Did you graduate from something you love? Maybe you can find something that has enough common threads to it and see if you enjoy that more. Life is too short to just be focused on one thing. Try to do different things. It's never too late to pursue something you're passionate about. If you are working a day job, find time to work on your passions. The money can come later, all you need to think about is you. Learn how to multitask with your host, Stephen Jaye and his guest Linda Sue Shirkey. Linda is no stranger to dipping her toes into different fields. Right now she is the President of Production and Design, Inc. Learn how she went from photography to skating to interior design and more. Find something you love today and make the most out of it! --- Listen to the podcast here:  Follow Your Passion; Don’t Get Tied Into Just One Thing With Linda Sue Shirkey One piece of advice we commonly hear is to focus on one thing, do only one thing, and get good at it. That does work for a lot of people. I want to make sure I iterate to anyone in my audience reading that if anyone is focused on one thing and having a successful and life, I am truly happy for you. Unfortunately, this advice, like a lot of other common pieces of advice, doesn't necessarily serve everyone well. There are a lot of people out there that are multifaceted and they will prefer to dip their toes or try out many different things and be in many different places throughout their lives. Our guest, Linda Sue Shirkey, has been doing this for several years. She has been trying out a lot of different things and, oftentimes, has been taking part in 2, 3, or even more endeavors at once. Linda Sue, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Thank you very much for your time. Let's start from the beginning. What were the first endeavors that you took part in? In high school, I was on a fashion board that was an advisory board that a department store did for fashion for high school. During that time, a local man decided to start a magazine all published, edited, and written by high school students. They came into the fashion board one day and said, “Would anybody be interested in being the fashion editor?” I said, “I will.” I have no idea why but I did. I went to an interview and they selected me. I was the fashion editor of this magazine all put out by teenagers. I was fourteen at the time and I set up fashion shoots, hired the models, picked out the clothes, help find the locations, and wrote the pieces on the fashion. The magazine was called Tempo. It didn't last long. We did it for less than a year. When pursuing your dreams, relationships suffer more than anything else.Click To Tweet That reminds me of something that we're starting to see commonly in the younger generation, teenagers that aren't necessarily going about, going to school, living out their social lives. They are getting involved and trying to build things. I know a lot of teenagers are interested in building followers on many social media channels or starting their own businesses. They got interested in that. It seems like you were quite a bit ahead of your time. Was fashion something that you were specifically interested in from a young age or is it the writing and the editing that drew you in there?

As society evolves in isolation and moves away from in-person work set-ups, it has become more of a challenge to build a strong, genuine business community. Tracy Card, president of Elevated Results Group, talks about how this growing network has helped many businesspeople develop relationships and gain opportunities. Unlike other networking groups, they have maintained a positive environment and expanded each person’s reach while keeping that genuine yet professional connections with people from various industries. In this episode, Tracy talks about the Elevated Results experience and how members benefit from their approach. --- Listen to the podcast here: Powered by Podetize The Benefits Of Building A Genuine Business Community With Tracy Card  Those of you who have read some of my episodes know that I have a strong interest in community everywhere. I go around me. I see the results of the lack of community. When I look at some of these horrible outcomes such as depression, anxiety, drug addiction, suicide and violence, I see the results of loneliness, isolation and lack of community. Oftentimes, when people think about community, they think about the community that we once had. One of the things that I often struggle with this vision of community is that sometimes, it seems to require some of the restrictiveness that we had in the last century. A lot of people will tell me, “The only time I had community is when I had a rigid 9:00 to 5:00, everyone in the office work schedule.”  Relationships come first. Leads will follow. Click To Tweet That's something that our society is most definitely moving away from. There are some definite mental health benefits to us moving toward a more flexible and fluid work schedule. That's why I'm hoping to find a whole new way to approach and find community. I was pleasantly surprised when I first attended a group known as the Elevated Results network. I hopped on a Zoom call because everything is remote here during the pandemic. The first thing I noticed was the members were frequent guests that were talking amongst each other seem to have a genuine community-like understanding of each other's lives. It has become the community where you can walk up to someone and you don't have to always be on or always be playing catch up. You are saying, “How did fill-in-the-blank whatever your latest endeavor go?” I have as my guest Tracy Card the leader of the Elevated Results Network Group for a couple of years.   ---  Tracy, thank you for joining us.  Thank you so much for having me, Stephen. I appreciate it.  The first question I had on my mind is, how did you go about getting this community? You inherited it in 2014 from another former leader but how does this community revolve? How does it work? How do people stay in the known each of their lives?  Thank you so much for asking about this group. I'm a leader since 2014 and it is a community. That's a great word for it. We do know each other's lives. We care about each other not only personal lives but definitely in business life. How can we help each other succeed? Expand each other's circles of influence. It's a lot different from many other groups. I was the same way when I first met this group that you felt and I knew this is my home.

Fractional resources are people who are often freelancers, consultants and contractors  whose involvement with a company falls outside the standard 9 to 5 or 40-hour a week setup. Through her company, Khazana Inc., Suraya Yahaya provides fractional resources at the executive level for companies looking to scale their businesses up. Suraya allows founders/ CEOs to focus on growth and investment while she runs the day-to-day operations using the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). In this conversation with Stephen Jaye, Suraya discusses fractional resources, as well as other aspects of work culture important towards achieving employee satisfaction and growth. --- Listen to the podcast here: Powered by Podetize How To Use Fractional Resources For Your Business Effectively With Suraya Yahaya I am a big fan of the idea of fractional resources. In our work culture, we oftentimes assume that every single job needs to follow the same format and what people call the 9:00 to 5:00, 40 hours a week when not every need matches that exact paradigm and not every person necessarily wants to work in the same way. My guest has started a business that has a new feel to the idea of a fractional resource. I tend to think of the fractional resource as your freelancer who does twenty hours a week digital design. My guest, Suraya Yahaya, started a business where she acts as a Fractional Chief Operating Officer. Her business is Khazana Incorporated. --- Suraya, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Stephen. I appreciate it. This is an amazing idea. You are a Fractional Chief Operations Officer. Tell us about how that works? It's a little bit of a niche business now. Typically, you see chief operating officers in a company on a full-time basis because the chief operating officer is effectively running the company while the CEO is off doing market impact, talking to investors, large customers and the board is the face of the company. A fractional chief operating officer is to serve businesses that are pivoting, transforming, going through a ton of change and/or growing really fast so they need immediate support but not in a full-time scenario yet. There’s so much change, transformation and growth happening that they don't quite have a niche carved out for a full-time person for a variety of reasons. There are cashflow issues and a lack of clarity on what a full-time person would do as the business continues to change, grow and transform fast. There are also a lot of transformation that needs to happen with a growing team. The idea is bringing someone on a fractional basis, still have them do all the work that a full-time COO would do, and help the company grow, transform, scale and work very closely with the CEO on the timing of when the business is at an inflection point to take the next step. Am I correct in characterizing this as people will talk about the entrepreneurial experience in starting a business? The common phrase you hear is that people are “wearing many hats,” or if it's individual, it’s you starting the business. As you build it out, you are maturing and eventually, if you build it up to a large business, all your C-Suite leadership is going to be full-time people but there's a period of transition in between when you are growing from 1 to 300 people. Is that the correct understanding of how this works? I came from a very diverse background myself. I started as an attorney, went into operations strategy and ran big P&Ls. I had GM responsibilities growing and scaling a variety of different functions. The benefit of having someone come into a company that...

No matter where we end up in life, we will periodically need to reset. Even in our jobs. Just like the seasons, we must also adjust and change to fully live our lives before we reach our breaking points. In this conversation with Stephen Jaye, Taylor Short, founder of Harmonious Return and author of Reset Your Relationship To Your Job, sheds some light on the different manifestations of burnout and how people reevaluate their lives when change becomes necessary. She also discusses the need to slow down, step back, and look inward, as well as how to do just that. --- Listen to the podcast here: Harmonious Return - Job Reset With Coach Taylor Short A major component to our lives especially in the 21st century, although I would argue it has always been a major component to the human experience, is the idea of a reset, a time when you have to re-evaluate. I feel like New Year's in its purest form is a natural built-in reset into our schedules. Every year, we take time to stop, re-evaluate and figure out what it is that we want. On the topic of reset, I bring to you my guest, Taylor Short, the founder of a wellness business as well as an author of the book, Reset Your Relationship to Your Job. Taylor, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. I'm glad to be here. Let's start off by talking about Harmonious Return, your wellness business. It seems like you have different types of events and coaching but all around this theme of resetting. Briefly describe what the business is about, what the goal is and what your methods are. I love that you can see the overarching. We can even start with the book. The book is the catalyst and the most accessible way to work with me or understand the work that I do in the world but on a broader level of this reset. You're so right. The whole idea around this was when I came from Corporate America. Extreme burnout on the inside but on the external, feeling conflicted because I had the corporate salary and title. All of the things that I thought should make me happy but I was feeling this incongruency within myself. Through my own journey, I started to say, "What is going on here doing this reset myself?" Mind you, this was a gradual progression over a few years but in my discovery, I looked around and said, "We are moving at this pace that is unnatural. Us humans, we are nature and nothing in nature moves and expels their energy 100% of the time." I started to dive deeper into the work that I do to help people. The first step is to pause like, "Is your life working for you?" Because we get so caught up in the days turn into weeks, months and years. I would revel in some of these people that were at the end of their lives. They have lived a long life and looking back at some of the advice they gave to us that we're fortunate enough to learn from what they learned in an entire lifetime. Many of them had many regrets, "I would have paid attention to my life more. I would have done more things that I wanted to do." The reset is around that intentional pause that we don't normally do at this pace to say, "Is work working for me? Is life working for me? If it's not then what do I need to do to reset that?" To start off the story, what was this corporate job that you had? It wasn't necessarily just one. As anyone does, I think when we graduate from our undergrad studies, at least I didn't question it. You get a job, work your way up and that's what's going to create your success or happiness. Along the way, I did that. I was successful at jumping promotions to getting salaries. I had been in different industries but in the end,

The lotus is a flower that not only survives but thrives and prospers in muddy, murky, unclear water. Companies are like that, they need to strive and adapt to hard times. You need to build the right culture so that your company can go through those times. This is exactly what the founder of Leading Lotus, Umadevi Gopaldass does for her clients. She helps them build a strong ecosystem or work culture so that they can achieve success. Join your host, Stephen Jaye as he talks to Umadevi Gopaldass about her many work experiences with different cultures. Learn how to emerge from this muddy, murky place and thrive. --- Listen to the podcast here: Powered by Podetize Building A Strong And Thriving Work Culture With Leading Lotus Founder Umadevi Gopaldass For the vast majority of people, work is a major part of our lives. One key aspect that impacts our work experience is the culture of the organization that we work for. Work culture is one area where I believe that we’re in serious need of making work, work better for more people. With that being said, I want to bring up my guest, Umadevi Gopaldass, who started her own business called Leading Lotus. That is leading the charge in bringing us a better, more useful work culture. Thank you for joining us, Uma. Hi, Stephen. Thank you for having me. It’s my pleasure. Tell me a little bit about Leading Lotus and what your goal is for our work culture. I started Leading Lotus a few years ago. I incorporated on February 14th on Valentine’s Day. I had nothing else to do that day, so I was a rebel. I had quit the corporate world. I had 26 years of working and living all over the world. I was in oil and gas, working offshore on oil rigs, platforms, and remote towns. I was with Accenture Management Consulting for several years and then had high-powered jobs and careers, followed by the gold mining industry. Part of it was, I was struggling to find a purpose for my own life, which was pulling at me. Even though I had great careers, the remuneration was great. Work-life balance was an issue, but then financial stability was not an issue. That was the struggle. I didn’t have to change anything except I had to. It was like a conundrum. It wasn’t like just yesterday. I woke up and decided, “I want to do this.” It was starting to happen six years before I even quit my last high flying job. When it was time to let go of a paid job, the decision was very natural. I quit end of 2016 after finishing all my projects. I didn’t leave. I had a three-year project that I completed and I left. I disengaged from everything for three months and founded Leading Lotus. The company had an underlying theory that we all need to come out of the book, the muddy, murky consciousness of mess that we go through every day in our minds, where a lotus grows. Lotus is actually like a weed. It only grows in muddy, murky, unclear waters. It always comes out of the water pristine because it’s got a self-cleaning technology built into it. We call it the Lotus effect. It’s a scientifically proven design that’s used in control towers. Not many people know the biology of a Lotus. It’s a revered plant and had been around for 150 million years. I said every day we do need to come out of that muddy, murky messiness. We need to think clearly, see the light, and make the right decisions. That’s a tough call, every day, day in and day out. I designed my company based on that. The tagline was, “Decide with clarity.” It’s supposed to help people, individuals, professionals, businesses, corporations, and nonprofits get out of the struggling mode and get into th...

Few people reach where they are looking to go without some form of personal transformation. In this episode, Stephen Jaye talks with Rick Harrigan, whose story of personal transformation involves having what he thought he was supposed to have but coming to the realization that it was not the right place for him. He reached a point where he could not take it anymore. It's a place a lot of people find themselves in. "I don't know what I want to do; I just know I can't do this anymore." Rick now helps others who are in need of similar transformations through his holistic purpose-driven consulting service. Join in this conversation as he takes us throughout his journey, all the while offering some great insights and inspiration to help those of us who are looking for that personal transformation. --- Listen to the podcast here: Powered by Podetize A Story Of Personal Transformation With Rick Harrigan On this show, we are not trying to tell you exactly what your dream, your definition of success should be or specific actions you should take. A lot of it is all about mindset. However, one key component to a lot of different stories about people reaching whatever their definition of success is a story of personal transformation. That being said, I would like to introduce you to our guest, Rick Harrigan, who has his personal transformation story, not only about his transformation but about how he's helping others with their journeys. Welcome, Rick. Thanks, Stephen. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me on. How are you doing? I am doing great. Let's start by talking about your own story of personal transformation. Where were you before you underwent your transformation? "Purpose is not something that takes place outside of ourselves. Purpose is about a sense of being and living into your sense of being." A large part of it starts even in my youth, the messaging that I received about expectations, success and what they meant. That's to say that I came from a blue-collar background, where the idea of success was very much around this white-collar success was pegged to wealth, the white picket fence and a lot of material things. Money was always a source of frustration and a lot of gnashing of teeth when I grew up. That became somewhat ingrained. I went on to college, stumbled into media and became a Corporate Executive in the entertainment realm in Los Angeles for twenty years when all was said and done, over that period, it started well. As my career progressed, I started making more and more money, got the family, the kid and the mortgage. I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do, what I should be doing. There was this little voice whose volume increased and increased that was saying, "This is not what you are supposed to be doing. This is not right for you." By the time I hit my '30s, I was by and largely miserable. It was the classic story of, successful on the outside, miserable on the inside. I ended up feeling constrained by the golden handcuffs where I was making a lot of money, had a lot of bills, expenses, expensive cars and things like that. I felt like I couldn't get out. I felt stuck by the circumstances that I felt I was supposed to create in my life. It was a dead-end street. I ended up completely feeling burnt out, frustrated, stuck, disconnected, kept this sunny, cheery disposition on the outside. On the inside, I realized that what I was doing was not touching any deeper sense of self or contributing to the world or society. I felt like a mercenary who was strictly making money for a corporation. Finally, when I reached the point where I was probably days away from a nervous bre...

Truly innovating and solving problems often require us to rethink and try new approaches. The DEI Leadership Institute takes a new approach to issues we’ve been working on for longer than anyone’s been alive: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. In this episode, the Institute’s founder Maria Putnam joins Stephen Jaye to discuss how we can adapt a mindset that not only addresses this hot-button issue, but also opens us up to new experiences and has the potential to enrich all of our lives. Listen in and learn why DEI isn’t as straightforward as it seems and why everybody needs to pay attention to it now.  --- Listen to the podcast here: DEI Leadership Institute: Taking Innovative Approaches To Diversity, Equity And Inclusion With Maria Putnam We’re all aiming for something in this world. We’re aiming to do something to make some improvement. Some of it is personal such as fixing a bad habit. Some of it is larger-scale societal issues that we’ve been dealing with for a while. One important part of that whole process is being willing to change course and taking a different approach when it becomes necessary. Being open to that will often lead to a better result. My guest, Maria Putnam, the Cofounder and Principal of the DEI Leadership Institute, has an idea about how we can find a more effective course of action around some of our most pressing problems right now. Maria, thank you for coming to the show.  Thank you so much, Stephen, for having me.   “We are going in one direction where we feel comfortable. Let's be uncomfortable. That's okay. Nothing is gonna happen. It's gonna be just fine. We're gonna survive. Let's just jump on it."  I want to start off by getting everyone oriented properly. DEI is a term that’s commonly used in the business and the corporate world. What does it stand for and what is the ultimate aim of a lot of the DEI Initiatives going on in the world?  DEI stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Some of the companies are using DENI. The ultimate goal for this is awareness. As we do this work more, to begin and start with us, to be more aware, to become better people and better human beings.  When it comes to that, what is the ultimate goal for people who are involved in the DEI or hear about DEI training at their own companies? Is there a societal need around fairness and equality, or is it mostly all stemming from this idea of becoming better people and better communicators?  The ultimate goal is to create a better world where there is equity, everybody has a voice, there is an appreciation of everybody at the workplace. The DEI work cannot be effective if we as people don’t do our own DEI and if we don’t face our own bias. That’s where the work starts and by working in ourselves, we could become better people. You cannot apply something that you don’t believe yourself.  Before we get into the specifics of your story, what are some of these other benefits? Let’s say we improve ourselves as human beings and give everyone a fair voice. There are some other benefits. It’s not just about having certain makeups on your board or something like that. There are other intangible benefits. Tell us a little bit about some of these other intangible benefits and how we’re all improving through this.  For example, let's focus on the workplace. What benefits do we have when we do the DEI work well? There is higher retention because people feel a sense of belonging. There is a lower turnover. One of the things that I hear in the business and some of the people in the companies that I work with is they spend a lot of money in the process of hiring. The turnover is high. Overall, you’re going to have more committed people.

Acting upon what we feel passionate about and pursuing good ideas is not just for those who hate their jobs or are desperate for a new source of income. Joe Comsti and his co-founders Vince Ruggeri and Robbie Hall identified a new way to look at one of the most important aspects of the human experience, physical fitness. Their program, Habit of Health LLC, combines aspects of many popular health programs alongside other components of our health, including nutrition and good mental habits. In this episode, they join Stephen Jaye to discuss the importance of taking care of our bodies, the current state of the fitness industry, and the importance of building a brand. They go deep into the struggles that keep people unmotivated about being healthy and then offer some tips on overcoming them. Imparting wisdom to those trying to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams, they also share the things they learned best about building a brand that can support your life and, at the same time, help others. Join Joe, Vince, and Robbie in this engaging conversation to learn more.  --- Listen to the podcast here: Powered by Podetize Habit Of Health: Building A Brand That Keeps People In Good Physical Health With Joe Comsti, Vince Ruggeri, and Robbie Hall  One key aspect of anyone's life is our physical fitness. Our ability to take on whatever challenge we're looking for is limited by how much we can handle in our bodies and being in good physical shape does help us maintain and increase our energy level. I'd like to introduce Joe Comsti along with Vince and Rob, who have started their own LLC around keeping people in good physical health called Habit of Health. How are you all doing?  We are good.  First, tell me the inspiration behind Habit of Health. What made you decide to take on this venture?  "If your #1 goal is to make money, then I think you can quickly get away from what your actual goals are."  During COVID times and everything, we just hung out with people in the neighborhood. Rob is our neighbor and we're all fitness junkies. That was the closing of the gyms, I went to CrossFit and I had a running coach. Rob coaches at CorePower Yoga and we taught fitness, we love working out. I had a nice home gym built which has expanded into what Habit of Health is now. We talked about it. Why do I CrossFit? Why does Vince power lift? Why does Rob do yoga? Is one better than the other? I think and we believe that the answer is that one isn't better than the other. All fitness and being cardiovascular or being healthy in general is about getting out there and moving.  That's a problem with a lot of the fitness industry, that if you go to CorePower Yoga, you get CorePower Yoga, if you go to CrossFit, you get CrossFit, you go to Orangetheory, you get Orangetheory. CrossFit and CorePower yoga isn't for everybody. The idea of Habit of Health revolves around that idea but instead of telling you how and what you should be doing, it’s, “Here is everything.” We do a little strength, HITT, yoga, running and we're slowly adding to our arsenal of tools that we can teach people how to do. We will never tell anybody that you have to show up to yoga, you have to show up to HIIT or you have to be doing strength stuff. It's about moving. Being healthy is all about getting out there and doing something.  That's one of the challenges of our current times. A lot of us have jobs and lifestyles that are quite sedentary. We see it all around when the human body was meant to move. I've had periods where for one reason or another, a cold snap with temperatures below zero,

It is often challenging to maintain interest, let alone a passion, for what we are doing for nearly half a century. Yet, that is exactly what Rick Seymour has done. He has been helping people improve their health through individualized nutrition plans for 47 years and reports feeling even more passionate about his business than he did when he started! It was not an easy journey though. Finding the right fit involved exploring many different options and transitioning out of corporate America took years of hard work and sacrifice. Learn more about Rick’s inspiring journey as he bares it all in this conversation with Stephen Jaye. --- Listen to the podcast here: Powered by Podetize Living Life On Your Own Terms: How Rick Seymour Found And Maintained His Passion For 47 Years One thing I talk about quite a bit is this idea of living by the script. By the script, what I'm talking about is the standard expectations that we have almost unwritten in our culture now. Every culture has them. In this culture, this manifest says something along the lines of go to school, get good grades, get a good job, gradually move up the ladder, have 2.3 kids. I'm not here to throw shade on anyone that is living according to the script. If you're happy with it, I'm happy for you. One of my goals is to open people up to other possibilities. I want to introduce my guest, Rick Seymour, who began living in a semi-retired state at the age of 38. Rick, welcome to the show. Thanks, Stephen. I’m delighted to be with you. Thank you so much. Your journey is going from something that was way more by the script in the sense that you were working a standard corporate job to what you're doing now, which is a state of semi-retirement or working at your own discretion. Describe the overall process. "If somebody is forward thinking enough that they have a growth mindset, they realize that by working on themselves they can accomplish things they weren't able to do in the past. All of a sudden things change dramatically." When I went to school at CU, I had a Major in Applied Mathematics and Physics because it was easy for me. When I got out of school, it's like, “What do you do with that if you want to stay in Colorado?” In those days, there are only two significant corporations to work for that could utilize that talent. That was Martin Marietta, which is now Lockheed Martin, and Ball Brothers. Martin Marietta was very involved in the space program. I came into it early. I'm literally a recovering rocket scientist. I started right at the end of the last Apollo mission and worked on our first space station, which was Skylab. Several years ago, we put a lander on Mars for the first time with less technology than you have in your cell phone. I worked on the early shuttle programs. As interesting and exciting as the work was, the bureaucracy, office politics, all of it made me a little crazy. Maintain A Passion: Until you're able to have that perspective about what it is you're doing and how you put yourself out there, it doesn't matter how good you are at what you do, you're not going to be very successful at it. Being a contractor to NASA, with another layer of politics and bureaucracy on top of us, it was a stifling atmosphere to work in. I got to the place where I didn't want to have to put up with all of that. You have to get a little beat up in the corporate world before being an entrepreneur and being on your own makes sense. I got to the point where I was tired of working for people I wouldn't hire. When you add to that, all of the stuff that goes with large corporations, I wanted out.

Life can be unpredictable. Often, the best course of action is to have a plan, but we must be flexible enough to pivot and open for that plan to change. In this episode, our host, Stephen Jaye, talks with Alyse Opatowski, the founder and CEO of We Talk Real Talk. The company has taken on several different forms while maintaining its core mission: to bring people together through deeper and more authentic conversation. Alyse shares insights on her journey with us while also discussing how she pivoted on her other businesses and why being flexible is a key attribute. Going deeper, she then shares why it is important to allow ourselves to change; only then can we find a better understanding of ourselves and even of others. --- Listen to the podcast here: The Story Of We Talk Real Talk: Changing Course And The Need For Flexible Plans With Alyse Opatowski We all have different pursuits in life and sometimes we need to be a little bit flexible. One of the things I realized a while back is that one of the best ways to go about things is to have a plan, but also be prepared to have that plan change or have a need to change course from time to time. With that being said, I want to bring on my guest, Alyse Opatowski who has a business called We Talk Real Talk that had started out with one mission and the mission was changed in a way. Without further ado, here is Alyse. Thank you very much. "If we aren't distracting ourselves and we just allow silence and time with ourselves, that's a really great way to start to explore things deeper and start to understand what is a combination of things that excite you and your gifts because everybody definitely has them." I’m happy to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Can you start from the beginning with We Talk Real Talk? How did the concept begin from the start? I am from Denver and have left for about ten years. When I came back, I found that it was challenging to find a community to meet people. I had lived in major cities, which I understood why there was a challenge here. I found it odd coming back to my hometown and seeing how it was challenging first, meeting people, then second of all, a lot of the people that I was meeting only had a few friends or didn’t know a ton of people here. I first wanted to figure out ways to bring people together. The community has always been important for me. I was also hearing from people that a lot of their friendships or interactions were pretty surface level. I love asking deep questions. I would get good feedback on that but I was wondering how I could create more opportunities at dinner parties, bring people together or how there could be deeper conversations there. Things don’t always turn out how you expected them to be. They can change. I started with some friends, hosting some dinners and having questions on the table where people can go deeper. That was successful and people enjoyed it. I decided to start a business, We Talk Real Talk, where we would bring people together in a more facilitated way to be able to have these deeper questions. A lot of what came out of it was friendships, business partners and some dating involved. It also allowed people to talk about the things that they’re not always able to talk about and see that a lot of times, we all have this shared humanity and experiences. Another thing that is important to me and was important for them too was this feeling of getting rid of shame. Not having shame around topics when they would talk about something and other people would have similar experiences or be there to support them and...