April 29, 2025 • 53 mins
Cathy Brooks is a leadership and communications coach. Her distinct approach is derived from her public relations and communications experiences in Silicon Valley and a career as a dog behaviorist. Cathy shares her career journey from journalism to founding the Hydrant Club and Unleashed Leadership, LLC. She also discusses the importance of positive communication, the transformative power of dog behavior, the impact of technology and social media, and effective strategies for improving human interactions. The conversation touches on societal issues, personal growth, and the significance of taking individual responsibility to foster change.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I can't fix the macro dumpsterfire.
(00:02):
That's the world.
Like the world's a shit stormright now.
Let's just call it what it is.
And if I let myself listen andthink about that, rather than
think about what can I do in themicro space, that's my world.
If each of us takes care of ourown micro space, ultimately that
macro by default will have tochange.
(00:22):
That's only held up by theinsecurity, instability, and
fear of all the peopleunderneath it.
Speaker (00:38):
Welcome to the Wayfinder Show with Louis
Hernandez, where guests discussthe why and how of making
changes that led them down amore authentic path or allow
them to level up in some areasof their life.
Our goal is to dig deep andprovide not only knowledge, but
actionable advice to help youget from where you are to where
you want to be.
(00:59):
Come join us and find a way toyour dream life.
Cathy Brooks (01:13):
Welcome back to the Wayfinder Show.
I'm your host, Louis Hernandez,and today I am here to welcome
Ms.
Kathy Brooks, a leadership andcommunications coach with a
unique approach to transformingcommunications with a, after 22
years in Silicon Valley, Kathyfounded the Hydrant Club where
she discovered powerful lessonsin human communication.
(01:33):
Connection through dog behavior.
Now through Unleash Leadership,LLC, Kathy helps individuals and
teams achieve success bymastering communication, using
creative insights from dogs,classical music, and ice hockey.
So I'm excited to dive into herjourney and unique expertise.
(01:53):
Kathy, welcome to the WayWayfinder Show.
Thank you for having me, Lily.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, that is.
So there's one extra, there's anextra, there's one extra item.
And now most recently working asa design consultant for renewal
by Anderson.
So that's the latest item addedto that.
(02:14):
Really weirdly, like you look atthat list of things and you
think, wait, she did what?
And then she went where to dowhat?
And then how does that worktogether?
So I love all of those thingsand thanks for having me.
Yeah.
And I love that the diversebackground all the experiences.
'cause I think we're like thatwe, don't have a clear
(02:35):
trajectory.
And I think more and more that'sgonna be the way it is in life,
right?
You don't just go to school tobe one thing for the rest of
your life anymore.
But you've already experiencedthat and somehow you find a way
to tie it all together.
So why don't we start there andjust go back in time and, share
the journey a little bit.
And then work on connecting themthe changes in life.
(02:59):
I was born a small child.
No bad joke.
Old joke.
Old, Steve Martin joke.
Yeah.
I was when you look at thetrajectory of my my background,
so I started out, ripping wirecopy in a radio station when I
was 14 years old.
For folks who are listening tothe podcast, they might think,
(03:19):
what is wire copy?
It's back in the old days inradio, when you could smoke in
newsrooms and they used manualtypewriters.
Nothing was computerized.
They had these enormous machinesthat spat out yards and yards
of.
Triplicate copy from thedifferent wire services from all
over the world with the news.
And my job was to go into thisvery loud room and rip out that
(03:42):
copy and distribute it around tothe different writers and
editors in the newsroom who thenwould write copy and then bring
it into the, big voice people onthe radio who were telling you
what was happening with theworld.
I thought my life was gonna bein radio.
I went to journalism school atNorthwestern, and then I, was
committed to becoming a reallygood writer, a really good
(04:02):
journalist with a capital J.
So that's why I went to a printjournalism school.
School decided I was gonna workin newspaper right outta
college.
So that landed me in Californiaand it became really clear
really quickly that the ideasthat are.
I had about what it meant to bea journalist, like what it meant
(04:22):
to me to be a journalist,weren't what things were
starting already in those days,in the early nineties, what they
were starting to turn into.
Today you'd be hard pressed towatch any newscast on any
television station where much ofthe content isn't pay for play.
When you look at most printnewspapers in towns where they
(04:45):
even exist anymore.
You'd be hard pressed to findcontent that isn't pure
journalism with beat reporterson the street, gathering
information and then deliveringit as best as is humanly
possible through a neutral lens.
What I was taught was thatjournalists have one job right?
(05:07):
To, to journal to track and noteinformation, and to present as
much of that information.
Information as possible to theaudience so that the audience
has the ability to make theirown choice about what they
believe.
My job as a journalist isn't totell someone what to believe.
My opinion doesn't effingmatter.
(05:29):
I'll meter my language for therespective of audiences, but I
normally am a little on thesalty side being that's okay.
There may be an occasionalF-bomb or some other words
through, if that's, you canbleep bring it on.
Kathy, bring it on.
You can, bleep me.
Okay.
I'll just say it.
My opinion as a journalistdoesn't fucking matter, right?
When I see someone on TV or Iread an article in a newspaper
(05:51):
and they're telling me what theythink about a thing, I don't
really care if you wanna dothat.
Be a columnist, do an opinionpiece.
But your job as a journalist isto gather as much information as
possible and to present it asneutrally as a human possible.
I say that because every humanbeing has a bias.
We have inherent bias that wehave based on where we're from
(06:14):
and how we were raised, andthings we were exposed to, and
trauma we've experienced, andhow we're taught and where we're
taught, and all of the beautifulthings that make us up into the
individuals we are, create thelens through which we see the
world.
This is just the humancondition.
You can take five people and putthem in front of an event, and
(06:34):
all five of those people willhave a different story about
what that event was.
It's like the five blind men inthe elephant.
Each man is standing by a partof the elephant.
The only part to which he hasexposure is the part that's
right in front of him.
And so to each of thoseindividuals, their view of the
elephant is true, but it is theaggregate of the views that
(06:57):
makes the actual truth.
The truth of the collective thatis an elephant.
And so I went into journalism.
I think when I look back, I wentin fundamentally because helping
people learn things, givingpeople new perspectives, gave me
joy.
(07:17):
It felt important.
It felt like something thatreally mattered.
And so over time, as I saw thatwas I went from the newspaper I
went into, tra I did trafficreports on the radio, traffic
and weather together every 10minutes one of those irritating
people.
Yeah.
Who's telling you about trafficthat you're not sitting in?
Meanwhile, you're sitting intraffic yelling at the radio,
(07:39):
why aren't you talking aboutthis?
Of course now we have ways andwe have GPS maps we don't need
those anymore.
But I did that for a bit.
And from there, when I left thatjob, I ended up in Silicon
Valley, backwards.
I was looking for work.
I didn't know what I was gonnado.
I had a degree, in journalism.
So solid writing.
I understood how media workedand it was suggested to me by a
(08:01):
guy who I worked out with at thegym.
We'd see each other every daybecause I wasn't working, so I
was at the gym every day forhours.
And this guy, his name was God,what was Frank's last name?
Frank.
First name?
Frank.
Frank, who worked at Hill andNolton.
He was a Boston guy.
Big brawny Irish guy who workedfor Hill and Nolton and, he
(08:26):
said, why do you know?
Have you ever thought of publicrelations?
You'd be, you have all of theskillset.
You'd just be looking at thestory from the other side.
You'd be the one bringing thestory to the media to present
them with content that theycould then write about.
And I ended up landing at a PRfirm that happened to be
specializing in technology.
Now, this was late 90, early 91,so this is pre Netscape browser.
(08:52):
This is pre Microsoft Web.
Windows computers, if you hadone, it was operating on dos.
There were 10 lines of code totype through to get to the email
address that you could emailfour people.
'cause that's about how manypeople had email printers didn't
live on your desk.
Printers lived in a room in theoffice and they took the whole
(09:13):
room.
Yeah.
And you usually needed someonewho would print things for you.
And it sounds like this wascenturies ago and this was.
This was not that long ago inthe grand it's longer ago now
than it used to be, but it'sit's the early nineties.
And so there I was in this spacewith these people.
(09:37):
I did not understand thetechnology.
I think I had an Apple two Cthat I got for college that was
essentially just a fancytypewriter, that I didn't have
to use white out on when I madea mistake.
That's, it was essentially aword processor.
I was watching these fascinatinghuman beings making changes in
(10:00):
our world that they were makingbecause they wanted to make the
world a better place.
Like in those early days.
'cause there wasn't millions of,billions of dollars in it.
Yet there wasn't the insanevaluations.
There weren't uni, we didn'thave the internet thing, hadn't
commercial internet didn't existyet, and.
(10:20):
People were fascinating.
So I stayed and I found I had aknack for the PR thing.
And so I worked at differentagencies.
And truth is Louis.
I never really loved thetechnology.
I was fascinated by the people.
And by the late nineties, earlytwo thousands, I was becoming
increasingly disturbed by what Iwas starting to see.
(10:45):
Technology to separate ratherthan connect.
People who were so focused ontheir technology, they weren't
paying attention to the peoplearound them.
And I just got this cold feelingin the pit of my stomach.
Like we, I think this train hasalready left the station and I
think we're pretty categoricallyfucked.
I hate saying I told you but I,was right and I wasn't in any
(11:08):
sort of position of.
Look, I was a kid in mytwenties.
Had I raised the alarm and ranga bell, I'm pretty sure nobody
would've given a shit what I hadto say anyway.
But I look back and I thinkabout each of the inflection
points.
By the way, I didn't actuallyleave Silicon Valley till 2012,
so that I stayed for a while andit just got worse and worse.
(11:34):
And when I looked at things likeFacebook.
A platform, a behemoth platformcreated by an individual whose
social skills on a good day arequestionable.
Let me say that again.
A platform that is purportedlyto connect community created by
(11:57):
an individual with the socialskills and emotional
intelligence of a turnip, andthat's insulting turnip.
Oops.
And so it's a problem, and sofor me, technology I've got
friends from childhood that I'mconnected to on Facebook, and
that's delightful and amazing.
(12:19):
And when the fires werehappening in la, I was able to
find all of my friends in LA andsee that they were all right.
There's value.
I'm not a no technology person.
Don't get me twisted here.
Technology to enable, empower,and connect is great.
Technology in the hands ofoligarchs and greed and ego is
(12:41):
quite possibly one of the singlemost devastating things to
happen to our society incenturies.
And the good news is that it'sthe train may have left the
station, but it is not anunstoppable train.
(13:03):
And I believe that in the end,the human spirit will triumph
because we're pretty fuckingawesome as a species overall,
generally speaking.
And that ultimately the thingthat makes us most human is our,
is the things that makes us,that make us different.
(13:26):
The things that.
Make us different or what makeus interesting and instead of
being afraid of what'sdifferent, which is where things
seem to have evolved, that ifyou are different than I am,
like I don't know how you vote.
I don't know a lot of thingsabout you and I don't fucking
care.
You appear to me from this shorttime we spent together to be a
(13:48):
kind, interesting human beingwho has lots of thoughts about a
lot of things and we don't knoweach other and so that makes me
curious.
What's your favorite color?
Do you like sports?
What's your favorite sport?
Do you like dogs or are you acat person?
Do you like to hike?
What do you do in your sparetime?
Do you have a favorite food?
Do you have any allergies?
What are you afraid of?
What gets you excited?
(14:08):
Like these are the things thatmake us human.
And so I left Silicon Valley in2012 because Tony Shea, who was
the CEO of Zappos at the time,oh yeah, he is now
unfortunately, rest in peace.
Left this or yeah.
Whole different story aboutaddiction and technology's
influence on that.
That's probably a wholedifferent episode on a whole
(14:31):
different podcast, but it'sworth noting that, what killed
Tony was the thi the, world thathe lived in, right?
And so he and I knew each otherfrom Silicon Valley.
He invited me to Las Vegas.
Because they were just startingto redevelopment of downtown.
So he invited me to come with mydog, my big dog, Truman.
(14:51):
So I went to Vegas in the summerof 2012 with my 75 pound
enormous dog.
And over the course of 10 daysthere had conversations with the
people doing the redevelopmentabout what it might look like to
re imagine a dog training slashsocial club facility at the
heart of this downtowndevelopment to be a place for
(15:14):
community and connection, whichwas really.
The driving force behind thedowntown project at the time.
So they said, if you fund it,will you, if we fund it, will
you move here?
So I said yes.
And six months later I was onthe ground.
Like I literally went to Vegasin the summer of 2012.
And in six, literally six monthslater, I had gone back to San
(15:36):
Francisco.
I had sublet my apartment.
I had thrown my stuff in aU-Haul.
As a good lesbian does and droveacross to Las Vegas, and I went
to open the Hydrant Club, whichwas a new take on how do you
reimagine the relationshipbetween dogs and their humans
and teach them in an urbanenvironment.
(15:58):
And what I found really quicklywas that through the dogs, I had
the ability to help people seethe way they interacted with the
world differently because a dogis either, either a mirror of or
a reaction to our behavior.
What is happening on one end ofthe leash is because of what's
happening on the other end ofthe leash.
(16:18):
Full stop.
Barring tiny little asteriskphysiological ailments.
The dog is sick, the dog hasallergies.
The dog has some sort ofbiochemical imbalance.
The dog came outta the chutesideways, but the number of dogs
that have issues like that areproportionally speaking to the
number of dogs on the planet,like statistically and
(16:39):
insignificant.
The vast majority of dogbehavior, and I'm talking like
98% or more of dog behavior, isa direct reflection or mirror of
the environment that the dog isin.
Partially how you mean, yes,there's breed behaviors, but
even that in the environmentthat it's in.
(16:59):
How is its family structure?
How is its relationship with itshumans?
Where does it fit in the familyhierarchy?
Because a dog only understandsthe world in a hierarchical.
Nuclear family in a world dogworld called a pack.
A hierarch and hierarchicalsmall group.
It is a familial group withleadership at the top.
(17:21):
Clearly identified anddesignated rules and
responsibilities, rules,consequences for breaking the
rules and in order.
And if the rules are broken oryou color outside the lines, the
entirety of the family mightperish.
In a dog's world.
And so when we miscommunicatewith our dogs or when we are
(17:41):
overly dependent on our dogs forour wellbeing, like the whole
idea of an emotional supportanimal is such a load of horse
shit to me as it relates to dogsbecause my emotional state is
not my dog's responsibility.
I'm not talking about.
Legitimate service dogs thatserve people with PTSD and
(18:04):
autism and behavioral spectrumissues where the dogs are
specifically trained tointervene on their human's
behalf and take care of them.
Different thing.
That's an actual legitimatecapital S service dog, that is
trained to execute a specifictask that is of life necessary
support for its handler.
(18:24):
That's what the American withdisabilities are.
Says for a service dog, anemotional support animal means I
am not able to regulate myfeelings and I'm gonna rely on
my dog like a binky.
I don't feel great, so my dog'sgonna make me feel better, and I
(18:44):
have a real issue with that'cause it doesn't do the dog a
service.
It literally upends the dog'sentire understanding of how it's
supposed to be in the world.
In its world, again, barring thevery specially trained dogs that
have jobs to do in a regulardog's world who the one taking
(19:05):
care of them is their hackleader, their family leader, and
the leader's job is to make surethe needs are met to make sure
that the entirety of the wholeis orchestrated.
Which doesn't mean like when I'mupset and my dogs come over to
comfort me, that's awesome, butthen I don't keep relying on
(19:26):
them to feel better.
It's a temporary wow, okay,thanks guys.
You just got me grounded again.
Now I'm back on point and takingcare of your needs.
So it's a nuance, right?
Because of course, as a familymember, if I see my mother
upset, I'm going to go hug mymother.
As a child, if my mom was angryor upset, I didn't like that.
(19:51):
I wanted my mom to be okay, butit wasn't my responsibility to
make her okay.
I would hug her.
She would notice that I wasupset.
She'd say, you know what?
It's okay, Kathy.
I'm okay.
And she'd put her hands back onthe figurative steering wheel,
and my life was okay.
Again.
I have a lot of friends whoended up parenting parents as
young kids.
I was tough on them.
(20:12):
Later in life.
So through dogs I found that Icould help transform people, and
so I started doing that.
I went through transformationalleadership training and
coaching, and got myselfcertified and all of the things,
and then the pandemic hit, andthen all fast forward through
the next bits of the story.
(20:32):
So a pandemic hit after thepandemic.
Tony dies during the pandemic.
After the pandemic, theneighborhood that the business
was in never really fullyreturned to what it was before
the pandemic.
It was no longer fun to do.
I parted ways with the downtownproject at the end of 2022,
kinda taking my business withme, but closing the physical
location.
(20:52):
And I came to Virginia onvacation to house, sit for some
friends, and was going back andforth for a while and just
found.
That I had taken to this livingin the woods thing and figured I
should get a job.
So I ended up putting my resumeonline and getting hired by
renewal by Anderson and what Iget to do every day now, I'm
(21:15):
still working with dogs and I'mstill doing coaching, and what I
do as my job is I get to walkinto someone's home, identify
what their wants, needs, andintentions are, which is usually
something around windows anddoors, but it's.
The doors and windows.
That's how we connect with theworld around us.
It's how we see the world.
(21:35):
It's how the world sees us.
It's the safety and security.
Do I feel safe in my home?
And feeling safe is huge.
Behaviorally speaking.
So I get the great privilege ofworking with people every day to
help them envision, like whenthey drive up to their house,
what do they want that frontdoor to look like?
What does the front door sayabout them?
(21:57):
About the home that people areentering?
I.
Are the windows safe?
Do they open and close?
Are they sealed?
Do they keep the heat in and thecold out?
These are all very basic humanneeds.
And I, the conversations that Iget to have with people are I've
cried with people in their home.
We've not yelled at each other,but yelled about things and
we've laughed and we've talkedabout all sorts of things.
(22:20):
And if you had told me a yearand a half ago that I'd be
working in con constructionsales, I'd say, how do you
figure.
But ultimately, every personwhose life I touch at any given
point in time, like I can't fixthe macro dumpster fire.
That's the world.
Like the world's a shit stormright now.
Let's just call it what it is.
(22:41):
And if I let myself listen andthink about that, rather than
think about what can I do in themicro space that's my world.
If each of us takes care of ourown micro space, ultimately that
macro by default will have tochange.
It's only held up by theinsecurity, instability, and
fear of all the peopleunderneath it, right?
(23:04):
So that in a relatively largenutshell, is the kind of arc of
my story.
And at the end of the day whenpeople say, what do you do?
I say, I transform how peoplesee the world around them.
Maybe connect with it in a moremeaningful way and learn a
little bit about themselves inthe process.
I like that.
(23:24):
I, think it's interesting.
I, the way you look at theworld, I.
Could always be, you couldalways look at it negatively,
right?
You can always look at it as theworld is just crazy.
It's a dumpster fire, as yousaid right now.
Or it could be great.
And that's always the case rightthere.
There's always problems, there'salways chaos, and vice versa.
(23:48):
And it sounds like when you Iwould imagine in your work.
Success would come by looking atthe positive perspective, right?
There's a lot of great thingshappening in the world right now
a lot.
And we choose to focus on someof the chaos and it makes us
start to think, oh, this worldis, just getting a grip on us
(24:12):
and going down.
So I, if that's a case, if thatis a fair way of describing some
of your work, what are somestrategies.
That we can apply, to, not focuson the chaos and focus on the
positive.
I'll, it's a great question.
Thank you.
And I'll start by answering witha question, which is what if it
(24:37):
isn't positive and negative?
What is positive and negative?
Any, take any given event in theworld?
Even a catastrophic event.
And we've seen this in recentyears.
Catastrophic events.
Yes.
Where one group of peoplecelebrates it.
That's right.
And another group of peopledemonizes it.
(24:58):
What if the events in and ofthemselves, all of the things
and, by all of the things all ofthe things are inherently
neither positive nor negative,but neutral.
Sure.
Now, someone might say, how is achild?
Child dying, not negative.
I'm not suggesting that thingsaren't painful.
(25:20):
I'm not suggesting that thingsaren't hard, that things don't
hurt, that things aren't scary.
I'm suggesting that if I chooseto look at it as bad and scary,
what am I going to start to see?
(25:40):
All seem more scary.
That's Right.
So there was a study done and Iactually just, I recently heard
the name of the guy who did thestudy, and of course, now it's
not in my head.
I'll send it to you if I findit.
But it was a research studyaround luck and they had a a
(26:00):
statistically relevant data setof people half of whom believed
they were lucky and half of whomdidn't.
They put them in a room wherethey do all of the things that
they do.
And what they do is they gavethem a broad sheet newspaper and
they said, okay, how manypictures are in this newspaper?
You need to tell us how manypictures are in the newspaper.
(26:24):
So what was interesting was onlike the second or third page of
the newspaper was a bigheadline.
It said, stop counting.
There are 48 pictures in thisnewspaper.
What was interesting was thatthe people who thought they were
lucky, who had positive mindsetall saw that headline and
(26:45):
stopped.
And told the surveyors how manypictures were in the paper.
Yeah.
And the people who didn't thinkthey were lucky, the people who
looked through a negative lensmissed it entirely.
They counted, they lost count,they miscounted, they went back.
Got the number wrong because allthey could see was the negative.
(27:09):
I can choose whether I see goodin the world or not.
It is a choice.
Now, do I watch the news everyday?
Fuck no.
Do I go on the internet and doomscroll?
Absolutely not.
My time on Facebook is spentprimarily in the private group
that I.
(27:30):
I have for a relatively largenumber of people who have my
kind of interest in looking atthings that are difficult and
talking about them in adifferent way, and having those
kinds of conversations.
And there are people of all ilkin the group and lots of
different opinions and lots ofdifferent beliefs, and we have
open conversations.
(27:51):
The only rule is don't be anasshole.
Yeah.
State your view.
Don't be an asshole.
You get to point fingers.
Other than that, I've spent awhole lot of time on Facebook.
Haven't been on the thingformerly known as Twitter in
ages Instagram.
It's mostly me pic postingpictures.
'cause my 92-year-old mother ison Instagram and so I post
(28:12):
pictures there of things so thatshe can see things happening in
my life.
She thinks I'm sending thepictures directly to her, which
is delightful, that she's evenon Instagram and knows how to
like, like things and comment.
It's delightful.
She's a badass.
My mom.
I'm also glad to know that Ihave jeans that will last a long
time.
I spend some time on LinkedInprofessionally because that's a
group of people who are notthere to talk about the
(28:33):
bullshit.
They're there for very specificreason.
They're focused.
Apart from that, I turn off allscreens about an hour before
bed.
I don't really watch tv.
I have a couple of TV seriesthat I watch, but I'm careful
about what I'm careful aboutwhat I feed my brain.
Yes, just like I'm careful aboutwhat I feed my body.
(28:54):
I don't eat crap.
I don't consume crap.
And when I do eat, like when Ido eat the bag of potato chips
and feel shitty, or I decide Iwanna go for Indian food, even
though I know my body's notgonna be happy about it, but I
really wanna go and my friendswanna go.
So I wanna go for the socialexperience.
I know I'm not gonna feel wellthe next day, so I don't judge
myself or beat myself up overit.
(29:15):
I don't get, I'm not likeanaphylactic or anything.
It just doesn't quite agree withme.
I go for the companionship.
I go for the community.
I'm careful about what I eat,and I just know the next day I
might not feel great, but it'llpass.
If I watch too much TV or Iwatch it late at night, gonna
feel shitty the next day.
So instead of continuing to feelshitty and feeding the beast,
(29:38):
what do I do?
I go for a walk.
I call a friend.
I read a book of poetry.
I cook some food that I enjoy.
I exercise.
I listen to some great music andhave a solo dance party.
I, my favorite thing is going tothe grocery store and making new
friends in the grocery store.
Like I will talk to my mentorsays I have a superpower.
(29:59):
I will talk to anyone anywhereabout anything at any time.
No fault.
Like I get on an airplane and Ihave now been.
Noted on three differentflights, the favorite passenger
of the flight crew, and theyeven gave me wings, which I have
learned is a very big deal whenyou're an adult gets wings.
So I inherently, I'm, I just, ifI move around in the world like
(30:23):
that's what I'm gonna get.
And if I move in the if I lookaround in the world and all I
see are assholes, chances arelikely all I need to do to
figure out the problem is lookin a mirror.
Because if I'm being a dick.
What do you think I'm gonna get?
Yeah, more of that?
Yeah.
Where people, repelled from meand then me being pissed off
(30:44):
that they're repelled.
I started it, and not taking itso damn seriously.
Like for crying out loud people,like the world has been here for
a lot of years America's beenhere for a lot of years.
We're doing pretty okay.
I'm not suggesting that thingsaren't hard and that there
aren't.
Awful things happening to somepeople.
(31:05):
Like I get it.
And how do I foster changewithout becoming part of the
problem?
Yeah.
So what's the strategy?
Take care.
Stay in your own lane and cleanup your side of the street.
Yeah.
My own damn business.
Mind.
My own damn business.
(31:25):
Yeah.
I think that's good advice.
Kathy you, talk a lot about,obviously, I don't know if it's
a strategy.
Yeah.
It's you talk a lot aboutcommunications and how and how
we need to stop talking more atpeople and with people.
Can you elaborate on that alittle bit?
(31:46):
It's always interesting in aninterview situation'cause what I
really wanna be doing with youright now.
It's so what do you think itmeans?
Louis, like when you, he, whenthe question you just asked me,
what does it mean to you to talkwith someone rather than at
someone?
Because I've been talking atyou, but you asked me questions
and we are in the context of aninterview show.
Yeah.
If you and I were sitting overcoffee and you ask me a
(32:09):
question, so Yeah.
So what does it mean to you?
I think it's a mutual exchangeof, ideas and.
Conversation.
Just I, like to learn from myconversation.
Like you, you started off bysaying, Hey we go and learn each
other's favorite color, whethera dog or cat person or favorite
(32:33):
things or those kind of, that,that's what I like.
I like people and learning aboutthem and what motivates them and
what makes'em go and, so that'sa, with conversation, that is
what I'm, I think when more likea lecture type.
We're just, mansplaining, as mydaughters like to tell me now.
(32:57):
So how old are they?
17 and 19.
The other day I was, oh, theywere asking me about why we were
talking about mortgage rates andwhat affects'em, and I was
telling them about the yieldswithin them.
They said, oh, this sounds likeyou're mansplaining.
So were you, oh yeah, very.
(33:18):
I guess the question is, wereyou, oh yeah.
I got up on a whiteboard anddescribed what it was exactly on
a chart, and so that's, did youvery likely.
But they asked, you asked themfirst how much they knew before
you started.
Yeah.
But when they asked, did youthen, did you ask them before
you started what they thought itmeant?
Or what they had heard or whatthey knew before you dove in?
(33:39):
Yeah.
Great question.
No, I didn't.
And sometimes I think we makethat mistake with loved ones and
people we know closely, right?
Like we just automatically makethese assumptions and go into
it.
And we don't do the backgroundwork with the questions to see
where they're at and meet'emthere.
There's always a why.
(34:00):
Every question someone asks,they're asking it for a reason.
Are you asking me why is thatwhat, I just wanted to let, I
wanted to mostly to let it sitfor a second because, so for
example, talking with someone.
Is if you ask me a question in aregular conversation, like
(34:23):
obviously this is an interviewshow, so you ask me a question,
you're looking for me to answeryour question, and
conversationally speaking, whensomeone asks me a question in
order, like I don't need to bethe smart person who has the
answer, what they're, asking thequestion for a reason.
So inquiring about that.
(34:45):
Wow.
Can you tell me more about that?
Or is there a specific reasonwhy that's important to you?
Un understanding the why of aquestion actually can help you
answer it more effectively.
Because I'm a pretty smartcookie.
I went to school, I read a lotof books.
I'm embarrassingly overlyeducated.
(35:07):
I can answer a lot of shit.
Be the smart and wanna, I likebeing the smartest person in the
room.
I will admit it.
I will admit it.
I like knowing things.
And if all I'm doing isanswering instead of inquiring,
then who knows if the answer I'mgiving actually serves the
person.
Person that I'm speaking to.
(35:28):
Yeah, that, that's a greatpoint.
Silence is weird, right?
That was just about five secondsand I could see both of us.
I'm like, is he gonna ask meanother question?
Does he want me to keep talking?
No, I'm gonna let her sit.
Is she just gonna sit there fora second?
I negotiate for a living so Ican sit in silence for a while
with folks, right?
(35:48):
Yeah.
It's good.
The yeah.
Yeah.
I know you got a hard stopcoming up soon, so why don't we
transition to our Wayfinderfour.
C Kathy, can you give us a, doesthat get fun?
Does that get fun music Bubu?
I've thought about doing that.
Yeah.
I'm not right now I'm doing allmy own editing all life.
(36:10):
The Wayfinder four.
Yeah, the Wayfinder four with alittle echo, little reverb on
the end.
Alright, so let's see.
Do you wanna just, I've got, doyou wanna just ask him?
Yeah.
Gimme, give us a hack, a lifehack.
You use meditation.
Oh my God.
If you don't stop, just stop andbreathe.
(36:31):
And it doesn't have to be a big,like you have an altar and you
burn incense and set candles,and you do it for this long
period of time.
It can literally be 60 to 90seconds of just stop in your
tracks, follow your breath, dowhat's called box breathing.
(36:51):
Inhale for a count of three orfour, hold it for three or four.
Exhale and then hold empty forthe same count.
Some people do it for three,some people do it for four.
Some people do it for fivedealer's.
Choice on which one you pick,however good your lungs are,
pick the one that fits your lungcapacity.
Doing that cycle four times isscientifically proven to shift
(37:17):
your limbic system.
It'll soothe your Ner centralnervous system because your body
is so focused on the breath.
All the extraneous nonsense thatyour amygdala's screwing around
with can get let go.
So meditate and breathe andoxygen is your friend.
So yeah.
(37:37):
Meditation's great.
I recently went with my daughterto a Zen.
She was curious about ZenBuddhism.
So we went and they do theselong the whole service is
basically a long meditationservice and you just count to 10
and repeat and, for 25 minutesat a time, then you do it while
you're walking.
So I started applying thattowards my running and doing
(37:59):
that, like on tempo runs, whichanybody who runs knows like
that.
Those are like the hardest runs,right?
You, go at a hard pace for along time.
And I just started do doing thatand just focusing on counting to
10 in my breath for, and it hasbecome a lot easier.
It's, really incredible.
So it can work at all levels.
It's mind blowing stuff.
Kathy, how about if you thinkabout it, I was gonna say, if
(38:21):
you think about it.
My brain needs oxygen to operateproperly, and if not, if I'm not
breathing, yeah, my brain's notgetting oxygen, which means by
default it's going to default toprimal instinct behavior, that
beautiful, big fat frontal lobethat has all of the executive
function and all of the thingsthat make us this magnificent
(38:44):
species.
That's not gonna matter if mycentral nervous system is shot
and I'm in fight or flight.
So brief.
How about a favorite?
Ooh goodness.
I've just discovered VanessaEdwards.
(39:06):
Vanessa Edwards has a, anincredibly viral, Ted talk.
And she has studied for decadesnow.
Facial expression, bodylanguage.
Tone and how to communicate likeshe's a master communicator.
(39:28):
So whenever I find people whohave unlocked keys, especially
those who have scientific dataabout how the brain works and
how to not hack it, but how tolean into it.
So I've been binging on as manyvideos of hers as I can find.
(39:48):
I went back and started watchingearly episodes of Grey's
Anatomy, just if I was bored andjust needed to do something
because it's like, it'scompletely ridiculous.
It's great writing.
Shonda Rhimes is a brilliantwriter and the people are all
very pretty, okay.
How about a piece of advice foryou younger self?
I don't know that I would tellmy younger self anything because
I am who I am because of all thethings I did.
(40:12):
So given a time machine, Iwould, I would avoid interacting
with myself in any way, shape,or form.
And,'cause I think I turned outall right and I'm doing pretty
okay.
I might say, learn to say fuckoff a little earlier, learn to,
(40:33):
learn to really use that earand, I was a very, self-assured
small child.
There's a picture of me at twoyears old.
I'm on the boardwalk in Venner,New Jersey, and I've got my
elbows up on the lowest rail ofthe boardwalk, almost like I'm
leaning on a bar.
(40:53):
I.
And I've got these two littlepigtails and I have these little
eyelet lace socks and theselittle white Mary Janes and this
like chubby little legs.
And I've got my arms up and I'mkinda looking off to the side,
to the distance as if like thethought bubble is, no, you guys
go ahead.
I'm just gonna hang here for asecond.
And there was just, an assuranceto me.
And I have another picture of meat age, probably about eight,
(41:15):
and I'm standing on the steps ofour home in Venner, New Jersey
and.
I'm in this like little yellowterrycloth, I wish I still had
the outfit.
Like a yellow tele terrycloth,short sleeve shorts.
And I've got a notebook, like anotepad in one hand, and I'm
(41:36):
holding a pencil in my otherhand and my hip is out to the
side and I'm just looking at thecamera like, I don't fucking
care what you think.
And so I was like that as a kidand.
I kinda lost it in my teenyears, but I'm back.
I'm back now embracing back andbetter than ever back and better
(41:57):
than ever welcome back.
Now I really don't give a shitwhat people think of me.
It's really none in my fuckingbusiness.
Great.
What about you said I couldcurse now.
I'm just gonna drop'em all overthe place.
I know.
Definitely gotta check theexplicit box on this one now.
That's all right.
We usually drop a curse word ortwo.
What about, a big opportunity ora limiting belief.
(42:20):
If you wanna talk about, oh,those are two very different
categories.
Either one of them could be anor they could be the same.
So what do you mean what, oh,good.
Excellent point.
A limiting belief could be anopportunity for growth.
I see.
What I see, what you did there.
When you say limiting beliefwhat do you mean by that in the
(42:43):
question?
What do you mean?
What do you think?
I know I'm supposed, I mean bythat.
I know I'm supposed, I know.
I'm, what do, I've created amonster.
Let's see.
You don't have, look, a limitingbelief is the, yeah I guess
opportunity, what comes to mind?
Okay, here it is.
The thing that comes up for mewith opportunity is, it's an
(43:07):
opportunity for all of us, andby all of us, all of you who are
listening.
All of you who are listening,who have people in your lives,
which all of you do, you haveyour networks and your networks
have networks.
And your networks.
Have networks Have networks.
We are all connected.
Play the tape far enough down,and every single person who is
(43:27):
listening to this podcast isconnected in some way, shape, or
form to someone else who'slistening to this podcast.
What are what the opportunityis?
Stop talking about the dumpsterfire.
Stop talking about the shitstorm.
Stop complaining about thethings that you see.
I'm not saying be Pollyanna andpretend like nothing's
(43:50):
happening.
What I'm saying is do somethingabout it.
And that doesn't mean you haveto grab a sign and go pick it
or.
Protest or throw your motherTeresa used to say, do not
invite me to an anti-war rally.
Invite me to a pro peace rally.
(44:10):
Stop talking about what's wrong.
'cause all you're gonna get ismore wrong and you'll get frick.
Yeah.
'cause whatever you think iswrong is someone else's.
That's right.
That's the opportunity and withall of the things that are
happening, and to be clear, nota political statement, because
anyone and everyone who'sinvolved at some level in
(44:31):
politics is culpable for theshit show.
Totally.
Everyone.
Everyone.
And so when I pointed a thingand I say that it's someone
else's fault, I am alreadymissing the point.
There is no us and them.
There is no other.
There just isn't.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
I, this is something I've beenthinking about a lot and I
(44:53):
obviously with, the time and I,think, yeah.
There, there's always a partythat kind of lost their grip and
they go and just attack.
This is what's wrong.
This is, but they're notproviding solutions and.
It's not till they're, thesolutions are provided that
usually that party doesn'tregain power, is what I've
(45:15):
noticed.
And I think that's where we'reat.
And I, I get upset.
But, and even that fundamentalidea though.
But even that fundamental idea,and I apologize, I feel like I
keep interrupting you.
I think we have a bit of a, Ithink there might be some
latency in the audio.
Yeah.
These are the la I live in thewoods.
But even saying the other party,yeah.
(45:38):
It's like there's a, them Lasttime I checked there was one
flag, right?
Like we're talking, so we, youand I are sitting in the United
States of America, there is thestars and stripes, and that flag
represents every human being wholives in this country.
(45:59):
That's right.
All the citizens of this nation,whether I like them or not,
whether I agree with them ornot, they get the Constitution
is the same Constitution for allthe people.
And we have had to come a longway for the Constitution to
actually represent all thepeople.
Since the guys who wrote it wereall white.
Most of them own slaves.
Most of them had children bytheir slaves.
(46:21):
Let's not be disillusioned.
There is no us and them, thereis no other.
And the false idea, the facadeof other is the thing that keeps
we, the people destabilized.
(46:44):
I live in the middle of a statethat was the capital of the
Confederacy during the CivilWar, and I.
Get to talk with people everysingle day who do not look like
me, who do not sound like me,who did not grow up like I did,
who don't have the beliefs thatI have.
I am a gay Jewish woman livingin the middle of a place where
(47:08):
any one of those things could bea point of friction.
And what I can tell you is thepeople that I meet don't give a
shit about any of those things.
It's just, are you a kind anddecent person?
And.
I was pulled over by the side ofthe road on my way to an
appointment the other day.
I was running a little early, soI pulled over and I'm way off on
the shoulder.
(47:28):
Perfectly fine.
I don't have my, I have myflashers on just so that people
know that I'm there.
And a highway patrol officerdrove by on the other side of
the road going the otherdirection, and I see in my rear
view mirror, I see him U-turn inthe road and he pulls in behind
me and he comes up to my car andhe says, ma'am, I just wanted to
check and make sure you were allright.
A couple days later, I saw ahighway patrol officer by the
(47:50):
side of the road actuallyhelping someone sleeves rolled
up.
Change the tire of a car.
Yeah.
Not there in the car withflashers on just blocking,
actually changing the tire ofthe car.
So they didn't have to wait fora tow truck.
Yeah.
I pulled over, there was a dogthat got hit by a car.
This is late at night, the othernight.
And I pull over.
The guy and it was a hunting dogand the dog is dead and a truck
(48:14):
pulls up and then the guy whosedog it was, it had a radio
collar on and the guy pulls upin the truck and he said, you
stopped your car.
I said, why wouldn't I?
I said, if that dog had breathin it, it's going in the back of
my car going to a hospital.
He said, most people don't stop.
I said I'm not most people.
And I don't think I'm a unicorn.
(48:35):
I really don't.
I think more people than nothave this.
I agree.
I completely agree.
Just don't be afraid to do it.
Don't be afraid.
Yeah.
So I.
I completely agree, and I thinkwe all have testimonies in that,
but we're always stuck in suchfear that we don't, what could
(48:55):
go wrong?
And the other day we went to adog park and we came back to at
the trail head, and there wasthe keys to our car.
Were there.
Our car is steps away fromthere.
Everybody always leaves theirlost and found items on the
trail there.
So somewhere along the way Idropped my key and they could
have just clicked the button andknown which car.
It was driven away, but it wasright there.
(49:17):
And nine times outta 10, I thinkthat's what happens still, I
think overall we're all goodhuman beings.
They're not gonna be how thatmake you feel?
To be honest with you.
I How'd that make you feel whenyou experienced that, what was
the feeling?
I actually didn't think much ofit.
I honestly expect that, but I'mdifferent.
My wife was there with me andshe's oh my God, she was
(49:40):
overwhelmed.
But I, I feel very lucky.
I feel like li most people arereally good and that is the way
it's gonna be.
And I know I've done it.
I've seen a key and I've, and I,think that's the way, that's
normal.
Believe it or not, it takes mean extra second to think, oh, my
car could have disappeared now.
(50:02):
But I've, worked on thattraining for many years'cause I
came from a differentenvironment and it takes a lot
to open yourself up to othersand, accept that.
And, know, hey, everything'sgonna be okay.
And I can give a lot moretestimonies on that.
It's just one that just happeneda couple days ago.
But my wife is still, always shewas on blown away, so I, I'm the
(50:30):
kind of guy who expects that ifI get pulled over that I'm gonna
get, I'm not gonna get a ticketor I'm not gonna get a and and I
have been a victim of profilingand everything, and I have been
thrown in a cop car for noreason yet.
I still expect it.
That's not the way it's gonna benine out of 10 times.
And usually that is the case,nine outta 10 times.
(50:53):
Anyhow.
I know you gotta go.
Yeah.
So can you just share with itshort isn't That's interesting.
Yeah.
Contact information.
Yeah, sure.
I am I'm embarrassingly easy tofind if anybody wants I'm a
little harder to find physicallysince I'm in the middle of the
woods.
So Unleashed leadership llc.comis the site for any and all
(51:15):
things related to coaching andthat sort of stuff.
Hydrant club.com is still awebsite.
We don't have the physicallocation anymore, but I'm still
doing consultations for dogbehavior.
And if folks happen to be in theVirginia, DC, Maryland area and
have a dog that they're havingsome trouble with, I'm more than
happy to help folks out.
I do board and trains where dogscome and stay with me for a
(51:36):
week.
Oh, cool.
Or two.
And then I work, and then Iwork, with the humans.
So basically the dog becomespart of my family for a week or
two.
Learn some rules and structure,and then I help them under the
humans understand how to do itat home.
Heck, if you live in Virginiaand you need new windows or
doors, I'm your girl.
(51:57):
Give me a call.
Okay?
Butkathy@unleashedleadershipllc.com
is my email.
I'm on Instagram is KathyBrooks.
If you type Kathy Brooks with aC into any search engine of
flavor, you will likely find.
A lot of different places thatyou can find me.
And as one tiny thing, you canalso pull up the Giffy search
(52:20):
engine, the gif search engine,and type in Golden Knights fan,
and you'll see that I'm anofficial GIF of the NHL
downloaded, giving joy to 42million people and counting.
It is actually me with my goldhood up and pair of pompoms
shaking my groove thing andhaving a good time at a hockey
game.
Okay.
(52:40):
Thank you.
And that's a real thing.
That's not two truths in a life.
That, that, that's actuallyreal.
Yeah.
You gonna adopt a new hockeyteam now that you're in
Virginia?
No.
I record the games and watchthem while I work out in the
morning.
Gotcha.
I love my boys.
I've gone to see them.
I went to see them in Carolina.
Okay.
I've gone to see them inPittsburgh and Philly.
I've gone to see them.
(53:00):
I'm gonna go see them inColumbus.
I've gone to see them inFlorida.
Haven't seen them in dc.
I missed them on the DC swingthis year.
But I.
Okay.
I was there when they raised thecup, very good.
I be gold.
Very good.
Thank you Kathy for being on theshow.
This has been a lot of fun.
I think we can have you on andwe can talk about a lot more
things, and maybe we'll do that.
(53:23):
So anytime.
All right.
That, that topic the pin that weput in on addiction and
recovery, I think is aconversation worth having.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
We hope you've enjoyed the Wayfinder Show.
If you've got value from thisepisode, please take a few
seconds to leave us a five starrating and review.
This will allow us to help morepeople find their way to live
more authentic and excitinglives.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
I can't fix the macro dumpsterfire.
(00:02):
That's the world.
Like the world's a shit stormright now.
Let's just call it what it is.
And if I let myself listen andthink about that, rather than
think about what can I do in themicro space, that's my world.
If each of us takes care of ourown micro space, ultimately that
macro by default will have tochange.
(00:22):
That's only held up by theinsecurity, instability, and
fear of all the peopleunderneath it.
Speaker (00:38):
Welcome to the Wayfinder Show with Louis
Hernandez, where guests discussthe why and how of making
changes that led them down amore authentic path or allow
them to level up in some areasof their life.
Our goal is to dig deep andprovide not only knowledge, but
actionable advice to help youget from where you are to where
you want to be.
(00:59):
Come join us and find a way toyour dream life.
Cathy Brooks (01:13):
Welcome back to the Wayfinder Show.
I'm your host, Louis Hernandez,and today I am here to welcome
Ms.
Kathy Brooks, a leadership andcommunications coach with a
unique approach to transformingcommunications with a, after 22
years in Silicon Valley, Kathyfounded the Hydrant Club where
she discovered powerful lessonsin human communication.
(01:33):
Connection through dog behavior.
Now through Unleash Leadership,LLC, Kathy helps individuals and
teams achieve success bymastering communication, using
creative insights from dogs,classical music, and ice hockey.
So I'm excited to dive into herjourney and unique expertise.
(01:53):
Kathy, welcome to the WayWayfinder Show.
Thank you for having me, Lily.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, that is.
So there's one extra, there's anextra, there's one extra item.
And now most recently working asa design consultant for renewal
by Anderson.
So that's the latest item addedto that.
(02:14):
Really weirdly, like you look atthat list of things and you
think, wait, she did what?
And then she went where to dowhat?
And then how does that worktogether?
So I love all of those thingsand thanks for having me.
Yeah.
And I love that the diversebackground all the experiences.
'cause I think we're like thatwe, don't have a clear
(02:35):
trajectory.
And I think more and more that'sgonna be the way it is in life,
right?
You don't just go to school tobe one thing for the rest of
your life anymore.
But you've already experiencedthat and somehow you find a way
to tie it all together.
So why don't we start there andjust go back in time and, share
the journey a little bit.
And then work on connecting themthe changes in life.
(02:59):
I was born a small child.
No bad joke.
Old joke.
Old, Steve Martin joke.
Yeah.
I was when you look at thetrajectory of my my background,
so I started out, ripping wirecopy in a radio station when I
was 14 years old.
For folks who are listening tothe podcast, they might think,
(03:19):
what is wire copy?
It's back in the old days inradio, when you could smoke in
newsrooms and they used manualtypewriters.
Nothing was computerized.
They had these enormous machinesthat spat out yards and yards
of.
Triplicate copy from thedifferent wire services from all
over the world with the news.
And my job was to go into thisvery loud room and rip out that
(03:42):
copy and distribute it around tothe different writers and
editors in the newsroom who thenwould write copy and then bring
it into the, big voice people onthe radio who were telling you
what was happening with theworld.
I thought my life was gonna bein radio.
I went to journalism school atNorthwestern, and then I, was
committed to becoming a reallygood writer, a really good
(04:02):
journalist with a capital J.
So that's why I went to a printjournalism school.
School decided I was gonna workin newspaper right outta
college.
So that landed me in Californiaand it became really clear
really quickly that the ideasthat are.
I had about what it meant to bea journalist, like what it meant
(04:22):
to me to be a journalist,weren't what things were
starting already in those days,in the early nineties, what they
were starting to turn into.
Today you'd be hard pressed towatch any newscast on any
television station where much ofthe content isn't pay for play.
When you look at most printnewspapers in towns where they
(04:45):
even exist anymore.
You'd be hard pressed to findcontent that isn't pure
journalism with beat reporterson the street, gathering
information and then deliveringit as best as is humanly
possible through a neutral lens.
What I was taught was thatjournalists have one job right?
(05:07):
To, to journal to track and noteinformation, and to present as
much of that information.
Information as possible to theaudience so that the audience
has the ability to make theirown choice about what they
believe.
My job as a journalist isn't totell someone what to believe.
My opinion doesn't effingmatter.
(05:29):
I'll meter my language for therespective of audiences, but I
normally am a little on thesalty side being that's okay.
There may be an occasionalF-bomb or some other words
through, if that's, you canbleep bring it on.
Kathy, bring it on.
You can, bleep me.
Okay.
I'll just say it.
My opinion as a journalistdoesn't fucking matter, right?
When I see someone on TV or Iread an article in a newspaper
(05:51):
and they're telling me what theythink about a thing, I don't
really care if you wanna dothat.
Be a columnist, do an opinionpiece.
But your job as a journalist isto gather as much information as
possible and to present it asneutrally as a human possible.
I say that because every humanbeing has a bias.
We have inherent bias that wehave based on where we're from
(06:14):
and how we were raised, andthings we were exposed to, and
trauma we've experienced, andhow we're taught and where we're
taught, and all of the beautifulthings that make us up into the
individuals we are, create thelens through which we see the
world.
This is just the humancondition.
You can take five people and putthem in front of an event, and
(06:34):
all five of those people willhave a different story about
what that event was.
It's like the five blind men inthe elephant.
Each man is standing by a partof the elephant.
The only part to which he hasexposure is the part that's
right in front of him.
And so to each of thoseindividuals, their view of the
elephant is true, but it is theaggregate of the views that
(06:57):
makes the actual truth.
The truth of the collective thatis an elephant.
And so I went into journalism.
I think when I look back, I wentin fundamentally because helping
people learn things, givingpeople new perspectives, gave me
joy.
(07:17):
It felt important.
It felt like something thatreally mattered.
And so over time, as I saw thatwas I went from the newspaper I
went into, tra I did trafficreports on the radio, traffic
and weather together every 10minutes one of those irritating
people.
Yeah.
Who's telling you about trafficthat you're not sitting in?
Meanwhile, you're sitting intraffic yelling at the radio,
(07:39):
why aren't you talking aboutthis?
Of course now we have ways andwe have GPS maps we don't need
those anymore.
But I did that for a bit.
And from there, when I left thatjob, I ended up in Silicon
Valley, backwards.
I was looking for work.
I didn't know what I was gonnado.
I had a degree, in journalism.
So solid writing.
I understood how media workedand it was suggested to me by a
(08:01):
guy who I worked out with at thegym.
We'd see each other every daybecause I wasn't working, so I
was at the gym every day forhours.
And this guy, his name was God,what was Frank's last name?
Frank.
First name?
Frank.
Frank, who worked at Hill andNolton.
He was a Boston guy.
Big brawny Irish guy who workedfor Hill and Nolton and, he
(08:26):
said, why do you know?
Have you ever thought of publicrelations?
You'd be, you have all of theskillset.
You'd just be looking at thestory from the other side.
You'd be the one bringing thestory to the media to present
them with content that theycould then write about.
And I ended up landing at a PRfirm that happened to be
specializing in technology.
Now, this was late 90, early 91,so this is pre Netscape browser.
(08:52):
This is pre Microsoft Web.
Windows computers, if you hadone, it was operating on dos.
There were 10 lines of code totype through to get to the email
address that you could emailfour people.
'cause that's about how manypeople had email printers didn't
live on your desk.
Printers lived in a room in theoffice and they took the whole
(09:13):
room.
Yeah.
And you usually needed someonewho would print things for you.
And it sounds like this wascenturies ago and this was.
This was not that long ago inthe grand it's longer ago now
than it used to be, but it'sit's the early nineties.
And so there I was in this spacewith these people.
(09:37):
I did not understand thetechnology.
I think I had an Apple two Cthat I got for college that was
essentially just a fancytypewriter, that I didn't have
to use white out on when I madea mistake.
That's, it was essentially aword processor.
I was watching these fascinatinghuman beings making changes in
(10:00):
our world that they were makingbecause they wanted to make the
world a better place.
Like in those early days.
'cause there wasn't millions of,billions of dollars in it.
Yet there wasn't the insanevaluations.
There weren't uni, we didn'thave the internet thing, hadn't
commercial internet didn't existyet, and.
(10:20):
People were fascinating.
So I stayed and I found I had aknack for the PR thing.
And so I worked at differentagencies.
And truth is Louis.
I never really loved thetechnology.
I was fascinated by the people.
And by the late nineties, earlytwo thousands, I was becoming
increasingly disturbed by what Iwas starting to see.
(10:45):
Technology to separate ratherthan connect.
People who were so focused ontheir technology, they weren't
paying attention to the peoplearound them.
And I just got this cold feelingin the pit of my stomach.
Like we, I think this train hasalready left the station and I
think we're pretty categoricallyfucked.
I hate saying I told you but I,was right and I wasn't in any
(11:08):
sort of position of.
Look, I was a kid in mytwenties.
Had I raised the alarm and ranga bell, I'm pretty sure nobody
would've given a shit what I hadto say anyway.
But I look back and I thinkabout each of the inflection
points.
By the way, I didn't actuallyleave Silicon Valley till 2012,
so that I stayed for a while andit just got worse and worse.
(11:34):
And when I looked at things likeFacebook.
A platform, a behemoth platformcreated by an individual whose
social skills on a good day arequestionable.
Let me say that again.
A platform that is purportedlyto connect community created by
(11:57):
an individual with the socialskills and emotional
intelligence of a turnip, andthat's insulting turnip.
Oops.
And so it's a problem, and sofor me, technology I've got
friends from childhood that I'mconnected to on Facebook, and
that's delightful and amazing.
(12:19):
And when the fires werehappening in la, I was able to
find all of my friends in LA andsee that they were all right.
There's value.
I'm not a no technology person.
Don't get me twisted here.
Technology to enable, empower,and connect is great.
Technology in the hands ofoligarchs and greed and ego is
(12:41):
quite possibly one of the singlemost devastating things to
happen to our society incenturies.
And the good news is that it'sthe train may have left the
station, but it is not anunstoppable train.
(13:03):
And I believe that in the end,the human spirit will triumph
because we're pretty fuckingawesome as a species overall,
generally speaking.
And that ultimately the thingthat makes us most human is our,
is the things that makes us,that make us different.
(13:26):
The things that.
Make us different or what makeus interesting and instead of
being afraid of what'sdifferent, which is where things
seem to have evolved, that ifyou are different than I am,
like I don't know how you vote.
I don't know a lot of thingsabout you and I don't fucking
care.
You appear to me from this shorttime we spent together to be a
(13:48):
kind, interesting human beingwho has lots of thoughts about a
lot of things and we don't knoweach other and so that makes me
curious.
What's your favorite color?
Do you like sports?
What's your favorite sport?
Do you like dogs or are you acat person?
Do you like to hike?
What do you do in your sparetime?
Do you have a favorite food?
Do you have any allergies?
What are you afraid of?
What gets you excited?
(14:08):
Like these are the things thatmake us human.
And so I left Silicon Valley in2012 because Tony Shea, who was
the CEO of Zappos at the time,oh yeah, he is now
unfortunately, rest in peace.
Left this or yeah.
Whole different story aboutaddiction and technology's
influence on that.
That's probably a wholedifferent episode on a whole
(14:31):
different podcast, but it'sworth noting that, what killed
Tony was the thi the, world thathe lived in, right?
And so he and I knew each otherfrom Silicon Valley.
He invited me to Las Vegas.
Because they were just startingto redevelopment of downtown.
So he invited me to come with mydog, my big dog, Truman.
(14:51):
So I went to Vegas in the summerof 2012 with my 75 pound
enormous dog.
And over the course of 10 daysthere had conversations with the
people doing the redevelopmentabout what it might look like to
re imagine a dog training slashsocial club facility at the
heart of this downtowndevelopment to be a place for
(15:14):
community and connection, whichwas really.
The driving force behind thedowntown project at the time.
So they said, if you fund it,will you, if we fund it, will
you move here?
So I said yes.
And six months later I was onthe ground.
Like I literally went to Vegasin the summer of 2012.
And in six, literally six monthslater, I had gone back to San
(15:36):
Francisco.
I had sublet my apartment.
I had thrown my stuff in aU-Haul.
As a good lesbian does and droveacross to Las Vegas, and I went
to open the Hydrant Club, whichwas a new take on how do you
reimagine the relationshipbetween dogs and their humans
and teach them in an urbanenvironment.
(15:58):
And what I found really quicklywas that through the dogs, I had
the ability to help people seethe way they interacted with the
world differently because a dogis either, either a mirror of or
a reaction to our behavior.
What is happening on one end ofthe leash is because of what's
happening on the other end ofthe leash.
(16:18):
Full stop.
Barring tiny little asteriskphysiological ailments.
The dog is sick, the dog hasallergies.
The dog has some sort ofbiochemical imbalance.
The dog came outta the chutesideways, but the number of dogs
that have issues like that areproportionally speaking to the
number of dogs on the planet,like statistically and
(16:39):
insignificant.
The vast majority of dogbehavior, and I'm talking like
98% or more of dog behavior, isa direct reflection or mirror of
the environment that the dog isin.
Partially how you mean, yes,there's breed behaviors, but
even that in the environmentthat it's in.
(16:59):
How is its family structure?
How is its relationship with itshumans?
Where does it fit in the familyhierarchy?
Because a dog only understandsthe world in a hierarchical.
Nuclear family in a world dogworld called a pack.
A hierarch and hierarchicalsmall group.
It is a familial group withleadership at the top.
(17:21):
Clearly identified anddesignated rules and
responsibilities, rules,consequences for breaking the
rules and in order.
And if the rules are broken oryou color outside the lines, the
entirety of the family mightperish.
In a dog's world.
And so when we miscommunicatewith our dogs or when we are
(17:41):
overly dependent on our dogs forour wellbeing, like the whole
idea of an emotional supportanimal is such a load of horse
shit to me as it relates to dogsbecause my emotional state is
not my dog's responsibility.
I'm not talking about.
Legitimate service dogs thatserve people with PTSD and
(18:04):
autism and behavioral spectrumissues where the dogs are
specifically trained tointervene on their human's
behalf and take care of them.
Different thing.
That's an actual legitimatecapital S service dog, that is
trained to execute a specifictask that is of life necessary
support for its handler.
(18:24):
That's what the American withdisabilities are.
Says for a service dog, anemotional support animal means I
am not able to regulate myfeelings and I'm gonna rely on
my dog like a binky.
I don't feel great, so my dog'sgonna make me feel better, and I
(18:44):
have a real issue with that'cause it doesn't do the dog a
service.
It literally upends the dog'sentire understanding of how it's
supposed to be in the world.
In its world, again, barring thevery specially trained dogs that
have jobs to do in a regulardog's world who the one taking
(19:05):
care of them is their hackleader, their family leader, and
the leader's job is to make surethe needs are met to make sure
that the entirety of the wholeis orchestrated.
Which doesn't mean like when I'mupset and my dogs come over to
comfort me, that's awesome, butthen I don't keep relying on
(19:26):
them to feel better.
It's a temporary wow, okay,thanks guys.
You just got me grounded again.
Now I'm back on point and takingcare of your needs.
So it's a nuance, right?
Because of course, as a familymember, if I see my mother
upset, I'm going to go hug mymother.
As a child, if my mom was angryor upset, I didn't like that.
(19:51):
I wanted my mom to be okay, butit wasn't my responsibility to
make her okay.
I would hug her.
She would notice that I wasupset.
She'd say, you know what?
It's okay, Kathy.
I'm okay.
And she'd put her hands back onthe figurative steering wheel,
and my life was okay.
Again.
I have a lot of friends whoended up parenting parents as
young kids.
I was tough on them.
(20:12):
Later in life.
So through dogs I found that Icould help transform people, and
so I started doing that.
I went through transformationalleadership training and
coaching, and got myselfcertified and all of the things,
and then the pandemic hit, andthen all fast forward through
the next bits of the story.
(20:32):
So a pandemic hit after thepandemic.
Tony dies during the pandemic.
After the pandemic, theneighborhood that the business
was in never really fullyreturned to what it was before
the pandemic.
It was no longer fun to do.
I parted ways with the downtownproject at the end of 2022,
kinda taking my business withme, but closing the physical
location.
(20:52):
And I came to Virginia onvacation to house, sit for some
friends, and was going back andforth for a while and just
found.
That I had taken to this livingin the woods thing and figured I
should get a job.
So I ended up putting my resumeonline and getting hired by
renewal by Anderson and what Iget to do every day now, I'm
(21:15):
still working with dogs and I'mstill doing coaching, and what I
do as my job is I get to walkinto someone's home, identify
what their wants, needs, andintentions are, which is usually
something around windows anddoors, but it's.
The doors and windows.
That's how we connect with theworld around us.
It's how we see the world.
(21:35):
It's how the world sees us.
It's the safety and security.
Do I feel safe in my home?
And feeling safe is huge.
Behaviorally speaking.
So I get the great privilege ofworking with people every day to
help them envision, like whenthey drive up to their house,
what do they want that frontdoor to look like?
What does the front door sayabout them?
(21:57):
About the home that people areentering?
I.
Are the windows safe?
Do they open and close?
Are they sealed?
Do they keep the heat in and thecold out?
These are all very basic humanneeds.
And I, the conversations that Iget to have with people are I've
cried with people in their home.
We've not yelled at each other,but yelled about things and
we've laughed and we've talkedabout all sorts of things.
(22:20):
And if you had told me a yearand a half ago that I'd be
working in con constructionsales, I'd say, how do you
figure.
But ultimately, every personwhose life I touch at any given
point in time, like I can't fixthe macro dumpster fire.
That's the world.
Like the world's a shit stormright now.
Let's just call it what it is.
(22:41):
And if I let myself listen andthink about that, rather than
think about what can I do in themicro space that's my world.
If each of us takes care of ourown micro space, ultimately that
macro by default will have tochange.
It's only held up by theinsecurity, instability, and
fear of all the peopleunderneath it, right?
(23:04):
So that in a relatively largenutshell, is the kind of arc of
my story.
And at the end of the day whenpeople say, what do you do?
I say, I transform how peoplesee the world around them.
Maybe connect with it in a moremeaningful way and learn a
little bit about themselves inthe process.
I like that.
(23:24):
I, think it's interesting.
I, the way you look at theworld, I.
Could always be, you couldalways look at it negatively,
right?
You can always look at it as theworld is just crazy.
It's a dumpster fire, as yousaid right now.
Or it could be great.
And that's always the case rightthere.
There's always problems, there'salways chaos, and vice versa.
(23:48):
And it sounds like when you Iwould imagine in your work.
Success would come by looking atthe positive perspective, right?
There's a lot of great thingshappening in the world right now
a lot.
And we choose to focus on someof the chaos and it makes us
start to think, oh, this worldis, just getting a grip on us
(24:12):
and going down.
So I, if that's a case, if thatis a fair way of describing some
of your work, what are somestrategies.
That we can apply, to, not focuson the chaos and focus on the
positive.
I'll, it's a great question.
Thank you.
And I'll start by answering witha question, which is what if it
(24:37):
isn't positive and negative?
What is positive and negative?
Any, take any given event in theworld?
Even a catastrophic event.
And we've seen this in recentyears.
Catastrophic events.
Yes.
Where one group of peoplecelebrates it.
That's right.
And another group of peopledemonizes it.
(24:58):
What if the events in and ofthemselves, all of the things
and, by all of the things all ofthe things are inherently
neither positive nor negative,but neutral.
Sure.
Now, someone might say, how is achild?
Child dying, not negative.
I'm not suggesting that thingsaren't painful.
(25:20):
I'm not suggesting that thingsaren't hard, that things don't
hurt, that things aren't scary.
I'm suggesting that if I chooseto look at it as bad and scary,
what am I going to start to see?
(25:40):
All seem more scary.
That's Right.
So there was a study done and Iactually just, I recently heard
the name of the guy who did thestudy, and of course, now it's
not in my head.
I'll send it to you if I findit.
But it was a research studyaround luck and they had a a
(26:00):
statistically relevant data setof people half of whom believed
they were lucky and half of whomdidn't.
They put them in a room wherethey do all of the things that
they do.
And what they do is they gavethem a broad sheet newspaper and
they said, okay, how manypictures are in this newspaper?
You need to tell us how manypictures are in the newspaper.
(26:24):
So what was interesting was onlike the second or third page of
the newspaper was a bigheadline.
It said, stop counting.
There are 48 pictures in thisnewspaper.
What was interesting was thatthe people who thought they were
lucky, who had positive mindsetall saw that headline and
(26:45):
stopped.
And told the surveyors how manypictures were in the paper.
Yeah.
And the people who didn't thinkthey were lucky, the people who
looked through a negative lensmissed it entirely.
They counted, they lost count,they miscounted, they went back.
Got the number wrong because allthey could see was the negative.
(27:09):
I can choose whether I see goodin the world or not.
It is a choice.
Now, do I watch the news everyday?
Fuck no.
Do I go on the internet and doomscroll?
Absolutely not.
My time on Facebook is spentprimarily in the private group
that I.
(27:30):
I have for a relatively largenumber of people who have my
kind of interest in looking atthings that are difficult and
talking about them in adifferent way, and having those
kinds of conversations.
And there are people of all ilkin the group and lots of
different opinions and lots ofdifferent beliefs, and we have
open conversations.
(27:51):
The only rule is don't be anasshole.
Yeah.
State your view.
Don't be an asshole.
You get to point fingers.
Other than that, I've spent awhole lot of time on Facebook.
Haven't been on the thingformerly known as Twitter in
ages Instagram.
It's mostly me pic postingpictures.
'cause my 92-year-old mother ison Instagram and so I post
(28:12):
pictures there of things so thatshe can see things happening in
my life.
She thinks I'm sending thepictures directly to her, which
is delightful, that she's evenon Instagram and knows how to
like, like things and comment.
It's delightful.
She's a badass.
My mom.
I'm also glad to know that Ihave jeans that will last a long
time.
I spend some time on LinkedInprofessionally because that's a
group of people who are notthere to talk about the
(28:33):
bullshit.
They're there for very specificreason.
They're focused.
Apart from that, I turn off allscreens about an hour before
bed.
I don't really watch tv.
I have a couple of TV seriesthat I watch, but I'm careful
about what I'm careful aboutwhat I feed my brain.
Yes, just like I'm careful aboutwhat I feed my body.
(28:54):
I don't eat crap.
I don't consume crap.
And when I do eat, like when Ido eat the bag of potato chips
and feel shitty, or I decide Iwanna go for Indian food, even
though I know my body's notgonna be happy about it, but I
really wanna go and my friendswanna go.
So I wanna go for the socialexperience.
I know I'm not gonna feel wellthe next day, so I don't judge
myself or beat myself up overit.
(29:15):
I don't get, I'm not likeanaphylactic or anything.
It just doesn't quite agree withme.
I go for the companionship.
I go for the community.
I'm careful about what I eat,and I just know the next day I
might not feel great, but it'llpass.
If I watch too much TV or Iwatch it late at night, gonna
feel shitty the next day.
So instead of continuing to feelshitty and feeding the beast,
(29:38):
what do I do?
I go for a walk.
I call a friend.
I read a book of poetry.
I cook some food that I enjoy.
I exercise.
I listen to some great music andhave a solo dance party.
I, my favorite thing is going tothe grocery store and making new
friends in the grocery store.
Like I will talk to my mentorsays I have a superpower.
(29:59):
I will talk to anyone anywhereabout anything at any time.
No fault.
Like I get on an airplane and Ihave now been.
Noted on three differentflights, the favorite passenger
of the flight crew, and theyeven gave me wings, which I have
learned is a very big deal whenyou're an adult gets wings.
So I inherently, I'm, I just, ifI move around in the world like
(30:23):
that's what I'm gonna get.
And if I move in the if I lookaround in the world and all I
see are assholes, chances arelikely all I need to do to
figure out the problem is lookin a mirror.
Because if I'm being a dick.
What do you think I'm gonna get?
Yeah, more of that?
Yeah.
Where people, repelled from meand then me being pissed off
(30:44):
that they're repelled.
I started it, and not taking itso damn seriously.
Like for crying out loud people,like the world has been here for
a lot of years America's beenhere for a lot of years.
We're doing pretty okay.
I'm not suggesting that thingsaren't hard and that there
aren't.
Awful things happening to somepeople.
(31:05):
Like I get it.
And how do I foster changewithout becoming part of the
problem?
Yeah.
So what's the strategy?
Take care.
Stay in your own lane and cleanup your side of the street.
Yeah.
My own damn business.
Mind.
My own damn business.
(31:25):
Yeah.
I think that's good advice.
Kathy you, talk a lot about,obviously, I don't know if it's
a strategy.
Yeah.
It's you talk a lot aboutcommunications and how and how
we need to stop talking more atpeople and with people.
Can you elaborate on that alittle bit?
(31:46):
It's always interesting in aninterview situation'cause what I
really wanna be doing with youright now.
It's so what do you think itmeans?
Louis, like when you, he, whenthe question you just asked me,
what does it mean to you to talkwith someone rather than at
someone?
Because I've been talking atyou, but you asked me questions
and we are in the context of aninterview show.
Yeah.
If you and I were sitting overcoffee and you ask me a
(32:09):
question, so Yeah.
So what does it mean to you?
I think it's a mutual exchangeof, ideas and.
Conversation.
Just I, like to learn from myconversation.
Like you, you started off bysaying, Hey we go and learn each
other's favorite color, whethera dog or cat person or favorite
(32:33):
things or those kind of, that,that's what I like.
I like people and learning aboutthem and what motivates them and
what makes'em go and, so that'sa, with conversation, that is
what I'm, I think when more likea lecture type.
We're just, mansplaining, as mydaughters like to tell me now.
(32:57):
So how old are they?
17 and 19.
The other day I was, oh, theywere asking me about why we were
talking about mortgage rates andwhat affects'em, and I was
telling them about the yieldswithin them.
They said, oh, this sounds likeyou're mansplaining.
So were you, oh yeah, very.
(33:18):
I guess the question is, wereyou, oh yeah.
I got up on a whiteboard anddescribed what it was exactly on
a chart, and so that's, did youvery likely.
But they asked, you asked themfirst how much they knew before
you started.
Yeah.
But when they asked, did youthen, did you ask them before
you started what they thought itmeant?
Or what they had heard or whatthey knew before you dove in?
(33:39):
Yeah.
Great question.
No, I didn't.
And sometimes I think we makethat mistake with loved ones and
people we know closely, right?
Like we just automatically makethese assumptions and go into
it.
And we don't do the backgroundwork with the questions to see
where they're at and meet'emthere.
There's always a why.
(34:00):
Every question someone asks,they're asking it for a reason.
Are you asking me why is thatwhat, I just wanted to let, I
wanted to mostly to let it sitfor a second because, so for
example, talking with someone.
Is if you ask me a question in aregular conversation, like
(34:23):
obviously this is an interviewshow, so you ask me a question,
you're looking for me to answeryour question, and
conversationally speaking, whensomeone asks me a question in
order, like I don't need to bethe smart person who has the
answer, what they're, asking thequestion for a reason.
So inquiring about that.
(34:45):
Wow.
Can you tell me more about that?
Or is there a specific reasonwhy that's important to you?
Un understanding the why of aquestion actually can help you
answer it more effectively.
Because I'm a pretty smartcookie.
I went to school, I read a lotof books.
I'm embarrassingly overlyeducated.
(35:07):
I can answer a lot of shit.
Be the smart and wanna, I likebeing the smartest person in the
room.
I will admit it.
I will admit it.
I like knowing things.
And if all I'm doing isanswering instead of inquiring,
then who knows if the answer I'mgiving actually serves the
person.
Person that I'm speaking to.
(35:28):
Yeah, that, that's a greatpoint.
Silence is weird, right?
That was just about five secondsand I could see both of us.
I'm like, is he gonna ask meanother question?
Does he want me to keep talking?
No, I'm gonna let her sit.
Is she just gonna sit there fora second?
I negotiate for a living so Ican sit in silence for a while
with folks, right?
(35:48):
Yeah.
It's good.
The yeah.
Yeah.
I know you got a hard stopcoming up soon, so why don't we
transition to our Wayfinderfour.
C Kathy, can you give us a, doesthat get fun?
Does that get fun music Bubu?
I've thought about doing that.
Yeah.
I'm not right now I'm doing allmy own editing all life.
(36:10):
The Wayfinder four.
Yeah, the Wayfinder four with alittle echo, little reverb on
the end.
Alright, so let's see.
Do you wanna just, I've got, doyou wanna just ask him?
Yeah.
Gimme, give us a hack, a lifehack.
You use meditation.
Oh my God.
If you don't stop, just stop andbreathe.
(36:31):
And it doesn't have to be a big,like you have an altar and you
burn incense and set candles,and you do it for this long
period of time.
It can literally be 60 to 90seconds of just stop in your
tracks, follow your breath, dowhat's called box breathing.
(36:51):
Inhale for a count of three orfour, hold it for three or four.
Exhale and then hold empty forthe same count.
Some people do it for three,some people do it for four.
Some people do it for fivedealer's.
Choice on which one you pick,however good your lungs are,
pick the one that fits your lungcapacity.
Doing that cycle four times isscientifically proven to shift
(37:17):
your limbic system.
It'll soothe your Ner centralnervous system because your body
is so focused on the breath.
All the extraneous nonsense thatyour amygdala's screwing around
with can get let go.
So meditate and breathe andoxygen is your friend.
So yeah.
(37:37):
Meditation's great.
I recently went with my daughterto a Zen.
She was curious about ZenBuddhism.
So we went and they do theselong the whole service is
basically a long meditationservice and you just count to 10
and repeat and, for 25 minutesat a time, then you do it while
you're walking.
So I started applying thattowards my running and doing
(37:59):
that, like on tempo runs, whichanybody who runs knows like
that.
Those are like the hardest runs,right?
You, go at a hard pace for along time.
And I just started do doing thatand just focusing on counting to
10 in my breath for, and it hasbecome a lot easier.
It's, really incredible.
So it can work at all levels.
It's mind blowing stuff.
Kathy, how about if you thinkabout it, I was gonna say, if
(38:21):
you think about it.
My brain needs oxygen to operateproperly, and if not, if I'm not
breathing, yeah, my brain's notgetting oxygen, which means by
default it's going to default toprimal instinct behavior, that
beautiful, big fat frontal lobethat has all of the executive
function and all of the thingsthat make us this magnificent
(38:44):
species.
That's not gonna matter if mycentral nervous system is shot
and I'm in fight or flight.
So brief.
How about a favorite?
Ooh goodness.
I've just discovered VanessaEdwards.
(39:06):
Vanessa Edwards has a, anincredibly viral, Ted talk.
And she has studied for decadesnow.
Facial expression, bodylanguage.
Tone and how to communicate likeshe's a master communicator.
(39:28):
So whenever I find people whohave unlocked keys, especially
those who have scientific dataabout how the brain works and
how to not hack it, but how tolean into it.
So I've been binging on as manyvideos of hers as I can find.
(39:48):
I went back and started watchingearly episodes of Grey's
Anatomy, just if I was bored andjust needed to do something
because it's like, it'scompletely ridiculous.
It's great writing.
Shonda Rhimes is a brilliantwriter and the people are all
very pretty, okay.
How about a piece of advice foryou younger self?
I don't know that I would tellmy younger self anything because
I am who I am because of all thethings I did.
(40:12):
So given a time machine, Iwould, I would avoid interacting
with myself in any way, shape,or form.
And,'cause I think I turned outall right and I'm doing pretty
okay.
I might say, learn to say fuckoff a little earlier, learn to,
(40:33):
learn to really use that earand, I was a very, self-assured
small child.
There's a picture of me at twoyears old.
I'm on the boardwalk in Venner,New Jersey, and I've got my
elbows up on the lowest rail ofthe boardwalk, almost like I'm
leaning on a bar.
(40:53):
I.
And I've got these two littlepigtails and I have these little
eyelet lace socks and theselittle white Mary Janes and this
like chubby little legs.
And I've got my arms up and I'mkinda looking off to the side,
to the distance as if like thethought bubble is, no, you guys
go ahead.
I'm just gonna hang here for asecond.
And there was just, an assuranceto me.
And I have another picture of meat age, probably about eight,
(41:15):
and I'm standing on the steps ofour home in Venner, New Jersey
and.
I'm in this like little yellowterrycloth, I wish I still had
the outfit.
Like a yellow tele terrycloth,short sleeve shorts.
And I've got a notebook, like anotepad in one hand, and I'm
(41:36):
holding a pencil in my otherhand and my hip is out to the
side and I'm just looking at thecamera like, I don't fucking
care what you think.
And so I was like that as a kidand.
I kinda lost it in my teenyears, but I'm back.
I'm back now embracing back andbetter than ever back and better
(41:57):
than ever welcome back.
Now I really don't give a shitwhat people think of me.
It's really none in my fuckingbusiness.
Great.
What about you said I couldcurse now.
I'm just gonna drop'em all overthe place.
I know.
Definitely gotta check theexplicit box on this one now.
That's all right.
We usually drop a curse word ortwo.
What about, a big opportunity ora limiting belief.
(42:20):
If you wanna talk about, oh,those are two very different
categories.
Either one of them could be anor they could be the same.
So what do you mean what, oh,good.
Excellent point.
A limiting belief could be anopportunity for growth.
I see.
What I see, what you did there.
When you say limiting beliefwhat do you mean by that in the
(42:43):
question?
What do you mean?
What do you think?
I know I'm supposed, I mean bythat.
I know I'm supposed, I know.
I'm, what do, I've created amonster.
Let's see.
You don't have, look, a limitingbelief is the, yeah I guess
opportunity, what comes to mind?
Okay, here it is.
The thing that comes up for mewith opportunity is, it's an
(43:07):
opportunity for all of us, andby all of us, all of you who are
listening.
All of you who are listening,who have people in your lives,
which all of you do, you haveyour networks and your networks
have networks.
And your networks.
Have networks Have networks.
We are all connected.
Play the tape far enough down,and every single person who is
(43:27):
listening to this podcast isconnected in some way, shape, or
form to someone else who'slistening to this podcast.
What are what the opportunityis?
Stop talking about the dumpsterfire.
Stop talking about the shitstorm.
Stop complaining about thethings that you see.
I'm not saying be Pollyanna andpretend like nothing's
(43:50):
happening.
What I'm saying is do somethingabout it.
And that doesn't mean you haveto grab a sign and go pick it
or.
Protest or throw your motherTeresa used to say, do not
invite me to an anti-war rally.
Invite me to a pro peace rally.
(44:10):
Stop talking about what's wrong.
'cause all you're gonna get ismore wrong and you'll get frick.
Yeah.
'cause whatever you think iswrong is someone else's.
That's right.
That's the opportunity and withall of the things that are
happening, and to be clear, nota political statement, because
anyone and everyone who'sinvolved at some level in
(44:31):
politics is culpable for theshit show.
Totally.
Everyone.
Everyone.
And so when I pointed a thingand I say that it's someone
else's fault, I am alreadymissing the point.
There is no us and them.
There is no other.
There just isn't.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
I, this is something I've beenthinking about a lot and I
(44:53):
obviously with, the time and I,think, yeah.
There, there's always a partythat kind of lost their grip and
they go and just attack.
This is what's wrong.
This is, but they're notproviding solutions and.
It's not till they're, thesolutions are provided that
usually that party doesn'tregain power, is what I've
(45:15):
noticed.
And I think that's where we'reat.
And I, I get upset.
But, and even that fundamentalidea though.
But even that fundamental idea,and I apologize, I feel like I
keep interrupting you.
I think we have a bit of a, Ithink there might be some
latency in the audio.
Yeah.
These are the la I live in thewoods.
But even saying the other party,yeah.
(45:38):
It's like there's a, them Lasttime I checked there was one
flag, right?
Like we're talking, so we, youand I are sitting in the United
States of America, there is thestars and stripes, and that flag
represents every human being wholives in this country.
(45:59):
That's right.
All the citizens of this nation,whether I like them or not,
whether I agree with them ornot, they get the Constitution
is the same Constitution for allthe people.
And we have had to come a longway for the Constitution to
actually represent all thepeople.
Since the guys who wrote it wereall white.
Most of them own slaves.
Most of them had children bytheir slaves.
(46:21):
Let's not be disillusioned.
There is no us and them, thereis no other.
And the false idea, the facadeof other is the thing that keeps
we, the people destabilized.
(46:44):
I live in the middle of a statethat was the capital of the
Confederacy during the CivilWar, and I.
Get to talk with people everysingle day who do not look like
me, who do not sound like me,who did not grow up like I did,
who don't have the beliefs thatI have.
I am a gay Jewish woman livingin the middle of a place where
(47:08):
any one of those things could bea point of friction.
And what I can tell you is thepeople that I meet don't give a
shit about any of those things.
It's just, are you a kind anddecent person?
And.
I was pulled over by the side ofthe road on my way to an
appointment the other day.
I was running a little early, soI pulled over and I'm way off on
the shoulder.
(47:28):
Perfectly fine.
I don't have my, I have myflashers on just so that people
know that I'm there.
And a highway patrol officerdrove by on the other side of
the road going the otherdirection, and I see in my rear
view mirror, I see him U-turn inthe road and he pulls in behind
me and he comes up to my car andhe says, ma'am, I just wanted to
check and make sure you were allright.
A couple days later, I saw ahighway patrol officer by the
(47:50):
side of the road actuallyhelping someone sleeves rolled
up.
Change the tire of a car.
Yeah.
Not there in the car withflashers on just blocking,
actually changing the tire ofthe car.
So they didn't have to wait fora tow truck.
Yeah.
I pulled over, there was a dogthat got hit by a car.
This is late at night, the othernight.
And I pull over.
The guy and it was a hunting dogand the dog is dead and a truck
(48:14):
pulls up and then the guy whosedog it was, it had a radio
collar on and the guy pulls upin the truck and he said, you
stopped your car.
I said, why wouldn't I?
I said, if that dog had breathin it, it's going in the back of
my car going to a hospital.
He said, most people don't stop.
I said I'm not most people.
And I don't think I'm a unicorn.
(48:35):
I really don't.
I think more people than nothave this.
I agree.
I completely agree.
Just don't be afraid to do it.
Don't be afraid.
Yeah.
So I.
I completely agree, and I thinkwe all have testimonies in that,
but we're always stuck in suchfear that we don't, what could
(48:55):
go wrong?
And the other day we went to adog park and we came back to at
the trail head, and there wasthe keys to our car.
Were there.
Our car is steps away fromthere.
Everybody always leaves theirlost and found items on the
trail there.
So somewhere along the way Idropped my key and they could
have just clicked the button andknown which car.
It was driven away, but it wasright there.
(49:17):
And nine times outta 10, I thinkthat's what happens still, I
think overall we're all goodhuman beings.
They're not gonna be how thatmake you feel?
To be honest with you.
I How'd that make you feel whenyou experienced that, what was
the feeling?
I actually didn't think much ofit.
I honestly expect that, but I'mdifferent.
My wife was there with me andshe's oh my God, she was
(49:40):
overwhelmed.
But I, I feel very lucky.
I feel like li most people arereally good and that is the way
it's gonna be.
And I know I've done it.
I've seen a key and I've, and I,think that's the way, that's
normal.
Believe it or not, it takes mean extra second to think, oh, my
car could have disappeared now.
(50:02):
But I've, worked on thattraining for many years'cause I
came from a differentenvironment and it takes a lot
to open yourself up to othersand, accept that.
And, know, hey, everything'sgonna be okay.
And I can give a lot moretestimonies on that.
It's just one that just happeneda couple days ago.
But my wife is still, always shewas on blown away, so I, I'm the
(50:30):
kind of guy who expects that ifI get pulled over that I'm gonna
get, I'm not gonna get a ticketor I'm not gonna get a and and I
have been a victim of profilingand everything, and I have been
thrown in a cop car for noreason yet.
I still expect it.
That's not the way it's gonna benine out of 10 times.
And usually that is the case,nine outta 10 times.
(50:53):
Anyhow.
I know you gotta go.
Yeah.
So can you just share with itshort isn't That's interesting.
Yeah.
Contact information.
Yeah, sure.
I am I'm embarrassingly easy tofind if anybody wants I'm a
little harder to find physicallysince I'm in the middle of the
woods.
So Unleashed leadership llc.comis the site for any and all
(51:15):
things related to coaching andthat sort of stuff.
Hydrant club.com is still awebsite.
We don't have the physicallocation anymore, but I'm still
doing consultations for dogbehavior.
And if folks happen to be in theVirginia, DC, Maryland area and
have a dog that they're havingsome trouble with, I'm more than
happy to help folks out.
I do board and trains where dogscome and stay with me for a
(51:36):
week.
Oh, cool.
Or two.
And then I work, and then Iwork, with the humans.
So basically the dog becomespart of my family for a week or
two.
Learn some rules and structure,and then I help them under the
humans understand how to do itat home.
Heck, if you live in Virginiaand you need new windows or
doors, I'm your girl.
(51:57):
Give me a call.
Okay?
Butkathy@unleashedleadershipllc.com
is my email.
I'm on Instagram is KathyBrooks.
If you type Kathy Brooks with aC into any search engine of
flavor, you will likely find.
A lot of different places thatyou can find me.
And as one tiny thing, you canalso pull up the Giffy search
(52:20):
engine, the gif search engine,and type in Golden Knights fan,
and you'll see that I'm anofficial GIF of the NHL
downloaded, giving joy to 42million people and counting.
It is actually me with my goldhood up and pair of pompoms
shaking my groove thing andhaving a good time at a hockey
game.
Okay.
(52:40):
Thank you.
And that's a real thing.
That's not two truths in a life.
That, that, that's actuallyreal.
Yeah.
You gonna adopt a new hockeyteam now that you're in
Virginia?
No.
I record the games and watchthem while I work out in the
morning.
Gotcha.
I love my boys.
I've gone to see them.
I went to see them in Carolina.
Okay.
I've gone to see them inPittsburgh and Philly.
I've gone to see them.
(53:00):
I'm gonna go see them inColumbus.
I've gone to see them inFlorida.
Haven't seen them in dc.
I missed them on the DC swingthis year.
But I.
Okay.
I was there when they raised thecup, very good.
I be gold.
Very good.
Thank you Kathy for being on theshow.
This has been a lot of fun.
I think we can have you on andwe can talk about a lot more
things, and maybe we'll do that.
(53:23):
So anytime.
All right.
That, that topic the pin that weput in on addiction and
recovery, I think is aconversation worth having.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
We hope you've enjoyed the Wayfinder Show.
If you've got value from thisepisode, please take a few
seconds to leave us a five starrating and review.
This will allow us to help morepeople find their way to live
more authentic and excitinglives.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
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