Business Coach in Maryland

This business coach in Maryland discusses growing up in West Virginia and her relationship with her family. She works in business facilitation and coaching. She is a firm believer in having choices in all aspects of her life, and so she reached out to Aid Access so that she would be able to help herself or a loved one if they would ever need a medical abortion. 

“Thinking about women not having the option to decide whether or not they’re going to have a baby– I can’t even begin to enumerate the unintended consequences of that. Like, my brain actually almost fries, because of all the ways that that is wrong for the woman, it’s wrong for the baby, it’s wrong for everyone.”
— Business Coach in Maryland

ANNOTATIONS

1. Permissive Parenting - Permissive parenting is a common parenting style in which the parents have little to no guidelines for their children. The purpose of this parenting style is often so that the children are given lots of love and affection from their parents, while simultaneously being given freedom to express themselves. Children are able to be more creative, experiment, and learn how to independently make their own decisions. Consequently, the negative effects of permissive parenting can lead to children who are rebellious, unable to follow directions, and expect leniency from everyone. According to Parents.com, “Children who are permitted to 'rule themselves' believe they can apply this type of behavior outside of the home, leading to a challenging and rebellious attitude toward others,” and these children often become more risk taking. The narrator describes their experience with permissive parenting in the more experimental aspect, as they were given more freedom to learn the consequences of their actions. However, the narrator also faced difficulties compared to their friends as they believed that there was less parental supervision and input to some of their actions, when oftentimes it was difficult to make decisions as a child.
2. Specific Learning Disability - According to the Connecticut Department of Education, Special Learning Disabilities (SLD) refer to a range of neurological disorders that can, “in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself [sic] in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations”. An SLD can begin impacting children at a young age, however it can also go unnoticed for many years. A commonly diagnosed SLD disorder is dyslexia, a learning disorder that impacts the ability to read, write, and in some cases speech. The narrator mentions dyslexia in order to explain their childrens' learning patterns when they entered school, though they are not diagnosed with dyslexia. The narrator then describes their own learning habits in school, recounting that they were not officially diagnosed with an SLD but demonstrated signs of an SLD. These difficulties impacted their ability to excel in certain academic subjects and not others, as well as impacting the way that they advocated for their children.
3. Birth Control, Side Effects - Contraception is the usage of medications, surgery, or barriers in order to manage or prevent pregnancies. Contraceptives can be offered in many forms such as barrier methods, short-acting hormonal methods, long-acting hormonal methods, sterilization, and spermicide or vaginal gel (Mayo Clinic). The narrator reflects on their own experience, having initially relied on the contraceptive pill, only to find it unsuitable for their health needs, which led them to use a different method. The narrator describes their switch to a non-hormonal copper IUD, as there are both non-hormonal and hormonal IUDs. The non-hormonal copper IUD is able to prevent pregnancy through the copper piece coiled around the IUD; this copper piece is toxic to sperm, therefore any sperm that comes in contact will be prevented from reaching the egg and disrupting fertilization as a whole. The discomfort with hormonal birth control options is a side effect that is shared by many, as the hormonal effects can directly impact a person's body and daily life. For example, according to Planned Parenthood, those who begin birth control tablets may experience, “headaches, nausea, sore breasts, changes in periods (early, late, or stopping altogether while on the pill), and spotting." The various side effects resulting from contraceptives signify the importance of having options that are suitable for each person.The narrator expresses their satisfaction with the switch to a non-hormonal IUD. The decision the narrator is able to make highlights the importance of having the ability to make choices that align with personal preferences, lifestyles, and health considerations.
4. Reproductive Rights - Reproductive rights refer to autonomy over one’s body. More specifically, reproductive rights are defined by WebMd as having the rights to, “control your own body, choose to have children, choose not to have children, choose how you’ll have children, and to take care of your children in a healthy and safe community.” According to Harvard Bill of Health,Reproductive justice recognizes the impact of socioeconomic factors, gender, and race on reproductive health and policy. In contrast to the individualistic and legal approach of reproductive rights, reproductive justice takes a broader, intersectional, and holistic perspective. Having access to abortion medication or contraception are examples of reproductive rights that people in some regions may be able to acquire more easily than others. In Maryland, where the narrator lives, residents have easier access to methods of abortion compared to someone who may live in Texas. In Maryland, there is no ban on abortion, and it is completely legal with no exceptions. Meanwhile in Texas, abortion is illegal and cannot be performed once a fetal heartbeat is detected. The narrator highlights that they had the ability to choose exactly when they wanted kids and how many, while also elaborating on how such a decision would not have been beneficial for them at a certain point in life. Having the agency to make personal decisions creates huge differences in lives; for example, the narrator was not prepared or wanting to have a child during certain life stages and was able to wait until the decision was right for her and her family. The narrator had the option to make this choice, exercising her reproductive rights, whereas someone of a different race, gender, socioeconomic, or geographic background may not have had this opportunity. As per Harvard Bill of Health, reproductive justice considers the experiences of BIPOC individuals who have faced challenges such as inadequate access to effective contraceptives, forced sterilization, and environmental racism to account for barriers of access. The narrator's experience highlights the importance of being able to make personal decisions and the need for reproductive justice so that every person has bodily autonomy.
5. Women and Entrepreneurship - According to Stanford, entrepreneurship is defined as "an individual or a small group of partners who strike out on an original path to create a new business." The World Economic Forum suggests that since the COVID-19 Pandemic there has been an increase of women entrepreneurs overall. However, women are still outnumbered by men; according to World Bank, one third of all businesses globally are owned by women. Because there is still an unequal gap in this ratio, women entrepreneurs face disadvantages and more risks when trying to achieve similar goals as their male counterparts. For example, World Bank charts the relative access to financial accounts, institutions, and mobile money service providers for entrepreneurs and found that women's access to these services is lower than that of men. These financial restrictions, particularly when accessing start-up money, means that there is more of a risk for women entrepreneurs to start a business than there is for men in similar positions. The narrator portrays their attempt to begin a business and describes how they were willing to take the chance of losing a portion of their stable, full-time job and demonstrates some of the risks they took to pursue their business. These examples only highlight a few of the problems within the marketplace; there are many other stereotypes and obstacles, both inside and outside of the business environment, that women are required to balance in order to be successful entrepreneurs.

Transcript: “I kind of tried all the different things; like, I worked part-time, I worked– I went back full-time, I then, um, when I wanted to start this business on the side, I talked them into letting me just switch to hourly and I would still get everything done but in less time, 'cause they were against the idea of hourly. Um, I was like, ‘so you're still gonna get everything I was doing but you'll only have to pay me like, a third, you know, three-quarters the amount.’”

Transcript [2]: “Yeah, so I– I do this work a little differently than I think most coaches or consultants do it and, um, it– I have this– so I– back up a few years. I used to do it, uh, I think what most people, they start a business and they look at other people who have successful versions of that business and they do that thing. So I was following a lot of the coaching models where, you know, you– you do like, twice a month or once a week or once every three, whatever the– the– the frequency is that you've decided the packages that you're selling. Um, and that– there was nothing wrong with that. I think that's especially great if– this is why I kind– I don't always call myself a coach anymore, 'cause I feel like coaching is, someone's at Point A, and they want to get to Point B of some kind of arc of learning or development or something, there's something they're wanting to improve on, and you are coaching them through that process. […] So I– I started doing less and less scheduled things and saying, you know, what you're really buying is calling me in between. […] But, that changed everything by taking away all the pre scheduled calls, and so what my day looks like, is like, I often– I don't have a packed calendar all week, every week, because I am– I need to be available for people when they need it.”

Learn More: “What Is Entrepreneurship?,” Stanford, January 10, 2022.

Learn More [2]: “New GEM Women’s Entrepreneurship Report Underscores Breaking Stereotypes and Seizing Opportunities,” GEM Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, December 2023.

Learn More [3]: Daniel Halim, “Women Entrepreneurs Needed—Stat!,” World Bank Blogs, March 5, 2020.

Learn More [4]: Victoria Masterson, “Here’s What Women’s Entrepreneurship Looks like around the World,” World Economic Forum, July 20, 2022.

6. Medical Abortion, Accessibility - According to Guttmacher Institute, "in 2022 medication abortion accounted for 54% of all abortions in the US." With the increase in accessibility from organizations such as Aid Access or Planned Parenthood, most people seeking to receive abortion medications are able to do so through the mail. The narrator explains how they were able to receive the pills through the mail from Aid Access. Having the ability to self manage one's abortion in a convenient, discrete, and low cost way, makes these by-mail services a popular option for those seeking an abortion. Moreover, in states with severe abortion access restrictions and anti-abortion laws, receiving medication abortion pills via mail is difficult to track and trace due to discreet packaging. Ultimately, the option to have abortion medication delivered through the mail allows for a larger range of people to have access to such products when needed.
7. Breaking Generational Practices - Many things can be passed down from one generation to the next, including religious practices, traditional values, and expectations. These practices are often maintained between generations in order to preserve family values and beliefs. However, though these expectations may not be harmful, sometimes certain families may carry expectations or standards that can be considered overbearing or destructive. In such cases, it is up to the family members to disrupt these standards for future generations. The narrator does not express any type of discomfort in their religious traditions, however they do describe how the religious practices have decreased from generation to generation within their family. This pattern is also demonstrated in a larger population; according to the American Survey Center, "Research has consistently shown that every generation of adults is somewhat less religious than the generation that preceded it." Moreover, the narrator depicts their mother’s experience and how she made many of her own decisions to raise her children differently from how she herself had been raised. While the lifestyle choices the narrator's parents had may not have been inherently harmful, their mother makes the decision to change the path their family takes.
8. Neurodivergence - Neurodivergence is a term referring to those who display brain activity that deviates from the average person or neurotypical behavior. Though all brain activity is different and no two minds will ever be identical, neurotypical behavior refers to the ability and pace for the average person's brain to develop, communicate, learn, and comprehend information (Verywell Mind). Neurodiversity, includes individuals with developmental disorders such as ADHD, Dyslexia, or an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Most commonly, those who are neurodivergent display traits such as an inability to stay focused in school, have time management problems, but may also be very creative and determined in subjects that they enjoy. The narrator discusses her tendency to hyperfixate on certain activities. Hyperfixation, refers to the act in which a neurodivergent individual may be intensely focused on a topic of interest for periods of time in an obsession-like manner. These intense periods of focus are often common for neurodivergent people.
9. GATE and TAG Education Programs - According to the National Association for Gifted Children, a student may be labeled as "gifted" by an education system by exhibiting an advanced level of comprehension and achievement in particular areas of learning in comparison to their peers. Many schools have Gifted and Talented programs, which range from Kindergarten through 12th grade, and can even offer programs for specific subjects alone. In order to classify as gifted students, the standard method used in many schools is providing an exam to all students of a grade level and selecting those who have performed above a certain criteria or score. The narrator briefly explains their experience with being tested by the board of education and being labeled as “gifted” given their school’s criteria. Gifted and Talented programs, known as GATE or TAG, serve to enhance the academic achievement of students, but have been shown to be unfair at times. According to US News, it is typical for such programs to predominantly include white, Asian, and higher-income students. This eventually results in a lack of representation for other minority student groups. Many parents also believe that gifted programs provide an an unfair advantage over other students, as these programs usually offer a more rigorous education.
10. People Pleasing, Self-Advocacy - People pleasers are people that tend to try their very best to help others despite their own priorities and circumstances. Typically, these people face an inability to decline the requests of others due to their own fear of rejection, wanting others to like them, or any insecurities they may hold within themselves. Though their aim to always provide for others comes from good intentions, it can oftentimes be harmful to themselves. The narrator elaborates on how their daughter demonstrates the ability to stand up for herself and avoid people pleaser tendencies, even when it is something the narrator tends to struggle with. People pleasing tendencies are often mitigated through self-advocacy work. These processes can include creating healthy boundaries, practicing saying no, making time limits, and learning to assist others in ways that are not self compromising.

TRANSCRIPT

Interview conducted by Dan Swern

Interview conducted remotely

June 13, 2023

Transcription by Elise Brancheau

Annotations by Aishwarya Vijayakumar

00:00:00

Uh, today is Tuesday, June 13th. It’s 2:06 p.m. Uh, my name is Dan Swern, I’m here interviewing over Zoom. And I'm joined by–

[Redacted]

[Redacted], thank you so much for taking the time and joining me today. Uh, whenever you're ready, please feel free to start from the beginning.

Sure. So, uh, in 1973, I was born in [Redacted], West Virginia, um, as [Redacted]. That was my maiden name. I lived my entire life there until I came here to [Maryland] to go to college. But, um, [Redacted] is south of Morgantown, which, if someone's going to be familiar with anywhere near where I live, it's Morgantown; that's where WVU is. Um, [Redacted] is, you know– when I came to college here in [Maryland], people would ask me, you know, they imagine, because I lived in West Virginia, that it was some rural little town, and it– it really wasn't. It was very much like living in any suburb. We just didn't have some giant town, you know, some giant city right next door. Um, but [Redacted] has about, I don't know, 25,000 people, maybe, and it has its own college, so, um, it was– it was a somewhat vibrant little city, but I knew I wanted to go away for college. Um, it just, it was always something– In fact, my parents really supported that getting away, having a different experience than living at home. Um, I have a younger sister, [Redacted], who's four years younger than I am, so it was just the four of us most of the time growing up. Um, my grandparents were still alive when I was little. I lost my first grandparent at 9, but the other three grandparents I had until 2018. So I'm going to be 50 this year. So I think I was 48 when I lost the first two in 2018, and then my last grandparent just passed away last year, so I made it almost to 50 having a grandparent, which is, I know, a pretty odd and unusual thing, but it was pretty foundational. And, uh, I'm adjusting to being someone who doesn't have a grandparent, which is kind of funny. But, um, so, um, my dad's family was there in town in [Redacted]. Um, my mom's family was from a very small town, like a very small town about two hours away called [Redacted] . Um, about 600 people, really tiny, but they both went to college there and [Redacted], which is how they ended up there. They were both, uh, music majors; I believe my mom was also doing a teaching degree. Um, so that's how they met and they got married. They had me a couple of years later. Um, I had a very, uh, like a very peaceful, fun childhood. I was surrounded by a lot of family. We played outside a lot. Um, my mom was home for a few of those years. Um, I don't remember exactly when she started working, but she, um, she babysat before that. She babysat, uh, especially kids who no one else wanted to babysit [laughs]. It was kind of her niche, uh, which in– in retrospect was kind of its own little entrepreneurial thing, because I think she saw a gap in the market. Um, but then she was an entrepreneur ever– ever after that. She had some real estate companies, um, she ran a couple other different kinds of companies, and then moved into nonprofit, um, executive directorship for nonprofits. So she was the executive director for [Redacted]  there in West Virginia. And those things were very formative for me. I spent a lot of time at her office, in her business, listening to her talk about her business and entrepreneurship in general was very– Entrepreneurship and music were woven into my family from the very, very beginning. Um, everybody in my family sang. My mom was an entrepreneur. My– her father and also her mother were both entrepreneurs. My– my grandfather had a GE business, um, and repaired electrical things, appliances and whatnot. Um, but then my grandmother had an insurance company in the forties and fifties, which, you know, again, in retrospect, that was a pretty unusual thing to have. So entrepreneurial conversations were just part of the fabric of my family. My dad worked in, um, manufacturing, so he worked for [Redacted]  there in town for the majority of his career, and then tried a couple other places after that, after [Redacted]  was purchased. Um, they moved to Wisconsin. They moved around a little bit, but they've since moved back to West Virginia. So most of my family is somewhere in and around West Virginia with a few– few scattered folks here and there, but most of them are still there. Um, the– the part about entrepreneurship being part of my life, I– I only sort of realized that connection recently because I– I went to school here in [Maryland] first for engineering, and then I switched to psychology. And after school I ended up working for this architecture firm where I stayed for like the next fifteen years, and, um, I got to do a little bit of everything. I– I started off– actually, I started off as the receptionist, but a few months after that they gave me the marketing position, and then, in my time there, that's when I discovered I'm– I'm really good at making things better, like at fixing them and– and creating order out of things that are a little chaotic.

00:05:03

But then I am not the person to keep it going. So I was really good at making each part of the company better as we also grew. So that's why it stayed interesting to me to stay that long, was that the job was always changing. Um, there were more things to take over and make better. And then as we grew, the old things also needed to be taken over again or– or fixed or expanded. Um, and all of that time I was in on the weekly leadership team meetings. And so once again, I spent at least two hours a week in the thick of decisions and conversations that the leadership team was having about what we do about this problem, what we do about the thing we decided last week that isn't going as planned, you know, just not making the decisions but fixing the decisions. How do we grow? How do we balance competing priorities? And that was better than probably any MBA I could have ever, ever gotten or any education I could have sought out because it was the inside track of hearing how those things developed. And, um, I kind of had a natural inclination to facilitate those conversations. And so I did that informally. It was never officially my job, but I– that's where I picked up an interest in facilitation, which has kicked off the remainder of my career. I got some training in facilitation and then coaching, and I started this company on the side at first, while I was still COO of the architecture firm. And to make a long story short, I now, for the last ten to twelve years, spend all– actually probably like fifteen years now, uh, spend my days talking entrepreneurs through complicated decisions and emotional trajectories and, um, and just all the crazy nonsense that gets cobbled up in your head when you're trying to run a complicated thing and balance competing priorities and people issues. And frankly, sometimes they're just tired and– and need a break, so, um, [pause]. The, uh, let's see– I think I might need a prompt here. Uh, oh, yeah. So, one of the– I think the things that was most distinct to me in my childhood was my parents left our decisions up to us. And, um, a great deal of the time they didn't have a ton of rules. They didn't have a lot of, um, structure around what we were and weren't allowed to do. They– they– when we would ask to do something, or, um, they would have us talk through the decision; they wanted us to learn decision-making skills. And I know my friends used to be jealous 'cause their parents would dictate everything they were doing. But it's– it's hard making your own decisions. It's– it's– it's not as fun as it sounds sometimes, but it is something in retrospect that I really value, because those skills, the ability to kind of scan the environment and weigh pros and cons and– and anticipate unintended consequences of a decision, I– I feel like I got a really early track on that. And, um, kind of along those lines, education was always really important in our family. My– my parents had both, um, they were the first– they were the first people to go to college, um, in each of their families, I believe. They– they had siblings that did, but their generation was the first generation to go to formal college, um, and they both went to college there in our town. And so it was always just presumed that we would go away and go to college somewhere. I had a– that being said, I had a very, sort of, I wouldn't even call it disorganized, just not organized college, uh, exploration. We just visited a couple– the places I chose to– to– to apply were so random. And, uh, and we drove over here to [Maryland] and decided I liked how it looked and felt. And that's how I decided where I went to college. I don't even think we did– we didn't even do a formal visit of any kind. So, that's kind of funny in retrospect, but we were figuring it out. Um, there was a lot of "build the plane as you fly it" in my family as a kid, um, especially because my sister had a lot of health problems. And so it introduced this kind of thread of, um, unpredictable chaos of kinds. And actually my mom had a bunch of issues as well. And so there were, um, we were very, very good at figuring things out as we went. Um, so my sister, um, you know, like I said, she had a lot of health problems. We were also four years apart and super different when we were younger, um, so when we were younger we weren't super close. That has fortunately changed as we've gotten older, um, and I've apologized to her a number of times for being as abusive as I was. I try to explain to my older child, uh, how much they will grow to regret being mean to their younger sibling. I don't think he believes me, but, um, but I do very much regret, uh, some of the ways I treated my sister. It was not my– not my best years.

[Annotation 1]

00:10:06

But, kids will be kids, I suppose. But, um, she still lives there. Well, she lives there in town. She lived away for a while, um, in a bunch of different places. But she's back. Actually, she bought our family home from my parents, so she lives there and they renovated it. So it's very different now. But she lives there, which makes Christmas kind of nice. We try to go there at Christmas, which is almost like going to my childhood home, although it's quite different, especially since what is now the living room used to be my bedroom, so [laughs], so it's– it's very different, but it is still in many ways kind of the same, which is a nice– a nice way to kind of blend those, those options, I think. Um, we– you know, when it comes to religion, we– we were a pretty religious family. We definitely went every Sunday, um, in the morning. And then the afternoon there was choir practice and youth group. As we got older, it was– it was very much a central, um, kind of a hub of a lot of the things we did. Um, I wouldn't have said that we were a super religious family at the time, just 'cause I know for my mom it was kind of taking a step back from– not a step back from, but– but I think she grew up in a little bit more of a “fire and brimstone” kind of– kind of environment. And I know she made some choices to– to step back from that. Um, I know she made a lot of her own choices about how we would be raised differently than she had been raised. And interestingly, I think her parents did the exact same thing. They were one of the– I remember her telling me stories about like how her cousins weren't allowed to play cards, maybe– I– I might be getting the examples wrong, but, um, uh, but there were ways in which her parents chose to be a little bit sort of stepping– maybe not off the path, but a slightly different path. And then I know she did a lot of the same. And, uh, and I, you know, I think my sister and I have both continue to refine that process about what part of– what part of religion works for us and, uh, and what doesn't. We, um, it was such a big part of our family, like beyond just the going to church though, it– it, um, like there was a family down the hill from us, the [family’s name], [their children] were exactly [my sister’s] and my age and, um, we– we did so many things together. We would– we would– a lot of times we were taking, like, the same dance classes or, um, they were just like, I feel like [their mom] drove me to just as many things as my mom did. She really was just like a second– they were like a second set of parents. And, um, and it was a particularly symbiotic relationship with my sister's health issues because she, um, she– she would just stop breathing in the middle of the night, like, her– her bronchial tubes would swell shut. Turned out to be very weird food allergies, 'cause it wouldn't happen as she ate the food but like twelve or fifteen hours later or something. Um, but she would stop breathing and my parents would have to rush her to the hospital. And the [family] never kept their, um, doors locked, so they would just take me in and plop me on the couch or plop me in bed with [their daughter] or whatever. Anyway, I would just wake up at [their] house, and I would know that that meant that they, you know, [Redacted]  had had to go to the hospital or something. Sometimes I wouldn't even know that they had woken me up. And it just became a sort of a casual thing. So [their mom] would take me to take me to– take me to school or whatever [laughs]. Um, so we really did function as a very, uh, a kind of interwoven, uh. It– very much in like in a "it takes a village" kind of environment. Um, there was a lot of, um, sort of a cross-pollination. But, you know, we would make food and give some to them, they would make food– there was just a very much that– that concept of "it takes a village" was very heavily threaded into the way we grew up. Um, I, uh, my parents are still in West Virginia. They now live where my grandparents did. They moved there to take care of them in their last years. Um, and then my grandma passed away last year. So they now have the family farm, um, that has about 300 acres. It's not a farm farm. It's– it's just a lot of land. I mean, they have a big garden, but it's not like a working farm. Um, I started to say there aren't animals, but there are now quite a number of animals that my parents have started adding, like goats and miniature horses, and they have chickens and, um, but again, not at the scale of like a– like a working farm. They're just, they're, uh, they're like extended pets, maybe? [laughs] I'm not sure what they're up to with the vets, but, um, but there always seems to be some new– new animal coming around. Um, the, uh, yeah I could use a prompt now. I lost my place.

[Annotation 7]

00:14:58

Um, [Redacted], do you mind sharing a little bit about your education experience and sort of what set you on the path to this really vibrant and exciting career?

Yeah. Um, it's funny, my, um, I had, I– I now have two children that have unusual learning profiles. They're not– we usually just say they were dyslexic, but none of us are actually dyslexic. But that's easier than like, the 12-page report of [laughs] of the different sort of, just like, learning differences that we have. Um, and my mom was a little ahead of her time in staying on top of that, I think. We, um, I went to– I started off at a very traditional school. And, um, I think had she not been as on top of where I was struggling, like there were certain things that I was super advanced on, so I was bored. But then there were other things that I was like massively struggling on, and, um, they weren't– that school was not tolerant of that. She had me tested by the board of education and, you know, at the time what they called "gifted," you know, like a– whatever the criteria for that was, um, and the principal and– oh, so they sent over these like enrichment activities for me to do. And my teacher, I remember my teacher handing me one and like letting me play with it, and then said, "Was that fun?" And I was like, "Yeah." And she goes, "When you get all of your work perfect, then you can have– you can use this." [laughs] Like, okay, I don't think that's the point. But, um, and so we met with the principal and he said to my mom, he was like, "Well, if she's, you know, if she's so special, get her the mmm [mimicking bleeped expletive] out of my school" [laughs] was his actual reaction. And it was the absolute best thing that could have possibly happened to me. Um, there was another elementary school in my area. We didn't have private schools. I mean, there was one private school, but you only went to the private school if you'd been like, I don't know, it was a Catholic school, so some people probably chose– I'm sure some people chose to send their kids there. Um, for most people I know, it was just a threat that, like, if you get in trouble in high school [laughs], you have to go to that– or the, whatever, you have to go to the Catholic school. Um, but there was another elementary school in my area that was, like, super progressive. It is like a cluster system. So there were just four big– there were– there were two big rooms that were first through third and then two big rooms that were each, uh, fourth through sixth. And within those pods you could move around to different classes based on your level of, you know, capability or whatever. Um, and it was– it was so helpful to me. I was in third grade and they put me in, like, sixth grade reading, but they put me in, like, first grade math because I was even having trouble counting, um, and they made me do Math Field Day, which I came in last the first year and then like, tied for last the next year. But by, like, the third or fourth year, I was like a runner-up for County Math Field Day. And then I went to Math Field Day. And by high school I was, like, tutoring other kids in, like, algebra and geometry. But I don't know that I ever would have made it over that hump in that way if I hadn't had teachers who would look at you as a kid and be curious about like what does this kid need to– to unlock what they're doing? And I was just so lucky. I thought– I thought– I've said to people in my early twenties, I would say like, "Oh, you know how you always have, like, each couple of years you have, like, that teacher that's, like, super special and really interesting?" And I quickly learned that like, no, [laughs] not everybody has that experience. And, uh, you know, I had a teacher in sixth grade who thought the– her name was [Redacted] , and, uh, she thought that those stupid books they had us reading them like– they were called, like, Clues in Clocks or something. I don't even remember what. They always was like Time and Turnips or something like that. I don't know. But they were these dumb little, like, readers, and she was like, "This is nonsense." Um, so she did, like, a unit on Edgar Allan Poe and a unit on mythology and a unit on– there's a particular name for it, but like the– the boat, there's a particular kind of poetry that's about big boats. It's like a whole thing. And we did a unit on that and we– and at the end of each unit, like, end of Edgar Allan Poe, we walked down the street and had our lunch in a cemetery. You know, like, I remember so much from– I think we read The Scarlet Letter, which, for sixth grade, arguably maybe was like, whatever, um, but she saw in us that we had more than– there was like, something in there to light up that these books that we're supposed to read just wouldn't have. And I had that almost every couple of years, if not every year. I just had real– I had an extremely good public school education there in West Virginia, like, better than some private school education that – that I had. And, um, and that just, like, I think the thing my mom focused on was like, what does this kid need to be lit up?

[Annotation 2]

[Annotation 9]

00:20:01

Like, when she saw something in us that, um, was like deep in my nerdery, apparently when I was like, 7 or 8 or 9 or something, I took this interest in Shakespeare. And she went all out, like she went to the library and rented me a little movies about Shakespeare, and it just became this passion of mine for like a couple of years. And, um, and she would take me– she took me to Morgantown to talk to some, like, Shakespeare professor to talk about stuff. And I think because of that, I just have always had this natural, like, if I'm interested in something, I– I go research it, I go look into it, I learn about it. No doubt that's also some kind of like, neurodivergent, you know, hyperfixation [laughs] kind of stuff, um, probably for all of us. But that was something that, um, just really set me up to be interested in learning, which I think is different than being interested in school. Um, I mean, it can be the same thing, but– but– but they're very, very different. Whereas my husband grew up in New Jersey, and he never had– it wasn't until his community college after high school before he went to [University] for architecture that he had teachers who were, like, turned on about engaging students and– and getting them interested in things. And, um, so I was extremely lucky in that way. [pause] Prompt would be good.

[Annotation 8]

And then how did– how did that, um, educational experience continue into your– into college? Like, what– what was the education experience you were looking for?

Yeah, it's funny. Of all my years, um, like there was nothing wrong with my college experience at [University]. Um, it– it just, it ended up being a little bit strange 'cause I started off as an engineering major. Um, and so about halfway through my sophomore year, I realized that that was not for me, especially because I really wanted to go abroad. That was super important to me. And, um, and you could– it was the one major at [University]  that you could not go abroad if you were an engineering major. And I was already sort of feeling that maybe it wasn't the right thing for me. Um, and so I switched to psychology, and– which really isn't that different there, people say, "Oh, that's a funny switch." And I'm like, "Is it, though?" I mean, they're both– they're both an interest in, like, why– why and how things work the way they do. Like, why what– what makes one thing make another thing happen. To me they feel very similar. But, um, I started that, and so I was midway through my second semester, so that just finished that. But that meant that the majority of my engineering classes took up all of my, uh, extracurricular– I mean, not extracurricular. My, um, my, um, what's the word? Electives. So all of my electives are filled with, like, physics and chemistry [laughs], differential equations and things like that. But, um, and I went my junior year, the way you could go for the whole year to Belgium was you took most of your core courses there. So I took history and all that stuff, which actually meant that not only did I have to take my– other than Psych 101, which is the one psych class I had had second semester sophomore year, um, I took the entire rest of my major, not only senior year, but because of the way the classes worked, I had to take them all in first semester. So I took seven psychology courses, first semester, and then had like two classes: one of them was photography, and one of them was like some other– it was the weirdest year. Um, that first semester was brutal 'cause I was also working like twenty-five hours a week, and, um, and so there was a lot of crying that first semester. But all that goes together, it's like, I don't remember college classes a lot. Like, they weren't the most formative thing for me. Um, I remember my year abroad and a few class– especially a few classes I took there. Um, my Psych 101 class was really important. And then I remember the places that I worked. Like, I– I think, um, because I got to get involved in the inner workings of how those– I mean, I've just always had this draw to how business works and– and what makes an organization tick, and the people– how do you be really good at all the people and all the– the pieces that make a business work? Like, even when I was at the architecture firm, um, as the receptionist, uh, it gave me great joy to, you know, be the best receptionist that I could be or, you know, recognize someone's voice on the phone so that they didn't have to tell you who they were. Like, just all those little pieces about what makes a company stand out have just always interested me. And, you know, again, when I started there, they just wanted to be architects.

00:25:02

And so they were thrilled to have someone want to use their spare time and energy and brain cells to fix things and make them better so that they could just be freed up to be architects and– and– and do what they wanted. Um, so it was a great little symbiotic relationship and it gave me a lot of space to, um, do what I do best without having to, um, stay in one thing. I– I think it's one of the things that I end up talking with a lot of business owners now about is that magic of like, ideally speaking, you want everyone doing what they do best and not having to do the things that are– like, yes, you can improve on things that are weaknesses, but there's this fine line between where is something that somebody needs to improve on, 'cause we all have skills that we need to improve on, or where are you asking them to be someone that they're always gonna to have to, like, pull the wheel to the right on, like, a misaligned car. 'Cause it's just like, if I ever have a job where it's my job to make sure the same thing happens every Monday, the same form gets filled out or something gets checked off or whatever, I will get fired. [laughs] Like, that's just never gonna be my skill set. Um, but I'm extremely good at other things. And so, gravitating towards that, um, is probably another thing I– I learned early, um, that was different about my parents probably was they weren't, um, they weren't– they were the right amount of focused on whether you stick with a thing or not. I feel like they– they– they didn't just let us quit the second we didn't like a thing. Again, they would talk it through with us, but they would want us to weigh the– weigh the balance to discern, like, that is the word that I come back to. It's like an– the thing that matters to me throughout life in every way. Like, the discernment of, is this a place where quitting is, like, the easy way out? Or is it actually the really brave, hard choice to quit because this isn't the right thing for me? And I think when you make anything in the world super, super, super binary, where it's only, like, right or wrong, in or out, yes or no, like, you can't ever quit. Like, quitting is– you're a loser if you quit. Ugh, no, not if you're in the wrong– on the wrong track. Quitting is actually an incredibly important skill, and especially with entrepreneurship, like knowing when to– when to stop pouring energy or money into a thing is one of the most important skills you can possibly have. And so that discernment, it's something that I feel like has come up over and over again in all the different areas of my life. [long pause] Trying to figure out what to talk about next. [laughs] Uh, let's see. I talked about that. If you have a prompt, that would be welcome. Otherwise, I can keep looking for something I haven't talked about yet.

Yeah, I– I wanted to go back, if I may, and just sort of track, uh, your social life. Who– who were the– who were your friends, uh, that you were spending time with as a kid? What kind of trouble did you get into?

[laughs]

Like those kinds of– I mean, any anecdotes or details you might want to share about that.

Sure, I mean, um, I was– What kind of trouble did I get in? None. Um, I lied to my mom once, got in trouble for it, and, like, it took me, like, a year to get over– get over it. Um, the–  I was– I was a weird, like, I was not a typical teenager. Um, like, I– I was very– I was very much a homebody. Um, I mean, I was very active in school; I was in a show choir, and, um, we did community theaters, every summer I was in plays, so I performed a lot. Like, I had a– I wasn't– I was socially shy. Like, it– like, I always feel like I was a little bit backwards in things, like if somebody walked in and said, "Hey, uh, the person who's supposed to perform at the arena tonight can't be there, you know, can you fit in?" I'd be like, "Sure, doesn't bother me a bit!" But like, throw me into a social situation where I have to just, like, introduce myself to moms that I don't know, and I'm like, “nnnooo,” like, like, buzzing with panic. Um, so it's– it's– I was socially shy, even though I was really active in school and– and so when I say to people, when I see them now, that I was shy in high school, they always roll their eyes like, "Oh my God, you weren't shy." And I was like, "Oh, yeah, totally." But I always had, like, a small group of friends, like, I am someone who usually has, like, one good friend for a period of time. And then as that, like, we either grow out of it or we, you know, we move or whatever it is, like, I will have a very small group of intimate friends.

00:30:09

Um, but not even a small group, I will have a small number, I should say, because we're not all friends together. Like, right now, I probably have like three really good friends, but they don't know each other. Um, I've never been– whereas my daughter's, uh, she has a friend group, and I kind of marvel watching her having her friend group. I never had that. Um, and– and– and I think– and that was okay. Like, I don't– I don't, um, I don't enjoy friend group things as much. Like, if I do hang out with, like, a group of people, I tend to just listen and– and take it all in. Um, I really enjoy, like, connecting with people at a deeper level and hearing about them and– and just being curious about each other and creating our own banter and whatnot, that was always much more appealing to me. So I didn't really get in trouble. It puts me at a huge disadvantage being parents of teenagers. You know, my– my friends will say, like, "Oh, you remember how we used to do this? We used to–" I was like, "No, I didn't." Like, I didn't sneak out. I didn't, uh, I don't know what's like a normal amount, um, of rebellion or whatever. But my kids have been really easy, though, in– in that way. They, um, you know, they both– I've– I've kind of leaned on this, and I took that– this is one thing I took for sure from my childhood, was my parents, um, trusted us. And so, and they would say, like, until you give us reason otherwise, we're not going to have, like, all these rules and we're not going to be all up in your business. And, you know, if we had had cell phones back then, like, they wouldn't have been checking our cell phones all the time because– until we gave them reason to do so. And I think it sets a really interesting– discernment bar. I mean, I've actually heard my daughter say to her friends, um, "No," like, "My mom trusts me, and if I– if I break that, like, if I– I'm gonna to tell her about this thing." And they're like, "Oh my God, you're gonna to tell your mom that we're doing that?" And she's like, "Yes, because we'll talk it through. She'll be okay with it. But otherwise, like if she finds out about it later and she doesn't trust me anymore, then I will lose, like, all this freedom that I have.” And so, I think for that to work, though, you have to be approachable about all the things. Like, I let them talk to me about things that in the moment give me, like, a wee bit of panic. And like, [laughs nervously] "Oh, okay, yeah we can talk about that." Um, but because I make it safe to discuss whatever it is that's going on with them, they will tell me. You know, I– I really value being, like, the mom that they will talk to– not the mom, like, one of the moms, a mom that they will talk to about things that maybe they don't feel comfortable– that feels so important to me. Um, there's a Seth Godin quote that says, "If you have a problem you can't talk about, now you have two problems," and, while I think discipline and rules and judgment probably, for sure, have a place, um, I think it's really– this goes for grown-ups, too, it's not just with kids. Like, there is something– something really dangerous happens when people don't feel like it's safe to be completely themselves with you, to share a thing and– and tell you about what's going on; they will keep it to themselves. And then it's– it's more dangerous that way. So I really have gone out of my way to make sure that– it doesn't mean I'm like the mom that, like, buys them all alcohol and so they can get drunk in my basement. It's– it's not that. It's just, um, that sense of judgment. I think when people feel judged, they will– they will– they will hold back. And, um, so I was– I was a very, uh, I probably got in more trouble or would have gotten in more trouble if I was an adult and can decide for myself in my twenties and thirties [laughs]. I was– as a– as a– as a teenager. So I was probably older then than I am now. But [laughs], like now I sing in a band and, uh, and, I don't know, I feel like I have a much more teenager-ish life now than I did [laughs] as a teenager. But, um– [trails off]

Are there any anecdotes from that time or from college that you would want to share? That sort of define –

Anecdotes about getting in trouble?

Well, no, about your childhood generally, not necessarily about getting in trouble.

Um– Oh, gosh, um, can you be a tiny bit more specific? I'm just– I just draw a blank with a blank canvas like that.

Any strong memory is, uh, from spending time with your friends or your sister or anything that's definitive of that childhood.

00:35:04

Yeah, um, you know, we spent a– I spent a ton of time at my [friend’s] house. Um, she lived over by our high school, and her parents were divorced, and she also spent a lot of time by herself. She kind of became a third sister in our family. And, um, that was– that was like my main friend in high school. And we spent a ton of time there; she was a writer and, um, and I would, like, type while she dictated; sometimes she would write in handwriting, and so we were, like, making this book for her. Um, and we listened to music a lot and we did– she was in theater with us, so a huge part of my– of my childhood was based around the theater, like we spent a lot of time at Wallman Hall, which is the main theater there in town at the– at the college [near home]. And, um, and so my social life was as much about the people in the theater, which ranged from tiny kids all the way through to– to grown adults. Um, that was where a lot of our– my evenings and weekends were spent that I remember were actually being with all of those folks and, um, and performing and– and the costumes and the makeup and– the theater was a huge part of our– of my growing up as a child.

Uh, would you like to share any more about that experience at the theater?

I'm trying– I'm really drawing a blank on stories right now. Like, I love telling stories and it's bothering me that I can't think of, like, any stories. That feels so, uh, uh, like I'm completely drawing a blank. Trying to think if there's any– [long pause] I literally can't think– oh, okay, so here's– here's what– so, uh, probably my favorite play we did was Nunsense, which was my sophomore year in, um, college, or maybe it was my freshman year, uh, whatever. It was– no– anyway, doesn't matter when it was. Um, I did– they did Nunsense, which was unusual for them, 'cause normally they tried to do for the summer theater they tried to do more of a, um, like a community play where like, thirty or forty or fifty people could be involved. And that play is just, seven, I think it's seven women and maybe one other person. Um, but it– it's– it's a very small ensemble cast. And I was– I was, um, cast as Sister Robert Anne, and would just, like, the– the sort of feisty nun, she wears, like, red high-top Converse and smacks her gum the whole time with, like, this Brooklyn accent, kind of thing. And a couple things about that play are really fun. One, it was very formative for me to, like, dabble. I think the fun thing about any kind of acting is that you get to, like, try on different personas and then decide how much of that you keep for yourself, or, or whatever, and so– dabbling in that, sort of like, badassery of her character, um, was– was like transformative for me, I was like, "Oh, I kinda like this vibe, like, there's something about this that feels– that– that– that I like, that I want to keep.” But, couple of very funny things happened: one, um, [laughs] it was like the second or third night of production and these nuns came to watch the show, and they were, like, dead center, like, three rows back in full habit regalia, you know, they were not subtly dressed as nuns, they were like, full-out dressed as nuns, and they are center-stage. And we must have been like, four or five nights in, because there were these places early on where people laugh immediately, there's like all this laughter. No one's laughing, 'cause, like, something funny happens and everyone, like, looks at the nuns, like, is it okay to laugh? Is it okay to laugh? So they were laughing all the time, so people kinda loosened up and realized, like, okay, it's fine to laugh, like, we're not gonna [laughs] go straight to hell for laughing at these jokes. So they're laughing and– so everything comes down, but then there were, like, two places in the play where only they laughed, and they laughed, like, guffaw, hysterical, so clearly it was some, sort of like, inside nun joke that nobody– like, there was a line about the monsignor– monsignor coming for dinner that no one else considered a funny line. They laughed so loud, like, we startled and, like, it almost threw off the lady who was giving that line, because that's not a line that anyone ever laughs at, but they guffawed at that, so apparently that's funny in nun circles. Um, but then, the– the other very hysterical thing that has lived with me to this– 'cause I do a fair amount of, like, public speaking and whatnot, so I think about this all the time, and with the band, is that, um, we also were dressed in full habit– real habits, like, we had ordered them from some nun store, which is, nuns.com? I don't know.

00:40:00

Um, so they were real habits that we were dressed in, and there's a lot of layers, and there's a lot of stuff, and we were individually mic'd, um, we were, like, wearing the packs. And so that's– that's how it worked. And, um, the woman who played Mother Superior went to the bathroom between scenes and the audio guy had not turned off her mic, they were supposed to turn it off at the end of each of our sessions– or, end of each of our scenes. It was a very elaborate on-and-off process. And so you can totally hear her going to the bathroom, peeing very loudly, and, um, and it was just like, echo– you couldn't– you couldn't pretend it wasn't happening, like, there was no way that people on the stage could have just ignored it and kept going because it was like a cacophony. And, um, so the lady who was on there just ad-libbed. She was like, "My goodness! Mother Superior! You should shut the door!" I forget what she said, but she tried to just, like, ad– and everyone laughed hysterically and thought it was, like, part of the thing– was not part of the thing, so, we, uh, I think about that all the time know– whenever I'm– whenever I have a live mic, I'm always like, is it off? Because, like, [laughs] I want to make sure it's completely off before I go to the bathroom. But, those were two– two things from that play. That play was an absolute blast, and it was so much fun.

Um, [Redacted], do you want to share a little bit about your family and how you and your partner met and, uh–

Sure.

Your kids and all that?

Yeah, so, um, I– I– so right after college I was working at [Redacted], uh, doing psychological research; I really thought I was gonna go on to grad school, and, um, do something. I hadn't decided what I was gonna do yet, but I just assumed that that would be my next path. And so I took this job, um, well actually I had to, because the– the government couldn't balance the budget. So this was like, '95. And there were going to be– if– if– if that happened, which it did, actually, for a short period of time, um, everyone else in my lab would have gotten back pay eventually. Um, a) I was so poor right out of college, like, there was no like, waiting for my paycheck, but it was irrelevant because I was being paid under a grant, and so I was being paid hourly, so if I didn't work, I– there was no back pay for me. Um, and that was just, that was– that was it, I was like, I can't– I can't go without a paycheck. And, um, I was barely making it as it was. And so I scrambled and got the first job I could find, um, which was answering phones for this architecture firm, and so that was in ninety– fall of '95, and, uh, that's where I met my husband, [Redacted] . He was, uh, an intern architect there. And, um, we started dating about six months later, maybe? Um, and dated for a number of years, so it would have been like, '96? And, so then we worked together for all that time. But that was all we had ever known, so that wasn't– I think it would be much– when people say like, "Ugh, I could never work with my husband," I'm like, well, I think if he and I tried to work together now, after not working together for ten years, it would've– it would be much harder than when we had just– that was all we knew. Plus, he was an architect and I was– I was not also an architect, so we were never on the same team, we were never competing for positions, like a lot of the things that might create some more tricky dynamics just weren't an issue for us. Um, and– and we did a really good job of not talking about work at home, I mean– we– I don't know that we laid it out this clearly, but we did sort of have these kind of rules around we, um– because it was important to both of us that other people weren't uncomfortable that we worked together, so if somebody told me a story, um, you know, I wouldn't come home and tell [Redacted]  that story. Um, and we made that very clear to people, and I think over the years, like, I think it was, they believed us, because that– that has also always been a very strongly held value of mine, is like, you don't tell other people's stories. Um, that keep– being able to keep a confidence is really, really important to me. Always has been, and so that was important for both of us there, and I think it's part of why it worked. Um, we could, however, talk about work if what you needed to talk about was like, I need to personally vent or like, I need feedback about this thing, that's a different– different thing than just, like, gossiping about work stuff and telling everything that's going on. So, um, we met there and then we got married in 2000, and, uh, he's from– he was born in Scotland, so his, um, they moved to New Jersey when he was I think like, 5, 4 or 5. And, um, so his parents then moved here to [Maryland], that's how he ended up back here after school. Um, and so we– they were living in [Redacted]  at the time, and so we had our– had our, um, we got married in a little church out there, and then used their backyard, 'cause they had this beautiful backyard that backed up to [a park].

00:45:02

And, uh, so we had our wedding reception there. That was 2000, and then, uh, in 2002 we had our first son, [Redacted] , uh, which was my maiden name, so we named him [Redacted] . And, uh, and then four years later we had [Redacted] , which is my mother-in-law's mother's name, she was Danish. So she's– my mother-in-law's half Scottish, half Danish; the rest of my husband's family are 100% Scottish, and, um, so my kids think of themselves as being Scottish, which is cute. Um, and like, they both love the cold, they hate the heat and love the cold, and when they were little they were like, "Well it's because we're Scottish." Um, and they spent a lot of time with– with my in-laws when they were young, so they never picked up the accent, but they did pick up a lot of the phraseology, so until not too long ago, I think both kids would refer to the like, the garbage cans as the "bins" or they would say phrases like, you know, "you gave me a fright" or they– I think they still call commercials "adverts," which I actually like better anyway, I think I picked up that one. Um, and "chips" and, you know, thing– for– for French fries, just– just stuff like that, they picked up these little phrases that, uh, that I always kind of smile when I hear– hear in their– in their lexicon. But, um, so– [background noise of smart home device] I don't know what I said that triggered that, but. Um, so, lost my train of thought there, let me think for a second. So yeah, we got married, then so we– yeah– so they, they, um, yeah, so that was the story of my kids. [laughs] Sorry, that totally threw my, uh, train of thought. Um, uh, yeah so we, let me think about that for a second. Yeah, we– we– I guess we had always just assumed– I don't think there's any point where we decided that we would have kids, um, we just sort of always knew that we would, and so it– it took us a little while to get pregnant with [our son], um, but honestly, that was mostly because we were both working like, I don't know, 400 hours a week or something [laughs] so we didn't see each other as often as you probably should if you're trying to have a baby. Um, but we were– we worked a lot that first few years, and the years prior, and because we worked together it was really, uh, easy to overwork, because there was– there was no one at home, like, waiting for you to come home, we were both there anyway, so it was dangerous, uh, downward spirals to workaholism there. But, uh, but then we had [our son], and after we had [our son] I worked part-time for a little while. I kind of tried all the different things; like, I worked part-time, I worked– I went back full-time, I then, um, when I wanted to start this business on the side, I talked them into letting me just switch to hourly and I would still get everything done but in less time, 'cause they were against the idea of hourly. Um, I was like, so you're still gonna get everything I was doing but you'll only have to pay me like, a third, you know, three-quarters the amount. They're like, "Okay." And, uh, so that worked and allowed me to start this business on the side. And then, uh, right about the time that was taking off, and, uh, we thought we were– thought I was, like, picking up momentum, was when I found out I was pregnant with [our daughter], which, uh, you know, was not planned at the time. We knew we wanted to have a second, um, and because I was trying to get that company up off the ground, um, it just never seemed like the right time, and it couldn't have been a better time. Like, any other timeline that would have not given us [our daughter], would have been a sad, tragic of a timeline, because she's uh, having the– the recipe of a family when you have, like, the particular souls that you have is just such an interesting soup that comes out of it, and both kids have been really important in their own way with the things that I have learned as a human because of parenting them. Um, and they couldn't be more different. Um, but they're equally– equally important. And, uh, so I'm very glad it worked out that way; it was a little bit of a, like, gasp at the moment, um, but it all worked out perfectly, so. Um– let's see, where do I go from here.

Um, what are their– how would you describe their personalities now, now that they've gotten in their older teens and early twenties?

Yeah, so, um, [our son] is– [our son]– like, the best way I can describe [our son]– [our son] has this really, like, the most prevalent thing I think about him is that he is always, like, a little bit– he has this– he's really good at both like, fitting in and standing out at the same time.

00:50:10

Like, he's not always trying so hard to be different that he's like, like, way out there, um, but he's also, like, he always just has to have his own little flair on a thing. Like, like, as soon as he had– like, one year he spent his birthday money on this fourteen-foot T-shirt [laughs] that he had seen somewhere, and when I saw it, I was like, "Of course [our son] would buy a fourteen-foot T-shirt." And it had these very specific images on it that was like, someone he followed, I, maybe a YouTuber or something, I don't know. But, um, but that's just– that's like a very, that's a very [our son] thing to do. And super into music, um, doesn't perform music, although he's tried a couple instruments, but he has an ear that is even better than my dad's, I think. My dad can pick up any instrument and just, like, dabble around with it for a second and play it. Um, I got the singing gene, I did not get the instrumental gene. I have to grapple to– to even moderately have any moderate capability at an instrument. But, um, my dad– my dad actually partially played his way through college by listening to big band records and writing out the different parts. So like, first saxophone, second saxophone, third saxophone, like, first trumpet, second trumpet, third trumpet, he could hear all the different parts and could write them out, and then sell that music to the– the dance bands which were a big thing at the time. Um, dad– that's part of the way he paid– he paid his way through college. Um, [our son] has that ear. We will be driving in the car and– and, uh, and he will, uh, he'll be like, “Oh do you hear that little, like, that little, like, whistle instrument?" And– and I'm like, "No." And he rewinds it and there's a piccolo in, like, way in the back of the production. There's this, like, little tremolo of a– of a piccolo or something. But, um, but he has the widest taste in music of any human being. Um, I still have the link to his main Spotify playlist. He's made a bunch of others since then, but the one he started in high school, and it will skip from, like, Vivaldi, to Rage Against the Machine, to “Linemen of the County” by Glen Campbell, to like [laughs] it just– it bounces all over the place. And, uh, I love it, like I– I 'cause I've– I just love hearing what he has most recently found in music. So, he's like, uh, in the most general way, he's like a big Labrador Retriever. And then [our daughter], uh, [our daughter] and her dad are both a little bit more like cats, you know, like, when cats come and sit on you and purr and snuggle with you, like, they're incredibly cozy and comfortable, but only on their terms. [laughs] It's like, whereas [our son] kind of comes in and just flops on you and, uh, and so but [our daughter] is, um, [our daughter] has– has been an incredibly important learning experience for me, because I think part of it's just who she is and who she was born as, but I think it is also kind of a sign of the times of differences in socialization of young women now verses twenty, thirty, forty years ago. Um, because I do see this with some of her other friends, but not as much as with her. Like, [our daughter] knows who she is and what she's okay with, and she has no problems saying, like, that's not like, I don't like that, that's not okay for me, I, you know, this is what's important to me, I need it to be this way. That is not something I learned, even, like, a little bit until maybe somewhere in my forties. I'm probably still working on that sometimes. And she's just incredibly good at– not, like, self-abandoning in– in, like, it's the opposite of people-pleasing, probably is like the easiest way– way to say it. And she's just been a wonderful example for me. Um, it's also been very good, um, sort of– she is someone who likes to be alone when she's upset. And that to me feels like neglect to leave someone just completely alone when they're upset. And so it has been a wonderful, sort of like, meditative practice [laughs] for me to, like, deep breath– because she's very clear about what she needs, and it would be very clear I'm making it about me if I try to go, like, spend time with her or love on her in some way. Um, we've– we've– we've come to this nice little pulse where if she's in that way, like, maybe I'll, like, lean down and, like, drop off a snack, but we're not– I'm not gonna make her talk about it, I'm not gonna– um, I am a verbal processor, so if I am upset about something, usually until I can just, like, speak it out, I don't even necessarily need to talk it through. But I just, until I say it, like, I can't get it out of my central nervous system, it, like, bounces around in there like a ping pong ball.

[Annotation 5]

[Annotation 10]

00:55:10

And she's just not like that, and my husband's not like that. And– and [our son’s] really not like that. They– they are more internal processors and that is so foreign to me, I do not even understand it, um, but I've learned– I've learned how to [laughs softly] how to be okay with that, I'm like, you guys are weird, but I'm okay with it. But, uh, I love our dynamic as a family. We have a very, like, joking, sarcastic, um, like, loving mockery, kind of like, playfulness, um, but then– but then at the end of the day, you know, with a few small exceptions, we're– we're always there for each other. [laughs] [Our son] can still kind of be a jerk to [our daughter] a fair amount of the time, but, you know, we'll see. Um– what else have I not covered yet–

What is– what is a day in the life, like, in your business? How would you describe the normal operation in the way you work with clients?

Yeah, so I– I do this work a little differently than I think most coaches or consultants do it and, um, it– I have this– so I– back up a few years. I used to do it, uh, I think what most people, they start a business and they look at other people who have successful versions of that business and they do that thing. So I was following a lot of the coaching models where, you know, you– you do like, twice a month or once a week or once every three, whatever the– the– the frequency is that you've decided the packages that you're selling. Um, and that– there was nothing wrong with that. I think that's especially great if– this is why I kind– I don't always call myself a coach anymore, 'cause I feel like coaching is, someone's at Point A, and they want to get to Point B of some kind of arc of learning or development or something, there's something they're wanting to improve on, and you are coaching them through that process. And that makes perfect sense for that kind of thing, but what I loved– well, two things: one, I would be– I would get on a call with someone, and about half the time, you know, there would be this moment in the beginning where they're like, I mean, kind of like, if you have a therapist, you know like, sometimes you're like, all right, what– what should we talk about, what should I focus on today, like, how do I want to use this time. And that to me just felt so off, like, I would always just, I would feel like we're missing– missing the ball in some way. And especially when they would then talk about something that had happened the prior week. And I would say, oh my god, “I– I told you you can call me anytime in between,” and they're like, “I know, but I knew I was going to talk to you today, and so it just seemed silly to call you last week when it was just four more days or whatever.” But like, the issue's stale at that point, and– and the real thing that I came to realize later is because it's stale, you are talking to, like, the story part of their brain, it's already just kind of like a movie, versus getting in there in the moment as it's live unfolding where you can actually, you know, again, help discern what's really going on, not trying to pick it apart after the fact, but get right in there and be helpful in the moment. And, so, that's– it was probably around like, 2015, maybe '14 even, I started playing around with the model. So I– I started doing less and less scheduled things and saying, you know, what you're really buying is calling me in between. And I came to a point where I realized that unless I took all of the pre-scheduled stuff away, they would never call in between. So, I started playing around with different ways to price the model, different ways to make it work, where what they are buying is there being someone to call when they're stuck or spinning their wheels, or whatever. I check in with them regularly so that it's not just purely waiting for them to call; they need to remember that I'm there, 'cause with everything going on, so I'll shoot little emails, whatever, we check in to kind of make sure that, um, and if I haven't talked to them in a while, I will instigate us – us chatting so that I make sure I have a finger on the pulse of what's going on. But, that changed everything by taking away all the pre scheduled calls, and so what my day looks like, is like, I often– I don't have a packed calendar all week, every week, because I am– I need to be available for people when they need it.

[Annotation 5]

1:00:01

Um, I still facilitate, like, leadership team conversations, so that may take up, like, a day or three days in a row or something of time, and it can get a little trickier then, but, um, most of my day is– is, like, sometimes I'm responding to text messages from my clients, like a lot of it is– this is what I feel so strongly about. A lot of times what people need are these tiny little just, um, either check-ins, like, little validation moments, kind of like, am I the [laughs]– what's the, am I the asshole? Like, am I the jerk? Am I the crazy person here? Um, just kind of, um, I have a– I have a friend who's a design professor and he says that, um, he tells his students when they say like, what's the right font for this, or what's the best font for that, then he tells them it's– it's almost never about the right font or the perfect font, that you just have to make sure that it's not the wrong font. That as long as it's not the wrong font, and distracting in some way, or like, detracting from what you're trying to do, that any other font that just goes unnoticed is probably fine. And I think a lot of times people just need this little bit of, like, "Can somebody just make sure I'm not making, like, a grievous mistake here?" [laughs] "Is it the wrong font?" And you're like, no it's not, it's not the wrong font. Can I promise you it's the perfect font? No. But they don't need that. They just need that, like, clarity or– or courage to take, like, the next step, and then course-correct from there. And so, sometimes it's text messages, sometimes it is quick phone calls; I get a lot of like, "Do you have a couple minutes this afternoon to talk me through this scary thing?" or, "Help me think through this tricky conversation," or "Give me a pep talk before I go into this thing," or "I just want to bounce something off of you." And my kind of "I see dead people" is, like [laughs], I can just tell the difference between whether what's going on is how they're presenting, you know, like, they're like, "Oh here is this issue I'm struggling with." And sometimes that is literally the issue that they're struggling with, and it's just a business question and they're trying to decide. But a great deal of the time, you– it's– it's– there's emotional regulation or energetic regulation that– that has to happen before somebody can use the really smart part of their brain. And I– I don't think that's a very well-known fact about executive functioning, is that emotional regulation and energetic regulation are, like, precursors to being able to be– make really good, smart decisions. And they muddle things up and so, sometimes when someone thinks they're being indecisive or spinning their wheels or stuck, they're actually just having, like, an emotional flare-up about a thing, or they're exhausted and not being able to tease those apart, not having someone who can tell the difference, ends up looking like someone just answering the question that they asked. Like, if someone says, like, "Oh, how can I do this better?" I'll be like, "Oh, here's a great way to do this better," and then they waste a bunch of time, 'cause they weren't on the right question, like making sure they're on the right question feels really important.  Um, and a lot of that I think goes back to a weird quirk in my, uh, like, I could talk about an antidote from– from like, tiny in school, but, um, you know, a lot of times what– what makes us weird is– is like, what we're here to do in the world, I think. And, um, and I remember, I'm like, some of my earliest memories in school were saying "yes" to things that, like, I didn't– like I– third grade, and the teacher held up a mimeograph, or whichever the thing that was purple that goes around and around, that they were sort of damp. Um, she was like, "Does anybody know how to use the– whatever it was called machine?" And I was like, "I do!" And she handed it to me to make, like, twenty copies. And it was as I was walking to the teacher's lounge that I like, came to, and I was like, I don't– like, I don't even know which machine it is, not to mention how to use it. But, like, at that point [chuckles], the, uh, horror of going back into her room and being like, "Actually [laughs] I don't know how to use it," was so big that I was like, I will figure it out, like, I will, and, you know, I walked in and the machines, one of them had one of those things laying in it, so I was like, okay, it must be this one, and I just figured it out and made the copies and came back. And that thing of like, it's almost like a– I wouldn't call it hubris, but it is like a, sort of like, blind– I don't even think it's fair to call it confidence, because it's not confidence, it's just like, a block where I'm like, "Sure, I can do that!" Until I actually get into it, and I was like, "Oh my god, I don't know how to do this."

1:04:57

Um, but that taught me something, because I did that a lot, I think I learned to rely on the fact that like, you can course correct, that you can figure things out, that even if you don't do something perfectly, you can just – if you just get started, that you can figure it out from there, because every place I get stuck in the world, it's where I don't have the opportunity to just throw myself into it blindly and then I'm forced to figure it out. Like, I will spend– I will spend a thousand hours on something if you give me a blank slate to work with and there's no, like, pushing me out onto the edge of the high dive. I– I– I will just churn and churn and churn and spin– spin wheels and spin wheels and waste time forever. Um, and so like, I purposely try and find ways to, like, make myself, like, force the issue, um, but I think that is something that has been a strongly held value for me, and it's so much easier to see in other people. Like, having someone who can– it's like the metaphor of watching someone else parallel park a car. I think we all need people who can watch us from afar to be like, "You are so far away from the curb, you are fine, like you can go ahead and just go a little further there," because it's just so easy to get lost in our own blind spots and whatnot. [pause] I don't know how we got on that topic but I went down some rabbit hole. [laughs]

Um, [Redacted], do you mind sharing why you contacted Aid Access?

Sure. Um, I contacted Aid Access, um, for a number of reasons. Uh, I think in the smallest way, I, like a lot of other people that I've talked to, just feel so, like, powerless and, like, helpless, and like there's so little that we can do, um, in this just, I mean, Roe being turned over was bad enough, but then just the wave of scary things coming down the pike ever since, that everyone knew would come down the pike, um, and I don't even think they've all started coming down the pike, whatever that pike is. Um, it– it's– it's really scary and disempowering, and to feel like there's even a tiny little thing that you can do was– which is just, have a set of these pills at my house. Like, I live in Maryland, so, um, for the most part I don't ever want to take this for granted, but to a certain degree, I think we're a pretty safe state in– in that regard, at least for now. There's not an immediate threat here for that. So if I was in the position where I felt like I wanted to have an abortion, or if someone I loved was who lives here, we have access here, at least in theory. Um, so I'm not even sure who I was buying them for, I just wanted to have them so that someone might have a choice that they wouldn't otherwise have. And, um, you know, I've never had an abortion, but I can pretty confidently say that's primarily because I've only been pregnant twice and both times I really wanted to have a baby, so I can think of other times in my life that I absolutely, um, would have made the choice to have an abortion, and it just– there were a couple times where I thought I might have been pregnant, where I was pretty sure that that's what I would have done. Um, and not only that but, um, yeah, I mean– to the pills, I was starting to go down another path there, but, um, it just felt– it was– it felt empowering to me to be able to do that. And so I was, I think I was actually watching a TikTok video or something where someone pointed out that Aid Access would allow for, um, to get them proactively, like you didn't have to be pregnant to get them. Because I had just sort of assumed that you had to be pregnant or, you know, somehow, anyway, I didn't think I could just walk into my doctor's and be like, "Could I get a couple of those?" Um, and so as soon as I saw it, it just seemed like the right thing to do, and so I ordered them immediately. I also let my daughter know about it, um, just, I don't even know why, but I just wanted her to know that I had them for some reason. Um, I don't even know what my plan is, not like I would give them to one of her friends without their parents' consent or something, I don't know why, I just wanted her to know they were there. Um, and it's led to some very interesting conversations around that. We've always been incredibly open with the kids about, really all things, but, um, it also just happened to be around the time that I also ordered Narcan for all of us, so that we would have those things.

[Annotation 4]

[Annotation 6]

1:10:05

I– I make a lot of decisions based on, um, my perception of what my regrets would be if I don't do a thing, and while I don't think any of my kids' friends are into drugs that might lead to somebody overdosing in my house or wherever they are, um, if that happened and I didn't have it on hand and couldn't save someone's life, I would– I– I would never get over that, knowing that I could have had it, you know, that if I just never got around to ordering it. Um, and the mifepristone was– was probably the same, and that was– that was shortly before the lawsuit broke in Texas about it, so, um, I was very grateful that I had put that into play ahead of time, so.

Um, [Redacted], can you share a little bit about your relationship to family planning and, um, the– just your relationship to abortion and pregnancy and anything specific or personal that you might be able to share?

Sure, sure. Um, so, you know I– I– my only experience with, uh, contraception was, like, being on the pill for a few years before I got married. Hated it; it was, like, the worst thing ever for me. Uh, so I was very happy to stop taking those. Um, and then since then I have– I have had IUDs, which I just thought was, like, the best thing in the world because it doesn't have the hormones. The hormones do not sit well with me, and so being able to have that choice, um, has been really important to me. If I only had access to, um, to hormone birth control pills or only condoms, like, both of those things, uh, would be a huge bummer, and, um– and, actually not just a huge bummer– hormones would be an issue for me. Like, they– I– they do not sit well in my body; I have terrible emotional reactions and other kinds of physical kinds of things, they're just not good for me. And, um, it– I think that, um, it– it's not like I'm an advocate about any of the one things, but I think it is, like, just over-the-top egregious that many women don't get a choice about those things. You know, any place where, um, because the ramifications of getting pregnant are so huge. I mean, the– the– I mean you have to go through a massive, like, process to adopt a puppy because everyone recognizes it as a huge, you know, that you are committing to this animal for a number of years and you don't just get one for the fun of it. Um, the fact that we don't take reproduction that seriously for human women, um, and it just be a right to have access to that, it can– it can change, I mean, babies are wonderful; I'm so happy I have my children. But they came at a– they came at a good time, I was stable financially and physically and emotionally, I had a huge support system, and, you know, I have said this to some mom friends and I often get shakes of the hand, I don't think I've ever said this in like, a public forum, but, I don't think there are very few– I think there are very few women, mothers, who have not had a similar experience that– I remember, like one specific time, there were probably other times, where I was so tired having a baby and just frustrated and they were, you know, I don't remember which kid it was, but it was just like, crying crying crying, wouldn't stop crying, and I remember my mother-in-law was there, and, whichever baby it was, I, like, handed the baby to her and I went upstairs and was just, like, sobbing because I was just so at the end of my rope. And, um, I remember thinking how grateful I was that I had someone to pass the baby off to, because while I would like to think that I am not someone that would shake my baby or do something terrible like that, I one hundred percent– I actually get emotional talking about it– I one hundred percent could feel that it was like a thing that I could see on the horizon, like if I had not had someone– if I didn't have the support I had, if I didn't have, you know– you know, we were financially stable, like, there's just so many things that make being a parent hard.

[Annotation 3]

1:15:00

And when– even when you have all those things, it's still really unspeakably hard sometimes. And I think the responsibility to the children who are born into families who don't have all those things, it's just– my brain works unintended consequences, and so thinking about women not having the option to decide whether or not they're going to have a baby– I can't even begin to enumerate the unintended consequences of that. Like, my brain actually almost fries, because of all the ways that that is wrong for the woman, it's wrong for the baby, it's wrong for everyone. And it– it– it's just a thing that, um, it– I– it's– it's very scary, like, I– I'm not someone who has ever in my life been, like, particularly, like, anxious or, um, as one of my clients says, uh, he says that he "awfulizes" everything, that, like, no matter what's coming up, he "awfulizes" it and imagines it being the worst-case scenario. I am not that way, in fact if anything, I'm– I'm just, like, naturally pretty optimistic, not in like a Pollyanna way, but always in a, like, oh we can figure this out, there's always a way to figure a thing out, you can always, like, you can navigate this, we can try that, we can be super scrappy, resourceful, or creative, we can figure out a way to make things work. So that's my version of optimism. It is really hard for me to not feel some, like, the weight of despair around the way women's reproductive health is being played out in America right now, to be honest.

Uh, [Redacted], why was it important that you share your story?

It's funny, um, I– again, it comes right back to like it was because you asked, because they asked. Uh, like, and what I mean is, if there is some way that it is helpful, I'm all over– like, if it's– it's just like, if there's anything that we can do, um, I wanna do it. Um, it's– it's– it's really– because– because these changes are happening at such a– a large scale, like at– at a scale, like I can't just, you know, I can't just go talk to Tennessee and make them have better laws, you know, like [laughs] there's just this like, what do you do? Especially because they're– they're– the– the– these terrible laws are coming faster than you can even whack-a-mole at them. And so, that, um, that– it's funny, what just popped into my head was that, um, it's kind of like a strange metaphor to– to– but I guess maybe it isn't, um, you know, my very best friend from college, her– her middle son is suffering from, like, the worst kind of pediatric brain cancer that you can have. And, um, and a couple other good friends of mine were talking about, like, what can we do, what can we do? There's not a lot we can do, you know, there's nothing we can say or do that's going to make her feel better or make this experience any less terrible than it is. But we're just desperate to do something, that– even the tiniest little bit of something feels like something, and it's really the only choice we have, is for all of us to do tiny little things, like, but it's also that recognition that in her world, one time of not having to go to the grocery store is actually, I mean it's not a giant thing, but it matters. It– it– it makes a difference; it– it means that she doesn't have to think about that in that moment. You know, I went down there for a week and I just felt like, on the one hand, folding the laundry and putting it away, in the bigger picture of what she's dealing with, doesn't really make a difference, but it's one thing of laundry that she doesn't have to do, like maybe that gives her enough time that she can read a book or something or just stare out a window, I don't know, or just sit with her son and enjoy his company a little bit. These things, like doing this interview or ordering the pills– if I look at them in the bigger picture of what is happening, they feel ridiculous, and, like, what is that possibly gonna do? But it's something, and it's like any option, any thing, if we have access to do something, I feel like if we all do like a little bit of something, maybe somewhere it makes a difference. At the very least, it makes me feel a tiny bit better. [laughs] So that's something.

Um, so [Redacted], I wanna leave you with the last word, if there's anything you'd like to say that I haven't asked about that you wanna make sure gets included.

Um, I mean not about me, I– I– I'm not just saying this, but I– I really, like, the work that Aid Access is doing is so incredibly important.

1:20:03

Um, I had never heard of them before all of this; I'm sure they were around for quite a long time before all of this started happening. But, um, it– it has like suddenly in my mind, the– the ability for people to order and receive these pills feels like quite possibly one of the most important things that there is out there right now. It just– it– that is the one thing that has a chance to help at least in certain circumstances, whereas some of these other things I think will take decades and decades to undo. Um, so, it sounds a little corny but just like, a thanks [laughs] to Aid Access for the work they're doing, because I'm really grateful that they already had the infrastructure in place and the capacity to do these things, because it's super important.

All right, [Redacted], thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you!

I'm gonna go ahead and stop the recording.

1:21:04 (end of file)