454 - Show & Tell (Right Side Out 6 of 6)

[Music] Hey, you're listening to Creative Pet Talk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey. I'm your host, Andy J. Pizza, I'm a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator. In this show is everything I'm learning about building and maintaining a thriving creative practice. [Music] This episode is for you. If you get in your head and struggle to share your story and your creative work in yourself with the world, if you worry that it's just not relevant stuff to anybody else or interesting or maybe it's just too weird, if that's you, this is for you. Also, we've been doing a series called Right Side Out. This is episode six in the last episode of that series. It won't really make any sense without working through these episodes, unlike other episodes of this show. It's not self-contained. So, we recommend going back to episode 449 of this show to start back at episode one of this series. All right, let's get into it. [Music] Hey kids, it's Taco Tuesday. Again, for the 800th week in a row. No! Listen, I hate to admit it, but Sophie and I got into a real rut cooking and the kids were actively trolling us about it, but then we started getting some hello fresh meals and it has really helped us shake things up this year. So many dishes we've never had before or cooked and all have been super tasty and easy to make. For me, it's all about the sauces. Last night, I made the curried chicken and roast sweet potato jumble and the sauce was so simple and so delicious. I love that I'm making something yummy and broadening my cooking skills and experience in general. A couple nights prior, we had the edamame stir fry with this amazing gochujang aioli. It was vegetarian but super flavorful and filling and just I absolutely loved it. Nothing hits like home cooking go to hellofresh.com/peptalk10fm. That's HelloFresh.com/peptalk10fm. Now to get 10 free meals plus a NutriBullet Ultra Plus 2N1 compact kitchen system. It's a $189.99 value on your third box. Free meals applied as a discount on the first box. New subscribers only varies by plan. Disclaimer must order the third box by May 31st, 2026. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is an all-in-one online platform to help you stand out online. Get your domain, show off your best work, get paid all in one place. I've been working on a landing page for some offerings I haven't shared yet and I love the design options that they have now. I am more of an illustrator than a designer and this gave me a springboard to work with type and composition in a more elegant and unexpected way than I could have on my own. Plus, it was just fun. Also, Domain Management has been a nightmare for most of my creative career but now I have all my domains under one umbrella, the Squarespace umbrella and it is the easiest and most intuitive platform for managing domains that I've ever had and I have had a lot of domains like all creatives I've had one for every half cooked up idea that I've ever had. Um, head to squarespace.com/peptalk for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code, peptalk all one word to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Thank you for waiting as we took a much needed week off last week. In some ways, that episode felt like the conclusion of all we'd been building towards. Just like I told my mom, I was okay. I am okay but maybe I wasn't truly okay until that exact moment when she asked me if I was in the car. When I got home from that trip to see her, I was a bit of a zombie. I knew what had happened was really big but processing it wasn't easy or straightforward. A few days later, I was trying to cook up ways to finally release this project as I had initially planned and I was eager to tell the stories and also just move on from the project. But Sophie begged me to hit pause to let myself process what had just happened. She wanted me to spend more time with all of this in private and I did need time. I needed over a year of that private time wrestling with it, sitting with it before I was ready to record anything else. I needed a year of not knowing whether this project was just for me or whether it was something that I was going to share with other people. I spent a lot of time sitting in the acceptance that this was maybe just something that I needed to do and that nobody else really needed to hear it. That was an important zone to sit in. In fact, I think all creative work from the super deep and super personal to the most fun and superficial is best when at first it's just for you and you can find peace with that being enough. As time moved on, I knew I did want to share it all but then I fredded over every single detail. I worried about the impact. Was it too personal? What did I know? I don't have any fancy degrees or papers saying that I had the right to say any of this stuff. This story wasn't just deeply personal. It was also my creative baby. I'd waited a long time for it to arrive. When I couldn't hold it any longer, I knew I just had to let it go. I had to birth this thing chaos and all. It all started to just roll out of me into the microphone. In the first episode, when I finally added the theme music, it just clicked and I knew all the should I could I was going out the window and it was finally time to just make this thing. I was turning the page. The sharing was the final piece of the puzzle with all the mess and still completely in my feels. It was time for the next chapter. Unwritten but it did have a working title. I've never heard of the butterfly effect, not the super edgy, traumatic 2004 action-culture movie, but the theory that inspired that film. Here's the idea. Something as small as the flapping of a butterfly's wings, like ripples in a pond, grow in intensity as they move out into the world. They can become a breeze and by the time that breeze reaches the other side of the world, it's become a mighty storm. Essentially, teeny tiny small actions can set off big world changing reactions. Could a butterfly flapping around just being itself really create a destructive storm? Honestly, I have no idea, but I have to imagine that the world would be a much worse place if butterflies just decided to never use their wings just in case. Do you remember when I told you the story about my grandma's memorial where they released all those butterflies? I started working on and telling that story as a metaphor for living right side out, long before I knew that butterflies were one of the most widely used symbols of ADHD. I like it. Colorful, spontaneously side-questing from flower to flower without any obvious direction. I think it fits. Now in this story I told, I mentioned how I was worried that the folks who had wrangled these butterflies for this symbolic release had maybe not known that if you hold back a butterfly by its wings, it can rub off its magic dust, destroy its essence, and ultimately its ability to fly at all. When I went to speak to my mom last year, she surprised me by pointing out that the massive effect that she had had on me was not the source but rather a part of an ongoing ripple effect that had started with her dad. And this hit me like a mighty storm. I realized that this holding back this failure to fly, it doesn't just risk destroying you and your potential. It has epic consequences for those in your orbit because the flap of your wings might just create the wave that someone rides for generations down the line. It seems silly to imagine a butterfly that won't fly, perhaps fretting about who they are, trying to be less showy and more humble, repressing and regressing themselves all the way back. back into that lonely worm. Why would a butterfly do that? They wouldn't. Flying is who they are. It's in their name for goodness sakes. Butterflies don't do that, but we do. There's a word for that thing that blocks you from sharing who you are and being who you are in the world. That word is shame. It's what keeps you in your cocoon long after your wings are ready to go. And what's the definition of shame? It's you are a bad thing. That's why throughout this journey, we've been building a case for the opposite. It's the point of this whole thing. If you don't take anything else from this series, please take this. You are a good thing. At your core, underneath the painful stuff, the messy stuff, the regretful stuff, is really good stuff. All right, I know. On the surface, it just sounds like an empty platitude. You might hear it and think, why don't we add live laugh, love for good measure? Sure, Andy sounds great. I'll get a, you are a good thing. Hobby Lobby, shabby sheep, fake drift wood sign next time I'm out. No, I haven't told you this story that defines my life to prop up a nice idea that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy within and among the desolation of human suffering. No, in fact, I've told my story because it's me doing my teeny tiny part, flapping my little butterfly wings into this microphone week after week, hoping that maybe, just maybe, it might help to minimize just a little bit of that one thing that continually perpetuates humans and flicking suffering on one another. And it's the pervasive belief that so many of us hold in our souls. We are all bad. But maybe you're thinking, don't we need shame? Like we say it all the time, don't you have any shame? I'd argue that perhaps the reason we act in awful ways is not because a lack of shame, but because of an abundance of it. And of course, there is a huge difference between shame and guilt. In Angus Fletcher's book, Wonderworks, he describes this difference. He shares how guilt is a newer adaptation within our brains. It's a breakthrough technology for humans. Why? Because unlike shame, a much more primordial device in our psyche, guilt contains nuance that actually does help us. Shame says you are a bad thing. But guilt, like a brilliant publishing editor, makes a slight but groundbreaking edit and says, oh, OK, I see what you're trying to do here, but this mistake you've made doesn't make you bad. Guilt says you've done a bad thing. Guilt sees the intention and it modifies the behavior. Shame says you better hide so that nobody sees just how bad you really are. Guilt says actually we better take a closer look at this thing that you've done because we know that underneath it is probably something good worth exploring. If you feel remorse for an action and you see this action as something bad that you did instead of something bad that you are, when you hurt somebody, lie or cheat, when you compulsively self-sabotage and self-destruct, you have the ability to look deeper underneath the impulse and see it as a misdirected desire for something good. It's an act of survival or maybe a bid for attention or maybe a plea for love. If you believe that the core of your being is goodness, despite your mistakes and your misbehaviors, like a good parent who knows their kid is good, even when they're not listening, you don't need to hide. You can get curious. You can dig deep. You can look behind the surface. These are all essential things for being an artist, for putting yourself onto the page. And that's one of the reasons why it's so essential that you have a curious, positive sense of who you are in a healthy self-image as a creator. So try and experiment. Next time you do something that you're not proud of, just try to get curious about it. Vade the shame, feel the guilt and ask, why did I do this? What is it that I need? Some of us probably already do this in our parenting, so why don't we offer this same compassion in this same grace and patience to ourselves? - That's good. - Throw it. (baby crying) - That was a good one. - More good. - All right, you can do one more. (baby crying) - So a month ago or so, I saw a sign in a local store. That's right, we're shopping local for this one. If last episode was a Hobby Lobby, Shabby Sheik wall sign that read, "You are a good thing." This sign read, "Your future needs you. Your past doesn't." Now, I can't quite tell if this is some kind of toxic positivity or just a bit of tough love when enough is really enough. And you got to quit wallowing in the past. But I saw this in the middle of writing these episodes and it felt like it related to that shift that had happened. When I finally looked my mom and all our shared chaos in the face and just loved her. I just wanted to embrace that mess, accept the bad so that I can also have the good. I'd been hit with the truth that both mom and I were actually okay. And if mom and childhood Andy didn't need me much anymore, I knew that the future and my own three amazing kids definitely did. So if you and I touched briefly on becoming young parents in a previous episode, we now have three kids. Yeah, three kids. When we were in college and Sophie was pregnant, she remembers perhaps naively hoping for a wild and crazy one. I mean, I should have seen right then and there that that was a really good sign and noted that this was someone who was gonna be ADHD friendly. That's a green flag. In reality, our first child did whirlwind into our young lives. Wish granted one order of wild and crazy, please. And that's exactly what we got for years. Sophie was trying to hold it all together at home while I was trying to hold it all together at work, both feeling like nobody really understood us and it was really hard. But along with this new extra helping of chaos, we were now a family and we had all the motivation in the world to fight like crazy for this life that we desperately wanted. It's funny to think of me as a kid, driving everybody nuts at home and in the classroom. Hilarious as I was, but all of a sudden, I found myself with just a little bit of empathy for those sometimes strict grade school teachers of mine. Did I ever tell you on this show that on multiple occasions, different teachers gave me the exact same punishment without any knowledge of each other. Clearly at their wits end, they said, "All right, Andy, no talking for the rest of the day." So mean, so impossible to pull off and so hilariously harsh. But as a parent of a kid that never stopped, I kind of maybe sort of saw them and understood where they were coming from and found myself in a similar place of desperation on many occasions. There was a time that our toddler realized they could remove their diaper and their clothing, what sweet freedom and rebellion. And this was also at a time where she wasn't potty trained yet. This was an obvious problem and she'd wake up cold in her crib. So over and over, we battled this little kid until we finally created the stubborn stinker baby sleep suit. I think we actually need to patent this thing. Shark tank, here we come. You know those all in one PJs, those like onesies that have the feet in the bottom and zip up? Well, ours weren't that cute. See, we would cut the feet off and turn those bad boys around and zip it up her back. Get out of that, you little tiny genius. We'd finally want that one. We have a million other stories just like these, such a sweet smart kid. Boy, oh boy, was she a test of mental strength? Don't even get me started on the week. She realized sticking her fingers and outlets would get her attention. So much strategy, so much patience was needed day in and day out with this kid. Now we are definitely not the world's best parents. In a way, I feel like we grew up with them for a while. We were just figuring it out together. But consider this, if I was a hyper and busy second born kid with my older brother to kind of keep me in line a bit with his more even keel influence, what do you think happens when that kind of kid is born first? Well, if you're curious, I can confirm that they become the chaos queen. Ringleader, every young sibling, an extension of their energy and volume. It's next, next level. One day we were leaving a restaurant after an especially out of control and loud family dinner. And I was feeling frazzled and wondering how on earth we were going to get through the looming bedtime routine. And that's when they had the audacity to start asking for ice cream. I was at the end of my rope and I turned around and I was like, listen, no, taking you guys to dinner was like taking three crazy dogs and letting them off the leash. The response from my eldest, not tears, not begging or even arguing or using her amazing abilities to barter, just looked me right in the face and said, this is who we are. This is how we play. You can't change us. Well, not much you can say to that. She's not wrong. She might even be our forever hero. I can't remember if we caved and got ice cream. I don't really remember much after that. But I think we definitely did hide our laughter as we just sat in the shock of it. And I do remember that later on, Sophie and I were just celebrating how amazingly proud we were to have a kid that was that confident. She trusted herself. She stood up for herself and for her crew. She knew deep in her soul without a shadow of a doubt that she was good. Like I said, I don't have all the answers about parenting. I would never go around spouting off parenting advice. This thing is so freaking hard and I just feel like every day is a new challenge that I have to figure out. And heck, I'm still learning how to live right side out on a day to day basis. But I do know one thing that is not invited to the crazy dog party and it's this shame. And in that one moment, right then, by some combination of nature and nurture, we had a kid that believed. No, knew that she was good chaotic, but good chaotic good characters, value freedom and expression because they believe that people are ultimately good. I'm sure you have your own favorite stories and phrases and probably even have your favorite wall signs. Once that lift you up and remind you of what's right, remind you that it's okay to be different to be your true and free self. Well, in our house and it even happened this week, whenever we need to defend ourselves in our individuality or assert our right to that freedom, we just remember that battle cry of those three crazy dogs back from 2017. And we say, Hey, this is who I am. This is how I play. You can't change me. Hobby Lobby would not make that. And to me, that's a pretty good sign. As a neurodivergent creative, I am always trying to strike a better balance between creating versus just consuming. That's why Dr. Annelimpke's class dopamine take your brain back on masterclass, peaked my interest. She is such a compelling communicator and one of the things that really hit me fresh was this idea that you want to embrace more things that make you feel uncomfortable up front, but great afterwards versus great instantly, but bad afterward. This insight really inspired me to action because this is exactly why I want to create more than I scroll. 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Now available in Canada to qunc.com/peptalk for free shipping in 365 day returns quince.com/peptalk. Our first born is no longer eight. In fact, she's 16 this year if you can believe it. A high schooler still making us proud with that tenacious goodness. I mentioned her in a recent chat with Angus Fletcher. Angus is who I mentioned earlier, the writer of the book Wonderworks. And I wanted to share that little piece of our conversation because I think it really illustrates what we're trying to get at in this episode. I am doing a series. I'm doing an ongoing project and it's about how getting diagnosed with ADHD led me to develop a positive self-psychology. It was a huge shift for me in my world view as well as my creative work. And part of that is about learning to unmask yourself and finding spaces for that. And so when I first started to think about how that might work and I started doing the project and having conversations with psychologists and therapists and also thinking about it through the lens of my own experience. My first guess was a celebration space opposed to just a safe space would be a place where you find people like you who are in that safe to be you. And I think there's maybe some truth to that. But then you reminded me of something more true in your book when you talk about the butterfly a Mercer and how it's not maybe about finding a place where everyone's like you. Could you talk a little bit about that tells about the butterfly Mercer. It's just a fascinating thing about the way the brain works is that you have more self-acceptance the more different your friends are. It's just as simple as that. And there's a lot of complicated reason to go into it but a lot of it's just really intuitive. I mean if you're in a space where everyone is just different it makes you feel comfortable being different and you know what you are different. And you know this desire that we have to just fit ourselves into categories and feel. safe because everyone is like me, you know, is not healthy because then we start to police those categories and then self-police and then we start to realize we don't really fit in those categories and then we break out. And actually just get a bunch of friends who are just totally different from you and hang out with them and you're happier and they're happier. And you know, one of the things I say is of course, you know, if you don't have the luxury of just having a bunch of total, you know, you know, originals next door, get a book because the book is filled with originals and so much of literature and so much of the reason that literature produces a kind of healthy psychology and healthy self-acceptance is you're constantly reading these stories about people who are just completely different from you. Yeah. But you feel like you're their friend and you're like, oh, you know what, I really like this person. I like hanging out with this person. They're so nuts, but I like hanging out with them. And you know what, I like myself more when I'm with them and I realize that I can be nuts to be my own way, nuts, nuts like they're nuts, but nuts like I'm nuts, you know. And so that I think is tremendous and I think that, you know, sometimes, um, having worked a lot in theater, there can be challenging because when you're a group of people who are in that space, a lot of that can be self-definitional and a lot of that self-definitional work, particularly in a kind of theater community can be against the people immediately around you. You know, you can be trying to figure out. Competing me. Yes. Yeah. You know what I mean? I brought up theater people because I spent the first three years of my high school experience trying to be cool and being very miserable and trying to be part of the cool group and it wasn't until I got into theater where the best thing to be in that zone was different to be how you are. And I am so, what probably my proudest, uh, dad achievement is that my teenager got that way quicker than me. So she's a freshman. And she, I think she very well could be one of the cool kids and actively chose to be a theater person instead for that reason of being around people that are so different and celebrated for their differences and spaces like that, I think just like you said, are, are the key to self-accept, acceptance. Yeah, yeah. And to be clear, theater people are different from professional theater. Sure. And so theater people are exactly what you're talking about. And you know, really wonderful theater comes out of theater people, not professional theater. Right. Because theater people all get together and they say we've got all these different people here. How can we tell a story that involves all of us and that expresses who we are and then we going to create a spontaneous pop-up show and then you have these kinds of wonderful natural forms of art. Whereas what professional theater is is well, only one of you can be in the lead way. Yeah. And then Aaron knows has to be and that person is the star, you know, and they're going to go in the billboard, you know, and then if they do well, they're going to get paid more money and have more professional opportunities. And then it suddenly becomes very different, you know, and that's more of this kind of, you know, manufactured kind of industrial problem. And I think that I can just say, you know, I mean, just I worked a lot with theater, I worked a lot with dance. I mean, a lot of people in those communities in those professional communities struggle a lot with mental health issues because of the intense sense of I have to be like that person. Yeah. And that's what, that's where it becomes negative. But in a high school environment, if you can just create, you know, a flock of theater people, I mean, that's kind of the ultimate utopia. I love this idea that he ended with, this notion that high school theater is like the ultimate utopia. Not everybody might feel like that, but I think in this way where we all appreciate what each other are bringing to the table and it not just being safe but celebrated, that's kind of the ideal. And I'm just so pumped that my daughter has found that space in her life. Also, did you catch that little bit that Angus mentioned about stories? His book, Wonderworks, is all about literature, aka story. So why does it have a dedicated chapter about reducing shame and self acceptance? Those stories are the key. One of the most effective ways to reduce shame, that thing that keeps you from living right side out is hearing other people's stories, hearing about the many wildly different but also wildly good ways there are to be in the world. When I was sitting on this project, this right side out thing over the past year, I was unsure if I should share this story at all. And when I found this idea in this book, it pushed me over the edge and I just knew that I couldn't keep it to myself. When I realized that other people's stories were the key to living right side out, I knew that I had to get this story out of myself and into the real world. Oh, and two other little things that I just can't help but add. One, with this whole series being about you're a good thing and riffing off the idea that humans have no bad parts, I'm just totally smitten by the idea that even the part of yourself that's responsible for this toxic shame, that part of you isn't bad. It doesn't need destroyed or even starved, it's actually just hungry for more stories and needs to collect more norms. That's pretty cool. And another thing, this literary invention for increasing self-awareness that Angus discusses in the book, you know what he calls it? The butterfly mercer. I can't get into the whole thing right here and now but it was such a satisfying little bit of synchronicity that I couldn't help but include it. So since having lots of different people's stories really is the key to reducing shame, I thought I would invite Sophie to come in on the podcast in this episode and share a story of an experience with how this played out in her own life recently. A few episodes ago I talked about how sometimes being from a different country, even with all the similarities between the UK and the US, I can feel really odd and homesick. For the most part of being okay but there are a few times that have stood out. And faced with health issues as well as during COVID, not having your own conditional family members is hard, the world feels too big and I feel so small. One of the ways I've tackled this feeling is by taking local classes and meeting other local creatives, leaning into my location and making new friends. Just beeing the company of other fiber artists brings me back a familiar piece of myself. There was a group I heard about twice, an art quilt group. I decided to look it up and then just show up. It was early last year, just after Andy had been to speak to his mum. I walked in with all my bags of my current art projects and I immediately was super nervous. It was a chatty group and there was a buzz of activity. I was worried that I wasn't a real quilter. I wasn't the right age group. Most seemed to be in their 60s or 70s. What if this was a terrible fit for me, even worse, what if I no longer fit anywhere? Everyone has had that feeling when you're at a party and you don't know anybody and you think, okay, here's my last moment where I'm still anonymous and I can still sneak out. While I didn't go or notice for very long, I was told to find a seat and that the meeting would start soon. Everyone was warm and friendly. They then did their announcements and one of the members demonstrated a technique. I settled in. Towards the end of the meeting, they drew attention to me. They asked me to stand up and introduce myself. My voice shook as I held up my work. I said something like, "I'm not traditionally in almost any way. My work's just art. It's all very mixed media. It's just whatever I need to express." It almost felt like an exit speech. One member had been shaking her head as I defended my super-attsy quilting if I could even call it quilting. She suddenly shouted out, interrupting me for just a second. She shouted, "Welcome home!" It took me by surprise and I could have cried right then and there. She both had no idea how much I needed to hear that. She hadn't been shaking her head at me for all the ways I was so wronged the group, all the ways I was breaking rules and being unique and being an artist first. All of those things were what made me fit in. She was shaking her head at everything I seemed to think was a bad thing. They then did show and tell. I hadn't experienced show and tell since I was a kid and I was so into it. It was so cool to see each member excited to share what they'd been making. Also different and full of stories and meaning. It was a quilt group so they were quilts, traditional and very not. But also one lady showed her tiny hand embroidered balls. Scrappy balls, she called them. Balls she stitched for her own mental health as she cared for her husband with Parkinson's. Another shed her highly detailed pen drawings. Patterns she drew across brown paper shopping bags. She also showed us a teeny tiny wooden tray and she had whittled by hand. Everyone clapped, stood up to see closer, ask thoughtful questions. One lady stood up and showed a painting of a bird on fabric, quilted. She was 91, she was working on a series of 20 or so. She had dreams of a solo show. I was just in awe. They were artists, they celebrated the individual creativity in each other. And that was the one and only thing that mattered. In January this year, after a year of attending, I did a full talk about my creative journey to this group. After years of bad social anxiety, I can't even believe I stood and talked to a room of people for an hour without even a script. I even projected my voice. I just did it somehow. It felt safe and I felt celebrated to be unique. The whole time they listened with so much care, at some point in my talk, I referred to those themes of home in my work, of wanting to fit in. The same lady that had shouted "Welcome home" a year ago, shouted again. She shouted "You don't need to fit in!" And this time I shouted back. "I know, but I want to, I'm an alien!" They all laughed, but I guess both things were true. You know, I actually have an alien registration card. I'm supposed to carry it with me at all times, this ID card. It actually labels me a permanent resident alien. It's so exactly how I feel. Permanent yes, but an alien don't forget. Nobody wants to be an alien, but maybe she's right, I don't really need to fit in. I just need somewhere where I feel welcome enough to do show and tell, and to show my work and tell my stories. And all it took was one person saying "Welcome home." We have explored a lot of the negative ripples in my story of growing up. But I really want to create positive ripples in my own parenting and out into the world. I want everyone to feel at least one part as sure of themselves as my first born dead when she was eight. I want nobody to lose themselves as thoroughly as I did. I want everyone to belong. I want creative people to thrive. To love their art. To love themselves. I've developed such a love for creative people over the years, and it's the reason that I made this podcast. For a while, Creative Pepp talk was a strategy podcast about how to survive as an artist. But as I found my way back to myself, it became about that too. How to express yourself and why it's so meaningful. These became a core component of this podcast. Over the past 10 years of doing this podcast, I have told so many stories and shared so many analogies, and I've done so because of the good ripples of other people. All those creative morning talks were just grown up show and tell, and it was people who knew that they were good, good enough to stand up and share their story despite still struggling through the heavy mess of it all. They stood up and they shared an expression of themselves, an expression of their experiences, and by doing so gave us permission to do the same. So there's nothing stopping you from sharing your own story. And listen, I really hope that you do, because we all need all the encouragement we can get to live more right side out. You love yourself and you love everybody else. And that's what I think. I think that's right. And you have your destiny. Yes. Thanks. You're welcome. Yeah, ready? Yep. Try to skip that one. Oh, good job. If you find me a flat one, I'll do one step. Good bye. Okay. So that's it. So what's next? Well, as you know, I have fallen madly in love with story, both live storytelling and talks and on stage and also in my picture books. I hope to do a lot more of that and maybe even bring some of those stories into new avenues that I haven't explored yet. Also, my wife, Sophie and I wrote and published a kids book called Invisible Things. It's an evolution of the daily character drawing project that I mentioned in an earlier episode in this series. And you know what happens every time we read that book to kids? They immediately ask for paper and markers and pens and start creating their own characters. That's the kind of contagious good ripples I'm talking about. Much love to our fiery firstborn. You are such a complete sweetheart and you inspire us so much and we adore you. Shout out to our other two kids. Of course, our middle kid, our son, who is the most gentle and stoic of our household. Today, actually, the day we recorded this podcast, he was awarded at school the fifth grade Eye of the Storm Award. And get this for hilarious synchronicity. And I quote, "Awarded for remaining calm in the middle of the most vicious of storms while others swirl around him, how he never gets swept up into the chaos. It is a mystery to us." End quote. I'm sorry, man. Sorry that you've had to learn how to find that calm, trans-like state in the midst of the chaotic storm that is our household. And of course to our youngest who is now nine, our tiny little world changer. She's so deeply empathetic and a brilliant actor and voted Happy Helper at school. Happy Helper is who you go to when you feel sad and need to be cheered up with pep talks. So a total chip up your block. Kid who is maybe afraid of nothing and nobody. So look out for that kid. Kind of like her big sister. Like to thank my mom again just for being you are such a force of love and positive energy and I'm proud to be like you. I'm sorry for when I was convinced otherwise and thank you for being on this podcast for your openness and your bravery. So thanks to my dad who wasn't a big character in this podcast series but it's been one of the biggest figures in my life. So thank you for being there. You made serious positive ripples in my life and I would not be the person I am without you. It took me until growing up a bit to see all the ways that I was also like you. And there's some of my favorite parts of myself, so I love you, Dad. And massive shout out and love to my older brother Josh, who has the same mom and dad as me, and was just there through everything. And was such a piece of my mom and my dad that was just always by my side and helped me get through a lot of tough times and helped me turn my life around on a couple occasions. And always there to give me tough love. So, love you Josh. Thanks for being new. Massive thanks to Yoni Wolfe and the band Why, the soundtrack of this series was their album AOK Ohio. And it is just an epic soundscape. I highly recommend it. The band Why has been in my top favorite bands of all time since college. And I cannot believe that I live in a reality where I got the privilege to collaborate at this level with that music. It is a serious lifelong dream unlocked. So, thank you. Massive thanks to Connor Jones, a pending beautiful for working overtime on this series, and making all of our audio editing and sound design dreams come true. We love you man. Thank you. Again, massive, huge, mongest thanks to my co-writer and the producer and editor of this series. My wife, Sophie Miller, this project is unlike anything I ever thought I would be capable of creating. And I could not have done it without you. You have elevated this and just it's honestly this has been something I didn't even imagine was possible working together like this. It's just been I started exploring and hopefully we'll do an episode soon where we talk through the pack because it was just just something else. So, thank you. You are such a good thing in my life. I love you Sophie. Thank you for listening. Thank you for the lovely reviews and comments and messages. If you got something from this series, will you pass it on to friends and family and let the good things ripple out? We really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Until we speak again, stay pepped up. [Music] Have you ever wondered what businesses are doing and should be doing to tackle climate change? And check out the award winning and chart topping podcast climate rising produced by Harvard Business School and hosted by me, Professor Mike Tauful. 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