choose would be the ones that are able to connect with the fraction understandings that children already have. So, for example, if you're working with kindergartners, they might have a sense of what one half is. So, you might choose equal sharing problems that are about sharing things among two children. So, for example, three cookies among two children. You could even, once children are able to name the halves, they create in a problem like that, you can even pose problems that are about five children who each get half of a sandwich, how many sandwiches is that? But those are all numbers that are chosen to allow children to use what they understand about fractions. And then as their understandings grow and their repertoire of fractions also grows, you can increase the difficulty of the numbers. So, at the other end, let's think about fifth grade and posing equal sharing problems. If we take that problem about four friends sharing 10 oranges, we could change the number just a little bit to make it a lot harder to, four friends sharing 10 and a half oranges, and then fifth-graders would be solving a problem that's about finding a fraction of a fraction, sharing the half orange among the four children. Mike: Let me take what you've shared and ask a follow-up question that came to me as you were talking. It strikes me that the design, the number choices that we use in problems matter, but so does the space that the teacher provides for students to develop strategies and also the way that the teacher engages with students around their strategy. Could you talk a little bit about that, Susan? Susan: Yes. We think it's important for children to have space to solve problems, fraction story problems, in ways that make sense to them and also space to share their thinking. So, just as teachers might do with whole number problem-solving in terms of teacher questioning in these spaces, the important thing is for the teacher to be aware of and to appreciate the details of children's thinking. The idea is not to fix children's thinking with questioning, but to understand it or explore it. So, one space that we have found to be rich for this kind of questioning is circulating. So, that's the time when as children solve problems, the teacher circulates and has conversations with individual children about their strategies. So, follow-up questions that focus on the details of children's strategies help children to both articulate their strategies and to reflect on them and help teachers to understand what children's strategies are. We've also found that obvious questions are sometimes underappreciated. So, for example, questions about what this child understands about what's happening in a story problem, what the child has done so far in a partial strategy, even questions about marks on a child's paper; shapes or tallies that you as a teacher may not be quite sure about, asking what they mean to the child. “What are those? Why did you make those? How did they connect with the problem?” So, in some it benefits children to have the time to articulate the details of what they've done, and it benefits the teacher because they learn about children's understandings. Mike: You're making me think about something that I don't know that I had words for before, which is I wonder if, as a field, we have made some progress about giving kids the space that you're talking about with whole number operations, especially with addition and subtraction. And you're also making me wonder if we still have a ways to go about not trying to simply funnel kids to, even if it's not algorithms, answer-getting strategies with rational numbers. I'm wondering if that strikes a chord for you or if that feels off base. Susan: It feels totally on base to me. I think that it is as beneficial, perhaps even more beneficial for children to engage in solving story problems and teachers to have these conversations with them about their strategies. I actually think that fractions provide certain challenges that whole numbers may not, and the kinds of questioning that I'm talking about really depend on the details of what children have done. And so, teachers need to be comfortable with and familiar with children's strategies and how they think about fractions as they solve these problems. And then that understanding, that familiarity, lays the groundwork for teachers to have these conversations. The questions that I'm talking about can't really be planned in advance. Teachers need to be responsive to what the child is doing and saying in the moment. And so that also just adds to the challenge. Mike: I'm wondering if you think that there are ways that educators can draw on the work that students have done composing and decomposing whole numbers to support their understanding of fractions? Susan: Yes. We see lots of parallels just as children's understandings of whole numbers develop. They're able to use these understandings to solve multi-digit operations problems by composing and decomposing numbers. So, for example, to take an easy addition, to add 37 plus eight, a child might say, “I don't know what that is, but I do know how to get from 37 to 40 with three.” So, they take three from the eight, add it to the 37 get to 40, and then once at 40 they might say, “I know that 40 plus five more is 45.” So, in other words, they decompose the eight in a way that helps them use what they understand about decade numbers. Operations with fractions work similarly, but children often do not think about the similarities because they don't understand fractions or numbers to, versus two numbers one on top of the other. Susan: If children understand that fractions can be composed and decomposed just as whole numbers can be composed and decomposed, then they can use these understandings to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions. For example, to add one and four-fifths plus three-fifths, a child might say, “I know how to get up to two from one in four-fifths. I need one more fifth, and then I have two more fifths still to add from the three-fifths. So, it's two and two-fifths.” So, in other words, just as they decompose the eight into three and five to add eight to 37, they decompose the three-fifths into one-fifth and two-fifths to add it to one and four-fifths. Mike: I could imagine a problem like one and a half plus five-eighths. I could say, “Well, I know I need to get a half up. Five-eighths is really four-eighths and one-eighths, and four-eighths is a half.” Susan: Yep. Mike: “So, I'm actually going from one and a half plus four-eighths. OK. That gets me to two, and then I've got one more eighth left. So, it's two and an eighth.” Susan: Nice. Yeah, that's exactly the kind of reasoning this approach can encourage. Mike: Well, I have a final question for you, Susan. “Extending Children's Mathematics” came out in 2011, and I'm wondering what you've learned since the book came out. So, are there ideas that you feel like have really been affirmed or refined, and what are some of the questions about the ways that students make meaning of fractions that you're exploring right now? Susan: Well, I think, for one, I have a continued appreciation for the power of equal sharing problems. You can use them to elicit children's informal understandings of fractions early in instruction. You can use them to address a range of fraction understandings, and they can be adapted for a variety of fraction content. So, for example, building meaning for fractions, operating with fractions, concepts of equivalence. Vicki and I are currently writing up results from a big research project focused on teachers' responsiveness to children's fraction thinking during instruction. And right now, we're in the process of analyzing data on third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade children's strategies for equal sharing problems. We specifically focused on over 1,500 drawing-based strategies used by children in a written assessment at the end of the school year. We've been surprised both by the variety of details in these strategies—so, for example, how children represent items, how they decide to distribute pieces to people—and also by the percentages of children using these drawing-based strategies. For each of grades three, four, and five, over 50 percent of children use the drawing-based strategy. There are also, of course, other kinds of strategies that don't depend on drawings that children use, but by far the majority of children were using these strategies. Mike: That's interesting because I think it implies that we perhaps need to recognize that children actually benefit from time using those strategies as a starting point for making sense of the problems that they're solving. Susan: I think it speaks to the length of time and the number of experiences that children need to really build meaning for fractions that they can then use in more symbolic work. I'll mention two other things that we've learned for which we actually have articles in the NCTM publication MTLT, which is “Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching in PK–I2.” So first, we've renewed appreciation for the importance of unit fractions and story problems to elicit and develop big ideas. Another idea is that unit fractions are building blocks of other fractions. So, for example, if children solve the oranges problem by partitioning both of the extra oranges into fourths, then they have to combine the pieces in their answer. One-fourth from each of two oranges makes two-fourths of an orange. Another idea is that one whole can be seen as the same amount as a grouping of same-sized unit fractions. So, those unit fractions can all come from the same hole or different wholes, for example, to solve the problem about six friends who will each get one-third of a sub sandwich. A child has to group the one-third sandwiches to make whole sandwiches. Understanding that the same sandwich can be seen in these two ways, both as three one-third sandwiches or as one whole sandwich, provides a foundation for flexibility and reasoning. For those in the audience who are familiar with CGI, this idea is just like the IDM base ten, that 1 ten is the same amount as ten 1s, or what we describe in shorthand as 10 as a unit. And we also have an article in MTLT. It's about the use of follow-up equations to capture and focus on fraction ideas in children's thinking for their story problems. So basically, teachers listen carefully as children solve problems and explain their thinking to identify ideas that can be represented with the equations. Susan: So, for example, a child solving the sub-sandwiches problem might draw a sandwich partitioned into thirds and say they know that one sandwich can serve three friends because there are three one-thirds in the sandwich. That idea for the child might be drawn, it might be verbally stated. A follow-up equation to capture this idea might be something like one equals one-third plus one-third plus blank, with the question for the child, “Could you finish this equation or make it a true equation?” So, follow-up equation[s] often make ideas about unit fractions explicit and put them into symbolic form for children. And then at the same time, the fractions in the equations are meaningful to children because they are linked to their own meaning-making for a story problem. And so, while follow-up equations are not exactly a question, they are something that teachers can engage children with in the moment as a way to kind of put some symbols onto what they are saying, help children to reflect on what they're saying or what they've drawn, in ways that point towards the use of symbols. Mike: That really makes sense. Susan: So, they could be encouraged to shade in the piece and count the total number of pieces into which an orange is cut. However, we have found that a better question is, how many of this size piece fit into the whole? Because it focuses children on the relationship between the piece and the whole, and not on only counting pieces. Mike: Oh, that was wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us, Susan. It's really been a pleasure talking with you. Susan: Thank you. It's been my pleasure. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2023 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com.   S4E31 TRANSCRIPT: ----more----   Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark, Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: and today we are fortunate to have with us Susan, who is a new member of the Atheopagan Society Council, and we're interviewing the new members of the Council over the next... A couple of months or so the ones that, that want to be interviewed, just to get to know them and find out what their thinking is about all this stuff we're doing. So welcome, Susan. Susan: thanks for having me on. Yucca: And some of you who watch the YouTube channel may recognize Susan from there, who's been, who's part of the media team, and has been making excellent videos. Mark: Yes, yes. Susan is the glue on of the media team. She holds us all together. Yucca: which is not always easy appreciated with all of the emails that have been chasing us down to make all our schedules work, and yep, Susan: I try to balance it so that everybody doesn't think I'm super annoying, but helpful, not annoying. Mark: So far, so good. So, Susan why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to atheopaganism and, you know, all that good kind of stuff. Susan: Yeah. Well, the short answer like it seems a lot of people is COVID brought me to atheopaganism. I, and I do have a short video, I think it's the first one that I did on the YouTube channel if anybody wants to check that out of my, my non theist upbringing and, and this kind of channel, so I'll, I'll make it a short version, but I live in the Midwest, in Ohio, and I've lived here my whole life, and I was raised without religion, but also not specifically atheist either. It was just sort of, we didn't talk about it. I didn't know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat until I was in high school because it was just, you know, I was left to my own devices. And I appreciate that for, for some things. There's definitely parts of me where I'm like, well, it'd be nice to have a little bit more direction. And I, we're kind of taking that track with our, with our daughter. I am, I'm married and I have six, soon to be seven year old, and kind of navigating that that space. My husband was raised Catholic, so we're kind of marrying together. He, he likes to call it ethnically Catholic, because he doesn't believe any of the stuff there, but so yeah, we, I, from a, Medium age started dabbling in stuff about the time when I was, you know, I'm an 80s baby. So by the time I was in high school, it was late 90s. And all of the witchy stuff started showing up all over the Barnes and Nobles. I'm like, Ooh, what is this? And especially the tarot card section with lots of stuff to touch and play with. So I I explored that area and the pagan, which at that time, at least, you know, Wicca was the super dominant thing in, at least that was publicly available. And so I dabbled in that for a while, and I kind of got It's like, this is fun, but I also don't really believe in this whole, you know, people try to rationalize it with, oh, it's the energy, and you're affecting the energy, and I was like, yeah, yeah, that, that makes sense, sure, and I, you know, doing the little, the little lie to yourself thing for a while. And then I kind of walked away from it for a while and just didn't, didn't bother with my, my spiritual life for a while until I got married. And we wanted to have a community for our child to grow up in so we joined a UU congregation, Unitarian Universalist, and they have, in our particular one, a fairly decent showing of pagan folks. And so I kind of picked that back up and we had a little bit of a range from full capital W witch to people who I think, you know, if I talked to them long enough about atheopaganism, that would be more up their alley but didn't, you know, know the words for it at that time. So it kind of came through there and then COVID hit and, you know, that community was sort of, sort of gone. But I was on the board and I was doing all of these committees and doing all the, I was doing all the work of being in a community, but not getting the community out of it. It was also right after we had merged. So my, my group went from 40 to 60 members to 200 and some people. And I didn't know all these people I was doing the work for and it just kind of, I kind of drifted away and was I was focusing more on what is it that I do believe in, since I had spent so much time just defining what I didn't believe in, and I found, kind of simultaneously, Druidry, which is something I'm, I'm pretty involved in, is my personal path, but also atheopaganism, and actually found I found out about atheopaganism through a blog whose, I can't remember what the blog was about but there was sort of an about me page and the person was describing, yeah, I don't really, you know, believe in the metaphysical part of this, but I still think it's really helpful check out atheopaganism, I'm like, yes, thank you, I will, and signed right up on the spot and I remember I read the, the principles And I don't know what bits of the, of the pages, but I remember running to my husband and being like, oh my gosh, I found them. I found my people. They're here, they exist. , I found it. I didn't know this was the words I needed, but I needed the word these words, you know, there's the validation of other people Yucca: was that during lockdown or was that a little bit afterwards? Susan: That was, I think, during lockdown 'cause I remember. We had still the the Earth centered group at my UU congregation was trying to do monthly Zoom get togethers, and I remember one of them, I was just, like, very excited to share with people that I had found both atheopaganism and the Druid organizations that I had joined at the same time, so. Mark: Well, that's very cool. I, I always love hearing these stories 'cause people, you know, people come to us through all different kinds of ways and and there is very commonly that I found them. They, they exist. I'm not the only one I am feeling which. I actually share, even though, you know, I, I wrote the essay in the book and stuff, because when other people started showing up, I, similarly, I was like, oh, I'm not the only one, there's more of us. This is great. So, very exciting. Well, it's great to have you with us, Susan. Thank you so much. So, You've just joined the Atheopagan Society Council and and you've been helping with the media team for a while. You're a very organized, get it done kind of person, which is really great.  Susan: Thanks. Mark: so, I don't know, what are your thoughts about this community and where we're going and, you know, what things would you like to see happen? You know, like new programs or any of that kind of stuff, if you've thought about it. Susan: I think my main thing that I want to see is that I hope you're going anywhere soon, but, you know, I want to make, I want to show up so that down the road we don't trickle and fade away when, you know, you, Mark, or, you know, the, the original set of people doing the council you know, are gone or, or, you know, have to be pulled away for whatever reason. I just don't want it to, to fade and be the thing that, that used to be really great for a while and then just nobody could keep up for it, keep up with it. And so that's something I'm interested in is, and I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what infrastructure we, you know, are going to end up with to make that be something that really sticks and stays and has standing. I imagine it'll be Getting a lot of volunteers and getting a lot of structure in place for volunteers so that people, you know, we don't avoid burnout. And that's I know, that's one of the things that we're talking about at the council meeting coming up. But that's, that's kind of my priority. But I am excited about the idea of getting more, not necessarily content, but getting more things in place for people to do in person, even if it's not with other people, but just more of an idea I was in a sorority in college and it was a One of the things that I thought was fun about that is that there were certain things that you did and you're, you know, it's, you know, a secret and secret rituals that everybody does, but you knew that even though you went to a different school than this person that you maybe met down the street and they went to school. different school, but they were still part of the same sorority as you. You knew they had the same ritual as you, Mark: hmm. Susan: and I love that we have so much open endedness of, you know, build your own adventure within atheopaganism. I think it might be fun to get something in place that is something we can all share, or those who are interested can all share, and like, I don't know if that looks like a standard ritual format or something, which is what some other organizations do, like some of the druid organizations, I mean, what they have. Here's our official format, and I don't know that that's something that we would really want, but something that has that feel to it, that essence of, hey, here's how you can feel a part of this, On your own, but still together kind of a feel. I think more of those kinds of things would be. And I think that would help a lot of people who seem to be clamoring for structure, you know, there's definitely the people in the community who are like, I am totally happy to do this by myself and come up with my own thing. And that's great. But then there seemed to be a lot of people who want a little more hand holding with their practice too. Mark: Mm hmm. Susan: So that's kind of, Yucca: of the insights that you have that I've really appreciated is that you're a fellow parent with, with a kiddo in the same age range and it's been nice to have someone to bounce off some of that, you know, how do we make that feeling available for, for kids who are growing up in this community? Because that's something that, for me, growing up as a pagan kid, there wasn't really anything for us. It was like, it was all the grown up stuff, and we were just sort of, you know, put it at a third wheel, right? And I think that it'd be nice for our community to have something a little bit more, more community for the kids as well. And I know that not everybody has kids in the community, but that's something that... There definitely are, there's quite a few of us, so, Mark: hmm. Sure. Susan: yeah. Yucca: something that you've brought that I've really valued, Susan. Mark: Yeah, I mean, I don't have kids, but I, I absolutely support that. I think that having activities for families that that work for the adults as well as for the kids is something that I really would like to see us have more of. Yucca: Mm Susan: Especially for parents who maybe only one of them is into it. My husband is very supportive and so, Mark: Mm-hmm. Susan: I, I know that I'm lucky in getting the amount of participation that I do, and there's plenty of people who are parents who it's very one sided and, you know, they may not get the, the family feel, like we can, I at least can say this is what we're doing as a family, but if you don't even have that, it can, it could be really nice to have. That feeling with other people, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We're gonna be talking about some ideas for that at the upcoming council meeting on Wednesday.  Yucca: And those are quarterly meetings. Mark: yes, Yucca: We do them after each solstice and equinox. Mark: yeah. So I'm, I'm pretty excited about some of those ideas. Some of them could be a lot of work to implement. But once they kind of got up and rolling, I think there would be so much excitement about... The activities themselves that that there would be a lot of, that that momentum would create the excitement that would create the volunteerism to keep it going, if you know what I mean. So, let's see first of all, I guess, do you have questions for us? Susan: man I feel like I'm trying, I'm trying to think of questions you haven't already answered on the podcast before or things that Mark: Oh, don't worry about that. Don't worry about that. You're, you're, it's okay if it's been asked before, that's, that's perfectly all right. Susan: No, I just mean, I'm like, I feel like I'm like, no, they said they answered that question for me before because I've, I've tried to keep up on it. I don't know that I've listened to every episode, but,  Yucca: we certainly do have folks who've done every single episode, but we have a lot of people who kind of come in for a few episodes, and then out, and then people who just find the podcast, and lots of different listening styles, or people who've listened for every year. But how many years are we at now? Mark: We're in season four, Yucca: Yeah, Mark: so. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's closing in on 200 episodes, I think. So it's, it's a, a chunk of work and time if you really wanna listen to all of them, which is why we, we do an episode for every Sabbath every year. We don't just say, go and listen to last year's, you know, Mayday episode. Instead, we do a new one every year because we've got people that are new to the podcast and you know, the stuff may be new for them. Uhhuh Yucca: Well, and it's a Susan: And hopefully there's something changing. Yucca: I'm curious to go back and listen and be like, did I even say remotely the same thing? Probably. But, Mark: you know, Susan, you were talking about a shared ritual. And what immediately popped into my head is the pouring of a libation, which is a very old, I mean, the Greeks used to pour libations, you know, in honor of their gods and stuff. And I wonder if we might have something like that, that would be kind of a shared atheopagan ritual that everybody would do to do that kind of offering to the earth. That might be kind of neat to put some, put some ritual trappings around and turn into something that we all share. Thank you. Susan: Yeah. And maybe I'm thinking do it on a, have it as a day that's not necessarily one of the spokes of the wheel, if you will. So it's, we're not interrupting anybody's already scheduled programming for this thing, like an extra, maybe it's on Earth Day or something, you know, like a, Yucca: Pi Mark: Huh. Susan: people won't already have their own set Mark: Huh. Yeah. Yeah. I'll think about it. I love the idea. Yeah. The equivalent of an atheopagan secret handshake. Uh Yucca: Hmm. Susan: Another thing I've been thinking about that I would be, I would love to do, at least for myself someday, is there's been a lot of chatter in the community lately about atheopagan saints, and I'm, I recently picked up from my friend who's in one of my druid groups, a Celtic Catholic set of prayer books, and it's kind of like a daily prayer thing, and I know that, I don't know a whole lot about Catholicism, but I know there's like a saint for every day, and I think it would just be fun to have a, like a solid atheopagan devotional kind of a thing, right, with Like, oh, today is, and I was, I started collecting things, so there's a day in February, I don't remember which day, it, of course, because everything, you know, gets mushed around with, over time and history, but I want to start celebrating Fornicalia in February, and for the Thank you. ancient god Fornax, who was in charge of baking bread in ovens. And it's like a day that you clean your oven and bake bread in it. So I'm like, Ooh, this might actually motivate me to do the thing that I don't want to do if I make it into a holiday and say, this is the thing that we're doing. Yucca: Very practical, right? Mark: you said Fornicalia, I went in an entirely Susan: Yeah, that sounds fun. It's less fun than you think. But bread Yucca: that day is in February, isn't it? The 14th? Isn't that day already in February? The 14th? Susan: Fornacalea is like the Like the 28th or something. I'll look it up and put it in Mark: think you may be thinking of Lupercalia. Susan: I'm going to find it. But yeah, it's, I have it as the 17th in my calendar, but you know, Mark: The day to clean your oven and bake bread in it. I love it. Susan: Yeah. Now I just need another one, you know, six months hence, so that I clean it more than once a year, but that's optimistic Yucca: Could there be, could there be one for air filters, too? Susan: yeah, right. That can be our shared ritual is clean your filter Mark: is replacing your, your air filters. Yeah. I love that. I, I love, I love the idea of I mean, I have so many regular observances that I do just for myself, and I never, you know, I'm, I'm very careful, I don't, I don't want to prescribe them for anybody else, you know, it's like, this definitely is a choose your own adventure kind of thing. Thank you. Religious path. It's like build what works for you, but it would be nice to be able to offer to people, you know, here's this compilation of, I don't know, five days every month or something that are special days that are the birthday of some significant, you know, scientist or innovator or creator in history and little bit of history about him and something that you can do, pour out that libation. You know, in honor of, oh, I'm spacing on the name. I just shared on Facebook to my friend group a a biography of this woman who actually figured out that the universe was mostly made of hydrogen. And I don't remember her name, but she's responsible for us understanding what the universe is made of. And she didn't even get any credit for it. Her somebody else published the results. You know, pretty typical for women scientists in the, in the Susan: hmm. Yucca: Yeah, yeah, I don't know, I don't know who that is, right? Which, itch is a problem that we don't know that. Mark: yes, yes, well, I'm going to look it up right now. So this, Susan: yeah, people really liked the 13 different atheopagan principles applied to the moon cycles, and that's great. It's, it's an offering, not a prescription, and, and people are just like, oh yes, thank you, give me, give me ideas. Yucca: yeah, maybe, I mean, when you were talking about those things, like a daily Right? Like a book that you read about, your little paragraph. I know a lot of different religions do that, and things that are totally secular, too. Like just a daily something. You know, I certainly use those in my practice that are just, they're really nice, right? It's just like this little thing, and it's like, oh, okay, cool. Just kind of think about this for the day, Mark: little Susan: Mm hmm. Yucca: right? And you take it or you don't take it, but it's kind of nice to have, to see how it just fits into whatever your experience is. And even if you use the same book more than one year in a row, like, by the time you get back around to May 14th or whatever it is, like, you've had the whole experience of a year and you're gonna see it in a different way, it's gonna fit into your life in a different way. Mark: mm hmm, Cecilia Payne, Yucca: Pain, okay. Mark: Cecilia Payne. Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Really amazing. Susan: Well, that's an idea for if we for, for listeners, one of the things we're thinking about maybe doing is the scout program. If we have that, we can have that as the capstone project for somebody Yucca: Yeah. Susan: her a plaque. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that would be great. Some kind of a memorial. The person who figured out what the universe is made of probably deserves some kind of recognition. Yucca: Do podcast. Susan: Yeah, I don't know if it's a good idea. Yucca: And I know we have, there's not, like things aren't set in stone, but what, when you say scout, like, what are you talking about? Susan: yeah, well at least it was sort of talked in the community about this. I think it would be fun for adults too, but like, it's hard to, as a parent for me at least my husband was an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scout program, but I know, and I know that they have made some reforms and some steps in the right direction, but for me it's still not enough to feel comfortable enrolling my daughter in it and I have reservations about Girl Scouts for different reasons. Capitalism, and genderification, and just different things that I'm just not, there are certainly troops that I'm sure do a wonderful job, and there are certainly troops that don't but Yucca: A lot to navigate though. Mm-hmm. Susan: It's, yeah, it's a hard thing to navigate and I don't want to start it and have it come crashing down on her. So, and I think we sort of chatted in the community about this being a common thing and I had posted a few things a few months ago asking people about spiral scouts, which is a more pagan oriented group. And so now the, the scuttlebutt is, you know, maybe we can be an atheopagan chapter of that. Maybe we can create our own thing, like what is and what would be a nice thing. But a lot of parents have commented on it and said, Oh, yes, please sign me up. Dude, let's do this. Mark: hmm. Susan: We can't necessarily do things in person, not for logistical reasons. I'm very fortunate that I have A handful of atheopagans right near me. It's really great. I think I'm the only one with, with kids that I'm aware of, but it's not the case for a lot of folks. Mark: Yeah, I mean, we are, we're spread pretty thinly. So, our, most of our opportunity for face to face stuff comes through mediation like this, like Zoom. But that said if there Thanks If Spiral Scouts can be done in a way where there's like, kind of a learning chapter set of activities that get sent to a family, either as a PDF or in a physical package or, you know, however that works, and then, you know, all the different families that are doing it can do that and then come together over Zoom and kind of share their experience and show off their cool thing that they made and all that, I think that would be a really wonderful thing both for kids and for parents. It'd, you know, be a real, you know, wonderful thing to share with, with your kids, I would think. Yucca: I know my kids are definitely excited about the idea of badges , because they see that in, in the media of, there's so many different things where it's like, where it has that setup, like, oh, the comic, you know, the, like lumber Janes for instance, and there's like badges in that and the oh, what's it called? The, there's a Netflix show. Susan: Hilda? Yucca: Hilda, yes, with this, with the I'm forgetting the name of their scouts, but they had, it was named after a bird, right? And so they see that and they're always like, I want badges for that, right? So I'm sure they would be very enthusiastic about anything badge related. Mark: I really like that the Spiral Scouts has kept the badges but gotten rid of ranks. Yucca: Mm. Mark: So there's, there's no hierarchy of, you know, in the Boy Scouts you start out as a tender foot and then you work your way up through all these levels until you're an Eagle Scout, right? And, you know, some of the stuff in there is very useful and wonderful stuff to do. I mean, you have to do a community project in order to become an Eagle Scout, and those are, you know, it builds a sense of responsibility to the broader community, which is great. But the rank thing, I mean, I was big into Cub Scouts. My, my Cub Scout shirt looked like a a Latin American dictator from the 1950s. I had so many pins and badges and medals and it was ridiculous. The thing must have weighed five pounds. And I was really into that. But when I got to Boy Scouts, suddenly it was like paramilitary training and I just didn't want any part of it. It was, you know, it's like lining up for inspection of your uniform and stuff like that. It was, Hmm. Not, not my idea of a good time. So, no ranks in in Spiral Scouts. Just skill attainments. Susan: That's what I think my little one would be interested in too is just the gamification of learning life skills. Mark: Mm hmm. Susan: That's what I would love badges too. I would love a an adult 13 principles and four pillars set of badges and you do, I don't know what it is, like you do a small project for each one and you get a badge or, I don't know, honor system. Mark: we should absolutely do that. Just, just create a, a checklist of things that you do for each of the, the principals and then, you know, we'll have badges made and or, you know, or people could download the the... The software for the patch sewing machines, and then they could go, go to a local producer and have the patches made for them bunch of different ways we could do that. Well, I really have my mind spinning around all this now. It's going to be terribly disappointing if we decide we can't do it. But Yucca: Well, there's also, we can always, you know, spiral back around to ideas too, because we have to, we have to look at what, you know, what can we currently do, and what are the priorities of the community at the time, and see how things go. So, so Susan, if you were talking about the future, right, what would be your fantasy for 50 years from now? What would you hope to see? What would atheopaganism be in, you know, 50 years? It's, it's not us on the council anymore, right? Definitely other Mark: And I'm dead. Yucca: Maybe, hey, you might hang in there. Maybe, Mark: 50 years from now, I would Yucca: maybe medical technology will change. Mark: eleven. Yucca: Oh, that's a great Bilbo, right? Okay. Susan: As my, my daughter says, when you're 100, you're compost. Yucca: so what would you hope? Just, just fantasy, right? What would, what would we look like? Susan: I mean, I would love to see us be at the scale of, like, UU, where maybe, you know, there's not necessarily Church building on every corner kind of a thing like you get with, you know, your Baptist churches and your Catholic churches and all that kind of stuff, but I would love to have expanded enough that we have so much in person opportunity, and maybe it's not, you know, a congregation where everybody comes together on Sundays or that kind of thing, because I don't, I don't know that that's a right fit, but just to have, I don't know, your local atheopagan community center place that everybody comes together for their monthly meeting or whatever it is, but just more, just more. I think I would just love to connect with more people, because I think there's so many, there's definitely people, at least in my life, who are happy just being atheists, and that's fine for them and that's great, they can enjoy that, but I think that there are a lot of people who I know who could benefit from something like this, and anybody that I've talked to for more than two minutes Where I've been had a chance to answer their questions about it because you just say the words and they're like, that doesn't make any sense. Why would you do that if you're an atheist? Right? Then they're like, Oh, okay. Yeah, I can see that. I understand. I understand why you would want to do that. And I think maybe a lot of people who are trapped. who feel trapped by atheism or who feel trapped by more traditional religious practices would find peace and joy with us. And I think, I don't know, I'm sure everybody feels this way about their own religious path, but I feel like if there were more of us, then the world would be a nicer place. But Mark: Yeah, I like to think so. We're we're, we're, we're about people being happy and the world being a better place. It's kind of hard to go wrong with those as your touchstones. It's God, it's, you know, we're doing this strategic plan in the Atheopagan Society, which by the way we created so that atheopaganism would have a container that could persist past me or anybody else, any other individual. You know, that's, that's why the society exists. And my book, I'm, I'm willing the rights to my book to the society. So, you know, that will always be available to atheopagans in the future. But I was saying, we're doing this strategic plan for like the next two or three years because it's hard to imagine much beyond that. So thinking about Yucca: So I said fantasy. Yeah. Mark: yeah, 50 is like mind blowing. I can't even, can't even get my mind around that. Yucca: I have a 20, Mark. Mark: 20, 20 years. What would happen? Well, for one thing, we would have enough of us that there would be opportunities for regional gatherings in a lot of places, you know, maybe two, three regional gatherings in Europe maybe one in Australia and so more opportunities for people to meet in person and You know, because that's really the gold standard of relating, right? I mean, it's wonderful that we have these tools to be able to communicate across distance, but there's nothing like being able to actually just sit down next to someone and have a conversation. I'm hoping for a lot more of that. Speaking of which, we have the Suntree Retreat coming up again in 2024, and we will soon start taking deposits to reserve space. Yucca: That is less than a year away. Mark: it looks like, yes, it's less than a year away. It's about 11 months away. And so we're working on what the content of all that's going to be. So that's locked in place. And now it's just a matter of, you know, figuring out the pricing on everything, and looks like the admission prices for, for the event and all the meals combined will be about 250. And then lodging. And lodging is as cheap as, and it can be more if you have a space in a cabin. Yucca: Mark, we're losing you into the robot. Mark: People should be able to do this event. How's that? Can you hear me now? Yucca: We can hear you now. You're frozen. Yes, now we can hear you. If you'll start again with people should be able to. Mark: Okay. Go to this event for less than 400 plus transportation. Yucca: Okay. Than 400 plus transportation. Mark: yes. Yeah, that, that's, I'm sure that that's going to be possible. In fact, it'll be... It's possible to go even less if you tent camp, so it's a good, good time to go tent camping. Tent camping only costs like 20 bucks for lodging for the whole three days. So, you know, if you set up your own tent or we can accommodate I think one RV Yucca: And that should be late summer, early fall weather wise, so that's a good time of year for it. Mark: Yes, yes, and, and unlikely to be, to have any rain. We actually got really lucky in May of 2022 because it snowed at La Forêt the week after we were there. Yucca: Wasn't it snowing several hours after we finally left? Mark: I don't know  Yucca: I know I was, as I was coming, I thought there was snow and then certainly as I was coming down, headed south down by the Rockies, it was raining, which was blessed because it was, we'd been having those horrible fires in New Mexico at the time and it was just raining the whole way Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: But I think that they were getting more rain than I was getting as I was driving down, or I was driving up, but down south. It's confusing. I think. Susan: yeah, Mark: Well, we have the big the big hall, Ponderosa. If it does, that isn't a problem, but the weather should be beautiful. I, I looked up the, the average weather in Colorado Springs that first weekend in September. I think the high average is 75 degrees or something. It's just perfect. So, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: should be really great. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: we're already talking about what all the content of things is going to be, and we'll put out a call for presentations and workshops in a couple of months, and before we know it, we'll be in Colorado Springs. It'll be, you know, with, with, with the gang. Yucca: Ball's rolling. Yep. Mark: Yeah, Susan: excited. I've already planned for it. So Yucca: Will the kiddo be coming? Mark: That's great. Susan: I think it's going to be all three of Mark: Yeah, is your hood Susan: they're not going to do all of the things, but Mark: There are beautiful places to go right around there. Garden of the Gods and Rocky Mountain National Park. Just gorgeous, gorgeous places to go. So if they like hiking in the outdoors there are lots of opportunities for them to enjoy that as well. Susan: yeah, and we might do, we might do tent Mark: Yucca, were you saying something? Yucca: oh, I was gonna say my, will at that time be five, almost six and eight year old will be joining me. Last time it could only be the, the older, but the, the youngest is, is excited for that rite of passage to get to go to, they call it the Ponderosa Pine, so, cause of the lodge, Mark: Huh. Nice. It's so great having her there. That was just wonderful. Yucca: Well, she'll be excited about the idea of more kiddos. I think there were other parents who had, who were there last time who were like, Oh, I should have brought mine. Right? But they didn't know that it was gonna, there were gonna be activities. So we'll have more activities for little people next time. So we'll have a little gang of them running around. Mark: Huh. Yeah, I think for some of the parents, because it was a first time event and they didn't know what to expect and, you know, pagan events can be pretty raucous sometimes, they kind of wanted Yucca: Yeah, we lost you again, Mark. You said they kind of wanted. Mark: to do, you know, reconnaissance first, go in and check out what this was going to be like. Can you hear me now? Yucca: Yes. We can hear you. Okay. So you were saying some parents, sometimes they can be a little ruckus y. Ruck that wasn't the word. Mark: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, pagan festivals can be, you know, kind of uproarious and sexy and, and, you know, lots of, you know, carousing, and I think some parents were kind of leery of that and wondered what the tone of this was going to be like, and, you know, after having been there and discovered that we were able to have a good time without things sliding over into inappropriate conversation. Boundaryless mess that that it's a fine place for their kids to come, and I, I really encourage parents to come. Tickets will be actually, I think we said that Attendance was free for those 10 years old and younger, and tickets are discounted for those 16 and younger, or under 16. So, yeah other than having to get a bed for them if they're, if you're not tent camping kids should be very affordable to bring, Yucca: Was there anything else that you'd like to talk about or share, Susan? Anything you think that people should know about you? Mark: anything you'd like to say to the community. Yucca: Yeah. Mm Susan: I guess I'd like to say, tell us what you want to see, because You know, I think you both have mentioned this before about the podcast, but it's true of the YouTube channel too, is there's only so much creativity, the same, and there's so much overlap with both of you being on the the YouTube media team as well, like, there's only so much creativity we all have, so please tell us what it is you want to know about, what you want to hear about, what kind of content You, you want to see so we can get that out there you know, I, I generated when we first, when first I first got involved with the YouTube channel, I generated this big old list of, oh, here's a bunch of ideas and now I don't know if any of them are in the comments. Not resonating with me, or at least I'm like, oh, I'm not the right person to talk about that particular topic, but I'm like, what am I, I'm supposed to write a video. I don't know what I want to talk about. I guess that's, this is why maybe some of the days, even though I'm the glue on, my things are a little bit late later than they're supposed to get to, to the right people. But yeah, let's, let us know what you want to hear about. I'm, I'm happy to I'm Write stuff or record stuff or be in front of people and but I don't know what it is people want to hear about so Tell us Mark: Yeah, yeah, I really echo that, because after four years of producing these, new topics can be challenging. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: It's, when we think of one, it's like, oh, oh, a new topic! We can do that! It's very exciting. It's a little easier in October, because we've got Ancestors and Death and Dying and Decomposition and Hallows and all those things. But for much of the rest of the year, we're... We could really use input on, you know, what kinds of things you'd like to hear about. Yucca: Especially like in July, like, hmm, what do we talk about? Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Because this time of year, yeah, October, and then we're going into solstice coming up, and yeah, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: busy next few months. Mark: Well, Susan, thank you so much for joining us today. It is wonderful to have you on board and to have you be a part of the community. And Yucca: Thanks for all the cool ideas today, too. Susan: Thanks. Yucca: think about. Mark: Absolutely. Susan: I'm good at ideas for fun things and not so much the follow through, so. Yucca: Oh, that's not true! You make the follow through possible! Mark: Even if that were true, it's still a really important role. You know, being, being a creative person who comes up with cool ideas, that's really important. So, we need cool ideas. Susan: I'm hoping that, you know, eventually we're going to hit a critical mass of people in the community that somebody, you throw out an idea and somebody's going to grab it and just run, who, you know, has the skill set and. I hope. I guess that's another thing I want to tell people is if you feel like you want to contribute something, please do. Like, I just showed up one day and was like, hey, I can help with things and now I'm on the media team and now I'm on the council. So don't be scared. Mark: Absolutely. Yucca: Well, thank you so much, Susan. Susan: Thanks for having me. Mark: Yeah. Thanks so much. We'll see you next week, folks.    

Description:  In this episode, Susan shares her unique perspective on life challenges and how they can be occasions for transformation. Drawing from her own experiences, she provides insights and tools that can help others all over the globe to find peace in the face of adversity.   Shownotes:  When Susan took a chance and moved away from her hometown, she found that being grateful helped her heal from trauma. She became a successful producer and TV executive, but her marriage was hard and violent. Susan took charge of her life and rewrote her past by meditating, being patient, and looking at herself. She had a tough childhood and has utilized what she learned to help other people learn, grow, and become the best versions of themselves.   In this episode, you will learn the following: What was Susan's toxic relationship was like, and how did she recover from it? How did her chosen path become the most fulfilling and developmental experience of her life? How gratitude helped her to see her prior events in a more positive light. Connect with Susan Gold:  Susan Gold Website   Connect with Sabine Skvenberg:  https://www.instagram.com/sabinekvenberg/ Sabine on Facebook Sabine on Linkedin Sabine on YouTube BECOME Podpage ➤Are you looking for the finest online course platform to swiftly build and sell courses? Why not try Kajabi? All the tools of Kajabi make it easier for you to create online courses, podcasts, coaching, memberships, and more! Try the 30-day free trial and make the most out of it. And if you're just getting started and want to put your offer up for sale in three days or less, follow this link and apply to "MAKING IT HAPPEN." TRANSCRIPT   00:00:00 Sabine: Hello, my name is Sabine Skvenberg, founder and host of BECOME. The content will inspire you to reach your aspirations and become the best version of yourself. I feature interviews with successful individuals from various industries, delving into their personal and professional journeys and their strategies to achieve their goals. We have to become the person we are meant to be first so we can live the life we are destined to live. That means we must overcome challenges and work through difficult times to learn, grow, and become the new, more fabulous version of ourselves. I'm so glad that you're here. Let's get on this journey together.  00:00:54 Sabine: My guest today is the magical Susan Gold. Susan has navigated a ferociously challenging upbringing, facing ingrained, outdated, and patriarchal programming head on. As an adult, she has bravely moved forward to transform her traumatic experiences into opportunities for growth and personal transformation. In this episode, Susan shares her unique perspective on life changes and how they can be occasions for transformation. Drawing from her own experiences, she provides insights and tools that can help others all over the globe to find peace in the face of adversity. Through her work, Susan is on a mission to help people transform their lives and rise above the pain and trauma of their past. Join us as we delve into Susan's journey and discover how we too can learn to transform our traumatic experiences into opportunities for growth and personal transformation. 00:02:07 Sabine: Welcome, Susan. Where are you chiming in from and how are you today? 00:02:14 Susan: Sabine, thank you so much for having me. I am in the beautiful mountains of Montana, and I could almost walk to Canada. It's 4 miles to the border. 00:02:25 Sabine: Oh, wow. So it's probably pretty cold there right now, right? 00:02:30 Susan: Yeah, it's in the 30s. We've had a few patches of really frigid weather, but it's been pretty mild. 00:02:39 Sabine: When you say it's in the 30s, for me, it's freezing cold. As you know, I live in Florida, as you can see, our closing gives away where we live. Well, that's great. I really can't wait to dive into your story. I find it interesting that some people are defined by their story and their upbringing. And staying in these circumstances while others break and transform. And I have the feeling you fall into the second category. But before we go into the story, I read one of the quotes on your website and says, "Living the path of truth and authenticity is not for the weak hearted. It's one of ultimate freedom." What do you mean by that? 00:03:37 Susan: Well, for me, the easier, softer weight Sabine would be to hide under the covers. I would have never left my little hometown at 17 the morning after I graduated from high school. But I knew in my heart there was more and that I had to stand up and take that risk. And that's been a theme throughout my life. Not the easier, softer way, but definitely the most rewarding and the most evolutionary for my soul. 00:04:11 Sabine: I cannot agree more, because, quite frankly, through adversity and going, the more difficult path is when we grow. That's where the most growth happens. And you had quite a career in New York and LA. You were known for matching celebrities to brands. You were a TV and film producer. So tell us more about your first career. 00:04:40 Susan: Wow. Well, growing up in my family home, I used to watch Barbara Walters on my belly, on my beanbag in the basement. I was so chawned by this woman and wanted to be just like her. And I ended up going to New York City. That's the place that I really wanted to go. And I ended up being Barbara's exercise trainer. And one morning I knocked on her door at 07:00 AM and she knew immediately something had happened, something was wrong. And I didn't want to share that personal information with her. But she was an incredible interviewer, and she got it out of me. I was harassed in the workplace, and she volunteered to come to work that morning and confront my boss with me. 00:05:21 Sabine: Wow. 00:05:21 Susan: And I said, yeah, no problem. That's okay. I'm going to handle it. And I did confront that boss who promptly fired me. And rather than go back into another assistantship, I decided to launch my own town brokerage firm in New York City. I was 25, and I had not much money in the bank. I had gotten out of an abusive relationship. The gentleman held the purse strings, so to  speak, and I was under that illusion. But I decided to step up and take the risk. So I did. And my first deal was to knock on the factory door and convince Andy Warhol, the modern art master, to do a commercial for Pontiac. 00:06:08 Sabine: Oh, wow. That's amazing. But it's also interesting that you said that. Now, Barbara Walters recently passed away, and she was truly an amazing woman who got a lot out of the interview partners that she had and that you had that experience with her and she was able to help you. That is a beautiful memory I'm sure that you will treasure forever, and that also helped you move forward to your next career, so to speak, right? 00:06:45 Susan: Yes. She was really supportive of women, amazingly supportive of women. 00:06:50 Sabine: So how long did you stay in New York? 00:06:53 Susan: I was there about a decade, and I was very successful matching celebrities to brands, and that actually led me into television. Roger Ailes was running CNBC at the time, and he had his own talk network called America's Talking. And somehow they reached out to me and asked could I bring celebrities to his America's Talking Network? So I said, "Oh, sure. No problem." And of course, they weren't flocking. So one night, I grabbed the cameraman and we went to some charity red carpet event, and I stuck the mic in the celebrity spaces, interviewed them about the event and then had them look direct to the camera and say, I'm so and so. You're watching America's Talking, and it became this phenomenon, and we had all these celebrities running on the network, and it looked like an endorsement of America's Talking. So that caught Roger's attention, and he invited me to produce any show I wanted on the network and then invited me to help launch Fox News Channel. 00:08:00 Sabine: Oh, wow. That is quite a story. So what made you leave New York and move to LA? 0:08:11 Susan: So, opportunity, for one. But I really felt, Sabine, that I was becoming a caricature of myself. I had trouble really finding connection. I had a little cabin up in the catskills, and I would go Friday night and I wouldn't return to the city until Monday morning. And I just was living to get into nature, and my routine was very rigid. I had to go to the gym, I had to do certain things, and I was finding it harder to socialize. I couldn't make plans and keep them. So I just felt like my time was ticking down. And I got a phone call from a very dear friend who had gone out to LA to run a talk show, and she said, "I want you to come out here. I need you to bring celebrities to the table for the talk show." And I said yes immediately. And then I panicked. 00:09:11 Sabine: So why did you panic? 00:09:15 Susan: It was a huge shift. I mean, I had to envision myself in New York City since I was young. I mean, I was probably ten years old, and I knew I wanted to be there, and I felt comfortable there. I knew how to push the buttons, I knew the players, I had fairly good income, I had clients, and here I was going to new territory. But I also knew that I wasn't intuitively going to stay in New York City my entire life. And I felt like opportunity comes for a specific reason, and if you're strong enough, just take it. So I thought I was going to LA for my career, which did blossom, but really, I think I went to LA to meet one of my biggest gurus, who is my ex-husband. 00:10:01 Sabine: All right , that is an interesting combination. Your biggest guru, now ex husband. So tell us more about what that quote unquote, "guru" relationship was. What did it give you? 00:10:18 Susan: Well, I was since the second grade, and Billy Fritz attached at the hip to any kind of male attention. And friends used to say, you know, when I'm in adulthood, I'm so powerful, you're so powerful, you're so accomplished. But I never really felt that I always had to be in some kind of relationship or I just felt like I was going to be annihilated. I mean, it was so strong, and that was costing heavily, but I didn't quite realize it as I was going through it. And I met my ex-husband and thought I met the man of my dreams. I mean, he said the right things, he had the right look, he had the right career, all the material things, right? But I also felt like we connected as individuals, and we did. It just wasn't the connection that I was hoping for. Because ultimately what I discovered was he did seem like he was right out of the movies because he had a false construct and persona. And when the mask fell, it was incredibly painful. 00:11:37 Sabine: Wow. When the mask fell. 00:11:43 Sabine: Let me hop in here real quick to share something with you. Have you ever tried to build your own website, start a newsletter or build a course and charge for it? Have you ever wanted to make money online but are totally confused by all the different systems you need to have? That's why I use Kajabi. Kajabi is the most popular system for online marketers, coaches, top leaders and influencers. Kajabi helps online entrepreneurs take off. Over hundred thousands of us use Kajabi and have made over $4 billion. Why not be part of it? The best thing is you don't have to figure out tons of systems or crazy technology to start your online business. Kajabi helps you do all of that and it's all on one platform. That's why I use it. It makes my life so much easier and I can even earn money while I'm sleeping. You can build your web pages, blogs and membership sites. You can create offers, check out pages and collect money. You can host your videos. You can start your newsletter list, capture emails, start your marketing funnels all in one place. It makes it fun and easy with awesome tutorials and support. Since I've joined Kajabi from the beginning, I have a special affiliate link that I would like to share with you. A 30-day free trial. So nothing to lose, but everything to gain. Just go to my link that's in the show notes sabinekavenberg.com/resources, and we will redirect you to the free trial page. And if you are just starting out and want to get your offer out for sale in just three days, let me help you do that. Visit my web page, by the way, that I build on Kajabi and apply to "MAKING IT HAPPEN." So now let's get back to the show. 00:13:55 Sabine: I think a lot of people can relate to that, that sometimes we are blinded by an outer appearance and by quote unquote "acting." Someone acts a certain way, but then when we get to know them and we get under the cover so to speak, and reveal the core, then we see other things, and it can be even painful, physically or mentally. So I hear you. Wow. But good for you that you made that transition out of that relationship so that you felt better after all, I suppose, right? 00:14:39 Susan: Well, it was the journey to begin. I did not want my family to break up. At that time, I had a son. We had a son together. I had purchased a home for our family, just like a coveted jewel in Southern California. I didn't want my lifestyle to change, and I didn't want to be abandoned by my husband. So I did everything I could to keep our marriage together. And finally he just crossed his arms and his eyes went into those cold slits, and he said, "I'm hiring an attorney and I'm filing for divorce." And that was the universe doing for me what I could not do for myself because I was going to hang on to the nail and I was going to make this work. I didn't want a broken home for my son, but I felt the toll that it was taking on everyone, and we all had to step up and face it, and it was difficult.  00:15:43 Susan: My ex husband did not leave our family home. He remained in the master bedroom, and I was in a partial conversion in the garage, on a mattress, on the floor, in a home that I purchased and maintained for our family. And that is the metaphor for the relationship and what I was allowing myself to carry and the demonstration that I was allowing for my son. So I really had to face it. And it took that kind of billboard falling on my head for me to wake up to the circumstance. 00:16:25 Sabine: Yeah. It's so beautiful how you said that the universe is giving us the clues. The universe is giving us the two by fours right onto our heads to wake up, to realize, look, holding onto that comfort, not even if it's comfort, but that comfort zone, that zone that we know because we are afraid and fear stepping in because we don't know what's on the other side. And for so many people, it's holding them back. But how did you get over that whole thing? When did you realize? Because what I sense here is that you really had to get through that stage where you just had to be still, to transform, to finally get those wings like the butterfly like the symbol of my podcast.  00:17:26 Susan: Which is so beautiful, Sabine, and I just want to compliment you for getting this messaging out and the theme of your podcast because it has great meaning for so many of us, especially in these times today. So thank you from the bottom of my heart, I want to say that that lesson probably was one of the biggest of lifetimes, and standing up to it felt absolutely monumental. And it took every tool I had in my kit to go through that experience. I was an endurance athlete. I needed that type of training that I had to get through this. I was a longtime meditator. I learned how to sit in silence for hours at a time and not make eye contact, and that's what I needed to do to get through this. When you divorce someone you think may be a narcissist, there can be no contact. They just loop you back in. They know how to push the buttons, and it's very deceiving. And I had to be stealing to get through this and keep no contact within our home with the man I had loved and cherished.  00:18:51 Susan: And that's what I held for a year until the agreement was reached. I wrote him his six figure check and he left and went right on to the next candidate, because that's typical. That's the behavior. And the more I wanted to make him accountable, the more I wanted him to stand up, the more that would backfire right on me. I just had to use that as a lesson to who he really was and what I was allowing. And it was a powerful lesson, and one, I am grateful. 00:19:32 Sabine: That says a lot that you said, I am so grateful for this lesson. A lot of people are bitter or become bitter and just shut off and don't see this as a jumping board to their next greater adventures or turning into their next best self. And so I like what you said, being grateful for this lesson. And if anybody can learn something, be grateful for what you have right now. Be grateful to have the air in your lungs, right? And with gratitude, that helps us take our focus away from the things that hurt, because our mind can only focus on one thing at a time, our conscious mind. And if we finding ourselves in a dire situation or feel pity for ourselves, shift to gratitude. Be grateful for what you have right now and be grateful for the things, the beautiful, wonderful things to come. So thanks for sharing that and sharing your lesson.  00:120:45 Sabine: Now, you wrote a book, or let me put it this way, yes, you wrote a book, but it's not yet released. It will be released on March 21st. And I'm so excited to share this news with my listeners because I can only imagine how beautiful this book is going to be. The title of the book is Toxic Family: Transforming Childhood Trauma into Adult Freedom. Can you tell us a little bit more about your book? 00:21:20 Susan: Sure, I'm happy to. It was a long process. I think I was told in 2007 for the first time by an Irish seer that I had a book to write, and I heard it repeatedly, but I didn't want to take the time or the theme that it takes, the self examination, certainly in memoir. But finally it became obvious that it was time, and it was an incredible exercise to sit down and string it all together and see with clarity how each piece has specific meaning for the evolution of who I am becoming here as a human being on the Earth. And even though I had been told that I had a powerful story, I didn't really believe it. I thought it was sort of milk toast, like McDonald's, Grade A. Everybody's got the same story. But now that it's down on paper, I see that's not true and that I do have a lot to share. And I hope that people can take from my experience and garner their own power and more importantly, their own self love. 00:22:33 Sabine: Oh, that is beautiful. And what you said is so true. We always think my story doesn't count. Who am I to share my message? But I say, who are you not? And everybody has a unique story. That's what I help my clients with. I have a program called the Celebrity Signature Message, and I help my clients to really discover that we all are celebrities. You know, we don't have to be in front of a TV camera to be a celebrity. We all have that celebrity status, meaning the uniqueness, the very important person that you are for another person. So I like what you said that. Now saying or seeing the title of your book was that are you exposing any of your family members or any traumatic experience that you have doing this publicly? I mean, I know if you talk to a psychiatrist or whatnot. It's a different story. But you literally shouting it out to the world through your book. 00:23:53 Susan: So here's how I feel about it, Sabine, and I've had that question come my way quite a bit. I feel like we need to be brave. We need to stand up and we need to talk about our truth. And it's not so shameful. So many people have had similar experiences, but we keep it all tucked in, especially in the corporate system that's just broken. So I have to say, I've been a bit of a trailblazer not knowing it. And I want to say that I love my family. I have deep respect for the roles my parents played. They have helped me so much. And when people read the book, they're going to wonder about that statement that I just made. How can you make that statement after what you've experienced? But I see it now with tremendous love for all of the players and all of the experience, just like I see my ex- husband as a loving guru.  00:25:03 Susan: These lessons, if I'm willing to look at the underbelly and really explore that mossy, dirty, stale energy under there, if I can just air it out and view it from the perspective of heaven rather than 3D Earth. There's so many gifts and so much opportunity. So I really am appreciative of my family. And I know we shared a little bit before we started our conversation. Toxic Family was not my initial title. My initial title was Magical Illumination, because that's what it's been for me. It's been such a gift to really thread this through. But honestly, we have a Toxic Family and toxic lineage. It was hurt and abused children, raising hurt and abused children and the truth needs to come out. 00:26:09 Sabine: I cannot agree more and I applaud you for doing this. As you said, many people are too afraid to talk about it and a lot of things are being pushed under the rug. And if we keep doing it, we cannot heal, cannot change. But if we put it out into the open, then other people feel an invitation of hey, I can do this, too. I can say it out loud, let the world know what's going on. Only when we are aware of our circumstances and what's going on can we change. If we are not aware, we're just going to stay in that old pattern that we so need to break. Now, if someone would like to get in touch with you, maybe they need some counseling. How can they do that? 00:27:13 Susan: Well, thanks for asking. I invite anybody to go to susangold.us. That's susangold.us and get on my email list. And you can also send me an email if you like, directly at info@susangold.us. And I would love to offer anyone that would like a 15-minute free conversation with me to see how we might be able to help each other. 00:27:44 Sabine: That is so gracious of you. Thank you so much, Susan. You are such a beautiful soul and I see this book going out  into this world, changing so many lives, touching so many lives. Thank you for this beautiful conversation and the advice that you shared with us today. 00:28:06 Susan: Thank you, Sabine. 00:28:09 Sabine: That was my interview and if you enjoyed it, give us a five star review, leave a comment and share it with your friends. Thanks for listening until I see you again. Always remember, serve from the heart, follow your passion and live the life you imagine.  

What you'll learn in this episode:   Why jewelers from the Pacific Northwest have a singular style, and how Laurie draws inspiration from her environment How Laurie and other artists in the Northwest School of Jewelers incorporate found objects, humor and wordplay into their work What inspired Susan to focus on American jewelry How Susan sorted through Laurie's 30-year archive, and what it was like to write “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall”   About Susan Cummins   Born in 1946 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but raised primarily in Atherton, California, Susan Cummins specializes in contemporary art jewelry and spent many years as a gallerist in Mill Valley, California. In 1983, Cummins took over Horizon Gallery in Mill Valley, re-naming it the Susan Cummins Gallery. Noting a lack of representation, Cummins settled on American jewelry as a primary focus for her gallery. Eventually, Cummins relocated to a larger space in Mill Valley and became known for representing painters and jewelers in the same gallery space, blurring the rigid distinction between fine art and craft. Cummins maintained the gallery until 2002. In 1997, Cummins helped found Art Jewelry Forum, a nonprofit tasked with connecting people working across the field of contemporary jewelry and educating new audiences. She continues to be a frequent contributor and is currently serving as the board chair. Cummins has also served on boards for arts organizations such as the American Craft Council and the Headlands Center for the Arts. Her primary focus in recent years has been her work as director of the Rotasa Foundation, a family foundation that supports exhibitions and publications featuring contemporary art jewelers. Susan Cummins was elected a 2018 Honorary Fellow of the American Craft Council.         About Laurie Hall   Laurie Hall, along with Ron Ho, Kiff Slemmons, Ramona Solberg, and Nancy Worden, is part of what has been called the Northwest School of Jewelers, an influential jewelry art movement centered around an eclectic style of narrative and composition. Laurie Hall is a long-time artist and educator from the Pacific Northwest, whose work has exhibited internationally. In 2016, her work was featured in Craft in America's exhibition Politically Speaking: New American Ideals in Contemporary Jewelry. Laurie's work is part of numerous private and public collections including The Museum of Art and Design in NYC, The Tacoma Art Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Additional Resources: Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com: Coney Island Express 1983 Carved polychromed wood, bronze, sterling silver, string, and found cocktail umbrella  1 1/2 x 1 1/4 x 16 inches Private collection  Photo: Roger Schreiber   Stumped 1988 Yew wood, sterling silver (oxidized), and antique compass 13 x 1/4 x 3/8 inches The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Helen Williams Drutt Collection, museum purchase funded by the Morgan Foundation in honor of Catherine Asher Morgan, 2002.3793   Cubist Café 1987 Sterling silver (oxidized) 6 1/2 x 12 3/4 x 1/2 inches Tacoma Art Museum, gift of Mia McEldowney Photo: Doug Yaple   Wrapped Up in the Times 1987 Sterling silver (oxidized), aluminum sheet, and decoy fish eye 6 x 4 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches Sandy and Lou Grotta collection Photo: Richard Nichol     The Royal Brou Ha Ha 1996 Sterling silver (stamped), stainless-steel fine mesh, hematite beads, and sterling silver foxtail chain 10 x 10 x 1 1/2 inches Tacoma Art Museum, gift of Sharon Campbell Photo: Richard Nichol   One Screw 2009 Bronze screw and sterling silver 1 x 1 x 1/4 inches Curtis Steiner collection Photo: Curtis Steiner   No. 2, Please! 1988 Bronze, found No.2 pencils, basswood, and color core 16 x 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Helen Williams Drutt Collection, museum purchase funded by the Morgan Foundation in honor of Catherine Asher Morgan, 2002.3791   Behind the Eight-Ball 2008 Fabricated marriage of metal ball (copper, sterling silver, nickel silver, bronze), copper frame, found printing plate and stencil, and sterling silver 2 3/4 x 3 x 1/2 inches Marcia Doctor collection Photo: Roger Schreiber   Transcript:   Although her work has been shown internationally, Laurie Hall's jewelry is undoubtedly rooted in the Pacific Northwest. As a member of the influential Northwest School of Jewelers, Laurie's eclectic, often humorous work has drawn the attention of numerous gallerists and collectors, including Art Jewelry Forum co-founder Susan Cummins. Susan recently captured Laurie's career in the new book, “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall.” Laurie and Susan joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the influences behind the Northwest School; where Laurie draws her inspiration from; and what they learned from each other while writing the book. Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode.    Today, my guests are Susan Cummins and Laurie Hall. Susan has co-authored with Damian Skinner a new book, “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall.” For 20+ years, she was the driving force behind Art Jewelry Forum, which advocates for contemporary art jewelry. Laurie is an arts educator and jeweler from the Pacific Northwest whose jewelry has been exhibited internationally. She's a key figure in the Northwest School of Jewelry, an influential jewelry art movement centered around an eclectic style of narrative and composition. If you haven't heard Part 1, please go TheJewelryJourney.com.    Welcome back. Susan, did you see Laurie's work somewhere and said, “I want to show that,” or did Laurie send you a photo and say, “Do you want to carry my stuff?” How did that work?   Susan: I don't think Laurie sent me anything. I think I saw her work in a gallery in San Francisco that had it before I did, the Lane Potter Gallery.   Laurie: Right.   Susan: It could have been that I saw it in the catalogue for Jewelry U.S.A. or another invitational of some sort, or I could have seen it through Kiff Slemmons, who I was also showing at the time. Somehow or another, I saw images of it. I had a show—I can't remember if it was a group show. Maybe it was Northwest jewelers; I don't remember the reason for the group show, but it seemed to me that Laurie's work would fit into that. That's when she did the café piece, because Laurie always was very conscious of where her pieces were going.    If she was doing a show that was going to be in the San Francisco Bay Area, she wanted to do something that reminded her of that area that she thought people there would relate to. She thought San Francisco was kind of like Paris, in that there are cafés and Bohemians, life and art and all that. So, she made this café piece that looks like it could have been something that Brock or Picasso did early in their careers. There's a guitar in there. There are tables with plates and chairs and things askew, as if in a cubist painting, and the word “café” in big letters across the top. It was something she thought the San Francisco community would like.    When she did something for the East Coast, she often thought about folk art and Americana, so she used whirligig figures, literally off of whirligigs, or folk art-influenced imagery, like people riding a bicycle, or a tall bicycle with a top hat on and a little message, or the words “Coney Island” on it so they would be thinking of Coney Island. It was very folk art, Americana-like, which she thought the East Coast would be more interested in. Laurie was definitely making work for these markets she showed in, very conscious of that and very accommodating to it. Anyway, did I answer your question? I think I got carried away there.   Sharon: Yes. Laurie, how did the fact that you were a teacher influence the work you did? I don't know if you're still teaching.   Laurie: I taught for over 38 years. The cubist café was because we were studying cubism. I taught calligraphy, lettering and graphics. I love lettering and graphics, and the kids influenced me a lot because they would comment on what I was making or doing. I didn't work at school, but I'd sometimes bring a piece in and show it to them. Did I answer it?   Sharon: Yes.   Susan: Why don't you talk about that piece you did that was a challenge for the students in your class to make something like it?   Laurie: Yeah, you mean the football thing. At Mercer Island High School, they always win all the sport competitions, football, basketball, baseball, soccer, everything. Sometimes they'd shut school down when they were in the finals. I had a whole bunch of football players in my class, and they all called me Hall. They all thought I was cool.    Sharon: I'm sorry. You were cool? Is that what you said?   Laurie: They thought I was cool.   Sharon: For a minute I thought you said cruel, and I was going, “O.K.”    Laurie: No, they called me Agent Orange and Galleon. It was quite funny. They all wanted an A, and they kept coming up and saying, “What does it take to get an A? This is an art class. It must be easy to get an A.” I said, “All right. We're making jewelry. You guys have to make a necklace and wear it into the lunchroom if you expect to get an A. You have to wear it. I really want you to wear it all day, but I won't be able to see you all day.” Anyhow, they did it, and everybody enjoyed it.   Sharon: And did they get A's?   Laurie: If they deserved one. Just by them doing it, I thought they deserved an A because of that, yeah.   Sharon: It's a high hurdle, walking to the lunchroom with something like that.   Laurie: Yes, guys with big necks and everything. It was humorous.   Susan: You also did a piece yourself that had to do with the idea of football, which was a sandwich board piece you wear over your shoulders, front and back. It was called “Rah, Rah, Sis, Boom, Bah.” There were footballs flying over the goalposts and flags and people waving and numbers and all kinds of things.   Laurie: I had a little candy. They used to give candy out. If you had a date to the football game, they'd give you a favor, a little tin football with some candy in it. So, I used that football on the necklace. That was my found object that I had, but how did I come about having that? I think it was in my brother's drawer upstairs in my parents' house.   Susan: No, somebody invited you to a football game and gave you a piece of candy.    Laurie: I doubt it. I probably stole the candy in it.    Sharon: Laurie, was there a point in your jewelry making that you were selling but making so much that you said, “I can't teach right now”? Was there so much demand, or no?   Laurie: No, I had a really good job. I needed the money. I had no other means of support because I'm a single lady, and I loved it. It was consistent. It was reliable. I had no desire to make production jewelry. I worked for Robert Lee Morris one summer for six weeks. It was interesting, and I really liked Robert. I went to his workshop up in Lake Placid, New York. He made that Coty collection of bracelets that are all aerodynamic, and he was talking about that. I used hollow construction a lot because I'm not a flat jeweler. I really make dimensional things.   Sharon: Yes, you can see that now.   Laurie: To me they're sculpture; they really are. They're sculptural, and I like the way they interact with the body. It's a sculpture on the body, as I said, but I'm not really intellectual about what I'm doing. I'm just recording things that I think other people could find interest in and making them. Do I know they're going to find interest in them? I've always been lucky my work has gone out. Am I big seller? I usually sell what I make, but I can't make that much. I've always been interrupted by school. I had a lot of kids every day. I was in a public school, and then I had to clean the room and get the supplies. I had a whole lot of energy. I'm kind of amazed at what I did at this point.    Sharon: Have you ever put on a piece that you had been playing with and said, “This is too flat,” or “It's not talking,” or “This isn't what I had in mind”?   Laurie: You mean do I mess up and trash something? Yeah, of course. There's one piece in the book that's made out of an aluminum ruler. I made that piece three times and even had it photographed. I don't have a lot of money, but I don't think about that. I just go and do something because I know I'll have to figure it out later. When I finally got that piece done, it went to a gallery and it sold immediately, but I made it three times. I have evidence of the way it looked along the way.   Sharon: What was it the other times? You didn't think it was dimensional enough?   Laurie: It just didn't do it. That's all I can say. To be honest about it, it wasn't compelling. There are compelling ideas. Some people can sit down and design something and make it—I'd say there's the ordinary way things look where they're acceptable, like a lady the other day showed me a picture of something on a TV set and said, “Is this your piece?” I looked at it and said, “No. It's nice, but I don't make that kind of thing.” I don't try to make nice. I don't try to make acceptable. I just try to make something that's got a little bit of magic to the message. You don't get it right away maybe, but you keep wanting to go back and look at it. That's what I hope for, and that's what it does to me when I make it. I either know it works or I know it doesn't work.   Sharon: Do you have a story in mind that you want to say, or message in mind that you want to get across in a piece before you start it?   Laurie: Sometimes, like when I found the screw, I knew what I was going to do with it. I saw what was behind the Eight Ball. I saw that ball thing, and I had some Corbusier letters. They were stencils, and I had the monkey. I knew I wanted to make a marriage of a metal ball, and I wanted to see how round I could get it. That was the high bar, so it was technical in one aspect. I try to go over the high bar sometimes.    What other piece can I talk about? The “Wrapped Up in the Times” piece doesn't have any found objects in it other than a glass eye, but I had aluminum, and I made the newspaper out of aluminum because I could cut letters. If you know how you can do it with the materials you have available—and I work with anything. If I think it will work in the piece, I work with it.   Susan: We should say that “Wrapped Up in the Times” is a fish wrapped up in The New York Times. It's a pun. I was going to say a couple of things about Laurie's work. One is that she really does describe the Northwest. If you've ever lived in the Northwest, which I have, either in Portland or Seattle, there are so many references to her place of origin that you just can't miss them. For example, there are a lot of boats in her work. There's water or fishing references. There's a bridge. One necklace is of the bridge. Portland, if you've ever been there, there's a river that goes through the city, and over the river are many, many bridges. There's also a lot of wood and log sections, like rounds of cut wood which came from some branches of a hawthorn tree—I forget what it was.   Laurie: Yew wood.   Susan: Yew wood, yeah. Those sections were all arranged around a necklace with a little compass down in the bottom, which refers to a story about Laurie getting lost in the woods. She called it “Stumped,” again referring to getting lost in the woods, but also referring to the fact that Portland was a big source for lumber companies back in the 19th century for wood. For a long time, they cut the trees and left them stumps, so there are vast areas where there were stumps. Even today, Portland is known by the nickname of Stumptown, and you can find Stumptown coffee around town. It's a brand of coffee. There are parts of the city that are called Stumptown. So, it's a joke, and yet she made this necklace that has this title.    A lot of Laurie's pieces are like that. They are puns or plays on words, or just something funny. There's another piece called “The Royal Brewhaha,” which is about brewing tea. It's got tea bags all around it, all of which Laurie made, but it's about the English, so the royal part comes in making a deal about something. It's just funny and fun. She's often very clever about how she names them. It's also things that are coming from this area, except maybe “The Royal Brewhaha,” but many things—   Laurie: Except it was Princess Di and the royal family. I am Scottish, English, Irish, all the British Isles, so I couldn't help but identify with her because she was so tortured by the royal family. I hated that, so I had to make a piece about it.   Susan: Everything that she's doing is coming from her place, her environment. Everything around her and in her life is incorporated one way or another into the pieces.   Sharon: Susan, in writing the book and interviewing Laurie and going through the archives, what surprised you most about Laurie's work?   Susan: I knew Laurie to some degree before, but not all that well. It is fantastic when you write a book about somebody and you get to ask them every single question you can think of about themselves, about their lives, about their backgrounds, about the piece they made. We literally went through all the work Laurie had ever done that we had pictures of, and I said, “O.K., Laurie, what's this piece about? What's it made of? When did you make it? What were you referring to?” So, we have something written up in our archive about every single piece.   I don't know if there's any one thing that surprised me about Laurie, but everything about Laurie was interesting and funny and fun and amazing in how original her work is, and how she embodies a certain area of this country, and how she was a very American jeweler who was interested in stories and her place of origin. I think none of that was a big surprise, but it all was really interesting to me.   Laurie: Ramona had used things from other places in the world, and I could relate to what she had done, but I didn't want to do it again. I knew I wanted to celebrate American things, and that was it. Then I went about trying to describe it, not thinking it out until I had to make things. I'm very driven by a deadline and a vacation and having time to work, because I worked all the time.    Sharon: Were you picking things not just from America, but from the Pacific Northwest?   Laurie: I was living there and I loved where I was from, so I couldn't help but record what was going on in my life.   Sharon: I'm curious, because in the past 30 years, let's say, everyone has even less of an understanding of your work. I could see how it would be like, “Oh look, you have this ethnic jewelry over here, and you have your cool jewelry over here,” which is really unusual. Have you seen more “I don't get it” in the past 30 years?   Laurie: If someone saw the café necklace on, they'd want it, or they'd say, “Well, maybe I can't wear that, but I really like that.” I don't want to worry about that. I didn't worry about it, and I'm still not worried about it. That's what's wrong. I think Dorothea Prühl was not thinking too much about acceptability. I love her pieces. Being free and expressing your own self or your original thoughts is better than anything else. It really is.    Susan: I think Laurie's work speaks to American interests. I don't think those interests have changed a huge amount from when she made these pieces, but she's been making pieces all along. She's still making pieces. She's still reflecting her times and her place. I think we're talking more about the beginnings of her career or some of the earlier pieces, but the later pieces are also very similar in their humor and their personal reflections of where she is. That doesn't change much over time. Your environment is your environment. The Northwest is the Northwest. There still are influences from nature, from First Nations people. There's a lot of imagery you can see all around Portland and Seattle from the Native Americans who were there originally, which influenced Laurie's work as well.    Laurie: I love that stuff. It's the same feeling. It was looking at the materials. Making with materials is so exciting with the colors, the textures, all of those things. It's just so exciting putting them together.   Susan: And that's pretty much constant with what Laurie's made all along.   Sharon: Laurie, was there something surprising or interesting that was thought-provoking as Susan was interviewing you and you were thinking more about the work? Were there surprises or reflections you had that hadn't occurred to you?   Laurie: I think Susan explained how I think. That was a surprise to me, because I didn't think anybody could figure out how I think. That was the biggest gift she gave me. I was so pleased with the writing and also with Damian, with some of the things he'd say to me. It was fun. We interviewed a lot, and it was always exhilarating.    I never did this because I was trying to make a living or be famous or anything, but I did it because I liked expression. Even from when I was a kid, I won a poster contest. I was in the fifth grade. Everybody at the school entered and I won; the fifth grader got first prize. I never felt that my primitive style would be rejected. I also felt that I could go ahead and be the way I am inside, put it down in paint, put in down in printmaking, put it down however—not that I didn't have to work hard to get one composition to work, but another one would fall into place. There are quick pieces. Then there are long, hard pieces that you work on. They're all different.   Susan: We should also say, Laurie, you were teaching art in general in your high school classes.   Laurie: I wasn't just a jewelry teacher. I was teaching painting, printmaking, graphics, textiles, everything. I had to go out at the end of the day and go from one end of Seattle to the other getting supplies. Then I'd go down to Pacific Island Metal where they have all this junk, and I'd think, “Oh, look at that! Look at that, this metal!” I love metal, I really do. I can make sculpture for the body, but when you think about making your sculpture that is freestanding, I haven't done much with that yet. I still want to make some tabletop ones, little ones, but it's putting things together that's so exciting.    Sharon: So, there's more to be explored. I have to say the book is very clear in terms of explaining your thought process behind each of the photos, which are beautiful, as well as your thought process in general. It's published by Arnoldsche. How do you say that?   Susan: Arnoldsche. They've published a lot of books on contemporary jewelry, especially European ones, but they've also published more American writers about American jewelers now. Toni Greenbaum just published one on Sam Kramer. The influx book that Damian and Cindi Strauss and I worked on was also published by Arnoldsche. They are really the best distributors of contemporary jewelry publications.   Susan: Yes, and I was excited they were going to publish my book.   Sharon: It sounds like such an honor. It's a beautiful book. It's available on the Art Jewelry Forum site, ArtJewelryForum.org, if you want to see a beautiful book. It's also a very readable book with the pictures. Thank you both very, very much. It's greatly appreciated. I hope to talk to you about the next book.   Susan: Thank you, Sharon. Thanks so much for having us.   Laurie: Thanks, Sharon.   Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.      

What you'll learn in this episode:   Why jewelers from the Pacific Northwest have a singular style, and how Laurie draws inspiration from her environment How Laurie and other artists in the Northwest School of Jewelers incorporate found objects, humor and wordplay into their work What inspired Susan to focus on American jewelry How Susan sorted through Laurie's 30-year archive, and what it was like to write “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall”   About Susan Cummins   Born in 1946 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but raised primarily in Atherton, California, Susan Cummins specializes in contemporary art jewelry and spent many years as a gallerist in Mill Valley, California. In 1983, Cummins took over Horizon Gallery in Mill Valley, re-naming it the Susan Cummins Gallery. Noting a lack of representation, Cummins settled on American jewelry as a primary focus for her gallery. Eventually, Cummins relocated to a larger space in Mill Valley and became known for representing painters and jewelers in the same gallery space, blurring the rigid distinction between fine art and craft. Cummins maintained the gallery until 2002. In 1997, Cummins helped found Art Jewelry Forum, a nonprofit tasked with connecting people working across the field of contemporary jewelry and educating new audiences. She continues to be a frequent contributor and is currently serving as the board chair. Cummins has also served on boards for arts organizations such as the American Craft Council and the Headlands Center for the Arts. Her primary focus in recent years has been her work as director of the Rotasa Foundation, a family foundation that supports exhibitions and publications featuring contemporary art jewelers. Susan Cummins was elected a 2018 Honorary Fellow of the American Craft Council.         About Laurie Hall   Laurie Hall, along with Ron Ho, Kiff Slemmons, Ramona Solberg, and Nancy Worden, is part of what has been called the Northwest School of Jewelers, an influential jewelry art movement centered around an eclectic style of narrative and composition. Laurie Hall is a long-time artist and educator from the Pacific Northwest, whose work has exhibited internationally. In 2016, her work was featured in Craft in America's exhibition Politically Speaking: New American Ideals in Contemporary Jewelry. Laurie's work is part of numerous private and public collections including The Museum of Art and Design in NYC, The Tacoma Art Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Additional Resources: Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com: Coney Island Express 1983 Carved polychromed wood, bronze, sterling silver, string, and found cocktail umbrella  1 1/2 x 1 1/4 x 16 inches Private collection  Photo: Roger Schreiber   Stumped 1988 Yew wood, sterling silver (oxidized), and antique compass 13 x 1/4 x 3/8 inches The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Helen Williams Drutt Collection, museum purchase funded by the Morgan Foundation in honor of Catherine Asher Morgan, 2002.3793   Cubist Café 1987 Sterling silver (oxidized) 6 1/2 x 12 3/4 x 1/2 inches Tacoma Art Museum, gift of Mia McEldowney Photo: Doug Yaple   Wrapped Up in the Times 1987 Sterling silver (oxidized), aluminum sheet, and decoy fish eye 6 x 4 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches Sandy and Lou Grotta collection Photo: Richard Nichol     The Royal Brou Ha Ha 1996 Sterling silver (stamped), stainless-steel fine mesh, hematite beads, and sterling silver foxtail chain 10 x 10 x 1 1/2 inches Tacoma Art Museum, gift of Sharon Campbell Photo: Richard Nichol   One Screw 2009 Bronze screw and sterling silver 1 x 1 x 1/4 inches Curtis Steiner collection Photo: Curtis Steiner   No. 2, Please! 1988 Bronze, found No.2 pencils, basswood, and color core 16 x 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Helen Williams Drutt Collection, museum purchase funded by the Morgan Foundation in honor of Catherine Asher Morgan, 2002.3791   Behind the Eight-Ball 2008 Fabricated marriage of metal ball (copper, sterling silver, nickel silver, bronze), copper frame, found printing plate and stencil, and sterling silver 2 3/4 x 3 x 1/2 inches Marcia Doctor collection Photo: Roger Schreiber   Transcript:   Although her work has been shown internationally, Laurie Hall's jewelry is undoubtedly rooted in the Pacific Northwest. As a member of the influential Northwest School of Jewelers, Laurie's eclectic, often humorous work has drawn the attention of numerous gallerists and collectors, including Art Jewelry Forum co-founder Susan Cummins. Susan recently captured Laurie's career in the new book, “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall.” Laurie and Susan joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the influences behind the Northwest School; where Laurie draws her inspiration from; and what they learned from each other while writing the book. Read the episode transcript here.    Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.     Today my guests are Susan Cummins and Laurie Hall. Susan has co-authored with Damian Skinner a new book, “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall” For 20+ years, she was the driving force behind Art Jewelry Forum, which advocates for contemporary art jewelry. Laurie is an arts educator and jeweler from the Pacific Northwest whose jewelry has been exhibited internationally. She's a key figure in the Northwest School of Jewelry, an influential jewelry art movement centered around an eclectic style of narrative and composition. We'll hear more about Susan's and Laurie's jewelry journey today. Susan and Laurie, welcome to the program.   Susan: Thank you, wonderful to be here.   Sharon: So glad to have each of you. Susan we'll start with you. Can you tell us about your jewelry journey?   Susan: My jewelry journey did not start until I was running a gallery in Mill Valley. I showed a lot of crafts in the gallery, and that introduced me to some American jewelers who were part of that craft movement in the 80s and 90s. I started to show those American jewelers in the gallery and after a while, I began to realize how smart and how very skilled they were, and how wonderful it was to work with them. There were no other galleries that just showed American jewelers in the United States at that time. All the other galleries that existed showed a lot of European work. So, I thought, “O.K., this is going to be my specialty.” That's mainly what I did and what I showed, and I became very infatuated with jewelry at that moment in time.   Sharon: Is that when you started Art Jewelry Forum?   Susan: I started Art Jewelry Forum in 1997, and the gallery I had in the 80s and 90s. So, it was a while before that came to be, but yes, within that period of time.   Sharon: Laurie, what's your jewelry journey?   Laurie: As a kid, I started doing art right away. My parents observed me drawing horses on the wall and my mother said, “Bill, I think we have an artist here.” I was given their stamp of approval from the very beginning. Did I think about being a jeweler? No, it's always been about art and making things like accessories, costumes, that kind of thing. I just wanted to be an artist, whether it was a visual artist or making things. I liked making compositions that were about something.   Sharon: Did you first meet Susan when she had the gallery? How did you two first meet?   Laurie: I met Susan at the gallery in Mill Valley. She requested to show my work, so of course you respond; you don't hesitate on that. I knew Susan's reputation already and I was thrilled. As usual, it was a bit of a hot potato because I taught full time and it was hard to get the pieces done. I think I squeaked in at the last minute, but I did get there.   Susan: Laurie is famous for being late, especially delivering work to every show she was ever in, but I have to say doing this book, she was right on time with everything. It was a miracle. She really, really performed in this case.   Sharon: There are some beautiful photos, so I can imagine pulling them all together must have been such a task.    Laurie: It was, but it was fun.   Susan: She kept very good records and we had access to all of those. For years she'd been taking photographs. Unless an artist does that throughout their career, it going to be hard to even put together a monograph of their work.   Sharon: I bet it would be, if you had to go back and start pulling things from 30 years ago. Laurie, in the book, “North by Northwest,” it talks about the influence that Ramona Solberg had on you. Can you tell us who she was, what happened and how she influenced you?   Laurie: I came to Seattle to teach. I taught a couple of years on Vashon, and then I was recruited to go to Mercer Island, which was—I didn't know at the time—the best school district in Seattle in terms of kids and the economics of it and everything. It was a public high school. I went to a conference down in Tacoma, and Ramona was there. It was an art education conference. I walked in, and she had this whole table of ethnic jewelry, which was the rage, and I liked it. Everybody liked it. It really put things on display, and she had her own work right next to it.    I think her aesthetic was something I always had to begin with, in some ways. I like making compositions; I like collage and printmaking; I like painting; I like sculpture; I liked all of that, and there it was in some ways. All of her pieces were made with found objects. A lot of people do found objects, but they don't remove them from looking found. Hers were integrated into the composition, somewhat of a cubistic-looking composition.    Her persona, she was a big gal, but she always wore polka dots and stripes and bright colors. She was cheerful looking, and she would wear a bandana around her neck. Everybody loved her and I could see why. She reminded me a little bit of my mom. My mom was a version of Ramona and her sense of humor. Ramona would call it like it is. She didn't ever try to make it up. She wasn't charming for the sake of being charming; she was matter of fact, right on. She called it, and you stood there at attention. I just liked her no-nonsense approach, and her jewelry to me was art. I was looking for something I could devote myself to. I had painted. I had done printmaking. I had done everything in college, and everybody was impressed with what I made. I sold everything, but I was looking for something I could wrap my mind around and my physical self around. It seemed like it was the thing, and it certainly was.   Sharon: What was it that moved you so much? Was it the fact that the found objects were integrated so they became part of a piece? What was it that opened your mind to that?   Laurie: Graphically her pieces were—you wanted to own them. You wanted to put them on. They were pendants and things like that, but they were very appealing to me. It harkens back to me going to a house dance down in Salem at Atlanta University, and there being this barn and this guy collaged all this barn stuff all over the wall. I thought it was beautiful. There was a collage like that that Ramona was making, but it wasn't just Ramona; it was the wholeness of Ramona. She not only had these collections, but she could talk about objects. She had traveled a lot. She had been in the Army, and she had been over in Europe. She had had adventures and was part of the world. She was really a beacon for me.   Sharon: Susan, you knew her too, because I think the first time I ever heard the name was from you.   Susan: I did know her. I think we should also bring in here that the point in time Laurie is talking was during the 60s and 70s, when there was a strong feeling of interest in objects and aesthetics from other cultures. People were wearing beads and bright-colored clothing, and all the things Laurie's talking about that were in Ramona's purview were part of what was happening then. Ramona just did it with a particularly great style and attitude. So, I think there was a proclivity at the time for somebody like Laurie, an impressionable young thing, to be intrigued by Ramona.   Laurie: And then the Pencil Brothers and all the things that were going on in Seattle. Seattle was ripe for craftspeople.   Sharon: The Pencil Brothers?   Laurie: The Pencil Brothers, yeah.   Sharon: Who were they?   Laurie: If you read Susan's book, “In Flux,” you will see—help me out here, Susan.   Susan: It was Ken Cory and Les LePere who were from eastern Washington. They used to show in a gallery called Margolis Gallery in Seattle. Other people from that eastern part did a lot of what Laurie's calling funk jewelry. We talked about of this in the book “In Flux: American Jewelry and the Counterculture.” Those kinds of things were circulating around at the time in the 60s and 70s in Seattle. The Northwest was very strong in that regard.   Sharon: Laurie, you're described as being part of the School of Northwest Jewelry. What is that?   Laurie: The Pencil Brothers are part of it, Ken Cory being one of them, and the other one is Les LePere. Ramona is part of that. Merrily Tompkins and Don Tompkins, who were—Merrily was one of Ken Cory's students. They were all over in Ellensberg. That scene was going on, and then in Seattle there was Ramona. It started with Ramona, but I was paying attention to what I saw.    Susan: Ron Ho.   Laurie: Yeah, Ron Ho.   Susan: Kiff Slemmons   Laurie: Kiff Slemmons, yes, absolutely.   Sharon: What was it, a belief? What made them a part of it?   Laurie: I think a lot of us liked the same kinds of images in terms of the found objects. They were using pencils. Number two pencils; Ramona used those. Ken Cory used them obviously, but I can't remember if he got the idea from Ramona or he got the idea himself. I saved pencils when I was in college. It was just something you did. I liked them. I like carpenter's pencils. I'm not explaining this too well, I don't think.   Susan: Let me give it a try. The Northwest Group, which is mainly Kiff Slemmons, Laurie, Ron Ho and Ramona—those are the major players—they were all doing work that had some familiarity with each other. They were using found objects as part of it, but they also often were making statements or telling funny stories or representing something more dynamic, like traveling the world and collecting bits and pieces from things. Ron Ho was a gay man who was Chinese. The other three were all students of Ramona, and they all did work that was similar to hers, but also very distinctively different. They all had something to say about different topics, and they all saw each other and saw each other's work. I think there was a strong difference between what they did and what everybody else was doing in the United States at the time. I was interested in showing it in the gallery because I thought it was particularly interesting in that it had something to say and was saying it with objects you could understand, like the pencils Laurie was describing.   Laurie: And the rulers and the compasses. Ramona used dominos. I remember going to New York for my show at the Elements, and I knew were really doing something different than the East Coast. They were into slick things and production jewelry and titanium and all that stuff. I'd seen that in London when I went there. Ramona did a study abroad program, and I went on it with Ron Ho. We saw Caroline Broadhead and Catherine Mannheim and Wendy Ramshaw and all those people. We went to see Wendy Ramshaw, and I realized we were doing something different. It's what I felt comfortable with: liking antiques, liking the Asian influence in the Northwest, liking the colors. To make things and put rivets in was very exciting. It was a formative way of making jewelry, put a rivet into something and rivet the whole thing together. How exciting.   Susan: And how simple and how direct.   Laurie: And how hard, oh my gosh! You can't believe once you start putting something together. You're not in charge; it's in charge. It's on the table. It's flat. You've got to make it so it can go onto somebody, and you don't know how it's going to get there. You tape it together; you string it together; you do anything you can to make it look like you could put it on. You put it on and say to somebody, “How do you think this is working?” “Well, I think it's good.”    I remember the café necklace, when I made that, I worked on it Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I have to say I skipped school, not Thursday, but Friday and then Monday I think I skipped school too. I never would skip school, but it was very important to me. It was going to Susan. Anyhow, did I know it was going to work? No, that's half the reason you do it. The way I work, that's why I do it. I have an idea or I have something I've seen, and suddenly you'll come down to your worktable and everything's been rearranged. You look down and see an idea right there on the table. It's very creative. It's about the piece dictating to you what to do next, and you just keep working.   Sharon: With found objects, do you have a box? Do you collect them on the beach and put them in a box, and you look at it one day and it says, “Make me into this”? How does that work?    Laurie: I don't always use found objects. Ramona thought it was funny; I said I make found objects, and that's the truth. I think so much of this jewelry that was made with found objects, people didn't really make it into a conversation. They just plunk them down. Do I go out to garage sales and all that kind of stuff? No, I've got too much stuff to begin with.    I find things incidentally. There's a ring in the book that's a one-screw ring. I found that screw on the floor in my school workshop. I asked the guy I worked with if he knew who it belonged to and he didn't know, so I thought, “O.K., it's mine.” The eight ball, I found that on the floor in Multnomah Arts Center where I was teaching here in Portland. You just see things. Sometimes it's a fragment that nobody could even identify, but it makes you have juices in your eyes. You're really excited. Do I know what I'm going to do with it? Not necessarily.   Sharon: How about when you saw the screw? Did the screw talk to you and say, “Make me into this”?   Laurie: Yeah, I thought that could be a ring because I'd already made a two-screw ring with the flange that I found in the same workshop. I thought it was kind of dirty and funny, which is the juvenile part of me, and that's why he bought it.    Sharon: How did you segue? You said in school you studied printmaking and all kinds of different arts, but how did you come to jewelry? Did you just keep doing more jewelry?   Laurie: I took a jewelry class from a visiting professor at my university. It wasn't Ramona, and the guy didn't know what he was doing, so I had to learn by myself. That didn't bother me. I'd seen Calder's work, so I wanted to make jewelry. My first work doesn't look like Calder exactly. It was of that time period, and Calder had a huge influence on all of us. It was that forging of metal and changing it from one thing to another. Susan, you have a picture of you wearing that wonderful piece—it might be Dorothea Prühl —that looks like great, big paperclips, the steel piece.   Susan: Probably Dorothea, yeah.    Laurie: Yeah, I love her work. There's this essence of originality that some pieces have, and if you can get in touch with that in your own soul, that's the best kind of art that can be made because it's original. I knew right away because I had a fantastic art history professor at Atlanta University. I knew what monumental was; I knew what original was; I knew you had to have a style. It wasn't that it scared me; it excited me that I could express myself and it could be mine, not anybody else's. It wouldn't look like everybody else's.   Sharon: So, that's what brought you to jewelry.   Laurie: Yes.    Sharon: How do you describe your jewelry to people when they say, “What do you do?” If you say you make jewelry, they think gems and gold.   Laurie: I always tell them I don't make jewelry. Sometimes it can be worn. It sometimes goes on the wall in a frame. It is wearable, but forget the word jewelry. It's a composition that I'm making with different materials.   Sharon: Do people usually get that? Do they understand what you're saying?   Laurie: Not necessarily. Most people think of jewelry as a category and they can't escape it. It's too bad, because more of the exciting pieces are being made with Legos and pieces of wood and recycled stuff. Maria Phillips is shredding a cup, and she'll put it together with popsicle sticks or whatever. Everything can become a beautiful or interesting piece to look at that ignites another thought. That's what you want to do. You want to put something out that ignites a thought.    When the piece is in charge, it says what it wants to say. I'm separate from it. It's like giving birth to child, I suppose. You've got to let it free, let it go out there and walk. You put it on somebody, and that's where the ethnic jewelry—it was on parade. People were wearing it and it was colorful. It had funny things in it that they had never seen before, but you adopted it and you liked wearing it. It fit your style and people were dressing in really fun ways.

What you'll learn in this episode: The characteristics that define contemporary American jewelry What narrative art jewelry is, and why it was so prevalent in the 1960s and 70s What defines American counterculture, and why so many 60s and 70s jewelers were a part of it Who the most notable American jewelry artists are and why we need to capture their stories How Susan and Cindi developed their book, and why they hope other people will build on their research About Susan Cummins Susan Cummins has been involved in numerous ways in the visual arts world over the last 35 years, from working in a pottery studio, doing street fairs, running a retail shop called the Firework in Mill Valley and developing the Susan Cummins Gallery into a nationally recognized venue for regional art and contemporary art jewelry. Now she spends most of her time working with a private family foundation called Rotasa and as a board member of both Art Jewelry Forum and California College of the Arts. About Cindi Strauss Cindi Strauss is the Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design and Assistant Director, Programming at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). She received her BA with honors in art history from Hamilton College and her MA in the history of decorative arts from the Cooper-Hewitt/Parsons School of Design. At the MFAH, Cindi is responsible for the acquisition, research, publication, and exhibition of post-1900 decorative arts, design, and craft. Jewelry is a mainstay of Cindi's curatorial practice. In addition to regularly curating permanent collection installations that include contemporary jewelry from the museum's collection, she has organized several exhibitions that are either devoted solely to jewelry or include jewelry in them. These include: Beyond Ornament: Contemporary Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection (2003–2004); Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection (2007); Liquid Lines: Exploring the Language of Contemporary Metal (2011); and Beyond Craft: Decorative Arts from the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection (2014). Cindi has authored or contributed to catalogs and journals on jewelry, craft, and design topics, and has been a frequent lecturer at museums nationwide. She also serves on the editorial advisory committee for Metalsmith magazine. Additional Resources:  Museum of Fine Arts Houston Art Jewelry Forum  Photos: Police State Badge 1969/ 2007 sterling silver, 14k gold 2 7/8 x 2 15/16 x 3 15/16 inches Museum of Arts and Design, New York City, 2012.20 Diane Kuhn, 2012 PHOTO: John Bigelow Taylor, 2008 Portrait of William Clark in a bubble_2 1971                        photographer: Unknown Necklace for the American Taxpayer 1971 Brass with silver chain  17 " long (for the chain)  and 6.25 x 1.25 " wide for the hanging brass pendant. Collection unknown Dad's Payday 1968 sterling, photograph, fabric, found object 4 ½ x 4 x ¼ inches Merrily Tompkins Estate, Ellensburg Photo: Lynn Thompson Title: "Slow Boat" Pendant (Portrait of Ken Cory) Date: 1976 Medium: Enamel, sterling silver, wood, copper, brass, painted stone, pencil, ballpoint pen spring, waxed lacing, Tiger Balm tin, domino Dimensions: 16 3/4 × 4 1/8 × 1 in. (42.5 × 10.4 × 2.5 cm) Helen Williams Drutt Family Collection, USA Snatch Purse 1975 Copper, Enamel, Leather, Beaver Fur, Ermine Tails, Coin Purse 4 ½ x 4 x 3/8” Merrily Tompkins Estate, Ellensburg The Good Guys 1966 Walnut, steel, copper, plastic, sterling silver, found objects 101.6 mm diameter Museum of Arts and Design, NYC, 1977.2.102'                        PHOTO: John Bigelow Taylor, 2008 Fetish Pendant 1966 wood, brass, copper, glass, steel, paper, silver 3 ½ x 3 ½ x 5/8 inches Detroit Institute of Art, Founders Society Purchase with funds from the Modern Decorative Arts Group, Andrew L. and Gayle Shaw Camden Contemporary and Decorative Arts Fund, Jean Sosin, Dr. and Mrs. Roger S. Robinson, Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Danto, Dorothy and Byron Gerson, and Dr. and Mrs. Robert J. Miller / Bridgeman Images November 22, 1963 12:30 p.m. 1967 copper, silver, brass, gold leaf, newspaper photo, walnut, velvet, glass 6 ¼ x 5 x 7/8 inches Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Rose Mary Wadman, 1991.57.1 Front and back covers Pages from the book Transcript: What makes American jewelry American? As Susan Cummins and Cindi Strauss discovered while researching their book, In Flux: American Jewelry and the Counterculture, contemporary American jewelry isn't defined by style or materials, but by an attitude of independence and rebellion. Susan, who founded Art Jewelry Forum, and Cindi, who is Curator of Decorative Arts, Crafts and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about what it was like to interview some of the most influential American artists; why they hope their book will inspire additional research in this field; and why narrative jewelry artists were part of the counterculture, even if they didn't consider themselves to be. Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Definitely, it's a history book, but it's not, because you really do get that flavor for who they are or what they were passionate about or what they were trying to express. I'm just curious; how did you distill all of this into counterculture? Was that something that you decided in a brainstorm? You could have come up with a lot of different things. Cindi: I'm going to let Susan to take that, because—and I admit this freely—I had a very specific idea of what the counterculture was and how people slotted into that. Through Susan and Damian, my understanding of the counterculture was broadened in such an incredible way. They really pushed me to open up my mindset and think about it in many different, layered ways, and I have benefited from that dramatically. So, Susan led that. Susan, I'll turn it over to you. Susan: O.K., and I'll try and answer. We had decided to focus on the 60s and 70s and limit it to that time period. That was the counterculture time period, and as I said before, there are so many in the craft world, which I was participating in during that time, that reflect the sensibilities of the counterculture. As we were interviewing these people, what was really interesting is that many of them didn't necessarily think of themselves of part of the counterculture. They thought of themselves as hardworking jewelers that couldn't be part of the counterculture because that was the dropout, don't do anything, take drugs part of the world. But that wasn't really the counterculture.  The counterculture was especially young people who were opposed to the way that people were living their lives. That got really defined in the 50s, which was a very austere, go to work, make money, buy a refrigerator, get a house and even if it was killing you, do this kind of life. They said, “We don't want that. We want a life that feels meaningful to us, that has real value.” In all kinds of different ways, that was what the counterculture consisted of: thinking in a different way about how life could be for us, something that's meaningful, something that you love doing, something that has some consideration of ecology and equal rights and all of the counterwar attitudes reflected in it. That was really what people wanted to do. The counterculture is big and broad.  A lot of people who thought, for example, that Fred Woell was a Boy Scout. If you asked Fred or you saw his papers or you asked his wife, “What kind of car did Fred drive?” A VW van. What kind of food did he eat? Natural foods. Did he build himself a house? Yes, he did, with solar panels on it. He was a counterculture guy. He just looked like a Boy Scout. A lot of the things you learn in the Boy Scouts were actually part of the counterculture, too, the survival skills and all of that. It's a funny thing to say, but I think in the process of writing this book, we convinced a lot of the jewelers we interviewed that they were part of the counterculture even though they hadn't realized it themselves either. Sharon: That's interesting. Did you enter this process thinking that these people were part of the counterculture, or was that something that came to you as put everything together? Susan: I think it was kind of there from the beginning, but not really. I think we discovered it along the way. In fact, I don't think we were thinking about having the word counterculture in the title. I think for a long time we thought it would be “American Jewelry in the 60s and 70s.” I think it was a provocative idea to put counterculture in the title. It might be that it was a bad idea because, as Cindi said, a lot of people have a narrow point of view as to what the counterculture is, but I hope that if anybody decides to pick up the book, they can find a much broader definition, which I think is the real definition. To limit it is not fair to the expression. Sharon: I think the book does broaden the definition. Before reading the book or looking at the book, I entered into it thinking of Sausalito. I grew up on the West Coast, so to me, the counterculture was Sausalito. My family and I drove through there once when I was a young person, so that was the counterculture, or Berkeley was the counterculture. I Googled the word counterculture, and it's interesting because it goes through all different periods of history that were counterculture. It wasn't just the 60s and 70s. Who did you feel it was wrenching to leave out of the book when you had make some decisions? Cindi: Before I would answer that specifically, to give a little more context, there were a number of jewelry artists who were personally active in all the ways we were highlighting in this book, but their jewelry itself didn't reflect that. We had long debates about how to deal with that. Ultimately, for better or for worse, it came down to the fact that at the end of the day, the book was about the jewelry. It was rooted in the actual works of art. There were artists whose jewelry did not reflect their personal lives. With those artists, we were able to include them in the book in terms of quotes and information that helped set the stage and provide information, whether it was about things from their own lives, if they were professors, what was in their program, but their jewelry wasn't necessarily featured. I'm thinking of someone like Eleanor Moty, who was incredibly helpful in terms of the interview that Susan did and being a sounding board, but her jewelry didn't make it into the book pictorially. There were others who were also like that.  I think I wouldn't necessarily call it gut-wrenching, but it was something we struggled with over a period of time, because these were artists who were very active; they were active in shows; they were teaching; they were going to Summervale; they were going to SNAG, some of them, some of them not. For me, Wayne Coulter is probably the big regret. I did an extensive interview with Wayne and his wife, Jan Brooks, and it was a great interview. He was very involved with Summervale, and a lot of his jewelry would have fit pictorially in the book, but we were never quite able to get the images and the materials we needed to include the jewelry. He's included, as is Jan, in terms of quotes and things like that. For me, that would be one that I regret. Sharon: This is not to say anybody's second tier. I don't mean that. Cindi: Oh no, not at all. Sometimes there are practicalities. This is a time when a lot of the artists don't even know, necessarily, where their jewelry from the late 60s or early 70s resides. Maybe they had slides of it, but those slides may not exist, or they may have been completely discolored. There were practical issues that made certain pieces and/or certain artists—we were unable to go as far as we wanted to. Susan, what do you think? Susan: Yeah, I completely agree with all that. I would say that we interviewed a lot of people that didn't get in the book. There was a lot of jewelry that started up right at the very end of the 70s and went into the 80s. We squeaked in a couple of those people, but what you have to think about is that we're showing you or talking about examples of people in various phases. Some people were very political. Some people weren't so political in their work necessarily, but they lived a counterculture lifestyle and participated in counterculture activities, and it shows up in their jewelry but not as strongly as in others. We tried to give a mix of examples of the things we were talking about, but as Cindi said, there were lots of people we interviewed that never showed up in the book. We must have interviewed Laurie Hall, for example, about three times. Her work isn't in the book, but Damian went on to write about her. That book will be coming out in the fall. We acquired an awful lot of information that didn't ever get in the book and people we interviewed that didn't get in the book. You just have to go with the most obvious choices at a certain point and think of them as examples of other people that you could have included, but you didn't. Maybe some people were upset by that, but you do have to make some decisions. As Cindi said, there are certain practical limitations. Sharon: I think I gave a birthday party when I was 13, and I was so traumatized by having to make decisions about the guest list. I always wonder about it, if you make decisions about who to put in and who to leave out. Do you know the name of the book about Laurie Hall? What's it called? Susan: It's called North by Northwest: The Stories of Laurie Hall. Or maybe The Jewelry of Laurie Hall. Sharon: That leads into my next question. Is there going to be a part two or an addition to the book you just wrote, In Flux? There's so much more material. Susan: Definitely, there's more material. Somebody needs to look at African-American jewelers. We barely got to include some aspects of that. Native American jewelers, too, have a whole history that we didn't really cover at all. These things are whole topics unto themselves, really. We hope someone will take up the mantle and find out more about that. There's a huge amount of continuing research. We don't have any plans to do that, so anybody listening can definitely take it up. Go for it. It's up to you. Sharon: It sounds like a great PhD project. Cindi: Yeah, it can be a PhD thesis. There could be a series of articles. It doesn't have to be a big book about something. You could do all whole symposium based on this topic. You started off with a question about our jewelry journey. I think this is and will be, for all of us, an ongoing journey. Susan and Damian have written this book on Laurie Hall. There will be other threads that, either collectively or individually, we'll want to take up in continuing our own journey off of this book, areas that piqued our interest and we'll go from there. As Susan said, we're hoping people will pick up the mantle. One of the things we learned through this process, and it's probably a lesson that should have been obvious to us beforehand, but the field of American jewelry is a young field. For most of its history, there have been dominant narratives. I'm part of that group of people who have helped with those dominant narratives. As a field evolves, you lay down the baseline, then you focus on individual artists, then you go back and start to layer in additional histories in a way that you can actually understand the full field. A lot of the artists we included in In Flux worked on the outskirts of what was previously the dominant narrative. I think as we proved, that doesn't make their work any less significant, influential, etc. from artists who were part of the dominant narrative. It's a phenomenal way for the field to continue to grow. I hope that as more institutions of all types focus on contemporary jewelry, it will engender additional layers of that story which will continue to propel the field forward. Sharon: Cindi, I noticed that when you look the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston website, you've been involved in a lot of online programming and symposia and things I didn't realize. I'm wondering when you're going to have a symposium on this subject. Cindi: It would be terrific. Up to this point, Susan and I have been invited to give talks. We did one with Craft in America last fall. We did with MAD. We've been invited on your jewelry podcast. I'm also going to be speaking for the Seattle Metals Guild Symposium next month. I would love to do a symposium. For me, in order to do a symposium right, it's not just about getting speakers together, which you can do virtually, but it's really about them coming together and having that in-person experience where you can have breakout sessions; you have the conversations in the hallways, all of those kinds of things. I would absolutely love to do that when it's safe to do it, which is not to say that—there are no current plans. I think our virtual talks have been fantastic, but it would be great to gather the tribe, so to speak, to gather people we interviewed for this book, to gather people who are interested and to share a day or two together to dive into this. I hope that can happen. Certainly, the door is open to it. I just think right now we're still figuring out what we can do in person and what we can't. Susan: I know many of those people are quite elderly at this point in time. Even as we were writing the book, people were dying. Cindi: Yeah, Ed Woell died. Ron Hill died, and now Nancy Gordon has died. Susan: Mary Tompkins passed away. Cindi: Mary Tompkins passed away. Several people had already passed away, but this history will not be quite the same unless people go and interview these older makers soon. This is part of the problem: with them dies a huge amount of information. It's impossible to know anything concrete about a jeweler unless you actually talk to them. Anyway, I hope that if people do want to take up this mantle or if they do a symposium, they do it soon, because they may be all gone by the time we get there. Sharon: People do it on Cartier and Renee Beauvois, and they're not around. Susan: They also kept better records and took better photographs. With those wealthy jewelry companies, it's very different than being a unique maker on your own in your little studio. Many of these people weren't even taking photographs of the work at the time necessarily, or if they were, certainly they were not great ones. They just clicked on a photo link on a slide back. This is not the wealthy, recorded advertising world of Cartier. This is a very different world. Cindi: As someone who has done a Cartier exhibition, I can also tell you that it's about the firm and about styles. You don't learn about who the individual designers were of X, Y and Z pieces, but Susan's right. For artists who are listening to this, it is incumbent upon you to document your work. Today, there are obviously tools that artists from the 60s and 70s could not have availed themselves of, which would have made it much easier. So, document your work, keep track of your work and update the way you document it, so that somebody 30 or 40 years from now who is wanting to do something in depth on you is not having to battle with an old technology that nobody knows how to use anymore, which then can make things invaluable. I'm old school. I'm a big believe in paper. I know that is completely against the way the world works, but I am wary. I have experience with recorded, even digital formats, that we don't have the equipment to use anymore; nobody knows how to use it. If you have a paper printout, you're never going to have that problem. I know that this is environmentally incorrect, that everybody's moving towards digital files. I have them myself, but I still like paper because it's what's going to be preserved for history. Sharon: That's very good advice about documenting. It benefits the artist now and makes life easier for those who follow as historians and people who want to look at it academically. Susan and Cindi, thank you so much for being with us today. It was so interesting. Susan, we look forward to your next part, 1A I guess we'll call it. Thank you so much. Susan: Thanks for having us, Sharon. It's been wonderful. Cindi: Thank you, Sharon. Sharon: Delighted to have you. Cindi: Please do let your audiences know that the book is widely available. My plug on all these things is that we know you can buy books from Amazon. Please buy your book from a local independent bookseller, or even better, come to the MFAH's website. You can buy it off of our website, which goes to support our museum's programs.   We will have images posted on the website. You can find us wherever you download your podcasts, and please rate us. Please join us next time, when our guest will be another jewelry industry professional who will share their experience and expertise. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.  

What you'll learn in this episode: The characteristics that define contemporary American jewelry What narrative art jewelry is, and why it was so prevalent in the 1960s and 70s What defines American counterculture, and why so many 60s and 70s jewelers were a part of it Who the most notable American jewelry artists are and why we need to capture their stories How Susan and Cindi developed their book, and why they hope other people will build on their research About Susan Cummins Susan Cummins has been involved in numerous ways in the visual arts world over the last 35 years, from working in a pottery studio, doing street fairs, running a retail shop called the Firework in Mill Valley and developing the Susan Cummins Gallery into a nationally recognized venue for regional art and contemporary art jewelry. Now she spends most of her time working with a private family foundation called Rotasa and as a board member of both Art Jewelry Forum and California College of the Arts. About Cindi Strauss Cindi Strauss is the Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design and Assistant Director, Programming at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). She received her BA with honors in art history from Hamilton College and her MA in the history of decorative arts from the Cooper-Hewitt/Parsons School of Design. At the MFAH, Cindi is responsible for the acquisition, research, publication, and exhibition of post-1900 decorative arts, design, and craft. Jewelry is a mainstay of Cindi's curatorial practice. In addition to regularly curating permanent collection installations that include contemporary jewelry from the museum's collection, she has organized several exhibitions that are either devoted solely to jewelry or include jewelry in them. These include: Beyond Ornament: Contemporary Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection (2003–2004); Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection (2007); Liquid Lines: Exploring the Language of Contemporary Metal (2011); and Beyond Craft: Decorative Arts from the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection (2014). Cindi has authored or contributed to catalogs and journals on jewelry, craft, and design topics, and has been a frequent lecturer at museums nationwide. She also serves on the editorial advisory committee for Metalsmith magazine. Additional Resources:  Museum of Fine Arts Houston Art Jewelry Forum  Photos: Police State Badge 1969/ 2007 sterling silver, 14k gold 2 7/8 x 2 15/16 x 3 15/16 inches Museum of Arts and Design, New York City, 2012.20 Diane Kuhn, 2012 PHOTO: John Bigelow Taylor, 2008 Portrait of William Clark in a bubble_2 1971                        photographer: Unknown Necklace for the American Taxpayer 1971 Brass with silver chain  17 " long (for the chain)  and 6.25 x 1.25 " wide for the hanging brass pendant. Collection unknown Dad's Payday 1968 sterling, photograph, fabric, found object 4 ½ x 4 x ¼ inches Merrily Tompkins Estate, Ellensburg Photo: Lynn Thompson Title: "Slow Boat" Pendant (Portrait of Ken Cory) Date: 1976 Medium: Enamel, sterling silver, wood, copper, brass, painted stone, pencil, ballpoint pen spring, waxed lacing, Tiger Balm tin, domino Dimensions: 16 3/4 × 4 1/8 × 1 in. (42.5 × 10.4 × 2.5 cm) Helen Williams Drutt Family Collection, USA Snatch Purse 1975 Copper, Enamel, Leather, Beaver Fur, Ermine Tails, Coin Purse 4 ½ x 4 x 3/8” Merrily Tompkins Estate, Ellensburg The Good Guys 1966 Walnut, steel, copper, plastic, sterling silver, found objects 101.6 mm diameter Museum of Arts and Design, NYC, 1977.2.102'                        PHOTO: John Bigelow Taylor, 2008 Fetish Pendant 1966 wood, brass, copper, glass, steel, paper, silver 3 ½ x 3 ½ x 5/8 inches Detroit Institute of Art, Founders Society Purchase with funds from the Modern Decorative Arts Group, Andrew L. and Gayle Shaw Camden Contemporary and Decorative Arts Fund, Jean Sosin, Dr. and Mrs. Roger S. Robinson, Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Danto, Dorothy and Byron Gerson, and Dr. and Mrs. Robert J. Miller / Bridgeman Images November 22, 1963 12:30 p.m. 1967 copper, silver, brass, gold leaf, newspaper photo, walnut, velvet, glass 6 ¼ x 5 x 7/8 inches Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Rose Mary Wadman, 1991.57.1 Front and back covers Pages from the book Transcript: What makes American jewelry American? As Susan Cummins and Cindi Strauss discovered while researching their book, In Flux: American Jewelry and the Counterculture, contemporary American jewelry isn't defined by style or materials, but by an attitude of independence and rebellion. Susan, who founded Art Jewelry Forum, and Cindi, who is Curator of Decorative Arts, Crafts and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about what it was like to interview some of the most influential American artists; why they hope their book will inspire additional research in this field; and why narrative jewelry artists were part of the counterculture, even if they didn't consider themselves to be. Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. Today, my guests are Susan Cummins and Cindi Strauss, who, along with Damian Skinner, are the co-authors of In Flux: American Jewelry and the Counterculture. Susan is the founder of Art Jewelry Forum and for several decades drove the organization. Cindi Strauss is the Curator of Decorative Arts, Crafts and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Susan and Cindi, welcome to the program. Susan: Thank you. Cindi: Thank you for having us, Sharon. Sharon: So glad to have you. Can you each give us a brief outline of your jewelry journey? Susan, do you want to start? Susan: Sure. My journey started in the 80s. I had a gallery in Mill Valley, California. I was showing various crafts, ceramics mostly, and a bit of glass, fiber, a whole grouping, and then I decided I should show jewelry. I don't really know why, because I didn't wear jewelry, but it sounded like a good idea. I started showing it, and I was very impressed with how smart and incredibly skilled the artists were. I continued to show that, and the gallery became known for showing jewelry. In 1997, I still had the gallery, and I decided along with numerous other craft groups that we should start an organization that represented the collectors of jewelry. I started Art Jewelry Forum with the help of several other people, of course. That has continued onto today, surprisingly enough, and it now includes not only collectors, curators and gallerists, but also artists and everybody who's interested in contemporary art jewelry. Sharon: It's an international organization. Susan: Yes, it's an international organization. It has a website with a lot of articles. We plan all kinds of things like trips to encourage people to get to know more about the field. I also was part of a funding organization, shall we say, a small private fund called Rotasa, and years ago we funded exhibitions and catalogues. That switched into funding specific things that I was working on instead of accepting things from other people. I've been very interested in publishing and doing research about this field because I feel that will give it more value and legitimacy. It needs to be researched. So, that's one of the reasons why this book came into being as well as Flocks' book. It really talks about the beginnings of American contemporary jewelry in the 60s and 70s. That's my beginning to current interest in jewelry. Sharon: I just wanted to say that people can find a lot more if they visit the Art Jewelry Forum website. We'll have links to everything we talk about on the show. Cindi? Cindi: Sure. My jewelry journey was surprising and happened all at once. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, had no contemporary jewelry in its collection until 2000, when we acquired an Art Smith necklace from 1948. That was my first real knowledge of post-Arts and Crafts jewelry and post-Mid-Century, people like Harry Bertoia. That led me to Toni Greenbaum's Messengers of Modernism catalogue, a fantastic resource for American jewelry from the 30s through the 50s. It opened a whole new field for me, and I started to think about how we should focus on some modern jewelry from that period to expand on the Art Smith necklace, because that Mid-Century design was a specialty of the institution.  Truly, I would say my life changed in respect to jewelry for the better in every way I could explain. When the museum acquired, in 2002, Helen Williams Drutt's private collection of artist-made contemporary jewelry, dating from 1963 to 2002 at the time of the acquisition, in one fell swoop, we acquired 804 pieces of international jewelry as well as sketchbooks and drawings and research materials. We began to build an extensive library. Helen opened her archives and we had recordings of artist interviews. It was just going from zero to sixty in three seconds and it was extraordinary. It was a field I knew really nothing about, so I was on a very steep learning curve. So many people in the field, from the artists to other curators to collectors—this is how I met Susan—were so generous to me in terms of being resources. The story about how the acquisition happened is familiar to probably many of your audience, so I'll keep it brief, which is to say that there was an exhibition of Gijs Bakker's jewelry that Helen organized for the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Sharon: Cindi, I'm going to interrupt you for a minute because a lot of people listening will not have heard of Gijs Bakker. Cindi: Sure. Gijs Bakker, one of the most prominent Dutch artists, began his career in the 1960s, along with wife, Emmy van Leersum, and was part of the group of Dutch jewelry artists who revolutionized the concept of contemporary jewelry using alter-native materials. They created a lot of photo-based work challenging the value system of jewelry and also challenging wearability. It was his photo-based work that was shown in a small exhibition at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in March 2002 as part of a citywide festival called Photofest, which is all photography-based work. It was through that exhibition, at the opening weekend—that's how I met Helen. I said to her, “This is something I don't know anything about. I'm interested in exploring it. I'm starting to build a collection for the museum. Could we meet and have coffee and talk?” So we met, and I peppered her with a lot of questions and said, “Could I call on you for advice in terms of building a collection?” Of course, at this time she had the gallery, and she said, “Well, you know, I have a collection,” and I said, “Yes, I know, and I understand it's going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art,” her hometown museum. She said, “Not necessarily. We haven't had any formal talks about that.” So, one thing led to another, and six months later, we signed papers to acquire the collection. That set me off on my initial five-year journey, which resulted in the exhibition and catalogue “Ornament as Art: Contemporary Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection” that opened in Houston and traveled to Washington, D.C., to Charlotte, North Carolina, and to Tacoma, Washington. After that point, I felt that I was really steeped in the field. I have, since that point, been adding works to the collection. It was always going to be a long-term commitment and journey for the museum. We have works installed all over the museum in relationship to other contemporary art, whether it's photography, prints and drawings, sculpture, painting. We also have a robust presentation of jewelry in our departments' galleries. It is an ongoing journey, just like with Susan. It's a journey that never ends, happily. There are always new artists to discover and new ideas. Part of that is our meeting of the mind, if you will, and then with Damian, is what resulted in this book. Sharon: How did you come to write the book? Susan, you started to mention it. The research in this is jaw-dropping. How did you decide to write the book? Why this particular period, the two of you? Susan: We decided to write the book because I was wondering what's American about American jewelry. Europeans have done a lot of research and writing about their beginnings, but I didn't see a document or a book that really talked about the American origins. As Cindi mentioned, Gijs Bakker started in the 60s. So did American contemporary jewelry, but it's a very different story than the European one. We wanted to talk to the people who are still alive now, so we did tons of interviews for the book. We specifically concentrated on the pioneers who were responding to the political and social events of the time. In other words, we were investigating those artists who were considered narrative artists, because that was the defining feature of American art to those out of the country. We wanted to discover who was making this work and what were they saying in their narrative, so really answering “What was American about American jewelry?” We did tons of research through old documents of the American Crafts Library. We went all over the country and interviewed, and it was about a five-year-long process to get this point. The book is incredibly condensed. You can feel that there's a lot there, but it took a lot to condense it down to that.  Really, what we hope is that it's an easy-to-read story about the stories that jewelers were telling at the time, which was the origin of all that's come down to us now. It was the beginning of the development of university programs in the country. They just were in the process of expanding them, and people were learning how to make things. Nobody had a lot of skills in this country, so everybody had to learn how to make things. There were a lot of alternative ways of passing around information. The counterculture, we regarded that not as hippies per se, although hippies were part of it, but also a lot about the political and social issues of the time and how people responded to them. The ethos of the time, the values that people developed really became part of the craft counterculture itself. The craft field is based on a lot of those ways of working in the world, a sort of hope and trying to create a new society that had more values than the 50s had aspired to for each individual. People were trying to find ways to have valuable lives, and doing something like making something yourself and selling it at a craft fair became a wonderful alternative for many people who had the skill to do that. That was a very different way of having a life, shall we say, and that's how American jewelry developed: with those values and skills. I still see remnants of it in the current field. That's my focus. Cindi, do you have some things you want to add to that? Cindi: Yeah, the larger public's ideas and thoughts about American jewelry from that period were rooted in a history and an aesthetic that emerged largely on the East Coast, but certainly spread, as Susan said, with the development of university programs. That was an aesthetic that was largely rooted in the organic modernism of Scandinavian influence, as well as what had come before in America in terms of modernist studio jewelry. There's a history there in the narrative, and that narrative played out in early exhibitions. It played out in the first SNAG exhibition in 1970 in St. Paul, which is considered one of those milestones of the early American studio jewelry movement.  Now, we knew that there were artists like Fred Woell, Don Tompkins, Ken Cory, Merrily Tompkins, who were on the West Coast and working in a different vein, as Susan said, a narrative vein, and who were often working with assemblage techniques and found materials and were making commentary on issues of the day. Within the accepted history of that period, they were a minority, with the exception of Fred Woell and really Ken Cory. Their work was not as widely known, as widely collected, as widely understood. Damian and Susan and I started after we thought, as Susan said, “What is American about American jewelry?”  Fred Woell was an artist who immediately came to mind as embodying a certain type of Americanness. We had an extraordinary trip to visit with Fred's widow, Pat Wheeler, and to the see the studio and go through some of his papers. When we went, we thought we would be doing a monograph on Fred Woell. It was on that trip that we understood that it was a much larger project, and it was one that would encompass many more artists. As part of our research, there were certain artists who were known to us, and our hope was that we would rediscover artists who were working intently during that period who had been lost to history for whatever reason. There were also artists whose work we were able to reframe for the reasons that Susan mentioned: because of their lifestyle, their belief system, the way they addressed or responded to major issues during the day. So, we started developing these list of artists. I think what readers will find in the book is looking at some of the well-known artists, perhaps more in depth and in a new frame of analysis, but also learning about a plethora of other artists. For us, it was five years of intense work. There's a tremendous amount of research that has gone into this book, and from what we've been hearing, it has enlightened people about a period. It's not an alternative history, but it is an additional history. We hope it will inspire people to pick up the mantle and go forth because, of course, one has constraints in terms of word counts for publishing. At a certain point, you have to get down to the business of writing and stop the research, but there are so many threads that we hope other scholars, curators, students, interested parties will pick up and carry forth. In some ways we were able to go in depth, and in other ways we were able to just scratch the surface of what has been a fascinating topic for all of us. Sharon: I have a lot of questions, but first, I just wanted to mention that SNAG is the Society of North American Goldsmiths, in case people don't know. Can you explain, Susan or Cindi, what narrative jewelry is? Cindi: There's no one definition. Everybody would describe it a little bit differently, but I think a basic definition is jewelry that tells a story, that uses pictorial elements to tell a story. Whatever that story is can range from the personal to the public, to, in our case, responding to things like the Vietnam War, politics, etc. Susan, do you want to add to that? Susan: It's a very difficult thing to do when you think about. Narratives usually have a storyline from this point to that point to the next point. Here's a jeweler trying to put a storyline into one object, one piece. It is tricky to bring enough imagery that's accessible to the viewer together into one piece to allow the viewer to make up the story that this is about or the comment it's trying to make. You have to be very skilled and smart to make really good narrative jewelry. Sharon: It sounds like it would be, yes. When you realized what this book was going to entail—it sounds like you didn't start out thinking this was going to be such a deep dive—were you excited, or were you more like, “I think I'd probably rather run in the other direction and say, ‘Forget it; I can't do it'”? Susan: I don't think at any point did we stop and think, “Oh, this is a gigantic project.” We just thought, “Let's see. This person's interesting; O.K., let's talk to this person. Oh, gosh, they said these about this other person. Let's talk to them.” You just go step by step. I don't think, at any point, did any of us realize how vast a project this was until the end, probably. Cindi: Yeah, I would say because it happened incrementally, deep dive led to another and another. We would have regular meetings not only over Skype, but we would get together in person, the three of us, for these intense days in which we would talk about—we each had different areas we were focusing on. We'd bring our research together and that would lead to questions: “Should we explore this avenue?” Then someone would go and explore this avenue and come back, and we would think, “Maybe that wasn't as interesting as we thought it was going to be,” or maybe it was far more interesting than we thought, so it spun out a number of different avenues of research.  At a certain point, we started looking at the most important threads that were coming out and we were able to organize them as umbrellas, and then look at subthemes and think about the artists. It became like a puzzle. We had pockets of deep research, whether it was the in-person artist interviews or whether it was the archival research that was done, whether it was the general research. Damian and I were not alive during this time. Susan was, which was fantastic because I learned a lot about this in history class and school. Damian is a New Zealander, so he was coming at it from an international perspective. There was a lot of reading he did about American history, but Susan was the one gave us all the first-person accounts in addition to the artists. She participated in the American Craft Council Craft Fairs and was able to balance the sometimes emotionless history books with the first-person experiences that made it come alive. I think that's what you see throughout the book. It was important to us that the book would be readable, but it was also important to us that it would have a flavor of the times. When you do oral history interviews, there are many different kinds of questions that can be asked. We set out to talk not only about the jewelry that artists were making, but their lives, what was important to them, how they felt. The richness of experiences and emotions that came out in those interviews really inflected the book with feeling like you were there and a part of what these artists were thinking. This is a 2 part episode please subscribe so you can get part 2 as soon as its released later this week. 

In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student & Athlete Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler are joined by educator-turned-consultant Dr. Dawn Wiese to discuss the complexities of hazing in fraternities and other organizations on campus, as well as in other settings prior to and beyond college. The conversation takes place in light of the newly-enacted Collin's Law, which toughens Ohio's hazing violations. TRANSCRIPT: Susan Stone: Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Kristina Supler. We're full-time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real, candid conversations. Today's topic is hazing. And what prompted us to want to talk about hazing this month is that on October 7th in Ohio, Collins law was passed. And that law now makes stricter sanctions for individuals who are found responsible for participating in hazing, in either fraternities or other organizations on campus. And Kristina, we've dealt with a lot of hazing cases in our practice and we don't see it going away. What do you think? Kristina Supler: I think this is such an important topic; we're so pleased to be joined today by Dr. Dawn Wiese to speak with us about hazing, because hazing is a situation where there's no win, win. In fact, it's lose, lose so often. Students are in terrible positions, their organization, sports teams, any sort of group. There's a struggle there with how to address and respond and then institutions as well, high schools, colleges, they have their views and obligations, and we don't have to get into all the legalese of it. But it's just a tough topic because at the end of the day, we want students to be together and bond and have fun, but in a safe way. So as I mentioned, we're so pleased today to have Dr. Wiese with us. Susan: Dr. Wiese, it's hard to find the right person to talk about this very critical issue that has had terrible consequences in the state of Ohio. We know about two hazing deaths, and we were looking for the right person and called around and all roads led back to you. I just want to brag about you for a moment. You are a former Dean of freshman at Washington and Lee, where you also then served as the vice president for student affairs and Dean of students. And now you are a consultant, and I know that you have consulted in many cases on the issue of hazing. So I welcome you and can't wait to get some information. So to kick it off, as we've said, we've seen a lot of hazing going on in fraternities. And could you tell us a little bit about what you know about hazing? Dr. Dawn Wiese: Sure. And I think you're right in terms of how you capture it is a complex issue and it's a difficult to talk about issue, because it's, you talk about it and then it's suddenly, oh, we can't talk about this anymore. This is a horrible thing. The complexity of it and understanding the complexity of it, particularly for parents, is so important. And I'll start by saying, I'm also the parent of, I'm a parent of a current college senior. So I'm not only seeing the college experience for my own professional experience, but now going through it as a mom. So let me start by saying hazing is a problem. There's absolutely no doubt about it. It is something that as parents, we need to be thinking about as college administrators think about it, all of those things. It's also important to recognize that it's not isolated to college campuses, and certainly not isolated to Greek life. One of the great misnomers is that if your student joins fraternity or sorority, they're going to experience hazing. That's not necessarily true. And we can talk more about what that means. In fact, I would argue that most times it's not true, but we could talk more about that in a bit. Hazing starts in elementary school, maybe even earlier, I don't know, but in terms of documentation on it, it's back to those very early years as learned behavior with a spotlight really going on during those college years. And fraternities, I think provide a good, a good way to draw attention to it. Although you see it in other ways in the medium, we can talk more about that. Kristina: Susan, I think it's so interesting. I'm curious to hear your thoughts, when Dr. Wiese says that hazing starts in elementary school. It makes me think about our cases in the special ed context, but also in other contexts, when we're representing young students who are dealing with issues involving bullying and harassment and it's, I mean, what do you think Susan, it's interesting to see fast forward? Susan: I want to ask you a question, because we know that for younger children, everything happens in one of two places: the playground or the bus. And the jargon for younger children would be, as Kristina said, bullying. So I want to get our definition straight and make sure that we're all talking about the same thing. When you say hazing early on as elementary school, how do you define that term? Dr. Wiese: I think that's a great question. Are you, were you asking me, are we asking Kristina? Susan: No, I'm at asking you, yeah. Dr. Wiese: So, I would put all of this under the category of harassment, certainly a very weighty legal term in that there's hazing, there's bullying. Hazing, I think tends to be when you're talking more about those rites of passage or joining something while bullying may be restricting. But really what we're talking about regardless is harassment and that, and yes, harassment on the playground, in the workplace. It is certainly not isolated to college campuses. Susan: That's interesting. So would you define hazing as if you want to be in our group, you have to wear the same Jordache jeans… I'm dating myself, Dr. Wiese… For all out there, do you remember I'm 55, Gloria Vanderbilt and the comb in the back pocket? I digress, but go on. Dr. Wiese: I had those Jordache, I begged for them. So I remember them well. So hazing, yes, could well be that or hazing could be used from a bullying perspective as well of trying to haze someone out of something, right? So to say that it is just one thing, again, that's why I tend toward that larger umbrella of harassment. Kristina: I'm curious, this umbrella of harassment, hazing… I think everyone would agree hazing on the surface is a bad thing. And I think perhaps where people part ways is what is hazing. But I want to circle back to something you said a few minutes ago about really emphasizing, it's not limited to Greek life. And I would certainly concur and that Susan and I in our law practice representing students across the country, we see it in a multitude of contexts, not just Greek life. But I mean, talk a little bit more about your belief that fraternities aren't really the problem here. Dr. Wiese: Sure. So thanks for asking that. So, does hazing sometimes happen in fraternities or Greek life? Yes. Does it happen in athletics? Sometimes, yes. Does it happen in marching bands? Sometimes, yes. Does it happen in groups that none of us know about? Yes. And so that's really what the issue is. And so I would argue that… let me go to the concept of the Greek system… is that the Greek system is not where the issue is. And in fact, I would argue it's one of the solutions. And so an example, let's talk about institutions where there's no Greek life. Does that mean there is no hazing? Absolutely not. As a vice president on a campus with Greek life, I relied on those national fraternal partners to be a part of the education solution. And that's why I think it's important not to think of hazing as a Greek problem, but rather a larger educational issue, that the education can come from from many different places. And so then it becomes understanding, what are the types of organizations that your students are choosing to join when they go to college. And then what does that mean? And what are your conversations with your student? Susan: I have to ask the challenging question though. I agree with you because Kristina and I have cases where there's hazing on or hazing allegations on athletic teams and other social organizations like the band. But, it appears that the most serious hazing occur, not in sororities, but in fraternities. I mean, I was in a sorority, I'm proud of my sorority affiliation. I would not say that I was hazed. I was, to this day, I keep in touch with my big sister in sorority. But the extreme drinking to the point of death, I only know about it in the fraternity context. Dr. Wiese: Well and I would disagree because I think we just have to pull the lens back a little bit and we can look at, for instance, the Champion case at Florida Florida A and M. But again, that's a marching band situation, right? Another serious hazing situation I believe was at the Ohio State. And so I tend, do we hear about it in fraternities? Absolutely. Absolutely we do. Are there high risk behaviors that happen there? Absolutely. Is that the only place where high risk behaviors occur? Absolutely not. And that's when it becomes a part of, from my perspective as a former college administrator, whether fraternities exist or not, students are going to join groups, right? That's what people do. People join groups. And my view of that fraternal world, that national fraternal world, nd that's also an important distinction, is that they provide an educational arm that if fraternities did not exist or sororities, were missing part of that educational component and those students would be joining something else, perhaps recognized perhaps something entirely unrecognized. And then let me also go to the national versus local distinction. When we hear about Greek life, it tends to be that we hear about, we tend to think about these organizations that are part of something that you see, you might see the same letters on multiple college campuses. That's when something is a part of a national organization. And those national organizations are the ones that have those broad educational programs. Then there are local organizations. And when these stories hit the news, they don't distinguish between local and national organizations. They just say fraternity. Local organizations are just that, they are a club. So my daughter, for example, at her college, they have a blend of local and national organizations. She chose the one national sorority of five on her campus. And so she, her sorority experiences come with that educational component. The other four are local clubs. Kristina: Dr. Wiese, it's interesting to hear you talk about some of your personal experience, your daughter in particular. So I'm curious, I'd like to hear, drawing not only from your professional experience as a vice president for student affairs and working in higher ed, but also as a professional consultant and really a parent. What advice can you provide to parents for the types of questions they should be asking when their children are exploring organizations to join? Like what do parents need to know and how can parents talk to their kids about what they should be asking? Dr. Wiese: I appreciate you asking that question and I'll share a story with you about the first time I know my daughter was hazed. It was at her summer camp when she was going from fourth grade to fifth grade. And she came home from summer camp and she was telling me all of these stories about how she was moving from being I, maybe it was five to six, but I think it was from being the fourth year of her camp to the fifth year in her camp. And to become a fifth year, she had to do a number of silly things. They were blindfolded, they had to run around, things like that. And at the time I was a vice president. I'm like, oh my gosh, she was hazed. Because that meets the legal definition of hazing, right? Doing something that where someone is saying, I want you to do this, to join this, and not something that they would otherwise do. And it doesn't matter whether or not it's dangerous or that. What happened to her at that summer camp was hazing. And that was the first time she and I had a conversation about hazing and how, and of course growing up with the work I was doing she was forced into a lot of conversations at a very young age. Susan: I talk too much. And they always say to me, you only see when it goes wrong, mom. Stop. Dr. Wiese: Well and I appreciate you saying that because 99, I don't know the percentage, but for the vast majority of college students, vast majority people who attend summer camp, vast majority of people who are marching bands, they're having an amazing experience, an absolutely amazing experience. And we have to remember that. And so then it goes back to Kristina, your point, that it's having the conversations with our sons and daughters so that we understand what's happening. So as much as we can and we are setting our expectations for how we want them to live their lives and those conversations matter, not only in that K-12 period, but when they go to college. Mounds of evidence that the parental influence in college matters. And so to go back to your question, what should we as parents of college students be saying? We should know the organizations they are joining. We should be asking what's going on in those organizations in a caring way. Because we all know as parents and said if we're just going, what's happening? What's happening? That's when they shut down, right? But we should be curious. We should, just like in high school, we want to know who their friends are. You should know who their friends are in college. Who are they hanging out with? From a fraternal perspective, is there alumni involvement in the chapter? And is that alumni, are those alumni 23 and 24 or those alumni 40, 35, 40? And I would argue that the 35, 40 matters, right? Because those are people who have said my fraternity experience was important enough to me that I want to see that you will have a good experience. 23, 24, those are kids still hanging around college, that's different. And so those are the types of things I think that you need to be as a parent thinking about in setting your expectations. So I'll go back to my daughter's summer camp experience. When she told me what happened at summer camp, we talked about the concept of rites of passage. Those aren't the words I used, but we talked about those concepts and I also talked with her about how those things can go wrong and that she, as she got, as she became older, she had a responsibility to know the difference. Susan: So let's talk about the difference, because I also think that some rite of passages, like a Bar Mitzvah, are beautiful rites of passages. Or I remember attending Kristina's daughter's communion party. I mean, religious rites of passages are part of growing up. Same with joining a team and paying your dues and then finally being this senior. How do you educate younger children what's fun rites of passage and just paying your dues versus hazing. Is it alcohol? Is that the differentiator or is it something that makes you nervous or scared? What's the line? Dr. Wiese: I think that's an excellent question. Not one that I'm sure I can answer well. As a college administrator, as a former college administrator, as someone who works with these issues, I would have to say, it's not okay, right? That's what a college administrator will always say. There is no line, there's nowhere that it's okay. And the parallel I want to draw is to underage drinking. And I can think of a phone call I received one time from a parent who said to me, you know, Dean, that it is safer for a college student to drink in a controlled environment. And you know, they're going to drink anyway. Why are you, Dean, the obstacle? And my answer was, I'm not the obstacle, we have a law. And it's not my law, this is state law. And so college administrators, fraternal administrators, they are bound by laws. And so they're never going to say underage drinking is okay or hazing is okay. What they're, what colleges and universities do, what fraternal organizations do is they try to offer alternatives to knowing that we're in the middle of a really complex situation and that rites of passage occur. So I'll start by that's my huge disclaimer to say, I will never say it's okay, right? And as a parent- Susan: And neither will we by the way. Dr. Wiese: Oh, I know, right? Susan: Kristina and I would never say hazing goes okay. And we would never endorse, I'm actually, we are both hard line about underage drinking. We know it happens, but we always say bad things happen when you drink too much, period. The end. Dr. Wiese: And I appreciate that qualifier. What I heard you say was bad things happen when you drink too much. Not, and I'm not critiquing what you said, I'm agreeing with what you said, not bad things happen when you drink, right? And I think in our society we've become kind of polarizing in how we talk about these things. So as a parent, I was never one to say, bad things happen when you drink. I was one to say, bad things happen when you drink too much, as it related to. And there are consequences, daughter, that you will face because even if your social drinking is not out of line, it still may be against law or it still may be against college policy. So you still may face some consequences. Same thing when it goes to hazing, right? That what I'm, the kind of conversation I'm going to have that I would have, that I did have with my own daughter is hazing bad, hazing negative, hazing very hurt, could be very hurtful, can be very dangerous. If you were involved in anything like that, you can face some serious repercussions or others can. And that's what's- Susan: I think we're doing is we're mixing our discussion. Hazing is not just a rite of passage, Dr. Wiese: Correct. Susan: With hazing there is coercion. With hazing there is potentially asking somebody to violate the law or school policy. With hazing there is pressure. A rite of passage is joy and love, support. Dr. Wiese: Yeah. And while I can agree with you on that right now, we're kind of getting into this anthropological discussion, right? The problem is rites of passage can still be considered hazing. And that's why things can get so muddy going through college procedures, going through legal procedures. Kristina: So I have a question. I'm a parent with my senior in high school. We're doing college tours in the fall and my son or daughter, frankly, it doesn't matter says, oh my gosh, I love this school, this feels like home, I want to go here. But I'm thinking, oh gosh, I read a couple articles in the newspaper last month. Do I really want my child going here? How can parents learn more about campus culture? What sort of, I don't know, digging or investigation can parents do when their child is at the point of choosing where they're going to go to college? Like how can parents become better educated to help their children make good choices? Susan: Yeah, that's a really insightful question. Dr. Wiese: I think it's a fabulous question. And really what I'd say is this really does come back to that, that relationship that parents have with their students in high school. What were their students' behaviors like in high school? Who your student is, is who your student will most likely be when they go to college, right? And so was your student experimenting with drugs in high school? Guess what? They're going to experiment with drugs or even accelerate that when they go to college- Kristina: Susan and I say it all the time, you know your kid, they came to you and be honest, you know who your kid is. Dr. Wiese: Right. And that goes, that's why parental expectations are so, so important. And you all have worked on a number of cases and I've worked on a number of cases where we look back at those high school behaviors and then what unfolds in college. It tends to not be surprising that what was happening in high school accelerates in college. And I'll give you an example of a story. I have a close friend, now an adult, and he was not planning on joining a fraternity. Very, very, very protective mom. He told me the story. Very protective mom. And her son was kind of a golden boy kind of thing, right? Great, great grand hopes for the son. And he went on to, he went on to college and wanted to join a fraternity. Mom, dead opposed. And mom ultimately had a discussion with the person who would be his big brother in the fraternity. And she confronted him and said, is my son going to drink in college? I don't want him drinking. And his reply was, “Ma'am, will your son drink in college? Probably. Will I, as his big brother, have his back and make sure he's safe? Yes, I will.” That is what every parent should be seeking and trusting your son or daughter enough to make the best decisions, the decisions you tell them, you expect them to make. If you don't trust your son or a daughter to make good decisions in college, then they're probably not ready to go to college. Susan: Wow. That's a really hard statement. I think that I tend to agree with you, but I also know situations of kids who never rebelled or didn't drink in high school and they go to college and they do feel pressure and they succumb to that pressure. So I agree that we all need to be vigilant and guarding against hazing. I think that hopefully Collins's Law will be a deterrent. But on the other hand, it always goes back to empowering our children while they are under our roof, to be able to be strong and to not pressure others. Dr. Wiese: Absolutely. Susan: We don't talk about that enough. Do we have conversations to tell our kids, I don't want you pressuring someone else? Dr. Wiese: Yes. Kristina: I just have one final question I have to ask, given that you have over to 20 years of experience working in higher ed. Susan and I, on almost a daily basis, are talking to parents who are at probably one of their lowest points. They have a child in crisis. And it's this struggle of are things going to get better? Do I leave my child on campus? Or do I pull the plug and bring them home and risk having non-consecutive semesters in college? Or what's it going to do to the transcripts? So on and so forth. Do you have any thoughts or advice for parents who are wrestling with, do I bring my kid home or things going to get better? Dr. Wiese: I mean I would say all of these are kind of case by case situations, right? And Susan, I also appreciate your point that accidents still happen, right? People can do all the right things and accident still happen and those are tragic and horrific and we have to work through those. So, yes, I want to agree with you there. In terms of taking a student out of a difficult situation, I think it's very much case by case, but I think at 20 years old, the idea of switching colleges seems like a horrific thing; it's not. In the grand scheme of things, it's not. I've worked with so many students and families in crisis. And if a student is having a horrible, a horrible situation on their campus and they can take a break and work a job and go back to that campus or go back, go to a different campus and start over, there's nothing, there's nothing. I mean, those kinds of things happen all the time. And so, I would say if you're, I think very much case by case, but if you have a miserable student who's just suffering through, there's no reason for that, take a break or transfer. Students do it all the time. Susan: It's like the adult timeout. Dr. Wiese: That's right. That's right. Susan: It's a privilege to be able to take a timeout. I was thinking about that as someone who's an adult, we don't get timeouts. This is the last chance that if you need to reorganize, take a deep breath, move home, someone else is paying your bills and maybe making your meals and you can regroup, nothing wrong with that. Dr. Wiese: Right. And there's more than one good college. And, I think we get so, so wrapped up in, oh, if I leave here, it'll never be the same. I need to get back to where it was. Well, if you're in a crisis situation, you're never going to get back to where it was not, not exactly. And so if things aren't going well, it's okay to explore those options. If you think you can recover it? Awesome, you learn and you grow. Kristina: Dr. Wiese, these were excellent, excellent thoughts and advice and just information you've shared today. We're so pleased you were able to join us. And thanks to our listeners, we're so glad you were able to join us today for Real Talk with Susan and Kristina. And if you enjoyed this episode, please do subscribe to our show so you don't miss an episode. You can also follow us on Instagram, search for the handle @stonesupler. And there's resources available online at studentdefense.kjk.com. Thank you so much for being part of our Real Talk community and see you next time.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Mary Pagano, a longtime technology industry executive. In her two-decade career in the industry, Mary broke gender barriers to rise to be an executive in a heavily male-dominated field.Mary left the technology industry, not due to a lack of success, but because she wanted to achieve greater fulfillment. Today, she is a board advisor and angel investor to several female-founded companies;   HERA, a building project for a smart green city for the future of humanity in honor of women, and FEM FOUNDRY, a new safe & secure social mobile platform for women around the world to unite on all subjects with a focus on female empowerment.In this episode, we talk about Mary's career, the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated field, the need for female leaders, and her newest project HERA. Mary's life experiences and passion make her inspiring for both men and women. Chapter markers:03:36 Mary Pagano answers how she accomplished what she accomplished05:06 Mary's early career 06:05 The challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated industry08:19 How did Mary respect her boundaries in the corporate world?10:40 The power of saying no11:38 I don't need a man in my life14:27 People want other people to be like them16:17 Mary's career transition from tech to investing19:25 We need more female leaders21:06 The development of Hera City - A city celebrating women26:57 What Susan's project Steel Rose is all about27:35 How being trained in sales influences your worldview32:47 Mary's closing thoughtsNotable quotes:“If I had a family and kids [my career] would have all been dead; there wouldn't have been anyone to take care of them” -Mary“When women mentor other women, and they help and support them, it's actually a gift to themselves because you learn from the giving” -Mary“I never got fired for saying no” -Mary“It always comes back to haunt us when we don't have integrity” -Susan“I've always been looking for adventure; I've always been that way” -Mary“You don't need to be married if you don't want to be” -Susan“It's human nature that whatever works for you or me, we want to try to make everyone else like that, but there's no point in it” -Mary“Culture can kill a company overnight” -Mary“Women need to support each other to move forward” -Mary“Women can't say no without guilt” -Susan“Sales is problem-solving” -Mary“When you're not heard [in a conversation] you cut off” -Mary“The cardinal rule in sales is know your audience” -Susan“If you give service [for others] the universe will open up for you” -MaryConnect with Mary PaganoHERA:  https://www.heracity.orgFEM FOUNDRY:  https://www.fem-foundry.comLinkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/marypagano    HOST:  Susan Hum, The LoveHackerInstagram @thelovehacker Website:  www.steelrosemovement.comFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/steelrosemovement

Welcome to the Recruitment Hackers podcast. A show about innovations, technology and leaders in the recruitment industry. Brought to you by Talkpush the leading recruitment automation platform.Max: Hello, and welcome back to the recruitment hackers podcast. Today. We are honored to have on the show, Mrs. Susan Hanold PhD, who is also the VP and the ADP Strategic Advisory Services Group. Susan, welcome to the show. Susan: Thanks Max. Great to be here. Max:  Susan  was named top women in HR technology by Recruiting Daily, and works with ADP's clients to build out their recruiting strategies. So tell us a little bit about ADP and then we'll go into our usual round of questions about how this industry is changing. Susan, I will let you talk about ADP, you will probably do better than I can. We were talking before the show that ADP does a lot more than payroll, and through acquisitions has moved into the RPO world. And into the technology world. Can you give us a quick summary of your universe? Susan: Sure. So interesting to me about eight years ago, when I was first hired at ADP. I came in as a talent strategy expert. So it was like you, I thought, Oh payroll! It's only payroll, but it's not. It's a full HCM human capital management company. And it's been in business over 70 years. And you know, over the last eight years, our talent ecosystem has grown. You know, eight years ago we started our RPO business. We have talent management, talent activation, you know, you have to put different words on all the different types of talent products. So activation is kind of a new area. That's an engagement, and performance area,  talent management, and you've got talent acquisition.Max: You've got my attention with this talent activation. We'll come back to it later. Susan: Yeah. So, you know, to me what's exciting is that, it's a global organization, it's got 140 countries and, you know, of course we're known for payroll and that's very core to us and we have 58,000 employees. And for me, you know, like you Max, as we were talking before, my day job was traveling a lot, I lived on an airplane and what was most important to me was satisfying our clients and helping them build out their talent strategy. And so I was basically traveling around trying to be in person, getting to know them and their businesses. And so that has switched a bit here now. Max: Well, we have so many hours in the day now. I understand that you're investing some of this time that you got back from all that traveling around the world, into helping  your community and working with the University of Texas in Arlington.Susan: Yeah. So I felt one of the ways to give back is to share those experiences and what I'm learning right now in my day job and the real life experiences. And I just feel like they are really enjoying that. They love hearing, you know, balancing the book work if you will, with the real life application.Max: Yeah i could make a nice segway on the world of recruitment. Hearing more about the stories and about the book, hearing more about the candidate than about the resume, which is something I believe we must move away from in recruitment. Move away from the resume. Tell us. How, how did you end up in talent acquisition professor? Susan: Well, it just happened naturally. I mean, I didn't say, Oh I'm going to go into talent acquisition. I am just a sponge for learning. And at ADP, I was given the opportunity to really keep learning and building and learning more about what they offered from a talent product perspective, and ourselves, and our services. And I started off in talent management and then it just naturally evolved to talent acquisition. And with the model that we follow which is attracting, engaging, and retaining. So many times I'll have clients that'll say, well let's talk about our turnover. And everything comes back to let's look at the whole ecosystem. So let's start from the beginning and come all the way through the talent life cycle. And so I just started expanding my conversation and learning more. I'm so very thrilled to be talking about it today, Max:  I've been asked by a number of companies to look at retention and you know, for me, it's the ultimate success metric for the company. Are you a people-centered company? It should be measured by whether you can retain your people or not. And the unfortunate thing is you cannot really give that number, the retention number, you cannot let any one department own it. Because it really starts even at sourcing.  If you source a wide enough audience, a big enough talent pool, then  you'll be able to be a lot more picky and find people who have a better culture fit, which should certainly increase retention, logically. So, I think these arguments are a little hard for me  to carry on the sell side. To say that recruitment helps retention and sourcing helps retention. But I do believe that fundamentally and in principle.Susan: Well, it's interesting, how did you know of the email I was just looking at before our conversation, because I had just got a request from a client that wants to have a turnover workshop. And that seems to come up quite frequently. And you know, in my role, my goal is to help our clients. So I'm external focused and help them with a lot of advice and insights. So I'm not really necessarily executing on a product, but it's looking at the whole people process and technology and in my role in product agnostic. So when the clients are coming and asking for help, like hey I've got a pain point of turnover. It's like exactly what you said. It's really having to dig in and look at the bigger picture. And where is it going to, where's it really coming from? And I'd say about two or three years ago, our team got together and we were hearing a pattern of turnover retention coming up and we're like, well we just need to start at the basics. What is it? What data do you need? And then we actually put a diagnostic together and it sounds really fancy when you say, well, I put a diagnostic together, but I honestly started going to key stakeholders. And businesses and saying, what data are you gathering? What are you measuring? And start pulling this together. And I hate to use the word HCM, but it truly is. It was a full human capital management list of questions. And I said, hey, here's a great list of questions. That you as a recruiter, or you as an HR leader can take to your CEO and say, if you say no to any of these questions, then you don't have a comprehensive turnover retention strategy.And so I just kind of knew exactly what it said. I started adding more and more questions to it. And it's wider. It was outside of recruiting, it went to performance, it went to communications, it went to marketing, and they all have an impact. So, anyway, I ended up with a good tool out of it.Max:  Yeah, the diagnostic, you can repurpose it? Susan: I sure can. Max: I mean, with a PhD  you can turn any worksheet into a methodology. Right? There is a way to commercialize that for sure. And I want to go back to that word you used earlier, talent activation, is that a new fancy word for onboarding?Susan: Not really. Talent activation is really activating talent. So it's really engaging the talent, checking in, keeping their productivity up. It's really a connection to right now. To the resiliency that we're seeing with the pandemic. So as a leader, how are you able to react to adverse situations? So how you act, you activate yourself.And it's also how managers are working with team members, other individuals or subordinates. To really engage them and keep them aligned to their goals! So that's a whole nother piece of it, which it does. You know, there's acquisition, activation and management. You've got to love how we put all these words to things, these new names.Max: I'll stay with onboarding. I've got enough words in my vocabulary, but thanks for that. Let's go back in time a little bit. And, well actually, on the top of retention, and the fact that it's in your inbox right now makes me wonder. Are companies preparing for 2021 thinking? Well, we kept our staff in 2020 because everybody was holding onto their seats and holding on for their life. And we'll have a wave of, you know, we have to be ready for a wave of turnover insurance. In the coming months you know, do you feel that, going on in the market that there's a little bit of anticipation and fear in that direction? Or is that just in my head? Susan: No, I don't think it's in your head. I think it's a very real situation. I mean, I think that you have the companies that you've, you know, that are not sure when to bring staff back, so they don't want to have to furlough or lay off again. So you've had some of those companies that have had to go through those situations. And then I was just working with, you know, one of our newest RPO clients that can't hire fast enough! Because they just can't find it. They're actually, you know, doing some of the COVID testing, but in sense their sourcing is extremely high, yet being able to keep and retain, you know, back to your turnover and where your retention is, and I even mentioned onboarding.  So how do you get all of that lined up so quickly? You scale up so quickly and do not want to lose somebody and still need to keep that whole candidate experience high. Because somewhere it's going to fall through the cracks, so I think that piece is... But there, I definitely think that there is  a sense of some folks that are very worried, right? So you have people that are wanting to keep their job, but yet I'm seeing some people, you know, go ahead and say maybe business isn't where, I want it to be. And I'm okay to jump. I'm going to be a job hopper right now, but I still think there's some unpredictability to headcount needs, where some businesses are fluctuating and that can cause a little bit of a roller coaster.And, you know, I even saw it with our own organization where some departments were busy. So people, you know, employees took a temporary job-hop over to another department to leverage their skills. So it definitely is a little bit uncertain, but that cloud. That fearfulness. I still think that's still there.Max: Yeah. That's going to stay with us even post election. I think there's still a lot of uncertainty in the market. But, I mean the recovery in Q3 has been very strong in North America anyway. And I guess that ADP should have a strong 2021, on the RPO business and technology, of course. So, you've got your finger on the pulse of the economy.  Can you give us, our listeners, some insights on how the wind is blowing? Susan: Well, you know, we do a lot of labor economy, market calls and so forth. Of course we're known for the unemployment report, but we also have something called the, workplace vitality report, which you know, is a quarterly, real time data or site, If you want to call it that,  where you can quarterly know what's happening with compensation. What's happening with unemployment? Is it a job hopper market? What's the hourly rate? What's happening part-time or full-time? And so by that, I'm definitely up to date on what's happening with the market, the trends, you know, really month to month, I look at this and how I can slice the data in different ways.But I think that's only one piece. I think the other piece that I look at to kind of know what's going on in the market is, what am I hearing from our clients? And, what kind of work are they asking for? And one of the biggest things that I am seeing is just keep it simple. Like since a lot of people are trying to make it easier for the candidate, for their employees and not trying to disrupt or come up with a lot of new stuff right now, new projects.But in doing this. They're trying to look at cost containment, process optimization, and really trying to say, how can I make my recruiting team as efficient as I can? And still have that high impact candidate experience and get that quality candidate. And so a lot of times I honestly have been spending a lot of time, right now, in workshops going through processes, looking at the current state, looking at the future state and saying, what are some best practices and recommendations to make things better?Max: And you know, I mean balance of what do you keep in house and what do you outsource in town's acquisition. I think that there's always going to be pressure on both sides, on both ends of the spectrum. And you'll have some mild fluctuations that are driven by the economy.So in 2021, probably it'll be a little bit more outsourced than usual, simply because people are a little fearful of hiring in house. But there's never going to be a state of balance or a winner takes all kind of situation. There will  always be that tension, right? Between the two. Susan: Well a lot about it, I think, is how open-minded you are and how educated you are to know just what your options are? You know, If I was the CPO five years ago for the people of our chief HR office, I may create my HR team very differently than I would today. And knowing, you know, what are those outsourcing options? And many times it's like, just give us a chance, let us run a business case for you. Let me give you a couple of menu options and then figure out where in your culture it's going to work best.Sometimes you just need to get somebody who's got the open mind to say, I'm willing to change my structure or change the... Or it doesn't even have to be all or nothing. It can be a hybrid approach. One of the clients I'm working with now, they have a recruiting staff and they have some outsourced. To me, it's just, you know, don't stress yourself out, right? Like you can go at this at baby steps too, right?Max: Yeah. Yeah. And, in this model and, you know, thinking about this customer that you just mentioned, you're referring to us. Is there a division of tasks or what's an ideal division of tasks for a mid-sized customer view?I'm curious because I see RPO is coming in for executive level hiring volume, hiring for digital sourcing. And I suppose  the area which remains in-house then is most precious for the companies to retain. Is the onboarding experience where the closer you become to being an employee, the more, that experience needs to be in-house and managed internally, I suppose. And that would mean like the front of the funnel is perhaps easier to outsource, but maybe that's just a wrong thing to do.  It's not the business I'm in anyway. Susan: Well, and if you just look at the market right now with unemployment, you know, of course recruiting teams are getting more sophisticated, right? But employees we're finding or having reluctance to change jobs. And so some may be leading for 25 cents an hour or not so sure anymore that their jobs are gonna exist. So, you know, now when they're comparing their employment to maybe some security, that is causing a little bit of a challenge right now. So I feel like knowing your compensation... I get a lot of questions from folks that, you know, from accounts that are saying, I don't have really good compensation, pay structure. I don't have benchmarking data. Help me figure this out. And a lot of times we'll just say, well, either two things are happening. One, they're truly off on wages but they need to do the analysis piece. Or secondly, it's an easy thing to say, well, it's wages, right? It's compensation. And I really need to look at our benefits, or I need to really look and dig a root cause analysis. And so, you know, I find a lot of times where I'm helping them find, how do I get good real time data? That's, you know, is not survey data, right? From somebody else to know what your compensation should be. And then also helping them to dig deeper just to ask them so thoughtful questions. Because many times they're not even doing exit interviews. They're just hearing it by hearsay cause they can't keep up or they don't have a consistent process to get that feedback. So that's just another way of saying this. Another thing I'm hearing a little bit about. Max: And, when it comes to this compensation data, I suppose the ADP is in a very unique place, right? Where you have more data than anybody else. Susan: Right!Max: I mean, this data is private. I'm sure.  But if you don't put the name of their customer to it, you can analyze it, right? Susan: Right. So we have two things that have been coming out. We have compensation, benchmarking and then also pay equity. And you know, what we're able to do is take the 30 million employees and 90,000 organizations and take that pay data and aggregate it, make it anonymized and be able to have it filtered so we can get that data to be able to say, here's what the what your benchmarks are based on your industry, your size, and, you know, be able to run that. That's been very helpful. And the second piece that's trending now for me is, you know, we had pay equity. We created that several years ago, but now because of what's happened within the market is that the whole diversity equity inclusion topic. And now all of a sudden that's been a whole other elevated topic.Max:  And this year, I mean, it's gotten even more intention than usual. And where North America leaves, the rest of the world follows, for a lot of things related to systems. I've read and I could be wrong, but I've read that more than half of the world's enterprise software is purchased out of North America.And that includes most probably, recruiting software. And, and so, doctor I've heard a lot of companies complain about having to build systems, which are very US centric, which asks all of this data, needed to be asked to be in compliance with the US equal opportunity law. And that it's creating sort of artificial barriers for candidates outside of the US where some of these questions are not required. Have you come across these kinds of queries yourself? What is your recommendation for companies who want to be on one hand compliance in North America?Susan:  You have asked a very difficult question and I could write a book and then get the answers to you. And maybe I'll be a millionaire, but, I definitely think that. Being able to have technology that is simple to use that can be used across a lot of boundaries definitely key. And I also believe that you have to play to all the different compliance rules, you know, one of the things I know that we've been looking at is just, this is very new, you know, it's a very hot in discussion right now. It is, you know, diversity dashboards.And what information do you, and can you even share, right? And then how do you include unconscious bias, into this, you know, inclusion sentiment and what do you do with self identification? You know, all this is out of my expertise, but it's definitely playing into it. And the other piece is where do you have the human connection too? Where do you have the human in this whole candidate experience? And when do you start to leverage your artificial intelligence, your texting? You know, all that experience with your ATS platform. There's a lot happening there for sure!Max:  And these tools do help diversity because they expand the pool of people who can get in touch with you and, you know, just make it easier to be able to apply. And I think that ultimately serves the purpose of, expanding the town pool and creating opportunity for people you wouldn't normally consider, or that the hiring manager wouldn't consider.But well, my 2 cents is that there are more demands coming out of North America than any other market when it comes to capturing this kind of data and protecting against you know, let's say, setting up rules to protect the employer against liability, and it creates inefficiencies, outside of North America.And so it may be. You know, with the internet global markets being large enough now for any company, including ADP, maybe time to consider having, and implementations and different systems. One for global, one for North America to optimize the candidate experience. Susan:  You're helping me with the product roadmap here. But you know, I do a lot of speaking and research around the remote workforce and the work from anywhere, the WFA. And since you mentioned kind of across borders, I think that is also the bigger question. And you talked about increasing your candidate pool and your talent pipeline. Well, you know, that whole diversity piece is definitely a part of it.But also right now, I can't tell you the amount of conversations I've had with organizations. You're trying to do business cases right now to say, help me know from an ROI perspective if I have a certain part of my population that stays remote, or I phase them in longer, and I know you've probably heard this you're smart and I can see you now saying, I've heard this before! But just truly the trend of what it could do to getting your top talent. Because, I mean, I just saw a posting the other day and it said New York or something, and I'm like, well, do you have to be there in New York, but why do you put New York? If you don't really have to be in New York? Why is the job description saying New York? So either. You know, clearly communicate that you're shifting or the jobs descriptions just can't keep up with it. Max: It's almost like the Y2K bug, you know, where they're like, we can't update the machine. But most ATS's and job boards and CRM's. They don't know how to list a job as remote. I mean, I should know. We just built that in ourselves just this year, when we've been hiring remote workers for years. But it just doesn't compute. Susan: But I really hope, in a positive light that this truly would allow people who are interested in positions seriously, and for whatever reason don't want to move. Or they feel like now that, you know, you've tested the times, you're like, hey I've done this! Do I have the networks within the organization? Do I really need to be physically present in that city? And I hope that you at least have a conversation, right? A strategic conversation that somebody wouldn't eliminate me, but please still consider me. I hope that continues to broaden and happen and evolve.Max: Talking about the work from home and compensation to our areas of expertise for you Susan, I don't know if you saw the news, but  Reddit this week announced that they're going to eliminate cost of living payment compensation. And basically what this means is it doesn't matter if you live in, you know, San Francisco or in Idaho, you're going to get paid the same. You know, we're going to pay you based on performance only, because everybody's working from home anyway. Are you seeing other employers follow that model where we'll pay you the same regardless, and we're going to stop, you know, pegging salaries, on cost of living?Susan: I personally have not seen a big trend in that yet, but I definitely, I tell you Max, you must know my calendar. I've been trying to talk to our compensation director because I'm, you know, trying to get a little bit of a handle on... we had essential employees, you know, paying hazard pay and all these different types of pay differences that we've been going through.And I think compensation's going to get challenged. So I am all for rethinking our processes. Don't just assume everything's going to be the same, you know I love how people say, when we go back or, you know, whatever this new normal is, the new error that you reset and you rethink, you just don't go back. You actually can do things different. And I'm a proponent of that for sure.Max: I'd like to ask you some practical tips on how employers and recruiters can stand out in today's markets. We talked about the fact that people are holding still a little bit of this time but clearly the employment market has reheated and companies are hiring again.And so there's going to be more offers, coming on and a lot of choices. What do you think are the defining traits of a winning talent acquisition strategy as we're entering the end of 2020 coming into next year?  What are your recommendations for our audience?Susan: Well, you know, standing out and in a competitive market is always important and I always believe how people are treated during this time, they're going to remember. And if my manager cared for me, if our company did the right thing, they're going to remember. And I think that ties back to culture. And culture I can see is going to continue to be very important from a recruiting talent acquisition position.So I would really think about the bigger impact you can have with your recruiting strategy when it comes to culture. The second thing I would think about is, you know, there is a shift in evolving skill sets. So think about how you were investing in the development of your people. So normally we don't see those two necessarily two connected.But I think when it goes from organic growth, do I invest in you and provide you the training or source the talent? But a shift, definitely an evolving skill set, you know, ADP did some research and a few weeks ago they shared that one in five positions. The way they are today will not exist. So one in five, it's like 22%. So if jobs are shifting that often that they're not even gonna exist, keeping up with the skillsets is definitely going to be a challenge in how important development is. And the last one I'll leave you with is that the focus on branding, you know, around safety and employees first.So that is going to still be very critical in the upcoming months, to focus on building out that brand and the value proposition. That the recruiters all have the same message and just, what are you doing? Is it through videos? However, you're going to communicate that.I've seen a lot of good companies that have been doing a great job of saying, you know, this is what the environment looks like we're going to share it with you through video ahead of time. We're going to give you vignettes, whatever it is, but we're going to give you a snapshot of what it is for you. And that's how you're going to keep me either as a customer or even as an employee. So those would be the few tips I would have. What do you think Max? Max: Well, I think I've got some work to do. I certainly haven't communicated enough on safety and health, internally. I'm a bit of a Maverick myself and I have not been very precautious. I hope I didn't offend too many people. I certainly think that's, you know, personal health and safety is mostly a personal responsibility. But obviously the world is changing faster than I am. And I think your rights, employers would be well advised to follow your tips on that one.And of course to continue to invest in the employees, invest in your culture, all strong themes. So, well thank you very much, Dr. Hanold for spending a little bit of time with us. Susan: I have enjoyed it!Max:  Thank you! How do people get in touch with you? Susan:  Sure, they can connect with me on LinkedIn, Susan Hanold, or through Twitter app, Susan Hanold. And happy to be a resource to anybody if they've got any follow up questions, Max. Max: Fantastic. Well, I hope we reconnect, sometime next year under a new world! And, well, have fun today. I think today is election day. So I'll be watching the results at the American club here in Hong Kong, a few hours from now.Susan:  It's going to be a long night!Max: Entertaining for sure!Susan: Yes. Well, thank you so much, Max. Max: All right. Bye-bye.That was Dr. Susan Hanold, from ADP and their strategic advisory group. Lots to unpack in this interview. Lots of great tips, notably, how do we adjust our messaging in 2020 and next year around the employee culture? And how does it take care of safety and employees first? I hope you enjoyed it. And that you'll come back for more. Subscribe to the recruitment hackers podcast, and please share.

  In this episode, we have an interview with Susan Guthrie - Family Law Attorney, Mediator, and Host of Divorce & Beyond Podcast. Learn more about Susan here: https://divorceinabetterway.com/. Visit us at divorceandyourmoney.com for the #1 divorce resources in the USA and get personalized help. Shawn: In the beginning of the process, as you're doing your research, one of the most important things you can do is figure out what are your options and what are the best ways to proceed during the divorce process. And know that the traditional method of divorce litigation is not the only method that exists when it comes to the divorce process, and you may have options. There's mediation, there's collaborative divorce. But in this particular episode, I want to discuss mediation, and to do that, I'm bringing in a great guest. Shawn: Her name is Susan Guthrie. She is a family law attorney with over 30 years of experience. And she's going to give us an overview of some of the key things about mediation to think about. She'll describe the process really well in this episode. And the other thing that's interesting about mediation is that there's the possibility for online mediation. And so, there may be some advantages to that as well. So, I hope you enjoy the interview with Susan Guthrie and also be sure to check out her podcast. She has a really good podcast that's called Divorce and Beyond. So, without further ado, here's my interview with Susan. Shawn: Today on the show I have with me Susan Guthrie. Susan is a family law attorney, mediator, and a podcast host of her own. Susan, welcome to the show. Susan: Thank you, Shawn. I'm so pleased to be here. Thank you for having me. Shawn: Susan, let's start with ... actually, I just want to start with the podcast so other people can listen to it. It's great. I recently did an interview on it. Why don't you tell us about your podcast? Susan: Thank you. Yes, and by the way, your episode is doing very, very well. People are always interested in Divorce and Their Money, it's called, my podcast is, Divorce and Beyond. It's really focused on, I've been a divorce attorney and a mediator for 30 years, so I bring that insider knowledge to the divorce process, and bring experts on to help with that, such as yourself. But I also am very much focused on the beyond, because divorce is really a finite time in your life or I certainly hope that it is, and you have a future ahead. So, many of our episodes are focused on preparing for the beyond, preparing for your future. Shawn: Great, and I encourage everyone to listen to it. There's lots of great episodes on there and you bring a great collection of interview guests on there as well. That's really interesting. Susan: Oh, thank you. Shawn: So, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background. I know you said you practiced for 30 years, but why don't you give us your credentials so to speak? So, we all understand who we're listening to. Susan: I have practiced as a family law attorney and still do to some degree for 30 years. My original State of practice was Connecticut, and I was located there in Fairfield County for 25 years or so, with a pretty traditional law practice. Then, branched out on my own and started moving around the country. I moved to California first, so I'm also licensed to practice law there. But I also segued my practice over to mediation, and in fact, that's all from a divorce perspective that I do in the process of helping couples negotiate and settle their divorce issues. I now live in Chicago. Susan: My practice is now entirely online, and I help people both through online divorce mediation services as well as legal coaching services around the world because I can do it online. I feel very lucky that I have been a divorce attorney and operating at a fairly high level. I dealt with a lot of high conflict and high net worth cases during my litigation practice. So, as you mentioned, I have access to a large number of really excellent experts because I've worked with them over the years in my practice, and I love bringing that wealth of knowledge and really that insider side of things to my listeners. Shawn: Yeah, I think that's great. You worked with a lot of high conflict people and now you do a lot of mediation work. Why did you make that shift? Susan: Yeah. So, it was sort of two fold. But really what it boiled down to, and for anyone who's seen the movie that's out right now, Marriage Story, you will understand I think what I'm talking about. But I got involved in divorce litigation when I first got out of law school, because frankly 30 years ago, that's really all that was out there. The litigation process is very adversarial. It is set up on a party A versus party B platform like any other lawsuit. Unfortunately, when you're talking about restructuring families, that is not a very good model for success. Susan: Unfortunately, that process actually drives people further apart, and then, when they find themselves post-divorce needing to co-parent or communicate, the animosity and the adversity that was brought up during the divorce and exacerbated during the litigation process really only makes it worse. It sets up an ongoing conflict cycle. So, mediation is an opportunity for parties to sit down, couples to sit down, and work together in a more cooperative fashion to communicate and restructure their family in a way that works best for all of them. Susan: It's not based on that win lose model, and so now having worked in both formats, the reason I only do mediation at this point is because the results for clients are so much better. Shawn: Let's start by defining what is mediation versus litigation. Can you just give us an overview of what that means, what that process looks like, how it differs? Susan: Sure, and actually that's a great place to start because there is a great deal of misunderstanding at times for people when it comes to mediation. I always hear it called the kinder, gentler way to divorce, or the kumbaya method of divorce. I will tell you, divorce mediation, like any process that you would go through to negotiate or resolve the issues of a divorce, it takes effort. It has its moments where it's not an easy process, but divorce mediation is based upon a principle of the two parties sitting down with a neutral professional, that could be an attorney like myself. It could be a financial professional. Susan: I know a lot of professionals who are financial advisors, who also are mediators, or therapists, or other professionals, but they sit down with a trained professional who's there to help them identify the issues that they need to resolve in the divorce, to give them an understanding of the law, and context, and nuance around those issues. Then, really importantly, to support both of them in having the difficult conversations that need to be had on how those issues are going to be resolved, with an eye to identifying what works best for all of them. Again, we're always in mediation looking for the third solution. Susan: We're not looking for the win for one side and a loss for the other. We're looking for that third solution that allows everyone to get as much of what they want on a needs base or interest based perspective, so that everyone walks away with a decision and with agreements that incorporate as much as possible what they've chosen that they can and cannot live with. Shawn: Let's give a concrete example of that, and I'm just thinking of, I want to just use a very simple case. Let's just say we have a house, a couple of retirement accounts, a couple of cars. How would I know when to use mediation and what would that look like for me versus going the traditional route and what would that mediation process look like start to finish? Susan: The two processes, they look similar because any method that you're going to use to resolve your divorce is going to sort of go through the same stages. You're going to have the quantifying or the pulling together of information stage. In litigation, we call that discovery. In mediation, we call it information gathering phase, but then you're going to discuss the issues. Then, you're going to come to agreement on the issues in 95% of the cases. So, the difference with mediation is, in litigation everything is done on a compulsory manner and fashion. Motions are filed, requests for orders are made, requests for production are made. Susan: Everything has time limits, and rules, and things are done because you are under court orders to do them. The difference is, in mediation, everything is done by agreement, including the fact that the parties are in mediation at all. Mediation is 100% voluntary as opposed to litigation, which people can be dragged kicking and screaming into, or if they ignore it, it's going to happen without them. So, the mediation process itself, just as a litigation case would start, does start with the information gathering. But it's not done in that fashion where you exchange compulsory requests for information. Susan: We sit down with your mediator, with the two clients, and compile all of the necessary information by agreement that we're going to do that as a part of the transparency of the process. That has a lot of different effects. The biggest one being it takes much less time to pull together all the information because we are talking about what everyone needs to see, wants to see, and agreeing to pull it together. It's also much less expensive because the parties are not utilizing legal counsel, filing of motions, all of which that they pay their attorneys for. Susan: It's usually much more successful, because nobody will drag their feet usually in the same fashion because, again, they've agreed that they're coming to the table to work through the process. So, in many ways, I've seen litigation cases where we have literally spent years, you mentioned a simple case where there's a house and some accounts, et cetera, that could take a relatively short period of time with that type of state to value things, because you have either written statements or you can get an appraisal. But when you get into some more complicated cases, or where there's a family owned business, or a cash business, or something of that nature, I've had cases drag out forever in the discovery process because it's so hard to get the information exchange, and that really just doesn't happen in the mediation setting. Shawn: You covered a lot of things that I have some kind of followup questions on. One of them that comes up, I hear every week or so is, oftentimes one party may not be as forthcoming as they should be during mediation. How does one handle that? Susan: So, that happens. Definitely it happens in litigation as well. So, the first thing to remember is, because mediation is by agreement, both of the parties have a reason or reasons why they have agreed to come to the negotiation table in mediation. Mediation tends to move much more quickly than litigation, so maybe time is an issue for them. It's usually infinitely less expensive. Maybe money is an issue for them. Maybe they feel it's a better forum for working through the issues. Whatever their motivations are, that brought them to the table, are the motivations that will also compel people to be forthcoming with the information that is required. Susan: Because what happens is if people do not come forth with requested information, the mediation process comes to a halt. Because if you are sitting at a table and one party does not feel they have the information that they need in order to make the decisions or the agreements that need to be made, the process can't move forward. You are putting people in the position, by making that choice not to be forthcoming, you're putting the other side in the position of having to take you into litigation. Susan: Having to compel your discovery as we were talking about earlier with the motions, and the depositions, and all of that. So, usually, it takes the mediator reminding the parties why they're there, that this is a voluntary process. They agreed to be involved in it, and failure to comply with reasonable requests for information are just by necessity going to bring the process to a conclusion. Shawn: I think that makes sense. I want to ask some technical questions about mediation, or just some basic questions is, you're a mediator and you're also an attorney, do the parties also have their own attorneys? How does that work? Who's actually in these mediation sessions? Susan: The majority of my mediation sessions are just the two people who are going through the process. That is not to say that they don't have outside consulting professionals, and I am very much a believer in the team approach to divorce. I think that everyone usually will need some sort of support as they go through the mediation or divorce process, whatever they're going through. That can include a consulting attorney, because as you point out, I am an attorney, but when I am operating as a mediator, I am not representing either of the parties. Susan: That would be an ethical breach. You can't, as an attorney, represent both sides of an equation. There's a conflict of interest there. So, your mediator, even if they're an attorney, is there as a neutral professional to support both parties. But often, people will need some outside legal advice, and it can be very, very helpful to the mediation process for them to have a good professional that they can go to. Other professionals are people like you CDFAs. I highly recommend using a certified divorce financial analyst, or a financial support team, especially in those cases. Susan: You mentioned that there are often one side of an equation in a divorce where they're not forthcoming with information. There's another paradigm that comes up all the time where we have one party who's pretty financially savvy and the other one who is not, and so, they feel very disempowered in making decisions. So, getting them some support by getting them a financial advisor or getting them a financial planner analyst, can be very helpful to the mediation process because it helps to support them and educate them as they go through. Another person that's often brought in is a therapist. Susan: If we have parenting issues, and maybe we have an issue with special needs for a child or developmental issues around the child's upbringing. So, I very much believe in the team approach to divorce, the divorce process as a whole, and certainly in mediation. Shawn: If I'm thinking about the mediation process, sometimes people think, is it just one meeting in an afternoon, is it multiple meetings? How does that work? Susan: Generally, it's a series of meetings. My mediations tend to be scheduled for two hours at a time, and that is because in two hours we usually can make some headway, start talking about real issues, and making proposals, and making agreements. But beyond two hours, it's an emotional context, right? You're talking about your kids, you're talking about your money, you're talking about separating all those things. So, the emotional content is very fatiguing. You are either in the same room, or if you are with me mediating, you're in the same Zoom meeting, and two hours tends to be where people sort of burn out. Susan: And what I don't want is my clients making decisions out of fatigue, or just saying because they're just so tired and they want to move on saying, "Fine, I'll do that." Because what ends up happening is they then leave the mediation, that session, come back to the next one having thought about it and they will backtrack. And that's harmful to the process only because now we have trust issues, "Well, you said you would do it. I relied upon that and now you're backtracking." So, it's better to do it in bite sized chunks that you can process, take your time, and move through it. Susan: Usually, it depends on the couple. It's usually a few three, two-hour sessions. It can be certainly more than that. I've had cases move faster. There are other types of mediations, so another type of mediation for family cases that people will be acquainted with is a case that's been in the litigation process all along. They're usually close to the courtroom door for trial, and they will, as what I call last ditch effort, resort, to sitting with a mediator for sometimes a full day session to try and resolve those last outstanding issues. Susan: In those cases, usually the attorneys who have been representing the clients all along are involved, and those usually tend to be one marathon type, long day type session. But for people who start in mediation, their divorce process from the start is in mediation, usually two, maybe three-hour sessions and a few of those, but infinitely faster. I will tell you, most of my divorce mediations are completed before the sixth month. California has a six-month waiting period. Connecticut has a 90-day waiting period. Susan: Those are my States of licensure, and we're definitely usually done by the sixth month mark in California, three months ... It just depends on the complications of the issues. Shawn: That's good to know, and if I'm sitting at home listening to this or wherever I may be listening to this, how do I know whether I can go down the mediation route? What kind of things should I be thinking about to say and maybe even conversations I might need to have with my spouse in terms of, "This is an approach that may work for us." Susan: That's another great question, because that's one of my key things I want people to know, that your best approach to divorce is to try mediation in most cases from the beginning. Because if it doesn't work, you always have litigation to fall back on. That will always be there for you. But knowing that it's a possibility at the beginning and giving it a try for all of the reasons of all of the benefits that it has, is something that I love for people to know from the very beginning. So, some of the things to be thinking about are, do you have the ability to self advocate? Susan: And if you don't feel that you do, can you find support to help you with that? There are a lot of amazing divorce coaches, legal coaches like myself. I work with a number of people going through mediation, helping them to strategize what they're looking for. I was just listening to one of your podcast episodes and you mentioned the question, what do you want? That's a huge question when you go into a mediation. You don't go into any process of divorce without knowing where you want to go, or the process is going to happen to you rather than you being an active participant in it. Susan: But that's really the question, is do you have the wherewithal to sit down and do the work that needs to be done with the help of your mediator? And to bring your spouse to the table, people ask me all the time, "Well, I'd love to do mediation. It's less expensive, it's less stressful, it's less time consuming, it's less adversarial. All of those things, it's better. It helps us create communication pathways for our kids so that we can co-parent in the future." All of those are benefits and those are actually the things that help you to talk to your spouse about trying mediation. Susan: Because the thing I always tell people is, the one thing that we do know after having been married to someone is usually what their interests are. And usually, there's one or more benefit of mediation that will appeal to them. Often, it's the cost savings. You and I both know the average divorce in the United States is in the 20s of thousands of dollars per person these days to litigate. Many people, even if they have that kind of money laying around, don't want to spend that kind of money on getting divorce. By the way, it can go much, much higher than that. Mediation is much less expensive. Susan: It tends to be much less time consuming, less stressful. You have much more control over the process. So, knowing whatever you know about your spouse and what would appeal to them, that is usually the best way to approach them and ask them to consider the process. Shawn: That make sense, and can someone come to you for select issues in a divorce? So, let's just say there's 10 things to figure out and they agree upon seven of them, but there's three issues that they still haven't quite resolved yet. Would mediation work for that? Susan: Oh, absolutely. In fact, I often work with couples who maybe have worked out the financial side, but they need help with the parenting plan or vice versa. They know what they want to do parenting wise, but there are certain issues on the side of the finances that they just can't quite resolve. So, you can bring limited issues to mediation. Any sort of any issue can be mediated. Many people who have gone through divorce but then after the divorce there's been a change of circumstances. Someone loses their job, someone gets a big raise, something with the kids comes up and you need to change your parenting plan because children aren't static. Susan: I often mediate that post-dissolution type matter as well. The only thing I would caution, and I just don't want people, because attorneys and mediators are accused often of ramping up, making problems in a divorce that didn't need to be there. What happens sometimes, when a couple comes to a mediator or an attorney to work out issues and they think they've resolved a bunch of them, but they have a couple that still need to be resolved. The thing with a divorce settlement is it's a puzzle. It's not separate blocks of issues. Susan: Everything works together, right? It's a family. So, the money, and the kids, and the house, and all of those things work together. So, sometimes the outstanding issues will have an impact on those issues that they feel they have resolved. So, some of those issues may need to be reworked or looked at again if they don't fit into the overall puzzle context. But, again, that's where mediation is great because you can sit down and talk about, in the broad picture, why maybe perhaps something that they thought they wanted to do isn't going to work in light of another aspect of their settlement that they also would like to accomplish. Shawn: Yeah, that's a good point, is that sometimes it's very hard to isolate particular issues in a divorce, because if you pull on one thing or adjust one thing, it can affect every other item. Susan: Exactly. Shawn: It may work in certain cases, but you have to be open to shifting or changing other parts of the big picture when you do that. Susan: Absolutely. I always tell my clients in mediation, I work off a written agenda. I find people like the visual of an agenda that outlines all of their issues, and then I take notes on it for them as we're going along. I always tell them, although an agenda is a linear thing and item one, item two, item three, and even if we're going to move through it in that order, it doesn't mean that we have to resolve issue one in order to move on to issue two. Often, it's, let's discuss issue one, come up with some possibilities, and then table issue one and work on the next issues because in the end, all of them need to work together. Susan: As an example, someone often wants to keep the marital residence, and both sides may be open to that and may have reasons why they want that to happen. But until you get into the financial side, with support and asset distribution and debt distribution, you may not know if that person can actually afford to maintain the property. So, that's a very common question that will come up, where we have to sort of resolve the support issues and the financial issues in order to know if what they want to do with the house is actually going to work. Shawn: That's great. One last question, which is, at least as it pertains to the mediation, is you do online mediation work. I know you've done in person, of course, work as well. How do you find the difference between just the setting, be it a video call versus everyone's huddled in a conference room kind of atmosphere? Can you just kind of give us your pros, cons, thoughts about that? Susan: Yeah. It's interesting because I do now have an entirely online practice, and I have to say, especially for divorce mediation, I've actually found that the parties having the ability to have a little bit of space, because they do not need to be in the same physical location in order to mediate online, that's actually been a benefit for most of my clients. That they feel more able to emotionally deal with the conversations that need to be had as opposed to sitting just a few feet away from each other in the same room. Susan: I've had many people, when I had a brick and mortar practice, who would come and I would meet with a couple for a consult to just decide if they wanted to mediate. And in the end, it would come down to one of them saying, "I loved all the benefits, but I just emotionally don't feel like I can sit in the same room with my spouse and do this at this moment in time." Because as we know, divorce, yes it is a financial transaction, we're talking about money, et cetera. But in reality, it is an emotional transaction as well. Susan: And so, the video context gives people a little more space, but still you have the ability to see the other person because 85% of our communication is visual, and most of that is our facial expressions and voice. What we say and how we say it, our voice inflections. So, much of that is still readily available in the online context. So, for me, in my experiences, it's actually been a benefit to the mediation process, and most clients are thrilled to be online. They don't have to sit in traffic. They don't have to get a babysitter. They don't have to leave work early. Susan: I know you work online quite a bit and so you know some of those benefits. It has translated very well to the mediation practice. In fact, I train other mediators in how to conduct their mediations online, because this is such a quickly growing aspect of the mediation practice. My colleagues are fascinated by it. Shawn: Yeah, and I think that's one of the hardest things is when you are getting divorced, having to be three feet away from the person you're getting divorced from, staring right at them the whole time. It can make the emotional side of things amplify them quite a bit, just being in the same room. They're funny in retrospect even from the client's perspective, but a lot of times where someone yells, stomps out, runs out of the room, just can't stand being in person with that person they're getting divorced from. Shawn: It's divorce and it's not a pleasant process to begin with. This isn't a civil suit business dispute. So, I think there are a lot of advantages to the online perspective for people who might not have considered it as well, just from that. Susan: Yeah, the ability to, in any way that we can, keep the emotional content a little at a lower level is beneficial to the process. Because the minute people start making decisions from that emotional place, from anger, from fear, from hurt, whatever, divorce unfortunately doesn't embody usually a lot of positive emotions. It's usually a lot of negative emotional content, and the higher that level, the harder it is for people to make rational reason decisions. As you know, these are decisions that are going to live with you, and your family, and your children for years to come. Susan: So, you want to make them from the best emotional place possible, and I'm not saying that it's always easy. But another thing that I do is I incorporate mindfulness techniques into my mediation practice and encourage my clients to have a mindfulness practice if they're open to that, only because it does help. When the emotions start to rise up, to be able to take that step back and find some space. It's really important to be able to think clearly, and that's another reason, going back to where I said the sessions are usually only about two hours long. Susan: I want people making decisions in a space where they feel that those decisions were good ones, or at least made from a reasonable place and that they can live with them. Shawn: That's excellent and thank you for coming on and explaining the basics and the essential parts of mediation. It's not a subject that I talk about too often on my podcast. Why don't you give us the best way to contact you and to learn more? Hopefully, have people potentially work with you in the future if mediation or other services are right for them. Susan: Absolutely. Pretty much everything about me can be found on my website, which is divorceinabetterway.com. My email is susan@divorceinabetterway.com. I encourage anyone who's going through divorce to take a look at the website. I have a lot of curated resources, most of them free, or special discounts that guests on my podcast have offered. I have your book going up on my website shortly, so that people can find it who have listened to the podcast, or go there. But I like to bring as much information to people because that is so empowering in the divorce process. Susan: Get your education, get your information. So, divorceinabetterway.com, and then also the podcast has its own website which can be found through Divorce in a Better Way, or at divorceandbeyondpod.com. Shawn: And outside of mediation you were telling me you do a few other services. Just so people can know, can you describe those? Susan: Yeah, so one of my biggest areas of practice at the moment is legal coaching, which is a little bit different than divorce coaching, because what I'm doing is getting involved in cases. Usually, they're either high conflict cases, where someone is dealing with a high conflict ex that can be a narcissist, a borderline personality disordered person, or just someone who is very difficult to deal with, or high net worth cases. I'm helping the client to learn to manage those relationships, manage the communication so that they can have as much control over their lives as possible. Susan: I help with strategizing, with negotiation strategies. I've been a divorce attorney for 30 years. I negotiate every day of my life. I have to stop myself from doing it in the grocery line because it's so second nature for me. But your average person, unless they have negotiation in their business life, that's not a normal, that's not something that many people are comfortable with. So, I work with just a lot of clients on how to identify what they want and then how to strategize and negotiate to get that in the divorce process. I work with people all around the world in that context. I have clients across this country, Australia, Europe, Canada, all over. Shawn: Well, Susan, thank you very much for coming on the show. I really enjoyed the conversation and I hope the listeners will, too. Susan: Well, and thank you so much for having me, and thank you for coming on my show. Again, I loved that episode and so do my listeners. So, thank you. Shawn: Now, before you go, I want to make sure you get some really important information. I'm going to tell you about a few things that maybe of interest to you. First as a favor, is if you could leave a review, if you're on the iTunes store, leave a review on iTunes, or if you search Divorce and Your Money on a website called Trustpilot or on Google, you can leave a review there. It's quick, it's anonymous. It only takes a few seconds and I really, really appreciate your feedback. I have lots of reviews on iTunes and on Trustpilot, and I appreciate hearing your stories. Shawn: Also, on divorceandyourmoney.com, you can get lots of great information. Of course, you can book a 30-minute strategy session directly with me. There's two types of strategy calls you can book, just a normal strategy session, where we discuss the questions that are most pressing to you regardless of where you are in the divorce process, be at the beginning, towards the end, or in the middle. It doesn't really matter. There's lots of great information we can cover during that strategy call. Also, we have a document review call. Shawn: It's been one of the biggest things that we've done over the past year, which is you can send me your documents, be it your financial affidavit, a settlement agreement, or other documents that you would like for me to review. Then, I review those in advance of the call and then we get to discuss them in-depth as part of a strategy session and get specific answers to some of the specific documents and things that you are considering. Also, for those who need ongoing support, we do have a few options for ongoing support, but regardless, it all starts with a coaching call that you can book at divorceandyourmoney.com. Shawn: Don't forget to also get a copy of my new book. It's called Divorce and Your Money: How to Avoid Costly Divorce Mistakes. It's available on my website, or also on Amazon. You just look me up and make sure you get the new edition. It is filled with excellent information regarding the divorce process, and I know that you will find it helpful. Once you've read the book, be sure to leave a review. That really helps me. I appreciate your feedback and it also helps other people as they try and find this information. And finally, last but not least by any means is on the store at divorceandyourmoney.com, if you click on the store button, you can get access to the full archive of podcast episodes. Shawn: There's over 200 episodes, and what's great about the store link is that the episodes are organized in neat buckets, and they're organized by topic. So, it's very easy to follow along with the information, and it is easy to pick out the key topics that matter most to you. You can get all of those podcast episodes in the store. Thank you so much for listening. I'm your host, Shawn Leamon, MBA and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst. Take care.    

 Learn how to build a tight-knit network of connections through a mastermind Find out how to expand your client base through creating a high-quality mastermind and use it as a foundation to pop out the high paying clients Discover why you should call your friends, family, and prior customers if you are planning to start a mastermind Resources/Links: Download Susan Epstein's Free Report: 5 Simple Steps on How to Fill Your Mastermind: Sign-up at https://www.highlyprofitablepractice.com/ Summary When it comes to mastermind groups, deciding which program to join, or who to invite is going to set the success of the program. Many coaches shoot themselves in the foot because they think they've 'got it all figured out'. The sad truth is they do not know how to start their own tribe of people who will pay for what they knows. Guidance and mentorship from people with a proven track record is a game-changer. They've figured out the blueprint to success. All you have to do is soak up their knowledge and apply what they tell you. Susan Epstein is a business coach and strategist working with coaches, therapists, and healers to fill their practices and then leverage their time. She does this by offering, Masterclasses, Masterminds, Group Coaching Programs and Individual Coaching. Susan coaches her clients to follow her model by focusing on taking consistent action, eliminating distraction, finding their ONE THING and then focusing on constant reevaluation in order to hit their business goal. In this episode, Susan shares how she helps business coaches create a foundation with groups or masterminds so that they can work with a lot of people at the same time. And therefore, grow their following and their client base and use that as a foundation to pop out the high paying clients. Check out these episode highlights: 01:40 – Susan's ideal client: "My ideal client is a coach who's building their business currently, and they have some clients and maybe they're starting to feel a little bit, like, I have all these one on one clients and I'm running out of time and I'm doing everything myself. ." 02:05 – Problem Susan helps solve: "I help them create a foundation with groups or masterminds or both so that they can work with a lot of people at the same time. And therefore, grow their following and their client base and use that as a foundation to pop out the high paying clients." 02:45 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Susan: "It's lack of time, their pricing is probably off. They might be charging like a consultant rather than a coach." 04:49 – What are some of the common mistakes that folks make before finding Susan and her solution?: "They create a lot of content on the back end and have nobody to share it with on the front end. That's a big one. They think it's easy to just put up a post and have a lot of people join their programs. They don't understand that most coaching, the way that you end up signing people up or enrolling them is through a conversation." 05:34 – Susan's Valuable Free Action(VFA): Make a list of 50 to 100 people that you know, they don't have to be people that will actually sign up for your programs, they're just people that you know. Everybody is a referral partner or a prospect, every single person that you know in your life. And call them up, talk to them. 06:55 – Susan's Valuable Free Action(VFR): Sign-up to Jennifer's Create Consistent $10,000 Months Program: http://www.bit.ly/yourpassiontoprofit

– Susan White I don't think people understand narcolepsy. They don't understand that. I'm sure any other invisible disability. It was hard for me to talk about because I know you're with all your colleagues your friends you're focused on work and you've got your adult daughter at home in the dark in a room that she's you know for three days maybe she only got up to go to the bathroom and eat more food. I mean it's just horrible.   INTRO   When I was in college, I was a rower on the crew team.  This meant that I would get up really, really early to be on the water by 4:45 AM.  Exhaustion would hit later in the day and I found it particularly hard to stay awake in afternoon Spanish class.  I would doze off regularly during conjugation exercises and my friends teased me, “Tenga narcolepsy?”.  It was an ongoing joke and, until this podcast episode, I had no idea how debilitating and devastating narcolepsy can be on an entire family.    Today’s episode of Handle with Care is sponsored by FullStack PEO.  FullStack supports small businesses and entrepreneurs, expertly taking care of your people and benefits so you can focus on what matters most, growing your business.  We are also sponsored by Handle with Care HR Consulting.  From death to a diagnosis to a relationship transition, we equip you to support people when it matters most.    Susan White, today’s guest, is many things.  She is a life-time Indianapolis native who loves her corner of Broad Ripple. Susan is also a breast cancer survivor and the mother to a daughter with narcolepsy, which she says is much, much harder than battling cancer.  But before we get into her story, a little bit more about Susan.    She worked for many years in the field of HR.  Podcasting is a great love and hobby of hers.  She is the co-host of the Joy-Powered Podcast, where I had the pleasure of being a guest last year.    - Susan White People spend so much time at work and they put so much of themselves in it that if it is not a joyful environment it can actually really bring the bring the person to their knees. So the point of our podcast is how do you create joy in the workplace and then how do you sustain it.  So, our target audience in general are business leaders and H.R. professionals.   - Liesel Mertes Tell me a little bit about your family.   - Susan White Sure. I'm married to Bill. He teaches at IEP. He is an architect and he loves construction management which is what he teaches. We've been married for all right don't think really quick do the math. I think 37 years. Congratulations. Thank you. I have a daughter, Erin. She's 35 years old. She works here in the broader Broad Ripple area and we have a son Grady who is married to Amber and they live in Scottsdale Arizona and they have my grand dog.   And now, to some of the hard stuff:  when Susan was 49 years old, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She was working for a financial institution as the Chief HR officer, an exciting position.   - Susan White So I was in it for about six months when all of a sudden I went from my normal mammogram and even risk right after right after I'd had the mammogram done the technician came in and said I need for you to talk to someone because we see something on there that doesn't look right.   Susan was sent directly to the hospital for a biopsy.  It was a fast moving cancer.    - Susan White When I look back to those days I remember that I had I felt like I had inside my brain a neon light that was saying cancer, cancer just kept flashing.   - Susan White And in the meetings I found myself unable to concentrate which was not me. I was just so distracted with this flashing neon light in my head. You've got cancer you've got cancer. So it was it was it was a real disruptor and trying to process it all right.   - Liesel Mertes Well and then it sounds like the nature of the cancer was fast moving enough that they wanted to intervene quickly. How did that go with lining up medical leave? Did you find that your employer was receptive? What were some of the, the processes that played out for you?   - Susan White You know, it's interesting as soon as I found out I had breast cancer I started doing a lot of reading and I read something like I think the book was Chicken Soup for breast cancer survivors or forgive me if I thought the exact title anyway.   - Susan White It said in there that you will never feels so loved as when you have breast cancer in your whole life. And that's exactly how I felt I could not get over the outpouring of support and love almost every single person in this financial institution that I told they, they knew somebody themselves who had been affected by breast cancer and they were so supportive. My, even though I'd been in this business less than six months the CEO of the company is like oh you just go give him health is just you go give him hell we're right here for you.   - Susan White I mean it was just unbelievable amount of support.   Friends began to bring meals, out-of-town colleagues offered support and housing as Susan considered second opinions.  Her husband noted that their house began to smell like a florist shop because of the overflow of flowers.  And then there were the pjs and slippers and chocolate.   After treatment, she returned quickly to work, despite the exhaustion of long days.  Eleven months later, she was diagnosed with endometrial hyperplasia with atypia, a cancer that necessitated a hysterectomy.  She was already weak but heading back for an additional surgery.  And that is when Susan’s daughter, Erin, began to display worrying symptoms.      - Susan White But anyway, for us that was kind of building and then I realized what was going to have to happen I was gonna head back into a major surgery. All of a sudden, our daughter who had mentioned earlier she was experiencing some real problems. She was falling asleep a lot. She was not being able to get up. She was living independently she was working as a paralegal. She lived with a girlfriend in a apartment downtown and we thought she had launched for life right. Well, all of a sudden, she was like panicking a lot really high anxiety because she kept sleeping and could not wake up.   - Susan White She was being extremely forgetful. She kind of had a history of always being a little forgetful but I mean it was it to the extreme she was becoming kind of paralyzed she'd say like I could see she would be driving as she could see like a parking lot she needed to get to and she would be so exhausted she wasn't sure she could get there. She, whenever she got off of work, she would just go and lay down and she thought   - Susan White I'd still tell anybody now the best day of her life is when she got the diagnosis that was narcolepsy because she thought she was losing her mind.   Narcolepsy is still considered a rare disease.  For Erin, the onset was quick and devastating.  This autoimmune disorder can be triggered at any point in your life.  The onset often happens in late teens and early twenties.  Erin was just 24.  And the symptoms appear on a spectrum.  Some people are functional with medication and there are others that really don’t get out of bed again.    - Susan White It is so chronic and so awful.   - Susan White Erin is on that spectrum. But she at least initially without drugs is really, really bad.   - Liesel Mertes Well and what is that like? So you're in the midst of your own health like cesium which is pretty complicated. What was it like for you as a mother to be absorbing this news from midtown Broad Ripple about what's going on with your daughter?   - Susan White It was, it's devastating. I often have said that I wish that God had given me the narcolepsy and that Erin I know how to organize myself through things. I'm a really good cope-er. And I just hated it. I'm not good at coping watching somebody I love suffer and she really, really suffered. She lost her job very quickly because she could not stay awake just kept she was to fall asleep standing up she fall asleep there. They moved her to her less intense role from paralegal to like the front desk receptionist.   - Susan White She couldn't stay awake there. I kind of get why you can't have a in a law firm. The receptionist asleep but unfortunately for her she lost her you know was not able to stay in an apartment. She had no money coming no money coming in so she moved home with us. And so, I was recovering I actually started back to work before she moved back in with us but it was a long journey of her living with us for about five years.   - Liesel Mertes And what are the emotions that she's having to make these transitions like are there or are there moments that are that really stand out in your mind as her mother of just how you felt walking with her on that journey?   - Susan White Erin we would say things that would just crush me about what she was experiencing and I I could feel it for she.   - Susan White This was not the life she'd intended right. She had a life that was not living in her old bedroom in the dark. You know, it's trying to get capture enough sleep. She'd say to me, Mom that is where I go for my dreams to die. I was just so sad. And I think that she had a really she went through several years of understanding the life she knew it was gone and her new life was going to be on her best day and a best day with all the meds that are very powerful harmful types of drugs. But to get her to about 80 percent of what you and I have. So, I think that for me watching all of that was just the most disruptive thing in my life.   - Susan White You know I'll take, I'll take cancer tomorrow. I will. I'll take you know if any more work gets to get rid of female workers I'd give them up. I would do anything I could not to watch her go through that.   It was a challenge for Susan and her husband to know how to support Erin well.   - Susan White Yeah. I tell you it was really hard those first few years especially when Erin was living with us because we were almost empty nesters our son was finishing up college and so we had a lot of time to ourselves and then to have somebody in the house who's not well was really tough. And my husband often said you know he was trying to figure out where you know how much of this was the illness how much of it was Erin like. Is it laziness that she's not doing these things or is it she's incapable of doing these things.   - Susan White So that was a really tough time through that because I am, I tend to believe everything is the illness. And Bill believes that there's always a personal accountability so we can. I think we're in a good place now figuring all that out. And she lives independently which is superb but we're very involved in zero a lot which is I think really good. But it was I think there was a there's a road to walk there and you're never going to have both on anything in life. I think see things exactly the same way.   - Susan White But in times of trouble and times of angst it can really test your mettle.   - Liesel Mertes I imagine that to care for your daughter was asking a lot of you. How did you find that that intersected with your world of work and the time and space you needed?   - Susan White I don't think I did it very well. I know I did do it very well. We big at work all the love and support you get when you're sick. It's not what you feel when you've got an adult child who has something horrible happen to them. I think if it's all invisible. Right.   - Susan White If Erin had been in a terrible accident or if something physically had that people could see and understand. I think it would be different. I don't think people understand narcolepsy. They don't understand that.   - Susan White I'm sure any other invisible disability. It was hard for me to talk about because I know you're with all your colleagues your friends you're focused on work and you've got your adult daughter at home in the dark in a room that she's you know for three days maybe she only got up to go to the bathroom and eat more food. I mean it's just horrible. I used, I for the first couple of years I know I walked around with a big lump in my stomach that I couldn't figure out you know how to lessen it a little bit of time I did have outside of work I would try to research like what's going on at this what is this about.   - Susan White We found that narcolepsy network which is a wonderful national organization that help people and caregivers of people with narcolepsy. They have national conferences. We started going to national conferences. It was so helpful because it helped us learn what was happening what causes this disease which is they still don't know but they have different ideas of what might what you can do with it. How do you manage to live around it is incurable. They're working very hard to find a cure but may not be in our lifetime. So, it was also good for me to meet other parents of people who had narcolepsy and for Erin to meet other people who have narcolepsy because it's hard to find people who have it.   - Susan White That was very helpful. But around the world of work it was tough because people didn't know I mean I'd share it but I don't share it widely because it's a hard thing to bring up. I just I had kind of a kind of a dark cloud over my head for a number of years.   - Liesel Mertes Did you feel like that had an effect on your presence with your colleagues or within your projects?   - Susan White  You know there's that aspect of a cloud hovering.   - Liesel Mertes How do you feel like it came out in your interactions in a particular way?   - Susan White I know that I felt like I realized that the medicines you have to take are extremely expensive. Of course, Erin wasn't working and she's 24 and she. Back then it was we didn't have the Affordable Health Care which you could stay on your parents insurance to age 26. So we didn't have that option. And so we were paying for medical insurance for Erin and we were paying out of pocket incredible amounts of money for drugs. We were paying thousands upon thousands of dollars. One time that sounds horrible. What time it was to Costco to fill out order one of one of her prescriptions and it was $1125 and I wasn't expecting $1125 at that moment I just remember crying there I was across Costco and I had to figure out at that moment to get $1125 for one of her prescriptions for one. So anyway, it was just it was I felt as though with work I needed to work even harder because I didn't know if Erin would ever be able to work. I didn't know if Erin would ever have insurance again other than what we could provide. So yeah, it rocked my world. It certainly did not let me keep my eye off the ball because the ball working was extreme more important than it ever had been you needed to me.   Susan is a self-described optimist…and even in these trying times, she channeled her energy into helping others within her organization.  She joined a working group as the global co-chair, devoting herself to making space for people with disabilities.   - Susan White But we grew by thousands and thousands of employees in Australia and India and the Philippines and we'd already had a chapter in England and several in the United States. But it was so great. And I got a chance to talk to people who were caregivers and people disabilities who said I never felt comfortable talking at work about my disability until access ability started becoming really popular and it was OK so I got a lot from that.   - Susan White It was something I could do in the world of work to try to speak to the pain I was having in my personal life.   However, after 35 years, Susan got news that her job was moving to Chicago.  Unwilling to leave Erin, Susan left her job instead.    - Susan White But so, my job was eliminated and it really, I often say was the best thing in my life. That disruptor was great because I needed to be pushed out of that nest. But it gave me time to focus on Erin and to really figure out what type of insurance was the best one for her as opposed to what we would just get thrown. It helped me really help Erin get back on her feet and I think it also helped Erin when she realized that I was losing my job and has expensive as medicines doctors insurance was she realized that she needed to do to figure out how to work around this disease.   Erin went to a vocational rehab program and got a job working with Goodwill, part-time.   - Susan White So the last five and a half years, Erin has been working the value that she gets in her life being able to work just brings me joy every day. I try to remember to start every prayer with thank you Lord for Erin being backups upright in the world and getting a chance to work.   - Liesel Mertes What do you think, it's a two part question:  first part, what is the greatest misunderstanding or thing that you wish people could know about narcolepsy in particular?   - Susan White You know narcolepsy has been written up about it kind of in a joking way and in movies it's kind of funny. I got to tell you it's the least funny disease I've ever heard of.   - Susan White It's so sad. So I think that's it. That's probably the number one thing to be aware of with it. And I guess second of all is that it is not only is it physical and that although it's that appears to be invisible because people can't see you've got it is that it also kind of it, it messes with your cognitive abilities when you don't get enough sleep. Now people realize this you don't get to that level of rest that you need you're not restored and your brain is functioning right. So, a lot of people's narcolepsy will tend to be very forgetful.   - Susan White It's hard to concentrate. There's a lot of things that go to person with narcolepsy they have a hard time maintaining friendships or relationships because they're in bed most the time they can't make a commitment that they're sure they're going to be at sometimes until the day of the hour before. So that's a tough thing. So, if you happened unfortunately to have narcolepsy enter your lives please be patient with those individuals. They've got an awful lot they are trying to plow through every day.   - Liesel Mertes Mm hmm. And in a more global sense as a working parent who had a child who was going through something pretty intense and it's not just episodic, this is an ongoing sort of thing. What do you think the average workplace is, what would have been better support for you or what do you think was a misunderstanding that your workplace had and how you were doing or what you needed in the midst of that?   - Susan White Yeah. You know, I never know blamed anybody. I own what I shared with people didn't share with people. I think that people don't appreciate when you are an adult but when you're the parent of an adult that you're a parent forever. First of all. And just because your kid isn't needed to get a softball practice or have homework to do that night you know you still feel extremely responsible especially when it's an adult that you know is not well.   - Susan White I think that would be really helpful is if a colleague shared with you that they have an adult child maybe who's got any type of a bad thing in their life.   - Susan White Maybe they're addicted to addicted to drugs. Maybe they have a mental illness. Any of those types of things. If someone to share that with you that it's good maybe just periodically check in with them. Ask how here he's doing. You know ask if there's anything new with Joe. Just let them know. Kind of validating so that the person who's carrying that load doesn't feel like they're just carrying it alone in the dark.   - Liesel Mertes It's just not very popular to, to have probably, that I'm struck as you say that there could be a thought of oh how can I remember all this. But we, we remember when we interact around things that we feel are important or they catch our interest. I could note your favorite sports team is and want to razz you about it every week for you 16 weeks of football season. It's there's a gap, that actually we either don't feel comfortable in knowing how to talk about it or we're not giving it that level of mental importance to think, I'm gonna remember this about Susan and I'm gonna ask her about it because it matters to her and that it's exercising a different element of intention and discipline because I can remember things about a co-worker you know it's just we remember what was.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah right. Which interest us and it's switching gears to, this is important. I'm going to I'm going to remember and I'm going to check in around it.   - Susan White I think if it's an uncomfortable topic people really like to avoid it and I get that, but I and I would say to you that sometimes people who do care about me and care about here and we'll say how's Erin. And I'll say you know good days or bad days doesn't mean I necessarily need to share but it's so validating that somebody even asks that they recognize how much a part of your world it is.   - Liesel Mertes Exactly. So asking and checking in is meaningful. Are there other things that you think you know even and like me, I would have I would have appreciated this that come to mind?   - Susan White Mm hmm. You know, I have some very dear friends who really make an effort at reaching out to Erin on her birthday or just doing really kind things for her she's loves to do art and like you know buying her art or her little note cards or they just do things that are so validating for Erin and they know her world is so small. It's sleeping or working and it's just so appreciate. I so appreciate the fact when anyone very close to me makes a point to kind of brighten her life to care for your daughter.   MUSICAL TRANSITION   - Susan White I think if I could do it all over, I think I would take a leave of absence and really take a breath and instead of waiting till I'd lost my job to do a lot of the research to figure out what what's the right type of insurance and medicines and she would issue what the right neurologist is so and so forth I think I would have I wish I had no regrets except for the fact that if I to do it all over again I take the time to make sure we were on the right path as opposed to just reacting and learning on the fly in the moments that I could hear that.   - Liesel Mertes Susan, is there anything else that you feel like is meaningful in your story or helpful to someone who is perhaps walking with someone whether it's narcolepsy or a different disease that you did not get to say you'd like to? Mm hmm.   - Susan White You know I, I do believe that we all have to have hope and positivity. And it's sometimes like in your darkest days where you can't see it. You just kind of have to remind yourself you know what a gift that person is in your life like Erin is such a gift in her life. And you know you, you do the best you can in each moment. So, I just, don't be too hard on yourself. It's really important that as a caregiver you take care of yourself.   MUSICAL TRANSITION   Here are three key takeaways after my conversation with Susan It can be very isolating to have a sick adult child.Susan talked about how isolated she felt, how co-workers did not know how to reach out.  Susan reminded us of the importance of checking-in.  If you know that a co-worker has something hard going on in their personal life, it can be immensely meaningful to periodically ask how they are doing.  If you are prone to forgetting, and many of us are, take time to write it down in a file do that you can remember to follow-up.  Your intention and care will help to remind them that they are not forgotten. If you have just absorbed hard news, it could be helpful to take a leave of absence.Susan reflected that stepping away earlier would have allowed her the space to breathe and get things like insurance in order.  Does your company offer this kind of support and space to employees during times of disruption?  If someone on your staff is experiencing a rare disease, or supporting a loved one that is suffering, the expense and the process of information gathering can be immense.Susan spoke about her Costco breakdown and the many hours she spent researching and participating in support groups.  Your friend or co-worker is likely navigating complex support systems and financial concerns in the midst of work and other life commitments.  Be patient with them.   A special thanks to our sponsors.  Are you an entrepreneur or small business owner?  Does the thought of navigating health insurance and benefits make you a little queasy?  If so, FullStack PEO is there to help, providing benefits for your people so you can get back to work.    Do you want to attract and retain the best talent by being an employer of choice?  If so, Handle with Care HR Consulting has services to help you provide support when it matters most.  Through targeted, interactive sessions, we empower you to respond with empathy and compassion during disruptive life events.    Thanks for joining us for this first episode of the new decade on the Handle with Care podcast.   OUTRO Link to the Narcolepsy Network: https://narcolepsynetwork.org/  

Here's part 2 of ‘Level Up Your Podcast'. A brand new episode of The 4 am Report, for your Boxing Day listening pleasure. So grab a mug of eggnog, and get some very actionable advice on: Upping podcast engagement The guest relationship Establishing ROI So, if you're looking to make some improvements on a podcast you're already doing, OR looking to start one in 2020, you'll want to listen up. Here's an excerpt from the transcript: *** 00:21 Will: Hello 4-AM'rs. It's Susan and Will here with part two of our two part series on how to level up your podcast as we get ready for 2020 and we're doing all that planning stuff you do in December. We're sharing our podcasting process with all of you. This is part of our month long deep dive into 2020 planning. We're sharing what has worked for us would have been some of our biggest successes this past year and we're hoping to inspire you a little bit for us to come in 2020 so we're not only just producing our podcasts, but we've started producing podcasts for clients as well and that's been really fun and it's now part of our business offering to small businesses. This week we're going to talk about getting the engagement and growing your listener-ship when it comes to your podcast. We'll also talk about guest relations and of course how to measure ROI for your podcast. If you missed last week's episode where we talked to the creation and production side, go back and listen. But this week it's all about engagement, the guest relations and ROI. So if you're already doing a podcast or you want to start doing a podcast, this is all great information. So listen up and level up. 01:26 Susan: So let's get right into this and talk engagement. Here's what we do once we have an episode that's been edited and it's ready to go out for distribution, we're pretty true to our theme and we lean all the way into it and our episode goes out at 4:00 AM on Thursdays. And along the way this has really become one of those like hard deadlines almost journalistic. So in order to be able to release the episodes at that time, meaning in order to put it out on social and distributed, we uploaded a few hours earlier. So it goes onto the actual platform where the episode lives, which in our cases, Libsyn. I think we mentioned that on the last episode. It goes there, it's uploaded there, and from there we put it on our website and then it also obviously reflects in other places like Apple podcasts and Spotify and many others. 02:16 Susan: So that's kind of what we do. And then we take that page from our actual website. We have a podcast page on our website, which I think is important because you want to bring people back to your turf, whenever possible. Of course people listen to episodes elsewhere, but there's no harm posting it on your website. So we do that. We post that on all channels and then we use email to promote some of it as well. Yes, email obviously still works. We definitely believe that. So we use email to launch seasons and sometimes we send out recaps and some analytics to people who are on our lists. Now we don't bombard people with every single episode because many of these people are on our list because they are signed up for other properties and a podcast is not, they signed up to receive it. I mean it's CASTLE rules. 03:01 Susan: You want to make sure that you're staying on the right side of who you are legally allowed to email. And for what when each episode goes out, we do offer people the option to sign up for the list if they do want to receive episodes. And lastly, how do we put the post together to post on social? We don't just post episodes once and done, we use our unplug and play calendar, which is essentially trying to post things in different formats and we'll get to that in a minute and giving each piece of content like full exposure. So that's coming up in a second. But if you do want that calendar for free, you can go and get it in the resources section of our website, cp.digital. So the other thing that we find is also very important in getting people to notice each episode is the actual creative or the artwork that accompanies each episode. 03:49 Susan: So we switch this up for each episode. We have a guest on every episode except for the few episodes where we're talking through some learnings or specific comments. But usually there's a guest and we put the picture of the guests into the actual artwork that goes out. And we also use images that we change up. We have a batch of images that we shoot for each season and we reflect the theme. So right now, for example, we're going slightly deeper into the whole doc thing and talking about how surreal the online space has become in some ways and leaning into a black middle like theming. And so some of that is reflected in our images. We also tend to use a whole lot of humour because humour is a big brand value for us. And some of the images that we put out with the podcast, which essentially stops the scroll, is images of us being funny. 04:43 Will: I totally believe our content and what we talk about on our podcast is great. The images, the artwork, the playfulness of it all, that's what kind of gets the attention. That's what get people to open the email or click through. So don't underestimate the value of artwork reflecting your theme being interesting, disrupting kind of the same old boring stuff people see on LinkedIn. Throwing a few fun pictures and that's really worked for us. Susan had alluded to this earlier when we were talking about the unplug and play calendar and putting content out in different formats. So maybe I'll let you, Susan explain how we use something called the anchor theory to really distribute in a very, almost our own scientific way our content. 05:24 Susan: So we call it the anchor theory, but obviously most content practitioners will tell you that they have some variation on it. It's been called atomization has been called spinning, but essentially it's the idea that you have one core or anchor piece of content, which to keep with the theme here. Let's assume that is an episode of your podcast. So once you've got a podcast episode recorded, you've put a certain amount of research time, effort into the creation of it, and just putting it out once and being done is not nearly enough for that. So this is where you want to have support assets. We talked about the images obviously, but how are you using those images? You want to use them on social, you want to write up a batch of posts that you're putting out with it. Obviously that's one way to do it. 06:06 Susan:  You also want to be thinking about the fact that there's a transcript that you can get out of the actual episodes, use the transcript to write up a blog post, maybe a series of blog posts if it's a longer episode. We've had several cases of in depth episodes which have been used as lead magnets for clients and then they use that to subsequently collect emails from those who are interested in going into their list. So there's a whole lot that you can be doing. This is just scratching the surface, but don't dismiss the value of your key pieces of content. Think about it as if you have it in one format, like the audio format, like a podcast, and maybe think about a small video, a snippet of it, some visual assets as well as written assets, or put it into all of the other formats. And you should have a nice round set of assets to promote with. 06:53 Will: And something else to remember. Don't just put the podcast episode out, promoted that week and then forget about it. We love to kind of bring things back. So at the end of each season, at the end of each 10 episode season, we do an email recap and we do social media recaps of some of our favorites and we'll, we'll bring them back. Sometimes we group some of the podcasts together and create little hubs. So when we created a little toolkit on content creation, we pulled three podcast episodes related to content creation and they went into this little toolkit as the podcasting part of this toolkit, which also had a blog and tips and an info graphic and that sort of thing. So think of how you can re-purpose and bring back these wonderful pieces of content that you've created  07:36 Susan: and SEO loves that. When you create these little hubs of content on specific topics, it does tend to help towards helping you rank higher in those areas. So think about grouping it and reusing. 07:48 Will: Okay, so now let's move on to the guests. We do have guests almost every week on our podcast. Last week we talked about the automation we use to invite the guest and bring them in and do the precall. So we talked all the way up to the recording. So after you've recorded with your guest, it's don't just, okay, bye. Thanks. Don't just do that. There's a lot of opportunity here. We send our guests and other automated email following the recording when the podcast goes live, thanking them. We give them a little digital coffee card to go enjoy a coffee on us and we also give them a link to the post and some copy to write so they can share it in their networks. Also this guest could lead to future collaborations, potentially even business collaboration, considered this guest and having them on your podcast at the beginning of a new, a new connection, a new relationship that you want to continue to foster and for sure for us, we've had guests post the podcast on their network and then we've heard from one of their connections that they wanted to get in touch with us to talk about business. 08:45 Will: So it really does pay off and we'll talk more about that in the ROI section. Do you have anything to add on that guest part, Susan? 08:51 Susan: I think often we get more guests out of the guests that come, like they'll introduce us onto someone else who's like, Ooh, I can think of someone else who's in this field who might want to talk about it. And I think the fact that we have that hook with the 4:00 AM report and "what keeps you up at night", it offers a lot of, I guess amusement value to people as well. So we do get a lot of conversations started this way. And that's kind of, that'll lead us into the ROI section of this in a minute. We should also mention that if you've got someone new in your world, make sure to ask them if they would like to go on your list and don't be afraid to sort of ask them if they know anyone else. And if they can suggest other people, you'd be surprised how much of connection you would open up by doing that.  09:30 Will: Now. So we've talked about engagement, we've talked about utilizing that guest relationship. So now this brings us to talking about measuring the ROI on your podcast. And we've actually put a lot of thought into this. There's a case study on our podcast on our website that you can check out at cp.digital.com But Susan's written some really good pieces on podcasts, ROI and not just looking at the numbers, they're important, but there's so much more that she's seen we've gotten from our podcast than merely the ratings and the numbers and the shares and that sort of thing. So Susan, why don't you tell us about it  10:02 Susan: For our podcast, here's the four step framework by which we measure. Obviously the base of it is the, what do you want to call the vanity metrics or who's consuming, who's sharing, who's commenting. Um, and in many cases that tends to be low, especially at the start. Then you might not see a whole lot. People might be listening to you on the actual channels and you can obviously look that up by going to the back end of it. So if you've got something like Libsyn. Libsyn, will give you some basic analytics for the specific channels like iTunes and Spotify. You might have to go down to each channel and get the information that you need. So that's a bit more technical than we have time to cover on this. But essentially you want to have the numbers for how many downloads, listeners, subscribers, reviews, that kind of thing. 10:49 Susan: You want to have a handle on that. So that's the first level of measurement to figure out what your ROI is. Then comes the second level, which we've been talking about quite a lot, which is the value of the relationships. And once again, if you think about the guests, not as like someone to sleazy sales pitch too, but rather a new set of doors that opened for you and you know, obviously ask for those referrals. Sometimes you don't even have to, like I said, people introduce you to people. So really evaluate the value of that relationship. Follow through on those extra conversations and remember that when you've built something like a podcast, which you can invite people, you've always got a solid piece of marketing that you can bring people back to. So even if you're not actually having a conversation with somebody who's a, who's a client avatar of your type, inviting Lambda on your podcast and helping them to promote themselves as often a great way to get those conversations started. 11:38 Susan: So think about it as a variation on the sales call. In some ways, not always, but in some ways the third level of what we measure out of it is quite simply the actual amount of business that we get out of it. Like when people reference the podcast and be like, Ooh, you produce this, we'd like to talk to you about whether it's you know, in the podcasting medium or whether it's in a different medium of content. We've gotten a fair bit of business that's come straight out of the fact that we have this podcast. And lastly, the thing that we measure number four is industry impact. So in our case, one of the examples is because we started this whole story with the 4:00 AM and what keeps you up at night, we tend to have a lot of emotionally intelligent conversations with people and around marketing and the state of it.  12:22 Susan: It's kind of taken us to a place where we have a lot of interesting discussions around the things that we want to impact as well. The fact that we have a micro podcast and it's about 15 minutes and you know, many people have leaned into that and said to us that they think it's a great idea. Firstly because it doesn't clutter up download space by being really long. And secondly, because people really, not necessarily everyone is commuting those long commutes where they have time for the more in depth learning episodes. So that's kind of our fourth step, who's consuming and sharing and that kind of thing. What is the value of the relationships you're building out of it? What is the actual amount of business that is coming thanks to your podcast. And the last is how are you impacting your industry? *** Still can't sleep? We would also love to know what's keeping you up at night! Email us your problems - your issue might be featured in our next episode! Any of these problems *speak* to you? Click here to subscribe in iTunes to hear about more things that haunt us or to keep an eye out for any of your problems. We might find a solution for you (or at least share your pain too!) We have more episodes with great tips, jokes and conversations - don't miss it!  If you get a chance, leave a review on iTunes so that others can find this podcast too! Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” We'd love to hear what your favourite part of this episode is in the comments below. Thank you!

In this episode of The 4 am Report, hosts Susan and Will do what they do best - conduct a 19 minute laser coaching session for a business that has their empire built on one social media channel. If that's you, listen up. Common Ground 416 is a fitness space focussed on personal coaching that is the answer to the large gym chains ⭐️ They have a strong instagram presence with an engaged following - but they wonder if the model-rich content is forbidding to the average person. ⭐️ They have a base website that they'd like to leverage. ⭐️ They have an instinct that LinkedIn will help reach their downtowner audience but they question of they'll fit among the charts and graphs. See what advice and tactics we have for them to quickly fill a few gaps and take things to the next level. Including:

To find out more about the Wisconsin Great River Road please check out the website www.WiGRR.com to find out about Stonefield Historic Site visit https://stonefield.wisconsinhistory.org/https://www.facebook.com/stonefieldhistoricsite/Susan: You know, there is something about the Mississippi River that just makes such a connection with people from all over the world. And we do get visitors from all over the world. We are just like in the heart of this beautiful area. We love to be a part of the Great River Road, and we are happy that we are one of the Interpretive Centers on the highway.Bob: The Wisconsin Great River Road Podcast. This time, [I’m] speaking with Susan Caya-Slusser. Susan is with the Wisconsin Historical Society. I visited the Stonefield historic site, and I’ll tell you what: That place was history alive. Susan, that place is amazing.Susan: It is. Yes, Stonefield is one of 12 historic sites operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society. It’s kind of a hidden gem down in Cassville, Wisconsin. It’s located right on the Great River Road. If you want to get to Cassville, there are so many things to do. There is even a car ferry. Yes, we need to get more people down there because there’s so much to see and so much to do once you get in the area.Bob: When we were walking through Stonefield – and there are a bunch of old farm implement in there – to be that close to some of that stuff and to look to see how big it was and to know what it does, that’s pretty cool. The little placard told me the story.Susan: Yes. So how Stonefield came to be is, it started in 1948. There was a great renewal and interest in our farming history. Folks were moving off the farm [and] they were moving into the cities. We wanted to make sure we didn’t lose this rich history, so that was what started it all. And Stonefield opened up for the first time in 1953.Bob: I couldn’t believe how cool the Stonefield site was. Was that the original Cassville where all the buildings are and the main street and you’re walking around the schoolhouses?Susan: When you come into Stonefield, there are different components that you’ll get to go on tour. There the homestead of Nelson Dewey. There is an entrance into what was Governor Nelson Dewey’s barn – this large, beautiful stone barn. There’s the State Ag [Agricultural] Museum. There’s a 1901 progressive farmhouse. But then you walk through this beautiful covered bridge that was built in 1964, and it takes you into a recreated village. The cool thing about it is a lot of the buildings that you’re seeing are old schoolhouses from across Wisconsin that have been repurposed. To recreate a village, what would it have been like for a farmer in 1900? This is the recreation in the people’s minds of the Wisconsin Historical Society and UW Extension what a farming village would have been like in 1900. If you visited the schoolhouse, that was actually the Muddy Hollow schoolhouse that was just up the road from where we sit today.Bob: I was thinking if my kids were in there, they’d be like. ‘How do you get Wi-Fi in here?’Susan: We are thrilled and we are fortunate that we get school visitors from not just Wisconsin, but also Illinois and Iowa that come and visit us in Stonefield. It is wonderful to be able to compare and contrast how things have changed over time, even to the boys sitting on one side of classroom and girls sitting on the other, even to the point where the boys and girls have to use separate doors. It’s just a way to take the kids back and make them think, and also hopefully make them appreciate what they have today.Bob: You mentioned just a minute ago about appreciating things that you have. I’m guessing anybody that walks through the State Agricultural Museum that looked at the old metal tires [and] the old iron tires, they would appreciate immediately the rubber tires we get to drive on today.Susan: Oh, yes. You kind of see a progressive change over time as you move through the State Agricultural Museum, even to one of the first that we have, we have a 1932 Allis Chalmers tractor parked way back in the corner. If you look at it, it actually has tires from an airplane.Bob: Is that why they’re bald?Susan: Yes. That is why they are big and bald the way they are. One of our claims to fame is that we have America’s oldest tractor. We have the McCormick Auto-Mower. The tractor we have is one of two prototypes made to exhibit at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1900.Bob: Besides the beauty of seeing Stonefield in its natural state, I’m assuming you guys probably have different events going on through the year.Susan: Yes. In June we do Agricultural Appreciation Day, tying in with June Dairy Month. In September we have our annual Great River Road Fall Fest. This one is a favorite of mine because it really brings the village to life – the sounds, the smell, the horse and tractors. It just really takes you back to a different time. One of our most popular events is in October, and that is what we call our “Safe and Spooky Event.” This is put on by the Friends of Stonefield and Nelson Dewey State Park – it’s our volunteer group. What happens is the whole village is transformed. Different volunteer groups come into the village, and all the buildings get transformed to be a little more spooky and eerie for Halloween. You will see everything and anyone at “Safe and Spooky Halloween.” All costumes are welcome.Bob: Susan, how do people find out more about Stonefield, the Wisconsin Historic Site?Susan: There are two ways I would recommend. The first is just our webpage, which is stonefield.wisconsinhistory.org. The second is we have a very active Facebook page, which is just Stonefield Historic Site. That’s where you can find out more information about our events. There’s something for everyone when you come and visit Stonefield.

我们首先来看一段对话：Susan：Excuse me.Waiter：Yes, madam. Can I help you？Susan： May I have a doggy bag？Susan：OK，I'll do it for you.Scot：Why do you want a doggy bag？Are you crazy？Susan：It's not a bag for dog，Scot. It means I just want to take the food away.Scot：Oh，I see. That's really interesting.今天这个短语，大家相信都已经从以上的对话中了解了：May I have a doggy bag？这个句子的意思是：我能打包食物吗？而并不是像字面意思：狗用的袋子。Doggy bag 的来历：据说是美国人想把吃剩的饭菜打包回家，但又碍于面子，因此就故意说要把饭菜带回家喂狗（原来美国人也那么有心机）。在英语里，还有其他表示“打包”的常用语，请掌握：1. I want to pack the food.我想要把食物打包。* pack作为动词表示“打包、包装某物”。2. I want to wrap the food up.我想打包食物。* wrap sth. up这个短语表示“把某物包好”。学了这么多，来回答一下标题中的问题：“服务员，打包~”的英语是：Excuse me, can I have a doggy bag?

Stuck in divorce drama, trauma or chaos? Susan Guthrie and Rebecca Zung join me today to share how you can step into your life of freedom, possibility, prosperity, and purpose. Cofounders of Breaking Free Mediation, nationally recognized family lawyers, and divorce champions in their own regard, Susan and Rebecca are experts in all things divorce. Together they are revolutionizing the conversation around divorce through the use of mindfulness practices to help divorcing couples separate peacefully. The decisions you make during this chaotic time will affect all the things that mean the most to you going forward, and Susan and Rebecca are here to provide helpful ways that you can mediate your divorce and find a relationship that is serving you instead. Learn the physical and emotional chaos that can be created by divorce, how to gain clarity during divorce limbo, and why you need to perceiver through the confusion to find your calm. Instead of focusing on the injustice of your divorce betrayal, Susan and Rebecca are providing tools to help you focus on the power and freedom of the future that you now have. Susan, Rebecca and I are real-life examples of this transition in life and the ability to come out of the other side having learned how to survive and thrive. Are you struggling with getting through the rough waters of divorce, or have you come out of the other side of divorce a changed person? Share your story with us in the comments on the episode page.   In This Episode Integrating mindfulness into the divorce process to make rational decisions Signs that your marriage might be in trouble and the three deadly sins of divorce Getting information and arming yourself with the knowledge to combat divorce limbo Examples of divorce betrayal and the possibility of transformative inspiration Ways to help your children deal with divorce betrayal at any age and find healing   Quotes “It all comes down to, in the end, lying, or the not telling the truth, and it is sort of the death by a million cuts I always think.” (5:31) - Susan “It just started occurring to me in my practice that there were, what I call the 3 deadly sins of marriage. Which I call the 3 A’s, abuse, addiction, and adultery.” (8:04) - Rebecca “We know what it is like to be in a relationship that doesn't empower, but it doesn't mean that there is no hope of ever being in a relationship that empowers, it is definitely possible.” (13:41) - Rebecca “The mindfulness aspect helps them to both manage the current emotions that are all negative but also set an intention and visualize where you are going to go.” (17:01) - Susan “Yes you are going to go through this divorce limbo, you are going to sail the rough seas, but that's really what the best you ever retreat is about. It's also the door to an opportunity to create that new future.” (21:32) - Susan “If you are just sitting there spinning around in that morass of emotions of, I don't want this, this shouldn't be happening to me, it's not fair, we hear all of those things. And that is the space that it is really important to help our clients get beyond.” (26:10) - Rebecca   Links Free 5 minute Healing Meditation Breaking Free Mediation Website B.Y.E. Divorce Retreats Website Breaking Free: A Modern Divorce Podcast Breaking Free Ep 6: Dr. Debi Silber Breaking Free A Step by Step Divorce Guide by Rebecca Zung Register for Rebeccas Divorce Masterclass Here Rebecca Zung Website Divorce In A Better Way Website   Find the full episode post here: https://pbtinstitute.com/58 Do you have Post Betrayal Syndrome? Take the quiz: https://pbtinstitute.com/quiz/ Products and Programs specifically designed to help you heal from betrayal: https://pbtinstitute.com/shop/ Connect: Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/InspireEmpowerTransform Free Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WomenHackingBetrayal/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DebiSilber LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debisilber/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debisilber/ Watch my TEDx: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX30i6nC7ro

Susan was in a lucrative sales leadership position working for a massive global company with 80,000 employees, and a wonderful paycheck. Tragedy struck as she had a major health catastrophe. Eventually, she followed the only option before. Retirement from the corporate world Mid life crisis in movies looks much glamorous: guy with a beautiful woman, fancy cars and all. But here, Susan was just left to literal crying. But the skills she learned in corporate combined with the no substitute tool-Hard Work, has made her an unbelievable 15 million dollars in just 18 months. Yes, when most other women hardly make 15 grand a month; she's rakes in 8 figures, yearly. In this episode, Susan talks about an important skill set that anyone can learn, especially women. With the skill set you can write your own ticket, create a life in your own terms even if you are an introvert. What we talked about: What kicked Susan into gear and helped her accelerate the idea of doing more meaningful work or making that adjustment? How was she able to deal with fears and hesitation? What was the strategy to move on? How in the world do you identify a support group or a network if you don't have one? How did the transition happen; from being great in the corporate world to coming out and becoming a successful business owner What is it that it takes to make marriage work? Would Susan be the person that she is today without the marriage? What are the insecurities Susan have today; the fears and challenges even though she's very successful in her marriage? Why women only? What does it mean to be less sleazy when influencing and persuading for sales? What's her strategy, and tools for success? Why don't women assume their power and step into this idea of being a prominent sales woman; being wealthy and being on the top of the lists? How can you encourage a woman to go take her stand and be ready for the sales world?   Noteworthy Quotes: "Everybody adds value to us and we add value to others" Susan "The hardest part is to actually ask for what we want, believe we deserve to receive it and be relentless and ruthless about actually preserving that space for ourselves" Susan "You can change your beliefs but your core values do not change; they are your guideposts that help you in good times and bad times, bad times in particular" Susan "Sometimes emotions complicate things and they make things really messy" Susan "I'm not a natural-born salesperson, I am a huge introvert but I'm a huge observer of people and of life, that one characteristic has really helped me be extremely successful" Susan "In order for people to actually help people they wanted through their businesses, utilizing their gifts or skills or experience and expertise; they had to get better at selling" Susan "Sales is a skill that you can teach, it's a skill that people who are willing to learn can actually learn and get better at" Susan "Selling is not sleazy unfortunately” Susan "It's really important that you get the help that you need that's going to help you to adapt what it is that you're struggling with" Susan "Women actually sell better than men, are often more recognized because they're louder and they tend to be just more confident" Susan "Women tend to be better at collaboration, they're better at listening,  they're better at thinking outside of the box, in terms of the subtle clues" Susan “People want more attention, they want more care, more relationship and that's where women personally do excel" Susan "If you learn the sales skill set, you can write your own ticket and you really can create your life on your terms" Manny "As a business owner and so you have to be willing to do the thing that nobody else is willing to do in order to keep moving forward" Susan "Building a business is hard work; it's not all rainbows and sunshine and smelling the roses and unicorns" Susan "There is no substitute for the hard work, it's really looking at what are you willing to do that nobody else is willing to do and how can you do it better than anybody else" Susan "Sometimes we get so consumed with what's happening day-to-day that we lose sight of ourselves, we lose sight of the joy that we inherently have as human beings" Susan

Ready to Positioning Your Business to Profit? Go to-->>> http://positioningtoprofit.com/Patty: Hey there Patty Dominguez, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Her Legacy Podcast. We are in episode 15 with Susan Borison and Stephanie Silverman. Two women that are moms at the time there were moms of teens and they were looking at sharing what was happening. Challenges of parenting teens and this passion project turned into something that has continued with yourteenmag.com. And I find them absolutely fascinating because of their insane amount of perseverance the way that they collaborate and they make it fun. Along the way. So these are two women that took the concept of a challenge and they turned it into a passion project. And it is truly an honor to collaborate with them as well. And so it is my great pleasure to introduce you today to Susan Borison and Stephanie Silverman from yourteenmag.com.Patty: All right well thank you so much Susan and Stephanie for being on our show. You are the founders of your teenmag.com and it is a pleasure to have you on. So this is a three people podcast and Susan at the beginning was saying wait wait. Who's going to say what? And so we're just going to riff on this. People were just going to go with the flow and talk about how do you know when it's time to quit. And you're going to hear from two women who have been in business with yourteenmag.com for the past 12 years. How's that for tenacity. So thank you both for joining me today on Her Legacy Podcast.Susan: Thanks for having us.Patty: So I want to ask first and foremost typically I say hey let's get braggy. What's your superpower? But I'm speaking to an individual. But when you look at your Teen Mag what is your Teen Mag super power in your opinion?Susan: I would say it's just creating great content for Parents Day in and day out.Patty: Right. And you've been around for 12 years. What's been the feedback around. I mean certainly the longevity that you have to create something so sustainable. How do you know that what you have to offer is great and I'm being completely honest here how do you know that. Do you get a lot of rave reviews?Susan: Yeah we just actually got something today. And it was from a reader who said. Hi there. I don't think I've ever told you just how much enjoyed your teens through the years have made times that exhale.Because I found out I wasn't alone in this situation or simply got great advice. It's a wonderful publication. So we hear that all the time. And you know the best part about hearing it is that's what we set out to do.Patty: Yeah that's brilliant. And the fact is you provide community and support. And we know that when a business comes at it from a servant leadership part it just takes on a different position in people's mind. When you think about mindshare I always think about when somebody is building a brand like what's the mindshare that you capture.And I really see that with your teen mag. Just because I'm working on your project I see that there is just this level of comfort security for parents to feel that they're not alone. I think that's deeply deeply meaningful. Aside from of course that stellar content that you have so I really commend you for that because not a whole lot of people would have that level of attention to detail and care. So.Susan: Thank you. I think one of the things that we've tried to create is like a grownup playgroup for people and in our case it would be a virtual playgroup. But for many moms that was such a place to get information and to figure out. What was normal and what wasn't normal and you don't really have that anymore as your kids get older.So our goal was to create a space where you could come and you could say I have this problem and people could bolster you with their solutions or just compassion or just say me too. And. Then we have a number of spaces where that's really happening like our Facebook groups are great for that. Really supportive it's the village that we all look for.Patty: Exactly exactly that level of support. All right so take me back. Take us back all the way to the beginning. How did this start. How did yourteenmag.com start?Susan: Well since I was there first I'll start with that and then Steph can jump in. I have five kids. I went to law school. I stopped working after my third was born and I was fortunate enough to be able to make that decision and stay home with my kids. And when my kids when my oldest ones were getting near high school I really felt like I had to get out of their way. I had a lot of time on my hands but they did need. And I didn't want to go back to law.And so for years I had been saying to my husband. Why is there no parent's magazine for us as our kids get older? It's not a cumulative skill set. And I lost. And I just don't know if this behavior is normal or if I should be calling like an emergency room hospital to bring them all in. You know like you just don't know. And how do you find out. OK I don't know. But I also don't know where to go to find out without making turning everything into something extreme.And most of the things that we confront in adolescence fortunately aren't that extreme but we don't know it. So I just set out to feel the need of something I wanted and when I went and spoke to friends they wanted it to. I mean you know I had a gut that it was universal but you don't know you could be an opinion of one. And it wasn't the case every time I spoke to somebody they too were feeling alone and were looking for ways to kind of get validated or.You know as much as we don't want to hear that there's a crisis going on we'd rather know it than ignore it. So then from there we really just got a group of women Stephanie was one of them and then Stephanie and I soon after became partners. And that was the beginning of a love project really like a passion project.Patty: I think that's so brilliant. And the first part of that. Spoken like a true entrepreneur is that we really look for solutions to problems instead of just saying oh yeah that's a problem there. And so I'm assuming to sort of right around where 2006 or 2007.Susan: 2007 I think.Patty: Well the conversation started in 2007 and then the magazine was launched in 2007. OK. And then the other side of it is not only the fact that you identified that there was a need in the marketplace but you also validated it by checking in with other mothers checking in with your target audience if you will as you were developing the idea you were assessing. Yeah there is a need in the marketplace so you've looked at for the validation to say wow. Nobody's filling these needs. So now it's up to me to put something together and you rally.So I just want to give context to that because I think it's so important. I mean ideas are plentiful. People have ideas but it's the execution where most people fall short and they don't really understand how to take it through to break. And so for that reason I mean that was really great that you were able to assess not only there's an opportunity but here's what I to do about it am. So to that point. Talk to me about the beginning of me. Did you have experience with creating an online publication?Stephanie: We had no experience as you said she was a lawyer. I was a banker. We didn't know anything about publishing. Sue had this great idea we had met through a leadership course. I would say like every great relationship we were friends first before our work marriage and it was to this day we will say it with her credit that we really didn't understand the media business. We didn't even know it was called the media business to be honest. I think what we understood was that parents seemed desperate for the same information that we were desperate for. And. I guess we just kept going. Right.So we were getting some certainly some good feedback but also I think we were undeterred by this idea that OK we're you know we're helping people. It seems to resonate. Like let's just keep going. And so this idea of yeah having the skill set first and then then building the business. That's not how it happens. You know there's a saying in this leadership course you're on about building a bridge while you're walking on. Yeah that's pretty much our story. And I think. I was making notes as we're sitting here and I was just thinking about the even just the value of our partnership and being able to. Throw things back and forth at each other right and say likeOkay well when what about this or what about that or. OK well let's try this and I don't think we've ever been accused of. Waiting two longer. We're both. We will take action and we just continue to plow ahead and just watch media and while we do have the business the media experience were both smart women and I think we both have that. Mindset that we'll figure it out. We're both puzzlers. We love to win. We really love to win. And so that just propelled us forward was just you know just keep going. Keep going and keep solving keep going and keep solving.Patty: I love that. I love that. They know right before we got a call. I was like wait. Like let's go live. Because Susan said we're a 12 year start up and capturing that right. That yourteenmag.com is a 12 your start up. Tell me what that means. Tell us what that means to you.Susan: I want to say that just to respond to something Stephanie said we not only did Stephanie and I not know the industry but there wasn't one woman around the table. We were a group of women who did not know each other but someone knew someone who knew someone. And we sat around the table really working hard to get to the point of publishing our first print magazine. And no one around the table had any background so we were literally just passion.That's all we had passion and grit. But as it turned out that was a real advantage in an industry that was changing so rapidly which is why many people told us not to do it because why would you get into media when media is you know falling apart. But we had this distinct advantage of not knowing anything so the world was our oyster like when no one ever could say we've always done it this way because we didn't know we were doing so we know there was one issue.When we do this to this day but we get cover sponsor and someone who was also in the media industry said to us like where did you get that idea from. And we were like I don't know. We just you know we had some more real estate. And so we said well would you want to be on the cover. But that was hard for people who were born in the worlds of media because nobody did that for us. We didn't care we didn't know it was just a joke.Patty: I love that. I love it as an example. You made your own rules along the way and really not sticking to conventional wisdom of what. People think it should look like. And because of that there was an opportunity right there. So I think the curious action taking is something to be commended because. Most people would say well who can I model or.And it's OK to model. But I think just like you said the ambiguity and you being very comfortable in it really helped you all along the entire process. So that's pretty cool. That's a great idea. That was I'm sure completely out of left field for somebody to say well that's not how we do it.Susan: Right.Patty: And then you're probably like Oh really. And then by that time it was a really approving concept I'm assuming right.Susan: I mean it's worked great for us.Patty: That's awesome. I love that but not a great story like not following conventional wisdom So, Oh my god that's awesome. OK. So tell me now at the beginning like what were some of the myths as you put so many people are in a situation where they have a great idea with a very passionate which is what you're saying or they have like-minded friends colleagues that turn into partners and they were allowed into this journey of saying OK we got to make this happen.It takes tenacity and we take action. And so it's like I always say there's just peaks and valleys through this whole journey. What were some of the like kind of crash and burn moments where you questions. Should we continue? And how did you get out of it.Susan: I'll let Stephanie answer that but I'm just going to say that this shorter story is how many peaks were there not how many valleys.Patty: That's so sad I might need a tissue.Stephanie: Oh yeah.No no I'll give you the home where I really thought we were closing up shop like this. Sue knows the story I'm going to stop. So it just launched a new product. And we were things were going well with a distribution model we had partnered with an organization that was going to execute on this distribution model. Was going to be all over the country at different events. And so because the first event was close to where we are based in Cleveland Ohio is the you know let's go to the first one let's watch how it rolls out. You know we can always learn the server I guess or go to. So we went there and discovered that what we had agreed to with this company was not how it was taking place. So we watched you know this event unfold realized that they were not upholding their end of the bargain. And. We seize the day it's so us.I'm looking at Sue and I can see each other while were sitting there having this conversation though your listeners can't and I'm laughing because it was so us. I'm realizing maybe the theme of your team is rule breaking. So Sue and I we're taking this new publication we have and we kept like breaking all the rules.You know they were told you know we could do this but we did it. They said don't do that. Well we did it anyway because they were not upholding our ends of the bargain. We sold advertising sponsorship that this would be distributed in a certain way. So yeah it was more like a cartoon where like you know they close one door and then the little people running around on the train coming the other door and they try, were trying everything.So we get back to our hotel room that night and we realize we get a real problem here. We think rollout to you knows another 30 cities and this distribution is not working. So we're sharing a hotel room. And we're talking go to bed and wake up at about 5:00 in the morning I think we may see like a light. Sue was on her computer and her computer is on her lap. And we're trying to figure out like OK what else can we do and create our own distribution method. And I thought yeah this is the day. And meanwhile I'm appearing Sue I don't know if you remember this part. I'm appearing on a panel maybe 48 hours later all of entrepreneurs and you know these are like oh like why it's so great to be entrepreneur.And success and all these great things. Anyway we end up figuring out a new distribution within Sue, 24 hours not even. I mean we already had a new plan and we felt good about it. We felt like well we're so glad this happened. Now we own this distribution of this whole thing and yet we thought you know in those 12 hours or whatever it was it felt like a thousand and 12 hours that this was going to be how we went out of business like this was it It was going to be our biggest accomplishment was really looking like our biggest failure and failure is just. That is not in our playbook.Susan: I love it. I mean one of the things about a partnership that is a marriage and works there I mean we have a wonderful partnership is that there's this. I would say that it's you know we kind of think well neither one of us hits that point of like we should get out of this at the same time. But I don't actually think that's what happens. I think what happens is when one of us articulates starts to tiptoe into that space of panic the other one is the spouse who stands up and says everything's going to be fine.Like there's not going to be two of us panicking right now. So it's not just me and it's not just Stephanie but we each play that role to each other when one of us is feeling like I just don't think we're going to be able to pull this off.And then the other ones like oh no I had a fabulous day. And even if it's not true even if a week later we both admit that like we were just being good to each other and bolstering each other but it really really does work.Patty:] That's amazing. And what do you think is the reason for that is that personality types like ying and yang. Did you guys have core values discussion or. I mean you've been together for so long you just kind of find your ebb and flow but what initially was a reason that you were able to create something really like where you're symbiotic. It sounds like.Susan: They were just too committed to succeeding at this. I mean I often look at my own marriage and I remember someone asked Pink the singer why she's still married and she said we just don't leave. And I thought you know in my own personal marriage I often feel like it's a commitment to the marriage even more than a commitment to the person.And I think Stephanie and I are so competitive and so damn committed to making this. You know what it could be that you know we're in it we're just both in it.Patty: That's cheating. All right so I'm going to flip the script a little bit .Susan, how would you describe Stephanie as an entrepreneur. Like what are her strengths that she brings to the table that are such a key component to your Teen Mag.Susan: I think the most amazing thing is to have divided the company in a way that we didn't even know was the right way. It was kind of like well I'll do this and I'll do this. And all of a sudden like Stephanie turned into I mean I guess the word is a sales person but it's not that it's so much more. It's an ability to really understand how you partner with other people to make those relationships grow.And. You know 11 years ago ten years ago whenever it clicked in it was like astonishing to watch and I was just telling Stephanie about the first time we sat with somebody and she threw out a number that was bigger than any we'd ever thrown out. And I was like I'm not so comfortable with silence. But she had already gone into the meeting deciding that silence was the important tool like she throws it out and sit quietlyYep. And I was like praying that I do not violate her rule. Because I could have come out there and completely. Like beat against ourselves you know. And we got the contract and it was insane. And that was just the beginning of this journey of like really learning a place that, I mean I think in very ironic ways where each doing what we should be doing. But we didn't know it.Patty: And how about you. How about you Stephanie if you were to describe what Susan brings to the table those personality attributes.Stephanie: Two things come to mind. The first would be. She is a great problem solver. She can solve anything. So like there is no wall that is too tall. So like you know. She'll get to something and. somebody quit. Somebody says we can't do that.Somebody said it doesn't matter what it is she'll say OK and she'll have it solved within like. A minute literally like it's crazy. It's crazy how quickly she can go from like standing at that wall. To jumping over it around it through. Doesn't matter does not matter.Patty: That's tenacity.Stephanie: That you were saying get out. What is her? Yeah her super power. She can mount large walls and circumvent them. That's one of them. And then the other one and I already lost her. Oh she has a great ability. I mean it's really so problems solver right to come at it from another angle that I thought. Would say well wait a minute so? If we're trying to get. X. Maybe we should be asking this question. Oh. I don't even think of that and it's so funny.And this is not what you asked. It relates to maybe just how we relate to each other. Is there are so many times I just telling the story yesterday to somebody or so many times where you know I mean meeting when we talking about something and somebody I don't I will refer to. Something and I'll say yes Sue had this awesome idea and she'll start language like you knew that was your idea. It was so not my idea we were talking then and then we honestly cannot remember. He wasn't. Maybe it was yours.What were very good and I always say this like. Often people call me Sue call her Steph and we make jokes with the same person and that am what you ask. Our values are very much the same. We have good marriages right. We have good relationships and we bring it into this business too But, We are very good. I would say at if we don't agree on something. And this gets back to nothing the same person we are very good at talking it through. And one of us eventually. It's never the same one will say you know what ,you got this.You got this like this is your you know like you were excellent at like throwing something back and forth. Well I don't see it like that. You know what. You take it. You're right or I don't even know I don't even care. You know you handle.Patty: And so here is what I'm seeing and I think is really important is that in the partnership you complement each other really well. You can recognize each other's strengths and then at the same time it sounds to me like there's little to no ego whatsoever. About who had the idea or who gets this or who gets to that because you know that it's all for making your teenmag.com get better at putting out a different product. That's very rare. Very rare.Susan: I want to say that we learned early on from somebody who turned out to be a wonderful mentor to us. That collaboration was a really it was the most valuable thing we could do in our business. And it came at a time that was so important for me personally because I was seeing everybody else in the space that we were in as a threat. And her response was at one time said look at this like to show her the competition and she said oh my god that's so exciting.Give them a call. And I was like. What? She's like yes maybe you can work together. So that really changed. I think for both Stephanie and I how we run the business and so when we can't figure out whose idea was that is the consummate compliment about collaboration that we've had people work for us and it didn't work out for them well at all because. That was a process that they couldn't wrap your head around that at the end we weren't going to know who got credit.That it was going to be like this brainstorming every second of every meeting where something bubbled to the top but it was a word from every single person. And at the end it was just the right thing. I love that there are people who can't just. I mean it's not better or worse it's just not the environment they work well in.Stephanie: Sue do you remember whose idea the cover sponsor was.Susan: No clue.Stephanie: Exactly.Susan: Do you?Stephanie: No I have no idea. That's my point. No idea, it could have been your idea Patty. I have no idea.Patty: Well I was going to say this I remember one of the best bosses I ever worked with corporate was so great because he was all about collaboration. And I remember we had a presentation in front of our biggest client at the time is when I was in management consulting and that something had happened at home my son had to be hospitalize he was like 3 years old. And I called them up and I was Paul, I can't make it. Like literally I have to be here.It's you know my son is in the hospital like anybody else would be like well what are we going to do in this and that. And then it was like without hesitation he's like, No problem. So and so we'll pick up the ball and one of the things that I so appreciate it at the beginning of why I got that job was because we've worked together, we play together we win together. And if you don't understand that I will cut you off like cancer.Like he was so militant about that one whirl. And because of that we operated like a well-oiled machine it was probably the best situation I've ever been in in the tenure that I had in corporate life you know 18 years because the majority of people are all about well who gets the credit. I want to look good. It's very self-serving. Whereas he was like he understood.Those by all of us contributing were so much stronger. Right. And we're all going to get the accolades that we want by collaborating in that way. And that's such a distinct Sense of leadership and emotional intelligence that literally 99 percent of people just don't have. So that is a huge competitive advantage to you guys that I could see just from the outside looking at. So I think that's phenomenal.Susan: OK I want another chance to give Stephanie superpowers.Patty: Yeah go ahead.Susan: So the two that make. Life fun. Is that Stephanie laughs like a lot? She laughs. I mean I wish I could see what my sister in law gave my husband. But it was something about how no one thinks I'm funnier than me. So my husband in my work status.Believe that, like they both they like look at her. I mean you can see her but her whole body is involved in a lot of right thing.Susan: Right. So they both find themselves very funny which of course actually does create just an atmosphere of Laughter. It does.Patty: Yeah.Susan: And so that's so much fun and cuts through any problem you ever had and then the other thing that I marvel at because I think I'm 8 years older than you right?Stephanie: I know I'm going to be 50 in March.Susan: I'm going to be 58 in April so that's a good idea.Stephanie: There you go. Were also good at math.Susan: Yes you're very good at that. The thing is I cannot remember anybody's name anymore at all. And Stephanie knows if your daughter was dating. Am and who the person was and where they went to college and they were thinking about transferring so she made a connection and she checks up on that. So if you're going to be in sales you want to. STEPHANIE.Stephanie: Yeah I was at one. No you don't. Because she belongs to you. So but yeah that is a phenomenal spokes at. For a 50 sample yesterday morning Sue and I are sitting in a coffee shop already at 2 waiting for a meeting I look over the coffee shop and I think I'd recognize someone that we met with one time it's been awhile it been a year So I'm out mother just see her, Sue look across over there. I think that's the person and I start You know, and Sue put her glasses on and she's looking in out first no one can see my face but she's got this look like I've never seen that person before in my life right.That look and I go Oh see you' recognize her huh. And we started. I'm like crying. Like everything is fair game. I agree with Sue says I'm going to be. If you can find any shred of something to laugh at. Count me in.Patty: That's awesome. That's awesome. All right so we're turning the corner. What do you each individually excited about. Of where yourteenmag.com is going.Susan: All right. Well last I think two weeks ago, Stephanie hadn't been out of town I would have called her and said we need to meet and talk about whether there's any way to pull this off. And two weeks later I think we are going to kill it in the biggest way.And I can't even believe. How things have come together. Working with you. This is extraordinary. Working with the people you're giving us which is extraordinary having. Like a man who has no reason to want to love us say he will work for us for pennies because he wants to see us succeed. I mean it's all. There's just all these things happening right now and they're working they're working. I think. You know it's like the sky's the limit right now. It's really exciting and we're never going to say it was an overnight success.Stephanie: I know.Susan: It is. Hard hard work more sleepless nights than nights with sleep. And we could never pull ourselves away from this because it's been a passion project.Patty: Well I love it.Stephanie: And the one thing I'll add to that is and they just said this to someone the other day. That I look around the table and look around like if the players can have their hands in Your Teen right now. And it's the right team. You know I look at every piece and my husband has a saying that when you see someone who's.Doing the job they were meant to do it. And he always says they're sitting in the right seat. I look around our table and I say Oh my God we've got every. It's all the right seeds. And like I've never felt like that in the business as much as I get. Excited is I feel different times whenever I can honestly look around now and say wow like how do we get so lucky.Patty: That's awesome. That is great. And it just shows because you were committed. You're committed until it wasn't until it's convenient or until you're tired or any of that it's like until ,until it gets to the levels of success that you that you deserve and you're looking for so I love it.I mean it's such an honor to be a part of you guys his journey on your teen and where you want to take it because there is so much more coming you're going to see the incredible feedback and how you can serve your customers or clients at such a different level in 2019. So for the people listening for more information check out your teenmag.comPatty: And you're on Facebook on Instagram or you on Pinterest as well.Susan: Twitter. Interest.Patty: Am I missing anything.Susan: [00:31:10] Twitter.Patty: Twitter. I always forget Twitter Twitter and now that again yourteenmag.com I so appreciate your heart because both of you have such tenacity and you guys in my book are bad asses so just so you know. It's official. You are bad asses.Susan: That's a compliment.Patty: A deep compliment because most people it just won't do what it takes to keep going so. So this was all about how do you know when it's time to quit. Well the answer is you don't. You don't when it's a passion project and you have the right team and the synergy is there and the collaboration is there and there's no ego in the whole thing.And I also really commend you for having a beautiful partnership that you've able to curates develops into something meaningful and it almost kind of crosses over doesn't it. Between the professional and personal like were you deeply are like gosh you guys are like family right. Like that level where you look at your team and say you all are like family. We deeply care about each other. That's when you know you hit the mark in terms of the lines are blurred in such a good way. That there's no difference between working or b right.It's a love that dynamic team is just jelling and it takes on a life of its own. So I see it very clearly with that you guys are developing. So thank you so much. Oh one last question I can't believe my famous question. The question is that each of you answers please. When all was said and done what do you want your legacy to be?Susan: Well I mean I love your teen. It's been a journey and a gift. And some of the things about your teen I love but my family I mean I already feel like you know there are moments in life I remember right after I got married being on a plane with a tremendous amount of turbulence and I thought well if I die right nowI have this great love affair like you know that I got to experience that. So I feel that way in my own life like to have this husband and these kids and these friendships and the partnership with Stephanie and all of these other people we've gotten to meet along the journey. It's hard to think of something better.Patty: Wow I love that How about for you Stephanie?Stephanie: No you can't take the words out of my mouth but I will add to that. It's funny you are saying about being a bad ass. The one thing I always say is I want to be known as a kind bad ass.Patty: Okay. Yeah definitely. There's a difference right about. The fact that you are a success but how you got to be a success. Right. If you like burn bridges in the process that was the big bad ass.Stephanie: Yeah yeah. Now that kindness goes a long way. I hope people think about me I was about that with my kids too that they were kind. Come to teach you Steph.Patty: Gracias she's throwing up the P sign. All right. All right ladies thank you so much for being on her legacy. Get yourteenmag.com and I so appreciate you and I think it be a good idea to come back on the podcast.Right because we're so many good things are happening for you all and see what happened right. The 12 year starts of what's the story of glory. We could talk about that about would be really cool. Sounds good.Susan: I think you got in steady.Patty: You so much for joining us on this episode of Her Legacy Podcast...Links mention in this episode:Website: yourteenmag.com,Media Handles: https://www.facebook.com/YourTeenhttps://www.instagram.com/yourteenmag/https://www.pinterest.com/yourteenmag

Susan Hyatt is a master certified life coach, weight loss expert, and the author of BARE. She’s the creator of the trademarked BARE Process, the BARE Deck, a podcast called BARE, and an online community called BARE DAILY. We talk about: Helping women stop dieting How you know the inner voices are not your higher self How to silence the voice of the Inner Mean Girl Flipping the dialogue away from self-violent thoughts "There's no upside to violent self-thoughts. They don't help in any way," Susan says. "The more you allow yourself to be seen and take up space, the more you can conquer those voices that say you shouldn't." MENTIONED ON THE SHOW If I'm So Smart, Why Can't I Lose Weight? by Brooke Castillo GUEST LINKS - SUSAN HYATT shyatt.com BARE daily BARE Podcast BARE by Susan Hyatt (the book) HOST LINKS - SLADE ROBERSON Slade's Books & Courses Get an intuitive reading with Slade Automatic Intuition BECOME A PATRON https://www.patreon.com/shiftyourspirits Edit your pledge on Patreon TRANSCRIPT Susan: I help people get what they want. Slade: What does that mean? Susan: That means, so when you say to people, I'm a life coach, still most of the population has no idea what that means. Theres an elderly woman on a plane that thought that meant I was a hospice worker. And so I look at it more as a conversation starter. So I'm not, if I just say, I'm a life coach, people's eyes kind of glaze over and then they are like, Oh, okay. If I say, I help opoeple get what they want, then they're like, WHAAAT? Say more! And then it's a conversation I'm having about, I'm a life coach and an author and I specialize in helping women stop dieting. Sometimes I just say, I help women stop dieting and you can see, I've written a couple funny stories because especially women are like, What?? You help them stop?? What would you do that? Because we're so immersed in diet culture. People think that dieting is being healthy and it's actually the opposite of that. Slade: Hnm.. How did that land in your lap, by the way? How did that become your thing? Susan: Well, it became my thing because I was 35 - 40 pounds over my natural weight when my first year as a life coach. And I knew that there were underlying issues about that. And I felt like, Hahaha it was my final frontier to conquer. It wasn't, but it certainly was one issue that I needed to deal with. And I hired a weight loss coach named Brook Castillo who's amazing, and she has this great book, If I'm So Smart, Why Can't I Lose Weight? And what we really did was dive in to the emotional side of eating, which really rocked my world. And I lost that weight within about six months. And I was somebody who I joke, that I was, I really had a PhD in being a couch potato. I mean, I refused to exercise, I didn't want anyone telling me what I could or couldn't eat, and it really rocked my world. And I thought, If I can lose this extra weight, then I want to help other women do it. And so I became, I added weight loss coaching to my repertoire. And what I started to notice after coaching hundreds of women was, I was really spending the bulk of my time, because I could help anybody lose weight. It's really the inner deep work that makes weight loss sustainable, and it has nothing, I promise, to do with calories in, calories out, no pain no gain, all that stuff we're taught. It's really about, Is this woman cherishing herself, loving herself, giving herself enough daily pleasure so that she's not getting her entertainment from food, so that she's not getting her comfort from food, so that she's not numbing out. And I really started to notice that my clients, I could help them lose 50, 100 pounds, and then they would start complaining about other parts of their bodies. So yes, they had lost the weight, but now they were fixated on stretch marks, or, I still have a muffin top, or, Maybe I should get cosmetic surgery. And I started focusing on learning how to love your body as it is, right now. And THEN we'll do this other stuff. And BINGO! Everything changed. And so I developed this process called BARE, and it's really a process of bringing a woman back to herself. And figuring out that diet just keeps you on this deprivation cycle that you can't win. And the diet industry's actually counting on that. It's like, I think the latest statistic, it's a over 100 billion dollar industry and it's designed to keep you dissatisfied with how you look so that you keep spending money trying to become something else . Slade: Wow. Do you remember what the breaking point was for you? The shift that happened in your own mindset. I mean, now, working with the other clients, you were able to see it from outside and observe it in controlled environment. But when that happened to you, can you go back and remember what that mindset shift was? Susan: Yeah, I can remember. There was this moment, it was, I think maybe I had lost about 16 pounds of the 35 to 40, and we were going on spring break vacation and my daughter at the time was maybe 7. And I bought a new bikini and I was so excited in the store about having this bathing suit. And I remember my coach wanted me, she made a joke about a client of hers that she had asked to take a picture of herself in a swimsuit and send it to her. And when the photo arrived, it was a photo of her client flipping her off. And I started laughing and I said, "Don't ever assign that to me." And she was like, "Oh, really?? That's your homework then!" And so I have my daughter, I put my swimsuit on, I was actually feeling great. My little 8-year old Emily takes a photo of me and I felt fine the entire process. Until I looked at the photo on my big desktop screen. And all of a sudden, all of these really negative thoughts started flooding in. That were still there about, Oh, you don't look as good as you thought, and just really self-violent thoughts that almost all women have about their bodies. And I thought, You've got some real work to do. And I often think about, I was doing a webinar yesterday and I was talking about this. When you look at little kids. Say a film crew shows up at an elementary school, little kids are fighting, shoving each other out of the way to be seen on camera. This is an exciting thing, like, Look at me, I'm on TV! And at some point, we receive messages from either family of origin or culture at large that the way that you look is not acceptable. And by the time we reach our age, we're so full of these messages that we should look a certain way and we're not good enough. And in that moment when I looked at myself on screen, I was like, You have got to figure out how to be like that again. Be like, There I am! Look at me! And show up. And stop this hiding because you have some cellulite or whatever it might be. And that was really a moment, an AHA moment, a breaking point moment, a moment where I shifted and decided to devote myself to figuring that out. And I did! And I can tell you that people are always asking me, I don't understand how you get all that stuff done. And I can tell you, the reason I get so much stuff done, is because I'm no longer obsessing about food and body and how I look. Slade: Mmm... Tell me about, well, first I have to tell you. You probably know this about me but I like to personify the archetypes, I like to communicate with voices, a lot of the work I do with people is around policing the negative self talk. You know, it's really about learning how to, not only identify that, but one of the things that you pointed out was, these voices come from your family and society. They don't come from your higher self. They don't come from little kid you. You've got them from somewhere. You took them on, you download them, and you call them your own thoughts and they're really not. I noticed when I was looking at your website, before the interview, that you have an archetype called the Inner Mean Girl. Tell me about her. Is that who it is that's saying all these mean things? Susan: Yes! And you're absolutely right. These thoughts that we absorb and take on as our own, we were not born into this world with those kind of beliefs. We picked them up along the way and yeah, your inner mean girl is the one saying really horrible things to you about yourself that are untrue and the way that you know they're not true is because they make you feel horrible. And I think most women think that that is because they talk with their girlfriends, they talk with their mom, they talk with other people and everybody goes, "Oh yeah! Me too!" And so they think, Well that's normal and that's just the way it is. But it is prevalent in our culture but it's not what we were meant to experience, and so we have to clap back at that and tell the mean girl to have a seat and educate her on how you want to be treated. And you can flip the dialogue on that and practice talking back to her and saying kind things, because, listen, even if you want to argue with me and say, No, but she's right. I DO need to lose weight. I don't exercise. I am lazy. You've to to ask yourself different questions and tell yourself different things so that you change your behaviour, but there's no upside to self-violent thoughts, if you haven't noticed. There's no upside to it. Slade: Right. Susan: It doesn't help in any way. Slade: So you recently landed a big book deal. And I know this because we're friends on Facebook and you've been talking about the process and everything. Is this book deal, The BARE Message, is that what this is about? Tell me about the book. Susan: The book is called BARE, and we're still working on the subtitle. But thank you very much. Yes, I'm so excited to have a book deal for it. It's basically - Slade: Yay! Congrats! Susan: Thank you!!! I'm so stoked! Actually, just had a meeting with my publishing team yesterday, and they are on it. It's gonna be fire. I cannot wait for it to hit. Actually, pre-sale, the book is not going to be out until January of 2019, so there's a big process to getting these books out into the world, and I'm slightly impatient... Slade: Yeah... Susan: I would like it to be in your hands tomorrow, but pre-orders, actually, will start fairly soon, but the books will not ship until January. And yes, it's a book full of personal stories and client stories and it walks you through the BARE process. And the thing that I like about the BARE process is - so when you get the book, it's a story, and then there's a challenge. So it gets you taking action immediately. Side note, I have a podcast, the BARE podcast, which is going to drop on iTunes maybe by next week, so people, while they're waliting on the book, can check out the podcast. I'm dropping an entire season at once, so it can walk people through... there's 8 episodes in season 1. It walks people through the BARE process. You can do it on your own or you can decide to hire a coach to help you. Slade: Oh! Okay. You also have, for people who don't want to wait, who want to dive in and work with it, this platform, this work, this material exists in various forms. You have a community, an online community around it already, right? Susan: Yeah, yeah! It's called BARE Daily. The way that it's set up is, if someone joins the community, they get access, a username and password to an online classroom that has the BARE process in videos, so you can watch a video, there's homework assignments, there's tons of stuff in there. And then, in the private forum, I'm in there every day and so are my BARE coaches. So let's say you sign up and you start doing the BARE process, and you hit a wall or you have an issue, which you will. Coaches are there 24/7 to coach you through what's happening in the forum. So it's really a sweet set up. Slade: I have to ask you this question. I love to ask everyone this, and I'm trying to learn to ask it in a more postitive way, but, as someone who's spent some time now in the personal development world, what do you most hope to change about the conversation? Susan: So many things, Slade. So many things. Primarily, I want to disrupt diet culture. So the segment of the self-help industry that focuses on food, body and weight, I want to change the conversation from fear and deprivation to pleasure, love, positivity. So that's number one. People who are promoting unhealthy, unsustainable lifestyle changes, things that you wrap your body in, or starve yourself. All these kinds of things. I definitely want to, not flip the switch, flip the table on those folks. And then, also, the part of the self-help industry that is selling a bill of goods around, how do I say this? So I'm a big believer in spiritual grease plus elbow grease. Meaning, Yes, the Universe has your back. Yes, the Universe is conspiring in your favour. And whatever higher power you believe in, yes, your higher power, your higher self wants you to have everything that you crave. But you have to couple that faith in belief with action. And so, I get pretty worn out with people who are selling the idea that if you just believe it hard enough, it will happen. Slade: Mmm... yeah. Like the law of attraction method, I mean, not like specifically, but some of that stuff. Like thinking it will be true, feel your way into the reality, that kind of stuff? Susan: Yeah, because it's only part of the story. I have dear friends who are big law of attraction teachers, and I think people misunderstand it and they think, Well if I pay this money and I make a vision board, and I just believe that I'm going to own a Mercedes, and it's going to appear in my driveway... And tomorrow, I'm going to be dancing with Cardi B and Bruno Mars. It's gonna happen. Yes, if you do some things to put yourself in the path of Cardi B, if you do some work and go to the Mercedes dealership, you know? Slade: Right. Susan: It's just, I believe in magic, I believe in miracles, but I grew up Catholic. I'm a recovered Catholic. But my mother used to always say, God helps those who help themselves! And I guess that's really stuck with me, because I believe that to be true that, yes these miraculous things can happen, but you have to get out of your own way and do some work. Slade: I actually believe that too and I wasn't even indoctrinated to believe it. But that line, you know, God helps those who help themselves, really does work for me. You know, if somebody says it to me and I'm like, Amen! You know what I mean? Susan: Hallelujah! Slade: And I do write and teach law of attraction stuff in hopefully my corrected methods but, one of the things I like to introduce into the conversation is that, what you describe that the vision board thing is like working with one element as opposed to all the sacred elements. It's like legs on a stool kind of thing. You've got some other legs you've got to attach to this thing before it'll stand up. Susan: Yeah! And I totally, I mean I do vision board workshops online. It's not... I love all those things. They just have to be combined, like you said, with other practices. Slade: Well that's one of the reasons I wanted you to be on here. Because this is fewer hearts and flowers, we still love all the spiritual stuff, right? And the thing I love about you is you embody that very down to earth use of these things as tools. It's not an airy fairy thing for you. You love to show yourself doing it. You're on camera a lot. People can Facebook live right into your office on a daily basis. Susan: Yeah, it's true. Slade: And I love that about you too because you're never full hair and make up and wearing a glitter gown, except in a photo shoot, which you do. You get that out of your system. Susan: You gotta bring the big guns in sometimes, but yeah, on a daily basis I'm typically in my work out clothes with no make up. Slade: Well, you know what? That was very inspiring to me as I was developing this podcast and putting it out, because one of the pieces of advice that I got was, just don't worry about the intro music and the this and the that at the other thing. It's about you speaking, it's about the content, and it's about letting people hear you and the guests that you connect with. Just think of it as a big voice mail. Just take it down a notch. And that was very freeing for me. And you and I had a little interaction on Facebook probably about a year ago about that whole thing and you encouraged me. You were like, Yeah, people need to see you. Susan: Hmm? Slade: That probably will be my next step. Is to get to let my face be out there more. But that's one of those things... Susan: Dude! Why would you not let your face be seen??? You're a hottie! Slade: Because! Susan: McHotterson! You are depriving your audience of... You will be blessing the interwebs with your face. Slade: Alright. Susan: I need to come over there and smack you around. Slade: Well you'll be proud to know that I'm going to do my first Facebook live next week. For my - Susan: Next week?! How about this afternoon?? Slade: Well because it's a training for my Automatic Intuition peeps, so they get to be exposed to me first. But I was thinking about it and I was like, Yeah, you know what? I'm just going to sit on camera and... And I totally thought I 'm going to do this Susan Hyatt style. That you were my inspiration for that. Susan: That's awesome. And I have to say, that's part of the BARE process. Is to make you seen and be seen. So you have to, the more you allow yourself to be seen and take up space, the more you can conquer those voices that say that you shouldn't, that you don't look alright, like, whatever. Put yourselves out there, people. Slade: Well that was kind of my last big question for you, was about the whole make a scene concept. We're all rooting for you, living through you vicariously, as you're making your scenes and posting about that. And people just have to follow you online to get the full experience of what I'm talking about, because it unfolds, as you encounter things in your daily life and you share it. So, I used to, my friends in college actually used to call me Julie Sugarbaker, and I was notorious for telling some people off. You know what I mean? And I was really good at it. But I reached a point where I kind of had to dial back a lot of my anger. I had to go all the way back, strip back down and work my way back up again, and as we all know, this last year or so has been very trying when it comes to posting things online about your, the things that you're pissed about. I always look at you and I'm like, How is she coming out smelling like a rose every time? Because you are so good at doing something. Like, if I do what you do, I end up in a flame war. I mean... Susan: Oh! You mean with your following. People get mad. Slade: Yes! Like, you are so good at treading the line on making the scene and sharing the fact that you're pissed and putting it out there and calling stuff out without, somehow, ending up in tears at the end of the day and you wasted your whole day arguing with people online. So I'm wondering, What am I missing? Where do we draw the line there? How do you police that energy? Susan: So I have an unfair advantage, and my unfair advantage is that I have, for 19 years, parented a man named Ryan Hyatt. And Ryan Hyatt is some of the biggest most challenging energy that you could encounter. So I feel like I have been in boot camp with how to have boundaries, express feelings, call it like it is, in a way that doesn't set fire to everything. Sometimes I do want to set fire to everything, so there's number one. So sorry Slade, I'm going to have to ship Ryan off to you so that you can get some practice with that before, but... Secondly, I think I'm always, one of the things that I teach in writing, or when I'm training coaches on how to come up with content, how to come up with content for Facebook, how to come up with content for your blog, for your podcast, for whatever reason, a fellow Sugarbaker over here, I have always been able to come up with topics more readily, more easily, if I think about what has irritated me or pissed me off lately. And then what I do is say, Okay, I'm really irritated about whatever, these people who are selling diets. Then I try to come up, before I open my mouth, I try to come up with the life coachy solution to it, so that it's not just a rant. That I'm offering my displeasure, and I'm all, Let me tell you something, but I couch it in, Well here's what you could do for yourself if you're experiencing this too. And so I think that's what keeps it from just being something that would ruin someone's day. My day, your day, whatever. Slade: I like it. Susan: Yeah. So there's a little bit... Then also, you know it, I do get hate mail, I do get people who disagree and who will post things, but I shut it down pretty quickly. I don't let them have a platform on my platform. I'm open minded, so if they're talking about something respectfully and they just disagree, that's fine. But if they're trying to set fire to my Facebook thread, then they're immediately blocked. That's it. You don't get to come over on my page and do that. Sorry. Slade: You know what? I actually realized as you were saying this that, I teach this in terms of, journalling. I used to keep diaries a lot and that's a big tool for me and at some point I realized, it was nothing but whining. And when I did Morning Pages for the first time, the Julia Cameron style, I remember being like, You know what? I'm not just going to bitch every morning for 15 minutes. How's that a way to start the day? So I made a rule with myself that the only way that I can mention something that was wrong in my diary is if I put a potential solution there. Or, I am broke, here's what I'm going to do about it, kind of thing. And I teach that to people a lot. You can't, it's one thing to, like you said, it's one thing to rant, and it's one thing to vent, but I think even venting in your private space, without having constructive context, is damaging. You're just letting the inner mean girl have a dance party in your head. Susan: Right. Slade: So, what's next for you? You've got this big book coming out but it's going to take awhile. So what are you going to do in the meantime? Susan: So what I'm doing in the meantime is, I'm trying to build my BARE membership community up and I am spending a lot of time inside there. We have cooking classes and exercise classes... Just all kinds of great content that happens privately in there. I'll be spending most of my time in there. I'm also doing some international retreats this year. One to Italy that's already sold out and one to England and maybe one to Paris. That's one of my favorite cities. And then I'm training a bunch of BARE coaches, so coaches in the BARE methodology, so that they can spread this far and wide, and just on my regular! Slade: It must be fun to be you. Susan: It IS fun to be me! And I tell you, I remind myself of that every morning when my inner mean girl wants to whine about how much she has to do. I slap her around and tell her she is so lucky, that she's to stay in the miracle and be grateful for this practice and this business and this life. Slade: Mmm... Susan, I truly do love your energy. I could talk to you all day long, and one of the reasons why I had to get you on my show is because you'll probably be too famous next year to be on my show. Susan: Stop it! Never too famous for you. Slade: Anyway, it was fantastic to get to capture a chat with you and introduce you to some of my peeps who may not have heard of you before. So tell everyone where where they can go to find you online. Susan: Thank you so much, by the way. This was a delight. My website URL, is SHyatt.com. And then you can follow me on Instragram @SusanHyatt, or on also Facebook, same handle. Thank you for coming on the show Susan. Susan: Thank you! Thanks again for listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast. For show notes, links, and all the past episodes please visit www.shiftyourspirits.com You can subscribe in iTunes or Stitcher or whatever app you use to access podcasts. If you’d like to get an intuitive reading with me or download a free ebook and meditation to help you connect with your guides please go to https://sladeroberson.com/ and if you’re interested in my professional intuitive training program, you can start the course for free by downloading the Attunement at https://automaticintuition.com/