This last year has been heavy. A global pandemic, political division, racial tension.
And did we mention the pandemic?
Today, Think Tank of Three is hitting the reset button.
You don’t always get to do that in life, but when you have a podcast for women, by women, you get to practice what you preach. And there is nothing we preach more than turning inward when you need it.
No matter how you look at it, the lows, the highs, we’ve all faced changes and challenges. But we’re still here and we’re here together.
Julie Holton:
Welcome back to the Think Tank of Three. I’m Julie Holton here with Audrea Fink and Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris. Can we just take a collective deep breath?
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Hopefully, that feels good. That does feel really good.
Audrea Fink:
Yeah. I feel a little better.
Julie Holton:
I needed that. I’ve needed it for probably a year now.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I think we need those at least once a day, every day, now that I think about it.
Audrea Fink:
I have an app that reminds me to breathe.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
There’s an app for that.
Audrea Fink:
There’s an app for that. Also, can we talk about how I have to have an app to remind me to stop being crazy and take a deep breath?
Julie Holton:
Like just to breathe?
Well, most of us aren’t breathing correctly anyways. It truly does make you feel better.
Reischea, when you said, and we’re here together, I wanted to cheer. Take a deep breath, and then freaking cheer because we made it through the last year.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
And we’re still here.
Audrea Fink:
We are still here. We have not abandoned you. We just went silent, and we’re going to talk about that today.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
But there’s also something, Audrea, I think has mentioned this in the past, with a deep breath, how it helps you mentally. I know that I’ve used that on my son when he gets a little amped up. And it’s like, “Calm down.’ And then what’s funny is it got thrown back at me by my five-year-old. I was upset and probably yelling at my son, and she’s like, “Mommy, mommy, take a deep breath.” What am I going to say to the five-year-old?
Julie Holton:
Right? I love it.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
If I say it to him. I gotta take my own advice.
Audrea Fink:
Although, I think telling someone to take a deep breath is actually kind of brilliant because if someone tells me to calm down one more time… When has that ever worked? Right?
Julie Holton:
I think it depends on-
If you tell someone like, “Hey honey, take a deep breath.” Genuine, concerning, caring, that’s amazing. But if you’re like someone I know and you’re like, “Take a deep breath,” it depends on the delivery.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Delivery does matter. And telling someone to calm down will send that person into a whole other… If I’m knee-deep in my rage, don’t tell me to calm down. What? There’s a reason I’ve amped up in the first place. Don’t tell me to calm down. Who do you think you’re talking to?
Audrea Fink:
I would be scared to tell you to calm down. However, I would not be scared to tell you “Hey, Reischea, let’s take a deep breath. I’ll take one with you.”
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
All together now.
Here’s the thing. The pandemic is that elephant. It is that huge elephant that globally affected everyone in some way, shape, or form. It was an absolute shared experience regardless of what your experience was, good, bad or indifferent. You were affected by this pandemic.
Audrea Fink:
And even though the Think Tank of Three, took some time to pause publicly. I think it’s important for us to come back to you and share what happened behind the scenes.
We as individuals and we as a team have really learned a lot, had some highs, had some lows, and leaned on each other as a tribe, which… you know I love my tribe.
And so, we were able to really come out of the other side of this as much as we are on the other side of this with some really powerful lessons and some pretty beautiful shared experiences, I think.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
We learned to lean in on one another even more like Audrea is alluding to. You didn’t hear from us and you should have at some point, but at the same time, we can’t necessarily apologize because life does take an effect. And sometimes you just have to deal with life. And we were all dealing with different things in our lives in our own way, but we had each other and we were leaning on each other when our lives were going through what they were going through.
Julie Holton:
I think one of the biggest things that we all have talked about, and I want to share just right off the get-go with our extended Think Tank of Three tribe that is that life didn’t stop last March 2020. Life didn’t just stop when the pandemic started. All of those things that all of us were going through leading up to the start of this global pandemic… It’s not like everything just paused. It kept happening. Life kept happening.
At one point I had interviewed Joyce Marter, who’s one of our previous podcast guests and therapists based out of Chicago. And she talked about this idea of complex traumas, which is when you have the snowball effect of trauma, on top of trauma, on top of trauma. And I think it’s really important to point out that for all of us collectively, experiencing this global pandemic in and of itself is a trauma.
No matter how you’ve been impacted, the highs and lows you felt, to experience this, to be in these individual statewide shutdowns, to have the mask mandates, the vaccination debates, all of these related things-
Audrea Fink:
To not be able to see your family, to not be able to see your friends, your community, to not be able to mourn together or celebrate together when big issues happen or big celebrations happen.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
To not be able to comfort one another, to not be able just to sit in solidarity with someone. The one thing that I think everyone can attest to is that we are not meant to be alone. We are social beings, whether that tribe is one person, whether that tribe is a small group of people, even individuals who have different mental or certain situational things that make it difficult for them to be interactive with people, there is still something about having that connection. And that was, without question truly tested and challenged in ways that no one would ever want to go through again.
Audrea Fink:
Most definitely.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
A lot of lessons coming out of this past year.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
But we’re still moving on. We’re still in it.
Audrea Fink:
It’s still quite a journey. We’re still learning.
Julie Holton:
We’re making it up as we go. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m making it up. I’m still learning. I’m still growing every day. And I think that’s the silver lining in this when we can take these experiences and turn them into lessons so quickly that we can talk about them.
Audrea Fink:
So, let’s kick off some of these lessons, Reisch. Why don’t you lead us? What have you learned? What hit you in the face with learning in the last year and a half to two years?
Julie Holton:
Other than having your daughter teach you how to just breathe.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
How to just breathe, right?
Audrea Fink
She’s so sassy. I love it.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
She is sassy. It’s one of the reasons I’ve taught her the statement. I am strong. I am smart. I can do anything.
Well, of course, it would be connected to my kids. It’s that our kids are listening. My kids are listening. I did find myself experiencing emotions and feelings and things that I didn’t realize were in me, with all of the racial tension that was going on, with the social unrest. And so, I watched way too much news and found myself reading way too many articles and found myself talking out loud, way too much walking through the house. And my son was home, remote learning, the situation here was like a lot of schools. It was a hybrid school model for him.
He needs more consistency. I was not going to be able to remember, “Oh, is this the week you have three days? Or is this the week you have two?” It was just going to be too difficult. And so, we chose to go with the remote learning for consistency for him.
But that also meant that I was around him all day, every day. Even when that school day ended, there I am still. A lot of what I was feeling and reading and hearing made its way into my brain, into my heart, out of my mouth. It chirped back at me a couple of times, and I had to stop and say, “Okay, listen, you’re 10. I know that you think you’re saying something because you heard mommy say it, but it’s a little more complicated. So, you and I and your dad, we need to have some conversations to kind of help you understand what’s going on.” Yeah, that happened a couple of times.
Audrea Fink:
It’s so funny how frequently you don’t realize kids are listening. I can be driving in the car with my mom and my niece. And my mom and I will be talking about something, and my niece will repeat back like, “That’s not how it happened.” I’m like, “What? I thought you had your headphones on. I thought you were listening to your iPhone. Like, what is this?”
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Who asked you?
Julie Holton:
There’s also something about hearing adult words, especially about a big topic coming out of a little kid’s mouth. There’s something about hearing your words repeated back to you that can be a reminder of the significance of our experience versus a child’s experience.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
It’s jarring. And then simultaneously, we also realized… I know for me, that this little guy who is 10, is growing up a little bit faster. He’s going to be exposed to some things earlier than perhaps I had anticipated, but at the same time he needs to be because unfortunately, we’re in a society where he’s going to have to be very aware a lot sooner than later. She’s five. She can still run around and be her little innocent self with lots of sass. But-
Audrea Fink:
I hope she never loses the sass.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
She won’t. I’ve got trouble. We’ve got issues coming. We’ve got some battles coming with that one.
Julie Holton:
I think Reischea… I think it’s important to share, If you want to, that some of the things that your son was repeating were about race. That has been really hard for adults to live through in the last year. Then now we have a ten-year-old, and you’re navigating your own journey plus guiding his. And I can’t even imagine where that then puts you in this place of the life lessons that you’re trying to navigate.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Right.
Audrea Fink:
And on top of that, a global pandemic where you’re not allowed to be around other people who could help guide this conversation.
Julie Holton:
Speaking of kids and the things they say… It was last year around Thanksgiving time, 2020. My niece, who was about four at the time was sitting on my lap and we’re talking about taking time off for Christmas and debating whether the family could get together, whether that was safe, conversations that I think we all were having around the holidays last year.
I mentioned, in conversation to my mom, that I was going to take a week off at Christmas just to take some time away from the business. And my niece immediately says, “No. You can’t take time off from work. That means you have COVID and you could die.” And I looked at her, I said, “What? I don’t have COVID.” And she said, “When people miss work, it’s because they have COVID.”
And come to find out, her dad’s work has this policy where if anyone even has the chance of being exposed to someone with COVID, they have automatic time off.
So, her dad not having had COVID thankfully had several instances where he had been exposed and had to take time off from work. And so, his four-year-old daughter suddenly took it to mean that any time off of work meant that you must have COVID. And what does COVID mean? You could get sick and die. Talk about these huge things that all of us… We’re talking about here today as adults, but the little ears, the little minds that have been living through this and what they’ve been learning.
Audrea Fink:
Isn’t it amazing how they interpret? How they process what you say. You say one thing, “I’ve had a couple days off work,” and they’re like, “You have COVID. You could die.” How heartbreaking is it that we have kids who are that scared? But at the same time, it’s crazy how they interpret it.
Julie Holton:
Well, and the fortunate thing, though, that we’re told by experts in the field is that our brains are resilient, and that we’re going to come out of this and we’re going to bounce back. There are things we can do. There are things we can do for our children that… She’s going to be a guest in a later show in this series as we talk about coming through the pandemic and the next stages and what that looks like. Until we get to that point, there is a lot out of fear.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
What about you miss Audrea? What did you learn or are in the process of learning?
Audrea Fink:
I love that you say that because that’s loaded and you know it. Look at you sounding so innocent. My lesson was really sort of a twofer. It was how important it is to take care of yourself and how important it is to not take crap from other people.
One of my big challenges for COVID was that I really dug into work. I’ve worked harder in the last year than I think I’ve ever worked in my whole life. And I think I’ve said this before, the women that I worked with… And actually, most of the people I worked with at my job were amazing, but I had one person who I couldn’t seem to stop crossing paths with here or there, who was really toxic and verbally abusive. And I took it. I took it for the length of time I was employed there. It really grated on me. And I didn’t address it because I didn’t know how I didn’t feel comfortable or I didn’t leave because I felt like everything else was fine.
And I kind of realized it was really messing with my mental health. Within the last two months, from this recording, I quit my job and my husband is the sole breadwinner now. It’s never been more clear to me that taking care of yourself, especially over a company or a job or another person you work with who is not your, they’re not your family, they’re not your community, they’re not your tribe, they’re just this person, is bold, right? Take care of yourself and don’t take crap from other people. It’s not worth it at all.
Julie Holton:
I applaud you because that was not an easy move for you to make. And it was a long time coming. Just to make it clear to our audience, it is not a typical Audrea to be like, “I’m done.” But I’m so proud of you that you were… proud, makes it sound like I had a part in it. I’m so happy for you, proud for you, that you were able to take that step to put yourself and your mental health first, instead of just continuing to just kind of deal with it. Because I think sometimes as a society, we tend to think that’s just what we have to do, is grin and bear it, and we don’t and you didn’t.
Audrea Fink:
Part of the reason I think I stuck it out for so long… And I’m actually really embarrassed about this. But part of the reason I didn’t complain, push back, whatever, was because I didn’t want to be the emotional hysterical woman who’s complaining, who couldn’t deal with the fact that she works in a tough industry. And it’s all bull. It’s all bull. I worked with some amazingly complicated and difficult attorneys who were 100% professional, polite, and treated me with respect. And to worry about like, “I think I’m just being hysterical,” is ridiculous. And I know better. And it just took me a little while to remember that I knew better.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
We’re so, brain waving, again, because we’ve done that. We as women have allowed that thought process to be planted, watered, and grown. And it’s like you said, it’s bull. It’s utter bull. We don’t have to just sit there and take it. And that comes into that whole trying to be just like the guys. Well, we’re not guys. There’s a reason we’re different. And we handle things differently. And right or wrong, better or worse, no one… Because no man is going to just sit and take it. Why on earth are we just sitting and taking it? Unfortunately, we’re going to have to… There’s a lot of work that we, as women, have to do to tear that perception clear away, to get rid of it, because it’s still out there and it exists. So, like Julie says-
Audrea Fink:
And it hurts other women
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Yes. Bravo, you for standing up and saying, “No. No more. Bravo, because that is hard. That is exceptionally hard.
Let’s face it. There’s also that comfort level. That question of, well now what? If I take this step, now what? So, that’s the other… The anxiety of, “If I step away from it…” But the fact that you just took a deep breath and took that step.
Audrea Fink:
Right. This was a big jump. It was a big leap. I was very scared to make it. I would just like to start off by saying that I 100% had the privilege to make this decision because my husband works. I would not have been able to make this choice had I been living on my own. So, I want to acknowledge that right off the bat.
And I’d also not gone without a job before. I work. I’m a worker. The career woman, that’s part of my identity. And I definitely have struggled in not having a job with, “Well then, who am I?” If you look back on 2020, it was also professionally my most successful year. If you look at the things that I did, the things that I accomplished… I am impressed with myself. Like, “I’m hot shit.”
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
You should be.
Audrea Fink:
And I’m exhausted. And I was burned out and drowning. And it took my husband saying, “I don’t know who this person is who lives with me anymore.” And it took a handful of my friends saying, “We’re really worried about you. You really seem off.”
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
That’s the other side of taking it. Just sitting there grinning and bearing it… It tears at your soul eventually. And your soul can only take so much.
Julie Holton:
Yeah, it beats you down. And Audrea, what a huge change from what you told us the other day, which is that right now, personally, your life… You are the best you’ve ever been. What a huge shift from what your friends and your husband were saying before you left that job. And I say job a purposefully because you still are a career woman. You’re in the process. You’re navigating to whatever that’s going to be next for you. And I get it. There’s so much identity tied up in our jobs. But you left that job. And now, other than searching for the next opportunity, you’re better than you’ve been ever, you said.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
And you’ll also be better for whatever that next opportunity is because you’ll be in the right headspace. You’re no longer trying to escape something and find yourself moving quickly into something else just because it’s something else. You’re in a better headspace where you can say, “Okay. Is this truly what I want to do? Does this make sense? Is this where I want to be? So, I think that is a very big deal, a very big deal.
Julie Holton:
It’s huge.
Audrea Fink:
Thanks, ladies. I love you. Thank you for all your support.
Julie Holton:
And you’re just glowing. I wish we were on video right now. We can see each other, but you’re just glowing, which just emphasizes everything you’re talking about.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
It means you made the right choice, period. You made the right choice.
Audrea Fink:
I did. And I got to spend even more time with my dogs. Poor Reischea. She’s like, “Who are you people treating your dogs like children?”
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
You’re a special crew, you dog folks.
Audrea Fink:
Special breed we are.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Special breed. I will not give the dog breed people a hard time. You guys are special people. You’re special.
Audrea Fink:
Jules, let’s talk about your year because you had a pretty amazing and tough and awesome and heavy year.
Julie Holton:
It’s been a wild year. I don’t think any of us imagined we’d live through a global pandemic. That’s something that happens only in the movies or at least it did before 2020. But if I was going to imagine it, it would not have been quarantining alone. And when you’re single, that is something that hasn’t been talked about a lot. And I certainly haven’t talked about it a lot or really at all, because I also didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that like, “Hey. Here I am alone in my house. Come hang out with me you bad guys, you.”
But the reality is this also… and this is going to sound crazy. This is part of the wild ride, so bear with me. But this also has been such an incredible time for personal growth for me. And I know that that’s the fancy way of saying it really sucked. And that’s true too, but the reality is I really like my solitude. And I liked this before the pandemic, but I’ve really come to enjoy my time. And I really had to make the most of it. It has also helped me to, no surprise, really value my tribe even more. And let me explain. The political season was really rough. I don’t know if you guys knew that, but it was pretty divisive.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Really?
Julie Holton:
A little bit. I don’t know.
Audrea Fink:
Not here in Seattle. Seattle was very chill.
Julie Holton:
Yeah. I heard how chill it was in Seattle.
There would be times when I would be hearing from my friends about the divisions in their family or the divisions with their best friends. And I realized very quickly how incredibly fortunate I am that I was like, “Whoa, my inner circle is not crazy. Or at least if they are, I’m right there on the same crazy train,” because I felt so supported and so united and just so thankful that I didn’t have those additional complications. There were disagreements, but it wasn’t like the horribleness.
Audrea Fink:
So, even though you might’ve had disagreements within your group, it’s not like you guys are all the same, same matchy-matchy. But you were able to have respectful conversations if you disagreed. You were able to talk like people who care about each other. And it didn’t devolve into a screaming match where people are not talking to each other.
Julie Holton:
Yes, absolutely. And I don’t take that lightly. There’s been so much that we’ve had to go through in the last year that when it got right down to it, I’ve never been more grateful for my tribe than I was in the last year. We couldn’t be physically together, but the gaps weren’t there if that makes sense.
Audrea Fink:
We were just talking about this the other day when we preparing for this podcast, how we have this incredibly strong tribe between the three of us. Julie and Audrea have not met Reischea in person yet. And Julia and Audrea… I know I’m talking about myself in the third person. Sorry about that. But Julie and Audrea have only met twice, in person, in real life. Otherwise, there’s this incredibly strong bond and this incredible amount of respect that we built virtually. Before it was cool we were on Zoom. I’d just like to say that.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Even if it was just for our voices.
Julie Holton:
Reischea described it best. She was like, “I really love this internet relationship we have.” It brings a whole other context.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
There you go.
Audrea Fink:
We should build an app for this. This is way better than dating. Is like, “Find my new best friends.”
Julie Holton:
Amen
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
All of that matters. All of that is important. And all of that as a part of the journey of living. I think that this pandemic has forced a lot of people to really do that inward stocktaking because there you weren’t able to go anywhere except to take stock.
Even if you were still working in your monetary earning thing, you were still, for the most part, most people were doing at home if you weren’t within a first responder, a medical profession. It has been a lot. And there’s that deep breath again, just acknowledging everything that has happened, that continues to happen the challenges of the pandemic.
And Audrea, I think you said it best how… Or maybe it was Julie. It was one of you. The world keeps going, does not stop spinning even when the challenge is slapping you in the face. It does not stop spinning. So, for me, it was the loss of my brother and completely unanticipated and unrelated to COVID. And that happened recently.
It’s like, “Enough. Really?” It’s a lot. More things keep coming at you and you have to figure out how to deal with those more things because it really doesn’t stop. You want everything to stop-
Audrea Fink:
Just pause.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I really just need this world to pause. I need a pause. I need that pause to happen for a solid week. That wasn’t going to happen, so it didn’t.
Audrea Fink:
I think that we are globally learning about grief right now. Some of it is the grief that we expect, I guess to a certain extent. The loss of a loved one is one of those where you will grieve. But there are things like the loss of connection, right, not being able to touch people for months. Definitely not the same as losing a brother, but I lost three of my four pets during the pandemic. (We now have two more dogs.)
There’s a lot of grief that has come in. There is the grief of having to work and focus on making money, when you’re like, “But the world is in pain and I’m sitting here racking up the dollars while other people starve.” That felt like crap, right? We have the survivors’ guilt. We have all this grief from all of the things we lost. We expected some of it, but we didn’t expect all of it. And we certainly didn’t expect it in this big of a bite.
Julie Holton:
It’s a lot. And we had so many layers of it happening at once. We chose to start by talking about the lessons because of all three of us… We don’t sugarcoat anything, so I don’t want to imply that. But we always try to see the good in things, even when things are really shitty. So, the reality is things were really hard for a while. And to an extent, things continue to be really hard.
I remember early on taking a call from a dear friend of mine who owns several nursing homes. This was in the first couple of weeks when they were in an absolute panic trying to get enough protective gear for their staff. And her phone call changed the course of my entire day because here I thought I was fighting the good fight and helping businesses change their strategies and messaging. And they were shutting their doors. And that was really important.
But at that moment, it was that reminder that there are lives on the line because this is a health pandemic. And it really shifted my perspective at that moment. And I think that throughout this entire experience, that has been something that has been bringing this whole experience in waves, where you experience the good with the bad, sometimes in the same day, sometimes day-to-day. And sometimes you’re experiencing one thing and another person is experiencing another. And we’re trying to come to terms with it. It’s really hard to wrap our brains around celebrating success when someone else is suffering from a huge, catastrophic loss and vice versa. I still don’t have any answers on how we navigate this. I don’t think any of us do.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
That’s that survivor’s guilt that Audrea had alluded to. And that’s the other thing, people experienced a great amount of success. You had some really amazingly wonderful things happen to you, Julie, during this horrendously awful time in our global life. You earned those wonderful, positive things.
That’s the thing. Nothing changed that led to… When I say nothing changed, I mean your effort, the work you put in, the things that you were doing. That didn’t change pre or post or during the pandemic. That is still who you are. So, you have earned those successes and you’ve earned the right to celebrate those successes.
My successes felt a little bit early on… This podcast was a huge thing for me. And it was strange because, at the same time, it’s like, “I know that people are losing things.” And you don’t want to… Like “How are you? I’m great. I’ve got this going on and this going on.’ And it’s a hard balancing act, but I also think we need to just emphasize to people that… Be sensitive to the situation and be sensitive to what’s happening in the world, absolutely 100%.
But don’t feel bad for the good that is coming your way. You’ve earned that good. You deserved that. The good comes when the good comes. There is no calendar that says, this month you get your good, or after the pandemic, we’re going to schedule your good to come here. Your good comes when it comes.
Audrea Fink:
One of the things that I have been working on, in my time off, has been my mental health. So, I’ve been talking with a therapist pretty regularly. And we regularly address this idea of holding two different opposing thoughts at the same time.
One, I would like to celebrate my success. I did an amazing job. I did this big thing. This amazing thing happened to me. And then the other thing is this horrible thing is happening. And I feel helpless and hopeless. And I feel guilty for the things that I have, but I also feel grateful for the health that I have. You can hold both.
Humans can hold both. And we should hold both and make space for that because it’s so important to not just say, this is all the horrible, I can’t celebrate the success, because then you never see a light at the end of the tunnel and you burn yourself out. And you’re no good to yourself or anybody else if you just sit in that space of, I need to just work harder to help someone else. I need to put everyone else’s face mask on before my own. You have to be able to hold both. Not that that’s an easy thing to do, but you have to be able to hold both.
Julie Holton:
I feel like I need a deep breath after that.
Audrea Fink:
Another one.
Julie Holton:
This is so good. Both of you… You’re so you’re so right. And it’s so encouraging. I think something that I take very seriously and very close to heart is that much of the success that I’ve seen as a silver lining through this pandemic has been because I made it my mission to help others. And I say that being as genuine and real as I can possibly be.
I ended up with a TV show that I now host, that airs once a week locally here in the Lansing Michigan market. But this TV show started as a Facebook live series. The whole point of the series was to help provide our community with answers, to help our business owners figure out how to stay running when their doors had to be closed, shifting online, how to sanitize and clean if there was a COVID-19 exposure, how to focus on our mental health, how to deal with homeschooling children while also trying to remote work for the first time, all of these complicated issues.
I did more than 60 interviews in the first four weeks because I had connections to experts who had answers and I had a community that desperately needed them.
And I remember saying to my team really early on… A member of my team had said to me, “Julia, what the heck? How are you jumping into action?” She’s like, “The world shuts down and I want to shut down. And here you are doing all these Facebook lives.” And the reality was, it was kind of therapeutic for me because it was my connection to the outside world. I was able to talk to people. I felt like I was taking action and helping. And I think it really was a big help.
But also, I said to her… At the time, I said, “Look, we all have our time. Just because I’m jumping into action now… You just wait. My day, I promise you, is coming.” And it’s come several times since then when I have been just totally burnt out and I needed to hit pause and I needed to step back and I needed others in the community to help fill me back up. It’s part of being in a community where you give and you have to be able to then take and to receive. And it’s all a part of this ebb and flow.
And so when the pandemic started, I just leaned on my former news background and jumped in and did the only thing I knew how to do because I certainly didn’t know how to save everyone’s businesses.
Personally. I didn’t know how to save my own. I didn’t know if at the end of all of this, I would still be standing or not. But there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about that. What I could do was these Facebook lives to help other people. And we ended up with a TV show that now we can reach even more people and help more people.
I’m really proud of my team for what we were able to do and the success that we’ve seen, but it is hard to celebrate successes when you know so many others are hurting and have not been as fortunate. I just use that as my inspiration to keep the show going and to keep helping as many people as we can possibly help.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I think you’ve handled it well. I think you both have. Again, we keep repeating it, but it’s worth repeating. You’re allowed to have success. You’ve earned that success. You’re allowed to be smiling for walking away from the job that was tearing you apart. And you’re allowed to feel good about that. And simultaneously, stay aware of what’s happening in the world around you as well, and be sensitive to that. I think we all walk that line and understand how to walk that line. And that’s also called living. It’s called life.
Audrea Fink:
Yeah. And life doesn’t pause, which is a real bitch.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Life doesn’t pause. Things just keep on keeping on. The question I think I’ve learned to… I hate to use the term despise because it is strong. But I strongly dislike it. How are you doing?
Because I know that it’s coming from a good place, that it’s coming from a place of I’m checking in on you, but I’d rather just that person say, I’m checking in on you, versus how are you doing. Because I don’t really know how to answer that other than to say I’m here.
And of course, I didn’t think about that until I had to run into that a second time. The first time I had to deal with that question was after my father. And here I am several years later having to deal with that after my brother. I realized… I’m like, “I don’t like that question.”
Audrea Fink:
I will ask it almost out of habit. And I also dislike it because… It’s not disingenuine, but it’s also not really what I’m asking.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Right. We all do it. I do it myself. I say that I have learned to dislike it. And yet, the first thing you say when you see someone is, “How are you doing?” It’s a greeting. It’s become a greeting.
Maybe that’s another lesson I need to take from my own self, is really stop and think about what you’re communicating. Are you asking, “Are you okay? Is there something you need?” or are you just saying, “Hey, what’s up?”
We’ve shared with you all that we took the necessary time that we needed. Unfortunately, we didn’t communicate with you, our family, on the other side as well as we should have. But we’re back. We’re back. And we were excited to be back. And we’re excited about what we’re looking to bring to you as we continue our venture and our reset, what’s coming our way with the Think Tank of Three.
Julie Holton:
We’re asking you to weigh in. This will also give us the opportunity to really cover topics that we know you want to hear about, whether you want to join us on the podcast, whether you want to join us in our private group, and you can share content and information, and resources. Maybe you have someone that we should talk to on our podcast, a friend, or a colleague that we should interview. All of this is on the table. This podcast is just as much yours as it is ours. And we are so excited to invite you into our inner tribe to grow with us in this next season of the Think Tank of Three.
So, our next steps… from our first topic, this podcast, we’re going to really dive into topics related to the pandemic, not necessarily looking back, except as it helps us to look forward. So, how do we take these lessons that we’ve learned that we’re still learning and really tap into some of these experts and their brilliant brains to help us figure out how to best move forward, whether that’s with a career transition, we’ve been talking about that, and a lot of people are talking about that, whether it is with our own resiliency and figuring out how the heck do we move forward from our grief, from our ups and downs, from helping our children navigate through this. So, many topics related to the pandemic as we look ahead.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
It’s going to be an amazing ride. It’s going to be a great opportunity as we continue to grow with this show. But for now, thank you so much for tuning in to the Think Tank of Three.