July 4, 2024 • 27 mins
"I'm not one to buy into the superficial parts of the pageant world." Zoe de Boer - the coolest queen in the midwest.
Zoe de Boer is bringing stories of social justice, faith, friendship, art, inspiration, and all things in between on her podcast, Hello Good Humans.
She is a speaker, podcaster, supporter to everyone - and happens to be in a pop band with her Pop. (Gertrude and Co).
Listen to the chit chat about The Beep Boop Queens, Winning Pageants, me getting awkward about Zoe's dad, fake tans, 99 cent gowns, body image, and the very cool story I remembered wrong about how we first met in 2017.
Zoe is a peach, a keeper, a light, a sweetheart, a Good Human.
Instagram: @gertrude.co.lax
Facebook: Gertrude & Co
If you're in the La Crosse WI area - check out show dates!
Zoe de Boer is bringing stories of social justice, faith, friendship, art, inspiration, and all things in between on her podcast, Hello Good Humans.
She is a speaker, podcaster, supporter to everyone - and happens to be in a pop band with her Pop. (Gertrude and Co).
Listen to the chit chat about The Beep Boop Queens, Winning Pageants, me getting awkward about Zoe's dad, fake tans, 99 cent gowns, body image, and the very cool story I remembered wrong about how we first met in 2017.
Zoe is a peach, a keeper, a light, a sweetheart, a Good Human.
Instagram: @gertrude.co.lax
Facebook: Gertrude & Co
If you're in the La Crosse WI area - check out show dates!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Most of my wardrobe was secondhand,and I was open about that. I
would say in my social media poster, in my appearances, you know,
I got this dress for ninety ninecents and I still look awesome. And
there are people that told me beingthrifty is not a valued attribute, and
I said, well, you're notgoing to get rid of that part of
(00:21):
me. Stranger Connections is the embodimentof Lisa david Olson's perspective of we're all
just friends who just simply haven't metyet. It's an exploration of the weirdly
wonderful side of life and a lookat the single commonality we have with each
other, our differences. Slip offyour shoes, pour a cup of your
favorite and let's meet this week's barrelof quirks. Welcome to Stranger Connections,
(00:45):
where I celebrate wonderfully weird people andquirky stories. I'm your curious beast and
post Lisa David Olson, the practicallyworld famous business humorist and interactive speaker.
So bring me to your group.Let's have some fun today. Speaking of
fun, you've heard of all thebad things in the world, right what
we want to hear is the goodthings. From none other than the host
(01:08):
of Hello, Good Humans, andthat lovely voice is Zoe de Boor,
and thank you for being on StrangerConnections. I'm really glad you're here.
I'm glad that I'm here too.I love it. And your shirts are
so cute. She's got merch,y'all. I do. I do have
merch, well, you know,and stranger connections. The main thing I
(01:30):
do is talk to people I don'tknow. But I've already had a stranger
connection with you. And this wasyears ago. Had to be like twenty
sixteen, twenty I'm bad with that. I believe it was the summer of
seventeen because I graduated in May andthen I moved to the Twin Cities because
(01:52):
I was a little brat that wasupset about the fact that I was going
to college in my hometowns were like, go live with your aunt and uncle
for a summer, get that outof your system. Then you can come
back and go to college. Andit worked. I mean, yeah,
I graduated, so and I stilllive here. That's fantastic. A plus
(02:14):
for your parents, Yeah, no, that's fantastic. So yeah, why
don't you tell us about your show? What makes someone a good human.
How do you decide who to haveon Hello Good Humans. That's a good
question. The idea for the showstarted kind of during the panorama because I
(02:38):
was talking to my grandparents on thephone all the time, and I started
hearing stories upon stories upon stories oftheir childhoods, and I really wanted a
way to preserve them. And thenI just kind of started thinking about what
that would look like with all sortsof good humans preserving pieces of the work
(03:01):
that they're doing within their own communities, and especially in a world that glamorizes
celebrities and the not so great workthat they're doing or the good work that
they're doing because they have millions offollowers and millions of dollars. I really
just wanted to highlight people that aredoing good, everyday human work. And
(03:24):
something that's really important to me isI have really strong political views, and
people that know me personally know that, and I've gotten myself into situations where
I have to say to myself,is this person's story something that I want
on my podcast? But then Ihave to also say, it's not Hello
(03:46):
good humans that have the exact sameviews as me, it's Hello good humans,
no matter where we are in life, and there's a difference between promoting
something or just like sharing someone else'slived experience nice. And how long has
this been going on? It justhit a year happy anniversary you O.
(04:09):
Yes. I have been journaling slashmanifesting it since probably twenty twenty one,
kind of having some imposter syndrome ofI'm not no one's going to listen to
me or you know people, peoplearen't going to think it's cool. But
after last summer, I competed forMiss Wisconsin and that week was such a
(04:33):
fever dream and such an emotional upand down that at the end of the
week, I just said, ifI just did that, I can do
anything. So I literally came homeand started the podcast the next week.
Wow. So it was it.The self talk was getting in the way,
the overthinking what would you say tosomebody else that says, why would
(04:57):
I do a podcast? I'm nobody. I think it was comparison. I
was comparing myself to podcasters that Ilove who have millions of streamers, And
obviously I'm not going to have millionsof streamers the first week or year or
maybe ever, and that's fine.And after I spent an entire week with
(05:18):
twenty something girls where the whole ideaof the week is to basically be pitted
against each other. But for me, I went into the week celebrating each
and every one of them and notreally caring about my own success. That
totally transformed my view of how Iwas going to be doing things from there
(05:39):
on out. I love that,and I hear so many, so much
good feedback. I think you're areyou mostly recording with people in the area
of Lacrosse, Wisconsin. It's probablytwo thirds local, one third farther away.
I have a lot of people inmy life who I met here but
(06:02):
have now moved, and so theLacrosse ties us together, but maybe they're
living somewhere else now. Yeah,And I think that's good. That makes
it a niche for you. Ithink, you know, we can't be
everything to everyone. We have tofind our audience and if you end up
shifting at some point, That's anotherthing people go through, is the shift
of a podcast. They're like,well, now I'm kind of feeling like
(06:23):
I want to do more style andpersonality style and do it. Yeah,
there's no rules, and there's definitelythings I like talking about more than others.
I love when my guests have amental health related story, or a
body image related story, or afaith related story. But I interviewed a
(06:46):
college athlete and I know nothing aboutsports, but she had the most amazing
mental health story that she was ableto tie into her athletic journey. And
so it's also opened my eyes upto different people's lifestyles. And as a
good host, you're learning and listening. And I mean, I know you're
(07:09):
a great host because I was juston your show and so and you got
to tune into my episode. Iwas on Zoe's show, Hello Good Humans.
So we're going to release around thesame time, So check them both
out to hear each side, becausewe have two versions of the same story,
although they're very similar. So I'lllet you tell the story of how
(07:29):
we first met as strangers. Okay, So, like I said, it
was summer after I graduated from mysenior year of high school. I was
back in Lacrosse and I was hangingout with my best friend Brittany, maid
of honor and my upcoming wedding.One of my favorite Sorry can you still
hear me? I have a studentwith Down syndrome who calls me about twenty
(07:59):
five times an hour, so Iwill put my phone back on mute,
but if she calls again, Hello. So I was back in Lacrosse hanging
out with Brittany. We went tothe Pearl, and, as all good
seventeen eighteen year olds do, wewere taking photos to put on Instagram ice
(08:20):
cream store, just to introduce yefor those because this show is quite around
the world, just so you know, definitely yours is international. So so
yes, we were getting ice creamat arguably the best homemade ice cream parlor
around. And the way that Iremember it is maybe we saw you and
(08:43):
your husband and we said, hey, can you come take a photo of
us? And I think you weretaking the photos of us, and your
husband was like like working ladies,like you know, telling us how to
close, which was hysterical, lookat the distance and pout yeah, directing
it. I forgot that part.So then you two went off to dinner,
(09:07):
and then about one second later youcame running back and you said,
girls, can I get a selfiewith you? And right as you were
putting your phone up to take theselfie, you said, Okay, it
has to be a serious selfie.And so the three of us kind of
pouted into the to the phone.As you can see here there is us
(09:28):
uh Cca twenty seventeen. Yes,and oh my gosh. And then you
went to dinner and we said,who is that crazy lady? Then you
need to take a selfie with us, and only forgot the part about Todd
taking it. Yes, that's right, you're right. But then, like
we talked about on my episode,this started a whole kind of social experiment
(09:50):
for you that then was published inyour book and was posted on a Ted
talk and my face is now publishedliterature. Yes, you are the face
of international fame. And when thebook came out, I included a lot
of serious selfies with strangers. Andthen your mama her friend saw the book
(10:13):
and said, hey, I thinkZoe's in my friend's book or whatever however
that went, and then we allgot together. There was like eight of
us, and we had a coffeedate and then we went to hang out.
It was a used clothing store,which was so fun. We were
thrifting and skirts and pants and tryingon things and singing abba songs and the
(10:35):
workers like, are you guys ina music hall? And we're like,
oh yeah, it was kind oflike good manifesting for me because one of
my greatest joys of my life hasbeen being in Mamma Mia and we were
singing, dance and Queen that day. Then probably about a year later,
I started rehearsals for Mama Mia,which was amazing. Oh that did it?
(10:58):
Wow? All that because you andBritney had ice cream? Yeah,
So the whole moral of all ofthis is always say yes to ice cream,
and always say yes to a picturewith a stranger, because you could
end up in a musical, ina book, and on a podcast a
(11:18):
podcast mm hmm. Now you hada journey which was really thrilling for everybody
in this local area of Lacrosse,Wisconsin. You became Miss Lacrosse, which
is directly tied into the ginormous Octoberfestcelebration, which is the reason we all
live here is just to have Octoberfestpretzels for everyone. And you did you
(11:45):
go in thinking you were going towin? What was that like? No?
Actually, I think the prank thatI was going to talk about was
that the prank was me running fora pageant. Oh well, then we'll
come back to that. I haveanother story for that. Happens a lot.
Okay, so then we'll tell you, yeah, when you went in
it. I have a very distinctmemory of going to the miss on Alaska
(12:11):
pageant as a high schooler and watchingeverything go down and thinking to myself,
I really want to do this,but I want to do it my way.
And it was just little things thatI thought were funny about the pageantry
of it all, and I justsaid, you know, if I did
(12:33):
this, i'd want to do itmore authentically me. And then I had
a pretty severe ongoing struggle with bodydysmorphia and I got to a pretty low
place where I didn't think that Iwould ever be worthy quote unquote worthy enough
(12:54):
to run for a pageant, andsomething about summer of twenty twenty to I
just said, you know what,if I don't run right now, I'm
never going to do it. AndI had no idea. People always ask
me, did you know you weregoing to win? No? Do you
know? I had no idea.I'd never done a pageant before. I
(13:18):
really knew nothing about that world exceptwhat I had seen at a pageant,
you know, five six years earlier. But it truly changed my life.
For lack of a less cliche termwhat did you and when you saw it
when you were younger and you lookedwhat are the things you looked at and
(13:41):
said, oof, no, Ithink I would do this. Do you
clearly remember something that you know asan example, Yeah, I mean I
think it's just a lot of thesuperficial pieces, like girls had very clearly
faked tans, and they had alot of makeup on, and they had
dresses that were very clearly hundreds ofdollars. And one of the things that
(14:01):
I did throughout my year that Iactually got criticized for was that most of
my wardrobe was secondhand, and Iwas open about that. I would say
in my social media poster, inmy appearances, you know, I got
this dress for ninety nine cents thatthe Goodwill bins and I still look awesome.
(14:22):
And there were people that told me, quote unquote, being thrifty is
not a valued attribute of Miss Lacrosse, and I said, well, you're
not going to get rid of thatpart of me. So just little things
like that. It's not a littlething that is highly rude that you you
(14:43):
need to go out and buy aneight hundred dollars dress that you're you can't
wear again, because it's so obviouslyit was that dress, right, you
know, I don't know how likethe judges on Idol look at what they
wear and I'm like, do theyreally just wear that dress one time?
And that's I don't understand that howit works what you could do with that
money? Uh huh. And there'scrazy things like if you go to Goodwill
(15:07):
here in Unalaska or Lacrosse after promseason, there are hundreds of prom dresses
there. Why would I not takeadvantage of that as somebody who's going to
wear it on stage for a ninetysecond vocal piece or a ten minute interview.
And so it wasn't that I didn'ttake the pieces seriously because I obviously
(15:31):
wanted to do a good job,but I wasn't going to buy into the
superficial parts of the pageant world.It seems like you could have still been
thrifty, and if that person hadtheir way, you just would not have
shared that, And that is badbecause that is not you. And what
(15:52):
you're doing is telling people you don'tneed the fake tan, you don't need
to open a new credit card andpay that off for twenty seven years.
And I'm sure that that's something thathas affected other people. I'm sure you
got feedback on that. And Iwill say, for all of its ups
(16:12):
and downs, the Miss America Organizationis a scholarship program, and because of
what I won and different other awardsthat I was awarded, I was able
to pay for the second half ofmy master's degree with money that I won
through the organization, and so I'mvery very thankful for that part of it,
(16:37):
and I'm glad that I didn't haveto use that money to pay off
the dresses that I wore. Rightthere, right there in your face person
who said that in the face andyour platform, you talk openly about body
image and healing from body dysmorphia.So what was your was at your platform
(17:00):
that you were speaking on when youwould have a chance to talk to groups.
Yep. Part of my way thatI wanted to do things differently too,
is I am not a size tohuman being. And when I was,
I was pretty ill and I've spokenabout that, suffering from anorexia and
(17:22):
bulimia and just a lot of mentalillness was going on at the time,
and I really just wanted to showpeople, whether it was friends or people
that follow me on social media,that you are worthy of this title or
worthy of the awards, that you'rereceiving the scholarship money that you're winning,
(17:44):
no matter what dress size you are. And I was able to bring that
message to lots of groups of peopleup to nursing home age folks all the
way down to Daisy Scouts, andit was very it was very very well
received. And it's just so you. It's just it wasn't preachy. It
(18:10):
was just shared like, well,this is where I'm at, this is
me. So if you want tolike me, let's hang out. But
if you want to just be stupid, don't hang out. No, but
you're you're not You're You're unapologetically youand I think that's that's the attraction and
that's how you won. And wereyou singing in the pageant as well?
I know you you have a rockband with a hot dude my dad.
(18:37):
Okay, Lisa, I'm not withthat, but a cool dude, we'll
say, a cool dude, socool cool dad on the block. So
did you sing for your talent?I did sing, And I will say
a little humble brag for myself.I did win talent at Miss Wisconsin,
(19:00):
which was the affirmation that I neededor I didn't care about winning Miss Wisconsin.
I didn't, but that was like, Okay, I'm getting recognized for
this thing that I am so passionateabout and I have spent so many years
of my life working on. Thatwas an incredible moment. And what song
(19:26):
did you win with? It's calledAll that Matters from the musical finding Neverland.
Oh I am in a rock band. Well it's more of a pop
band really, but music theater ismy is my first love. So it
was fun to get to do thatagain. And was that with live accompaniment
or did they have recording? Ithad to be it had to be a
(19:48):
pre recorded track. Got it allthose details? So many details here,
all about putting everybody on the sameplane. So true good, which is
good in a way. Yes.So how do you compare Miss Lacrosse to
Miss Wisconsin? You mean the actualcompetition? Mm hmm, it's crazy.
(20:10):
The Miss Wisconsin we hold some ofmy favorite memories. Ever. You are
literally under lock and key with yourtwenty something girls. I forget how many
we had. I'm just gonna gowith twenty five twenty five girls in a
hotel. Think of it as likeBachelor Nation, where you're completely off the
grid. You stay in a house, they bust you to where you have
(20:30):
to go. We had our phones, but we were highly encouraged not to
use them. It was crazy howthat work, you know, go on
it's it's actually it was actually good. We took lots of pictures, obviously,
but like it was good to stayoff of social media because people just
psyche themselves out right. But Imean super good, just very very intense.
(20:53):
I met this group of girls.We call ourselves the beat Boop Queens,
and that's just because we're all likea little bit quirky. We're not
so intense. So we just saidwe're just beat pooping around all week.
We're just we're just having fun.We're just beat pooping. I met them
and they have been some of thegreatest people in my life. And if
(21:15):
I had not run for Miss Lacrosse, I would have never met them.
And fun fact this past week wasMiss was Miss Wisconsin a year later and
my friends and I that I metlast year went to go watch and they
threw me a surprise bachelorette again.Just incredible humans. Oh so sweet.
(21:37):
It was you did not see thatcoming, not at all. Wow.
I am just so happy for youand Ben. That is exciting. Yeah,
where can people see the band andtell me the name and how we
can find you? Oh? Yes, the band is called Gertrude and Company.
Gertrude is my embarrassing nickname that myfather has called me since I was
(22:03):
little, and I don't know why. It just happened. On Instagram,
we're at Gertrude dot co dot lax, and on Facebook it's just Gertrude and
Co. It's really fun getting toplay music with my dad. We have
this like family telepathy thing where wecan just communicate with each other mid song,
(22:27):
right, and it's just it's magical. Not everybody could be in a
band with their family member, muchless their parent. I think that is
fantastic. And I've gotten to heara little bit of you guys, but
I definitely have to find you andwatch a whole set. That's great.
I did see the pictures. Forsome reason, you guys were trading a
(22:47):
witch hat and different things were happening. We do have a bit of a
prop thing going on, Like mydad just started collecting hats and we wear
them and it's just part of thebit yep, you have Todd and I
dj' for one hundred years and wewere of the first people way back from
(23:07):
there was music in motion years andyears ago, and we would whip out
props and change clothes and the wholething. Not surprisingly ended up doing shows.
But it's fun. That's fun.So sometimes you have to bring a
hat like the chicken with the legshanging down and surprise your dad. Somebody
turns around. There you are insomething different that could be fun. Throw
them off. I agree, Oh, this has been really fun. The
(23:33):
podcast is Hello, good humans.I feel like any minute will be introducing
a book from you or something elsecoming out of that masters that you just
obtained. And congratulations on your successes. This is a great year. So
do tell me before I let youslip out the back door. Could you
share a dare or a prank storyor one of those legendary tales we tell
(23:56):
when the families together. Give mesome juicy stories. So I don't know
which category this falls under, butgrowing up, I lived four houses away
from the infamous Britney Parker from theserious selfie photo Oka, four houses around
the corner, and I'll just sayher house was a little bit more relax
(24:22):
with the rules, and my housewas a little bit more strict with the
rules, and so there was alwaysa lot of lying from my end to
my parents about where I was,but the excuse was always that I was
at Britney Parker's house. And onesummer after we got our licenses, things
were particularly bad, and I guess, like, this isn't really a prank,
(24:49):
But we just always lied to mydad about where we were, and
he would text us and say,is Zoe or he'd text me, is
Zoe at your house? You'd sayyes, even if we were like halfway
to lacross at this point, andhe'd say, okay, I'm on my
way over to check. And it'slike a two minute walk, maybe not
(25:11):
even like one minute thirty second walk. And we would drive back from wherever
we were at the speed of light. And there was one time when we
parked, like turn the headlights off, parked down the street. It came
to a screeching stop. We sprintedback to Britney's house and when my dad
knocked on the door, we're like, ye, no, we've been here
(25:36):
the whole time. And if youwere just working out or out of breath
from jogging in the basement. Frankis that we were never at Britney's house,
but we always somehow made it appearthat we were. And I just
I'm so confused as to why myparents, like they clearly cared, because
my dad would put in the effortto come check, but every they just
(26:00):
every time I said, can Igo to Britney's house? Sure, Sure,
we'll randomly check on you. Anddo you think your dad knew you
were having some shenanigans and just wantedto see how fast you can get your
buns back to Britney's. Absolutely.I think the best part is that I
was just looking through my phone screenshotsand I found a screenshot that Brittany had
(26:25):
sent me in twenty twenty, soat this point it was COVID, so
I had moved back home. ButI was twenty two, so I should
not have to tell my parents whereI am, or at least that is
how I felt at the time.And my dad texted Brittany and said,
one night, I don't know whereI was, but he texted her and
(26:47):
he said, is Zoe at yourhouse? I thought we were past these
days, but I guess not.And she said yes, and then he
goes, well, we just foundout that she's not so so bad.
He's like, probably in your roomat his place, so he's just messing
with red me. But you knowwhat, she will always have my back,
(27:10):
always, always yes, my yesgirl. Oh my gosh, this
has been so fun. I amso so honored to have had you on
Stranger Connections, Zoe Debauer. Andremember that we can only be strangers once,
twice, three or four times.And I invite you to stay weird,
no problem. This has been StrangerConnections with Lisa David Olson
Most of my wardrobe was secondhand,and I was open about that. I
would say in my social media poster, in my appearances, you know,
I got this dress for ninety ninecents and I still look awesome. And
there are people that told me beingthrifty is not a valued attribute, and
I said, well, you're notgoing to get rid of that part of
(00:21):
me. Stranger Connections is the embodimentof Lisa david Olson's perspective of we're all
just friends who just simply haven't metyet. It's an exploration of the weirdly
wonderful side of life and a lookat the single commonality we have with each
other, our differences. Slip offyour shoes, pour a cup of your
favorite and let's meet this week's barrelof quirks. Welcome to Stranger Connections,
(00:45):
where I celebrate wonderfully weird people andquirky stories. I'm your curious beast and
post Lisa David Olson, the practicallyworld famous business humorist and interactive speaker.
So bring me to your group.Let's have some fun today. Speaking of
fun, you've heard of all thebad things in the world, right what
we want to hear is the goodthings. From none other than the host
(01:08):
of Hello, Good Humans, andthat lovely voice is Zoe de Boor,
and thank you for being on StrangerConnections. I'm really glad you're here.
I'm glad that I'm here too.I love it. And your shirts are
so cute. She's got merch,y'all. I do. I do have
merch, well, you know,and stranger connections. The main thing I
(01:30):
do is talk to people I don'tknow. But I've already had a stranger
connection with you. And this wasyears ago. Had to be like twenty
sixteen, twenty I'm bad with that. I believe it was the summer of
seventeen because I graduated in May andthen I moved to the Twin Cities because
(01:52):
I was a little brat that wasupset about the fact that I was going
to college in my hometowns were like, go live with your aunt and uncle
for a summer, get that outof your system. Then you can come
back and go to college. Andit worked. I mean, yeah,
I graduated, so and I stilllive here. That's fantastic. A plus
(02:14):
for your parents, Yeah, no, that's fantastic. So yeah, why
don't you tell us about your show? What makes someone a good human.
How do you decide who to haveon Hello Good Humans. That's a good
question. The idea for the showstarted kind of during the panorama because I
(02:38):
was talking to my grandparents on thephone all the time, and I started
hearing stories upon stories upon stories oftheir childhoods, and I really wanted a
way to preserve them. And thenI just kind of started thinking about what
that would look like with all sortsof good humans preserving pieces of the work
(03:01):
that they're doing within their own communities, and especially in a world that glamorizes
celebrities and the not so great workthat they're doing or the good work that
they're doing because they have millions offollowers and millions of dollars. I really
just wanted to highlight people that aredoing good, everyday human work. And
(03:24):
something that's really important to me isI have really strong political views, and
people that know me personally know that, and I've gotten myself into situations where
I have to say to myself,is this person's story something that I want
on my podcast? But then Ihave to also say, it's not Hello
(03:46):
good humans that have the exact sameviews as me, it's Hello good humans,
no matter where we are in life, and there's a difference between promoting
something or just like sharing someone else'slived experience nice. And how long has
this been going on? It justhit a year happy anniversary you O.
(04:09):
Yes. I have been journaling slashmanifesting it since probably twenty twenty one,
kind of having some imposter syndrome ofI'm not no one's going to listen to
me or you know people, peoplearen't going to think it's cool. But
after last summer, I competed forMiss Wisconsin and that week was such a
(04:33):
fever dream and such an emotional upand down that at the end of the
week, I just said, ifI just did that, I can do
anything. So I literally came homeand started the podcast the next week.
Wow. So it was it.The self talk was getting in the way,
the overthinking what would you say tosomebody else that says, why would
(04:57):
I do a podcast? I'm nobody. I think it was comparison. I
was comparing myself to podcasters that Ilove who have millions of streamers, And
obviously I'm not going to have millionsof streamers the first week or year or
maybe ever, and that's fine.And after I spent an entire week with
(05:18):
twenty something girls where the whole ideaof the week is to basically be pitted
against each other. But for me, I went into the week celebrating each
and every one of them and notreally caring about my own success. That
totally transformed my view of how Iwas going to be doing things from there
(05:39):
on out. I love that,and I hear so many, so much
good feedback. I think you're areyou mostly recording with people in the area
of Lacrosse, Wisconsin. It's probablytwo thirds local, one third farther away.
I have a lot of people inmy life who I met here but
(06:02):
have now moved, and so theLacrosse ties us together, but maybe they're
living somewhere else now. Yeah,And I think that's good. That makes
it a niche for you. Ithink, you know, we can't be
everything to everyone. We have tofind our audience and if you end up
shifting at some point, That's anotherthing people go through, is the shift
of a podcast. They're like,well, now I'm kind of feeling like
(06:23):
I want to do more style andpersonality style and do it. Yeah,
there's no rules, and there's definitelythings I like talking about more than others.
I love when my guests have amental health related story, or a
body image related story, or afaith related story. But I interviewed a
(06:46):
college athlete and I know nothing aboutsports, but she had the most amazing
mental health story that she was ableto tie into her athletic journey. And
so it's also opened my eyes upto different people's lifestyles. And as a
good host, you're learning and listening. And I mean, I know you're
(07:09):
a great host because I was juston your show and so and you got
to tune into my episode. Iwas on Zoe's show, Hello Good Humans.
So we're going to release around thesame time, So check them both
out to hear each side, becausewe have two versions of the same story,
although they're very similar. So I'lllet you tell the story of how
(07:29):
we first met as strangers. Okay, So, like I said, it
was summer after I graduated from mysenior year of high school. I was
back in Lacrosse and I was hangingout with my best friend Brittany, maid
of honor and my upcoming wedding.One of my favorite Sorry can you still
hear me? I have a studentwith Down syndrome who calls me about twenty
(07:59):
five times an hour, so Iwill put my phone back on mute,
but if she calls again, Hello. So I was back in Lacrosse hanging
out with Brittany. We went tothe Pearl, and, as all good
seventeen eighteen year olds do, wewere taking photos to put on Instagram ice
(08:20):
cream store, just to introduce yefor those because this show is quite around
the world, just so you know, definitely yours is international. So so
yes, we were getting ice creamat arguably the best homemade ice cream parlor
around. And the way that Iremember it is maybe we saw you and
(08:43):
your husband and we said, hey, can you come take a photo of
us? And I think you weretaking the photos of us, and your
husband was like like working ladies,like you know, telling us how to
close, which was hysterical, lookat the distance and pout yeah, directing
it. I forgot that part.So then you two went off to dinner,
(09:07):
and then about one second later youcame running back and you said,
girls, can I get a selfiewith you? And right as you were
putting your phone up to take theselfie, you said, Okay, it
has to be a serious selfie.And so the three of us kind of
pouted into the to the phone.As you can see here there is us
(09:28):
uh Cca twenty seventeen. Yes,and oh my gosh. And then you
went to dinner and we said,who is that crazy lady? Then you
need to take a selfie with us, and only forgot the part about Todd
taking it. Yes, that's right, you're right. But then, like
we talked about on my episode,this started a whole kind of social experiment
(09:50):
for you that then was published inyour book and was posted on a Ted
talk and my face is now publishedliterature. Yes, you are the face
of international fame. And when thebook came out, I included a lot
of serious selfies with strangers. Andthen your mama her friend saw the book
(10:13):
and said, hey, I thinkZoe's in my friend's book or whatever however
that went, and then we allgot together. There was like eight of
us, and we had a coffeedate and then we went to hang out.
It was a used clothing store,which was so fun. We were
thrifting and skirts and pants and tryingon things and singing abba songs and the
(10:35):
workers like, are you guys ina music hall? And we're like,
oh yeah, it was kind oflike good manifesting for me because one of
my greatest joys of my life hasbeen being in Mamma Mia and we were
singing, dance and Queen that day. Then probably about a year later,
I started rehearsals for Mama Mia,which was amazing. Oh that did it?
(10:58):
Wow? All that because you andBritney had ice cream? Yeah,
So the whole moral of all ofthis is always say yes to ice cream,
and always say yes to a picturewith a stranger, because you could
end up in a musical, ina book, and on a podcast a
(11:18):
podcast mm hmm. Now you hada journey which was really thrilling for everybody
in this local area of Lacrosse,Wisconsin. You became Miss Lacrosse, which
is directly tied into the ginormous Octoberfestcelebration, which is the reason we all
live here is just to have Octoberfestpretzels for everyone. And you did you
(11:45):
go in thinking you were going towin? What was that like? No?
Actually, I think the prank thatI was going to talk about was
that the prank was me running fora pageant. Oh well, then we'll
come back to that. I haveanother story for that. Happens a lot.
Okay, so then we'll tell you, yeah, when you went in
it. I have a very distinctmemory of going to the miss on Alaska
(12:11):
pageant as a high schooler and watchingeverything go down and thinking to myself,
I really want to do this,but I want to do it my way.
And it was just little things thatI thought were funny about the pageantry
of it all, and I justsaid, you know, if I did
(12:33):
this, i'd want to do itmore authentically me. And then I had
a pretty severe ongoing struggle with bodydysmorphia and I got to a pretty low
place where I didn't think that Iwould ever be worthy quote unquote worthy enough
(12:54):
to run for a pageant, andsomething about summer of twenty twenty to I
just said, you know what,if I don't run right now, I'm
never going to do it. AndI had no idea. People always ask
me, did you know you weregoing to win? No? Do you
know? I had no idea.I'd never done a pageant before. I
(13:18):
really knew nothing about that world exceptwhat I had seen at a pageant,
you know, five six years earlier. But it truly changed my life.
For lack of a less cliche termwhat did you and when you saw it
when you were younger and you lookedwhat are the things you looked at and
(13:41):
said, oof, no, Ithink I would do this. Do you
clearly remember something that you know asan example, Yeah, I mean I
think it's just a lot of thesuperficial pieces, like girls had very clearly
faked tans, and they had alot of makeup on, and they had
dresses that were very clearly hundreds ofdollars. And one of the things that
(14:01):
I did throughout my year that Iactually got criticized for was that most of
my wardrobe was secondhand, and Iwas open about that. I would say
in my social media poster, inmy appearances, you know, I got
this dress for ninety nine cents thatthe Goodwill bins and I still look awesome.
(14:22):
And there were people that told me, quote unquote, being thrifty is
not a valued attribute of Miss Lacrosse, and I said, well, you're
not going to get rid of thatpart of me. So just little things
like that. It's not a littlething that is highly rude that you you
(14:43):
need to go out and buy aneight hundred dollars dress that you're you can't
wear again, because it's so obviouslyit was that dress, right, you
know, I don't know how likethe judges on Idol look at what they
wear and I'm like, do theyreally just wear that dress one time?
And that's I don't understand that howit works what you could do with that
money? Uh huh. And there'scrazy things like if you go to Goodwill
(15:07):
here in Unalaska or Lacrosse after promseason, there are hundreds of prom dresses
there. Why would I not takeadvantage of that as somebody who's going to
wear it on stage for a ninetysecond vocal piece or a ten minute interview.
And so it wasn't that I didn'ttake the pieces seriously because I obviously
(15:31):
wanted to do a good job,but I wasn't going to buy into the
superficial parts of the pageant world.It seems like you could have still been
thrifty, and if that person hadtheir way, you just would not have
shared that, And that is badbecause that is not you. And what
(15:52):
you're doing is telling people you don'tneed the fake tan, you don't need
to open a new credit card andpay that off for twenty seven years.
And I'm sure that that's something thathas affected other people. I'm sure you
got feedback on that. And Iwill say, for all of its ups
(16:12):
and downs, the Miss America Organizationis a scholarship program, and because of
what I won and different other awardsthat I was awarded, I was able
to pay for the second half ofmy master's degree with money that I won
through the organization, and so I'mvery very thankful for that part of it,
(16:37):
and I'm glad that I didn't haveto use that money to pay off
the dresses that I wore. Rightthere, right there in your face person
who said that in the face andyour platform, you talk openly about body
image and healing from body dysmorphia.So what was your was at your platform
(17:00):
that you were speaking on when youwould have a chance to talk to groups.
Yep. Part of my way thatI wanted to do things differently too,
is I am not a size tohuman being. And when I was,
I was pretty ill and I've spokenabout that, suffering from anorexia and
(17:22):
bulimia and just a lot of mentalillness was going on at the time,
and I really just wanted to showpeople, whether it was friends or people
that follow me on social media,that you are worthy of this title or
worthy of the awards, that you'rereceiving the scholarship money that you're winning,
(17:44):
no matter what dress size you are. And I was able to bring that
message to lots of groups of peopleup to nursing home age folks all the
way down to Daisy Scouts, andit was very it was very very well
received. And it's just so you. It's just it wasn't preachy. It
(18:10):
was just shared like, well,this is where I'm at, this is
me. So if you want tolike me, let's hang out. But
if you want to just be stupid, don't hang out. No, but
you're you're not You're You're unapologetically youand I think that's that's the attraction and
that's how you won. And wereyou singing in the pageant as well?
I know you you have a rockband with a hot dude my dad.
(18:37):
Okay, Lisa, I'm not withthat, but a cool dude, we'll
say, a cool dude, socool cool dad on the block. So
did you sing for your talent?I did sing, And I will say
a little humble brag for myself.I did win talent at Miss Wisconsin,
(19:00):
which was the affirmation that I neededor I didn't care about winning Miss Wisconsin.
I didn't, but that was like, Okay, I'm getting recognized for
this thing that I am so passionateabout and I have spent so many years
of my life working on. Thatwas an incredible moment. And what song
(19:26):
did you win with? It's calledAll that Matters from the musical finding Neverland.
Oh I am in a rock band. Well it's more of a pop
band really, but music theater ismy is my first love. So it
was fun to get to do thatagain. And was that with live accompaniment
or did they have recording? Ithad to be it had to be a
(19:48):
pre recorded track. Got it allthose details? So many details here,
all about putting everybody on the sameplane. So true good, which is
good in a way. Yes.So how do you compare Miss Lacrosse to
Miss Wisconsin? You mean the actualcompetition? Mm hmm, it's crazy.
(20:10):
The Miss Wisconsin we hold some ofmy favorite memories. Ever. You are
literally under lock and key with yourtwenty something girls. I forget how many
we had. I'm just gonna gowith twenty five twenty five girls in a
hotel. Think of it as likeBachelor Nation, where you're completely off the
grid. You stay in a house, they bust you to where you have
(20:30):
to go. We had our phones, but we were highly encouraged not to
use them. It was crazy howthat work, you know, go on
it's it's actually it was actually good. We took lots of pictures, obviously,
but like it was good to stayoff of social media because people just
psyche themselves out right. But Imean super good, just very very intense.
(20:53):
I met this group of girls.We call ourselves the beat Boop Queens,
and that's just because we're all likea little bit quirky. We're not
so intense. So we just saidwe're just beat pooping around all week.
We're just we're just having fun.We're just beat pooping. I met them
and they have been some of thegreatest people in my life. And if
(21:15):
I had not run for Miss Lacrosse, I would have never met them.
And fun fact this past week wasMiss was Miss Wisconsin a year later and
my friends and I that I metlast year went to go watch and they
threw me a surprise bachelorette again.Just incredible humans. Oh so sweet.
(21:37):
It was you did not see thatcoming, not at all. Wow.
I am just so happy for youand Ben. That is exciting. Yeah,
where can people see the band andtell me the name and how we
can find you? Oh? Yes, the band is called Gertrude and Company.
Gertrude is my embarrassing nickname that myfather has called me since I was
(22:03):
little, and I don't know why. It just happened. On Instagram,
we're at Gertrude dot co dot lax, and on Facebook it's just Gertrude and
Co. It's really fun getting toplay music with my dad. We have
this like family telepathy thing where wecan just communicate with each other mid song,
(22:27):
right, and it's just it's magical. Not everybody could be in a
band with their family member, muchless their parent. I think that is
fantastic. And I've gotten to heara little bit of you guys, but
I definitely have to find you andwatch a whole set. That's great.
I did see the pictures. Forsome reason, you guys were trading a
(22:47):
witch hat and different things were happening. We do have a bit of a
prop thing going on, Like mydad just started collecting hats and we wear
them and it's just part of thebit yep, you have Todd and I
dj' for one hundred years and wewere of the first people way back from
(23:07):
there was music in motion years andyears ago, and we would whip out
props and change clothes and the wholething. Not surprisingly ended up doing shows.
But it's fun. That's fun.So sometimes you have to bring a
hat like the chicken with the legshanging down and surprise your dad. Somebody
turns around. There you are insomething different that could be fun. Throw
them off. I agree, Oh, this has been really fun. The
(23:33):
podcast is Hello, good humans.I feel like any minute will be introducing
a book from you or something elsecoming out of that masters that you just
obtained. And congratulations on your successes. This is a great year. So
do tell me before I let youslip out the back door. Could you
share a dare or a prank storyor one of those legendary tales we tell
(23:56):
when the families together. Give mesome juicy stories. So I don't know
which category this falls under, butgrowing up, I lived four houses away
from the infamous Britney Parker from theserious selfie photo Oka, four houses around
the corner, and I'll just sayher house was a little bit more relax
(24:22):
with the rules, and my housewas a little bit more strict with the
rules, and so there was alwaysa lot of lying from my end to
my parents about where I was,but the excuse was always that I was
at Britney Parker's house. And onesummer after we got our licenses, things
were particularly bad, and I guess, like, this isn't really a prank,
(24:49):
But we just always lied to mydad about where we were, and
he would text us and say,is Zoe or he'd text me, is
Zoe at your house? You'd sayyes, even if we were like halfway
to lacross at this point, andhe'd say, okay, I'm on my
way over to check. And it'slike a two minute walk, maybe not
(25:11):
even like one minute thirty second walk. And we would drive back from wherever
we were at the speed of light. And there was one time when we
parked, like turn the headlights off, parked down the street. It came
to a screeching stop. We sprintedback to Britney's house and when my dad
knocked on the door, we're like, ye, no, we've been here
(25:36):
the whole time. And if youwere just working out or out of breath
from jogging in the basement. Frankis that we were never at Britney's house,
but we always somehow made it appearthat we were. And I just
I'm so confused as to why myparents, like they clearly cared, because
my dad would put in the effortto come check, but every they just
(26:00):
every time I said, can Igo to Britney's house? Sure, Sure,
we'll randomly check on you. Anddo you think your dad knew you
were having some shenanigans and just wantedto see how fast you can get your
buns back to Britney's. Absolutely.I think the best part is that I
was just looking through my phone screenshotsand I found a screenshot that Brittany had
(26:25):
sent me in twenty twenty, soat this point it was COVID, so
I had moved back home. ButI was twenty two, so I should
not have to tell my parents whereI am, or at least that is
how I felt at the time.And my dad texted Brittany and said,
one night, I don't know whereI was, but he texted her and
(26:47):
he said, is Zoe at yourhouse? I thought we were past these
days, but I guess not.And she said yes, and then he
goes, well, we just foundout that she's not so so bad.
He's like, probably in your roomat his place, so he's just messing
with red me. But you knowwhat, she will always have my back,
(27:10):
always, always yes, my yesgirl. Oh my gosh, this
has been so fun. I amso so honored to have had you on
Stranger Connections, Zoe Debauer. Andremember that we can only be strangers once,
twice, three or four times.And I invite you to stay weird,
no problem. This has been StrangerConnections with Lisa David Olson
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