Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hi, Becca Zaim.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Hello, Bradley.
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Once again, I hit record too. Or too late, because we have.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: We always give all the good stuff right before we, you know.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Okay, we do, but we're gonna come back to it. We're gonna get back to all of it. I. I swear. You're not, like, reading my mind or checking my notes because the stuff you just mentioned, like, what, what, what, what?
Or as. As they. As they like to say. Wait, what?
Wait, what?
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Okay. Becca, it's the end of the year. We're having another chat. I'm so excited. I know we're going to talk about energy today. And you and I said how we wanted to talk more because this gives me and you and hopefully our listeners and viewers more energy.
And we didn't have to prep for this call or plan or make notes, but we will even create energy by having this conversation and then ideally have even more at the end of it than when we came, than when we started, I think. So how are you doing, Becca? End of the year?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, end of the year. I'm not typically a person who does a big, like, end of the year and beginning of the year thing because I feel like it's a little bit of a.
Of a. A lot of pressure to kind of have, like, all of these things that you're going to work on. And so I 10 to just sort of quietly move from the end of December to the beginning of January. And. And for some reason this year, it feels like I need to mark the calendar almost like 2025 was not great.
And. And an awful lot of 2025 was very hard. Right. And not just for me, I think, for a lot of us, but for me specifically. And so when I hit the end of the year this year, I was like, you know what this is, what, what rituals are for? Like, rituals are there to remind us to do the things we need to do. And so the ritual of kind of cleansing from the last year and starting fresh in the new year is something that I really need this year. And so I need to kind of shed off kind of like the. I use this. The metaphor a lot of.
From the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the C.S. lewis book, where it's like, you know, finally let the lion pull the dragon skin off of me instead of trying to do it myself and just shed off all of this stuff and try to emerge from that space, you know, wet and new and. And craving something different from what I've had before. And.
And that's very much where I think My end of year space is, is like, I really just want to let life pull all the dead skin off and then emerge into 26 with a new vision for what life could be like there.
Yeah.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Wow. You know, you just said something that is so.
It's one of those, it's, it's simple but not easy. Yeah. You, the, the shedding of the skin because I, I, I, that's interesting you say that because I think more add on, build on. Oh, we're making a building or growing a tree and we're just going to add more br.
You know, deeper the roots, the higher the branches. Like, but it's still a big giant tree. Whereas you're saying let's. Okay, I'm sticking with the tree thing. Let's, let's let some branches, you know that branches.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Sometimes we gotta prune the branches.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: You know, like, and it's so funny, I'm sitting right next to a fig tree. Like, there's literally a fig tree next to me. And if you've ever grown a fig tree before, like, you'll see my Christmas as well. But, like, it's right beside me.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: So it's giant.
But if you've ever grown a fig tree tree before, they kind of grow in this very crazy way. Like, the one branch just starts way off and it, you know, and it doesn't grow in a very uniform, kind of beautiful way. It grows in very wild kind of space.
And, and you, in order to keep the tree healthy, have to prune the tree off quite a bit in order to keep it kind of growing into fullness so that it keeps a lot of balance and so it keeps going up and out instead. Just like, if I just let this one arm that's headed in my direction keep growing, it will eventually throw the tree off balance and you'll have to. And it'll kill the tree. Right. So, like, I, I think of life so often as something like, like organic and alive. And, and I use this fig tree a lot of, like, I have to prune off this whole branch because you can't just cut the branch. Like, you have to pull off the whole branch when you let it get that far. And so it's like it's, it's, it's all, it feels like a metaphor for me. Like, I feel like I have let it get out of control and it, it has become too much and I need to shed some things and, and prune the tree in a manner of speaking so that it can grow better. Because if I don't manage it sometimes.
I can't just have whatever I want all the time. Right. I have got to be willing to make hard decisions and, and, and let things go in order to emerge new.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: Okay, I have a serious gardening question for you here.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: And, and it's, and it's very related to us as humans. So I'm not kidding. I have this real question. You got your tree?
[00:05:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: When you say prune.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Do you then. And so there's a. There's this branch going way off and it's going to cause wreak havoc. Do you, do you cut the. That, that branch at the, at the base, like at the trunk?
[00:05:51] Speaker B: It depends on what the plant is. Like, every plant kind of needs different care, right? So like with some plants, when you prune them, you prune specific parts so that they will continue to grow from that place in a different direction. Right. It's almost like, like it's growing this way and then like you prune at the joint almost. Right. And then it grows differently. But some things you, you kind of need to prune where the plant will grow that you need to know the plant. This is all a very specific metaphor for.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: I love it though.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: You know what I mean?
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Perfect or what?
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Like, you can't just apply that kind of like one size fits all logic to organic things. They are all very different. And even on a certain level, I had to get to know this specific tree to know how it functions. And it does have this one side that just grows all the time. And I'm constantly having to prune off this one particular side of the tree that's different from other trees that are like it. So it's, it, it really depends on the tree. And you kind of have to.
Claire Taylor, actually, who we both know, has told, told me when I was first really getting into this stuff, she's like, you need to get to know a plant. Like you would get to know a person.
And, and that was sort of like a, like a revelation for me about the way that I do. Alignment with individual people is very much like. We don't make assumptions about who you are. We always use personality as a guide, a guide point. But you may, like Bradley, You're a number one activator in the CliftonStrengths. Right. You may act exactly like all of the other activators I've ever coached in 10 ways, but in two of them you're very different.
So like, I can't make those assumptions about.
Here's just a for instance with some activators in order to be the most productive they can be, they need to get up and move around first thing in the morning when they get out of bed so that they can kind of exercise off some of their activatory energy. Right. And the best thing for activator writers who trend this way is to kind of jump out of bed a little bit and, and make themselves walk around or walk around the block or jump on the treadmill quick, and then it makes their brains function better for the rest of the day or. Whereas, like, if you're an intellection writer, that much activity early in the morning might tire you out and make your brain more difficult to kind of handle. So, so much of it, like the, the trees. Right. It depends on the individual person and what exactly you need out of the situation in order to grow best.
Yeah.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: And I think the hard part for me anyway, and I'm not kidding about the tree stuff, because I have this all the time, but I think, oh, I can't. I can't cut that branch. I love that branch. It's a nice branch.
It might work.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: But I think. But no, I'm, I'm. Is it like a sacrifice? I'm sacrificing this, this weaker branch for the potentiality of more success with, with the. Another branch or maybe like you say, at the joint, so it goes this way, so it doesn't go out that way and lean down and make the tree fall over or something.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: So it's. Is it the sacrifice of something smaller for the greater good, or it's the.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: Sacrifice of something that is taking too much resource. Right. Like it's taking resource away from the larger tree or it's dead. Right. Like there might be a dead part that you need to cut off because it's, it's weighing down the kind of organic matter. So here's a great example, and I use this in my most recent book, the one that I was just on your, your podcast for the Kickstarter of.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: In the quickbook. The guiding metaphor of that book is about this, my search for an orchid plant that would do a second bloom. Because if you've ever bought orchids in the store, you'd know that they, they come with these beautiful blooms. Right. But most of the time the blooms last, you know, three or four weeks maybe, and then they fall off, and then the plants are really hard to get them to bloom again.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: And there's a very of reasons why that is. But I've always been searching for, like, a way to get orchid plants to bloom a second time.
The ones that you buy at, like, Trader Joe's. Because you can find orchid plants that are better at growing, but they're generally not for, you know, consumption in the grocery store.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Like, grocery store orchids can get really expensive, right?
[00:10:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. Oh, so expensive. But, like, grocery store orchids are sort of made to bloom for the customer when you buy them.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Right. Just once.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Just kind of once, like.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: And then what do you do? Throw them out or.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: No, I mean, it depends on who you are. Some people throw them out.
Some people definitely throw them out.
But there are some people who, like, try to continue to get them to grow. There are ways to get them to grow, but they're very fin. Like, orchids are very finicky. And you don't plant them in soil. You sort of plant them in, like, loose, rocky kind of. It's. It's very finicky.
But I had this orchid plant that had grown for, I think, eight months. Like, it had just. It had been gorgeous for a long time. I'm like, finally, I've got this orchid plant. Yeah, that's going to grow. And then the flowers started to fall off, and I was like, oh, we ruined it. You know, like, it's now. So now let's see if it's going to grow again. And it was. It's very difficult to get them to do that. And so I was very disappointed as the flowers started to fall that I seeing new growth happen.
And then it can be, like, years sometimes for. To wait for the next growth. Yeah.
And just as the. The last flower hung on for, like, four weeks, and it just was still there and still there and still there. Like, it's just being beautiful for me. I was so happy.
And then finally I saw this little tiny shoot pop out and by. And then I left for six weeks, and my. My assistant was taking care of it.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: And.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: And when I came back, it had grown this new shoot out, and I was like, oh, my gosh, we might finally get it. And then we had this big conversation about, but orchid plants are very, like, very delicate. And so should we trim off this top part that no longer has and won't bear flowers again? Right. Should we trim this part off? And we had a long conversation about it, and I was so worried, and I'm like, oh, I don't know. I don't know. And finally we just decided, you know what, it's an experiment. We're just going to trim it off. And then I wish I could take you in there and show you because there's now six little bulbs on the new growth. It was so exciting.
But it was a, it was a big risk. Right. Like taking that piece off of the, of the flower because it is such a delicate plant.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Was such a big risk. And we did a lot of researching and, and meanwhile we're caring for it just like you'd care for it if you were trying to grow it. And yeah, it's, but it's like every single plant has a slightly different care, care structure. And, and on some level, even when things appear to be going as they should, there might be too dry of an atmosphere, too wet of an atmosphere, temperature fluctuates too much or it gets too much sun and, and then you have to kind of adjust how you grow the plants. And every single human being is like this in terms of like, I don't think we think enough about the fact that we are in soil on some level and we are growing and need feeding on some level, which kind of pruning and pruning which kind of dovetails too into what, what you were telling me. Like you have a book that you're releasing and you've been talking about this content. Right. And I was like, oh, that's exactly fall in with this organic concept of like we, we can't draw from an empty well. Like we are just a plant like the fig tree or like the orchid plant.
We are also an organic matter that needs to be fed and needs to be cared for. And, and, and we often don't think of ourselves that way because we just like eat lunch and dinner and breakfast and go to sleep and, and don't look for the signs of like, oh, this branch is dead and it might need to be pruned a little, need more water. And you're clearly not getting enough positivity. Right. Like you're not. Bradley has high positivity. Like you need a higher amount of positive energy and positive information in your life than kind of the average person does. And so if you don't get enough of that, you'll feel a little bit like unwatered. Right?
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: And so knowing that about yourself is helping you to have good self care strategies for when you maybe can't think about it or don't think about it.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: You know, the past few days I felt this. I have not had the positive. That's, I'm so glad you say that because it helps me understand, ah, that that's what I've been missing the past few days. Been very hermit the past few days and I've not much communication with humans.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: And. Oh, this isn't good. Oh, this isn't going well.
And I, and I was so glad we have our call today. Cause I'm like, oh, talking with Becca on Wednesday morning. I don't. That'll. That'll.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: That'll give me positivity.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because you and I connect so well. And that's a point. In fact, I wanted to make that to my son as well because we've been like, hermiting together here and, and, and soon I'll be. I'll be flying back to Europe and he'll be here on his own and like, hey, you, key and I are so different. But on the other hand, in my humble opinion, you need that human connection. You can't just hermit and, and not meet humans. And, and I know, especially us as writers, we think it's okay. We think it's okay to, to stay home and type stories all day. And it kind of sort of is, but not really.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Yeah, everybody has some need for it, right? Like, every human has some need for connection. Some have more and some have less, but everybody has some need. And, and I think a lot of us feel like, well, I have friends online or, you know, etc, and, and we use that a lot as a stand in, you know, the parasocial relationships, as a stand in for social relationships because we. It's so easy to walk away from my computer, right? Like when people are difficult or there's friction or they annoy me or I'm frustrated with them or whatever, I can just close my computer and then I don't have to deal with that anymore. Whereas, like, if they're in my physical space, I have to actually, like, converse with them and work through conflict and kind of do that kind of thing, right. Or they don't give me what I need and then I get frustrated by that. And, and I, I think we often default to easy, parasocial relationships because. And we don't realize how much we're missing of, like, things that we actually need. We don't just only have a need to be happy all the time. We actually have a need to resolve conflict and repair and to deal with.
And we have a need to be encouraged and to encourage, to give and receive advice. Like, we have all these different needs that when I'm only getting a few of them met, it's almost like with the fig tree, right? I'm growing the branch only in one direction and eventually it's gonna crash out the tree and then I Won't have all these other things that I need. So, yeah, definitely get the social interaction, even when it's frustrating. Yeah, yeah, but we need it. We need those skills.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: You know, I have another solution because when you first said. You said. You said fig tree, you said something that. You said it sort of quickly, and I thought you might have said fake tree.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Oh, fake tree.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Like a fake Christmas tree. Right. And so I thought, oh, well, there's the answer, right? It. It needs no pruning. It always looks fantastic. It never changes, right? I mean, there you go. That's another.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: This is how people end up in relationships with AI Bradley. Like, Organic matter needs other organic matter in order to survive.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Damn it. Damn it. Becca, come on. I thought I had it all solved right there.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: We thought that we'd solved the problem. No, no, no, no. We actually need friction. Like we. We need friction and. And not just like, good friction, right? Like, you know, warming and gravity and things like that. But we need people to disagree with us and we need people to provide conflict and. Because the. The goal of human experience is a holistic goal, growth, Right? It is not.
The. The goal of human life is not only happiness. If it was, a hundred percent of us would fail at it.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: It.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: The goal of human life is to have a full human experience, which means we have a full range of emotions, which includes all of the negative and positive emotions, and we have a full human experience, which means we experience loss and we experience difficulty, and we experience despair, and we experience elation. And it's like that. The goal is the full range. It's not just to have one branch that goes off and eventually makes the tree fall over. Right?
[00:19:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not even gonna go there, but I could think of, like, my young nieces and social media, because I think totally projecting here, but the goal is, like, to have the perfect life all the time, right. Make a million dollars in a weekend and, you know, have photos.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Because then if. If you look at the people who have that life, the things that you don't see about them. Yeah, right. Is that they are not happy all the time. They are constantly the people who live those lives that you see on Instagram or on TikTok, right? You see people living those lives and you think that that's their whole life, but that's only what they show you. What they don't show you is how hard it is and how painful it is and how many people hate them and how much difficulty they have to deal with. And yes, they have. Have some privileges and some assets because they have money. But money is not the only thing that makes life easy. There are a lot of other things that make life good and make life easy. And having too much notoriety or too much fame or too much ease actually is dangerous for us. It'll. It makes us not be fully human anymore.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: You know, I think that goes along with my fake tree solution, right? Everything's fine. It's perfect. What are you talking about? I don't need prunings, don't need water, don't need sunlight. It's all good. Everything's great. See? See?
[00:21:19] Speaker B: It's perfect.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Which is, I mean, try it and see how it works out for you. You know what I mean? Like, like that's what you want to do, but, but you're going to end up in four or five years. And so this is like, it's the cumulative effect. And I, again, this is why I use energy pennies as a metaphor to talk about these things, right? Is that we understand the cumulative.
When I retire, I need to have a bank account that has a certain amount of money in it for me because I'm going to stop feeding it eventually and then I need it to be able to yield, right?
So I understand instinctively because we've been taught about 401ks and retirement and things, but we don't automatically understand that like energetically and organically. We also have bank accounts that when we don't feed them, we can't draw from them.
And if I don't have a bank account that has resilience pennies in it because I have not made myself with resilience skills, then when hard things happen, I don't. I have a zero balance there.
If I'm always just only ever able to do positive things and happy and making myself more famous and making more money, and then all of a sudden people hate me and I don't like that, then I don't have any capacity in that area. And I haven't been working to maintain this like, like balance of capacity or, or even just balance of energy. Right? Like a balance of creative energy means that I'm not just drawing from the bank at all times. I'm also filling the bank with creativity. I'm also filling the bank with inspiration and information, not just drawing from it because it will eventually run out. And I, again I, I use it as a metaphor because we instinctively get that money needs to be cared for, that money be managed. But we don't often think of our energy resources as something that needs to be Managed until it's too late for us to manage it.
Like when the, the tree is dying because it's got an arm that's way too long and it doesn't have any other sides to balance it anymore.
Then, then it becomes 911 and we burn out.
But we are not doing a good job of sort of managing the balance of our energy in the meantime.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: Time. Yeah. Okay. You just said for me the word balance. Yeah. And we initially talked about. Before we hit record, we were talking about our word of the year.
And then. And I can't believe you. You didn't.
This is so coincidental that you and I don't have coincidences, I don't think.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Nope.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: So this is my entire big plan for early 2026. It's. It's called the year of you and it's. And the focus is because what's the action? Okay, Bradley, that sounds great. Year of me. Great, whatever. But the, and the idea is really a one word. A one. A word for the year. And I have this entire program around it. I'm not going to get into it, but I also have a word for me.
And, and then I have a program to help you find your words. I want to hear your word. But yeah, you were talking about balance. So my word is. It's a made up word and it's mathematician.
Right, so not mathematician. Right, yeah, all math, but this is mathematician.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: I like that.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: And so it's the balance of math and magic or structure and spirit. Right. Or like power and process.
Different, different. You can look at it in so many different ways. The different types of the brain.
And so for me, it's finding that balance because it's not. We were talking about spirituality a little bit earlier and I'm in so many different. I've been on ten day silent meditation retreats. Right. I've been in five day massive four in the morning meditation workshops and stuff. And I love it. But that is like, whoa. And I like that I started as a mathematics major in college.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
Oh, wow.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: So which, here's a perfect story, which I totally just chucked out the window when I could move to France and then. Which I did. And then I came back and I had tons of French credits. So they're like, well, you can just have a French major. I'm like, okay, that was it. That was my entire like career thought right there. I'm like, okay, that's good. I can go to Europe with that. Okay, good. Only that. Thanks, Bye.
So the balance there, that's where Mathemagician comes in. So that's. That's my word for 2026. And my, my program here is to help you, dear listener, viewer, come up with your word. To have a whole program to help you do that.
But when you said balance for me it's that. Because it's not all. Because math, you know. You know, we talked about Kronos and Kairos time.
Yeah. So like Kronos time for me is very math. It's like do the work, put in the hours.
And Kairos is a little bit like the unexpected, the magical stuff, the. I couldn't have planned that. Or oh look, I, I won the lottery or here's. I work real hard. Oh, I got a bonus.
So it comes more easily or you can lose it more easily too. It's like, oh, I lost the lottery anyway. So there's.
That's my, that's my word of the year. And I'll share more about this year of you. You know, I can share a link and stuff, but. But I know we don't have too much time left and I want to hear your word and how you came to it and what it means for you and what's your sort of plan for it for the year.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: Yeah, my.
So my word of the year is rhythm.
And yeah, I love it. I got there because.
So this is my sort of surrendering to the process of like.
I think I have been trying to be wired in a certain way, which is funny as the person who is like known for being a personality expert. Right.
But I have been. I really have been. Yeah, it's. It's so ironic. Right.
I really have been trying to make myself into this thing that is so like driven and so, you know, because I see that there's a lot of work that could be done and a lot of ideas that are out there and a lot of things people need and, and, and what, what have you.
But I lose this sense of, of who am I in the process and, and what's the best for me? Like how do I best care for my fig tree? Right.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: And that's an oxygen mask.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Yep, it's the oxygen for you. Perfect.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: Because you help a lot of people, but you need to have your oxygen mask so you can help the other people.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And. And really also so that I.
Because some of it is definitely about sustainability. Right. So that I can be a sustainable member of the author community and, etc.
And, and also I think because the writing and helping and authoring and all that is not, not all of my Life.
So, like, there are other parts of my life that are very important to me that seem to always just take the back seat because I have these things that are, like, my drive is so strong, right? And. And then I ignore these parts of myself that, that need to be like, here's just a for instance, right? The expectation of, like, that. That I will write so many books a year, right? Like, I have all these books that I want to write. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to write all these books a year. And in order to do that, I have to be at the manuscript every single day. And I have to be extremely, like, all the time, always driven. And then I. I travel and I'm always working and. And then when I come home, it's like I just pick right back up and work again. And I don't really listen to the kind of natural rhythm that my body kind of cries out for, which is like, I. I don't actually like working this much, and I don't need to work this much from, like, a base core, human, organic need.
And so my, my hope in having, like, more rhythm is I both want to return to the. The idea whenever I can. Sort of like the metronome of the year of like, okay, let's return to this. But then I'm going to give myself the freedom to not execute if I don't feel like it and do maybe a month like I'm doing in December, where I do the manuscript first every day, or try to. And then maybe January is maybe we don't care so much about the manuscript this month because the most important thing in the world is not getting the manuscript written. The most important thing in the world is the experience of being human on this planet at this time and being present to the world and being part of the world. Right? Like, having a human experience.
So not everything is only about one thing. I need more because it's not, for me. It's not a balanced thing because I actually, like, personally, I don't do balance very well, but I will let myself have that regular rhythm of like, okay, have I rested? Like, am I. Am I letting myself take time off? Am I consistently returning when I need to? Am I just kind of creating this regular balance and then letting things happen however they're going to happen?
[00:31:06] Speaker A: You know, it was not lost upon me when your.
Your orchid grew the sprouts. And that was when you left it for six weeks.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: Yep, Yep, I left it. And I. And I was not attending to it. Right. Like, I, I mean, we were still watering it, but actually, I found that if we don't water it very regularly, like, usually we water it every Wednesday.
So, like, today's Wednesday, we would put three little ice cubes in the little tray for the orchid.
And I actually, because my assistant was gone one week, and then I was gone the next week, and so I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna let it go for two weeks and see what happens. And that was actually the week that the sprout came out, was when I wasn't being quite so, like, obsessively consistent about it. And so what I learned is, like, I can kind of tell now when it starts to get, like, dry. If. If we watered every Wednesday, that's great. But also, like, when it starts to get too bad, then we put some ice cubes in it. Or if it's a Thursday instead of a Wednesday, then we put ice cubes in on Thursday.
And it just. We're not so meticulous about sticking to an expectation and are being a tiny bit more organic. And. And I. I mean, it. It has yielded. And so I'm really happy that.
That I have that very visceral picture of it because it helps me to be a little bit easier about not trying to be so vigilant. I think we have this idea that if we can plan everything and maximize everything perfectly and be as busy as possible and fill everything in and do as much as we can, that that's going to make us happy.
And actually, I'm number two connectedness in the cliftonstrengths. What makes me the happiest in the world is being with people that I care about.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: Yeah, me too.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: And, like, having real deep, connected relationships with people that I care about.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: And being in nature.
So, like, looking at the sunrise, being in the mountains, like, being next to a river, like, those kinds of things just make life worth living for me. Right.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: Having this call.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: Yep. This call. Like, this connection. Right. Us meeting and learning things. Yeah. Like, those are the things that give me energy pennies. And if I'm not being vigilant about, like, what is it that. Actually, what am I really here for?
How do I not get so caught up in the system that surrounds me that's really trying to drain me like a battery? Like, how do I not get caught up in that and instead take, like, the. The disconnection from that expectation and just let myself have the rhythm of being with my people and. And having good relationships and having good experiences and eating good food and, you know, moving My body and like, doing things in sort of more.
Have I done this lately? Rather than being so hyper vigilant about doing it right and getting the most out of life, it's like, be more organic. Like, listen more to what you really need. Be more conscious of who you are and what kind of plant you are and what you really need out of life and be less conscious of what should be happening.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Are you? I. I am not, but are you musical at all? Or do you play instrument or you are. Yeah, yeah.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: I mean, I played the piano for 44 years. Yeah.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: One of those things. Like, I don't like to use the word regret, so I think, okay, well, I can. I can still learn or I can.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: Yeah, you can still learn.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: I thought about, like, next year when we moved to Italy, I thought, what's a fun thing I want to do? And say, either learn an instrument or go to singing lessons or something.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. Well, you have a timber.
[00:35:01] Speaker A: You.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: You should do singing lessons.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Unless a musical instrument speaks to you. Like, really?
[00:35:07] Speaker A: No. Ace camera.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: Yeah, but you have a timber. Like, so you already know how to modulate your voice better than kind of. I would say, like, the average person's probably a speaking thing or communication thing.
But yeah. Yeah, you. You should definitely take singing lessons.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: Okay, so I asked as your word of rhythm, and I'm super visual. Right. I just. I like when you're talking, I see things. I see plants and I see this sprout, and I see the. So when you said rhythm, my first thought, so mathematical guy, is I see like an X and Y axis, and I see like a sine curve or a curves. Right. It's. To hear is like Kronos and some Kairos. But if you're musical like you are, then because I'm thinking of your rhythm.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: I think, okay, well, like a time signature.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. You're. You're. You're working hard. And that's the. There's a lot of the orchestra going on. And then it's in January. It's maybe some more background soft music. And again, I can't see the musical waves as I can so much like the mathematical waves. But. But I envision that it's. This word rhythm is just. Do you see it as a more musical sense of the word rhythm or more. Or how do you see the word rhythm?
[00:36:24] Speaker B: I would say more like the cadence of poetry, I guess would be more how I see it. Right. Sort of. Like, have you ever done scansion poetry before where you map out poetic beats? In, like, in. Oh, yeah, it's. It. This is on my, like, nerdy side.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: What you call it something poetry.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: S I, O N scansion poetry or S C A N T I O N scansion poetry where you do like. Like the downbeat has a particular signal and then like light beats have a signal and grace sort of has a signal and things like that. Right. And it'd be like.
Or if you're speaking.
A lot of people who are taught to speak, like at Toastmasters and stuff, they teach you how to have cadence in your. In your speaking.
But in. In poetry or in music, there's a. There's a beat to how things sound.
And. And the rhythm of the language or the rhythm of the cadence has a particular feel to it. So for me, I think of the. The rhythm of the year as being, you know, not everything is a downbeat. Not everything has that much punch to it. Not everything is a. Is a release or like a grace. Not everything is a.
Is an offbeat and not everything similar to how when we write, we don't want to just have all five word sentences.
Like, the art of language is in variance and in.
In almost an inconsistency.
Yes. Like, patterns and rhythms and things like that are important, especially in poetry. But.
But the beauty of life is in its variance, not in its sameness. Right. And so when I think of rhythm, I think of like the rhythm of growing trees.
They look very, very dead sometimes when they're not aggressively sprouting, but it's like they're building something inside and then it sprouts forth from the ground. Right.
So I really think of rhythm as, like, there are times when it should be. Or like, my dad is a farmer, so, like, he works very, very hard for four months a year and then has two periods where he works pretty hard and then he has a complete rest period in the winter where he does almost nothing. Thing.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: We could all learn from that one.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, it. It's amazing. Growing up with that basically makes it easier for me to have that like, fallow periods. Right. The way that fields do. But yeah, I very much see it as a. As a cadence rather than like a musical. Yeah.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Okay. Speaking of cadence and speaking of time and Kronos time and Kairos time, the Kronos clock says that we have to go.
Yeah, the Kairos clock says. And this is what I love about the whole Kairos idea is that Becca and I here, I just feel like we have 87 more conversations and I don't know if that scares people but for me, that's exciting. Yeah. And we have this conversation today, and it builds the energy, and I have more energy, and I can't wait to talk with you again.
And I'm not even gonna pretend. Like, I was gonna joke and say, like, well, we're done, Becca. We have nothing else to talk about. Bye.
But it's like the opposite. I'm like, oh, my God. Becca and I need to talk again, like, soon, because we have just so much more. Every time we talk, it's like this. This. This tree that is just gonna keep growing, and we can prune and.
Anyway, so it is not goodbye. It is. I will see you next time. Becca. Thank you for this so much, and have a great holiday.
[00:40:14] Speaker B: Thank you.
