February 17, 2020 • 38 mins
How do you make a real impact in the world? This week’s guest Gabriele Almon is a former humanitarian staffer who’s bringing the creative industry and the public sector together to do just that. She tells us how she’s leveraging storytelling to create transformational change, and she’s joined by her husband and former TLDNE guest Billy Almon, a designer and storyteller with a passion for nature, technology, and innovation. This power couple shares what makes their partnership thrive, including why it’s important to know if you need a high five or a game plan.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. Okay, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate Scott Campbell.
We're here to help you follow your curiosity, celebrate your individuality,
(00:20):
and embrace the and not the ore, so you can
turn everything you love into a custom built career that's
as unique and dynamic as you are. If you feel
that one path may not be your only path, and
you call yourself a human bend diagram, than you are
in the right place, because when it comes to pursuing
your passions, we believe the limit does not exist. Have
(00:44):
you ever tried to rally others to a cause and thought,
maybe what I need to inspire action is more data
I know I have. But today's guest might make you
see things from a whole new perspective. Maybe what you're
missing isn't data, but a compelling story. Gabrielle Allman is
a former humanitarian staffer turned undercover Hollywood operative. Gabby shares
(01:08):
how Hurricane Katrina led her to work in emergency management
and how that ultimately led her to create her own
agency that sparks groundbreaking transformational partnerships between the creative industry
and the public. Sector, and she's joined by her husband
and former tld n E guest Billy Allman, a designer
and storyteller with a passion for nature, technology, and innovation. Together,
(01:31):
they share what makes their partnership work and also why
they won't be collaborating on anything anytime soon. We love
the humor, self awareness, and genuine appreciation for their differences
that powers this power couple. It's true Gabby and Billy
are one dynamic duo. So let's meet them, shall we.
Let's do it. Gabby, you first came on our radar
(01:59):
in the Lightning round of Billy's episode on our show.
We had a question we always asked our guests, which
was give a shout out for a woman who's doing
awesome things, and Billy's shout out about you was so compelling.
Christine and I both went, we have got to talk
to Gabby and have her on the show. So we
(02:20):
are so happy to have you here. Thank you. It's
wonderful to be here. And I definitely slept Billy a
twenty dollar bill after I heard the podcast. Thank you
so much. I love it. Great job, Billy, thank you
way to earn that money. Every every dollar count, so
you studied international business at Howard University. Then you've got
(02:42):
a master's in public policy from USC So what initially
drew you to those fields? Did you have a game
plan when you were studying international business at Howard kind
of I did. So. When we think about when I
first went to college, I think it was around two
thousand four war, so this is when P Diddy was big.
This is when we had Comorley Simmons and Baby Fat.
(03:06):
And when I decided that I wanted to study international business,
I thought, I'm going to be a mogul like them,
Like that is exactly who I want to be and
what I wanted to do, and was well on my
way to it. I was really thankful that I did
well in those classes. But and my sophomore year in
two thousand five is when Hurricane Katrina had hit. It
was a big year because it was the first year
(03:27):
that Howard University students are able to live in a
co ed dorm. There was one day when I finally
got some money and I thought, Okay, I'm not gonna
eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches anymore. Go to make
something to eat. And it just so happened that our
dorm's kitchen was on Billy's floor and he was in
the room, and that's how I met him. Oh my gosh.
(03:49):
We struck up a conversation and about really within a week.
We hit it off so well that we were together
and looking at Billy nail to just confirm that this
is I'll never forge it. There was a distinct impression
she made because she came in with this bag full
of tomatoes and garlic. Our preface this by saying, I'm not,
(04:10):
by any means defined as a chef um, but I
knew that there was a distinction between her coming in
with like raw materials to make spaghetti from scratch and
some regu that I had seen some other other people
coming into the kitchen with. So it was an easy
thing to start a conversation with her around. You were
(04:31):
a smart enough co ed to know that Gabby seemed
to be in a class by herself bling in these
raw ingredients. Yes, now, Gabby tell us about her king Katrina,
because Billy, I remember in your episode you mentioned how
it really made an impact on you and led you
to biomimicry at the time. And it's really Gabby's fault,
as well, so, so Gabby, what happened? I was sitting
(04:52):
in class and this was in August, and I remember
one of my classmates picking up the phone and she
was really upset. And just by the pure demographics of
Howard University, it feels like half of the population is
from the South. So what would have been a very
small conversation on perhaps another campus felt like a campus
wide conversation at Howard. And our mutual friend Peter Carr
(05:15):
was the head of our local U A c P chapter.
He started to organize student response to her king Katrina.
I got involved because Peter and I were really good friends.
Because I got involved, Billy said, wherever you're going, I'm going,
smart man. We drove down on a I think it
was a twenty four hour drive from DC to New Orleans,
and what I saw there just completely transformed. It changed
(05:40):
the entire trajectory of my professional interests in my professional
career for the next decade. The reason why I say
it's her fault just to give her credit for that,
is because at the time I was impacted by it,
but I had already had excuses in my mind why
I shouldn't go, and because of Gabby when when she's
passionate about something, he finds a way to kind of
(06:01):
realize whatever it is that she feels she needs to do.
And so just seeing her drive and passion for it,
I was like, Okay, I'll go to and you know,
obviously I was still wooing her at the time, but
but again, just the experience of being down there, it
did the same thing for me. It really changed a
lot of the things that I valued and was focusing
(06:22):
on for school. A lot of what we did on
the ground was interacting with the mayor and city council members,
and half of the response that we got from the
elected officials was really inspiring and affirming, and half of
that was extremely disappointing. And leaving that experience, I thought,
I really want to understand how to craft an argument
that an elected official can't deny. How do I do that?
(06:46):
And it took a couple of years to figure it out,
but I realized that a master is in public policy,
which is all about crafting an argument for government, was
what I needed to pursue. So that's how I ended
up getting my master's at USC. Gabby, you started your
career in a merger and c management including working for
the City of Los Angeles, World Vision and for the
FEMA National Advisory Council. So can you just explain quickly
(07:09):
what emergency management is and how you found your way
into it. Emergency management is a field that emerged after
nine eleven. It's still pretty new, um, but it's essentially
it's a group of people. It's the industry that's responsible
for planning, for preparing, for responding to, and recovering from
(07:30):
any kind of hazard disaster that you can think of,
So from tsunamis to volcanoes, to terrorist attacks to whatever
a nuclear incident. These are the people that are responsible
for gathering information, creating plans, creating relationships, and seeing that
through to help people recover and be resilient no matter
what happens anywhere in the world. When I got to
(07:52):
grad school, I knew what emergency management was coming out
of undergrad when I realized that's what I wanted to do,
I didn't quite have the name for it. What I
saw in New Orleans and what I saw on the
Gulf Coast. The statement that I had in my mind
was I need to know how this should work. I
see how this is not working. How does this work. Well,
(08:12):
we call it disaster relief or we call it disaster response.
But as my understanding became more sophisticated, I realized, like, oh,
this is an actual industry. People are starting to develop
academic programs around it. I think, Okay, let me find
out where I can do this locally, and that's how
I got involved with the City of a Lais Emergency
Management Department, which does that for four million people, like
(08:33):
four thousand businesses. They're responsible for preparing for and responding
to emergencies. This is incredible. Obviously all of the examples
that you're giving, these huge emergency situations are impacting thousands
upon thousands of people. How do you sort of start
to make an impact? Was there a through line between
approaching different types of emergencies that you found on the
(08:55):
work being on the other side of it, So being
a few years and now there are different roles within
that space. There is the responders of the person who's
on the ground providing mass care, depending and if you're
a government response or humanitarian response, if you're if you're
with an organization, you're kind of doing everything and you're
(09:18):
typically responding in places that don't have a strong government system,
so you're outside of the US and you can be
seeing any and everything here in the US. You're more
so if you're an emergency management you're behind a desk,
but you're working twenty hours a day and you're supporting
the firefighters, the police department who are on the scene.
A lot of what I did I started to specialize
(09:40):
in humanitarian tech, so looking at how do I build
different kinds of systems to collect data help decision makers
understand where they want to deliver aid and how much.
And it really tapped on my coding skills, a bit
of user experience and design skills, and a lot of
future reism and foresight work to see where both where
(10:02):
we're going in terms of where the world is, what
population needs are, and what we needed to start to
do and build today so that we could be ready
for what's coming down the pipeline. So let's talk about
those tech solutions as a global innovation and technology follow
At World Vision, you developed geospatial solutions for global crisis response.
(10:23):
What did that look like? Very simply, it's just mapping.
When you look at CNN, we're in an election year
now and you have those people like touching on the
screens and different information pops up. That's what I did
on the back end. Interesting. Practically a lot of my
work focused on East Africa and Southeast Asia. So what
I did for World Vision which responds and like I
(10:46):
don't even know how many countries around the world, but
starting to develop different kinds of dashboards and platforms for
them to monitor emergencies that were emerging that we're happening
around the continent and all we'll see where they're responding
to and who really needed aid that they weren't reaching yet.
So a lot of things related to data, a lot
(11:07):
of things related to analysis. But I really really loved it. Wow,
when did you add coding to your toolbox? Have you
always been really interested in data? Yes, Ish, I didn't
have a name for it at that time. So going
back to Howard, I did finish my degree in international
business that I had this interest in disastrous mose. But
(11:28):
in Howard I started to take some modeling classes which
we now would call like formulaic or algorithm based classes,
and I really excelled in it. I loved it, and
I didn't understand why at the time, But when I
was preparing for grad school, I remember reading an article
talking about the World Bank and international development and them
staying at the time like the next wave of innovation
(11:50):
is going to be related to data. And I thought
to myself, well, these are the kind of people that
I want to work for, So I think I need
to pick up a skill about how to analyze visualized
data so that I can have a job after I graduate.
And so that's what I did. When I was in school,
I took as many complex analytical classes as I could,
(12:11):
and that just segued into different kinds of tech classes
and that touched on coding, and for whatever reason how
my brain works, it just happened to pick it up.
And then when I found myself at World Vision and
all these other places after it, because I had that skill,
I had opportunities to build on it, and then I
just became good enough at it to keep being tapped
(12:32):
on for different jobs to do it. When did you
discover your interest in storytelling and the impact it could
(12:53):
have on nonprofits, government agencies, other purpose driven organizations. It
actually goes back to my time organizing on Howard University's
campus for disaster response, and there was one moment where
the group of us who were leading this effort were
really challenged with what is the best way to send
(13:13):
hundreds of students down to the Gulf coast. Some people
were saying, we're going to limit it to like sixty people,
and other people were advocating for, you know, all the
hundreds who had applied to go, and like, how do
we raise money to support that? And I was on
the the latter end, you know, let's be as inclusive
as possible. And so we went around the table and
(13:34):
everyone had to justify why they were advocating for the
position that they were in terms of who can go
and who cannot. And I remember saying at that time
that my only interest in having everyone go is that
it's important in crises and disasters and these moments where
(13:54):
things can get highly politicized, that everyone has a chance
to be a part of the story. No one can
argue with experience, and when things get really nuts and
everyone has a really strong opinion, no one can argue
with someone who's actually been there and been a part
of it and been impacted by what they've seen. What
ended up transpiring for me over my time working the
(14:18):
in the humanitarian spaces, I thought, because of my background
in tech and my leaning in mathematics that as long
as we got data in front of people, as long
as we can get the statistics about what's happening around
the world and let people know how many people are
being impacted by x y Z crises, that as long
(14:39):
as people have the information, people will act on it.
And what I realized after ten years is that's not
true at all. We don't have a data problem in
humanitarian aid or emergency response. We have a storytelling problem.
My focus now, for however long, whether it's a couple
of years, in the next ten years, is to help
nonprofits and people and go from an agency's learn how
(15:01):
to be better storytellers, and really by leveraging my proximity
to and network in Hollywood to have the people who
are best at storytelling teach those folks how to do it.
So producers, directors, writers and anyone who's willing to lend
their skill and expertise tell us about your storytelling summit.
(15:21):
By sitting on Famous National Advisory Council, I convinced my
subcommittee's leadership to host a call where we had someone
from the Walt Disney Company, someone from Apple who used
to work with Steve Jobs and someone from DreamWorks sit
on a call for an hour and tell my fellow
council members everything they knew about how to craft stories
(15:45):
that connect with people, all with the purpose of how
do we help emergency managers deliver messages that people will
actually listen to. There's a huge problem of people ignoring
p s, a s. People not evacuating, not listening to
sound advice. So maybe if we craft this based on
some really sound storytelling principles, that can change. And when
ended up happening on this cause you could hear people's
(16:08):
mind just like you know, oh funny enough, and it
it was really transformational. And I realized afterward was there
are more fields outside of emergency management that would benefit
from that kind of information. How do I make that
as open and accessible as possible? And how do I
make this longer than one hour? And so that's where
(16:31):
the idea for a conference came in, and that's how
the Storytellers something it came to be and we had
our first conference last year and by God's grace and
when excellent and now I'm planning for the fall. What
inspired you to start your own agency and what has
been maybe an unexpected challenge or um discovery that surprised you.
I officially established Brandon Bullish in I've been an independent
(16:56):
consultant for a few years now, but when I decided
that yes, creativity, all things related to storytelling is something
that I want to do, I just don't want to
be an independent consultant. I want to turn this into
an establishment and the operation that's much much bigger than myself,
with the ultimate goal of there's only so much one
(17:16):
person can do, and if I can bring more people
on board, I want to do that. I need the
structure to do that. So Brandon Bullish is all about
finding unique and creative ways for the creative and entertainment
world to collaborate with the public sector and nonprofit folks.
And so first we're doing that with the Storyteller Summit. Next,
we're working on infiltrating and influencing writer's rooms who are
(17:39):
addressing a variety of topics. Also thinking about how do
we elevate the kind of people that really deserve to
be seen today. And I think people will really benefit
from hearing from considering all of the chaos and crises
we're experiencing in the world. As you advise these fortunate
(18:00):
hundred companies, nonprofits, government agencies. Are there common problems or
through lines that you see across all of these different organizations? Oh? Yeah, absolutely,
And I know this because this is my world. This
is these are the people that I've worked with over
the past decade, and not only are they make colleagues,
but their people admire very much. You look at any
(18:24):
government department, you look at any nonprofit, and you have
typically very underresourced, overstretched individuals. You have people who are
deeply skilled, wildly passionate, but have so little time to
do anything other than to keep themselves and their projects afloat.
(18:46):
And so when you're looking at storytelling in particular, I
run into a lot of people who want to do better,
who want to take their communications or their messaging the
marketing to the next level, but they just don't have
the support to do it, or they don't have the
network to guide them in that journey. Going back to
(19:07):
the Storyteller Summit, that's the first step in helping to
open that access to those people. The summit was not
just about learning, It was about how can we get
a lot of these folks in the same room to
start to build relationships with one another so that they
can work on things outside of myself, outside of this structure.
But there are other ways that I'm looking at. How
do we provide that kind of learning and support going forward. Well,
(19:29):
it's just gonna add one unbiased opinion on the impact
of it was also seeing the connection between people who
were passionate about different topics and about what's happening in
the world, who are graphic designers or artists or or musicians,
having them also be interested in connecting with people that
(19:49):
are in these government agencies for finding ways for them
to contribute as well. So it really was a hub
for all of these different passionate people around eating change
to kind of find those missing links in kind of
executing on helping. I love that point because I'm so
struck listening to you talk, Gabby about You're just diverse
(20:13):
skill set and how all of it is valuable in
what you do and thinking about to your point, Billy,
about all of these different skills that different people have
who are passionate, how do you lead the charge to
integrate those and to really focus them towards change. Yeah,
it's an open space. It's a unique opportunity and it's
(20:35):
a lot of work to do. But I think also
having seen over the last few years, that everyone, everyone
is affected by what's happening in the news, and everyone
wants to not feel overwhelmed. They want to be hopeful
about what's going on, and they want to have an
impact that's meaningful. Where I come from, we're the folks
behind the headlines were addressing it. We don't get a
(20:58):
lot of news coverage, but we have a unique opportunity
to be a part of the solution. The opportunity that
exists is that you have these incredibly gifted, creative people
whose skills are very much needed, whose knowledge is very
much needed, who desire to have a deep impact, and
this is a really unique way for them to harness
everything that they've learned and do it for good. The
(21:35):
strength of your partnership and of each of you as
individuals is so apparent it cannot be overstated. So tell
us about your partnership. We're really each other's brain trust.
That's usually kind of how things start. So Bill and
I we've been together for fifteen years this year. So
we met when we were nineteen, were turning thirty four
(21:57):
this year, and it's it's But what's really interesting for
my personal perspective is how our relationship has shifted, considering
my pivot now into this space that he's really knowledgeable
and an expert and so interesting. For the first twelve
years of us being together, I was really focused on
(22:20):
emergessey management and humanitarian aid, and for the most part,
Billy was my encourager, that was our partnership dynamic. Anything
I wanted to do, he was the person that would
just listen to me and say, go do it. I'm
behind you. But now this is the first time in
our relationship where I'm looking to him for professional advice,
(22:43):
for even introductions, or really getting his feedback on what
doesn't look right about what I'm trying to do. I'm
really stuck on figuring out X y Z and him
being able to give me not only the kind of
thought and feedback that I really need, but me being
able to see for the first time and really understand
(23:05):
for the first time, like, Oh, this is what he
was talking about when he was talking about producing, This
is what he meant when he talked about all these
different parts of the creative process that I just went
over my head for so many years, so it's a
new new fund space, and it's changed our relation to
each other for sure. Do you think you might have
(23:27):
a joint bio mimicry storytelling project in your future? I mean,
it feels like there's so many cool intersections of that work. No,
probably not. Here's the thing, our our personalities are really different,
(23:49):
our styles are really different. What's always pulled us together
as our common interest in our common values, but how
we go about pursuing those things is very different enough
that we know that if we were to work together
on the same project for a period of time. Billy
(24:10):
helped me out here and and we we've known this
for a while. So one thing Gabby didn't say is
that I studied architecture in undergrad when we were at Howard,
and Gabriel wanted to be and was considering studying architecture
when she was in college as well, and she opted
for international business. And one of the things we talked
about just after we both graduated was if she had
(24:32):
studied architecture, we would have drove each other crazy, uh,
just in terms of how different we are. So we
knew for a long time ago that like us working
together probably wouldn't be ideal, but I think we found
the right groove where we complement each other on each
of our individual projects. Yeah, it's clear there's a real
(24:54):
yin and yang at play here. And also just the
fact that you two are both what we call human
and diagrams. You have these very dynamic skill sets. What's
an example of a benefit of your differences and what's
an example of a challenge. The spaghetti experience of me
meeting her is actually, I think a huge metaphor for
(25:15):
Gabby's superpower. Um, she's the most self actualized person I've
ever met, and I don't think I knew how to
go about accomplishing goals until I met her. Uh, and
she kind of she just became the model of Okay,
this is how you make things happen. This is how
you go from an idea to manifesting whatever whatever it
(25:38):
is in your heart to do. I can absolutely say that, right.
So for for me, it's it's great to have that
drive kind of Hey I'm thinking about this, or hey
I was, I was thinking about reaching out to this person.
And because she's so self actualized, you know, she can
work out very quickly how to make that happen. Whereas
me like I can be a little like, oh, well,
(25:59):
I don't know, oh if that's you know, I don't
want to be too cautious, and she can be very direct. Okay,
that's perfect, but but it's good because if she does anything,
she gets me out of my comfort zone and that's
when I really grow. So that's definitely the thing that
I appreciate the most. Gay what's it like from your perspective?
(26:21):
The benefit and the challenge are really the same, depending
on how sensitive I'm feeling at the time. Because we
care about the same things, we have this thing that
always brings us together. We can see the endpoint of
what each other is trying to do and why, and
we connect to it. Because we are different in our approaches,
(26:45):
we can see each other's weak points in terms of
what things might not work, what things need to be addressed,
and that can be very, very beneficial when you're ready
to move forward and your planning and move into the
x acution phase. What's hard, though, and what I think
we try to plan against our navigate through, is that
(27:08):
sometimes our ideas are not ready for each other's criticisms
are feedback, Because sometimes I might have an idea that's
so new in my heart, are so new in my
mind that I just need to hear it's a great idea,
um or you know you should do it, and and
(27:29):
vice versa. But I know that I need to be
ready if I'm presenting it to Billy, it's at a
stage where I'm ready to get some feedback on how
it could be improved, what needs to be done next,
and ultimately it makes our ideas better. But sometimes it
can be hard to hear the places that it needs
to kind of be bolted up. And it's funny because
(27:51):
I know she's going to figure it out. Sometimes it's
me trying to get ahead of her and kind of
being like, Okay, if we're doing this, you gotta think
about this this And she's like, but I just want
to know it's like a good idea, And I'm like,
but it is a good idea, but these are the
things we need to do now that we know that
it's a good and so it's just kind of like
it's often like just finding the right cadence between us
(28:12):
of where we are in what the next thing we
want to do is that's right? Do you want a
high five or are you ready for a game? Plan, right, yeah,
or both. That's such an amazing self awareness of your partnership.
I've had professional partnerships, I've certainly had romantic partnerships that
could have benefited from that self awareness and wasn't there
(28:34):
at the time. And I just I think that's amazing
to be able to know sometimes I need this, and
as a partner, being able to kind of, you know,
read the room and know what your partner needs from you,
whether it's the high five or the game plan, is
really incredible. So here's the interesting thing about our house,
and I'll bring it back, is Billy literally has books,
(28:57):
like stacks of books, boxes of of sketch pads with
ideas that he has, Like you walk into our apartment
that all the mirrors in the bathroom are covered in
dry race marker from like his master plans. A beautiful mind,
and it's really cool to live in that and to
be a part of that. For me, though I don't
(29:19):
have nearly the abundance of ideas that he has. I
kind of get excited about one thing and I drilled
down for a while and then I move on to
something else. I had an idea, maybe it was just
a few weeks ago, and I was just struggling with
trying to figure out, like is this a great thing
to pursue or not. Through talking it through with Billy,
I realized like, oh, this is going to be a
(29:40):
waste of time, Like this is worth putting down, which
is an important lesson for me to pick up on
because I get excited about everything. But that's an experience
where maybe a few years before I would have been
too sensitive about or maybe too stubborn about to listen to.
But because of my seeing over time now like his
advice this is always spot on. He knows more about
(30:02):
what I'm trying to do than than I do. At
this point, you just saved me six months of like
forty hour work trying to do something that I that
I can see now isn't gonna mean anything. Wow. So
that that's the benefit. I mean that kind of trust too,
And the fact in the fifteen years that you both
have known each other and really done a lot of
(30:25):
growing together in both of your fields. It's incredible to
have the benefit of I almost want to say, the
efficiency of what you just said. Right. Yeah, he's a
great facilitator. I think. What's awesome about his work he's
practicing brainstorming all the time, like he is super efficient
(30:46):
at both generating ideas and curating which ones are great
versus good. And I'm still very much a nubie at that.
And I think, you know that just comes from my
background and experience. I don't have the train meaning that
he has, and so learning to lean on his that
process and being able to adapt some of that from
(31:06):
my own, I hope that I can get some of
those benefits and save time and choose what I pursue
more strategically with it. Your listeners can't see me slipping
the twenty dollar bill, Kate. What I was struck most
(31:27):
buy in this conversation was a point Gabby made about
emergency management and how she thought they had a data problem,
but really they had a storytelling problem, which lovely makes sense. Right.
When you think about a big, faceless problem with a
ton of statistics, it's easy to distance yourself from it
or think it doesn't affect you, right, But when you
(31:50):
know the story of one person, or one family or
one town, it makes it so much more human and real.
I think this is why you see the success of
go fund ease, right, because you can see how it
affects an individual person. It's so so true, you know.
It reminds me, Christina of something that Michael Tara Garver
shared in episode one of five, the Age of Experience,
(32:13):
which is her belief that why we've made theater and
television and every other form of storytelling is to reflect
back what it means to be human, right Like, it
is that human thread that phrase like I feel seen
or I see you comes from. Like to be able
(32:33):
to look in someone's eyes and realize that we are
all living this humanity together is so powerful, it is,
you know. I also was really taken by Gabby's incredibly
diverse skill set gosh international, business, coding, storytelling, public policy. Clearly,
(32:54):
she has found this incredible niche that fits her perfectly
and really leverages all of these elements of her ven diagram.
And she wasn't afraid of founding her own agency in
order to occupy that niche. You know, yeah, absolutely, you know.
I love the Billity described Gabby as the most self
actualized person he's ever met, you know, and you could
(33:17):
really feel that being in the room with her. You know,
he spoke to her ability to make things happen, and
Christina I was thinking about that. It's that superpower, like
that ability to see your diverse skills and wrangle them
towards a common and focused goal. Like I think that's
a key distinction between feelings scattered versus harnessing your unique
(33:38):
recipe to create a profound impact. I feel like there's
a T shirt that says something like skill wrangler on it.
I love when on our show we discovered these skills
that we don't even realize our skills, right, and there
modeled so beautifully for absolutely Oftentimes, partnering with someone who
can help you wrangle your els is as powerful and
(34:01):
often more efficient than doing it for yourself. Yeah, they
can reflect it back to you. Yeah, that's right. It's
so clear how much Billy appreciates Gabby's focus and directness.
On the flip side, I loved how Gabby mentioned that
discussing an idea with Billy has saved her months of
working on something full time that ultimately wouldn't have been
worth it. It It comes down to her point that sometimes
(34:23):
when she's going to him for feedback, she needs a
high five, right, she needs the encouragement to go ahead
with it, and sometimes she needs a game plan or
she needs that critical eye on how would this work.
And it's actually on her to tell Billy what she
needs when she comes to him asking for feedback. And
(34:45):
obviously this is a relationship that they have been building
on for what fifteen years now, which is incredible. Cannot
wait until I've had a partnership for fifteen years with
Chazz or with you write the same that that's incredible
and estment in someone. But it's really important to know,
whether you're five days in or fifteen years in, when
(35:07):
you go to that partner and ask for their help
and their advice, what you're actually asking for, because that's
what ensures you don't have this misalignment of expectations or
you don't have your feelings hurt when they show up
with the game plan and what you wanted was the
high five. Christina, that's so huge, you know. I often
talk about how giving constructive feedback is as much of
(35:28):
an art form as creating something right. Sure, there's this
term and I don't know I'm going to say in business.
I've heard it in business that's manage up right, Like
how do you manage up and really show the people
who you report to what you need? I think this
is such a great example for that that, like, while
setting yourself up to feed that can feel very vulnerable,
(35:50):
you can help steer that ship by verbalizing what you
want and need. Right, So this think about storytelling. Take
a look at the work you're currently doing and see
if you can mine it for areas that could be
expanded by story. Like, for example, are you working to
(36:11):
get others behind a cause. If so, whose story could
be told to help illustrate that causes importance? Or maybe
there are parts of your own story that, by framing
it up in a new way, will help others understand
you better and why you operate the way you do.
Maybe this is about what's the story that connects all
the interests in my human ven diagram? And while you're
(36:34):
potentially asking for feedback on that story, you also have
a great guide for how to do that from Gabby
as well. So we'd love for you to share one
of those stories with us. We love hearing from you.
You can reach us on Twitter or Instagram at t
ld n E pod or you can email us at
Hello at t ld n E podcast dot com, or
you can leave us a voicemail with that story at
(36:56):
eight three three high t l d n E. That's
eight three three eight five three six three zen dial
eight oh three. Oh my gosh, I would love a
voicemail message that's like a mini moth storytelling moment. That
would be amazing. As always, will link to everything we
talked about in the show notes to this episode, including
Brandon Fullish their storytelling Summit, and Billy's past episode which
(37:20):
is number seven Nature Be Wild in and you can
find all of those links at t ld n E
podcast dot com slash one ten. Thanks so much to
our producer Maya Coole and to you for tuning in.
(37:41):
As always, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
if you like what you heard, it really helps us
get the word out to fellow human ven diagrams. Until
next time, remember the limit does not The limit does
not exists is a production of I Heart Radio. For
(38:03):
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Yeah
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. Okay, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate Scott Campbell.
We're here to help you follow your curiosity, celebrate your individuality,
(00:20):
and embrace the and not the ore, so you can
turn everything you love into a custom built career that's
as unique and dynamic as you are. If you feel
that one path may not be your only path, and
you call yourself a human bend diagram, than you are
in the right place, because when it comes to pursuing
your passions, we believe the limit does not exist. Have
(00:44):
you ever tried to rally others to a cause and thought,
maybe what I need to inspire action is more data
I know I have. But today's guest might make you
see things from a whole new perspective. Maybe what you're
missing isn't data, but a compelling story. Gabrielle Allman is
a former humanitarian staffer turned undercover Hollywood operative. Gabby shares
(01:08):
how Hurricane Katrina led her to work in emergency management
and how that ultimately led her to create her own
agency that sparks groundbreaking transformational partnerships between the creative industry
and the public. Sector, and she's joined by her husband
and former tld n E guest Billy Allman, a designer
and storyteller with a passion for nature, technology, and innovation. Together,
(01:31):
they share what makes their partnership work and also why
they won't be collaborating on anything anytime soon. We love
the humor, self awareness, and genuine appreciation for their differences
that powers this power couple. It's true Gabby and Billy
are one dynamic duo. So let's meet them, shall we.
Let's do it. Gabby, you first came on our radar
(01:59):
in the Lightning round of Billy's episode on our show.
We had a question we always asked our guests, which
was give a shout out for a woman who's doing
awesome things, and Billy's shout out about you was so compelling.
Christine and I both went, we have got to talk
to Gabby and have her on the show. So we
(02:20):
are so happy to have you here. Thank you. It's
wonderful to be here. And I definitely slept Billy a
twenty dollar bill after I heard the podcast. Thank you
so much. I love it. Great job, Billy, thank you
way to earn that money. Every every dollar count, so
you studied international business at Howard University. Then you've got
(02:42):
a master's in public policy from USC So what initially
drew you to those fields? Did you have a game
plan when you were studying international business at Howard kind
of I did. So. When we think about when I
first went to college, I think it was around two
thousand four war, so this is when P Diddy was big.
This is when we had Comorley Simmons and Baby Fat.
(03:06):
And when I decided that I wanted to study international business,
I thought, I'm going to be a mogul like them,
Like that is exactly who I want to be and
what I wanted to do, and was well on my
way to it. I was really thankful that I did
well in those classes. But and my sophomore year in
two thousand five is when Hurricane Katrina had hit. It
was a big year because it was the first year
(03:27):
that Howard University students are able to live in a
co ed dorm. There was one day when I finally
got some money and I thought, Okay, I'm not gonna
eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches anymore. Go to make
something to eat. And it just so happened that our
dorm's kitchen was on Billy's floor and he was in
the room, and that's how I met him. Oh my gosh.
(03:49):
We struck up a conversation and about really within a week.
We hit it off so well that we were together
and looking at Billy nail to just confirm that this
is I'll never forge it. There was a distinct impression
she made because she came in with this bag full
of tomatoes and garlic. Our preface this by saying, I'm not,
(04:10):
by any means defined as a chef um, but I
knew that there was a distinction between her coming in
with like raw materials to make spaghetti from scratch and
some regu that I had seen some other other people
coming into the kitchen with. So it was an easy
thing to start a conversation with her around. You were
(04:31):
a smart enough co ed to know that Gabby seemed
to be in a class by herself bling in these
raw ingredients. Yes, now, Gabby tell us about her king Katrina,
because Billy, I remember in your episode you mentioned how
it really made an impact on you and led you
to biomimicry at the time. And it's really Gabby's fault,
as well, so, so Gabby, what happened? I was sitting
(04:52):
in class and this was in August, and I remember
one of my classmates picking up the phone and she
was really upset. And just by the pure demographics of
Howard University, it feels like half of the population is
from the South. So what would have been a very
small conversation on perhaps another campus felt like a campus
wide conversation at Howard. And our mutual friend Peter Carr
(05:15):
was the head of our local U A c P chapter.
He started to organize student response to her king Katrina.
I got involved because Peter and I were really good friends.
Because I got involved, Billy said, wherever you're going, I'm going,
smart man. We drove down on a I think it
was a twenty four hour drive from DC to New Orleans,
and what I saw there just completely transformed. It changed
(05:40):
the entire trajectory of my professional interests in my professional
career for the next decade. The reason why I say
it's her fault just to give her credit for that,
is because at the time I was impacted by it,
but I had already had excuses in my mind why
I shouldn't go, and because of Gabby when when she's
passionate about something, he finds a way to kind of
(06:01):
realize whatever it is that she feels she needs to do.
And so just seeing her drive and passion for it,
I was like, Okay, I'll go to and you know,
obviously I was still wooing her at the time, but
but again, just the experience of being down there, it
did the same thing for me. It really changed a
lot of the things that I valued and was focusing
(06:22):
on for school. A lot of what we did on
the ground was interacting with the mayor and city council members,
and half of the response that we got from the
elected officials was really inspiring and affirming, and half of
that was extremely disappointing. And leaving that experience, I thought,
I really want to understand how to craft an argument
that an elected official can't deny. How do I do that?
(06:46):
And it took a couple of years to figure it out,
but I realized that a master is in public policy,
which is all about crafting an argument for government, was
what I needed to pursue. So that's how I ended
up getting my master's at USC. Gabby, you started your
career in a merger and c management including working for
the City of Los Angeles, World Vision and for the
FEMA National Advisory Council. So can you just explain quickly
(07:09):
what emergency management is and how you found your way
into it. Emergency management is a field that emerged after
nine eleven. It's still pretty new, um, but it's essentially
it's a group of people. It's the industry that's responsible
for planning, for preparing, for responding to, and recovering from
(07:30):
any kind of hazard disaster that you can think of,
So from tsunamis to volcanoes, to terrorist attacks to whatever
a nuclear incident. These are the people that are responsible
for gathering information, creating plans, creating relationships, and seeing that
through to help people recover and be resilient no matter
what happens anywhere in the world. When I got to
(07:52):
grad school, I knew what emergency management was coming out
of undergrad when I realized that's what I wanted to do,
I didn't quite have the name for it. What I
saw in New Orleans and what I saw on the
Gulf Coast. The statement that I had in my mind
was I need to know how this should work. I
see how this is not working. How does this work. Well,
(08:12):
we call it disaster relief or we call it disaster response.
But as my understanding became more sophisticated, I realized, like, oh,
this is an actual industry. People are starting to develop
academic programs around it. I think, Okay, let me find
out where I can do this locally, and that's how
I got involved with the City of a Lais Emergency
Management Department, which does that for four million people, like
(08:33):
four thousand businesses. They're responsible for preparing for and responding
to emergencies. This is incredible. Obviously all of the examples
that you're giving, these huge emergency situations are impacting thousands
upon thousands of people. How do you sort of start
to make an impact? Was there a through line between
approaching different types of emergencies that you found on the
(08:55):
work being on the other side of it, So being
a few years and now there are different roles within
that space. There is the responders of the person who's
on the ground providing mass care, depending and if you're
a government response or humanitarian response, if you're if you're
with an organization, you're kind of doing everything and you're
(09:18):
typically responding in places that don't have a strong government system,
so you're outside of the US and you can be
seeing any and everything here in the US. You're more
so if you're an emergency management you're behind a desk,
but you're working twenty hours a day and you're supporting
the firefighters, the police department who are on the scene.
A lot of what I did I started to specialize
(09:40):
in humanitarian tech, so looking at how do I build
different kinds of systems to collect data help decision makers
understand where they want to deliver aid and how much.
And it really tapped on my coding skills, a bit
of user experience and design skills, and a lot of
future reism and foresight work to see where both where
(10:02):
we're going in terms of where the world is, what
population needs are, and what we needed to start to
do and build today so that we could be ready
for what's coming down the pipeline. So let's talk about
those tech solutions as a global innovation and technology follow
At World Vision, you developed geospatial solutions for global crisis response.
(10:23):
What did that look like? Very simply, it's just mapping.
When you look at CNN, we're in an election year
now and you have those people like touching on the
screens and different information pops up. That's what I did
on the back end. Interesting. Practically a lot of my
work focused on East Africa and Southeast Asia. So what
I did for World Vision which responds and like I
(10:46):
don't even know how many countries around the world, but
starting to develop different kinds of dashboards and platforms for
them to monitor emergencies that were emerging that we're happening
around the continent and all we'll see where they're responding
to and who really needed aid that they weren't reaching yet.
So a lot of things related to data, a lot
(11:07):
of things related to analysis. But I really really loved it. Wow,
when did you add coding to your toolbox? Have you
always been really interested in data? Yes, Ish, I didn't
have a name for it at that time. So going
back to Howard, I did finish my degree in international
business that I had this interest in disastrous mose. But
(11:28):
in Howard I started to take some modeling classes which
we now would call like formulaic or algorithm based classes,
and I really excelled in it. I loved it, and
I didn't understand why at the time, But when I
was preparing for grad school, I remember reading an article
talking about the World Bank and international development and them
staying at the time like the next wave of innovation
(11:50):
is going to be related to data. And I thought
to myself, well, these are the kind of people that
I want to work for, So I think I need
to pick up a skill about how to analyze visualized
data so that I can have a job after I graduate.
And so that's what I did. When I was in school,
I took as many complex analytical classes as I could,
(12:11):
and that just segued into different kinds of tech classes
and that touched on coding, and for whatever reason how
my brain works, it just happened to pick it up.
And then when I found myself at World Vision and
all these other places after it, because I had that skill,
I had opportunities to build on it, and then I
just became good enough at it to keep being tapped
(12:32):
on for different jobs to do it. When did you
discover your interest in storytelling and the impact it could
(12:53):
have on nonprofits, government agencies, other purpose driven organizations. It
actually goes back to my time organizing on Howard University's
campus for disaster response, and there was one moment where
the group of us who were leading this effort were
really challenged with what is the best way to send
(13:13):
hundreds of students down to the Gulf coast. Some people
were saying, we're going to limit it to like sixty people,
and other people were advocating for, you know, all the
hundreds who had applied to go, and like, how do
we raise money to support that? And I was on
the the latter end, you know, let's be as inclusive
as possible. And so we went around the table and
(13:34):
everyone had to justify why they were advocating for the
position that they were in terms of who can go
and who cannot. And I remember saying at that time
that my only interest in having everyone go is that
it's important in crises and disasters and these moments where
(13:54):
things can get highly politicized, that everyone has a chance
to be a part of the story. No one can
argue with experience, and when things get really nuts and
everyone has a really strong opinion, no one can argue
with someone who's actually been there and been a part
of it and been impacted by what they've seen. What
ended up transpiring for me over my time working the
(14:18):
in the humanitarian spaces, I thought, because of my background
in tech and my leaning in mathematics that as long
as we got data in front of people, as long
as we can get the statistics about what's happening around
the world and let people know how many people are
being impacted by x y Z crises, that as long
(14:39):
as people have the information, people will act on it.
And what I realized after ten years is that's not
true at all. We don't have a data problem in
humanitarian aid or emergency response. We have a storytelling problem.
My focus now, for however long, whether it's a couple
of years, in the next ten years, is to help
nonprofits and people and go from an agency's learn how
(15:01):
to be better storytellers, and really by leveraging my proximity
to and network in Hollywood to have the people who
are best at storytelling teach those folks how to do it.
So producers, directors, writers and anyone who's willing to lend
their skill and expertise tell us about your storytelling summit.
(15:21):
By sitting on Famous National Advisory Council, I convinced my
subcommittee's leadership to host a call where we had someone
from the Walt Disney Company, someone from Apple who used
to work with Steve Jobs and someone from DreamWorks sit
on a call for an hour and tell my fellow
council members everything they knew about how to craft stories
(15:45):
that connect with people, all with the purpose of how
do we help emergency managers deliver messages that people will
actually listen to. There's a huge problem of people ignoring
p s, a s. People not evacuating, not listening to
sound advice. So maybe if we craft this based on
some really sound storytelling principles, that can change. And when
ended up happening on this cause you could hear people's
(16:08):
mind just like you know, oh funny enough, and it
it was really transformational. And I realized afterward was there
are more fields outside of emergency management that would benefit
from that kind of information. How do I make that
as open and accessible as possible? And how do I
make this longer than one hour? And so that's where
(16:31):
the idea for a conference came in, and that's how
the Storytellers something it came to be and we had
our first conference last year and by God's grace and
when excellent and now I'm planning for the fall. What
inspired you to start your own agency and what has
been maybe an unexpected challenge or um discovery that surprised you.
I officially established Brandon Bullish in I've been an independent
(16:56):
consultant for a few years now, but when I decided
that yes, creativity, all things related to storytelling is something
that I want to do, I just don't want to
be an independent consultant. I want to turn this into
an establishment and the operation that's much much bigger than myself,
with the ultimate goal of there's only so much one
(17:16):
person can do, and if I can bring more people
on board, I want to do that. I need the
structure to do that. So Brandon Bullish is all about
finding unique and creative ways for the creative and entertainment
world to collaborate with the public sector and nonprofit folks.
And so first we're doing that with the Storyteller Summit. Next,
we're working on infiltrating and influencing writer's rooms who are
(17:39):
addressing a variety of topics. Also thinking about how do
we elevate the kind of people that really deserve to
be seen today. And I think people will really benefit
from hearing from considering all of the chaos and crises
we're experiencing in the world. As you advise these fortunate
(18:00):
hundred companies, nonprofits, government agencies. Are there common problems or
through lines that you see across all of these different organizations? Oh? Yeah, absolutely,
And I know this because this is my world. This
is these are the people that I've worked with over
the past decade, and not only are they make colleagues,
but their people admire very much. You look at any
(18:24):
government department, you look at any nonprofit, and you have
typically very underresourced, overstretched individuals. You have people who are
deeply skilled, wildly passionate, but have so little time to
do anything other than to keep themselves and their projects afloat.
(18:46):
And so when you're looking at storytelling in particular, I
run into a lot of people who want to do better,
who want to take their communications or their messaging the
marketing to the next level, but they just don't have
the support to do it, or they don't have the
network to guide them in that journey. Going back to
(19:07):
the Storyteller Summit, that's the first step in helping to
open that access to those people. The summit was not
just about learning, It was about how can we get
a lot of these folks in the same room to
start to build relationships with one another so that they
can work on things outside of myself, outside of this structure.
But there are other ways that I'm looking at. How
do we provide that kind of learning and support going forward. Well,
(19:29):
it's just gonna add one unbiased opinion on the impact
of it was also seeing the connection between people who
were passionate about different topics and about what's happening in
the world, who are graphic designers or artists or or musicians,
having them also be interested in connecting with people that
(19:49):
are in these government agencies for finding ways for them
to contribute as well. So it really was a hub
for all of these different passionate people around eating change
to kind of find those missing links in kind of
executing on helping. I love that point because I'm so
struck listening to you talk, Gabby about You're just diverse
(20:13):
skill set and how all of it is valuable in
what you do and thinking about to your point, Billy,
about all of these different skills that different people have
who are passionate, how do you lead the charge to
integrate those and to really focus them towards change. Yeah,
it's an open space. It's a unique opportunity and it's
(20:35):
a lot of work to do. But I think also
having seen over the last few years, that everyone, everyone
is affected by what's happening in the news, and everyone
wants to not feel overwhelmed. They want to be hopeful
about what's going on, and they want to have an
impact that's meaningful. Where I come from, we're the folks
behind the headlines were addressing it. We don't get a
(20:58):
lot of news coverage, but we have a unique opportunity
to be a part of the solution. The opportunity that
exists is that you have these incredibly gifted, creative people
whose skills are very much needed, whose knowledge is very
much needed, who desire to have a deep impact, and
this is a really unique way for them to harness
everything that they've learned and do it for good. The
(21:35):
strength of your partnership and of each of you as
individuals is so apparent it cannot be overstated. So tell
us about your partnership. We're really each other's brain trust.
That's usually kind of how things start. So Bill and
I we've been together for fifteen years this year. So
we met when we were nineteen, were turning thirty four
(21:57):
this year, and it's it's But what's really interesting for
my personal perspective is how our relationship has shifted, considering
my pivot now into this space that he's really knowledgeable
and an expert and so interesting. For the first twelve
years of us being together, I was really focused on
(22:20):
emergessey management and humanitarian aid, and for the most part,
Billy was my encourager, that was our partnership dynamic. Anything
I wanted to do, he was the person that would
just listen to me and say, go do it. I'm
behind you. But now this is the first time in
our relationship where I'm looking to him for professional advice,
(22:43):
for even introductions, or really getting his feedback on what
doesn't look right about what I'm trying to do. I'm
really stuck on figuring out X y Z and him
being able to give me not only the kind of
thought and feedback that I really need, but me being
able to see for the first time and really understand
(23:05):
for the first time, like, Oh, this is what he
was talking about when he was talking about producing, This
is what he meant when he talked about all these
different parts of the creative process that I just went
over my head for so many years, so it's a
new new fund space, and it's changed our relation to
each other for sure. Do you think you might have
(23:27):
a joint bio mimicry storytelling project in your future? I mean,
it feels like there's so many cool intersections of that work. No,
probably not. Here's the thing, our our personalities are really different,
(23:49):
our styles are really different. What's always pulled us together
as our common interest in our common values, but how
we go about pursuing those things is very different enough
that we know that if we were to work together
on the same project for a period of time. Billy
(24:10):
helped me out here and and we we've known this
for a while. So one thing Gabby didn't say is
that I studied architecture in undergrad when we were at Howard,
and Gabriel wanted to be and was considering studying architecture
when she was in college as well, and she opted
for international business. And one of the things we talked
about just after we both graduated was if she had
(24:32):
studied architecture, we would have drove each other crazy, uh,
just in terms of how different we are. So we
knew for a long time ago that like us working
together probably wouldn't be ideal, but I think we found
the right groove where we complement each other on each
of our individual projects. Yeah, it's clear there's a real
(24:54):
yin and yang at play here. And also just the
fact that you two are both what we call human
and diagrams. You have these very dynamic skill sets. What's
an example of a benefit of your differences and what's
an example of a challenge. The spaghetti experience of me
meeting her is actually, I think a huge metaphor for
(25:15):
Gabby's superpower. Um, she's the most self actualized person I've
ever met, and I don't think I knew how to
go about accomplishing goals until I met her. Uh, and
she kind of she just became the model of Okay,
this is how you make things happen. This is how
you go from an idea to manifesting whatever whatever it
(25:38):
is in your heart to do. I can absolutely say that, right.
So for for me, it's it's great to have that
drive kind of Hey I'm thinking about this, or hey
I was, I was thinking about reaching out to this person.
And because she's so self actualized, you know, she can
work out very quickly how to make that happen. Whereas
me like I can be a little like, oh, well,
(25:59):
I don't know, oh if that's you know, I don't
want to be too cautious, and she can be very direct. Okay,
that's perfect, but but it's good because if she does anything,
she gets me out of my comfort zone and that's
when I really grow. So that's definitely the thing that
I appreciate the most. Gay what's it like from your perspective?
(26:21):
The benefit and the challenge are really the same, depending
on how sensitive I'm feeling at the time. Because we
care about the same things, we have this thing that
always brings us together. We can see the endpoint of
what each other is trying to do and why, and
we connect to it. Because we are different in our approaches,
(26:45):
we can see each other's weak points in terms of
what things might not work, what things need to be addressed,
and that can be very, very beneficial when you're ready
to move forward and your planning and move into the
x acution phase. What's hard, though, and what I think
we try to plan against our navigate through, is that
(27:08):
sometimes our ideas are not ready for each other's criticisms
are feedback, Because sometimes I might have an idea that's
so new in my heart, are so new in my
mind that I just need to hear it's a great idea,
um or you know you should do it, and and
(27:29):
vice versa. But I know that I need to be
ready if I'm presenting it to Billy, it's at a
stage where I'm ready to get some feedback on how
it could be improved, what needs to be done next,
and ultimately it makes our ideas better. But sometimes it
can be hard to hear the places that it needs
to kind of be bolted up. And it's funny because
(27:51):
I know she's going to figure it out. Sometimes it's
me trying to get ahead of her and kind of
being like, Okay, if we're doing this, you gotta think
about this this And she's like, but I just want
to know it's like a good idea, And I'm like,
but it is a good idea, but these are the
things we need to do now that we know that
it's a good and so it's just kind of like
it's often like just finding the right cadence between us
(28:12):
of where we are in what the next thing we
want to do is that's right? Do you want a
high five or are you ready for a game? Plan, right, yeah,
or both. That's such an amazing self awareness of your partnership.
I've had professional partnerships, I've certainly had romantic partnerships that
could have benefited from that self awareness and wasn't there
(28:34):
at the time. And I just I think that's amazing
to be able to know sometimes I need this, and
as a partner, being able to kind of, you know,
read the room and know what your partner needs from you,
whether it's the high five or the game plan, is
really incredible. So here's the interesting thing about our house,
and I'll bring it back, is Billy literally has books,
(28:57):
like stacks of books, boxes of of sketch pads with
ideas that he has, Like you walk into our apartment
that all the mirrors in the bathroom are covered in
dry race marker from like his master plans. A beautiful mind,
and it's really cool to live in that and to
be a part of that. For me, though I don't
(29:19):
have nearly the abundance of ideas that he has. I
kind of get excited about one thing and I drilled
down for a while and then I move on to
something else. I had an idea, maybe it was just
a few weeks ago, and I was just struggling with
trying to figure out, like is this a great thing
to pursue or not. Through talking it through with Billy,
I realized like, oh, this is going to be a
(29:40):
waste of time, Like this is worth putting down, which
is an important lesson for me to pick up on
because I get excited about everything. But that's an experience
where maybe a few years before I would have been
too sensitive about or maybe too stubborn about to listen to.
But because of my seeing over time now like his
advice this is always spot on. He knows more about
(30:02):
what I'm trying to do than than I do. At
this point, you just saved me six months of like
forty hour work trying to do something that I that
I can see now isn't gonna mean anything. Wow. So
that that's the benefit. I mean that kind of trust too,
And the fact in the fifteen years that you both
have known each other and really done a lot of
(30:25):
growing together in both of your fields. It's incredible to
have the benefit of I almost want to say, the
efficiency of what you just said. Right. Yeah, he's a
great facilitator. I think. What's awesome about his work he's
practicing brainstorming all the time, like he is super efficient
(30:46):
at both generating ideas and curating which ones are great
versus good. And I'm still very much a nubie at that.
And I think, you know that just comes from my
background and experience. I don't have the train meaning that
he has, and so learning to lean on his that
process and being able to adapt some of that from
(31:06):
my own, I hope that I can get some of
those benefits and save time and choose what I pursue
more strategically with it. Your listeners can't see me slipping
the twenty dollar bill, Kate. What I was struck most
(31:27):
buy in this conversation was a point Gabby made about
emergency management and how she thought they had a data problem,
but really they had a storytelling problem, which lovely makes sense. Right.
When you think about a big, faceless problem with a
ton of statistics, it's easy to distance yourself from it
or think it doesn't affect you, right, But when you
(31:50):
know the story of one person, or one family or
one town, it makes it so much more human and real.
I think this is why you see the success of
go fund ease, right, because you can see how it
affects an individual person. It's so so true, you know.
It reminds me, Christina of something that Michael Tara Garver
shared in episode one of five, the Age of Experience,
(32:13):
which is her belief that why we've made theater and
television and every other form of storytelling is to reflect
back what it means to be human, right Like, it
is that human thread that phrase like I feel seen
or I see you comes from. Like to be able
(32:33):
to look in someone's eyes and realize that we are
all living this humanity together is so powerful, it is,
you know. I also was really taken by Gabby's incredibly
diverse skill set gosh international, business, coding, storytelling, public policy. Clearly,
(32:54):
she has found this incredible niche that fits her perfectly
and really leverages all of these elements of her ven diagram.
And she wasn't afraid of founding her own agency in
order to occupy that niche. You know, yeah, absolutely, you know.
I love the Billity described Gabby as the most self
actualized person he's ever met, you know, and you could
(33:17):
really feel that being in the room with her. You know,
he spoke to her ability to make things happen, and
Christina I was thinking about that. It's that superpower, like
that ability to see your diverse skills and wrangle them
towards a common and focused goal. Like I think that's
a key distinction between feelings scattered versus harnessing your unique
(33:38):
recipe to create a profound impact. I feel like there's
a T shirt that says something like skill wrangler on it.
I love when on our show we discovered these skills
that we don't even realize our skills, right, and there
modeled so beautifully for absolutely Oftentimes, partnering with someone who
can help you wrangle your els is as powerful and
(34:01):
often more efficient than doing it for yourself. Yeah, they
can reflect it back to you. Yeah, that's right. It's
so clear how much Billy appreciates Gabby's focus and directness.
On the flip side, I loved how Gabby mentioned that
discussing an idea with Billy has saved her months of
working on something full time that ultimately wouldn't have been
worth it. It It comes down to her point that sometimes
(34:23):
when she's going to him for feedback, she needs a
high five, right, she needs the encouragement to go ahead
with it, and sometimes she needs a game plan or
she needs that critical eye on how would this work.
And it's actually on her to tell Billy what she
needs when she comes to him asking for feedback. And
(34:45):
obviously this is a relationship that they have been building
on for what fifteen years now, which is incredible. Cannot
wait until I've had a partnership for fifteen years with
Chazz or with you write the same that that's incredible
and estment in someone. But it's really important to know,
whether you're five days in or fifteen years in, when
(35:07):
you go to that partner and ask for their help
and their advice, what you're actually asking for, because that's
what ensures you don't have this misalignment of expectations or
you don't have your feelings hurt when they show up
with the game plan and what you wanted was the
high five. Christina, that's so huge, you know. I often
talk about how giving constructive feedback is as much of
(35:28):
an art form as creating something right. Sure, there's this
term and I don't know I'm going to say in business.
I've heard it in business that's manage up right, Like
how do you manage up and really show the people
who you report to what you need? I think this
is such a great example for that that, like, while
setting yourself up to feed that can feel very vulnerable,
(35:50):
you can help steer that ship by verbalizing what you
want and need. Right, So this think about storytelling. Take
a look at the work you're currently doing and see
if you can mine it for areas that could be
expanded by story. Like, for example, are you working to
(36:11):
get others behind a cause. If so, whose story could
be told to help illustrate that causes importance? Or maybe
there are parts of your own story that, by framing
it up in a new way, will help others understand
you better and why you operate the way you do.
Maybe this is about what's the story that connects all
the interests in my human ven diagram? And while you're
(36:34):
potentially asking for feedback on that story, you also have
a great guide for how to do that from Gabby
as well. So we'd love for you to share one
of those stories with us. We love hearing from you.
You can reach us on Twitter or Instagram at t
ld n E pod or you can email us at
Hello at t ld n E podcast dot com, or
you can leave us a voicemail with that story at
(36:56):
eight three three high t l d n E. That's
eight three three eight five three six three zen dial
eight oh three. Oh my gosh, I would love a
voicemail message that's like a mini moth storytelling moment. That
would be amazing. As always, will link to everything we
talked about in the show notes to this episode, including
Brandon Fullish their storytelling Summit, and Billy's past episode which
(37:20):
is number seven Nature Be Wild in and you can
find all of those links at t ld n E
podcast dot com slash one ten. Thanks so much to
our producer Maya Coole and to you for tuning in.
(37:41):
As always, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
if you like what you heard, it really helps us
get the word out to fellow human ven diagrams. Until
next time, remember the limit does not The limit does
not exists is a production of I Heart Radio. For
(38:03):
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Yeah
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