Miss Us Much?

Miss us much? This is the Elevate Hulk podcast, and I'm your host, Chrissanne Long. And with me, as always, is Rob Arturi. Howdy, howdy.

Hey, how are you doing?

I'm great. How are you?

I'm, I'm rested. I'm refreshed.

Yeah, well, you better have been rested. We haven't talked since June.

I know, that's crazy.

It is, isn't it? I think, um, I realized how important these podcasts are with all of the people who are asking me, when's the next episode coming out?

I know, I did have a couple people though actually ask me.

I mean, it wasn't like, you know, people beating down the door, but there were people going, hey, you didn't record an episode last week, did you?

Well, if you know, there's, uh, sometimes life gets in the way and, and there's You know, I think of several reasons for that. You know, I think some of that we're going to— we'll talk about today. But I think ultimately it's a lot of work, too. And this is not something that you and I do that really pays the bills. It's something that we do because we want to have these conversations. And unfortunately, with all of the chaos and hubbub going on, sometimes you know, something has to go. So I think we, we kind of merged an opportunity to— so we, we couldn't record an episode, then it was like, let's just take a little vacation.

And it's the summer, let's take a break. But this is a perfect opportunity for a shameless plug, uh, for a commercial to say, you know, if you be— if you're listening and you're interested in sponsoring the podcast, we would love to explore what that would look like to help you get more exposure for your business or for your organization. So We've been talking about recruiting some sponsors lately, and maybe this is the opportunity for us to, to have somebody reach out and say, hey, I'm interested in figuring out how to, how to be a sponsor.

Yeah, especially since our goal with sponsorship is to really to promote the show itself and simultaneously promote our sponsors. So it's a pretty— that kind of dovetails into any kind of marketing budget. It's just another new channel. And, you know, I hope— I look forward to an opportunity where it can be mutually beneficial. So sponsors, give us, give us a shout.

Give us a shout. So let's talk about life and direction and the future of the Elevate Polk podcast, because we, we, we did take a vacation. I think we were both extremely stressed about the status of things in the world right now and how it was impacting our lives and our businesses. So for me, I'm just going to start out by saying I feel like there's just been like this really heavy weight with all of the responsibilities that I have and not a real certainty of when this cloud is going to lift. Right. So it's just this kind of constant, you know, not that, not that anything's falling apart. It's just that everything is falling apart around me. It feels that way. And so, you know, they have to think twice about, do you want to go to the grocery store? Or do you want to have a conversation about something on social media? Or do you even want to have a dialogue with your mother about a particular challenge? Because maybe it's not going to go out, you know, it's not going to go the same as it normally would, or would have, you know, pre-COVID.

Oh, I can really relate to that last one. So I, I love my mother dearly. But she is a rather high-strung person and is very, very, I guess, frazzled by all of this COVID stuff. She's like the most empathic person in the world. She worries about everything and everybody, even things that are totally ridiculous to worry about, and she just does. So I mean, I guess if you have to have a fault, it's not that bad. However, it is every day— it seems like every day we have to have this conversation where I've got to like talk her off the ledge. And it reminds me of that scene in the movie Airplane where the woman is getting freaked out about the plane crashing and there's just a line of people waiting to just kind of slap her around and get her back to reality, which is a horrible thing to say about your own mother. But, but I have the conversation every day and I've told her to do what I've been doing, which is I have not watched cable news in 8 weeks.

Wouldn't that be a great like recipe for improving our mental health.

Yeah, it, it is, it is a recipe for that. And let me tell you why. There are plenty of ways to get news nowadays. Now, you don't necessarily want to believe everything that you read on social media, etc. But there's plenty of news sources that get shared on social media. So it's very hard unless you're living in a cave to completely isolate yourself from everything, right?

Right.

However, what I found was, because I'm like, I'm a politics junkie, and I used to watch a lot of news, and I want to know what's going on. And, you know, I had some things going on in my personal life, not, not terrible things, but just a lot of some changes. And I wanted to kind of step back and focus on some of the more important things, you know, kind of pull my circle a little bit closer. So in doing that, I decided to completely shed my cable news exposure and talk radio exposure. And I started listening to music in the car. And I started watching some, some stuff on Netflix and just other things that, you know, YouTube videos on stuff I always wanted to know about. And I cannot tell you that how much better I have felt in the past 8 weeks as a result, because you're bombarded with the same stuff over and over, like on a loop. And it has an effect on you. I don't care what anybody says, it has an effect on you.

It absolutely does. I mean, all of these chemicals in our brain, the serotonin, the oxytocin, the— all of the different— I'm not a scientist, so I don't know what— I know that the serotonin has that, that impulse effect, you know. It's the, it's the effect of when I see a notification, I can't just put my phone down even though I'm having an important conversation with someone. I need to know what that notification says. And there's a chemical in our brains that we, we can control it, but if we let it go, it just, it controls us.

I think that's the oxytocin one. That's the one that, that causes you to do that. But you're right, it becomes like Pavlovian where it's like you hear a ding and then you have to immediately pick up your phone and That's not the healthiest thing to do. And I try sometimes to remember that there was a time where you didn't have to reach somebody with like, you know, immediacy. And if I don't answer my text right away, everybody will live. You know, it's going to be okay.

So it doesn't help when you're in business and as an entrepreneur and you're, you know, you're, you're a in that startup mode, as I have been for startup mode for 10 years. But I guess I'm in growth mode at this point in time. But you build some negative habits too at the beginning because you have to— you feel like you have to be in all places at all times. Yeah. And so people would initially send, you know, a text message. No, I'm sorry. The text message would be the last resort, but they would send an email and follow it up with a text message or a Facebook message and follow it up like Hey, I just sent you an email. Well, wait a minute. Give me a chance to read the email before you send me a text message to tell me that you sent me an email. And you have to feel, you almost, I have, I don't wanna displace my statements here, but I have always felt like there's nowhere to go to take a break because I am so available and intentionally so, so I'm not, playing a victim here and saying, "Wah," but I am addressing the fact that sometimes people aren't patient for you to say, "You know, I'll get to that text message later." So if you don't respond to that text message or that email or that Facebook message quickly enough, the phone's gonna ring and you're like, how do you express that to someone when you're stressed out because you haven't even had a chance to process the fact that they gave you 45 seconds before calling you and to say, hey, you know what, I'll, I'll talk to you later. I'm in the middle of something. Thank you. Or, you know, there's, there's a, there's a, there's a challenge from the entrepreneurial side that I struggle with, um, in, in making sure that I'm not pushing people off that need me to give them a response.

Yeah, that's a good point. It, it is very hard when you're an entrepreneur because you, you're usually wearing multiple hats. You're having to deal with clients and vendors and potentially employees, and there's a lot of different things going on at once.

And Mom.

Yeah, well, I think that, that might apply universally to, uh, to most people, but yes, in my case, it just, it just, it heaps on the, the top of that. But, um, I say that, but you know, there's a lot of people out there in the world that, you know, would give anything to talk to their mom again.

Of course.

Yeah.

And, uh, we're so blessed to have, yes, our moms in our lives. And so shout out to moms. Thank you, Ma, for being an amazing mother.

And thank you for still driving me flippin' crazy every day with your hysteria. I know. And I say this because I genuinely, whenever I hang up the phone with her and I take a deep breath and I just exhale and go, okay, well, I also think to myself, I am lucky that I still can get those calls. And I know one day, one day, hopefully many, many years from now, I will miss that pandemonium. I would, I would prefer if it was like, you know, like the burner got turned down a little bit, because it's really gotten ratcheted up between all the chaos in the world and COVID and everything else. You know, it's, it's well above medium-high at this point. So I could go for a few notches below, but, but I definitely don't take it for granted.

Yeah, I, you know, I've just recently cleaned out some baggage from the house that I've been hoarding for several years. And—

Chrissanne Long, Samsonite makes baggage. Okay.

You've got a 20-yard dumpster. Does it qualify as baggage?

No, that's not baggage. That's freight. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

There's a difference.

Correct. All right. Thank you for correcting me. I agree. It was a lot of stuff. So I cleared out all of this old stuff and I was going through this discussion, like, it was emotional. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I, I, a couple of times just were not from that I don't want to get rid of the stuff, but more of the emotional, like, this stuff has been a part of my life for so very long, even though it's been an irrelevant part of my life. It's been sitting in a room I never walk into. Um, but as I was downloading that with Craig and sharing the emotional side of it, he goes, I knew it was going to be emotional for you. I don't know why you're so surprised. And, and I'm thinking, you know, this is the part of me that is, I inherited from my mother, you know, the emotional side. So I feel like I'm very special to have these genes to, to not because she definitely is not a hoarder. She does, she is, lives a much more simple life as far as things than I do. But, um, you know, just realizing how similar we are, um, as I was going through this discussion with Craig, it was kind of one of those aha moments. Not that I'm not saying she has a book— well, she has a lot of books too. So I got rid of a lot of books. I got rid of a lot of stuff. But where I was going with that was just to say, you know, the apples don't fall far from the tree. So at the same time that there are qualities that we don't necessarily like in those that we love and who love us, we also have to recognize that there are traits in ourselves that are very similar, probably. And, you know, do a little bit of that self-analysis. I do it all the time. Not saying that you need to do it, I'm just saying I do it.

I think we all need to do it from time to time, and I think you have to take the good with the bad, right? You can't, you can't just, um, you know, try and, uh, and pretend things are only good or, or that they're only bad. And, and everybody has some redeeming qualities, or almost anybody. Um, but, uh, so let's talk about what You know, the other kind of reason— you alluded to it earlier on with regard to our vacation— and that was aside from the COVID stuff, which as the time goes on, I'm just more and more convinced that really nobody knows anything and we're all just kind of flying by the seat of our pants. And I think our medical community is doing the best it can to kind of keep up, but Every day it seems like the narrative evolves somewhat. So I've kind of come to the realization of like, I'm going to comply with what we need to, to a degree, you know. But I don't, I don't necessarily think there's any absolute. I don't think anybody has the right answers, the wrong answer. I think we should just, you know, just kind of do what we think is right. But aside from that, aside from the COVID and the social distancing, there's been some real craziness going on in the world.

Just a general unrest or tension across the board.

Yes.

And you taught me a term, I guess you said Tom Phillips used the term, you know, the living room conversation, which— go ahead and explain. So you and I had a conversation about next episodes, when we're going to record, what we're going to talk about. We threw around some COVID-related discussions about masks or whatever. And it really didn't inspire us, right? It wasn't like we really wanted to have a conversation about these things. It was like we felt like we had to have some conversations about these things 'cause they were social issues.

Right, and then you get wrapped up in this, let's do a public service. But I think what happened was we had to postpone a week and then it was like in a week's time, there was so much madness going on, especially just related to masks because, The entire issue has been politicized, which I still to this day don't really understand. Maybe in some respect, but I mean, everything is so bananas that it just seemed kind of crazy to even, you know, put our toe into that pool of chaos.

And ultimately, you know, the L off of pool, and then you would have what we, what we would have been dealing with, right?

So, but, but the, the idea of that, you know, do you want to be the, the the living room for Polk County, uh, was essentially, do you want to be the place where people just hash out, uh, stuff that is uncomfortable and, and where we can kind of air grievances and just talk about things going on in the community? And there's a value to that. Uh, there certainly is. There, there needs to be some of these conversations taking place, but my apprehension with that is that unfortunately it's become very, very hard to have those conversations nowadays because you can't really have the proper context. And they're so emotionally charged and even worse, politically charged, that it's very difficult to have those in a manner— I think the, our last episode where we, we touched on the race issue, I think we did a pretty good job of addressing that in a holistic way and in a genuine and honest way. But it took us 2 weeks to get there because you and I had to plan a lot of what, what was our position and how did it work. And so it takes a lot to be thoughtful. And these are very complicated things. The last thing we want to do is alienate anybody. And do something that's— and say the wrong thing, even if we think it's the right way, etc. And some of these conversations, they're just better off done on a personal level. So the mission of this show was to elevate Polk, and that is to talk about the things— not totally ignore the cultural side, but to talk about the things that are going to pull us forward, that will— well, we can look ahead to hopefully better, less chaotic times. And there are still a lot of good things going on around us. And I think more than, than we need to, to talk and have this catharsis of, you know, what we don't like about our community, what have you. I think what we really need right now, and listeners, if I'm totally off base, let me know. But I think what we really need to do is to have something to look forward to, to look ahead to.

What's right? What's right? What's going well? What are the good things that are, that are happening around us that we can celebrate and lift up? And help spread the word about any of that great thing, those great things that are happening. So let me tell you where I struggled with us, where we, before we landed here. And so I am a known Pollyanna, all right? I am an eternal optimist. I have bad days. I'm not always optimistic about everything. I have a doom and gloom side when things go wrong. I've talked about battling depression. And I choose a different perspective, this part of my life, than I chose in the past. But I don't want to feel like I'm in a corner, right? So I was trying to use the podcast as a way to bring out some different elements of my personality and what else I bring to the table. And it's not always just rainbows and unicorns. And I was hoping to kind of stretch a little bit outside of that known brand identity that, that Chris— people see Chrissanne Long as.

Sure.

But here's the thing, if you take a personality test or you take a strengths and weaknesses test, and I've done some research on this and I've done the DISC profile and I've done the Leadership Circle profile and I've done some, um, um, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, uh, type of deals, you know, throughout my life and And I know what my strengths are and I know what my weaknesses are. And I read something that really resonated with me several, several years ago. But it is, you know, no matter how hard you try to strengthen your weaknesses, and it's not saying don't work on the things that you're not good at, but if you try, let's say you're a, a D, you know, like you just, not a D as in, in the DiSC profile, but like the best you can do is a D right now without practice, without work, without effort. You, you just, this is what you do. You just. Put this out, maybe you're just a bad speller, okay? And so you want to decide, all right, I'm going to be a really, really good speller, but naturally out of the box you're a D, like you just— it's a struggle for you. So to work on becoming an A speller is going to take energy and effort and focus and emotional, you know, resilience to being able to say, I'm going to conquer this thing, I'm going to become a better speller. Well, for us, the podcast isn't something that we have much time. We carve out a couple of hours a week. We talk through what we want to, what we want our episodes to cover. Um, but imagine trying to be something that I'm not on this podcast. That's where I got stuck because when we really were, we're really trying to get into these heavier issues. Um, I was, again, that was another layer of, of responsibility. It's some more weight on my, on my already busy days and I wasn't enjoying it as much. As we had when we were in the pre-COVID days.

Sure. Because it felt— because pre-COVID, we were talking about the things that we wanted to talk about. We were telling the story that we wanted to tell and in the way that we wanted to tell it. And when COVID hit, I think our, our service instinct kicked in and we wanted to, to do that public service and to talk about the hard issues and those types of things. And it does kind of pull you away from, I think, the lane that you're in. And then we got into a point where it was like, now it was not just COVID, it was social stuff. And ultimately, you know, we want to explore and we want to do different things with the podcast and have some different interesting conversations. But as you said, everything comes at a cost. And ultimately, if we don't enjoy the conversation that we're having, I don't think anybody's going to enjoy listening to it, to be quite honest with you.

Yeah.

Okay. I, I've, I've watched— I've been an avid news follower for, for many, many years. And when I turned that off, it was such a relief. And I just think, you know what, I think people have enough crap thrown at them in a given day when they're not sleeping. And maybe our weekly podcast can be, you know, again, not all sunshine and rainbows, But maybe it can be about something other than what they're seeing, you know, for the other, uh, you know, 18 hours a day on every device and television, you know, cable news, et cetera. Um, and, and we can do that.

Something to look forward to, a little slice of life, something great and positive about Polk County and, and what's coming or what people are doing, or just a little bit more of a personal, uh, story around something that maybe you didn't know. That's, that's where I think our strengths are gonna lie.

And, and another thing though, with respect to the whole COVID and, and that, again, we're not going to be, we're not going to be like Mr. Rogers here, but our community is going to take a while to recover from the economic virus, not just the, the health one. When, when the, the public health issue is finally over and done with, we're still going to have a lingering economic effect. There's a lot of businesses that we will never have back. And I think there's been some really— some local businesses have really risen to the challenge and have just absolutely trudged it out and are, are hanging in there. And, and I think most people are doing the same thing. And I want to use, with respect to, as a, you know, as public service as we can get, I want to also focus on those things. I want to focus on where we go from here, how we heal as an economic community, our small businesses especially. And kind of help propel that forward too.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's the direction we started wanting to take. I think there felt a little bit of a, for me, a sense of we can't ignore these things that are happening around us and walk through as if we don't even know that they're happening. You know, that just seemed a little bit like too, to— we had to have these conversations. We had to have this conversation. That's why this is an episode, because we really literally were going back and forth trying to figure out how to get back on track while we're in the midst of this chaos. I mean, we're still recording remotely. We're still, you know, doing some things that we haven't, you know, really necessarily mastered yet. And we were really just getting started when we started the podcast. You know, when did we start the podcast? What month was that?

Um, I don't even remember.

It's all a blur.

It, it is. I don't even know what month— what is it, July right now?

I don't know, we're in July.

I think we, we started— was it last summer or was it before that? And I'm totally losing my mind.

We haven't had 52 weeks. We haven't had 52 episodes yet. So I think it hasn't been a year.

No, it was late, late enough, maybe early fall or late in the summer of last year, I think. Um, maybe in the fall.

Well, anyway, yeah, you can edit this part out because this sounds really silly that we have no idea how many weeks we've been doing this, even though it's— everything is a blur in life right now.

That is true. We've been dealing with this COVID stuff for like 5 months now.

I feel like I'm walking through sludge as far as like the day-to-day, but time is flying by. Yeah, like, I'm like, how, how did May already get past us? And I'm like, it's in— we're— it's in the middle— we're in the middle of July.

You know what I feel like? You know what I feel like? I feel like I'm walking with like a walker, like an old arthritic person, but on one of those like walkavator things at the airport.

Yes.

Where you're like—

People mover.

People mover things. Yeah. So like it's moving really, really fast, but I'm personally moving very, very slow.

That is perfect. That's a perfect example or illustration.

Yeah. And everything around me is like flying by, but I'm— personally just kind of like limping along and nothing makes any sense. So that's the best analogy I could, I could think of.

Yeah, I think that's great. So on the future shows, you have some ideas. So one of the things I want to throw out to the audience, to our listeners, you know, I'm going to be a little bit more like asking for help, I think is the other piece of where I I feel like I wanted to act like I had all of these things figured out. Hey, I'm a podcaster. I even have a podcast shirt now, right?

That's right.

But I'm really a noob at all of this. And so I really want to use those of you that are our loyal listeners, those of you that have sent messages and say, hey, I really enjoy the podcast, to give us some feedback about what stories we should cover, what's happening in your corner of the county. That we might not know about so that we can do those slice-of-life stories and get into the corners of the community that might not be so easy to find. I think that's my biggest challenge. I said, we really need to do a better job of representing Polk County even though we're in Lakeland, but we can't really do that without somebody's help.

Yeah, I have only been over to Winter Haven a handful of times in the past 6 months, maybe longer, And that place has changed so much, but this entire county has changed so much. But we do kind of get relegated to what we know and where we are. And we definitely want to include that from, you know, some of those other, other points of view. So if you know of something that's going on on the east side of the county, let's hear about it. You know, we'd love to have somebody on the show that we can do it remotely. And let's talk to somebody who can can give us some, you know, give us some good stories from the other side. Unfortunately, there's a very, very somber story from, from the southeast part of the county right now. But we would like to offset that, and hopefully that will get resolved in the coming weeks. But ultimately, we want, we want to know what's going on, what's new and exciting in the Ridge and in, in Auburndale. Auburndale's growing like crazy too. There's gotta be something.

So there's a lot of stuff going on in Auburndale. I'm sure there's a lot of stuff going on in every city, in every municipality. And if they're all stories worth telling and, you know, I think one of the advantages to, you know, hey, here I am looking for the positives.

Oleanna!

To this whole thing is that we had to find a way to record remotely. Like we were recording in your studio and doing that weekly drive and I was doing the weekly drive, you would go to work every day. But so now we have opportunities that are not as difficult to set up as they might have been pre-COVID. Now it's just like, hey, send the link and make sure they have the technology and the speaker that, or quiet space, give them a little bit of knowledge of how to do it. And then it's just wherever you are, you could be in, Katmandu and still record a podcast episode with us about Polk County.

I would just— I would love to, to speak with somebody from Katmandu just so I could use the word Nepalese in a podcast. Yeah, multiple times, but without, without getting to, uh, um, uh, to the double entendres, what have you.

We'll just, uh, uh, we'll move on, but Well, I, I am, I'm super excited about kind of reconnecting and refocusing on the vision, what we're here to achieve. We're not all things to all people. We're not Joe Rogan, although we're as awesome as he is. But you know, we're, we're, we're just, you know, we're, we're community people. We care about the community and we wanna tell those stories.

SiriusXM, if you're listening or, or Pandora, whoever, or whoever, you know, bought— basically bought Joe Rogan. A lot of, a lot of crazy things going on in the podcast world. I mean, you know me, I, I keep my finger on that pulse. There's a lot of big moves coming now from, um, from big media companies that are acquiring, including the one that you're listening to. This podcast on Simplecast was just acquired by SiriusXM.

Oh really? I didn't know.

Yeah, they, they were, and I spoke with my contact from there and And everything is still the same, essentially. But basically what you're seeing is the big media giants realize that the podcast space isn't just some niche thing for, for techie type people, that it's becoming a far more mainstream method of communication. So they want to, they want to capture it. So, um, that's good news if you're in the podcast world, like, like we are. Um, that's a good trend and, you know, we'll see where, where things go, but it's just another indication of You know, the only constant is change, and I just hope we can continue to be a part of that, that evolution, and at least be a voice for Polk.

Right, right. Well, so I'm gonna want to do a little bit of a shout out here with the remaining time that we have here for the— for those businesses that are currently closed down. So our bars, our nightclubs, those that have not been able to— were able to reopen and then were closed down again. I am watching you. I am looking for ways to help and bring you guys some opportunities, but I am super proud of some that I'm aware of that I'm following. You know, Revival Downtown, she's pivoting again, offering some services through the farmers market and looking out at ways. Like, it is not an easy task right now to figure out how to keep pivoting. I mean, I used to play basketball and, you know, a pivot was just, you know, a move from one direction to the other, but it's like, we feel like these pivots are like 180-degree pivots going back and forth and like ping pong balls instead of pivoting. So I admire all of you hardworking bar owners and also the wait staff, you know, bartenders and waiters and waitresses that have been cut back on hours and the, you know, so many different challenges, but I'm really celebrating the great things that are coming out of this challenging time because so many businesses are pivoting and finding ways to survive. Molly's Downtown went full-time food so that they could find a way to stay open again. And, you know, that's not easy. These are not things that you could just do overnight, you know, okay, well, we're gonna, figure, you know, no, it's phone calls and checking with your attorney and, and making sure your staff is prepared and having the, the inventory and the food and all of these things. So shout out to all of you that are really, really busting your butts to, to figure it out and to keep, keep your doors open.

Amen. And, and an aside to that is every time you said the word pivot, I just had that vision of, of that episode where they're bringing the couch up the stairs and Ross and would pivot.

Pivot.

And yes, I know that our friend Catherine Bevilacqua Ely will be laughing if she listens to this episode because she's probably a bigger fan than I am.

She is a big fan. And I will have to admit to you, I think I threw away a few seasons of Friends on DVD in my purging.

Well, that's all right. They run like 4 hours a day of repeats on television. All you have to do is DVR it once and you'll have the entire box set. Um, yeah, you know, you, you don't need to hang on to, uh, to those things much anymore. There's just— no, uh, no, no, no, you don't need your own 20-yard time capsule, Chrissanne Long.

Can you imagine trying to bury that thing?

Well, I hate to let you in on a little secret, but they are going to be burying that little thing in a week or two in the landfill.

In the landfill, right?

True, right, right, true.

So But no, literally digging a hole and burying the time capsule, like the whole thing. That would be quite a feat.

Yeah, you'd need a backhoe and you'd have to consider the groundwater. I mean, it would be a— it'd be more than a feat. It would be very, very difficult. So, well, I'm glad that you were able to purge some of those things and realize that, you know, I think as we attach emotions to inanimate objects, And then when we feel like if we're getting rid of the object, we're, we're going to lose the emotion. And I don't know that it works in both of those ways.

So for me, it really wasn't about an attachment to the object. It was an admission of— how do I say it? So, so many hours. So let me just tell the audience who might not be my Facebook friends, although, you know, 5,000 of you are.

Shameless plug.

So I, I was a— I am a collector of books, and I used to teach. And so for years I wanted to have books in my classroom for my students that the library might not have had. Like if it was a Harry Potter phase, everyone was checking out the Harry Potter books, but then the library didn't have them, but all of their friends were reading them and they didn't have any copies of them. So I wanted to have extra copies copies of Harry Potter in my library, along with other books, The Giver and Esperanza Rising and To Kill a Mockingbird and all of those books. So I would go to the used bookstore in Winter Haven and return books and get credit and then buy new books and put them in my AR library, my Accelerated Reader library. And over the years I amassed thousands and thousands and thousands of books. But really the part to me that wasn't the emotional connection to the books wasn't the books, it was the time that I spent. And I told Craig, every one of those books has a story. Like, I bought this book for this student who really was interested in this kind of literature, or this, you know. And so I could— but yes, there's an emotional attachment to the ideas that all of that time I spent was worth something. And I think throwing it out meant that it wasn't, or I had told myself that throwing it out meant that that time wasn't worth something. And so that purging was a healthy cathartic experience, but at the At the same time, it brought me back to a time in my life where I spent so much time trying to fill the hole, you know, of where I was in that space and that time in my life. So this was just a really great thing. So if anyone is looking at, you know, purging, and I know I'm not a big Marie Kondo fan and I don't really know much about the whole idea other than to simplify and to just get rid of stuff, and that's a very attractive idea, but it's not a very attractive idea when you have 5 rooms of stuff that you have to empty out to get there.

Well, maybe there's a balance somewhere, you know. But yeah, but that's, that's what I meant is that it's not always the item, it's what it signifies.

Right, right.

You know, I have stuff that I've kept that I look at, why do I— I mean, this is irrelevant. But it does, it signifies an event, a moment in time. It's just kind of like a marker, if you will, you know. So I get it. I get it. And if anybody needs any old used books, check out the dumpster by Chrissanne Long's house.

Send me a message. I'll send you the address. It's there for a couple more days.

One heck of a bonfire. No, that's—

oh, man.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure if we don't want to have some conversations on the podcast, maybe we shouldn't allude to the fact that we'd be in favor of burning books. I'm just saying.

No, we're not burning books. We're not burning books. So here's the— here's the good news. On the other end of this dumpster, there is a salvage yard. And so whatever is redeemed by those in the salvage yard area, they will possibly salvage and do something with and throw away all of the garbage to the, to the pit, whatever you call it, the landmine. What is it called? The landfill.

The landfill. I mean, the landfill can be a treacherous place.

I don't know if there's, you know, Hopefully there are no landmines, but there might be like, you know, bags of dog poop and things like that in the landfill.

I, I would imagine. I've driven by it a few times and I would say that there's definitely at least one bag of poo. Um, but, uh, so yeah, calling, calling all scrappers out there, uh, go by Chrissanne Long's house. You might find, uh, uh, something in, in the dumpster that you can—

that's right, you know, lots of presents in there.

Yeah, a lot of, uh diamonds in the dumpster rough.

I really enjoy these episodes where we get to talk about, you know, the things that are important to us, the things that are going on in our lives and how they connect, how we connect and interconnect into the, to the, to the tapestry that is Polk County. So, you know, even if, even if this isn't really about like Polk County generally today that we're talking about, we're talking about ourselves and how we feel responsibility to Polk County to really truly do a good job and bring something valuable to, to the, podcast network. So in and of itself, I think that this was one of my favorite episodes to the remote episodes that we've done so far.

I agree. And if you're listening, if you agree, leave us a review and let us know. And if you prefer that we talk about masks and COVID testing for 45 minutes or so, you can tell us that too. And you can also feel free to unsubscribe because that ain't gonna happen.

They ain't happening.

All right.

Well, thanks for listening everyone. And remember, we have a new episode each week, so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And remember to leave us a review. We promise to read every one. You can always find all of our episodes at elevatepolk.com. And if there's something you want to hear about on an upcoming episode, please reach out to us on Facebook at Elevate Polk.