Latest / Aggressively Human: For experts choosing expansion over extraction. / We're back! Our summer hiatus recap

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We're back! Our summer hiatus recap · Aggressively Human: For experts choosing expansion over extraction.

0:02
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Aggressively Human podcast where we've been off for a month
0:06
SPEAKER_00: and I finally get to hear what Jessica's been up to
0:08
SPEAKER_00: because I haven't been bothering you for a whole month.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: I am your co-host, Meg Casebolt.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Jessica Lackey.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: And welcome back.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Happy August to everybody.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: We took off the month of July.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: We recorded our we are going to take off the month of July content in early June.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: So we didn't even know what we were going to spend a lot of that time doing.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: And now it is late July when we're recording.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: We're back and we sort of want to do like a recap.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: How did you spend that time off?
0:38
SPEAKER_00: What did you do with that time?
0:40
SPEAKER_00: Where did Jessica go during that time?
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Who did she talk to?
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Who did she see?
0:44
SPEAKER_00: What did I do with my unexpected non-editing time that I had?
0:50
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to do that recap.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: So Jessica, yours is way more exciting than mine.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: So why don't you leap right in and give us sort of a where have you been for
0:58
SPEAKER_00: the past, I don't know, six weeks?
1:01
SPEAKER_01: So the last two weeks of June, so June and July have been sort of a blur.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: So I don't,
1:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember what we talked about if I told people I got sick,
1:09
SPEAKER_01: but I went to Craft and Commerce and my HBS reunion in Boston in like
1:15
SPEAKER_01: the first full week of July or June.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: And then I got super sick.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: And so I was like basically operating at like 25% capacity.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: I still have like the post- Cold lingering thing,
1:26
SPEAKER_01: which is not super fun for the like the last two weeks of June.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: Then it was July 4th.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: And then we went to the West Coast.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember if I was super public about this.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: My husband's last day of employment was the 30th of June.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: We knew about this.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: It was coming.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: But we were like, let's take a trip.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: You know, like when do you get like an adult sabbatical?
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: Other than in between jobs.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: So we decided to go to the West Coast and I back when we talked about this back
1:56
SPEAKER_01: when I launched my book and I'm like, I want to do a book tour.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: So I am not as much as I plan for things in my business.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: I am not what one would call like a major planner in my personal life.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm like highly neurotic and anxious, but like we moved and then lots of things happen.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: So like I didn't do like a book tour,
2:13
SPEAKER_01: like speaking at places, but basically I took my book on tour.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: So literally, I took the same copy and I packed it like them.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I should take one of the books with me.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: So I packed a little paperback copy of Leaving the Casino.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: And we did Seattle, we did Portland, we did San Francisco, and we did LA.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: And so we flew to Seattle,
2:37
SPEAKER_01: took a train to Portland,
2:39
SPEAKER_01: flew from San Francisco or Portland,
2:41
SPEAKER_01: San Francisco, San Francisco, LA, and then flew home on Tuesday.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: I have many stories from the four days,
2:49
SPEAKER_01: but in every city we met up with deeper foundations,
2:55
SPEAKER_01: members, clients, and adjacent friends and fans.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: And so we had like between six and 12 people at every stop.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: And we've had a couple of guests.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: Mary Williams joined us in Portland.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: And my copywriter, Rebecca, met up in LA.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: And the person who did my deeper business or deeper foundations dashboard for
3:20
SPEAKER_01: the membership, she joined us in Portland.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: And so it was it was like a very it was a very epic two weeks away.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: Fun fact.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: So we were out of town for two weeks in four cities.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: Guess how many ride shares we took that were not Waymo?
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Because we took a Waymo because that's part of the fun.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: But like, how many ride shares do you think my husband and I took?
3:45
SPEAKER_00: How many days?
3:46
SPEAKER_01: Basically 12 days.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: Four major metropolitan cities.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to say 22.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: We took one ride share.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: Everything else, including in LA, we did on public transit.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: So we took a bus from the Seattle light rail was down.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: So we took a bus, two buses from the Seattle airport up.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: We took buses everywhere in Portland and San Francisco, San Francisco.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: We took the, you know, the.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: The Muni, we took the BART.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: We went to Oakland and Berkeley with BART.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: We took buses in LA.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: The only, we took the train in LA.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: We took like four trains in LA.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: Like we took every train.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: The only time we used a Uber was we were going from the Warner Brothers Studio Tour
4:34
SPEAKER_01: in LA to an In-N-Out.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: And we needed to get there in 15 minutes and not 30.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: So we took an Uber to meet like one of my husband's friends.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: And then that person dropped us back at the bus station.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: That's really impressive.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'm just so used to traveling with kids where I'm like,
4:52
SPEAKER_00: just get in a car somewhere.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: Because of like dragging them around.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: I'll do public transportation with them.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: But like, there's just so much more cumbersome with people who don't know how to read a map.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's amazing.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: And a big commitment to like sustainability and the cultural decision not
5:12
SPEAKER_00: to drive everywhere,
5:13
SPEAKER_00: especially in cities like LA where driving is sort of like the norm.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: But part of that might be part of your planning is where are you staying?
5:21
SPEAKER_00: And if you have a centralized location in each of those places,
5:23
SPEAKER_00: that also makes a huge difference in terms of like,
5:26
SPEAKER_00: are the mass transit opportunities available to you?
5:29
SPEAKER_01: And so we stayed places where it was near central lines, but we took transit everywhere.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, And I don't, you know, my husband doesn't drive.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: So he gave up his license a decade ago because you can't have a license
5:43
SPEAKER_01: without active car insurance.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: He didn't have a car.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: He dropped his car insurance.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have a license.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: So who would be the driver if we rented a car would be me.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: And I don't like to drive in my town.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: And I'm certainly not going to like voluntarily drive in a city I don't know very well.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: And then with the ride shares, it's like it's so expensive.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like we took the train.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: It was an hour from downtown LA, which is where we were staying to Santa Monica.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: It was an hour.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: It would have been like a $50, maybe Uber ride, like an hour and a half in someone else's car.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, thank you.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: We'll just be on the train.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: I forgot my Kindle that day and in the hotel.
6:20
SPEAKER_01: And I, um, so I had to buy a book at Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: So I had something to read on the way home.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was the, uh, Just for the Summer book by Abby Jimenez.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we did a podcast episode on that one.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: I love that one with the Toilet King.
6:35
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: And the dog that like the ugly dog and the Toilet King and the forehead kisses.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that book.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we did every major sightseeing thing.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: I was like, ChatGPT, this is where we went.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, you packed a lot in for two and a half days in every city.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I know.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: I got to see my energy healer in Portland.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, do you happen to have any availability on Tuesday afternoon?
7:00
SPEAKER_01: So it was great.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: It was great.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: And I got to meet friends and clients.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: People were shocked that I paid.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm not just inviting you to have, your drinks are on my tab.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: Your brunch is on my tab.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: It's a business expense.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: I can expense it.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: But people like love meeting each other and I love meeting them.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: And now I'm like hooked on in-person things.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: So that was my, the last two weeks.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: That sounds amazing.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: It was great.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: That sounds amazing.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: And like you get the time with your husband,
7:32
SPEAKER_00: you get the time to like see the real city and not just like the glossy bits
7:36
SPEAKER_00: that you drive past, you know?
7:38
SPEAKER_01: Public transit means you get to like look out the window,
7:40
SPEAKER_01: especially for like overseas, like overland, right?
7:43
SPEAKER_01: Like when you take buses and you,
7:45
SPEAKER_01: we took a ferry to West Seattle and you took,
7:49
SPEAKER_01: when you take the overland train to, you see parts of LA, you wouldn't have seen.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I'd been to every one of those cities before.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: I used to live in Portland.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: So like Portland, I knew how to get around.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: But LA, I didn't, I didn't know very much.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: I'd been to Santa Monica for Nike when I was there,
8:06
SPEAKER_01: but like, In LA, you mostly just stay in your neighborhood.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: But I had eight people for brunch or seven of us plus me for brunch.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: And they came from all over LA and everybody was on time because it was a brunch
8:19
SPEAKER_01: and it was a Sunday.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: And it was like the amount of people that like said, oh,
8:26
SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to come because I was tired, but I came anyways because you were here.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: Like just filled my soul.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: Like I really,
8:31
SPEAKER_01: everyone who managed it and like some people like emailed me day of and were like,
8:35
SPEAKER_01: Surgery, kids, sickness, I can't be there.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: And for everyone who RSVP'd and then told me later they could not come,
8:43
SPEAKER_01: I thank you for letting me know,
8:46
SPEAKER_01: planning for in-person things,
8:48
SPEAKER_01: plus what we did in Boston, plus what I'm doing in Chicago and Columbus, Ohio.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, ghosting is real.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Right,
8:59
SPEAKER_00: you're going to keep a running tab of who's there and sort of even if you're You're
9:06
SPEAKER_00: the host,
9:07
SPEAKER_00: even though you're not the one who's from the city,
9:08
SPEAKER_00: and therefore you're keeping your eye on the door
9:10
SPEAKER_00: that way you can flag people down because you might recognize them in a way
9:13
SPEAKER_00: that other people don't.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, even if you can't make it, don't expect that the host wouldn't
9:18
SPEAKER_01: notice.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm seeing who's there.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: So for everyone who made it, thank you.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: For everyone who was not able to make it but told me they couldn't make it, thank you.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: For everyone who are speaking but didn't come, know that I still love you.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: And I'd love to see you next time I'm in your city.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: But it was, it was, you know, so a lot of people were like, how was your time off?
9:40
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I'm tired.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm invigorated.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: I moved around my body a lot with the walking because we got, you know, we walked everywhere.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: We walked from like Santa Monica to Venice Beach.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: I was like, you know, it was really, that was my, one of my favorite parts of the trip.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: So have you ever been to LA?
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: Several times.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: So from Santa Monica to Venice Beach,
10:00
SPEAKER_01: it's like beach bar, beach bar, and you know what I'm talking about with beach bar?
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: Beach bar, beach bar, beach bar, and I'm like, ugh, I really just want to sit down.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: And then there was this place called the Fig Tree, and it was like, you know, quiet.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: It was with wine and cocktails,
10:18
SPEAKER_01: and people sat down, and so we're like, oh, we're going to sit there.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: And then we kept walking,
10:23
SPEAKER_01: and it turned into more muscle beach,
10:24
SPEAKER_01: and it was like, Beach bar, beach bar, beach bar.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: So it was like an entire street,
10:28
SPEAKER_01: like the only place
10:29
SPEAKER_01: that we would have like been like my husband's like Jessica approved is the place
10:33
SPEAKER_01: where we found and sat down and I said that to people and they're like,
10:36
SPEAKER_01: oh, we love that place.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh, good.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: Jessica approved.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that sounds delightful.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Especially when you don't want like.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: The margarita on the beach with like the loud music and the,
10:50
SPEAKER_01: yeah, I get it.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, I've,
10:53
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I told you this,
10:54
SPEAKER_01: but I've become much more sensitive to noise as I've gotten older.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: Like I need to actually book like a appointment with the hearing doctor because, um,
11:01
SPEAKER_01: when I was in Boston,
11:01
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
11:02
SPEAKER_01: uh, my ears not really, uh, like it's starting to have like blown speaker effect.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: So, um, I have to take care of that.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: But, um, You know, and then of course, while we were gone, we had like the best neighbors.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: So we had one of our neighbors,
11:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:19
SPEAKER_01: we were going to miss trash day for two weeks and we were going to miss compost
11:23
SPEAKER_01: for two weeks.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: So we had one of our neighbors take out our trash, take out our compost.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, lock up when she was done.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: When we got packages, people like she like, you know, came in and put them in our house.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: And my husband had someone come over and water the plants.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like,
11:37
SPEAKER_00: oh, my God,
11:38
SPEAKER_00: this is like having like a real community,
11:40
SPEAKER_00: even though we're out of town and we can monitor it with our
11:43
SPEAKER_01: our security system
11:44
SPEAKER_01: that we got put in, which was, you know, so it just it was a great trip.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: And now I'm hooked on doing in person things.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: So I've got some plans.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: For the Deeper Foundations community as to getting together in the coming months and years.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: And I love that you're like, we wanted to take time off.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: We made it a vacation for us.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: But in the major cities, we found ways to see people and turn it into a business expense.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: And like, that sounds perfect.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: That's perfect.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: That was my summer vacation.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Meg.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Thus far.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: Thus far.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: We're like halfway.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Let's not say that summer's over.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: It's still July when we're recording.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: It's still August when this comes out.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: We still have time.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: We have time.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Please don't rush this.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, so I don't want to like,
12:27
SPEAKER_01: so I'm like,
12:28
SPEAKER_01: how fast can we get to where it's not,
12:30
SPEAKER_01: you know, 95 degrees and like filled with like humidity up the wazoo, right?
12:35
SPEAKER_01: You're like, this is the only nice time of year we get.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, how quickly can it be 70 degrees again?
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, north versus south.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: We've got like a Mason-Dixon line split happening on this.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like we were like,
12:46
SPEAKER_01: people are like,
12:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
12:47
SPEAKER_01: I got to do my 15,000 steps every day because I'm like,
12:49
SPEAKER_01: we were walking around San Francisco.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: Like I had to buy a hoodie on the Golden Gate Bridge because I forgot
12:55
SPEAKER_01: to bring my jacket that day because I'm like so used to being super hot
12:57
SPEAKER_01: and I was like freezing on the Golden Gate Bridge.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: And then we come here and I'm like, I want to move.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: It's so hot.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: It's so humid.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: It's like you walk outside and it's just like you're drenched with sweat just
13:08
SPEAKER_01: from like standing outside.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, no wonder I want the summer to be over because it's so hot here.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: What's that phrase?
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Like the best winter I ever had is summer in San Francisco.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: But it was great everywhere.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: It was great everywhere.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: So so, yes, that was my summer so far.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I actually find that like even L.A.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: in the summer isn't that bad because like you get the beach,
13:32
SPEAKER_00: you get like a little bit of the wind.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: It's not quite as heavy versus like the south is just muggy all the time.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Mm hmm.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Mm hmm.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: But up here, it's, I mean,
13:46
SPEAKER_00: aside from the wildfires,
13:50
SPEAKER_00: and then we had a heat wave right at the end of the school year,
13:54
SPEAKER_00: right kind of early July, we did have a really strong heat wave.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: And then we had some pretty nasty thunderstorms.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, it's been really delightful, gorgeous out all the time.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: Did your area get hit with the cyclospora?
14:07
SPEAKER_01: No.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, no.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: North Carolina has gotten some of it.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: But like, you know, we were thankfully not in like, you know, the Michigan area.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: While we could control our food.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: God, modern, modern capitalist.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: Let's not go there.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: Let's not go there.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: All right.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: So my summer has been a lot less travel than yours.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: We recorded our Let's Take Time Off podcast.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: Like episode on a Wednesday, I think.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: And then that Friday I met with my ophthalmologist and she was like,
14:42
SPEAKER_00: so we're going to have eye surgery this month.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, well,
14:46
SPEAKER_00: it's a good thing that I already cleared my schedule for several of these things
14:50
SPEAKER_00: that are very time consuming.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: And I had several client projects that I wanted to finish before the eye surgery,
14:56
SPEAKER_00: which happened on June 30th.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: And so I was like,
14:59
SPEAKER_00: you know,
14:59
SPEAKER_00: kind of like not race to the wire,
15:01
SPEAKER_00: like not that sort of feeling,
15:03
SPEAKER_00: but like it became a natural conclusion point of let me finish these projects
15:08
SPEAKER_00: that maybe would have taken until early July.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Like,
15:11
SPEAKER_00: let me push to get through them because I don't know how my body's going to react to
15:14
SPEAKER_00: the surgery, how long it's going to take me to recover.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: I've already taken the time off for this podcast, which I could have done.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the things that I could have done and didn't have scheduled
15:24
SPEAKER_00: because obviously you can still talk after eye surgery.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: I just couldn't like stare at a screen the same way that I normally do or,
15:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:34
SPEAKER_00: in a regular, I'm going to say six hour day because that's the max that I ever work.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm usually reading or writing for four of those hours in some way.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm on client calls.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm recording.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm doing something else.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: But there's something text-based for probably 60% to 70% of my day.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: And that text-based stuff,
15:56
SPEAKER_00: if I did it for too long, will give me a headache because after the surgery...
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the surgery.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about the surgery really quickly so that people aren't like,
16:03
SPEAKER_00: what are you talking about?
16:04
SPEAKER_00: I have glaucoma.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: It's a hereditary condition where your eye pressure gets very high.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: If your eye pressure gets too high,
16:10
SPEAKER_00: it puts pressure on your optic nerve, which can cause blind spots in your vision.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: I started to have some small blind spots in my vision already.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: So we want to make sure to keep this kind of nip it in the bud.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm on nine different eye drops a day already.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: They're doing a good enough job, but not a great job.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: So they decided to do this surgery where they're decreasing the amount of fluid
16:29
SPEAKER_00: that my eye creates.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: So this isn't LASIK where suddenly I'm going to be able to see better.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: I've had a lot of really sweet people reach out and be like,
16:37
SPEAKER_00: oh my gosh, I remember that feeling after my cataract surgery.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, yeah, but at least after the cataract, you can see.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: I can't see any better.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: I still see worse.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: But hopefully it will maintain my vision long term.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: But for a full week after the surgery, I had to have one of my eyes dilated.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: So if you've ever been to the eye doctor and they dilate your eye and it's sort
17:01
SPEAKER_00: of like fuzzy and hard to focus, I had one eye like that for a week.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: And so reading anything text based,
17:10
SPEAKER_00: I would either have to close my eye and sort of squint with a good eye,
17:14
SPEAKER_00: which got really tiring.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Or like sort of zoom out and be like, like it was just like a strange situation to be in.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: And so I had the surgery on a Tuesday.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: On Wednesday, I was driving because I was fine.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: And then on Thursday, the pain of moving my eyeballs around in the sockets started to hurt.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: So I couldn't drive for Thursday, Friday.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: So to your point of like, you know, I don't drive a lot during the academic school year.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: I drive way more in the summer because my kids have summer camp.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: And so every day I'm driving somewhere to drop off and pick up.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: And so my summer days are not only shorter, but they require more driving.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: And so that was also deeply impacted.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: And so when I went back for my follow-up appointment with my ophthalmologist
17:59
SPEAKER_00: a week later,
18:00
SPEAKER_00: I was like,
18:01
SPEAKER_00: so happy to do it again on the other side if it worked, but not till September.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: Because I really like, I can't just spend my summer inside with like staring at nothing.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Please, can we do this in the winter when I'm already wanting to be inside and bored
18:15
SPEAKER_00: and staring at the ceiling?
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Great.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: No problem.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: But let's do my worst eye now.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Let's pause the second eye.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: I may not need it.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: We're going to have to look at it in a couple of weeks.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: That certainly put a bit of a damper on my summer because it was like all
18:30
SPEAKER_00: the lead up to what do I need to get done?
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Not knowing how my recovery was going to be.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: I had a different surgery in February that had no recovery time attached.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: I just walked out and was fine.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: I could have driven home.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: It would have been fine.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't know how long this one would take.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: And it was about probably a week to 10 days until I felt back to my normal self,
18:50
SPEAKER_00: which was good that I'd cleared the calendar, but I was also just bored.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: So I found myself to like reaching out to people on Vox and being like, please just talk to me.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Just talk to me.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: But like, and then they would reply with message, like text messages.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: And they'd be like, oh God, I'm so sorry.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, it's okay.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: I can read the short messages.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: I just don't want to do like a big text conversation.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: So, um...
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I actually spent a lot of time listening to podcasts,
19:15
SPEAKER_00: listening to audiobooks and being bored,
19:18
SPEAKER_00: which is like such a strange phenomenon for me because normally when I'm bored,
19:22
SPEAKER_00: I pick something up, I teach myself something, I do something.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: And so I was doing like research.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to Claude a lot, but like talking to Claude and then having Claude taught.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: So like doing the voice conversations with AI, which...
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Is pretty new to me.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm very, like I said, I'm very text-based.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to be text-based,
19:41
SPEAKER_00: but I'm also thinking about what are some of these accessibility things
19:43
SPEAKER_00: that right now are helpful, but may in the future become more necessary for me.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: So maybe I can get used to them at a greater degree.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: And then the, you know, sort of just hanging out around town.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: We have like a really cute little water park here in Rochester called Seabreeze.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: So we got season passes to that.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: So I've been taking my kids to that some weekends and like,
20:04
SPEAKER_00: they're not old enough that they can go on the water slides on their own.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: So I can just sit with my Kindle in a shaded area while they go do water slides
20:12
SPEAKER_00: for like two hours.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: Like,
20:15
SPEAKER_00: This is great because they get tired from like climbing up all those steps to get to
20:19
SPEAKER_00: the top of the water slides and I don't have to do it with them.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: And this is amazing.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we have friends who have pools, so we spend a lot of time there.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: It's just like, it's been a very chill summer.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, my younger son, um, is a special needs.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: So he gets to school during the summer.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: So they bus him to school.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: My older son has been doing a lot of musical camps and rockstar camps and things like that.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: So, um, A lot of electric guitar,
20:43
SPEAKER_00: a lot of soccer,
20:44
SPEAKER_00: a lot of swimming, just like kind of just staycationing for the summer.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: And it's been really lovely.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: So two things.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: One, have you ever used Notebook LM on your own site to like get it to like do
20:59
SPEAKER_01: a podcast interview about your about your website?
21:04
SPEAKER_01: No, it's creepy as hell.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: But it's also like if you're like, oh,
21:07
SPEAKER_01: I want to have someone read the This essay or something like that,
21:11
SPEAKER_01: you can like pop it into Notebook LM and it'll like create a podcast for you,
21:14
SPEAKER_01: but it also will do that for all of your stuff.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: So if you're like, make a podcast about Meg Casebolt with this.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I would like to listen to this though.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I would enjoy the process of doing this or seeing how it,
21:26
SPEAKER_00: like I will,
21:27
SPEAKER_00: I will like ego surf myself all day and see what comes up and try to figure out
21:31
SPEAKER_00: where it comes from.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think I would want to listen to hear some, I don't know.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: That would make me uncomfortable for some reason.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: It's super weird.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: But it also, like,
21:38
SPEAKER_01: does say, like, oh, like, what is the LL, what is an LLM see about my site online?
21:43
SPEAKER_01: I just thought that was,
21:45
SPEAKER_01: it is more useful when you're, like,
21:47
SPEAKER_01: asking it to, like,
21:47
SPEAKER_01: consolidate, like,
21:49
SPEAKER_01: a bunch of things and,
21:50
SPEAKER_01: like, sort of, like, prepare, like, a podcast on a particular topic.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: Anyways, what are you reading these days?
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Girl's got to, girl wants to know.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, all romance novels.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Still.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Still.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: I actually, okay, we'll do a quick sidebar as well.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Because I finished all these client projects,
22:10
SPEAKER_00: but I wasn't feeling up to chasing new clients and logging them all in,
22:17
SPEAKER_00: I did a consulting fee,
22:19
SPEAKER_00: like a decrease in my consulting fees to run some more of those
22:21
SPEAKER_00: because I feel really good when I'm on consulting calls,
22:24
SPEAKER_00: but, you know, still get a little bit tired from the projects.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: And then I kind of leaned into some of my like romance adjacent work this summer.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: So I took,
22:34
SPEAKER_00: we're going to have a whole episode in a couple months,
22:38
SPEAKER_00: I think,
22:38
SPEAKER_00: about my Happily Ever Indie project, but I sort of built that out a little bit.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: I took the other podcast that I have with Nikki McKnight,
22:46
SPEAKER_00: who's been on this podcast a couple times.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: She and I do a romance podcast and I moved the entire thing off of Substack,
22:51
SPEAKER_00: which was so much more time consuming than you think it's going to be
22:55
SPEAKER_00: because you're like, oh, it's just taking a feed and putting it into a new place.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: But Substack,
23:01
SPEAKER_00: the lovely platform that it is, is like, okay, good for you that you want to leave.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: And sure, we'll give you your subscriber list.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: But we're only going to give you 15 episodes of audio and the rest of it you have
23:13
SPEAKER_00: to re-export by hand.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, this place sucks.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: This party sucks and I want out.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: So I officially moved everything from that podcast over.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Just sort of in those like time windows,
23:27
SPEAKER_00: like those little like 15 minute windows of like,
23:29
SPEAKER_00: okay, connect this podcast, this podcast, this podcast.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: And then that's officially moved over like as of a week ago,
23:36
SPEAKER_00: but it probably took me like 20 hours of like,
23:39
SPEAKER_00: while my kids are,
23:40
SPEAKER_00: while I'm watching movies with my kids, I'm just like re-importing things.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: So frustrating and no canonical redirects and no anything.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: And like, I understand why you and I chose Substack, Yeah.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: Understand why we stayed because we have people who are followers on Substack
24:06
SPEAKER_00: and actually our subscribers are growing on Substack.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: But I think it was a choice that I would not ever make again.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: And this will probably be my winter project for this podcast is building out
24:16
SPEAKER_00: a website for Aggressively Human that is a standalone website that both
24:20
SPEAKER_00: of us can connect ourselves to and moving everything over to being self-hosted.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: So heads up, haven't told you that yet.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: But that's happening because I'm just so sick of Substack saying like, yeah,
24:31
SPEAKER_00: I know that you can do that on every other site on the internet,
24:33
SPEAKER_00: but no, we're not going to let you do that here.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: So when you get ready to do that, you do the last 15 episodes or whatever.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: I have the rest of them all downloaded on my computer because I'm doing
24:43
SPEAKER_01: the Substack upload.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: So you do not re-download them all.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: I will just drag it.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm assuming I can drag and drop.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can drag and drop.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: But I wasn't actually re-downloading them.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: I still had them into script,
24:56
SPEAKER_00: so I could reconnect them through Captivate and publish them through Captivate.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't like a full re-download, but then I had to reconnect them.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: But the fact that you have them all already downloaded will make things so much easier.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: So yes, do not, because I have to download them for the Substack.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: I had about half of them downloaded on my computer for that podcast.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a third, but the ones from two years ago I didn't keep around because, you know.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: So summer, slow, good, generative, maybe?
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Generative, for sure.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I've been doing a lot of the work that I don't necessarily have time
25:34
SPEAKER_00: to do during like Heavy teaching season when signals actively running
25:38
SPEAKER_00: or like I always have this cyclical thing happen where a lot
25:44
SPEAKER_00: of my clients are also either parents or North Americans who are traveling over
25:49
SPEAKER_00: the summer.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: And so they don't want to take on a project.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: So I know that my summers usually about every like three years
25:56
SPEAKER_00: of summer surprises me by being like inordinately busy.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: But this is one of the quieter summers.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm like, great, get my ducks in a row.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Rebuild all the schema on every single one of my websites,
26:10
SPEAKER_00: double check all of my bios and all the places,
26:12
SPEAKER_00: all the things that I teach, but like the cobbler's kids have no shoes.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, I'm putting on my marketing shoes and I'm doing it and I'm building it out.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like,
26:22
SPEAKER_00: I have the time to do the time consuming, boring,
26:27
SPEAKER_00: repetitive,
26:28
SPEAKER_00: but incredibly meaningful work this summer,
26:30
SPEAKER_00: which is not the exciting summer activity that everyone wants,
26:34
SPEAKER_00: but it's the necessary stuff, you know?
26:37
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I, this summer has been like a very different summer for me.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we traveled.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: We do that a lot.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: But because, you know, kids, you know, this is, we're dinks, right?
26:49
SPEAKER_01: Like we can do this.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: We relaunched the membership this summer.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: So it's like relaunching as we speak.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: So my, I had my copywriter redo the copy, redo, do a sales, an email sequence.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, when's the last, where's the last launch emails?
27:03
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, we never did a launch.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: We just sort of started it and then we just kind of grew from there.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: So we're doing a formal launch.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: We did a new webpage that's up and running.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: So July has been filled with a lot of that.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: I did not take calls except for one cohort call because I didn't want to be gone
27:26
SPEAKER_01: for like Two weeks in a row with my cohort.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, cause I was also gone July 4th.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't gone July 4th, but I didn't have a call then because like no one was there.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I didn't want to take too much, um, time off in the summer.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't have calls, but I was still reviewing when people submit stuff.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: I would review it.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, when people would, um, people,
27:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
27:48
SPEAKER_01: I had like voice memos for my one-on-one clients,
27:49
SPEAKER_01: people would ask me to review stuff.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: And so like, I would like handle that in the morning.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, I actually ended up having like a guest post for one of my newsletters
27:59
SPEAKER_01: because it was like someone released an interesting survey
28:01
SPEAKER_01: that I thought would be interesting for my people.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like,
28:03
SPEAKER_01: can I like ask you to write a guest post about this and then like,
28:06
SPEAKER_01: PS feature my work in it.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: And so that I wrote one of my very, very long posts on the plane.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: And then I had a second blog post that someone wrote,
28:17
SPEAKER_01: just very similar as to how I think you did a guest takeover for me
28:20
SPEAKER_01: so many years ago when I was out of town.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: 2023.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: It was like summer 2023.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: That was our first real connection of like, hey, let's collaborate in some way.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: So I I slowed down.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: But like what I've noticed about my summer is that it's been more just like
28:36
SPEAKER_01: the same activity, just sort of like spread out.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: So yesterday I had to do a podcast interview at eight in the morning,
28:43
SPEAKER_01: which I don't know how I got invited to it.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: It's the art of selling online courses.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: And everybody else who's doing this podcast is like actually selling online courses.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: And me, I'm like, I am, but not really.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, how did you find me?
28:57
SPEAKER_01: Is this just a veiled sales pitch?
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to actually put this episode up?
29:01
SPEAKER_01: But he seemed to really like the co-host seemed to enjoy it.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: So we'll see how that goes.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: But like that was eight in the morning.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I just set my alarm.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: I had to prepare like, you know, getting up at 630 and showering, right?
29:14
SPEAKER_01: Everything like this summer has just been sort of like,
29:16
SPEAKER_01: get up sort of whatever, take a shower or whatever.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: Like take the dog for a walk.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: Everything has just been like slower and, um.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: God, it's nice, isn't it?
29:27
SPEAKER_01: It's nice.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: To not be like on a clock all the time.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: It's nice and kind of weird because like you think when you it's like slows down,
29:33
SPEAKER_01: like I'm like, oh,
29:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna like learn something new or pick up a hobby
29:37
SPEAKER_01: and more just like everything just like takes longer.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: Um.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: And when we were on public, we had so much time on public transit.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
29:48
SPEAKER_01: I was kind of like,
29:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm in that like zone of like,
29:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm still thinking about my business a lot, like more than it's probably healthy.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not having new thoughts about my business.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: So like, I'm at the very end of the arc.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yes, I need to redo my welcome sequence.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: But I don't I'm like, I just gonna take so much time.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: And Yes,
30:07
SPEAKER_01: I need to,
30:08
SPEAKER_01: I have like these ideas for tools and that's just going to take so much time.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: So I'm kind of in that like,
30:13
SPEAKER_01: that like,
30:14
SPEAKER_01: like sputtering stuff,
30:17
SPEAKER_01: spot where it's like,
30:18
SPEAKER_01: I don't have the energy or the time necessarily to like,
30:21
SPEAKER_01: Move big things forward like I want to write the next book and I've like four bucks
30:25
SPEAKER_01: in the queue and I told everybody I'm like,
30:27
SPEAKER_01: these are the three books like their ideas are there.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: But it's more just like the engine is sort of just like the catching right now
30:33
SPEAKER_01: a little bit and everything is just much slower and like less things still take
30:39
SPEAKER_01: the same amount of time.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: It's an unusual sensation for me because I'm resting,
30:47
SPEAKER_01: but not really resting because I'm not just like,
30:48
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm not just like in nature being like flat on my back being like,
30:52
SPEAKER_00: oh, you're like you're resting, but you're not regenerating.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm like I'm in motion resting like,
30:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:58
SPEAKER_01: 15,000 steps a day,
30:59
SPEAKER_01: seeing cool things, eating a lot, drinking a little more than I want to.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Although my drinking,
31:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:05
SPEAKER_01: when I say I'm drinking a little more than I'm supposed to,
31:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm like having two drinks in a night means that I'm like,
31:08
SPEAKER_01: that's not no, no, no, no.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: Like like,
31:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:11
SPEAKER_01: one of the nice parts about every I don't know what it's like when you're
31:14
SPEAKER_01: in your neighborhood.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: Every place we went had like so many non-alcoholic options so I could have like
31:20
SPEAKER_01: a drink and then have a variety of whatever else.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: So that was really nice.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the summer has kind of like been like everything's been like keeping going, but it's.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: Everything like.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: Less amount of work just tends to fill the space right now.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: Everything is like, it's slower mornings.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, more just like piddling on my phone, which is not great.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm still,
31:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm piddling on Substack more than I'd like,
31:47
SPEAKER_01: but like now that I'm like, oh,
31:48
SPEAKER_01: I do not need political newsletters in my inbox, four of them every single morning.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I know he's terrible, right?
31:55
SPEAKER_01: It's awful.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: And also I cannot just be woken up every morning to the barrage
32:00
SPEAKER_01: of Political news every single day.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: So I've been unsubscribing from some substacks.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: I like they're in my app, not in my inbox anymore.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying to like declutter things.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: That's my that's my like how the business fared over the summer,
32:16
SPEAKER_01: which is kind of like, yeah, launch membership, clean that up.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: Been writing some blog posts.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: They're very, very, very, very long.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: I love them.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: And
32:26
SPEAKER_01: Just everything like there's less volume of work because last year
32:29
SPEAKER_01: at this time I had my fractional CEO gig, less work, less meetings.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: Everything just kind of expands.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's a bad thing,
32:39
SPEAKER_00: especially if you're like setting foundations for the next round of
32:43
SPEAKER_00: the membership launching,
32:45
SPEAKER_00: the blog posts that can explain your body of work and explain your point of view,
32:49
SPEAKER_00: you know, like it may not be.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Active, revenue generating, sales rolling in every second.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes that's not what the season of business is.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: And that's to be expected cyclically.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: If it's consistent and if it's a season where you expect to be making sales,
33:09
SPEAKER_00: if you were actually launching right now and you were like,
33:10
SPEAKER_00: nobody's buying, I'd be like, oh, shit.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: But you're not.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: You sort of planned ahead for this.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: You planned your cash flow for this.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: You have a bit of time.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: You have a bit of flexibility with resources.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: You have that mental white space and calendar white space that by
33:26
SPEAKER_00: the time you get back into launch season,
33:29
SPEAKER_00: for lack of a better term, you'll be mentally fortified.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: To handle that because it is emotionally draining to go through these processes.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: And if you never take the time to like slow down and have the expanse of time
33:44
SPEAKER_00: and you're just balls to the wall all the time, God, you never recover.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the launch of the membership is going really well.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: We've had like 15, 10 to 15 members join in the past like two or three days, which is awesome.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: I got invited to do some summits and things in the fall over the summer.
34:03
SPEAKER_01: And...
34:04
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's it's and I've sold 20 books this month,
34:09
SPEAKER_01: which is pretty good,
34:12
SPEAKER_01: I think, for a self published book without a whole lot of promotion behind it.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: So it's all just kind of working.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: It's just it's no longer like there's not this not the season of like big,
34:21
SPEAKER_01: hairy, ferocious projects.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, wait, I worked my literal tail off for the last six years.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: And for two weeks, I could step away a little bit.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: I could step away a fair amount for the past couple of weeks,
34:34
SPEAKER_01: and it didn't break, and I don't think my clients felt abandoned.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: And my members,
34:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm still like,
34:41
SPEAKER_01: what else am I going to do when I'm on a public transit except respond to things
34:44
SPEAKER_01: in circle?
34:44
SPEAKER_01: Because I could not, but what are you going to do instead?
34:51
SPEAKER_01: I did read,
34:53
SPEAKER_01: this may be a quirk of mine,
34:54
SPEAKER_01: but whenever I go to new cities,
34:55
SPEAKER_01: I always like to reread or watch shows that were from that city.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: Did you ever read the Succubus Rising, the Succubus Blues series by Rochelle Mead?
35:06
SPEAKER_01: No.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: Ah, y'all need to read this.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: It's, it's, they're very good books, but they're based in Seattle.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: So I started reading them when we were in Seattle.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: And then I, my husband and I have been rewatching The Rookie because it's in LA.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever do that?
35:21
SPEAKER_01: Like read?
35:21
SPEAKER_01: Nope.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: Nope.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Nope.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: But it's fun.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: It's really fun, especially to feel your way through a city.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but y'all should read those books.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: They are supernatural mysteries or supernatural romances
35:37
SPEAKER_01: before supernatural romance was really like a total subgenre.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: It was a little earlier than that, which is nice.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, interesting.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: I would say Paranormal.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Paranormal.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I didn't get the trope right, right?
35:50
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: I would say paranormal is more like a vampire,
35:54
SPEAKER_00: a werewolf,
35:55
SPEAKER_00: like a demon character versus supernatural is more just like powers
36:00
SPEAKER_00: that cannot be explained.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: Got it.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: See, these are, you know, clarifications.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: Or like superheroes can be supernatural or like ESPs, supernatural.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: So those are my summer reflections.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: Meg, any reflections on your reflections?
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Um...
36:18
SPEAKER_00: I think it's really good to take time off,
36:20
SPEAKER_00: whether that's going and traveling or having a staycation.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: But I think showing back up today to do this sort of recap episode felt really good.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: I think when you're on a treadmill,
36:32
SPEAKER_00: you don't realize that you're running out of steam on it a little bit.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: And there have been times where you and I have been like,
36:38
SPEAKER_00: oh, what are we going to record this week?
36:39
SPEAKER_00: What are we going to record this week?
36:41
SPEAKER_00: And...
36:43
SPEAKER_00: It felt good and it felt regenerative to be like, okay, let's take some time off.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Let's refill the tanks.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: We know that,
36:50
SPEAKER_00: you know,
36:50
SPEAKER_00: other people may not be listening to business podcasts as much in the summer,
36:53
SPEAKER_00: so we won't see a huge decrease in listenership,
36:57
SPEAKER_00: even though that's not really a measurement that you and I are tracking in terms
37:01
SPEAKER_00: of these particular metrics.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: This is not a podcast where we're like, let's get monetized.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
37:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: But I think it was just really good for my brain to do less and
37:14
SPEAKER_00: to not feel like I have to produce both the thought leadership going
37:22
SPEAKER_00: into what should the podcast be about and the time to record and then the time
37:27
SPEAKER_00: to listen back to it and edit and sort of like package it up.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: It's not even like a time commitment thing.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: It's just like, is this the best quality of work?
37:36
SPEAKER_00: And I want to make sure that it's always good quality of work.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that we had any sort of like flagging there,
37:42
SPEAKER_00: but there have been times where you and I are like, what are we going to talk about?
37:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, like,
37:45
SPEAKER_00: and it feels a little bit like,
37:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say forced or rushed in any way,
37:49
SPEAKER_00: but I feel like we're both coming back to this a little bit fresher with more ideas,
37:53
SPEAKER_00: which is a good thing.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: If we had recorded and tried to go through July, like just like
38:04
SPEAKER_01: I would not have been able to handle it like they're like because of the being sick.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: We recorded I'm going to be on Mary Williams.
38:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know when it's coming out, but the school of her.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh, my God.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: School of Moxie.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: School of Moxie.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to be on that episode.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: But for two weeks, I could not record.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: And even when I recorded with Mary,
38:27
SPEAKER_01: you know, two weeks after I got sick, it was like like literally we could not have.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: Push through because I sounded like I had no voice.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't do anything.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm just so thankful that present,
38:43
SPEAKER_01: past, future us in the past thought that it would be a good idea to take a break.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: And then it turns out we both legitimately needed it before the travel.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: It's one of those things where I think if we had pushed through,
38:59
SPEAKER_01: it would not have been our best work.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we didn't.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think we, we took, we, we took them off the winter period.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think, I don't know what you're feeling.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: People are not leaning back necessarily.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
39:17
SPEAKER_01: but I think everyone,
39:19
SPEAKER_01: there's this collective,
39:20
SPEAKER_01: just like, there's a collective pause right now I'm feeling.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: And, um,
39:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, like people, everyone seemed like it published.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: They pulled back and it's more concentrated than I've normally felt it.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you,
39:38
SPEAKER_01: but like I'm like everyone kind of pulled back
39:40
SPEAKER_01: because I think everyone is like really tired.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: I kind of feel like I needed to pull back and then I expected to leap right back in.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't feel the urge to leap right back in
39:51
SPEAKER_00: because there didn't feel like there was huge urgency happening in.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: The industry or in the marketplace or whatever we want to call it,
39:58
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:58
SPEAKER_00: even like I had a client who I met with in June and I was a great I'll have this
40:02
SPEAKER_00: to you before I go on my like surgery.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: Recovery time.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, no, I'm not going to do this till August.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, okay.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm getting a lot of people like that who are thinking ahead.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: They book me in advance.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: And then they're like, I don't need this yet.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: You can take whatever time it needs.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm able to like pace myself a little bit differently than I would have normally.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think the same is true for the podcast and like being able to have
40:28
SPEAKER_00: a bit more time to go,
40:29
SPEAKER_00: oh, what are some of the like thematic things that we want to continue to discuss?
40:32
SPEAKER_00: What's the time that my brain is doing the composting?
40:36
SPEAKER_00: Where I'm not just always throwing more scraps onto the top of the pile
40:39
SPEAKER_00: and not giving it a chance to do the marination and the simmering
40:44
SPEAKER_00: to mix metaphors there.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: But sort of not, I guess.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: You still have heat happening underneath something that is changing chemical reactions.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand science.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: We know this.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: We know that Meg shouldn't give scientific metaphors.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: But like with our other podcasts,
41:00
SPEAKER_00: we also decided after you and I decided to come back,
41:05
SPEAKER_00: Nikki and I were like, you know what, we need a break.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: Both of us need a break.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: Both of us are kind of feeling the same kind of stretch thin a little bit,
41:11
SPEAKER_00: but also like hard to schedule, hard to so many other things going on.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: So we're taking two months off.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: But what we decided to do is do like backfill our YouTube channel,
41:24
SPEAKER_00: re-release favorite episodes and like Going through and making the decisions
41:29
SPEAKER_00: about what are our favorite episodes and what are the opportunities
41:34
SPEAKER_00: that we missed was also really good for me.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: Because I think sometimes when you're in a production content creation process,
41:45
SPEAKER_00: you don't have a chance for reflection.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: And we'll have an episode coming up soon.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: With Jessica Abel,
41:52
SPEAKER_00: where she talks a lot about,
41:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
41:54
SPEAKER_00: how to continue to be creative and her four-step process
41:57
SPEAKER_00: where you gather information,
41:58
SPEAKER_00: you make decisions, you act on them, and then you reflect on them.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: And I think,
42:03
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:03
SPEAKER_00: when it comes to podcasting,
42:04
SPEAKER_00: because of the weekly cadence,
42:06
SPEAKER_00: you're always gathering ideas and lining up guests and thinking about what you want
42:11
SPEAKER_00: to talk about.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: And you're always having these,
42:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:13
SPEAKER_00: especially because I have two different co-hosts,
42:14
SPEAKER_00: it's like we're always having these conversations about what do we want to talk
42:17
SPEAKER_00: about this week?
42:18
SPEAKER_00: And what's the order of operations?
42:19
SPEAKER_00: And what do we want to release when?
42:20
SPEAKER_00: And then we have to get together.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: We have to record.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: We have to produce.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: We have to create the show notes.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: We have to do all these different things.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: And that fourth step of reflect...
42:31
SPEAKER_00: That's the easiest one to miss because the cadence has been determined
42:35
SPEAKER_00: and therefore we sort of like lose the, what is it that we're trying to do here?
42:41
SPEAKER_00: What is the opportunity that we have here?
42:43
SPEAKER_00: Are all of these episodes that we've created still leading us towards the goal and
42:50
SPEAKER_00: the theme and the objectives of this piece of content?
42:54
SPEAKER_00: Or is it just like, well,
42:55
SPEAKER_00: we needed to put something out,
42:56
SPEAKER_00: which I don't think that either of my podcasts have that problem,
42:59
SPEAKER_00: but we don't want to get into the point where it does
43:01
SPEAKER_00: because we have this creative burnout.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
43:04
SPEAKER_00: having time for both podcasts with a little bit of time off to go,
43:08
SPEAKER_00: okay, not just like I do a lot of information architecture in my work.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: And so I think about that a lot is where do I want this to live?
43:16
SPEAKER_00: And how do I want people to have the experience of this?
43:19
SPEAKER_00: And how do I want them to hear this information or process this information?
43:24
SPEAKER_00: And should we be producing this in a different format to make it more accessible
43:29
SPEAKER_00: to humans and to make it fit into the knowledge graph in a different way?
43:33
SPEAKER_00: Like I did a lot of that thinking while staring at the ceiling.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, but also,
43:40
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:41
SPEAKER_00: just really thinking about what does all this work mean and why are we doing
43:44
SPEAKER_00: and what's our perspective and,
43:46
SPEAKER_00: and you can't always do that when you're in the weeds on it.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: So it was nice to be able to have a chance to see the forest for the trees.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
43:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think I'll leave us with this.
43:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, did you watch any of the World Cup?
43:59
SPEAKER_00: Almost none.
44:01
SPEAKER_01: So that's crazy one because like,
44:04
SPEAKER_01: but like that feels like that's like the,
44:05
SPEAKER_01: like one of the things I noticed is Everything is fracturing.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: But like the World Cup was monoculture.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was.
44:12
SPEAKER_01: And like I do believe that like one of the things that my husband and I did
44:17
SPEAKER_01: while we were traveling is like we got to see like we we didn't we went
44:22
SPEAKER_01: to different bars and we watched the different games.
44:25
SPEAKER_01: And that was like I do believe that some of my like thinking about business
44:29
SPEAKER_01: and people pulling back was like actually a lot of people like focusing on
44:33
SPEAKER_01: the World Cup.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: And like one of the great monoculture things that is less prevalent now,
44:42
SPEAKER_01: like everyone got to watch that Belgium game.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: It was awful.
44:47
SPEAKER_01: And did you watch any of the Norwegian games with the guys like rowing,
44:51
SPEAKER_01: the fans rowing afterwards?
44:52
SPEAKER_01: You got to watch that at the end.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't know if your boys had like been like, mom, let's watch soccer.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: I am both like not a sports person and we're not a TV on household.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: So our TV and screen usage is very intentional.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: We're not just like I have TV on in the background
45:09
SPEAKER_00: because both my kids are neurodivergent enough that if the TV's on,
45:11
SPEAKER_00: they're sitting in front of it staring at it.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: So we want to make a conscious decision.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: You know,
45:17
SPEAKER_00: like my husband grew up in a house where the TV was always on,
45:20
SPEAKER_00: always going, and people would just kind of go do their own thing.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: That's not a house that my kids can handle.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, it was... And they're often late at night, and I just...
45:31
SPEAKER_00: I hate that I'm not a sports person, but I'm not a sports person, and I just...
45:35
SPEAKER_01: That is okay.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
45:36
SPEAKER_01: That is okay.
45:36
SPEAKER_01: It was just one of those things.
45:37
SPEAKER_01: So like, I'll leave us with one final story before we wrap today.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: So my husband is a big English soccer fan.
45:44
SPEAKER_01: Like he's going to go to Scotland and watch the English, watch things.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: And so we wanted to watch England versus Norway.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: So we took the bus to the English pub in Seattle.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: And we got there too late and it was like lying down the street.
46:00
SPEAKER_01: So then we took the bus back.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: We didn't even get off the bus.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: We Took the bus to the other one that he wanted to go to, which was the Everton Bar.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: And that one was fully closed.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: So we walked down the bar, like a bar district in Seattle and like full, full, full open.
46:16
SPEAKER_01: And we walked in and apparently it was a it was an Irish music venue
46:21
SPEAKER_01: that wasn't supposed to be open.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: But they opened early and had like one bartender.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: And we had found one seat and then Philip got a second seat.
46:29
SPEAKER_01: And we like basically,
46:30
SPEAKER_01: you know, parked down and everyone was early and there was a band playing later.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you know, that's like, you know, and we all watched the game.
46:39
SPEAKER_01: And then we watched England like totally like, like, you know, run with it.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: It was it was great.
46:43
SPEAKER_01: But that was sort of like the encapsulation of our experience was like,
46:46
SPEAKER_01: let's set aside business for a moment.
46:48
SPEAKER_01: Let's set aside his work.
46:49
SPEAKER_01: Let's go find a place to watch soccer.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: And like,
46:55
SPEAKER_00: I think you're so right that this is a monocultural movement
46:59
SPEAKER_00: that is honestly Aggressively Human,
47:01
SPEAKER_00: aggressively cultural,
47:02
SPEAKER_00: aggressively like, hey, let's just have some fun and enjoy being proud.
47:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's a good thing,
47:12
SPEAKER_00: especially in a world where politically like everything feels like it's on fire all
47:16
SPEAKER_00: the time.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not a bad thing to just get together and have a couple beers
47:21
SPEAKER_00: and enjoy watching some sports ball.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: Sports.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: All right.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: Well, next week we'll be back with another thoughtful episode of Aggressively Human.
47:31
SPEAKER_01: Again, if there's anything you want us to talk about besides just narrating
47:35
SPEAKER_01: about our personal lives, you know, let us know.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: We've really appreciated the emails.
47:40
SPEAKER_01: We appreciate when you tag us and post on LinkedIn if you like the topic.
47:43
SPEAKER_01: So again, share, let us know what you want to hear.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: And we'll be back next week with another episode.