Podcasts about susan oh

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

New ‘Sode. Alas, as I sit polishing my ninja green Birkin bag buckle, alone after being dumped by a ParaFI partner, I ponder what went wrong in 2024 in Glitter and Crypto. There was the horrifying misunderstanding at Neiman Marcus ETH Denver that resulted in my shoplifting misdemeanor, the disappointing lack of staking in the ETH ETF that left most of my circle lightly slitting their wrists to the soundtrack of Usher Let it Burn, NFTs left completely out of the ERA's tour, Caroline Ellison's refusal to wear anything cute at her trial, .   I am high on AI generated meth with excitement for the 2025 Chinese New Year of the Snake, which can only bring good fortune.  I have so many hopes and dreams for 2025 that I hope my AI avatar bot can pin to my vision board in time for the year new me new meme coin. I digress. My guest is the fabulous Susan Oh. AI Afficiando who was recently beat up in a hotel room by her co-founder (and is OK) and was able to stop at Glitter Ledger Headquarters on her way to press charges before heading back to Bali. Susan has the IQ of Marilyn Monroe. Her story upbringing is fascinating. She and her  family fled South Korea's military dictatorship and then left Iran before the Ayatollah took over; and she family assumed refugee status for 8= months in the UK, before they were sponsored in Canada, where she grew up. She then became a teenage chain smoking punk rocker out at gay discos. Susan then had a career in journalism, media, AI and crypto all mixed together in a big clay pot thrown into a  Kiln of glitter and madness before developing her baby Muckr AI, a company that uses AI to flag disinformation. Unfortunately, the funding has had some interesting bumps. Listen on. Happy New Year. #GlitterLedger. 

Joining Carol Pankow in the studio today are Cody Dixon, Director of Operations SARAWorks, and Susan Baker, Program Coordinator II, Alaska VR. SARA provides a solution to VR programs with a client engagement and communications system that automatically gathers needed information at the right time from consumers and providers without staff intervention. SARA uses artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing and complements CMS functionality. Alaska VR has been an early adapter from SARA's first introduction. Susan tells us how Alaska VR utilizes SARA daily, and Cody brings us up to date with all the latest integrations and new states coming on board with SARA.   Listen Here   Full Transcript   SARA: Technology Solutions States Have Proven to Work -Alaska VR and SARA   {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today are Cody Dixon, Director of Operations, SARAWorks, and Susan Baker, Program Coordinator II, Alaska VR. Thanks for joining me today, you guys. So, Cody, how are things going in the world of SARA?   Cody: Good. We've been extremely busy. We've got a number of new states that are coming on board that we're working with and a number of new features that we're rolling out. So really excited to be here with you today.   Carol: Glad to hear that. So, Susan, how are things going for you in Alaska?   Susan: Well, it's pretty good up here in sunny Alaska. Just kidding. It's about 15 degrees. We still love SARA. We're actually getting an upgrade this weekend that we're really looking forward to. Things are going great.   Carol: Awesome to hear that. Well, I'm in Minnesota, so I can empathize with the Alaska climate. Had some interesting winter weather this year for sure. So for some of our listeners, you may remember back to the days of WINTAC and a special project that was done to bring SARA to Voc Rehab, and the original idea was to provide a solution to VR programs that used this new kind of client engagement and communication system that automatically gathered needed information at the right time from consumers and providers without staff intervention. SARA uses artificial intelligence or AI and natural language processing and is complementary to a case management functionality. So if you fast forward seven years, SARA's really undergone some very cool changes and is once again part of a pilot program within our VRTAC for Quality Management. And I'm also really excited about hearing from a state that was at the forefront of using this and has remained a continued champion years later. So let's dig in. So, Cody, I'm going to turn to you first. Can you tell our listeners about yourself and what you do at SARA and a little more about your products?   Cody: Yes, absolutely. So I'm the director of operations for SARAWorks, and we are an extremely small team. We are growing. But essentially, historically, I've been responsible for all of our new customer implementations doing the training, the configuration of SARA, making sure that SARA is doing what it's supposed to do for the agency, and then of course, keeping track of our support staff for our wonderful service that we provide, working with our development team as well. So just kind of making sure that all the day to day stuff is running as it should. We've got our primary product, which is SARA, and SARA is our application for counselors and case managers. And it's used typically to stay in contact with clients or consumers that are receiving services under the idea that we're really trying to use SARA as a communication hub with the idea to bridge that connection gap in human services. We believe that the good technology can be used and is going to be essential for creating human connection so that people don't fall through the cracks. And that's kind of where SARA comes in.   Carol: Yeah, like that, that you use that term communication hub. That sums it up really well. So Susan, can you give our listeners a little more information about yourself? What's your role in Alaska? How many counselors do you have and the number of customers that you all serve?   Susan: Sure. I am a Jill of all trades up there for in Alaska, a program coordinator. So really what that means is responsible for our quality assurance, our program reporting, our data requirements, our policies and procedures. And I'm also in charge of our case management system, our SARA communication system, our SharePoint system. So there's quite a bit of an IT aspect software support that comes out of my role as well. We are, you know, a big state geographically, but a small state population wise. We always like to remind Texas of that, but we only have about 25 counselors spread out through the state, though. But that's over you know, we're talking potentially 2500, 3000 miles apart in some places. And right now, our open caseload right now is around 1000 - 1500. Yeah, we're small, but mighty.   Carol: Wow. That puts some perspective. I didn't realize you had 25 counselors across that expansive Alaska. So do folks have to, like, fly into places? Because I know some of your areas are so remote, how do they get to see certain customers?   Susan: Absolutely. Yes. We have a few counselors that are dedicated to serving our rural populations, flying into hubs like Barrow, Ketchikan, Pretty amazing. It's a kind of a unique situation. They're flying in for about a week, trying to get as many informational referrals out there, then to get as many applications as they can going. And if there are open cases in that area or village, they're trying to work them as well. We do a lot with SARA helping us keep in touch when we're not in the area.   Carol: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That gives such an interesting perspective. So, Cody, I understand SARA's gone through some changes and can you tell us what happened with the company and like where you live right now, it's different.   Cody: Yeah, definitely. So back in September, SARA was acquired the company itself, the Career Index Corporation, the founders of SARA, was acquired by a company called Radical Health, which is a company that acquires software companies that are in the human services space and put together a new division called Radical Apps that SARA was the first product to fall into. And so under radical apps we have SARAWorks, which is how we've rebranded our company. So for some of our folks out there that recognize TCI or the Career Index we are now, SARAworks with our product, SARA. And under Radical, we are working to see how we can grow SARA's reach and help make an impact in other markets and other industries. Radical Health currently works with software companies that are in food banks and community food pantries and things like that, as well as foster care management, behavioral health and homeless management as well. So a couple of other areas that we feel that SARA could really make an impact. And as I mentioned earlier, we've been an extremely small team and so we didn't necessarily have the resources in place to make that happen and continue to see our vision grow. But with the help of Radical, we've got a roadmap to making that happen. And really just overall taking this concept of wanting to foster that connection in human services and helping clients feel like they're more than just a case ID and giving them that voice, using SARA to be able to maintain that connection with their agency and the service workers that are helping them.   Carol: Well, Cody, I remember back to my days in Minnesota and we were trying to get your product and there were definitely some challenges with IT resources. And I understand you have a new venture that eases the burden on IT resources. What is that all about?   Cody: Yeah, absolutely. We actually have a couple of things that we're working on in that regard. First of which was a strategic partnership that we entered into with Alliance Enterprises for their Aware case management solution. And so we are working with them at the moment on creating a way to interface the two systems together that eliminates the need for a state agency's IT department to really be involved. Historically, we've relied upon the state agency to have to install a Windows service and maintain that service on a state server and things like that in order to get data to go back and forth between SARA and the system of record. So what we're working on with Alliance is to, number one, have that connection, bypass the need for the state agency to be involved. And then we're also working on a new API that will be more of a plug and play option for other agencies that might not utilize, Aware, maybe have something that's homegrown or one of the other larger vendors. So it's something that I'm really excited for. We are rolling into some testing right now and should have that solution rolled out by the end of quarter two.   Carol: Wow, that's pretty cool. That's a big deal. I think that'll be a game changer for folks. I know we have a lot of people that are with Alliance, but there are a lot of folks that are not probably half the country is not. It's probably about a half and a half deal. So having that option for other folks as well, I think that is definitely going to be of interest to our listeners. I personally love your whole communication aspect of this and you talked about that communication hub. Can you just explain that a little more like all the things that can go into that?   Cody: Yeah, absolutely. So we you know, we call SARA the communication hub and we continuously try to make improvements and enhancements and bring new features so that, you know, if you think of a way to stay in contact and connect with a client electronically, we want SARA to kind of be your go to source. So SARA has two components. There's an automated side of SARA, and then there's some manual tools that counselors and case managers can use to try and stay in contact. On the automated side of things, we actually configure SARA to typically follow a workflow of the process of the agency mirroring in SARA, what we call tracks, which are the case statuses to the system of record. And we train SARA to understand when clients need to be contacted, what it's regarding, and if there's any data or information that needs to be obtained from that individual in order to successfully move them on to the next case status. And with that, SARA utilizes email and text messaging to stay in contact, reach out and conduct interviews with the clients, find out how they're doing, and then, just like any good assistant would, generate alerts that go back to those counselors and case managers to inform them of what's going on with their client, as well as giving them information so they can make an informed decision of what action to take next. Do I step in and now offer that direct client engagement? And that's where those manual tools come in. We've also got the options for staff to be able to compose emails and compose text messages directly from the SARA application. So from the comfort of their keyboard, they can be sending out messages. They don't have to have their own cell phone or a state agency issued cell phone. They can send out those messages directly through SARA. And then over time, they also start utilizing SARA for sending out emails. And the reason to do that is that everything that SARA does is going to automatically create case notes. So no longer does a counselor have to send out an email in Outlook or their provider of choice and then go back into their system of record and leave a case note about the email they just sent. They just send it off in. SARA It creates that case note. That case note goes from SARA back over to the system of record. So you can imagine the amount of time that is saved over time as staff start utilizing those features. Additionally, we have a document management center that we're actually rolling out this week that includes things like electronic signature. We've got an Outlook calendar integration. SARA's really good at scheduling appointments and allowing opportunities for clients to reschedule appointments based upon counselor availability. And so we can connect with an Outlook calendar so that both the SARA calendar and the outlook calendar are in sync. And SARA truly knows, you know, when that counselor is available for appointments to be scheduled and rescheduled. And then we also have something that really came in handy during the beginning phases of the pandemic when agencies started working remotely but still trying to provide services. And that is a feature that we call ODIN, which is our on demand interview network, and it is a HIPAA compliant tele counseling platform so that counselors can conduct tele counseling sessions with up to nine participants at a time and providing them an opportunity to take case notes throughout that session that are only visible to them. And then at the end of the session, they click a button to save all those case notes. And there's one case note that goes into SARA that kind of documents what that session was regarding who the participants were that attended. And then all of the case notes that the counselor created. And then, of course, those case notes go back over to the system of record. So very cool stuff that we're that we're doing here at SARAWorks.   Carol: Yeah it sounds super exciting. I was sitting in my head thinking, you know, kind of ticking the boxes about how much time you would save with a number of those items. That would be pretty amazing. So, Susan, you have been around since the beginning of SARA. I remember you were part of the pilot states up in Alaska. And I talked actually to the Alaska team. I bet it was maybe, I don't know, 5 or 6 years ago when we were all in Oklahoma at a PEQA conference. And I wanted to find out, like, how did you like it, what was going well? And I know that you all had struggled with some upfront kind of the communication and the implementation of the product. So what are some of the lessons you have learned along the way as you've implemented this?   Susan: Yeah, sure. It's one of the questions I get from many states that reach out to me, and I bet we could have a whole separate podcast about lessons learned. But I do want to give a quick shout out to the Alaska team during that implementation time. It was exciting because we were helping build this product better, you know, like there were a handful of states that were just throwing more feedback back at Cody, Hey, let's try this. Hey, let's try this. And it's really cool to be a part of a product from the beginning and to say that Alaska VR agency was one of the agencies that helped kind of, you know, point it towards a really cool direction. Although I know Cody was always brainstorming, so don't want to take that away from him. But a quick shout out to Alaska VR for that. Hindsight's having stronger procedures and understanding your staff's capability in technology. Now, it's easy. Don't get me wrong, I love this product. I can't say enough about it. However, we do have to consider who we're serving and who our workforce is. So in hindsight, I wish I had prepared better procedures for them because it was scary at first. You know, change is hard. That would be the first one that I could go into. I often found myself saying, Well, what would you normally do when you get a message? And it was also during a time where we were just still kind of, you know, feeling it out. So if I had come on with SARA outside of that pilot world, I would have prepped with stronger instructions, if you will.   Carol: Sure, that makes some sense. I get that. So how are you using SARA today? Because Cody just talked about all these cool new things, like are you guys implementing some of that or. I know some things are rolling out shortly, but how are you? Yeah, how are you using it today?   Susan: Oh, our staff still rocks it. They're making appointments daily. I mean, how often we would get stood up pre-SARA to now is just so ridiculously less. I mean to have that reminder texts come in and remind the client that they have an appointment is just golden. We're kind of working with our IT to turn on that calendar integration. It's in progress, I'll say. But they would absolutely love that. That's kind of out of their hands at the moment. They are in it every day. New employees come in, we have training and it's a whole new feel about like people understand that the phone is dead. Mean, it's a little dramatic, you know, unless you're calling your doctor's office or your parents or family members or whatnot. But outside of that, I'm getting you know, I just got a reminder text from a chiropractor appointment. I have a couple of days, you know, the hair appointment that's around the corner. I mean, this is the age that we live in in terms of like helping us be where we need to be in one example. But on the other end, like, oh yeah, like I have this connection. I'm doing something with this place. And our clients, our clients really love it. You're going to have any type of survey you send out, you never know what kind of feedback you're going to get. But overwhelmingly, our clients enjoyed hearing like, okay, I've got something here, I've got a connection. So staff and clients do enjoy the product.   Carol: That's awesome to hear. I wondered about that, how your staff and clients were responding to that. So that is terrific. Well, Cody, I understand you also have some exciting new things happening. What are you able to say? The new states that are being rolled out, you talked about you have a number of them. I don't know if you're able to disclose or not, but sometimes folks love to hear like, who are all the people I can talk to about that are using this product?   Cody: Yeah, absolutely. One of our states we're working with right now is New Hampshire. They're actually working with us in conjunction with Alliance with the Aware Integration. And I think most of the customers or potential customers that we have at some point find their way to Susan and kind of lean on some of her expertise, as you know, with what Alaska has learned. And so we really value having Susan available to talk to a lot of these customers. Additionally, we are in the midst of rolling out Texas, so TWC, they are going through training with their statewide rollout right now that we hope to have finished in April. That's been a really exciting project for us, learning a lot along the way in terms of some additional areas that SARA might be able to help with down the road with different surveys and working with businesses and other employer vendors and things like that. So that's been exciting. And then we've got South Dakota and Maryland that are also coming up as well.   Carol: Wow, that's very cool. You know, I was just thinking about all the complexities of these different states. You know, Texas is ginormous and they're also ginormous as far as staff and clients, whereas Alaska is ginormous but maybe has a smaller population of people. But how this application works across anybody and thinking about a lot of our states that may be smaller, but they have a lot of rural components. I think that's very interesting because it fits all the different sizes for sure. Now we have, SARA included, just for full disclosure, as a special project within the VRTAC for quality management. Can you talk about that just for a minute, Cody, what that's all about?   Cody: Yes, absolutely. So the SARA portion of that project has actually allocated 220 SARA licenses, and that's how we market. SARA as a SaaS company is a subscription model and we've got 220 licenses that we're looking to disperse over 2 to 3 states that right now we are in the process of providing demonstrations, you know, working with business analysts and ITdepartments to determine what states might be a good fit to take on a SARA pilot. So that's very exciting. And we're hoping to have the states finalized here in the next month or two so that we can get rolling on those new SARA pilots.   Carol: Oh, that's cool. That's really cool. So, Susan, what advice would you give to new states that are either just getting started with the system or they're considering using this as a communication solution for them?   Susan: Well, it's funny because I just got a follow up email from Maryland this morning, Cody, because everyone does seem to find their way to me, and I love that because it's a conversation I can have with them that talks about, again, more of those lessons learned. Knowing your staff, knowing your population you serve, understanding who is it that is going to be your champions, What is your management structure? And start small. SARA In terms of Cody mentioned, there are two sides of SARA and there are two very different sides. I call them, you know, the automated side and the direct side, the direct side being the human, you know, shouting out those texts on the fly or hey, hey, you know, come get your bus pass, you know, things like that. You know, the quick human aspect. And then you have the automated side, which is kind of awesome because you'll find information that you had no idea was happening or out there. I've heard scenarios where SARA finds out the client's employed and we're like, Wait, what? So it's kind of great to catch up on that. And I think what people at least to have committed in your first step is you're looking and you're trying to figure out what you want that awesome automated side to do for you and is to start small. Don't try and have an awesome long conversation with the SARA system because it's cool that she can do that. And I apologize. I have been trying not to give pronouns to SARA, but after seven years just she has just come out of my mouth occasionally, but start small and include your counselors include your counselors include your counselors. They are the ones who are going to need to be your champions. Because as you're starting off with this system, you want that participant to engage with it. And if you're not presenting that information from a comfortable standpoint, meaning your assistant staff or your counselor staff who are first talking about SARA in maybe an intake appointment or some, you know, the first opportunity to speak about the system, you have to prepare your staff to be able to talk someone through that. That was something I didn't quite hit. Let's just say that was a swing and a miss, as that one was. So yeah, that's all I can think of at the moment. Really include your staff what you, meaning you know you at the quality or implementation level think might be really cool, may not be really cool. It's something you can get to I think like I'm on version four of what is known as the rules for SARA, meaning what the robotic side will have to say in a conversation. And the first time I did it was just sort of, I don't know, let's try this. And then then I got to realize, no, I got a few more revisions. So start small. Include your staff and it is pretty awesome.   Carol: I am really glad you said that. Include your staff because I remember because I talked to Kentucky and it was, I believe Nevada and then the Alaska folks and you all three had that similar experience where I think everybody was like, Woo, this is a great new thing. This is super exciting. Everybody's going to love it. Well, not everybody just loved it right off the get go because they didn't understand it and they hadn't been included in all the conversations. And I can see that happening. I would have that tendency to I'd be like, Woo, this is super exciting. We're going to do this really fun thing. And then you go, Oh my gosh, we got to get everybody on board with that. So I had heard that back in the day too, that to definitely talk with the counselors because you have to get them used to this idea because while it will help them, at first they're thinking, what? What on earth? Because don't you have to develop Susan some scripts or you know, like AI doesn't know what to exactly say. You do have to program that, correct?   Susan: That is correct, yes. You do want to prompt a path for certain questions that you ask. And what I learned over the years is and this I might want to say that, you know, this is perhaps unique to the VR world because SARA is applicable in other worlds outside of VR, right? So when we're thinking about the population that VR serves, we want to maybe make our questions to the point and as short as possible. You know, I'm thinking about keeping it at a grade level that is appropriate. Whereas if you're out maybe outside and you're dealing with a different population and then there's this ability to like, you could do so many things with it, you know, as long as you have that engaged person on the other end who's answering, I mean, you can ask and get so much information out of a text message. It is amazing. But what I learned just from knowing my client base is that less is more. I went to more specific questions. And if something didn't work out with that response, I just sort of kind of turn it back and say, okay, we're going to get with you. You know, like, let's not try and text anymore. Let's actually try and, you know, let's connect. But we wouldn't know or we wouldn't have that ability to say, Hey, let's connect if SARA hadn't started the conversation.   Carol: Right, yeah, no, I get that. I think that's just awesome advice. So, Susan, I think you were also the one I had heard that created this idea of having a SARA Summit quarterly with all the users. Can you tell me a little bit about that?   Susan: Yeah, sure. You know, I've been a customer of software and implementing software for over 20 years, and there's been, you know, a handful of vendors that, you know, really get that extra step, which is you got to embrace your customer and let them have perhaps a ground to just grumble and celebrate. But, you know, it comes to having a bit of a united front around the user, if you will, talking with other users of the company. How do you have this program or how is SARA doing that? You know, I feel like that is the next step that I think SARAworks is going towards and I'm so happy to help with if it comes to fruition because it is so cool as a person who is sometimes at least up in Alaska, I know my team, you know, we're trudging through something and we're, you know, trying to figure out if that's the setting that we want. And then all of a sudden, you know, I'm on a national call with like 50 other states that use this product. And we've got this like great conversation going and people are helping other people and people are like, Oh, yeah, heads up. This doesn't work. I mean, it's just a pool for knowledge. And I think that's a good step to move forward with SARAworks too.   Carol: Yeah, I think that'd be really smart because you look at all these new states coming on board and the one thing I've always loved about VR is how giving people are I mean, everybody wants to help other people out, and I love that. It isn't like, Oh, I know this and we created that and we're not going to help you. Everybody's like, Here, have it. You know, this is how we're doing it. So that is pretty cool.   Susan: Yeah, totally.   Carol: So, Susan, what is the number one thing you'd want people to take away from this conversation today? Like our listeners, What would be the number one thing you want them to take away?   Susan: Well, I struggled with this one when you sent this out, because I almost have two. My number one and I tell this to every state that is inquiring with me about SARA and it's kind of geeky. It's not flashy. It's the quality management side of me that's going to speak out for a minute. And it's the fact that we're required to check in with our clients a year after exit actually, you know, second, fourth quarter after exit. This is a federal requirement. And the thought of having our counselors manage what happens a year later after they close the client was, I can't I have no idea how other states are doing this. I have an automatic system that does it and I don't have to even think about it. And it's the most beautiful thing ever, done. I mean, I don't know what else to say. Like it's an entire data element of compliance that I barely even have to think about. It's beautiful. Thank you, Cody.   Carol: It makes me think of, like, boom, mic drop. That's the end.   Susan: And guess my number two is that there's a reason this started seven years ago, and it had to do with we need to communicate more with the individuals that we serve. I see it in case reviews that I do. And this is the tool. There's my other mic drop. They're out there, they're listening. You got to do it.   Carol: Absolutely. And you look at now the third thing that is rolling across the nation is really there are no staff. And so we need to keep in communication. We have less people to do so. So we've got to leverage other things to make that happen so that can continue to live into its mission. And we're trying to get people into competitive, integrated employment. And to do that, we need to be in contact with them.   Susan: Exactly.   Carol: And keep moving through that case. Absolutely.   Susan: Well, and I think just to add to it, it's important that at least from our standpoint, like this is not counseling. This doesn't count as a contact. We have trained our staff to say, SARA is that icebreaker and it helps you. Yes, keep in touch. But it by no means substitutes the actual counseling guidance that is required. You actually speaking with the client, not through text messaging, not through email. If anyone was listening thinking, well, are they counting that? No, not counting that as a contact at all. It just helps get in contact if need be.   Carol: Right. Well, and it helps to smooth out those contacts you need as you're chasing for things, you're chasing for a transcript, you're trying to chase people down for certain stuff. Those items, those kind of more busy calls that you have to do and all of that, it can help completely in that area. And like you said, the year after closure, like follow it up with people because that's tough to keep track of all of that.   Susan: Yeah., and I think the second day we turned on SARA, staff was saying, oh my gosh, I was about to close this client. I haven't heard from him. And I mean, it works, you know, it really does. And the fact that it keeps in touch with your clients and it's making you compliant with one of the most, like, strangely weird ways to track something a year later. God bless you, Cody. Right on.   Carol: So, Cody, what is the number one thing you'd like people to take away from this conversation today?   Cody: Well, Susan did a great job expressing it. You know, really, it's the fact that, like you mentioned, we're losing resources in terms of the number of staff, while the number of folks receiving services and needing services are increasing. So if, you know, agencies are looking for a digital assistant software that allows case managers and counselors to shift their focus, not make less work, not take things away, but really shift their focus from the administration to client outcomes by automating some of their communication and compliance. That's. SARA.   Carol: That's awesome. So, Cody, how can people get in contact with you for more information?   Cody: The best way is to go to our website. That's SARAWorks.com and you can request a demonstration and that comes directly to me. I can also be reached via email. Cody.Dixon, That's D i x o n, at SARAWorks.com.   Carol: Thank you. And Susan, I'm sure they're going to be people that are going to want to reach out to you as well and listen to your sparkling story. I love it. You have a lot of high energy, which is great. So how could folks best get in contact with you?   Susan: I would say my email would be the best way to go. Susan.Baker, b a k e r, @alaska.gov.   Carol: Well, I sure appreciate you both being on today. I think this was an important conversation to have. I'm super excited to hear about all the upgrades and the ways that SARAWorks has improved and that Alaska State that's been in it from the beginning is still using this product. So good for you guys. I hope you have a great day. Thanks much.   Susan: Thanks for having me, Carol.   Cody: Thank you, Carol. Thank you, Susan.   Susan: Yep, Thank you.   {Music} Speaker1: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!  

Our guest for today's podcast is Aaron Yoon, Assistant Professor of Accounting & Information Management at Northwestern University.  According to the Financial Times, his research on ESG was a turning point on how investors viewed and integrated ESG information and the methodologies suggested in his research have been widely implemented by asset owners and investment managers.   He has presented his research to academics, regulators, and practitioners around the World and his work has been regularly cited in outlets such as Barron's, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Forbes, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He also received multiple awards for his research and teaching, including the Chair's Core Teaching Award from Kellogg, Crowell Prize for Best Paper in Quantitative Investing from PanAgora Asset Management, Best 40 Under 40 Professors Recognition from Poets & Quants, and the Best International Accounting Dissertation Award from the American Accounting Association.   Professor Yoon earned his Doctor of Business Administration from Harvard University; he also earned his masters in Economics and bachelors in Economics and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences (MMSS) from Northwestern University. Prior to academia, he worked as an equities salestrader and research analyst at Credit Suisse, and also controlled air traffic in the 8th US Army as a Korean augmentee.   Joining me on the podcast is Susan Oh, a 25+ year veteran and widely respected investment professional at the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System (PSERS), who we featured on Episode 11 of our podcast.  Susan is a Director and Head of ESG Research where she is responsible for strategic ESG initiatives across the total plan, leading sustainability research with a focus on culture and transformative innovation to create long term value for the plan.  I was thrilled to have Susan join me as co-host for this podcast to interview Aaron.   Without further ado, here is our conversation with Professor Aaron Yoon.

A panel of speakers with strong banking, investment, and economics backgrounds speak about capital and its linkage to transforming society. Dr. Suparno Adijanto is from Indonesia, Dr. Ziezi Dillon hails from Zimbabwe and is now CEO of Carmel Global Capital in New York City, and Susan Oh is the Director of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Research and Currency Hedging for the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System (PSERS). Connect with Brett Johnson on social media: Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn Visit brettjohnson.biz for articles, devotionals, and more.

In this episode, we chat with Susan Oh and Duncan Murray, two individuals that are using blockchain technology to save our planet! Covering NFTs, the emergence of crypto and how to avoid scams, this episode is packed with useful takeaways and insights into how blockchain can be harnessed to help to save our planet. Show Notes: [00:10:37] how NFTs can help preserve the rainforest [00:17:01] Current research and development process with NFTs and preservation [00:21:32] Opportunity presented with Semi-fungible tokens [00:23:17] NFT and animal conservation [00:28:08] Why to get involved in impact projects [00:35:20] Mainstream adoption of crypto and the stabilizing influence of Defi and Stablecoins [00:43:20] Adoption [00:46:23] Crypto scams and how to avoid them [00:55:21] Will blockchain save our planet Links: Website: https://www.cudoventures.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/cudoventures?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cudoscast/ AMD: https://www.amd.com/en Algorand: https://www.algorand.com/

Susan Oh, Future of AI, Blockchain; Blockchain For Impact Global Summit @ UN HQ, Top 10 Frontier Women in DigitalSusan Oh is CMO for BeOmni by Beyond Imagination, the world's most advanced humanoid AI robots, brainchildof by XPrize cofounder Harry Kloor, and inventor Ray Kurzweil (former Chief Scientist, Google)  and the likes of Tony Robbins. Susan is the recipient of the Quantum Impact Award #DecadeOfWomen in partnership with the UN GA as one of Top Ten Frontier Women in Digital, and speaks around the world on the role of AI and blockchain in serving the UN's sustainable development goals.Susan Oh is advisor and global ambassador to NeoFlow Asset Management, Impulse4Women. She is also founder of Muckr AI (Abbreviation of Muck Record) AI, which uses machine learning to grade the trustworthiness of content based on source behavior.  Susan Oh a founding Board Member of Blockchain Commission For Sustainable Development which has support from the Office of Partnerships UN GA General Assembly. A former journalist since age 16 (CNBC, EIU, Newsweek), Susan Oh speaks around the world on digital financial inclusion, including at the UN GA, ITU, The Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Maths and Sciences, and WEF Davos.Susan Oh Interview Questions1. An introduction from you - background, overview, education... 2. Career highlights - what you did and what you are doing3. Your present company / companies, organisations / major projects and focus?- Founder of Muckr AI (Abbreviation of Muck Record) AI, which uses machine learning to grade the trustworthiness of content based on source behavior. 4. Can you tell us about BeOmni by Beyond Imagination, the world's most advanced humanoid AI robots?5. Can you tell us about your work as a founding Board Member of the Blockchain Commission For Sustainable Development which has support from the Office of Partnerships UN GA General Assembly? 6. You are  an advisor and global ambassador to NeoFlow Asset Management, Impulse4Women. Can you tell us about these organizations?7. Your work has been focused on financial inclusion models for value steps when using Al and blockchain - AI for automation, and blockchain in attempts for trustless systems for transaction. Can you elaborate on this?About Dinis Guarda profile and Channelshttps://www.openbusinesscouncil.orghttps://www.intelligenthq.comhttps://www.hedgethink.com/https://www.citiesabc.com/More interviews and inspirational videos on Dinis Guarda YouTube

Our guest for today's podcast is Susan Oh, a 25 year veteran at the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System, a $64 billion defined benefit pension plan.  Over her career at PSERS, Susan has been a serial entrepreneur and a true innovator for the fund including 1) establishing their $13 billion swap overlay program, 2) building out their currency hedging program, 3) launching their internally managed risk parity program leveraging Bridgewater, and 4) now taking on the new challenge of implementing ESG for impact and returns.  Susan is the epitome of GSD (Getting Stuff Done!)   Away from her personal accomplishments, we were inspired by Susan's strong faith and her recognition that she has a higher calling.  Having shattered both the bamboo and glass ceiling, Susan is a role model for Asian Americans and women in the industry, a responsibility she cherishes and doesn't take lightly.    Joining me on the podcast as lead host is fellow AAAIM board member, Susan Soh, Chief of Strategy and Capital Development for the Private Investments arm of Two Sigma.   Without further ado, here is our conversation with Susan Oh.

Susan Milender: Welcome to thriving on the prairie. This is a podcast exploring issues concerning families and communities that inspires North Dakota movers shakers and community difference makers to engage in lifelong learning. I'm Susan Milender, NDSU Extension family and community wellness agent and I'm located in Barnes County. And today I have the honor of visiting with Carrie Johnson, who's our NDSU specialist for family and  personal finance. So today, Carrie, we get to discuss holiday spending or maybe how not to spend during the holidays. And, you know, to start off, Carrie, I just want to say that the holidays come every year at the same time. And every year, I'm surprised that it snuck up on me.Carrie Johnson: Yeah, so we're quickly entering this holiday season of 2020 you know this year, more than others, has been a difficult year to plan for the future. So it can really almost feel like ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas'. Ideally, people would have started saving for the holidays. Shortly after the New Year, in January. But many people's circumstances changed so rapidly this year or uncertainty is really impacted people's ability to save. It does feel like the holidays came a little earlier this year than they typically do.Susan: I know Carrie, just really seriously snuck up on me and you know, I love that you said, ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas' because I can continue with that thread. By saying that I don't want to be a grinch this holiday season, even though I didn't really plan. So, you know, after all, this is the season of COVID. So who can really plan? Every day is totally different. Right?Carrie: Exactly. Susan: So, you know,  …..And I think that the holidays are stressful enough. And then we add this unpredictable nature of our economy and shutdowns, and maybe like less hours at work or less items on the store shelves, or….. gosh, delayed deliveries and not to mention that social distancing factor. So I guess I could go on and on, but, you know, Carrie I sound like a negative Nelly, sorry.Carrie: Yeah. You know, I think we could be negative about the 2020 holiday season. Or we could change our attitude and find that silver lining. Even though this year might look a little different than it has in the past, it could really be an opportunity to re-envision and reimagine what we think of the holidays. A word I've been trying to use a lot lately is pivot. So now I know not everyone likes change, family holiday traditions are a big part of this time of year. And it's really fun to dream about something that looks like one of those hallmark movies or a Pinterest picture, but we really need to be careful not to compare ourselves with others. Everyone's circumstances are different. The reality is that if we're strategic and we make a plan, we can really find ways to celebrate the holidays this year without breaking the bank.Susan Milender: Yeah, so, you know, Carrie, right now as you were talking, I was thinking about Christmas coming up and all of the holiday traditions. So, you know, if I were sitting on Santa's knee right now. I think that I would ask him for that holiday season filled with sugar plum fairies for everyone, just like you said, I love that Pinterest pictures because I had those rolling through my mind. But you know what the reality is with this year, some people are facing tough financial times. And yet others have had that good fortune of being able to continue on their regular path. So, you know, either way, we all want to be really smart with our money, and we don't want to end up with that debt hangover in January. So I'm really thankful that you're going to walk us through some tips for our finances in this holiday season.Carrie Johnson: Yeah, exactly. And there are some tips that we can all take away, like you said, whether you've had some issues with financial or some financial issues recently, or things are status quo and they're normal. Everybody can always look at some financial tips in their lives. So the first thing I really wanted to share this time of year is to set a holiday budget, which is going to be different than your typical household monthly budget. You know, how much can you realistically spend without causing future financial problems this holiday season? Will you spend the same amount that you typically do that you have in past years? Or are you gonna be spending more because you might not be traveling? Or are you going to be spending less just to save for the future a little bit and not put yourself in a financial strain? But either way, we really need to have a dollar amount set to make sure that we don't overspend.Susan: You know, Carrie, I think you just swore - I think budget should be like a four-letter word sometimes. So, you know, we're getting closer and closer to Christmas. And I'm going to just say, I have not made out a holiday budget. So where would I start?Carrie: First thing you need to do is make a list, I would say. Make a list. Check it twice. Write down absolutely all of your expenses that you typically have this time of year. Do you buy gifts, your food for meals for get-togethers, which you might not be having as much this year. Or baked goods, maybe your travel expenses, decorations - are you going to purchase more decorations. This year, more than ever, people are starting to decorate a little earlier to bring up their spirits. So maybe you are going to spend a little bit more on decorations and thinking of other things like postage and shipping. Susan: Oh boy.Carrie: So when you're listing your gifts, especially list every single person that you usually buy something for along with the amount that you plan on spending for that person. Include all people. This means small gifts, like your office gift exchange, you might not think of $15 as being a big deal, or your child's teacher's gifts. But all of these small expenses really add up fast.Susan : Yeah, you know Carrie, I'm always surprised when I think back to my Christmas and I... I look at all the big gifts, but I never think about all the stocking stuffers and little gifts that I hand out here and there, jeeze you're right they can really add up. But you know what Carrie, I love, love, love your ideas of lists and I do make a list of ideas for people. But here's where I run into a problem. And frankly, I'm not sure that you can help me with this problem because it's a discipline problem, but I'm going to hope that you have an idea. So here's what happens. I buy gifts for somebody on my list and then as it gets closer to them closer to Christmas or the holidays, I end up buying something more, and then just because I have this fear of being unfair, I buy... I feel like I have to buy for everybody else, to up the ante. So if I give five gifts to someone, I want to give five gifts to someone else, if I spend $25 on somebody. I want to spend $25 on them. So it becomes this vicious circle. So I guess I have to just stick to my list???Carrie: You know, it is difficult to stick to a budget and stick to a list sometimes, it takes commitment. You know, creating a budget is one thing. And I just do also want to want to stick this in there when you said you love lists, but budgeting, not so much. Think of a budget as a list, right? If you like to cross things off on a list. Think of your budget as a list and tracking is kind of like you're crossing things off. Just a little non holiday trick for you.Susan: I love that. That's empowering for me.Carrie: Yeah, there you go. You know, but creating that budget and tracking your spending is so important. It doesn't just have to fall under this holiday time but it's really similar to how you would do your monthly household budget. And just making that commitment. Right. You just have to say, ‘Okay, I'm done'. It is difficult. I'm not going to say it's not difficult, because I've done the same thing. I'm, I'll be completely honest with you. Or if you're in that situation where you see something, maybe you take that and replace something else that maybe you've already purchased that you could return. So you're not finding yourself in this vicious circle of spending.Susan: You know, I did also like the idea of writing it down right away. And here's another problem - that “buy with one click” is really dangerous for me. Because oftentimes I like, click away and then a box comes and then I'm like, oh yeah, now I remember ordering that so I'm telling you, every day is Christmas at the Milenders.Carrie: It is, online shopping can be extremely enticing to just click, click, click, and then you forget. Oh, that's right, I already ordered that person something. But again, you can always return things! If you've gotten yourself into a situation that you shouldn't have. It's okay to reevaluate what you've done. So you can stick to that budget because remember when you when you created that, that spending plan that that dollar amount. That was your maximum that you could spend if you go over. Where's that money coming from? So, be realistic this time of year. It is fun to give. We all love to be generous and give things to people, but we also have to be mindful and take care of ourselves this time of year too.Susan: That is so true. So you know the other area that I really think about is postage, because oftentimes, like I said, I buy online and then I can have it shipped directly to the, the person that I'm giving to, but I know that I just sent a very small like jewelry box size, gift and it was like $7. And then I thought, oh my gosh, I spent my budget for that gift, it was a birthday gift. I spent my budget for that birthday gift, but I never anticipated, adding that $7 to the gift cost.Carrie: Yep, so extra postage shipping this time of year, that needs to be budgeted in. If you're having things gift wrapped, so I know sometimes I will do that as well. I'll purchase something online and have it gift wrapped and shipped, even though the shipping is free, it might cost me $5 to have it wrapped. Which is not something I typically have budgeted for. The other thing, yeah, so making sure, like if you have Christmas cards you're mailing out. How much did those costs that postage can really add up. And then also, maybe you're doing things like a homemade gift. So you're...you're saving money there but you never budget in how much it's costing to send that homemade gift. Even though you're saving a little, you have to remember to budget what it's going to cost them to get it to that person. Because we might not be getting together this holiday season in our big groups like we typically have in the past. Looking at your budget, like I said at the beginning. What do you typically spend, but also, how's it going to be different this year? So that shipping and postage costs might be a little higher this year, than it typically has been in the past.Susan: Yeah, you know I typically send out a lot of Christmas cards, but I have to remember that I probably don't have to send to people that were on my wedding list 30 years ago, right. I mean, I could probably scale back and now you can email cards, as well. And sometimes it's just, if you think about a card as a gift, maybe? You know that might help me, as well. Yeah, you've got some great tips, now so we talked about gifts and we talked about making a budget for gifts and we talked about making a budget for postage and sticking to that list, which is really hard. But I also know traveling is going to be a little different this year. Right? And with that, we might be staying home. Eating and having fun in the kitchen. So what do you have for me on tips for food and grocery shopping.Carrie: Yeah, make sure you have your budget set for food. In my house, this is,no matter what time of year. This is my highest expense every month during every holiday season. We love eating in our house, you know, and with four teenagers, that is a quite a large expense every month. And during the holidays. So remember when you do go and buy your food, having that grocery list. And it may look different this year, if you're planning on staying home not traveling to Grandma and Grandpa's and getting ...getting fed. So, I will miss that. Or I may have done the cooking at Grandma and Grandpa's house, but I didn't have to buy the food right? It was all pre-purchased for me. I just had to send my list home. So you might have to increase that amount that you spend on food this time of year. You may be baking with the kids, a little bit more often so you might need a budget for that. But grocery stores typically are running sales this time of year on those... those ingredients. You know we just got the weekly flyers last, yesterday. Well, I don't get them - I go online and look at them every week, every Wednesday. for sales in Fargo. And, you know, this time of year, you find your traditional holiday meal ingredients, also baking supplies. And some of those things for baking, you might want to stock up on now on those ingredients that aren't going to go bad, just because you know we might start baking now and bake throughout. You know, when the kids are home from school for those few weeks, the end of December - beginning of January, just to have some activities to do together. So maybe stocking up on some of those things that are a little less expensive right now because it is the holiday season. So might be a good thing. Susan: So know that Carrie, I don't mean to interrupt, but that's a really good idea to stock up but I go back to that impulse shopping, because when I'm in the grocery store. I go in for one item and I leave with fifteen. And I just ordered online and I had it delivered and that really cut back on my impulse shopping, frankly.Carrie: YeahSusan: Just wanted to throw that in there.Carrie: I.. that's a great tip I've been doing that myself, because I love shopping for food. Again, we love to eat, and I'll see one thing and go, oh, I could make that. And then I have to go back throughout the whole store and buy 15 other ingredients to make that thing that look that sounded good to me so. Finding ways, if you know you're an impulse shopper, if finding ways to limit your trips to the store or limit the amount of time you spend browsing online shopping. Maybe deleting apps from your phone so it's not quite as easy to buy those, those things this time of year. You know, I have on my phone, I have a whole folder that says online shopping and there's probably 20 apps in there of different stores that I, I can just, you know, scroll while I'm watching TV and maybe just taking those apps off the phone will save you money and help curb your impulses.Susan: That is a good idea. I might have to take a look at that. So, now I've got my budget set, Carrie. And I have overspent on my budget. Suggestions?Carrie: It happens. This is one area that you know I talk to people and they're like, “what do I do now?” You know, you move on. You don't want to beat yourself up. Right. Sometimes we make mistakes with money and that's okay. You don't want to dwell on that and go ...You know, and bring yourself down. Acknowledge that...okay, I made a financial mistake. I need to learn from this and move on. But don't dwell on it. You know, if you can return things, do that. If not, again, move on. Don't, don't beat yourself up for, for not meeting your exact budget amount because you don't want to kind of have that dreary, sad feeling from buying. You know, buyer's remorse, it's a real thing. Do your best. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't. You know, if you if you've made a few mistakes, it's okay. You learn from them and you move forward.Susan: So we're going to start with the list and hopefully capture everybody that we're going to buy for right? Carrie: Yep.Susan: Yeah. Make a list and then we see oh gosh, my budget is probably a little bit more than I thought. Right? So, do I have your permission to like cross people off my list?Carrie: Absolutely. There's, there's nothing wrong with that, um, you have to again worry about yourself, as well. This time of year we want to be generous. A lot of you know maybe all year,during, you know, during the whole year. We want to be generous. And we do sometimes overdo it this time of year. And maybe if you're not crossing something off...someone off, maybe you're reducing the amount that you spend or the number of gifts that you give to somebody.Susan: I know you know that's a good idea because I, I feel obligated sometimes to purchase a gift for everybody that I've ever met. Or every teacher you know, my for we've got. I remember when my kids were little, we would give to the Sunday school teacher, the paras, the music teacher, the gym teacher, the principal, the school secretary... every coach. And for us adults, it might be your garbage collector, your mail person, your neighbor, your handyman, and, I don't even know, your second grade teacher. And frankly, I should be giving my UPS driver, who has quickly become my best friend during the season, a gift, but you know, I'm not sure that that's such a good idea. So I know that there will be something that comes up. Should I plan, a little extra money in my budget or will that just give me the license to spend more?Carrie: That will give you the license to spend more. Do your best to stick to your budget. But also remember holidays, it's more than just giving gifts. You know, it's more than how much we're spending on somebody. You know, this is a time to be resourceful and allow yourself not to buy a person a gift. Or if it's going to add more pressure to you, bake goods to give to everybody, you know, if you don't have the time, you don't have the resources this time this year - give yourself the okay to not to do some of these things. Breaking a holiday tradition like buying gifts can be really tough to swallow. Right? It is something we do every year. Especially if you have children there. I'll be honest, my kids expect presents every year. That's, that's really what they do. But if you need to make that tough choice for your financial future, so it's not in jeopardy. Just become a little more creative and have a conversation with your family and say this year is going to be different. Be open. Be honest. Don't scare your children into thinking that you know we're in a dire situation, but just say this year might look a little different than than years past.Susan: You know, can I say something here? That is so true, because we had a conversation with my family and I frankly thought that I was going to be opening up this can of worms. You know, changing gift giving, traditions and all, but I was really surprised, Carrie. That everyone was open to the idea of limiting gifts and frankly, I think they were relieved. I think everyone was really scared to speak up, because they were kind of scared of upsetting the status quo. So, this year with my four adult kids, four of whom are in college and broke. We decided to draw names and that's quite a change for us because we were typically, you know, everybody bought something for everybody else and then Santa came in the morning, so. We decided this year we're going to do the four gift rule, and I'm sure you've heard about that. So the four gift rule is  buying something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read. And we drew names. So we're really scaling back, but frankly, I thought everyone was relieved. Which surprised me.Carrie: Yeah, those are great ideas. You know, it leads me to my next tip for the holidays this year is yeah, that family conversation. Like you said people. basically seemed relieved. So if you're having, and maybe it's not because of financial difficulties, but if maybe everybody else is kind of on that same page going... “oh I was too afraid to bring it up”. So just having those open, honest conversations is so important when it comes to money. Making sure everybody's on the same page. Because if you're not, you're competing, right, you're competing for those same resources. So making sure everybody has, you know, you've talked about your, your financial goals for this holiday season and everybody's working toward those same goals, you're going to have a better outcome, too.Susan: Yeah, I thought it was kind of funny. I went to... my extended family draws names and then we have a theme for the year. So we spend like 20 to $25 and one year, we had a gift card exchange. And I thought that was so silly because I'm giving you $20 and then you're giving me back $20 and I don't know. It just seemed kind of silly to me. But this year, what we're doing is we're creating gifts around the 12 Days of Christmas. So sometimes we've done, like neck up or waist down or your favorite color. But we can get super creative and spend less money that way. So…Carrie:Yeah. Susan: Resourceful. Right?Carrie: Yeah, you know, and even if money is not an issue, you can still do other things to, for to change things. So this year in our household so again, I have four teenagers But I plan on taking them shopping, they're each getting $25 to actually spend on a gift for.. to donate. So not just teaching them about getting gifts this time of year, but also that there are people out there who are less fortunate, who may have lost a job, who may have had their hours cut. And providing them with that lesson that we need to have compassion during the holiday season and that we can help others too, and not just worry about what we're getting.Susan: And oh my gosh, I love that. I love that idea of giving them money to donate. What a great idea. So, I want to go back for a second, to online shopping, because so many people are going to be clicking this, this season. Do you have any tips for us?Carrie: Yeah, making sure you're staying safe while online shopping is going to be a big issue this year. First and foremost, make sure you're on a reputable site. If you're buying from, making sure you're buying from a secure website someone's looking at the URL and making sure there's the HTTPS, which means it's a secure site when you're checking out instead of just HTTP. That's going to help you out a little bit. Checking yourSusan: Wait, time out. Time out on that. You said HTTPS?Carrie: S. Yes. S as in SAM. Correct.Susan Milender: Well, I didn't know that. So if it's HTTP, it's a, it's not a legit site.Carrie: It is a legit site. It's not secure to enter your, like financial information. So if you ever are checking out from an online retailer, double check. Or if you're ever putting personal information in online somewhere, double check that there's the ‘s' there because that shows you that site is secure.Susan: Oh, that's really interesting. Thanks for that. Yeah definitely look. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.Carrie: Know that's perfect, I wanted to make sure you had that clarification. That's great. But also checking your bank and credit card statements closely. Or these days, you don't have to wait until your statements come out, you can check pretty much every day if you want. To make sure there's been no fraudulent charges to make sure you can catch anything that happens on there as quickly as possible so you can dispute that. And then if you do pay your balances on your credit card every month, one thing I would suggest is using a credit card this time of year. Because it doesn't give sellers direct access to the money in your bank account and credit cards have the zero liability for fraudulent purchases. So, it's just a little bit safer for you and protecting your money.Susan: Do you mean safer than a debit card? Is that what you mean?Carrie: Yes. Because if you're providing your debit card information, that's providing information to your entire bank account right. People could take money out of your account and it's a little more difficult to get money back, than it is to just dispute charge on your credit card.Susan: Hmm. You know, I know my son just disputed a charge. And just like that, they took care of it. The company was easy. And I, you know, the other thing I wanted to go back to was postage. So when we're shopping online, and we're thinking about sites that might offer free shipping, is that safe?Carrie: Yeah. Free shipping is a great perk you know, and and helps us save money. Now, during the holidays and all year right. We love free shipping. But you also need to think about the other angles with the free shipping. you know, for example, maybe you won't be able to see your family in person this year, and you want to ship something directly to them. But you have to spend a minimum sometimes to get the free shipping. So, I do see a lot of times people go, “oh, I spent this much to get free shipping”.Susan: I have done that! Carrie: Yeah. So is that free shipping really saving you any money? Or, you know, if you decide to shop for gifts in your hometown and, and buy from your small businesses to help your local economy and help your small businesses out in your community, they might not be able to offer free shipping and that might be okay. So really looking at the trade-off of this free shipping. You know, spending a few dollars on shipping could be an okay thing if you're getting a benefit out of it.Susan: When we've got so many fun North Dakota local businesses, that it's really fun to shop at those little stores or even online for, to support our local businesses. I just love that idea.Carrie: And I love….. I love sending North Dakota things home to South Dakota to see the reaction in my family.Susan Milender: You could be evil that way, couldn't you. I'm sure when they open the gift. They're like, Oh gosh! Do you get South Dakota gifts then back?Carrie: I get text messages.Susan: Well, Carrie, I just want to wrap this up by asking you if you have any more tips for me about holiday spending this year?Carrie: You know, with the holidays fast approaching, the earlier you can start the better. You know the National Retail Federation found that 42% of holiday shoppers have started earlier this year than they normally do. So planning ahead is, is key. You know, if you can spread those expenses over multiple paychecks it's going to make it a little bit easier on yourself, if you if you didn't put that money in savings at the beginning of the year. And then once your budget and your list are created, do your best to stick to it - it's really tempting to buy something just because it's on sale. I get it. Retailers and marketers are really smart, so they know how to get us to spend money. But those impulse purchases can really impact your family finances over the next several months and maybe even years, depending on how much you spendSusan: Yeah, you know, I am going to heed your warning. I'm going to really stick to my list because I know it's not only good for my budget, but frankly, it's also good for my stress levels. Right, sticking to my budget, and I, I am going to try to start shopping early because I've also heard that deliveries might get delayed. And here's, here's what I envision happening is my delivery might get delayed and then I panic and then I spend way more money because I didn't plan ahead. So, I think that I'm going to heed all your warrant, all your advice about sticking to my budget, making a list, not impulse shopping, and planning ahead. And, and then also communicating and being open to changes this holiday season. And frankly, Carrie, sometimes I just needed me to hear that I have permission to say no. You know, I have permission to say no to maybe those extra things in my budget or extra things in my, in my schedule that can really make me forget about the fundamental reason for this celebratory season. So it comes down to people matter and not things. So, Carrie, I want to really thank you for empowering me to look at the season a little differently. And I'm going to take my Grinch hat off and I'm going to cherish the opportunity to refocus this year on holiday traditions. So with that, I want to thank everyone for listening to Thriving on the Prairie and to subscribe to the podcast and access the full transcript, as well as resource links from this episode. visit www.ag or AG. ndsu.edu/thrivingontheprairie and you can find more resources for families and communities at this website www.ag.ndsu.edu/extension. This has been a production of NDSU Extension. Extending knowledge, changing lives.

  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.    

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.

At the Odyssey Hackathon, earlier this year, Lykle was able to have a talk with Susan Oh, co-chair for AI at the ngo Blockchain for Impact. They talk about the various ways “blockchains” and artificial intelligence can work together and reinforce each other. She is also a “professional AI and blockchain BS detector”, and much of her work involves channeling precious time and energy towards the few projects that actually solve a real problem and are possible and somewhat scalable. Susan shares some interesting thoughts on ecosystem building, entrepreneurship, incentives and public-private cooperation. A “public digital infrastructure” is great, but without a culture that rewards entrepreneurship and risk-taking, very little will be built on that infrastructure ...

Susan Grace is a writer, intuitive, and empathic astrologer dedicated to the Collective’s call to usher in the End of Suffering. She has read thousands of charts for people of all walks of life from all over the world. She says she does this work to ensure no one feels alone in the massive shift happening in the world. And she has some important messages we need to hear right now. GUEST LINKS - SUSAN GRACE betheevidencepodcast.com podcast betheevidence.live platform | community susangrace.org HOST LINKS - SLADE ROBERSON Slade's Books & Courses Get an intuitive reading with Slade Automatic Intuition FACEBOOK GROUP Shift Your Spirits Community BECOME A PATRON https://www.patreon.com/shiftyourspirits Edit your pledge on Patreon TRANSCRIPT Slade: You write on your site, I climbed my way out of a deep dark well I had fallen into by feeling my way through astrology and listening to the whispering guidance from souls beyond the veil. Tell me the story behind that. Susan: Well I looked up and found that everything was falling apart. And I fought it for a long time. I tried to hold everything up with duct tape. I could feel that energies bigger than me were saying, You don't understand. You're done here. So I finally gave in and I just felt like something bigger than me was guiding, and I thought, Alright! Whatever you feel like you need to take down, because it's in my best interest, go ahead. But if we're going to do this, we're gonna do it all right now. Because I'm not doing this for ten years. And I swear, it was like the planets went, You heard the lady. And just... WHAM! It took everything down! All the rest of it! And I had to trust it. I had to trust that it was in my favour, that it knew what it was doing, and I had to ride it out. I ended up on the other side, exactly where I needed to be, course-corrected. And that made me start to dig into astrology and say, I need to understand what's happening here. Because I can't figure this all out by myself. I've got my limited perception as a human, can't figure all this out by myself. I need help. And so I just started digging and digging and digging and digging into the astrology to learn what was happening. And that's how I got started. Slade: How far back does your interest in astrology go? Was this something that you dabbled in when you were younger? Do you have a lifelong history with astrology? Susan: Well, I have a lifelong history with horoscopes, just sun signs, right? When I was coming up, there was no internet. We had things like newspapers and magazines. And I would follow horoscopes for the same reason. I needed help. I'd take all the help I can get. But then, once the internet came out, and once I saw my chart, I saw my chart in 2012, and that changed me forever. Then I was like, Oh, this is what I need! This is the key I've been looking for. Slade: Wow... So how did you get from that epiphany to actually doing readings for other people professionally? Susan: Social media. When I first started really reading, I felt like these astrologers I was listening to were talking a lot about all the mechanics within a chart, but they weren't putting it all together. I kept ending up saying to myself, I hear what you're saying, but what do you mean? What are you talking about? What does this ultimately mean? And I got to the point where I could sit in a chart for the day, and I'd figure out everything that was happening, and I would be like, Alright, this looks like anxiety. And then I would go and take art images and match that with the astrology, within social media. Nobody knew what the hell I was doing. All I was doing was feeling it out, mostly for myself, but then it caught on. And people started to share it a lot. And then, eventually it got to the point where people are going, Can you look at my chart? I was like, I'm not an astrologer. And then they kept saying it. I had a friend of mine who said, Susan, I'm going to PayPal you, and you are going to open my chart and read it. And I said, Okay! And then that's when it started. I had a friend of mine who had me on one of her shows. The two other panelists, off mic, were saying, Are you an astrologer? And I said no. And they're like, I believe you are! They had an intervention with me. And then it really got to where people wanted to hear what I had to say, not just my interpretation through art. The art fell away and now it's just me and my voice. Slade: Mmm... What do you think makes your astrological readings different from other astrologers? Susan: In my personal chart, I have a lot of water, water signs, which, in astrology, that means that I feel everything all the time. When I'm in a chart with someone, I walk them all the way through it. I've had readings with other astrologers and they give you basic, broad interpretations of your chart. When I read a chart for someone, I read EVERYTHING in their chart to them. Every placement. Every aspect. Every transit. Where the planets are now. And the phases of life they're going to go through. I tell them everything. They should know as much as I do about their own chart. And then I'm able to feel it too. I'm able to say, This looks like, for instance, something really rough happened when you were a kid and you've been trying to make up for it since then. And they're like, YES. And I'm like, Alright, well let's talk about it. And I get them all the way through feeling out who they are too. Not just book knowledge. Slade: So you use your intuition quite a bit then. Susan: Oh, yeah! And I did not even plan on this. When I first started reading... I'm gonna go ahead and tell you the truth about this... Slade: Mmhmm! Susan: When I first started reading, the very first professional one I did, someone's deceased father came through from the other side and I had never experienced that before. I decided on the fly to be brave and be like, Listen, this is going to sound crazy, but this is the energy I feel right behind me. As if this person is here. I described that they were in blue jeans wearing a t-shirt and they had a hammer in their hands. And they were like, tapping the hammer into their other hand, as if they're frustrated. And she said, Ohmygod. That's my dad. He used to build fences. And I said, Well I don't think he likes your boyfriend. And she said, I don't think he does either! So yeah, weird things like that have opened up, since I've become a professional reader. So it's a lot of intuition, it's a lot of messages from guides, it's a lot of outside energy saying things like, Tell them again! Tell them again! Tell them again! Tell them again! Sometimes I have to say, Alright! Back up! I just said it. I will say it again. But back up a little bit. It's that kind of stuff. Slade: Mmm... I have to tell you that, looking at someone's chart is my portal into reading for them and that was how I started doing intuitive readings was, if I know someone's sun, moon and rising sign, I can do an intuitive reading based on those three pieces of information. But for some reason, it's like... I've heard of other psychics who use even playing card decks or they have a coin that they twirl in their hand or they have these weird ticks that they have that are kind of their little gateway ritual, or whatever. And mine has fallen away to be just intuitive. But for a long time, that was how I would tune in to someone. I would just go and I would cast their chart and I would look into their chart. And I used to say, I wasn't even really reading their chart. It was more like the graphic became sort of the window. It was like a symbolic window. But if I looked through that window, it became representative of connection to that person. So that's very interesting that you have this combined, intertwined experience with that as well. It makes total sense to me. Because, same kind of thing. I was sort of drafted. Hey, can you read for me? Can you connect with my guides? ... I can try! That's sort of how it happens. I always think about what happened to you, with your friends being an example of one of those... The Purpose that the Universe picks for you, as opposed to maybe the one that you would've picked for yourself. You know what I mean? It's like, Nope. Here's your Purpose! You're drafted. Susan: Yeah. In my chart, I have placements around the galactic centre and when that happens, often the Purpose of your life, they come and get you. I could go hide under the bed. They were still gonna come get me somehow. You know, if you go back to my 10 year old self, my 20 year old self, and said, What do you want to be when you grow up? I never would've said an astrologer online. Because there was no astrologers and there was no online! It didn't exist! So that feeling of something coming to find you, I don't know, I'm noticing it happening more and more to people, no matter what placements they have in their chart. Because we're all kind of being called up right now. We're all needed in the world. Slade: Mmm... 2012. That was such a milestone year, expectantly. Like something was supposed to happen in 2012 and it did for you. For sure. Susan: So it happened for the world too. We just haven't seen it all play out just yet. You'll see. 2020 is the next marker and you're going to see it play out even more. Something DID happen in 2012. Slade: Mmm... Can you tell us? Susan: Sure! Slade: Well you're here! Go for it. Susan: If you've been following things like this, December 21, 2012 was the end of the Mayan calendar. People were saying it was the end of the world, and that's not true. It was the end of the world as we knew it. And what happened in 2012 was our solar system, which orbits around our sister star Sirius, was coming out of the darkest part of its orbit from Sirius. When we're closest to Sirius, we're the most conscious. When we're the furthest from Sirius, we're the least. It takes 2000 years for our solar system to go through the darkest part of its orbit from Sirius. We came out of that in 2012. Also in 2012, the same year, there's a planet called Regulus, very big planet that marks the leadership of the world. It takes 2000 years for Regulus to go through a sign. The exact same 2000 years, Regulus was in Leo. When we were in darkness, or unconsciousness, we were king and kingdom led. 2012 the same year that we're coming back into consciousness, Regulus clicked in to Virgo. Now the leadership of the world for the next 2000 years is the healing goddess energy. And the healing goddess energy is coming for everyone. Everyone is going to be healed one way or another. Slade: Mmm... So what happens in 2020? Susan: In 2020, Pluto is in Capricorn. Last time just Pluto was in Capricorn was when U.S. signed the Declaration of Independence. Saturn will cross Pluto in 2020. The last time Saturn and Pluto together were in Capricorn was the Renaissance. When Saturn crosses Pluto in 2020, Jupiter will be here too. The last time those three were in Capricorn was the year 1284, in the middle of our darkness. So the control of the world is going to flip. That control mechanism, fear mechanism, suppression, oppression, all of those are going to collapse and we are going to replace it with what we truly find valuable. It's Uranus going through Taurus. So it's going to be going back and healing the planet. It's going to be healing our own traumas from being suppressed and pushed down. It's going to be building new systems for education and for finding water for people, for healthcare systems, everything. Everything is going to be rebuilt. Slade: This is good news. Susan: Yeah! Slade: Hallelujah. Ohmygosh. That's really good to hear, Susan, because it's been a rough couple of years. Susan: it's been rough for all of us and people are exhausted. Exhausted! And if you don't understand... This is one of the reasons I will never ever put astrology down. If you don't understand where we are, what's been happening and where we're going, you could give up! And this is NOT the time to give up. I keep saying over and over and over. And I'm gonna keep saying it. We are going UP not down. So if you're starting to witness collapse, what you need to pay attention to and what you need to participate in is what's replacing it. Because the collapse is going to happen with our without your participation. And you want it to happen. But what comes next? Go there. Slade: I love it. So, I have to ask you, just really quickly before we move on from your readings, do you record your sessions? Is that an option for people? Susan: Yes, I record sessions and then I send it. I do it face to face on Zoom so that I can share my screen with them and I can show them everything I'm talking about in their chart. And I record it and I send it to them through Dropbox. Slade: Okay, excellent. Because I was just thinking, I have the wonderful benefit of having recorded you saying all of that. And I also have a transcriptionist. So I have access to that information and I wanted to make sure, because something shifts when you start reading like that. Like you kind of become a channel, a little bit. Susan: Oh yeah. And I can tell whenever I'm channeling. My voice gets more forceful and I start talking faster. I become very emphatic. It's almost like my feminine water steps aside and the masculine comes forward and starts being like, Pay attention. I'm telling you something important. Slade: Right. Susan: And then it kind of fades off. And then the water in me comes back more. Slade: I love it though. It's so cool because I've been listening to a lot of your podcast with Aubrey. Most people will have listened to my interview with Aubrey Cara. She's your co-host on the show Be the Evidence. Aubrey and I ended up talking about you so much in that interview that I literally Facebook-messaged you the minute we were finished recording. I was like, Your ears have to be burning. You need to come do an interview with me immediately, otherwise people are gonna be like, Where's the other chick, you know? So you've been on my list of potential guests from the beginning of my show for over a year. A lot of my listeners actually recommended you to me, but at that time, this newer podcast actually wasn't even out yet. So I feel like the timing has worked out. It's a very cool show concept. I have been listening to it as preparation for speaking with both of you guys. I love it because it is very much about what's going on in the moment. I'm going to turn it over to you and let you tell me about this show, Be the Evidence, from your perspective. Tell me about the name and the concept and what it's all about. Susan: Sure. It was, I guess two years ago. I was working with someone when I was still in my executive position at a corporate job and the president of the company had cancer. And I was in Houston with him helping him go through treatment. I was in the hotel room and I really felt like I was around that air of, I don't know if you've ever cared for someone who has something like that. There's like a heaviness around it. There's a heavy energy around it. I found myself going, How do I know that I'm right, that we come out of things like this? How do I know I'm right when I say, We heal out of suffering. We are healing out of suffering. We're going up not down. How do I know I'm right about that? Instantly, it came: You have to be the evidence of it. So I wrote down, Be the Evidence. And that became a tag on my website, and then (sorry there's a siren outside my window). Slade: Of course there is. There was a large truck moving some limbs around earlier on my end. It's part of the humanizing charm of our show. Susan: So when Aubrey and I started talking about doing a podcast, and she said, What do you think about the concept? Well it comes from my website, and I don't know how you feel about that but I'm kind of stuck on this Be the Evidence thing. And she's like, I don't care if it came from your website. I like it. Let's do it! That's where we come from, is that you have to be the evidence in the world. It's not going to do for us to all sit back and pontificate about where we think we should be going, with humanity. We've got to get out there and do it, in all of our questioning, in all of our confusion, in all of our vulnerability, in all of our going, I don't know what's going on, do you? Nope! And we have to keep doing it. You have to keep showing up. Show up! And be the evidence of what we can become, because nobody else is coming to do it. Slade: Mmm... The thing I love about your show is, it feels like a conversation that I have with some of my closest girlfriends, who will text me and be like, What the hell is going on?? Is something in retrograde or you know? And I mean, I'm not even an astrologer, but I usually am well versed enough in some of what's going on, or I will have picked it up, or heard it from this person or that person. So I will engage them with whatever little piece of new age perspective I have on it. A lot of those conversations actually end up being my content for my show, my blog post. One of my PR people. She and I became really close friends and for awhile, she would text me once a week and ask me some kind of heady question. I was like, That's a really cool question. Keep asking me those! Because they were generating stuff. So it reminds me, when I listen to you and Aubrey, it reminds me of those conversations. It feels like we're eavesdropping on Aubrey calling you up and saying, What's going on in the sky? And then your... whatever it is that happens, you start channeling, right? You're a channel. It'll go through this conversational phase, and then you have these moments where it's like, Susan is up on the soapbox telling it to us. I love it because it's really in the moment. You did a show on the full moon in Aries, which was a day or two ago. And I can listen to that in that moment when I'm feeling that energy. So you guys do 3 shows a week. It is very much in the moment. I'd like to hear a little bit about the process. How does that all work? Susan: The process is what it sounds like. Aubrey and I will, just for a few minutes, before we start recording, off mic, that's exactly what happens. I go, How are you feeling? She's like, Not so good! And then I'm like, Okay, let me show you what's happening in our charts. And she's like, That explains it. And I'm like, So these points I think are the strongest points of what's going on. And she goes, I agree. Let's go. And then we just hit record. We don't talk about how far we're going to go. We don't set up any kind of outline. We just start talking. So we have noticed, I think we're on number 24 now. We've noticed that we've started developing a pattern without even talking about it. We get on when we're both very human, very vulnerable, going, Man, I feel lost too. Wow. And then we get on a roll. And then there's a chan... Like you say, like you describe it, sounds like there's a channeling step going on. Something bigger comes through. By the time we finish, we both go, Right, that was complete. That's it. We laugh sometimes because it really is like you guys are listening in on us processing what the hell is happening. That's exactly what we do. Slade: I love that. I mean, it's such a cool concept. I try to keep everything really evergreen with what I do. But I do introductions that are very much in the moment. And I talk about my personal life and those often take on a life of their own. Sometimes I'm like, Wow, that was better than the planned segment. So I love the philosophy behind your show. I love the way that you approach it. It's very much the same kind of idea that we have here for this conversation. This is you and I meeting for the first time, talking about things that we have in common and the conversation has a life of its own. But you guys are impressively cranking out these episodes. Like, you make a lot of them. Susan: That was by choice. We started out, I think the first one was a week apart. We did it just weekly. And then we're like, that's too long. So we went to two a week. So we podcast on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We felt like Friday to Monday was too long. And so now we're up to three. And we've talked about going daily, and we might! Because we really feel like the energy is saying, No you don't understand. All hands on deck right now. And we are meeting that call. We're ready. We're ready to show up for the collective and anything that's going to happen, we are totally going to walk straight through this with people. We want to make ourselves available as much as we possibly can. Slade: I love it. I think it's a really cool show concept. I've been enjoying it. I don't know how other people will work it into their daily... Maybe they'll listen to it on their commute, or when they're on the train or the bus, or driving. I listen to it when I'm shaving. Like when I take my shower and I'm shaving. Because they're 20 minutes. It's a good amount of time to kind of check in every day, or maybe on those days where you really do feel like, Something's going on this week! I'm gonna see if what I'm feeling is right. And one of the things I've noticed about you even off mic, before we really started recording is, you have a very eloquent way of succinctly kind of stating things that it would take me a whole paragraph to say. And then you'll say something that's a phrase. I call those Shining Sentences. That is a channeled thing. Like the name for your show and how that came through. That was a shining sentence. You speak in shining sentences! You have a very poetic quality to your content, especially when it's written - your Facebook posts, your website. I notice that you even style them.. They're blocked on the page more the way that poetry is. Which, anyway, I just think is cool. I'm just analyzing you for the fun of it. Sometimes we're not aware of what we're doing artistically. Other times it's super intentional. Am I right in assuming that all those things are kind of part of what you're trying to create and I'm just picking it up? Susan: First of all, it's intentional but it's not my intent. When people finally started saying, We need to hear your words, it just started coming out in verse. I don't know why. And it still comes out in verse. Sometimes I go back to my own posts, going, What the hell is happening? And then I read my own and I go, Oh, okay. Yeah, right. Got it. But also, I've had more than one person tell me, when they finally talk to me, beyond just reading my words, they're like, Oh, you talk like you write! And I don't realize I'm doing it. Slade: That's very cool. It's a unique style and I like it. It's one of the things that draws me in. The use of the astrological vocabulary, I'm a little bit fluent in that so... But even sometimes when you talk about things that are really nuanced, I get the energy of what you're saying because of the way that you say it. There's a layer. It's definitely got a poetic quality to it. I can't find a better way to describe it. When we were writing back and forth, corresponding about the show, you wrote to me saying that you believe we are web-building right now. What did you mean by that? Susan: Well it's a very old paradigm, very patriarchal, to feel like there's one person going to do all the heavy lifting and then we're all going to follow that one person. No. That's not what we're doing anymore. Now we all rise together. We share resources, we share ideas, we support each other. We cross-promote. We are here to build a tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter web. A web of us all coming up together. Because there a power in our numbers. And because we all house our own special kind of tapped-in to the energy, all kinds of resources, our own specialties, our own bodies of knowledge. We all have something different and it's all needed. And so we build these things together. If you're out there competing right now, you've already lost. You have to find what you're really good at and then hook up with everybody else and what they're really good at. And conversely, if you're going out and you think you're gonna do what everybody else is doing, wrong answer. If it's already been done, it's already dead. So find what you do really well, your own specific way, and then we build webs. We don't fight each other. We join together. Slade: One of my marketing mentors, he has a very progressed view of what it means to put yourself out there, as a business person. He always says, You find a group of people and then you become relentlessly helpful. Susan: Yes! Slade: That, to him, is the definition of marketing. Find a group of people that speak your language, that are like-minded, and then go be relentlessly helpful. I love that. I don't know that I'm always pulling it off, but it's definitely in my mind to lean towards that, right? I feel my own practice expanding when I chose to do the podcast. It became a platform for other people to talk, not just me. And that was a huge shift! I was surprised, as someone who likes to control everything, you know, a perfectionist, south node in Virgo I think is the way you would say that... Susan: Yeah! Slade: Moving into that more Piscean kind of north node mindset or whatever, for me, has been about recognizing how good it feels to collaborate with people. Susan: Yeah. Listen Slade, south node in Virgo, right? Slade: Mmhmm. Susan: South node in Virgo people, it's not just that you're perfectionists. It's also that you've got this thing where you feel like everything is up to you. Nobody else is gonna do it so I gotta do it. And people with south node in Virgo, it's like you've got bleeding calluses on your hands, because you're the one doing all the work. Everybody else has already gone home and you're still doing it. And north node in Pisces is trying to say, Listen, there's a greater force of life at play here too. And you can allow that to contribute. It doesn't have to all be on you. Slade: Yes. Yes! Hence these wonderful interviews that I do. Do you realize how much easier it is for me to record an interview with you than it is to prepare an episode where it's just me? Just the actual workload of what is involved is so completely different. The energy is so different collaborating with people. And it feels so cool to be, to feel, I said to someone, I said, I feel like I'm kind of hosting a party for a bunch of people. I'm not teaching anyone anything. I'm inviting a lot of really interesting people to come together and hang out and interact. That's where it feels like it's growing, and I love that because it's actually easier, Susan. It's actually easier to let other people do some of the work, especially the parts that they're better at. Susan: And don't you know that's teaching people a lot? We're teaching people a lot in doing that. We're showing that you're a way-shower. Slade: Mmm... I've heard that before. Susan: The thing about a way-shower is that you go out in front and you figure things out. And then people are going, I don't know what to do. You go, Hang on, five more minutes. I've almost got it figured out. And you figure it out! And then you go, Okay, now I got it. And you show people the way. And what I've been trying to say to way-showers is, really think about that in the opposite direction too. Think about the miracle of you, figuring out a way, and showing people you haven't even met yet, people out there who feel lost, have someone up ahead thinking about them, and they don't even know their name. That's a miracle. Slade: Mmm... Thank you for that. That was really lovely. What do you hope to contribute to this greater collective, you know, when we think about personal development, and maybe that term isn't even a really good one anymore, from what you and I have been discussing and describing. But what do you hope to kind of contribute to the conversation about astrology, about spirituality, about human evolution. Susan: Oh, for sure, I know this sounds kind of grandiose but I really believe it, in my bones, that this wave of humanity, if you're alive on the planet today, you are part of a wave that is going to bring humanity out of suffering. We are the bridge between suffering and liberation. Sometimes that can feel like you're being pulled apart, like you don't know which side is going to win. But I'm telling you, that we are going to pull humanity all the way out of suffering and we are going to heal ourselves. Now is the time. That's the task that this generation, this wave of humanity, has. So whenever you feel overwhelmed with suffering, when you feel overwhelmed with pain, you feel overwhelmed in darkness, it's important to remember that this is the last of it. We're meant to get in and heal it all the way out. Don't stop. You have to keep going. Because that's what we're being called for to do. Slade: Susan, thank you for taking the time to come and speak with me today. Susan: My pleasure. Slade: So tell everybody where they can go to find you online, if they want to get a reading with you or if they want to find your podcast. Susan: I am at SusanGrace.org so you can read more about me there. Or under the Services page, where my readings are listed. And I also have a set of, what I call 'The Papers'. These are just short little write-ups I've done for trends that I see in people's charts. Those are available there too. Be the Evidence is under Be the Evidence, whatever podcast you're streaming, including iTunes. And then on SimpleCast we're under Be the Evidence as well. And on Facebook, I'm under Susan Grace, and on Instagram as well, Susan Grace. Slade: Wonderful. We'll put all those inks in the Show Notes to make it really easy. That was great, Susan. Thank you for coming on. Susan: Thank you for having me.

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/

Bootstrap Capital, a non-profit organization, partners with the City of Atlanta to host EnrichHER, on April 27, 2017 at 6:00 PM at Atlanta Tech Village. EnrichHER is a citywide event featuring Atlanta’s most successful women executives; and local women-led companies will be given the opportunity to pitch their businesses for the chance to win a $5,000 grant. EnrichHer is an initiative developed by Dr. Roshawnna Novellus , with the support of Atlanta City Council President Ceasar C. Mitchell’s, “Back to Business” program. According to the 2016 State of Women-Owned Business Report , Georgia was listed as a top ten state for spurring economic growth among female business owners. “My Back to Business program is partnering with EnrichHER so that more women-led businesses may flourish within the City of Atlanta,” says Mitchell. EnrichHER will be an evening of sharing, learning and leading. The program includes networking, panel discussions, keynote presentations, and a business pitch competition. Dr. Novellus will share the stage with Lisa Nicole Cloud , founder, Women’s Empowerment Network and serial-entrepreneur; Kimberly Blackwell , advisor, PMM & NBWC ; Susan Oh , managing partner, Telemundo ; Veronica Maldonado-Torres , program director, Georgia Protege Project ; Genevieve Bos , managing partner, Thought Capital ; and Rashan Ali , multi-media personality. Judges for the business pitch competition will include: Grace Fricks , president, Access to Capital For Entrepreneurs ; Theia Washington , executive director, Women's Entrepreneurship Initiative ; and Dina Marto , founder of Twelve Studios . EnrichHer is the first city-wide effort aimed at connecting women in business with local resource organizations providing funding, childcare, mentorship, educational trainings, grant opportunities, and other business resources that increase long-term sustainability. “My vision for EnrichHER is to be a resource for networking and educating entrepreneurs on everything that is available to support and help them become successful.” states Dr. Roshawnna Novellus, “That's what makes us different. Many of these organizations do well, but operate in silos, sometimes their messages only go so far, limiting their reach, but if we unified all of these diverse businesses, they could truly benefit from each other." Tickets, speaker and panelist bios, and vendor opportunity information are available online at, EnrichHER.co . To join the conversation follow the hashtag #EnrichHER on Twitter , Instagram , and Facebook . ### About Dr. Roshawnna Novellus Dr. Roshawnna Novellus , known as the Wealthy Yogi, is the co-founder of Bootstrap Capital and Host of Startup Funding. She is passionate about helping business owners ready to attract funding. She provides financial investments to local businesses and educates them on financial management . Dr. Novellus has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, WSJ, and Rolling Out. She has also completed the Pipeline Angels Fellowship, a Kauffman program in angel investing. Roshawnna serves on the Commission on Women for the City of Atlanta, and was honored as one of the Women Who Means Business by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. About Bootstrap Capital Bootstrap Capital is laser-focused on helping early stage companies achieve what others believe is impossible. Bootstrap Capital is a non-profit organization that connects entrepreneurs with the resources, networks, and funding needed to be successful. Through their hybrid approach, they partner with passionate founders who are looking to transform large markets. Their tagline is: “We are entrepreneurs investing in entrepreneurs.”

Just for the podcasters - a little bit extra from the acerbic wit of London's longest-serving talkshow host!

Katz, Susan. OH, THEODORE

Learn how to take and leave phone messages in this podcast. Slow dialog: 0:57 Explanations: 3:42 Fast dialog: 21:10 I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home. As soon as I walked in the door, though, the phone rang. Paolo: Hello. Evelyn: Hi, could I speak to Tony? Paolo: He’s not here right now. Can I take a message? Evelyn: Do you know when he’ll be back? Paolo: No, I don’t. Evelyn: Okay. I’ll call back later. Thanks. …… Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. Paolo: Hello. Pam: Hi, is Tony there? Paolo: No, he’s out. Pam: Could I leave a message? Paolo: Sure. Give me a second to get something to write with…Okay, I’m ready. Pam: Could you tell him that Pam called and ask him to call me back as soon as he can. Paolo: Does he have your number? Pam: He should, but I’d better give it to you. It’s 279-555-6347. Paolo: Okay, I’ll tell him. Pam: Thanks. ….. As soon as I put down the receiver, the phone rang again. I couldn’t believe it. Paolo: Hello. Susan: Hi, is this Tony? Paolo: No, I’m his roommate, Paolo. Tony’s not here right now. Susan: I need to get a hold of him. Do you have his cell number? Paolo: Uh, yeah, I do, but I’m not sure he wants me to give it out. Susan: Oh, I’m sure he’d want me to have it. Paolo: I tell you what. Why don’t I take your number and have him call you back? Susan: I really need to get a hold of him right away. Paolo: I’ll give him your message as soon as he gets home. Susan: Fine. This is Susan and my number is 742-555-3655. Please make sure he gets it. It’s important. Bye. Paolo: Bye. As soon as she hung up, I took the phone off the hook for the rest of the night. I’d had enough of being Tony’s answering service for one night! Script by Dr. Lucy Tse