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- [00:10]
A
Okay, we starting? Yeah, we're starting. And we're gonna. We're gonna take our time with it. Because the moral of the story this time is take your time.
- [00:19]
B
Take your time. Okay, let's do the thing.
- [00:22]
A
We're gonna take our time. There are two stories that illustrate what I want to talk about, and one of them is for my own personal life. And one of them is a video. The video is so everybody now knows who Cynthia Erivo is because she's Elphaba in Wicked, which, like, lots and lots of people are seeing Wicked, but she's been, like, big on Broadway for a real long time.
- [00:51]
B
Yeah, Broadway stars are often famous for.
- [00:53]
A
A long time before they get a movie that makes them famous, right?
- [00:57]
B
Yeah.
- [00:58]
A
And amazingly, never played Elphaba on Broadway.
- [01:02]
B
Yeah.
- [01:04]
A
So the main thing she was famous for on Broadway is that she revived Celie, the role of Celie in Color Purple. And the role of Celie climaxes like the big giant ballad at the end is called I'm Here. And it is one of those songs that if you are a Broadway person. I'm Here is one of those songs it's difficult to sing both technically and emotionally. Cynthia Erivo has described it as the most difficult to sing that she has ever performed. And that includes both technically and emotionally. And there was a video from backstage of closing night of the Color Purple. And it starts out just showing. It's like through the eaves showing Cynthia Erivo singing the song. And I mean, she gets past. There's a high E that she belts. It's natural E. I do believe I'm gonna sing out.
- [02:05]
B
Sing out.
- [02:06]
A
She gets through that, like, just. She just nails it. And then she gets to the sort of, like, jazzy part where it goes, I believe I have I believe I have inside of me Everything that I need to live a bountiful life. Oh, I hit my microphone. And all the love alive in me so she gets. I have inside of me everything she does that find that I need to live a bountiful. And when she gets to bountiful, she just collapses. But, like, you can, like, you can hear the kids backstage. Like, everybody in the show is watching her. You can hear the sniffing and the crying and they're like, supporting her. And, like, she misses one line and all the love alive in me and she, like, she gets it back for. And I stand as tall as the tallest tree and she gets through. I'm thankful for all the days that I'm given All the easy and then she gets to the hard ones. I'M living. And she, like, you can feel her reach. Like, you can hear her go egg, reach for it and it just isn't there. And she proceeds to stand on stage in silence for 30 seconds, crying, unable to, like, quite, like, working to get her shit together.
- [03:35]
B
Yeah. It's not really in silence. The audience is.
- [03:38]
A
The audience is apeshit going bananas. She turns her back on the audience for part of it. And as she, like, tries to get her shit together, she turns back toward them. Her hand is clapped over her mouth. They are on their feet shouting, they're applauding. Like, imagine. Imagine if you were losing your shit at your job.
- [04:06]
B
Yeah.
- [04:07]
A
And everyone around you was like, whoa.
- [04:11]
B
You were doing that correctly.
- [04:13]
A
Yes. This is what we are here for. We are here.
- [04:17]
B
What were your feelings about halfway through.
- [04:21]
A
The 30 seconds of her grappling to get her shit together? Oh, yeah.
- [04:26]
B
Can I also say, can you imagine being at your job and someone is nailing it and they're losing their shit and, like, sobbing uncontrollably, and you're like, yes, girl, do it.
- [04:34]
A
Yeah. You're in the middle of nailing it. Nailing it is fucking hard. You have worked. This is your 400th almost time doing this. This is the last time you'll ever get to do it, or the last time you'll ever have to do it. Like, yeah, it's hard. Yeah. Can you imagine being at your job and having people, like, celebrate you about halfway through this 30 seconds? When you are backstage in a show, you are not supposed to make noises. You are not supposed to shout from the eaves to your colleague who's standing on stage sobbing, take your time.
- [05:15]
B
And identify her by her real name, Cynthia.
- [05:18]
A
You got this, Cynthia. Take your time. Take your time. They shout, take. Take your time.
- [05:26]
B
Odds are, for 300 of those 400 shows, nobody stood in the wings and watched that. You know, they all had shit to.
- [05:34]
A
Do backstage and they've all seen it a million times. And she nails it every fucking time. Because that's what professionals do.
- [05:43]
B
Yeah.
- [05:44]
A
And so this time, the last time, when she stops for 30 seconds halfway through, I think it might be Jennifer Hudson.
- [05:56]
B
Yeah.
- [05:56]
A
Shouting, take your. Cynthia. Take your time. Imagine you are losing your shit at work. You're just, like, sitting at the conference table sobbing with your hand clapped over your mouth and somebody says, take your time. Imagine. Imagine.
- [06:19]
B
Imagine being the one who says, take your time.
- [06:21]
A
What?
- [06:22]
B
Imagine being the one.
- [06:24]
A
Imagine being the one. Take your time. Turns toward your colleague who is losing their shit, and you're like, take your time. Take your time. And then she goes on to just fucking nail the rest of it. And Cynthia Reeves, like everyone in this role is good. They would not be playing Celie if they were not magnificent. Right. And Cynthia does this thing. If I may. If I may call her Cynthia, does this thing at the end. So the closing lines are, I'm beautiful. Yes, I'm beautiful. And it's. It's. That's head voice or blended.
- [07:05]
B
It's straight head voice. Yeah.
- [07:07]
A
Delightful. She's like floating. And then she grips her hands to the top of her thighs, squats deeply like she's giving birth. And belts. And I'm here, which is. And it's the transition. It's the. Like, it's. She does the sweetest, softest. I'm beautiful. Yes, I'm beautiful. Of any Seelie. And the most guttural, earthy birthing. And I'm here. Of any Feely. Which is why Tony. Yeah, that is why Tony. Yeah.
- [07:49]
B
I did look at other videos of that performance, and that is part of.
- [07:53]
A
Her standing every time.
- [07:55]
B
Blocking.
- [07:56]
A
Yeah, yeah. And even when you see her singing it at a microphone at a performance, like she was on Stephen Colbert.
- [08:04]
B
Yeah.
- [08:04]
A
Like, she does that big transition. She doesn't do the squat when she's standing in a microphone because she can't. But there is a massive change.
- [08:12]
B
Yeah.
- [08:12]
A
From I'm beautiful to. And I'm here.
- [08:15]
B
Often how that kind of blocking happens in a rehearsal period is the singer is singing and does a thing. And the director goes, that. Do that every time.
- [08:25]
A
Do that every time. Yeah. And she did every performance as Sealy. She does that. And every time it's show stopping. Like, the reason they call it a showstopper is because it stops the action of the show. And the orchestra may have to vamp. The performer for sure has to find something to do that is meaningful to.
- [08:51]
B
The story business on stage.
- [08:55]
A
And in fact, the applause at the end of the song is so long that the video ends before the applause does. And it's like a minute. Imagine being at your job and doing it so well that people shout and clap and will not stop until you're like, we gotta move on. We gotta get to the end of the show, you guys. Very funny. That, like, the people backstage are like, just put the card. Nobody cares. Let's just end the show now. Nobody cares about the rest of it. That might be a little bit true.
- [09:35]
B
Yeah. The idea of a show stopping song is ancient in the history of musical theater, which is preceded by opera, which is preceded by a lot of Things that are a lot like opera. The idea that you have a song where a virtuoso. A virtuoso just sings to sing. Not even because it advances the story. Just because you sit and talk about your feelings and sing in a way that is so impressive that people are just, like, gobstopped.
- [10:04]
A
Yeah.
- [10:05]
B
That's the fact that we call it a showstopper now in, like, 21st century vernacular is funny, but, like, that's been in existence.
- [10:14]
A
There has always been a thing that.
- [10:16]
B
Is in theater with music, for centuries. Yeah, for centuries at least.
- [10:22]
A
And for the kind of person who is a performer, there is probably nothing more nourishing than standing on stage and absorbing the sheer, vast quantity of love and approval. Like, you work so hard and you just. You just, like, accept it.
- [10:40]
B
I'm not sure that's true.
- [10:42]
A
I mean, I'm not the kind of person who has that, like, performer energy. So I'm guessing.
- [10:48]
B
Yeah. Other performers definitely talk about enjoying, but from my experience, the most nourishing part is the. Is. Is your relationship and the support from your. Your colleagues.
- [10:59]
A
Yeah, well, that's how I feel too. But a lot of people talk about the relationship with the audience as being really important.
- [11:05]
B
Yeah, that's true.
- [11:05]
A
They love to be looked at. They love to be watched. Like.
- [11:09]
B
Yeah.
- [11:10]
A
In the Inside the Actor Studio.
- [11:13]
B
Yeah.
- [11:14]
A
When James Lipton interviews Dustin Hoffman and they're talking about why actors do what they do, Dustin Hoffman gets, like, right up fucking close, like, right in James Lipton's face, and he just goes, look at me, look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Yeah. And I don't know if Cynthia Erivo is that person, but the moral of the story for us here is the Take youe Time part.
- [11:40]
B
Yeah.
- [11:41]
A
That she's in the middle of doing a virtuosic something the last time. And her feelings about that, which are, I'm sure multitudinous, get in the way of her doing it. And her cast. The cast is so there for her that they tell her to take her time while she's in the middle of doing her virtuosic job. Does that make sense?
- [12:07]
B
Yeah. It's a very unusual situation. For anyone to be in.
- [12:12]
A
Yes.
- [12:13]
B
For anyone to be in.
- [12:14]
A
Yes. I also was in a very unique, weird situation of giving a TED Talk, TEDx TED, as I like to call it. Ted, Ted, Ted all the Way ted. The real ted. Ted, the full ted.
- [12:26]
B
Yeah.
- [12:27]
A
I had been preparing for this for months. I had been rehearsing it on video. And then we flew to Vancouver. You came with me as my emotional support peacock. But they also provided me with a professional acting coach for the speakers whom they expect to do extraordinarily well. This is. They give the acting coach as opposed to the speaking coach. And every day that we. We were there for like four days ahead of my actual talk. And every day I would run through my talk one full time with my coach, we would find a different space. So one time we found like the largest classroom we could find in the space. And I performed it as if to the whole class, even though she was the only person there. One time we found a little cubicle and we sat facing each other, knee to knee, leaning forward. And I like, I whispered it to her like it was like just for her. So I like did it as many ways and times as I possibly could. And then we get to like half an hour before I go on and she puts her arms around my waist and we are standing belly to belly with our faces at an uncomfortably close distance together. And she looks me in the eye and says, the clock. You have something important to say. And once you get out there, there is nothing they can do to stop you. You go out there and say what you have to say and you.
- [14:09]
B
The clock, I mean, that's not Jennifer Hudson yelling, take your time. But it's pretty good.
- [14:15]
A
It changed me. I should add that I was originally going to do a talk about the what ended up being come together, the new book about how writing come as you are ironically ruined my sex life. And. But I had to figure that out. And then it was 2018 and I thought it is irresponsible in the era of me too for me to get up and not talk about something that will prevent sexual violence.
- [14:42]
B
Yeah.
- [14:42]
A
So one month beforehand I was like, ha ha. Dear Ted, I'm sure I'm not the only person who's ever done this, but I'm doing a different talk than the one that I've been practicing for my life.
- [14:53]
B
And they were so anti.
- [14:55]
A
They were like, don't do this.
- [14:57]
B
They hired you for the funny. They hired you because you're.
- [14:59]
A
They wanted me to be funny because.
- [15:01]
B
I made to be a lightweight lift of the moment.
- [15:04]
A
Even though. So somebody who was on the committee who assigned to watch God knows how many TEDx stars talks, a person found me and said, emily, I never cry. I have watched a lot of TED talks that make people cry. And I never cry. And your talk made me cry. That's my TEDx talk. The TEDx in Nevada. So they hired me because. Because I bring the funny. And yet they hired me because I made them cry.
- [15:34]
B
Yeah.
- [15:34]
A
And so I, at the last minute, against their will, was like, I'm going to talk about arousal non concordance. And they were like, okay, I guess.
- [15:44]
B
And you told me. And I went, oh, yeah, that's much more important. You should definitely do that.
- [15:48]
A
Yeah. So it was my turn. You're sitting in the yacht, like you were.
- [15:54]
B
You practiced your first TED Talk with me. And I was like, yeah, that's good. And I didn't really care.
- [15:59]
A
Yeah.
- [15:59]
B
And then you talked about Horizon on concordance. I was like, you have to do this one.
- [16:02]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, it's much more important. And like, I. Because there had been, like, all this drama about, like, which talk I was gonna do. Like, there was still a part of me that was unsure. And they did this introduction that's like, Emily's usually known for, like, the laughter and lightness. And this time she's gonna do a slightly more serious talk. Right.
- [16:23]
B
Right.
- [16:24]
A
So I'm standing backstage dancing to my own personal rhythm. There is a video of it on Instagram, if anybody wants to find it, of me just being, like, dancing it out, feeling nervous. I got a lot. I got a lot of adrenaline. So you're sitting in the yacht seats, which are the ones that are, like, in a circle right around the stage. Yeah. The cheapest TED tickets cost, like, $10,000.
- [16:50]
B
Yeah.
- [16:51]
A
So I don't know how much the yacht seats cost, but there's a reason people jokingly call them the yacht seats.
- [16:59]
B
Yeah.
- [17:00]
A
So I climb the stairs, I walk on the stage, I do my talk. I never even saw where the clock was.
- [17:11]
B
Oh.
- [17:11]
A
Because I had been granted permission to take my time, told that what I was doing was important and that rushing through it as if it were dismissible, as if I just needed to, like, get on and get off in my 12 minutes, get off the stage instead. Like, standing there and staying there as long as it took to do the job right is probably not something that would have happened if the coach they had hired to help me do a great job had explicitly said, this is important. Take as long as you need. Which is why take your time and fuck the clock are the things that we are talking about today. Because sometimes the thing that you have to do is so important that you do it worse if you rush. Ms. Anna Marie, our dance teacher, had a sign in Studio A. Do you remember the hurrier I go?
- [18:17]
B
The behinder I get.
- [18:17]
A
Exactly.
- [18:19]
B
I remember.
- [18:20]
A
I think about that all the time.
- [18:23]
B
Yeah.
- [18:23]
A
Especially when I'm writing a book and I'm like, I just want to finish this project. I've been working on it for so long. I just want to finish it. And in my head, fuck the clock, the hurrier I go. The behind her I get. I just need to let it. It's like when you've got. I'm going to use another digestive distress metaphor. Oh, good.
- [18:45]
B
I love that. That's my favorite.
- [18:47]
A
Like when you. When pooping is happening, you just gotta let it take as long as it takes. And if you hurry it, worse things happen. It's true, though, right?
- [18:59]
B
It's true.
- [19:00]
A
It's true.
- [19:00]
B
Yeah, sure.
- [19:02]
A
And, like, you have a thing about, like, chewing your food. Like, chewing your food is very important.
- [19:07]
B
Yeah.
- [19:08]
A
And you take your time and, like, actually, like. Because the hurrier you go. The behinder I get. Because if you don't chew your food in your mouth, then it can't be dissolved in the rest of your body the way it needs to be.
- [19:20]
B
Yep.
- [19:21]
A
The clock, the hurrier I go. The behind her I get. Take your time.
- [19:27]
B
Yeah. I think that it's important to say explicitly here that we're doing this episode because it's not just spec. It's not just, like, very special moments when that happens. It's. It's when you doing something that matters, like the fact that you made a digestive. I think comparison is. Is good because you translated the same idea to something that happens hopefully every day.
- [19:52]
A
Hopefully every day. And if not every day, all the more important.
- [19:57]
B
Yeah.
- [19:58]
A
That you take your time. Yeah. And you allow it to happen in its own time.
- [20:04]
B
Oh, my God. Yeah. And it can also be other things. It's easy to translate to cooking. It's easy to translate to, you know, toothbrushing. But, like, the doing the work of social justice. The. The stuff that, you know, processing your emotions about how the world is.
- [20:22]
A
Yeah.
- [20:23]
B
The stuff you gotta do a little bit every day.
- [20:26]
A
Yeah.
- [20:27]
B
Spend the time and do it. Yeah. I got a lot of pushback when we wrote the workbook. I did a lot of the.
- [20:33]
A
Like, when you wrote the workbook. Let's be totally transparent.
- [20:38]
B
I mean, it was based on this. Okay. So I. I got a lot of pushback on the.
- [20:43]
A
There are.
- [20:44]
B
There are time guides. Like, spend five minutes doing this. Spend at least 10 minutes working on this. This is going to take you about 20 minutes. And every single thing has a time guide. And both in the print version and in the audio version, people wanted to take that out. Why is that there. And it was very important to me as a teacher, as a. As a person who understands how pedagogy works, that you give a timeline. Because I. When I get an instruction to do a thing in a workbook kind of thing, I write like one sentence and I move on. Okay, I've done that. And if somebody tells me this should take about five minutes, and within the introduction, explaining that you don't have to spend five minutes, like, this is your. This is your time. This is your book. Do whatever you want. But my expectation is that if you have not spent five minutes on this, then you have not gotten everything you can out of it. And if you're spending more than five minutes on this, you might be stuck in something that means you're not ready to do this or that you're overthinking it and maybe just move on and come back to it later or whatever you want. But I, as a teacher, I was like, this is important to understand how much time things can take and what my expectation is.
- [22:03]
A
Because you do.
- [22:03]
B
When you're a teacher, you have to calculate time. You have a limited amount of class time. You have to plan your lesson to take up the exact amount of time. It cannot take too long, and it also cannot take not enough time because then you have empty class to fill. And that is not great as a teacher. And then you have to find something else for those kids to do. So, for example, when you give a test, it's standard practice for you to take that test and assume that it will take the students at least three times as long to take that test as it took you, or whatever the calculation is for your particular grade level or whatever it is that you're assessing for. So the idea of, like, this is. This is how much time this is going to take really mattered to me. So that even though people were like, can we just not. Can we not do that? Why is that there I was like.
- [22:54]
A
This is supposed to teach people a thing. Books of all kinds have that. So the. In. In workshop language, which, like, I have spent more time leading workshops than teaching in classes, honestly.
- [23:05]
B
Yeah.
- [23:06]
A
When you tell people how much time we're going to spend on this, you're creating a psychological container.
- [23:13]
B
Yeah.
- [23:13]
A
To let them know, like, if something. If you're only going to spend five minutes on something, you're not going to go real deep. If you're going to spend an hour on something, they know that they're going to have the time necessary to get to a deep place. Yeah.
- [23:28]
B
Yeah.
- [23:29]
A
Which grants permission and even better, when.
- [23:32]
B
We'Ve done workshops together and if people are doing like, you know, write down on a card three questions that you have, blah, blah, blah. You have two minutes. We do a thing where, like, I vamp on the ukulele.
- [23:41]
A
Yeah.
- [23:42]
B
Or if we need there to be silence, then at the end of the silence, I'll, like, ring my Tibetan bell bowl thing so that there's like a kind of a. A gentle white noise way to like, bring awareness back instead of being like.
- [23:57]
A
Okay, let's do the thing.
- [23:59]
B
You know, so especially in a workbook, I thought where people are doing it independently, there's gonna be. If I've ever met a student in my life, there's going to be the tendency to, like, rush through it as fast as possible. Get me to the end. And the idea of taking your time, like the, The. The container of minutes.
- [24:17]
A
Yeah. You're gonna be here for these two minutes anyway.
- [24:20]
B
Yeah. Like, spend. Spend these two minutes. If you don't. And like, you spent money for this book, if you want to get the most out of it that you can, you're gonna spend at least five minutes doing this. You might spend 20 minutes doing this. You don't have to spend 20 minutes doing this. But if you do, that's how much time I think it'll get. It'll take to get the most out of this exercise that you paid me to tell you about. That you can.
- [24:44]
A
Yeah. So even when there's a time limit, taking all of the time that is available.
- [24:50]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [24:53]
A
Is using up the container. So one of my favorite with decluttering people, Dana K. White offer of how to manage your home without losing your mind has a thing she calls the container concept. She's an ADHD type brain, and for her it was this, like, huge, aha. That, like, you can't have every dish in the world. You can have as many dishes as comfortably fit in the space you have available.
- [25:22]
B
Right.
- [25:22]
A
You can't. I know, like, every single. With an ADHD brain, like, every single item you have ever brought into your home has meaning and value and especially potential value that you could still get out of it. But the reality is your home is a container. And if it is a smaller home than you wish you had, the reality is this is the container that you have, and you can have as much stuff as comfortably fits. And by comfortable, it means, like, be able to get at everything that you want to get at right in that space. And setting time limits creates a container, a time container for how long you're going to work on something and especially if it's something you don't want to do, you set yourself a comfortable containing time limit of I just have to do it for. In Kimmy Schmidt, Kimmy talks about 10 seconds at a. 10 seconds at a time. She can do anything for 10 seconds and it's just another 10 seconds and then another 10 seconds. Yeah, like you can do anything for five minutes. I used to joke that the way grad students socialize is they can be interested in absolutely anyone's graduate school project for five minutes. Yeah, I can be absolutely fascinated by anything for five minutes. And that's, that's how people go to parties and talk to each other. When you're in grad school.
- [26:51]
B
Yeah, that's important for like, as much as it is important to like allow the things that are hard to take their time, it's also important to spend the time on a thing even when it's hard.
- [27:04]
A
In a Harrison forward Apple TV plus show show shrinking, he talks about grieving in chunks of time. Like for five minutes at a time. You get, you like, you set a timer and you just like let yourself wail in despair for five minutes. The timer goes off and you pause. Cause like that's, you know, because you're gonna need to let it all out and.
- [27:27]
B
Oh yeah, that's not Harrison Ford. That's just kind of a standard practice. That's a usual technique.
- [27:31]
A
Yes. But many people may have seen shrinkage.
- [27:34]
B
On Harrison Ford and when Harrison Ford tells you to do it, it's a little more compelling.
- [27:38]
A
Right. So it's take your time. But also if the thing you are doing is excruciating, you don't have to keep doing it forever.
- [27:48]
B
You don't have to do it forever.
- [27:49]
A
You just do it a tiny bit at a time.
- [27:53]
B
Yeah.
- [27:53]
A
Every day.
- [27:54]
B
Yeah. Because it's not just take time, it's take your time.
- [27:58]
A
Yes. Do it in your time, in the time that your body will allow and have it not degrade your body. And when you're doing something. Am I going to describe giving my TED Talk as excruciating, Difficult, intense. So there are tasks where they're huge and so you do them in inside contained periods of time over and over and over again. You're decluttering your home, you're writing a book, your grieving, you do it in contained amounts of time that feel right for your life. And then there are the tasks that simply are the tasks that they are like giving a TED Talk or performing the show stopping song that you've sung almost 400 times already. Like, they have a beginning, a middle, and an end that you have planned for this, and you just need to get all the way through the end. Generally, in my experience, those are super important things that need to take as long as they take. They have been shaped to take a particular amount of time. I wrote the song. I. I wrote my talk 2:00. It was intended to take a certain amount of time. People applauded a lot more than I thought they would applaud. Applause for Lube. Hooray. Like, I'm gonna pa. Like I'm gonna let them take that time that is important. And I'm not gonn needed a break because I was about to transition into the big, deep, dark stuff and I was going to give them that moment to be like, woo, Lube. So there are some things where, like, you do it in contained amounts of time, and there are things where you simply let it take as long as it takes because that is how long it needs to take, and that thing deserves that much time. Back in 2003, I went to a training to learn how to do political campaign organization. And the most important thing I learned, basically the only thing I remember is that the most valuable resource is time, because it is the only thing you cannot get more of. Time is more valuable than money, even in a political campaign, because you can keep asking for money. You can keep getting money even after the election is over. But there is an election day and then it's done. So the most valuable resource we have is time. And I don't want to shock anybody, but the reality is we're all going to die. That's the thing that's going to happen. And none of us knows how much time we have. So make sure that the way that you spend your Limited. Definitely limited. We don't know. The only thing we don't know is how limited it is. How you spend your time is the most important decision you make. Which is why we have the 247 calendar, both in burnout and in the burnout workbook. And that exercise enrages people.
- [31:18]
B
I think it's the most practical, useful thing in the book.
- [31:22]
A
Absolutely. But it's intensely confronting.
- [31:25]
B
Yeah.
- [31:26]
A
Because it forces people to recognize that in the same way that my decluttering lady was like, oh, there's a limit. My house sets a limit. The container sets a limit on how many crayons I have. This is the box I have for crayons. This is the space I'm willing to give in my home to Crayons. But I can't get the lid on if there's more crayons. I need to keep getting rid of crayons. Don't be mad at the crayons. It's the container's fault. Right. There's only so much time. But when the container, when the limit is your calendar, when it is the actual passage of time itself. And it's not arbitrary the way, like this is the container I chose for crayons. It is, it is simply a matter of like, the clock and temporal reality. When people start putting their lives into the 247 calendar, they put like, time. They need to be at work, time for their commute, time for childcare, time for making dinner, time for literally just like bathing and showering. It takes time out of your day. It takes time to dry your body off. It takes time. People get so angry because they want to quote, quote, unquote, have it all. Right. And like, there's a literal limit. And like, you can have it all. You just can't have it all at the same time. Because there's only 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week. And I'm sure there are people who are like working science wise to make that not true. But currently all of us are equal in terms of the amount of time we get. The way we are not equal is that some of us need more sleep than others and we literally, if you are a higher sleep need person, you literally have less time. If you are disabled, like both of us are, there is literally less that we can get done in a day. And I don't know about you, but I have gone through. I have gone through times of being so angry and frustrated at how little I can accomplish in a day.
- [33:35]
B
Yeah.
- [33:36]
A
When I was at Smith and writing come as you are, I would work my 35 hour work week, sometimes more, and then write for 12 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday. Now I can only write for three or four hours at a time.
- [33:54]
B
Yeah.
- [33:55]
A
Which let me acknowledge, like, I'm not healthier. That's actually how normal people are.
- [34:02]
B
Yeah.
- [34:03]
A
And I say normal people kind of advisedly because it is absolutely a characteristic of my autistic brain that I can sit and focus and write for 12 hours. And not necessarily, like, good for me, but like, my brain has been capable of that. Now I'm capable of writing an amount of hours in a row that is typical of other people's brains. And I rage at it on the regular.
- [34:28]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Because task shifting is such a heavy lift for many autistic brains, it's literally easier just to keep doing the same thing than it is to stop and take a break.
- [34:40]
A
Yeah. Lock in, get through it. And also there was that time when we were working on Burnout. We were writing Burnout together, and I was preparing my TED Talk.
- [34:51]
B
Yeah. During which time we were not writing Burnout together.
- [34:54]
A
You were writing Burnout, I was writing.
- [34:55]
B
Burnout, and you were working on your TED Talk.
- [34:57]
A
Well, I was preparing my TED Talk. And we have told this story in the past. When I get over a certain stress threshold, I become. I mean, my temper gets. I'm.
- [35:13]
B
She turns into a bitch.
- [35:15]
A
I'm less patient than I typically am. I'm less non judgmental. I lose.
- [35:23]
B
A little more judgmental, more testy, shorter tempered.
- [35:28]
A
I totally, like, I get. I turn into a total. Because I am overwhelmed and exhausted. And the question was, should I just push through or should I take a break? And I was like, I should just push through because generally it's easier for me just to get to the end of a thing and then take a break than it is to take a break because I'm so fucking exhausted. And then get back to it. The getting back to it is so hard. It's like if you're riding your bike up a hill, you're like, do I get off and rest or do I. Because, like, starting when you're climbing a hill, getting back on a bike when you're climbing a hill takes so much more effort than each individual, individual pedal stroke if you just keep going. I don't know if that bicycle metaphor is gonna hit with anybody, but, like, the cyclists.
- [36:25]
B
I think most people ride bikes, though.
- [36:28]
A
So you have to make a choice, like, do I just push through and get to the top of the hill or do I rest? Because I'm not gonna make it to the top of the hill if I don't rest. And you were like, rest.
- [36:41]
B
Yeah.
- [36:42]
A
And I was like, no, I'm gonna push through. When you were like, no, I am telling you rest because I cannot tolerate you like this. You are over your threshold. You need to stop.
- [37:08]
B
And yeah, you were still hemming and hawing. And I was like, I'm just gonna.
- [37:12]
A
No, you're like, but the dogs have.
- [37:14]
B
To thing and Rich has to stuff. And I was like, I'm gonna take the dogs. I don't care if you go away or not, but I'm taking your dogs. So there aren't any excuse.
- [37:22]
A
Yeah.
- [37:23]
B
And I put them in my car.
- [37:24]
A
And we have told this story in workshops and people have thought about it because we asked them to and cannot identify anyone in their lives whom they would believe if that person said, you are over your threshold. You need to stop now and get rest. So in addition to take your time and fuck the clock if you could possibly. So, like, I was granted the gift twice in the process of writing my TED Talk. Once when my coach wrapped her arms around my waist, put her face in front of my face, and said, fuck the clock. Take your time. And Amelia being like, go to the beach. Go to the beach. Go to the beach. And I believed both of them, and I did what they told me to do, and my TED Talk is better for it. And that talk. The reason it mattered, the reason I was working so hard, was because it very much mattered to me that I say these words in this. When I had the access to this platform that was going to reach millions of literal millions of people, which is why I was working so hard. And there were two people who told me to slow down my coach so that I could give my work the resources it deserved, the time that it deserved in the performance. And Amelia, because I was being. I was terrible to be around. I was very unpleasant to be around, and I am not actually doing my job.
- [39:17]
B
Yeah, you were, I believe, using a. A thing to file your feet on the couch. And Rich was, like, so grossed out. And he looks at me like, how is this happening right now? And I'm like, emily, that's gross. And you're like, no, it's not. It's fine. And it wasn't even that you, like, are a gross person or, like, do gross things. It's just a matter that you are so defensive and unwilling to, like, listen to feedback. I totally forgot that part of the story that happened. And Rich is looking at me like.
- [39:56]
A
What is going on with her?
- [40:00]
B
Why won't you just be a person for five minutes? You can cut this part of the story if you. If you don't agree that that's what happened.
- [40:10]
A
I. I'm. I believe I. I do not recall that part, but I absolutely believe that I did that. Both. That I filed my heel calluses on the couch in the living room, which is gross.
- [40:27]
B
Do whatever you want on your own couch.
- [40:28]
A
And that you pointed out to me that it was gross, and I was like, no, it's not. It's fine. This is fine.
- [40:34]
B
When somebody asks you to move, you go, oh, okay, sure.
- [40:38]
A
Right.
- [40:38]
B
Instead of being, like, arguing about it.
- [40:40]
A
Right? Arguing. Yeah. Yeah. So in addition to taking time listening to your body taking the time that something deserves, which, you know, it applies to baking, it applies to pooping, it applies to sleeping, it applies. It applies to pretty much everything. Also, in your life, there are going to be people who are permission granters and sometimes the permission they're granting is not so much granting as, like, shoving you out the door and being like, no, you got to listen to me. You need to slow down in your work and pause and rest. Who is there in your life who, even when you are way over your threshold, way over your capacity to cope and just like barely scraping through and being unpleasant to be around because you're so exhausted and overwhelmed, who is there in your life and is there, like a code word you can set up with that person so that when they say you are over your threshold, you are not being a human being as adequately as you are required to be a human. You are not meeting the minimum threshold of being a person and you need rest and you need to take your time. Who is your jhud shouting Take your time. And you listen, you actually do what they say because you believe them and you know that they are right and they have a wisdom you don't have access to because you are over your threshold. You are standing on the stage with your back to a cheering audience because you cannot get your shit together while you're in the middle of your virtuosic job. And let's face it, a lot of us, if you're listening to this, you're the kind of person who's fucking amazing at whatever you do, whatever your job is, like, you probably take a lot of pride in it and you do it as well as you can. And if you currently have the kind of job you're like, I don't give a fuck. Congratulations. You are probably not exhausting yourself and burning yourself out at a job where you don't give a fuck, but you.
- [43:02]
B
May be burning yourself out and exhausting yourself in some other domain, some other.
- [43:06]
A
Domain of your life.
- [43:07]
B
Yeah.
- [43:07]
A
And caring a lot, giving a shit is one of the ways that we cause ourselves to burn out most? Ironically?
- [43:18]
B
Yeah.
- [43:20]
A
It's because I cared so much that I was working so hard and I had begun being a shitty person as a result of it. So who is there in your life? Is there at least one human who, when they say you're past your limit, you need to rest, take your time, take a break, slow down. Is there anyone, I mean, you believe, so you don't actually. So we have tried this, where I have been like, you're not Being an adequate person.
- [43:50]
B
That's not what was happening. You were giving me instructions about how to complete a task, and I was like, no, I've done this task before and I know how it has to be done. And you were like, but you can't do it that way. I'm like, you don't know because you've never done this task this way before. And I'm telling you, I've done it before and it has to be done this way.
- [44:06]
A
We are thinking of different examples then.
- [44:08]
B
Are we thinking of moving?
- [44:09]
A
No.
- [44:10]
B
Oh, what was the example you were thinking of?
- [44:13]
A
I don't remember a specific example because those things, they just sort of like fade into blobs of, like, experience instead of explicit memory.
- [44:23]
B
Sure.
- [44:25]
A
The times when I. I mean, there were times when I said, hey, remember that time when you said this thing to me?
- [44:31]
B
Yeah.
- [44:31]
A
This is me saying that thing to you. And you.
- [44:34]
B
I only remember that happening when I was moving from Western Mass to the Cape.
- [44:38]
A
It. There may have been a time when you were moving there. Probably, like, as you're saying it, I'm remembering that there probably was a time when I was like, you were doing too much. You were overwhelmed and exhausted. You should slow down. You should.
- [44:50]
B
And I was like, no, what I'm doing is as much as I can do right now, which is insufficient. But it's because on the other end, once the stuff is moved, I'll have to do more work. So if I do this now, then I won't be overwhelmed on the other end. And you ignored that.
- [45:07]
A
I do disagree with that task organization strategy, but that doesn't matter. That's. That is a different thing. Like, I think you should do it different. Do it a different way is not some. Sometimes I think you should do it a different way is the same thing as, like, you need to take your time. You need to not be like. When people are being perfection. Perfectionistic. There are. Perfectionism in and of itself is not bad. Perfectionism becomes bad. I mean, like, having high standards and wanting to do things well is good. That's great. And it becomes counterproductive when you feel like either if you can't do it perfectly, it's not worth doing at all, or if you can't do it perfectly, then you are a bad person.
- [45:58]
B
Right. Or if, since you can't do it perfectly, you may as well not start.
- [46:02]
A
Or if you can't do it perfectly, you're going to keep perseverating at this task until it is perfect and you can't let go and Just be like, it's finished. You've done enough. Perfect is not a thing that exists. You're not going to access perfect. You've done fine. This is fine. You did it's. And it's due now. This is why I love deadlines. It's due now.
- [46:27]
B
Yeah.
- [46:28]
A
I worked as hard as I could to make it as good as it could be by the deadline. And once that deadline is passed, it is no longer like, I had abundant time and I used it all. I did not do the thing that many people do, which is procrastinate until the very end and then try to shove all the work until the end and then feel bad because it's not as good as they wanted because they procrastinated. I work hard, like, from the beginning of a tap, the beginning of the time that I have all the way through to the end. And so when the deadline comes, I can be like, I'm done. Because I planned it. I scheduled how much time I was going to spend on each of the individual tasks within this larger task. And I recognize that perfect is not a thing that exists. There's no such thing. And when it's a thing, like writing a book, I'm like, and I'm going to get a chance at a next draft. And the only time that's not true is when you no longer get a chance at a next draft. Draft. And that is the hardest. That's the hardest revision for me, is the one where this is the last one.
- [47:31]
B
Yeah. Except then you get an opportunity, hopefully a few years later, to write a.
- [47:35]
A
Whole second edition, which hopefully we're going to get to do with Burnout, which.
- [47:38]
B
You got to do with Come as yous Are.
- [47:39]
A
I did get to do with Come as yous Are. Yeah. I got to.
- [47:41]
B
And hopefully we'll get to do with Burnout.
- [47:43]
A
Fix some things. And hopefully we get to do it with Burnout.
- [47:45]
B
That would be great. And we'll take our time.
- [47:49]
A
Yeah. The moral of the story is what you were doing matters. If what you were doing doesn't matter, why are you spending your one wild and precious life doing it? Doing it.
- [48:03]
B
Yeah.
- [48:03]
A
Why? There's an analogy that I use in my come together talks, my professional talks in particular. I have an image of a wedding table.
- [48:13]
B
When you say professional talks, you mean giving talks about the content of your book to people who will be teaching others. Right.
- [48:20]
A
To professionals, counselors, therapists, and other sex educators is an image of a picnic table covered in a wedding spread. And there's a board of meats and cheeses and breads and things. And there's like little, like, piles, beautifully draped piles of mortadella and two skinny breadsticks laid at a beautiful angle across the whole board with a branch of rosemary laid across the breadsticks. And there's little discs of bread with cream cheese and beautiful little piles of salmon and, like, two or three delightfully placed capers. And somebody took the time. They spent hours of their one wild and precious life making these beautiful little piles of mortadella and laying these breadsticks and, like, creating the piles of salmon and, like, balancing the capers which just fall off everywhere if you don't, like, place them. Why? Why would someone take the time to make the plate beautiful? And they do it because either it's their job or they know that the beauty is part of the pleasure that they're going to share with their loved ones at this event. Why? Our aunt set the table for Christmas dinner. She spent three days getting ready to have a Christmas dinner with us. And like, why would anyone spend their limited time on earth folding napkins and laying silverware and plates and glasses? Why would you do that? It's because the beauty is part of the pleasure that you're going to share with the people that you care about. Take your time if it matters to you. And hey, P.S. if you. If you have somebody in your life who takes time to make it beautiful, maybe notice that they care about sharing that pleasure with you. I'm just. I'm just saying. Does that make sense?
- [50:40]
B
Yeah.
- [50:40]
A
Like, you only have so much time in your life.
- [50:43]
B
Yeah.
- [50:44]
A
And so. So take your time. And also, don't rush through the stuff that matters. The stuff that matters. Go slow. There's actually a trick to making your life feel both longer and more meaningful, which is this practice of snapshots where you take a moment that is like, you notice that this is like an extra good moment and you take a snapshot of it in your brain. It can be like a looping animated gif. Also like, of an extra special thing. And you hold it in your mind. It works best, especially if you, like, say it out loud to someone else who's there in that moment. Like, this is a beautiful moment that I am shipped. So, like, I am probably never going to go back to Maui. Like, I went once for work and I made the most of it. And I have looping animated GIF snapshots of some of the special beautiful places that I went to on Maui. And it's like a way that I extend my life because Each individual day is different. And so I remember not just a blob of Maui, but a series of beautiful events that happened. There's another one I forget the name of the guy who wrote the book and gave the TED talk called Storyworthy. He recommends you spend five minutes at the end of your day. It's worth spending five minutes at the end of your day to remember one thing that happened that is story worthy. And you write it down someplace and you can just, you don't have to write the story out. You just write like the thing you're going to remember. Like one of his things is his dog woke him up, his elderly dog woke him up because she had to pee at 2 o'clock in the morning. And then it turned and it's raining and he's in his boxers. But like it's 2:00 in the morning. How many people are going to see him outside in the yard with his dog peeing? And it turns out the dog also needs to poop. And so they end up doing a walk around the block in the rain in his boxers. And then he was like, my dog is 14. This might be the last time I walk in the rain with this dog. And instead of it being just like embarrassing and really uncomfortable in so many ways, it becomes a story worth telling. So spending five minutes looking for the moment in your day, if this is like an, an example of a gratitude practice, that's not quite a gratitude practice. And if you are resistant to gratitude practices, which I was for like decades, actual literal decades, I was resented gratitude practices. This is a way to do a gratitude practice that's just like, find the one meaningful thing that happened that made today different from the other days. And when there's a thing that makes today different from the other days, your life, as you recall, it is going to feel like it was longer. And it's sort of magical. There's a book by Laura, I think, Vandercloot, I could be remembering that wrong. But it's called off the clock. And it has a whole bunch of exercises like this where you can make your life feel both more meaningful and longer. Because when all you have is like the exact same commute that you drive every day over and over for years, the only thing you remember is one commute, except for the handful of commutes that were different. And so instead of remembering all the many, many hours you spent on your commute, you remember individual instances. And when you collapse all your commutes into one commute, then that's 20 minutes of your life that you remember each way on average instead of, like, hours and hours and hours of your life. Does that make sense?
- [54:32]
B
Huh?
- [54:33]
A
So, on the one hand, fuck the clock and take your time, but on the other hand, time is the one and only resource that once it's gone, you can never get it back. And so it matters more how you spend time than how you spend any other resource, which is why it's so important that you know what your something larger is. Should we do another episode about something larger?
- [54:54]
B
Yes.
- [54:57]
A
Or we don't have to. Do you have anything else you want to say about time?
- [55:01]
B
Thanks for spending your time doing this.
- [55:03]
A
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Thank you for. I mean, you're probably doing something else at the same time, and that's awesome.
- [55:10]
B
Yeah.
- [55:10]
A
Because one of the great things about podcasts is that you can do literally anything with your hands while you are listening to it.
- [55:17]
B
And we'll see you next time.
- [55:19]
A
Yeah. Bye. And let's face it, a lot of us, if you're listening to this, you're the kind of person who's fucking amazing at whatever you do, whatever your job is. Like, you probably take a lot of pride in it, and you do it as well as you can. And if you currently have the kind of job you're like, I don't give a fuck. Congratulations. You are probably not exhausting yourself and burning yourself out at a job where you don't give a fuck.