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it was an offering from her of her own meal to me to say like thank you for
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showing up with good energy today in the spirit of community she gave me her yam
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and I had never felt so appreciative as when somebody wanted to
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make that offering to me because she felt seen yeah so we can do that every
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single day and it's not about necessarily like the huge life altering
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moment it's about seeing one another taking the time to say like I see you I hold space for you I appreciate you you
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won't always get a yam and it was in fact quite delicious but you'll know you've shown
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up as the best you if you can show up in that way yeah
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[Music] how are you doing today thank you so
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much for joining me here on the podcast today thanks for having me awes absolutely and you know uh we we're just
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discussing before we have an Ohio connection so it's pretty cool um that it all you know so many people have run
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into it all ties back to Ohio always seems to have a seam through the the
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story of my life to the heart of it all Ohio it's not just shaped like a heart
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it is the moral compass of this convers 100% well I you know you you have a
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really unique story and we want to dive into that especially somebody that's been traveling as much as you have and
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what I typically start all of our podcasts out with is one question and I want to pose the same question to you so
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we all know the traditional uh sense of what the word hope is defined as but on a PowerUp or the Beyond hope I almost
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said it used to be called the PowerUp project but it's beyond hope project now um I Define hope a little different it's
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an impact point so it's a point where we're going to show you the path and ultimately you're going to go down that
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path and something's going to happen and you're going to feel like you failed and what you really didn't do is you didn't fail you learned along the way and all
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it happened maybe is the path moved a little to the left or right so with that kind of definition of Hope if you can go
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back to any point in your life and give yourself hope like that is there a
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particular part that you would focus in on and what would you say there are a couple of times that
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come to mind and it's an interesting mix you know how you're asked a big question and your mind swirls with imagery as if
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you're kind of looking back on all of it this build I see some moments that are professional and some moments that are
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personal and and each of these sort of points in time felt like an existential
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crisis and what was really important at those times was stepping outside of myself and outside of routine to get
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that point of Hope back so whether it was like hiking on a trail to get to a
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literal high point where I could have perspective or it was just leaving the
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everyday stepping outside of kind of the same same I was able to recalibrate and
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find my North Star and um the professional thing that comes to mind is this time where I just kept essentially
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being told in different words that women couldn't do certain things but that just you know
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in in this career your path as a as an adventure Storyteller as a camera operator as a host of travel shows women
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just weren't believable in certain roles and so people wouldn't take these perceived risks the hire women which is
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ridiculous because women are out there doing everything that men are doing uh
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given the chance so this existential crisis Point had to essentially help me
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to reset and remember why I Wasing doing what I was doing because all the voices outside of me that were saying women
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can't or women shouldn't or we're sorry we're just not going to um believe in
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women in these roles it took being like but hang on I do what I do because I
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want to connect people to the world and to each other in ways that make them more excited about it and less afraid of
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the things that they don't know and I don't need other people to tell me whether I'm capable of that if that's my
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North Star if that's my hope that's great yeah and so you're what what is
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you know for people that are are listening to this you know you've you've been on every continent right you've
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you've traveled you've seen all those things uh and you're clearly a woman so
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what better person to host something like this I mean shocker right it is
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it's so ridiculous that people say that but I think what you bring up is a really great point of how often people
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project what they see in the world on what your story is and the value of
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sticking to your integrity of what you're doing in your process just Cur
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where where did that start for you was it were you always an adventurous person was it something that you were like you
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know what I got to get out of Ohio like a lot of us that are from Ohio do like what it what was it that was like the
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spark that started out for you uh so I think I was always an
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adventurous person but that looked like growing up in the midwest was running through the woods and spending all my time outside and and jumping off of
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stuff and finding ways to have Adventures close to home when I learned there was a world I was like I would
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like to go there I mean you know a world beyond the bounds of that which I knew and so I yeah I was both curious and
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pretty restless by the time that I was graduating high school and I went to college and I studied international
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studies in foreign languages with the goal of leaving Ohio sorry Ohio there's
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this great joke from Stephen colar if I remember correctly he was maybe doing a
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standup bit and he was in a room full of people from Ohio he's like uh you guys have like a bunch of astronauts from
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Ohio way to go people in the audience were like yeah W and he said and you
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invented flight people were like woohoo
Load full transcript
yeah we did and he was like so what is
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it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth
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yeah ouch ouch and you know truth be told I learned all of these really
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essential lessons and and sort of parts of self growing up in the midwest in a place where I could be free to explore
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outside and get to know my limits and then it was also really essential that I explore beyond that so that I could
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learn how connected it all is um how similar people are around the world so
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yes I think I started curious ious I think a lot of people start curious like we we're born curious we're supposed to
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figure out like how's this work so that we can you know survive ideally and um
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and from there I just started to kind of explore further and further from home yeah and you you mentioned that you're
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finding that people are connected in different ways but still connected so like what is there something in all the
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places you've been that you kind of see as a human trait that is that
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has shown up in various ways but you can kind of pull it back to one sort of
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thing for anybody out there that kind of thinks like nobody understands what it feels like to be me or nobody
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understands this is there something that you you have noticed no matter where you are it kind of always shows
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up yeah there are a few things one is food so the communion of sharing a
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meal and one is story gathering together and sharing the
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tales that Inspire us or ins still fear so that we can you know survive another
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day or whatever it is music music is is something that matters
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to people across all continents across all ways of
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being and there's this sort of picture that I have in mind my mind when you ask the question of people in you know our
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Neanderthal days and back when it was closer to the primordial soup that we all came from um gathering around a fire
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sharing a meal telling tales about the day and maybe there's some music like
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these are the simple things as human animals that have mattered for as long
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as I think we've been in this kind of evolution of of our species um and then
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there are all sorts of different Expressions that that will come through ART or clothing or language like the
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mechanics of language or you name it hair Styles like but sharing a meal
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storytelling music yeah do you do you find that the people
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that are you know so I'm imagining you you're in spots where it's highly
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populated technology and then you've been in spots where there's a lack of
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all of those things having the lack of those things do you find that the people
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are more in tune with who they are or do you find that it doesn't really matter
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where you are people are more in tune with and have you picked up anything that you've been able to adopt into your own world from either
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situation I think that we are all more in tune with who we are as a
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species when we are in places where we can still be connected to Nature yes
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remembering where we've come from remembering what the sun feels like on our face or remembering what it feels
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like to be small in the scheme of everything that's bigger that's all really healthy it's healthy to be
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humbled in the grand scheme of things so that we remember we're a part of an ecosystem we're a part of a system and
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we're not the only part and that's important to remember that it's not all about us I think that I can speak for my
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own experience that the more sort of technological distractions I have the
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more Comforts The more devices the easier it is to get wrapped up in thinking that I'm supposed to be
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on a phone or I'm supposed to look a certain way or I'm supposed to be rushing around between different
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meetings and sure that's a part of the Modern Life I do a lot of important things on my phone or my laptop I do
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have meetings because I need to work in order to afford things like food it's
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important and also it's important to be reminded that we're a part of this broader system the more time I spend in
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nature the less I worry about the things that actually aren't that important in
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my own life and I think that that's true of a lot of people now I will say that doesn't mean that we're not all in our
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heads like you could be in the in the back country away from everybody and you could still be in your head about
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whatever it is that you're unpacking or troubled with but um we feel I think
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more connected to each other and to our environment when we're away from some of
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that technology and we feel more separated from each other um ironically
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enough the more sort of stacked in we are in these big cities on our phones or our computers we we tend to get more and
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more isolated because of things like technological Advance advancements yeah I think we we try to
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all Escape in a sort of way and and it's interesting even going out in the walking the woods is kind of an escape
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also but I've always found that it's a walk in the woods is kind of like an escape in a in a good way it's like to
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get connected whereas your devices and stuff it's like you're almost like trying to escape the world you're in so
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to speak like and you know I'm just wondering like are there any any moments that you can say like man that was like
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so profound and then it just stuck out as like you know um give you example one
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time I was I was in uh ocean ocean beach in San Diego and I was meditating out on
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this little cliff and it was just this great thing and and it was such a profound moment because it was just me
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and just meditating and I just sat on a rock afterwards and I had this profound moment and I just wrote me on the sand
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and circled it and just left it and it was like for me what it was was like a symbol of like I I'm leaving that
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version of whatever I sat down with there and and stepping into this new
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whatever it's going to be and I kind of bummed out that didn't continue that
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practice but I just remember it being like it's enough that it still sticks out to use an example have you had any
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of those moments like that yourself or something a place that you can go back to and it just has like that that spot
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for you it's interesting you used the word practice that you didn't keep up with
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that practice because there's actually a daytoday practice that's available to us
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that I don't do very often but that's yoga and every time that I ever do yoga
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not only do I walk out of there feeling like I'm about 11 feet tall I'm like o I'm all stretched out and limber but I
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also feel like my brain is expansive and like my heart is expansive and you
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saying the word me is you know drawn in a circle and this was something you left behind I remember that the last time I
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did yoga which was probably two or three months ago in my mind in the middle of a pose I
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heard my self say there I am that's cool oh like oh there I am
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sort of everything else that was happening externally or that was busy work in my brain that I was trying to
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untangle went away for a time because I was present in my body I was doing something that was in my body that
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involved a bit of movement but it wasn't necessarily just about that but I was also stripping away the other
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distraction oh there I am so that happened happens when I look up at the
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stars that happens when I'm on a hike when I listen to The Wind Through the Trees it happens when I slow down enough
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to notice things that my two and a half-year-old notices on his walk to school which is all of two blocks long
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and every single time it takes about seven hours because he notices
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everything but I'm much more equipped in the practice of
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noticing right now because my little one that's his whole world is noticing is
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gathering information is being a tiny scientist so I'm more likely to notice the way a bird
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sounds than I would have been three years ago because I might have been like H I didn't respond to that email and now
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I might go wow the way the light is sitting that tree that's special yeah
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that's cool and do you get those moments when you're when you're hosting some of these shows like or is it are you kind
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of is your schedule planned for yourself do you or do you get moments to kind of
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take in the spots I do get moments on these projects
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that I do to really take it in to feel small to notice a lot of the shoots if
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I'm hosting a show or something like that it's very busy it is heavily structured and planned but I think
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anytime that there's a kind of a gap or a big experience that's a part of the shoot then I get to really like dig in
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and go oh my gosh this is Magic um how cool to be alive and
an example that comes to mind is I was on a project in
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Tahiti in French Polynesia which is in the South Pacific Ocean and this was
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last September and this particular assignment
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was writing an article and shooting photography for a travel publication which is one of the things that I'll do
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for my work and I was um in this big
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expansive ocean and someone was like there's a mother whale coming and I think she's got a baby and we were like
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what and we were in the water and my heart was racing and I felt like it was going to explode because I was both
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excited and terrified that they might be coming toward me and whales are big so I
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was like oh God what am I gonna do and so I'm with this small group of of six
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other people and are like waiting and it's coming closer and closer and closer and we realize it is a
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mother and it is a newborn wow pumpback whale and this mom and baby
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were um I guess kind of participating in this ritual that happens with mother and
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newborn whales which is the mom will sort of lift the baby to the surface
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because it gets tired more easily because it's brand new and the mom will lift it to the surface so that it can
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get air and sort of help support it and they got close enough to us and we were
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still respecting a distance of 30 feet um they got close enough to us that we
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could just sit and share in the power of this really remarkable moment between a
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mom and a baby and as a mother myself I felt so moved that the mom trusted us to
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be there coexisting with them and this was a part of this broader work project
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but this isn't something that we had planned it wasn't a like a whale diving
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trip it was just a moment that we were fortunate to experience and that we were permitted to experience by this mother
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who for whatever reason trusted that we would be okay communing with the two of them in
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the Deep that's cool I think there's I think there's so many times when we're out there doing the work that is in line
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with what we want to do that those like little moments show up and I think for
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the most part people don't understand that it doesn't have to be as magical as
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a you know I'm sure gigantic humpback whale and a and a baby but you know it
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is those moments that are exactly what you said you didn't go into details about how huge it was about you talked
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about how you felt connected and how you felt the moment and I think that what
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people miss a lot in their life is how of often those show up because we get
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too distracted and we get too caught up in all of our things um I'm just really
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have another one go ahead pleas if you want to hear this is a more daytoday one this involves not a single whale so I it
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involves travel um but I mean for all intents and purposes it could totally be like at home um I went on this uh I I
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had a layover in South Korea and
at the Soul airport the capital city in South
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Korea they have this really cool program where if you have a layover you can actually book a free tour and so I uh I
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intended to make my layover long enough that I could do like a five hour tour because I'd never been outside of the
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airport in South Korea and I went on this tour and it was super cool we went and saw palaces and we ate great food
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and we had a really wonderful guide she was just a really great woman and um we
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being this group of strangers and I I didn't know anybody else on the bus but I was on a A Day Tour so imagine you're
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in Columbus and you're going on a tour to a museum and you have a really great guide right uh and this woman was so
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wonderful that I found myself really sort of like amping it up and being like
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you're the best and getting everybody to be like you are the best and then we're all like she is the best and then we're
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all sort of building her up and cheering her on and having this really fun time and she was really um uh sort of
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a little bit shy but a lot bit pleased she was so happy to feel seen and she
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was amazing and so why wouldn't we say she was amazing at the end of the tour
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we got off the bus and I was going to go catch my flight she said excuse me I wanted to say thank you and I said thank
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you it was an amazing day she said I have something for you and I said really she said yeah uh I have something I'd
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like to give you as a thank you for um essentially for like how you showed up
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today right it's like you're thinking me she said yeah so she hands me something she bows deep we separate she gets back
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on the bus and I don't know what's in my hands but I know it's wrapped in foil so
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I kind of keep walking and I walked for the airport door and I open it up and it's a
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yam as in like a sweet potato it's been cooked it's a
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cooked yam I was like this looks like it would taste good but what does this mean
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so I did a quick Google search and I guess um yams are prepared yams are like
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a part of a of showing Hospitality so maybe you have people over and you've prepared some yams and you're like it's
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just a way to share in like we were talking about earlier sharing a meal sharing communion um as one of the
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shared things that Humanity has always had well um it was an offering from her
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of her own meal to me to say like thank you for showing up with good energy
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today in the spirit of community she gave me her yam and I had never felt so
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appreciative as when somebody wanted to make that offering to me because she felt scen yeah so we can do that every
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single day and it's not about necessarily like the huge life-altering
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moments it's about seeing one another taking the time to say like I see you I
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hold space for you I appreciate you you won't always get a yam and it was in
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fact quite delicious but you'll know you've shown up as the best you if you
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can show up in that way yeah that's a that's a really great story and were you were you
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always as as a as a kid like has this always been natural to be an outgoing
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person or is this a learn thing with you like you know were you always able to be present reason why I asked that is
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because one of the things I when I talk the kids at schools too as I say you know um that you know sprinkl your magic
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on somebody else's day it's called unicorn effect right it's like basically you just you don't have to do you don't
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have to go like everybody's post and you don't have to go do some she gave you a yam but it like that little thing it how
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it has this spark that you probably went the rest of the day sprinkling Magic on
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somebody else's day and you want to do that was was this always something that you've been like or was it has it opened
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you up more more in a lot of the traveling and experiencing those things I think that I've always been on
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the boundary of extroverted and introverted when I'm with people I'm extroverted that doesn't mean that I'm
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never shy or nervous to walk into a new room but uh I'm extroverted when I'm
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around people and then I'm introverted in that I need a lot of time to recharge because when I show up I show up really
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fully with other people um that said I think it takes years and learning and
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practice to get outside of myself and really connect to get outside of what um
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what I think other people are thinking about me or what I'm supposed to show up as sort of removing the um social training and also that the
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intrinsic inclination to think it's about you getting out of my own head is
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the part that takes practice and being aware so that I can really show up in the spirit of that magic
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because um more good things happen when we're aware that it's not about us it takes the
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pressure off number one because we're not trying to show up as a very specific thing that we think people expect of us
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and number two it allows us to see others and be more aware of what's happening it invites us into real
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connection to get outside of our own heads and step into the space in a
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spirit of connection and um I'm reminded that the unicorn effect that you're
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talking about I recently was going to be speaking at an event I had a public
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speaking gig and I was sort of in I'm always a bit nervous
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even though I've done it tons of times and every time I take those nerves as a
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reminder that this matters that I want to honor this experience and this opportunity to
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connect with people and that's true every time I host a show every time I step into to a new room where I have a
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role as a facilitator I always get a little nervous and um and I use that as
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motivation so I I Was preparing for this speaking um assignment getting ready to
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step up in in
front of hundreds of people and I found myself going like
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kind of asking for the blessing from my higher power to to step into the space and show off as who I wanted to show off
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as and the response that I heard from my self was be the
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blessing so don't ask for it be it yeah and that took a lot of pressure off
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because it was like oh right yeah like the the best possible scenario is for me
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to show up in the spirit of the blessing if I'm the blessing if I can help be a
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multiplier if I can help magnify all the good in this room if I can be a mirror
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for people to see themselves and their potential then showing up in the blessing as the
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blessing is better than asking for it it's it's proactive it is excited it's got less
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expectation right so we can all be the blessing we can be proactive in the process instead of waiting for good
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things to happen to us waiting to win the award or or have the have the
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special thing show up on our front doorstep it is possible to walk out the front door and say how can I show up in
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service of the good today and if we do that then a lot of magic is available to us yeah that's that's great and it helps
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I think it helps too and that you know being a speaker myself too it helps you tell the story better as well when you
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kind of you're you're getting past the nerves and I think that a lot of people that out there struggle with uh you know
27:21
public speaking or anything like that it is what you just described as 100% it like you know everybody would be their
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nerves and stuff like that but it's when you just check yourself and realize that like okay cool I I have an opportunity to kind of be everything that I want to
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be right now um and and tell the story and were have you have you always been
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like a Storyteller as well I would say I was I was I excelled at like a showand tell when I was a kid you know I was
27:46
just like I I just was the one that would I would want to set up and just say some crazy story would always make
27:52
up some story and stuff like that has it always been a thing for you as well I think that I come from a
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storytelling a family the amount of times that I've heard my brothers and my
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uncles and my dad tell stories I mean they will tell the same stories over and
28:12
over and over and they get longer every time and the details sort of seem to
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grow and become their own part of the story and so I think that I come from a
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long lineage of story storytellers and some of them you know probably use those
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skills for their work sure and that inspires me to show up and use it in my
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work definitely but I think um that's a part of that storytelling Heritage that I told you that all cultures share too
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like every single culture has storytelling as a central component of
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of its sense of self every culture sees itself through the context or the lens
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the stories of the people who came before them of the stories about their families of the stories about you know
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their Hometown or their their heroes or whatever it is so um for me yes
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storytelling I think probably was just a part of every single day such that I
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couldn't escape it but I can practice it and use it thankfully it's a it's one of
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those really great skills that we learned from the people who came before us yeah that's awesome yeah I think I I
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I you know it's always funny that the uh you hear the same stories from family members you're like yeah I've heard it
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before and then it's like wait a minute that's a new thing what like I think so everybody can really so right right I I
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do have one last question before we wrap up for you though but I do want to like um point out to everybody that you know
29:45
all of your links to all your stuff if if you're looking to have Rachel come speak of your event and and and flex or
29:52
awesome storytelling magic and all stuff like that it will all be in the show notes so make sure you check those out
29:58
I'm just curious I always ask this question because it just it it's just out of curiosity to me because I've been lucky enough to meet lots of people have
30:04
gone lots of places if if little Rachel that was running through the woods in
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Ohio would sit across the table from you and you tell her now here's all the
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places that we've been like what do you think that her reaction would be to that
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qu like to that whole thing that's so nice that's such a nice
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question that it makes me Blinky you know what I mean yeah I feel like she'd be really proud she she would
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have um no context for how big it really is because what was big back then um
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pales in comparison to how big it is now that I'm an adult and I have a sense of our planet and then the the solar system
30:49
and then the Galaxy like I think little Rachel would be stoked oh it would be a
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little mind melty she be like it's it's how big um and she would also be really
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happy that I've continued to find ways to explore outside I think she would know that there's always Adventure
31:10
underfoot and it doesn't matter how far you go as long as you take that step out
31:15
the front door and you're ready to receive the adventure yeah that that is
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such a wonderful way to wrap all this up and you know if there's anything I hope everybody heard in all of the stuff
31:26
you're saying is you just summed it up at the end it's just the door is there just step through it and welcome the
31:33
adventure and don't try to expect everything you know accept what happens and and go with the flow because you
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never know you might have a great tour guide that gives you a yam that just changes your whole
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day I am what I am and that's all that I am that's right well Rachel thank you so
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much for for coming in here and uh again guys make sure you go check out the show notes um everything is in there that to
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to find Rachel uh check out I mean her Instagram it's it's on fire like with
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great photos and and all of these Amazing Adventures you can kind of live through if you're if you're a kid in
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Ohio right now dreaming of a big world you know like show the you know and you're a parent show this kid that this
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does exist um I don't know I will say I don't know if this an Ohio thing but or if it's everywhere I used to do the same
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stuff think about how big the world would be and most people that I have interviewed on here from Ohio had the same thing was it was always this maybe
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that's what even what coar was meaning was that like we all are dreamers it seems like here and um just wondering
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about the world but again guys make sure you uh you check all that out and you know I know I can speak for Rachel here
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when it's like you know we're all doing a great job at being a human and it's not easy and life sometimes presents challenges but as she said if you open
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that back door and step through You' be amazed at what you might find along the way so thank you so much Rachel have a
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wonderful day thanks you too remember to be the blessing that's right thank you
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awesome cool that was [Music]