Uncomfortable Nostalgia: How Our Past Impacts Our Career And Life Outlook

 

Nostalgia can be uncomfortable, but it is worthwhile to sometimes take a walk down the memory lane and reflect on how our past experiences have shaped who we are today. For both Whitney Lauritsen and Jason Wrobel, visiting home evokes a stream of childhood and high school memories – the good and the bad, the uplifting and the humiliating, the comforting and the traumatic. Join them as they share some of these memories and how they have impacted their outlook towards life and career. On another note, Jason also reveals for the first time in public why he has slowly fallen out of love with culinary arts and how he is going through this breakup with a career and identity that he has spent a decade and a half building. Similarly, Whitney shares a career transition that she is going through herself. Life is full of twists and turns. Whether it’s a life-changing high school memory or a career shift in midlife, it’s just another page flip in this uncomfortable journey we call life.

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Uncomfortable Nostalgia: How Our Past Impacts Our Career And Life Outlook

I’m excited about this episode because it is shaped by a sweet, magical experience I had in my hometown, where I grew up, in Massachusetts. I met up with a friend of mine that I’ve known since I was probably four years old or maybe even longer. We went to school together. We’re very good friends and have stayed friends most of our lives. We’ve gone through some periods of not being great friends, but it’s always sweet to spend time with people. I feel blessed to have a lot of great friends, especially on the East Coast, and also friends that are making it work during COVID because some people are uncomfortable getting together during the pandemic. I’ve personally found comfort in outdoor activities with friends, wearing masks and physically distancing.

It feels nourishing. The weird part is not being able to hug people. We got together to spend time with each other while I’m out here, but we also did something special that I’m going to talk about at the very end of the show. Stick around because it’s related to a brand and in most of our episodes, we talk about some brands that we love at the end. If you’ve never made it through or this is the first episode that you’re reading, it’s worth reading all the way through, even though our episodes are long. If you want to skip to the final ten minutes and find out what I’m talking about, you could do that too.

Before I get to that. Before we even had that experience together, we decided to walk around the town that we grew up in. I always forget what the population is here. I’ll look it up. I also don’t usually share the name of my town because it’s small. I feel like it’s something that I like to keep private. You could probably do some research and find out where I grew up. It’s a small town in Massachusetts. It’s beautiful. The leaves here are outstanding and for lack of a better word, it’s very sheltered and sweet. There’s not a lot of crime that happens here. It’s a community-focused town and it feels like it did when I was growing up here.

Whenever I come here from this big city of Los Angeles, it feels like a big shock. Jason has been out here a number of times as well. My friend and I decided to walk around the center of town, which is interesting right now because it’s stunning, being fall with all the leaves. The center of town is filled with these incredible trees and colors galore of orange, red and yellow. It’s gorgeous. It was a nice warm sunny day. We sat on what’s called The Common. It’s a grassy hill area that leads into this small store in the center of that town. There are churches there. There’s the fire station. It’s the hub of the town. There’s not much going on here. That’s pretty much all we have unless you go into the other towns.

We met there and the main store I described, because it’s the only store in the town, they now have this amazing outdoor seating where you can go and have lunch, brunch or breakfast. They do coffee, sandwiches and all sorts of things. It was bustling with all these people eating outside at these picnic tables. They set up a little table with fresh apple pies and another table with locally made gifts that you could buy. It’s so sweet. You feel you’re walking into a set of a charming movie or television show. It reminds me of that show Gilmore Girls.

I want to describe it for you as you’re reading. It’s a little under 60 degrees out, warm, sunny with no wind, just all this beautiful nature around. My friend and I decided to walk from that center of town, down the street to the high school that we went to. We were using it as an excuse to be outside and talk to each other. We didn’t have any expectations. We walk up the street to our old high school and we’re talking about all these memories as they come up. We see that the door to the cafeteria is open and the cafeteria is right near the entrance of the high school.

I said, “Should we go pop her head and see what it looks like?” There’s no one around, so we did. As we looked inside, we saw the chef that works at the school. Jason, correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like I had brought up the chef briefly before in one episode or so. He is this remarkable man that made a huge impression on our school system. I don’t remember exactly when he came in, but I feel like it was around when I was in middle school, 7th or 8th grade or perhaps high school. Basically, they hired this incredible chef to revamp our lunch program at school.

He brought a gourmet version of food to our cafeterias and transformed the town. He made such a big impression that now he also sells freshly made incredible soup and you can buy that from him. I am a little confused about how the program works. He’s been doing all these incredible things for our town and some of the other surrounding towns. It was so magical to see him. He let us walk through the high school and there’s literally no one in there except me and my friend because it’s a Sunday afternoon. It was me and my friend roaming the halls of our high school, which hasn’t changed that much. They put an addition on the school a few years ago. Aside from that though, it’s almost exactly the same as it was when we were there.

It was so fascinating to walk through there with a friend that I went to high school with and talk about all these memories. I started to feel emotional because some new memories came up for me, some old memories came up. To have those memories and be in the place where they happened and thinking about how my body was responding to different parts of the school. We had our masks on, but a couple of times we took our masks down to smell it, to have that another sense besides the visual. It was odd. It was interesting. I had moments of feeling like I’m getting old, moments of being transported back in time. Also, wishing that I could sit there in the halls and almost meditate or have a healing experience with myself because I realized that a lot of intense things happen to us throughout our lives, that we don’t know how to cope with, especially when we’re younger.

There is a part of us that enjoys it when things are the same, but there is also a part that loves to see things change for the better. Click To Tweet

I feel grateful that I didn’t have any major traumatic experiences that I recall. There’s always a chance that we’ve suppressed something and don’t remember it happening. I feel like because of this sweet little sheltered town that I grew up in, I had a pretty innocent childhood up until I moved to Los Angeles, which was still pretty innocent, all things considered. I feel like Massachusetts has a lot of quaint feelings, especially in this town. Yet, as I walked through these halls, I was remembering all these intense experiences like my high school crushes and how they would feel heartbreaking. The times that I would lose friendships and feel completely alone and abandoned by these girls that I had trusted or struggled in classes with my grades or with the teachers. It’s that overwhelming emotion that you go through in high school, middle school and even elementary school, the younger years of your life.

It makes me wonder, how much of that do each of us remember and how much of that have we not even processed? How much of that is so sweet and innocent. There’s part of us that yearns for those old days that felt so simple and simultaneously feel so grateful that we don’t have to go through them anymore when our bodies are changing, our hormones are raging and it can feel so challenging. It’s interesting nostalgia. I wasn’t prepared for it. It almost felt weird to be in there because I didn’t have this schedule of, “I’m going to go to my old high school and walk through the halls.” It just happened. To have a conversation with the chef too about how much things have changed over the years and what he’s seeing happen and how he’s coping with the pandemic and saying how it’s been rough. Even in this pretty privileged town, there are a lot of challenges that these school systems are going through.

Speaking of coping, to think of how it would be to be in high school during a pandemic and not be able to touch your friends because everybody has to stay six-plus feet apart. How they always have to wear their masks that they can’t eat in. He was trying to describe the changes with lunch. They all have to eat outside. It’s very complex. I’m not quite sure if the cafeteria is serving food the same way. Certainly not the same way, but it seemed to me that it’s been tough to run a school right now. My heart goes out to people like him who have seen so many changes over the years. Me thinking about how tough high school was in general.

Can you imagine being in high school during a pandemic or if you’re dating somebody, what do you even do? As awkward enough as it is to be dating someone or have crushes on somebody and have your first kiss or physical experiences that you might have in high school. How do you even manage that? How do you hang out with your friends if you can’t hug them and you can’t be that close to them? How do you communicate with your teachers? It’s got to be tough and awkward. I felt grateful to hear about these experiences, but my heart also broke a lot. Seeing what was going on and how much the town has changed. I’m wondering what things will be like in the future and how much of a ripple effect this is going to have.

There’s a lot to discuss here, Jason. One of the things that this reminded me of is if you wanted to share any of your high school experiences and what this brings up for you and if you visited your high school, anytime since you’ve been an adult and how much things have changed. I also was thinking a lot about you in the changes that you’re making in your life right now in pivoting from a career as a chef. This chef at our school had such a huge impact on the town, on the school system and on me. He was a very memorable person and life is challenging for him and yet he’s continued to be on that path of being a chef. He’s committed to that. I know that you are going through this big transition and I’d love to hear you talk more about it. There’s a lot to explore. I’m curious to hear your thoughts after I’ve shared all of this part of my day.

To me, it reflects feelings that often arise when I go home to visit Detroit. At the time of this recording, I’m leaving in two days to see my mom and my family for the first time. My mom came to visit in December for the holidays in 2019, but this is the first time I’m going to see her in person. It’s interesting you bring this up because I’ve been reflecting on going back home and spending close to two weeks there. Whenever I’m home, it brings up a lot of mixed emotions. It brings up strange feelings in the sense of like I go back to Detroit and colloquially speaking, I refer to it as “home” but it’s not home. It’s where I grew up.

I go back there and it’s a bit strange. It’s almost a surreal strange movie. Not on what you’re talking about, although I haven’t visited my high school. Maybe 1995 was the last time I was there. I had a job at the video and film studio at my high school after I graduated. I graduated in the summer of ‘95 and then the summer and the fall of that year, I managed and took care of the video and film studio. Students would come and they would work on their films, work on their video projects and I would help them out with the editing equipment. That was right around the time we got our first nonlinear Avid. We were one of the first high schools in the country to get an Avid nonlinear system that people were freaking out about it.

I haven’t been physically back to high school since then. I drive by it all the time because one of the direct routes between my mom’s house and the Kroger, and East Coast or Midwest peeps, you know what Kroger is. My mom shops at a Kroger. When I go with her to go grocery shopping when I’m home, we drive by my high school all the time. I see it. I see the track where I used to run track and run cross country and the basketball courts outside where I used to practice basketball. Some of those memories do come back, although I haven’t been in the halls. It’s a weird feeling going home, Whitney. I don’t know. It’s like a lot of memories come back. In this trip, I’m going to see a few old friends that I’ve known for quite some time.

 

It’s hard to describe. It’s almost a dreamlike surreal feeling because I don’t usually make it home. This is funny because of course, I have complete control over how many flights I want to take and how often I want to go see, but generally, I only make it back to Detroit once or twice a year to visit. It’s a surreal feeling. It’s like this is where I grew up. I have decades of memories here. I still have a family. I still have friends that I’ve kept in touch with, but it doesn’t feel like home. It hasn’t felt home in a long time. It’s weird. I’ll drive by the venues I used to play in with bands years ago. I’ll drive by different bars or restaurants and have memories of old girlfriends or significant things that had happened.

All of those things tend to happen while I’m there, I’m sure it’s going to happen a lot because as an offshoot of this lately. It’s interesting you bring up like reflecting on old memories and things we haven’t thought of in a long time. For some reason, I have had memories come into my mind that I haven’t thought of in years or even decades. Random stuff, situations of dinners or fights or moments at concerts, moments I played concerts. People I dated briefly that I hadn’t thought about in years. There’s a random smattering of memories that I’ll be in the middle of my day and I’ll start thinking about something I haven’t thought of in so long.

I don’t know why it’s happening. I don’t know if there’s something astrologically or energetically happening. I haven’t researched that, but I’m getting a lot of random access memories, which is also a Daft Punk album. It’s a great album. It’s interesting you bring this up. I don’t know why I keep getting all these old memories and some of them joyful and that makes me smile. Some of them are bittersweet, some of them reminding me of traumatic situations I’ve been in. In general, going home is going to bring up a lot more of that for me. I’m sure it will.

My friend was saying that she often has dreams of being in high school again. She asked if I did too. I said, “No.” I was like, “I don’t remember the last time I dreamed about being in high school or even college.” I wonder if I will have those dreams after visiting. Do you have dreams of being in high school ever, Jason?

I do, but they’re very specific. The specificity of those high school dreams are that I didn’t finish. I’m my age now, a 43-year-old man, and I’m back in high school in this body, in this current state. Somehow they’re like, “You missed two classes and you’ve got to take them again.” That’s a recurring dream that I have. I have that dream at least a couple of times, maybe a handful of times every year. I dislike those dreams. I know why it happens because symbolically or metaphorically, there’s some subconscious sense of incompleteness in my life that I haven’t completed something or I haven’t seen something through to fruition if you will. These high school memories about me not finishing high school and not completing something to fruition is indicative that there’s something in my life I haven’t finished yet. It’s haunting me, but it’s always the same thing. It’s always you didn’t finish and you have to go back in your 40s and finish high school. It’s so weird.

Another thing that I’m curious about for you, Jason, is this idea of wanting things to stay the same. Walking around my high school, I was looking at some of the parts of the building that haven’t changed. I’d be like, “I remember this.” The floor in certain parts of the school, it’s like, “This was always there. They haven’t changed this since I left.” Different areas thinking, “Was this the same or different?” I’m not sure how the classrooms have changed. There are even some of the same employees besides the chef. People that work in the office, some of the teachers are still there. I felt so happy about that. It was comforting, especially being there with that chef who had such a great impression on me. Knowing that he’s still there made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

It’s interesting. I wonder what it is about us that enjoys it when things stay the same. I also love to see things evolve and change for the better. That also brings me to you, Jason. You have talked about this a little on the show, but you have talked to me about this privately and you’ve been wanting to make a shift in your life, but sometimes struggle because it seems people want you to stay the same. They have you in their heads as somebody specific who does a specific thing and you no longer want to do that specific thing or perhaps you want to evolve into it. We haven’t talked about this much offline.

I want to hear about where you’re at with that right now because you told me that you had a specific date that you were hoping to make an announcement, perhaps. I’m curious, what is it about this upcoming date? Is that still the case? Has that changed? Where are you at with this transition? Why do you want to make it? How are you going to make an announcement if so, or do you not even care to make an announcement? I want to hear more about it and see what you have to say. Maybe this will be part of your announcement if you’re ready for it.

There’s a lot to unpack here. I suppose I’m going to try and find a way to jump off from your question. I’ve teased a little bit about this Whitney, subversively or subtly, in previous episodes. If we go all the way back to episode number two, we talked about my creative and artistic journey through life and becoming a chef and being in the wellness business was not option A. Originally, if we go all the way back to high school, I was a student filmmaker and a video maker and got a scholarship to go to Columbia College for those things. I was focusing on being a filmmaker and a student video maker and editing and cinematography. You and I share that similar backstory in the sense that you went to a film school. I went to a film school for very similar reasons and I realized that I enjoyed being in front of the camera more.

When your heart is not connected to something anymore, even after trying your best to rekindle the passion, it's time to leave. Click To Tweet

I transitioned into acting and studying theater and improv and then getting into music. My deepest loves are being a performer, being an entertainer. For me, food came out of the idea that I wasn’t making a living. I was living in Los Angeles. I had moved out here in 2005 and I was singing in a band, auditioning, and wasn’t making any money. LA was significant and is a significantly more expensive place to live than Detroit, Michigan. I was trying to find a way to provide for myself. Culinary school was plan B for me. It was never plan A. It’s not that I didn’t love the art of food. It’s not that I don’t love it anymore. After many years of doing it, I find that I have lost the joy.

It’s interesting because the context for this is almost like it’s a relationship with our career or relationship with our profession, a relationship with our purpose is not dissimilar to a human relationship or any relationship that we have. There are ebbs and flows. There are times you love it. There are times you grit your teeth and you do what you’ve got to do. There are times, though, when you fall out of love. You fall out of love with a person and there’s the possibility you can rekindle that spark, as they say. I believe that’s true. I believe it’s true also with a profession or career, that you can lose a passion or a joyfulness or a love for something. It can also be re-sparked or rekindled. The flame can be reignited, but over the last few years since my book came out and I launched my first online course, if I’m honest about it, since 2017, I’ve been in this cycle of decay with my culinary career. Even when I’ve had projects or done video content, done courses, collaborated with people, a lot of the things we’ve talked about as entrepreneurs or content creators online, I kept losing my sense of joy, my sense of passion with it.

It became rote. It became robotic. I had a couple of cool projects. One project I did with an organization called Switch for Good with our colleague Dotsie Bausch. We had her on the episode previously. In these projects, Whitney, that years ago, I would have been excited about, I was doing them and I was like, “Why am I not excited? Why am I not feeling a sense of joy in this? Why am I not passionate about this anymore?” I’ve been trying to find the joy in it and try to rekindle a sense of passion and that fire, that spark like, “Where can I find it in here?”

I have to be honest, my heart is not in it anymore. I feel like there are two things. As an artist, I don’t feel I have very much left to express publicly with culinary art. I feel like after the TV series and 325 YouTube videos and my own book and a couple of other books I’ve collaborated on, I don’t have anything left in the tank. I don’t get excited about creating recipes anymore. I don’t get excited about doing YouTube videos anymore. I don’t even get excited about live speaking appearances. It became a robotic rote going through the motions process. I’ve talked to other people that we know, friends and some of my family members about it, and you and I have talked offline. This is the first time I’m digging into it publicly.

There’s been this other side of it too where you’re like, “You’ve invested a decade and a half of your life into building something. Gaining skills, creating a public brand around it, making money, starting an LLC,” all the things, the public facing business things around this. The sentiment from some people was like, “What are you going to do if you don’t do that?” My answer is I don’t know. It’s like, “What do you mean you don’t know? It’s the middle of a pandemic. How are you going to make money?” “I don’t know.” I do know that when my heart is not connected to something anymore and I’ve tried my best to re-spark or rekindle the connection, the passion, the joyfulness and it’s not coming back, it’s time to leave. The fear has been I’ve invested so much money and time and years into building something where it’s almost like the metaphor of scaling the mountain and you get to your proverbial mountain top, whatever that is for you as a person.

You start walking down the other side of the mountain, but you don’t know what’s on the other side of that mountain. I spent so much time focusing on getting to the top of my personal mountain with this. Get to the top. We talk about this in the hustle culture and a lot of the potentially dangerous or deleterious effects of goals all the time. For me, what’s not talked about is what happens when you do reach your proverbial mountain top and you’re up there and looking around and you’re like, “I don’t want to be here anymore.” When you descend down the mountain, what’s that like? We don’t talk about that in our culture. We don’t talk about that as artists, as entrepreneurs and as creators. It’s always about the goal. It’s get to your mountain top crush it, hustle, get famous, make the money, whatever it is. No one talks about what’s after that.

What about when you get there and there’s no more passion for it? What about when you get there and there’s no more joyfulness for it? I’ve had so many carrots dangled, Whit. We’ve talked about this metaphor of, “Don’t leave yet. Here’s a carrot.” It’s so funny because when I mentioned this to you, I got an email and someone’s like, “I have this new app. Here are our income projections and here’s the money you could make. You could be one of our founding chefs.” Some of our colleagues are involved, Whitney. They’re involved and it could be a great revenue stream for you. It seems every single time I have thought about making a public announcement that I’m moving out of the culinary business and quitting my career as a chef, something will come through the pipeline and be like, “Are you sure? Here’s some money, maybe. We don’t know how much money, but it could be good.” It’s like, I can’t deny that my heart doesn’t want to do this anymore. It’s not that I don’t love food. It’s not that I don’t believe in veganism or plant-based or organic. I’m still very passionate about those things. As a career path, I don’t feel like I have anything left to express. It’s frightening because I don’t know what’s next.

I don’t know what the next evolution is going to be. It’s stepping into the unknown after doing this for years of my life. As I wrap up this diatribe and explanation because you asked you said, “Why not make a public announcement?” I feel like if I don’t make a public announcement, I’m going to still keep getting these offers of people like, “Do you want to do this magazine spread? Do you want to be a contributor to this app? Do you want to do this speaking appearance? Do you want to do this food demo?” The honest answer is 99% of those things, I have no interest or joy in doing. There might be something. This app is interesting, but it’s not enough to make me want to keep going as a chef. Why November 1st? November 1st was the day that I graduated from culinary school. November 1st was like, “This is what I’m doing with my life. I’m going to be a chef now.” November 1st is the day that I started my culinary career.

 

It is interesting because I’ve also been working on my own transition with moving away From Eco-Vegan Gal. It is tricky because when you’re known for something, it’s a long process of redefining yourself. I also feel more and more in life that it doesn’t need to be so black and white and cut and dry. I’ll continue doing work under the name Eco-Vegan Gal for a little while, however long it takes. I’m not in a rush. There’s no reason that I need to discard it. That makes me wonder what is going on with Matt and Michelle who used to have the brand Thug Kitchen and how they made the decision to completely change the name to Bad Manners. Is that right, Jason?

Yes. We haven’t heard from them in a long time. We had a burgeoning friendship with them for a while. We’d go to the arcade, we’d go out to dinners. We would hang out with them. Michelle was one of the people who encouraged me to do stand-up comedy years ago. She was one of the people that she’s like, “You’re fucking funny. You should do it.” I went to stand-up school and decided to go down that road a little bit. They made an interesting pivot too. I haven’t followed up or paid attention since all of the energy around the Black Lives Matter movement. It would be interesting to see, especially with their podcast, they were supposed to open a restaurant. I don’t know. I haven’t kept up with those guys.

That’s a little bit of a different example because there was a big need for them to rebrand. They had to acknowledge some of the racist undertones of the name Thug Kitchen and pivot entirely. It’s interesting because it may take them a while to no longer be known as Thug Kitchen. Maybe they’ll always be references for that because there was so much there from a brand standpoint and yet they had to simply change their name. They’re an interesting example of when you have pressure or a specific reason or something, it’s very time-sensitive versus me with Eco-Vegan Gal, I don’t have that. There’s no major reason. I don’t resonate with that name anymore. I don’t want to be known as Eco-Vegan Gal. I want to be known as Whitney Lauritsen and it’s a discomfort that I find with being referenced as my username. If someone’s going to reference my username, I’d rather them say my name.

I’ve envied people like you, Jason, who have never had a separate username. You’ve always been Jason Wrobel. That’s what people call you and that sounds nice, but then there’s the side of you’re not changing your name. You’re changing what you’re doing and how you probably will be presented with lots of opportunities for many years, Jason. Many people think of you as a chef and they think of you as somebody on platforms like YouTube showing people how to eat. They think of you as a vegan expert. It is going to be interesting to see what happens when opportunities come up for you. You can always change your mind, but I’m curious right now, are you going to say no to that app or you’re saying maybe to that app? What does happen if you say yes to it? Can you make this announcement? Is that in alignment with where you’re at? What happens in those gray areas and what do you think you’ll feel comfortable doing even after you make the announcement?

This particular opportunity, it is a bit of a gray area because all they’re asking for, instead of new content, is to repurpose the videos I already have on YouTube. Sending them the source files. The video files where they will re-edit them into clips for the app and then have written recipes, photos of the recipes. I don’t have to do any original work. For me, it’s a potential additional revenue stream that would keep generating revenue as I contribute to it. If I send them 100 YouTube videos and they repurpose all of them, then it’s almost as a founding chef, I get a revenue share. In terms of me doing new content or new recipe development, the reason that this gives me pause is, of course, it’s one of those things like, “I’m getting ready to make my announcement. I’m getting ready to announce I’m transitioning into I don’t know what.” I’m not fully clear on what the next chapter of my life is going to be in terms of my career and my purpose and my creative life.

This thing comes in and it’s very low effort. It’s not a minimum viable product, but they want to repurpose existing content that I have the IP for, the intellectual property rights. All I’d have to do is send them a shit ton of YouTube videos. They’d repurpose them, write out the written recipes, and I would get a revenue percentage of how many people download and pay for the app. It feels like this could potentially be good like the deal I had with Food Matters or now that they sold to Gaia TV. One of my original recipe programs I did years when it came out in the fall of 2010, Simple Vegan Classics, they’ve had on their streaming platform and I get quarterly checks.

I don’t need to do anything. I can promote it if I want to and make some additional affiliate revenue, but I don’t have to. I sit back and every quarter of every year, I get an income check. I get a revenue share check. If it’s one of those things, it’s almost like, “Why not do it?” If I need to upload videos to you guys and you’re populating the app with all this content, I sit back and collect the checks. It feels like that deal I have with Gaia TV. It is gray because that seems a low effort win-win situation, but it continues to perpetuate my brand image as a chef. Here’s a big-time app with Chad and Derek and Jason and all these well-known vegan chefs.

There’s Jason again, but it’s again going against this part of my heart and my soul. That’s like, “You’re not in this anymore.” I want to give context to a few spiritual principles that are super important. That reinforces why it’s been difficult for me to ignore this feeling in my heart of you don’t have any passion for this anymore. One of the most important books I’ve ever read in my life, I’ve referenced it here, is The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. This was one of the first books as a young adult that my mom gave me and I still have a copy of this book my mom gave me when I was maybe 14 or 15. It’s one of those books that I go back to over the course of my life, depending on how I’ve lived, what I’ve evolved into, the pain, the joy, the life experience I’ve garnered that the book hits me in a different way.

When I was thinking about, I’m done with being a chef, there was a passage from this book that I remembered that I hadn’t read in a while. The passage is from The Prophet and it’s from the chapter on work. It’s very short, but it closely expresses from a poetic and spiritual sense what I’m feeling. This is what it says. “Work is love made visible. If you cannot work with love, but only with the distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake your bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feed but half man’s hunger. If you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine. If you sing as though angels and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.” That so eloquently and beautifully sums it up of when you work, but if you work and don’t put love, joyfulness and connection into your work, it’s not fully you. People can feel when you’re doing something and there’s no love in it. I don’t think that I’ve been able to put a lot of love into what I’ve been doing for a while.

You can make all the money in the world, but if you don’t love what you do, you’ll only feel an emptiness inside. Click To Tweet

When I read that by Gibran, I was like, “That’s it.” Work is love made visible. That’s such a beautiful quote. I’ve been going back to what do I love truly and how do I make that visible through work? That’s such an important question. I know some people might have a different take on work, career and vocation, but I can’t deny that if my heart is not in something and I can’t put love into something, it feels completely empty and unfulfilling to me. We talk about money a lot on this podcast. We’ve had our own discussions about our philosophies and struggles with money and some higher arching philosophies.

We’ve talked to Chris Guillebeau and some other people who’ve shared their philosophies. It’s you who can make all the money, but if your heart’s not in it and you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, it’s almost there’s an emptiness. Even when the success, the money and the fame comes, there’s an emptiness in it. I wanted to share that Gibran quote because it so wonderfully summarizes what I’ve been feeling. I can’t keep doing things without loving them. I’d rather not do something than do it without love.

Many of us have been taught to believe that life is tough and if you need to make money, you just have to suck it up and do the work. I think it depends on each individual’s circumstances because there’s certainly times in our lives or circumstances that we’re in that require us to just suck it up. Right now, Jason, you’re in a period where you don’t need to suck it up. I know that money is a big factor for you and does shape some of your decisions as it does for many or most of us. I think what you’re striving for, which takes a lot of courage is to find a way to make money doing something that you love and not settling and not willing at this point in your life, it doesn’t require you to do something just to make money from it.

I think that if you have the parameters in your life that allow you to make a choice like this video maker and you follow your heart and do what you love, then that’s worth doing. Each of us has to examine our finances and our circumstances to see like, “Can I make this decision right now? What do I need to do to make this happen?” It’s inspiring and some people might yearn for that, but not feel like they can do that. It’s interesting. It’s not that linear. Things change by the day for everybody. There’s no certainty. Even if you have a corporate job, there’s no guarantee that you will be able to keep it. The business close, another financial challenge could hit the company or world or the country or the state. There’s so much changing all the time that we don’t have control over.

None of us had that much security. Being able to adapt and to at least think about what you would rather be doing or think about your exit plan if you’re unhappy or think about what you would do in case of an emergency, it’s something that’s been in a lot of people’s minds. It’s interesting because you’ve been talking about this a lot, Jason. I’m curious to see where that will go with you. I think what we’ve been doing here on the show has been great. This show is not about veganism. Vegan living comes in and out, but it’s not the main focus of our show.

Part of this conversation about the spiritual element of all of this is I was on a podcast. One thing that you and I have been doing is guesting on other people’s podcasts to exchange ideas and talk about our purpose and our mission, not individually, but with Wellevatr, our brand. I was on the Grateful Goddesses podcast. Talking about this idea that for a long time, I’ve been fighting against part of myself that is interested in a lot of different things. I’ve had a lot of different things I’ve done for work. I’ve had a lot of career evolutions and things I’ve wanted to do, some of which came to fruition and some didn’t. I’ve always had an enviousness of people that chose one thing or seemingly chose one thing and did it fantastically well for the rest of their lives.

You bring up Picasso as an example. He’d seemingly dedicated his entire life to his art. I talked about one of my guitar heroes, Eddie Van Halen, who since age 13 or 14 until he passed away at 65, ate, breathed and slept a guitar, music, and composing. That’s it. I don’t know that I’m wired that way, to pick one thing and stick with it for decades. I’ve always envied people who were able to do that. Why can’t I find my thing and stick with it for my entire life? I’m seeing it as almost a negative thing, but I’m letting go of the idea that that’s a negative thing.

One thing that’s been helping me recontextualize is the Japanese concept of finding purpose in life. I first heard about this when I first read The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner. I’ve referenced The Blue Zones a lot. I love longevity. I love reading about longevity research. In this book about the lives of centenarians, people living to the age of 100 healthfully and beyond, Dan Buettner talks about the concept of Ikigai. Ikigai is a Japanese concept that literally means a reason for being. There’s this cool graphic. It’s the four concentric circles that overlap in the center. Ikigai is what you love. There’s an intersection of passion and mission.

 

There’s what the world needs, which is the intersection of mission and vocation. What you can get paid for, an intersection of profession and vocation, and what you’re good at, which is your passion in your profession. The idea is that if you are too much in one of the four circles and you’re not near the center where the overlap of your passion, your mission, your profession and vocation, the closer you can get to the center of the overlap of these concepts, that’s called ikigai. That’s your reason for being, your reason for existing. For me, Whitney, I was talking to Michael, my mentor. We’ve mentioned him on the show before. With the cheffing, it was very much what I’m good at. You’re a good chef. You make good food. What does the world need?

The world needs to move away from eating artificial food, animal-based foods, factory-farmed food, toxic food. Why does the world need healthier food? What can I get paid for? I can get paid to be a chef, but the top bubble in this ikigai graphic, what I love, I lost the love and the joy. I go back to that. It’s like the reason that I’ve been unsatisfied is I’ve been so focused on “being of service” to the world. What the world needs. I have a mission. The world needs healthier food and it needs to move away from toxic food and the factory farming, the overfishing and the ecological collapse. I have to do this.

I was so focused on the mission for the planet, the mission for the animals and trying to support other people that I was ignoring the fact or compartmentalizing the fact that that top bubble in this ikigai concept, I had lost my joy for it. That’s why it’s unsustainable for me. It can fulfill being paid for it, I’m good at it, the world needs it, but if I’m not in love with it and I don’t have a feeling of delight or satisfaction or joy, ultimately it feels empty. This ikigai concept wonderfully summarizes that this lack of joyfulness, I can’t keep going forward. Even if the world needs it, even if I’m paid for it, even if there’s a demand for it, if my heart is not in it, it feels empty.

Some people feel like they can’t live a life like that. It’s an interesting thing to reflect on because there’s a lot of messaging around sucking it up and life is hard. I don’t know if it has to be that way. I don’t know if you have to settle. I don’t know if you have to compromise. It’s very circumstantial, Jason. Right now, if you are willing and able to leave behind things that don’t bring you joy in terms of your work, that’s incredible, but we have to remember that not everybody has that. I’m in a similar boat, of course. I’ve been traveling around the country and people seem confused by that a lot of the times. When you work for yourself and you can make your own hours and choose when you do what you do and where you do it, it’s a great gift. I don’t take that for granted.

I don’t entirely work for myself. I have a lot of different things and clients. I’m freelancing, consulting, coaching and all these different things that I do. I’ve created that to give myself the flexibility. For many years, I have much preferred to work from home. I also prefer to choose who I’m working with and what projects I take on. There are drawbacks to that because I haven’t always been able to make it financially stable. Despite being very educated in this world of entrepreneurship, it’s still challenging for me sometimes.

I would say overall, those challenges are worth it for me because I find the joy and flexibility. I like the way things are structured. I also don’t know how long that’ll last. That’s why it’s important not to take these things for granted or assume that they’re easy for everybody. As we’ve talked about in some other episodes, we’ve brought up Brendon Burchard a number of times. That’s because people like him are people that I’ve looked to a lot for advice on how to work for myself and how to make money. A lot of their advice hasn’t worked for me. I don’t know why. There are times that I felt frustrated by that. Those experiences showed me that just because it works for them and a bunch of other people they teach doesn’t mean that it will work for me.

A lot of this stuff is not universal. I used to believe that it was. I used to think anybody could work for themselves. Anybody could be an entrepreneur. They have to want it badly enough. They have to be courageous and bold. I don’t know if that’s true. Some people are either not cut out for it or they don’t want it. It doesn’t feel comfortable. It doesn’t bring them joy. It doesn’t feel easy and it’s not always lucrative. It reminds me a little bit of MLMs, Multilevel Marketing, and how a lot of them promise all of this abundance. Yet, if you look at the numbers and the percentages, most people that enroll in a multilevel marketing company don’t make that much money. Imagine how many of them feel like failures because they’re not performing very well. They’re struggling and they wonder what they’re doing wrong. That’s so relatable to me. Work is interesting because each of us has different paths, different passions, different circumstances and different conditions. We need to have a lot of grace for ourselves and for others and not assume that something that works or doesn’t work for us will work or not work for somebody else.

I’m glad you said that because I realized this conversation is not a one size fits all philosophizing. Nothing we say is intended certainly with whatever Whitney and I are exploring from our own experience in our own lives or any recommendations we might ever give, whether they be products, courses, or reference guides we’ve created. Nothing that we put out is a one size fits all approach because of the diversity of life experience and where you may live, your genetic situation, your physical condition, your family situation. I’m not going to be a pied piper to get on my soapbox and say, “If you don’t have joy for what you’re doing, everyone should quit and run toward what they love.” It’s too simple. If you have kids at home and you’ve experienced a tremendous downturn economically in your family due to COVID or the shutdown, which millions of people are across the world, it’s not necessarily going to be a sound or wise or compassionate decision to abandon your source of income if you have a family to feed.

The more authentic response to a lot of things in our world right now is, “I don't know.” Click To Tweet

What I’m saying is my own personal experience, my own personal pontification as a single man who has animals and a girlfriend and who has taken an economic hit during COVID, but not to the point of devastation. All of this is to say, to piggyback on your statement of what we dispense as perceived advice, reflection, material or food for thought, it’s never delivered with like, “You ought to do this too.” I do think though, there is a point where if you ignore what your heart is telling you, if you ignore what your soul, if you believe in that is trying to express to you, the volume knob, so to speak, is cranked on it until you can’t ignore it anymore. Do I have a plan? I have ideas. I have frameworks of what I may do next.

Does it mean they’re going to come to fruition exactly as I’ve planned? Of course not. I have enough life experience in the coffers here to know that nothing ever goes exactly as envisioned. Sometimes it does, but it’s rare in my experience. There’s some part of me that feels that if I don’t let go of this thing, it’s going to keep anchoring me to it and prevent me from opening the space for something new to come through. If I don’t release it, then it’s holding space for things to enter my field. That’s why I feel this compulsion to make some public announcement of, “Everyone, I’m done. Thanks for the love. Thanks for fifteen years, it’s been an amazing fifteen-year run, but I have to open the space for new things to enter.” Maybe on some level, me clinging to it and me continuing to make excuses for holding onto it, is preventing those new things from coming in. As I’m saying it, it makes a lot of sense.

The idea of making this grandiose public announcement over something like this, on one hand, it’s like, “Does anybody care?” There’s the ego part of it of do we need to make announcement announcements like this of, “I’m quitting my career as a chef.” Do people give a shit or is it more for me selfishly, to be like, “I need to cut ties with this thing just so everybody knows. Don’t send me DMs and don’t send me emails about stuff.” I don’t know if any of that makes sense in terms of like, “Why would I even need to make a public statement?” I think it’s about releasing the energy more than anything else. I don’t want the comments and the direct messages of like, “I’m so sorry to hear this. We’re going to miss you. I loved your recipes. I loved your show.”

On some level, it’s nice to know that I’ve had an impact, but I don’t, I don’t need that level of like, I don’t know what it is. “I’m sorry. I have empathy. Good luck on your next chapter.” I don’t need those messages. I don’t want those messages, but it’s maybe more to release and dissipate and create space for newness. Does that make sense about letting things go so new things can enter? It’s almost like a relationship. It’s like, if you’re clinging to an old relationship, you need to fully process the trauma and release it so a new relationship can find you. It’s almost like that to me mentally.

It’s a boundary thing. It’s creating a new container of your life and being clear with people about what you are doing and what you’re no longer doing. I think that clarity helps others. Also, based on my personal experience, it takes a long time. I’ve mentioned this maybe once before, but when I moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco and then I moved back to LA, it literally took years for people to realize that I had moved back there. I’ve noticed this also on my trip, people being confused about where I am and when I’m going back. Just because you make an announcement on social media, it doesn’t mean that people are going to be like, “I get it. He’s no longer a chef.” I think it’s going to take years for you, Jason.

You need to be prepared for that because people get it in their heads. As we know, just because you post something on social media doesn’t mean that people see it or pay attention to it or understand it. That’s why you have to hit people over the head with things or communicate to them as it comes. You should be prepared for having to answer this question a lot. Maybe having an email newsletter go out and remind people of it over and over again. Have a section on your website and might have to take a lot of reminding of people.

Also, being prepared for those offers that come to you. What do you say yes or no to and why? What’s the ripple effect of it? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you continuing to do some work in the chef field off and on as a case by case basis. Does that make it unclear? Is that overstepping your boundaries and then setting you back in a way? That’s the tricky part, but I don’t think there’s a right or wrong to this. That’s the good news. You flow with it and try it out and experiment. Who knows, maybe you’ll find that you do want to continue to do chef work. How are you supposed to know? Maybe you need a break.

I don’t know. My answer to a lot of things right now, is I don’t know. That’s the most honest answer to a lot of questions. What’s your plan? What’s next? What’s the next chapter? What do you think is going to happen? Who’s going to win game six of the NBA finals? I don’t know feels such an authentic answer to so many things, especially in a culture that people feign knowledge and the beholder of knowledge and certainty is celebrated in our culture. The more authentic response to a lot of things in our world right now is I don’t know. Being okay with not knowing what’s on the other side of a decision. God knows.

 

There could be a point in the future where I fall back in love with it. I have no clue. This is only where I’m at now. It’s been an evolving conversation, but I also feel moving toward things. It’s also an energy thing. When you’re connected to something and you feel a joyfulness and a passion and an enthusiasm for something, that’s contagious. I don’t care what it is, whatever your profession is. I don’t care if you’re a lawyer, a doctor, an artist, a singer, you’re a crab fisherman or whatever it is. If you are genuinely connected to what you do, it doesn’t mean 100% of the time. That’s another thing. I need to feel joyful all the time about what I’m doing.

Let’s get realistic. There are going to be times when you begrudgingly wake up. You’re like, “I don’t feel like doing this.” Even if you love it, there are going to be moments where you’re like, “Shit, I don’t feel like doing this.” If the passion and the joy overall stays and the sense of deep connection stays, it powers you through. You mentioned at the beginning of this, is that realistic for everyone? I would hope so. I would hope that each human being can somehow find a connection or a joyfulness in what they’re doing, their vocation and their purpose in the world. I would hope that that would be a possibility or people would entertain that as a possibility. Also, to loop back, I realized that I have a distinct sense of privilege that I can even be having this conversation with you. I don’t have a house full of kids, a giant mortgage, a ton of bills, and a shocking amount of debt I need to pay off. I don’t have these things that are like, “You need to keep that job.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with being an insurance agent. I’m using it as an example. “You need to stay hunkered down as an insurance agent. You can’t leave.” I feel blessed and privileged that I have the ability to even entertain this possibility. It goes back to the more sensitive we are and the more connected we are to our souls and what our souls or our higher self, God, whatever you want to call it is telling us. There’s a point where you can’t stop ignoring it. You say no. There’s a point you’ve got to fucking listen and then choose whether or not you want to do something about it.

I’m still confused, Jason, what exactly will happen and what will you be doing?

I don’t know.

What do you mean you don’t know?

I can talk about the possibilities.

What do you want to do? What do you think you’ll be doing? Is there something you might be doing in the meantime? What exactly happens after this announcement on November 1st? What does that look to you? What do you plan for? Do you have a five-year plan or one-year plan? The logical next question is what do you do for money and what do you do with your time?

Our relationship with our careers is not dissimilar to a human relationship. Click To Tweet

We have this show that doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon because so far as I can tell you, you and I are both still enjoying it, we still get a lot of fulfillment from it. With the feedback we get from you, dear readers, when you send us DMs or reviews, they tend to be overwhelmingly positive and appreciative and that keeps us going. Obviously, the show will continue until we don’t want to do it anymore at some point or if we do want to keep going ad infinitum until we dropped dead. Who knows? I’ve been teaching guitar lessons, so music has come back into the fold. I have two clients right now. I have one in Los Angeles and one who lives in Portland that I do virtual lessons to.

People will DM me sometimes. There’s somebody in London who’s interested in taking lessons. Did I think that I was going to become a guitar teacher during COVID? Of course not. It came out of the blue and all of a sudden I have two guitar clients and maybe a third. That’s bringing in some revenue. There’s a possibility with a vegan snack food manufacturer. I can’t name them. You know who they are, Whitney. It may or may not happen. There have been discussions about a role with them for a creative director, which the momentum and the creative conversations were very exciting. I shared a lot of fun ideas. Whether or not it’s going to happen, I don’t know. If an opportunity to be a creative director with a vegan food brand or something, it has to be a sense of excitement and joy for me.

I’m open to interweaving my years of marketing experience. Prior to the fifteen years in the culinary world, I was working as a copywriter and a marketing director for advertising agencies and corporations. That was my corporate life before being a chef. Am I willing to resurrect and combine my experience with marketing, social media and being a creative director? I do love food. Food is exciting. I get excited when we try new products, I get excited going into new restaurants. I don’t want to be a chef anymore. I don’t want to make us all these recipes. I don’t give a shit anymore. I’ve released hundreds and hundreds of recipes. I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m burnt. I’m done.

The point is if there was something in the food world that could be radically creative, celebrates my creativity, celebrates my ideas, where I can bring value to something and I’m finding a sense of joy and freedom in it, I would consider that. There is a possibility on the table, whether or not it’s going to happen or the money is going to be right, I don’t know. Does that mean there’s going to be a guarantee that I keep getting guitar clients or that something is going to keep evolving in my music career? I don’t know. Does that mean that I can find a marketing opportunity in the food industry, which I’m very well suited for with my experience as a chef and also my experience with marketing? I would crush that with the right opportunity. The reality is it goes back to uncertainty. I have ideas. Are any of them going to pan out long-term? No idea, but that’s where I’m at now. The music’s got momentum and the marketing with culinary brands has some momentum too. I’m not sure where it’s all going to lead.

Here’s the other thing too. It’s going to unfold. It’s not one day you’re like, “Here I am. Here’s the answer.” For the sake of time, I know we have a cutoff time with our recording. We should wrap up this conversation because you’ve answered a lot of the questions and the rest is yet to be seen. You’ll keep us posted. I’m looking forward to doing some episodes while you’re in Detroit and hearing what that experience is like. For the readers, stay tuned for that because we like to record about our personal experiences and where we are, like I shared here.

Speaking of which, I can finally reveal the little teaser I had at the beginning, which was that I did a taste test of these cool craft cocktails that don’t have booze. They’re technically elixirs. It’s a company called Curious and a friend of mine, the one that I got together with, had asked me if I had any experience with them. I said, “No.” I got curious about Curious. I reached out to them and asked if they’d send me some samples. They did. They sent me one of each of their flavors. I don’t know if they have more. They sent me a box of four. They have four flavors. These are incredibly delicious. Jason, have you ever heard of the company Curious Elixirs before?

I have not. This is all brand new to me.

You would love them. They say they put as many organic ingredients in them as they can store, which I love that phrasing. They don’t say the percentage of organic. They do as much as they can. They have no added sugar. They are gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, fair trade, non-GMO. They’re mindful of their ingredients. It looks they’re developing a fourth flavor, but for now, they have four formulations. They’re basically there to be an alternative to alcohol. You can still enjoy a delicious drink that is handcrafted with incredible ingredients and nothing artificial. They are a combination of juices, spices, herbs, roots, barks, botanicals and adaptogens. They can help you unwind without the need for alcohol, which is exactly what my friend wanted. They are absolutely delicious. I cannot stop thinking about them. I’m salivating thinking about them. I’m so glad that I have a little bit left. We had little tastings of each of the bottles and they’re neat.

 

If you go on their website, CuriousElixirs.com, you can read about what they each taste like, which is neat. They will tell you what they’re reminiscent of. One of them is like a Negroni. One is like a margarita. One is like a French 75 or a Cucumber Collins. One is like an orange spritz, I suppose. They have cool ingredients like ashwagandha, turmeric, ginseng, all sorts of delicious spices. They’re great. I was blown away by them. Jason, I wish that you could try them too. You might need to get your hands on some. Especially for you, you’re not that into alcohol, but you do enjoy beverages. This is great for someone like you.

Even if I’m not a regular alcohol drinker, I’m down to taste things. No matter what, I love sampling things. I’m into flavors, textures and aromatic profiles. I’m known to have a penchant for a fine Japanese whiskey now. Depending on what it is, I’m always down to sample things and have new experiences. As much as I am hitting the exit button on my chef career, I still think that I will be involved in food, wellness, and nutrition. I love food. If we think about my great love, it’s music, which is probably the thing that stirs my soul the most, if I’m honest about it. Comedy is up there, but music is a little bit higher. I’m passionate about food. I’m always down to try.

Speaking of things, I’ve been drinking a lot more tea lately because the temperature here in LA took a dip. It’s been nice. It’s been sweater weather, which has been great to finally have sweater weather again. I’ve been layering up. It’s been feeling good. I’ve been taking the motorcycle out. Fall feels so good. When I get back from a motorcycle ride, I like to have a nice cup of tea. We have mentioned this brand before. We are both huge fans of Pique Tea. They are instant tea packs, organic, amazing. My favorite combination is the Jasmine green tea and the hibiscus. I do a one to one pack of each and they are absolutely phenomenal.

They’re easy to travel with. If I’m going out for a motorcycle ride and I need hot water, I can slip them in the pocket of my motorcycle jacket or in my man bag, my murse, my man purse as I call it. I’m going to be going home to Detroit, as we mentioned. I can take some and get a cup of hot water at the airport and make instant tea there. They have some wonderful flavors. They are certified organic, super high quality and the flavors are dynamite. If you’d like to try some Pique Tea for yourself, we have a coupon code. The code is Wellevatr to get 5% off your order. I can’t say enough about the quality, the flavor, the aroma of his tea. The fact that it’s so portable, Whitney. I can take it on the airplane, have a hot tea in my airplane ride, and I am damn well going to do that too because it’s amazing. It’s a hell of a lot better than the teas that they offer you on the airplane flight. No disrespect to Lipton, no diss on Lipton, but Pique Tea is way better than Lipton.

I always bring Pique Tea with me when I travel because it’s so easy to mix into water, hot or cold. It’s funny, I haven’t been in a tea mood lately. I’ve been so into coffee and alcohol. I’m curious about trying Curious with some alcohol. I don’t know if this is anywhere on their website, but I wonder how many people buy it simply because the combinations of these elixirs are so delicious that they probably are great with little alcohol. I’ve been drinking mezcal lately, which is delightful. It’s very smoky if you’re into that.

I’m looking on the Curious website to see if they even have any recommendation about adding alcohol, but that probably defeats the point. They do have recommendations for adding in garnishes like lime or orange and salt. I love drinks. I love talking about these drinks and it makes me want to go have another drink right now. It’s too late for coffee. I always get a little depressed when it’s past coffee time or caffeine time. I have a cutoff, but now that I’ve been drinking craft cocktails that I make at home, I now have something else to look forward to.

With that, Whitney, we do have a cutoff time because I am going to the aforementioned guitar lesson, which I’m very excited about. My student is progressing amazingly well. I feel a deep sense of satisfaction teaching music. It’s interesting. It came out of left field. I didn’t expect to become a guitar teacher, but here I am. Life hands you some wonderful surprises amidst the challenges and the chaos sometimes. I do need to go to my guitar lesson, which I do outdoors socially distanced at a beautiful park over in Frogtown, one of my favorite parts of town.

With that, dear reader, we are going to wrap this episode. There will be many more to come. We do three episodes a week. We have Mondays and Wednesdays that are “solo” episodes with Whitney and I. Every single Friday, we have a special guest on to bring you some different perspectives on wellness, mental health, creativity and being human in this often crazy and wonderful world. You can find us on social media. If you want to send us a direct message, we are on all the major platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube. You can shoot us an email directly if you’d like. It’s [email protected]. With that, Whitney, great episode as always. I miss you. You’re going to be back soon, which I’m like, “Whitney is going to be back soon.” We will catch you soon. The next episode, you and I are recording solo will be from Detroit. The Detroit Chronicles are coming at you soon. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll be back soon.

 

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• Getting Out of the Gold Medal Mentality with Dotsie Bausch – Previous episode
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