108: REBROADCAST - Rita Boersma, On Story Truth

Hey movers, it's Sally Koering Zimney, and I have another kind of random episode this week. Last week I republished one of my favorite conversations with Hank Fortner that I have had, and it has been wildly popular. And I did that because something came up at the last minute with an episode that I was going to publish, but it didn't work out, and I thought, okay, I'm just gonna share one of the favorites again because there have been so many new people who have come to this Moved Me in the last 6 months, year. So I thought, oh, let's make sure that they have heard some of the favorites because, you know, they get lost way down in people's feeds. So I'm taking the same approach this week because another, like, random thing came up at the last minute with an episode that I was going to publish. So I am taking you back to the very first episode of This Moved Me. It is with a wonderful friend of mine. Her name is Rita Borzma, and she is incredibly talented. I wanted to start my show with her for so many reasons, partly because she's incredibly talented, as I just said. I handed my speaking career, where I started at Youth Frontiers, I built this whole coaching arena where I was working with all the speakers at Youth Frontiers, and I was never ready to leave it until I met Rita and worked with Rita and heard how Rita worked with people and heard Rita's approach to public speaking. And I thought I could hand this off to her because there were some new things coming my way, and she's the only person I've I've met where I thought, I feel very secure and safe handing my baby that I created and all the people that I have loved and that I had sort of launched into the world of speaking. I lovingly and happily handed everything over to Rita because she is that good. She's a beautiful writer. She's just a memorable speaker because She brings her writing to life in this wonderfully crafted, funny way. She's an improviser and does tons of improv around the Twin Cities. Obviously, I'm a little gushy because she's also a wonderful friend, and I delight working with her, learning from her, and creating with her. Together, we've created some wonderful things together. So, I want to make sure that everybody gets to hear this episode. And what you'll hear is I was recording this on earbuds, like I'm recording this right now, through my computer. I didn't have the setup that I have now, so it doesn't sound as good, but I don't care. And hopefully you won't either, because I think the conversation is worthwhile. And in this episode, we talk about the challenges that we as speakers face as we are trying to create something that matters and reach people, and the struggles internally that we face and how we can overcome them for the ultimate purpose of really moving our audiences. So without further ado, here she is, Rita Borzma. Hey everybody, and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney. Together with some fabulous guests, we will have a casual conversation about the art of public speaking. Because a good talk can move the world. And it'll be fun. Yeah, I would think making alien cows meaningful, that's not a small task. I love your giggle. Wow. Oh my gosh. So waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet. Hey everybody, and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. Today on the show, I had the awesome privilege of getting one of my great friends who happens to be ridiculously talented on about 10 different fronts. To take time out of coaching some of her own speakers to come and chat with me. Rita Borsma is a writer, a coach, a performer, an improviser, a playwright, a speaker. Oh my gosh, I could go on and on. She and I have worked together on so many projects, and honestly, she makes me better at what I do. I'm so excited to share with you some of her wisdom and insight because I hope it will be as helpful for you as it has been for me. Here she is, Rita Borsma. Um, yeah, Harper is downstairs watching Phineas and Ferb.

Perfect.

I know. Have you ever seen that show?

Maybe like 5 minutes of it. I can't even fully remember. It sounds familiar.

Yeah, I have never really sat down and watched a whole show, but I have talked to several people who are completely independent of each other who say that I remind them of the big sister. What?

Now I can't wait.

Well, yeah, then I watched a few minutes of the show and I was like, she is horrible. She's mean. And like, she gets herself in a tizzy over everything. It's like, really? Really? That's— oh no, thanks a lot, friends.

So come on, guys.

Come on, guys. Anyway, okay, Rita Borzma, so happy, so happy that you're here. You're taking time out of your crazy world right now. Um, you basically do it all, so that's all of the word things. All of the word things. That's kind of your You know, the common thing that pulls all those together, isn't it? So it's great to have you and chat with you, and you're a friend of mine, and anytime I can hang out and talk with Rita is a happy day.

Oh man, happy day. Butter me up to start.

Well, that's, you know, feedback sandwich. So I'm gonna say something really nice, and then in the middle of this Skype interview.

I'm worried something horrible will happen.

I'm gonna slip in something constructive, and then I'll finish it at the end with something really nice.

Okay, perfect. I'll look forward to that last one. You should know I'm on edge because I'm sitting in a mirrored dance room talking to you.

I was wondering where you were.

All of my insecurities of watching myself talk on the phone, like a mirror and a phone call, so We'll see if those two things serve me well or lead to my ultimate demise.

I'm sure that's a universal thing. You get so distracted by yourself. You're like, "Do I really look like that? Why is my face making that weird face?" Yeah. So try not to get distracted by yourself. So Rita, obviously you've got tons of experience as a speaker. And also, you know, a performer. And so when I say speaker, I really kind of mean it in this larger sense about this connection between performer and audience and that exchange that happens, which I think is so awesome and part of what draws me to this work. So tell everybody who's listening just a little bit about you and the various ways that you interact with all of the words. And you performed all of the words.

Yes. Well, okay, so I came at the words wanting to just write them down alone in a room in the middle of the ocean. I went to school to just be a writer. I, you know, I did do theater and things in high school, but once I got into college, like, my main goal was like, I am gonna— I am going to write the books. That is going to be the thing I do. And like most things in life, I got completely sidetracked and got into improv comedy kind of later in my life after college. And it was just this sort of art form and ability that just kind of exploded in my life in terms of performance. And I just dug into that full force. I started working for Comedy Sports and did other sort of sketch writing and improv shows around town. And then actually through that is how I wound up meeting a special someone you might know, Sally Koering Zimney, who got me involved into Youth Frontiers which then brought me into this whole other world. Yeah, this whole other world of giving talks to students every day in schools, public speaking that way, and then also eventually coaching our other speakers who do the same job. So that was sort of my arc into the world of words. So I've gotten away from my middle of the ocean dream of writing alone, and now talk much more than I ever thought I would with the words I write. But that's where I am right now and loving it.

So you didn't have any like formal— you weren't on the speech team or anything in high school. You in the public speaking classes that we all end up taking randomly, you weren't like, "Yeah, this is— I love this. I'm going to totally do this." Yeah, I didn't.

I'm sort of like embarrassed to show my hand sometimes because I feel like I didn't come at it with a lot of formal training in terms of public speaking and able to coach speakers and write a good talk. It just kind of happened in my life. It was a late discovery. So yeah, my school is too small to have a speech team.

Okay, well, I should say this because I think it's important for everybody to know Rita coaches, you know, a team of 15 speakers, give or take, at Youth Frontiers. And she's a speaker herself. And I've talked a little bit about Youth Frontiers on this podcast before, this great nonprofit that both Rita and I do some work with. So I just want everybody to know that You write a talk and then you spend years kind of honing it. So it's, I think, an awesome place to really hone your craft. I mean, you are a natural. So it surprises me that you've had, you had zero experience before that, because when I was coaching you, I was like, oh my gosh, this, you just completely get this. And there's, there's two sides to it, right? There's the writing side that kind of, you know, the message and the content piece of it, which I know you, you have a special love for. But then there's the delivery side. So let me ask you this, like, which part of that do you feel like the thing that comes most naturally to you?

Ah, yeah, that's so interesting. Like, I, I didn't realize it really until I became a speaker on a, you know, as a, as a profession, as a regular basis, that I really, I write the way I want to talk, like the way I want to be able to speak to people and move people that way. And I didn't totally understand like the feedback or criticism I get like on papers and stuff in college. Like I didn't understand it in the context of like, oh, I'm not just mapping out a great like senior thesis here. Like this is maybe something I should be saying out loud. So I don't know. I suppose in terms of what I struggle less with, it would be the performance. Like, I feel like when I just have to get up and say it, I can do that. I hold that a little less precious to me than when I'm writing it. You know, I will just spend hours, like, reworking a sentence until I get it to say the thing I want it to say. So I don't know if that totally answers the question, but I feel like I have to that I work harder at the writing part of it, but it's only because I hold that so much more dear and I just want that to be a very specific way, whereas I think all of my improv background and just my kind of general performance experience has allowed me to be a little easier on myself once I'm saying it, once I'm performing it and speaking to a group. And then actually, it got in my way when I started because I would want so badly to say exactly what I had written and I would get frustrated if I didn't remember to deliver it the right way. And it just took me a while to realize that like when I just really settle into it and I know what I want to say, whether I'm typing it on a computer or saying it out loud, I have to just trust that I know the way to say it. And when I'm writing it out, I'm writing it like I'm going to say it. It's just how it works in my brain now. So it's less about kind of memorizing now the thing that I have written out and just always trusting that I'm speaking from the same place now, whether I'm writing it down or more talking. I don't know if that makes sense, but no, it does, it does.

Okay, well, cool. And then the, the other thing that I think is so interesting, and not unique to our work at Youth Frontiers, but for anybody who's out doing a lot of speaking where you're— you, you have this talk and you're doing it again and again, how do you find the balance between I've spent so long preparing and creating this talk, I want this moment to be like this, you know, balancing that with, hey, I've got to be in the moment. And I, you know, that things change in the moment and talks evolve and change. They are not a static thing or they shouldn't be. If they are, that's a problem. So I'm just curious. Not everybody can find that balance. And I think it takes a long time and it takes a lot of self-trust. But I'm just curious for you, was that something that you always felt, that tension, but also that balance? So let me start there. Where are you at with that balance? Because I feel like you've always been great at it, but have you felt that way?

Um, I, I think I found the balance maybe a little quicker than I expected to, because I, I know that that was feedback kind of my first time out there, like that first talk I wrote that you were coaching me with. Like, I, I know that I memorized what I wrote down because I wanted to say it the way I said it, you know, like I wanted the joke to go this way and that line to hit this way. And it just took kind of finding that comfort level of speaking in front of that crowd and knowing they were listening to me about something important that wasn't just like my life of comedy up until that point. You know, like I was saying something important and these kids were hearing it and it was affecting them. And it was like when I finally could be comfortable enough with that talk that I saw the kids in front of me that I actually realized who I was talking to, that that sort of clicked in me. And I have to just make sure I see them, see my audience every day. And I don't know, I guess that helps me find that balance of just know that these words are in me, and if I can really see them and I know what's going on in the school in any given day, I know the things I want to say, and I know how I want to say them to them, so I don't get so caught up in exactly as it was scripted out, and maybe it goes in this direction this day or whatnot. But yeah, it was important to me to be able to get out of my head and just realize the people, you know, and notice the people I was talking to.

Yeah. And really see how your words are impacting them as you're saying them, which is really powerful. Yeah, I think that balance is the thing that I when I work with people, that's the struggle is where do you let go of the preparation and not get so bogged down in like, oh, I want all these words to be exactly like this. And also just really freeing yourself to, you know, and trusting yourself that you know what you're talking about and it'll come out okay.

And I think it depends on your content too, like what you're talking about, like in terms of Youth Frontiers and the work we do there, there are talks with subject matter that are much more difficult for me to give than other ones, and it's only because of how the subject matter affects me. So, like, in a particularly difficult one that I had to write recently, and you went through this process with me where we had to kind of talk about this idea of self-respect and being good to yourself and trusting that you matter and telling yourself that you matter, that, you know, that's something we need to make these 9th graders believe and know about themselves, but that's something for me as an adult that I struggle with every single day. So, I had I had such a hard time doing that because I was like, "I can't get up there and lie to them. Like, I feel like I'm lying to them." Not because I don't think they should believe this, but because I don't think they should believe it from me. And I found with that one, I, for a long time— and it's a little different now, but for a long time, I had to have that script so in me and ready to go and know the language I was going to do, or I wouldn't have made it through. Like, I—

mm-hmm.

Those— the words were my safety net or I would have crumbled in front of those kids because all of my insecurity and self-doubt and everything that I'm trying to get them to rally against is like, you know, eating me alive in front of them. So like I had to just like grab on to everything I had mapped out and know how I was going to say it so I didn't lose it, you know? And so that was interesting. And I don't have that experience as much with other scripts of other talks, you know, where I can very much move away from them and let them go. But for that one, it was really hard for for me to not keep it exactly how it needed to go.

Right. Because it was so personal.

Yeah.

And yeah, it was kind of like, um, if I'm— I hope this is okay, but I think, you know, the first time I was like, you just need to get through this first time because it was so personal, because it felt like such a difficult message to give for you. You know, that first time was for you that you gave that talk. You know, it was like, okay, you can do this. And it was just proving to yourself that, okay, I can get to the other side of this. Because the beautiful thing about this is sometimes the words that you are trying to tell other people, you're telling yourself too, right? And they do their own kind of transformation for you, like, because you have to believe it in order for them to believe you. So it's To me, it's like one of the amazing things about working with people on talks that are so personal and where there's a message, a social message that we really, you want people to take with them. You're not just selling something, but you're saying, you know, this is about your life and I care about you. I want you to hear this. And just the way that that interaction, they're influencing you as much as you are influencing them. You know?

Yeah.

Okay. So Rita, this is, I hope, an easy one for you, but what do you feel like is, what do you feel like is one of your strengths? Like when Rita Borisma goes out to give a talk, this is kind of what you get from her. Describe that for me.

Hmm. Wow. You said that you hoped it was easy and I feel like that made it harder. I am distracted because in this windowed room now there are 2 tiny children pressed up against the window watching me, so it's gotten worse. I guess the obvious one would be my ability to use humor would be one of my strong suits. And I actually, and this maybe is leading into a talk later, but I just recently, or a discussion point later, I recently watched a TED Talk by Chris Bliss who wrote for Letterman and things like that. He's a comedy writer talking about like comedy as translation Translation and the Power of Comedy. And one of my favorite things he says is that comedy is a verbal magic trick, and that it has the amazing ability to sort of misdirect people. Like, they think they're going in one direction, and then that joke or humor takes them to a totally unexpected place that they didn't think they would wind up. And he talks about, you know, just like the science behind it, like the sort of— I think the mental joy that happens after laughter, and it's because all these endorphins are releasing in us. So they're, you know, Immediately opening up, knocking down all these walls, which is the exact opposite of like our flight or fight, flight or fight responses that are triggered by like anger or fear and things like that, where we put walls up. So we can talk about all of these things that are really sensitive issues, like race or politics, or like when I'm talking to these students, these really tough things that they go through that could very easily trigger all those like adrenaline reactions of walls up, but then the comedy, the endorphins release, and, you know, I think he says it turns our walls into windows. And I just, I love that. I was like, yeah, like, and they don't expect that. I think that's one of the great things about Youth Frontiers talk in particular, about how we craft comedy into a talk and how we let that, let students hear us through that, you know, and how we kind of ease them into our messaging. So I think that's a strong suit of mine. I feel like I have a good sense of when that's needed, whether it's just to take a breath if we are dealing with some tough subject matter, or if it's just to let them know they can listen to me and that I'm there with them. Like, I feel like I've gotten pretty good at the craft of comedy. And then I really try to pride myself on really being able to just speak very authentically and feel all the things that I am saying. And, you know, whether I'm telling the storytelling parts of it, like, I want to remember what that felt like, or connect to the people in the story so that I can really, you know, speak from my heart and just, you know, heart is the bullseye, like I'm going for theirs. I can't help but deliver the way I deliver because I just feel the feelings. So I don't know.

I just feel the feelings.

I know. I feel like I'm selling it like I just openly weep anytime I'm speaking, and that's not it. But like, I just— I just, I want, I know what it feels like to listen, have to listen to a speaker that, you know, is BSing you or that's reciting something. And like, to me, that's so infuriating. So I think it like, it like makes me even more impassioned to be like, no, like, listen to me. I mean this. I mean it. I feel like I'm pretty good at meaning it.

No, that is absolutely true. You know, kind of hearkening back to your self-respect talk. I know you took that so seriously. And part of the reason why I think it is a transformative talk and your coworkers feel like it's one of the best talks that anybody gives at YF. And, you know, I just want you to know that and make sure you hear that, because as hard as it is for you to give, that's part of the reason it's so powerful. If it's flippant or easy or it's not moving through your body, You're not, you're not letting it affect you, then that's a problem. There's nothing magical is going to happen between you and the audience if you're not allowing yourself to go move into that space. You do that. You do that for sure. Okay. So Rita, my, as you know, part of the reason I do this podcast and I coach speakers and I, all the things I work on is because I really believe in the power of talks to really do something to us. So what do you feel like is your purpose as a speaker?

Hmm.

Um, because you do something.

Yeah. Yeah. I, it's interesting. I was thinking about that, like, you know, as I was getting ready to chat with you today, like, what, what is my purpose? What am I going out there to do? And I was thinking back, I have like a, um, when I'm coaching speakers, sort of a presentation or talk that I work them through about truth in storytelling, and how we need to work around truth sometimes to be the most effective storytellers and speakers. And like a quote that I often use, because I love it so much, and I think it speaks so much to what we do and why we do it, even though I think in more of my research I have found that it is crazily paraphrased by Neil Gaiman actually. But I love the paraphrase more than the actual quote unfortunately. But it is a G.K. Chesterton quote, and he says, "Fairy tales are more than real, not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because because they make us believe that we can beat them. And, um, and that's— I love that. Like, that's what I feel like I'm out there to do every day for those kids, is they, they already know dragons exist. There's all these terrible dragons in their school, um, you know, in their lives that they're dealing with. But I'm out there to make them believe that they can beat them and get past them and, um, I don't know, win that battle, win that struggle that they're in. And I just— I always kind of carry that with me, like I'm— in my particular job where I'm doing most of my speaking right now, I feel like I'm just out there to give them hope and what it could be and hope that they'll fight for that and hope I can empower them to fight for that.

That's beautiful. So talk about this truth and storytelling piece of it, because I know you've created a beautiful presentation about this.

Well, I did have an elaborate presentation put together on my computer, and I am one of those people that they write terrible sitcoms about. That don't back up their computers on the other devices. And I was mugged last summer and my computer was stolen along with all of the words, all of the things.

So heartbreaking.

Life lesson in so many ways.

Let this be a lesson to everyone. Back it up. Back it up.

Oh gosh, I can't believe we're still saying that, but we are. How do people like me not listen? Yes, so I have not recovered all of it. But just generally, as we coach speakers at Youth Frontiers, it's very important to us that we are authentic speakers, and to what I was saying before, that the kids can believe us because they know we mean it. And I think a lot of our speakers that I coach, they get so caught up because they want to tell these stories, and they're just like, "Well, that's not how it happened. It happened over 3 days, not in a day." 5 minutes, and this kid wasn't there, and nobody actually stood up for him, and that kind of thing. And I get that, but we have maybe 5 minutes to hit their hearts and to get them right where we need them and keep them there. And if we distract them with all the details of how it really happened, we are going to lose them as storytellers. It's our job first and foremost to be a great storyteller. So I encourage speakers to find Tim O'Brien writes a lot about this, story truth versus happening truth is what he calls it. And I encourage speakers to focus on the story truth, which is find a character that you can connect to, or that could, maybe he didn't stand up in that situation, but he would have because that's the kind of person he is. So in this story he's going to. And that's the heart truth and the story truth of it. And the actual kind of boring, long drawn-out happening truth, it isn't as important. It's just not as important as the story truth. So like a great example for Tim O'Brien is his whole book The Things They Carried, which he himself proclaims to be— oh, I'm going to hate it if I misquote it, but I think it's the truest war story ever told that never actually happened, or something like that. And it's his account of Vietnam. So yeah, that's a terrible summary, but that's what I talk about.

Yeah. I think people's discomfort with that comes from a good place. It comes from this idea of, if I'm going to be authentic, I need to tell them, I need to be honest if I want them to believe me. And you don't want to be manipulative. And I do think there's a line, right? And it's a really tricky business because there's a lot of integrity involved in something like this. So where, where does it turn into manipulation?

Yeah, so when I talk about those two things, I certainly am not in any way like encouraging people to lie. Like, I don't want them to completely fabricate a story. And I think as listeners, we know those stories so quickly that are completely made up. So, you know, as I coach a speaker, I encourage them, I was like, you know, find that, that character in your story that you can really connect to, that you remember, that you know, or that one thing that was said or was done, where you can always take yourself back to that moment and really feel that moment so that it is happening for you, and it has happened for you, and it happens for you every time you tell it. I have stories like that where the story itself is pretty truthful, but I wasn't actually there, and I— but I know— I know and dearly love the person that it happened to, so every time I tell that, I feel it with all of myself, and I I feel like I can deliver that 100% authentically, and in a way, when we're out there, especially working in schools and the types of stories we're telling these students, this is such a universal experience, this terrible, terrible universal experience of being an awkward adolescent. We've all gone through it in some way or another. It's like Tim O'Brien. We all share this war story in a way, even though not all of us were in Vietnam. When we read that book, we were there. We can feel that. And I think a good story does that as well. And so when a kid does come up to you and ask you when it's done, if you've done your job and you've written it well and you've connected the way you need to connect to that story, when he asks you, "Is it true?" you can say, "Yes," because it's true for all of us. So that's kind of how I approach it. I am in no way like, you know, "Lie to them, manipulate them." There's, of course, a very delicate— delicate balance to be found, right?

Yeah, because someone else with lesser intentions, hopefully our gut has a response to that, um, you know, and we, we can identify those. And I feel like we can.

Yeah.

But yeah, it goes from beautiful, important work to, oh, now that's wrong, you know? So it's— yeah.

And I just, even as an tend to sometimes get so tripped up in, in like actual happening truth, you know? Like, I, I talk about that even in this presentation. I know we've had conversations about this before. I got so mad years ago when Oprah threw a fit over A Million Little Pieces, yeah, that book by James Frey, because it didn't actually happen that way. And number one, I was mad because I was like, well, he calls it a memoir, so already right there I expect there to be some poetic license, right? He didn't because it's my autobiography. But also, like, as someone who has dealt with— like, who knows people who have dealt with addiction and the struggles with that, like, that was one of the most, like, powerful and helpful things that I have ever written. Like, the sort of emotional truth and story truth and heart truth of that book was there, whether or not he actually met that person at Hazelden or did this, you know? And I was so mad at the national upset around this beautiful piece of work that now people, because Oprah said so and got mad about it, weren't going to read it, and it could be so helpful. Helpful to them, you know? And it really, it really upset me. Like, it was hard for me. Yeah.

I read, I read this book when I was getting my master's. Oh my gosh, I can't remember the name of it. I will, I will remember it and like put it in the podcast notes. It was about this girl who had epilepsy, except throughout the whole book she says, but maybe I didn't have epilepsy. Maybe epilepsy is the metaphor through which the only way you can understand how I feel. And so it allowed me to dig into, okay, truth and story and the message that we're trying to give to people. Sometimes story is more true because it's an art form that allows us to express truths that aren't in the everyday.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, mundane. I'm with you. I'm totally with you. But it's a really interesting topic that we could talk more about. But we've been, we've been chatting for a while. It's time to wrap it up. So Rita, how I end every podcast is I want to hear one thing that has moved you. Okay, this moved me moment, something that has kind of stuck with you that you've been thinking about. What is it?

And this can be an event?

Sure, yeah, it could be anything.

Well, not to end it on a downer, but, um, I Even I am still very much struggling with the death of Robin Williams. That was the first thing I remember as a kid, the first person I watched and that made me laugh and I thought, "I want to do that." Like, ugh, I still get choked up about it. Like, he just was a huge— I just grew up on him and grew up loving what he was able to do for people and how he could transform people just by making them laugh. And I didn't think it was a thing that I loved or wanted to do until I saw him, and then I set out not even really realizing that I was aiming much of my life toward this way of communicating with people through laughter. And yeah, so I've had a really hard time with it, and I've just been doing a lot of— like, that's actually how I came upon that Chris Bliss talk that I referenced earlier. I was just Googling and looking up the power of comedy and just looking for some solace and things and watching old clips and movies. Movies, and, um, yeah, so I, I didn't— it's one of those really sad things where I didn't realize the impact a person had on me until they weren't there anymore, you know? Uh, and it sounds silly, or it feels like it sounds silly to talk about a celebrity that way. I haven't really ever— with maybe the other exception of John Ritter when John Ritter died, which was another equal sort of comedic influence on me that I really struggled with. I was like, why can't I struggle with a celebrity death like this? But Yeah, just all of the things around it.

He's a giant, especially for people our age. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, I know, and that's the idea of like someone who's so trapped and so upset and that it is their job to give joy to everyone else and they have no outlet for themselves. It's just, it's been an interesting thing for me. I've sat in that for quite a few days now, so.

So you found some things that helped. You said this Chris Bliss TED Talk.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's from, uh, like one of the extra TED conferences, I think, TEDx Rainier, and the sort of theme was translation. So he talks about comedy as translation. Oh, cool. Great.

Really cool. Okay, I'm gonna look that one up. Okay, for me, mine's like completely opposite of yours. It's devoid of depth. That's not totally true, but It did make me cry.

I didn't mean for it to be a bummer. I didn't mean for it to be a bummer.

No, it's not a bummer. It's just deep and true. But for me, it was more— it was one of those videos that just came up in my Facebook feed, and I was distracted enough to click on it. And it was— this is— it's probably been out for years. But of course, I happened upon it today. And it's one of those engagement videos. I feel a little silly talking about, but, but it got me. It made me cry. I was like, this is awesome. It's the one where the brother like has her sit in the back of the Honda with the back open and they're driving down the street and they're doing like a lip dub to I Think I Want to Marry You. It's just so cute. And when the band starts coming in, I was like, oh my gosh, the band. And then And then people walk up with their computers in front and like other people Skyped in. And by the end of it, there's like— oh my gosh, it was just so cute and sweet.

But I was such a sucker for those videos.

I know, I was like, of course. And I'm crying and my daughter's hugging me.

Any of that like flash mob lift up where a whole community comes together to do something, it's like, and they're doing a song, like, I can't—

they're singing and they're dancing and they're doing it for love, you know. But I will say the moment he asks her to take the headphones off and gets down on one knee and he starts talking to her, I was like, okay, now everyone should go away. Like, why are we watching this? This is very private.

He's like, well, he put a lot of work and rehearsals.

They did. And they were right there. I mean, they're watching and listening. I thought, I'm cool with the singing and the dancing, but now you're having a private conversation. See you guys later. Hope it's worked out. Okay, bye. Rita, thank you so much. I'm proud of you.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

I just love ya. Oh, movers, thanks so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed a look back, a recap republishing of my very first episode on This Moved Me. Oh my gosh, it's been so long. Way long time ago. And there are so many exciting things coming up here on This Moved Me. I think I've mentioned, hopefully you know, I'm heading over to YouTube this summer at some point. That's all I can tell you right now. Mm, uh, mm, that's how I feel about it. I'm curious and it's an experiment and I hope you'll join me over there. I also hope that those of you who are out here listening right now, if you would like to join in on the possibility of me working with you, coaching you on some new content that you're creating, I would love that. That would be amazing. Head over to my website, thismovedme.com, scroll down a tiny bit and you'll see you can sign up for a monthly drawing where I I pick somebody to work with for an hour and you can pick my brain. Like, let's see what we can do, because I think some big things can happen in that time. And last month, our May winner is Sebastian. Sebastian from Sweden. How cool is that? I cannot wait to work with Sebastian and I'll tell you more about that as it comes. Super exciting. And, hmm, what else is going on? I've got some really exciting interviews coming up that I can't wait to share with you. But my summer schedule is gonna change a little bit. So I'm doing some republishing of old stuff. Hopefully that is introducing you to some things that you may have missed in the lineup because there has been so much content out there. I'll continue to publish weekly, so you'll still hear from me every Wednesday. But every Wednesday I might be bringing you something new. So I— what else? What else do I have coming? I'm gonna be putting together a little piece about my experience at Listen to Your Mother, which is really exciting, and I am— I can't wait to see how that turns out. I'm in the middle of working on that. I've also got some interviews coming up with some people from around here in the Twin Cities who are doing some really incredible work. And I got to meet with them in person, so a little bit different. Those interviews are coming up as well. And then starting in, um, September, I'm gonna switch things up a little bit. It'll be season 3. More coming on that as it comes. But in the meantime, it's summertime. Let's go on a run and listen to This Moved Me while you're at it. It's beautiful. Take a walk walk. Take your dog for a walk around the block and enjoy. Um, that's what I do. Commute. How many of you are commuting right now? Oh my gosh, listen in on this conversation. Love it. All right, that's it for me. I'm so grateful for you joining me on the journey, and talk to you soon.