Episode 11: Transcript

"Wisdom is knowing how much you don't know." - with Ann Imig

Doug French:

All right, so how was your meeting with your officiant?

Magda Pecsenye:

It was good. I mean, he's somebody that I went to college with and my fiance went to college with. They were suitemates freshman year and he and I knew each other from singing in college and stuff like that. So it wasn't like a getting to know you. It was just like a talking about ...

Doug:

Wait, so you and Mike will be married by a classmate?

Magda:

Yeah, but I mean, he's also a pastor. He's a pastor and he's also a professor of comparative religion.

Doug:

Well, yeah. I didn't think you just picked them out at reunion at random. “Hey dude!”

Magda:

<laugh>

Doug:

OK. So how’s the transcript coming along?

Magda:

It’s a pain in the butt. This transcript technology is not everything it's supposed to be. The transcript gets all screwed up when somebody laughs in the middle of it.

Doug:

But that's why you're fixing it.

Magda:

Well, I know. <laugh>

Doug:

I don't want it to be everything it’s supposed to be.

Magda:

Can I tell you something that really irks me about the transcript? I want it to use correct language, and instead it says “gonna,” “gotta,” “wanna,” “gimme.” And I go through and I blanket-change those to “going to,” “got to,” “want to” …

Doug:

That’s kind of squirrelly, but OK, if that's what you want to do. You're in charge of it, so do what you must.

Magda:

I know, I just don't like it. Sometimes it's transcribes “‘cause”—you know, apostrophe C-A-U-S-E—to C-U-Z, and it's like, oh my god, I'm not a 26-year-old.

Doug:

Plus, I don't really want AI to know colloquialisms.

Magda:

I don't know if it's AI. It's been, well, I guess it is AI, right?

Doug

Of course it's AI, who else is doing it? Some guy?

Magda:

<laugh> No, I mean, I guess I could pay for some guy to do it, but …

Doug:

Some guy with a big marker is scribbling it down as fast as he can.

Magda:

Exactly. An amanuensis.

Doug:

Who?

Magda:

You know, that's a name for a scribe, right? An “amanuensis”? Is that how you say it?

Doug:

“Amanuensis.” It sounds like something, sounds like a heavy period.

Magda:

<laugh> It does! Like, “I'm taking ‘Folldrawvi’ for my severe amanuensis.”

Doug:

<laugh>

Magda:

OK. “Amanuensis, a literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts.”

Doug:

Hey

Hey! I learned something! Cool. And if AI gets that right, I'll be very impressed.

Magda:

Right, yeah, so anyway, it's “A-M-A-N-U-E-N-S-I-S.”

Doug:

Are you listening AI? We just taught you something that's gonna make you
that much better and replace us that much sooner. Happy to serve.

Magda:

So we talked in this episode to Anne Imig …

Doug French]:

I'm so glad we got her on.

Magda:

I was very familiar with Listen to Your Mother and her whole series that she did. I was very familiar with her work, but I didn't know her at all until you said, “Hey, I want to have her on.” And then I looked her up and was like, “Oh, oh, oh, oh! She's the Listen to Your Mother lady!” OK, cool.

Doug French]:

Yeah, well, she's not famous per se for her work in coaching. I mean, she’s just doing her new thing.

Magda:

Well, I think that's interesting because she did do this thing … the thing was famous, right? Listen to Your Mother was famous.

Doug:

Yeah. Huge.

Magda:

And then she switched career direction to go into coaching. And I'm thinking it had to be a little bit easier for her to do that because she was famous for Listen to Your Mother, but she wasn't famous necessarily under her own name to have to sort of fight that brand already when she was going into coaching. I think that's cool.

Doug:

I thought what was really cool is she basically started talking about herself, and by the end of the hour she was our marriage counselor. Or our divorce counselor. We were telling her everything. We were unburdening what it was like and...

Magda:

Right! 15 years ago, man. Things really sucked.

Doug: And she wanted to know everything. You could tell she's a good listener because she elicited all this information from us. Like, how we've changed, and how we get along now. She had us spilling our guts. So if you don't know our story, you can listen to this episode and listen to Ann interview us about what it was like in 2006, and fill in the blanks.

Magda:

<stomach gurgles>

Doug:

What was that?

Magda:

I had some sort of gurgle. Could you hear it?

Doug:

I heard it.

Magda:

Oh my god, is it gonna go in the podcast? I just muted to drink some water, and then came off Mute and made some weird, like, gurgling noise in my throat. It was very Muppet-like.

Doug:

So how will AI transcribe that? <laugh>

<music>

Magda:

Nothing like New Jersey in July, man, <laugh>.

Doug (00:00:04):

Well, having endured Madison in July … <laugh>

Ann Imig (00:00:08):

Where is nice in July? I mean, it's unseasonably nice here right now, but it is often a hundred degrees and 80% humidity, you know?

Doug (00:00:17):

But yeah, that Rhythm and Booms we went to, I forget what year it was, but that was sweltering.

Magda (00:00:22):

Yeah. And you like fireworks more than I do. I'm not a huge fan of fireworks. 

Doug (00:00:26):

I do, I'm kind of over 'em though. I've got to say I've inhaled too much of Canada over the past month. I have an entirely different perception of that. And just smelling when someone has a fire, it gets an entirely different reaction from me because now it's like, oh crap, more of this. So Ann, when could we have met? It must've been at one of the BlogHers. And I met you I think through Amy Windsor. Amy and I, I don’t know if Listen To Your Mother was up and running yet. 

Ann (00:00:49):

No, we went to our first BlogHer in Chicago in ‘09, I think, because she lived in Madison and we met here in town as beginner bloggers. Somehow we had heard that each other was blogging. I think we met through our blogs and then met in real life and adored each other. And then we were like, “Well, I mean there's this BlogHer thing two-and-a-half hour car ride away. Should we go?” I've been blogging for a few months, you know, that early on I had no idea of conferences or I had started making blog friends, but it was all new. I certainly would never have gone. I don't know if she would've gone either. But it was such a fortuitous thing because when you meet a blog friend early on, you encourage each other, you teach each other and you kind of figure it out together. And so we've been friends ever since. We were each other's blog wife for conferences for years.

Doug (00:01:43):

So you started blogging in 2008 and when did Listen To Your Mother start?

Ann (00:01:47):

2010.

Doug (00:01:49):

That's a nice accelerated launch point.

Ann (00:01:53):

Yeah, so the origin story is that I saw that community keynote in 2009 and I was a theater person first and foremost. And writing had reconnected me to an audience and I was really fascinated. I also had this social work background, so I sat in the audience for that first community keynote and I was really surprised by how compelling live readings could be with non-performers. And it definitely got the wheels turning. It wasn't like I was sitting right there going, “I'm going to do this.” But the other part is that we had lived in Chicago for 10 years and we're back in Madison where everything's so easy to navigate. I'd also done time in ad sales. So like you can see how the sponsor piece, the performing piece, it was all swirling around in there. And then it just happened to be, I think it was winter of 2009, I started thinking about doing it and then that little marketing piece was like, oh, Mother's Day.

Ann (00:02:53):

And then because we were in Madison, I was just like, I'm just going to do this besides Amy and myself. It's not like Madison had a blogging community and I was so struck by the bearing witness and the sharing going on and the huge creativity. And I was like, I want my community to get to experience this. People who will never go on a blog. I came up with the idea of the word “Listen To Your Mother.” And I wanted it to be a Mother's Day event, “where motherhood deserves more than brunch,” used to be what I said. And so it was on Mother's Day, and the venue, the Barrymore, is a big music venue. And again, all these different pieces of my brain, you know, on a Sunday, on a Mother's Day Sunday, they're not doing anything and they're really known for being active in the community. And so the director liked the idea, the guy Steve Sperling, he still runs it and they made it possible for us to do that first show. And then because I was a blogger, it all expanded quickly from there.

Magda (00:03:48):

Wow. It's so interesting that you are saying that in Madison it was easy to do because it's so small. 'cause I think that's something that people don't realize. They think that if you want to do something, you have to move to New York or LA or something like that. And it's so much harder there. I think since I moved to Detroit, I am seeing all kinds of creativity that happens in Detroit all the time because you can afford to just try something. It's not going to cost you five figures to put up a show. You just need some kind of space. And sometimes it's in a vacant lot.

Ann (00:04:27):

Yeah, it cost me nothing. And I built a model where it could cost people nothing to do this show on purpose. And the reason it felt doable was my perspective of having navigated a big city for a decade, having worked in really cutthroat advertising where I was accustomed to picking up the phone and asking for million dollar budgets. So part of it was just, this is easy, you know? Right.

Doug (00:04:52):

This is Mayberry by comparison.

Ann (00:04:54):

<Laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean the flip side though is I will say Madison is full of incredible talent. So like, I started my professional life as a stage actor and I'd been recently working very hard to get back into it. And people make assumptions like, “oh, you must be a big fish in a small pond.” I'm like, oh, no, no, no. You know, people move from New York when they want to have a family and they move to places like Madison. And there are, it's an incredible literary scene here. Like Madison's full of talented people, but in the make-your-own opportunity sense. Yes.

Doug (00:05:26):

Yeah. Well, that's where The Onion came from, you know, it was cultivated there when it was still a print publication you could find in the little boxes on the corner. I mean, that's when it was, you could argue that was, those were its best years.

Ann (00:05:39):

I met my husband at a theater. He was a drummer in the pit and I was performing and one of our first conversations, we started talking about The Onion and we were laughing and remembering the same articles and it's like part of why I fell love with him for sure, because we shared that same, you know, language. That's cool.

Doug (00:05:56):

Yeah. We'll always have The Onion. 

Ann (00:05:58):

<Laugh>.

Doug (00:05:59):

At least in our minds. <Laugh>. Well it's interesting you mentioned that, too, because you grew up in Madison, right? 

Ann (00:06:06):

Yep, I did.

Doug (00:06:07):

So, you know the place pretty well. At the same time though, as stable as that comes across, growing up in a nerdy Midwest college town–and I've become well-versed in that my own self here in Ann Arbor–your childhood was kind of chaotic, wasn't it?

Ann (00:06:22):

Yeah, I had a crazy family situation. Lots of divorce and remarriage, but the original divorce and remarriage included two sets of parents who ended up marrying each other. In essence, it sounds like a swap. It wasn't a swap, it happened over three years. It happened very organically, but it was still, you can imagine the entangled nutso family system. And the beautiful thing is I had lots of adults who loved me. It wasn't traumatic for me, but it was a lot to navigate and that also gave me incredible skills for the rest of my life. It was the eighties, we were more like latchkey kids. My parents all worked, they were like really happily into their second marriages and we just like, you know, I spent a lot of time on my own taking the bus, riding my bike, coming and going. And sometimes my own kids when they hear me talk about the eighties and being a kid, they kind of wish they had that.

Doug (00:07:24):

Yeah. It's a whole different vibe now. Yeah.

Ann (00:07:26):

I even would fly as an unaccompanied minor. I think the first time I did that was age nine to go visit my grandparents in Brooklyn, New York. And those are incredible independence-fostering memories and yeah, I had no idea what it was like to live in a nuclear family in one house. I was in co-custody my whole life until college. And it wasn't easy. And I'm the youngest and birth order matters. This whole situation was for sure harder on my older siblings who were going through this as a teenagers and not little kids, but my parents still live in town and life has taken them in different directions, but they're happy and I always wanted to come back here and live here. So I think that says a lot, chaotic or not, about, you know, my childhood and my feelings about my family in Madison.

Doug (00:08:16):

But now you've been married almost half your life. Which is cool.

Ann (00:08:20):

Yeah, I feel like,

Doug (00:08:23):

And you found that stability that was kind of elusive when you were a kid and also have moved into coaching and helping others, which is a very caretaker thing to do. I can totally see how someone in your position early kind of gravitates to the arts and gravitates into the entrepreneurial aspect as well, and Listen To Your Mother, that fulfilled a lot of skillsets for you, it seemed like the perfect confluence of a lot of things you knew how to do well. And now that you're in this new realm of coaching people, how does that fit with the sum total of your choices so far? And what's the most interesting thing you've learned about working with people that you might not necessarily have anticipated?

Ann (00:09:00):

Oh wow. Yeah. So this is actually the most natural and organic thing to me and my personality that I could be doing. And if you ask people who've known me a long time, they've been saying for years: “Go become that therapist. You do this for free all the time.” And I did get a master's in social work along my winding path and I always thought I would end up being a therapist. And really it was blogging. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. Again, this is a funny reaction maybe to my childhood, but also maybe not. Like I just was the little girl who loved to play with dolls and loved to play house. And I just always knew I wanted to be a mom. That was the one thing I knew. So I thought becoming a stay-at-home mom was going to be the answer to my entire life.

Ann (00:09:47):

And of course it wasn't. And even though I liked it and it was wonderful, it goes by really fast. And my husband used to travel constantly when my kids were little and blogging is how I got that connection, that creative spark back and it kind of threw me for a loop. I thought I was done with theater and that connection to an audience. So blogging really surprised me when I saw how immediately it just, I just fell right back into wanting to achieve and excel and perform. So I didn't become the therapist, I was at home with my kids and then I became a blogger and Listen To Your Mother, which used all of those skills I learned in social work school, creating safe spaces for people to tell stories and fostering groups through the process. And it became this mostly women's leadership incubator as people who had never produced events or directed anything, learned how to do this around the country.

Ann (00:10:48):

So I used all those skills, but it wasn't until the pandemic when my kids are growing so quickly and I was again struggling with creativity and I had a book out and it didn't sell, or my agent was trying to sell a book that didn't sell and I realized I need to figure out the rest, the next chapter of my life that's not inextricably tied to my kids. They're growing up and moving away. And my creativity as much as it uses some of my talents and can be thrilling also causes me a lot of misery and involves gatekeepers and isn't up to me. So I thought I'm finally going to be this therapist, but by now my license was long expired. I never worked in the traditional social work world and I was trying to earn my CEU during the pandemic and I was just feeling adrift and I was feeling like I'm going to work and work to try to get licensed and then clinically licensed and I'm still not going to be making money.

Ann (00:11:42):

And I just couldn't even see the path. And I myself have worked with a career coach who said like, well let's talk about coaching again. Like we've talked about it over the years, but never in a serious way. And it just was a light bulb. It was like a totally natural progression from what I was doing with Listen To Your Mother. Like the way I had comported myself online all these years. It was always really important to me to be careful with what I was saying, even as a humorist. Coaching was something that I could bring to the people that I was already connected with, which is a little different than therapy. If I had become a therapist, I think it would feel different if you Googled your therapist and there were just pages and pages, all this stuff like that's a little weird.

Magda (00:12:24):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 

Ann (00:12:25):

Where it's like an asset in the coaching space. That was a long, I talk in paragraphs, sorry, <laugh>.

Magda (00:12:33):

I think that's a really good insight about therapy versus coaching. 'cause I do a lot of business coaching and I do a lot of coaching with people about personal things that relate to their business. Right? I mean I think everybody does. All coaches do, right? If you're a life coach, you end up doing work stuff. If you're a work coach, you end up doing life stuff. 

Ann (00:12:54):

Absolutely.

Magda (00:12:55):

And I think you're really right about that. People don't want to know too much about their therapist at all because it's sort of like, you almost have to have a morality clause to be a therapist. They, people see it like elementary school teachers, you know.

Magda (00:13:11):

You're supposed to be a moral guide somehow.

Ann (00:13:13):

If you're telling someone your most vulnerable parts of your life in a crisis moment and you're like, she's a humorist or whatever. Right? I'm seeing her and these videos, that does not really foster a feeling of safety, even if it's, I could be the most and I would be the most ethical boundaried therapist, but there are ways that you create safety that have nothing to do with explicit outright agreements. And that would turn people off. It would turn some people off for sure.

Magda (00:13:42):

Yeah. Yeah. But I think in coaching, the more experiences you've had, it just feels like you have a bigger tool set.

Ann (00:13:49):

Yeah. And you know, we all, a lot of us who become coaches have been coaching in informal ways before we decided to get our certification or whatever. And certainly I did a lot of coaching through Listen To Your Mother and I think I had earned trust from the people that I know online that could only help my coaching business.

Magda (00:14:15):

Yeah, I would agree. 

Ann (00:14:16):

But Doug, there was another part of your question. I forgot now.

Magda (00:14:20):

<Laugh>.

Doug (00:14:22):

No, I hear you. I'll ask questions in paragraphs and people will lose the thread halfway through <laugh>. But I hear you. I, we're all coaches here, you know, I coached second grade soccer one year and <laugh>  I'm totally right there. I'm with all the struggles. Same, same. I mean, I think it's important that I'd coach just the one year <laugh> because literally no one else would do it. And they said, please God, all we need is a warm body. 

Ann (00:14:52):

Oh my God. That's how I ended up managing a team. Yeah. One year was plenty.

Doug (00:14:57):

<Laugh>, especially the parents who are so opinionated. I'm like, I'm just doing you guys a favor here. If I'm not here, this team doesn't happen. I'm just saying don't run into each other. And who knows, I could start ranting about that, but because because the other parents would be like, I can do this better and I'm thinking, then please do it. You were asked earlier,

Ann (00:15:16):

Please.

Doug (00:15:17):

The second half of the question was along the lines of the clients. You have, a lot of your clients are about our age and they're adults and are kind of at a crossroads. And you yourself, you say you always wanted to be a mom and now your kids are old enough kind of not to need their mom anymore. So we're all in a very similar situation. So what sort of things do you talk about with people our age and what similarities do they have with what you're going through?

Ann (00:15:40):

Well, there's really good news here. The basis I use for coaching and the framework is positive psychology. And we are lucky enough to be alive in a time where researchers can and have learned so much from brain scans and about how directly we can impact our own mood, which is our ability to enjoy our life. So learning to become a positive psychology coach and studying it changed my own experience of the world tremendously. So back to that creativity and those gatekeepers, so much of my feeling of self was based on external validation or hyper-achievement. And whatever realm you're in, a lot of people can identify with that. For others it's money or relationships. It's this whole idea of “I'll be happy when” fill in the blank. You know, it turns out those “I'll be happy when” really only account for a small piece of what I'll call our wellbeing pie.

Ann (00:16:37):

Like if it was a pie chart, half of it is our DNA. So that's good news or bad news. You know, if you have a more depressive DNA or a happier DNA setpoint for your mood, you can't change that. But what's thrilling is there's a significant part of our mood that we can impact. And that's what positive psychology is all about. And when people come to me, sometimes they are coming because they're not sure they want to stay in their job. Sometimes they're coming to me because they have a project or a dream that they want to get off the ground and they haven't been able to motivate or get clarity. A lot of times when we start talking, what they realize is like, I don't even know who I am anymore. <Laugh> I lost my spark. I don't know where to find it. And that's a really scary place to be in. But what a relief when I can tell them there are tools that we can use that will change your life. And you know, 

Doug (00:17:39):

The flint and steel, if you will, that will bring the spark back, the actual tools that you can slam together until the spark returns.

Ann (00:17:45):

Yeah, that's right. And it's not slamming, it's not hard work. It's learning to use the right side of our brain. So our left brain is really overused because our brains were built for, you know, evolutionary purposes and to keep us alive. And you know, there's a ton of studies and literature about the way that we still operate so much from that part of our brain and this other right side of our brain generally speaking is where wisdom, intuition, creativity, so much more positive emotion, peaceful, more calm. That's where we access it. And just practicing. It's like going to the gym for your body, but for your mind. And it is something I'll have to do every day for the rest of my life. You're not like, “I'm happy now,” and happy is not even a word that's accessible for some people, but it might be like, “Wow, I just feel so much more calm.”

Ann (00:18:40):

I finally feel curious again. I finally feel interested in things again. Like the spark is different for everyone. But that's the good news. And also we continue to change. So we're fed this narrative that people don't change. People don't change. It's actually not true. We do change and that's really good news as we're looking at the rest of our lives. That's really hopeful news. Whether you are going through a divorce or you are grieving, knowing that it can feel like this is how it's always going to be. We go through these highs and lows and we come out at this baseline, but all the research shows we can learn how to lift that baseline.

Doug (00:19:23):

I was just chatting with my son about this. He and I just watched a double feature with “Lost In Translation” and “Her.” 

Ann (00:19:33):

I haven't seen “Her” but I remember “Lost In Translation” a little bit.

Doug (00:19:36):

Are you familiar with the premise of”Hher”?

Ann (00:19:38):

I know it's like a tobot or some AI situation.

Doug (00:19:42):

Yeah, Joaquin Phoenix plays a guy who's just really, he's just broken up with his wife then he falls in love with an AI, falls in love with Scarlet Johanson, with this operating system played, you know, voiced by Scarlet Johanssen and he says this line that my son and I talked about where he says, “I just feel like I've already felt everything I'm going to feel and everything from now on is going to be some diluted version of that.” That line just hit me right in the sternum. And so if you're in that situation, I mean granted the ideal situation is to enlist the help of someone who can kind of get outside your head and coach you through that. But if you're on your own, what sort of stock can you take to recognize that you will feel new things between now and the end?

Ann (00:20:29):

If that feeling, when that feeling happens, and I've had that feeling or a similar feeling, it's a really good indicator that you need new tools. So whatever tools you've used in the past, they're not going to work forever. And you need to change it up and you might need to ask for help. And sometimes it can be a perspective shift. I want to share, I went to this, there's this wonderful Buddhist writer, her name's Karen Mazen Miller. She also had a blog a long time ago. And I went to one of her silent retreats. Even though I'm Jewish, you know, there's something called a JewBu, like a Jewish Buddhist. But I went to one of her silence <laugh>

Magda (00:21:10):

There's plenty of Catholic Buddhists, but I didn't know there were enough Jewish Buddhists to have a cute slang!

Ann (00:21:17):

JewBu!

Magda (00:21:18):

Right. Yeah.

Ann (00:21:19):

And I don't consider myself a Buddhist, but you know, all of the schools of faith as well as the positive psychology stuff. There's nothing new. It's all using, you know, these ancient truths. But I was telling her something similar, like my fear about midlife as I feel like it's all downhill from here, my parents are still healthy. Like my kids are just going to grow up and leave. And like the beautiful thing about being healthy and living a long life is that you now look forward to losing everyone that you love and losing your health. You know, life is lost. And she just said to me, “Well, downhill is the most fun way to go.” And it just made me picture a kid rolling downhill, like, “what's more fun than going downhill and you can let go?” And it was like, I've always remembered that it was such an awesome, totally organic shift in perspective that she gave me full of joy and letting go.

Ann (00:22:15):

But getting some education, you don't have to hire a coach, but just knowing that there are things that you can do and finding them, whether it's a coach or checking out books, the one thing I will say is that to make real change in your life, a lot of like the figures and things that I'll be sharing come specifically from Positive Intelligence, which is a system that I use myself and I coach others through. And it's evidence-based. It's amazing work with data from 500,000 people over 30 countries. And to sustain real change, only 20% is insight. So like that book or that TED talk or that idea or that thing somebody told you like Karen Mazen Miller, that can be a shift for you and it can stick with you to sustain real change. Like 80% of it is practice and doing something about it.

Ann (00:23:06):

And that's what I, why I'm so passionate about this positive intelligence work is it's the means of delivering that 80%. And in terms of, you know, you hear about practicing gratitude and there are things that are clinically shown to boost your mood. Gratitude is one of them. But you have to make a practice of it. You can't just remember to say thank you to someone. So it has to be intentional working on savoring when something's going well, asking your spouse or your kid do you have questions about it when they have a win, draw that moment out. Our brains are wired for the negative. No one should feel bad or like, “I'm just a Debbie Downer. I'm always going to the negative.” That is what our brain is wired to do. It's harder work to pull up the positive and keep it in the front of your mind. And it takes dedication and practice. I keep like a whole list of coaching wins on my boundary pages and pages of little things I call process wins. I did my social media for the week, I wrote my newsletter. I had a great consultation. I don't care if the person hires me or not. So encouraging people to keep track of when things are working or going well and look and revisiting it. 'cause we don't hold onto what works. We hold onto what's not working. We really can change our brain that way.

Magda (00:24:30):

I think the keeping track is so key and I think a lot of people just don't keep track. We don't think of mental health, our little mood deviations from moment to moment. We don't think of those as being important or lasting. I had depression for like 36 years from the time I was 11 until a couple years ago. And I would occasionally go into big deep troughs. I have some, I think interesting theories about depression, <laugh>, and I know my dad has been significantly depressed my entire life. And so it's just a family thing. I used to do all kinds of things to get myself out of these troughs and then I figured out that the best thing I could do was write down what I had done and how many days it had taken to get me out of the trough.

Magda (00:25:29):

And then I could go back and look when I was down deep again. I could go back and look at my record and say, “I have gotten myself out how many times. I am a person who can get myself out of the trough. This is what works and I can do this again. I have the ability to do it.” And that keeping track I think really was the key to me being able to live with depression and live with joy. Like I always sort of thought I was the most positive depressed person I knew, which is <laugh>, you know,

Ann (00:26:06):

It’s a whole thing.

Magda (00:26:06):

It's weird.

Ann (00:26:06):

Right. I get that people with depression also see the beauty and pain of the world so keenly. So I get that. I totally get that. And you're tracking what you did. It's interesting because the skills. So positive intelligence specifically was based on positive psychology, performance science and cognitive behavioral therapy. Right? And having the skills to stop thinking about thinking is how you just get more anxious and more depressed. And that's what our brains do if we don't know otherwise. So positive intelligence is about building this mental muscle where we become aware of the thinking and we stop and we tune into our senses deeply for 10 seconds. This is straight up cognitive behavioral therapy if you've ever done that. And then that allows us to shift into a different part of our brain. It slows you down and you can make a different choice not out of your thinking brain.

Ann (00:27:06):

And that's essentially what I'm hearing is like you found things that worked. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, you wrote them down and then you shifted your perspective to “I get in these pits of despair and I get back out.” And it reminds me of the client who said she was so frustrated with herself. She's like, I always come up with these workout plans and I do them for a while and then I always fail. And I said, and what I'm hearing you say is then you come back again. You always come back. Right. Like so you don't sustain the same workout or the same diet for your entire life. Welcome to humanity. Right.  That is actually hope and action. And it might not always feel happy. 

Magda:

What's your other choice? Like my other choice was just lie down and die. 

Ann:

But a lot of people get stuck there. Yeah. And they'll lie down and die.

Doug (00:27:53):

They're not all, are they always failing or are they only remembering their failures and they're

Ann (00:27:58):

A hundred percent! Doug, I'm so glad you said that because also what we remember when people say “I had a bad day,” if you had a whole log of their day, it was probably one bad thing. Or maybe two bad things and they're, we forget the 20 things that went just fine or good. Our brains are not wired that way. We have to work on it.

Doug (00:28:16):

And that's nature of this data-driven work that you're doing. Because I keep asking, you know, you had a background in your MSW training. How much of that do you find yourself using as part of your daily work? How much of the overlap is there between

Ann (00:28:30):

I think it's context. I think it's why people feel comfortable with me. I think there's, it's not an accident that in Listen To Your Mother, the brand was “listen” and then “to your mother.” Okay. We had fathers, we had everyone's okay. Knowing how to listen is definitely something I was born with and learned more about in social work school. What I like about positive intelligence and positive psychology is not clinical language, like everyday language. The founder of Positive Intelligence, Shirzad Chamine, worked really hard to bring to, he calls it “root factor analysis” to bring the system down to like red, yellow, blue, like the primary colors. So I use a lot of his language 'cause it's, everyone can relate to it and it's accessible and it's nonjudgmental. A lot of people are really comfortable talking about mental health. But of course that stigma still continues. And so the, even the idea of mental fitness is kind of this kind of language to make it accessible for everyone. So I think the master's work is part of who I am and I'm not diagnosing people. And if people are in crisis or in trauma, that's not a good time for coaching.

Magda (00:29:41):

Mm-Hmm. No, no.

Doug (00:29:43):

You know, I was thinking if we had a word cloud of the discussion so far, one of the most common terms that would come up is positive. And since we live in the upside down now, even the word positive has negative connotations.

Ann (00:29:54):

Yeah. It does.

Doug (00:29:55):

So when you're talking to people about positivity, and you want to retain the initial meaning of what positivity is. Independent of the fact that it's kind of veered into toxic positivity.

Ann (00:30:07):

Positivity.

Magda (00:30:08):

Right. Or spiritual bypassing. People think that it's spiritual bypassing.

Ann (00:30:14):

I think there's a lot of reality to that. And I have a couple things that I do. First of all, I don't talk about happiness a lot. Positivity is a little different than happiness. But also, yeah, happiness is overrated. <Laugh>. 

Magda (00:30:26):

I think happiness is a result not a goal. 

Ann (00:30:31):

Also like it, it's a side effect also for some people. Like, people experience positive emotions in really different ways. So for some people it can look like joy and happiness and for others it can be serenity and awe. And learning about the realm of all the different kinds of positive emotions really help people to understand that I'm not saying “let's get happy” and well, even.

Doug (00:30:51):

They're saying parents shouldn't tell their kids, I just want you to be happy. 'cause that puts pressure on the kid to be happy. And if they're not, they've failed.

Ann (00:30:59):

Well I actually think this is a great example for where we are in life right now. 'cause I think one of the hardest, most emotionally painful things for parents is to allow our children to be grown adults in this really hard world. And that we can't make them happy. We can hardly make ourselves happy. It's a hard time to be happy. And just that reality of yeah, how would you like somebody, another adult telling you to be happy all the time. And not that we're telling our kids to be happy, but it's just innate in us to want our kids to be happy and to try to do that. And I think there's this realization of like, they're an adult now and this world is hella crazy. But the other thing I wanted to say is I actually am so sensitive to this issue of toxic positivity that I check in with friends who I know will be honest with me, who are struggling and say like, “please let me know.”

Ann (00:31:46):

I never want to come off as Pollyanna. I do have a naturally low mood and darkness within me. And I think that really helps is that I am very honest. Like the reason I'm drawn to this work and need this work is I don't wake up every morning feeling like the world is full of promise and possibility. You know, I have to work on it myself. And I think that keeps me grounded and helps me communicate that first and foremost positive psychology, honors life struggles as inherent to being a human. It just gives you more options when you learn how to use it and develop this part of your brain.

Magda (00:32:22):

Well, and it sounds like it works with you from where you are. So if you have depression, it's not saying, “Hey, we're going to cure you.” No, it's just you can be happier within the depression. I mean, for me, depression wasn't sadness. I don't think for people, depression isn't, it's just numbness. Right. 

Ann (00:32:40):

It depends. Yeah. Some people experience it as numb.

Magda (00:32:44):

Alienation, disconnection, numbness,

Ann (00:32:45):

Isolation. Yeah.

Magda (00:32:46):

Yeah. I think sadness, you're less resilient to sadness when you're depressed. But I don't think sadness is the essence of depression. So this idea that you could be doing something to be more positive and feel more positive wherever you are. Even if you're in the middle of depression, if you're in the middle of anxiety, if you're in the middle of all of this other stuff.

Ann (00:33:08):

Yeah. Yeah. And it's not like “everyone throw your meds away.” It's the opposite. It's, these are just whoever you are, whatever you're doing, you're like, do

Doug (00:33:17):

Do not throw your meds away. Please don’t.

Ann (00:33:18):

Yeah, please don't do that. That's probably not a good idea. <Laugh>, if you want to get off your meds, you need to titrate them with a professional and then see, but <laugh>, you know,

Doug (00:33:28):

Do you work with a lot of people on meds or is this kind of

Ann (00:33:30):

Oh, I think most, I think they can coexist. It's not always a conversation that comes up. It does sometimes, but I think that's a part of life for, you know, so, so many of us these days. And a really helpful tool when used, you know, appropriately. And then there's the whole like, I mean everything's changing so fast. You know, there's microdosing, there's weed is legal in places. I mean there's things I know nothing about and I definitely don't pretend to.

Doug (00:33:59):

Are those details that you feel compelled to share with your clients just is it, is that a salient piece of info to say I'm currently on medication X,

Ann (00:34:08):

It's not a clinical situation typically. Coaching like, and also one of my jobs, whether it's overt or not, is people feel better after they talk to me. So I'm just really interested in, let's talk about what's working, let's talk about the next step is what do you want to make sure we cover today? If you're really happy with what we did at the end of this session, what would this look like? It's very task and future oriented. And I mean there's always room if someone's really struggling to talk about what's going on and, and you know, medication can come up, but I am not evaluating people. It's not a clinical situation.

Magda (00:34:51):

Doug, have you ever been in coaching? I mean, aside from when I've tried to tell you what to do and you don't pay any attention to it, <laugh>.

Doug (00:34:58):

Well I find that if you get your ex-wife to give you advice, it's good.

Ann (00:35:05):

I love your dynamic. Obviously you two used humor very effectively. <Laugh>,

Magda (00:35:10):

Well it's been 15 years, right? Yeah. Like we're divorced for twice as long as we were married, you know, so yeah.

Ann (00:35:18):

So you've gotten really good at it and I love that. And here's a couple's tip that I love from Martin Seligman who's kind of, you know, the father of positive psychology. He talks about when something's going well with his wife. He wrote about her getting an award, getting a phone call about an award she’d gotten for a photograph she had taken. And what he did was ask her lots of questions about it. What exactly did they say? Why do you think they chose that photo over other ones? So you're drawing out the celebration, which is going to help you better remember it and hold it in your mind. So like, I use these tactics secretly with my family. So I have a son who's abroad right now and when he is telling me about what he's seeing, I am asking for more and more and more details.

Ann (00:36:02):

And like that is how we savor. Otherwise, that was another thing that was causing me misery before I started learning about positive psychology. I couldn't take in the good things in life. Everyone would say like, “Oh my gosh, isn't this amazing? Listen To Your Mother. Can you believe it??” And I'd be like, “no, I actually really cannot believe it.” <Laugh> like, I can't <laugh> I can't take it in. And it's, and so learning more about how to do that, whether it's the everyday wins, these lists that I make, these process wins or it's just getting more curious with the people you love about what's going on in their life. Curiosity in general is something I so admire in my husband and other people. And I didn't really think I had it. I had it about certain things, but my strengths of being hyper-focused and getting stuff done didn't lead me into a curious mind, often to the detriment of my mood and pessimism I would say, like especially about the state of our world. I remember somebody in town once asked me, 'cause Madison is this crazy dichotomy of always on the top of the best cities to live in the US at the same time, it's like the absolute worst outcomes for Black children. Horrible incarceration rate. You know, it's very racist in the structural way.

Doug (00:37:22):

There's a lot of footage from the capitol of protests in in Madison. That's one of the more, it's this huge steady location of unrest.

Ann (00:37:30):

Yeah. It's a huge contradiction in the city. And I remember somebody saying, well if you could imagine what would you dream for Madison? And I could not go there. And I felt embarrassed that I couldn't. And I also felt shame. This is before the pandemic and these tools, this positive psychology stuff, it helps you get more curious and it's not hard. It's just asking more questions and opening up more. And it's so good for your mental health and your relationships and just not knowing. I think what I love about midlife people is, you know, the longer you live, the more life humbles you. And we're just, most of us I think are just more open about life not going the way we planned. And it just makes, it opens people's heart and it's so different than, I just remember being in my twenties and really thinking I knew things, A lot of things <laugh> and yes, full circle. Full circle. I first started working with, my husband and I both worked with a career coach who's still practicing in her eighties in Oak Park, Illinois, named Robin Sheerer. I still work with her from time to time, career enterprises.

Magda (00:38:39):

I know the name. Has she written like a zillion books?

Ann (00:38:41):

Well, she wrote this book called No More Blue Mondays, which is so awesome. It's out of print, but you can still find it. And I adore her. She's a mentor and she's wonderful. And when I was in my twenties and I went to try to figure myself out with her, I said, I think I might want to be a life coach. I was like 27. And she in the most loving way was like, “I think you might need to have a few more life experiences.” <Laugh>

Doug (00:39:06):

Have some more life first <laugh>. 

Magda (00:39:08):

This is like when those people write their memoirs when they're 20.

Ann (00:39:12):

<Laugh>. And then at like age 45, she was like, and now, now I think you could be a life coach. And I was like, you're right. I think I'll be.

Magda (00:39:21):

Which I think's funny because I feel like in my forties was the time I felt like I knew the absolute least, least of my entire life. 

Ann (00:39:32):

Really!

Magda (00:39:32):

When I was four, I felt more knowledgeable than when I was in my forties.

Ann (00:39:38):

I think that's the definition of wisdom. It is for me. Wisdom is knowing how little you know.

Doug (00:39:44):

Yeah. The known unknowns.

Magda (00:39:45):

The known unknowns and the known knowns.

Ann (00:39:49):

Are those the people you want to talk to? Yeah. Not the people who are like, oh, I know it all. I've seen it all. I've read it all. Yeah. Because the people who really do know it all don't come off that way anyway.

Magda (00:40:00):

No. They don't come off that way at all.

Doug (00:40:02):

That's why the dart scene in Ted Lasso resonated so much. The whole idea of “be curious, not judgmental,” even though it's a spurious Whitman quote. But the bottom line is “be curious, not judgmental” had people reconsidering all sorts of how they approach a new situation. Let's ask more about it before you decide. You've got it all figured out.

Ann (00:40:23):

And it's the different parts of your brain. This is Positive Intelligence in a nutshell. We have this judge in our brain, it judges ourselves, others, and situations as good or bad, we move on before we even know what they are. So we do these ten second moments in touch with our senses and then we shift into thinking. It's exactly what you said. And I love your attention to details. I know you're like a big film guy, Doug, but I don't remember details from movies and shows. And it's really fun when you remind me of that.

Doug (00:40:51):

Yeah. That's my job. To be the dope who just remembers this crap. I love that. But can't find his car keys. Yeah. <Laugh>

Magda (00:40:56):

<Laugh>.

Ann (00:40:56):

Yeah. But you take wisdom from it. 

Doug (00:40:59):

Do I, yeah. In fact, I wanted to ask, is speaking of one other pop culture reference, what's been on my mind all year long is the Seinfeld episode “The Opposite” where George decides every decision he's made in his life has been wrong and his instincts are all flawed. And the way to happiness is to just take a look at what his instinct is and react in the exact opposite way. And of course everything goes fantastic for him during the episode and beneath that brilliant idea, I think it's actually phenomenal psychic health. The whole idea of recognizing “I can get out of this rut, I can think differently. I can zig when I've zagged my whole life, I'll order the tuna instead of the egg salad” or whatever it is. <Laugh>. And I think that's actually a really healthy thing to embrace. The whole idea of I can't always operate from a position of safety and doing the opposite is a real exercise in vulnerability.

Ann (00:41:58):

Yeah.

Magda (00:41:59):

Doug, the brilliance of that episode is the way they enact that opposite thing. So, and I don't know if you're as obsessed with Seinfeld as our entire family is, our kids have an encyclopedic knowledge of it also. But so George Costanza is a horrible person. He's a horrible, horrible individual. But when they do the opposite,

Doug (00:42:21):

Well he's the product of his family. So we give him a break. 

Magda (00:42:24):

I mean yeah, Estelle and Frank, right? But the way they do the opposite thing is not that he has this horrible greedy urge and then he does something generous. It's just in these completely random details that are value neutral. It literally is like he is thinking about going one way and instead he goes out the other way. So there's no actual learning in it. It's just, I used to say, I get this idea and I do one thing and now I get this idea and I go backwards. Or do the opposite. But there isn't any kind of morality or learning in it. And I think that's the beauty of that whole episode.

Doug (00:43:03):

Yeah. He just goes up to her in his pajamas and says, “I'm unemployed and I live with my parents” <laugh>. And she's like, well have a seat. <Laugh> <laugh>. But on a serious note though, how much do you think that concept can factor rather prominently into a strategy like this where you can kind of, in terms of opening yourself up to a different choice?

Ann (00:43:28):

Yeah. I would think it's less about undoing and more about moving forward and connecting to your why in life, your values, learning what your strengths are. There's this free values and action. The V strength assessment is a free tool and it was actually developed by Martin Seligman and his colleagues, Martin Seligman has initially created the DSM, our bible for diagnostics of mental health. And then in the early-ish two thousands realized we have only studied dysfunction. We have never studied function and it was very controversial at the time. But out of that came an evidence-based tool, this strength assessment and we all have 24 strengths. You take this free assessment, it just ranks where are your top strengths and going to the bottom. But we all have them all. People immediately go to the bottom and they go, “oh my god.”

Ann (00:44:17):

“It says humor is my lowest strength.” Like this was something that I experienced where I'm like, I'm calling myself a humorist. Humor is so low on my strengths profile, but really what it means is I'm not lighthearted <laugh> like the definition. It's like this a big aha moment. You can be good at things and have talents that are not your strengths. Your top signature strengths are you being most effortlessly you. Where you find the ease and flow. This is golden when you're trying to figure out a career change or where you want to go with your life is knowing where you are when either time stands still or hours pass and you don't even notice 'cause you're so in a groove. So those are the kinds of things we would do. Like to make a big pivot. Like I love what you're saying about like yes, like we people do change. You can totally flip the script and create a new life for yourself. And digging into accessing a non-judgmental part of your brain, knowing where your strengths are and working with a coach to help you find clarity and take action is a game-changer.

Doug (00:45:26):

Help calcified. Do you find that people our age are, in terms of our instincts, <laugh>,

Ann (00:45:32):

Calcified,

Magda (00:45:32):

Like okay we're fossils.

Doug (00:45:33):

I think Yeah. Fossilized. Yeah. I just think there's a level of, there's a rut. I think if you've been acting a certain way for nigh on six decades, that's a hard habit to break.

Ann (00:45:43):

Well we know we've got these neural pathways that are well-honed and that's why it takes a lot of dedication. So people who are well-calcified aren't coming to me unless they want to change. So they're devoted to the change process. That's what I would say. And our ability to change is so exciting. We can, we can change.

Magda (00:46:02):

Doug has changed a lot. 

Ann (00:46:04):

Say more.

Doug (00:46:04):

Yeah. I put this new shirt on this morning. <Laugh>. 

Ann (00:46:06):

No, I love how you said that. <Laugh> say more, Magda. 

Magda (00:46:11):

There were a lot of entrenched behaviors and personality factors from both of us that led to, first of all I think to us getting married and then also to us getting divorced. Like we have for a long time said that it was our problems that married each other. I did not think that Doug was going to change and I did not think that Doug was going to be any different. And 15 years later Doug is radically different than he was when we got divorced. 

Doug (00:46:42):

Ah <Laugh>.

Ann (00:46:42):

Well, and I feel like the dynamic, I feel like you guys helped each other with that. Like, I mean I don't know anything about your marriage or your divorce or your history, but just what I witnessed of the two of you and your,

Ann (00:46:54):

Your friendship and you

Magda (00:46:55):

So long ago, right? I mean

Ann (00:46:57):

Did you help each other change do you think?

Doug (00:47:01):

I think a lot. I mean granted I do think the divorce itself was a real tectonic shift in me. Yeah.

Magda (00:47:07):

It was the divorce that was the big change for me. The divorce was one of the best experiences of my entire life and it freed me from so much.

Doug (00:47:16):

Sorry.

Doug (00:47:19):

No, but I get it. In fact, we talk about the opposite and I was joking about, okay, what would my ex-wife do? And I'll do the exact opposite of that. Well, the exact opposite is your ex-wife <laugh> would be a great offshoot for Listen To Your Mother by the way.

Magda (00:47:33):

Right.

Ann (00:47:34):

Well, this is what I love. I mentioned before: judge of self, judge of others, judge of circumstance. We judge circumstances as bad or good. Whereas in every challenge there can be a gift or opportunity. This is hard for people to hear when they are grieving, when they have gone through a divorce. But this is such a beautiful example, Magda saying like “that's the best thing that ever happened to me.” I'm sure at the time it had a lot of other feelings in in addition,

Magda (00:48:01):

A lot of other feelings in addition. But at the time I was still like, whoa, this is amazing. Like not, not necessarily great all the time, but still just like, have you ever had an experience that was completely unnerving but at the same time you were like, there is no other way I would ever have had the ability to see this bit of scenery or these specific colors or hear this chord or something like that. Right? And so it's a little uncomfortable and it's the uncanny valley, but there's something so beautiful that's revealed that it's totally worth going through that. That's what divorce was like for me.

Doug (00:48:40):

Right. And I think that speaks to the whole idea of is there such a thing as a good thing or a bad thing.

Ann (00:48:45):

Right. Exactly. And like,

Doug (00:48:46):

You know, it's a Plinko board but who knows, something wonderful can grow out of something terrible.

Ann (00:48:51):

That's right. And my graduate work was with grieving families and I think I was drawn to it 'cause my worst fear still is losing my loved ones. Much more so than losing my own life. I was working as an intern in a peer support program for people grieving loss of a child or loss of a spouse, like untimely losses. But the hope I found there, seeing people well down the road, meeting people fresh in their loss and them saying like, no, you'll never be the same. This is going to be the hardest road you'll ever have to go through. And I today have a life that has meaning, that has joy. There is another side to this. That was an early huge lesson for me and terrible things that happened that you would never choose and you don't have to stay there forever. <Laugh> people make meaning out of tragedy all the time. You know, Shirzad will talk about Mothers Against Drunk Driving or you can talk about people who become advocates because of whether it was mental health loss or gun violence. Like people make meaning and move on and find hope again. You know, there are always gifts and opportunities and sometimes it's like you can believe that's true and be like, I'm not there yet. I can't imagine that I will get there. But I know it's true. And even knowing that can help.

Doug (00:50:13):

The other aspect, too, is what I learned was when there's a divorce and there's a confrontation about divorce, usually there's one partner who's been really unhappy for a long time and in our situation that was her. And I couldn't relate to that because I had been fine. And you can describe any level of oblivion on top of that. But the bottom line is we had the discussion after our initial confrontation or the inciting incident that led to the split. And she conveyed these ideas to me about having been unhappy for a while. And I have since gone on to be in a relationship where we split up and I was the one who was unhappy for a while and I finally was the one who brought it to a head. And I know now from a pure experience what it's like when you finally marshal your forces and make the choice to be happier, you make the choice to recognize this is a proactive thing. And I can relate, I can relate specifically now to what Magda says she's feeling. 'cause I felt the exact same thing after the fact. 

Ann (00:51:14):

And for both of you, it is actually never just one person. Maybe one person feels like everything is going great, but everything cannot be going great if the other person has wanted out of the relationship for years or, you know. Well, yeah.

Magda (00:51:28):

I wanted to ask if either of you had read Uncoupling by Diane Vaughn?

Doug (00:51:32):

Well, of course. You made me read it. <Laugh>. 

Magda (00:51:34):

I made you read it. Okay. <laugh>. So Diane Vaughn wrote this book in, I believe the mid eighties, late eighties long before the whole Gwyneth Paltrow uncoupling thing. <Laugh>.

Doug (00:51:46):

Right. This is right after you made me read Harvey Haddock. So

Magda (00:51:49):

Oh no, Harvey Haddock! Harville Hendrix <laugh>,

Doug (00:51:54):

Whatever. Yeah. That tells you the impact had on my life. Right.

Magda (00:51:57):

And he, Harville Hendrix was fantastic for me. Harville Hendrix who wrote Getting the Love You Want. I think he's a better relationship counselor than John Gottman. But you know, don't tell John Gottman I said that. But anyway, his whole theory is that

Doug (00:52:11):

Don’t tell Harville I got his name wrong.

Magda (00:52:13):

Right. <Laugh> Harville Hendricks's theory is that you marry or get in a long-term relationship with the person you do because they are reflecting back to you something that you didn't get as a kid somehow. And so you get together with them because you perceive somehow that you can get from them what you were missing as a child. And so if the relationship goes well, you kind of heal each other from your childhood stuff. And if the relationship does not go well, you're hurting each other more because you're hitting each other exactly in those spots where you perceive lack. So it makes a lot of sense. So he has this counseling method and it's in the book and you basically figure out what it is that you were missing that attracted you to the other person. And then if you're willing to work on it, you can work on it together. But when <laugh>, when Doug and I did the book, what it made me realize it was, I didn't care what Doug was lacking from childhood. And that freed me up a lot to just be like, oh, here I am. But to go back to the point

Doug (00:53:15):

Well, you did get the love you want, right? So it worked.

Magda (00:53:17):

I did. I mean, and you know, everybody asks like, so how did you find it

Doug (00:53:20):

Took about 17 years or whatever, but yeah,

Magda (00:53:22):

“How did you find the love of your life?” And I say, “Well, I developed a crush on this guy in the fall of 1990 and tried to talk to him and he didn't talk to me. And then I just waited. And 30 years later he called me.” <laugh>.

Ann (00:53:35):

Oh, that's so awesome.

Magda (00:53:37):

But so the book Uncoupling by Diane Vaughn is just a timeline that she has written based on interviewing a whole bunch of couples. And she basically put together two timelines. So she starts out with the person who begins to sense that there's a problem first and what their whole process is, and then the person who is the second one to figure out that something's wrong. And of course that second person senses it, but they don't, you know, they can't admit that it's a problem with the relationship. They think it's a problem with themselves or they're living in the wrong place or they don't have the right car. You know, whatever you talk yourself into. And it's very nonjudgmental. And I have found it extremely useful for a lot of people I know who are getting divorced or splitting up from long-term partnership because it just tells you these are the phases you're going to go through and this is also where your partner is, or your soon to be ex-partner. 

Ann (00:54:37):

I feel like this could totally apply to, like women I work with especially will stay in a job for like 20 years. 

Magda (00:54:46):

Oh, so it's like a marriage. Yeah.

Ann (00:54:48):

Absolutely. Lots of similar dynamics there too.

Magda (00:54:50):

Yeah. And I think it would be really useful to have something like that. The difference would be that in uncoupling with a relationship, the other person has feelings. When it's your job, that job doesn't have any feelings. 

Ann (00:55:02):

But they do. They do. They're teams and they, there are feelings, you know, about like leaving the kids or leaving the mom or leaving this person who gave you your break. I mean there's lots of feelings and they do go both ways sometimes. I mean I think couples work would be amazing and I would, I can imagine myself going and getting more training specifically on that. I am really a proponent of certifications and trainings for coaches. You don't need them. Anyone could be a coach, but I want to have confidence that what I am offering has a leg to stand on in addition to what I personally

Magda (00:55:35):

It's a process, right? 

Doug (00:55:37):

Well, and speaking of process, too, I think we touched on an interesting point about Magda waiting 30 years for her dream man to call her. Which led to the whole idea of patience versus instant gratification. 

Ann (00:55:49):

Oh yes.

Doug (00:55:49):

How much conversation do you have with people about, “let's not be demanding on ourselves. Let's recognize that this is a process and it takes some time.” How reassuring do you have to be in that role as someone who says, look, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Ann (00:56:03):

Right. I do a lot of short term work with people, which actually means it's successful. Like when somebody can activate and move on quickly, that's awesome. I think in these Positive Intelligence groups, I do this group coaching, everyone's really eager to have the tools. So it's more like just, it is going to take a while. This isn't about mastery, this is about learning. And what I love is the idea that either you're sad 'cause you didn't use your tools, or you couldn't use your tools. It's not a reflection of you. It's just like at the gym, like that weight was too heavy for you right now. And that helps people just stay with it. So I haven't had a lot of people coming to me like, “I want change, I want it tomorrow.” It's kind of the, it's, it's more the opposite like, and I think at our age too, it's scary to change. So it's more like almost the opposite. Calling me and making an appointment is their first step because they feel so stuck and they don't know if they have the energy to get unstuck,

Doug (00:57:07):

But they're willing to put in the longer haul. They're not going to come at you and say, this needs to happen right away because life is short. <Laugh>.

Ann (00:57:14):

I mean, I think if they did, I just think people get excited when they begin to take first steps. And so that is energizing, and I guess what I say to people, too, is when they feel really stuck, when you start to take steps, you get more information which impacts what you do next. Just standing here staring out at this whole vista, of course you have no idea where to go. You have to start moving forward and then with each step you get more information about which way is going to be the right way for you

Doug (00:57:43):

And how many conversations do you have about once those steps happen, let's not compare yourself to other people?

Ann (00:57:49):

I mean we're all human. Like, I'm susceptible to that too, whether it's on Instagram and you know, I think comparison is such a lonely feeling. And if you can just take a minute and access empathy for yourself and for that, even that person and know it all goes back to that, I'll be happy when it's this big lie that if we get what somebody else has, we will be happy. And that's just it. The research just doesn't bear that out. You can be happy but changing your life is in the day-to-day. It's not in the peak moments. So looking at somebody else's peak moments or their dream home or their vacation, you just have to circle back to “that's a lie.” And my job is to work on my mood every day and be able to better enjoy what is actually happening around me versus this fantasy that we're projecting onto.

Doug (00:58:47):

Yeah. Spend less time wondering why all your friends are vacationing in Europe. Yeah.

Ann (00:58:50):

<Laugh>. Yes. I mean meanwhile your day-to-day life is a vacation in Europe to someone else, right? It's like, yeah, you know, that's a whole other bag, right? Like half the people I know who are traveling come back with Covid, you know, I mean.

Magda (00:59:05):

Everyone's going to Italy, specifically Italy. I don't know why. I've had dozens of people going to Italy that I saw and then I just saw a thing about how they're worried that Italy's going to have the hottest summer ever and all this kind of stuff. And I thought, wow, I'm seeing a lot of people going to Italy. 

Ann (00:59:23):

Real talk. My good friend Wendy Aarons took a great trip to Italy that she bought on a package at Costco. So check it out. Oh, it was amazing. 

Magda (00:59:32):

Maybe that's why! Everybody bought their package on Costco. That would make a lot of sense.

Ann (00:59:37):

It was like really nice hotels. She was like, it's like they thought that Costco was like royalty or something. Like, I mean every hotel they'd have like little extras and, I know. Who knew?

Doug (00:59:48):

<Laugh>. And since you've made this pivot yourself and launched yourself into coaching, what about it do you feel has changed you in terms of the physician healing herself? In a sense,

Ann (00:59:59):

Yeah, I can tell you I'm definitely not a physician, but thank you. <Laugh>,

Doug (01:00:03):

Yes, a pseudo physician heal thyself.

Ann (01:00:06):

“Zest” is one of the strengths on the strength profile and that was so low for me in the pandemic and in the beginning of this journey. And I will tell you I love the people who coach with me. I leave a coaching session so energized and they fill me with zest. So in real time I am using my strengths, my top signature strengths. And that energizes you. For me it's coaching, but for somebody else it's getting into the minutia of a contract, you know, whatever it is. Finding a way to use your strengths and live into those every day just does wonders for your enjoyment of your life. So this work energizes me. I think it's so interesting. I love seeing people, you know, make progress. It just fills me with hope. It's an exercise in hope every day. And you two I love are an ex. I mean, being with you two, a divorced couple who are such good friends who collaborate like this is amazing and so awesome. So I've really enjoyed just hanging out with you two. Enjoy! <laugh>.

Magda (01:01:14):

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Doug (01:01:16):

I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, we met in what, ‘96? Yeah. So it's 27 years in the making, a long time.

Ann (01:01:21):

Yeah. That's when my husband and I met too. ‘96.

Doug (01:01:26):

Well, I think what happened was, too, and I won't dwell on it too much, but you know those, the 36 questions you're supposed to ask to make you fall in love. Yeah, I think those happened defacto. 'cause She and I were working on a project together. And confined in the conference room and just opened our souls to each other every day. Eight hours a day that just kind of lead

Ann (01:01:43):

Doug, write that essay. That's a great essay.

Doug (01:01:47):

And this has been great. It's been great to get to know you better. I've known you peripherally for a long time, but talking to you for this past hour has been really helpful to me, both as a middle-aged person and as someone who has a lot of questions to answer. I'm really happy for you that you've made this pivot and it's, you've settled into it so comfortably and I, thanks for coming along to talk to us about it. I hope everybody, anybody who's kind of at a log jam can listen to this and figure out a way to head over, get over the top and recognize there's more to come.

Ann (01:02:15):

I love that. Thank you both. It was such a delight. And I coach via Zoom so people can find me at listenlifecoaching.com.

Doug (01:02:22):

Is there any place on social media that you tend to concentrate or should we just go to that website?

Ann (01:02:27):

Anne (no E), I M I G. You'll find a lot of stuff if you Google it and it's pretty much all good and normal. I think. <Laugh> last I checked.

Doug (01:02:39):

“Last I checked.” The hard sell.

Ann (01:02:40):

<Laugh>.

Doug (01:02:42):

“Please come work with me. I'm mostly normal.” <laugh>. Thank you for listening to episode 11 of the When the Flames Go Up Podcast with Magda Pecsenye and me, Doug French. Our guest has been the “mostly normal” Ann Imig. Tune in next week and we'll be back again with another person who's getting their head right. Until then, bye-bye.