Episode 8: Open to Interruption

We all build plans, routines, and expectations for how things are “supposed” to go, but life has a habit of stepping in with its own agenda. And instead of resisting those moments, this episode explores what happens when we choose to embrace them. We discuss what it means to be Open to Interruption — not just in the literal sense, but in the deeper, more human way that life has of breaking our rhythm.

Interruptions aren’t always setbacks; sometimes they’re invitations. Invitations to slow down, to shift direction, to rethink what we thought we wanted, or to discover something we didn’t even know we needed. Being open to interruption means accepting the reality of what life throws at us — the unexpected, the inconvenient, the unplanned — while also recognizing our power to reshape those moments into something meaningful. Something beautiful. Something powerful.

This episode is a reminder that the unexpected doesn’t have to derail you. Sometimes, it’s the very thing that leads you somewhere better than you imagined.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Daydreamers Podcast. And again, if you're brand new, welcome. Very happy to have you here. Happy to have you as a part of the Daydreamers community. Um, so I'm gonna address the obvious here. It's been a couple of weeks since I've gotten to talk to all of you um listening, but I'm happy to be back. Uh, for those of you who saw anything that I posted on my uh Instagram stories or anything like that, I obviously was sick, unfortunately. Um just a little fun fact about me. I have a very sensitive stomach, let's just put it at that. And uh I paid the price, so I uh I'm totally fine now, but it was a little bit more extreme than I expected. Had to take some antibiotics because I wasn't too sure what it was, but nonetheless, seems like I'm pretty much clear to go. Um, and you know, these things happen sometimes, and and obviously it was unexpected. Definitely didn't expect that my Memorial Day weekend, that's how long this has gone on since. Um, didn't expect that that was gonna be uh a weekend of trying to figure out why I was sick in the first place and and how to kickstart my recovery. But nonetheless, got to take care of that, feeling 100% better now, able to eat regular food again, which was very nice. For any of you who have been sick like that before, you know, one of the most non-fun aspects of that is you're basically on a very bland diet to let your stomach kind of recover and to be able to hold something down in your body. You know, I'm I'm eating saltine crackers and drinking a bunch of electrolytes and Gatorade and um having chicken broth, you know, very basic stuff that um obviously I also shredded quite a bit of weight, um, which for better or worse, I just kind of got to um reset in that aspect too. But um, but nonetheless, grateful that I had time to recover, that I had time to, you know, even just be here at home a little bit more and um and to rest. You know, I'm not the best about just kind of sitting myself down and taking a break. Um, I do enjoy my relaxation. You know, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like you know, I can't just sit down and watch a movie. Of course I've enjoyed that, but I think just to just to rest for the sake of resting, um, I think a lot of us probably forget to ever do that for ourselves just because we have the chance to. If we have a few hours to, you know, um to try to give ourselves a day, it's it's it's sometimes a little bit difficult to do or to make time for when we all have so many responsibilities and things to worry about. But nonetheless, as I said before, I'm very happy to be back. I missed being able to record, and I wanted to also be sure that when I recorded these episodes, that as transparent as I love to be, I also wanted to be sure I could be 100% in it, 100% engaged with what I was going to be talking about. I you know, my mind was in so many places trying to recover that I wanted to be sure I was clear of that as I jumped back in. But nonetheless, I know since the last time we spoke, we were talking a lot about mental health as as May was mental health awareness month. We've now jumped into June, is men's mental health awareness month, something that I just recently was even becoming familiar with. And um, you know, the the the main thing that I would draw from that, if anything, is um obviously everyone's mental health matters, and and we all have our unique challenges or things that we uh try to overcome every single day, and a lot of which no one else may ever even know about. You know, a lot of us deal with these things in silence, and whether that's because we were trained to from our upbringing or we're just not used to necessarily expressing ourselves or talking about some of these things that is a very vulnerable subject, or it's very difficult to talk about these things because maybe we don't know how. And all of which is part of what makes us human. I don't think that any of us should be ashamed of that. Sometimes it's just more difficult to deal with some things, and um, all we can do is just try. So, nonetheless, as you know, year-round, I think this subject is always so important to talk about. And uh, you know, I'm obviously gonna constantly talk about different topics and things that that surround how we take care of ourselves. Um, you know, it's always gonna be an important uh subject matter. But I also, you know, today I wanted to take advantage as as is kind of relevant to something that obviously I was dealing with the last couple of weeks, but also that a lot of other people um, you know, tend to deal with in in any aspect of their life. Um, you know, today I wanted today's episode to be about being open to interruption. And this is something that I actually I I can't take credit for that phrase uh specifically. I I will say that that originally came from a uh mentor of mine uh that I where I used to work, uh, and and she told me that one time. I I I'm trying to remember the exact conversation, but it was something along the lines. I was kind of talking to, you know, I was expressing to her that I was trying to figure out, you know, what's what's gonna be my next step or next phase in my career. I was, you know, I I worked in the in in various industries. Most recently, I've worked a lot around like entertainment. And, you know, I I I very much was enjoying some aspects of my job at the time, other parts I was trying to figure out like, am I really meant for this? Am I really fulfilled? You know, and also am I gonna let certain people in my space or in you know in my work environment negatively impact my experience and how am I gonna create a better experience for myself? So, in kind of being able to talk through some of those challenges with the with my mentor, you know, she she told me something that she was trying to basically get the point across that like don't get so caught up in the fact that some of these things that are inevitable or out of your control that they're gonna happen and you might not have the power no matter how optimistic or no matter how hard you work. You know, sometimes when you work at at big companies or in big industries, there are so many moving parts and there's a lot that operates you know without a single person's necessarily uh uh ability to change a lot of what goes on on a regular basis. So um she was trying to make the point of like, don't get so caught up in that. It's it's always gonna be that way. But how can you, you know, uh change your your mentality about it or at least have a better look on things so that you can better navigate them as you know, as you try to answer some of these questions or get some clarity on those things. So she she gave me that that that that that point of reference, telling me, listen, Esteban, be open to interruption. And that was something that I will say diff definitely changed my outlook on a lot of it, of that experience with with my career, but I think in general, and I think the reason why I'm bringing this up in this episode today is because I have been in that situation now a couple of times, just in the last few months, where something very unexpected happens in my life. Not something that I expected to happen, but also not something that was going to make any of this easier, you know, being able to get through um any challenging times, being able to, you know, stay focused on the things that were most important to me or that I cared about the most, and yet I somehow found a way to to at least try to embrace some of those challenges. I I think you know, I'm thinking about in past years I've seen how I've been able to I've been able to try to, you know, not get so frustrated about when something unexpected happens and it changes the course of maybe something I had planned. You know, I I often have have been very guilty and and I'll be, you know, I'll be very transparent about the fact that I've had many experiences where I had a plan in mind. I wanted things to go a specific way. I probably worked even very hard to try to make sure that the that things went according to plan. And when they didn't, I would get very, very irritated at the situation. Uh to the point where I couldn't even, you know, I I didn't have any capacity in my brain to say, or I shouldn't say I didn't have capacity, I I didn't have any room for for temperament to say, oh, you know what, I'm gonna take a beat and I'm gonna embrace the change and I'm gonna be okay. I I used to be very guilty of just those things used to bother me so much to the point where then I just kind of lost the whole point of what I was even trying to accomplish in the first place. And if anything, my frustration set me back even further, and it it really just created a another challenge for me to overcome on top of what was already going on. And you know, I I think then sometimes you hit a turning point where, you know, sometimes there's certain interruptions that I think all of us encounter in life. They're they're all at levels, right? Some of them can be very minor where you don't really have much of a it doesn't maybe it doesn't affect a lot of what goes on in your life, but it interrupts something. And it can be frustrating, but maybe it's frustrating for a day or for a few hours. And then there's other things, you know, there's a whole nother level of interruption that happens in your life where literally everything stops. And it's not like you still have flexibility to fulfill yourself in other ways or to try to selfishly, you know, make yourself feel better in other parts of your life. Sometimes life just completely stops, and you literally have nothing to say about it. Like you can't change it, you can't sit here and try to force it into a different direction. Like you have to sit in it, and oftentimes when we kind of neglect the smaller interruptions and we try to ignore them and not address them for what they are, when the big interruption comes, we don't know what the hell to do with ourselves. And it drives us crazy. And so, you know, I've had I've learned the hard way where I've had a couple of times where you know I've had to literally just stop because life threw something at me that I I couldn't deny as something that meant I needed to take a break or just you know, I need I I was I was I was gonna have to sit down and and ride this out, you know. And and in this case, you know, again, I I'll I'll uh uh I'll I'll address what I can relate to is you know I got sick like like I did for the past two weeks where I couldn't really eat anything for a few days. I was very weak, I had no energy, um, I was in a lot of pain. Um and and I couldn't do pretty much anything that I would do on a regular day. A lot of my day was just trying to get food in my system and you know, taking medicine and resting and sleeping whenever I could. And and and that was difficult to try to embrace the the day-to-day. And and and I will say, even the probably the most difficult part is also not knowing how long it's gonna go on. You know, a lot of times we think that by writing things out, we're also guaranteed a timeline of what that's gonna look like. Even though we've already maybe accepted that it's not in our control, still somehow we have this expectation where we think that maybe there's a timeline where it's only gonna go on for so long, and maybe, oh, you know what, in a few days, you you almost tell yourself you're being optimistic. You're like, ah, in a few days, you know what, I'll be all right. I should be fine by next week, I'll be okay. And you say it so easily to yourself, but then you realize, am I guaranteed to be fine by next week? Not really. And like for me in this case, I you know, I had been sick similar to what I just had, you know, in in in in years past, where I kind of just let things, I just kind of had to give it a couple of days and my stomach was clear and I was cool. That's kind of at first what I was expecting. You know, I it's I I'll admit, I didn't expect it to go on this long. And then before you know it, oh shoot, I now I have I have to go to the hospital, I need to figure out, you know, for my doctor what I need. I need to take medication, I'm gonna need probably something a little bit stronger than some peptobismol or some Tums, you know, this is a little bit more serious. And then again, you realize that you're really not in control at all, and you have to submit to what the situation is. And it's not that you're submitting yourself altogether, but you're submitting yourself in terms of you're accepting what is in terms of reality, and then the part where you don't necessarily have to submit yourself is what you make of what you have left over, what you make of what you do have capacity to do in those moments. Because sometimes, you know, especially when it comes to your body and taking care of yourself, a lot of times we, if especially if you're if you're a driven person, if you're somebody that constantly likes to be on the go or is disciplined with your workouts or the way that you eat or the way you get outside or whatever it is, you might feel like taking a day off or taking a day to just sit down and do nothing is a day wasted or a day that you didn't hold yourself accountable. But sometimes, especially when life kicks in and it means also taking care of your body or even your mind, sometimes those things are important to embrace and to look at it as though I'm not giving up or I'm not submitting. I'm embracing the fact that there are other elements in to take care of myself besides just being disciplined or just within my discipline to take action. There's also a discipline in being able to take care of yourself. Um, and again, I've learned that the hard way. I'm not someone that had that even in my mind, let alone being able to master something like that. It takes a long time to do something like that. But um nonetheless, I digress. Um I think that a lot of us don't always know how to how to move or how to feel good about the big interruptions that we have in our life. And again, you know, I say this many times with a lot of the things that we've talked about, and I preface this by saying, doesn't make me an expert by any means. I can only be an expert in my experience and and and what I've gone through. But all of us can have a big interruption in our life, whether that be, you know, it could be something tragic that happens in our life, something that happens to us or to someone close to us in our life. It could be something that we just were, you know, we were a witness to, we witnessed something tragic. Um uh, you know, uh, it could be that uh something happens with your job, you know, you get laid off, or maybe you get in an accident, you know, God forbid, hopefully that that doesn't happen to you, but um, something that really makes your life stop, or you feel like time just stops. And what's interesting about even the most tragic situations is I feel like it's almost inevitable for all of us to like hit a reset button. I feel like we hit it without even thinking in moments like that, where we start thinking about everything in our life so differently. And and I'll give a prime example. If you hear someone close to you, or even just like someone that's not necessarily within your immediate circle in your family or in your close friends' group, but let's say you hear about a coworker or a friend who lost someone in their family, even if it's just for a second, I feel like it's very natural for us to then automatically go, dang, I'm thinking about the people close to me in my life. What would I do if I lost someone in my life close to close to me like that? Have I talked to my family or friends lately? Have I let them know how much I appreciate them, how much I love them? Maybe I should. Maybe I should give somebody a call. Maybe I should give them, you know, give them a really good embrace when I see them. You can't help but think about things like that, you know? Or you hear about somebody who lost their job. Maybe it makes you appreciate your job a little bit more in that moment when you hear things like that. And I think there's such a there's a beauty in that in terms of I feel like sometimes life uses that as a way for us to try to remember the things that we do have, or the things that we should be grateful for, or the things that we can still embrace and and and make the most of while we have it. And also, if we ever come into an experience in our life, or maybe we lose some of those things, or those things change in our life, maybe we're at least reminded that those things can happen to anybody at any given time. Because also I feel like tragedy is unbiased. Tragedy doesn't discriminate. It's gonna tragedy happens to anybody. If you're a billionaire, if you live in poverty, if you live in a rich area, a poor area, no matter what you know where you come from, uh, what your background is, tragedy will strike regardless. Are there certain maybe lifestyles that might help you avoid certain tragedies or maybe bet or maybe make it less likely? Sure. But let's not pretend that things like natural disasters or people being sick. Oftentimes the way those things come into your life is not just a product of the environment that you're in or the way you choose to to live your life with luxury or with um you know certain advantages or privileges in your life. A lot of those tragedies, unfortunately, it doesn't matter. They they they will come into someone's life no matter what. What what helps make the individual, what helps make us who we are, is how we navigate those things, what we what we do, you know, what we make of it with those situations. So I I use that to to bring the point around with being open to interruption. And I know usually I you know with these episodes, I I I tie this to maybe a film that I've watched or that I chose to re-watch, a TV episode, or maybe some music. I I, you know, having been sick the last couple of weeks, I haven't necessarily made a lot of time to like watch anything super intentionally with the the podcast in mind. Um, but I did think, you know what, there's a lot of examples that I can think of when it comes to being open to interruption. I mean, think about I mean, one of my favorite examples obviously will always be, you know, I'm a big comic book movie fan, you know, Marvel and even DC. And a lot of times a common theme amongst a lot of these characters is, you know, whether you you watch a TV show or a film about any of them, a lot of times they run into some kind of obstacle or or or um life-changing occurrence, a tragedy maybe, that changes the entire course of their life. And oftentimes, what does it lead them to become? The hero that they are, that we know them to be. You know, and I know that's fiction, it's comic book stuff, but a lot of times there's a version of that that happens to regular everyday people. You know, I think about a lot of times people that become first responders or people that um become law enforcement, military, or um people that work in the the field of uh of mental health, um, or that work in the medical field. I'm not gonna speak for everybody because again, I don't work in those fields necessarily, but a lot of folks that I've gotten to speak to or that I know that work in a lot of those fields, oftentimes their motivation has something to do with they're motivated by something that they witnessed or that they heard about, and to which that's it's kind of sparked a passion in them to want to go make a difference or to want to make a positive impact somewhere. Um, again, it's not always the case, but I've gotten to hear quite a few stories like that, and to me, that's the version of what we hear about with superheroes. A lot of times, you know, I I I I won't say, you know, I won't say this person's name, but I had a friend that I went to school with who, you know, had had lost a family member uh in a fire. And they are now an active firefighter in California. And again, something tragic that then turned into a very big passion in their heart to want to go make a difference. And and and and this person has been a firefighter for a few years now and has probably made so many great things happen, has probably saved has saved many lives, has prevented so many other tragedies in people's lives. And it just goes to show, not to say that you want that kind of tragedy to happen to anyone, but it's it's a very powerful thing to realize and accept the reality that that can be turned into something more than just what that tragedy was. Um But what allows us to do that is we're open to it. We're open to accepting that life doesn't have to stop there. Life can be put on pause or be put on hold for a minute as we learn to cope, ex to accept, or to to mourn, or just to get through whatever the situation is, but it doesn't have to stop there, it can be turned into something else and into something more. Excuse me while I just take a sip here of my uh tea here. But you know, again, I think there's there's a big there's a really p big p power in that and and and in accepting that. You know, the another really, really cool thing that I I I see often, especially in in in in the line of work that that I've been in and working a lot around entertainment, and you know, people that work in movies and people that work in in television or just any kind of art even, oftentimes you see you hear about people who have gone through tragedy or have gone through hard times or had a big change in their life, and they express it through their art. I feel like that's another thing where especially with people who have really been successful, you know, some of the biggest artists, actors, storytellers that that we hear about, people that people you know that are idolized by millions of people around the world, oftentimes some of their biggest motivations or inspirations came from very sad places. You know, you I I've seen so many interviews of actors that we all know that that you know you hear that person's name and you think, wow, I love this actor, I love him in this, I love him in that movie or whatever. But then you read and you hear interviews about what their upbringing was or what they've overcome. And oftentimes you hear about, like, let's say if there was an act, like I I'm trying to think of an actor specifically, but I know I've heard of a few different actors where they talk about some of the roles they played, and maybe they had a they had a moment where their character was very sad or depressed or going through a very hard, difficult time, and then they decide. Describe how, oh yeah, well, it wasn't difficult for me to go to that place because I've been through this in real life. Or, you know, like, oh, uh perfect example, uh, Liam Neeson. If you don't know who Liam Neeson is, he's the guy from the Taken films, um, and he's been in so many other uh movies as well, a lot of action-packed movies, but his probably one of his most famous films is Taken. And in the movie, his daughter gets abducted, and he's you know, he's he's he's like a special ops kind of guy. He's he's he's very well skilled in like um you know, like combat and and and and has a lot of resources around the world and kind of like a spy almost a little bit. He has that experience, and he uses that to go find his daughter. And in he's done a lot of movies like that where you know there's even films where he's he's he's he's lost his wife, and so you know, so he lives alone and he plays these characters, and pardon me by the way, that's my indicator that I'm gonna be going to bed soon, apparently, on my phone. If you heard that, um not sure if the mic picked that up, but um, but anyway, he's had the he's played this role and and and or he's played these characters that have this sense of loss in the story, and then you hear about the fact that he lost his wife in real life many years ago. And you know, you watch a performance and you realize that he now was able to tell the story and and and create a help create a film, a project that so many people around the world enjoy. Oftentimes, even sometimes other people can relate to those stories, or they find it empowering to see their story or their experience reflected on screen. It's therapeutic to them, and it came from a tragic situation that somebody really went through. Um so I think a lot of artists in this way are able to tell that story and and express it to the world. And and, you know, I uh sometimes you hear people say, you know, it's just a movie, it's just it's just a song, and it's just art. Like people sometimes even talk about, you know, they're an area, they're in a place of privilege. But at the end of the day, when tragedy strikes, we're all in a position where we might be challenged to some degree that maybe we haven't been challenged before, and that it changes our life or it changes the course of life where where we're headed. Um, you know, like the example of my my friend who's a firefighter. I don't know if this person's plan their entire life was to become a firefighter, but once that tragedy set in, it changed the course of where they were going in life and it and it led them to maybe what they were meant to do all along. But unfortunately, it took a situation like that to put to put them in that situation to go make an impact and to go make a difference. Um the other thing that that r really stands out to me the more I think about this subject, um, and again, I, you know, I'm I'm not gonna lie to you guys. I mean I'm here winging it. You know, I didn't really make many notes for for today. I wanted to just kind of talk about this subject. But the other thing that really stands out to me is um, and something that I've I've personally struggled with a lot in my life, is sometimes we often turn small interruptions into big ones. And what I mean by that is, you know, I've been very guilty and I've even met other people who are kind of in a similar boat where we will find small things like I'll never forget, I don't know who I was talking to about this. This is a while back. You ever have those moments where it's something so small and annoying, like a regular everyday thing that you run into, but every time it happens, it just somehow pisses you off when it happens to you at like the wrong time. Like I remember somebody explaining to me, and I was like, oh my gosh, yes, I'm in the I'm I feel the exact same way when this happens. You ever drop something on the floor and then you try to go pick it up, and you almost don't lean down far enough and you keep reaching for it, and every time you reach down for it with your hand, you miss it. And just every time that it happens, my girlfriend's looking at me right now and she's laughing at me because like this happens all the time with me. And you go down to pick it up and you miss it, and then you miss it again, and then you miss it again, and then finally you're like, you know what, man, forget this thing on the floor. I could care about it, I don't even care about it anymore. I just want to give up. And somehow that situation just sends you to another level of frustration, and it happens to me so much, or it's just that's just one example. There's many things like that. Like, you know, you you try to close a door and you keep not pushing the door hard enough, so it just stays cracked open, and you just start to really get irritated with that. It's things like that where it if you think about it, it's let's say I dropped it was a coin that I was trying to pick up. It's a it's a penny, it's a quarter. What is that hurting me that I have to go down two or three more times to go pick it up? It it doesn't hurt me one bit. Guess what? I still pick it up, I put it where I'm gonna put it, and that's it. That's that. I move on. That probably wasn't my day's goal. I probably didn't wake up that day going, you know what, if nothing else, I really hope I pick up that coin and then my day's fulfilled. No, not at all. And yet, that's what it becomes. Like it really turns into that. But we do that to ourselves. And I think that's what is also part of what's so powerful about our mindset, is the same way we turn something so small into such a big deal in that moment. I feel like it's the same muscle or the same ability and capacity that we have to turn something very serious into something more. We reshape it, we redirect it, we we transform it into something else. And again, it's not because we don't accept the reality or we're not smart enough to realize that it's maybe not a big deal, but it's because we have to take the step and make the effort to do so. Now, the other thing that makes me laugh about that situation is that, and not because it's funny when it happens, because I think all of us know if we're ever in a moment like that and it's frustrating, the last thing we want to do is to laugh or for someone to laugh at us, because that's the other thing that sometimes uh I'll be in that moment, and my girlfriend she's watching me, she's in that moment, and all she wants to do is laugh because from the outside looking in, it is funny because like I and I she's not the first one, like my friend Johnny. If he's listening, he knows. I used to live with him for a couple of years. He's he's a longtime high school, I've known him since high school. We lived together a couple years in college, one of my best friends ever, and we lived together for a couple of years, and he's probably seen me in a moment like that so many times, and I remember then I would even get more frustrated because he would die laughing at the fact of I was getting so frustrated over something so small, so insignificant. And but then you re you look think back on it later, and it is it is something laughable, it really is. It's just you in that moment don't create a space for you to find it humorous. But at the same time, if there's anybody that is gonna create that space for you, it's you. You have to do it yourself, you have to be open to that, and it allows you to brush you brush that shit off so much easier when that happens. But you gotta create that space, you know, and and and like I like I was gonna say, the other funny thing about that situation is you sometimes, and I when I say you, I mean in this case, I'm talking about myself. I know I've done this many times too, you let those things stack up because then let's say it starts with something you dropped and you couldn't pick back up, and then when you finally pick it up, you're already you already heated. You went from a zero to like a six on on like a rage scale, and then from there, then you go to a cabinet because you were trying to grab something, and then you can't find it, and now you're pissed off about that. Or maybe what you were looking for was supposed to be there, but it's not, or you forgot that you put it somewhere else. Or maybe now you're knocking stuff over. Maybe you ran into something on the way over to the cabinet, and now you're just another thing that you're getting mad about, and then these things start to stack up, and then by the next five minutes have gone by, you're you're oh the day's over for you already. You're you're you're done. You're like, you know what, man, I'm gonna go lay down, I'm done with the day. Or I'm just about to sit in so much anger, nobody talked to me. And I've been in those moments many times. And as laughable as it is, the unfortunate part is that sometimes we get so caught up in our frustrations or or just being so mad at how things have come into our life to change that we don't want to we don't want to do anything but just let the world let us be angry. That's all we want. And I think it's sometimes as valid as it might be that you maybe you're just trying to get some anger that maybe you've been holding on to for a while. I think it's good to let those things out, but I think we we then just want to sit in that anger because it helps us validate maybe some of the mistakes we just made along the way in those in those moments. And all it takes is for us to say, you know what, maybe those feelings were valid. Life happens, mistakes happen, you run into things, you bump into things, you drop something. All those things can be frustrating. What do we allow them to turn into? Do we let them to turn into a moment that we can brush off, or do we let them turn into an anchor for the rest of that day that sets the tone for how we're gonna be? And then it creates a situation where it's like, are we the only ones being impacted? Are our loved ones or the people around us being impacted by this? Because now we're setting the tone for all the people around us, and maybe we don't need to do that, especially to create a negative space. But again, it starts with us because now we've created a negative space for ourselves where we're not maybe in the headspace to try to go do other things that are productive or to remember things that were important to us that day. We create that opportunity, we set the tone. Um, but it starts with being open to accepting when these things happen. Um, you know, another thing that I've learned a lot that I will say, and again, pardon my sip again. Another thing that I've learned a lot about since COVID, and I think a lot of us have since the pandemic kind of hit, you know, work situations have become very I mean, the market as it is is is not great. You know, there's a lot of people out there who are getting degrees but are having a hard time finding a job. There's a lot of people getting laid off from their jobs and having a hard time finding a new one or having to deal with the situation of unemployment. I've been in all of those situations. Um and it it's it's difficult. You're in this constant fluctuation of a couple things. First, you're accepting the fact that any job you might get may not guarantee you security for the rest of your career. I know that generations before us probably never felt that way, or that it was very rare that they felt that their job security was was constantly at risk. We live in a time where it is probably a lot more than it's ever been, or at least for a very long time. And whether we like it or not, we we we start to have to learn to accept and embrace that reality. Um because then it's if we don't, we're gonna constantly be caught off guard and feel that we're at a disadvantage. And I think, especially since the pandemic, you know, so many different job environments have changed, the way people hire, the way people retain their the you know, their their the people, the number of people they have employed at any given time, the way companies grow, the way they expand, you know, the industry that that I've gotten to work in the last few years, you know, entertainment companies are constantly acquiring each other and or or you know, having these big rounds of layoffs. And it's it's a very, very challenging environment to be in for a lot of reasons, you know, obviously. Um, but the common theme there is constant change. And you know, I've had I've had many people that I've worked with or people that I've worked, you know, way above my pay grade, and they constantly talk about embracing the change because it's just the way things are now. And I think again, it goes back to kind of what I mentioned earlier about you know, you submit to the reality, you accept it for what it is, because there's a lot of other moving parts, a lot of other chess pieces that you may not have control of. However, if you're one one of those pieces, you at least get to control where you go, and not just but not just on that chessboard, you decide, you know what, I can go wherever else I need to go. I can go play a different game if I need to. And if that's what I'm meant to do, then it's what I'm meant to do, or that's where I'm meant to thrive a little bit more, maybe create a better opportunity for myself, then that's my obligation to do so, but for myself. And I think again, I man, I've said this so many times, but like two things can be true. You can accept the reality in one area of of what life is gonna be, in this case, we're talking about careers. You might be able to accept the fact that yeah, the reality is this is how a company is gonna run, this is how an industry is gonna handle certain things. But at the same time, how am I choosing to handle myself? What kind of position am I putting myself in to be in a in a in a better in a better circumstance? But for my own ability to thrive, my own ability to grow in my career, or whatever it is that my passion is, you you again, you set that tone. So I think the the the the the the final thing that I want to kind of wrap this up with and and especially again just talking about being open to what the interruptions can be in our life. I think what we often overlook just within our own lives, is whenever we experience something that's like unexpected and it kind of shifts the way we have to do things, or things don't necessarily go according to plan, and we have to shift to plan B, C, or maybe a plan we haven't even put together yet, we might feel like, okay, now we're at more of a disadvantage to thrive or to accomplish whatever the goal was. But I think also you gotta take a step back even further to say, okay, well, has the goal now changed? Not because you again you're giving up on your dreams or your aspirations, but maybe does the goal look a little bit differently? Or maybe you're just gonna get there a little bit on a different path, and maybe when you get to the finish line, it may not look exactly like maybe what you envisioned maybe six months ago, but that's not necessarily a problem, or it doesn't necessarily mean that you failed. You know, I I think just an example that came to mind now, and it's something that I can say personally, um, in terms of what something that I aspired to in my life, but I I I I think about often that probably a lot of people feel this way. Since a very young age, since I was probably in high school, one of my biggest life goals always has been to be a dad and to have a family one day, to have kids and to be able to raise a family. You know, I was very blessed to grow up in a household where, you know, I I the family was my family was so tight-knit and we still are, you know, and I always loved that about growing up. I feel like that was one of the biggest superpowers that I had in my life, that I still feel like I have, is that my family has always been so tight-knit and we always spent so much time together. It was always quality time, and and we always grew as a family. We were very transparent with each other. So I always aspired to be able to continue that in my life because I see like I know my parents took a lot of pride in being being our parents and creating opportunities for us. And I know that me and my younger sister, um, you know, we've taken a lot of pride in the things that we've gotten to do just in our young, you know, the young part of our life, let alone that now we're we're adults and we're starting our own phases of our own lives with our partners and and you know, um we're taking pride in some of those things. I know that starting a family has always been a big aspiration of mine. But I think about a lot of people that probably have felt the same way. And maybe they pictured that once in going one specific way. And what I mean by that is let's say there was someone out there who thought, you know what, I mean, yeah, I can't wait to be a parent one day, have a family. And maybe their picture or their vision of that was, yeah, I'm gonna have two kids, I want to have one boy, one girl, they're only gonna be a couple years apart, we're gonna live in this kind of house, we're gonna have a dog in the house, and it, you know, and that's what I picture. And nothing wrong with that. I mean, anybody who aspires to something like that, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Or maybe you even you don't. Maybe if you're listening and maybe that's not your life's goal per se, totally fine too. Nothing wrong with that. But let's say you are in that situation, right? And that was your vision. But then maybe you run into a situation where maybe you're only you're only blessed to have one child. Or maybe you end up having three. Maybe you know, you have a set of twins and that was unexpected, and you and you maybe you you figure that maybe you don't want just two, you want three. Or maybe you didn't get the house that you were hoping for. Or um maybe instead of having uh kids of your own, maybe it looked like the best option for you and your family situation was to adopt, you know, or to foster a child. But the but if you look at the bigger picture, there might have been a lot of families or parents out there or aspiring parents out there who their goal was one thing and maybe it shifted to something else. But they somehow at the end of the day still got to look at their life and go, you know what though? I still have a family at the end of the day. We have a home, we have a place to call home. It wasn't maybe necessarily what I was telling myself what it was going to look like a few years ago. But yet somehow the goal was still accomplished. The aspiration that I had, I still get to live it every single day. And to me, you look at that situation, and I feel like there's so many other life situations where it's the same thing. Because who knows whatever the interruption was for maybe a family in that situation in that scenario, you know, where things didn't go necessarily exactly the way they envisioned it, but somehow they still came to the life that they were aspiring to have. And part of that process, I'm willing to bet, was being open to whatever interruption was along the way. Now, it doesn't mean that you go into it from day one, whatever part of your life that you're in. Oh, you know what? Any interruption that comes into my life, I'm gonna embrace it and accept it, and oh my gosh, I'm gonna be just fine. It's gonna be great. Clearly, that's not how it goes most of the time. It happens unexpected, we have a certain level of frustration or sadness or confusion and just you know a lot of uncertainty, discomfort, whatever it might be. But you have to then reach a point where you're open to what has happened, what has come into your life. And that allows you to take that next step and maybe still achieve or and aspire to whatever it is that you were hoping for, whatever you were working hard to have. And I think that right there is the beauty in it. There's no timeline for it. You know, sometimes it's not a matter of when you're open to interruption, it's just if you are at some point that will then allow you to get over the hump and still get to a place in your life where you're still proud of what you have, even if it wasn't exactly what you expected it to be. And even if it looks completely different, I think that you can still learn to embrace that you're exactly where you're supposed to be. And even if right now you're in the middle of an interruption, if you're listening right now and something has happened in your life and you feel like this is the last place I wanted to be, this is not what I was working hard for, this is the opposite of what I was actually working hard for. And why am I here? Why why am I in the situation? This is more it, this is definitely more important than just seeing that that the grass is greener on the other side or look at the glass half full. This is just about accepting the situation for what it is, because obviously sometimes you just can't change a scenario or the outcome of what life has thrown at you. But regardless of how much time it may take, which is totally valid, how many trial and error situations you might have to go through, which are also very valid, that there's still something there for you to to harness, to embrace, and to turn that situation into something more. And you don't need to know, and this is the other beauty, you don't need to know what it's gonna look like at first. You don't need to. It sometimes is so uncomfortable to work hard towards something that you don't even know what it looks like at the end of the at the finish line. You don't know what the finish line looks like. But sometimes it's more important to just work hard towards something to at least know you haven't given up, you haven't stopped, you haven't let whatever life threw at you become the end-all be all, the line that you can't cross. You you make that line a dotted line on your own terms, and you say, I can cross it when I'm ready. And I don't need to feel guilty or shameful because maybe I don't know how I'm gonna get across it quite yet, or I don't know what it's gonna look like on the other side. That's not something that you need to feel so ashamed about. It's more about being proud of the fact that your goal is to still cross that finish line. So remember that being open to the interruption is the key to not make it a disruption, but to simply just make it a step forward, just maybe in a different direction. So I hope that this was somewhat comforting if any of you are dealing with some kind of interruption in your life. Again, take it from somebody who has dealt with their share of interruptions, and I think we all have to some degree. And even if maybe you've now far gone past an interruption that you experienced in your life, and maybe you didn't even realize you blinked twice and you realize, you know what, I made it past. I don't know how, but I did, and now here I am. Maybe you're even just at a standstill where you don't know what's next. Totally okay. You can look back and maybe even just shift your perspective on what has happened to you in your life and how you've gotten through certain things, and maybe you can unlock still, you can still unlock something special that's there. So I hope everybody can find a little bit more of an open-mindedness when it comes to any interruption that comes into your life, and um sometimes just change the perspective on the fact that it may not be an interruption, it just may be a redirection or a transformation into something else that's meant for you. So thank you all very much for for not only bearing with me these last couple of weeks and being able to be so patient for the next episode, um, but just for constantly tuning in and for giving me again. I've I've gotten some nice messages and and and and and you know, just comments from people, how much they've appreciated the topics that that that we discuss here and that we we address, and that again, sometimes things are gonna happen unexpectedly, things are gonna put life on hold, but that's okay. You still can learn something from it. I my goal, if anything, was that whatever the next episode was gonna be about after me being sick for a couple of weeks and being out of recording an episode, it was gonna be about I could make something of it, I could take something from it and to learn from it and to hopefully spread a good message and put something good out of it. So I hope that I was able to do that for any of you that were listening. If you made it to the end of the episode, thank you for so much for listening. And and I hope that this was in any way positively um impactful. Uh, and if you know anybody that could use a nice positive message like this, or maybe just could in use uh could use a little bit of uh positive reinforcement, some conversation, or maybe you just you know somebody that likes to hear somebody yap. Maybe send them, send them this way. And um and have them check out the other episodes. If you know somebody that hasn't checked out any of these episodes yet, or you know maybe could enjoy the podcast, spread the word, post my page, uh, share anything that you can. I'm gonna try to post a little bit more too so I can get the word out there for everybody. Um also stay tuned because we got that bonus episode on the way. I want to be able to put out more content since I know I've been a little bit MIA the last couple of weeks. So um, like I said, stay tuned for that. But everybody, have a good week. When this episode comes out, it should be a Monday. So uh happy Monday to all of you. Drive safe wherever you're headed, have a great day at work, if you're working from home, if you're with your kids, your family, your friends, make the most of that time. Uh, make some memories and look around you. Just take a moment. If you want to close your eyes or look around the room that you're in, embrace what you got. Be grateful for what's around you. And even if it's very small, remember that it's yours. You have the ability to make exactly what you want of it. And spread the love, guys. Much love to every single one of you, and I'll talk to you on the next episode.