Latest / Linen Suit & Plastic Tie / How Do ASL and Comedy Make a Physician? ft. a Medical Doctor (Dr. G)

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How Do ASL and Comedy Make a Physician? ft. a Medical Doctor (Dr. G) · Linen Suit & Plastic Tie

0:04
Welcome Welcome to the Linen Suit and Plastic Tie Podcast.
0:09
This is the podcast We read the word to dissent and analyze the
0:12
epic, the amazing, the cool, the interesting, the impactful power
0:16
of storytelling and learn how to harness that power in our
0:19
everyday lives. And I'm Kevin Kev.
0:24
Kev, you know, it is sunny here in Los Angeles.
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It is beautiful out. I am walking outside.
0:31
I love being outside today. And one of the things I love
0:34
about living in sunny Los Angeles is the access to amazing
0:38
comedic talent. Kev, we were at the Comedy Store
0:42
again the other night and we got to see some great acts.
0:46
I've never seen Nikki Glaser in person, so that was cool.
0:49
We saw the amazing Brett Goldstein, who I love his work.
0:54
It was great. And one thing I really love
0:56
about comedy and comedians is they're truly expert
0:59
storytellers. They know how to take you on a
1:01
journey. They know how to get you
1:03
emotionally engaged. And one of the tools to use, and
1:07
not just comedians but a lot of different storytellers use, is
1:10
numbers. And I find that fascinating.
1:13
Like for example, when a comedian says I'm going to list
1:17
three things, they're immediately building excitement
1:20
and tension. The audience is a suspected
1:23
number. The audience is getting excited
1:24
for #3. They know that's gonna be the
1:26
best story. I think this is a really
1:28
interesting storytelling tool, is the use of numbers when
1:32
orally telling a story. What do you think about that,
1:35
Kev? I'm thinking of A use of number
1:39
in comedy that is kind of, I think doing the opposite of what
1:43
you're saying. We both watched Netflix special
1:46
by Dave Chappelle. It's the one where he talks
1:50
about. The four different times in his
1:52
life where he met OJ Simpson, he did it throughout the special.
1:58
But I think it was so like scattered in between his other
2:04
jokes and stories that people forget about that he was doing
2:09
that so that whenever he brings it up with barely any
2:14
transition, that in itself makes for very.
2:19
Funny thing that for some reason people just laugh when he says
2:23
the second time I met O'Shea Simpson, I think it's still
2:27
there like that. I I'm thinking with that example
2:30
too is he built that in the beginning.
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So now throughout his ads he can bring it back to that and use
2:35
that as a transition. It's really ingenious where he's
2:38
like, I'm going to tell you three things and then he goes on
2:41
tangents and goes on explanations.
2:42
But then he's like, OK, I can bring you back to that story
2:45
without much of A transition. So he uses those numbers, that
2:50
numbering system, to, to make everyone feel like it's one
2:53
fluid conversation. And that's the magic of standard
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comedy, is that they tell a lot of stories, They tell a lot of
2:59
interesting things, funny things.
3:00
But the best comics make it feel like one complete story, right?
3:05
That the whole hour is based on one thing, that they're still
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telling the same story. So you're not getting Jarred or
3:10
bored in between stories. It's a framework, right?
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That's the power of framework and storytelling.
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If you do like 1257, that pulls someone on edge and like, why
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are they doing that type of number and what's going on?
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It's not what I'm used to. It creates a turn right.
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Or if you're saying I'm going to tell you three things, like
3:29
okay, I'm expecting 123 things, and it allows them to work with
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that framework, right? It's one of those things about
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storytelling is you want to base on shared narratives, things
3:38
that you and the audience know, and then work off that.
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And so Chappelle's thing makes perfect sense because one,
3:44
allows him to go back to each time he met OJ Simpson, almost
3:50
as if it's been 1 grand conversation, which is what an
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hour stand can be. And two, he allows you to guide
3:57
build on that framework of free stories for his entire act.
4:02
But Speaking of comedy and using comedy in unique ways and
4:07
telling stories and the physicality and timing of
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comedy, we're talking to a medical doctor today.
4:15
See that? Misdirect?
4:16
Yeah. Who are we talking to today?
4:19
I was going to do that, but since you brought it up, today
4:22
we are talking to Dr. Deborah Gaboa, also affectionately known
4:28
as Dr. G She is a doctor, a family physician, but not just
4:35
any family physician, She has also been a comedian and
4:40
American Sign Language interpreter.
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She's also a keynote speaker and expert on stress and resilience.
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So this is going to be a very fun conversation where we talk
4:53
to a doctor about comedy, about sign language, how those things
4:59
affected her style of storytelling and how
5:02
storytelling is useful in the medical field.
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And of course, her insights on stress and resilience.
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So let's get into it. For starters.
5:19
Dr. Ji, could you pronounce your full name for us?
5:22
Deborah Gilboa. Can you tell us a little bit
5:26
about yourself? What is your story?
5:29
Sure. I was six years old, and people
5:33
would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and it didn't
5:35
take me long to figure out that the most impressive thing I
5:38
could say that would get me the most attention was to say I
5:42
wanted to be a pediatric neurosurgeon.
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I only sort of knew what that meant, but I thought people
5:47
might ask. And so I looked it up in the
5:49
dictionary, and I went about saying that for some number of
5:52
years, and then I got to middle school.
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I hadn't. Really, given it much thought,
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it was just the thing I said. And adults were like, wow.
5:59
And then I got to middle school and I had to dissect a fetal pig
6:04
in biology class and it made me feel really sick to my stomach.
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And I thought, okay, well, I'm not going to be a doctor then.
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Not knowing that when you're in puberty, you're much more
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affected by smells and sights like that and your stomach is
6:17
more likely to be turned, that when you're an adult that goes
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away. For most people, I thought that
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was the end of an era. That was it.
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I was done. And also in middle school, I got
6:27
to be in my first show on stage, the IT was Once Upon a Mattress,
6:32
which is a musical. I was terrible, but it was
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awesome. Then I found that I could do
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that, and I did that through middle school and high school,
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and then I found out you could go to college for that and have
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a job in that. And so I went to college for
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theater, and when I graduated, I started working in theater.
6:51
And I really loved it. And I spent six years getting in
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theater. Your job lasts however long the
6:59
show lasts. So it might be two months or six
7:02
months, but it's very quick turnover.
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And I ended up about five years in getting a job that was miles
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ahead. It was really at the top of my
7:10
field in terms of opportunity and exposure and reputation.
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I was at a theater in Chicago called Second City.
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It's an improv theater company. And the people who I was there
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with at the time, they weren't famous then, but.
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I was there with Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert and Rachel
7:26
Dratch and some other people who have gone to a lot of fame and
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it was really fun. It was really hard work and
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after a couple of years I thought, what if I wanted to do
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something else? And also blood doesn't gross me
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out. And I called Northwestern
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University, as in Chicago. I called Northwestern
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University's Med school one day. I just called the phone number
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in the phone book because this is pre Internet.
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And I spoke to the woman there in the administrative office and
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I said, hey, I was thinking of applying to medical school,
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what's required, thinking she would say, you know, something
8:05
hard. And she said you need a
8:07
bachelor's. And I said in what?
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She said college. I totally have one of those.
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So I had to take a few Postpac classes, but what they're
8:18
called, I take biology and chemistry and physics and
8:20
organic chemistry. But I had a bachelor's in a
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school I've done pretty well in because it was a theater major.
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So I gave my notice that I finished off the season the
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Second City and I applied to medical schools while I was
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taking those classes. And I went to Med school.
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And now I'm a physician. I'm a medical doctor, and I've
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been doing that for 23 years. But about 11 years ago, I
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realized that there was something else I wanted to do
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also. So I began my own business
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speaking about resilience, about how we deal with stress and
8:56
change and trying to right some wrongs that I see in the world.
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And so I've been doing both of those things, which are really
9:04
arguably for me, Careers 3:00 and 4:00, because to support
9:09
myself going to medical school, I worked as an American Sign
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Language interpreter. So I am on careers 3:00 and
9:16
4:00. And I'm somewhat below the
9:19
national average. People your age will end up
9:21
probably with seven careers, but I'm doing pretty well.
9:24
That's awesome. We love a good pivot story.
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We love a good pivot story on this show because it's it's fun.
9:30
And then I think one of the reasons we asked that question
9:33
at the beginning and we talked about the salon on our show is
9:35
what's your story is because we love hearing how the guests
9:38
frame their own story and kind of going from there.
9:41
And I think often people are like, well, my story is very
9:44
unique because it wasn't a straight line.
9:46
And that's one of the inherent issues with story time, right?
9:50
It's this idea that because everyone tells their story from
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a kind of a backward looking view, everyone assumes their
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story supposed to be a straight line.
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So when you say, oh, I change that the average is like 7 or 8
10:01
times shocking, Like no one thinks that's true.
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And then you're like, oh, it's because we are kind of trained
10:07
by the stories we consume, that it's supposed to be a straight
10:11
line and there aren't pivots that every time you pivot or go
10:13
back, you're failing or starting over or behind the game.
10:17
Yeah, I think that absolutely. People tend to think, and I see
10:21
it. You know, I have kids now who
10:22
are in, who are high school and college age, and I think the
10:26
thing that drives me the most bananas is when anyone asks them
10:29
what they want to be when they grow up.
10:32
I don't even like it when we ask little kids this because it's a
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useless question for two reasons.
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I think if you look backwards, the things that I do didn't
10:41
exist, being a doctor existed. But the stuff that I do.
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As an expert on resilience didn't exist when I was a kid.
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I couldn't have picked this. And so I'm sure that there are
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things my kids will grow up to do that don't exist right now.
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So how could they know? And the other is, it assumes
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that there's only one problem that I want to solve
11:00
professionally in my whole life. How is that?
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That's not likely. And because you mentioned that
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you're an American Sign Language interpreter, and because I had a
11:12
degree in linguistics, I feel like I had to ask when it comes
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to, like, telling a story in a sign language, are there any
11:20
aspects that are particularly different from spoken languages?
11:25
Yeah, absolutely. In American Sign Language, there
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isn't the reliance on tense that we have in spoken language.
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If I start a story to you now, you'll know if I'm talking about
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something that's ongoing. I am and I will, or something
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that I consider as having an ending.
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And I speak about it in the past tense, in sign language.
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What you do is you place your people.
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You're like, oh, OK, well, my friend and I put him somewhere
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and me, oh, and then this other guy over there.
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And you know, now for the whole rest of the story, if I'm
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looking this way or I'm telling about this person over here, I'm
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showing where they are. And at the very beginning of the
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story, I'll start yesterday or three years ago, but then I tell
12:07
the whole thing in present tense, using all this
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directionality. So you know that the look on my
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face now is the look I had, or the look on my face now is the
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one my friend had. And look on my face now is the
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one that guy who walked in had. And I don't have to explain all
12:21
that, but. So I think being an ASL
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interpreter really helped me think about where I put the
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people in my stories. So now when I'm on a stage
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giving a keynote. I put people, even though it's a
12:33
spoken language, in an A hearing audience, almost always, I still
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put people in those places. And I turn and I use my body to
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show who I am and I change something about my posture and
12:42
my facial expression to show that person's personality.
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And I think that that placing it makes it more real and helps
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people feel that it really happened.
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You know, that's really interesting.
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I I grew up in Toronto and so I'm a I'm a fan of the Toronto
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Second city. I've been a bunch of times It's
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so cool that you worked with Corel and Colbert and got to
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kind of experience that training.
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But what I love is this connection right to what you do
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now not to see I MD but your ASL but in your second city training
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you see how that all connects in your public speaking.
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I think that's fascinating, especially, you know, we've been
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seeing a lot of videos of. Comedians acknowledging their
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sign language to theirs and having conversations with them.
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It was so fun when I interpreted to have the performer
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acknowledge. It was always a little funny.
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Also, I had This was a bucket list moment for me and it's
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going to show my age. I got to interpret for Billy
13:42
Joel and he was doing a master class.
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It was him and a grand piano and a keyboard on stage.
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And he was. Singing some of his music, but
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mostly telling stories and answering questions from the
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students in the audience was about 5000 people.
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And I was the interpreter. And at some point he started
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talking really, really fast and I was signing to keep up.
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And then he went really slowly. And then I felt a tap on my
14:07
shoulder and I looked and he was right there and he was like,
14:12
hey, and we had a really, really fast conversation.
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And then he let me pick a song. For him to sing that I could
14:19
sign because I was signing all of his songs, which is fine
14:22
because I know every single word of every song.
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But he said, do you want to pick a song?
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I was like, yes. That's amazing, especially like
14:33
with comedy and with music. And I'd love to hear more about
14:36
this about you coming from a comedy background.
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So you had such a respect for timing and inflection and
14:43
intensity. How did that make you a better
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sign language interpreter? That's a really interesting
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question. I learned sign language through
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theatre. That was the reason I got into a
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SL in anything beyond like, oh, I learned to finger spell the
14:59
alphabet in school. But I really started to get
15:01
involved in the deaf community when I was working at a deaf
15:05
theatre company in Los Angeles called Deaf W Theatre Company in
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LA. So they hired me, and that was
15:13
when I just started to learn. Real sign, mostly all the swear
15:16
words. As a start and and so I learned
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ASL within the context of theater.
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I think the timing issue of comedy and improv really has
15:28
stood me in good stead. Now as a keynote speaker and a
15:31
media personality in media, because I do a lot of live
15:36
television and it doesn't stress me out because it's just improv.
15:39
If the conversation changes, if someone goes off prompter, if we
15:43
end up talking about something I didn't know we were going to
15:45
talk about. That's Okay.
15:46
That's just improv. You just.
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Yes and and move forward. And so it's been very valuable
15:51
to me because of that. But the comedy issue for me as a
15:55
keynote speaker and a consultant with companies is recognizing
16:00
how much easier it is to learn when we're laughing.
16:04
You know Second City isn't a stand up for people who don't
16:07
know Second City is in proposition, but its goal is to
16:10
comment on society. It's a cohesive show that's
16:13
based usually in current or recently current events, and
16:17
it's got a particular perspective, and it wants to
16:21
bring that perspective to the audience and get the audience to
16:23
think about current events maybe differently than they had, or
16:26
laugh at things. And it is so much easier to be
16:30
made uncomfortable with new ideas through laughter than
16:34
through lecture. And I use that.
16:39
I tried very hard to make sure that my audience gets to laugh
16:43
enough to keep their mind open. I just love these connections in
16:47
nuclear. How learning to be an
16:50
interpreter in a theatrical element taught you that
16:53
performance element of physicality.
16:55
How using comedy and improv taught you how to be
16:59
performative and taught you how to use timing and how to tell
17:01
stories and connect to people. Then tying that all to your
17:04
medical degree where? You probably wouldn't have
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learned all these comedy aspects in a basic medical degree and.
17:11
Definitely no, no. There's not a.
17:13
Definitely no. I cut to medical school and they
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kept asking for volunteers to get up and do presentations in
17:20
front of the whole class, which is like 150 people.
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And I was doing it so often that I was feeling embarrassed and I
17:26
would turn to the group and I'd be like somebody else can do it.
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And they're like, we'd rather have a root canal.
17:31
You go ahead. And I was used to being in an
17:34
environment where people would throw their grandmother under a
17:36
bus to get to stand up in front of 10 people.
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Everybody wanted to be center stage.
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So it was a really big change. Well, it's fascinating too, cuz
17:46
it's like again, it's the career pivot that became a superpower.
17:51
Obviously, we also want to get into your.
17:55
Another career about the study of resilience and stress.
17:59
Let's start from like a more basic understanding.
18:03
How would you define stress? Stress is the neurochemical
18:08
reaction that our brains have to change.
18:11
Any change, Good change, bad change, neutral change, like an
18:15
example I use in a neutral change is like I pick up my
18:17
phone to send a text and it's updating its operating system.
18:20
This isn't like good or bad, right?
18:22
It's just a thing that happens and we've all been through it.
18:24
But still, every single change our brains say, is this
18:29
dangerous? Do you remember?
18:31
I don't know if you guys in Toronto Grav.
18:33
I don't know if you had this in your curriculum, but usually in
18:35
middle school science you learn the vocabulary word homeostasis.
18:40
How the brains always trying to keep everything in the body
18:42
pretty level, like trying to keep your potassium and your
18:44
sodium level. It's trying to keep your oxygen
18:47
level, It's trying to keep your heart rate level.
18:49
That idea of homeostasis is the brains.
18:52
Fundamental goal of keeping the status quo and the reason for
18:56
that is because your brain has million functions but it only
18:59
has one job and that's to keep you alive.
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And the good news is we are all currently alive and it figures
19:06
if you are currently alive then the current situation is better
19:09
than a change. That's not always true, but our
19:12
brains work by being really suspicious of all change.
19:18
Kevin or Grav? If either of you, could, would
19:20
you share with me? Change that happened to you in
19:23
the last year or two that you knew at the time was good news.
19:27
Sure. I mean, it's a twoparter.
19:29
The first part is not going to answer your question, but I was
19:31
laid off midway through last year, tough time.
19:35
I'm on a visa is a stressful time.
19:37
And then so obviously getting a job with school and then I got a
19:40
new job and that was exciting. And I think one of the biggest
19:43
stresses with that is trying to be more social, like connecting
19:47
with people and going out with people, so like.
19:49
I'll get invited to something, right?
19:52
And it's like, that's a good thing, Like, it's good someone
19:54
invited me out to their birthday party and I should go.
19:57
But the amount of anxiety and stress that goes through with
19:59
these people I barely know. But I'm like, but it's still,
20:03
it's a good thing I go, it's good I was invited, but it's
20:06
like a part of me is always going to be like, well, I wish I
20:09
didn't, so I didn't have to go for the stress and anxiety of
20:12
going to this thing. Yeah.
20:15
And you see that really clearly. But I'll use something that
20:17
might be counterintuitive for people even you're getting a
20:20
job, so you got, you find out you're getting laid off and your
20:22
brain is like, uh, oh, we could lose our income, we could lose
20:25
our housing, we could lose food necessities, right.
20:27
And distrust, like, is it really a layoff?
20:29
Did they have to lay me off? Is this maybe somebody just
20:32
didn't like me? And and like they're saying it's
20:34
a layoff, but it's really personal and then discomfort,
20:37
like what am I going to do all day?
20:39
And I have to put myself out there to get another job, and
20:42
that's uncomfortable. But the same three safety
20:45
mechanisms of lost distrust and discomfort.
20:47
When you found out you got a job, was it an e-mail or a phone
20:51
call? OK, so you find out that you get
20:54
it. And I hope that you felt
20:56
relieved, happy, whatever. But also your brain is like,
20:59
wait a minute, what could we lose, right?
21:01
Is this job going to be enough to keep my my status, my
21:04
immigration status? Is this job going to actually be
21:07
able to fund my life enough for me to have my necessities?
21:10
Is anybody in my own friend or family group not going to like
21:14
this and it's going to put our relationship at risk and then
21:16
distrust? Like, did they really say I got
21:18
it? Were they sure were?
21:20
There's still some things they had to check on.
21:22
Can I really do what I told them at the interview I could do?
21:25
Am I going to like this job? Was this the right job?
21:27
Should I have applied for this job?
21:29
And then discomfort. I'm going to have to meet new
21:32
people. Where am I going to eat lunch?
21:34
How do I have to drive there? So I have to figure out where to
21:37
park? So that lost distrust and
21:39
discomfort pops up, even with qualitatively good change.
21:42
Like, you know you wanted a job and now you have a job.
21:45
That's a good thing, and yet your brain still says cool.
21:48
But could we die, though? And so stress comes from all
21:54
change. That's so important and
21:57
literally everything you were saying.
21:58
I'm like, I felt that this week. Like, like I felt that when I
22:02
got the job in so many different ways.
22:03
And like it was quantitatively good.
22:05
It was not even. Just a job.
22:07
It was an amazing job and a job I was excited about, Better than
22:10
the one I. Lost, like everything checked at
22:13
the boxes. And when you recognize that what
22:17
you're experiencing, that that stress, that that's normal, that
22:20
that's healthy, that your brain does, that.
22:22
It's like if you went to the doctor and you were just getting
22:26
a physical and I tapped your knee with my reflex hammer and
22:29
your leg kicked, some part of you would be like, oh, that was
22:32
weird, but also good, right? Like, it's supposed to do that.
22:35
That means my body is healthy. I'm good.
22:37
If you could look at that stress reaction to change in the same
22:41
way, please. Because it's just a reflex.
22:43
You can't control it. It just means your brain's doing
22:45
what it's supposed to do. It doesn't mean that you are
22:48
lazy or anxious or stubborn or unprepared or weak and a mistake
22:57
that people often make leaders, they announce a change and
23:00
people push back with like loss and distrust and discomfort.
23:03
And they think, Oh my gosh, they don't trust me.
23:05
Don't they know that I have their best interests at heart?
23:08
Like parents do this all the time.
23:09
Spouses and partners do this all the time.
23:11
Like what? You don't trust me?
23:13
So they either think, oh, it's a referendum on me or your
23:17
reaction is a referendum on your character and you must be weak
23:21
or lazy or so. And it's neither of those
23:23
things. It's just a reflex, people.
23:25
It's just a reflex. So you like, let the Reflex play
23:28
out. There are skills, and this is
23:30
some of the stuff I talk about that you can use, strategies you
23:32
can use to navigate it a little bit more easily and be less
23:36
bothered, right. You can remain unsurprised.
23:39
But the first step is to just be like, Oh yeah, I heard that
23:42
factor on that podcast and this is a real thing and there's
23:46
nothing wrong with any of us. Great.
23:47
Moving on. It's the storytelling, right?
23:50
It's the stories we tell ourselves based on this stuff,
23:53
Yes. This is all negative, yes.
23:56
I would love to talk to you how you deal with that storytelling
23:58
when you're paralyzed by planning.
24:00
For example, I think for what I do personally is when I have
24:03
something I'm anxious about, I get so deep into the planning of
24:06
it, like anything I can control the logistics, the Ubers, the
24:10
pricing it out so I can be like, because that's why I put a lot
24:13
of my anxiety in, the stuff I can control.
24:16
So how do you deal with these stories where you're like, Oh my
24:18
God, worst case scenarios, could I die like and that come to you?
24:22
That you apply to something that is quantitatively good or
24:25
quantitatively bad. So one of the tricks that I like
24:30
to teach people, that's really just a hack, and that is if you
24:33
get lost in the what ifs. And so many of us do, especially
24:37
after midnight, midnight to 4:00 AM.
24:40
It's just filled with what ifs. If you're awake, you're
24:42
spinning, right? So.
24:45
So try switching what if to what is.
24:49
So let's say it's the night before your new job or or even
24:52
bad news, it's the night before a biopsy.
24:54
I'm going to use a medical example, right?
24:56
Like, you know you've been told you have cancer and it's for
24:58
sure cancer. That's definitely bad news.
25:00
And you're going into the hospital to get a biopsy to
25:03
figure out how bad it is, right? This is a terrible story, but
25:06
it's truth and you're you're swirling what if it can't be
25:09
cured? And what if it's really
25:11
advanced? And what if if you can switch
25:14
from what if to what is You still deserve empathy, right.
25:19
You're starting a new job and that's hard.
25:21
Or you're dealing with a cancer diagnosis and that's awful.
25:24
So what is doesn't make everything puppies and rainbows,
25:28
but it does take away some of that spiraling girl that you're
25:31
talking about. So if you can switch from what
25:33
if to okay, what is what is is that I'm going to have this
25:37
procedure tomorrow, and this time in three days I'll have
25:39
more information that I have now.
25:41
What is is that six people in my life offered to go with me and I
25:46
picked the right person to go with me.
25:48
They'll make me laugh, or they'll bring me Starbucks
25:50
afterwards, or they'll hug me, right?
25:53
Or they'll play the right music when we're driving or whatever
25:57
it is. But like what is is that I've.
25:59
I've done everything I can to be as ready for this as I can.
26:03
And if I'm not asleep tonight, that's OK.
26:06
Maybe it means I'll sleep better tomorrow, right?
26:08
What is is that right now I'm alive.
26:12
What is is that right now I've learned to ask for some support
26:16
from people or I haven't. But what is is I'm realizing I
26:19
need more support than I've asked for.
26:21
And I can. As soon as it's not three in the
26:23
morning, I can ask for that support from people that care
26:26
about me. So focusing on what is instead
26:30
of what if can. And this is another medical
26:33
word, but it can like defibrillate, that rhythm that
26:35
you're in of, like spiraling. To kind of expand on that, what
26:39
if as well, social media? Every life we imagine, we want
26:46
to have you can find on social media where somebody's living it
26:50
and living it to the fullest, and that's one of the biggest
26:54
stress inducer for so many people.
26:58
So I kind of want to get your input on this.
27:02
Well, how do we deal with stress from social media?
27:07
One of the skills that helps us be resilient, and we haven't
27:11
really talked about it, but I'll just really quickly define
27:13
resilience. Resilience is the ability to
27:15
navigate change and come through it how you want to come through
27:18
it. So it is how to handle all
27:21
stress because that's why resilience isn't only about
27:23
obstacles or difficulty or struggles, it's about all
27:26
change. So resilience is the ability to
27:28
navigate change, come through it, the kind of person you want
27:30
to be. And so if you are finding that
27:34
social media is a struggle at times, sometimes it's great,
27:39
sometimes it makes you laugh, makes you feel more connected.
27:42
I loved Instagram this week because I got a call from my 20
27:45
year old son in the military and I was like, hey, what's up?
27:47
And he said I saw a post on Instagram that said call your
27:49
mom. So I did.
27:53
I was like, OK, Instagram's my favorite right now.
27:55
That's awesome. But if what you are seeing on
27:59
social media is starting stories in your head about you being
28:03
less than, then social media isn't serving you right that
28:07
minute. That's a really good indication.
28:10
If you think everybody on social media stories are about you,
28:14
meaning about what you don't have or what you haven't
28:16
accomplished or what you can't do or anything like that, that's
28:21
social media telling you to step away for a minute.
28:24
And I don't mean take all the apps off your phone for a month.
28:27
I just mean right that minute social media is not serving you.
28:31
Yeah, it's a it's it's a funny thing really, that we.
28:35
We think almost have a slave to our phone, but we can, we can
28:37
turn it off again. It's the story.
28:39
It's like you can go to sleep. It's something I'm really been
28:42
thinking a lot about recently about because I have most of a
28:45
lot of my internal spirals. At night.
28:48
When I'm high anxiety, I have trouble sleeping.
28:50
When I'm having trouble sleeping, I have, I'm high
28:52
anxiety. And recently I'm like, you know,
28:53
I can just go to bed, right? I don't have to watch that
28:56
episode, that TV show. I don't have to do this.
28:58
I can just go to bed. And it's that funny thing
29:01
because we have so much more control, but we have these
29:02
stories with like all this is going to fit this or if I do one
29:06
more scroll on Instagram, it's going to make me happy.
29:10
It's going to make me feel connected.
29:12
It's why I I really struggle with social media and I don't
29:14
really do social media because I have such social comparison
29:16
issues. But the one that really the one
29:20
I. Do a lot.
29:20
Is LinkedIn and LinkedIn is tough for me sometimes because.
29:24
Anytime you have a celebration, you can always find someone
29:27
younger who's doing more, more put together almost.
29:30
And it's tough because you forget you can just disconnect
29:34
from that story. And our brains see every story
29:40
in relation to us and it isn't. Also, it's only a portion of
29:48
their story, especially on LinkedIn.
29:50
Actually, people on LinkedIn don't think of, you know, there
29:53
was a turn years ago called fake booking for Facebook, right,
29:57
That you'd put something fake. You put your fake life on
29:59
Facebook. And I think that that's true to
30:01
an extent. It would be it's okay with my
30:03
kids for me to post a picture of them all hanging out in our
30:06
kitchen. It's not okay with them for me
30:08
to post a picture of them having a big meltdown over, you know,
30:12
failing a class that would not be okay.
30:15
And so it isn't necessarily fake to say, hey, this one moment
30:18
looks like this because that one moment did.
30:20
What's fake is the story that you tell yourself when you see
30:23
that. But that's what my life always
30:24
looks like. If you count up the six times I
30:28
posted on Facebook this month, you know you're seeing 6 minutes
30:32
of however many minutes there are in a month.
30:35
And it's probably a pretty accurate representation that
30:37
that's how many minutes were awesome and the rest of them
30:41
were not. But we only see.
30:44
We write stories only about what we see, and our brain tries to
30:47
fill in and tell us. That's the whole story.
30:51
I think our work is remembering that as a fraction of the story,
30:55
and it's a great improv game to play with yourself, to imagine 5
31:00
minutes before or 30 seconds after any picture you're seeing.
31:07
That's very interesting, kind of filling in that story a little
31:09
bit more. And you like that because it's
31:11
being more intentional with their story.
31:12
It's less OK, this is their moment.
31:14
Like, even if they're. Even if they're like in Hawaii
31:18
saying on Instagram, I don't do Instagram a lot.
31:19
But even if they're like in Hawaii, on Instagram it's like,
31:22
oh, there's more going on, right?
31:25
It's not just, oh, you're not there, so you're failing.
31:28
People post the aspirational moments and if they held on to
31:33
it for a second and they got it, or more likely they took 438
31:36
pictures and one of them looked like that.
31:38
So we post it, and I don't have any problem with that.
31:41
But you're absolutely right that it can be very hard to remind
31:44
our brains that that is not the whole story.
31:47
Michelle Obama has a new book out.
31:50
She talks in there about the disservice that we do,
31:53
especially she and I are in the same generation about the
31:57
stories we tell, the light we carry.
32:02
And she talks about the disservice that we do to people
32:05
a generation younger and not telling them how hard marriage
32:08
is and how stressful it is to have kids and how that work life
32:12
balance is totally elusive and you might get balanced over a
32:15
year if you don't get balanced every day.
32:18
She's really tackling this issue in a generational way that I
32:20
think is really helpful. So if that's someone who speaks
32:23
to you, you might really appreciate that book.
32:25
But really, every time you follow someone on Instagram that
32:29
you really admire or you're reading a post on LinkedIn
32:32
because people, especially in Gen.
32:34
Z and millennials, really value authenticity, you might direct
32:37
message that person and be like, hey, so I'm so pleased for you
32:41
and it's really impressive. And also, could you just let me
32:45
know, was that the first picture you took?
32:47
Did you get that? You know, did you reach that
32:49
accomplishment on your first try and let them have the
32:52
opportunity to tell you the whole story?
32:55
Yeah, that that's such a great perspective and it's humanizing
33:01
our images to each other. Right.
33:04
And that's one of the biggest ways that storytelling can help
33:08
us connect. And what you say about knowing
33:11
the full story, it's absolutely important because otherwise we
33:15
end up just construct fictions about ourselves and about each
33:20
other, because we're only seeing.
33:23
That glamorous side of each other, and it's heightened on
33:27
social media. But this is true, and I realized
33:29
too. You have friends who or people
33:31
that you know and personally in your real life who seem to have
33:35
it easier, right? Their relationship, their family
33:38
situation, their work life, whatever it is Because you know
33:42
all the work you've put in, you know intimately all the work
33:45
you've put in. You hear your inner monologue,
33:47
but you don't hear anyone else's inner monologue.
33:50
Even some of my closest friends, I had a big accomplishment 2
33:55
years ago. I had my my second, actually,
33:57
but a really big professional development as I had a Ted Talk
34:00
and couple of my friends. It was all virtual because of
34:03
the pandemic, but a bunch of my friends showed up virtually to
34:06
listen to it. And afterwards, even my closest
34:08
friends were like, wow, dad, you just make it all look so easy.
34:11
You know, you've got these four great kids and this professional
34:14
life and all the stories you told.
34:15
And I do a lot of television which looks very accomplished
34:19
and glamorous in our society. And they're like, you just
34:22
really got it all together. And I was like, but you've met
34:26
me like, you know, the messy parts and the frustrating parts
34:31
and the things I'm not good at and how long.
34:33
I often joke that I'm like, six months away from the 10 years
34:38
required to be an overnight sensation.
34:41
Because you hear of someone, you see them doing something big and
34:44
you're like, wow, they came out of nowhere.
34:45
No, if you knew their story, they did not come out of
34:48
nowhere. They came out of the slog and
34:50
the grind and the missed connections, and they seized
34:54
opportunities and the relationships and the emails
34:57
that never got returned and the phone calls that didn't go the
35:00
way they hoped and the gigs they didn't get as well as everything
35:03
they did get that got them there.
35:05
But we only see them show up on that big stage.
35:09
Yeah, I truly feel as a society we over in debts on the one in a
35:12
million stories, right? Because those are the
35:15
interesting ones. Those are the length and post.
35:17
I am also Kevin knows I spent a lot of time way do you know what
35:20
LinkedIn post because I get really frustrated with people's
35:23
LinkedIn. We both do.
35:24
I think the most egregious one I saw was someone posted all the
35:28
schools they got into and at the end they said this isn't post
35:31
coming soon. So frustrated with that I'm like
35:34
I get it but like why? Who is this serving Like who?
35:39
Who doesn't know this in your personal life that you feel
35:41
needs to, right? Who's going to hire you based on
35:44
this? Yeah, and I'm like, who wants to
35:47
work with that person? Yeah and this is my favorite
35:50
link that I I try very hard never to post.
35:54
I never post like self congratulating posts.
35:57
I'm like I'm asking who is this survey?
35:59
I'm putting this out there. All my friends know I got the
36:01
shop. Is there someone who needs to
36:03
know XY&Z? I struggle with this myself
36:06
because I was on Good Morning America last week and I want to
36:12
post that it would be it would be shooting myself in the foot
36:15
to not let my clients and my potential clients know that I
36:18
did it right to make somebody want to work with me.
36:21
But also nobody really wants to read the story that's like look
36:24
at me, I got to make a party. So there's a couple of ways you
36:29
can do it that I think are valuable to your network and
36:33
also not selling yourself short. And I usually take one of two
36:38
ways. I either try and make people
36:40
laugh like here's when and this actually happened on Good
36:43
Morning America. Here's when my sneakers got 15
36:45
seconds of fame because Robin Roberts found them maybe more
36:48
interesting than my content at the end of the segment because
36:51
she kept talking about my case. Or hey, what they had me on to
36:55
talk about is how we can handle the stress of the violence
36:58
that's happening in our schools. And I'll be really interested to
37:02
know if you find any of these strategies useful and what
37:04
strategies you're trying and to get some conversation going.
37:09
But there's no question that I'm saying I was lucky enough and
37:11
I'll say I was lucky enough to be invited to talk about this on
37:13
Good Morning America. Here's the moment that Robin
37:16
Roberts was more interested in my sneakers, and here's the
37:19
conversation that we had. And so I do think it's okay to
37:23
say what you've done well. But if you can't find a way to
37:27
frame it that it will either make the people in your network
37:31
chuckle a little bit, not necessarily at your expense, but
37:33
like give them a smile, or if you can share something useful
37:38
with them that they can use in their work or in their thoughts
37:40
or something. Those are two good ways to do
37:43
it. Doctor G We've learned so many
37:52
great stories and insights from you today.
37:54
To be mindful of your precious time.
37:57
We have a closing segment called Suspenders.
38:01
So this is where we ask you a fun, random question that's
38:05
unrelated to anything, and you can give us any answer you feel
38:08
like. And question the date is what's
38:12
the weirdest book you've ever read?
38:17
Okay, I'm not gonna get away with any of, like, my medical
38:20
textbooks, right, Because everybody would expect that.
38:22
That's not weird. So I was visiting a friend this
38:25
year and they had just cleaned out.
38:27
They'd like help their parents downsize, and I cleaned out the
38:30
attic and had taken home and I It's a podcast, so showing it to
38:35
you is not that valuable. But I have it downstairs because
38:37
now we've all found it hilarious.
38:38
It's a tiny little cartoon book written in 1973.
38:42
It's all hot pink and dayglo, orange and yellow.
38:46
Very flowery decorations, very 1970s hippie kind of look to it,
38:50
called How to Be Sexy. It's about right.
38:57
It's like 16 pages long. There's a drawing on each page.
39:00
It's a what to do and a what not to do, and each page in
39:03
different settings about how to be sexy.
39:06
It's amazing. I'm sure it's how to print, but
39:08
it's definitely available online.
39:10
You should absolutely Google it, because wow, it's priceless
39:14
content. Well, this has been amazing.
39:17
Thank you so much for joining us.
39:19
It's such a pleasure and I think the work that you're doing is so
39:22
valuable. Everybody who's listening, who's
39:24
just thinking about what are the stories that I tell myself about
39:28
the things I see? And am I assuming I know the
39:30
whole story when I only know a little part of it?
39:33
That's really helpful. Welcome back to Top Hat.
39:43
This is the part of the episode where we dissent and analyze
39:46
some of the really cool storytelling lessons we got from
39:49
this week's expert storyteller. And explore how we can apply
39:53
those lessons in our daily lives.
39:56
Today we had the amazing Doctor G and it was cool.
40:01
This was our first ever medical Doctor Kev.
40:04
It's really cool to dive into one of our favorite topics,
40:08
Storytelling internally with stress and resilience.
40:13
Kev, how did you think it went? Oh, this was so fun, Grove.
40:16
And Doctor G is not only a medical doctor, she is a medical
40:22
Doctor Who has been a comedian, a sign language interpreter.
40:27
And we get to learn about cool stuff like storytelling in sign
40:32
language and how that is different from spoken languages,
40:36
which which is a really cool perspective because in sign
40:41
language it's important to set up the stage.
40:45
Storytelling is very spatial, so the people who tell stories this
40:49
way, it allows people who tell stories this way remember
40:55
certain things better because they're able to build the stage
41:01
inside their mind. So I think that's also a really
41:05
good lesson for, you know, any obviously language user but also
41:11
bilingual and multilingual people to think about across the
41:15
different languages you speak, how is storytelling different
41:18
and what are the unique storytelling themes from the
41:23
languages you know. So I think that's a really cool
41:26
insight. Yeah, and you know, that
41:28
branches into a really interesting lesson of this
41:31
episode. You know, Kev, sometimes you and
41:33
I debate, before we get into an episode in the editing process,
41:36
is this show or is this episode about the storyteller?
41:40
And their unique storytelling skills from their careers or is
41:45
it about the type of storytelling they explore?
41:48
Is it about the lessons of that type of storytelling?
41:51
And it's highly dependent. Episode by episode, there's
41:54
episodes where we sit down and we talk about specific topic or
41:57
an event. Or like like Reed Tucker, when
42:00
we talked about Marvel versus DC, we didn't dive too deep into
42:04
Reed's background. We mostly talked about the the
42:06
Marvel versus DC epic. Journey, right.
42:11
We talked about the type of storytelling he explores and
42:14
lessons we can learn from that. But this is 1 where we really
42:17
spent most of the time talking about the storyteller herself
42:21
and the storytelling lessons she's learned and how it's
42:23
affected her journey. I think I love these episodes
42:26
because it really validates that first question we asked, which
42:30
is what is your story? And we asked that because we
42:34
love hearing how they frame it and it allows us from there to.
42:38
Kind of mine a little bit, you know.
42:40
And she talked about being a comedian.
42:43
She talked about sign language and she talked about all these
42:47
little things. And we got to see how those all
42:49
merged together to build her current career.
42:53
And it guts us to that. Point where this idea that we
42:56
have with so many guests, when we ask what's your story?
42:58
And they say, oh, it's a winding, unique journey.
43:00
It's different than the straight line path.
43:03
Everyone's journey is weird. Everyone's journey is unique.
43:06
Everyone's there's no actual linear path that we think there
43:09
is. And that's actually an asset.
43:12
It is those, you know, unexpected twists and turns that
43:17
really make for a fascinating story.
43:20
You know, it's important that we understand that and embrace that
43:24
when those unexpected turns happen.
43:27
Yeah, I mean, we, we talked a lot about this with Lydia in a
43:31
previous episode, The Auctioneer.
43:33
When she was in a world where when you fought about an
43:35
auctioneer, you thought about 1:00 Pacific type of person,
43:38
right? She was totally against that
43:41
trenches different than that in every way.
43:42
And instead of saying I'm going to try to be that person that
43:45
you expect, she said no, I'm going to be me.
43:48
I'm going to bring in my unique style.
43:50
I'm going to bring in the fact that I'm a young woman to tell a
43:53
unique story, right, using her unique background and she became
43:56
one of the best. And the same thing with Doctor
43:59
GI. Think the key lesson of this
44:01
week is? Look at your journey, look at
44:04
your quirks and say how can I utilize that?
44:06
Because I have the unique ability of having those curves
44:09
stop shutting the door, start opening them and say, hey, I can
44:12
use my story in a way that no one else can.
44:15
And this has been another great episode of the Linen Suit and
44:19
Plastic Type podcast. If you like our content,
44:24
subscribe and follow us wherever you listen.
44:26
Leave us a comment or review to let us know what you're
44:29
thinking. Follow us on Instagram and
44:33
TikTok at lspgpot. LinkedIn Linen Student Plastic
44:37
Tie. We love you all.
44:39
You took some time today to become a better storyteller.
44:42
We'll see you next time.