How Perfectionism Is Keeping You Stuck: Start Before You Feel Ready, Featuring Kristine Goad |S2007

If you're tired of hiding your brilliance behind stage fright,

scripts, or playing it safe, then you are in the perfect place.

This is the Inspired Speaker Podcast, and I'm your host, Danielle Benzon,

professional rebel, voice coach, and your guide to speaking with confidence, charisma, and zero BS.

Around here, we don't chase perfection. We choose connection. So grab a hot beverage,

warm up those vocal cords, and get ready to fall wildly in love with the sound of your voice.

Let's get inspired. Welcome, everyone, to today's episode of the Inspired Speaker Podcast.

I am so excited for today's guest. I know I always say that, but it's actually very,

well, so far, it's always been true. So this is what's so great about my life. My life is exciting.

This guest today, Kristine Goad, has been a friend of mine for many years. We have been

friends for quite some time, and she has coached me. She's been my coach. I have been her client,

and now she is part of the Inspired Speaker Network. And she is just such a joy. I have just

been finding different ways to get her to stay in my life, because she is so wise,

and she's so rebellious, and she's so fun. There's just something about her that is so

unique and so special. And so I am so excited to share her company with you today. Welcome,

Kristine. No pressure.

Never. Thank you very much for having me. I'm glad we were finding time for this. I know you've

been very busy. As have you, as are we all. Very, very busy. You were especially busy the last,

oh, I don't know, month, because someone talked you into doing a podcast. I don't know who that

was. A few months, yeah, because I'm on Episode 10, and it was a three-week lead up to that. So

it's almost three months, Danielle. We've been live for a month and a half,

just over. Yeah, just over a month, actually, like not even a month and a half yet. The podcast

has been live. But yeah, it was a month before that lead up. And I remember it was so funny,

because Kristine kept telling me, I've joined late. I'm so behind. And she joined late, as in

like two or three days later than everyone else. But I had no way of knowing that.

You had such a feeling of like, oh, no. So tell me, we're going to talk about what you do and who

you are. And Kristine's podcast is Surfing the Edge. And it is such a wonderful, fresh way of

looking at growth and self-knowledge. Definitely go check it out. She's wonderful. Before we talk

about that, what was the experience like? And why on earth did you say yes to joining this network?

I used to work for a podcast company as a freelancer. I was creating the marketing

materials for the podcast hosts, all the things that you send out after the thing is live, right?

For them and their guests. And it was a machine. And I understood that it was a machine, right?

I just, it was just, it was constant. You just get one podcast, you have to do the next one.

And I knew what people for that service. I mean, I knew how valuable it was and what people were

paying. And I also, in 2020, had started doing Surfing Your Edge live videos on Facebook. Once

a week, I would have a guest on and we'd talk for an hour. Sometimes we'd talk for 90 minutes

because I just couldn't shut up. And I just kept meeting amazing people. And I loved that show.

What I realized was that I loved our conversations and people learn an awful

lot about my guests, but they didn't learn about me. So then I stopped and I was like,

because, well, then I tried, I tried to do solo episodes where you sit and stare at the little

green light all by yourself for as many minutes as you can stand. And I found that without anyone

holding me accountable, I did not do those episodes. And so I just kind of fizzled out.

When I met somebody awesome, I'd be like, Hey, I do this occasional thing. You want to come?

And we would get on Facebook and have a great time. And then I didn't do all the marketing

stuff that came afterwards. It's hard to know all this stuff you're supposed to do.

Oh, I know exactly what you mean. This is my life right now. Knowing all the stuff you're

supposed to do. I wish I could, but I just don't have the time. It weighs on you.

It does. It does. It does. It weighs on you. And I kind of let the show fizzle and I'm like,

someday I'll make it a podcast. And I had it on my two year list, I think, to make a podcast.

And you showed up completely off schedule

and said, I'm doing this thing and I would really love you to be included in it. And I was like,

okay, it's Danielle, whom I love and adore and who is an amazing speaker and amazing speaking

coach. And I'm sure that I could learn a lot from her and her network is going to be awesome.

And I'm going to be a founding member. And if I'm going to pay for all the services,

this is probably the best rate I will ever find ever as a founding member of Danielle's network.

Even as not a founding member, the price is still pretty good.

Okay.

Just letting you all know. Just so everyone knows.

So I just, I have been in a summer of saying, yes, amazing things come up. They feel aligned.

The timing isn't right. It doesn't feel right anyway, but I'm just like, yes. So I said, yeah,

I've got the cash to get started. Let's see how far we can take this thing.

And that's basically what I did. And I mean, like several days later I told my husband,

oh yeah, I'm like starting a podcast. Okay. Where did that come from? Actually,

he completely different response, but we don't have to go there.

Oh, oh dear. Oh no. It was a good one.

No, it was a great response. It was like, he's watched me for so many years and he's just

wanting me to find success. And he was like, okay, I have this little chunk of money that I

was thinking of investing. And instead of investing it, maybe I should invest it in you.

Cause I love you. Fabulous. And we just couldn't agree on how he wanted me to invest it. I didn't

agree with his strategy. And so anyway, but he went, so it kind of actually turned into a little

bit of an argument about like, honey, I think I live and breathe my business all day, every day.

I can't have you just tell me what to do one day because you just can't

chunk of cash. And I love you Hans. And I'm sorry.

So he went upstairs and he came back down and he's like, you know, I think the message got buried.

It's like the real message is I love you and I believe in you and I want this to work for you.

Not that I'm trying to tell you how to do your, you know, make your life work. So but yeah, it's

been an incredible roller coaster and, and it just, yeah, I'm having to like build systems.

I know, right? You and me both.

I'm a rebel. I like to get up every day and say, okay, now what needs to be done? And what do I

want to do? But the podcast machine has other ideas.

It does. The podcast machine is always hungry. But that's not actually true. And you've already

gotten pretty good at it's just because everything happened so fast that it did feel for a while,

like we were going to be doing week to week forever, but already things are starting to

kind of people are starting to have a little bit more breathing room and starting to plan ahead.

And it is, it is slowly kind of settling in. It's just, it feels like we've been doing this for

months and months and months, but really it's only been since the 1st of July and it's now the 15th

September as of recording this. So, you know, it feels like it's been ages, but we just lived a lot

in a short amount of time. Yes. Yes. You want to say that if you're going to start a podcast,

I think starting it fast way to go because otherwise you get too perfectionist, right?

I know people who have months of episodes in the can, and they're unwilling to actually launch

and start going maybe because they don't trust that they'll be able to keep up the rhythm. Maybe

they don't trust that they're ready. But if you feel ready, we've already talked about this all

over my podcast. Yes. If you are ready, you probably waited too long.

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Just going, just talking to the green light, just,

you know, and then figuring out what you said afterward and making sense of it.

I think that's probably the only way I would have gotten this off the ground.

If it hadn't been for you saying we're going in three weeks, you've got to have six episodes,

four episodes within three weeks. And then we'll get a couple of weeks to do the last two.

And all the things that go into it, like the description, like what do you name the thing?

And how do you describe it? And how do you say who it's for? And all that stuff.

And anyway, so I think that going fast and jumping in and just putting it out in the world and seeing

what happens is probably what I would recommend. I've seen podcasters spend a year podcasting

before they knew what they were even talking about. So if you don't get, you never figure

out who you are and what you're talking about. I feel exactly the same way. I just did a talk

on Saturday, my first version of what's going to be my keynote talk. And I didn't do as wonderfully

as I wanted to. I didn't bomb, it was fine. But it wasn't what I wanted it to be because I

literally made the decision of what I was going to talk about. I had a talk name, I knew the topic,

but I hadn't decided the steps, the speaking steps until the day before. It's not that I didn't want

to, it's just life happened. I really wanted to be more prepared than that, but just life happened.

And so I didn't include everything that I wanted to include. But I feel so good because now I have

the first draft is already out there, and now I can improve. But if I hadn't had that experience,

if I hadn't forced myself to go up and give it a try, it was fine. It was cohesive. People

clapped. It was good. But if I didn't have that first rough draft, now I would still be working

on the first draft. And I wouldn't be like, okay, so I've had that experience. These are the bits

I remember, these are the bits I didn't. Okay, how do I make it better? And now I can improve.

And so if you can't improve until you start, you know what I mean?

Absolutely.

Yeah. So I feel, yeah. And also I'm in there with you. I'm part of the podcast network too. We're

all just jumping in together and learning as we go. And it's been such a cool experience. The

whole group has been, everyone's come together and it was so much more fun than I thought it

was going to be. It was stressful, but I thought it was going to be more stressful than fun. And

it was by far more fun than stressful.

I agree. I agree. And I think it just fits so beautifully in with the surfing your edge

philosophy. One of the things about Danielle, if you decide that you want to be on her network,

she would strongly, strongly, strongly urge you in a very gentle way to not bring a script.

She wants everything to be off the cuff. Yes, you can have an outline, you can have notes,

you can have ideas about where you're going, but it's really important to Danielle that you show up

and speak from your heart. And that has been really powerful because you can spend,

like you just said, you could spend forever getting the pod, the script right. And then

you have to deliver it in a way that sounds entertaining and interesting and blah, blah,

blah. So I just want to say, some part of me recognized when you showed up and said,

this, we're doing this, you're coming along. Some part of me recognized that, yes, this was

the experience that I needed and wanted. Can I share something that you said to me in that

conversation? Oh, yeah. Because we were talking about, is this the right time for you? Because

you just said yes to a whole bunch of other projects. I knew it was something you were

interested in, but I didn't know if it was a good time. And we were back and forth thinking about

it. And then you said to me, you said, well, I've noticed that I thrive best when I feel like I'm

in over my head. And if you hadn't said that to me, I might have backed off. But you were like,

I've noticed that I thrive best when I feel like I'm in over my head. And I was like, okay, so you

don't mind taking on a little too much, as long as I'm there to help you and catch you and make sure

we pick up all the pieces. I was never going to let you drown ever. But that did help me feel

like it was okay to push you a little bit. That was all right, because you said you do best that

way. My whole business is built around that. Yeah, exactly. Me figuring it out. I used to

figure it out for other people. Now I figure it out for myself, and I help clients figure it out

for themselves. It's such a present way to live, though, Kristine, to not live too much in the

future or the past. I think that, I mean, obviously, you don't want to be so bad that you're

drowning. But at the same time, being in that, wow, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm gonna have

to figure it out. It forces you to be very in the moment, doesn't it? It does. That's a beautiful

thing. You find what's important, because you figure out what you're doing, right? You watch

yourself. Oh, I'm doing this. So this must be the important thing. That stuff that I'm letting sit,

that I thought was so important, must not really be the important stuff. Or I'd be doing that

instead. Yeah. Yeah, that's a wonderful way of sorting through that. For sure. So

speaking of people who are maybe languishing in perfectionism, you have something coming up.

I do. I am one of those people who loves the sun and tends to get kind of depressed and sad

in the darkness. And when September hits, I loved it when I was in school, because that was all new,

and there was always new people and new things to do and new things to learn. But as an adult,

September started to mean, oh, the darkness is coming. And I wanted to just kind of hibernate.

Yes, exactly. Winter is coming faster than we want. And I used to just want to hibernate. And

one year, I finished my Surfing Your Edge experience, group retreat and came home.

And I'm like, well, I'm just going to slide right on through until January. And then I went, you

know what, I realized, I'm not quite sure how I realized this, but there was still a third of the

year left. And I decided that I was going to do 100 days of three different activities. And I

only remember for sure what one of them was, because I'm still doing it. And that was I was

going to learn Spanish on Duolingo. So I'm still doing Spanish seven years later, and French and

Latin and all kinds of other things. But anyway, so the 100 Day Project starts September 22,

because on September 22, we will have 100 days left in the year. And I think it's fun for me,

for the last several years, I've done little things at the end of the year to kind of bring

community together and do something fun and interesting that will slow down time for people

so that they actually enjoy and are present in those those days and weeks and months.

And I want to do it again this year, I'm starting the Surfing Your Edge salon, which is

my community that lives over on Substack, where we hang out in person, well, not in real life,

we hang out in virtual person, live. It's just not, you know, IRL. Yeah. Yes. And what we're

going to do is start 100 Day Project where you pick like three themes, three ideas, three

rhythms that you'd like to implement and experiment with and see how you feel doing them

and whether or not they take you where you want to go. And so we're starting, you know,

when we roll into the new year, we're already in motion, we're already being who we want to be.

And we don't have to deal with any of that new year, new you BS that everybody is throwing.

My year starts in November. Anyway, I love this because so if you're listening to this right now,

the day that this airs, I think is September 24th. So it'll have just started. You're not too late.

You can join whenever you want. This is not one of those like, oh, no, you're two days behind.

Join anyway, because it will be such an experience. I was part of the Inspired Playground

that Kristine ran a little while ago. I think it was last winter. And it was the same thing.

It was like, oh, we're all so depressed. Darkness is coming. And I just love you said a word that I

want you to expand on, because it's so cool. The way that Kristine approaches life and

productivity and routines, you talk a lot about rhythms. And so can you talk to me about that?

Because, you know, we've been friends for a while. So I can tell people a bit about what your vibe

is. Kristine is very, how do you say it? Like no bros here. What do you say? No bro energy?

No bro energy. None of this A type, punish yourself, get up. If you want to get up at 5am

because it feels good, do it. But none of this self-punishing, self-flagellating garbage that

I think only ever works for neurotypicals anyway. It definitely doesn't work for me.

It turns me into an absolute gibbering mess. It has never helped me in my life. And I don't think

it ever will. If it was going to work, it would work by now. Because I'm over. I've been here

for more than four decades. If it was going to work. So you have this beautiful, gentle,

very kind of self-explanatory, like exploratory, very tolerant kind of,

I just love the way you approach things. So can you talk to me about rhythms? What are rhythms?

I spent decades, according to my best friend from high school, who saw me go to college,

I've spent decades looking for the perfect schedule. Kept thinking, oh, just got it all

figured out in my head and then could follow the right schedule. I could do it all. Because my

senior year of college, I did it all. I had three part-time jobs and I did 20 credit hours.

I had no time to date, but I did. I, I, oh my God, I was a goddess, right? I just blew

the last semester of college out of the water. And I've always kind of held that as like my

standard, right? Yeah. That, that short sprint, that, that short sprint is how I want to live

the rest of my life. I learned how to do it. I should just be able to do it all the time.

I've always been looking for the perfect schedule. And, and my friend Tad is like, you know, you've

done this over and over and over and over again. And it's just become, once I hit menopause,

it just became really, really clear that that was never going to happen again.

That consistency means for, to me, continuing to come back, right? You fall off and then you go,

oh, right. I was doing that thing. And you go back and you start again and you just keep coming back

to the things that matter rather than beating yourself up. If you're not doing everything

perfectly every day, all the time. If I'm really good at making plans and then completely beautiful

plans, exciting plans, they're so pretty when they're on the paper and they're all color-coded

and everything. And then you close the notebook and you forget where the notebook went. And then

then like six weeks, six months later, you're like, oh, look at this thing I was going to do.

So I don't know. I just really think lately. And by lately, I really do mean like the last

year and a half, two years that rhythms for me, I want to have rhythms that make me feel good. I

want to have things that I fall back on that I enjoy. I want to keep coming back to the things

I love and getting better at all the things when I can in small, like 1%, 2% increments.

Yeah.

Life is too short to keep beating ourselves up.

Yes. Well, and I love that too, because it allows you to think kind of more in cycles,

because I've noticed for me, it was so funny. I grew up in South Africa. I'm there right now.

And there aren't really seasons where I grew up in Durban. There's a wet season and a dry

season. And that's pretty much it. And they're like six months each. And they don't, the sun

doesn't change, like it doesn't change much when the sun comes up and down. But there's about an

hour difference between summer and winter. And it's very stable, kind of, there's floods and things,

but like day to day is pretty stable. And then I moved to North America. And living in Canada,

I couldn't keep a schedule because the seasons keep fucking changing on me. And like the amount

of daylight hours I have keeps changing. And every time I was like, okay, I think I've got

this figured out, the season would change. And I'd have to redo my schedule all over again.

And it was so frustrating. And I never really got there. But I got to a point where I was like,

okay, I'm going to have a winter schedule, and a summer schedule, and a transition schedule,

because I could not do it. Because my energy levels depend so much on the season. I get

sad in a very big way, because I'm used to getting sunshine, you know, 365 days a year,

pretty much. So in the wintertime, I get really depressed. And I want to just cuddle up and

hibernate and sleep all the time. And in summer, I want to just do 18 hour days. And

so I love that you have this very gentle way of kind of allowing, you know, you can come back to

things and keep coming back to things. And it becomes a more kind of holistic way of looking

at, you're looking at a system. You're not looking at, this person does the exact same

thing all the time. I'm not a robot. I'm not a machine. I get to be a system. And I get to work

like a system. And I really, I've really appreciated the way you make space for,

and when you work with a group, having been in a group that you work with, you really make space

where everyone does something slightly different. And you just kind of fold it in. And it's so

welcoming. And I feel like it doesn't matter what I say, no one's going to judge me,

and everyone's going to encourage me. And this is because of you, Kristine,

you have this beautiful energy of just like, everyone is welcome here.

You keep it like a very strong space, but a very accepting space. And it's just,

yeah, I really appreciate, I love working with you. I can't wait for the 100 day challenge. I'm

totally going to be, I'm going to be there. I'm going to, I'm absolutely on board. It sounds,

it sounds fun. So speaking of which, so you work with, you do all sorts of things. And I know

you've talked about this on your podcast. Do go check out, Kristine has a two episode,

her story, because we couldn't fit it into one episode, because it's so interesting.

But tell us about kind of the name of your business and why you called it that,

and how you work with people, because you have a couple of different ways that you work with people.

Yeah, I call my business Surfing Your Edge, because like we've already established, I do my

best work when I'm on my edge and having to figure things out when I'm in over my head.

I don't necessarily say everybody has to be in over their head, but if you're pushing yourself.

Yeah. And everyone has different levels of water, like comfort, you know, for some people,

it's over here, for some people, it's over here, for some people, it's here, you know,

everyone's different. I can still see. Kristine is like, everything's good. I feel like an

alligator. Oh, yeah, but I do think that the good stuff happens when we do the things that scare us.

And a lot of times we see fear, and we, you know, fear pops up. And we think that that is a stop

sign. And it's telling us to turn around and go the other way. And I really encourage people to

think about it differently. And that, hey, it's like a guidepost. It's like, yeah, this is scary.

But that probably means there's something really good if you keep moving down, down this path.

And I've found that to be true in my own life. And I've watched other people do it too. And I just,

so that's what Surfing Your Edge is for me. It's, it's, I, oh, I haven't talked about

Bigger, Bolder, Badass. Don't talk about it now. Talk about it now.

Bigger, Bolder, Badass is kind of like my, my foundational coaching program. It's like

people's first inner introduction to me. But we learned to dream bigger because we've forgotten

how, right? When we were kids, most of us were encouraged, and, you know, told it was okay to

dream big. But then as you get older, people are like, no, honey, that's not for you. You know,

you can't do that. You need to do this. And so we learn to what I call reality size our dreams and

kind of look around and see what feels acceptable. So in the bigger part of Bigger, Bolder, Badass,

we dream bigger. Then once you start dreaming bigger, all of those fun little voices in the

back of your head start popping up and going, oh, who do you think you are? Right? Those fun voices.

Yeah. The ones that say, you should have done that 20 years ago, or, oh, you're not ready

for that yet. And they can be saying both things at the same time. We work on, we deal with

making friends with those little voices and learning to name them and, you know, pat them

on the head and thank them for their contribution and then scoot them out the door. And then

Badass portion, that's where I have you design a life experiment to go run. I thought everybody

ran their life that way. I love this. You science your life. It's fantastic.

But nobody else apparently very few other people do this. And I'm like, huh, okay. So I actually

had to teach people. I have to teach people like how do you design a life experiment and what makes

it go and what makes it successful. And so in that that portion, we call badass and badass.

According to my very first group of people that went through the program with me was showing up

as authentically yourself unapologetically, right being unapologetically yourself. So that's really

what I'm here for. I say, I'm helping you surf your edge all the way to the bigger, bolder badass

life. You know, you were born for, because we're here with on this planet with the purpose of being

fully ourselves, right? We came to express, we came to let the world learn about itself,

the universe learn about itself through our eyes and through our experiences. And the more we're

willing to lean in and deepen our exploration of the world we live in, the more the universe is

going to learn, the more we're going to feel comfortable and happy. And that's really what

I'm here for. Oh, and I don't know if we have time for this, but there's one more little sneaky

thing. We totally do. But before you go into your sneaky little thing, I love this. It's all about

sneaky little things. Everyone listening, you can tell why Kristine and I get along so well,

because it's all about being your authentic self. And it's all about the, you know, you talk about

growing into the person you were born to be. I talk about being the pure expression of yourself.

We are so aligned in that. And it's just, it's such a joy to be around someone else who's so

interested in that because, you know, a lot of people pay lip service to honesty and authenticity,

but you and I, I think really, this is the backbone of our business for both of us.

Tell me about your sneaky thing. The sneaky thing is that you think you're doing this work so that

you can have a better life, right? Yeah. You think you're doing it so that maybe you think about

making your family's life better, right? But really, what I'm hoping is that once you

really start stepping into your own agency and designing your own life, there are going to be

ripples that are going to go out much farther than you, much further than your family, much,

you know, further than your own lifetime, perhaps. And you're going to actually start

changing the world. I really want you to step into your own agency so that you realize

that you can be part of the bigger solution to the bigger problems. You don't have to solve them all.

You don't even have to know which one you want to work on. But if you just keep taking the steps

forward, and I think we can all change the world together. I truly believe that. I really believe

that if, you know, it's kind of that within the reach of my arm kind of thing, you know,

I don't need to know how I'm going to do it. I don't need to have this big plan. If I live fiercely

by my morals and my standards and my ethics and joy and love, and I spread that as far as I

possibly can, and I support as many people who are doing the same thing as they possibly can,

I cannot believe that that will not change the world. Like that, to me, that feels

inevitable, almost, you know, and we can create a movement. And we are, we are, we're here,

we're talking, we are, we're, we're creating a community, we're creating a movement. And those

of you who are listening, are getting excited about this comment, talk to us, email us,

contact us, because this is, this is what very much what you and I are both. This is what our,

our businesses are, our lives, our platforms, our movements, our podcasts. This is what we're about.

We want to help people be better in their lives and themselves. And absolutely. But because that

makes the world a better place. Right. You know, that's, that's, ah, I'm so excited.

And there's no, there's no time to wait at this point. I mean, I think if you look around,

you can see examples everywhere of people trying really hard to sow chaos and to

destabilize things and to grab what's good for them and not care about other people. And

so we don't have time to wait for everybody to get their shit together.

Or feel ready. You know, this is another reason why, you know, start your podcast,

start your business, do your thing, because talk to Kristine if you feel like you don't

have enough support, because there is, there really is no time to waste. You're, the more

time you spend trying to feel ready and safe, the less safe the world is becoming. So, you know,

there is never going to be, not never, hopefully, God, hopefully not never. But, you know, within

the recent, the near future scope, the safest time is probably now.

Right. Right. Because I don't think things are going to get better immediately.

Right. So if you're, if you're going to do it, if you're going to stand for something,

make it count. Do it now. Yeah. Thank you. I love that.

Yeah. We both got up on our soapboxes.

Kind of happens when we're together.

So, so yeah, and so Kristine does all sorts of things. We haven't spoken about all of the

things that she does. She also runs retreats, literal, literal surfing retreats, because you're,

you know, it's all about overcoming your fears. And one of your big fears is open water.

So that's kind of one of the things that she does. She talks more about that in her podcast.

Go check it out, because it's amazing. I'm not, we're not going to rehash that here,

because she talks about it so eloquently over there. Just go listen to her. And,

and you've got this podcast now. And so we've kind of gotten our soapboxes and I want to keep

moving on this soapbox. What are you, like, what is the plan? You've started this podcast,

you're chatting to people, you're sharing your story. Where do you want this to go?

Like, what is your, what is your badass, badass-ier self podcast look like?

My, my movement, as you've already called it, if I, you know, can be, you called it that,

so I don't have to. Own it, own it.

My movement really is about people stepping into their agency now rather than later. And,

you know, if I never meet you, that's fine. But if you want community, if you want to hang out

with other people who are exploring all of this too, you know, I'm building the Surfing Your

Edge salon over on Substack, where people do get together. And I just, I keep, I can't quite find

the word for it. It's not an army, but it's, it's, it's a movement. It's people. I don't like

the vision of us all linking arms because that's company, a company, a community, a community.

Yeah, yeah. A community that, that is, yes, a community. Let's go back to that because right

now we are in silos. There's so much isolation. Yeah. And we really need community. We need to

learn how to take care of each other online. We need to learn how to take care of people in our

community where we live and start making friends with our neighbors and doing all of the things

because that's the only way this world is going to survive. So, you know, that's, I guess it's

sometimes I worry that I'm not doing enough, like actual boots on the ground activism,

but I really think that this is my activism that, that my urging you to put yourself into the

world and you know, you can do it afraid. Yeah. And put yourself into the world and

create the world you want to live in. Yeah. You know, this, you know, Johnny Clegg and Savuka.

Oh yeah. Yeah. When I was in college, I discovered their music and oh yeah, there was a song. It's

your world. So live in it. And I kind of understood it from this. That's the other side of the world.

But here's my idea of what that might mean when this man is singing that to his son.

I think we're all living that now, right? It's our world. So yes, it's a scary place in some,

so many ways, but we have to find our joy, find our love, find our wonder, find each other

and make it the world we want to live in. Yeah. Yeah. And yes, it can feel,

and that's why community is so important because it can feel like, well, the world is so big.

Some people are very powerful. What am I? But when we band together and we support each other

and everyone has different strengths, some people are fantastic at organizing. Some people are

fantastic at, you know, being boots on the ground. Some people are fantastic at supporting.

We're not asking you to do anything, you know, dangerous to yourself or inauthentic to yourself

in any way, but find your way of making your world yours. Because I mean, I believe we've

only got one life, so I'm going to make the most of it. I don't want to waste it. I don't want to,

I don't want to, you know, look back in a couple of decades and be like, wow,

what a waste. I want to feel like, like I really lived and whatever that means. You know,

I want to know I was alive. Yeah. Yeah. And that I didn't just sit back and let other people

run my life because they're not getting anything out of that. And I'm losing the most important

thing that I have. So, oh, I'm just so excited. There are so many other things we're going to

talk about. I still have, I'm just going to put the seed in here now. I'm going to shame Kristine

on the spot. No, no. Just one day, one day, maybe in the next few years, maybe in the next

decade. I don't know. One day when we both have more time, I would love to do a little podcast

segment with Kristine. Kristine and Danielle love books. I have that. I've been writing that

down in my, that's been in my like my dream plans planner for a couple of years now. One day we're

going to get together and we're going to talk about books on the internet. So we'll do it one

day because we're both very, we're both very geeky, bookie people. I love that I'm on your

vision board. You are. You are. It's not a pressure thing because it's definitely not

going to happen soon, but one day we're going to do that. And I love, you know, I'm going to keep

working with Kristine. I hope that you work with her. Keep listening to her podcast and mine and

whatever you're doing out there, whatever you're doing, find ways to make it yours.

Find ways to listen to that whisper inside of you. Find ways to be grounded and unique

and express yourself. Whatever that means to you, just find it, find your rhythms. Don't feel like

you have to be put in this box. There are people who will support you. There are communities to

join. There are coaches who are going to nurture you like Kristine, not put you in a box, not say,

you got to do it this way. You got to get up at 5 AM and do blah, blah, blah. None of that garbage,

but just what works for you. Let's figure you out and help you be strong and you grow

in the uni. Just that is you. And also there's a hundred day challenge starting right now.

Well, starting a few days ago and join us there. I'll be there. Kristine will be there. We'll

join us in that. There'll be a link in the show notes. Is there anything else you want to share

with us? I'm just, I'm feeling so heartful right now. I'm just like, oh, I want to go out and

dance in the streets, especially because it's raining right now. It'd be perfect

going frolic in the rain. I'm just looking forward to the day when I get to hug you in person.

We've never met. We've never met in person. That's crazy. We're such good friends. We've

never, oh wow. And I just want to say one more thing. This is how Danielle and I met. I don't

know if she remembers. I did a one minute speech on someone else's platform and I was inviting

people to come have a call with me and Danielle raised her hand. She showed up, she shared,

she listened. And I just felt so incredibly comfortable with her that I was like,

okay, here's this proposal. What do you think? And she was like, I'm in. So after one minute

of conversation, this woman had the courage to have a one minute of listening to me talk. This

woman took a leap and said, I'm going to talk to that person and just see what that's about.

And it's been amazing ever since. So you are one of the first.

Yeah. And that was like five or six years ago. That was a good chunk of time ago.

Maybe not, maybe four or five, not five or six.

It was a good chunk of time ago. I don't know how time works.

I have milestones and I measure off of those and if something doesn't happen between those.

But I also feel like the nineties was 10 years ago. So what do I know?

You know, that new movie from 2012. We are coming to the end of our time,

but this has been such a joy and I hope you've enjoyed it. We're cool to hang out with, right?

I feel like we're cool to hang out with. I feel like we have a lot of fun together.

And Kristine has a lot of fun on her channel too, so go check her out. Thank you for being

one of the not fearless, but brave and courageous founding members of this podcast network and this

community. And I just feel like we're building something really solid. We're only a few months

in, but I already feel the power here. And I'm just so excited about the future

and that we're doing it together. And thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And you said generous things about me and the people I attract. And I think

you attract also just the warmest, most intelligent, most thoughtful,

amazing people. And so I can't wait to see where this network goes.

She's talking about you guys. Everybody's listening right now. She just said those nice

things about you. Excellent. Well, thank you so much. This has been so fun and I'll see you

in a few days, most likely. Everyone listening, tune in next week for another exciting interview.

Yeah. Thank you so much. This has been such a joy. It has. Thank you. Bye.