Relaxed Productivity: Angela Jamieson on Doing More of What Actually Matters

What if productivity wasn’t about doing more…
 but about missing less of your life?

In this insightful and refreshingly honest conversation, Rachel sits down with Angela Jamieson - former petroleum engineer turned author, speaker, and creator of Relaxed Productivity - to challenge everything you thought you knew about success.

Angela shares how a deeply personal loss led her to rethink life, work, and what actually matters—and how she now helps high-achieving professionals slow down mentally so they can show up more fully in their lives.

This isn’t about doing less.
 It’s about living more.

🎙️ In this episode, we explore:

•  The hidden cost of “doing everything right” 
•  Why your brain might be working against you (and how to override it) 
•  The real meaning of productivity beyond work 
•  How stress can actually point you toward what matters most 
•  The power of stepping back to see the bigger picture 
•  Why joy, presence, and success belong in the same sentence 

And yes… we also talk about her unforgettable book:
 https://mybook.to/2to1book - a wildly creative, hilarious, and surprisingly profound take on personal growth. 💩➡️🥇

Website: https://www.angelajamieson.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angejamieson

Freebie: The Glide Test: https://www.angelajamieson.com/glidetest

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to Joy Unfiltered. I'm Rachel, and this is a podcast about joy. Not the shiny performative kind. Not the everything happens for a reason kind. This is joy as a strategy. A way to stay steady when life feels loud. A way to stay human when things are hard. A way to lead, love, and live without burning out or checking out. Some episodes will be just me. Some will be honest conversations with people who have lived their way into a deeper, truer joy. No fixing, no bypassing, just real stories, real tools, and room to breathe. Let's get into it. Welcome back or welcome to Joy Unfiltered. I'm Rachel, your host, and I have another delightful guest. We started chatting a little bit before I even pressed record, and I am excited about this conversation because I and I know you will be too, because we are speaking all sorts of interesting languages about joy. But let me introduce her so she can, so we could that we can get her on. Angela Jameson is a former petroleum engineer who traded oil and gas for ideas and inspiration. So interesting. After working in Canada, the Netherlands, and Brunei, she now helps high-achieving professionals rethink success through her relaxed productivity online course and membership. Cannot wait to delve into that. As a keynote speaker, best-selling author, and digital entrepreneur, Angela blends logic, humor, and heart to help people expand their definition of productivity to include everything that truly matters. Her work is rooted in one simple belief: relaxed productivity is not about doing less. It's about refusing to miss the moments that make up your life. And she is speaking our language here on this podcast, isn't she? Her best-selling book, Using Number Two to Get Number One, the shockingly insightful, full-of-prep self-help book, delivers advice that sticks. Framed around the digestive system. Angela's stories are relatable, honest, and refreshingly human. So welcome, Angela, to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yeah, I as I said, we started even chatting before I hit record. So I know today is going to be chock full of really good information for the information and insights, you know, for anyone listening. But why don't we start start at the very beginning and why don't you give us a little bit of a of a history lesson about how you got to where you are today and how you came up with relaxed productivity?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Okay. Well, taking you all the way back, but not too far back, to the birthday. Um I yes, you're right. I I did a degree in engineering and I did a lovely career in petroleum engineering where I was able to travel the world. And as I traveled the world, I was popping out children. And so with the third one, I said it's time to go home. And home is in the middle of nowhere, Canada. And um, so came back, was a stay-at-home mom for a little bit, and then re-entered the corporate world where it was it was like the the sandwich generation, the perfect storm where I had small kids, I had a responsible job, you know, I was chief operating officer of a local geological uh consulting company, and my father was sick. So, you know, if you had asked me back then if I was burning out, I would say, no, you know, I'm this is just the way life is. You know, I raise, put the kids on the bus, I go to work, I get them after school, and then I feed them, and then I go visit my dad and try to help out wherever I can there. But looking back, you know, it was just a crazy time. And I remember the morning my dad passed away, and it made me think, you know, my world was shattered, but when you looked outside, everyone else was just doing their thing. And I'm going, why are we here? Like my dad had this amazing life. He was an immigrant from China to Canada. He had a great career. Um, he and my mom built, you know, some beautiful businesses. He was a professor at the university, and suddenly he's gone. And then I'm thinking, so who besides me is gonna miss him? And what is what is this life about? So I knew immediately then I needed to quit my job, and I dove into personal development and I tried to figure out you know, all this existential questions of why we're here. And through that process, through my engineering lens of a brain, because a lot of stuff seemed a little bit woo, but when I could filter it through science, it was so super consistent. And that's where I started creating my methodology that I call relaxed productivity. And that's to help busy professionals kind of slow down, slow down their brains so that nothing really changes on the outside, but everything changes on the inside. Everything they can savor what they're doing, they do what matters, they don't miss those little moments of their children growing up or whatever, whatever is important to them. So, yes, I created a digital membership, uh digital course that turned into a membership, and that's been going for two almost two years now. So it's been yeah, just an amazing, amazing rise ride from corporate engineer to digital entrepreneur, working it harder than I ever have, but it's just been full of joy, and so it doesn't feel like it's work at all. It just feels like I'm constantly exploring and I'm constantly pushing my own personal envelope.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yeah, yeah, and so interesting about, and I love how you said, you know, you because you come from a very analytical, if you think about engineering, very science-based. And you're right, when I don't know if when you say the word, although you use relaxed productivity, when I use the word joy, I know there are so many people that are turned off just 100%, even just thinking about the word, um, because it's too woo-woo, right? It's too, it's too out there, it's too fluffy, it's too whatever. But that you were able to take this scientific approach, this logical scientific approach to say, no, this is really brain science, and put it into package that into this relaxed product productivity. Um, so you set a course. So, like what, like how did you doing some of these, I'm sure, going through those questions, going through that self-reflection, um, like how did you land on even the words, because I'm a big language nerd, relaxed productivity? Like, how did those two words fit together? Because seemingly they don't fit together.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah, and that's what I loved about it. I loved that it, they were two words that you think those should never go together. And I wanted people to to have that feeling and then ask themselves, what is this about? And a lot of people when when they haven't taken my course, they haven't talked to me about it at all, they also, so this is a drawback of it. They think that I'm gonna tell them just to stop doing stuff, you know, just you're doing too much. So you must stop this and you must prioritize that. But it's not that at all. It's doing, it's almost it's like giving you the tools to work with your mind, your thoughts, your emotions, because those are all data for you, and learning how to work with those, those are your diagnostics, so that you can really chill out in your brain, and you end up being even more productive. Because one thing that you and I talked about before we hit record was when you can get into out of the forest and you can out of the trees and you can see the forest, or you can just take a deep breath. Um, often you are in a different space where solutions to your problems come to you. When we focus too much on problems and issues and things we're fighting with, often the solution can't come to you because you're too deep into the mess. A story I often tell is the one of Aristotle. Do you know that one? Where, you know, yeah. So he uh um he was he discovered how to find the density of a uh multi um, you know, an irregular-shaped object. Sorry, the words are missing me right now. So he was tasked by the king who got this golden crown from a salesman, and he said, Could you tell me if this is solid gold? And of course, we know how to do volumes of spheres and cubes and triangles, but this was a crown and it was so super intricate. So, how does he calculate the the volume and then the density of this object? Um, so he pondered about this for so long, could not figure it out, and decided to go for a bath and in one of those huge Roman baths, right? And as he lowered himself into the bath with his irregularly shaped body, he saw the water overflow. And legend has it, he ran through the streets naked, shouting, Eureka, I got it. So he knew that by submersing this irregularly shaped object in water and measuring the water that came out, he knew he could calculate the volume, therefore the density, therefore tell the king, is this really gold? Because you know the density of gold. So that was my relation to that is like chill out, you know, go do something you want to do, go take a bath, and you never know. The solution might just be right in front of you.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

I what a great I don't think I have heard that story before. So thanks for sharing the story. And it reminds me, it makes me think about that whole just what you said, chill out, and maybe the solution will come. It's yeah, what the where do the best ideas come to you, or where do people say, you know, in the shower, right? Well, what is happening in the shower is you don't have your phone, you don't have anything else except for, and water is a thing as well, I believe is a little thing, right? So that that helps, but that that space, that time just to breathe, right? And what does that give us? One that gives us a little more blood flow to our prefrontal cortex, which helps us be more creative, right? Because we are not spending that time doing something else. So that seems like one of the things that goes right along what you're teaching or what you are coaching then in relaxed productivity. Go take a bath, go take a shower, right? Yeah, go to a walk in nature.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah, yeah. No, and the funny thing is, conquering life actually is simple. We make it so complicated. We we layer ourselves with expectations, with um opinions of others, with comparativis, comparativitis, you know, that we think we should be doing something when it might not align with what we truly want. Or we think we need a certification to show that we know something when who created that certification, who makes them the you know, the end-all be-all. So it's all of that rolled into you know, taking a look at what's important really to you. And let's forget the fluff and let's be really true to you so that you can be productive in the ways that you want to be. So the other part of the relaxed productivity is the productivity part, because in you know, normal world, when you talk about productivity, everyone thinks about work. And I'm challenging people to take a more holistic view of productivity. Like, are you productive in creating moments with your spouse? Are you productive in just saying hello to strangers? How many smiles did you collect this week? There are other different um measurements that we need to take to elevate our lives to one that we're actually proud of at the end of our life. And what I often do with people is do, you know, the deathbed exercise and say, if you were lying on your deathbed, what regrets would you have? And there's that really famous book written by Bronnie Ware, who was an uh end-of-life nurse, and she asked people what their regrets are, and none of them said that they wished they did more work, right? So they talked about taking more time with others, creating connections with others. So by sprinkling that realization, because I know we all have pressures, we all think we need to earn a certain amount of money, you know, that project is due next week. Those are real pressures that you're facing. But you have to also temper it with at the end of the day, what are you what's really important to you and make sure you sprinkle some of that in your day.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

I yeah, right. And you we're using so much of the same language. I like that. I used to say, I like to sprinkle joy like glitter, right? Because you know, when you do it at Craft Project, glitter gets all over and it's there for the next 27 years, especially if you have kids, right? So let's sprinkle joy like glitter. But you also the the words that you're using um in terms of that the that productivity, the noticing, the connection, those are all pillars of what I think about when I define joy. Um, you know, again, the connection is a is a huge one. Um love that the whole piece of being holistic about productivity isn't just about work. It really is just is is about your whole life. So if you're thinking about um if somewhere, well, let me ask a first another question, a different question. First, how do I know that I could benefit or how why should I why should I be interested in relaxed productivity? What's happening in my life? So if I'm listening and I'm thinking, oh, I'm super stressed out about this or about this, or how am I feeling, or what what would draw me to relaxed productivity?

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Right. So I think everyone, there's an element of stress that people would recognize, like, oh, I'm so I'm too stressed. But what really I find the niggle is even you might be doing everything right, you might have a good job, you might have a great family, you have you contribute to society in your community, but there's just that inner niggling of, is this it? You know, is am I making the impact that I'm supposed to be making? Am I leaving talents on the table because you know, I might be doing things that that aren't in alignment really with myself, but it's just that uh that unknowing of uh whether I'm doing the right thing, but also the recognition that maybe I don't have as much joy or satisfaction in my life. And that's really I think the crux of it is is just you know, w waking up from groundhog day, you know, when you're doing everything the same, and then you kind of think, is this what I do until I retire? And just wondering where the joy is. So I think that's when when you're asking what's more with life, that's where you would really benefit from relaxed productivity.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

So asking, so if you've asked yourself, those of you listening right now, if you've asked, if you've ever asked yourself, and I would bet most people, wherever you're listening on a walk or sitting in your car, is this it? That has that has come to mind. So if or when that comes to mind, and I go through and I take this relaxed productivity course, what are some of the things or what are some of the lessons that um that you could share?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Well, in the relaxed productivity digital course, that one goes through mind, body, and energy and different ways that the relaxed productivity thinking impacts those different parts of you. So the first week we take sort of a baseline, where are you, and set set the stage. And the next week we talk about tools that you can use for your mind to make sure that it's working properly. And one of the things that I that really changed my life is knowing the belief cycle, where you know, your beliefs, they're just these things that you think about and they might not actually be true. So uh asking the question and using your emotions as diagnostics, and this is that engineering speak, is like whenever you feel a negative emotion, that's telling you, hey, there's something here you might need to uncover. Because we talk about our brains, but they're actually we have an animal brain that is that works a certain way because we're biologically created that way. But the magic of being human is that you can override that system. So when you have those negative emotions, that's your signal to, oh, I might need a system override. And I explain how to do that in that mind chapter. The second week or the third week is your body. So, how can we tune up our body the best way possible? And so I am not a professional in that area, so I just give ideas of things that you could do, things that you might have not considered, um, things like breath work, things like you know, things that that you know, we can exercise, we can, we definitely need to sleep better, all of those things. Um, but I just give extra ideas for affecting your body because our body is our vessel. If it's not feeling good, yeah, we don't feel good. And then the last one is the energy or your spirit and how that works together with our mind so that we can know we have this innate knowing that everything's gonna be okay, that everything is an invent, an adventure we are creating. And I just remember when I internalize that life is so joyful. Uh there there are stresses, but I I know exactly what to do when those events come up. I know exactly how to train my brain so that it they don't bother me. So that's the essence of the course. And the first time I ran it, I did it um as a group. And then those people said, We need more, we need we need like a tune-up every month for this. So that was the origin of the membership where I had no clue what I was doing, but I was just going to say, okay, let's do a membership. We're gonna meet twice a month. The second and last Wednesdays of every month, we just get together. Um, people bring their problems. I often have a lesson for them, and we just talk through their lives on a relaxed productivity um and way, and they're so good now that they can, it's like a mastermind. They help each other think about think about their their relative problems. Because the funny thing is, as we all know, when you can have a bit of distance from your problem, which you know, you're so wise when your friend has a problem, right? But you cannot take your own advice when it's your problem. So it's really nice when someone from the outside can look at your problem and say, Hey, have you thought about this? So we don't prescribe things, but we also we ask questions like, have you thought about this? Does this work for you? How do you feel when you know we provide this solution for you? So it's really making sure you trust yourself. There's no, I don't tell people what to do, but because they learn how to read themselves, they know what to do for them. And that's what I love about this about relaxed productivity.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Yeah, about the process. Well, and a couple things that I wrote down. One, um, that whole knowing about the belief cycle, and I just wrote down our brains lie to us all the time, right? I mean, our brains are telling us stuff, and they're not just because you think it doesn't, you said that, just because you think It doesn't mean it's true. So remember that. And I also, you know, like to add that and our brains listen to us, our minds are listening to us. So when you say things out loud, be careful about what you're actually saying out loud to yourself, because we have to train, or like you said, system override our brains to think what we want them to think. Right. So and that'll support us in that. And then that whole body thing, too. That's my first, that's my first pillar of joy is engage in wellness, that we need to take care of this vessel that we have. And when we put good things in, and when we move our bodies, when we do breath work, all of those things as well that we just feel a little more joy. So and we feel more relaxed so that we can be more productive. And I love, and I'm a big um vocabulary person. So using energy, it's always a hard thing about this whole spiritual realm and where people are and the beliefs that are tied into religion and all of the things, but to talk about energy, because energy is scientific, right? Energy exists inside of our bodies and outside of our bodies. That is not, there's no discrepancy about that, right? That it exists. So great, great way to do that too. I would love to. And the other thing I was thinking, this is not about joy or about the relaxed productivity, but I love the fact that you listened as an entrepreneur, because a lot of entrepreneurs listen to this podcast as well, that you just listen to where your community took you. And you didn't know that you were going to start a community, right? But people were saying we need more. So that is a good life lesson for everyone that's out there as well, is that oftentimes our best ideas are coming from the people that we are serving. So listen to them, you know, listen to the people that we're serving, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Yes. And they often tell you what they want. And it's it's scary sometimes too, because you go, I don't have no clue what I'm doing. I don't even know how to, you know, in those days, I didn't know how to work Zoom. I didn't know how to do group calls. And so yeah, it's scary. But after you do it a few times, you don't even realize how you're learning so quickly. Yeah, because your brain will support you in that.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

So let's talk about, let's talk about your book. Because I I love the title. I have to pull up the title again, though, because it was a little long. It was it not a little long, it was it was it was delightful using number two to get to number one. The shockingly insightful, full of crap self-help book. So tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Yeah, so this book was just eating a hole in my brain, probably since I was a child. Um, just because, you know, I grew up on an acreage. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, uh, Canada. And where I'm actually living now, I brought my children back to the exact same acreage that I'm living on, uh, that I grew up on. And when I was a kid, we had we have a septic system here. And my dad said it kept getting plugged, the septic pump kept getting plugged. So he was darn sure we are using too much toilet paper. So the rule was he was going to confiscate all of the toilet paper, put one roll in his pocket, and he landscaped our 10 acres. And if we had to go to the bathroom, we had to find him and we had to tell him what we're gonna do, and he would give us one square for number one and two squares for number two. So that was, I think, the start of me having to think too much about my bathroom processes and just say, okay, run to your find your dad, yell for your dad, dad. I have to go to the bathroom. So that kind of um affected me. But also my mom, she would often tell me that I'm constipated, which I'm just like, what do you mean? And she's like, Well, I'm listening to you go to the bathroom, and you know, I can only say think of it as my point of entry was not very good. It was too ploppy, it was you know, too splashy. I would have probably gotten a two out of ten on the dive scale, right? So she said it shouldn't be like that. So it was one of those things of, oh my gosh, someone's listening to me do this, and I thought I was in a private space. And so I think about going to the bathroom far too much. And as I was going through life, there's just so many analogies with going to the bathroom, like the very obvious one about letting your crap go. And you know, in life, we have to let what doesn't nourish us go. So that was, you know, an easy analogy. But the same about your digestive system. Think about what you're putting in your mouth. Does it actually nourish you or is it something that's not good for you? And that's the same thing as the thoughts we put in our head. So that kind of analogy and that we still have free will to eat things that we don't that we know don't suit us. Like I'm slightly lactose intolerant, but I will eat a nice block of cheese if I see it because it looks so good. Uh but you've taken control of that decision. And that's just sort of all of those little kind of examples to uh, you know, everyone has a digestive system because if you don't, you're gonna die really soon. You know, everyone has to eliminate their waste. So it's getting everyone in a personal development space, relating it to the system that they know. So no one's left out of the conversation. Um, there's a huge theme of connection throughout my book, and yeah, it was just something I wanted to get out into the world.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Uh mostly so how long so how long has it been out in the world?

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Um, I published it May twenty twenty-five. Okay, so fairly recently. Coming up to a year, and yeah, I just gave myself a deadline. You must do this by May because it's gut health month. So, you know, get it out there. Perfect. Yeah, and it's um it got a a really nice reception. It it is an Amazon best-selling book, so that's nice. And I've been able to do, you know, book clubs and and talking about it and doing, you know, it's been fun.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

I I love it. So, what is some of the feedback that you've that you've gotten after so after people have read? Like, what are some of the most surprising feedback that you've gotten?

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Well, the funniest one that is the most recent. I went to do a reading at a at a small town here in our province, and one of the ladies she started saying, I just have to say that I've got a little bit of a celebrity crush on, and I thought she was gonna say me, because you know, someone once someone said to me, Oh, if I saw you in the grocery store, I would totally fangirl over you. But this lady said, On my husband, and I'm like, What are you talking about? Because he was actually there, but she said, It's the way that I talk about him in my book that she just thinks he's amazing. So that was the most recent one that was a bit surprising, but it's um did you have a good story about your husband that you can share? I I don't even know. I I was telling her, like, what's what what what did I say about him? And she just said it like he appears here and there. Um, I think the one that I can remember off the top of my head is when we're walking around our acreage with our kids, and I remember uh it was late in the fall, some mushrooms are popping up, and my husband, you know, the kids were asking, What's this? What's that? So my husband went inside and he got a book that we have about mushrooms in North America. And as he handed the book to my son, he said, A lot of dead people helped write this book, you know, and because we learn from each other what you what you do in your life, you will help society. Hopefully, you don't die while you're doing it, but you know, some people ate a mushroom and they died, and then they wrote it down in this book. Do not eat this mushroom. So it's just sort of the story of how we're all connected.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

That's I that makes me I that makes me giggle because I honestly had this conversation about mushrooms with some friends like a year ago, because say a couple of them wanted to, is it is it mushroom hunting, mushroom, mushrooming, I don't know, whatever, foraging, wanted to go foraging for mushrooms, and we started talking about how did like how did it happen that you know you ate this mushroom and you died, or you ate this mushroom and you got high, or you ate this mushroom and it was really good for your energy. Like how did you figure that out? I'm really glad they did, but who figured that out?

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Yeah, and you know, maybe a little known fact is in France they're really big doing, you know, this mushroom foraging, and every pharmacy in France will have a mushroom expert. So you take your little basket of mushrooms to the pharmacy, they will tell you which ones are poisonous, and you know, there's some really poisonous mushrooms that look just like the okay ones. So I thought that was really cool.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Yeah, oh my that again, another reason why we're we're talking today because we've had the same discussions about mushrooms.

unknown 31:45

Like who knew?

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Who knew? Who knew? Yeah, who knew? So you wrote this book. So is there, I always ask authors, is there another book in your floating around in your head right now?

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Well, I'm going to my my goal this year is to write a book on relaxed productivity because it would be really nice to have all of those concepts that I teach in a book that people can also just refer to. Um, but I have to admit, this using number two to get to number one does have a lot of the relaxed productivity concepts in there. So, because of course, that's I wrote it well, I knew all that stuff, and where it was, you know, I'm I'm teaching it to people. So it just came through in a different analogy, you know.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Right, right, right, right, right.

unknown 32:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

So what is your what is your because I know that there are some listeners too who are either writing a book or thinking about writing a book. What's your process? Are you a free writer? Do you say I'm gonna write every day from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m.? Do you what's that? What was the writing process like for you?

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Mine was a little scattered because I just wrote stories. I wrote stories that I I knew about my you know digestive system. I had them all in different piles, and then I I I named them, I put them all the stories together in in themes that I could see. And then um I don't know. I think as I went through it, just the structure came to me. So I have sections on like digesting, um, no, eating, digesting, pooping, and then affogato, which is my husband and I's favorite dessert. Do you know that one? Yes. So espresso and vanilla ice cream, and then cleaning up is sort of the end acknowledgements. So I I did ask ChatGPT which chapters fit best into these sections, and it helps me with that. And yeah, then I just kind of published it. So during COVID, I learned how to self-publish, and so I can publish very quickly uh after you know, I get it all edited and everything. Um so that's also been sort of a sideline, is that I'm I also help people publish books.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Oh, lovely. And do you help edit too? Did you edit your own book or did you have someone edit it for you?

SPEAKER_00 34:04

I of course, you know, I do my own editing in the rewriting phase, but I did have external eyes on it. Um, but I don't typically do editing for people. I will often tell people just to go to a hire an editor to do their books. Um and in self-publishing, you can determine how much editing you want. You know, you you want to sound like you, and that's another thing about writing books. A lot of the traditional stuff is people say you have to do it this way. Well, no, you don't. It's your book, you can do whatever you want with it. But I do want people to end up with a professional-looking book, not just like I think if you skim through Amazon and the millions of book on books on there, you can tell which ones have been self-published. And I aim that you can't tell that yours is self-published. Lovely.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

So this other book that you have then on relaxed productivity, do you have a did you set the other date was May um for Gut Health and Months? Do you have a date set for when you think this next book is coming out?

SPEAKER_00 35:09

No, because so I have to sit down, and what I what I do in the outlining phase is just take stickies and write down sort of the ideas I want to bring up and create that outline from there, and then I'll start writing. I haven't even started doing that yet, but you know, I've got all my notes and stuff. I'm hoping to do it by the end of the year, but gotcha, gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Yeah, in your in your head, in your head. So besides writing and maybe foraging for mushrooms, although you didn't say that, what is what is bringing you joy these days?

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Well, uh everything. Everything brings me joy, except right now my cluttered desk. But right today, it's so sunny. I'm just really enjoying looking outside. And I I'm at the stage in my family where my kids are getting older and they're thinking about leaving me. So, you know, I take joy in all of the small moments that I have with my family because you know, when that unit is broken and we have three children that they all live with us still, but when someone leaves, it changes the the dynamic. And I'm just so I just really savor the moments. And thankfully, my kids really get along. So when they're having their interactions, it really brings me joy. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

And was that something you grew up with, or you always did the noticing of the small things, or is that a learned behavior for you?

SPEAKER_00 36:41

That's definitely learned because I think I was always in the I'll be happy when phase. You know, like I'll be happy when I grow up so that I can do that, or I'll be happy when I can drive, so I have some independence, or you know, all of those next steps. And so I really learned to slow down when I did all that self-help for myself. That was yeah, it was a real big eye-opener for me. So that's what I want to share with people because I think a lot of people are still living the way that I used to. And honestly, it is a little hard to think about life before knowing all of this stuff. But when I listen to the people in my membership or people that come across my work, it's like, oh yeah, okay, they're stressed about this. And I make note of it so that I can talk about it more. Because as you said, people are the best to tell you what's what's bugging them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Right. And and I I think what you're saying as well, and something that I say or that we talk about in this in this area as well about joy is that it's a choice, right? It's a choice, but it's a beh and it's a behavior, it's a habit, it's a it's an action that joy isn't just something that we can wait for, but that we can choose to have it every day. And we talk a lot, or I've talked before, about the if we practice choosing it when things are a little easier, right? So you practice choosing it when life is pretty good, then it allows us to also still notice it or see it when life is challenging. Because life isn't always easy. I will say, in the world right now, and I'm in the United States, life feels I'm in Minnesota actually. So life feels challenging. And it's, you know, this 2026 has been a little bit of a challenge. Um but having then the ability, because I have practiced, I am not saying that bad things aren't happening, or I'm not saying that, and just like you're saying in your life that things are going to change. And so there there are there are things that that happen. Reality is reality. Yeah. But if we have practiced choosing joy or practiced relaxed productivity, then when we come into those stressful situations, it's easier for us to take a breath because we've practiced breath work, or we are able to slow down and pause, go take a shower, go take the bath like Aristotle did, and sit with it and then think, oh, okay, I do have some, I'm not just stuck. I have I have options.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Yeah. And I think especially what we're going through in the world right now, I don't want to get political or anything, but the the really good thing that's happening when things went feel so bad is that we need to flip our thoughts to what is this actually showing me is important to me. Because I think things have been pretty normal, you know, in brackets for many years. And then when things are shaken up, we go, oh, I took this for granted, and this is important to me. And I think that's what the deeper um negative feeling you feel shows you how important it is to you. So I think it's really important to notice in yourself what is really important to you. If you're having such a big reaction, there's there's a clue there of what you want. There's there's freedom that you want, there's getting along with others that you want, there's community love, there's just trust that you know has been eroded, but that's what we want. We want to feel uh like we're part of one big happy family with each other. So I think that's some of the really good things that are coming out of being shaken up a bit that we need to focus on. And it's a choice, like like you said, and I think that's really an important thing, is that we learn that we can choose even in the darkest hour of how we feel.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Right. And that goes back to, and I'm trying to find on the list of my paper where you where I wrote what you said down, but noticing those negative emotions. That's and that's exactly what you're saying, right? That was something that you had talked about in in relaxed productivity, noticing the negative emotions and knowing then that something needs to change, noticing that those things are happening. And I think too, um, you're right about we even in the darkest moments, and I like the analogy of even when you are in a storm, right? You know the sun is still there, right? The sun still exists even if you can't see it. And honestly, the first thing that you often see is the rainbow, but you can't see the rainbow if you're looking at the sun, right? You can only see the rainbow if you look at the clouds. So, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:54

So that so that do not look at the sun. Yeah, do not look at the sun, but knowing that it's there.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

So, and I think that thing about the relaxed productivity, it's the same thing with joy, is that it's still it's always available for us. It never goes away, even if you're in the middle of the forest. And what you're saying is we need to not be in the middle of the forest looking at the individual trees. We need to step back so that we can see the bigger picture, so that we can see that and just knowing when you're in the middle of the forest, in the depths of things, the sun still is there, it's still there.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

And if we take that analogy to eating or being hungry, is like food tastes way better when we've been hungry a bit. So it's also that higher level awareness of your negative emotions make your positive emotions even that sweeter. So all of these, even though it sucks to feel bad, it's part of a very beautiful, meaningful life. So I think appreciating that and seeing your life as a story that's unfolding, one that you can create and and keep jumping off of, because we're in constant growth and we're in constant expansion. No matter what makes you happy today, if you were if you got that for the rest of the week, uh again, if we talked about food and my kids love, you know, pasta, if I gave them pasta every day for this week, they will soon not want pasta. And it's those things of we want change, we want diversity, we want things that we want to mix it up a little. So when you are feeling bad, it's just part of the story, it's just the next stepping stone to your next great story, you know, your your growth. So I think when people realize that feeling bad or sitting in a bad place doesn't seem that scary because the story is just not finished yet.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Right. And and grief, I talk a lot about my sister as a pastor, and we talk about grief and joy together and thinking about okay, when are those things? So you think about a funeral, right? I'm Lutheran, so you go to a funeral, and then afterwards you go downstairs in the church to the basement and you have the luncheon, you have jello salad or whatever you have there, and there is this mixture of tears and some of the best laughter, right? So it's both, it's not one or the other that our lives are in this multicolor space that you need both, like you're saying, and both can happen side by side. It's not two separate buckets.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

Tears only exist because you loved the person. Like if you walked into a funeral of someone you didn't know, you wouldn't even cry, you wouldn't laugh. There is nothing. So the grief is there, it's deep because you love them so much. And what a gift that is. What you know, to be human and to love someone that deeply, that is that is so the sweetest part of life.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Oh my goodness, this what a delightful conversation and so many different it's just I all these conversations, but especially this one, you know, we started with science. I mean, we started with saying this isn't all woo, and then you we, you know, we end up talking about things that, yes, everything is very scientific, but science and the and the emotion sit side by side or sit together as well, just like just like joy and grief. And what a beautiful way that you were able to articulate that given your kind of life story of being from this or coming from this very scientific background, and then saying, Oh, what else is there? And thinking about those larger, big questions of life, and then helping kind of being that conduit or that translator for people who are feeling that. So it's a blessing that you were able to give us this gift of sharing your words, and really it is you're you are translating what people don't often have language for.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Well, and my tagline is where science meets spirit, because we often talk about science as being facts, but science is constantly evolving because the thing that lights up scientists and engineers is finding more about something. Because remember the days, well, we don't, but we were told of the days where we thought the earth was flat or that the um the sun revolved around the earth. Remember all of that, all of the evidence was there. We science said this is what it is, but as we learn more, we know better. So that's where I say where science meets spirit, it's never really a fact, it's just what the best thing we know is, and there's still that little space between what we know, what we can prove, to what we experience. So that's really what brings me joy is that constant searching for what is true to me, and that could be different from what it is for everyone else, but that's what I'm trying to help people to examine in themselves. So that's yeah, I love where science meets spirit.

SPEAKER_01 47:19

Where science meets spirit, what a lovely kind of sentiment to end this on. Is there, and I do want to get to like where people can um can reach out to you because I'm sure that people who are listening are like, okay, I need some relaxed productivity, I need some Angela in my life. Um is there anything else that you want to leave people with and or uh where can people get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Okay, well, they can find I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, so they can just find me there. And also I have a website, but I need to update the photos because I've gotten older. So and I cut my hair, crazy how that's really important. I remember that. Yeah, so I need to update that, but it has most of the uh relevant information there, plus how to contact me on that. So um, yeah, and I think what I like to leave people with is that you're doing just fine, and even if you think you aren't, it's just because you've put an extra layer of pressure on yourself. So let it all go. Enjoy what you've got, celebrate what you've got, celebrate the people in your lives, and go outside, go for a walk because nature is always healing.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

I could not have said it better. So thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. I will put all of your links in the show notes so people know how to get a hold of you. They will know how to get your book, join your community, take your take your digital course. So I appreciate your gifts that you shared through that and just the time that you spent with us today. So thank you, thank you for being here. And for those all of you listening, I am Rachel, and I am celebrating you today and every day.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

So subscribe, download this episode, share it with someone, and remember, have fun, live well, enjoy it.