The Neighborhood Inside Your Mind with Kristin Graham

In this deeply moving conversation, Melanie Vargas welcomes speaker, facilitator, and neuroscience enthusiast Kristin Graham to explore the emotional neighborhoods that shape who we become.

Kristin shares her journey from growing up in a military family, navigating a chaotic home environment, and feeling like an outsider in her own neighborhood, to building a life centered on curiosity, advocacy, and human potential.

Together, Melanie and Kristin unpack the hidden stories we carry from childhood, how our nervous systems influence the way we move through the world, and why many of the traits we've been taught to view as flaws may actually be strengths waiting to be understood.

They explore neuroplasticity, shame, intuition, burnout, neurodiversity, emotional resilience, and the powerful role language plays in shaping our identity. Along the way, Kristin offers practical insights for recognizing trauma responses, regulating stress, and rewriting the narratives that no longer serve us.

This episode is a powerful reminder that our past may shape us, but it does not define us.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Why "you are not broken" may be the most important message you need to hear
• How childhood experiences become the operating system running beneath our lives
• The surprising connection between shame and ignorance
• Why your brain is capable of change at any age
• How neuroplasticity helps us rewrite limiting beliefs
• Practical tools for navigating stress, overwhelm, and emotional triggers
• Why paying attention to your inner dialogue matters more than you think
• How learning out loud creates connection, healing, and growth

Whether you're navigating burnout, questioning old narratives, or simply trying to understand yourself more deeply, this conversation offers wisdom, compassion, and hope.

If this conversation resonated, please follow, rate, and share it with someone who is doing their own inner work.

What’s In Your Neighborhood™ is a nonprofit focused on leaders developing their inner landscapes and building community dedicated to normalizing healing, reducing stigma, and expanding how we think about strength, leadership, and what it means to come home to ourselves.

To learn more, get involved, or support the mission, visit www.whatsinyourneighborhood.org.

Until next time, keep tending to your own neighborhood. It matters more than you know.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to What's in Your Neighborhood, Conversations for the Shame Shifter in All of Us. I'm Melanie Vargas. After decades in executive leadership and coaching high performers, I've learned the real work happens in the parts that we hide. Each episode, I sit with leaders, rebels, and real people who've taken off their masks to explore their inner landscape shaping how we live and lead. If you're ready for more truth, courage, and authenticity, you're in the right place. So let's go there. What's in your neighborhood? Welcome everyone. I am especially excited about today's guest because she's someone I've had the privilege of knowing on many different levels across many different communities. Our paths have crossed again and again, actually. And honestly, it feels like we've been destined to have this conversation. So here's a little bit more about Kristen Graham. A formal journalist, Kristen spent 25 years inside large global companies collecting accolades and achievement while warily pretending to have it all together. Then, as a single mom navigating COVID, she stepped off the treadmill, launched Unlock the Brain, and started asking a different question. What if doing less is actually the path to living better? Her work blends neuroscience, psychology, humor, and hard-won personal experience to help smart, overwhelmed people quiet the noise, reclaim their attention and energy, and find a little fun along the way. With a family of neurodiversity, Kristen is also an advocate for making room for a variety of voices and stirring up the status quo. As a speaker, MC, facilitator, and content creator, her goal is simple: help people feel a little more human and a little less alone. Kristen brings an incredible combination of wisdom, authenticity, and heart to everything she does. Whether you've worked alongside her, learned from her, or simply spent time in her presence, you know she has a remarkable way of helping people see new possibilities and step fully into they are. I'm excited to have her be on the show and talk a little bit about her emotional neighborhood. So thank you for being here today, Kristen.

SPEAKER_04 2:30

Oh my gosh, that is a bio to live up to. But we'll give it a go.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah, I mean, I know a little bit about your background. And so I think we touched very lightly on the amazing career and journey that you've had, not just professionally, but personally, the path that you've walked. You are the perfect guest to have on my show for many reasons. And I'm excited to explore it a little bit more deeply. So thank you so much for your willingness to come here today.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

Oh, I love it. And I love this construct that you are giving a lot of us to think through journeys in a in a new and a very relevant way.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Thank you so much. Maybe to start, if you think about your own emotional neighborhood, this label that I've given it. And whether it's metaphorical or literal, what really comes to mind for you?

SPEAKER_04 3:23

I was giving this a lot of thought because I I love this concept. And the the neighborhood itself actually began on an Air Force base in Austin, Texas. I was born youngest only girl into a Catholic military family. And that that's its own neighborhood in all those rolls and containers right there. And another interesting part of that is that I was born just months before Title IX and Roe v. Wade. And so, in this very uh organized fashion that the world was in of what girls couldn't couldn't do, I feel like my my neighborhood was almost like push forward, like a little kid, I envision this little kid given like a spoon that she used as a microphone, and just elbowing my way through the different um hopscotching of expectations and trying to find the side door instead of the front door.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, wow. As a fellow born in Texas person, I was in the fifth grade. What I didn't know about Bro v. Wade was that obviously at that age I didn't know a whole lot, but I played Annie Oakley in the school play that year. And I sang anything you can do, I can do better.

SPEAKER_04 4:46

Yes, well, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

And I mean, I lived that part. Kid you not. I can remember, I don't remember a whole lot, but I remember that part. And so many years later, I realized the timing of that. And being in Texas, Houston, Texas, at the time, being able to sing that from my heart and soul. And I am that in many ways. Anything you you can do, I can do better. And so it just is surreal to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:15

I completely recognize that because I I I have this this image, a memory, but it literally an image of being on the pew at Mass on Sundays at 8 a.m., mind you, because the later masses they weren't as serious. And my dad was a Eucharistic minister, so we got there early. My mom would be a reader, and both of my brothers were altar boys. And this was before they now call them altar servers, and girls can do that. So a family of five shows up early, 7:45 in the morning, and I'm by myself on the bench because my whole family has a role in worshiping God, except for me. And I have a lot of affinity for uh Catholicism. It's very beautiful. I still go and light candles and pay homage to my dad, but I've always joked that that was um the early roots of feminism for me. Was kind of like your song, was just being like, I will not be left off a stage in the future, which so so funny ended up coming true. But just be being an other. And I think that's gonna go to kind of our conversations here about advocacy and uh fairness, boy. It's funny how we get imprinted though.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yeah. So if you're thinking about that as it relates to the metaphor, is there an image or what memory captures where your story begins?

SPEAKER_04 6:47

In my first five years, we moved around different um Air Force bases and then we landed in Phoenix, Arizona. And for those just listening, I am not a tan girl, right? Just coming in hot in the 80s into Phoenix, literally. And I, it's so funny. I can't, I can visualize everything about that actual neighborhood. I could still have, I could walk through it in detail, as a lot of us do, proverbially and otherwise. Phoenix never felt like my home. Never. And I've been able to travel all around the world, and there's places that you go, and you're like, oh, this is, I can see myself here. It never just intrinsically felt like a place for me. But I was there from five to 18. So that technically is my core neighborhood. And so I think that, and then that image I just shared about being on the bench, part of this neighborhood was feeling disconnected from your surroundings, or just I was gonna say odd man out, but that's exactly odd person out. And it took me years to even understand seasonally that people look forward to summer. And you're from Houston, you understand. Yes. It's like, wait, y'all go to summer camp? Like, what's that about? I never had a snow day in my life. Like, you show up to school. And now living in Seattle, I see a whole different world. But gosh, even when I was little, all I wanted was those Hallmark movies of like the snow coming down, right? And the leaves falling, and oh no, it was just hot all the time.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

So no seasons.

SPEAKER_04 8:22

No seasons. That was a place that I endured, and that's kind of what that neighborhood felt like on a lot of levels, but just get through this. And then, of course, Phoenician, right? Being the being the bird that comes out of the fire. Yeah, I mean, looking back, I can make it make sense. But at the time, it was always like this doesn't feel right. It's like a shoe that doesn't fit.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

That makes sense. When you think about it's interesting that you mentioned the Phoenician, the um like the bird out of the fire, I think is what you said, right? Yeah. Maybe even touching on what led you forward after that period of time. Because you had this aware, you had this awareness about not, you know, not feeling like it was ever home for you. And I can so relate to that.

SPEAKER_04 9:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:08

It's funny. My nuclear family still lives there. I can go back to visits, I can see now a beauty of that region that I couldn't see when I was in it. It's like the fishbowl. It just still, I still, when I fly in and I see the landscape, that that sureness of this is not me comes over me. Um, I forgot the other part of your question. I was so reliving that moment.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yeah, no, I think that's I think it captures it perfectly. Like what stood out for me and what you said, I think, or what I'm taking from it, is like our neighborhood, like our home that we grew up in is not always our our real home neighborhood, right? I mean, it's similar for me in Texas. I never I always felt like a fish out of water there. I never understood why until I moved away.

SPEAKER_04 10:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Until I got here. I was in my 20s when I moved here and I um I didn't understand why I felt that way and why that was never my like real home. And now that I've been here, you know, all of my adult life, I, you know, I never, I never really felt like Texas was home for me.

SPEAKER_04 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

It's interesting how you said that too, because even though I couldn't encapsulate why I felt that way, I knew that I would leave. And I I'm I think you were asking like what drove that is that there was no way I wasn't gonna leave. So it was just a matter of figuring out how to make that happen and also being very clear that it was mine to make happen. So, and part of it was like like a lot of 18-year-olds, leaving leaving that space to become who you're meant to be. But it was in such sharp comparison to feeling that nothing feels like who I am. Everybody my family still loves it, but not my thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

What allowed you uh to have that opportunity to leave?

SPEAKER_04 11:08

Um I say serendipity, uh honestly. I believe that there are pivots that present themselves and uh by luck or instinct, usually more luck, it's the courage to go towards the unknown instead of staying rooted. And I think, and we'll get to this with other parts of the neighborhood, coming from a lesson functional interior neighborhood with the family, it was always clear to me that that the future was mine to make. And it wasn't so so answering your question quickly, I was not a great student for a lot of reasons. And you're going through the college process. And so my parents split up and filed bankruptcy my senior year of high school. So college, even on the larger horizon, looked less and less, and I didn't have the grades or athletic ability. So it was more like, what is what is come like hitching hitching the ride on the train for me? And I hadn't figured it out, but I went to a college fair, and back then it was when it was in the hotel ballrooms and everybody had little tables and booths. And what has become symbolic of my life is one conversation changed a lot. But at the time I was there just kind of I thought I would go to California. I was a girl in Arizona, the closest place to go that that seemed cool and exciting was you know, that way. And I had no idea how I was gonna make that happen, but I was in there to collect the brochures from the California colleges, and in the middle of the room, in the middle, I still I can see it, Melanie, I can see it, was just a guy at the table, and I was on my way out to the parking lot, and I'm like, I'm such a people person. And I was like, nobody's talking to him. I have this huge empathetic draw in me. That's that's good and bad. And I could have just kept going, but I was like, I'll at least go take a brochure. Like I'm doing him a favor. And so I walk over to him and I'm like, hi, how are you? And he was like, Hey, let me tell you about the small liberal arts school in Illinois. And I'm like, that's great, I'll just take a brochure. And he's like, Do you know where Illinois is? And and here's your your academic excellence here. I'm like, I don't know, it's a flyover state in the middle. I mean, seriously, I was I was firing on all cylinders. And he had an actual photo album, and he opened it up. And the school is a small, but it was a 150-year-old liberal art school north of Chicago called Lake Forest, and it's right on Lake Michigan, and it looks like that Hallmark thing I was telling you about the canopy of trees, the old buildings behind it. And all of a sudden I was mesmerized because you know, California is going to be California. And I was like, This is Illinois. And he said, you know, we'd love to talk to you more about it. And I and I was like, listen, I appreciate it, but I don't have the grades or the money to go. And his name is Spike Guimare, and he was the recruiter. And he said, Why don't you let me worry about that? I was like, Okay, Kitten. Um, if you want to, I'll take your brochure. And then he followed up multiple times. And instead of all the other schools being like dear applicant 174, he was like, Hi, Kristen, you know, from when we met that night. And finally I was like, okay, I'll apply just for fun. I mean in the school at the time, private, I think it was $20,000 a year, and this is back. I was like, well, there's no way. But it's like, well, but even then, I was like working my part-time jobs to even pay the application fee, remember? Like, yeah, I don't know, the 40 bucks or whatever to apply. I was like, okay, I'll I'll go ahead and do it. And that conversation changed my life because he got me the interview. And he not only helped me get admitted, he helped me get a full scholarship.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 15:15

And I showed up, never went to visit the campus. I showed up on the first day with three suitcases and a denim jacket because that was gonna help me. And I'd never even seen the campus. I just walked in there.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

And that's incredible.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

It's a conversation can change your life. And borrowing other people's belief before you believe it in yourself. He set my life in a different direction because he saw something that I in my neighborhood, I was wallowing in my little small corner of it. And I kept in touch with him, still keep in touch with him. Just got a birthday greeting from him. And as I was able to find more success, I went back and I funded scholarships now for that college.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

I love that.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

Well, it's it's an intrinsic element. I normally don't share that. And I went on to grad school and other places, but that's the place I gave. Even when I was early making my nonprofit dollars, I would write out a $20 check because he made it possible. And so a couple years ago, they had me in uh for their fundraising day, and I was one of the speakers. And he came over to me, and gosh, it's just like Oprah can almost get emotional right now. He came over to me and he said, I think you're ready to see this. And he handed me the paper that was their evaluation after my interview, where it was like she didn't have the great grades and everything else. And he wrote at the bottom, take a chance. Gosh, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Doing it too.

SPEAKER_04 16:56

It's um some when somebody you don't know sees something bigger in you. Woo! You're off to the races, girl, but he changed my neighborhood. And him doing that has helped me change neighborhoods, and that's just it's powerful.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Um yeah, we have these pe unexpected angels appear in our lives that play these pivotal moments. Some of them will never know how they changed our lives, just in small, meaningful ways, right? You alluded to some of the messiness of your the neighborhood you grew up in. But if you think about how some of that has informed you, like your identity, what what stands out for you?

SPEAKER_04 17:47

Well, going back to the just my solo-ness, my oldest brother, my brothers are four and six years older than me. So it wasn't just being the youngest, it's they were kind of like quite a ways ahead of me. But my oldest brother is developmentally disabled. And so before I even came into the world, there was this ecosystem which I flew headfirst into of being an advocate, a protector, and really a detective. He is the sweetest, kindest human in the world. And life doesn't always allow a lot of space for that. So I became, in my speaky girl voice, his protector. That became my first assigned role that my parents happily let me take on. And sometimes I was protecting it from them. I grew up in a volatile household and they were both alcoholics, and they would get into big, raging fights in front of all of us. And I would go get my brother, move him out, and later when I could drive, take him out for a drive. And that profoundly shaped me as the one that assesses a room and protects those in it who who I deem, because I have to do a lot of evaluation, right? Not always ask, but who I deem might might need it, and then to change or shift the dynamics for minimum casualties or minimal damage, never no damage.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:20

Um and then my dad, my dad stopped drinking when I was 16. So I saw both sides of that instability. He didn't do it through a program, he did it on his own. And to the day he died, never took another drink. And I have the utmost respect for him in that. And it also was an unintentional model for you don't need anything, just do it yourself.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:46

And my mother went the opposite extreme and fell into the 12-step program through Coda, which is a codependence anonymous.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:55

And I had such an aversion to that because she went into it like five days a week, like it, like anybody does with the new thing, but she would go talk about our family and then come back and say, here's what everybody in the group said that we should do. And I'm like, pretty sure that's not how a program should work. But uh I was like 16 at the time. And so that that led to a different but equally important thing of don't take your problems to other people. Like keep it all in. Though those were my interpretations. Nobody said that to me, but it was just kind of like the strong, do it on their own. And it took me a long, long time to then open up to therapy and to all sorts of additional insights and support because I rejected them at such a formative age because of other people's experiences. So part of leaving at 18 and getting that scholarship was also like I can be a different version of me.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

An opportunity to step out of that environment, that you know, neighborhood you grew up in never felt like you fit into. And now you have this beautiful gift that's been handed to you to be able to step out of it.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

Yeah. And what's what's interesting too is that we align and assign a lot of limitations to ourselves or early in those formative years without anybody putting them on us. We we and I've learned a lot about neuroscience since, and the brain is much faster to attach to negative correlations. It's a safety feature.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Right.

SPEAKER_04 21:36

It's a feature, not a bug, but it goes to the negative. Um, and so for me, my oldest brother being developmentally disabled, which means special ed schools and all and all of the uh social fun that comes with that. My second oldest brother is incredibly intelligent and got a full ride scholarship to Arizona State, and that was his ticket. But so So because I had two extremes on the brain system, if you will, I thought that they were both taken. So I automatically assumed myself as the law of average. And it took me until I was in my mid-20s to have it truly occur to me that I actually was smart because I thought that adjective was already claimed.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

And I think that early on in our family dynamics or neighborhoods or social structures, it's we we take what's either left over or what somebody else assigns. Because they're like, oh, you know, Kurt's the smart one, Kristen, oh, she's lively, she's chatty, she'll tell you a story. And yeah, you just kind of you your plant grows in the shadow. And it's only later that it's like, oh. So yes, there's been a lot of restarts. Um, and you get to, you get to change the neighborhood too.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Yeah. A lot of times these family-rooted situations, whatever they are, you mentioned it earlier when you said sometimes they're positive, sometimes they're negative. You know, there's survival mechanisms. And then um the narratives that we create around what it is or what we how we interpret it to be derive those internal assumptions, which, you know, for me and mine was always that I was never smart enough or good enough. And then that, you know, that it still informs me today. Still, even today, that there's not enough, that I'm not smart enough, that I'm not good enough, those kind of internal, you know, it's like an operating system that's running behind the scenes. It's like, and it was there for the longest time running without me even being aware of it.

SPEAKER_04 23:46

It is. Well, and I love how you said operating system, Melanie, because we think so much about the psychology of our upbringing or what shaped us. What I think is equally fascinating is the physiology about it. The sympathetic system in our nervous system is actually the fight or flight, yeah, or freeze or fawn for as deep as we go into it. And so there is a biological component to how our neighborhoods change our DNA. And so for me, being a protector or being in uncertain things, I actually thought I had finely tuned intuition. I could, I could sense the energy in a room. I still can a lot of times. And it served me well in corporate and other places, but the raise of an eyebrow, the shift in body language, I'm going back to when I was like five. I could, without knowing what was happening, you see them as signals. It's almost like a weather system of humans.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:50

And also then your when do you when do you override your instincts? When do you look and learn to stereotypes and some of the rest of it? And then growing up as a woman in the world where sexual harassment isn't a cute bumper sticker, I mean, it was it was a regular occurrence. And so I also let's just go here in this um interview. I got busty very early. And so, yeah, I have one of those very visible figures, and people love to point that out to me. And so the biology of that, but then also the interpretations, and you put that then with intelligence or aptitude. It so there was your physical neighborhood too. And I think most people, most women, we put a lot of locks on that neighborhood because it's back to the nervous system.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:50

So that's that's an element too of just pulling the thread and saying, like reading, like I could walk into um a gas station and just be like, this doesn't feel right. And I've learned over decades and decades to trust that without having to explain it to others.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

Um, I've walked out of a doctor's office one time with a new, it just it was like a full body message. And maybe it was just my own thing, but I've just learned to now to not wait around for proof when something feels wrong.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Yeah, I you and I, I mean, we've talked about this. We have very similar stories and upbringing in our, you know, our family origin neighborhoods. And I love your experience in brain science and the physical side of that. And it's so important. Like for me, I too have that intuition. It's part of the reason why I do what I do in the people space. Totally. It's why we're sitting here exploring our emotional neighborhoods together, frankly. It's so true. And what I would say is for me, it sometimes gets in the way of my ability to perceive things accurately. And so I also have to question it at times. Like it will inform me there there will be a bias in there. Yes, I will make an immediate judgment sometimes on a person. Yes, yes, um, based on limited information. And I'll make a very quick, you know, most of the times I'm right, I'll say that. But there are times that there's some bias in there based on my lived experience. I do have to question it. Um, and sometimes I have to fact-check it with other people. Like, am I thinking, you know, um so it has also harmed me. I mean, you said that too. Like, it's good and bad. We have this amazing intuitive energy. And does that resonate?

SPEAKER_04 27:39

Oh, a hundred percent. The brain, I'm gonna go back to your operating system, is actually a neutral operating system. It doesn't have a filter for this person or that. So it's taking its signals from your physical reaction. And even our vagus nerve, I won't get too too nerdy here.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Oh, but our vague.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

Well, it it's the warmest nerve in our body. It's it goes from our gut all the way to the base of our brain. But here, the most fascinating thing, it's a communication center between the, you know, it's trust your gut, you know, the brain-body connection. But when I really dug into the science of it, the messages go from the gut to the brain, not the other way around.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

And so when our body has a reaction, which in some cases is conditioning or a trauma response or a bias or an insert, whatever, your brain, which is neutral, then gets this information that it filters as fact. And so, to your point, I think the evolution of being like, let me let me just check this. Let me just see, are all the filters on? Because I have been right more often than I'm not, but that doesn't mean I'm always right. And that's hard to because being right was a safety issue, yeah, not an ego one.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's powerful. I was curious if there were some tools that you could offer us when we're in these moments where we're having like either a triggered response or a biased situation or, you know, a trauma, even a trauma response. If you're if you're aware of those, which I certainly have plenty of those. What are some tips you can offer us in those moments?

SPEAKER_04 29:19

The reason I study this is so deeply is because I will be a forever student of it. There's no expertise in this. There's no like here I am now a fully certified, evolved human. It is the fact that um these are things that nobody ever has learned how to live without eating. And so this is another thing we just have to live as signals. I think understanding the physiology and the chronobiology and the actual, like all of it, neurochemicals, it it helps feel less defective and more like, okay, this is just the wiring behind the behind the wall. And but with that, we're not that complicated. Even though we all bring our like this is my baggage, and it's so unlike anybody else's, it's like, oh, okay, maybe not. And maybe even our ancestors, running from lions, still had kind of the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:13

I think that for a lot of us, uh so let's go back to that. Our limbic system, which is our um most primal, that is really the keep yourself alive, remember to breathe, look out for a woolly mammoth, that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:27

PTSD actually resides first and foremost, if you think about emotional scar tissue in the limbic system.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

So even though a body can be healed from things and you can do cognitive work on it, when a trigger, using using your term, it goes first to our reptilian brain that then says, Are you going to fight, flight, freeze, or fall? And that is another of how the body informs the brain within that. And so it's harder to change. And that's where the neuroplasticity over time we can evolve that. The same like we can learn different languages. If somebody loses a limb, we are an amazing adaptive machine.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:11

And that one's slower because of where it's housed. So to go back and answer your question, in our modern system, we're constantly inundated with cortisol, right? But I mean, we can get cortisol when our phone pings. Yeah. It's just like, oh my gosh. But cortisol.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

You could have a whole session just on cortisol and the environment, both external environment and inside organizations, the impact that's having on us as a society. And there's all elements of PTSD happening in the world right now.

SPEAKER_04 31:40

So true. And there's still a whole lot of education around it because it's like, what are you so stressed for? Or just get yourself under control. And it's like, no, my body is physically, physically having a reaction.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Just generate more revenue and get, you know, hire more people and get more stuff out. So cute.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

I know. I think that it's adorable and it's an opportunity for saying, oh, okay, I can see that you're in a place where information is still lacking.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:04

But going back to your question, our default is going to be whatever our conditioning was. And I'm very clear for myriad reasons that that my fight button is kind of like jammed on, like in the breaker box. Like so, which is great.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

You want makes it great for your personal relationships, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_04 32:21

Oh, so fun. So fun. Because my partner's is not. It is it is freeze. And I mean, it's it's fantastic because I'm your ride or die. You want me in your corner if shit's going down. Uh, and I get I get really, really calm when there's like emergencies. Like I'll I'm the first to like like if literally came up on a car crash, and I was like, just this whole calm comes over me. And that's biological of like, all right, we need to do this and this and this. But in other times, that just yeah, I was watching uh, gosh, what what type of game was it? One of my sons was in high school playing a game, can't even remember, and somebody put hands on him, and I was on the field before I even knew what I was doing. It was like out-of-body experience. So, but your question was when we know that and we see that start to to come up, I think we need to use biology to combat biology.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:18

And so when those moments and that cortisol starts to flare, I can physically feel myself get hot sometimes. I either go really creepy calm, and then it's just like my kids always say, Yes, when mom goes quiet, which is rare, but that's that's the signal. Or so I either go really, really calm or I go really hot. When I feel the hot coming, I use biology with biology. And so that's not the time I'm gonna do my box breathing, right? I'm just not in my like yoga pose mode. One of the things that works for me, and there's a lot of other tips, is I get cold water and I put it in the back of my neck. If I can find my way to just go over there, and even if I can't, sometimes I'll I'll find myself putting my hand back there because it becomes that like brace your bracing for us.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

It's probably like a little vagal nerve.

SPEAKER_04 34:09

That's exactly what it is. Yeah, that's the base of it. And it and it's it's re-stimulating your heart rate because your heart rate in in any of those situations, the heart rate spikes, even if you're you're fleeing. Of course, it's it's that cortisol again. So it's regulating the heart rate as as best as you can. And and it also works in other situations. I'm a I'm a public speaker. So when I'm gonna go on stage and your your body has adrenaline on top of it, it's you still need biological elements to help you regulate. And so that's what's been fun about learning this space.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

It's I get fight or flighty when I go to do a big everyone's like, oh, you're so good at it. I'm like, no, I'm actually I black out because I go I engage like fight or flight. And so the tools I think are super useful, especially even just what you said around recognizing what's happening in your body, the whole embodiment piece, and being able to feel that, even if like engaging some of those tools is really hard when you're in the moment. But if you have a simple thing, like just noticing where it is in your body, yeah, can sometimes be like, oh, this is happening in my body, and that can trigger the like one, two, three, the thing on the neck, or like whatever your tool is. And everyone says it can be a little different.

SPEAKER_04 35:22

Yes. Well, it will be, it will be. I love that. And part of then learning about neurodiversity and different components is when the brain, so maybe it's not the body that's getting all hot, but the brain starts spinning. So I and you said it in the in in the intro, but I I have a neurospicy house. So not only growing up with my brother who is more categorically developmentally delayed, it's why we fit in so well there, by the way. But it but it is, it's also why we in our human profession can identify, recognize, adapt, translate. I think there is something to um understanding the 64 Crayola box of crayons and being like, there is no one size fits all element. But um for some people, uh I'm talking kind of neuro, even having something tactical, and now you see a lot more around um what are those called? Fidget toys and the rest of it. I started learning about this when my oldest son is on the autism spectrum, and his learning modality was more flashcard-based. And because in lots of brains are like this, they the brain actually can process an image 60,000 times faster than text.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

So dys dyslexia, uh, neuro components, it's just more like which one works for you instead of you don't do it the right way. So and now what I I've seen is especially since COVID and learning is auditory. You can listen to a book now instead of read it. There's a lot more accessibility to it. But there's back to our conversation about what are the tools within reach or within reason that can help or offset a bit.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

You know, we're plenty neurospicy over here too, and that's so resonated for me.

SPEAKER_04 37:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

What you said, especially around the images. Less words, more images. I think we use way too many words, whether it's in writing or on PowerPoint slides or having a caught, yeah. Way too many.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And as somebody who went on to study words, this this is what I always joke is my irony is um when I said my brother got the brains, like the math or whatever, I it was like words. Words were words were my friends. And so then I was a journalist, as you mentioned, and then I was in corporate communications, and I've been a speaker. And so words became a tool, but not for everybody. And then having to pull that back and really get a sense of that's the beauty of neuroplasticity and neurodiversity is how will this land for them instead of how do I produce it for me? And that has been that's also part of adapting, meeting people where they are, and I think the normalization now of I really hope that in the next 10 years, standardized testing and a lot of the archaic, outdated academics will catch up to multiple points into the brain, because my son is crazy smart. He just wasn't gonna take this. And my other son has 88. Asking him to do online school during COVID.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Well, I mean, and not only that, like I write about this in my book. I love the term neurospicy. Even college environments, in my opinion, you know, are not a one size fits all. It is not gonna work for someone that has that brain to go sit in a room with 800 people in it and listen to instruction. And how do we make it easier? You know, how do we make it easier for people? People like me, honestly, that need a different learning experience. And maybe it's not gonna be right away, maybe it's gonna be later, maybe it's gonna be shorter. I don't have the answers right now, but just recognizing that, you know, that that is an issue, how we learn. I mean, thankfully, I could afford private school for my youngest son, a private high school where there's only 10 kids in his class. Not everybody can do that. I think it is a big problem in our society that we don't offer more support for those brains.

SPEAKER_04 39:29

Well, and I'll just get on the soapbox for a minute. The educational construct is built on the back of privilege, um, on every form of it.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

100%.

SPEAKER_04 39:39

And one of my uh favorite quotes is if you ask a fish to climb a tree, it will think that it's stupid. And so we lose out on, well, that's the only way to do and I want to go back to something else you said about college or or learning in in general. This also goes into the workplace. There is a real body of work around chronobiology that is the different times of day that you have and not just like that's my bio rhythm and you know, the when the moon is purple. It really goes to your peak performance, what people call the zone and some of the rest of it. And it also goes into the trough of when we are uh at running on limited, it's like an electric car that's down to its last 10 miles. So really understanding that night owls have a completely different ability, but tell them to be at a 7 a.m. meeting, you're not getting the best of them. Same if it was schools and testing, etc. There's a lot to adapt.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Oh, I I uh you're you're talking to somebody who has never been able to get up early in the morning. And my brain is just different than other people's brains. And I have my kids are like that too. All three of my kids.

SPEAKER_04 40:50

Were you ever told you were lazy?

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Oh, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_04 40:54

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Yeah, because I didn't get up and go in the morning.

SPEAKER_04 40:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

And you know, we got to get crack a lack in in the morning. Yeah, that's my husband's term because he's a morning person. Um, and his brain is different. Yes, you know, he has a different brain. Yeah, he you know, he also can't have a conversation at any past 8 p.m.

SPEAKER_04 41:13

We we actually have a family rule that is don't ask mom for any decisions after nine. I mean they're grumpy, tired, like it's just for your sake, it's a warning label. But but it's funny because we make that into a personality trait without ever thinking, wait a minute, then then what what's the Venn diagram? What's the crossover? And I did a lot of studies. I did a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

I love a good Venn diagram, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 41:38

Oh girl, you know I had to throw that up. Yeah. But um, and I did so much on corporate culture and employee engagement. And so starting to pull that forward to say, but there are sweet spots and different, and again, we now have more understanding of remote work, and but um I bet give you something at nine o'clock at night or in my uh the people.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Oh, I can build a whole business at 10 p.m.

SPEAKER_04 42:03

So yes, I have a girlfriend that's like, I get all my stuff done when the rest of you go to bed. Because well, at least Bryson, she was on one of your shows too, and it's just I've never seen such creative genius, but it's not gonna be at 8:30 a.m. And getting getting to amplify that, that's the best part, especially when we can say this is a strategy around the brain, not a defect of character. But back to the neighborhoods, when you were being told all that time, oh, you're just lazy, like that, that those those are the words and the imprints um that we then have to figure out how to do a scar removal.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

I was also told I talked too much, I was too direct, that I didn't follow directions, that I wasn't obedient enough. Oh, that boys do not like girls that are so assertive. Yeah, assertive, um, aggressive, you know, those kind of labels that were put on me early in my life. Total BS, right? Those are all strinks, by the way. There are a hundred the things that got me to where I am, the things that I was told as a kid that were bad about me. So funny.

SPEAKER_04 43:14

Yes, this fish wasn't gonna climb a tree, but put me in the no climbing trees for this fish either. Yeah, but it all out swim, y'all. And so that's the that's the component that I get excited about in this work is being able being able to illuminate what's always been there in our brains and our bodies and our ecosystems, and just getting out of our own way and just saying, there was actually nothing wrong.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Um before we go back to your neighborhood, can you say a little bit more for our listeners about neuroplasticity?

SPEAKER_04 43:46

Sure. So neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to adapt. And in fact, we were talking about school. School is the longest form of neuroplasticity. You go into a class of physics. Physics, knowing nothing, and you come out having learned something. So that's as we tackle anything, but it also can be used in the other way of ingraining habits and behaviors. If we think of it like a little bumper car, when the brain keeps bumping up against the same thing, it's like, do not go there. But later, when you come back to it and remove that bumper, that the brain will easily drive then through there. So there are different times where learning is more available to us, like linguistics and music, some things like that. But there's always potential expansion within that for where that's going to come back to. And I first explored it when my fun son was diagnosed on the spectrum and I was given a photocopied piece of paper that said everything that he would be capable of and not capable of. And it was like, I have to believe that there's something else here. It didn't say use flashcards. It didn't say look at blood sugar levels and all the things I learned about the Zachary bubble of how he worked. And the more I did that as a as a parent, the more I started being like, this could work at work. I'm pretty sure that something's going on. And then being that words person, translating and coming back to saying, let's look at myriad formats for learning. Because if we just gave multiple choice to information, and then you could say, I want to listen to it, I want to view it. And the other thing I want to also say, or at least touch on, is there's also our five senses. We're we're talking about our intellectual adaptability, but there is real, you ask earlier, what are some of the um things that you can do? Everybody is gonna use them differently, but some people are gonna respond to touch, a weighted blanket or to the warmth of the sun. We all have our innate operating manuals. We just haven't always dusted them off or put our software update on top of it. Music, there's people, this is a great one, who either want it on or want it off. I feel like they're always in the car at the same time, right? And temperature regulation, that's always a joke between people, but that actually is going to your physiology. That's not you being a jerk in the car. Those are all, I think, the brilliant car makers who came up with the different heated seats. But if we can start to allow an and, there's such potential for a different level of living together.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

I totally agree. I love the word and. There's so much possibility in it. I completely no butts, just stands. Um yeah, God, I could just go on and on listening to you. I feel like every conversation I have with you is like has my brain just going, you know, all these different things. Even neuroplasticity, that word's so hard to say, is like as we age, the ability, like the old dog can't learn tricks thing, like total BS. We can learn, you know. I mean, even my mom, my mom said, Okay, this is so cute. I have to share this. After the first episode, she listened to my podcast.

SPEAKER_04 47:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

And she said to me, This was so cute, and it also made me cry a little bit. She said, I never realized I had low self-esteem. And that I had a loud inner critic. Those were those were her words. And after I listened to your podcast, I realized, I'm sure she's not going to appreciate me telling the story, but she goes, I realized I've always had that. Like the imposter syndrome. And I never, she's 85. And I go, Mom, I feel so bad that you had that experience on the podcast. I was like, that is definitely not my intent in asking you to listen. And she goes, No, no, no, no. I am so happy. I now have this information about myself. It explains so much. And now I can do something about it. It was so cute. Now I can do at 85. I'm like, this is amazing.

SPEAKER_04 48:03

Oh, I think it's so empowering that just learning that this these are elements, they're not definitions, and that they can be changed and they should be. We all walk around with devices nonstop. We would never not plug our phone in, right? Because we can't operate without it, but we will run our body into the ground and we will definitely do the software upgrades because the software updates do what? Fix bugs.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:36

But we're like, we wouldn't be carrying around the first bug phone and just being like, oh, and yet we won't allow the same idea with our our learning, our emotional regulation. And I want to touch on something you said too. Our brains and bodies needs can and will change during aging, during, and I mean that ages and stages too, not even your menopause. Well, but not even chronological age too. There's stages of your life. People who become parents at 40 versus at 20. There is still there's commonality, but within that, it's like the best part of the human experience is that we get to keep, it's a kaleidoscope. We get to keep adding to it. And yet we keep walking around like it's a single stone.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Yeah. Oh, for sure. I mean, these are all just incredible insights for people right now in the world and what we're trying to navigate. The the burnout and stress. Oh, and you know, because I work in so and you two, you work in so many different organizations, is just like we're at an all-time high.

SPEAKER_04 49:43

It's an epidemic, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

It is an epidemic. And not only that, like the organizations that are not focused on the well-being of their people.

SPEAKER_03 49:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:50

Yeah. And there's just such opportunities there to start really bringing in these types of tools and resources inside organizations, people like you to come in and help build out that infrastructure and focus because we're breaking down. We're breaking down.

SPEAKER_04 50:05

I agree. I think that there is a reckoning and a renaissance coming. It is going to be the talent economy that's coming. I was just having this conversation the other day, because you cannot keep people in boxes and treat them like machines. There will be a rebellion. And for as much as everybody's so concerned about AI takeover, fantastic. Because it's going to change, and we need to change. We all need to change within that space.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

But don't say that around dentally, though.

SPEAKER_04 50:36

Oh, oh, I know.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

Oh, I've had many. My daughter thinks that AI is going to ruin the world.

SPEAKER_04 50:40

So both of my sons do. They're always doing that. And to me, I think it's because I started college or that the worldwide internet was coming on the scene right as I was coming out. Same sensations that the kids are like, that's going to change everything. Yes, thank goodness, because whatever I study in school is not what I'm doing now. And so I think that there's um there's going to be an evolution, including in the workplace. And I do think that we're going to move into uh the talent economy, the gig economy. You do not get to decide at 22 or an employer, the first job description you get into. That's now your your talent for life.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

I think of the European 50 years of this thing that you're going to be doing.

SPEAKER_04 51:23

But I think it's a European system where you you take your A levels, B levels, and it's like, okay, you're in you're in trade, you're in. Oh my gosh. And I feel the same with with humans too. Uh having having graduated from a marriage. Like that doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

I love that graduation term.

SPEAKER_04 51:40

It is, I do obviously a lot with words, but there that imprints on your brain too. I'm going to say one more nerd thing. You were talking about your mom and the the negative thing. It's very interesting. Check and see, do you do you talk to yourself? Let me just ask you. Do you talk to yourself?

SPEAKER_00 51:58

Oh, all the time. All the time. Yeah. I've had to change that language. Well, change the language.

SPEAKER_04 52:04

Here's why I say that to you. It is the inner soundtrack. But when when you're speaking, and I I talk to myself all the time, it's usually like, why am I in this room? What did I forget at the store? But when you say negative things out loud, your brain imprints them twice.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

100%.

SPEAKER_04 52:23

And that's the you said neuroplasticity, right? So if every day you're you're doing that, but then you stop doing that, we the brain starts to be like, oh, there's more room here. And so it sounds so simple. When I really get into neurodevelopment.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

Listen, I have learned this. The school of hard knocks, like when I do public speaking, one of the little tricks I have is to tell everybody how excited I am.

SPEAKER_04 52:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Even if on the inside I am about to lose my mind with anxiety and fear, which I normally am, but I will never tell you that. I will only tell you that I am excited. And that works. Takes away the anxiety because anxiety, excitement, very similar feelings.

SPEAKER_04 53:06

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:07

But you're telling you when you are telling other people. Your brain is always listening to what you say. So when you do that, the other thing too, back to visuals that we were talking about. I run a lot of cohorts and I just did one earlier today. And having visual words within within sight and in unexpected places is another way that you can bend the brain, especially as you're trying to overcome like decades of or unlearning within this space. Using neurowellness, because that's brain and body. We're archaeologists within our own minds. And I think that's what I'm getting excited about. And yes, artificial intelligence, but there's never been more fascinating machine learning than what our brains are doing. We created that. We've created all sorts of things. And that also means that we can create something bigger and better. We just have to have the permission for it.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

Um, I'm gonna ask you this just because you mentioned the reckoning, the moment of reckoning. If you think about your own, your are maybe one that really stands out because you probably had a number of them. What is a defining moment that stands out for you or a moment of reckoning that really stands out?

SPEAKER_04 54:28

Oh my gosh. That's going. Um there's there's been a lot, just as there's been those moments like with that individual early on who shifted me in one direction. I think as an adult, when you start to make your own shifts, there's something even more powerful. A reckoning was going through a divorce or a graduation ceremony, as I have reframed it. That doesn't mean anybody who's ever been through it or near it, that's a reckoning. That and when I say reckoning, it's changing our own insight into our identity. I am no longer this, or I this this no longer fits, or this might fit. There's also great potential. Me flying to Illinois to go to school wasn't because I saw it, it's because there was no other barriers around it. So it can be both ways. For me, another reckoning was leaving corporate. I worked at the largest uh company in the world, and I've been very fortunate to work at public companies and have financial success. And in the middle of COVID, having been through the divorce, leaving that company to go do my own thing was a reckoning because sometimes the resistance isn't internal. And that neuroplasticity sometimes is also removing the soundtrack of others that does not serve you. That is not your operating system. That's free opinions that are changing your route.

SPEAKER_00 56:01

Yeah, living rent-free inside the brain.

SPEAKER_04 56:04

It's like it's not GPS in your car, it's somebody running along next to you being like, go that way. So those have been huge transformative shifts. And I also want to go back to because your neighborhood talks so much about shame.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:19

One of the elements that I think becomes empowering as we look into inward at our our brains and our bodies and and also the elements we allow into our current neighborhood. Our brain is a neighborhood. It's a fascinating one. It's kind of like the matrix.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

Now, why are we talking about operating system? We should be pulling the neighborhood into our bodies. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:41

Right. Uh, I always loved in that movie in The Matrix, where they went and gave, like here, and they inserted something. They're like, now you know kickboxing. Like, I would love some of that. But that neuroplasticity is that it just takes longer. But my component coming back to your work and why it's so important is that shame is just another word for ignorance. That's why they use ignorance as an insult, but it really just means lack of education in that space. And so the more we can educate ourselves on our own operating systems, the less the shame has a place to stay. Because if we just realize that's my look, I'm not a morning person. Biologically, I'm not a morning person. That doesn't mean I disrespect you. That doesn't mean I'm lazy. But if we can remove that through just, oh, that's what that means. We're trying to use only one dictionary for everybody's brains, and that doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

Yeah. Oh gosh, that was so powerful what you said. It's a whole different way to look at shame, right? I mean, I think Brene Brown, like, she has really changed the world on her view on shame. But what you just said makes so much sense about shame and ignorance. And I never would have seen that before. Yeah, it's so true. Because we create our whole a whole narrative around these things that we do. And the education piece allows you to change the narrative of how you're viewing that thing about you that you've carried shame about your whole entire life.

SPEAKER_04 58:14

Of course. Of course, because we didn't, we were ignorant of an alternative. That's the fish in the tree.

SPEAKER_00 58:22

That's a reckoning for me right there.

SPEAKER_04 58:24

I love it. So for my work in the world, it started with words, it continues with words, but now I have a different space for it. I like to think of it as a thesaurus. You can go back in and you can edit. Please, please edit. You can update, you can swap out words. I was just talking, I was just with a group earlier today, and somebody said, I have control issues. And I said, or maybe you had control conditioning. Maybe people, your environment or your circumstances, but I doubt you have control issues. That's neuroplasticity. We can we can find our way out of it, we can learn our way out of it. And so that I think is such an opportunity for this shame space of just saying you are not alone, you are not broken, and you are not done.

SPEAKER_00 59:11

Yeah. It's delicious. I love that. I'm holding, I'm holding that so close. Yeah. I knew this time was gonna go by so fast. And it and it did. And part one. Yeah, part one. I'm definitely gonna have to have you back at some point. As we're coming to a close, looking back, you've had so many different neighborhoods. We didn't even get to your current neighborhood barely.

SPEAKER_04 59:33

I think we did. I think all my nerding here was evident.

SPEAKER_00 59:36

Yeah, just the neurospicy stuff was helpful for me. Um if you think about learning and integration where you are today, what stands out for you there?

SPEAKER_04 59:49

I think what really pulls forward for me is learning out loud. It's for all of the reasons we talked about, but also when we learn out loud and we bring others, we allow there to be space for alternative points of view, um, additional information that we did not have within reach. We also model that ignorance is a state, not permanent, and we allow there to be room for a dialogue. So as somebody who has been, you know, a writer and um now I'm more of a a conversationalist because the dialogue isn't done. So within that, when we can learn out loud, that allows one of the most powerful things that lands emotionally is when somebody says, Me too.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:49

Like, oh, you do that too. And we're all again back to our roots, community-oriented and not feel so alone. So when you learn out loud, you can you can at least kick open some doors of some dark closets. So as I'm using words and stories and education, it's not from an expert, it's not a monologue anymore. I'm using a megaphone to allow other people's experiences to evolve, to be seen, and then to evolve and to to be reimagined.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

I mean, your words right there encompass 100% why I'm doing this. Yeah. Because I, for most of my life, I shielded the parts of me that felt the most painful to pretend that I could fit in in many settings. And now that I talk about it, my hope is that other people will feel safe to talk about theirs and we can share the journey together. It is how I've started removing masks, the parts of my identity that I felt like I had to shield and hide. And so I think what you said there really, really struck me. I have a feeling it's gonna strike a lot of our listeners as well. You are so wise.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:05

Well, one thing I want to say to that as as we close is, and it's the work that you're doing. I just want to reflect it back to you, that there's the history that we carry, but the legacy that we leave, that's still ours. And that's also what you're doing. You're spreading your dandelion.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:24

Oh, that means so much to me. I've already I've teared up, I don't know how many times during this episode today.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:30

Yeah. We did some real work here, people.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:33

Any other final words or messages that you felt like you didn't get to share that you want to make sure you leave our listeners with?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:41

Oh my gosh. Um I think it really comes back to pay attention to the words that you're using because you are listening.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:53

Either verbal or mental. You know, that we can have we can have these things running behind the scenes or not necessarily coming out of our mouth, but that we're thinking them.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:02

Yeah, and we're the same.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:02

That was so dumb.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:04

Yes, right. And and and I think there's an opportunity back to learning out loud to interrupt when you see that in others. And to invite it, one of the things I do when you train as a public speaker is you as you're up there, you have people who look for different things for you. And to say, hey Melanie, if you hear me say something negative, please, please come and share that with me. But so uh bringing that along.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

Yeah, such a powerful message. I just thank you so much for today. I think I could have made this like a three-hour episode. Yeah, we're barely we barely scratched the surface, but it's a full body episode. Yeah, all these tips and tips and tools in here. And now I feel like I have to go research stuff based on what you've said. I'm gonna have to go read everything, read more about you than I've already read about you because I'm just I was so fascinated by you when I first learned about you.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:59

But let me give you this you don't have to, you get to.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

Yeah.

unknown 1:04:03

Right?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:04

True. Because you get to educate your brain in the way that you want it to.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:07

Just those two things alone that I get to instead I have to, and so many things of our day, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:12

Yeah, we're our own best elective. We might as well enjoy the class.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:16

So true. So many great nuggets in there. Thank you again for your time. And um, until next time.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:25

Namaste.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:26

Yes, thank you, everybody, and thank you for joining us um exploring Kristen Graham's neighborhood today. It was an absolute delight. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. As you head back in your day, we invite you to notice what's happening in your own neighborhood, at work, at home, or inside yourself. Change often starts close to home, and sometimes the smallest shift in awareness can create the biggest ripple. If something in today's conversation stayed with you, we'd love for you to carry it forward and share it with someone else who might need it too. And if you're finding value in these conversations, it would mean a lot to us if you subscribed and left a review. We're just getting started, and your support really helps us grow the community. Until next time, take care of yourself and each other.