Yvonne
Guest
00:02
I feel like we're all kind of like in this mess of a you know, soul-searching situation, because we have committed so much of our life into work, hoping, thinking that it would give us some sense of satisfaction and purpose, and I think, at the end of the day, we're left with, you know, post-pandemic awakening which is like no, I think we need more than that. But what is it? For me, it is love. 

Ali
Host
00:46
Hello and welcome to the Ally Show. My name is Ali Eslamifar and I'm your host for the show. We're in our episode three, where we are chatting with Yvonne Leow. I got to know Yvonne originally to start like having some product conversations and see where we can collaborate, but very interestingly, our conversation had a shift toward mental health and she was one of the few folks who encouraged me to start this show. I also need to say that the timing of this episode is very interesting because I just recently came back from a very deep experience at Burning man, where I came back with this very interesting insight that the key to everything is to understand love, exercise love, give and receive love. The day after I came back from Burning man, I recorded an episode for my Farsi podcast about a loving kindness meditation, and as I was reviewing this episode with Yvonne, it was very mind-blowing to me that she also, like, touched on love as being the answer to a lot of things and made me even more excited to share this episode with you all. In our conversation we talk about some cultural relations to pain and how specific cultures look at pain differently, and I really resonated with it, since I'm also, like, coming from a culture where perfectionism and overachieving was something that really made me have a weird relationship with pain. This is definitely a very different view to how I was looking at mental health and pain. Please stay to the end of the conversation. There's a lot of interesting perspective that are being discussed from Yvonne. 

03:00
A little bit more about Yvonne. She's the CEO and founder of BeWilder, an environmental education company based in Los Angeles. They blend arts, games, storytelling and gear to create educational experiences for schools and families. Yvonne is a former journalist turned entrepreneur. She was an editor at the Associated Press, vox.com, the national president of the Asian-American Journalist Association and a journalist's flow at Stanford University. Bewilder participated in REI's Accelerator and has since inspired hundreds of students and parents to reconnect with nature. You can find her at Yvonne@BeWilder.Camp. 

03:49
As mentioned earlier in this conversation, we are talking about a very interesting relationship with pain and really seeking pain to gain and feel that you're achieving something. So if that's something that's a sensitive topic to you, please skip this episode and hopefully we're gonna see you in the next episode. Also, if you're suffering from any mental health issues, please contact your mental health or medical experts to get the support that you need. Yvonne's accountability campaign for this episode is to have a hike once a week for about a month. She will talk more about this in the end of this episode and, as always, you can find the links and the details to that campaign in the show notes as well. 

04:38
Now, without further ado, let's start this very interesting conversation with Yvonne Leow. 

We are here with Yvonne Leow, one of the most interesting people, actually. I got to learn after quitting my job, Thanks to the post I published on LinkedIn and thanks to Sara for actually connecting us. Sara, if you're hearing us, thank you. So we are here with Yvonne. She is the founder of BeWilder, which is a very fun, interesting company, which I don't talk too much. Without further ado, I pass it to you and please introduce yourself. 

Yvonne
Guest
05:24
Hey, thank you so much. My name is Yvonne, I'm based in Los Angeles. I'm the founder of BeWilder. I'm a solo founder, so that's been a very fun journey. We technically started it as a side project in 2020, but really started to take it more seriously last year, 2022. So BeWilder is an experiential retailer for outdoorsy families. Our entire mission is just to try and encourage more people to feel connected to nature and to spend time together outside. And yeah, we've learned a lot and when I say we, it's just me. I don't know what to say Like founder, just try to present as big as possible. But yeah, if it slips, that's what's going on and I actually I do take that back. I have an incredible team of supporters, people who work part-time, people that give me advice along the way, and that kind of makes this whole entrepreneurial journey worth it to me. But, yeah, excited to chat today. 

Ali
Host
06:27
Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here today. I actually I have a lot of people that I talk to like about mental health, but I got to say like every time you and I we were chatting on our calls because we started talking about product and then suddenly all of our conversations turned to like a mental health related conversation, which was so interesting to me and it was so natural. So I had a lot of interesting conversations with you and I was like I should definitely talk to you with the Ally show and thank you so much again for that. I want to also like tap into a little bit about like your story with BeWolder, because it resonated with me and like how my relationship was with nature. So, if you don't mind, like just sharing a little bit about that, like what kind of like, what was the encourager to start BeWolder in general for you? 

Yvonne
Guest
07:32
Yeah, so I grew up in Washington state but I was born in LA, lived in a very outdoorsy place, and I mentioned that because it was kind of funny that my family, yeah, never really got into the outdoors. But if I look back today it does make a lot more sense, because my mom's side of the family are refugees from Cambodia killing fields, and my dad's an immigrant from Singapore. Either way, culturally they were just not accustomed to recreating or relaxing in nature and so, not surprisingly, I did not grow up loving the outdoors. I remember having friends, you know, in high school and junior high who wanted to go camping, rock climbing, even mountain biking, and all of it just seemed dirty and dangerous even at that age, and I really didn't come to appreciate it until I went on my first backpacking trip when I was like 27 years old, because I even remember I tried camping with friends in Joshua Tree, maybe when I was in my early 20s, borrowed a sleeping bag, ended up being brutally cold, froze my ass off and did not have a good time at all. So I remember being like never going to do that again, and so I was actually quite surprised that by the time I moved to the Bay Area in my mid 20s and tried backpacking like how much I would love it, and there was a part of me that time that really enjoyed traveling. So the idea that I could walk somewhere and experience the spectacular landscape that I've never been able to see before, had I not walked there it was transformative. I think it was very satisfying. It was very peaceful. It was also really exciting as the one who enjoys experiencing new things, and so I went from zero to 100, going from that backpacking trip to the following year, hiking the John Muir Trail, which is 220 miles out in the Eastern Sierra, spent two weeks in the wilderness we're coming back to like cell phone reception and like receiving email notifications and Facebook notifications on my phone, and it felt so bizarre. That was the first time. I was like, wow, actually the life that I'm living is quite foreign if you were to step out of it long enough. And then, from there, I learned how to ski at the age of 30. 

10:02
I committed some more mountains and in February of 2020, I actually had this all women mountaineering expedition planned, and to the top of Aconcagua, which is in Argentina. It's the tallest mountain outside of the Himalayas. The day of the summit. I remember watching the sunrise in the distance started out in darkness because you should start walking at like 2am and all you see are just like this, like light string of headlamps, like on this dark mountain side. And then when the light starts to burst through the sky, it almost moved me to tears just to see the way the light like illuminated the earth. And I was so moved like I didn't fully understand like how much effort I had taken into getting my body up that mountain, how hard it felt emotionally and physically, and yet how profoundly transformative and important it was for me to like experience this, because I knew I would never experience it again. It was just like I knew this moment was gone. The moment I had it and I came off of that mountain being like wow, more people need to have a taste of that. I know I'm not going to start convincing people to go on a three week mountaineering expedition, so how do I just get more people to start hiking and camping? And that was the seed of the boulder and it was a side project Started out as an email newsletter. 

11:51
My background is in journalism and digital media, so the content side was like much more intuitive. It was very easy for me to spin up something and we grew really quickly. In the first week I had like 2000 subscribers. I posted it in front of a lot of Facebook groups and it coincided with COVID. So, right like that's when the newsletter started to really take shape and I kind of backed into it because I didn't really understand how, like what I was exactly offering, when, all of a sudden, all these people signed up. So I remember that feeling of being like, oh, this is what it feels like to go quote, unquote, viral or to sign some type of product market when, like, all of a sudden, these random people are signing up for this newsletter that I talked about but had not actually written. And so it was a weird time and we all lived through like the next year and a half. 

12:40
Right, I experimented and learned more about the outdoor industry at that point, was, like, very interested in trying to explore the outdoor industry and transitioned away from journalism, but was mainly consulting at the time. And then, in 2022, I got into the REI accelerator program that introduced me to like the real retail side of the outdoor industry and out of that accelerator I started to see there's an opportunity to dip into experiential retail and turning what we would imagine like these big box retailers today into more like live event venues or something that felt more interactive, like an activation center versus purely like a place to shop and resupply or buy things. And so, yeah, that's kind of what we're prototyping even today, and except the one nuance is that we're now focused on families, so parents with kids, particularly under six years old, we're organizing prototype events or pop up events for them. So just really narrow our audience and really figure out, okay, what does this look like if we wanted to scale 

Yvonne
Guest
13:49
What you know, what is this prototype, etc. So that's where bewilder's at. 

Ali
Host
13:55
That is super exciting. You said a lot of great things. Just not to forget this, I think people who are tuning in, they should definitely check out your website because going through, like you share some of the pictures and examples with me just like seeing those kids and the families coming to those campsite, experiencing those even for a few hours, like just seeing those pictures, was really an emotional moment for me. I personally, as I talked to you before, like I also like had the similar experience as yours where I was exposed to nature very late in my life. I started snowboarding in my 30s. Like very similar again. 

14:39
And it's and like the moments and I say it always to the friends that would go snowboarding the moment I get to the top of the mountain and want to come down, I'm like how did I miss this for the past 35 years in my life? And like this is the most peaceful moment. And you are saying about that sunset moment, the sunrise moment, and I'm like that I exactly know what she's talking about, especially when you learn about that so late in the life. I want to tap into that moment because I think there's something interesting to those kind of moments in our lives that when we start, like, appreciating nature, we see a lot of them. What is it in those moments? What in those moments do you think makes them so special for us? 

Yvonne
Guest
15:38
I think it's because they feel transcendent. 

15:42
You feel simultaneously infinite and small, like you know, irrelevant, almost You're part of something so much bigger than yourself. 

15:56
And all of this sounds cliche, but there are actually very few times in life that you really get to feel like, oh, I'm part of this project called, like humanity, or you know what I mean, or I'm part of this earth, like at the end of the day, I'm going to go back into the earth and everything's going to just like continue marching on, and there's something simultaneously sad and heart-wrenchingly beautiful about that. 

16:26
And so the subtext I think of all these outdoor experiences is like this is kind of where we belong, and to be able to put ourselves in those spaces where our eyes, like never rest on a wall and they can just see and, you know, go on for miles and miles and miles until it hits the sun, like that's not our day to day experience, mostly like living in a city, for instance, and I think we actually separate ourselves from that more and more. So I think that's why it probably feels particularly special, but I do feel like I don't ever get enough of it, like I haven't really peaked on the number of like sunrises and sunsets I've been able to witness and I'm like, oh, this one looks the same. I don't feel anything. There's something really spectacular and awe inspiring about the site that I feel like at the end of the day reminds me of like what it means to be human. 

Ali
Host
17:32
And, if you don't mind, I actually want to take a U-turn to a conversation we had earlier before start recording, because we both are coming from a trip and I think it was very interesting to me how you also described, and we kind of talked about, what happened after. Covid was interesting. What's your take on how we are reconnecting to the nature and what COVID did to this kind of like new view of us about reconnecting to the nature? 

Yvonne
Guest
18:10
Yeah, for better or for worse, I think COVID halted a lot of our daily routines. It hurt me too in some senses, because I had this tendency to book travel like trips, whether it's domestic, whether it's international. Something I realized was like keeping me motivated in life just to be able to have a trip on the horizon and be like all right, I have this trip planned, I'm going to work towards it, and that could be like another expedition, like I remember in 2020, I really wanted, coming off of Akankangua, to go to the Himalayas later that fall and just like, continue this momentum of climbing big mountains. That didn't happen. It still hasn't happened. 

18:50
But I think you know everyone experienced like the shared trauma of having to shut down, sit tight and experience the true chaos and uncertainty that, I think, is life. No one knew what was happening for many months. People were dying. I think it. Yeah, I think there's no other way to stare down like the barrel of existence than to experience a pandemic like that together. So there was no guarantee that having a relationship to nature was going to be the outcome, but it did turn out that spending time in nature was one of the safest ways to socialize and I think, at the end of the day, this is only and you know, this interaction where we're zooming right now right can only take us so far and I think people will, you know, ultimately miss that intimacy, like the sweatiness of other humans, the sense, the touch, like all of the senses, because, again, like those things make us feel alive and, yeah, not coincidentally like being outside and confronting those elements is like another way of feeling that aliveness. 

20:08
I don't remember which author wrote something like this, but it was something along the lines like, for an introvert, the experience of feeling rain is like similar to feeling touched, something along those lines. 

20:27
I'm slaughtering it. But when I read that I was like, yeah, that's such a beautiful way, and obviously a little desolate and lonely, but of describing what nature can provide, especially if you were kind of you know, living alone at the time, or it just kind of forced a lot of people to like do some proper soul searching, because we could have distracted ourselves the same way anymore and I know we all still found tick, tock or other types of activities, but it still wasn't enough. It's not the same as driving to work every day, chatting with coworkers working, and then doing it all over again. You know, I think that actually took up a big chunk of our lives, was doing just that, and so if you found out all of a sudden you're working at home and you didn't really love the work that you did, it made no sense. It's like why would I keep doing this? I guess, yes, economically it still pays the bills to an extent, but if you had a choice, I think a lot of people chose not to. 

Ali
Host
21:40
What we are observing and we briefly also talked about this as well where a lot of the people we know a similar age. They are right now like either quitting their jobs or like they're trying to reassess what they're doing, what they have started a few years ago. Should I continue it? Is it what I really need to do? Is it the meaning of my life? Like in my own case and I want to be clear here like I'm doing this, this is now my job and I'm not making money from it. 

22:14
But this is really where I started feeling, oh my god, like all these and I have been working in tech since I was 18. And I'm like I spent half of my life in tech. Is it really what I want to continue doing? I mean, it can be a good tool and I may get back to it someday as like a way to build something. I don't know, but is it really what I've been meaning to do? Is it really fulfilling me? Like I'm dealing with a lot on a daily basis due to like everything in the past and like is it really healing me, or is it pushing me to the side to just have something to hide rather than really start looking inside, I see that in a lot of people and I don't know like, if you have anything to also like, add to this. Please feel free. 

Yvonne
Guest
23:09
Yeah, I think this is like the myth that millennials probably started with our generation was sold. Was that meaning derived from work and myself included, like I can also make this argument like, oh, bewilder is something I enjoy, I believe in. Like obviously, it has like a very personal origin, but so much of my like commitment to bewilder is because I've been able to really challenge myself and learn and grow as a person by using bewilder as like a vehicle for putting myself and creating scenarios at which challenge and grow for me. I don't think my source of purpose and meaning actually come from bewilder, from like the fact that this company exists In fact, I think you'll hear from a lot of founders is like it might not be recommended for you to attach your self worth to work, but I know that growing up, I wanted to make a difference Like I wanted to join. 

24:14
I became a journalist. That was like one of the most mission driven vocations you could possibly pick and I really believed it for like many, many years, honestly, up until like the 2016 presidential election. I think that totally rocked my worldview, but I think a lot of people especially those like knowledge workers who joined tech companies, who are also like realizing that selling this mission or this greater vision of wanting to change the world and really seeing that this technology could touch so many people, could be a really attractive way to lure top talent or you know, recruit top talent. 

24:54
I just think that it's like a huge mistake for all of us to try and find meaning from work. 

25:01
And you know, one thing that I didn't mention earlier, that I want to mention now is that I think it's very prevalent also in our product marketing. Like you see this in CPG brands a lot, especially with like this whole climate movement and a lot of environmental awareness and like go green, etc. But you see some of these brands like kind of adopt these, like sustainability campaigns and all of a sudden you're kind of like say, with life, eat a bar or like you know, support, support like International Women's Day by buying Hershey's. Some of this is, if you step away from it, it's purely deranged. It's just capitalism doing its thing, trying to like sink its teeth into culture and like convince people to buy things, but just because it has like a more values driven marketing approach, like God bless anyone who wrote that product marketing very clever, but it is ubiquitous, like I see it everywhere. And I think I see it everywhere because it's obviously working. 

26:05
And I think why it works is because we are also a generation that's growing up without an anchor of religious belief. I think religiosity is like noticeably in decline. I think we're seeing all these different like offshoots of spirituality kind of emerge in city life, san Francisco, la but it doesn't have like the same type of authority or the same contours as, like Christianity or Catholicism or, you know, some of these like mainstream religions that used to blanket society. It used to, you know, make sure everyone felt that this was the shared purpose. You went to church, you raised a family, you did a job and we could argue, you know, that was its own shared myth and it's only been, you know, in some ways like evolved or coopted by corporations. But I do feel like, yeah, I don't think it belongs in companies. 

27:07
I think this over this source of purpose and meaning at the individual level or even like a community level, shouldn't emerge from companies. I also don't, and I don't think that's like a very popular idea. I think most people are now expecting companies to take a stand, which is different. I think, like social responsibility is important, but I don't. I feel like we're all kind of like in this mess of a, you know, soul searching situation, because we have committed so much of our life into work, hoping, thinking that it would give us some sense of satisfaction and purpose, and I think, at the end of the day, we're left with, you know, post pandemic awakening which is like no, I think we need more than that. But what is it? We don't know. 

Ali
Host
28:03
Do you, do you have a hypothesis or theory around what it can be? 

Yvonne
Guest
28:10
For me it is love. I think love is actually a very essential idea that I think, at the end of the day, is is is equally transcendent, and it doesn't necessarily mean romantic love. I think it's love at the core of being able to put something or someone else above your own needs. And because you're able to do that and really try and see that other person or the other thing in its fullness, it feels very meaningful. Again, you're kind of reaching towards like this higher order version of you, not the one that's like. You know, I didn't get any sleep today. I need to go exercise. Like the day to day bullshit of being alive and just trying to maintain yourself. You know what I mean. Nothing about that feels honorable to me, but there's something really honorable when you're like serving someone, serving an idea, serving a person, an animal maybe. 

Ali
Host
29:33
For me, it's all about connecting to people, connecting to the nature, it's all about connecting and. 

29:41
I think we're all in this search of our consciousness, whether we believe it or not, and we can only find it and I'm the meditation dude, so I have to believe this way. But we search it through connecting to the moment. And the best way to connect to moment is to really go deep into what you can love in that moment, what you can connect to and what you can be really emotionally and with all your emotions and your sensations, be connected to that thing. And that's how I resonate with love, where you can eventually love being with a dog in a moment and like really taking care of that dog in such deep level that and in fact that's the only thing that matters at that point and it makes it the most lovely moment of the day if you can really get those moments. I want to also like start tapping into your story of mental health, your story of pain, if you have anything to share with us today, and maybe we can go from there. Does that sound good to you? 

Yvonne
Guest
31:27
Yeah, sure, absolutely. So my relationship to pain is interesting. I guess I'm a type of person that enjoys pain. I enjoy pain. So I, yeah, like I actually had a conversation with my coach like a month ago, and she was like she recommended the book Existential Kink, of which I have not read, but it's on hold at the library. But the idea is that, you know, we derive pleasure from pain and, as someone, as she noticed, as I understand myself to be is like someone who enjoys the pain because I think the payoff on the other side is so revelatory and has always been so deeply meaningful and fulfilling on the other end of it. The Mounier experience is just like one example of that. 

32:21
I think, however, I can take that to like pretty perverse degrees, and so I'm also trying to literally just think about, like how do I just do things that make me quote unquote happy? And I use quote unquote because I'm not it's not a familiar lens that I adopt of like optimizing for happiness. But I think one of the challenges I'm experiencing relative to the question of pain is that I will often, you know, ignore physical pain in the spirit of achieving like a more mental goal, whether that's mowneering, running a marathon, doing a triathlon, like these are things I've done and I've experienced, like the mind over matter, like there's a moment where your mind just takes over. You don't feel anything at the end and then it's incredible. It's like this incredible infinite feeling. You're like, oh my God, all this pain has left my body and I'm like sprinting down the last two miles of a marathon. 

33:24
But I think there are other parts, like when I'm in a relationship or experiencing physical intimacy, I can feel disconnected from my body and it becomes like a very heady experience and I think that has a lot to do with actually present. That might be more of like where I would like to focus on less about happiness, but I'm trying to not like dip into this intellectualization of pain and really react and listen to everything as basic, as like do I need to pee right now? I'm my thirsty, like what do my, what does my body need in this moment? And how do I just like say it as a way to just be more in touch with, like the psychosomatic, versus just embracing or creating pain for the sake of compartmentalizing that pain and then overcoming it, which historically was like a you know, an ambition, if not just like a regular occurrence of life. 

34:29
I think an example of this would be instead of choosing like a very hard nine to 10 mile hike, I might choose like a three to four mile hike and that'll be okay, instead of being like, oh, if I start a hike, I need to reach the end and whatever it takes, you know what? Maybe I only have enough time to do two to three miles and I'll just have to turn back. That was worth it. I think there was definitely a little bit of like an achiever mindset, complimented with like this loving of pain and like thinking pain is gross. And now it's more about just like enjoy the present and really, yeah, experiencing the present versus having it be like inflicted with pain. 

Ali
Host
35:23
Interesting. So, if I understood it correctly, the way you used to experience, for example, like going on hikes and long mile of hikes, it was to actually get that pain, it was to feel the pain in the end, right? 

Yvonne
Guest
35:44
Or like close yourself. It was to feel like you grew and you feel like, oh, this was productive. 

Ali
Host
35:49
Oh, due to that overachieving sort of pain is sometimes in the process. 

Yvonne
Guest
35:54
Like you sweat, you push, you experience some physical pain. Interesting In order to like yeah, feel like, oh, this was worth my time. 

Ali
Host
36:03
So that was the signal. That was kind of like the confirmation for you that you did, you achieved something Is that worthwhile. This was worthwhile. 

Yvonne
Guest
36:12
Yeah, if it was hard and I was able to over overcome it. But yeah, now I'm at the point where, even with entrepreneurship which like stepping away from physical pain and more focused on just like the emotional pain, I'm better understanding like what my I'm understanding what my needs are as an entrepreneur to stay like emotionally fulfilled without feeling so drained and you know, that's kind of what I quite emotional pain to is like I've got nothing left to give, because I literally give it everything. There have been days where I've just like pushed myself to the max where didn't get enough sleep Eight poorly, didn't take the time to exercise, was sitting at this computer 12 hours, if not longer, consistently in order to just like move the company needle, and obviously that was like a path to burnout. But I think where I've realized like entrepreneurship becomes generally more effective is not in those types of sprints, but really figuring out more of like, in my view, like a lifestyle, and figuring out exactly okay, what do I need to like really replenish my energy right now? When should I just stop working because things are going to get sloppy, intellectually, emotionally, I'm just too tired to do good work. And how do I? Yeah, how do I find other ways that have no productive purpose but could actually, in some you know alternative way, make me more productive. So an example of that is like for a time I've been traveling recently. For part of that, I like went on a hike every morning from like six to nine, yeah, and it was amazing. And I didn't deferred every meeting until 10am and I found myself like easily cruising to like 6pm because I just had two or three hours in the morning where I literally went to Angeles National Forest and did like a proper hike, not even like Griffith Park, but, yeah, went out there and did a hike and I guess that I didn't always finish and there was no you know goal in the hike, it was just simply stepping out, going to someplace that I knew I loved and allowing myself to have it like, to experience it. And I feel that way. 

38:43
A lot about mental health too. It's not sure how much of it is mental health as much as it is about giving ourselves permission to like do the things we want to do, and that might be bad. Quote unquote like I just told you last night earlier that I spent all night watching YouTube videos, and I would mean all night, I mean from like midnight to 5am on a Tuesday Like it makes no sense from like any functioning adults standpoint, but I don't really care. Like I think that's something entrepreneurship has taught me too, because it's so much of creating something new is figuring out new frameworks and patterns and processes for what you need in order to be the vessel and create something new, and so it makes no sense to follow like an optimization framework that's designed for like someone working in a different role or someone that's just not you, and I would recommend that for people who are night owls or morning people. I guess this is my philosophy. 

39:56
I'm not an optimizer in that sense and I know some people are actually had a conversation with someone today about this and I think it would be impossible to summarize like the chaos of LA in a spreadsheet, and I think the fact that we try and do that with our life is, it seems, silly. Like I think it's different to write down goals but to like really systematically optimize certain things. I think it's actually just like our attempt to try and enact control over what is a very chaotic existence, but we see it everywhere, like I think I see it in like the R ring. I see it in like so many things that we're tracking. I was just watching a YouTube video with, like the Apple VR headset and honestly I was like how does it dope? Like it tracks your eyes and you're moving the mouse with your eyeball. Did you know that? 

Ali
Host
40:56
Yeah, the 2024, we are waiting for it, yeah. 

Yvonne
Guest
40:59
Yeah, and like you're using your fingers and every time they like do a wide cut of like a woman, like using it, I was like that does look ridiculous and tragic, but I still want to try it. Like you know why I would want to try it? Because I'm tired of like experiencing the world through this, so maybe it feels a little bit easier instead of getting, like you know, arthritis or whatever through typing it a key part. 

Ali
Host
41:28
Carpal tunnel yeah carpal tunnel. 

Yvonne
Guest
41:30
Why not just like use my eyeballs to death? But I guess, I guess there's a part of me that's like yeah, this is the wave that we're all writing, but there's another part of me that's like what happened to just like experiencing thing and like intuiting it, versus having to like really always figure out, like, is my mental health at 100%? Did I do the right or wrong thing? I still think those are the right questions to be asking. I think, like, yeah, judging it in those pretty harsh and stark terms, it's kind of problematic, I would say, and I think that's the problem that I see with, like, the question of mental health. 

Ali
Host
42:23
It is aligned with a lot of other conversations I had recently where I see that a lot of folks are trying to get out of some of these standards that, for whatever reason, has been created for us in the past many years, and we're like trying to say what? Who said this is good or bad? Like, what is good or bad? Like just what are these fine lines that we are defining? Like I am entitled, I can have a bad day. It's okay if I have a bad day. It's okay if I have a bad day, it's okay if I have. I'm a little bit out of the balance today and watching this TV series, for whatever reason, I'm doing. Like I feel like we went too far and maybe this is also where why I started this podcast. I think we went too far with, like trying to standardize everything and we moved away from actually talking about how real we're living. Like yes, I told you right before this call that I had a shitty day today. I wanted to cancel this call and like I think saying that really made me even feel so much calmer, because then I didn't have to fake the emotions that you see in my face. Like, now I'm myself. Like by just being myself. I actually, if anything, that was the best thing today that helped my mental health and my emotions by just being honest and transparent and saying, hey, this is me. Today I wanted to cancel this call, but this is my last hope of the day to get some energy back from this conversation. 

44:12
I think we went too far to just try and this is what is also, like I think is wrong with Bay Area companies. With all the respect, Like there's a lot of faking happening. You tapped on some of the PR matters that like, yeah, environmental friendly. The same thing also like happens. Like everyone has to be bubbly at work, like everyone has to say hey, how are you, how was your day? I don't want to talk about my day today. Like you, see it on my face. See it on my face please Sometimes try instead of just asking the fake, random questions. So I think this really resonates with some of the things that I heard recently, some of the things I observed. I also want to go and ask you like because it's interesting that you mentioned this relationship with pain that's come from overachieving. I want to know a little bit about that, If you don't mind. Like, what was the root cause of this overachieving character that you think you had, that now you overcome. 

Yvonne
Guest
45:20
I'm not sure I've overcome it. Let's be honest, like I think there's still. The overachieving is probably fueled by fear, rejection or failure and like not having spent more time like dissecting. Like the core of that I'm sure it has something to do with like a lot of my self worth at a very young age was created by overachieving. So people noticed me. I started have a voice because I was an overachiever. I did well in school, I did well in swimming. I started getting social validation for it, people started becoming my friend and like things really did open up as a result of the overachieving. But I think it overachieving right is inferring that there's like a bit of an extreme, and I do think that's kind of where I went was like all of a sudden and I was signing up for every activity just to get into like an Ivy League college and which I didn't get into. As a result, like I think it actually again like very counterproductive to actually getting the things we want. Some of it is just showing up as we are. 

46:31
And I would say one thing I wanted to quickly add to the point that you were touching on earlier was, I think, like this question of mental health like we. It's exhausting because also that we feel like it's always on us and so part of like that artificial environment of walking into a company and feeling like we have to, like you know, pretend that we're doing well. It also is implying that, like, whatever your problems are, you have to deal with on your own and you know we don't want to see it like, we don't want to talk about it and in some ways I get it and I don't quite know, like even developing of the welder's culture, like where these, how these conversations can like safely be exchanged, like we're not working together. You know what I mean If I need you to deliver something today and you're depressed, what, what happens, like there's like a ripple effect of consequences that is just like the real demands of a business. But I had that story that I wanted to share with you from, like the CEO PepsiCo that I saw on a TikTok. 

47:44
So I only felt like saw like a quick two minute segment of it, but I thought it was very insightful, which she described how as a woman, indian woman she could not have it all, even though she's like running one of these fortune five companies or whatever Fortune 100 companies, and she is like, first of all, you develop coping mechanisms as a way to deal with that. And you know, I don't know if my two daughters will think I'm like the best mom ever, but ways in which I've been able to do the CEO job PepsiCo, which is like three jobs in one, via mom, which is another separate job, as well as like a daughter and a partner. I've actually recruited, you know, people around me, for instance, like her assistant, so that anytime her daughter calls and was like, hey, I want to walk, I want to play 30 minutes of Xbox, her assistant will actually then go through a script. I'm being like oh, you want to play 30 minutes of Xbox. Have you done your homework yet? Have you practiced piano? Have you done this? Okay, you can go play 30 minutes of Xbox. So in some ways, she's actually like outsourced parenting, or you could see it that way, or you could say she's like recruited people in her life to like really create an environment to help her thrive in her role, and I think that's actually what's missing in American society today. I thought it was amazing that she had kind of embedded parenting into the workplace like that. And you know, I'm sure there's like a richer conversation to be had about, like how kosher that is or how you know. 

49:28
Many people can't probably do that, but I really like that idea that we are not solely responsible for like figuring out all of our shit, and it's not just us and our therapist, but it's also us like making sure and also helping to design like an environment in which we know what we need and we can empower people to support us. So I think, even in you telling me like hey, I'm depressed today and I didn't want to do this call, that information alone is an exchange where you're inviting me to not only better understand you but hopefully support you. Try not and be like Ali, why aren't you more productive today? Like how are all the meanings that you missed? Like I'm not going to give you a hard time for it, for instance, like a very easy example. And so I think something I've been thinking about more especially as a solo founder is like how can I not just create a community? 

50:28
Because I think my fear with community is that there's often like this reaction to conform, to like share the same inside jokes, to behave a certain way, to all have the same hobbies, to all listen to the same music, but rather like create an environment of trust with you, know different styles of communication, different styles of life, but help the people understand who I am and also invite them to help me achieve you know some of my objectives. 

51:03
Or like dreams in life, my goals and my wishes, or just to bring the best side out of me, and some people aren't capable of that. Like I would love my mom to be that figure in my life. She's someone I've tried over and over again. She can't be that in the way that I need, but it really does start with self awareness, and so maybe that is like the promising nature of like the work that we're all doing today is better understanding. What does Ali need today in order to like hop on this final call? You know what does Yvonne need, and maybe it's binging a bunch of YouTube videos last night in order to feel you know, I don't know, I don't even know exactly what I needed at the time, but I think that type of perspective isn't really talked about in terms of like. Can that trickle down to like other employees, not just the CEO of PepsiCo to like really design a work life that makes sense for her? What do you think? 

Ali
Host
52:04
This is like, and in a way I can go back to my culture and in a way this is like where we used to knock on neighbors door and say, hey, do you have two tomatoes that we can get from you, instead of buying, instead of going all the way to the supermarket or grocery store and pick whatever we wanted, and next night they were coming at our door and they're like can we borrow two? X? I'm like sure, yeah, great. And I kind of feel like, through the years and like by being westernized, the way that a lot of middle eastern countries are dealing with right now, that thing is actually going away. Like I don't hear. I mean it still happens in some cities and some areas. And I feel like for our North American listeners, like this is going to be like, hey, people do that, yes, they do it. And like I feel like this is what the western culture is missing in general. 

53:10
And this is a simple example, but like what I hear from your point is you can extend it technically to anything mental health or like life related. Like hey, I'm just not feeling good today. Knock on the door of the neighbor. Hey, do you want to go on a walk with me neighbor, like just, I just want someone to walk with me today around the area for 30 minutes and maybe we chat, maybe we don't, and like in return I'm hoping that first of all they're walking with me to I will do it for them next time Like that sense of and I like how you're trying to like remove that pressure of community from it, because when you, when you put the label of the community, a lot of expectation comes up. 

Yvonne
Guest
53:59
Yeah. 

Ali
Host
54:00
And I think those are not necessarily the solution, whereas, like no, it's simply I want someone to be accountable to what I want to do and help me with what I need right now, right now, and I will eventually help them for sure. Like, if I get a help now, I'll do help in return, without committing to their religion or without committing to their theories or whatever. I just need to get this a project done and I will help them with their B project. That's it, and I think that that's that's. That's missing a lot. I can tell like I don't have that almost with anyone right now. 

Yvonne
Guest
54:41
I don't either. Maybe, like one close girlfriend, formerly two, you know what I mean Like I think, yeah, I think it's tough. I think it's, though, I think, where people end up finding, especially what you start having kids which I don't at the moment is like you really end up relying on your partner and your spouse to be that source of support which I know. Again, I also don't think it's entirely fair. It's it's like more meaningful than just a friend, but it's also more casual than just a friend. Like there's just got to be something that helps us like in the everyday, but I'm not sure many people would say that they want it. I'm not sure. Like I'm not sure people will say like, yeah, this is what I'm looking for. 

55:34
I hear that there's like a craving for community and I hear that there's like an epidemic of loneliness. But coming into that, I think people still have to do the work of an understanding who they are. What are we actually looking for? And do I actually have the depth and the curiosity to like really understand Ali? And not to the point where, like we need to be best friends and see you every day, but, like you know, if he says something, it makes an off color joke. I understand the intent or like I just trust. I just trust you know, I understand who this person is. It will I have like the time or the vulnerability to like do that relationship building and I just don't feel like we have it. It's often like place in the romantic realm, Like that's why you would be motivated to share, but there's little. It feels like less and less platonic opportunity, especially within like close geography. Suggest like develop those connections, but maybe you're not trying hard enough. I don't know. 

Ali
Host
56:53
It's very biased. Right now, still like my question is very biased. Let me rephrase it. 

Yvonne
Guest
56:57
What's wrong with the bias? 

Ali
Host
56:59
Because I feel like I feel like I have a bias here, where I think the current war there, we have high expectation from everyone yeah, they're either with us or they're not, and we end up being alone because we just raised the bar of having safe friends safe friends and not best friends. We raise the bar for having friends in general and, as a result, we don't have best friends, we don't have safe friends, whereas we could have safe friends. We don't have to be so close to them, and I think it's just the root cause here. The underlying root cause here is high expectations. What do you think of that? 

Yvonne
Guest
57:47
I definitely agree. I've had experiences with certain people who just had higher expectations of what it means to be a friend and I felt very unseen in the expectation, especially as a founder. And they may not be working like you know, storing their own company. My time is more limited, my energy is more limited, but if you ever come calling in a time of need, like I, will be there. You know. I think that's the way I like to show up for some of my people, but not everyone appreciates that. Some people love like the regular check-ins and I don't actually have an appetite for regular check-ins Like most of my good friends know that they don't need to nurture like hey, vaughn has a go in today or this week or even it's like every few weeks, check in on me and we can do a think up once a month and we can pick up exactly where we left off. But I personally have come to realize exactly what you're saying is that I don't know if it's a collective you know raised expectations, but I have encountered people who have defined friendship in this very specific and, I think, a very narrow way and it ultimately kind of appeases their own insecurities is like my most cynical read on that, which is like you're not actually seeing me, as me, like, some friends are like the globetrotters, some friends are like the photojournalists. They're out of town, they're doing, they're working, they're working on their passion, and it might not be like this local neighbor that you want to rely on at all times, but I think that's where, like, that sense of love comes in, and my definition of love is like being able to just appreciate people for who they are, versus trying to project our expectations onto them. 

59:38
I think there's another interpretation. I'm not sure you know, it's not based on any data, but I think we just live in like a very, you know, hyper social media era where it's just super important to be seen as living a successful life. I think, you know, many people in the millennial generation are starting to come off of Instagram, but we definitely, kind of like rose, we grew up with the rise of Instagram and like how important it was to be perceived in a certain way. I mean you just look at LinkedIn. Spend any time in LinkedIn. It's just like I don't know how many people are being very authentic on there. It's just like a constant stream of promotion. You know what I mean, like personal announcement to make that it's like, okay, it's so up level, this is so inane, but there's no space, like even in Twitter, there's no space for these type of authentic conversations. I think even on the internet I think it's, you know, life, journals gone. Whatever spaces we had to have like more real heart to heart debate conversation, they've all felt it's just all become like a much more polarizing environment. That definitely feeds into that thesis. 

01:00:59
Also, the hyper independence, I think, the cultivated, and how you raise a family, how you succeed in the workplace. People are starting to come around to it. But like live, spend any time in New York and that place will make you like either a bitch or a son of a bitch. You know what I mean. Like it, really, in order for you to survive in that environment, you kind of have to like grow some thick skin, bold those your way, walk faster. You know you can't be smiling at every person that passes you by. It's exhausting, right. Like so some things is just like, the environment induces it and other things I think. 

01:01:38
I think, culturally, we're in a time too that has exacerbated some of these tendencies to the point where people are not only feeling entitled to being seen in a particular way, they're also expecting other people to behave in a particular way too. 

01:01:59
And despite how diverse like all these channels have allowed all these voices to emerge, I feel like there's still at least an armilio like this strata of middle class, upper middle class, knowledge worker. There's a there's a strong tendency to behave and conform and I'm thinking of tech too, and I think media is like tangential to that. I haven't really found like enough a lot of conversations around it and I'm sure all of it and is then reinforced by, like this social, economic side of it. There's like this is how successful people be. These are the stories we tell about them. If you want to make it at the top, you have to be cutting, you have to be relentless, you have to be you know. So, yeah, I don't know if that's like a clear cut answer, but I do feel like the amalgamation of all these variables like tribute to the society that we're in today and, yeah, it's something to think about. 

Ali
Host
01:03:02
I'm tempted to dive a little bit into the media slash, social media side, just due to your amazing background there and your expertise there. I'm wondering if you think there's it, there's a way to stop this. Because I see, I see social media and I didn't want to mention this earlier to create a bias into this conversation but, frankly, like this is where I see also social media exaggerating this problem, where if I say I have a show, I have a podcast, I have to have thousands of followers and if I don't, that means I'm not enough. Like just going back to the root cause again, like that overachieving discussion that we had. I, I had it within my experience, I had it within my culture and we're always like we have to be the best at everything. We have to. 

01:04:09
If you have a podcast, it has to be the Tim Ferriss podcast, otherwise you're not successful. If you're going to school, it has to be the Ivy League school, otherwise you're not going to school. If you are having a friendship or a friend group, they have to be the ones that are going to the coolest events or whatever and posting, otherwise you don't have a friendship. And I feel like when you go even into those people's lives and I had, I had the chance to have friends who are in the cool kids Community and like really seeing their lives from close View. I still see they. Still they still feel they are not having the cool life and I feel like this problem is exaggerated by the social media and like the expectations Created within social media, intentionally or intention or unintentionally, I don't know, but what is your view on that given? I know you should have a lot of opinion here, or I'm guessing I Was just thinking, like to your point. 

Yvonne
Guest
01:05:19
I remember watching the Lex Brayman interview with Kanye West and Kanye mentioned, like in that Some time frame between this three-hour conversation, that he felt not cool enough and like, or he felt like he was getting iced out from all the cool kid and I was blown, blown away. The fucking Kanye West could feel like this sense of like, damn, I'm not cool enough to like ride with the cool kids, whatever in that social strata that the cool kids are maybe who's JD and Beyonce, I don't even remember. But he just articulated that sentiment that you just shared, which is like, I guess, if I'm not doing cool things with my friends, like, or they're not cool friends, that it may be I'm not cool and I just hope I don't know. I would love to blame social media. I would love to blame, like, all these technologies. I think there's like a part of me that is reluctant to do that, partly because it makes me sound like this old person that's like all those batter back in the day. I think there's just like we have this very inherent human tendency to compare, this very inherent human tendency to To socialize, like, try categorize people, to judge. 

01:06:43
I do think you know, being confronted with so many images and ideas of what a good life is it, it cancels our ability to just spend some time thinking about what it means to us. And so if there's any objective to like the pursuit of mental health, it's actually. To me, it's much more about self-awareness and like self-actualization, like better understanding what are my values, like who, what do I really care about? Like, is this really important to me? Am I just, you know? Am I a vegan because everyone else is a vegan? Or is it like, principally, something I would, you know, stand on and defend? 

01:07:28
I Just think these types of conversations don't happen enough because you're so quickly rewarded, economically, socially Favorite you get that serotonin juice just by by behaving a certain way and like those incentives are so clear and you actually really have to fight it on a very Regular basis. It's so hard to even figure out. I gotta even know if there's like an authentic version of me or an authentic version of you. I think we're such an amalgamation of different ideas and voices and versions of ourselves. I think that's not the goal, but to come to thumb clarity and Like, either through meditation either through hiking other, some just like self-inquiry and reflection of being like noise aside as much as I could cancel for why they're my family, my friends. 

01:08:27
Like society, work, equal. What is like the life I want to live here and Maybe for better, for worse, like people are coming out on the other side of it, having spent maybe 35 years you know, 30, some years being like, alright, I did that. Am I feeling any more or less fulfilled? And Now having the opportunity, maybe financially, to do the work, to take the time to have the conversations, to like really invest more in ourselves? I can't say it was all bad, I can't say it was all good. I think it is what it is and it would be very important though I think for me to share, even as I'm going down this founder journey, is to like. 

01:09:12
I am trying to question Every step of this founder journey, probably to my own detriment. Like I may not see the financial success that the will there might be able to unlock if I played a different playbook, but to me, the whole point of a will there was never about that. Like the whole point of the will there was to either fulfill a vision that I think should exist in the world or, very selfishly, use it as a way to grow and learn about myself as a leader, as a woman, as a person living today, and I feel very grateful to have that opportunity and I know, like that definitely comes from a place of privilege and Entitlements where I, you know, financially know that I will never be homeless, given all the amount of risks that I take with the will there. So it's hard to judge. I'm trying to suspend the judgment and, yeah, I think it's just so much more complicated than, like you know, social media sucks. 

Ali
Host
01:10:15
Yeah, that's that was it. That was a great Expert answer to this question really today. Like this is exactly why I made it through today to hear this part, because I think you finally taught me a very interesting argument or argument to have to say that Social media is just a tool, like it's up to us how we use it. And I think you told us it's all through self-awareness, like let's just be self-aware, like the tool is the tool and that's always gonna be there or it's keep gonna improve toward where the capitalists wanted to go. But it's up to us how we want to use it. And the best way to Figure out how we want to live and use these tools is through self-awareness, which I also connected to what you said earlier about presents. 

01:11:08
Like you said that through your story with pain, you learned that you have to be present and Instead of like going like to a 10 mile or 15 mile hike, you got to the three hour wherever it is. I gave myself this time I'm present in this moment. I'm hiking the way I like it. I come back now. I start my meetings at 10 instead of waking up at 8 and just go to meetings at 9 without having my own time. 

Yvonne
Guest
01:11:38
Also quickly say, though, like part of the addictiveness of pain to me is that it does force you to be very present In its own way. Right, like when you're pushing your body, you know you don't think about anything else. Right, and even in the like the depths of emotional despair, your pre in, like your cavern, is this big, like you know, I mean, it's so small, it's your bedroom, you're in it. There's probably like more complexity to emotional despair, but I think that's where it is. You know, oftentimes two sides of the same coin it's hard to find, I Think the language to I don't have the words to like accurately describe one thing or another and how it, like Mary cleanly, is one thing or another. 

01:12:28
I think this stuff is usually like very tightly interwoven and this is why I feel like it's a struggle to be like, oh, this is good or bad. I generally feel like this is the direction that I want to be living in for now, because there are there, there are side effects to like pushing my body and the overachiever mindset, and maybe it's much more about intention, like what is the source, what's like underlying energizing force behind the activity that creates this pain, or whatever Like yeah, I think that might be closer to the truth. Honestly, like what actually motivates me doing the startup now, knowing it's like a very hard path. Is it 50 million dollars? Is it the IPO? Is it the status of being seen as like a successful startup founder? Or is it what I said, which is, like you know what I'm learning and growing, I'm making all kinds of mistakes, but I wouldn't be here if I didn't choose this path. 

Ali
Host
01:13:32
So, yeah, I'll just add that Well said and I resonate with that a lot and you know my story of like Building that meditation podcast, which is in Farsi, and even this one like I keep saying this, I'm the number one listener to my content because if I don't do this, I know like I know that I'm gonna go through the downside and this is my way of knowing myself, healing myself, and if someone is tuning in, they are just Doing something nice and hopefully they share their feedback with me and I just keep learning more and more like I can tell you actually, like Through my meditation podcast and now I'm season 2, half in the middle of season 2. I learned so much from this podcast. I learned so much from this podcast Season 2, half in the middle of season 2. I learned so much From the amazing people who just either randomly or their friend, friend, the friends they just sent feedback or like do you can also do this? You can also. I'm like great, and when I do it. 

01:14:35
I recently started this youtube channel which I combined the nature videos with the meditations, and doing that on my flight back from europe last night. I I was that excited about making them. I made one. It took like a couple of hours on the flight, as soon as I landed. I got home, uploaded it this morning, just to heal myself again. I did another one. It's, and I'm like this is amazing, this is actually helping me. I don't care if it's helping someone, I mean I should care, but the truth is this is now first helping me more than anyone, to just get back to what makes me feel good about life, and then if it helps someone else, great. That's a bonus for me. Like this, if I, if I can say that loudly. I think that this saying it loudly actually is already healing me. 

Yvonne
Guest
01:15:29
I think that's like the energizing force that feels Essential, like I would just say don't overthink it and just follow it, because it's also hard to find it. I think about how old we are I don't know if I found that but that draw that you know what I mean. There's like something that almost feels inevitable, like you were gonna do this. Like the moment the idea Sunk into your head and you're like I'm gonna do this and that's so cool. Sometimes to feel like I don't, you need to think, I don't need to think too hard about it, I don't need to like weigh the pros and cons, like it's just that feels like purpose. 

Ali
Host
01:16:17
What do you do to keep your Mental health the way you think it should be like? Are there any routines, any any activities you do on a regular basis, or something? 

Yvonne
Guest
01:16:29
I know what I should be doing and I know what I am doing. So I would say I'm definitely not a good. Yeah, I'm just like a very imperfect person. I don't follow my own advice, but I know what I should be doing is like eating healthier, exercising regularly at minimum. Um, I also find these conversations to be very soulfully enriching. So, honestly, just like finding that time I've also Time in nature. 

01:17:00
I'm actually been thinking about what it would be like to live out of my forerunner during the week, like to actually just like find campsite, you know, park out there, hook onto the laptop, like what would that look like? Maybe in the spirit of creating work content, maybe the spirit of just, you know, less meetings, more ops. But why deny myself that time or that experience To just like really blend and make that environment work for me, especially because, like there's no team I'm not, there's no bureaucracy, with the willer right now, um, and it just feels like for so long I've been in this apartment grinding on the willer, it's really made me like kind of hate the willer, you know what I mean Just because, like this is the environment that I've created for myself and I felt myself gain weight. I feel like lower back pain. I felt like, you know, this general malaise Come over me, um, as I continued grinding away for the sake of what? Avoiding failure, honestly, um, and so I think you know that's like a pretty critical voice that I, or opinion I, just shared. But I am trying to like explore, just like alternative ways of working, living, living, um, but I don't think I've taken any of the huge leaps yet. 

01:18:29
But as someone who Is trying to encourage more people to be outdoorsy, I think it's like a little tragic to find Myself like kind of change the desk right now, like I need to figure out how to, yeah, structure more outdoor time, for sure, but also, yeah, invest in there, invest much more intentionally in relationships that I find are just like nurturing, like conversations like this that clearly help me, you know, learn about myself, fall, so feel like, oh, this is an area that I don't get to touch on in my day to day and because of this Experience, we're able to like dive in there, so saying yes to those, whatever that looks like. 

01:19:17
Sometimes it's a retreat abroad, sometimes it's just like a dinner with a particular friend, maybe. Sometimes it's like meeting someone on hinge, like I think, applying that energy, as like this is the intent that I'm looking for, is what I'm going to try and do more of Versus also, you know, taking a little bit more of like. I think it's very easy to fall into like a very victim mindset which is like, oh, my life sucks, like I'm not doing all these right things. I don't like LA. The city is hard, you know, the people aren't cool. I think there's a very easy tendency to fall into when things are hard and especially when you're depressed, right as I've been up and down like over the course of the past two years, I'm sure. So I think feeling that ownership, feeling that sense of agency and applying that energy is something I'm exploring as a way to, yeah, strengthen my mental health. 

Ali
Host
01:20:38
So you know that we have this thing within our show, that we like our guests to say if they like to be an accountability partner for five of our listeners, yeah, either on a daily basis or weekly basis for a time of about a month. If you like to commit to one thing, what would that be? To do it with some of our great listeners? 

Yvonne
Guest
01:21:01
I would love to go on a hike once a week. 

Ali
Host
01:21:04
Once a week, great, so I was like, yeah, for a month. 

Yvonne
Guest
01:21:08
Let's see what happens. 

Ali
Host
01:21:09
That's amazing and from personal experience I can say this is life changing. Any final thoughts, any final things you want to share about what we discussed? It was an honor and, honestly, it was such a great conversation. I want to know if you have any closing thoughts. 

Yvonne
Guest
01:21:31
No, thank you for having me, thank you for being so generous and listening to me rant at times, even when it felt like totally meandering. I was like wait, I have pretty sure I didn't answer his original question, but I think you've got it. I hope I'm not being able to play back this podcast, but I yeah, I'm glad these conversations are happening. So, at the very least, like thank you for creating this space and the initiative to like bring people together to talk about stuff that I generally wouldn't be talking about in any public forum. It's usually something that happens, like on those one-on-one Zoom talks, but if you have the courage to kind of step up to the plate, I'm happy to be there. So thanks. 

Ali
Host
01:22:17
Thank you so much. Thank you for your time and thank you for the support. Like you were one of the first people I talked to about this idea and, honestly, like this is the best way to, I thought with myself, like where should I start, who should I talk to? And suddenly I started thinking about the conversation I had with you and some other friends that they're also going to be interviewed in the next few episodes. I'm like I already have these amazing people around me. I can just start from here, like these are the conversations to be heard, at least for me to repeat it, and then maybe some other people would enjoy it. Thank you so much, yvonne, thank you for your time and we'll see you, I'm sure, sometime again soon. 

Yvonne
Guest
01:23:05
Yeah, exactly, all right, take care. 

Ali
Host
01:23:15
That was our conversation with Yvonne. I hope you enjoyed tuning in to this episode as well. If you'd like to join her campaign, please use the link in the show notes. As always, please keep me posted with your comments and feedback. You can always email me at ali@theally.show with your feedbacks or any comment that you have about the show. Also, if you would like to introduce anyone to be our next guest, please find the link in our show notes and use that link to introduce someone, or even yourself, for being interviewed in one of our next episodes. Wishing everyone love and happiness.