Episode 0 - Pilot

You're tuning into the more than just words podcast hosted by Cleal and Monov. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. How are you, Monov? I'm awesome. I'm more of my blankets, coach. I'm living my best life. So this podcast is going to be a podcast about a conversation that Monov and I had at one point when we first met each other. Cleal was visiting the residents I live in at the University of Wadu, we're both of us study, and we were striking up a conversation. We both noticed just the way that we were conversing with each other. And for maybe two or three hours we were talking about just a language and a conversing and communication and discourse. And psycholog linguistics, I think that's the proper term that you would use. And then we got dinner a few days later and we went into more detail about language and just who we are. And now we're here for you today. Just a brief intro. My name is Khalil Mike Toto. I'm a podcast host for another podcast called What's Up Waterloo. I run a hackathon at the University of Waterloo called Stutterhacks. And I do various other things. I'm very deeply invested in the entrepreneur and tech space. Hi everyone, my name is Monov. I'm also a University of Waterloo. I'm currently working at CIBC right now in Toronto as part of my work terms. And in my free time I like to paint cups. I work like at SCARVS. I follow all things basketball. And I'm working on a mental health initiative that will hopefully kick off very soon at our University. And by now I think you can tell that we're both not experts in this. We don't have PhDs. We're still university students and we're both in very different fields. I'm in business and design and tech and you're in mental health and science and we're not exactly linguistic specialists. Are we? Not exactly. And why is it then that we're talking about linguistics and discourse and communicative education? Well, who's saying we shouldn't be talking about this? We're just doing this. We're picking it up. We're giving our best effort at it. The kind of the theme for this is that we're going to choose a topic for each of the weeks, each of the episodes, whether it's who know related to basketball, whether it's related to leadership, whether it's related to spaces. And we'll bring in some research that supports our evidence. And me and Cleo will kind of prepare on our own. And when the podcast starts, we're just going to very spontaneously see what if we can make something agile happen. So maybe let's dial it back a bit and let's talk about what exactly it is that we're doing right now. This is a podcast on communication, discourse, linguistics that all started out when Monovinae had a very lengthy conversation over dinner one night. We were talking to each other and we noticed that, hey, you and I have a lot in common. And Monov is a very introspective and self-observant person. And when you hear him talk, as I hope he'll be talking more after this, when you hear him talk, you'll notice that his words are very well thought of, very clean cut, precise, and very purposeful. Would you agree with that, Monov? I do what I can. And I realized that I do exactly the same. I like to think about my words. Monov, could you tell everybody about the story that you told me that one night about how you got into all this? I don't even know what to call it. All of this. All of this. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it can probably extend even beforehand, but for me, the most good moment was probably when I became a performer. So I used to face me like an magician. I would practice on my own time, perform card tricks or card effects for my friends. And this was back in grade, I guess, elementary school, even in high school. And it really made me think about interaction and people. And if you're performing something as a performer, whether you're a comedian, whether you're a musician, maybe even as an actor, you're very aware of how the audience is responding to your behavior. So I learned through interacting with hundreds of people who I was showcasing my effects to, friends, strangers, families, how they would interact and how they would respond. So I think that, for me, that was a starting point of, I guess, where this curiosity and where I started to acquire or develop this skill. And it's kind of, like Cleo said, just like this element of communication or interaction or discourse. So that's my side, but Cleo has a very, has his own very unique perspective, I guess, how we got here and maybe a story he wants to share as well. Do you want to take it away, Cole? Definitely. When I was younger, I used to be very insecure and unsure of myself. There were expectations of me that sometimes didn't really sit well with me. And I didn't know how to go about reacting to those things. Concently, with everything in my life, I was always questioning myself and questioning what I said. And I became more and more paranoid to the point that I started nitpicking every single word that I said, my body language. I had a class at one point that was talking about how when you turn yourself towards somebody in a conversation, you're actually showing that you're interested in them. And this one, this, this forced me down a rabbit hole where I became so self-aware about what I was thinking. And just to bring it back to the story that I was talking about a while ago, when I met Monov, until that point, I didn't know that anybody else thought about these things. I didn't know that there were other people who were so curious and so passionate about the language that they were putting out there and the language they were receiving at the same time. I thought it was alone. When Monov came around and showed me that it wasn't just me, I felt like, hey, we should have a podcast on this. We should talk about this. We should find everybody else who likes this kind of thing or wants to learn about this kind of thing. Put them all together in a platform where we can share and discuss our shared interest for communication. That was exactly the inception of our idea. And I think what you just got was a glimpse into the inner workings of Cleo and his thoughts. And you might notice that there's more, there's a lot of these different thoughts independently happening at the same time where they're trying to convey a message. So what I'm trying to say is basically me and Cleo are overthinkers and we're going to try making that very interesting. We're going to try sharing both of our unique perspectives on this. Me and him are trying to, we have a goal of keeping us under 10 minutes. So Cleo, how about we jump into some of the possible future topics that we have aligned for the next few episodes before wrapping it up? Fun fact for everybody in the audience. We tried recording this and we failed. We failed. I didn't check the audio that it was recording on his side. So it was just a bunch of me. So we were actually throwing out a bunch of topics that we were getting so excited and dung-ho about. The first one that I threw out was Warrior Locker Room Dynamics, Basketball, NBA, Y Teams Work, Y Teams Don't Work, and Monov had the biggest smile in his face. Oh man, you have no idea. I love basketball. I'm a huge Raptor Superfan and just the sport of basketball as a whole. So when I asked him what's the first episode you want to do and he said that basketball, I'll imagine you. That's how you make me happy. What are some other ones that we came about? That was the first one. And then I brought it into something that I'm very passionate about texting, communication, people making the first move. You know that moment when you're trying to text somebody new, you just met them and you're a little nervous. You want to text them the right thing. You want to throw out your best pick up line, make them laugh, make them feel like they want to keep talking to you. These are the kinds of things that everyone can relate to. Everyone has experienced at one point that little nervous energy, that excitement where you want to impress somebody, make them want to be with you and make them feel welcome and want to respond. These things are exactly what Monov and I think about, but to a bigger degree. We just bring in that paranoia of the conversation to everything else in our lives. We overthink everything. How are they going to receive this? How are they going to listen to me? What does it matter? So texting is something that we're definitely going to touch on. It could be a three-part series if we just keep rambling on and on. I think that would be a great thing to talk about. Anything else you want to talk about, Monov? Yeah, there was a few more. I think that we had agreed upon or that we were thinking. It's nothing as said in Stonia. But interviews is a big thing. So whether you're looking for a job, whether you want to join a club, whether you want to help organize one of the nation's biggest hackathons and starter facts and you're trying to find a team, interviews is something that's important to all of us. It still has to do with dynamics and communication. So I'm really interested in that. Given the idea of public spaces or people of influence in the media and our lives. Those are some some topics that I'm really looking forward to. I think we should end on that note. Thanks for being here, Monov. It was great to have you. It was awesome, and I hope everyone listening at home has been has been enjoying this. This is the pilot. This is the teaser. And we're looking forward to everything that's ahead. Thank you, Cleal. [MUSIC]