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No practice, short week, doesn't matter...The Titans are crusin! NFL Week 6 (1:43) - Andy Dalton for Dallas last night...yikes - Power Rankings...Steelers & Titans too low? - Aikman & Buck's hot mic NBA Quick Hits (36:05) - Stop calling Anthony Davis a free agent - Teams overthinking the NBA Draft? - Rockets in a peculiar spot. World Series & Baseball Talks (54:03) - World Series starts tonight but we haven't been locked into baseball for a few years...Why? LIKE, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE!! VIDEO POD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rivTGW1axBE&t=4s&ab_channel=NOKETCHUPPODCAST FOLLOW US: https://twitter.com/NoKetchupChi https://www.instagram.com/noketchupchi/ HOSTS: Sean Little: https://www.instagram.com/chicagoflow/ Nick Harvey: https://twitter.com/nharvey1086
Love them or hate them, there sure are a lot of clowns throughout history. Why? Like honestly, why are they a thing? In any case, our incredibly funny guest, comedian Derek Sheen joins us as we attempt to rank these things.
Devin Allen is the co-founder of d.i.y.BreakUp. You heard that right! Do it yourself breakup. In this episode of Leading With Your Gut, Devin shares an emotional and volatile story of the relationship she had with her ex-fiancé. He cheated, he lied, he was emotionally abusive, and manipulative. Yet Devin was on track to marry him. She knew in her gut that things were wrong, but it was hard to face her intuition. Why? Like many women, Devin felt the societal pressure to find a man, hunker down, and get married quickly. Luckily, Devin caught her fiancé in a lie and was able to get out of the relationship prior to their wedding. After Devin called off the relationship, the loneliness kicked it. She didn’t have many people to connect with about her breakup and she didn’t know any resources that could help her recoup the cost of the wedding. Devin’s experience motivated her and friend Jessica Heilweil to create an online community that offers connection, tips, and advice for called off engagements. And just like that DIYBreakUP was up and running! After listening to Devin’s story, please download Part 2 with co-founder Jessica Heilweil. Jessica’s story is the polar opposite of Devin’s however, the inspiration around d.i.yBreakUP is the same. Website:https://diybreakup.com/IG:https://www.instagram.com/diybreakup/Connect with Jenna Renee Shellman:leadingwithyourgut@gmail.comIG:https://www.instagram.com/leadingwithyourgut/
All right. Welcome back to mindset radio. This is your Thursday episode. If you caught Tuesdays, you know where we are. You know we're talking about planning for the new year. You know, we're talking about taking a look at ourselves and trying to figure out like what in the hell we want out of this year and how we're going to get it. And on Tuesday, you know, we talked a lot about discovery and you know, the real purpose there was to get more in touch with what's important to us because all of this is going to lead to a point here where we're going to begin to create some clear intentions for ourselves and what we want to operate like throughout the year, kind of in all aspects of our lives. And so, you know, that's why we kind of take a look at what, what do we want right now?What are we frustrated by? What are our deeper fears? Like what keeps us up at night and then what do we really aspire to be? And so that was Tuesday's episode. If you didn't catch that one, then I highly recommend you just kind of push pause real quick. Go back, listen to that one first and then come forward into this one because we're going to build on that episode and really start taking a look at how we take kind of what we learned in that exploration and in that place and start to put it into some clear action plans. So if you did the exercise with me on Tuesday or he kind of went back and listened and did it, awesome. If you didn't, I'm going to do a wrap up Friday, uh, as a Facebook live in the Facebook mindset radio groups. If you're not a part of that, go ahead and pop in.I will backtrack and add that back link into the show notes and stuff for you as well. But just the way that we've shaped up this week, I'm going to have to do on Friday. I'm on a plane tomorrow, so now bear with me a little bit. Well, we'll get that live up on Friday. We'll go through some of the, uh, uh, the actual forms and the downloadables that'll be available for ya. Uh, and so all that will be up and ready to go if you want to do that and kind of listen back through some of it or work through it with me. But even if you did the mental exercise on Tuesday, if you really got kinda down to where you are, right, what do you currently want current wants and frustrations, kind of the current right now situation, what is it I want, what's frustrating me?And then future look what are my biggest fears and then what do I really aspire to be? And so today what I really want to do is, uh, kind of begin to focus and break those down into kind of quadrants. And so if you did this exercise, more than likely what you found was my want and frustrations almost mirror each other. A lot of times, you know, if I want to be more physically fit, my frustration is I don't have time to be at the gym or it's tough to fit into my schedule or I feel, you know, overwhelmed by my day and I'm exhausted, et cetera. Right? So if you really look at it, you can often kind of find the want and then the frustration that's associated with it. And if you really want to go a little bit further, you can even take that one.It's like, okay, I want to be in shape. Great. Why? Like go a layer deeper. Why do I want to be in shape? Why is that important to me? What will that do for me? You know, I have a, I feel better physically in my body. I don't wake up with aches and pains. I don't walk around feeling lethargic. Most of the time I have more energy. Uh, I've got a little bit more vitality. I get a little bit better pep in my step. Maybe my physical appearance is better and I feel better about myself. It's gonna roll into the comfort and confidence I have to take on and deal with my life. Right. So that just kind of an example. That's, that's a good example for me. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that on Friday, uh, related to my own stuff.And you fill it in if, uh, you know, you want to get promoted at work. Okay. Why, what does it actually do for you? Yeah, I'm sure there's some financial gain and it feels good to be promoted. But what's important about you being promoted? What's important about you making the next rank or being in a particular unit or making the grade somewhere or transitioning to a different role. Like why is that important to you? And if you go deeper and deeper and deeper, I think what you'll even find there is that actually begins to link into aspirations. And so this is why I kind of love this exercise and this is why it's going to take a little bit of time to like roll through this. It's not something you just kind of sit down and bam knock out. You kind of got to spend some time mulling this over, take a look at it and then come back to it and go a little bit deeper with it.So let's kind of back up just a little bit. Let's go into simplistic fashion of it cause I like you to kind of get somewhere with it, right? It just doesn't need to linger and you can do the deep dive a little bit later with it. But right now let's kind of take the face value of it. Let's take one of your wants or frustrations. So I either want to eliminate my frustrations or I want to fulfill on something it is I want, right? So let's kind of stay in the current PLA process. Here's what I want you to think about. What is life look like currently for you? If you take a want, if, if I want to be in shape, if that's a want of mine, what does life look like for me? What's the current right now? Truth that exists. The truth is I'm not going to the gym when I need to be going to the gym.I'm not giving the time and attention that I need to, to my body and my physicality and my working out and my, uh, my health in a lot of ways. You know, that may be very true. Uh, you know, I don't feel great day in and day out. Aches and pains. I wake up a little bit more lethargic. I wake up sore, I'm tired most days. I don't have the energy to really push through my days and be great the way I want to be. Great. Kind of all the way through my life. Like that's the current scenario. Then if I kind of really take a look at it, it's like, ah, I don't like that. Okay, cool. Let's set that aside for a minute. What's my desired state? Right? If I could snap my fingers right now and wake up and be physically fit or have different state of being, what would that look like?And so this is a good point to take a look at it and be like, okay, well, you know, I'd be going to the gym regularly and I would feel good about going into the gym. Like I would be propelled a call to the gym because there's success there because I have a tie in there because I want to do it and I want to do it because I feel better. I look better, I feel more confident in my body and who I am and how I look and you know, all these things. Then I've got more energy throughout the day. I feel stronger, you know, I feel more capable, whatever I'm, I feel more ready for whatever life may throw at me. Right? That's, that's that desired picture. So once we take a look at that, then we're going to start going down into the next step.And again, the forms will be available at the end of the week for you. But that desired result, like what's the outcome or what's the shift if I'm currently here, but I want to look like this or I want to be like this or I want to have this in my life, what is that? So let's take a look at that and let's start listening out. What's the desired result that we want to produce and list it out. Like, write it out, doesn't have to be long, doesn't have to be some long sentence or anything else. They can be bullet points, they can be a couple of different things and you can make the list as long as you want. So I'm going to list those out. Right? Desired result is I'm, you know, in great shape. Okay, cool. Now the question is what are the obstacles and objections that are in my way of being in great shape?Like what's the bullshit I run in myself? Or how do I create my day that doesn't support that if I want it, cool, well, you know, how does it feel to want rad, but what's in my way? What am I not doing? I'm not scheduling my day appropriately. I'm not responsible for myself in cutting out that time or segmenting that time. You know, and I'm using this as an example cause I think this is one that resonates with a lot of us along the way. Uh, and a lot of what we deal with and so, you know, this is the, this is the component piece to that.Now [inaudible]you know, so again, what are the obstacles? What are the objections? What am I saying to myself? Well, I'm too tired. Well, I don't have time. Well I need to be there or somebody needs my attention there. Or you know, I've had a long shift or we ran, you know, we're up all night running calls, running EOS calls where we had a storm and we were chasing fire alarms all night. Like whatever the objections is and the obstacles are, but just be and call them out. Like just be truthful with yourself and just list out what they are. Okay. I mean that's, that's really, that's all I'm asking you to do and it's all we really need to do in some ways, but I'm going to list those out and I'm just going to write the next column and just go, okay, here's my desired result and here's my objections and here's my obstacles in the way to having that result.And then now what I want to do is I want to explore the options. Like, this is my life. And you know, we don't have quote unquote, the perfect life that we want in a lot of ways, right? We don't have sometimes the freedom to do what we want to do or work out when we want to work out or eat the way we want to eat or be be who it is we want to be or whatever it is, whatever is there. So within the context of your life, what are the options? Can I get up earlier? Can I just segment a specific time? Can I create a flow pattern that I know I can commit to and be a part of each day? Right? Do I go to a, a group fitness class so I'm a little bit more motivated? Do I need to work out alone?Do I need a workout buddy? Do I need somebody to hold me accountable? Which I think is kind of crap, but you know, I mean, every once in a while it helps to have somebody kicking you in the ass. Um, you know, what is it? What are the options in front of me? I could hire a trainer or I could, you know, download an app. I could, you know, do whatever. Like there's a million options to achieve that outcome, right? But get real and get clear on some real options that are in front of you and list them out. Now from this point forward, what I want you to do is start to look at two or three actions you can take that will lead you down the path of achieving that result that you want. What are the action steps I'm going to commit to, you know, this program, bam, I'm going to hire this trainer, bam.I'm going to shift my diet to this, bam. Or you know, I'm going to do whatever it is I'm going to do. Just don't make a bunch. Don't write a bunch out. Don't write 10 or 15 things and don't make it. Don't make it unobtainable. Don't set yourself up for failure. Really call yourself out. That's one of the things that we really deal with in this hundred day challenge is identifying that more often than not, when we commit to something, we're actually setting ourselves up for failure. Because we haven't looked all the way through it. So do me a favor, just pick two or three specific actions and make them simple and achievable. Period. Every day. That's it. That's all I want you to do. And from that point then we're going to bring those action items into reality. And so what I want you to do is break your calendar out.Whatever you use, if you use something on the wall, if you use your phone, whatever it is, I want you to start putting that into your calendar and I want you to contextualize it like what does your hour at the gym give you, feed you, Hey, this is Jeff being stronger, capable, more confident, whatever the whatever, whatever that it is attached to, kind of that want that aspiration, that deeper level of stuff. That's how I'm going to create the context for what my time is and my time being spent is, and then you got to put it into a calendar. You got to create it and put it into existence so that it's there. And if you need to set reminders or you need to set yourself up or you need to communicate it out with the people around you and maybe your husband and wife or whatever, whoever it is, Hey, this is, this is the deal.This is what I'm doing. This is where it lives. This is my time. This is what I'm committed to. I need your support for that. I need X, Y, and Z. That's got to go into play because if it doesn't go into play, it will falter. Again, that's kind of a critical point of failure. We don't put things with good ideas. We have a desire, we kind of say we're going to do X, Y, and Z, but don't really put it into existence and we don't put it into existence. We're not accountable to ourselves around it, and so that's really this pattern. Okay, and you can blow this thing out and do this at multiple levels at any level you want in any way, shape or form you want, right? We talk about it. We talked about it earlier. You could do it directly related to work.You could do it directly related to relationship or family or whatever it might be. You could do it related to a promotion or an effort or operation you're going to run or whatever that is. You can kind of wrap this whole thing together and bring it together in a way that really works for you. And so today's episode pretty short, pretty straightforward too. It don't need to spend a lot of time on it. I really hope that you'll pop into the mindset radio, Facebook group that you'll join me from the model alive tomorrow or catch it on replay or catch it, you know, through the show notes and come back and watch. Um, cause I'm actually going to share the forms. I'm going to write them up. You're going to see how I'm going to kind of work through this stuff and we're going to talk through these pieces and parts with a little bit more extensively.And you know, again, don't hesitate, like reach out. I've got a fire already. Got some notes from a Tuesday's episode with a couple of questions from you guys out there and not a problem, right? Clarification. You're not quite sure. You need one a little bit deep dive. You need some support in there. It's just send me a note, ask. Um, that's an easy day. That's an easy answer. So guys, this is where, this is where I want you to really look at and this is how we're going to set ourselves up for this year and uh, on Friday and a few other episodes. And then moving forward we're going to start looking at how we operate with intention. And this is really the underpinning of all of this because in the research that I've done in the way that we looked at the operational life cycle and the way that we operate in our careers and in our jobs and in cycle, if we don't set ourselves up to step out of the door with intention, if we don't set ourselves to operate with a clear line of intention, with a clear purpose, we are vulnerable to the conditions.We are vulnerable to the things that will show up. And that's the biggest piece that we need to avoid. So you're going to hear me this season and you know, throwing on or through the beginning of the year. I'm going to do some teach backs online and I'm going to get geeky with you. I'm going to break down the science behind it. I'm going to lay it out for you. I'm going to teach you what it is and why this point of intention is so critical and you're going to begin to see, especially in our operating operating environments, especially with the way the conditions are constantly changing, things are constantly popping. We have to be on our game and the way that you're on the game where you get ahead of the situation, the way you're actually in command and control of it, the way you're going to bring calm, the chaos and all the things that we spent six months talking about this all going online and your ability to ground yourself, anchor in the present moment and operate with a clear line of intention or intentionality necessary to handle whatever it is that comes your way.So I hope you got something in front of the day. Check out the show notes and join me tomorrow or yeah, join me tomorrow Friday, uh, in the Facebook group. We'll kind of go through this thing to talk about a little bit more. Download the form. She can go to the website later to pick up the forms, work them through yourself. Ask me any questions that you got. I hope that it helps you set yourself up for an amazing until you read 2020. So again, listen, thanks for listening. I really appreciate it. We're going to close out today's show. We're only running probably, you know, 15, 20 minutes in today's, which is perfect. I don't need overrun yet. We don't once it's out, it's out. So, alright ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate you listening. Thanks so much. Next week I've got retired chief Gasaway on with me from essay matters.It's a great conversation whether you're in the military, the law enforcement community or in the fire service, and if you're in the fire service should probably know who he is. He's on next week. We have a great conversation about situational awareness, but a real deep dive into it. Really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to getting that podcast out. Uh, because the rest of this month we're going to get into this mental acuity point. This is partly why this week was important, and understanding, kind of creating this intention in the background or this idea of creating intention in the background is critically important because I'm going to be talking about it through each episode or specially on the Thursday episodes where it's you and me talking and I'm trying to, you know, give some little, little teachbacks in there. We're going to really begin to explore how that unpacks and can impact us, uh, either in a great way or can really throw us off our game. So catch me on Friday. Send me any questions that you got. Tune in next Tuesday. Mental acuity chief Gasaway. It's a rad conversation. Listen, have a great weekend. Be safe out there. Happy 2020 and we'll talk to you soon.
Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This is a big day, not only is it the first week of Submissions September, but we have something much more important happening: Today is the release of next novel, Rekka’s Peridot Shift Trilogy, ‘SALVAGE’! It’s an amazing book and we’d love for you to check it out. On the WMB side of things, this is the first week of Submissions September! Rekka and Kaelyn are bringing you six, (6!) episodes this month all about the process of submitting your novel. We have a lot of awesome episodes lined up and even some special guests. Here’s what will be coming your way for the month: Week 1 (9/3/2019): Is This Ready For Other People to See?- Submitting Your Manuscript Week 2 (9/10/2019): My Entire Novel in Three Hundred Words - The Dreaded Query Letter Week 3 (9/17/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 1: An Interview with Literary Agent Caitlin McDonald (9/18/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 2: Interviews with Agented Authors (9/19/2019): Agents of Literature Part 3: Interviews with Agented Authors Week 4 (9/24/2019):What is Going On Over There? - The Other Side of the Submissions Process We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and any words of encouragement or congratulations you want to send Rekka’s way. We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast | @KindofKaelyn | @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast Patreon.com/WMBCast Kaelyn:00:00 Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the, We Make Books Podcast a show about writing, publishing, and everything in between, and also the first week of Submissions September. Rekka:00:09 Yes, yes, and also. Kaelyn:00:11 But wait, there's more, there's more. It is also Book Day for Rekka Jay! Rekka:00:17 Well, RJ, Theodore, Kaelyn:00:19 RJ Theodore. Rekka:00:19 Wherever she is. Kaelyn:00:20 Wherever she is. RJ Theodore, author of Salvage the second book of the Peridot Trilogy from Parvus Press, released today. Um, so yeah, big day for Rekka. Very exciting. How you feeling? Rekka:00:31 I'm feeling oddly calm about, Kaelyn:00:33 Well, that's because we're recording this before it's actually happening. Rekka:00:36 Yeah. That's the truth. Kaelyn:00:37 It's still, it's still, it's still happening. Rekka:00:40 It's still coming up. Yeah. Gosh, yeah. Now, now you're getting me nervous. Kaelyn:00:44 And so, uh, yeah. So today, today's records book day, very exciting. Rekka:00:47 So if you are listening to this live or otherwise, you can go find yourself a copy of Salvage, um, and if you don't have the money to buy a book, you can request it from your local library, which also would be very - Kaelyn:01:00 That would be fantastic. Um, also today, you know, maybe you could show Rekka a little love, tweet her some, uh, some congratulations, some support. Um, you know, if you listened to the previous episode as, you heard that uh book launch days are stressful. Rekka:01:16 Stressful, a little weird. Kaelyn:01:17 Anticlimactic, yeah. Rekka:01:19 A little quiet, I work from home, so it's just like me alone in my office and nobody's blowing birthday noisemakers or anything. Kaelyn:01:27 Well, now, guess what we're going to do. So, yeah. Anyway, we're, we're really excited for Rekka's book launch and um, we're also super excited for Submissions September. I'm real, I'm giddy excited about this. Rekka:01:41 Kaelyn may be slightly more excited than I am. Kaelyn:01:43 Um, yes. So, you know, we've been a teasing slash threatening this for awhile. Um, so we're doing four episodes and actually it's going to be five episodes, it looks like. Yeah. Rekka:01:54 At least. Kaelyn:01:54 In September. Um, so this is our schedule this week, um, you can see from the title of the episode, we're talking about preparing your submission. Um, we're gonna talk a little bit about getting your submission ready and then actually submitting, which is a lot of me ranting. Rekka:02:10 There is a launch sequence. Please adhere to it for everyone's safety. Kaelyn:02:13 Yeah, which is a lot of me ranting about submissions, guidelines. So, you know, just a, just a warning, get ready for that. Um, next week, September 10th, we're going to be talking about query letters, uh, their function, how important they are, how to some tips for writing them and what they should be doing. Rekka:02:31 Yep. And also, you know, we, we talk about getting your stuff ready for submission in this episode. It doesn't mean yeet it. Kaelyn:02:40 Yeah, sure. Rekka:02:40 After this episode, keep listening. Kaelyn:02:42 Keep listening. Rekka:02:42 We've got more good stuff for you, the rest of the month. Kaelyn:02:44 September 17th is agent's week. We're going to be doing two episodes of. Rekka:02:50 Right. And that's, that's the one that's like, oh, okay. So one a week, but also a fifth one. So we've got a lot of great people who volunteered to come on and give us some of their personal experiences, including an agent. Um, maybe, you know, like if we have more than one at that, after we've recorded this, then we'll include more than one. But, um, so we're going to split that up into an episode up from the agent side. And one from the author side. Kaelyn:03:15 Yes. So, um, I know that's something we're, we're really excited for that because that's something that a lot of people, um, are in the dark about. Rekka:03:22 Yeah. And it's the big scary part because that's like quote gatekeeping. Kaelyn:03:26 Yes. Rekka:03:27 So this is the part where people start to get very nervous. This is the judgment before people even read your book thing. Kaelyn:03:33 Yes. So then finally, September 24th, we're going to be doing an episode about what's going on on the other side of things where me, for instance, an acquisitions editor. What I'm doing when I'm getting submissions, what I'm considering, how I'm reading things, how I'm responding to them, et cetera. Um, so we still have some time for if you have a few questions for now. Rekka:03:58 Like if you're listening now we can probably get your question in at the end of the month. Kaelyn:04:02 Yes. So we were talking about, you know, potential six episode of if we have a bunch of questions doing an doing kind of a wrap up episode, um, you know, if there's any topics that people were particularly interested in or things they wanted to engage in more, um, you know - Rekka:04:18 Or if we have, we muddied the waters for some reason. Kaelyn:04:21 Yeah. Or if you're very confused. And, um, so, uh, you know, if we have enough we'll probably maybe do something with that. Rekka:04:30 Yeah. Kaelyn:04:30 In the end of the month. So we're really excited for this. I um- Rekka:04:36 She smiling's it's just like teeth all over the place here. Kaelyn:04:39 Yeah. We were talking about, you know, um, but we do organize shows ahead of time and you know, plan out what we're going to say. And we were kind of mapping out for the next couple of months, um, what we're going to talk about. And there were a lot of topics related to submissions and the more we looked at it, we were like, maybe we should break these instead of breaking these up. We should put them all together. And then it's like, okay, well we've got about three or four episodes of material here, but then doing them every other week is kind of - Rekka:05:10 It's like months and months of just one topic. Kaelyn:05:12 Yeah. And it's also sort of disrupting the flow. So we thought that this would be good, you know, for four topics, four weeks submission, September. And I'm that way it's kinda taking you through a process and hitting different points of things that are going to happen. So, um, we're really excited to do this. We hope it's going to be entertaining and informative as always. And Yeah. Rekka:05:37 And so here we go. Kaelyn:05:38 Uh, hope you enjoy the episode, everyone and, and the rest of Submissions September and we'll see you next week. Rekka:05:45 Yes. Kaelyn:05:57 [inaudible] Kaelyn:05:58 Rekka first episode, Submissions September. Rekka:06:00 Yes. Kaelyn:06:01 This is very exciting. Rekka:06:02 It's, I'm a little distracted again today though. Kaelyn:06:04 Is something happening? Rekka:06:08 She forgot me. Kaelyn:06:09 I never forget you! Guys Rekka's book comes out today. Rekka:06:12 Yes. Kaelyn:06:13 Book Two of the Peridot Shift trilogy. Salvage. Rekka:06:17 Salvage came out today and so it's my book birthday. It's a big day. It's also the first day of Submissions September. Kaelyn:06:24 Yeah. But real quick, let's go back to you. So if you're listening to this tweet Rekka some, uh, some love and encouragement @bittybittyzap. Yeah, she would very much appreciate that. Rekka:06:34 I would not be, um, against the idea of getting some, some call outs on Twitter and stuff like that. Positive call outs. Um, because book days book birthdays are lonely for some reason. Kaelyn:06:47 No, it's not. You're here with me. I. Rekka:06:48 am here. Kaelyn:06:49 Yeah. Um, cause we're recording this exactly on September 3rd. Rekka:06:54 Totally. Kaelyn:06:55 Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it is also, this is the first episode of submission September, which we're, so I'm, I'm really excited to do this and it's because I get to yell about a lot of stuff. Rekka:07:06 Kaelyn's been like building up and building up and building up things to say about this for awhile. Kaelyn:07:11 Oh, the thing is I tricked Rekka into this and because before she, she agreed and then before she knew it, she was like, oh, this is a manifesto as told through five podcast episodes. Yeah. Oh that's right, everyone. Rekka:07:24 Potentially six. Kaelyn:07:25 Potentially six. There's- Rekka:07:26 She's already threatened there might be six. Kaelyn:07:27 There's already, possibly six. There's definitely five. Rekka:07:30 Why not 20? Kaelyn:07:31 We've got, we have some really good stuff coming down the pipeline. Um, um, so yeah, today we're talking about preparing your submission, um, and getting it out into the world and seeing if anyone wants it. Now, um, I'm going to qualify real quick here that I am treating this the same as if you're preparing to submit or query to an agent or if you are submitting directly to a publishing house because these rules apply to both situations. Rekka:07:57 Right. Kaelyn:07:58 And there are rules. Rekka:07:59 So you know how you try to go out to high school wearing your really cool new like accessory or whatever and you try to get out of the house before mom sees you and then like you hear her call you back from the other end of the, she's like in the kitchen and you just like, can I make it in the door? Like, just won't open. This is like Kaelyn is calling you back from submitting whatever you were going to submit. She just wants to check just your ready. Kaelyn:08:24 Look - Rekka:08:26 It's out of love. Kaelyn:08:27 There's a lot of moving pieces here. Um, so we're going to kind of break this down into two parts. One is preparing your submission, which is how do I know this is ready to be put in front of people. And the second is going to be submissions guidelines. And I apologize in advance for how excited I am to talk about submissions, guidelines. Rekka:08:48 Near and dear to Kaelyn's heart. Kaelyn:08:49 Yes. Um, so the first, the big question, how do I know this is ready? How do I know time to send this out to people? Rekka:08:56 As a writer, I've been working on my story forever. I've been revising it a lot. I don't know if it's good enough. I mean that's why I'm sending it out cause I'm asking, please tell me, but this is good enough and you know, at what point do I stop fiddling with it and start finalizing it and send it out. Kaelyn:09:17 So I kind of always think of this as, you know, they say like if you make a journey by halves, half of the distance at a time, you'll never actually get there. It's kind of the same thing. You're down to a millimeter. And if you keep dividing it, you're just, you never going to get there to a certain point, you do take a step back and say, okay, this is done. So when do you submit it? The answer that I know everyone's going to love is when it is the best possible version it can be. Rekka:09:48 Another way I've heard this phrased is that when you can invest more time in it and the return on that investment of time is not significant. Like if you could make another revision pass, but if you were just like - Kaelyn:10:04 If it's not going to help, that's when you know the half journey. You're not, you're not getting any farther at this point. Rekka:10:10 Yeah. Kaelyn:10:11 Um, so we have talked about, you know, this, uh, episode two we talked a lot about, you know, pre-acceptance of your work and, um, then also working with an editor. Um, so hopefully we won't go too much into that. Again, probably people have already read it. If you're working with a freelance editor, if you've gotten notes, if you've had some Beta readers, um, you - Rekka:10:34 Hopefully, it's not just you at this point. Y. Kaelyn:10:36 eah. Yeah, I mean, you know - Rekka:10:38 It might be, but like, you know, if you haven't found anyone who's interested in it, it might be that you need to work on your pitch and maybe you're telling them too much before they open it up. But, um, you can hire people to read it if you are really not sure. Kaelyn:10:53 Yeah. Rekka:10:53 But chances are you're pretty confident in this thing. You're proud of it. You, you want to send it out. Kaelyn:10:57 I hope so. Rekka:10:58 Yeah, you should be. Kaelyn:10:59 So that's the story state of things. When you're ready, when it is the best possible version it can be and you can't do much more to it right now. The other side of things from besides story is mechanics and style and grammar. When is that ready? Now I will say acquisitions editor. I do not expect to get submissions that are perfectly copy edited. There's a reason we have copy editors. It's because those that's hard to do. Rekka:11:30 Yeah. Kaelyn:11:31 So that said, please use periods please capitalize. Please have a basic understanding of how commas work. Rekka:11:44 Um, if you run this through like grammar check in word or you get Grammarly and you run through and you disagree with every suggestion, every suggestion, you probably need to reconsider your stylistic choices. Kaelyn:11:59 Yes, definitely. So with knowing when your submission is ready in that regard, do basic writing checks, make sure that your grammar, punctuation, spelling is correct to the extent that you can get it. Like I said, no one is expecting a professional copy edit here, but watch for egregious errors. And I'm going to say something a little, I won't say controversial, the beginning of this is the most important part. If you can't, if you don't have time to comb through every single page of your manuscript, please for the love of God, at least do the first 20%. Um, because me the acquisitions editor, that's what I'm going to read first. And insider secret, I know people are doing that and I appreciate that. Now that said, if I get through your first 20% of your book and it devolves into, you know, misspelled words and abstract punctuation and you know, some really interesting uses of commas, I'm, that's gonna be a major red flag for me. So, but please pay extra special attention to the beginning of your book. Please, please proofread and closely check the first page of your book. Rekka:13:22 And I'll say it again. If you haven't read your entire book out loud yet, do that. Like, that's, Kaelyn:13:26 Yeah. Rekka:13:26 That's a good step to um, to making it more legible and definitely catching things that you haven't seen because you've looked at it too much. I think it's always important at least once in your books, you know, existence, um, to read it aloud. And if major changes happen, then it's always good to read new sections. Kaelyn:13:45 Absolutely. Rekka:13:45 So here's a really good place where you're going to catch stuff where you went, oh, I didn't even realize I did that. And it'll make your editor a little less mad at you. Kaelyn:13:52 Yeah. Um, one of the, you know, I think I've mentioned this on, on this podcast before, but I use what I call the Colin Coyle method. Colin's, the publisher at Parvus Press. And he always says, your first sentence is buying me your first paragraph, first paragraphs, buying me your first page. First page is buying me your first 10, first 10 buying me your first chapter. You are trying to get me to keep reading. Now part of that is story which, you know, I, I can't help you or offer advice on that in this context, but I can tell you that your grammar, punctuation and spelling is something that I'm going to be paying close attention to there. So - Rekka:14:31 Yeah. Kaelyn:14:32 Just please make sure, check the beginning of your book. That's very important. It's important throughout, but especially the beginning because that's the first impression you're making on me. Um, that's, you know, and you're going, well why is that such a big deal if you're going to get a copy editor? Because a couple things. One, it's setting the tone of your book. And I don't mean that in terms of story or style. I mean that in terms of what kind of a writer are you? Um, it's showing me that you're paying attention, that there's attention to detail and that's giving me a sense of what it's going to be like to work with you. Because if I'm getting a book through submissions and it's a mess in the first chapter, I'm going, well, this person doesn't care that much. I have other people here who put a lot of time and effort into getting this to a point that they want me to read it and this person just slapped some stuff together and sent it to me. That's, and it's wasting my time to now. So that's just gonna start off with leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Rekka:15:37 Right. But then plus every strange choice or, um, you know, uncaught mistake is a potential like tripping point where an editor might get, it, might be enjoying the story, but then they get popped out because like the sentence doesn't actually finish and, you know, go straight to the next paragraph, um, without, you know, the second half of the last sentence or something like that where you go, oh wait, and then you're out of the book, you're back in your room and you're wondering if you want to keep going. Kaelyn:16:06 I've had submissions where, um, I've had repeated paragraphs one right after on the first page, first page, repeated paragraphs. I've gotten ones that have really bad spelling errors in the first sentence. And it's not like they fat fingered a keyboard here, you know, like I've seen that and it's kinda like, alright, they were obviously just, you know, doing one last check through, accidentally leaned on the x. You know, it's, that's, that's fine. Um, but like first sentence spelling error is not, you know, that's not, it's not a good look for you to start with. Um, so please, you know, check, spend some time and do this. I know it can be boring. I know it can be a lot and I know it can be mind numbing, Rekka:16:54 But if you don't want a publishing deal bad enough to put this effort into exactly. Because you're going to be doing this a lot. Like there are more edit versions to come. Kaelyn:17:05 And that's what I mean when I say this is showing me what you're going to be like to look at. Because if I'm your editor and most any editor, I would hope you're not getting away with anything. Rekka:17:16 Right. Kaelyn:17:17 Um, if I put a note in your manuscript and you ignore it, that's going to be a problem. So it is a, it is a first impression. Your first page is trying to hook the, the editor, but it's also making a first impression. Um, so please pay attention to these things. Um, again, especially the beginning of the book, especially your first sentence. Um, because it does, you know, it's not like, oh well, whatever. It's just one little thing. No, it is showing so much about and what you would be like to work with. Rekka:17:51 Right. Kaelyn:17:52 It's very important please, I get hundreds of submissions every time we open for submission. So if it's a matter of the first person who couldn't be bothered to spellcheck their document Rekka:18:05 And spellcheck is on by default in most cases, if it's giving you a red squiggly line, consider you spelled it wrong. Kaelyn:18:11 Yes. Well assuming you know it's actually a word and not something - Rekka:18:15 Right, yeah, I know we're talking genre fiction. So you know, the spelling of your characters name may always get a red squiggle, but that doesn't mean like turn off your perception of red squiggles. Like scan the documents, see what else is, you know, coming up as an error. Kaelyn:18:29 Yeah. So if it's a choice between someone who couldn't be bothered to spell check the document and someone who clearly put a lot of time, work and effort into being careful about this, guess who I'm going to be more interested in working with? Rekka:18:39 Right. Kaelyn:18:39 Um, I will say, you know, and a big thing at Parvus is we're very into getting good stories. But if it's a good story from someone, that's going to be a nightmare, we don't want. Rekka:18:51 Right. Kaelyn:18:51 Um, a big part of this is figuring out can we work with this author? Do we want to work with this author because this is my time and my hours out of my life. So I'm not going to put that into something with someone that I don't want to work with. Rekka:19:08 And there is a certain percentage of your decision that's going on, gut feeling. And so these kinds of obvious disregard for your time, Kaelyn:19:17 Oh yeah, they're massive red flags. Rekka:19:18 Massive red flags, and they're going to send your gut feeling. Kaelyn:19:23 Exactly. Um, so your book is in the best possible state it can be You've spelled checked it, other people have read it, you're ready to go. So we're going to do more on a querying and how you find these places. Um, but, and again, for the purposes of this, we're lumping publishing houses and agents together. Rekka:19:46 Right. Kaelyn:19:47 Um, you query an agent, you submit to a publishing house, but it's tantamount to the same thing. Rekka:19:53 Right. Kaelyn:19:54 So what you're going to do is look for people that are open for considerations. For agents they'll say, I'm open for queries for publishing houses, they'll say, we're open for submissions. The first thing you want to do is do some research on this house or person. Rekka:20:09 Right. Kaelyn:20:10 Look at what they're interested in and where you will find this right off the bat is in their submissions guidelines, Rekka:20:19 Right. Yes. Most of the time they will tell you exactly what they are not looking for and if it's in that list it means they are sick to death of it. And you are no exception to that rule. Kaelyn:20:28 Yeah. Your book is probably not so special and interesting and unique that it's going to change their mind. Rekka:20:34 Right. So if they say no zombies and no werewolves, no, vampire romances is just - Kaelyn:20:39 Just don't. Rekka:20:40 - don't, and you've written that, don't, don't go for that. Kaelyn:20:43 Um, the other thing you should be doing though is looking at either, you know, other authors that the agent represents and the kind of stuff they write or in the case of the publishing house, the other things they've published. And just kind of see like where you would fit into this. Rekka:20:58 Yeah. Kaelyn:20:58 Do your research on these things. It's really important. Especially I would say, especially with publishing houses, you know, check them out, make sure that you know, this isn't some kind of predatory vanity press. Um, and with agents, um, good agents by the way, if you know they're interested in working with you, if you ask them, you know, can I talk to some of your other clients? They'll have no problem with that whatsoever. Rekka:21:22 Because they don't want you to talk to other clients, you probably don't want that agent. Kaelyn:21:26 That's a big red flag right there. Um, so, but submissions guidelines, what this is going to be is kind of two parts. One is what I'm looking for and what I'm not looking for, like the kinds of things that we're publishing. And then the other is, here's how I want you to get your submission together in order to present it to me. Rekka:21:45 Yep. Kaelyn:21:46 I think people do not take these seriously enough. Rekka:21:52 Or it looks like a big overwhelming bit of text. So they just do the best they can. And they have a manuscript that they um, they have made sure is in a standard manuscript format and they just throw it on over. Kaelyn:22:04 And why do they like what's so special about them? Why do they want it in this format? Because they're the one who's doing this and they get to say so, right? Rekka:22:10 They get to say so and they probably have a good reason. Like this is worked out for them in the past. It makes their job a little bit easier and makes them less cranky when they approach the submissions, which is exactly what you want. Kaelyn:22:21 But I will say their reasons for it are none of your business. If that's how they want this, then - Rekka:22:26 It's not up for debate. Kaelyn:22:27 It's not up for debate. And if you want to submit to them, that's how they do it. Um, I have had people write to me and say, well, I really don't want to do this because, and my answer is I don't care. Rekka:22:40 Yeah. Kaelyn:22:40 You know, like I write them back and go, well listen, you can submit however you want, but if you don't follow this submissions guidelines, there's a very good chance that this isn't getting looked at. Rekka:22:48 Right. Kaelyn:22:48 Um, so the other part of the submission guidelines are going to be do this, do this, don't do this. I want it in this format. Um, for publishing houses, I know for us we ask for a query letter and then your entire manuscript. Rekka:23:05 Which is not 100% of the time common. Kaelyn:23:09 Um, it depends. Yeah. You know, some, uh, I know a lot of agents now are that used to be a thing. Agents wanted your first a few chapters and a lot of them now are saying, I want your entire manuscript. Um, and this is kind of going into how it's easier to transfer digital files. Before agents didn't want your entire manuscript. They didn't want a hundred pages. They wanted the first few chapters. Rekka:23:31 Right, because these were arriving in a mail room. Kaelyn:23:32 Exactly. Now it's, you know, there's um, you know, you have like a submissions manager and it's really easy to go into. Um, we ask for, you know, your entire manuscript. I think a lot of publishing houses that do open submissions, we'll ask for your entire manuscript. A lot of agents are asking for entire manuscripts now, so if somebody asks for your entire manuscript, send the entire manuscript. One of the reasons that we do this is I want to know is this done? Rekka:23:57 Yeah and does it end okay? Kaelyn:24:01 Yeah, that's another - Rekka:24:01 I mean, you may not make it that far. Kaelyn:24:03 But well, if it's something I'm strongly considering, then I - Rekka:24:06 You jumped to the end. Kaelyn:24:08 I want to read it and you know, at least get an idea of where it's going, make sure it doesn't completely go off the rails. Um, but that's a question. You know, like when I, every time we open for submissions, I get at least a dozen or so that are like, here are the first five chapters of my book. And it's like, well, yup, out the door. But also the big thing is I'm wondering is, is this finished? Is this all you've written of the book? I'm not going to wait a year for you to finish writing this. Um, there will. So that's one thing, you know, they're gonna say, I want to these things, I want to query letter, I want the entire manuscript, I want a little bit of a bio from you. Maybe you know, that kind of stuff. Then there will be other guidelines with say a word count. Um, Parvus we have a 60,000 minimum for novels. Rekka:24:59 Yup. Kaelyn:24:59 And again, I constantly get emails going, mine's at 45. Is that okay? No, it's not. Rekka:25:06 It's not 60. Kaelyn:25:07 And is that less than 60? Rekka:25:10 There's your answer then. Kaelyn:25:10 No, it's not. Okay. Please don't go into this thinking I'm special. Rekka:25:19 Truly, I am the exception to this unnecessary rule. Kaelyn:25:23 Yeah. Mine's 45,000 words, but it's a really solid book and I think you guys should definitely take a look at that. And what that's saying to me is I do not want to take a look at this and I don't really want to work with this person. Yeah. Um, pay attention to the submissions guidelines. If they say they want anonymous submissions, make sure you have that. Rekka:25:45 Yeah. Kaelyn:25:46 You should have a version of your manuscript with all of your personal information scrubbed from it. Well how do they know how to get in touch with me then? Rekka:25:54 Their system is set up. Kaelyn:25:55 Don't worry about that. That's when you, you know, for us, for instance, our submissions manager, you have to register your new username. It's um, so we'll find all your information in there if we need to. We'll go look it up by manuscript ID and be like, okay, this is how I get in touch with this person. Don't worry, they'll figure out how to get in touch with you. They've done this before. Um, read the submissions guidelines, follow them. This is the easiest, silly thing you can do to immediately get yourself knocked out of consideration is not following the submissions guidelines. Why is that, Rekka? Rekka:26:33 Because if you want to have a professional relationship with a publisher, you need to show them that you are professional. And the easiest way to do that right from the start is to follow the submissions guidelines and give them exactly what they're looking for and nothing they aren't. And also, you know, just not proving that you're going to be difficult at every stage of the process. Kaelyn:26:57 Exactly. It's. Rekka:26:58 Speaking of being difficult. Hey, as a publisher, will you sign an NDA before I send you my, my manuscript? Kaelyn:27:06 Oh God. Yeah. Um, here's this is, I am not sure, [laughs] Rekka's watching me like make like very exasperated facial expressions and like - Rekka:27:18 I can't see past your hands what youre expression. Kaelyn:27:20 Like that are just like covering my face. Like, I don't know where this paranoia comes from. And in some cases that's the only way I can. Rekka:27:33 Somewhere there's an urban myth or it's probably happened. But somebody sent a manuscript off to somebody, they said, no thank you. And then a book came out that was awfully similar. So that author of course assumes that it was stolen and maybe, you know, like I said, there's probably cases where it did happen that way, but an NDA isn't going to stop the publishing house from doing that anyway. This is why you research a publishing house before you submit. Kaelyn:27:54 Yeah. I mean if, if that happens to you, then you've got amazing legal recourse because in this day and age, everything is digitally tracked. Rekka:28:03 So that it's not like you're sending off sheets of paper, they just tear your name off the top. Kaelyn:28:10 Um, don't make ridiculous, outlandish requests. If anyone emails me and says, can you sign this NDA? I'm not even going to respond to them. Rekka:28:20 Right. Kaelyn:28:20 That's like, and that's telling you how difficult they're going to be right off the bat. And plus that aparent level of paranoia is going to pervade through the entire process. Rekka:28:28 But also it's showing me I don't trust you. Kaelyn:28:30 Yeah. Rekka:28:31 Why? Like hold on, why do you want to work with me? Kaelyn:28:33 Right. Um, and there's a lot of trust that goes into what's gonna come next. Yes. And it's setting, well, I can't say it's setting a bad tone for a relationship because there isn't going to be your relationship at that point, but you really need to reevaluate what you're doing., if you think that everyone you need to send your book to your manuscript to, it needs to sign an NDA. Rekka:29:02 A publisher sees so many books and if they have an open call for submission, they're looking to buy books. So if you have a great book, they're going to buy it from you. They're not going to steal it from you. Kaelyn:29:13 Yeah. Because I mean alternatively we're just going to publish it as from this publisher? Who's going to be the author. So do I take it and do I take it and give it to another author? What would be the point of that? It's so don't, don't be obnoxious. I like, that's the only way I can come up with to describe that is that's borderline obnoxious. I'm sending these sort of things, making demands of the publisher and look, the power dynamic here is definitely a little weird. And if you're a writer, not great because the truth is you don't have much if you're doing an open submissions call. So don't send NDAs to people. Um, but yeah, and back to Rekka's point. This is showing me what it's going to be like to work with you. If you can't follow a set of directions that doesn't bode well for the time, money and investment we're going to put into you. For agentss it's the same thing. They're going to spend a lot of time trying to shop you around, talk you up, get you the best deal possible. And if you're going to make their lives miserable, you're maybe not someone when they want to be having as a client either. So the submission guidelines are there to make my life easier, but they're also there to show me a little about you and show me how you function. Show me if you can follow directions. Rekka:30:35 And one thing I, I feel I need to say is like we make it sound like, you know, don't be difficult, don't whatever. It doesn't mean you're going to set up an expectation that this publisher can walk all over you. What you're showing them is your competence. So if you are competent enough to follow submissions guidelines in the first place and you're competent enough to write a good story that they want to buy, they will also expect that you are competent enough to stand up for your rights when it comes to negotiating contracts, et Cetera, et cetera. So don't feel that by not asserting yourself with, you know, various, um, you know, like standing your ground sort of mentalities at the beginning of this that you are going to end up like being the doormat for this publisher. That is not, that is not what we're trying to set up here. We're trying to set up a great working relationship Kaelyn:31:22 And I will take this a step further and say, I'm not saying don't be afraid to ask questions if you have a question, um, you know, email them and just say, Hey, I'm, you know, what's best for me to do with this sort of thing. Um, now that said, before you do this, you should try to figure out if your answers in the submissions guidelines. Rekka:31:43 Cause it's probably in the submissions guidelines. Kaelyn:31:46 Um, one thing that I'm a little bit of a gray area about is like, well I read in your submissions guidelines that you're not taking things with werewolves in them, but my werewolves are in space and it's Scifi. Rekka:32:00 Right. Kaelyn:32:02 So, Rekka:32:02 So if you don't understand that, they're like talking specifically say about urban paranormal romance and it's not that clear but like, you know, clarify. But. Kaelyn:32:14 And I would also say, you know, if you want to email them, that's fine. Um, and to be honest with you, there's a good chance, you're not going to get a reply back. Um, but you can also put that in your query letter. Rekka:32:25 Right. Kaelyn:32:25 And you know, Rekka:32:26 Just in a query letter - Kaelyn:32:27 Yeah. We're going to talk about query letters next week and that's a good place to kind of make any sort of conditional kind of stuff that you want everyone aware of. Like, I know this title werewolves in it, but it's werewolves on Mars. That actually might make me go. Huh. All right. I'll take a look at that. Rekka:32:46 Right. So, yeah, maybe not asking the question about like your specific story, but the questions about the submissions guidelines themselves. Kaelyn:32:54 Absolutely. Rekka:32:55 Send an email and say like, um, I'm looking at this email and I think there might be a typo in your like email address or something like that because it doesn't match the domain name, like, yeah, you can write an email about that. Kaelyn:33:08 Just to clarify or you know, just to make sure like this is, um, I'm going to go on a little short tirade here right now, I apologize. When asking questions like this again, keep in mind how many emails and how much stuff is going on. Please take the time to actually compose an email. Um, I don't know if everyone, I think most people probably feel the same way with this with me, and I don't know if this is me being overly fussy, but I hate when I get emails that are just, hey, so like what about this thing? And that's it. Rekka:33:45 Yeah. Like keep in mind that no, this is not your official submission. This is probably talking to somebody who might review your submission as a professional corresponds. Kaelyn:33:53 This is not, you're not sending me a text or a DM. This is, hi Kaelyn. You know, I'm so and so. I'm, I'm interested in submitting to you. I just had this one question because I'm getting ready to submit and I don't want to get disqualified for something silly, Rekka:34:10 Right. I, Kaelyn:34:13 I don't know if it's just a pet peeve of mine if it's just, you know, something that really sets my hackles up is when I get emails that - Rekka:34:23 It's like one line and it's right to the question and it just comes off as rude and demanding. Kaelyn:34:28 Demanding is exactly that, right? Like, hey, tell me about this. Like, no, first of all go read the submissions guidelines second, like take some time and compose an email for me. You know, I'm not saying this has to be, you know, the equivalent of the Queen's invitation. Rekka:34:43 I mean, this isn't a query letter itself. You don't have to worry too much about it, but just be nice, you know, like - Kaelyn:34:48 Like you would any other professional setting, Rekka:34:50 To Whom It May Concern if you don't know who you're writing to, exactly. And say I'm reviewing - like, here's what I'm doing, here's my question. I appreciate your time and answering it. Kaelyn:34:59 Yeah. Rekka:34:59 And sign off professionally. Kaelyn:35:01 It doesn't need to be paragraphs. Please don't make a paragraphs. Um, but think about, you know, if you were interviewing or applying for a job, same thing. This is a professional setting. Rekka:35:09 Let me tell you people still, you know, I've interviewed people and I have still got emails like that. Kaelyn:35:13 No. And I mean, I'm sure you know, there's, it's, it's systemic of, you know, the online, it's symptoms of the culture, unfortunately. Um, but that is, that's another thing that is gonna make me go like, oh my God, this person, why do, why would you send this to me? Um, so just be conscious, be aware of this as a professional interaction. Rekka:35:38 Yeah. Kaelyn:35:38 So that's getting your submission ready. Um, do your research, do your spell checks. Um, talk to people that you know, can maybe point you in the right direction and follow the submissions guidelines. It is the smallest thing you can do to get yourself removed from consideration unnecessarily. Rekka:36:03 It's really surprising what a fight people will put up when it's not that much effort. Kaelyn:36:08 Yeah. And one thing I will say also is, um, when I say research, especially publishing houses agents as well and especially publishing houses is check for context. Yes, maybe what you're writing falls within the submissions guidelines, but make sure it is actually something that you think they'd be interested in publishing. Um, can I tell a story that's slightly inappropriate? Rekka:36:35 I mean we can cut it later or if I, if I go, you know, I don't like this story. Kaelyn:36:39 I got a submission once that was an epic, you know, high epic fantasy and it was, you know, very sword and shield like, um, I have no, I don't remember anything about what it was about because all I remember is within the first two pages I got lengthy graphic description of three different men's penises. Rekka:37:04 Hmm. Kaelyn:37:07 Extolling the virtues of each of them. And, and I'm reading this going, this person is not a bad writer. And this sounded like this was maybe an interesting story. I, but no. Rekka:37:20 However I'm done. Kaelyn:37:21 I'm burning this, I'm going to print it out just so I can burn it. Um, so that's just another thing. Rekka:37:28 So know your audience. Kaelyn:37:29 No, that's exactly. Yeah. Know your audience. And that's a good thing to keep in mind while researching publishing houses, if they don't seem like they're interested in having stories with graphic descriptions of male genitalia crammed into the first 300 words the book, Rekka:37:48 I mean maybe pick up one of their other books and see if that's in there. Kaelyn:37:52 Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you're gonna, if you're going to go for something then like that, I mean one may be don't, but two, you know, make sure - Rekka:37:59 There's an audience for it somewhere, you've just got to look a little harder. Kaelyn:38:01 Exactly. And you know, so be, be aware of that kind of thing. So, um, you know, that's, I think that's a good. Rekka:38:08 We can end on the penises. Kaelyn:38:09 On the penis story. Cause I don't know where else to go from there. Rekka:38:14 There's no where to go from there. Kaelyn:38:15 No where to go from that. Rekka:38:17 Mic dropped, podcast is over. Kaelyn:38:19 We're done. Good luck everyone. Uh, no. So that's um, you know, that's prepping your submissions on next week. We're doing query letters. Rekka:38:26 Yup. Kaelyn:38:27 Um, I'm excited for that one too. Rekka:38:28 Yes. Query letters is a more artistic expression of following the submissions guidelines because - Kaelyn:38:33 Well for you, for me it's, you know, okay, I've got an agenda. Rekka:38:36 Okay, fair. Alright. So up next week there's a tease. Kaelyn:38:42 Next week Kaelynand Rekka duke it out over query letters. Rekka:38:45 And again it is next week because for submission September we are doing weekly episodes, maybe even more depending on how things go. So, um, yeah, look forward to that and let us know if you have any funny penis submission story is or otherwise. Kaelyn:39:00 Yeah. Like, you know, um, so we're recording a lot of these in advance, but you know, we did talk about, we'd mentioned in the previous episode, we did talk about, you know, we got some questions and stuff. We'd be very happy to do a wrap up episode. Yeah. And kind of maybe if there's a few topics, pick those and kind of talk about, flush them out a little more. Rekka:39:18 Yeah. Kaelyn:39:18 Um, yeah, we're, I'm having such a great time with this [laughs] Rekka's giving me a look right now because I must have like Harley Quinn like giant crazy eyes right now. Um, cause I am just giddy over getting to, uh, getting to talk about this stuff. So, um, anyway, uh, thank you you for listening. We'll see you next week. In the meantime, you can hit us up on the socials as usual, Rekka:39:42 Twitter at @WMBcast, patreon.com/WMBcast, Instagram @WMBcast. And of course you can find wmbcast.com and listen to all the old episodes or if you are new, you can go back and find some of your new favorite episodes. Kaelyn:40:02 Thank you everyone for listening. We'll see you next week, which that's exciting to say. Rekka:40:06 Oh my gosh. Like don't get used to this. Kaelyn:40:08 No. Rekka:40:08 I don't think we can sustain this pace, especially with the cost of the train fare over here. So thanks everyone for listening in and next week: Query letters, Kaelyn:40:17 Query letters. We'll see you there. Bye.
Emotional eating can be a real challenge in finding balance. Sometimes there is a sense of helplessness to it. In today’s podcast, Josh Hillis shares his emotional eating coaching strategy to help our listeners find new ways to cope with stress that doesn’t always revolve around food. What you’ll hear in this episode: How effective are cravings control strategies when you have emotional eating issues? Is the answer to emotional eating more control? The emotional release effect when you emotionally eat after tight control The role of acceptance in emotional eating Normalizing the existence of uncomfortable emotions. Diffusing uncomfortable emotions - what does that mean? Gaining perspective around the perceived urgency of feelings The role of mindfulness in managing negative emotions Defining emotional or disinhibited eating Learning to let the monsters ride the bus Being in the driver's seat of how you deal with feelings Introducing a waiting period to delay emotional eating The value of taking time to identify feelings Ways to scale and create distance between you and your feelings Three ways to feel comfortable with your feelings without using food Managing expectations of emotional eating - moving past all or nothing Psychological flexibility as a goal, defined. Identifying and being aware of your “monsters” Thought suppression and the health and wellness industry sales tactics Frequency and emotional eating Rules vs Self-Loving Guidelines Tracking progress - things you can track Resources: Josh’s Blog Fat Loss Happens On Monday Everything You Know About Emotional Eating is Wrong - blog post Annie quotes Mothers, Daughters and Body Image - Hillary McBride’s book Getting Older: Hillary Mcbride On Women And Aging Episode 13: How Your Body Image Impacts Your Children With Hillary Mcbride Learn more about Balance365 Life here Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Android so you never miss a new episode! Visit us on Facebook| Follow us on Instagram| Check us out on Pinterest Join our free Facebook group with over 40k women just like you! Did you enjoy the podcast? Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Google Play! It helps us get in front of new listeners so we can keep making great content. Transcript Annie: Welcome to Balance365 Life Radio, a podcast that delivers honest conversations about food, fitness, weight, and wellness. I'm your host Annie Brees along with Jennifer Campbell and Lauren Koski. We are personal trainers, nutritionists and founders of Balance365. Together we have coached thousands of women each day and are on a mission to help them feel healthy, happy, and confident in their bodies on their own terms. Join us here every week as we discuss hot topics pertaining to our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing with amazing guests. Enjoy. Annie: Welcome to Balance365 Life Radio. I am so excited for today's guest because today's incredibly smart and talented guest goes way back with Balance365, so far back in fact that he knew Lauren, Jen and I before we were even a business. Josh Hillis has been a longtime friend and mentor to the three of us and I'm so excited for you to hear his wisdom on today's episode. Josh helps people beat emotional eating using a skill-based not diet-based approach that allows people to create a new relationship with their bodies and food and get results that have previously never been possible. Josh is the author of Fat Loss Happens on Monday and the upcoming lean and strong and yet untitled emotional eating book coming out in 2020. Josh has been writing for his blog losestubbornfat.com since 2004 and he currently attends MSU Denver and is doing his thesis on contextual behavioral science and emotional eating. He's the perfect guest for this topic. The current standard answer to emotional eating and the health and fitness industry encourages individuals to just have more control, more control over their diet, over their thoughts, over their emotions, more control over your cravings. But on today's episode, Josh shares why that advice usually doesn't work. For those who struggle with emotional eating and provides multiple practical tools to help you overcome it, I think you're going to love it and joy. Annie: Josh, welcome to Balance365 Life Radio. We're so happy to have you. You go way back with our team like way, way back. How are you? Josh: I'm good. How are you guys? It's so cool to see you guys again. Annie: I know, like, we're still, like, we're still together. The last time we were Facetiming was under a little bit different context. We were Healthy Habits Happy Moms then and we were, you've kind of helped us mentor us as far as like habits and skills and philosophies and you're just a really great coach. Just flat out really great. Josh: Thank you. From you guys, that's awesome. Annie: So we're so happy to have you and Jen and Lauren are here too. How are you guys? Jen: Hi- Lauren: Good. Josh goes way back to like before we were even a thing. Jen: We met Josh the same time we met each other. Lauren: Yeah. Josh: Wow. Jen: Years ago. Annie: Yeah. Josh: Oh Wow. That's awesome. That's amazing. Annie: So you're kind of a big deal to us, are we making you uncomfortable yet? Josh: That's awesome. Jen: When our book comes out we're going to have a page for acknowledgements and I was just telling the girls last week, like Josh Hillis is going to be my number one acknowledgement. Josh: Are you serious? Jen: Yeah, just like all your work and your blog, like it's been so insanely helpful to me. And even just watching you in conversation with people, like, as creepy as that sounds, but just how you handle people, how it's just and you're just so objective and, and really what we try to embody at Balance365 as far as there's no right one right way for every single person and just being open to tools and helping people build a, just a more varied toolbox and they currently have for their health and wellness. Jen: And also the other big thing that we come up against is that, because we're all about self acceptance and embracing oneself, we also often get lumped into a segment of this industry that we all know about, which is basically the anti weight loss movement, which is like weight loss is so bad. Why? Like nobody better talk about this. And a lot of dietitians are on that train as well as psychologists. And so it's just, it's like frightening for me at times. And I found myself questioning, you know, cause you go to the, you see these other professionals and you're like, "Oh man, like, she makes a good point, like what's?" And you've question your own values and what, but ultimately we have risen as like, look, we're just, we're just trying to take a messy middle approach. And there is really nothing inherently wrong with weight loss, changing your behaviors. Jen: And I so appreciate that and you, because I see you as a real leader and professional, not just in the health and wellness industry. Well the health and fitness industry I should say, but you are now a part of the psychology industry. Lauren: Say, "Hey, this is okay. Come on" Annie: And you're not a jerk. Like you're not, like you're not out there shaming people and you're like still able to like help them achieve the goals that they have in a really like compassionate, positive way, which is awesome. Jen: Yeah. And you've got a couple of clients I was reading yesterday on your page that you have a couple of clients that have lost over a hundred pounds. That's like, that's a, that's a life changing, values altering like those clients, like you've totally changed their lives. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Annie: So now are you uncomfortable? Josh: No, this is like the coolest, most thoughtful, most wonderful compliments I could ever get because you guys are acknowledging me for the things that I've worked the hardest at and that mean the most to me, like in the world. So I totally appreciate it. I totally, totally, totally appreciate it. Annie: Yay. Well, we're like, we can just be your ultimate hype women when you're having a bad day. You can give us a call. Okay. Josh: Can you guys introduce me on every podcast? Annie: We can. But peaking of podcasts, we should probably talk about the topic that I, that you actually wanted to talk about because we've been trying to get you on the show for a while and you're a busy guy. So, when I said, are there any topics that you wanted to jam on and you were like emotional eating, like top on your list. So what is it about emotional eating that you love so much? Josh: I think, so a couple of different things, on like the bigger, like zoomed out level, I think it's access to making the kind of difference that I want to make with people. If they can get, what's really neat is if someone really struggles with emotional eating and they can get that under control it tends to spiral out into other areas of their lives and they have like better relationships and do better at work. I mean like it's, it's really like I don't coach any of that stuff and that kind of thing shows up. The other thing that I like about it is I think it's a place where people feel so out of control and they feel like they can't be this kind of person that they want to be and like they're like, they're being driven by this other thing. And so I like it cause I want to put them back in the driver's seat. and then also the framework that I study, which is contextual behavioral science is just really good for that. And so that's- Annie: I think it's great because I, you have, you have an incredible blog. One of the blog posts you shared with me, you noted that the typical response in the fitness industry to emotional eating is like control, like just control more things and then like, you'll be fine. And,in order to control emotional eating, individuals just they need to control their diet, then control their thoughts, their emotions, their cravings, and you think that that's pretty much crap. Josh: Yeah. Annie: So tell us why, why do you think it's crap? Tell us more. I mean, we agree. Josh: Yeah. So, one thing I just want to preface this with, because it's the most surprising cause I do think it's totally crap and I've gone that way for a while, but I was really surprised this year that I found some studies where they separated out people that had a high degree of emotional eating and cravings, eating and external eating, which is like, you see food and you want it versus people that scored really low on that. And for the people that scored really low on that control was actually fine. Control actually totally worked just just fine. But that's not the clients that I get, you know, they don't hear me. So, the flip side is that control, if you do have issues with cravings or emotional eating, tired eating or and you're procrastinating or any of those things, then control will have an opposite effect. If it works, it always rebounds and the rebound is always, pretty un-fun. Like people really feel like a really, really bad loss of loss of control and they feel kind of gross and they don't feel good about themselves. Jen: So it's sort of that the more tightly wound you are, the faster, harder you'll spin out. And applied to eating, I think people get that release, like they're so tightly wound around food trying to control everything then getting out of control, they just, I mean in the moment it's like a release, right? Josh: Yeah. So you bring up these two really big points. Oh man, it's so cool. So on one hand you've got this like rule based way of living and the problem with having a totally rule based way of living is you break the rule and you're like, I'm off. I'm like explode. Like do it all because this is the last time ever. So, there's that huge like explosion release thing there. And then the other side is that, like, food really does work temporarily for numbing emotions. So, those two things kind of spiral together where people, like, break the rule and they're like, "Oh no, I'm, I'm off my diet and I'm going to go into all the things." And then they start to feel guilty about it. And then they actually are eating to numb the guilty feelings they have about breaking the rules. It's like- Jen: layer one and layer two. Lauren: Wow. The plot thickens. Josh: Totally. Annie: So I understand if you have emotional eating issues or cravings control strategies backfire, like they aren't helpful. What does work? Josh: Great question. So, it kind of all fits in the world of like acceptance based strategies and I get, I like, I have some clients to kind of freak out when I say, like, "acceptance", you know, cause they're like, "I don't want to accept." But that's just kind of like a family of strategies. And what kind of falls inside of that is, the first thing is actually normalizing. It's just recognizing every single time that you have uncomfortable thoughts and uncomfortable emotions, that it's normal to have uncomfortable thoughts, uncomfortable emotions and, like, the foundation is people, like, believe that that's not okay. You know, cause they've heard so much about, like, positive thinking or controlling their thoughts or all of these things or they were, maybe it wasn't cool growing up for them to have emotions or whatever. Josh: But for whatever reason, they think they're supposed to be a shiny, happy person. And just recognizing it's normal to feel sad sometimes. And the number of coaching calls I get on where something really bad happens to someone and I have to say like, "It's okay. It's okay to feel to feel bad. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay. It's okay to have all these feelings." So recognize that it's okay and normal and healthy. Sometimes we can even pair with, well, that's jumping to the next thing. So the next thing is getting a little bit of distance from uncomfortable thoughts and emotions, in act and acceptance commitment training they call it diffusion or fusion. So if you're fused with your thoughts, you feel like they're coming from you, you feel like they're true or true or false, and you feel like there are a command, you feel like there like something that like urgently needs to be fixed. Josh: Diffusion is getting enough enough distance from your thoughts. You can see that like these thoughts might have come from my parents or the media or magazines or whatever. But like, my automatic thoughts aren't me. Right. They aren't true or not true. They're just thoughts. They aren't an urgent problem that needs to be fixed, right? It's normal to have these thoughts and feeling and so diffusion is a matter of, if people have done any kind of like meditation or mindfulness and like, noticing your thoughts and like not so that's where people get caught up. A lot of people have done, I've tried to meditate or do mindfulness in such a way that they were trying to change their thoughts and not have thoughts. So, it's not that, but it's like being able to notice like, "Oh, here are these thoughts and these emotions." Josh: And it could be as simple as saying, "I notice I'm having the thought that blank" versus just treating the thought like it's true. Or probably a little later we'll get to, there's a metaphor for all this called, let the monsters ride the bus and it will kind of pull this together, but, basically get it, get enough distance from those thoughts that you can be with them and that they're not driving and then the third thing is you've got to drive. Like you're the bus driver, but like you can have these thoughts and still take actions that fit your values in your life. And then the last thing is that requires having actually, like, clarified your values. Jen: Right? Right. Annie: This is like my therapy. This is what I discuss with my therapist. Josh: Do you have an acts therapist? Annie: I don't know. But there's, it does feel very similar into that, like just acknowledging like, these are my thoughts. These are my emotions. What is this? Where did this come from? I don't have to act on them. I can just acknowledge them and, and then sitting with them, not like trying to numb them, not trying to run away from them or like avoid them. Yeah. Lauren: I've realized recently that my, I'm very prone to, what did you say? Fusion? Josh: Yeah. Lauren: Where I'm like, this is my thought and I have to fix it right now. Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jen: We know that about you. Annie: We could've told you that, Lauren. Jen: She's doing that thing again. Lauren: Well, I recently found this about myself. Jen: This is like my inner Spock. Like when my inner Spock is like, "Halt." You know what I mean? When we have to, "Let's analyze this." Yeah. Annie: So, okay, so Josh, what does this, what does this look like? So people have stress, they have an emotion. They have like, I mean, it could be emotional eating, it can be a wide continuum of emotions. It could be happy. It could be- Jen: We didn't define emotional eating either at the beginning. Annie: Yeah. Do you have a definition, Josh, that you, or a way to define emotional eating? Josh: So most of what I'm looking at is disinhibited eating. So that's, like, a feeling of loss of control with food related to strong emotions, good or bad? Good, good or bad. Wanted or unwanted would probably be more accurate, external, like, seeing things and cravings and so it'd be eating in response to any of those things. With my clients I also lump in, to me it's all the same thing. I also lump in procrastination eating, tiredness eating. Those are the other two. Yeah. Annie: Tiredness eating being that you eat when you're tired. Josh: Yeah. Annie: That's me. Annie: I do that I think. Yeah. Okay, so you experience these emotions, any of them. And then you have a behavior around food. Is that- Josh: Yeah. Annie: Any behavior or it could be a wider range of behaviors? Josh: Oh, it's typically like feeling some degree of loss of control. Like you're not, you don't feel like you're choosing to eat the Brownie, like, I woke up and there was brownies everywhere. Jen: It would be different than happy eating cause we had someone in Balance365. I feel like her emotional eating was out of control. She ate when she was sad, but she also ate when she was happy. But it's more of a loss of control aspect to it. Not a, "Oh, I'm so happy. Let's grab a cake. Celebrate." It's right. Josh: Yeah. It's not, "Let's have a bottle of wine at on date night." It's not, "It's my grandma's hundredth birthday. I'm going to have a chocolate cake." It's not that at all. Should I get into stuff like what, what we do about it? Annie: Yeah. Go for it. Jen: If you want to. Josh: So the simplest thing to do is to put in a waiting period. Right. Could be waiting. 10 minutes, could be waiting a minute. Does it matter? All we're trying to do is they've got this really, really ingrained pattern of have an emotion, eat and if we can separate that, we're good. So that means, like, if I've got clients with pretty legit emotional eating problems, we'll start off with, they have an emotion. They wait 10 minutes, they eat the thing anyway, almost every time. That's fine. We can totally start there. Jen: Progress being the waiting period. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. So, the progress is it's not automatic, they might have to like struggle with it for that 10 minutes or they might have to think about it for that 10 minutes, but at some point, but they've got enough time, they get to choose in that case where they're having it all the time, they don't, they don't have a lot of choice. But it's at least we're breaking that pattern where it's automatic, where they might not even know what they're feeling. They might not even know what they're thinking. Which is actually really common, which is really, which is why, another really, so things you can put in that 10 minutes, you can put it in like looking at a feelings wheel and being able to just like pick out this is what I'm feeling, which actually creates some diffusion that creates some separation. And there's something really magical about people being able to figure out like going from, "I feel bad" to "Oh, I'm sad. I'm sad because this the, you know, my boss yelled at me and that sucks." Right? Maybe it's normal to feel sad when my boss yells at me or whatever. Jen: I do this with my kids like they, but Brene Brown talks about how she has some research that shows, she's done research on college age students and they can only, they only identify three emotions and that's like- Josh: Really? which ones? Jen: Happy, mad and sad. And so she talks about how, you know, in order to be in touch with our emotions, we need to be able to identify emotions and we just aren't taught how to identify. I do this with my kids and we, like, talk about all these different range of emotions outside of mad, sad and happy because you can feel so many different things. But it's so interesting for you to talk about this because I also see so much child psychology stuff that actually applies to two grown ass adults as well. Like we need, you know what I mean, because we weren't taught in childhood. So it, yeah. So it needs to be brought in. Josh: All of the emotion regulation stuff for kids I use with adults. It's awesome. Annie: There's Josh Hillis' coaching secret. Kid psychology. Jen: Go grab your feelings wheel. Annie: Where are you on the spectrum? Jen: Next time Lauren has a meltdown I'm going to say "Go grab your feelings wheel." Annie: All of our slack community, our corporate communication is now going to be, "I feel because" statements, so Josh, you, so you create some distance, you identify some feelings or what your feelings, you get really clear on what that is and then you can eat the thing if you want to still, right? Josh: Yeah. And so they're sort of like these, like, kind of guideline-y things, like waiting 10 minutes. Another like guideline-y thing that I'll start off with, like, either don't do it, do whatever you want. If someone is eating the thing every time then we'll add in like a 50% guideline where 50% of the time they'll eat the thing and 50% of the time they'll find something else. And again, that's just sort of like some training wheels to have to like think about it and choose and be like, you know what, I ate the thing three days in a row. Maybe today I should try going for a walk. Jen: Right, right. Annie: And the point is to really just disrupt the autopilot, right? Josh: Yeah, yeah. Jen: Yes. Right. And also sounds like scaling a little bit. Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jen: Rather than, again, what we see big, big, big problem is people try to go from zero to 60 and it never works. It never works. And Lauren had a really good idea for bridging the emotional eating gap. She said if eating a piece of cake is your coping mechanism, try pair it with a bath, go eat your cake in the bath, and then eventually your association can be more, can become about the bath and then remove the cake and then have it be about the bath, right? It's about scaling that towards a healthier coping mechanism. Josh: That's awesome. Jen: Yes. Go Lauren. Annie: Are there, Josh, do you have any other ways to create distance or to even just feel comfortable feeling your feelings without food? Josh: Yeah. So there's always going to be three different things that you can do, three different effective things. One is you can create distance and just sit with it. Like, just accept this is normal. Right? And a lot of times that's really cool. If you're in a situation where you can't do something else, right, Like maybe you're at work and you've got to keep working, and so what you do is you notice those feelings and you come back to being present with your work or your family or whatever's going on around you. Like, you actually get present with that. The other thing would be to have a menu of different self care things that you can do. And so you notice you have those feelings and then you take a walk or do some deep breathing or take a bath or read a book or whatever. At this point I think I've got a list of like 70 different things in like 15 categories. Jen: I want to just say one thing for the moms who listen and the dads, when I find myself emotionally eating, my kids are often a trigger and alternative forms of self care are not available to me. Right? Like I can't go take, I can't check out of parenting and go take a bath or even go meditate or whatever. And so sometimes I'm just freaking eat a bowl of chips. One thing I would say is that I've scaled it from diving headfirst into a bag of chips to like getting out a little bowl and putting some chips in there and then just eating them and going, "Yeah." So I would say like, I mean my emotional eating skills are not, but they have greatly improved over the years. Josh: Well look at that. So there's a couple of great things about what you just said, right. Number one, parenting is a great context for, like, being able to just, like, accept it and be there. Also, you, you did look at, like, separating out the chips and, like, having a certain amount versus just, like, grabbing from the bag, which works for all kinds of treats all across the board. And then the third thing that that brings up is, it's actually, and this is another thing that's such an important thing. It's normal to eat to chill out your emotions sometimes. Jen: I totally agree. I don't think the goal is like 0% emotional eating. It's like, really, how often are you doing it and how, what is the loss of control there, right? Rather than- Josh: Yeah. Jen: Like emotional eating isn't all bad and it's like, really? Is it? Josh: Yeah. Jen: A couple of chips when my kids are losing it? Is that so bad. Annie: Is it problematic for you? Josh: Oh, and it's one those things where like, like the goal is psychological flexibility. So psychological flexibility is the ability to make different choices. Right. It's just an ability to make different choices. Jen: Right. Right. Josh: Like, never emotionally eating is rigid. Jen: Totally. Josh: Always having to, like, where most of my clients had is they've got like a rule, they don't, they don't say it as a rule, but like they've got a rule that if they have emotions they eat, totally rigid. Jen: Right. Josh: If we can get in the middle we're rocking. Jen: Totally. Yes. Annie: That sounds so familiar, Jen. Jen: The messy middle, yes. That's where we like to hang. Josh: I loved that so much. That is like the best phrase in the world. Jen: Brene Brown, I've brought her up a few times now. You can see I really like her. Josh: I like her too. Annie: But- Jen: Yeah, she talks about being in the messy middle, but when you're in the messy middle you get arrows from both sides, which we have also experienced as well. Being in the messy middle between hardcore health and fitness and hardcore body positive anti weight loss. Hanging out in the middle is can be quite lonely and you can get arrows from both sides. But- Josh: I get that. Annie: Okay. So say you're finding yourself, like, face deep in, like, cake or chips or whatever it is and you're, like, you have this, like, moment of, like, "Whoa, what am I doing?" Josh: Yeah. Annie: Like you're like in this middle, like an emotional eating extravaganza. Josh: Yeah. Annie: What do you do? Do the same thing, like, create some distance still or are there different rules? Josh: Oh no, that's, you nailed it already. It's the exact same rules. So, you notice you're in the middle, you separate yourself from it geographically. You give yourself some time to think about it. You do some sort of diffusion exercise. Whether that's, well, where I talked about, like, a feelings wheel, but also I've got some clients that will journal, they'll write out everything that they're feeling and just writing it out gives them a lot of distance. The biggest thing my clients use actually a metaphor called "let the monsters ride the bus" so we might as well dive into that now. So, it's a really, really common act metaphor and the metaphor is, you're a driving a bus and sometimes you get really cool passengers that get on the bus and they're like, "hey, you're great and we love you and high five!" Like that. Josh: And they get on and off when they want. And sometimes they get monsters, they get on the bus, they're like, "Hey, you're ugly and stupid and you always do it wrong" and they get on and off when they want. And your job as the bus driver is to drive the bus and you could always make a left turn towards, like, numbing and controlling, or you can make a right turn towards your valued actions. And what this allows people to do is allows people to realize like, "Hey, I've got these monsters that will get on, will ride along with me and I can still take a right turn towards my values. Even with the monsters on the bus. Like, my job isn't to get rid of the monsters. It's not to not have monsters. It's to let the monsters ride the bus." Josh: And my clients have identified, they almost always have identified, like, what their most common monsters are. And my clients get to a point where they have identified the monsters that they have in the middle of emotional eating. I've got a lot of clients that have a monster that's like, "One more will be fine, one more will be fine, one more will be fine." Or they might have a monster that's like, "You've already ruined it. Might as well go for broke. Let's start again Monday." And so when they have those feelings, again, they don't treat them as true. They don't treat them as, like, them. They're like, "Oh, there's that monster again. And that guy can ride along the bus. And I know that when I'm in, when I catch myself in the middle, my monsters are super loud." Annie: Are you familiar with Pema Chodron's work? She's a Buddhist nun. Josh: No. Annie: This is feels very similar because you have in that blog post, and I think, I think I pulled this quote from your blog posts it said, "The irony is that when people accept cravings as being normal" or I'm assuming these uncomfortable emotions, "they have an increased capacity to tolerate cravings" and that's just very similar to her work. That's like you actually, by just acknowledging the feelings and emotions you suffer less, like, and that's, like, instead of trying to avoid it or like do all these things like this contortionists, like, "I'm going to avoid it in any way possible. I'm going to do all these things so I don't have to feel the thing that I'm trying to avoid feeling." If you just like feel it and like acknowledge it, like, "I see you, monster, you're on the bus, I hear you, but I'm not going to listen or I'm not, you know, whatever." Josh: Yeah. Annie: It's like you can still take action as you notice, what did you, how did you say, that aligns with your values? Josh: Yeah. Annie: Yeah. Even though you hear them, even though they're on the bus- Josh: You nail. Yeah. Yes. The same. And that's a really, really, really big. So, here's the paradox there. You're 1000% right. The paradox is that when you allow the monsters to be there, it is a lot less painful and it's a lot less intense. The paradox is that you don't want to approach it as, "I'm going to allow the monsters" to like force it to be less intense because then it doesn't work. And so that's not actually doing it. But what you're talking about, which is really cool, it's really, really cool, is that there's two kinds of pain. There is normal human pain, which is like the feelings and an uncomfortable thoughts that we all have. And then there's like the added pain that comes from trying to, like, control and fore and not, you know, and so, you do get to avoid all of the added pain and you're not the first person to be, like, you know, there's this Buddhist that kind of sounds a lot like these acceptance and commitment training people. Annie: Well I think it's, I think it's, I don't know if it's just the universe, like, I've been doing kind of this emotional work to like make these messages become really clear to me. But it seems like I've been trying to, and I've talked about this on other podcasts, outsource feeling good or feeling great all the time. Like you said, like we get this message that like, "Maybe I shouldn't be feeling these things" or like "Everyone else feels great all the time and they never have bad days" or "They never have self-doubt" or they never have body image issues. And it's like, "That's actually just not the case. Like, just acknowledging that like you get to feel all the things and you still live, we're going to be okay," like that. It's like, that feels really powerful to me. But I like that you say like, I love that analogy of let the monsters ride the bus. I could see that becoming a big phrase in our community. Can't you Jen? Jen: Yeah, I was already picturing it as a hashtag soon. Josh: That's awesome. Jen: The other thing is I think when I was hearing you say, Josh, is because we have this other guests, she's been on twice now. Her name is Hillary McBride. We have to, we're going to call her Doctor Hillary McBride soon cause she's almost done her Phd and she is also psychologist and she works in body image and she has a book called Mothers, Daughters and Body Image. And so she has sort of encouraged the same process as far as thoughts about your body, like kind of stepping outside of it. But, and then I think her version of monsters on the bus is to acknowledge the monsters on the bus. But to say, is this really true? Just that simple question, is this really true? And I just sort of have this vision of being a driver on a bus hearing all the monsters in the back, but being able to say, "Is that true? Like, do I have to do that? Am I, you know, am I helpless to this? Is that true?" And you know, the answer is often, like, "No, it's not actually true." And then you can kind of just, yeah. Keep doing what you were doing. Josh: Yeah. Jen: Yeah. Josh: Just to, like, it's, like, notice. Jen: Yeah, just notice. Yeah. Josh: Like it's, it doesn't, yeah. Cause we, it is so normal for us to treat it like it's true. Like it's, like, it's so true. Jen: Right. It feels true. Right? Josh: That's awesome. Annie: Okay. So Josh, we discussed, being aware, creating distance, normalizing the experiencing of different emotions. Is there anything else that comes to mind when I'm addressing emotional eating? And again, I do want to recap that this is like as you, as you said at the beginning, that those are tools that work for people that have emotional eating issues. If you don't have emotional eating issues then, like- Josh: You probably don't have to- Annie: Then it doesn't apply. Or what was the difference that you said? That thought control or thought suppression would work for people that,- Josh: yeah. So, here's where it gets really funny. Cause I got really spun whenever the research that thought suppression worked for cravings and emotional eating for people that don't have cravings and emotional eating issues. And but, like, at first I was like, "thought suppression is always bad. Like how does that work?" And so I actually talked to my friend, Amy Evans, who's this brilliant behavioral analyst and she's like, "Well, of course not because the function is different, right? So if the function of that controllers is trying to like push away these uncomfortable emotions and cravings, then it's like an avoidance strategy. But if you don't have issues with those, then it's actually kind of like, maybe it's just like conscientiousness, right? Like it's a totally different thing." And I'm like, "Oh!" So it's good to have genius friends. Jen: Right? So can you give us an example in context? So person A doesn't have ongoing emotional eating issues, so we're talking about, but then something, a craving pops up or, or they're feeling emotional and they're feeling some kind of urge to eat if they don't struggle with ongoing emotional eating issues, then suppression works. Josh: Apparently. Yeah. I mean I don't coach that, but in the, in the research, yeah. Jen: So what would suppression look like for them? Josh: Yes. So, I'm guessing if they didn't score very highly than it's just a simple guideline that they're just like, "Oh, I don't, I don't eat between meals." I don't eat from the, you know, which is, which is totally fine. Jen: Right? Yeah. We call these self-loving guidelines in Balance365. They're not rules. They're flexible guidelines that keep you in a place of self care kind of thing. Josh: Yeah. So like- Annie: Oh, sorry, go ahead, Josh. Josh: I was just going to say if someone doesn't score really high on cravings and they have a little craving, it's pretty easy for them to go like, "Oh, I'm not going to do that." Jen: Right. Josh: "If someone scores really high on cravings- Jen: Then it's a bigger deal to say, "No, I'm not doing that." Yeah. Okay. Annie: I think it's important to note though, as you noted, as we noted in the beginning of the podcast is that that can work for some people, but right now the majority of the health and fitness industry are selling thought suppression. Josh: Yeah. Annie: To everyone. Like, that is, like, the widely accepted common answer versus, "Hey, like, maybe this is normal." Jen: They're also selling emotional eating at any point as as unacceptable. And so, you know, a person who is has an emotional eating episode one day, that's, you know, we're trying to say in this podcast that that's not wrong. And really, if you don't struggle with emotional eating, whether you do or don't engage in emotional eating is not a make or break for anyone's life. Right. It's not, whether you choose the chips or don't, it's just not really an issue. Like it's really a small, tiny little rock that really, you know what I mean? Like we're talking about, there's people that have real loss of control that going on, you know, sometimes daily for them around emotional eating. So, and it comes down to the frequency. How often are you engaging in these behaviors and ultimately what does that end up? What does that look like for you? After three months, 12 months, three years, 20 years, right? Josh: Frequency's everything. Jen: Right. Annie: Josh, you're so much fun to have on our podcast. Do you have more? Josh: Can I throw one other thing out there? The other thing that, the biggest misconception that I've gotten when I've talked to people about this and I've got it so much that I want to make sure not to miss it. This is still a behavioral approach, right? Like they're like, "Oh, you're like deal with your thoughts and like that" but you still, like, you still have to clarify your values and attach behaviors to that. But it's like, so self love guidelines was that? Jen: Self loving guidelines. Josh: Self loving guidelines, or like kind of like more, more intuitive skills or like, all these different things. The whole point of all this is to be able to do those things more frequently. Jen: Right? Josh: Right. So, all of my clients, I shouldn't say all of my clients. The majority of my clients track behaviors, right? So they track how often they have like a mostly balanced meal or how often they have vegetables or how often they, you know, snacked between meals or how often they noticed their hunger before they ate or how, you know, like how often they were full and stopped and like, they track actual behaviors and things that we can count the real world. Monsters on the bus is another thing that they track and count how often they use it. They also track if they didn't need it, like, "Oh, I didn't need it today," but- Jen: Oh interesting. Josh: If they're like, "Oh, I didn't need it and I used it" or "I didn't need it and I didn't use it." Those would be different things and it seems really weird maybe to use like a metaphor as a behavior to track, but it works really well. Jen: So ultimately you're tracking, the behavior change that you have people track is not necessarily emotional eating episodes, but how they dealt with those, whether they dealt with it in a manner that is more healthy than bingeing. Josh: Yeah. Jen: Right. Okay. Josh: Yeah. And so that could look really differently for a lot of different people, but it's like how often did you use this metaphor? How often would you use a diffusion technique? How often did you use your menu of things you can do? Jen: Right, right, right. Annie: Great. So, so you're putting behaviors with it. That's great. Josh: That's what grounds it in the real world. Annie: Yeah. Josh: Otherwise it goes way. Jen: Josh had a thread on his page, several months ago where you said, "sometimes I think" as far as your weight loss clients, you said "If we changed nothing at all except working on stress reduction methods, people would lose weight without changing anything at all." And then I had mentioned or just sleep, like, just a sleep habit, which is, you know, kind of goes hand in hand with stress- Josh: So good. Jen: Isn't it? So it just sort of like, yeah. So imagine if people just, so what we find is people hyperfocus on food, like they just are hyper focused on it and if you zoom out and you get back, if you just laid your foundations for say stress reduction, better sleep hygiene, anything you identify that helps your wellness wheel go, the food just doesn't matter. People will kind of eat until they're satisfied. Do you know what I mean? Like it's often these, the overeating tendencies we have are often a result of these high stress, sleep deprived, poor coping mechanism, lifestyles that we're living, the rest of the overeating issue. You don't have to be so hyper focused on the food or crank the wheel to the right and jump on the Keto wagon or cause you're really never getting to the underlying issues of why you're overeating in the first place. Right? Josh: Yeah. With my most successful clients, all these things we're doing show up as self care. Jen: Right. Totally. Josh: And it's like, and then the people that struggle are the ones that keep trying to do it as punishment. Jen: The food, the food. Yeah, totally. Josh: And the thing about sleep is no one makes phenomenally great food decisions when they're exhausted. Jen: Nobody. That's right. Yeah. Josh: I will throw out there in case there's any people that work like swing shifts or anything like that out there. For a while I had a ton of clients that were nurses that worked overnight and so for them, a lot of it was just acceptance of every time their schedule shifted they were going to be like unusually hungry. And so that is workable. But for everyone else, if we can just turn off screens like an hour earlier, like, man, this all gets easier. Jen: Totally. We just interviewed a sleep doctor before we interviewed you. Josh: Oh really? Annie: Yeah. He said the same thing. Jen: Same thing. Our podcast is the best. Josh: Your podcast is the best. This was so much fun. Annie: Are you always this energetic? I mean, every time, I've talked to you twice in five years, like you always have such great energy about you- Jen: And smiling. You're always smiling. Josh: You're super great. It's fun hanging out with you guys. Annie: You are welcome back here anytime. Josh: Also, this is, like, my favorite stuff to talk about. Annie: So yeah, you are, you're welcome back here. Anytime. Anything, any projects you're working on that you want to tell us about or where can we, where can our listeners find you or keep up with your work? Jen: You're working on a million books. Josh: I am working on a million books, so, losestomachfat.com is still my blog. I still do celebrity workout stuff and emotionally eating research, which is now a weird combination. I've got two books coming out. Lean Is Strong is coming out at the end of this year. And then the untitled emotional eating book is coming out next year. And that's my big stuff right now. It's top secret. Annie: Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Alright, well thank you so much, Josh. Josh: Thank you. Annie: We will talk soon, hopefully. Josh: Okay, cool. Thanks guys. Annie: Thanks. This episode is brought to you by the Balance365 program. If you're ready to say goodbye to quick fixes and false promises and yes to building healthy habits and a life you're 100% in love with, then checkout Balance365.co to learn more.
Why? Like... what?! Huh? Nathan, Brendan and Steve & Izzy of Everything I Learned From Movies (http://eilfm.podbean.com) talk about one of the strangest, most unnecessary sequels of all-time that features almost no werewolves - Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf. The gang discuss everything about this flick from the soundtrack consisting of one song repeated ad nauseum, monkey wolves, Christopher Lee looking absolutely miserable throughout the film, the dangers of shooting in Czechoslovakia and so much more. Also: listen in for a clue regarding the next great movie that will be covered. Patreon: www.patreon.com/wwttpodcast Facebook: www.facebook.com/wwttpodcast Twitter: www.twitter.com/wwttpodcast Instagram: www.instagram.com/wwttpodcast Theme Song recorded by Taylor Sheasgreen (www.facebook.com/themotorleague) Logo designed by Mariah Lirette (www.instagram.com/mariahhx) Montrose Monkington III: www.twitter.com/montrosethe3rd What Were They Thinking is sponsored by GameItAll.com and HostGator (use the coupon code 'schlock' for 25% off your first purchase).
I wrote this inspiring and empowering Black love poem to celebrate the true love between a Black King and his Black Queen. This Black love poem is about a husband and wife that’s been married for over 17 years. This POWERFUL Black love is MY story between me and my husband. I hope my poem inspires other African American marriages, too! And if you’re a single Black man or Black woman… I hope this gives you an idea of what to strive for in a relationship. Real Black Love is POWERFUL. It’s NOT complicated. It’s NOT filled with drama. It’s doesn’t consist of emotional, verbal, or physical abuse. Black Love is BEAUTIFUL. A relationship does NOT have to be complicated. To me, that’s a personal choice! You have to get sick and tired of being sick and tired. You have to get to a point where you clearly know what you want, and don’t settle for less than what you know you deserve. You have to set the standard from the beginning in how that woman or that man will treat you. Real Black love does exist! It amazes me how many people I hear talking about how there’s no good Black men or how there’s no good Black women. I’m here to tell you, that’s NOT true. The problem is this… You keep giving your attention, time, and love to females and males that don’t deserve it, period. I encourage you to slow down and REALLY pay attention to the type of men and women that you’re drawn to. I don’t want to get long- winded, so I’ll just leave you with this… Above everything else, you have to genuinely love yourself, first! When you genuinely love who YOU are, you won’t be willing to accept just ANYTHING. I know you read and hear a lot about self-love, and it’s true… self-love is everything! This goes for men and women… Men aren’t exempt! If you’re currently married and/or in a relationship, I encourage you to evaluate it. Be honest with yourself… Are you in a healthy relationship, or did you or are you settling? And if so, WHY? Like, comment, and SHARE is you enjoyed this! And don’t be shy… I welcome your comments, too! – Stephanie Lahart Note: Google my name, Stephanie Lahart, for all of my quotes! I’ve got plenty of quotes that you’ll want to share with your family, friends, and coworkers!
Come with us across the sea of time this week on XENA: WARRIOR PODCAST as we tackle Hercules & Xena: The Animated Movie - The Battle for Mount Olympus! Vera, Katie, and Livy have a lot of questions about this feature length animated spectacular, and most of them can be boiled down to: "WHY?" Like, why are their faces this way? Why is Xena's hair red in splotches? Why is Gabrielle a bird? Why doesn’t anyone talk about the romantic Arthurian/Sleeping Beauty imagery and subtexty goodness of "Xena's Song?" Why are the Titans the worst? Why is this happening?? Why was this an idea???! Etc. Boom shaka laka laka boom boom, everyone! The power, the passion, the podcast! Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/xenawarriorpodcast iTunes: http://apple.co/2f0NAIM Twitter: @xenawarriorpod Tumblr: xenawarriorpodcast.tumblr.com Facebook: facebook.com/xenawarriorpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/xenawarriorpodcast ———————————————————————— Vera: (@hollywoodgrrl) Katie: (@katetocci) Livy: (@PonderousLivy) Music: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/A_Hawk_and_a_Hacksaw/
Podcastification - podcasting tips, podcast tricks, how to podcast better
Audio editing is a MUST for your podcastYou'd expect to hear this from a guy who edits podcast audio for a living, but I'm going to say it anyway - your audio quality matters. Why?Like it or not, people make quick estimations about the resources they find on the internet, which means that their first listen to a less-than-quality podcast might easily be their last. In my experience (and the experience of many people I speak with), it's exactly that. Compare your podcast to a movie Think about the last "C" grade movie you saw. Did you rush out to find more films by that producer or director? Doubtful. Did you immediately begin gushing about the movie to your friends and family? Laughable. You probably told everyone how terrible the movie was. The same thing can happen to a podcast with less-than-great audio. Your goal should be to make your podcast audio of the quality that people will eagerly rave about it in nothing but glowing terms. Audio editing is about setting yourself apart There are so many podcasts to choose from. Last time I checked iTunes (for example) there were over 250,000 shows on iTunes! How are you going to make YOUR show one of those 5 or 10 that a person wants to listen to regularly? Settling for poor quality audio is an unnecessary wedge between you and a potential fan. And why settle at all when great sounding audio is not all that difficult to attain. There might be a niche audience in some obscure realm of the internet that really doesn't give a hoot whether you record in a studio or a cave, but you know as well as I do that's the exception rather than the rule. The average podcast listener will not endure hissing, echo-y rooms, pops, and harsh "S" sounds for very long. Not only is it irritating, it can literally cause pain to the ears when headphones or ear buds are being used. Then there's the "ummm" and "uhhhh" filler-words that are common. I'm not throwing stones, we all do it (yes, even me). But why settle for the amateur feeling those speaking habits give to your show when you could remove them? You'd sound more authoritative and professional and make the listening experience easier and more enjoyable. Who are you podcasting for, anyway? Approaching it that way is keeping the end-user in mind. THAT is what drives the "connection economy" nowadays. If you stick to your guns about "not doing any audio editing" simply because you don't care about it (or you're too lazy), you're way too self-absorbed. Get outside yourself. Think about your listener. But that's a LOT of editing And I know what some of you are thinking: "Doesn't that level of editing make the conversation sound stilted or wooden? You know, like too much makeup on a pretty woman?" It doesn't have to. A good editor has the intuition and skill to create the right spacing and pacing to keep that from happening. http://www.AudacityForPodcasting.com (Maybe you could be that kind of editor)... For most podcasters, the problem with what I'm saying is that they don't have the expertise to do their own professional audio editing ("Which of the thousand audio effects should I use?") or the time it takes to develop it ("I'm busy enough already!"). I get that. It's a hard balance to achieve. You've got to make the decision based on your answers to a few important questions. How to know if you should edit Is this the right timing for me to upgrade the sound of my show? (Do I have the time or budget to make it happen?) Is the audio quality I would receive from professional editing really needed in my case? (It may not be… you have to decide). Always keep THEM in mind. Hope this helps - Carey And if you decide you NEED some help with your audio editing...Here's two options: DONE FOR YOU: http://www.PodcastFastTrack.com (www.PodcastFastTrack.com) - Professional podcast editing and production LEARN AUDIO EDITING YOURSELF (using Audacity) -...
Podcastification - podcasting tips, podcast tricks, how to podcast better
Audio editing is a MUST for your podcast You’d expect to hear this from a guy who edits podcast audio for a living, but I’m going to say it anyway – your audio quality matters. Why? Like it or not, people make quick estimations about the resources they find on the internet, which means that […]
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