Mom And ... Podcast

In this episode of the Mom &… Podcast, hosts Missy Stevens and Susanne Kerns reflect on the current socio-political climate following the U.S. Presidential election. Both Missy, a foster care advocate, and Susanne, an LGBTQ and sex education advocate, share their personal stages of grief and anger. The hosts discuss their upcoming season’s shift from career-driven conversations to topics affecting midlife moms, particularly in areas like political advocacy and social justice. They stress the importance of becoming ‘accomplices’ rather than mere ‘allies’ in fighting for equity, emphasizing issues like mass deportations, education funding, and LGBTQ rights. The episode also thoughtfully addresses the critical role of financial planning, research, and staying informed through reliable news sources.

Musical Notes

Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.

Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.

[00:00:08] Missy: Welcome to the mom and dot, dot, dot podcast, the podcast that helps you make your ellipses count. You know, all the dot, dot, dots that come after I am a mom and I’m Missy Stevens, mom and dot, dot, dot writer, foster care advocate. And today just a sad, angry, not quite in my right mind lady.

[00:00:28] Susanne: Agreed. And I am Susanne Kerns, mom and dot dot dot writer, LGBTQ and sex ed advocate. And today, I think in the second stage of grief, I think that’s anger. I’m also, I jump sometimes to like the fifth, which I think is depression. And then a little bit of denial. I’m not taking a straight line, basically, through this, the stages.

I’m

[00:00:53] Missy: well, and I think, uh, that we won’t do a five stages of grief podcast, but I don’t even think those are really like true grief. That’s not accurate. Like it does, doesn’t go linearly and it’s a lot, there’s a lot of stuff to it.

[00:01:05] Susanne: Yes, it’s complicated.

[00:01:07] Missy: It’s complicated as is everything right now. And so last week, We sat down and we recorded this episode all about our upcoming new season and how we were going to be shifting our conversations more from career to what impacts moms in midlife, especially some of the menopause stuff we’re both dealing with.

[00:01:27] Susanne: And then, and then the election happened. And we said, Oh, well, that was a fun recording. Let’s just throw that in the garbage. Because a lot has changed. Um. A lot has changed and probably more in a lot of your lives than are impacting Missy and I and our places of privilege lives. And we acknowledge that.

but I mean, there’s a lot of stuff in our little lives that are being impacted, too. so. We’re hearing it from all of our friends. They want to know like what’s next, what’s now. And honestly, as welcoming as we like to be, there’s probably gonna be a lot of listeners that maybe I can’t imagine you’ve gotten this far in listening to us and not knowing where we stand politically and values wise, especially since I start every episode by saying that I am an LGBTQ and sex ed advocate.

Um, but we want this to be a safe place for people. Like us, we want this to be a place for people who share the values of kindness and love and dignity and respect for all and anti racism and not just being allies, but being

[00:02:38] Missy: Accomplices. That’s my favorite thing I’ve heard lately is it’s too late to be an ally. Now you have to be an accomplice,

[00:02:46] Susanne: Yes, so this is our motivation session for our new series, our new season. It’s not just going to be moms in midlife and menopause, it’s going to be moms in midlife, any kind of moms who want to become accomplices for all of the things that are likely going to be impacted by a Trump presidency. So if there are those of you who voted for Trump, this may not be the place for you. Sorry.

[00:03:15] Missy: around and learn some things and listen, I mean, we’re happy to have you, uh, but we’re not going to argue with you and, or engage if things get ugly. And this really may not be the place if. That’s where you want to spend your time.

[00:03:31] Susanne: Yes, things are gonna be getting real here For the next the next season of the mom and dot dot dot podcast In fact, we’re trying to figure out if it needs to be called mom and dot dot dot resistance mom and dot dot dot

[00:03:45] Missy: What the fuck? Can we call it that? Mom and da da da. What the

[00:03:48] Susanne: patriarchy, whatever it needs to be.

[00:03:51] Missy: yeah.

[00:03:52] Susanne: So, yeah, we’re sifting through our topics right now. Um, making sure that we are focusing on ways that you as a mom, especially stay at home moms who have the privilege of, I don’t want to say extra time because that is by far, Not true. Um,

[00:04:09] Missy: Flexibility though,

[00:04:10] Susanne: bit of time flexibility in the sense of if there is a call to go do something during what would be typically a nine to five workday, you may have an ability to do that easier than someone who has to actually take off time or request that PTO from a job, whereas you might be able to shove a kid into a stroller or do something during a weekday that others are not able to do.

So. We want to make sure we’re fighting for your rights, for your family’s rights, your kids rights, especially those daughters rights, as the case may be. Um, so let’s talk about some of the topics that we’re thinking of moving forward. And, um, we’re lining up guests for these right now. We will probably be.

Finishing up with a couple of episodes that we have in the queue that we’ve already recorded for the next couple of weeks and then starting fresh. I’m guessing it will be early in December. So there’s time for you to raise your hand if you think that you would be an amazing guest, or if you know someone who would be an amazing guest, or if there’s a topic that you are interested in that you want to make sure that we are looking for experts to come talk about those.

[00:05:20] Missy: Yeah. So I think some of the things we’re thinking about. talking about, um, include the mass deportations. What does that mean? What does that look like? How will that impact the foster community and other communities? and how it will directly impact all of our lives, even if we think it will not.

so we’re definitely looking for experts in that, that area. And that’s another thing I don’t want to like mess up our flow here, but, um, I think a lot of what we’re looking to have happen is have people come on and we’ll facilitate. somewhat of an interview, but we’re really prepared to just be listening.

We will be much like the rest of our audience, letting people tell us their story and what they’re doing, and then how we can support them, whether it’s through money or actions or all of the above. so we are looking for those people who want to come on and tell their story and let us, and you listen,

[00:06:12] Susanne: Yes, and we’re balancing that with the idea that there’s going to be a lot of people who rightfully so are like, no, white ladies, y’all go do your own work and research. I don’t want to come there and have to tell you what to do. We understand that is a very valid, understandable place to be for many people.

But I think there are a lot of people who are like, they’re at the stage where They haven’t been fully burned, I guess, yet, and they still are willing to come and share. And we’re going to be doing that work ourselves, but for the people who are still in a place where they’re willing to come and tell us their stories, tell us how we can all help.

We welcome them and their voices.

[00:06:52] Missy: Yeah. So if you know someone doing the work in any of these areas we mentioned, if there’s somebody you follow that you really trust, please introduce us to them, we’d love to invite them to come on.

[00:07:03] Susanne: Yes. And obviously a subject near and dear to my heart, LGBTQ rights. I’m disgusted by the hundreds of millions of dollars that were spent specifically on anti trans ads in this campaign. It’s. It’s heartbreaking. Um, in Texas, we feel it very deeply because we are already, I just saw a map the other day, we’ll have to share it, of like the most dangerous states for trans and LGBTQ people.

gay, queer communities. And Florida had been the only one that was like this deep maroon, like it wasn’t even red anymore. It was like

[00:07:42] Missy: Mm hmm.

[00:07:43] Susanne: blood red. and now Texas has become a don’t even travel there state for trans communities, which is just It’s heartbreaking, especially because I know that there are welcoming spaces, obviously, within Austin, within other areas of Texas, but in order to get to those safe spaces, you got to go through an awful lot of not safe.

Um, I feel that’s very, very much how people are feeling about Texas and, heck, a lot of the country right now. So anyway, I want to talk about that, how that impacts, um, equity policies.

We’re going to talk a little bit about school too as well, but there’s protections that are in place in cities and in schools where, you know, no place for hate, which,

[00:08:30] Missy: Mm hmm.

[00:08:31] Susanne: Especially if they get funding from the federal side could be going away and how can we help back those up in our, in our own way? Um, and then there’s women’s rights, women’s reproductive rights.

Should we be stockpiling birth control? Should we be stockpiling Plan B? What,

[00:08:50] Missy: And the little that I have learned so far tells me, yeah, you should absolutely, I think Plan B has a four month, no, four year, four, not four months, four year shelf life.

[00:09:00] Susanne: Okay, now I heard two years, so we’re going to double check that

[00:09:03] Missy: yeah, so we do need to check that. There’s a couple different pills, um, and medicines, and one does have a shorter shelf life and one has Quite a long one.

Um, so we’ll, we can post that in show

[00:09:17] Susanne: when we get to that episode. We will give you all the information.

[00:09:20] Missy: but yeah, I need to, I have heard you need to get it now. You need to go get vaccines. If you’re on the fence about some of them, go find out more and then go get it because you really might not be able to get it.

[00:09:34] Susanne: My husband’s doing the shingles today. I’m like, you better hurry because you have

[00:09:37] Missy: I know I just scheduled my second one.

Yeah, I scheduled my second one and I, just FYI, next week I might not feel great one day. Um, you know, these are things that we need to look into and understand what we need to do. And it sounds very, I have a lot of people in my life who don’t like the prep and planning talk. Um, it makes them really nervous and it makes them sad and, um, they want to just focus on being light and love.

You and I are both Enneagram nines, so we definitely already operate in this place of being both. We can be that light and love and we can be the realistic prepper planners and we can see both sides of that. And, um, I just think it’s so important to have all of this information and to sit with it and think about the uncomfortable stuff.

And Stock up on your birth control and get your shots and do these things that sounds very gloom and doom. But should we reach a point where we can’t access this stuff anymore, it’s good to have a plan.

[00:10:37] Susanne: And best case scenario, I really hope we’re overreacting and you know, and, and that we’re in our own little echo chambers of hearing all these things and getting swept up in it. I would be so thrilled that in, you know, a year from now that I can come back and be like, Oh, I was being so silly. It’s like when I was washing all my groceries during COVID with the bleach wipes.

So,

[00:11:01] Missy: I really do hope, and I have told this to a couple of people in my life, I hope that I am wrong. I hope that Some of you who have always laughed at me when I try to be serious in any way, I hope that you can laugh at me again and say you took it too far. Once again, you overreacted. That’s what I hope.

That is the best case scenario in all of this. But I have a lot of evidence to the contrary and I think we’d be fools not to look at what could happen. I mean already this week some things have been put in place that are terrifying. So.

[00:11:33] Susanne: yes. So we’ll have some people come on and tell the, get down to the nitty gritty and the truth of what you should be worrying about, what you shouldn’t be worrying about, what are some things that you can do.

[00:11:43] Missy: like to talk about where can you donate money that makes sense and where can you get involved and what does that look like and yeah, how do you, how do you do things if you are at home with a bunch of little kids? It’s really hard to get out sometimes. So what can you do from home? We’re going to find those kinds of things out too.

Oh

[00:12:01] Susanne: And then there’s school funding. And in fact, I ran into this this morning because, I am the co chair of our school health advisory council, um, which we make decisions about things around kids health in our school district and policies, and we make recommendations to the school board about those.

And, you know, that’s everything from sex ed to, you know, Getting breast exams for teachers to, you know, setting up vaccine clinics for kids to the lunches. And one of my favorite presentations every year, we are so. I’m fortunate in Austin ISD to have the most amazing culinary program. I mean, they have gardens on site.

They do a lot of fresh food, literally, from their own gardens of the schools. They source a lot of local stuff. They source a lot of organic stuff. and we have that presentation coming up this month. And I’m like, do we need to ask them about what happens when we lose federal funding? Um, if and when we lose federal funding for, there’s a lot of schools that the, all the meals are paid for through federal dollars, um, for schools that kids do not have the money for those meals.

I mean, we do breakfast, lunch, and even like a, they call it like a supper or an after school snack or whatever, so to get these kids through the day. There’s a certain portion of even the meals that are paid for that on top of that, like, I think that I can’t remember exactly how much we paid, like, if we pay a buck 50 or whatever, the other dollar, whatever is paid through federal funds.

So even kids who are paying, quote, unquote, paying for their lunches, I think a portion of that is also funded federally. So that has a lot of implications as, you know, People are talking about defunding the Department of Education, federal funding for different schools. It may not be all schools, but you know what?

Texas likes to pick on Austin, so I’m pretty sure Trump would like to pick on Austin and blue cities as well. So that’s, that’s a real potential issue. Again, I, people that I was like, Oh, should we be talking about this in the next meeting? They’re like, okay, we don’t want to get everybody freaked out.

We just want to talk about the amazing stuff this school program’s doing now. We can worry about that later. And it probably is. We can worry about it later, but like, are there any protections that we need to put in place? I know. So anyway, um, so yeah, there’s a lot of things around school funding that you may not even know that your school is receiving a lot of federal funding.

[00:14:36] Missy: Yeah. And a lot of people are really worked up about, um, boys and girls sports.

[00:14:40] Susanne: Mm hmm.

[00:14:42] Missy: I think what you need to be thinking about is how do we ensure that there continues to even be girls sports? If there’s no funding and there’s no title nine, there are no girls sports.

Um, you know, there’s, this is all very nuanced and, um, I would say the majority of people who voted for Trump don’t do nuance, but it’s time to like really dig in. It is multi layered. And once, once the Department of Education has gone, a lot of other stuff has gone with it.

[00:15:11] Susanne: Mm hmm.

[00:15:12] Missy: we have to think about it. I don’t like to think about it, but we have to.

[00:15:15] Susanne: yep, yep, yep. And one thing I also want to bring up there for a lot of the funding, I believe one of our friends in our text list was even saying, Oh, I wanted to see like what portion of my school’s budget is federal funding and what that covers. And a lot of it is for special education, kids with special needs, kids who need additional access to schools.

so those are the programs also. that are going to be hit considerably and are going to need, some safety nets around that.

[00:15:46] Missy: As with any authoritarian regime, the first to go, the first to be attacked are always those who are the most at risk. And the most marginalized. So those, anybody who needs extra help or funding for any reason is going to find that lacking.

[00:16:04] Susanne: yeah, especially things that he’s already said publicly, acted out and mimed publicly. You know where his feelings lie there. I will have you Google the quote that I believe it was his Brother, a quote that Trump said about his own nephew who has special needs and how he felt that Financially, it just wasn’t even worth helping with those anymore.

Why bother? So if he’s saying that about his own his own family

[00:16:36] Missy: Right.

[00:16:37] Susanne: Don’t think that he’s going to be caring about school funding to make sure that kids have equal access to education. So Yeah, we are. What stage, what stage of the grieving process did that just take us all

[00:16:51] Missy: I mean, I’m just telling you, I think I’m going to spend, uh, the majority of my time in anger. I have met a lot of resistance from a lot of people in my life in regards to that anger. Um, I know that everyone operates differently. I know that anger can be very depleting for some, and I know that anger, can really, um, It can really get in and start to break you down.

I feel like I have a really healthy relationship with my anger. Um, and I think that, I think that even those who are afraid of their anger maybe need to spend some time with it and sit in it. Because if you’re feeling it, it’s valid. and I’d, yeah, I have, I have lots of strong feelings. But the strongest one at the moment is anger.

[00:17:35] Susanne: Isn’t that the Enneagram trait too? It was the anger?

[00:17:39] Missy: yeah, yeah, that’s like the, that’s like our, That opposite side, we don’t really like it. Like we don’t like conflict. Like conflict is not our thing. And I, I still,

[00:17:49] Susanne: for for this next season where we’re gonna just,

[00:17:52] Missy: And I think that’s the other thing. Cause we are, but definitely social justice means a lot to us. And, um, you know, so I think I’m going to lean into that anger.

The thing I keep saying is we can be kind without being nice. And we can help others and focus on what are the kind things to do out in the world, but we can also have that anger because It serves us, it’s going to keep motivating us. And that’s why we have to keep paying attention to what’s happening, even when we want to put our heads in the sand, because if we don’t know how bad it is, or how real it could get, then well, we’re not going to be able to help appropriately.

[00:18:32] Susanne: Yes. All right. Well, okay. So that, that lets you all know what we’re going to be focusing on here in our next season. Um, so hopefully you are here to join us and to gain some information. We’re going to try to make it real simple. It’s going to be serious, but with us, hopefully it’ll still also be fun and loving and,

[00:18:57] Missy: It’ll be

[00:18:57] Susanne: and love.

It’ll be kind. Maybe not

[00:19:00] Missy: always be nice.

[00:19:02] Susanne: but, um, we usually end all of our episodes with the look, listen, learns. But I think both of us are look, listening and learning that we as white women and as a country have once again, really let down Black women. And. I, I am encouraging, we’re encouraging ourselves, and we are encouraging you all to go do some work in training your algorithms to follow some Black women and women of color so you are hearing their voices, again, not because they are here to teach you, it is not their job to teach you, but you learn some lessons from you, Just immersing yourself in their words and hearing what is important to them, what their lives are like, how things are impacting them.

[00:19:56] Missy: like really past time, obviously, but it’s time to get comfortable with that uncomfortableness. Like when you hear someone say, We don’t trust white women. You have failed us. Your gut reaction probably is not, you are correct. That is what we did. And I’m so sorry. Your gut reaction is probably like, Ooh, either not me, not me.

That wasn’t me. Or what are you talking about? That’s not real. I’ve seen a lot of white women going, that’s not a thing. That’s not real. Is it? So it’s time to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and just listen, because there’s a lot for us all to unlearn and think about how we go forward.

[00:20:32] Susanne: And there are a lot of amazing voices, organization, people who run organizations, content creators. All kinds of people out there. your algorithm will do the work once you follow a couple or follow someone that you really like and see who they follow and follow them. Um, one I, I think is like the most basic white lady follow, I think is lovey, I think a lot of people are already familiar with her, but I think that that’s just like a place to start that you are probably already following, but maybe you zip by her sometimes. Don’t scroll past. Do some listening.

[00:21:10] Missy: and I trust if she is talking about someone that she has vetted that she’s not giving us, you know, half baked information. and she’s livid, rightfully so, so there is a lot to learn there and um, there is a ton of content that is recent within the past six days.

New content, with new information, or, or telling us the same fucking thing she’s been telling us for years.

[00:21:37] Susanne: Yeah,

[00:21:38] Missy: Um, you know, there’s a lot there. She has a great place to start and it can help you figure out where to go from there. And I also think we want to talk about where we’re getting our news. social media has its place and it’s also an echo chamber in a lot of ways.

And also there will possibly come a time when it doesn’t exist in the form that we’re used to it existing now. all of our news is at risk. All of our media is at risk. it’s very likely going to become something like state run media. Um, there’s already, I mean, you saw it the day of the election. You saw large media sources.

And large companies signaling their allegiance to this administration because they are afraid. They are afraid if they don’t support it, they will not have money. And money is what makes this all go around. And we will not be able to trust those media sources. So we will be looking at where trustworthy news sources are.

It has been recommended to me by someone closely related to this field that we look at news out of Europe. And out of Singapore, and we’ll have to figure out how we continue to get that information when it might be harder to access it via the internet. but for now,

[00:22:44] Susanne: channels. I mean, he’s already talked about trying to revoke licenses,

[00:22:48] Missy: right. Right.

[00:22:50] Susanne: from TV networks.

[00:22:52] Missy: tricky.

So we’re going to be relying on people. One of those people who I know we’ve talked about women of color, but a really wise white woman that we follow that I think a lot of you may already be following is Heather Cox Richardson. She puts out a newsletter, every day. She writes something, she has, you can find her on YouTube, you can find her on the socials, um, but she provides historical background information, she really just lays out facts and helps you understand the patterns at play here and, um, what has happened before and what we’re seeing, the similarities we’re seeing and what could happen now.

Um, she’s, she’s a very calming presence, even though I couldn’t read her for the first few days after the election. I just needed, I needed to like need to hibernate and just not for that. Um, as soon as I was ready, I went right back to her because, um, in spite of the fact that often what she’s telling you is kind of scary, she’s this calming presence.

So I think she’s a great place for now while we can still access her.

[00:23:51] Susanne: And on the mom front, there are some great groups that, you should be paying attention to, especially, um, there’s one called Black Mamas Matter Alliance, black maternal health is a huge issue, and it is going to be even more so as women’s health care. gets into an even darker place than it is now.

So, uh, would encourage you to follow that group. Uh, another interesting podcast is, um, Know Better, Do Better. By Marie Beecham and so that’s another one so just just a few things and of course all the political figures that we know and love Stacey Abrams, um, why am I blanking on her name?

[00:24:32] Missy: Alexandria

[00:24:33] Susanne: Thank you, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez.

[00:24:36] Missy: doing some really interesting work right now. Because she’s not coming on and saying, here’s what you need to be doing. She’s, she’s also just talking about how did we, how did we get here? What in our history led to here? What are the facts at play now? and doing just sort of some comforting, I guess.

but in this shape of like, yes, I will, here’s how you find comfort. And now, and then here’s how you you’re, cause you’re sustaining yourself. So you can go do the work that

[00:25:03] Susanne: Yes.

[00:25:04] Missy: she’s been encouraging to listen to.

[00:25:08] Susanne: There’s so many. And so, yeah, we’ll put some in the show notes to make it really easy for you. Just click over, follow, like, let your algorithm do the work or even better than letting the algorithm do the work. Go in and see who the people who you respect follow and follow some of them. and share with us some of the voices that you like to hear.

We want to make sure we’re amplifying those as well.

[00:25:30] Missy: Yeah. And if you are closely connected to anyone doing work in any of these arenas, please, please introduce us to them and we hope to have them on. I

[00:25:39] Susanne: All right.

[00:25:41] Missy: think

[00:25:41] Susanne: think that that’s it. We’re just major downers today. But

[00:25:47] Missy: I felt like that a lot or like, let me just be the biggest Debbie Downer of the Debbie Downers. I guess that’s the role I’m going to play right now in my world is realist

[00:25:56] Susanne: yeah, I was gonna say you’re the Debbie realist. We’ve, we’ve been here before, but the guardrails are gone this time. So we just need to make sure that we’re being smart. We’re protecting ourselves. We’re protecting our people. We’re protecting communities that are not our people. But that still need to be protected.

So,

[00:26:14] Missy: it can’t protect themselves or speak up for themselves. I

[00:26:18] Susanne: here we go. For the next few weeks, like we said, we’re going to be running, um, some of our episodes that are in the queue already, that are more career focused.

Um, but, um,

[00:26:28] Missy: originals.

[00:26:30] Susanne: and then we’ll probably be starting in December to give us some nice runway up until the inauguration. So if you need to start doing some stuff ahead of time, we’ll have those things in your inbox.

[00:26:42] Missy: Yeah, and maybe we’ll have some fun stuff to like where to shop for the holidays, because I guess we’re having the holidays no matter what, like, I don’t feel like having the holidays at this moment, but I guess it’s happening. but, you know, There’s a lot of great black and women owned businesses, um, where you can do your shopping and put your money into the economy that way.

so maybe we’ll do some fun episode, like a fun episode about shopping and,

[00:27:07] Susanne: Yes. And there’s also a lot of words out there now about the stores. We do not want to be shopping out, um, as far as if you want your money to be going towards organizations and companies that.

[00:27:19] Missy: It aren’t fascists.

[00:27:22] Susanne: That you use their money in a way that supports your values. Yeah, which is painful because, God, I love Amazon Prime.

Oh,

[00:27:35] Missy: got us all by the Ovaries. And enough. Enough. Like, I just, we have to plan better and know that we might have to wait a day or two for our item, which not gonna, I just had a thought and I’m not going to say it out loud.

[00:27:51] Susanne: no, I’ll edit

[00:27:53] Missy: say it to you later. say it to you later.

I don’t know. It just was gloom and doom. I’ve been gloomy and doomy enough.

[00:28:01] Susanne: Okay, we’ll take it offline

[00:28:03] Missy: saying things to Mark’s like, Okay. Oh my God, our neighbor, one of our neighbors, like minded neighbor, totally like was at their house commiserating. Um, but I said a very not nice thing and he was like, Oh, that wasn’t very nice. And I was like, that gloves are off friend. Like, I am tired of being nice.

And I don’t know, I’ve said this on social media and I’ve said it to you and I’ve said it to several people, but I just really feel like This concept of the high road was something developed to oppress marginalized communities, and I understand why many years ago Michelle Obama stood up and said, when they go low, we go high.

I know why she said that. I understand what she was accomplishing with that and why that needed to be said by her in that moment, but I’ve just been thinking a ton about the high road, and I don’t feel like that is necessarily the place we need to be dwelling, back to being kind without being nice.

[00:28:57] Susanne: hmm. Mm hmm. It’s not our job to make people who make decisions that are counter to the goodness of the country feel comfortable with that.

[00:29:06] Missy: Exactly. And I am a firstborn child, people pleaser, raised in the church. I was raised to be a good girl. I still have a lot of people in my life who are astounded when I am not. Saying the nicey nice, making the nice things. And we just can’t anymore. We tried it, we operated that way a long time, and look where it got us.

So, uh, yeah. So I’m gonna try not to say horrible, mean, ugly things out loud, but I don’t promise not to thank them, and I also don’t promise not to lean into that anger and

[00:29:39] Susanne: We’re no longer here to make you feel comfortable with your decisions.

[00:29:43] Missy: Your comfort is your business, not mine.

[00:29:45] Susanne: And on that note.

[00:29:47] Missy: Have a great day, y’all. Bye.

[00:29:52] Susanne: Oh, I love it. All right. So go look at the show notes, y’all. We’re going to have some great

[00:29:58] Missy: are going to be crazy. How am I even going to write show notes for this?

[00:30:02] Susanne: It’s just going to be an angry picture of Missy.

[00:30:07] Missy: Yeah, I don’t know. The show notes might make sense. I don’t make any promises on that front either.

[00:30:12] Susanne: Oh, my goodness. No. Well. We’re in this together, y’all. If you’re feeling alone, you are not.

[00:30:18] Missy: No. And we appreciate you.

[00:30:20] Susanne: Yes. All right, have as good a week as you can

[00:30:23] Missy: That’s right. That’s right. Bye.

[00:30:27] Susanne: music plays us out. Do do do do. Do we need to change our theme music?

[00:30:36] Missy: Maybe. Yeah.

[00:30:38] Susanne: just slow it down.

[00:30:40] Missy: No, it is the most cheerful bop like just

[00:30:46] Susanne: Yeah. I’m going to see if we can slow it down.

[00:30:48] Missy: Maybe. Oh God. All

[00:30:52] Susanne: stopping the record.

Thank you so much for joining us for the mom and dot, dot, dot podcast. We hope you enjoyed today’s show. And if you know someone else who could benefit from the episode, please be sure and share it with them. And while we’re begging, please subscribe and rate us wherever it is you listen to podcasts. You can find links to all the things we discussed today in our show notes or over at our website, momandpodcast.

com with the A N D spelled out in between shows, find us over at the socials, including our private mom and community Facebook group, the links to that group. And all of our socials can be found at mom and podcast. com. Thank you so much for your support. We appreciate you more than, you know, now go out there and make your ellipses count.

The post New Season: Helping Moms Trump-Proof Our Families & Communities appeared first on Mom And Podcast.

In this episode of the Mom &… Podcast, hosts Missy Stevens and Susanne Kerns welcome guest Erin Diehl, founder of Improve It and author of I SEE YOU: A LEADER’S GUIDE TO ENERGIZING YOUR TEAM THROUGH RADICAL EMPATHY. They discuss the transformative power of play and improv in the workplace, including how it can lead to higher engagement and a positive shift in team dynamics. Erin shares her journey of starting Improve It through a series of dares, and her passion for bringing joy and empathy to corporate environments. Additionally, they touch on Erin’s personal experiences as a mom, her struggles, and her learnings, offering valuable insights for both working professionals and stay-at-home parents. The conversation also includes a deep dive into the concept of radical empathy and practical exercises to foster genuine connections and understanding.

Missy:

Erin:

Susanne:

Erin “Big” Diehl is a Business Improv Edutainer, Failfluencer, and Professional Zoombie. Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin created improve it!, a unique professional development company rooted in improv comedy, that pushes leaders and teams to laugh, learn, play, and grow. 

She is the proud host of The improve it! Podcast, a Top 1% Global Podcast, which helps develop leaders and teams through play, improv and experiential learning, and first time author of the Amazon Best Seller & Top New Release: I See You! A Leader’s Guide to Energizing Your Team Through Radical Empathy.

Among her many accolades, Erin is most proud of successfully coercing over 39,000 professionals to chicken dance. 

Musical Notes

Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.

Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.

[00:00:25] Missy: Welcome to the mom and dot, dot, dot podcast, the podcast that helps you make your ellipses count. You know, all those dot, dot, dots that come after I’m a mom and I’m Missy Stevens, mom and dot, dot, dot writer, foster care advocate, and today the parent of a high school graduate. We’re all done. It’s very exciting.

[00:00:45] Susanne: One down, One to go.

[00:00:47] Missy: It’s right.

[00:00:48] Susanne: Well, and I’m Suzanne Kearns, momanddotdotdotwriter, LGBTQ, and sex ed advocate, and today, the parent of a high school student! Well, the eighth grade graduation is coming up. Complete. And I gotta tell you, the first kid did not have the eighth grade graduation. His school made it like a whole thing.

They walked across the thing and everything. Impressive.

[00:01:10] Missy: Pretty cute. Yeah, we didn’t get to do that with, uh, my oldest either. We didn’t really get to do eighth grade graduation.

[00:01:16] Susanne: I guess each principal gets to decide how fun they want to be.

[00:01:20] Missy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we are really excited today to welcome Erin Deal to the podcast. Erin is a mom and dot, dot, dot business improv edutainer. Fail fluencer and professional zombie. Through a series of unrelated dares, which I want to talk about later, Erin created Improve It, a unique professional development company rooted in improv comedy that pushes leaders and teams to laugh, learn, play, and grow.

She is the proud host of the Improve It podcast, a top 1 percent global podcast, which helps develop leaders and teams through play, improv, and experiential learning. And a first time author of the American bestseller and top new release, I see you a leader’s guide to energizing your team through radical empathy.

Among her many accolades, Erin is most proud of successfully coercing over 36, 000 professionals to chicken dance. Welcome.

[00:02:12] Susanne: I

[00:02:12] Erin: Thank you. Thank you. I am a very proud chicken dance enthusiast. Um, and I’m excited to be here. I love the mom and that is, that is the best. That is the best ellipses I’ve ever, I’ve ever heard. And we’re, we’re all those things. And, and, and I’m here to talk about it.

[00:02:32] Susanne: Oh, well, we are so excited. I was just telling you as we were getting started that sometimes the world just brings us the right guest at the right time. And I feel like I am super in need of everything that you have to teach us today. But before we get into that, can you give our listeners a little Erin 101, kind of a snapshot of your career and your life leading up to where you are now?

[00:02:57] Erin: Yes, I’ll do a 101. I’m going to do cliff’s nose version. Okay. Childhood moved around a lot. Okay, but always in acting and a love of comedy, a love of home videos and being putting on a wig was like my favorite thing to do. And, uh, then college went to Clemson University, wanted to be a talk show host post college moved to Chicago to pursue Chicago to become Oprah Winfrey.

That did not happen, uh, but I found improv comedy and improv comedy became my passion and it became the thing that made me feel the most alive and the thing that when I watched other people do it, I saw sparks and I had what I call an aha, haha moment, which is. When the light bulb goes off and you’re laughing at the time.

And I said, I’m going to create a company that brings improv into corporate America and businesses and teams and helps them learn to be the highest versions of themselves through play. Improve. It’s been around for 10 years. We have a team of 22 amazing improv professionals, an internal team of six, and, uh, we are all over the U S.

Just wrote a book, as you mentioned, I See You, and that has been a wild journey. Through that all, my personal life, I’m a mom. I have a miracle baby boy. When I say miracle, like, lots of science, science backed baby boy, okay? And, uh, he is a five year old. We had some genetic disorders on top of the science, and proud to say he is extremely healthy.

Hearing, because our genetic disorder was hearing loss and deafness. Five year old, almost five year old, right now he’s a fournado, a four year old

[00:04:45] Susanne: Oh, boy. Yes.

[00:04:47] Erin: turns five in about five weeks. And, uh, yeah, it’s been a journey, all of it, but I would say, I would say out of all those creations, he’s my greatest one.

[00:04:58] Susanne: Oh, I love that. And the fournadoes. Oh, my gosh. I think both Missy and I, every time we hit these milestones, like they’re graduating the eighth grade, graduating the high school, it always ends up seeming to go back, like, into the photo albums, because usually the teachers are like, oh, for the slideshow, for this graduation, we need their baby picture, whatever.

And you can’t just look at a baby picture. You got to look at the twos and the threes and the fournadoes and the videos. And yeah, it’s UV.

[00:05:27] Missy: pictures now. Because I spent weeks making a graduation slideshow because. You go down the rabbit hole. You can’t just be like, well, that’s a cute picture. I’ll put it in. You have to look at every picture and you had, then you’re caught up in that moment again, and you’re reliving it all. And my mom said, you’ve been doing this slideshow for weeks.

And I’m like, because it takes like. A day to go through a year of pictures, at least because I just can’t so start a little file, set them aside and move over a little slideshow picture every so often so that it may be won’t take you weeks and weeks, but you’re still going to go down memory lane

[00:06:01] Susanne: oh, it’s so fun. But yes, you just have so, you have so many fun things and milestones ahead of you. I’m kind of jealous and excited for you.

[00:06:09] Erin: yes. He just graduated 4k last week, so he will be in kindergarten next year, which I am. I have already had tears about, um, but it’s okay. It’s supposed to happen. I know. And I’m like, okay, I can, you know, this is, this is going to be a big change for him and us. And, um, when I go back and like you said, I look at some of his videos and I just remember being in that moment and thinking, Oh my gosh, is this ever going to end?

Cause it was so hard. And now I go back and I’m like, I miss those moments. Why wasn’t I more grateful for those moments?

[00:06:51] Susanne: Yes.

[00:06:52] Missy: just being human. I think, yeah, you’re caught in the moment. It’s like, it’s, it is hard. And sometimes it’s not just that it’s hard. Like it’s highly unpleasant. Not all the moments are great.

[00:07:02] Susanne: Or boring.

[00:07:03] Missy: Yeah, then you can’t, you’re not supposed to appreciate all of it. I don’t think. Some of it’s really awful, but yeah, then all of a sudden it’s over and you think, where’s that little person?

[00:07:12] Erin: I know

[00:07:13] Susanne: Oh, my gosh. Look at us, Missy. We’re not, we’re not allowed to record the week after any important events that are.

[00:07:19] Missy: No. Yeah. I should not be recording anything today. I’m still in the emotional fog of it, all of it. So let’s pivot from our sweet babies and talk about your other child and prove it.

[00:07:32] Erin: Yes.

[00:07:33] Missy: One of our favorite quotes, and it is Brian Sutton Smith, but we heard it via Brené Brown years ago and she’s talked about it for years, is that the opposite of play is not work, it’s depression. And you teach leaders how to bring that play to work so they can avoid depression and burnout. We don’t even really know where to start with diving into all of this. It’s overwhelming, I think, to talk to people about embracing play in our culture that is so product driven. So where do you even start?

How do you find your clients and get them on board?

[00:08:04] Erin: Oh my gosh. Well, such a great quote, number one. Number two, the word play, I always have an intentional word for every year. So I always have a one word intention. And my word for 2024 is play. And I, and I’ll say why in just a moment, but I have a vision board specifically behind my little podcast studio I have right here.

It’s a closet. Okay. I’ve, I made a closet into a studio. Um,

[00:08:31] Susanne: true.

[00:08:32] Erin: Okay. Okay. I say studio to glam it up. I’m giving you behind the scenes, real deal. So, but behind me is a vision board, and I have the words PLAY just in giant letters. So I love that you started with this because it is literally top of mind for me.

Because I was, if you ever heard you’re the teacher who doesn’t do whatever you’re teaching, I was the teacher who wasn’t playing. I’m the improv expert who wasn’t playing. And I will say this, having my son, watching him engrossed in play every single day. Losing any judgment of what other people think, engaging with the people around him in pure joy is one of the greatest things to watch because what happens, and I know this won’t be forever when he gets older and when society takes hold and they say, Oh, drop the imagination, focus on real life, focus on the real world.

There’s going to be a mask that he puts on to hide. That beautiful mind that is there right now. And so what happens when we engage in play as adults is we’re actually activating to get a little psychological, our childhood selves. And we are letting go of the judgment of ourself, and we’re letting go of the judgment of others.

And so using improv as a teaching tool is, in my opinion, the greatest teaching tool because it allows us to drop that mask that society has placed on us to be a professional. To be show up in a certain way and it allows us to fully be engaged and be in the moment. I actually have a bracelet. I had to take it off because it dangles, but it says be here now.

And when you are focused in play, you were in that moment. And what’s so joyful about that moment is that’s what we’re here to do. Be present to our lives, to be in this body and to give to those around us moment to moment, but we don’t allow ourselves to do that. So full play allows you to be present and it allows you to drop that inhibition and that mask and our clients find us because the people, what is so wonderful is our actual clients, the people who booked this for their teams. Are the greatest people because they understand this concept and I created so many friendships out of our clients because they’re just great humans. They see how this could work. There’s not really a lot of convincing when you, when you put those vibes out and you attract them back. And, um, it’s my greatest, it has been the greatest joy of my career too. Watch the case studies unfold and watch the teams go into a room and watch them go in, let’s say it’s a group of 20. They walk in 20 individuals and they walk out this cohesive ensemble of human beings who have interacted together in a way that they never would have if play was not involved.

[00:11:48] Missy: Yeah.

[00:11:50] Susanne: Okay. So if we have any business managers out there listening, just thinking of the, they want to do this for their team. Like, what does that look like? Is it a whole day thing? Is it an hour? Is it a couple hours? Like, what should they be thinking? Thinking about what types of teams can benefit the most from this.

[00:12:05] Erin: So many. I know this is good. Okay, so here’s how we figure out because we have 10 different offerings. And each one is a different soft skill that we can help develop your team on. And each, each different soft skill has its own pre work. And the pre work is actually a comedic video that myself and team put together that is the opposite of what we’re going to teach you.

So the comedy comes in is this is how not to do.

[00:12:32] Missy: I

[00:12:33] Erin: is how not to communicate. This is how not to present. And then we show them through laughter. What that looks like, what the negative of that looks like, then we have a, uh, a survey, for lack of a better word, that we send to participants to understand what they want to achieve and what their challenges are with that particular soft skill.

Then we do something called a laugh break. Before we come in, which is short form improv over zoom. So we get them together for 20 minutes over zoom and we show them what improv looks like. And then we either do it in person or virtually. It’s a two hour session or it’s an hour and a half over zoom. If we’re in person, it’s two hours over zoom, an hour and a half. People are on their feet if we’re live in person. There’s no technology except for the screen behind us, which has a few words on it to guide the workshop and play is the forefront of everything we do. We use play to get to the thesis statement, to get to the objectives that we’re hoping to teach them on.

And it’s through that play that we show them what that active learning feels like, and then we debrief it. And that’s where the learning happens and the aha moments take place. And then we have an e learning course built in conjunction with every workshop to, to reinforce all the things we taught in the live session and help them add a few additional skills.

And that happens for three weeks post the live session. So we get really clear with the leader on what are their objectives? What do they want people to walk away with? What are their challenges? And most of the time we have a soft skill training workshop that can meet those. And we, we marry those together and the magic happens.

[00:14:15] Missy: think it’s incredible that you have created this business. And so I want to backtrack for a minute and talk about the series of dares. That got you here because I think it’s pretty fascinating that it came out of a series of unrelated dares, you say, because it’s so much more than simple improv.

Like you really have gone in and figured out how to teach people things to make their work better. It’s not just a game. So tell us about the dares that got you here.

[00:14:43] Erin: That’s so funny. I know I loved what you’ve called that out of the bio. That was so great. Nobody really asked me about that. So this is fun. So I will tell you, I started this idea when I was working at a recruiting firm in Chicago and I was doing business development. Now, first of all, I’d never done business development a day in my life.

Okay. I got this job. Um, and I wanted to be a dare because I wanted to be a talk show host. Oprah Winfrey at the time I had left her Oprah Winfrey show and was starting her own network, the Oprah Winfrey network own. And she had this reality show competition called your own show, where you could apply to be a talk show host.

And then the public would vote and they would say who they want to see as the top 10 people competing. So my friend dared me to enter this competition and I was like, duh, done. And we, we made a video, this is back, like Instagram wasn’t around. This was like probably 2008, 2009 era. Okay. Facebook was around, so I was getting everyone and their brother to get on Facebook and vote, vote, vote.

And I did make it into the second round, but I didn’t make it into the final. To get on the show. So I was dare number one. Then I decided at the job at the time I was working at Was not recruiting. I was working at a marketing firm and I was just tired of the rigmarole I was very burned out which I is I talk about this in the book itself.

I was extremely burned out and so I I did that. I was going to look for a new role. And at this time, another friend of mine was like, well, why don’t you just send your resume around and you know, we’ll figure out somebody to help you when you start sending your resume, send your Oprah video was the dare.

Okay. So this was how this went down. So I sent my resume with my Oprah video to a recruiting firm that I had worked at as an, as a temp. I was a temp at a temp agency. And my former boss. Now, former boss, I’m telling this story very, very not chronologically. The woman who hired me never actually interviewed me in person.

I had two phone calls and she loved my Oprah video and was like, I’m going to hire you immediately, which led me to a Full time job that was nine to five and I was able to do improv comedy six to midnight every day of the week I wasn’t traveling which is what was the majority of my life in this marketing firm So dare what number one was get on the oprah show dare number two Was send your oprah video along with your resume to get this job I got this job which led me back to improv which led me to improve it which Led me to this former boss jen d’angelo who is literally a chapter in my book I see you because she is the case Study for selfless leadership.

So that was a really great question, Missy. I need to get, I need the chronological order better, but that’s, those are the dares.

[00:17:47] Missy: pretty amazing. And I like that you can look at your life and go, this, this led to this, and this led to this. And we talk about all the time that there’s no wasted opportunity. There’s, there’s no. Um, nothing you’ve done, even if it didn’t feel like the right thing, nothing is a waste because it all leads to the next thing somehow.

[00:18:05] Susanne: Yes. And now I’m pivoting a little bit but in your book and on your website and things, one of the topics you talk about is radical empathy. And so I just, I’d never heard that phrase before. I was really intrigued by it.

So what does, what does that mean and how do we weave that into our everyday lives?

[00:18:27] Erin: Okay, I’m so excited you asked this question because it’s, it is the topic of my book, right? But it’s also something that I am so inspired by in everyday life. So, to me, empathy isn’t just putting on a pair of your shoes. Like, for example, I love Nike Dunks. Maybe, Suzanne, you like Nike Dunks. It’s not putting on a pair of your Nike Dunks and walking around with them.

It’s putting on a pair of your Nike Dunks, walking around in them, getting the blister, telling you what that felt like from my experience, and then understanding you on a deeper level. And there’s an activity in the book, because I use improv at the end of every chapter to teach every lesson. And it’s called empathy.

So if y’all are open to it, I would love to share this activity with you because it’s super, super easy and you can do it anytime, anywhere. Would you, would you humor me in playing along? It’s not hard. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, um, all right, Missy, can you tell Suzanne, a challenge that you have currently going on in your life.

In just a moment, Suzanne, your objective is to listen intently and then repeat back in the first person as if you are Missy, what her challenge is. So keep it just like one or two sentences. And then Suzanne, you repeat it back those one or two sentences in the first person.

[00:19:58] Susanne: Okay.

[00:19:59] Erin: Okay. Missy, here we go.

[00:20:02] Missy: All right. So summer just started and I am really struggling with having everybody in the house while I’m trying to get work done because it is noisy and I feel like I am not a very good mom in these moments because I am cranky with everybody for making noise while they’re just having their summer.

[00:20:20] Erin: Good. Okay. Suzanne, repeat that back in the first person.

[00:20:25] Susanne: I am struggling being able to get things done during the summer while there’s a lot of activity going around me from various family members.

[00:20:36] Erin: Yes. Okay. So, Missy, let me ask you this. How did it feel to hear Suzanne repeat back your challenge?

[00:20:46] Missy: Uh, Transcribed It’s really validating actually. Like I, I know that she was just repeating me. Like, I understand we were doing an exercise, but like, Oh, I’m not alone.

[00:20:56] Erin: Yeah.

Yeah.

[00:20:58] Missy: me. You also can say you are struggling.

[00:21:01] Susanne: Yes.

And it

is also very true.

[00:21:04] Erin: Yeah,

[00:21:06] Missy: That might help.

[00:21:08] Erin: but Suze, what was it like repeating it back? Missy’s challenge in the first person?

[00:21:14] Susanne: Oh, well, because I like to overthink things. I just wanted to make sure I really captured the hardship that Missy’s going through accurately. But I also, like I said, I have an office that is right next to the kitchen, which I always joke, the dogs will walk through. Two times out of their way to come through my office to get from the living room to the kitchen instead of just going directly through.

And now I’ve got my daughter home from college, and I’ve got my son off of school, and my husband works from home, and he comes and gets lunch in the kitchen. So yes, I was feeling her on a very cellular level.

[00:21:49] Erin: Yes.

[00:21:50] Susanne: Because I want to, I love being surrounded by all my people and having them like within arm’s reach, but I also need to be able to prep for a client call.

So yes, I obviously I, I took this to a very deep level in that

[00:22:03] Erin: No, this

[00:22:04] Susanne: I,

[00:22:04] Erin: great. This is great. But that’s that was empathy like that. So anytime you have a challenge or let’s say your your child or your teammate or your client has the challenge. This exercise is so easy. You can just filter it through your own lens and saying it will filter their challenge through your own lens by saying it in the first person.

And it allows you to connect on a deeper level and understand something that you might not have understood before. Because a lot of times we hear things transactionally, and this allows us to think about the human being, not just the human doing.

[00:22:44] Missy: I love that. And that’s what I love about improv. And I’ve dabbled in it a tiny bit. I took a class and I really loved how much I was able to take the yes and concept into my life because it is helpful in parenting. It’s helpful in relationships. But I wonder, so we were not prepared for that exercise, but we were prepared to talk to you.

We knew what we were doing today. We were excited about it. We’re all in. But if you came to work and told me unexpectedly, Hey, we’re going to go into this workshop and you and your colleagues are going to do some improv based learning, I think I would sweat a little bit, even, even though I’m an advocate for it. What’s it like to face a room full of people who maybe not are all in on this? Like how do you win them over?

[00:23:29] Erin: Oh my gosh, such a good question. Okay, so we’ve been doing, and trust me, you’re not alone in that feeling. And this is why our pre work exists. So we want them to get to know us. Sometimes the people in the video aren’t the facilitators, but they at least get to know who we are. And then they also see from the survey that we care about their growth and we care about their challenges and their objectives.

Then we also love to have that laugh break ahead of time. Virtually. Laugh breaks are only virtual. And even if everybody is in the same office, we say, Hey, get on your own zoom. So everybody has their own little box and that way they can see we try to make sure the same facilitator for the laugh break is the same as it is for the workshop.

So they get to know us another level and we say we’re not going to do this exactly in your live session, but you get to see how improv works. And so they’ve got two warmups to it. And then by the time we get in the door, there probably are, I would say, 50 percent of the people have some trepidation. So we spend the first 20 minutes of every workshop, warming them up, creating a safe space, letting them know the chicken dance is something we do in every workshop, by the way.

So we chicken dance collectively, not one person, everyone is chicken dancing. And we crown an improv chicken champion at the End of every workshop because this person is the most enthusiastic and committed chicken dancer. Um, because every time we say the word improv, we chicken dance and that just sets the tone right there.

We’re going to break, break it down. We’re going to kind of go from a low risk activity to a high risk, but the first 20 minutes is always warming them up, creating the safe space, letting them feel the positive vibes, letting them know we have their back and letting them know that we have, they have each other’s back.

This isn’t just us facilitating. They’re actually more of the workshop than we are, because we’re just facilitating the energy, right? They’re doing it. And so it, it is transformational. I have had hundreds of thousands, maybe thousands at this point of workshops. There was one time that there was one person who was so uncomfortable.

I mean, she was so uncomfortable and she left and that’s okay. And that is real. That’s real. And that’s, and I realized in those moments too, this has nothing to do with what we’re teaching. There’s, there’s so much beyond that. So I, you know, went out, made sure she was okay, gave her a hug and she had to leave and go on.

That is a one time instance in 10 years. Everybody

[00:26:03] Missy: good record.

[00:26:04] Erin: Yeah. I mean, it just, it’s, and I’ve had so many clients who have trepidation. One of my clients one time was like, he was the head of this consulting firm and they had all 100 consultants in Chicago at the same time. He’s like, Aaron, I’m going to lose my job next week when you come in.

He was like this, and then at the end, he’s hugging me, everybody’s high fiving, everyone is in the best energy, and he was like, what, what do you need? I’ll give you a testimonial. Give, I’ll do any client, you know, referral you need. What do you need? So it, it, it does take that opportunity to break down walls for yourself.

in order to make it work, but we guide you through that.

[00:26:45] Susanne: I mean, you must see some incredible aha moments within these companies. And so I’m curious. What they’re bringing you in there for may not be the thing that you discover in the end as the thing that they really needed you for, but like, what are some of the main common threads that you’re seeing within company cultures that is causing people to think they need you and then also what you realize in the end, what they really needed you for.

[00:27:14] Erin: Totally. Well, I want to, I’m going to address that first part and then I want to talk about what you realize at the end because I have so many thoughts on that too. But what people usually reach out to us the most for? Interpersonal communication in a hybrid work environment. That is like the number one.

How do we communicate? So we have an effective communication workshop. How do I create culture in a hybrid work environment? Team building is a workshop we offer. We have a lot of sales teams, too, that we work with. So we offer things like networking and presentation skills. They want to improve their executive presence or their presentational presence.

We work with a lot of emerging leader groups, and so we have a leadership workshop. So how do we get this group of high potential leaders to see big picture is another big challenge. We also have. So we have companies that might have gone through a merger or an acquisition and people are hearing, well, this is the way we always do it and they’re resistant to change.

So we have a Taking Initiative and Creative Risks workshop. We work with a lot of intern groups and it’s those interns. Groups are really like a sell for the company. So they want to do something outside of the box to retain and attract the talent. So we have an intern workshop. Um, it we also have a vision setting workshop that’s really popular at the beginning and end of the year that helps teams get aligned and prioritize and cast goals in a different creative way.

So I could keep going, but those are, I would say the high level. And then the ah, okay, the aha moments at the end of a workshop are wild. So what is so cool is we always tell leaders, you have to be a part of this. You can observe, like, if you’re going to lead this, you can’t sit on the sidelines and just, you know, take notes.

That’s not how this works because people feel judged. So they have to be a part of it. And what happens Is that these participants, teammates start speaking up. They start saying things that you wouldn’t hear. And I’m not talking about bad things there. You’re, we use positive reinforcement as the end result, as the goal to drive every communication forward.

But what a leader hears in these two hours is more than they would hear in a one on one like it. Truly people are so guided and pushed to think good. Higher higher picture higher. They’re just pushed to a higher consciousness is how I like to say it They’re thinking with love versus fear. That’s the goal.

And so what? leaders walk away with with participating in a workshop with our teams is transformational information that can activate and cultivate and attract and retain talent and maintain or Enhance their culture. So You can have a CEO and an intern in the same room, and that CEO is going to walk away with more value than that intern because they’re listening actively to what the participants say.

[00:30:25] Missy: kind of got chills when you talked about it because how often in a work environment are you able to do something like that where everyone is together and you’re not feeling judged and you’re not feeling like, well, the boss is over here being the boss and now I’m doing the chicken dance, you know, like you’re doing the chicken dance with your boss and that has bound to open something up pretty amazing.

[00:30:49] Erin: Thank you. Yeah. And it, it, you know, okay, I’m going to call out my dad for a minute. My dad, love you, dad. My dad ran a business for a long time. It was a home repair business. And this was early days of improve it. And it was just me. And normally we have a lead facilitator and a co facilitator, but I just did this for my dad and his, um, his group of technicians.

My dad was on his phone. The entire time he was like talking to people whispering, and I had to go up to my dad and say, this isn’t working because you’re not doing the work. And he finally got involved and off his phone and in and people bought in then, but the leader has to buy in, it has to come from the top and the ones that don’t, it doesn’t work as well.

And we’ve had to kind of guide that conversation before a workshop happens to make sure leaders know, like you’re not just sitting on your phone. You are here. You’re doing it.

[00:31:54] Susanne: So important.

[00:31:56] Missy: So important. Yeah. We want to.

[00:31:59] Susanne: we only have a couple minutes left. So I want to make sure we talk a bit about your book,

[00:32:04] Missy: Yes. We’ve got to get

[00:32:05] Susanne: which we’ve kind of touched on with some of our topics. But I see you. It’s a leader’s guide to energizing your team, which sounds career specific. And I know we’ve been talking about a lot of in office stuff.

But we also have a lot of stay at home moms who listen to the podcast. And I do think that what are stay at home moms other than leaders of a home team? I mean, so, uh, so how can, or how would you recommend, you know, these stressed out stay at home moms use lessons from the book? In their day to day lives, even if they’re not technically managing an in office team, it’s their in home team.

[00:32:46] Erin: Oh, okay. This is the most full time job of all full time jobs. Okay. And I have so many friends who are stay at home moms. And we always talk, the grass is not greener on this side and their grass is not greener. We always go back and forth because there’s some days I want to burn it all down and be a stay at home mom.

Let me tell you

[00:33:07] Missy: Yeah.

[00:33:08] Erin: that. But I also love what I do. And I also know how hard it is. Um, you know, how hard it is to be a parent and how much energy that you are giving to these people who need, like, they don’t just want you, they, they need you. Yeah. And it can be the most energetically draining job to do this all day long with little to no breaks, praying for a naptime.

I mean, the days that I’m home full time with my son, I know how hard it is. And so. This book is actually written, and I preface this in the preface of the book, a leader is a leader of a home, a leader of an organization, a leader of a community, a leader of a team. And when you don’t give to the most important person in your life, you first, you’re doing a disservice not only to yourself, but to the people that, that need you, your family.

And I Talk about the very beginning of the book and the reason just to give you full picture why the book is written. I went through a really big self healing journey myself. I was going through a period of time I called the three P’s, which was I was pivoting my business. I was people pleasing, which is a lifelong pattern that I was trying to destroy but reared its ugly head.

And I was in pain and I wasn’t talking about like Out I stumped my toe pain. It was chronic pain in my back and my shoulders that I later found was because I had these unprocessed emotions from my years of infertility, the pandemic that took away my business, my new identity as a mother, my new identity as this Giver to this important life that I just conceived but also to my friends my family my team my clients And I didn’t know how to stop.

I just gave and gave and gave until there was nothing left and the very first part of the book is all about self love part one is called self love because You have to give to yourself in order to be The best version of yourself for everybody else and there’s all those cliches saying you can’t pour in others cups if your kettle is dry Put your own oxygen mask on first, but they’re so true and I was living breathing proof of this And so once I started to process all of these things My physical pain did go away in the very beginning of the book part one is giving you six chapters With tangible activities at the end of every one to help you give more to yourself understand what it is you want out of your life and Keep the candle flame high So you don’t burn out.

I call it having big wick energy. Okay. I said wick and

[00:36:06] Missy: I like that.

I’m stealing that.

[00:36:08] Erin: yes,

I better. That should be a book title. Big wick energy.

[00:36:13] Missy: And you need to trademark it right now. Like when you’re done

[00:36:16] Erin: Okay. Okay. That might be the next book. I don’t know. But, um, Yeah, that is. And so stay at home. Mom’s listening. I just want to give you the most love because you have such a full time job that never gets an off switch and you deserve to give to yourself.

It is not selfish to give to yourself. It’s actually a need. It’s a need. It’s a necessity. And so. I am just for, for your audience listening, just pouring this love into you. And I hope that today you listen and you give to yourself at some point today, whether it’s a walk, a 15 minute nap, or a journaling moment in your day.

There’s so many different ways to give to yourself, but you have to slow down and listen to even understand what that is and what you need. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[00:37:09] Missy: Right. And the fact that it can manifest itself in chronic physical pain. I think there’s a lot of people walking around carrying stuff like that and we do, we deserve to feel better.

Oh, amazing. Okay. Well, we could talk for hours because there’s still so much more I want to talk about, but I want to respect our time.

And so before we jump into look, listen, learns, tell our listeners the best place to find you and especially if they want to connect with you to hire you.

[00:37:38] Erin: Oh, that’s so sweet. Well, you could go. I think the best place is my website. It’s Erin Diehl. It’s D I E H L dot com. It’s Erin Diehl dot com. And the book links will be there. You’ll get links to my show, the Improve It podcast, and all my Instagram. I like to have a lot of fun on the grammy gram and that’s at it’s Erin Diehl.

So that’s where I hang out the most. So please come over and say hi and, um, just know to, I, anyone listening, I would love to, to make sure that they know where to get the book. And we also have a book club freebie that we’re giving away. If you want to start a book club, we have a checklist that they can go through on how to start your own book club for friends, family, but this is an awesome way to give to yourself by putting this timeline together.

Getting a book club together. It doesn’t have to be ICU, but any book, because that’s an awesome way to give to yourself and to allow yourself some time for you.

[00:38:39] Susanne: Oh, and what a great one to do a club with.

[00:38:42] Erin: Yeah.

[00:38:43] Missy: It would be a great one. And now’s like a nice time for people. Like maybe you have a little window of time in the summer, like start a book club.

[00:38:50] Erin: Yes. Yes.

[00:38:52] Susanne: Love it. Okay, so it is time for our look, listen, learn. This went too fast y’all. Oh,

[00:38:57] Missy: Way too fast.

[00:38:58] Erin: So fun.

[00:38:59] Susanne: But these are always a fun thing to wrap up the show with each week We share something that we have been either watching, reading, listening, or all the above And so that maybe if you’re looking at something to add into your own entertainment list for the summer, uh, you can pull from there.

And we do not like to put our guests in the hot seat. So Missy, you want to go first with your look, listen, learns?

[00:39:24] Missy: All right. I meant to bring a book in here. I did not. But I’ll. We’ll throw a picture of it in the show notes or the, the links will be there, but I just finished reading Harlan Coben’s newest. I love Harlan Coben, um, and his newest is a new one in his Myron Boletar series. And Myron is one of my favorite characters of all time.

Uh, so that was fun. I read it in like two sittings and just hung out with Myron and his crazy crew of people that he works with. Um, so the book was called Think Twice. I don’t think I said it. Um, So just finished reading that, and I am also listening to a book. My listen is Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez, who’s, this is my first of Abby’s books to listen to.

I’m not very far into it, but it is so delightful. So I highly recommend it. It’s a great summer read, um, or listen. I’m really enjoying listening to it. Um, And I already kind of talked about my learn. My learn is that I’m once again, learning how to do summer. I forget every year how to do summer and I’m always really excited, but then it catches me by surprise that it’s chaos here.

And there’s people in and out of the house who don’t live here. I woke up this morning and there was someone who doesn’t live here on my sofa and it’s. I am happy they’re here. I’m

[00:40:34] Susanne: hope someone knows who they are.

[00:40:37] Missy: yeah, several. I mean, I know them actually, but they don’t live here. And, um, you know, they’re just around.

And so my learn. Is that, um, it’s noise cancelling headphone season. I can put those on. I can still hear enough. If there’s an emergency, I can hear it. But I can actually focus because I have the same office situation you do, Suzanne. It’s near the kitchen. It is a pass through and no one thinks twice about passing through and talking to me.

No matter what it looks like I’m doing, I can look very busy and very serious. And I’m like, what’s for dinner or, you know, or can you wash this? It’s dirty. You wash it. You fix dinner. Like I

[00:41:20] Susanne: same life. No wonder I empathize so much for your repeat

[00:41:25] Missy: made it very easy for you.

[00:41:27] Susanne: Oh my

[00:41:27] Missy: yeah, I highly recommend the noise canceling headphones.

[00:41:29] Susanne: I need to get this. I’ve

[00:41:31] Missy: those are an outward symbol that like, Hey, she might be working, like, They don’t really care. They will still stand in front of me and be like, Hey, but it stops them a little bit.

[00:41:40] Susanne: They just yell louder.

[00:41:42] Missy: Yeah. Yeah. Like, I can’t hear you.

I can’t hear you.

[00:41:44] Susanne: I’ve got the ones that are like supposed to be for jackhammering, and they still don’t work. But they, I need to get some that are

[00:41:52] Missy: Yeah. I get like the, you know, the bows or whatever.

[00:41:55] Susanne: But if nothing else, they are that outward symbol of just like, I’m trying to have it quiet even if these aren’t cutting it. This is

[00:42:03] Missy: think they think I’m just listening to music or something. I’m like, I’m working.

[00:42:08] Susanne: should just mark them up with, like,

[00:42:12] Missy: Flags that say like, I am busy.

[00:42:15] Susanne: Oh my goodness. And then I really don’t know how to let the dogs know, but that’ll be phase two. Phase two. Oh, what about

[00:42:24] Missy: to. What about you, Aaron?

[00:42:26] Erin: Oh, I love this so much. My cheeks are like really raw right now. Cause I was just smiling so hard. You definitely need to get those headphones and I need, we need to make signs. Okay. There needs to be signs. Okay. I love this because, okay. What I’m reading first, right? What I’m reading. Look, look, is

[00:42:41] Susanne: what, it could be, if you’re

[00:42:43] Missy: it can be

[00:42:43] Susanne: at a piece of art on the wall, it could be whatever you’re looking at.

[00:42:46] Erin: Well, I just, this is timely. I just finished an amazing book called Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life, and the subtitle is How to Harness the Power of Clock Genes to Lose Weight, Optimize Your Workout, and Finally Get a Good Night’s Sleep. And I think we were talking about this earlier, about the perimenopause.

It’s real. Um, and I, I have read this book, and I’m trying this new schedule. And. It’s actually been working. I’m on day two. So I’ll report back after after 60 days, but I just finished it. So that’s awesome Listen, I also listen to audible. I love listening to books and I finished Jamie Kern Lima’s book worthy

[00:43:27] Susanne: Hmm.

[00:43:28] Erin: Okay, it is a long one.

It’s about it’s about a night listen not gonna lie However, I have I have sent physical copies of this book to so many girlfriends It is a book for women about worthiness, and she says that 80 percent of the women in today’s world do not feel worthy, and she sort of changed that. By the way, she is donating every proceed of the book to charity.

So,

[00:43:53] Missy: Well, I’m going to buy a copy for myself and everyone I know.

[00:43:56] Susanne: That’s amazing. I just wrote it down.

[00:43:59] Erin: So good. And what am I learning? This one is a little tough, but I, I’m actually taking a digital course right now. Um, I’m all about women supporting women. And my dear friend, Judy Holler is a keynote speaker as I am too. And she created this digital course called speaker school that I’ve been taking.

And she’s, Even though I’m a seasoned keynote speaker, I’m learning some new things. I’m making some adjustments. It’s so great. And Judy’s energy is so good. So I would highly recommend that for anybody who’s listening who might think about public speaking or dabbling into that. But I love digital courses.

I’m kind of like, that might be my toxic trait. I’m always taking a digital course.

[00:44:44] Missy: I love them too. I love them. I don’t necessarily always do the thing that I learn. Like I might learn it and then move on, but I like to learn new things.

[00:44:51] Susanne: It, it went somewhere into your brain and I think it impacts you even if you don’t think it does.

So

yeah,

[00:44:57] Missy: Like eventually it might come to fruition somehow.

[00:45:01] Susanne: love

it.

Okay. I wrote all those down.

[00:45:04] Missy: Yes. Yeah. I want to share that course with everybody.

[00:45:07] Susanne: Yes.

[00:45:08] Missy: All right. Well, what about you, Suzanne?

[00:45:10] Susanne: Okay. My look, I’m going to have to send you a really funny picture because my look is I am obsessively looking at my bird feeder. I’m like, I’ve gone full.

[00:45:24] Missy: age,

[00:45:24] Susanne: Yes, we are bird feeder age, and I just saw a funny meme about that too, but was I, when I was looking up, because in addition to my bird feeders, now I want to get a bird bath, which is a whole thing in Texas, because it can dry up in about two seconds, because it’s so hot, and also can become a big deal.

mosquito breeding ground. So now I’m looking at mosquito proof birdbath fountains and the whole thing. But one of the images on Amazon, I mean, it was just, It’s, I guess, AI created, I don’t know, it’s just a bunch of random like parrots and robins and whatever. And she’s just like, ah, looks like maybe she might be going to like catch one of the parrots.

I don’t know. But it brings me so much joy, this silly picture. So I’m going to have to share that with you makes me giggle all the time. But yes, I’m looking at my bird feeders, and I’m just so pleased that there are actually birds at them. And let’s see, I am listening to a new song. station, you know, how your Apple music and stuff can create stations based on a song.

Uh, when we were coming home from our bat tour, another fun thing to do in the Austin area, uh, during the summer, my brother and his wife and their two daughters were in town this weekend. And so my little niece was like, we need to Just like my daughter took my phone is like, you know, searching up her own music to play on the ride home.

And it is a song called Treehouse by Alex G, which I’d never heard of. And, but I just went ahead and built a station on it. And then when we got home, we put it on the Sonos. We did a station with it too. And my daughter came down for breakfast the next day. I was like, why are we listening to good music now?

So, apparently, my music before was not good, and, uh, this one is good if you have some multi age. I mean, so we’re talking like from the tweens to the teens and above into college age, seems to be. And I really enjoyed it, too. So, Good People Pleaser Treehouse by Alex G. basis station on it and you get some good stuff.

And what am I learning? Oh, I’ve learned, I mentioned that we were driving home from the bat tour. Um, so you get on the boat when it’s 100 degrees and then you sit on the boat and you just kind of putter around Lady Bird Lake until the bats are supposedly supposed to come out. And I’ve been there before when the bats do come out, lots and lots of them.

Um, apparently it is not in May that they do that because we sat there and sat there and you know you’d see a few come out and they’re like oh those are the scout bats. I think it might have been too windy.

[00:48:08] Missy: Oh, maybe.

[00:48:09] Susanne: They said that

[00:48:10] Missy: The weekend was really windy.

[00:48:12] Susanne: once they get started it’s like a nine hour or something non stop. Stop loop of flying.

So like they need to make it worth their while to actually go out. And so, and I also learned from this tour that in August is when they have babies. All the bats in the Congress Bridge are pregnant, pregnant ladies. They go to Mexico

[00:48:35] Missy: they don’t want to go and fly because it’s hot and they’re pregnant. They’re miserable.

[00:48:40] Susanne: it. Oh my God. Okay.

I learned so much. And I, my son gave me a great demo of this with some Wendy’s chicken nuggets yesterday because I also learned that the bats are the size, they’re the Mexican something,

[00:48:54] Missy: Mexican free tail.

[00:48:55] Susanne: Thank you, free tail bats. Um, they’re the size of a chicken nugget. Their bodies are, but their babies that come out are one third the size of a chicken nugget.

[00:49:05] Missy: One third of their body is

[00:49:06] Susanne: One third of their body comes out and then they’re, They are umbilical tied for the next month, while the baby nurses I know!

[00:49:18] Erin: This is what, this is bad news.

[00:49:20] Susanne: I know. This is I learned a lot.

[00:49:22] Missy: This is Batty.

[00:49:23] Susanne: This is Patty. I learned a lot. And the reason I learned a lot, and we did not see a lot, and we had two very disappointed nieces, um, but our tour guide, uh, it was Christy Vera.

In front of the Lone Star Bat Cruises, and I don’t know if y’all watch Parks and Rec, but she’s officially the April Ludgate of tour guides,

[00:49:45] Erin: yes. Yes.

[00:49:46] Susanne: was epic. I don’t know if it was an act or if this is her, but it was worth every penny, even if we never saw a bat. She’d just be like, So you guys in the hotel lounges?

Like, hotel has a good one. And she’s

[00:50:06] Erin: Oh

[00:50:07] Susanne: just, oh my god. She looked like her. She talked like her.

[00:50:11] Missy: Oh, I want to book her.

[00:50:12] Susanne: And she is a comedian too, I guess, and model. And she’s, uh, Got like, we looked her up on Instagram with us. That’s when, you know, you got a good tour guide when you come home and you look them up on Instagram and find their life story.

Um, I don’t know how you guarantee that you are on a Christy Vera boat, but look up her Instagram and then look for her and then get on her boat. Um, but oh my God, she just made it priceless and obviously conveyed a lot of amazing information about bats, even though we did not see hardly any. But

[00:50:43] Missy: Aww.

[00:50:44] Susanne: worth the tour, even if you don’t see them.

[00:50:47] Missy: Yeah. Well, now you know where to look for them. Like, I see them all the time now because you’re kind of aware. Like, we did a bat unit in the first grade with my now sophomore, but I still remember a lot of that and I know where to look for them and

[00:50:59] Susanne: Yeah. And you can hear them. You could hear them and you could smell them. You just, they didn’t want to come out. It’s too windy. I said, I’m

[00:51:06] Missy: Don’t

[00:51:06] Susanne: with you, mama. Don’t come out here. It’s windy. Exactly. All right. Well, that is all our Look, Listen, Learns. And oh my gosh.

[00:51:15] Missy: so good. Thank you, Erin.

[00:51:18] Erin: Thank you both. This was so fun. I love your energy. I feel honored to be here. Thank you for having me. This was so fun.

[00:51:26] Susanne: Thank you. I, I needed this today.

[00:51:30] Missy: when it, when it’s going to be out. I don’t know our schedule, but we’ll let you know when it’s going to be out. We can’t wait to share this with the world.

[00:51:36] Susanne: Yes. Oh,

[00:51:39] Erin: Everyone should leave you a five star review right now. I’m going to do it right

[00:51:42] Susanne: you know, we’re

[00:51:43] Missy: Erin’s lips to the reviewers ears.

[00:51:45] Susanne: Exactly. I mean, it’s the easiest thing to do and we forget to do it for some of our favorite podcasters, too.

[00:51:52] Erin: Right?

[00:51:53] Susanne: you’ve inspired me to go do a couple for some of my faves,

[00:51:56] Missy: Yeah. Every once in a while I have like a review afternoon where I sit and I send out some reviews cause it is easy to share and puts out some good juju in the

[00:52:05] Susanne: we’ll do a little review for the book, too.

[00:52:08] Erin: Thank you. Y’all are the best. Thank you. This was so fun.

[00:52:12] Susanne: well, thank you. And everybody, I mean, talk about look, listen, learn. We got some serious learns from you today, so I really, really appreciate your time. This is fantastic. All right.

[00:52:23] Missy: afternoon.

[00:52:24] Susanne: Have a great one, everybody. Bye bye.

Thank you so much for joining us for the mom and dot, dot, dot podcast. We hope you enjoyed today’s show. And if you know someone else who could benefit from the episode, please be sure and share it with them. And while we’re begging, please subscribe and rate us wherever it is you listen to podcasts. You can find links to all the things we discussed today in our show notes or over at our website, momandpodcast.

com with the A N D spelled out in between shows, find us over at the socials, including our private mom and community Facebook group, the links to that group. And all of our socials can be found at mom and podcast. com. Thank you so much for your support. We appreciate you more than, you know, now go out there and make your ellipses count.

The post Laugh, Learn, Lead – Building Connection through Improv & Play appeared first on Mom And Podcast.

Join hosts Susanne Kerns and Missy Stevens on the Mom &… Podcast as they talk with Dallas Woodburn. Dallas is an award-winning author, book coach, and podcast host who helps women around the world write and publish their heartfelt stories. In this episode, they explore practical tips for finding time to write amidst busy lives, the importance of small kindnesses, and how community and support can aid in the creative process. Dallas also dives into her various book projects and how she balances her professional and personal life.

Susanne:

Dallas:

Missy:

Dallas Woodburn is an award-winning author of fiction, nonfiction, and plays; an in-demand book coach; and host of the Thriving Authors Podcast. She has helped dozens of women around the world write and publish the books inside their hearts to grow their businesses, grow their impact, and grow their legacies.

Dallas’s debut YA novel, The Best Week That Never Happened, was a #1 New Release on Amazon, a Featured Bestseller on Apple Books, and the Grand Prize Winner of the Dante Rossetti Book Award for Young Adult Fiction. She is also the author of the motivational writing handbook Your Book Matters: 52 love notes from my creative heart to yours; the YA novel Thanks, Carissa, For Ruining My Life; and the short story collections Woman, Running Late, in a Dress and How to Make Paper When the World is Ending. Her novel Before & After You & Me and nonfiction book 1,001 Ways to be Kind are both forthcoming in 2024.

A former John Steinbeck Fellow in Creative Writing, Dallas has received the Cypress & Pine Short Fiction Award, the international Glass Woman Prize, and four Pushcart Prize nominations. Her short stories have appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Nashville Review, Louisiana Literature, North Dakota Quarterly, and many other journals, and her nonfiction has been published in Family Circle, Writer’s Digest, The Writer, The Los Angeles Times, Modern Loss, and more than two dozen Chicken Soup for the Soul series books. Her plays have been produced in New York City, Los Angeles, South Lake Tahoe, and Maryland. Dallas lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area in a comfortably messy house with overflowing bookshelves.

Musical Notes

Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.

Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.

The post Creating Time for Your Passion Projects with Dallas Woodburn appeared first on Mom And Podcast.

In this episode of the Mom &… Podcast, hosts Missy Stevens and Susanne Kerns welcome back Jennifer King Lindley to discuss her new book EMBRACE YOUR EMOTIONS. The conversation explores the significance of understanding a broad range of emotions, and how that contributes to overall well-being. Jennifer shares insights from her research, the benefits of journaling, and practical tips to identify and navigate through various emotions. The episode also delves into personal anecdotes, the challenges of school graduations, and the societal pressure of constant positivity. The hosts and their guest conclude with recommendations on books, music, and personal experiences, providing listeners with an enriching dialogue on emotional awareness and mental health.

Missy:

Jennifer:

Susanne:

Jennifer King Lindley is an award-winning health and wellness writer and editor. She’s been providing content for national magazines and digital publications for more than 25 years.
​
Her writing has been published in Real Simple, O, the Oprah Magazine,  Parents,  Martha Stewart Living, Good Housekeeping, Health, Family Circle, DailyOm, and many other print and digital publications. Jennifer has written about everything from rent-a-chickens to fear of clowns, but specializes in service pieces on topics such as relationships, psychology, and health. She won a National Magazine Award in the “personal service” category.

For more than a decade, Jennifer was a staff editor at the late-lamented New Age Journal, later reincarnated as Martha Stewart’s Whole Living. (She still doesn’t know what color her aura is…) She also served as executive editor of Dr. Andrew Weil’s Self Healing, a national health newsletter covering integrative medicine.

Jennifer graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in English and has an MA in English Literature from Boston College. 

Musical Notes

Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.

Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.

The post Learning from Our Emotions with Jennifer King Lindley appeared first on Mom And Podcast.

Navigating LGBTQ+ Parenting and Advocacy with Heather Hester

In this episode of the Mom &… Podcast hosts Susanne Kerns and Missy Stevens talk about parenting with a focus on LGBTQ+ advocacy. They welcome Heather Hester, founder of Chrysalis Mama, and author of PARENTING WITH PRIDE, to discuss her journey, her book, and her podcast, Breathe: Parenting Your LGBTQ+ Teen. The conversation explores essential parenting techniques, such as listening actively and validating children’s feelings, as well as practical advice for creating a supportive environment for LGBTQ+ teens. The episode also provides vital tips on what to say and not say when someone comes out to you, and the importance of unbiased allyship.

Susanne:

Heather:

Missy:

Heather Hester is the founder of Chrysalis Mama and creator of the podcast, Just Breathe: Parenting your LGBTQ+ Teen. She’s also the author of Parenting with Pride: Unlearn Bias and Embrace, Empower, and Love Your LGBTQ+ Teen, a book that offers practical and emotional guidance for parents and families. 

Musical Notes

Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.

Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.

The post How Parents Can Support Their LGBTQ+ Kids with Heather Hester appeared first on Mom And Podcast.

In this episode of the Mom &… Podcast, hosts Susanne Kerns and Missy Stevens introduce guest Brendan Hansen, a six-time Olympic medalist and renowned swimmer. They discuss Hansen’s illustrious swimming career and accomplishments, including his role as team captain of multiple U.S. Olympic teams. Hansen shares his journey from childhood swimming in Pennsylvania to becoming a leading figure in the sport. The hosts and Hansen delve into parenting insights, emphasizing the importance of water safety, fostering resilience in children, and the significance of maintaining a growth mindset. Hansen also discusses his current role as the Director of Team Services at USA Swimming, and his experiences raising three daughters while advocating for their empowerment and participation in youth sports. The episode wraps up with the hosts and Hansen exchanging personal recommendations in their ‘Look, Listen, Learn’ segment.

The post Coaching, Resilience and Growth Mindset with Olympian Brendan Hansen appeared first on Mom And Podcast.

April 26, 2024 / Mom &… Podcast Episode 95 / Guests: Shellie Hayes-McMahon and Crystal Mason

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Show Summary

This episode originally ran on March 25, 2022. Last month, Crystal was finally acquitted. In the words of her attorney:

“Crystal and her family have suffered for over six years as the target of a vanity project by Texas political leaders. We’re happy that the court saw this for the perversion of justice that it is, but the harm that this political prosecution has done to shake Americans’ confidence in their own franchise is incalculable.”

It’s election year y’all. Know your rights, and remember what a privilege it is to vote.

Shellie Hayes-McMahon and Crystal Mason joined us this week to talk about advocacy and education around voter’s rights and voter suppression. On the Mom &… Podcast we frequently talk about how much influence moms have, and this week’s guests are two incredible examples of this influence.

We talked about convoluted laws and complicated processes that make it difficult – and often impossible – for all people to vote. Crystal shared her story of being arrested and jailed for casting a provisional ballot. Shellie encouraged us to get involved at a local level, to learn the laws and rules, and listen to women of color. She implored us to educate ourselves and then speak out. We talked about ways to get involved – starting with voting – and eliminate voter suppression and voter intimidation.

This episode left us reeling, and more than a little angry. And yet, we are encouraged by advocates and champions like Shellie and Crystal. Change is not going to come easily, but if enough of us speak up (and… vote!), change can happen.

Topics From This Episode

Look, Listen, Learn

Susanne

Shellie

Missy

More about Shellie

Shellie is a fierce advocate for women from all walks of life stepping into roles of power. Currently Executive Director – Finance and Operations at Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. Shellie was Director of Operations for Annie’s List, is Co- President for Political Action of Black Austin Democrats, Senior Advisor and Treasurer for the Williamson County Democratic Party and a Williamson County Precinct Chair. Shellie sits on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters Central Texas and the Barbara Jordan Leadership Institute. She is a 2020 Leadership Austin Graduate, 2020-21 NLC Mentor, and an Ordained Minister.  Shellie is a frequent political contributor  for Pink Granite and The Rabble. Before joining Planned Parenthood Texas Votes Shellie spent 30 years in Management, as well as running for office in 2018. Her belief is that the most vulnerable in our society must be protected and the best way to do that is by electing more pro-choice, progressive women to office. 

More About Crystal

Crystal Mason is the founder of “Crystal Mason The Fight” foundation. The foundation is dedicated to fighting against voter suppression. She has a personal story of trials, tribulation and triumph, and through that story, she has become the face of Voter’s Suppression. In

2016, Crystal did what any noble American would do: she cast her vote at the ballot box hoping to be the change that she wants to see. Instead, she was given a five-year prison sentence after casting a provisional ballot that was ultimately rejected. Crystal is adored by her family, friends and colleagues. She is a mother, grandmother, and successful business owner. If asked who she is, Crystal will tell you, “I am a rehabilitated felon that believes

in second chances.”

About Crystal Mason The Fight

Crystal’s foundation is dedicated to helping felons who are transitioning back into the world. Specifically, Crystal’s goal is to offer education and guidance as it relates to voting rights. Crystal wants to ensure that all people know when they can vote, why they need to vote, and the importance of voting. Crystal helps teach people the importance of understanding who they are voting for, and having a good grasp on policy interpretation. Crystal’s motto in this fight is: “You are not defined by the word felon. You have a voice and with Crystal Mason the Fight your voice will be heard.”

Connect With the Mom &… Podcast

Watch this episode on our YouTube Channel!

Musical Notes

Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.

Transcript available upon request.

The post Voting Rights: Why You Need to Know Crystal Mason’s Story appeared first on Mom And Podcast.

In this episode of the Mom &… Podcast, hosts Missy Stevens and Susanne Kerns dive into a comprehensive discussion about wellness practices, with a special focus on acupuncture and Eastern medicine. Their guest, Charleen Whipple, a native of Colorado with an extensive background in sports medicine, nutrition, and Chinese medicine, shares her journey from being a competitive dancer to founding The Point Wellness in Round Rock, Texas. Charleen educates on the benefits of acupuncture, debunking myths around the practice and explaining how it can aid in treating various health concerns including anxiety, inflammation, and pain. The discussion also covers managing a brick-and-mortar health business, the synergy between different wellness practices, and the accessibility of alternative medicine through health insurance. Furthermore, the hosts and Charleen explore topics like the impact of ‘tech neck’ on children, managing staff in a wellness setting, and the personal touches that make wellness treatments more approachable, such as the use of panic buttons during acupuncture sessions. The episode also touches on personal and professional development through courses, the importance of supportive communities in business, and the broad application of wellness practices for both physical and mental health improvements.

Missy:

Charleen:

Susanne:

Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Charleen emerged from a tight-knit Italian family, where communal bonds were as strong as the Rocky Mountain air. Beginning her journey in competitive dance at 5, she continued this passion through college, pursuing dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Sports Medicine and Nutrition at Colorado State University, while also dancing with the Colorado Eagles along the way. Following graduation, Charleen followed her calling into holistic healing, earning a degree in Chinese medicine from Colorado Chinese Medicine University in 2012. Launching her entrepreneurial path in Denver, she later resettled in Austin, Texas, where she honed her practice within a chiropractic clinic, amidst milestones like marriage and motherhood. In 2021, Charleen’s dream clinic became a reality, marking the culmination of years of dedication, and today, she remains poised for the future with gratitude and anticipation.

Musical Notes

Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.

Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.

[00:00:00] Missy: Welcome to the mom and dot, dot, dot podcast. The podcast that helps you make your ellipses count. You know, all those dot, dot, dots that come after I’m a mom. And I’m Missy Stevens, mom and dot, dot, dot writer, foster child advocate, and this week’s spring break prepper.

It’s our last spring break with two kiddos living at home. Crazy,

[00:00:29] Susanne: And it’s our first spring break with just the one kiddo. And

[00:00:36] Missy: And now we’re sad.

[00:00:38] Susanne: I’m Suzanne Kearns, mom and dot, dot, dot, writer, LGBTQ and sex ed advocate. And this week I’ve been so busy with work that I forgot that it is spring break next week. And we are doing. Just the one kiddo dragging him along because we spent all of our spring break budget on sending Zoe to L.

A. with her roommate For an awesome week, so the rest of us are going to Marfa. We’re going to Marfa and Big

[00:01:06] Missy: One of my favorite trips ever was Big Bend. Yeah, I will have to talk when we aren’t on the clock and I loved it so much.

[00:01:13] Susanne: Okay, I’m gonna get notes

[00:01:15] Missy: Yeah, I’m so, so excited this week to talk to our guest and full disclosure, I talk to Charlene all the time because her therapist and Charlene have been instrumental in getting me back into fighting shape.

so I get to see her at least once a week, but now we all get to talk to her today. And I’m so thrilled for her to share her knowledge with all of us. Charlene Whipple is a native of Colorado and she attended Colorado State University and studied sports medicine and nutrition. And then she later went on to go to the Colorado Chinese Medicine University, where she graduated in 2012.

And now for the last three years, we’ve gotten to have her here in Round Rock, where she owns the Point Wellness. And we will talk all about that as we go on today. Welcome.

[00:01:58] Susanne: Welcome you. Excited to be here. Oh, well, so excited. And I, I, this is my first time meeting you. I don’t get to see you every week. So I definitely need, and our audience needs, a Charlene 101. So can you tell us a little bit about your career path and how you got to where you are today?

[00:02:16] Charleen: Yes. So I actually always have been in the sports world. I was a competitive dancer growing up, grew up in a family of all boys, with cousins and all of that. So sports has always been my passion. And so when I graduated from Colorado State with sports medicine, I ventured into, do I want to go into PT, OT, chiropractic, and nothing really held my interest until I talked with my current acupuncturist that I was seeing at the time and just fell in love with Chinese medicine and the fact that I can treat the entire body, not just the physical ailments that were going on.

It’s a mind, body, spirit. and started acupuncture school, which was actually a lot more difficult than I ever imagined. so did that and started in Denver. And then my husband and I moved down here in 2013. So I’ve been practicing. I did a solo practice for about seven years. And then in 21, my husband pushed me to open my dream clinic.

And we have been open here for about three years now.

[00:03:14] Susanne: Very cool.

[00:03:15] Missy: So you mentioned that you had an acupuncturist who piqued your interest in all of this and the word acupuncture, I think freaks people out. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what it is. Why it works and does it hurt? Because I do it every week. I know the answers to a lot of these questions because I do it every week or every other week.

but when I tell people I do it, they’re like, Oh my God, that sounds so painful. So I want to talk a little bit about the why behind it and what it is, if you can share that with us.

[00:03:45] Charleen: Absolutely. And I’ll share a little bit on the eastern side and the western side because sometimes when people hear the eastern side of acupuncture and Chinese medicine, it gets a little woo woo for them, a little out there, but there is a good

science behind it that people can actually understand. And it’s a little bit tangible.

So the theory and the basis behind Chinese medicine is that the body can heal itself. We have everything that we need to, to heal ourself. We just have obstruction. Those obstructions can be physical, they can be mental, they can be emotional. So our job is to identify those obstructions and break them free.

Let the body do what it needs to do. And we do that with a number of things, whether it’s cupping for muscle stuff or acupuncture for the internal. We also work with Chinese medicine and herbs. So there’s a whole array of things that we can do. So a typical session is usually when an acupuncturist or Chinese medical doctor will identify what’s going on based off of your symptoms and all of that.

And we usually start out with some muscle work, some palpation, all of that to see where everything is stuck. And then we use acupuncture needles. So I always like to tell people, I actually did this experiment in school because I didn’t believe them, but you can fit 30 acupuncture needles in one hyperdermic needle that a doctor would use.

So that kind of gives you a gauge on

how big the needles are.

[00:05:03] Susanne: heh.

[00:05:04] Missy: tiny.

[00:05:05] Charleen: so they’re super teeny tiny. You can actually bend the needles. They’re not stiff enough or thick enough that they’re, you know, you can’t bend them. They are pliable. So they are super tiny. And most of the time when we do a traditional treatment with acupuncture, you might feel a tiny pinch when the needle goes in, but after that you shouldn’t feel anything.

And most of our patients, Missy, if you can attest to this, most of our patients fall asleep on the table. So. Yeah, it’s very relaxing. It’s a very like it works with the energy. So when we talk the eastern, it helps with the energy blockages, helps open everything up, allow the body to heal and do what it needs to.

From a western side that people can attribute a little bit more knowledge, some tangible too, is when you puncture the skin with a needle, you are actually creating what we call a micro injury. So you are injuring the body. That puts the body into a healing process. So you’re creating a micro injury. It actually takes your body out of fight or flight.

shuts off that sympathetic nervous system and puts it into parasympathetic so that the body can heal. Now that is one of the hardest things for people to do nowadays just with our society with everything go go go is a lot of people can’t shut off that fight or flight system and acupuncture actually forces the body to do that.

So that’s one of the ways that it helps the healing process is it actually forces the body to shut off fight or flight because you’ve now created an injury. So now it’s going to go into the restaurant store to help that body.

[00:06:33] Susanne: Oh, interesting. Okay. So I usually typically think of acupuncture of like, okay, I have something that hurts here, or it’s something that you’re trying to heal or recovery. But say you’re just one of those people where everything feels pretty good, but

[00:06:48] Charleen: Does that person exist?

[00:06:50] Susanne: yeah, exactly. But like aches and pains wise, you’re in good shape, but maybe anxiety or just like you said, they’re just a person who lives in the world and, you know, has that fight or flight.

So that is something that you don’t necessarily have to have, like an acute pain or something specific, an injury that you’re treating.

[00:07:12] Charleen: Absolutely. And those are some of my favorite treatments or what we call maintenance treatments. You’re coming in just to keep everything nice and open and relax and take your mind off of stuff for an hour. And yeah, so definitely for stress and anxiety. I’ve been diagnosed with high functioning anxiety since I was 18, and it’s something that I can tell like when my body gets to that point, like I just need to shut off that nervous system so that my body can do what it needs to do and bring everything out of fight or flight.

[00:07:39] Susanne: Ooh, can you acupuncture yourself?

[00:07:41] Charleen: You can. you can. And I do regularly. I have two acupuncturists that work with me, but there are times that I just need to do. And one of the good systems for people who are anxious about acupuncture is called a regular acupuncture. So it’s actually all done in the ear. So you don’t have to lay down.

You don’t have to be still. Cause some people are like, I can’t lay there for an hour, but you can actually do a full acupuncture treatment with just the ear,

[00:08:06] Susanne: Okay, now that might sound even scarier to people. Are you, like, putting the needles in the, like, where, where

[00:08:10] Charleen: just like on the side, like right in here, it just goes on

the outside. So not in the ear.

But where you would get piercings, I’m sorry, where you would get piercings, you can actually do acupuncture.

[00:08:20] Susanne: Okay, I just wanted to clarify that for anybody who’s like, and what you can do is you can put them in your eyeball. Oh, that’s very interesting. Okay, because yeah, that might be for some people who are a little hesitant. Yeah, that laying down is kind of a submissive position. If you’re like, no, I still kind of feel in control. If you’re seated and kind of do that baby step.

[00:08:42] Missy: And Charlene gives you a panic button when you’re lying down. So, like, before she leaves the room, she tucks this little button under my hand, and I’m always afraid I’m accidentally going to do it, because I have never once panicked. I mean, I check completely out, it’s an out of body experience. I am not in the room with myself when it’s going on, but I’m always afraid I’m going to accidentally, like, fall asleep and twitch and hit that button.

But you do have a panic button if you are worried about lying there with needles in you.

[00:09:08] Susanne: No, any treatment that involves lying down, I’m all for.

[00:09:12] Charleen: Yes.

[00:09:13] Susanne: I might just book an appointment just to come take a nap on your table. That would be

[00:09:17] Charleen: Just a nap pod.

[00:09:19] Missy: I’ve been begging for the treatment plus nap package so that when my treatment is over, then I can just sleep for like 20 or 30 minutes because it’s so relaxing.

[00:09:28] Susanne: Oh, I’m going to have to try it. And I definitely, yeah. I’m curious, well we’ll probably have to talk afterwards, my mom’s been having a lot of trouble with sciatica and she’s tried just about everything else and I feel like, let’s try one more thing.

[00:09:43] Charleen: Absolutely.

[00:09:44] Susanne: so aside from the acupuncture, you’ve got the massage services also?

And what, what else could, what else could we take advantage of there? Are those the primary buckets?

[00:09:55] Charleen: we actually have, so we have acupuncture and massage. We have manual stretching. Then we have a cranial sacral and Reiki therapist. We have an infrared sauna and we have a cold plunge.

[00:10:08] Susanne: Oh my gosh, cool.

[00:10:10] Charleen: And then we do have another company that works with us that does all the vitamin injections, vitamin IVs, Botox fillers, the whole shebang.

So they’re a little bit separate, but they’re out of our clinic.

[00:10:21] Susanne: So how does that work then if someone is just like, something’s not right, I don’t even know what it is. Do you do an initial evaluation, decide what’s, what mix of all those things they need?

[00:10:32] Charleen: yeah, people can come in and just schedule an initial consult. I’ve done them over the phone, I’ve done them via email. And they’re like, you know, I have this problem going on. Can you tell me the best route? And those usually go through me just because I know everybody’s specialty, all of that, and then I kind of help them decide.

And sometimes it’s a combination of, you know, start here, let’s see how you respond to that treatment, and then we’ll move to X, Y, Z.

[00:10:57] Susanne: you’ve got two of us, we, we only fit one demographic of the 50 ish year old women, the menopause ladies, uh, we’ve got all different ages that listen, but I’m curious if you at this day and age what common things are you seeing in patients or do you call them patients clients? What, how do you refer to them. Okay.

[00:11:19] Charleen: don’t have a specific term. So we do work. A lot of our patients are injury related or pain. crossfitters are a big part of our clientele, people that work out anything weightlifting. we do get a lot of post surgery patients. To help with swelling, lymphedema, we take care of all of that.

sadly we have a lot of kiddos that are now starting to come in with neck and shoulder pain. Just the phones, the computers, all of this is

[00:11:48] Susanne: Oh my goodness.

[00:11:51] Charleen: we have coined a new term called Tech Neck. It’s that, you know, everything being forward, the kids are starting to get a little bit more of that hump earlier and earlier.

so we have started working with kids earlier and earlier on, neck and shoulder pain and also anxiety. Anxiety has been a huge KickUp, I would say over the last like five to six years.

[00:12:11] Missy: I bet.

[00:12:12] Susanne: Probably, yeah, probably for all age groups.

[00:12:15] Missy: Yeah. I feel like some of us are starting to feel it creep back up again, right about now. Oh,

[00:12:20] Susanne: as I’m like, Oh, does my kid have a tech neck?

[00:12:24] Charleen: It’s, you know, but it’s everybody. Now, you know, when you say you don’t have pain, I guarantee you everybody has some type of neck and shoulder tightness just because everything we do is forward.

The computers, the phones, even when we sit, a lot of times if you’re stressed in tension, your shoulders naturally come forward.

[00:12:42] Susanne: Yep.

[00:12:42] Missy: this and I feel myself like trying to

[00:12:44] Susanne: I know. I’m like, Oh,

[00:12:46] Missy: I’m like, cause I’m sitting here kind of hunched over.

[00:12:48] Susanne: know, I was just talking to some friends about this. And I think, I don’t know if it’s a woman thing, or if it’s a women with double D cup thing. But, I mean, I think I’ve also done that besides the tech, besides the stress, because it feels really weird as a woman to be like, here they are, here they are, world, and I, I don’t know. It’s, it’s just a weird thing to stand with correct posture. You feel like you’re posing, but I did just go and, uh, one of my friends was going back to work after maternity leave. So we celebrated with a little spa day and I got a massage. And that lady was, she probably needed a massage after my massage.

She literally, it was the first time someone ever got up on the table. And like, she was like kneeling on my butt and doing stuff. Uh, I needed to recover from it the next day, but she was saying that very much. She’s like, I can tell you are

[00:13:46] Charleen: forward.

[00:13:47] Susanne: doing this. And granted, there’s probably, I could list 20 things that do that, but mostly as I’m walking throughout the day, it is just because I don’t know, growing up, we were.

Not necessarily taught to just be like, yeah, throw those shoulders back and get the girls out kind of thing. So, I don’t know, I guess put them

[00:14:07] Missy: know. I think women, a lot of times we make ourselves small

[00:14:11] Susanne: Mm hmm.

[00:14:12] Missy: for whatever reason. That’s probably different reasons for all of us, but something about us doesn’t want to take up space and it’s just something we have to unlearn. Like take up the space and if you got double D’s, let them have their space. I want to talk a little bit about this. I mentioned this to you, Charlene. We can’t talk about services like this without talking about the great privilege it is to be able to get them.

Like, I feel very fortunate that I have access to this. you take insurance. which is amazing. So my insurance covers some of it. I have this crazy high deductible plan, so it covers less of it at the moment. But last year, when I had a major surgery, my treatments at the point were free for a while to me.

so that is a privilege. I have that insurance. I’m able to utilize it. I’m able to pay the copay that I need to pay right now. Are you seeing trends where Western medicine is starting to embrace these kinds of treatments and more people will have access through insurance? are there ways out there for someone who maybe doesn’t have the greatest insurance to find some sort of care like this?

[00:15:21] Charleen: So unfortunately, it is a slow go with insurance companies covering it, but they are even in the 10 years that I’ve been in practice more and more insurance companies are covering it and one of the big forefront leaders is Medicare and a lot of insurance companies go off of Medicare guidelines.

Now, Medicare does cover acupuncture now, but here’s the kicker.

They don’t cover it if it’s done by an acupuncturist. So there’s, we have lobbyists that are working, to overcome that, but Medicare is now covering acupuncture, which means everything else will start to fall in line. and become more available. The VA now has acupuncturists on staff, and we all know the VA is horrible about timely manner and getting people the care that they need.

So the VA is now starting to contract out to other acupuncturists that can take TriWest and TriCare. So although it is a slow process, we are making a lot of headway for that to become available to more people. And if they can’t afford a our treatments or more one hour treatments with an individual so they are on the pricier end, there are a lot of acupuncturists and we’re going to incorporate this into our clinic hopefully by the summer where you can find community acupuncture places.

So these are places where it’s not as You can’t do all the cupping and all the other stuff that we do in a one on one treatment, but you would walk into a setting where there’s like anywhere from five to six chairs set up and all the acupuncture is done elbows down and knees down and we can do the acupuncture in a group setting.

So then you’re not charged as much because the acupuncturist can make up that revenue because they’re treating six people at once.

So a lot of those are done on a sliding scale.

[00:17:09] Susanne: So it’s almost more like a mani pedi setup where you’re all in this communal area. Interesting.

[00:17:16] Charleen: So there are

clinics like that, um, where you can make it more affordable, but we are making headway. It’s just really slow.

[00:17:24] Missy: Yeah. Yeah. So I want to go back to this just briefly because this is not a podcast about insurance, but insurance drives me bananas. Um, if Medicare is not covering acupuncture done by an acupuncturist, where are they, what do they want people to do? What, what are they

[00:17:40] Charleen: are there are chiropractors that are trained in acupuncture.

And there are MDs that are trained in acupuncture, so they are actually Medicare providers, so they can bill.

[00:17:50] Missy: Oh,

[00:17:52] Charleen: the thing is, I actually cannot, like, to bill Medicare, not to get too detailed, but you actually have to have, like, a certain ID number.

I can’t even apply for an ID number, because acupuncturists can’t be providers through Medicare.

[00:18:04] Susanne: Got it.

[00:18:05] Charleen: So, it’s a whole, a whole thing. And it breaks my heart, because those are some of the people that need acupuncture the

most.

[00:18:11] Susanne: Yes.

[00:18:12] Missy: And I’ve just learned how much Medicare is driving other, like I had to get compression garments and it was all messed up. I don’t have Medicare, but Medicare changed something and all the other companies are following suit and everything’s a disaster. And anyway, it’s someone I’m sure has a podcast about health insurance and we need to go listen to it because it’s freaking mess.

Oh,

[00:18:39] Susanne: get me started. I’m very interested about this.

I was going to ask just about starting a business, like a brick and mortar business, because I’d still want to talk about that. But as someone who has a daughter who’s very interested in maybe pursuing physical therapy or this round and very interested in health and all these health and wellness, very curious how one becomes an acupuncturist or anything around Eastern medicine.

[00:19:06] Charleen: absolutely. So there are Austin actually has a school down in north Austin for acupuncture. But it is like I said, it was a lot more intense than I actually planned on going back to school for. But our curriculum that I went through in Colorado is a three year, 3. 5 year program all year round. So it is nine trimesters.

And with that, you learn all the acupuncture points, all the Chinese massage, all the herbs, treatment protocols, diagnosis. We actually have to learn, um, pharmacology also to make sure none of our herbs interact with medications that people are taking

and the counteractions of all of those. But yeah, it is an intense school.

It’s a university. So it’s not a bachelor’s degree, but you have to have certain prereqs done. In order to go and then it is full on three and a half years and that includes your clinicals though. So we did do clinical rotations and so that does include your clinicals.

[00:20:05] Missy: It’s amazing when you go in and say, so this hurts and also Charlene’s amazingly patient because I never walk in and say, well, it’s my shoulder. It’s tight right here. I’m always like, well, my shoulder’s tight right here and I’m not sleeping and I have a lot of anxiety and I’m also a little constipated and I feel sort of tight, you know, like I list a thousand things and she’s like, we got it.

[00:20:23] Susanne: And she probably touches a part of your elbow and is like, it’s all right there.

[00:20:28] Missy: Right. And she will put a needle somewhere. And I, I have at times felt something somewhere else in my body at that moment, but more often than not, I leave there and I’m like, Oh, Oh, like this place that was tight is loosened up and there wasn’t necessarily a needle there. So it’s really fascinating at what understanding of how things are all connected.

[00:20:49] Susanne: is all connected. Okay. So that, okay. So that’s how you start to. pursue a career, but, it’s one thing to have the degree or to have the certification and then to actually start a business. So, I mean, especially this is not something you can do virtually. You can’t do tele, I mean, you can do the consultation like you said, but this is definitely hands on.

AI is not going to be taking your job anytime soon. Um, so. What is that process like? That’s so intimidating to me. Anytime we talked in the last episode about signing a lease for my daughter’s apartment next year, and even that I got a little tense about. So what is it? What does that look like when you’re starting a brick and mortar business?

[00:21:35] Charleen: So starting that is, I would say the first thing you have to do is always have your support system and that’s not necessarily a business support system. It’s everything on the personal side because it is more work than you could ever imagine. And it takes a lot of energy. And if you don’t have that support system, I can tell you right now in the three years that we’ve been open here, I’ve wanted at least shut down two or three times.

[00:21:58] Susanne: Yeah.

[00:21:59] Charleen: And so it’s a lot. So that support system is the biggest piece for me, having that, but really looking for the demographic that you want to work with, where they are situated and then especially this clinic that I opened. So when I was at the chiropractic office, it was just me. I rented one room. I didn’t have any crazy overhead and it helps that I was able to build the business like that.

And then when I opened this clinic, my clientele literally just followed me down the road. but, you know, like you said, with the apartment lease, I was locked into a three year lease here.

And, you know, I’m downtown Round Rock. My rent for my building is three times the amount of my mortgage.

[00:22:44] Susanne: Yeah.

[00:22:45] Missy: Yeah.

[00:22:45] Charleen: is terrifying.

[00:22:46] Missy: It’s terrifying.

[00:22:48] Charleen: it is terrifying, but really looking for, you know, to get started is where do you want to be? What’s the clientele you want to work with? And then really finding out the logistic of like, how much room do you actually need? Because you can start too small and outgrow the space too quickly, or you can start too big and then, you know, have to pay for overhead that you’re not using.

So that’s really fine tuning, working with someone who’s done a brick and mortar business before in that industry or in a similar industry to help you get a grasp on. all of that, but it’s terrifying and find a coach, find a coach, find a coach, find a coach.

[00:23:28] Missy: Yes. We want to talk about that. How did you find a coach?

What did you look for?

[00:23:32] Charleen: one of the big things for me was, you know, I needed a coach that didn’t necessarily have the skills that I did. I don’t need somebody to tell me how to do acupuncture. I needed somebody to help me structure my business, what type of clinic I was looking for.

And then also somewhere that I still fail. And I’m working on is the social media. I am not good at social media. I am not consistent with it. I am not knowledgeable about it. And so that’s kind of where that came into play. And also somebody that’s

[00:24:03] Missy: I don’t relate to that at all.

[00:24:05] Charleen: yeah,

[00:24:07] Missy: at the social media.

[00:24:08] Susanne: I did a pose today, Missy. It looks like someone’s grandma did it. Anyway,

we

[00:24:15] Charleen: so really just finding somebody or a coach that excels somewhere where you’re like. so for me, that was Shailene and Brock’s Marketing Impact Academy, talking about finding your niche, honing in on that, looking for your ideal clientele and expanding from there. Because like I said, I didn’t need the acupuncture help.

I needed the building, the clientele, and the practice, and the social media help.

[00:24:40] Susanne: So what does that coaching, the cadence of that look like? Is it really heavy up front? And then you have like a maintenance that you meet with them on a regular basis, or are they a regular part of your life? How does that work?

[00:24:53] Charleen: So, regular part of my life, but a lot of their academy and their clinics are all done virtually at your own pace. So there are times when I have downtime that I’ll go through several classes and courses and then I do like that I can go back and revisit when I need to, but then definitely the weekly check ins, the monthly check ins, you know, all of that that can be tailored to what I’m working on at the time.

[00:25:18] Missy: And they help with things like the financial side of it. I can’t just, just this idea of having to bill and get people to pay you and deal with insurance and plan that out so that you have the money you need to pay your rent on this three year lease. Like, did someone walk you through all of that?

[00:25:35] Charleen: So not necessarily the business coach and that, and I hate to say it, but a lot of that’s been trial and error, and I’ve learned the hard way over the last 10 years. Um, my brother and my mom were both accountants. So I had some guidance on that, but I learned the old school way by trial and error, and I still to this day, I’m like, why, why am I doing this on my own?

Who’s letting me do this on my own? So,

[00:26:02] Susanne: That reminds me, our taxes are due this week, Missy. I need to do that. So, who was it that we just had on? Well, we didn’t just have on. We just released the episode for recently that was talking about fractional CE, no, fractional CFOs. Um, so that’s probably similarly. I mean, you have the business coach for certain things, but then have this more of the accounting support.

So it takes a village. It takes a village of professionals. Oh, so I was curious it sounds like it’s been. it’s been a real roller coaster. what are some lessons that like looking back, you wish you had known or that you had done differently?

[00:26:42] Charleen: one of the big things that I still struggle with to this day is when I did my own thing, it was just me for seven years. That was my business. I had no knowledge or preparedness for managing a team. And that is probably what I still struggle with to this day. So depending on what your business is going to look like, taking those steps to learn, I did not do enough education.

I did not do enough prep on what it would take to actually manage a team. I thought everybody would come in and do their job. No big deal, you know, and that is not the case whatsoever. So

that I wish I had more. Forewarning of,

[00:27:27] Susanne: Yeah, I don’t think you’re alone. Love, I think it was Lovey A. J. Is that, what’s her name? You know, Lovey

[00:27:33] Missy: Lovey,

[00:27:34] Susanne: So I think it was Lovey that I saw a post from yesterday that it was, I’ll have to share it.

It was basically she said, sometime I’m going to write a book that captures. Over the years, the tens of thousands of dollars that I have lost from employees that did not, you know, they didn’t sign the thing right, or they didn’t check the box, or they didn’t do this, or they left some client engagements, you know, in a bad situation that ended up harming the business.

And just people who don’t care for your business as much as you do, which I mean, I guess is natural. It’s your baby. But, you’re not alone and she’s like smarty pants, knows everything, millions of followers, writes all these books and you know, it still happens to her. So yeah, I can imagine for any small business owner, managing a team like that can be a real challenge.

[00:28:28] Charleen: Absolutely.

[00:28:29] Susanne: Oh my goodness.

[00:28:30] Missy: but we do want for, I know that some people are listening and they are too far away to take advantage of this. So we recommend finding someone in your community that has these services, but for people who can.

Absolutely. Get to Round Rock or live in Round Rock. Do you have any promotions or events that are coming up that you want to share with our audience?

[00:28:48] Charleen: we do. So right now, for the start of spring, we are running a promotion that is $60 for any 60 minute treatment at our office. So for a one hour treatment, we’re doing it at $60. And then we just launched a huge campaign last week that we are bringing in an amazing therapist that is going to work on cryotherapy toning.

So it is a permanent fat loss using cryotherapy. So there’s no downtime, there’s no surgery, anything like that. Just helping people if they want to lose a couple inches before summer. Um, and it’s a pretty cool treatment and it also helps with body inflammation and all of that good stuff. So we are launching that.

And we have some specials going on with that as well.

[00:29:33] Missy: Yeah. And if it sounds like voodoo magic, I did it. I took advantage of a entry price and did a session and I lost two inches around my waist. Two. Yes,

[00:29:45] Susanne: Where does this stuff go?

[00:29:47] Missy: I don’t know. You pee it out, basically, right, Charlene? Basically, you’re just The fat cells, you flush them out.

[00:29:53] Charleen: Yeah. So you actually, when you freeze them, you create damage to the fat cells and then it creates what I call fat trash. And then your body with a lymphatic drainage with leaves and infrared sauna, a vibration plate that your lymphatic system helps to flush all those out.

[00:30:10] Susanne: Oh, I want to

[00:30:11] Missy: crazy, so I’m saving up my dollars so I can do the whole, like, the whole, it’s multiple treatments. But yeah, I did an intro thing and thought It was amazing and it’s short, it takes no time and it sounds like it would be really cold and it’s not, it’s not not cold, uh, but it doesn’t last very long.

So it’s not miserable. You’re not uncomfortable during it before you know it, it’s over.

[00:30:35] Susanne: Oh my gosh. Okay. So now I have, I have another question for people who are outside of our area. what should people be looking for when they are looking for a practitioner? to make sure, I mean, is there some seal of approval or accreditation or certification that they should be making sure people have?

Okay.

[00:30:55] Charleen: Absolutely. So, um, besides three states, Texas being one of them because Texas likes to be an oddball, most

states require that the acupuncturist is nationally certified. So, we usually have a national certification and then usually have a state or local certification. So, definitely making sure that your acupuncturist is nationally certified and all that you can look up online.

You know, you can go to the National Acupuncture Association and search for a practitioner and make sure that their license is valid.

[00:31:26] Susanne: Great.

[00:31:27] Missy: very good advice. You don’t want to go to a quack. I mean, even though the needles are tiny, you still don’t want somebody who doesn’t know what they’re doing, just randomly sticking them.

[00:31:37] Susanne: Oh my gosh. Well, this, okay. I think I might be being converted. I’m kind of, I’m not necessarily afraid of needles, but I’m just afraid of, I’m afraid of the unknown.

[00:31:47] Missy: Right.

[00:31:47] Susanne: Yes. So this is, this has calmed a lot of fears. I think I’m ready to give it a try. And I don’t even necessarily have anything that hurts except for my crippling anxiety and just like, and dealing with life.

But other than that, um,

[00:32:03] Missy: it’s been instrumental in my sleep improving,

[00:32:05] Susanne: Oh, Ooh.

[00:32:07] Missy: my sleep improvement has been a slow and steady process, but I think this has really been part of it. And I, for the longest time, I wasn’t having trouble falling asleep, but I was having trouble staying asleep.

And. Yes, I still wake up, but I wake up and just sort of assess that like, it’s still nighttime. I’ve got to go back to sleep and I’m back to sleep, which is amazing. Amazing. And I think this is part of it. Like, so it can do, you don’t have to be hurting to go in. Like there’s a lot of your body systems that need a little tweaking now and then,

[00:32:36] Susanne: Mm hmm.

[00:32:37] Missy: acupuncture is a great way to do it.

And then of course, at the point you can also follow that up with, I sit in the sauna sometimes, which feels amazing. I fell asleep in there yesterday as a matter of fact. I

[00:32:49] Susanne: I’m sensing a theme.

[00:32:51] Missy: know, I mean, it’s awfully hot to fall asleep, but I had, it’s Bluetooth connected. And so I put on the book I’m listening to and, yeah, I woke up and thought, wait, how did he get there?

What happened? What, what’s

[00:33:02] Susanne: my gosh. That’s me. That’s like when I was reading over a story and I was like, how did anybody, everybody end up in the top of a tree? I don’t know.

[00:33:09] Missy: I was really like, wait, we’re driving where now to do what? I don’t know. I’ve got to go back and figure out how that happened. Um, but yeah, there’s all these other things going on at the point that, Um, kind of the work together and the massage is really wonderful. So I highly recommend finding somewhere in your community that can offer this to you.

[00:33:25] Susanne: Awesome. Well, and since we have our, a lot of people listening in our community, uh, before we go to the Look, Listen, Learns, can you share like your website or where people can find you really easily?

[00:33:36] Charleen: So on any social, it’s just at the point Wellness. And then our website is the point wellness.com

[00:33:42] Susanne: All right. So with that, let’s jump into some Look, Listen, Learns and for new listeners. What’d you do?

[00:33:49] Missy: We did really well on

[00:33:50] Susanne: I know. We’re amazing. And we also, we also wasted a lot of time. So we’re doing extra good. We’re still getting back into the group. We’ve had a

[00:34:01] Missy: really are.

[00:34:03] Susanne: Oh, okay. Now I got to stop laughing. Almost. Okay. So it is time for our Look, Listen, Learns. Listeners, welcome and thank you for being here. At the end of each show, we spend a couple minutes with our Look, Listen, Learn segment where we share all the things that we’re either reading or watching or learning about. And we do not like to put our guests in the hot seat first.

So Missy, what are you look, listen, learning this week?

[00:34:30] Missy: Okay. Well, I was going to talk about a book that I’m reading, but I’m not finished with it yet. So I’m, I’m shelving that. We’re going to talk about that when I’ve finished it. I can’t wait to talk about it. so instead I am looking at, um, the new season of Somebody Feed Phil.

[00:34:42] Susanne: Oh, that’s right.

[00:34:44] Missy: I love somebody feed Phil to either.

You don’t watch it. Do

[00:34:47] Susanne: No, but you’ve

mentioned it, before. I’m

[00:34:49] Charleen: No.

[00:34:50] Susanne: it down.

[00:34:51] Missy: So great. It’s on Netflix and, uh, Bill Rosenthal is a TV producer. He’s, I think, done some acting. he was involved in Everybody Loves Raymond. Like, it was loosely based on his life. and so, but now he has this show. He travels the world and he talks to people about the food where they are.

And every show It has a tearjerker moment. It’s also really funny. And, um, he has a charitable component as well, but it’s fascinating to watch where he goes. And it makes me of course, want to get on an airplane. Pretty much every episode makes me want to get on an airplane. but there’s a new season, super fun.

So we’ve been watching a show or two every night. and it’s not a very long season, so we’re almost done, which makes me sad.

[00:35:32] Susanne: How many seasons are there?

[00:35:34] Missy: I think this is the 7th?

[00:35:36] Susanne: Okay. So,

[00:35:37] Missy: I think so. And early on, his parents play a big role, and it’s adorable. Like, he calls them from wherever he is, so there’s a video chat, and it’s really, really adorable.

so it’s great. Just like one of those shows that makes your heart happy. And also makes you really hungry and could be expensive if you buy a plane ticket to everywhere he goes. so I’m watching that. And then I’ve been watching this show that I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit that I’m watching, that I’ve been watching, um, Resident Alien.

Anyone even heard of it? Okay. Netflix was like, you might like, I don’t know why Netflix thought I might like it.

[00:36:13] Susanne: they know you.

[00:36:14] Missy: Um, I guess. It’s kind of creepy. but it’s based, I guess, on a comic book, and I’m not a comic book person, so I don’t know. But it’s about an alien who ends up on Earth and, gets really involved in this little town.

He’s able to look like a person. Um, but gets really involved in everything that’s going on in this little town, and it’s It’s very funny, but it’s also kind of creepy at times and also a little sad at times and, uh, like I’m hooked.

[00:36:40] Susanne: Is it a new show?

[00:36:42] Missy: in its third season now, so like I am caught up and I’m now watching week by week as it comes out.

In season three and I can’t believe no one in my family can believe I’m watching it. No one wants to watch it with me. And I’m like, y’all, it’s really funny. Like the alien is really funny. So I don’t know if you just need something a little different than what you’ve probably been watching. Check out Resident Alien on.

I want to say I started it on Netflix, but now I’m having to finish it on maybe Peacock. Like the Netflix doesn’t have the current season. So I’ll find it and put it in the show notes where I’m watching the current season, but I had to flip over to another. And I liked it that much that I was like, I’m out of seasons.

I have to, where do I get the next one? I

[00:37:21] Susanne: my goodness. Okay, well you know what? Chris is out of town, so maybe I’ll try it. So it’s not, because I can’t watch any of our shows that we watch

[00:37:29] Missy: Right. Then you’ll get in trouble. That’s kind of how I started this one. Like there was something Mark and I were wanting to watch and I had a day where I just was chilling. I needed something on in the background. I’m like, I’ll try this alien. Why not? So that and then I’m listening to Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby

[00:37:46] Susanne: Oh, I love that one.

[00:37:48] Missy: so good. And I I’m listening to it. I have not read it, but I’m I still, without having compared the two, I would say, listen, because there’s an, yes, there is an octopus who talks and, um, yeah, it’s so great to hear it in his voice. so I highly recommend listening to that. And ironically, there was briefly a talking octopus in Resident Alien.

So I talking octopi are part of my world right now.

[00:38:15] Susanne: Maybe that’s how you got Algorithmed.

[00:38:18] Missy: Maybe. I don’t know what the universe is sending me, but the universe is sending me. Octopi. Um, I don’t know why. We’ll figure it out. If I find out, I’ll let you know. So anyway, that’s what I’m doing. What about you, Charlene?

[00:38:31] Charleen: So my look is the hubby and I try to have a show that we watch together and we are definitely behind, but we are trying to finish up succession.

[00:38:40] Susanne: love.

[00:38:42] Charleen: So that is what we are doing. And then one of my other favorite looks right now is my little one is six. And this is the first time she’s really trying something that she’s passionate about as far

as a class or activity goes.

And she just started cheerleading and it

just melts my heart that she is so passionate about it. So that is my other look. Like I just love watching her get excited and really find passion in something that she wanted rather than something mommy and daddy put her in.

[00:39:12] Missy: yeah. It’s pretty great.

[00:39:14] Charleen: that, um, my listen is I am really trying to experiment right now with biannual beats.

And, you know, alpha waves versus beta waves versus all of that and how my brain responds to them because everybody responds differently. So that’s really been what I’ve been playing with

recently. And it’s

[00:39:34] Missy: have to give us some links that we can put in show notes for like where you found good ones.

[00:39:39] Susanne: Yeah, because I have a mix of them that I listen to, but I think, is this, it’s weird that I actually start to recognize the patterns now, so I need, I need some

[00:39:48] Charleen: New ones.

[00:39:48] Susanne: fresh, beats.

[00:39:51] Charleen: And then my learn is I am a big fan of the Huberman podcast.

[00:39:56] Susanne: Me

[00:39:57] Charleen: So, I listen to it twice, but his podcasts are always so long, I have to take them in chunks.

But, we recently put a cold plunge on our patio here at The Point, and I’ve been doing it for about six and a half months now, so I’m going through a lot of his research on cold plunging and cold and heat exposure.

[00:40:16] Susanne: Interesting.

[00:40:17] Missy: the next thing I’m trying at the point is the cold plunge.

[00:40:20] Susanne: I’ve got a friend

[00:40:21] Charleen: I’ll hold you to

[00:40:21] Susanne: Portland that’s been doing that just in her pool because it, it works there. And she’ll do a picture every morning and every once in a while she’ll have a bunch of friends in the background that she drug along with her. And I’m just like, Oh. I love heat so much, but I guess you can follow it by heat, right?

Can you warm back up afterwards?

[00:40:41] Charleen: Yep, so we do the, we do the cold plunge followed by the infrared sauna,

[00:40:45] Susanne: Okay. So you get to warm back up. Okay. I’ll, I’ll, you sell me on that. That’s that I’ll do.

[00:40:52] Missy: Yeah. Cause there’s a lot of, we didn’t get into it and we don’t have time to get into it, but there’s a lot of interesting science behind what that does to your body. And it’s really supposed to be great for aging and bone loss and all kinds of crazy things. Yeah. Yeah. It’s so interesting.

[00:41:10] Susanne: Oh my gosh.

[00:41:11] Missy: well, what about you, Suzanne?

What do you look, listening, learning?

[00:41:14] Susanne: Well, I’m going to keep going on this, this health thing we’re talking about, because I’ve been looking at this book, um, I think it’s called Adrenal Transformation Protocol. I don’t, I did not bring it up here. But, um, I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. I had a very exciting adventure in college where my Thyroid nerve, my body decided to attack my thyroid.

and so I just have been chugging along for the past, what, 40 years? No, no, I’m

[00:41:43] Missy: No, not, not that many yet.

[00:41:44] Susanne: Um, but you know, all my thyroid supplements and all those things, but I’ve. just especially with menopause and changing body, just realizing that there’s probably more to be doing to address this than just, you know, taking the thyroid supplements.

So trying to get smarter about the things that I’m eating, not aggravating it. so according to this book, a lot of things that I eat, not even just junk food, but like, it’s like, Oh, you should try eliminating oatmeal. I’m like, no, that’s my magic food that I do forever. Um, and my yogurt that I like to mix with my oatmeal, but I don’t think it means you can’t have it forever, but it kind of starts with this elimination diet type of thing to try to figure out what your issues are.

But one of the other things that came out of it is even if you’re going to just keep eating whatever you want, to start using some supplements like ginseng and the, uh, you’re going to have to help me pronounce this one, uh, the ashwagandha.

[00:42:39] Charleen: ashwagandha,

[00:42:40] Susanne: Ashwagandha and maca and some other things. so now I’ve been researching that, that opens up a whole nother can of worms.

Like we were saying, like, how do you find a trusted acupuncturist? I feel like, how do you find trusted, you know, suppliers of all these different supplements to make sure that they’re not makes another weird stuff in there. so yeah, if you have any tips along those lines, I’m, I’m open because I think that, I mean, We’ve talked about when I was having a bunch of aches and pains, and I had a doctor who recommended just taking. What was it? Cumin? Does that sound right?

[00:43:15] Missy: No, it was,

um,

[00:43:17] Susanne: Uh, yeah, it was cumin. Yeah. And how shocking it was that that just cured me. I’m like, really? I could have just had a bunch of curry? And like, this is

[00:43:28] Missy: Delicious and I don’t hurt anymore.

[00:43:30] Susanne: So I’m very curious to see what, like, these things can do. But I’m also curious from a health expert’s point of view, would you recommend then, like, Trying one.

I, I’m, I’m afraid that if like something works, I’m not going to know what works. So like, do you usually recommend being like, okay, I’m going to try the ginseng. And then if that’s good, I’ll work something else in. Or I know that you were saying that there’s, uh, some things that mix them all together for you just for convenience sake.

So what do you recommend?

[00:44:00] Charleen: So usually when you’re looking at something, um, when you’re looking at thyroid, inflammation, anything like that, sometimes you do have to take a combo because they’re synergistic. So they all work together and they work on different things. I wouldn’t be as worried if you were taking three supplements that are supposed to do the exact same thing, then that’s a problem.

But, you know, like usually with thyroid, we have one for inflammation. We have one for the actual thyroid gland. We have one for the. The libido, and we have one for the energy, and those can all work synergistically. So as long as there’s improvement, we don’t worry too much about which one is it. But if you were doing three for inflammation or three for something, then you only do one at a time to see what’s actually working.

Mm-Hmm.

[00:44:45] Susanne: Oh, okay. Oh, I’m glad I had this

[00:44:48] Missy: to what they’re supposed to be doing for you. That’s good advice.

[00:44:52] Susanne: Okay. I’m hitting you up after this.

[00:44:54] Missy: Uh huh.

[00:44:55] Susanne: Get some information. Let’s see. What am I listening? I am listening to way too many news podcasts and I am not going to survive this election cycle. So I just need to stop. I need to stop. Someone come take my phone away from me.

And.

[00:45:12] Missy: the, uh, no more, no more news phase because it’s just, I mean, like my stomach is just knotted up.

[00:45:19] Susanne: I feel like there’s a duty to become, like to be an informed citizen, but I also like I need to know what that line is between being informed and just being a nervous wreck about the state of the world. So

[00:45:34] Missy: Right.

[00:45:35] Susanne: I don’t know. I do need a little bit of numbing, I think, especially now that I’m not drinking. I’m like, ah.

[00:45:43] Missy: I have no vices left, and the news is really horrible.

[00:45:47] Susanne: can only walk so much. And when I walk, I listen to podcasts, so maybe I’ll just listen to binaural beats while I walk.

[00:45:57] Missy: Or some music. Find some good

[00:45:59] Susanne: I’ll find some new music. Um, let’s see, learning. Oh, I just had a fascinating month at work because I think I’ve. I don’t know if I’ve complained about this before, but, since I bill based on my time, since I’m a contractor, it can be really tricky to be super accurate or maybe as accurate as I want to be with the time that I’m billing my clients for.

And so one of the features on Paymo, which is what I use for my invoicing and time tracking is an actual like timer. Which at first I was like, Oh, that’s going to make me a nervous wreck. Like it almost feels like you’re going against, you know, you flipped over the hourglass and now you’re trying to, but I’ve actually found it to be really grounding and like also make my time more intentional.

So because part of the reason I had to use it is because usually I do my time in 15 minute blocks and I can do. A hundred things in a 15 minute block and I was recognizing that and so now if I’m switching between tasks, I need to like recognize that I’m doing that and like, okay, and it makes me take a little pause because I have to go back to my timer and like turn off the last task I was doing and then go back to it and set it for whatever the next task is going to be.

And some of the tasks, I mean, it’s ridiculous. My time, my invoice for the past month was like 10 pages because some of them are like Two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, but you know, over the course of the month, they add up to be normal chunks of time, but it made me feel so much better that the accuracy was there.

And also it probably saved me. At least 15 to 20 percent of my time a day, because I caught myself at the end of the day and I wasn’t doing this on the books, I wasn’t getting paid for this part where I would be going back and being like, Okay, I know I was sitting at my desk from one to two, what was I working on?

And I would have to go look through our project management thing to be like, Okay, what did I submit during that time? I was even going back into my like, internet browser history to be like, what website was I on during that point? Yeah. Yeah. To see like what I was working on. And now at the end of the day, I hit stop at that last task I was working on and it’s done.

And it was such a beautiful thing. I did it for the whole month. Cause I was like, surely I’m going to get tired of this, but it’s still, I think the number one benefit though, is just, it’s helping me be much more aware of all that. task switching and to thinking about ways that I can batch tasks together so there isn’t so much switching and just be more conscious of the way that I’m using my time.

And also just a way smarter use of my time to not be spending another hour after the workday unpaid, um, trying to figure out what I was doing all day.

[00:48:55] Missy: Oh, it’s my least favorite part of being a contract employee is tracking that. It’s stressful to me, and I want to get it right, and you don’t want to be overcharging your client or undercharging. Like, you don’t want to not get paid for what you’re doing. but yeah, it’s hard, so I

[00:49:11] Susanne: No, to the minute, I haven’t, and it makes me, and again, since I am so conscious of like making sure that I’m being super accurate, because there were times when I’d have a block of time where I knew, I mean, I knew I had not gotten up for a chunk of time. I knew I was working and couldn’t figure out, and I just wouldn’t bill for it because I was like, well, I’m not just going to.

Make it up. So, um, so no, it’s good for me. It’s good for the clients. It’s good for everything. So yay, Paymo. I keep on saying Paymo is like our new Canva and just keep on, keep on talking

[00:49:43] Missy: Brought to you by Paymo and Canva.

[00:49:46] Susanne: I’m a big fan and yeah, super, super helpful. So that has been my learn, that I can make it a whole month using this.

And I have now, I have set myself up as a client so that when I’m not at work, I’m also tracking my own time on there. So I have it broken down into like Caring Hope podcast. So I’m doing my own time tracking as I’m doing my other tracking, so.

[00:50:09] Missy: You’re so fancy. I

[00:50:10] Susanne: I am so fancy. I know, back, remember when we were doing all the Laura Vanderkam time tracking stuff?

I was like, that’s ridiculous. There’s, no one could possibly do that for their whole life, but, it turns out it actually, I mean, I wouldn’t do it if I was just like still doing stay at home ing stuff, um, if I had to run back to my computer every time that I was, I’m going to do, you know, change a diaper now, I’m going to do this now, or I’m going to go run to this meeting or whatever, but since I’m literally just sitting there anyway, um, in front of the computer, that’s been really helpful, so.

That’s me.

[00:50:44] Missy: All right. Well, we’re about two minutes away from our

[00:50:46] Susanne: No, I didn’t start till like 2. 05, so

[00:50:49] Missy: Okay. Oh, good. Good.

[00:50:51] Susanne: but we can say our goodbyes anyway.

[00:50:53] Missy: Yes. Thank you for being here. I know you’re really busy, Charlene, and you’re probably running to go put needles in somebody the minute we’re done, but I really appreciate you taking an hour out of your day for us.

[00:51:03] Charleen: thank you guys so much for having me.

[00:51:06] Susanne: such a pleasure to meet you, and I think I’ll be meeting you in person very soon.

[00:51:10] Charleen: Absolutely.

[00:51:11] Missy: You can come have a whole field trip to this part of the world, Suzanne, and you

can, we can hang out and you can go get a treatment and

[00:51:18] Susanne: Oh, we totally should do that. We can do it.

[00:51:20] Charleen: the street and get some coffee.

[00:51:22] Susanne: Yeah, we can bring back the tipsy ellipses for an episode. can.

Uh, well, thank you again. This has been really great. And I am going to be hitting you up for my, supplement information, get my inflammation down and figure out my junk, but

[00:51:37] Missy: awesome.

[00:51:38] Susanne: thank you so

[00:51:38] Charleen: Alright, thank you guys.

[00:51:40] Missy: Have a great rest of your day. Bye.

[00:51:42] Susanne: bye.

Thank you so much for joining us for the mom and dot, dot, dot podcast. We hope you enjoyed today’s show. And if you know someone else who could benefit from the episode, please be sure and share it with them. And while we’re begging, please subscribe and rate us wherever it is you listen to podcasts. You can find links to all the things we discussed today in our show notes or over at our website, momandpodcast.

com with the A N D spelled out in between shows, find us over at the socials, including our private mom and community Facebook group, the links to that group. And all of our socials can be found at mom and podcast. com. Thank you so much for your support. We appreciate you more than, you know, now go out there and make your ellipses count.

The post Acupuncture and Wellness with Charleen Whipple appeared first on Mom And Podcast.

This episode of the Mom &… Podcast features a vibrant conversation with special guest Allie Perez, an advocate for women in trades and a successful CMO and COO of George Plumbing Company. The hosts, Susanne Kerns and Missy Stevens, delve into Allie’s journey from an NYU drama graduate to a trailblazer in the male-dominated plumbing industry. Allie shares her experiences of founding the organization Texas Women in Trades to address the lack of female representation and mentorship in the field. She also highlights the importance of setting personal boundaries and prioritizing self-care, and discusses the challenges and solutions related to being a working mom in the trades. Additionally, the episode touches on topics like manual lymph drainage, the benefits of compression wear, and personal updates from the hosts.

More info on the Women In Construction Parade in San Antonio March 9, 2024

Susanne:

Allie

Missy

Allie Perez is the CMO/COO of George Plumbing Company, Founder of Texas Women in Trades Texas Women Work. She serves on the City of San Antonio Small Business Advisory Committee as the Mayor’s Appointee. She also serves on the City of San Antonio – Workforce Development “Ready to Work” Board. She works with tradeswomen advocacy across the nation. She was recently named one of San Antonio Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 2024. She is a graduate of New York University. Also, a proud mother of a 9-year old firecracker daughter. 

Musical Notes

Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.

Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.

The post Women In Construction – Skilled Trades 101 with Allie Perez appeared first on Mom And Podcast.

This episode of the Mom &… Podcast features guest Dr. Anne Welsh, a mom, clinical psychologist, executive coach, and consultant. Dr. Welsh shares insights about the dilemmas and challenges women often face when returning to work after maternity leave, as well as the importance of understanding that these decisions are not always permanent and can be adjusted according to changing circumstances over time. The episode also dives into the ways in which parenting skills can be valuable in the professional space, and the importance of having a supportive community during these transitions. Moreover, Dr. Welsh introduces her Working Mothers Lifeline group, designed to support working mothers through their shared experiences.

Susanne:

Anne

Missy

Dr. Anne Welsh is a clinical psychologist, executive coach, and consultant. Dr. Welsh began her career at Harvard before opening her own practice with a focus on supporting working parents in growing their careers and families. She is a mother of 4 and draws on her own experience as a mother, her research career in the transition to motherhood, and her 15 years in practice to help parents feel less alone, more connected to themselves and their values, and more empowered to make choices that fit for them.

Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.

[00:00:08] Susanne: Welcome to the mom and dot dot dot podcast the podcast that helps you make your ellipses count You know all the dot dot dots that come after I’m a mom and and I’m Susanne Kerns a mom and dot dot dot writer LGBTQ and sex ed advocate and this week I am starting A new client. I’m up to two now, which is pretty exciting, and it’s also my lucky number, so I’m stopping there.

[00:00:33] Missy: All right. Perfect. You’re done. I

[00:00:35] Susanne: I know. Part time needs to stay part time. That’s my motto.

[00:00:38] Missy: That’s right. That’s right. And I’m Missy Stevens, mom and dot, dot, dot, writer, foster child advocate, and this week returner of random items that I’ve bought in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. So note to everyone, don’t shop when you have insomnia because you don’t need any of that stuff.

[00:00:54] Susanne: Oh, are you going to share what any of them were?

[00:00:56] Missy: the one thing, it’s not that interesting, but I bought a mattress pad that we don’t need. Like I woke in the middle of the night in a panic and I’m like, we don’t have a mattress pad for that bed. Yes, yes, we do. Like, I’m not drinking. I’m not on drugs. I just am not sleeping well. And my brain is going on too many things.

And yeah, but I, yeah, and I bought just, you know, shoes that don’t fit and tops that are stupid and, you know, just stuff. Stuff. I get it. And I’m like, what? Oh, I bought a pair of coveralls, like Dickie’s coveralls. Thought they’d be really cute. They were not.

[00:01:26] Susanne: I’m scared. Those always look so cute on people, but I think my boobs are too big. I think that they would do

[00:01:32] Missy: I don’t know what was wrong with my body in them, but it was not happening.

[00:01:37] Susanne: Oh my gosh, okay, and we do have a guest today too, not just our shopping recap. Our guest this week is Dr. Anne Welsh. Anne is a mom and dot dot dot clinical psychologist, executive coach, and consultant. Anne began her career at Harvard before opening her own practice with a focus on supporting working parents in growing their careers and families.

She draws on her own experience as a mother of four, her research career in the transition of motherhood, and her 15 years in practice to help parents feel less alone, more connected to themselves and their values, and more empowered to make choices that fit for them.

Welcome. Oh my, those are all our favorite things to talk about. I’m so excited.

[00:02:20] Anne: I’m super excited to be here. I have listened to many of your shows and learned from all of your other guests, so it feels like a real treat to get to be the guest this time.

[00:02:30] Susanne: Oh, yay.

[00:02:31] Missy: Thank you. We’re really glad you’re here. And we learned some about you from your bio, but we’d love to look at a little more and one Oh one and just a snapshot of your career in life and maybe any pivots and how motherhood might’ve impacted any of those pivots.

[00:02:45] Anne: Yeah, I, started out, getting my doctorate in psychology, but there was a pretty big pivot even before that. I had gotten into medical school and decided not to go. Uh, my parents were not thrilled, but I kind of just knew that this was not quite. The fit, even though I had worked really hard to get there.

and so I decided I wanted to get my doctorate in psychology and thought I might want to go kind of academic and, you know, again, Reassessed over time and ended up going into a more clinical focus. but from the beginning, my research was actually on the transition to motherhood. I was not a mom.

I was in my early twenties at the time and I really liked transitions. Um, like that was the thing that I enjoyed studying and kind of how people navigate shifts in their life. And my research advisor at the time was like, hey, why don’t you look at motherhood? it’s really understudied. And that was very true at the time.

And so I started researching and then I actually defended my dissertation like eight and a half months or eight and a half weeks. Sorry, pregnant. So nobody knew I was super sick. Um. But defended my dissertation on the transition to motherhood, and then, you know, promptly nine months later went through it myself and was still kind of woefully unprepared, even though I had been researching it for years.

Um, and so then I went on, I worked at Harvard for a while doing university mental health, which had been my dream job. It had been the thing that I wanted to do for a while. And I, and I did love it. I loved the students. They were interesting and bright and motivated. but once I had my second kid, it just was too intense to do it in a full time way.

University mental health is a pretty intense, It’s pretty intense work. It’s a can be an intense schedule and I asked to cut back even a little bit and there was just no flexibility and so I left to do my own thing. And since then, basically, I’ve kind of shifted my focus into clinical work with new parents, and I do that both through therapy and through coaching and, you know, more recently, kind of in the And I have started to do it in a consulting way as well helping companies retain working parents or bring them back into the workforce after so many left to do caretaking during covid.

[00:04:56] Missy: Right.

[00:04:57] Susanne: Yeah. Oh, my gosh, that’s so interesting. I mean, talk about the transition to parenting, defending your dissertation at eight and a half weeks pregnant. Oh, my gosh.

[00:05:07] Missy: perfect. I love the way the world works sometimes.

[00:05:09] Susanne: and just to give a little context to our conversation, we’ve talked about this with previous guests, but in case it’s anyone’s first time, welcome.

Glad to have you here. Um, or if anybody needs a refresher, can you help explain the difference between therapy and coaching? Um, How you practice those.

[00:05:25] Anne: Sure, yeah. And I think you know I may have a slightly different perspective as someone that currently does both, you know, and I think of them as like a Venn diagram right they’re not separate entirely separate buckets. And I think. It may be the amount of overlap is going to differ depending on who it is you’re working with.

I think the traditional definitions are things like therapy is treating a mental illness. therapy is focusing on the past. and that coaching is present focus and is looking towards the future. But I think even that there’s actually a lot. It’s less cut and dry than that in in that coaching shouldn’t be used to treat mental illness.

But a lot of therapy clients that I work with don’t have a significant diagnosis. They’re going through a transition point. They have something they’re addressing. That’s kind of a moment in time. And that’s what we’re working on. So you don’t have to have like capital M. mental illness to be in therapy.

Um, and I also have coaching clients who have a therapist, right? So they may have anxiety and they’re working on that with their therapist and working with me on career development. so I know that actually probably muddies the waters more than clarifies it. but you know, I think the bigger thing is that, you know, with.

Therapy. It can be long term. The goals are usually symptom remission. It can sometimes feel a little more meandering. Coaching is super goal oriented and usually there is something very concrete we’re working on. It’s usually shorter term, not always. And it is usually behaviorally focused. We definitely look at thoughts, but there is often a, here’s a behavior I want to change, here’s exactly what I want to look different on the other side of this.

[00:07:06] Susanne: Thank you for that reminder. It’s always helpful to, yeah, give us just a little framework for as we discuss kind of the both sides of the services you offer.

[00:07:14] Missy: Yeah. We want to talk a little bit about that new parenting stage. We’re past that. A lot of our listeners may be past that as well, but even if you’ve done it, or maybe you’re doing it for the sixth time, or maybe someone you love is doing this and you want to be able to reach out to them, what kinds of things are you really helping new parents address most in this post COVID world?

Always.

[00:07:36] Anne: I would say, and I would say to your point, right, whether it’s your first or your sixth or whatever in between, it is always a transition because there’s always a new family member. And I would say the stuff that I’m working with new parents on doesn’t go away when your kids are older, often, right, because I’d say the one of the most common things I’m working on is feeling overwhelmed and feeling like you’re failing and sadly, I don’t think that goes away when your kids get older.

Certainly it hasn’t been my experience that it gets easier. It gets different,

but it’s not like there’s less to do. You know, I think in that toddler age, the physical demands are there like it’s exhausting in a physical way when they’re teenagers. It’s still kind of exhausting, but it’s just a different sense of it.

Um, But so I would definitely say overwhelm is a huge one. Um, and so we talk about a lot of boundary setting. What can you put down? What balls can you not hold on to right now? with that feeling of failing. And that’s again true whether you’re, you feel like you’re failing, As a working mom, as a at home mom, as some combination of, of either, we’ll often talk about things like perfectionism and try to grow confidence and think about, like, what are the stories and the expectations we have for ourselves and maybe where is that not true, or not aligned with kind of our values, the other things that come up, and again, I think this is true of new moms or Um, Kind of, uh, veteran moms, if you will, right, of feeling alone and unsupported, whether that’s with friends or with your partner or, with a broader sense of community.

and then also feeling unhappy, right? I think a lot of times it is this sense of, you know, I’m doing this mom thing and I wanted these kids and I’m Doing my best, and I’m not happy, and I’m not sure why, um, and that’s another, a common one, and sometimes, you know, in my therapy patients, sometimes it is that an undiagnosed postpartum depression or anxiety that they don’t recognize, but sometimes there’s other pieces to it.

A lot of times it’s, I’ve stopped asking myself what I want because I’ve been so focused on everybody else, and There isn’t necessarily an awareness that they stopped, right, and so we have to kind of relearn how, how do I even ask myself what I, and we’ll start with like, what do you want for dinner?

Right? What,

[00:09:58] Susanne: Oh, my gosh, you’re speaking to

[00:10:01] Anne: work up, you know, to what do you want to do with your life? What do you want this parenting thing to look like?

[00:10:08] Missy: it’s one of my favorite things to talk about. And I’ve told the story a thousand times on this podcast, or at least a few. And at one point, a therapist asked me, what do you like? And I couldn’t answer it. And it was that it completely that, that I had forgotten to ask myself what I was interested in or what I wanted.

I was just so focused on surviving every day with these little people.

[00:10:32] Susanne: Yes. Well, and speaking of getting ready for life with these little people, one of the services you offer is parental leave coaching, which I don’t know if that didn’t exist 18 years ago when I was going through this, or I

[00:10:44] Missy: We needed it.

[00:10:45] Susanne: have the know how to go even look for it or it’s probably too cheap.

I don’t know. but so what does that encompass when someone comes to you for parental leave coaching?

[00:10:54] Anne: just to answer your other question, you know, it didn’t, I don’t think it did exist. Um, Amy Beacom, who was a guest on your show,

really

[00:11:01] Missy: love

[00:11:02] Anne: Yeah, so she, I would say she really pioneered this field after her kids. So it is new, um, as a service. And now, you know, there are individuals that of us that do it.

There’s a couple companies that are trying to, Get it kind of as a work benefit that would be offered through HR at your

[00:11:20] Missy: Mm hmm.

[00:11:21] Anne: um, and I know Amy is doing that, but really what it entails is support through, kind of dual support through the transition to parent and the transition to working parent, because they’re kind of two massive things that happen simultaneously, and so what that looks like is some coaching while you’re pregnant, right?

there is an assessment that we can do that helps highlight what skills and strengths you’re bringing into this transition, but also maybe where there’s some gaps that we can be filling in ahead of time, um, and there’s a lot of planning around how are you going to take care of yourself and have help during the leave, and how are you going to hand off work to people so that you don’t have to feel super connected to work if you don’t want to.

What do you want that connection to work to look like while you’re out? And then how do you anticipate going back? So lots and lots and lots of planning and kind of thinking ahead. Then during the leave, there’s also coaching just to support that initial transition to, oh my god, I have a human being I have to take care of and what am I doing?

and that’s, you know, more emotional work. And then there’s support. Really important support on the on the other side and and on the transition back and a lot of like stopping and reassessing. Is this working? Does this actually fit? Does this feel okay? What do you need? it’s ideally gradually taking your work back.

But again, that can look different for different people. And kind of recognizing that you’re doing these two massive life transitions back to back, you’re still doing one and then you add a whole nother one, because being a working parent is very different than being a working person. And that’s just inherent in the nature of it.

And so it’s that kind of three, block support for parents as they navigate this whole piece. And it’s not just for mothers, that is true for anybody, um, as they take on a new life in their house.

[00:13:15] Missy: Yeah, there’s so much involved in that, and I think we oversimplify it and probably have oversimplified it for years of just, well, my company gives me X amount of time off. I’m going to take that time off and then off I go back to work. And it is so much bigger than that. And so complicated. I am wondering, it’s been a long time since I was in the traditional workforce and a long time since I had babies, what are some of the common issues currently facing that women are facing when they say, I need to take off?

This time you leave time that I get from my company, what’s going on now? What kinds of issues are they having with companies? Have things improved? Are things worse in some areas? How does it look? What does the landscape look like?

[00:13:56] Anne: You know, I, I wish I could sit here and tell you it’s like infinitely better. Um, It’s not I mean it varies right in terms of what leave actually looks like it really does vary company to company, you know We’re seeing a couple new states have passed parental leave laws where they are required by the state to be funded It’s often very complicated, even then, because it can involve different combinations of firm provided leave, state leave, short term disability, and sometimes you just need help kind of figuring out how and what applies to you for it.

So there is a little bit of a complication with that, but I think Some of the bigger issues, in addition to just like figuring out what your leave is, is figuring out how to navigate it emotionally, logistically, right? And so, you know, first there’s the question of do I even want to go back and what do I want that to look like?

And that’s a big one. there’s the question of What does my house look like now? What is getting out the door in the morning look like as I come back? I’ve seen a lot of moms who, you know, especially if they are the mom that, has more leave, which is not always the case, and, and that’s great. I definitely see a little bit of movement in men both being provided leave and then being able to take it, right, as opposed to, oh yeah, we, we provide it and then we actually frown upon you using it.

Um, but I think I see, you know, moms who’ve said, well, while I’m on leave, I take over all these house duties and baby care duties. And then. There’s a really rough transition when they are also going back to work and the co parent hasn’t had to do these things right and so there’s just so much communication that’s needed around the end of parental leave and whatever that’s going to look like within the couple. There’s also, you just, you miss your baby. Or you do and you don’t, right? And then you feel guilty about it, right? Like, you know, I know some moms who have said, I feel competent at work. I don’t feel competent raising this baby. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. It feels scary and hard. And I want to go back.

And I’m excited about that. And it’s the place that I feel like myself. And then does that make me a bad mom? No, of course it doesn’t, but that there’s just a lot of guilt that shows up kind of no matter what choice you make or how you navigate it, that somehow I must be doing it. Strong or that other people have gotten this figured out better.

[00:16:27] Missy: Why do we always go there? We always go to, I’m screwing up and everyone else is doing okay. What is wrong with our brains?

[00:16:34] Susanne: I know. It’s in so many different areas of our lives too, not just parenting. It’s just a, yeah, it’s a weird phenomenon.

[00:16:42] Anne: well, and there’s some, you know, I unrelated, but there is some data that women’s brains do tend to worry more and go towards, that they’re kind of, I don’t know that I would say less risk averse, but, um, in her book burnout, if anyone’s

[00:16:55] Susanne: Oh yes. I think it’s right up here. Yeah.

[00:16:58] Anne: Um, I think she talks about this and then the other book that talks about it is the confidence code and I’m going to blank on the author of that one, but that.

[00:17:07] Missy: it up and put it in the notes.

[00:17:08] Anne: Yeah, there’s this tendency for women to be more of a worrier, than a warrior, and that they, they tend to ruminate more just biologically. Um, so I think that’s probably, like, I think there is something to be said that we do actually tend to blame ourselves more. But I would also say there’s the cultural component, right, of we have these crazy high expectations of mothers and they’ve only gotten higher and higher and higher, and it’s impossible to meet them.

So, of course, we look at the expectations and say, well, if they’re there, that must be because everybody else is doing it as opposed to these are unrealistic and nobody’s doing it.

[00:17:47] Susanne: Yeah. Who said those? Who said those? I don’t even know. You know what I

[00:17:53] Missy: this to us and why did we just swallow it?

[00:17:55] Susanne: No, I think it is, people trying to sell us things. I think it is like products. And sorry, I, I’m involved in marketing, that’s my career, but, but I do think it is, oh, we’re trying to sell this bleach, or we’re trying to sell this cleaner, or we’re trying to sell this service, or whatever, so we need to make sure that you don’t feel like whatever you’re doing.

Is clean enough is right enough is Enough enough. So yeah, I think a lot of it comes down to that. But okay, so we’re talking about Part of me wants to really focus on the transition back to work, even though you usually talk about it on a Returning after a maternity leave. My maternity leave is now ending after 18 years.

So, so

[00:18:38] Missy: That was your leaf. That’s

[00:18:39] Susanne: I’m also going through that transition. So I’m going to circle back to that at the end if we still have some time. But what got me here 18 years ago was the big decision of. Whether or not to return to work after maternity leave, um, I think I had assumed that I was going to run into the same situation you did where if I asked for flexibility that they were just going to be like, Nope, you can’t.

And 18 years ago, we weren’t really talking about too much flexibility. It was either you worked or you didn’t. and especially you worked. In the workplace, there wasn’t a whole lot of at home or any flexibility there. I literally called, my client was Apple at the time, and I called her, like, practically in tears from the back of a bus once, asking her, like, how did you decide, like, how do you decide whether you go back to work?

Which is not a very professional thing to ask your client. Leaving on maternity leave, but she, I considered her like a mother extraordinaire. She had these three amazing kids and she just seemed to be doing it all. And she had taken also some time off. So I was really curious, like what,

[00:19:42] Missy: like how did you do

[00:19:43] Susanne: yeah, since she had been through it and I didn’t know too many people who had been through it.

And it’s taken time. Everybody I knew from work went back to work. So, I mean, there’s obviously the paycheck to consider, but like, what are the other considerations that people should be thinking of if they’re going on maternity leave, or maybe they’ve been working for 10 years and the baby’s. You know, going into high school or whatever, but they’re thinking of taking some kind of leave to care for an aging parent or to take care of their own health care needs like what, considerations do they need to be making sure they’re aware of, like mine, I discovered was not knowing that social security doesn’t exist for stay at home mom.

So, so even in addition to the income you’re losing, you got to take into consideration your social security that you’re not contributing to for X

[00:20:30] Missy: Long term. Yeah.

[00:20:31] Susanne: so what are some other things that you help moms think through?

[00:20:35] Anne: Yeah, I love this like discernment work. And I think, you know, you made the point of like, do you do it later? That’s the other piece to it. One piece that I think people don’t necessarily consider is that this doesn’t have to be an all or nothing permanent decision. You don’t have to leave when they’re an infant and never go back or work forever.

Right. I’ve worked with moms who went back when their babies were infants and decided to cut back when their kids were in middle school or whatever that like, It’s it’s a constantly evolving decision. It’s like not a one and done thing. So that’s the first piece I would say right is that, you know, you don’t have to think of this as a lifetime decision, you can think of this as a six month chunk at a time

[00:21:17] Susanne: Yeah.

[00:21:18] Anne: and test it out.

And the other thing I would say is that You know, broad brushstrokes is that transitions take time, right? We usually say give you got a new job takes three to six to nine months and somewhere, you know, up to a year to adjust. So, know that that’s going to be your adjustment length on the other side of this.

Because yes, maybe you’re going back to the same job, but you are not the same, right? And, and your home life is not the same. So just lots and lots and lots of grace and self compassion, around it and, and kind of testing things and seeing how they feel. I would also say it’s always worth asking, you know, to your point, obviously you said you didn’t even consider it and I got a big No.

Um, But that’s not always the case, right? I have also had clients who have had success being able to navigate a lot of middle ground, whether that is they do part time, or they can stay remote, or they have one day off a week, or they, contract so that they’re working sometimes and not, and obviously that’s not always an income situation that’s, A possibility for everyone, but, um, you know, if it is, that can be a great option.

So, I’d always say ask, because, you know, the worst case is they say no, but, you know, in my case it wasn’t no and you’re fired, it was, here’s your choices, come back or don’t, full time or nothing. and then I could at least make an informed decision. Um, I think the other things to consider, you know, that we kind of think through are, What do you want child care to be if you go back and and or if you stay home?

How would you like that to look? Having good and obviously this is a challenge, you know care is just so expensive But having good child care can make or break the experience as a working parent and I’ve had both I’ve had bad child care and and it makes All the difference in the world and so being able to think through what does that look like for you if you’re working and if you choose to stay home, what does that look like, because you should have some help.

And it’s not maybe it’s not paid childcare you know we could have a whole episode about childcare options, but basically thinking through how do I want help if I stay home and how do I budget for that and make sure that that’s kind of included in my thinking. Um,

[00:23:36] Susanne: want to put that in my notes with like a hundred stars around it because I think that is something that I did not even allow myself to consider because I felt, I don’t want to say guilty. It wasn’t like my husband was like, Oh, shame on you. No money. It was just like, I put that on myself like, well, I’m not bringing in any money, so who am I to.

Take even more money to cover the thing that I am supposed to be doing. It just, it felt really unnatural to me. And I’m sure a lot of people have felt the same way. So like, how do we convince ourselves that it’s important? We’re worth it. it pays for itself and more in the end, as far as how you’re able to interact with your family, your child, and just how you feel for yourself.

[00:24:19] Anne: Right, I mean, it’s funny. I didn’t even get it until probably I think it was pregnant with my fourth and we were getting life insurance. And I mean, the fact that it took this long to hit me, right? The life insurance person. I was like, well, I don’t make that much money because I was pregnant.

working fairly part time at the time. So I was like, I don’t think we really need much. And the life insurance person said, it will cost your husband 150, 000 a year to replace you just in the work you do at home and childcare. You can’t discount that. And that, that was the first time where I was like, Oh, right.

[00:24:53] Missy: thing happened to us and it changed my outlook. Really, it changed this kind of, I don’t want to say sadness, but there was this had been this emotional burden to not making as much money. And when I looked at it that way, I was like, Oh, I am, I am doing valuable work. Society as a whole doesn’t always value it, but this is valuable work.

it would cost my husband a lot to replace me.

[00:25:16] Anne: Yeah. Yeah.

Right. I mean, not to mention the emotional side, but you know,

[00:25:20] Missy: Not to mention, I hope he’d also be sad. I don’t know.

[00:25:23] Susanne: yes, just as a tangent and I’m really curious because I’m thinking of this I’m like, yeah, that did make me feel better But I also my life insurance is it half the amount of my husband’s so yes It made me feel like I was valued and like yes, I needed some but it also was half the value of my husband’s part of that is because my cholesterol is like through the roof and Hey, no one go get life insurance while you are nursing, by the way, I do have high cholesterol anyway, but apparently that has significant impact on your cholesterol levels and that has for the past 20 years impacted my life insurance rate.

I pay the same amount per month for half the coverage. because I was slightly elevated again, it could just be genetically. I’ve always had high cholesterol, but I’ve heard from many people after that, that while you are nursing. And, you know, post baby. So, get, get your blood test done ahead of time, whatever you need to do, or wait, and I don’t know, you should probably shouldn’t wait until after, because there’s all kinds of considerations, but keep that in mind, because that is a huge, that’s a big cost, and the fact that it did make a decision to do half the coverage, because it did cost so much for me.

It kind of made me feel like half a person,

so, laughs Half a person with really high cholesterol.

[00:26:43] Missy: That’s right.

Oh, I wanna talk a minute about, while we’re talking about leave, I wanna talk about the people who maybe decide to take an extended leave. So they decide to be a stay-at-home mom for a while or for some other circumstance. They end up being out of work longer than they had planned.

We really like to talk about what you can do in that time to keep your skills fresh, to keep your brain sharp, and so that you don’t get stuck in that rutt of telling people at parties, oh, I’m just a mom. So do you have any favorite strategies that you use to help women work through this or any tips or tricks?

[00:27:15] Anne: yeah. I have kind of like a two part, one more like tangible and one more esoteric, but in terms of the tangible answer. So, you know, I, there’s a lot of ways you can do this. continuing to have relationships with your coworkers, I think sometimes people or former coworkers, I think people shy away from it.

There can even if you choose to stay home there can be a lot of grief around that choice and some loss social connections but of the meaning that maybe your work gave to you of what it meant to be a working person. Right, there’s the, it’s. Going back to work is a transition, choosing to stay home and leave the career field is a transition to a big one.

And it can be hard I think to have a try to have a foot in the door And have those complicated feelings and worry what people are thinking of you but if you can kind of have those feelings and still stay connected whether it’s through linkedin and engaging there or Grabbing coffee occasionally as you can with former coworkers.

I think that’s a big thing. volunteering, doing any sort of consulting work is a great way to stay in touch, taking classes or podcasts or reading books on your field of interest, are other great ways. and then I, you know, I would also say kind of just making sure you have time and space for you back to that child care thing.

And maybe that’s a little bit of daydreaming or some career discernment thinking about what you might want to do in the future. Maybe it is just having time to read. said book, um, uninterrupted, but that, that there’s still time for you in there, I think is really important. There’s a, um, newer website called Motherhood Untitled, and I was interviewed for an article on this exact topic actually back in March by then, but it’s, the whole point is women taking career pauses and trying to figure out what’s.

Next and what is it like to be in that pause? Um, so that’s just another good resource for people.

[00:29:12] Susanne: Oh, I just wrote that down. I had how we never heard of that Missy.

[00:29:17] Missy: I know. We’ve got to go check it

out.

[00:29:18] Susanne: know. I’m

[00:29:19] Anne: They, um, I think it’s relatively new. Like I want to say in the past couple of years, um, but I’m not entirely sure when it started. so that’s like the tangible stuff, but the other kind of more esoteric answer I would say is to remember that you are still building skills simply by parenting. So this is one of the big things I do when I’m consulting is helping companies see parenting is.