Chasing Your Dreams, Environmental Storytelling, and Adventuring with Tiffany Duong

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Tiffany Duong, writer, explorer and motivational speaker about Chasing Your Dreams, Environmental Storytelling and Adventuring.   Read her full bio below.

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form 

Showtimes: 

1:57  Nic & Laura talk about rejection

8:36  Interview with Tiffany Duong starts

10:45  Tiffany chases her dreams to the Galapagos

19:39 Connecting the dots in the Amazon

28:25  Environmental storytelling

34:18  Adventuring

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Tiffany Duong at linkedin.com/in/tiffanytvduong

Guest Bio:

Tiffany Duong is a writer, explorer and motivational speaker. She holds degrees from UCLA and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Inspired by a dive trip, she left corporate law to campaign for our planet. Now, from dense jungles, remote oceans and her slice of paradise in the Florida Keys, she gives voice to what's happening in the natural world. Her mission is to inspire meaningful action and lasting change. Follow her on Twitter/Instagram @tiffmakeswaves.

Music Credits

Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa

Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Transcripts are auto transcribed

[Intro]

Nic 
Hello and welcome to EPR is your favorite environmental nerds Nic and Laura. On today's episode, Laura and I discussed dealing with rejection. We talked to Tiffany Duong the founder of Ocean Rebels about changing careers scuba diving and connecting with nature. And finally, there is enough DNA in the average human body to stretch from the sun to Pluto and back 17 times.

Laura
What?

Nic
That doesn't even make sense, right?

Laura 
Every time I hear statistics like that, like about how long your test intestines stretch and stuff, it's just like any. I don't want to see this but I need to see this.

Nic 
I know I know. It does seem crazy weird, but just folded up so many times. That's the you know, you can fold anything up and eventually

Laura
So we're real dense.

Nic
Yeah, we're super dense. Yeah. They're also dealing something super tiny too, which is so hard to conceptualize. It's a hard concept to realize, but you know, you got trillions of cells in your body.  It's really like 30 trillion and something like that. It's a mini trillions of cells and each one of them as DNA it's it's pretty crazy how much yeah but anyways, that's That's not important. Let's go and hit that music

[Shout outs]

Laura 
NAEP has a new working group for offshore wind environmental professionals. They provide a platform for environmental professionals who are working at the forefront of new regulatory oversight and scientific expansion in support of the offshore wind industry. So go to naep.org and then click on the link that will take you to the list of working groups and if you're interested there should be contact information there. Nic I love during this show. If you love it too and would like to help us keep doing it. We need your help. We can't do it without our awesome sponsors. So please head on over to www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com and check out the sponsor forum for details. Now let's get to our segment.

[Nic & Laura's segment]

Nic 
So you want to talk rejection. That's what you want to talk about for a segment today. It's a

Laura 
Don't you love talking about rejection.

Nic 
Who doesn't doesn't love being rejected? Which of course has never happened to anyone, right? No one has ever been rejected from anything and then gone on to do anything else. I think that's right. Am I wrong about that?

Laura  
No, I think most people get rejected a lot before you know the whole overnight success thing also comes with rejections.

Nic 
But so you mean everybody that has ever done anything has been rejected at least once. Is that what you're telling me?

Laura
Yes.

Nic
Is that what Toby's telling me. Okay, so So okay, you know, everybody gets rejected. Nobody likes that. So how do we manage rejection? How do we cope with it because it's gonna happen.

Laura 
Yeah, well, I like there's always the, you know, fail forward, fail fast kind of things. But I really like the way that Tiffany, our guest today described how she decided to handle the rejections and actually like spreadsheet it Yeah. And then celebrate

Nic
Celebrate it.

Laura
I think I like what she said about the using the spreadsheet and stuff so I can I mean, I always tell career seekers that they should be exploring, evaluate what they explore and then eliminate what they don't like what doesn't work. And you know, treat that as a repeatable process. But I think that it doesn't really, you know, it just hits them on the surface and it really take it internally deeply. And I think Tiffany really has, you know, she's like, I'm gonna approach my exploration in a scientific fashion and then and then also, like, use that as a milestone and be able to gauge Well, if I have this many rejections, you know, I'm bound to have some success in there somewhere.

Nic 
Yeah, yeah. And it's like taking her strengths and applying them to a process you may not otherwise enjoy doing. Right. I just think it's really, really smart thing to do. We have to connect things the way that makes sense to us. Like, you know, you can't just approach the fear of rejection in a way that's like, Well, I'm afraid of rejecting so I won't do something. We will never get where you want to be if you do that. And so you have to kind of use your scientific mind. Use your creative mind to think about ways to own rejection. And Tiffany gave a great example of, you know, putting out having a party when you reach a certain number of rejections, you know, just kind of making it funny and turning it on its head and you can do that with any kind of any number of things. So it's just never something that is, it seems scary. It seems daunting, but you know, we all have done it. We've all survived, which is what I always try to remind people, it's like, the worst day of your life and, okay, it's not always the worst day of your life. It can't be It's literally impossible. So remember that. Sometimes it's hard to do, especially in the moment to think okay, how do I get out of this, but you have to kind of take things one step at a time and not have to worry too much about everything.

Laura 
Yeah, I think to just roll it back to rejection. We invite people to the podcast all the time. Sometimes they don't answer us sometimes they're  like no and then I think the hardest part about getting rejection is it immediately. You know, what's wrong with me? It turns it to internal reflection, and then that's what's feeding are the whole imposter syndrome thing and all that like they don't be my podcast, why isn't my podcasts good enough? And then if you oh my gosh, heaven forbid you see them on someone else's podcast

Nic 
It sounds a lot like dating too, by the way, I don't know.

Laura 
Oh, it's all it's all the I think it's all the same but applying for jobs, dating, you know, rejection is rejection and it's, it's the same chords when you get it, you know?

Nic  
Yeah, it really does. Um, you know, it's, like I say, just trying to remember that you've been through this before and made it everyone else has also been through this before and made it you know, it's everybody. The most famous people in the world have been rejected or they've lost, you know, actors have lost movie roles. They would have been great for them. All kinds of stuff happens like that. So it's we're not alone.

Laura 
Yeah, I mean, it's inspiring. I think. We've talked about this before it reading Lucille Ball's biography and just how it's just you keep getting up, you know, and that's respectable.

Nic 
Yeah, it doesn't mean it's easy, or that it's fun. You know, no one likes rejection like we talked about, but it's a part of life. Life doesn't often care too much about what's going on with you. You've got to be the person that cares. You know, no one else can care as much as you.

Kara
That is good. I was like you don't know my life yeah,

Laura
Just struck chords.

Nic
Yeah, right.

Kara
And that it gets worse as you get older. That fear. Yeah, man, when you're younger, it's like you can shrug it off much, much better than when you get older, which I thought would be the opposite way.

Nic 
It's funny you say that. Like for me it has been the opposite. When I was younger, I was terrified of rejection. And so for the longest time, I did nothing, absolutely nothing. Because that scared me. You know, I didn't challenge myself in, you know, applying for colleges. I didn't challenge myself in college. I just was like, I'll do what I want and I'll just breeze through but that mentality has totally changed from when I was younger. So I'm hoping that sticks with me through my 50s 60s 80s But you know, I guess I'm hyper aware.

Laura
You can add that to your spreadsheet

Nic
Yeah, right.

Laura 
How deep is this impacts?

Nic
This hurts very badly.

Laura
On a scale of one to 10.

Nic  
But that was that was a shift for me. I had to genuinely realize that. I've been through rejection and survived it. And that was really hard. Really hard for me to kind of accept I was like, no, nothing bad's ever happened to me. You know, and like I just didn't want to think about it. But it's sometimes it's it's healthier to just reflect and then move on. Don't dwell, reflect, move forward.

Laura 
 Yeah, I mean, you'll never make a podcast never write a book. Never go after your dream job. Your dream girl or guy never you know, there's just so many things that you won't do.

Nic  
Never hike up a glacier . Yeah, Yeah exactly.

Laura  
And if you're not doing something where you are getting rejections, you might not be pushing yourself outside your boundaries enough. You know,

Nic  
That is a great point

Laura
Or trying very hard, right?

Nic
Because if you avoid everything that's difficult you'll never be challenged. You will never grow you will stay where you are.

Laura  
That's called settling that word?

Nic  
No, no, I don't like it either. You know, but of course we don't right that's why we're doing the podcast.

Laura 
Anyway, let's get some more words of wisdom from our guests. Tiffany.

Nic
Perfect.

[Interview with Tiffany Duong starts]

Nic 
Welcome back to EPR today, we have Tiffany Duong with us. She is the founder and storyteller for Ocean Rebels, which aside from being the coolest name ever, also celebrates those pioneers who imagined a better future for our planet. Super cool. Welcome, Tiffany.

Tiffany Duong 
Hi. It's so nice to be here. Thanks for having me.

Nic  
Yeah. Thank you for joining. Yeah, so let's just start right there. What is Ocean Rebels?

Tiffany Duong 
It's how I'm couching the environmental legacy. I want to leave. So it evolves with me. It started as an advocacy effort and then we brought in multimedia storytelling with films during COVID It focused a lot more on written articles written storytelling. And then I think next year, we really want to branch out into using social media doing like Tik Toks on Expedition, you know, explaining the connection between ocean and climate in a really assessable way. Things like that.

Nic  
So cool, and like so what, how and when, how and why did you get into environmental storytelling in the first place?

Tiffany Duong 
I grew up in the Bay Area in California. So I think the tree huggerness has always been in my blood. I tell people like when when we were young, and people asked like, Oh, what do you want to be? I used to draw a picture of myself standing in front of a bulldozer in the Amazon, like stopped at me. Like, I didn't think that was weird. You know, it wasn't like, like a doctor or a lawyer. I was like, yeah, no, I want to be the bulldozer girl so that kind of, I guess rebellious nature has always been in me and that pushed to conserve nature. And then when I actually got to go to these places, and like experience the magic of this planet, I knew that I could only help other people feel that same feeling, feel that same magic by by sharing it. And I really think that storytelling is how we've always connected you know, as a human race of beings. So I wanted to put my efforts towards that to help people really connect to our planet and to each other and hopefully just make it all better.

Nic 
Yeah, which is really incredible. And I love your whole story. It's really, really cool that we had to talk about Galapagos, it really is one of the most unique and beautiful places I've ever seen. It's gorgeous. It's very unique. Isn't that unique, different times of year. So as a naturalist, it's a place you have to go and what made you want to go this and how did that changed your life?

Tiffany Duong 
I think when you become a scuba diver, it's one of those legendary places that is just on everyone's bucket list, you know, the same as Great Barrier Reef, things like that. And for me, the Galapagos felt a little bit more assessable. Also, my dive instructor was like, Hey, I'm planning a trip to the Galapagos. Do you want to tag along so that made it very easy?

So I got to go when I was still a lawyer, which was lovely because it actually was the event that catalyzed my shift towards everything else I've done that has made my life so rewarding and so fun filled and so happy since then, basically, I was working super late at night and, you know, pretty miserable feeling like what am I doing here? It's 3am I'm in this concrete tower by myself. Like what is the purpose of all this? And I got this email from my diamond surfer saying like, hey, like, come to the Galapagos with a beautiful picture, of course. And I was like, You know what? I'm going. So I wrote back there, I was like, Okay, I'm in, like, how much let's do it. And you know, by two days after that, I paid my deposit. I was signed up, and then a couple months after that, we were on a boat in the Galapagos.

Nic 
Yeah. That's so crazy. And you mentioned that so you were a lawyer beforehand, in you just did you say you felt miserable? Did you really like when you started doing that going on the path I'm going to be a lawyer. It just seems so different than you know, bulldozer girl so that what happened there? How was that shift?

Tiffany Duong 
Sure. I think bulldozer girl grew up and nobody quote unquote, grew up. Nobody, there is no model for becoming bulldozer girl like it's not like I was Auntie Teresa is bulldozer girl.  I'm gonna be like, like her. There's no blueprint for that in my family for sure. In where I grew up, my friends, my culture and then also just like in broader society, it's really hard to access those kinds of people you know, like a NatGeo Explorer, you know, let's say, how do you even contact someone like that? How do you get to interface with someone like that as a kid, so I think I just chucked bulldoze, stopping to just being a childhood dream. So I went to college at UCLA. I did international development and I knew I wanted to do something environmental, but I had no idea how to make it real how to to I always say give it legs and I thought, let's try law school. You know, there you'll learn a lot of skills and you'll walk away with a useful degree. You know, this is what everyone says. And, and so I did you know, and a large part of that, too, was not knowing what else to do. A lot. I think a lot of people especially if they want to do environmental work, when you're leaving undergraduate, you don't know what to do and so grad school feels very alluring. And then almost safe, because it's like, okay, I can go on another set path. Yes. So I did that I became a lawyer, and I became a renewable energy lawyer, which you would think would have made me happy, but the legal lifestyle just wasn't for me. It was a grind, and I can work hard, but I couldn't feel the tangible effects of my work. You know, I was helping build these massive solar arrays and wind turbine farms like the biggest in the world and I, in my six years of practice, I got to leave my office. one day to go see them. And

Nic  
Oh my gosh,

Tiffany Duong  
it was I mean, it was super cool. I got to climb a wind turbine. One day in six years, and it just, it wasn't enough to keep me going. I needed to like, be in the water, you know, feel the rain forest, stuff like that.

Laura 
That's awesome. Yeah. I think I think attorney is probably the closest you would get from that doctor, lawyer. What do you want to be when you grew up paradigm you could be you know, like, the attorneys are going to be the ones who to stop things maybe not actually standing in front of the forest itself. Yeah. Or in in the glass tower trying to

Tiffany Duong  
Yeah you got pay to allow for bulldozer girl to stand in the rain forest.

Laura 
So all right, Attorney from California when you went to the Galapagos, what happened after that? When you when the light bulb went off, make a change here. First of all, how did you get the courage to do it? And then what did you do?

Tiffany Duong 
So it really was one of those moments in my life that is almost like in a movie where everything swirls and then it comes together and it's like crystal clear to the protagonist. I was standing. So this was my first live aboard trip. Which, for non divers, it's where you live on a ship and you dive everyday it's intensive diving, and you get to go to really remote places at because you're not landlocked. So it was my first live aboard trip my first time, like on a non commercial cruise ship like just there to dive and I remember the first night I was so captivated by the stars. I was like, I'm gonna sleep on the deck. And I like took my comforter I slept on a lawn chair and I at 3am I like went to the bow of the boat, the front and like the ship was just cruising softly and there was bioluminescence in the water and there were dolphins jumping into it. So every time they would splash you with like sparkle, like if you've seen Life of Pi, it looks like Oh yeah. And then there were like stars up above like more stars than you could ever imagine. And then there was actually even like a volcano in the distance and I was like what like where am I like is this like Avatar? This is like a different place and then I just started crying. I like deep in my soul. I was just like, oh my god I'm so happy here and I haven't felt this in a decade right like all of law school all of my practice. And it like all hit me in one moment. And I was just like, oh, no, this is not this is not okay, like how could I have been this unhappy and not realized it? And I think it's because what we talked about like as a lawyer, you think that you know you're doing important work and you are like I was like I am helping the cause. So I think it's hard to understand what you need as a human being also aside from your impact. And then the moment that really helped me leave, get the courage to leave happened on a dive on that trip. So the whole trip started off with this huge, like mind bursting revelation where I was like, okay, like, things are not okay, everything's in chaos. But I was like, we're here to dive so we just dove in dove and there's something called a drift dive where you have to jump and like just go with the current right, you're not holding on to anything. You're not anchored. And I had never done one before I went to the Galapagos as a pretty new diver, which I would not necessarily recommend for other people, but it worked out okay. So this drift dive. I was terrified because I had always been anchored to something and like I need the sea floor. I need a rock. And so I was holding on to a rock and I was watching the rest of my group drift. And I thought to myself in my head I was like, Oh my God, if I don't let go, I'm going to die at the moment. I'm alone and no one will find me and this is horrible. But I could not let go. And I was just like, I was so scared of what was in front of me of the unknown of just letting go control. And then I finally just like a audibly screamed in my regulator and I was like Blaaah and and I went with the current and it was so magical. It was like the best dive like we were looking for whale sharks. And I was like, How is this even my life right now? But the act of physically having to let go and let go of control really stuck with me I think because of what had happened a couple days before. And so I applied that to like my life. I was like, Okay, I'm going to let go of control. I'm not gonna I'm going to go into the unknown like into the blue and, and I did that with my job. I came back and I decided to quit without a job lined up. I was just like, I'm going to chase joy. I'm going to chase magic.

Nic 
That's such a good tagline. I love that Chase joy. That's so great.

Laura  
Yeah, that's amazing. You have one of my favorite movies is Joe Versus the Volcano. And you literally had your Joe Versus the Volcano moment. So cool. And so since then, now you had to put this into action. What are your secrets to success? I mean, you're, as you said yourself, you're doing the kind of work that people think only National Geographic photographers get to do. How did you even begin that this is you know, this is work that people mostly just dream about. And so now when you decided you needed to make the change, did you get resign first? Did you start writing first, like how did you actually start taking those steps?

Tiffany Duong 
Sure. I mean, I forget who said it someone really smart says like, you know, you connect the dots in hindsight right. And that's totally true.

Laura
I think it was Steve Jobs.

Tiffany Duong
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so I'm really smart. I definitely think you're right. And like I never would have foreseen that I would have become a writer or like that I would actually be on Expedition when I quit. The day I quit. I was just like, I can no longer be unhappy. And I, I will choose the unknown over like the devil I know, because it's not enough. So you won't always know and what really helped me was there was a podcast about dating, actually, that can forever changed my relationship with trying new things with experimenting because it basically said when we go out on dates, we're like, oh, you know, can I like marry that person? And that's crazy. Like, it's just a date, right? We do the same thing with jobs. You know, when we interview we're like, Could I be in this for like, five years? 10 years? Could this be my career and you don't even know what it is? Especially early in your career. You have no idea if you'll like it. Yeah. So like what this podcast recommended was to make a spreadsheet of 50 data points, right, and you treat everything that you try as a data point, so that you can learn about yourself through the process. And so they're like, Okay, you don't think of a bad date as a failure. You think of it as a data point. And it's so important to learn what doesn't work. For you almost more than what does. So, I took that same approach with my career was like things I wanted to try. So I moved to the Amazon to try field work because I was really craving you know, being a bulldozer girl. So I, I was like, Okay, let's try field work. Let's see if we want to go to the Amazon. And I learned pretty quickly that like my limit of land field work is probably like three weeks. Like after that. I'm like, Okay, I'm super dirty and like I want a shower and there's dangerous bugs everywhere. And that was so useful. Like I didn't find my time there to be a failure because I was like, Oh, that was such a useful data point. Like now I don't have to go back to school for biology and do all my science prereqs like I saved myself so much time. And I got to spend a month and a half in the Amazon like who who gets to do that? So I use that approach to try you know, like ocean advocacy and scientific diving, coral restoration and eventually writing. And with each data point, I just, I checked in with myself and I was like, oh what parts of this did I like, you know, what do I want to go further and what parts didn't I like what can I adapt and that eventually led me here?

Nic 
Yeah, which is very very well said I love how it is yeah, I can say it's in hindsight connecting dots. It's super interesting and because also for context, I love your your Amazon story. And one of the reasons you maybe you didn't want to stick around. Maybe there was a bathroom incident of some kind.

Tiffany Duong 
Oh, yeah, yeah. So for anyone who hasn't had the joy of going into Amazon, it's It's magical. I highly recommend it. There's so many awesome eco tours that will take you there. I have done one of those, like a three day one for my bar trip. And it's kind of like Disneyland for the Amazon. They're like Well look, there's a boa it's very catered, but I loved it. And so when I took this time off after quitting law I gave myself I was like, I'm going to take at least a year to explore because there's no way I'm ready to try any you know, to commit to anything and I need to heal and learn about myself. So I decided to go to this Amazon research camp and be like, Okay, let's take away the Disney. Let's see what the Amazon's really like. And we went to it was the closest research basin to where uncontacted tribes were so very, very remote. Right you have we had to take like a ferry and a three hour Jeep ride and then we had to walk through mud and all this things to get there and they have to truck in all their supplies. So it's, it's away from everything. So deep in the jungle, and in the jungle, there are really really, you know, truly poisonous animals and creatures and stuff. And one of the ones they warned us about what's the Brazilian wandering spider and it's, it doesn't build traditional webs. It wanders around, you know, and lives in piles of decaying wood or like old buildings and such and when it attacks or it feels threatened, it will put up its two front legs and like warning, and there's like bright yellow on it. So it's like, Hey, don't mess with me, but super venomous. It can mess you up. And so my whole time I was like, petrified. I was like, I like hid my boots inside nets and stuff. I was so scared of finding these so they were all over camp, like people be like oh, yeah, we found like a nest. today. It was in the bathroom or wherever. I was on high alert. And in our bathrooms were basically like ceiling-less outhouses. It was just walls with a toilet because it's different. And there were two toilets next to each other. And there was one night, myself and my boyfriend who was in the Amazon with me. We went to use the restrooms together. And you know, I did what I had to do and then I like went to flush and I see this gigantic I like in my emotional memory. It's like, as big as like my hand. It's like sitting on the toilet. Like standing on some toilet paper with its like, arms up being like, I'm gonna mess you up. I just came out from the toilet seat you were on and I screamed, I'm just like, Oh my God. If it bit me. What a way to go. And I and then like my boyfriend texted me he's like, are you okay, weird noises and scuffles. Right? And then he came over to try to you know, see if I was okay. And I was just like, Oh, the there's a spider like. And then I took a plunger to keep it from junk because it can job to like it's not just water. Yeah, it dumps a plunger to block it from trying to jump on us. And then he tried to flush the toilet just to handle the situation. And we watched and like it didn't go down with the water. It wasn't on the plunger so we have no idea where it was. Let's just like leave the bathroom. It was like let's just leave this situation.

Nic 
Never again. I will never go to the bathroom ever again.
Laura 
You're like I'm back to my Glass Castle in the city.

Tiffany Duong 
That's actually probably when I was like, oh, you know maybe fieldwork in Amazon isn't right for me. That's pretty close to that.

Nic 
Totally justified.

Laura 
Oh yeah. And then you also had some issues with quicksand when you were there, is this real thing?

Tiffany Duong 
Yeah. So in case you didn't know, quicksand is real. The camp that I was with, we had the wonderful opportunity to join a bunch of different scientists doing different work. So you know, one day we'd be on the bird team one day we'd be with the mammal team. One day with herps. So I was following the primatologist on like an 18 mile hike to an even further more remote camp. So we have to go through like real jungle where you have to take a machete and cut down cut your way through like very Indiana Jonesy, It was awesome, and I remember we had to walk across this little like narrow, like fallen tree branch and I was like, why are we like trying to balance on this like, this is silly. So I like stepped off. And then I was like, Wait, something's weird. And like it turns out like the branch was there and you know, this biologist knew and had walked across it a million times when there was quicksand. And I didn't know until that moment like quicksand was not just something in cartoons, that you know, you see animals scrambling and like thinking but like that happened, and I was like, Oh, no. What do we do now? And luckily like everyone I was with was like, Oh, she did it. Okay. Like rescue her in her boots. So I got out just fine, but it was pretty strong. I was amazed that like just a little like Findlay two inches on my boots like could really hold me and I was like if I had been alone, it would not have been cool. Like the cartoons. So yeah. quicksands real. It's in the Amazon. It's around.

Laura 
That's pretty awesome. I mean, just crazy experience. So I think it's fair to say that you are an advocate for the environment and beyond. And so now that you've been writing stories and have seen so much, what do you think are the most important issues to you?

Tiffany Duong 
Yeah. So first and foremost, it's climate, unfortunately, and I think I say unfortunate because that's it's become such a scientific, non scientific debate like a political fight, and it really shouldn't be and if we don't save the climate, unfortunately, nothing else matters. Like the oceans which are my current love, which I am obsessed with will not survive as we know it. The warming climate, they'll shift to something that is habitable for most of the stuff we love. And same goes for the rainforest, like the Amazon, big parts of it are already a carbon source instead of a sink because of what we've done, you know, because we've cut it down and turned it into soy pastures and like, you know, cow fields and stuff. So I think the climate is by far the most important after we start tackling the climate, ocean acidification and warming, overfishing, deforestation, biodiversity loss, everything's all together and I like to always remind people it's all couched in like our consumerist, entitled mindset. If we could shift what we do, how we treat the planet as ours, maybe we can start making real changes.

Nic 
And that's a great thing. It's really, really challenging. So my next question is how can we do that? Because it is hard to get people to think that way.

Tiffany Duong 
Absolutely. I think for me, what helps is remembering like, I'm not that special and not in a mean way. But it's like, I'm another human who's here in this history of humans and like why? Why do I need you know, marble countertops or like a brand new car or whatever, you know, whatever it may be like, I don't actually need that. And if you can remove yourself from society as we have it for even a little bit like take a break, you will really, at least in North America, right? I think you'll see people live with a lot less than They're happy. They're they're not only surviving, they're thriving. And I think we've just got ourselves caught up in this like, golden hamster wheel where we think we need more and more. And if you can, like, be like, okay, maybe I could just rewear a dress to the next wedding. I don't need to get another one. You know, we just don't need that much stuff.

Nic 
We really don't. It's 100% and it's a it's easier said than done. Sometimes. I mean, even small stuff. I think it's for me, it doesn't have to start with these huge changes. You can just say, you know, maybe I won't buy something that's wrapped in two sheets of plastic. Yeah, I'll buy something fresh instead. Or you know, just something different.

Tiffany Duong 
Like the latest iPhone every time it drops, like right, really not that different.

Nic 
It's really not. Yeah, they're advertising it like it's different. It's like the same amount of pictures that's Yeah. It's like, what TVs like our eyes can only see so well. Like there's a point where like, you can't make a TV better for our eyes.

Tiffany Duong 
16k tv is not going to do anything.

Nic 
 No, no. You're like, it's better but we can't tell that. Yeah, so you're totally right.

Tiffany Duong 
I will also say for like in general and environmental I really love to help people. You can make a difference with your work your vote your voice, you can make a difference with your money you can divest you know check where your money is like, like a lot of the big banks are funding fossil fuel companies. It's a great way to shift is to stop putting your money there and having that lent out to fund what you don't believe in. And then you can talk to people right like connecting with people who you know, it's a story right? All of this is storytelling. If you can connect with people, maybe you can have some like something you say will stick with them. You never know

Nic 
Yeah. 100% And that's really cool. And I'm like so this passion you have like, it bleeds out to everything. I think like it's a gift. You get these stories and you have a lot from scuba diving. It's another one of those things that it's really important to you. So I do want to ask like so. What do you love about it? And where has that taken you?

Tiffany Duong 
Yeah, for me, diving especially but anytime I'm really immersed in nature. I feel so small and so insignificant and it's a great feeling like I don't mean like you don't matter but but you don't matter. It's like there's this incredible ecosystem that has been in place that has existed long before we all were here and will exist after us and we just get to experience it's magic for that split second we are there and that feeling that that all of that grandeur is just it humbles me and I love it. And then with diving, especially I love that there are no rules, like even gravity doesn't behave the same, right? It's freeing. Like every time I'm diving like I'll put my arms out and I'll swim through the water and I'll like imagine a manta ray might feel like that, or I'll I'll go upside down and just be like, I can go anywhere in this environment. Like how cool is that? Like I get to be free. And that physical freedom gives me a lot of emotional freedom, you know, to explore and to feel different things to feel connected to where I am and who I am.

Nic 
That's amazing. That's a that's such a great, great answer too and it's really important because it's almost like that physical change totally impacts your mental state as well. It's really great.

Tiffany Duong
I mean, yeah, a dive made me quit my job quit my life. It totally works.

Laura 
That's fantastic. I'm jealous of all the dives that you've done. But my own fault I'm going to move away from Florida. I want to ask you about one other thing that related to scuba diving that I want you to verify for me is real. Because like Quicksand I've heard of these underwater hotels. Yeah, it's been a little dream of mine to visit one. I think that you've been there. So I want to know that this is real.

Tiffany Duong 
Oh, 100% It's umm. It's in Key Largo. I used to work for the hotel. I used to bring pizzas down to get. Yeah, you can have a pizza underwater. There's Wi Fi, you can make calls. You can be like, Hey, Mom, I'm underwater. It's really cool. You only can get there by scuba diving. So you've got to be certified. And it's at 21 feet so you can stay there overnight. Get an aquanaut certification, and it's not going to mess with you like physically. It's so fun. I would highly recommend it.

Laura  
Yeah, that sounds really amazing. That's so awesome. I totally need to do that. Yeah, come visit. Yeah, there we go. You heard it.

Nic
Yep, yep. It's recorded so. Yep.

Laura
Well, your work sounds really amazing. And I know a lot of it is a lot of fun. But work is still work and can be stressful. So what do you do to keep in touch with your inner Zen outside of scuba diving?

Tiffany Duong 
So I really like yoga in general, but my latest obsession is aerial yoga. And lest you think that it is that really beautiful, graceful way kind of aerial yoga with the silks. It's not that cirque du soliel. I've tried that I got left with bruises. It's so hard. Props to anyone who can do it. I cannot the kind that I do is imagine like a hammock that they've made into a swing with handles and you sit your butt in the swing and you use it to hold your weight so that you can stretch better and stretch different and then you can stand on the swing. Use it to hold you upside down. But it's amazing. I think I just like situations where I mess with gravity. I think because my favorite time there are when you hang, you go upside down and you just like let everything decompress. Let your spine open. You know, let yourself breathe differently. And our studio if you will in the Keys is on a private beach. So you're hanging upside down feeling great and like there's an ocean breeze like there's been dolphins swimming past us in the palm trees swaying so it's pretty magical. But it's my little secret in the Florida Keys that I try to go to every week that I'm here to enjoy. It's awesome.

Nic 
So jealous that Yeah, so we said we could come by and do that right? That's what I heard. All right. All right. I love it. But another totally unfair question I want to ask you before we let you go but what is your favorite thing about the environment?

Tiffany Duong 
My favorite thing about the environment is the magic. It's just I think it it has a way of affecting each of us differently and deeply if we let it you know, like my experience won't be yours or anyone listening. But if you wander into nature, whatever that means to you, and let yourself really be there. It will move you it's moved humans since we were on this planet, and it will continue to move us if we don't lose our connection to it. And to each other.

Laura
So true.

Nic  
Couldn't say it better

Laura 
Before we let you go because we are close to her time. Is there anything you want to talk about real quick about the achievements you've already made that are going to be happening in 2022?

Tiffany Duong 
Sure, I am super. So I'm trying to shift away from more written remote work to expedition participation and support so I'm going to be going to Panama to support a really awesome sea turtle biologist who was looking for new nesting grounds and to protect a bunch of endangered sea turtles. There I had an expedition to Norway to snorkel with orcas and whales to do research on everything from identification of you know how many whales are there which individual whales are there because you can identify them by their fluke and patterns and such that was supposed to be the end of this year but it pushed you next year because of COVID So I get an extra year to practice all my dry suits swimming because it will be very cold. And then I'm going to go to Tanzania as long as it works out with COVID again, to help train women in sustainable business and micro financing so that they can gain independence in their lives, but in a way that is environmentally sound. So teaching them to, you know, farm natural crops, raise chickens, sell them in the marketplace, things like that.

Laura
That's awesome.

Nic  
Really is so super cool. So, again, thank you so much for your time. I'm going to give you one last question before we let you go. So where can people get in touch with you?

Tiffany Duong 
Awesome. Yeah, so on Instagram, Twitter, Tik tok. Once I learn how to Tik tok. You can find me at the handle tiff makes waves.

Nic 
But so cool. Yeah, so thank you so much for being here. It was so great to catch up with you and just have so many really cool things going on. So really, really thankful you could make the time.

Tiffany Duong
Thank you.

[Outro]

Nic
And that's our show. Thank you Tiffany so much for being here today. It was so much fun to talk through all of those unique experiences and I love her journey is such a really unique and wonderful one. So hope you guys enjoyed it too. As always, please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe rate and review. See everybody

Laura
Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai