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101: Money, Career, and Identity
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Talking with Brianne Firestone from School of Betty about:
Careers and identity, which types of bank accounts we should have, should we ask for more money at work, why it’s important to have a budget and know your debt amount, changing your thoughts around money, and setting yourself up for sucess in the long term.
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This is Joy & Claire: 101: Money, Career, and Identity
Episode Date: November 18, 2021
Transcription Completed: November 21, 2021
Audio Length: 46:00 minutes
Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.
Claire: And this is Claire.
Joy: And this is Joy and Claire. Welcome back. Happy Thursday. Hope you’re all well.
Claire: This week we’re so excited, Bri from School of Betty is joining us. We had Bri back on Episode 17 of This is Joy and Claire [00:00:42.10]. The episode was called “Money Talk” if you want to go back and listen to that. Bri is the founder of School of Better, which is an amazing program and coaching and universe based on helping women get more comfortable with their financial selves. We are excited to talk to Bri today about all sorts of things. Bri, welcome.
Joy: Welcome back.
Bri: Hello. Thank you, I’m excited to be here.
Joy: Thank you so much for joining us. This topic has come up again, so we were like, you know what? We should have Bri back. I feel like it’s one of those topics that we don’t talk about very often because… I don’t know, it depends on your comfort level. It’s not like a “how’s the weather” conversation. How’s your money situation? It’s not like we’re doing that all the time, but maybe we should be. But thank you so much for joining us again. We just want to dive into some separate things. Certainly, listeners, if you didn’t listen to the Episode 17 that we did on This is Joy and Claire [00:01:37.21] with Bri, you can go back and listen to that episode. We talked a little bit more about just your comfort level with money, how you were raised around money, and how it impacts how you deal with money now. I think this time we really want to talk more about how it impacts our identity, especially as it relates to career. You and I have had conversations offline about this, so can we start opening the gate with how that can be wrapped up into your identity as it relates to your career?
Bri: Oh my goodness. That’s such a layered question. And I think if you’ve ever gone through a career transition where you are actually changing careers and you identified really strongly with the one that you were previously in, that’s a rough shift. Because most of us don’t recognize or realize how much weight we’re putting towards something and how much we are identifying with it. So if you think about your life – I’ll use kind of a lame example. But when I was CrossFitting and a CrossFit coach and eventually left that, I had no idea how much I had put my identity into that. Being a CrossFitter, being a CrossFit coach. So when I needed to move out of it, a couple of things happened. Number one, I didn’t move out of it as fast as I probably should have for my health and what was happening in my life because I couldn’t wrap my brain around that not being a part of my life. And the second thing is, when that thing goes, if you have put too much of your identity into it, there’s a big hole that you have to fill. All of the sudden when it’s gone, you feel very ungrounded and very untethered. You can imagine what that does if you’re shifting careers and all of the sudden you’re leaving something that you have identified with it, it has been your whole personality, everything you do people know you as this thing. Which is often how the identity becomes really baked in. And you’re moving into a career that maybe is making less money, or the people around you are like, “What is that? I don’t even know what it is.” You will often be tempted to make decisions that feel more comfortable for those around you instead of what’s probably in alignment for you. Because usually what’s in alignment for you when you’re heading into one of those transitions, it’s hard.
Joy: Well, the other piece that comes to mind is how other people will project their discomfort onto you. So if you want to start your own business, they’ll be like, “Well, what about…” It’s all their projections onto you and their discomfort. Let’s say just with your example. So were you in a place where you didn’t want to leave because of the identity? Why didn’t you want to leave as quickly?
Bri: I had identified with that for so long. I mean, I coached for three years, but I was doing CrossFit for nine or ten years. It was very foreign for me. It was the unknown. It was the unknown of what is next. It goes into deeper, right? Will my body change? What kind of workouts am I doing? What is this going to look like? But the area I think really pops up is the unknown of you going into the transition. You just don’t know what it’s going to be. Are people going to judge me? Are people going to be like, “What’s going on?” Again, as I say all of these things, it’s never internal. It’s always the fear of someone judging you from the outside that is curbing how you move forward often.
Joy: Do you think that people need to have their next step planned out before they jump to something?
Bri: I don’t. That’s such a great question. What I do think they need, they need to feel safe and secure financially and emotionally in that space. Because if you are taking a leap and you don’t feel financially secure, emotionally it’s going to be different. You’re going to be dealing with a lot of different things. You’re going to add a lot more stress onto your life instead of creating the freedom and the spaciousness that you need in order to actually think through what the next step is, to have that discovery, to have that revelation. The flip side of that is so many people can take a leap, but they don’t ever run the numbers or actually did down with it. If they have a shared household with their partner to say, okay, what would this look like if I left my job and I wasn’t working for six months? What would it look like if I took a job that paid less? Sit down and actually get comfortable, actually know the numbers. Because so many people assume they can’t do it, and that’s not necessarily true.
Joy: Assume they can’t leave their job?
Bri: Can’t leave their job. Can’t take a leap. Can’t take a part-time job and start a business on the side. We make these assumptions because everything around us tells us that that’s really risky, but what most individuals don’t do is actually sit down and run the numbers and look at the numbers for their household. How much do I actually need to make to survive and live a life that I’m comfortable with in that moment in this transition?
Joy: And that can be uncomfortable in and of itself, to sit down and make a budget.
Bri: Yes.
Joy: I’m guessing.
Bri: 100%.
Joy: Sometimes even facing debt, and that can be scary to people. I know that that’s probably a lot of reason why people get into credit card debt. I’m not just not going to look at it, it doesn’t exist. So I think that that’s another thing. But facing this is really why we wanted to have this discussion too. If you are going to do it, you do have to face the reality of what your budget looks like. So for example, you and I talked briefly right after I left my job and I was like, oh yeah, it’s really scary. I’ve been really lucky in my life to have jobs pretty consistently out of grad school, and I’ve never really had to free fall with money because I’ve always been able to support myself in some way, shape, or form. You were like, “Cool. That’s what savings are for.” Because I was telling you, “Yeah, I have savings.” And you were like, “Awesome, that’s what savings are for, right?” And I was like, “Oh yeah. I guess that’s what savings are for.” Which sounded so silly, but I assumed – I’m just using myself as an example – but I was like, it’s going to run out. I’m so scared. But you’re like, “But that’s what savings are for.” I was like, yeah, I guess you’re right. You have to kind of check yourself sometimes about how you think about all of this.
Bri: Oh, 100%. And that is super common with a lot of my students lately, especially as we’ve gone through COVID and pandemic. So many, if they had savings had to dip into it. That has stirred a lot of feelings and emotions. You just have to ask the question, what would you use that for? So it’s really important when you have these buckets of money or you have savings that you actually sit and list the intention or how would I use this so that you’re almost giving yourself and your mind permission. Because when you get used to having a big chunk of money in an account, when it goes down, it’s going to stir naturally – and it doesn’t matter how good your money mindset it – it’s going to trigger an “Oh no.” I’m losing money. When we had the conversation and it’s like, it’s going to run out. And it’s like, well, what’s the actual timeline of it running out? Well, let’s run the numbers.
Joy: Run the numbers, right. That’s exactly what Scott would say. The other conversation is how you manage money with your partner. We have a very unique way of doing things that’s our business. But he was like, how much time do you have? And I was like, I don’t know. Because it’s scary to look at it. But you have to and you make a plan. Stop freaking out.
Bri: Yeah. Yeah, because there’s so much stress and anxiety in the not knowing when it comes to money. We worry about swiping the card at the grocery store if our financial circumstances have changed because we’re not sure exactly how much is in there or how much we have to spend on our groceries. We are stressed out about our debt because we don’t actually know what the total is or how long it will take us to pay it off or how much we have to put towards it. It’s all unknown, and there’s an easy fix for that y’all. We just rip the Band-Aid off and we look at the numbers. It sounds really scary, but once you do it – even just looking at your total debt and looking at that number you will feel relief in your body. It will be a very physical sigh because you at least know, and then you can get to work to start using your money and taking actions to chip away at it, to make a plan for it. But when you don’t know what it is, you’re just spinning around.
Joy: Yeah. This reminds me of how you do one thing is how you do everything. So if you’re like, “I just don’t want to look at that,” that there’s probably a lot of things in your life that you’re just trying to get through and not look at and not face. And that can bring up a lot of emotions too of course. I am a huge fan of rip the Band-Aid type of approach. You can’t just go gently into this. You just have to do it and deal with the emotions later But what are the first steps that people can do? How do you start? What do you do?
Bri: Well, first of all, just tell yourself before you start to do it that it’s just a number. Gosh, we give so much emotion to the money. And money cannot take on an emotion unless you give it an emotion. We’re so good at saying money is stressful. Money is just a number. It’s just there. I always use this example – it’s like your sock is stressing you out. You’re not stressed about your sock. They’re just socks. They do them what you tell them to do, and money is the same way. Money will do what you tell it to do. Simply listing all of your debts, the interest rate, how much you owe, what your credit limit is, and your minimum payment. Just list it all out, and then add up that total minimum payment so that you know every month I have to be able to at least make this payment. Because 35% of your credit score is making the minimum payment on time. You don’t have to pay it off. That’s why some people have a lot of debt. 30% is your debt to credit ratio, but a lot of people can really swing a decent credit score and still have debt. It’s because they’re still making those payments on time. But the fact if you know all of that, then you can create a plan. Then you can look at it and say, alright, let’s focus on credit cards first. And then I’m going to choose snowball. I’m going to knock out the tiniest debt first because that’s going to feel really motivating. Or, no, that stresses me out. I want to do avalanche. I want to start with the highest interest first. But the first step is going through and writing out all the numbers. And what’s really powerful for most individuals is they start to realize very quickly how little they actually know about their credit card and the interest rate and what’s going on with that. A lot of my students have to really search for their interest rate. They’ve got to find it. And their limit. They don’t know what they are.
Joy: And that’s huge. Huge.
Bri: Huge.
Joy: You could spend so much money on interest if you’re not paying attention to that. Or yearly fees, annual fees that a credit card will all of the sudden just spring on you or what have you. Okay, so that’s a good way to start. I’m kind of all over the place today, but I have a lot of questions that I really also want to ask. Back to our question on career changes, let’s talk a little bit about your beliefs or your opinions around working for a certain salary and then maybe taking a less salary because it will make you happier. I feel like especially in this day and age, we’re all kind of like, “We’ve got to climb the ladder.” At least with a little bit of hustle culture behind us. Talk a little bit about your opinions on that piece.
Bri: I’ve got a lot of opinions.
Joy: Yeah.
Bri: Well, I love that you brought that up because we do have a lot of beliefs and stories around success in our careers and what that looks like. For many of us, that looks like we have to keep gaining titles and we have to keep making more money. And that’s not necessarily true. I have students who are perfectly happy not being a manager, doing their worker bee job, 9-5 clock in. They make just enough money to live their life, and they are happy. Amazing. And so the first check I think is to ask yourself, what is it that’s driving me that makes me feel like I need to – I’m attaching some of my self-worth to the salary I’m making. We can get so focused on that. We can be in this tunnel vision around that when the other part of the equation, the other two resources we have to take into consideration, are the time and energy. So our money and our time and energy, those are the resources that we have every day and we’re using them every day. And you are never making a decision about one without considering the other two. Now when it comes to careers, we often forget or we don’t even think about the fact that I could make $20,000 less and run the numbers and how much time and energy I’m going to get back in my life to do these things that actually spend time with my family, move my body more, do some things that bring me joy, not have stress on my body. So many individuals aren’t taking into account the energetic costs, what they’re spending energetically, the debt that’s happening energetically because they took that higher job that is stressing them the “f” out because they got more money. When they can’t actually enjoy the more money because they’re just on the grind
Joy: I know this sounds really trite, but if you’re using that example – for example, $20k more a year is not – paycheck to paycheck, it’s really not that much more. So it’s how you weigh that out is that is really important. The reason I ask that question too is very much because I went through my health issues. The stress of a job was just not worth the money. But your thinking, especially as a woman and like, wow, this is really cool that you’re making more money or having a better title. At the end of the day, it was just – and I’m not saying this is every job, but I haven’t heard yet a lot of people who are climbing the ladders that are super, super fulfilled and happy. They’re usually pretty stressed out. I think it’s just that piece of paying attention and weighing that and also, it’s okay to look at what is the benchmark or the minimum that you need to make to live your happy lifestyle.
Bri: Yeah. And we’re conditioned to be in this space where – I mean, think about when you’re going to a cocktail party or meeting someone for the first time, one of the first questions you get asked is, “What do you do?” Wouldn’t it be amazing if someone was like, “What do you do for fun?” or “What makes you happy?” Who the freak asks that? That would be amazing.
Joy: I hate that question, I really do.
Bri: Yeah. Even with my students when we start doing a vision, like, what kind of life do you want? What do you want? No one knows. Because we haven’t spent enough time in this space ‘of what do I actually want my life to look like?
Joy: Yeah, what do you want your life to look like? I also wonder if the people who do the #vanlife, just stripping everything away to feel what it feels like to just have very little, to go to that extreme. I could never do that. What I’m saying is I think there’s some beautify in thinking, could I live without all of these things and experience what it’s like to just be bare bones? Yeah, the titles, the money. I was thinking about this the other day. Even if I was a millionaire, I would have different friends. People that have tons and tons of – maybe millionaire is like nothing these days. But a billionaire, someone who’s super, super loaded, it comes with a weird echelon of people that I’m like, I think I’m good. I don’t need to make a crap load of money. But as you’re growing up, that’s the thing is you see all these great, wonderful things that you could buy. It’s very interesting for me to watch. Maybe that’s just something because I work in psychology, I’m always observing the people aspect of it and how it changes people
Bri: Totally. And we’re not actually shown the millionaires and billionaires that are choosing to use their money in a different way. So we have this vision of what that looks like. And I always say that money doesn’t necessarily change you. It just amplifies who you are inherently. So when you’re running across someone who’s not a nice person and they have a lot of money, they probably weren’t that nice when they didn’t have a lot of money.
Joy: That’s super true.
Bri: That’s the belief that I have. Because most of us want more money and we judge individuals who have it and we’re afraid to ask for it.
Joy: Yes, yes. And that was my next jump. We’re talking money right now about the lack of it. Most of the people you’re talking to and coaching don’t have their finances in order – and they want more money? Or they want to get out of debt? And so that’s kind of the next jump of, then, how do we either ask for more money – fi you’re at a career, maybe asking for raises, and advocating –
Bri: Yeah. I think first of all, and I know this is not a sexy answer, but you have to know your money for your household. You have to know your expenses. You have to know how much you need to live. Because if you don’t know that, we’re flying blind. We have no idea. It’s like you have no senses around what is a good decision and what isn’t a good decision because you don’t have that base level knowledge. If you were going into a career change, if you were going to ask for more money, you have to know what you need to be paid just to walk in the door. What do you need to be paid just to walk into the door for the promotion? If it’s a promotion and you’re going to be managing ten more people, you need to have a sense of what that is for you, which is going to require that you are doing an audit of your money, time, and energy. To say, is this worth it for me? So first and foremost, I think you have to understand that and you have to know that. It’s not sexy by any means, but so many don’t know what that is. It’s not bad to ask for money or want more money. We just have a lot of judgement around that because we have this idea of if you want more money, you aren’t thankful for what you have, you’re super greedy. And we have this belief that if I have more money, someone misses out. I don’t believe that because I come from an abundant mindset. That’s not to bypass the inequities that are very inherent in money. I know we could talk about the inequities with women in the workforce. Then we have to go the layer deep to see the inequities within the inequities because I as a white CIS [00:20:48.26] gender woman, my experience is very different and I make more money on the dollar. Although not a dollar like a man makes, but it looks different than my Black friends or friends who identify as indigenous or people of color. So we have to just keep that in mind and be present and aware of that. But because we have this fear of judgement, so many women – 60% of women don’t even try to negotiate their salary. They don’t even try to ask for it.
Joy: That is very interesting to me. I learned that a few years ago. I was just like, oh my gosh, that’s insane. But I also noticed it when I would talk to my husband about salary and about how innate – no bash on Scott. It was normal to him, normal speak of asking for bonuses, asking for raises. He was getting a raise like every three months. I’m like, how are you doing that? And then I was like, oh, because this is your world, and you just do that.
Claire: I feel like when it comes to finances, there are so many parallels to dating. There are so many parallels to diet culture. Where so many of the same things come up of “who am I to want that,” “who am I to ask for that,” “what if they get mad that I asked for it.” When you’re accepting a new job and you go back and ask for $5k or $10k. Well, what if they get mad and they’re like, “You can’t have the job anymore. You weren’t supposed to ask for more.” I also think about with diet culture that we want this quick fix. We want things to just flip a switch and everything look the way we want it to look in our finances. And also, I think that there is a component there that is similar to diet culture where we see these people who have these big dramatic success stories, whether that’s with they got this big raise or they quit their job and started their own company and now they’re posting every month about their six-figure month and all these things. When the reality is maybe those dramatic lifestyle changes do work for some people, but for the majority of us, it’s small daily habits and that’s where any of this will shift. It’s not necessarily in that – Bri, to your point, if you don’t know what you need, if you don’t have a pulse on your day-to-day, then how can you expect to get what you want walking into that annual review. Yeah, the annual review might be the one big moment where everything shifts, but you need to have your poop in a group first before you can walk into that shift.
Bri: Totally. I’ve never heard that before.
[All laughing]
Joy: It’s a nicer way of saying “shit together.” Get your shit together.
Bri: I love it. Poop in a group.
Claire: It’s the kindergarten-friendly way.
Bri: And it’s so true. I mean, your money cannot work for you if you don’t know where you’re going and what you desire. Identifying what you desire is not a bad thing. We only get one ride in this crazy burning rock. We only get one ride. We get to decide what that looks like and how we want it to go. I just lost my train of thought. I had something to say in response to that.
Joy: Why don’t we take a quick break because we have a sponsor to plug. So this will be a good time, and then you can think about what you wanted to say. This week’s sponsor is our favorite people, the makers of Ned. Alright guys, we’ve talked a lot about Ned in the past weeks. We hope that you will support the podcast by supporting Ned. You know, the CBD market has become very saturated over the last few years. I’m sure you’ve seen a bazillion ads for CBD. You can buy it in almost every coffee shop or grocery store. But many of the companies out there source their hemp from industrial firms in China. So be careful where you buy your CBD because just like with low quality alcohol, low quality CBD can have undesired effects. We’ve really touted the products we’ve been using specifically. Mine is the sleep blend, which I still love and I stand by it. I’ve been starting to use just their CBD oil during the day. Most of you know we turned Cadet in last week and I was having some really stressful days, so I was taking that almost every single day just trying to calm myself down. But we love this product. Claire, you’ve also been using this as well.
Claire: Yeah, I love the destress blend. I just kind of use it throughout the evenings as needed to keep me off the cliff when it’s bedtime. You know, it doesn’t necessarily make the cliff go away, but it does help take a few steps back. So that’s what I love about CBD is that it really just kind of helps you manage your own mindset a little bit more easily.
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Claire: Thank you to our listeners for supporting the brands that support our podcast. Yeah, let’s pop back into that conversation about noting the day-to-day and how those little habits add up so that you are prepared if you do have the opportunity to have a big picture moment.
Bri: Yes. Here’s the thing, y’all. There are a lot of millionaires walking around and you would never know, and it’s because they have these tiny habits or they’ve been putting into their retirement for a long time or they’ve been maxing it out. I think I talked about this on Episode 17 where the very first thing I had my students do is start looking at their bank account every day to start desensitizing themselves around money being emotional. And what happens with that is they actually start to become very aware of their spending habits and what’s going on. It is those tiny little habits that are going to change the game. I always say, you don’t have to move mountains. You just have to start having movement. It’s really important, as we’ve said a million times, that you know what your money flow is, you know what your expenses are, you know what you want to do, and you know you have this vision for your life. I say that because it’s really easy to get dazzled by someone else. It’s really easy to be like, oh, I’m going to do that. I want that. I should be doing that. Do you? Do you actually want that? Does that feel good to you? But we want to know all of those things because you could have an opportunity where a promotion is coming towards you and you don’t actually want it. That’s not in alignment with the goals you have for your life. Or you don’t want the extra responsibility. And that’s okay too, but you have to know what you want and what you desire in order to make those moves. By not asking for money, by having this idea that by asking for money I’m greedy and I’m not grateful, the reality is that with the pay gaps that women experience and also being out of the workforce, out of a 40-year career, that adds up to over $900,000. That’s significant. So if you’re in a moment where you’re worried about asking for $5,000 or $10,000, pop it into an IRA calculator or 401(k) [00:28:24.22] calculator just to show yourself so that you can see a number, know the number, what that actually might do in 15 or 20 years. Then it’s different. I had a student say, can I pull out from my 401(k) [00:28:38.09] to pay off this credit card debt. And it’s like, well how much are you really spending? Run the numbers. That $50,000 you want to use would actually be $350,000 at your retirement. Know the numbers. Then it’s like, oh, I’m not doing that. Cool. Are you willing to pay this interest? When you know the interest in the time span you can pay it off, totally different. Because you’re going into this with knowledge to make a decision.
Joy: I have a very basic question. Are there certain banks or accounts that you’re a fan of to have – separate from retirement, just a savings account – which banks have great interest rates? Do you have any preferences or do you think, no, people just need to find a savings account and a checking account? What kind of accounts to people have?
Bri: I mean, find what works for you. If you’re loyal to your bank or whatever, great. I’m not sponsored by anyone. I love Ally [00:29:34.02]. I like Capitol One [00:29:36.17]. I’m drawn towards online banks. They’re just easier I think to open up accounts. And for example, Ally – [00:29:43.16]
Joy: Is that A-L-L-Y?
Bri: Correct. You get to bucket out your savings. Just in general, what I want my students to have is you have your main checking account. If you struggle with overspending or you’re struggling to try to stay within a spending amount or your play money. And everyone should have play money, y’all. You cannot expect – that needs to be a line item. Even if it’s $20 a month, you have to have money that is yours to spend however you want because if we don’t have that, we are in a budget diet mentality and that doesn’t work. We’re looking for sustainability. So I always encourage my students, have an account where you get to move your spending money over every month that has its one debit account. Then you know you won’t overspend or dip into any of the money that you need for your actual living expenses. I always say, have a high interest savings account. You can literally pop in “high interest savings account” and Google that and see interest rates aren’t that great right now, but a lot of the online banks will give you really, really awesome interest rates. That’s great for your emergency fund. So when you’re not necessarily going to touch that money a whole lot. And I always recommend another account that is – let’s just say you cut and color your hair, and it’s a chunk of money every time. Or you pay your electric every three months. I don’t know, I’m making these up. But you can add those up. How many times do I those in a year? Divide it by 12. And each month you can move that money into that account. It’s called a sinking fund [00:31:18.23], and that just allows you to get a better cash flow. So when you go to the salon and you need to drop a couple hundred dollars, you’ve already been saving for it a month at a time, and it actually is going to give you a better cash flow. I always want people to have their main checking account, a spending account, their savings account for sinking funds [00:31:39.01] for things that they’re just kind of placing the money there to hold for a little bit, and then an emergency fund that’s probably at another bank because it takes a few days to get to you, It’ll help stop you if you try to move some money and you probably shouldn’t.
Joy: Some built-in buffers. That’s actually pretty smart. And as you’re talking about all that, if listeners have recommendations for online banks that they really like or credit cards that they find are giving good bonuses or benefits. I know Capitol One [00:32:05.11] is great. I really like the online bank Synchrony [00:32:08.14] because they have awesome high-yield savings accounts that have really good interest rates. But once again, it’s not for the cash flow. It’s just for putting your money there to save it and get interest. I’d love to hear from listeners. Maybe we can put a resource list together for people. Alright, do we want to do some rapid-fire questions?
Claire: Yes. So mere moments ago, Joy posted on our Instagram to get some listener questions. I think it would be great to wrap up with those and hear what is on everyone else’s mind about money. I think these conversations that we’re having, again similar to relationships, similar to diet culture, this stuff never goes away. I don’t think you just wake up one morning and you’re like, I have solved my finances. I may go on with the rest of my life now. Unless maybe you win the lottery. But actually probably not even then. This person asked, and we’ve kind of already covered this, what are the basics of taking care of our money that we should all be doing?
Bri: Yeah, that’s a big one. Number one, you have to start reframing your mindset around money. The easiest way to do that is to start thinking of your money as a relationship you care about. It sounds really silly. But it will change your behavior with the actual money. Because what we don’t want to stay in is in this space where money equals bad and money is scary. Because your brain will do anything it can to keep you away from it, to keep you in avoidance. And we don’t want to be in avoidance. We want to spend time with our money. Because knowledge is power. And so when we think about our money as being a relationship that we care about, that looks like checking our numbers every day just to see what I spend my money on. Having a money date every week where you’re actually updating your budget and you know how much money you have left in your line items and you’re moving money around. A budget is meant to be flexible y’all. It’s just guiderails. When you know the guiderails and, “Oh, I’m overspending in this area,” then you know what you can move around and what you’re willing to do without. But when you don’t have that, you have no idea what you can and cannot do. So treating your money like a relationship you care about, which is going to lead you into creating a good money flow, AKA a budget. Know what that is. Money coming in, money going out. It should feel flowy. There’s a reason why I use that word. It should not feel restrictive. If your budget feels super, super restrictive – and granted, there are going to be individuals who are paycheck to paycheck, and this is going to be an edge [00:34:32.09]. It’s going to be a tough. [00:34:32.05] But we want it to be flowy because when it’s flowy we know we are in a space of sustainability. We are not in a space where we have to grit and willpower our way through it like an extreme diet. That’s not what it’s about. We are about changing your habits completely so that you have a really good relationship with that money. So starting to build your money flow and getting used to it is great. And just recognize, y’all, give yourself some grace because when you put numbers down in a budget, you’re committing to new habits and behaviors. So recognize that, right? If you go to extreme, you’re not going to be able to do it. If you’re living off of credit cards still, you might have to still live off of credit cards a little bit as you start to dial in your habits and behaviors and just get used to everything. And that’s okay. Because again, we’re not playing the short game. We’re playing the long game. Start doing that. If you have credit card debt, start paying attention to that so that we can actually create a debt plan and eliminate that. So many individuals, they pay so much money towards their credit card debt and interest, it’s stifling. It removes the freedom that they have to do the things that they want to do in their lives. And then start to educate yourself around retirement and how you’re going to set yourself up for your future. I always tell myself, give your future self a name. Mine is Shirley. How’s Shirley going to feel? When she’s edging on retirement, what kind of life does Shirley want? Is she doing bridge a lot? Is she traveling to the beach? What does Shirley look like, right? Because we want to take care of her, and that’s not to say you can’t enjoy your life now. But I think once you go past 40, you’re like, oh, second chapter here we go. I need to start paying attention to this stuff. It’s coming. It’s coming, y’all. The time will come.
Joy: Faster than you think.
Claire: You’ve got to keep Shirley in pink lipstick and curlers.
Bri: Yes.
Claire: You can’t run out of her pink lipstick budget. Okay yeah, so speaking of that, somebody asks, we have our budgets but what happens when inflation throws everything off? Eat less? Help.
Bri: I hate this. We are in it for sure with inflation. Here’s the reality. Not sexy, you’re not going to like the answer. These are our options. We can spend less. We can make more. We can do both. And so when we are in that space and inflation is happening, then we have to start going through an audit. Again, know your values for your life. Know your values for your life. Know the vision for your life. These might have to shift. You might be in a circumstance where you’re not making enough money or the dollar doesn’t stretch as far as it used to. You need to be able to go back and say, what am I willing to let go of or shift in order to make this work? Are there options for me to make more money? That’s the reality. I’m not going to say eat less, but you could – I don’t want to give anyone diet, food, eating advice. This is not what this is about. But it might be something like, oh, I eat vegetarian twice a week now. That helps me on my grocery budget. I don’t know what that is, but you have to start being creative. But know, make more, spend less, do both, those are your three options. They really are the options. And when you know that, it removes any of the angst because you’re like, well, okay I’ve got to figure it out within these parameters.
Claire: That sounds so simple. It’s like, make more, spend less. What could be simpler? But that process is so much more complex. It is always so freeing to hear super complex processes summed up in quick advice. And also, I feel for anyone out there who is sitting there being like, but I had this figured out. Come on. That’s a crappy feeling.
Joy: And you’d be surprised of what you come up with if you just kind of evaluate all your expenses and maybe the businesses you’re doing business with. For example, we just recently looked at our trash pickup people how much we were paying per month, and we asked our neighbors. They were like, “What? You’re paying like five times as much as we are.” We were like, what? So we changed garbage disposal services. So things like that, you just don’t know until you dig into some of the services that you’re doing. Or Scott will be like, “We don’t watch Showtime anymore. Can we get rid of that?” Or just the things you assume you’re always paying for – do you really need to pay for that? So that’s what I would suggest too is just everything that you’re already paying for, see if there’s something cheaper or you really need to do that.
Claire: And maybe this is just city of Longmont. I don’t know that I would have an option to change my trash pickup people. Who knew? Who knew that that was even something that you could be looking at? Not me.
Joy: Oh yeah. We are saving so much money.
Bri: I love that. Assess everything that you’re currently spending and ask yourself, am I using this? Do I care about it? Is it important? What attachment do I have to having this thing? And that can do wonders for sure.
Joy: Yeah. Another example is we were paying every single month just auto draft, those gnarly things that it’s impossible to cancel. And every month I was getting automatic draft or whatever from a security company because we had an alarm system in our house. We got our windows reinstalled. We got new windows. So we had to redo all of our security system. Well it turns out it’s so much cheaper long-term to just get cameras around your house, and I cancelled that service. Even though it was impossible to cancel. They really lay it on thick. They’re like, “How about a dollar a month?” They really want you to stay. It was like Ross on friends where he’s like, [00:40:07.16] “I want to quit the gym.” That’s exactly how it was for me. But I was spending way more long-term than I would just buying cameras for the house. And we’re like, actually cameras are way better than an alarm system because the noise just goes off versus you have – anyway, those are the things we were just kind of like, why are we paying for this? Yeah, so highly recommend doing that too.
Claire: Okay, one last question. This one is a big one, so maybe this is a more of where to look for information on this. The question is, thoughts on crypto? [00:40:36.29]
Bri: Oh boy, that’s a big one.
Claire: So maybe what are some resources? Maybe we can share some links. I know crypto is this whole gigantic topic. Very quick, do you think it’s worth it for the average person to be spending time worrying about crypto? Is this the compression tights of the financial world where if you don’t have everything else dialed, then compression tights aren’t going to help?
Bri: Oh my God, that’s the best. You know, there are a lot of different schools of thought. There are some coaches who would guide you to say you have to start investing in the stock market, even if you have credit card debt. And there are others who are like, pay off your credit card debt and then you can start investing. So you have to start to find your edge and your risk and what feels good to you. I always tell my students this. What feels good to you? Because your risk tolerance, the life you want, your values is different from the person next to you, and you have to pay attention to that. Otherwise, you’re going to get on a plane and a trajectory that’s not going to serve you. There’s so many sites you can look at. I really love Investopia [00:41:45.12]. It’s a site that gives really good articles to break things down. I’m sure Elvast [00:41:51.09] probably has something as well. There are other money coaches out there that are doing trainings on it. I think if you popped in “crypto currency and money coach” you would start to find a lot of individuals. I’m not going to tell you if it’s good or bad. That’s not my space. I know that sucks. Because it is so up to your risk tolerance. Some students don’t want to get into the stock market or it freaks them out. Well it freaks them out because they don’t know enough about it. So knowledge is power, just remind yourself of that. And whatever money you feel like you’re going to put in just in the stock market, you’re playing the long game. That’s my philosophy. You’re playing the long game. So if you were hoping to beat the market, good luck. Lots of people have tried it. And if you lost that money in five years, how devastating would that be. Start to go through some questions in your head so that you can evaluate your own risk tolerance for those things.
Joy: I almost feel like that was a little bit on the edge of I could have asked you about multilevel marketing, but I’m not going to.
Bri: [laughing]
Joy: It feels like the same answer. Uh, just be careful.
Claire: I think that crypto is so new and shiny that we feel like it’s kind of forget that it’s kind of just another stock market. A lot of us use stock market experts to help us invest our money in the stock market. I have money invested in the stock market, and I have a financial advisor to help me with that because I know that I don’t have the time or the resources or the background knowledge to really understand what’s going on. I also don’t know why I would expect that from myself around crypto. But all of the sudden, I’m going to wake up one morning and have special interest in this entire currency system that I have not been paying attention to.
Bri: Well, what’s really fascinating is most people don’t think about this. Our money system, our current currency, it is make believe. There’s only 8% of the currency that’s real. If everyone went to the bank right now and wanted to get their money, it could not happen. So 92% of the currency rolling around is in spreadsheets and hard drives and whatever, and it works because we believe in it. So remind yourself of that the minute you’re telling yourself “I can’t make more money.” Listen, have you ever transferred money and you’re like, “There went $6000. I haven’t seen it in the other bank yet. Just hanging out in the ether.”
Joy: Just floating around.
Claire: We should all aspire to have a Scrooge McDuck pool full of gold coins, but that’s just not the reality.
Joy: [laughing]
Bri: And you could get it and no one’s going to take it. Like, we don’t take actual money.
Claire: Right, right.
Joy: Yeah, that’s true.
Claire: The only place they can is at the farmer’s market.
Joy: We’re doing touches now, thank you. What is this money? This dirty money with COVID all over it.
Claire: Actually I’m just going to scan your retina and deduct from your credit.
Bri: Yes, remind yourself. We believe in it, so it works.
Claire: Great point.
Joy: Well Bri, thank you so much.
Claire: Where can everyone find you?
Bri: You can find me at theschoolofbetty.com. That’s Betty, B-E-T-T-Y, not Buddy. That happens a lot. I spend most of my time on Instagram if you are on the social media platforms. That’s @theschoolofbetty as well. Yeah, I’ve got courses. I’ll be launching the next year’s [00:45:12.16] finances in January. That’s usually our biggest cohort. It’s so fun to get everyone rolling into the new year. So you can find information on my Instagram and on my website for that.
Claire: Well thank you again so much for joining us. Listeners, you know where to find us. @joyandclaire_ on Instagram, joyandclaire.com, thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Send us your questions. Send us your thoughts. Send us your hopes and dreams. We will talk to you next week. Don’t forget to check out our sponsor, Ned, helloed.com, discount code is JOY. Thank you so much. See you next Thursday.
Joy: Bye, guys.
GBBO Season 12 Episode 8
100: Big November
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email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com
Instagram: joyandclaire_
This is Joy & Claire: 100: Big November
Episode Date: November 11, 2021
Transcription Completed: November 14, 2021
Audio Length: 51:48 minutes
Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.
Claire: And this is Claire.
Joy: And this is Joy and Claire. Howdy! Hey friends.
Claire: Happy Thursday.
Joy: Happy Thursday. No other day, always Thursday. You can always count on us.
Claire: Every Thursday for years and years and years and years.
Joy and Claire: For the rest of your life.
Claire: Whether you want or not, we will be here.
Joy: You know, it’s really funny. So we’re turning Cadet in this week, and I saw a memory pop up on my Facebook that was when I graduated with JT was exactly eight years ago this week. Isn’t that crazy? So we’re turning in Cadet the same week eight years ago that I graduated with JT. It’s so weird. So JT also turns ten this week. It’s his birthday week.
Claire: Oh my gosh. JJ.
Joy: So many fun things going on with dogs. I don’t know if it’s fun, but.
Claire: How are you feeling? Can you talk about it?
Joy: Yeah, I can talk about it.
Claire: Emotionally, can you talk about it?
Joy: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew what you meant. Am I going to just lose it? No, I can talk about it. Everyone should know this by now, but Cadet turns into advanced training this Friday. We’ve raised her for Canine Companions for about 18 months now. Her advanced training could be up to six months. At that point, she would then be matched with someone for service working as a service dog. Just to clarify again, I do not keep the dog for a service dog. We do not train her to be our service dog. But we are training her to be someone else’s service dog. However, if she fails out of advanced training at any time, she could come back to us as a pet and live out the rest of her life as a pet. After we turn her in on Friday, we wait about six weeks to get her first puppy report. So every month the trainers will send you a little report card on how she’s doing, which is really cute. We could also get a phone call too. It’s very much a pins and needles. You just hope she does well. Such mixed feelings. Of course we would love to have her as a pet, but you also are doing this for the agency. We’ve known that since day one. This is not our dog. I’ve definitely noticed in the past month, Scott and I had a huge emotional breakdown in October when we got this survey just prepping you for turn-in. It hit us that, oh my gosh, this is happening. And I think once we booked the travel and the hotel and set everything up logistically, ever since then it’s been this acceptance of “this is going to happen.” I haven’t been teary about it. There’s moments if I think about the actual day of turning her in, I get a little bit teary. But I haven’t been crying every night. I’m trying not to do the thing that’s overdramatic of, “It’s the last time I’m giving you a bath.” But it’s hard enough to think about those lasts, especially because we’ve been having a lot of going away parties with all the neighborhood dogs and the people that have been around her. I’m super grateful for the puppy raiser community that I’m friends with. I got connected with them through Gary, our friend Gary, and his wife who also has a facility dog. Long story short, I got connected with them – there’s this amazing group of people. We call ourselves “the village” because it takes a village to raise a puppy. So they call everyone ‘the village.” And they threw me, kind of sight unseen, they threw me a party when I got JT. So that is just this really cool full-circle moment where they threw us a part on Friday night, a little going away, Cadet’s going to college party. They gave us this little bag that they’re like, “Don’t open this until the day of turn-in.” The outside of the bag says, “the turn-in zone,” and it’s kind of the theme of The Twilight Zone. It’s just the weirdest time when you’re in between giving the puppy away and giving the puppy back and just waiting. So I don’t know what’s in it. They’re like, don’t open it until that day. I’m sure there’s a lot of tissues in there. But being around people who’ve been through it is really helpful. There’s this one lady who I love so much, Pat. She’s probably in her 70’s. I want to say she’s probably raised like 15 dogs. She’s been doing this forever. She is just a “no B.S.” tell it like it is. She’s like, “Just rip the Band-Aid.” We kind of need to hear that too. She’s like, “You don’t also want to be the people that are just hugging their dog and crying.” I don’t think we’ll do that either. I think I’ll be emotional talking to the trainer. It will be really hard for me to not focus on the fact that we’re saying goodbye. So it’s going to be really hard for me to talk to the trainer. We meet with the trainer on Friday and do a quick, ‘Hi, nice to meet you. Okay, bye.” But I also don’t want to be that person. I want to get it over with, to be honest with you. I want to get over this hump of turning her in and then saying goodbye. That is where we’re at. So yeah. I don’t know, it’s cool to see that we’ve done this together over the past 18 months and it’s really such an awesome thing to be able to do for Canine Companions. We’ll definitely do it again. But this part, I can see why people really struggle. The number one question people always ask when you’re raising a dog is, “How could you give them up?” Because you do. It’s not easy. I don’t think any puppy raiser would say that it’s easy. That’s just kind of a comfort to know that every puppy raiser is going through the same thing on Friday. We’re all commiserating together.
Claire: You guys can all go out and get margaritas after.
Joy: Exactly.
Claire: I was talking to probably Brandon about this the other day, and I realized I only ever met Cadet one time for like a second. It’s been a weird year.
Joy: I think that was at Jess’ back yard? Was it Jess’ back yard? Yeah. That was obviously during the height of COVID –
Claire: That was summer 2020.
Joy: We were barely getting together.
Claire: Yeah.
Joy: But yeah, she’s an amazing dog. Her presence will definitely be missed, obviously. But it’s one of those things where in life – this sounds so weird – but in life, most of the time, the sad things that are coming, we don’t always have a ton of time to anticipate and plan. Certainly getting ready for your kids to go off to college or something that’s kind of a big, either a goodbye or something – I can’t think of many situations where you have to anticipate a really difficult thing. Can you? I don’t know. It’s hard. I guess deaths. But that’s a little extreme.
Claire: Right. Or maybe a mild medical procedure, like a big surgery.
Joy: Sure, yeah. Where it’s kind of a looming, weird feeling.
Claire: Especially when you’ve known this whole time.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: And I can totally get that sense of wanting to get it over with. You don’t want it to happen, but since you know it has to happen you just want it to be over.
Joy: You just want it to be over. I think that’s what I’ve gathered from all the puppy raisers. I guess CCI has changed a lot of the procedures, like how they turn in puppies. Whereas in the past when I graduated with JT, they had this huge party. When they were doing the graduation for JT and I and all the people in my graduating class, all the people turning in puppies were there too. So they kind of just made it this big hoopla. They put capes on the dogs that were getting turned in, and they had pictures. I could see why they made it a big deal to make the puppy raisers feel good. That sounds horrible to me because you’re there, and the whole time all you’re thinking of is, “Alright, ten minutes away. Alright, five minutes away. I’m going to turn this dog over.” And then during COVID, the other side of that was literally –
Claire: You talked about this.
Joy: Where you literally just put your dog in a kennel and walked away. That sounds awful.
Claire: Yeah.
Joy: This, to me, feels like the perfect balance. Scheduling a time where you have 20 minutes, up to 30 minutes, whatever. But you have a shorter amount of time. I need boundaries. I need someone to tell me where to be, what to do. Drop her off –
Claire: Actually I remember this when my mom dropped me off at college. We would love to hear your stories. If you have a memorable moment of your parent dropping you off or you dropping off your own child. Because I remember my mom – she’s probably going to listen to this. You could tell, because there was no clear moment of, “now you may leave.” We were setting up my dorm. It was pretty much completely set up, and we had taken out a load of trash. We were standing next to the dumpster and she was like, “Well, I guess this is it. I guess I’m going to leave. Do you need anything else?” It was just so like, oh okay, I guess you’re not going back inside with me. I’m standing there in my shorts and flip flops, and she’s just like, “Well.” But there wasn’t a clear moment of, okay, after this. It wasn’t like, now the parents may get up and leave. I don’t know. Looking back, I’m like, yeah, that was kind of awkward. Do you leave? Do you stay? It’s getting late. I have to be here. You’re going to go back to your hotel and leave tomorrow morning. It was just very like, “Okay, bye.”
Joy: Yeah, yeah. I can appreciate now – I was talking to my mom about this. She’s like, “And then you’ll just kind of think about her and you’ll worry.” You guys know how I feel about comparing dogs to children. I don’t do that. But my mom was trying to compare it. But she was like, “You know, I just remember when Dad and I dropped you off to grad school.” Literally guys, grad school started on September 10, 2001. So the next day is when September 11th happened. I remember my second day of grad school being cancelled. But my mom was like, because that was the day that they were supposed to go back to Arizona, she’s like, “We just worried the whole time. Because we were like, is she going to be okay with this big life event, handling herself at grad school.” I remember thinking, oh my God, I don’t even remember worrying about that, but they were worried. She’s like, “And I worried about your brother” because at the time when he was at the naval academy, back then they could barely do a 3-minute phone call. They were not allowed to contact anybody for, I don’t know if it was the first six months. But after they were out of kind of a bootcamp type of scenario, then they could write letters or do longer phone calls. I think back now, and I’m like, oh yeah, she was just at home worried about her kids. But we’re just going through the motions, doing what we have to do. At the end of the day, guys, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but it’s a dog. She’s going to be fine. She’s going to be just fine.
Claire: Right. She’s not going to be sitting there like, “I wonder what Joy is doing?”
Joy: No. She’s a dog. There’s going to be tons of dogs there. And that’s kind of what I go to. Really, it’s the human connection that we’re just like, “Oh my gosh.” But I have to remind myself that this is a dog and she’s going to be just fine.
Claire: Right. 100% Okay, so you have another fun – well, fun… another –
Joy: Interesting turn of events.
Claire: Interesting life milestone coming up.
Joy: So I won’t give the exact details. I’ve been told to be careful about dates and details, just to protect the patient. But I was cleared to go through with a bone marrow donation in November. After a lot of tests and a lot of questionnaires and very personal questions, I was cleared last week. I will be donating. I think at this point what I’m just thinking of is, I can’t wrap my head around it. I can’t wrap my head around how some weird universal thing, if we want to get “woo woo.” I joined this registry Be the Match. If you guys want to go on bethematch.org. I believe we already mentioned this on the show, but I think it’s 18-35 the last time we checked.
Claire: You have to be under 35 to join. Obviously once you’re on, they can call you at any time. But if you’re not currently on the registry, you do have to be under 35 to join. And that has to do with them finding that they have significantly better outcomes the younger, I guess, the donor is. That’s why it’s there.
Joy: Yeah. I joined six years ago, so that would make sense. I definitely wasn’t younger than 35, but obviously they changed it for whatever reason. So if you are under 35 and can join the registry. The chances of you actually being called are really, really slim. I know that people get worried about, “That just sound really intense. And the procedure is a surgery where they go into your hip bone.” But my procedure is not going to be through the hip bone to pull out the bone marrow. It’s going to be through PBSC, which I always forget the name of it and I don’t have it in front of me, but you can Google it. It really looks like a blood transfusion where you’re just sitting in a chair with needles in either arm. They’re pulling out blood in one arm and then putting it back in the other. It takes about 5-8 hours because they have to do it very slowly, pulling out your stem cells and then injecting it into the patient for the transplant. I’m in a private Facebook group for donors, and I’ve seen a lot of people going through the process in a lot of different stages in the process, and I can say that it looks like it’s not – people aren’t posting that they’re having this horrible time. They’re like, “Yeah, it took a long time.” Or, “They had some troubles with my veins at first, but overall I would do it again and I’m so glad that I got this opportunity.”
Claire: Seems surprisingly non-invasive for what’s happening.
Joy: Exactly. And that’s what I think everybody associates with it. And again, I was very uneducated around this whole process until I was put into the situation. So I feel like I want to use this platform to educate people to at least just join the registry. You just never know who you could be helping. And to wrap my head around the fact that I asked my case worker, “Hey, do you know if there are other donors being considered?” She said, “You’re the only one that’s being considered for this patient.” And I was never questioning whether or not I would do it. But I think even more so now that I’m like, okay, I really want to make sure that I’m taking care of myself, that my health is in peak condition for the next few weeks until I donate. I do know that she’s in the United States. I do know that she has leukemia. From what I hear from people who have either worked with bone marrow transplant patients or have gone through the process is, it’s really like a Hail Mary at this point in their journey of trying to get this cured.
Claire: In their treatment.
Joy: In their treatment plan. My ask right now for… and I’m not super religious, guys, but where I struggle with talking about it is I don’t want to make it about me. It’s really about this patient who is struggling with her health in a very serious way. I would ask that you join the registry. Or if you believe in prayer, to pray for this patient that she stays healthy for a transplant and that my immune system – this is how it was described to me. Your immune system goes into her. She literally has your DNA. My friends that are in the field are like, “Just keep talking to your immune system. Tell it that it’s okay, that we will accept her.” I’m like, okay, let’s just pray for that. Let’s just pray for her health and pray for this transplant that my immune system doesn’t freak out. It’s okay, you can go into her body. So that’s my mantra right now. It’s a pretty trippy thing to think about. To think about saving someone’s life, or at least giving them another chance at life, I can’t even wrap my head around that.
Claire: Right. You can just sit there and talk to your little T cells and be like, “Hey guys, you’re about to go on a journey. I want you to not freak out. Everything’s going to be fine. Let’s do some prep. Let’s get ready. Let’s talk through what’s going to happen.”
Joy: I kind of envision it like a Pixar movie.
Claire: Yes. Like Osmosis Jones, which is not Pixar. When you get there, it might be a little unfamiliar, but don’t freak out. It’s going to be great. You’re just going to make yourselves a home.
Joy: You can find a home in her home.
Claire: Right. It’s going to be a little different, but it’s going to be great. They’re going to clean it up for you before you get there.
Joy: It’s all good.
Claire: It’s all good. It’s great. And the timing of it, knowing that it’s happening hopefully will give you something else to focus on during turn-in. When you first said the thing about turning in Cadet, the way you phrased it, it sounded like she was going to turn into a pumpkin. She’s turned into – yeah. It’s just a big month. And then you’ll start your new job.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Boom, boom.
Joy: Yeah. I have family in town for Thanksgiving. Then I get back from family in town for Thanksgiving, and then I start my new job. So it’s kind of like, wow, November just turned into a fast and furious month. But it’s all good things, and it’s all very emotional things. Of course, all my friends are like, “Make sure you’re taking care of yourself.” This is a lot to take in. I’m like, I know. I will let myself cry and feel all the feels. But going through all these tests that I’ve been doing, when I got my physical, the guy who did my physical was like, “Oh, it’s really cool that you’re doing this.” Be the Match pays for everything. They pay for the travel because I do have to travel somewhere to get this done. They pay for your physical. They pay for everything. The donors don’t have to pay for anything. So I had to go to this different doctor for a physical, and he’s like, “It’s really cool that you’re doing this.” I’m like, “Well, who wouldn’t? If you’re called to do this, how could you not?” He’s like, “A lot of people don’t.” I’m like, “Really?” No judgment, but I don’t have that in me. Now this stranger and I are connected cosmically. I want to empathetically be like, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” Because I think at any time, too, donors can pull out. Donors can back out of the whole process. But five days before the donation, I start this procedure called filgrastim. They’re shots of basically boosting up your bone marrow so you’re at your healthiest to donate, which apparently comes with aches and pains. You just feel achy because your bones are boosted with this stuff. Five days before the donation is when that process starts. My caseworker is like, “Yeah, and at that point you cannot back out.” Which of course I’m not going to, but they really reiterate that, because at the same time – and this is also trippy – at the exact same time I’m going through this blood-boosting filgrastim shots, the patient is killing their immune system. Just blasting their immune system. They are in such a fragile state that they could die. So they’re literally just killing off any ability for the patient to have an immune system. Getting ready for your immune system. That is so trippy. So yeah, I just keep thinking of her. I’m here for you, girl, wherever you are. At some point after the transplant, we have the ability to communicate anonymously through Be the Match. I’ll probably send her a letter. If she wants to send me a letter, great. If not, that’s fine too. And then a year after the transplant, you have the option if you both consent, to get each other’s name and phone number and address and communicate. That’s really cool too. But I also just think of her and, this is horrible to say, but you just hope that they make it for a year. This is such a serious diagnosis that I see a lot of patients in the Be the Match Facebook group that are like, “I just learned today that my patient passed away.” That is a reality as well. I just keep thinking good thoughts that her health is going to pull her through all of this. It’s a lot, guys. I know it’s a lot. Big November over here on the pod. Big November. A lot of things. A lot of crying. A lot of emotions. A lot of feels. But that’s what life is. That’s what life’s about. We’re doing it.
Claire: We are doing it.
Joy: Okay.
Claire: Okay. I don’t have any people’s lives that I’m changing this month that I know of.
Joy: You do it every day in motherhood, Claire.
Claire: Something like that. Yeah. So I guess my small updates, my job’s going well in my week and change in. Remote onboarding is still weird. Yeah, that’s kind of it. Miles is about to test for his next belt in taekwondo. He’s most likely going to be a high gold belt, so that’s exciting.
Joy: That is so exciting. Does he love it?
Claire: He loves it. He’s so bought into it. Again, I can’t say good enough things about this martial arts school that he’s in. If you’re in northern Colorado and you have a kid, check them out. It’s called Ripple Effect Martial Arts. It’s so great. They’re wonderful. We’ve absolutely loved every moment that we’ve had with them. His entire personality has completely changed since he joined in August, very much for the better. When you’re in class, you have to call everyone “sir” and “ma’am.” Even walking through the door, the person at the front desk, she stands there and hands out hand sanitizer. She’s like, “How’s your day at school?” And he says, “Good, ma’am.” He does it in school, and his teacher was like, “He’s the most polite kid.” I was like, “Yeah, thanks. I didn’t do any of that.”
Joy: It’s so great, though. I love it.
Claire: Highly recommend. So my birthday is this month. It’s the day after Thanksgiving. We always reflect on the past year, and maybe we can do that in a future episode, but I just feel like this year, again, has been such a wash. Brandon keeps being like, “What do you want to do for your birthday?” I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t know.
Joy: Can we all meet up at Meow Wolf [UNCLEAR 00:22:58.07]. No, day after Thanksgiving, I don’t think it will be open. It might be a crap show.
Claire: And that’s the other thing. Having your birthday right around Thanksgiving, people are traveling.
Joy: Right.
Claire: A lot of people are already socially burnt out from having to spend all of Thanksgiving with your families. It’s just been interesting to start reflecting on the year and be like, first of all, last year’s birthday feels like it was a lifetime ago. And also this year feels like we just had another weird year. We thought we were going to be better, and now we’re not. And then the other thing that we have coming up is Miles is going to get his first vaccine a week from today, which is really exciting. It is a very different experience making the decision for your child than it is making the decision for yourself to get a vaccine. I know it’s a very contentious topic. I just want to really validate the parents out there right now who are having mixed feelings about this decision and seeing the bigger picture and really wanting that bigger picture world for your family where this becomes an endemic virus instead of a pandemic virus and knowing that a huge part of that is our ability to get vaccinated. But also, the reality that all vaccines for children I feel like have question marks around them these days. Everyone has their own personal experiences with their children being vaccinated.
Joy: Remember the days where Jenny McCarthy books where people would take medical advice from Jenny McCarthy. Remember when she wrote that book?
Claire: It feels like we’re not that far away from it. Now it’s just people on Instagram instead of people’s books.
Joy: That’s true. That’s true.
Claire: And I think it’s one thousand percent… especially there’s all these crunchy moms on Instagram who are really anti-vax, and that’s not really what I’m talking about. As we’ve really learned in the past eight months, there are people out there who are full stop anti-vax. Those people, to me, are a different mindset than the people who are truly just singularly concerned about the COVID vaccine and about the questions surrounding that. Particularly for your child. I just want to validate that tension of understanding that this is what I want and I’m ready for my kid to not wear a mask at school and I’m ready for quarantines at school to end. I’m ready to hopefully enter into a phase where we continue chipping away at the severity of this virus. And I am not 110% without questions in the back of my mind, without concerns in the back of my mind. And that doesn’t mean that we won’t – we are choosing to get him vaccinated as early as we can, and I’m excited about that choice. And I’m not 110% without a single shadow of doubt. I think it’s also worth realizing that the vast majority of parenting decisions are like that. Rarely have I ever made a decision on behalf of one of my kids where I don’t feel like, well, I hope this goes okay. And whether that be the day-to-day of what I feed them, where I’m going to send them to school, where I’m going to send them to daycare, what childcare choices we’re going to make, whether or not we should both be working full time, whether or not we should live where we live. Every lifestyle choice that we make has that looming question mark in the back of my mind of, I hope this doesn’t backfire on my kid.
Joy: See where this goes.
Claire: Yeah. And I think we get into this, particularly when it comes to the vaccine, it’s like if I’m not 110% sure, then I’m not going to do it. The reality check that I have with myself is, what parenting decision am I really 110% sure about? Zero of them. I have to just go with my gut, feel like I’m making the best decision I can with the information that I have, and for us that means getting vaccinated as quickly as possible. Getting our whole family vaccinated. Evie’s not eligible yet. She’s 2.5. TBD on that timeline. I’m excited about it. Miles hates getting shots. I mean, what six-year-old wants to get shots?
Joy: Of course.
Claire: That’s the other thing too. “He doesn’t want it.” Well, of course he doesn’t want it.
Joy: Right.
Claire: He doesn’t want to get his hair cut. He doesn’t want to wash his hair.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: There’s plenty of things that he doesn’t want to do. I try to weight those. I think a lot of people in this day, in the modern parenting style, I think that it’s really great that we definitely see our children as individuals with very valid needs and options that we can incorporate that into how we treat them and how we communicate with them. But at the same time, their brains aren’t fully developed. We can’t just take their reactions as the steering wheel. We can use that information and then use our own judgement for how heavily we’re going to weigh it.
Joy: Right.
Claire: Sometimes we weight it really heavily because it’s their lives and their bodies. And other times there’s a reason that human children live with their families for so long.
Joy: I was wondering how you were feeling about that because I knew that was coming up. Everyone has that personal decision to make for their children, and I was wondering if you had any –
Claire: It’s been interesting. My opinion about the mindset around the COVID vaccine has changed a lot in probably the last six months. And honestly, it’s changed a lot as conversations around abortion have also come up with the Texas abortion law. I’ve had to really consider to myself, why do I feel so, so, so, so, so strongly that abortion should be legal and accessible and that should be a personal choice. Yet, I have a different view about vaccines. I think that vaccines should be able to be mandated in some circumstances. I don’t really have an answer for that. I don’t know why – I acknowledge that those are conflicting beliefs, and I don’t have the answer for why I’m okay with that.
Joy: Yeah. What comes to mind for me – and this is totally just my opinion, guys. I’m not saying anything is right or wrong here. At least in my lifetime, I’ve never been in a pandemic. I feel like the stakes are higher around vaccines. I feel like it’s a society obligation, because we’ve never been in a pandemic before in our lifetime at least, for me is my obligation to my fellow people to protect. I think that is a different thing from abortion,
Claire: I agree with you. I think if I were to really look at it, it’s like, yeah, because I don’t see the decision of abortion as impacting others. But that is not how a lot of people see abortion. A lot of people do think that it impacts others. They do see that fetus as being an autonomous person who your decision is obviously greatly impacting. So I really had to sit with that for the past several months, and I don’t have an answer for it. I can’t reconcile it, other than the fact that truly at the end of the day, I see one decision as impacting others and another decision as not impacting others. And that’s really where you draw the line. But I also can completely understand – and that is the root of the abortion debate, right? At what point does that fetus or embryo or ball of cells have autonomy? And at one point is it “a person”? And that belief for a lot of people is largely religious, and that’s not something that you can argue with. Because it’s not a fact-based, logic-based question for a lot of people. It’s been interesting to think about that through the lens of should we be mandating vaccines. I think early on in our conversations about vaccines, I would get really fired up because I felt like the reasons that people were not getting vaccinated were based in incorrect information and the spreading of incorrect information, based in these fear of side effects that weren’t real. Or people having questions and being like, “Well, we don’t know anything about X, Y, Z.” We do actually know that. And those questions where I was so frustrated because I felt like, guys, these issues that you’re bringing up and these things that you’re pointing to to say “this is why I’m not doing it” are not real. And that’s where I do get really frustrated. But then I see an entirely different group of people who are like, listen, I’m not saying that this isn’t a big deal. I’m not saying the science isn’t there. I’m not saying insert argument here. I’m not questioning that. What I am questioning is, is this the right choice for me as a person under my individual circumstances. Those are the conversations that I think are so hard still for me to wrap my head around. I personally feel so strongly that we as a society have this obligation to put our individual concerns to the side a little bit and maybe take a little bit of a risk. I understand also that that is an opinion, and that is a personal belief. I can’t give that personal belief to other people around me. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot, and it’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot as I prepare to make this decision for my kids and as I prepare to have a lot of other moms around me not make that decision for their kids and try really hard to have empathy for that.
Joy: Yeah, if there’s one thing I’ve seen. When have we ever been in a scenario where we’ve had to work through something that was a global issue – like this, to where hundreds of thousands of people die? I can’t think of one. But where we’re in this tragedy pandemic and we’re just kind of walking through it together trying to figure it out with the entire world. I look back, and we know more know. Science continues to learn more and change. I look back at that because I think of how much I’ve changed my views as well. Just to be a little more compassionate towards why people don’t get vaccinated. I think the reason why I was so heated about it last year was because of fear and anger. We had a different administration that made me angry all the time, and I think I was speaking a lot from that too. I didn’t feel like we had a leader who was helping the scenario. People could argue the same for right now, but I’m not going to get into that. I think it’s more trying to be more compassionate, that we were all just scared to death for this pandemic that’s just never been in our lives before. We’ve never experienced to this level. That’s what I see now. We’re still in it obviously and I’m doing the best that I can to protect everyone. But as we learn more and know more, I think that is to our benefit, so we’re not ripping each other’s heads off all of the time. But what concerns me obviously is the data around people who are dying are the unvaccinated. So it’s kind of like, alright, why aren’t people looking at that?
Claire: That’s where I feel like I do start to feel like, wait a minute, we aren’t just randomly getting vaccinated for no reason. There is science behind this. There is data behind this. That is where I start to feel frustration. But for some people, I also have to be okay with that not being enough reason for them. I can’t change those people. I want to change them sometimes, and I can’t. I think the best thing I can do is sit here and say, here’s my thought process. Here are the decisions I am making with that information. Maybe that will help someone else think through why they should or should not examine their own thought process. We’ve had people reach out to us and say, “Thank you for bringing this up. I did finally have this conversation with my doctor because I realized that’s who I should be talked to about it, not my Facebook group.” If that’s anything you can take away from our conversations, it’s that not every single person on the internet deserves an opinion and deserves input on this decision for you. Identify the qualified, educated individuals in your life who should have input on this decision and listen to them and talk to them. Don’t let everyone in your life and in your sphere have an input on this decision. I would say that vastly covers every decision that you make. And we really are, we’re letting too many people have input on our lives that just don’t deserve to have input.
Joy: No. It’s interesting that we’re talking about this this week too because on the Girls Gone WOD podcast this week, I’m talking with JK McLeod again who runs the Muscle Feed and also the Help Me Understand podcast. But really talking so much about this same thing of how we navigate those conversations when we’re really just trying to understand. But also who your audience is and, really, who it’s for. Because it really just might not be for everybody, so to be selective around that. You might want to complement this episode with that episode. It covers a lot of the same thing.
Claire: Coming up next.
Joy: Yeah, coming up next. Well, let’s switch gears to a celebration for one of our listeners who ran the New York City Marathon this past weekend.
Claire: Alecta.
Joy: Congratulations, Alecta, [UNCLEAR 00:35:45.13] one of our listeners.
Claire: Long-time listeners, long-time community members, and this was a big goal for her, so we’re so excited for her. Some of you know, Joy ran the New York City Marathon, what? Ten years ago?
Joy: 2005. Long time ago.
Claire: And it’s been a favorite memory that you have come back to a lot.
Joy: To this day, I think about it and dream about it. If I ever felt like I was healthy enough to run another marathon – and by that I just mean wouldn’t screw up my immune system and my thyroid again – I would do it again. Maybe one day. It really was one of the best experiences of my life. It’s so fun. It was so, so fun.
Claire: Congratulations, Alecta. Congratulations anyone else who ran the New York City Marathon.
Joy: Yes, we want to hear about it. Send us some pictures.
Claire: I was so surprised. On my Instagram, it was blowing up with all these people who flew to New York for this marathon. I had no idea I had so many people in my community and my life running this race. So congratulations to all of you. Yay. So fun.
Joy: And Alecta, your friend group Krellie [UNCLEAR 00:36:50.18] is the shoutout that they wrote in. They were like, “Tell her it’s from Krellie.” That’s your Marco Polo group. If you also have a Marco Polo group, it’s the best.
Claire: Yes. And the thing that I love about that, not to make it about us, but that is a group of listeners who all got together and needed some accountability and found one another and have created this Marco Polo group. It’s been ongoing now for years, and it’s so cool. I think about that, and I’m like, wow.
Joy: That’s really cool. I remember that too. That’s so great. So congratulations. I hope your legs feel good.
Claire: Yeah, I hope you’re recovering and not running at all this week. That’s my wish for you.
Joy: Take a break.
Claire: No running. Oh my gosh. I can’t imagine running a marathon. I would get 20 minutes in and be like, why am I doing this? I wish sometimes that I did like running because it’s so accessible. You can do it anywhere in the world. It’s relatively inexpensive. You can do it with whatever time domain that you have. You can go out for a 20-minute run or a 2-hour run. And it’s not my thing. Which is fine. It’s fine that it’s not my thing. I have accepted that I’m not a runner just the way that I’m not a morning person just the way that I will never be 5’6”. All of those things are just physically not going to happen for me. And I’m bummed about it. I know you are all listening being like, “Claire, I used to hate running too and now I love it and here’s how I got there.” The reality is, I have tried those things. I have tried many times. I have tried different programs. I have tried coaches. I have tried doing it on top of CrossFit. I’ve tried run clubs. I’ve tried signing up for races to motivate myself. I’ve spent hundreds upon hundreds of dollars on race fees that I have never even come close to training for. Because I was like I have to sign up for a race and then it will motivate me. It did not motivate me. It just made me feel terrible.
Joy: I did a Q&A at one point, ask me anything, on Instagram stories, and one of our listeners… someone asked, “how do I get into running” or “how do I not hate running,” whatever. And I basically answered, if you don’t like to run, don’t run. But if you’re truly interested in trying it, I don’t want to poopoo it either. One of our listeners is a certified running coach. If you want to just dip your toe into asking questions about liking running or trying it. And if you still hate it, don’t do it. I’m not a fan of pushing your body to do something that you hate. But her Instagram handle is @coachingklutz. @coachingklutz is her Instagram handle if you want to reach out to her. And be like, “Tell me about some running things. Because you know a thing or two about maybe starting running.” If you’re interested in trying it, I’ll just say that.
Claire: Noted. Alright, should we wrap up with a few Q&As?
Joy: Let’s do it. Let’s do some quick ones. “I am entering medical school next year. What are your best/worst experiences with MD’s?”
Claire: Oh my gosh, wow. This may be a write-in question.
Joy: I will just say off the bat, I hate, and I’ve had a couple of experiences with doctors who are more nervus than I am to be in the room. Let me just be clear. It’s not like an awkward where I’m uncomfortable, but I can just tell they’re nervous. For example, a Pap smear. You can tell that they’re uncomfortable about doing the procedure where part of me wants to be like, “I’m cool. Been doing this every year for the past 20+ years. So why are you uncomfortable?” This is just a normal thing we should be – they kind of address that, “Oh, it’s just a nervous thing” and da-da-da-da-da. I don’t need that. Just act like you’ve done this a bazillion times. Because it really should just be routine.
Claire: That’s horrifying. That’s never happened to me.
Joy: Yes. That’s never happened?
Claire: No.
Joy: That’s happened to me a couple of times where I’m like, no, I don’t need the nervousness. I need you to act like this is so beyond normal that weirdness and seeing parts of me that really no one sees is just a day in the life of your job. That’s what I need you to do.
Claire: You know those tweets that are like, “Why do we always hide our underwear at the gynecologist office. She’s about to look at your cervix. She can handle seeing your folded up panties on the chair.”
Joy: I think about that every time I have to undress for anything.
Claire: But we all do it. We all do it. We hide our underwear under our folded-up pants.
Joy: Totally. I got a mammogram this summer, and you kind of cover up. This lady does this a thousand times –
Claire: One million times per day.
Joy: A year, whatever. And I’m just like, why am I covering up with my gown? She’s holding onto people’s boobs all day long.
Claire: One thousand percent.
Joy: But I do appreciate those nurses that are just like, “Oh honey. Let it hang out.”
Claire: Honestly, I think the biggest thing about having gone through pregnancies is now – and I remember being in college and being mortified at having a Pap smear, and my gynecologist at the time who was also an OB was like, “I know this is uncomfortable.” Not physically uncomfortable, but she’s like, “I know this makes you nervous. One day if you ever decide to have kids, you will laugh about how you’re feeling right now.” Because eventually, if you ever have kids, it’s just like, I truly don’t care anymore. Whatever needs to happen down there, it’s just not a big deal anymore. I used to trim up before I would go to the – not anymore. She’s seen it all. They do not care. And also, of all the things –
Joy: I just want to note though that you did this –
Claire: This little shimmy.
Joy: Just did a shimmy when she was talking about trimming.
Claire: How do I say this?
Joy: I was like, is she going to take her pants off right now? Not sure what she’s doing.
Claire: What am I doing over there. But back to the question, I feel like the best experiences that I have with MD’s are when they treat you like you are also bringing something into the conversation. I feel like it’s so common these days, because you only have seven minutes with your doctor by the time you get in with your medical assistant and they get all your vitals, and your actual doctor/physical comes in. Whether you are getting a routine checkup or whether you are seeing a specialist, whether you’re in the ER, it can feel like you are just taking up their time. So the best doctors are the ones who really repeat back to you what you’re saying. Even if they can’t provide an answer in that moment, they make you feel like, okay, this person is actually hearing what I’m saying. Even if they don’t think there’s anything wrong – like I recently had a neurologist appointment. I guess neurologists are sort of famous for not necessarily being the most personable. My first neurologist appointment that I ever had in 2014 when I first started having this tremor, I felt like he took one look at me and decided immediately what my diagnosis was. I didn’t feel like he really took the time to hear my concerns. Here I am, this young, fit, healthy person sitting in his office saying, “Hey, my hands have just started shaking out of nowhere for no reason.” He’s like, “Oh.” Does five minutes of calisthenics tests on me and is like, oh, this is what it is. We haven’t even talked about it. And then also was like, here’s what it is, and here’s your only option. You need to take beta blockers. That’s it. I was sitting there being like, I’m 25 maybe, I just remember feeling so defeated after that. And then recently I finally went back. It was such a bad experience. I felt so disregarded that I just kind of never went back to the neurologist after that. Just recently I had another appointment with a different neurologist. It’s been 7.5 years since that initial appointment. I finally got to the point where I was like, I need to see someone else about this. My tremor feels like it’s getting worse. I’m getting migraines, all this stuff. I actually had a neurologist who I felt like really was like, “Okay, here’s what I think I’m seeing. Am I missing anything? Do you have any other concerns about this? Is it okay with you that this is the route we go? Here’s what I’d like to do for a follow-up, but if you want a sooner follow-up than that, we can do that if you want.” I felt like it actually mattered to them what I wanted out of the situation. And also, when I was in labor with Miles – I know I briefly spoke a little bit about my birth story last week or the week before – I had this horrible labor and delivery nurse who really didn’t think I was in labor and was, again, very dismissive. I feel like being dismissive is the worst thing that you can be as a medical professional. Because someone is coming to you. They’re so vulnerable. Being dismissed in that state just feels a thousand times worse than any other reaction really. I remember finally my midwife came in and sat down and was like, “What do you want out of this? What’s your desired outcome here?” Because that’s what matters. Hearing any moment that you’re in a medical situation, “What’s your desired outcome? How can I help you get there?” just feels so validating.
Joy: And just affirming that patients really know their body. If they’re very adamant that there’s something else going on, listening to them. Back to the question, too, of your best experience, I would say kind of what you just said of people really taking time to listen and not rushing you through it. I think of my primary care physician who’s amazing. She just acts like I’m the only person that she’s treating that day. She’s just listening to me. I often will feel rushed because I feel like I’m taking up too much of her time, so I’ll rush through things. But she just sits there and listens and is slow and calm. I just feel heard, and I think that’s important. I hope that helps. Good luck in med school, that’s exciting.
Claire: That was a long answer.
Joy: Yeah, we’ll do one more quick one. And then we’ll answer the rest. You guys are submitting some really good questions, so we’ll answer these on a future episode. Oh, let’s do this one. This is really cute. It’s just appropro fall. “What is your favorite winter coat?”
Claire: I have opinions on this. I love a coat.
Joy: I knew you would. I’m going to let you go. Go for it.
Claire: Alright, guys. You’re going to need three winter coats. Here are my top three. It doesn’t matter what brand, to be clear, but these are the three types of coats everyone must have. If you’re living in a relatively dry climate, let me preface that. Here are my three favorites. The first thing you’re going to need is a long puffy jacket. We’re talking knee-length or longer. I cannot tell you what a game changer the long puffy jacket is. And if you live somewhere where it rains a lot, you can get the type that also has a shell on top, but it’s a puffy underneath. Having your butt covered by your puffy jacket is an unbelievable game changer. And the longer you can go, the better. If you can get the mid-calf length, do it. Wear a puffy bathrobe. That’s the dream. Even though they’re normally like $500+, highly recommend. That’s my favorite one. I don’t care what brand it is. Brands are so different depending on your body type. I have an Arc’teryx one that I got on super sale, and I like it because it’s a little bit more of a curvy silhouette versus a Patagonia, which is more straight up and down, or versus even a North Face, which also has a little bit more room for curviness. Don’t even get me started on Helly Hansen. In my experience, you can’t have curves and wear Helly Hansen. Any amount of curves, at all. I’m not an overly curvy person, but even still, just none. Okay, my next favorite jacket is just a basic puffy. A light weight puffy. My go-to is the Patagonia nano puff, but every major outdoor brand out there has something similar. ‘
Joy: Light weight, you could also pack it up easily.
Claire: Yeah, you can pack it up. You can layer underneath it. That’s really key. If it’s not too cold outside, you can just wear it over a light long sleeve shirt. But if it’s colder outside, you can put a fleece underneath it and you’re good to go. And then I think the third thing that you need is something that’s so soft and cozy. I have one that’s this really fluffy… what’s that word? Not velour. But fluffy.
Joy: I know what you’re talking about. Sherpa?
Claire: Sherpa! It’s not that practical. It’s not going to hold up in the snow or the rain. But if I just am feeling crappy because it’s cold outside, I can just put it on and snuggle up into it.
Joy: Oh my gosh, I have one from Lululemon that’s almost like a sweatshirt style, but it’s got this huge turtleneck and it is the coziest thing. I live in that thing in the winter.
Claire: Literally, guys, this is your coat that is for emotional comfort. We’re talking two technical/practical warm winter jackets and then one that is just for your emotional warmth, and it’s just as critical.
Joy: Can we add an adjacent? I really love a warm vest, where it’s just a midday –
Claire: Oh, you have to have a vest.
Joy: I love a warm vest.
Claire: A puffy vest is a critical, critical component. Puffy vests are so good.
Joy: They’re the best, especially on those days where maybe the weather’s a little warm, but it could take a turn. It’s just the perfect transitional piece.
Claire: It is. It’s also great if you just need to hop out for a sec and you want something that has pockets, but you’re not ready to commit to the whole jacket.
Joy: Yeah. I wear it sometimes if I’m a little cold in the house. You don’t feel like you’re wearing a huge, bulky thing in the house. So sometimes I’ll just put that on. It’s great. I have nothing to add to that because you summed it up perfectly. So I’m not going to add to it.
Claire: Guys, outerwear is my passion. Please, if you have any outerwear questions. Somebody recently, a couple months ago maybe, wrote me a DM and was like, “I’m moving to Colorado. What do I need?” I was like, okay, here’s what you’re going to want. I sent all these different links. They were like, “Wow.” Yeah, ask and you shall receive when it comes to jacket recommendations.
Joy: We should also put together a list at some point of favorite beanies and warm hats because there’s nothing worse than wearing a beanie and it shows your head.
Claire: It doesn’t cover. Yeah, no, so true.
Joy: Or it doesn’t cover ears. So we should go through some top hats… top hats? Some top hats.
Claire: Top hats. My favorite, the brand is called Skida. They’re based out of Vermont. It’s a really cute, small business. They have these amazing fleece headbands. They’re so thick. Highly recommend.
Joy: Oh, I like the sound of that.
Claire: And they come in super, super cute patterns. All their fabric is so cute. You can hear Joy scratching away in her notes.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Alright, guys, I think that’s it for today.
Joy: Yes. We covered a lot.
Claire: We covered a lot.
Joy: A lot of ups. A lot of downs. Send us some good thoughts. When you hear this episode, we’ll be on our way to Oceanside, California with Cadet to turn her in Friday, November 12. Just send us all the good vibes. And if you’re in California, give us some recommendations where we can drown our sorrows in food and drink on Friday night. That would be great, thank you. I believe we’re going to be staying not far from Oceanside.
Claire: And don’t forget, you can check out our other two podcasts, Girls Gone WOD podcast, which is all about fitness and health, and On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake!, which is all about The Great British Baking Show. We cover each week’s new episode. You can follow us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can find us online joyandclaire.com. You can email us thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. We love to hear from you. Please send us your email. Please send us DM’s. Anything you want. We love to hear from you. We love to get to connect with our community. That’s it for this week. We will talk to you next week.
Joy: Thanks guys.
Claire: Bye.
Joy: Bye.
GBBO Season 12 Episode 7
99: Signs From the Universe if You Want Them
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HELLO NED DISCOUNT CODE JOY
email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com
Instagram: joyandclaire_
This is Joy & Claire: 99: Signs From the Universe if You Want Them
Episode Date: November 4, 2021
Transcription Completed: November 12, 2021
Audio Length: 44:05 minutes
Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.
Claire: And this is Claire.
Joy: And this is Joy and Claire.
Claire: Welcome.
Joy: Hi. Hello. Not going to talk about the date. I’m not going to take about the date. I saw a really funny – God, what did we do without the internet and memes and GIFs and funny tweets?
Claire: What were we doing with our lives?
Joy: There’s one I read today. Our friend Jess posted it. It made me think of me last week and actually this entire past two months. Is if we can just get through this month, we have one more month to go before we need to get through another month. [laughing] That was from @oldfriend99, Josh ‘Letterman.’ If we can just get through this month, we only have one – so it just made me think about the passage of time and how hard it is for me right now to stay present. Because to have that looming thing with Cadet, which is getting more intense every day. The hot tip I’m doing for myself right now is truly just stay present. Do not think ahead. Because if I think too much about it, it’s just making me sick to my stomach. I did have a good dream a couple nights ago. Which by the way, I’ve been sleeping like a champ thanks to Ned. We’ll get there in a second. I had a dream that Cadet was in turn-in. It was a really positive dream. I’m just taking that – even if it means nothing. I’m grasping at straws here to make it not as painful to let her go.
Claire: It totally means something if you want it to Joy.
Joy: Yes. It’s true, it’s very true. So we have three going away parties for her this week with the donor, the gal who named her – because we keep in touch with her- and our puppy raiser community, and then our neighbors. And Cadet’s sister is coming over, so we’re having a neighborhood little goodbye party this weekend. It’s going to be really, really good.
Claire: Aw, Cadet.
Joy: I know.
Claire: Do you remember – well, obviously you remember the episode of Girls Gone WOD that we did with Michelle, the medium, where we talked about – that I personally don’t really believe in signs from the universe, and I also really don’t hold it against anyone else. I’m not going to argue with someone about whether or not those type of capital “U” Universe things are true because at the end of the day, it’s meaningful to you if you believe it’s meaningful to you. You can have those moments. You can have those signs from the Universe if you need them, if you want them.
Joy: Yeah, exactly. Everyone’s going to make fun of me right now and I don’t even care, but I do love the Long Island Medium. I do love Theresa Caputo, and I do listen to her podcast every week. Even though half the time, it really is just a conversation for her and that person, like in terms of the person that is on the other end of that phone call really gets this special, special gift. It’s amazing to listen to her channel. This is not a dig on her at all, but she ends up using the same language all the time, just to communicate the same kind of message. Overall theme is always the same. She’s so cute. Every time, she’ll say something like, “If you see a symbol or something that’s meaningful to you,” she always says, “it means that your loved one was with you at that exact moment.” She says it in this east coast accent. “Your loved one was with you at that exact moment.” I always say that to my mom because we always talk about signs from our loved ones. I’m like, “Mom, it means they’re with you at that exact moment.” Speaking of making meaning out of things that you just kind of have to. It just matters that it does something for you is – I think of an example from this summer. I was struggling with my next step and what I wanted to do, and I kept seeing this freaking butterfly hanging out around my house every single day. The same butterfly would come over and hang out with us when we were playing with the dogs. And by hang out, I mean it would just fly right in front of my face, and it would just hang out on a tree. Because we saw it every single day, it became this joke between my neighbor and I. We’re like, “Where’s the butterfly?” So I took meaning from that, of things are going to be okay. Because I had to. It meant something to me, and I don’t care if it was just a butterfly flying around. It meant something to me, and it kept me going.
Claire: Honestly, I feel like there is so much to that, and there is so much to any type of spirituality, ritual, any of that. If you want it to be meaningful, then it is. I think the cool thing is that it kind of goes both ways. If you’re seeing something – if you have a dream or you’re seeing a butterfly and there’s something that comes to mind and you want it to be meaningful, then it is. And also, you can make things meaningful just because you want them to be. And the other direction – you can create a ritual where there wasn’t a meaningful thing before. Or you can give meaning to a piece of jewelry or create a little alter, create meaning around a candle or anything you want.
Joy: I mean, if you see my desk right now as you’re talking, my desk is full of things that are full of meaning. It is a mess and Scott makes fun of me. I’m like, no, there are so many little tchotchkes on my desk and cards and thing that when I look at it, it has meaning, and it reminds me of that person that gave that to me or whatever. But this also reminds me of the conversation we had with Casper. Making rituals. Which by the way, you can still get his daily ritual planner.
Claire: I think about that conversation all the time. If you guys still haven’t read that book or listened to the book, it’s so interesting. It’s called The Power of Ritual. If you go back around this time last year, we had him on the podcast. His name is Casper ter Kulie. He also used to host the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. But this book was so, so, so interesting. I think about that a lot around this time of year, especially as we’re going into the holidays. It was just Halloween. After that conversation with Casper, I started learning more about my Celtic ancestry and learned a lot about Halloween. So a lot of Celtic rituals became what is now known as pagan and wiccan rituals. The last day of October, in that time frame, is the end of harvest festival in the Celtic tradition, and it’s also the New Year festival, and it’s also pretty much so many of those – I mean, Halloween in America draws from a lot of different historical ancestor ritual. But it has a lot of components of what we consider to be Halloween. You also see the same thing in Día de los Muertos where there’s just the belief that the physical world and the spiritual world are as close as they ever get on that night. And so I was reading a lot about that on Halloween and just thinking about that belief, that there are different times throughout the year where maybe our ancestors are more available to us. I don’t know really that I believe that, but it’s cool to think about. And just because I don’t believe it doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting and cool to think about and interesting and cool to connect with that cycle of rituals and beliefs. I was looking at, okay, how do you create a little alter. It’s like, open a jar and fill it with some dirt to symbolize the earth and some leave to symbolize the changing of the season, a black candle to symbolize the spirits. It’s just really interesting, and I think that as we go into the holidays – like last year, I know we asked a lot of people, what are some of your favorite traditions that you either have or that you want to do, and I think that was a cool thing and has been a cool thing about the pandemic and people being at home more is being able to focus more on that. I’ve been trying to think about, again, as we’re going into the holidays, what kind of holiday traditions do I want to make for my kids. And that’s also super fun.
Joy: Yeah. Well you think about belief in children and how children believe in magic. That’s I think why it’s so fun to talk to kids about Santa Clause or the Easter bunny or just watching movies that have magic. I think that’s why even adults still love Disney Land – at least I do. Because that whole magical wonder is so fun to believe in, just because it’s fun. It’s fun to think of characters walking around. It’s fun to go into the haunted mansion and see, are there really ghosts – it’s wonder, it’s something that you make up in your head maybe. But to think that there might be something out there is exciting. I think we all experience and express it in different ways, whether you talk about in the religious sense. I’ve talked about this on the Casper episode about how important it was to me when I was traveling – when I was in college or even when I would go visit friends in the States, but I was traveling abroad in college, and I would go to Catholic churches because it felt like home, even though maybe I wasn’t necessarily a practicing Catholic. Going to mass felt like home because that is what I was raised on, and just the ritual of mass is the exact same no matter where you go. So in a different language, just having the ritual and routine was like, I don’t know what they’re saying but I know exactly what’s going on. I think that’s just really important for each person. I know that that is very personal to each individual. I think it’s really cool to hear about people’s traditions and the things that they pass down from their families or that they decided to create with their own families. Especially this time of year because it’s the holiday season and there’s so much wrapped up in that.
Claire: On Halloween, I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, the number one thing I looked forward to was coming home and jumping out all of my candy and sorting it.
Joy: Yep. I did the same thing. Dumped and sorted.
Claire: I would sort mine, not only by the specific types of candy but also by candy type. So chocolate went on the left and then it slowly evolved into hard fruit candies, like on a spectrum. For example, a tootsie roll would be in the middle because it’s chocolate, but it’s chewy, and chewy I think is more of a fruit candy characteristic in my opinion.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: So last night we were trying to coach Miles on sorting his candy, and he didn’t care. He was like, I just want to eat it.
Joy: I think I did just chocolate and the rest is all I cared about.
Claire: Chocolate and other. We told the kids on Halloween, “Okay, you can have three pieces of candy before you go to bed.” So Evie picked three tootsie roll pops. It would have taken her an hour to eat those things. I was thinking three little miniature KitKats. Which also, I would like to say miniature KitKats are my favorite.
Joy: Yeah, I had one today and it was delicious.
Claire: Never in my life would I be like, “You know what I want to do right now? I want to sit down and have five full-size KitKats.” But I will gladly sit down and have like 12 kid miniature… like s’more, it’s the same amount in my brain.
Joy: The fun size. Ben Schwartz just did a tweet about this too. The most fun-size thing that has happened about… God, I’m messing it up. Basically he said the most fun thing fun-sized candy did was not list the calories on it. The most fun thing. We don’t need to know that. Who cares?
Claire: I’ll sit down after eating a bunch of KitKats and I’m like, why do I feel so bad? I’m like, oh, it’s because I just sat down and inhaled the equivalent of four full-size KitKats bars. Which in my normal adult life, I’d be like, “Claire, this is going to make you feel like crap.” Because they’re tiny –
Joy: It’s like wine tasting.
Claire: Yes, it’s exactly like wine tasting. Or like getting a beer flight where you’re like, “Why am I drunk?” Because Claire, you just drank the equivalent of six beers.
Joy: Totally.
Claire: But they were in tiny glasses.
Joy: It happens so fast. It just happens so fast.
Claire: It’s also why I feel like people get so full without realizing it on sushi. Because you were like, it’s just a tiny –
Joy: Just a tiny little roll and you just keep eating them. You just keep popping those in your mouth.
Claire: And next thing you know, you’ve had like two cups of rice.
Joy: Yeah, how does that happen? So sushi, I feel like that happens. I feel like cereal, you could just keep eating cereal and never really get full. And then all of the sudden you’re like, oh my gosh, what did I just do?
Claire: You remember that Mitch Hedberg joke about spaghetti. He’s like, “I don’t like spaghetti because I’m never hungry enough to eat a thousand of something.”
Joy: [laughing]
Claire: Oh Mitch Hedberg.
Joy: Oh Mitch.
Claire: Yeah, it was so funny when we were like, “You can have three pieces of candy.” And Evie, you know, she’s 2.5, so they say that rules don’t really make a lot of sense to her yet. Or if we were to say, “You can have three pieces of candy.” Miles is like, “Okay” and immediately starts searching through. And she’s like, “Oh, three” and just picks up three tootsie rolls. And then I’m like, “You can’t have three tootsie roll pops. It’s going to take you an hour.” So I was trying to explain to her, and she’s looking at me like, “Mom. You said three.”
Joy: Yeah, those are the rules.
Claire: And it just kicked off – honestly the hardest thing about Halloween is trying to put your kids to bed after trick-or-treating.
Joy: It’s so much sugar and so much activity. They’re just wound up.
Claire: Sugar, activity, they’re completely out of their routine. What other night of your life does dinner end and then you get dressed up, go walk around your neighborhood –
Joy: Oh my gosh, so fun. This brought back so much fun memories as a kid because our dining room table was in the front of our house so the front window in the kitchen faced the street, so we could see all the kids hanging out outside. And we’d be sitting at the dinner table and my dad would shut the blinds. He’s like, “We’re having dinner without interruption.” And then we’d be like, “But Cindy’s outside.” So then especially on Halloween, we would barely sit down like half a butt cheek on the seat and hurry up and eat our food so we could get outside. But I have to recap just for the fans the neighborhood party we had with Pablo the pig. So if you’re not following along on Instagram, which is @joyandclaire_, I will on occasion post pictures and stories of our neighborhood pig Pablo. Our neighbors have, I think it’s three Jack Russell Terriers, and then Pablo the pig. Pablo the pig, he likes visitors, so – I said this before – the neighbors built up a fence to where it’s almost like a petting zoo where you can just go and visit Pablo, you can feed him vegetables, say “hi,” whatever. So he’s kind of turned into this neighborhood celebrity. This year the neighbors decided to have a pumpkin carving party for Pablo, so they had a bouncy castle for the kids, they had candy apples, they had pizza, the whole nine. Music, fire pit, hay bales to sit on. It was great. It was so much fun.
Claire: It was like Pablo Fest, basically.
Joy: It was Pablo Fest, one thousand percent. So I got my werewolf onesie. I was all excited. Scott and I walk over there. I see all the neighbors that I knew. I start talking to them. Bouncy castle is going. It’s like this huge spaceship. I’m like, where’s Pablo? Because I didn’t see him in the Pen. And my neighbor Lisa turns around. She’s like, “He’s right there.” I looked through the crowd and the sea parts, and he’s sitting in his basket. Because they also have a Pablo mobile. It’s a huge bicycle with a huge built-on cage to take him on bike-rides.
Claire: Because Pablo is a big guy.
Joy: Oh, he’s 120 pounds. Yeah, he’s pretty big. I think he’s potbelly size. I don’t know much about pigs, but he’s not like a huge hog. I want to say 120 is what I overheard. So he was sitting in his little basket, just sitting there with an octopus costume on, and I about lost my marbles. I was beside myself. So anyway, they lined up all the pumpkins. The whole neighborhood carved pumpkins for Pablo. They put them in a circle. Everyone stood behind their pumpkin, and then Pablo, they lifted him out of his cage and he went and picked his pumpkin. And the winner was a pumpkin – it was genius. The family had carved a little piggy face and put an apple as the nose. Claire, your idea was right. I should have filled it with something. To be fair, he kind of sauntered that way right away when he got out of his basket. So any of us on the other side were screwed.
Claire: He’s like, “I’m meant to be over here.”
Joy: He’s like, “I’m going over here.” And immediately he saw the apple and he bit into it and they won. It was just so cute. I got to be the judge for the costume contest. And the kids got little stuffed piggies. The two costumes that I thought were the best was one little girl was dressed up like the queen on Alice and Wonderland. She had the cutest outfit, so I picked her. And then I picked this other little kid that was dressed as a minion. He got so excited when I picked him. It was the cutest thing ever. The whole night was just – this needs to be my Halloween every year. Or nothing, because I quit after that. Yeah, it was so pure. So that was my Halloween. And then I went home and handed out candy. Then we also watched – what’s the Freddie Kreuger dream? Is it Friday the 13th that we watched? Nightmare on Elm Street, thank you. Nightmare on Elm Street, we watched the original, which isn’t even that scary. It’s very 80’s scary. So I’m glad that I checked that off my list because I felt like I was doing a disservice to the 80’s because I never saw Nightmare on Elm Street. But I wasn’t really allowed to watch super – I didn’t want to watch super scary movies, even as a teenager. So that was our night. Yay Halloween.
Claire: My favorite costume I sent you that I saw on Instagram was the Michael Myers-Briggs.
Joy: Oh my God, that was so freaking funny. Please describe.
Claire: Okay guys, in case you’re like me and you’re like, “Myers-Briggs, that sounds familiar,” it’s the ENFJ –
Joy: Deep, very-involved, personality-type test.
Claire: And somebody was dressed up as Michael Myers-Briggs. So he was Mike Myers with the mask and the jumpsuit, but then on the back of the jumpsuit it said, “ENFP” because obviously he loves people.
Joy: It was so funny.
Claire: And he had a little name tag that said “Briggs” on it. That was my favorite costume I’ve ever seen.
Joy: That was genius. Yeah, I’ve never laughed so hard. When you sent that, I was dying.
Claire: If you saw some good pun costumes, please send them our way. I love a pun costume. I really, yes.
Joy: I love watching people’s brains come up with the most amazing costumes that you’re like, that is hilarious. Michael Myers-Briggs, please call us and tell us how you came up with that.
Claire: So today was my first day at my new job.
Joy: Congratulations and tell us about it.
Claire: So today, obviously we’re recording on Monday. I started my new job today. Here are some dispatches from onboarding remotely.
Joy: Good, because I have to do that in like three weeks.
Claire: It’s a lot. It’s fine. It’s just weird so far because – well also because my boss is off these next couple days. Which also happened to me the last time I joined. The company, my boss just so happened to have some PTO when I joined. So the weird thing about it is I feel like when you are onboarding, those first couple days are pretty slow. But when you’re at the office, you can kind of fill that time by, “Hey, if you have 30 minutes, can you come over here and walk me through how to put in a purchase order” or walk me through how to invoice something or walk me through how to load this thing into the database. Whatever, insert example for your profession. But when you’re working remotely, you don’t have those opportunities to grab people in your down time. So everything is a lot more formal. It will be interesting once I really get more in the groove of the actual things I’m doing instead of just going into new hire orientation Zoom jail. Will be those moments of, oh my gosh, I remember that they explained how to do this and I don’t remember what the next step is. And not being able to just lean over to the person next to you and b like, “Hey, I’m so sorry. Can you show me this one more time?”
Joy: Right.
Claire: So yeah, it’s a little weird.
Joy: Do you have Teams group or Slack or anything to chat with all your coworkers?
Claire: No, they use Zoom chat.
Joy: Oh. What?
Claire: What? I know. They have Teams, but they don’t use it. They use it basically as [UNCLEAR 00:21:27.01] a way to get stuff onto your point. But anyway –
Joy: Wait, Zoom chat doesn’t…
Claire: Zoom has a chat. When you open it, it has –
Joy: Like an ongoing, forever and ever, you can use it?
Claire: Yeah, not just when you’re in the meeting. Because right, we’re all familiar with the chat function when you’re in the meeting.
Joy: Right.
Claire: But there’s also –
Joy: Like an app that you can use.
Claire: If you’re on enterprise Zoom on a corporate Zoom account.
Joy: Didn’t know that. I think ours is going to be on Slack, so I’m very excited.
Claire: I thought we were on Slack, but no. My last company was on Teams, which is also fine. So anyway, you know, that is what it is. It’s interesting. Today felt very – I don’t want to say disorganized because the meetings that I did have were very well organized, very to the point, had clear this is what we’re going to accomplish in this meeting, this is what we’re going to teach you, here’s what you’re going to learn. But my down time has just been the Jeopardy theme song. I guess I could clean the kitchen, I don’t know.
Joy: I anticipate that my first week too. Because they already told me there’s certain meetings that I attend. But other than that, I’m not going to be seeing clients for at least until they get me onboarded, so I’m going to have a lot of down time. Which is fine. Ease into it. But still, it’s hard to get used to. Because usually you’re at work and you’re like, I’m going to get my office put together. Oh, I’m going to go check out the kitchen.
Claire: Right. At least I know I’m going to go out to lunch with my team.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Right? Or whatever. So that’s been weird. I feel like the requisite first-day lunch with your team, I definitely wish that I was going to have. But their office is technically located in Denver. Their office is still technically closed. They’re anticipating potentially opening it in January, but everyone I’ve talked to is like, it probably won’t. It will probably be pushed. But even once the office is open, I still won’t be going in every day by any means. My team is going to remain remote/hybrid. It’s just interesting because – I know Joy is going to edit it out, but I just had a big mid-sentence yawn.
Joy: I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you yawn while you were recording.
Claire: I’m tired. It was a day. All of the sudden.
Joy: Sorry to bore you, Claire.
Claire: Like when your AirPods are running out of battery and they’re like “dee de de due.”
Joy: [laughing] That noise. “Dee de de due.” That’s the weirdest noise, and it startles me every single time. I’m like, how dare you?
Claire: I feel like that’s what my body just did. Ding ding ding ding.
Joy: That’s a great sound effect for what just happened. Okay.
Claire: Okay. Back to my first day. But I’m excited for the job. I’m excited to get up and running. It’s just weird to be on remote onboarding where that dead time truly is like, “Hello?”
Joy: I’m still here. Is everyone okay?
Claire: Do you need anything? Snacks? Condoms? That’s a Mean Girls reference. I’m not bringing condoms to my coworkers. Please do not call HR.
Joy: Please do not call HR.
Claire: But I’m excited. It’s been good. It was nice over the weekend to not have anything I had to get done. There was nothing in the back of my mind, until I remembered that I never submitted my final expense report. So I’m going to have to figure that out. I decided to go to Vegas two days before I left.
Joy: Yeah, got a big expense.
Claire: Yeah, I got to do that. So anyway, yeah, it was a good first day. I’m excited for it. I think the biggest thing that I… I feel like it’s weird to talk about salary, and obviously I’m not going to use real numbers. The big thing that I think is so interesting about this job is that I’m making twice as much as I was at my last job. The reason that I bring that up is because at my previous job, it was one of the places that has a great culture, very open-door policy. There’s a lot of perks. And they’re kind of known for not paying all that well. And then to go to another job where there’s also a great culture and a lot of perks. And a super competitive salary. Just really to me makes me realize it’s not all about money, it never is all about money, but money matters also. And if you have every thought to yourself, oh there’s no such thing as making as much as I want to make at a workplace that’s not going to completely ruin my life, I would challenge that a lot. Granted I’ve only worked here for one day, but I know a lot of people who also work for this company that have nothing but amazing things to say about their culture. So I’m really hopeful. I’m excited about that for me. I’m saying it also as a challenge for anyone out there who thinks they can’t get paid more. Or that if they want to get paid more, they’re going to have to sacrifice the “perks.”
Joy: Yeah, that’s a really good point. I feel like this could be a conversation for a whole five episodes because there’s so much wrapped up in this too of education and networking and who you know. Because I can just hear people being like, “Yeah, but.” Which I understand. I also think I’m very aware because I’m reading the book Maid right now that I’m just like, oh my gosh, there’s a lot of inequity in pay in a lot of areas. But just on the larger scale, generally speaking yes, because in my last position I felt the same way where I had limiting beliefs around it because in behavioral health you just kind of settle for a “life of poverty” – I’m saying this totally quote unquote – because it’s usually seen that if you work in behavioral health, you’re not paid a lot. It really depends on a lot of factors. But you can make money in this field, and you don’t have to settle for work cultures that are toxic. I’m speaking from my previous place of employment. Now I’m in a space where I’m like, oh, they have really competitive pay, they walk the walk. Granted, I haven’t started yet. But again, I reached out to people who were like, “This is the first place that I actually feel like it checks all the boxes.” To just keep looking, even if you’re not in a place to leave your current role, just to keep looking. I think there’s a lot of benefit to that
Claire: If you want to. If that’s something you feel –
Joy: Yeah, if you want to. But I think it’s important to talk about it. I’ve talked to the gal who runs School of Betty all the time, Bri – and maybe we should have her on another time just to talk about money. Because it doesn’t have to be the main thing, but you can get to a point where you’re like, I just really want to be able to pay my bills and not stress about paycheck to paycheck every month. So larger conversation for a different day, but I think that’s important for you to bring up because it’s something that’s okay for us to strive for.
Claire: And I want to make it more okay to talk about. I think that’s the other huge thing is that particularly women we feel very shush shush shush. You’re not supposed to ask about how much money people make. You’re not supposed to talk about it. It’s rude. I just think we’re always doing ourselves a disservice if we’re not talking about wanting money because it makes you feel like you’re not allowed to want more. And if you are, you’re being selfish.
Joy: Exactly.
Claire: And if you are, you’re not grateful for what you have. We’ve talked about that fallacy of if you are looking for something else, it means you’re not grateful for what you have.
Joy: Right, right.
Claire: And that’s a belief that a lot of us grew up with. That is something that we really have to be intentional about challenging in a variety of places in our lives. That just because you want something more doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re ungrateful for what you do have. It just means that I like what I have and I want more of it, or I like what I have but I want something different. And it’s okay.
Joy: And being confident to ask. A lot of the times when I was in a position where I’m like, oh, I want to ask for a raise or I want to ask for more money, I would think, what would a male do in this situation? And when I was applying to the current company that I’m going to be working for, I just asked some question – I guess I don’t want to give details. But I asked some questions around either raises or bonuses or something along those lines. And they were like, we don’t do that because we’re very committed to pay equity and making sure that every person is paid within the same range, whatever gender you are. And I really respect that. I think that’s another reason why I love – well, it’s a double-edged sword with Colorado with pay transparency where they’re listing salaries or –
Claire: Required to list salaries.
Joy: They’re required to list the salaries, yeah.
Claire: And then companies outside of the state don’t want to do that are like, “And if you’re from Colorado, you can’t apply.”
Joy: Yeah, you can’t apply, which I think is so silly. I appreciate that also because that is where we’re trying to –
Claire: And that tells you right then and there everything you need to know about that company.
Joy: Yes. Totally. I remember seeing a job from Nike where it was like, “Colorado don’t apply,” and I was like, Nike, do better. You just had the whole thing with Allyson Felix.
Claire: I know.
Joy: It drives me crazy. So Nike, do better.
Claire: Just do better.
Joy: Yeah, just do better.
Claire: Did you get my “just do it” pun?
Joy: I did get it.
Claire: Okay. Just making sure.
Joy: I got it. I was like, “Just do… better.” I think the moral of my story is be confident and ask for what you want. I know it’s easier said than done.
Claire: I want to go back to what you said earlier. I don’t want to take away from the fact that there are a lot of real barriers out there for people. I think without minimizing that reality, the point I’m trying to make is there might be such a thing out there for you and there likely is such a thing out there for you as a job that pays better and has the culture that you want. It’s not either-or anymore.
Joy: On that note, let’s take a quick break and hear from out amazing sponsors Ned.
Claire: And by “hear from them,” you mean talk about them.
Joy: Talk about them and rave about them, yes. I’m going to go ahead and repeat myself because I’ve been using the sleep blend. It’s a newer product. It’s amazing. I’ve been taking it a half hour before bed. I follow the instructions. You just take a little dropper under your tongue, and I sleep like a baby. Hotel sleep. I feel really good. I actually have a Sleep Number bed, so I track my sleep score every morning when I wake up. It’s just data. And I’ve been getting amazing sleep, so please support the podcast by supporting our great sponsors, Ned.
Claire: Be both use it. We both love it. If you guys go to our Instagram, I did one of those reels last week where I point to words – only for Ned would I make a reel like that. If you’re not familiar with CBD, I explained a little bit about it in the caption on that post. Also, just as a reminder, you can go to helloned.com. Go to their FAQ page. They answer a ton of questions about using CBD, about what it’s used for, who can use it, how it works. Go to their website. Check that out. They have a lot of awesome education on there. One thing that we love about Ned is that they third-party test every single batch of all of their products. So unlike a lot of other CBD companies, which will put averages of the content of their products on the label, they actually third-party test every single batch. So you know exactly what you’re getting, and it’s third-party verified, meaning it’s not just them tooting their own horn. It’s a really objective look at exactly what you’re getting in the product, which is so important. Any time you’re taking something that’s a supplement – which CBD is just another herb and botanical, it’s just another type of supplement. When we think about it that way, we really are thinking about the quality. We’re thinking about the sourcing. We’re thinking about that third-party testing. And we love Ned for providing all of that right on their website.
Joy: If you want to try the new destress blend from Ned or the sleep blend, a brand that we love and trust, we have a special code for our audience. Every order over $40 qualifies for 15% off plus a free destress blend sample. Go to helloned.com/JOY or enter JOY at checkout to take advantage of this offer. That’s helloned.com/JOY to get 15% off plus a free destress blend sample on any order over $40. Thank you, Ned, for sponsoring our podcast and offering our listeners a natural remedy for some of life’s common health issues. Thank you, Ned. So next, do we want to talk a little bit about stuff? No. Do we want to dip the toe into the diet culture, or do we want to have a little update on just November being a really big month? Which way do we want to go?
Claire: I feel like they’re related. So a couple weeks ago we talked about how diet culture is coming. The holiday diet culture is coming for you and for me and for everyone. A piece of that conversation though that we often hear from you guys but don’t always really address because it’s so complex is the question of, but what if I want to lose weight? What if I want to go on a diet? What if I want to take up a physique course? What if I want to run a marathon every day for the next hundred days? What if insert goal in here. Oh – I’m getting a visitor.
Evie: Hi, mommy.
Claire: Hi, sweetie pie. We talk a lot about avoiding diets and not being made to feel like you have to go on a challenge or you have to worry about your holiday eating or winter layer, whatever it may be. One thing that we don’t talk a lot about but that we get a lot of questions and comments about are people saying, I get it. I don’t have to buy into diet culture. I don’t have to shrink my body. I don’t have to do any of these things. But what if I want to? What if I want to go on a diet? What if I do have physique goals? And what if I want to lose weight? What if I can accept the fact that maybe I don’t need to “do it for my health,” but I just want to do it?
[Evie chatter in the background.]
Claire: There’s a little Evie feedback in the background – It smells good? – So what if I want to do it? Is there a healthy way? In the immortal words of our friend Laura Ligos, I think the answer is, it depends.
Joy: Yeah, it depends. I was just going to say that.
Claire: I do think there is space for that. There is totally space for you wanting to do a challenge just for at the sake of having some routine in our life or try different things in your diet just for the sake of getting information about your body – She’s sitting on my lap, so if you hear any small voices, that’s what’s going on. You’re not hallucinating – I’ve been thinking about that because recently – I mean, I’ve talked about this a million times, but I don’t like working from home. It feels very isolating to me. It zaps my energy. And one of the biggest things that helps is getting really regular movement. But it’s so easy for me to talk myself out of that because of the busyness of my day, the fact that there’s a two-year-old on my lap right now. There’s a million reasons that I can talk myself out of it every single. And not even “making excuses” or taking rest. The reasons that I’m not doing it don’t fall into any of those categories. It’s just that I talk myself out of it. Can I combat that by setting a goal and saying I want to work out three times a week for at the rest of the year? Or we’re going into the darker time of the year where it’s harder to feel energetic anyway, so can I set a goal to help myself with that? Then I hear those voices in my head that are like, don’t do it, Claire. You don’t have to do a program. I don’t know. It’s this weird kind of reverse –
Joy: I think the diet culture has been the big, bad monster for years and years and years. I think each person is going to handle this differently, but we just don’t want to fall into a trap of hating ourselves and doing it from a place of hate. But like with anything in our life that we “use,” whether it be a substance or food or exercise, there’s really nothing wrong with exercise. There’s nothing wrong with food. There’s nothing wrong with substances. It’s a relationship to it. So if you have a relationship that is “I have to do this” or “I have to do this because I’m such a horrible person” or “I have to do it to fit into whatever jeans or piece of clothing because I don’t like how I look.” I feel like the narrative around it is what I personally have an issue with because I just want everybody to be happy, whether you exercise or not. It doesn’t have to be in your life. I think that, to quote Laura Ligos again, she would say, it depends. For someone who has a history with eating disorders, it might be something to say maybe work with a therapist on that. Or not. It’s not our job to police that. I think especially with a recent post that we made a comment on. A, you don’t have to comment about that because they’re making a choice. But kind of where I had an issue with this particular post was, this person is kind of stepping out of their lane. I have an issue with that because I think it would be harmful to others. So to each his own, but especially with influencers. We’ve said this before. When they take a stance and they act as a professional that they can guide people to weight loss, I think that’s a big problem. I think that is a huge problem. That feeds into the diet industry, and I have a problem with the diet industry and the messages that it feeds. That is separate from just exercising and wanting to live a life that makes you feel good, in whatever way that looks.
Claire: Yeah, I think that’s a good point. Where is it coming from? What is the motivation behind it? And really, only you can tell that for yourself. Is this coming from a healthy place? Are you in a place mentally where you can actually arcuately judge if it’s a healthy place?
Joy: So I think just going into this season is just to be mindful of that and to remind yourself that you don’t have to change your body if that’s a goal of yours. We can’t police the internet. As much as I want to say, please just don’t feed into the diet culture, but move your body if it feels good. My rule of thumb every morning when I wake up is, what do I feel like doing? If I feel like doing nothing, I do nothing. If I feel like moving, I move. And there’s no “you should.” There’s no schedule. Every once in a blue moon, I think about running a race again. And I don’t have rules around that either. I just think, that might be fun, but I’m not sure if It’s the best for my body. I think back to what happened with Graves’. You know, so I think these are all thoughts that I still have. I don’t feel negative about it, and I don’t feel the “shoulds” around it, and I think that’s what’s the difference between the old me and the new me.
Claire: Something you said there too about waking up and asking your body what does it need, it also reminded me of the question we get a lot about people who are starting intuitive eating, which is if I’m going to intuitive eat, then that just means I’m going to eat a whole cake every day. For some people if you were to say, only exercise if you feel like it, they’d be like then I’m never going to leave the couch. Sometimes that’s how I feel. If I waited to want to exercise, I would never exercise. But then if I’m honest with myself, I do feel my best when I’m get movement. So how do I reconcile those two beliefs? The way that I reconcile them is realizing that actually if it was up to me, I would want to move my body. Maybe it wouldn’t be to do a yoga class on an app or something. But I would want to move. My preferred types of movement are not always available to me because they’re logistically intensive to get out of the house and go hiking or whatever. So what can I do in place of that that is in my garage that might not be my first choice but still accomplishes that goal? I think for me I struggle a lot more with that mindset than I do with any type of mindset around food. Yeah, it’s definitely just a conversation that I have with myself constantly.
Joy: I think we can all relate to that. Okay, so let’s just be our assignment for this community is for everybody to send us your thoughts and feelings about maybe stuff that’s coming up around the holiday season that we can all start this dialogue together. It doesn’t have to be black or white, and if you’re struggling with something around diet culture, or if you’re like, yeah, I’m really struggling because I do want to lose weight, or I want to gain weight, or I want to change the look of my body. I think it’s just something that we want to talk more about because we don’t want to make it like this taboo subject because I think it’s nuanced and it’s different for every single person and every single body. I’d love to hear from what everyone is either struggling with or dealing with. Maybe it’s not even a struggle, just something that you’re kind of going through. Or maybe something comes up for you around the holidays that you want to tackle. Let’s talk about it.
Claire: I feel like that’s kind of the end of our time.
Joy: We’re leaving with an open-ended question.
Claire: We are.
Joy: So you can email us.
Claire: Email us as an assignment. If you so choose. Should you choose to accept it, your mission is to email us with your thoughts about that question. Alright guys, thank you for joining us again for another week of This is Joy and Claire. Don’t forget, you can listen to either of our other two podcasts, Girls Gone WOD, which is focused on health and fitness with a lot of interviews with amazing people with different expertise. Different experts from around the fitness world. And On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! which is our weekly podcast following along with The Great British Baking Show. This week, I’m supposedly going to make a baclava. So we’ll see how that goes. Please don’t forget to support our sponsor, Ned, helloned.com. Discount code is JOY. Thank you to Ned and thank you to you guys for supporting the brands that support our podcast. Follow us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. Don’t forget to tag us in your Instagram stories. That is a super easy, really impactful way to get our name out there and help us continue to grow this community, continue to grow this podcast, continue to do what we love. Just get onto Instagram stories, write a little note about what you liked about this episode, tag us so that we can repost it, and that is super helpful. So that is another way that you can help us out. Thank you guys so much, and we’ll talk to you next week.
Joy: Have a good one. Bye, guys.
Claire: Bye.