S3E12 with Dr Tsotso Ablorh - You are the Compass

What if the beliefs you've carried your entire life deserve another look?

In one of the most thought-provoking conversations we've ever had on JUST DO YOU., psychologist, educator, dancer, and newly minted PhD Dr. Tsotso Ablorh invites us to rethink identity, belonging, privilege, trauma, culture, and what it truly means to live authentically.

From growing up as the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants in Minnesota to earning her doctorate while building a career that bridges psychology and movement, Tsotso shares a perspective that is both deeply personal and powerfully hopeful.

Together, we explore why validation can become a trap, why human connection matters more than ever, how movement helps us heal, and why curiosity may be one of the greatest acts of courage.

This isn't a conversation about having all the answers.

It's an invitation to pause ... to question ... and to consider that some of the stories we've accepted about ourselves … and each other … may not be our own.

If you've ever wondered how to navigate a divided world without losing your humanity ... if you've ever questioned where your beliefs came from ... or if you're simply searching for a little more hope in incredibly complicated times ... this conversation is for you.

Why?  Because what Tsotso and I uncover during our time together is perhaps one of the most important lessons one can learn:

YOU are the compass.

Welcome to the conversation. 

To follow Tsotso on Instagram, visit: https://www.instagram.com/dancingwithtsotso/

Thank you for joining us and we can't wait to welcome you back again next week! New episodes drop every Thursday and can be found wherever you find your favorite podcasts!  

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Want to learn more about our host, Eric Nicoll?  Visit:  https://ericnicoll.com

Transcript

0:06

Hello everyone, and welcome to season three of the Just Do You podcast. I'm Eric Nicoll, your host, and I'm so glad you decided to join us today. Whether this is your very first time joining in on the conversation or you've been listening along since the beginning, thank you for being here. This podcast exists because of you, your stories, your courage, and your willingness to keep choosing yourself even when it's not easy. The Just Do You podcast is a safe space for authentic, unscripted conversations that connect us, inspire us, and remind us of who we are at our core. Together, we're gonna explore confidence, voice truth, and what it means to step fully into what I call the Just Do You sweet spot, that place where you are living honestly, intentionally, and unapologetically. This new season is about growth, reflection, possibility, and community. I'll be sitting down with friends, colleagues, community leaders, and influencers who are willing to share their journeys. The wins, the challenges, and everything in between. We'll laugh, we may shed a few tears, but in the end, we're gonna continue to remind one another that none of us is walking this path alone. So are you ready? Great. Let's do this. Welcome to season three of the Just Do You podcast. All right, everyone. Welcome to today's episode. I am really excited to introduce you to my guest today. She's someone who beautifully embodies the connection between science and creativity and human potential. Dr. Tso Tso Albor is a psychologist, professional dancer, educator, and artist who has spent her life exploring what helps people heal, grow, and thrive. She recently completed her PhD. We're very excited about that, and she's simultaneously built careers in both psychology and dance, which blends evidence-based practice with transformational power of movement. Her work centers around healing trauma, reducing systematic injustice, and fostering joy. She teaches more than 20 styles of dance. She's trained in over 30 of them, and has also studied classical piano, percussion, and modeling. Simply put, Tso Tso's life is a masterclass in embracing every dimension of who you are, and I'm really excited for you to meet her today. So let me introduce everyone to Tso Tso. Hi, Tso Tso. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad that you're here. This has been a long time in coming, and it's been really fascinating, Tso Tso, because when we first were introduced through a mutual friend who's also in the dance community we set some time to have a conversation, and we jumped on the phone, and typically those conversations last about maybe 15 or 20 minutes. It's just a chance for me to meet the guest and the guest to meet me, and I think you and I talked for over an hour. So I think you and I definitely had a lot to talk about. But here's what was so fascinating about the conversation. Typically, when I hang up, I have a really clear direction of where I want the podcast conversation to go. There's a th- overriding theme, and that can change, but it typically just gets put aside until I do the recording. With you and the conversation, when I finished, I hung up, and the conversation stuck with me for... months now. And there have been multiple times that I have, over the past couple of months, presence to our conversation because it made me stop and think. It not only made me stop and think, but it had me look at things in a different perspective, and that's really what the Just Do You podcast is designed to do. It's a casual conversation, people getting to know each other, for the world to maybe get to know you where they wouldn't necessarily have the chance to but it's also an opportunity for people to stop and to take a moment to reflect and to learn and to maybe shift the paradigm that they're living in. So I'm excited about today's conversation, and first of all, let me again say congratulations on receiving your PhD. I'm sure you are very glad that's over. I, I am definitely glad to have accomplished that and- to have something at the end for all that work. Exactly. Would've been incredibly tragic if you didn't have something at the end of all that work, for sure. I'm excited to talk a little bit about that. I... What I would love to do first, Tso Tso, is I'd love you to take us back a little bit to the younger version of you. What was growing up like? Where were you born? Kind of family dimensions, if you had brothers and sisters and family, and give us a little bit of insight into that young Tso Tso, and then we'll ramp into the meat of the conversation today. Yes. Yes, that sounds good. So I grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota- Okay Which is a place that when I was growing up, when I was very little I think we were one of two families that included Black people for easily 10 miles- Wow and probably more like 15 to 20 miles around my house. My parents are both from Ghana, and I was born and raised in Minnesota. So I grew up seeing several cultures next to each other, so seeing white American culture, seeing Ghanaian culture when we would go to Ghanaian organization events. And then also as I came into junior high and high school they had been busing primarily African American kids from Minneapolis to Bloomington because, as our country does frequently, they had sucked all the resources out of the inner city schools. Sure. And in an attempt to reproduce some equity, they started to bus people to Bloomington, and eventually a lot of those families moved to Bloomington. So as I grew up, I also then got to see more of African American culture and more different immigrant cultures. What was that like for you? In terms of your sense of belonging or representation, did you, were you aware of it? Or did it, was it just simply what your reality was? I w- in the moment I was very aware of it- at all times. It was impossible to forget. In this country- nobody lets you forget that you're Black. But I think I had my first awareness when I moved from a Montessori... So digressing a little bit, but- Sure I have three older sisters, and grew up with my three older sisters and my mom in the house, and my dad was living separately. My mom is fiercely protective and loves us so much, and worked so hard all while we were growing up. So she was working about three minimum wage jobs at a time, including overnight- just to support us in the house while also somehow getting everyone to activities, and checking up on our schoolwork, and showing up at school to parent-teacher conferences. To this day, I don't know where the time came from. But so in her working so hard, she actually had me go to a Montessori school because I could read at a very young age and public schools wouldn't take me. When I switched to public schools in second grade I started to be called ugly by all- of my classmates. And for some reason I understood that they were calling me ugly because that was the worst thing they could think of to call me. Sure. And had somehow learned that I was bad and I was lesser because my skin was a different color. So I really had that awareness already at a very young age. And so when kids started to move into town who looked like me- but had a slight, a bit of a different culture than me I think I learned a lot from that experience too. There was sometimes some animosity because they perceived me to have a lot more privilege than they did. I think there was, like, an assumption that my family- Sure had money because I was already in this area that was very white, right? And then there was a lot that I didn't know about their ancestral histories and their, immediate histories at that time in my life. Sure. So I'm honestly very grateful to have grown up- Getting to meet up with, hundreds of Ghanaians even though I didn't live in Ghana and actually- yeah didn't get to go to Ghana when I was little. I'm very grateful to have had so many Black American classmates, and I'm very grateful that Minnesota is a state that welcomes a lot of refugee populations. And so I had Somali classmates and Cambodian classmates and Hmong classmates and just people from all over- even in high school. Do you have any idea a- and I hope this doesn't sound too simple-minded, but I'm just curious. D- why Minnesota? I've had another guest on who grew up in that area that was- said it was very culturally, diverse as well. So- what is it about Minnesota or why Minnesota was there this vast cultural differences with all the people that you mentioned and all the cultures that you mentioned? I, I wonder about this often because I- I think Minnesota is a very special place, and I think that we saw that also with the onslaught of ICE agents that we've been seeing- in a lot of different states and how it was handled and the fierceness with which Minnesotans were like- "Oh, you will not harm my neighbors." I think that- Sure our current administration was counting on white folks not caring what happened to their neighbors who didn't- Yes look like them. And while, racism is very present in Minnesota as well, as- yeah, you can tell from my story I don't know. I think that there's a slightly different cultural history. The white people who are in Minnesota are largely the descendants of Swedish people, German people- norwegian people. And, I don't know the whole history of Europe because frankly I focus more on the history of Africa Sure. Sure and African diaspora populations. Sure. But I just- Th- there's something where people are very engaged with the infrastructure very en- engaged with humanitarian perspectives- and have more of a deep understanding than I think I've seen in a lot of other states- that every human has inherent value- and that when bad things happen to one human, it is your business, and it is something that's going to affect you and your- Yeah community and your family, that you cannot allow, basically if you don't want it to happen to you, don't let it happen- Sure to the next person, because it will- Sure come to you also. Sure. It's interesting. I grew up in California, Southern California- Yeah to be exact, and grew up in a upper middle class, very cisgendered, white community. It's just where I grew up. And yet my mom was a teacher, and my grandparents were influential in the community but took the time and made a concerted effort to educate not only me, but the rest of my family. Whereas I'm an only child, but other, my cousins and other, family members about diversity. And we had quite a bit of diversity within our own daily lives from the people that worked in my grandfather's business in downtown Los Angeles. That's where I learned to speak Spanish at a very young age when I would go down there and hang out with these really amazing guys. My grandmother had somebody who had worked with her for many years, and Roberta was a family member. She wasn't just someone who came to help my grandmother, and she was amazing. I grew up after my parents' divorce and I learned about Spanish cooking from, someone who took care of the house the big house that we lived next to. She would make- things out of, the the cactus and plantains and make her own tortillas. And so there was this really great opportunity to really learn about other cultures, and I'm so grateful to my family for that exposure. However, it did have an effect within our school, right? Because we didn't have that diversity, and we didn't have that cultural distinction we had to be taught that as opposed to experiencing it. So I can only imagine what it would be like... Let me rephrase that. I cannot imagine what it would be like for someone in your situation. And I f- I, I find when I hear people's stories about how we were treated in school, people called you ugly. They called me gay because I was a little bit more effeminate or cried a lot or had... And so all of those experiences and opportunities that we have as children from other children- are obviously learned traits, I believe, and monkey see, monkey do, if you will. We're repeating behaviors that we see and patterns of people that we're around. But there is just a lack of education there. They don't understand that there is this entire world out there. I didn't know that in school. You see it in geography, but you don't know that there's this entire other world out there outside of your community. Do you find that to be true? At that age, just... Or were you, because you came from such a, an amazing background, were you just like, "Why doesn't everybody know about this?" I it's interesting. Sorry. Two, two things strike me. Yeah. One, I think the problem is education on a level. It's the education people were receiving in their homes. In addition to calling me ugly, people were doing things like asking me if my family ate ants, right? And so it became obvious, like they were hearing something from parents- that was leading them to say these things, right? And this... I was the only one there, but in the- in this kind of systematic way. So on the one hand, I think with children the problem is education. The problem is what cruelty are their communities- Yeah teaching them, Yeah to engender towards other people, and towards what people. And then on the other hand, I do consider myself very lucky especially to have my mom. She really did her best to navigate this country. She came here when she was 18- Wow and had basically nothing. And she just continued to find knowledge even when it was being kept from us- Sure restricted from us. Because in- institutional knowledge really is a privilege as well. And so she really, despite the lack of resources that we had, she really poured those resources into places that I really feel are the right places. Like we had- a set of encyclopedias in the house. And, we got to play Carmen Sandiego. And that kind of was like a pastime of mine, was looking up all these different things and learning about what really happened to Pocahontas and- Sure and I'm just... I really feel lucky for the- Amazing education that I had in my house- from this amazing woman, and the resources that, that she gave me. Sure. Oh, that's amazing. So I'm curious, I ask this a lot, when you were going through those younger years and those moments, did it make you withdraw into yourself and become shy, or did it give you empowerment to be more bold and more you? So I would say definitely more bold and more me. You and I- Sure talked about this last time a little bit. Yep, yeah. Jokingly calling myself vindictive. I don't know what it is, because some of personality is really innate and neurological. But when people tell me I can't do things, I'm like, "Oh, yeah?" watch me every time. And people called me ugly. I was like, "What's this attractiveness thing?" I'm pretty sure this is racism, but just in case- how does attractiveness work? Le- let's figure this out. Yeah. Let's look into this a little bit, shall we? Yeah. Let's just make sure, and it there's a, an interesting freedom in having so many disadvantages socially. So I'm a Black woman who's the daughter of immigrants but grew up with people identifying me as African American. I am bisexual. I'm polyamorous, and I don't keep my mouth shut. I don't act the way that people expect and require of a person with the identities that I have. And there are disadvantages that come with that too. And I think just at a young age, knowing that I wasn't going to be accepted even if I was doing things as right as they could be done was so freeing because I really just no longer cared what people thought, if they were mean or if they were ignorant. What age was that, when you first started to to notice or identify in that context? Let's see here. So that would have been probably like seven or eight Okay. That's extraordinary if you think about it. Yes. That's extraordinary because those are the ages where for me personally, 'cause I can just only speak on my own experience were terrifying, right? Knew something was different, didn't understand what it was because there was no education. I don't fault my mom for not knowing how to raise a young, in-the-closet gay child. That's not what she went to school to get her master's degree in as a teacher. And so I don't fault her for that. We didn't have role models. We didn't have an education about that, and she didn't have the words or the tools, and she did a pretty amazing job. But those were the years where I was terrified, right? I was absolutely terrified, and I didn't have that confidence and that boldness. I went a very different route. I went within, but I also created this fantasy life that I lived in, that I shared with other people, which to this day makes me cringe remembering some of the things that I said. But it was my survival mechanism. And it was the way that I was able to navigate those very confusing times. I didn't come out till I was 24. So I was well out of school, and but I had known since I was, seven, eight years old. And the meanness and the fear that I felt coming from the other students was really palpable at that time, even though I didn't know how to explain it. Now, punchline, cut to years and years later when we go to our reunions, our 10 or 15 or 20 year reunions, and I walk into... I think it was the 15 or 20, and I saw the shift in the people who used to chase me around the schoolyard- or down the street on their bikes, threatening to beat the you know what out of me because I was different didn't necessarily transcend so well. And they would say things to me like, "How is it that you look the way that you do, that you have the success that you have?" And I said, "Partially because of you." That fear and that terror that I felt in you gave me the drive later on to simply be myself- because I was so tired of hiding of making up stories and trying to fit in and trying to belong. And it gave me not only a sense of compassion for people, especially when I left that reunion it made me understand them. In the moment, I hated it, right? Because I thought if they felt that way, then society felt that way. Yeah. And if society felt that way, then the world felt that way. And we're seeing that now, right? We're seeing this- insane time where it's so out there and so festering that- if that was happening back then, I don't know that I would've ever come out, and things could've been very different. So I'm what's the word? Blown away. Such a bad phrase, but I'm just so in awe of the fact that you were that age and having this internal kind of monologue with yourself that, "I'm gonna go out and show you," right? That's pretty impressive, and that's something that, you can't teach. That's within you, I think from birth that you have that ability. So amazing opportunity for you. I always find it also interesting in the correlation between those moments that my guests share about- in those six, seven, eight-year-old age brackets, and then cut to now- and what they're doing in their world, which is y- if you aren't the poster child for that- I'm not sure what is, J'Nai. I, yeah, I, I- Yeah I feel like I really am in so many ways. Yeah. And I'm also struck by just in this con- in this conversation, the idea of being ourselves and what that means and doing that in a society that gives everyone so much pressure. And, really everyone, like especially now having counseled so many people and having had the privilege of having people share their lives with me and give me an opportunity to attempt to improve those lives- hearing so many different stories, no one's safe from it. We have- No a culture of boxing people in, and restricting people, and hierarchy, and telling people, that they aren't worth as much as they are actually worth, of denying people's inherent worth. And I was very lucky to understand from a young age that I had inherent worth, that everybody had inherent worth. I'm very grateful for the name that my parents gave me, right? 'Cause in, in a lot of West African cultures, you get names that have virtues in them- or have something to do with spirituality. Mine is Righteousness. Oh. Yeah. That's a big one. Wow, I love that. I love it, yes. Yeah. But righteousness in an empowering and very specific way, right? Not what people's assumption of righteousness is. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think for me, what I've come to understand righteousness to be is what is right, doing what is right. Not what people reward you for, not what someone told you is correct, but what is, and searching for that, trying to understand what that is and make sure that you're holding yourself accountable. So I also feel very grateful for that name, and I think that, I've been lucky that what has guided me is that search for what is right and- trying to make sure that I'm having positive impact. I feel like this might sound very strange to people, but I feel bad for a lot of people who have privilege. And the reason is that- Yeah when you can rely on I'm going to walk into a room and because of my gender, or because of my race, or because of the amount of money I have, people are going to treat me a certain way. Suddenly you have to perform all of the narrow ideals of that thing, of that concept, of being- brown, of being white, of being something. You don't have the freedom that I have where I already know that I am the compass. I'm already not looking for that validation because I know I'm not going to get anything anyway. I know I'm not- oof going to get rewarded for seeming like I fit the bill, no matter what I do. A- and so I think it's just, for me, I think we all have different ways that the culture of supremacy that we have in this country, and that- some other countries have, we are all being negatively affected by it. And that is why people work so hard to work against it. You said something that every episode someone says what I call the Willy Wonka golden ticket moment, and it makes me want to put it on a T-shirt and sell it and give you back the royalties. But you said you're not looking for it because you know you're not gonna get it. And that's, that just gave me the goosebumps. Because we spend our life looking for it- the validation. And it's yours to give yourself, right? It's yours. You're the compass. And that was the second thing you said. I want our listeners to hear that. You're the compass. No one else is the compass. They're trying to tell us that they're the compass. Yeah. Especially right now, 'cause they're trying to retain power and they're trying to retain control. But you are the compass. You, yourself, are the compass. And to stop looking for that validation, because you're not going to get it. And that freedom, Tso Tso, is insane. I just felt like a building lifted off my shoulders the minute you said that. Because that's what we strive for. That's what we look for. That's what we spend our lives trying to find in our culture. And I also really want people to... I shouldn't say want. My commitment is that people really start to take a look at the conversation around privilege. Because it's one of those buzzwords that people hear and go automatically to defense. And if they really take a- Or I don't want to hear it or I don't want to hear it. But if they really take a look at what that means and how it affects other people, then I think we start to chip away at this- very out of necessary conversation. But thank you for saying that, and thank you for saying those several key points. And I stopped and reiterated it 'cause I really want people to pay attention to that. Because that's the one thing I notice about you, is that you speak from a place of, listen, life's a journey and we're always growing, we're always learning, and we're always, shifting. But you speak from a place of such posture about who you are. Even though the journey may have been ups and downs, twists and turns, you still have a confidence and a posture that is really remarkable. And so I'm grateful that people are getting to hear that. It isn't arrogance. It's posture. It's confidence. Thank you. I'm glad you think so. It's certainly been called arrogance in a number of situations. I'm sure, because listen, you've said it and I'll say it again. You, who people perceive you to be is not going to be that necessarily- Yeah because of what they've been taught or told, or what they've what I say the bandwagon they've jumped onto, right? Yeah. 'Cause I really do, in my world, I really believe that we are always living in a conversation of what I call bandwagon jumping. It's super easy to see a post on social media, on Facebook or on Instagram, and jump into the comments and give agreement to something. But I always say, and I love this statement. Heard it many years ago in a personal development seminar that changed my life literally. But it's, "Did you think that thought, or did the thought think you?" So did you really take the time to get yourself educated about X, Y, and Z, and then make a conscious choice and a conscious thought? Or did you, did that thought think you because it lives in your mind as the truth? And so many times I've had conversations with people over the past couple years that we've been going through this c- whatever we want to call it time is you really have to think for yourself, and you have to come from a place of what's important to me. And we're not also taught to be very self-reflecting. I think we're taught to be more like if you care about people, you need to care outwardly, but you gotta care about yourself first. You have to love yourself first, and then you can go out and be for the world. So I find it really interesting when these kind of conversations come up because I want to think before I have the thought. I want to be able to... or express the thought. I want to be able to be clear on what my stance is before I say it, if that makes any sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me a little bit. So we've gone from this early years. We've now obviously gone off through high school- and into college. Did you have an idea that you were going to be a psychologist at one point? What was your thought process for your journey? So i- if you don't mind if I digress slightly. Please. Yeah. No, digress. Junior high school. Yeah. I also want to, want to make sure that I mention- so I was lucky enough to start playing the piano at age three. Oh, wow. And that I was supposed to start at six. That was one of those things that my mom allocated money to, and this is- a very odd socioeconomic situation because I- Sure basically never had lunch money, but I had piano lessons. And that was strategic because we needed to get out of poverty. We needed to get into a situation where all the kids could be making some money. So I again, I applaud my mom's ingenuity with that. That and, her studying, my el- my eldest sister studying they figured out how to get into Ivy League schools. And so my sisters and I all went to Harvard. All of you? All of us. Whoa. Yes. That's amazing. That's amazing. Yes And before people start screaming legacy and affirmative action let me say- You know. I'm so glad you said that 'cause I was thinking it. I was like let's have a moment there. Continue that's So again my sister Najala, her ingenuity th- this woman, she can figure out any system, any system- and do it better than you've ever seen anyone do it. She was in the youth orchestra. She- this woman has done so much. She wrote a cookbook. She has a PhD- Wow in biochemistry and biophysics. She's a professor now. My second sister could just take tests without studying. Just took the SAT without studying and got into Harvard. My third sister is the most creative person I've ever met. She does so many different visual art forms and then plays more than 10 instruments. So you know, I want to brag about my sisters a little bit. Please. But put that to rest. Please. It's remarkable. It's remarkable. They're each so remarkable, and I'm really grateful to have seen that growing up and then also have had their influence- Sure and help in getting to college. But I want to highlight about this college thing. We didn't know that HBCUs existed at all. We didn't know that historically Black colleges existed at all because that is institutional knowledge that we were not privy to as immigrants, and white people around us were not going to tell us that. Because a lot of things that's fantastic about Black American culture are the things that- get talked about the least by everybody else. And so I often wonder how my journey might have been different if I had the privilege of going to a historically Black college or even- thinking about them when I was applying. But ironically, we went to Harvard because that's all we could afford. All we could afford was Harvard's direct financial aid package, which allowed me to go there for free. And without that, I might not have gone to college at all. Wow. W- okay, just real quick, for the listener who doesn't know what is an HBCU? That is a historically Black college. So these are colleges that Black Americans developed for themselves- at times and throughout times, continuing times when y- your typical general colleges, right- were segregated, and when there were times when Black people were literally not allowed there, and then also many periods of time where they were discouraged or structurally kept out. I, I- Yeah I could gush Yes ever about that. I just wanted people to understand what that is, 'cause I've, we've heard it, quite a bit of it over the last couple years. But I wanted people, if they hadn't heard it s- specifically Harvard is not obviously an HBCU Yeah. Absolutely it is not Did, were, when you were going through Harvard, as your other siblings did, my, my head's still exploding. Your mother must be so proud, and so talk about gushing, my goodness. Did you have any sense of imposter syndrome? Was there any of that doubt? Or did you just get into Harvard and you're like, "Here we go. Let's do this." I'm just curious- what that's yes and no. I think I was buffered by my earlier experiences- quite a bit. Sure. Everybody's, everybody was a big fish in a small pond, before they got to Harvard. They get to Harvard, they're a tiny fish in a huge pond. There will be someone who is better at the thing you are good at than you were. There will be. I played the piano since I was three. I had friends who had played in Carnegie Hall when they were 14. Ah. That's what someone's going to be better than you, and I think a lot of the folks who go there are not used to that idea. And so people have all sorts of identity crises when they go to Harvard. I was very lucky. I quickly found a group of friends who were some pretty grounded people very sweet. And I, you know- I pick my friends not based on any sort of status or anything, or color or anything just based on how they treated me. And those people treated me very well for the four years- that I was there, and I think kept me also buffered from a lot of other folks who were having- Sure identity crises and- Sure having imposter syndrome and inferiority complexes and all sort, all sorts of things Noted. Fair. Yeah. When you were at Harvard, what was your focus? What was, where were you leaning? So back to your original question, so I thought I was going to be a music major. Okay. And my parents were like, "That's not going to make any money. Don't be ridiculous. You don't go to an Ivy League to be a music major. You're not doing that." I was like, "But I like making people happy through music." Don't make me do things that aren't directly about making people happy." So I was like, "Fine. I'll try a science. I'll try psychology." My first psychology class was incredible. It was about vision. And our professor would do live experiments in the classroom to demonstrate concepts to us, and I was just in love. I was just fan- fascinated by psychology- and by human perception. My first clinical psychology course, then called abnormal psychology unfortunately, I learned that more than fifty percent of the population in the US will have a clinical level of depression at some point during their lifetime And, that amongst many other things that I learned about the type of suffering that people encounter in their lifetime, it really stuck with me. But also what stuck with me was how many different types of treatment and how many effective treatments we have- to address these things. And then the astronomical degree to which it is not reaching people. Sure. And the extent of the disparities and- the consistency in those disparities over the past 60 years, and that was appalling to me. And so I decided to dedicate my life to fixing that- as soon as possible, as, as efficiently as possible. It's remarkable. Yeah. Oh, there's a lot to say there. So as you're going through your work at Harvard, and you're leaning into this, and you're finding this amazing space that you are obviously thriving in, and it's lighting you up, are you thinking down the road what ultimately you're gonna do? And was mu- This is gonna be a loaded question. Was music still tugging at you? And then, of course, I want to briefly talk about your dance, because that's also- something that's very important to you, and it's actually the connective tissue that brought you and I together. Yeah so w- was all that swimming, or were you just... I kinda want to get into your head a little bit about that time in your life. What's going through your mind as you've found this thing that now you can see where you can really help people, and then there's this tug and this pull with some of the other things that you were passionate and interested in? Yes. I think it was never exactly a tug or a pull. Okay. It was- Yeah everything that I am. People are everything. People are multifaceted. We can be multiple things at the same time. We are all things at the same time. And I think maybe a part of this, I think, is also being a woman. I think that's the nature of feminine energy, and I also think there's a piece of this that is being Black, and there is a piece of this that is being African. We have a deep awareness that we are all things, and we are of all things. What I mean by this is I can reinvent myself tomorrow. I can be a nerd today and a musician tomorrow. I can be a jock. I can be... These are not distinct categories. Culturally, we do not think categorically. It's fluid. So I, I think that I was always nurturing all of these different parts of myself that are inherently intertwined, right? So music, psychology, dance, and the crazy parties I would throw in college are all part of that same part of my personality- of how much I love to see other people's joy. I was doing everything I could. I was the music director for the Black cast production of The Wiz. That was so much fun getting back into singing a little bit and getting to play the piano and getting to try my hand at directing. I started dancing at the beginning of college. And I had a few experiences with dance here and there in high school, I never really thought I was going to be doing anything with it. And how this started is all three of my sisters, I asked them what they regretted not doing when they were at college. Oh. Independently, every single one of them said joining the dan- the ballroom dance team. And I was like, that is weird. Like why would you say- That is a little weird. Sorry. Not to be inappropriate but that's a little weird. It's super weird. Like, why would you say something that specific, and why would all of you say that, right? 'Cause they were not in the same room. And so I was like, "I am not going to be the fourth person to have this same ridiculous regret. Let me see what this is about." I almost didn't go but I did. And I love movement. I- I'm obsessed. So I started ballroom dancing hip hop in a formal way. I started I, I joined a group that did Southeast African dancing. And I started those three at the same time freshman year. And then I just did everything that I could get my hands on after that. So I'm tr- I'm trying to... I'm not going to remember the order of these things. That's fine. But salsa and bachata were quickly afterwards, like the same year. And then I j- I started doing all of the different partner dances, zouk, blues dancing, hustle, West Coast swing. I did acrobatic pole and actually taught that for a little while. And then I moonlit, I performed several other dance styles here and there, like sometimes as collaborations with people or just these short little cameos and modern dance, wushu. Yeah I love it, because I really think that physical touch is something that humans need. Oh, yeah, big time. And kinetic energy is part of what we are, and so we have to use it. We have to circulate that energy. So yeah, so dance was right there, and then- Love it psychology was right there all at the same time. I think if more... I remember having a conversation with someone a couple years ago, and we were talking about being a child and, being silly on the playground, dancing around, just acting weird, right? Those expressions of joy, and then something happens, and someone says something, and then you stop skipping, and you stop dancing, and then you become this very significant person. And then we go through our adulthood, and then we end up at some wedding, and we're wondering why we're standing in the corner really wishing that we could be out dancing with everyone, but being terrified. And I have a friend who teaches she's a therapist, and she teaches movement and through a program called BU Disco. And it's where you wear the headsets, and she guides you through meditation and dance. And there's no communication, and you're in a group of people. And I remember the first experience I had with her where we had to, go through the process with her. And I'll never forget, I was fascinated. I love to dance. I'm the first person out on the dance floor- so I don't have that issue. But I love experiencing other people, and I watched these... We were all meeting and event professionals, very, guarded and, everything has to be perfect. And I watched this group of people, and I loved watching the transition of the people from that little, little bop that they do, in their little box of- four-inch space, to where she had us skipping around the room and holding each other and spinning and twirling and laughing. And the difference that it made as an environment for the next three days th- or two days that we were there for the conference absolutely shifted the output that and the result that came out of that conference. And it was fascinating to me. I have another friend who teaches ecstatic dance, and I love watching the people go to these course, classes for the first time. They're terrified. And I'm like, "What are you so afraid of? That someone's gonna judge you? That someone's gonna say you're a horrible dancer? Just move and dance and be free." And yet it's something that is ingrained in us, and we are carrying that and unpacking that for the rest of our lives. So I can only imagine you because... And I say this in the most respectful way, Judge but you you have a tendency to, I don't want to say exhaust me in a bad way, but I'm exhausted listening to the process because I'm thinking, "Is there anything that this girl has not done, number one, or that she couldn't do?" And it's just remarkable. And I love that when something crosses your path or something comes into your mindset, that you just do it, and you either continue to do it or you've done it and move on. And we have something to learn from that. We have an ability to learn from that, is that we just need to do us. That's why I have this podcast, to be honest. Yeah. To teach us to just be ourselves. And so I'm really... I love listening to your journey because I have this sense of she gets something in her mind and she just does it. So has that... D- again, novice speaking here, but does your experience in dance and the moments that you share within those dances with a partner or by yourself, does that help you or assist you in any way in your psychology practice? Absolutely. Yeah. And I would say it goes in both directions. So any, anybody... i, I I like to give back to communities that- I've benefited from, and so I actually taught, I was one of the instructors for the Harvard ballroom dance team for about- 14 years. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, af- after I graduated. And so any of my students can tell you, and I think sometimes I annoy them a little bit with this because I will relate every concept in dance to life- and be teaching them about- Their relation to their emotions and to their body and to other people through dance. But also through the discussion of that, helping them understand how to improve the dancing itself. And I do that, one, because I am lucky to have the ability to do that, to have had the education in psychology and also to just have spent as much time with people as I have- to be able to make those parallels. But because I think it, it just really gets the point across- in, in such a visceral, emotional, and connected way, that it helps people to take the concept with them and to execute it right away. And how that can be applied to many different situations in their life, right? It's not just about dance, right? Yes. Yes. It's not just about dance. It's about understanding their relation to connecting with other people, their relation- to how they present themselves how they project themselves, what they're afraid of. How they feel about other people looking at them. But then- it also goes in both directions. So- not to make anybody nervous about dancing with me, but I feel like when you get to a certain level with dancing- you can feel everything. Sure. Everything just from that first moment of reaching out and connecting with the other person. Because with partner dancing, you can feel every part of their body. You can feel every joint. You can feel when it's moving and how it's moving. You can feel their level of flexibility. Yeah, so you can feel everything- including their emotions- including their traumas- in a lot of cases. And so it's a weird it's a weird balance for me at this point, right? Sure. Because I'm getting so far with my psych- psychological experience, and I'm getting so far with my dance experience, and I also think that there's, a degree of boundary and privacy- Sure that everybody deserves. So at this point, when I connect to people when I'm dancing, honestly, I have to turn it off a bit. Because I'm not actually there to learn everything about you By touching you. No. So now I understand what you said when you were like I don't want to scare people off from dancing with me." Yeah. I get that. But, it's really cool 'cause I obviously met Tony and did... before he would record his episode with me, he made me come to the dance studio and do a dance with him. And I had never done ballroom. I... Cotillion in elementary school, but that is so beyond crazy. But I remember going to do the session with him, and in the first... I think I was there an hour. In the first 40 minutes, Tso Tso, I was as stiff as a board. I was afraid to let loose, and I was, being held. I hadn't been touched. This... I don't mean this to sound like, "Oh, woe is me," but I hadn't had that physical connection with someone in a long time. Long time. So that moment was really eye-opening, and I think in the last... I'll give myself a little more credit. The last 30 minutes is when I really let that go, and I understand what you're saying 'cause you can feel so much of the emotion. And obviously, I'm so new at it, but I love that expression, and I love that ability to connect with someone else. We really do need that intimacy- amongst people. And again, some people will take that and sexualize it, but intimacy among people is really important because- Yeah it's how we, how I- get my energy and my juice when I connect with someone like that. It's why I started the podcast during the pandemic. I was so alone and so disconnected. We couldn't even walk on the beach. We were getting tickets. And I was afraid at the same time to launch the podcast because it meant that I really had to connect with people. Because this podcast isn't about me, it's about you. And so it's just giving me an opportunity to meet extraordinary people and then introduce them to the world. So that intimacy is really important, and that connection. So I can only imagine for you how you would have to turn that off, otherwise it could be really overwhelming. H- honestly, at this point I don't get overwhelmed, and I think some of that is the psychological training, and I think it's also- Sure my disposition. I... Part of why I'm able to do trauma care is- because I'm really motivated by improving- the person's life. Sure. So I can sit there and I can listen to the most traumatic things people have gone through all day- and I'm largely not negatively affected by that- because I have so much hope- about how we're going to turn it around and how we're going to- get them to a better place, and how that- trauma is going to stop. I also wanted to mention that I think that connection is very cultural, right? And dance is very cultural. So while, mainstream culture in the US- is we never dance, and then you get to a wedding and it's awkward I have found that Black culture across the- diaspora largely involves dance from the beginning. From whenever- too. When, for when you- can stand up and move anything- at all, right? And it's just, it's natural. It hasn't been removed from the culture yet. Everybody's ancestral cultures had dance in them. Sure. And I think this is a really strange thing and a really unnatural thing we're doing as a society, not dancing and not touching each other. And I also think it's the source of a lot of the problems- Yes we have right now is- the way that disconnection is just being perpetuated and encouraged, and now don't even talk to a person. Just get an AI boyfriend and sit in your house and, you know- don't touch anybody don't have a real human interaction. Which I, no, not me. I've, I will literally not survive if I don't have human connection. I sometimes have... I work from home. I sometimes will leave and go to Starbucks just to sit in that energy of space. Maybe not... Sorry, Starbucks, maybe not the most, energetically enriching place to be, but it's the energy. It's that kind of human connection. I love the s- the barista at the local Starbucks. Say, "Hey, Eric, how are you? How are things going? How's the dog?" So it's that connection, and that's so important. I will get up and drive 30 minutes down into the village to go have lunch and just be around that energy because I can get very isolated. That's a whole other podcast, and you've mentioned about seven or eight other episodes that we could delve into. I want to, in the remaining time that we have give you an opportunity. There were two conversations that I think would take a l- maybe some time to kinda get through. But I wondered if you wouldn't mind either delving into a little bit about pop psychology- or if you would a little bit more about where you see psychology going from your perspective and how you want to help people move through, these times that we're in. Okay. I will do my best. As you said, these are longer conversations. Longer conversations, yeah. Yeah. And feel free to f- listen, my guests have their complete freedom to say, "Nope, we're not talking about that today. It takes too long." And we can finish off with something else. I just found it really fascinating, so I'm gonna g- I'm gonna give that option to you. Yes. I'm happy to do that, and I'll see if I can get a little bit in there about supremacy culture- yeah and the vindictiveness. Yeah. Just very briefly. But so yeah. So you know, when we had talked earlier, I said to you pop psychology is fake. And what I mean by this, I guess I'm trying to give a public service announcement here. Sure. As somebody who has studied social psychology and clinical psychology a lot of the things that we see online that we're given online about human nature and psychology are extremely reductive, and a lot of them are culturally appropriated from the same people who are constantly being silenced right now. Appropriated from immigrant pop- populations, appropriated from Black populations, appropriated from queer populations, and are often manicured and repackaged into something that perpetuates a lot of the problems that we have. So I'm basically encouraging you to think of the pop psychology you see online as propaganda that is designed to influence you culturally to believe that psychology works a certain way. So what I mean by this a couple of examples. The term woke. We hear this all the time, and now it's like some sort of bad word. These horrible woke people destroying our society- with their demands and their, you know- and obviously that's not what I think. But the term woke was actually a Black American term originally- from the 1930s. It is that old. And this term, to my understanding, anybody correct me if I'm wrong in the comments to my understanding was about awareness of discrimination, of systemic injustice, and awareness in general, right? If you're Black in this country, you cannot just be on autopilot anywhere. You cannot just- Yeah relax and not worry. You cannot just think that people around you are all going to take care of you. We largely and I will speak for myself. I will not speak for everybody else. Yeah. But I think that my Blackness in this country has led me to have my head on a swivel on a regular basis because people do things out of left field that are designed to disturb your peace because of their own biases and because of their discomfort with you having peace at all. These little daily reminders of "Hey, don't- relax all too much." So I took the 1930s version of woke to also include this awareness that is related- to to the collective consciousness of what it means to be Black in this country. After that point, that term started to be appropriated by various groups- activist groups marginalized, disadvantaged groups to be a general- awareness of systemic injustice. And then since then, it's been appropriated even further into something that, that I associate with neoliberalism, which is actually this finger-pointing at other people- like you're not woke and I'm woke, and let's have more categories, right? All these things that are- actually very contrary to liberation culture, right? This othering- pushing out. And then we've gone even further, I would say, in recent political times, now woke is like this bad thing- Sure of destroying our society by creating reverse racism, which is definitely a thing that does not exist. And it, so that is just one example of words that- Sometimes that, so a lot of times these words come either from specific activist groups- who are trying to get across concepts that they need other people to understand in order to expand other people's awareness and consciousness. And sometimes they actually come from specific people in psychology. So for example, intersectionality is a term that came from Kimberle Crenshaw- a very specific activist and scholar. And that is also a term, which originally in my understanding- Sorry if, again, sorry if I mis- misinterpret this, but in my understanding, intersectionality was meant to point out that the different disadvantages that people have, that it's- people cannot be reduced to one identity. So for me, depending on what setting I'm in, I'm going to be reduced to woman or I'm going to be reduced to Black- or I'm going to be reduced to Black woman- despite being Black American daughter of immigrants, Ghanaian female bisexual, polyamorous, all these different things, a scholar, a dancer. All these different things. I'm going to be reduced to something. And intersectionality as a term, as a concept, was there to remind people that people are multiple. People are all things. People are several things at once, and those several things influence our specific our specific experience of how we move through the world. So I, carrying my Blackness, carrying my femaleness, I do not receive the solely the disadvantages of a Black person. I also receive the disadvantages and experiences of a woman. I also receive some of the disadvantages and experiences of being perceived as an immigrant in certain contexts. And so that for anyone, their privilege and their disadvantage is actually a sum. It's a multiplier, really- of these different spheres of privilege and dif- disadvantage. Since then, that term has also been appropriated and I think used in a lot of cases for oppression Olympics. Sure. And I think the last thing that I really wanted to say about pop psychology and it being fake is the cultural perspective. It's largely a white male upper middle class perspective that we see permeating a lot of these articles because that is who has the financial power and the influence to be seen as credible to speak about what is human nature. I do not believe that human nature is so reductive, is so we found the one answer that is for everyone. And I, I say that also because of the existing disparities that we have in mental health. If there was one answer that actually worked for everyone, we would not systematically have Black women facing sexual assault at rates that dwarf that of women as a population. We would not- have trans people facing sexual assault at rates that dwarf that of- that of women as a population. We would not have differential referrals and differential use of diagnoses and overmedic- medication of- Black children. We would not have all of these differences in how psychological care is applied, nor differences in the effects that it has on people if we really could be reduced to this, at the heart of it, all humans are selfish. These kinds of- catchphrases that often come out of- pop psychology. So just drawing attention to the idea of who gets to determine- what truth is, who gets to determine how we define culture, how we define what is healthy what is good for people. So even in the cataloging of culture- there are a lot of middle-aged German men who have written categories to describe cultures across the world They often have labels, dichotomous labels, that make African, Indigenous, and South American cultures look bad Look defective look like they need to be corrected. So there's actually some work that I want to point people towards- please That is by Parham, Ajamu, and White, I believe, where they actually have cultural dimensions that are not dichotomous at all. So what they did was they looked at every... they interviewed, they talked to people, they read and they came up with categories that are present as important things in all cultures across the world. Our concepts of time, our concepts of self-worth our concepts of the self. Does... Is the self one person? Is it me? Is it my community? Is it my family? What's the unit of self, right? So these- more broad concepts. And then they asked people, "How do you actually define this, and what is it in your culture?" And after doing that, they deduced that the cultures that are the furthest apart in the world, this is a generalization now- are white European cultures and African cultures. And they suggest that every culture in the world is on a bit of a spectrum, but that's not really the point, right? The point isn't really that they're two opposing things. The point is that we each have different ways that the cultures we've been exposed to and the spheres of these cultures, whether that's where I went to school, where I grew up how my parents think about things, the country I live in. As individuals, we each have different ways that these cultures have led us to define these basic units of human existence. So- I know that was a mouthful, but I- No. It- Honestly, I... Yeah. I mean- Thank you for giving me hope. I sit and listen to you and I think, "Okay. All right. Jojo's in the world. It's gonna be okay." Not to put any pressure on you. Thank you. Thank you. But I do sit there and have that thought because, again, like you did with me on our initial call, is you caused me to stop and think and realize that a lot of the conversation or some of the conversation that I had was very on repeat, on autoplay, on- what's it called when they... Recircle it. Recirculate it. And I think you have a- an ability and now an opportunity to cause a shift in the paradigm in which people live in, and that will then transcend itself out into the world because we need you. We need you, and we need your thinking and your processes and your ability to communicate with us in a way that, I like to say, short-circuits and rewires us a little bit in... D- does that, d- does that resonate? Yeah. Definitely, yes. Because I really feel that, it wasn't until a couple years ago two years ago now, after my divorce, which was very unexpected and painful and not part of the conversation, but I didn't go to therapy. And I didn't go to therapy because of my experience in the past with traditional psychology. It did did not was not effective for me. And then I met someone out of the universe's intervention at a very strange spot, brought me to my then therapist and now friend and former podcast guest, to again have those conversations that short-circuited and rewired that belief system that I had- that was so ingrained, and I hadn't had that experience before in traditional psychology. So I'm really excited that you now are setting forth on this journey to really make an impact for people. I asked you in our earlier work w- what your superpower was. And you said it was challenging others to become a better version of themselves. Yeah. And I really do believe that's something that you can do. And you also made a comment which I think could potentially be a future episode with you and I think it'd be fascinating, but you said it, "Love is the answer." And that's something- Yeah that I think was really powerful to hear from you. Yes. Yes. And to tie that to- my PSA about- pop psychology, why- why did I bring that up at all? I think the cultural piece is so important. None of our cultures are wrong. All of our cultures are like that, have long histories and important histories. Our ancestors did these things for reasons. They were trying to accomplish specific things, and they passed that down in the form of culture to help us to be successful in this world in specific ways. So nobody's culture is wrong, right? Nobody's culture needs to be, I don't know, rehabilitated. To me it's more about is it accomplishing the goal? If the goal is happiness, is what we believe helping us to accomplish that? And I think that, in this country where we have so many people from so many different places- Yeah having respect and understanding and love for each other's cultures, and the ability to challenge what we think we... what we think everybody thinks- is necessary to us getting through this insanely- Yes difficult patch that we are in right now. We're going to have to listen to each other and care about each other and be there- for each other right now- as our resources are being diminished across the board- Yeah as gas prices- are skyrocketing- as healthcare access is being threatened, as hospitals are being closed- as, representatives in marginalized communities are being removed from their- positions. We are going to have to work together, which is a very natural human function that is very deeply hardwired into our brains to feel pain when we see someone else in pain. To be upset when we see someone else crying, and there's a reason for this. So I would think love is the answer. I think that's also a longer conversation. Yeah. But the gist of it is everything that I have read and studied in clinical and social psychology- Has led me to believe that being nice to each other and loving each other and helping each other are the most effective and beneficial ways to do anything. There is so much proof, and we don't have time to get into that. But there is so much proof that even the entire country makes more money when each individual has more access to resources. So the richest person becomes richer when the entire country has access to basic needs. Love is the answer, whether that's spiritually, socially, interpersonally, or scientifically You and I could go on for another hour. I know it. Just in that one statement alone, I just had this mic drop moment. But I th- I really hope that our listeners will take the last couple of minutes of this conversation and apply it, and to look at it. That somewhere down the road, someone said that this group of people can make other cultures right and wrong. That they can place blame. That they can treat marginalized people a certain way and that it's okay. And none of us signed up for that. Nobody. Yeah. Anywhere, anytime. And one of my greatest blessings has been to travel, a- and I'm very grateful, and I understand the privilege that I have and the career that I've had, to travel the world and to see different cultures and to meet different people, and to have the diversity of friends that I have, and the ability to meet people on this podcast. It has opened me up so much to even my own internal homophobia within my own community. Something that I didn't even know that I had. And I say that because we all carry some level of that in our lives, where we are having thoughts or we're having feelings or emotions about another culture, about another person. And we really need to stop and think about where that's coming from. What's driving that conversation? And I think you have literally laid some amazing groundwork in today's conversation for what we have coming up over the next couple of months. We have a decision to make. I'm not making this political, but we have a decision to make about our own lives, what's important to us, and how we're gonna navigate the rest of our lives. I'm turning 60 this year. I want the next 30 years, 40 years of my life to be extraordinary. I want opportunity. I want to see people love. I want to see communities come together. And I know that I have some homework, and I have some things to do in order to make sure and ensure that happens, and that we have the space to be ourselves, and that we can express that love. I am so fascinated by you, Chao. I am- Thank you if I can say this, I am enamored by you. I am giddy with excitement that I have made you as a friend. I could talk to you forever. I do have one final question for you before we wrap up, and I any articles or things that you think people would find interesting to read- I would love to be able to help you promote that. Any studies that you've seen. You just let me know, and we'll get it out to our audiences, because I think the conversation started today. And so I'm thank- I'm very grateful for that. My final question to you is, if you could go back, I ask this of all my guests- so I'm not singling you out, but if you could go back to that young Tso Tso growing up in her early years, what would you tell her about her life today? Also, would you mind if I quickly put a bookend on the last piece? Of course. Of course. Because I also just, I think it's important to tie things together for people- 100%. Go for it who, we didn't sign up for this. We didn't sign up for people to be told they can't dress certain ways and to be so stressed out. People are so stressed out these days. So many different people across so many different demographics. We didn't sign up for that. But the thing is, if we didn't sign up for it, if we really don't sanction it, we have to work to fix it. We have to actively work to help each other fix it, whether that is, giving that pers- taking the time, the emotional effort to give that person an additional little bit of grace. Maybe something bad happened to them today. Or to question or notice our biases, whatever automatic thoughts we're having about people, and to think about, did they actually show me that or is this just, did I just have that narrative? And then also to be aware that not everybody has the time, right? As r- as resources are being restricted, people have less time. They have to work more. And it is harder, and I think this is on purpose, it is harder to use those prefrontal cortexes that we have and do the extra mental work, right? So just to recognize that we are being divided from each other on purpose- because we are very strong when we work together. So I just want to- I think, I interacted with a lot of people who feel very cynical about the trajectory that this country- is on, and I am sometimes that person. But I actually think that a lot of the restriction to women, to minorities and even to just your average random human being and the, their ability to spend time with family or have community, those are death throes. They are. They're death throes. And we have to push forward despite that and come together- Yeah and help each other to navigate to a better future together. So that's the last bit that I want to say about that. Thank you. But if I could talk to my younger self, oh my gosh. Oh, I would have so much to say to her. I think though the main thing that I would give is the main thing that I would give anybody who was trying their hardest, genuinely trying their hardest, and dedicated to helping others' lives to be better. I would give her validation I would give her so much validation. I would tell her to lean into creative pursuits. I would tell her to lean into loving people. And I would warn her that not everybody has those values Right? And that, that while there's a need for discernment and for caution that exuberance, that e- that exuberance, that love, that joy is one of the most beautiful things on this planet besides this planet itself. And that is never going to be wrong to cultivate that in other people and herself I promised myself I was gonna get through this en- whole conversation and not cry, and you just ma- you ju- in the last 30 seconds, Tso Tso, you accomplished the goal. I broke. It's a beautiful thing, and I'm just, again, so grateful to spend some time with you today, and I look forward to meeting you in person very soon. Yeah. Very soon. Congratulations again on all of your accomplishments, and I am excited to see where this journey takes you. And, see, it gets me emotional. I'm just super grateful to have you in my life and to know- Thank you that you're out making that difference in the world today. Thank you. I'm grateful to have you as well, and I would love to have a conversation about the vindictiveness and- Yes the vengeance piece. Yes. Yes. At some point, right- Like I said, you can- 'Cause we can't just, we can't just be- No problems. We gotta know what to do about it. We gotta know what to do about it, and that, but that's a great, that's a great segue into the process. It's a journey, right? This isn't gonna be solved overnight. We're not gonna wake up tomorrow and have all the answers, and it's in a conversation. The world, this isn't my opinion, our worlds exist in a network of conversations, right? And those conversations can be incredibly impactful. So this is the first of what I consider to be many conversations. And on that side note, I do look forward to actually meeting you in person next time I'm on the island. Yes. And that's gonna happen. And again, thank you for your time today, and thank you for your wisdom, and thank you for your presence and for what you do in the world. Thank you. We'll talk soon. Look forward to it, yes. Bye for now. Bye. All right, everyone. Thank you again for joining us on today's episode. I hope our conversation resonated with you like it did me, and I cannot wait to sit down with you all again next week. Remember to subscribe to the Just Do You podcast on your favorite platform so you can make sure not to miss a new episode, which drop every Thursday. If you like what you hear, you can easily share the podcast and episode directly with your friends. And if you would, rate us and leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you. You can also follow us on Instagram at justdoyoupod. As you go out back into the world today, remember to just do you. All right. Talk next week.