August 14, 2025 • 35 mins
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, I dive into the idea that all relationships - whether personal or professional - are really just collaborations at heart.
Inspired by a chat with my friend Emiline (aka: Emily Aborn – Copywriter and host of the Content with Character Podcast) and a nugget of wisdom from actor Ethan Hawke, I explore who we choose to “collaborate” with in life truly matters.
It’s not just about what looks good on paper -or- who’s fun to be around for a quick minute.
It's more about finding people who share your values, can communicate well, and genuinely want to see you thrive and shine!
I share some of my own stories, too - both the good and the not-so-soothing – experiences of working with others.
From college projects and yoga retreats to creative partnerships, the best collaborations always had trust, mutual respect, and a sense of fun at their core!
On the flip side, I’ve also experienced those energy-draining partnerships where someone just isn’t open or willing to trust the process or the other people…
And let me tell you, that shit is a total grind you don’t want to be stuck in.
A big takeaway from this episode is the importance of knowing yourself before you jump into any kind of relationship or collaboration.
Be honest about what you bring to the table, what you need, and what you’re willing to give.
And don’t forget - sometimes the best collaboration you can have is with yourself, your creativity, or even your pets! 😆
So, as you go about your week, I invite you to reflect on your current relationships and collaborations.
Are they a good fit? Are you both able to shine? Is there room for both of you?
Also, if you’re looking for more inspiration, check out Emily’s “Content with Character” podcast episode on collaboration coming out August 19th.
Thanks so much for tuning in, and may you leave every collaboration - and every place you go - a little better than how you found it!
KK’S KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• All relationships, whether personal or professional, are a form of collaboration.
• Choose collaborators and partners who share your values, communicate well, and genuinely support your growth.
• Trust and openness to each other’s ideas are essential for successful collaborations.
• Know yourself and be honest about what you bring to the table before entering any relationship or partnership.
• Not every collaboration will be a good fit, and it’s okay to walk away if it isn’t working.
• Great collaborations are built on mutual respect, reliability, and a sense of fun.
• Take time to reflect on your current relationships and collaborations to see if they are truly serving you.
• Sometimes, the most important collaboration you can have is with yourself and your own creative pursuits.
BIO:
Spiritual mentor and writer Karen Kenney uses humor and dynamic storytelling to bring a down-to-earth, no-BS perspective to self-development.
Bringing together tools that coach the conscious and unconscious mind, Karen helps clients deepen their connections with Self, and discover their unique understandings of spirituality.
Her practice combines neuroscience, subconscious reprogramming, Integrative Hypnosis, somatics, spiritual mentoring, and other holistic modalities to help regulate the nervous system, examine internal narratives, remove blocks, and reimagine what’s possible.
A passionate yoga teacher, long-time student of A Course in Miracles, and Gateless Writing instructor, Karen is a frequent speaker and retreat leader. Via her programs The...
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Hey you guys, welcome to theKaren Kenney show. I'm super
duper excited to be here, andthank you so much for listening
to the podcast. If you tune inregularly, like, you already
know who I am, right? Like,maybe my face is familiar. You
know my voice, you know what wetalk about here on the show. But
if, like, you're wicked new tothe show, first of all, welcome.
(00:23):
I'm so happy to have you here,and you can find out, like, I'm
not going to read you some longass bio, but you can find out
all about me. Karen Kenney, k, en, n, e, y.com, the work I do,
the stuff I offer, whatever. Butin a wicked short synopsis,
right? A little short synopsis,I'm a certified spiritual
mentor. I am a writer, I'm aspeaker, I'm a storyteller, I'm
(00:48):
a integrative coach, I'm ahypnotist. I I've been a yoga
teacher for like, 26 years. I doThai Yoga massage, like Thai
Yoga, bodywork, blah, blah, onand on and on. Mostly I'm like,
I'm a child of God, I'm anextension of the universe. I try
to spread love. That's what thehot beat of the show is about.
Is about spirituality andstorytelling. And, you know,
(01:12):
kind of just learning all aboutwho we are, why we do what we
do, say what we say, think, whatwe think, etc, etc. And I just
really try to share applicableand practical tools and tell
stories that like have maybeuniversal principles in them,
but that you can also somehowlike put into action in your
(01:33):
life. So spreading a little morelove in the world is kind of
like my my modus operandi.That's why, that's why I like to
do this show. Okay, so today,today, what today's episode is
brought to you by differentinspirations. One was a
conversation I was having withmy friend who I call Emmeline.
(01:57):
Her real name is Emily, a bornbut I call her Emma line. And so
we were talking aboutcollaborations, and that's kind
of like the hot beat of whatthis episode is about. And then
also something that I saw onlinefrom an actor that I love, Ethan
Hawk, and so I'm going to diveinto that right now. So Emma
(02:18):
line is actually doing Emily aborn, right? Her podcast is
called content with characterand next week. So whenever
you're listening to this on, herepisode is coming out on like
August 19, 2025 and she'stalking all about collaboration.
So you want to go check thatepisode out for sure. And she's
kind of coming at it more from aprofessional standpoint, a
(02:41):
business standpoint, I'm talkingabout collaborations on more of
a personal level. And I think sooften we think about
collaborations being forbusiness, right, or school or
something that's not as close tothe human hat, but I think all
relationships are like goodcollaborations, right? Or, I
(03:05):
should say maybe all goodrelationships are like good
collaborations. So relationshipsare like collaborations. And let
me kind of tell you what I meanby that. So a lot of times when
we're going to quote, unquote,collaborate with somebody out in
the world, you know, we're kindof looking at it from a very
strategic point of view. It'slike, okay, what are they
bringing to the table? What am Ibringing to the table? How is
(03:27):
this going to benefit me? How isthis going to benefit them? Is
this going to speak to myaudience? Is this going to land
with my listeners or my clients?Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
but for me, and it's not even abut, and for me, the main
driving force is, is the mathhas to be mathing, meaning, when
we bring me together with you,right? When we bring these two
(03:52):
living, breathing human beings,these human spirits, together,
you've got one plus one, andhopefully you are Better
Together, meaning that when youcome together, that you create a
certain kind of magic thatbenefits not only each of you
but the greater world, yourcommunity, your family, your
(04:14):
environment. And so when I thinkabout relationships this, this
goes to personal relationships,like, hopefully within your
family, your friends, yoursweetie, your partner, who
you're married to or sleepingwith, or like, whatever, right?
So when you're going into this,who you choose, when you're
going into a relationship with,right? When you're when you're
(04:37):
planning on hooking up withsomebody, whether that's for
months, years, life, whatever,right who you choose to quote,
unquote, collaborate with,matters. So it's not that we
want to be picky in this specialway, like I'm better than you,
but we want to think about thisbeyond just the pretty surface
(04:59):
stuff. Like, like, oh, thatperson's hot. Like, I want to be
with them. It's like, wow. It'slike, can we go, like, a little
bit of a deeper dive? Becausethose elements beyond Oh, it's
just going to look goodtogether. Right underneath that
is, it's like, are we bettertogether? What I'm bringing into
the relationship, and whatthey're bringing into the
(05:20):
relationship, is we collaboratetogether? Are we going to create
something that is really strong,that is really powerful, that is
really, you know, can, can kindof like last, last, over time.
Now, sometimes there are goingto be quick collaborations,
right? You might meet somebodyand you decide to do a project
(05:42):
together and like, that'swhatever, but if we're doing
something for a long period oftime together, it's really
important, I think, that westart off by choosing somebody
who we're going to be in arelationship slash collaboration
with, that we respect, that wetrust and beyond loving them,
(06:05):
that we actually like them,because there are all kinds of
people that you, quote, unquote,love, right? Oh, that's my
uncle. I love him. He's part ofmy family. I find it fascinating
that we can love people. There'sa love there. But we necessarily
don't want to, I don't want to,like, maybe hang out with them,
(06:25):
or,
oh my god, we don't want to seehim that often. You know what
I'm saying. We don't want to goto lunch. It's like, yeah, I
love them and right and find theright distance or whatever. But
something that Ethan Hawke saidmade me really start to think
about this idea. He was talkingabout that he and his wife had
(06:50):
started to collaborate. She wasgetting more into, like
producing films, and so theywere working on a project. And
one of the things he said twothings that really jumped out at
me, and I want to share themhere, because I think they're
really applicable to ourrelationships, to these
collaborations that we decide toget into. And he said, number
one, one of the things thatmakes a successful collaboration
(07:12):
is you have to be open to otherpeople's ideas. A lot of times
we come into relationships andwe think like, This is who I am.
This is the way, the right way,the only way I'm the one that
has the strength in this area.Like we kind of put ourselves in
boxes, and sometimes we putourselves up on pedestals, and
(07:35):
we just do don't listen verywell to what other people are
trying to share with us. And sonumber one, I think when we go
into a relationship or acollaboration, we have to keep
our minds, open our ears, openour eyes, open our hearts, open
right? We have to be open towhat the other person is sharing
(07:58):
with us their ideas, right? Wecan't just say, like, No, I'm
the boss here. Like, you suck itin a bucket, right? That. That's
not how this works. So numberone, we got to be open to other
people's ideas, and thisapplies, right? Because here's
the thing, even if everythingI'm saying can also pretty much
be applied to businesscollaborations, because all
(08:18):
those are relationships as well,they just might not be, as you
know, intimate, let's put itthat way. But even a really good
business collaboration, there isa certain amount of intimacy and
vulnerability that that goes onthere. Okay? Number two, Ethan
Hawke, he said, You have totrust your collaborators. You
have to trust yourcollaborators. And the way that
(08:39):
he said, It really made melaugh, and it made me think
about long term relationships,because I think that there's
this thing that happens in longterm relationships, and I've
talked about this on otherepisodes, where people just kind
of start to take each other forgranted. People like to start to
like, pigeonhole people andlabel them and think of them as
(09:01):
like, well, I'm the one whocooks, they're the one who
cleans. I'm the one that has themechanical skill set. They're
more analytical, or they're morefeely, or they're like,
whatever. And so we labelpeople, we stop seeing them, we
stop trying to understand them,because we think we know
everything already. We knoweverything about them. We know
(09:21):
how they are. We think we canpredict what story they're going
to tell, what their moods goingto be, how they're going to
respond. We don't even allowthem to have a present moment
experience, because we'vealready like labeled them or
whatever. And when we start todo this, we start to take them
for granted, and we don't trustthem anymore. We're not as
curious about them. We show upwith all of our judgments, so we
(09:44):
have to trust our collaborators.And he said it like this. He
says, You have to keep in mind,right? I'm paraphrasing a little
bit. He says there was a timeinstead of instead of project,
right, instead of the wordproject, just think
relationship. Okay, you. Hesays, There was a time when you
really wanted them to join thisproject, and it's because you
(10:07):
thought they were smart, and Ilove this so much. There was a
time when you were starting toget into a relationship with
somebody, and you were like,Yeah, I want to do life with
this person. I want to spendtime with this person. I want to
exchange time, energy,resources, money, sex, bodies,
(10:27):
whatever, with this personbecause you trusted them,
because you thought that theywere bringing something
worthwhile to the table, right?You thought they were smart. And
this is kind of really low gradesecret kind of, like internal
contempt that I see that buildsover time in relationships where
(10:50):
the couple stops collaboratingand they're more like competing
or withholding, and I've seenthis, especially In older
couples, like talking about,like, grandparent level couples,
right? And I know somegrandparents are much younger
these days, but I'm talking likeold school, like old school, and
(11:12):
one of my set of grandparents,oh, my God, I couldn't tell
like, I'm like, they stayedmarried, like, up until their
deaths. But I'm like, there wasso much contempt, there was so
much anger, and I think justdisappointment and eye rolling,
you know, like one would startto talk, and the other one
would, like, roll their eyes sohard and far and back in their
head that I'd be like, I don'tknow, I don't know if she's
(11:34):
going to be able to Get thosedown, you know, and I'm like,
whatever this relationship slashcollaboration was at the get go,
I think, I think at this pointnow, they just pretty much can't
stand each other, but theystayed together because that's
what you did back then. You knowwhat I mean. So one of the
(11:55):
things when we're going intothese relationships, into these
especially these longer termcollaborations, is we want to
understand like, what is thisother person's values? Like?
What are their core values?Like, what really matters to
them, right? And what do theyconsider valuable like, what
(12:15):
what matters to them? Like, whoare they? You know what I mean?
Because, again, who you arechoosing to collaborate with,
matters, and we're going to gointo how it doesn't always work
out in a minute. We want tounderstand how they communicate.
Like, if I'm trying to do aproject with somebody, I need to
know like, who they are, what'stheir style like, what's their
(12:38):
style of communication? Are theygoing to be like timely and
getting back to me, are theyable to do they have emotional
intelligence? Can they tell mewhat they're thinking, what they
they feel? Do they communicatein a very gruff or abrupt or
harsh way? Do they tend to needan invitation to communicate, or
(13:02):
are they afraid of being abother? Like, there's so many
layers to it, right? We want tounderstand their commitment
level. Like, how serious arethey about this thing? How
serious are they about thisproject or this relationship?
Like, are we on the same levelof commitment? Are they doing
like, Hey, this is a one offthing, right? Or are they
looking to go a little deeperand to establish, you know, a
(13:23):
connection, and to establishsome history and some some time,
and, like, whatever, you know,what's their skill set? What?
Again, not so much like, what doyou bring into the table? But
like, yeah, what's yourcontribution to this
relationship? Like, what? Whatlike Do you have the capacity
right to communicate, to care?Are you a total raging
(13:47):
narcissist? Are you like, areyou so traumatized that you're
not able to access parts of youlike, you know, like, who am I
dealing with? You know thatagain, what's their style of how
they're showing up in the world,because I think in a really good
relationship and in a reallygood collaboration, there is
(14:09):
enough room for everybody toshine, so even if your styles
are totally different, one ofthe beautiful things like I
think about my sweetie and Iright, like My sweetie and I, we
share a lot of the same corevalues, like we care about, you
know, certain that we both weboth love animals. We both are
(14:31):
like a little introverted, andwe do extroverted things, right?
Even though we're both veryintroverted, we do very
extroverted things in our life.
We both artists, right? He's amusician and I'm a writer. We're
both creatives. We both value,like, time to get etc, etc, etc,
right? So, but he is, like, hehas a skill set. Like, I marvel
(14:56):
at his skill set. He is soridiculously talented. Like, he
just makes me. To punch myselfin the face. Sometimes he's so
talented and he can shine in heshines in very particular ways.
And then there's me and what Ido, and then there's whatever my
skill set and whatever I do inthe world, right? So we
compliment each other, andthere's room for both of us to
(15:18):
shine. You know, there was aperiod of time in my life where
I kept choosing partners, I keptchoosing people who were like
always really talented, butthere was no real room in the
relationship for me to shine,because it was always about
them. It was always about mycontribution was in upholding
(15:43):
them, supporting them, beingtheir greatest cheerleader, you
know what I mean? And slowlyover time, right? I finally, you
know, chose a guy who and therewas another relationship. In
fairness, there's anotherrelationship before that that
started to give me a taste ofthat, of like, putting the
spotlight a little bit more onmyself, my sweetie just really,
(16:06):
really supports me, and he's mybiggest number one fan, right?
And that's another thing. Like,you want to be a fan of the
other person that you'recollaborating with, that you're
in relationship with. You don'twant this weird fucking
competition. Like, I just cannothit I can't stand that. Like, I
know people believe in healthycompetition. They're like, Oh
(16:28):
yeah, when I see them doingwell, it makes me want to
ratchet it up a gear, like,whatever. That's fine. I'm
talking about the kind ofcompetition where it gets weird.
You know, when, like, the vibestarts to get weird, and you're
like, oh, this doesn't feel likeit's a supportive, mutual fan
club thing. This starts to feellike either there's envy or
(16:51):
jealousy or them actuallyfrenemy, right? They really,
actually don't want me to dowell. They don't want me to
shine too bright, like theythink that my brightness casts a
shadow, rather than seeing that.You know, we're kind of that
sunlight that we're bothbringing is nurturing all the
way around. Yeah, we want to bein relationship, aka
(17:14):
collaboration, with people,where we actually support one
another. You know, because I'lltell you this, I can think off
the top of my head, and I'm surethat look at if I'm leaving
anybody, nobody take thispersonally, anybody who, who
I've worked with in the past,but just off the top of my head,
I can think of, like, threereally fantastic collaborations
that I had. My first one waswhen I was in college in BU, my
(17:38):
friends, I was lucky enough toactually be in school, in the
same classes with just friendswho I adored like I adored. And
my sophomore year, we had to dowhat was called a capstone
project. And basically we had toget together, and we had to,
like research. I think weactually did a paper on the on
(17:58):
the Hare Krishna movement. Butit was like myself, my friend
Christy, I think my friendGrover, there was a there was
like four or five of us. I thinkthere was four of us, and we
each brought our own particularskill set. And the thing, other
thing, is that we all trustedeach other, and we were all
(18:19):
reliable. Not nobody wasdragging ass. Nobody was
slacking. Nobody was not doingtheir part. No, at least in my
memory, right? That's how Iremember it is that everybody
was doing their job, like doyour job. That's another part of
a powerful, you know,collaboration slash relationship
is, you know, don't be slacking.Don't be slacking, don't be
(18:40):
withholding like everybody, doyour damn job, and it just makes
it easier for everybody else.You know what I mean? I'm not
saying you can't have a toughtime or go through a period
where you need more support orattention or love or whatever,
but if you pull your own weightand you really do your best,
that goes a long way. Anothertime is the New Hampshire yoga
(19:02):
retreat. So for five years, Ipatented up with three other
yoga teachers who are myfriends, and we put on these
fantastic yoga retreats, andlike 120 people would come, and
it would be so much fun, and wewould do it over a three day
weekend, and we all came fromdifferent studios. We all
brought different points of viewand strengths and whatever, and
(19:26):
we all believed in each otherand supported each other. And
there was no weirdness, right?There was no like jealousy,
there was no it was a truecollaboration. It was such a
blast. And then my friendEmmeline, Emily and I did a
collaboration called the contentcompass, when we talked all
about, like, creating contentand storytelling and whatever.
(19:47):
And it was one of the easiestand funnest and just like, no
drama, like it was like, Okay,we would hop on a zoom. We'd
talk about it. We're like, let'sdo it over this many days, the.
Sounds great. What time do youthink? Yeah, sure, it was so
easy, which in and it was easy,it was fun. It gave me more
(20:13):
energy. I did not feel drained.Because, let's be honest, I've
had some bad collaborations,like things where I thought, Oh,
this is a good idea. This personis x, y and z, so this is going
to be like, a good fit, right?We're all bringing different
POVs to the table, like, let'sdo this thing. There's one in
(20:37):
particular that I think aboutnow. I cannot tell you, it never
got off the ground. I wasplanning an event with some
people, and there was one personin particular who made it so
fucking hard, just likeeverything was like, you know,
(20:57):
we talk about, like pullingteeth. It was like an energetic
suck of the biggest and deepestlevel. And I would get off those
calls and those Voxer thing,those threads, and I would just
be like, I can't do this. It waslike, it was like pushing a rock
uphill again and again, like amassive boulder, and I would be
(21:21):
like, This is so exhausting.This per and it was because I'm
not saying, Look, we all bringour own stuff, right? We all
bring our own stuff to acollaboration. But one of the
things that I saw is that thisperson had a different style of
communication. This person wasnot willing to be open, really,
(21:41):
to other people's ideas. Theydid not trust their
collaborators. And how do youknow that? Is because they were
trying to control every littlething, and they kind of kept
making themselves be thecenterpiece they wanted. They
had to be like, Oh, I do. I andI'd be like, hey, there's like,
(22:02):
two other two other people here.You know what I mean? Because
you'll just know you I meandouble A men hands you guys. If
you've ever had to work on aproject, or you got paired up
with somebody or whatever, weknow what a shitty collaboration
a partner feels for like, right?So I don't have to, like, hop on
it and drag people through themud, or blah, blah, blah, blah,
(22:22):
because I'm sure there'ssomebody out there at some point
they could say, Oh yeah, andthey were not the strongest
collaboration partner, you know,back in the day, whatever. But
here's the thing, if you aregoing to engage, right and,
quote, unquote, collaborate, Ithink all relationships are like
collaborations, and we want themto be good, right? We want to,
(22:48):
at the very least, own whatwe're bringing to the
relationship, showing up withhonesty, showing up and saying,
This is what I'm capable of.This is what I'm not capable of,
at least right now. This is whatI'm working on. This is what I'm
willing to do. These are myvalues. This is who I am. And
what that means is part of itmeans you have to know yourself
(23:12):
now sometimes we might, quote,unquote, surprise ourselves
about how we're showing up ornot showing up, how we're
reacting, responding,communicating, whatever. But if
you don't know yourself, if youdon't know what you're good at,
if you don't know where yourstrengths lie, where your
weaknesses are, where youstruggle, where you get
triggered. But you have to knowyourself if you're going to be
(23:35):
getting into a quote, unquote,collaboration with somebody
especially long term, you know,and it requires a lot of
honesty, first and foremost,with yourself, because nobody
wants to be bamboozled. Nobodywants to put in the time, the
energy and the effort to plan alife with you. Never mind just a
(23:56):
project with you, if the ifyou're not like if you're not
going to be who you say you arewho you are, you know what I
mean? If you're not going to dowhat you if there's an if
there's a lack of congruency,remember, I always say the
assignment is alignment. Ifyou're out of alignment, there
will be that cognitivedissonance. They're going to be
(24:16):
like, Well, wait. They say that.They always show up on time, but
this they're always late. Theysay they care about X, Y and Z,
but their actions are incomplete opposition to what the
crap that came out of theirmouth was, you know,
and that that will break downtrust and sometimes it all looks
(24:40):
good on paper. It all looks goodon paper. And then you actually
start to get into each other'skind of energetic field. You
start to spend a little bit oftime together. You have to be
able to, kind of, like, read thevibe and read the room. And
there are times when, yeah, youknow, not all collaborations,
like. To be wicked smooth allthe time. There'll be speed
(25:02):
bumps. That's just life. But wehave to know when to say no. We
have to know when we have topull the plug. Because this
isn't just a This isn't like atemporary thing, right? Like
this is how that person operatesin the world, and there's just
going to be no, this isn't goingto work. And the thing is, is
(25:23):
you don't have to hate somebodybecause of it. You don't have to
cast them out of your hat. Youcan simply just say, like, yeah,
I don't think this is going tobe a good fit. You know what I
mean? And again, I thinkeverything I'm saying also
applies to business. I thinkwhenever you're going because
it's all relationships, even ifyou bump into somebody at the
(25:44):
grocery store, a stranger forlike 10 seconds, and you share a
glance, you share a moment, youget somebody some cereal done
off the top shelf becausethey're shorter than you that
that is a moment, momentary likerelationship, you know. And of
course, in miracles, we call itlike a level of teaching,
there's that moment, there'sthat opportunity. And every time
(26:05):
you interact with anotherperson, it's an opportunity for
a holy moment, you know. Andagain, it makes me think, what
about what Ethan said, you know,you have to trust your
collaborators, which means youhave to remember that you
started to go into this thingbecause you thought the other
person was smart or they hadsome value, that they were
bringing something to therelationship. So when you find
(26:29):
yourself starting to slip intothat kind of like agitation or
contempt or judgment or eyerolling or taking people for
granted, or whatever. That'swhen you want to really just
slow down and start to take alook at what's going on inside
of you. And I think to know,again, we're going back to like,
(26:51):
you got to know yourself. Yougot to know why you're feeling,
what you're feeling, why youthink, what you think, why you
say, what you say, why you dowhat you do, and what kind of
shit that you're bringing to thecollaboration, because it's
really easy to be focusing onwell, they're not doing this,
and they're not doing that, andthey're not saying this, and
they're not holding up theirend, and they're not Murmur,
murmur, them, them, them, them,them, them. It's all their
(27:14):
fault. It's all what you we haveto be willing to take a look at
ourselves too and say, Do Itrust, do I trust this other
person in the collaboration,meaning myself, like, am I
actually showing up at myhighest level? Am I showing up
from a place of love, or am Ishowing up from a place of my
fear and my neuroses and all mybullshit, all my undealt with
(27:36):
trauma, all my emotionalbaggage, you know? And I always
talk about it like this, youknow, I think about
relationships like when, whenyou're dating, I'm like, when
people first start dating, theylove to show up and put on their
best act, right? Their best selfsteps forward and goes on the
date for the first however long,right? Because if people were to
(27:58):
just show up with their big bagof emotional stuff, all their
undealt with stuff, all theirhabits and patterns and
conditions and insecurity andbullshit, and they just imagine
just walking up like you'remeeting at a restaurant. It's
like the first time you'remeeting each other, and you both
like walk up to the table, orone of you is already sitting at
(28:19):
the table, and the other personjust walks up with this big
Santa size sack full of stuff,full of shit. They just set it
down, and they're like, hi,like, this is me, and big
gesture, this is me and like, mystuff, right? The other person
would be like, yeah, check,please, check, please. I'm out
of here. So we have aresponsibility, too, in our
(28:40):
relationships and in ourcollaborations, to know what
we're bringing to the table. Andliterally imagine that, like two
people about to sit down at thistable, and they're looking at
each other and they're like, sowhy you want to do this thing?
Like, how you doing? Like,what's going on? Like, we think
we can make this thing work.Like, who are you, what are you
doing? What are you up to? Whatare you carrying around? What's
(29:01):
your attitude, what's yourvalues, how do you communicate?
Is there room for me in thisrelationship, or is it going to
be the you show like all thetime, right? Is there mutual
respect and support, right? Dowe love each other double A men
hands, if you get that. But dowe like each other like would we
choose each other? Would wechoose each other? And that's a
(29:27):
really important thing. Becauseremember who you choose to
collaborate with, who you chooseto do relationship with. It
matters. And then one otherpoint, like, because beyond
that, you know, they become likean extension of you, you know.
And so I often talk about how,like, you know,
(29:48):
I don't like to be associatedwith people who are doing shady
shit. I want to, I want tosurround myself with people who
look and we're all flawed. We'reall flawed, we're. All a work in
progress, but there's adifference between, they made a
mistake, they screwed up,they're learning, and that is
some shady shit. That is aperson who is, like, up to no
(30:12):
good. I'm all for funshenanigans, right? I'm all for
like, we're gonna stumble, we'regonna be clumsy. That's life.
We're doing our best, and we'regoing to get better, and we
apologize and we own it, andthen there's people who are up
to some stuff that I wantnothing to do with, and I don't
want to be associated, right? Soit can be really easy to be
(30:33):
charmed by people. So one of theother things I'll say is before
you jump into a collaboration, arelationship, a friendship. Pump
the brakes a little bit. Have alittle patience. Feel things
out, get a real sense of people,because we are training our
(30:54):
brains these days for everythingto be fast, immediate. Want
instant gratification. Let'sjust do everything right? And
like, we need to be able to pumpthe brakes. Kind of take a look
at the larger landscape. Kind offloat above the timeline, go
above everything. Take a look,see, take a little look, see
around, and be like, Who is thisperson really? What am I getting
(31:18):
into? And you know, some people,you get involved too fast, too
furious, right? The Fast and theFurious. And it doesn't always
end well. I feel like I couldtalk about this for a really
long time, that this metaphor,right of relationships are like
good collaborations, but I thinkI'm going to pause it there for
(31:39):
now, and it's just aninvitation, too, to take a look
around and see who are youcollaborating with these days.
Maybe you haven't collaboratedwith somebody in a long time.
Maybe your collaboration partnerrecently passed away, or you
broke up, or they left, orthere's been a rift, or some
kind, you know, maybe it's timeto stop looking, you know, to
(32:01):
collaborate, or maybe thegreatest collaboration you want
to have is between you andyourself, or you and your book,
your artistry, your writing, youand your music, you and whatever
you're creating, you and yourclients. I don't know you and
your pets, like whatever. It'snot for me to say what your next
collaboration should be, butmaybe you've been not really
(32:21):
pouring into any kind ofcollaboration lately, and maybe
you've just been kind of likedog paddling, trying to keep
your head above water. But youknow, there are, there are some
great collaborators out there,and they're also looking for you
and for the beauty and the thewisdom and the joy and the fun
and the love. And let me justsay that too, great great
(32:45):
collaborations, greatrelationships. They have fun.
You have more fun together. Andso if you're starting to feel
like, Oh, these things, thisdoesn't really feel that fun
anymore. And I'm not talkingabout, like, hard patches,
because all relationships gothrough those kind of tough
patches, right? I shouldn't saymost, let's, let's normalize
(33:07):
that most relationships, they gothrough a thing when you feel a
little out of sync, whatever.I'm not talking about that. But
sometimes there comes a pointwhere you're just like, Yeah,
this is just a grind, and Idon't see a way out, like, and
I'm not saying give up, right?That's what therapy and coaching
and mentoring. There's 1000things you can do, but sometimes
we just when we start torealize, yeah, this doesn't feel
(33:27):
that fun anymore. That's like aflare being sent up into the
consciousness to take a look atthat. But hopefully, whoever you
are collaborating with rightnow, you're having a lot of fun,
and I'm so grateful to all thepeople that have been great
collaborators with me throughoutmy lifetime, and I've had some
great collaborations, and Isuper duper appreciate you. And
(33:51):
right now I feel like I'm havinga collaboration with my
listeners. So thank you so muchagain for being here. I hope
this has been helpful in someway, or got you just thinking a
little differently. I alwayssay, I'm not here to tell you
what to think, but it's aninvitation to think, and
sometimes it might be a new wayof thinking, which is always
fantastic and fun. So Iappreciate you so much. Don't
(34:12):
forget, my friend Emmeline hasher content with character
podcast. It's coming out onAugust 19, and she's kind of
taking a collaboration anglemore from the business side, and
I'm really excited to listen tothat. Maybe you'll check it out
too, and just thank you forbeing here and wherever you go,
wherever you go, may you leaveyourself and the place and the
(34:32):
animals and the planet and theother people, your other
collaborators, better than howyou first found them, wherever
you go. May you and your energyand your presence and your love,
you know, be a blessing. Bye.You.
Hey you guys, welcome to theKaren Kenney show. I'm super
duper excited to be here, andthank you so much for listening
to the podcast. If you tune inregularly, like, you already
know who I am, right? Like,maybe my face is familiar. You
know my voice, you know what wetalk about here on the show. But
if, like, you're wicked new tothe show, first of all, welcome.
(00:23):
I'm so happy to have you here,and you can find out, like, I'm
not going to read you some longass bio, but you can find out
all about me. Karen Kenney, k, en, n, e, y.com, the work I do,
the stuff I offer, whatever. Butin a wicked short synopsis,
right? A little short synopsis,I'm a certified spiritual
mentor. I am a writer, I'm aspeaker, I'm a storyteller, I'm
(00:48):
a integrative coach, I'm ahypnotist. I I've been a yoga
teacher for like, 26 years. I doThai Yoga massage, like Thai
Yoga, bodywork, blah, blah, onand on and on. Mostly I'm like,
I'm a child of God, I'm anextension of the universe. I try
to spread love. That's what thehot beat of the show is about.
Is about spirituality andstorytelling. And, you know,
(01:12):
kind of just learning all aboutwho we are, why we do what we
do, say what we say, think, whatwe think, etc, etc. And I just
really try to share applicableand practical tools and tell
stories that like have maybeuniversal principles in them,
but that you can also somehowlike put into action in your
(01:33):
life. So spreading a little morelove in the world is kind of
like my my modus operandi.That's why, that's why I like to
do this show. Okay, so today,today, what today's episode is
brought to you by differentinspirations. One was a
conversation I was having withmy friend who I call Emmeline.
(01:57):
Her real name is Emily, a bornbut I call her Emma line. And so
we were talking aboutcollaborations, and that's kind
of like the hot beat of whatthis episode is about. And then
also something that I saw onlinefrom an actor that I love, Ethan
Hawk, and so I'm going to diveinto that right now. So Emma
(02:18):
line is actually doing Emily aborn, right? Her podcast is
called content with characterand next week. So whenever
you're listening to this on, herepisode is coming out on like
August 19, 2025 and she'stalking all about collaboration.
So you want to go check thatepisode out for sure. And she's
kind of coming at it more from aprofessional standpoint, a
(02:41):
business standpoint, I'm talkingabout collaborations on more of
a personal level. And I think sooften we think about
collaborations being forbusiness, right, or school or
something that's not as close tothe human hat, but I think all
relationships are like goodcollaborations, right? Or, I
(03:05):
should say maybe all goodrelationships are like good
collaborations. So relationshipsare like collaborations. And let
me kind of tell you what I meanby that. So a lot of times when
we're going to quote, unquote,collaborate with somebody out in
the world, you know, we're kindof looking at it from a very
strategic point of view. It'slike, okay, what are they
bringing to the table? What am Ibringing to the table? How is
(03:27):
this going to benefit me? How isthis going to benefit them? Is
this going to speak to myaudience? Is this going to land
with my listeners or my clients?Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
but for me, and it's not even abut, and for me, the main
driving force is, is the mathhas to be mathing, meaning, when
we bring me together with you,right? When we bring these two
(03:52):
living, breathing human beings,these human spirits, together,
you've got one plus one, andhopefully you are Better
Together, meaning that when youcome together, that you create a
certain kind of magic thatbenefits not only each of you
but the greater world, yourcommunity, your family, your
(04:14):
environment. And so when I thinkabout relationships this, this
goes to personal relationships,like, hopefully within your
family, your friends, yoursweetie, your partner, who
you're married to or sleepingwith, or like, whatever, right?
So when you're going into this,who you choose, when you're
going into a relationship with,right? When you're when you're
(04:37):
planning on hooking up withsomebody, whether that's for
months, years, life, whatever,right who you choose to quote,
unquote, collaborate with,matters. So it's not that we
want to be picky in this specialway, like I'm better than you,
but we want to think about thisbeyond just the pretty surface
(04:59):
stuff. Like, like, oh, thatperson's hot. Like, I want to be
with them. It's like, wow. It'slike, can we go, like, a little
bit of a deeper dive? Becausethose elements beyond Oh, it's
just going to look goodtogether. Right underneath that
is, it's like, are we bettertogether? What I'm bringing into
the relationship, and whatthey're bringing into the
(05:20):
relationship, is we collaboratetogether? Are we going to create
something that is really strong,that is really powerful, that is
really, you know, can, can kindof like last, last, over time.
Now, sometimes there are goingto be quick collaborations,
right? You might meet somebodyand you decide to do a project
(05:42):
together and like, that'swhatever, but if we're doing
something for a long period oftime together, it's really
important, I think, that westart off by choosing somebody
who we're going to be in arelationship slash collaboration
with, that we respect, that wetrust and beyond loving them,
(06:05):
that we actually like them,because there are all kinds of
people that you, quote, unquote,love, right? Oh, that's my
uncle. I love him. He's part ofmy family. I find it fascinating
that we can love people. There'sa love there. But we necessarily
don't want to, I don't want to,like, maybe hang out with them,
(06:25):
or,
oh my god, we don't want to seehim that often. You know what
I'm saying. We don't want to goto lunch. It's like, yeah, I
love them and right and find theright distance or whatever. But
something that Ethan Hawke saidmade me really start to think
about this idea. He was talkingabout that he and his wife had
(06:50):
started to collaborate. She wasgetting more into, like
producing films, and so theywere working on a project. And
one of the things he said twothings that really jumped out at
me, and I want to share themhere, because I think they're
really applicable to ourrelationships, to these
collaborations that we decide toget into. And he said, number
one, one of the things thatmakes a successful collaboration
(07:12):
is you have to be open to otherpeople's ideas. A lot of times
we come into relationships andwe think like, This is who I am.
This is the way, the right way,the only way I'm the one that
has the strength in this area.Like we kind of put ourselves in
boxes, and sometimes we putourselves up on pedestals, and
(07:35):
we just do don't listen verywell to what other people are
trying to share with us. And sonumber one, I think when we go
into a relationship or acollaboration, we have to keep
our minds, open our ears, openour eyes, open our hearts, open
right? We have to be open towhat the other person is sharing
(07:58):
with us their ideas, right? Wecan't just say, like, No, I'm
the boss here. Like, you suck itin a bucket, right? That. That's
not how this works. So numberone, we got to be open to other
people's ideas, and thisapplies, right? Because here's
the thing, even if everythingI'm saying can also pretty much
be applied to businesscollaborations, because all
(08:18):
those are relationships as well,they just might not be, as you
know, intimate, let's put itthat way. But even a really good
business collaboration, there isa certain amount of intimacy and
vulnerability that that goes onthere. Okay? Number two, Ethan
Hawke, he said, You have totrust your collaborators. You
have to trust yourcollaborators. And the way that
(08:39):
he said, It really made melaugh, and it made me think
about long term relationships,because I think that there's
this thing that happens in longterm relationships, and I've
talked about this on otherepisodes, where people just kind
of start to take each other forgranted. People like to start to
like, pigeonhole people andlabel them and think of them as
(09:01):
like, well, I'm the one whocooks, they're the one who
cleans. I'm the one that has themechanical skill set. They're
more analytical, or they're morefeely, or they're like,
whatever. And so we labelpeople, we stop seeing them, we
stop trying to understand them,because we think we know
everything already. We knoweverything about them. We know
(09:21):
how they are. We think we canpredict what story they're going
to tell, what their moods goingto be, how they're going to
respond. We don't even allowthem to have a present moment
experience, because we'vealready like labeled them or
whatever. And when we start todo this, we start to take them
for granted, and we don't trustthem anymore. We're not as
curious about them. We show upwith all of our judgments, so we
(09:44):
have to trust our collaborators.And he said it like this. He
says, You have to keep in mind,right? I'm paraphrasing a little
bit. He says there was a timeinstead of instead of project,
right, instead of the wordproject, just think
relationship. Okay, you. Hesays, There was a time when you
really wanted them to join thisproject, and it's because you
(10:07):
thought they were smart, and Ilove this so much. There was a
time when you were starting toget into a relationship with
somebody, and you were like,Yeah, I want to do life with
this person. I want to spendtime with this person. I want to
exchange time, energy,resources, money, sex, bodies,
(10:27):
whatever, with this personbecause you trusted them,
because you thought that theywere bringing something
worthwhile to the table, right?You thought they were smart. And
this is kind of really low gradesecret kind of, like internal
contempt that I see that buildsover time in relationships where
(10:50):
the couple stops collaboratingand they're more like competing
or withholding, and I've seenthis, especially In older
couples, like talking about,like, grandparent level couples,
right? And I know somegrandparents are much younger
these days, but I'm talking likeold school, like old school, and
(11:12):
one of my set of grandparents,oh, my God, I couldn't tell
like, I'm like, they stayedmarried, like, up until their
deaths. But I'm like, there wasso much contempt, there was so
much anger, and I think justdisappointment and eye rolling,
you know, like one would startto talk, and the other one
would, like, roll their eyes sohard and far and back in their
head that I'd be like, I don'tknow, I don't know if she's
(11:34):
going to be able to Get thosedown, you know, and I'm like,
whatever this relationship slashcollaboration was at the get go,
I think, I think at this pointnow, they just pretty much can't
stand each other, but theystayed together because that's
what you did back then. You knowwhat I mean. So one of the
(11:55):
things when we're going intothese relationships, into these
especially these longer termcollaborations, is we want to
understand like, what is thisother person's values? Like?
What are their core values?Like, what really matters to
them, right? And what do theyconsider valuable like, what
(12:15):
what matters to them? Like, whoare they? You know what I mean?
Because, again, who you arechoosing to collaborate with,
matters, and we're going to gointo how it doesn't always work
out in a minute. We want tounderstand how they communicate.
Like, if I'm trying to do aproject with somebody, I need to
know like, who they are, what'stheir style like, what's their
(12:38):
style of communication? Are theygoing to be like timely and
getting back to me, are theyable to do they have emotional
intelligence? Can they tell mewhat they're thinking, what they
they feel? Do they communicatein a very gruff or abrupt or
harsh way? Do they tend to needan invitation to communicate, or
(13:02):
are they afraid of being abother? Like, there's so many
layers to it, right? We want tounderstand their commitment
level. Like, how serious arethey about this thing? How
serious are they about thisproject or this relationship?
Like, are we on the same levelof commitment? Are they doing
like, Hey, this is a one offthing, right? Or are they
looking to go a little deeperand to establish, you know, a
(13:23):
connection, and to establishsome history and some some time,
and, like, whatever, you know,what's their skill set? What?
Again, not so much like, what doyou bring into the table? But
like, yeah, what's yourcontribution to this
relationship? Like, what? Whatlike Do you have the capacity
right to communicate, to care?Are you a total raging
(13:47):
narcissist? Are you like, areyou so traumatized that you're
not able to access parts of youlike, you know, like, who am I
dealing with? You know thatagain, what's their style of how
they're showing up in the world,because I think in a really good
relationship and in a reallygood collaboration, there is
(14:09):
enough room for everybody toshine, so even if your styles
are totally different, one ofthe beautiful things like I
think about my sweetie and Iright, like My sweetie and I, we
share a lot of the same corevalues, like we care about, you
know, certain that we both weboth love animals. We both are
(14:31):
like a little introverted, andwe do extroverted things, right?
Even though we're both veryintroverted, we do very
extroverted things in our life.
We both artists, right? He's amusician and I'm a writer. We're
both creatives. We both value,like, time to get etc, etc, etc,
right? So, but he is, like, hehas a skill set. Like, I marvel
(14:56):
at his skill set. He is soridiculously talented. Like, he
just makes me. To punch myselfin the face. Sometimes he's so
talented and he can shine in heshines in very particular ways.
And then there's me and what Ido, and then there's whatever my
skill set and whatever I do inthe world, right? So we
compliment each other, andthere's room for both of us to
(15:18):
shine. You know, there was aperiod of time in my life where
I kept choosing partners, I keptchoosing people who were like
always really talented, butthere was no real room in the
relationship for me to shine,because it was always about
them. It was always about mycontribution was in upholding
(15:43):
them, supporting them, beingtheir greatest cheerleader, you
know what I mean? And slowlyover time, right? I finally, you
know, chose a guy who and therewas another relationship. In
fairness, there's anotherrelationship before that that
started to give me a taste ofthat, of like, putting the
spotlight a little bit more onmyself, my sweetie just really,
(16:06):
really supports me, and he's mybiggest number one fan, right?
And that's another thing. Like,you want to be a fan of the
other person that you'recollaborating with, that you're
in relationship with. You don'twant this weird fucking
competition. Like, I just cannothit I can't stand that. Like, I
know people believe in healthycompetition. They're like, Oh
(16:28):
yeah, when I see them doingwell, it makes me want to
ratchet it up a gear, like,whatever. That's fine. I'm
talking about the kind ofcompetition where it gets weird.
You know, when, like, the vibestarts to get weird, and you're
like, oh, this doesn't feel likeit's a supportive, mutual fan
club thing. This starts to feellike either there's envy or
(16:51):
jealousy or them actuallyfrenemy, right? They really,
actually don't want me to dowell. They don't want me to
shine too bright, like theythink that my brightness casts a
shadow, rather than seeing that.You know, we're kind of that
sunlight that we're bothbringing is nurturing all the
way around. Yeah, we want to bein relationship, aka
(17:14):
collaboration, with people,where we actually support one
another. You know, because I'lltell you this, I can think off
the top of my head, and I'm surethat look at if I'm leaving
anybody, nobody take thispersonally, anybody who, who
I've worked with in the past,but just off the top of my head,
I can think of, like, threereally fantastic collaborations
that I had. My first one waswhen I was in college in BU, my
(17:38):
friends, I was lucky enough toactually be in school, in the
same classes with just friendswho I adored like I adored. And
my sophomore year, we had to dowhat was called a capstone
project. And basically we had toget together, and we had to,
like research. I think weactually did a paper on the on
(17:58):
the Hare Krishna movement. Butit was like myself, my friend
Christy, I think my friendGrover, there was a there was
like four or five of us. I thinkthere was four of us, and we
each brought our own particularskill set. And the thing, other
thing, is that we all trustedeach other, and we were all
(18:19):
reliable. Not nobody wasdragging ass. Nobody was
slacking. Nobody was not doingtheir part. No, at least in my
memory, right? That's how Iremember it is that everybody
was doing their job, like doyour job. That's another part of
a powerful, you know,collaboration slash relationship
is, you know, don't be slacking.Don't be slacking, don't be
(18:40):
withholding like everybody, doyour damn job, and it just makes
it easier for everybody else.You know what I mean? I'm not
saying you can't have a toughtime or go through a period
where you need more support orattention or love or whatever,
but if you pull your own weightand you really do your best,
that goes a long way. Anothertime is the New Hampshire yoga
(19:02):
retreat. So for five years, Ipatented up with three other
yoga teachers who are myfriends, and we put on these
fantastic yoga retreats, andlike 120 people would come, and
it would be so much fun, and wewould do it over a three day
weekend, and we all came fromdifferent studios. We all
brought different points of viewand strengths and whatever, and
(19:26):
we all believed in each otherand supported each other. And
there was no weirdness, right?There was no like jealousy,
there was no it was a truecollaboration. It was such a
blast. And then my friendEmmeline, Emily and I did a
collaboration called the contentcompass, when we talked all
about, like, creating contentand storytelling and whatever.
(19:47):
And it was one of the easiestand funnest and just like, no
drama, like it was like, Okay,we would hop on a zoom. We'd
talk about it. We're like, let'sdo it over this many days, the.
Sounds great. What time do youthink? Yeah, sure, it was so
easy, which in and it was easy,it was fun. It gave me more
(20:13):
energy. I did not feel drained.Because, let's be honest, I've
had some bad collaborations,like things where I thought, Oh,
this is a good idea. This personis x, y and z, so this is going
to be like, a good fit, right?We're all bringing different
POVs to the table, like, let'sdo this thing. There's one in
(20:37):
particular that I think aboutnow. I cannot tell you, it never
got off the ground. I wasplanning an event with some
people, and there was one personin particular who made it so
fucking hard, just likeeverything was like, you know,
(20:57):
we talk about, like pullingteeth. It was like an energetic
suck of the biggest and deepestlevel. And I would get off those
calls and those Voxer thing,those threads, and I would just
be like, I can't do this. It waslike, it was like pushing a rock
uphill again and again, like amassive boulder, and I would be
(21:21):
like, This is so exhausting.This per and it was because I'm
not saying, Look, we all bringour own stuff, right? We all
bring our own stuff to acollaboration. But one of the
things that I saw is that thisperson had a different style of
communication. This person wasnot willing to be open, really,
(21:41):
to other people's ideas. Theydid not trust their
collaborators. And how do youknow that? Is because they were
trying to control every littlething, and they kind of kept
making themselves be thecenterpiece they wanted. They
had to be like, Oh, I do. I andI'd be like, hey, there's like,
(22:02):
two other two other people here.You know what I mean? Because
you'll just know you I meandouble A men hands you guys. If
you've ever had to work on aproject, or you got paired up
with somebody or whatever, weknow what a shitty collaboration
a partner feels for like, right?So I don't have to, like, hop on
it and drag people through themud, or blah, blah, blah, blah,
(22:22):
because I'm sure there'ssomebody out there at some point
they could say, Oh yeah, andthey were not the strongest
collaboration partner, you know,back in the day, whatever. But
here's the thing, if you aregoing to engage, right and,
quote, unquote, collaborate, Ithink all relationships are like
collaborations, and we want themto be good, right? We want to,
(22:48):
at the very least, own whatwe're bringing to the
relationship, showing up withhonesty, showing up and saying,
This is what I'm capable of.This is what I'm not capable of,
at least right now. This is whatI'm working on. This is what I'm
willing to do. These are myvalues. This is who I am. And
what that means is part of itmeans you have to know yourself
(23:12):
now sometimes we might, quote,unquote, surprise ourselves
about how we're showing up ornot showing up, how we're
reacting, responding,communicating, whatever. But if
you don't know yourself, if youdon't know what you're good at,
if you don't know where yourstrengths lie, where your
weaknesses are, where youstruggle, where you get
triggered. But you have to knowyourself if you're going to be
(23:35):
getting into a quote, unquote,collaboration with somebody
especially long term, you know,and it requires a lot of
honesty, first and foremost,with yourself, because nobody
wants to be bamboozled. Nobodywants to put in the time, the
energy and the effort to plan alife with you. Never mind just a
(23:56):
project with you, if the ifyou're not like if you're not
going to be who you say you arewho you are, you know what I
mean? If you're not going to dowhat you if there's an if
there's a lack of congruency,remember, I always say the
assignment is alignment. Ifyou're out of alignment, there
will be that cognitivedissonance. They're going to be
(24:16):
like, Well, wait. They say that.They always show up on time, but
this they're always late. Theysay they care about X, Y and Z,
but their actions are incomplete opposition to what the
crap that came out of theirmouth was, you know,
and that that will break downtrust and sometimes it all looks
(24:40):
good on paper. It all looks goodon paper. And then you actually
start to get into each other'skind of energetic field. You
start to spend a little bit oftime together. You have to be
able to, kind of, like, read thevibe and read the room. And
there are times when, yeah, youknow, not all collaborations,
like. To be wicked smooth allthe time. There'll be speed
(25:02):
bumps. That's just life. But wehave to know when to say no. We
have to know when we have topull the plug. Because this
isn't just a This isn't like atemporary thing, right? Like
this is how that person operatesin the world, and there's just
going to be no, this isn't goingto work. And the thing is, is
(25:23):
you don't have to hate somebodybecause of it. You don't have to
cast them out of your hat. Youcan simply just say, like, yeah,
I don't think this is going tobe a good fit. You know what I
mean? And again, I thinkeverything I'm saying also
applies to business. I thinkwhenever you're going because
it's all relationships, even ifyou bump into somebody at the
(25:44):
grocery store, a stranger forlike 10 seconds, and you share a
glance, you share a moment, youget somebody some cereal done
off the top shelf becausethey're shorter than you that
that is a moment, momentary likerelationship, you know. And of
course, in miracles, we call itlike a level of teaching,
there's that moment, there'sthat opportunity. And every time
(26:05):
you interact with anotherperson, it's an opportunity for
a holy moment, you know. Andagain, it makes me think, what
about what Ethan said, you know,you have to trust your
collaborators, which means youhave to remember that you
started to go into this thingbecause you thought the other
person was smart or they hadsome value, that they were
bringing something to therelationship. So when you find
(26:29):
yourself starting to slip intothat kind of like agitation or
contempt or judgment or eyerolling or taking people for
granted, or whatever. That'swhen you want to really just
slow down and start to take alook at what's going on inside
of you. And I think to know,again, we're going back to like,
(26:51):
you got to know yourself. Yougot to know why you're feeling,
what you're feeling, why youthink, what you think, why you
say, what you say, why you dowhat you do, and what kind of
shit that you're bringing to thecollaboration, because it's
really easy to be focusing onwell, they're not doing this,
and they're not doing that, andthey're not saying this, and
they're not holding up theirend, and they're not Murmur,
murmur, them, them, them, them,them, them. It's all their
(27:14):
fault. It's all what you we haveto be willing to take a look at
ourselves too and say, Do Itrust, do I trust this other
person in the collaboration,meaning myself, like, am I
actually showing up at myhighest level? Am I showing up
from a place of love, or am Ishowing up from a place of my
fear and my neuroses and all mybullshit, all my undealt with
(27:36):
trauma, all my emotionalbaggage, you know? And I always
talk about it like this, youknow, I think about
relationships like when, whenyou're dating, I'm like, when
people first start dating, theylove to show up and put on their
best act, right? Their best selfsteps forward and goes on the
date for the first however long,right? Because if people were to
(27:58):
just show up with their big bagof emotional stuff, all their
undealt with stuff, all theirhabits and patterns and
conditions and insecurity andbullshit, and they just imagine
just walking up like you'remeeting at a restaurant. It's
like the first time you'remeeting each other, and you both
like walk up to the table, orone of you is already sitting at
(28:19):
the table, and the other personjust walks up with this big
Santa size sack full of stuff,full of shit. They just set it
down, and they're like, hi,like, this is me, and big
gesture, this is me and like, mystuff, right? The other person
would be like, yeah, check,please, check, please. I'm out
of here. So we have aresponsibility, too, in our
(28:40):
relationships and in ourcollaborations, to know what
we're bringing to the table. Andliterally imagine that, like two
people about to sit down at thistable, and they're looking at
each other and they're like, sowhy you want to do this thing?
Like, how you doing? Like,what's going on? Like, we think
we can make this thing work.Like, who are you, what are you
doing? What are you up to? Whatare you carrying around? What's
(29:01):
your attitude, what's yourvalues, how do you communicate?
Is there room for me in thisrelationship, or is it going to
be the you show like all thetime, right? Is there mutual
respect and support, right? Dowe love each other double A men
hands, if you get that. But dowe like each other like would we
choose each other? Would wechoose each other? And that's a
(29:27):
really important thing. Becauseremember who you choose to
collaborate with, who you chooseto do relationship with. It
matters. And then one otherpoint, like, because beyond
that, you know, they become likean extension of you, you know.
And so I often talk about how,like, you know,
(29:48):
I don't like to be associatedwith people who are doing shady
shit. I want to, I want tosurround myself with people who
look and we're all flawed. We'reall flawed, we're. All a work in
progress, but there's adifference between, they made a
mistake, they screwed up,they're learning, and that is
some shady shit. That is aperson who is, like, up to no
(30:12):
good. I'm all for funshenanigans, right? I'm all for
like, we're gonna stumble, we'regonna be clumsy. That's life.
We're doing our best, and we'regoing to get better, and we
apologize and we own it, andthen there's people who are up
to some stuff that I wantnothing to do with, and I don't
want to be associated, right? Soit can be really easy to be
(30:33):
charmed by people. So one of theother things I'll say is before
you jump into a collaboration, arelationship, a friendship. Pump
the brakes a little bit. Have alittle patience. Feel things
out, get a real sense of people,because we are training our
(30:54):
brains these days for everythingto be fast, immediate. Want
instant gratification. Let'sjust do everything right? And
like, we need to be able to pumpthe brakes. Kind of take a look
at the larger landscape. Kind offloat above the timeline, go
above everything. Take a look,see, take a little look, see
around, and be like, Who is thisperson really? What am I getting
(31:18):
into? And you know, some people,you get involved too fast, too
furious, right? The Fast and theFurious. And it doesn't always
end well. I feel like I couldtalk about this for a really
long time, that this metaphor,right of relationships are like
good collaborations, but I thinkI'm going to pause it there for
(31:39):
now, and it's just aninvitation, too, to take a look
around and see who are youcollaborating with these days.
Maybe you haven't collaboratedwith somebody in a long time.
Maybe your collaboration partnerrecently passed away, or you
broke up, or they left, orthere's been a rift, or some
kind, you know, maybe it's timeto stop looking, you know, to
(32:01):
collaborate, or maybe thegreatest collaboration you want
to have is between you andyourself, or you and your book,
your artistry, your writing, youand your music, you and whatever
you're creating, you and yourclients. I don't know you and
your pets, like whatever. It'snot for me to say what your next
collaboration should be, butmaybe you've been not really
(32:21):
pouring into any kind ofcollaboration lately, and maybe
you've just been kind of likedog paddling, trying to keep
your head above water. But youknow, there are, there are some
great collaborators out there,and they're also looking for you
and for the beauty and the thewisdom and the joy and the fun
and the love. And let me justsay that too, great great
(32:45):
collaborations, greatrelationships. They have fun.
You have more fun together. Andso if you're starting to feel
like, Oh, these things, thisdoesn't really feel that fun
anymore. And I'm not talkingabout, like, hard patches,
because all relationships gothrough those kind of tough
patches, right? I shouldn't saymost, let's, let's normalize
(33:07):
that most relationships, they gothrough a thing when you feel a
little out of sync, whatever.I'm not talking about that. But
sometimes there comes a pointwhere you're just like, Yeah,
this is just a grind, and Idon't see a way out, like, and
I'm not saying give up, right?That's what therapy and coaching
and mentoring. There's 1000things you can do, but sometimes
we just when we start torealize, yeah, this doesn't feel
(33:27):
that fun anymore. That's like aflare being sent up into the
consciousness to take a look atthat. But hopefully, whoever you
are collaborating with rightnow, you're having a lot of fun,
and I'm so grateful to all thepeople that have been great
collaborators with me throughoutmy lifetime, and I've had some
great collaborations, and Isuper duper appreciate you. And
(33:51):
right now I feel like I'm havinga collaboration with my
listeners. So thank you so muchagain for being here. I hope
this has been helpful in someway, or got you just thinking a
little differently. I alwayssay, I'm not here to tell you
what to think, but it's aninvitation to think, and
sometimes it might be a new wayof thinking, which is always
fantastic and fun. So Iappreciate you so much. Don't
(34:12):
forget, my friend Emmeline hasher content with character
podcast. It's coming out onAugust 19, and she's kind of
taking a collaboration anglemore from the business side, and
I'm really excited to listen tothat. Maybe you'll check it out
too, and just thank you forbeing here and wherever you go,
wherever you go, may you leaveyourself and the place and the
(34:32):
animals and the planet and theother people, your other
collaborators, better than howyou first found them, wherever
you go. May you and your energyand your presence and your love,
you know, be a blessing. Bye.You.
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