162: What It's Like—Two Weeks in to Self-Quarantine in the Seattle Area (Hint: Ditch the Pressure for a Pinterest-Worthy Pandemic Response)

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast, everybody. I'm really excited, even under the circumstances, to be here today with my pandemic co host, Dr. Michael J. Consuelos. I bet you never thought you'd hear that title, Michael.

That's great. Yeah, I'm going to use that now in my resume.

Great.

Perfect. Add it to LinkedIn and we're here with another Momentum member, Lindsay Peterson, who lives in the greater Seattle area and has been under self quarantine for two weeks now, longer than most of the rest of us, unless you're living in Asia or Italy. Lindsay is an incredible woman who I'm also so fortunate to have gotten to know through Momentum. She's a brand strategist and the author of Forging an Ironclad Brand. And when Michael and I started doing these episodes, of course, as you all know, this is just really in the last week, one of my team members said, you know, it'd be great if we reach out to Lindsay because she is experiencing this earlier than the rest of us. Michael and I were recording and the recommendation was don't gather in a group of 50 or more. Within two hours it had gone down to 10 people or less. So I am so grateful. Lindsay, thank you so much for being here and for being willing to share your experience in the moment. You wanted to make sure we knew you are not an expert. You are just going to share the good, the bad, the ugly and we are so thankful to have you here.

I'm really grateful to be here and I feel privileged to be able to have this conversation with you. It feels really good to be connecting right now.

Definitely. And I think the way it came up, you joined our insider call popped on video and just said what it's been like for you. And I think the rest of us kind of got a wake up call of, oh, this is really serious. And you are also two weeks into the roller coaster that is social distancing, self quarantine and being home with your family all day. So I'd love to hear a little bit of just kind of when this all started and how you're doing. Yeah.

Yes, thank you. And it changes moment by moment. So, yeah. So two weeks ago we started homeschooling. And it was initially.

Those first few days were kind of. My experience was feeling kind of frantic because work had not stopped or even really slowed down yet. And yet I had kids at home, teenagers, or a preteen and a teenager while I was very busy with work. And so I felt frantic and kind of resentful, like, what in the world? These humans are not supposed to be around me right now. And I didn't get it yet. I didn't get that this is the new normal. So it started that way and then it sort of morphed into wow. Days and days on end of all of us being inside together. We're getting kind of depressed and.

Fatigued and sluggish. And then it became, oh, I gotta turn lemons into lemonade and we're gonna learn to bake together. And how can I have wonderful moments with my kids?

And then back again to depression and then back again to resentful, and then back again to trying to infuse the day with turning lemons into lemonade. So it's just been this sort of strange.

The strange rotation of feelings that really do. It really shifts. It's not even day to day. It's like hour to hour. And that's where I am now. Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry to interrupt.

Yeah. So that's it. That's a glimpse of me two weeks into this. I think I would have thought two weeks ago that by now I'd have achieved some equilibrium and I have not.

Yeah, well, there's so much going on. I mean, I want to come back to the business and how you're managing to work at all with your whole family at home. And teenagers are a little more self sufficient. We'll talk about our hearts, go out to parents with younger or special needs kids. You had said that before we started recording. But also it must be really hard to get space. You need to recharge and recover with everybody home. Probably for everybody in the family, I would imagine.

Yes, it is. And.

There'S been a learning Curve with that as well as it started with. I do have an office because I work from home anyway. So I could close the door and just try to pretend that nobody else is home and just let my kids be like feral cats fending for themselves. And that worked for a few hours maybe. And then I realized I really need to incorporate the kids into. They're going to see me working, they're going to hear me working. Maybe that's actually not such a bad thing. So I loosened up a little bit on that. But we are in each other's way. We are competing for broadband because we don't. We have a poor little home Internet modem doesn't really suffice for several people at a time to be using a.

Lot of it, especially if they're streaming video games or videos. Netflix.

Yes, exactly. That was actually.

One of the things I've told my friends who are farther away from Seattle. I had two things to say. One is go ahead and stock up on wine. And the second was call your Internet provider and see if you can max out your brand, your broadband.

See, that's a kind of practical tip that I'm so thankful you just shared with us. Brilliant.

It's.

Right.

It's like not the sexy, poignant advice.

It's wine and broadband.

Yeah. Really?

I'm kind of being facetious about the wine. It might be comfort food. It might be. But really, like the things that kind of you lean on, that kind of bring you sort of little moments of respite, those are gold right now.

What about your kids? How, how, how have you observed their response to this? Were they in the beginning, like, we snow day, we don't have to go to school. And then so what's been their emotional journey? And then also are they, are they having to do school material at home? And is that difficult to have them focused on what they're supposed to be doing?

Yes, yes and yes. Yes. The initial, at least the first day was, woo hoo, I don't have to go to school. Yeah, snow day. This is awesome. And then two things happen. One is that that starts to become boring. And the second thing is that the school, during that there were a few days there where the teachers were kind of compiling the lesson plans. What are we going to do during this remote learning phase? So there was a delay, there was a la. And then remote learning started. And so the teachers are emailing homework. In some cases they're even joining them for a synchronous conversation.

And so then it was like, oh, okay, it's back to school.

So there I would say, I mean even two weeks in, I think we're still trying to figure out what that even means.

My older. So I have a 15 year old and an 11 year old. My 15 year old has been pretty darn self sufficient and that's sort of his, that's his mode. Anyway. My 11 year old needs more structure given to her and I spent a couple of days at the beginning really like holding her hand to create some structure in the day. And when are you going to, you know, what's the best place plan here? Let's try to carve out a nine to three day and what are you doing hour by hour?

And then I kind of slowly turned it over to her and am now not managing it very closely. I'm just sort of on hand when she needs help. But it's a little bit of the wild west, the school situation. They're figuring it out as they go. So some teachers are fairly.

Laissez faire, whereas others are actually doing tests. So.

It'S so fluid, it's just continually changing.

We have such an emphasis in America, at least on productivity. And I think one thing we're all going to have to come to terms with, and you've been dealing with this now for two weeks, is acceptance. Like the kids will probably not be quite as focused or you know, I don't want to assume, maybe we'll all get into a groove and they're going to get even more education and more schoolwork done and that could happen. But even for our businesses might have to accept less productivity because even hearing you describe the support you're providing for your kids or I can imagine, as much as you close the door, there's a knock, mom.

And you're probably hearing that all day. And I met a woman at the dog park today, today whose son is younger and I get the sense has special needs. And she was, well, kind of funny, not so funny. She first said to me, I have major cabin fever. And I thought she said, I have a major fever. I was like, I was like, oh my God, what are you doing here? And she started taking a step toward.

Me while she was talking.

And I was like freaking out. I'm like, you have a fever and you're in the dog park. What did you touch? And then I said, I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling well. And she's like, oh, I just have a sniffle. And I said, oh, I thought you had a fever. She said, no, I have cabin fever. I'm like, oh, okay, great.

Next time, say cabin. Cabin a little bit more loudly.

Yeah. She's like, maybe I shouldn't use that metaphor right now. It's not a good idea, Michael. I'll toss it over to you if there's anything you want to ask or discuss.

Yeah, Lindsey, I'm enjoying the conversation so far and I thought the conversation about broadband was excellent. And we did the same thing here. As soon as my daughter, we knew our daughter was coming home from college. Like, okay, call a cable company, let's double the broadband, because she's obviously taking classes online.

So there's another business that's going to thrive right now.

Broadband. Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. I mean, don't look to us folks for investment advice, but that one might be okay.

But Lindsey, I'm curious because if you've heard maybe my podcast with Jenny previously about preparedness and thinking ahead and those kind of things, if we were to go back in time, let's say three months from now, and you knew this was going to happen or you had an inkling this was going to happen, are there things that you've learned over the past couple of weeks? The broadband one. I see talking to your daughter and scheduling out her day and those kind of things, obviously those are just like just in time kind of changes. But I'm curious if there's things that, looking back, maybe it would have helped your family prepare for this because I think it could be interesting to have that conversation because folks may be literally moving minute by minute through this crisis and it might be helpful. As folks are working from home with their families, what else should they be thinking about?

Yeah.

I love it. It reminds me of, I just saw this.

Stream of some friends of mine who live in Italy. Apparently there's this movement to write a letter to yourself ten days ago about your experience today.

Wow, that's beautiful.

That's great. It's really neat. If you feel so inspired to Google it. I wouldn't have believed 10 days ago that blank.

And.

It'S interesting because in the middle of it.

I feel self conscious because I don't really feel like I have wisdom to share other than bulk up on wine and broadband. I can say that.

I keep thinking of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right? You've got at the very basis you have food and shelter and basic physical security. And then you go up to, you know, things that make you feel good and self esteem and then you go up to spirituality. And what keeps helping me is lower the bar on what success looks Like.

I have found it a little intimidating to hear advice on, you know, make these, make this staycation the best, you know, something that your children will remember with joy.

That intimidates me. And.

Honestly, to me anyway, it feels a little disingenuous. So I've kind of lowered it more to, okay, you know, three things for today.

Everybody has to get a little bit of exercise. It doesn't even have to be a lot, but, you know, five minutes of jumping jacks outside.

Some.

Those are very low on Maslow's hierarchy of needs because if you don't have that.

Emotional resource to draw on, it's everything else is harder. So really this deeper appreciation for the things that we do that are not sexy but are fundamentally such a source of fuel for the rest of the day, doubling down on that or really at least making it forefront, but also giving yourself a lot of grace and forgiveness for when it doesn't look exactly like you had hoped it would look.

I think that's great advice. I mean, we're living in obviously new times. Luckily, we've never in at least my generation of folks that have not witnessed a world war in real time. And we discuss this our last podcast. Jenny. But is it a moment defining? And I think I like what you're saying, Lindsay around. Even though it's a moment that defines our history, we don't need to make a. We don't need to escalate every single thing we do to equal that moment.

In time to Pinterest status. Like Pinterest your pandemic.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I'm so glad you said that. I know. I'm so glad you said that, Lindsay. Like, first of all, I can't wait to look up and I'll put it in the show notes the letter exercise. The letter writing exercise to yourself 10 days ago. And I just, I love what you said of have a deeper appreciation for the fundamentals. Choose three things for today. Give yourself a lot of grace and forgiveness. When you mentioned feeling and thank you for your vulnerability and just transparency of what you're feeling, which is that certain content makes you feel pressure to be like again, the Pinterest mom during this time. How do you react when people say don't buy into the fear. Now, the greatest pandemic is fear itself. What is your thought on that? From the middle of things in the greater Seattle area?

Yeah. Yeah.

And are you worried health wise, given that you're in such a hub? Although now so am I in New York City.

Right.

I think just like everybody, I've been on this, that journey of wait, how am I supposed to hold this? Is this. Should I panic? Should I fight the panic instinct? Should I.

Stock up on toilet paper? What am I supposed to be doing? It's so bewildering.

And.

I try to not judge.

I really, really try to.

Hold this with a lot of gentleness that there are people who aren't as informed as I am. But it's really hard for me to see people going on vacation to Hawaii right now instead of staying home. That's kind of, that's coming up in me of like, oh, gosh, we have to protect the people who are vulnerable.

In my community. There's.

We had an earlier.

Onset than most of, I think the rest of the United States anyway.

But just like everywhere else, it's really. This is really about protecting other people more than ourselves. I mean, even that is probably taking it a little bit farther than I mean, but this is, this is for the collective good. And I worry about. I have elderly parents who are in the Pacific Northwest as well, and I worry about them.

In fact, it's interesting and Michael, I wonder if you found this. I have been surprised by how resistant my parents and other people's parents.

Who are in their 70s and 80s, how resistant they've been to socially distancing. Like, gosh, you know, please, like please stay home or please protect yourself. And there's been more resistance to that among.

This generation, at least from my standpoint, which I'm kind of puzzled by. And it's hard to.

I do kind of go to a judgy place of, hey, we all have to do our part. Can you, you know, pull your weight here?

Yeah, I've had, I've had the same experience with my parents and my in laws and my wife is also. So I'm a general pediatrician by training and so is my wife. So we're both kind of like arms deep, you know, up to our ears in this work. And we've shared a similar experience with our family. And you know, I think, I think you're. So I want to say we try not to be the same way. Like you said, judgy. Right. I think the approach that we took was to sit down with them and just go over the facts and ask them questions. And where there seemed to be a disconnect, I try to approach it with some curiosity.

So we just talked about this. Why do you think it's okay to go pick up the nieces up from school during this time? This is when school was still going on last week, I'm just wondering, how do you see that? How you see that it's not a risk, like, well, they're in the car, they went through their logic and it was logical. And so the approach that my wife and I took with both sets of parents was to sort of walk that back a little bit. And really we sort of felt like we were teaching patients and it was kind of a weird place to be, but we almost shifted right into the way we would talk to a patient family and speak in their language and not, I think sometimes maybe with our parents, we sort of, because we've been around with them so long, we sort of skip over the whole story and maybe. So I guess I'm planning a little blame on myself that maybe we just took it for granted that these conversations all sunk in. Whereas this is a pretty complex set of circumstances. And luckily, after these conversations. And then I think it's also helped that at the national and federal level, I think finally we have the right conversations being had. So I think there's also maybe a generational perspective of certain, of listening to a certain story, I guess I would say maybe and going back and approaching it that way. But it's. I'm wondering if other people are having that same.

Perspective. And I guess my advice to them is to just be curious about, you know, whenever you're, you're in conflict around ideas. And when I coach people, I ask them to put themselves into a kind of a curiosity stage and just try to understand the other person's perspective because sometimes there's a lot of understandable logic behind their perspective. Lastly, I think, I would say that, I think because we are parents and maybe we're living this day to day with school announcements and college announcements and we're kind of in the thick of things. It may also be that we're hearing information differently. And maybe folks who don't have kids who have seen this firsthand and the impact to their homes may be seeing this a little differently.

I was just going to say that hearing both of you speak about this reminded me that older generations, they're not glued to their phone in the same way that younger generations and younger people may be. So those of us who have all this tech at our fingertips, we're kind of checking in and not everyone. I met somebody who's my husband, Michael and I's age who doesn't give a shit, you know, and we're like, hello, this is an emergency. Like, you got to pay attention. If you're going to try to get out of the country. Go now, book the first flight out. You know, we're kind of like, now's the time. And it kind of wanted to shake him. And he's someone who doesn't feel the urge to immerse in all the news. And during most other times, I'm similar. I subscribe to the paper edition of the New York Times. It arrives Thursday through Sunday. That's how I get my news. It's the only way I get my news. So it's late, it's analog, it's in my hands. I actually just upped my subscription to seven days a week to follow this more closely. But I'm now on a tangent and let me give even a tangent on a Tangent, which is two weeks prior to the pandemic really hitting. I bought three shares of Apple and equivalent $1,000 worth of the New York Times. Apple stock has tanked. And now I don't recommend. We are not a financial advisor. I don't recommend buying individual stocks even. I just do it for the companies I really love. But of course, Apple has gone way down. But I'm noticing, well, a lot of people are turning to the New York Times. That one's going up. But this whole relationship to take us back on topic is the relationship people have to the news and to technology. And then I think also, I can't say this, let's say for my immediate family per se, but I think some people are like, oh, I've lived through so many things already. This is yet another one and it's going to be okay.

Whereas we're the ones worried for them, you know, because there are loved ones in our family. So we may. Another coaching question, Michael, you asked. Help me understand your logic. You know, I'm just curious. Help me understand. I also like to ask what's important to you about that? So, okay, you're. You really want to go pick up your nieces. What's important to you about that? And then can we brainstorm how they meet that need? Well, this is our quality time. This is how we get to see, you know, how we get to. I look forward to this every day. So how do we sort of just replace the value that underlies that specific activity? Or if it's, well, I want to go get my groceries. I'm fine, I'm independent. Okay, well, what's important to you about that? And then how do we meet that need in a way that also protects their personal safety? Which was the topic of episode 161.

I love that I Think that's so beautiful, Jenny, that.

Michael, you and I talked about this during the Pivot Insider call that the thing about social distancing is that there is an underbelly to it, which is that we are a hyper social species and we need each other, we need connection, and social distancing is.

Taking us in the opposite direction of that need. And so there's this. I think that we. It's one thing for me to say to my parents, you got to stay home, you got to not go to the gym, you know, do exercise from your computer, not from the gym, but that is. That's the way that they connect with other humans, which is also a deep human need. And so the. It's like replace the negative with a positive. What's the what? So what can we do? What are other ways of connecting to satiate that or at least like, respect that need while also minding the fact that we are supposed to be quarantined right now?

Yeah, no, absolutely. And so I've shared this with Jenny on another sort of discussion, but.

Part of the way I try to solve this with my parents, who are in one state, my sister is in the same state. My brother is actually out of the country. My son is in New York City. And so I leveraged Zoom conferencing. So right now we are on that platform having this conversation. Great. But thinking a little bit out of context, there's no reason why folks couldn't use that same method to help them connect. And it's one of the most funniest things experiences in my life. And it brought really, literally, like, pee in your pants hilarity to the rest of my family when my parents were trying to close the Zoom window. Right. And so they're on their phone so you can see them. They're both touching, like, my dad's phone, and they're, you know, and my son's crying with laughter. We're all crying. And the best part is we recorded it.

So how magical.

Yeah. So then. So then, actually, my sister had to sign off early because she has some things to do with her girls. So I sent it off to her and to my brother, who's. Who's out of the country and couldn't be in real time with us. And we're planning to do it again tonight. And so we decided. And so I got lots of, like, you know, like, this was great. This is what we needed. And so every other night, we are connecting by Zoom. Right. Or whatever your favorite platform is. And my goal by this don't tell them is they open up their own Zoom account and actually start doing the same thing. Right? Because they've got friends, so they can do FaceTime and nothing against Apple, but, you know, the FaceTime is a little tricky. And, you know, whatever. You can't mute people. You can't have a little whatever. So there's. So my goal, don't tell my parents, listen to this. That I want to get them to the point where they're hosting their own kind of little conference amongst their friends. Or actually, I might have, you know, I might do it for that. Whatever it takes. And that connection, I mean, it was really a human experience. It was like we were laughing as a family, we were crying because of laughter as a family. And it was like the best half hour of my week. And it wasn't a really long time because we had lots of other things going on. But I think that it's helpful to find the ways to connect. And I think I've had this conversation with a couple other people is. Texting is great when you're busy, emails are great. It's asynchronous communication. It's important to run business in your life, and that's great. But it really misses that human touch when you can't, when you're socially isolated. And I'm really pushing out on all kinds of different platforms, asking people, hey, think about this and reach out to people. And I'm asking employers and clients that, hey, you should start meetings with, saying, hey, how's everybody doing? Right? I mean, what you would normally kind of do as you're walking into a meeting, as you're having a conversation in the hallway, you ask people how their weekend was, what their next vacation is, not to Hawaii anytime soon. Thank you, Lindsey, for that promo. But let's start using those type of social interactions in this virtual world and try to humanize as much as we can. Jenny or Lindsay, what other thoughts are.

I just love that you recorded it. I would not have thought to record a call like that. And now that you said it, it's so beautiful. And then when you were first saying you want everyone to get Zoom accounts, I didn't even think of your parents. I thought of your kids and I thought of your kids having their own Zoom account. And isn't that great sort of entrepreneurial practice anyway, that they could then get groups of their friends together? And I already have some of my friends who have reached out. One reached out to schedule a group book club. One reached out to schedule Mastermind. So it'd be so cool to introduce younger kids to this format. Maybe they would think it was uncool because it came from their parents, but I just. I love.

There's a business idea. Anybody who wants to do a platform, a conferencing platform for children, call Lindsay and Mike, and we will help. We'll be the first investors in that.

Oh, my gosh. I know. Although then all the legal issues, maybe that's why.

Yeah, details, details.

Yeah.

What's funny is I said, what's funny? Because we're crossing state lines and as a joke, and my sister's a lawyer. And I said, okay, I'm going to do legal talk now. And so it's like, okay, we are now recording. We know. We want to make sure everybody agrees that we're recording, since we're having a conversation across. It was really kind of smart. Yeah. But it was kind of tongue in cheek.

The professor did this at Union Theological Seminary was we would start every class and we'd go around and say our names. She felt it was very important to say and hear your name and one word to describe how we're feeling today. So I've done this in Momentum. I started doing it, and I did it even today on a live masterclass. That's not necessarily Momentum members, maybe people thinking of joining. And it was really powerful even for people to put in chat and to see the range. Anxious, grateful, hopeful, and just see it and experience it and have other people be able to say, okay, it's okay, whatever I'm feeling. Lindsay, you described it changing hour to hour by hour, and I even shared my own anecdote of that, like, flying. Hi, Michael. And I got off our last podcast, and then my day, like, tanked within 15 minutes, you know, just through a variety of stressors. One of you said something interesting about the cascade of when you start to feel the impact. And I do think that small business owners and entrepreneurs or people in the earliest affected areas within the U.S. that was the greater Seattle area, there's this hovering cloud of uncertainty and anxiety that I think even if you think you're managing it, it's kind of the rest of the iceberg under the surface. And my experience of what happened yesterday. Sorry, fellas. But it kind of reminded me of pms, where, like, oh, my God, why am I crying right now? Like, where did this come from? This emotional outburst or inability to be resilient over what seemed like a small thing in the household. And all of a sudden I'm just crying, and I'm like, oh, it's the all day hovering uncertainty and stress of running the business and trying to keep everything afloat and managing the family stuff and managing staying home and washing my hands. And it's like, of course the smallest things are going to lead us to snap from time to time.

Yes, this is a really good time to learn the art of cutting yourself some slack.

I love how you even. We can all take that deep breath.

I was doing the same thing. I muted myself a little bit, but I was doing the big deep breath and the shoulder shake and the.

Yeah, it's good.

Everybody on the podcast now.

Yeah, everybody do it. Your turn, Lindsay. I also want to come back. Michael asked you a million dollar question, which is what would you say if you could. Now we have this, the exercise. I found the article. It's the Atlantic and I'll put it in the show notes. Ten days later what Italians wish they had known. I'm curious, Lindsay, what you would tell your future self ten days from now?

Yeah.

Okay, here's a stab at that.

One, is.

Don'T let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I started out saying everybody's going to exercise today for 45 minutes. And now I'm saying, everybody, we're going to try to exercise every day for five minutes. And if you want to continue after that, go for it. Bring down the bar to something that is doable. That's what I would tell myself. That's the.

There's something that you can kind of apply to anything.

The other thing that is coming to mind is the two.

Buckets. Where I have really felt the most human and grounded and at peace is number one, when I'm being somehow of service and number two, when I'm being silly.

So let me.

So let me unpack the silly. So there. There is so much heaviness. It feels so heavy. Everything feels so heavy. And I am, I'm making a point of, with my kids looking for kind of silly things, silly things to say, silly things to talk about.

I was playing. My daughter plays ultimate Frisbee. So she was teaching me in our very small backyard to how to throw a frisbee. And she said every time you drop it, you have to do 20 jumping jacks. So now we're kind of making. We're trying to make it so each other has to do jumping jacks. And we're just kind of being goofy. And it is incredibly revitalizing for the rest of the day. Just look for times to be goofy. Everything else is so heavy. Be light in little moments and then the other, the being in service. And this. This is not lofty service in my case. It's like, how can I make my parents feel more peace and joy staying home? Okay, we can FaceTime them. I can teach them how to order groceries online.

Where my kids and I are giving them a challenge every day. We're sending them something goofy that they have to do, like learn how to play Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater on the piano.

Keep them. Keep their spirits revived. That has been the other or other people, other communities that are vulnerable. Thinking of ways to help to buoy them. That's when I feel buoyed. And leaning into that has felt like a lifeline.

That's so fun. I love it. And so such great advice. And I love the challenges, like having the kids do that same thing. Be creative, Brainstorm with you. Come up with those fun challenges. It's like, that's so good.

I'm stealing that one.

Oh, good.

I'm putting that on my agenda. So it's the Consuelos Coronavirus Consortium. The Triple C. Wow. It's official. Come on, guys.

That's super official.

So I just wrote that down. We're going to do that. Yeah.

Oh, here's another silly. Here's. This one was popular in our house today. There's. On the Internet, there's all kinds of memes, like jingles, taking funny songs and putting coronavirus words to those songs. So. And a friend in Italy shared with me one. That's my Sharona, but it's virus corona, and it's just hilarious. So we were thinking of songs, and just on the fly, I would say to my son, okay, name a Beatles song, and then try singing a coronavirus song to that tune. And then he had to do it. And then he would turn it over to my daughter, and then she would turn it over to me. And we were just laughing. And we didn't solve world hunger or the pandemic in that moment, but it was. I think I'm going to cherish that. And.

It was a resource. It was a resource, I think, for all of us. I'll speak for my kids for a minute. I think that they got something from that, too. And we can do that. You know, there's a lot that we cannot do right now. But it's not that hard to be silly if you. I mean, it's hard for me to be silly. Maybe that's why it's such a potent tool. It actually is kind of hard for me to be silly, but that's what makes it so kind of magical.

Aren't we thankful for all the people who create those humorous videos? You know, like just the creativity and the way their mind works about bringing humor and the. The song, like, it's just. It's so good. Memes needed something. It's not on the silly side, but Michael is really bummed that he can't go to Jiu Jitsu. So the other day I'm like, what time does class start? And I just suited up. He had an extra GI at home. I've never done Jiu Jitsu, but I suited up. I'm like, when is class has to be on the same schedule that you were going? And we've only done it twice now. But last night, while I was already up in bed, he transformed the whole living room. So half the living room. Now it's like we use the dog playpen thing to block off a huge portion and there's mats down now. And that was really cool to see. I probably would have freaked out because I love like a clean visual space if it was normal times. But right now it's like, why shouldn't we repurpose this living area for what we really need and what he really needs and how to work out from home? And then for me, it felt good to literally and metaphorically like step over the fence into something he's missing. And how can. Cause that's an activity. It just requires two people for it to really work. And meanwhile, I'm going to learn some cool new skills around how to choke people.

That is so badass.

I never thought I would learn, but I'm going to actually feel more confident with self defense now as a result of this. Who saw that coming?

I think that is so neat.

Yeah, I want to go back to the song thing. So I'm a big John Oliver fan and this past weekend, if folks haven't done this, there's a TikTok of a hamster washing hands. It's total gold. It's hilarious. And it's again a way to take. And I'm sharing it with family members for the same sort of thing. It's like, hey, you know, literally, I think every episode so far, Jenny, that you and I have done, what's the last thing I say? Wash your hands. Right. So I'm trying to make it a little more fun so, you know. And again, songs. There's another game that we. That my daughter and I played as we drove back from University of Michigan and we went A through Z. Think of songs that start with that letter and then put them into, you know, a cue, a song cue. And then we got really silly. We're trying to find the funniest songs. And there's a song out there that's completely absurd that's called Queso and Tacos. Because the Q. I mean, the Q songs aren't that popular. So the same stuff that you're talking about, Lindsay, I think it's. Yeah. Is sort of just, you know, take, you know, and you get about an hour's worth of songs out of the whole deal. Right. So everybody has their playlists, but it's like, okay, I'm going to do my playlist and you're going to do your playlist, but how about we sit together and just throw out song names that start with those letters and then you get to listen to each other's songs. And then again, we were doing this, like, goofy, funny songs. One of my favorite goofy songs. It's not really goofy song, but pop song is dance Monkey. And so now whenever that goes on, you know, my kids are like, oh, God, Dad's got dance Monkey on again.

I'm gonna have to look up the hamster washing. Hamster hand washing. I'm gonna put that in the show notes too. I have a question for both of you maybe pivoting back to this more serious side. Lindsay, you've been in this two weeks. Michael, you're super connected to the medical community and you kind of are watching the macro trends of how things are trending, even in terms of self isolation. How do we prepare ourselves? I just want to open this up as we are approaching the end of our time, for this round at least. But how do we prepare ourselves for the possibility that this isn't just the two weeks staycation? What if it's four weeks? What if it's two months? And I'm curious, Lindsay, how you're thinking about it already in the middle of this. And Michael, even for you, because, I mean, maybe we don't even know. Maybe we can't. We have to be present and we can only, like, ask that question once we're there. But I'm just curious how you're thinking about that, because I think some of us are thinking, okay, yeah, we're on lockdown this week. Oh, wait, it might be two months. It's kind of hard to wrap our heads around.

Yeah. The way that I have started reframing it in my brain is that this is a marathon, not a sprint. I thought when it started it would be a sprint. And.

That'S why I was, you know, I was, I was using all of my glucose to run really fast to, you know, hurry up and get through work and just hurry, you know, hopefully they'll be back in school soon and life will go back to normal. And now that I'm sort of releasing that, that's not how it's going to be sort of settling into. Okay.

Not gonna be able to just get past this right away.

The mindset is like kind of pace yourself and.

Try to find, kind of think of it as balance. Because if it is going to be months, not weeks, then you can really burn out if you try to like what I was doing for a few days of being like Martha Stewart. Home projects with the kids and enrichment and teach them how to bake, that I actually don't really like to bake and neither do they. So that didn't. That, that, that's not sustainable. But then on the other hand.

You can't like a snow day that lasts for a few days. You can stay inside and be kind of, you know, don't get any exercise or just kind of let everything follow, follow away. That can work for a few days, but after that it doesn't really. So there's this. Okay, pace is kind of the operating word for me to.

As much as the brass tacks, what happens today, it's really like the mindset of don't kind of wish this away. It's not going to help. Instead, just kind of try to accept the new normal, at least for the day, at least for the present moment.

I actually had that exact thought today, before you said that, and I'm so glad you did. My husband Michael and I lived in the studio, both working from home all day, every day. 300 square feet max. 400. I remember thinking to myself, don't wish this away. I didn't use those exact words, but I remember saying, do not tell myself I. Or we will be happy when we have more space and to let fights and let things fester and just think, well, this will be solved when we have more space. That might have been true, but I remember telling myself there may come a day where I look back and I'm nostalgic for the days that we didn't even have a bedroom door and we could just shout across from the bed to the couch in the, quote, living room across the way. And I knew that of course, if given the choice, no, I wouldn't live in a studio for the rest of my life with no bedroom door and two people and a morning person and a night owl. That said we got so close during that time and we developed such black belt communication skills that when we did move into a bigger place in really February 2019, life was good. Like we were easy. It felt like we just took off a 50 pound backpack. And I know that's a really different example than what you're sharing, Lindsay, but it did remind me, I was reminded today of that mindset and of trying as best we can not to wish this time away. And this may be the closest we can be and get to our family members for a while where everything's shut down and no one's off doing anything at all.

I love that, Jenny. I love that. Don't wish this away. I love that.

Yeah, that was your words.

Oh, I did. Oh, I was genius.

You are a genius. Michael, what about you? What are your thoughts on the marathon? Not a sprint.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. And so I guess where I sit and you ask the question from my perspective, I don't know how, I can't tell you how long. I don't think anybody can tell you how long this is going to last. There is a good chance that we may follow some of the other curves. Everybody's looking at these different curves from different countries. The famous flattening of the curve conversation to say we need to be doing this for a certain period of time, there's some danger in that and that it sets expectation that you can hold your breath. You know, can you hold your breath for 30 seconds? Sure. Can you hold it for a minute? Now that starts being really hard. And if I tell you you got to hold your breath for five minutes, that's going to be something that you really aren't going to be happy about trying to attempt. I think this is not a breath holding exercise. I think we just need to breathe differently. So I guess it's about how we can maybe do that. And I think small things that we've talked about today and continuing to share them and don't let the distance and isolation be an excuse for not reaching out to people. I guess I mentioned earlier I'm starting every one of my business conversations but you know, how are you doing? If I forget, I try to do it at the end and just check in with people. So I think we also need to be prepared to receive potentially people being stressed and vice versa. I think we need to make ourselves vulnerable and allow people to see us at a time where we can, you know, actually share our stress. Because I don't think it's gonna be healthy for us to hold that all inside. And so I think every day we. Every time we do this, Jenny, I learned something new. And had this back to the sort of. The sort of. What you just said, both of you are saying is had this not happened, we wouldn't be having these conversations and thinking about these things. And my hope and my wish is that that also happens for other people, that there's opportunity to learn new things, to try new things, to maybe even start new relationships. Lindsay and I never had a conversation this long in their entire lives. We just sort of just met virtually, so.

Right. I forgot to say that Lindsay and Michael have never talked live. I've known. I've know each person I've talked to one on one. But pop up friends, you know.

Yeah.

Boom.

That's a gift.

Talk about. Talk about your deepest, innermost experiences. Go. Yeah, right. On a podcast, no less, for the Pivot podcast community.

Yeah, it's a gift, people. It's a gift. And it's a gift that you can not just have to be looking to receive, but you can turn around and give also. Again, I'm trying to live this as much as I can. So there were some folks were doing some yard work yesterday right before our podcast, actually, yesterday, Chinese. And I say hi to them, but I actually said, like, hey, how are you guys doing? How's your family doing? How's this affecting your work? And they're like, oh, it's. Luckily we're outside all the time. But, yeah, it's stressful. And I never would have had that conversation. And some other things I'm not going to share in a million years. I guess maybe I could have at some point in time had that conversation with them, but I think I'm. My life is more colorful, despite the clouds that we are looking up and seeing. It's more colorful for opening up to other people. And the other thing I just want to. I think the other thing I kind of want to project here is that we all feel like there's this, the end of personal history fallacy. There's some great psychological work behind this. It's a couple decades old that people, when they look back, they think all the change that I have done in my life, on my schooling, my career, whatever it may be, and this happens, in fact, when I coach people, I talk about this all the time, is that they think they're never going to change again. This is a huge smackdown on that fallacy. Everyone is changing at the same time, and hopefully that will mean that we'll continue that motivation to learn And I'm hoping this won't be, oh, you know, it happened back in 20, 20 and 19. We had this thing, but now we're back to our old ways. One way to get through this is to open our hearts and our minds to learning and just take day by day and just learn from it. What did I learn today? What new thing did I not do? And that experience, even though we're not taking vacations anymore, I'm going to just throw it out there. But that's kind of a different kind of a vacation. So I don't think I have any great answers, but I think that this is, you know, I do not want this to happen to us, but it's happening. Let's learn, let's love. There's probably another L in there somewhere.

I love that. That was beautiful, Michael.

I especially appreciated what you said about receiving that. You're right that that builds connection. There is extra sensitivity and vulnerability and it can be just as hard to be real. I didn't really plan on sharing that. I broke down in tears after our last recording, you know, and Lindsay, too. It was Lindsay, your openness on our Pivot insider call that resonated so deeply. I mean, everyone on the call was so grateful that you showed up and to hear from you. And then I even felt hesitant to reach out to invite you to do a conversation for the podcast because I thought, am I a jerk? Like, is this completely insensitive and how dare I ask you to do this? And I think your email response was like, oh, I felt buoyed to be asked. You know, I just didn't expect that. And wow.

Yeah.

It feels like a gift. It really does. And it kind of fills me with wonder. That can bring kind of meaning to me and if it can be helpful for other people, my gosh, it is a gift.

You, Lindsay, touched so much on the inner work. So here I was thinking, okay, we'll talk about all the aspects of being home with your family for two weeks, but also what you're saying about try not to judge this bewilderment, giving yourself grace, lowering the bar, not let perfect be the enemy of the good. Certainly for these podcasts, I mean, I'm not doing much editing at all.

It's like.

And publish because everything changes one day to the next. And so I'm noticing that daily practice of releasing perfectionism and releasing the need to have to know things and try to still add value. And even this, you know, just the pop up conversation, I know we're right at time. Let's just go around the horn if there's any final words that you want to share, and then I'll close this out. So, Lindsay, do you want to go first? Sure.

My final thought is really try to invite in some balance between being intentional and the kind of letting the lemons become lemonade, like being intentional, but also staying realistic and authentic to what is true for your experience. So kind of hold that paradox.

Awesome.

That's great.

Thank you so much. Michael, how about you?

Well, I can't not say wash your hands.

Of course you'll say wash your hands.

But your wrap up there. Jenny and Lindsay's comments made me think of the third L. So I think I'm going to start with the third L first because I think it should be listen. You know.

Good one.

Yeah.

So listen, learn and love. I don't know if anybody has that copyrighted.

There's your book title. There's your next book. Yep.

So again, just, you know, listen to yourself. I think that's what we learned from Lindsay. Right. But listen to others. Learn new things, evolve from all this. And don't forget, you know, to love. Because this is, I think we talked about this one of our podcasts about the impermanence. This reminds us about this is there is going to continue to be unfortunately human suffering in this and we should love ourselves and love each other through this. So Anyway, those are three. Those are my three Ls.

Those are good.

Beautiful.

Yeah, thank you. And a fourth L, which is Lindsay, obviously.

Lindsay, I love you said hold the paradox the whole time I was writing Pivot. Every chapter includes a pivot paradox. Because as I. As soon as I would start to write anything down at all, I'm like, well, there's a paradox here. You know, I could always equally. Maybe that's the libra in me balancing the scales and always being devil's advocate to the point of annoying all my friends. But it's so true. It's just for every piece of advice, for every intention or every next action, there is a paradox. We. We be silly at the same time that things are quite serious, or we. We give ourselves permission at the same time, we try to stick to the fundamentals of what we know is good for us long term. And I'm just so thankful you said that. And I do think that now I'm going to butcher the quote, but there is a quote by some wise person that says to be able to hold a paradox is to be human. That that is a uniquely human ability. And it's vital for our sanity. And I'm pretty sure it's a Buddhist sentiment as well. But to hold a paradox is wisdom. That is wisdom, not trying to know all the answers or even have to put things in duality. Good, bad, this, that. The last thing I'm looking at, a little heart on my desk that says good vibes. So thank you, Lindsay. Thank you, Michael. Thank you everybody who's listening to Lindsay.

Thank you both. What a joy.

Absolutely. And listeners, if you want to submit a question for us for this series or anything else, you can go to pivotmethod.com ask and for all the show notes, it's pivotmethod.com podcast. Thank you both so much. And Lindsay, really thank you for sharing your experience just ahead of, ahead of where so many of us are going to be soon. I'm so thankful. And thank you both of you for being who you are.

Thank you, Jenny.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jenny.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the an inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.

Sam.