Latest / The Sober Creative Podcast / Episode 066 - Walking Away From Normal

Transcript

Episode 066 - Walking Away From Normal · The Sober Creative Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome everyone to The Sober Creative Podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Every guest has done the same hard thing.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: They've become honest about what was getting in the way.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Now they're creating from a space that's actually theirs.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Josh Woll, and I'm honored to bring you today's guest.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Erin Gregory writes The Self-Led Life on Substack and runs a brand consultancy
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: for mission-driven organizations.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: In 2008, her father-in-law died, and she and her husband, Mike, lost themselves for a while.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Still functioning,
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: still getting three girls where they needed to be,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: and underneath it, worn down to almost nothing.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Alcohol was already part of the furniture.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Both of them came from families where a drink was the answer to a hard day.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Mike quit first.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: She followed, no dramatic moment, just watching him get clear and deciding she wanted that too.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: What came after took years.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: He left a job in the tobacco industry that had been eating at him and returned to music.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: She built a company that gave her real autonomy over her days.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: The bad habits came out first and everything else followed.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: In her words, once the alcohol is gone, we could finally see the industry for what it was.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: A business that profits by selling people something that harms them,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: dressed up as celebration and connection and reward.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: They got there the hard way,
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: in the middle of grief,
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: with no roadmap,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: years before the rest of the country started arriving at the same place.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the conversation worth exploring today.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: So Erin, welcome to the show.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I just love that,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: you wrote a piece recently, and I just love that line from it, and it's so good.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know,
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: As we'll get to that,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: if you want to walk us back of what early childhood and such was like for you.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a good old Irish Catholic girl.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if any of you out there are as well,
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: you know that one kind of communion doesn't say communion.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't talk about it in church.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very accepted part of that culture.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And for my family, it was how we celebrated.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was part of how we grieved.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't, from my perspective, ever really abused in that family setting.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: But as a young 20-something, it was like the forbidden fruit.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when you could have it, it was like this great opening of possibilities.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then you are shipped off to college, which I was a scholarship swimmer.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was on a great path.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that was just part of the college scene.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: We work hard, play hard.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was really just a part of the society that I grew up in.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I never saw it as something bad or harmful or And when I met my now husband,
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, you know, his family very much operated that way.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when we lost his father in 2008,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: at that point,
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: we had two young girls and we were social drinkers,
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: you know, and I think that's a that's a challenge.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: That isn't really talked about enough is you don't have to be
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: a full functioning alcoholic to admit that you've got a problem,
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: that something is inhibiting your life.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're used to that two drinks a day and
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: then things really hit rock bottom,
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: that two drinks a day becomes three drinks a day,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: becomes more tired during the day, more agitated, less motivated.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you're adding all of those repercussions on top of grief.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when we got to that point after losing my father-in-law to cancer after about
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: a six-year battle,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: we just got to a point where we were like, well, this isn't how we want to live.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we had then three girls.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I had always been sober during pregnancy, sober during breastfeeding.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd kind of gone through some of those ebbs and flows.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I had tried to just eliminate it.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And because of my own guilt and feeling like I just don't really want this in my life.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're surrounded by everybody else who does it, that's exceptionally difficult.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so Mike made that decision first.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that was kind of the start of his process of healing.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he went to therapy.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: He quit his job.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: He got his master's degree.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he really just started to kind of rebuild himself.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And after I saw that,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was And I got to a point where I was like, why am I still holding on to this?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing in it for me.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm literally drinking with my children.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was not dramatic.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't some great realization.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was really just finally committing to something that I had wanted to do for years.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just made the decision to cut it out entirely.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't any point for us to have it once a week or anything.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: It still felt like we were treating it like a reward or a healing mechanism
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: when we knew it was anything but.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we both read a book and I don't have it in front of me right now,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: but there was a version for men and a version for women.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really interesting to see the contrast about the
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: realities of
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: alcohol.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And similar to what I put in that story,
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: it really opened our eyes to the dangers of the marketing in that industry.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: We really correlated it a lot with tobacco,
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: which was the industry my husband was previously supporting, which he hated.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're both athletes, we're both active and try to have a healthy lifestyle.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of those things had just compounded in our life.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when you have children,
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: it really kind of,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: it brings all of those vulnerabilities and crutches to the forefront because
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: then you've got three little people who are looking to for answers.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the last answer I wanted to get them was, Mommy, why are you drinking that?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's no good answer for it.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we read the books, and I will look it up for you.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard about them previously.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: But they did.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: They brought that awareness to us of the messages that we were just accepting.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we started to look at them through other industries, the fast food industry.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we just found all these connections in how we were living in conjunction with
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: the stuff that was being pushed on us and told was good and fun and celebratory.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we just said no more.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And after that, we started to focus on all the other things that we'd kind of silenced.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Mike started focusing on his music again.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I started to build a career that allowed me to be present for my family.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we just built a life with intention instead of subscribing
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: to what we had been exposed to in the past.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you covered a lot of ground.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just celebrating you for
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: going through it.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Was it hard for either of you giving it up?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Or was it just like, okay, this is it?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Or was it like a gradual transition?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they say it's not like the alcohol itself you miss.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's the ritual.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a lot of truth to that.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's just this thing you look forward to at the end of the day, a habit after you do it.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for years in our case,
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: it's you miss that reward that you're used to having at the end of the day.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: This, oh, I can relax now.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can breathe now kind of thing.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it just it became something we had to find other things.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: We
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: go to parties and we'll bring some fizzy waters just
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: because it's almost more uncomfortable for other people if we're not drinking
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: than it is for us.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't mind being around alcohol right now.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: We have a really great relationship with our own decisions and our own health.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not like we feel like we're missing out.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But what...
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is funny that other people will be like, why aren't you drinking?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's so weird of you.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so but since the pandemic,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: we've seen more of these sober initiatives kind of come up because I think a lot
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: of people struggled with sobriety during the pandemic.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so so it's been a really nice change in the narrative.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not fixed yet.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it ever will be unless we just eliminate
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: the advertising potential like we did for tobacco.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: But industry is so big that I don't see that happening.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's so big.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was trying to think of a fun Substack note the other day of what if we imagine
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: the 1% being only 1% of people that drink and the wealth that the other 99%
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: of people that experience through how they feel each day.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: It may never happen,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: but it's a nice thought just based off of,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: that people become more aware,
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: of what it actually does,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: and I just, I mean,
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: even in moderation, I mean, it's, I mean,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: it's like there's no judgment, and,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think everybody's relationship is different with it,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: but, yeah, I mean, it, um, Yeah, it's just tough.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: eventually it's it's eventually you might come to a point
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: where it's like it is like, what's the point?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: even in moderation,
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: that's just it's such a slippery slope,
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: and you see it across the board with people who,
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know, use food as a way to cope with things.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as soon as something goes wrong.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: That increases and that has endless health challenges.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: So for us,
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: it was just starting to look at our lives as an example that we wanted to set
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: for our kids.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that meant holistically, health-wise, job-wise, habits-wise.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: We preach to our kids, you follow your dreams and do all these great things.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: But then as parents, it's a lot harder to do that in practice.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so we started practicing it and we started living better.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: We started to be much more intentional about the work that we did and the structure
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: that allowed us to be present for our kids and the other aspects of our life,
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: whether it was our jobs or our hobbies,
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: things that we wanted to make sure they knew were priorities for them
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: as they became adults so that they didn't lose themselves anymore.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: In the process, too,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: which they might,
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: and we've told them, too, that,
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: when you're 21,
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: if you choose to have a drink of alcohol, then you're allowed to do it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Our family still will have a drink on occasion far less than they used to.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: So they're around it, which is important for them to be exposed to it.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to be exposed to it.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want it to seem like this forbidden fruit or like you turn 21 and you get to have it.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's great.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: But more so like, you know, it's there just like tobacco is there.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll have the freedom to make that choice when you're of age
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: and I hope you make the choice that is best for you.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Drank some before I came into the picture, but they never really did when I grew up.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: But still, I mean,
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: I would say a lot of the families do,
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: and so those conversations aren't going to be revolved around like,
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: hey, you shouldn't do this, or hey, you should question this before you do it.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost like you're kind of encouraged to Yeah.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean,
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: think about all the advertising for it.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, you go to a football game, you tailgate and you drink.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: You graduate college, you have a party and you drink.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like all of the advertisement is like, this is a celebration.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: You should have something that basically numbs you from the reward
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: that you just earned through your hard work.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's so backwards.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that is just our experience.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I am, you know, family and friends with people who have a drink on occasion.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's fine.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's like going to McDonald's every once in a while.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the same quality.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: People love me who are watching this right now.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm such a buzzkill.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go celebrate.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go get some McDonald's.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't clog your arteries, but let's kill that letter.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, well, tell me, like, okay, how old were your kids when you both stopped?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: My oldest, so that was back when we were in Indiana.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: We moved here during the pandemic.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it was about 2020.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: My oldest was...
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Eight?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So eight, five, and two.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: How did you notice your relationships with them before and after
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: now?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for my husband in particular, significantly better.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not even that the alcohol caused bad behavior.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was just the guilt that you kind of carry along with it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Doing something that you know, like, I'm not proud to talk to my kid about this right now.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I think our relationships with them are better because we just feel better about ourselves.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're living more honestly.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's not trying to hide things or mask things.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And because we have invested a lot of time and effort
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: to develop our own coping mechanisms for challenges...
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whether it's, I mean, we talk until we're blue in the face.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're an extremely communicative family.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, we've both done different versions of therapy.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: We are big into physical activities, a way for coping.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I always talk about a third space on my channel,
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: and that's a place where you can go that is free from responsibility to anything
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: but you and your own personal passions and well-being.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And for me,
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: that's always been,
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: exercise and through injuries,
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: which I've had plenty of, I've just learned to evolve that.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now that is gardening and walking where it used to be marathon running.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: addressing life's challenges with something that is going to better you in the end,
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: instead of make it harder to deal with.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that's, I think that's such an important thing to touch on.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it's like exercise has become a big, a big thing in my life too.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it, it, I mean,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: that was,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: that was pretty much the reason that I stopped drinking was that,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: I felt like it was hindering my progress,
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: but I mean, like,
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: it is like people want something to like decompress at the end of the day,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: you know, and,
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: and I don't think it,
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: you know, it's,
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: it's not like,
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: You'll hear the vocabulary of like, oh, I need a drink to reset my nervous system.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, it is.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: And essentially, that's what it's doing.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's like all the buzzing that's happening here for the whole day.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you just need a place to kind of chill.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah,
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: talk more about your coping mechanisms that you've developed and worked on over
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: the years.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, gardening is huge for me.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I talk about it often on my channel.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: I fully believe in the power of connecting with the earth
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: and getting your hands dirty and putting your heart and soul into something
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: that grows just because you've nurtured it, right?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't need you to do a whole lot other than just water me every once in a while
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: and I will provide beautiful fruit for you.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so gardening is a really great avenue for me and I will spend hours,
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: my family,
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: my extended family went through a really difficult situation a few years ago
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: and I dug up half of my backyard and it's, it is now a full flesh garden.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just continuing to expand it each year.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: But finding that place that is a resource to you and gives you something in return for yourself.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I always talk about the YMCA is a great resource for really all ages,
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: whether it's joining a group fitness class to be around other Adults who are going
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: through similar situations as you are.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Community service is another one.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: as a solopreneur,
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always trying to find different outlets to keep myself in green in
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: the community.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there's such value in giving back to your community.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: My husband works for Habitat for Humanity now.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we do.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then he also volunteers on an arts board.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we've just both found a lot of value and fulfillment in being part of things
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: that are bigger than us.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the depression and things that can coincide with drinking,
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of it happens when we are just so stuck in our own world,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: in our own sadness,
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: in our own experiences,
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: and we stop seeing that, hey,
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: there's a whole big,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: beautiful world out there that has a place for you and needs you
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: to contribute what you are designed to uniquely do.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Through having that space for yourself and getting back to the community,
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: those are two big things that I really speak a lot to with my clients who are trying
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: to kind of build a life structure that better works for them.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think you touched on something that's really important,
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: is that element of community because it's like,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: you know, it's like we're social workers.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: You can do so much work on yourself and meditate.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm speaking to myself too.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's like meditate, eat well, exercise.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: But if you don't have the relationships or the sense of community and involvement
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: and such, then you're in your head.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're in your head a lot.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of us spend a lot of time in our heads.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know I'm guilty of it.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: I work from home full time.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I am constantly actively seeking people to collaborate with,
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: conversations to have to further my awareness of the industries that I work in.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there's just so much power in giving back and allowing that to kind
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: of center you and like, okay, Things aren't so bad.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: this family is living with six kids in one bedroom and one toilet
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: and barely has enough food to get by.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And over here, I'm sad because, yes, I lost somebody, but I'm still here.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I can still make an impact.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I can still help people.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the best R you can give to the people who we've lost.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about creativity.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: I know that that's at the end of your name here on Substack.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me, had you always been into creativity and such as a kid?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I've always been a writer.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: When I was 11,
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I won my first Young Authors Award for a book I wrote about a girl who was in
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: an abusive family, which is so far from any experience that I had had.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I've always just felt very deeply.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so writing has always been my outlet.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: My background is in public relations.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so combining my writing skills with journalism and I love research.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm constantly following like workforce trends.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: But my business was built on 10 years
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Freelancing on the side of my full-time job because after I had my first daughter,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: I realized pretty quickly the workforce is not structured well for parents.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started to build a freelance business on the side and that was journalism
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: and that evolved into consultant work, advisory work and marketing.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: So about two and a half years ago, I took that business full-time.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And in August of last year, one of my clients asked me to help them out on Substack.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I fell in love with it a couple of months later.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been on Substack.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm writing my own newsletter for about eight, nine months now.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it has been such a great way to sort of uncover my story for myself.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because prior to these conversations,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: I had never,
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: most of these conversations are the first time I'm telling these stories.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's been incredible to meet the community on here,
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: to feel that the experience I've had and I've learned from are helping others.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is being developed into my personal branding and coaching business,
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: which is for folks who are looking to do something similar,
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: whether it's You know,
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: improve the structure of the workforce they're currently in,
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: set up a business that allows them to have more fulfillment or more time
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: in their day.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then the agency side of my business is supporting those organizations
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: that are already established in doing their marketing.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks for sharing.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: So what's your creative outlets?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know you can be creative with gardening and such.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, that really is.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've got, and I kid you not, over 300 plants within my house.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: My kids are all becoming growing addicts, right?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like addicts like to put their addictions into something else.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: So mine's great.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it does.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the garden,
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: I literally will plant things and at the end of the season,
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be like, I don't like how it looks there and I'll move it.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then I've got a blank canvas to start on for the next season.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So gardening is a huge creative outlet for me.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then writing.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can write blogs all day long.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: There will be ideas.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was just at the pool with my girls the other day and I hadn't been motivated
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: to write in a couple of weeks because summer is insane and there's no time.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I was sitting at the pool and I saw an image of them hand in hand skipping to
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: the slide together.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I just had this amazing sense of satisfaction come over me and like,
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: all right, another year.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: We did it.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're happy.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're growing.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're thriving.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here for it.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is just a constant stream of responsibilities when you become an adult.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: But finding responsibilities that,
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know, give you happiness at the end of the day, I think is what it's all about.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I guess like,
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: With parents that have kids, how would you
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: say they want to make this transition?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: How would you give advice on navigating that?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, that's a big question, Josh.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: You probably have better advice than I do.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: I will find the name of those books because they very much help.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'll put them in the show notes.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: For us,
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a little bit different for us because we weren't rock-bottom,
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: all-day-long drinkers.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: We were social drinkers.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: For our society, that's supposed to be okay.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And knowing what that boundary is, is difficult because there's not a clear boundary.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like if you have one drink at night, that's okay.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: But so for us, it was just not having it at all because we really wanted that clarity.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think if you're going to make that decision,
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: based on my experience, don't make the decision to have like a drink on Friday.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because a drink on Friday becomes a drink on Saturday,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: becomes a drink on Sunday, and then Monday, oh, we're going to start over again.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, just make that fair cut decision.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Figure out what that resource is that's going to help you.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: For us, it was those books.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we had each other to hold us accountable.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, there are plenty of folks who have found success through AA.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've got friends who...
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about it constantly and are still very actively involved in it.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: some of the things that they will bring to conversations
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: from AA are really interesting.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just about, you know, and my one friend, her name's Christy.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'll leave it there to give her some anonymity.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: But she always starts off any new engagement.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Christy.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a recovering alcoholic.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how she introduces herself.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that for her is really important because she wants to have that responsibility
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: with everybody she meets.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, just so you know, I'm not going to drink and this is why.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you just have to figure out what works for you and
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: just stick to whatever you decide.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: For us, our kids were the motivation we needed to do better.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we were It was a joke that we were not great humans before we had kids.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: We both worked.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: We both lived the bar life when we were in Missouri before we had kids.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we had kids, it hit us like a drug.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, holy shit, we've got someone else to be accountable for here.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: They can't sleep.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever that motivation needs to be for you,
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: figure it out and then just make that decision and don't look back.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: What was it for you, Josh?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: What finally, you said your exercise did it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: What were you training for?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: I had started,
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: I had started doing like different classes and such and like really kind of liking
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: that.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I was taking,
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: there was a class that a friend of mine,
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Melissa, at the time was teaching at a local studio.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: It was called Mbala.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: And basically she incorporated like yoga with like kind of HIIT training style.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's like, I really like that.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, and so that transitioned to Orange Theory Fitness.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so have you been to one of those?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have, yeah.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was, not at Orange Theory, I was an instructor for several years after I had kids.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, cool, yeah.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I mean, like, you know, like, it's fun.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're in that environment and you're feeling the energy.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was, I was doing a class one day and...
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: And the treadmill portion, everybody was going after it.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like,
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: I stopped and was just out of breath leaning over and the coach at the time came up
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: behind me and said, you know, what's going on?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, I can't do this.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: I drank too much last night.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, you're not going to be able to move forward if you keep doing it like that.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so that cracked things open for me at that point.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it was still,
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: two years from that experience that I was tracking and trying to control it.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: Doing research around it.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: This Naked Mind by Annie Grace was a big book for me to help transition.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I just ended up getting to the point where I committed.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just recently.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was August 19th of 2020, right before COVID started.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: And just committed.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, gosh.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a rough time to start.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was,
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: it was, you know, but it's like I had been doing the work kind of leading up to it.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: It was, it was,
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: it was like kind of the right timing and,
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: and just having that public commitment was a big thing because,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I would break the promise to myself every day.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'd wake up and be like, oh, why did I do that last night?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to do it again tonight.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: And sure enough, the day starts to go well.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: Something happens.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: Someone honks at me on the road and it's like life is the worst.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: So your nervous system was a little shot too.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, it was ready.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was ready for it though.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, I...
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I knew three months into it that this was like my life now.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so... Yeah.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I mean,
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: I have a lot of respect for the recovery spaces and had volunteered
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: with Recovery Dharma for a few years facilitating a meeting.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, there's lots of outlets and resources and such.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, for me, it...
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the public accountability was big.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would encourage folks to just kind of be aware of the environments
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: that they're letting feed themselves,
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: you know, whether it's socially, whether it's what they're reading, you know.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And for us, we moved.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we started over in like every sense.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: We started over with jobs.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: We started over with where we lived.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we rebuilt who we were.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when we lost his dad,
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: it really it forced Mike to rethink who he was from everything.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, losing a parent.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fortunate I haven't lost one of mine yet, but losing him was close enough.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it does you lose a part of yourself and you have to refigure out who you are now
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: without that person.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: So so for both of us, it it was very, very difficult.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: To get over that hump.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: But once we did, we just started building one thing at a time.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it got us to where we are today.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not like anybody stops ringing and is like, I wish I hadn't done that.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Marvin, I know my camera sucks.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: My ring light didn't want to work today.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have to imagine that, Cleve.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think that was my dad, too.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, hey, dad.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's a big, big fan.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, I've had such a great time, Erin.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: If anyone has any questions, please feel free to pop them in the chat.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: Erin, if you want to let everybody know, what are you working on next?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's coming up?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm working on a book constantly, but I started my whole book journey in line with this.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's by memoir,
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: and then it will have a companion workbook That is distilling what I do
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: with clients.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: So helping founders to kind of figure out what work they can build in the margins.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you're a stay-at-home mom,
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: for example,
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: and you just need to get back from the workforce,
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: what can you start building that allows you to still prioritize your life
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: and doesn't take over it with a typical job structure?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm working on that.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: And my book, Which is my journey, how I built my career the way that I did.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: And just getting people to think strategically about their life structure
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: and not prioritize everything around work.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm doing a couple of workshops and keynotes with college graduates
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: and college classes to help them to think more strategically about it as they enter
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: the workforce.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because I just feel like it's Parents in particular are struggling.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: So many parents have to be both working now because of the cost of things.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then as a society, we're lonely because it's not just remote work.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: The statistics show that people in office are more lonely
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: than people working remotely because they feel so isolated in their space.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my mission,
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: is to bring awareness to the possibility that is out there
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: if you can think strategically and creatively about your career journey
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: and not just accept what's on paper.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Erin.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I'll provide all this in the show notes.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah,
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: just thank you for your time and providing your story and just
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: the wisdom that's come from it.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate being on here.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining, everybody.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks, everyone.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great week.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.