Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Car Stories with some
Speaker 1: Kay and Amelia Hartford. It is so great that we
Speaker 1: both plan to match today.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Military Day.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Song and I are both wearing green pants and
Speaker 1: a white shirt.
Speaker 2: What is your favorite pizza in the world?
Speaker 1: Favorite pizza?
Speaker 2: Yeah, pizza place?
Speaker 1: Oh, pizza place?
Speaker 2: Yeah, pizza Yeah. Where do you get like your last pizza,
Speaker 2: your slice of pizza?
Speaker 1: Where would you go if I were to tell you
Speaker 1: about a pizza place I've had recently, It's Mulberry Pizza,
Speaker 1: Mulberry Prime or issue my two go Tos? What about you?
Speaker 2: Domino's pizza?
Speaker 1: You like Dominoes?
Speaker 2: I think that's Domina's the best pizza in the world. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah it is.
Speaker 1: We'll have to agree to news story. I don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong. Dominoes is good. But don't think I might
Speaker 1: just like a.
Speaker 2: Little people under to make the power of a franchise
Speaker 2: the reason. It's good. It's good. That's good, it's good,
Speaker 2: it's great. It is good. But it's the Big Mac
Speaker 2: is the best tasting hamburger in the world. Okay, it is.
Speaker 2: It's served over three billion people probably by now.
Speaker 1: I wish I could agree with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if there was no McDonald's okay, and I put
Speaker 2: and okay. If there was no McDonald's, no Dominoes and
Speaker 2: no KFC, and you came over to my house and
Speaker 2: I put a Domino's pizza in front of.
Speaker 1: You, it'd be too much for me.
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, okay, and I give you a
Speaker 2: slice of that.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't talking about like too much food. It
Speaker 1: would just be like what too much? Too much everything,
Speaker 1: like a cheese pizza, it's like overdone. I like simple,
Speaker 1: like okay.
Speaker 2: If I came over with my house and I put
Speaker 2: there's no McDonald's and I put a big Mac in
Speaker 2: front of you, you would say this is the best
Speaker 2: that it's processed.
Speaker 1: It's not real.
Speaker 2: It's because you know, and I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't think.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm Jayden, but I know based on recently in Japan,
Speaker 1: when I went to Starbucks, I got a Machia Late
Speaker 1: and then I came back to the States and I
Speaker 1: got a Macho Lte and it tasted completely different and
Speaker 1: it was so much better in Japan.
Speaker 2: That's not my point. It's not my point. There's no
Speaker 2: there is no But.
Speaker 1: I'd much rather go support a mom and Pop play.
Speaker 1: I could be like the food drink taste better there.
Speaker 2: Pop opened a Hamburger spot.
Speaker 1: The only one you could convince me on is Taco Bell.
Speaker 2: No, that's gross. No, okay, okay, let's have about KFC
Speaker 2: argument if you came to that in so long. Okay, Well,
Speaker 2: for the chicken people out there, if I made a
Speaker 2: KFC original recipe at my house, people would think that
Speaker 2: is the best chicken ever made.
Speaker 1: I feel like I can tell a difference between fresh
Speaker 1: ingredients versus non fresh, frozen preservative ingredients.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, if I made the same recipe with fresh
Speaker 2: organic chicken from Whole Food or Ariwon, it would be
Speaker 2: the best chicken.
Speaker 1: That's why it would be great because it wouldn't upset
Speaker 1: my stomach.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why there's a KFC because it was the
Speaker 2: At one time, it was a mom and pop. At
Speaker 2: one time, McDonald's was a mom and pop.
Speaker 1: You can't compare. We're talking about the food today, you
Speaker 1: can't compare it to what it was.
Speaker 2: Man, this is anyway. My vote is Domino's Pizza the
Speaker 2: best pizza. And you say Mulberry, Okay, I know Mulberry
Speaker 2: is the best.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that's what I guess.
Speaker 2: I can't convince you that Dominoes.
Speaker 1: I just feel like I asked myself out of working
Speaker 1: with so many potential brands.
Speaker 2: No you didn't no, no, no, no, no like Dominoes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well yeah he a Dominos. I love you guys. Anyway, So,
Speaker 2: speaking of awesome thing, right, our first guest today is.
Speaker 1: Jen Horsey, and I am just constantly impressed with Jen,
Speaker 1: from being a racing driver, from a journalist to being
Speaker 1: the first female analyst on ESPN for sports.
Speaker 2: She's about giving back and paying forward and creating opportunities
Speaker 2: for other people's dreams to happen, and she arrives in
Speaker 2: that and it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: She doesn't usually take the spotlight, is usually the one
Speaker 1: helping others behind the scenes, so it's really nice for
Speaker 1: her to come on and just get to know her
Speaker 1: on a more public scale.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I hear that she can make some mean pastries.
Speaker 1: I want to croissants, Jen, please.
Speaker 2: So without further ado, Jen Horsey, So, Jens, thank you
Speaker 2: for coming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much for coming today.
Speaker 3: Thanks, guys, I'm super happy to be here. I kind
Speaker 3: of know you from different world, so it was cool
Speaker 3: to see get the invitation and be able to join
Speaker 3: your great podcast.
Speaker 1: We like to have people on who inspire us, and
Speaker 1: if someone want to look at your resume, they'd be like,
Speaker 1: holy crap, this is possible in a lifetime and you
Speaker 1: did what and you've done how much that I don't
Speaker 1: even know where to begin. I kind of want people
Speaker 1: to hear who are listening from you a little bit
Speaker 1: about yourself and how you got to work today before
Speaker 1: we kind of dive into everything. How did this all
Speaker 1: start for you? I don't have like a straight path,
Speaker 1: you know. When I was a little kid, I didn't
Speaker 1: grow up in a car household. I didn't follow racing.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about cars at all. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a journalist from a really young age. I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm just curious about people. I'm curious about
Speaker 1: what makes people tick, and also recognize that you could
Speaker 1: go and do a lot of cool stuff.
Speaker 3: And I wanted to be in it. I didn't want
Speaker 3: to be watching things from a distance. I didn't want
Speaker 3: to be sitting behind a desk. I wanted to be
Speaker 3: in it. So I was like, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 3: be a journalist. So of course I went to theater
Speaker 3: school because that's practical, and I have a technical theater degree.
Speaker 3: You do, Yeah, I did lighting design. That was that
Speaker 3: was my experience.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, she could tell me anything and I
Speaker 1: can't be surprised.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: So partly because I knew that would be fun. I
Speaker 3: love the theater environment. I thought I would meet really
Speaker 3: interesting people, which I did. Yeah, did you grow up Toronto?
Speaker 3: So I'm originally from Toronto to school in the East
Speaker 3: Coast and Halifax at Dalhousie University. And while I was
Speaker 3: in school, I was like promoting bands on the side
Speaker 3: and then also being a freelance writer and working in
Speaker 3: campus radio and my student paper, and I was going
Speaker 3: to do the experiential path. I'm not super into school,
Speaker 3: so I think everyone should go to school. I think
Speaker 3: degrees are great. It's not my favorite environment. So I thought, Okay,
Speaker 3: well I'll do the school because I have to get
Speaker 3: the piece of paper, but I'm going to get a
Speaker 3: lot of experience. So I went through and did the
Speaker 3: experiential route to becoming a journalist. Got an internship at
Speaker 3: Canadian Press, which is Canada's associated press. It's the Why service,
Speaker 3: which turned into a full time job so my first career,
Speaker 3: I was a journalist. So first career, yes, just to
Speaker 3: date myself completely, my first big story was nine to eleven,
Speaker 3: so I was a junior reporter. At that time. News
Speaker 3: is obviously twenty four to seven. The wire in particular,
Speaker 3: it's sort of like that for everyone now because of
Speaker 3: the Internet. But again this is like early two thousands.
Speaker 3: The Internet played a really different role in our lives,
Speaker 3: and I soon realized I was never seeing my friends
Speaker 3: and family. I was a junior reporter, so I worked
Speaker 3: a lot of nights. I worked a lot of weekends,
Speaker 3: and I learned quickly that as long as there was
Speaker 3: something in the slot beside your name on the assignment board,
Speaker 3: they just skipped and went to the next one, and
Speaker 3: you could just do whatever you wrote in the slot.
Speaker 3: If you chose your own destiny and just followed your interest,
Speaker 3: you could choose what you wanted to do that day. So,
Speaker 3: because I was working a lot of evenings and weekends,
Speaker 3: I used to assign myself on the weekends to things
Speaker 3: that I thought would be interesting that I didn't have
Speaker 3: any experience in, and that potentially I could bring my
Speaker 3: friends and family too, So at least I would see
Speaker 3: them because I wasn't seeing them. So weekend I assigned
Speaker 3: myself to a rally. I did not know the difference
Speaker 3: between a car rally and a political rally. Like I
Speaker 3: knew that this was car racing, I knew nothing about it,
Speaker 3: literally nothing. So I went to the stage rally. It
Speaker 3: was the Canadian Season Ender Championship to be decided. High stakes,
Speaker 3: everyone going super fast, and that particular race is called
Speaker 3: the Rally of the Tall Pines. It's one of North
Speaker 3: America's most notorious I now know notorious difficult, late night
Speaker 3: grueling races. I know of people who have injured themselves
Speaker 3: pretty seriously just hitting a jump wrong. And it's known
Speaker 3: as winter roads with summer ditches, which is to say
Speaker 3: it's the conditions can be very icy, but there's no
Speaker 3: snow to catch you if you fall off the road,
Speaker 3: so it's a pretty gnarly race. I went out. I
Speaker 3: was standing in the woods and I watched this red
Speaker 3: Mitsubichi Lance Revolution come careening around a corner flat out sideways,
Speaker 3: passed inches from me out of forty five degree angle
Speaker 3: to the road direction, and I was like, wait, that
Speaker 3: guy's doing that on purpose, Like you can slide a
Speaker 3: car sideways on purpose and not crash, and I was hooked.
Speaker 3: I was like, I got to figure out how to
Speaker 3: do that, Like I wasn't hooked, like I need to
Speaker 3: watch this more. I was like, I need to know
Speaker 3: how to do that, like I wouldn't be able to
Speaker 3: go sideways on purpose.
Speaker 1: So this is where it gets a little bit ridiculous.
Speaker 3: We had to go to the banquet afterwards. Sitting at
Speaker 3: the banquet tit table and there's like twelve people around
Speaker 3: a table and the table is you know, seven time
Speaker 3: Canadian rally champion, shop that builds all the best cars,
Speaker 3: guy that won the race, a couple friends and family,
Speaker 3: fifty five year old man sitting to my left and
Speaker 3: his wife. And I did not know there was such
Speaker 3: a thing as a privateer in racing. I didn't know
Speaker 3: you could just be in a car race. So I
Speaker 3: was like, okay, I get all this and looked around
Speaker 3: the rest of the table. But like, mister mann beside me,
Speaker 3: whose name was Keith, how did you get here? And
Speaker 3: he's like, you know, my wife and I would have
Speaker 3: been racing for the last four or five years. It's
Speaker 3: been super fun, really enjoyed it. But I think we're
Speaker 3: going to sell the car and put the money into
Speaker 3: the boat. And I was like, huh, well, how much
Speaker 3: is a race car? How much does that cost? He
Speaker 3: gave me a number. Turns out it wasn't very big,
Speaker 3: and I said, well, I'll buy it. And that's the
Speaker 3: day I became a race car driver.
Speaker 1: Actually, after seeing this car go sideways through the woods,
Speaker 1: You're like, I love this, I want more. I'm going
Speaker 1: to buy a car and I'm going to learn how
Speaker 1: to rally race.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I went from you know, pretty fun in
Speaker 3: amazing career interviewing. You know, I interviewed Bill Clinton, I
Speaker 3: talked to Nelson, Mandela Garth Brooks one day, crime and
Speaker 3: politics and all sorts of things amazing, but also felt
Speaker 3: like I'd kind of done it. And then I had
Speaker 3: this opportunity to do this wild thing on the weekends.
Speaker 3: So I bought a race car and I started racing.
Speaker 3: So I was a race car driver for a little while.
Speaker 1: You actually a lot of talent, Yeah, I as.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm terrible. I'm a terrible race car driver.
Speaker 3: I've also tested to do some stunt driving, and I
Speaker 3: can kind of do it because I can slid a
Speaker 3: car sideways like I'm better than a regular sort of
Speaker 3: civilian driver, but like, no, I'm a terrible car driver.
Speaker 3: But as it turned out, I also don't have the
Speaker 3: car sickness gene. So although I was terrible driver, the
Speaker 3: experience that I got behind the wheel showed me that
Speaker 3: I actually could probably be a pretty good navigator. So
Speaker 3: in stage rally there's a driver and a co driver.
Speaker 3: The co driver is more a navigational role. No, I
Speaker 3: do not get car sick and I had some opportunities
Speaker 3: because I was still working as a journalist, I had
Speaker 3: some opportunities to do some competition and kind of cover
Speaker 3: it from inside the cars for features for magazines. I
Speaker 3: pitched some stories that would be fun and learned that
Speaker 3: I actually was a pretty good navigator. So I competed
Speaker 3: for fun in regionals in the middle of the back
Speaker 3: of the pack. I wasn't last, but I certainly wasn't
Speaker 3: going to win, and became a relatively successful co driver.
Speaker 3: But also I'm kind of scrappy, So I parlayed my
Speaker 3: media skill into working with the US Rally series, doing
Speaker 3: online media coverage and helping them with their pr and
Speaker 3: helping them with their marketing and that's kind of how
Speaker 3: I fell into this car world. I did not imagine
Speaker 3: that I would my life would take that significant and
Speaker 3: left turn at the banquet of my first race. But
Speaker 3: that's how I got into cars. And I've been doing
Speaker 3: car stuff now since the early two thousands and met
Speaker 3: a lot of fantastic people along the way and heard
Speaker 3: a lot of great stories along the way, And that's
Speaker 3: what drew me to it in the first place.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 3: Sure, forty five degree angle sideways to the road amazing,
Speaker 3: But like what makes everybody tick was what always fascinated me.
Speaker 3: And I love that I've had the opportunity to be
Speaker 3: part of this community for so long.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been rally racing song? No?
Speaker 2: I never raced, been on cars.
Speaker 1: But yeah, do you get carsick in cars? No?
Speaker 2: It puts me to sleep really.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, would you like to be a co driver
Speaker 3: because you are biologically equipped to do that?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 3: Are you a nervous passenger?
Speaker 1: No? If I go to Thank God, I'm all the opposite.
Speaker 3: Yeah, most race car drivers are terrible passengers.
Speaker 1: I don't passenger well and I will puke. I'd get
Speaker 1: so nauseous in a car if I'm not the one
Speaker 1: in control. If I'm in the back seat, especially, i'm done,
Speaker 1: it's game over.
Speaker 3: I always tell people they're like, wow, can you be
Speaker 3: a co driver? I'm like, okay, Well, when you were
Speaker 3: a kid, were you the kid lying with your head
Speaker 3: in the foot well upside down, reading comic books, chewing
Speaker 3: on really sweet gum, and like smelling all the gas
Speaker 3: fumes and just kind of feeling fine about all that.
Speaker 3: If so, then yes you can be a co driver.
Speaker 3: If you've ever once in your life been carsick, I
Speaker 3: don't take in airplanes. No, no, you.
Speaker 2: Sorry? You get sick an airplane?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to be in control.
Speaker 2: The best sleep something there is when the plane's taking off.
Speaker 2: As soon as it lifts off, ninety nine percent I
Speaker 2: pass out.
Speaker 3: I usually sleep on planes too. Maybe it's part of
Speaker 3: the like anti carsickness gene.
Speaker 2: Can't do it feels so good. I'm a moment I'm
Speaker 2: like out, So it's it's I look forward to flying,
Speaker 2: and I look forward to taking ride alongs with like
Speaker 2: race car drivers and drifters because it's so relaxing, you know,
Speaker 2: it's super relaxing.
Speaker 3: I can think of some people who would like to
Speaker 3: have you in their right seat.
Speaker 2: For sure, but I'm horrible with directions. I don't think
Speaker 2: i'd be a good navigator.
Speaker 3: It's not really directions, it's a whole language. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's really different. I actually can get lost pretty easily
Speaker 3: if I'm not paying attention. So navigating does not look
Speaker 3: to the navigator like a race at all. Navigating looks
Speaker 3: like reading a book. The code driver can't necessarily even
Speaker 3: see over the dashboard because obviously for weight balance, you
Speaker 3: guys know cars, the code driver is kind of a
Speaker 3: piece of equipment, and the co driver should be down
Speaker 3: as far as they can and back as far as
Speaker 3: they can, so barely seeing over the dashboard is pretty normal.
Speaker 3: I'm tall enough that I can usually see, but just barely.
Speaker 3: And the language of stage rally is the turns are
Speaker 3: coated in numbers, and so it's like a left one
Speaker 3: would be a hairpin turn, and a left three would
Speaker 3: be a ninety degree left turn. And it's depending on
Speaker 3: what system you use. It's a numeric scale from one
Speaker 3: to six typically, And unlike in desert racing, where it's
Speaker 3: kind of they're telling you about gotcha's, in stage rally
Speaker 3: code driving, they have everything in the book. So it's
Speaker 3: a constant stream of the co driver just talking, you know,
Speaker 3: one hundred, which would be like one hundred yards one
Speaker 3: hundred left four titans and opens right six left six
Speaker 3: three hundred, Like you're just constantly and so as I'm
Speaker 3: saying that people who compete in rally, I'm painting a road.
Speaker 3: The idea is that the driver can drive ahead of
Speaker 3: their eyes. It can be safer because if I say
Speaker 3: left three over crest, that's a ninety degree turn over
Speaker 3: the top of that hill that you can't see over,
Speaker 3: so you should probably have the wheelcock to the left
Speaker 3: before you get to the top of that hill. If
Speaker 3: on the other hand, I say flat overcrest, pin it
Speaker 3: and go straight, like get as much air as you can.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but as I say, it's so fun.
Speaker 3: It is pretty fun. And I got to ride in
Speaker 3: really fast race cars doing amazing things for a number
Speaker 3: of years. It was it was really fun. And when
Speaker 3: it's working and you have a good vibe with the driver,
Speaker 3: it's you're like.
Speaker 1: Sharing a brain.
Speaker 3: So it's very cool. Like you feel like as a
Speaker 3: co driver, I have a really clear mental image in
Speaker 3: my head of the road that we're on, and I'm
Speaker 3: my eyes are flickering up a little bit, and I'm
Speaker 3: looking at the tree line to see if it's bending
Speaker 3: the way that I expect it to be bending. Very
Speaker 3: occasionally and mostly kind of doing the uh girometer that's
Speaker 3: in in my body and understanding where I am on
Speaker 3: the on the course. And it is amazing fun and
Speaker 3: when it clicks it it really is like you're one person.
Speaker 3: It's very cool and you're one with the car.
Speaker 2: What characteristics makes a great symbiotic co driving and driving relationship?
Speaker 3: Well, I heard the act of being a co driver
Speaker 3: is described once as doing calculus in a hurricane. If
Speaker 3: you feel like you can figure that out, that's your
Speaker 3: You're in a good position. Boats that's another one. Can't
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: Definitely not me. I'm opposite of the stereotype my co driver. No,
Speaker 2: I cannot do math.
Speaker 3: We don't actually have to do that focus and.
Speaker 2: Even that I have like add so and I'll fall
Speaker 2: asleep on it.
Speaker 4: We will die, we will die.
Speaker 1: Were you the first ever female to report on ESPN
Speaker 1: in in that space?
Speaker 3: Yeah, In the end, I started out as a researcher. Again,
Speaker 3: I just follow my heart right, so I would be
Speaker 3: sitting in the booth. So if you think about how
Speaker 3: a motorsport show works, usually there's like a play by
Speaker 3: play person and then there's an analyst person, and the
Speaker 3: analyst person is typically an ex competitor and the play
Speaker 3: by play person. That's like a whole skill set of
Speaker 3: being able to call the action. At X games. Because
Speaker 3: the sport was so new, there wasn't an analyst person.
Speaker 3: There wasn't an experienced person, so they brought in and
Speaker 3: a number of people who know a lot about racing,
Speaker 3: but not a lot about that particular sport because it
Speaker 3: was kind of a niche sport at the time, And
Speaker 3: so I was assisting them and I would sort of
Speaker 3: be handing from like when they weren't on camera, I'd
Speaker 3: be handing them like note cards with like you should
Speaker 3: say this now, this is what's happening with that car.
Speaker 3: That cars debeated attire, like whatever. It is. A couple
Speaker 3: years in, I took you oute to compete. We front
Speaker 3: flipped very spectacularly. We were highlight reel footage for a
Speaker 3: really long time. Then I was brought back as an
Speaker 3: in car reporter, so it was head to head racing.
Speaker 3: They didn't really need co drivers, so they hired two
Speaker 3: co drivers to effectively co drive the audience, so we
Speaker 3: were miked live to air as reporters in the race
Speaker 3: cars as they raced head to head, and then eventually
Speaker 3: they asked me to sit in the booth as an analyst,
Speaker 3: so as an ex competitor most knowledgeable about the sport
Speaker 3: to provide context. And I believe I was the first
Speaker 3: female motorsport analyst, so I like predate Danica Patrick by
Speaker 3: a little while the role that she plays on the
Speaker 3: Indie Car prodcast. I am much more comfortable behind the
Speaker 3: scenes supporting people than I am being in the spotlight.
Speaker 3: So I challenged myself to do that TV for a
Speaker 3: number of years, but it's not a natural place for me.
Speaker 1: Have you always been such an unmotivated person?
Speaker 3: And I say that jokingly, you know, I think if
Speaker 3: you're I think if you're chasing the thing that interests you,
Speaker 3: and I tend to be like singularly passionate about a thing.
Speaker 3: I think that you're motivated because it sort of becomes
Speaker 3: your raison d'etre, for better or for worse. What actually
Speaker 3: inspires me every day is that there are people who
Speaker 3: are really good at the thing that they do as
Speaker 3: race car drivers, as builders, as you know, key figures
Speaker 3: in the community. They're really good at that. That does
Speaker 3: not mean they're good at marketing. That doesn't mean they're
Speaker 3: good at communications. It doesn't mean that they have the
Speaker 3: time or the inclination or the interest in doing it.
Speaker 3: And what I love to see is those people who
Speaker 3: are incredibly good at a thing have the chance to
Speaker 3: do it. So what inspires me is giving those people
Speaker 3: the funding, the time, the space to really shine and
Speaker 3: show what they're capable of. And so that's what motivates me, Like,
Speaker 3: and how do you How are you not an ambitious,
Speaker 3: motivated person when you get an opportunity to support amazing
Speaker 3: things happening in the world.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful. That's beautiful that it's so selfless, you know.
Speaker 2: And then it's amazing that you know, most of the
Speaker 2: time we see the people in front of the camera,
Speaker 2: but it takes people like you to fan the flames
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 3: You know, even with all the skill sets in the world,
Speaker 3: if you have a thing that you're really passionate about,
Speaker 3: like why waste your time on other stuff?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Like stuff is great at marketing, he can do all
Speaker 3: kinds of things, but wouldn't be great if you just
Speaker 3: had hours in the day to work in the shop,
Speaker 3: Like how amazing is that? How much better is that output?
Speaker 3: How much more satisfying is that for him? How much
Speaker 3: better are all our days?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And so yeah, exactly being part of it and supporting
Speaker 3: it and watching sort of genius come to fruition, that's
Speaker 3: really satisfying.
Speaker 2: You know. And Also I was listening to a conversation
Speaker 2: you had. I think it was an antidote about you
Speaker 2: teaching somebody how to drive manual, and the first thing
Speaker 2: you teach them is how to fail, like how to
Speaker 2: stall right, and when you start from there, then you
Speaker 2: can build on that. And to me, I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: that is amazing insight that's just so smart, and it's
Speaker 2: like so insightful, and it's something that I would have
Speaker 2: never came up with. And it's this like natural ability
Speaker 2: to teach, you know. And I wonder, like, where do
Speaker 2: you get that from?
Speaker 3: That is a question I don't know the answer to.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've always been an observer, right, I wanted
Speaker 3: to be a journalist. I wanted to observe and see
Speaker 3: things and translate them into I think capture the moment,
Speaker 3: capture the essence of the thing, communicate those things out.
Speaker 3: So am I a teacher or my communicator? Maybe I'm
Speaker 3: a communicator. It may be about storytelling around around the thing,
Speaker 3: and certainly with teaching somebody to drive stick. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 3: you should stall a car, like, don't be afraid of that,
Speaker 3: or you're never going to learn. So you do. You
Speaker 3: do have to learn how to overcome failure, and it's
Speaker 3: a pretty small failure, I think, especially, and this is
Speaker 3: maybe a little bit about having been an outsider to
Speaker 3: the automotive world when I joined it. I learned to
Speaker 3: drive stick in my twenties. I didn't Again, I didn't
Speaker 3: grow up in car culture, so as a young woman
Speaker 3: at the time.
Speaker 1: I was afraid of a lot of stuff of cars.
Speaker 3: And the first time I was sitting with a race
Speaker 3: car driver in the right seat showing me how to drive,
Speaker 3: He's like, so you've seen in the movies every time
Speaker 3: you hit a curb the car flips over six times
Speaker 3: and burst into flame. You know that's not actually what happens.
Speaker 3: We're going to crash today and it's going to be okay.
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, that's cool. And I think, especially with
Speaker 3: young women, especially the way young women are conditioned to
Speaker 3: really succeed. I think there are some differences in the
Speaker 3: socialization with young boys and young women. I think girls
Speaker 3: the way that we play as children and we collaborate together,
Speaker 3: and also the way that we perform in school. I
Speaker 3: think Mormans were really expected to be perfect. I think
Speaker 3: there's a perfectionist tendency that girls are socialized around that
Speaker 3: is less prevalent among boys. I think boys the definition
Speaker 3: of success for young boys can be different than academic
Speaker 3: success or perfection or you know, you're so pretty, you're
Speaker 3: so smart for girls, right like, I think there's a
Speaker 3: there's a judgment thing where the boys have a little
Speaker 3: more flexibility, and so I think that teaches young women,
Speaker 3: young girls as they become young women, to fear failure
Speaker 3: a little bit. And with cars especially, it's you're going
Speaker 3: to fail. You're not going to learn unless you fail.
Speaker 3: So when you're at the racetrack, all the guys are
Speaker 3: like lined up on the fence watching the guys on
Speaker 3: the track, like fling their cars around before they go
Speaker 3: out for their session. And for me, it was really
Speaker 3: interesting to learn how collaborative it was and that there
Speaker 3: wasn't really a lot of judgment, like they were just watching,
Speaker 3: they were just participating. And I think as girls, you
Speaker 3: feel a little bit more pressure to succeed and a
Speaker 3: little bit more pressure to be perfect. I don't think
Speaker 3: there's as much experimentation, and I think you feel like
Speaker 3: it's judgment even when it isn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I've really like this is like hitting me deep,
Speaker 1: Like I resonate so much of this, and honestly, I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I'm so happy that there's so many
Speaker 1: women that there are today compared to what there were
Speaker 1: ten years ago. I still don't feel like there's enough.
Speaker 1: And these are conversations that being a female in the
Speaker 1: space you don't get to openly have a lot of
Speaker 1: And just hearing you say like the fear of failure
Speaker 1: and how that is kind of a very prevalent thing
Speaker 1: and it's not really talked about as much, Like really
Speaker 1: hits home for me to just hearing this. And you're
Speaker 1: a lot better at putting feelings and thoughts and towards
Speaker 1: them than what I am at doing. Just to explain
Speaker 1: what this is, what it's like, I mean, it's definitely
Speaker 1: it's a different experience that women have right, I was
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I was uncomfortable in the public eye.
Speaker 1: It was a little uncomfortable on television. I didn't I
Speaker 1: came up sort of at the dawn of social media too,
Speaker 1: and I started building a social media following, and then
Speaker 1: I backed off because it's a different experience online. Well,
Speaker 1: you're more scrutinized to and you're expected to know more.
Speaker 1: And if a guy doesn't know, it's okay, whatever, who cares.
Speaker 1: But if a girl doesn't know, it's like, wait, she
Speaker 1: doesn't know that. You don't know that?
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, I think there's kind of an assumption that
Speaker 3: you're not meant to be there as a woman, so
Speaker 3: you kind of have to like almost overcompensate to a degree.
Speaker 3: That's just society, right, Like these people there aren't people.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of hate on social media, and I
Speaker 3: think a woman's experience on social media and a woman's
Speaker 3: experience in the public eye is a really different experience
Speaker 3: than a guy's experience. Yes, everyone is scrutinized. I think
Speaker 3: women get a lot more hate and various other inappropriate interactions, right,
Speaker 3: And I just didn't want to do that, Like I
Speaker 3: don't have the time or space and my brain to
Speaker 3: be dealing with that every day. And I have every
Speaker 3: respect for those of you who are succeeding in that
Speaker 3: space and able to turn that off because it's a lot.
Speaker 3: And I heard you say on the podcast before, you
Speaker 3: know you have to work twice as hard for half
Speaker 3: the respect, and I think that's really true. I think
Speaker 3: it is changing. And again it's kind of just society.
Speaker 3: And the example I have is, so I was the
Speaker 3: first female analyst in motorsport, right like, not on ESPN,
Speaker 3: but in motorsport at all in the US certainly, who
Speaker 3: knows about the rest of the world. And so we
Speaker 3: were at a race and I went to go check
Speaker 3: out my position. There's two seats, they got microphones in
Speaker 3: front of them on a bored and whatever. So I
Speaker 3: need to go check out my position and get a
Speaker 3: feel for how I was going to see and interpret
Speaker 3: the track for the audience. During a practice session, very normal,
Speaker 3: and there's a sound guy and he's thinking around trying
Speaker 3: to get stuff working, and I sit down on my
Speaker 3: seat and he's like, well, you can't sit there, and
Speaker 3: I was like why not. I said, well, that's for
Speaker 3: the analyst, and my co host was there and he
Speaker 3: was like, that is the analyst and he was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I'm sorry. Right, but the base assumption
Speaker 3: is that I don't belong there and that a woman
Speaker 3: couldn't possibly, but also, yeah, of course not I was
Speaker 3: the only one. Yeah, very fair assumption on his part.
Speaker 3: So yes, I think there is a different experience that
Speaker 3: men and women have. I don't think a lot of
Speaker 3: it is like a deliberate sexist, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think there just has been a figure in that
Speaker 1: space for people to know that it's possible, absolutely, and
Speaker 1: I do see that shifting absolutely the.
Speaker 3: More and more women that there are. I've started working
Speaker 3: with Amanda Sorensen, who is she has a pretty robust
Speaker 3: social following and she plays in a lot of different
Speaker 3: motorsport realms and it's actually really great working with her
Speaker 3: because she doesn't anticipate some of the backlash that I
Speaker 3: just I do. But I'm my mindset's a little older, right, like,
Speaker 3: so I'm expecting more resistance and she just doesn't expect
Speaker 3: it to be there, and it's which is great, Like
Speaker 3: how much have things changed in twenty years.
Speaker 1: Because I think I still have a little bit of
Speaker 1: that expecting backlash.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think you're kind of like you're between
Speaker 3: our ages, right, and your experience is a little different
Speaker 3: time as well, And so I think it is changing.
Speaker 3: I think it's changing really fast. And there are now
Speaker 3: a ton of women in motorsport paddocts, maybe not all driving,
Speaker 3: and it would be great to see more women driving,
Speaker 3: but again in due time, that's changing too, right, Like
Speaker 3: it used to be a kid, even with parents who
Speaker 3: are race car drivers, the boy in the family would
Speaker 3: be like, yeah, you can be a race car driver,
Speaker 3: and the girl in the family would be like.
Speaker 1: You should be a doctor, you know, or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: And I think now it's like, well, if you, I
Speaker 3: mean you guys should both race, and if you're both
Speaker 3: good at karting, like sure, let's put you in race cars.
Speaker 3: And that just wouldn't have a generation ago, that wouldn't
Speaker 3: have been the assumption, right.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm staying really quiet on this, and I'm
Speaker 2: so happy you guys are having this conversation. I'm so
Speaker 2: happy you're here, Amelia to be able to talk to
Speaker 2: Jen to share this to all the female listeners out there.
Speaker 2: Prior to this conversation, if I'd have this conversation, I
Speaker 2: would go, no, no, no. I think you guys could
Speaker 2: do this, and you can do this, but the female
Speaker 2: experience is something that I will never understand. And when
Speaker 2: you articulate it that way, is that there's a whole
Speaker 2: set of problems and you know, societal boundaries or expectations
Speaker 2: that women have that men will never understand. It's like,
Speaker 2: it actually is very clear to me now, and it's
Speaker 2: just beautiful that you guys are able to share. And
Speaker 2: also like it does sound positive that it's changing and
Speaker 2: getting better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it is. I think it's just sometimes
Speaker 1: you don't know something is possible or even able to
Speaker 1: do it until you see someone else do it. And
Speaker 1: that's the cool thing that I really feel like social
Speaker 1: media and the internet helped expedite that process because seeing
Speaker 1: other people do things was a lot more tangible.
Speaker 3: I mean, I would not be here without Michelle Mouton.
Speaker 3: I met her once. I was just like, I.
Speaker 2: Can you share who this person is? Michelle?
Speaker 3: So, Michelle Mouton was a World Rally Championship driver. She
Speaker 3: must have been the first or certainly the most. She
Speaker 3: has a few first victory, a few first things. I
Speaker 3: don't want to miss speak on exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the eighties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she was it was the Audi Quattro, Yeah, squattro.
Speaker 3: She did Pike's Peace.
Speaker 1: She was fast.
Speaker 3: I remember meeting her. She was staying beside a friend's
Speaker 3: brother and I kind of knew my friend's brother and
Speaker 3: they were talking and I was just like.
Speaker 1: I don't care about celebrity normally, right.
Speaker 3: Like people are people, and people are awesome, and I
Speaker 3: want to share their experiences and hear their experiences. And
Speaker 3: part of this maybe just having been a journalist. Nobody's
Speaker 3: ever been behind a barrier for me. But there's this
Speaker 3: woman and I'm like, oh my god, that's Michelle.
Speaker 1: I would have found out.
Speaker 3: I found out.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever found out before.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: I found out hard. I couldn't talk. I tried to
Speaker 3: approach her several times, like literally, she's standing at the
Speaker 3: side of a racetrack, like any other person that's standing
Speaker 3: at the side of a racetrack watching stuff happen. And
Speaker 3: finally I went I was like, oh my god, you're
Speaker 3: such an inspiration. You know, the dumbest, like how many
Speaker 3: like what what do you say?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: Finally, what what I do say is meet your idols
Speaker 3: for sure, because we talked for a little while and
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, you are really an inspiration.
Speaker 3: It sounds cheesy, but it's amazing as you cool.
Speaker 1: Didn't mean because I say, don't meet your hero No, No,
Speaker 1: definitely do. I definitely do.
Speaker 3: And we talked about it, and I, you know, talking
Speaker 3: about being a role model, and I think she's very
Speaker 3: aware that she is a role model. But I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, it was just so great because you're like
Speaker 3: super competitive, and she's like, yeah, you know, because I
Speaker 3: never wanted to be fast for a girl.
Speaker 2: I was just fast.
Speaker 1: Oh, I say the same thing, right, like when I've
Speaker 1: never played the female card for being the fastest female
Speaker 1: C eight Corvette. I just wanted to be the fastest period.
Speaker 3: The car doesn't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the car doesn't know what gender you are. The
Speaker 1: car really doesn't give a fuck. Sorry, but like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she was amazing to me.
Speaker 3: Still inspired by her, and yeah, so it's super important
Speaker 3: to have role models. And it's weird at this stage
Speaker 3: of my career where I kind of realized, I guess
Speaker 3: I am a role model.
Speaker 1: To some weird thing, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I get told that for myself, and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't understand how because I don't think I had so
Speaker 1: much of that when I was younger in this space,
Speaker 1: and then I found it as I grew older. But
Speaker 1: it's like a weird thing to think that you are
Speaker 1: a roll bottle.
Speaker 3: I think just being present and being and doing and
Speaker 3: following your heart and being open and you pass it forward.
Speaker 3: Right again, It's a small industry. Sometimes you talk to
Speaker 3: people and they think the world is a zero sum game.
Speaker 3: There's like five resources and everybody's fighting over those same
Speaker 3: five resources, and if somebody gets one of the resources,
Speaker 3: then there's only four left.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's not how I see the world. I
Speaker 1: thin totally agree that there.
Speaker 3: Is enough for everybody, and if there's a really great opportunity,
Speaker 3: new resources will be made to service that opportunity. Or
Speaker 3: you know, if there is new genius in the world,
Speaker 3: there will be a space for it. Right, So support everybody,
Speaker 3: Support everybody's work, everybody's projects.
Speaker 1: Life is not a zero sum game. There may be
Speaker 1: competitions in racing, but life is in a competition. Everyone's
Speaker 1: on their own path and that's okay, and some people's
Speaker 1: happen quicker than yours, but you're on a path for
Speaker 1: in and it really is no competition. I sincerely believe that,
Speaker 1: And I like, I love cheering other people on because
Speaker 1: if someone else is doing great, you're going to do
Speaker 1: great too. It's just how it works.
Speaker 2: I'm just like so impressed with both of you today.
Speaker 2: I'm like extra proud that we get to do this
Speaker 2: podcast because, honestly, same, I've always yearned for mentors in
Speaker 2: my life, both of you. For whoever is listening, it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, you guys are just wonderful, like you know,
Speaker 2: teachers to be able to listen to Hu Hien right
Speaker 2: and talking about stuff within the like the automobile industry
Speaker 2: or the racing industry. And because I have a habit
Speaker 2: I think many of us do, but I'm trying to
Speaker 2: work on it is not to compare myself to other people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think everyone struggles with that. Yeah, it's hard not.
Speaker 2: To, of course, and especially in this town. Right, Like
Speaker 2: you're driving down the street and you see billboards and
Speaker 2: you're not on.
Speaker 3: Them, right, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't know how you guys do it. I don't
Speaker 3: like the whole Hollywood thing, Like I don't know how
Speaker 3: you audition and get that many no's, like I just
Speaker 3: I can't. I mean, it's good. And one of the
Speaker 3: jobs I had when I was in college was telemarketing,
Speaker 3: which was amazing because you.
Speaker 1: Get a lot of nos for telemarketing. It taught me
Speaker 1: a lot about set a few more choice awards than
Speaker 1: just no even oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I interrupted a lot of stuff. I don't know
Speaker 3: why people answer the phone when they're having sex, but
Speaker 3: sometimes they do.
Speaker 1: So you glossed over this, but I feel like it's
Speaker 1: so important to just pause and talk about the fact
Speaker 1: that you brought rally cross to the US.
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 3: Rally cross is a it's a motorsport. Currently it's nitro cross.
Speaker 3: Travis Pastrona is the face of the new imagining of
Speaker 3: American rally cross. It's rally style cars. They've diverged quite
Speaker 3: a lot now, but originally it was rally style cars
Speaker 3: racing door to door on a closed course. So the
Speaker 3: thing about stage rally, if you're not familiar with stage rally,
Speaker 3: if you want to go watch a stage rally, you
Speaker 3: have to figure out where it is. Then you have
Speaker 3: to get a map of the stage rally, and then
Speaker 3: you have to find a place to intersect the road
Speaker 3: where the cars are going to be racing, and then
Speaker 3: you have to stand on the side of the road
Speaker 3: in whatever inclement weather nature is throwing at you that
Speaker 3: day with your thermos of coffee and watch cars come
Speaker 3: by in one minute intervals. It's amazing on television. It's
Speaker 3: an adventure in person, not everybody's cup of tea in person.
Speaker 3: Rally cross is kind of the answer to that. So
Speaker 3: it is these rally style cars which are capable of
Speaker 3: going very fast in a straight line and also amazing
Speaker 3: hairy sideways, angled slides, racing door to door. So you
Speaker 3: also don't have to do the math to figure out
Speaker 3: who's going faster than who because they're racing. They all
Speaker 3: start at the same time, but it all happens five laps,
Speaker 3: super fast, short heats, really exciting indoors out on a track.
Speaker 2: I had the.
Speaker 1: Pleasure of going to one of the recent races and
Speaker 1: it was such a It was windy and no one
Speaker 1: cared which period. It was a great time. If people
Speaker 1: wanted to go watch rally cross, if they wanted to
Speaker 1: see what the schedule was, they wanted to go to
Speaker 1: a race, how would they go find that.
Speaker 3: So it's called nitro cross now and it's nitrocross Racing
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 2: Okay, for people who don't know Trevis Pastrano, it's.
Speaker 3: Astra if you have if you have autocorrect, then definitely
Speaker 3: it's Pastrami.
Speaker 2: I remember his name.
Speaker 3: Definitely, word Microsoft Word thinks it's Pastrami. I have had
Speaker 3: to correct that out of press releases.
Speaker 2: But if you YouTube him, he's basically he's doing what
Speaker 2: Ken Block is doing for.
Speaker 3: Crazy amazing innovator. He started racing motocross, he started racing
Speaker 3: on two wheels. He was the first guy ever to
Speaker 3: do a double backflip on a motorcycle. I think that
Speaker 3: was like six or seven. He's just like a while.
Speaker 3: He jumped out of an airplane without a parachute.
Speaker 1: So it's all, oh, yeah, he's been around a long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, what's next for you? Then? What's you know?
Speaker 1: You're kind of in that boat open, figure it out,
Speaker 1: make the time for new things to come in type thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I I've worked with Papadoccus Racing since twenty ten.
Speaker 3: I continued to do that. I work with Ryan Tirk,
Speaker 3: I work with Frederick Osbo. I'm working with Amanda Sorenson
Speaker 3: not with Papadoccus Racing. I need to correct that because
Speaker 3: she's also in the Formula Drift paddock, but I don't
Speaker 3: have anything to do with her FD team. That's more
Speaker 3: of an influencer. What is she doing with the other
Speaker 3: parts of her career. So I've sort of taken a
Speaker 3: step back to refocusing on the drivers, and they're also
Speaker 3: their social properties and so there's a lot of opportunity
Speaker 3: for me to flex my creative jobs as well as
Speaker 3: marketing and sponsorship sales. So those are the things I'm
Speaker 3: focusing on right now, doing a little bit of stuff
Speaker 3: with grid Life as well, which is another super fun property.
Speaker 3: I loved life.
Speaker 2: What is that.
Speaker 3: It's a music and motorsport festival, So they have drifting,
Speaker 3: They have a grid Life Touring Cup which is short
Speaker 3: like fifteen minutes, touring, car racing.
Speaker 1: And everything from drifting. Those of these three main the
Speaker 1: three main disciplines.
Speaker 2: Where have I been for me under a rock?
Speaker 3: Literally, it's it's very passion oriented. As I say, Music
Speaker 3: and Motorsport festival. There are five stops this year. The
Speaker 3: closest one to us is Laguna and it'll be at
Speaker 3: Laguna in the fall. The big one is Midwest at
Speaker 3: Gingerman but it's largely amateur racing. So I mean, you
Speaker 3: say you've never been a race car driver, Here is
Speaker 3: your chance. You get a car from Amelia.
Speaker 1: You guys get the car driver. There you go, and
Speaker 1: it's time attack, so you can't race.
Speaker 2: I can't do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but time attack is different.
Speaker 2: Not that it's because I'll quit everything and go want
Speaker 2: to be a race car driver.
Speaker 3: Welcome to being a race I don't mean.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why I can't. Bees don't work for me.
Speaker 2: Like golf, I can get too competitive, Yeah, because I'm
Speaker 2: so competitive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm the same. I literally at my first race,
Speaker 3: I bought a race car. You know, you know it's
Speaker 3: a path.
Speaker 2: It's a path that I shouldn't go on because it's
Speaker 2: going to go nowhere to just make me broke right
Speaker 2: and homeless. Eventually, I need to feed this dog. Well
Speaker 2: for the young folks, I'm sure there's questions out there,
Speaker 2: and I actually was, like you mentioned that you came
Speaker 2: from traditional like print journalism, and now there's this influencer
Speaker 2: like person. What sets certain influencers apart as a race
Speaker 2: car driver, As an influencer, what does one need to
Speaker 2: be aware of and what can one like work on
Speaker 2: to become successful?
Speaker 3: Jeezu, Melia, it feels like you're the person answer that.
Speaker 2: Objectively. You know objectively.
Speaker 1: I think you have an eye for talent, so you're
Speaker 1: the right person answer this question.
Speaker 3: Oh dear, well, that's very kind. I think a willingness
Speaker 3: to learn and a willingness to grow. So I'm going
Speaker 3: to give away a secret here. With race car drivers
Speaker 3: or with people that I'm interested in kind of working with,
Speaker 3: there's a little tests they sometimes do and I will
Speaker 3: bring out three juggling bean bags. I'm not a very
Speaker 3: good juggler, but I can juggle, and I'll hand them
Speaker 3: the bean bags and see what they do and if
Speaker 3: they really try and they fail, because it's a lot
Speaker 3: harder than it looks when you're first learning. It's not
Speaker 3: actually that hard, but it is when you don't know
Speaker 3: what to do, it's hard. It's like you know, solving
Speaker 3: a Rubik's cube or something. It's just the thing you
Speaker 3: know how to do or not. If that person tries
Speaker 3: and drops the bean bags and then says no weight,
Speaker 3: to show me again, and then drops the bean bags
Speaker 3: again and then continues to try that's a person I
Speaker 3: want to work with. They're willing to grow, they're willing
Speaker 3: to learn, they're willing to fail if they try once
Speaker 3: fail and then smash them down in frustration. That's not
Speaker 3: a person I will work with.
Speaker 1: People have done that.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, yeah, yeah really yeah, And it's just you know,
Speaker 3: it just shows something kind of fundamental about their character.
Speaker 1: Do they want to grow?
Speaker 3: Like they may want to on paper, grow, but they
Speaker 3: aren't willing to go through the unable moment of not
Speaker 3: being good at something. And I'm actually more do what
Speaker 3: I say, not what I do. Like I'm more inclined
Speaker 3: to like smash the thing down and be like I
Speaker 3: suck at those I don't want to do it anymore,
Speaker 3: and I don't want to work with those people. That's
Speaker 3: something I actively work on with myself, is like being
Speaker 3: open to not being perfect at things. So I think
Speaker 3: it's about again, it's just like a willingness to learn
Speaker 3: and being open to growing.
Speaker 2: That's a characteristic that she has that she does. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like it really is. It's like there was this moment
Speaker 2: where I was like I caught that, and I was like,
Speaker 2: she's always willing to challenge yourself, even within criticism and
Speaker 2: learn from it and become better and walking away from that,
Speaker 2: you're like, wow, that's those are characteristics of a winner.
Speaker 2: And it's okay to fall, it's okay to you know,
Speaker 2: fail to drop the bean bag, right, and but it's
Speaker 2: your willingness to like, you know, put the embarrassment in
Speaker 2: the ego to the side and go, let me try
Speaker 2: to figure this out. And sometimes you don't. Maybe you
Speaker 2: never figure it out, but you're just you're still grinding.
Speaker 2: It's one step forward and it's like it's almost so simple.
Speaker 2: But that's something that I can take, you know, and
Speaker 2: I still can apply today because it's you know, from
Speaker 2: you know, what we do in Hollywood. It's like every
Speaker 2: day you're, like you were saying, it's like it's a
Speaker 2: no every day, I'm too handsome for that role, a.
Speaker 1: Problem with which we all have.
Speaker 4: Every day celebrities are they.
Speaker 2: But every day it's a no. You know, there's a
Speaker 2: no from something right, and it's like it's and I
Speaker 2: think I'm gonna I'm gonna that's it's I'm gonna borrow that.
Speaker 2: It's like there's another beam bag I dropped, Like get
Speaker 2: up and start juggling and maybe I'll never figure it out.
Speaker 2: At least I'm able to try to juggle right, and
Speaker 2: that's that's something. And also you were talking about gratitude
Speaker 2: to be able to step back and go, dude, I'm
Speaker 2: just like grateful to be here. It's like something that
Speaker 2: I have to keep reminding myself every day is like
Speaker 2: to go, hey, look at my life. You know, look
Speaker 2: at my wife, look at my dog. I have health,
Speaker 2: you know, having the headlights on bright, you know, and
Speaker 2: that's something that you know I relate with, you know,
Speaker 2: and like I was like, God, that's awesome. Then Jen
Speaker 2: also believes.
Speaker 3: That, Oh I wish I knew it when I was twenty.
Speaker 3: You know, Comparison is the thief of joy. We talked
Speaker 3: about that earlier. When I was younger, it was like
Speaker 3: I got to do this. I got to do this thing.
Speaker 3: I'm not where I should be. I'm late, you know,
Speaker 3: I didn't take a journalism degree. So now I'm doing
Speaker 3: this intern thing and I'm like in my min twenties,
Speaker 3: I'm doing an internship.
Speaker 1: What am I thinking?
Speaker 3: And just to pause and reflect on where I'm at
Speaker 3: and realize how awesome things can be. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: always perfect and sometimes things are really terrible. Sometimes you
Speaker 3: pause and reflect and you're like, yep, today sucks. But
Speaker 3: that's when you drop the bean bag and you're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I got to pick it up and try again, but
Speaker 3: maybe not till tomorrow. I'm just gonna take a little
Speaker 3: minute for me. But deliberately and consciously practicing gratitude is
Speaker 3: something that I brought into my life in the last
Speaker 3: few years, and I think it's you know, there's a
Speaker 3: little bit of a cheesy pop psychology moment for that,
Speaker 3: but also that is where the joy lives. The joy
Speaker 3: is and realizing and understanding what you have and it
Speaker 3: doesn't need to be what somebody else has. We talked
Speaker 3: earlier about being on our own paths.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I wake up in the morning. I'm so lucky. I
Speaker 3: love a block away from the beach. I have a
Speaker 3: ridiculous giant dog who has all the joy in the world.
Speaker 3: Every time he sees the water. I get to go
Speaker 3: and watch sunrise with him every morning as he splashes
Speaker 3: around in the water. Like what a great situation that is.
Speaker 3: I grew up in Toronto. I own palm trees. Now
Speaker 3: my house has palm trees on it. I don't have
Speaker 3: to deal with sleet and snow in the morning. So yeah,
Speaker 3: gratitude is it's key, I think to happiness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so simple, so hard at the same time, so hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's where like social media, it's like I start noticing,
Speaker 2: like I get super mentally disturbed.
Speaker 3: It's exhausting, right.
Speaker 2: But it's necessary evil to it. It's like you can't
Speaker 2: avoid it.
Speaker 3: I think you have to be deliberate about it. Like,
Speaker 3: I think the worst thing ever is doom scrolling, Right,
Speaker 3: somebody says scrolling.
Speaker 1: Scrolling even heard of that, where you just scroll for
Speaker 1: hours on it. You just let the algorithm feed you
Speaker 1: whatever it's feeding you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, doom scrolling, well.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, if you're really tired and you just only
Speaker 1: find energy and being able to it's it's a dark place, yeah, And.
Speaker 3: I mean it is. It does insight comparison. So I
Speaker 3: actually have a TikTok account that's for my dog that
Speaker 3: basically only has like fuzzy puppies on it, Like basically
Speaker 3: the algorithm understands that that account is for fuzzy cute puppy.
Speaker 3: And so that's how I deal with doom scrolling. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go look at my happy outfit.
Speaker 1: Wow, I have forced myself this year. I made a
Speaker 1: resolution that I was only going to try to go
Speaker 1: on social media if I was looking for inspiration or
Speaker 1: was planning to post. I'm trying not to allow myself
Speaker 1: to scroll. And if I want to scroll, I go.
Speaker 1: This isn't an ad. I go on dueling and I
Speaker 1: learn another language. And that's my form of all Right,
Speaker 1: I don't feel like reading a book. I don't feel
Speaker 1: like doing my emails or turn a rent right now,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to play DUELINGO. So then at least
Speaker 1: I'm learning something too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I replaced my social media folder on the front
Speaker 3: page of my phone with the New York Times. I
Speaker 3: play the games on the New York Times to sort
Speaker 3: of fill the like random scrolling. I play Wordley because again,
Speaker 3: like obviously I'm one hundred years old, because I play
Speaker 3: Wordle do connections in the morning. And actually, yesterday I
Speaker 3: was out lunch with a friend and I can't remember
Speaker 3: what he called it, but I renamed during lunch, I
Speaker 3: renamed my social media folder to poison.
Speaker 2: That's a good idea.
Speaker 3: I think his was like toxic sledge or something, and like,
Speaker 3: don't get me wrong. Social has tremendous value, but I
Speaker 3: think you should be deliberate about it. I should choose
Speaker 3: to go watch Amelia's feed, right, I should choose to
Speaker 3: be inspired by you in a day, not let that
Speaker 3: algorithm just like feed me things, right.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I run to social media when I start feeling insecure.
Speaker 1: It's the worst thing to do.
Speaker 2: It's up because it isn't that weird.
Speaker 1: If I find my screen time is too high and
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I need to get out of this
Speaker 1: headspace of scrolling and do something else. I turn off
Speaker 1: the color on my phone.
Speaker 3: It's good.
Speaker 2: It's not the color.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So then it's just black and white because you
Speaker 1: find the things that attract you on social media's because
Speaker 1: it's bright. That's all these colors. It's very like such
Speaker 1: a science behind you off the colors on your phone
Speaker 1: and it's black and white, yeling, and this is boring.
Speaker 3: It's an accessibility setting.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of my pet peeves is you're at lunch with
Speaker 2: somebody and they are on their phone. I can't even
Speaker 2: be their friends. I put them in a different category.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, someone's talking to you and they
Speaker 2: pick up their phone and they're like this, and then
Speaker 2: I've seen it where we're having an intimate conversation, like
Speaker 2: the three of us and one fools on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Just wait till everyone's are in the goggles.
Speaker 3: You'll never know who's doing a lot.
Speaker 2: That's crazy. That's crazy, And I call them on it,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, yo, we drove all the way over
Speaker 2: here to spend time with each other. You're now rare
Speaker 2: this this might be like one of ten meetings left
Speaker 2: as friends and you're on Instagram. Yeah, like scrolling strangers
Speaker 2: Like I don't understand it, and you realize it's an addiction.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it totally is an addiction. I'm I just had
Speaker 3: this conversation with a friend yesterday. I have to do
Speaker 3: more stuff right. The pandemic twenty twenty one. Part of
Speaker 3: twenty two was dire right. I was inside my house.
Speaker 3: I opened a boot like bakery.
Speaker 1: So bummed that I wasn't able to go get some
Speaker 1: of those chalk cli croissans or the almond croissans, one
Speaker 1: of the croissants. She opened up a bakery at her
Speaker 1: own house during during COVID time. Was kind of like,
Speaker 1: I was obsessed with your stories, obsessed. When we were
Speaker 1: talking with ed about the sour dough bread I was
Speaker 1: talking about her. I still need to try these croissans.
Speaker 1: I will make you some crysoons. I will make you
Speaker 1: some croissants. She didn't have to enough to get free
Speaker 1: business during COVID. Well, okay, and it was contact list
Speaker 1: for listening.
Speaker 3: It was well, I had I had a job, like
Speaker 3: I was working for an energy dr company. I had
Speaker 3: a real job. So I took this job expecting to
Speaker 3: be like going to events and promoting events and working
Speaker 3: with athletes and doing all this exciting stuff. And I
Speaker 3: was stuck at home by myself on zoom calls for
Speaker 3: eight hours a day, just losing my soul, you know,
Speaker 3: because I'm basic. I started making sour dough bread because
Speaker 3: that's what you do, and because I have nothing else
Speaker 3: to do, I'm documenting it all on social media. But really,
Speaker 3: what I want more than anything in the world is
Speaker 3: a chocolate croissant. And the pandemic is like two months
Speaker 3: in and I haven't had a chocolate croissant because everything's
Speaker 3: closed and bakeries are closed and you can't go to
Speaker 3: a cafe and get one. And I don't even eat
Speaker 3: chocolate croissants. Set off and it's like a twice yearly thing,
Speaker 3: but I need one because it's my comfort food. So
Speaker 3: I started learning how to make them and documenting it
Speaker 3: on social media. I was living for these stories like Instagram.
Speaker 3: That's why I knew about sour dough bread. In the process,
Speaker 3: and we were talking with d I ended up buying
Speaker 3: flour in fifty pound bags. Like it became. As I say,
Speaker 3: I follow my passions and kind of serially, and so
Speaker 3: the baking became a bit of a passion and it
Speaker 3: broke up my week. But you can't eat I mean,
Speaker 3: that's a lot of pastry and I'm vaguely gluten intolerance,
Speaker 3: so I.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't eat any of them.
Speaker 3: So but I just really enjoyed the process, and so
Speaker 3: then I started selling them on Sunday mornings. I lived
Speaker 3: in the Venice Canals in a little tiny apartment that
Speaker 3: backed out onto the canals, and you know, it was
Speaker 3: the pandemic. People were walking around outside. So I started
Speaker 3: just like masking up and selling my wares. So on Sundays,
Speaker 3: I basically had this bootleg bakery where I would get
Speaker 3: up at five o'clock in the morning prepare pastries. People
Speaker 3: would be lined up by nine thirty. It was so stressful.
Speaker 3: I'd be like trying in my tiny apartment oven trying
Speaker 3: to get any heat into these pastries, and then I
Speaker 3: would be sold out within an hour. And it was
Speaker 3: very funny because it ended up being this kind of
Speaker 3: weird have you heard.
Speaker 1: About the lady that makes the pastries?
Speaker 3: And people would line up. It became a thing during
Speaker 3: the pandemic. And then I did the other basic thing
Speaker 3: that one does during the pandemic, as it turns out,
Speaker 3: and I got a dog, and he weighs one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty pounds and his head is counter height and
Speaker 3: he really likes pastries. So that ended my baking career. Yeah, Steve,
Speaker 3: Steve the dog started enjoying the pastries. It's very hard
Speaker 3: to bake when you have one hundred and fifty pound
Speaker 3: dog who really wants what you've got working on the counter. However,
Speaker 3: I can occasionally, so come to an FT event and
Speaker 3: I'll get you some past.
Speaker 2: My mouth is watering, like there's a Gens chocolate croissants.
Speaker 2: It has a great ring to it with Steve as
Speaker 2: the mess.
Speaker 1: Just look at a photo of these puppies.
Speaker 2: Wow, my constructive way past the pandemic.
Speaker 1: We could have talked forever. I've thoroughly enjoyed this and
Speaker 1: I would love for down the line. Maybe season two,
Speaker 1: you come back on and join us. This was amazing.
Speaker 2: Maybe teach us how to make some chocolate. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 2: bring an ove in. We'll just do that. But thank you.
Speaker 2: It was a gift and a true honor to get
Speaker 2: to know you better.
Speaker 1: You guys, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed chatting with you today about our crazy
Speaker 3: wide range of topics. And I will bring croissants next
Speaker 3: time for sure.
Speaker 1: Please, thank you,