Episode Transcript
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You are listening to be Amplified thePodcast with Brie and Tis episode fifty six.
Hey, Amplifiers, welcome to beAmplified the Podcast. My name is
Tayis and I'm bree Seely. Weare the co founders of the Amplified Collective,
a movement aimed at radically disrupting howpurpose driven women connect and operate in
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the world, because we believe it'snot just what you do, but who
you are that matters. Each week, join us for messages and interviews that
will leave you feeling amplified and readyto change the world. Let's do this.
Good morning, Amplifiers. Brete Seelyhere, Hey everybody, taste guy,
(00:45):
Welcome to our podcast as usual.I think done. I think that's
good. Welcome to our podcast andthen done. One quick thing that I
wanted to mention before we jump in, and then we do have another quick
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announcement is we wanted to say ahuge, massive, fucking thank you to
every single person who listens. Thisis the final episode of July and this
was our biggest podcast month to date. Yeah, like, of course,
obviously it keeps growing, but wetook a massive jump this month, and
we wouldn't be here without each andevery one of you listening right now.
(01:30):
Yeah, no, it's pretty rad. And we forget sometimes when we're in
our closets talking to each other,that people actually listen to this stuff.
And yet I've been getting and nonedated with people sharing how much this podcast
has touched their hearts and has movedthem. And it means so much to
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me that we get to use ourstories to move you in some way and
inspire you in some way. Sothank you for taking time out of your
life to listen to our rants ramblingand our almond eatings. Oh my god,
no, no, that is neveracceptable. No, um, So
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thank you all, seriously, seriously, seriously, thank you. I know
we don't say it often enough,but we do love everyone that listens,
and we are so fucking grateful.And if you feel inspired by the podcast,
feel free to share it with liketwo or twenty of your friends,
no big deal, Just two ortwo hundred, just two or two thousand
of your closest friends, or twomillion, it's fine. It's fine to
(02:36):
two billions. That's all we askfor me. It was two billion people.
We can't go bigger than that becausewe don't have more twos of the
billions. What comes after that.We don't have like twenty billion people on
this planet, So okay, toshare it with the entire world and we
will be happy every single person youknow, and then tell them to share
it with every single person they know, and then you'll get to the whole
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world and like, good day,Right, no big deal. Six degrees
guys, that's all it takes.Um So anyways, seriously though, thank
you guys. So that's the firstthing. The second announcement we have is
that tomorrow night we are getting togetherto clink our glasses and raise our forks
in a delicious meal in downtown LosAngeles, and it's gonna be awesome and
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we want you there. Yeah.I think we have just a few tickets
left, so if you're free tomorrownight, yeah, and you want a
highly curated event. We're going tohave an entertainer, We're gonna have a
full course meal. We're gonna havereally good conversations from Veggie Grill, which,
by the way, their food isamazing. It's super healthy. We
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have keen wash stuff. We're gonnahave mac and cheese, but it's healthy
mac and cheese. I shouldn't havetold tys that it's gluten free. I
know Tyson is gonna be so angry, but it's so good. Okay,
Well I'm we'll see. I willdetermine how good it is. And of
course the Grand Cortage and Hint Waterand all of our favorite brands, every
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amazing gift bags. Yes, yes, So if you've been tomorrow night,
go to a website, the Amplifycollective dot com. Go to the events
tab. All the information is there, and we have more dinner parties coming
up before the end of the year, so you get to learn about all
of our events. We're also doinga mixture at Michael Cores, which is
going to be fun. We havea lot of cool stuff. Yeah,
I've already planned what I'm buying atthe Michael Cores event. Oh good,
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Oh good, because ten percent ofour proceeds that night are going to Piece
Over Violence, which is an amazingLA based charity. So gott a shop,
got a shop obviously obviously gotta doit all. Right, let's get
into it. We have an amazingguest today as always, yess yep.
Yeah, Kelly is going to betalking about her her thesis. Is the
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best way to put it the femalelifestyle empowerment brand and what that means women
everywhere. She has some really greatinsights for those of you who are entrepreneurs
marketing yourself in the world. Andso Brie and I thought that we would
begin the conversation talking about brand andbranding in general. And this conversation does
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not just apply to entrepreneurs. No, we are all responsible for making sure
that what we are putting out intothe world is being accounted. Or what
am I trying to say? Well, okay, okay, go back up.
What I'm trying to say is,if you're in the corporate world,
what you post online, what youpost on social media will be scrutinized.
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Yes, So it's important no matterwhere you are, what an entrepreneur or
in the corporate world, that youhave your mind on what you're posting and
what you're sharing and what you're doingand being you know, cognizant of that.
And of course for a few differentreasons. One, you know,
when you when you're posting things onsocial media, do you want to be
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contributing to the chaos that is goingon in our world old or do you
want to be sharing truths and thingsthat matter? And important conversations and things
like that. So that, ofcourse is one aspect of it, and
the other aspect of it is everysingle thing you post is getting looked at
by somebody, whether they're a futureclient, a future employer, a future
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friend or partner or whatever. Literally, everything we all post online all the
time is being scrutinized. Yes,it's like your selfies matter. Your selfies
are saying something to the world.Your presence is saying something to the world.
What you say, what you dois impacting people on one level or
another. And so this isn't justanother thing to be obsessing over. It.
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It's just reality. There's you know, those group of teenagers who got
kicked out of Harvard admissions because theywere in a they were posting in a
group or in a message or somethingvery racist, sexist things, and Harvard
was like, we don't have atolerance for that, and they removed their
admission. So this stuff is important. What you're saying, what you're doing
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online is important. You know,what gets post on Internet, it stays
on Internet forever, you know.So on one level we have to be
cognizant of that. But then onanother level, and something that is going
to be talking about later. Andsomething that I've been aware of so much
recently, especially on Instagram, ishow much because we have to be cognizant
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of what we're posting, It's likewe have to filter our entire lives through
a very thin lens of does thisaligne with my quote unquote brand? And
so what we end up finding onInstagram, especially because such a picture based
modality is a sliver of people's livesas if it's their whole life. Right,
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there's nothing more shocking, I guessthan you know, finding someone online
on Instagram loving their life, lovingwhat they're posting, and then meeting them
in person and realizing their lives looknothing like what they share online. Wasn't
overheard in LA recently, and I'mtrying to look it up quick. I
don't know if I'll be able toquickly enough, but it was she it
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was something, hold on, letme see if I can find it.
We cut out this space, right, No, it's fine, we'll keep
it in. But you know,while you're looking, I will just say,
um that I am seeing that thisidea of a brand and having a
brand can be absolutely detrimental to women'swhile being um, and it exacerbates the
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pressures that are already placed on womento have it all, do it all,
and make it look easy. Andso we're only putting out into the
world our perfect slivers of life andour perfect photos and you know, body
angles that make us look skinnier,and so it's continuing to perpetuate the conversation
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that we are constantly broken and wehave to be fixed. And by showing
just a sliver of our lives,then we get to, in one facet,
be what we've always dreamed of being. We get to identify what society
has deemed as acceptable, but atthe cost of perpetuating shit, and not
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just for other people, for yourself. Yeah, so what this quote was?
You know, it says friend partysilver like girl looking at her own
Instagram. I'm jealous of myself.I wish my life was actually this good.
Yeah, perfect, That's exactly right, you know. And we use
specific filters like whitewash, filters thatmake everything like shiny and new and pretty.
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We clean things before we take apicture of it, so we deny
the messiness of our own existence,and in that way, we're enabling women
to believe that their lives have tobe perfect in order for them, and
though, Bree, I mean,come on, it's also very very fun
to have a brand, and it'sfun. Instagrams my favorite, and you
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know, I get to share myvoice and my viewpoint with the world and
like my heart and expansion and possibilityand like all these beautiful things, but
also trying to make the straddle betweenthat and making sure that people aren't looking
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at my stuff feeling terribly at thesame time, right, I mean,
And that's the line. Like,for example, you know, the before
and after photos can be inspiring.Wow, look at where they came from,
look at how hard they had towork to get here, and so
on one level, it's inspiring,and we love the rags to Richest stories
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because we all want to believe thatwe can be our own rags to richest
stories. But on the other level, it is a deep layer that we're
shaming people in there before and thatwe're not before and after photos. We
are human beings and there's nothing wrongwith who you were before, you know
what I mean, And so it'slike it fat shags people into believing that
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they are there before and they haveto be fixed and be skinny in order
to be proud of their after andwith the rags to richest story, there's
only a very very very very smallpercentage of people who actually have these rags
to richest stories and be successful andwhatever the level of successes. So it
perpetuates this idea that it's kind oflike the one percent. It's like believing
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that you have to be a partof the one percent in order to be
happy in order to be fulfilled.The majority of us are never going to
reach the whatever level of success thatyou know those people have, So this
is interesting. I'm actually reading thisbook right now called The Millionaire next Door,
and it's this guy who is hiredby all these companies to do massive
amounts of market research on millionaires andit's so it is super fascinating. I'm
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only a liver of the way intoit, but it talks about how this
lifestyle that we're sold that looks,you know, like millionaires look like this.
They consume, consume, consume,They have you know, huge houses
in Beverly Hills and drive Lamborghinis anddo this and that, D D D.
Right, Like, that's the ideathat we're sold as as a millionaire
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lifestyle. You look at look upmillionaire on Instagram, I dare you,
and all the photos are of likeridiculous fucking things. And basically what this
guy has found is that he saidhe the first study that they were doing,
they got people who had a networth of ten million or more come
in and they got them caviar andthe super vintage like Bordeaux wine and all
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of these amazing things. And basicallythe richest man in the room owned like
a janitorial service yep. And hewalked in and his name was like mister
Bud yep. And no one atthat meeting touched the caviare They all ate
the plane crackers without like without thepatte. No one wanted wine. The
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guy was like, I only drinktwo two kinds of beer free and Budweiser.
Like you know, so we're soldthis this bill of goods about like,
well, if you want to beyou know, successful and famous and
popular and rich, then you haveto go out and have all of these
things, when in actuality, it'sthat consumerism that's actually keeping us from the
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success that we desire. Well,and spending money isn't having money, right,
So if you want to be amillionaire, you have to have millions
in your bank account, so spendingall of your money prevents you from So
they say that lawyers and doctors actuallywhen they look at um their net worth
have less general net worth than teachersand plumbers and these quote unquote lower caliber
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whatever. But it's because lay yearsand doctors in these higher end careers.
I hate using loan and him,but we're gonna go for it for now.
They also have a lifestyle to maintain, so they have to be spending
their money on all these things thatare preventing them from actually having money in
the bank. Whereas you know,teachers have less of an expectation to put
money in the bank to spend money, so they put more money in the
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bank, they ultimately have more money. I love that you brought that up.
So we're being sold. Oh goahead. Oh it's gonna say there's
one other aspect to it too,because it's it's not just about the money.
The people studying they have long termmarriages I see, and they have
powerful relationships in their life and they'represent for their children. And I mean
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it's like this, it was thestudy. I mean, the book is
huge and like I said, I'mjust a fraction of the way in.
But it's fascinating that it's those peoplethat are being present for their life and
that are really, truly, trulyfucking grateful for every thing that's in it,
and that are prioritizing those things overthe spending and the making their Instagram
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look perfect and showing up. AndI think they He said that the average
spenditure for this group of people onsuits was under three hundred ninety nine dollars
for a suit. Wow. Yeah. So I have a dear friend who
is extremely wealthy, extremely shaming thewealthy, and she said to me,
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she goes, hey, he's rich. People scream Wealthy people whisper. So
rich people people to have a lotof money. They scream their wealth.
They're flamboyant and sharing their wealth andhow amazing their money is and look at
all the stuff that they're spending.Whereas wealthy people whisper their wealth isn't based
on just money and they don't careto brag. They care about having their
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value system that they care, likeyou said, about being present, about
being in that state of gratitude,which is so so so pivotal and key
to our well being. So somethingto be thinking about is that what people
are portraying as happiness on as partof their brands online may actually not be
what's happening. So it's leading toa lot of disillusioned people. And there's
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a lot of studies to show thatpeople who are spending most time online are
actually more depressed, and they youknow, are giving up friendships offline to
kind of pseudo friendships online. Notthat you can't have real friendships online,
it's what I'm saying, But it'slike they're hiding from showing up in their
real lives and not the real life. Again, I don't want to say
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that online life is not real,but but you know what I'm saying,
like, like it's true. Though. So yesterday I was right. I
was driving with my sister through LAand I was like, you know,
we were talking about how Macy's isshutting down and the Limited went under and
all these retail brands are going outbecause no one wants to shop in person
anymore. And I was saying,I actually feel bad for some of the
generations coming up, because you know, we would spend our afternoons at the
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mall or whatever after school, andnow the kids are basically going to be
going home. I mean essentially thisis in my mind of course, and
like they're going to be substituting thosein person kind of things with virtual reality,
right, and so that isn't real. It's not real. That virtual
stuff is not it's not real life. Yeah, yeah, So it's just
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it's just some things that I've beennavigating a lot of is how can I
make my brand be real? Howcan I instead of filtering my life through
my brand? How can I matchmy brand to my life? I love
that. How can what I shareonline be a reflection of the messiness that
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is in my life? So thatmeans celebrating the good and being with the
amazing parts of my life. Andhow keep my doggy is while also being
real at the times when I'm notfeeling good, when I'm grieving, when
I'm at loss, when I'm ashamedand I'm anxious, et cetera, et
cetera. How can I make surethat I'm not giving people a fake representation
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of who I am just for theidea of inspiring You know, I don't
want to be I don't want toinspire people to be fake, right,
So, and I know that you'vebeen navigating that too, and so,
yeah, we've the idea that everybodyis a brand is helpful. It's a
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helpful way to look at it whenit comes to applying for jobs and when
it comes to you know, knowingwhat to post. And it also is
a huge hindrance because then we feelthis pressure to have to make our lives
appear something that's not. Yeah,yeah, it's It's especially hard for me
because I know that branding and marketingand all this stuff is like to encourage
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consumerism, and obviously it's a it'sa line, and it's a line that
I personally struggle with because I lovewhat I do. I love being an
entrepreneur. I fucking get to changepeople's lives like that is such an honor
that I don't take lightly at all. And in order to do that,
in order to connect with the peoplethat need my services, I have to
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market myself. But then, ofcourse I come from this marketing aspect of
having been in the fashion industry,where all marketing is fake. It's literally
all an illusion and it's all lies, and I have had personally a really
hard time. I'm still struggling withit now, straddling this line of like
getting out there so that my peopleknow about me and can work with me
so that they can transform their lives, and trying not to make sure that
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my marketing is fake or manipulative orit's like it's so fucking hard. It
is really hard. Marketing gets alot of gets a bad rep because of
that, because it's meant to bemanipulative. It's meant to trigger a level
of authority. I mean, youknow Jeff Walker's entire formulas. You've got
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to trigger authority, You've got totrigger people in lack, You've got to
trigger you know, all these socialtriggers that are going to make people buy
for you. But it's it is, at the end of the day,
in many ways just manipulation and Ragsto Riches is a great way that we
use. That's a manipulation. Youknow, if you sell your rags to
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riches as people's as you're broken andyou need to get to this level and
I'm going to show you how toget to this level of lifestyle, you're
basically you're exploiting their desires to improve. And I see that spiritual entrepreneurs are
the most gullible and they are theones that are most likely to be exploited
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because they love what they do andthey're so thirsty to spread their impact,
and they're so thirsty to have makemoney in their business that they can make
greater impact that they're willing to believeand buy into a lot of bullshit in
the industry. And it's heartbreaking,and I feel like I got to be
the protector, and I've got tosay I got to say something. I
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can't just let this go on.Something I've been really sitting with lately in
the past few months is that Ilove being a coach. And a lot
of people have been like pulling awayfrom the word coach, like, you
know, we talked about this inNew York. You know, I'm pulling
away from the word coach because ofall the stuff in our industry. And
I so hear that. But Ilove that I get to be called a
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coach because the therapy and psychology industryis so narrow minded and they're so limited
in what the tools that they canuse, and I get to use it
all and I get to use myknowledge in psychology and my education in psychology,
my expertise in women's psychology, aswell as the more holistic experience of
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energy and everything else. I getto use all of that in my conversation
as being a coach. So Iwant to reclaim the word coach. I
think that we need to be powerfullytake a stand for the world coach and
then protect our industry and call shitout and tell people who are exploiting the
industry for their quick buck by usingbags, riches and all the stuff that
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that is not acceptable and that we'renot going to allow that to happen in
an industry that is so precious andso powerful and can change people's lives in
says radical way, how do wedo that? Because I literally sat down
last week and wrote a huge rant. It's nowhere yet other than in my
own personal life, but I'm thinkingabout publishing it because I was super triggered.
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A few weeks ago. I openedup Instagram and one of the quote
unquote top coaches in the industry postedabout how her private coaching practice as a
numbers game, and I was like, you're fucking with people's lives. That's
not okay. And so now Iam I'm one of those people that,
like I don't want to say I'ma coach, don't. I don't want
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to. Yeah, because because weare act like we can let the people
who are abusing the industry claim theword, we can't let we can't let
that happen. We as the peoplewho are passionate about what we do and
are not going away anytime soon,are not here to just make a quick
book. We've got to be claimingthe words again. It's like it's like
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the ultimate reclamation, right, Likewe're reclaiming the word pussy, and we're
saying, I'm not gonna let peoplecall me a pussy and have it means
something degrading. I'm going to reclaimthe word pussy and have it be powerful
because our vaginas are fucking badass,right, So we're reclaiming it. There's
so many marginalized communities who are reclaimingwords that have been generally used as a
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bad thing, right, Like theword queer used to mean something so negative,
and then the lgbt QIA communities likefuck that, Like, we're going
to reclaim I am proud to bea queer because this is what it means
for me, and this is whatit means in our community. So for
the coaching industry, for all ofyou listening that are feeling timid around the
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world. Coach, I dare youto claim it as yours again, and
claim it as yours by being very, very deliberate in your marketing and being
deliberate and not perpetuating the things thatare not working. You know, Bree.
I use time Hoop and I goon time hoob every day to see
what I posted in the past,and I see my Facebook posts and how
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much I've contributed to the violence ofwomen in the coaching industrying things that I
share, the things that I write, and how in the moment I thought
they were so brilliant, I thoughtthey were so good, And now I'm
like, wow, that was alla lie. I was sharing one part
of myself to get some money andI wasn't working anyway. And you know,
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it's it's okay that that was there, and now we get to choose
something different, and now we getto be different, and now we get
to say, if I don't wantthis industry to be slathered by people who
are here to make it a numbersgame, then I've got to step up
and start calling it out and callingit in and inviting a new paradigm and
That's why I'm so obsessed with KellyDeals, because she is so fucking unapologetic
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about calling in a new paradigm inhow she breaks down the female lifestyle and
empowerment brand, which you guys aregoing to hear about a little bit later.
And even if her messaging may notresonate with you per se, what
she does offer is an invitation thatwe do not have to be manipulative,
and we do not have to haveit be a numbers game, and we
don't have to brand ourselves. Isonly the perfect part of ourselves to be
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successful and to make money and tobe about women's empowerment, because we can't.
We can't on one hand saying I'mhere to empower women and then on
the other hand say, and I'mgoing to do it by leveraging authority that
I don't have and using rags toriches and and using scarcity mindset. Right
here, it is these coaches saying, don't believe in scarcity mindset, but
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I'm going to play scarcity by givingyou is limited time only bonus expires tonight
and you've got to get it tonight. When that's so arbitrary and so unnecessary
as a social trigger to get peopleto buy. The hard thing is is
that it keeps working. What arewe going to do about it? Well,
it works because it's psychology and andthey're the bubble is bursting. It
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may take another five years for itto fully burst, but the bubble is
bursting. People are getting smart,you know, Millennials are really smart to
knowing when we're being sold to,Like we can tell a mile away when
an advertisement or whatever. We cantell. So people are gonna have to
stick getting more creative. And Ibelieve that the best people that are getting
creative are the ones that are gettingmore real and are getting more authentic and
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are getting more flat out like thisis this is not acceptable anymore. Yeah,
so quick shout out. If youwould like to see more real social
media is you could have the bestof our abilities anyway. You can find
both of us on Instagram at IAm tais Sky and at Breezily. Yeah.
You know, of course we dohave our days. I think my
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last post that I posted was likea sunset photo from the rooftop of the
Ace Hotel. But uh yeah,but hold on, but what we're saying
here, right, isn't that youcan't share beautiful things. This world is
so fucked. We need beautiful things. We need things that remind us of
our light. We need reminders andinspiration. We need that. That's why
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we go to museums, That's whywe go and listen to opera. That's
why we listen to That's why wego spend thousands of dollars for Justin Bieber
concert like we've canceled. Yeah,we need the joy, we need the
love, we need the inspiration.We're not saying to not share that because
we need that. We need thesunsets and the reminders that this world is
so beautiful. But I guess whatI'm saying is we need the winter and
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the summer. We need both.We need both. If you see nature,
she balances herself out. Yes,there's the deserts, but there's also
the tundras and the Sahara are That'sthe what's that thing in Russia, the
big thing that's all iced and cold? Oh my god, I don't know,
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Okay, tundra. We need both, right, we need the all
the seasons. We need the hotand the cold. And it's the same
way in social media. We needthe beauty, but we also need the
realness. We need the sister,so we need briefe sunsets, and we
also need prices puppy. Well,I was gonna say, we also need
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the messy bed and um the momentsof un inspiration as well, and yeah,
yeah, we need it all.I feel like we totally digressed from
our conversation about brands but ill,but I think it was good. Yeah,
okay, hopefully, I mean,listeners, do you tell us we
did? We tie it together?But we'll bring on Kelly and she will
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hopefully wrap it up very nicely,So stay tuned. All right, Bree,
Well, we have a very specialguest on ZIP podcast this week.
Kelly is a mentor of mine.She's fucking rad. I'm so excited to
(29:30):
be in this conversation with her andfor all of you listeners to catch a
whiff of the brilliance that is KellyDeals. So. Kelly Deals is a
writer and feminist marketing consultant, andher approach is based upon the marketing strategies
of movements and revolutionaries. If you'veworked with her, you'll be able to
testify her chief inspirations for how toget visible and get shit done are doctor
(29:53):
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. TheMan was a master strategist and the black
lesbian feminist poet. Audrey Lord sheis a published writer and social critic.
She has a BA with honors andpoll SI. She has five children.
Every Sunday she writes blazing epistles ofrighteousness. She's a rampant feminist and her
feminism and her work are all aboutjustice. Hi, Kelly, Hi,
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thanks for having me here today.Yes, thank you for being here,
coming and being Yes. So welike to start our podcast episodes of asking
the same question. So I'll askit to you, which is what does
it look like for you, Kelly, to live and amplified life. For
me, it looks like living mycommitments. And to be honest, I
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don't have very many of them.That's amazing. I have two unconditional commitments
like these are happening no matter what, and they are love and justice,
and I look at them as beingthe same thing. Love is how I
feel about my children and justice iswhat I seek for them in the world.
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So the two things are related forme, and those are my commitments.
When I'm living my commitments, I'mliving in amplified life. I love
that I love that so much.And so what drew me to Kelly's work
was in December, I was goingthrough a phase where I was just feeling
really jaded by the coaching industry.I was feeling very overwhelmed by the amount
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of complete and utter garbage and shitwas being spewed in the industry. And
I serendipitously had a friend share Kelly'sdissection on a female lifestyle ampartment brand,
which she'll talk about. And whenI read this article at first, Kelly,
it went right over my head.I was like, wait, what
(31:48):
are you saying? So then Ihad to like get it from my phone
onto my computer and I sat downwith it. I got a cup of
tea, and I spent my threehours pouring over the beautifully articulated narrative of
your conclusions around the female lifestyle empowermentbrand. I remember sending it to Bree
and from that moment onward, Iknew that I was never going to be
(32:10):
able to market myself in the sameway. So I would love for you,
Kelly, to share a little bitabout what is the female lifestyle empowerment
brand and how you started to developthis idea. Yes, I would love
to you, and thank you forfeeding that back to me. That just
gave me the shivers to know thatmy work was useful to you. So
(32:30):
thank you so much for feeding thatback to me. Okay, So the
female lifestyle empowerment brand, I thinkit's a version of the perfect woman.
I think it's an archetype in ourculture of what women must be and how
they must behave in order to getrights and resources. So what I see
in our culture is unless you performthis ideal woman, this perfect woman,
(32:53):
this good girl, you're not goingto get ship in the world. And
so it's this like compulsion that ourculture, like I guess, a cultural
imperative that is held out to uslike we must be this thing or we
will we will not get jobs,we will not find love, we will
not get respect, we will notget rights. So I feel like it's
(33:15):
a cultural imperative. And the wayI see it playing out in our empowerment
spaces is that that same success model, the good girl, the perfect woman,
is held out to us as beingthe recipe for how we rise in
our own businesses. And I seethat as being like sexism straight up.
(33:35):
And actually I shouldn't say straight upbecause that is heteronormative, and I need
to like start taking those kinds ofthat is that's sexism. And it's also
white supremacy because part of the modelfor the ideal woman is a beauty norm
that is white. So people whocan perform that beauty norm m can rise,
(34:00):
can get more success, have moreproximity to power because they're performing that
beauty norm. I also see itas homophobic. You know, all the
usual sort of marginalizations play out herewhere there's a there's an archetype for success.
(34:22):
It's white, cis gendered, straightwoman, able bodied, young,
probably educated, and very very prettyand thin. And I find that a
problem. Yeah, And I lovehow you laid it out into four different
kind of categories and ways in whichwomen have to align themselves with this perfect
(34:45):
woman, especially through her marketing andthrough her branding. And you break it
down into that female, into lifestylemarketing, into empowerment the word empowerment,
and brand and I'm curious, like, how did you develop those four inner
sectional categories. Well, I keptseeing different kinds of overlapping themes and patterns
(35:06):
that were grating me, and we'rea problem, and they just kept looping
back on each other. So Iwas like, I have to talk about
all of these things. So Ican't only talk about like the problem with
lifestyle marketing. I also have totalk about how empowerment, like the language
of revolution and feminism is getting hollowedout. I also have to talk about
brand and how women are being encouragedand almost compelled to present themselves as saleable
(35:32):
objects. And I have to talkabout conventional notions of femininity because all of
these things are like the ball ofwax and we have to untangle all of
them. So that's why I basicallyjust kept writing down the things I was
observing, and then I was goingthrough them and like, what would I
call these patterns? These patterns thatI keep seeing repeating? Like what am
(35:52):
I? What would I call them? And how can I give this thing
and name so that we can startwitnessing it and like make it tangible so
we can act back on it.So that's how I came up with it.
I just kept noting the patterns,and I literally got out a spreadsheet
and made columns and started lumping thethings in and then named each column.
(36:12):
So for anyone that's kind of newerto this conversation, what are some things,
like some really basic elementary beginning stepsthat people can take, so like,
for example, just not to noticingthat they are doing a floody thing,
or to change and to not kindof suck into the flovy things.
So like, for example, Tyson, I are both white, cis gendered,
(36:36):
able bodied, you know, slender, educated women, So like we
fall directly into all of those things, right, and we are both the
faces of our brands. So whatare things that women can start to do
to kind of straddle this gap becauseit feels like on one side you are,
(37:01):
you know, succumbing to this flebthing and on the other side,
you know, it's just how doyou merge that juxtaposition? Right? So
being the people that you are,it's not a problem. I'm not saying
you have to hide yourself. WhatI'm saying is when we have those privileges,
(37:21):
let's not leverage them as a marketingdevices. So one of the ways
I would say that you don't leveragethem is you look at your photography and
the images you're putting out into theworld, and you make sure that they're
not all professional photos. They're notall like I'm here, I am looking
pretty and rich. You make surethat they show a broader spectrum across your
(37:45):
life, so it's not all thehighlights. So it's the other thing you
would do is look at the backdropsand the details that you're sharing in yourselfies
and are they conveying wealth and authorityand are you staging really, really carefully
so that you look like you havea flawless life, because that's one of
the ways that we demonstrate privilege andauthority. And when we have that,
(38:08):
what signals of authority do is unconsciouslytrigger signals of obedience in the people who
are witnessing them. And that's usefulin a sales funnel, but it's also
pretty it's you know, it's leveragingprivilege against people. So look at your
actual images and figure out how you'recomposing them. Look at the stock photos
(38:29):
that you use. A lot ofpeople who do work around goddess and divine
feminine share a lot of sort ofwomen on beaches and flowing skirts and sort
of that kind of imagery. Andyou know, I would look at that
and think, like, are allgoddesses eighteen years old and one hundred and
twenty pounds? You know, like, what could you show a whole spectrum
(38:52):
of bodies. Can a woman who'snot doing yoga in the beach be a
goddess? Could a disabled woman bea goddess? Like I would look at
the imagery and the stock photos thatwe're choosing. I would look at the
percentage of fat women that we usein our imagery. I think fat women
are sixty seven percent of the NorthAmerican population, women over the size of
(39:13):
over size fourteen. Are they beingrepresented in our brands? In our women's
empowerment brands, is sixty seven percentof our imagery large women. So I
would start looking at those kinds ofthings. And I know this is something
that the two of you've done inyour podcasts, But look at the podcasts
and look at the speakers that we'reinviting in you know, are we being
inclusive in the platforms and the stagesthat we're creating. Are we making sure
(39:38):
to invite you know, I'm sayingthe three of us, right, we're
white women so or white presenting women. And I would say, like,
look at that and say, arewe only are we centering the white women?
Are we only inviting on women wholook like us? Are we only
inviting on white women, And that'sactually what happens in most empowerment conferences and
(40:00):
most empowerment summits. If you lookat it, like nine percent of the
people on stage, we'll be wearingstilettos and they'll be white. And so
I'm looking for us to build inclusivity. I'm not talking about diversity. I'm
talking about inclusivity into our actual businesspractices and not just our marketing language.
One of the things that Kelly wroteabout beautifully on her page that was I
(40:21):
think the second article that I've everread by Kelly was the about page and
how we use the transformative story asour sole means of authority, and how
you leverage this transformative story as yourauthority in order to get people to see
you as, you know, afigure that knows what they're doing. And
(40:43):
when I read that, I realized, not only is that what I've been
doing, it's what I've been taughtto do. It's what the marketing world
teaches us to do, is touse your rags to richest story to sell
people that you can support them fromtheir rags to riches eight And I actually
find that. So there's two problemswith that. So one is the rags
to richest story that's taught in JeffWalker's launch formula, and I would say
(41:07):
that's sort of the route of allthe online marketing that we do. Is
this that particular person's work, andthat the program and the work specifically teaches
you that if you have no experiencein your industry, you need to position
yourself as an expert. And becauseyou have no experience, you need to
manufacture the semblance or the appearance ofexpertise and authority, the appearance of knowledge
(41:35):
and wisdom. And how you dothat is by telling a rags to richest
story where you were you know,fat, broke, stupid, and then
you learned some magic secret and nowyou know you're rich than fabulous, and
you know, now for the whateverprice, the lotto price of nineteen ninety
nine, I'll share my secrets withyou. So what that is is that's
manufacturing authority in the absence of actualknowledge, training and immersion and ten thousand
(42:04):
hours. So I see two problemswith that. So one is that it's
obviously manufacturing authority, which is aproblem as fake news right, And the
other one is what it actually trainsus to do is to play small and
play down our actual qualifications and trainingand the ten thousand hours we've immersed ourselves
(42:29):
in a subject matter to play thatdown because it doesn't fit nicely into like
one single Cinderella moment, So Ifeel like it is fake and it actually
asks women on entrepreneurs to play smalland downplay their actual accomplishments. So I
don't want us to play that game. That being said, I want for
(42:52):
us to tell our stories, butnot to pour them into the tiny mold
of a rag's richest story. Ido want us to share our lived experiences,
and that's really important from a feministperspective because women's stories historically have been
silenced. Our stories are important,So I absolutely want us to tell our
stories on our about page and everywhere, and on our about page, I
(43:15):
want us to claim our teachers,our mentors, our trainings, our immersions,
and all of the things that haveshaped us and give us the experience
and the expertise and the ability todo the thing that we do. This
is so interesting, literally as we'rehaving this conversation now. To be fair,
(43:36):
I don't use the rags to riches. I like, I've never done
that on my about page, butI am realizing how in my about page
I don't even begin to address theten years of study that I've done around
what I teach, or like thefifteen years of entrepreneurial experience I have,
or like any of these things.And it's so fascinating how even though that's
(44:00):
a part of me, I've overlookedit literally until this moment. I hope
you'll go rewrite it and show useverything you know and do all the immersions.
I promise it's my homework from thispoint. I'm telling you, I
fucking read that ship That's the mostDivine Ship by Kelly about about pages and
(44:20):
Jeff Walker's launch formula and authority,and I started to realize how I had
built this entire brand of tiis Skyon this authority of my lifestyle, of
the risks that I've taken as awhite privileged woman as opposed to the actual,
very real credentials and achievements that Ihave. And so I built this
(44:42):
like bubble that's instead of a brickhouse. Even though I have all of
the tools and all of the bricksthat I can make into a real sustainable
life and business for myself, I'vebeen manipulated bullied belief. I don't know
what the words are, but I'vebeen made to believe it's the bubble that's
going to sell. And that's terrifying. And so when I read that stuff
(45:05):
by Kelly, it took me fourmonths of going into the sad and return
whole experience of really reevaluating everything thatI've believed and I put on the line
for and ask myself, what's reallytrue? What do I really believe?
What? You know, how hasmy privileged played into this. It's been
(45:25):
a beautiful, beautiful process, andI'm so grateful for you, Kelly,
and the work that you're doing well, like thank you for taking that on
tice that I can't tell you howgratifying it is to hear that that we
are doing this like as individuals andas a collective, like this is my
dearest hope, you know. Andone of the things I want to say
(45:47):
is that like, we don't haveto market with illusion and bubbles. We
can actually market with our work andour leadership and our substance and our contribution.
And for very long periods of time, that's how a lot of businesses
were built. They were built onreferrals, they were built on quality work.
(46:09):
They were built on reputation and leadership. We actually can do that.
There's no reason that we are notcapable of that. We have those capacities.
So let's shift gears just a littlebit, and then I want to
talk about Ivanka Trump. Oh mygod, Okay, So I just want
to ask quickly. So I knowthat, like with the patriarchy, it's
(46:31):
really common for you know, mento maybe look at us and say,
you know, who do you thinkyou are? You're putting up this this
about page that isn't the formula,and you're like claiming all these accomplishments and
blah blah blah blah blah, whodo you think you are? But in
my perspective, it's even worse withfellow women. So as you know,
(46:53):
women supporting one another being in thisyou know, women's entrepreneurial space, do
you how do you recommend that womenreally kind of start stepping up to encourage
one another in these areas versus cutone another down. So I think that
is an interesting line to walk.And I guess I don't say unequivocally that
(47:20):
we shouldn't criticize other women. Iactually do think that we have to tell
the truth, and we have tocritique problematic practices and problematic outcomes. I
think we actually have to tell thetruth about that. I do not think
that we have to gossip about eachother, talk about things that can't be
(47:40):
substantiated, talk about people's characters,their relationships, their families, you know,
Like we can actually point to publicyou know, offerings and say,
you know what, there's a problemhere. That is some internalized sexism,
that is some internalized white supremacy.Like we can point those things out.
We don't have to trash each other, and we can encourage each other to
(48:02):
do better. So I guess oneof the things I would encourage us to
do is when critique is offered toyou and when critique is offered to me,
to actually take a moment and listento it. I feel like in
our online world, we're all likenot you know, haters, they're going
to hate, and that like,let's not do that. Let's actually listen
to what people are saying and listenfor is their actual critique about my practices
(48:27):
or is this that someone didn't likemy nose? And if it's that someone
doesn't like my nose or my weight, I throw that out that has no
impact on me. It might hurtmy feelings, but that's just someone's preferences.
That's irrelevant. But if someone issaying, you know what, Kelly,
You're feminist marketing doesn't align with yoursupply chain, and that's a problem,
I need to listen to that andlook at that and say, you
(48:49):
know what, I do need tochange my host. I do need to
have a host provider that aligns withmy feminist principles. So I think we
need to actually listen into criticism,but that we don't have to compare ourselves
to each other and find ourselves lackingwell. And I feel like this conversation
leads perfectly into the broader conversation ofresiliency and fragility and how hard it is
(49:15):
for us to accept feedback when wehave been kind of not necessarily taught,
but seeing as fragile, and sowe internalize that fragility. And then especially
as you know, being a whitewoman, we do have that white people
fragility, and so I would lovelyto talk a little bit about that resiliency
and the importance of that in doingthis work right. So I think it
(49:39):
is an act of leadership to bewilling to publicly fail and to not be
seeking to be defended and flawless andcompletely polished. I think it's important for
people to see us evolve and grappleand change our minds and think through things.
(50:00):
So I think one of the featuresof a lack of resiliency and of
fragility is the fear that if wesay something, we're going to get it
wrong and we're going to get trashed. You know what, Like do your
best, do the work, youknow, examine your thinking, examine your
assumptions, go and learn from peoplewho are leading in the areas that you
(50:23):
need to be educated on, andthen be willing to screw up in public
and publicly self and course correct.I feel like that's an act, that's
an act of leadership. And it'salso like how we move the culture is
by like jointly being willing to innovateand fail and get back up and try
(50:45):
again. I love that, andI love that you said that in one
of my favorite places online besides obviouslythe be Amplified Facebook group is Kelly's Facebook
group. We are the Culture Makers. You know, you really attracted some
people that are just really able tohold each other accountable and really see each
(51:06):
other and really ask each other tosee it bigger or sink through or look
at the impact. And it's sucha beautiful, beautiful group. And I
see in the group a lot ofconversations about you know, calling in versus
calling out, and so I wouldlove for you to talk a little bit
about the differences between that, especiallywhen it comes to maybe starting to now
(51:27):
that our listeners starting to maybe see, you know, where they may have
been doing their own flab practices orwhere other people may start, you know,
maybe doing flab practices, how canwe invite them into a greater possibility.
Right, So, the discussion aroundcalling in versus calling out, I've
written about it, but that conceptactually comes from Black Girl Dangerous. That's
where I first learned about it,and it comes from sort of the social
(51:52):
justice community. And calling in meanswith people who have a proven track record
being committed to social justice and culturalchange. When they screw up and say
something that's heteronormative or sexist, wecorrect them because we want them to do
better, So we call them in. And the person who's called in because
(52:16):
they're committed to those things, iswilling to hear it and willing to correct
themselves. So that is like anact of love. You're like, whoa,
I know what your commitments are.You really just stepped in something.
Here's how you could do it better. And the other person's like, oh,
whoa, thank you, I willdo better, right. That's calling
in. Calling out is when peopleare refusing to self assess, refusing to
(52:39):
be corrected, refusing to be educated, and you tell the truth about it.
That's calling out. Calling in doesn'thave to be a private conversation.
That can happen publicly like in aFacebook thread. It's just about the outcome
is we are in solidarity with eachother, So talk to each other like
(53:00):
that like community members, and educateand be willing to self reflect and educate
and self correct. I love that. I think that that's such an important
concept, especially as we're trying tonavigate the online space and hold each other
accountable to you know, the truth, and to opening themselves up to inclusivity
(53:22):
and to create something that's that brickhouse instead of the bubble house, right
right, right, And I guessthe thing I also want to say,
like, for example, about mygroup, My group is not always a
pleasure to be in right, Like, it's a challenging place and there's a
lot of very big brains and alot of experience and leadership and lived experience,
(53:46):
and you know, it's not alwaysan easy place because it's a learning
space. And I don't know anyclassroom or any learning space that's always been
easy. So that's the other thingabout resiliency is we can't expect everything to
be like sunshine and roses everywhere wego. We've got to be willing to
like grind a little and push ourselvesand stretch. And that doesn't mean I
(54:07):
want us to like sacrifice ourselves onthe hamster wheel of productivity. I'm firmly
against that. What I'm asking forus to do is stretch into the uncomfortable
assumptions that were built into us byour culture. Like the voice of culture
has been flowing through us and usingour tongues and our bodies without our consent.
(54:29):
So we can interrupt that. Andit's an uncomfortable process, but it's
also a liberating process. We justhad that experience last night. We hosted
our book club and we talked aboutthe Handmaiden's Tail and Ty's both walked out
of book club feeling like complete failuresbecause really, well yeah, I mean
it's it's failures, but just likewe did it very messily. And my
(54:52):
conclusion was that with a conversation likethat, like especially with a book like
that, I don't think there's anyother way to have that conversation because there,
you know, it's it's a bitof a new conversation, as is
this, and you know, we'reall just kind of learning and evolving as
we go, and it's going tobe messy. We're we're all still going
(55:12):
to fuck up, like all ofus are. And you know, I
love how you talk about just beingpresent with that and skewing this perfect idea
that we always have to you know, have the perfect filter and the photos
and the Instagram and all of thethings, and we just need to be
showing up every day, right LikeI've written this that I really and truly
believe that the perfect woman like andthe the imperative that we've got to be
(55:38):
perfect all the time in all thingsis a form of violence against women.
And we literally have to unlearn thaturge towards perfection to get free and to
change the culture. So that's whyI was saying being willing to screw up
in public is an act of leadership. This is how we move the culture
forward. This is how we crumblethat narrative that we must be perfect.
(56:01):
I love it. Well, We'regoing to take it to the extended cut.
I want to talk about Ivanka Trumpand I want to talk about some
insidious marketing tactics that we've been taughtthat is a perpetuating violence against women.
Because I know you have been writinga lot about this and I want to
I want to make some space totalk about it. So we're going to
take this conversation to the extended cut. For those of you listening, you
(56:21):
can listen to the extended cut bygoing into our Facebook group be amplified dot
community Kelly. Where can people learnmore about you and all of your brilliant
work. Sure, I would loveto tell you that you can find me
at Kelly deals dot com. That'sk E l l y d i els
dot com. I'm writing a bookabout the female lifestyle empower brand, which
(56:45):
is the thing we were talking abouttoday. And you can also join my
free Facebook group it's called We Arethe Culture Makers, where we talk about
the intersection between cultural change and theactual marketing practices we use in our own
businesses to help dismantle the culture weoppose and create the hopeful future we're imagining
(57:06):
amazing. Well, thank you Kelly. As tyas mentioned, come join us
in our be amplified community. Youcan find us on all the socials at
the Amplified co and until next weekgo be amplified.