Podcast appearances and mentions of susan yes

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

Welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining Carol Pankow in the studio today is Susan Pugh, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation with the Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities. Susan has worked within the agency in a variety of capacities including, VR Counselor, Assistant Area Manager, and Assistant Deputy Director.   In this episode, Susan discusses Ohio's rapid engagement process and the Lean approach that has reduced onboarding time and ushered in more customers. Susan and Carol cover a lot of the initiatives that Ohio has implemented to enable them to speed up the process so that customers are trained and employed as soon as possible.   Listen Here   Full Transcript   VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Get in and Get er' Done! How Ohio Makes VR Work for Customers!   {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: Welcome to the Manager, Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Susan Pugh, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation in the agency called Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities. Now that's a mouthful. Susan has worked within the agency in a variety of capacities, including VR counselor. She's been an assistant area manager and assistant deputy director. Susan, it's so great to have you here today. How are things going in Ohio?   Susan: Things are great. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today.   Carol: All right. Well, today's topic is covering this idea of rapid engagement and the idea behind that is getting customers in and moving as quickly as possible. So they are successful in your agency has been using that lean process to completely revamp many of your processes and procedures. And I know that private industry has successfully used Lean for many years to improve manufacturing processes. But I know sometimes it doesn't always translate over to VR because we don't make widgets, after all. But we do work with people, and I know VR often creates really complicated processes to help individuals move through the VR system. So when I was in Minnesota, our governor had brought forward the idea of using lean throughout state government with some pretty successful results. I remember our license bureau for when undergoing a huge overhaul and where it would take weeks and months to get license plates and get your license. They were able to get that down to a matter of days, and so that was excellent. I know we also had to have a lean coordinator in each of our agencies that would report up to the governor on a quarterly basis, and we really put a lot of effort into that and you were able to get exposed to this same concept through your agency director Kevin Miller. And I remember talking with you a little bit ago that you really done a lot to examine your agency's processes and practices so you can do more for individuals with disabilities. So let's chat about this. Can you talk to me a little bit about your introduction to Lean and how it works in your agency?   Susan: Yes. Our director, Kevin Miller, joined O.D. back in January of 2011, and one of the first things that he did was establish a division of performance and innovation for the agency, and now that that division is called our Division of Employer and Innovation Services, and that deputy director was tasked with bringing lean into the organization. And like you mentioned in Minnesota, we have a lean Ohio office that provides all kinds of resources and support for state agencies who want to do this. So the way we kind of started out was members of executive team went to something that was called at the time, a champion training and where we learned and we were briefly exposed to all the different aspects of lean and learned how to champion lean processes within the organization. And after that, we started sending staff because within lean, there are belts like within karate. And so we've had people that have become green belts and black belts in lean processes. Now all of our supervisors and managers and some of our program specialists also receive yellow belt training, which is comparable to the to the champion training that I was mentioning. So now it's really kind of ingrained into all of the aspects of what we're doing. We've done tons of different lean events, which I'm going to talk about here and a little bit, and it's just more ingrained into our culture 10 years later.   Carol: Well, I like the word that you used in grain because you really do have to make it become part of the agency's culture. Otherwise it ends up being this thing that sits over here on a shelf, you know, and employees are like, Well, whatever, you know, here's the latest and greatest. I wondered, though, did you have some skepticism about the process in the beginning? And was there any kind of pivotal moment when staff went, Oh, you know what? I kind of do get this. I see where we're going.   Susan: Yes, One hundred percent at first it was really and I think you mentioned this earlier. It's kind of hard for our staff to think about our processes in these way. We've been trained that our processes all individualized and that's a good thing to meet the needs of the people that we serve. And it was really hard for them to think about standardizing that process as really a good thing. It was really counterintuitive to how we've always operated the program. Know, I think one of the other things that was kind of pivotal was looking at informed choice and how we could look at that differently. That informed choice isn't really free choice to where everybody has to have their path. We can kind of have some lanes. So to speak, that people are going into that will really help them meet their individualized objectives. So staff started participating in these lean events and despite that skepticism, once they really got involved, they were all in. For example, in these events are staff are empowered to make decisions. So it really uses frontline staff and also customers to help redesign these processes. And that really helped staff with buy in and then that team rolls it out to their peers. And so that in really helped, first of all. And then I would say the second thing was once we really started experiencing success and seeing these processes really result in the desired effects that we were looking for, then people were totally in, you know, they saw that it worked and then they wanted to do more of it because it makes things easier for our customers, but it also makes things easier for our staff. That's super   Carol: Cool. I like that about Lean. You know how it involves all these different layers of folks in the process. So it isn't just like some group over here is deciding a thing again, and then they're telling us what we're going to do. You know, I like that. I always remember all the little sticky notes up on the wall, churning out the whole process. And when you start moving sticky notes around and you go, Oh my gosh, great. We have like forty two steps to do this one thing, it is completely eye opening. Now I know when you and I had chatted, there were so many terrific projects that you had done and I'd like to break those down so our listeners can get a sense of what each is about. So can we start with the front door your process for getting rid of the waiting list? Can you tell me about that?   Susan: Yes. So this was back way in 2012, our first Kaizen event. So Kaizen means, I think, roughly break for the better or something like that. And it's really about process, like uncovering what is your process and fixing it. So at that time, as an agency, we averaged 127 days to eligibility from the start of the process to eligibility. And that was really the first piece of this was we didn't really know that that was our number before this happened because it is very data driven kind of activity. And I think we all would agree that 127 days is just unacceptable. And so staff really were like, Wow, no, this can't be we have to do better for the people that we serve. And so then our director said, I know that the federal standard is 60, but we're going to do 30 and our staff, myself included, I will freely admit we all looked at him like he had two heads. This was not possible. There were all the reasons, good reasons that we were at 127 days. We all knew we could do better, but to do 30 days was mind blowing. It just felt like an impossibility. So this team came together and they made all kinds of recommendations. The first thing was they realized we didn't have a process for doing intake and eligibility. We had like 88. So we have 88 counties in Ohio. Every county had their own process, and so this group was tasked with creating something new. And so some of the main things that they did was, first of all, they eliminated a whole pre-application process. We used to have a referral form that was even before the application. They were like, Get rid of that. And that already took off like 20 something days just right off the bat. Like that easy. We also had designated counselors at the time to determine eligibility, which had helped us get more consistent with our eligibility decisions. But they said we have a 4 lane highway and we need an 8 lane highway. We can't do it this way anymore. And so we moved away from that designated eligibility counselor model. And then they developed a process and they put time frames for each step like you have to do this within certain days and this within certain days. And it just helped reframe the pace at which we were taking all of these steps. And there were a whole bunch of other things. But those are some of the examples of what this team had recommended, and our commitment to the team was whatever you recommend, we're going to do. And so we did it. And over the years, we continued with a continuous improvement mindset. We started looking at different kinds of tools for tracking. We eliminated unnecessary assessments. I mean, we had people that were doing psych about us when we had a diagnosis just to figure out the functional limitations when the counselor can do an interview and figure out the functional limitations, right? So there's all kinds of things like this, and this really improved dramatically. And we have been at 23 1/2 days to eligibility for the last 4 fiscal years. And I'll tell you what I. Up for sure, during this pandemic, those numbers were going to go up. Our staff have just done a tremendous job with reducing these days to eligibility, and so all of these timeframes that reduce result in our being able to process cases quicker, get people to their employment goal quicker, which allows us then to have a space for the next person and serve more people. And this, like you mentioned, this was key in our eliminating our waiting lists. In 2014, we had been on order of selection for 25 years.   Carol: That's incredible. I mean, that is incredible.   Susan: Yeah, and in 2014, thanks to this and some other Lean processes, we were able to and we still are off of the order of selection.   Carol: I love that you talked about the data because, you know, it is a data driven world today, but you guys were looking at the data back when maybe not everybody was really looking at the data. So you're ahead of the curve. So WIOA wouldn't have thrown you as big of a curve ball when WIOA, as it did for maybe some other states, I think that's terrific. Now I know fast tracks another project that your agency is well known for. And in fact, it was the project that had me contacting you for more information. And then I found this really great treasure trove of all the cool things you were doing, and we have to talk about all of them, of course. So can you tell us about fast track?   Susan: Yeah, Fast Track was another result of a Kaizen that we did back in 2017. So this was implemented in April of 2017. And really the impetus was, you know, we'd have people come in and they didn't need as much. Maybe they'd worked before. Maybe they only needed something to help them save a job, you know, some equipment or something like that, and we had to take them through the whole thing every time. And our director said we need a fast like an express checkout at the grocery store sort of a thing so that people that are coming in that we can just quickly serve them and get them to their outcomes. And so we brought a team together to take a look at this. And they determined like if somebody needed three or fewer services or services that were likely to take no more than three months, they didn't need lots of assessments or things like that, then they would be a good candidate for this fast track. So we implemented it and they did a fantastic job. We were able to just really get people into a plan super quickly. But let me tell you what happened is that it really begs the question if we can do it quickly for people who are on this fast track, why can't we do that for everybody? And so it really kind of took us down a path with looking more now at time from plan to eligibility and the overall customer service, because we know when people come to see us, they are coming for us to get them a job in six months. They want to get them a job now or they want to get involved with training now. They don't want this long, convoluted process and complicated process. And so this was just a really great project that our field staff kind of designed and came up with. So last year, we had about 153 people use that fast track model. And I'll say that's kind of officially because our timeframes are so quick anymore that really a lot of people are getting rapidly into these jobs. So of those 153 last people, 105 of them are closed successfully. So we really have a strong success rate when we look at that model, which is really again about engaging rapidly people, they stay engaged. They get to that employment outcome at a greater percentage than individuals who were not so intensively moving forward as quickly.   Carol: I love that you're always like challenging your thinking and your processes and taking a look and like, All right, how does this apply to, you know, a different situation? I mean, if you think about how VR typically operates, if those folks that needed to come in and they really only needed like three months or less the services and they were waiting for eligibility, you know, 60 days and then you're going to do a plan in 90 days and maybe in six months, you get around to the first service gets provided or something. It's done like if they were going g to lose their job right, their job is gone. It's done. So this just plain makes smart business sense to do this.   Susan: Yeah.   Carol: So let's see, where do we go next? How about your IPS model and how those principles have leaked out to serving other populations?   Susan: Yeah. So this is another area of focus for us. We've enjoyed a wonderful partnership with our Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services for years and the IPS model individualized placement and support. It's a true evidence based practice model, and there are several different philosophies or aspects of the model things like rapid engagement, which we're talking about today. Open to everyone who wants to work, it's integrated with treatment, all of those things, and so the practice really measures fidelity to that model. We have really been working with mental health and addiction services. I'd say, I think over the last 15 years, but in particular, I'd say over the last 5 or 6, really good traction with implementing this model to improve our outcomes for individuals that we serve with severe and persistent mental illness. We've done some things like we've given accreditation waivers for mental health providers who deliver individualized placement and support models. We've established a supported employment services on our fee schedule that has a 25 percent enhancement in the rate over traditional job development rate that we did back in 2017, all to really help build capacity for this model. And IPS has been around for a long time. And I can remember 15 years ago this conversation, it just was really different. I think we had concerns in the VR system about some of these aspects of fidelity to the model at the time, when we talked about rapid engagement and we had all these processes, we're like, Yeah, that's not the way our system works, right? It's really open to everyone who wants to work. We would say, Yeah, but what about this situation? Are we really going to, you know, whatever? And I think we're just in a totally different place as a system now, and the language barrier between the two systems has been erased. So when they talk about zero exclusion, we're talking about a presumption to benefit. It's really the same concept. And I think as our system has evolved, we've been providing much better customer service to individuals with mental illness, and that has helped our partnership with mental health, which then in turn helped improve the outcomes for the people that we serve.   Carol: I love that, you know, a lot of times people forget to talk about customer service in government. You know, you think, Oh, like you can't have good customer service and government, but we can't afford to not have good customer service. I mean, as a system, when you look at all of the graphs like RSA will come to CSC and put up their graphs, what's happening nationally, you know, you see all these numbers tanking and people not getting into employment. We have to rethink like everyone has to rethink. And so it's exciting to listen to you because I think it will spark ideas and other folks as they're thinking about what they're doing in their own states. Now your state is an employment first state and we are as well in Minnesota. Can you tell me about your counselors working with the most significantly disabled population and being embedded in colleges? I know the stats say you are 4th from the bottom regarding median wages and what are you doing to move the needle on that?   Susan: Yes, we are in employment first state and we have a very robust employment first partnership agreement with our Department of Developmental Disabilities and yes, Minnesota Senate delegation years ago when we were early within that partnership to take a look at what we were doing. And you sent some of your VR staff and some of your partners also came to visit Ohio. That employment first partnership agreement with DOD started back in 2013 and really has been about helping people move from segregated settings into community employment. But in addition, we really recognize that we hadn't been serving individuals with disabilities who are going to college like we had many years ago, and there were part of that was being on order selection impacted that we have financial needs testing for training and a lot of the schools just kind of had written us off, to be honest with you. And we were serving some students, but not a lot. And so we have a program called Ohio College to Careers. This initiative was a part of our governor, Mike DeWine's vision for making Ohio a disability inclusion state and model employers for individuals with disabilities. When he came into office within literally minutes of taking his oath of office, he signed this executive order about this vision for services to individuals with disabilities in our state, which was wonderful. So as a part of the furtherance of that vision, we have Ohio college to careers and it embeds a counselor in the Disability Services Office or the career service officer. Kind of both. At 15, what started out is 15 Ohio State colleges and universities. So in 2019 we started at 15 colleges. 4 of those are 2 year schools and 11 of them are 4-year schools. And in 2021. Just this past year, we expanded to the two historical black colleges and universities in Ohio, Wilberforce and Central State. So now we have a total of 17 schools participating in this program, so it's a real, career focused model, we do obviously pay for students tuition and those investments are important for people with disabilities that we serve. But the most important thing that I think our counselors offer is that career focused model, how to help them get into internships, how to get the job placements once you're done with school, how to give you the technology that you need to be successful in your studies, the additional support and wraparound services, whether that be interview clothes or a computer or whatever those things are, that you need to be successful in your school. And when we talk to the colleges, that was something that they saw as missing, that they saw that sometimes their students with disabilities are the people that they had the most difficulty finding an internship placement for, and they welcomed our business relations staff. So this has in addition to our dedicated counselors, there are two career development specialists that focus on kind of the business relations end of the program. They do employer spotlights career education. They have an internship dashboard. They do specialized hiring events. All those things that really kind of just help those students achieve their career success. It's not going to do anybody any good to get a degree and then not actually achieve the employment that they were looking to obtain   Carol: Exclamation point on the end of that. So I know your kind of earlier on in this project, are you starting to see some like what's the data telling you about it?   Susan: Yeah, definitely. We see a broader array of employment goals that were helping people to achieve definitely higher wages, obviously with people that are getting those credentials, those degrees. And I think that's really kind of you'd mentioned median earnings. We did a great job of getting people into jobs, but we do really need to focus on increasing the wages and the hours and thusly the median earnings of the people that we serve. And so that's really about helping them attain credentials and degrees that are going to move them into those higher wage occupations.   Carol: When you're really living into the spirit of the whole WIOA process, really, I mean, that speaks exactly to what Congress is trying to do back in 2014. I think that's great. So switching gears again a little bit when you and I visited, you know, a month or so ago, there are so many intriguing things that you talked about, but one of them that has really piqued my interest was your team's work with a drug courts, and I really hadn't heard of anything like that. So why don't you tell us and the listeners a little more about that?   Susan: Yeah, this is another great program in partnership that we have achieved. Again, this is part of Governor DeWine's vision and was part of his budget in the last biennium. That kind of established this partnership with Recovery Ohio, our Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. The Supreme Court of Ohio is a big player with this because they manage all these specialty dockets and our Office of Workforce Transformation. And so we had a successful model that had been developed in our Butler County, where we had a dedicated counselor that worked as a member of that drug court team to assist that person in their recovery. And when that person was ready to get started with employment, they would engage our counselor and they would work to help them figure out what kind of job and help them get that job. And then eventually we added an internal job developer that really helped again with that rapid engagement. You know, we're right there as part of the team. We're engaging them rapidly when it's time and we're quickly getting them into employment and that helps support the individual's recovery. This was a real successful model, and one of our governors important initiatives is to really focus on recovery and substance use disorders. And so this was just a great fit for us to expand. So in 2018, we expanded. So this is called jobs for recovery, And so we expanded into 7 counties. And right now we're expanding further into an additional 8 counties. This has been just a great partnership. I think when we talk to the courts, they have lots of people on these teams to support people in their recovery and avoiding the criminal justice system, and this really helps them have a dedicated resource. This was like a gap that they had identified, and people need to get work. Work supports recovery, but they didn't have an expert on the team around employment, and that's what OOD really brings to the table. And so we use that rapid engagement model, we place them into employment. We also can do some of those extra services. Get them transportation that they need to job interviews or again, interview clothes or other things that they didn't have resources for in the past. So it really filled a gap. So this has been just a great program in Ohio and it's still in the kind of ramping up phase, and it's just been a really positive and highly successful model.   Carol: What a difference it makes when you have elected officials that are like putting investments into this area with employment and people with disabilities, it's pretty amazing. I mean, I kind of wonder then where do you guys think you would be if that hadn't happened, if you didn't have Governor DeWine that had some of these initiatives?   Susan: Yeah, you know, I think we really tried hard. We think of our participants as our customers, business partners, our employer partners, but also our state agency partners, our customers. And so we want to be a part of the solutions to help them reach their goals. So whether it's a drug court that needs to help people get into employment to support their recovery, whether it's a developmental disabilities agency that is trying to move people from segregated settings into community employment, we can be a part of that solution.   Carol: I love it. It's exciting. I like to follow you guys. I know I get regular updates through one of my colleagues, Kristine Johnson, who lives in Ohio and subscribes to newsletters and said she's always sending me things she's like. Read this This is like amazing the work that they're doing, so I'm going to switch again a little bit to the pandemic, of course. So the pandemic, I know it's been brutal on VR. And when you look at the numbers over the last two years, it's been really, really tough. However, your agency, again, you're engaged in jobs now. So what is that all about?   Susan: So this was another cousin back in September 2018, we did a cousin to improve our job and candidate sourcing model. We have now more than six hundred and 50 employer partners that we are actively working with. And what this is, is really kind of identifying high demand positions within our employer partners and we make a searchable list available. Then we establish a process for quickly getting a person into placement with that employer partner. So when I rewind years ago and I was a counselor, people would come and say, I just want a job now, and I would say, Well, that's not how it works. I don't have a bank of jobs. We have to do our process and we're going to do a good job so that we know it's a good fit and so on and so forth. And that's just malarkey. You know, if somebody comes in and says, I need a job now, we need to say we're going to get you a job now, and we have six hundred and fifty business partners that we work with. There's not a reason that we can't do that. And so that's really what this was about is how do we as quickly as possible do that match? Still, because that's what our business partners, our employer partners appreciate about working with us is we're going to do that screening, but renew it quickly so that the needs of the business partner are met and the needs of our participant. So initially, that was called job. Now we pivoted a little bit with this when the pandemic hit and we moved to an urgent hiring list because soon after we went home back in March of 2020…   Carol: eons ago!   Susan: yes, yes, we learned quickly from our employer partners that they had just some urgent needs to fill spot. And so we like to say don't ever waste a crisis. So we really moved in a different direction with that. And so we started publishing and doing active candidates sourcing for these urgent hiring needs of our employer partners. And so we moved into doing virtual hiring events to directly source these candidates. So at these hiring events, we're actually doing interviews with the employers for open positions that they are actively recruiting for. And this has been a great model. We've had some that have been for us. We've done them for specific employers statewide. We've done some around certain industries, we've done some targeted for specific groups. We tried doing one for transition students last year, for example. We're about to do our second work from home virtual hiring events that are just employers who have work from home opportunities that are people really can benefit from. So that has been kind of an evolution over the last 5 years or so of this candidate sourcing model that we've had, and we've been tremendously successful with that. In fact, while our numbers are down a little bit with applications, eligibility, new plans, our placements and closures are comparable to or better than pre-pandemic or last year's numbers, with placement really pleased with the work that our staff have been doing to do these virtual hiring events. And continue to place people in light of the pandemic.   Carol: I was going to ask that I'm glad you said that about your numbers because I was curious. I know a number of you, probably in just a cohort with a few that are experiencing good placement numbers. I know a lot of folks it's kind of taint the last two years, so that sounds pretty creative with the virtual hiring and the remote work from home. A lot of people are interested in that, and it really can take away some of those barriers that some of our customers face with transportation and all that. Hoo ha. Right. When you can work from home, which is incredible, I love it. So when you look back and you analyze the impact of all this work you've done. How have the numbers looked for your customers as you reflect back kind of on the value overall of all of these projects that you've worked on?   Susan: Well, number one, getting off of order of selection has been a game changer for us. That's never a good situation to have to sit across the desk for somebody and say, we can't help you. We know we could, but we can't. And so that has been just a huge deal for us. But as I mentioned earlier, we've been averaging 23 1/2 days to eligibility for the previous 4 fiscal years. And we've really seen with all of these things our time from eligibility to plan trending down over the last fou4 years or so ago, we've been from about 60 days to about 49 days. And so that also has been just a tremendous benefit, customer service wise to the people that we serve. I just mentioned our placement and closure numbers. Those have been really great. And so kind of our next steps within the organization is really just to focus on the quality of the employment outcomes that we're achieving the credentials, getting more people into credential programs so that we can help them kind of move out of poverty and increase those median earnings for the program.   Carol: So for our listeners out there, what would you recommend, Susan, as some, you know, tips from yourself as far as if somebody is looking and thinking, we need to do our processes differently, like where do you even start? You guys have been doing this now for over a dozen years, and you have a lot of good learning experiences under your belt. What advice would you give to others?   Susan: I think I mentioned a few minutes ago, but don't waste a crisis. A crisis can really spur innovation. I know, for example, we have been trying to get remote counseling going for years, and it just never took off. But now remote counseling has been going great. Our participants love it. That wouldn't have happened without this pandemic. And so that's just one example. But Lean really is a great tool. It can't make the decisions for you, but it can give you the tools for looking at data and doing the process improvement to help make the right decisions for our customers. Another thing I would mention is just really listening to the voice of the customer, and that's an important component or concept within lean processes. And really looking at things through the lens of that customer experience really helps build a system around the needs and the preferences of the people that we serve, which is critical to our success. And then I think really thinking of ourselves as a workforce agency, we're not necessarily as much of a social service agency and really kind of looking at these processes and how they can raise those bar of expectations for the people that we serve. It's a great tool.   Carol: So I'm sure that there's going to be folks that want to reach out to you for a little advice or some assistance. How would folks best contact you?   Susan: Yeah. So I would welcome a conversation with anyone who wants to talk more about this so you can reach me by email. Probably the best way, Susan, S U S A N dot Pugh at OOD.Ohio.Gov is my email. Yes, please reach out. You can also see my contact information on our website as well, if you would like to reach out.   Carol: I sure appreciate your time. This has been really exciting and I'm sure you're going to get some contacts. I really thank you for your time today and I really wish you much success and everything you're doing, and I definitely will circle back with you down the road as you keep creating new and groovy things that you're doing in Ohio.   Susan: Thanks much. Thank you. I appreciate the time to share the good news about what our staff is doing out there. It's been a great ride.   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!

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

Commentary and analysis on one of the most overlooked serials of the era.... "The Sensorites."The TARDIS arrives on a ship whose crew is trapped aboard by a telepathic race known as the Sensorites. Soon, however, Susan discovers that the Sensorites are not aggressors but terrified of the humans who might want to exploit their resources. Taken to the Sense-Sphere, the Doctor and company must save the Sensorites from a deadly disease in exchange for the release of the TARDIS and returning the human crew to perfect sanity. But a traitor lurks among the Elders of the Sense-Sphere, and he wants power at all costs--and has no qualms about using the strange visitors to gain it. BARBARA: Sorry, I was thinking. You know, I've never seen the Doctor so angry.IAN: Oh, yes. Susan set him off, didn't she. The Sensorites must have hypnotized her in some way.BARBARA: No, I don't think so. She's just growing up, Ian.______SUSAN: Trust can't be taken for granted. It must be earned. I trust you, but only because I know you.1ST ELDER: But Susan, our whole life is based on trust.SUSAN: Yes, and that might be your downfall. Look you don't trust the ground you walk on until you know it's firm, do you. So why trust your people blindly?1ST ELDER: When I listen to you, you who are so young among your own kind, I realize that we Sensorites have a lot to learn from the people of Earth.SUSAN: Grandfather and I don't come from Earth. Oh, it's ages since we've seen our planet. It's quite like Earth, but at night the sky is a burned orange, and the leaves on the trees are bright silver...________I discuss this episode's parallels to "The Zygon Invasion"/ "The Zyon Inversion," the way in which people perceived powerless are silenced, the ways in which this serial questions power structures, how people exploit others to gain power, the inherent messiness of conflict-resolution, and how trust operates in the serial.  NOTE: The Sensorite's planet is called the Sense-Sphere. Not the Senser-Sphere:-)NEXT TIME: Serial #8 The Reign of Terror (Episodes: "The Land of Fear," "The Guests of Madame Guillotine," "A Change of Identity," "The Tyrant of France**," "The Bargain of Necessity**," "Prisoners of Conciergerie")**These two episodes are missing but have been animated.Special thanks to Cathlyn "Happigal" Driscoll for providing the beautiful artwork for this podcast. You can view her work at https://www.happigal.com/ Do feel free to get in touch to share the love of all things Doctor Who: throughthevortexpodcast@gmail.com

 Discover how to make the most out of your marketplace and platform to get more sales and get your message across Learn more about the right strategies that guarantees you sales and the “Best Selling” title Find out why you shouldn’t rely too much on Amazon when starting off Resources/Links: Check out Susan’s FREE Playbook: The Author to Authority Playbook: How to Get Recognized as an Expert in Your Industry Summary Are you struggling with getting the “Best Seller” title on your book? Have you ever dreamt of selling thousands of copies of your book across the world? Do you want to ensure that your book’s message and value will be welcomed by readers? Do you want to know the secrets of marketing your book in a way that guarantees sales? Susan Friedmann is on a mission to wipe out sameness and add vitality and differentiation to your marketing. She helps struggling non-fiction authors get known and paid for their expertise. In this episode, Susan shares her insights on what makes a book unique and best-selling. She shares what readers want and look for in a book. She also talks about the right strategies and techniques on how you should be selling your book and get that “Best Selling” title real quick! Check out these episode highlights: 01:19 - Susan’s ideal client: “My ideal clients are nonfiction authors who are serious about the message and the value that they bring to the marketplace. So, people who have expertise who really want to get recognized as being an expert in their industry.” 01:51 - Problem Susan helps solve: “The problem is, literally, as you said in the introduction, that they're struggling to get known and paid for their expertise. They're not getting the recognition and the income that they deserve, and they are just- they don't know what to do.” 02:52 - Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Susan: “Yes, the books are not selling. And they're not selling because they think they are- it's all about selling books, rather than selling the message and the value. And they often don't realize that so their concentration is just on selling books.” 03:51 - Common mistakes that people make before they find Susan’s solution: “first of all, realizing that their message isn't for everyone. They come to me and the first thing I say to them is, you know, "What do you want your book to do for you?" And it's like, "Get it out to everyone." And I'm like, "Hey, that's really difficult, not even the greatest Procter and Gambles of this world can do that." 05:51 - Susan’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): “Well, the step in the right direction is identifying the niche market, their real target. Who needs what they have to offer? And yes, it may be for everybody, but you can't sell to everybody.” 06:47 - Susan’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Check out Susan’s FREE Playbook: The Author to Authority Playbook: How to Get Recognized as an Expert in Your Industry 07:28 - Q: Why do I do what I do? A: Because it really upsets me to see authors who have something really valuable to add and not being able to share their message, drowning in the tsunami of books, titles, and authors, and their book dies and it shouldn't have to. So, I don't want that to happen. Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode: “Let's throw the pebble in the pond, let the ripples flow out, and target a smaller group that is easy to get to. Then go from there.” -Susan FriedmannClick To Tweet Transcript (Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast) Tom Poland 00:09 Greetings, everyone! A very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. My name is Tom Poland beaming out to you from a Little Castaways Beach here in sunny Australia, joined today by Susan Friedmann. Susan, good day.

Understanding Branding and Marketing With Susan Meier How does branding and marketing work?  We've got Susan Meier here from Susan Meier Studio, and she's here to talk about how to ensure your branding works. Susan, how do you measure marketing and branding? Susan: Branding and Marketing are tricky things to measure. Both are relevantly related to each other. It is essential to utilise reliable metrics and net promoter score to measure the success of work. Brand awareness is necessary. Through brand awareness, you can weigh the organisational goals versus providing excellent customer service to your clients. I always look at the overall health of the business when I am working with a client. People that are looking for a branding expert like you should have an established business or at least they have data to work on. Is that correct?  Susan: Yes, I usually work with established companies that are looking to upgrade or expand their business. I also work with start-up companies that are looking for growth. I like to measure success in how well you are creating a relationship with the stakeholders, with the users of your product or service. Getting feedback and building communication about your brand is highly recommended as part of all branding projects. Setting up and measuring your goals Listening to your audience and setting goals is very important.  How do you go about setting goals and measuring them appropriately?   Susan: There are three parts to consider: Get to know your customer -You have to listen to them and identify what's important to them that relates to what you can offer. Get to know yourself -Who you are, what do you care about and what do you stand for because this will make your product special. Get to know your competitors - You have to be unique and different.  When my clients want to develop a longer-term relationship with their customers, they would normally need a name, logo, legacy and a website. Initially, we will talk about the objectives and goals and sit down in a room with all the stakeholders. Remember that, when everybody is aligned with the goal, the organisation becomes more powerful in getting the team on board and making these things happen. Your branding represents your business  Does this mean that you need to change your branding strategy from time to time?  How do you make sure that you stay on top of it?  Susan: Everything is always changing. You have to ask yourself, "Where do we want to be next year?" It doesn't mean you have to redesign your logo or rename your company every year or every ten years. But you can do a re-assessment with your audience, people, personal target and the market. Some clients are refreshing their process by talking to their customers to get feedback and test the communication materials. And every so often, maybe the logo and the branding evolve. Branding logos are important because people will remember the business name. But how important is your logo and its colours?  Susan: People have these intimate relationships with logos and brands that are often subconscious. The big iconic brands like Snickers, Kellogg's and Big Brands have super tight style guidelines and they are careful about how they evolve. Your colours, typefaces, tone of voice and your photography style will support your personality so think about it mindfully and create.  Before your branding shows up in the world, you need to know what your brand or logo stands for.   Susan: There are visual cues that tell you this food is fresh or if this product is food, hardware, etc. I was a strategy director of a packaging design agency. Back then, what designers do when they are designing or packaging a new brand is they do an audit of what category this cue falls to. You have to be good with design and it needs to be consistent.   How Susan Can Help You are correct, you need to look at the category carefully. I wanted to find more information about how our listeners can go about their branding. You have a website (www.electrifyyourwork.com) Can you please tell me more about it?  Susan: That's right. So that's the landing page for my site, and from there, you can get to a couple of different things. So I serve large corporate clients as I was speaking about. But then I also have developed a toolkit for smaller businesses so that they can leverage the same tools that I use with larger clients to help them. These include the process of understanding the customer, reflecting on their own business in their own company DNA, and then thinking about those things that really will make them stand out and be different. You can go to both parts of my site from there, whatever is relevant to you. You can download the overview of good branding and then some workbooks and other good content if people are interested in going further for free.  Find Your Freedom Very informative website. What book influenced your life and made you realise that this is what I wanted to do, or this is why I wanted to help people to find more information about brand strategy?  Susan: The seminal book shaped my path is not about branding or business. The book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, which came out a long time ago, probably in the mid-nineties set me on the entrepreneurial path. It's not just for artists, but the idea sent me to running my own business and creating life and my professional life in the way that I wanted. I treat my whole life like an art project. That's why being an entrepreneur works really well for me. We talked before we started recording about freedom, which is the core of this podcast, and that's very much a subject near and dear to my heart. Freedom will give you a blueprint on how to succeed and live your life. That resonates really strongly with you. But what do you see as freedom or what is the vehicle of your business driving you towards? Susan: I think freedom is the ability to do what you want to do. It serves as your internal compass and your purpose. I'm in control of my schedule. I can pick the clients who I want to work with, travel and have hobbies when I want to. You don't have to do things the way they are laid out for you. We have this path like you're supposed to go to school and then go to law school then get a job. I think we all have these things that hold us back from being kind of free and creative. I can spend time with the family and make sure that I'm not working at the end of my life. I'm enjoying everything that I'm doing and that some weeks that means I'm in front of a computer eighty hours in a week. But it doesn't mean I'm working. It's something that I'm enjoying doing. There's always the little loose ends and not that you don't like time, but that's going to be anywhere. But being at a peak is, I think, pretty special. 

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.

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

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

Susan 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 C Shea won a writing contest - and the prize – a year's  membership to Mystery Writers of America convinced her that writers were such lively off beat people she'd like to be one too. Fast forward to today and Susan publishes two different mystery series – one set in the glitzy San Francisco art world, and the other in an out-of-the-way French village. Hi there, I'm your host Jenny Wheeler and today Susan explains why creating mysteries is like composing songs, how “writing what you know” works for her, and shares the authors she loves to binge read. But before we talk to Susan, just a reminder that the show notes for this Binge Reading episode can be found on the website, The Joys of Binge Reading.com That's where you'll find a full transcript of our discussion, plus links to Susan's books and website, as well as details about how to subscribe to our podcast so you don't miss future episodes. Six things you'll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Why writing mysteries is like composing songs How 'writing what you know' worked for her Her passion for all things French Why parity for women mystery authors is important The writers she admires most What she'd do differently second time around Where to find Susan C Shea:  Website: http://susancshea.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susancshea  Twitter: @susan_shea  What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: But now, here's Susan. .  Hello there Susan and welcome to the show, it's great to have you with us. Beginning at the beginning  -  was  there a “Once Upon A time moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction?  And if there was a catalyst for this, what was it? Susan: Yes there was a catalyst, actually. I won a writing contest a long time ago and the prize was a year's membership in the Mystery Writers of America. I was living in San Francisco, and I started going to the San Francisco meetings and I met all these wonderful people! Lively, curious, bright and a little off beat, who were published mystery writers. And I would go every month to the dinner, and became friends with some of those people who are still my friends. I thought, I'd like to do this too! Susan C Shea - mystery author Jenny: Fantastic! So you just sat down and started writing? Susan: Well, sure I did. But I was also raising kids and working full time. That's easier said then done, to sit down and start writing. I had a lot of false starts, but I kept being encouraged by the members of Mystery Writers and the local chapter who said "persevere, don't give up, keep writing, keep reading". It sorted of gestated in me for a long time before I actually decided to take the plunge - to quit my day job and start writing full time. Jenny: Great. And so you were naturally drawn to the mystery genre it sounds like, right from the beginning? Susan: Yes, I really was. I think one of the things I like about mysteries is that there's a structure and there's an expectation. It's sort of like listening to a piece of music where you know where the bridges are, you know where the verses, you know where the choruses are. There's a kind of pleasure in the rhythm of that. That appealed to me both as a reader and a writer. Jenny: That's a great analogy. I'd never thought of it that way before. It is a very good way to look at it. You've currently got two different mystery series on the go – one set in a picturesque French village, and the other in a prestigious San Francisco art and antiquities museum . .  How did you get going on these? Susan: Well the Dani O'Rourke series set in a museum in San Francisco was the first one I did, and I had for a long time been debating how to structure a story and who the protagonist was going to be. Dani O'Rourke mystery - Book Three I had been a fundraiser,

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/

'Hear English' is a blog that provides podcasts and transcripts to help people learn English, find us at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/.Free image courtesy of 'stockfreeimages.com'The Water Cooler (Fast)Too fast? Try the slower version in the previous post. They may look like busy professionals, but the staff at Colourful Solutions Ltd (Colsol), aren’t always as serious or hardworking as they appear, and we find out what mischief they’ve been up to as they talk around the water cooler.Click above to listen.  You can get the mp3. here. Episode 7 - Bees (Fast) Too fast? Try the slower version in the previous post. Featuring the vocal talents of Sophie Iafrate (Susan).  (Free sound effects courtesy of 'Soundjay.com'),Susan: Hello Keith.  What have you got there?Keith: I thought our office was looking a little drab so I have brought some flowers in to liven it up.   A little bit of colour will boost our morale.Susan: That is a lovely idea, but I am very allergic to flowers.  Didn’t you hear me saying to Janet yesterday how bad my hay fever was this year? Keith: How terrible Susan, I had no idea.  Well, I will keep them to my side of the office then; I’ll even open the window to ventilate the room a bit.  Here, you can put the trophy I won for being a good team player on your desk; that will keep your side of the office from looking too glum.Susan:  You didn’t win that trophy Keith, I know that you bought it yourself; your story for why you were awarded that trophy changes every time.  Besides, it is no good, there is too much pollen in the air now.  I will go and see if I can work in another office for the rest of the day.Keith:  Finally, an office all to myself. The perfect crime! Eh eh eh.A few minutes later…Janet: Keith, thank goodness I have found you here.Keith: I was only getting a quick cup of coffee, I will be back in my office in just a jiffy.Janet:  No!  Don’t even think of going back into your office – it is full of bees!Keith: Full of bees? Janet: Yes, I have no idea why, but a huge swarm of bees has flown in through your window.  Something must have attracted them, and I can’t see how we are going to get them out again.  We have closed off the room.  Thank goodness Susan wasn’t in there at the time; she said that something in there was aggravating her hay fever.  Ah, there you are Susan, is everything OK?           Susan: Yes.  I was going to move all my things into the storage room at the end of the corridor until the bee situation is sorted out.  That will do as an office for the short-term.Janet:  Hmm, I’m not sure that is the best room for you Susan.  It’s really dusty in there, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that room wouldn’t also set off your hay fever.  Tell you what, I am away on business for the rest of the week, so why don’t you take my office?Keith: I suppose I will have to join you.Janet: Sorry Keith, but even though my office may look expansive and spacious, it is really only due to the tasteful styling and clever layout of furniture.  Honestly, there is only room for one person to comfortably work in there.  I know the storage room isn’t very nice, but considering that you don’t suffer from hay fever, I think it is best that you take that as your temporary office, just until we get pest control in.Keith: The storage room! That doesn’t even have a window.Susan: Well, how about you take your hard-won trophy in there with you?  That is sure to brighten the place up.

'Hear English' is a blog that provides podcasts and transcripts to help people learn English, find us at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/.Free image courtesy of 'stockfreeimages.com'The Water Cooler (Slow)Too slow? Try the faster version in the next post. They may look like busy professionals, but the staff at Colourful Solutions Ltd (Colsol), aren’t always as serious or hardworking as they appear, and we find out what mischief they’ve been up to as they talk around the water cooler.Click above to listen.  You can get the mp3. here.Episode 7 - Bees (Slow) Too slow? Try the faster version in the next post. Featuring the vocal talents of Sophie Iafrate (Susan).  (Free sound effects courtesy of 'Soundjay.com'), Susan: Hello Keith.  What have you got there?Keith: I thought our office was looking a little drab so I have brought some flowers in to liven it up.   A little bit of colour will boost our morale.Susan: That is a lovely idea, but I am very allergic to flowers.  Didn’t you hear me saying to Janet yesterday how bad my hay fever was this year?  Keith: How terrible Susan, I had no idea.  Well, I will keep them to my side of the office then; I’ll even open the window to ventilate the room a bit.  Here, you can put the trophy I won for being a good team player on your desk; that will keep your side of the office from looking too glum.Susan:  You didn’t win that trophy Keith, I know that you bought it yourself; your story for why you were awarded that trophy changes every time.  Besides, it is no good, there is too much pollen in the air now.  I will go and see if I can work in another office for the rest of the day.Keith:  Finally, an office all to myself. The perfect crime! Eh eh eh.A few minutes later…Janet: Keith, thank goodness I have found you here.Keith: I was only getting a quick cup of coffee, I will be back in my office in just a jiffy.Janet:  No!  Don’t even think of going back into your office – it is full of bees!Keith: Full of bees?  Janet: Yes, I have no idea why, but a huge swarm of bees has flown in through your window.  Something must have attracted them, and I can’t see how we are going to get them out again.  We have closed off the room.  Thank goodness Susan wasn’t in there at the time; she said that something in there was aggravating her hay fever.  Ah, there you are Susan, is everything OK?            Susan: Yes.  I was going to move all my things into the storage room at the end of the corridor until the bee situation is sorted out.  That will do as an office for the short-term.Janet:  Hmm, I’m not sure that is the best room for you Susan.  It’s really dusty in there, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that room wouldn’t also set off your hay fever.  Tell you what, I am away on business for the rest of the week, so why don’t you take my office?Keith: I suppose I will have to join you.Janet: Sorry Keith, but even though my office may look expansive and spacious, it is really only due to the tasteful styling and clever layout of furniture.  Honestly, there is only room for one person to comfortably work in there.  I know the storage room isn’t very nice, but considering that you don’t suffer from hay fever, I think it is best that you take that as your temporary office, just until we get pest control in.Keith: The storage room! That doesn’t even have a window.Susan: Well, how about you take your hard-won trophy in there with you?  That is sure to brighten the place up.